The Real Clear Politics average of seven polls taken from June 17 through July 8 shows that the president garnered 46.4 percent favorable and 47.9 unfavorable, for a -1.5 deficit in job approval. However, the two most recent polls show larger margins of disapproval.

A Gallop poll taken from July 6 through 8 shows only 45 percent approve of what Mr. Obama is doing, while 48 percent disapprove.

But a Rasmussen poll taken over the same three-day period shows a 7.0-point margin, with 46 percent approval and 53 percent disapproval.

Support for the Democrat’s health care reform plan has dropped to 42.3 in the RCP Average for the period May 19 through July 1, while 50.7 percent disapproved. And the new Rasmussen poll taken on July 1 shows Americans don’t like the plan by a 60 to 36 margin, a spread of -24 points.

By a two-to-one margin (62.3 vs. 30.2), Americans strongly disapprove of the direction the country is heading, as reflected by the RCP average from June 10 through June 27.

The Second Amendment is part of the Bill of Rights, which is a specific articulation of what many of the Founders regarded as fundamental principles of human liberty – “unalienable Rights,” according to the Declaration of Independence – that must be guaranteed, and not left in doubt, so those rights were specifically guaranteed in the first ten amendments to the United States Constitution in 1791.

They include the right of free speech, freedom of the press, the right to assemble and to petition the government, freedom of religion, the right to due process and trial by jury, protection from unreasonable search and seizure, and the right to keep and bear arms, among others, which the Founders recognized as essential for a free people in a free society, and which Justice Samuel Alito confirmed in his majority opinion: “It is clear that the Framers . . . counted the right to keep and bear arms among those fundamental rights necessary to our system of ordered liberty.”

The 5-4 ruling came in response to a challenge to a Chicago law banning handgun possession. Such blanket bans are in response to the illegal use of handguns, but are poorly thought out and fraught with flaws and unintended consequences, the most obvious of which is that law abiding Chicagoans who have sold their handguns to comply with the law, or have not purchased a handgun because of the law, have had their most effective means of self-defense outlawed by the City of Chicago, leaving them vulnerable to criminals who still have their guns.

It is ludicrous to suggest that the Framers ever intended for such a preposterous situation to be created.

Gun control is another of the many areas where good intentions fall victim to reality: In the real world gun control laws do not control guns. What they do most effectively is to disarm potential victims.

The populace has nothing to fear from law abiding citizens with guns. In fact, studies show that law abiding citizens who are armed provide an effective deterrent to crime. In an article titled “Can Gun Control Reduce Crime? Part 1,” historian and writer Benedict D. LaRosa noted that “Vermont has the least restrictive gun-control law. It recognizes the right of any Vermonter who has not otherwise been prohibited from owning a firearm to carry concealed weapons without a permit or license. Yet Vermont has one of the lowest crime rates in America, ranking 49 out of 50 in all crimes and 47th in murders.”

He also said that states which have passed concealed-carry laws have seen their violent crime rates fall by from three to seven percent, which makes perfect sense: If a criminal believes his intended victim may shoot him, he might think twice before robbing attacking him or her.

All of the gun control laws in the universe cannot keep criminals from having guns. That’s sort of what the term “criminal” implies, you know? Does it make any sense to prohibit law abiding citizens from owning guns to protect themselves from criminals who ignore the law and arm themselves? That’s a no-brainer.

Still – and this is truly troubling – four of the nine Justices of the United States Supreme Court voted in this case to maintain Chicago’s prohibition against handgun ownership, which is a de facto vote against the concept of law abiding citizens owning handguns for self-defense. That defies both common sense and the intent of the Second Amendment. But more importantly, it is a serious threat to our freedom that those four Justices – Steven Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, John Paul Stevens, and Sonia Sotomayor – either do not understand the intent or the plain language of the US Constitution, which they are duty bound to uphold, or they have substituted their own ideology for the intent of the Constitution. Neither is acceptable

This behavior is referred to as “judicial activism,” a theory that judges can and should creatively reinterpret the Constitution and laws in order to serve the judges’ own ideas of the needs of contemporary society.

But what is the point of having a constitution if it can be reinterpreted by judges? What is the point of enacting laws if judges can interpret them according to their own personal views? And why should any of us obey existing laws, if their meaning changes from judge to judge?

