Day119 Sunday 12/26/10

ran 3.5 miles
Week seventeen of running against Obama comes to a close today. I ran 18.7 miles this week equaling a grand total of 292.8 miles. My daily average is 2.46 miles per day. I still have some catching up to do. The daily average I need to sustain to achieve my goal of running 2080 miles by November 6, 2012 is 2.62 miles per day.

I hope everyone had a merry Christmas and enjoyed their holiday time with friends and family. As wonderful as Christmas is it always seems to end with a quiet, internal sigh of relief. Children want to abandon their aunts and uncles for the excitement of the new toys they unwrapped, teenagers want to rush to the mall and various stores they received gift cards from, adults embrace the happiness of their sons, daughters, nieces and nephews, and reflect back to when they were that age, and grandparents sit back and watch it all, appreciating that everyone sitting around the tree and every moment that is happening began with them; it is the same feeling of pride and honor their grandparents had when they were only small children.

I hate to dabble into politics on the day after Christmas, when we are all trying to relax, fit in some leftovers, and not face adding up credit card bills or balancing the checkbook, but I just wanted to point out one small thing. Christmas, from the standpoint of an American tradition, is an absolutely beautiful and wonderful annual event from so many different points of view. Christmas is as American as apple pie, as are hundreds of other national traditions. The parallel I’m trying lay side by side is that, by some definition, conservatism is a desire to maintain tradition and liberalism is a desire to change tradition. I am not suggesting that American politics are ultimately a struggle to preserve Christmas as it stands in America, but this contrast is a simple, important fact that can be applied to our nation in various formats.

I challenge anyone who reads this post to really examine what it is you are after concerning your interpretation of America. What do you like or dislike about the state of our nation? And perhaps as a New Year’s resolution find some way to fight for something in this country that you feel is threatened or to strive to change something about this country that you feel is wrong.

1,787.2 miles to go.

Day118 Saturday 12/25/10

ran 1.1 miles
Merry Christmas!!! No politics today. Christmas gifts are under the tree, family and friends are in town, and the smell of turkey and roast, and green bean casserole, among a dozen other dishes and desserts, are in the air. Merry Christmas!

1,790.7 miles to go.

Day117 Friday 12/24/10

ran 2.6 miles

• Indiana was the nineteenth state to join the union on December 11, 1816, one year before Mississippi and four years after Louisiana.

• Population, as of 2009, is 6,423,113.

• Senators are Evan Bayh (D) and Richard Lugar (R).

• Representatives are Dan Burton (R), Steve Buyer (R), Andre Carson (D), Joe Donnelly (D), Brad Ellsworth (D), Baron Hill (D), Mike Pence (R), Mark Souder (R), and Peter Viclosky (D).

• Indiana has eleven electoral votes. Historically, the state has voted red throughout its history, and in modern times Indiana is the most Republican state in the Midwest. Since 1940, the sate has only voted blue in 1964 (Lyndon Johnson winning by a landslide over Barry Goldwater) and in 2008 (Barack Obama won over McCain 50% to 49%, the third closest race of the election next to Missouri and North Carolina). An interesting fact is that in 1992 and 1996, Indiana stood as an island of red with its borders not touching one single Republican-voting state.

I’m going to cut this post short for the holiday season and I wish you a very merry Christmas Eve spent with friends and family. Hopefully the Christmas shopping is done and you can relax. Have a wonderful, blessed and merry Christmas!!!

1,791.8 miles to go.

Day116 Thursday 12/23/10

ran 2.6 miles

• Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Approval rating shows that 26% of American voters strongly approve of Barack Obama’s performance as president while 39% strongly disapprove, giving Barack Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of –13, compared to –17 on this day last week.

• Overall, 47% of voters say they at least somewhat approve of Obama’s performance and 51% disapprove.

