Stimulus Bill: the latest receipt on Wasteful Spending

As we close in on the election, I’ve noticed Democrats aren’t touting their February 2009 Stimulus Bill, which as revised by the Congressional Budget Office, cost $862 billion.
In December 2009, the LA Times reported $157,8 billion in stimulus funds had been spent to save 640,320 jobs. Wow, that’s only $246,346 per job!
Woohoo! We redirected, borrowed, or printed nearly $250,000 to save a job.
Isn’t the government efficient?
In October of 2009 the government released the data that the “average payroll employee (for October 2009) was $59,867. The government spends FOUR TIMES the average salary to “Create a Job”. Using their ridiculous figures and the average payroll – that would have been 2.4 million jobs.
So this was the recent headline:
NIH, spent $823,200 of economic stimulus funds in 2009 on a study by a UCLA research team to teach uncircumcised African men how to wash their genitals after having sex. (read http://deskofbrian.com/2010/09/how-have-we-spent-the-stimulus-823000-went-to-african-genital-washing-program/)
Let’s review what we’ve spent some of this money on…
Mapping Radioactive Rabbit Feces                                                       $300,000
University of Hawaii: Honey Bee Study                                               $210,000
Oregon Fishermen:Lost Crab Pot Recovery                                      $700,000
Mark Penn (repay Hillary Clinton campaign debt)                       $5,970,000
Univ. of Arizona/Ariz State: Ant Research                                          $970,000
Connecticut insect research                                                                    $2,300,000
Duluth, Minn. Snow Making Facility (15th in yearly snowfall)       $6 million
Minn. (Heart of Beast) socially conscious Puppet Show                   $100,000
Penn State fossil research in Argentina                                               $1,570,000
Lockheed Martin: study supersonic corporate Jet                        $4,700,000
Washington State visitor center(closed in 2007) repairs                 $554,763
National Institute of Health:study college students sex lives          $219,000
California College students to poll African election patterns          $230,000
Study how cocaine effects monkeys’ brains                                             $147,000
Study on ‘Why Young Men Don’t Like Condoms’                                    $221,000
Tennessee Mall: Geothermal heating (mall’s nearly empty)        $5,000,000
Study Buffalo, NY residents’ drinking habits                                          $400,000
Boynton, Oklahoma: replace 5 year old sidewalks                                  $90,000
Sunset Strip renovation                                                                                $1,000,000
Lancaster, PA Train Station(not used for decades) Renovation   $9.38 million
Facebook privacy study                                                                                  $498,000
Turtle Tunnel in Tallahassee, Florida                                                     $3,400,000
Wichita, Kansas: Spay and Neuter pets                                               $380,000 – this includes an undisclosed amount for roads as well
Georgia Tech University study on improvised music                      $762,372
“Dance Draw” – UNC: Charlotte (interactive dance)                           $750,000
Land purchase Arizona and Colorado Spring Training Facilities    $30 Million
Connecticut WNBA team’s practice facility                                             $50 million
Light rail tunnel under the Allegheny River in Pittsburgh              $62.5 million
Fire Stations in San Antonio (2 stations)                                                  $73 million

Read more: http://deskofbrian.com/2010/09/stimulus-bill-the-latest-receipt-on-wasteful-spending/

www.DeskofBrian.com

Judge Napolitano: Supreme Court may save us from Obamacare...someday

Originally posted at The Desk of Brian, www.deskofbrian.com: http://sites.google.com/site/thedeskofbrian/state-of-the-nation/untitledpost-2

Newsmax released Judge Andrew P. Napolitano's interview with Ashley Martella

"The Constitution does not authorize the Congress to regulate the state governments. Nevertheless, in this piece of legislation, the Congress has told the state governments that they must modify their regulation of certain areas of healthcare, they must surrender their regulation of other areas of healthcare, and they must spend state taxpayer-generated dollars in a way that the Congress wants it done.

"That's called commandeering the legislature. That's the Congress taking away the discretion of the legislature with respect to regulation, and spending taxpayer dollars. That's prohibited in a couple of Supreme Court cases. So on that argument, the attorneys general have a pretty strong case and I think they will prevail.”

