Anyone that has ever held an elected office knows that they are required to take an oath of office when they assume their position. Usually the oath will include a promise to obey the laws of their state and the Constitution of the United States of America. I have noticed that far too many of our elected officials want to have a system where the laws that they obey are the ones that they select. I agree that there can be so many laws that it can be a burden to be able to obey all of the laws, but an attempt should be made to obey the laws or go through the proper channels to amend the law or change it. I recently read a news article where our president has enacted the so-called DREAM Act by executive order.

The republicans in Congress keep talking politics as if we are still interested in it.  They have lost or are losing the party faithful. The conservative leadership, at least in OK, is sick of the politics and are not interested in the political ramifications of sticking it to the democrats/Obama because we are no longer certain that we will even have a country when the next election rolls around.  If we are playing politics and we KNOW the Senate will not pass this bill, why not make the "Boehner plan" a HUGE cutting bill?  Why not push through trillions upon trillions in cuts?  Take a chainsaw to this ridiculous federal budget.  Go big or go home.

The Boehner plan only guarantees a vote on the balanced budget amendment.  And we all know how much we can trust the guarantees of Congress...

The plan calls to reduce 1.8 trillion over 10 years, but we are increasing at a rate of 8 trillion a year, so this plan simply means that instead of increasing by 80 trillion over 10 years, we will increase just 78 trillion.

What we need are for our Republican leaders to just say "NO, we will NOT compromise." It is time to stand up for what is right, which is to live within the budget AND the bounds of the Constitution.

If you are cutting the spending that is causing us to run so close to the debt ceiling, why do you need to increase the debt ceiling?  Wouldn't it be wiser to just cut spending until it hurts?

The Republicans like to say how bad Obama's spending is, and indeed it is.  Under his administration, government has grown and spent at unprecedented levels. However, let's not forget who paved the way for him.  We overspent to a massive degree when Bush was in the White House, but I guess that was okay because he had an R next to his name.

They're saying that if nothing is done, the treasury would have to use incoming funds to pay the bills coming due, and that the money needing to go out is more than the money coming in.  I have an amazing idea.  I will put it in all caps so the idiots in Congress can read it easier:  CUT THE DIFFERENCE!!

If the president has to prioritize spending, let him be the one that decides not to pay Social Security.

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feel that far too often we Americans don’t want to take an active role in government as long as it doesn’t affect us directly. We have increasingly become a nation of people that could care less about legislation and how it could affect other people as long as it might benefit them. I do not feel that it is wise to blindly follow anyone, and that goes double for our elected leaders, especially those of the liberal persuasion who continually pit one group of Americans against another in the name of political gain. Our country is far from perfect, but at one time I believe that the virtues of honesty and integrity were much stronger than they are today. Whether we want to admit it or not our country was founded upon the Judeao Christian belief system. I thought it was very inappropriate when, while doing a story, the NBC network edited the phrase of “ONE NATION UNDER GOD” from the Pledge of Allegiance that children were reciting.

With all of the problems such as the national debt, crime, etc., that we are currently experiencing, all of us need to have a change of attitude and start to try to understand how it would be to walk in someone else’s shoes. I feel that the idea of America is greater than a group of people running to the public trough like a bunch of pigs when the slop is dumped into their feed trough. All of us have the responsibility to work towards a better and more civil society.

Recently I was impressed with the courage of a lady shopping at her local Wal-Mart who witnessed a trio of individuals stealing cases of beer from the store. By herself she confronted the individuals, and due in large part to her actions, the criminals was apprehended by the police. Granted the lady was taking a chance of personal injury, during an interview she said that she was tired of going to going to her local Wal-Mart and not feeling safe while shopping. She went on to say that if we want to take this country back it is our duty as citizens to do it.

I do not advocate that everyone take it upon ourselves to confront every lawbreaker when we see a crime being committed, but we can provide information to the proper authorities and make sure they act upon the information.  We Americans were never intended to sit back in a corner and simply accept what our elected leaders dictate to us; we must start putting more faith in ourselves and be willing to wear another person’s shoes.

I have often seen the cartoon where there are three monkeys sitting side by side; one with his hands covering his eyes, one covering his ears and the final one covering his mouth. While the cartoon may seem humorous, it is a sad fact that the actions of we Americans are not that much different than those of the monkeys. We Americans have been richly blessed with a standard of living that most of the rest of the world only dreams of. I believe that our prosperity was due to the efforts of the men and women who fought and won WW2 “more commonly known as America’s greatest generation”. Most of them lived through the great depression and knew what sacrifice was. Anyone who has ever lived through bad times has a better understanding of sound financial stewardship. Most of the Americans living today have made the bad assumption that tomorrow will be the same as yesterday and next week will be the same as today. Economics is just like the weather; today it can be calm, tomorrow a storm may fall out of the sky and destroy everything you own. Far too many of our people made the assumption that it was a natural right of Americans to have huge homes, cheap gas, and oodles of junk, as well as a government that could buy anything it wanted without giving a second thought to fiscal discipline. I have begun to get more pessimistic about the financial problems of our country. There are individuals such as Senator Tom Coburn that understand the dilemma facing our country, but for every person like senator Coburn there are numerous others that have to see the storm clouds and lack the courage and political will to make the hard sacrifices. I used to think that corrupt politicians were the problem, but I have found that they are merely a symptom of a much bigger problem. I have often heard voters make the comment that many of the programs of the government have always been done that way and they always expect them to continue even if they are ineffective or corrupt. Many politicians have abused their power to satisfy groups with sweetheart deals funded with taxpayer money. If a politician does try to do the right thing the voters will simply vote him out for someone who promises them what they want to hear. The decades of these practices are on the verge of catching up with us. Granted there is a lot of talk being done about the deficit but I do not see the political courage to solve our problem. By the way the difference between an optimist and pessimist - usually the pessimist has more and better information.

I have often heard the old saying that we humans never learn from history and we have a bad habit of repeating the same old mistakes time and time again. I have written several columns about the seriousness of the financial fallout that seems destined to happen to our country. Throughout history other peoples have had to endure the consequences of their poor handling of their economic systems. Before their empire fell, the ancient Romans devalued their Denarius silver coin by 50%, history shows time and time again that when a currency is destroyed it can have disastrous effects upon a country or society. A couple of recent examples include Zimbabwe and Argentina.

I have found that most people take for granted the importance of currency, it is a means to transact business without having to barter goods with someone who does not have the items that we need. Currency is also a medium for us to trade our time for something of value and to have that savings to purchase the things we need at our convenience. For the people that held Zimbabwe dollars, they saw their entire savings wiped out when it was devalued to nothing and the government discontinued its use. In the case of Argentina, it was one of the most progressive and modern countries in South America their currency was devalued to one fourth of it’s value, overnight the citizens of that country saw all of their necessities costing them four times what it previously did. In addition, the people of Argentina experienced bank closings and huge unemployment numbers.

I recently read about similar problems in the nation of Belarus, just recently the Belarusian ruble was devalued by 56%. It now takes three times the rubles to buy food and clothing as it did before the ruble was devalued. The citizens of that country are spending their money as fast as they can while it still has some value. According to the report many store shelves are bare, even toilet paper has been in short supply.

We Americans need to understand that just printing more money will not insulate us from economic storms. I sincerely hope that we don’t experience the hardships that the people of Zimbabwe, Argentina and Belarus have and are experiencing. Many people in our country don’t want to worry about issues like the economy, they feel that for some reason we in America are completely immune to such problems. But if we are to suffer the shortage of things such as toilet paper, maybe we can use some of the newly printed money for that purpose.