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The Email Library:
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May 25th, 2008 -
An Educational Experience
Please remember on this Memorial Day Weekend why we are
celebrating this holiday and the reasons behind it. Those who have
given their lives defending our freedom should never be forgotten.
At this time in the campaign we are deep into ballot access season
and most of our time is being spent trying to arrange for ballot
access around the country. If it were just a matter of collecting
signatures, it might be a relatively easy process, but it is far
more complicated than that. To say that I am getting a Doctorate in
how we elect a President would be an understatement.
First, I would like to tell everyone about the novel way in which we
are going about our candidacy in the various states and our search
for a potential Vice Presidential running mate.
Although every state holds its Presidential Election on the same day
they are, in essence, holding separate elections for President. With
that in mind, we have determined that we do not need the same Vice
Presidential candidate in every state and, in fact, can have a
different Vice President on the ballot in all 50 states and Guam.
(Guam votes for President, Puerto Rico doesn't.)
With a different Vice Presidential candidate in different elections
it gives us an opportunity to have a local person in the election
and also gives us an extra hand with obtaining ballot access. The
$64,000 question then is how does the final Vice President get
chosen? My electoral college would choose from all our candidates
once I win the election and name the Vice President that would serve
with me.
Which brings me to the second point of this letter.
Everyone has heard of the Electoral College, but I know I never gave
much thought as to what it really was or where its members came
from. Well now I know and that is part of the problem with getting
ballot access. Not only does a candidate have to get thousands of
signatures in every state in the nation to get on the ballot in each
state, but they also have to provide their own electoral college
members. That's right, I have to find electors in every state and in
some states, such as California, every county in the state.
As an example, in order to get on the ballot in Tennessee I not only
need a few signatures from random voters, but I also need 11
electors. I must have 1 elector from every Congressional District
(of which there are 9) and then 2 floaters. Then these electors must
each gather a few of their own signatures to get me on the ballot.
California is even a worse situation. In California I have to have 1
elector from every county, there are 55 of them, and then collect
186,000+ signatures to get on the ballot. Needless to say, without
$500,000 or more I won't be on the ballot in California.
Which brings me to the question of a write-in candidacy in
California. Can't you write-in any candidate on your ballot? You
can, but they won't even count the votes unless you've qualified as
a write-in candidate. I can apply to be a write-in candidate in
California, but I still have to find my 55 electors from each
individual county in the state. Difficult, yes, but not impossible
and a process I am currently starting.
Even more bizarre is the report we got back from a professional
ballot consultant on the state of write-in possibilities around the
country.
"Writes-ins for president are banned in South Carolina. Write-ins
are banned for all offices in Hawaii, South Dakota, Nevada,
Louisiana and Oklahoma.
Also the legal director of the Arkansas Secretary of State is saying
he won't allow write-ins either, even though Arkansas did allow
declared write-in presidential candidates in 1972 and 1976 and the
law hasn't changed. Also the New Mexico election director is saying
he won't allow them, even though they were allowed in the 1980's and
the law hasn't changed.
States that traditionally don't count write-ins (and which have no
declaration of write-in procedure) are Iowa, Mississippi, New
Jersey, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington.
Actually Washington state has a procedure but they still won't count
them (it's outrageous). Also DC has a procedure and they still won't
count them either, even though a court in 1975 said they must do
so."
As you can see some of the states don't care what the law says, they
just aren't going to deal with write-in candidates. Sure you can
sue, but that takes a lot of money and besides the election will be
long over before one ever gets to court.
Which brings me to the third point of this email which is getting on
the ballot in each and every state. This is a difficult process and
every state has its own rules. While some states have difficult
hurdles to overcome, such as California, they are attainable with
enough money and time. Unfortunately we are way short on the money
side of things and time wise we are limited by the statutory limits
on when one can even gather signatures. However, other states, such
as Tennessee have much more achievable requirements which I just
received an update on while writing this email.
"Brook Thompson, Tennessee Coordinator of Elections for many years,
has changed his interpretation of how an independent presidential
candidate gets on the ballot. The old interpretation, in effect for
many years, required 25 voters to sign eleven different petitions,
each petition to nominate a single presidential elector candidate.
The new interpretation requires 275 voters to sign a single petition
that lists all eleven presidential elector candidates. Thanks to
Matt Erard for this news.
Although it continues to be the case that the list of electors must
include one person who lives in each Tennessee US House district,
the location of the 275 signers is immaterial. They simply must be
registered voters anywhere in Tennessee. Any adult may circulate the
petition, regardless of whether the circulator is a Tennessee
resident or not. The State Elections Division will furnish the blank
petition forms. The deadline continues to be August 21."
The bottom line to all this is that we to get on the ballot in
between 30 - 40 states. Will probably be an official write-in
candidate in a few more and there are some states (such as
Washington State which has really strange rules for signature
gathering and won't count write-in's) where we will have no ballot
access at all. Not a bad showing at all for a Grass Roots,
Independent Presidential Campaign, but it will all require your help
and the help of your friends to make it happen.
Please sign up with the NAIP at http://www.newamericanindependent.com/BallotAccess.html
to help us with ballot access around the country. Ballot access is
the Holy Grail of an independent campaign and it takes a lot of
people getting involved to make it happen.
"Anything is Possible in America"
Don't forget
to ask for your campaign cards
so we can continue to spread the
word.
Thanks for your continued support and please remember to tell
everyone you know about my efforts. The election is still about a
long ways away and with your help I am continuing to make progress
every day.
Sincerely,
Frank McEnulty
frank@frankforpresident.org
www.frankforpresident.org
May 11th, 2008 -
Do No Harm
The above
saying, which most people rightly attribute to medical doctors,
should also become a firm part of every politician's lexicon.
A short time ago I came across a cartoon called "One Big Happy" by
Rick Detorie. In it a grandfather and granddaughter are walking
through the park and they come across a statue and the following
conversation occurs.
Granddaughter: Granpa, who's that a statue of?
Grandfather: Theron B. Oswald, a much beloved civic leader. He did
what no other politician had ever done.
Granddaughter: What?
Grandfather: He let well enough alone.
Granddaughter: Cool!
Wouldn't it be nice to have a few politicians like this now and
again? Unfortunately, we don't have any politicians like that at
all.
A prime example of where
politicians have had to do something and passed "feel good"
legislation with disastrous results has been in the case of the
head-long push into ethanol production.
Sure it sounded good, let's turn corn into oil and power our cars.
The farmer's make more money, we control our own fuel source and we
stick it to those pesky oil producing countries. Only problem was
that they neglected to take into effect what moving a large portion
of our food production into the production of ethanol would do.
(Remember we have always been the breadbasket of the world)
The first hint of trouble came when tortilla prices in Mexico
doubled. Then price increases started marching around the world to
the point that we now have food riots occurring on an almost daily
basis. The threat of even more starvation around the world has grown
and a lot of it started with our politicians' fixation with the
converting of corn to ethanol.
I think cartoonist. Ramirez sums it up quite nicely in his editorial
cartoon below.
To add insult to injury,
we are now learning that the process of converting corn and other
food crops to ethanol is not only energy inefficient, but also
is using up even more valuable resources such as water and crop land
that is needed for, surprise, surprise, food production.
Sure, the politicians are happy, because they can claim to have done
something to lessen our dependency on foreign oil (even if it was a
bad way to do it). However, look at the misery around the world that
our policy towards food is helping to cause.
Way too often our politicians pass legislation that sounds good on
its face, but turns out to be far more costly than envisioned, does
not really solve the problem nor provide any long-term solutions.