Napolitano on the longstanding precedent of state regulation of the healthcare industry makes the new federal regulations that much more problematic:

"The Supreme Court has ruled that in areas of human behavior that are not delegated to the Congress in the Constitution, and that have been traditionally regulated by the states, the Congress can't simply move in there and the states for 230 years have had near exclusive regulation over the delivery of healthcare. The states license hospitals. The states license medications. The states license healthcare providers whether they're doctors, nurses, or pharmacists. The feds have had nothing to do with it.

"The Congress can't simply wake up one day and decide that it wants to regulate this. I predict that the Supreme Court will invalidate major portions of what the president just signed into law…"

The judge also says he would rate President Obama as one of the worst presidents in terms of obedience to constitutional limitations.

"I believe we have a one party system in this country, called the big-government party. There is a Republican branch that likes war and deficits and assaulting civil liberties. There is a Democratic branch that likes welfare and taxes and assaulting commercial liberties.

"President Obama obviously is squarely within the Democratic branch. The president who had the least fidelity to the Constitution was Abraham Lincoln, who waged war on half the country, even though there's obviously no authority for that, a war that killed nearly 700,000 people. President Obama is close to that end of lacking fidelity to the Constitution. He wants to outdo his hero FDR."

For those who oppose healthcare, the Fox legal expert says, the bad news is that many of the legal challenges to healthcare reform will have to wait until 2014, when the changes become fully operational.

Until then, there would be no legal case that individuals had been actually harmed by the law. Moreover, Napolitano says it takes an average of four years for a case to work its way through the various federal courts the final hearing that's expected to come before the Supreme Court.

"You're talking about 2018, which is eight years from now, before it is likely the Supreme Court will hear this," he says.

Other issues that Napolitano addressed during the wide-ranging interview:

• He believes American is in danger of becoming "a fascist country," which he defines as "private ownership, but government control." He adds, "The government doesn't have the money to own anything. But it has the force and the threat of violence to control just about anything it wants. That will rapidly expand under President Obama, unless and until the midterm elections give us a midterm correction – which everyone seems to think, and I'm in that group, is about to come our way.
• Napolitano believes the federal government lacks the legal authority to order citizens to purchase healthcare insurance. The Congress [is] ordering human beings to purchase something that they might not want, might not need, might not be able to afford, and might not want -- that's never happened in our history before," Napolitano says. "My gut tells me that too is unconstitutional, because the Congress doesn't have that kind of power under the Constitution."
• The sweetheart deals in the healthcare reform bill used that persuaded Democrats to vote for it – the Louisiana Purchase, Cornhusker Kickback, Gatorade Exception and others – create "a very unique and tricky constitutional problem" for Democrats, because they treat citizens differently based on which state they live in, running afoul of the Constitution's equal protection clause according to Napolitano. "So these bennies or bribes, whatever you want, or horse trading as it used to be called, clearly violate equal protection by forcing people in the other states to pay the bills of the states that don't have to pay what the rest of us do," Napolitano says.
• Exempting union members from the so-called "Cadillac tax" on expensive health insurance policies, while imposing that tax on other citizens, is outright discrimination according to Napolitano. "The government cannot draw a bright line, with fidelity to the Constitution and the law, on the one side of which everybody pays, and the other side of which some people pay. It can't say, 'Here's a tax, but we're only going to apply it to nonunion people. Here's a tax, and we're only going to apply it to graduates of Ivy League institutions.' The Constitution does not permit that type of discrimination."
• Politicians from both parties routinely disregard the Constitutional limits imposed on them by the nation's founding document, Napolitano says. "The problem with the Constitution is not any structural problem," says Napolitano. "The problem with the constitution is that those who take an oath to uphold it don't take their oath seriously. For example, just a month ago in interviewing Congressman Jim Clyburn, who's the No. 3 ranking Democrat in the House, I said to him, Congressman Clyburn, can you tell me where in the Constitution the Congress is authorized to regulate healthcare? He said, 'Judge, most of what we do down here,' referring to Washington, 'is not authorized by the Constitution. Can you tell me where in the Constitution we're prohibited from regulating healthcare.' Napolitano says that reflects a misunderstanding of what the Constitution actually is. "He's turning the Constitution on its head, because Congress is not a general legislature," he says. "It was not created in order to right every wrong. It exists only to legislate in the 17 specific, discrete, unique areas where the Constitution has given it power. All other areas of human area are reserved for the states."
• Napolitano says that members of Congress infringe on Constitutional rights because they fail to recognize its basis. "They reject Jefferson's argument, in the Declaration of Independence, that our rights come from our Creator, therefore they're natural rights, therefore they can't be legislated away," Napolitano says. "They think they can legislate on any activity, regulate any behavior, tax any person or thing, as long as the politics will let them survive. They're wrong, and with this healthcare legislation, they may be proven wrong, in a very direct and in-your-face way."

