Recent polls show how Americans think about important issues

July 8, 2025

Those of us who have been around for a while — seasoned citizens — realize that the level of disagreement has grown greatly in the last decade or so.

With the sharp divide between the left and the right in our country about how it is doing and what needs to be done, it is interesting to see what the concerns are, and how each side views the situation.

A recent poll by Newsmax magazine showed the results of how all voters view the Republican and Democratic parties’ position on important issues. Republicans topped the Democrats on ten issues, while the Democrats won on three. There were five ways voters expressed their opinion: For Republicans, Democrats, Both, Neither, and Not Sure.

The top issues for Republicans were: 
Immigration & border - Rep 47%, Dem 28%
Government spending - Rep 42%, Dem 28%
Terrorism/national security - Rep 41%, Dem 30%
China-U.S. relations - Rep 38%, Dem 29%
Mideast/Hamas/Iran - Rep 38%, Dem 29%
Russia/Ukraine situation - Rep 39%, Dem 31%
Reducing violence and crime - Rep 38%, Dem 31%
Restoring our core values - Rep 40%, Dem 32%
Growing the economy - Rep 40%, Dem 33%
Gun policy - Rep 37%, Dem 34%

The Democrats led on these:
Lowering healthcare costs - Dem 39%, Rep 32%
Addressing Climate Change - Dem 40%, Rep 27%

Increasing home affordability - Dem 34%, Rep 33%

Another poll asked about the Budget and the National Debt, and the poll showed that overall, 75% of voters were very concerned or somewhat concerned. There were four categories of voters: Overall, Democrats, Republicans, and Independents. 

Those results were fairly close among the groups: 
Overall - Very concerned 40%, Somewhat 35%
Democrats - Very concerned 42%, Somewhat 36%
Republicans - Very concerned 41%, Somewhat 34%
Independents - Very concerned 40%, Somewhat 37%

In looking at the leading cause of the National Debt — far and away the leading cause in each voting group — Excessive Government Spending won. Overall, 47% chose it, and 54% of Republicans, 48% of Independents, and 40% of Democrats chose it.

A distant second place went to Tax Cuts That Reduced Revenue, with only 16% Overall, Democrats at 17%, Republicans at 14%, and Independents at 13%. Coming in third was Not Sure, with slightly lower numbers.

Other causes coming in at less than 10% each were Military and Defense Costs, Social Programs (like Medicare and Social Security), and COVID-19 Pandemic Relief Spending.

Newsmax also showed how the sources of electricity production have changed since 1950. Data from 2024 provided by the U.S. Energy Information Agency show that while their numbers have changed, fossil fuels — coal, crude oil and dry natural gas — still lead by a wide margin.

Over that period coal usage has dropped by about 25% while crude oil has more than doubled, and dry natural gas has increased by more than 600%. There have been significant increases in biomass, wet natural gas and nuclear. But even so, they make up just less than 25% of all sources. Solar, wind and hydro provide roughly 3.5% of all sources.

It seems a majority sees problems with federal law enforcement having become politicized. Another Newsmax poll illustrated the degree to which Americans consider this to be a problem, and focused on the FBI.

On whether the agency needs to undergo reform by the Trump administration, 55% said “yes,” 30% said “no,” and 15% were “not sure.” 

On whether the FBI has become politicized in recent years, 51% said “yes,” 25% said “no,” and 24% were “not sure.”

Asking voters from the Democratic and Republican parties how they viewed FBI Director Kash Patel’s leadership, Democrats said: Favorable - 24%, Unfavorable - 44%, Not Sure - 32%. Republicans said: Favorable - 62%, Unfavorable - 11%, and Not Sure - 27%.

And for FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino, the results were, Democrats: Favorable - 26%, Unfavorable - 37%, and Not Sure - 37%. Republicans said: Favorable - 57%, Unfavorable - 13%, and Not Sure - 30%. Both leaders received a favorable opinion from a plurality of those polled.

On another subject, there is a majority of those polled who agree on three elements. That subject is China, our most threatening adversary. China has purchased thousands of acres of American farm land, much of it near military bases. It has also purchased some American businesses, and has stolen many good ideas from us. It is also the source for many goods that once were produced here.

However, the three areas of the Newsmax polls show that more than 50% of Americans want China to be held accountable.

On the topic of tariffs, 52% strongly or somewhat support them. Those who strongly or somewhat oppose tariffs are only 33%.

Those wanting China to pay reparations for the COVID pandemic are 52%, with 31% opposing. And the third category, reducing the reliance on China, regardless of the costs, are 45% to 29%.

While most of the pro/con numbers are not as far apart as we might expect, given the extreme political divide we see daily, there is still a majority of opinion supporting the Republican position on these issues.

Moving toward a limited and cost-effective federal government

March 18, 2025

Our country is currently experiencing many problems, and some are quite serious. As President Donald Trump’s opponents constantly remind us, he has not yet corrected these problems, even though he has been in office for almost two months.

But seriously, folks, we do have some real problems. And what the most serious of them is depends to a large degree upon whom you ask about that. Some of them are: the national debt, inflation and the resulting high prices, illegal immigration, military strength, big government.

But in whatever order you rank these problems, none of them can be cured overnight; they will all take time to be worked out. That amount of time will be shortened if everyone involved will work together for that purpose. And perhaps that is the most complicated problem of all.

Of those many problems, one that has attracted much attention, and one that is actively being addressed, is the size, cost, and activities of the federal government. Due to the way things have been going for decades, we have become saddled with a national debt of $35.46 trillion, as of fiscal year 2024, and this figure is rising every second. As of last week, it was $36.22 trillion. And the impact of that is enormous: the interest on the national debt is billions of dollars per day.

Our government is too big, it costs too much to operate, its reach has grown far too broad, and it has expanded its power and authority well beyond its originally designed limits. Almost every year the government has a sizeable budget deficit, which adds more to the national debt.

And not only are we spending far too much, billions of those dollars are being spent improperly. Many decisions on spending are being made not by Congress, as is the constitutional process, but by unelected bureaucrats, many with partisan motives.

The entire operation of the government and its spending practices are currently being examined by the newly created and temporary Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

Despite the fact that the people pay taxes on what they earn, on what they spend, annually on property they own, and the Social Security payments they receive, and businesses pay taxes on their operation, the country still spends more than it takes in.

In 1789, several years after the creation of the country, there were only three federal departments: State, War, and Treasury. Today, there are 15 departments. The government has five times the departments it had in the early years. And there are fair points being made that we don’t need some of them, and that others need to be downsized and/or merged.