• Only 23% of American voters generally believe the country is heading in the right direction. Regarding the official halt of the $1.2 trillion Omnibus spending bill, Howard Rich said, “It has been said that mindless growth is the ideology of the cancer cell. Now that America has been ‘fiscally diagnosed’, let’s hope a new crop of leaders has the courage to pursue a cure---not merely treat the symptoms of the disease.”

• Fifty-nine percent of American voters believe the most important objective of government is to protect individual rights and freedom. Twenty-four percent feel government’s priority is to ensure fairness and social justice. Ten percent believe government’s purpose is to manage the economy.

The first week in January will begin a new Congress. Those elected on November 2, 2010 will be sworn in and hopefully legislate on the ideas they campaigned on, which were ideas we voted them into office for to stop, or at least slow down, the liberal ideas that have awoken unmeasurable levels of frustration among American people.

This Lame Duck session has been a circus of seeing how many acts could be crammed into the ring before the new Congress began. The Lame Duck session is also known as “Zombie Congress” and it is called that for a reason. There were more deals struck and important bills signed and rejected, it seems, in the last month than the last two years…during a time period known as the “Zombie Congress”. All of the politicians who were voted out have nearly two months to perform a political kamikaze before cleaning their desks out because they have no consequence to their actions. While those who will be replacing them have to sit with their hands tied behind their backs for two months as they are forced to accept legislation they had no say in, even though they were elected before all of these current bills were passed. The Lame Duck Zombie Congress could use some serious revision regarding the excessive amount of time it takes for those elected to get into office and those voted out to pack their things.

1,794.4 miles to go.

Day115 Wednesday 12/22/10

ran 2.6 miles
Communism, by definition, is a theory or system of social organization based on the holding of all property in common, actual ownership being ascribed to the community as a whole or to the state; a system of social organization in which all economic and social activity is controlled by a totalitarian state dominated by a single and self-perpetuating political party.

“One of the striking differences between Fascism and Communism is this: Fascism has inspired no great work of art.... No doubt, Fascism is too vile and scurrilous an ideology to produce those charities of the imagination, which are essential to literate art. Communism, even when it has gone venomous, is a mythology of the human future, a vision of human possibility rich in moral demand. Fascism is the ultimate code of the hoodlum; Communism fails because it would seek to impose upon the fragile plurality of human nature and conduct an artificial ideal of self-denial and human purpose. Fascism tyrannizes through contempt of man; Communism tyrannizes by exalting man above that sphere of private error, private ambition, and private love, which we call freedom.”

George Steiner

My mind is no calibrated political instrument and I have no qualifications or accolades to claim a right to credibility when I voice my opinions, but I do firmly believe there are many others like me, who feel the same way I do, that something good in America is gone or that something bad is coming. But we can’t seem to put our collective finger on it exactly.

With that being said, I’d like to explain one of the primary reasons I am running all of these miles and writing all of these words. There are many who argue that America is on a path towards Socialism. Socialism is communism and communism is progressivism. Communism and Socialism are easy to begin to understand just by looking at either of the two words as they stand. But now that “Progressive” has become the new acceptable nomenclature for Communistic ideas, it is easy to overlook and dismiss the tenets of Progressives.

No thriving country would ever deliberately choose to eliminate their functioning political and economic system only to replace it with Communism. Communism is an absolute last resort used by a political party when they give up because too much money has been spent and too much disorder has been left to its own devices and, finally, there are simply no more ideas to keep afloat the good and genuine system that once worked because it has become far too corrupted.

I believe America is nearing the edge of a tall cliff and it is being backed to its end by a combination of politicians run-a-muck and people who sit idly by watching it happen. This country was founded on the blood and lives of a Revolution by people who were smothered by the gravity of their government. All they wanted was to be left alone and to live their lives. The government is presently interfering with our lives more and more to a point that simply complaining about the problems in our country behind the closed doors of family and friends will no longer cut it.