Can anything be done to stop this trend? Only if we elect a
President who is willing to do what is right for all Americans first
and worry about reelection and opinion polls later. Our President is
supposed to be our leaders and leaders need to do what is best in
the long-term for those being led, not just what sounds and feels
good so reelection is easier.
I promise to be that type of President.
Campaign News:
I
am still in discussions with the Reform Party of the United States
of American -
http://www.reformparty.org/
, Natural Law Party of Ohio -
http://ohionlp.org/ and the Independent American
Party -
http://www.usiap.org/index.htm
for their support of my campaign.
Please sign up with the NAIP at http://www.newamericanindependent.com/BallotAccess.html
to help us with ballot access around the country. Ballot access is
the Holy Grail of an independent campaign and it takes a lot of
people getting involved to make it happen.
"Anything is Possible in America"
Don't forget
to ask for your campaign cards
so we can continue to spread the
word.
Thanks for your continued support and please remember to tell
everyone you know about my efforts. The election is still about a
long ways away and with your help I am continuing to make progress
every day.
Sincerely,
Frank McEnulty
frank@frankforpresident.org
www.frankforpresident.org
May 4th, 2008 -
Spring Is In The Air
With Spring
here we've got tornadoes in Virginia and floods in Ohio. It won't be
too long before the politicians from Washington will be flying into
the disaster areas to spread your money around. In an election year
like this, the lure of free publicity and the ability to pander for
votes by rushing out with disaster relief money is just too strong a
temptation for any politician to ignore.
While it is true that no one or no community can fully prepare for
major natural disasters and it requires the help of local, state and
Federal officials to help get things back to normal maybe there is a
better way to fund these efforts.
However, it has long been my belief that politicians secretly love
natural disasters. They are a terrible tragedy, but look at the
great opportunity they present to politicians to show that they care
and to throw our money around like, well, like it isn't theirs.
For years I've wondered if there shouldn't be a more rational and
organized response to natural and other disasters than the current
system of knee-jerk politicians swooping in and doling out our money
in an attempt to show that they are compassionate and should be
reelected to office.
If you have property, it is your responsibility to see that you have
the proper insurance coverage to ensure that if something tragic
happens you have the coverage to rebuild your house. Unfortunately,
I believe that way too many people just assume that the Federal
government will cover them in the event of a disaster so they don't
worry about it.
With that in mind I, as President, would propose a national disaster
insurance fund which would work as follows:
There would be a specific set of disasters covered under the
insurance. For example, the policies would cover losses from
earthquake, flood, hurricanes and tornadoes.
People and cities would have 5 years to decide to get into the
program. After the 5 year transition period were over, if you didn't
have the insurance, there would no longer be any Federal assistance
to property owners in the event of a natural disaster.
The policies would be sold through existing insurance companies,
much as earthquake coverage is currently sold in California.
No one would be forced to buy, but I would assume, much like fire
insurance, that anyone who has a mortgage on their house would be
required to do so by their lender if they lived in a zone where
there was the potential for any of these major disasters. It would
also be fiscally prudent for public agencies to ensure their
properties as well.
Prices would be kept reasonable by two key facts. There would be a
large number of property owners involved in the pool which would
spread the risk. The Federal government could subsidize the coverage
- the subsidy coming from what is not given out each year in
emergency disaster funding.
This program would accomplish several things.
First, it would make people (and cities) responsible for seeing that
they do what is necessary to protect their property in the event of
a catastrophic loss caused by a natural disaster.
Second, it would take away the ability of the politicians to use our
money to further their own political gains - at least in this area
of life.
Third, it would establish a true fund to pay for these events.
Fourth, it would allow those people in certain parts of the country
to not always feel like their money is being used to support other
parts of the country where these things always happen. Whether it is
hurricanes in the South or Southeast, tornadoes in the Midwest or
earthquakes in California, why should someone in Arizona (where
natural disasters are fairly few) be required to contribute their
tax dollars to continually rebuilding beach front property or homes
in "tornado alley"?
One on the main planks of Presidential Campaign platform is that of
personal responsibility and I believe an insurance program of this
kind is the responsible thing to do. People should be responsible
for taking care of their own problems as much as possible as long as
they are provided with the opportunity to do so. If they choose not
to participate, well that is their decision and their
responsibility.
Campaign News:
I
am still in discussions with the Reform Party of the United States
of American -
http://www.reformparty.org/
, Natural Law Party of Ohio -
http://ohionlp.org/ and the Independent American
Party -
http://www.usiap.org/index.htm
for their support of my campaign.
Please sign up with the NAIP at http://www.newamericanindependent.com/BallotAccess.html
to help us with ballot access around the country. Ballot access is
the Holy Grail of an independent campaign and it takes a lot of
people getting involved to make it happen.
"Anything is Possible in America"
Don't forget
to ask for your campaign cards
so we can continue to spread the
word.
Thanks for your continued support and please remember to tell
everyone you know about my efforts. The election is still about a
long ways away and with your help I am continuing to make progress
every day.
Sincerely,
Frank McEnulty
frank@frankforpresident.org
www.frankforpresident.org
April 19th, 2008 -
Education, Spending & Personal Responsibility
"The
education of our children is failing them and we need to spend more
money." How often have we heard that before? The solution is always
to spend more of your money, isn't it? That has been the "solution"
for the last 30 years and it hasn't worked. Just maybe, the solution
lies somewhere else.
The fact of the matter is that we, as a nation, pay more for
educating our children and get less out of it than any other nation
on earth. Let me say that again: we, as a nation, pay more for
educating our children and get less out of it than any other nation
on earth. Why is that? You can blame the teachers' unions, you can
blame the government, you can blame bad teachers. Those are all good
suspects, but they aren't the main cause of our failing public
education system.
The
true blame lies at the feet of parents who don't do enough to ensure
that their children get the education they deserve.
·
Parents, who don't ensure that their children do their homework, are
to blame.
· Parents, who don't ensure that their children have enough to eat,
are to blame.
· Parents, who don't ensure that their children aren't staying up
all night playing video games, watching TV or text messaging their
friends, are to blame.
Most of the children who get a bad education should point their
fingers directly at their parents or, in a lot of cases, parent and
say, "Why didn't you do your job and make sure I studied, did my
homework and went to school?"
Having children is a tremendous responsibility and often difficult,
but if you choose to have kids it is your responsibility to see that
they get the education they deserve and that means you have to work
along with them to ensure that it happens. Very few kids want to go
to school and learn and unless their parents make them they won't.
It is that simple.
Double the amount spent on education with no increase in parental
involvement and responsibility and you will see almost no increase
in educational gains. Hasn't that been the case for the last 30
years?
Get people to take responsibility for their children's education and
you will see huge gains in the education of these same children.
Of course, politicians don't want you to hear this because it
doesn't increase their power. They want to be seen as the all
powerful OZ and if they can just spend more of your money, they will
solve the problem.
And most of the parents of poorly educated children don't want to
hear this either. They don't want to take responsibility for their
kids' education. They don't want to take the time to make sure their
children are doing their homework and doing their best in school.
They've been told by the politicians for years that if we just spend
more money the education system will get better so you don't have to
be involved. They want to believe it. Well, they've been lied to and
it's time someone stood up and told the truth.
As your President I will tell the truth about education. I will
certainly set education as a top priority of my administration, but
I will also tell people that having the government throw money at a
problem isn't the only answer. Parents have to be involved in
educating their children to make sure they get as good an education
as possible. Because if they aren't part of the solution, they are
part of the problem. And no amount of money will fix that.
