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First we were told we had to pass the stimulus bill because if we didn’t unemployment would rise to 9%. The good news was that there were hundreds of shovel ready project raring to go. Later we learned that “shovel ready was not as shovel ready as we expected.” $800 billion dollars of squandered stimulus dollars later, unemployment is at 9%. But what about a real shovel ready project that doesn’t need taxpayer dollars?

There is a $7 billion project called Keystone XL that will build a pipeline from Canada to bring heavy crude oil to refineries in Texas and Oklahoma. It is estimated it will create 20,000 jobs. It will also help us rely less on oil from the unstable Middle East. The project needs the approval of the State Department because it crosses our northern border. That’s approval, not taxpayer funding. Okay, before all the environmentalists come out of their chairs,

In April 2010 and again this August, State produced multivolume environmental impact statements that concluded the pipeline would have “no significant impacts” on the environment. — Wall Street Journal, November 11, 2011

So in the midst of bus rides and hectoring us that we need to pass this jobs bill now (where have I heard that before?), Obama decides to vote “present”. He has pushed the decision on the Keystone pipeline out 12-18 months until after the 2012 election. He doesn’t want to lose the environmentalists by slipping on a banana. (BANANA – Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything). So expect to hear more about those “do nothing Republicans”. You know, those Republicans who have passed fifteen bills to help create jobs that Harry Reid in the Democrat controlled Senate will not even allow to come up for a vote. I can understand them opposing the Republicans. What I can’t understand is not voting on the bill either for or against. So who is really doing nothing? Say what you mean, mean what you say.

That’s my opinion; I’d like to know yours. Please comment below.

It is almost astounding to watch the news analysis programs after the latest jobs reports of the creation of a paltry 18,000 jobs and unemployment ticking up to 9.2%. Nearly lost in the data is that the news from prior months was revised in a negative direction and at the same time the progressive talking heads say the stimulus worked.

Well some do. Those with the courage to admit that it didn’t work are quick to say that it was only because it wasn’t big enough. Great! What we really need right now is to be $20 trillion in debt before we find out that didn’t work either. The other argument is the shoulda, coulda, woulda argument. “Imagine, how bad it would have been if we did nothing.” Back at you, “Imagine how great we would be doing if we didn’t have a Washington run ponzi scheme called Social Security and had personal savings accounts instead. Imagine how there would have been no financial crisis if Washington didn’t decided long ago that everyone has to own a home whether they could afford it or not. Imagine how energy independent we would be if Washington didn’t force us away from our own oil, natural gas, and nuclear power to buy from foreign despots.” I could go on, but I think you get the point.

When the talk on main street is about our massive debt and how concerned the average American is, the progressives launch into such things as saying the Republicans haven’t written a jobs bill, and cling desperately to their tax raising wealth transfer programs.

The Two Myths

The two progressive myths I refer to are that 1) government is responsible for creating jobs; and 2) we need the government to transfer wealth from those who have to those who don’t through taxes.

Private industry creates jobs, and more specifically small businesses create the most. The best way for the government to help with job creation is to stay the hell out of the way. As an example, there were a couple of wineries on Long Island whose business was stuck because they were waiting for word from Washington on approval of a change to the shape of the wine bottle and the label that would go on it. It took the involvement of a U.S. Congressman to get the process, which normally takes 48 hours but has been stuck for months, to break up the log jam. Why is Washington even involved? As a wine consumer, unless a skull and crossbones is on the label, there is nothing there that is a deal breaker in my decision on whether to buy that wine or not. It is a combination of price, type of wine, reputation of the winery, year that will most influence my decision. If the result is me is spraying the room with a mouthful of wine that tastes like dishwater, the news will spread about the reputation of the winery. Some clerk in a cubicle in Washington isn’t going to be the final arbiter of my choice.

Let’s look at innovation that is done by private industry and the fallacy of government genius becomes crystal clear. When a new technology product comes on the market it is typically expensive, often very expensive, and its features are few. In my own experience, when I first went to college to study engineering, on my first Christmas home I received a calculator as a present. I was thrilled. This was basically a four function calculator and it retailed for $130. Today, four function calculators are throw away items. The first automobile GPS system cost thousands of dollars and it required a large unit be installed in the trunk of the car. Today you can carry them in your pocket.

