The latest Rasmussen poll shows only a minuscule 6% approval rating of Congress by the American public, the worst approval rating on record.  Skepticism runs wide and deep that Congress is able to improve the life of the average American.  Only 9% of voters think Congress can make a positive difference and the latest outrageous example of Solyndra  solar company should change the minds of this misguided 9% of the public.

The poll numbers indicate that what most Americans already know - the U.S. political system rules without the consent of the governed, and even worse, has consistently taken actions that work against the average American.  Rasmussen polling shows that 43% of voters think that members of Congress are corrupt and an astounding 81% believe that members of Congress put their own interests ahead of the public.

Record levels of poverty and unemployment along with plunging income levels for those who still have jobs does nothing to deter Congress from continuing to funnel money to groups represented by corrupt lobbyists and special interest groups. The  $535 million loss for taxpayers on loans given to solar company Solyndra was due to incompetence and insider dealing.   Consider Obama Team Backed $535 Million solyndra Aid As Auditor Warned On Finances.

Solyndra LLC’s workers making solar-power panels in a California factory subsidized by U.S. taxpayers showed “the promise of clean energy isn’t just an article of faith,” President Barack Obama said on a visit to the company in May 2010.

Two months before Obama’s visit, accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP warned that Solyndra, the recipient of $535 million in federal loan guarantees, had financial troubles deep enough to “raise substantial doubt about its ability to continue as a going concern.”

The Obama administration stood by Solyndra through the auditor’s warning, the abandonment of a planned initial public offering and a last-ditch refinancing where taxpayers took a back seat to new investors.

“People including our government put blinders on and did not want to believe in the obvious,” Jonathan Dorsheimer, an analyst in Boston for Canaccord Genuity Inc. of Vancouver, said in an interview with Bloomberg Government. “The fact that the government chose Solyndra as their white horse is mind- boggling.”

Days before filing for bankruptcy, Solyndra executives had the audacity to request additional money from the Energy Department but was turned down due to revelations by the media regarding questions of corruption and public waste.  In addition, it was revealed that billionaire George Kaiser’s family trust controls 37% of Solyndra.  Kaiser visited the President 16 times over the course of two years and has raised millions for the Obama campaign.  Solyndra also spent $480,000 of taxpayer money lobbying Congress for more loans.

Kaiser risked nothing but if Solyndra had ever gone public, he would have made huge profits.   Meanwhile, executives at Solyndra have an armful of excuses for their failure and have blamed everyone in sight, including Chinese solar companies.

Now that the Solyndra loans have become a public scandal, investigations and hearings were announced by the same villains in Congress who made the dubious loans to Solyndra to begin with.   Given the circumstances, the only ones who might believe that justice will be done in this case are the 9% of misguided voters who still believe that Congress acts in the public’s best interests.

Crippling debt and deficits have lead the global economy to the precipice.  Finances of world governments since the financial crisis have dramatically deteriorated and confidence in paper money has reached a new low.  Equity markets are crashing while gold (the barometer of trust in paper money) soars.

As we stare into the abyss, President Obama stands ready to address the nation.  His speech is likely to extinguish the last vestiges of confidence in a US economic recovery.

What will he say?

Based on prior speeches, Obama will reach low and use the standard class warfare blame game strategy.  Rather than accepting the warning from S&P that the US is spending itself into bankruptcy, he will shoot the messenger.

Highlights of the speech will feature the following:

• Blame Standard & Poors
• Blame Congress
• Blame China
• Blame Republicans
• Blame (insert name of anyone except Obama)

The trillions of new debt taken on since the 2008 financial crisis have done nothing except push the US closer to insolvency.   The trillions of dollars spent on bailouts, stimulus and support for deadbeat homeowners has simply put another burden on an already weak economy.  Will Obama talk reality and propose constructive programs to put our free enterprise economy back on track?  Or will he simply propose more of the same - tax “millionaires and billionaires”, spend more, borrow more and hope that things get better?

Based on Obama’s disdain for the free enterprise system and businessmen in general, his remarks could easily result in a total vaporization of confidence in the government’s ability to contain the debt crisis.  Obama’s speech could easily turn the contained depression which started in 2008 into an all out economic collapse.

After signing into law legislation that increased the national debt by a massive $2.4 trillion, the President said he wants to solve other issues including tax cuts for the middle class and extended unemployment benefits.  No mention was made of focusing on job creation but the President said he understood what the voters really wanted.  President Obama said “They want us to solve problems.” - Barrack Obama 2011

How would Ronald Reagan respond to the profound crises that the Country faces today?  Does the massive power grab by the government and crippling levels of debt, taxes and regulation have any connection to an unemployment rate of almost 20%?  Are small business owners, the engine of job creation in America, being killed by the government?

