Dear Mr. President,
I would like to congratulate you on your historic victory as the first African-American President. I'm not, as I'm sure you are not, under any false pretenses that however historic and cathartic your election truly is,the unprecedented aspects of your ethnic origins and the Presidency will only carry you so far. I wish you Godspeed.
At a recent appearance in Arnold,Mo, you appeared to extend an olive branch to those of us that felt compelled to attend "tea party" rallies,that by and large,represented Americans,from All walks of life coming together to let our voice be heard as to how we feel about the ever increasing size of the government. No matter how dismissive some took your comments to be, I personally would like to start the serious conversation you stated you would like to engage us in.
You asked of us,"the ones waving tea bags around" how we would address healthcare cost,essentially while needing to balance budgets and fund the government.You also say we are worried about you spending trillions of dollars and creating deficits and you ,once again ,took the opportunity to remind us that you "inherited" $1.3 trillion in deficits from the previous administration. Mr.President let me assure you that we are aware that you have been in office for 100 days and the economy was in poor shape when you took office.You went on to tell us that "we need to tighten our belts" and the Bush policies of "more tax cuts for the wealthy" wouldn't achieve our objective.You said" We tried that and it didn't work".
Now we come to the part where I hope you are genuine in your assertion that you are open to a serious conversation about curing our economic woes. Those of us that "were waving tea bags around" are democrats and republicans and understand how our government is supposed to work,most importantly,we pay attention to the facts and have watched our government grow under the past 3 administrations.I admit until you took office and took government spending to a crisis level,most of us were content just living our lives and contributing to the economy in our own ways. Since you signed the Recovery Act and the Budget ,several hundred thousand of us felt compelled to come together and say "enough".
Mr.President,with all due respect, I feel I need to correct your facts on a few issues.Tax cuts in no way had a negative impact on our economy. In fact most economist agree that the tax cuts were the engine still driving a vibrant economy after the devastation of the 9/11 attacks. Yes President Bush created deficits but,I'm sure you know,he was faced with rebuilding a military that President Clinton had cut by a third,while the American people were demanding action against terrorism.I'm sure,as you have indicated,that you are impressed with the military President Bush left for you.You know as well as I do,what caused the economic crisis.That's why I am always bewildered by some of your assertions about tax cuts and policies of the past eight years. The record shows the economy was growing at UNPRECEDENTED levels up to 2006,the year you became a US Senator and democrats took control of congress.At this point in history domestic spending,under President Bush, rose to unprecedented levels. You know this because you and your democrat colleagues controlled the purse strings.President Bush signed these bloated budgets and deserves criticism as well.None the less,the budget you tell us you "inherited" you actually contributed to by asking for spending in your district to the tune of ONE MILLION DOLLARS for every day you spent in the senate.You sir, need to be more forthright about YOUR role in deficits you inherited if you expect people like myself to take your call for a serious conversation....seriously.
Another area where you appear to be a bit shaky on the facts is the actual cause of the economic crisis . We often hear you make statements like "de-regulation" or "Un-regulated" markets caused this. You often say "WallStreet greed" got us in this mess.........Again,with all due respect, I understand you were able to spend NINETEEN years in a church but were unaware of what the church actually practiced but I find it hard to reconcile that you aspired to hold the Presidency at a time of economic crisis without being aware of how we got in that crisis. I'm sure your rhetoric resounds well among those Americans that don't pay attention and are busy watching American Idol but for a guy like me...I would like to hear a "serious conversation" about this so we don't make this mistake again.Let me help you with some facts. First de-regulation played a VERY SMALL role in this meltdown. When Glass-Stegal was overturned, in Bi-partisan agreement and signed by President Clinton,the act had been in place since 1933 and many,republicans and democrats alike,felt it was outdated.Essentially all this did was allow investors and investment firms to package mortgages and other investments and sell them as such.Clinton had no issue with taking credit for the growth in the economy generated by such de-regualation ,and rightly so. Also we saw no negative aspects of this de-regulation until early 2007.I said de-regulation played a small role in this mess...so what played the largest role? OVER-REGULATION!That's right, when congress pushed through the "community reinvestment act" at the behest of groups like ACORN and community activist such as yourself ,it gave the government the teeth it needed to force lenders to make loans to the poor and minorities regardless of their ability to pay. I'm sure you are familiar with this as you were once an ACORN lawyer yourself. Now banks were being sued for discrimination if they didn't loan a certain amount of money to minorities in defunct communities.All was well with de-regulation until these loans started to go into default. Many,including President Bush saw this coming and congress was warned as early as 2003. Congress failed to heed the warnings and investors started "packaging" these loans and sold them as "safe" investments until it all started to unravel.Mr.President, THAT is what happened to our economy!Politicians using the strong arm of government to force banks to give POTENTIAL VOTERS(that traditionally vote for democrats)money they knew would never be repaid. Your continuous,blatant misrepresentation of these facts cause me to question your honesty and integrity.The record shows that this is what happened,yet you use FALSE,revisionist history to promote your agenda.I guess Rahm Emanuel was being honest for once when he said"Its a shame to let a crisis go to waste".Its one thing to use a crisis to forward an agenda but to lie about the facts to get there is deplorable and despicable.
