Clipmarks | Eaglewings's 'government' clips

"Welfare State Mentality" at the bottom of our financial woes!

Tue, 07 Oct 2008 02:44:57 GMT

clipped by: Eaglewings
clipper's remarks: He who is ever desiring wealth goes running after money, and does not see that need will come on him. Prov 28:22 (BBE)

Wealth gained hastily will dwindle, but whoever gathers little by little will increase it.
Prov 13:11 (ESV)

If you work hard for it you will appreciate the fruits of your labor more so then if it is simply handed to you without the toil and the sweat.

Clip Source: www.onenewsnow.com

As our financial markets totter, as homes go into foreclosure, as Wall Street executives lose millions, as Americans have more and more difficulty getting loans, can anyone be happy?

As the details behind the current debacle are unraveled, we see how government created one more entitlement -- the right to own a house -- and then devised an array of programs to subsidize in various ways "affordable housing." Like all welfare programs, the subsidies succeeded in influencing behavior, but the wrong behavior.

Those who want to use the current crisis as an excuse to expand government and welfare state policies contribute to laying the foundation for our next crisis.

Tags: economy, economics, loans, money, real estate, home, government.subsidies

The Love of Money is the root of all Evil

Tue, 07 Oct 2008 02:30:55 GMT

clipped by: Eaglewings
clipper's remarks: The old saying goes that if it appears to be too good to be true it is.

Easy credit has been the ruin of our financial houses. People have overextended in many areas and housing was just the next obvious liberal pursuit. Conservatives teach that less is more and learning to live responsibly in all areas of life is the best approach.

Liberals would have us believe that you can have it all and at someone else's expense.

The bible teaches that the love of money is the root of all that is evil.

Clip Source: www.onenewsnow.com

A Christian financial expert says America's current financial liquidity problem can't be solved by a government bailout or the policy of a new elected official, but only if people take responsibility for their sin.

Bentley believes the country's current financial woes can be attributed to the sin of greed and the failure of Americans to acknowledge that sin and repent of it before God.

Tags: economy, depression, loans, financial, finance, government. sin. greed, vice

First President could teach the 44th a few things.

Sun, 21 Sep 2008 01:29:39 GMT

clipped by: Eaglewings
clipper's remarks: As we race toward another election and we consider our votes for the next occupant of the White House perhaps it would do us all well to travel back in time and remember the virtues that made this country great.

Avoid political factions and entangling alliances sounds like good advice to me. Perhaps our current bunch of political leaders would do well to heed the words of America's founding father George Washington.

Washington went on to say that popular government depended on virtuous citizens and that only religion, which in the American context meant Christianity, could inspire such selfless behavior.

He frequently asserted that religion helped promote virtue, order, and social stability, and praised the efforts of churches to make people "sober, honest, and good Citizens, and the obedient subjects of a lawful government."

What say you?

Clip Source: www.christianitytoday.com

As commander-in-chief of the Continental Army and the first president of the United States, George Washington played an indispensable role in achieving American independence and safeguarding the infant republic. Risking his reputation, wealth, and life, he commanded an undermanned and poorly supplied army to a victory over the world's leading economic and military power. As president, he kept the new nation from crashing on the shoals of anarchy, monarchy, or revolution.

But he longed to return to his beloved Mount Vernon. In September 1796 he published his "Farewell Address" in a Philadelphia newspaper to make clear he would not consider a third term and to offer his prescription for how best to preserve the fragile republic. To prevent their nation from unraveling or being conquered by England, France, or Spain (which still laid claim to land in North America), he warned, Americans must avoid political factions and entangling alliances.

Tags: washington, presidency, constitution, republic, election, politics, virtue, honor

ACLU trying to control public prayer

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 18:23:38 GMT

clipped by: Eaglewings
clipper's remarks: I thought the ACLU sought to protect people from the overreaching government and discrimination against religion, race, or creed. I guess I was mistaken.

The mission statement of the ACLU states:

The mission of the ACLU is to preserve all of these protections and guarantees:

Your First Amendment rights - freedom of speech, association and assembly; freedom of the press, and freedom of religion.

I wonder what changed?

Clip Source: www.onenewsnow.com

The American Civil Liberties Union is asking the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to tell private citizens how and what they can pray before meetings of the Cobb County, Georgia, Board of Commissioners.

The ACLU actually suggested to the court that Cobb County officials be ordered to send letters to invited clergy telling them "not to invoke religious messages" in their opening prayers and the commissioners' meetings.

