Living In The Big Time

After watching the Big & Rich video "Big Time," I reflect on just how pertinent those words are to Middle Tennessee, Our Citizens, and this potential campaign.

Keep in mind that Big & Rich have not yet in any way endorsed this campaign. John Rich has demonstrated his love for this Nation and his gratitude to Our Veterans & Troops. Perhaps, in the future, he'll allow us the use of his material, but until he authorizes it, I have to respect his property:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svGhuzI4_2U

When you meet me, I may be driving my beat up old work truck. I wanted a workhorse that I wouldn't be worried about dinging up. It has a strong drivetrain that takes no issue with pulling a trailer full of rock, lumber, or trees. It ain't pretty but it gets the job.

Or I may be on the Harley, enjoying the backroads of our District. It's the only new vehicle I've owned. My reward to myself for my time in Afghanistan. At 40+ miles per gallon, it's great during times of high gas prices and it's therapeutic. I find few things more relaxing than taking in the sights and smells of our farms and forests.

When I saddle up, I'm not in a hurry, so if you are, I'll try to find a place to let you pass.

I'm a simple man but that does not mean I'm a stupid man. I look at the convulutated difficult language that Congress passes as legislation and know that it's unnecessary. There is little valid reason for the lawyeresque language they write into law. I can only imagine that its designed to keep us in the dark as to what they're up to.

My decades in the Military helps me interpret the stuff but I ask you, how did a few Senators write 450+ pages of legalese in 2 days? How many of our Senators and Representatives actually had time to read the measures they voted into law? Why did these Used Car Salesmen push it through with such urgency when Our Citizens had seen the "crisis" coming for months and years? Why should banks in NYC be forced to accept the money loaned from China and collected with interest from Smithville?

The same elitist politicians that tell us that we aren't smart enough to choose our own retirement investments have created a US Taxpayer Investment Fund, buying up banks with tax money. We have a Chicago Politician telling us we need to be able to sell our investments more readily at the very time that stocks are cheap. At the very time that Warren Buffett is buying the best companies on the market at rock bottom prices, our "representatives" are using OUR money and charging us interest on it to buy the worst investments on Wall Street.

We are now the shareholders in banks, whether we like it or not. But unlike most shareholders, we have no vote in how things are ran or even if we wanted to be owners of the company. We have no say in how they use our money or if they use it for their high paid executives to hobnob at British or Californian resorts. We cannot fire the executives that caused the mess nor stop them from collecting millions in "golden parachutes" while they did. We were unable in 2008 to fire the politicians that forced this down our throats.

And they are telling us that we have not only the duty to pay our own mortgages but also the mortgages of those that don't pay their own!? Why should our responsible citizens who pay their bills on time be taxed more so that those that don't pay their bills on time are rewarded?

If I told you that your neighbors were in need and that we asked each to throw what we can into the kitty to help them out, the Citizens of Our District would do so. But if I told you we collected $3.2 Million and after paying the bureacrats and shysters that got our neighbors into the mess, we'd have $320,000 to help, you'd tell me to get lost. We are a caring and generous people but we're a bit smarter with our money than that. But that is what Our Government is forcing us to do.

These economic policies of Washington would be like a farmer going out to his field and finding the weakest bull and the weakest cows and using them as his breeding program while taking the best and strongest to the slaughterhouse. It would be like a forest owner cutting down his oak for firewood he didn't need and replanting it with Sumac.

Yes, it costs money to run a government. There is a need to collect taxes. But the goal of government should not be to become our Nation's primary provider of employment. Our citizens should not have to work 2-4 days a week to pay the salaries of bureacrats, politicians and government.

We need to look at the roles and responsibilities of governments. We need to identify what should be provided at what level of government most efficiently. We need to bring government spending under control and that means cutting the waste of a bloated government overstepping its bounds and interfering in our lives unnecessarily. But the citizens of Sparta should not be paying for Chicago Students to be indoctrinated in a particular political ideology.

The Cookeville High School should not be forced to use the textbooks legislated by California. And yes, when the State of California bans words from the authorized textbooks of its school system, it effects the textbooks available for schools the Cookeville Schoolboard can purchase.

Would you prefer to send your tax dollars to Washington to divide up between Los Angeles, New York and Chicago, paying the bureacrats that collect it, audit it, count it, and choose where to send it or would you prefer to send your tax dollars directly to the SchoolBoard that you have chosen to administer Our Children's Schools?