I hope my honest assessment of history and willingness to let blame fall where it rightfully belongs hasn't discouraged you from wanting to continue a serious conversation about whats best for our country. I just thought it best to start from a factual account of how we got here so we don't make the same mistakes again.
To answer the healthcare quagmire,it will require that you let go of some obvious misconceptions you have about economics.First we need to come to the realization that when government gets involved in business, prices go up and quality goes down.The government and insurance bureaucracies are heavily involved in healthcare payments and there is very little contact between the customer and the caregiver. Because of this,free market forces are unable to work. If a person shopped around for cheaper healthcare with better quality, the prices would come down,quality would go up and healthcare wouldn't be so overpriced.Now,I admit we have traveled too far down this road to change things overnight but more government involvement is not the answer especially when you consider we've established that government is a big part of the problem.Free market solutions will cure these problems,its time we pursue those avenues before we ruin the most innovative and accessible health care system in the world.
Mr.President , I hope you find my insight helpful...there is just one more thing I think will help you.Principles! Plain and simple. Its clear that a man that displays unwavering certitude when he repeals policies that will ensure no terrorist will be treated unfairly,Even goes so far as to call things that we do in the training of our military personnel "torture" when its done on a terrorist that is taunting interrogators that "something big is coming" , can reconcile that killing a helpless child in the latest months of gestation is frankly, unprincipled. Your positions on these issues show that you will cower to the far left puppet masters that funded your meteoric rise to the Presidency. These are not principled decisions! You expect me to have a serious conversation with a man that places the discomfort of a known terrorist above his own soldiers or the life of a child.You actually started to go in the right direction when you said we needed to look forward and not prosecute the former administration for doing what they thought was best to keep us safe. It wasn't 48 hours later,AFTER MoveOn.org and other Soros minions launched a bitter campaign,demanding the heads of the former administration that you reversed your decision. Mr. President.......I wish I could believe you wanted to be bi-partisan and listen to us but the facts and the record show your actions don't support your words. You call republicans the party of "NO" when they offered a stimulus bill that the CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET OFFICE stated would cost HALF the money and create twice as many jobs.Again your counting on your sheople that don't pay attention. You say " we could have got information from terrorist that SAVED LIVES without aggressive interrogation" but fail to support those claims when reality and torture memos SHOW OTHERWISE.Mr.Obama, I am disgusted with you and many of my fellow Americans. You get away with misrepresentation after misrepresentation ,we've established your lying on some issues or blissfully ignorant to others. If more people would pay attention and pull themselves away from the kool-aid stand or the latest fad on television you wouldn't be able to get away with your lack of principles and integrity.I know you will try to label me an extremist or worse but I challenge you or ANYONE to displace my assertions.I'm passionate,principled and honest and its people like me that will be a continual thorn in your side.
I look forward to more serious conversations and hopefully watching you grow into a principled, honest communicator. We have to start somewhere.