The American currency…our once powerful dollar…is now worth pennies of its former value and the erosion shows little sign of abatement as gold and silver continue their march toward record per ounce prices.

Under the new Federal Budget, each American man, woman, boy and girl will be saddled with 4,000,000 pennies of personal and, although owed to the IRS, uncollectable debt ($40,000 each). That is $200,000 for a family of four! Does this make cents to you?

Our Mount Everest of debt has now empowered and installed Communist China and a handful of other anti-democracy nations as the current economic caretakers and ultimate beneficiaries of your and my labor, creativity and ingenuity for as far as we can see into the future. I don’t recall signing-on to work for Mao’s legacy.

Household net worth is now about 52 pennies per dollar of what it was a scant five years ago. Indeed, this is chump change we can believe and the reality of our now everyday existence. Projections of future declines seem to indicate that, if left unchecked, the Federal government, yours and mine, will drive our worth to below 50 pennies of what it used to be.

The ability of small business owners and entrepreneurs to access the pennies they need to build, sustain and grow their business and thus, create jobs has dried up with only the most pristine and perfect borrowers being granted access to capital…except, of course, the Federal Government who continues to borrow from us.

The fastest growing employer in today’s economy is government. Employees of the government are seeing their wages growing at a record pace. The best paying jobs are no longer in the private sector but the government.

The budget submitted by President Barack Obama will catapult our debt into the farthest reaches of the stratosphere to numbers so beyond the pale that typical American life as we know it may be changed for the worse for as much as two generations into the future.

Pinching pennies is our new reality and the remaining few quarters, dimes, nickels and Lincoln pennies are even themselves in the crosshairs of an over-arching, out of control bureaucracy and answer-to-no-one government.

This is truly “change” we can believe. More importantly it is change we can change. Please be reminded by iVoteAmerica that the next Presidential election is 1,003 days from today and the midterms are in November, 2010…let’s hold on to what copper we have left until then.

There’s a song, “Smooth Operator”, sung by the incomparable Sade that kept running through my head as I listened to Barack Obama conduct an hour-long press conference Tuesday evening.

At the very end, he referred to the American government and economy as “a big ocean liner” that doesn’t turn around swiftly and the last image that passed through my mind was that of the Titanic sinking beneath the waves of the chill Atlantic.

One is reminded why the crowds loved him as he campaigned for the presidency, their hearts beating as one, seeing before them the man who would bring “change” when elected.

Delivering on Promised “Change”

He has brought change. His proposed budget would triple the national debt. According to the Congressional Budget Office, Obama’s proposed budget would generate deficits averaging almost $1 trillion a year in red ink over 2010-2019. Moreover, the deficit would never go below 4% of the size of the economy, which an Associated Press report noted were “figures that economists agree are unsustainable” The figure cited was $9.3 trillion over the next decade, “more than four times the deficits of Republican George W. Bush’s presidency.”

None of this seemed to perturb Obama.

The Democrat Euphemism – Invest

What was most noticeable, if one was actually paying attention to the substance of what he was saying, was the repeated use of the word “invest”. Democrats never “spend” money, they “invest” it.

Obama wants to “invest” lots and lots and lots of money, most of which will have to be borrowed. He is focused on “long term growth” scanning the far horizon from the bridge of the USS Obama, plowing through a dark night of financial distress.

He offered a host of extremely bad ideas in order to get to the next shore. The Democrat Congress has set its face against any growth in the actual energy sources upon which the nation depends for electricity and for transportation.

There will be no exploration and drilling for oil and natural gas off the nearly 85% of the continental shelf where huge amounts are believed to exist. There will be no drilling in ANWR. There will be no new leases in states known to be sitting atop huge untapped reserves. As for the coal which provides just over 50% of all our electricity, the entire industry has been targeted for destruction by the President.

The notion that “clean” or “renewable” energy (solar and wind) will ever provide more than the 1% of electricity it presently does is a pipedream. That, however, is Obama’s only “solution.”

Imposing a “cap-and-trade” program of emissions credits on all energy use would chase major industries from the nation while doing nothing to end a global warming that is not happening.

There was much talk of reforming healthcare. A more competitive healthcare system would undoubtedly reduce costs, but that is not Obama’s vision, nor does he acknowledge that healthcare costs are rising in response to an aging American population, living longer lives, requiring more care.

He spoke of investing in education. We spend more per pupil in America than any other nation on Earth and we have one of the most failed educational systems in the world. Eliminating the Department of Education and one-size-fits-all programs would go far to improve education. Loosening the grip of the teacher’s unions would liberate the system entirely.

In point of fact, Obama, the smooth operator, just signed a “stimulus” bill with 9,000 earmarks that is not likely to achieve any real stimulus any time soon. His budget simply exacerbates the Democrat spending frenzy going on in Washington, D.C.

Leaving Port on the USS Obama with Captain Smooth at the Helm

So, here we all are, sailing along on the USS Obama. The captain looks and sounds like he knows what he’s doing, but he is either clueless or deliberately plotting a course for the biggest ice berg he can find.

It’s time for the band to start playing “Nearer My God to Thee”.

Paul is one of the only Republicans to tongue thrash both Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernanke over the Federal Reserves contributions to the decline in the value of the dollar against international currencies and he comes as close as anyone dare come to blaming the Fed for the mortgage crisis by making money too cheap and available to people who couldn’t afford to borrow it.

