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State of the Union 2013: What It Was and Wasn't

Posted by Richard Larsen in Idaho on Thursday, February 21, 2013 11:57:53 AM

By Richard Larsen

Published – Idaho State Journal, 02/17/13

It is regrettable that we no longer have a true “State of the Union” speech. Rather than hearing a recapitulation of the condition of the nation and where it’s headed, we get what appears to be little more than another campaign speech replete with a veritable Christmas-list of populist proposals and recommendations. Predictably, there were errors, omissions, and outright prevarications, and very little mention of the problems that have been exacerbated over the past four years.

“As long as I'm commander in chief, we will do whatever we must to protect those who serve their country abroad, and we will maintain the best military in the world," said the President. Our consulate in Benghazi was denied additional security multiple times, and the former Navy SEALs that rushed to embassy personnel’s rescue last September 11, were told to “stand down.” This can hardly be classified as doing “whatever we must to protect” our citizens serving abroad.  

As for the “maintain the best military in the world,” comment, he must truly think all American citizens, not just his star-struck adherents, are cretins. His administration has already recommended reducing military spending from 5% to 3.4% of real GDP, and the sequester, which was the administration’s idea and which he has disingenuously promised “will not happen,” is set to kick in next month. Unless congress kicks the can down the road further, that will trigger another $1 trillion in defense cuts. Plus, the President is intent on reducing our primary deterrent, our nuclear arsenal, by another 40%. Only in a convoluted, twisted illogical world do those factors add up to maintaining the “best military in the world.”

"Today, the organization that attacked us on 9/11 is a shadow of its former self," he further told us. Yes, Al Qa’ida is less formidable than before, but what about all of the other Islamic extremist groups that maintain similar heinous objectives of eradicating infidels and wiping Israel off of the map? Groups like the Muslim Brotherhood, which is now running Egypt, to whom the administration is selling 200 M1A1 Abrams battle tanks and a squadron of F-16 Falcon fighters. It is truly inscrutable how he can boast about the decimation of Al Qa’ida while selling our best implements of war to their ideological brethren.

Another whopper was the, "Over the last few years, both parties have worked together to reduce the deficit by more than $2.5 trillion," statement. There has been no reduction in the deficit, and our average for the past four years has been $1.44 trillion. In other words, we’re borrowing 43 cents for every dollar that we spend. What he classifies as a “reduction” is accounting smoke and mirrors that are not real. The only thing that has been “cut” has been the rate of projected budgetary spending growth.

“We have doubled the distance our cars will go on a gallon of gas,” the President boasted. Well, not hardly. The CAFE (Corporate Average Fuel Efficiency) standards goal is to double miles-per-gallon efficiency by 2025. Such a forward looking goal is strikingly at odds with the past-tense reference that it has already been accomplished. I’ve heard some pundits attribute that to his “god-complex,” that because he has uttered it, it is so. And the 2025 standard is a goal, kind of like “not adding a dime to the deficit,” although reality has this nasty habit of contradicting the hypothetical.

Then the litany of populist Christmas wish-list items followed, from “green energy” to education. And the administration’s answer to all of their pet projects is to throw more money at them. But he did say, "Nothing I'm proposing tonight should increase our deficit by a single dime." I guess that’s supposed to assuage our concerns. But if the phrase sounds familiar, there’s a good reason. In 2009, he used the phrase liberally starting with, "I will not sign a bill that adds a dime to our deficits -- either now or in the future." "Health care reform will not add one dime to our deficit." "I will not sign health insurance reform ... if that reform adds even one dime to our deficit over the next decade -- and I mean what I say."

In 2010 he said, "That's also why we're restoring pay-as-you-go: a simple rule that says Congress can't spend a dime without cutting a dime elsewhere." Also from 2010, "This [jobs] legislation is fully paid for and will not add one single dime to our deficit." And again, "We will not add one dime to our deficit."

The idiom continued into 2011. "I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficit." And again, "I want to lower the corporate rate and eliminate these loopholes to pay for it, so that it doesn't add a dime to our deficit." It would appear that the caveat to the statement is “A” dime, for all the while he was making such fine sounding promises, he added nearly 60 trillion dimes to the deficit! Perhaps it’s time to invoke a simple math test for qualification to be President.

The President, in reference to energy costs, said, “That's why my administration will keep cutting red tape and speeding up new oil and gas permits." Oil and gas production have increased over the past four years by 14%, but all of the increase has come on state and private lands, as federal lease production has dropped by 11%. I’m just curious how he can claim to "keep" doing something that he has yet to do.

The Washington Examiner reported last fall, “In 2008 under President Bush, there were a total of 55,085 oil and gas leases in effect on federal land. In 2011 under Obama, there were just 49,174, a decrease of 11 percent.?In 2008 under Bush, there were 47.2 million acres of federal land under lease. In 2011 under Obama, there were just 38.5 million, a decrease of 19 percent.?In 2008 under Bush, the federal government approved 6,617 oil and gas permits. In 2011 under Obama, the federal government approved just 4,244 permits, a decrease of 36 percent.”

And Reuters recently reported “energy companies will likely see more regulation in Obama’s second term, with less access to federal lands and water even as the administration promotes energy independence. Even tighter rules are expected for oil and gas drilling.” Clearly everything the administration is doing in the energy sector is increasing costs by attempting to limit exploration, drilling, and production.

And on ObamaCare, the President declared, "Already, the Affordable Care Act is helping to slow the growth of health care costs." The cost of implementing ObamaCare has actually increased with each new projection. A recent study released in Health Affairs, said, “actuaries from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) expect an annual increase in health care spending from 2010-2019 of 2 percent over estimates made before passage of the PPACA. They also predict spending will reach $4.6 trillion in 2019, for an average annual growth rate of 6.3 percent during that time.” The passage of ObamaCare has accelerated the already high price of health care. Just the opposite of what the President claims.

The real state of the union is disconcerting. Poverty is higher than any time since FDR was President. There are eight million fewer employed Americans than four years ago, which has dropped our participation rate to the lowest level in the nation’s history, at just over 60%. And for those still looking for work, the average duration of joblessness has doubled to over 40 weeks. Long-term unemployment, averaged over the past four years, is at the highest level since the Great Depression.

Millions of Americans will be losing their company-sponsored health insurance due to the strident regulatory demands of Obamacare, which strikingly contrasts with what he promised, “if you like your health insurance, you can keep it.”