One example of this is that we don’t need USAID, the U.S. Agency for International Development, and that its work can be done by the State Department. Another is the Department of Education. Its job can be done by the individual states, who handled it before the department was created in 1979.

Liberal criticism of the Trump administration contains the scare tactic that Trump wants to create a dictatorship. That would mean a government that controls everything. But that situation has been building for many years, as evidenced by the increase of government departments and the authority they now exercise.

And what Trump is aiming for is reducing the size, cost and broad authority of the federal government. This is being done by DOGE and other efforts of the administration.

With our oversized federal bureaucracy, we are dependent upon other countries for some of the goods that our people need and want the most. And some of them are things that were once produced here, or that could be.

Due to various causes, many of those things were moved out of the U.S., and for the most part, the reason is that government interfered with domestic production by increased regulations that made production more difficult and more expensive. This caused production of some to be moved to other countries, and made foreign products more necessary.

Why shouldn’t a country as great as America not produce the things its people need and want at home? Why should we be at the mercy of other countries, some of whom love to make us suffer, when we can reorganize our country to produce nearly all of the things we need and want?

By appealing to companies that have moved out of the U.S. and encouraging them to return, and by attracting companies that have not been located here to move here, great things will happen. Thousands of new jobs will be created, and the prices on many items will be better. 

We can act to make domestic products more desirable than foreign made products, if some of them are threatening our own products.

Imagine a country that has an abundance of good jobs creating needed and wanted products. And one with a balanced budget, enough income to allow lowering the national debt, and with national spending low enough to allow a tax system with low tax rates that enable the people to keep more of their earnings.

All of this is possible. But the road to that future is not an easy one.

Why do Democrats oppose making government more efficient?

February 11, 2025

That our federal government is too big, too powerful and too expensive is something that cannot be successfully argued. And President Donald Trump’s efforts to restore the government to its designed size and function has stirred a great deal of comment.

In particular, the examination of the expenditures of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has created quite a buzz on both sides of the political spectrum. USAID employs nearly 10,000 people and has an annual budget of $40-to-$50 billion.

USAID was not created by Congress, as federal departments and agencies usually are, but by an executive order of former president John F. Kennedy in 1961. However, Congress later passed a measure giving the agency the same security as one directly created by Congress.

Trump created the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) through an executive order he signed on Inauguration Day. DOGE will be a temporary organization within the White House, and will have 18 months — until July 4, 2026 — to carry out its mission.

Its mission is to reduce federal spending, shrink the size and increase the efficiency of the federal government. DOGE, through its leader, Elon Musk, has focused much attention on the actions of USAID.

USAID has great potential to assist in important and valuable efforts across the globe, and has often done just that. However, some of its spending may not be the best use of our tax dollars. This is especially true when you understand that the federal government has been spending ridiculous amounts of money beyond what was available for many years.

This ignoring of economic responsibility has created a National Debt of well over $36 trillion dollars, through many years of budget deficits under a long list of presidents.

Some of the USAID expenditures sound useful. Items such as $37 million to the World Health Organization; $12 million in support services to the Bureau for Resilience, Environment, and Food Security; $4 million in funding for the Center for Climate-Positive Development; and maybe even the $6 million spent for non-emergency funding for redundant administrative supports for the Center of Excellence.

But, alas, not all make sense, and some, on a list that White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt brought to a press conference, are plainly inappropriate:

* $2 million for sex changes and "LGBT activism" in Guatemala.

* $6 million advertising to fund tourism in Egypt. 

* Over $4.5 million to “combat disinformation” in Kazakhstan.

* Up to $10 million worth of USAID-funded meals went to al Qaeda-linked terrorist group the Nusra Front.

* Nearly $25 million awarded to Deloitte to promote green transportation in Georgia (the country). 

* $4.67 million to EcoHealth Alliance, one of the key nongovernmental organizations funding bat virus research at Wuhan Institute of Virology, in late 2021, which later refused to answer key questions about the funding.  

Administration efforts through DOGE to audit USAID spending have been met with resistance. Newly confirmed Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who was also named the USAID’s acting administrator, said in an interview that USAID 

is guilty of "rank insubordination" and is "completely unresponsive" to questions and requests, adding "we had no choice but to bring this thing under control." 

It has “basically evolved into an agency that believes that they’re not even a U.S. Government agency, that they are out – they’re a global charity, that they take the taxpayer money and they spend it as a global charity irrespective of whether it is in the national interest or not in the national interest,” Rubio said.

He refused to say whether the agency should be closed, but instead stressed the goal was always to reform it. "There are things that we do through USAID that we should continue to do, that make sense, and we'll have to decide, is that better through the State Department or is that better through something, you know, a reformed USAID? That's the process we're working through," he said.

Despite plans for restructuring, Rubio said the United States would remain the "most generous nation on Earth," adding, that this must be done in a way that makes sense, that’s in our national interests.

Interestingly, the opposition party has loudly complained about the way the administration has handled the matter. It is also interesting that Democrats seem unconcerned with the way taxpayer money is being misused, and with the resistance of the agency bureaucrats — who are unelected government employees — to respond to legitimate requests and orders from the administration. Instead, they call names, and charge the administration with trying to destroy our democracy and wreck the government.

Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said, “Before our very eyes, an unelected shadow government is conducting a hostile takeover of the federal government.”

And, as if that ridiculous comment wasn’t enough, he added another one: “This weekend, DOGE staffers also executed what can only be described as an illegal seizure of the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID.”

No doubt there will be some discomfort, as is necessary in making the broad changes that are needed in these situations. But there should be some real progress towards getting government under control, and that is a badly needed change.

“Taxation with representation” isn’t working so well, either!

January 14, 2025

These days, there are few things that Americans agree on. If there is one that has broad agreement, it is that we feel pretty much the same about taxes. Nobody likes paying taxes, although people do it with the understanding that it is necessary for the nation to survive.

Taxation has been around about as long as civilizations have existed. We know that taxation existed in Mesopotamia more than 4,500 years ago. And taxes here in the U.S. go all the way back to the colonies, when Great Britain taxed about everything that existed. The colonists objected, eventually creating the now well-known phrase "no taxation without representation." But the English king ignored them and this led to protests, the best known of them being the Boston Tea Party.

Even after the revolution and the creation of the United States of America taxes have been an important part of the lives of Americans. 

While understanding that they are necessary, there always has been much controversy about the system of taxation. One major issue is the length and complexity of the current tax code.

The tax code’s growth over the last century or so is hard to swallow. In 1913 the tax code was a relatively tiny 400 pages. Today, it is about 6,000 pages. But when you add in the IRS guidelines, with its nearly 10,000 sections it is 75,000 pages of regulations, instructions and guidance. Someone estimated that in order to read the entire code, it would take nine days of 24-hour reading. 

