2015 Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review (QDDR)

The 2015 Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review (QDDR) was released on April 27. According to the website, it is “a blueprint for U.S. foreign policy.”  Following the 2010 review, the 2015 version identifies priorities and reforms needed to “advance the U.S. interests articulated in the 2015 National Security Strategy.” http://www.state.gov/s/dmr/qddr/releases/241180.htm

According to the website, the review is a “joint effort of the Department of State and the U.S. Agency for International Development” (USAID).  It identifies four strategic priorities and recommendations:

1.      Preventing and mitigating conflict and violent extremism

2.      Promoting open, resilient, and democratic societies

3.      Advancing inclusive economic growth

4.      Climate change  http://www.state.gov/s/dmr/qddr/

According to the Executive Summary, preventing and mitigating conflict and violent extremism will be accomplished through expansion of prevention efforts by partnering with “host governments, supporting vulnerable communities, and challenging extremism messaging” and by strengthening “our ability to prevent and respond to internal conflict, atrocities, and fragility.” Investments will be made in “fragile states” to prevent conflict and manage crises by providing personnel and support to “specified countries of concern.”

Promoting open, resilient, and democratic societies will be accomplished by investing in democracy, human rights, and governance such as global initiatives (i.e., Open Government Partnership, Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative); by expanding anti-corruption (corruption and bribery) initiatives; by supporting civil society and protecting an open Internet; and by protecting human rights.

Advancing inclusive economic growth will be accomplished by “expanding the middle class worldwide” (decrease youth unemployment, wealth inequality, promote gender equality, increased access to electricity, ways out of poverty, increased government accountability, a “race to the top” model); by enhancing economic leadership and expertise; and by improving use of data and diagnostics.

Climate change (a.k.a. seasons) effects are a “threat to our national security” and a “top priority for the State Department and USAID.”  Climate change mitigation and adaptation will be bureaucratically accomplished by promoting clean energy technology, increasing climate expertise, and appointing “climate leaders” and personnel at all bureaus and offices. Staff will be educated (read indoctrinated) on “climate-related issues, incorporating climate-related knowledge into the core competencies for Department and USAID officers.” In compliance with Executive Order 13677 on Climate-Resilient International Development, climate change will be integrated “into all of our diplomacy and development efforts.” Critical countries that are not compliant will be integrated into “our diplomacy and development efforts” for “in-depth climate engagement” in order to meet “international climate goals.”  The Department will complement all this global warming mitigation by directly engaging mayors, governors, faith leaders, women’s groups, and business leaders. As the review states, “We will seek their support in making commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”

According to the Executive Summary, the State Department’s work has been so successful, it has set “the world’s highest standards for labor rights and environmental protection through the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (T-TIP), which will put the United States at the center of a free trade zone covering two-thirds of the global economy.” www.state.gov/documents/organization/241430.pdf

I wonder if anyone bothered to ask the massive unemployed in this country and all Americans negatively impacted by the huge influx of illegal aliens if they are satisfied with the adverse economic side-effects of treaties like the TPP, negotiated against the wishes and interests of the American people. And how does Mother Nature with its expected swings in weather, climate, volcanic eruptions, hurricanes, earthquakes, tsunamis, and global current-flows figure into the national security equation of climate change mitigation?

Copyright: Ileana Johnson 2015

 

 

 

What Will it Take to Right the Ship of State?

People ask all the time what will it take to return our Constitutional Republic to its previous glory, away from the century-old destructive road to socialism and one world government global communism? The answer is obviously complex, as there are many nefarious plans and forces at play, seemingly unrelated, all merging at some place in time when the point of no return will be reached. The bridge over the dangerous chasm will be entirely destroyed and crossing to safety will be impossible.

Conservative and America-loving ideas to preserve free markets and our way of life are considered radical and extreme by the regressive minority running the country. Even individuals who are trying to do the right thing and respect their oath of office are constantly harassed and intimidated by the political correctness (read free speech censorship) running our government.

