At CPAC Marco Rubio showed some of the traits that make him a leading candidate for Vice President no matter who the Republican nominee happens to be. He mixed humor and personal narrative.

Rubio spoke with a degree of awe about arriving in the Senate. He wondered to himself, “How did I get here?” But after spending time in Harry Reid’s do-nothing Senate he looked around and wondered, “How did they get here?”

Getting more serious he talked about President Obama’s State of the Union address and how the president scrupulously avoided talking about his record. Why? Well, Rubio explained, for two years President Obama had a Democrat controlled House and a Democrat controlled Senate, which until the passing of Senator Edward Kennedy and the election of Republican Scott Brown to replace him, they had a filibuster-proof majority. So for two years he got everything he wanted and since then, everything has gotten worse.

So what did Obama say in the State of the Union address? He chose to pit Americans against each other. He is trying to sell the American people on a bill of goods that says we are a zero-sum society. That is, for someone to get ahead, someone has to get pulled down. But that is not true, but Obama needs us to believe it so that he can get people to vote for him.

Rubio then related to his own family saying that he felt his father and grandfather were better men than he, but Rubio has advanced as far as he has because he was born in the greatest country in the world.

He then made a telling point. He said that Republicans try to attract followers by arguing who is more like Ronald Reagan. Do you ever hear Democrats argue about who is more like Jimmy Carter?

What is government’s role, he asked? We should have an understandable tax code so that individuals and businesses can make decisions for business reasons not tax reasons. We need regulatory reform. Yes, we all want clean air and clean water but with sanity. We don’t have an energy policy, we have energy politics. While in office for three years President Obama had no plan for Medicare, but as soon as Republican Paul Ryan came up with a plan, he attacked it.

Summing up, Rubio said that President Obama seems to be a really good father; he seems to be a really good husband; but he is a terrible president. I couldn’t agree more.

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

Photo by Pargon

We need a vibrant and growing economy, but we are being led by someone who believes in all things that make America mediocre.

We’ve seen it all, “don’t keep score of the game or someone will be sad if they lose”; Pass/fail grading systems; schools banning dodge-ball, kickball, monkey bars and tag because someone might get hurt. Does anyone get excited watching such a contest, or would you rather watch the Packers? We seem to be stuck in a union mindset of propping up the incompetent workers and holding back the good ones.

The Union Mindset

In a union all workers are supposed to act like a uniform group. I can’t tell you the number of people I met in business who quit being in a union because of a common theme. “Hey, slow down, you’re making everyone else look bad!’ I knew one guy working construction at JFK Airport in New York. He wanted to keep busy doing his work because it made the day go by quickly. The shop steward told him to slow down, but he just didn’t get it. So, one day, the shop steward took the time to explain it to him. He called him down off the scaffold and took him outside to walk around the hanger. Around and around they slowly walked as the union guy explained the facts of union life to him. He finally understood. He quit and started his own business.

Progressives have the union mindset. Don’t let competition break out it’s bad. So let’s roll everything up to Washington to run the country. We can’t have Texas going competitive on us and tempting people to move there from Michigan, now can we? Whose going to pay for all the social programs back in Michigan if all the productive workers leave. So let’s add ObamaCare and we’ll latch onto those productive workers no matter where they move.

There are roads and bridges that need repair. Don’t trust the states to handle that, what if they don’t have enough money after paying for all their public sector retirees who retired at 42 years of age? What we need is a national infrastructure bank. That’s it, and we can model it after Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, so that every state can get their roads and bridges repaired and everyone across the country will pay for it.

While we’re at it, let’s have another round of stimulus (what’s that, Nancy? You’ve banned the word stimulus? Okay, okay), er, another round of investment for shovel ready construction jobs. And while it’s true the jobs created by this new round will only last as long as the money does, just like the last time, so we’ll have to do it again. But by that time Obama hopes to be reelected so he won’t care any more.

Never mind the free market working this all out by itself, we need the really, really smart people who only seem to turn up in Washington to generate more great ideas, like “Cash for Clunkers,” “Making Home Affordable,” “Green jobs,” and stimulus dollars for union teachers.

So is it any surprise that Jimmy Hoffa blames the Tea Party and tries to rally the mob to get those “sons of bitches”? What else do they have but the mob? Fire up the crowd with simple slogans, “Racists”, “Terrorists”, “Homophobes”, “Hitler”, while the Tea Partiers quote the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Federalist Papers.

