A hero is a man who does what he can.
Roman Rollard
A Closer Look at Obama's Speech
I think I've heard Obama so much, I've started tuning out a lot of his ideological nonsense. Some comments made on a Fox News early morning show led me to pull up a transcript of his speech, and I've decided to expand on yesterday's comments:
Unfortunately, over the last decade, we have not done what is necessary to shore up the foundation of our own prosperity. We have spent over a trillion dollars at war, often financed by borrowing from overseas. This, in turn, has short-changed investments in our own people, and contributed to record deficits. For too long, we have put off tough decisions on everything from our manufacturing base to our energy policy to education reform. As a result, too many middle class families find themselves working harder for less, while our nation's long-term competitiveness is put at risk.Where do I start? First of all, as of the end of 2008 and 3 weeks before Obama office, just under $700B had been spent on the Iraq War. I'm not about to say that Bush's management of the war was efficient and effective; you have to wonder the outcome if the administration had rethought disbanding the Iraqi army and enabling policies many Sunnis believed shut them out of a new prosperous Iraq, if the military kept a larger footprint post-invasion Iraq, if Gen. Petraeus' counter-insurgencies policies had been in play from the jump: perhaps we could have left with honor earlier and more cheaply... Woulda, coulda, shoulda.
But it is disingenuous for Obama to lump in the costs of the "good" war in Afghanistan, not to mention the Iraq war after he made a case for the Iraq war (overthrowing Hussein, etc.) In fact, the Democrats have had deficits the last two fiscal years inclusive, each of each dwarf the spending the wars. Consider the following data:
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Legend:
a - actual reported
g - 'guesstimated' projection by usgovernmentspending.com
b - budgeted estimate in US fy11 budget
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Keep in mind I've been a sharp critical of spending under Bush, and I'm not saying $1T is a trivial sum of money. But keep in mind, which of course Obama fails to acknowledge, these two war were initiated within 2 years of 9/11--tragic incidents which, by some estimates, cost nearly $650B and 2 million jobs. What's the cost of not having a repeat of 9/11? To paraphrase a credit card promotion: priceless.
I do not believe 9/11 gave George W. Bush a blank check. But the US and other international intelligence agencies had defective intelligence within Iraq, and Saddam Hussein resented the US over the first Gulf War and ongoing no-fly zones; he had kicked out international inspectors with known chemical stockpiles intact, and he violated something like 17 UN resolutions.
Often financed the wars with external debt? Why is it that the amount of budget that accounts for less than 5% of spending is seen as the straw breaking the camel's back? How about the fact that domestic spending under George W. Bush increased at the greatest rate since the LBJ administration? Oh, yeah: he didn't spend nearly enough on domestic spending, scream the hypocritical progressives also attacking Bush's deficits. Haven't we seen this game before? Oh, yeah: Clinton ran on tax cuts, attacked GHW Bush's ("no new taxes") character on agreeing to a tax cut in negotiations with a Democratic Congress and what did he do once he got into the White House? Try to expand the federal government's reach into health care and sign tax increases into law. Been there, done that.
This zero-sum argument is frankly absurd and intellectually lazy. My view is that the answer to ineffective federal spending on crony capitalism and education, which I regard as a local/state responsibility, is not throwing more good money after bad. A lot of what we've lost in terms of manufacturing involve commodity goods where high labor costs make products uncompetitive. If Obama was LEGITIMATELY interested in improving the manufacturing base, he would work on making American business taxes more competitive with other countries and liberalize immigration to attract motivated entrepreneurs and technically competent professionals industry needs to meet the tough global economic challenge. And how many times to we need to remind people of what enormous investments in Detroit public schools have yielded in terms of drop out rates and other criteria?
After you've heard Obama speak for a while, you just know: when he means "tough choices", he's talking about his desire to tax more and spend more. Period.
It's time for the American people to say: ENOUGH! Obama has a spending addiction, and we have been enabling his bad habits by sending the wrong people to Washington.
