75% of 51%

This coming June thousands upon thousands of young people will walk across their college campuses  to receive their degrees in engineering, teaching, science, math, etc., with dreams of starting their professional journeys.  

I'm so proud to write that I have a nephew who will receive his PhD. in Organic Chemistry. the sad news is he's already worried about finding a job. He's worried about how he's going to start making enough income to live on and start paying back his school loans.

I also have a grandson ready to enter his third year of pre-med, and already he talks about financing the years ahead to make it though college to become a Doctor.  It is truly a sad nightmare to be handing this economic disaster to our children, along with a $16.Trillion debt, for them to resolve.

No one has all the answers to solve the economic dilemma our country is facing now, but there is very little hope of it getting better. The very members that we elected to our House & Senate in D.C., give us no hope at all for a recovery for the recession we are now in, nor how we will stop this downward spiral we're facing.

I sit and wonder just how many Americans really want things to change or do the majority want things to remain status quo?   Yes, 51% of Americans voted Mr. Obama back into our White House for another four years, but the overwhelming sadness is that 75% of that 51% are Mr. Obama's contingency of Americans that now enjoy his entitlement welfare programs.

The other day a friend and I stopped for lunch after being squashed in the mall doing last minute Christmas shopping. Of course the conversation drifted to high prices, the devastating economy, and the outlook for 2013.  We couldn't help but hear the two young men seated in the booth behind us.

One of the young men was bragging on how he "had it made". He bragged that he and his live-in girlfriend were both on unemployment, and his girlfriend was receiving welfare for her two children. They lived in a government subsidized housing development, and both received food stamps.

He then bragged, "hey, I'm even getting a free cell phone with free minutes, so why should I even  bother to look for a job in this economy"?  It took all I had to restrain myself from leaning over to their booth and asking, "and what are  you going to do when the money from the taxpayers runs out"?

Do people like these two young Americans truly understand the machinations of our economic structure?  I think not. It seems they only care that their unemployment/welfare/food stamp resources are available to them every month.

In fact most of them don't understand or want to understand the impact of our $16.Trillion national debt that our country now faces. Some of them don't even know what a national debt is, or how that figure is ascertained. They don't understand that for every $1.00 of revenue that our government receives, we must borrow $2.50 just for our country to pay its bills each year.

Now when this happens to John and Jane Doe they immediately tighten their belts, reduce their spending, and at times go out and get second, and even third jobs. We have upcoming college graduates that will walk across the stage, get their college degree and will have no job to apply to. 

And what happens to the individual that does work hard, and becomes a financial success? Why of course we raise their tax burdens so that more revenue is flowing in to finance our government entitlement programs. Is it any wonder that the young man in the booth behind me in the restaurant was proud to say, "why should I work"?

Is it any wonder then that 75% of the 51% believe that the successful Americans and businesses  are "fat cats" that should be taxed to take care of those on Mr. Obama's entitlement programs? Why can't someone explain to our entitlement population that these hard working Americans and businesses are the investors and job creators that our America needs. My favorite question is always "when is the last time someone on welfare created a job"?

Mr. Obama has not offered any substantial spending cuts to stop our country from going over the fiscal cliff. He does want to cut spending to our military to weaken it to its lowest point since WWII. He also would have you believe that we will enjoy cuts because he believes we won't be spending money on future wars. Really, Mr.. Obama is that your spending cuts proposal?

Right now many Americans are stretching their cash flow just to put gas in their car to drive and squeeze some money out their already tight budget to buy Christmas presents. Yes, it seems pretty evident that because a compromise could not be reached ALL Americans will be burdened with a tax increase in just a few days.

Can you guess who will not be worrying, or have to tighten their spending belts? Yes, you guessed it....members of the House and Senate who will go home for the holidays, and return with no agreement reached, sit in their plush offices and receive their overpriced salary. I often wonder how hard our House and Senate would work to find a plausible solution to our economic debt crisis if their salary and benefits were proportionally impacted by our national debt and spending problem. How about penalizing the House and Senate for going nearly 1,400 days without a budget. I think they'll quickly wake up and recover.

And where is Mr. Obama while all this is going on? Why he's in Hawaii, having a wonderful Christmas vacation to the tune of $4.Million dollars on the very taxpayers that are suffering through this recssion.  Yes, Mr. Obama we remember when you campaigned on "spreading the wealth", but you didn't finish your sentence of saying, "as long as it's not my wealth....I got mine".

Wouldn't you like to ask Mr. Obama how can he justify playing in the surf, staying at a luxurious resort, eating fantastic meals,  while people from Storm Sandy can't even get heat or even electricity? I wonder how many people suffering from Storm Sandy would like to take back their vote for Mr. Obama.

I don't have the answers, but I do know that the economic spiral our country is in right now cannot be stopped by heaping tax burdens on hard working Americans just to sustain our entitlement programs. Americans feel the Democrats and the Republicans are squeezing hard to make this a political issue.  Will someone please tell them who they are squeezing.  Well, at least there's 75% of the 51% that are happy.

And that's Politics with Pete for today....God Bless our country....and our troops.