For centuries people have used anchors to keep their boats from being moved around by winds and tides. Our Founders realized that the Republic also needed an anchor to keep it from being swept around by changing social and political ideas, and they created the United States Constitution for that purpose, and to establish a nation with maximum personal freedom. It has served us well for more than 200 years, making America the most exceptional nation in history.

We must be smart enough to follow it and not screw things up.

From To The Point News:

Written by Dr. Jack Wheeler

It was a sobering dinner party last night (6/16). Hosted by a London billionaire in his exquisite home – a Boccaccio hung on the wall behind me – the wine flowed liberally, but the conversation between the ten of us was stone-cold serious.

There were lighter moments, as when I proposed a toast to “a great hero of Europe – Geert Wilders.” Every one raised their glass in a smile, but the biggest smile was that of a spectacularly gorgeous super-model (you’ve seen her in many a high-fashion ad). She was from Holland.

Then a well-known Hollywood producer raised his glass to toast his hero – Ronald Reagan. “We need him again,” he commented. I guarantee you’ve watched one of his TV shows.

But when a self-made billionaire with an 11-figure private equity fund and a clear grasp of Austrian economics starts to talk about America’s prospects, you listen. So we all listened.

Being in London, he started there. “To call (new Brit PM David) Cameron a disaster is like calling Hurricane Katrina a squall. He’s as much a Conservative as I am a Moslem. I have already started preparing to relocate to Switzerland. If he succeeds in his current push to raise capital gains taxes from 18% to 50% — and it looks like he will – the British economy and the London real estate market will crash. The best play around will be to short the pound.

“In short, Cameron and Osborne (George Osborne, David Cameron’s Oxford classmate and now in Cameron’s cabinet as Chancellor of the Exchequer, equivalent to our Treasury Secretary) lead secret lives. Just as they hide from the public that they are homosexual behind the pretense of a marriage, they hide their liberal agenda behind the pretense of being conservative. They will destroy Britain’s economy just as sure as Obama is destroying America’s.”

There followed a spirited exchange about financial escape hatches — if the Euro, the pound, and the dollar fall off their respective cliffs, where does anybody go? The time-worn adage of “buy gold, buy silver, buy Swiss Francs” may work for individuals, but world equity markets are in a trap from which there is no clear exit.

One opinion was, “The best run governments around today are those of Canada and Singapore – having one’s savings denominated in their currencies is not a bad idea.” Then we got back to America.

“You know what my biggest fear is?” our host asked. “It’s not really Obama, for what he’s done is to accelerate what the liberals have been slowly doing for decades – so quickly that their socialism is obvious to everyone. Which means the solution is obvious to everyone. My biggest fear is that voters will give Republicans the power to repair America on November 2nd – and the Republicans won’t have the courage to do it.”

All I could respond with was “Ouch,” to shake my head and sigh. I mentioned an email I just got from a friend of many years in Las Vegas. He’s a very successful banker and businessman who knows everyone in Republican politics in Nevada – and I had asked his opinion of how Sharron Angle might possibly beat Harry Reid. The reply I got back shocked me. He will do nothing to help her, he said, as she is too “extreme.”

Why is she considered extreme? our host asked, not on intimate terms with Nevada primary elections. Because she wants a government restricted to constitutional activities, I replied, which means, for example, eliminating such things as the Department of Education and the Environmental Protection Agency.

Our host leaned over the table to look at me as if his eyes were lasers. “Jack, you need to explain something to your friend. You need to explain something to America and all those Congressmen you know. Amputate or die. That’s the choice America has right now. That’s the choice Republicans will have after November 2nd, because they’re the only surgeons around who can do the surgery.”

Everyone was quiet so he continued. “Gangrene will kill you. If you don’t amputate a finger or other limb that’s gangrenous, it will spread bacterially [via Clostridium perfringens], and you will die. Look at these unconstitutional growths of government on the body public as gangrenous infections that have to be amputated for the body to continue living.”

He looked around the table at all of us. “You know that I know all the main players in the world economy. Some are fools who don’t know what they are doing like Strauss-Kahn (Dominque Strauss-Kahn, head of the IMF, International Monetary Fund), some are not like Trichet (Jean-Claude Trichet, president of the European Central Bank). America has no adult on the economy’s lever – Geithner is more of a hopeless disaster than Bush’s Paulson was, and Bernanke is worse than Greenspan.

“So I don’t know any player whose smarts I really respect who has much hope for America, who doesn’t see an alternative future than the destruction of America’s wealth through hyper-inflation. They think elephants will fly before Republican elephants will do what is necessary if the voters give them the power to do it.”

