Could those chickens be coming home to roost?

By Ed Mattson on February 25, 2016    ,http://www.veteranstoday.com/2016/02/25/could-those-chickens-be-coming-home-to-roost/

We elected Mr. Obama who has fundamentally changed America as promised, sending the country darned near down the toilet in the process.

Reverend Jeremiah Wright castigated hard working Americans who make this great country work, by telling the world that America’s chickens were coming home to roost prior to the Obama presidential election. He, like others who dislike America, said “Right-on brother”, and the next thing you know, we elected Mr. Obama who has fundamentally changed America as promised, sending the country darned near down the toilet in the process.
This week will mark the publication date of my latest book which was co-authored by former North Carolina legislator C. Robert Brawley, who served in the N.C. Army National Guard for more than twenty-four years as a helicopter pilot achieving the rank of Lt. Colonel. The title of the book is The Concept of America, a subject which I wrote about this past month.
Mr. Brawley is challenging our North Carolina sitting governor in this year’s gubernatorial election. Similar to what is happening all over the country, America is simply fed up with the same-o-same-o politics as usual, where those in office think no more about the promises they made to get into office than ISIS does about cutting the throats of those who disagree with them. Politicians, who have made lying a fine art of deception, are going to be facing their day of reckoning by those of us who believe America is still worth fighting for. That is what prompted Mr. Brawley to challenge our seated governor.
What is happening here in North Carolina should surprise no one. We see it on the national scene where the “outsiders” have struck a note that is registering with an electorate that is flat-out mad, and justifiably so . . . and it isn’t just those of us in the conservative column. Conservatives of course, believe bankrupting the country to give our nation’s assets to anyone and everyone who can get here (legally or otherwise) in an attempt to purchase their vote, is not reasonable economic policy
You can see it on the liberal side of the aisle as well. They’re angry because their elected candidates haven’t taken America close enough to the Marxist dream they are seeking and they’re probably angry because they haven’t bankrupted America yet. In spite of running our financial resources to the edge of the cliff – now amounting to about nineteen trillion dollars in federal debt – they still clamor for more out of the poor working schlepper, who has to pay the tax bill.
As they (the leftists in the crowd) “claw like cats in a bag” to nominate a known and admitted socialist, Bernie Sanders from Vermont, or the country’s former Secretary of State, who believes telling a lie is as good as the truth so long as the uniformed voters believe her, they continue to demand more and more of the tax dollars from those of us who are still working . . . and that number seems to be dwindling
We have 95 million people who are not employed in America, giving us the lowest work-force participation rate at any time since the Great Depression. The government continues to tout the unemployment rate which they claim is 4.9% using phony figures designed to fool the electorate in an effort to convince us that the economy is getting better.
They don’t disclose the fact that the unemployment rate continues its downward slide because every time someone drops out of the potential labor force they are no longer counted as unemployed and the unemployment rate drops. What “jobs” they claim have been created by their booming economy, are mostly, part-time low-paying jobs working less than 30 hours per week. I know many who are now working two jobs just to make ends meet . . . my wife included.
Let’s put the numbers into terms that are easier to understand since the whole purpose of the government’s statistics are to obfuscate the issue of “unemployment” and confuse those who naively believe the government really cares about them. They are trying to convince the public everything is hunky-dory due to their excellent handling of affairs from Washington DC.
In January 2008, the workforce participation was 66.2% of the eligible work force of approximately 250 million; today it is just 62.7% . . . yet they have the huevos to tell us the unemployment rate is only 4.9%, proving figures lie and liars figure. The workforce participation rate by the way, is the number of able-bodied potential workers aged 16 (not in school) to age 65.
Regardless of your personal thoughts about the person, Donald Trump hit the nail on the head when he claimed real unemployment in the U.S. was over 40%. The Democrats claimed he was nuts and went ballistic, but according to Fortune Magazine (owned by not-so-liberal, Time Inc.) writer Chris Mathews states the Donald’s views can be supported by actual statistics. “If you use the broadest definition of unemployment, the ratio of people over the age of 16 with jobs to the overall 16-and-over population, the Labor Department says that 40.6% of the population is unemployed”.
To put the rest the government’s claim as to just how great the economy is doing, according to Pew Research, fully 85% of self-described middle-class adults say it is more difficult now than it was a decade ago for middle-class people to maintain their standard of living. For the middle-income group, the “lost decade” of the 2000s has been even worse for wealth loss than for income loss. The median income of the middle-income tier fell 5%, but median wealth (assets minus debt) declined by 28%.
So, back to life here in North Carolina which, as in most other states, people are feeling the pinch of the worst economy that can be remembered. The federal government continues to tell us – we the people – there has been little inflation the past eight or so years, and therefore there was no adjustment even considered in a cost-of-living adjustment for Social Security recipients, and government retirees (military et. al.).
We the working stiffs out here trying to make it in America in spite of an all-intrusive government out to confiscate more and more of the weekly paycheck, we just don’t see it like our government overseers.
Kate Horell, writing for Military.com posted on October 15, 2015 that,

