You could be breaking the law at this very moment!

Well, we avoided the fiscal cliff. Thank-you Congress. You can now go home and stay there. Don’t come back!!

You’re probably thinking that I’m not grateful for all the hard work that Congress does on our behalf, and you would be right.

Every day that Congress is in session, they are creating more and more laws and legislation and regulation, not to mention that Congress employs an army of more than two million bureaucrats who are highly compensated, with salaries and benefits more than double what most employees in the private sector earn. These bureaucrats monitor daily life and attempt to extinguish all risk, choice and to enact laws in pursuit of societal perfection.

The Competitive Enterprise Institute reported in 2010 that the total number of

federal rules, totals 81,405 pages.

Moreover, the Heritage Foundation found that the number of criminal offenses in the U.S. Code increased from 3,000 in the early 1980s to 4,000 by the year 2000, and to over 4,450 by 2008.

Scores of federal departments and agencies have created so many criminal offenses that the Congressional Research Service (the research arm of Congress) admitted that it was unable to even count all the offenses.

Here’s what this means for you and me: You’ve probably already broken the law at some point this week. I broke the law on New Year’s Eve driving past a police car who then pulled out behind me and followed me a ways before he turned on his lights and motioned me over. Was I speeding? No. My offense was not wearing my seat belt. Thank-you for the citation and my donation of $25.00 to the city treasury. You could have given me a warning, but that would not fill the city coffers, would it?

The workplace is subject to a web of federal regulations. Where "public accommodation" is involved, such as a retail store or doctor's office, there must be ramps, special bathrooms, widened doors, and curb cuts in the sidewalks. Even carpeting is scrutinized to make sure it is accessible. There are rules involving wages, taxes, health benefits, pension benefits, working conditions, environmental conditions, human resources, union elections, financial practices, and record-keeping. The vending machines on the premises are regulated. Each vending machine must have a "sign close to each article fo food or selection button disclosing the amount of calories in a clear and conspicuous manner."

This is just for starters. I’ll give you some more hair-raising examples next time. Until then, watch your back, check your rear-view mirror, and get yourself a copy of the U.S. criminal code so you can begin reading all the laws and rules to discover which ones you are breaking each and every day. It’s just a matter of time before Uncle Sam finds out and either fines you with a severe penalty, or arrests you, where you are presumed guilty until you can prove your innocence! Think I'm kidding. Stay tuned for my next post.

Is this a great country, or what?!!

Did you know you know you were disabled? Start collecting your disability check NOW!

News Flash! Government regulations are STRANGLING the U.S. economy. According to the Small Business Administration, total regulatory costs amount to about $1.75 trillion annually, nearly twice as much as all individual income taxes collected last year.

The government admits there are 4200 new rules or revisions already in the pipeline.
Why do we need 4200 new rules? Why?

In their book, “Red Tape Rising: Obama-Era Regulation at the Three Year Mark”, James Gattuso and Diane Katz detail how the Obama Administration has imposed new regulations costing $46 billion annually, with nearly $11 billion more in one-time implementation costs. That is about five times the cost of regulations imposed during the first three years of President George W. Bush’s administration, but the burden is even higher.

In January 2011, President Obama said that “rules have gotten out of balance” and “have a chilling effect on growth and jobs.” And Obama's right. But that's as far as he goes, and where he breaks with reality is his pledge for a get-tough policy on overregulation and a comprehensive review of regulations imposed by Washington.

In fact, as you listen to President Obama tell the story, you would think he’s a champion of slashing red tape and that his Administration has set its sights on slashing over-regulation. Obama's 10,215 regulations enacted in his first three years in office have greatly added to the drag on the U.S. economy as well as loss of jobs. BTW,  I am no friend of the Bush administration and their added regulations. Bush did not reign in the EPA, the Interior Dept, the Army Corps of Engineers, or OSHA.  So in that sense, I consider Bush a failure when it comes to cutting government red tape.

Do you have chronic back pain? File a claim and start
collecting disability. Is this a great country, or what?!

Here's an example of the idiocy of federal regulations. The Americans with Disabilities Act (Thank-you George Bush Sr. for burdening us with this albatross!) in 2008 vastly expanded the definition of disability to include: 

• people with diabetes (most of western Kentucky)
• depression (most of the U.S)
• heart disease
• difficulty standing, sitting, reaching, lifting, bending, reading, concentrating

This list pretty much includes most of the U.S. Did you know you were disabled? What are you doing at work reading this? Don't you know there is a disability claim that you could be making and you could be sitting at home enjoying those monthly disability checks. 

