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10 Consequences of an Obama Win in 2012

Here are ten consequences of a victory by President Barack Obama in November 2012 over Mitt Romney:

  1. Obamacare will not be repealed. It is already being demonstrated to raise costs of healthcare and as its taxes and regulations sink deeper through the system, it will cause our healthcare system to increasingly be in a crisis, likely resulting in greater and greater government control to 'fix', until we have a massively inefficient and expensive and bad healthcare system.
  2. The unprecedented levels of spending in Obama’s first four years will become the new floor, as America continues its experiment in reckless spending and adding up massive debt. The new normal of debt that Obama has established- $1 trillion a year of living beyond our means as a nation- will erode the value of our currency, lead to higher interest rates, lessen our national security, and eventually cause our nation to collapse. Four more years at our current levels might just about do it.
  3. Job creators will face massive tax increases and more Americans will come off the tax rolls—resulting in fewer citizens with a stake in keeping taxes low and more with a stake in protecting benefits. The Bush tax cuts and other tax cuts may be allowed to expire while Obama and the Democrats who still support his failing policies will push for more taxes, fees, and fines to pay for the exploding cost of employing more and more government workers and providing ever more 'free' services and products to citizens.
  4. Government dependency, already at record levels, will continue to grow. Based on the results of his first 4 years as President in which record numbers of people went on welfare, more people will go on food stamps and bridge cards and lifelong unemployment and other government programs. They will not gain job skills and any skills they have will be eroded by time, rendering them unemployable, unhappy, and dependent on elites above to provide them with what they need to live. They'll become slaves to the state, living in permanent poverty, and I don't think we can afford four more years of accepting this.
  5. Four more years that we have already lost in dealing with the looming and inevitable entitlement crisis will become eight. The reforms needed for strong and healthy Social Security and Medicare programs  will need to be in place many years to avoid the collapse that is coming, and the delay of electing Obama on a myth of hope and change has already set our nation back a critical 4 years- another 4 years of Obama might change the conversation from 'implement reforms to keep these programs' to 'its a crisis and we're facing a collapse.'
  6. Obama, unworried about the impact of gas and electricity prices on his reelection, will finally wage the regulatory war on fossil fuels the Left demands. As Obama stated in March, no President wanting to win re-election wants high gas prices- but a President not needing to win re-election because he is a lame duck for four years will not need to worry about high gas prices, and he is sure to wage a war to drive up the cost of gas. The cost of gasoline is a very regressive tax, which means when it goes up it hurts the poor more than the rich, and the effects of 4 more years of Obama will be a more unequal society where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.
  7. He will unleash the Environmental Protection Agency to impose crushing new burdens on U.S. business. Already the EPA is an agency just barely under control, in every way it can waging its green communist war against freedom and liberty and property. Another 4 years of executive orders and ever expanding budgets will make this agency uncontrollable and its regulations and policies will be a corrupting influence on any potential economic growth.
  8. President Obama will continue and heighten his administration’s assault on religious freedom, expanding it into other areas in his effort to wipe out the influence of Christians in our nation. Already liberals and progressives speak about removing the 'tax-exempt' status from Churches, closing down all religious schools, and increasing the wall of separation that already exists between church and state. Eventually, once organized religion- mainly Christianity, especially Catholicism-  is walled off and isolated, personalized and demonized, he can finally kill God and replace him with himself or one of his idols.
  9. Another 4 more years of Obama will gut the Defense Department, with cuts so deep that America will no longer be a superpower. Already under Obama we have abandoned our long-held policy of fighting two wars; another 4 years of Obama may lead to our inability to fight one war successfully. While the military is cut, Obama as commander-in-chief focuses on making it more gay-friendly and more green, and another four more years of this may result in the US losing its ability to protect its citizens and interests around the globe.
  10. Obama could have the opportunity to appoint more Supreme Court justices, and we have seen from President Obama's past two picks for the judicial branch that he does not even pretend to try to appoint moderates and independents, rather fighting hard to advance and appoint the most partisan and extreme judges in our system. If he is given another four more years by winning re-election in November, we could be looking at a majority of the court that agrees with current liberal Justices who argue that the US Constitution is inferior to the constitutions of other states and that we should use international law instead of US law when making decisions for our nation. This extreme and rogue and partisan Court of unaccountable and unelected lawyers will be a great threat to your life, liberty, and property.
You and your family and friends should be opposing President Barack Obama and working to remove him from power because of consequences above, which are all policy options that President Obama freely chooses to engage in. Most of these policies he pushed for when his party controlled all of Congress, and even today his party still controls the Senate. No one forced him to adopt the policies above, which will have the logical and reasonable consequences I detailed. Racism, partisanship, extremism, and dislike for the guy personally are not to be found in my analysis above. Rather my analysis is based on logic, history, reason, and results, from those principles we can see the consequences of President Barack Obama winning re-election in 2012, and knowing this, we should all oppose him and vote for his likely Republican opponent Mitt Romney.

