July 2010 saw the slowest pace of new home sales since 1963. In the same month, Congress extended unemployment benefits for a fourth time, adding another $34 billion to the deficit to help out 2.5 non-working Americans.

The Associated Press says, “High unemployment, slow job growth, and tight credit have kept people from buying homes.” In other words, a bad economy is scaring people away from purchasing new homes.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what’s wrong with our economy. It just takes a conservative.

When Mr. Obama went to Washington, he promised a lot of people a lot of things. He was going to pay their mortgages! He was going to pay their gas bills! He might as well have promised everyone a unicorn ride over a double rainbow and fat-free ice cream that actually tastes good.

The government doesn’t work that way. The government can’t take care of you; only other people can take care of you. The 99 weeks of unemployment Joe Schmoe is entitled to? Someone is paying that. Someone is paying for him to not work, instead of using that money to hire someone who will work.

Since the employer is busy paying someone to not work instead of paying someone to work, no goods or services are produced or rendered. No goods or services, no sales. No sales, no money. The employer goes out of business, and the few employees that were left working there are now out of work. But don’t worry about them; they’ll get unemployment checks from the government. To pay for them, Uncle Sam is going to raise taxes on the companies left standing. And then … those companies might have to downsize to cover the costs on the new taxes. It’s a vicious cycle.

New home sales are down because people are afraid to make such large purchases in times of economic uncertainty. We’re living in economic uncertainty because no one knows what new mandate or regulation is going to pass into law next. The tax burden of these entitlement laws falls on employers, who pass it along to their employees and consumers in the form of layoffs and higher prices.

Free health care? Ninety-nine weeks of unemployment benefits?

Sure. At the expense of the American Dream: A decent job and a beautiful new home.

Cross Posted at The Stir

I believe that government programs are money pits. Like old, rickety houses, they demand more and more of your hard-earned cash in order to stand upright and resemble something somewhat pleasing to live with.

In an old home, the furnace will blow, the pipes will burst, the roof will leak, and just as you’ve sunk another chunk of your nest egg into a repair, something else will go wrong. Government programs are much the same way in that the need for constant influxes of cash never goes away.

Government is a necessary evil. We need roads. We need elected officials. We need cops and firemen. What we don’t need aregovernment programs. They are unsustainable and riddled with fraud and abuse. Take Medicare and Medicaid for example. Even the Government Accountability Office admits that it’s a high-risk program. It’s estimated that 20 percent of Medicare and Medicaid payments are fraudulent. That’s a lot of my money in someone else’s pockets.

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From The Hill:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Thursday acknowledged the “anti-incumbent mood” that’s swept through U.S. politics.

“There’s no question there is, at this moment, an anti-incumbent mood,” the Speaker said at her weekly press conference.

That’s quite a rationalization, Ms. Pelosi. Let me set you straight, because you obviously haven’t been listening to a single word that Americans have been saying.

We are not anti-incumbent. We like Coburn, Thune, DeMint, Bachmann, Smith, and many others, and want them to continue representing us in D.C.

What we don’t like is the attitude that you know better than us. We don’t like you sticking your bony fingers into our pockets so that you may be perceived as generous. We don’t like you robbing our children so that you and your cronies can live the life of Riley while telling us that we’re the greedy selfish ones. We don’t like you voting for legislation that stifles growth and suffocates business.

In other words, Ms. Pelosi, we don’t like you. Now if you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll go contribute a few bucks to John Dennis, because you’re one incumbent that we’d like to see gone.

I just found out about CTAP today.

The California Telephone Access Program (CTAP) distributes telecommunications equipment and services to individuals certified as having difficulty using the telephone. CTAP is a California State mandated program, under governance of the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC). Equipment and some network services are available at no charge to eligible consumers.

Californians who are deaf, hard of hearing, speech-disabled, cognitively-disabled, blind, or who have low vision, or restricted mobility, are eligible to receive equipment with certification by a medical doctor, a licensed audiologist, a qualified state agency, or a hearing aid dispenser.

CTAP is funded by a small surcharge that appears on all telephone bills in California. The money collected from this surcharge pays for both the California Telephone Access Program (CTAP) and the California Relay Service (CRS). This surcharge appears on your phone bill as “CA Relay Service and Communications Devices Fund.”