So what does all of this have to do with the topic at hand? Well, to get these products off the ground someone has to buy them. Who can afford them? The richer folks among us. In doing so, they have made a decision and a choice to take their wealth and exchange it for the new gadget. By doing so, their purchases fuel the innovation that improves the product and drives down the price. Driving down the price to the point where the masses can afford it with their lesser wealth while at the same time creating jobs by the thousands. All without a government program in sight. So there is your wealth transfer and job program, all without government programs, entered into willingly by all participants. We like to call that freedom and liberty.

“Wait a minute!” the progressives will exclaim, “How do you think GPS got invented if not for the government?” True enough. It was invented by or for the military, the same as was the case for the Internet. But the last time I looked the military is right there in Article II, Section 8 of the Constitution, so I am okay with that.

But so much for the invention, rolling it out to the masses was still done by private industry, not government. And because of the efforts of private industry, we are all a little bit richer than we otherwise might be, or than people elsewhere still are. Here is a further example.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FB0EhPM_M4

Can it be true? Those greedy capitalists thinking of ways to get rich by making products cheaper so that more people can afford them? The bastards! So the government should get out of the way of private enterprise. It cannot pick winners and losers. The Soviets couldn’t do it, the Cubans can’t do it, the Chinese are giving up on it, so why are the progressives clinging to it? We are not in the mess we are in because of a lack of government regulation and programs. We are in the mess we are in because 180 cases of wine sit on a loading dock on Long Island waiting for a phone call in Washington to say, “You’re label passed our excellent standards.” Please!

That’s my opinion; I’d like to know yours. Please comment below.

The oil companies announce their first quarter earnings and they are good news for the oil companies and their investors. Not to let an opportunity pass, Congressman Tim Bishop, against a backdrop of $4 per gallon gasoline prices, introduces legislation titled, “The Big Oil Welfare Repeal Act.” On his own website he admits that this legislation “will not impact gas prices for American consumers.” The legislation’s purpose is to eliminate a tax credit for the oil companies, not all oil companies just the five largest. It also doesn’t address subsidies to other energy companies such as ethanol, wind, solar, coal, geothermal, and a $7,500 tax credit if you buy a Chevy Volt. Why not?

Because this is political theater not policy. Bishop’s reasoning is that Big Oil is evil, pandering to the people getting squeezed at the gas pump but doing nothing to actually help them. His other reasoning is that it will save a piddling $3 billion per year. Did I just use the words piddling and billion in the same sentence? Yes, I did. When you have a one year budget deficit of $1.6 trillion, that’s 500 times larger than Mr. Bishop’s proposed savings, that savings is piddling.

Lifting the Debt Ceiling

This week Congressman Bishop voted against raising the debt ceiling in a “clean” bill, that is, no conditions attached to it; just raise the limit. This is what President Obama and other Democrats have been clamoring for, but when given the opportunity to do so, they vote against it. Profiles in courage it’s not. Here is what Mr. Bishop had to say about his vote:

“Theater belongs on Broadway, not the House floor,” Mr. Bishop, a Democrat from Southampton, said in a press release issued Wednesday. “It’s juvenile when the House leadership is engaging in political stunts while slipping a note under the desk to their friends on Wall Street.”

Juvenile? Well, junior, what do you call your “Big Oil Welfare Repeal Act”? Serious statesmanship? Serious statesmanship would be passing a budget, not looking for pocket change behind the sofa cushions. Serious statesmanship would be working on getting control over entitlements, and condemning commercials showing a Paul Ryan look alike pushing grandma in her wheelchair off a cliff. Statesmanship would be applauding Bill Clinton’s admission that he hopes Democrats don’t demogogue efforts to get entitlement spending under control, rather than letting the moment pass in silence.

But Tim Bishop has spent eight years in Washington keeping a low profile, doing Nancy Pelosi’s bidding 97% of the time, and bringing home whatever bacon scraps he could find to get himself reelected. Little does it matter that at the same time he is piling billions upon billions in debt upon his constituents to pay off in return for the table scraps that his party’s leadership have tossed his way. But with earmarks off the table, all Mr. Bishop has left is theater. Of course, Mr. Bishop’s theater is brilliant while he bristles at being put on the record voting against his own position and caustically calls that theater. Mr. Bishop won reelection by a whisker thin margin, basically by hiding his record and attacking his opponent personally. Over the next eighteen months Mr. Bishop will find that there are fewer and fewer places to hide.

That’s my opinion; I’d like to know yours. Please comment below.

