April 27, 2011

Dear Friends and Family:  A friend and neighbor sent this to me recently and asked me to share it with you and I intern as YOU to share it as well!   Andy Looney (Joe Marino)

Congressional Reform Act of 2011


The 26th Amendment (granting the right to vote for 18 year-olds) took only 3 months & 8 days to be ratified! Why? Simple! The people demanded it. That was in 1971...before computers, before e-mail, before cell phones, etc.

Of the 27 Amendments to the Constitution, seven (7) took 1 year or less to become the law of the land...all because of public pressure.

I'm asking each addressee to forward this email to a minimum of twenty people on their address list; in turn ask each of those to do likewise.

In three days, most people in The United States of America will have the message.

This is one idea that really should be passed around.



Congressional Reform Act of 2011

1.  Term Limits.  12 years only, one of the possible options below.

A.  Two Six-year Senate terms
B.  Six Two-year House terms
C.  One Six-year Senate term and three Two-Year House terms

2.  No Tenure / No Pension.

A  Congressman collects a salary while in office and receives no pay when they are out of office.  

3.  Congress (past, present & future) participates in Social Security.

All funds in the Congressional retirement fund move to the Social Security system immediately.  All future funds flow into the Social Security system, and Congress participates with the American people.  

4.  Congress can purchase their own retirement plan, just as all Americans do.

5.  Congress will no longer vote themselves a pay raise. Congressional pay will rise by the lower of CPI or 3%.

6.  Congress loses their current health care system and participates in the same health care system as the American people.

7.  Congress must equally abide by all laws they impose on the American people.

8.  All contracts with past and present Congressmen are void effective 1/1/12.  

The American people did not make this contract with Congressmen. Congressmen made all these contracts for themselves.


Serving in Congress is an honor, not a career.  The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators; so ours should serve their term(s), then go home and back to work.  



If each person contacts a minimum of twenty people then it will only take three days for most people (in the U.S.) to receive the message. Maybe it is time..  



THIS IS HOW YOU FIX CONGRESS!!!!!  If you agree with the above, pass it on. If not, just delete.


You are one of my 20+.  Please keep it going.

WE HAVE A STALEMATE ON THE FEDERAL BUDGET

FOR 2011-12 AND

WE ARE JUST BEGINNING NEGOTIATIONS

April 13, 2011

     Two days after our government leaders settled on a budget for the last fiscal year ending on September 30, 2011, six months late, we already have reached a stalemate for this year's budget, even though we have six months to get it passed by congress.

      Today, the president made a speech about the budget, offering to reduce 4 trillion dollars off the debt in the next twelve years, when he will be lucky to be around for the next two years.  Of course, he had nothing to say about the budget which is about a billion and a half over income each year and adding that amount to the national debt each years.  Now, if he told us the government would rein in its spending to a figure that would eliminate the budget deficit each year that would mean something.  But that is not how our politicians we elected to office speak.  Four trillion dollars over the next twelve years sounds like a big figure, but when you divide it by the twelve years it is only $325 billion dollars a year, that would leave an annual deficit of more than a trillion dollars a year added to the yearly budget deficit,     therefore what president Obama was saying if you want to hear the truth is that his plans are to continue to add at least a trillion dollars a year to the yearly budget deficit.  That will raise the national debt to 26 trillion dollars in the next twelve years, close to twice what it is now.   

      Of course, budgets are voted by congress each year, not for a twelve year term.  Obama used the 4 trillion dollar figure because it sounds good, but is meaningless, and designed to confuse the issue and the truth.    

     With an annual budget of about six trillion dollars, Obama proposed cut amounts to a five percent cut in spending, when to break even the cut must be at least 20%, and that still leaves us with a national debt of close to 15 trillion dollars.     

     To eliminate the debt in twelve years it would take a cut in present spending or the yearly budget of 30%.   

     That would be impossible, even if the government eliminates all discretionary spending, because it only amounts to 10% of the annual budget,    therefore the government should cut the non discretionary spending by 20% to balance the budget and pay off the national debt in twelve years or 2024.

      Of course these figures do not consider any real increase in income for the government which should happen if the fifteen million unemployed are put back to work as soon as possible and start paying their fair share of taxes to their local and state governments, something vitally necessary to get us out of this recession.