UPDATE: Thank you for linking Right Wing News and Adrienne's Catholic Corner!

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Edu app news: apps, ebooks, and sites for your classroom #mlearning 12/30/2011

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

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5 Fantastic Things to Do Over Winter Break

You need a break or you'll break... literally. Take some down time, help others, reconnect with your family, and get a head start on life next semester. Here are some things you'll want to fit in to your time.


1. "Veg"
"Veg" is a word that implies to vegetate or just relax. But it also implies what it means... vegetables or really anything good for you. Here are some of my favorites:
  • Don't set your alarm clock and get up when you're ready
  • Get off caffeine and drink lots of water (I always do this)
  • Lay on the couch all day and watch movies with your kids
  • Pull out one of your favorite movies from when you were a kid and rediscover it with your own children (Star Wars, Gone with the Wind, Chariots of Fire are some of my faves)
  • Drink you favorite drink in the morning.
  • Eat just when you're hungry
  • Cook a new recipe or an old one that you haven't had time to do
  • Make a batch of cookies unexpectedly (don't tell the kids - just let them run in because of the smell - my favorite recipe site is All Recipes)
  • Cook some good fresh vegetables and keep cut up fruit in the fridge to munch on
  • Read a book or two
  • Go to your library and mess around and look at books
  • Take a walk or run in a new place
  • Flop like a flip flop with no guilt
  • Don't make a list for at least several days
  • Take long bubble baths
  • Do your favorite relaxing past time with those you love
Watch a person tuning a guitar. If the string is too tight the sound is not good and the string will eventually break. While some natural tension is good for being productive, you can wind yourself too tight. If you're a teacher, you know that you're going to be teaching like Taz (the tasmanian devil on Bugs Bunny) till May so you need this break.


2. Reconnect
When I was a child time would drag by -- now time drags me.

Spend time with yourself, your significant other, your children, your parents. (See Be the Present.) Hang out without a rush and just inhale their presence to nourish you when they are no longer here one day.

Remember that it isn't all about you. Sometimes it is being thoughtful. If your son loves egg nog, get a carton and put it in the fridge. If your daughter likes a latte, make her favorite unexpectedly. Think of others and remember that the big things are often little things.


3. Organize
 Next week after Christmas, I'll be "Pareto-ing" everything. Pareto's principle says that 80% of the productivity comes from 20% of the things you do. So, you probably wear 20% of the clothes in your closet 80% of the time. You use 20% of the apps on your ipad 80% of the time. How could you improve your life if you focused on that 20%?

My Ipad Screen (see Pareto-ing your Home Screen), my closet, my kitchen, everything gets the once over.

For example, in my kitchen, I take everything that I use daily or weekly and put it within easy reach. (Zone 1) Then, zone 2 are things I use monthly and they can be down lower or up higher. Finally, deep storage is for those things I use once a year (if I really must keep it.) If you separate things by frequency of use then you can have a system that makes sense for organizing.


4. Donate
If you follow me on Twitter, you know that I've asked you to donate one tweet or one Facebook status a day to #endslavery. (Read about the #endslavery challenge here.) If you're not going to support this cause, use your tweets to support the cause of your choice. Social media does impact giving, awareness, etc. We have the ability to put things on the front burner and garner attention. To me, nothing deserve more attention than the 29 million people enslaved in the world today. It is easy to look down on the ancestors of centuries a go but if we won't tackle slavery today, I don't want to hear it.

