President Obama, Congress, and Budget Timeline

 American History Timeline: Pay Attention

The day the democrats took over was not January 22nd 2009, it was actually January 3rd 2007 the day the Democrats took over the House of Representatives and the Senate, at the very start of the 110th Congress. The Democrat Party controlled a majority in both chambers for the first time since the end of the 103rd Congress in 1995.

For those who are listening to the liberals propagating the fallacy that everything is "Bush's Fault", think about this:

January 3rd, 2007 was the day the Democrats took over the Senate and the Congress.
At the time:
The DOW Jones closed at 12,621.77
The GDP for the previous quarter was 3.5%
The Unemployment rate was 4.6%
George Bush's Economic policies SET A RECORD of 52 STRAIGHT MONTHS of JOB GROWTH
Remember the day...
 
January 3rd, 2007 was the day that Barney Frank took over the House Financial Services Committee and Chris Dodd took over the Senate Banking Committee.
The economic meltdown that happened 15 months later was in what part of the economy?
BANKING AND FINANCIAL SERVICES!
Unemployment... to this CRISIS by (among MANY other things) dumping 5-6 TRILLION Dollars of toxic loans on the economy from YOUR Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac FIASCOES!

Bush asked Congress 17 TIMES to stop Fannie & Freddie - starting in 2001 because it was financially risky for the US economy.

And who took the THIRD highest pay-off from Fannie Mae AND Freddie Mac? BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA
And who fought against reform of Fannie and Freddie? BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA and the Democrat Congress
So when someone tries to blame Bush.
REMEMBER JANUARY 3rd, 2007.... THE DAY THE DEMOCRATS TOOK OVER!"

Budgets do not come from the White House. They come from Congress and the party that controlled Congress since January 2007 is the Democrat Party.
Furthermore, the Democrats controlled the budget process for 2007 & 2008 as well as 2009 & 2010.

In that first year, they had to contend with George Bush, which caused them to compromise on spending, when Bush somewhat belatedly got tough on spending increases.

For 2007 though, Nancy Pelosi & Harry Reid bypassed George Bush entirely, passing continuing resolutions to keep government running until Barack Obama could take office. At that time, they passed a massive omnibus spending bill to complete the 2009 budgets.

And where was Barack Obama during this time? He was a member of that very Congress that passed all of these massive spending bills, and he signed the omnibus bill as President to complete 2009. 

If the Democrats inherited any deficit, it was the 2006 deficit, the last of the Republican budgets. That deficit was the lowest in five years, and the fourth straight decline in deficit spending.  After that, Democrats in Congress took control of spending, and that includes Barack Hussein Obama, who voted for the budgets.  If Obama inherited anything, he inherited it from himself.

In a nutshell, what Barack Hussein Obama is saying is I inherited a deficit that I voted for and then I voted to expand that deficit four-fold since January 20th.

Bible Study, Economics, and Stress

Economics and Bible Study: A Way to Calm Economic Stress

 Dinner Topics for Monday

Elijah and the Widow

Unemployment continues to rise; people despair of finding jobs. We all see the gloomy forecast before us continually. It is not easy to keep from being oppressed by fear. But this is not the first economic depression in history. How did people handle it in the past?

As always, we can look to history and gain understanding for our present circumstances. In this case, Biblical history is very enlightening. The first example is the story of Elijah and the widow of Zarephath. Because of Israel’s wickedness, God had sent a great drought upon the land.

When Elijah entered Zarephath, he saw a woman gathering sticks and asked her to bring him water. While she was at it, he asked her to bring him bread.

Sadly she told him that all she had was a handful of meal in a barrel and a little oil in a cruse. She was preparing a small fire that she might make one small cake. She and her son would then eat that last cake, and die of starvation.

Elijah told her not to fear, and to go ahead and make him a cake first. He promised her that God would bless her, so that the barrel of meal would not waste, and the cruse of oil would not fail until rain came again upon the land. She did so, and as promised, the meal and oil were sufficient, and she and her son were sustained.

The widow acted in faith, and she was blessed, miraculously.

When I read this story recently, it reminded me of a time several years ago when a leader in my church made us a promise: if we would faithfully pay our tithings and offerings (generous offerings to the poor), we would always have enough. I have always found that to be true. But that leader’s words were not his alone; rather they are a promise from God, as seen in the next example, where the Lord is speaking to the people through His prophet, Malachi.

Malachi told the people they had robbed God. How? They had robbed God in tithes and offerings; therefore the whole nation was cursed. Note that when the people withheld their tithes and offerings, their whole nation was condemned.

Dallin H. Oaks observed, on the other hand, that when many citizens of a nation faithfully pay their tithes, they “summon the blessings of heaven upon their entire nation.”

Note the marvelous promises God gave to Israel if they would but give Him the mere tenth that is His. He challenged the people to bring their tithes to the church, and watch his promise be fulfilled. Just watch me, God said, and see how I will “open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it. And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes.”

