The Man of Change?

Well here we are just six days away from the much publicized summit on healthcare reform the President announced during the State of the Union Address. Some foolishly believed that his invitation to ranking Republican’s signaled his understanding of the message voters had sent in the New Jersey and Virginia gubernatorial elections and finally, the Massachusetts special election to fill Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat. Apparently that assumption was premature and the election of Republicans to all three of these vital races is being dismissed as easily as the town hall meetings and Tea Parties have been.

It is bizarre that the Democrats can be this blatant as to their intentions. Behind the scenes work to reconcile the Healthcare Bill is still progressing even as the President continues to at least say, that he wants the best ideas from both Parties. Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi have both signaled their intention to “go nuclear” and rely on a reconciliation tactic to pass the bill with a simple majority, causing reasonable people to ask what kind of summit can this be if these negotiation are till taking place in secret and these kind of plans are being made before Congressional Republicans are even given the opportunity to present their ideas and compromises?

Scott Brown was not simply a message for the Democrats. His campaign was centered on the promise that he would be the 41st vote that would stop the race to pass a healthcare reform bill that the majority of American’s do not want. As support for the President wanes, the trust the American people have in the Democrat’s healthcare plan evaporates at an astounding rate. In recent polls, most Americans would prefer that the plan be scrapped and that the government turn its attention to the economy and the faltering job market.

Regardless of the loud and clear voice of the people, Congressional Democrats are standing firm because their President said they must move forward and also because the Progressive movement has been holding the Democratic Party hostage for decades. That is why Indiana Democrat Evan Bayh decided to throw in the towel and refuse to run for another term. He was bitter in his statements about the ineffectiveness of Congress and said that he could accomplish more as a private citizen than he ever could as a member of the Senate. Alabama Congressman Parker Griffith recently switched Parties for much the same reason. He joined the Republican Party because the Democrats under the Progressive assault had lost their way. They were no longer the Party of the people but some weird group of far left elitists that no longer cared to hear the people. That is why the President’s agenda is being propelled forward as the economy continues to crumble; they have been in effect, deafened by their own rhetoric.

To continue their push for healthcare reform and cap and trade they must convince you that the economy is already in recovery. As the President and the DNC struggle to convince people that the Recovery Act (Stimulus Bill) is working fine and has “saved or created” two million jobs, the U.S. Department of Labor’s own website says the job loss average for the past month has been 467,500 jobs lost in each of the last four weeks. Of course “saved jobs” is the new catch phrase since it is as impossible to disprove as it is to quantify. You know, that we might have even begun to believe some of that if Joe Biden hadn’t spilled the beans in an interview on Wednesday. As he spouted the administration line of “saved jobs” he added that the Recovery Act is a two phase program with the money for actual job creation loaded in the second half of the program. He explained that most of the funds spent in phase one had been targeted to offset the cost of State unemployment benefits and to provide tax relief.

Ok, I admit I’m a little confused here. The job creation funds have not been disbursed yet but the Recovery Act has already saved or created two million jobs? “Most of the funds spent in phase one were to offset the cost of State unemployment benefits and to provide tax relief” but the Recovery Act has already saved or created two million jobs? Is Vice President Biden saying that the act of collecting unemployment insurance is now considered a job? If so, is it a created job or a saved job? Maybe it’s both. If you had already been collecting benefits and are now drawing on an emergency extension then it is clearly a saved job but if you are one of the unfortunate 467,500 that are still losing their jobs every week; well, then that must be a created job.

All of this nonsense of saved jobs and created jobs flies in the face of the statements made by White House Economic Advisor Christina Romer in a Congressional hearing in October of 2009. Romer testified “Most analysts predict that the fiscal stimulus will have its greatest impact on growth in the second and third quarters of 2009 and by mid-2010 fiscal stimulus will likely be contributing little to further growth.” Of course when the economy did not respond as hoped, Romer was obviously asked by the White House to revise her assessment. While recently appearing on the February 17th edition of Good Morning America, Romer said in response to questions about the economy that the greatest effects of the Stimulus Bill have yet to be realized.

