Hmmm....how do we pay the bill? Spend LESS or spend MORE and TAX 'em!

I was listening to Glenn Beck yesterday. I began listening to him during the campaign and election 2008, but have continued since. I am learning SO MUCH! Glenn calls himself "self-educated." He is a Believer, a HUGE homeschool advocate and a father of a special needs child. Check him out on his website, where you can listen to all of his talk radio spots if you can't find him on the radio or on Fox News at 5PM EST.

ANYWAY....I was listening yesterday....He was talking about the California economy. He compared California and Alaska. This made so much sense! So, I thought I would copy the transcript here for you to read for yourself. Makes sense. This was copied directly from his website.

GLENN: Can anybody see that this stuff doesn't work? I mean, do we need to look past California? Can we stop and just look at California for a second? The entire state is near a shutdown. Lawmakers now can't come to an agreement on how to patch the gigantic hole in the budget. They are one short, one vote short to pass the budget. The state is poised to start laying off as many as 20,000 government workers. So you have some concept, the hole is so big, if they fired all employees, all state employees, they would only have half of what they need. If they shut down all prisons, that's only an extra 25%. They would still be 25% short.
But what I don't understand is how come California doesn't use Obamanomics? I mean, I really don't understand how come California just doesn't spend more. If they would just spend more, they could create more jobs.

How is this being portrayed in the media? Quote: Ideological Republicans won't adapt and are blocking progress. Arnold Schwarzenegger is a Republican and he helped negotiate this budget. Ideological Republicans won't help it pass. Of course in reality they're just saying, you know, the Republicans, "We can't cure our obesity by another year at Pizza Hut. Maybe we should hit Saladworks. Let's give that a whirl."

Well, there are some cuts in the budget, $15 billion worth, not insignificant. If you haven't believed me before when I say this is a crisis that is growing out of control, what else do you think would get Californians to cut their budget by $15 billion? And the reason why they are having a hard time passing it is because there's $14 billion of "Temporary tax increases," and when I say temporary taxes, I say it with one of the biggest air quotes you've ever seen. In fact, my fingers hurt. My arms are tired from holding up those gigantic air quotes when I use "Temporary taxes." And that's not all. When you're billions of dollars in debt and you're facing a $30-billion plus shortfall, you just, what you have to do is make sure that you borrow an additional $11 billion. And while all of this is happening, there's another story that the media is spinning.

The headline? Here it is, quote: Falling oil prices put a chink in Sarah Palin's armor.
Now, I've looked at this and I searched the article. I haven't been able to find out what the chink is and I don't mean to say the attacks are wrong. I just can't tell what the attack is. The closest I think find to a chink in the article is this: One, since oil prices are down, she might not be able to travel as much which could hurt her national profile. But I don't think that's the attack. I mean, that was in there, that she's not going to be able to travel, so it's going to hurt her national -- is that the chink in her armor? You've got to be kidding me. I don't think she really cares about her travel plans. The other is the state will have less money because of oil prices, which could make her -- which could make her job tougher. Is that the big chink in her armor? Where did they get this idea? Sarah Palin. So it's a chink in her armor that she says, "Well, things are going to be a little tougher because oil prices are down." Are either of those a chink in the armor? They haven't even happened yet and one of them was proposed by Sarah Palin herself.

But buried in the story that, of course, would never be the headline is the lesson for everybody: The media, California, Washington, my house, your house, and here's the lesson. When oil prices were high and the state was bringing in a ton of cash, the State of Alaska didn't spend all the money on new unsustainable programs. They didn't, you know, try to give everybody on the planet free healthcare. They didn't search everywhere for places to dump money while claiming, you know, they were the wealthiest country on Earth, they are the wealthiest state in the land, this will go on forever. They didn't do it. What they did is they saved.

So what does this mean? It means that while Sarah Palin's job's going to get a little harder because they don't have all the money rolling in, they are better positioned to make it through the economic crisis than anyone else. From the article, remember this is the article about the chink in Palin's armor. "The state currently has $6.6 billion in its constitutional budget reserve fund." $6.6 billion in their constitutional budget reserve fund," that it could tap into. A few billion more is also available from other pockets said Juneau economist said Gregg Erickson, a long time Alaska budget watcher. Given Alaska's robust reserves, the state is well prepared to weather the next two years, says Erickson. As to how long reserves will last after that, there are too many factors involved to say for sure.