The facts are the facts. If you want a better education for your
children you have to be involved and give it to them. This is one
problem the government can never solve on its own, no matter how
much of your money they throw at it.
Campaign News:
I am currently in discussions with the Reform Party of the United
States of American -
http://www.reformparty.org/
,
Natural Law Party of Ohio -
http://ohionlp.org/
and the Independent American Party -
http://www.usiap.org/index.htm
for
their support of my campaign.
Please sign up with the NAIP at http://www.newamericanindependent.com/BallotAccess.html
to help us with ballot access around the country. Ballot access is
the Holy Grail of an independent campaign and it takes a lot of
people getting involved to make it happen.
"Anything is Possible in America"
Don't forget
to ask for your campaign cards
so we can continue to spread the
word.
Thanks for your continued support and please remember to tell
everyone you know about my efforts. The election is still about a
long ways away and with your help I am continuing to make progress
every day.
Sincerely,
Frank McEnulty
frank@frankforpresident.org
www.frankforpresident.org
April 6th, 2008 -
Billions and Billions
No, I'm not
talking about the number of stars in the sky, I'm talking about the
amount of money - your money - that the Democratic candidates are
promising every day to give away in their manic drive to "buy" votes
and get elected.
It's $30 billion for this and $30 billion for that. Then another $10
billion here and $20 billion there. What sort of world do these
people really live in?
Even our current Congress can't keep from passing out money. They
just agreed on a $15 billion package to help the homebuilding
industry by basically giving most of the money in the bill to the
homebuilders themselves to help them get through this rough patch.
Aren't these the same companies who were minting money just a year
or so ago for several years? Why do we have to give them our money
now? Could it be that Congress is buying their future support? Sure
appears to be the case.
Quite frankly, all these people are scaring me to death and everyone
had better not only hold onto their wallets and bury them deep if
they want to hold onto what they earn if either Hillary or Obama get
elected. Not that the Republicans have shown any fiscal restraint
the last 8 years because they haven't. But the fact of the matter is
that both Democratic candidates believe that anyone making over
$50,000 a year is "rich" and needs to pay more in taxes to support
all of their social programs and their open grab for more power over
your everyday life.
All three candidates continually talk about change, but the only
change I see coming from all three of them is a lower standard of
living for most people because of increased taxation and more
government control over our daily lives.
I usually do my own writing, but sometimes I come across an article
that I believe needs to be passed along . What follows is just such
an article. Ken Blackwell of the New York Sun explains what is going
to happen if Obama gets elected and it is not a pretty picture.
Ken Blackwell - Columnist for the New York Sun
It's an amazing time to be alive in
America. We're in a year of firsts in this presidential election:
the first viable woman candidate; the first viable African-American
candidate; and, a candidate who is the first front running freedom
fighter over 70. The next president of America will be a first.
We won't truly be in an election of firsts, however, until we judge
every candidate by where they stand. We won't arrive where we should
be until we no longer talk about skin color or gender. Now that
Barack Obama steps to the front of the Democratic field, we need to
stop talking about his race, and start talking about his policies
and his politics.
The reality is this: Though the Democrats will not have a nominee
until August, unless Hillary Clinton drops out, Mr. Obama is now the
frontrunner, and its time America takes a closer and deeper look at
him. Some pundits are calling him the next John F. Kennedy. He's
not. He's the next George McGovern. And it's time people learned the
facts.
Because the truth is that Mr. Obama is the single most liberal
senator in the entire U.S. Senate. He is more liberal than Ted
Kennedy, Bernie Sanders, or Mrs. Clinton. Never in my life have I
seen a presidential frontrunner whose rhetoric is so far removed
from his record. Walter Mondale promised to raise our taxes, and he
lost. George McGovern promised military weakness, and he lost.
Michael Dukakis promised a liberal domestic agenda, and he lost.
Yet Mr. Obama is promising all those things, and he's not behind in
the polls. Why? Because the press has dealt with him as if he were
in a beauty pageant. Mr. Obama talks about getting past party,
getting past red and blue, to lead the United States of America. But
let's look at the more defined strokes of who he is underneath this
superficial "beauty."
Start with national security, since the president's most important
duties are as commander-in-chief. Over the summer, Mr. Obama talked
about invading Pakistan, a nation armed with nuclear weapons;
meeting without preconditions with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who vows to
destroy Israel and create another Holocaust; and Kim Jong II, who is
murdering and starving his people, but emphasized that the nuclear
option was off the table against terrorists - something no president
has ever taken off the table since we created nuclear weapons in the
1940s. Even Democrats who have worked in national security condemned
all of those remarks. Mr. Obama is a foreign-policy novice who would
put our national security at risk.
Next, consider economic policy. For all its faults, our health care
system is the strongest in the world. And free trade agreements,
created by Bill Clinton as well as President Bush, have made more
goods more affordable so that even people of modest means can live a
life that no one imagined a generation ago. Yet Mr. Obama promises
to raise taxes on "the rich." How to fix Social Security? Raise
taxes. How to fix Medicare? Raise taxes. Prescription drugs? Raise
taxes. Free college? Raise taxes. Socialize medicine? Raise taxes.
His solution to everything is to have government take it over. Big
Brother on steroids, funded by your paycheck.
Finally, look at the social issues. Mr. Obama had the audacity to
open a stadium rally by saying, "All praise and glory to God!" but
says that Christian leaders speaking for life and marriage have
"hijacked" - hijacked - Christianity. He is pro-partial birth
abortion, and promises to appoint Supreme Court justices who will
rule any restriction on it unconstitutional. He espouses the
abortion views of Margaret Sanger, one of the early advocates of
racial cleansing. His spiritual leaders endorse homosexual marriage,
and he is moving in that direction. In Illinois, he refused to vote
against a statewide ban - ban - on all handguns in the state. These
are radical left, Hollywood, and San Francisco values, not Middle
America values.
The real Mr. Obama is an easy target for the general election. Mrs.
Clinton is a far tougher opponent. But Mr. Obama could win if people
don't start looking behind his veneer and flowery speeches. His
vision of "bringing America together" means saying that those who
disagree with his agenda for America are hijackers or warmongers.
Uniting the country means adopting his liberal agenda and abandoning
any conflicting beliefs.
But right now everyone is talking about how eloquent of a speaker he
is and - yes - they're talking about his race. Those should never be
the factors on which we base our choice for president. Mr. Obama's
radical agenda sets him far outside the American mainstream, to the
left of Mrs. Clinton.
It's time to talk about the real Barack Obama. In an election of
firsts, let's first make sure we elect the person who is qualified
to be our president in a nuclear age during a global civilizational
war.
People need to remember when they are electing a President that they
need to look at what he truly believes in and stands for, not what
he is saying to get elected. I think there is enough evidence out
there that none of the "big three" stand for anything more than more
of the same, more social programs, more spending, more attacks on
your standard of living and much higher taxes. Let's not let this
happen by accepting what the major parties are trying to shove down
our throats. Do something to help change the outcome by letting
people know there is an alternative and spread the word about my
campaign for President.
"Anything is Possible in America"
Don't forget
to ask for your campaign cards
so we can continue to spread the
word.
Thanks for your continued support and please remember to tell
everyone you know about my efforts. The election is still about a
long ways away and with your help I am continuing to make progress
every day.
Sincerely,
Frank McEnulty
frank@frankforpresident.org
www.frankforpresident.org
February
27th, 2008 -
It's Amazing What Happens When...
Between
illegal aliens and H1B visa recipients depressing wages, moving
factories abroad and free trade agreements, it's a miracle that
Americans have any decent wage paying jobs at all.
