The New ‘Immigration Reform’ – It’s A Mistake!

Posted on April 7, 2013 by Tom Balek Standard Reply

Mexican Walmart While living in Montana for many years my opinions about illegal immigration were based on what I heard in the media. Montana doesn’t have an illegal immigrant problem. I saw the growing numbers of Mexicans and Central Americans when visiting western cities like Denver, Las Vegas, and Salt Lake City, but still didn’t have any first-hand experience.

For the last few months I have been traveling full-time throughout the Southeast, based in Charlotte, and have gained some perspective on the issue.

Shortly after arriving here, I was shopping at a WalMart store and was struck by how many people were speaking Spanish. It seemed at times like I was the only English-speaking white guy around. I don’t know what proportion of these immigrants are illegal – some may be here on current visas. But it is likely that a good number of them either crossed the border illegally or were born to someone who did.

These foreigners have money to spend. And that is the centerpoint of my curiosity and interest.

The media paints us conservatives as racists, bigots and homophobes who have no tolerance for people who don’t look and speak like us. There are a few who fit that mold, but I think most are like me – concerned about the fiscal integrity of our nation and worried about the economic futures of our children.

Does it bother me that there are so many foreigners in the frozen foods aisle? Not in the least. I find them to be friendly, hard-working family people. What bothers me is that laws exist to protect U.S. citizens, and it is clear that a lot of law-breaking is being tolerated – even encouraged – to a greater degree every day. What is the economic impact?

I have a soft spot for anyone who works hard and takes care of his family. So when Hector came into my store a few days ago to buy a $6,000 dump trailer, I enjoyed learning about his roofing business. He had two of his ten employees with him, and they spoke no English. We had earlier outfitted his shiny new Ford truck with expensive accessories and this was the fifth trailer he had bought from us in a year.

When it came time to pay the bill, Hector, as always, pulled out a wad of hundred dollar bills that would choke a horse. The sixty C-notes he peeled off to pay for his trailer barely made a dent. It made me wonder if the two guys with him were actually bodyguards.

Hector has built a great business and is making a lot of money. We need entrepreneurs in the United States, right?

Not like Hector.

He is obviously not paying taxes – his wealthy customers pay him in cash because he charges less than his native-born, honest, tax-paying competitors. He is not paying workers comp, or unemployment, or insurance bills. He does not provide health care for his employees. Hector pays his men minimum wage or less – they have to work for low wages because any legitimate business would be in big trouble if they hired illegal workers. But it works out because they receive all kinds of government benefits, including food stamps, medical care, subsidized housing and education for their children.

Hector is doing great. So is his family. And his employees are much better off here – they buzz the aisles at WalMart, chattering in Spanish with big smiles on their faces.

At the same time more and more of our own under-educated citizens have given up on work. They are encouraged to stay home and collect welfare, plus the same food stamps, free medical care, subsidized housing and education for their children that Hector’s employees get – all paid for with money either borrowed from the Chinese or printed out of thin air. American entrepreneurs who would start businesses as tradesmen and employ other Americans are beset with regulations, taxes, fees, and red tape.

Our political leaders continue to claim that we need illegal immigrants to do the work that “Americans won’t do.” Even Republicans in the nation’s capital are beginning to embrace amnesty and “immigration reform”, totally abandoning the laws that were created to protect U.S. citizens and our standard of living.

It’s a serious mistake.

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

We’ll not fade out too soon, not in this finest hour
Whistle your favourite tune, we’ll send a card and flower
Saying it’s a mistake. It’s a mistake!

It’s A Mistake – Men At Work

You’re A Rich Girl

Posted on February 17, 2013 by Tom Balek Standard 2

With so much recent talk about the rich, the poor, and fairness, maybe we should take a deeper look at wealth in America.

US_real_median_household_income_1967_-_2011 Real median household income in the US is about $50,000 per year. This includes wages, business income, and most forms of government assistance. Household income is roughly the same as it was in 1989, adjusted for inflation, after declining about 8 percent since President Obama took office.

There are many ways to categorize people by income. Location is one – Maryland residents top the list in per family income, largely because of the number of federal employees who work nearby in the nation’s capital. Montana ranks 44th.

One’s race, unfortunately, still affects income, with Asians doing the best and blacks worst. Education is also a factor, and the earnings curve between high-school dropouts and those with advanced college degrees is steep.

Statistics like these might suggest that we are doomed by our birth demographics. Not so. Consider that one of the biggest factors in one’s earning power is age. Younger people earn less – it’s just a fact of life. Younger people have less education. The average age of minorities is disproportionately younger. Age affects all the other classifications.

A recent shift in earnings and wealth is troubling – while the overall real median household income is somewhat stable, the income of workers has declined steadily as the income of those on government payments has increased. Some of this is the result of the graying of America, but government assistance programs have expanded significantly.