As explained by eFile.com, the code includes “categories for employment taxes, financing of election campaigns, coal industry health benefits, and the trust fund code. This incredible growth can be attributed to both expansions and revisions that are made to patch up tax loopholes. Over the past 10 years, it is estimated that the tax code has been amended or revised over 4,000 times.”

In the not so distant past, several changes were made to the tax code. President Ronald Reagan made two reforms, in 1981 and 1986, including the largest tax cut in our history, at the time. President Bill Clinton lowered taxes on the middle class in the 1990s, and President George W. Bush also cut taxes substantially in 2001.

President Donald Trump put forth the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act in 2017, which helped people with lower incomes and it also lowered the corporate tax rate. His efforts are regarded as the largest overhaul of taxes in the 30 years prior to its passage.

Even so, these actions did not actually make the tax code any shorter or easier to understand and deal with.

Our tax code is so large and complex that the Tax Foundation estimates that 6.5 billion hours are needed each year to get all the tax work done. That works out to the equivalent of 3.1 million full-time workers. And the wages of these folks total $313 billion. In addition, there are 83,190 people working as tax preparers, as estimated by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

And then there is the issue of tax rates. If there is to be a tax on personal income, why should there be different tax rates depending upon how much you make? The old saw that “the rich ought to pay more” works with everyone paying the same rate. At 10 percent of wages, earnings of $30,000 = $3,000; $75,000 = $7,500; $500,000 = $50,000; $1,000,000 = $100,000.

Why do higher income earners have to pay a higher tax rate? When wealthier people pay higher tax rates, they have less money to spend on the things they need and want, like homes and things in them, autos and other personal items, investments, donations to charity, etc. 

Lower rates give them more money to spend. Having more of their money in the economy is a very good thing. It increases sales of items and services, and that creates jobs and prosperity. Lower tax rates also reduce or eliminate the need for tax loopholes.

People with incomes at or below a certain point cannot afford to pay taxes on their income, so they should continue to get a break. And those in the income area just above that point might need a lower tax rate than others. But we shouldn’t need more than two rates.

Taxes must be sufficient to pay for the actions of government. But the actions of government must for this and other reasons be only as expensive as is absolutely necessary to provide for the safety and well-being of the people. A smaller, more efficient government would require less income from taxation to pay the bills.

The tax code should not be thousands of pages long. And it should not be so complicated that the average American cannot understand it and comply with it without having to seek help from professionals.

Increasing government efficiency at the same time as we are reducing excessive regulations, eliminating unnecessary or unconstitutional departments and agencies, and establishing sensible and fair income tax rates is long overdue.

Hopefully, the incoming Trump administration will address these problems and take steps to fix them.

Trump faces many serious problems, and tremendous obstacles

December 10,2024

As January 20, 2025 — the day of inauguration — approaches there is much talk about what things Donald Trump will do as the new President.

Among the serious problems facing the country and the Trump administration are: the federal government’s size and exorbitant operation; straightening out the military; and the National Debt.

The federal government has become a place where unelected bureaucrats make decisions with the force of law and impose penalties and fines without congressional approval.

Back in June the U.S. Supreme Court rendered a decision that addressed this problem. Kentucky Republican Representative James Comer, Chair of the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, issued this statement about this decision.

“Today’s Supreme Court decision stops the unelected, unaccountable federal bureaucracy’s aggressive regulatory overreach. This is a win for the American people, small businesses, and our Constitutional Republic. For far too long, the administrative state has been able to wield unchecked power and act as legislators by issuing major regulations that have driven up costs for Americans, stifled innovation, and micromanaged nearly every aspect of Americans’ lives. This decision rightfully hands the power back to Americans’ elected representatives in Congress to write our nation’s laws and to the courts to interpret them.”

This is a good development, but more can and must be done. 

There is a crisis within our military. Some in its leadership have become terribly confused in terms of understanding the requirements for and critical job of the military. Foolish and non-productive ideas like DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) have replaced merit in determining job assignments, recruitment processes and promotions. 

Last year the Army, Navy, and Air Force failed to reach their recruiting goals by 41,000 recruits. That means that in 2023 we had the smallest active-duty force since 1940. 

Some other factors in this recruitment failure are: a smaller eligible population, Gen Z has a low trust in institutions, and follows traditional life and career paths much less than previous generations. Another factor is that the military, due to recent changes in operations and philosophy, does not have the strong appeal it once had.

The military’s role is to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign or domestic, and maintain, by timely and effective military action, the security of the United States, its possessions and areas vital to its interest.

We need to increase funding for defense to strengthen and grow our military forces.

The National Debt has grown beyond all reason and is dangerously high. This problem has been going on for many years and has increased recently, as the following data shows: 1974 - $475 billion; 1995 - $4.9 trillion; 2005 - $7.9 trillion; 2015 - $18.2 trillion; 2020 - $26.9 trillion; 2024 - $36.2 trillion.

The current total works out to $107,169 for every person in the country.

Decades ago our largest budget deficits were brought on by national emergencies like the Great Depression and World War II. More recently, the government has simply spent more money than taxation provides, and on inappropriate things. This causes huge deficits, and huge interest payments on our debt.

In 2023, the federal government spent $658 billion on interest costs. That was 2.4 percent of the GDP (gross domestic product). 

While the June Supreme Court decision was a step in the right direction, the federal government still needs much corrective work. There are several departments, agencies, offices, etc. that are not necessary or useful.

Government employees are often not living up to their duties. Many of them work remotely, not at their duty station, a situation that evolved during the COVID pandemic, and which has not been remedied. 

A report found that only 6 percent of federal workers report in-person on a full-time basis. And, almost one-third of federal workers are remote full-time, which is a big difference from before the pandemic when only 3 percent worked remotely. This negatively affects the efficient and proper functioning of many areas of government.

There are at least three federal departments that need to be eliminated: The Departments of Commerce, Education, and Energy. These are among the most frequently mentioned for elimination, with the Department of Education leading the list. 

Having only been around since President Jimmy Carter signed it into law in 1979, the Education Department unnecessarily interferes with the efforts of the individual states to serve their citizens’ needs, a federal department which states did without for two hundred years.

And, as these items are addressed, other critical problems exist. We must repair the open borders of the Biden administration and get control of the illegal aliens now in the country, restore our position of energy independence, and fix the horrible Biden inflation that has made life so difficult for so many.