The new regulations that were enacted in 2008 require contractors with more than 50 employees to document the specific reason why each disabled applicant was not hired. Every contractor is REQUIRED to have a quota of 7% disabled.

The Associated General Contractors of America, a construction industry lobby, has long complaiend that many construction craft positions are inherently unsuited and too perilous for physically disabled applicants. But the government usually scorns common sense.

In 1994, the U.S. govt. penalized and barred Kentucky's Commonwealth Aluminum Corp from federal contracts for REFUSING TO HIRE applicants with SERIOUS BACK INJURIES (in caps, because if I were speaking to you in person, I'd be screaming this out loud so you wouldn't miss the point!). The following year, the U.S. Govt punished Jack Kelley Trucking in Amarillo, Texas for refusing to hire a man who suffered from uncontrollable epileptic seizures to drive a truck full of hazardous waste!

This is our government and its stupid regulations which lack any common sense whatsoever and drive up the cost of doing business $1.75 trillion annually!

Just a reminder that in November, if you vote for Obama, you're voting for more regulations, political-correctness, less common sense, and fewer jobs because of regulation strangulation. If you consider the Internet as a vast frontier of freedom, watch out. Obama wants to regulate the Internet as well. Obama never met a regulation he didn't like.

If you vote for Romney, you are voting for the candidate who has promised to cut regulation on day 1. I believe he will do that, but we need a Republican house and senate made up of radicals like Marco Rubio, Rand Paul and the soon to be elected, Ted Cruz (from Texas) who will help to hold Romney's feet to the fire because I don't think he planning to cut out all the foolishness like what we have here in the ADA, as well as EPA, etc. We have thousands of regulations that need to be SUNSET-ED, and revisited one-by-one to determine if they are truly necessary and what their impact is on the U.S. economy and job creation!

A Thanksgiving tale: The Death of Common Sense in Morristown, NJ

Let me begin my Thanksgiving post with another example of the "Death of Common Sense." This appeared in yesterday's William McGurn's Wall Street Journal column:

This Thursday, in a parish hall not far from the New Jersey town green where George Washington once made his winter headquarters, as many as 300 people will gather for their Thanksgiving meal. Some will be homeless, some will be mentally ill, some will be old, and some will be folks and families who have just hit a hard patch. For all of them, Morristown's Community Soup Kitchen and Outreach Center is one of the few blessings they can count on.

In many ways, this soup kitchen illustrates Tocqueville's point about the American genius for voluntary association. Having started out in a local Episcopal church, it has grown into a network that links restaurants, corporate sponsors and community groups with volunteers from nearly three dozen church congregations, including this reporter's. The result is a hot meal to anyone who comes to the door each noon, no questions asked.

This the men and women of the Community Soup Kitchen have provided for 26 years, not once missing a day. 

Now comes a challenge greater than any snowstorm or power outage. Earlier this year, the Morristown Division of Health ruled that henceforth the soup kitchen would be considered a "retail" food establishment under New Jersey law.

From that single word far-reaching consequences have flowed. In a column for a local blog, Ray Friant, a volunteer from the Morristown United Methodist Church, called the rule "crazy." 

Most obvious is the higher cost: at least $150,000 more a year. To meet this increase, the kitchen is asking each participating church to up its own contribution. Some congregations don't have the money. For those that do, it will mean less for some other need.

Much of this cost results from a new prohibition on people donating food they've prepared at home. For those on the giving end, often this was the only way they could participate, so eliminating their contributions means eliminating volunteers. For those on the receiving end, it means no more homemade meat loaf, lasagna, cakes and so forth.

All, of course, in the name of food safety. Still, one suspects that when a co-worker brings a tin of Christmas cookies to a friend inside Morristown's Division of Health, those cookies are not forbidden because they do not come wrapped from a supermarket or approved restaurant. Yet this is precisely the restriction these officials have imposed on men, women and children whose only hope for a home-baked cookie might be at the
soup kitchen.

How can the soup kitchen be considered retail when there is no monetary exchange? When is it a free service? Maybe the real issue is that the people preparing the food are not union members. How soon will it be before we have to have government inspectors going through our kitchens looking for e.coli bacteria and making sure that you are using latex gloves.