We must honor existing international agreements, alliances, and treaties and fulfill ethical and legal obligations to our allies. Nobody should be allowed to enter into new treaties through backdoor legislation that overrides the power of the Senate to ratify treaties and any such agreements, no matter what the title; the agreements and private-public partnerships formed under the aegis of U.N. Agenda 21 should benefit the American people, not the globalist corporatist interests who have no allegiance to our country.

President Obama’s trade agenda, the trade promotion authority (TPA), would allow him to fast-track new trade deals like Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) with 12-nations from Asia to Latin America. The trade promotion authority (TPA) bill, sponsored by Senators Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), Ron Wyden (D-Oregon), and Paul Ryan (R-Wisconsin), would give Congress a vote on trade agreements “negotiated by the administration, but lawmakers would not have the option to amend those deals.” http://thehill.com/policy/finance/239810-obama-trade-fight-engulfs-the-capitol

If you liked the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with its millions of jobs lost and the huge U.S. trade deficit created, and none of the benefits advertised before its passing, then you are going to love the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).

“This job-killing trade deal has been negotiated in secret,” said Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT). “It was drafted with input by special interests and corporate lobbyists, but not from the elected representatives of the American people.”

TPP removes any remaining impediments to shipping American jobs overseas; it will rob consumers of product safety and labeling.  It will also allow for unchecked flood of immigrants from the 12 signatory countries into the United States. Foreign companies can sue the U.S. government for any damages deriving on American soil. They can pollute the environment and the fees levied by the EPA against them will be paid for by the American taxpayer directly and indirectly.

TPP is a worse threat to our national security than the declared climate change, a.k.a. seasons. Our national debt will grow exponentially and we will become consumers suffocated by debt with jobs left only in the domestic service sector.

The military should be used as a last resort with a defense apparatus based on realistic and truthful understanding of threats. Foreign policy should identify issues that may result in conflict and attempt to resolve them diplomatically first. Women in power with college activist experience should not be allowed to make decisions for the entire country when they have no real understanding of battlefield conflict issues or historical precedent.

Qualified leaders should be chosen based on their work that benefits the American people, not corporate interests, political donations, and charismatic personalities.  

Redundancy in appropriations should be eliminated. The out-of-control spending that doubled our national debt in the last eight years should be curtailed.

Responsible top military leaders should build the strongest defense on the planet by using technology in every area possible, even cyber space. Decisions based on the cold war era format that started in 1947 may or may not be applicable today.

Instead of declaring climate change a national emergency and security threat, energy independence should become a defense issue by developing domestic sources of energy, an independence steered away from the Middle East countries which are steeped in religious hatred, turmoil, wars, and centuries-old tribal conflict.

The College of Education and the Common Core national standards should be immediately eliminated. They represent the “progressive” (read regressive) indoctrination into the global communist ideology and Islam.

Even though some regulations are necessary to maintain a relatively clean environment, the Environmental Protection Agency should be defunded and controlled as it overtly attempts to destroy the coal industry, the main engine of affordable energy supply for our vast economy, and the use of our land and private property.

If we are to remain an independent country, we must protect the largest source of cheap energy derived from fossil fuels, oil and coal. Because scientists have demonstrated that the earth continues to produce oil, the name fossil fuel is somewhat inaccurate and deceptive. Alternative sources of energy should not be entirely discounted but maintained as a plan B in the event of an EMP attack.

Defund any attempts to promote Green Growth, to socially re-engineer our towns, cities, our agricultural land, and stop any attempt to reshape every facet of our economic lives based on a debunked scientific hoax and a non-existent danger to the planet earth as promoted by the climate change industry and U.N.’s Agenda 21.

Do not buy into “living with less” environmentalist/global warmists agenda of housing, herding the population into “stack and pack” tiny apartments and shipping containers turned into homes smaller than most hotel rooms and prison cells, while the global elites live in mansions on the most beautiful beach front pieces of real estate in the world, the very beaches that environmentalists tell us are supposed to be underwater due to global warming melting the ice caps. As Mark Steyn said, “environmentalists are communists, green on the outside and red on the inside.” http://www.truthrevolt.org/news/steyn-environmentalists-are-communists

The Department of Energy as the main distributor of college research grants duplicates other departments. Its stated mission is now “to ensure America’s security and prosperity by addressing its energy, environmental and nuclear challenges through transformative science and technology solutions.” It has been years since we built a nuclear power plant, but we have wasted billions giving grants and subsidizing failing solar power plants and windfarms, many who have produced few and expensive kilowatts of energy, while destroying wildlife.

