giveustruth

My Predictions from November 4, 2008

2011-11-20T10:16:00.000-08:00

(These originally appeared on RaisingAmerica but now I guess that's an invite only blog)

Here are my predictions for what will happen during or by the end of the Obama Presidency

1. Unemployment will be at 8 percent or more

2. Gas prices will rise again to 4 dollars a gallon and stay within 50 cents of that.

3. Health Care will be nationalized

4. The government will institute a harsh windfall profits tax on oil Companies

5. The Dow Jones will be within 200 points of 9500 by January 1, 2012

6. Inflation will be between 8-10 percent

7. The Supreme Court will be liberal

8. There will be a severe threat to our national security, like the Cuban Missile Crisis

9. A cap and trade system will be instituted in the United States

10. There will not be any federal tax cuts for anyone

11. The partial birth abortion ban will be declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court

12. Most US troops will be out of Iraq by 2011, according to the timetable already setup by the Bush administration, but Obama will take credit for it and not acknowledge that the war was already won through the surge, but that he ended it by "redeploying" our troops

13. There will be a nuclear, biological, chemical, or other attack on an American or an American allied city

14. The oceans will continue to rise

15. Interest rates will rise to 12 percent and hover within 2 points of that

Double Dip

2011-06-09T12:11:00.001-07:00

The only solution is to reign in spending, reform entitlements, and let the economy know what is going to be happening for the next 10 years. The economy needs stability, and not constant threats from the administration. The whole argument over Obamacare is hampering the economy in and of itself. If there was no question Obamacare was here to stay then at least companies would know what to plan for. But because the Democrats crammed it down the throat of the American people it is still up in the air and businesses don't know how to plan. This is a horrible administration that is ruling against the will of the American people. They are trying to push an unpopular agenda on a reluctant populace. These are not servants of the people, these are little tyrants who know their time in power is short, and they are trying to do as much damage as they can before we come for them in November 2012.

Save Our Republic: Repeal the 17th Amendment

2010-03-25T12:34:00.001-07:00

I mailed this letter to all my members of Congress

Hi,

I'm concerned about ever increasing federal power. I think the best way to thwart the flow of power to the central government is to repeal the part of the 17th amendment that allows the election of US Senators by the people instead of the state houses. The major argument against this (or at least the one I have heard) is that the state houses were corrupt when they elected the Senators. Well, they could not have been more corrupt than Washington is now. Also, state houses are much easier for the people to clean up than the corrupt bureaucracies and legislature in Washington where we have very little power. State Senators and Congressmen actually live in our neighborhoods and represent far fewer people than federal Senators and Congressmen. They are much easier to monitor and control. The states are becoming more and more impotent and the balance of power in our federated system is moving too much to the center.

I think we should promote this idea and put it out there for the people to think about. The people are upset (to put it lightly) with the incredibly powerful, unresponsive, inefficient, and corrupt federal government. We need to strike while public opinion is open to solutions. This would fix so many of our problems by giving states more of their sovereignty back and moving government closer to the people. There are very few (if any) sound arguments against this idea, and when they are raised we could easily defeat them. We must convince the people that this is the single most powerful and effective action we can take to save our republic.

The Case Against Compulsory High School Education

2010-02-16T14:57:00.000-08:00

One of the reasons our schools today are underachieving is because we force all kids to go to school and we allow them to graduate whether or not they can read, do math or speak English. Our schools function as a daycare for many high school students. These students drag down students who actually want to learn. They cause discipline problems and require extra attention from teachers; attention that good students deserve and would actually use to their benefit. Instead, students who want to learn are neglected. Those who refuse to work and would rather be out having fun should be allowed to leave. If their parents can’t make them work, then why should we have to pay someone to do the parent’s job. Let those students go and see what they can do without an education. They will either find a career, or they will flounder until they realize that they need to grow up and learn a marketable skill or enter college so they can go into a profession.

This already happens in college when students leave a compulsory experience and enter real life (if college can be called real life) where they can slack off all they want. Many freshmen flunk their first semester and then they either drop out altogether, or they actually start working. This is because it is not free and they have a choice. They see the benefit of an education and they realize they won’t graduate unless they actually work. This makes a college degree actually mean something. A high school degree means little if anything now because everyone graduates regardless of whether they know anything or not.

