Two disparate news items this weekend got me thinking.  The main stream media is all abuzz with Chelsea Clinton’s wedding, even to the point of throwing the term royalty around.  It is estimated that the wedding will cost $3-$5 million, although Sally Quinn of the Washington post puts the bill at closer to $1 million.  The comparison was then made to the cost of Jenna Bush’s wedding, a mere $100,000.  This became fodder for The Joy Behar Show.  Comedian Judy Gold leaped at the opportunity to take a shot at Bush, “Yeah, well, if he could have found a way for us to pay for Jenna`s wedding, he would have done that, okay, he likes to spend other people`s money.”  An interesting perspective on other people’s money that I will return to later.

The other news items was an article in The New York Times, by Bob Herbert titled “A Sin and a Shame,” lamenting that corporations are hording cash and not hiring people and it is all so unfair, in fact, sinful.  This is while this government is spending huge amounts of money that someone will have to pay back, massive new programs like ObamaCare that we are still uncovering what that will cost, and enormous tax increases about to kick in on January 1 when the Bush tax cuts expire.  Perhaps they are hording cash for a reason?  Perhaps they are not hiring because they don’t know what any new employees will cost under these new programs, or for that matter what their existing employees are going to cost?  Perhaps it is because the latest economic reports show GDP shrinking and if that continues why would you start hiring if your business is going to slow down with the rest of the economy?

We have two very divergent views of the economy today.  One view is held by those who actually work in the private economy and the other view is held by those in the ivory towers of government, which brings me back to the weddings.  I really don’t care what the Clintons or the Bushes spend on their daughter’s weddings.  It’s their money.  But perhaps it is instructive to look at where that money came from.

George Herbert Walker Bush, Jenna’s grandfather, was born into a successful family.  His father was a banker and a Senator.  But after getting out of the Army after WWII he went to Yale and upon graduation, moved away from that family and settled in Texas to start an oil company.  He went into private business and put his own money at risk.  What that means, to those who never took that chance, is you may be successful and make a lot of money, you may be successful and make a little money, you may fail and lose your money.  Chances are greater that you will lose than win, but that is the American Dream.  If you lose, you have to start over by trying to earn and save up what you lost to try again, if you have the guts and drive.  Bush succeeded in forming Bush-Overby and later with Zapata Petroleum.  He became President of Zapata for ten years and then Chairman for another two, before going into politics.  By then he was a millionaire in his own right.

George Walker Bush, Jenna’s dad, attended public school in Midland, Texas, where his parents had settled.  He went to private school after the family moved to Houston.  He later attended Yale University and became the only president to get an MBA which he did, from Harvard.  Like his father, he went into the oil business starting several independent oil exploration companies.  He later bought a stake in the Texas Rangers baseball team for $800,000 and was instrumental in building the team’s attendance.  He later sold his stake for $15 million.  Then he went into politics.

The two Bushes know risk, know about taking chances and became millionaires on their own before going into politics.  They also learned lessons about spending money and doing so prudently. 

Bill Clinton went into politics almost immediately after getting his law degree.  He was Attorney General and then Governor of Arkansas.  As governor he had a governor’s mansion.  He ran for president and upon winning traded in his governor’s mansion for the Executive Mansion, aka the White House.  He had been on the government payroll and living in government provided housing almost his entire working life.  The sweat of the people in who paid their taxes paid him.  After leaving office, Mr. Clinton was able to write books about his experience and make speeches commanding six figures a pop.  His wife did pretty much the same.  They lived off the people and ended up very rich.  They didn’t create a product or service, they didn’t create jobs, and they didn’t meet a payroll. 

I can hear the screams from the left right now, “What do you mean he didn’t create a job or meet a payroll?”  Try this test.  If Bill Clinton’s opponent was elected rather than Bill Clinton, would there still be a government payroll and government jobs?  If yes, Bill Clinton didn’t create them.  If either of the Bushes didn’t create their companies would there be jobs at those companies or payrolls?  No.

What about some other famous politicians who tell us what to do?  Let’s look at Al Gore.  Here is another individual that spent the bulk of his career in government.  He was a member of Congress, a United States Senator, Vice President and presidential candidate.  Today he is very rich.  It is said he may become the first “green billionaire”.  If he went into his current endeavors before a life in government, would the story be the same?  Or is it because of his name, reputation, and connections that he made at the public trough, that he is wallowing in riches, and telling the rest of us to reduce our carbon footprint while his mansions consume ten times the energy of his neighbors?

Charlie Rangel spent most of his life in government.  He rose through the ranks and now has a waterfront condominium in the Dominican Republic, writes the tax laws but does not observe them, and is a wealthy man.  Conservatives don’t believe in rent control or rent stabilized apartments, but Charlie does.  After all, how can poor and middle income people afford to live in places like Manhattan if greedy landlords have their way.  So Charlie Rangel who makes $174,000 per year, plus his chairmanship pay, has not one, not two, not three, but four rent controlled apartments.  Is he poor or middle class?  No, he is the political class.  He took three adjoining rent controlled apartments and had them joined together, while the fourth apartment served, illegally, as his campaign headquarters.  What about the poor and blue collar workers who could live in Manhattan if three of your four rent controlled apartments weren’t being horded by you?  Let them eat cake.