“In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem. From time to time we’ve been tempted to believe that society has become too complex to be managed by self-rule, that government by an elite group is superior to government for, by, and of the people.” - Ronald Reagan 1981

“I’m convinced that today the majority of Americans want what those first Americans wanted: A better life for themselves and their children; a minimum of government authority. Very simply, they want to be left alone in peace and safety to take care of the family by earning an honest dollar and putting away some savings.” - Ronald Reagan 1976

It’s time for new tactics and new leadership.   Socialism does not work as we can observe by looking at two of the biggest national financial disasters in history - Cuba and Venezuela.  The command and control economic policies of these two countries have condemned their entire populations to a life of grinding poverty and hopelessness.

The Two Stupidest Men On Earth

Here’s the Wall Street Journal’s score card on the performance of Obama after 923 days, in alphabetical order.

A is for the Arab world, and our standing in it: This year, Zogby International found that 5% of Egyptians had a favorable view of the U.S. In 2008, when George W. Bush was president, it was 9%.

B is for the federal budget deficit, which is estimated to come in at around 11% of GDP in 2011, up from about 3% in 2008.

C is for China’s military budget. For 2012, Beijing plans to increase spending on defense by 12.7%. The Obama administration, by contrast, proposed Pentagon cuts in April averaging out to $40 billion per year over the next decade, and Congress may soon cut a lot more.

D is for—what else—the federal debt, which grew to $14.3 trillion this month from $10.7 trillion at the end of 2008. D is also for the dollar, which has lost almost half its value against gold since Aug. 2008.

E is for energy. The average retail price of a gallon of gas hovered near the $1.80 mark when Mr. Obama was inaugurated. It has since more than doubled. E is also for ethanol, the non-wonder fuel the U.S. continues to subsidize to the tune of $5 billion a year.

F is for free trade. Bill Clinton signed Nafta in 1994, which facilitates $1.6 trillion in the trade of goods and services between the U.S., Mexico and Canada. George W. Bush midwifed more than a dozen FTAs, from Australia to Singapore to Morocco to Bahrain. Number of FTA’s signed by the current president: zero.

G is for Guantanamo, which remains open, and for Gadhafi, who remains in power, and for Greece, which offers a vision of America’s future if we don’t reform our entitlement state.

H is for Hillary Clinton, who—I can’t believe I’m writing this—would have made a better president than Mr. Obama.

I is for Israel, a Middle Eastern country the president claims to support even as he routinely disses its prime minister, seeks to shrink its borders and—why not?—divide its capital.

J is for jobs. In November 2008, president-elect Obama promised he would create 2.5 million jobs by 2011. By October 2010 the economy had shed 3.3 million jobs.

K is for Karzai, Hamid, Afghanistan’s feckless leader. Still, the Obama administration probably did itself no favors by publicly dumping on the man, leading him to seek new best friends in Tehran.

L is for Laden, Osama bin. The president’s greatest triumph, which will forever put him one notch—if only one notch—above Jimmy Carter.

M is for Mexico, a country that manages 5.4% unemployment and 4.2% annual growth even as it fights a war against the drug cartels.

N is for NATO, once a pillar of Western security, which Mr. Obama is in the process of destroying through his decision to withdraw from Afghanistan and his refusal to give NATO the push it needs to win in Libya.

O is for ObamaCare, which goes far to explain B, D, J as well as the Greek part of G.

P is for Pyongyang, whose ruler the administration is once again attempting to engage in the six-party talks. This is after the Kim regime welcomed Mr. Obama’s plea for a nuclear-free world by testing a nuclear bomb, torpedoing a South Korean ship, shelling a South Korean village, and unveiling a state-of-the-art uranium enrichment facility.

Q is for QE2, the most disastrous experiment in monetary policy since Fed Chairman William Miller’s low-interest rate policy crashed the dollar in 1978.

R is for the reset with Russia, the principal result of which is an arms-control treaty that brings us to parity in strategic nuclear weapons, leaves us behind in the tactical category, and ill-equips us for the challenge of a proliferating world.

S is for shovel-ready. Enough said.

T is for taxes, which Mr. Obama would like to see raised for “millionaires and billionaires”—curiously defined as people making $200K and up.

U is for Iran’s uranium enrichment. When Mr. Obama came to office promising to extend his hand to the mullahs, Iran had enriched 1,000 kilos of uranium. Today they have produced more than 4,000 kilos.

V is for Venezuela, a country whose extensive subterranean links to Iran the administration has consistently downplayed.

W is for the Dubya, whose presidency now looks like a model of spending restraint.

X is for Liu Xiaobo, an example of what a deserving winner of the Nobel Peace Prize looks like. X is also for Xanax, likely to be remembered as the drug of choice of the Obama years.