Can we right the ship of state before the point of no return? Are Americans willing and interested in doing so?

Is it possible to realistically right the ship of state when misguided young Americans destroy and torch their own city and businesses that could employ some of the 70 percent jobless youth? Why would a mayor “give them room” to destroy a city?

Why would useful idiots riot to turn our country into a third world basket of lawlessness, corruption, and racial hatred egged on by professional agitators who make the empty promise of non-existent communist social justice?

Copyright: Ileana Johnson 2015

 

 

 

"Addressing Our Debt Is a National Security Imperative"

I have written several articles on the national debt as the biggest threat to our national security. I have given numerous lectures on the subject and every time, during the Q and A time, professionals astonished me with their naiveté. Liberals always post unkind and downright insulting commentaries to my articles, accusing me of being a “tool” of the one-percenters and a paid advocate of the rich. Nothing could be further from the truth.

You do not have to understand all the intricacies of economics, the machinations, and the manipulation of statistics, the market speculation and derivatives to realize that, if you were to run your own household on a constant deficit that is quadrupling in four years, you are in terrible trouble and are going bankrupt.

Our Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is approximately $15.5 trillion but we spend $6.4 trillion at the federal, state, and local levels, making our gross debt to GDP ratio almost 106 percent. We are not Greece, Spain, or Portugal but we are on our way.  I use the word “approximately” because these figures change constantly. (http://www.usdebtclock.org/)

I realize that, unlike Greece, Spain, Italy, or Portugal, we can print or create our own currency out of thin air since we are still in control of our monetary policy via the Federal Reserve System while the Mediterranean countries must depend on the monetary policy of the EU, coming from Brussels.

The U.S. total debt is almost $58 trillion, personal debt is $16 trillion, mortgage debt is $13 trillion, student loans $932 billion and credit card debt $846 billion. The U.S. debt on interest alone is $4 trillion.

I realize that the student loans have been nationalized and President Obama has plans in place to forgive this debt in exchange for service in poor areas, after 5 years of minimum payment, or by an executive order. However, the overall taxpayers would be responsible to pay any forgiven student debt. How would the students and their parents feel when they paid off college debt without any help from Uncle Sam? Where is, as the liberals like to say, the “social justice?”

There is a level of debt that has been relatively constant and is a hot potato for politicians who want to be re-elected – unfunded liabilities. An unfunded liability is an expenditure that will occur in the future for which there are currently no reserves set aside or in a lock box – the money must be spent as it comes in as revenue. Revenue of course, cycles with taxation levels, booms and recessions in the economy, and the level of spending that the federal government is engaging in. The Social Security liability is almost $16 trillion, the prescription drug liability is $21 trillion and the Medicare liability is $ 84 trillion – a total of $121 trillion U.S. unfunded liabilities.

A very important question should be asked by any thinking American, can we afford the huge, not yet fully known cost of the unfortunately named the Affordable Care Act (a.k.a. Obamacare) on top of these unfunded liabilities? Is the free market not the best alternative if we make needed changes to private plans such as portability across state lines, elimination of certain pre-existing conditions, and tort reform? Do we have the money to grow the federal government’s already out of control spending and to satisfy the ever increasing demand for entitlements from the winning electorate?

The Federal Reserve monetary base is approximately $2.7 trillion. The M2 money supply is $10.4 trillion (cash, savings, and small time deposits such as CDs). The Treasury securities (T-bonds, T-bills, and T-notes) add up to $1.2 trillion. The most bothersome part of the Federal Reserve Monetary Base is the currency and credit derivatives at a whopping $632 trillion. The most common types of derivatives are: forwards, futures, options, and swaps in underlying assets such as commodities, stocks, bonds, interest rates, and currencies. Since it is highly speculative, it is highly volatile as well, as witnessed by the housing crash based on investment in bundled mortgages of good and insolvent mortgages.