We emerged from the latest recession in the 2nd quarter of 2009, but our “recovery” has been the most tepid in U.S. economic history. Many economists point at the anti-business and anti-private sector policies and regulations of the administration as the most significant contributing factor. According to the Wall Street Journal, the administration added “11,327 regulations to the Federal Register in the first three years of the Obama administration (and that was before the big drivers -- Obamacare and Dodd/Frank really got going). As The Economist magazine noted, America "is being suffocated by excessive and badly written regulation," including "flaws in the confused, bloated law (Dodd/Frank) passed in the aftermath of America's financial crisis."

As columnist Mona Charen recently penned, “This is the Obama economy -- a shrinking private sector drowning in regulations, a voracious public sector always in search of new ways to waste money (wind cars! solar stethoscopes!) and the inexorable ticking, louder every passing day, of the debt bomb.”

Tuesday’s big speech was more of a declaration of the state of the President’s ideologically tinged perception of what he thinks reality should be, rather than a recap of the actual condition of the union. And as with all politicians, but especially this one, we must pay closer attention to what he does, not what he says. They’re usually in diametrical opposition. Precious little of what the administration has accomplished has actually ameliorated the state of the union based on the data. The President’s grandiloquence may mask that reality for some, but not for those of us who rely on empirical data.

AP award winning columnist Richard Larsen is President of Larsen Financial, a brokerage and financial planning firm in Pocatello, Idaho, and is a graduate of Idaho State University with a BA in Political Science and History and former member of the Idaho State Journal Editorial Board.  He can be reached at rlarsenen@cableone.net.

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Obama "Showing Up" to Claim Credit

Posted by Richard Larsen in Idaho on Sunday, March 04, 2012 12:01:22 PM

By Richard Larsen

Published – Idaho State Journal, 02/26/12

I recall vividly an experience growing up on a farm years ago when I claimed credit for doing something one of my brothers did. It was a task assigned to me, which I failed to carry out. But my brother completed it before I could. My father, in his wisdom, upon learning of my unearned credit, sardonically asked me, “Don’t you know how dishonest that is?”

I did know it was dishonest, but that experience piqued my attention to claims of credit unearned. And now that presidential politics are into full swing, the claims of unearned credit are being self-proclaimed nearly every day.

A visit to the official presidential reelection campaign website reads like a bad fiction novel. Improvements in various sectors of the economy and our collective financial viability as a country are claimed as “accomplishments” of the president.

Obama claiming credit for an economic rebound is like an old girlfriend of mine in high school who claimed credit for every time our Snake River High School football team won. She claimed that whenever she went to a game, we won. Just “showing up” caused the win. Correlation is not to be mistaken for causation.

Certainly if he’s to be given credit for an improving economy, we should be able to identify and quantify, to at least some extent, what he has done to ameliorate our moribund economy. Any policy of his, any legislative accomplishments, any executive orders that he has issued or implemented should provide the evidence to validate his claims.

His three most significant legislative exploits provide no evidence of causation for improving the economy. Obamacare certainly doesn’t stimulate the economy, for it is laden with new taxes and fees imposed on individuals and employers to be implemented over the next few years. And actually when those new taxes hit, the adverse impact on the economy will be considerable. For as Christina Romer, former chair of Obama’s Council of Economic Advisors, revealed last year, "Tax changes have very large effects: an exogenous tax increase of 1 percent of GDP lowers real GDP by roughly 2 to 3 percent."

How about the FinReg, Dodd-Frank financial regulatory reform? As with Obamacare, there is nothing stimulative in it either. It only solidifies the crony capitalistic relationship between Wall Street, the major banks, and Washington by assuring further government intervention with institutions deemed “too big to fail.” The costs of implementation at the private sector level will likely result in higher fees, charges, and interest rates for financial institutions to recoup the implementation costs. That’s definitely not stimulative!

The claims for improving the economy must be in the president’s “stimulus” package. According to the Wall Street Journal, over half of the $850 billion ($1.1 trillion, including interest) “stimulus” bill could be more correctly classified as discretionary spending. The Congressional Budget Office “scoring” of the stimulus package indicated that only 12 cents of every dollar would have a stimulative affect on the economy within the first 18 months. The scoring process clearly indicated the impotence of the “Stimulus” for creating positive economic activity.

Then there must be some evidence in his executive orders then, a total of 111 that he’s issued to date. Of those, most deal with regulation, government agencies, commissions, and appointments. Perusing all the executive orders I didn’t see one that was designed to augment the economy, improve job prospects for out of work Americans, or stimulate economic growth.

In three years at the helm, in real world economics, there is only one thing that I can recall that he did that had any potential to stimulate the economy, and that was extension of the payroll tax holiday. And for the average American that is fortunate enough to have a job, that amounts to $40 per month.

Even his unprecedented increase in government spending cannot be considered as stimulative. There are some academic die-hards, many of whom are currently serving in the administration, who still adhere to that aspect of Keynesian economic theory. And it’s hard to understand why, unless it’s just “bitter clinging” to an archaic ideology, for it’s failed every time it’s been attempted, by any administration, including FDR’s.

The great Nobel Laureate for economics, Milton Friedman, declared a couple of years ago, “unbridled government spending is the single greatest deterrent to faster economic growth in the United States today.” He’s probably rolling over in his grave as he observes the unparalleled spending spree the federal government is engaging in.

Sorry, Mr. President, you have no grounds to claim credit for the modicum of improvement we’ve seen since the recession officially ended. Any improvement is in spite of your policies, not because of them. Just “showing up” does not a win make.  And as my father taught me years ago, claiming credit where none is warranted, is dishonest.

AP award winning columnist Richard Larsen is President of Larsen Financial, a brokerage and financial planning firm in Pocatello, and is a graduate of Idaho State University with a BA in Political Science and History and former member of the Idaho State Journal Editorial Board. He can be reached at rlarsenen@cableone.net.

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The President Should Not Be Above the Law

Posted by Richard Larsen in Idaho on Tuesday, September 06, 2011 6:05:22 PM

By Richard Larsen

Published – Idaho State Journal, 08/28/11

Although I was mostly apolitical as a teenager growing up in the 70’s, I recall with clarity the public debate over Richard Nixon’s role in the Watergate break-in. That role led to articles of impeachment being drafted against him, and in the face of certain ratification by congress, Nixon resigned the office of the presidency. Although the articles of impeachment specified illegal activity warranting impeachment, the consensus among the public at large was that Nixon felt himself to be above the law, and that he could do whatever he pleased as chief executive of the nation.

