companion of fools suffers harm." - Proverbs 13:30
Just as historic as our Founding fathers laid out the foundations of our country’s national identity, the 2012 election will shape America’s future and its influence in the world stage. For the past three years that both Governor Palin and President Obama have been in the public limelight, the stark contrast between the two most defining political figures in our time, in their visions for America, their words and records, could not have been more glaring.
ON ECONOMIC and BUDGET STEWARDSHIP
Palin: She reined in wasteful spending and gave Alaska a surplus of $14B, earning the last frontier state a Triple A credit rating. She balanced three budgets, By using her line-item veto power, she cut waste and vetoed spending by half a billion dollars, the largest in Alaska’s history. She reduced spending in her FY 2010 budget by 9.5% ($10,570,000,000 vs. her predecessor’s FY 2007 budget of $11,697,400,000). That was a savings of $1,127,400,000!
Obama: His administration oversaw a credit rating downgrade for the first time in history – not once but twice! He has added $4.939T to our national debt since he took office. In comparison, although it is nothing to be proud of either, former President George W. Bush incurred $4.899 trillion of debt during the two terms of his presidency. Obama promised to cut deficit in half by the end of his first term. The US deficit in fiscal year 2011 is $1.299 trillion. Not only that it is nowhere near half the $1.3 trillion deficit that he inherited, he made no honest attempt to chip a dent off it. His administration has also missed the budget deadline for three out his four years in office. His budget garnered not a single vote (not even from his own Democratic Party) for two years in a row. The last time the Democratic-controlled Senate passed a budget was April 29, 2009.
ON FIGHTING CORRUPTION
Palin: Puts the people’s interest before her own political career. She took on the corrupt system and signed the most sweeping ethics reform in Alaska that makes it a crime for lawmakers to trade votes for campaign contributions. Before she was governor, during her tenure at the AOGCC, she brought to the forefront the ethical lapses and conflict of interests of, among others, her fellow Commissioner Rudy Ruedrich who was also serving at the same time as chairman of Alaska Republican Party. Unwilling to be part of the "Corrupt Bastards' Club", she resigned from AOGCC and blew the whistle on the corruptions of her colleagues, knowing fully well that she was going against the deeply entrenched GOP establishment. In the end, the FBI investigations resulted in arrests and jail times for some public officials and with Mr. Ruedrich paying the state's largest fine for ethics violation.
Obama: Pay-to-play is the trademark of the Obama presidency. We see this as he rewards his campaign donors and friends with government grants and bailout. Solyndra. LightSquared. Auto bailout. Healthcare waivers. These are beneficiaries of being bundlers to Obama’s campaign and payback to the solid support of unions and special interests. He talks tough about the corrupt Wall Street yet Americans have not seen a single "greedy fat cat", as he likes to call those who were responsible for our country's financial meltdown, be brought to justice. Yet these are the same people who grace this administration's fundraising events, donating big bucks to his $1B reelection war chest.
ON LANDMARK ACCOMPLISHMENT/S IN OFFICE
Palin. Alaska Gas Inducement Act (AGIA). Gov. Palin successfully negotiated an alliance of two private oil companies and started a long-stalled project to build a natural gas pipeline that would supply trillions of cubic feet of natural gas from Alaska to Lower 48, leading the country towards energy independence. She also took to court ExxonMobil for sitting on their leases to develop reserves at Point Thompson on the North Slope. She won and after decades of minimal activity, drilling for oil and natural gas at Pt. Thompson began. She signed into law Alaska’s Clear and equitable Share (ACES) that “increased state taxes on oil profits on a graduated scale, so that the state's share would go up even more when oil prices rise. Oil company profits are taxed at a 25% base rate, up from the previous 22.5%. The tax rate rises 0.2% for each dollar the price of oil exceeds $52 per barrel” (USA TODAY, Ken Dilanian, 9/12/2008). This ensures that the Alaskans, the owners of the state’s natural resources as proclaimed in the state’s Constitutions, get a clear and equitable share of oil profits.
Obama: "The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, which the president signed in March 2010. The centerpiece of this law is the individual mandate which requires private citizens to purchase their own health insurance, or otherwise be forced to pay fines. The constitutionality of this mandate is now being argued at the Supreme Court. This law is riddled with accounting tricks and is a complete package of faulty and broken promises. In its two year anniversary, the CBO now reports that Obamacare costs twice than what the White House claimed ($1.76 trillion not $940 billion as Obama promised). Premiums will increase for the insured, costs will be controlled by rationing healthcare and not only that citizens cannot keep the doctors they want, medical decisions will be made not by doctors but by presidential appointees, or a death panel, as Governor Palin accurately called it.
ON FOREIGN POLICY
Palin: Peace through strength, as best exemplified by Ronald Reagan, guides her views on foreign policy and national security. That requires a strong military, standing by and defending our allies like Israel and supporting democratic nations around the world.
Obama: Appeasement, as best exemplified by Jimmy Carter guides the president’s foreign policy and national security. This is what takes the world’s most powerful man around the globe bowing to other nation’s heads of state, extending his hand of friendship to dictators like Hugo Chavez, meeting with leaders of Muslim Brotherhood (which has ties to terror group Hamas) at the White House while treating our closest ally Israel with contempt and disrespect. President Obama has also shown that our national security interestsin Russia are flexible enough that it could wait for his attention until after his reelection bid.
