Last Thursday night President Barack Obama addressed the Nation during a joint-session of Congress to lecture Republicans (again), unveil his new Jobs plan, and demand that we pass the plan now or the sky will start falling.  Sadly his plan is more of the same.  It’s the same tax and spend song and dance.  These failed policies have contributed to the bloating deficit and the accelerated cycle of government dependence (not to mention the increased amount of citizens now tied down to the ball and chain of big government).

Americans are struggling right now.  Action is indeed required to get things moving again in this country.  However we are not going to change anything for the better by increasing taxes, spending ourselves into oblivion, and making more and more people dependent on big government.  Even more infuriating is the fact this isn’t even the first time the President has tried these policies.

They’ve failed before and they will surely fail again.  It;s like watching a Road Runner cartoon, in which the Coyote uses the same shoddy Acme products over-and-over again only to be blown up while falling off a cliff followed by a huge boulder that crushes him after he crashes into the cavern below.  Sadly America is now the coyote and unlike a cartoon, this is no laughing matter.

Following his campaign speech last Thursday, the full text of his bill was released on Monday.  You can find it HERE. Basically what the President is proposing is grandiose infrastructure and transportation projects to add more jobs and to benefit his Labor Union buddies.  This will cost us almost$500 Million.

Last week, President Obama promised that we would find a way to pay for all this but he gave no specific plans for doing so.  We now know how the money will be found – Increasing taxes on the “evil” oil companies and the “Rich” (anyone with an income over $200,000, which includes most small businesses), and those with private airplanes.

So what will the results be from these tax increases?  These policies will result in inflated prices for gas, as well as many other goods and services.  The people and businesses that are hit by these increased taxes aren’t just going to take a loss.  They will raise prices for the goods and services that they offer.  People who are poor and have disabilities will be hurt the most and will be most adversely affected.

There are two parts of the President’s plan that makes this even worse.  First off is the idea that unemployment should be extended for those who are not working.  Unemployment benefits have been extended countless times and the only result is more and more people becoming dependent on the Government and those benefits.

The worst part of this plan is the cap on deductions for donations to charities.  THIS IS ABSOLUTELY THE WORST TIME FOR SUCH A THING!!!  People living in poverty is now 15% and the amount of people using food stamps is up 41%.  By capping the amount of money people can deduct from their taxes from charitable contributions will really cut into  what these charities can raise to help those who are in need, much better than the Government can.

With all due respect Mr. President.  We don’t need anymore of your failed tax and spend policies that are tying more and more people down to the ball-and-chain of Government.  It’s time to balance the budget,  cut taxes, cut spending, and get Government out of the way so us Americans at the bottom rung of the ladder can actually have the opportunity to pursue the American Dream.  You are stealing that opportunity from us and it’s a crime!  Shame on you!

Citizens of Mississippi have a great opportunity in front of them.  They have the chance to send a message to the entire country by approving a state Constitutional Amendment establishing Personhood – that is that a person has the right to life from Conception until natural death. By approving Amendment 26, Mississippians will outlaw abortion and effectively challenge Roe Vs Wade (1973).  This would also set up another challenge to Obamacare and its resulting death panels and deciding who to give medical care to (and ultimately deciding even which pregnancies are viable).

In addition, by approving Amendment 26, citizens of Mississippi will send a clear message to other states that will hopefully embolden Personhood efforts elsewhere.

This is a very important issue and especially poignant as I am a week and a half away from my 29th Birthday:

I was born on September 19th, 1982 at Dekalb Medical Center in Decatur, Georgia. I was born legally blind, with a bilateral cleft lip and palate, without a physical nose on my face, and many other birth defects that I like  to call blessings. After my birth I was tested for every disease and disorder known to mankind. All of those tests came out negative.

Despite those results, my doctors and nurses told my parents I would not live six weeks. If I somehow lived past those six weeks they said I would be practically a vegetable. Despite those long odds, my parents decided to love me, care for me, and support me as long as I was alive.

After one month in the hospital, I was discharged and allowed to go home for the very first time. I was baptized on All Saints Sunday at St. Andrews Presbyterian Church, in Tucker, Georgia. I had beaten the “six weeks” odds but the fight was not over.

In November of 1982 I developed pneumonia. With as many challenges as I faced, it necessitated a return to the hospital on November 13th. However once I was admitted things went from bad, to worse. My heart began to fail and my skin started to turn blue due to lack of oxygen.