Being politically correct was a pleasant, respectful measure at one time. Though I would have simply named the act of treating others respectfully with human dignity and kindness, without injury to their beliefs, ways or race, something more like “Inherent human sensitivity”, political correctness has become a tool to pin down anyone who gives even the slightest hint of offending any other person, entity, race, or a thousand other things.

This is a politically correct statement: America should meet the needs of every one of its inhabitants, whether long time citizens or illegal aliens, whether great contributors to society or disadvantaged or unfortunate members of society who cannot contribute, regardless of what it costs it is the governments obligation to provide everyone with equal means.

This is a similar statement, said practically, un-politically correct and with real honesty, with inherent human sensitivity, so to speak, which is often tough but effective: America is a nation that was built with hard work, dedication and unity. The government is here to help you as much as possible without having you gain ultimate dependence upon it. You get out of America exactly what you put into it, and if you choose to put little or nothing into it then your government will give you little or nothing, contingent on your good or bad circumstances and abilities and disabilities.

1,797.0 miles to go.

Day114 Tuesday 12/21/10

ran 3.7 miles
On this day in history, American patriot Robert Barnwell was born in Beaufort, South Carolina in 1761. Barnwell resiliently and boldly served in each step of America’s revolution and it’s success.

At age sixteen, he joined the Patriot militia as a private. During the Battle of Matthew’s Plantation on St. John’s Island in June of 1779, his supplies were taken and he was left for dead on the battlefield. Discovered and brought back to health by a stranger and his family, Barnwell rejoined the militia as a lieutenant the following spring. He was soon taken prisoner by the British during the siege of Charleston in May of 1780. Barnwell spent the next thirteen months imprisoned on the ship “Pack Horse”. Relentless, after his release he once again rejoined the Patriot militia, eventually reaching the rank of a lieutenant colonel by the end of America’s war for independence.

Barnwell’s great bravery and resilience paved his path to becoming a member of the South Carolina House of Representatives in 1787, and then a delegate to the Continental Congress from 1788 to 1789. In 1788, he also served as a member of the South Carolina convention that ratified the United States Constitution. He served in the second U.S. Congress as a member of the House of Representatives from 1791 to 1793. Robert Barnwell continued to serve America in various political seats until 1806. He died at the young age of fifty-two on October 24, 1814.

Robert Barnwell was one of the old iron links forged from the original American spirit, which many citizens of this great nation have lost sight of and appreciation for. What he risked his life to fight for, like so many others of that time, was the simple opportunity to reach his own full potential, free from the tyranny of a government who wanted nothing more of him than to pay exorbitant taxes and to remain silent.

That sounds very familiar, 234 years later. Somewhere along the way America, like a young man seduced by temptation, greed and vice, lost sight of what was truly important and assumed a role all but familiar to what it was intended to be. It is time for the prodigal son to come home to Washington and make things right.

1,799.6 miles to go.

Day113 Monday 12/20/10

ran 2.6 miles
Barack Obama has had a turbulent and accordingly speculative year of criticism from an American public majority that does not want his “Change”. While much news media has proven they support his sensationalized ideas of arguable progress, American voters feel otherwise and have shown it. Between the deafening volumes of Tea party organizations across the country who long for the wisdom of their American Constitution and the clear risk that this great nation may be on the precipice of detrimental change and decades of reconstruction towards cleaning up the proverbial oil spill of crippling legislation seeped across America’s landscape in the form of liberal ideas and an unaccepted Congressional body, in general, it requires little common sense to see how dire it is right now to return to our Constitution and to embrace the original principles that got us to where we are.

“This is what change looks like,” Barack Obama proudly said upon the signing of his health care bill not so long ago. Numerous states are rushing to the courts arguing it is unconstitutional to force American citizens to pay for nationalized health care. I’m no Judge so it is not necessarily my place to judge, but I am an American citizen and our nation has been fighting communism, or progressive ideas, as they now call it, for a very long time, yet our government is socializing health care.

