When last she held the Speaker’s gavel in the 111th Congress, Nancy Pelosi failed to pass a budget at all. This was the first such failure since 1974. But somehow Republicans are obstructionists. When asked in May of this year about the Senate passing a budget, Harry Reid had this to say, “It would be foolish for us to do a budget at this stage.” Foolish. But somehow Republicans are obstructionists.

When the Republicans took control of the House of Representatives in January of this year, they promptly set about working on and passing a budget, which they did. But Republicans are the obstructionists. Harry Reid held a vote on the Republican budget in the Senate and it was defeated. We already know what Reid thought about putting together his own plan. So the Republicans put together a budget and pass it in the House, Reid puts it up for a vote in the Senate and it is voted down, but then says it would be foolish, foolish, to submit his own plan. And the Republicans are the obstructionists.

President Obama put together his own budget and then remarkably pulled it back when it was laughed at. He then submitted another budget plan. The Republicans in the Senate forced a vote on the Obama budget and it went down in flames 97-0, not even a single Democrat voted for it and yet Obama lectures us on Republicans being the obstructionists. Obama wanted a blank check, that is, a clean, no strings attached raising of the debt limit. No spending cuts. Okay, the Republicans said let’s vote on that (those obstructionists!). It failed 318-97 and there are only 242 Republicans in the House so they were joined by about half the Democrats, but remember, the Republicans are the obstructionists.

As the sides dig in for the debt limit battle, the Republicans passed Cut, Cap, and Balance in the House. When the bill went over to the Senate, Harry Reid held a vote to table it, that is, set it aside so that there is no debate or consideration of the bill let alone a vote on it. The Democrats didn’t want it on their record that they voted against Cut, Cap, and Balance when 66% of Americans support it. That measure passed and the bill was successfully obstructed , er, set aside. After all, we all know it is the Republicans who are the obstructionists.

In President Obama’s speech to the nation, he wasted no time saying that when he took office, the deficit was on a “trajectory” to hit a billion. And he did what to stop it? He increased it by half. Since he seems to be the only person left who still believes the “It’s all Bush’s fault,” let’s look at the record of spending under Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, since after all the power of the purse lies with Congress.

Reid and Pelosi added $4.8 trillion to the national debt. The Republicans since taking over the House have tried to stop it so in a sense I guess they are obstructing the runaway spending. I kinda like that.

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

It was quite a night.  It was everything we imagined and yet not enough.  The Republicans resoundingly carried the House of Representatives, but fell short on taking the Senate.  A large number of state legislatures flipped over to the Republican column and a number of governors too, but states like New York was as uncompetitive for Republicans as ever.  True, the Republicans picked up a number of seats in New York, but considering where they were coming from, currently holding only two of twenty-nine seats currently.

In the past, we would pat ourselves on the back for such an accomplishment, and then return to our daily lives only to start grumbling a few months later about the same old, same old.  That has to end.  We put the team on the field, now is not the time to go home before the game has begun.

Those of us in the Tea Party movement cannot afford to go home.  We have to go take our seats in the stands and cheer or boo loudly, as the political process unfolds.  We have to remain engaged to let those in power, who are there to serve us, know when they are doing the people’s will and let them know when they are ignoring those they claim to represent.  We should have their campaign promises tacked to the wall with check boxes next to each one, rather than wait until next election day to depend on others to rummage through the old campaign literature to tell us what they promised.  Our politicians should get loud, instant feedback, if they start looking toward how they can sneak past the electorate next time or if they start to bribe the public with the public’s money just to prolong their political career.

They need to shrink the government and get the government’s tentacles our of our wallets and our lives.  Are there things we need for government to do?  Yes, but it is limited both in scope and cost.  We are tired of working for one-third of the year to pay for a government that is largely unresponsive, overly intrusive, and extremely ineffective.  We want our freedom to make decisions on our own lives.  If you want us to buy a particular light bulb, then private companies need to make a better light bulb that we want to buy, rather than have government tell us we have no choice.

Government cannot create jobs other than those which the private sector has to fund through taxes.  Government has to get out of the way and let the economy and the entrepreneurial brilliance of the American people shine.

