What I WISH they’d tell us.

Are you tired of hearing the same old, tired promises from candidates, along with proposals you know just will NOT work, no matter what they say? Tired of politicians pandering to special interest groups, telling us what they think we want to hear? Tired of choosing between the lesser of two weasels come November. Me too. I’m not a candidate, but if I were, I think I’d throw caution to the wind and try honesty for a change. Instead of making a bunch of empty promises I couldn’t keep if I wanted to, I’d tell people the truth, as painful as that might be. This is not a short post, in fact, printed out, it runs to ten pages. I hope you’ll agree it’s worth the time it takes to read it.

My address would go something like this…

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My fellow Americans:

We face some huge challenges in America. We are the greatest nation on the face of the Earth, but that does not mean we are without problems, nor are we always right in the way that we deal with them. We’ve made some mistakes – not because (as some say) that America is “evil” or “misguided,” but because everybody makes mistakes now and then. One of the great things about America, however, is that we have a history of admitting where we’ve gone wrong, and then fixing it. Your next President needs to deal with our problems in an intelligent, forthright manner. In that light, here’s what I plan to do if you elect me as your next President…

As far as the economy goes, we’re in a pickle. It’s nothing we can’t fix, but we’ve got to be careful to make sure that the cure isn’t worse than the disease. Before we can fix things, though, we have to understand what went wrong and why.

For years, really since the economy recovered in the 90’s, as a country, we’ve been living beyond our means. Instead of saving for a rainy day, we’ve borrowed against our tomorrows. Well tomorrow is here, and there’s a past-due bill we have to settle. That doesn’t mean we’re all guilty of greed, stupidity, or ignorance. Some Americans WERE greedy. Some were not aware of what was going on in our financial system. Some simply turned a blind eye, hoping that the inevitable day of accountability would never come. Regardless of our actions, we’re all in this together. There will be plenty of time to weed out the ones that took advantage of our markets and helped ignite this crisis. That will come, in time. Now is the time to try and minimize the damage to our economy, and band together to make things better.

First, we all need to realize that the only way to fix this is to all pull together. Conservatives. Liberals. Democrats. Republicans. Everybody. We have to stop bickering, blamestorming and finger-pointing and get with the program.

Next, we need to realize that what makes our country great is our history of self-reliance and good, old-fashioned American Ingenuity. We won’t solve things by buyouts and bailouts. Those are only Band-Aids, and the best they can do is to stave off the inevitable, and perhaps soften the crash. The REAL solution comes from us pulling together. We have to stop looking for a handout, and offer a hand to each other. We have to become self-reliant once again.

For too long, we’ve been taught that our government should take care of us, cradle to grave. Nonsense. Why would we want some Federal nanny doing that? After all, the flip side of having a nanny to take care of us, is that we cede authority to the nanny. We are a country of explorers, pioneers and men and women of action. We are not helpless children. It’s time we stopped acting like helpless kids and take responsibilities for our own lives.

As President, I will do what I can to soften the blow of the recession. But we will all have to understand that things have changed economically – at least for now – in much the same way they did after 9/11. We can fix this. But it will take some time.

Ask yourself, in your family, if you lose a job, take a pay cut, or have some sudden, unexpected expense, what do you do? What most people do is to cut expenses. They might eat out less, cancel the paper, cut back on movie rentals – do something to spend less. If the expense is big, you might have to make big changes – trade in an expensive car for something cheaper, maybe even move to a smaller home. Until now, what our country has done is just about the worst thing you can do – borrow money to pay the bills. Eventually, the bills come due. Our creditors – countries like China, Saudi Arabia, and Japan – have decided that they’ve loaned us enough, and are cutting us off. No more credit. We’ve effectively maxed out our nation’s credit cards, and the collection agencies are starting to call.

How do we fix this? Spend less. A lot less. Problem is, everybody out there seems to think, “okay…spend less…just don’t cut MY program.” That won’t work. We ALL have to share the pain, just like we all shared in the process that got us to where we are today. I don’t care who you are, we have to all be willing to make do with less.