The Way Out of this Mess

There is a way out of this mess and it will take bold action. By bold action I don’t mean to make the same mistakes as what this administration has already done but three times bigger. I mean applying tough medicine like Reagan did to break the back of skyrocketing interest rates he inherited from Jimmy Carter. At the ten month mark of Reagan’s presidency the economy was growing at 9.3% compared to 1% under Obama.

In fact, the economy grew during Obama’s first full year in office, peaked, and started declining steadily. How do you hang that one on Bush?

What is meant by a bold plan is along the lines of the plan put forth by Rand Paul, that would cut spending by $500 billion in the first year. Make no mistake about it, federal worker unemployment will increase, but the government in Washington will get smaller. Some departments that are not authorized by the Constitution would be eliminated; not capped, not trimmed, but gone. The states or local government can decide if they want to continue these programs on the state or local level. States can compete for businesses and citizens rather than just chant, “tax the rich,” and grow government. If a state doesn’t get its house in order, it’s citizens will flee and there will be no bailouts. It is time for responsible and accountable government.

It’s simple, really. Every government program, every regulation has a cost. Government has no money other than what it gets from taxing the people, either directly through income and sales taxes, or indirectly through corporate taxes. Each one taps the brakes on the economy, slowing it down. More and more programs, regulations, taxes, taps and taps and taps on the brakes. As any driver knows, if you tap the brakes enough times eventually you will slow to a crawl. If we want to put America to work again, we need to bust up some of the Washington establishment and use it to fuel the fire of the free market. Do that and stand back, and America will be just fine.

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

Phot by Amanda M Hatfield

Congressional members high tailed it out of Washington after passing a debt limit agreement, but Democrats Steve Israel and Tim Bishop wasted no time in holding a press conference at MacArthur airport on Long Island to blame Republicans for a crisis they created.

“They’re now injecting ideology into our runways,” Rep. Steve Israel, D-Dix Hills, said of Republicans in the House. “They’ve allowed Congress to return home without reauthorizing critical FAA airport safety.”

Wow, that sounds pretty serious. Those Republicans are at it again working hard to make America unsafe.

“Ask yourself if there’s a single company in this country that would solve a $16 million problem at the expense to their corporation of $1.2 billion,” said Bishop, a member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. “No, the answer is absolutely not.”

Tim Bishop, a man who has spent his entire career in academia and government is now an expert on what private businesses would do in a given situation. But as we have all learned by now, that when Democrats lips are moving and they are calling people terrorists (which you know are never real terrorists), hostage takers, racists, etc., etc. that they are probably covering up the real issue.

The Two Real  Issues

As you have probably guessed by now the issues are not safety and they are not about foolish fiscal management. The issues are a Democrat union power grab and wasteful spending. First, the union issue.

The House passed an FAA funding bill that the Democrats in the Senate, led by Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia, stopped cold, and then, of course, blamed the Republicans. The labor issue was described by the New York Times as follows:

The House also passed a long-term F.A.A. bill that included a measure to repeal a rule of the National Mediation Board, which oversees union and labor issues in the airline and railroad industries. The new rule, which passed after President Obama appointed two of the board’s three members, reversed a 76-year-old rule and made it easier for unions to win a representation election. Under the old rule, workers who did not vote were counted as “no” votes; under the new rule, only those casting ballots were counted.

So we have a labor rule that had been in place since 1935, on how union representation elections would be conducted. President Obama appoints two far left members to the National Mediation Board and they reverse the rule. Unions represent only about 7% of workers in the private sector but they are bedrock supporters for the Democratic Party. While Obama tries to refashion America in his own image, the Democrats blocked this bill for that reason and somehow it is the Republicans who are the villains.  The Republicans keep doing what they were elected to do, they keep passing legislation in the House; the Democrats do not seem to pass anything and they block whatever legislation the Republicans pass. Who do you think is the problem?