“The 2016 cost of living adjustment (COLA) for federal benefits will be zero for 2016.  This is because the index used to determine  military retirement, Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) disability payments, and social security shows that there has been no overall inflation since last September.  The dramatic decrease in the cost of gasoline has cancelled out all the other price increases, leaving a net negative Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (CPI-W).  This is the third time of no increase since increases were made automatic in 1975.  
“Federal payments are received by about 80 million US residents each year, including retired and disabled workers and their families, disabled veterans, and federal retirees”. Ms. Horell went on to post, “The short version of what I’ve just said:  no increase in military retirement, VA disability, or social security in 2016.”

If you are not driving 25-30,000 miles a year, the gasoline price savings just cannot offset the dramatic rise in the cost of dairy products, eggs, beef, and the almost criminal increase in the cost of all things, toilet paper . . . over $4.00 for a 36 roll package of 2-ply, at Sam’s Club. The increase in healthcare costs which affect older people more than the young, are on the rise. Politfact projects a national weighted average 12 to 13 percent increase across 49 states and Washington, D.C. Are the government numbers valid? I don’t believe it for a moment.
Let’s take the argument another step further and show that we the taxpayers have an even bigger bone to pick with Washington and its disregard for we the people. A quick validation of the people’s case against Big Brother is the Congressional Budget Office’s own report dated January 2012 in their ” Comparing the Compensation of Federal and Private-Sector Employees”:

“Workers whose highest level of education was a bachelor’s degree earned roughly the same hourly wages, on average, in both the federal government and the private sector. However, federal civilian workers with no more than a high school education earned about 21 percent more, on average, than similar workers in the private sector, whereas federal workers with a professional degree or doctorate earned about 23 percent less, on average, than their private-sector counterparts.

“Average benefits were 46 percent higher for federal employees whose highest level of education was a bachelor’s degree than for similar private-sector employees and 72 percent higher for federal employees with no more than a high school education than for their private-sector counterparts. Among employees with a doctorate or professional degree, by contrast, average benefits were about the same in the two sectors.

“On average for workers at all levels of education, the cost of hourly benefits was 48 percent higher for federal civilian employees than for private-sector employees with certain similar observable characteristics.”

So, a cost of living increase wasn’t justifiable for we peons of the private sector masses, but it was perfectly okay for our bloated bureaucratic workers nursing at the government teat in Washington . . . Eric Yoder of the Washington Post reported on December 19, 2015 that Obama saw fit to finalized a 1.3 percent pay raise for federal employees in January, the last step in a year-long process. Obama issued an order Friday evening making the raise effective for most federal employees, as of the first full biweekly pay period of the new year, which will start Jan. 10 for most.
It is time to throw them all out. We need to clean house in Washington and our state houses, and get rid of everyone of the bozo’s with ties to the status quo in politics. I may not like Donald Trump, but he certainly is on to something! Hopefully this is the year for the tsunami to overthrow the business as usual crowd ruling over us.