Let those who won their elections, bask in the glow of a hard won victory.  Let those who lost, rejoin us in the private economy and start creating.  But let us remember to stay vigilant, stay in touch with those in office, and tell them in no uncertain terms that they are there to represent us and do our bidding, not the other way around.

The hard work begins now, to increase our liberty as we shrink government to those functions, that are in the Constitution.  At the state and local level, governments should listen to their constituents, and not overreach.  Governments should do what they must do, not what they can do.

There was a commercial not too long ago where a young man looked out his window to the village green where a bundle of money had just fallen.  He calls his wife/girlfriend over to show her.  She suggests running down and getting it, but he says, no, let’s wait.  Next you see a frizzy headed guy down on the green who screams, “MONEY!!!!”  In seconds, people came out of the woodwork and scoffed up all the money while the young couple looked on.

The image of that commercial popped into my head as I considered the job summit being led by President Obama.  To me, the young couple represented the government pondering how to direct the economy to achieve this specific goal or that.  The mob on the green was the free market.  While the government dithers over what kind of legislation to write, which special interest groups to pay off to pass it, how to develop incentives to get private industry to do this or that, if they would just cut taxes and get out of the way, the free market would get to work creating jobs where they are needed, not where some bureaucrat thinks they should go.

Uncertainty

The biggest cloud overhanging this economy is uncertainty.  The Obama administration is slamming through enormous changes: a $787 billion Porkulus package, cap and trade, health care.  Businesses look at this combined with the accumulation of massive government debt, tax increases rather than cuts (yes letting the Bush tax cuts expire is a tax increase, not just the expiration of tax cuts as Speaker Pelosi tries to spin it) and they don’t know what hiring that extra employee is going to cost, let alone what it will cost to keep the employees they already have.  So they don’t hire until the dust  settles and they can calculate the impact.

“Tax incentives for job creation are “worthy of further consideration,” he said, while adding that the administration is also set on making a big push in the area of green jobs.” – President Obama at Jobs Summit

“Worthy of further consideration”?  Since conservatives have been calling for tax cuts for a year now, this kind of statement in Obama-ese translates thusly, “I have to make a nod to the right, to acknowledge that I heard them, but it ain’t happening.”  Couple that with the “big push in the area of green jobs.”  We are in the midst of the scientific scandal that the “settled science” of man-made global warming could be the greatest hoax since Bernie Madoff, and Obama wants a big push in the area of green jobs.  What if that area collapses because the urgency that Al Gore has been screaming about is no longer urgent?  It’s government planning on the order of Soviet five-year plans or Mao’s Great Leap Forward programs.  It harkens back to Jimmy Carter’s giant Synfuels project that was going to convert coal into oil, until oil prices fell and the project imploded, but not before billions of tax dollars were poured into that rat hole.

How Simulating!

If you listen to Joe Biden, the stimulus plan is working better than expected.  But let’s take a closer look.  As of about three weeks ago only $120 billion of the stimulus money had been spent. (So why is Congress looking at another stimulus with over $600 billion left to spend in the first one?)  Of that money, 80% went to the Department of Education, Health and Human Services, and the Department of Labor.  What about all the “shovel ready” projects?  Only about $4 billion has gone to the Department of Transportation.  Feel better?

Jobs Summit Attendees

So who is meeting with President Obama at the jobs summit?  Well first let’s look at who was not invited:

• U.S. Chamber of Commerce — they have butted heads with Obama over health care and climate change policies
• National Federation of Independent Businesses

I don’t know about you, but I think they might have an idea or two about how to create conditions that let the free market create jobs.  As for the attendees:

• Service Employees International Union (SEIU) officer
• President of the American Federation of Teachers — a union of workers in a government run monopoly
• United Food & Commercial Workers International Union
• CEOs of some Fortune 500 companies

How many jobs do unions create, not occupy, create?  Think of the auto industry, steel industry, public K-12 education, the Postal Service, and government in general.  Do they bring images of thriving, vibrant, engines of job creation?  Or is the image more of the basket cases of the U.S. economy?  This is not a slight against the union workers themselves, but rather of their leadership who create so many restrictions on job rules to artificially create the need for more jobs.  There motto is: why have three people do the work, when you have five do it?