For some time now I have felt and expressed the views that if our
President would only enforce the laws of our country (as he swore to
do) that a great deal of our problems with illegal aliens would
become self-correcting. Now that Oklahoma and Arizona are doing just
that, we have a darn good example of how this will work.
It's amazing, but ever since Arizona's law against employers who
hire illegal aliens has gone into effect and is being enforced, the
illegal population of Arizona has been decreasing. They are
either heading back home to Mexico or over to Texas, California and
other states where the same laws do not exist. This shows that
enforcing the law does work.
Now if we could only have a President who would do his sworn duty
and enforce the laws of the United States we would see a marked
change in the overall illegal population of the United States.
We wouldn't have to think about rounding up millions of illegal
aliens and sending them home. They would do the job for us.
The cost of the illegal population in this country is extremely high
and getting higher every day. Examples of these costs abound.
- Lower wages across the board for entry level and low skilled
workers. Obama was asked about how this has affected the black
population in a recent debate and avoided the question - as he does
most direct questions - but it has hurt this segment of our
population most.
- Huge social costs when it comes to schools, health care and
other social benefits. Estimated at $2 billion (with a B!) a
year in Los Angeles County alone, imagine what it must be for the
country as a whole!
- Enormous costs associated with dealing with the criminal
aspects and criminal elements of the illegal immigration population.
- A deterioration of our infrastructure due to rapid
population growth that would not have occurred with the massive
numbers of illegal immigrants.
- California is in the midst of "another" budget crisis and I
would be willing to bet that the California budget would be closer
to balanced versus an estimated $16 billion in
the hole if the state
wasn't providing for the education and social welfare of millions of
illegal aliens and their offspring.
As President I would do one
thing to ensure that this situation doesn't happen again; I would
make sure our laws are enforced.
Here's my simple, four point
plan:
First, I would instruct all agencies under my jurisdiction to
strictly enforce and apply the rules against hiring illegal
immigrant workers.
Second, I would direct that all instances of employing
illegal aliens be subject to penalty by fine and jail time - real
jail time, not a "country club" jail. It's real simple for an
employer to pay a fine and move on - that's just a cost of doing
business. It's not so simple to ignore the threat of real jail time
in a real criminal jail. No one wants to face that prospect.
Third, I would do whatever was possible to ensure that
illegal aliens in this country would not receive any social
benefits.
Fourth, I would move to change the Constitution so that only
those born of American citizens become citizens of this country upon
birth. The founders of our country could not and would not have ever
envisioned the fact that there would be hundreds of thousands of
babies born each year in the United States hospitals solely so their
parents can use them as an excuse to demand to stay here and take
benefits from the rest of us.
It's really that easy. Active and thorough enforcement of our
laws will not only solve the current problem, but ensure that it
doesn't happen again in the future.
The current administration, in cahoots with Congress, has gone out
of their way to sell our country out to business interests wanting
cheaper labor by allowing in millions of illegal alien workers and a
rapid expansion of the H1B visa program.
It's time for a President who sincerely cares about Americans
having jobs with a decent wage. I am ready to be that President.
"Anything is Possible in America"
Don't forget
to ask for your campaign cards
so we can continue to spread the
word.
Thanks for your continued support and please remember to tell
everyone you know about my efforts. The election is still about a
long ways away and with your help I am continuing to make progress
every day.
Sincerely,
Frank McEnulty
frank@frankforpresident.org
www.frankforpresident.org
December 9th, 2007 -
Health Care, Insurance and the Middle Class
The
current health care debate seems to center around those that do not
have health insurance. Some of those people don't have it because
they are poor, some don't have it because they are young and choose
to spend their money or benefits elsewhere and some don't have it
because they, for one reason or another, are considered uninsurable.
In all of the chatter about health care the Middle Class always
seems to get left out of the equation and continues to see their
standards of living eroded.
In this email I'd like to talk about one of the major problems
looming on the horizon for these Middle Class Americans that do have
health care and what I would propose we do about it to ensure that
it remains affordable and that coverage doesn't disappear because
they've had a run of bad luck health wise.
This past weekend I was involved in holding a benefit, pancake
breakfast to help raise money for a woman who needed surgery for her
brain cancer. It was a great event and lots of people came together
to show their love and support for the woman and her family. It was
the type of event that renews your faith in your fellow human beings
and makes you glad to belong to the groups you belong to. That's the
great part of this email; the bad part is that the event should have
been totally unnecessary.
The reason for this fundraiser was because this family's insurance
has an annual expense limit and, because of previous cancer
treatments, they had reached their benefit limit for the year.
A couple of weeks ago we learned that a friend's wife was going to
have to go in for her third brain cancer surgery as soon as
possible. They are hoping to be able to get it all this time and
solve the problem. Everything was set and everyone was ready and
then the real problem hit. It appears that the family had used up
its health insurance benefits for the year and the insurance company
would not pay for any of the operation and related costs unless they
waited until January to have the procedure done. With brain cancer
it is rarely a good option to wait.
These are not people who have shirked their responsibilities. The
husband has his own plumbing business and they have purchased their
own insurance for the family. However, no one ever expects that they
will actually run out of insurance coverage, but this is what
happened and as I've researched the subject it appears that this
happens more and more these days.
As an example, On Thursday, November 29th, the Wall Street Journal
had a page 1 article entitled, "As Medical Costs Soar, The Insured
Face a Huge Tab". This article told the story of how a person, who
has worked all his life and who carries good medical insurance
suddenly found himself facing a huge medical bill and potential
financial ruin when his lifetime benefits of $1,500,000 were maxed
out due to some severe medical conditions (and what I consider
fraudulent hospital billing schemes, but I will deal with that in a
later email). In fact, the article goes on to state that the
majority of people facing financial problems because of medical
bills actually do have health insurance.
This appears to be a problem that should be fairly simple to solve,
but since it doesn't involve great sound bites and the ability to be
a champion of the poor or illegal, our politicians have no interest
in dealing with it.
Shouldn't our political leaders be paying attention to make sure
that the 260,000,000 of us who have health insurance and are trying
our best to take care of ourselves and our families in a responsible
way are given the safety net that appears to be needed in the face
of rapidly rising health insurance costs and the potential of
catastrophic illness or accident? I say that this is a very
important part of the discussion and it is getting lost in the sound
bites surrounding the uninsured.
Most of you know that I am not a big proponent of giving the Federal
Government more control and involvement in our daily lives, but this
may be a case of where Federal Government involvement is necessary.
I believe there should be a Federal safety net for people with
insurance who, through no fault of their own, use up their health
insurance and are left without coverage when they need it most
because of a catastrophic illness or injury. People who try to do
the right thing (buy or have a job with insurance coverage) should
always have the backing of the government for circumstances far
beyond their control.
I believe there should be a Federal health insurance pool for people
who cannot buy health insurance from traditional sources similar to
the Flood Insurance Program currently in place and the Disaster
Insurance Program that I have proposed in an earlier email
concerning the government's response to disasters.
The true purpose of a Federal health insurance program should be to
prevent people from suffering financial ruin when a major medical
event happens in their lives, not to pay for every little thing and
every time they want to see the doctor. When a governmental program
starts to pay for every little thing, it gets abused, our money is
wasted and costs spiral even more out of control.
Let's do what is right by all Americans and develop a safety net so
that everyone has the ability to be covered against the major
medical events and can buy major medical insurance while maintaining
some individual responsibility for the day-to-day health care items
whether it is through their one's own private insurance policy, an
employer insurance policy or by paying for it out one's own pocket.