The Trump administration has a wonderful opportunity to begin to restore the federal government to a reasonable size and reach, to get government spending under control and make some headway toward reducing the National Debt.

That is a substantial challenge under the best of circumstances. And with the Democrat/liberal mindset that is so subversive to the American ideals our Founders established, it will be much more difficult. 

Our government spends too much, and taxes the people too much

April 7, 2024

Several weeks ago, as the April tax filing deadline neared, Facebook featured some comments about how Americans feel about taxes.

Among those comments were these: 

** The biggest scam in life: Paying taxes on money you make; taxes on money you spend; and taxes on things you own that you already paid taxes on with already taxed money.

** Paying taxes in the USA is like having a never-ending car payment on a car that won't run.

** If your country has enough money to give to illegals, your taxes are too high.

** If they can pay all these student loans, they can stop taxes on seniors!

Clearly, taxes are not popular with the American people, despite the need for the government to collect taxes to pay its bills.

Founder Benjamin Franklin in the very early days of the republic said the only two certainties in life are death and taxes. But he wasn't talking about income taxes, because they did not exist then.

In order to help pay for the Civil War, the United States government imposed its first personal income tax, on August 5, 1861, as part of the Revenue Act of 1861. Tax rates were 3 percent on income exceeding $600 and less than $10,000, and 5 percent on income exceeding $10,000. But this tax didn’t last very long. There were other income taxes of short duration.

The income tax we pay today came into existence in 1913 when the 16th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution made the income tax a permanent fixture in the U.S. tax system. It was a tax on incomes of both individuals and corporations. 

As much as people dislike the taxes they must pay, they generally understand that taxes are necessary for governments at the federal, state, and local levels to operate. And here in America, with our commitment to personal freedom, those governments are expected to be lean, efficient, not overbearing, and not overly expensive.

On the federal level, those characteristics are not being followed as our Founders expected.

USA Facts tells us that the “federal government collected nearly $4.5 trillion in revenue in fiscal year 2023 (FY2023). About half was collected through individual income taxes, while 37 percent was through payroll taxes. Other revenue sources included corporate income taxes, customs duties, and sales taxes.”

However, the report continues, the “federal government spent almost $6.2 trillion in FY 2023, including funds distributed to states, Medicare, Social Security, defense and veterans, transfers to states, interest on the debt, and aid to individuals such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and refundable tax credits accounted for 90 percent of spending.”

Worldometer online said that “the current population of the United States of America is 341,531,428 as of Sunday, May 5, 2024.” That’s about $13,000 in federal income collected per person. Spending, however, ran up to more than $18,000 per person.

Today, the National Debt stands at roughly $34 trillion. In 2006 the National Debt was around $8 trillion. A steady increase put it at about $23 trillion in 2020. And then the government stepped on the gas and the National Debt soared by $11 trillion in just 4 years to today’s $34 trillion. As a result, the per person amount to clear the National Debt today is more than $99,500.

The federal government is not as designed: small and limited in function. Today, it is too big, too expensive, not very efficient, and often quite over-bearing.

There are 15 executive departments and hundreds of federal agencies and commissions, employing approximately 1,427,700 federal employees, not including the military. Given the limited government philosophy of the Founders, many/most of these are not appropriate.

Which ones are needed? Here are a few of those executive branch departments that are sensible and needed: Department of Justice, Department of Defense, Department of State, and Department of the Treasury. While others may function well and sometimes provide positive guidance, are they really appropriate under the founding principles?

Why do we need a federal Department of Education to tell states how to educate the young? Why do we need the Environmental Protection Agency to tell private land owners what they can and cannot do with their own property? Why do we need a Department of Labor to tell businesses how they must operate? Under our system of federalism, these and other functions should be under control of the states, not the federal government.

In many of these departments, agencies or commissions unelected bureaucrats set rules in place with the force of law, complete with penalties. However, they are not approved by Congress, the law-making body. These bureaucrats tell the people that they work for, and who pay their salaries, what they can and cannot do, and can render punishment for them if they do not comply.

Over the decades the limited government philosophy of the Founders has fattened up and grown far beyond what it was designed to be, and what is needed and appropriate.

With every such step, the freedom of Americans becomes a little bit more limited. And if this concept continues much longer, America will no longer be the Land of the Free.

Annual budget deficits must end, and the debt must be reduced

May 30, 2023

The National Debt is a monstrous cloud hanging over the United States. It is money owed that is not being repaid, but growing each year.

As of May 25, the National Debt stood at $31,800,000,000,000 ($31.8 trillion). That is a number so huge that it is difficult to understand.

The U.S. Census Bureau tells us that as of July 1, 2022 there were 333,287,557 U.S. citizens. That means that for each citizen — man, woman and child — there is about $94.00 of debt, and about $430.00 per person 18 years-old and older.

Having a National Debt is not new. Its history is a fascinating thing to study.

There was a National Debt when President George Washington, took office in 1789. It was slightly more than $71 million. And, it increased by 11 million during his term that ended in 1797. 

Most of our presidents have seen the Debt increase during their terms in office, although 12 had a decrease in the Debt when they left office: Thomas Jefferson in 1809; James Monroe in 1825; John Adams in 1829; Andrew Jackson in 1837; Millard Fillmore in 1853; Franklin Pierce in 1857; Andrew Johnson in 1869; Ulysses S. Grant in 1877; Rutherford B Hayes in 1881; Chester Arthur in 1885; Grover Cleveland in 1889; Benjamin Harrison in 1893; Warren Harding in 1923; and Calvin Coolidge in 1929. 

Two presidents saw no change. James Garfield was assassinated during his first term after only 200 days in office. And after only 31 days in office, William Henry Harrison died.

It has been more than 90 years since the Debt was lowered under Coolidge. The reduction was $5.4 trillion for a total Debt of $16.9 trillion, slightly more than half of today’s Debt.

Since then, every president — 16 of them — has seen an increase during their time in office.

While things that a president does can affect the Debt, sometimes things beyond his control cause an increase. Factors like wars, recessions and national crises can affect the Debt. A recent crisis was the Covid pandemic. Another was the 9-11 attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon that led to spending that was not planned.

Also, because the U.S. fiscal year begins in October and ends the following September, and presidents take office on January 21, during most of a president’s first year in office, he is at the mercy of his predecessor’s budget.

The Debt Ceiling is the limit on borrowing that can be done, and Congress has control of it. It is part of a law (Title 31 USC, section 3101) that sets a legislative limit on the amount of national debt that can be incurred by the U.S. Treasury. 

