Photo by cursedthing
We saw the beginnings with the Battle of Wisconsin. The one place were unions were growing robustly was in the public sector, surpassing the private sector for the first time in 2009. But then 2010 happened.
Indiana
As the Tea Parties celebrate their second anniversary, some of the volunteers have become battle weary, particularly those who live in blue states and don’t see some of the progress that that have been achieved in red states. To rally the troops the following speech was prepared for one of the Tax Day rallies.
The new model of public service that we are being sold from Democrats and progressives is to get elected and then do nothing and stop anyone who tries to actually serve those who elected them. Shall we call it a politician subsidy or welfare, where we pay them to do nothing?
Comments submitted in response to a previous post, “The Progressive War on Federalism,” focused on the Electoral College and a movement called the National Popular Vote (http://www.nationalpopularvote.com) bill. Rather than argue against my point it only seemed to reinforce it. The objective of this movement, which before this commenter’s contribution I was unaware of, is to abolish, or should I say neuter, the Electoral College and replace it with the direct election of the president. This movement looks to further weaken the states and move us away from federalism and toward a strong monolithic central government. Here is my analysis.
When President Obama and his team stood before their supporters and introduced ObamaCare you could almost hear them sing in unison the Carly Simon song, “Nobody does it better…”. They were going to bring us the health care we had been waiting for. Magically covering every soul in America whether they wanted it or not. If they did not, the government would be just like granny used to be, “Open wide, this won’t hurt a bit.” Come to think of it, was that granny or… never mind.
In Harry Reid’s Senate, this qualifies as dereliction of duty, as the Majority Leader said himself on Monday in defense of his frantic deal-making to get 60 votes. “I don’t know if there is a Senator that doesn’t have something in this bill that was important to them,” Mr. Reid said at a press conference that offered an unintentional commentary on modern democracy. “And if they don’t have something in it important to them, then it doesn’t speak well of them.” – Wall Street Journal, December 23, 2009
It kinda makes you feel warm all over, that our Congressional leaders are representing their constituents, selflessly doing what’s best for America in line with the consent of the governed (55% opposed according to latest Rasmussen poll).
Have you seen some of the commercials for Ally bank, where a man asks one little girl if she wants a pony and she gleefully says yes, so he hands her a toy pony. He then asks the next girl if she wants a pony and she says yes, so he calls out a live pony. The first girl, crestfallen, says, “You didn’t say I could have real pony.” To which he replies, “Well, you didn’t ask.” By now you probably know how Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas and Evan Byah of Indiana feel. They didn’t ask for a bribe in return for their vote on the health care bill, and like the creep in the commercial Harry Reid tells the world what a couple of saps they are for not doing so.
While Obama’s first stimulus plan lies sputtering on the ground, and he and his team tee up another one, they fail to realize that many small businesses that create most of the new jobs in this country, simply do not know what all this (health care, cap and trade, stimulus after stimulus) is going to cost them. Until they do, this uncertainty is what is keeping many of them from doing any hiring. How can you hire a new person when you no longer know how much your existing staff is going to cost when the music stops? So the unemployment picture will drag on no matter how may stimulus plans Obama rams through.
Coming to Their Senses
This is not over yet. The House version and the Senate version still have to be reconciled in committee. In the House Bart Stupak says he has 30 Democrats ready to vote against the bill, if his amendment against abortion is tampered with. The chumps in the Senate that Harry just made fools of, may re-think their support. The far left demands a public option be put in. Lieberman and a few others vow to vote against any public option. In addition, the members of Congress, when they return home to their districts, may not find them full of good cheer this Christmas, as incensed constituents express their opinions on why every Democrat in the Senate doesn’t understand 55% opposition, while they vote yea. Better watch out for flying fruitcakes, they can be lethal.
Can we please get this guy off the stage before my IRA is completely worthless? We had a break from him yesterday and the markets rose and then he goes on national television last night re-emphasizing how he was going to tax and spend and in 30 minutes the market is down 130 points. The market has fallen over 2,000 points since he was elected.
President Obama insists that we need to squeeze more out of the productive people in this country, after all they became rich by creating wealth, jobs, companies, innovations, etc. Obama’s idea of a “good” tax cut is $8 a week for 95% of Americans. $8 a week will buy exactly what? It won’t by the RVs that the people in Elkhart, Indiana make where Obama made one of his pitches for the stimulus package.
Nancy Pelosi looked like a grinning jack-in-the-box last night popping up with every other sentence to applaud the President’s speech. I don’t know about you, but to me that’s a dead giveaway, we’re in trouble. After loading up the stimulus bill with pork and ramming it through before anyone could read it (but President Obama didn’t see the urgency to sign it for four more days), you can see she is thrilled to have the opportunity to offer up more spending. The new spending bill that is about to be released is reported to include 9,000 EARMARKS!!! Haven’t we spent enough? This is beyond out of control. Nancy Pelosi cannot control her glee at how easily she is putting this all past the American people.