That is what “Change” looks like. Change. It is such an arbitrary word. It is as unoriginal, uncreative, and just arbitrary enough that I would be willing to bet that the Republican candidate that finally emerges, running against Barack Obama, will also run on the same campaign slogan, further rendering the progress of this country to the mentality of a schoolyard fight. Be that as it may, here are some of Barack Obama’s achievements, depending upon which side of the aisle you are on, for the past year:

January---Ted Kennedy, a long time Senator of Massachusetts passes away, leaving a vacated seat procured by one Scott Brown, a republican.
February---Unemployment at 9.7%.
March---Congress approval rating is at 22%.
April---Unemployment at 9.9%.
May---The ramifications of the failed blowout preventer on the Horizon wreak havoc on oil production in the Gulf of Mexico. An indefinite moratorium on drilling is established, leading to layoffs and furloughs across the southern coastal states.
June--- Barack Obam’s handling of the oil spill is polled and compared to George Bush’s handling of Hurricane Katrina.
July---The Obama administration deemed this time period the “Recovery Summer”.
August---Unemployment at 9.6%. Congress approval rating is at 24%.
September---In one of the year’s biggest upsets, Joe Miller, backed by Sarah Palin and the Tea party, defeated GOP Senator Lisa Murkowski in Alaska, adding her to a handful of incumbents that Americans were fed up with.
October---Campaigning for reelection, any senators or representatives who campaigned on health care reform were doing so by disassociating themselves from its being passed.
November---Unemployment at 9.8%. Conservatives reclaimed the majority in the House, diminished the majority in the Senate, and claimed an overwhelming amount of Governorships.
December---Obama likens Republicans to hostage-takers in a weak effort to save face for the bed he has made for himself and now has to sleep in.

1,803.3 miles to go.

Day112 Sunday 12/19/10

ran 3.2 miles
Today ends week sixteen of running against Obama. I am back in the streets running every single day again and the discomfort in my leg is hardly noticeable. I now face a deficit of miles, which will take a while to balance, but I am off to a good start. I ran 23.4 miles this week making a grand total of 274.1 miles run since August 30, 2010. My daily average is 2.45 miles run each day.

It is a long way to go until November 6, 2012, the day the forty-fifth president of the United States of America will be elected, or the day Barack Obama might be reelected, and I have many miles to go to contribute in doing the little I can to stop Barack Obama from being reelected, but I can honestly say I have never been more focused and determined in my entire life to protest, peacefully and intellectually, the principles and ideas of any one man or woman more relentlessly than the president of our nation, Barack Hussein Obama.

1,805.9 miles to go.

Day111 Saturday 12/18/10

ran 2.5 miles
President Barack Obama was quoted as being “Incredibly disappointed” today when Senate Republicans blocked a bill to grant certain illegal immigrants a chance to clench legal status.

The Dream Act failed to pass this morning. The measure was five votes short of the sixty needed to pass. It is actually quite amazing that this piece of legislation was not enacted, considering our Congress is in its advantageous Lame duck session, in which numbers are significantly more favorable now for liberal ideas than they will be in January when our newly elected officials are sworn in.

The Dream Act, in simple terms, is an opportunity for illegal aliens between the ages of twelve and thirty-five to earn amnesty and citizenship by enrolling in college or joining the military. This will give you all of the details of the proposed bill, but here is what I read between the lines:

First, this is a step, one of many to come in the next two years, towards legalizing and making voters out of the millions upon millions of illegal immigrants that we tolerate in America, fortifying an immense, untapped voting base for Democrats and their ideas. The second thought that comes to mind is this---once the illegal alien, between the age of twelve and thirty-five, files his paperwork, can we deport his parents back to the country they came from, or maybe naturalize them with the incredibly obvious contingency that they become classified and proud citizens of the United States of America? Third, in order to pull this off, it will require money…taxpayer money, which illegal immigrants do not pay. It is not naïve to assume that the majority of illegal aliens in this country more than likely do not have a college fund for their children or a nest egg for their futures. This legislation would fund, in the form of scholarships, educations for people in this country who are flagrantly breaking the law by simply being here. And our government wants to pay for these people to succeed when so many of us legally and proudly live in this country and work as hard as we can every day to succeed and provide for our families. I’m still paying off student loans and our president is proposing to fund illegal aliens to get a free ride?