As far as big business is concerned, let me dispel the thought that conservatives and big business go hand in hand.  In many cases big business looks to cut deals with the government to protect their industries and markets from upstart companies.  They have gotten big and lethargic, rather than nimble and vibrant.  Small businesses create about 80% of the jobs in the U.S. and they didn’t have a seat at the table.

So was the jobs summit about creating jobs or just jive talk?  If you want a real jobs summit see what American Solutions was hosting in Cincinnati, Ohio and Jackson, Mississippi.  They actually discussed ideas that would work.

In his Sunday column Frank Rich described Republican candidate for New York’s 23rd Congressional District a “mainstream conservative by New York standards.”  So what did Dede Scozzafava do after falling so far behind the Democratic and Conservative candidates that she decided to drop out?  Well, naturally, she endorsed the Democrat!  Why would a conservative endorse the Conservative, rather than the Democrat?  Because, perhaps, she was a RINO?  That is, a Republican In Name Only.

Party On

What frightens the statists more than anything else is that the Tea Party people know how to walk and chew gum at the same time.  They know that protesting is one thing, but it doesn’t matter if it doesn’t bring about results.  What was demonstrated in New York’s 23rd District is that just like the Minutemen back in Revolutionary times, conservatives could rally, join the fight, and win.  The lock the left had on the media is gone.  The statists no longer control the information game, putting their spin on the news.  If this were 20 years ago, Doug Hoffman the Conservative candidate in the race, would have been, at best, a footnote in history.  His story would not have gotten off the local newspapers in that rural part of New York State.  In today’s world, he quickly got on television, talk radio, and the blogs, got his message out and the rest is history.

What’s the Lesson?

Despite Frank Rich’s hand wringing and Dede Scozzafava’s backing the Democratic candidate, how has the race changed?  From neck and neck between the Conservative Hoffman and the Democrat Owens, recent polls show Hoffman surging into the lead with one poll showing a 5% lead and another showing a 17% lead.  The lesson is that if you give Republicans good conservative candidates, they will vote for them.  If you instead go for weak, moderates, then the Republican base stays home, and the independents choose between the professional statist (Democrat) and the amateur statist (moderate Republican) and as I like to say…in a contest like that why wouldn’t you pick the pro over the amateur?

Can anyone offer us a deal to give us cash if replace our Congressional Clunkers?  How about the health insurance companies?  They’d probably kick in, since they are Congress’ new whipping boy.  Oil companies, coal companies?  They get bashed every time Congress screws up and bans nuclear power, offshore drilling, ANWR, and coal as the price of oil climbs.  Banks who didn’t take TARP money?  Well Congress wants to set their salaries now.

Congressional Mileage

How much liberty per dollar are we getting for the money guzzling Congressmen and Senators who pull down $169,300 per year (more for committee chairs, and Speaker Pelosi who weighs in at $217,400)?  And this doesn’t begin to count their expense budgets, gold plated health care, etc.  I’m sure we could get much better mileage from a smaller government and a Congress that only meets half a year.  I’m willing to bet that the longer Congress stays in session the more trouble they get us into, while consolidating their power and feathering their own nests.

Here’s the Plan

Let’s set up a fund.  We’ll let Goldman Sachs run it, as they seem to know how to turn a buck. Anyone can contribute to the fund, no limits. For every Congressman who voted for the Stimulus, Cap and Trade, and the Health Care disaster and is run out of office, the fund will pay out a percentage of the fund to everyone who registered and voted.  The percentage will be calculated as the percentage of these clunkers who are retired out of Congress.

Think about it.  If you are a voter who really, really believes that the Stimulus, Cap and Trade, and the government takeover of our health care system is a good thing, you will vote to re-elect the members of Congress who voted the same way.  However if you don’t, then perhaps you need a little personal stimulus to cross party lines, or set aside ideology, and vote the bums out.  It might even help improve voter turnout.  And why not?  If ACORN can get illegal aliens and dead people to vote for their candidates, we need a way to fight back.