     Of course, the democrats intend to continue to spend us into more debt while the republicans want more of the present tax breaks for big business and for the rich.

      I laugh when I hear Obama say we must eliminate the trillion dollar tax break for the rich when it was he who agreed to it last fall after the election for the next two years.  He cannot be serious at this point, even though he knows that is the only real tax increase he proposes which the republican house would never agree to.  So, he is acting political, since he has now announced his bid for re-election.

      In the meantime, gasoline and fuel oil prices are climbing to four or five dollars a gallon and our politicians do nothing, while nobody in congress or the Obama administration is planning anything real, to put our unemployed back to work, which is the only way to our economic recovery.    

     There is no question that our yearly budget should be balanced this year, which is a 20% cut across the board cut in the budget starting in October, this year.    

     That would stop the need to increase the national debt, which is just as important as balancing the budget. 

      With the events in the Middle East threatening our 40% of imported oil, we desperately need a crash program to rid us of imported oil while we put price controls on domestic oil prices to stop this gouging by our local oil companies.    

      The long overdue plan for alternative energy will put millions of unemployed American back to work in permanent jobs and that will help the economy also.

      The tax code needs to be revamped to eliminate all the loop holes, by companies setting up phony residences overseas.  Congress must stop this avoidance of taxes by passing a law that all goods produced or assembled in the USA by any company be taxed as an American company subject to our income taxes on their profits.

     The republican plan to reduce spending by 4 trillion dollars over the next ten years, is only a budget cut of 400 billion dollars a year, or a 6.5 % cut in the annual budget, a paltry and insufficient amount to reduce our annual budget debt until 2026 or fifteen years at which time it will take another 35 years or until the year 2046 to eliminate the national debt.  The trouble with this plan is that they want to keep the tax cut for the rich and put the burden on the middle class.  It has been made abundantly clear that the republicans are only interested in making the rich richer at the expense of the middle class.  It is only fair to have people who can afford to pay 3 to5 % more in taxes to pay it, they claim it is the small business man who does most of the employing.  My answer is they have had this tax cut for nine years and look at the unemployment figures they have been worsening and not improving.      They want to make the poor poorer and the rich richer and just don't care.   

      This is all unimaginable, since this 14 trillion dollar debt was incurred in eight years of the Bush administration (8 trillion) and two years of the Obama administration, (6 trillion) all of which were voted by about the two thirds of the remaining members of congress, still in office. 

      What we need is a balanced budget law something the present democrat and republican members of congress will not pass because it means severe belt tightening which is needed in the first place.   

      If we keep electing the members of the two parties who caused this problem we will never improve or economy or get the country out of the mess and debt they put the American people into. If matters continue the way they plan we will be witnessing a depression the likes of which we have never seen.

     What the American people are presently witnessing is a country, run by the two political parties and not the American people because,  just think the recent budget deal was made by the two political parties and not the representatives we elected to office who are supposed to represent us and not their political parties.  Our representatives have been reduced to sheep being corralled by dogs.  Someone, please tell me, I am wrong!  

OUR UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION IS BEING HI-JACKED AND OUR REPRESENTATIVES IN CONGRESS HAVE ALLOWED IT TO HAPPEN

April 15, 2011                   

          Do you think that the U.S. Constitution provides for the sitting president and the leaders of both political parties sitting in the House and Senate to settle on a yearly budget for the U.S. Government?

          The last time I read Article 1 (Legislative Department), Section 7, (mode of passing laws) Subsection A, (revenue bills) it read, "all bills for raising revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives, but the Senate may propose or concur with Amendments, as on other bills".

          It is obvious to me and others who are the least bit interested, that the power of the U.S. House of Representatives has been usurped by Republican House Speaker John Boehner, Senate President, Democrat Harry Reid, and President Obama regarding the 2010 - 20111 budget last week, while the House of Representatives and the Senate Members obediently rubber stamped the agreement yesterday without comment or argument and sent it to the president for his certain signature.  Only a few intelligent members of congress rightly refused to vote for it.

          The sad commentary is, that the present 400 odd  members of the U. S. House and the 100 members of the U. S. Senate, allowed this to happen because they are controlled, body and soul, by their political parties and not the American people they are bound by law to represent.