John Kerry is in the news for trying to avoid $500,000 in taxes on his new yacht.  Here is another individual who spent his entire working life in government.  He can tell the rest of us to pay more taxes while he garners favors spending our money. He is the richest man in the Senate but with prenuptial agreements with his wife he only lists personal assets of between $400,000 and $1.8 million and joint assets with his wife of $300,000 – $600,000.  So how does he buy a $7 million yacht?  I am not suggesting anything nefarious, it’s obvious his wife paid for it, but do you think he is in touch with someone trying to make a payroll in the private sector?  You pay taxes; John Kerry has advisors to figure out how to avoid them.

So those evil corporations started by those evil men like George Herbert Walker Bush and George Walker Bush, know the value of a dollar.  They know we are not out of the woods yet and so to protect the jobs that their companies still have they are not hiring but are building their rainy day funds.  Perhaps Bob Herbert should ask why his employer is shedding jobs left and right.  Perhaps this is his safe way of doing so, but on the other hand the New York Times is hardly hording cash.  Its circulation is crashing because people like Bob Herbert are so out of touch with the rest of America; no one wants to read his rants any longer.

So perhaps Bill Clinton spends millions on Chelsea’s wedding because he didn’t learn the value of a dollar.  He lived of the government for many years and then just held out a basket and it was miraculously filled with more money than he can count.  George Bush spent $100,000 on a wedding because he knows how hard it is to earn a dollar.  What we need is less of the political class telling us what to do, and then handing us the bill and more entrepreneurial Americans who risk their own money, watch it like hawks, create jobs and generate wealth that they then reinvest in America.

Best wishes to Chelsea and Marc.

This week we saw President Obama come out swinging to that old class warfare tune.  Lashing out at Republicans in Congress for not adding to the deficit by extending unemployment benefits, he implied they were heartless and cruel.  The president used the same tired prop of the straw man, that is, accusing “the same people” without naming any of those people.  He uses this tactic because if he actually named the people he was accusing he would have to produce facts to back up the charges and Obama, as usual, doesn’t have any.

But here’s what he does have.  He has a record of focusing his energy on passing ObamaCare instead of focusing on growing the economy.  He is layering on more uncertainty of huge government programs and impending taxes that are scaring most small businesses from any hiring until the dust settles and they can tally up the bill.  He has Republicans who are ready to go along with the extension in benefits, if and only if, they are paid for.  With only about half of the $787 billion stimulus bill money spent, which is working fabulously by the way, taking the needed $30 billion from that kitty should be obvious. 

President Obama also has a chief economic advisor named Larry Summers.  Mr. Summers wrote an article on unemployment for the Concise Encyclopedia of Economics while at Harvard and in it he raised the following points:

• Government assistance programs contribute to long-term unemployment is by providing an incentive, and the means, not to work.
• Unemployment insurance also extends the time a person stays off the job. [Colleague Kim] Clark and I estimated that the existence of unemployment insurance almost doubles the number of unemployment spells lasting more than three months.
• If unemployment insurance were eliminated, the unemployment rate would drop by more than half a percentage point, which means that the number of unemployed people would fall by about 750,000.
• Another cause of long-term unemployment is unionization. High union wages that exceed the competitive market rate are likely to cause job losses in the unionized sector of the economy. Also, those who lose high-wage union jobs are often reluctant to accept alternative low-wage employment.

It seems as if President Obama has painted himself into a corner.  The stubbornly high unemployment numbers are poised to ravage the Democrats in the mid-term elections.  But if his advisor, Mr. Summers, is to be believed, the unemployment benefits he is trying to use as a campaign issue against the Republicans is probably propping up the unemployment numbers.

The American people have reached their limit on deficit spending and want it reined in.  The Democrats put in place something called Paygo, which means pay as you go.  If you want something, you have to pay for it.  However, the Democrats are bypassing their own rule at every turn.  You can’t have it both ways, ceremoniously pass a Paygo rule for the purpose of the photo op and to look responsible, and then spend recklessly once the klieg lights go dark.

What prompted this president to conduct his Rose Garden show with three unemployed Americans used as props?  Could it be that Nancy Pelosi is hopping mad that this president has not been helping Democrats to get reelected in the fall?  If so, perhaps that was the point of the Rose Garden performance, nothing but election year politics.  And you wonder why the American people are becoming increasingly cynical about their government?

An in depth article in the New York Times titled, “Lapses Found in Oversight of Failsafe Device on Oil Rig,” covers at length the problems surrounding the technology and methods employed to prevent the disaster that we see every day on our television screens, newspapers, and the Internet.  It also points to the nearly complete lack of oversight and enforcement by the federal government to protect us.  Politicians like to write legislation and put flowery titles on the same and gather for the cameras for signing ceremonies, but when it comes to the heavy lifting of enforcing the laws put in place they often fall down on the job.

When disaster strikes the typical Washington reaction is to add more regulations that eventually become so complex and contradictory that compliance becomes nearly impossible (e.g., Internal Revenue Code).  In the case of the oil spill in the Gulf the article points out that studies were conducted in 2003, seven years ago, on failure points to prevent the situation we are living with today, but no requirements to put them in place or test them were instituted.