Wasteful Spending

The other issue concerns funding for a program called Essential Air Service (EAS). EAS, by law, was supposed to expire twenty three years ago, but Congress keeps it alive. It was created after Jimmy Carter deregulated the airlines in 1978 as a way to ease the impact on rural airports by subsidizing them over the ten years after deregulation. The budget for EAS has grown from $50 to $200 million. This program should be eliminated. Those heartless Republicans wanted to cut $16.5 million from the program. The Republicans said that in the overall scheme of things it’s not a lot of money, but we have to start somewhere. Tim “I haven’t found a program I can cut” Bishop naturally jumped in to call the move foolhardy. Well, just what is the EAS?

Essential Air Service

This program subsidizes air service to 140 airports around the country. Here are some examples:

• An airport in Lewiston, Montana. In 2007 it reported that it averages 0.6 passengers per flight. In other words, for every ten flights, six of them had ONE passenger and four of them took off EMPTY! You, my fellow Americans are paying for this.
• Three airports in Kansas in Dodge City, Garden City, and Liberal (no pun) are all within 75 miles of each other and yet we subsidize all three
• Chuck Schumer’s favorites in Messina, Plattsburgh, Ogdenburg, and Saranac Lake are about as close to the large airports in Montreal and Ottawa as Stamford, Connecticut is to JFK airport in New York.

Sen. Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., issued a typical defense of EAS, which supports service to six airports in New York. “There is no question about it,” he said. “Access to air travel is good for businesses, good for jobs, and good for the financial health of the community.”

The politburo has spoken. The central committee of the Democrat party has decided which airports are important and which ones are not, the free market be damned.

Okay but what about places were there are no alternatives such as the 45 subsidized airports in Alaska? In Alaska there are no Interstate highways. The Alaska Railroad only runs from May to September, and air travel is the only transportation available to some remote areas. Surely these places deserve the subsidy. Do they?

In Alaska there is something called the Alaska Permanent Fund, which was created at about the time the North Slope opened up to oil exploration. It collects about 25% of the oil royalties and invests it for Alaska and Alaskans. As of 2008 there was about $28 billion in that fund. There is also the Permanent Fund Dividend which is an annual payment from that fund to Alaskans and in 2010 it paid out $1,281 to every Alaskan who was eligible. If 45 airports, that benefit Alaskans, are in need of a subsidy, why not use this fund to subsidize it instead of using the taxes of someone in New Jersey? The same should go for other states. It’s called the Tenth Amendment. If we eliminate this program, as Congress said it should be eliminated after 1988, we could save $200 million. If we can’t agree to save $200 million, how are we going to save $2 trillion?

Circling back to Mr. Bishop’s remarks, “Ask yourself if there’s a single company in this country that would solve a $16 million problem at the expense to their corporation of $1.2 billion,” it is chutzpah at its highest. The FAA is losing $1.2 billion in tax revenue during this shutdown because Tim Bishop, Steve Israel, Chuck Schumer can’t stand the idea that their union power grab or their automatic pork would be curtailed. As a result jobs are on hold, construction projects stopped, because they won’t even allow a $16.5 million cut, let alone my suggestion to eliminate the whole $200 million. To hold a press conference to blame anyone but themselves is absolutely shameless, but then where is the news in that?

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

To no one’s surprise, President Obama followed his lame first attempt at a budget with the same tired class warfare “taxing the rich is the solution plan”. The problem is spending. This problem is not going to get fixed until we: a) stop spending more; b) start spending less; and c) spend less than we take in until the debt is paid off. Yes, I said paid off. We are the wealthiest country on earth. We should be able to live within our means and not have to borrow to keep a bloated, inefficient, unaccountable government in Washington growing and growing.

Let’s take a look at the facts. The following three charts show how much of Adjusted Gross Income is earned by the most productive 1%, 5%, and 10% (the blue bars) and what share of total income taxes they pay (the red bars). This is over a twenty year period:

Share of Income vs Share of Tax Burden of Most Productive 1 Percent

Share of Income vs Share of Tax Burden

Share of Income vs Share of Tax Burden of Most Productive 10%

What is clear from all three of these graphs is that over the past twenty years if you look at the trend lines, while the most productive amoung us produced more, the share of the tax load they paid grew even faster. So let’s stop the sleight of hand about how many dollars the changes in tax law affect Mr. Obama personally and let’s be clear, to use Mr. Obama’s favorite phrase, there was no tax cut voted in December, the vote just maintained the status quo. So, Mr. President, level with the American people. Just what percentage of total income taxes do you want the most productive 10% of Americans to carry? Since you feel 70%, the amount they carry today, is not enough, what do you think is fair? 80%? 90%? 100%? Should the most productive 10% of Americans pay all of the income taxes while the other 90% pay none? Stop dancing around and be straight with the American people and tell us how much of the total pie is fair for the most productive to pay?