Still, whether an American household (the term ‘family’ has become obsolete with the demise of the institution of marriage) receives its income by redistribution from workers or directly from work, we live relatively well compared to the rest of the world. Comparison of real income is difficult because of currency exchange and other factors, and there are many ways to measure wealth. Only ten nations exceed our GDP per capita. While it is often said that most of the world’s citizens live on less than $2 per day, per capita GDP statistics indicates otherwise.

Our poorest citizens live like kings compared to the average Indian or African. We should ask why. What do we have that these other nations don’t? Many of them have tremendous natural resources – that’s not it. I will not accept that people from other parts of the world are just born inferior to Americans.

The answer, to me, is obvious. Our nation was built on the principles of free enterprise, unlimited opportunity, and limited government. We overlook this fact at our peril, and unless we restore the culture of productivity our grandparents championed, our grandchildren will pay a dear price.

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

You’re a rich girl,
And you’ve gone too far
‘Cause you know it don’t matter anyway
You can rely on the old man’s money
You can rely on the old man honey

Rich Girl – Hall and Oates

Do Our Leaders Really Care?

Posted on January 13, 2013 by Tom Balek Standard 3

Listening to the media and to our political leaders one would think it is impossible to straighten out our nation’s fiscal mess, and that we, our children, and our grandchildren are doomed to mediocrity for decades to come. Oh, they want to help us, they “feel our pain”, but the task is just too difficult.

Hogwash.

If our federal government really wanted to cut spending and reduce the debt and deficits, they would immediately:

Sell all of the excess, obsolete and unused federal property, including land, buildings, military bases and equipment. Where does our constitution authorize the federal government to buy up all this private land, anyway?
Compensate federal employees similarly to comparable private sector employees – reasonable pay rates, raise the retirement age, replace defined benefit pensions with 401(k) plans, require full forty-hour weeks, and implement the same social security and health care treatment as taxpayers have. Government-sector unions must be eliminated because the pay-for-play election scam is irretrievably corrupt and imperils democracy.
Pay senators and representatives each $1 million per year, and make them responsible for all of their own costs – staffing, transportation, office expenses, mailing, etc. If they want to take a “fact-finding” junket to Tahiti, have a girlfriend in Brazil, or travel home every weekend, they can pay for it themselves. Term limits might not hurt either.
Outsource most of the costs of government to co-ops made up of top private companies. Social security and welfare fraud would be zero if administered by IBM and Visa. Defense contractors have proved they work better together than they do in competition. With co-ops, the winning private companies will regulate each other.
Establish a real, non-partisan budget and cost management department, led by private-sector experts and technicians instead of political lackeys and cronies. Pay commissions to those who find corruption, and prosecute the offenders.
Implement zero-based or priority-based budgeting. Start every department and program at zero and require true cost justification for all expenditures every annual or bi-annual cycle. Same process for entitlements – disability and unemployment must be verified. Eliminate unnecessary, duplicative and obsolete departments.
Replace unemployment compensation and most direct welfare payments with honest work projects. No work, no money.
Tie all foreign aid and investment to our own national interests. Not one dollar to nations or despots whose actions are damaging to the US. That includes the United Nations.
Simplify the tax code and work with businesses instead of against them.
Eliminate the EPA and make the United States the energy provider to the world – aggressively develop natural gas and liquefied natural gas as an alternative to oil. Abandon the infaturation with ridiculously inefficient wind and solar energy and pour our efforts and investments into the efficient use of proven energy sources.

I could go on. Maybe some of these ideas have holes, or need development. Surely there are many more opportunities – bigger and better ones. But if you and I can discuss many methods of improving our government’s performance, why can’t our leaders talk about it?

Do they really want to solve the problem? Are they actually interested in reducing the drag of bloated government on our economy? Obviously, no. Otherwise they would be doing it.

So the only remaining solution is to replace all the self-serving charlatans with motivated leaders who ARE interested. And the only way that will happen is if we can educate and win the majority of Americans who currently don’t get it or don’t care – our neighbors, our friends, and any stranger on the street whom we can engage.

Time is of the essence.

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

Whatever happened
To all the good times we used to have
The times we cried and laughed
I wanna know, I wanna know

Don’t You Care? – the Buckinhams

Looking For Benefits?

Posted on November 26, 2012 by Tom Balek Standard 1

For some time now, President Obama and his PR department (the mainstream media) have contended that our nation’s biggest problem is inequality. Not unemployment, not lack of GDP growth, not the national debt and deficit, not the growing number of people on food stamps and other government assistance. The most important problem, according to them, is the gap between the rich and the poor.

