Patrick Henry

The constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government -lest it come to dominate our lives and interests.

~ Patrick Henry

I am watching Glenn Beck tonight. His first topic concerned the economy. I like the comparison he made that our economy is like a coming hurricane. He said that we cannot stop this crisis any more than we can stop a hurricane, and yet the government is still continuing to throw money at the problem, the disease, as he calls it. I agree. I am worried about the government-not just spending money- but the power they have when the treasury secretary is one of few who have the pin number for the bank account.

This bailout bill is scary. The treasury has the power to do anything they want to with the money, including buying up mortgages, and selling more debt to deal with rising borrowing needs, and guaranteeing them. And by the way, this can be done without our consent because it is now law. Remind me who is watching the treasury sec?

Glenn Beck's suggestion is to let nature take its course and fail and rebuild naturally. I have felt this way for a long time. When I watched the Dow Industrial climb and climb over the last several years (decade) I said to myself that this can't possibly be good and it can't possibly last without some correction. I have been waiting for this for a long time. I thought it was coming sooner when we went through several different individual days of the stock market falling at an unprecedented one day decrease, over the past few years. I think we have a long time to wait until the pendulum swings back the other way.

As we are in this financial crisis, I hate to think of what might happen if we have crises around the world that might garner our attention. What money are we going to use? Will we go further into debt? We are already at, what, 10 trillion? What might happen if we have another 9/11? Our country needs to balance the budget and stop spending money that we don't have. Because of the financial crisis, will we be able to do something in case of, or even see, outside threats? Can others take our country away from us because things are in such turmoil?

Peggy Noonan was a guest and I liked a suggestion she had: doing politics equal to the moment we are in. She and Glenn were talking about two political parties and the fact that political parties don't matter right now. I believe we should be focusing on the things this country needs to do to spend less money while still protecting our interests. I am sick of entitlement programs. Neither should we be turning to socialized medicine. People in this country are SMART! We CAN figure this out.

I hope my ramblings don't make anyone stop reading our blog. We will still be posting normal things. Oh and by clicking on the title to this post you can link to Glenn Beck's site. - Jen