When the debt ceiling is reached, as it often is, these days, the President and Congress must work toward an agreement on raising it. If they succeed, the government can borrow more money to meet its obligations. If not, a government shutdown occurs until an agreement is reached. The latter option is not really a viable one.

For the last nine decades the National Debt has continued to rise.  The smallest increases since Coolidge’s lowering of the Debt in 1929 are from three consecutive presidents who served from 1981 to 2001: Ronald Reagan at $1.86 trillion; George H.W. Bush at $1.55 trillion; and Bill Clinton at $1.4 trillion.

Since Clinton’s tenure, the next three presidents have seen larger increases: George W. Bush at $6.1 trillion; Barack Obama at $8.3 trillion, and Donald Trump at $8.2 trillion. Joseph Biden has seen the Debt increase by $2.5 trillion in his two-plus years in office.

In December of 2022, interest on the National Debt — which at that time was $31.4 trillion — was $210 billion, roughly 15 percent of total government spending for the year, according to Visual Capitalist online.

“The current revenue of the federal government is approximately $4.6 trillion while spending exceeds $6.0 trillion,” Forbes online reported in April. “Thus, the current budget deficit is over $1.4 trillion. It’s clear that members of Congress are spending like drunken sailors and like the Titanic, the U.S. is on a collision course with a financial iceberg.” 

The article goes on to say that high interest rates make this situation worse for the government to meet its financial obligations. Meanwhile, politicians seeking reelection prefer to keep spending.

The Republican-led House of Representatives passed a measure to raise the Debt Ceiling, but also to make significant spending cuts. Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-CA, and President Joe Biden have been meeting trying to reach an agreement.

Hopefully, by the time this column is published, an agreement will have been reached.

At some point, elected members of Congress and the President of the United States must recognize that this unconscionable spending must stop, and the country must trim down, and develop a budget that pays current obligations and begins to pay down this humongous debt.

Our country was designed to be small, efficient, and non-intrusive. A government that protects the freedoms of its people, would not intrude on their good lives, and would not grow into the gargantuan monstrosity it has become. That is what the government needs to again become.

The United States of America faces serious problem

January 31,  2023

The United States has many problems with which to deal. Problems with the government. Problems with other countries. Problems within society. 

The federal government itself is a serious problem. Yes, we have managed to keep going with things as off the rails as they are. But if these problems continue to grow, our lives will become progressively less pleasant.

We need the federal government to be returned to its proper size and scope. Over the years and decades, the separation of powers and the system of checks and balances, so thoughtfully designed by the Founders, have been weakened, and the balance between the three branches of our government — Legislative, Executive, and Judicial — has been heavily altered. 

Actions by the Supreme Court, the Congress and the many US presidents have gradually shifted the government’s balance, and given the it much more power and a broader reach than intended.

The Executive Branch has become far more powerful than it should be, with unelected bureaucrats in administrative agencies implementing regulations with the force of law, rather than the Congress making those laws and the Judiciary ruling on their constitutionality and legality.

The National Debt continues to grow. Every year since the 1950s has seen an increase in the Debt, regardless of which political party the sitting President represented. As of December, 2022, the National Debt stood at approximately $31.42 trillion. According to Statista.com, the national Debt in 2021 worked out to $80,885 per person. It has increased since then.

Some of that growth resulted from additional funding for crisis situations, and some of it merely from the desire for additional spending without having the funds to pay for it.

As with every business and household, government spending should not exceed income. And borrowing when extra money is needed has to be paid back. Our government has not been doing this.

To raise required funds, we first need a realistic budget, based upon only the absolute necessities of the government, and then we need a sensible and fair system of taxation to raise those funds. 

Taxes should not be punishingly high and treat everyone equally. They should be high enough to fund the needed functions of a lean and efficient government.

The Libertarian Republic published an article in 2015 titled “Top 10 Government Agencies We Should Eliminate Immediately.” The article focused on the magazine’s opinion of elements of these agencies that exceed the boundaries of a limited government like that set forth in the U.S. Constitution, and which infringe on the personal liberties of Americans.

Perhaps this perspective does not match that of many or most Americans, but it paints a libertarian picture of just how much our government has expanded.

Those in denial of just how horrible a job the government is doing to stop illegal immigration on the southern border tell us the immigration system is to blame and needs to be revised. But if the government would merely follow the guidelines of that system, we would have far fewer deadly drugs, human trafficking, criminal immigrants and other things coming across the border each day.

And then we have issues involving both China and Russia. 

Some say that we are headed into a conflict with Russia over our support of Ukraine against the brutal and unprovoked Russian war. The more we support Ukraine, they say, the greater the chance that Russia will regard us as an enemy, leading to a nuclear conflict.

And, there is criticism both of the amount of money spent for Ukraine that some believe could and should be used for problems here at home, and for the idea that we really don’t know how Ukraine is using those funds. Further criticism comes from the idea that by sending Ukraine military weaponry that we are weakening our own level of military readiness.

China has made no secret of its desire to replace the U.S. as the world’s dominant economy. However, one Simon Baptist, global chief economist at the Economist Intelligence Unit, told CNBC’s “Street Signs Asia” that “I think it’s very unlikely that ... China will get to U.S. levels of GDP per capita — that’s our measure of wealth — for at least the next 50 years if ever.”

That may be true, or not, but it does not relieve the tensions between the two nations over Covid, the fentanyl crisis, and economic issues. So many things that the U.S. once produced, or could now produce, are strongholds of the Chinese economy, and could be used against us.

President Joe Biden weighed in on this topic. “I see stiff competition with China. China has an overall goal — and I don’t criticize them for the goal,” he said. “But they have an overall goal to become the leading country, the wealthiest country in the world and the most powerful country in the world.  That’s not gonna happen on my watch.” Time will tell.

There will always be problems and things not going as planned or hoped. But if we respond to all of them with the same degree of disinterest as the Biden administration has shown for the border, energy, and the other current problems, the country will pay a very heavy price.

The national debt is one big problem nobody’s doing anything about

The national debt currently is more than $22,000,000,000,000 – that’s 22 trillion dollars – and growing by the minute. No one in Washington seems very concerned about it. What’s worse is that this situation has existed for decades.

Data from the Office of Management and Budget shows that of the ten presidents who were in office when the debt grew the most, all but two were 1970 and after. In case you can’t call them to mind, they are, in order: Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump.

The four who ran the highest deficits, as reported by Kimberly Amadeo, writing in The Balance, are, from worst to least bad:

* Barack Obama, leading the pack with $6.785 trillion. 

* President George W. Bush is next, racking up $3.293 trillion.

* President Ronald Reagan added $1.412 trillion.

* President George H.W. Bush created a $1.03 trillion deficit in one term. 