He looked at me – so everyone else did. “Are they wrong, Jack?” The question hung in the air as I felt my face redden.

“Thanks, pal,” I responded with a smile to gain a little time. Everyone did laugh for just a moment, then I had to jump into the waiting silence. Here’s what I said.

“The situation is dire, there is no doubt, the gravest since the Civil War. The only hope I see is with the anger of the TeaPartyers. That anger is directed just as much towards Republican cowards as towards Democrat fascists. We don’t have to wait long to see the power of that anger. Just six days from now (6/22) in South Carolina, Nikki Haley the TeaPartyer is going to wipe out Gresham Barrett the RINO, even though the state GOP establishment is doing everything slimy to smear her.

“I think your player-friends have to see things not as Democrat vs. Republican but as the Court Party – the establishment in power be they Democrat or GOP – vs. the Country Party, the TeaPartyers who want an end to all the corruption, Dem or GOP. Your players are part of the Court Party. The TeaPartyers you might think are like those who led the French Revolution – but they are like those who led the American Revolution instead.

“Yes, the TeaPartyers own most of the 300 million guns in America, but they don’t want blood unless there’s no choice. Note the ‘unless.’ November 2nd better be an honest election. What the TeaPartyers must grasp is Churchill’s call after the battle of El Alamein [November 1942], that November is only ‘the end of the beginning.’

“So you are right – the only hope is radical surgery to cut out all the metastasizing cancer, to amputate unconstitutional gangrene, or another metaphor, to be like Alexander and cut the Gordian Knot with a sword stroke.

“But the question really is not whether Republicans have the courage to perform the surgery, to defund ObamaCare, to defund the entire Obama agenda, to defund entire agencies like the Department of Education, Energy, and the EPA. It is whether the TeaPartyers have the courage and capacity to force the Republicans to. I mean, how is eliminating the EPA extreme, and EPA unconstitutional fascism not extreme? We’ll find out, because they are America’s only hope now.”

Everyone waited for our host’s response. “And the hyper-inflation? The debt’s already baked in the cake, no matter what future spending is cut.”

“Hyper-inflation is only another word for total default. The only way to avoid it is a government default on its debts only. Then we can switch from a worthless fiat currency to an asset-backed currency.” I smiled. “Gold brings freedom.”

He smiled in return and raised his glass. “We can all drink to that. To gold, to freedom, and these TeaPartyers – may Jack be right about them. May they amputate fascism before the fascists amputate our freedom.”

I fear that if the election in November isn’t honest (See here for the typical tactics the Democrats and Obama employ.) or the Republicans turn RINO and refuse to do the People’s biding we will start to see mobs of angry voters.  We are already angry, it won’t take much to light the fuse.

Try as he might, President Barack Obama just can’t put a pretty face on the latest economic figures.

Prior to the release of the May job numbers, economists surveyed by MarketWatch expected an increase of 540,000 nonfarm jobs, but when the jobs report came out, it showed only 431,000 jobs had been created.

Even so, Mr. Obama told us that the May job report is evidence that the U.S. economy is “getting stronger by the day,” and then admitted that 411,000 of those were temporary government Census workers, which means, of course, that only 20,000 real jobs were created.

But even the new Census hiring is suspect. A number of Census workers have come forward saying that they were hired, trained, worked a day or two, were laid off, then rehired for a repeat of the cycle as many as three times. Each re-hire was counted as a new job, raising the new jobs total. But that doesn’t sound very much like a real job, does it? Not even a real “temporary” job.

This disappointing private payroll number was a much weaker result than many economists had expected, and that sentiment was shared by investors, who drove the Dow Industrials to a 323-point slide on Friday, the second time in two weeks the DJIA has closed below 10,000.

The small jobs increase was accompanied by a decrease in unemployment, which fell further than economists expected, dropping to 9.7 percent in May from 9.9 percent in April. But even that news has an asterisk beside it, since much of the decline came from 322,000 unemployed people who dropped out of the labor force and are no longer counted among the unemployed.

Looking deeper into the unemployment data, many analysts regard the number that includes discouraged workers – like those 322,000 who dropped out of the workforce, and those forced to work part-time because of the weak economy –as a more relevant measure of unemployment. That number is 16.6 percent.

