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Social responsibility versus government responsibility

May 2, 2012

There is a growing sense among liberals, and even some Republicans, that we can no longer control government spending. The last two administrations have raised the base spending levels so high that we simply can’t return to even 2004 levels. If that’s the case, say current politicians, we must widen our scope to the outliers that affect the deficit. We must increase revenue to the government, and those who do not oblige, such as Apple computers, must be held to account. If it’s the case, we must go after the rich, the somewhat-rich, the super-rich, and the mega-rich. We must also go after corporations, and anyone and everyone (who is not in government) that has caused this debt. We’ve reached a point of no return with those living off the largesse of the American tax payer to turn around now and say that we need to cut their benefits. There are just too many dependent people now. It wouldn’t be politically smart to tell them that the gravy train, the free ride must come to an end.

In a piece sympathetic to Obama’s cause, the NY Times details that: “The White House estimates that Mr. Obama’s plan (to raise taxes on the rich) would raise $866 billion over the next decade, or nearly half of that.”**

So, if our current deficit (spending over revenue) for the current year is 1.326 trillion, then even by sympathetic estimates, the Obama plan would only lower the current deficit to 1.240 trillion. As Obama has said, “It would be a good start.” Fair enough, but what would it be starting?

Due to the fact that no Obama budget plan, thus far, has contained any serious attempts at cutting spending, he can’t even get Democrat support for them. Due to the fact that Congressman Paul Ryan has made some minor attempts at cutting spending, attempts that occur over a ten-year period, he has been demonized. Due to the fact that Republicans held out for spending cuts in last year’s Budget Battle, they were demonized and trashed by Obama and his acolytes in the media. Republicans caved on their modest proposals and basically gained nothing for their part in the battle. Obama has shown that he’s not really about starting something. He would rather focus the entirety of his battle on the politically expedient battle of “tax the rich” to the tune of $86 billion a year in deficit recovering revenue…or nearly half of that.

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Arbitrary ideas

May 1, 2012

How Obama could get re-elected. I had an idea how Obama could win the election the other day, and it seemed so easy that I almost didn’t want to voice it, but I knew no one would do it, and I know that no one reads my blogs anyway. The idea is based on the argument that Republicans are currently making that Obama will do anything and say anything to win this upcoming election. Republicans argue that he doesn’t have a record to run on, so we may see a whole lot of desperation on his part to get you to believe anything and everything about him. They also say that Obama will do and anything and everything he can think of to get you to think less of his presumed opponent Mitt Romney. If the former point is true, and Obama does reach a point of desperation, he may want to consider having George W. Bush christen the new Trade Center.

President Obama would, of course, be the first choice to christen this building once it’s completed. Obama could let it be known that he would be honored to christen this building, and he could talk about the glory of the new building, and the symbol of regrowth, and how he chose to see this as a symbol of what he wants to do for the country between 2012 and 2016. He could milk it for weeks, holding press conferences and on site speeches. Then, at the last second, say with one week to go before the christening, he could say, “I have decided to select an honoree to stand in my place. I have selected George W. Bush, for I believe that no man has done more to thwart terrorism in the past decade. While I may not agree with some of the tactics his administration employed in fighting terrorism, now is not a time for such bickering. It is a time to commemorate what I believe is an historic achievement worthy of honor. Let The New Trade Center be the symbol for our new era, and let George W. Bush be the man to symbolically lead us into that era.”

Now I know what you’re thinking, Obama would never do this, no politician would. Imagine if he did though. I’m sure Obama would use different words, and he wouldn’t be so effusive with his praise for the former president of another party, but if Obama and his speechwriters could somehow construct language that kept his arguments against the Bush administration in place while allowing the former president to christen the new Trade Center, I think Obama would be almost unbeatable in the 2012 election.

Imagine how difficult it would be for Republicans to pin their narratives on him from that point forward. Imagine the ads. “Everything they told you about this man is wrong. He is a generous man, a good man, a man that promised you he would not be a blue-state president, or a red-state, but he would be a president for the people.” Imagine the swing voters saying, in their exit poll interviews, “He and I (Obama) don’t see eye to eye on a lot of issues, but after that thing he did for Bush at the Trade Center, I got the idea that he was a good man, and I started to think that a lot of his detractors were lying about him.”

If Obama is going to get desperate, and his opponents think he might if his poll numbers don’t improve, think about what a home run this could be. He would be seen in the same light as Reagan on this one issue, in that Reagan invited Carter to welcome the Iranian Hostages home, even though Reagan was in office when it happened. Obama might trouble his base a little with such a move, but who is his base going to vote for if not Obama? It will never happen of course, but it could be his Sister Souljah moment if he did it right.