The article focuses on a device called a blind shear, whose purpose is, in the event of an accident like what happened on the Deepwater Horizon, to activate a pair of shear blades to cut the pipe that rises from the well and seal the well shut.  The reliability of single blind shears has only proved to be about 46%.  With this empirical data, new wells are installing two such devices for redundancy and backup.  Such a recommendation was made to the Materials Management Service (the government agency regulating drilling) in 2001, nine years ago, but the MMS took no actions on the recommendation.  In 2003, the MMS received a recommendation that would require the necessary underwater robots and testing of emergency backup systems, but again the MMS, demurred.  The practice has been that the MMS simply took the drilling industries word that they were taking steps to prevent problems.

In 2003, the Deepwater Horizon rig has a problem in a storm that caused the rig to break away from the well it was drilling, the blind shear worked perfectly in that case giving the company a false sense of confidence in the technology.  What happened next is revealing:

The following year, BP opted to remove a layer of redundancy from the blowout preventer. It asked Transocean to replace one of the blowout preventer’s secondary rams with a “test ram” — a device that would save BP money by reducing the time it took to conduct certain well tests. In a joint letter, BP and Transocean executives confirmed that BP was aware that the change “will reduce the built-in redundancy” and raise Transocean’s “risk profile.” – New York Times, 20 June 2010, pA1

Since the MMS did not require two blowout preventers, BP was in the clear to remove one.  Also, consider the term “risk profile,” and think of this in terms of a free market where insurance companies played a role.  If you increased the risk profile and didn’t want to have your policy canceled in its entirety for hiding that fact, the insurance company would no doubt increase BP premiums for the increased “risk profile.”  Since this effort was a cost saving measure, having to pay more in insurance might have changed the equation such that BP would leave things as they were with two blowout preventers.  But the government encouraged deep water drilling, the government put a cap on the amount of damages that a drilling company would have to pay that created a moral hazard, the government ignored recommendations to required greater safety measures and the government was lax in enforcing those regulations it had in place, instead relying on taking the industry’s word that all was well.

On a separate issue regarding the cleanup, in an article in the Wall Street Journal titled, “The President Does a Jones Act,” it states that in the two weeks following the disaster, thirteen countries contacted our government offering assistance with the clean up.  Our government turned the offers down.  As the State Department put it:

“While there is no need right now that the U.S. cannot meet, the U.S. Coast Guard is assessing these offers of assistance to see if there will be something which we will need in the near future.” One month later, many of these offers are still outstanding. – Wall Street Journal, 19 June 2010

The Belgians reportedly have the ships and technology that could clean up the mess in the Gulf in one-third the time than is currently estimated.  All it requires is suspending the Jones Act of 1920.  Bush did it almost immediately in the wake of Hurricane Katrina so that foreign ships could come in and provide temporary housing for the hurricane victims.  Officials in the Obama Administration weakly respond that “no one has asked them yet,” to suspend the Jones Act.  What are they waiting for?  Doesn’t Obama and everyone in his administration to hit the Sunday talk shows tell us that they has been on top of this since day one?  One plausible reason for the hesitation is that it might offend the maritime unions. 

We are continually told by this administration that we need more government expertise telling us how to run our lives.  Surrender your liberties, we’ll take care of you.  I don’t think so.  What do you think?

Not surprisingly, we hear the administration telling us how they have been in charge since day one regarding the BP oil gusher.  But as I have often said before, if there is a major problem in America look for government to be right in the thick of it and this is no exception.

Statists like to blame the free market for such problems and that more government is the answer.  You will also hear them mistakenly say that conservatives don’t want any government involvement in the marketplace.  Conservatives believe in government, albeit limited government, but we also expect that the government that is in place do its job.  There was plenty of regulation in the BP case, perhaps too much government in that there was no one clear responsible agency but an overlapping mess.  When it comes to regulation I like to use the sports analogy of a baseball umpire.  Congress writes the rulebook and the executive branch is the umpire that makes sure the rules are followed.  If the umpire is looking at an attractive girl in the stands instead of the play on the field, he is apt to blow the call.  Blown calls seemed to be a way of life in the BP case. 

Deepwater exploration progressed faster than the regulations could keep up with the technology, and government was providing incentives to accelerate that exploration.  So there we have our first example of the government acting in a push-me, pull-you fashion, that is, incentives to explore but lacking regulations to make sure it is done safely and orderly.  Rather than looking at deep water drilling where the physics are different as a different animal needing a comprehensive review of the regulations, the regulations were piecemeal approvals of shallow water regulations. 

When BP first looked at drilling in this area they requested from the federal regulators an exemption from a rigorous environmental review.  That exemption was granted.  They also used riskier equipment that deviated from their own company safety policies.  Regulators also approved testing the blowout preventer at a pressure that was lower than federally required.  When BP wanted to delay mandatory testing of the blowout preventer when they lost “well control” in the weeks before the rig exploded, again the regulators granted the delay.

One federal agency, the Minerals Management Service, is in the dual role of both promoting drilling and regulating it.  They both collect royalty payments and issue fines for violations.  Do you think there may be a conflict here?  Is this the most effective form of government?  Here is a core beef of mine and of other conservatives.  The free market should provide the incentives for off shore drilling.  Either it is worth doing from a business standpoint or it is not.  The government’s role should be in the regulation.  When government wades into the middle trying to work both sides, it is doomed to fail.