Thirty months into the recession, unemployment continues at high levels. The low point in October of 2006, when the rate was 4.4 percent (five percent is considered full employment), is a distant memory, and the rate hovered just above that level until May of 2007, at which point it started to creep up, hitting 7.4 percent in December of 2008. Since then, there has been no good news on employment, and some economists predict the rate will bump up against 10 percent through the summer.

Employment is a lagging indicator of economic recovery, meaning that the economy will show improvement long before unemployment falls to acceptable levels. But the recovery is not gaining strength, either.

Gross Domestic Product was revised downward to 3.0 percent in the first quarter of 2010 from 5.6 percent in the fourth quarter of last year, supporting the idea that unemployment will continue at high levels for a long time. The lower GDP shows “that the recovery in the biggest economy in the world may not be as strong as many have expected,” according to analyst Anna Fedec. The downward revision in GDP “came from consumer consumption and business spending which are required components for growth to be called sustainable,” she said. “In fact, consumer spending, which is vital in elevating production levels, is weak, mostly due to [the] high unemployment rate.”

Unemployment is the most important thing on the minds of most Americans, and it also plays a role in stifling the recovery. People without jobs spend a lot less than people with jobs, and with demand for products and services reduced by high unemployment, new job creation also will languish.

Add to that scenario the fact that the Obama administration’s policies discourage job creation by keeping businesses wondering what tax, expense or government edict is going to be imposed on them next. This uncertainty breeds caution, and caution and uncertainty do not produce jobs.

A look at business cycle history shows that if left alone economic downturns self-correct rather quickly, and that includes every downturn up to 1930, at which point federal government bureaucrats and elected officials decided they knew more about business than business people. That was the blunder that created the Great Depression, and it is the blunder in this recession. Nobel Prize-winning economist Friedrich Hayek called such bureaucratic arrogance the “fatal conceit.”

Following Jimmy Carter’s disastrous economic policies in the late 70s, Ronald Reagan turned things around by cutting taxes. Economist Arthur Laffer points out that the. Reagan tax cuts – which were the engine of the 1983 expansion and unleashed the longest peacetime expansion the U.S. economy has ever experienced – are the mirror image of the Obama tax increases. And he said “the prospect of rising prices, higher interest rates and more regulations next year will further entice demand and supply to be shifted from 2011 into 2010.” Mr. Laffer predicts that economic activity shifted to 2010 helps this year, but will produce an economic collapse next year. “If you thought deficits and unemployment have been bad lately, you ain’t seen nothing yet,” he said.

The Obama administration has failed to learn the lessons of 1930 and 1983, to our great detriment.

In four major areas – health care, illegal immigration, the Gulf oil spill, and the direction of the country – the American people do not support Barack Obama and his policies, as reflected in recent opinion polls.

From May 21 to 23, CNN/Opinion Research Corporation asked whether participants think the changes the Democrat’s law will make to the country’s health care system will be generally good for the country or generally bad for the country. More than half the participants said “bad,” while 46 percent said “good.” A more direct question followed: “Do you approve or disapprove of the passage of the health care bill which became law in April?” The margin was 13 points; 56 percent disapprove, 43 percent approve.

Another hot topic is illegal immigration and the illegal alien problem in Arizona, and on this one the president and his administration are once again taking a hit. Fifty-nine percent responding in the Quinnipiac University Poll from May 19-24 believe that illegal immigration is a very serious problem, while only 10 percent think it is not very serious. Another 26 percent believe illegal immigration is somewhat serious, and just four percent think it is not a problem at all. All told, 85 percent think this problem is serious.

Not surprisingly, 66 percent also think immigration reform should primarily move in the in the direction of stricter enforcement of laws against illegal immigration rather than in the direction of integrating illegal immigrants into American society, and respondents approve of the Arizona law by a 51 to 31 margin.

On the oil spill in the Gulf, the division is less severe, but only 39 percent of participants approve of the way President Obama is handling the crisis, while 42 percent disapprove, in the Quinnipiac University Poll, May 19-24. Perhaps more pertinent, to the question, “To help solve the energy crisis and make America less dependent on foreign oil, do you support or oppose drilling for new oil supplies in currently protected areas off shore?” 53 support new drilling, against 40 percent who oppose it.

And in a Research 2000 poll conducted for the Daily Kos May 24 through 27 asking about the direction the country is heading, 56 percent said the wrong direction, while 40 percent said the right direction.