But you can also donate your time and you can donate gently used things that you don't need any more. Just remember this, Goodwill isn't a trash can. If it belongs in the trash, do them a favor and throw it in the trash. I know you may hate to part with Great Aunt Sarah's stained sweater but if you don't want it, no one does.

Give back this Christmas in some way. It isn't that hard.

5. Anticipate
After being rested and reconnected, then it is time to look ahead at the upcoming things.

For me, it is the official Flat Classroom book launch and book club (see www.flatclassroombook.com) as  well as sports schedules, and writing assignments etc. I'm having knee problems and want to work on running with better form because I love it and I can't regain the 50 pounds I've lost so I begged Randi Farina, Lifetime's Social media director to let me test  Chi Running / walking materials. If that doesn't work, I will be doing something every week to stay fit because that is what I do. Great accomplishments are the results of decisions. No excuses.

Also, I'll go ahead and plan the menus for January. Get calendars set through spring break. And plan routines. I don't make "resolutions" I literally plan out routines. 95% of what you accomplish in your life is due to the routines you have according to Brian Tracy. Because routines. make you who you are going to be. (See: The Routine of Being Amazing.)


All I want for Christmas...
to season the season with family, faith, food, and fun
and remember the reason.


Photo Credits:
Big Stock (a great place to download photos licensed for blogging)


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African Abortion Wars

Alexis Okeowo writing in the NYTimes:
Every sub-Saharan African state already allows pregnant women to abort when their lives are in danger, and in recent years Benin, Chad, Ethiopia, Ghana, Mali, Swaziland and Togo have been working at expanding their laws to allow abortions in more circumstances.

Still, in all of sub-Saharan Africa, abortion is legal only in Cape Verde and South Africa. And the number of unsafe abortions on the continent is staggeringly high: every year, there are over six million unsafe abortions conducted in Africa, and about 30,000 women die from the procedure. Unsafe abortions are among the leading causes of death for women admitted to hospitals around much of the continent.
More here

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Daily Education and Technology News for Schools 11/07/2011

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

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Don’t force statehood on Somalia

A call for indigenous structures Richard Dowden writes in African Arguments:
The model for Somalia is Switzerland. Don’t laugh! Political power in Switzerland lies in the cantons – the 26 proud self-governing communities. The state, such as it is, deals with international matters and national law. Who cares – or even knows – who the president of Switzerland is. The way people live and are governed is decided locally. The Swiss confederation means that cantons have joined the state willingly and can leave if they want to. If they were a simple federation, they could not.

Somalis – unlike the Swiss but like most Africans – are stuck with a constitution that leaves total power in the hands of a president. Strong centralised states are the legacy of colonial rulers and unsurprisingly the inheritor governments have kept it that way. Terrible wars – such as those in Nigeria, Ethiopia and Sudan – were fought to keep the countries together, but in the latter two they failed. In Somalia civil war began in the late 1980s and since then fragmentation has continued. Good. Leave it that way. It suits Somali society...[continue reading]

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Meanderings on the Massive Change Among Us

On Google Plus tonight, I asked a question:

Companies battle to be where we connect.

It is fascinating to see how fast Google+ has grown and yet I still wonder if it is meaningful. Are you using Google+ content? How often do you Google+? Do you use this and Twitter? I'd like to hear from those using it consistently so I can understand (and perhaps blog about it.) If you reply, make sure it is OK for me to quote you. Thank you.

I was quite shocked at how quickly I've got over 2000 followers over there and comparing how long it took me to get there on Twitter. I think perhaps it is because Twitter was built from scratch but Google+ was built on the back of existing networks through Google Docs, email, etc. Certainly Google is to be commended for their growth.

