Here are some of the things that I have been thinking about after hearing what President Obama had to say last night:

1. Small businesses do not pay much in the way of Capital Gains Taxes. This was basically an empty promise designed to make an attractive sound bite.
2. While we are on small businesses….They employ around 70% of Americans. Many of these people file their business taxes as personal income taxes.  President Obama said that he was going to raise taxes on those making over $250,000.  This will impact many small business people and is the complete wrong way to add jobs to our struggling economy.
3. 2 sentences on health reform…Basically status quo. He does not get that America does not want his plan.
4. Real health reform would allow for the buying of insurance across state lines, tort reform, letting like groups pool together to reduce premium costs and an end to ridiculous mandates.
5. We cannot tax our way into prosperity.
6. There was more comedy than substance in the speech last night. Seemed more like an SNL speech. Repeat of last years speech almost.
7. Was this President really lecturing the Congress on budgeting?
8. The laundry list of things that will never happen gets boring really fast.
9. Letting gays serve openly in the military is a bad idea. Find some other forum for your social experiments.
10. President Obama is completely out of touch with mainstream America.  Real people do not live is his egalitarian world.

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Sin Wall from Oak Leaf Church on Vimeo.

No matter your sin and how much you may be hurting Jesus is there to wipe away your past and give you a future. Jesus did not die so that you would live shackled by the guilt of your past sins.  Give yourself to him and take the first step towards redemption!

Romans 10:9

⁹That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

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Almost a year ago today, I wrote that the stimulus money that Bartow County was receiving would ultimately cost the taxpayers of this county.  First we all need to remember that this money was taken from us in the form of taxes to begin with.  The Obama administrations answer to our economic downturn has been to throw money at the problem which has been an absolute failure.

The unemployment rate at the time which the stimulus money was enacted was 7% and we currently have a rate of over 10%. Many experts put the real rate of unemployment at 17% if you factor in those who are underemployed or who have given up looking for work at all.  Most of the money that has been spent to date went to pet projects that the Democrats have been trying to fund for years. Only a small fraction of the stimulus dollars went to those “shovel ready” projects.  We are now finding that many of those projects were not ready to begin or have not been fully funded  in the first place.

Today an article was written in The Daily Tribune about how these stimulus dollars have cost the taxpayers of Bartow County $186,000. These funds created a situation where the Water Department spent money that they may not have budgeted for projects that have not been funded to date by the state or federal government.

Local officials publicly say they are not upset with the money spent on projects that have yet to materialize.  They indicate that work done will be ready when the projects are finally funded.  The problem is that we have seen these projects never be re-funded which results in local taxpayers being left holding the bag.

Nothing is ever FREE! We must be careful rushing to accept all of this federal money because of the miles of strings that are associated with taking it.  In the end this free money may actually cost us more than just dealing with our current situation locally.

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1. A lot of discussion has been generated on our suit in regards to HB251. The video of the board meeting is up.  Starts about 15 minutes in.
2. Leadership sometimes means walking by yourself.

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Last nights election of Scott Brown is a major repudiation of the policies of President Barrack Obama. Almost a year to the day of his historic inauguration the people of one of our most liberal states said NO to his far left agenda.  The Democratic party needs to understand that this is a center right country and people are not going to simply sit back and allow them to socialize this nation.

The key moving forward for Republicans is going to be the agenda that we propose. With Brown securing the 41st vote for the GOP we will be able to stop or delay much of Obama’s agenda.  We cannot simply be the party of NO. We must begin to present a different picture of what this country would look like governed under a conservative set of principles.

In the NFL after an important win teams institute the 24hr rule. They celebrate and enjoy the win for 24 hours and then quickly turn their attention to the next opponent.  We MUST do the same thing with this historic win in Massachusetts.  November is coming quickly and we need to be able to offer a real alternative so that people can really chose the path that they want to see this country take.

Thank You Scott Brown for stopping the Change…….No He Can’t!

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The Georgia Legislature has been a hot bed for corruption for years with very little reform to truly address any of the systemic problems that have plagued this institution.  Instead of cleaning up there own mess they have opted in concert with Governor Perdue to do the more politically expedient and go after local school boards.