Some cuts will hurt more than others. We have programs that are costing this country billions of dollars – billions that we simply don’t have. If we cut our spending, we can get through this. If we insist on keeping all these programs and entitlements as they are now, we’ll watch our beloved country fall into a Depression that will make the Great Depression pale by comparison.

The devil is in the details. Everybody wants to defend their turf. And there are some areas that, frankly can’t be cut. We can’t afford to under-fund our military, or fail to take care of our veterans. They gave of their lives. We owe them that. Our national security is absolutely mission-critical. None of that, however, means we can’t turn a very critical eye to reducing waste in EVERY area, our defense included. And we will.

Let’s talk about the housing mess. Because of some very shortsighted policies by some in Congress, the rules were changed and borrowing requirements were relaxed, so more people could buy homes. Sounds like a good thing, right? But a lot of people then borrowed beyond their means, and now find themselves with a double-whammy – unable to pay their mortgage, and a house that’s worth less than it was when they bought it. Not good.

The problem is that the very same guys that were behind this misguided idea to make it easy for almost anybody to buy a home are now pointing the finger at the Administration, and claiming that “it’s not my fault…and I know how to fix this.” Excuse me, but you were the guys with your hand on the tiller as the ship started sinking. I don’t think the American public wants you guys anywhere NEAR the controls as we try to fix this.

Here’s the cold hard facts, some people – good people…hard working people – may end up losing their homes. That’s a tragedy. But the simple fact of the matter is that when things like this happen, some good people end up getting hurt. No amount of government money in the world can stop that. Fact is, if we try to save everyone’s home, the government will end up hurting EVERYONE, for our economy will go even further downhill. We can certainly encourage lenders to work with people having trouble with their loans, but if we step in and apply some “fix,” the cure will surely be worse than the disease.

In this life, there’s no such thing as a free lunch. The “inside the Beltway” boys in Washington would have you believe the President has some kind of magic wand that can turn straw into gold. Nobody on Earth has that kind of power. I don’t want to lay blame here, but in a way, a lot of homeowners in trouble were guilty of being gullible enough to believe what they wanted to hear. They knew they couldn’t afford a home, but when the bank said “yes,” they thought, “well, if the bank thinks I can afford this, they must be right.” These people aren’t bad folks – it’s just that their reach exceeded their grasp. We need to punish the people that took unfair advantage of under-qualified buyers. But the buyers themselves must realize that if they can’t afford a home, they can’t afford a home. That’s a tough thing to deal with, but we simply don’t live in a world where the government can give everyone a place to live. If we try and buy failing mortgages, where do we draw the line? My heart goes out to someone who is in their first home, struggling to pay for a modest place they can’t quite afford. On the other hand, someone who bought a half-million dollar home that could only afford a quarter of a million dollar place? Not so much. They’ve all been hurt by the housing crunch. But some people are real victims, and some simply got caught trying to take advantage what they thought was an opportunity.

Frankly, I think we need to get back to basics. A lot of people are going to be “under water” on their loans, with depressed homes values that have evaporated their home equity. I’d rather see us come up with a plan that will help those that just need a little help to refinance their loans over a longer period of time, so they can afford their payments, and help those that simply bought too much house (or can’t afford a house, period) transition back from a large home to a small one, or from homeowner to renter, as painlessly as possible. That’s a proposal that makes sense, and it won’t force the government into making the same mistake – spending money we don’t have.