But there was a fascinating comment in the thread that had me thinking:
Kristofer Gigante says "I never used FB or Twitter so because of that, I only check G+ and I check it multiple times a day. I subscribe to lots of blogs (including yours) through RSS and read it in Google Reader. If the bloggers I follow on Reader post more on +, I will probably just use + and discontinue RSS. I have Android phone and tablet and our school is very pro Google, so it is easier to use Google products."
I'm combining this with the fact that 10 of my students this week have come up to me and told me that they are now on Twitter. Also, my students that I took onto Twitter in the very first year it was live have come back and told me they are using their accounts again ("All my friends are shocked at how long I've been using it, Mrs. Vicki," one exclaimed to me as I ran in to her on college break.)

But the students who have moved to Twitter mostly said they were making the move because of their iPads and iPod touches and that it is so easy to share with the new update.

Droids+ and iTweets?
Are we going to have dual conversations cropping up? Are Droid users going to gravitate to Google+ and Apple gravitate to Twitter? What does this mean for the conversations that will happen?

Our networks are very personal and we all seem to be gravitating to websites for different things. Several like how Google+ is aggregating hashtags so using them is definitely part of our future in some way. An open source microblogging platform, Statusnet, has cropped up as something some companies are installing and you can see the hashtag as a way that they are aggregating data using this as well.


Web 3 is here
I keep wondering as my students and I talk about Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 if really Web 3.0 isn't the mobile/ personal web that has traveled into our belt buckles, brief cases, and pocketbooks. Perhaps semantic has become intertwined in the change (aka Apple's Siri service embedded into the iPhone 4S) but truly, the growth is going to happen in such platforms.


A Flash in the Pan?
You have Adobe still firmly in bed with Google via Droid because those it supports Flash but they are still moving their photo software onto iPad and iPhone just because they have to. Film editing is on the camera and the most popular cameras are our cell phones.

Meanwhile, Microsoft has followed Apple's move nixing Flash and its own Silverlight plug in stating that IE 10 will use HTML5 and NOT allow plug ins.  You have Skype officially bought by Microsoft and now removing the Google Toolbar from their service. Google is struggling to update their Droid operating system that has people frustrated with the touch experience on Droid Tablets. Microsoft is pushing a head like crazy to get Windows 8 touch enabled OS on every device possible.

My computer lab of wall-mounted Lenovo m90z touch screens.
I heard Leo LaPorte say that Windows 8 didn't excite him because no one wants to "lean forward to touch their computer" but if you look at my computer lab, you'll see  a totally different form factor. We've mounted the computers and they swing forward and back and my students love the screens and computers. They love it because it is a form factor conducive to touch. No one really gets touch except for the iPad.

The truth is we don't know what our form factors or uses are going to look like. I do know in 5 years we'll all be wondering how we lived without our personal assistants. I also know that location based notifications have changed my life. We do know we'll be living in a dramatically different environment.
People care about whether their washers and dryers are wired into the network and cable companies and websites are now in direct competition as subscribers just get what they want a la carte. 


Hulu's offer to be sold has suddenly been retracted as the owners see the value of their service (as if they didn't before.)


The Changing Shape of Information
Some sort of sick, happy, sweet, sour brew is the techno-water and no one knows where this is all heading. We know that critical mass calling for change in US education is happening and Common Core is making inroads. People are publishing their own books and "the cloud" is actually a term that most people understand. 
Meanwhile a 19 year old in Korea creates an image that goes viral in tribute to the passing of Steve Jobs.


A massive blogging platform named Tumblr  (see my blog there at www.vickidavis.me)  is growing has more pageviews than Word Press and it feels like no one is really talking about them. 

Zynga (the maker of Farmville) has 1700 employees and was paid an amount in the millions to stay at Facebook for another 5 years (3 1/2 left on that contract?) because so much traffic to Facebook is through games like Farmville and Gangster wars. 


Facebook now lets your personalpage really sort of function like a Fanpage and overhauled their privacy settings without a really open call to their users to check those settings. Facial recognition is getting better and soon your friends won't even have to tag you to see what you did last weekend. 


Whether we read our books on the iPad or Kindle fire -- the Kindle app and Amazon store are a force to reckon with in the ebook industry. A judge asks Samsung lawyers to identify which was an iPad and a Galaxy tab from 10 feet away and as the lawyers stumble, ruled that Samsung did indeed infringe on Apple's patent.