Uninformed liberals viciously attack and slander the credibility of people like me who report that our national debt is the number one threat to our national security.  Would they attack the one page ad (page A13) and its signatories as it appeared in the Washington Post on December 5, 2012, “Addressing Our Debt is a National Security Imperative.”

The message from the newly formed Coalition for Fiscal and National Security (www.FiscalAndNationalSecurity.org), sponsored by the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, asks that the fiscal cliff resolution by the end of the year should contain:

-         Stabilization of the debt as a share of the economy on a “downward path for the longer term” because our global leadership is threatened if we accrue national debt faster than we grow our economy

-         Substantial deficit reduction over the next ten years with “parameters for longer-term fiscal reform, including future levels of debt as a share of the economy, and a date by which the budget must balance”

-         Tax reforms to raise more revenues through “eliminating deductions, increasing rates and/or more fundamental changes to our tax code”

-         “Changes to entitlements on a sustainable long-term path”

-         “Changes to defense and other discretionary spending, while protecting the most vulnerable”

-         “Congress and the President should agree on an expedited process to enact legislation reflecting this framework in 2013, in the truest form of patriotism – putting our country first”

I am not privy to defense strategy but I see the rising military threat around the world and the anti-American sentiment coupled with terrorist attacks.  I believe in the Roman strategy of “Si vis pacem, para bellum,” “If you want peace, prepare for war.”

I am skeptical of the Coalition’s last statement, “In our judgment, advances in technological capabilities and the changing nature of threats make it possible, if properly done, to spend less on a more intelligent, efficient and contemporary defense strategy that maintains our military superiority and national security.” Somehow, getting rid of a substantial amount of Marines and soldiers, mothballing naval resources, and cutting nuclear arsenal when others around the world are building more, do not seem like good ideas. I could be wrong.

The signatories to this coalition are former government officials who have served during eight Presidential administrations, Democratic and Republican, and “strongly believe that our long-term debt is the single greatest threat to our national security”:

-         Admiral Michael G. Mullen, Coalition Chairman and former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

-         Samuel R. Berger, former National Security Advisor

-         Sam Nunn, former Chairman of the Senate Committee on Armed Services

-         Ike Skelton, former Chairman of the House Committee on Armed Services

-         Madeleine K. Albright, former Secretary of State

-         Harold Brown, former Secretary of Defense

-         Robert M. Gates, former Secretary of Defense

-         Paul O’Neill, former Secretary of the Treasury

-         Paul Volcker, former Chairman of the Federal Reserve

-         James A. Baker, III, former Secretary of State and the Treasury

-         Zbigniew Brzezinski, former National Security Advisor

-         Henry A. Kissinger, former Secretary of State and National Security Advisor

-         George P. Shultz, former Secretary of State and National Security Advisor

-         John Warner, former Chairman of the Senate Committee on Armed Services

What will liberals say who love entitlements and are unwilling to give up an inch of their cradle to grave mentality?  They believe that taking care of their every need is a birthright. They should not have to care for themselves as self-reliant Americans have done for generations. They are the Entitled Generation.

The problem is that the Entitled Generation is running the country into the ground. As Dr. Thomas Sowell so eloquently stated, “I have never understood why it is ‘greed’ to want to keep the money you’ve earned, but not greed to want to take somebody else’s money.” I would call it theft and enslavement of the producers.

 

 

 

 

National Debt Is Still the Biggest Threat to Our National Security

“An unlimited power to tax involves, necessarily a power to destroy, because there is a limit beyond which no institution and no property can bear taxation.” – John Marshall

Americans are in denial about the simple fact that our national debt is the biggest threat to our national security. National debt grew exponentially from Washington’s profligate deficit spending, recessions, and wars.

When I looked today at the national debt clock, each taxpayer owed approximately $142,000, the figure changing rapidly based on factors such as the value of the dollar, trade deficits, and the latest sums borrowed from U.S. taxpayers or from whatever country willing to buy our Treasury Securities, T-bills, T-notes, and T-bonds - China, Japan, and oil exporters being the largest buyers of U.S. debt so far.