If you’re like most people, you don’t understand monetary policy, and what makes the dollar “strong” or “weak.” Frankly, I’m not sure ANYBODY really understands monetary policy. However, I can tell you this. Years ago, the government used to back every dollar with gold. Dollars were really just a convenient way to carry around something of value, but every dollar was backed with an equivalent amount of gold. The government decided, long ago, to get us off the gold standard, which allowed them to print more money than we had gold to back it up. Sounds like a good idea, until you realize that this is how inflation gets started. It’s the law of supply and demand – when you increase the money supply, each dollar ends up being worth less. Do it too much, and inflation sets in. The problem we have now is that way too many dollars have been printed. We’re approaching the point when our dollars are going to be essentially worthless on the world market. That’s important, because in the last 50 years, we’ve gone from being a lender nation to a debtor nation. Think that won’t affect you? Think again. Everything we buy that’s imported is going to cost more, and take more of your dollars to buy. TVs, cars, appliances, you name it, and we import it.

This all started because the people that ran things like to give the country good news. It’s good for business, and good for their re-election campaigns. They HATE giving bad news for the same reasons. So they tend to do things that mask problems in the short term, in the hopes that they’ll be out of office by the time they are out of office. We simply can’t afford this kind of short-sighted political pandering any more. It’s time for all of us to suck it up and deal with bad news, as well as good. As President, I will do everything I can to level with you, and let the chips fall where they may. I believe the American people are ready for the truth. So let’s talk about how we get out of the rest of this mess…

To begin with, I will authorize a spending freeze in ALL areas. This will be followed by a 30-day audit of every program. We will treat things as if we have a zero-based budget. In other words, each government agency will not be defending what they already have, but instead, justifying why they should get as much as one dime of taxpayer money. When we start thinking about things from this perspective, some pet projects are going away. The government is going to have to run like a lean, mean fighting machine. We can no longer afford to fund non-essential things. Maybe later. Not today. There will be plenty of worthy programs that will have to be cut. So be it. For instance, the government pays out billions of dollars every year to farmers to either grow certain crops or to not grow certain crops. That has to end. We simply can’t afford it. But as we can’t simply abandon people that are used to getting subsidies overnight, we will phase them out over the next two years, in order to help them adjust to this new reality.

Let’s talk about the “untouchable” third rails of politics – Medicare/Medicaid and Social Security. Back during the Great Depression, these programs were created as self-funding social safety nets. Had we stuck to that, they’d be fine today. Instead, we kept expanding who the programs helped, without expanding how they were funded. Here’s what happened. Originally, you paid into Social Security, and when you retired, the government started sending you your own money back. Then the program was expanded, to take care of people that had never paid into the system. Rates went up. As a result, most people would have to live to be 300 to get all the money back they paid into the system.

Both programs were originally intended to be bare-bones safety nets. But politicians wanting to curry favor with seniors changed the rules. People began to believe that the government would protect them in their old age. The government did little to convince them otherwise. It was a lie. We need to return to the original purpose of those programs – and not expect them to be the be-all, end-all of social programs.

As much as my opponent would like to pretend that it’s wrong, we can’t keep going the way we’ve been. It’s a numbers game. As the baby boomers get older, there are more of them than people paying into the system. To maintain benefits, taxes would have to go up. Way up. No way around that, unless we cut benefits, delay retirement age, and adjust eligibility requirements. Do you really want to pay 70% of your income to the government to take care of everyone? I know I don’t.

To fix this, as President, I will have to make some hard choices. Anybody that tells you there’s an easy way out is lying to you, and hoping you’ll be foolish enough to believe them.

Let’s talk about taxes. Some politicians like to play one group against another. They talk about the “richest 5% of Americans” as if they are some evil cabal. Here’s some stone cold facts for you. about 30% of Americans don’t pay any Federal income taxes at all. No income taxes. No social security. No Medicare/Medicaid. Nothing. Nada. That means that the remaining 70% of our citizens pay for themselves and the 30% that don’t pay anything. Yet my oponents would like you to believe that it’s the rich that are getting off easy. Newsflash: The rich pay over 30% of their income in taxes. That means for every dollar they earn, the government keeps over 30 cents. Ask yourself – is it fair that one group shoulders the burden of our taxes, while 30% get to benefit? I don’t think so.