But we don’t have enough revenue because of the Bush tax cuts, you say. Okay, let’s put that one to rest as well.

Federal Government Revenue over Time

It is clear that the tax revenue collected hit its peak after the Bush tax cuts. They fell off after the start of the recession, which is expected, but it appears they bottomed in 2010 and the Bush rates were extended (not increased, not decreased). It’s the spending, stupid!

Trying to raise more money through raising tax rates runs into Hauser’s Law. As I explain in Liberty’s Lifeline, W. Kurt Hauser looked at eighty years of revenue data and concluded that tax revenues will not exceed 20% of GDP no matter how high the rates. If spending continues at 24% of GDP where it is now, we will be digging a hole out of which we will never escape. It’s the spending, stupid!

Instead of leading, President Obama, came out yesterday with Budget 2.0, and basically made a campaign speech instead of a serious policy statement demonstrating leadership. Here is Charles Krauthammer’s analysis:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FR0E3trOF-k

President Obama ran for office with the promise of bipartanship. He promised to change the tone in Washington. He has not even been able to change his role from campaigner-in-chief to chief executive and instead has become punter-in-chief. He punted his responsibility to put together a budget to a bipartisan commission. He didn’t like the yucky medicine his commission offered up and so he dismissed their recommendation. He now talks of a new bipartisan commission.

He also likes to follow the instructions of his mentor Saul Alinsky, “pick a target, freeze it, personalize it, polarize it.” He did it to the members of the Supreme Court in his State of the Union address after the Citizens United v FEC decision by calling them out as they sat immobile in front of him. He repeated it yesterday by inviting Paul Ryan and other Republican leaders to this speech and then attacked them.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JjGGnwe6UQ

When I started writing this blog in 2008 it was primarily because I saw the candidate Obama as someone with no executive experience, a few years in the Illinios senate where he voted mostly present, less than a full term as a U.S. Senator before he bailed out to run for president, and the author of a couple of books and I was stunned that people across America actually believed this man, who may be great guy to have a beer with or play a game of basketball or golf, could actually handle the job. Well, as another of his mentors, Reverand Wright, once said, our chickens are coming home to roost. I would much rather have Jimmy Carter sitting in the Oval Office today than this man, and that’s saying something.

It’s about the spending, Mr. President, and if you don’t understand that, wake up Joe Biden and give him a turn at the wheel. It’s time to take your responsibility seriously and make some tough decisions. Right now 2012 is a pipe dream for you.

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



To No Fly or Not to No Fly, that is the question:

Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of indecision

Or take arms against a tin pot dictator

And by opposing end him. To golf, to play

No more – and by play to say we end

The heartache, and the thousand responsibilities

This job requires. ‘Tis a consummation

Devoutly to be wished. To golf, to play –

To play, perchance to bracket: ay, there’s the rub,

To watch one’s pick, march on the final four

When at last we watch Duke play Pitt,

Must give us pause. There’s the respect

That makes calamity of getting elected.

For who would bear the whips and scorns of this job,

Bush’s problems, the Tea Party’s contumely

The pangs of despised polls, the Constitution’s stubbornness,

The insolence of office, and the spurns

That patient merit of th’ unworthy takes,

When he himself might his departure make

With an electoral loss? Who would want this job?

To grunt and sweat under a weary life,

But that the dread of something after this office,

The undiscovered retirement, from whose bourn

Only Bill Clinton returns, puzzles the will,

And makes us rather bear those ills we have

Than to fly to others that we know not of?

Thus making decisions does make cowards of us all,

And thus the native hue of resolution

Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of

Longing to be a community organizer again

Or to be able to vote “present”

And lose the name of action. – Soft you now,

Jimmy Carter, to you I will be compared

By all my sins remembered.

Apologies to William Shakespeare

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

K-12 education is in trouble. A recent report on schools in New York City said that of the 60% or so of students who actually graduate, about half need remedial classes before they can perform at the college level. We have a Department of Education that has spent over $1 trillion since it was created by President Jimmy Carter and school performance has declined.