But the bill will be coming due, and it won’t be Nancy Pelosi who pays it. It will be you and me, and she will laugh all the way to her retirement with her millions.
I don’t know if the venues President Obama has chosen for his stimulus pitches are the result of brilliance or incredibly poor research by his team.
He goes to Elkhart, Indiana, the RV capital of the world. RVs are not known as high mileage vehicle with a small carbon footprint. President Obama seems to have been drawn to the town because the unemployment rate jumped from around 4% to 15%. Wanting to showcase his stimulus plan to create jobs what better place to make that pitch, right? But what are Obama’s view on what the good folks of Elkhart actually produce?
- Driving SUVs or RVs is irresponsible because they use too much gasoline
- Carbon Cap and Trade will put a heavy burden on RV companies
- No tax breaks for people who could afford to buy RVs, because they are the evil rich.
President Obama then chooses Caterpillar as another locale to make another pitch saying that the stimulus, by driving infrastructure work will in turn drive sales of Caterpillar products. However, Senator Obama opposed and continues to oppose the Columbia Free Trade agreement. Caterpillar tried very hard to get this approved so that they could maintain or increase sales in Columbia rather than lose those sales to Canadian companies. So a Free Trade agreement, where Caterpillar could competitively sell their products in a free market is bad. But taking your tax dollars to create infrastructure projects that may result in increased sales of Caterpillar products is good.
In other words, rather than have the people of Columbia buy Caterpillar products, it’s better for taxpayers to be forced to buy Caterpillar products. Rather than give an incentive to wealthy Americans to buy RVs from the good people of Elkhart, Indiana it’s better to force taxpayers who are overburdened with debt to take on more debt to do what exactly for the RV industry? Pay extended unemployment benefits?
Why do we have a government that is killing the free market and replacing it with a taxpayer funded stimulus package?
President Barack Obama held his first press conference last night and did a masterful job of controlling the communication while dodging any hint that he let this stimulus package spin out of control, at the hands of Nancy Pelosi.
Elkhart, Indiana
I found it curious that President Obama chose Elkhart, Indiana, the RV capital of the world, as the backdrop for the current economic situation. After all, in the campaign he said that driving SUVs and RVs was irresponsible. What kind of gas mileage does an RV get? He campaigned on Cap and Trade. What would Cap and Trade do to the good people of Elkhart, Indiana if implemented? How many people are going to out and buy an RV, which can cost up to $600,000, with the $10 per week tax cut President Obama is proposing. Remember, he is dead set against across the board tax cuts, which could actually prompt an evil “rich person” to buy an RV. It reminds me of the 10% tax on luxury yachts sales that killed the boat building industry and put many blue collar people out of work.
Disaster by Design
Of all the schemes tried over the years, from the Great Depression forward, to stimulate the economy, why does this President insist on going with the ones proven not to work?
No less an authority than FDR’s Treasury secretary and close friend, Henry Morganthau, conceded this fact to Congressional Democrats in May 1939: “We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. And I have just one interest, and if I am wrong … somebody else can have my job. I want to see this country prosperous. I want to see people get a job. I want to see people get enough to eat. We have never made good on our promises … I say after eight years of this Administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started … And an enormous debt to boot!”
Spending in the Great Depression didn’t work and that is according to the guy doing the spending. Last night President Obama mentioned the lost decade in Japan. However, all of the massive public works spending in Japan during that decade didn’t work.
What did Japan get from sustained and massive public works spending by the LDP after a real estate bubble burst in the late 1980s? According to a recent article in the IHT, one thing is clear: taxpayers ended up being saddled with the largest public debt in the developed world, totaling 180 percent of its $5.5 trillion economy.
While there are disputes over how to view the results, the Japanese appear to have learned a lesson, while US officials like Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, who spent time as a financial attaché in Japan after the collapse, appear to determined to repeat it on a larger scale
President Obama alluded to the “failed policies of the last eight years,” as if tax cuts created this mess. But today, Treasury Secretary Geithner opened his remarks on the bank bailout by basically saying that government action or inaction coupled with Wall Street excesses caused the financial debacle not tax cuts. They were:
- Interest rates too low for too long – driving up home prices
- Complicated financial intruments that no one understood bundling mortgages
- Failure of government oversight
- People being encouraged to borrow beyond their means (by government)
But we are supposed to believe that only government can get us out of this. So, government created the mess, they are ignoring what has worked in the past (tax cuts: Kennedy, Reagan, Bush), choosing those things that were proven failures (spending: Great Depression, Japan) and we’re supposed to be angry at Republicans for putting up a goal line stand to protect us from this impending disaster.
If this passes, be afraid, be very afraid