The inconsistencies aren’t something shocking. In fact, this administration is amazingly consistent in its inconsistency. If you speak with five different people in this administration you will get five different numbers of the jobs the stimulus bill has “saved or created”. What doesn’t change is the mindless defense of the actions they have already taken or are hell bent on passing into law. Regardless of every possible economic index you can look at, the stimulus bill is not only a failure but has resulted in a “job deficit” as the economy fails to respond. What they absolutely refuse to see is that they can have another five stimulus bills of equal amount and still not create lasting private sector employment. Business is not responding because as this administration continues to apply its short term fiscal Band-Aid, the threat of future tax hikes and new regulations are still part of the overall plan.

The Healthcare Bill is just one of those black holes that are making businesses apprehensive. We still don’t know what is being crafted in the dark up on Capitol Hill. What will the tax liability be? At what income level does it begin? How many employees can I have before the mandate to provide coverage hits me? Will the plan I already provide have an additional tax levied against it? How can responsible business owners make a decision to hire additional employees until they know if they can even remain profitable after the Bush tax cuts expire and the capital gains tax go up in 2011?

Cap and trade, if passed, will increase energy costs by 65% in the first few years and more that 100% by 2015. The only thing that has allowed American businesses to remain even marginally competitive against nations that pay their employees five dollars a day is affordable and abundant energy. Proponents of cap and trade claim the difference is pennies a day but California has already installed Smart Meters, a major component of Smart Grid, the key to cap and trade. California energy costs to PS&G customers have skyrocketed and they are ready to revolt at the increases they are experiencing. Bear in mind that the cost of purchasing carbon credits to produce their electricity aren’t even part of that increase yet. That is where the real kick in the pants will come from. There are estimates that claim cap and trade will cost America five million jobs or two jobs for every so-called “green job” it creates. Looking at Spain, I think that estimate is conservative if not overly optimistic. Spain was suckered into the whole plan of creating a green economy that Obama is trying to sell us and unemployment in Spain has already passed 19%.

So where is the change? The actions of this administration are bordering on criminal; there is no transparency other than a few carefully orchestrated photo ops and the President has broken every promise he made during his campaign. The legislative process itself has been hijacked by Progressive radicals and special interests and even Obama’s friends in the Community Organizing business have been writing key parts of costly legislation that Congress won’t bother to read before passing. If Progressive Democrats continue to ignore the impact their plans are having on the economy and force healthcare through while unemployment is still close to 10%, the backlash will cost them both the House and the Senate in 2010. The damage they are doing now has already insured a long and hard road to recovery and the measures that will have to be taken to right the wrongs will be painful and unpopular. I can only hope that the American people will wean themselves from the public teat so we can actually address the spending problems in Congress before the world economy forces even more drastic change against our will.

Paul

Will we rediscover the tenth amendment in 2010?

2010 is finally here and now the real fun begins. I predict that Congressional Progressives and Barack Obama will engage in a full court press to force as much of their agenda through as possible before the mid-term election throws a roadblock in front of them. Expect even more underhanded, closed door sessions; more legislation crafted in the dark recesses of the Capitol building and passed on weekend nights. Expect Congressman that block Obama’s progress to face more threats and personal attacks and most of all, expect the main stream media and the White House to denigrate and dismiss any public opposition to their relentless march into Socialism.

We already know that once people have become a dependent on the State, they will vote for anyone that promises to keep the benefits coming. As it already stands, only 53% of Americans actually pay taxes leaving 47% that pay no taxes at all and many actually receive money from the government in welfare or earned income credits. As the scale tips and more Americans become recipients instead of tax payers, the prospect of an election that is actually based on what is good for the nation will dwindle as well. If the trend to socialize our nation isn’t stopped now, it will never be stopped and the United States will consume itself with the inevitable debt only to be absorbed into the growing body of formerly great western powers that are embracing Socialist policies just to avoid anarchy.