This is religious bigotry; it's anti-free speech; it's everything that they're supposed to be against. The idea that the ACLU would want the government to tell people how they should or should not pray is outrageous."

the fact that the ACLU is trying to use the power of the government to tell people how to pray is just an incredible invasion of freedom, and [it] shows that they are not about freedom and liberty at all. They're about oppression and trying to stamp out religious speech."

Tags: aclu, government, prayer, free speech, religion

Illegal's registered to vote?

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 03:02:11 GMT

clipped by: Eaglewings
clipper's remarks: This qualifies as a DUH report. I mean did anyone actually believe that people who bust across our borders and sponge off our government social services would actually bother to follow the rules and register to vote?

I wonder if Nancy Pelosi along with Obama's ACORN organization are signing these illegals up to vote for Obama? And we thought the Republicans where the only ones who stole elections! Do I hear a collective DUH?

This surely explains how we ended up with a candidate like Obama for Pres.

Clip Source: www.onenewsnow.com

A new study warns that fraudulent votes by non-citizens, including illegal aliens, could swing this year's local and national elections.

"When you learn that half of the 9/11 hijackers were registered to vote, that's when you realize that the honor system the country has for its voter registration system is broken," explains Hans von Spakovsky, a visiting scholar at the Heritage Foundation and author of a new report titled "The Threat of Non-Citizen Voting."

The study says tens if not hundreds of thousands of non-citizens, including illegal immigrants, are registered to vote nationwide. Former Federal Election Commission member von Spakovsky points out the U.S. expects individuals, when they register to vote, to comply with the law and not register if they are not American citizens -- but people are clearly breaking that law and there is no way for the government to detect it, he states.

non-citizen voting is likely growing at the same rate as the alien population in the U.S.

Senator blames Government and courts for silencing religion

Sat, 19 Jul 2008 21:00:12 GMT

clipped by: Eaglewings
clipper's remarks: How horrible it will be for those who call evil good and good evil, who turn darkness into light and light into darkness, who turn what is bitter into something sweet and what is sweet into something bitter. Isaiah 5:20 (GW)

Clip Source: www.onenewsnow.com

Senator Jim DeMint says many Christians and their pastors are afraid to state their moral convictions about abortion, homosexuality, pornography, and other issues.

The South Carolina Republican is co-author of a new book titled Why We Whisper – Restoring Our Right To Say It's Wrong. DeMint blames government, and courts in particular, for turning wrongs into rights and barring religious views from public debate. Government rulings, he argues, have changed American culture.

"Before the 1960s, it was pretty clear that abortion was wrong, that sex outside of marriage was wrong, that unwed birth was wrong, and pornography, homosexuality – all this was considered wrong by the society," DeMint contends. "But government came in and turned right and wrong upside down."

DeMint says religious appeals have essentially been barred from public debate.

DeMint adds. "But the government essentially said that religion must be separated from public life.

Tags: religion, state, church, senator, government, courts

Dems stand with Freddy and Fannie during housing scandel

Mon, 14 Jul 2008 16:31:20 GMT

clipped by: Eaglewings
clipper's remarks: IT appears there is not a shady deal Obama's party does not like. They seem to have their fingers in everything that is bad for America, and by inference good for themselves. I guess lining one's own pocket is the goal of government office holders and leading the pack is the Pelosi, Schumer white house.

Obama is not stain free in this one either for apparently he was cozy with ACORN in Chicago. I do not know if it is just me but does it seem like all of Obama's major associations are implicated in some sort of nefarious activity?

So much for change. Seems like business as usual to this old bird.

Clip Source: www.sphere.com

the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (Ofheo) issued a report finding that the government-sponsored entity Fannie Mae had engaged in Enron-like accounting machinations that allowed Fannie to overstate its earnings and underestimate the risk the company faced

When Frannie’s accounting scandal came to light in 2004, conservatives pushed hard for reforms to phase out Fannie and Freddie. Led by former Walter Monadale and Barack Obama campaign adviser James Johnson, Fannie and Freddie pushed back hard,

Fannie also bought off activist groups such as the corrupt Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), which has been indicted multiple times across the country for vote fraud (Obama worked closely with ACORN as a street organizer in Chicago). Fannie’s lobbying efforts paid off as liberal politicians such as Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Rep. William Clay (D-Mo.) worked to kill any real reform of Freddie and Fannie.

Tags: fannie mae, freey mac, acorn, obama, democrats, housing

How Not to Run a Government

Sat, 17 May 2008 03:07:13 GMT

clipped by: Eaglewings
clipper's remarks: People are dying by the thousands in Burma and all the government can think of is protecting itself from a hostile people demanding change.

