STUFF POTUS left out of SOTU

"He shall from time to time give to the Congress information of the state of the union, and recommend to their consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary ..."-Article II, Sect. 3 of the United States Constitution.

Essentially what this means, and with help from Kenny Rogers, the President drops in to tell us what condition our condition is in.

In reality it's become an evening of pomp and circumstance with little in the way of substance. Afterwards a representative of the "Loyal Opposition" gives their take on things followed by hours of punditry by Washington Insiders who explain to us folks on Main Street USA what was really said. That crowd long ago forgot we can think for ourselves.

An evening of Hoo-Hah. Ho-Hum.

So with help from some pretty smart folks including a recent presentation by Greg Anton, a nationally recognized CPA, here are the parts the President left out, at least about the deficit. Mr. Anton has even been invited to the White House for his input on our growing financial mess. He said they were polite but didn't pay much attention.

A bit of a preamble is in order. I'll be using the word "Trillion" a lot here as in dollars. So just how much is a Trillion?

• One Trillion Dollars is $1,000,000,000,000.
• A trillion dollar bills stacked on top of each other would reach 68,000 miles. That's a third of a way to the moon. Ask Gene Cernan, he's been there.
• A trillion seconds is 32,000 (thirty-two thousand) years. That's a long time.

OK, hopefully this helps you understand just how big a number a trillion really is.

When President Obama took office, the National Deficit, at least according to the way the government tracks such things was 11.5 trillion dollars. Now it's about 16.5 trillion dollars. The Republicans make a big deal about this. But a fellow by the name of George Bush helped get us to the 11.5 trillion figure and despite all the blather about Bill Clinton and his "Budget Surplus" he chipped in too. This scam has been going on for decades.

So here we sit with a National Deficit of $16,700,000,000,000. Or so the government tell us. Actually they're fibbing a bit. OK, they're fibbing a lot.

Folks like Greg Anton who understand things like balance and loss sheets put the actual deficit at over SIXTY-SEVEN TRILLION DOLLARS! (All caps for emphasis and assuming you've grasped the earlier bullet points by this time)

You see, the government doesn't do its books like we have to here on Main Street. They get to leave out all sorts of short and long term liabilities and stuff. Like, Social Security and Medicare. Well, they are listed, but as footnotes and in no way reflected as liabilities. So a lot of money is "off the books." If we filed our taxes that way, we'd end up in jail.

Here's where we're really at: (Bullet point alert!!)

• The net worth of all the households here in the United States, houses, cars, lawnmowers and assorted knick knacks etc is around $65 Trillion. 
•  Our real debt, including real obligations as a nation is the aforementioned $67.7 Trillion.

If the United States was a mortgage, we'd be underwater. We owe more than the country is worth. So we are underwater. The amount we owe continues to grow, despite what you heard last night and what you've been hearing for years and years and years. It's growing so fast in fact, that countries like China are having a harder and harder time buying up our debt. There's simply too much of it.

I'll be blunt. Our government, both the Executive and Legislative Branches have been misleading us. An irony because they were elected to ...lead us instead. Democrats and Republicans alike.

If you'd really like to dig into all this, check out a non-partisan group of caring Americans at www.FixTheDebt.org. 

I urge you to spend some time and do your own research. You might also want to read the findings and solutions of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Debt Reform. It's about 65 pages long and as they say, a "Real page-turner." Senator Alan K. Simpson (R-Wyoming) and Erskine Bowles (Former Clinton Chief-of-Staff) chaired the bi-partisan group at the request of President Obama. They did their job, presented the report to the President who then stuck it in a drawer after the photo-op.

The report does offer solutions. But there is little if any sugar to help the medicine go down. It's going to take more than Warren Buffett paying more taxes. With around 50% of the population not paying any Federal Income Tax, most will have to start paying something.

Social Security is secure, although retirement ages will have to be raised in the coming years. There will also have to be means testing. Sorry Warren, no Social Security for you or your secretary. As for Medicare and Medicaid, we have simply over-promised far too long. There just is no way to meet coming demands. Defense will have to be cut. Before you get all lathered up over that, we spend more on defense than any country in the world. According to folks like Al Simpson and Erskine Bowles we spend more on defense than the next 15 nations below us combined. And most of them are allies! Also look for stuff like the tax deduction on mortgage interest to be phased out. As a bit of a sidebar, Canada has never had that deduction or anything like Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac or Snoop Snoop Poopy Dog. Yet they have a higher percentage of home ownership than we do.

