Archive for April, 2011

President Obama today gave a breathtakingly dishonest speech. He claimed to want to cut $4 trillion from the deficit over 12 years, even though he’s run up $4+ trillion in new debt in the 2+ years he’s been in office and non-stop spending us into oblivion. If he really wanted to do this, he’d simply reverse everything that he, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid have done so far – Obamacare, Porkulus, the works. And it wouldn’t take anywhere near 12 years.

So clearly, this is just a steaming pile of bullcrap designed to be carried unquestioningly by his worshipful mainstream media acolytes, in order to (barely) cover up his real intentions:  massive spending increases followed by massive tax increases resulting in the destruction of capitalist America and its forcible re-making  into a Marxist society.

At least he managed to repeat Walter Mondale’s colossal mistake of 1984 by putting tax increases on the table, even beyond what would be represented by the expiration of the Bush tax cuts on January 1, 2013. This assures that Obama will have to be a hardcore leftist class warrior down the homestretch of the 2012 presidential campaign. Read the rest of this entry »

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I really like the 2011 Chevrolet Cruze. In theory.

This all-new car replaces the Cobalt for the 2011 model year, and it brings a much-needed “cool” into the compact car segment. The interior is stunning with nice touch points and an attractive, curving design. The exterior far surpasses its predecessor–from the headlights all the way to the taillights.

The 1.4-liter, 4-cylinder turbocharged engine delivers 138 horsepower, and it’s just enough pep to move you through traffic and keep you competitive off the start from red lights.

The test vehicle was a top-of-the line LTZ model ($22,695) and included standard features like leather seats, OnStar Directions and Connections, XM Radio, Bluetooth connectivity for your cell phone, steering wheel audio controls, tilt and telescoping steering wheel, USB port and (my favorite) heated front seats.

All that combined with high fuel efficiency numbers, an affordable price tag and a cute, compact package, it should have made it a perfect 10.

That’s where the “in theory” part comes in.

Read the rest of this entry »

If you want to understand why serious solutions to problems almost never seem to happen in Washington, I recommend a piece published this past Friday by Charlie Cook of the National Journal.

What’s good about the piece is how bad it is. Cook is the ultimate Inside the Beltway guy, and he takes the occasion to lecture congressional Republicans on their complete lack of a mandate to do anything other than compromise with Democrats. They were, he reminds them, elected only because the voters were unhappy with their opponents, not because the Republicans themselves were seen to offer anything worthwhile.

Oh, GOP conservatives want to cut spending, Cook understands. But not because the national debt is mounting and the nation is facing fiscal calamity. No, sillies:

One can understand why Republicans are pushing so hard. Their base is demanding that they do so. And if congressional Republicans resist, many of them can look forward to primary opposition next year. But it seems that GOP members of Congress have become so consumed with pleasing their base that they are ignoring general-election voters and the independents who drive the wild gyrations in American politics.

In the same piece, Cook makes a brief and strange foray into actual substance, acknowledging that spending must be cut for the good of the nation, and that even though polls say the public wants the budget balanced without cutting entitlements, “anyone with an IQ over room temperature knows that all of this is impossible.”

But none of this matters, Cook warns, because actually trying to make the changes the nation needs would be political suicide. And to Cook, it’s a foregone conclusion that one’s own political survival is the be-all and end-all of all things for a member of Congress. To prove his point, Cook actually cites polls showing that a near-majority of the electorate at large prefers politicians who compromise with their opponents to those who stand on principle.

Read the rest of this entry »

For decades, Democrats have insisted on taxing profits generated by U.S. companies in foreign countries, because they thought it would force businesses to keep the investments in the U.S.

Wrong!

The unintended consequences were just the opposite effect. A business-friendly environment always works better than force.

President George W. Bush was able to get the repatriated tax rate lowered to 5.25 percent in 2003, and nearly $350 billion came back into our economy. Today, it is conservatively estimated that nearly $1 trillion might come back if we take the tax on repatriated profits to zero.

Yes, zero!

Our economy gains nothing as long as those profits remain abroad. Common sense says we have everything to gain if we let those profits come home without a tax.

Some multi-national businesses might use those profits to expand operations here in the U.S., which would mean more job opportunities for the 15 million unemployed people. Or, maybe companies would increase salaries and wages for their employees, or they might pay a dividend to their stockholders.

And remember, many senior citizens depend on their dividend income, if they have any, as a way to supplement their paltry Social Security checks. With the price of gasoline doubling in the last two years, and expected to go even higher along with the cost of everything else, a dividend increase would be some welcome relief to many seniors.

Read the rest of this entry »

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Sixteen years ago, a Republican Congress went to the wall with a Democratic president over the possible shutdown of the U.S. government. Conventional wisdom was that the Democratic president “won” the showdown politically, because people didn’t like the shutdown idea, and believed the Republicans were pursuing too much an ideological agenda in bringing it about.