A conference was held in Denver bringing together the Department of Education, school administrators and teachers’ unions to discuss school policy and what to do to improve education. Education Secretary Arne Duncan told the assembled, “Collectively, you have the power to stop our nation’s educational demise.” Collectively; that word keeps popping up in the speeches of President Obama and his administration. The reality is that this nation wasn’t built by the collective. It was built by individual initiative and drive, where one great idea was built upon another, not by group think, but by free thinking.

The Obama administration hailed the summit as a fresh start to kick off education overhaul efforts looming in Washington, especially delicate negotiations over how teachers should be paid and evaluated. Participating school districts agreed to send a teacher, an administrator and a school board member to hear presentations from a dozen school districts that have accomplished school overhauls agreed to by all three groups. – Kristen Wyatt, Associated Press

Does anyone see any mention about students or learning in that quote? It focuses on teachers. How to pay them and how to evaluate them; it is about the unions, not the students. The delicate negations about pay (unions favor) and evaluation (unions oppose) has nothing to do with our children learning. The unions can run all the TV and radio ads they want about “the children” but when you hear the tag line about who paid for the ad, it is not about the children.

In other parts of the country, Republican governors are going on the offensive to really fight for the students. They are challenging the principle of teacher tenure and in some cases even the right to collective bargaining for the teachers. This will be a very intense fight, but the governors are up to the challenge.

“It’s practically impossible to remove an underperforming teacher under the system we have now,” said Gov. Brian Sandoval of Nevada, lamenting that his state has the lowest high school graduation rate in the nation.

The teachers’ unions are firing back:

“Why aren’t governors standing up and saying, ‘In our state, we’ll devise a system where nobody will ever get into a classroom who isn’t competent’?” said Dennis Van Roekel, president of the National Education Association. “Instead they are saying, ‘Let’s make it easy to fire teachers.’ That’s the wrong goal.”

Let me take a shot at that question. Teachers’ unions, for years, have been arguing for smaller class sizes. To create smaller classes you have to break up larger classes. In doing so, you need to hire more teachers (read: dues paying union members). In hiring more teachers you have to go deeper into the labor pool to find them. Net result, the overall quality of the teachers goes down. The second point, is that Mr. Van Roekel never speaks to a teacher’s performance after he gets into the classroom. If that teacher was competent going in, but because of tenure becomes a slacker, there is almost no getting him out.

The argument that the unions often put forth and even their members repeat it is that, in tough times what is going to prevent an administration from firing a teacher that is at the top of the pay scale? If the only thing that is eliminated is tenure, that is a valid argument. What must be done is abolishing teachers’ unions. Because if a highly qualified teacher is not allowed to perform at their full potential because of union rules, they can be priced out of the market. For example, Jaime Escalante, the math teacher portrayed in the movie Stand and Deliver was talented enough that he wanted to teach math to as many as fifty students in a class. The union fought him because they had work rules limiting class size to thirty-five. If a Jaime Escalante can teach as many students as three tenured but ineffective teachers, why would a district fire him over salary? Keep him, pay him 50% more and fire the three incompetent teachers and everyone comes out ahead. Teachers would want to work there because it is challenging, not drudgery. Parents would want to live in that district because their kids get a great education (increasing the value of their homes as well). And the district could save money by hiring fewer teachers but paying them more.

As Albert Einstein said, “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.” By asking the teachers’ unions to solve the problem they helped create is foolhardy. If you don’t like the cars built by the United Auto Workers, you can buy a car built by a non-union car company. If you don’t like what the unions are doing to your child’s education, what do you do, get another child? It’s time to stand up for our children. We owe them a future. We don’t owe the teachers’ union members a living. And if those teachers are truly professionals, they don’t need a union either.

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

The common themes in each presidential race turn on a hope and dream for the future, defining a common purpose and a call to action. Candidates usually win on the success of their ability to marshal these themes into a cohesive series of arguments for their nomination and eventually election to office. Few were as effective as Ronald Reagan at recruiting the support of the average listener. If he could get your ear, he could get your vote. Candidate Barack Obama frequently compared himself with Ronald Reagan during his campaign. His media cohorts happily aligned themselves with this maladapted relationship, with the centrist and even right leaning (business friendly and low/fair taxes) themes hinted by Obama’s vague comparisons.

