On January 27, 1996, President Bill Clinton stated during his 1996 State of the Union Address, “The era of big government is over.”
The federal budget numbers are from the 1996 and 2009 budgets.
THEN: No government bailouts
NOW: Bailouts could reach $23.7 trillion
THEN: Total federal spending was $1.61 trillion
NOW: $3.1 trillion
THEN: Government was already big.
NOW: The PATRIOT Act, Department of Homeland Security, two unconstitutional wars, federalization of the National Guard, warrantless wiretaps, 30+ “Czars.”
THEN: Defense spending was $262.2 billion
NOW: $651.1 billion
THEN: The federal debt was $5.27 trillion
NOW: $10.41 trillion
THEN: “Our economy is the healthiest it has been in three decades.”
NOW: The economy is the worst it’s been in six decades.
THEN: “We have the lowest combined rates of unemployment and inflation in 27 years.”
NOW: The highest rate of unemployment in 26 years.
THEN: “America is selling more cars than Japan for the first time since the 1970s.”
NOW: GM and Chrysler went bankrupt, Toyota overtook GM as the world’s largest car producer in 2008 for the first time ever.
THEN: “And for three years in a row, we have had a record number of new businesses started in our country.”
NOW: The highest number of bankruptcies in the past four years since the 2005 bankruptcy overhaul.
The real unemployment rate is about 17%, nationwide. The finances of our governments, local, state, and federal are in shambles because they’re not getting as much tax income. More home mortgages are in default all across the country then ever before and commercial loans are closing fast on the home mortgage default rate.
So what in the world caused all these problems? Well lets do some review.
With ISO 9000 certifications, American businesses that used to be the life blood of our country, have been neatly packed up and shipped out of country. With NAFTA those items made by the now overseas/out of country businesses are returned through Canada or Mexico and sold in America without any tariffs.
Slowly but surely ISO 9000 certification has funneled our American businesses and wealth out of the country. For those who don’t understand what ISO 9000 certification is I’ll make it real simple. You write down instructions for everything it takes to open and operate a particular business anywhere in the world.
By using this instruction book, someone can take a business; I’ll use for example: Little Fuse, that used to be in Arcola IL, (they made fuses for all kinds of stuff including the space shuttle). So anyway they get ISO 9000 certified, Yeah! Everyone is happy at first because they were told this would be a really good thing for the company. Well, now that idiot proof instructions have been written on how to do what they did in Arcola, IL guess what? Businesses are in business to make money, it’s all about the profit, they don’t do it for you or your neighbor. Business are in business for the same reason you work for them; to make money! So why would they pay all those high wages and benefits that Americans demand, that cut into their profits? With ISO 9000 they can make those same fuses in Mexico for a whole lot less. Thanks to NAFTA they don’t have to pay any tariffs to ship them back into America. Not to mention in places like Mexico you don’t have the tough regulators like the EPA, OSHA, Labor Unions, well you get the idea. If I’m in business to make money, what incentive do I have to keep that business here in America? None! so they win all the way around.
So we ship off as many of our businesses that actually make stuff as possible and try to regulate and tax the rest out of the businesses, out of business. In the mean time people went into debt when the jobs were here in America and now they got no job to pay that debt back. Illegal immigrants are over burdening the medical system because under the law, they don’t have to pay for medical treatment if they get the most expensive kind possible, IE. the Emergency Room. Then we have illegal immigrants taking the few meager paying jobs we have left and use the excuse Americans won’t do those jobs. And now the government is making money out of thin air because the golden goose got up and left the country under ISO 9000 and NAFTA and wallah you have America today.
So now that we’ve driven out the golden goose, let’s all jump on the socialist band wagon and say capitalism is bad and let the government run everything. The government can fix it, because they’re so good about running things. Like the IRS, the Post Office, Unemployment, Social Security, Medicare the list goes on and on. Never mind that capitalism has built the leader of the world in less than 200 years and the people living under the capitalist system are free and have human rights most other countries can only dream of.
So how do we fix the real problem? Pretty simple, you get rid of the barriers to create businesses like over regulation, you take away the incentives to have your business in other countries and your product shipped back into America. When Americans begins producing high quality real items again, that is when the economy will be fixed. When we start returning America’s wealth to America instead of shipping it out of the country that is when the economy will improve.
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Very well put. Goes to show that greed is still the #1 prior for most businesses. Needless to say if the union’s stayed with their original concept instead of crying & wanting everything on a gold platter, things just might be a little better.
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Jim Reply:
October 13th, 2009 at 8:20 pm
Greed is not always the determining factor, most small business owners, myself included just want a better life for themselves and their family. I was raised in poverty and have no desire to return to that life. I have worked hard to get ahead and my employees are no different. It is not greed, that drives us, we do not make money just to hoard it like Scrooge. It is the aspiration to have a better life for ourselves and our families that drives many small business owners.
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