Ignore the Hype, Listen to the People
We are in the midst of fundamental, massive CHANGE. The kind that makes new companies and gets rid of old ones. I tend to ignore the hype about new sites. Truly a lot of that hype is from marketing departments.  But at the center of all of this change are people. 


In some ways it could read like a Dr. Suess book: large people, small people, people over here, people over there, short fuzzy people, and tall skinny bald people -- our recommendations to each other.Our tweets,status updates, and the success of companies is becoming increasingly influenced by their ability to influence the mavens among us to try, like, and use their products

What we can't ignore is that massive change is happening. To us. To our students. To the families we serve. We can no longer afford to buy the research published by companies themselves and to be naive enough to think that a particular company is the ONLY one who provides that service. We can't be naive enough to think that a company will actually be transparent about the pros and cons of their product. Most of us have people in our Twitter stream with more expertise than the guy who runs the technoshop on the corner who likes to sell the school "stuff" and we will consult those people first.


Your connections determine your knowledge
Perhaps the theme of this post is really more of a meandering stream of thought. It should be obvious to those who know me that the Flat Classroom and Digiteen projects have started because I have a ton of student research running around in my brain. I am increasingly educated by the networks I join and so are you.

But never have I seen so many divergent companies converging and convergent companies diverging. Some major changes are happening. Perhaps Steve Jobs' passing has companies willing to show some chutzpah and do something different because they realize that one of the greatest innovators among us is gone.

Innovative Teachers March on Largely Ignored
Meanwhile, many of us teachers who have been innovating continue to innovate under the radar of those who are calling for change and the 21st century classroom. People like my friend Suzie Nestico who is running Flat Classroom this semester in her social studies classroom and aligning Common Core standards of all kinds on a blog with her students.

Perhaps those advocating for change will one day wake up and see the growing movement of teachers around the world who are connecting and transcending. We're changing too.

The massive change you see in the technology field and publishing field and mobile computing field is coming to education. It tore through the music and entertainment industry and it is heading into the information sector. Best position yourself to keep your finger on the pulse of change. Building a good PLN has probably never been more important.

Stay informed and thrive
Glad to be sort of back after a week and a half taking care of the 4 of the 5 people in my family who came down with a horrible stomach bug. Everyone had it but me.

I guess the immunity from my travels and all the shots I've had kept me from getting sick. There is a lesson for this for all of us. To stay healthy we should travel the world in our mind and stay abreast of change.

Change is done by you or to you and there is nothing for certain right now except that things will be changing dramatically over the next five years. Build that PLN, and hold on. It is going to be exciting.


(I'm sitting here thinking about students wanting to tell Siri to put reminders for tests on their iPhone and being told to shush. In five years we'll be talking about how to get them to bring cell phones to school. Oh, the times, they are a changing. Some will groan and some of us will love it. As for me, I'm pumped. )
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2011 US Budget Deficit 2nd Worse Ever: Assigning Blame

The good news about the budget for fiscal year of 2011 is that it did not set a record for the largest deficit ever. No, that record was set in 2009 at $1.412 trillion, when the Democrats who controlled Congress from 2006 passed a budget that lame-duck moderate Republican President Bush then signed into law- a budget that included the bank bailouts of a trillion dollars. 2011 was better than that awful year for governance- but only by a little bit, as the final deficit for fiscal year 2011 came in as the second highest deficit in the history of our nation, $1.299 trillion.

The Republicans are not blameless in this deficit- they have been in control of at least half of Congress since January of 2011, so they own most of this budget that resulted in the second highest single year deficit in the history of the United States- at a time when we're not fighting any new wars, not building any sort of major monuments, not engaged in any sort of national race for space or atomic bombs, and no longer passing massive stimulus bills and bank bailouts at the height of a major crisis. Nope, this 2011 deficit is just outright bad- just a lot of blown money and spending way beyond what is sustainable, and the GOP was party and parcel to this budget.

Oh, I know that they only control half of Congress and don't control the Presidency or the bureaucracy and walked into this mess- but if the GOP wants to blame Obama for the mess he has caused than it is only fair that they take a good share of the blame for the 2011 fiscal deficit. The 'budget deals' they signed into law were bad deals, and any GOP Congressman who stood to vote for those or who urged new spending programs should be held accountable.