He then has compared the first half of his first term to Ronald Reagan, again with the support of an eager media. They both inherited a terrible economy, with high unemployment, handed to them by unpopular presidents, and a world on the brink of disaster. That is basically where the comparisons end in real life and thus spurring a misunderstanding in comparing the two I call The Great Reagan Mistake. When Ronald Reagan was elected, interest rates were double digits, as a result of years of an economic condition known as “stagflation”, a term rarely used because Reagan’s economic policies essentially made the condition obsolete. Or so we thought. A couple more years of this recovery, especially if interest rates rise as they are predicted by many economists to do, and the term will come back into vogue sooner than one may think.

After a year and a half of the Barack Obama recovery (2009-2010), the results of his economic policies could not be more divergent from the results of the first 18 months of the Reagan recovery (1983-84). Unemployment is chronically high, even though interest rates are historically low and we are told to expect 8% unemployment as the “new normal”. We are also told to expect trillion dollar deficits as far as the eye can see.

According to Larry Kudlow, an economist in the Reagan administration, we have anemic 3% growth in GDP and a microscopic 121,000 new jobs created in the Obama recovery. Get ready for this: in the Reagan recovery, 5.3 million jobs were created by 7.7% GDP during the same period of recovery. Mr. Obama’s government centric high tax and suffocating business climate marked by presidentially led animosity for business in America, has stunted the very growth for which he longs, the absence of which is causing increasing frustration among the administration as well as the American people. Contrast that with the economic launch pad created by the then maligned “Reaganomics”. While his clueless Vice President Bush called it “Voodoo economics” to the howling delight of the liberal media, the business community knew better, and jumped on the rocket and rode it into unparalleled prosperity for the next twenty years. Reagan was the first president to shatter then accepted economic theory that low unemployment, low inflation and high GDP could NEVER exist at the same time. After the Reagan recovery began, those conditions coexisted continuously until 2008. Mr. Obama is turning back the clock, printing money and driving up inflation, while telling us to get used to high unemployment, leading us back into the “stagflation” era of Jimmy Carter.

While Reagan was accused of being an actor who was empty of substance and only made people feel good, this is the sadly unfolding truth about the Obama presidency. While they both had/have a gift for the rhetorical flourish, calling upon Americans to get in touch with their internal longing for a new vision for America, a dream and an awakening spirit, Mr. Reagan’s words were a separate and distinct tool for inspiration of the American people, guiding them through very tough times, while he took decisive action based on sound economic theory, with courage and conviction. Mr. Obama’s need to latch onto that legacy is resulting in the truly hollow rhetoric, lacking the substance so badly needed in the American domestic agenda today. Why can’t liberals just admit they were wrong and go back to what Reagan showed us worked? I always said it was the single most important thing Bill Clinton did to insure his presidential popularity: he didn’t mess with Reaganomics. He kept that his dirty little secret only supply side devotees like me would recognize. He never had to explain it to his liberal base because they were living in such nonchalant prosperity most Americans took for granted by then. He knew better than to make the Great Reagan Mistake. Mr. Obama is losing his window of opportunity to turn the tide and make actual changes. In two years, he will follow Jimmy Carter into oblivion. Hopefully the next President will not make the same mistake.

Please share your thoughts below.

By now you are probably getting pretty tired of the comparisons of Bill Clinton and Barack Obama and how Obama is/would/should apply the lessons learned by Bill Clinton and coast to a second term. I, however, have always seen Bill Clinton and Barack Obama as two very different politicians with different goals.

In my view, Bill Clinton’s goal in life was to be President of the United States and to do whatever was necessary to get there and serve two full terms.  Barack Obama I see as a man with an agenda and the presidency is the best means to implement that agenda. Unlike many former presidents, Jimmy Carter excepted, Bill Clinton still loves being on the stage, getting called to rally the troops, being consulted, in short, being the center of attention.

Barack Obama matured within a philosophy of wealth distribution, social justice, big government and has demonstrated his zeal to implement as much change as possible, before the opposition knows what hit them. He advanced those ambitious programs that fit that agenda (Stimulus, Health care, cap and trade) while letting favorites of the left but not fundamental to his vision (Guantanamo, withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan)  wait.