Just after Thanksgiving I underwent emergency life-saving surgery (the first of over 15 surgeries I have had in my short lifetime). Thanks to the skill of my doctors, nurses, and surgeons, the love of my family, and the blessings of our Lord Jesus Christ, the surgery was successful and I am still alive.

Despite the long odds I faced at birth, I am nearly 29 years old and have graduated High school and College. I am very blessed by God in many ways and each new day I am alive is like opening a brightly wrapped present on Christmas morning!

If I ever need a reminder of how precious life is and how blessed I am all I have to do is turn my right wrist. Below my hand is a scar. That scar is left from the emergency IV that had to be placed there in November of 1982 when the doctors could not find a vein to stick the needle into. That scar is a living, breathing reminder of how precious life is, and why we should promote a culture of life in this Nation.

I don’t pretend to be a source of knowledge of the complexities of the miracle of child birth. I’m a man, not a woman. I understand that there are emotions and feelings that I cannot comprehend. In addition, I realize that there are women who would like the right to choose. I’m not heartless. Has it ever occurred to anyone that when a fetus is aborted, a woman may be exercising her right to choose but there is a life that stands in the balance that has no choice in the matter?

While others may disagree the facts are plain as day to me. Life begins at conception. God has a plan for each life that is conceived. Fulfilled an un-born fetus could grow up to be the next Einstein, the next President, or the next Elvis Presley. The unborn child could go on to find the cure for Cancer, AIDS, maybe even Muscular Dystrophy.  Not allowing an unborn fetus to fulfill the plan God has laid, in my eyes, is murder in the worst degree. Why? The life held in the balance has no choice whatsoever.

Why must a Culture of life be promoted in America?  The alternative is not pretty. Let’s go in the wayback machine to the 1930’s in Europe. The Nazi culture of death led to the Holocaust. There is a lot made of the many brutal and senseless murders of millions of Jewish people. However, the Nazis didn’t stop there. Also murdered were people of other races, creeds, colors, sexual orientations, and those with disabilities..  I’m not trying to say that a culture of death is going to result in a 2nd Holocaust in the same manner. There is nothing that can compare to the tactics of the brutal Nazi’s led by Adolph Hitler. It is meant as a lesson that we should take to heart.

A culture of life will cause people to prevent even a remote similarity from occurring. Due to the technology today, mothers have access to many tests to get a glimpse at what their children may turn out to become right out of the womb and how healthy he/she will be.  Living in a culture of life, the chances are better that parents will continue with the process, even if the tests come out with results that are sobering. A culture of death will result in more abortions and children being killed off without a choice once they are born with severe disabilities and birth defects.

When our Founding Fathers declared us free from British rule in 1776, they wrote in the Declaration of Independence:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights, that among these are the right to Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”

As Americans we should have the right to lie and honor the intrinsic value and worth of every human life from conception until natural death.  That is why we are proud to join the fight to establish Personhood in Mississippi.  You can join the fight to by visiting the Yes On 26 website, liking their page on Facebook, and following the effort on Twitter.

During the 2008 Presidential campaign, Future-President Obama was asked about his small business tax policy by Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher. When asked about raising taxes on small businessmen Barack Obama infamously stated to “Joe The Plumber” that we have to “Spread the wealth around.”

In other words, the President was saying that Federal Government should pillage more money from those people who have more to redistribute to those who don’t have as much. To put it in another way – we have to rob Peter to give to Paul.

There is no problem with “Spreading the wealth around” but it should not be the Imperial Federal Government doing the deed. because, frankly, they are doing a very poor job. All the Government is doing is making more and more people dependent on Government and fostering the welfare state.  When Peter is robbed to pay Paul, both people are stolen from.  While Peter is being robbed of his hard-earned money – Paul is being robbed of his dignity, independence, and most importantly  his opportunity to realize the American dream

Instead, we should be spreading our own wealth around. It’s an American tradition. In fact we were doing just this one century ago. American citizens were taking care of our must vulnerable in our own communities through churches, civic organizations, and just plain neighbors helping their neighbors.

What changed over the past century? First of all, was the adoption of the 16th Amendment and the Income Tax. Then we began ceding more and more responsibility to the Feds during the Great Depression and increasingly so during and after LBJ’s “Great Society” in the 1960′s. Presently there are even churches and organizations that shirk their responsibility and advocate for more and more Government taxing and spending in the name of assisting the poor and infirm.