There are multiple agencies that all have responsibility for regulation in this area in addition to the Minerals Management Service including, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Coast Guard, and the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration.  Where there are gaps in regulation, whose responsibility is it to plug the gap?  When there is overlap, whose regulations controls? 

The Minerals Management Service approved BP’s drilling plan that projected a “worst case” blowout as producing 250,000 barrels per day of escaping oil.  However, the agency did not require BP to develop a contingency plan on how they would deal with such an occurrence.  The agency also did not require companies to have a backup systems to trigger in the event a blowout preventer failed.

There were early indications of problems with the well but federal regulators approved proceeding with the drilling rather than order it be halted until the issues were addressed.

So once this disaster spun out of control how did our government respond?  Based on laws written after the Exxon Valdez spill the government and BP were supposed to cooperate.  How did the administration show their cooperation?  They said they were going to keep their “boot on the neck of BP.”  Do you feel inspired to cooperate with someone who tells the world they will keep their boot on your neck, or do you start looking for ways to protect yourself?  Instead of concentrating on giving BP whatever assistance it needs to cap the well and focusing on containing the spread of oil, the administration sends in lawyers to start a criminal investigation.  Can’t that wait until the well is capped?  Why divert attention from the problem and have BP start losing focus on the well and more on assembling a legal team?

When governor Bobby Jindal of Louisiana wanted to build a sand barrier to stop the oil from reaching the wetlands in his state, he was told to wait while our federal government dithered for three weeks haggling among the White House, Coast Guard, Army Corps of Engineers, Fish and Wildlife Service, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and Environmental Protection Agency over the best approach.  If this administration, as they have claimed, has been in charge since day one and all of these agencies fall under the administration, why couldn’t this be hashed out in a day or two?  They finally approved one barrier rather than the 23 that were requested but eventually allowed more.  For an in depth story see New York Times

For the last year and a half we have been told we don’t have enough government running our lives and telling us what to do.  Yet here is a classic case of government regulator piled on top of regulator, and regulators trying to promote and control businesses at the same time.  We have regulators granting waiver after waiver of regulations that ultimately led to disaster and our administration instead of stepping up and taking responsibility is trying to look like they are in charge while at the same time blaming everyone else, yes even Bush, for what happened.  The head of the Materials Management Service resigned and President Obama says he learned about it afterwards.  Interior Secretary Salazar said she resigned on her own volition and that she wasn’t fired.  Why not?  For all the exemptions and waivers that were granted by the government that could have prevented the worst environmental disaster in history, this administration doesn’t think anyone other than BP should be responsible.

So we are supposed to let this administration grow government and control more of our lives when they can’t take responsibility for what is already under their control.  But don’t look for a serious investigation of government’s responsibility unless a large number of incumbents are flushed out of Congress and replaced by new members who actually represent the people.

A recent article in the New York Times, “Once Stigmatized, Food Stamps Find Acceptance,” talks about how Food Stamps are now, thankfully, accepted and people can get the help they deserve. 

I remember the first time I encountered food stamps.  I was in line at the grocery store behind a woman with a cart piled high and among its contents were soda, potato chips, and other tasty luxuries.  When the bill was tallied, she took out her book of food stamps and handed them to the cashier.  I related this story to a friend who told me that you can’t use food stamps on junk food so it must have been applied against the other items in the cart.  Even so, I thought back to when I grew up.  We weren’t poor but we were no where near rich.  Things like soda and potato chips were a rarity reserved only for those times when relatives were coming from a distance for a visit.  Otherwise it was home brewed ice tea and supermarket generic cookies.  But even those treats weren’t purchased through a subsidy of our food staples.

New York is now actively recruiting new food stamp recipients in all languages imaginable.  It seems that it is not enough to provide the service but you have to make sure that everyone who can get food stamps is taking advantage of them.  Let’s see, government employees paid by taxpayers going all out to make sure that a taxpayer funded program is using as much taxpayer money as possible including a program on Rikers Island (the city jail) to enroll inmates as the leave.  The article describes one woman who was actively recruited to join the program:

A big woman with a broad smile, Ms. Bostick-Thomas swept into the group’s office a few days later, talking up her daughters’ college degrees and bemoaning the cost of oxtail meat.

“I’m not saying I go hungry,” Ms. Bostick-Thomas said. “But I can’t always eat what I want.”

Okay, I’m going to go out on a limb here.  By a “big woman” can we take that observation to mean she is not lacking in caloric intake?  She says she doesn’t go hungry.  She talks about her daughter’s college degrees.  So why are taxpayers tasked with helping her eat what she wants?  And what is that anyway?  Steak? Lobster?  Twinkies?  Ice cream?  Why aren’t the daughters with their college degrees helping their mother?  Maybe they could invite her over once a week and feed her the foods she favors?  And if they are not local, why not ship her a box of Omaha Steaks?  Why does some other taxpayer have to pick up the tab for her after they worked hard to feed their own family?

