PRIORITIES CONFRONTING AMERICA

Recently I have been spending a lot of time reading a variety of books covering a wide range of subjects, but my thoughts keep coming back to my growing concerns about the future of our wonderful United States of America.

Since writing a recent commentary suggesting that we all contact our elected officials, I have had numerous telephone conversations with close friends and relatives, and to say that I was shocked is a huge understatement. In several of these discussions I learned that many of these people did not know the name of their Congressional Representative, nor had they ever contacted any government officials to express their feelings.

In view of this situation, I wonder just how we can expect our elected officials to govern in our best interests. Have we become so complacent that we assume our representatives can be trusted to function without any direction from the electorate? If that is true then we are in for rough sledding as a democracy.

The word PRIORITIES keeps coming into my thoughts, and this prompts me to have growing concerns about our country’s future; just what is really important. I suggest that the health of our economy is really at the root of a successful future.

At the same time, I have an increasing concern that our involvement in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have fallen away from our daily consciousness. My God, we have men and women dying every single day and we do not seem to consider our presence or involvement as a top of the line priority. Our participation certainly directly impacts the health of our economy, but there is little written in our shrinking newspapers, because it is expensive to cover news thousands of miles away.

When I viewed President Obama’s Press Conference on July 22nd, our journalists failed to raise anything but softball questions, and it appeared that the entire session was scripted. I wonder why the president failed to answer when asked if our government officials would have the same health care coverage as their constituents. Don’t you wonder why our president denies that he really wants to cover illegal aliens with health care? Why are so many important matters resolved by political priorities and not the best interests of the voters?

Personally the health of our national economy scares the hell out of me, and I believe our current leadership has little regard for the debt burdens being placed upon the backs of the working citizens of our country. Just look at what has happened to the State government in California. It does not take a brain surgeon to determine that their financial problems are similar to many other state governments, not to mention our federal government. For far too long we spend money that we cannot honestly justify on projects and programs that are Recently I have been spending a lot of time reading a variety of books covering a wide range of subjects, but my thoughts keep coming back to my growing concerns about the future of our wonderful United States of America.

Since writing a recent commentary suggesting that we all contact our elected officials, I have had numerous telephone conversations with close friends and relatives, and to say that I was shocked is a huge understatement. In several of these discussions I learned that many of these people did not know the name of their Congressional Representative, nor had they ever contacted any government officials to express their feelings.

In view of this situation, I wonder just how we can expect our elected officials to govern in our best interests. Have we become so complacent that we assume our representatives can be trusted to function without any direction from the electorate? If that is true then we are in for rough sledding as a democracy.


In that commentary I addressed some interesting statistics that I will repeat. Just consider the following facts, which you may have seen on the internet before, but their importance bears repeating.

1. $11 Billion to $22 Billion is spent on welfare to illegal aliens each year by state government. Verify at: http://tinyurl.com/zob77

2. $2.2 Billion dollars a year is spent on food assistance programs such as food stamps, WIC, and free school lunches for illegal aliens. Verify at: http://www.cis.org/articles/2004/fiscalexec.HTML.

3. $2.5 Billion dollars a year is spent on Medicaid for illegal aliens. Verify at: http://www.cis.org/articles/2004.fiscalexec.HTML.

4. $12 Billion dollars a year is spent on primary and secondary school education for children here illegally and they cannot speak a word of English. Verify at: http://transcripts.CNN.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.0.HTML.

5. $17 Billion dollars a year is spent for education for the American-born children of illegal aliens, known as anchor babies. Verify at: http://transcripts.CNN.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.o1.HTML.

6. $3 Million dollars a day is spent to incarcerate illegal aliens. Verify at: http://transcriptscnn.com/%10TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.HTML.

7. 30% percent of all Federal Prison inmates are illegal aliens. Verify at: http://transcripts.CNN.com/TRANSCRIPTS.06044/01/ldt.01.HTML.

8. $90 Billion dollars a year is spent on illegal aliens for Welfare and social services by the American taxpayers. Verify at: http://premium.CNN.com.TRANSCRIPTS/0610/29/ldt.01.HTML.

9. $200 Billion dollars a year in suppressed American wages are caused by the illegal aliens. Verify at: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSC%20RI%20PTS.0604/01/lddt.01HTML.

10. The illegal aliens in the United States have a crime rate that’s two and a half times that of white non-illegal aliens. In particular, their children are going to make huge additional problems in the US. Verify at: http://transcripts.CNN.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0606/12/ldt.01.HTML.

11. During the year of 2005 there were 4 to 10 million illegal aliens that crossed our Southern Border also, as many as 19,500 illegal aliens from Terrorist Countries. Millions of pounds of drugs, cocaine, meth, heroin and marijuana, crossed into the U.S. from the Southern border. Verify at: Homeland Security Report: http://tinyurl.com/t9sht

12. The National policy Institute, estimated that the total of mass deportation would be between $206 and $230 billion or an average cost of between $41 and $46 billion annually. $230 billion over a five year period. Verify at: http://www/nationalpolicyinstitute.org/PDF.deportation.PDF

13. In 2006, illegal aliens sent home $45 billion in remittances to their countries of origin. Verify at: http://www.rense.com.genera%20%.20175/nibt.htm>

14. The dark side of illegal immigration: Nearly one million sex crimes committed by illegal immigrants in the US. Verify at http://drdsk.com/articles.html

NOTE: Hopefully I have typed the links correctly and/or that they are still available. If not, try the Google method.

With all those statistics there is much to consider. If you add up all the expense it comes to a staggering $338.3 billion dollars a year. Just imagine what that amount of money would do in solving our current economic shortfall. Consider too the impact that kind of money would have on unemployment across our country.

Looking at our history, it is extremely interesting to note that three presidents acted aggressively concerning illegal immigration during their administrations. President Herbert Hoover during the great depression deported ALL illegal aliens in order to make jobs available to American citizens. President Harry Truman deported over two million illegal aliens after World War ll to create jobs. Most recently, President Dwight Eisenhower deported 13 million Mexican Nationals so Veterans of WW II and the Korean War would have a better opportunity for jobs.

Tragically, President Barack Obama is striving to pass immigration legislation to permit illegal aliens to stay in the United States because they represent a huge potential voting block that could support his policies. Should President Obama pass his proposed Health Care Bill, if it does in fact include illegal immigrants, it will surely bankrupt our economy. If the president had the leadership and political courage to deport the millions of illegal aliens now residing within our country he could immediately improve unemployment, reduce crime, reduce prison populations, dramatically reduce educational appropriations, and sharply reduce our economic long-term debt obligations.

To repeat, I support legal immigration, but vehemently oppose illegal, freeloading, undocumented aliens. Remember, we are all really products of immigration, but legal is one thing and illegal is clearly against our laws.

Presidents Hoover, Truman and Eisenhower all met their Oath of Office, but our current president has another agenda. Your Commander strongly suggests that we always beware of a President who says one thing and does another. Do not trust any individual who looks into his teleprompter and not directly into your eyes.

I do not profess to speak as profoundly as our Founding Fathers, but let me suggest that our Democracy cannot survive by robbing Peter to pay Paul. Regretfully, I do not for one minute believe that our President’s political priorities are in the best interest of the United States of American or its people.

COMMANDER GRANGER