For the amount of common sense that resonates in not passing this bill, it is still surprising that our liberally favored Senate ultimately said “No”. His counterparts did not even back this bill, at least enough of them to stop it. It is a sign of the times and the power of the people. Obama’s presidency has been the catalyst for the biggest awakening of concern in American voters in a long time.

1,809.1 miles to go.

Day110 Friday 12/17/10

ran 3.0 miles

• Illinois was the twenty-first state to join the union on December 3, 1818, one year before Alabama and one year after Mississippi.

• Population, as of 2009, is 12,910,409.

• Senators are Richard Durbin (D) and Mark Kirk (R).

• Representatives are Bobby Rush (D), Jesse Jackson (D), Daniel Lipinski (D), Luis Gutierrez (D), Mike Quigley (D), Peter Roskam (R), Danny Davis (D), Melissa Bean (D), Janice Schakowsky (D), Deborah Halvorson (D), Jerry Costello (D), Judy Biggert (R), Bill Foster (D), Timothy Johnson (R), Donald Manzullo (R), Phil Hare (D), Aaron Schock (R), and John Shimkus (R).

• Illinois has 21 electoral votes. Historically, the state has voted largely Republican from the Civil War through the 1920s. Through the Great Depression and World War II, Illinois voted blue. Between 1952 and 1988 the state voted red for eight out of ten presidential elections. And all the way up to Barack Obama’s presidential election, Illinois has voted for a Democrat in the last five elections.

Since Illinois is the topic of today’s post it is fitting to cover some information on our current president who came from Illinois. We are all aware of the controversies surrounding Barack Obama’s birth certificate and the millions of dollars he has exhausted in legal fees to maintain as much privacy as possible pertaining to his past, and how under-qualified he is to be a president of the United States of America, and how underwhelming of a job he is doing, but, just once more, lets take a look at the gristle on the bone of what Barack Obama’s achievements are.

Straight out of the “Biographical Directory of the United States Congress”, Barack Obama is a Senator from Illinois and 44th President of the United States; born in Honolulu, Hawaii, August 4, 1961; obtained early education in Jakarta, Indonesia, and Hawaii; continued education at Occidental College, Los Angeles, Calif.; received a B.A. in 1983 from Columbia University, New York City; worked as a community organizer in Chicago, Ill.; studied law at Harvard University, where he became the first African American president of the Harvard Law Review, and received J.D. in 1991; lecturer on constitutional law, University of Chicago; member, Illinois State senate 1997-2004; elected as a Democrat to the U.S. Senate in 2004, and served from January 3, 2005, to November 16, 2008, when he resigned from office, having been elected president; elected as the 44th President of the United States on November 4, 2008, and was inaugurated on January 20, 2009.

He has some impressive credentials and rare achievements few others will experience in their lives, but in terms of being the President of the United States of America, the greatest country on Earth, he falls short. First, the birth certificate fiasco was absolutely ridiculous. I don’t know anyone who would not simply show another person their birth certificate if they were asked to present it. Regardless of where our president was born, the simple fact that he was so reluctant to prove his origin speaks for itself. People do not behave the way he did when they have nothing to hide. Second, Barack Obama was not the first African-American president of the Harvard Law Review and nor is he the first African-American to reside as the President of the United States of America. I hope that within my lifetime I do get to witness a black man or woman sitting behind the desk in the Oval Office. I also hope that man or woman will have enough sense and integrity to not refer to his or herself as an “African-American” because an American is simply an American. I’d also like to see a woman elected as president in my lifetime because these are things that have never happened before and they would be signs of progress. If Barack Obama was conceived by a red man and a blue woman and he was born purple, why would he refer to himself as the first Red-American president when he is clearly as purple as an eggplant? It makes no sense. And, finally, a Community Planner and three years as a Senator? If I were a Community Planner with three years of experience in the army would I campaign for General? No!