I received an e-mail from my congressman introducing his new “Big Oil Welfare Repeal Act”. It was one of those proposals that was either a political ploy or demonstrative of the potential damage that can be done by politicians who spent their lives closeted from the real world in either the ivory towers of academia or as life long members of the ruling class. I wrote a reply:

April 29, 2011

Congressman Tim Bishop

306 Cannon H.O.B.

Washington, D.C. 20515

Dear Congressman Bishop,

I received your e-mail today regarding tax subsidies for oil companies. Your e-mail began:

“’With oil at more than $50 a barrel, by the way, energy companies do not need taxpayer-funded incentives to explore for oil and gas.’  So said President George W. Bush in, 2005.”

If I am not mistaken, Congressman, you were in Congress in 2005 and your party was in the majority from 2006-2010. What did you do to fix this for the past six years? If President Bush was in favor of ending the subsidies, and you were in favor of ending the subsidies and the Democrats held both houses of Congress why did you fail to act? Bringing this up now, sounds not like leadership but cheap political posturing.

I am no fan of subsidies for any companies, but let’s not kid ourselves. Corporations build their tax liability into their prices. They don’t pay taxes; they collect them from their customers. So if you somehow believe that by taking away the subsidy and making oil companies pay more in taxes that the price of petroleum products like gasoline will not increase, you are deluding yourself.

Your next statement says that your effort “is not about punishing oil companies; it is about making smart choices with limited resources.” I am mystified by your statement that “Right now, Americans are paying oil companies at the pump and on tax day. I hope you agree that gas is far too expensive to pay for it twice.” We don’t pay the oil companies on tax day. A tax break means they pay less, not that we pay them. You seem to embrace the statist concept that all wealth belongs to the government and the government takes what it wants and give us the rest, rather than we give money to the government. Second, Exxon makes about seven cents profit on a gallon of gasoline, so if you raise their taxes, what do you suppose they are going to do? That’s right, raise the price of a gallon of gas.

If you really want to bring down the cost of gasoline, rather than scoring political points here are some suggestions:

1. Abolish the federal gasoline tax which is $0.184 per gallon. Abolish the Department of Transportation while you are at it and let each state raise the revenue they need for their infrastructure and roads. It may mean they reinstate part of that tax at the state level, but it will also put pressure on them to perform better.
2. Reduce the number of different blends of gasoline required by the EPA. We haven’t built a new refinery in this country in over 25 years and we have to keep changing over the formula to meet the EPA requirements which curtails output.
3. Eliminate subsidies for ethanol. If we’re cutting energy subsidies let’s do it for wind and solar as well. If they are not economically viable, why should the taxpayer pay for someone’s hobby?
4. Increase the drilling for our own oil and natural gas. The less we depend on foreign oil the less they can play with the spigot to make exploration projects here unprofitable at a whim.

You and your party had four years in power. Now all we seem to hear from your side is demagoguery of every idea the Republicans put forth. If you don’t like them, fine, come up with your own ideas and then debate them. But the demonizing of every idea they put forth has to stop.

Sincerely yours,

William R. O’Connell

That’s my opinion; I’d like to know your. Please comment below.

Maybe it’s just me. Perhaps not having lived in the rarefied air of academia or politics, I have a more roll up the sleeves, get some dirt under the fingernails approach to what a job entails. Today it seems that politicians like to get in front of the cameras, fire off a sound bite and then go do something more interesting.

President Obama puts our troops in harm’s way and then jets off to Brazil to be photographed doing the samba, and saying he wants to be first in line to buy more foreign oil, this time from Brazil. Didn’t he just say that he wants to cut our imports of foreign oil by one third? Shouldn’t we be drilling here rather than lining up new suppliers?

We have a myriad of problems that include spending, the crisis in the Middle East, North Korea, unemployment, the budget, and yet the president has found time to play sixty-one rounds of golf, at last count. Who’s minding the store?

Newly elected Delaware Senator Chris Coons got on television to lament that he is holding a job fair at his Delaware office and if the government shuts down Friday night, he won’t have any staffers to run the job fair. This is very, very bad. Er, excuse me, senator but your job is to pass a budget not to be the local employment office. Cancel the job fair, as I am sure there are plenty of government and private agencies that handle that, and get back to work doing what you were elected to do.

In a similar vein, Congressman Tim Bishop is scheduled to kick off his 2012 reelection campaign this Sunday so that he can plan on continuing to pick up his $174,000 salary for failing to pass a budget. I am sure his quick retort will be that he is in the minority and therefore powerless to move those stubborn Republicans. But it was his failure a few short months ago when he and Nancy Pelosi were in the majority to pass a budget resolution for the first time since budget resolutions became standard practice. They also failed to pass the appropriation bills to fund the government until the end of the fiscal year in October.

