| The Fierce Urgency of Screwing Up |
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| by Lynn Woolley | Wed, Jul 8, 2009, 08:38 AM |
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Face it: the wheels are falling off of the Obama administration. None of the President’s policies are working and the polls show that the American people are catching on to that. Sure, Barack Obama is a good family man and his fly-swatting prowess is undeniable. Other than that, it’s hard to find a bright spot. Perhaps the oldest cliché is that when you are in a hole, you should stop digging. Mr. Obama’s hole is growing exponentially, because he’s digging with a backhoe. Stepping into a tough situation left over from the Bush administration, the President chose to accept the Bush stimulus and bailouts and make them bigger and more expensive. So we’ve gotten more of the same – MUCH more – including corporate takeovers and a $787 billion dollar stimulus that was guaranteed to stop the bleeding of jobs. Instead, it’s making things worse. 467,000 jobs were wiped out in June leaving the unemployment rate at 9.5 percent. 136,000 of those job losses came from the critical manufacturing sector. Another 79,000 came from construction. In fact, the total number of jobs that our country has lost since this recession began comes to 6.5 million -- equal to the number of jobs created in this country over the past nine years. It is fair to ask the question: If spending our way out of this recession is going to work – WHEN can we expect some improvement? The answer, of course, is that Mr. Obama is throwing gasoline on a fire. This recession started because the country is overleveraged at every level; the federal government, state governments, local governments, school districts and families have all gotten into massive debt. When George Bush’s stimulus failed to provide even a mild improvement, the Obama economic team should have taken notice. Unfortunately, they are driven by ideology and the idea of "using a crisis" to redistribute wealth was just too enticing. Mr. Obama has moved quickly as if there was some fierce urgency to screw up this country. It would be bad enough if big spending and huge deficits were the only major errors coming from this administration. Unfortunately, you can add healthcare and energy taxes to the lunacy. Mr. Obama’s healthcare plan is based on the idea of private insurance companies competing with a public option. It won’t work, and there are plenty of examples, starting with the plan that’s already in operation in Massachusetts where a state insurance plan now costs an average of $16,897 for a family of four. That’s more than $4,000 higher than the national average. Mr. Obama’s massive energy tax called "Cap & Trade" will cost taxpayers multiples of what the government predicts. These government schemes always do. Worse, Cap & Trade could turn the recession into a depression. The American public is starting to understand. They know we are headed straight for a Misery Index like we had in the Jimmy Carter years. But why should we agree to be miserable when there are common-sense fixes for our problems? Essentially, we should cut up the credit cards. Nassim Taleb, author of the new book "The Black Swan," told CNBC last week that we are "in the middle of a crash." He said the government needs to de-leverage $40-to-$70 trillion and stop using stimulus packages that will only stimulate inflation. "The monkey on our back is debt," he said. Yet Mr. Obama is considering another stimulus package. That would be insane. We should stimulate the economy by cutting spending, lowering taxes, breaking up companies that are Too Big To Fail – starting with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – and leveling the playing field for manufacturing companies so they can run their plants in America. Obamanomics has failed. It’s time to change directions. The Lynn Woolley Show streams Mon. –Fri. 8 a.m. – 11 a.m. CT from www.BeLogical.com. Listen live in Dallas on KVCE AM 1160 at 9 a.m.
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written by James W. Walker , July 12, 2009 Part 1 The pace at which the Congress is passing major legislation, much of which is not even read prior to its passing, suggests how badly the liberals want to lock up their wish list items and current majority before the taxpayers realize the amount of the bill we will receive for all of this. America is in a calm that often precedes the storm. The rest of the world's economies are so beaten down, and equity markets worldwide remain so unstable, that America's T-Bills remain a relatively worthy investment for the short term and the US dollar is relatively strong. As our Congress attempts to complete its nationalization of our health and energy industries, and as the Porkulus gets spent over the next two years, the current environment in global markets is likely to change dramatically. The yields in our bond market may increase in response to less demand for what may prove to be less than AAA rated product. Combined with the likely inflation we will see given the unprecedented level of debt and currency that has been flushed into our economy, the federal government's insistence on speding Porkulus funds well into 2010 will substantially depress the dollar and aggravate inflation at the worst possible moment in this current cycle. While this might make the relative cost of American goods sold abroad decrease at the same time, the willingness of other, somewhat hostile, governments to finance our spending may evaporate. At such a point, our only real options will be to change direction and slash all of the recent accomplishments of the Obama/Pelosi/Reid triumvirate or tax everything that moves to finance its continuation. I believe the only reason we don't see an open revolt against all of this is largely because the American taxpayer has yet to be sent the bill for all of these programs and initiatives. The combination of unprecedented inflation, diminution of the dollar's value, higher bond yields and crushing taxes may destroy what is left of our economy for a generation to come. Combine this with our federal government doing for our energy and health care industries what it has done for Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid (not to mention the GM bond holders), and it is pretty easy to understand the urgency of the moment. What is particularly incredible is the abject incompetence and hubris of our Congressional leadership. Rome may, indeed, be burning, but they prefer to spend away and to buy up as much loyalty from any number of interest groups solely in the interest of locking in their majority in 2010. The party has just started for these tyrants and the last thing they want to see is the band leaving the building because their check bounced. Better to worry about paying for the party later, after the next election.
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written by James W. Walker , July 12, 2009 Part 2 Meanwhile, Obama's foreign policy is leading us into an even more dangerous world. Chavez, Khamenei and the rest of the Hate America crowd are excited. They are encouraged. They see a weak America ashamed of itself on the world stage and bowing and apologizing at an incredible pace to underscore its regret. They sense that victory for the foes of Western Civilization and capitalism is within their grasp. The fact that Obama and Congress may be bankrupting our economy at the same time it is apologizing for this country's past success only underscores our relative inability to project force and respond to the various crises these petty dictators thrive upon. They are coming to understand the true ramifications of what Obama means when he speaks of the Audacity of Hope. We can finally see that Obama is truly a product of his upbringing. Raised by his mother, he has clearly incoporated her views as a cultural anthropologist that viewed American Cultural Imperialism as a great virus that destroys everything it touches. Perhaps this explains his penchant for apologizing for America as he travels around the world. Perhaps he is just dangerously naive. Either way, it is unfortunate that he is charting a path of diminishing American power and prestige by accomodating its enemies. Even in the middle of this growing darkness, however, we see signs of what has made America great. We still see Tea Parties attended by increasing numbers of taxpayers all over America. This reflects our ability to see the truth even when the media is so coopted that it purposefully decides not to report the truth. This movement also reflects the core decency and resolve of our country's people. Our freedoms and financial futures are being diminished, if not destroyed, and people are catching on. They are also calling out for change, and it's not the centralized "Big Brother as Global Apologist" model they seek. Obama/Pelosi/Reid understand this, which explains why they want to completely rewrite everything from health care to energy, including the unprecedented deficits and the taxes needed to pay for them, by August. This is why they fast-track everything. They do not want an actual debate. They already know what they want and are willing to push it through in the hopes that a compliant media will refrain from discussing the details and we'll receive the tab before we even know what we are paying for. There is an inherent wisdom in America's people. They share a common intelligence that leftist elites like Obama simply does not understand. You cannot ridicule Main Street America for "clinging to its guns and religion" and claim any genuine understanding of this country. You can only seek to remake this country into something it is not under the guise of "Change". We need change alright. This just wasn't what we had in mind. Write comment
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