The President of our republic is arguably the chief law enforcement officer of the country. He heads the executive branch, which is responsible for enforcing the laws of the land. The Attorney General of the nation is the president’s appointee charged specifically with that duty, of enforcing the laws that are established by legislative statute. The President cannot pass or impose laws, as that is the function of the legislative branch. He can issue Executive Orders which may clarify executive intent on the execution of specific laws established by congress, and no one did that better than George W. Bush.

However, can a president place himself above the laws of the land and choose which laws to enforce and which not to enforce? Many feel that is what Nixon did, and many feel that’s what Barack Obama did last week when his Secretary of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano, declared that they would not enforce the nation’s laws with regard to those who enter the country illegally.

The Immigration and Nationality Act Section 237 says, “Any alien who is present in the United States in violation of this Act or any other law of the United States is deportable.” According to INS statistics a few years ago, about 60% of our estimated fifteen million illegal aliens (foreign nationals) are guilty of “entry without inspection,” or EWI. The remaining 40% are illegal for overstaying their authorized duration of residency in the country. Under federal statute cited above, both are deportable offenses.

So does Obama feel he’s above the law and can cherry pick which laws he’ll enforce and which he won’t? Apparently so. But it’s not the first time. There are several laws which Obama’s justice department refuses to enforce, including the Defense of Marriage Act, and voter intimidation laws. The latter is the most blatant for it involved well-documented and recorded efforts (some of which are viewable on YouTube) of voter intimidation by Black Panthers in paramilitary garb harassing Philadelphia voters in 2008.

Bartle Bull, a former civil rights lawyer and publisher of the left-wing Village Voice observed the intimidation (which is a federal offense) firsthand, and called it “the most blatant form of voter intimidation I’ve ever seen.” Bull testified that not only were the thugs brandishing clubs as weapons, but they hurled racial threats at voters, including “You are about to be ruled by the black man, cracker!” Yet Obama’s justice department dropped the charges against them. This is not surprising since one of the intimidators was Jerry Jackson, a member of Philadelphia's 14th Ward Democratic Committee and a credentialed poll watcher for the Party. Rhetorically we might question if charges would have been similarly dropped against Republican poll watchers, or against Tea Party activists implicated in such voter intimidation.

Another blatant disregard of law is Obama’s handling of his “kinetic” war against Libya. The Constitution and the War Powers Act require approbation from Congress for the deployment of military forces abroad for more than 60 days. It has been 150 days since Obama deployed forces to Libya, and no sign of congressional approval is in sight.

Obama’s response for such authorization was that Congressional involvement in this regard would be “unnecessary and unhelpful.” Liberal Congressman Dennis Kucinich has been among the chorus of critics calling Obama’s disdain of congressional approval a clear usurpation of Congressional authority. “President Obama moved forward without Congress approving. He didn't have Congressional authorization, he has gone against the Constitution, and that's got to be said." Kucinich added that Obama's actions "would appear on its face to be an impeachable offense."

President Obama is frequently compared to our 39th President, Jimmy Carter, for his dismal failure in handling the economy. He currently enjoys a 26% approval rating in handling of the economy, according to Rasmussen, which proves that while it may be impossible to fool all the people all of the time, it is possible to fool about a fourth of them. But in terms of narcissism and a superiority complex that supersedes the rule of law, he arguably could be more aptly compared with our 37th President, Richard Nixon, as the evidence is mounting that he considers himself to be above the law.

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Obama's Fiscal Terrorism

Posted by Richard Larsen in Idaho on Tuesday, August 30, 2011 12:00:00 AM

By Richard Larsen

Published – Idaho State Journal, 08/21/11

The Old Testament prophet Amos promised that there would someday be a “famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord.” There seems to be another famine in the land that may or may not be related to Amos’ prophecy: that’s a famine of common sense.

Roughly defined as “good sense and sound judgment in practical matters,” its dearth seems to indicate that it is far from common, and perhaps is more elusive than ever.

To illustrate, let’s take a simple analogy of men digging a pit. As they dig deeper and deeper, the walls to the pit rise higher making escape increasingly unlikely. What if an observer refused to participate in the digging and rather alerted them to the threats of their incessant digging, and admonished them to quit digging until they devised an escape plan? It seems to me the observer was being astute and prudent by not expanding the threat and by bringing attention to the potential risks the diggers were creating for themselves. The last thing I would think of accusing them of is being a “terrorist.” It would be illogical to do so, for they are warning of impending self-imposed danger to the diggers.

Yet that’s precisely how some in the media and even prominent national leaders have characterized the “Tea Party” congressmen who refused to simply raise the debt ceiling which would allow the debt diggers to dig deeper and more inextricably. Rather than buckling to pressure from the White House and even their own leadership, they raised the specter of our national debt exceeding the nations’ GDP, and at least got some agreement to reduce spending slightly over the next ten years, even though future Congresses may not honor it.

For being conscientious objectors to the otherwise perfunctory act of raising the debt ceiling, do they get praised for causing Congress some introspection on spending priorities? No, they get aspersions, accusations, and insults hurled at them. MSNBC pundit Chris Matthews refers to them as the “scary Wahhabis of American government.” Bob Beckel, a USA Today columnist and a fixture representing the left on Fox News calls them the “TEA Terrorist Party.” And Vice President Joe Biden was said by members of the Senate Democrat caucus to have declared that they “acted like terrorists,” through the debt-ceiling debacle. And Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) labels them as “unfit to govern.”

Military Veteran Bill Wavering illustrated the deeper humor in these appellations last week when he wrote, “Such rhetoric is actually laughable when you consider the fact that these ad hominem attacks are all originating from people who cannot ever identify an ACTUAL terrorist as a terrorist. ‘The Taliban are actually freedom fighters! If we could just talk with al Qaeda, we could reach a mutual understanding.’ Really?”

The only way they can come close to making such nefarious monikers and characterizations valid is if they base their argument on false premises, which they did. The first false premise is that by failing to acquiesce on the debt limit, default (failure to make payments) was inevitable. As I pointed out two weeks ago, we had hit the debt limit in mid May and didn’t default. The Treasury Secretary can juggle a lot of payments without ever being forced to default.

The second false premise was that if we didn’t raise the debt limit, U.S. debt would be downgraded which would have multiple pejorative effects on the debt, the deficit, interest paid to service the debt, and perhaps fewer buyers of our bonds. Well, that happened anyway, even with a debt-ceiling raise. The reason? Too much debt and a lack of political resolve in Washington to address it. Reading the S&P downgrade report, it appears the only ones who could’ve prevented the downgrade were the Tea Party “Wahhabis” in Congress. They were the ones with serious recommendations on the table for reducing spending.