What do you think?

President Barack Obama, took office with historically high approval ratings.  Congress ended its last session with historically low approval ratings.  So why is Barack Obama, the head of the Democratic Party, taking a back seat on the economic stimulus bill while Nancy Pelosi calls the shots?

President Obama campaigned on ending the divisiveness in Washington, as did George Bush, but bipartisanship is far more than dinner parties with conservative columnists, cocktails with leaders of Congress, welcoming ideas from Republicans that will eventually be ignored by Speaker Pelosi.  If bipartisanship was one of your themes, pay attention, there was bipartisanship on the stimulus vote, it was bipartisan opposition.

Taking family planning and some sod for the Washington Mall out of the package, does not magically turn this turkey into a stimulus.  It’s time for President Obama to do some arm twisting within his own party or his critical first 100 days will be a flameout.  Take a lesson from history, Presidents Carter and Clinton both took office with large Democratic majorities in Congress and tried to please them and neither could.  Clinton had a Republican Congress two years later and ended up with a pretty successful presidency.  Carter didn’t.

It’s your administration Mr. President, don’t let Nancy Pelosi snuff it out.

Upon taking office, what the President does as his first action often sets the tone of his presidency, indicating what he thinks is important.  Bill Clinton chose to wade into the debate on gays in the military.  Of all the things of importance to the country that he could have chosen to work on first, that was his pick.

President Obama chose to close down Guantanamo Bay, saying we needed to restore our image in the world.  It seemed to matter little to him that under President Bush we had gone over seven years without an attack.  Shortly after that he quietly signed another order that struck down a Bush administration ban on giving money to international groups that performed or provided information on abortion.

So let’s look at these two together, since they were both done in Obama’s first week in office. To restore the United State’s moral leadership in the world, we need to go easy on terrorists and fund the killing innocent unborn babies.  Evil gets a pass, innocence gets snuffed out.  Are we feeling more proud yet?  Are we holding our heads higher?

There is a consistency there, in that these terrorists have no problem strapping bombs on themselves, wading into a crowd of innocent men, women, and children, blowing themselves up and taking as many innocents with them as they can.  So protecting these people, and not making them uncomfortable while interrogating them, even if it would spare innocent lives, is somehow against our principals?

The point could not have been driven home any more starkly than by Nancy Pelosi when talking about the economic stimulus package making its way through Congress said:

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi boldly defended a move to add birth control funding to the new economic "stimulus" package, claiming "contraception will reduce costs to the states and to the federal government."

So now we know, abortion stimulates the economy.  How long before we can hear Joe Biden tell us, “C’mon, do your patriotic duty, pay more taxes, have an abortion, we’re in an economic pinch here.”

When the founders wrote about “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness,” life is what they put first, liberty, which really means smaller government, they put second, and the Pursuit of Happiness third.  I don’t see how you can square that with Life for terrorists, death to babies, more government and more taxes.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi has released a draft of the proposed stimulus package that is now standing at around $825 billion.  It didn’t take too long to grow $50 over what Obama was asking for (read draft here).  Needless to say, that in order to get bi-partisanship off on the right foot, she had to make sure to give Bush a parting shot by indirectly blaming him for the current crisis (“Since 2001…” gee, who began their presidency in 2001?).  I also found this statement curious:

The economy is in such trouble that, even with passage of this package, unemployment rates are expected to rise to between eight and nine percent this year. Without this package, we are warned that unemployment could explode to near twelve percent. With passage of this package, we will face a large deficit for years to come. Without it, those deficits will be devastating and we face the risk of economic chaos. Tough choices have been made in this legislation and fiscal discipline will demand more tough choices in years to come.

The first interesting point concerns unemployment.  In Obama’s economic team’s analysis they said that with a stimulus plan unemployment would rise to 8% and without it, rise to 9%.  Pelosi is now saying it could explode to 12%.  Can we get on the same page, here?  Which is it?  The next point is that with the stimulus we will face large deficits for years to come, but without the stimulus the “deficits will be devastating and we face the risk of economic chaos.”  So we’re damned if we do, and damned if we don’t because Congress can’t keep themselves from spending more damn money than they take in.