Y is for Yes, We Can! Unfortunately, it’s also for Yemen.

Z is for zero, which is the likelihood that one of the current GOP hopefuls will defeat Mr. Obama in 2012.

Rulers Out Of Touch With Reality

While millions suffer economically, the Speaker of the House sees fits to commute in a private Boeing 757 at a weekly cost of $120,000.  Brings to mind the old saying “watch what they do, not what they say”.

The ruling elite in Washington is out of touch and out of control,  interested primarily in furthering their financial well being and imperial life style.   This one example of outrageous conduct by an elected official was exposed by The Burning Platform (follow link for full read).

The hypocrisy of the ruling elite in Washington DC is breathtaking. Why can’t Pelosi fly coach to California? What makes her better than you and me? The attitudes and practices of our rulers are disgusting. 20% of the U.S. population is unemployed and this woman has the gall to spend $120,000 per week to jet back and forth across the country. This is utterly putrid.

Since she only works 3 days a week, this gas guzzling jet gets fueled and she flies home to California , cost to the  taxpayers of about $60,000, one way! As Joe put it, ‘Unfortunately we have to pay to bring her back on Monday night.’ Cost to us another $60,000.

Folks, that is $480,000 per month and that is an annual cost to the taxpayers of  $5,760,000.

Lost American Initiative

Whatever happened to the “can do” attitude that allowed this country to put a man on the moon when such a feat was perceived possible only in science fiction movies?   Essential and long overdue improvements to US infrastructure now take decades as work is delayed by bickering special interest groups, mindless bureaucrats and endless state and federal regulations.

The recent opening of 3 new runways at 3 major airports is cause for celebration, but the amount of time required to complete these long overdue expansions is appalling.  Hundreds of billions of dollars a year in energy and human resources are dissipated each year as we still rely on unexpanded and unimproved infrastructure built decades ago.

Consider the time required to reap the benefits of 3 new airport runways.

In the eight months since a new runway opened at the U.S.’s second-busiest airport, plagued for decades with lengthy flight delays, O’Hare has operated with above-average on-time arrivals—better than Dallas, Atlanta and Denver in 2009, according to FlightStats.com. O’Hare’s on-time arrival rate improved by 27% so far this year compared with the same period of 2008. That was twice the improvement of any other big U.S. airport.

The new runway, opened last Nov. 21, gets much of the credit. While airline reductions in flight schedules have eased congestion and reduced flight delays, the ability to now land three planes simultaneously in most weather conditions instead of two jets at a time has turned O’Hare from a choke point into a reliable airport.

Because of the enormous cost and heated legal battles with neighbors and environmentalists, building runways at big airports is a rarity—and a major reason air travel has been bogged down in the past 10 years. Last fall, three major runways opened with much fanfare on the same day in Chicago, Seattle and Washington, D.C. Seattle’s new runway took two decades of planning, approval, court fights and construction. O’Hare’s new runway was the first at that airport in 37 years.

Economic growth relies on an efficient transportation system.  The fact that the second busiest airport in the US could not be expanded for 37 years speaks volumes for the inability of government to “get things done that need to be done”.  Think about this the next time you are wasting 8 hours of your life due to a flight delay.

According to the FAA, 30,000 flights at O’Hare were delayed because of weather in the first five months of 2008. This year through May, only 8,800 weather-delayed flights were recorded “and we had a crazy winter this year with all kinds of snow,” says Ms. Drouet.

Consider the similar multi decades delay for Seattle to add an additional runway:

At Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, delays typically stacked up in the frequent fog and rain because the two existing runways were too close together to have planes landing side-by-side in poor visibility. So the airport wanted a third runway far enough from the existing runways so planes could land two at a time in any weather.

The project took more than 20 years and cost more than $1 billion. Heavy construction started in 2004.

Stimulus Spending Largely Wasted

A significant amount of the country’s infrastructure was built during the depression.  The interstate highway system was built during the Eisenhower administration before many of us were born.   How much better off would all of us and our children be if necessary improvements  to the country’s infrastructure was addressed in a comprehensive, time sensitive manner?

“Stimulus spending” of almost a trillion dollars was deployed to reduce taxes, enhance special interest spending and pass out funds to those who would most quickly spend it at Walmarts on Chinese imported goods.  This type of foolish spending leaves us another trillion in debt while keeping Chinese factories busy - it does not leave the country with anything of lasting value.

Vacuous Leadership

Of course, even if every dollar of stimulus spending had been directed exclusively to infrastructure enhancements, it would not be spend for 15 years if the airport runway example applies.    Therein lies the pitfalls of democracy - those making the spending decisions are more focused on the next election rather than the strategic long term needs of the Country.