If we ended compulsory high school all the students who just want to have fun for four years would leave and those who want to study would remain. Our money would not be wasted corralling unruly students and the time of the good students would not be wasted while the teacher deals with disruptors. High schools would function more like colleges do, where there are still those that skate through but they do not detract from the students who want to do well because the professors aren’t required to have disruptors in their class. In college, if someone is disrupting the class, the professor can just tell them to leave. If they never study and don’t care about learning then they get an F.

Abandoning compulsory high school would benefit students who are not disruptive or lazy, but would rather enter the labor force sooner. They could go find a job, or get focused education that would teach them a skill with which they could earn a decent living without all the arts, sports, and stuff they will never use on the job. Everyone does not need a liberal education. There is some truth to all those times that kids said “when am I going to use this?” A lot of jobs don’t require employees to know history, art, calculus, or sports. Instead of forcing all our kids to fit into one prescribed mold, we should actually let them learn what they want and as much or as little as they need. The sooner they learn what they want to do in life, the better off they will be. Eventually we have to let them decide what they want anyway. I think it would be better to let a freshman in high school screw up, realize that the real world is rough and thereby realize the value of a free education. Than to wait until he is a freshman in college and realize that four free years of high school education were wasted.

The FDR Deception

2010-01-11T13:03:00.000-08:00

FDR is credited by many with brining us out of the Depression. This is demonstrably false and it is important that we inform others because the left is trying to use that idea to enlarge the federal government and fundamentally change America. FDR did many unconstitutional things during his presidency, but since the people wanted change they didn't care. He spent billions on public works projects and other programs trying to "prime the pump" and get the economy moving again. Well, none of it worked. He and the congress enacted some needed legislation that regulate the banks and wall street, and established the FDIC. Those were probably needed and healthy. Pretty much everything else he did was counterproductive though. He raised taxes, which hindered investment and kept unemployment high. He enacted wage and price controls, as well as many other regulations on industry that discouraged economic activity. All of this remaking of America made the business environment unpredictable. People don't invest in an unpredictable environment. They hold onto their money.

With all this spending and restructuring of the economy you would think that the economy would have recovered right? Wrong. Look at the unemployment graph on this website

http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/watkins/recovery.htm

Roosevelt was elected in 1932 and took power in 1933. All of his programs never brought unemployment below 10 percent. It wasn't even a steady decline. We had a second depression in 1938. That's just when all of his programs would have had time to take effect.

Of course people could make the argument that his programs weren't given enough time to work. But if they were exactly what the country needed then why did it take until 1941 for unemployment to get anywhere approaching acceptable?

http://www.miseryindex.us/urbymonth.asp?StartYear=1980-11&EndYear=1989-01&submit1=Create+Report

Now go to this unemployment report from November 1980-January 1989, from Reagan's election to Bush I's inagauguration.

He inherited an unemployment rate of 7.5 percent from Carter in Jan 1980. It peaked at 10.8 percent in November 1982. That's two years of high unemployment, totally unacceptable. But look what happens afterward, a slow, but steady decline until it was at acceptable levels, almost full employment by the end of his second term.

Granted, this was with a war buildup, just as FDR's pre-war buildup, but on a much larger scale.

The economies are far different and the world situation was different so you can't fairly compare them. But they are worth comparing because Reagan was cutting taxes and deregulating the economy while FDR was doing the exact opposite. Reagan's growth wasn't based on government remaking America, he let the private sector remake itself.

If we want a stagnant economy, if we want to become like Europe and Japan, then we can sit back and let the left ruin our private sector by strangling it with red tape and higher taxes. Or we can fight them, pass actual reforms instead of wholesale takeovers of the economy and let the private sector do what it does best, create wealth and jobs. The government has never done that and it won't now. During this crisis we need to not let our fears allow us to let benevolent tyrants take control of our country.

Sure we need reforms in many aspects of our government. Let the congress pass those new rules to make business more able to fairly provide goods and services. Don't hamper them with more red tape and taxes. And especially don't hamper them with Marxist wage controls and profit limits like are in the current health care bill. Don't let them use the government to re-engineer our society into one that looks like Europe. We are not subjects dependent on government programs for our well being. We are citizens of a republic, if given the chance and the freedom we will provide for ourselves. If the government would get out of business and step back into its proper goal as the referee, not a player, then our country would be a lot better off.