I am praying for that very uprising to take place and this self-serving junta military government gets sent packing. I am sure these rulers are getting three squares a day and then some.

Clip Source: www.csmonitor.com

Officials move refugees out of monasteries to stem monks' influence.

Mae Sot, Thailand - The longstanding tensions between the two largest organizations in Burma (Myanmar) – the military and the Buddhist clergy – are finding new outlets as both groups confront the devastating aftermath of cyclone Nargis.

The monks have temples sheltering victims in the delta – and have begun to organize funding and supplies for victims, which they hope to deliver via an underground network of sympathetic citizens and exiles worldwide and in Thai border areas such as Mae Sot.

But nearly two weeks since the storm struck, the military, unquestionably, has the upper hand, with guns, helicopters, and relief supplies. And now, it is starting to force cyclone victims out of monasteries into tent camps, prompted by concern that the monks could help spur protests.

Tags: burma, junta, starvation, monasteries

Thomas Jefferson's Warning

Wed, 07 May 2008 21:44:24 GMT

clipped by: willhelm
clipper's remarks: "As this power passes from each individual to a central governing power, individual freedom and liberty is snuffed out, replaced with an arbitrary economic equality as defined, confiscated via progressive taxation and redistributed by those who seek the political power to rule over the lives of others."

Serfdom

Clip Source: therant.us

Jefferson warned, “I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.”

Yet by 2008, our government has perfected the art of wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.

As American soldiers die to guarantee others around the world, the right to individual self-determination, average Americans back home are trading their individual right of self-determination for an alleged greater good, the right to the earnings of others, in the name of economic equality.

Americans are passing their individual powers to define and pursue individual economic conditions to the state, the federal bureaucracy, under the guise of a greater communal good, whereby the state becomes the central arbiter of individual worth.

How Government Regulation effects oil prices at the pump

Wed, 07 May 2008 15:33:20 GMT

clipped by: Eaglewings
clipper's remarks: As is usually the case with government intervention into private enterprise the unexpected results are usually far worse than the original problem congress set out to solve. Doesn't anybody study history anymore? It was not that long ago that the same ideas were floating around congress during the Carter years. Anyone remember the odd even gas days and the long lines at the pumps because of the government forced oil shortages of the 70's

Among other mistakes from that period, the government increased the taxes levied on domestic oil producers, as if that would somehow help.

The result was “reduced domestic oil production from between 3 and 6 percent, and increased oil imports from between 8 and 16 percent.”

The government also instituted price controls, which only served to create the notorious gas shortages of that era. Yes, price controls meant consumers could get cheaper gas — but only after waiting in long gas lines and only if stations didn’t run out first.

Clip Source: www.heritage.org

When it comes to soaring gasoline prices, we need a federal government that does less.

We need fewer restrictions on domestic oil drilling.

The only reason not to drill is the environmental concerns.

We also need less regulatory red tape affecting refineries and gasoline supplies.

It would be worthwhile to streamline the regulations that make it all but impossible to build a new refinery and more difficult and time-consuming to expand an existing one.

Simplifying or eliminating the federal requirements that dictate the recipe (actually a dozen different recipes) for fuel also would help.

Worst of all the federal requirements is the one requiring that corn-based ethanol be mixed into the gasoline supply. Not only does ethanol use raise the cost of driving, but diverting corn from food to fuel has raised food prices, as well.

Congress needs to start undoing the damage it has done. If it enacts more of the same instead, get ready for $4 or even $5 gas.

Tags: gas, fuel, energy, governement, price, control

Against Law to Homeschool

Thu, 06 Mar 2008 23:06:21 GMT

clipped by: Eaglewings
clipper's remarks: Well once again the government of the people by the people and for the people seems to be giving it to the people. I do not know how the public education system got so out of control in this country but I think it is about time we the people started to take back control of the things that matter in our society, starting with the education of our children.

Clip Source: www.christianpost.com

Tens of thousands of parents could be subject to criminal sanctions after a California appeals court ruled parents do not have a constitutional right to homeschool their children.

Parents must have teaching credentials to educate their kids at home.

Advocates for homeschooling families vowed to appeal the decision to the state Supreme Court.

Tags: public, school, schools, education, homeschooling, rights, government

June 9th 1943, Congress introduces public to tax withholding.