http://newsmax.com/Headline/Andrew-Napolitano-barack-obama/2010/03/26/id/354008?s=al&promo_code=9A73-1

2009 Year End Review

Do you recognize the country from a year ago? Will you recognize America a year from now?

If I would have told you last year at this time that the government would own General Motors, Chrysler, many of the banks and financial institutions and AIG, that they would fire the CEOs, that they would threaten the banks, that they would shut them down unless they would take bailout money, that they would hire good people for places like AIG and pay them a dollar to fix the problem, a dollar a year, these people would volunteer; but they would also promise them, the government would, that they would promise them bonuses if they would just work for that dollar a year to fix the problem.

When that year came up, they would not give them that bonus, they would vilify them, send their minions (SEIU) out to protest in front of their homes for even wanting the bonus that they were promised by the government and then people in Washington would then set out to have a specific tax drawn up to penalize these people, would you have believed it?

Not only would the government take over GM, fire the first guy, the President of the United States would fire a second CEO (their hand picked replacement) but the third GM CEO under Barack Obama's term, and no one in the media would report that this guy is the man who helped the Chief of Staff (Rahm Emanuel) make $16 million in one deal.

In government structured bailouts, bondholders would lose their legal status and their investments in favor of labor union payoffs and the courts wouldn’t protect the bondholders. Citizens could lose your home and property through eminent domain and eminent domain would expand in staggering ways. California would decide to levy a 10% tax on its people and insist it's not a tax; it's just a forced loan and they (State of California) would issue IOUs instead of state tax refunds. New York would admit by the end of the year they would be broke so the State of New York would issue retroactive taxes. A tax fund for the poorest of Americans (from the Stimulus Bill) would not really be a tax refund (as issued) – instead, those poorest of Americans, would find out many months later that they had to pay income tax on that tax refund – would you have believed it?

That a job creating stimulus bill would be written, not read by congress, but not even written by congress -- it would be co-written by the Apollo Alliance, a special interest group whose New York chief was a co-founder of the Weather Underground and no one would care! $5-7 million of that Stimulus, taxpayer money, would be used to payoff Hillary Clinton’s campaign debt to complete the deal struck by the President, this under the guise of saving jobs.

If I told you we're going to lose 4 million jobs and the media would report that the White House has created or saved a million jobs even though on their website, Recovery.gov (a $20 million redesigned website) would show that a good portion of these jobs were in about 400 districts that don't even exist – would you have believed it? That they would hold a job summit and not invite the Chamber of Commerce

If I told you a year ago when gold was about $800 an ounce that it would be at $1200 an ounce, would you have believed it? That Dubai which a year ago was bailing out our banks would be on the edge of bankruptcy. That the chief of the treasury, who oversees the IRS, cheated on his taxes (as would almost everyone else in the cabinet) and month after month we are told, by those same tax evaders, that the economy is healing or recovering even though unemployment soars over 10% (nearly 16% for blacks) and the dollar begins to collapse. Bank of America and Citibank would report profits while still owing 40B and 50B in TARP funds. The ridiculous deficit from the previous administration would be quadrupled to record levels in just one year and the plan for 2010 is a 12-18% increase in spending. In fact, as 2009 rings to a close, Congress will submit a $1.1 trillion spending bill.

