Tag Archives: Barack Obama

I'm Out of The Box…Now What?

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I found the following quotes and have been thoughtfully considering the meaning and application:

On Distributism (vs. Capitalism, vs. Socialism)“According to distributism, the ownership of the means of production should be spread as widely as possible among the general populace, rather than being centralized under the control of the state (state socialism) or a few large businesses or wealthy private individuals (plutarchic capitalism).”

G.K. Chesterton said “Too much capitalism does not mean too many capitalists, but too few capitalists.” Continue reading →

A Great Idea

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I am all about people thinking creatively and outside-the-box, especially right now. We need all the creative ideas we can get about how to stimulate our economy.

I was delighted to read about such an idea in the New York Times today. Ruth Y. Goldway, a member of the United States Postal Regulatory Commission, laid out a way to use some of the stimulus money to fit all the postal vehicles to electric. Although this may not be a new idea, she expanded by saying that the customers could plug their own vehicles in at their community offices when they mail parcels, etc. Great idea!

Additionally, she correctly identified that “Green jobs — outfitting buildings, converting trucks — would be created in neighborhoods nationwide. Converting just its 142,000 standard delivery trucks would reduce gasoline consumption by up to 68 million gallons a year and save the Postal Service millions of dollars.” Saving the Postal Service money would be a wise move, since mail delivery has seen some decreases.

This is the kind of change I was thinking about. This is the kind of change I can believe in.

Stimulus, Shimulus…Do It Right

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So the stimulus is in trouble. I’m not surprised in the least. There’s too much stuff in this bill in the first place. I attribute this to Democrats not being able to spend on anything for eight years, but this is not the time to cram everything in. So here are the 4 parts that I believe should be the TOTAL stimulus bill of right now.

Break the stimulus into the following parts:

1. Repairing bridges, roads, etc. throughout the country. Hire those laid-off autoworkers, hire engineers and project managers.

2. Give an enormous amount of money to green industry…solar panels, wind power and mass transportation. don’t just give enough for states to keep their existing transit systems…give them more to make the expansion they need due to increased ridership.

3. Restructure the electrical grid. Help fund and give contracts to companies like Better Place, which will send a message to Detroit that there WILL be an infrastructure in place to support the Chevy Volt and other cars when they come out. Oil will only go up.

4. Increase unemployment benefits and let the unemployed go onto Medicare for a time. Find a way to help those who are self-employed and independent contractors…many of whom are illegally paid in this fashion and suffer from extraordinarily high taxes.

This is ALL that should be in this bill. Of course, education reform and health care, etc. are important. My fear is that if we only do half of what is needed in these areas in this bill, when we try to do more, the Republicans will scream “We already spent money on these programs” and we’ll never get it done right.

Democrats, save some bargaining room. Health Care and Education should be addressed later (even in a few months, just to separate from this current bill) and if you dont spend anything on them now, you will have a better place to argue from when you need complete spending to do them right.

Also, let’s get this thing done without the Republicans. Obama needs to stand up to them more…they were not voted in. We wanted a bold, daring stimulus-and this is not it-this is a hodgepodge. It looks like a pot-luck dinner when we wanted and needed 5-star dining. We dont want more tax cuts or credits, either.

Election Day 2008

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Wow, its finally here. Funny, I’m not as euphoric as I have imagined I’d be over the last four years. Probably because there is so much to do.  As I’ve said before, no matter what we find out tonight, Bush is done on Jan 20th (although he’s trying to do as much damage in the next few weeks as possible, big surprise)

I voted about a week and a half ago, so i wont be standing in lines today but my experience voting this year has just been amazing. In March, I voted for a woman to be the Democratic Nominee for President of the United States, Hillary Clinton. It was an absolutely amazing feeling and I was a little teary-eyed. And now, I am in Georgia, not Ohio and I got to vote for an African-America as President of the United States, Barack Obama. I’ve spent alot of time in Europe and although I enjoy their democratic socialist policies, many of these fabulously liberal nations would not be able to elect a minority as a major party nominee. Good for us, it truly is an amazing thing and is definitely the reason I love this country. Because we are all Americans and now we are showing that to the rest of the world.

Let’s get back to doing what we do best: leading the way.

Bush Countdown

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With all the election madness, I forget how excited I am that Dubya’s reign is almost over. Here is a gadget so we can all keep track and be a little happier every day from now till January 20th 2009!

Dont forget to vote Obama/Biden Nov. 4th! (and if you’re not voting Obama, make sure you vote-we have troops overseas fighting for this country and all our rights and privileges!)

Click below and enjoy =)

Get the Bush’s Last Day Countdown Clock widget and many other great free widgets at Widgetbox!