What can we learn from these moments in history? Has this nation robbed God? How much of this economic downturn is due to consequences of unwise choices made by many people? Blessings are the result of obedience to the laws upon which they are predicated.

“Return unto me, and I will return unto you,” God told the people. When the people of a nation turn from selfishness and entitlement, and once again honor the Giver of the blessings they seek, He “returns” unto them, abundantly. Moses told the nation to “Look to God and live.”

Generations, now, have not been taught these epic stories, so the nation as a whole is being forced to learn things the hard way. The wrongs will not be righted quickly.

In the meantime, we as individuals can do something about it. Tithes and offerings will protect us and the fruits of our labors from the devourer. If we look to God, we need not fear, for we will be blessed.

Copyright © 2010 by Christine Davidson

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President Obama, Economics, and Milton Friedman

Dinner Topics for Monday: A Lesson in Economics

One sound bite is two minutes of Milton Friedman schooling Phil Donahue and his audience in greed and capitalism and virtue.  Before that, though, I want to play for you a sound bite of "Barack Hussein Obama!  Mmm!  Mmm!  Mmm!" reading the audio version of his book, The Audacity of Hope.  This is Obama talking about a sermon by Reverend Wright that moved him.(Rush Limbaugh)

OBAMA:  It is this world, a world where cruise ships throw away more food in a day than most residents of Port-au-Prince see in a year. Where white folks' greed runs a world in need. Apartheid in one hemisphere, apathy in another hemisphere. That's the world on which hope sits.

RUSH:  He was quoting Reverend Wright, and he said that's for me, man, I love that.  White folks' greed runs a world in need.  So let's go to 1979, ancient times for many of you.  We may as well be going back to the Roman Coliseum for this.  Nineteen seventy nine, I was 28.  Ancient times for many of you.  Phil Donahue interviewing Milton Friedman, and they had this exchange.  And Donahue starts off wanting to know about greed and capitalism.  Here it is.  And listen to this.

DONAHUE:  When you see around the globe the maldistribution of wealth, the desperate plight of millions of people in underdeveloped countries, when you see so few haves and so many have-nots, when you see the greed and the concentration of power, did you ever have a moment of doubt about capitalism and whether greed's a good idea to run on?

FRIEDMAN:  Well, first of all, tell me, is there some society you know that doesn't run on greed?  You think Russia doesn't run on greed?  You think China doesn't run on greed?  What is greed?  Of course none of us are greedy. It's only the other fellow who's greedy.  

The world runs on individuals pursuing their separate interests.  The great achievements of civilization have not come from government bureaus.  Einstein didn't construct his theory under order from a bureaucrat.  Henry Ford didn't revolutionize the automobile industry that way.  In the only cases in which the masses have escaped from the kind of grinding poverty you're talking about, the only cases in recorded history are where they have had capitalism and largely free trade.  If you want to know where the masses are worst off, it's exactly in the kinds of societies that depart from that. 

 So that the record of history is absolutely crystal clear that there is no alternative way, so far discovered, of improving the lot of the ordinary people that can hold a candle to the productive activities that are unleashed by a free enterprise system.

DONAHUE:  But it seems to reward not virtue as much as ability to manipulate the system.

FRIEDMAN:  And what does reward virtue?  Do you think the communist commissar rewards virtue?  Do you think  Hitler rewards virtue?  Do you think American presidents reward virtue?  Do they choose their appointees on the basis of the virtue of the people appointed or on the basis of their political clout?  Is it really true that political self-interest is nobler somehow than economic self-interest?  You know, I think you're taking a lot of things for granted.  Just tell me where in the world you find these angels who are going to organize society for us.

DONAHUE:  Well --

FRIEDMAN:  I don't even trust you to do that.

RUSH:  Milton Friedman back in 1979 schooling Phil Donahue, and everybody else who heard that on the notions of virtue and greed and just basically upsetting Phil's applecart.  Phil wasn't smart enough to know it was happening. He's still running around lamenting the accident of birth. If he'd been 30 miles south he would have grown up in poverty.  Anyway, we wanted to play that for you and recognize Milton Friedman.

Milton Friedman:  "If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in five years there will be a shortage of sand." 

 Milton Friedman:  "Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself." 

Another Milton Friedman quote:  "Most of the energy of political work is devoted to correcting the effects of mismanagement of government."  

Boy, isn't that true? Pass another law.  Government comes along and creates a program.  The program is an absolute disaster.  Government says, "That's gotta get fixed."  Government says, "Okay, we'll fix it."  And it compounds itself, one error atop another. (Rush)

Another Milton Friedman quote:  "Nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program."  

I'll tell you, the guy was great.  He was a genius.  He lived into his late eighties.  He would have been a hundred years old this week. (Rush)

President Obama Gives Green Jobs to Republic of China

Obama sends green jobs . . . to foreign countries—Mexico, Republic of China, Finland

Obama is spending $25 million on an ad to counteract this.

President Obama's stimulus spent billions of dollars to create "green jobs"--in countries like Mexico, Finland, and China.