The national debt to most Americans is something on paper in a faraway place that does not concern or affect us. Americans have no idea how it grew so exponentially large, where it came from, who owes it, who owns it, and how many zeroes a trillion has.

Perhaps the debt figure would become more real to Americans and take on dire significance if each taxpaying citizen would receive a bill for $142,000 payable in full right now, no kicking the can down the road to our children and grandchildren in exchange for our current comfort.

It is true, our national debt is measured in dollars, which we can always print in order to meet our payments. This is called monetizing the deficit. Doing so, however, creates inflation, as too much money is chasing too few goods. A responsible government should never print money in outlandish excess of GDP, the amount of final goods and services produced in a year. If they do, hyperinflation will occur, and severe devaluation of the currency.

“Since 1971, U.S. borrowed $50 trillion to produce only $13 trillion of goods and services in a 40 year period.” Egon von Greyerz, a financial analyst with Matterhorn Asset Management AG in Zurich, Switzerland, said, “From 1971 when President Nixon ended the gold-backing of the dollar, virtually all of the growth in the Western world has come from the massive increase in credit rather than from real growth in the economy.”

The mantra that the “rich are not paying their fair share” promoted by the MSM sound bites and the Democrat ruling party prompted many to calculate what would happen if we were to confiscate every millionaire and billionaire’s wealth, what impact would have on our national debt, the accumulated budget deficits of previous years. All the U.S. accumulated wealth would last a mere two months.

There is a difference between income and wealth. The Democrats are talking about taxing the rich (income), not taxing the wealth – big difference which voters clearly do not understand. Taxing income will result in “spreading the wealth” from producers to takers in the name of “social justice” and the subsequent consumer spending, with no tangible assets created. Excessive tax discourages capital formation and job creation, stifling economic growth. Perhaps that is the political intent of the ruling party.

Taxing the rich already brings in the lion’s share of revenue to the Treasury. If the rich are taxed too much, who is going to create manufacturing jobs, the government?

Average earners and small businesses that pay taxes at the personal income tax level are now the rich - the middle class will be taxed more when the Bush era tax cuts expire and the Obamacare taxes will go into effect in January 2013, contracting job creation. The Democrats and the President have no intention or concrete plans to cut spending. Their main goal seems to be tax increases.

According to Mark Steyn, if the government was to confiscate all of the $44 billion that Warren Buffett has, it would only last four days at the current level of spending.

Much ado has been made in the press about Warren Buffet who did not pay the same tax percentage as his secretary. When Mr. Buffett complained, I was not clear what kept him from writing a “fair share” check to the IRS, matching his secretary’s percentage.

Mark Steyn calculated again that, if everyone’s tax indebtedness would go up according to this Buffett rule, the deficit created by the Obama administration in 2011 would be paid off in 514 years and we would still have the deficits created in the other three years of this presidency.

The national debt has exceeded $16.3 trillion but Gross Domestic Product (all the final goods and services produced in a year domestically) is only $15.3 trillion, one trillion short. The federal revenue from taxes is $2.4 trillion. We have spent almost 7 times what we raise in taxes annually. 

The problem is not that Americans, rich or poor, are not paying enough taxes, the problem is that Congress and this administration are spending too much money. Spending to GDP ratio is 41 percent.

We have paid so far in 2012 almost $4 trillion in interest from excessive borrowing when our money supply from cash and savings is $10.3 trillion.

Our national debt has exploded in the last four years. During President Obama’s first three years in office, it grew by $4.7 trillion, an increase of 45 percent. (factcheck.org)

Our current policy seems to be putting pressure on the U.S. dollar until two options remain - default on the U.S. debt, or monetizing it by printing more money. If we default, as in any case of bankruptcy, creditor nations would demand payment in American assets – our oil fields, mines, land, parks, monuments, buildings, military bases, and even the indentured servitude of generations of taxpayers.