Our Last Christmas with the Constitution

2009-12-22T09:49:00.000-08:00

The health care bill moving through the Senate is unconstitutional and reveals the Marxist beliefs of the ultra-leftists in control of our country. Limiting CEO pay and shareholder profits for insurance companies is totally unconstitutional. They didn't take any government money. If this sort of thing continues the American republic with be no more. I'm not only blaming this on the Democrats, both sides have contributed to the dramatic shift of power from the states to the federal government.

This health care bill will touch every American life, for their entire life. It will end certain people's lives earlier than they otherwise would have because of rationing. It will involve bureaucrats (looking out for the "collective good") in our individual health care decisions. It will destroy the health insurance companies, laying the groundwork for a federal takeover of the industry.

They are marxists and their aim is to have the state control the production and distribution of goods and services in this country. Their rationale is that the workers are being taken advantage of by "big business" and the "fat cats" on wall street. The state will provide what services we need because the state is objective, the state has the good of the people in mind, not their shareholders or their executives. The state knows what is good for the largest number, so instead of having a few rich, then everyone will have what they need. Those who are able will give what they can to those who are unable to provide for themselves. The capitalists who are soaking up all the wealth by being in positions of power will be put in their place, and replaced by government officials who have the people's best interest at heart, not their bank account, and the bank accounts of their rich friends. All wealth is ultimately derived from the people's labor and therefore they should be able to decide what happens to it, instead of the wealthy CEOs.

This is Marxism. The idea that the wealthy took advantage of you, and their wealth is the result of your labor, therefore you are more entitled to it than they are because they got it illegitimately. You are powerless to get any of it, you are only one person, but in a group you can run things. If you enlist the power of government to make things fair then you will be provided for, because you deserve it.

This is in all the talk we hear from Obama. He gives lip service to capitalism to placate concerned citizens, but all of his actions show that he believes in Marxism. It's not just him it's the whole left wing of his party. They see nothing wrong with Marxism and everything wrong with capitalism.

The only time I have seen Obama show any emotion is when he told the country how outraged he was about AIG. They spent 1 tenth of 1 percent of the federal budget on bonuses and he got outraged. They did what was outlined in the bill that HE SIGNED!!! and he was still outraged. He is a Marxist and he wants to remake us into a Marxist country. Their first step is a socialist health care system. They are going to get it. They have already run up our deficit to unprecedented levels to build public works and fix our infrastructure. This is another Marxist practice.

Russia and China have good public transportation; owned and operated by the government of course. It is for the masses. They don't trust money in the hands of private businesses, they won't do what is right for the people. Only the government knows what is right for the people, they have the people's best interest at heart, naturally. The capitalists only have their own greed as their interest. They only want to take advantage of the people. Having said that, China and Russia are changing. They are giving their businesses more autonomy and greater financial freedoms. Exactly the opposite of what we are doing.

How much more power can the federal government accumulate? At what point will it be enough? When will they have fixed every problem in the country with their programs and all knowing boards of bureaucrats?

It will never stop. They will only add more regulation, another new program, request more power, and in the process further fracture the constitution to achieve their benevolent goals. We are fast approaching the time when our country will no longer be a federated republic, it will be an empire. An empire with powerless state governments and a corrupt legislature that is only a rubber stamp for the president. They will no longer care what their constituents want because they are too busy getting rich off the corruption in Washington.

I think we are at a tipping point. If we assert our power in elections and remove the power in Washington, it will simultaneously remove the corruption and power will devolve back to the states. If we don't, and we let this gathering of power in Washington continue, then our republic will end. It won't disappear, but it will no longer be a true representative republic. It will be a charade. The leaders will go through the motions of appealing to the people and stay within their terms of office. We will still have our freedoms generally, but certain things will be locked in, that we will not ever be able to change.