Tea Party people, this doesn't mean that the GOP is just as bad as the Democrats or that there needs to be a third party- no, it means that the GOP must be held accountable in their primary elections by facing true conservative challenges and must be made to answer questions regarding their votes.

As must though as the GOP is not blameless for this utter disaster in governance, the Democrats are to be held in full blame for passing on these massive debts to our children and doing such a utter rotten job of managing money.

Democrats controlled the House of Representations from 2006 to 2010 (and apparently the fiscal year goes Oct-Oct, so they are to blame for the 2011 deficit from Oct-Jan), and controlled the Senate from 2006 to today so are to blame in full for the deficit of 2011. And US President Barack Obama is a Democrat and has been President since 2010, so shares blame for this as well.

The deficit in 2011 was $1.299 trillion.

The deficit in 2010 was $1.293 trillion.

The deficit in 2009 was $1.412 trillion.

The wrath of voters should fall on anyone part of this horrible mismanagement's in the ship of state, and since Bush and many of the Republicans from 2009 and prior are not on the ballot and it appears that their mistakes and bad policies have been continued and deepened and made normal by the Democrats, the wrath of voters should fall in full on the Democratic President, the Democrats in the Senate, and the big-spending GOPers and Democrats in the House who oversaw this travesty.

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The 1936 GOP Platform Gives Clues on How to Battle a Depression-Extending Progressive

Although I am no expert in this, I have always felt that the 1930's were an interesting time period in our nation. The Victorian age had come to a bloody conclusion with World War One, and a whole generation of people were now being raised in a society that saw their parents as failures- their attempts to repress their sexual urges, their attempts to stick to the old ways, their attempts to put in place world peace, their attempts to build multinational nations- all had led to one of the most bloody and brutal and worthless wars of all time. Technology was changing fast- cars and telephones and radio and motion picture- and the children of the 1910's and 1920's thought that they had everything figured out- they thought that where other generations had failed due to their reliance on religion, traditional values, free markets, republicanism, and limited government, they would succeed by figuring out a third way of doing things, a practical way of doing things, a way of doing things that used the power of government to make society a better place to live. This new generation, horrified by WWI and mocking their parents lack of technology skills, had it all figured out, and ushered in an era of fascism and communism and World War Two.

In my post 1930's Are Root of All That is Wrong I cataloged all of the laws that were passed in the 1930's in America that are with us today- such as the Unemployment Compensation Tax (MI, 1936), Oil and Gas Severance Tax (MI, 1929), Social Security Act (USA, 1935), Fair Labor Standards Act (USA, 1938), Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act (USA, 1930), Hoover Tax Hike (USA, 1932), National Labor Relations Act (USA, 1935), Private Schools, Act 302 of 1921 (MI, 1921), Roosevelt moves traditional Thanksgiving Day (1939), Regulating Firearms, Act 373 (MI, 1927), US moves off gold standard (1933), Reapportionment Act (USA, 1929), etc. Looking through that list and thinking of how much America was changed by one generation, by one President, by one party, by one decade (mostly), I was always stunned, and wondered how people had let that come to pass.

As it turns out, the Republican Party of 1936 had put together a platform to oppose a lot of these fascist ideas, but people loved their hope and change and returned FDR to the White House instead, and so the Great Depression dragged on for another decade. Via Conservative Hideout, let's take a walk back in history and see just exactly what the GOP was offering as an alternative back then to the high taxes, high regulation, crony capitalism, fascist third way system that FDR was pushing our nation into. Here is a good chunk of the 1936 Republican Party Platform:

1936 Republican Party PlatformAmerica is in peril. The welfare of American men and women and the future of our youth are at stake. We dedicate ourselves to the preservation of their political liberty, their individual opportunity and their character as free citizens, which today for the first time are threatened by Government itself.