Can we refuse to pay our national debt?  We could but the consequences might not be so pleasant. Britain, Germany, and Italy blockaded the ports of Venezuela during the Venezuelan Crisis of 1902-1903 when dictator Cipriano Castro refused to pay foreign debts and damages suffered by European citizens in the Venezuelan civil war.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said the following during the November 20 speech to the Center for a New American Security (a think-tank in Washington):

“One of the national security threats is the question of whether or not the leaders we elect can, in fact, govern and can, in fact deal with the challenges that face this country.” (Emelie Rutherford, Defense Daily, November 26, 2012)

Secretary Panetta was initially questioned during this meeting why the Senate failed to pass the Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST). Most Americans are actually glad that LOST was not ratified since it is part of U.N. Agenda 21’s plan of global governance.

Sequestration may not be such a good idea when it involves the military. Si vis pacem, para bellum, the Romans said, “if you want peace, prepare for war.”

Panetta acknowledged that budgeting “can’t just be about cutting, it’s got to be about investing, investing in space and cyber, investing in unmanned systems, investing in the kind of capability to mobilize quickly if we have to. And most importantly, maintaining our defense industrial base in this country so that we are not in a position where I’m forced to contract out the most important defense capabilities that I need. I can’t do that. I can’t just contract those out to another country. I’ve got to have that capability here in the United States.”

National debt is the number one threat to national security. If we keep squandering trillions of dollars borrowed from our potential foes and have nothing to show for our spending, except increasing dependency of our population on welfare, food stamps, and entitlements, if we cut NASA and rent space on Russian flights, if we spend so much that we are no longer able to invest in infrastructure, technology, medicine, space exploration, industry, manufacturing, and defense, our integrity as a powerful nation is severely threatened and damaged.

 

 

Friday Radio Chat with Silvio Canto from Dallas

One hour radio chat with Silvio Canto on Blog Talk Radio, 9-21-12.
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/cantotalk/2012/09/21/our-friday-chat-with-dr-ileana-johnson-paugh

Welfare Recipients Entitled to Be Lazy and in Debt

“I must confess, when I see anyone with an Obama 2012 bumper sticker, I recognize them as a threat to the gene pool.” Allen West

Yesterday I saw a new bumper sticker in Maryland, “Obama cares.” President Obama and his administration must care a whole lot – they love to spend so much money that we are running up a projected fifth year of $1 trillion deficit spending.

The national debt clock is changing red numbers as fast I can focus, reflecting the out-of-control spending in Washington and the weak value of the dollar in conjunction with our disastrous energy policy, high unemployment rates, comatose economic growth, and the rapid rise in welfare.

The public debt today is nearing $16 trillion while U.S. tax revenues are a mere $2.3 trillion. U.S. debt interest alone in 2012 is $3.9 trillion. U.S. debt held by foreign countries is approximately $5.4 trillion.

Total national assets, including small businesses, corporations and households are $91.3 trillion. If we sold them at some unprecedented national auction, that would not be enough to cover the total U.S. unfunded liabilities (Social Security, prescription drugs, Medicare) which are fast approaching $120 trillion.  

Maybe we have enough cash to pay off our national debt? The Federal Reserve (Fed) monetary base is $2.7 trillion, M2 money supply is $9.9 trillion, and Treasury securities $1.2 trillion, for a total currency and credit derivatives (created and bogus money) of $734 trillion.

Maybe we produce enough goods and services in a year (GDP) to cover our national debt and insane spending? U.S. gross domestic product is $15.3 trillion, a drop in the bucket when compared to the federal, state, and local government spending of nearly $7 trillion.

The following ratios paint a very ugly picture of our economy as well.

The ratio of spending to GDP is 44.2 percent.

The ratio of gross debt to GDP is 104.19 percent.
The ratio of revenue to GDP is 32.32 percent.

The largest budget items of the federal spending are listed below. The sad part is that, if I log onto the debt clock.org later today, the numbers would have changed very rapidly up or down, generally up.