No wonder California is broke as a joke. No denying that being blind, deaf, or having fingers too fat to dial on a regular keypad are all tragic conditions. But why do the rest of us have to buy you a phone?

It’s almost as ridiculous as forcing tax-payers to pay for other people’s TV converter boxes.

PS- This picture makes me giggle.

"Your call could not be completed as dialed. Your fingers are too fat. To obtain a special dialing wand, please mash the keypad with your palm now."

I think the tanning rays may have finally seeped into the Florida Governor’s skull. Dude was on top of the world a couple of years ago. His name was even tossed around as one of the VP hopefuls for the 2008 Presidential ticket. Of course, that was before Senator McCain picked that smart and sassy nobody from the great white North.

That was Before.

Before a man was seated in the Oval Office that really didn’t like America, and sought to fundamentally transform it.

Before our President appointed a 9/11 Truther to be one of his close, personal advisors. A 9/11 Truther, in case you weren’t aware, is someone that believes the United States was behind the horrific 9/11 attacks. As in planned them. Yeah. That’s bad.

Before the government took over banks, car companies, and even our health care.

Governor Crist was riding the wave of popularity Before. He was a shoo-in for the Senate seat left vacant by retiring George LeMieux. But that was Before.

After?

After the last year and change (and I do mean change), Crist represents a deviation of the Republican party. The Moderate. The Moderate is squishy. He tries to please everyone, and in effect pleases no one. He is not a RINO (Republican In Name Only), but he is not a conservative. He does not align himself with the principles set forth by the awesome dudes that founded the greatest, richest, strongest, most spectacularly free nation in the history of the world. Well, except for Eden, but that was even before Before.

We (and by “we” I mean Americans) are done with the Moderate. We want him him out. He embraced the Leftist Change, and now we want people that will fight for their constituents to change it back. Which is why we like peeps like Marco Rubio.

A year ago, Rubio was down in the polls by 40+ points. Now he’s ahead of Crist by well over 20 points. The Cuban nobody. No important family ties. No giant bank account. He hasn’t even “done his time” as they like to say in the government job sector. But the people? Oh the people are speaking. They like this fresh young conservative eager to change it back. They love his pledge for freedom from government interference in their lives.

They probably love his face too; the guy’s not bad to look at.

So how does Charlie Crist respond to this changing tide? By pondering running as an Independent instead of being beaten at the primaries by this Rubio kid. In a statement today he addressed those questioning his irrational thought process:

“I care what my fellow Floridians think and what their thoughts are much more than anybody from Washington.”

Dude. Florida is speaking. You’re not listening. Run however you want-Republican, Independent, or as the Florida Whig Party. You’re not going to Washington. You may have a few years ago, but that was Before.

People like Marco Rubio are After.

In less than two days, I’ll be speaking at a Tax Day Tea Party in Southern California. I haven’t publicly spoken to a live audience since my high school graduation. Ten years ago. Ok, maybe on my wedding day, but really, I was nervous for other reasons that day (wink, wink).

So now I’m nervous. I’m downright skeered.

Or at least I was until I started reading about the Tea Party Crashers-a group of people attempting to infiltrate tea party rallies in order to make us look stupid. News flash: If tea party rallies are stupid groups of racist idiots, lefty liberals don’t need to show up and pretend to be what they claim we are in the first place. They’d just need to bring a video camera, not crash the tea parties.

In fact, if someone has video footage of Representative John Lewis being called a “n***r” as he made his way into a meeting on health care during the push for the final vote, Andrew Breitbart will write you a check for 100 big ones. 100 big Ks, that is. Yup. $100,000 is all yours, and all you have to do is come up with some footage of John Lewis being called a derogatory name by a tea party protestor, as Lewis claims happened fifteen times.

So weird about the lack of evidence, witnesses, or any shred of viability.

So why does the Crasher story make me less nervous? Because now I’m more ticked at these people trying to scare me into silence. I’m done being quiet. I have a right to my voice, and I’m not afraid to use it (not afraid, but still slightly nervous). If people don’t like what I have to say… well then it’s their right not to listen. Not to call me a homophobic racist or put words into my fellow protester’s mouths.

