Ryan Price's Soapbox

I am the kind of citizen who votes on the issues not party lines. I don’t vote based on the candidates good smile, or his excellent speaking ability, or if they are a specific faith. I vote based on where they stand on issues that will directly affect myself and my family. Would I have voted for Obama in 2008? Likely not, because the candidate I supported was actually Hillary Clinton based on her experience and her beliefs during the primaries were not as far left as Obama. Closing in on 2012, let’s see what Obama has done in his presidency and the problems we still face as a country, call it …transparency if you will.

Obama set the bar too high for himself, maybe  it’s an inflated ego but it has caused him to fail by his own standards. It’s the Obama administration, not the Republicans, that said if his stimulus package was passed unemployment would not exceed 8 percent. Obama joked there weren’t as many “shovel-ready” jobs as he thought. In such hard times, now isn’t the time to joke.

It’s Obama who promised to cut the deficit in half. It’s Obama who said if we passed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the health care cost curve would go down rather than up. It’s Obama who promised us recovery and prosperity, hope and change. What we’ve gotten instead is the opposite.

• Under Obama’s stewardship, we have lost 2.2 million jobs (and 900,000 full-time jobs in the last four months alone). He is now on track to have the worst jobs record of any president in the modern era.
• The unemployment rate stands at 9.1 percent v. 7.8 percent the month Obama took office.
• July marked the 30th consecutive month in which the unemployment rate was above the 8 percent level, the highest since the Great Depression.
• Since May 2009 — roughly 14 weeks into the Obama administration — the unemployment rate has been above 10 percent during three months, above 9 percent during 22 months, and above 8 percent during two months.
• Chronic unemployment is worse than during the Great Depression.
• The youth employment rate is at the lowest level since records were first kept in 1948.
• The share of the eligible population holding a job has declined to the lowest level since the early 1980s.
• The housing crisis is worse than in the Great Depression. (Home values are worth roughly one-third less than they were five years ago.)
• The rate of economic growth under Obama has been only slightly higher than the 1930s, the decade of the Great Depression. From the first quarter of 2010 through the first quarter of 2011, we experienced five consecutive quarters of slowing growth. America’s GDP for the second quarter of this year was a sickly 1.0 percent; in the first quarter, it was 0.4 percent.
• Fiscal year 2011 will mark the third straight year with deficits in excess of $1 trillion. Prior to the Obama presidency, we had never experienced a deficit in excess of $1 trillion.
• During the Obama presidency, America has increased its debt by $4 trillion. That is to say, Obama has achieved in two-and-a-half years what it took George W. Bush two full terms in office to achieve — and Obama, when he was running for president, slammed Bush’s record as being “unpatriotic.”
• America saw its credit rating downgraded for the first time in history under the Obama presidency.
• Consumer confidence has plunged to the lowest level since the Carter presidency.
• The number of people in the U.S. who are in poverty is on track for a record increase on President Obama’s watch, with the ranks of working-age poor approaching 1960s levels that led to the national war on poverty.
• A record number of Americans now rely on the federal government’s food stamps program. More than 44.5 million Americans received Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits, a 12 percent increase from one year ago.

So…based on these facts. I ask you this has Obama earned a 2nd term? In my eyes. No.

For the first time since credit ratings began in 1917, the US has had the distinguished honor of having a AAA credit rating. Having a triple A credit rating in the world assured that the money you borrowed from a foreign investor (example: China) would be paid back without risk. Fast forward to August 5th 2011, well after the markets closed. S&P one of the main credit rating agencies downgraded the US based on its long term outlook which isn’t good. With the expected debt to reach into the $20 trillion mark, the S&P saw that the most recent debt debate did not yield the desired result they wanted to see. According to S&P the plan that cut 4 trillion and had the cut cap and balance plan would have been enough to salvage our AAA rating. In light of this, as usual, Republicans and Democrats alike are pointing fingers on who is to blame. We’ll in my opinion it would be the democrats and here’s why:

1. S&P warned of a downgrade if drastic measures to get our financial house in order.
• What happened: They went with a bill that planned cuts rather than actually making them
2. The democratically controlled Senate tabled cut cap and balance with not even so much as a debate.
• Result: Instant defeat of the only bill that would have saved our rating and provided the cuts necessary to get us back on the road to prosperity.
3. Why have the Democrats waited 840+ days and not yet provided a budget, why have they continued to spend into deep deficits.
• Why? – Democrats believe they can spend their way out a financial problem – look at the 800 billion dollar Stimulus, look at the massive amounts of money they have thrown at projects that didn’t create jobs and didn’t help everyday Americans? While you bailed out banks for their idiotic greed, people were losing their homes that they had worked their entire live to get.

