COBURN’S BUDGET & COBURN ON WASTE ++ THE TRUTH ABOUT SOCIAL SECURITY & DEBT CEILING

++ AGENDA FOR THIS WEEK’S MEETING
++ RE-CLAIMING AMERICA FOR CHRIST - THURSDAY & FRIDAY
++ ANNOUNCEMENTS
++ COBURN’S BUDGET & COBURN ON WASTE
++ THE TRUTH ABOUT SOCIAL SECURITY & DEBT CEILING


++ AGENDA FOR THIS WEEK’S MEETING

Our 12 noon luncheon for Wednesday, July 27th will be held at
Italiano’s restaurant, 4801 North Lincoln in OKC. This past March we
had Avi Lipkin as a speaker giving us some of his inside information
regarding the turmoil in the Middle East and more particularly Egypt.
He will be with us again this Wednesday and hopefully will give us the
inside skinny regarding our bombing invasion of Libya and what is
going on in Syria. Mr. Lipkin is a past advisor to several Prime
Ministers and was the spokesman for the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF).
Today his wife serves as the official translator of Arab broadcasts
into Hebrew. Mr. Lipkin is a captivating speaker and has authored
several books which hopefully will be available for those in
attendance.

++ RE-CLAIMING AMERICA FOR CHRIST - THURSDAY & FRIDAY

* LOCATION - First Baptist Church in Moore, just East of I-35 at
the NE 27th street exit.

* TIMES - Thursday, first session begins at 6:15 p.m. and lasts
until 10:00 p.m. Friday, first session begins at 1:30 p.m. until
5:00 p.m. There will be a one hour break for dinner, then the final
session will begin at 6:15 p.m. and the conference will end at 10:00
p.m.

* SPEAKERS - Keynote speakers are: Dr. Bob Cornuke, President
of The Bible Archaeology, Search & Exploration Institute. Dr. Cornuke
is a Biblical investigator, international explorer and author of eight
books. He has participated in over thirty expeditions around the world
searching for lost locations described in the Bible. These journeys
include searching for Mount Sinai in Egypt and Saudi Arabia, looking
for the remains of Noah’s Ark in Turkey and researching ancient
Assyrian and Babylonian flood accounts in Iran. He has followed
ancient accounts of the Ark of the Covenant from Israel to Egypt and
across the Ethiopian highlands.

Dr. G. Thomas Sharp, President of Creation Research Institute. Dr.
Sharp is sometimes referred to as Oklahoma’s best kept secret as he
headquarters out of Noble Oklahoma. Dr. Sharp has achieved national
and international recognition as a Christian educator, religious
leader, businessman and author. He will do 3 presentations, one on the
Icons of Evolution, another on Mt. Saint Helens and the final one on
Dinosaurs and the Bible.

Pastor Dan fisher will do a presentation on the Black Robed Regiment,
which is about the influences of the pastors during our founding era.
He has up-dated his DVD presentation on the subject and should have
them available at the conference. Pastor Paul Blair, Director of
Reclaiming America for Christ, will do a presentation on America’s
Christian Heritage. I believe there will be some DVD presentations on
this subject available at the Conference.

Other speakers include Matt Barber with the Liberty Council, a
Christian civil liberties organization. State Representative Sally
Kern will speak as well as Jenni White, founder and director of ROPE
(Restore Oklahoma Public Education). From the political side, freshman
U.S. Representative James Lankford will speak along with newly elected
State Attorney General Scott Pruitt.

Please note, there is no cost to attend, however a love offering will
be taken to defer expenses. OCPAC will have a table at the conference
and I could use a couple of volunteers, especially since I may have to
attend a special board meeting on Thursday or Friday at the hospital
in which I serve as a trustee. If you can help, please send me an e-
mail at charliemeadows7@gmail.com

++ ANNOUNCEMENTS

Following are the times and locations for other appearances for Avi
Lipkin while in Oklahoma for this trip.

* Wednesday evening, July 27th, First Baptist Church of Nicoma Park,
6:00 p.m. contact Pastor Mark Walters

* Thursday, July 28th, Grove Ok Tea Party, Cyndi McArtor
patriot@getamericaback.com.

* Friday, July 29th High Noon Club meeting at 12 noon at H&H Range in
OKC.

* Sunday, July 31st First Baptist Church of Moore 6:00 p.m. (I-35 and
NE 27th street in Moore)

* Wednesday, August 3rd, at 7:00 p.m., Chisholm Creek Baptist
Church, 17600 N. Western in OKC.