But don’t worry folks, this time (really) there will be unprecedented accountability.  Do you feel better? I do.  After all, don’t we have Barney Frank to thank for making sure Fannie Mae was fically sound?  No?  Let’s recap.

In 2000, then-Rep. Richard Baker proposed a bill to reform Fannie and Freddie’s oversight. Mr. Frank dismissed the idea, saying concerns about the two were “overblown” and that there was “no federal liability there whatsoever.”

Two years later, Mr. Frank was at it again. “I do not regard Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as problems,” he said in response to another reform push. And then: “I regard them as great assets.” Great or not, we’ll give Mr. Frank this: Their assets are now Uncle Sam’s assets, even if those come along with $5.4 trillion in debt and other liabilities.

Again in June 2003, the favorite of the Beltway press corps assured the public that “there is no federal guarantee” of Fan and Fred obligations.

A month later, Freddie Mac’s multibillion-dollar accounting scandal broke into the open. But Mr. Frank was sanguine. “I do not think we are facing any kind of a crisis,” he said at the time.

Three months later he repeated the claim that Fannie and Freddie posed no “threat to the Treasury.” Even suggesting that heresy, he added, could become “a self-fulfilling prophecy.”

In April 2004, Fannie announced a multibillion-dollar financial “misstatement” of its own. Mr. Frank was back for the defense. Fannie and Freddie posed no risk to taxpayers, he said, adding that “I think Wall Street will get over it” if the two collapsed. Yes, they’re certainly “over it” on the Street now that Uncle Sam is guaranteeing their Fannie paper, and even Fannie’s subordinated debt.

By early 2007, Mr. Frank was in charge of the House Financial Services Committee, arguing that he had long favored some kind of reform. “What blocked it [reform] last year,” Mr. Frank said then, “was the insistence of some economic conservative fundamentalists in the Bush Administration who, to be honest, don’t think there should be a Fannie Mae or a Freddie Mac.” What really blocked it was Mr. Frank’s insistence that any reform be watered down and not include any reduction in their MBS holdings.

In January of last year, Mr. Frank also noted one reason he liked Fannie and Freddie so much: They were subject to his political direction. Contrasting Fan and Fred with private-sector mortgage financers, he noted, “I can ask Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to show forbearance” in a housing crisis. That is to say, because Fannie and Freddie are political creatures, Mr. Frank believed they would do his bidding.

So, I for one am really glad that we will now have A Recovery Act Accountability and Transparency Board, to keep an eye on things.  Whew, I was concerned there for a minute.

What’s Included in the Package

• Clean Efficient, American Energy
• Transform Our Economy with Science and Technology
• Modernize Roads, Bridges, Transit and Waterways
• Education for the 21st Century
• Lower Health Care Costs
• Help Worker’s Hurt by the Economy
• Save Public Sector Jobs and Protect Vital Services
• Tax Relief

Clean Efficient, American Energy

“To put people back to work today, and reduce our dependence on foreign oil tomorrow.”  Wow, sounds like, Drill Here, Drill Now, doesn’t it?  Not a chance.  Oil drilling is no where to be seen.  After over 1 million signatures on a petition to tell Congress to stop blocking our ability to drill for our own oil, Congress agreed, until the election that is, and then nothing more.  Also, nothing about nuclear energy either.

What is included:

• Reliable electric energy grid — $11 billion
• Renewable energy loan guarantees — $8 billion
• Renovations and repairs to federal buildings, including energy efficiency — $6.7 billion. Why are our federal buildings in such need of repair?  Why hasn’t Congress been maintaining them?
• Local government energy efficiency block grants — $6.9 billion.  This is taking money out of the left pocket and putting it in the right pocket.  The federal government’s money comes from individuals and businesses in all fifty states.  Why do we send our money on a round trip ticket to Washington, only to have our local politicians grovel to get it back?
• Energy Efficiency Housing Retrofits for HUD sponsored housing — $2.5 billion
• Energy Efficiency Research and Development — $2 billion
• Advanced Battery Loans and Grants — $2 billion.  I’ve got a better idea.  Do you want to see innovation in battery and energy efficiency?  Eliminate the Capital Gains tax.  It will boost the stock market and bring in a lot more investment in new technologies
• Energy Efficiency Grants and Loans for Institutions — $1.5 billion
• Home Weatherization — $6.2 billion.  That’s $20 for every man, woman, and child in America.  Does every house in America need weatherization or is this a but much?
• Smart Appliances (rebates for new appliances) — $300 million
• GSA Federal Fleet (replace older vehicles with alternative fuel vehicles) — $600 million. Are they saying that today the Federal Government buys inefficient vehicles?
• Electric Transportation (new grant money to encourage electric vehicle technology) — $200 million.  Did any of these politicians go to the Detroit Auto Show?  It was chock full of electric vehicles.  Didn’t we just give GM and Chrysler $14 billion?  Are we saying they need another $200 million for encouragement?
• Cleaning Fossil Fuel — $2.4 billion
• Department of Defense Research — $350 million
• Alternative Buses and Trucks for state and local governments — $400 million
• Industrial Energy Efficiency for demonstration projects — $500 million.  There are dozens of things we can do to improve Industrial energy efficiency.  We need demonstrations?
• Diesel Emission Reduction — $300 million

That’s just the energy piece of the package.  With regard to the renewable and efficiency spending on government buildings, there should be a reduction in energy costs going forward.  Are the operating budgets for those buildings going to be reduced in future budgets to reflect the savings or is that money just going to be diverted to other uses?

It seems to me that we could get a lot more stimulus with some immediate tax breaks and if the problem with the economy is a lack of credit, perhaps loan guarantees is a better way to go.  Having the government pick winners and losers, or set dollar amounts on each of the slop troughs, just opens the door to lobbying, corruption, and mismanagement.  Who gets the money?  How is it determined? Who gets to decide?

Tax cuts are there for everyone.  As I have said many times, to me, many of our problems have been caused by the government.  The government is not the answer.

Whoever conquers a free town and does not demolish it commits a great error and may expect to be ruined himself.

Niccolo Machiavelli

Under the radar of most news outlets is the new set of rules the Democrats just passed on how business will be conducted in the House of Representatives.  These rules are typically passed with each new Congress but are mostly procedural and of little consequence outside the halls of that chamber.  But Nancy Pelosi’s consolidation of power is underway.

One of the items in the Contract with America that swept many Republicans into office in 1994 and made Newt Gingrich the Speaker of the House, was term limits for committee chairmen.  The objective was to get fresh ideas into the policy making rather than creating fiefdoms that would only change when the majority of the House changed hands.  The last time Democrats were in power that lasted for forty years.

So, many of the new Democratic congressmen that Rahm Emmanuel skillfully recruited to challenge Republicans, and who were in many cases as conservative or more so than the Republican incumbents, are now shut out of power.

“All those nice pro-life, gun-owning young Democrats recruited to run by Rahm Emanuel will never have any real influence now,” says Grover Norquist, head of Americans for Tax Reform. “They were useful in getting Democrats a majority but now they’ll be in the back of the bus.”

So returning to power are the committee chairmen who ran the committees the last time the Democrats were in power and will remain in power until they die or retire.

Tax cuts will effectively be banned, because the new rules “will mean that the only way to push for a tax cut will be to propose a tax increase elsewhere.”  So if you cut taxes over here, but can only do so by raising taxes there, is that a tax cut?

Pelosi has also eliminated a procedural tool called a “Motion to Recommit.”  It sounds pretty arcane, but it was introduced a century ago to give the minority some safeguards against the Republican Speaker of the House Joe Cannon.  In effect, it allows a vote to send a bill on the floor back to the relevant committee.  Barney Frank justified this by saying the minority was “Only interested in game playing.”  Nice.  Barney Frank is only interested in doing good things for the country, like destroying the financial system by saying that Fannie Mae was fiscally sound before it imploded, but Republicans?  They’re only interested in playing games.