The enormous federal debt will hamper our ability to defend our allies, it will weaken our economy and currency. Much of our lives will be run by or be dependent upon the federal government, with the state governments acting as administrative districts of the federal government. The economy will be largely regulated and molded by the federal government. Entire industries will be run from Washington. We will be given aid for school, housing, car loans, transportation, child care, retirement, health care, and food. The vast majority will welcome the help because taxes and expenses will be so high that we will need the help to make ends meet. We will have free speech, we won't have illegal searches and seizures. We'll still have our guns and religion, but they will both be regulated to some extent. It won't be that bad. We'll have food, modest houses, decent cars, enough food, decent medical care. There will still be poor people, but they will be that way if they want to, or if they are mentally ill. We will all be a little poorer, except for the wealthy ruling class. We will be like France or Sweden, but without a powerful wealthy ally to protect us and support our lavish and unrealistic welfare state. We won't have the luxury of acting like a selfish teenager living in our parents house, eating, playing, and having fun, while the grownups take care of things in the real world. While all the while telling our guardians how old fashioned and uptight they are about everything and that they should cool off and just hang out like us.

If we don't confront the Marxist ideology that has infected this country we are headed for a languid, insecure, and bankrupt mediocrity.

Iraq is Taking Control Depsite Democratic Calls for Surrender

2009-07-18T11:39:00.000-07:00

Iraq is finally taking control of its own country.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,533798,00.html

They are enforcing the status of forces agreement that was agreed to during the Bush administration. Iraq is finally stable enough, and the Iraqi forces are strong enough to patrol the country on their own. This is a direct result of Bush's surge. This result is also in direct contradiction to what Obama predicted would happen when the surge started. Obama wanted U.S. troops to leave in order to force the Iraqis to fix their political differences. As if fixing political differences would stop suicide bombers. Force was what fixed this war, not political maneuvering, twitter, freedom of the press, or Obama's beloved diplomacy. Brute force, boots on the ground made Iraq secure enough for Iraq to fix its problems. Obama had it in reverse order. Just like he does now. Negotiating alone will not get Iran, or any of our enemies, to change. A credible threat of, or actual show of force is the only thing that will make negotiations effectual.

Just as we can't give Obama credit for a peaceful Iraq, we also can't reasonably blame him for the bad economy. We can blame him for what he is doing to it right now to prolong and deepen it, but being in this situation is not his fault.

America's Road

2009-07-07T22:37:00.001-07:00

Capitalism is one of the pillars of America, and as it is replaced by government control, our country is weakened.

Choice is just one of the reasons why capitalism is better than socialism. We need to have choice not simply for the sake of having choice, and not simply because it is "evil" to have the government run things, but because it works better when multiple private entities compete. When the government takes over an industry or a service, they are the only ones that do it, because they compete all the private business out of business. They are their own government sponsored monopoly.

Liberals love to tell us that when companies are allowed to run services or industries, that they are scraping money off the top for themselves and their "evil" profits. They act as though handing the job over to the government will keep quality high, and prices will drop because we are cutting out the middle man. This is classic marxism, let the factory workers take over the factory and get rid of the capitalist who is profiting from everyone else's poverty. That might have been an attractive system in 19th century Russia, and America for that matter. Today, however it is a recipe for disaster.

When government takes over a sector of the economy it runs all the other companies out of business and then we are left with one choice, the government sponsored service. Yes, when you let companies run things, there are CEOs that make hundreds of millions of dollars, but you also have millions of employees making good money, and you have millions of satisfied customers. If a company fails to satisfy its customers, then it goes out of business, those CEOs lose their jobs and the customers go somewhere else to get what they want.

Not so when the government runs things. You can't go anywhere else. You get what the govenrnment provides when and how they want to provide it, and that's it. It doesn't matter how badly the entity is run because it can't go out of business. Of course the super rich can get things, just like they can in capitalism, but now that all the competition is gone, regular people are stuck with substandard government enterprises. With employees that take no pride in their work, because there is no compeitition for customers. They can treat you however they want, you have to come to them, you are their servant. They are always right, not you.

Socialism is a utopian dream. Liberals constantly point to Japan and Europe as examples of how it works. Well those countries aren't living in the real world. They are propped up by our military. They can use all the money they would otherwise have to spend on defense on inefficient social programs instead. They don't have to worry about their security like any real country would have to, because we are there to protect them. They are American protectorates and have been since WWII. The Soviet Union had to look out for itself and once it tried to compete with our economy, culture, and military buildup, it didn't stand a chance.

I ask you, look around the world and through history, where has a socialist country not protected by the United States prospered? Nowhere. It doesn't work. It makes the country poor. They have no innovation because the bureaucratic behomoth of the government smothers change. Why is the internet exploding with commerce and innovation? Because it isn't regulated, it isn't taxed. Why is the American car industry breathing its last breath? because it is regulated and unionized to death. It can't change to meet our needs on a dime like Microsoft and Apple, Ebay, and Google can. The government has bound them down with excessive regulation and the market is signalling that those companies should die, but the government won't let them. This will be every company when the government controls our economy. An economy of zombie corporations, that aren't really working right, but that the government props up to keep the economy running.