The Other Side of the Coin

On the other side of the coin, from the budget of the same Department of Agriculture, we pay farmers not to grow food in the form of farm subsidies.  Why?  Well, if we didn’t, the prices of farm products, aka food, would become too cheap for the farmers to make a decent living.  In my simple economic model of supply and demand that would seem to indicate that maybe we have more farmers than we need.  But you see farming is a way of life as much as it is an occupation, and taxpayers must be sensitive to preserving that way of life whether or not it is economically justified.  I am sure there are several million unemployed people in this country who would like to have their jobs subsidized.  Unemployment compensation is when the government gives you a check (actually its funded by your employer) when you lose your job.  Farm subsidies are when the government (no employer funding here) pays farmers to keep working at their job.

Add to that another government program to pay farmers to produce corn to make ethanol, another uneconomic subsidy.  Ethanol is pitched as a substitute for gasoline, but it takes a lot of energy to make it, it cannot be transported via pipeline like petroleum products, and when the corn is diverted to produce ethanol, the cost of almost all food goes up.  Corn is used for feed for cattle, as seed to produce corn, for corn syrup as a sweeter.  So on top of regular farm subsidies, we have ethanol subsidies to further drive up food prices.  In the case of corn syrup, sugar could be a substitute, but our government places a very high tariff on imported sugar, to protect our domestic sugar producers.

Coming Full Circle

So, on the one hand we have several government programs, funded by taxpayers, that drive up the price of food.  Then we have another program, taxpayer funded, to help people buy food because food is too expensive.  And then we have government workers and programs, taxpayer funded, that are actively marketing the food stamp program to overweight people, who never go hungry, have college educated children who could help them but don’t seem to, so that the recipient can eat the things she wants to.  But if you see a problem with this, don’t worry.  Michele Obama is about to use more taxpayer dollars to launch a program to fight childhood obesity.  Can we get off this Merry-Go-Round?

How about we shut down the Department of Agriculture?  It’s function is not in the Constitution and so it should not exist at the federal level.  End farm subsidies.  If that means we have a few less farmers, so be it.  The American people do not owe anyone other than themselves a way of life.  To the farmer who can make it, you have my complete admiration.  End ethanol subsidies.  If ethanol is a viable fuel, it should be able succeed on its own, not because Archer Daniels Midland spends millions on agricultural lobbyists. Negotiate free trade agreements so that our successful farmers, instead of being paid not to produce, produce and sell their goods around the world.  Likewise end high tariffs that protect our farm products.  These steps should lower the cost of food.

With lower food costs we shouldn’t need a food stamp program.  End it at the federal level along with the Department of Agriculture. If there continues to be a need it will probably be a much smaller one and let each state decide if it wants to start its own program.  Also, with everyone saving on food there is a greater likelihood for people to contribute to food banks to help the truly needy.  But to have one government program create a problem and another government program to try to solve it is lunacy.

With our economy hurtling toward a cliff with out of control spending, we don’t need to be on both sides of a problem.

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.  – Tenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America

 The Tenth Amendment

The Tenth Amendment of the Constitution is an interesting piece of work.  The way the Constitution is written is to explicitly state what the national government could do, and thereby exclude it from doing everything else.  When some of the Founding Fathers advocated a Bill of Rights the federalists strongly objected.  Why?  First, they thought it was redundant.  If, for example, the Constitution did not say the national government could regulate speech then having a First Amendment guaranteeing the Freedom of Speech made no sense.  The national government was only permitted to do precisely what the Constitution said it could do. 

 The second objection concerned having the opposite intent of the original writing of the Constitution.  You see, if the constitution has a provision that says what the national government cannot do (First Amendment barring free speech for example) it implies that the national government can do anything else that is not prohibited, which is exactly what the federalists did not want the Constitution to say.  It wanted to specifically enumerate the powers granted to the national government and no more.  So they compromised by adding the Tenth Amendment, which spelled out that distinction.  To quote Hamilton in Federalist 84:

 “Why, for instance should it be said that the liberty of the press should not be restrained, when no power is given by which restrictions may be imposed?”

The Federal Government’s Runaway Growth 

The federal government has expanded enormously particularly with FDR and the New Deal.  The Supreme Court has paid scant attention to the Tenth Amendment in curbing that expansion.  Perhaps it is time they gave it a closer look and more weight in their decisions.

 Below is what the Constitution says Congress has the Power to do.

 Article I. Section 8. The Congress shall have Power To:

• Lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defense and general Welfare of the United States;
• To Borrow Money on the credit of the United States;
• To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes;
• To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States;
• To coin Money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;
• To provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the Securities and current Coin of the United States;
• To establish Post Offices and post Roads;
• To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;
• To constitute Tribunals inferior to the supreme Court;
• To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high seas, and Offenses against the Law of Nations;
• To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;
• To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two years;
• To provide and maintain a Navy;
• To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;
• To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrection and repel Invasions;
• To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Apportionment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;
• To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the Acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards and other needful Buildings; — And
• To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.

 Does anybody see anything there about minimum wages?  miles per gallon?  housing subsidies?  urban development? education? energy?  James Madison summed it up thus in Federalist 45:

“The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the Federal Government are few and defined.  Those which are to remain in the State Governments are numerous and indefinite.  The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace negotiations, and foreign commerce;….The powers reserved to the several states will extend to all objects, which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the state.”