Barack Obama and his administration are clearly on the wrong side of the majority of Americans on three important issues and the direction he and the Democrat-controlled Congress are taking the country.

Memorial Day is a time when America acknowledges the service and sacrifices of the men and women of our armed forces. At Arlington National Cemetery an observance has taken place for 142 years, and the focus of the modern observance is the laying of a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns by the President of the United States, which presidents have taken part in since Lyndon Johnson first did in 1968.

From that time forward, with few exceptions, American presidents have paid tribute to the brave men and women who have served their country and the thousands who paid the ultimate price to guarantee us the freedoms won for us in the Revolutionary War. This year, the Arlington ceremony has become the center of attention, and as this is written, President Barack Obama plans to pass on the Arlington ceremony, and take the family to Chicago for the weekend.

Information on who did and didn’t participate in the Arlington ceremonies each year is difficult to find, but it is documented that in recent memory three presidents did not participate at Arlington at least once during their terms: George W. Bush, George H.W. Bush, and Ronald Reagan.

Why did they pass up the opportunity and the duty to honor America’s fighting men and women at Arlington?

Ronald Reagan chaired a summit in 1983 in Williamsburg “to mobilise (sic) a common Western position in confronting the Soviet Union in the final stage of the Cold War,” according to Nicholas Bayne in the (begin ital) History of the G7 Summit: The Importance of American Leadership.(end ital) With Reagan as chairman, “the summits reached some pioneering political agreements, stimulated by the US,” and succeeded in having US Cruise and Pershing missiles in Europe to counter Soviet missiles placed nearby. The meeting was a serious and important event, and Mr. Reagan can be forgiven for asking someone to stand in for him at the Memorial Day ceremony while he tended to the nation’s business.

On Memorial Day, 2002, a day after attending the NATO summit in Rome, President George W. Bush, along with Secretary of State Colon Powell, Secretary of Veterans Affairs Anthony Principi, members of the U.S. Congress, members of the U.S. Armed Services and American veterans celebrated Memorial Day at the Normandy American Cemetery, and Colleville-Sur-Mer, France. Mr. Bush was not at Arlington, but he did honor the thousands of Americans buried in France who helped liberate Europe during WWII.

Some people say that in 2007 Mr. Bush was at his ranch in Texas, and Vice President Dick Cheney placed the wreath, however, the Arlington Cemetery Website contains remarks by Mr. Bush dated Memorial Day 2007.

George H. W. Bush, however, is another matter. One account said that in his four years as president he did not attend the Arlington ceremony a single time. One year, he attended a Memorial Day ceremony in Rome, but he spent the others vacationing in Kennebunkport, Maine, and attending ceremonies there, while other officials attended the Arlington ceremonies. However, it is well known that the senior President Bush postponed going to college to serve in the military during WWII and became the youngest aviator in the US Navy at the age of 18. He flew 58 combat missions and was decorated three times, with the Distinguished Flying Cross, three Air Medals, and the Presidential Unit Citation. His patriotism and commitment to the military are beyond question.

On Memorial Day 2009, a few months after being sworn in as President, Barack Obama attended the laying of the wreath at Arlington. The Associated Press reported that “Barack Obama marked his first Memorial Day as president on Monday, saluting the men and women of America’s fighting forces, both living and dead, as ‘the best of America’” by laying a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Cemetery.

This year, the news stories read somewhat differently. Under the headline, “President Obama, Vice President Biden to Participate in Memorial Day Ceremonies” was this report: “On Thursday, May 27, President Barack Obama and his family will travel to Chicago, where they will spend the weekend. On Monday, the President will participate in a Memorial Day ceremony at Abraham Lincoln National Cemetery in Elwood, Illinois … [and] Vice President and Dr. Jill Biden … will participate in a wreath-laying ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery.”

Why did President Obama decline to honor America’s fighting men and women at Arlington this year, as most presidents do each year, and instead chose to take his family to Chicago? Well, depending upon which perspective you hold, he is either doing an honorable thing and keeping a campaign promise to visit his adopted home town and attending a ceremony there, or instead of doing his patriotic duty at Arlington he is taking the family on a vacation.

Do you believe Mr. Obama’s reasons for missing the Arlington ceremony are as good as Mr. Reagan’s or the younger Bush’s, or that he has earned a pass like Bush senior through his service? Or do you think that he is abandoning an American tradition and shirking his duty?