Bill Clinton had no problem moving to the center if that helped him get reelected. Clinton was and is a brilliant politician who knows how to follow the script to deliver a convincing performance to the crowd. Obama has a trickier and riskier task.

With all he has put on hold that his far left base wanted if he moves dramatically to the center, they will abandon him to a primary challenge and his reelection chances will collapse. If he doesn’t appear to move to the center, the independents who have been leaving him in droves will continue to do so and his reelection chances will collapse. He has to fake a move to the center long enough to slow the defections of the independents and then circle back to the left to hold them long enough to get reelected. So how does he do that?

Time may not be on his side, as two years is a long time to fool two diverse groups. He is off to a good start though. He gave a strong speech in Tucson. There has been little activity in Washington other than the ObamaCare repeal that was newsworthy, allowing Obama’s ratings to climb by about ten points. He wrote an Op-Ed in the Wall Street Journal announcing a change in the way regulations are written such that they will require a cost/benefit analysis, a sign he is moving toward the middle. Since most of the electorate loses focus during the “off-season”, similar sleights of hand may help him achieve his goal.  Sleight of hand?

I call it a sleight of hand because in the same document that he called for cost/benefit requirement on every new regulation he also included this:

 When the agencies weigh costs and benefits, the order says, they should always consider “values that are difficult or impossible to quantify, including equity, human dignity, fairness, and distributive impacts.”

The left hand giveth, the right hand taketh away. Is it just cynicism on my part? The EPA is “confident that that it won’t need to alter a single current or pending rule.” So, in effect, the “new” ruling on regulations is all smoke and mirrors.

If Mr. Obama makes sure he knows where his teleprompter is at all times, he might be able to pull it off. He is a very good rehearsed speaker. Let 2008 be your guide.

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

The imagery in my mind was triggered by an editorial in the Wall Street Journal by John Fund, when he described Obama in a “political tailspin.” Close your eyes and picture the pilot Barack Obama screaming, “I’ve never flown a plane before!!!” as he furiously toggles switches and twists dials.  Biden in the co-pilot seat is flipping through a copy of Piloting for Dummies, shouting back, “Neither have I.  I always sat in the back!!!”  At the same time, Jimmy Carter is trying to calm Obama down and talk him through pulling plane out of its deadly dive while muttering as an aside, “It’s all Fox News fault.”  Then together they all scream, “WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE!!!!”

Such is the political landscape this bright Wednesday morning.  The sky is clear here in New York, but politically it is anything but that.  The news came out yesterday that the recession ended eighteen months after is started in December 2007.  That means it was about five months after Obama took office and just three months after the massive stimulus package passed, which means the economy recovered on its own, without the stimulus.

Since this administration has of late been fond of automobile analogies, let me offer up this one.  All the while the Obama administration thought it was stepping on the gas while in reality it was standing on the brake.  The pall of uncertainty hanging over the market has kept businesses from hiring until they know the cost of all of Mr. Obama’s plans, which as Nancy Pelosi made clear with her famous, “we have to pass it to know what is in it,” that they have no clue what they are doing, or what laws they are passing.  So we wait and the unemployment rate waits at 9.6%.

When the smoke clears perhaps business will start hiring, or if the bill is too large, perhaps they will cut more jobs.  If there is a demarcation point between a small business and a large business where small businesses are exempt from some of the more onerous regulations, don’t be surprised to see businesses cut back to get under that threshold.

Obama’s economic team is peeling away.  Larry Summers announced he is going back to Harvard before he loses tenure.  Could there be a more fitting reason to leave a job for the architects of the nanny state?  Summers is going back under the protective umbrella of tenure where he can’t be held accountable there either.

The electorate is angry.  They don’t like their leaders thumbing their noses at the voters on issue after issue and saying, we don’t care what you think, we are passing this.  But don’t worry; once you get to know it you will like it. It’s not happening.

The latest desperate spin is to call out Republicans and say that they are holding middle class tax cuts hostage.  But the reality is that there are no tax cuts on the table.  What the Republicans are demanding is that the status quo, the tax rates currently in effect, continue.  What Obama wants is a massive tax increase of $700 billion.  Hey, let’s jump on the brake with both feet!