The health care system in the United States is a huge part of our
economy and will only grow larger as our population continues to
age. I will have further emails on this subject as we continue
towards the election to discuss other parts of the equation that
also appear to be in need of adjustment.
"Anything is Possible in America"
Don't forget
to ask for your campaign cards
so we can continue to spread the
word.
Thanks for your continued support and please remember to tell
everyone you know about my efforts. The election is still about a
long ways away and with your help I am continuing to make progress
every day.
Sincerely,
Frank McEnulty
frank@frankforpresident.org
www.frankforpresident.org
November 11th, 2007 -
Changing the World $500 at a Time
Let me
start out with three simple statements and then I'll tie them all
together.
1. For a long time I have been fascinated by and a big proponent of
microlending in the developing world.
2. I am very concerned with our standing in the attitudes of most of
the world, especially the developing world.
3. People who have nothing to lose are easy targets for radical
groups that want to see the United States and whoever else is
convenient to hate, damaged.
Since the mid 1970's, when microlending got its start in India it
has helped numerous people around the world get a financial footing
under themselves so that they can start to develop a better life for
themselves and their families. As the name suggests, microlending
basically consists of giving small loans at decent interest rates to
people who could never borrow from conventional lenders. The purpose
of these loans is to give these people the opportunity to start or
expand their own small businesses that generate income. These
businesses are often as simple as a one-cow dairy, sewing business
or small milling operation. The loans are typically very small - $50
to $1,000. The people who get these loans are usually in the
underground economy or living in remote rural areas with the vast
majority of the borrowers being women. Often over 95% of total
borrowers are women in certain regions of the world.
These loans help to start a positive economic cycle not only for the
borrowers, but for those around them. Even at these small loan
amounts, historic repayment rates have been very high and most
people believe these programs to be an outstanding success.
This leads me into my second point in how do we go about repairing
our standing with a great deal of the world, especially the
developing world where the majority of our most dangerous enemies
are currently coming from.
Why is it that we have given so much foreign aid to a military
dictatorship, as we have in Pakistan, with no real positive and
often negative results? Have you ever wondered why we are propping
up a military dictatorship with our money? Wouldn't our money be
better spent trying to help the people in northern Pakistan improve
their lives so they might not be so inclined to want to kill us and
themselves? Instead we seem to be funding the lifestyles and weapons
purchases of people who, as dictators, stand against everything we
believe in here in the United States? We've often done the same in
Africa and Asia with similar results.
My proposal, therefore, is that we start to take a much larger
proportion of our foreign aid dollars and start to invest them where
they will do us the most good: a comprehensive microlending program
in developing nations.
Let's look at some numbers. $1,000,000,000 (billion dollars) is a
lot of money, but it is about the cost of one B-2 bomber. Let's say
we were able to take that $1,000,000,000 and go into a country as a
microlender. We'll assume that the costs of the program are 25%
which will leave us with $750,000,000 to distribute as microloans.
If each loan were an average size of $500 that would give us the
opportunity to help 1.5 million people build themselves a better
future. If we, as a country, help 1.5 million people improve their
lives, don't you think that our standing in those people's minds
(and those of their friends, relatives and countrymen) will increase
as well. Will they be less inclined to join groups that want to kill
us? I think so. Plus, these are loans, not grants, so as the loans
begin to be repaid we can make further loans to additional people.
It is a program with unlimited potential and minimal risk with
tremendous side benefits to us as a country.
As your President, I believe it would be far more useful to the
long-term health of our country and the world if we were to use a
portion of our foreign aid to help the poor of the world to lift
themselves out of poverty by giving them economic options through
microlending programs. What do you think helps people more? Giving
their leaders billions of dollars to buy weapons; food and medicines
that may or may not get to those that need it most; and the
opportunity to fill their own bank accounts with however much they
can steal out of the programs? Or helping the people of those
countries with microloans to better their financial standing in
their world? I strongly believe that our foreign aid would be much
more productive using the millions of dollars spent on one fighter
jet to directly help the people of that country.
If elected, I will immediately start to transition a large portion
of our foreign aid from weapons and other programs that do not help
the common person into a worldwide microlending program. I believe
that it will not only improve how the rest of the world looks upon
us, it will improve the lives of countless people, making them less
likely to want to sacrifice their lives to harm us. When you've got
something to live for, you want to keep on living.
Thanks for your support
and please continue to tell everyone you know about my efforts,
Sincerely,
Frank McEnulty
frank@frankforpresident.org
www.frankforpresident.org
November 4th, 2007 -
Spending Our Way to Financial Ruin
Our current
political leaders and their political parties are heading us towards
financial ruin and if we don't do something about it soon our
children and their children will have much lower standards of
living. The Republicans and Democrats will never fix the problem as
long as they can point at the other party as the cause of the
problems and never accept blame themselves. What we need is a true,
independent President to force the two parties to get together and
work on the problem. I say it can be done through coercion or shame
or both, but it will take an independent to do it who doesn't care
about getting party members elected, who doesn't care about the next
election, show doesn't care about who caused the problem, but who
only cares about what is right for the future of all Americans and
fixing things now.
I, Frank McEnulty, promise to be that President for you.
Please see the below article for why we all need to be very afraid
for our financial futures and why something needs to be done in the
next election for President to change the situation.
From: McClatchy
Newspapers 2007
WASHINGTON - As presidential candidates largely ignore the issue,
looming fiscal challenges threaten to swamp the U.S. economy and
erode America's superpower status, several of the nation's foremost
experts on the federal budget warned Wednesday.
"We have been diagnosed with fiscal cancer,"
said David Walker, the nation's comptroller general, or chief
auditor, testifying before the Senate Budget Committee.
The committee called the hearing to spotlight legislation that would
create a bipartisan panel charged with recommending how to tackle
promised spending on federal retirement programs that threaten to
bankrupt the U.S. government.
"In the very least, it ought to be the framework that a new Congress
and new president put in place," said Leon Panetta, co-chairman of
the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget and Clinton-era
budget director.
Starting in 2017, Social Security will pay out more than it takes in
from tax revenues. Over the next 75 years, that could add $4.7
trillion in present-day value to the federal debt.
However, that pales when compared with projected government
health-care spending on retiring baby boomers, the more than 75
million Americans born from 1946 to 1964. Boomer retirement is
projected to cost the Medicare system and state-managed Medicaid
$33.9 trillion in present value over the next 75 years.
Unless changes are made to benefits and/or revenues, within the next
three decades government spending on Social Security and Medicare
could account for $1 of every $5 spent in the U.S. economy.
No major presidential candidate has put forward a detailed plan to
fix Social Security and Medicare's long-term finances. Many of them
acknowledge that there's a pending problem, but they confine their
remedies to vague goals they'll seek or modest halfway measures.
Meanwhile, experts say, mounting pressures to spend ever more on
health care, fewer active workers to pay taxes to sustain retirees'
benefits and growing interest payments on the national debt all
could combine to create an unparalleled economic crisis.
If spending on government retirement programs remains on its current
course and revenues grow at their historical averages, interest on
the debt could grow to nearly 30 percent of the budget by 2040, up
sharply from around 9 percent now, the Government Accountability
Office estimates.
"Nobody can say when all of this might end up in a crisis," warned
Bob Bixby, the head of the budget watchdog group Concord Coalition.
Instead of a dramatic flash point, he said, the growing fiscal
challenges could mean "a long, slow erosion in the standard of
living."