Now contrast that with how Obama comported himself during the debate. Did you notice who Obama threatened when he wasn't getting his way on raising the debt ceiling? He threatened to not pay Social Security benefits. He didn’t threaten to not pay foreign aid, food stamp recipients, or funding for Obamacare. He didn’t threaten to defund the EPA, the Education Department or the Energy Department. He didn’t threaten to curtail his golf outings or lavish vacations. No, he threatened Social Security recipients. Frankly, that sounds more like terrorist blackmail than what congressional conservatives did in attempting to reduce the debt.

I understand politicians and establishment media applying such terms to their opponents. They have to make them out to be the bad guys. But shame on us if we fall for their specious allegations based on fallacious logic!
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A Republic or a Totalitarian Regime?

Posted by Richard Larsen in Idaho on Monday, June 28, 2010 8:00:00 AM

By Richard Larsen

Published - Idaho State Journal, 06/27/10

A few weeks ago when speaking to the cadets at West Point, President Obama quipped that, “In some areas my power is absolute.” He then absolved all cadets of infractions and granted pardons to them.

While that was a humorous exchange, it may have revealed a sentiment that has already proven very troublesome to any of us who claim fealty to the United States of America. He obviously feels that he has absolute authority over whatever he chooses.

Our country is a constitutional republic established by a literal document, the Constitution, which specifically itemizes the limits of governmental authority, and delineates that power across the three branches of government. The executive branch, of which Obama is the head, executes the laws which are codified by congressional legislation, which laws are also ascertained by our judiciary to be either constitutional or illegal based on interpretation of our founding documents and judicial precedent.

As such, the president cannot make laws by fiat, or declaration. He executes or enforces the laws established by Congress. For example, it would have been entirely proper for Congress to pass legislation either encouraging or demanding that British Petroleum set aside $20 billion for legitimate claims related to the gulf oil spill. But when the White House conducted their “shakedown” of British Petroleum and demanded it, where was the legal foundation for him to do that? Irrespective of the logic of BP stepping up to the plate to handle such claims, the president had no legal authority to make such demands. He also has no legal authority to pressure BP into not paying dividends to shareholders. This certainly resembles a Chicago-style “offer you can’t refuse” more than it resembles the rule of law in a constitutional republic.

Speaking of the oil spill, last week the president told Matt Lauer that he was wanting to know “whose tail to kick” for the gulf oil spill. He may not have to look very far, if we consider what led up to the catastrophe. He and his comrades in the Congress have coddled and embraced the radical environmental movement for years, and it was due to pressure from those groups that Gulf oil exploration has been pushed into ever deeper waters, as far away from coastlines as possible.

Considering Obama received massive political donations from BP, and how lax federal inspectors were with their operations in the Gulf, a logical person might wonder if the donations bought that laxity by inspectors, which placed the Gulf in jeopardy with precisely the kind of disaster we’re facing there now. You combine those two factors alone, and the president may only have to go as far as his bathroom mirror to see whose “tail to kick.”

The shakedown of BP closely resembles the shakedown of the auto industry after we, with our tax-dollars, and without our approval, bailed out Chrysler and GM. With a phone call, the president essentially fired the chairman of General Motors, wiped out all the equity of the owners of the company (the shareholders), and wiped out the principle that bondholders held in company bonds. Where was the legal authority to do that? There was no statute, no congressional action granting him that authority. Do we have a president to execute the laws of the land, or do we have a dictator in a totalitarian regime who does whatever he wants, regardless of legality?

Even Senator Robert Byrd recognizes the Chicago-style power grab occurring from the Oval Office. In a letter to the president last year, Byrd denounced the 36 “czars” appointed by the president over nearly every aspect of our lives. Byrd said such positions “can threaten the Constitutional system of checks and balances. At the worst, White House staff have taken direction and control of programmatic areas that are the statutory responsibility of Senate-confirmed officials.” But in spite of the recognition of this Chicago-style executive branch power grab, Congress does little to curtail presidential totalitarian actions, and serves as little more than a rubber stamp for anything he bothers to seek authorization on, like the takeover of our health care system.

Executive branch power has been increasingly steadily over the past century, but the acceleration and extent of it over the past two years is alarming. We are rapidly losing our republic, as governmental actions nearly daily expand the scope and breadth of government intrusion into our lives, limit our liberty and ability to choose, and commit multi-generational larceny against our posterity to pay for the largesse of government. We apparently are no longer a land ruled by law based on constitutional principles, when the president without legislative or constitutional authority, but by diktat can destroy equity ownership, shakedown companies for political purposes, and reshape national policy with his cadre of czars in the White House.
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Form vs. Substance, Obama's State of the Union

Posted by Richard Larsen in Idaho on Wednesday, February 03, 2010 1:45:42 PM

By Richard Larsen

Published – Idaho State Journal, 01/31/10

Barack Obama is a masterful speaker when he has his teleprompter turned on. I guess that’s why I have such a hard time listening to his speeches. In the Platonic dichotomy of form versus substance, I’ll take substance any day. That’s why I like to read his speeches rather than listen to them. Then again, maybe I’m just afraid I’ll end up like so many who were simply mesmerized by his talks without giving due consideration to their substance.

His State of the Union address Wednesday provided a classic juxtaposition of form versus substance: a masterful delivery of a speech that nonetheless was substantively replete with inaccuracies, inconsistencies, and errors. I’m always critical of political extravaganzas but Obama just presents so much low hanging fruit on his elocution tree that to not pluck it would be tantamount to acquiescence.

Having lived through the administrations of 11 presidents, I have never seen one who is so adept at saying one thing while doing the complete opposite. Praising small business and private enterprise while doing everything to destroy them; denouncing health-insurance companies while promoting legislation to force all citizens to own health insurance; talk of “fiscal responsibility” while engaging in an orgy of governmental spending; talk of tax cuts while advancing tax increases at every turn; talk of job creation while implementing policies that further hamper job creation; etc., etc. ad nauseam.

While there were many such inconsistencies to select from, here are just a few from Wednesday’s presentation. Obama said, “We face a deficit of trust -– deep and corrosive doubts about how Washington works that have been growing for years. To close that credibility gap we have to take action on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue -- to end the outsized influence of lobbyists; to do our work openly; to give our people the government they deserve.” Is that why he has over 30 former lobbyists working for him? Somehow I don’t see that as conducive to bridging the “deficit of trust.” Those 18 “Czars” in the administration probably don’t help your claim either, Mr. President.

