Another topic that President Obama is getting a pass on is the growing unpopularity of this stimulus package that he is continually trying to push though congress. All we hear is that the Republicans aren't cooperating, that they are not going along with the President's plea of “bi-partisanship.” If President Obama wants to work with the Republicans and be truly bi-partisan, he needs to scale back his desires of trillions of dollars of stimulus starting with trimming billions off the first 890 billion dollar package that congress is working on. I know that Republicans would be open to a lot smaller stimulus package if the dollars were smaller, the pork is eliminated and guaranteeing that the money will actually get funneled to the economy ASAP.

For all the heat Republicans got for constantly saying that Barack Obama isn't ready to become the next President of the United States and he has made poor decisions (Resco, Rev. Wright etc) it is coming to light that they might just be right. If he is making mistakes with an easy task like vetting out candidates and their tax issues, what is he going to do when it comes down to making serious decisions like how to deal with Iran and North Korea and their search for nuclear weapons.

It feels like we are witnessing a “Teflon president” where nothing will stick to him. Look at this list:

*Reverend Wright

*Tony Resco

*Governor Blagojevich conversations

*The birth certificate issue- never releasing an original certificate from Hawaii

*Promising to take public campaign financing and then backing out

*Tim Geithner, his Treasury secretary who forgot to pay his taxes for years

*Secretary of State Hilary Clinton who was never grilled about the source of millions of dollars of donations to President Clinton foundations

*Not a lot of questioning about putting TRILLIONS of stimulus dollars with little oversight.

*What are we going to do with the prisoners of Guantanamo Bay when it closes, their home country wants nothing to do with them.

*Joe Biden stating that we should expect more military casualties because of an increased presence in Afghanistan.

*Campaigning against wasteful spending, wanting to spend trillions of dollars to stimulate the economy. He is doing this by putting money into banks, the auto industry and the states in a veiled attempt at socialism.

We all know that if anyone of these happen to a conservative president or candidate would be raked over the coals until the cows come home.

I believe that the Obama honeymoon will last throughout his four years and if the opposition doesn't get their act together a total of eight years. Of course its easy to say now with Obama's high approval rating after his decisive victory in November. He has mezorized a large majority of Americans, who believes tat he can't do no wrong. It's almost cult like. I haven't seen this kind of buzz for a public figure since Ronald Reagan. In Reagan's case he didn't touch the hearts of America until well into his first term, then it grew to what it is today. The only issue that could derail Obama's popularity is if the economy stays stagnant for a prolong period of time, like two or three years, which is definitely in the realm of possibility. We live in an impatient society and a large segment of the population would like to see their retirement to at least get to the point where it was at its peak last year asap. The stock market, if lucky might get back ½ of their loss from its peak in four years. I believe that if the market doesn't get back to the previous high in four years, Obama he might have a battle for re-election in 2012. To diffuse this, the administration and Democratic leaders has already stated that the economy will take a long time to recover and we should be patient. The administration is already trying to hedge their bets and covering their butts if the economy is not running at full steam in 2-3 years.

I guess time will tell when Obama will do or say something that will rub people the wrong way and will be called out. Who will do this, the mainstream media, his fellow Democrats, the Republican minority who was their own identity issues to deal with? The answer is no. The only people that has questioned Obama's actions throughout the campaign and into his Presidency is talk radio which Obama dismisses as not speaking for mainstream Americans. The only group that might stand up against Obama is the Democratically controlled congress if he doesn't govern as as left as they want, and that's a scary thought.

I do put some of the blame on politicians of both sides. Every year leading up to an election, they promise us the moon, from better health care, better education, money for various programs bribing certain voting groups just to get elected. As humans, we all love free stuff, but most of us don't look at the big picture and the hidden costs that comes with it or who is really paying for it. We let our emotional side dictate, while it should be the rational side taking charge stepping back and questioning everything our government wants to do for us.