That erosion threatens national security, budget experts warned,
because the United States - the world's sole superpower - would slip
in stature and see a fast-growing China, a prosperous but aging
Europe and a resurgent, nationalistic Russia challenge its economic
might. Daily headlines show that it's already begun.
Despite such weighty fiscal challenges, politicians driven by
short-term election goals focus on short-term problems. President
Bush touts the now-shrinking annual federal budget deficit, the
amount that annual spending exceeds tax receipts. The deficit fell
from a high of $413 billion in fiscal 2004 to about $163 billion in
fiscal 2007.
But that masks what's happened to the gross federal debt, the sum of
outstanding debt issued by the federal government. Since fiscal
2001, the federal debt has soared from $5.8 trillion to $8.9
trillion.
Ignoring debt offers a false sense of security, Walker warned. He
said that unfunded liabilities - costs such as Social Security
benefits that the government has promised boomers but hasn't begun
paying yet - grew by $3 trillion in fiscal 2007 to $53 trillion.
"Health-care costs are the key fiscal problem for the budget," said
Bill Novelli, the chief executive officer of AARP, the powerful
lobby for seniors. He urged lawmakers to look beyond simplistic
solutions such as reducing benefits or tweaking revenues. What's
needed, he said, is an effective method to contain health-care
costs, which are rising much faster than inflation or wages.
The proposal for the Bipartisan Task Force for Responsible Fiscal
Action comes from Sens. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., and Judd Gregg, R-N.H.,
the chairman and the ranking Republican on the Senate Budget
Committee.
"I think we're reaching a defining moment," Conrad warned the
assembled budget experts, who all agreed that tough decisions must
be made sooner rather than later.
In January, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke told senators that
the right time to start addressing fiscal challenges "is about 10
years ago."
McClatchy Newspapers 2007
Thanks for your support
and please continue to tell everyone you know about my efforts,
Sincerely,
Frank McEnulty
frank@frankforpresident.org
www.frankforpresident.org
October 15th, 2007 -
Fiscal Irresponsibility
There are
fewer topics concerning our current political landscape that get me
more upset than the fiscal irresponsibility of our Congress and
President. As President, I promise to veto any and all bills that
include the barrels of pork as discussed below. If we don't get
our country back on a footing of fiscal responsibility soon, we are
going to leave a bankrupt, second level economy to our children and
grandchildren. The President is our leader and he needs to act like
one and do what is right for the country now and in the future.
Under the "fiscal restraint" of the Republicans our deficit has
ballooned and spending has increased (even ignoring the war in Iraq)
at a greater pace than at almost any time in the history of our
country. There was the hope and, as we were promised by the
Democrats during the last Congressional elections, that they would
show some fiscal restraint and get the country back on a path of
fiscal responsibility. Well, based on the current negotiations over
a water projects bill (the Water Resources Development Act) for the
Army Corps of Engineer, that "promise" has already been forgotten
and we are back to business as usual.
Originally, the
U.S. Army Corp of Engineers requested a budget of $4.9 billion for
works they identified as necessary. However, once Congress got their
hands on the bill it ballooned to around $14 billion in the Senate
and around $15 billion in the House. Of course a rational person
would think, "Well that's pretty bad, but hopefully when they
reconciled the two bills calmer heads would prevail and cut some of
those costs." Nope, not with this bunch of drunken sailors. By the
time it came out of committee the total cost of the bill had risen
to $23.2 billion.
How does a bill go from a request from the people who are planning
to actually spend the money on the projects of $4.9 billion to a
total of $23.2 billion? An increase of almost 400%. Is the U.S. Army
Corps of Engineers so incompetent that they can't see all the
projects that need to be done to keep our country safe? I don't
believe so and neither should you.
Rather, over $18
billion of your money was added to the bill so the members of
Congress could add almost 900 items of Pork Barrel spending and
special-interest boondoggles to pay off their supporters at home.
Examples of these extra and often unnecessary projects (per the
Heritage Foundation) include:
• Funding for a study on the impact on navigation of the proposed
Knik Arm Bridge (renamed "Don Young's Way" in SAFTEA-LU) at Cook
Inlet in Alaska (Section 4005);
.
• Riverfront development to enhance recreation in Perth Amboy, New
Jersey (Section 4048)
.
• Authorization of $5,300,000 for the construction of Lake Lanier
Olympic Center in Georgia (Section 5061)
.
• Authorization of $65,000,000 for a Lido Key Beach, Florida,
replenishment project (Section 3036)
.
• $21,000,000 for Imperial Beach, California, beach replenishment
.
• $101,000, 000 for beach replenishment at Ocean City, Sea Isle
City, and contiguous New Jersey seashore resorts
.
• $59,000,000 for central New Jersey seashore beach replenishment
.
• $122,000,000 for beach replenishment in northern New Jersey
.
• $10,600,000 for beach replenishment on Pawley's Island, South
Carolina
.
Behind the diversion of taxpayer money from essential flood safety
programs to geographically and seasonally limited recreation
activities like the Corps' beach replenishment program is a trade
association-the American Shore & Beach Preservation Association (ASBPA)-that
represents seaside resorts. Also involved are lobbying firms that
specialize in obtaining resort-oriented earmarks, among which is
Marlowe & Co., a firm that also represents the ASBPA and serves as a
contact on the Association's press release.
Assuming that Marlowe was describing his company's success
accurately, one has to wonder exactly how his firm was allowed to
participate so intimately in the congressional budgeting,
authorizing, and appropriations processes. Indeed, as these and
other earmarks suggest, and as the lobbyists' own promotional
materials imply, Congress and the congressional committees
responsible for water resources and the Army Corps of Engineers have
effectively privatized some portion of the congressional budget
process to the K Street lobbying firms and appear to have allowed
them wide latitude in selecting what projects are included in the
legislation.
Now you can't blame just the Democrats for this because it appears
that all the little piggies lined up at the trough for this one. The
Democrats are in charge of the most important committees, but they
let the Republicans pile on as well so that if President Bush
actually shows some fiscal restraint and vetoes the bill (amazing
how he'll now veto things since they come from Democrats) they will
have enough votes lines up to override the veto.
If this were an isolated incident it might not matter much, but
unfortunately, this seems to be the way Congress operates on a
regular basis with the approval of the President and it will lead to
a severe financial downturn for all Americans before too much
longer.
That is why I continue on with my campaign to be President of the
United States. We need someone running this country who will take
fiscal responsibility seriously and, as far as I can tell, none of
the front runners for the job from either party have demonstrated
much fiscal restraint in their careers.
Most of the problems that arise with a country can be dealt with
fairly easily if that country is operating on a firm foundation of
fiscal restraint. Think of your own lives. If you have a reserve to
fall back on, you can weather problems much easier than if you are
living hand-to-mouth and have absolutely no back-up or reserves.
We cannot, as a nation, continue to be this fiscally irresponsible.
Like the past several years of real estate madness, it's all fun and
games while the good times last, but when they come to an end, they
come to an end very hard. If our government continues to spend like
a drunken sailor on shore leave we, the people who end up paying the
bills, are all going to wake up with a major hangover one day soon.
Remember, it is your money and it should be spent responsibly. It is
up to the President to do whatever he can to ensure that happens and
I will do exactly that.
Even to just find a fiscally responsible President, you just may
have to look outside
the normal places.
Remember Anything is
Possible in America
Thanks for your continued support and please remember to tell
everyone you know about my efforts. The election is still 13 months
away and with your help I am continuing to make progress every day.
