What Obama Should Propose, but Won't

It doesn't take a rocket scientist or an economist to figure out that our hubris filled president is going to ask for billions more in spending tonight. You'd think by now he'd of figured out that we can't spend ourselves into job creation any more than we can spend ourselves out of a recession! There's no doubt in my mind that he's come up with another rob Peter to pay Paul scenario that will be less of a job creator than the near trillion dollar stimulus plan that was hobbled together a few months after he took office.

 It's not complicated Mr. President. We are in a worldwide economic recession like we've never seen in history. Your liberal ideology and labor union loving mindset will not create jobs. Your massive slashing of the defense budget will not create jobs. The American Jobs Act you are going to share with us tonight will in no way pull this economy back from the brink. A jobs bill that calls for hundreds of billions of dollars in new spending, no matter how you slice it up, will not right our fettered path. Desperate times call for bold, decisive, confidence building measures. This is a  concept you are most certainly not familiar with Mr. Obama, but you should surround yourself with those who are.

Tonight, you should offer to all but eliminate cumbersome payroll taxes over the next 12 to 24 months. You should put a freeze on capital gains taxes over the next two years. You should encourage confidence in business owners of all sizes by instituting a moratorium on the time frame companies are allowed to write off capital expenditures, decreasing this from many years to a few years. Furthermore you should lower the corporate tax rate to at least 20% and immediately initiate a bridge building effort to bring America's greatest companies corporate headquarters back home. We should be ashamed that many of them would rather be based out of a p.o. box in Ireland rather than America due to our overly excessive corporate tax rate. You must move to do away with job crushing regulations, many of which you initiated, that are stymying business growth to the brink of disaster. Last but not least Mr. President, you should also announce an across the board spending freeze for the next 36 to 48 months that applies to the federal government. It won't balance the budget, but it's a start. Every quarter we should re-evaluate these initiatives and make adjustment where needed.

Albert Einstein defined insanity by doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results. Again, I submit to you that we cannot spend our way into job creation any more than we can spend our way out of the dire economic straights we're in. We must, you must put special interest groups aside. You can in no way in good consciousness continue for example, to put the interests of labor unions above the greater good of We the People of the United States of America. These types of favoritism and cronyism must stop. We do not have the luxury, you do not have the luxury of continuing to play the blame game. We are all on the same boat, many of us hurting, starving for change and real, genuine leadership. Maybe, just maybe you haver it within you to bring us back from the brink. My heart tells me that you will go down by far, as the worst president in history. As I've said many times, you are without question the biggest marketing fraud perpetrated on the American people in Presidential campaign history. I doubt very seriously I will hearing any rhetoric from you tonight that changes my mind.

Good luck tonight Mr. President. Your gonna need it!

AT&T, T-Mobile Merger BAD for Consumers

The proposed AT&T, T-Mobile merger simply put, is bad for consumers.

My first initial thoughts about AT&T acquiring T-Mobile brings back vivid monopoly memories of the 1980's. Before deregulation, for many of us AT&T (formerly Southwestern Bell) was the only residential phone service game in town. If your mind ever erred with regard to that fact, their arrogant and many times rude customer service representatives would be more than happy to remind you.

At the end of last year we were once again seeing a less friendly, less customer oriented AT&T. Not only have they dropped in recent customer surveys, but we've seen glimpses of them becoming more controlling in regards to how they deal with customers. For example, AT&T was one of the first wireless providers to decide to do away with unlimited data plans. To make things worse, for those of us that have grandfathered unlimited data plans and use too much data, well, they've got a solution for that too. If Ma Bell doesn't like the amount of data your consuming, they reserve the right to "Throttle" the speed in which your mobile device uses data. In other words, even though your paying for unlimited data, use to much and we'll force you to use less. Can you imagine how emboldened AT&T will become should they be allowed to acquire T-Mobile? I can, and there's just nothing positive about it.

Wireless providers including Verizon and Metro PCS seem to be somewhat neutral on the merger, while Sprint is firmly against it. Verizon and Metro are clearly under the assumption that should the merger be approved they will both benefit from AT&T having to divest itself of assets these two will surely want to acquire to better their own networks. The problem is that this doesn't necessarily benefit us. As far as I'm concerned the increased use of multi-band phones and roaming agreements between T-Mobile and AT&T would benefit consumers much more than a full blown merger.

AT&T has proven by their past actions that when there is less competition, they are more likely to try and put the screws to their customers. This is a commonsensical fact. In this case fewer carriers is not better. In the technological age we live in, mobile phone technology is changing at an ever increasing pace. AT&T and T-Mobile are the only GSM carries in the United States. Since GSM is the standard for worldwide mobile phone communication technology, I shudder to think what will happen if AT&T becomes the only provider here in the U.S. T-Mobile serves a great purpose in as much it helps keep both AT&T and Verizon in check when it comes to pricing structure. With the merger yet to go through, both Verizon and AT&T are already modifying their data plans to create potentially explosive costs. You can bet your last dollar that more will indeed become less bang for the buck for the consumer should this merger be approved.

You may click here to be redirected to the FCC's comment board to weigh in with your opinion. Comment numbers 11-65.

Not my Father's Congress

For 12 years my late father served as an impassioned, loyal public servant as a member of The United States House of Representatives. He did so purely for the love of country and the constituents he had the chance to represent. Although not in ideological agreement with many of those he served with, Marvin Leath was able to forge relationships that transcended party affiliations. Leath's Law of Loyalty was based on finding common ground, rising above purely political differences to serve the greater good. He did this by developing political relationships that were not defined by campaign contributions from special interests or careless demagoguery from political opposition. There was no other possible way a small town conservative banker from Waco, Texas could have had the personal relationships he had with the likes of Chuck Schumer, Barney Frank, Charlie Rangel, Ron Dellums, Barbara Boxer, just to name a few. In his day, in his time, his philosophy was life is nothing but relationships. In fact, when he retired, political scholar Norman Ornstein called him,"A Bridge Between the Parties." He's the only politician in history I know of that retired with a 96% approval rating and name recognition of 98%. That's a fact.

The Congressman once said,"Well, relationships--I learned--I think I was about six years old that relationships--human relationships are what makes the world go round. It's not that youto get to know somebody or be nice to somebody just so you can get something out of them. It's just that if I don't know you or you don't know me, neither one of us can influence each other about anything, because we don't have the respect or the trust or the understanding." Further more he said,"I've spent my entire life making relationships, which means that if you've got those kind of relationships, your fortunate enough that you can pick up the telephone and do more in five minutes than some people can in six months because they dont 'have the relationships. They don't--and not only do people have to know you, they have to trust you."(From the Oral Memoirs of James Marvin Leath, Baylor Institute of Oral History, 2001)

Where has my father's vision for America gone I often wonder? Sure, I speak of him often, but that aside to this day he's the best, most effective politician I've ever known. Sadly, our governing bodies have seemingly turned into entities that care more about the fight than they do about what's best for our country. They rely more on high priced consultants to create their views rather than the people that elected them. Political talking points, often filled with half truths and innuendo have taken the place of remembering why they were elected in the first place. Walking the middle and political correctness have taken the place of creating policy based on what's just and right. As dad used to say, there's not one degree of political risk in being honest with those you serve. Well, today there's a lot of dishonesty and heck of a lot of political liability that goes along with it. There's no working together, no real bipartisanship. Today America has a government none of us should be too proud of. The road we're headed down cannot be navigated by the tools we're using. Today members of opposite parties are simply unable despite their disagreements, able to agree on how to govern. The ways in which our elected representatives are choosing to navigate our government is not working. Without change it is doomed to fail and that my friends benefits none of us.