I often wonder if liberals insist on regulations and social programs because they lack the common sense and integrity that makes those regulations unnecessary for the rest of us. 

"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."    - C.S. Lewis

"The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help." - attributed to Ronald Reagan

Finally...

• I am thankful for my family, for my health, for a home that's warm and has electricity and clean water. 
• I'm thankful for friends and brothers and sisters in the Lord.
• I'm thankful to live in America, and I'm thankful for God's goodness and mercy. 
• I'm thankful that God found me and saved me. 
• I'm thankful that He revealed Himself to me through His Son, Jesus the Messiah.
• I'm thankful for God's daily provision and for presence in my life. 
• I'm thankful that He has been faithful to me throughout all my years.

Take time this Thanksgiving to let others know that you are thankful. Get specific. Thanksgiving Day should be more than a time to pig-out on good food--Take some time to reflect on how God has blessed you and provided for you. Then, let those around you know that you are thankful!! 

Have a Blessed Thanksgiving!

Psalm 107:1
Oh give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever!
Ephesians 5:20
Giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

OSHA: The Death of Common Sense and Then Some...

Imagine for a moment that someone with a great reputation like Mother Theresa comes into your community and wants to renovate several dilapidated buildings to house the homeless. In effect, get the homeless off the street and help turn their lives around. Wouldn't you think that your city would pull out all the stops to help make this happen?

Well, if you're New York City, and if the person that came to town was Mother Theresa, you'd be WRONG!

Phillip Howard in his book, "The Death of Common Sense" talks of a charitable fund run by the organization with which Mother Theresa was involved. They bought a number of dilapidated structures from the city of New York and sought to renovate them for the homeless. However, when it came time to open them, the city decided that the three-story structures required the installation of elevators at $100,000 per building. The charity did not have the funds to install the elevators and so the homeless were denied clean, warm housing in the interests of not forcing them to endure the evils of walking up a flight of stairs.

In "The Death of Common Sense," Howard talks at length of one firm which has now accepted the fines levied by OSHA as an expense of doing business since it is not humanly possible to comply with all of the requirements. In order to protect its workers, it instead implemented a "Safety First" campaign of its own imploring common sense while OSHA inspectors chose to concentrate on tape measures showing banisters to be installed at 44" from the floor rather than the 48" required by law.

There are tales of OSHA determining that bricks are a hazardous substance -- not because someone might hit you over the head with one, but because if one is sawed in half, the dust particles might be inhaled.

OSHA imposes an incredible paperwork burden on U.S. business. In 1994, seven of the top ten most frequent OSHA citations were related to paperwork. OSHA has perfected the government “make-work” scheme—generate a paper blizzard of regulations and then fine businesses for not complying.


OSHA had cited small businesses for neglecting to consider as "hazardous" such substances as sand, gravel, dishwashing liquid, liquid paper, water, and oxygen. A small businessman in Florida, for example, was cited for failing to place a "Do Not Drink" warning on a bottle of dishwashing liquid. And an Indiana contractor was "astonished" when he learned that he was to receive a citation for falling to list a common household window cleaner on his MSDS.

Here are a few examples of stupid OSHA regulations:

• Plastic gas cans can be used on manufacturing work sites, but not on construction sites, even if they have been approved by local fire marshals.
• OSHA only allows for radiation signs with purple letters on a yellow background, while the Department of Transportation calls for black on yellow.
• OSHA requires that work-site first-aid kits be approved by a physician.
• Dentists estimate that OSHA regulations add $10. to the teeth cleaning bill and $15-17 to the typical cavity filling. 
• Brad Arft, director of training for Gold Cross Ambulance Service in Appleton, Wisconsin, notes that while these and other new requirements may not add to response or treatment time, they do "add time to start patient care when the potential exists for exposure" to blood and other body fluids. And again, a record of every washing of hands and changing of rubber gloves must be kept for 30 years after the employee has left the company. Failure to comply with that and other standards could result in a fine of up to $70,000, while any employee who violates the rules for a fourth time is subject to automatic dismissal.

The Denver Business Journal estimates that businesses spend $33 billion yearly to comply with OSHA safety standards. 

OSHA is another example of a government that is out of control where one size fits all and the government trying to protect us from any kind of risk, even if it makes it harder for businesses to stay in business.  
OSHA is punishing employer’s verses creating common sense policies that promote prevention.