To see how far we have come from Madison’s and the other Founding Fathers views can be seen in the New Deal era court case Wickard v. Filburn(1942).  Roscoe Filburn was a farmer during the Great Depression who was growing wheat to feed his chickens.  The Federal Government had imposed limits on how much wheat a farmer could grow based on acreage in order to prop up wheat prices.  The amount of wheat that Filburn was growing exceeded this number, however, Filburn intended to use the wheat entirely on his own farm.  Not only was the wheat not going to leave his home state, it was not going to leave his farm!  But the Supreme Court ruled that by growing more wheat than allowed, Filburn would not have to buy additional feed in the open market and by not doing so the lack of his consumption of wheat on the market would adversely affect the price of wheat, therefore he was violating the Federally imposed limits.  Now if that doesn’t set off Tenth Amendment alarm bells, I don’t know what could.

Federal Government Sprawl

Here are the cabinet level departments of the Federal Government.  Those in bold seem, in my opinion, to be consistent with the enumerated powers above.  Those in italics seem, again in my opinion, to be a national government overstepping its Constitutional bounds.  It is not that each and any of these things should not be done at all, but according to the Tenth Amendment should be at the discretion of the states or local government.

•  Department of Agriculture
• Department of Commerce
• Department of Defense
• Department of Education
• Department of Energy
• Department of Health and Human Services
• Department of Homeland Security (Incorporate in Department of Defense) 
• Department of Housing and Urban Development
• Department of Justice
• Department of Labor
• Department of State
• Department of the Interior
• Department of the Treasury
• Department of Transportation
• Department of Veteran Affairs (Incorporate into Department of Defense)

 Federalism

 One of the brilliant ideas of federalism is the ability to vote in two ways.  One, is at the ballot box and the other is with your feet.  If my state puts forth a bad idea and the majority of the citizens of my state agree with the bad idea, I have the freedom to move to another state.  However, if we keep moving all these bad ideas up to the national level, my right to vote with my feet is taken away.  If states like California and New York choose to follow polices that lead to their bankruptcy, so be it, but let’s not force those policies on Texas and Florida or force the citizens of those states to pay for the mistakes of Californians and New Yorkers.

Since George Washington, who had four cabinet positions, we have added thirteen new cabinet departments and eliminated two and the ones eliminated did not go away, they simply became part of other government entities (e.g., Navy into Defense; Post Office into Postal Service).  In other words our government is telling us that they have not solved a single problem for which one of these agencies were created since 1789, otherwise why wouldn’t that cabinet department be shut down, after ceremoniously giving all the key players well deserved gold watches?  But Government encroachment marches on with the Obama Administration poised to devour one-sixth of the U.S. Economy into the Department of Health and Human Services.  They tell us they know how to solve that problem.  With their track record do you believe them?  Perhaps it’s time to dust off the Tenth Amendment, and start putting a scalpel to the federal government rather than tying a bib around its bloated neck.

Let’s look to 2010 as the year we start taking back our government.  Polls show how far out of touch our elected leaders are from the views of their constituents.  It’s time to retire them from office.  Let’s keep up the hard work and countdown to November 2010.

In an op-ed piece in the New York Times, entitled, “What You Might Not Know About the Recovery,” that might more appropriately be entitled, “What I Don’t Know About the Recovery,” Joe Biden educates us on the stimulus.  It’s typical after the fact political obfuscation to try to convince people that they are not really seeing what they see with their own two eyes.

He begins in typical fashion going back to when he and Barack Obama took office, but avoids mentioning President Bush by name:

We still have a long way to go, but clearly we are closer to recovery today than we were in January.

This is a true statement, but I would argue that this is in spite of the $787 billion of our money squandered on the stimulus plan, while Mr. Biden says it is because of it.  It is instructive to see how someone begins their defense of an issue and Mr. Biden begins by saying that not all of our $787 billion is being spent on pork barrel projects.

Notwithstanding this progress, the nature of the Recovery Act remains misunderstood by many, and misconstrued by others: critics have suggested that the entire $787 billion is being spent on pet programs. As the person leading the administration’s efforts to put the Recovery Act into effect, I want to set the record straight.

He takes up the position that the statists typically do, that we are too stupid to understand.  This is complex stuff, America, way over your head.  You need us in the political class to take care of this for you.  Notice he didn’t say there was no pork barrel spending.  He says that not the entire $787 billion is being spent on pet projects. (Don’t forget the $30 million for Nancy Pelosi’s salt marsh harvest mouse).  Feel better?

Tax Cuts?

He says the single largest part of the recovery act is tax cuts, more than one third.  Huh?  Does he mean the $8 per week in lower payroll taxes?  That’s going to stimulate the economy?  At the same time they are finding trillions, TRILLIONS, in new taxes and spending through Cap and Trade, Heath Care reform, allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire, that will dwarf the paltry $8 per week that people are probably saving, rather than spending, if they even notice it at all.

Transfer Payments

The second largest chunk, Mr. Biden tells us, is for transfer payments.  In other words, money from the federal government given to state and local governments. Where do all governments get their money from?  Us.  So taking our money in federal taxes and giving it to state and local governments helps us exactly how?  Don’t forget the portion of each dollar that gets lost along the way as each bureaucracy handles it.

What are these transfer payments going to be used for?  Uncle Joe tells us:

The money is allowing state governments to avoid laying off teachers (14,000 in New York City alone), firefighters and police officers and preventing states’ budget gaps from growing wider.

