Other than in the past on a professional basis, when he wrote highly technical articles about IBM's AS/400 computer system, Brian Kelly receives no compensation for his work. Additionally, Kelly has not taken any donations or contributions other than for his US Senate Campaign of 2012. Mr. Kelly has recetly canceled his write-in campaign for the US Senate, and instead he  endorses Tom Smith for US Senator from Pennsylvania v. Robert P. Casey Jr.  If you would like to donate to the closed campaign to help defray costs, feel free to go to www.kellyforussenate.com and click the DONATE button. Your donations are most appreciated.

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Please enjoy the rest of this article.

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Since Obama’s inauguration day, fewer people are employed; the percentage of people unemployed for over a year has doubled; the poverty rate is the worst in two decades; and more Americans than ever are depending on food stamps to eat. Yet, Obama, the President who chooses to lead from behind, continues to grade his performance as a solid B+ work.

As a professor for thirty plus years myself, I can assure you that in my classroom, Obama would be lucky to pass a business course. If the President, who has controlled this economy for almost four years, is a solid B+ student on economics, we should expect no improvement if he holds the reins for another four years. Of course the President qualifies his B+ by noting that his work is “Incomplete.” I hope he is not banking on a four-year repeat to get it right. That scares me even worse than the B+ as a final grade.

This government sees more spending as the solution for everything. If you have an ingrown toenail—more government spending! If you have a toothache—more government spending! If your significant other has bad breath—more government spending! I think you see my point.

So, what is the government solution for unemployment? You know that it has to be more government spending as that is the panacea solution for all American ills. The only problem is that we have seen that not working for long enough. It doesn’t work or the problem with the economy would already be fixed. Thinking that more bad medicine will make the patient better, to solve the country’s woes, the Obama regime spends, and spends, and spends again.

Barack H. Obama may be sharp as a tack (your call) but nobody has ever called him the second Einstein. The first Einstein had a magical way about being right all the time. You may have heard the popular idiom about not giving up, if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. The President seems to have his own version: if excessive spending does not succeed the first time, try try again. Einstein (but then again, who is he to argue with the President?) had this to say about the validity of trying the same thing again: Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Can Einstein be correct?

Facts show that government spenders simply like to spend! When there is no success from all the spending, they continue to spend some more. Is this insane? Can something work again if it never worked before? Obamanomics does not work because it is illogical and it is designed to produce no results. It cannot work. While the miserable results are hitting everybody in the face like an ice cold wind, this President still doesn’t get it or perhaps he does, but he has another agenda. He surely knows the economy is in terrible shape, yet, there appears to be a stubborn unwillingness to do anything that would actually solve the problem.

Rather than seeing the train of destruction that more and more Americans are beginning to see, the President sees a bloom of opportunity in his dreams. But there is no reality check. He keeps looking forward to the day in which the continuation of his failed principles will bring about resounding success. It will never happen. Trying something that does not work for the 1000th time will never bring better results.

The fact is that higher taxes plus the continuing threat of even higher taxes on the middle class such as the newly conceived 401K tax plan, along with a huge deficit / debt, and unbridled government spending has resulted in reduced private sector spending. Economics is all about the private sector. Government jobs are a negative for just like parasites, government takes away from real earnings from real economic activity. Taking more dollars from the private sector for frivolous government spending dampens hopes for an economic resurgence. Businesses have no confidence to invest in anything in America because they view the government as their opponent. Worse than that, business sees government growing bigger all the time and its appetite to spend increasing.

In time, economists believe that such huge spending with nothing in the treasury will cause the American economy to crash. It is cause and effect. Such poor fiscal policies would cause any economy to collapse. Right now, President Obama’s poor leadership is the direct cause and our dismal economy is the effect. Nothing is in the on-deck circle to help cause a change for the better. In fact, though the Obama spin would make you think we have already recovered, how many people in your circle of friends are doing well compared with four years ago? How many people do you know who are out of work or who have not ever even gotten their first job? The Obama economy is clearly getting worse, and more spending is not going to bring it back.