And, of course, Obama can't make a speech without engaging in class warfare. Over 75% of the Bush tax cuts went to people not in the highest tax brackets; more lower-income people don't pay a penny for federal government operations beyond trust funds for retirement expenses.
Quite frankly, Obama isn't really that interested in the middle class; his real agenda is with the lower-income class. He needs allies in his war against the higher-income class, and he'll do whatever he has to do to trump GOP promises to the middle class.
Our most urgent task is to restore our economy, and put the millions of Americans who have lost their jobs back to work. To strengthen our middle class, we must give all our children the education they deserve, and all our workers the skills that they need to compete in a global economy. We must jumpstart industries that create jobs, and end our dependence on foreign oil. We must unleash the innovation that allows new products to roll off our assembly lines, and nurture the ideas that spring from our entrepreneurs. This will be difficult. But in the days to come, it must be our central mission as a people, and my central responsibility as President.Political spin, run amuck. Obama speak-to-plain English: "we" means "the federal government". Mr. Obama, you mean the economy hasn't been the central responsibility as President, while the Congress spent more than a year debating climate change, expanding the federal market share of medical expenditures, and so-called financial reforms? Since when is it the responsibility of the government to jumpstart industries? The private sector will jump on the right opportunity without the need of Barack Obama to pick winners and losers. End our dependence on foreign oil, Mr. Moratorium? We don't need government help to feed the university cost bubble or intervene in worker development.
We need for government to stop meddling in matters beyond its competence; we need a government that doesn't punish economic success and works to open up our goods and services to more countries in a win-win free trade market. We need a government that isn't bankrupting future generations and focuses on a limited, manageable, core agenda.
Silver Spring Incident
It's a small world; I've done a job interview or two (not Discovery Channel) in Silver Spring and even considered moving into an apartment there. In fact, Discovery Channel may have even posted a DBA opportunity over the last year or two.
I don't want to give environmentalist radical James Lee, whom died in a confrontation with law enforcement specialists after invading Discovery Channel premises with attached suspected explosives holding hostages, undue attention--which, if anything, may result in copycat attacks. But this is an example of how political radicalism can approach the level of religious fervor. In the world view of James Lee and his allies, humanity is correlated with pollution, a corruption they consider a crime against Mother Nature. In a Rousseau-like world view, civilization breeds greed and waste. Lee's rambling manifesto derides "more filthy human children" and demands Discovery Channel "must stop encouraging the birth of any more parasitic human infants,...any more disgusting human babies". In fact, "all human procreation and farming must cease!" Lee also seems to accept the argument that the real focus of illegal immigration is to have anchor babies, i.e., unconditional US citizenship by birth, and he has clear issues with Roman Catholics and Mormons whom have large families.
One of the interesting things I picked up in researching the French Canadian diaspora from Quebec in the nineteenth century (that my own ancestors were part of ) was resentment, even published in the New York Times, of Roman Catholics whom allegedly didn't seem to be able to control their breeding: New England and other upper East Coast states would soon find themselves overrun with Franco-Americans! Latinos also have been primarily Roman Catholic and have been subjected to the same prejudices.
I am pro-life and the oldest of seven, and I was blessed to be born in a wonderful family. I wouldn't have changed a thing. There is nothing in life more beautiful, precious, and promising than a human baby. I do think we have a responsibility to leave our children and grandchildren a better world than we found it. But just as the French get most of their electricity from nuclear power with more efficient reprocessing of nuclear fuel without a Yucca Mountain, I have faith in future engineers and scientists whom will find novel ways to reduce waste and pollution.
Political Humor
More originals:
- Why did the progressives slip a tanning session tax into the health care bill? Have you seen Minority Leader John Boehner recently?
- A conservative and a liberal go out to dinner; the conservative agreed to cover the costs of the meal, and the liberal left a tip for the waiter: "Join a union."
Ginger Rogers(/Fred Astaire), "Cheek to Cheek"