The dictionary defines recovery as returning to health, consciousness, etc.  This part of the stimulus does nothing to stimulate the economy.  It’s another one of the Obama administration’s wonderful fictions about saving jobs.  As the economy continues to shed jobs even above the level that the Obama administration told us it would go without the stimulus Biden boasts that they saved the jobs of government workers; union workers; Democratic voters.  Also it helps bloated state governments that have mismanaged their finances from having to make fiscally responsible decisions but keeping them fat, dumb, and happy.  By the way, which states seems to be in the most financial trouble?  California, New York, New Jersey, Michigan?  Aren’t those all “blue” states?  So is the Obama adminisitration helping America or helping themselves?

On Track?

Mr. Biden says that we are on track and that 25% of the funds have been committed.  What exactly does that mean, committed?  If you go to Recovery.gov, you will see that as of this week, only 8.5% of the money has actually been spent.  Give Mr. Biden a calculator, please.  With the three chunks that the Vice President says comprise the stimulus: tax cuts, transfer payments, and infrastructure projects, and that signs of recovery are due to the stimulus, how can the stimulus have that kind of affect when only 8.5% of the money has been spent?

The Resiliency of the American Economy

The American economy is the envy of the world.  It is resilient beyond description.  It is recovering on its own, despite government interference, and the government meddling that caused this recession.  The American people are no longer being fooled by the smooth talking Barack and Joe Show.  A Rasmussen poll shows that only 25% of the American people believe that the stimulus has helped the economy.  If that’s not bad enough 31% say that the stimulus has actually hurt the economy.  On top of that 45% say the rest of the stimulus should be cancelled.

The Stupid American People

With 92% of the stimulus yet to be spent 9% more Americans say cancel the rest than say to keep going.  So Mr. Biden grabs the op-ed page of the New York Times to, sigh, lecture the American people once again on how they misunderstand, and misconstrue what your benevolent, socialist leaning government is trying to do for you.  How ungrateful can you be?  If you people don’t get it, then the president and vice president will just have to take over the rest of the economy and set you all straight.  They will tell you how much you can earn, what cars to buy, what food to eat, what kind of light bulbs to put in your house, control how much energy you can use in your house through the smart grid, what medical treatment you can have, and when you have to die.

The Sleeping Giant Awakes

The American people have been charmed by Barack Obama as he is a very charming man.  He is an historic president.  But they are starting to notice the tea parties, the abdication of the main stream media to do their job, the warnings about what is happening to their country and they are starting to pay attention.  The more they see and hear the more Obama’s approval ratings drop.  So he pushes harder and faster.  It will be a close race to see if President Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid can ram through their agenda and slam the door behind them, or if we can wrestle back control of our liberties and send these people packing.

It’s time to brush off the Constitution, read the 10th amendment, and start stripping the federal government back down to the size the founders envisioned.  That will give more power to the states and the people and make government more accountable.  Face it, when your Congressman represents several hundred thousand constituents and their voice is only one of 435 in the House of Representatives, is it any wonder that the founders gave them only the powers spelled out in the Constitution.  They believed that effective government has to be responsive to the people.  That is impossible in Washington.  It is too big.  It is run by too many unelected career bureaucrats.  It has too much power to tax us, regulate us, spend our tax dollars on things to which we are morally opposed, and interfere with our liberties.

This is a critical time in our history and time to roll back the unrelenting growth of government and shrink it down to size.

WE SAVED THE ECONOMY!

President Barack Obama announced last night at his press conference that his policies have brought the economy back from the brink of collapse. ( Obama Talks About the Economy).  So I guess it’s Mission Accomplished!  Despite unemployment climbing toward 10% when he promised he could hold it at 8% if we implemented his stimulus package and that it would be 9% if we didn’t.  With only 3/4 of the fiscal year over, we already have a deficit in excess of $1 trillion dollars for the first time in our history.  The House passed a Cap and Trade bill that will, if implemented, add to the cost of everything that uses energy, just don’t call it a tax because only Bill Gates and Warren Buffet will be taxed under the Obama Administration.  On top of that, we absolutely must nationalize health care to cut the cost of health care and increase coverage.  The only problem is that the CBO says it will increase costs and reduce the amount of care.

What’s the Mission

If you are foolish enough to think that Obama’s policies are failing, then you don’t know what the mission is.  The mission is not to fix the economy.  It is not to curb global warming.  It is not to make health care more affordable.  It is to increase the size and scope of government to a point where it can never be rolled back.  Our liberties will be crushed and we will be ruled by a cadre of bureaucrats who will tell us what we can do and when we can do it.  He will form a block of voters that can get him and his fellow Democrats elected in perpetuity, by showering them with government handouts and place punishing taxes on a minority of productive people.  Why do you think he is smiling in the picture?  His mission is proceeding just as planned, thank you very much.  He only hopes that it is too late before you realize what happened to you and your rights.

Obama's Sales Pitch for the Stimulus Bill

The latest unemployment numbers are in and you can forgive the fervent Obama supporters for having buyer’s remorse. The main stream media, that he holds in the palm of his hand, is playing down the darkening employment picture, focusing instead on the silver lining that it’s getting worse at a slower rate.  The jobless rate hit the highest level it has been since February 1983, hitting 9.4%.  The good news is that we only lost 345,000 jobs last month.  Here is how the spin-master puts lipstick on this pig, or should I say, pork?