Facts, Staring us in the Face

With unemployment now on the rise and the Federal Reserve running out of idea, options and money solutions, Ron Paul is looking like he has been reading a proverbial crystal ball. His analysis and his statements on our policies both foreign and domestic seem to be true as they play themselves out right before our eyes.

Ron Paul has literally stated that we are going bankrupt as a nation.

He has literally stated that our foreign policies and domestic well-being are inextricably tied together and that because there has been no constitutional “declaration of war” by Congress as a body that Bush’s war(s) are not only a violation of the Constitution but a threat to our economic security.

The Media Spin on Ron

That Ron Paul is cast by the left leaning, mainstream media as unelectable is probably true. But when they cast him as a kind of crazed, militant, nut-case (our words) by the way they treat him, talk to him and snicker about him, they do so in ignorance. Paul is a constitutionalist and when it comes to the letter of the document, he is right on.

To be sure Paul has a militant following and a huge number of Gen X and Gen Y love him as well. He is also adored by a large number of baby-boomers, making him one of the few candidates to have such a cross-sectional generational following.

The problem America has with Ron Paul is that in order for us to understand him we must first listen to him with “eyes wide shut.” Dr. Paul is decided not cool, except to his followers. In fact, he’s a bit nerdy. But pull up a Ron Paul YouTube video, close your eyes and just listen.

Go head, pull up the YouTube videos featuring Paul and listen for 5 minutes…eyes wide shut.

His positions have to be thought through…one at a time. Ron Paul is not a good (as in slick, polished and equipped with one line sound bites) politician. In the sense of the MTV brand politician, he’s actually a bore.

Has Ron Paul been Right all Along?

But is Ron Paul right? Is he right, first and foremost, about the Constitution? After all, that’s his baby. iVoteAmerica thinks his constitutional interpretations are correct. If Ron Paul is right what do his positions mean to us and America?

Mr. Paul is uncompromising in his positions and unyielding in his staunch defense of pure constitutional government. To be more accurate, Ron Paul insists that the country, especially the three branches make its decisions based upon a pure, face value interpretation of the constitution. In such matters as the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, Paul’s position is simply that the United States cannot constitutionally go to war with a “Declaration of War” vote in Congress. Is he right or is he wrong? We looked and here’s what Article One, Section Eight says with respect to going to war:

To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;

To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;

During one of the 2008 Republican debates he asked his colleagues why they were no longer holding on to Republican principles such as small government, military restraint, fiscal conservatism and a balanced budget. He question was ignored.

Here are ten reasons Ron Paul should be elected by means of write-in candidacy by the American people.

The Big Ten Reasons

Reason 1. Ron Paul can be trusted. Everyone who listens to him knows immediately that he is not a flip-flopper. His core value positions today were his positions yesterday and they will be his positions tomorrow.

Reason 2. Ron Paul is a constitutionalist. That’s his platform. Mr. Paul doesn’t seem to come across as an egotistical politician lusting for power over people and preeminence for himself. In this sense, he is different.

Reason 3. Ron Paul understands the role of government in American life. He’s an old line Republican with Libertarian roots who thinks the Federal government should back-off and get off the backs of the American people. In this sense, he’s Reagan-like.

Reason 4. Ron Paul will appoint constitutionalist judges to the Federal bench. The first and most fundamental watershed for Ron Paul on any issue to ask and answer the question, “what does the constitution say?” Therefore, his first question to a candidate for Federal Court is “what’s your view of the roll of the constitution with respect to your judicial philosophy and actions?”

Reason 5. Ron Paul understands why the Middle East opinion of the U.S. among some Muslims is extreme. When Paul first mentioned that one of the reason extremists are so motivated is because of the historical involvement of the US in the middle east, he was chided and derided for blaming America. But is he right…have we done anything wrong…could we have done anything different…what is the view of America through the eyes of middle easterners?

Reason 6. Ron Paul will only take America to war constitutionally, with a declaration. On this issue there is no flexibility with Ron Paul. He doesn’t believe in “resolutions” that empower the President to toy around with the military in foreign countries. He’s black and white in his insistence that only Congress has the authority to send us to war and only “if” and “with” an affirmative “declaration of war.”

Reason 7. Ron Paul will remove the troops from Iraq and allow Iraq to solve its political, economic and social problems with scant financial or philosophical meddling by the United States. Ron is unbending on this issue. We are, in his view, engaged in war(s) that violate the constitution because there has been no formal declaration by congress. Absence the “declaration” Paul says we get out of Afghanistan and Iraq.

Reason 8. Ron Paul will keep the government out of State’s rights issues and allow people to run local government the way the Founders intended. Ron Paul’s position on many things is to allow the States to take positions on many things. He’s a State’s rights guy. This stems from his belief that the Federal Government doesn’t have all the rights they claim for themselves.

Reason 9. Ron Paul, if elected, would seek to shrink government’s paternal and self-imposed oversight of personal rights, allowing people to determine what is right and wrong for themselves and within their communities. His position is that individual choice, personal economic freedom, education and a host of other issues reside with individuals and not ultimately with our State or the Federal governments.

Reason 10. Ron Paul loves America and he serves out of the interests of Americans, not for power, greed or self-enrichment. When one studies Ron Paul, there is a sense of his humility. Truly, there doesn’t seem to be much ego presence or sense of political entitlement to power as we often see with Washington insiders. It’s hard to envision Ron Paul working a room at a Washington social gathering or cocktail party made up of lobbyists, power brokers and professional politicians…it’s just not him.

Based upon all of this, iVoteAmerica asks, should Ron Paul be considered by voters as a valid write-in candidate for President of the United States?