A cynic might look at it as a designed power play. “Look, we’re going to get clobbered in 2010, so let’s not vote on a budget or spending bills and it will be a twofer. One, we won’t be held accountable for voting for higher spending and that may save a couple of seats in November 2010; two, it will dump this mess in the Republicans lap and if we hold the Senate we can force a government shutdown and blame them like we did in 1995. Then we can coast back into power in 2012.” Of course, you would have to be a cynic to believe that, wouldn’t you? Wouldn’t you?

In the midst of the current budget crisis we hear an announcement by Harry Reid that their staffs will be working through the night, and the politicians will be back in front of the microphones tomorrow.

I worked a number of years in Information Technology, specifically in the credit card business. I can remember sitting at my desk on New Year’s Eve 1999. Perhaps the biggest New Year’s celebration of a lifetime and I was at my desk. Why? Remember the Year 2000 software bug? Well, we had to be ready to respond instantly if anying we worked endless hours to prevent slipped through. Nothing did and around 3AM or so, we started to head home. On the day after Thanksgiving, known as Black Friday, in the retail world it was “all hands on deck” to make sure that things worked and if there were any hiccups, we were on top of them immediately. Although I was a VP, I was there on the floor with the first line folks. The same went for any major software releases. If a critical decision had to be made we were there to make them. That’s the way it was done. We didn’t make pronouncements and go play golf. We were there onsite. But that is in the private sector, where things like profits and losses matter, accountability is real, and lifetime employment is unheard of. We could be fired any day, not just one day every two, four or six years.

We have a right to that accountability from our political leaders. Instead of raising funds for the next run for office, these politicians should have their salary cut off and be dipping into their savings to pay for the skyrocketing gasoline prices that are a result of not exploring for energy here, and instead destroying the dollar. Instead of doing their jobs, those on the left are ramping up their slime machines to give every reason under the sun why they can’t possibly cut any spending. There was some Congressman on the news talking about how wonderfully efficient Medicare is and how those evil Republicans want to put that in the hands of private insurers, horrors! It is common knowledge that between $60 – $100 billion is STOLEN from Medicare every year. How is that for efficiency? As I point out in my book Liberty’s Lifeline Steve Kroft of Sixty Minutes reported that stealing from Medicare pushed aside cocaine as the major criminal enterprise in South Florida.

2012 is coming and everyone one of these hand wringing, overpaid, do nothing, politicians should be bounced out on the street, if they don’t want to step up and transform Washington in to an efficient and accountable government.

That’s my opinion, I’d like to know yours. Please comment below.

After watching some of the Sunday talk shows and hearing the tough talk from House Democrats and learning more about the tax bill getting loaded up with subsidies it’s time for Republicans to put their hands up and slowly back away from this putrid mess.

Let the Democrats fall on their swords and allow this huge tax hike to go into effect on all Americans living or dead.  Yes, I said dead.  Today, the estate tax is zero.  In the tax compromise it was agreed to increase the tax to 35% on estates over $5 million.  Chris Van Hollen, Democrat from Maryland says that is not good enough.  With righteous indignation he says the tax should be 45% on estates over $3.5 million.  (The estate tax is currently scheduled to return to its old level of 55% on estates over $1 million.)

There are a number of subsidies for ethanol that are expiring but have found their way back into the tax compromise courtesy of Charles Grassly (R-Iowa, I’m only a fiscal conservative with your constituents) and Tom Harkin (D-Iowa, I’m for the little guy unless a huge greedy corporate agri-business wants me to jump for them, then I ask them how high).  Even Al Gore says ethanol subsidies are stupid and he only supported them to get elected president.

 ”One of the reasons I made that mistake is that I paid particular attention to the farmers in my home state of Tennessee, and I had a certain fondness for the farmers in the state of Iowa because I was about to run for President.”

It’s time for the new Republicans to do a gut check.  While Obama asks the outgoing Blue Dogs who got shellacked for voting along with Nancy Pelosi, to take one more for the team, perhaps the Republicans should wait for the vote to close up shop and go home for the holidays, spend time over those holidays reflecting on why they were elected and come back to Congress in January and pass a real tax package that takes any expiration date off the existing rates, and makes it retroactive to January 1.