There are two examples making news that proves my point. First, on a national scale, all of the bailouts that are planned and Obama's promise of more taxpayer stimulus. Up until now I was a proponent of the government stepping in certain situations, because some companies are “too big to fail”. That if we let these businesses go under that it will cause a ripple effect in our economy making a small problem into a much larger one. Now that we have to bail out the banks, what next. Are we to bail out the auto industry, credit card companies, retailers, airlines, the housing market, insurance companies, financial services companies etc? The first problem with this is that we will be setting a bad precedent, where if we bailout one industry, what makes them more important than another that is going through the same crisis. Secondly, we don't know that these bailouts will work or are we just delaying the inevitable. If we bailout GM, who is hemorrhaging billions of dollars a month, the solution isn't giving them more money just to hemorrhage it, but we need to tackle what is causing the problem. We should let them go into bankruptcy to get them from underneath the legacy costs that is killing them. Thirdly, by giving them bailout loans to survive, are these companies learning a lesson or are we going to have the same problem when another general economic crisis arises. Before we give out dollar one, we need to look at what caused these companies to go to the brink of disaster and set up regulations and set terms of any bailout that the individual companies and industries have to adhere too.

Personally, I think that the only way the government should stimulate the economy except for monetary policy is government works projects. I am a constitutionalist, I believe that the federal government's primary job is national defense, general welfare of its citizens and INFRASTRUCTURE. We have thousands of bridges and miles and miles of road that is in desperate need of repair and this would be a good time to tackle them. All the money spent will go directly into the construction people's hands that will trickle down through the economy. We are a consumer driven economy.

The second example is a local story from Milwaukee, where the voters overwhelmingly approved a referendum giving them all sick days based on the amount they work. Who wouldn't vote for free sick days. We all know they will all be taken for legitimate reasons. (just a little bit of sarcasm) When voters are standing in the booths they have $$$ in their eyes not seeing how giving every worker in Milwaukee sick days will cripple a lot of businesses especially smaller ones that doesn't currently offer many benefits. Also, no one is saying who is going to pay to administer the enforcement of this rule.

While JFK wanted us to do something for our country, paying higher taxes to bail out mismanaged companies wasn't what he had in mind. Plus he didn't mean that we ask the country for free stuff. Also, we shouldn't be bailing out homeowners that bought houses they know they couldn't afford in the long run. Individuals and businesses need to take responsibility for their own actions and that the government needs to really look at all industries across the economy to find loopholes in regulations that caused this crisis.

Now if you read by earlier blogs, long before the primaries had produced Obama and McCain as the winners of their respective parties nomination, I had guaranteed a Republican win. I guess I am no Nostradamus but there were factors no one could have expected and others I analyzed wrong.

1)No one saw the economic meltdown of the housing,financial and overall stock market. Its true that people vote their pocketbook and with less money in their 401k's McCain never had a chance. Voters will blame the party in power.

2)Along the same lines, I under estimated the unpopularity of President Bush. The economic melt down and the war (which was never an issue because of the economy) had Bush's popularity rating hovering around 20%. McCain never distanced himself from him and Obama attacked him relentlessly for it. If McCain was smart he would have attacked the President and his non-conservative policies (domestic spending) and attacked Republicans as a whole. He had no problem doing this in 2000. If he really wanted to distanced himself from the administration, he would have votedagainst the bailout package. This would have differentiated himself from Obama and give the electorate a real choice on the economy. Overall, there were many mistakes his campaign had. Too many to list here.

Overall, this was an election that was a reflection on the economy and the popularity of the man in charge. I don't think that this is a shift towards the left as a nation, its all part of the cycle that both parties go though. I do see Republicans picking up seats two years from now making strides to regain power but it all depends on how successful Obama becomes.