-          Medicare/Medicaid ($798 billion)

-          Social Security ($740 billion)

-          Defense/Wars ($673 billion)

-          Income Security ($371 billion)

-          Net Interest on Debt ($226 billion)

-          Federal Pensions ($214 billion)

The United States has a constantly changing population of approximately 315 million, give or take a few 10-20 million illegal aliens who are either in the process of being amnestied by the Obama administration because they were brought here by “no fault of their own” and thus deserve U.S. citizenship ahead of overseas legally petitioning immigrants who have done everything according to the law but are hindered by vast oceans, and more illegal aliens who have already completed the arduous process of having jumped or crossed the southern border “undocumented” and are now benefitting from our generous welfare (income security) system, compliments of politicians who always need grateful legal or illegal voters.

The labor force is listed at 144 million although not long ago it was 156 million. These are the discouraged workers who are no longer counted and have fallen off the face of the earth.  Thirteen million Americans are officially unemployed but the actual unemployment number listed is 23 million. Where did the other 10 million unemployed workers go? They must have disappeared to the same place where President Obama’s shovel ready jobs went.

Not to worry, there are 67.5 million retirees and SSI recipients and almost 46 million food stamp recipients to draw from the overabundance of the combined U.S. evil capitalist wealth which was not created by hard-working Americans but by a benevolent federal government who taxed the heck out of working Americans and then built roads and bridges to the front door of all U.S. small businesses and corporations.

Welfare spending, cash, food, housing, medical care, social services for the poor has increased seventeen times since Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty in 1964. We obviously lost this war on poverty since the Obama administration plans to increase welfare spending rather than reduce it. He will need $46 trillion today and $1-2 trillion a year in the future to meet all the welfare promises made. (Heritage Foundation, Issues 2012)

TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families) was a Clinton era 1996 welfare reform success story which prepared welfare recipients for work through on-the-job training, unsubsidized employment, attending high school or a GED program, vocational education, community service work, job search, and job readiness training.  Recipients with children had to perform 20-30 hours a week of work in exchange for cash benefits. Welfare cases dropped by 50 percent, employment earnings increased, and child poverty rates decreased. (Amy Payne, Heritage Insider)

Unfortunately, the Obama administration circumvented Congress and announced a directive through the HHS that welfare recipients no longer have to work to fulfill the TANF requirements. “Vocational training or job search/readiness programs would count, even personal care activities, massage, motivational reading, and journaling.”  “President Obama made no secret about his plans to expand the welfare state permanently,” forcing recipients into a permanent cycle of dependence on government. (Amy Payne, The End of Welfare Reform As We Know It, July 18, 2012)

Since the 1960s, the U.S. has spent $16 trillion on welfare and is projected to spend almost $11 trillion over the next ten years. About 70 welfare programs are spread over 13 federal agencies and account for $900 billion a year in expenditures. (Heritage Foundation, March 17, 2011)

We are fast becoming a nation of lazy and entitled, government dependent citizens, approaching a high percentage of our population, legal and illegal. All entitlements, food stamps, unemployment, housing assistance, Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security represent more than half of total spending. At this rate of welfare extension (Obama added millions more to the welfare rolls), Social Security will be exhausted before the projected 2036 because, “in net-present-value terms, Social Security owes $9.1 trillion more in benefits than it will receive in taxes.” Spending on all entitlements “will consume all revenues within less than two generations. No revenue will be left to pay for other government spending, including constitutional functions such as defense.” Who needs national defense when Iran, North Korea, Russia, and China are flexing their military muscles all around the world? (Issues 2012 - The Candidate’s Briefing Book, p. 46, The Heritage Foundation, 2011)

As I watch again the fast changing numbers of the national debt clock.org, I am reminded that we are dismally broke and we cannot afford more welfare. Our number one threat to national security is not just the out-of-control spending that our President, with the blessing of Congress, is engaging in, but the entitlement mentality of able-bodied and healthy Americans on permanent welfare who produce more welfare dependent children at the expense of those who work, gleefully voting for corrupt politicians who promise them more welfare, locking them into perennial poverty and enslavement to a benevolent government that produces nothing.

Blog Talk Radio, Dallas, TX

My Friday radio talk with Silvio Canto Jr. on issues of national security and foreign policy.

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/cantotalk/2012/03/09/friday-national-security-foreign-policy-issues-1