America voted him in and America can vote him out.

1,811.6 miles to go.

Day109 Thursday 12/16/10

ran 3.4 miles

• Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Approval rating shows that 24% of American voters strongly approve of Barack Obama’s performance and 41% strongly disapprove, making an Approval Index rating of –17, compared to –14 on this day last week.

• Overall, 47% of voters at least somewhat approve of Barack Obama’s performance as president and 53% disapprove.

• Just 23% of American voters believe the country is heading in the right direction, the lowest total since Barack Obama took office.

• American voters, when asked if they would reelect someone who voted for the health care law, reflected poll results of 43% who felt they deserved reelection and 50% felt they did not. When asked about the reelections of those who voted for the taxpayer bailouts of General Motors and Chrysler, 36% believed that decision deserved reelection and 53% did not. Along the same trend, 41% of American voters feel their congressional representatives should be reelected if he or she voted for the stimulus plan, while 50% feel they should not be reelected.

It’s as though November 2 was completely ignored by our lawmakers. They did not perceive the statement we voters made, or they just ignored it. I posted a quote yesterday from one of the world’s most significant figures and greatest philosophers, Plato, and in four small words he spoke a voluminous truth that applies now to us just as it did to him and his society nearly 2,500 years ago.

“Your silence gives consent.”

Our politicians walk all over us and our president is not leading by example to change the corrupted protocol of Washington. His philosophy appears to be rooted in the idea that words, which are spoken at one time, mean nothing at another time. I agree, enthusiastically, with extending the Bush tax cuts, but some of the legislation attached to this bill contradicts progress. These decisions are all being crammed into a Senate and House that are about to undergo a significant shift in power once the candidates we voted for are sworn in and the incumbents we fired clean out their offices. The interim between those leaving Washington and those voted in is obviously too long and could use some revising.

Obama swore to let Bush tax cuts expire on every family earning more than $250,000. He lied to the people who voted for him and he appeased the populous that did not vote for him. Now, the Omnibus Appropriations plan, the next tarred feather in Barack Obama’s cap, will cost $8.3 billion and it includes 6,714 earmarks. Another thing Obama swore to end during his campaign was earmarks. But it’s not only Barack Obama; it is all of Washington. We just held a mid-term election that sent a pretty clear message that we did not want to spend any more tax-payer’s money on unnecessary enterprises such as earmarks. Completely ignoring this message, a month and a half later Washington acts as though the election and our message meant nothing.

“Your silence gives consent.”

1,814.6 miles to go.

Day108 Wednesday 12/15/10

ran 4.6 miles

• “What country is suffering from too much freedom of speech? Name it, is there one?”

Julian Assange

Assange makes a valid point and argues a debatable message, but he overlooks the unspoken understanding we all have as human beings that sometimes certain things are better left unmentioned, whether in the full scope of international political relations or within the walls of any given one single household. I would feel somewhat presumptuous to assert that the freedom of speech may have some understood boundaries and rules of etiquette, and I would not be surprised by the fact that you would probably agree with me, although neither one of us would want to have the responsibility of defining what exactly “Freedom of speech” allows or may be limited to. What Julian Assange did was completely disregard the human lack of desire for unwavering, honest confrontation, which many of us tend to shy away from.

• “George Bush’s economic policies still offend my conscience and they still offend yours.”

Barack Obama

I cannot say it enough, that Obama’s legislation on continuing the Bush tax cuts to everyone, including the highest earners in America, is a complete contradiction of what he campaigned on. This is an action that needs to be remembered in 2012 when another candidate is running against him. Halting the tax cuts at $250,000 was a tenet of his proverbial coronation into the White House. So, at least one more time, I find it necessary to point out that he reneged on a huge promise to the people who voted for him, he succumbed to the voice of the people who did not vote for him, and many that had, on November 2, and he has proven that his audacious promises are only as good as his word, which has just been officially compromised.