In fairness, we need to revise our tax code. We need to junk the whole thing, and replace it with either a flat tax – where everybody pays the same percentage of their income, or a consumption tax, were everybody pays a tax on what they use. Both systems offer fairness. The rich earn more – and they’ll pay more. Remember if you earn $20,000 a year and the other guy earns $200,000 a year, with a flat tax rate of 10%, he’d pay $20,000 in taxes, while you’d pay just $2,000. That’s fair. In a consumption tax, the folks that spend more pay more taxes. That’s fair too. Either system would be better than what we have now. Much better. And more fair. Let’s stop letting our politicians manipulate us, and fix this thing once and for all.

Speaking of Medicare, let’s talk about health care. My opponent thinks health care is a right. See if you can find that in our Constitution. We have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. A right to health care is not in there. I looked. If you’re on the side of those that think health care IS a right, consider this: we already have government-run health care. It’s called the VA Hospital system. Ever been to a VA Hospital? I have. I wouldn’t wish the average VA Hospital on our enemies, much less our troops. And you think government-run health care for the masses would be any better? Get real.

Health care is a huge problem. I’m old enough to remember a day when doctors made house calls. When I first entered the workforce, my healthcare plan included a drug card with a $10 co-pay, and a $10 co-pay for office visits. Today, even adjusting for inflation, you’d have to be Donald Trump to afford that kind of health care. Why? Here’s the dirty little secret: because the government stepped in and tried to “fix” things. Seriously. And when the government started to try and control prices, the laws of supply and demand went haywire, and we’re left with the mess we have today. Seriously, the best idea would be to get the government out of the health care business entirely. Privatize the VA system, and get our mitts out of regulating prices. But that’s, sadly, not enough. We need to take away the incentive for companies to game the system. I think if we get back to basics, we’ll have doctors making decisions with their patients as to what’s best and what’s needed for health care. If anything, the government should encourage prevention, instead of trying to fix prices.

What about health insurance? I’d say we’d be better off reducing taxes so people can afford to buy plans. For people that can’t afford insurance, we might put together a way for individuals to opt-in to the Federal government group plans. What we need to do, however, is to legislate things so that the insurance companies can no longer claim “pre-existing conditions” and won’t be allowed to use genetic screening to deny coverage.  In return, basic plans will not have to cover cosmetic and elective surgeries, and will be able to use genetic screening to determine general rates from an actuarial point of view – in other words, if they find a lot of people are predisposed to lung cancer, they can raise the general coverage rate – not the rate for a specific customer.

Border security. Boy, there’s a topic. Here’s the bottom line. Unless we can keep our borders secure, we can’t keep our country secure. Period. We have to stop people from coming in illegally. Now we need – and want people to immigrate. They are a vital part of our economy. But isn’t it smarter to control how many come in, and know who’s coming in, than the way it is now? Because of our terrain, we’re going to need to use a combination of things – a physical fence, added border guards, electronic surveillance, and other techniques – to keep our border secure. As President, I’ll make sure that we fund this project vital to our security. Once the border is secure, and ONLY then, will we implement a guest worker program to make sure our economy is not adversely affected by our need for border security.

So what do we do about the millions of illegals already here? First, we have to know who’s here. Then we have to figure out how to deal with those that are here in a fair way. Here’s what I think. Everyone here illegally will have 30 days to notify local authorities of their illegal status. After the 30 days, anybody here illegally that did not sign up with the local authorities will be deported. Those that are signed up will enter a process to become citizens. First of all, they will have to pay taxes. Nobody gets benefits without paying taxes. Period. Next, they will have to apply for citizenship. If they have ties to the community, and have put down roots, they will be added to the list of applicants. If they have committed crimes here – they are outta here. No exceptions. Immigration is a privilege not a right. We’ll have some flexibility in the program, because there are always special cases that rigid rules can’t fix.