ON ENERGY AND NATIONAL SECURITY
ON ENERGY AND NATIONAL SECURITY
Palin: “Drill, Baby, Drill” and “all of the above approach” are central to Gov. Palin’s energy policy which is linked to our national security and economic prosperity. She believes that we must pursue renewable and green energy sources but must continue to develop and utilize our natural reserves to get us from point A to point B. She fights for energy development and independence that will free us from relying on foreign countries that do not have our best interests at heart and those countries that support terrorist activities to do us and our allies harm. She has advocated opening up ANWR. Drilling on 8% of ANWR alone is projected to create up to 735,000 jobs, the multiplier effect of which on our economy is just enormous. America is blessed with abundant natural resources which the federal government should not lock up for political reasons.
Obama: The President’s energy policy is heavy on investing in electric cars, bullet trains, solar panels and other green industries. So far, his experiments are not yielding very optimistic reports. The taxpayer-subsidized Chevy Volt caught fire due to faulty battery and GM had to halt production and lay off workers. The construction of high speed trains in economically-bankrupt California is now estimated to cost $98.5 billion, twice its previous projected cost. Solyndra, another taxpayer-subsidized solar panel manufacturing company, has closed its doors and is now embroiled in scandal linked to the President’s political donors and supporters. Obama’s energy policy would have been more authentic if it weren’t rooted on paying back and appeasing his political backers. He has so far refused to issue permits for drilling and would not approve the Keystone pipeline to satisfy his environmentalist friends.
ON CONSTITUTION
Palin: Looks to our Constitution as the ultimate compass in governing. As governor, when a bill that prohibits domestic partnership rights to same-sex couples came to her desk, she vetoed it. Her Republican colleagues lambasted her for it but the State Court had ruled it unconstitutional. Although homosexual marriage is against her Christian faith, she was true and firm in her oath to uphold her State Constitution. For Governor Palin, the Bible is to her personal life as the Constitution is for the State affairs.
Obama: Sees the Constitution as a living document subject to change according to his whim and his political convenience. He has shown disregard to the three branches of government created by the Constitution as a system of checks and balances. He has recently called the Supreme Court judges as a “group of unelected people” in an attempt to intimidate them into not overturning Obamacare. He also governs by fiat, openly declaring that he will act alone and not wait for the Congress to pass his bills and proposals.
ON LIFE VS. ABORTION
Palin: Unequivocally pro-life whose views have been tested in her own personal life. When pregnant with her fifth child, Sarah Palin knew that her baby was going to be born with Down syndrome. Yet she refused to do what 90% of pregnant mothers given a Down syndrome diagnosis do and brought the baby into this world.
Obama : He is the most- pro-abortion president in our nation’s history. As an Illinois senator, Obama opposed the Born Alive Infants Protection Act, a bill that would require that normal medical care be given to an infant that somehow managed to show signs of life after an unsuccessful abortion (thereby making it a born alive infant ). The bill was meant to prevent “infanticide”, the gruesome practice of infants born of failed abortions being left to die. Sen. Obama declared that such bill would be nothing but a backdoor attack to women's legal rights to abortion.
ON FAITH
Palin: Evangelical Christian whose strong faith in God was instilled at an early age by her mother, Sally Heath. She grew up attending Wasilla Assembly of God; at the age of 12, she decided to dedicate herself to God. She led her high school’s Fellowship of Christian Athletes.
Obama: A faithful follower of Trinity United Church of Christ for 20 years, a “black liberation theology” church formerly led by Rev. Jeremiah Wright who is famous for his “G** damn America” remark. Obama professes to be a Christian yet since becoming president, he has developed the habit of omitting the word "Creator" when quoting the Declaration of Independence. In a speech in Indonesia, he replaced America's motto, "In God We Trust" with "E pluribus unum". His 2010 Easter statement reached out to the Jews, Muslims, Hindus and people of no faith yet there was no mention of Jesus at all - striking especially in this all-encompassing Christian day of celebration. Lately, though, the First family has been seen going to Sunday masses, followed around by dutiful photographers. It’s election year, so today Barack Obama is a practicing Christian.
ON PERKS OF THEIR OFFICES
Palin: Sold the governor’s jet purchased by his predecessor as it is emblematic of unnecessary financial burden to the taxpayers and opted to drive to and from work.
Obama: Had no opposition to his wife’s taking a separate flight on the way to the family vacation in Martha’s Vineyard. The President arrived FOUR hours later at the same destination with the First Dog, Bo. The First lady has also taken numerous personal vacations, sometimes sans the President, unnecessarily burdening the taxpayers with flight costs and security details in times of recession and economic downturn.
CONTRIBUTION TO AMERICAN LEXICON
Palin: Refudiate - verb used loosely to mean “reject [origin — blend of refute and repudiate]. Named by the New Oxford American Dictionary as 2010’s Word of the Year; According to the Oxford University blog, "From a strictly lexical interpretation of the different contexts in which Palin has used 'refudiate,' we have concluded that neither 'refute' nor 'repudiate' seems consistently precise, and that 'refudiate' more or less stands on its own, suggesting a general sense of reject.”
Obama: Wee-wee’d up - meaning ???
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