If I had told you these things a year ago, would you have believed me? Will you recognize America a year from now?

The number of czars would escalate to over 35, one would be a 9/11 Truther, a guy who believes the United States government blew up the World Trade Center, a self avowed communist, who preached police hatred while in prison, and who defended a guy who shot a cop in the head from point blank range, if I said he would be a high level advisor to the president of the United States, would you have believed it?

What if you were told that our science czar (John Holdren) would be someone who called for forced abortions and sterilization through the drinking water, who said that the redistribution of wealth would be necessary and it would happen through the environmental movement. That there would be a diversity czar at the FCC (Mark Lloyd) and he would say Americans have to decide soon which Americans would have to step down from their positions in order to give others a chance, that this same man said the revolution in Venezuela was incredible and that we should model our FCC and our programs after Venezuela and the revolution.

If I would have told you that the most frequent visitor of the White House, over the Secretary of State and the czars, is a labor union president who has repeatedly said workers of the world unite; and we know we've got a lot of illegal members, illegal aliens in our membership, but we also represent American workers -- that he would be the most frequent visitor at the White House, would you have believed it?

What if I told you a year ago that members of ACORN, would face voter fraud charges in nearly two dozen states, ACORN would be videotaped, not by a journalist but a citizen, assisting in tax evasion, prostitution rings and child exploitation and there’d be no backlash against the administration, former members of ACORN and the decision to cut ACORN’s federal funding would be contested in court.

If I had told you these things a year ago, would you have believed me?

What if I told you that a U.S. congressman would tell the American people that it's unreasonable to expect people in congress to read bills, and he would say that because our congress would pass two bills over 1,000 pages, that no one in congress had read -- one of them was over 2,000 pages – would you have believed it?

That people in congress would openly be praising Castro, Chavez, that the president would receive an anti-American book and a photo op from Hugo Chavez and then he would have a one-hour private meeting with Vladimir Putin where Putin claims he “taught” the president the history of the Cold War. Would have believed that our Secretary of State would meet with the Russian leadership with a metaphoric “Reset” button, but erroneously use the Russian word for “escalate” instead of reset?

Would you have believed that the President of the EU would say that 2009 was the year of establishing a global government through the EU and that the climate change treaty would be the next step in one world government, that there would be a call for the end of the dollar as the world's reserve currency by several massive countries and that the leader of Russia would hold up a coin in front of the cameras and say here's a prototype of the new global currency – could you have believed it?

If I told you that the symbol of capitalism, the Empire State building, would be lit in colors of communist China, that the President would make appearances on David Letterman but couldn’t find time to meet with the Dalai Lama or that petitioning for the Olympics would take precedent over meeting with his appointed general in the war in Afghanistan.

Would you have believed that it would be Michael Moore, not Code Pink or Cindy Sheehan that would challenge the President, label him the “War President”, when he agreed to ad troops to the Afghanistan War? This coming after hand picking a General for leadership, dithering for months before making that decision to increase troops not withdraw. This announced escalation would come within days of the President receiving the Noble Peace Prize – would you have believed it?

Would these things sound impossible a year ago?

Would you have believed that our president would give an iPod of his speeches to the queen of England or that he would return the bust of Winston Churchill, which was a gift from the people of England after September 11th? Our President’s gift to the British Prime Minister was a set of DVDs (American Classics), but those discs wouldn’t even work because they were the wrong region – would you have believed it?

If I said the President would come out in a speech and announce that although he didn’t have all the information, but the cops acted stupidly because they caught a his friend apparently breaking into his own home. The cops didn't act stupidly, they just did their job and the President would NEVER apologize, instead he would invite them all for a beer summit and use it as a learning experience about diversity, would you believe it?