Recently, I was traveling in Iowa during its recent budget impasse. A public budget hearing was held and Iowa citizens showed up and testified on behalf of a more responsible budget. Meanwhile countless organizations testified on why their public funding shouldn’t be taken away. Radio station WHO 1040 AM recorded the testimonies and played sound bites around the clock.

One of those sound bites was the most appealing to me. The soundbite came from an advocate representing Prevent Blindness Iowa. She was begging the State Legislature fore more money to fund vision screenings for children. Her intentions are good but why is this appalling? There is already an organization dedicated to prevent blindness nationwide. It’s called the Lions Club (an organization of which I am a proud member) and it is PRIVATELY funded.

As Americans we should be spreading our own wealth around. If allowed to keep more of our money we will not just stimulate the economy but we will be able to open up our hearts by dropping extra money in the church collection plate each Sunday or the red Salvation Army kettles at Christmastime. When tragedy strikes places like Joplin, Missouri, Tuscaloosa, Alabama, Japan, or wherever we can better fund relief efforts to help our local, national, or International neighbors.

For exampl, last week, my local talk radio station, WSB held its annual “Care-A-Thon”, benefiting the AFLAC Children’s Cancer Center.  in 37 hours nearly #1.3 Million was raised, despite the rough economy and much uncertainty in the stock market.  Can you imagine how much more could have been raised if folks were not taxed to death and allowed to keep more of their money in their pockets to open their hearts with?

It is not enough to demand lower taxes and spending cuts. Because we (Churches, civic organizations, and all of us) have given more and more responsibility to the Government we have given them an excuse to take more of our money, and spend us into oblivion by throwing our money down rat holes. Yes, we have a right to be angry, but the current partisan battles over budgets and the raising of the debt ceiling (let alone the resulting downgrade of our National credit rating) wouldn’t even be necessary if we hadn’t given the responsibility of taking care of our own, in our own communities, to the State and Federal Government.

Due to our shirk of responsibility Government has gotten so large it is about to decide who receives health care and eventually which pregnancies are viable. Shame on us for allowing this to happen but we can’t just throw up our hands and accept the current reality. Let’s DO something about it

The time has come to stop giving the Government an excuse to pillage more money from us, throw it down rat holes, and shackle more people to the chains of Government dependence. Let’s man up to our responsibility to our fellow citizens, our future generations, but more important to God. “For everyone to whom much is given, of him shall much be required.” — Luke 12:48

It’s time to roll up our sleeves, get active in our churches and civic organizations and just be good neighbors. Let’s spread our own wealth around and serve our communities, states, Nation,and especially the Lord!  If we don’t we are only paying lip service to fiscal responsibility.  Let’s walk the walk instead of just talking the talk.

March 21st is a day that will live in infamy, or at least it should. Exactly one year ago,  our hard-fought, 9-month legislative battle over Obamacare ended in defeat as the bill passed the House 219-214 in the darkness of a Sunday night.  I have yet to hear a peep about it on the news, or even on Facebook today.  Not a word!  Have we forgotten so soon?  Have we been blindsided by the tragedy in Japan or the military actions in Libya (not that we should be ignoring these things because we shouldn’t) to forget one of the most despicable pieces of legislation to ever pass Congress?

Or have we been lulled to sleep over our successes thus far in fighting against it?   Instead of sitting down and shutting up we forged ahead with one goal in mind.  Taking back Congress.  In November 2010 we took back control of the US House and did major damage to the Democrats’ control of the US Senate.  In the process we took control of the majority of Governorships and state legislatures as well.

On the legal front Obamacare is taking broadside after broadside in challenges to the Constitutionality of the bill and hopefully soon judgement will be passed on the bill  by the Supreme Court.  We should also be doing whatever possible to de-fund the bill in Congress and efforts are still ongoing.  And of course there is need to finish the job electorally with the takeover of the US Senate and the White House needed next year (so that we can repeal it and replace it with common-sense free-market solutions).

We’re still fighting tooth and nail against Obamacare but there is something unnerving about forgetting to mark the Anniversary of its passage.  We shouldn’t be ignoring it…it should be a cattle prod to our efforts to fight it.  Not only that, but we should be using it in order to paint a clear contrast between sides and ideologies.

Let’s compare the legislative battle against Obamacare and the battle over collective bargaining in Wisconsin. We took a run-away Congress and pushed it to the brink in a 9 month legislative battle, forcing them to vote in the dead of night with no transparency (and even forcing them to vote on the morning of Christmas Eve 2009 in the US Senate!).  At the end of the battle Republicans lost with honor.  They lived to fight another day and let WE THE PEOPLE pass judgement.