Not cool, people. Not cool.

If you’re in Orange County this Thursday, please come by and say hi; I’d love to meet you. And please try not to stare at my shaky hands or sweaty armpits.

Thanks a bazillion!

I got this in an email forward. No idea where it came from or who wrote it, but it wasn’t me. I wish I could take credit, but I’m not really clever enough to figure out how best to spend my money to stimulate the American economy. Most of my money goes to pay taxes so that I can pay for other people’s retirements, education, and health care. I’m not really sure why that’s fair, but somehow believing that I’m entitled to keep my money makes me a racist. I guess some things are just mysteries…

Sometime this year,  we taxpayers will again receive another ‘Economic Stimulus’ payment.

This is indeed a very exciting program, and I’ll explain it by using a Q&A format:

Q.  What is an ‘Economic Stimulus’ payment?
A.  It is money that the federal government will send to taxpayers.

Q.  Where will the government get this money?
A.  From taxpayers.

Q.  So the government is giving me back my own money?
A.  Only a smidgen of it.

Q.  What is the purpose of this payment?
A.  The plan is for you to use the money to purchase a high-definition TV set,  thus stimulating the economy.

Q.  But isn’t that stimulating the economy of China?
A.  Shut up.

Below is some helpful advice on how to best help the U.S. Economy by spending your stimulus check wisely:

*  If you spend the stimulus money at Wal-Mart,  the money will
Go to China or Sri Lanka …

*  If you spend it on gasoline,  your money will go to the Arabs.

*  If you purchase a computer,  it will go to India, Taiwan or China.

*  If you purchase fruit and vegetables,  it will go to Mexico,
Honduras and Guatemala ..

*  If you buy an efficient car,  it will go to Japan or Korea.

*  If you purchase useless stuff,  it will go to Taiwan.

*  If you pay your credit cards off, or buy stock, it will go tomanagement bonuses and they will hide it offshore.

Instead, keep the money in America by:

1)  Spending it at yard sales,  or

2)  Going to ball games,  or

3)  Spending it on prostitutes,  or

4)  Beer, or

5) Tattoos.

(These are the only American businesses still operating in the U.S.)

Conclusion:
Go to a ball game with a tattooed prostitute that you met at a yard saleand drink beer all day!

No need to thank me,  I’m just glad I could be of  help.

From Yahoo Finance:

Vice President Joe Biden wants all Americans to know about the roughly $300 billion in tax breaks that were part of the Recovery Act passed last year.

There’s also the issue of whether these tax cuts, in conjunction with the health care reform bill signed last week, represent a redistribution of wealth in America, as many claim.

“It’s a simple proposition to us: Everyone is entitled to adequate medical health care,” Biden says. “If you call that a ‘redistribution of income’ – well, so be it. I don’t call it that. I call it just being fair – giving the middle class taxpayers an even break that the wealthy have been getting.”(Emphasis mine)

Hey Joe, I think everyone’s entitled to a representative government. You don’t mind if we drastically slash your pay, do you? While we’re at it, I think everyone is entitled to organic meats and produce to feed their families. I would love to buy only organic, but the price is so high that I simply can’t do it. I demand a government subsidy. And why am I still getting a water bill each month? Isn’t water a necessity? Of all the things you can’t live without, I’d put water second on the list, right after air. It’s so unfair that I have to pay for water, when it should be a basic human right.

Are you getting the picture, Joe, or should I go on? Or did I just provide you with a whole new list of government programs? That’s a scary thought.

The fact is that people have rights so long as they don’t infringe upon the rights of another person. To say that one person has the right to a service provided by someone else is not fair, it’s insane.

[podcast]http://www.candidconservative.com/thesmartgirlreport/TheSmartGirlReport%2020100331.mp3[/podcast]

Jason Mattera discusses his new book Obama Zombies: How the Liberal Machine Brainwashed My Generation.

Tom Reed talks about his run for Congress in New York’s 29th district — the seat previously held by Eric Massa.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Guess who’s speaking at a tea party this April 15th?

If you’re in Orange County, come celebrate America with us, and get fired up to keep fighting against the transformation of the greatest country on the planet.