As his first dream come true, the Congress gifted the president with $825 billion of free spending. From a seemingly empty borrowing pot, Obama quickly grabbed the stimulus, which had been nicknamed “porkulus,” by those who saw it for what it really was. There was barely time to give the President authorization to spend the $825 billion.

To get this huge amount of cash, the drumbeats were constantly pounding that there would be economic disaster if the President did not get such a huge sum. Obama promised many things; yet on the report card side of things, most promises have been un-kept! What he did with the dollars is the real sin. He redistributed them among various government bureaucracies and to what his critics call the FOB’s. In this context, with poetic license, it means friends of Obama. The Department of Education Budget for example in 2009 doubled to over $150 billion. Few taxpayers can point out any value that this huge windfall of spending accrued to the country but a lot of people in the right places got rich on the deal.

Eventually when the results, compared to the shovel ready promises, were so poor, the term “shovel ready,” took on a silly connotation and it became the subject of light humor. It was a silly a notion that there really was $825 billion worth of shovel ready jobs. The President knew this but he wanted the spending money. Eventually, rather than explain what he did with the money, the President joined in on the fun-poking. He saw fit to joke that there really never were any shovel ready jobs. Hah! He was only kidding! He tells an $825 billion white lie and still more than half of the people in the US continue to love him. The President is counting on the love for his reelection. Heck, if he can blow $825 billion while still trying to get reelected can you imagine how much more he can squander if he has no constraints.

Obama is so much different as a President than any other, one might ask with a degree of thoughtfulness if the President’s intentions include emptying the borrowed cash in the treasury to make it tougher, not easier for the country to recover? Questions like “Does he really like America?” keep coming up. Questions like “Does he really want US to succeed?” are out there in the hallways and the taprooms, and just about everywhere that people meet. Does our economy and way of life have a chance with such a big spender as our leader? Spending will not lead to economic recovery. It is a big spade digging an even bigger economic hole.

Much of this huge stimulus was spent on trivial stuff, make-work projects if you will, not things that Americans looking for employment were expecting. One example of the type of projects for which the cash was deployed was the study of cocaine use by Monkeys! Can you recall that being a national priority?

For the three and a half years he has been President, we have been hearing about one spending problem after another. While all Americans, even those who benefit from the spending, know that borrowing from China and spending is bad for America, the spending explosion persists unabated. While claiming Americans have a fossil fuels addiction, Obama suffers from a spending addiction—as long as it is your money. If the President had his way, either because he thinks that ECON 101 does not matter, or because he knows it does, many are convinced the deficit would be even larger.

It is so easy for this President to simply command that more cash be printed or more borrowed from China, that he will not give in to sound economic principles. For the last year or so, there has been a countervailing force of House Republicans stopping his two-year invasion into our personal lives. When Nancy Pelosi ruled the House in 2009 and 2010, however, Obama’s free spending reign put the US economy in free fall. The free fall actually began in the last two years of the Bush Administration when Ms. Pelosi began to gin up the spending machine so that it was at peak for the next President, Barack Obama.

Can you imagine if Mr. Obama gets another four years of borrowing and spending? Can you imagine if the House and the Senate go the progressive / Democrat way and there is no longer any countervailing power? If that happens, many are predicting that America may have to change its name to something that no longer connotes liberty and freedom. President Obama operates today with executive authority and the Congress cannot stop him because of all the progressive minions in the US Senate that are in lock-step with his ideology. Mr. Obama threatens the Courts and the Congress like no other President. Nothing stops Obama when he is ready to spend. Many fear that we are approaching a dictatorship form of government in a second or third or fourth or fifth or sixth term.

Knowing that spending is putting the US out of business, when you look at the direction that the debt clock is constantly spinning, it should give us all great angst. Yet, the dictatorial actions of this President show clearly he has no such concerns.

You may recall the UN action last year when Palestine voted against the US. Congress took back their “plays nice with friends,” award and chose not to give the Palestinians a bunch of millions of dollars they would have gotten if they had played nice. For defense and of course cash reasons, as well as teaching the Palestinians a lesson on friendship, Congress did the right thing, and for that I applaud them.