Herewith a partial list of idiocy on parade:

U.S. Army Major Dr. Nidal Hassan, after showing signs of radical Islamism that the Army ignored, walked into a building occupied by a large number of his fellow soldiers, shouted Allahu Akbar (God is great), and proceeded to shoot 12 people dead. Why was this scum in the Army to begin with? Stupid.

The panty bomber tried and failed to blow up an airliner on Christmas Day, and was promptly given approximately the same treatment as a shoplifter. The seven-page indictment detailing charges against him contained no specific mention of terrorism in it. Stupid.

The jackass who left an SUV with explosives inside it in Times Square in New York City is a naturalized U.S. citizen who recently spent five months in Pakistan, and somehow managed to hop a plane for Dubai following his inept bombing attempt, despite being on the federal “no-fly” list. Stupid.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg immediately commented that the Times Square terrorist attempt was likely “homegrown” and then speculated it could have been perpetrated by “somebody with a political agenda who doesn’t like the health care bill or something.” Someone tries to blow up Times Square, and the mayor of New York wants to blame it on an American citizen upset over the health care bill. Stooooopid.

Attorney General Eric Holder refused to acknowledge that radical Islam is responsible for the latest spate of terrorist attacks in testimony before Congress. “I don’t want to say anything negative about a religion …,” said Mr. Holder, and then did the mambo, the cha-cha, and the waltz to avoid using the term “radical Islam” in connection with terrorist activities of radical Islamists. Stupid.

The left, including most of the major media, demean the normal Americans who have been driven by the actions of their arrogant and elitist leaders to public protests in tea party gatherings across the nation. Stupid.

The United States government refuses to secure its borders, exposing its citizens to illegal aliens some of whom live off taxpayers, others of whom wreak havoc and violence on citizens. Stupid.

The administration of Live Oak High School in California allowed Hispanic students to celebrate Cinco de Mayo, a Mexican observance, but sent five students home whose clothing displayed the American flag. Stupid.

People from south of the border come to America – and many of them sneak in – because they think our country is better than theirs, then publicly demonstrate that they value the country they left more than they value America. Stooooopid. Message to immigrants: This is America. You came here of your own accord. No one forced you to come. If you don’t like the way things are done here, go back where you came from.

Almost before the door closed behind him after being sworn in as president, Barack Obama ordered the closing of the Guantanamo prison within a year. Stupid.

Against the wishes and the better judgment of a decided majority of Americans, President Obama and Congressional Democrats jammed through a controversial and catastrophically flawed health care reform bill that will raise costs and taxes on virtually every American. Stupid.

Mr. Obama decides to quit calling terrorism what it is and instead substitutes dopey euphemisms, such as renaming the war on terrorism “overseas contingency operations,” and calling terrorist attacks “man-caused disasters.” Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano commented that “we want to move away from the politics of fear (read ‘reality’).” Really stupid.

Instead of continuing to fight terrorism and its supporters head on, Mr. Obama prefers to play kissy-face with Islamist lunatics who cloak their lunacy in a perverted religion. Stupid.

The nation entered the most severe economic crisis in nearly 100 years in 2008, and the current administration and Congress continue to spend money we don’t have and fail to enact policies that will hasten a recovery. Stupid.

There you have it, a brief list of some really stupid behavior that America is now awash in.

The Supreme Court has issued binding edicts in 5-4 votes that Americans would never approve at the ballot box in a million years.

“As Americans and as a nation, we will not be terrorized. We will not cower in fear. We will not be intimidated,” President Obama said. Really? Well if so, Mr. President, you had better wise up and act like terrorism is real and undo this goofy policies you have put in place that fosters terrorist activities.

If it is true that “insanity” can be defined as repeating the same self-defeating behaviors time and time again while expecting different results, then, I’m afraid, the great majority of my fellow Americans qualify as political lunatics. We — I include myself to acknowledge past acts of political madness — vote for a Democrat who promises “change” or a Republican who promises “frugality” and we get politics as usual. Nothing changes, taxes go up, spending goes up, liberty suffers.

If one thing should be crystal clear, it is this: The “wasted votes,” the votes which are “thrown away,” are those cast for Democrats and Republicans.

In 2000, I liberated myself from two-party politics and voted third-party for the first time in a Presidential election.  And it was a liberating vote — in light of subsequent events, I am happier now than ever that I am responsible for neither Al Gore nor George Bush.

If the major parties were running Satan and Beelzebub for office, would you vote for Beelzebub because he is “the lesser of two evils?” Not this citizen; if those are the choices, I’m a write-in for Jesus.