Sincerely,
Frank McEnulty
frank@frankforpresident.org
www.frankforpresident.org
October 9th, 2007 -
The High Cost of Illegal Aliens
The other day, LA County
Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich announced that a new report shows
illegal aliens and their families in Los Angeles County collected
over $35 million in welfare and food stamp allocations in July.
In the report, illegals are said to have collected nearly $20
million in welfare assistance for July 2007 and an additional $15
million in monthly food stamp allocations for an estimated annual
cost of $440 million.
"Illegal immigration continues to have a devastating impact on Los
Angeles County taxpayers," said Antonovich. "In addition to $220
million for public safety and $400 million for healthcare, the $440
million in welfare allocations bring the total cost to County
taxpayers that exceeds $1 billion a year -- this does not include
the skyrocketing cost of education."
So a simple guess of the cost to American taxpayers for the illegal
alien onslaught in Los Angeles County alone is easily in excess of
$2,000,000,000 a year if you assume there are as few as 100,000
illegal aliens in the school system (there are probably many times
more than that).
Multiply that by what the other counties, cities and states around
our country are spending and you come up with a huge amount probably
in excess of the budget deficits of most of those entities.
Of course, the argument is that if we don't have the illegals, who
will do the work. Lately we've been hearing about all the problems
farmers are going to have getting their crops picked if they don't
get the illegal's to do it, because no one else will.
What
they fail to mention is that no one else will do it for the
artificially low wages they are able to pay to get the work done
because the President has allowed so many illegal aliens to get into
the country.
As an example, we are hearing constantly now that food prices will
soar if farmers have to pay more for people to harvest their crops.
The facts are that this is a bold faced lie.
From a
UC Davis study found at
this site,
I was able to find the following information:
How much would farm worker wages increase if some of these
immigrant workers were not available? In 1966, one year after the
end of the bracero program, the fledgling United Farm Workers union
won a 40 percent wage increase for table grape harvesters. Average
hourly farm-worker earnings were about $7.56 for US field and
livestock workers in 2000, according to a USDA survey of farm
employers, and another 40 percent increase would raise them to
$10.58.
If a 40 percent farm-worker wage increase were fully passed on to
consumers, and if there were no farm productivity improvements in
response to higher farm wages, the 5-6 cent farm labor cost of a
pound of apples or a head of lettuce would rise to 7-8 cents, and
the retail price would rise from $1 to $1.02-$1.03.
A large increase in farm wages translates into a small retail cost
increase because: (1) farm labor is a third of farmers' costs; and
(2) farmers receive only a fraction of the retail price of food. For
a typical 2.5-person consumer unit, a 40 percent increase in farm
worker wages that led to a three percent increase in retail fresh
fruit and vegetable costs would increase the spending of a typical
consumer unit by $9 a year, raising expenditures from $301 to $310.
My question to all Americans is, therefore, fairly simple. Wouldn't
you rather have people abiding by our laws and working legally even
if it cost you an additional $9.00 a year (or $20.00 a year for your
fruits and vegetables if all farm workers got a 100% raise in
wages). At a 100% increase in wages, don't you think it would be a
lot easier to find workers for the fields?
Wouldn't the small increase in our food bills be more than offset by
the billions of dollars we would save in our taxes every year that
we are currently spending to support the illegal alien community? I
say, "YES."
The facts are simple. The President and his administration have
conspired with the large business and agricultural interests in our
country to artificially depress and hold-down wages. They have done
this at a tremendous cost to all law-abiding, tax-paying American
citizens and it needs to stop now!
The President is responsible for seeing that the laws of our nation
are enforced and upheld. I promise to be that President and will
never sell out the vast majority of Americans to the interests of
big business and agricultural interests for illegal, cheap labor.
"Anything is
Possible in America"
Thanks for your continued support and please remember to tell
everyone you know about my efforts. The election is still 13 months
away and with your help I am continuing to make progress every day.
Sincerely,
Frank McEnulty
frank@frankforpresident.org
www.frankforpresident.org
September 9th, 2007 -
Meddling Where they Don't Belong
Or, how the Federal Government will probably make the
sub-prime mess even worse than it already is likely to become and
waste your tax money in the process.
Before I get into what I believe the Federal Government shouldn't be
doing concerning the subprime melt-down and why, I'd like to make a
simple point. Most people in America do not have sub-prime
mortgages. Heck, a lot of people don't even have mortgages, so why
should all of those without sub-prime mortgages or no mortgages at
all be responsible for paying for the problems of those that have
difficult mortgages?
That being said, it appears that the subprime melt-down is causing a
lot of problems for quite a few people. Of course that can mean only
one thing. It must be time for the Federal Government to meddle
where it doesn't belong - in other words, what can they do to make
it look like they are helping so that they can buy your votes?
The current mortgage mess was brought on by one simple factor -
GREED. Greed on the part of mortgage lenders, greed on the part of
Wall Street and greed on the part of borrowers. There is an old
saying that goes, "Pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered." Right now
the hogs of the mortgage business are getting slaughtered and I'm of
the opinion that it is NOT the business of the Federal Government to
get involved in bailing out individual homeowners for three major
reasons.
First, this is a market correction that is long overdue. Real estate
prices had been spiraling out of control for a while now in quite a
few parts of the country. Here in California, housing price
increases were completely out of control and a lot of people knew a
correction was in the offing and in fact, that a correction was
needed. When the stock market got out of control during the Internet
boom and then had it's massive correction, did the Federal
Government bail out all of the people who got hurt by the massive
devaluation of the stock market - NO. So why should they now?
Second, who gets bailed out? There are a lot of different types of
people who may or may not get hurt by this market correction. Let's
make a partial list.
Homeowners who have normal loans or no mortgages at all - No concern
here except for the fact that their tax money will get spent on any
bailout and is that really fair?
Property owners with subprime loans - This is where it gets
complicated because not all of these people are created equal.
1. We have the investors who were out there using the easy credit to
buy homes like there was no tomorrow. Should they get bailed out of
their bad loans? Most people would say no, because they were taking
a risk and deserve what they got because they were being greedy.
2. We have homeowners who have subprime loans who are not in danger
of losing their homes because they budgeted properly. Should we make
the lender change the terms on their loans because, well in
retrospect, they just don't seem fair? Doesn't seem likely and
definitely isn't the job of the Federal Government.
3. We have homeowners who have subprime loans who may be in danger
of losing their homes, but even this is not a simple category.
There are those that just bought too big a house for their income -
Do we reward their greed by having the Federal Government bail them
out at our expense so they can live in a bigger house than they
should reasonably have for their income levels? This doesn't seem
right to me.
There are those who bought the right amount of house several years
ago, but with rising housing prices and easy refinancing they have
refinanced several times always taking money out to buy cars, boats,
home improvements, etc and now find that they can't afford the
payments. Do we reward their greed by having the Federal Government
bail them out at our expense because they made bad decisions about
using the equity in the house for things it shouldn't be used for?
This doesn't seem right to me.
There are those that just bought at the top of the market. I guess
the same could be said about all of those people who bought stocks
in the last year before the Internet crash, but did we bail them
out? No, so why is it the business of the Federal Government to bail
out individual homeowners now? I contend it isn't.
Third, a bail out is not fair and sets a very bad precedent. What is
fair about using our tax money to bail out people who made bad
decisions or were greedy? What happens the next time there is a
stock market downturn? Since we bailed homeowners out of bad loans,
do we now use our tax money to bail people out of bad stock
investments? Also, doesn't it set a precedent for encouraging risky
behavior.