The tea party, was the only group who stepped up and tried to provide a plan that would prevent us from losing our AAA rating. So now where do we stand? Well Moody and Fitch still have us at AAA but they are currently reviewing our rating and may not make a decision until 2013. While S&P said a further downgrade of our rating could occur again in 6-18 months meaning we’d be at the same borrowing rating as China, Japan and other AA- countries. The only real question I have here is…what are we going to do about it? We can sit here and say we’re going to cut and not actually cut and we’ll be in this same situation at 20 trillion except countries will be less likely to give us money to borrow. If we were able to cut our debt in the 1940s after WWII, there’s no excuse why we can’t do it now. We just need the right people in congress and a president who cares not weather or not he’s going to get re elected… but what’s best for the American people.

Ok So as most of you have seen on the news recently , the President has sent to congress a budget for 2011.

As if the massive amounts of spending over the last year have not been bad enough we have seen the 787 billion dollar stimulus package practically fall on its face has it has continued to drain the American peoples pockets, failed at creating jobs, and gave everyone the chance to buy a new car in the hopes it would jump start the economy.

The 3.8 trillion dollar budget includes new jobs-creation programs and additional funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but is projected to add nearly $1.3 trillion in deficit spending on top of the current year’s projected $1.6 trillion deficit. While the money is definitely needed for the two wars we are fighting, the job creation part simply hasn’t worked with the stimulus and that’s obvious. Aside from this, social programs such as welfare and other programs are likely to see this funding before anything else. So for both parties and people who support them, how can we say Bush caused this mess when he spent nearly 90% of this same amount over the course of EIGHT years …Obama has barely been in office 1/2 of his term and he has managed to spend over 5 trillion dollars. Spending tax payers money to quote ‘stimulate growth’ has been proven over the last two years that it doesn’t work.

The 900 point gain over the year on the DOW Industrial Average eroded away this week as earnings reports came out that were very weak. We ARE NOT out of this recession yet and won’t be for a while and spending tons of money to attempt to get us out does not work. To get us out of this mess, put the money back in the pockets of the tax payers, give them tax breaks and allow them to get back on their feet and saving money again. Why must the American people continue to tighten our belt while the law makers get to spend lavishly on pet projects and bargain with senators and representatives for votes on health care. (That means you Louisiana who took a 300 million dollar kick back for your vote). We need people who are going to listen to the people , Republican and Democrat and having bi partisan laws passed that help and benefit everyone not just what they think is best for us. 3.8 trillion dollars is a lot of money and if we don’t curb our spending we are going to be begging with our coffee can out and not a single country is going to help us when we finally max our debt out and have to find a way to pay for 50 trillion in Liabilities.

Lesson: “DONT spend money you DONT have, Spending never gets you out of debt, saving and being fiscally responsible will.”

Ryan Price –

In a time where the majority of Americans do not have any idea what the Federal Reserve does, many people would probably answer the question with a resounding “I don’t know”. For those of you who are reading this and do not know what the job of the Federal Reserve is here’s a crash course.

Wikipedia defines them as:

The Federal Reserve System (also known as the Federal Reserve, and informally as the Fed) is the central banking system of the United States. It was created in 1913 by the enactment of the Federal Reserve Act, largely as a response to a series of financial panics or bank runs, particularly a severe panic in 1907.^[1][2][3] Over time, the roles and responsibilities of the Federal Reserve System have expanded and its structure has evolved.^[2][4] Events such as the Great Depression were some of the major factors leading to changes in the system.^[5]Its duties today, according to official Federal Reserve documentation, fall into four general areas:^[6]

1. Conducting the nation’s monetary policy by influencing monetary and credit conditions in the economy in pursuit of maximum employment, stable prices, and moderate long-term interest rates
2. Supervising and regulating banking institutions to ensure the safety and soundness of the nation’s banking and financial system, and protect the credit rights of consumers
3. Maintaining stability of the financial system and containing systemic risk that may arise in financial markets
4. Providing financial services to depository institutions, the U.S government, and foreign official institutions, including playing a major role in operating the nation’s payments system

Now why would I ever propose such a thing? Because think about it, during the time of its inception in 1913 , the Federal Reserve created the conditions which lead to the Great Depression, the devaluing of our currency by 90%, and every major bubble and burst up to and including the Recession of 2008. Ever since it was created, the US Government has had little to no hand in managing the funds of the United States, a central bank essentially does this and then subsequently collects interest on it for its own use. Now that interest collected could easily be turned into payments to pay off our national debt, and natural rises and falls would be more easy to swallow instead of what you saw in 1980 and 2008. When the Federal Reserve lowers rates, it creates an artificial bubble, this bubble grows but much like the Tech boom and the Housing Market Explosion, they all end the same way….crashing to the ground.

If the system hasn’t accomplished its stated goals, what then has it been able to do? It has been the tool used by the major bankers to gain control over the smaller banks. It has been able to bail out many international banks when their reckless overseas lending policies brought them to the brink of bankruptcy. It has been the financing agency for Congress’ unprecedented deficit spending on the welfare state and war. Many people believe that it has intentionally manipulated the economy in order to influence the results of our presidential elections. Now more than ever you can see this in the most recent recession. Thoughts or comments?

- Ryan Price