Here’s my advice. Stop listening to the two-party rhetoric. Examine you own beliefs and values. Then have the courage of your convictions, find your conscience, clear your vision and vote accordingly. If that leads you to vote for a Republicrat or a Demopublican, so be it; but please, never be afraid to vote third-party because others waste their votes routinely.

On April 8, Congressional Budget Office (CBO) chief Douglas Elmendorf said this about the enormous Obama budget deficit: “U.S. fiscal policy is unsustainable, and unsustainable to an extent that it can’t be solved through minor changes. It’s a matter of arithmetic.” What does that mean?

It means that government spending is so far ahead of its revenue collection that some major change has to occur. In such situations there are three choices: reduce spending; increase taxation; or some combination of the two.

All those who think the administration and the current Congress will reduce spending, please stand up. Those still sitting are correct: there won’t be spending cuts, and everyone – everyone – is going to pay more taxes, despite Barack Obama’s promises to the contrary during the presidential campaign.

Mr. Elmendorf suggested that the CBO has begun to study the impact of adding an entirely new kind of tax to the extensive list of existing federal taxes: the value added tax (VAT). Observers suspect that President Obama’s deficit reduction commission will recommend the VAT to counter the administration’s spending addiction; the only tool many economists believe is capable of raising enough money to make a dent in the gargantuan Obama deficit.

A value added tax is similar to a national retail sales tax but imposes a tax at every stage of business production, and its cumulative effects are paid by the consumer. Unlike earnings-based taxes like the income tax, people are taxed on what they spend: spend a lot, pay a lot of VAT taxes; spend little, pay little VAT taxes.

Value added tax systems are popular in the social democracies of Europe and other nations around the world, and standard rates range from five percent (Japan) to 25 percent (Sweden and Denmark). Most countries with a VAT have lower rates for some items, and no tax at all on a few.

On inexpensive items you won’t really notice a five percent VAT very much. An item that costs $20 will have an additional dollar of VAT added to it. If the VAT rate is 25 percent, however, you’ll pay a $5.00 VAT. That might be enough to get your attention.

On more expensive items, like something that costs $1,000, the five percent VAT will add $50 to the cost, and the 25 percent VAT will add $250. Both of those should get your attention.

The problem the VAT poses for Americans is that where it might be a suitable replacement for income taxes as a means to raise government revenue, the VAT will not replace the income tax or the myriad of federal taxes we pay, it will be added to them, since the only way to counter the Obama spending addiction is to provide additional revenue to the federal government over and above what it is already collecting.

But adding the VAT to existing taxes will have significant negative effects. Since it is based on spending, the more you make, the more you can spend. However, everyone will likely buy less because the price of nearly everything will go up, while salaries and wages will not. Imagine having to pay from five to twenty-five percent more for most things you purchase. And everyone will be affected by the VAT, not just the middle-class Americans Mr. Obama has labeled “rich.”

Since rising prices lead to lower purchasing, demand for products will drop and production levels will decline commensurately, and that will put additional pressure on employers to lay off workers. The only question is how substantial a drain on the economy the VAT will produce?

EconomyWatch notes that a concern in “introducing value-added tax is that the introduction of the tax would set in motion a spiral in which prices and wages would feed on each other – that is, VAT would be inflationary.”

That Black Hole of Economics, otherwise known as the White House, makes one blunder after another. The most serious problem facing the country when Barack Obama took office was unemployment. The most serious problem 15 months later is unemployment followed closely by the deficit.

Instead of taking action to foster job creation, like reducing taxes on business and individuals, Mr. Obama wasted more than a year focusing on a problem a minority of Americans thought was important – health care reform – and paid lip service to unemployment, the issue Americans thought was most important. He helped push through a $787 billion stimulus bill that hasn’t worked, but has doubled the budget deficit to a scary level.

When he took office, Mr. Obama inherited a deficit of about $800 billion: the original $485 billion Bush deficit, plus $100 billion in increased recession-related spending and lost revenues, plus $200 billion in unpaid Troubled Asset Relief Program loans ($500 billion has been repaid). The Obama deficit is more than $1.5 trillion today, double what he inherited, and 10 percent of GDP.

And now he may be considering imposing a new tax on the country that will increase everyone’s taxes and put additional pressure on jobs, when what is clearly needed is cuts in spending and taxes.