“In these last few months, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act has saved or created nearly 150,000 jobs,” Obama said, touting spending on alternative energy, keeping teachers and police officers in work and small businesses. — Las Vegas, May 27, 2009

There is one small problem with this statement as pointed out by Karl Rove in the Wall Street Journal

As my former White House deputy press secretary Tony Fratto points out on his blog, the Labor Department does not and cannot collect data on “jobs saved.” So the Obama administration is asking that we accept its “clairvoyant ability to estimate,” and the White House press corps has let Mr. Obama’s ludicrous claim go virtually unchallenged.

So if the Labor Department, the keeper of the unemployment statistics, cannot collect data on jobs saved, where does President Obama get his figure that he saved 150,000 jobs?  We can only assume it is an outright fabrication, unless he can tell us otherwise.  Will we start hearing a chant “Obama lied, our future died”? Not likely from the obsequious press.

Buyer’s Remorse

In pressing for his pork filled stimulus package, Obama insisted that it was necessary, it was needed immediately, if not sooner, and if we didn’t do it, it would turn crisis into catastrophe.  I direct your attention to the graph above.  This graph was included in the stimulus package to point out that in the absence of the stimulus package the unemployment rate would rise to 9% by the middle of 2010.  However, get behind the stimulus plan and voila, the unemployment will top out at a mere 8% in the third quarter of 2009 and you get all of this for a mere $787 billion.

As conservatives pointed out at the time this made no sense, since the bulk of the stimulus spending, chock full of pork, would not be spent until 2011 and beyond.  As of today, less than 10% of the money has been spent, and the unemployment rate has past both the peak Obama sold to the American people, as well as what he predicted would happen without the stimulus.

Of course the statists will roll out their tired old argument that it wasn’t enough.  With every government program that fails they always tell us we didn’t spend enough…if we only spent enough…

Look back to February 1983, the last time the unemployment rate was this high, and what we see is Ronald Reagan in charge.  His solution was to cut taxes, cut spending, and reduce the size of government.  Today, President Obama’s plan is just the opposite.  It is to raise taxes on the most productive among us, spend our money like it has never been spent before, grow government without bound, and lay the burden of paying for it on generations to come.  We do know this, Reagan’s plan worked, ushering in the longest peacetime expansion in history.  Are we to believe that doing the exact opposite will also work, or work even better?

The slowing of the job losses and the advance of the stock market foretell that our economy is starting to turn of its own accord, as little of the stimulus has taken effect.  Conservatives said to get out of the way, reduce the tax burden and the economy will recover on its own.  The statists said no, now is the time to advance our agenda and our power grab.  Take advantage of the crisis.

Interest rates are starting to climb as massive government borrowing crowds out private borrowing.  The flooding of dollars into the economy is starting trigger inflation as can be seen in the increase in oil prices.  With Reagan, the best was yet to come, since Obama has chosen the exact opposite path, we can only fear for the future, when his programs take full effect.  As can be seen by the chart above, their plan is already way off course and with the massive inexperience of Obama and his team, how much confidence do you have that they can find their way back?

Do you like to breath?  I do.  Do you like trees and enjoy their beauty?  I do.  So what’s the problem?  The problem is that Obama’s EPA is considering a ruling that would declare Carbon Dioxide a “dangerous pollutant“.  So what do you do with a dangerous pollutant?  Well, you stop it, ban it, eliminate it so that it no longer harms us or the environment.  No?

Carbon Dioxide as a Pollutant

The problem is that every time you exhale, part of what you are exhaling is carbon dioxide.  So with every breath you are dangerously polluting the earth.  You must be stopped.  Your breathing must be banned.  You must be eliminated.

What about all those dangerous trees and plants?

“When the sun is shining, plants perform photosynthesis to convert carbon dioxide into carbohydrates, releasing oxygen in the process.”

Trees and plants absorb carbon dioxide and convert it into oxygen.  So if we eliminate this dangerous pollutant, wouldn’t it stand to reason that plants would die?  If plants die, they don’t produce oxygen and people and other oxygen breathing life would die. What a great idea! Let’s ban a dangerous pollutant and in doing so, kill all life on earth as we know it.  Why didn’t I think of that?

Global Warming, I mean, Global Climate Change

Since we have been seeing record cold temperatures across the country and it seems to snow everywhere Al Gore goes to speak (is GOD playing with him?), we hear less and less about global warming.  Now it’s called global climate change, which in my observation happens every day, season, year for as long as I can remember and I expect that it will continue to do so.

The problem is that those who advocate the declaration of carbon dioxide as a pollutant are the same people that say it is settled science that the increase in temperatures, or as it is now called climate change, are man made.  The truth is that there is significant evidence to the contrary that increases in carbon dioxide are not the cause of temperature increases, but the result of temperature increases caused by solar activity (see previous post).

Let Cooler Heads Prevail

I have no problem in working toward reducing the amount of anything that is a byproduct into the atmosphere.  Recycling is good.  Cutting back on energy waste is good.  Renewable energy helps us get off foreign oil from despotic dictators which is good.  But we have to avoid going around the bend and taking extreme positions that the very act of breathing results in a dangerous pollutant.  Once you give that power to the government, more of you liberty vanishes and there is no telling how far they will go with it.