In addition, we need to be aware that a lot of illegals send much of what they make back to their families still living in their home countries. America is the land of opportunity – for Americans, both natives and naturalized citizens. It cannot afford to be the land of opportunity for those who do not live here, at least until they are here. Therefore, we will tax all funds leaving this country. This will both offset the drain on our economy of funds leaving our shores, and act as a disincentive for illegals to work here and send their money home.

I know this program isn’t perfect. I’m not crazy about giving citizenship to people who broke the law to get here, nor do I like the idea of people that snuck in getting in line ahead of those that are playing by the rules. However, we have to deal with reality, and the reality of the situation is that plans where we force those that got here illegally to go back to their home countries and try to get in again, legally this time, ignore the hit our economy will take. We simply can’t afford to do it the right way, because we’ve let those doing it the wrong way get away with it for too long. But we have to put our economy and security first. With a secure border, we can put a stop to more illegal immigration. But we must then deal with those that are here in a way that won’t hurt our fragile economy.

National Defense is, without a doubt, the most essential role of the government. Many of you believe we made a mistake in going into Iraq. Fine. Be that as it may, we are there. We must finish the job we started, or things will be much, much worse for all of us. The good news is that the surge worked. We are winning in Iraq. And every day, their government gets stronger. You might not know about that, the way the media manipulates their coverage, but it’s true. We can do the same thing in Afghanistan. We must not fail. We must not back down. We must not quit.

We’ve got to realize that there’s a price to be paid for our national security. Groups like the Taliban, Al Qaeda, Hamas and Hezbollah want to destroy America. They want to kill us. You cannot negotiate with people like this. The only thing they respect is a decisive projection of force. That’s it. Force. The good news is that we have the finest military in the world, bar none. What we lack is the will to use that force for good. As sad as it may be to acknowledge, sometimes war IS the answer. As President, I will never order our troops into harm’s way without carefully considering and weighing the need for a military action against the cost in human terms as well as how it will affect our security. I will not, however be unduly worried about how our actions are perceived by the rest of the world. Our defense comes first. If another country doesn’t like that, it’s their problem. Not ours. Our real friends understand that. Those that don’t acknowledge our need for defense are not our friends.

Speaking of friends, let’s talk about Israel. We have many allies on the world stage. None has been more stalwart than Israel. We will do everything we can do to be as good a friend to them as they have been to us. Too vague? Let me spell it out: mess with Israel, and you’re messing with us. We reserve the right to preemptively mess with you if you in any way threaten us or our friends.

What about the rest of the world? I find it endlessly fascinating that the very same people that whine and complain about “American Imperialism” and use phrases like “the world’s policeman,” are the very same people that want us to go into places like Darfur and “fix things.” How is it that when we went into Iraq and deposed a vicious, genocidal dictator we’re the “bad guys,” but if we go into Darfur to stop a bunch of vicious, genocidal warlords, we’re the “good guys.” I don’t get it. Maybe the Left gives volume discounts on vicious, genocidal ruler. Genocide is evil, anywhere you find it. But if we’re going to commit American troops to any action, we have to have a clearly-defined mission and the knowledge that we can fight to win. Our troops are the best fighting force on the planet. But they are designed to fight and win. That’s a vastly different job description from “policing an area” or providing “humanitarian aid.” I’m comfortable sending our troops into harms way to fight. I’m less inclined to do so when we’re not fighting to win. If we can go into a place like Darfur and fix things – fight to win, I think that’s a legitimate use of our military. Sending them in as some kind of international referees is not.

Let’s talk for a minute about Congress. I expect Congress to stop fighting, stop working for their own partisan interests, and start working for We the People. We work for YOU. You don’t work for US. There’s a right way and a wrong way to legislate. Both the House and the Senate have gotten way too wrapped up in the business of pork, and “bringing home the bacon” for their constituents. We need to get back to the concept of “citizen service,” where Senators and Representatives don’t make it a career, but serve their country for a term or two, then go back into private life. That was the original intent of the framers of the Constitution. It’s time to get back to that idea. Term limits? Hey, if it’s good enough for the Presidency, it should be good enough for Congress.