To be absolutely clear, we have no choice in the matter. Well, unless we want to end up like Greece with 25% unemployment and rioting in the streets. Sadly, it might take something that drastic to really get our attention.

So, all stuff left out last night.

We can get out of this mess if we act now. As in immediately if not sooner. We have a role in all this. If like me, you belong to an organization like the South Metro Denver Chamber of Commerce, you get to meet our elected representatives to Washington. Ask them, politely, to stop lying and start fixing and if they don't you'll work hard to make sure they lose their jobs.

You can also write, phone, e-mail these folks or best of all, show up to their Town Hall Meetings. Be polite, but firm. Tell them to stop lying and to start doing. Don't, I repeat don't count on many of the media to ask the questions. They're too, uh, obtuse to ask. One journalist I do recommend you read is Al Lewis of Dow Jones Newswires. He's done the math.

We're under water. Let's not let this nation drown. Like the Titanic, we're running out of lifeboats.

Brian Olson
Owner/Consultant
Conversation Starters Public Relations
"We start the conversation about you"

USA-China. Keep Talking.

Chinese President Hu is visiting the United States and there's a lot of coverage, chatter and opinion about just what condition our relations are in.

China is well on its way to becoming an economic super power. When the financial markets in China sneeze, we get a cold.

Pass the Kleenex.

We've come a long, long way since President Nixon made his historic trip to China in 1972. Another milestone happened when the British turned over control of Hong Kong in 1984.

Today we get everything from Pandas to iPads (At least manufactured there) from China. Chinese labor is cheap. I can't imagine what an iPad, although American designed, would cost if manufactured here. As for the Pandas, I have family going to China this fall just to play with the little buggers.

But back to the topic at hand, it's a tense relationship now and has been all along. After the Tienanmen Massacre there was demand to completely cut off relations with China. My friend and political mentor, and at the time United States Senator Alan K. Simpson disagreed.

Simpson told me that if anything it was a time to increase communication, especially in the way of one on one dialog between the two countries through student exchanges and business. He reasoned, thoughtfully as always, that if we could talk at all levels it could only help. We did exactly that and all in all, it's worked out pretty well.

Today the big issue is all the money we owe China. Make that a huge issue. We owe China trillions of dollars and apparently there is no plan in place to pay it back. That's our fault, not China's. China is artificially messing with the value of it's currency, which is messing up the value of our dollar. That's their fault.

China has lots of faults, not the least of which are the personal freedoms we take for granted which don't exist in China.

So it's best we keep talking, that our students go there and theirs come here. It's best people from China come visit us, and we visit them. It's amazing what happens when regular folks get to know each other, regardless of nationality. Good things happen when you start a conversation.

Brian Olson
Conversation Starters Public Relations
"We start the conversation about you"

Lies, pants, polls and fact-checking

I came came across this article on the Politico website this morning. It brings new meaning to the old saying about a lie making it half-way around the world before truth has a chance to put its pants on.

At issue is the accuracy or lack thereof, of political polls. An hour doesn't go by without out poll results about this political race or issue being released with the numbers being breathlessly read on air or posted on the Internet.

They have to be accurate right? I mean it's a POLL! As Lee Corso would say, "Not so fast my friend."

One of the most watched races this political primary season was the Democratic primary campaign for Senate in Arkansas. Incumbent Blanche Lincoln was all but written off because polls said she was trailing challenger Bill Halter.

"Halter Surges!"

Turns out the poll data may not only have been bad, but deliberately manipulated. Lincoln of course, ended up winning, "surprising" the very same people who reported/wrote/blogged she was going to lose.

"DEWEY WINS!" 2.0.

As a journalist, I never liked polls. At best they were a momentary snapshot from a sample of a few hundred claiming to represent the views of thousands. There are, to be fair, solid and respected pollsters.

But in this 24-7 news environment and (mis)information spread at the speed of light on the Internet, everyone needs to take a moment, take a deep breath and do a little fact checking.

Before the advent of what we know now as the Internet, my friend, former Wyoming Senator Alan Simpson told me, "Show me two people with a mimeograph machine and I'll show you a lobby group." An analog description that works just as well in today's digital world.

It's easy for any group or cause to create an official looking website, post polls or anything else and as long as one person believes it and shares it, truth might as well not even get out of bed.

It worked, almost, in Arkansas.

Brian Olson
Conversation Starters LLC
"We get the conversation started about you!"