As if I need anything else to complain about what goes on in Washington, especially when it comes to the establishment and the Democratic party. As you all know, I am not a man who minces his words but this time around I need to be especially blunt and honest analyzing these antics. In the last 48 hours there have been two acts of cowardliness by Democratic leaders. The first happened Friday when speaker of the house Nancy Pelosi shut down the House of Representatives, shutting off microphones, CSPAN cameras and turning off the lights. This was a preemptive strike of not wanting to hold a vote on a energy bill that would allow new drilling to curb our dependence of foreign oil. She is under a lot of pressure from Republicans and even a few members of her own party to bring this bill to a vote on the floor. She knows that if it was presented, it would pass because there would be enough sane Democrats out there that would vote with Republicans . New drilling is supported by a two to one margin by Americans, according to numerous polls. Nancy Pelosi couldn't have this happen. In her eyes, its a no win situation for the Democratic party. A no vote on the record would jeopardize the electability of Democratic congressmen based on the hottest election topic in 2008 A yes vote would enable the bill to pass and be signed by President Bush, giving Bush and the Republicans a much needed victory in the eyes of Americans. A yes vote would also clash with their supporters; Big Environment. Democratic candidates wouldn't ever go against this core Democratic group (they bow to the green shrine everyday, just ask Al Gore). Hey, Big Environment has deep pockets and a loud voice and would make sure than any Democrat that votes against their wishes, pay in November. This would make congress a little more equally divided in a election year that all pundits expected a increase by the Democratic party. So instead of doing the work of the American people that they are supposed to represent, they pull a cowardly prank like this. Why don't you Nancy, grow a pair and actually do something important that would cross party lines. This is just another reason why congress has even a smaller approval rating than President Bush.

The second cowardly act by a leading Democrat isn't as bad as what Nancy Pelosi did, but it shows what kind of candidate and man Barack Obama is and what kind of president he will be. Just today I heard a news story that Barack Obama will only participate in the three scheduled presidential debates with John McCain instead of participating in several town hall meetings alongside McCain across the country. This would have been the modern day version of the Lincoln-Douglas debates. I like town hall meetings better than the standard debates because the questions come unscripted from Americans instead of the same old questions that pundits ask. (There might be one town hall style debate in the three scheduled, but I wouldn't necessarily depend on the questions being unscripted or scanned prior to the event. ) I find it cowardly that a man who speaks about change, not being a Washington insider and like to change the way Washington works, would back out out of these town hall meetings, an idea he initially interested in doing with McCain. What is he afraid of? It has become more evident week by week, we see incidents where Obama has a problem speaking off the cuff. He is just fine if he has a teleprompter in front of him, but when it comes to improvising, he needs a lot of practice. In a town hall format, he wouldn't be able just to give the same old answer, most of the time has nothing to do with the question asked, like he would be able to do with a panel of political pundits. He's afraid that this would make him look bad and give McCain an advantage. Its all about playing defense with politics not offensive, it not winning a campaign but not losing one. While most of McCain campaign stops have been town hall meetings as of late, we still see few mistakes from McCain and in my opinion still looks a little bit too stiff talking in this environment. This isn't the first time Obama has done things that went against what he has said in the past. Public financing comes to mind. Early in his campaign he said he would accept public financing of his campaign like John McCain but that was before he got his hands on a windfall of fund raising that has crushed every Democratic records and easily beats McCain's effort. Instead of limiting his spending which would be a Washington outsider thing to do, he has bypassed public financing which gives him a limitless amount of money to spend. He is the first presidential candidate to do this. What ever happened to McCain-Feingold, that was embraced by the left to keep money out of politics. Hmmmm. Barack.

I just can't believe what Democrats can get away with and I know that the media won't hold their feet to the fire, so its up to talk radio, Fox news and the blogosphere to spread this news to the masses. I hope that America wakes up to the fact that the Democratic party doesn't speak for the common man trying to fill his pickup truck with $4.00 a gallon gas but to special interests that they rail against every election cycle. Its the same old Washington politics and I am getting sick of it.