When I’m elected, I want to take steps to shake things up, and get things working again. In that light, I will push for a line-item veto amendment. If Congress can’t wean themselves off earmarks, I’ll do it for them.

While we’re at it I’d like to see amendments for Congressional term limits, and zero-based budgets. I’d like to see a Constitutional amendment that would allow citizens to put initiatives on a national ballot, much as they have in California. We the People need a way to make things happen, even when Congress gets in the way. Lastly, I’d like to see a law that puts “None of the Above” on every ballot, for every race. Don’t like who the parties nominated? Give them a vote of ‘no confidence’ and tell the country that you don’t like the choices you’ve been given.

Now a lot of you are concerned about our planet. Frankly, so am I. But the media, some special-interest groups and some well-meaning people have hit the panic button over things like “climate change” and “global warming.” I’ve done a lot of study on this subject. If you ask me, the jury is out on how much of “climate change” is man-made, and how much is just the swinging of nature’s pendulum. I suspect the truth lies somewhere in the middle, but closer to nature-made than man-made. Look, we can’t make it rain. We can’t make it stop raining. We can’t control hurricanes. How arrogant is it to think that anything we do can control the planet’s temperature?

The folks that are pushing that panic button would have you believe that if we don’t Do Something Right Now, all is lost. But if you examine their own figures for what would happen if we implement all their recommendations, you’ll learn that, by their own admission, all we can possibly do is to change the global temperature by ½ of 1 percent. Give me a break. They expect us to spend trillions of dollars, change the way we all live for the worse, all in the name of moving the planet’s thermostat ½ of 1 percent? It’s simply not worth it. If we’re really doing that much damage to the planet, how is it we can’t fix things any better than that? Remember, pollution and climate change are global concerns. No matter how much we reduce pollution and no matter how much we reduce our “carbon footprint,” it won’t make a dent in the situation unless we can force China, Russia, and other developing countries to do the same. If we spend billions to fix a problem and our enemies do nothing, it hurts us more than it does them. Instead of feel-good gestures, how about lets work together to make a real difference.

Let me tell you what I think we need to do. Waste less. Reuse more. Think before we buy. Make things last longer. Stop treating everything as if it’s disposable. Do that, and our economy will improve, and we’ll stop treating Mother Earth as one big garbage can.

I’m all in favor of reusing things. Some recycling makes sense. Some takes more energy to recycle than we gain by recycling. Aluminum and paper are easy to recycle. Other things not so much. I’d rather see us make it easier to do the right thing, than punish people for doing the wrong thing.

As to our energy policy, let me keep it simple. We need to turn private enterprise loose, to try everything possible to get us as energy-independent as possible. That means we need to drill everywhere we can for oil, develop wind, solar, natural gas, clean coal, coal/shale-to-oil, electric cars, hybrids, and hydrogen. Everything. The whole enchilada. The government needs to get out of the way and let people innovate. We need to stop trying to tip the scales in favor of one technology over another for political purposes. The ethanol thing has been a disaster. Corn is a critical crop, not just for human consumption, but for animal feeds, and by-products. When the government propped up the idea of making corn into gasoline, we drove the price of corn way up. That affected the price of everything from the corn flakes on your breakfast table to the price of beef. Even worse, it prevented other, better technologies from having a chance to succeed.

Just as we all need energy, we all need to realize that getting it may take a little personal sacrifice. We may have to live with a coastline dotted with oil rigs, windmills in our backyards, and yes, we may have to sacrifice a few caribou along the way. We may even have to live with a nuclear power plant nearby. That’s the way it goes. “Not in my backyard” has no place in a country that pulls together for the common good.