That Air Force and two fighters would be the subject of a photo over New York, scaring the residents and costing tax payers over $350,000 or that the President would play more golf than the previous President (who always seemed to be on vacation) did in 2 ½ years – would you have believed that?

What will America face next year?

That the U.S. would have a two-day summit to discuss the role of government in journalism and be discussing a government takeover of journalism but no journalist would actually report on that. Several members of the White House staff and the President would speak out against a major news network, even declaring “War on” this network without any outcry from the other networks.

That public school children would be taught songs promoting the President and his policies and that the media would dismiss it, that the President address those school kids, asking for their support through an essay assignment or that the National Endowment of the Arts would organize artists to develop various forms of art (propaganda) to promote the President’s policies – would you have believed it?

That the global warming hockey stick chart would be discredited, as would its founder, along with another leader of the global climate change movement who manipulated data, deleted e-mails and information to avoid Freedom of Information Act, that these same scientists would do everything they could to discredit the peer review process to make sure it remained pure for their ideological purposes, and yet the media wouldn't report on it and we'd still be headed to Copenhagen with a President the who was going to present a 17% reduction in carbon. Would you have believed it?

Healthcare would be at 36% approval rating, which is lower than Hillary Care, but that those in congress and the White House would still be jamming it down your throats. Congress would vote to federally cover abortions while demanding insurance companies spend 90% of the premiums on coverage. Would you believe that the Senate majority leader would compare opposition to healthcare reform to slavery? The deciding vote in the Senate would be held on a Sunday 1:30 am…

If I had told you these things a year ago, could you have believed me?

If I told you that there would be hundreds of thousands of Americans gathered in peaceful protest in a National Mall in D.C. and the media would not only dismiss them but the government, the president and the media would deem them a danger to the United States. Homeland security would include former veterans and people apposed to abortion on the same watch list as terrorists. Would you have believed that an American shock jock, guilty only of free speech, would be banned from Britain with other terrorists and criminals – and no one would come to his defense?

That two uninvited people could get into the White House state dinner, chat with the President, be near the prime minister of the largest democracy on the planet and that the response from the White House would dismiss the incident and proclaim to do a better job with security.

If I would have told you that there would be a Muslim terrorist and that he would shoot and killed soldiers at Fort Hood, would you have believed it? If I told you then that, yes, the president will make a statement but he will spend two minutes prior to giving a “shout out” and talking about the conference he had with the American Indian organization, would you have believed it? If I then told you after that two minutes he would then say then, oh, and also there's been a shooting of our military but let's not jump to conclusions. And then his Homeland Security director would be over in the Middle East and she would say, don't worry, we're working on things to stop the violence against Muslims in America, would you have believed it?

What if I told you that we paid another country their entire years GDP to take 11 prisoners from the Gitmo prison and then Attorney General’s office would move the most extreme 5 terrorists, including the mastermind of 9/11, to New York city to stand trial? The Attorney General Eric Holder would proclaim that we would prosecute these terrorists to the full extent of the law, but that this is the same AG whose firm defended the Gitmo prisoners, filing lawsuit after lawsuit trying to protect their civil rights – could you have believed it?

Looking at that list, do you recognize the country that you live in? Is this the same country that you lived in a year ago?

I don't think so. I don't recognize it.

I can be wrong on an awful lot of things, but when will people in this country, when will the media, at least question the direction of our country and the one this President keeps laying out.

I began writing a year end list of different incidents and was inspired by a Glenn Beck rant which I incorporated into this theme. If I had told you that Glenn Beck would be on the cover of TIME magazine, listed as one of the most fascinating people of 2009, you’d be asking what the heck happened – wouldn’t you?

I know I am.

Wasteful spending: Bees, Crabs oh boy

Read "State of the Nation" at www.DeskofBrian.com:
http://deskofbrian.com/2010/09/stimulus-wasteful-spending-bees-crabs-and-hillary-oh-my/

Previously on "Wasteful Spending" we examined nearly $1 million for research on ants to save 3.5 jobs.