For three long years the New Deal Administration has dishonored American traditions and flagrantly betrayed the pledges upon which the Democratic Party sought and received public support. The powers of Congress have been usurped by the President... the rights and liberties of American citizens have been violated... regulated monopoly has displaced free enterprise.... it has intimidated witnesses and interfered with the right of petition... it has been guilty of frightful waste and extravagance, using public funds for partisan political purposes... it has promoted investigations to harass and intimidate American citizens, at the same time denying investigations into its own improper expenditures... it has created a vast multitude of new offices, filled them with its favorites, set up a centralized bureaucracy, and sent out swarms of inspectors to harass our people.... it has bred fear and hesitation in commerce and industry, thus discouraging new enterprises, preventing employment and prolonging the depression.... appeals to passion and class prejudice have replaced reason and tolerance.

To a free people, these actions are insufferable. This campaign cannot be waged on the traditional differences between the Republican and Democratic parties. The responsibility of this election transcends all previous political divisions. We invite all Americans, irrespective of party, to join us in defense of American institutions. We pledge ourselves:

...To preserve the American system of free enterprise, private competition, and equality of opportunity, and to seek its constant betterment in the interests of all.

The only permanent solution of the unemployment problem is the absorption of the unemployed by industry and agriculture. To that end, we advocate: Removal of restrictions on production. Abandonment of all New Deal policies that raise production costs, increase the cost of living, and thereby restrict buying, reduce volume and prevent reemployment. Encouragement instead of hindrance to legitimate business. Withdrawal of government from competition with private payrolls. Elimination of unnecessary and hampering regulations. Adoption of such other policies as will furnish a chance for individual enterprise, industrial expansion, and the restoration of jobs.

Society has an obligation to promote the security of the people, by affording some measure of protection against involuntary unemployment and dependency in old age. The New Deal policies, while purporting to provide social security, have, in fact, endangered it. We propose a system of old age security, based upon the following principles: 1. We approve a pay-as-you-go policy, which requires of each generation the support of the aged and the determination of what is just and adequate, 2. Every American citizen over sixty-five should receive the supplementary payment necessary to provide a minimum income sufficient to protect him or her from want. 3. Each state and territory, upon complying with simple and general minimum standards, should receive from the federal government a graduated contribution in proportion to its own, up to a fixed maximum....

...Nearly sixty percent of all imports into the United States are now free of duty. The other forty percent of imports compete directly with the product of our industry. We would keep on the free list all products not grown or produced in the United States in commercial quantities. As to all commodities that commercially compete with our farms, our forests, our mines, our fisheries, our oil wells, our labor and our industries, sufficient protection should be maintained at all times to defend the American farmer and the American wage earner from the destructive competition emanating from the subsidies of foreign governments and the imports from low-wage and depreciated-currency countries....

...We recognize the existence of a field within which governmental regulation is desirable and salutary. The authority to regulate should be vested in an independent tribunal acting under clear and specific laws establishing definite standards. Their determinations on law and facts should be subject to review by the Courts. We favor Federal regulation, within the Constitution, of the marketing of securities to protect investors. We favor also Federal regulation of the interstate activities of public utilities...

...We pledge ourselves to the merit system, virtually destroyed by New Deal spoilsmen. It should be restored, improved and extended. We will provide such conditions as offer an attractive permanent career in government service to young men and women of ability, irrespective of party affiliations.

The New Deal Administration has been characterized by shameful waste, and general financial irresponsibility. It has piled deficit upon deficit. It threatens national bankruptcy and the destruction through inflation of insurance policies and savings bank deposits. We pledge ourselves to: Stop the folly of uncontrolled spending. Balance the budget—not by increasing taxes but by cutting expenditures, drastically and immediately. Revise the federal tax system and coordinate it with state and local tax systems. Use the taxing power for raising revenue and not for punitive or political purposes.

We advocate a sound currency to be preserved at all hazards. The first requisite to a sound and stable currency is a balanced budget. We oppose further devaluation of the dollar. We will restore to the Congress the authority lodged with it by the Constitution to coin money and regulate the value thereof by repealing all the laws delegating this authority to the Executive....

...We assume the obligations and duties imposed upon Government by modern conditions. We affirm our unalterable conviction that, in the future as in the past, the fate of the nation will depend, not so much on the wisdom and power of government, as on the character and virtue, self-reliance, industry and thrift of the people and on their willingness to meet the responsibilities essential to the preservation of a free society.

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