Europe’s major nations have already created the European Union to try to stave off financial ruin. They have also signed their own death warrants by becoming signatories to a ruinous climate treaty based on the premise of global warming; the same global warming that has been recently been uncovered as a hoax. The IPCC, CRU and extremist environmental groups, all under UN guidance, are apparently partners in this charade to force nations into a global cooperative that will eventually become the governing body of the planet; or at least that is what they had hoped for.

If we fall pray to the fallacy of global warming, we will face the same destructive events within our own economy and industrial base that Europe has. We have already witnessed the real agenda of the global warming crowd. Oh, I almost forgot. They renamed this created crisis “Climate Change” since the predictions of rising planetary temperatures never happened. In fact, the receding ice packs at the polar caps have recovered and the earth has been logging a drop in annual average temperatures since the year 2000. Regardless, the agenda is clear now that the third world has issued its ransom note to the tune of $200 billion a year.

You see, the United Nations master plan for climate change involves the West’s industrial nations shutting down entire industries to cap the production of greenhouse gas while simultaneously contributing to a global fund to help developing nations create their own industries. Curiously, this is a recipe for the redistribution of not only the West’s wealth, but the West’s ability to create wealth. They haven’t been able to describe just how this benefits the environment since the ability to pollute and create greenhouse gasses is not actually curbed, but sold to the highest bidder.

Then there is the unwillingness of the Obama administration to accept that the threat of massive new taxes and government regulations is the straight jacket that brought our economy to a halt. They have proposed and passed a so-called stimulus bill to try to jump start the economy but the abject waste of money that the program is accused of has stimulated little except some cushy little projects in the States of favored Congressmen. In fact, the stimulus spending has been distributed to areas represented by faithful Democrats by a factor of three to one over areas of the country that are represented by Republicans or Blue Dog Democrats. Even though those areas are suffering higher unemployment than those of the Party faithful, they are receiving little or no assistance.

Another little surprise we can expect in 2010 is a push to pass yet another amnesty program for illegal immigrants. Congressman Luis V. Gutierrez (D-IL) proposed the Comprehensive Immigration Reform for America's Security and Prosperity Act of 2009 (HR 4321). The bill is sponsored by Representative Solomon Ortiz (D-TX) and is co-sponsored by 92 additional Democrats, all of which are members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, the Congressional Black Caucus or both but that really isn’t a surprise, is it?

This bill not only helps with Obama’s little problem that he lied about covering illegal immigrants under the healthcare bill (after all, they aren’t illegal anymore if they have been granted amnesty) but if passed, this bill would make the estimated 12 to 20 million illegal immigrants in this country immediately eligible to apply for public education and social service programs previously restricted to American citizens or lawful émigrés. The proponents of the Comprehensive Immigration Reform for America's Security and Prosperity Act of 2009 don’t actually say how this is supposed to provide America with security and prosperity we are already struggling to preserve. In fact, I would bet the rent that granting amnesty to people that have already broken the law just to be illegal immigrants can only bring America additional insecurity and more financial burden.

Consider the eventuality that at least part of those amnestied millions will eventually become registered stooges for the Democratic Party. Add that to the upcoming census that will re-write electoral districts once again in the most blatant display of gerrymandering since the 1960’s and there is a clear movement in progress to stack the political deck for generations to come.

The last opportunity for the people of this nation to seize our Constitutional authority over the civilian government will be the November elections. We must wrest control of at least the House from the hands of this oligarchy or the 2012 elections may be as meaningless as the most recent elections in Afghanistan or Iran. In fact, a divided Congress would restore the intent of the separation of powers and force them to finally work together instead of rolling over each other like steam rollers.

I am not a demagogue nor am I an ideologue. I believe there can be good and beneficial ideas in all political camps of a constitutionally sound America. What I firmly believe is the partisan politics we see now is devastating to the future of our nation and when one Party controls all; nothing of value ever comes out of the monopoly of power. The best recipe to cure our ills is to eliminate the cause of the problem. Let's face it, if the Parties have to win our support to proceed, we all win.

