Monday, March 12, 2012

Congressional Update

Hi All,

This week we are in recess and it's the majority of public schools' spring break so we are jam packed with tours non-stop this week so I felt this would be a good time to catch everyone up on what has been going on in terms of current events since nothing new is happening.

To start President Obama has decided to commission the construction of a $750,000 soccer field in Guantanamo Bay for the terrorist inmates we have imprisoned there. And here's where I express my feelings on the matter....this is absolutely ridiculous. Why should we spend almost a million dollars on aiding the people who have attacked this country instead of spending some money to aid the victims of the recent natural disasters throughout the south and midwest? Why should we waste money, that we don't have, so that terrorists can enjoy prison? The solution for this is in the making right now, it's called the NO FIELD Act, and basically this is going to stop the construction of the soccer field and cut $750,000 from the military budget. Keep in mind, before we declared war in the middle east our military budget was miniscule compared to what it is now. This is for the simple reason that there was 2/3 the amount of military personnel and we were not involved in an type of foreign conflict so the amount we spent on fuel, ammunition, etc was significantly lower. In my opinion the NO FIELD Act should be passed through as a way to remind President Obama of the checks and balances guaranteed in the US Constitution and move on our way to cutting federal spending so that we can work on getting out of this deficit.

This past thursday House Democrats and Republicans FINALLY played nice together and passed a package of bills that will make it easier for small businesses to raise capital so that they may increase their revenue and hire more employees. These bills would also remove SEC restrictions that prevent small businesses from advertising to solicit investors. The fact that this passed with such a high majority in the house on both sides (republican and democrat) really speaks to how efficient the bill is going to be.

In recent foreign affairs news there has been an ongoing conflict between Israel and Iran and their nuclear programs. British Prime Minister David Cameron spoke at a press conference explaining what he felt should take place, which in a nutshell is to attack them ruthlessly before they have a chance to bomb Israel. This is the part where I rant on why that is a dumb idea and what we should do in terms of foreign policy right now.... if we attack Iran right now we will disrupt oil production for 2/3 of the world even though we do not receive oil from them. If we corrupt the Iranian oil fields gas prices all around the world will rise significantly especially in the United States. Once oil rises the price of goods from other countries will also rise and if other countries are aware of something like this being caused by us we might actually start another war. Though I am not qualified to give an expert opinion on foreign policy nor do I feel that what I am about to say is entirely accurate but it is how I feel from what I do understand...this is where the secretary of state Hillary Clinton needs to come in handy and be a peaceful ambassador to both countries. At a time such as this we can not afford to allow ourselves to become involved in foreign conflict when we have relations with both countries. In my opinion it will diminish the allied relationships that we have with both nations and will deplete our economy even more as we are trying to build it back up. Though I'm not sure we can stop Iran and Israel from bombing each other we as a country need to at least figure out a peaceful resolution for them.

The final topic I want to go over is what is in the future for our oil dependency. For a while the Keystone Pipeline XL bill has been floating around the House of Representatives and since it has received so much negative feedback from "green energy enthusiasts" there has been much discussion of sue of fracking and shale oil as a form of natural gas to loosen our dependency on foreign oil, become a "green" society, and create the jobs to stimulate our economy. I feel that is Keystone is not going to get the support it needs then shale oil is a must.

If anyone of you would like to personally talk about any of these topics in a deeper discussion or have any topics that you would like to talk about or want me to research please feel free to contact me at (352) 267-4254 to do so. Until next time...

Thank You and God Bless,

Gage Nicholas

4 comments:

  1. Gage, I agree that we shouldn't give a damn thing to terrorist prisoners other than basic human necessities. And in trimming the budget I understand that my beloved military must also take cuts. But I don't agree with the recent action of no longer giving our soldiers that are deployed their "hazard duty pay" which is a little extra every paycheck due to the fact that they are located in areas in which they could potentially be injured or killed. What are your thoughts and the congressmans?

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  2. Well Luke you should know by now that I am not allowed to speak on the congressman's behalf. However, I personally feel that we should keep the hazard duty pay, if there is anything the we owe most to our soldiers its a decent paycheck, but we have a president and senate majority that just wants to "spend spend spend" so in return in an attempt to balance our non existent federal budget we need to cut. These new jobs bills will hopefully give back to the economy more so that in the future we won't have to cut our soldiers pay.

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  3. Gage -- I disagree with your verdict on Keystone -- I think that there is enough bipartisan support to pass it through both chambers, and enough smarts in the Whitehouse to not fight too hard. Both Democratic moderates and most Republicans want it; holds true in the Senate. Harry Reid is quietly building support for a compromise measure... my prediction is probably not much till May or June... but in the end it will pass... and will not be vetoed.

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  4. Dr. Anderson I wish it would pass, but in the House it is not getting enough support. Its been brought up and shut down multiple times and is not going anywhere.

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