However, Amedeo explains, blaming the president is too easy because other factors play a role. She listed the following:

1. The president has no control over the mandatory budget or its deficit. That includes Social Security and Medicare benefits. These are the two biggest expenses any president has. 

2. The Constitution gave Congress, not the president, the power to control spending. The president’s budget is just a starting point. Each house of Congress prepares a discretionary spending budget. They combine them into the final budget that the president reviews and signs. 

3. Each president inherits many of his predecessors' policies. For example, every president suffered from lower revenue.

4. Some presidents have to deal with catastrophic events. President Obama responded to the worst recession since the Great Depression. President Bush reacted to the 9/11 terrorist attacks and Hurricane Katrina. Their required responses came with economic price tags.

The point here is that every year since Nixon was elected president, except for four, there has been a budget deficit, and that is a serious problem that is not being addressed. The national debt is more than six times the annual federal revenues of recent years.

Justin Bogie, Senior Policy Analyst in Fiscal Affairs at The Heritage Foundation, addressed this problem in an article last month. “Despite the strong economy, the nation remains in a precarious and unsustainable budget position, just as it was last year,” he wrote. “Debt held by the public is set to rise to nearly one and a half times the size of the economy in the coming decades.”

Some want to blame the Trump tax cuts for causing the problem, or if not causing it, making it worse. Actually, despite the tax cuts, or as a result of the tax cuts, federal revenues have risen since 2017. 

The Congressional Budget Office shows that for 2017, before the tax cuts took effect, federal revenue totaled $3.316 trillion. After the tax cuts took effect revenue rose by $14 billion to $3.330 trillion in 2018, and the CBO projects revenue of nearly $200 billion more than 2017 at $3.511 trillion for 2019.

Federal tax collections were the highest in history in 2018 and 2019. So, the problem is not a revenue problem, because with sensible policies revenue can increase even beyond 2018 and 2019 levels. 

What we have is a problem of spending, further complicated by some slight of hand by Congress.

“Congress utilizes a wide variety of gimmicks and accounting tricks to hide the true costs of legislation,” Bogie writes in another Heritage article. “This allows Congress to spend more and more — evading fiscal discipline and adding billions of additional dollars to the federal debt each year.”

Such tricks include: Timing Shifts - shifting in what year revenues or expenses may be reported; using Disaster and Emergency Spending to circumvent budget caps; double counting Federal Trust Fund savings; not accounting for interest costs in Legislative Cost Estimates, and other such deceptions.

Obviously, closing these loopholes should be a first step in restoring fiscal sanity to the budget process. But closing and/or consolidating government agencies to remove duplication of services; eliminating wasteful policies and programs, as well as ending overreaching and underperforming government programs; and general belt-tightening, not unlike businesses utilize, to stay in business can make a substantial difference.

These are common sense steps. But they go by the wayside in our gargantuan government that is infected by self-interest and political motivations, things elected officials and bureaucrats often put ahead of what’s best for the country and the citizens whose taxes pay their salaries, and fund this malfeasance.

The Government Accountability Office’s “Annual Report” lists steps to reduce costs, reduce fragmentation, overlap, and duplication within federal agencies and programs. When followed, they produced positive change in the past.

And, The Heritage Foundation has produced a report titled “Blueprint for Balance,” that “presents a holistic vision for how to rein in out-of-control government spending, create a more accountable and effective budget process, and balance the budget in 10 years.”

The Heritage blueprint outlines how government can cut $10.8 trillion over 10 years, extend the tax cuts, and eliminate deficits by 2029. 

It’s time to focus on this problem.

We have to stop deficit spending and lower the national debt

The national debt virtually doubled in the 8 years of President Barack Obama. From the $10.6 trillion debt when he took office in 2009 that was created by all the presidents before him, until the end of his terms in 2017, the debt grew to nearly $20 trillion. That was, of course, the largest increase under any president in history.

President Donald Trump claimed that in his first month in office he actually saved money, reducing the national debt by $12 billion. That is true, but is a mere pittance compared to the $20 trillion total. It was a baby step in the right direction, but it was also only a moment in time for a number that rises and falls month-to-month.

Campaigning in 2016, Trump promised voters he would balance the budget. His first budget does not accomplish that difficult task, and in fact, the budget for fiscal year 2019 is projected to add another trillion to the existing debt, contrary to his promise to voters.

Trump’s proposed spending plan is a $4.4 trillion monster for fiscal year 2019 that some describe as dangerously unbalanced. He still has some time to balance the budget, but what a great thing it would be if his first budget actually moved decidedly in that direction.

Everyone who manages a business or organization, or a home budget understands the situation: ideally, income exceeds expense. Historically, the federal government achieves surpluses only rarely, and a properly operated government shouldn’t produce large surpluses, or large deficits.

Our gargantuan national debt is the result of gross budgetary malfeasance, and it is at crisis proportions. The nation’s debt now exceeds its GDP, and net interest payments on the debt are estimated to be 6.8 percent of all federal outlays at $276.2 billion this fiscal year. That is enough to pay for all administrative office employees for this year.

A comparison of what the government is doing with what it is allowed to do by the U.S. Constitution needs to happen.

The Preamble to the Constitution lays out its purpose, in broad terms: “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

James Madison, one of the Constitution’s creators, certainly can be cited as an expert on the document. “The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined,” he wrote in Federalist No. 45, in 1788. “Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite.”

But in direct opposition to this founding principle, phrases such as “promote the general Welfare,” have been expanded well beyond what the Founders intended, and contribute greatly to a government that has grown in size, control and cost beyond all reason.

The federal government has its nose and fingers in far too many areas of our lives. It should not regulate mud puddles or control education. It should not use its power against some legal businesses or organizations to the benefit of others. The federal government owns and controls 640 million acres of America’s land, about 28 percent of its total surface, the majority of it in western states. The list goes on.

Given the degree to which these improper activities have grown and are so much a part of life, it may not be possible to completely eliminate them, but there are certainly areas ripe for reduction.

As designed, the federal government should not require much money from citizens to operate, and the tax cuts that finally made it through Congress have been a boon to taxpayers and businesses. Businesses can expand, replace equipment, hire new workers and/or increase wages, and taxpayers will have more of their earnings at their disposal to buy things they need and want, which will increase spending in the private sector and increase tax collections.

And government positions left unfilled by the administration will provide some reduction in government spending. But even under the best of circumstances, these factors will not make a large dent in the deficit.