This is the article that the oil reserve, the oil money not rolling in as fast is providing a chink in Sarah Palin's armor! Now, I just want to make sure I understand this horrible problem that they face. They can unquestionably get through the next two years and for some undetermined amount of time after that, but California can't make it through the next two minutes. Oh, yeah, and I forgot to mention this. The State of Alaska has socked away $1 billion in an education fund for the next school year, and education officials say there's another billion that's expected to go into the fund this year. So their two years of survival includes putting away a billion dollars for future school expenses, and Sarah Palin's reaction to all of this, she's calling for another $268 million to be cut out of the budget. Reductions. She has at least $7.6 billion in a bank account that she could be spending on moose museums named after Sarah Palin. But she's still cutting the fat.

Now let's just compare this for a second. Alaska, I mean, does this remind anybody of the Three Little Pigs? Alaska has taken their financial situation seriously over a long period of time. They've been able to put themselves in a position that they can withstand a global economic storm. California was having brownouts and almost going bankrupt when times were good. Now they have basically no chance. They are the American consumer who bought too much house and now can't make the mortgage payments. Maybe Alaska, that greedy oil-rich Alaska (sarcasm) should bail California out.

Well, they are. Alaskans are sending their money to Washington and Washington is sending it to California! Alaska, the person who saved the money, made a hefty down payment on their house, didn't get an interest-only loan. Now perfectly positioned to handle a lost job or an unexpected medical bill, oh, that greedy Alaska with all their money. (sarcasm) Yeah, all that oil money that Alaska has that California could have. They have chosen in California not to tap their own resources, ignoring all the harm that they have done to their state and to our country. If they tap their own oil resources, they could pay for all of the budget problems that they have. They could cover the budget deficits if they tap their own oil resources. But they don't. They chose not to make money on their own resources. They chose to spend the money that they wanted to spend on things they didn't need but wanted to have. They decided that they were going to socialize their state and they're asking the only people who recognize it to ignore how they got into this mess and vote for an additional $25 billion in tax hikes and borrowing. They were asking the only people who are drawing a line in the sand and saying, "This is insanity!" They are blaming it on them and saying, "You just won't let us fix this problem."

That's like having the arsonist stand outside of the house and the arsonist pointing to the fireman saying, "He won't give me any more gasoline. I can stop this fire!"

Alaska tapped their natural resources. They didn't spend their cash when times were good. Now they can handle whatever comes their way and they're still putting more away and giving a share of oil revenues back to the people all at the same time. California won't even give their tax refunds back, money that Californians paid in taxes, overpaid, California's sending them an IOU. And yet the media and many Americans look at California as sophisticated and progressive and smart, and Sarah Palin, well, she's crazy. She's stupid. She doesn't know what she's doing. Alaskans? They're just, they're moose people. You know they're killing all the wolves now, and did you hear? Their governor had a bad interview with Katie Couric. I mean, who can't handle Katie Couric? (sarcasm)

When you really think about it, is there any wonder how we got into the middle of this mess? Is there any outrage, is there any outrage that states who played by the rules, states that are made fun of, states who lived within their means are now being forced to pay for the states that could cripple us all, pay for the states that wanted to live their own way. They didn't even want to really help with national defense. "Oh, you can't have -- I'm sorry, you can't have that recruiting office here. I'm sorry. You can't have any ROTC on campuses. I'm sorry, we're not going to obey that federal law. No, this is a sanctuary city."

Why should I spend a single dollar on tax money? Why should I send my taxes to Washington so they can go and be sent to California? Why? Why? California, you want to fix your problem, you find ways to make money. By the way, there are other ways -- and I know this is hard for you to comprehend -- there are other ways for you to make money other than just taxing the bat snot out of people. Because you know what happens there? What's going to happen to Portland, Oregon? What's going to happen in Oregon? They are raising the taxes on beer manufacturing. Well, why are the people making these microbreweries in Oregon? Because they had the lowest taxes in the country! So when you raise the taxes, what is it, like 1900%? When you raise the taxes on these microbreweries by 1900%, do you think maybe they might go, "You know what? This no longer is a good state for us because we have to pay 1900% higher taxes."

There's other ways, California, to make money and that is encourage businesses to move into your state, not move out. Use your own natural resources. I know, I know you don't want to go to the beach and look at those oil rigs. I know it's tough, but sometimes you have to do the tough thing because I'm getting sick of carrying your water.

Father God, help this country! Have mercy on us, Lord! Give us a spirit of wisdom and discernment. Lord, I pray "Your people will humble themselves and pray."