He claimed that he’s cut taxes for “95% of working families.” I guess they didn’t teach math at Harvard, Occidental, or Columbia. More than 40% of Americans pay no taxes, which figure is about to drop because he and congress will allow the Bush tax cuts to expire. What he has done is increased subsidies, including the home buying credit. Those are by definition not tax cuts, and they most certainly didn’t benefit 95% of working families.

Perhaps the most audacious fabrication was, “Because of the steps we took, there are about two million Americans working right now who would otherwise be unemployed.” And what steps were those? He was referring to the stimulus bill which was about 95% political payback and 5% job creation and economic stimulus.

Cato Policy Analyst Tad Dehaven has written, “Actually, the U.S. economy has lost 2.7 million jobs since the stimulus passed and 3.4 million total since Obama was elected. How he attributes any jobs gains to the stimulus is the fuzziest of fuzzy math.” Three of his top economic advisors over the past week have each given different figures and even his recovery.gov website only lists 640,000, and most of those have been proven fictitious. The only thing more ludicrous is that they can claim millions of jobs saved. There is no viable economic means of calculating “jobs saved.” I think all their jobs figures are either drawn from a hat or extricated from a dark orifice between their gluteus maximi.

Equally perplexing is the President’s castigation of Republicans for not being accommodating to his agenda. They’re too “partisan.” Excuse me, Mr. President, and you’re not? Robust political discussion and the balance of power are the essence and strength of American Democracy. It is what protects us all from audacious and presumptive politicians.

Until last week’s special election in Massachusetts your party could pass anything. You had the numbers. If you didn’t get everything you wanted, the blame lies squarely on your own party. And why is it that in order to be “bi-partisan” those who oppose you have to sacrifice their principles? If it’s truly bi-partisan doesn’t that mean both sides give a little for compromise? The independents, Republicans and not a few conservative Democrats in Massachusetts have reminded us of the limits of partisan power, and the power of political discourse in a democracy.

For those who prefer form to substance, Wednesday night was a celebratory event. But for those of us who love what America became because of the principles upon which she was founded and prefer substance over form, it was little more than another narcissistic and superficial lesson in the “audacity of hope.”

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White House Actions Seem Un-American

Posted by Richard Larsen in Idaho on Monday, August 10, 2009 8:00:00 AM
By Richard Larsen
Published – Idaho State Journal, 08/09/2009

Those who lived behind the “Iron Curtain,” or even in Nazi Germany, were fearful of expressing their true opinions about their government policies. Such reticence was necessary for they lived in fear that something they said might be reported to the authorities, leading to them being whisked away to the Gulag or the concentration camps.

Could such a thing happen in America? While I would certainly hope that it couldn’t, there are ominous indicators that truly make one wonder.

We started to see the signs last fall in the heat of the campaign when a Missouri paper reported, “Missouri top prosecutors announced this week that they will threaten and prosecute critics of Barack Obama. St. Louis City Circuit Attorney Jennifer Joyce and St. Louis County Circuit Attorney Bob McCulloch are threatening to bring libel charges against those who speak out against Barack Obama.”

Then in March Congress passed “The Give Act,” which among other things, established a Universal Voluntary Public Service corps of 250,000 “volunteers,” modeled after the Public Allies program, a group Obama led in Chicago which was organized to “agitate for justice and equality.” It seems to be the foundation for his “National Civilian Security Force” which he referenced in a speech last year in which he advocated creating a domestic service corps as “big and well-funded as the U.S. military.”

Then there was the leaked Agency Assessment from Janet Napolitano, Secretary of Homeland Security, which identified all those who oppose Obama’s policies as potential domestic terrorists. The Assessment was distributed to law enforcement agencies across the land including what law enforcement should watch for, like anti-abortion and Ron Paul bumper stickers, “Don’t Tread On Me” flags, and pickup gun racks.

The latest ominous sign is the mobilization of the President’s forces to stave off criticism of “Obamacare,” the legislation pending in Congress which would essentially take over the health-care industry. This effort is similar to what Hugo Chavez did without legislation in Venezuela when he took over the oil industry and put the media under government control. Parenthetically, Obama doesn’t need to do that with the media, as they essentially function as the official state-run propaganda machine already.

Then earlier this week the White House website had this entry added by Linda Douglas, formerly of ABC News, “There is a lot of disinformation about health insurance reform out there, spanning from control of personal finances to end of life care. These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation. Since we can’t keep track of all of them here at the White House, we’re asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov.”

It seems the Obama White House is taking “domestic spying” to a whole new level by encouraging his disciples to report fellow citizens who have a different perspective on his effort to socialize the health-care system.

Senator John Cornyn issued a statement condemning the domestic spying program and requested a response from the President what his intentions were with those reported to the White House. Cornyn said, “I am not aware of any precedent for a President asking American citizens to report their fellow citizens to the White House for pure political speech that is deemed ‘fishy’ or otherwise inimical to the White House’s political interests.” Senator, we’re seeing a lot of things done by the White House without precedence in the land of the free and the home of the brave.

This week the Organizer in Chief sent out emails to 13 million of his followers urging them, “We've got to get out there…I want you to argue with them, and get in their face.”Dutifully responding to their Organizer’s beckon, labor unions sent out memos to their members answering the call to political arms. In a memo sent out by AFL-CIO President John Sweeney: “We want your help to organize major union participation to counter the right-wing ‘Tea-Party Patriots’ who will try to disrupt those meetings, as they've been trying to do to meetings for the last month...”

Organizing and encouraging your followers is one thing. But the White House setting up “snitch” websites for domestic spying and creating a political “brown shirt” corps across the nation is quite another. Somehow all this seems so un-American.

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Obama's Fundamental Transformation of America

Posted by Richard Larsen in Idaho on Monday, March 16, 2009 12:53:36 PM

By Richard Larsen

Published – Idaho State Journal, 03/15/2009

When Barack Obama said last year that he would “fundamentally transform America,” I don’t think many Americans knew what he was talking about. Regrettably we’re seeing more each day what his vision of that transformation is, and Newsweek captured that vision with its cover a couple weeks ago, “We’re All Socialists Now.”

Each day seems to bring another announcement of massive government spending on a new Obama program. Each one brings increased government control over the economy. With that increased control one of the major tenets of socialism is achieved: the means of production and distribution are owned or controlled by the government.

The problems with this agenda are multitudinous, but there is a principle that was fundamental to the founding of this country that brands government control of the economy as anathema. That is the principle of freedom. As power is ceded to the government, or as government expands beyond its Constitutional limits, as we see increasingly every day, individual freedom and liberty are sacrificed.