According to downsizinggovernment.org, “The federal government employs 2.1 million civilian workers in hundreds of agencies at offices across the nation. The federal workforce imposes a substantial burden on America’s taxpayers. In 2017 wages and benefits for executive branch civilian workers cost $276 billion.” And that does not count the courts, the Congress or postal workers.

Getting federal spending down to the balanced budget level requires drastic cuts in government, and will require closing some unnecessary administrative agencies, and reducing the number of federal workers in the remaining agencies. As Madison reminds us, the powers delegated to the federal government are few and defined, and the rest of the things needed are to remain the responsibility of the state governments.

One of Trump’s favored phrases in the campaign was “draining the swamp.” Getting government under control and reduced to its proper size and function has never been more important than it is today.

As the New Year begins, government’s policies are still failing us

As the economic non-recovery crawls into 2014, the “good news” on the jobs front – that the unemployment rate dropped .3 percent in December to 6.7 percent – is far less impressive when you look beneath the surface.

The reason the unemployment rate dropped was not that a strengthening economy produced a sharply higher number of new jobs, as should be expected in a true recovery. December showed only a puny 74,000 new payroll jobs were added. Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) indicates that the drop resulted because five times that many people – 374,000 – became discouraged that they couldn’t find work and dropped out of the labor force.

Adding even a small number like 74,000 to a smaller labor force misleads us into thinking things have improved.

The BLS identifies June of 2009 as the official end of the recession, at which time the labor force participation rate was 65.7 percent (162 million workers). At the end of December, the rate stood at a pitiful 62.8 percent (155 million workers).

Using the size of the labor force in 2009 and the adding back into the equation the 7 million who have dropped out, the unemployment rate is just under 11 percent.

We should not celebrate a drop in the unemployment rate to 6.7 percent when 7 million Americans have given up looking for work because the economy still has not produced jobs for them.

Hopefully, the New Year will bring an infection of fiscal responsibility to our national leaders. It is interesting how liberals see global warming/climate change – a widely popular but unproven theory – as a true crisis, but don’t see years of budget deficits near and above a trillion dollars, and a national debt of nearly $17 trillion, as a problem.

President Barack Obama’s first year in office, 2009, saw a deficit of $1.4 trillion, which gets credited to George W. Bush, but contained the contribution of nearly $200 billion from the Obama stimulus. But over the next four years Mr. Obama racked up more than $4.2 trillion in deficits – FY 2010: $1,294 billion; FY 2011: $1,300 billion; FY 2012: $1,087 billion; FY 2013: $680 billion. This fiscal year the projection is a deficit of $744 billion, and the FY2015 deficit is projected at $577 billion.

To help put this in perspective, The Weekly Standard noted back in November of 2012 that, “According to the White House OMB, we ran up $1.8 trillion in real (inflation-adjusted) deficit spending during fiscal years 1942-45,” and that “we’ve now run up $3.4 trillion in real (inflation-adjusted) deficit spending under Obama — in less time than it took us to fight World War II.”

If there is good news in Obama deficit numbers it is that the deficits are coming down, but real good news would be Congress and the president taking concrete steps to get spending under control.

That seems unlikely, given Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) opinion that “The cupboard is bare. There’s no more cuts to make,” a position gleefully adopted by most, if not all, Congressional Democrats.

In her view there is no waste, fraud or abuse, despite more than ample evidence to the contrary, and there’s no unnecessary spending, either.

Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) issues an annual report on government waste, and in “Wastebook 2013,” he lists 100 examples totaling $30 billion. Heaven only knows the total of all the wasteful spending of the federal government.

* The military has destroyed more than 170 million pounds of useable vehicles and other military equipment, approximately 20 percent of the total U.S. war material in Afghanistan, totaling $7 billion, rather than sell it or ship it home.

* The SuperStop is a $1 million bus stop complete with heated benches and sidewalks, and wireless zones for personal computers. Yet its roof doesn’t protect from the rain, snow, wind or blazing sun.

* One of NASA’s next research missions won’t be exploring an alien planet or distant galaxy. Instead, it is spending $3 million to go to Washington, D.C. and study one of the greatest mysteries in the universe — how Congress works.

* When officials at the Manchester Boston Regional Airport in New Hampshire installed new solar panels costing $3.5 million, they did not anticipate one quarter of them would not be used 18 months later because the reflection from the panels blinds pilots and controllers.

* The Treasury Department’s Inspector General for Tax Administration discovered the IRS paid up to $13.6 billion in false Earned Income Tax Credits in 2012.

* While millions of Americans continue to pay taxes on their hard earned wages, many federal employees are tax cheats, to the tune of $3.6 billion.

* The feds keep the lights on in empty and little used federal buildings, costing $1.5 billion.

* Out of the $33.5 billion in Pell Grants the federal government doled out last year, individuals posing as students took off with $1.2 billion.

When an elected public servant believes there can be no spending cuts in the face of such wanton waste, it speaks volumes about the integrity and motivation of that individual.

Federal spending is a giant problem that we had better address soon.

Is Congress finally getting serious about spending and the debt?

The Congressional Fiscal 2014 Budget Conference Committee met for the first time last week. It is a bipartisan, bicameral committee that includes all members of the Senate Budget Committee, and the Chairman and Ranking Members on the House side, is about even politically, with 15 Democrats and 14 Republicans, but is heavily weighted towards the Senate, with 22 senators and seven representatives.

The budget reform panel was mandated in the bill that raised the debt ceiling and ended the government shutdown, and has until December 13 to find a budget compromise or face the likelihood of another government shutdown in mid-January when funding for the government runs out.

The group is reportedly focused on finding ways to replace across the board spending cuts, known as sequestration, with more sensible reductions in federal largess.

Representative Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) is chair of the joint committee, and in opening remarks said that the debt held by the public has doubled in just the last 5 years and is only getting worse. It’s a drag on the economy, he said. With 10,000 Baby Boomers retiring every day, Medicare and Social Security are going broke.

The debt, he said, hurts economic growth and job creation, and noted the message from the Congressional Budget Office, which warned that if something isn’t done soon, there will be a debt crisis. “We’ve got to get a handle on our debt, and we have got to get a handle on it now,” he stated, and the way he believes we must work our way out of this is through tax reform, including getting rid of carve-outs and kickbacks, and through a growing economy, and not by raising taxes.

The federal budget is a huge mess. In FY2013 the federal government took in revenue of $2.8 trillion, but spent $3.5 trillion, and owes $17 trillion to debt holders.

This compares to a family of four that earns $36,000 annually, but spends $45,000 each year and has accumulated debt totaling $219,000. This family clearly needs to cut down on its spending.

