The president is supposed to be a leader not a dictator. Instead of crafting a pathway around the hazards facing our nation, President Obama is pushing our nation from crisis to crisis. In doing so, he is manipulating the American people and destroying our nation's reputation at home and abroad. He uses invented crises to cajole our citizens into accepting his Chicago-style gangster rule. A few weeks ago, it was the fiscal cliff. This week, it is the sequester. What will it be next week? The president and his cronies are probably sitting in a room right now, debating the next invented crisis they will exploit.

Let's take a quick look at the fiscal cliff. In retrospect, it looks like an invented crisis, hyped by the president to manipulate congress into doing his bidding. It is obvious to me that the president is smarter than the entire congress. He used fear to cajole them and they did as he wished. In my opinion, we should have played out the cards on the fiscal cliff. I doubt that much would have really happened if we went over the cliff. We still would have paid our bills. We would still be feeding our families. More importantly we wouldn't have to eat the dung that the president dishes out to us on a daily basis.The crisis this week is the sequester. If the president and congress cannot reach agreement, then the increases to the federal budget will be cut back a bit. Listening to the politicians, it sounds like the world will come to an end. But let's look at this situation using logical thought processes. Without resolving the sequester, the government will continue to operate at existing levels. Some new people will not be hired and some new purchases will not be made. Big deal! American families are cutting back and our government should cut back as well. The government should have to live within its means at the existing funding levels. I, for one, support the sequester. It is the only way to get the government to slow down their rampant spending and reign in the growth of civil service jobs. With luck, they may be forced to lay off a few people. Better yet, it might convince them to finally produce a balanced budget!The president, as well as the republicans and democrats in congress, are using a series of never ending crises to manipulate the American people. The politicians are constantly expanding the government and the government's control over our lives. So how much will government spending be reduced if the sequester hits? Only two percent! In this economy, many of us poor citizens have had to cut our personal budgets by ten, twenty or even thirty percent. It is time the government reigns in spending. The real issue is not the sequester, it is politicians spending our money like, well, drunken politicians. I was going to say drunken sailors, but even a drunken sailor knows that he can't spend money he does not have. So does that make drunken sailors smarter than our politicians? You bet it does.In another scare tactic (and an even more idiotic move), the administration is releasing illegal aliens from detention centers to save money. As a result, some dangerous criminals are being put back onto the streets of Arizona and California. Rather than simply releasing them, the administration could have achieved the same effect by deporting them. They are here illegally. They are in prison for crimes committed against America, so put them on a prison bus or airplane and return them to their country of origin. That way, we empty the prisons and reduce the likelihood that they will reoffend here in America. As Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu stated earlier this week, "The safety of the public is threatened and the rule of law discarded as a political tactic in this sequester battle". The president is placing the lives of our fellow Americans at risk by releasing these criminals. It is clear that the president is looking for the most offensive methods to cut government spending. Could it be by releasing illegal aliens from prison he is hoping to gain the support of the Hispanic community?Rather than doing logical across-the-board cuts of say 2%, the president is making a mockery of the government budgetary process. It has been 4 years since we had a budget. The president chooses not to submit a viable budget to Congress and Congress is not forcing his hand to the budgetary fire. Without a budget, the government continues to spend willy-nilly. There are no controls in place to monitor the spending or to curtail excessive spending.Will the president's next move be to pardon convicted murderers on death row? In California it costs an additional $90,000 per year to house a death row inmate. If the president pardons them, millions of dollars will be saved. My preference of course would be to speed up the executions. It is cruel and inhumane to have people on death row for decades. Give them their speedy trial and two or three years to appeal their sentence. Once their appeals are exhausted, it is time for them to pay for their crimes. Another option would be to eliminate the death penalty and replace it with life in prison. If we are not going to execute them in a timely manner, it is inhumane to keep the death sentence hanging over their heads. Commute the sentence and let them spend the rest of their lives in prison. This measure will save us billions of dollars. In California alone, the death penalty has cost the state $4 billion since 1978.I truly doubt that the president will take any action to commute death sentences across the board. Nor will he take actions to balance the budget or even submit a budget to Congress. We can look forward to another 4 years of uncontrolled spending and an ever-increasing deficit. The president and congress has sold out our future. Our children and grandchildren will not be able to pay off the deficit. At some point, our government will be as cash-strapped as Greece. Then bankruptcy will be the only solution.© 2013 Gordon Smith - All Rights Reserved