If the Federal government needs to play a role in energy (other than getting out of the way of private industry) it will be in the form of price supports for domestic production. You see, we’ve been through this all before. Remember the 70’s? OPEC raised the price of oil, and gasoline prices soared. Our domestic production started to ramp up, then OPEC dropped the prices to make it economically unfeasible to produce oil here. Fair? Not for us, it isn’t. So the government will guarantee that any company who goes out on a limb for us by creating domestic energy will not risk ruin due to foreign forces who want to keep us dependent on their energy supplies. We will guarantee purchase of their energy for government and military uses at a minimum price that enables them to turn a profit. This will guarantee that OPEC and other nation-states will be unable to deter us from our goal of energy independence.

Another idea I want to see happen is to reward taxpayers who generate their own electricity. I will propose legislation that will get government out of the way so that individuals and families can purchase wind turbines for their homes that will allow them to generate power, and sell the excess back to the power company. Some parts of the country (the windy ones) will be able to earn money instead of spend it on electricity. Same for solar power – as it becomes more efficient, there’s no reason we can’t convert households into power generation grids. I will also propose that the government sponsor low-interest loans for homeowners to install wind and solar power generation devices. A typical family could reduce their energy bills to $0 per month within ten years, with the installation of a turbine. Think of how much less energy we would need as a country if we can make this a reality.

By the way, for those of you who will then howl about “Big Oil” and “huge profits” you might want to take a look deeper into the way companies work. Most companies operate on a 12% profit margin. After they total up what they earn and subtract what it cost them to earn it, they need 12% or so left over to be able to innovate, expand, and grow. Know what the Big Oil companies made last year? How about 5% profit? That’s not much, and it’s certainly not enough for them to build new refineries and expand production. But the populists all scream about “$3 billion in revenues.” Forget revenues. Think profit margins. That’s the important number. You also need to look at things over a period of time. I didn’t hear anybody crying any sympathetic tears back during the years when Big Oil was losing money. If we’re not going to help them when they have a bad year, it’s only fair that they get to keep their profits when they have a good year. Realistically, they are not out to take advantage of us. But we must stop the class warfare that encourages us to cripple the very companies that can lead us out of our dependencies on foreign oil.

One more thing on that. Much has been made of our dependencies on foreign oil and the “fact” that we have only 3% of the world’s oil reserves. That’s nonsense. Because we haven’t allowed companies to explore off our coasts, we have no idea how much oil is really out there. We could be sitting on enough oil to run the world for the next 500 years and not know it. When we start drilling, maybe THEN we’ll know what we have. Right now, we simply don’t know what we don’t know.

What we DO know is that we need to be smarter about how we use what resources we do have. Logic tells us that if oil is a non-renewable resource, eventually it will run out. We don’t just use oil to power our cars and trucks – we also use it to make plastics and other essential things. Wouldn’t it be smart to use, say wind power and solar power wherever it’s practical instead of oil, so we can save our oil – no matter how much we do or don’t have – for things that require it?

Think about this: the real reason that wind and solar haven’t made much of a dent in our energy policy, is that it’s difficult for the government to tax the wind and sunlight. That’s pretty shortsighted, and it means that we need to get the government out of the way of these promising technologies, so we can do what needs to be done for our country, and not worry about how many taxes we can levy on them.

It’s a lot to think about, isn’t it. Put yourself in my shoes…it’s little wonder that they call President the toughest job on the planet. But if you stop and think about it, the primary qualification for both President and voter is common sense. In this talk, I’ve committed the cardinal sins of being blunt, frank and honest. I believe that We the People have a finely-honed ability to tell when some politician is telling you the truth versus telling you what you want to hear. I’ve tried to tell you the truth. Now it’s up to you. You can say, “wow…that’s brutally honest, but that’s what we need right now,” and vote for me, or you can say “too much honesty…I’d rather vote for someone who tells me what I want to hear.” It’s your choice. Thanks for listening. Good night. And may God bless the United States of America.

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If you agree with me, please pass this along to others. Maybe if we get enough people to demand truth, we’ll get it from our politicians.