++ COBURN’S BUDGET & COBURN ON WASTE

This past week, U. S. Senator Tom Coburn exposed more waste in
government spending. He specifically named Amtrak, one of my pet
peeves. There is not a market for passenger rail service anywhere in
Oklahoma. If there were it would be provided by private companies, not
the government. One of OKC’s mass transit advocates was on KTOK news
yesterday expressing concern over the next transit funding legislation
which is currently stalled in congress. He is afraid the feds won’t
pump millions of dollars into OKC’s next boondogle, the new light rail
system to be built in downtown OKC as a result of MAPS III passage. My
fear is the opposite. I am concerned that congress will fail to
eliminate such programs. Even if it was a good idea, and it isn’t, it
still needs to be eliminated as America is no longer a wealthy nation,
we are broke and deeply in debt and on the verge of bankruptcy.

The other government waste mentioned by Senator Coburn was in regard
to the millions of dollars spent in Oklahoma on wild horse programs.
What I am about to say will get me in trouble with a lot of people.
Over the past 30 or so years America has developed a group of people
who are basically Westernized Hindu’s. They no longer have the proper
perspective that animals should be treated as utilitarian, but they
have become so emotionally attached to animals that they treat them as
equals or superior to humans.

Just one manifestation of this unhealthy relationship occurred 5 or 6
years ago when this powerful group successfully got congress to pass
legislation to eliminate all horse slaughterhouses in America. These
animal worshippers want to make sure people feed, water and care for
their horses until they pass on to heaven of natural causes (some very
carnally minded folks actually believe animals have a soul and will be
in heaven). Some of the results of this legislation have been a larger
number of neglected horses, a drop in the price of horses and millions
of taxpayer dollars spent to care for wild horses. If you need to
dispose of a horse today, it must be shipped (at extra cost) to Mexico
for slaughter where the meat can be used for dog food or other
purposes.

Now for Senator Coburn’s budget proposal. For 20 years I did financial
counseling (budget and debt resolution, not investment counseling)
where I taught people there are only 3 possible solutions to financial
problems. 1) Bring in the same amount of money and spend less. 2)
Bring in more money and spend the same. 3) Do a combination of the
first two. By the way, these principles apply to an individual,
corporation or a government.

The conservative Republicans are basically calling for number one as a
solution, the Democrats are just simply liars, deceivers and
ideologically the reason we are in trouble. Senator Coburn’s plan
comes from the number 3 solution. Overall, I like Senator Coburn’s
plan better than that of Paul Ryan’s plan as Coburn’s lays out a path
to balance the budget in 10 years and I believe it takes 28 years for
Ryan’s plan.

Where Coburn’s plan gets into trouble with some conservatives is that
is calls for increasing revenues, however, I don’t believe it calls
for tax increases. Please remember, words have meanings. Tax
deductions, tax credits, tax cuts or increases, etc. are all different
terms to represent different actions. Most of Coburn’s revenue
increases comes from eliminating or reducing tax deductions or
exemptions. While I might not agree with all of the specific
exemptions, I do favor that method if we foolishly insist on keeping
an income tax rather than switching to a national consumption tax,
known as The Fair Tax.

Why would I agree with eliminating some exemptions? We have a huge
problem in America in that 48 or so percent of working Americans pay
NO federal income taxes at all, none, zilch, nada (virtually everyone
pays social security taxes but those are different from income
taxes).

Many of these non payers are beneficiaries of tax dollars and vote for
representatives to give them ever more benefits. However, since they
don’t pay income taxes, they don’t experience the true cost of
government. It is what I call REPRESENTATION WITHOUT TAXATION which is
the flip side of NO TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION which of course
was one of the 27 reasons we broke from England in our war of
independence. One is as bad as the other.

Eliminating or reducing some exemptions will cause more people to
become taxpayers, which is a good thing. On the other hand, it will
also cause some who already pay taxes to pay more and that may not be
a good thing. As an example, Senator Coburn calls for eliminating the
home mortgage interest deduction beyond a certain amount (I believe it
was $500,000) and on second homes as well as eliminating the interest
deduction on equity lines of credit loans. My wife and I go long form
on our taxes and use our home interest as a deduction. Our interest
deduction is no where near a half million, we don’t have a second
home, but we do have an equity line of credit loan for our first and
only mortgage. If I were to lose that deduction, I will pay more in
taxes.

The point we as conservatives know, it that the amount of money
flowing into Washington is not the real problem. The REAL problem is
the spending as there is no limit as to what liberals in Washington
will spend if we allow them. If we can get spending under control, I
would be willing to pay more in taxes to reduce our national debt, but
then and only then when we get spending under control.

Another problem with Senator Coburn’s plan is a call to cut highway
and bridge funding. I don’t believe he really wants to cut back on
improving our roads, but it is more the result of taking a trust fund
and making it a part of the budget and thus a target for budget cuts.
Trust accounts should always be stand alone fee supported entities and
never be considered as a part of the budget. We have the same problem
in Oklahoma where we fail to understand the difference between a fee
and a tax and frequently mix those two systems.