Defining rich and poor is subjective and difficult. Most often lately, “rich” has been defined as a couple who earns more than $250,000 per year. Presumably the threshold is lower for singles.

“Poor” is almost never really quantified. Some of us are old enough to remember the television ads showing skinny Appalachian kids leaning on stick-built porches, wearing rags and sad faces. I’m not saying those were the good old days, but times have sure changed. Kids on food stamps today are, as often as not, obese. Recipients of federal disability payments has increased by 50% in the last ten years. Since January 2009, the number of individuals on food stamps has skyrocketed from 31.9 million to the current record high 47.1 million. By comparison, in 1969 just 2.8 million Americans received food stamps.

If you are reading this, I’m pretty sure you have never seen the federal government’s “Benefits” website (see graphic above). The banner headline is: “Looking For Benefits?” Apparently plenty of people are – 70% of federal spending in 2010 went to “dependence-creating” programs, compared to 28% in 1962. Our Secretary of “Labor” (see Hilda Solis’ statement above) now promotes benefits, not labor.

According to the 2012 Index of Dependence on Government:

The great and calamitous fiscal trends of our time—dependence on government by an increasing portion of the American population, and soaring debt that threatens the financial integrity of the economy—worsened yet again in 2010 and 2011. The United States has long reached the point at which it must reverse the direction of both trends or face economic and social collapse.

Programs considered “dependency-creating” are federally paid housing, health care and welfare, retirement, federal payments for higher education, and agricultural subsidies. One could argue that retirement is not a benefit, because it is supposedly self-funded. Or that agricultural subsidies are not a benefit – but much of that budget is food stamps, and the rest is mainly farm subsidies to large corporations, both of which cause dependency. I can think of other spending that creates dependency too, like corporate bailouts and other government investments in chosen industries. In any event, we are looking at the same spending categories from 1962 to 2010 – and they jumped from 28% of the budget to 70%.

We can argue until the subsidized cows come home about what is fair, or whether taking property from one American to give it to another is even constitutional.

But anyone who thinks we can continue our current spending habits, or continue to encourage the use of government benefits – regardless of how much tax is paid by the “rich” – is dangerously ignorant.

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

I hope you hear inside my voice of sorrow
And that it motivates you to make a better tomorrow
This place is cruel no where could be much colder
If we don’t change the world will soon be over
Living just enough, just enough for the city.

Living For the City – Stevie Wonder

Economics for Blondies

Posted on November 13, 2012 by Tom Balek Standard Reply

The 20-something bubbled-headed blonde Democrat jiggled and grinned on my television screen.

“We’re going back to the economics of the Clinton administration,” she cooed. “We want to raise taxes back up to where they were during the wonderful Clinton years!”

“But things are different now,” the seasoned Fox Business analyst replied. “We have a $16 trillion debt. We have 8% unemployment. We have no economic growth.”

“Oh, we will just tax the rich! Like we did under (giggle, giggle – fake eyelashes fluttering) Biiiiill Clinton!”

“Now wait a minute,” the Fox guy shot back. “The economy improved only when the Republicans took over Congress, and Clinton agreed to reform welfare, trim the budget and cut the capital gains tax . . .”

“Biiiiiill Cliiiiinton! MMMmmmm!” purred the little blonde Demo-kitten. I mentally pictured her voting for the first time, dreaming of her new boyfriend Barack, and . . .

My wife muttered on her way to the kitchen. “I’d go for the tax rates from the Clinton years – if we had the same SPENDING as the Clinton years!”

I guess I’m not quite ready to give up on women yet. Just the ones who want more, more, more.

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

Baby you know my love for you is real
So take me where you want to
Me and my heart you steal
More, more, more!
How do you like it? How do you like it?
More, more, more!
How do you like it? How do you like your love?

More More More – Andrea True (disco porn star)

Marriage – Gay and Otherwise

Posted on November 11, 2012 by Tom Balek Standard 3

We hear so much talk about gay marriage. It was a major election issue. Three more states approved it and others are working on it. Many votes were based solely on a candidate’s position on gay marriage.

Before I go any further, let me go on the record. My official position on gay marriage is: I don’t care. If two men or two women want to commit to each other, I think it’s great. Is a law required? I don’t know. I do worry about kids without fathers, but that’s a separate issue.

With all the airtime, bandwidth, and hand-wringing over gay marriage, one would think it must be something important to the future of our nation. Is it? How many gay couples are clamoring to get married, anyway? A thousand? Ten thousand? What impact does gay marriage have on our floundering economy, our national security, or our crushing debt?

Here’s an issue that has a HUGE impact on our floundering economy, our national security, and our crushing debt. Heterosexual marriage.