“Your silence gives consent.”

Plato

1,818.0 miles to go.

Day107 Tuesday 12/14/10

ran 3.5 miles
On this day in history, in 1799, George Washington, esteemed by fellow soldier and Virginian Henry Lee as “First in war, first in peace and first in the hearts of his countrymen” died at his estate in Mount Vernon, Virginia.

Washington was born in Westmoreland County, Virginia. Rising to eminence by his own means, his first job at age seventeen was as a surveyor in the Shenandoah Valley. In 1752, he joined the British army and served as a lieutenant in the French and Indian War. Once the war ended, Washington left the army and returned to his newly inherited estate, upon the death of his older brother, in Mount Vernon. He served in the colonial House of Burgesses and, like many of his peers, grew more and more frustrated with colonial rule by the British government. It was not long before he joined his co-revolutionaries in the Continental Congress.

In 1775, the Continental Congress unanimously chose Washington to command the new Continental Army. His successes in Trenton, Princeton and Yorktown were necessary victories for the emerging nation. In 1789, due to the leadership he displayed during the war, Washington was elected the first American president under the new United States Constitution.

After facing competing factions within his own administration and attempting to set unwritten rules of conduct for future presidents, leading by example, he chose to resign in 1797 after two terms. Washington did not want to appear monarchical and exhibited a precedent of transferring power peacefully and under a set limit of terms.

Washington contracted a severe respiratory infection on December 13 and died the next day. His last words were “Tis well”. The first president of the United States was eulogized by friends and political foes, alike, both at home and abroad. Even King George III of England referred to Washington as the “Greatest character of the age”. In his will, Washington referred to himself humbly as “George Washington, of Mount Vernon, a citizen of the United States”.

1,822.6 miles to go.

Day106 Monday 12/13/10

ran 3.2 miles
Today was a historic day in Barack Obama’s presidency and America’s future. Although our president will receive full credit for taking the initiative to extend the Bush tax cuts, it is important to realize that this decision would not have been made had American voters not shown up and spoken so loudly on November 2.

The Senate finally capitulated on the bill and here are some of the details about the compromise struck between apprehensive democrats and energized republicans:

• The bill will cost $858 billion, but, unlike Obama’s stimulus package, most of this spent money is instantly retained in the pockets of every working American. It is not Monopoly money and it rewards working Americans with money they earned and deserve to keep.

• The advancement of the bill required sixty votes and passed 83-15. Obviously, many Democrats who would rarely ever characteristically vote for a fiscal decision of this magnitude succumbed to its demands.

• The legislation will extend all expiring income-tax reductions through 2012. Barack Obama swore during his campaign that tax cuts for families earning $250,000 or more would expire. While it is a good decision for him to change his mind, it is also a great example of how unrealistic and radical his principles are. If he had committed to what he had promised his voters then America would have further spiraled down into more economic devastation and immense voter discontentment.

• The bill will cut payroll taxes by 2% during 2011 and extend unemployment benefits throughout 2011. Unemployment benefits are a sensitive issue surrounded by much debate. While many people take advantage of the system and grow accustomed to government handouts, losing all initiative to contribute to society, many others genuinely do need it for whatever amount of time it takes for them to get back on their feet.

• Companies will be allowed to write off 100% of their capital investments and dozens of other business tax breaks, which had expired in 2009, will be revived.

The bill has yet to be enacted but if it passes it will be a huge victory for American voters and conservative ideals. There are only a little more than two weeks left in December and if action is not taken by the end of the month then the Bush tax cuts will automatically expire, and that is highly unlikely to happen. Put a point on the board for American voters!

1,826.1 miles to go.