          This is not what our founding fathers specifically provided for when they passed our constitution and this is a slap in the face of the American people's right to be represented in the matter.

          To make matter worse, the men who made that deal for the present budget year used smoke and mirrors to make the budget appear to shed 38.5 billion dollars when in fact those items were scheduled to expire anyway.    Therefore our representatives who have never read a bill before it is voted on, were hoodwinked into believing the budget was reduced when in fact it was not.  This is not unusual because for the last two plus years, the bank bailout bill under President Bush and the stimulus bill under president Obama were presented to the members of congress only within a few hours of their vote and no one had time to read their contents.  Of course, the fault lays with the congressmen not the political party leaders who led them like sheep to their slaughter, like obedient members of their party.

          It is also obvious, that both party leaders and most congressmen do not really want to lower the budget for political reasons of power and their re-election.

          When you hear the talk about a 4 trillion dollar reduction in the budget over ten or twelve years, everyone should realize these figures are a drop in the bucket of what should be cut in order to save this country from financial ruin in the not too distant future, because under both parties plan for the next budget, a trillion dollar yearly deficit will be added to our debt.    So, someone please show me, where the debt reduction will take place instead of the increase I claim?   

          When congressmen, continually take their orders from their political parties and not the American people in their districts or state, the American people have been robbed of their rights under the constitution, these congressmen took the oath of office to defend.

          The time has come, after ten years of fiscal ruin, committed by the members of both parties in congress and the White House, to "throw the bums out" and replace them with independent congressmen who will naturally owe their allegiance only to the American people and not any political party whose only interests are to perpetuate their power of control over the government.

          If the American people fail to do this in future elections, then, they deserve what they have been receiving for the last ten years and more.

          It is time for the American people to take back control of their country and destiny, before it is too late to save it.   

THE U. S. CONGRESS IS SO DYSFUNCTIONAL

 IT CANNOT PASS A BUDGET

DON'T BE STUPID, VOTE INDEPENDENT

April 9, 2011

       The U. S. Budget to run our government for the fiscal year from 10/01/ 2010 to 10/01/2011 has not been agreed upon by congress for more than six months.  Last night our supposed leaders of both parties claimed they have reached an agreement at about 11:00 pm, an hour before the government was scheduled to shut down.

       When the democrats had the majority, in 2010, they could have passed a budget but did not.  Now that the republicans control the House of Representatives; they have tried since January to pass a budget, but also failed, more because of ideological reasons than fiscal ones.

     For the last ten years, this country has become a laughing stock of every nation of the world. Every day, the members of congress have been driven by their party bosses to act politically instead of what is best for the American people they represent.  All this, is the prime example of what is wrong with our political system.  Every day, every action by members of our congress is based on what is best for their party and ideology than being practical when they are in the minority and making the best of the power the have rather than to threaten to shut down the government so they can threaten their way to the brink.  This is another prime example of why our congress members, get nothing done to help the unemployment problem, balance of trade, health care, social security, the unbalanced budget and the huge debt of 14 trillion dollars these congressmen have voted us into.  Not one of them has any plan to correct any of the problems that need fixing now, not later. All they can do is bicker and argue, while the country needs help desperately.

       Since this has been the case in our government for the last decade at least, the stupid American people keep electing one political party after another from democrats to republican in the hope matters will change but in reality, they cannot because our two main political parties are really in control, witness that this deal was made between the political party, and not the vote of congressmen charged with this responsibility who should be acting on behalf of the American people who they are supposed to represent.

      All they are interested in doing is defeating the other party and they are so consumed by this mission they are not serving the American people in their hour of need.

      Politics do not belong in the operation of our government nor do political considerations.  Once elected the congressmen in Washington represent all the American people in their district, state or country.  It is their collective needs that need addressing, regardless of their party affiliation.  That is what is wrong with our government today.  If we continue to elect one political party member or another forever, nothing will change.  That is why I call the American people stupid, because they replace democrats with republicans and vice versa and nothing really changes except for the worse.  The American people are stupid not to take an interest in what is happening in their country.  If they do not take an active interest as our forefathers did in 1776, this country will not exist in another decade of politics as usual.