The University of Hawaii collected $210,000 to study the learning patterns of honeybees (no mention of jobs) and $700,000 went to help crab fishermen in Oregon recover lost crab pots. See the press release below:

Recovering Crab Pots Lost At Sea ($700,000)

A $700,000 grant will pay for 48 people to help Oregon crabbers recover crab pots they have lost at sea. The two-year project expects to yield 2,000 lost pots a year. Oregon crabbers reportedly lose an estimated 15,000 crab pots a year. The effort will use 10 boats, planes, and a telephone hotline for people to phone in crab pot sightings. If all 4,000 pots are recovered as expected, the grantees will spend an average of $175 per crab pot, though John‘s Sporting Goods in nearby Everett, Washington sells new crab pots online for as little as $19.95. At that price, crabbers could purchase nearly ten times as many crab pots as this program is expected to reclaim.¹

Let's repeat that last line:

"At that price, crabbers could purchase nearly ten times as many crab pots as this program is expected to reclaim"

AND that money would go to a business which could hire more people and that would have required ZERO tax payer dollars. There is no mention of jobs created or saved by the crab pot recovery program.

950,000 ant research
210,000 honeybee research
700,000 crab pot recovery
5.97 million to Mark Penn (repayment of Hillary Clinton's campaign debts)

TOTAL = 7.83 million (only 3.5 jobs confirmed to be saved/created)

Isn't this fun class?



1. http://oregonbusinessreport.com/2009/12/senators-blast-oregon-for-stimulus-waste-projects/

Wasteful Spending - $950,000 to Study Ants

 
 Read "State of the Nation" at www.DeskofBrian.com: this article is here -
http://deskofbrian.com/2009/12/stimulus-wasteful-spending-ants-puppet-show-bobber-the-safety-dog/

Remember the first 1,000 page bill that no one in Washington read? The one that Congress didn't even author as it was later revealed that Apollo Alliance drew up.

Here's a little nugget to make your brain hurt: nearly $1 million is to be spent on Ant Research.

From the article below:

"In exchange for the $950,000, Arizona gets two jobs at ASU and 1.46 at the UA, according to a database of stimulus spending released at the end of October by the federal government.

The ant studies have the ignominious distinction of joining a $25,000 grant for socially conscious puppet shows, an $88,000 Georgia paving project for a street already recently repaved, and a $21,000 grant for "Bobber the Safety Dog" costumes to help kids understand the importance of wearing life vests."

It's so easy to get sidetracked, so let's stay focused: almost $1 million for 3.5 jobs.

Do you feel like you've just bought hundreds of $300 hammers and a few dozen over priced toilet seats?











http://www.azstarnet.com/dailystar/320710

ACORN singled out? Federal funding protected

From the judge ruling on ACORN's lawsuit to protect their federal funding:

Judge Nina Gershon:

"[The plaintiffs] have been singled out by Congress for punishment that directly and immediately affects their ability to continue to obtain federal funding, in the absence of any judicial, or even administrative, process of adjudicating guilt"

"The public will not suffer harm by allowing the plaintiffs to continue work on contracts duly awarded by federal agencies, which was stopped solely by reason of [the ban]"

The public will NOT suffer harm?

ACORN workers were captured in several different locations assisting individuals with tax fraud, tax evasions, sheltering prostitute, obtaining a mortgage for a brothel and trafficking of illegal aliens.

Do you feel as though the public could be harmed by any of those things?
This was my earlier
blog but you can easily find the ACORN videos which captured these illegal acts.

During the McCarthy era, Congress enacted legislation prohibiting the use of funds to pay the salaries of three federal employees who Congress deemed subversive. The Supreme Court ruled this legislation unconstitutional as a Bill of Attainder.

Subversive...illegal...ACORN is getting paid.

"Today's ruling is a victory for the constitutional rights for all Americans and for the citizens who work through ACORN to improve their communities and promote responsible lending and homeownership," ACORN CEO Bertha Lewis said in a statement.

Yes it is Constitutional to protect you from Congress deeming you "subversive" or otherwise. We need to pressure Congress to investigate and prosecute ACORN and NEVER, EVER give them an dime of Federal funds again.