Our Declaration of Independence proclaimed, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” We do not derive our rights from the government, but from God. But the government can sure take them away. Each massive spending bill, exploitative budget, proposed tax increase, and cap and trade energy scheme threatens our freedom and individual liberty a little more.

Milton Friedman, the Nobel Laureate for Economics, persuasively argued that economic and political freedom are inseparable. Those freedoms we assume to be ours by legal recognition of a divine right from God, not from the government, are inextricably linked with the economic ability to exercise those rights. Friedman said, “A free private market is a mechanism for achieving voluntary cooperation.... It applies to any human activity, not simply to economic transactions. We are speaking a language. Where did that language come from? Did some government entity construct the language and instruct people to use it?... No, the language we speak developed through a free private market....” Once the government is involved, it is no longer a free, voluntary cooperation. It is coerced, controlled, and rationed.

Other brilliant economists and principled leaders through the years have argued against precisely this kind of economic power grab we see transforming our nation. Thomas Jefferson, in his inimitable style declared, “The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground. To take from one, because it is thought his own industry and that of his fathers has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers, have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, the guarantee to everyone the free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it. ... [A] wise and frugal government ... shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government.”

Although he’s heterodox to government spend-thrifts, Ronald Reagan echoed that principle in 1981. He said, “We who live in free market societies believe that growth, prosperity and ultimately human fulfillment are created from the bottom up, not the government down. Only when the human spirit is allowed to invent and create, only when individuals are given a personal stake in deciding economic policies and benefiting from their success -- only then can societies remain economically alive, dynamic, progressive, and free. ... Only private industry in the last analysis can provide jobs with a future. ... The fact is, we'll never build a lasting economic recovery by going deeper into debt at a faster rate than we ever have before. ... In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.” How true those words echo for today.

I love the America that was founded on freedom, and God-given rights. I would prefer those who desire to “fundamentally transform” America simply move to Europe for their secular, socialistic systems, and leave the “land of the free” to freedom-lovers who want it to stay that way.

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This is Now Obama's Recession

Posted by Richard Larsen in Idaho on Monday, March 09, 2009 2:43:48 PM

By Richard Larsen

Published – Idaho State Journal, 03/08/2009

President Obama now owns this dire economy. He can no longer claim that he inherited the current malaise from George W. Bush.

Last fall with the failure of Lehman Brothers and other financial institutions, the problems with subprime mortgages and their “infection” of securitized mortgage-backed investments, mostly affected the banking and housing sectors of the economy. There was certainly the risk that it could spread to other segments of the economy, but with the right policy moves, that’s where it could have stopped. Obama and his party have ensured that it spread to all segments of the economy.

Financial markets are primarily forward looking and are one of the leading economic indicators used by the government. They appreciate in anticipation of improvement in the broad economy, corporate profits, and improving systemic risk indicators. Yet all they have done since Obama was elected is go down. And every time he opens his mouth to explain an $800 billion stimulus bill, or a $1.7 trillion budget, or a mortgage rescue plan, it goes down even more. Every time he denounces “predatory lenders” for making the loans Congress encouraged them to make, underwritten and guaranteed by Congress’ own social-engineering mortgage piggy banks, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the markets go down. Every time he castigates “Wall Street greed” for packaging and securitizing those mortgages, the markets decline further. In short, Obama now owns this bad economy, and much of it is of his making.

The financial markets obviously knew what to expect from an Obama administration. The day after the election the Dow Jones Industrial Average tanked over 300 points. That was not a good omen.

Displaying an obvious inability to switch from campaign mode to governing mode, Obama has continued to verbally hammer the economy. In December, while Congressional leaders were crafting his massive “stimulus” package, Obama declared, “In short, a bad situation could become dramatically worse.” At George Mason University, he declared, “The recession could linger for years” unless Congress approves his stimulus bill. In the same speech, he said, “I don't believe it's too late to change course, but it will be if we don't take dramatic action as soon as possible.” The week Congress voted on his “stimulus” bill he said it would be “catastrophic” if it didn’t pass. Obama could now write a new book, and he could title it, “The Politics of Fear.” The subtitle could be something like, “How to Make Political “Hay” by Scaring the Hell out of the American People.”

Stock indexes are down roughly 30% since Obama’s election. And he still seems to have no grasp of the role he plays in creating a positive economy. His fiscal policies will ensure nominal, if any, GDP growth in future years. And until he learns that part of his role is to be the economy’s head cheerleader, it will continue to tank every time he disparages the economy.

Financial markets are significantly affected by psychological factors. They reflect the collective level of faith and confidence in the markets they represent. Confidence moves markets higher, whereas fear-mongering (as Obama is engaging in) and insecurity will force it down.

Obama has had unmistakable political victories. Every one of his recommendations have been rubber-stamped by an all-too-willing Congress that knows no taxation restraint, and has never met a lavish spending bill that it doesn’t like. Yet his political victories are failures for America. Not just for our economic prospects, but for the hammering he has personally done to the savings and retirement accounts of millions of Americans who count on market stability for current and future income.

Financial markets will eventually stabilize and begin to creep back up. But it will be in spite of, not because of, his fiscal policies and unmitigated disastrous spending binges. It will be because the American people still work, produce, provide service and do much good on a global scale. And the companies that they work for will strive to be even more productive even though the President’s proposed tax increases will penalize them for their success.

The American economy is struggling, and the President is doing nothing to positively address it. Calling my Tahoe a Hummer doesn’t make it any more so than calling a massive spending bill an economic “stimulus.” But as his chief of staff has said, “Never let a serious crisis go to waste.” And they’re not. They will apparently use their fear tactics to create as much government as they possibly can. “This crisis provides the opportunity for us to do things that you could not do before,” Rahm Emanuel elaborated.

Mr. President, this is no longer George Bush’s recession, it is yours. And your fiscal policies and verbal abuse heaped upon segments of our marketplace are ensuring that your presence will be felt long after you’ve left office in about 1415 days. But then, who’s counting?

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Reasons Obama Should Not Be President

Posted by Richard Larsen in Idaho on Monday, October 27, 2008 11:27:17 AM
By Richard Larsen
 
Published – Idaho State Journal, 10/26/08

There are reasons to not vote for either presidential candidate, based on my personal belief system, and a system of logic based on what has made America so unique among nation states and what has and hasn’t worked throughout history. Senator Obama has, based on his voting record and public statements, compiled for me the more extensive list of why he should not be the leader of the free world.