      What this country needs is a revolution at the polls, never vote for a democrat or republican again for office, and vote for any independent voter who promises to vote in the best interests of the American people instead of any political party, ideology, whether conservative of liberal. 

     The needs of the American people, as a whole, come first and foremost.     You will all remain as stupid as the politicians you elect, if you don't stop electing and re-electing them.  This is the only change you will ever need to make to have your representatives finally work in the interest of all the American people.

 Ask you current representative the following question:  

    "Ask not, what you can do for your political party.

SOMETIMES YOU ARE DAMMED IF YOU DO AND DAMMED IF YOU DON'T

March 29, 2011

            Many American people, including democrats, republicans, are damning President Obama as a result of his actions concerning Libya and the obvious civil war there against the tyrannical dictator Gadhafi.

  Some people, like Rush Limbaugh say we have no interest to protect there so we should never interfere in the internal affairs of Libya or any other country.  Of course there is some truth in that statement if, you look at that situation in a strict legal way.

            Next, there are those with  an opposite view, that say we should  have been involved from the beginning supporting this justified revolution of the masses against a dictatorial madman who has suppressed his people for more than forty years.  He is one of the first national terrorists who arranged the bombing of that pan am flight over Scotland with a loss of hundreds of innocent Americans on board.  Now he is using his own people as shields to protect himself like the American Revolution, we have a duty to help others, who want to be free, especially a country comprising of a majority of Muslims who may be persuaded to become terrorists if we turn our backs on them and not help them in their hour of need.  This is America's opportunity to win them over by our intervention on the side of the people and democracy in the Middle East, an opportunity we must not let slip by, in the interest of democracy and freedom for all.

            Then we have most republicans and a few democrats who sat on the fence and said nothing until President Obama acted and finally came to the aid of these poor people when they were fired upon by the government and killed, because of their demonstrations for freedom.  Now, they damn the president for intervening and demand to know the "strategy, the cost and how long it will take to free these people?"  Their actions are purely political because anyone knows it will be a matter of days if we intervene and never if we don't.  The politics is that they want Obama to fail in this effort and thus the people to fail.

            The intervention of the United Nations under the 1973 vote of sanctions against Libya and also with the approval of the Arab league for the establishment of a no fly zone and aid to prevent Gadhafi from killing and maiming his own people came seemingly as a last minute attempt to stop Gadhafi from putting down this so called insurrection against him as a malevolent ruler, seems to have turned the tide and wrested victory from the jaws of defeat.  This action has finally pushed the republican party members and a few democrats of our government off the fence they were sitting on, so disinterested not to say a word, until President Obama acted on the UN resolution and then, they feel they have a reason to attack Obama for starting a war without the supposed vote of congress, this move by the republicans is so distasteful, it smells rotten and political instead of patriotic and American.  They are so intent on defeating the president in his run for re-election in 2012, they cannot wait for the campaign, and they must attack him at every move just because he is acting as our president as he is expected to do.  This is shameful and un-American.

            There is no question our president is acting under the powers given him by congress and the constitution and the sad fact is that the republicans know that but instead want to make political hay out of a noble cause for freedom by the subjugated people of Libya who would certainly lose the fight for freedom and any remaining respect for America and the American people.  There is more reason to help these people to dethrone Gadhafi, than President Bush had to invade Iraq.  For the last eight years President Bush's goal was to establish a democratic nation in Iraq.  With the Sunnis and Shiites renewing their religious war between them as our troops leave, there is less chance for a real democratic country being established in the Middle East in Iraq than in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia or any other rebelling country.

            What we are witnessing in these Muslim countries is a rare opportunity to win the hearts and minds of these oppressed people by their own governments.  If we fail to help them now, they certainly will fail and continue to hate us, just like the people of Israel whom they have unjustly hated for thousands of years.  When people of the world, cry out for freedom, we the people of the U. S. A. have a solemn obligation, as free Americans, to help them, if we value our own freedom.  Remember the words of President John F. Kennedy, "We will fight any fight and pay any price, for the cause of freedom."   The time has come to stand up for the cause of freedom wherever we, as Americans can help and ignore the political rhetoric.

            This is not Obama's fight; it is the fight of the American people, in the cause for justice for all people.