Somehow, though separation of powers is still in effect in the Constitution, the Spender in Chief decided that he had more power than Congress. He took $147 million out of our treasury a month or so ago, and gave it to the Palestinians. The President announced that he would override Congress and waive restrictions on all the remaining funds. He explained the move as in the “national security interests of the United States.”

A “thankful” Palestinian lawmaker Abdallah Abdallah said the money “will definitely contribute to the betterment of the economic situation, but it’s not a substitute for American wrong policy.” He then derided the United States as “impotent” in criticizing Israeli policies like settlement construction in the West Bank. This is what you get when you reward people for not playing nice. Obama took the power, whether his or not and created a big waste of empty dollars from an empty treasury. A country that borrows 40% of its treasury needs to manage its fiscal resources and cannot afford to be giving things away to any country, especially a country that does not act like a friend.

While experts contend that continued excessive spending and high deficits will crash the economy and bring us into bankruptcy, the Democrats, led by the most progressive President of all time, have no urgency to fix the problem. It seems they would prefer that the people be duped into thinking it is OK until it actually crashes.

Jesus Christ acknowledged that the poor will always be among us. It is a condition of society. He was not suggesting that we not help the poor. However, he did not expect Caesar or Pilate or Herod to help the poor directly from the government treasury. He did expect that people will always help a brother in need. He did not intend for the brothers to switch places. Christians study that Jesus Christ wants us in our personal lives to help those less fortunate, who are sick, or in a state of poverty, or who otherwise need our assistance. If you are not helpless or hurting, however, there is no overwhelming message out there from any religion that says that anybody must help you.

Jesus never intended for Caesar to confiscate and redistribute the earnings of the Sanhedrin or the Pharisees even if they could afford it. He wanted individuals, not the government to help all those in need of help. Government has no role in charity. It is an individual thing. The Catholic Church for ages has been against socialism and progressivism because the government in these cases attempts to take the place of God.

Therefore, I cannot understand why Democrat Christians think they have a right to take dollars from your pocket and my pocket and give them to those they choose to classify as “needy.” What that does is make people dependent on the government and it makes people think that government is their God. The people are being taught that the big Obama spending party can go on forever without anybody picking up the tab. You know it can’t. Where will you be when it all falls apart?

Redistribution of income is a major spending habit of President Obama. His own personal giving, though better than Biden’s does not match those of past Presidents, and come nowhere close to the generosity of the Dick and Lynne Cheney. When Obama starts redistributing his own money, I will then take notice.

Combating poverty through the redistribution of income works about as well as borrowing money to spend on items or projects that return no value. Paul Haugen the “redravpatriot” blogger at libertylinked.com writes some very insightful and patriotic material on his blog about spending and redistribution. Check out these powerful words: “Redistributing wealth, whether done by BO or Lenin or Castro or Chavez, is a blatant lie told in order to cover their efforts to rob the populace by making us feel sorry for the poor. In the meantime, these “compassionate” leaders line their own pockets and the pockets of their comrades with the money they robbed from us by taxation.”

Democrats are the biggest redistribution offenders while they try to shield all of their own income from taxation. Hypocrites they are for sure as they paint Republicans as the bad guys. Republicans are made to appear to want to push granny off a cliff if they try any level of fiscal restraint to save the country. Meanwhile, any thinking being knows that we will all be pushed off a cliff when the country is declared bankrupt.

Byron York, writing in the Washington Examiner, has a great way with words. He has a few things to say about spending:

York: Spending, not entitlements, created huge deficit

“There’s no doubt federal spending has exploded in recent years. In fiscal 2007, the last year before things went haywire; the government took in $2.568 trillion in revenues and spent $2.728 trillion, for a deficit of $160 billion. In 2011, according to Congressional Budget Office estimates, the government will take in $2.230 trillion and spend $3.629 trillion, for a deficit of $1.399 trillion.”