It is statistically undeniable that married couples and their children enjoy many advantages over singles. And it is no accident that as the proportion of Americans who are married continues to decline, so does our economy. As our economy declines, so does our national security. And as individual economic performance declines due to the missing support structure of marriage, personal debt and dependence on government increase – resulting in seemingly unstoppable national deficits and debt. Not to mention the other ills of poverty: substance abuse, violence, undereducated and poorly-raised children.

Most married people are wealthier, healthier, happier and more productive than single people, especially single moms. Most children from married families have a better life and future than single-parent kids. I don’t even have to bore you with the statistics because it’s common sense and you know it’s true.

Our political leaders and entertainers either avoid or deny the importance of marriage. In fact, our society has decided that cohabitation and single motherhood and the absence of commitment is just fine for heterosexuals. But it is critically important that gays are married.

Enough already about gay marriage – why don’t we ever talk about the importance of MARRIAGE?

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side
(thanks and hugs to my bride of 39 years)

Going to the chapel, and we’re gonna get married
Going to the chapel, and we’re gonna get married
Gee I really love you, and we’re gonna get married
Going to the chapel of love

Going To The Chapel of Love – the Dixie Cups

Obama – The Six Trillion Dollar Man

Posted on October 22, 2012 by Tom Balek Standard Reply

Overheard from Obama’s debate prep team: “We have the technology – we have the capability to make the world’s first bionic president. Better, cooler, smarter . . . Oh wait, we already spent six trillion on that, it didn’t work. Never mind.”

“The Six Million Dollar Man” (Lee Majors) could run like the wind and crush an anvil with one hand. Fortunately, he was a force for good, not evil.

We spent SIX TRILLION DOLLARS on our current president – that’s how much our debt has increased under his watch. And we can expect another bill of at least that much if he is re-elected.

Six Trillion Dollars ago, President Obama said he said he would cut the deficit in half. Didn’t quite happen.

Six Trillion Dollars ago, the President said the rest of the world would respect us once again. Umm, not so much.

Six Trillion Dollars ago, he said his would be the most transparent government in history. Mr. President, what happened in Benghazi? Can we see the Fast and Furious documents you hid, invoking executive privilege? What’s the big secret about your college records? And what the heck happened to that 7-layer Photoshopped birth certificate?

Six Trillion Dollars Ago, the President said, “The Democratic Party has won a great victory tonight, we do so with a measure of humility and determination to heal the divides that have held back our progress.” Mr. President, inside the beltway they say you don’t even talk to your own party leaders, much less anybody from across the aisle.

Six Trillion Dollars ago President Obama promised, “When there is a bill that ends up on my desk as the president, you the public will have five days to look online and find out what’s in it before I sign it.” Nope. He said, “I have done more to take on lobbyists than any other candidate in this race. I don’t take a dime of their money, and when I am president, they won’t find a job in my White House.” Nope. And he said, “When I’m president, I will go line by line to make sure that we are not spending money unwisely.” Nope, nope, nope.

Too bad we didn’t get a warranty when we bought the Six Trillion Dollar Man. Maybe we could get our money back. For sure let’s not spend another Six Trillion on this same defective model.

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

Have a good laugh and enjoy some great R&B too.
Click the music link below and think Obama –

My man is smooth like Barry and his voice got bass
A body like Arnold with a Denzel face,
He’s smart like a doctor with a real good rep
And when he comes home, he’s relaxed with pep
He always got a gift for me, every time I see him
A lot of snot nose, ex-flames couldn’t be him

Whatta Man – Salt ‘N Peppa

They Don’t Talk about “The Children” Any More

Posted on July 2, 2012 by Tom Balek Standard 2

Remember when the favorite justification for every liberal idea was “the children”? We would hear countless public service announcements on radio and TV, extolling the virtues of this government program or that, in the ubiquitous deep, oh-so-sensitive PBS voice – stretching out that first syllable – “the CHILLLLLdren.” It didn’t matter if the latest big-government program had anything to do with children – it could be providing free socks for desert toads – you could still count on hearing that it must be done for “the CHILLLLLdren.”

Something changed. In recent years you seldom hear “the children” invoked by the left. Could it be because any rational person knows that a 16 trillion dollar debt is really not so good for the children?

I became a grandpa when my twins grandbabies were born a couple of years ago. And, while I have known for some time that we are screwing things up pretty royally for future generations, it really hit home when I realized that one of those future generations includes my own precious twins. Now I see everything in a broader context. It makes political activism real for me. I feel compelled to do whatever I can for the future of my grandkids.

If you are still reading at this point, you should meet Lydia, the apple of Grandpa’s eye! I write and record songs for the kids, and here’s one I did for her – along with a video. By the way, if you remember “the Jetsons”, chances are you have grandkids to worry about too. We can’t let them down. Here she is!