I cannot recall a period in my life or in the history I’ve read where the United States has had such low caliber dim-wits in Congress.  It starts with the poorly informed leadership of Congress.  Pelosi and Reed simply have no idea what they are doing.  They are not leaders… they are embarrassments.  They are not citizen legislators, they are career politicians who represent less than 0.01% of the population of the United States, but yet they impact each and every American.  Our founding fathers never dreamed that politicians would become life-long legislators.  My hunch is that they presumed most citizens would do their civic duty and then step down.   So if someone like Pelosi came along within a relatively short-period of time, they would leave office.  New blood would replace the old blood and in the process the status quo would be challenged.  Sadly, we have career politicians who have never held a “real job”, never driven their own car, never even shop for their own groceries.  Term limits must become the battle cry of all Americans.  Without term limits, the country is going to become more and more polarized… not to mention over-run by illegal immigrants.  Congress has 535 voting members: 435 Representatives and 100 Senators.  Look at the seniority of some of these members.  Do you believe someone who became a Congressman in the 1960’s really represent the people of America.  Presuming they had college, they would have graduated in the 50’s as you must be 25 to be a Congressman.  Think about this?  With all the technological change, the demographic change, the complicated global trade/interrelations/currency swaps, the complex health care situation facing this country, the complexity of balancing all of the above changes in the United States and the world, the uneducated masses who are shockingly unprepared for the jobs of the future… I ask how someone who has been in power for 40 years have the intellectual capacity as well as the understanding of the issues to create the single thing that would solve many of the above crises facing the United States and that is economic growth.  Since late in Bush’s term economic growth was slowing from 4-5% throughout much of Bush’s term to 2% or below for nearly the entire term of Obama.  I can cede Obama 2 years to turn things around… Why? .  Reagan inherited Carter’s malaise with 12% unemployment, slow growth, prime interest rates peaking at 19% and within 2 year… yes within 2 years, growth had jumped to 8%, interest dropped to near 10%, and unemployment fell dramatically.  Tax revenues to the Federal government increased dramatically as well.  With this said, it is not necessary to spend 30 years in Congress to deal with these complex problems, Reagan did a remarkable job of turning the United States around at all levels.  The masses would not consider Reagan particular smart or remarkably well versed in all the issues facing any world power, but he led by simple principles that apply to every situation whether it be today or the future.  And he did it with 8 years.  But somehow we think Congress is different.  Congressmen for some reason are consider wiser with re-election.  For example Robert Bird… considered to be the most learned man in the Senate before his death.  He spent 50+ years, and most Senators looked to him for guidance on how to use the Senate to impose Democrat solutions to the Country’s problems.  Bird has no idea of the gravity nor the magnitude of his efforts would have on generations to come.  Do we believe Byrd had a cell phone, a computer, an idea of the crushing burden on business his policies had on business, any idea of the cost of education and how to deal with it, healthcare, education… there is no reason to believe someone who has been sequestered in Congress for 50 years, with an arrogance fitting of a King, who could not meaningfully communicate with the working poor, let alone the middle class, could possibly come up with innovative, imaginative, logical solutions to problems that are becoming insurmountable all because of inept inexperienced politicians.  Granted Byrd has passed, but he is a perfect example of someone who can continue to take a Country down a path of no return, and not have the intellectual capacity to even comprehend their actions.  So if you understand that out of touch admittedly intelligent men, get caught in the trappings of Washington and decide to make a career out of Congress, they cannot possibly provide solutions to the daunting challenges facing the world and in particular the United States.  Term limits would ensure that new blood with new ideas would be replace those who had good intentions, but could not solve our problems.  WE MUST FIND THE BRIGHTEST AND THOSE WHO MERELY WISH TO SERVE TO ASCEND TO THE LEADERSHIP OF OUR COUNTRY.  NOTHING LESS IS GOING TO SAVE US FROM BEING A FINANCIALLY BANKRUPT COUNTRY.  You doubt my assertion of bankruptcy?   Well mull these numbers around.  The debt that has been compounded largely over the last 20 years is $17 trillion.  This is debt that we borrow money from our citizens, other Countries, and in particular China which is allegedly financing 40% of our debt.  This debt rolls over as the bonds mature… so we will no doubt kick this debt bomb down the road until Obama is gone.  But what should worry all of us in our 50’s is what is called unfunded liabilities.  Estimates are available in the Social Security Annual Report are $90 trillion.  You ask what unfunded means.  It is debt by another name.  During the last 30 years Congress withdrew 90 trillion in surpluses from Social Security to pay current bills… bills similar to the 17 trillion.  But in this case the Treasury Department wrote an IOU to Social Security for trillions, and Social Security expects when the Baby Boomers eventually retire in large part that the Treasury will write checks to cover the Social Security payments.   Ask yourself: “We are running annual trillion-dollar deficits under Obama unrelated to Social Security… that said, can you fathom any possible way the Treasury is going to cough up 90 trillion?  It’s just not possible, we don’t have the growth needed to raise revenues.  As I noted above Obama has not exceeded 2% growth since he took office, and there have been years where growth was 1.5%.  I have written a lot to digest, but I will sum it up by saying the people in Congress today, the President, the Supreme Court, the State governments, have so many career politicians, that we will never solve our problems without term limits.  The career politicians cannot make tough decisions because they are more concerned about getting re-elected than doing what’s right.  If you are limited in term, then I have to believe our leaders will no longer make decisions and policies to benefit their re-election, but what is needed by this Country to solve problems… even if the solution isn’t popular.  If anything I wrote rubbed off, you should understand that career politicians don’t have the solutions, if they did they would have solved the problems and more than likely been voted out of office for doing the right thing.

chart.doc