First: career politicians have been corrupted by the D.C. machine and must be retired. We will never have the civilian government the founding fathers envisioned for us if we allow our Representatives and Senators to hold office for decades. There must be term limits imposed on Congress. The power of incumbency is too powerful and the mechanism that ensures unlimited campaign funds for those that are willing to sell their souls to special interests cannot be stopped through the electoral process alone.

Second: meetings and other communication between lobbyists and Congressmen must all be made public. It is the back room discussions and golf course deals that breed corruption and it would be very interesting to see just how much the legislative process can change when the transcripts of those meetings, e-mails and phone calls begin appearing in the Congressional record.

Third: we must elect only those individuals that are willing to prune the Federal tree; cutting away years of public neglect and eliminating the tangled mess of dead branches that have been strangling everything it comes into contact with. Our country cannot recover as long as the Federal government is allowed to grow unchecked and in fact, it must be reduced in size until it fits into the box it came in. The Federal government has exceeding its Constitutional authority in ninety percent of what it has been doing and until the States and the people can reclaim their dominance over our government, nothing good can happen. This is the year we must be clear in our goals and unified in our direction. We cannot divide the vote among factions within our own movement or all will be lost.

Paul

Promises, Promises

During the campaign, Barack Obama fended off attacks by his opponents and made a number of promises that apparently appealed to a majority of voters. He said that we could judge him by those he would chose as his advisors and rattled off a litany of names to cover each policy area critical to the Presidency. Now that the election is over and the Obama administration in its tenth month, it is needless to say, the people he mentioned have not been tapped for their expertise. Instead, the President’s closest advisors are a veritable legion of people with worrisome ideologies, troubling pasts and curious connections to members of the radical left. Actually, the President has more connections to the radical left than the Czars do.

The President promised bipartisanship and that a government under his leadership would finally work together for the good of the nation. Well, the Republicans have been prevented from offering amendments to the healthcare bill, the stimulus bill and the climate bill. They have even been kept out of one of the meeting rooms when the Democratic chairman of that committee recently had the locks changed. Committee Chairman Towns (D-NY) ordered the locks changes when Republicans filmed every Democrat of the House Oversight committee racing out of the back door of the committee room to avoid a vote to subpoena documents relating to the Countywide Financial investigation; a scandal involving at least four Democratic government officials, including two Senators.

Democrats were rightfully incensed when Republican Joe Wilson shouted out “You Lie” during the President’s speech to congress; an action for which Wilson apologized directly to the President after being admonished by the minority leadership. The same Democrats watched glowingly as Freshman Congressman Allan Grayson made claim after claim that the Republican idea of healthcare was “Don’t get sick, and if you do, die quickly”. He equated the so-called healthcare crisis to the holocaust and called Republicans “knuckle-draggers”. There has been no apology from Mr. Grayson and there has been no admonishment from the Democratic leadership even though the basic principals of decorum had been grossly violated. Maybe this is how they talk in the Florida legislature but it has never been acceptable in the United States Congress.

Representative Issa, a Republican member of Congress, questioned the legality of the White House’s “flag@whitehouse.Gov” ; a site that was created to provide e-mail access for people to report anyone that sent negative information out about the healthcare bill. In response to Mr. Issa’s questions, the White House online director, Macon Phillips, indicated “there was little chance for cooperation with a member of a minority political party without significant power.” Somehow, none of this spells out any intent of bipartisanship to me. If the Congress just can’t help themselves, then where is the President’s outrage over the appearance that his promises will not be kept? Apparently that outrage has been reserved for Fox News and others that dare to question the motives of the President’s agenda.

Mr. Obama promised his administration would display unparalleled transparency in government. Democrats have voted down several Republican proposals that would have required the completed healthcare bill be posted on-line for the American public a minimum of 72 hours before a vote would take place. This action was taken even though the President promised Americans that we would get five days to review all major legislative pieces on-line before a vote. Despite this obvious abridgment of one of candidate Obama’s promises, President Obama remained silent. Now that the Baucus Bill is out of the finance committee it too has been taken behind closed doors to begin the process of merging it with the health committee bill. No cameras, no coverage and once again, no Republicans.

