They Get The Goldmine, We Get The Shaft

California has long been known as the “Golden State,” noted for the Gold Rush Days of the mid-1800’s with that nickname being officially adopted in 1968. For many years, California was seen as one of the wealthiest states and the destination of many seeking to make their fortune in the world along with several International Businesses that located there.

But California’s leaders just like our leaders in Washington D.C. lost track somewhere along the line as both that state and the nation now each hold the largest debt in our history, California’s exceeding $300 Billion and the United States exceeding $16 Trillion with both still climbing.

We have gone from the wealthiest land to the deepest in debt on the planet, with money owed to just about every other developed nation, large bank, insurance companies and Wall Street as politicians continue selling us down the river towards collapse.

Perhaps reflecting back on the canard of how FDR saved the country during the Great Depression, politicians today seem to feel all they need do is keep spending massive amounts of money in pork barrel and so called infrastructure projects to see the country thrive again. We all know how Roosevelt is credited with leading the country out of the Depression with his public works projects, but that is not the truth of what happened.

In reality, he prolonged the Great Depression. World War Two was just a temporary boost to the economy that saw the economy teetering on a return to pre-war days of Depression as millions of returning G.I.’s had no jobs to go to, the war industry being no longer needed.

In opposition to the desires of then President Truman, who wanted to restart the Roosevelt public works projects, Republicans and Conservative Democrats (yes, there really did use to be such a thing) held firm and cut taxes to individuals and industry, spurring growth that supplied jobs.

Unfortunately, the progress was short lived as the Korean War broke out in 1950, devouring much of our revenue and necessitating increasing taxes once again, as noted by the Wall Street Journal and the CATO Institute.

Fast forward to 2012, another election year as we hear Barack Obama touting his record and saying he has the nation’s economy “heading in the right direction.”

Like California, Obama seems to think all that needs done is keep spending us into oblivion, take over industry where possible and just raises taxes while borrowing more and more from the corporations he complains about having too much money, hit China up for a few Billion more or just print money out of thin air with nothing to back it.

California shows their folly by approving adding a potential $203 Billion more in debt on top of their already well over $300 Billion debt for a short high speed rail line that is not needed at this time.

Our own local political leaders are pushing for us to follow suit by their adding up to a $10 Billion additional debt on us for a new bridge across the Columbia River, all designed to force us to accept Portland, Oregon’s light rail system that we have repeatedly rejected when allowed to vote on it.

But Obama speaks of leading in the “right direction” even though his policies of “spending stimulus, housing bailouts, auto bailouts, financial bailouts, cash for clunkers, cash for caulkers, and $5 trillion in deficit spending” has resulted in the Joint Economic Committee releasing a report saying “the Obama recovery now ranks dead last in modern times” reported in an article by Lawrence Kudlow in the July 7, 2012 New York Sun.

Kudlow says, “That’s a real milestone in the post-WWII era. It’s ten out of ten for both jobs and economic growth. According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, real GDP has expanded only 6.7% over the eleven-quarter recovery since the recession ended. The Reagan recovery at the same stage had increased by 17.6%. The Clinton recovery by 8.7%.”

As Obama speaks of the economic problems “built up over decades,” he sounds as if everybody from Reagan on, to include B.J. Clinton are to blame, not him.

Add to this now that we will soon be facing over20 new taxes and untold restrictions on us from Obamacare, thanks to Chief Justice John Roberts who in essence rewrote the bill for Obama to find it constitutional as a “tax” over a mandate to force us into purchasing government approved health insurance policies.

Obama frequently points behind him to tell us just “how bad everything was” before him. We are to believe everything wrong today is “Bush’s Fault.” But the numbers from Obama’s own Bureau of Labor Statistics shows much different.

When Democrats took both houses of congress in 2007, unemployment was at 4.6%, down from a high of 6.3% as we recovered from the Clinton recession and the attacks of September 11, 2001.

When Democrats got full control of the government and Obama was inaugurated in 2009, unemployment was at 7.8%, soon to exceed 10% after his “stimulus” to prevent unemployment from exceeding 8% was passed into law and signed by him.

We are now in our forty-first straight month above 8% unemployment with the U-6 unemployment, those who have given up looking or are underemployed, sitting at or right near 15%.

All the while, Obama ignores and does not take any credit for a massive increase in people having to rely on food stamps to feed their families.

Instead, Obama and California continue pumping scarce tax dollars in failing Green ventures like Solyndra and overly expensive public transportation policies like California’s High Speed Rail that few will use and our own “locally preferred alternative,” a massive bridge that fails to meet U.S. Coast Guard Standards and Federal Aviation Administration at the same time, has sucked up nearly $150 Million with nothing but worthless paper to show for the cost so far while we brace for more and more taxes from all levels of government and businesses continue to struggle, unable to expand from the burden of government fees, regulations, taxes and restrictions.

In 1982, the popular singer Jerry Reed released a song addressing divorce, She Got The Goldmine, I Got The Shaft.

If we can’t divorce ourselves from these Big Government policies implemented by Obama and the Democrats, by voting as many of them out at all levels as possible, they, the public employee unions and bureaucrats’ in government will be getting the Gold Mine while you and I continue to get the shaft.

Vote as if you and your children’s future depend on this election.

Because it does.