This is the test of our country, will we let individuals succeed, or will we let the government coddle everyone and control everything in the name of fairness, equity, and security. Will we let a crisis shake our belief in freedom, competition, intitiative, small government, personal responsibility and hard work? It looks as though the Democratic congress and the President are headed that way. They want to take care of us. They are protecting us from the problems that their ideologyhas by and large created. They'll try to blame it on deregulation and Bush's "failed policies" and they will probably get away with it. But they are wrong. They are ruining our country in their very efforts to perfect it.

America will decline, and the people will call out for more control to fix the situation. The people have been taught to believe in the collective, not the individual. The Congress will give more control to the executive to fix one crisis after another because they want results not "grid lock."They want to "work together and stop yelling at one another." Our republic is failing because our leaders in Congress are corrupt. They only care about staying in office. They don't care about the long term welfare of the country. They want the President to take control, to shift the responsibility of actually governing away from themselves. They want the courts to decide what the Congress should decide. They won't use the power that the founders gave them, and control the federal government. That's too difficult. It is easier to let others take control and live in the lap of luxury they have created for themselves. Instead of governing they want to milk the country, get a pension and retire while the country implodes.

Unless we weed out our corrupt congressman and senators, our republic will take the same road as the only other successful republic in history, Rome. America will turn into an empire. After all, an empire is more efficient. Legislative bodies are messy, slow, and don't always get the job done. Emperors fix things. That is the strength of the executive, that is why he is there, to take action when it is needed. Well, if we are in perpetual crisis, and the people look to the government for their security and well being then the executive is the logical choice. Get out of the way Congress, you obviously can't get it done, let the leader take over, he'll figure it out.

America won't crumble immediately, it is too strong for that, but it will decay and it will be less free, and over time it will weaken because of its decadent, irrepsonsible, and self destructive government and people.

Economy to Obama: "I've Fallen and I Can't Get Up!"

2009-06-17T19:13:00.001-07:00

Nearly every time I hear President Obama speak he says that there is a huge emergency that we have to fix as soon as possible. We are in a crisis, yes, but we still have the Constitution. It demands that congress deliberate about sensible bills and come to conclusions that are reasonable instead of passing a 787 billion dollar stimulus bill without reading it first, nationalizing huge companies, and destroying our health system through a government takeover. We can't let the Democrats push through a series of unconsidered and haphazard legislation because they don't want to waste this crisis/opportunity.

Additionally, many of the things they are doing or proposing are unconstitutional. Buying car companies, running health care, mandating that people get health insurance. I never saw that in the Constitution. I don't even hear anyone asking if what they are doing is constitutional. We need to start asking that.

If Obama Wanted to Fix the Economy He Could

2009-06-16T23:21:00.001-07:00

There are many reasons for the downturn that I don't pretend to understand. One thing I do understand is that unemployment is the main problem right now. What could fix unemployment? Capital investment. Employers employ people and create wealth. Not government programs, not "going green" and especially not higher taxes and nationalizing companies. If Obama cut taxes across the board, he would create jobs. It's that simple. Now he said in an interview that he understands this, but that his intent is equity, not increased government revenue through economic expansion. He is willing to have us suffer through this depression so that he can redistribute the wealth in a way which he thinks is equitable. I disagree with his philosophy and methods, and I think by 2012 a majority of Americans will too.

The Affirmative Action Comedian

2009-05-11T14:36:00.000-07:00

This lady is a lame comedian. Why didn't she just bring out some "yo mama" jokes for good measure. What mean spirited comedy.