But the federal government cannot do that. At least not if we believe House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Cal.), who said in an interview in September on CNN’s “State of the Union” that “The cupboard is bare. There’s (sic) no more cuts to make. It’s really important that people understand that.”

Ms. Pelosi is apparently unaware that the federal government spent your tax dollars on such important things as exotic dancers, robotic squirrels, studying pig poop, and a reality TV show in India. And she also doesn’t know about the Government Accountability Office estimate of roughly $17 billion of improper Medicare payments each year, or the billions of dollars of mismanagement, corruption, and wasteful spending in federal housing subsidies, and the fraud and abuse in the food stamp program, school lunch, and child care programs, and in Veteran’s Affairs.

Maybe she’s forgotten that we pay people with our tax dollars at the NSA to record terabytes of information about us, and IRS employees to harass Republican/conservative organizations applying for non-profit status, and federal SWAT teams to kick down the doors of people whose student loans are in arrears and besiege a mine operation in Alaska to check for compliance with the Clean Water Act.

And then there are the 31 areas of spending on duplicative federal programs, spelled out in a report by the Government Accountability Office that waste billions annually, such as at least 23 different federal agencies running hundreds of programs to support renewable energy, and the 29 Department of Homeland Security contracts that partly or completely overlapped with research being done by another part of the same department.

Despite these examples of waste, fraud and abuse, and also despite the record $2.8 trillion in revenue the federal treasury collected in FY2013 – which provided President Barack Obama the opportunity to claim credit for a sizeable reduction in the annual budget deficit – Nancy Pelosi thinks that in negotiations about debt reduction “revenue needs to be on the table.”

But, no, Ms. Pelosi. You and your big spending comrades don’t get another dime.

Before the middle class or even the wealthiest Americans are further burdened with additional taxes, the federal government needs to get its act together and start operating efficiently. It must eliminate the billions of dollars in waste, fraud and abuse, and eliminate duplication.

Taxes should be evenly applied and high enough to support only essential government services. And, the most important word in that concept is “essential.”

Congress must get rid of carve-outs and kickbacks, eliminate pork barrel projects, stop the unconstitutional passing of Congressional responsibility to Executive Branch agencies, and restrict legislative activity to necessary and useful laws.

And the federal government must begin to operate with an attitude that demonstrates the obligation every federal worker – from the President of the United States, to Cabinet Secretaries, to Members of Congress, to the lowest paid employee – owes to the people they work for, the taxpayers. Perhaps then each of them will earn through job performance the high status some of them assume they are due “just because” they hold a high elective or appointed position.

The five disgusting Ps of the Obama/Reid Government Shutdown

We are led to believe the government shutdown is one of the worst things to afflict the country since … well, pick something.

But that’s just more exaggeration from the left in Washington and in the media. The vast majority of Americans would not notice the shut down absent the barrage of horror stories we’ve been treated to, and one other factor.

Shutdowns aren’t that unusual. Since 1976 there have been 17. Six occurred during the Carter administration, 8 during the Reagan administration, one during the elder Bush administration, and 2 during the Clinton administration.

Most lasted less than a week, but in the Carter administration 4 lasted 10 days or more, and the longest of all those shutdowns in 1996 lasted 21 days. On average, government shutdowns last about 6.5 days. There has been a lag in shutdowns since 1997 in the second Clinton term, through the George W. Bush administration, and through the first Obama term.

There is obvious discomfort among furloughed federal workers. However, the House of Representatives voted Saturday to fund back pay, which is what usually happens in shut downs. So, the real pain will be felt by some of the American people, due to the aforementioned “other factor.”

Three things are true about this shutdown: First, the Republican-led House passed three bills to restore government funding. Second, each House measure also sought to delay or defund the Affordable Care Act (ACA). And third, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid refused to act on the House measures and President Barack Obama threatened to veto them.

From this we see: a) House Republicans want to reopen the government and passed three measures to do so, and also wanted to save the American people from the ACA with its broken promises, serious problems, and goodies given to large employers and Members of Congress and their staffs. And b), to Sen. Reid and President Obama, putting the furloughed employees back to work, activating the inactive government functions and opening closed facilities are far less important than implementing the highly flawed ACA.

Mr. Obama is comfortable in his “It’s good to be the king” self-indulgence. But, he’s not “the” king, or even “a” king; he is merely the President of the United States, which is certainly an important and powerful position, but the Executive Branch of which he’s the head is just one-third of our government.

Those who took civics or other classes in American government know that among the ingenious features of the U.S. Constitution are the separation of powers and the system of checks and balances, which were designed to prevent any one branch from acquiring more power than the other two.

Mr. Obama – who was reportedly a constitutional law lecturer – believes that the president is the most important figure in the government, ignoring the Constitutional prohibition of any branch gaining the degree of power and control he desires.

Democrats hold this perspective about the ACA:

*It was passed by Congress and signed by the president.

*The Supreme Court found it constitutional.

*There was an election that confirmed the country’s support for Obamacare.

*Thus, the matter is settled: the ACA is the law of the land. End of discussion.

This scenario is rife with weaknesses. Every Republican in the House also won election in 2012, and nothing prevents a law being repealed or amended. And remember that at one time slavery was the “law of the land,” and Congress made a huge error in abolishing the sale of alcohol through the 18th Amendment.

Congress can right wrongs in the law, as it did with slavery; it can repeal bad laws, as it did with the 18th Amendment. And, it can repeal, defund, or amend the error-ridden ACA.

Because Republicans did not lie down and let the Democrats have their way, we have been treated to the aforementioned “other factor,” the 5 Ps: the petulant, peevish, petty, and punkish political behavior that characterizes the shut down.

Faced with an obstinate opposition party, President Obama convened his strategy team from a nearby elementary school, where members of the third grade gathered on the playground to formulate a plan.

Noting that monuments and memorials were not closed during previous shutdowns, they recommended this tactic to cause pain: Close national parks and monuments, as well as some facilities that receive no federal funds and are not federally owned, like Mount Vernon. Close Florida Bay and Biscayne Bay to commercial fishing. Place barriers to block the World War II Memorial that has no gates and is wide open to visitors. Tell people who rent slips for their live-on boats or own homes on Lake Mead they can’t stay there. Block scenic overlooks, like at Mt. Rushmore, by placing traffic cones that prevent drivers from pulling over to view the monuments. Perfect third grade strategy.

Wesley Pruden, writing in The Washington Times, quoted an angry Park Service Ranger, who confirmed that attitude: “It’s a cheap way to deal with the situation,” he said. “We’ve been told to make life as difficult for people as we can. It’s disgusting.”

You see, if the shutdown doesn’t hurt people, it doesn’t help the Democrats.