The Federal Highway Trust Fund should simply work on the basis of
money in, money out. Where does the money come from? Every time we
purchase a gallon of gasoline or diesel, approximately 18 cents goes
to the federal trust fund, while the states also have about the same
amount that go into state coffers. This money should never be used for
anything other than roads and bridges (about 30% is diverted to mass
transit, Amtrak, bike and jogging trails and highway beautification
projects. Governor Keating tried to get these dollars for the dome on
the State Capitol, suggesting the dome could be seen from the
Centennial Expressway and would thus beautify the highway).

When you do fee based government, if properly managed fees go up if
they are insufficient or down if they are excessive. The highway trust
fund is shaky because of abuse and mismanagement from liberals in
Washington.

Unless, cut cap and balance can be spread out over at least 5 or 10
years, Senator Coburn’s plan is the best thing to be offered thus far.

++ THE TRUTH ABOUT SOCIAL SECURITY & DEBT CEILING

President Obama said if the debt ceiling isn’t extended he wasn’t sure
social security checks would go out in August. Let me establish where
I stand on my opinion of the President. He is a pathological liar, a
skilled deceiver of the naïve and acts like a slithering snake who
speaks with forked tongue. On the other hand, the 2 Republican
Congressmen (I didn’t know who they were) who stood behind a
microphone and stated that social security had over 2 TRILLION in its
trust fund were also liars.

For many years now the social security revenues going to the trust
fund were more than required for payments. Each year those excess
revenues were taken by Congress to be spent on other funds, but they
weren’t stolen. Congress, took the money and put an IOU in the fund to
someday be paid back with interest. So far, every time one of those
IOU’s has come due, it has been paid back, though with newly borrowed
money. Today, there are over 2 TRILLION dollars in IOU’s in the social
security trust fund, but no actual money.

It was thought that the trust fund would break even as far as the
amount coming in and the amount going out in about 2016. From that
point on it would operate in the red, with the government no longer
being able to borrow from the fund, but instead they would have to
begin to pay those IOUs back. It was anticipated paying back the IOUs
would keep Social Security operating at full benefits until about
2035. At that time, either higher amounts would have to be paid by
working people or the benefits would have to be reduced. It was
suggested that people drawing social security would see their benefits
reduced by about 30%.

However, because of the recession and a larger number of baby boomers
than expected taking early retirement, the fund actually started
operating in the red last year in 2010. Then something really bizarre
occurred. During the first 2 years of Obama’s reign, in an attempt to
stimulate the economy, the federal government paid out up to $400 in
tax credits for every working person. Rather than continue with that
failed idea, Obama and the lame duck congress decided to allow working
people to keep more money in their own pockets by reducing the amount
we pay into social security for this year. In other words, he reduced
the amount of money going into the social security trust fund, when it
was already operating in the red??? To my knowledge, this is the first
time that has occurred.

So far that has worked this year because congress has simply borrowed
or printed (all printed dollars become a loan) enough to pay off the
necessary IOUs in the Social Security Trust Fund so that the benefits
aren’t reduced. However, we are now looking at the debt ceiling not
being extended. If that occurs, Congress will not be able to borrow to
pay back those IOUs.

Bottom line, the best figures I can come up with suggest that when
August arrives next week, social security benefits to be paid out will
total about $24 billion dollars, but expected revenues coming into the
social security trust fund will only total about $17 billion. If they
can’t borrow more money, where are they going to get the money to keep
the benefits at the full amount? The checks will go out, but possibly
at a reduced amount.

My numbers may not be exact, but they are in the ball park. The
federal government was expected to spend about $285 billion dollars in
August, but total revenues flowing into the treasury would only be
about $170 billion. Some conservatives are suggesting we live only on
our means. They say, we should fully fund the military, fully fund the
debt payments so we don’t default and fully fund Social Security. We
could do that, but the cuts to everywhere else would be dramatic,
deep, severe and in my opinion throw us into a severe recession or
depression. Again, because this economy has been propped up with
borrowed and printed money for some time now, to lose those props will
have dire consequences.

I am in favor of these cuts in spending, but they must be done over
time. More importantly, we must create an environment in American were
the free market can thrive to create private sector jobs that produce
needed products and services. These new jobs are a necessity to reduce
the unemployment rate and provide a place for people to work who are
going to lose their current jobs because of federal government cut
backs. By increasing the number of private sector jobs, additional
revenues will flow into the federal government. Again, the number one
thing GOVERNMENT can do to create an environment for the free market
to succeed is to eliminate our current tax code and switch to the Fair
Tax. Unfortunately, that idea isn’t even a part of the dialogue going
on in Washington, though it is as important as the debate over cutting
spending.

I look forward to seeing everyone this Wednesday.

Charlie Meadows
Charliemeadows7@gmail.com