Remember the election in 2006? A little over two years ago:

1) Consumer confidence stood at a 2 1/2 year high;

2) Regular gasoline sold for $2.19 a gallon;

3) The unemployment rate was 4.5%.

Since voting in a Democratic Congress in 2006 we have seen:

1) Consumer confidence plummet;

2) The cost of regular gasoline soar to over $3.75 a gallon;

3) Unemployment is up to 5% (a 10% increase);

4) American households have seen $2.3 trillion in equity value evaporate (stock and mutual fun losses);

5) Americans have seen their home equity drop by $1.2 trillion dollars;

6) 1% of American homes are in foreclosure.

America voted for change in 2006, and we got it!
Remember, Congress makes laws, not the President. He has to work with what’s handed to him; and in the hate Bush environment of the congresscritters, he hasn’t been handed I lot that I can describe in this blog…

Part 2:

Taxes…Whether Democrat or a Republican you will find these statistics enlightening and amazing.

http://www.%20taxfoundation.%20org/publications/show/151.%20html

Taxes under Clinton 1999 Taxes under Bush 2008
Single making 30K, tax $8,400 Single making 30K, tax $4,500
Single making 50K, tax $14,000 Single making 50K, tax $12,500
Single making 75K, tax $23,250 Single making 75K, tax $18,750
Married making 60K, tax $16,800 Married making 60K, tax $9,000
Married making 75K, tax $21,000 Married making 75K, tax $18,750
Married making 125K, tax $38,750 Married making 125K, tax $31,250

BOTH democratic candidates will return to the higher tax rates. It is amazing how many people that fall into the categories above think Bush is screwing them and Bill Clinton was the greatest President ever. If Obama or Hillary are elected, they both say they will repeal the Bush tax cuts and a good portion of the people that fall into the categories above can’t wait for it to happen.

This is like the movie The Sting with Paul Newman; you scam somebody out of some money and they don’t even know what happened. Only problem is, this is not a movie…

Additionally, the Congresscritters called the oil company execs before the Senate today again today- Lots of ranting, raving, knashing of teeth, etc. and passing a bill to investigate OPEC for price fixing, all while Goldman Sachs bets on $200/barrel for oil futures…

Oh by the way, last time I looked, OPEC is not a US company, nor subject to any kind of anti-trust laws…

Also, they didn’t like it when the oil execs brought up REAL issues-

From the Chevron exec- “What we need is the reduction of barriers to investment. I mean, there are a bunch of barriers of investment to the United States: Eighty-five percent of the offshore is off-limits.

I’m now four years into trying to get a permit to expand the refinery in California. Four years! (Or, we’re into our fourth year, so I guess it’s three or three point something years.)

In that same time Reliance Energy in India has built a 600,000 barrel a day refinery from scratch, and they’re about to start it up. “

From the Shell exec- There are one trillion barrels of oil available for drilling in one location in the US, if we could drill and build refineries, the price would drop to about $50 a barrel.

Of course that generated no response from the senators, just more ranting, etc.

At some point the silent majority (us!) has got to get up on our hind legs and tell these congresscritters to authorize new refineries, new drilling permits, and more nuclear power plants! If we don’t, the next generations will suffer for our stupidity!