HOW DO YOU LIVE WHEN YOU RUN OUT OF MONEY?

I wouldn’t want to be President of the United States of America. Ever. But more, now, than before Bushed ucked it up. The outstanding public debt as of 16 Oct 2007 is nine TRILLION, forty-eight BILLION, nine hundred twenty nine million, six hundred fifty one thousand, eight dollars and fifty four cents. That looks like this: $ 9 , 0 4 8 , 9 2 9 , 6 5 1 , 0 0 8 . 5 4

The National Debt has continued to increase an average of
$1.42 billion PER DAY since September 29, 2006!

“The U.S. budget deficit is financed by borrowing. More and more of that money comes from China, now the United States' second-largest lender, after Japan. China's investment in U.S. government debt has more than tripled in the past five years, from $71 billion in 2000 to $242 billion in 2005. ….Congress and the president have been unwilling to raise taxes or make deep spending cuts. The only alternative is to borrow.”
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/prem/200510u/nj_schneider_2005-10-25

China! Do we really want Bank China to be in control? What are we thinking!?! Are we thinking? Who is minding “The Store”? It’s GW Bush and robbing us in more than one way. Imagine if the government suggested spending one-fourth of this amount of money on the education of our children. We would have said “no”. Imagine if the government suggested to spend one-fourth of this money to help our children who are “at risk”. We would have said “no”. Imagine if the government had suggested spending a small portion of this money to reimburse the Social Security accounts. We would have said “no”. Right? Imagine if the government had suggested repaying the Indian Trust Funds that have been robbed from by the very government agencies that were to protect the funds – we would have said “no”. Why are we willing to let our government to invest in the Iraq war and not spend our tax money on what would really invest in our country’s people? And the $12 BILLION that was LOST by sending it in cash to Iraq on wood pallets – how much did you read or hear about that?!
“We had to pay Iraqis in cash,” Mr. Bremer said of the money, most of which came from Iraqi oil sales. “Delay would have been demoralizing and unfair to millions of Iraqi families.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/07/washington/07bremer.html?n=Top%2FReference%2FTimes%20Topics%2FPeople%2FB%2FBremer%2C%20L.%20Paul%20III What of the demoralizing and unfairness to millions of USA citizens?!!

I don’t understand the apathy of the country that we call United States of America. However, I think it would be more appropriately called the Divided States of America. We let this insanity to go on via George Bush and keep going through our lives. It is outrageous that we don’t get angry about the debt. In my town it is annually a contentious subject that our taxes are raised by the town by $350. And where is the same reaction to the federal runaway spending on a war that has had a moving “target” continually?

FOLLOW THE MONEY (OIL): TWELVE BENCHMARKS

1. January 2003: The Wall Street Journal reported that representatives from Exxon Mobil Corp., ChevronTexaco Corp., ConocoPhillips and Halliburton, among others, were meeting with Vice President Cheney's staff to plan the post- war revival of Iraq's oil industry.

2. March 2003: Iraqi Oil Ministry was one of the few structures the invading forces protected from looters in the first days of the war.

3. April 2003: During the initial assault on Baghdad, soldiers set up forward bases named Camp Shell and Camp Exxon.

4. May 22, 2003: President Bush signed Executive Order 13303 providing full legal immunity to all U.S. oil companies doing business in Iraq in order to facilitate the country's "orderly reconstruction."

5. November 2003: McKee (ConocoPhillips executive who is overseeing Iraqi oil industry) quietly ordered a new plan for Iraq's oil. The drafting would be overseen by a "senior adviser," Amy Jaffe, who ....now works for James Baker, the former Secretary of State, whose law firm serves as counsel to both ExxonMobil and the defense minister of Saudi Arabia. The plan, written by State Department contractor BearingPoint, was guided, says Jaffe, by a handful of oil-industry consultants and executives.

6. March 2004: Iraq's interim constitution, the Transitional Administrative Law (TAL) passed in March 2004 by Iraq's Governing Council, sets forth that Coalition Provisional Authority laws, regulations, and orders are to remain in force after the transfer of sovereignty unless a duly enacted piece of legislation rescinds or amends them.

7. August 30, 2005: Bush says U.S. troops would continue fighting in Iraq in order to protect the country's vast oil fields, which he said would otherwise fall under the control of terrorist extremists.

8. February 2006-June 2006: USAID contracts with Bearing Point to draft Iraq’s oil law to provide "legal and regulatory advice in drafting the framework of petroleum and other energy-related legislation, including foreign investment".

9. March 15, 2006: Gen. John Abizaid, the Army general overseeing U.S. military operations in Iraq said the United States may want to keep a long-term military presence in Iraq to bolster moderates against extremists in the region and protect the flow of oil.

10. July 2006: U.S. Government and oil companies get a copy of the draft oil law. In September 2006 the Internation Monetary Fund and World Bank receive their copy.

11. February 2007: "Draft Hydrocarbon Law" was submitted first to the Iraqi Cabinet and then to the Iraqi Parliament (Council of Representatives) by the Cabinet.

12. April -May 2007: Defense Secretary Robert Gates and U.S. Vice President Cheney each travel separately to Baghdad to push political benchmarks and specifically the oil law.

From a Study of U.S. Influence on Iraqi Oil, by Erik Leaver, Carol and Ed Newman, Fellow Institute for Policy Studies June 4, 2007. Click above title to read full article and complete bibliography of sources. http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/?q=node/23353

And yet we won’t vote for any candidate who would admit that taxes will be raised. Are we rational?

Are we afraid of the truth?