There is a way out of this quagmire

The headline came across the news sources late last Friday night that an American helicopter had been shot down in Afghanistan. It would be Saturday morning when I would learn that the most deadly event in the ten year war in Afghanistan had claimed the lives of thirty-one United States troops. The majority of those who died were Navy SEALS. The Taliban claimed credit for the deadly rocket attack upon our troops. It was further reported that many of the special operations SEALS were those who had carried out the strike against Osama bin Laden. While we are hearing about scaling back the troop numbers and cutting defense spending in Iraq and Afghanistan in order to satisfy those who are insisting that we end the war by withdrawing without being victorious, the price we are going to pay is the loss of lives of our youngest, brightest and best in the military.

The news of the tragic deaths of the troops in this event added to our hopelessness following the fact that for the first time in our nation’s history our nation’s credit rating had been downgraded from AAA to AA+ by Standard and Poor’s. In a statement regarding the downgrading of our country’s credit standing, a spokesperson for S&P said that the long ballyhooed agreement reached between the three branches of our government in Washington could be described by saying that the “…plan falls short of what would be necessary to stabilize the government’s medium-term debt dynamics.” The reaction of the Treasury Secretary, Timothy Franz Geithner, was to say that the economist at Standard and Poor’s had made a math mistake. The Obama administration likes to remind us of all the terrible things they inherited from the Bush administration. One thing he was given by the Bush administration was a credit rating of AAA. Now, for the first time in our nation’s history, our credit rating has been downgraded and the only explanation the Treasury Secretary can come up with is bad math!

The only person left from the original group of financial advisors in the Obama Administration is Geithner. He has often been quoted in the media as having the answers to our financial crisis, none of which have worked. He made a promise several months ago that the credit standing of our country would not be downgraded. Yet, now it has been. We were promised employment would be on the upswing, yet unemployment is higher. We have been told that this administration is working on jobs and putting Americans back to work. That has not happened. The point is being made that the White House cannot create jobs. That is true. They can, however, get out of the way by letting up on regulations that will instill confidence once again, allowing for more people to be offered the opportunity to go back to work. Two words can be used to define what we have seen from the current administration from the first day they took office until now: overreaching and over regulation. We have watched daily as our nation has been pushed into a direction that we do not want to go by those who promised they would change the direction of our country.

It is not hard to know the next claim that will be presented to the American people to fix the economy. Higher taxes will be presented as the answer, and those who have stood against raising taxes will be called out as the ones that should shoulder the blame for the downgrading of our credit standing. That charge could not be more wrong.

The very obvious ideological concept of bigger government and nanny-state government as opposed to less government and personal responsibility is being seen at the highest level of our land. The overreaching and over regulation by this administration has thrust this nation into a deep hole out of which will take years and several generations to fill. The last thing we need to add to this sick economy is higher taxes with more government entitlements. We continue to punish the producers in our country. That is a failed system that has never worked and will not work now.

Now is the time to allow our military to fight the war they are trained to fight and win, and get government regulations off the backs of businesses and citizens. The end result would be to propel us out of this quagmire into renewed vigorous growth.

Ray Newman