If you want to know what the nation's economy will look like a few years down the road, all you have to do is look at California. California is the world's 8th largest economy and it is tottering on the edge of oblivion.

Now of course the left wing blame Reagan's tenure as governor and Conservatives in general. They like to point to 1978's Proposition 13 as the beginning of the downfall. But there's a lot more to it than that, as Time's Kevin O'Leary points out in his left-leaning article.

Prop 13 itself simply made it harder for California's traditionally liberal politicians to raise taxes. It requires a two-thirds majority vote for taxes to be raised. And even liberal taxpayers hate to have their taxes raised as Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and the legislature found out recently when their tax-laden ballot measure failed miserably. However, there is a liberal failing here--or multiple in this case--as well.

Californians love things for "free". They love water to be shipped across the desert for them and they love the freeways (although you wouldn't know it from their griping about gridlock). They love having large state grants for college students. These are liberal policies that over the years have added to a tax burden in the most populace state in the Union. And most of them have actually made the environment worse.

Californians also love direct democracy, like all Democrats, hence the name. The nation's founders knew that a direct democracy would eventually ruin the country. That's why they created a constitutional republic, with a constitution to restrict the powers of government and a representative legislature to restrict the damage that a runaway democracy would cause. It was all about checks and balances. Californians chose a direct democracy with a government that restricts freedoms instead. Talk about bass-ackwards.

One of the things that Californians are most proud of is that they are the harbingers of "change" (there's that word again) for the rest of the country. Just look at environmental legislation and make-work projects, all at the taxpayers' expense. Their senators and representatives are some of the most powerful members of congress, like Henry Waxman, coauthor of the Cap and Trade bill that just passed with nobody reading it. And then there is Nancy Pelosi who rammed through the same Cap and Trade bill so that she could go on vacation. Now they want to bring their form of liberal government to the rest of us and they have the numbers on their side in congress.

As I said in a previous post: Abandon all hope ye who live here.

SOURCE: Time article

Obama was elected partially on the promise that he would give the middle class a tax cut. What he didn't tell you was that the tax cut would be necessary just so you can make ends meet after the liberals in congress pass the "Cap and Trade" tax.

On the surface the C&T will not directly affect individuals. It is only a tax on businesses that produce greenhouse gases. However businesses cannot stay in business if their costs go up but profits don't. So naturally they will pass their new expenses on to you. So if you voted for Obama, thanks loads.

To paraphrase Dante, "Abandon all hope ye who live here"

Yesterday across the nation ordinary citizens showed just how fed up they are with the reckless behavior of the U.S. Government. The main thrust of yesterday's TEA parties was that like in the days of the original Boston Tea Party we are being taxed without representation. What's more, our government is spending us into oblivion.

As I mentioned above these were ordinary citizens. However, you would not know that if you listened to the Mainstream Media. Initially they refused to even cover the TEA parties. Then when the story got to big to ignore they began treating the entire idea as laughable. They sneered and smirked and talked about these protesters as if they were some fringe element. And networks such as MSNBC called the participants derogatory names like “teabaggers”. For those of you that don't know it this is a reference to the male scrotum. Lovely isn't it?

A commentator on the aforementioned MSNBC treated protesters as idiots. She would make sarcastic statements about how the taxes paid by them were supporting the parks where the protests were held, and paid for the police and emergency services that oversaw the safety of the crowds. She deliberately missed the point. We are not just protesting high taxes, and we are certainly not protesting the use of those taxes on vital services. We are protesting runaway, insane spending of those tax dollars. And not only spending of the revenue the government already brings in, but spending of money we don't even have, so that our national debt is exploding and we in the thrall of nations like communist China. They even intimated that the parents that brought their children to the rallies to protest the fact that they would paying for this debt long after the parents are dead, were somehow abusing those children. It never bothered liberal anti-war protestors that would stick signs on their children with phrases like “Mr. Bush Please Don't Kill Me”.

But the most enlightening moment of all was during a CNN on-the-street interview where the reporter completely lost her professionalism and exposed something that Conservatives have said for decades: the news media is liberal. Props go to Libertarian Republican for showing the vid.

If the MSM is going to treat ordinary citizens with disdain and contempt, perhaps it's time for us to completely abandon all viewing of their product altogether.

The government is positively losing its mind trying to come up with new taxes and fees to cover lost revenue. Apparently they don't realize that one of the reasons that they have lost revenue is because people aren't making enough money to cover the taxes and runaway spending that politicians and bureaucrats keep perpetuating.

The stimulus bill causes a hemorrhage that puts Uncle Sam in the ICU.

The federal government is a ravening wolf. It seeks out the producers in our country and seizes them by the jugular. If you don't pay due deference to it the wolf will rip out your throat. and there are people in the government--politicians, bureaucrats and functionaries—and those outside it, who stoke the blood lust of the beast.

The government has no remorse. When it attacks a person or business it doesn't care that they were trying to do the right thing, but simply misplaced a decimal or failed to file on time. Once it smells blood and fear it comes for its prey and no one can do anything to stop it. Some of its prey choose to end their own lives rather than let the wolf devour them alive.

We live in a time in our republic where the wants and desires of those people that the wolf's keepers determine are “needs”, overrule the needs, wants and desires of those that earned their wealth. Class and wealth envy are the sticks that the keepers use to stir up the wolf's pups. When the pups start whining and baying at the moon, Momma Wolf leaps in to “save” them.

It doesn't matter to these people how much of the country's gross domestic product that wolf consumes. It matters to them only that the “pups” are taken care of, whether they need it or not. But it's not only about caring for the pups. It's about controlling the pack.

With tax policy the keepers wave sticks and carrots at the prey to entice them into the trap. If you make too much they will tax you by a larger percentage of your income than someone that doesn't make as much. Then they will turn around and use your money to dangle as a carrot in front of those that don't make as much.

The keepers only want the wolf to grow up big and strong. They don't care whether they take the pay of honest workers for frivolous, and even unconstitutional things. So long as they stay in control and the wolf stays happy.

The U.S. Capitol Visitor Center has finally been completed. The original estimate was for $265 million. The final tally was $621 million. That's $356 million over budget. Now don't you just love government. Fifty-two percent of you must; you voted for Obama and the Democrats.

SOURCE: CNN.com article

$53,000,000,000,000. That's the current estimated amount of the U.S. Government's unfunded liability. That's Social Security, Medicare, etc. That's a lot of zeros my friends.

That's a lot of money.