In that judgement Republicans took over the Governor’s Mansion and the State Legislature in Wisconsin.  The Democrats who had lost control and faced a battle of their own.  Instead of losing with honor and letting the voters pass judgement, 14 Democrat state senators ran away to a resort in Illinois while their allies in the unions raised bloody murder in the streets and in the Legislative halls in Madison.

There were thousands of Patriots on the west lawn of the US Capitol the final weekend of the Obamacare legislative battle.  It was a peaceful protest and vigil.  When the final verdict was made and The house passed the bill everything remained peaceful and those Patriots, like the Republicans in Congress, vowed to fight another day.  When Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker got his plan voted through the Senate (through legislative procedure after three weeks of deadlock caused by the Democrats’ departure from the chamber)  the union protestors rioted by forcing themselves into the State Capitol and vandalizing it.

Just imagine what ado would have been made if Republicans walked out of Congress before the Obamacare vote or if we had rioted on the steps of Congress.

Just think about it and never forget what occurred one year ago today  Let it spur us on to continue to fight for our Freedom and Liberty

Tomorrow morning down at the Georgia State Capitol in Atlanta sometime between the time the State Senate is gaveled into session and Noon, I will be seated and announced as an honorary State Senator.  This honor is being given by our Lt. Governor Casey Cagle in honor of my work on behalf of the disabled both politically and voluntarily over the years.  This is a huge honor and I am humbled to receive it.

What I am doing is not about any kind of power ego trip.  this is about something more than myself.  It’s about our Nation and making it a better place.  I want to be the somebody doing the something to make a difference.

For those of y’all who cannot make it to the Gallery tomorrow I will make sure plenty of pictures are taken and I will share them with y’all.

Again, this is a huge honor and I consider it a blessing.

There is no way to sugar coat last night and the damage that has been done to our Republic by the 219-214 vote last night in the US House of Representatives to approve the Government takeover of our healthcare.  No spoons of sugar could ever make THIS medicine go down.  We have just witnessed the biggest usurp of power by the Imperial Federal Government in the history of our Nation.

We have fought this tooth and nail for over nine months.  We have marched through the streets from the smallest towns to the West Lawn of the US Capital (where thousands  of Patriots stood firm in opposition through the weekend to the bitter end),  We packed town hall meetings, shut down the Capitol switchboard a countless number of times, and buried their fax machines and E-mail boxes.    We pushed it to the absolute limit and forced them to vote in the dead of night and before sunrise on Christmas Eve.  While we have been given a defeat, we fought valiantly and should come out with our heads held high.  We did everything in our power to keep this day from coming.  However so did Travis, Crockett, and the rest of those brave men at The Alamo.

We now have two choices.  We can either sit down & shut up, or we can stand up and fight!  The Democrats think that by ramming this horse-pill down our collective throats that we will be demoralized and just give up.  The costs are too great to do that and we won’t!

WE HAVE ONLY JUST BEGUN TO FIGHT!!!

Today our fight begins anew and we will fight this battle on four fronts.  The first of these fronts is in the Senate during reconciliation.  We will also challenge the Constitutionality of this bill in the courts as the legal challenges are just beginning (including  challenges from state governments).  We will also fight to opt-out and nullify from the State Legislative level.  Then of course  we shall have our vote in this matter at the ballot box in november!

If you are as disgusted with this as we are, don’t just sit back and complain.  Roll up your sleeves and get involved in the process!  A big first step to repeal this monstrosity is to re-take the House and Senate with common-sense Conservatives who won’t sell themselves out like Ben Nelson or Bart Stupak.

They have passed this against the collective will of the American people.  They have tightened the grip of the ball-and-chain of Government dependency,  They have sped ourselves down the road to bankruptcy and financial ruin,  Thy have threatened the American Dream and our quality of life.  They have declared war on the very values and principles our Founders pledged their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor to found this Nation.

We have a moral obligation to guarantee that the next Generation of Americans will have it better than we have.  That’s exactly what the generations of past made sure of for us (even fighting and dying when it was necessary).  Right now we have completely turned our backs on that and without a change of course our next generation of Americans will be starting  out in a big hole with little chance to get out and overcome.

Today the 2nd American Revolution begins!  Let’s leave the feelings of  the March 21st bitter defeat behind and march towards victory.  Our country, our freedom, and our future generations depend on it!  Last night may have been our “Alamo” but if we march together as one and fight like mad to make it happen, San Jacinto can’t be too far behind!

LET’S ROLL!!!