Sat, 09 Jun 2007 18:56:47 GMT

clipped by: Eaglewings
clipper's remarks: Emergency measure to pay for the war. Well like anything else that originates in Congress we are still paying for the 1943 war. Like everything else that brings money into the federal government this will never disappear.

Perhaps we need to elect another Andrew Jackson as President! One who sees the evil of excessive taxation on a free market society. What are the chances?

Clip Source: www.amerisearch.net

Withholding taxes from people's paychecks began JUNE 9, 1943. Congress passed it as an emergency measure to get money to fight Hitler. The idea came from Beardsley Ruml, treasurer of Macy's and chairman of New York's Federal Reserve Bank. He called it the "pay-as-you-go" tax. So much money came in with so few complaints that it continued after the war. President John F. Kennedy, April 20, 1961, stated to Congress: "Introduced during the war when the income tax was extended to millions of new taxpayers, the wage-withholding system has been one of the most important and successful advances in our tax system in recent times.

Americans weren't always taxed so much. In a Veto Message to Congress, May 27, 1830, President Andrew Jackson stated: "Through the favor of an overruling and indulgent Providence our country is blessed with general prosperity and our citizens exempted from the pressure of taxation, which other less favored portions of the human family are obliged to bear."

Tags: taxes, government, income tax

Where our Tax Money Really Goes

Thu, 15 Feb 2007 04:13:44 GMT

clipped by: Eaglewings
clipper's remarks: Once every taxpayers comes to grips with were our tax money really goes perhaps then and only then will the populace be able to pick leaders who are serious about our future. Taxing the rich to GIVE MONEY AWAY to those who do not work, refuse to work, are not able to work, or just feel they earned a hand out is not what government was set up to do. All this talk about cutting defense spending is only a smoke screen to keep our focus off of the REAL BUDGET sucker. Listen closely for that big sucking sound you hear coming from Washington is the sound of your hard earned money being sucked out of your pocket right into the pocket of someone who is not working.

Clip Source: www.realclearpolitics.com

Tags: government, taxes, waste, graft, welfare, social security

Gov Needs to Take 3 Trillion dollars from US this year!

Tue, 06 Feb 2007 01:29:21 GMT

clipped by: Eaglewings
clipper's remarks: HOLD ON TIGHTER to your wallets ladies and gentlemen the government has just told us HOW MUCH MONEY they are going to take from us. 3 trillion dollars. Now that is a lot of hamburgers. That is more than it would cost to buy a small country. HELL we could have bought IRAQ for that money. This is insane. If the government had to EARN that much money I wonder what the budget would look like then?

Clip Source: apnews.myway.com

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush sent a $2.90 trillion spending plan to a Democratic-controlled Congress on Monday, proposing a big increase in military spending, including billions more to fight the war in Iraq, while squeezing the rest of government to meet his goal of eliminating the deficit in five years.

Bush's spending plan would make his first-term tax cuts permanent, at a cost of $1.6 trillion over 10 years. He is seeking $78 billion in savings in the government's big health care programs - Medicare and Medicaid - over the next five years.

The president insisted that he had made the right choices to keep the nation secure from terrorist threats and the economy growing.

To help achieve what would be the government's first surplus since 2001, Bush is proposing $95.9 billion in savings in mandatory spending, the part of the budget that includes the big benefit programs of Social Security and health care.

Medicare, which provides health insurance for 43 million older and disabled Americans, would see the bulk of those savings - reductions of $66 billion over five years. That would come about primarily by slowing the growth of payments to health care providers.

Additional savings would be achieved by charging higher income Medicare beneficiaries bigger monthly premiums.

Bush's energy proposals would expand use of ethanol and other renewable fuels with a goal of cutting gasoline use by 20 percent over the next decade.

Tags: federal government, federal spending, budget, inflation, government, taxes

Atheists challenge the Religious Right

Sat, 20 Jan 2007 03:04:21 GMT

clipped by: Eaglewings

Clip Source: www.csmonitor.com

Growing religious influence in the US government has led some nontheists to take positions some describe as 'secular fundamentalism.'

For some time, the religious right has decried "secular humanism," a philosophy that rejects the supernatural or spiritual as a basis for moral decisionmaking. But now, nonbelievers are vigorously fighting back.

Only a small percentage of Americans admit to being nontheists (between 2 and 9 percent, depending on the poll), but that equates to many millions. And religionists' role in debates over stem-cell research and evolution vs. intelligent design - as well as radical religion in world conflicts - have galvanized some atheists to mount a counteroffensive.

Tags: atheism, religion, religious right, government