It will be an interesting two years to see how much more the Democrats can quash debate and try to ram their programs through.

He looked nervous.  He curled up the corners of his two hole cards, aces.  He eased them back down on the table and scanned the other players.  Nancy Pelosi had a stack of chips totaling $25 billion and he wanted all of them.  No, he needed all of them.  Desperately.  The other three, all Japanese, sat expressionless behind their dark glasses.  At every hand all they said was “Call”.   No raise.  No drama.  Very cool.  Very dangerous.

He looks again at the four cards on the table.  Nothing to help him there.  He needs another ace. He needs the ace he calls the Volt. Pelosi turns to him. “So, what’s your plan?”  He swallows hard, trying hard not to show it and says, “All in,” and pushes his remaining chips into the center of the table.  The dealer burns another card and then peels off the “river.” And we’ll be right back for the final outcome of tonight’s game.

GM on the Precipice

That must be how Rick Wagoner feels.  It seems he’s betting everything on the Chevy Volt. If he draws that ace, he’s a hero.  If not, he’s history.  So what are his chances?

If that’s all he’s got, they’re pretty long odds.  The Volt is not due to hit the showroom floor until 2010, and at a whopping $40,000 per copy.  Not a bad price for a Cadillac, but for an untested electric car with a 40 mile range?  That’s a tough sell.  Even at that, the $40,000 might not be profitable, just break even.  But, there will be a tax credit of $7,500 to help take the sting out of it.

Without Bankruptcy

Without a major revamping of their cost structure that can probably only be achieved through the bankruptcy courts, GM is still carrying $2,000 per vehicle in labor costs that its competition doesn’t have.  And what about those three players to his right in the dark glasses, do you think they are standing pat?  Although very low key, it is reported that Toyota, Nissan and Mitsubishi are all planning to introduce electric cars in the same time frame.  If they do that and they also have the $2,000 per vehicle edge, it will be very bad for GM and any bailout will go down the drain.

The other factor is the way the Japanese do strategic planning.  They typically do not look to just the next quarter.  They are known for developing 50 and 100 year plans.  That is not a typo.  So if they introduce a vehicle they will do it for the long haul.  Believe it or not the Toyota Prius has been on the market for seven years already.  The Japanese are not afraid to introduce a pretty good model and then continuously improve it and if they believe the direction is right, they are willing to wait for the results.  The Big Three, on the other hand tend to have a shorter planning horizon.  Witness Ford’s announcement that it intended to build 250,000 hybrids and then did a market survey when gasoline was about $2.30 per gallon, and decided that they should not go forward.  When gas prices took off they were caught flatfooted while Toyota was selling Priuses at a premium and they couldn’t make them fast enough.

New Administration, New Congress, New Energy Policy

Then there is the energy issue.  Putting more and more electric cars on the road is a good idea and a way toward energy independence.  However, the new administration and the incoming Democratic Congress want to kill the coal industry.  Coal currently generates 49% of our country’s electricity and when it comes to coal reserves, the U.S. is to coal what Saudi Arabia is to oil.  But the new incoming chairman of the House Energy committee, Henry Waxman of Beverly Hills, California, is more determined than ever to implement a green agenda and kill coal.

So what do you replace the coal with?  Oil? Gas? Nuclear?  On the campaign trail, I heard Barack Obama and Joe Biden mumble some things about nuclear being okay, but it was hardly a ringing endorsement.  Do they think for a minute that wind or solar are anywhere near replacing coal?  So, they actually plan to reduce our electric generating capacity by 49% and then not only replace it but grow it to be able to handle all these electric cars.  Where’s that plan?

If you don’t have enough electricity, you can’t charge up your electric cars.  If good old supply and demand does its usual thing, the price of electricity should skyrocket and I can tell you first hand that in New York, it’s not cheap right now.  If electricity skyrockets, whatever manufacturing is left in New York and other rust belt areas will be pulling up stakes left and right and heading south.  If that population follows the jobs, does that mean more votes for the red states and a shift in Congressional seats as well?

The Democrats better re-think that plan if they want to stay in power.