Saturday, January 29, 2011

Paying More For Gas? Thank Your Federal Government

Dear Congressman and Senators;

Just a note to remind you that the escalating price of oil will negatively impact your constituents greater to a power of ten thanks to the Federal Government. If we were drilling for oil off shore and in Alaska as any sane people would do, the impact would be less.

If the Federal Government actually wanted to make this country energy self-sufficient it could be done. Instead of pie in the sky solar and electric cars we could switch to natural gas. We have it in abundance. It is cleaner than what we are using now. But, that's just people who actually care about our country. Ever heard of T. Boone Pickens?

In the future, as historians study the fall of the United States, one of their questions will have to be what makes a nation so powerful fall so fast that it would not even develop its own resources and instead send money to people who wished to destroy them.

Think unemployment is bad now? Wait until gasoline is $10 a gallon. One final note: we borrowed 4 billion dollars today. What did you do to keep that from happening?

Saturday, January 15, 2011

Dear Congressman and Senators

I am writing this with as much civility as possible considering that you are in the group of people who make my life more difficult on a daily basis. This exercise, which is of course just an exercise, since you are fast becoming as obsolete as this retired person has become. As someone says too often, let me be clear, I do not suggest that you individually are making my life more difficult. I do humbly suggest that you are either unable or unwilling to take the steps needed to improve the situation.

I'm from the government and I'm here to help you has morphed into I'm from the government and if I haven't screwed up your life yet, it is not for lack of trying. A few examples: We pay too much for gasoline because our government prevents oil drilling offshore and in Alaska. The lunacy of this position seems so clear that explaining it is merely a waste of our time. While you were not looking the EPA has made it more difficult and expensive to mine for coal, note West Virginia.

In its continuing efforts to control everything the government is taking over the Internet. Oh, I haven't even mentioned health care. Almost everything we were told about the health care bill has proven to be a lie. Costs are going up. Hospitals are going away. Medicare is not fixed. It goes on and on. Repealing the health care bill is not possible the pundits say. The pundits said it was not possible to extract our country from the most powerful nation on earth at the time. They were wrong then. If only I were writing this to people who care more about their country than their elected position.

While you were being lectured on civility, the Homeland Security Administration decided to leave a billion dollars down the sewer and canceled the virtual fence. Old country boys knew this was likely crap in the beginning, and now it has proven to be so. Here's a thought. Build a fence. A real fence. One that is difficult to cross. I know it would be expensive, but protecting our borders is actually a real duty of the federal government, not like most of the things you do.

Maybe you could lay off some of those people who spend their lives writing regulations for ill conceived laws you couldn't stop and no one ever read. If you don't stop this administration and the rest of the power hungry people in DC you will be leaving your children and grandchildren a poor excuse for a country.

The message is simple. If you don't have to do it, don't. The federal government is not our mother. Every time you protect us from something you also take away one of our rights and responsibilities. From the Internet to the food we eat: get out of our lives. Do what is allowed and required. Do nothing else.