DO REPUBLICANS WANT TO DO AWAY WITH THE STIMULUS BILL?

President Obama is saying that the Republicans and their Pledge To America" are irresponsible and they want to end the stimulus bill. You can read the story here and view the 30 minute question and answer session he had with Matt Lauer on the Today show.

Obama says that if they get control of Congress in November, Republicans are going to try to change pretty much everything he has tried to do including the Obama stimulus grants, health care reform, and the stimulus grants.

It is unclear how any of that would play out because it depends on how many Republicans are elected. If they just make gains in Congress but don't take over majority in either house, then nothing would change. Even if they did take control of one or both houses, would they have enough votes to really change anything or just stop spending in the future?

A fair question is whether trying to cut back on spending like the Republicans want really a bad thing? Don't we as a country need to be fiscally responsible? President Obama wants to tax the rich but his definition of the rich starts at $200,000 for a single person and $250,000 for a married couple. There is something called inflation and $250,000 isn't nearly as much as it was 30 years ago. A loaf of bread doesn't cost a quarter anymore you know: it costs $2 to $3 dollars or more now.

This country is in the midst of a big time class warfare. It is those that don't have anything verses those that do. Those that have jobs verses those that don't. Those that have dreams of a future verses those that have given up. It is ugly and it will just get uglier.

As long as everyone is searching for free government money and grants, nothing will get better. People now days want freebies and they don't want to work for them. But the government has no money and the only money it has is our tax dollars. It takes our money and wastes it, over and over again.

How long can this country survive by printing more money and taxing us? Is this America or some socialist country in Europe?

Obama 3 BILLION UNEMPLOYED HOMEOWNERS FORECLOSURE GIVEAWAY

If you are an unemployed homeowner facing foreclosure, today might be good news for you. President Obama is once again trying to bail you out by sending 3 billion dollars to those in the weakest job markets.

$2 billion of that money will be sent to the 17 states with the highest unemployment and the money is supposed to go to different programs for aiding unemployed homeowners. The other $1 billion dollars is to start another new program run by HUD that will give some needy homeowners loans up to $50,000 interest free for two years.

Haven't we seen all this before? What about Obama's Making Home Affordable program? What about all the Obama stimulus grants? Where has all this money gone and why do we need to give more tax dollars away?

I don't know the answer to this but if you need more Obama money because you are out of work and facing foreclosure, you might contact your state offices to see how you can get some of this new $3 Billion dollars that Obama is giving away.

I'm Skeptical Of Obama's Race To The Top Program

First of all let me say that I don't trust much of anything the government does. After all, look at where we are as a nation with the economy in ruins, unemployment still around 10%, and more debt everywhere than ever before in our history.

So, it should come as no surprise that I have lots of doubts about President Obama and his Race To The Top program for schools. It seems every president has his pet school program. For Bush it was No Child Left Behind and look where that got us: nowhere.

Now we have Obama pledging to give around 4 billion of our tax dollars to states that jump through some hoops and make the right changes as judged by the President and his people. Texas, not wanting anything to do with the Federal government, never even was in the running for these so called Obama school grants. There were only 36 initial applicants so that means that a lot of other states never bothered either.

Right now, as of 7/27/2010 there are 18 finalists and you can read about the whole process here at the government education website. It seems the states can win money at each phase of the process and Tennessee and Delaware have already won money in phase 1. The ed.gov website itself calls it winning grants and that seems like the wrong choice of words to me. Is that what our public education system is depending on: the need to "win" money and grants to survive?

How many times have we talked about better teacher accountability and all the other things that go along with making our schools better? This has been going on for 30 years now where we have been aware that schooling in other countries is superior to ours. And here we are, still throwing money at it hoping it will get better.

Every president has got to seem concerned about our public school system: it is part of the job requirement. But every president has failed and I don't think Obama will be any different. All he knows how to do is to spend money anyway and that is not making things better as we are all seeing first hand.

OBAMA PELL GRANTS FOR MOMS

Whenever he talks about education or student loans, the new president talks about his Obama Pell grants. You then see lots of ads for them and ads from different colleges trying to get your interest. But where do you really find out about Pell grants.

You can go to the government web site ED.gov to find out more about the Pell grant program and you can also go here as well. You can see the information below from the last site:





















It seems that Obama's Pell grants aren't much of an improvement over what was already available. Every President seems to talk big about education and then nothing really gets done. Our school system continues to deteriorate and costs keep going up. An extra $200 isn't worth even bothering to talk about but he sure makes it sound like he is really getting things done. Just a big ole pep talk full of empty promises if you ask me. Obama stimulus grants continue to bail out the big corporations but there is nothing for us little guys.