Nancy Pelosi complained that the opponents of healthcare reform were scaring people so much that now they were demanding to see the bill before congress could vote on it. What troubles me is that she doesn’t appear to understand that it is not the healthcare opponents that scare America, it is the Congress; the mad rush to pass legislation representing one sixth of the United States economy, the admission of Congressmen that they don’t have the time to read the bill, the revelation that sources and special interests outside of the government were involved in writing key portions of the bill, the inconsistencies of the statements of what is actually in the bill. All of this is what shook what little confidence we ever had in the intent of the bill.

When the CBO initially scored the healthcare bill it showed that it would add substantially to a Federal budget deficit that was already seriously out of control. However, shortly after another “closed door” meeting between President Obama and CBO chief Douglas Elmendorf, Mr. Elmendorf and the CBO apparently changed their criteria and the bill miraculously became “budget neutral”. In a stroke of fiscal genius but political subterfuge, the Senate Finance Committee constructed their bill so that the tax increases and spending cuts took place immediately after passage but the benefits didn’t take effect until year five.

The CBO scored the Baucus bill saying it represented an eighty-one billion dollar savings over ten years but let’s dissect that. The CBO saw no red flag in claiming the savings even though the revenue generating mechanisms begin immediately, while the benefit spending does not take full effect for five years. Funny thing…the CBO says that scoring bills beyond 10 years is unreliable so they just can’t give us an apples to apples view of how “budget neutral” this bill will be with ten years of revenues paying for a full ten years of benefits.

I’m sure you’ve seen those ads on TV where you can buy a house full of furniture with no payments for eighteen months. Sooner or later you have to start making the payments and if you couldn’t afford the payments when you signed the order, chances are you still won’t be able to afford the payments eighteen months later. If the Congress is resorting to shifting the curve to hide the full effects of this bill, then chances are we can’t afford this either. This isn’t the first piece of legislation that was scored based on promised cuts in spending to pay for at least a portion of the cost. Historically, Congress has never been able to actually make those promised spending cuts so the CBO scoring proved meaningless.

This may be at least part of the reason the CBO has underscored every major spending bill with the exception of Medicare D, by roughly, a factor of ten. Even if valid estimates showed the bill was budget neutral, the history of CBO accuracy tells us that the nine-hundred billion dollar price tag is probably going to end up being closer to nine-trillion after ten years. The only difference is that with healthcare, there is no furniture to repossess. The collateral for this “purchase” is our viability as a nation.

The President also promised us that he would not sign a healthcare reform bill that was not budget neutral. It is apparent that he has already found a formula the CBO could use to find that neutrality and the Congress is also willing to play along with their neat little trick of presenting a bill for scoring that has ten years worth of revenue and only five years of expenditures. At the end of the day, I would have to call this one an empty promise as well.

Our military forces in Afghanistan are in jeopardy and the President still hasn’t committed to providing the reinforcements that General McChrystal (the General Mr. Obama placed in command of the theater) requested over a month ago. After it became public that Obama had only spoken with General McChrystal once since he was deployed in Afghanistan, the President graciously gave McChrystal twenty-nine minutes of his precious time while he was in Copenhagen lobbying to bring the 2016 Olympics to Chicago. Curiously, in one more “closed door” meeting this week, the President found he could spare an hour and a half to spend with CNN, MSNBC and other networks that have the White House seal of approval. Maybe he’s planning to send them to Afghanistan to bolster General McChrystal’s force? I’m sure there are enough of them.

So far, I can’t think of one promise that Mr. Obama made that he has even pretended to keep. Oh well, other Presidents have broken campaign promises too but Mr. Obama isn’t “other” Presidents. In fact, he made it very clear that he was different. He was the man of change; the One. Well, the only change I have seen is a blatant disregard for the Constitution, the rule of law and in the outward hostility he displays towards anyone or anything that disagrees with him.

Paul