“That’s an increase of $901 billion in spending and a decrease of $338 billion in revenue in a very short time. Put them together, and that’s how you go from a $160 billion deficit to a $1.399 trillion deficit.”

“But how, precisely, did that happen? Was there a steep rise in entitlement spending? Did everyone suddenly turn 65 and begin collecting Social Security and using Medicare? No: The deficits are largely the result not of entitlements but of an explosion in spending related to the economic downturn and the rise of Democrats to power in Washington. While entitlements must be controlled in the long run, Washington’s current spending problem lies elsewhere.”

A part of the spending deficit is explained by the economic downturn but the other half can only be explained via the phrase, “Progressive drunken sailors finally got their hands on enough cash to go on a binge.” It was essentially a down payment on the Obama domestic agenda. Green jobs, infrastructure, health information technology, aid to states — it’s all in there, billions in increased spending. If you know how to spell O-B-A-M-A, then you are 99% of the way to getting it right. Obama spends because he has figured out how to keep the spending machine going without having anything in the treasury. Eventually, somebody will have to pay. It will be my kids or your kids or your kids’ kids. What a legacy! .

I have a great fear of Obama because logic suggests that he is doing this on purpose. Otherwise, I would have to say he is stupid or insane as he keeps spending though it digs deeper economic holes. Obama is as good at chicanery as the devil himself.

Another fear I have is that Obama will pull an October Surprise in much the same fashion as Reggie Jackson. Reggie would always come in and start whacking home runs in the post season in October. Will Obama put on another granny off the cliff show in October? Will he find a Paul Ryan double to talk about the whole budget being a ruse and that Republicans really do want to destroy Medicare, Social Security, and of course Women’s contraceptive rights and the whole Catholic Church as well.

Only Obama is good enough at chicanery and spin to pull this off. The only thing we have to fear is Obama himself. If class warfare gains traction, the country is doomed. Obama is hoping to amass an unprecedented $billion dollars in campaign cash. One thing is for sure, he will spend it. The President likes to spend other people’s money so he should enjoy that $billion for sure. Hopefully, the American people will see through all of the propaganda that a cool $billion can buy.

In this OP-Ed, we have spent most of our efforts pointing out the persistence in the desire to spend by progressive Democrats, especially the President. Obviously, this must stop as nobody can spend funds, which they do not have, for too long. There are some great think Tanks that have drawn up spending plans that can work for America. The Cato Institute’s plan, for example, cuts spending to 18.0 percent of gross domestic product by 2021. This would work. Plans like this and Ron Paul’s more dramatic $1Trillion spending cut saves America. President Obama’s projected spending in 2021 is 24.2 percent of GDP. If that happens, we will have thrown in the towel, and the choir will be singing Goodnight America, and the whole train will be heading off the cliff.

The RRR: a unique comprehensive plan for economic recovery and job creation directs that runaway spending must stop. Congress must have the guts to cut spending and attack the deficit and debt. Cutting spending is part of a success formula to strengthen the economy so that business revenues and tax revenues can increase, and millions of high paying jobs can be created by private industry. If, as according to the Bankrate.com survey, nearly six in ten Americans (59%) have cut back on non-essential spending since the beginning of 2012 due to high gasoline prices, surely we should expect our government to do the same thing. After all, the country is broke. There are lots of places to cut spending including the big agencies and the big departments. Ron Paul has already targeted many for elimination. The time for a balanced budget has come. One way or another, we must elect a government that will spend only what it takes in. So, let’s go ahead and do just that this November!

Brian Kelly is a business owner and former assistant professor at Marywood University; he and his wife live in Northeastern Pennsylvania. Kelly is running for Senate in his state and believes limited government brings liberty and freedom.

 

About Brian Kelly

Brian Kelly is a business owner and former assistant professor at Marywood University; he and his wife, Pat live in Northeastern Pennsylvania. Kelly ran for COngress and for the US Senate in his state and he believes limited government brings liberty and freedom. Brian's 48th book is titled, Saving America, The How-To Book. It is available at www.checkoutking.com and www.itjungle.com.

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