THE NEW OBAMA FORCLOSURE PLAN

Obama has come out with his new foreclosure plan today and you can read more about it here. It seems that whatever he does doesn't work and there is no reason to believe this will be any different.

Until the economy is turned around (and he certainly is not doing it), how is this problem really going to be solved? No amount of government help is going to dig these people out of the housing nightmare they find themselves in.

Many of these more than 15 million homeowners that can't afford their mortgages don't have jobs or have no way to continue to pay their monthly minimum. The price of their homes has plummeted and now they owe more on their homes than they are worth.

We need jobs (and lots of them) and to get the economy going again so that people are willing to start spending. Until home prices start to go up and people start to get good jobs again, no Obama forclosure plan or Obama stimulus grants are going to do the trick. These things that Obama proposes are only temporary band aids and they don't solve the problem.

We have seen and it looks like we will continue to see Obama throw more and more money at every problem he faces. How long can this continue to go on? Until we are all bankrupt and China or Japan owns every industry in our country?

The new Obama home forclosure plan is more of the same old stuff that never addresses the real problem. Just like their new health care plan that doesn't address anything that really needs fixing like tort reform to prevent doctors from always getting sued.

STOP WASTING MY TAX DOLLARS OBAMA!

I just got a letter in the mail from the 2010 census. The letter said that I would be getting another letter (the census form) in one week. It told me to fill it out and send it in when I get it.

WTF? You mean our brilliant politicians are spending our money on postage to send us a letter to inform us another letter is on the way? Are you kidding me?

No wonder our country is bankrupt. We are led by complete morons who have no regard to our money because they can just print more of it whenever they want. We are in deep trouble.

2010 OBAMA SPENDING BUDGET AND GOVERNMENT GRANTS

The 3.83 TRILLION dollar budget proposed by President Obama has a lot of things in it that are supposed to help the economy. You can read about it here: Obama budget.

The question is whether the budget really helps everyday people and whether it creates jobs as it is supposed to. Most people right now are amazed at how much money is being spent by the government and how little benefit they are getting. With unemployment remaining around 10% and people everywhere out of work, where is all the government money really going?

$3.83 trillion is more money than ever before in the history of the United States. Is any of it going to the little people to help them get by. Are there any new Obama stimulus grants to help individuals in trouble instead of the big companies?

Right now, the Obama administration is throwing money around everywhere and just hoping it somehow helps. Little people who are in debt are getting no help and they are looking for government grants or some kind of debt relief help that will make it easier for them to get through this crises. Meanwhile President Obama seems to be oblivious to the plight of the normal person and just concerned about his government and big corporations.

After proposing the biggest budget in our history, will anything really change for us other than our country going more in debt? Where is this money really going and who is really profiting? I for one, would love to know because I don't see any of this money going to help anyone I know.

EMAIL SCAMS FOR OBAMA GOVERNMENT GRANTS

This is a problem that is not as prevalent as it was 6 months ago but it is still around. The Obama government grants scammers had to be addressed by the FTC and they forbid the use of the Presidents picture or likeness in association with any federal grants advertisements.

Most of these ads have been removed but there are still grant companies that are trying to fool people and they can be doing it through email. I have gotten several of these stimulus grants emails trying to convince me that grant money was waiting for me and all I had to do was click through and sign up.

As previously mentioned, government grants are free and you shouldn't have pay money to apply for them. However, since grants are confusing and the application process can be tedious, many companies are there to "help" you get your grant. You are usually prompted to sign up for a "free" grant kit that costs $1.95 for shipping or some other small amount that seems reasonable. Sometimes there may not be a kit involved and you have to pay a small fee to get into the membership site to look around.

The scam or dishonesty comes in because after you give your credit card, you will be charged additional fees of $49.95, $79.95 or higher after the short 3 day or 7 day trial period is over. This information can never be found in a visible place but is only found after clicking a very small "terms & conditions" link which takes you to another page with a lot of legal mumbo jumbo.

Most people never click the terms and conditions link and have no idea that they are giving their credit card which can be charged a much higher amount several days later. This is exactly what the grant companies are counting on: that 9 out of 10 people will forget to cancel and then they can charge them the bigger charges.

Is this technically a scam? Because the information is there, these goverment grant advertisements are probably legal but they are very shady for sure. You can now find these ads in emails that are regularly sent to millions of people. Out of those millions, you know that hundreds of financially desperate people are being fooled into signing up. So, beware what you click on in your email and be careful when you give your credit card information out. Even though you think you are signing up for just a $1.95 shipping charge, the fine print may tell you that you are authorizing much bigger charges down the line!