Protection of life, especially innocent life, is not just moral but it is also legal. Yet the Senator has vowed to sign into law the Freedom of Choice Act, allowing abortions at any stage of development, including the gruesome and immoral partial-birth abortion. The Act would also repeal the Hyde Amendment which will allow for taxpayer money to support the abortion industry.

Obama has said he would appoint justices like Ruth Bader Ginsberg and John Paul Stevens. In other words, he will appoint judges who think their role is to legislate from the bench rather than rule based on constitutionality. As an example, Stephens often votes on the court based on international law precedence, not constitutionality. That is not the role of a Supreme Court Justice.

As I wrote two weeks ago in greater depth, Obama’s economic policies are the same as Hoover’s which led to the Great Depression. That’s not what our nation needs now.

Obama proved through his exchange with “Joe the plumber” last week that he is a socialist and wants to take your money and “spread the wealth around.” The head of the American Communist Party hasn’t publically endorsed Obama, but admits he’s “excited at the prospects of an Obama presidency.” If the Senator wants to be president of a socialist country, I would suggest he move to Cuba. He can duke it out with Raul.

Obama has surrounded himself throughout his life with friends, associates, and colleagues who are ultra-liberal, anti-American, socialists, and terrorists. These are not just casual relationships, but have been the political alliances that endeared him to the Chicago political machine and launched him onto the political stage. According to Stanley Kurtz in the Wall Street Journal Obama sought out those alliances when he moved to Chicago. And remember, he’ll be taking 3,000 of that kind of thinking to Washington with him.

Although Obama has said recently that he opposes a redefinition of marriage, there are plenty of times he’s spoken in favor of it, including last year’s highly visible address to NARAL. If Proposition 8 fails in California, it’s easy to imagine Obama leading a national effort to redefine marriage. It will be taught in schools and inculcated into children as early as kindergarten and will lead to an assault on freedom of speech and religion. Why else would Kevin Jennings, founder of GLSEN -- the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network, now be serving as a fundraising co-chair for the Obama campaign?

ACORN, the unofficial election fraud wing of the Obama campaign, will be at the table in an Obama administration. You can see a video of him making that promise on the internet.

Pelosi, Reid and Obama create a frightful triumvirate driving the country to the far left. Left-leaning party rule with no checks or balances is dangerous. Look at the states that have become dominated leftist ideology: Michigan, Louisiana (until recently), New York, California, all on the verge of bankruptcy. Out-of-control government spending and entitlement spending, and exorbitant taxation are their common characteristics, and companies are fleeing their states, according to Investor’s Business Daily.

Obama was befriended in Chicago by Rashid Khallidi, a former PLO spokesman, who is anti-Israel. Obama returned the favor by granting funds from the Woods Fund that he directed, to Khallidi’s pro-PLO group, the Arab American Action Group, which has been under investigation for terrorist funding. Khallidi glorifies anti-Israel violence as contributing to “political enlightenment”and admires those who carry it out. This makes it extremely difficult to believe Obama when he says he’s “pro-Israel.”

Obama has said we just can’t, as a nation, “set our thermostats for 72 degrees, drive our SUVs, eat as much as we want, and consume as a nation as we have done.” So what is he proposing, that the government tell us what to set our thermostats to, what to drive, and what to eat? Does that sound like America to you?

Obama supported the DC gun ban and questions the legitimacy of the 2nd Amendment guaranteeing us gun rights. Better hold onto your guns.

According to Joe Biden, Obama will be tested by international events in the first six months of his administration and we won’t like how he handles it. That doesn’t instill a great deal of confidence. And why would the President of Iran and the leader of Hamas “endorse” Obama? What would the sworn enemies of America have to gain from an Obama presidency? The prospects cause me to shudder.

The Senator had served in the U.S. Senate just 143 days before announcing his candidacy for the Presidency. How many corporate employees do you think are ready to head a corporation after working for a company for 143 days? Does experience really not count for anything anymore?

And finally, Obama has stated that illegal aliens should be granted drivers licenses, Social Security benefits, Medicaid, amnesty, and U.S. citizenship.

            Those are the major obstacles that would preclude me from seriously considering Obama as President. To me, the position is just too important for someone of negligible experience, extreme liberal positions in key social areas, failed economic policies, and questionable political alliances.

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Will the Real Obama Please Stand Up

Posted by Richard Larsen in Idaho on Tuesday, October 21, 2008 8:14:58 AM

By Richard Larsen

Published – Idaho State Journal, 10/19/08

Listening to Senator Obama these days is like listening to any mainstream politician. Everything he’s saying now seems well thought out, not too radical, and pretty middle-of-the-road type political posturing. The problem is, that’s exactly what it is: political posturing.

There’s a reason he received a 100% Liberal Rating from the National Journal. That rating made him even more radical than Ted Kennedy. That means that what he’s built his political career on, extreme leftists causes and positions, is simply being hidden for these few months before the general election because he knows he can’t say publicly now what he really believes. Makes one wonder if there is a multiple personality disorder struggling somewhere under the surface. So we might well ask, will the real Obama please stand up?

In the debate earlier this week he said he would like to see the number of abortions reduced. I wonder if that bothered his NARAL backers who he told last year that he “absolutely defends the right for every single abortion.” That’s what he really believes, because that’s how he’s voted as a lawmaker. In Illinois he even voted 3 times against legislation that would protect the lives of infants born after botched abortions. Even NARAL doesn’t go that far.

In the debate the other night he said he wanted to win the election “based on my ideas and ability to lead.” That seems odd. His campaign has given over $300,000 to ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. Could it be he’s hedging his bet? After all, ACORN is the group that is under investigation for fraudulent voter registrations in seven states, including dead people. The most interesting of these is the Las Vegas ACORN group which registered the entire roster of the Dallas Cowboys football team to vote in Nevada. Well, I guess he figures if he can’t do it based on his ideas and ability to lead, he’s just got to win, whatever it takes! That must be the group that my friend was referring to the other day when he said his parents had never voted Democratic until after they died. Now it makes sense.

Oh, and just for reference, it was this same ACORN which Obama and his friends in Congress tried to enrich at our expense with the bailout bill. They tried to get a portion of the proceeds of future sales of mortgage securities given to ACORN. Wow! Just think how many dead, felonious, and fraudulent votes they could produce for the Democrat party for generations with a portion of $700 billion worth of mortgage-backed securities! I guess if you can’t win on ideas and ideology, you have to win somehow. Right Senator? What makes this even more disconcerting, is Obama promised ACORN that they will sit with him in shaping policy in his administration. Now that’s sobering, but perhaps not surprising, since Obama has not only represented them legally but has done training for them.