If I were President, here's what I'd do to create jobs and turn the economy around....

News flash! Our economy is in the tank. Yesterday, August 4, the stock market suffered the worst sell-off since the 2008 financial crisis, down 513 points. 
We are 10 million jobs short of full employment, and the fraction of adults at work full-time is at a 28-yr. low.  Yesterday,  Jake Tapper of ABC News asked Press Secretary, Jay Carney, what the President was doing to help create jobs. Carney's response was telling. He said: "Uh...uh...uh...uh...uh...uh....there is no silver bullet."  He went on to blame our poor economy on the Arab Spring, the Japanese Tsunami, and the European Economic Crisis. At least, they're no longer blaming George Bush (for now).  


We have a President who has publicly stated that the first thing on his mind when he wakes up and the last thing on his mind when he goes to bed is how to create more jobs. That's when he's not on vacation or out golfing, or attending a fund-raising dinner, or hosting a pop concert at the White House. 


Obama repeatedly says he's tried everything and that if you  (or I) have any ideas on how to stimulate this economy and create more jobs, he's open to hearing them. Sorry Mr. President, but once again, you are being disingenuous (look it up) because the ideas I'm proposing, if implemented, would reduce our unemployment to well below 4% while reducing our national debt due to increased revenue from the 10 million new jobs that would be created. However, none of my ideas are new. They've already been offered in writing to Obama by the Republicans, and he has rejected every one of them. He's not really open to any new ideas, only HIS ideas or ideology. 


But, if I were president, here's what I would do to turn our economy around:


1. Kill Obamacare. I'd simply admit that it was a bad idea. Obamacare with all of its uncertainty and hidden mandates, hidden taxes, etc. is keeping companies from hiring or expanding. They have no idea what future costs will be because we still haven't experienced the full impact of Obamacare.

2. Remove Lisa Jackson from her post at the EPA and de-fund the EPA. The Environmental Police Authority is a now a political movement bent on destroying private property rights and capitalism.  EPA's regulations will cost the coal industry 200 billion dollars and cause our electric rates to skyrocket. It's estimated that the EPA's regulations cost 1.4 million jobs and a 12% increase in utility bills.

3. Cut or eliminate most federal regulations. Regulations force oil drilling in deep water when it is safer, cheaper and easier to drill in shallow water. The BP oil spill never would've happened if they had been allowed to drill in shallow waters. Regulations even prevented the Dutch from responding to the BP oil disaster. It could've been contained within the first 2-3 wks. except for our regulation and enslavement to the unions which kept us from accepting help from the Dutch. 


Toilets, showerheads, light bulbs, mattresses, washing machines, dryers, cars, ovens, refrigerators, television sets, and bicycles” all cost much more because of questionable regulations. It is estimated that the cost of regulation is a drag on U.S. businesses to the tune of 1.75 trillion a year, twice the amount of individual taxes collected last year! Thanks to the EPA, they will soon enjoy higher prices for cars, food, appliances and mortgages.


4. Cut the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 15 percent. Currently, we have the 2nd highest corporate tax rate of the top 30 most economically developed countries in the world. This tax rate is driving businesses to locate the facilities overseas. And we are the ONLY country in the world that taxes its businesses on what they earn overseas.

5. Finally, Drill Baby Drill. 
When Obama took office, the price for a gallon of gas was $1.84 per gallon. Today, the average price is $3.86 per gallon. According to the non-partisan Congressional Research Service (CRS), America’s combined supply of oil, coal, and natural gas is the largest on Earth. Put another way, America’s recoverable resources are far larger than those of Saudi Arabia, China, and Canada.

According to economist Joseph Mason at Louisiana State University, the drilling moratorium in the summer of 2010 eliminated 20,000 jobs in the Gulf of Mexico. Mason also noted that unemployment in Louisiana alone jumped from 6.2% when the moratorium was announced to 8.1% in October when the moratorium was officially enacted. By the way, during the embargo, Pres. Obama told was in Brazil telling the Brazilian people how he just couldn’t wait to help them drill for oil off their shore. 

The Wall Street Journal estimated that our drilling moratorium both offshore as well as on land in places such as Anwar in Alaska will cost us over 1 million jobs over the next five years.

These are my ideas for turning our economy around. Do you think they might "work"? While Obama is occupying the White House, we won't be given a chance to find out.