In the Senate the Democrats will still be in control and may be ready to rumble.  If they are, the Republicans should put up a giant scoreboard somewhere highlighting the 23 Democrat members of Congress up for reelection in 2012 and .  In case you haven’t been paying attention they are:

• Daniel Akaka, Hawaii
• Jeff Bingaman, New Mexico
• Sherrod Brown, Ohio
• Joe Manchin, West Virginia
• Maria Cantwell, Washington
• Benjamin Cardin, Maryland
• Thomas Carper, Delaware
• Robert Casey, Jr., Pennsylvania
• Kent Conrad, North Dakota
• Diane Feinstein, California
• Kirsten Gillibrand, New York
• Amy Klobuchar, Minnesota
• Herb Kohl, Wisconsin
• Claire McCaskill, Missouri
• Robert Menendez, New Jersey
• Ben Nelson, Nebraska
• Bill Nelson, Florida
• Debbie Stabenow, Michigan
• Jon Tester, Montana
• Jim Webb, Virginia
• Sheldon Whitehouse, Rhode Island
• Joe Lieberman, Connecticut
• Bernie Sanders, Vermont

The Republicans should be able to dip into this well of votes to pull over some of them on any issue, if President Obama continues his far left safari in search of socialist utopia.  If the Democrats want to go down swinging, let them.  But there comes a point where you have to realize the cards you are holding are better than the other guys bluffing and just call him on it.

That’s my opinion; I’d like to know yours.  Please comment below.

Did you hear the news on broadcast television what Al Gore said about Ethanol?  Neither did I.  You have to dig a little further to find news that goes against the progressive grain.

“It is not a good policy to have these massive subsidies for first-generation ethanol,” Al Gore told a gathering of clean energy financiers in Greece this week. The benefits of ethanol are “trivial,” he added, but “It’s hard once such a program is put in place to deal with the lobbies that keep it going.”

Politics Made Me Do It

Lest anyone believe Mr. Gore has deep knowledge or convictions regarding the truth of the green positions he holds, rather than an opportunity to enrich himself with billions, consider this.

 ”One of the reasons I made that mistake is that I paid particular attention to the farmers in my home state of Tennessee, and I had a certain fondness for the farmers in the state of Iowa because I was about to run for President,” Mr. Gore said.

One opportunity trumps another.  If green was Mr. Gore’s path to the presidency then follow it.  When that didn’t pan out, well then push it to enrich himself.  Am I being overly cynical?  If Mr. Gore was a true believer; someone who believed what he says down to the marrow of his bones, he would not build and energy guzzling mansion for himself and Tipper, or himself and himself, as he and Tipper have parted. 

He used to justify it by saying it was okay because he bought carbon credits to offset his Brobdingnagian consumption.  But from whom does Mr. Gore buy his carbon credits?  He buys them from a company called Generation Investment Management, a London based company.  And who is chairman of Generation Investment Management?  None other than Al Gore. So, Al Gore is a good citizen of the earth because he takes money out of his left pocket and moves it to his right pocket, all the while lambasting the rest of us for our energy irresponsibility.

Ethanol began sucking at the government teat under Jimmy Carter.  What a surprise that a Democrat would think of this.  So we subsidize the production of ethanol because ethanol cannot stand on its own from an economic perspective.  The result is an increase in the production of ethanol due the subsidy.  This, in turn, increases the demand for corn as a feedstock for the ethanol production, which drives up the price of food. Corn is used not only as a food for human consumption, it is used as feed for cattle, chickens, and as a source of corn syrup as a sweetener.  Why not use more sugar, you might ask?  Because we subsidize sugar and slap tariffs on foreign production so that we pay double the world price for sugar, but that’s for another story.

So while Al Gore is moving his money between his pockets to prove what a great guy he is, we are getting hit in our left pocket by funding the subsidies and our right pocket for higher food prices.  Isn’t that great?  But there is a glimmer of hope on the horizon.

A fifty-four cent per gallon corn energy subsidy is due to expire at the end of this year.  Senators Jim DeMint, hero of the Tea Partiers, and Tom Coburn support letting them die.  Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley (R, Ethanol) looks like he’s spoiling for a fight.  Bring it on.  It’s time we let the free market help dig us out of the hole the Progressives put us in.  Sugar, are you listening?