The Democrats followed Obama, Pelosi, and Reid onto this plane and now they have no escape.  Their message changes daily and is getting no traction.  They are desperately trying to gin up an issue by attaching “Don’t ask, don’t tell” and the Dream Act to a defense bill, cynically trying to get voters sensitive to those issues to answer their Mayday call.  I have one message for the pilot, his crew and passengers.

“Brace for impact.”

As we approach the mid-point of his term we, once again, hear President Obama with another scheme to create jobs.  This time he really, really means it.  For a mere $50 billion we can build roads, rails and runways and we can create an “infrastructure bank” to boot.  I guess the government wants to get into the banking business now that they have swallowed up two thirds of the domestic auto companies and passed a law to take over health care.  But, hey, who are you calling a socialist?

The infrastructure bank has supporters: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Ed Rendell the Democratic governor of Pennsylvania and Michal Bloomberg the Democratic, Republican, Independent mayor of New York, but they want it to support more projects such as water and clean energy projects.  But here’s the really good news, according to the New York Times “They say such a bank would spur innovation by allowing a panel of experts to approve projects on merit, rather than having lawmakers simply steer transportation money back home.” We get a brand new panel of experts to tell us morons what is good for us! 

How about this idea, get the Federal government out of the roads, rails and runways business.  Unless the road is part of the Interstate highway system, and that means interstate, the feds should stay away from it.  If a road within a city needs maintenance, that city and its citizens should pay for it, not taxpayers elsewhere in the country.  That’s how the whole process got screwed up.  You build my road, I’ll build your road and nobody will know who pays for what, until we find out we are $13 trillion in debt.

One of the good ideas Jimmy Carter had was to deregulate the airlines.  Airlines became competitive and prices came down.  The problem is that air travel consists of three components: the airlines, the airports and air traffic control.  Complete the process, deregulate the airports and air traffic control.  If you do that, airports can charge different prices for takeoff and landing slots.  No more will we see thirty-two flights all scheduled to take off at 7:30 AM from one airport.  Private investors would also have an incentive to build a state of the art air traffic control system. 

By the way, what happened to all those “shovel ready” projects from the first stimulus plan?  Did we actually finish building all the turtle crossings that this country needs?

On another front, Obama continues to tinker with the mortgage market rather than getting out of the way, letting housing prices find their bottom and then going from there.  George Mason economist Anthony B. Sanders said in the New York Times, ““Housing needs to go back to reasonable levels.  If we keep trying to stimulate the market, that’s the definition of insanity.”  Even Democrats are piling on:

“The administration made a bet that a rising economy would solve the housing problem and now they are out of chips,” said Howard Glaser, a former Clinton administration housing official with close ties to policy makers in the administration. “They are deeply worried and don’t really know what to do.”

Who would have thought that a president and vice president with no executive experience prior to taking office would not know what to do once they got there?  After all everyone knew that Obama was a really nice guy with an even temperament, what went wrong?  Now we hear that Fannie Mae wants to back mortgages with nothing down.  But not to worry, this time they are actually going to require the lenders to check to make sure the borrower has income. I feel better already.

Since this administration seems to like experts how about listening to these experts:

“We have had enough artificial support and need to let the free market do its thing,” said the housing analyst Ivy Zelman.

Michael L. Moskowitz, president of Equity Now, a direct mortgage lender that operates in New York and seven other states, also advocates letting the market fall. “Prices are still artificially high,” he said. “The government is discriminating against the renters who are able to buy at $200,000 but can’t at $250,000.”

It’s time for President Obama and his administration to get his boot off of the neck of the economy.  Ours is the strongest most resilient economy in the world, if you set it free.  All of the tinkering and the anti-business threats have pushed employers to the sidelines.  The uncertainty over the economy has led businesses to take a wait and see attitude.

The rhetoric the Democrats have been trying to muster to save their skins is that “eight years of failed policies,” yada, yada, yada.  The reality is that this recession started one year after Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid took over Congress.  This recession started in the last year of the Bush administration, not the first seven.  This recession has lasted nearly twice as long and counting under Obama than it did under Bush, and it shows no sign of changing anytime soon.  A recent poll in Ohio by Public Policy Polling asked respondents who they would prefer to see in the White House right now and the results were George W. Bush 50%, Barack Obama 42%; what does that tell you?

So, Mr. Obama, keeps your hands were we can see them and slowly step away from the economy.