As a result of the loss of accreditation for Clayton County schools the legislature is considering sweeping changes to school board service.   Here are some of the details of SB 84:

SB 84 contains provisions by which local board members can be removed from office for certain ethical or conflict of interest violations or if the system looses accreditation; sets training requirements for board members, and attempts to define the role of board members and superintendents.

As a school board member, I can tell you that all of these things are already in place. When schools systems  fail there is shared responsibility between the central office, the board and the voters. Clayton County was the first to lose its accreditation and there are only a couple at risk this year.  The vast majority of systems perform well and do not need this intervention from the state.

This change is more about politicians wanting to stand up in front of crowds and brag about “change” with no real impact to how the legislators do their job. Every year we are forced to listen to these people bloviate  about that which they really do not understand.

Maybe our legislators should actually try and start representing the people who elected them instead of grandstanding in a quest for more political power.  Local control and smaller government is not always pretty but it is supposed to be what the Republican party stands for.

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1. Hard to quantify the destruction and horror that has occurred in Haiti. I feel guilty and blessed to live in this country every time I see an event like this take place. Even with all of our political differences we have the best country in the world.
2. Those “evil” American corporations the Democrats talk about are pouring millions of dollars into Haiti.
3. President Obama has done a good job mobilizing our Haiti response (See I can be nice).
4. The Republican Party needs to return to its roots of individual freedom and local control. There is a tendency to forgo your beliefs once you have complete power. We need our state to be out in front on leading the conservative reemergence of the Republican party.
5. I’ve been reading through Job…..The takeaways so far- I hope God never turns a blind eye to my life, Friends can be more of the problem than the solution, We should praise God just as much when things go wrong as we do when our life is going great!!

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A suit was filed in Federal court this week challenging the constitutionality of a new clause that was added to HB 251 in the Georgia Legislature last year.  This clause prohibits people to serve on the school board if they have relatives serving in various capacities within the school system.

Why is the Ga. Legislature inserting itself into local government? They pass ridiculous laws and the local community has to step in to try and fix it.  This is a free speech issue and in my view another example of the boys in Atlanta reaching to far. People should not be prohibited from serving on the school board based on the career choices of their family.

When is the Republican party going to understand that they cannot have it both ways? We either are the party of freedom and local control or we are not.  The board is the elected leadership of the school system. This law impacts the governance of this institution.  Any board public or private would fight to ensure that we (the board) in concert with the voters determine how to lead this community.

I have received some concerns about the fact that this suit is being funded by the Bartow County Board of Education. Concerns over the cost should be addressed to the legislators who use petty arguments in their community to impact an entire state.  They forced this action.

Where does it stop? It you have a son who is a police Lt. should you be ruled unfit to serve on a city council? Everything about this is wrong. My family experience in education and my own service as a teacher have made me a better public servant.  Part of my job in protecting this community and our students is to ensure that good people can serve on this board. This is a worthy fight and an important issue for the future of this school system. That makes this fight financially sound.

Those in favor of this change would argue that the corruption that has been uncovered in a small percentage of school systems warrant this restriction on who can legally serve.  We have a process for dealing with elected officials who under-perform. That process is elections. We cannot replace occasional voter apathy and lack of due diligence with the heavy handedness of government. Why just school boards? Why not county commissions, or city councils? Does inappropriate hiring not occur at all levels of government? Why not amend the constitution so that you can’t be elected federally if you have a spouse in state government?

All of these issues occur in the private sector as well, by the way.

It will never be a perfect system but the voters of OUR community should decide this issue not the Georgia Legislature

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If you follow me on twitter or facebook you have probably have heard me singing the praises of two recent iPhone apps that I really love.  As a sales person I spend a lot of time in my car and I must give Neal Boortz credit for letting me know that theses apps were out there.

Dragon Dictation is a great way to safely send out a text message , post to twitter, facebook or respond to an email simply by using your voice. I have found that it really gets it right most of the time and if there is an error you can easily go back and manually correct it.

Cardstar is an application that lets you enter in all of the information of those store loyalty cards and this program creates the bar-code that needs to be scanned at the retailer, gym or other organization. It also allows for travel, shipping and other customer numbers to be stored in one location.  No more key chain cards! Here is an example of what it looks like:

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