First it was that Bush spent all eight years of his presidency (and was reelected after four of those years) destroying the economy and so we need to give Obama, what, eight years to fix it?  Then it was blame Boehner.  That didn’t work, because not many people know who John Boehner is.  Then it was “the Republicans want to go back to the same old ways that got us into this mess.”  Tell that to Arlen Specter, Lisa Murkowski, Mike Castle, Bob Bennett, Charlie Crist, Trey Grayson.  Same old, same old?  I don’t think so.

Now it is time to go negative.  No, I don’t mean campaign ads.  That was to be expected as the Democrats do not, repeat, do not want to run on their record, lest it get as ugly on November 2 as a town hall meeting.  No, they are going negative on their base.  The Democrat heavies are coming out and mocking their base to shame them into coming out and voting for them.  Consider some of these gems.

“We have an electorate that doesn’t always pay that much attention to what’s going on so people are influenced by a simple slogan rather than the facts or the truth or what’s happening.” – John Kerry

“Stop whining” and “buck up,” – Vice President Joe Biden

“If people now want to take their ball and go home, that tells me folks weren’t serious in the first place.” – President Obama

The President demanded that his supporters “shake off this lethargy,” warning that it would be “inexcusable” for liberals to stay home on Election Day.

Well if that doesn’t work, there is always that Tea Party gang to demonize.  Now, if only the statists could find the leader of the Tea Party and destroy them, the movement would collapse.  Sorry, there is no such person.  There are numerous Tea Party groups with numerous leaders.

[T]he tea party movement is financed and directed by “powerful, special-interest lobbies.” – President Obama

“There are probably some aspects of the Tea Party that are a little darker, that have to do with anti-immigrant sentiment or are troubled by what I represent as the President.” – President Obama

Thomas Friedman wrote a piece in the New York Times today, “The Tea Kettle Movement,” as in just blowing off steam.  In it he makes several points that prove how ignorant the statists are regarding the Tea Party movement and will continue to be so as long as they get all their information from the main stream media, like the Times.

Democratic Pollster Stan Greenberg told me that when he does focus groups today this is what he hears: “People think the country is in trouble and that countries like China have a strategy for success and we don’t. They will follow someone who convinces them that they have a plan to make America great again. That is what they want to hear. It cuts across Republicans and Democrats.”

Yes China has a strategy, but don’t be fooled because it is a communist country into thinking that the answer is centralized control over all economic activity.  China’s success is because they realize that communism doesn’t work and they are moving more and more toward capitalism.  For example, China’s corporate tax rate is 16% while the U.S. rate is 35%.  Obama wants to move America to be more like the old, failed, socialist regimes but because he is smarter than everyone else, he will get it right.

To me [Friedman], that is a plan that starts by asking: what is America’s core competency and strategic advantage, and how do we nurture it? Answer: It is our ability to attract, develop and unleash creative talent. That means men and women who invent, build and sell more goods and services that make people’s lives more productive, healthy, comfortable, secure and entertained than any other country.

He seems to get the answer right but then progressives support policies that do just the opposite.  You don’t nurture the ability to attract, develop and unleash creative talent through bigger government, oppressive taxes, and burdensome regulation.  The progressives, in the midst of a feeble recovery, want to slam these very people with $700 billion in additional taxes.

Friedman, to his credit is not as out of touch as President Obama.  He suggests:

Actually raise some taxes — on, say, gasoline — and cut others — like payroll taxes and corporate taxes. It would require us to overhaul our immigration laws so we can better control our borders, let in more knowledge workers and retain those skilled foreigners going to college here. And it would require us to reduce some services — like Social Security — while expanding others, like education and research for a 21st-century economy.

Increasing the cost of energy through gasoline taxes is not the solution.  Perhaps that is a way to fund fixing the highways and bridges, but not unleash our productivity.  His immigration suggestion is not unlike the Tea Party movement and as he doesn’t mention illegals there might be a difference there, maybe not.  As far as reducing some service like Social Security, that is a result of a bad idea (ponzi scheme) put in place at the start.  If the same amount of money that is put into Social Security was put into private savings, there would be no need for a discussion.  The reason this is a big problem is the age old nanny state mentality, that people are too stupid to take care of themselves (put away for retirement) and that if the government doesn’t step in and take care of them now (payroll taxes), it will have to step in later to fix the lives they have screwed up.

No matter how you cut it, it is hardly a motivating message for either the base or anyone else to vote for the Democrats.  With little over thirty days left until the election, the Democrats are still throwing stuff against the wall to see if anything will stick.  This could be a bigger rout than we thought.

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?