Obama now makes a point of wearing a flag lapel pin and says how much he loves America, and how it’s the greatest country in the world. I wonder if that upsets all of his Chicago political machine friends when he does that? His preacher of 20 years didn’t seem to think that way. He’s the one, you’ll recall, that said, “Not God bless America, but G** D*** America.” I’m sure his buddy Bill Ayers doesn’t like it when Obama talks like that. Speaking of which, did you know that Barack Obama and Osama Bin Laden have something in common? They both have friends who bombed the Pentagon.

That’s right, Obama’s buddy Bill Ayers and his wife, Bernadine Dohrn bombed the Pentagon, and several other buildings, killed a couple of people, and now they’re revered members of the Chicago liberal elite. Ayers is even a professor now. Aren’t you glad your kids don’t go to University of Illinois? But Ayers said he didn’t do enough. To put this in perspective, think of Ayers as a Timothy McVeigh domestic terrorist. Ayers has a very patriotic picture from the Chicago Magazine of him grinding the American flag into the ground with his boots. No, I don’t think Obama’s buddy Ayers likes it when Obama talks like that.

Speaking of Ayers, does it bother you at all that Obama could not gain security clearance by the FBI, CIA, Military, or Secret Service because of his relationship with a known terrorist? Now that’s troublesome and ironic at the same time. 

Obama has been pretty clear about wanting to make those responsible for our current financial morass pay for their greed and illegalities. I wonder if that makes his close friend Tony Rezko uncomfortable at all? Rezko, you’ll recall, is the indicted criminal behind multi-million dollar real estate deals that were scams and bilked Illinois and U.S. taxpayers out of millions of dollars. No, I’m sure Rezko doesn’t feel uncomfortable when Obama talks that way, because Obama helped him get the taxpayer funds to engage in some of those illegal activities. Plus, he’s been convicted already, so the worst Obama could do is turn states’ evidence and give him a few more years.

Obama even talks about tax-cuts now. That’s downright humorous considering he’s never voted for one, in Illinois or in D.C. I think a sign in Louisiana accurately summed up Obama in this regard. The sign said, “A taxpayer voting for Obama is like a chicken voting for Colonel Sanders.”

There is just so much conflicting evidence between what Obama has done in the past, and what he’s saying to us today. It really makes you want to say, “Will the real Obama please stand up?” But I think he already has. And it’s not the one we see today sprinting toward the middle-of-the-road.

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Capitalism vs. the Democratic Candidates

Posted by Richard Larsen in Idaho on Monday, April 07, 2008 7:27:20 PM
Published – Idaho State Journal, 04/06/08
 
Ideologically, Hillary Clinton and Barrack Obama are hardly distinguishable. But what they are promising to do if elected president should shock the sensibilities of any freedom loving and tax-paying American.
 
With slight variations on similar themes, they advocate nationalizing the nation’s healthcare system (nearly one fifth of the economy), and nationalizing the oil companies by absconding with their profits. They denounce successful American enterprises like WalMart even though they do more good for the average pocketbook than the government does (I think they’re jealous). Their solutions call for more centralized control by the government that, due to the profligate spending of Congress, can’t balance its own checkbook.
 
Before we consider seriously these socialistic campaign promises, we need to think through the philosophy of the capitalistic system they so vocally and vehemently denounce.
 
The market economy has created unfathomable prosperity and decade by decade, century by century miraculous feats of innovation, production, distribution, and social coordination. We owe all material prosperity, all leisure time, our health and longevity, our growing population, and nearly everything we call life itself to the free market. Capitalism alone has rescued the human race from degrading poverty, rampant sickness, and early death.
 
The thousands of diseases that are now treatable and survivable are vanquished because of the tenets of capitalism that rewards successful research with financial success, which in turn is used as the capital to find even more solutions to human ailments. Yet Clinton and Obama denounce “big pharma” for their profits, and employ a class-envy populist rhetoric to garner support among the gullible, uneducated, and financially illiterate.
 
They do the same with “big oil,” denouncing them for their profits (approximately eight cents per gallon), while we pay increasingly higher prices for a commodity they have contributed to be as high priced as it is. Oil is the fuel of capitalism, providing distribution of goods and services, and personal freedom unfathomable just a couple of generations ago, and we can’t even access the oil that U.S. companies have a claim to. China and Mexico can access the oil in the Gulf of Mexico, but we can’t because Clinton, Obama, and those of like mind won’t allow us to tap our own resources, including the Anwar oil fields in Alaska. If they really cared so much about the high price of oil, they’d allow us to access what we have in our own backyard. Global demand is only going to increase, as India and China’s demand is increasing by double-digits every year now. Supply needs to increase to meet those demands, yet Obama and Clinton tie our hands preventing the increase of supply.
 
And speaking of oil, our two biggest suppliers are Canada and Mexico, and yet Obama is threatening to revisit and renegotiate NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) that facilitates trade with those countries, unencumbered by tariffs. What do you think that will do to the price of gasoline in the States?
 
I just had to laugh when a columnist earlier in the week said of the economy, “And as usual, the Democratic candidates have better ideas on the subject than the Republican candidate does. At the very least, Obama and Hillary are trying to come up with workable solutions.” The aforementioned proposals display at best, an economic naïveté, but at worst, spell destruction of certain elements of our capitalistic system. Their proposals for increased spending by the Federal government of nearly a trillion dollars, combined with their plans for “big pharma” and “big oil,” creates an unstable and uncertain future for the American economy that currently falters on the edge of a possible recession, but with Clinton’s or Obama’s recommendations, collapses under the weight of a Federal government that may never recover. Come to think about it, their proposals would increase Federal spending by about the same percentage as what two of our commissioners increased Bannock County spending this year. If they’re not all related, at least their detached-from-reality ideology of bigger and more expensive government is.
 
And how do Obama and Clinton propose financing that big of a spending increase? Bingo! More taxes! This would be humorous if it weren’t so frightening. They both voted for the stimulus package which returns $800 to $1,600 to each household this summer to stimulate the economy, so they obviously have at least a modicum of understanding that the consumer drives the economy. But the consumer can only drive the economy if he has the money to spend. Combine their proposals of increased income taxes, and increased capital gains taxes, and we all have less to spend, which means the economy under their direction would decline precipitously for years.
 
The solution to an economy that is slowing is never to increase the size of government, or taxes, or nationalizing or penalizing the great industries that make ours the economic envy of the world. If the economy matters to you, neither Obama nor Clinton will be your candidate.
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