I'll add here that I've heard two separate news reports and both misrepresented the case and purpose of the Congressional injunction. This is not a right-wing attack on ACORN for being leftist, ideological or an activist -- there are illegal activities and crimes being committed by ACORN staff with our tax dollars.

Freedom Index: Tally & Scoreboard for Congressional Constitutional Voting

A Constitutional Scorecard presented by the NewAmerican.com evaluates the House and Senate on their votes according to strict Constitutional analysis.

The detailed index lists different votes such as the TARP bill, Stimulus bill, hate crime bill and others.

The Freedom Index describes their scope as "a Congressional Scorecard Based on the
U.S. Constitution” rates congressmen based on their adherence to constitutional principles of limited government, fiscal responsibility, national sovereignty, and a traditional foreign policy of avoiding foreign entanglements."

Limited Government? Fiscal Responsibility? Sovereignty?

This is a foreign language in Washington over the last couple of decades (arguably, over the last century) and the results shouldn't surprise anyone.

Perfect scores: John Duncan (R-TN), Jeff Flake(R-AZ), and Ron Paul (R-TX) all in the House and in the Senate, Tom Coburn (R-OK).

For many, the result was "0" - ZERO, nada.

Recently House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was challenged on the Federal Government's Health care intrusion and mandate. Pelosi just dismissed the question: "Are you serious? Are you serious?"

Yes I believe Americans are serious. The Constitution is serious and it's ashame that Washington doesn't hold it in that same regard.


http://www.thenewamerican.com/files/Freedom_Index_111-1.pdf

Real Change: Chain E-Mail Should Still Ring Loud and Clear

October 21, 2008 Norma White wrote a guest column on the Armarillo discussing the REAL CHANGE most Americans seek.

"Hope and Change" hasn't exactly gone as many voters anticipated. The hollow rhetoric from both parties has resulted in Townhall outrage and protests over the last several months.

Recently the Norma White circulated through the mass chain e-mails (thanks to Brian for re-sending this my way) and her words still ring loud - or should:

- Limit Congress from serving more than two terms. That is all that presidents are allowed.

- Stop Congress from voting for their own raises. How did that ever get started?

- Stop paying for lawmakers' high-priced insurance premiums. After all, they are only part-time employees. They might pass some law changes on the insurance companies, if they had to find one.

- Stop paying lawmakers their full salary after serving just one term, or at retirement. We need to get rid of that pension plan; they've let other companies get rid of theirs. You were lucky to get 40 to 50 percent of your salary after working somewhere for 35 years, but they get 100 percent.

- Make Congress pay into the Social Security system. They make laws for it. If they spent some of their own money, they might be interested in making it solvent.

- Stop handing out aid to illegal aliens. If we did, then Medicaid and the food stamp program would have enough money to aid the aged and the poor.

- Secure our borders.

- Stop allowing babies born to illegal aliens in the United States automatic U.S. citizenship.

- Stop the abuse of our benevolent welfare system. We feed children free meals three times a day until they are 17. Churches give away good, clean clothes. Companies buy and donate school supplies. Emergency rooms provide health care at taxpayer expense and the food stamp program is buying food at home. What are parents doing for their children?

- Have a computer program that cross checks Social Security numbers with fingerprints to stop fraud on many fronts. Use it on voter registration, too.

- Stop bailing out mortgage companies and banks that give loans to people who cannot afford them.

- Stop companies from paying CEOs and other executives outrageous salaries and bonuses while doing away with workers' pensions.

- Stop all unnecessary spending so we will have the money for our nation's security, and to help needy and elderly Americans.

- Stop permitting anyone to have a photo with their face covered on driver's licenses.

Norma pointed out the most obvious aspect of Presidential election: it was up to Congress to make these changes, not the White House. If John McCain would have won, would things be that different? Would Congress have made "changes" as Norma White suggests or those that would have perpetuated their power and greed?

The real "Hope and Change" is the Norma White way. Not perfect, problematic to some, but better than Washington's version.