With the Federal Government so anxious to bail someone out, just who
do they think they should give the bailout to at this time? Is it
investors, homeowners with good loans, homeowners with "bad" loans
that are okay, greedy subprime borrowers or just borrowers with bad
timing. Unfortunately, it will probably come down to where they
think they will get the biggest bang for "our" dollars when it comes
to voting in the next election. It will have little to do with what
is really the right thing for the market or whether or not it is
even the job of the Federal Government to get involved in this way,
but a lot more to do with how they can buy our votes in the next
election.
Market corrections are a natural part of a market economy. They are
important and necessary for any market and usually good for the
market overall. If a market gets out of control, like the housing
market had become, the correction can be rather strong, but it is
only that, a correction. A market correction, while painful for
some, will usually produce an overall net benefit - in this case
greater housing affordability.
The Federal Government's responsibility in this matter runs towards
how the Federal Reserve controls the interest rates in the country.
They should have been Statesmen and raised rates when it was
recognized by almost everyone that the market was overheating due to
extremely easy credit. Instead they chose to let the party continue
out of control until people started getting hurt and the cops had to
be called in.
The proper time to have done something was when the market was
overheating in the first place by tightening credit so that it
wouldn't have gotten so out of hand. However, no one in government
ever wants to be accused of spoiling everyone's "fun" as that just
causes them to lose votes. Once again, that is why we need Statesmen
running the country and not politicians. Statesmen make the hard
decisions and do what is right for the country regardless of whether
or not it makes them unpopular in the instant. Politicians do
everything for votes.
Going forward the proper role of the Federal Government should be to
set fair interest rates for the overall economy, to let the market
take its course and to work with the states to ensure that lending
practices are fair and reasonable for all potential home buyers.
Thanks for your support
and please continue to tell everyone you know about my efforts,
Sincerely,
Frank McEnulty
frank@frankforpresident.org
www.frankforpresident.org
August 23rd, 2007 -
The Tort Tax
Personal responsibility is just that - personal. If you do something
stupid and you get injured or hurt, then it is your own fault. It's
not McDonald's fault if you get fat, it's not Phillip Morris' fault
if you smoke and get lung cancer; it's your fault. One of the
biggest problems facing America is that many people want to find
someone to blame for everything that happens to them. Well sometimes
it's your own fault, sometimes it's just bad luck and sometimes it
is truly someone else's fault. But let's get away from this
victimhood mentality and back to standing on our own two feet and
taking responsibility for our own actions.
After being out of the country for two weeks, one of the first news
reports I saw on early morning television in Miami concerned an
accident at a carnival. From the report, it appears that a teenage
girl got injured when she went on the tea cup ride at a carnival,
got too dizzy and fell and hit her head. So naturally, at least in
this country, they were going to sue.
Let me get this straight, isn't the purpose of the tea cup ride to
go in circles as fast as you can to get dizzy? Don't you actually
turn a wheel in the middle to make it spin even faster? Isn't that
why people, like me who can't deal with being dizzy, don't go on
that type of ride? Does the ride operator have to conduct pre-ride
tests to determine if the person going on the ride can't deal with
dizzy? Even then, they would probably be sued by people who felt
they were unjustly kept off the ride.
We engaged in some fairly risky behavior in Costa Rica. We took a
zip line tour through the jungle trees. We drove, including the
underage members of our families, ATV's across the beach and through
the jungle at high rates of speed. We went snorkeling in the open
ocean. We took numerous small boats across the ocean and down
crocodile filled rivers. Never once did we sign a liability waiver
or a notice that we were engaging in hazardous activities that could
result in injury or death. Could we have gotten hurt? Yes, and there
were some minor injuries from the ATV excursions, but it was up to
us as adults to determine if we wanted to engage in the activities
and take the risks associated with them.
The explosion of liability lawsuits and the desire of people to want
to sue for just about any perceived injury or injustice are
completely out of control in this country. How many millions of
decisions are made every day based on the fact that, "We better do
this to cover ourselves in case we are sued"? Not because it is
necessary, but just as insurance from getting sued.
How often have you heard even children say something about suing
someone for some perceived wrong. It has become a national mindset
and it is not good for the country.
The Tort Tax is a major drain on this country. It has been estimated
recently by authors McQuillan and Apramyan that our current legal
system and the desire of everyone to sue is costing this country as
much as $865 billion per year, or to put it another way, $9,827 per
year for a family of four. If people were actually paying this
amount directly out of their pockets there would be revolt in the
streets, but instead, this is a hidden levy on all Americans and
costs each of us every day.
Here's where the costs come from and how we get hit with those costs
every day.
First, there are the costs of litigation which are added to the cost
of every product we buy every day. No matter what anyone makes these
days there is the very real chance that someone is going to sue the
maker of that product because they were "hurt" using it. Doesn't
matter if they did something entirely stupid, surely the
manufacturer is still somewhat to blame. Next time you are in a
hardware store look at all the warnings on ladders to see all the
ways the manufacturer has to warn the user to try and prevent
themselves from getting sued and it still doesn't prevent that from
happening. In our office building there was an entire law firm that
did nothing but represent ladder makers against lawsuits and they
had to move because they needed more room for more lawyers.
Second, medical liability is a major factor in increasing health
care costs. The fear of being sued has prompted many doctors to
routinely engage in defensive and expensive medical practices by
ordering extra tests and sending people to specialists just to cover
themselves in case some one decides to sue. It has also caused a
severe shortage in several medical specialties such as obstetrics as
doctors just get tired of being sued for things that are completely
out of their control.
In the current health care debate the question needs to be asked,
"How many more people would have health insurance coverage if the
cost of medical insurance was much lower?" Also, an interesting side
note is that in the medical systems that Michael Moore held out to
be excellent examples of universal care around the world there is
almost no recourse for medical malpractice, regardless of how
incompetent the doctors might be.
Third, innovation is also stifled by the cost of litigation in this
company. It doesn't matter how well a product works or what benefit
it has if there is the slightest chance that someone can figure out
a way to improperly use it and hurt themselves. Also, as companies
have to pay ever increasing costs for their product liability
insurance they have even less to spend on developing new products
which, in turn, causes less economic growth.
The bottom line of all this is that, as President, one of the main
aspects of American life that I would attempt to reform would be
that of legal liability. I'm not for letting someone off the hook if
they truly develop a faulty product and put it in the marketplace or
if they are truly responsible for injuring someone else, but at the
same time we need to be a nation of adults and take responsibility
for our own actions.
How would I work to reform legal liability since most liability
questions are state issues and not the responsibility of the Federal
government?
I would do so by appointing Federal judges who believe that people
should be responsible for their own actions.
I would appoint Federal judges who believe that life itself is risky
and that sometimes bad things just happen and no one is at fault.
I would appoint Federal judges who believe that it should be easier
for people who are sued to collect their defense costs when they
beat those that sue them.
I would appoint Federal judges who believe that the practice of
medicine is not an exact science and that unless doctors make
blatant errors that maybe they aren't to "blame" when things don't
work out exactly how people believe they should.
I don't know about you, but this family of four could sure use an
extra $9,000 worth of purchasing power that we don't have now
because of the cost of everyone always wanting to sue and win the
legal lotto.
Thanks for your support
and please continue to tell everyone you know about my efforts,
Sincerely,
Frank McEnulty
frank@frankforpresident.org
www.frankforpresident.org
August 15th, 2007 -
The New Right
to Life
I was out of the country for a couple of weeks and did my best to
not watch news, read newspapers or hear about world events while I
was gone. As we were at a jungle lodge in Costa Rica with no phones,
no TV, no internet and, sometimes, no electricity, it was easy to
do. Being away from the constant barrage of infor |