Americans Need to Wake Up 50 Trillion Dollars is a Lot

2009-05-07T14:43:00.000-07:00

It irritates me that Americans (I don't mean anyone in particular) have no idea how much money is being spent. AIG gives 150 million in bonuses and everyone freaks out. The Congress gives 2 Trillion dollars to crappy companies, and no one cares. What the hell! I don't know math, but if you divide 150 million by Obama's federal budget monstrosity of 3.4 trillion, you get. 4.41176471 × 10-5. You figure out what percentage that is of the budget. 4.41176471 x 10-3? It is almost literally nothing. David Brooks said it was like .001 or something. Over the next 30-40 years we're looking at 50 trillion in entitlement liabilities, Soc Sec, Medicaid, Medicare. What is Obama doing about that? He's creating MORE entitlements. Not reforming the existing ones. During the debates, Obama said he's going to use a scalpel opposed to McCain's hatchet. Here is his tiny 17 billion dollar scalpel. And there's a lot of naive Americans that are going to eat it right up.

Media Only Reports Bad News

2007-06-10T16:48:00.000-07:00

This is a perfect example of the leftists in the media focusing only on the bad news in Iraq. President Talabani tried to emphasize the good things going on in Kurdistan and the south. But George would not let him and focused back on the bad.http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=3239694

Even if you have no scruples at least you won, right?

2007-06-04T20:43:00.000-07:00

The Democrats consistently beat the drum of bringing our troops home. They never acknowledge that, whether it is right or wrong to be in Iraq, if we leave, it will be chaos. They already won the mid-term elections by promising an end to the war. They made impossible promises they knew they could not fulfill but that they could blame on Bush. So they bash the president and perfect their demagoguery, without consequence, and probably with a presidential win. It disgusts me.

What to do with a madman?

2007-05-25T10:38:00.000-07:00

What should we do with this guy? When he first emerged should we have killed him or is he a tribal leader that could help govern? Would his death cause more unrest than the unrest that is being caused by his anti-American rhetoric? I tend to think that we should have killed him when he first emerged. We should have cooperated with all the leaders that we could have, but the ones like Muqtada that were anti-democracy, should have been jailed or killed. Force can accomplish things sometimes. It could have accomplished ridding Iraq of this troublemaker.

The Power of Average Americans

2007-05-23T22:07:00.000-07:00

Average Americans could help countless people in the third world. Here's the idea. We setup an account that would act as an endowment. It would only use half the interest to feed people. It would reinvest the other half. Normal people could fund this. There are over 100 million wage earners in this country. If each person setup an automated debit into this account for 1 dollar per month, America would add 1.2 billion dollars to this account per year.

Two percent of this total is 24 million dollars. This would be the amount of money available in only the first year. In ten years, there would be more than 240 million dollars available.

We would have to setup a way for them to access this money with little or no overhead. We could use the UN or churches or governments. With this much money it would be difficult to avoid corruption. This endowment would grow forever and in time would be the greatest source of charity in the world. Eventually we could feed everyone that needed food.

A dollar a day could adequately feed a person in most third world countries. I know this is would not teach the people how to fish. The truth is, this country has the moral obligation to help those who have been denied the means to help themselves. If we have to feed them forever, then so be it, we have the means.

Will America Ever Win Another War?

2007-05-23T11:28:00.000-07:00

With the increased media coverage of war will America ever win another one? The Civil War, WWII, and Korea, were all successful wars, but the American people were largely in the dark during those periods.
The way news is reported has changed and now we can see everything for ourselves. We don't have to believe our leaders. If Americans knew how close we came to losing during the Civil War, would we have won? If Americans could have witnessed the carnage of the war in China and the Germany's war with Russia would we have ever sent our boys over there in the first place? Korea was a messy, back and forth struggle. Would the Americans of today have forced the government to abandon Korea if they saw what was going on?

I think so. Why, I don't know. Whether this development is good or bad I don't know.

Immigration Presents a Crossroads

2007-05-17T19:38:00.000-07:00

I think the immigration debate is a good springboard for a larger debate about the future of our foreign policy.

We see all around us large sections of the earth coming under the control of centralized, effective governments. China, the EU, Russia, India, Brazil, are all benefitting from globalization. China will be the major power in the world in probably fifty years. We have to realize our place in this new world and not break ourselves by attempting to hold on to our superpower status. We hold a disproportionate share of the wealth, power, and influence in the world. This will inevitably change, and we must prepare for it.

My question is, are we going to integrate with Mexico and Canada or are we going to insulate ourselves from them. I don't know what the best way to go about either path would be. We have already headed down the path of integration with NAFTA and CAFTA. Should we go further? Should we stop where we are at? We need to start deciding and acting soon or else both options will be more difficult to implement as refugees stream across our border and remain in the shadows.

give me truth