Today, the same players are lining up for the same game, with the same political dynamics at work.

But there’s a big difference between 1995 and 2011. And for congressional Republicans who insist they have learned their lesson, the imperative to show this with actions rather than words will come down to how well they understand that difference.

So let’s quantify it for them. The difference is $9.34 trillion. That’s how much the U.S. national debt has risen since Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich battled over a shutdown of the U.S. government, brought about by Republican determination to cut federal spending, and Clinton’s reluctance to do so.

Put the difference in context. The entire national debt in 1995 was $4.92 trillion. At the end of 2010, it was $13.954 trillion, and it has already topped $14 trillion at this still-early stage of 2011. The debt has nearly tripled in 16 years.

Tripled!

Add in $59 trillion in unfunded entitlement mandates, and the United States is on the hook for more money than there is, or has ever been, in the entire world.

Read the rest of this entry »

A few days ago, Rev. Terry Jones of Gainesville, FL made a public spectacle of himself and disgraced his ostensible Christian faith by burning a copy of the Koran. This was a stunt not unlike the “protests” staged by the wacko followers of jerk-off Rev. Fred Phelps at the funerals of those American military service members who made the ultimate sacrifice for us and our nation.

Neither of these “reverends” do Christianity any favors by behaving in such un-Christian ways. Rather than being the salt and light of the world, ambassadors for Christ, and letting people know we are Christians by our love, these two idiots drive people away from Him at virtually maximum warp speed.  Not to mention that they give those hostile to Christianity a chance to smear by association all of us who live by His grace. (Which explains why a leftist media loves to give them so much attention.)  If these two really wanted to win people over, they could start by knocking it off and shutting up.

That said, however, even a stopped clock is right twice a day. And in that spirit, Rev. Jones did perform one very useful thing in his publicity stunt:  he exposed the truth of both Islam and our own moral cowardice.  Those truths are that: Read the rest of this entry »

The president believes in energy security. I believe in energy independence. In case you missed the president’s weekly radio address, here is what the White House released on energy security, so I will not be accused of not understanding what they meant. The title of the address was “Energy Security Can Only Come If We Invest in Cleaner Fuels and Greater Efficiency.”

WASHINGTON – In his weekly address, President Obama discussed his strategy to reduce our dependence on foreign oil and secure our nation’s energy future.  When the President was elected, America imported eleven million barrels of oil a day.  This week he announced a bold, but achievable goal of cutting this number by one-third by 2025.

To achieve this goal we will increase responsible domestic oil and gas development in the short term, while also increasing efficiency and harnessing new technologies including biofuels, natural gas, and advanced batteries.

Reducing our dependence on foreign oil in the foreseeable future is a key to bringing down energy costs and especially gasoline costs, the average price of which has doubled in the last two years. I think that’s what he meant by secure our nation’s energy future, but I am not sure. You really can’t tell from the words he used, but they sounded good.

The president proposes to reduce our dependence by a third in 14 years. That’s not a bold goal using electric cars, alternative fuels, advanced batteries and all the wind and solar power we can muster. Remember, those batteries have to be recharged. That means traditional electricity, which is generated from coal and natural gas fired power plants.

That’s an anemic goal! In the early 1970s we were nearly 25 percent dependent on foreign oil. Today we are nearly 70 percent dependent on foreign oil. Reducing our dependence by a third would still mean we are nearly 50% dependent on foreign oil. That level still leaves oil dependency as a national security risk, especially with what’s happening in the Middle East.

A bold objective would be zero dependence on foreign oil!

We can do it if we maximize all of our own natural resources as I described in last week’s commentary. We just need to streamline the government regulations that are holding us back.

I believe we can responsibly drill here now (oil), dig here now (coal), and develop safer and smaller nuclear facilities here now. In doing so, we can cut our energy dependence in half in 10 years on our way to energy independence.

A serious energy independence strategy would also curtail the rapidly escalating cost of gasoline and household energy costs, which are becoming a huge drain on consumers’ discretionary income. The pain at the pump is just the beginning.

Instead of a loan to Brazil for $2 billion to drill for oil, and “we become their best customer” as the president stated, let’s remove the unreasonable constraints to drill, dig, and develop our energy resources right here in the USA, and at the same time create a lot of jobs and increase tax revenues.

There are some new technologies out there, but they will not burst onto the energy scene until, again, government gets out of the way.  The private sector is not looking for tax incentives. They just want less regulation.

There simply is not enough upside potential in wind, solar, and electric cars to reduce our dependence on foreign oil by a third by 2025, but we can exceed that goal with opening up more exploration for oil, coal, natural gas and nuclear energy development, and we can do all of it responsibly.

The president proposes less dependence on foreign oil. Americans want no dependence on foreign oil. That’s bold and doable!

We need a bold leader to achieve bold goals.