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Being a student of history is mostly an enjoyable discipline.

However, as any student knows, one’s love for history can lead to confrontations with figures whose stature and words haunt the violators of the simple precepts that created America.

For some time I have wondered what Benjamin Franklin’s advice would be if he could appear before Congress today? Or, for that matter, the advice of Jefferson or any of the founding fathers.

Franklin’s book, The Way to Wealth, might serve as a blueprint for all Americans, but especially our esteemed but misguided leaders in Washington. I have secretly wished the book to be required monthly reading for all politicians.

Ben’s book is filled with a litany of anecdotal principles for the creation and maintenance of wealth. The precepts read like wise proverbs and sound akin to the advice given us by our fathers. When Benjamin’s words are read or recited they ring with tempered, penetrating and undeniable truth.

I’m saddened, however, that Washington is filled with ears that cannot hear and minds that cannot grasp the magnitude of our departure from the most basic principles of economics such as these set forth by Benjamin Franklin:

Beware of little expenses; a small leak will sink a great ship…Tis easier to suppress the first desire than to satisfy all that follow it…Pride that dines on vanity sups on contempt…Rather go to bed supperless than rise in debt…Keep the shop, and thy shop will keep thee…Not to oversee workmen is to leave them your purse open.

There is much more within Franklin’s lines of wisdom such as “A penny saved is a penny earned” and one of my favorites is,

Prudent economy; that careful management of anything valuable which expends nothing unnecessarily, and applies what is used to a profitable purpose; thrift; — opposed to extravagance.

History is an excellent tutor and its message can be the chastisement a nation like ours needs to return it to its former state of discipline.

iVoteAmerica encourages you to secure this old book for yourself with additional copies for your representatives.

Post by Alan Caruba

Syndicated from Facts Not Fantasy

I have this theory that every so often governments go insane. Usually they have someone who is already demented heading up the government, but it takes a majority of the elected body to enact crazy laws and it takes the government apparatchiks to engineer the systemic failures, the wars, and the crazed rush off the cliff.

The election of 2008 is a splendid example of this. The majority of voters elected a man with the thinnest possible resume for the job of President. Indeed, the man has refused to release his birth records to reassure voters he met the minimum, Constitutional standards for the job. The man, however, was a skilled orator, able to give voice to the TelePrompter speeches written for him by master manipulators.

Promising “change”, promising a government free of “lobbyists”, promising “transparency”, and generally promising a new dawn of enlightened government, Barack Obama and his majority in Congress arrived on January 20, 2009 and promptly began to bankrupt the nation, deprive Americans of access to its vast energy resources, and seek to impose an insane law predicated on the belief that carbon dioxide, vital to all life on Earth, was a “pollutant” that had to be reduced and, of course, heavily taxed.
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Tis the season!

Despite the fact that some polls indicate the American public is opposed to a bailout or loan program for the American automakers, the three wise men from Chrysler, General Motors and Ford have made their second trek to Washington seeking to worship Washington’s latest messianic mess, corporate bailout.

These three wise men came from afar…DETROIT. Wishing to appear more humble they chose to travel by more modest means than by Learjet.

Their mission remains unchanged as they continue to follow an economic star in hopes of finding a means of extricating themselves from their business sins and their bad contracts with the United Auto Workers union.

Appearing more akin to Curly, Larry and Moe (Three Stooges) than to wise men, Mulally (Ford), Wagoner (GM) and Nardelli (Chrysler) continue to look silly, sound foolish and present themselves as ill-prepared to square-off with lawmakers over what has now climbed to $34 billion in so-called “loans.”

Pronouncing the Players Man and Wife

There is nothing as powerful as $34 billion to get the UAW and the America auto industry to climb into bed together. One might almost think it was a marriage of convenience, coupled with some gold-digging, as the UAW leadership took marriage vows to assist the giant auto companies with the crisis.

The loving couple decided the money meant they could finally compromise their positions, with the UAW officials lobbying round-the-clock in DC for help, realizing the house of cards they helped build may fall and bury them all.

It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas…in Detroit

The three Wise Men arrived atop their best hybrids in an attempt to rewrite the marketing script that had them flying in at a cost in excess of $40,000 each, creating a public relations nightmare that sent shock waves across America and turned “the folks” against the notion of “buy American.”

Since this is the season of giving we should loan money to winners not loser. iVoteAmerica has been told that there are three Ford dealerships for every 1 Toyota dealership and Toyota’s dealers move eight times the vehicles per dealer! How is that possible for Toyota and impossible for GM, Chrysler and Ford? One taxpayer said to iVoteAmerica, “I’d like to loan my tax money to Toyota.”

Think about the way our government is constantly bailing out losers in the form of failing investment firms, insurance companies, toxic mortgages, banks, Wall Street and the American automobile industry. Why don’t we loan the $34 billion to successful small business owners instead?

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas…in Detroit. Happy Holidays from iVoteAmerica!

Sometime tonight or the early morning of Wednesday, November 5, 2008, we will have elected either Barack Obama or John McCain, as the next President of the United States.

Voting is fundamental to America and nothing could be more patriotic, not even paying more taxes!

Today is the day that each American creates his or her own chad, whether by paper ballot or electronic. iVoteAmerica encourages all Americans to please, vote today. Your vote does count.

Watch iVoteAmerica.com for the latest cutting-edge political commentary. We will have something to say late tonight and early tomorrow.