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Message to Romney: Don’t insult the voters

April 25, 2012

Most of William Kristol’s piece in The National Review is pedantic, political fare. Most of the advice he gives Romney is the typical, talking head advice we’ve heard every pundit give every politician that hopes to unseat an incumbent. Most of it is so pedantic it causes the eyes to glaze over, but the piece separates itself from the usual political fare in the third to last paragraph.

In this paragraph, Kristol lays out a solid piece of advice for any candidate seeking to unseat an incumbent: “Don’t insult the candidate they voted for in the previous election, because that insults that voter.” One wouldn’t normally think that a voter would be insulted by an office challenger telling the voter’s that their previous vote was obviously an incorrect one based upon that candidate’s performance while in office. One would think that a voter would allow for a challenger to say, “And here’s why I’m going to do it better.” For generations, we’ve become accustomed to candidates insulting one another, digging up stats and events that dictate why the previous candidate was a boob. Kristol says that’s the wrong approach, because those voters made a judgment in that previous election, and by insulting that former occupant, you are insulting the judgment those voters made in that election.

“Part of making the case for Romney’s future presidency is winning over some citizens who voted for Obama in 2008. People don’t like being told they are, or were, stupid. If some previous Obama supporters are now disappointed—and they are—Romney should empathize with them, not condescend to them. In 2004 John Kerry unfailingly gave the impression that he thought if you had voted for Bush, or approved of anything he’d done (in office), or found him in certain ways likable or admirable, then you were an idiot. That’s no way to beat an incumbent. His former supporters need to be won over rather than bludgeoned into submission. Reagan provided a strong contrast on the issues to Jimmy Carter in 1980. But his tone wasn’t snide or contemptuous. Romney—and especially his campaign, which has had a taste for the snide and the contemptuous—might profitably study Reagan’s 1980 effort.”

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Why Republicans resent Hollywood

April 19, 2012

Many of my friends say that a Hollywood star could never influence them in choosing a political candidate seeking office. The implicit idea behind such a statement is that due to the fact that a Hollywood star couldn’t influence them to change their vote, a Hollywood star cannot influence anyone’s vote.

As Gareth Ireland, of Thecheers.org website, says: “If celebrities can dictate how we look, dress, and act they can surely dictate who the younger American voter should vote for.”*

Younger people, as we all know, are insecure and unsure individuals. They are far more prone to peer pressure and bullying than older people are. This is especially the case when the young person knows nothing about a given topic. Young people do not usually have the patience to learn the intricacies of a given topic, so when a person that they deem a cool guy comes along and “informs” them about politics, they’re easily swayed. Studies have shown that young people are not as influenced by their parents thinking as they used to be.** They are more prone to think that their parents are dorks, their teachers are Nazis, and nobody listens to their grandparents anymore. Actors and rock stars are cool though. They have a way of putting things that really makes a young person “think”. Actors and rock stars use words like amazing and unfathomable, and young people rush out to voting booths to vote in the manner they dictate.

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Can Romney change the way government is run?

April 17, 2012

Reading through the numerous newspaper newspapers today, one cannot help but be embarrassed at the way our federal government is currently being run. Our newspapers are providing details of an inspector general’s report that states that the General Services Administration (GSA) of the federal government took a lavish and wasteful 800,000 trip to Las Vegas. We then read about a GSA employee reward program that violated a government policy. We are reading about how our government officials are wasting our money with no regard for how it’s being spent. Where’s this mentality coming from? Does it come from the top, or is it a mentality so entrenched in some of the federal government departments that no one leader, or government official, can be blamed for the mentality?

In some speeches, President Barack Obama tells us that our massive debt cannot be maintained as it is, yet we see no off teleprompter actions in this regard. When spending cuts are then proposed, we are told that they’re in line with “social Darwinist” thinking. We are then forced to endure the “parks will close, the needy will starve,” and the handicapped people will have their chairs taken away from them if we allow these Republican spending cut proposals to see the light of day.

The answer to this problem, say Obama and Democrats, is that we need to pay more taxes. We need to pass the Buffet rule and allow the Bush tax cuts to expire on 1/1/2013. We are told that the Buffet rule, in particular, is a good first step to solving the debt, yet no other steps are proposed. This would raise taxes in a manner that even some of his more level-headed supporters admit will have little to no effect on the deficit or the debt. They call it a gimmick. A gimmick, some have said to divide the classes and create more votes for Obama. Yet, we have no off teleprompter proposals to cut spending. It would appear that the manager of our federal government has no management skills, but even those most ardent supporters knew that when they voted for him.

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E.J. Dionne and defensive conservatives

April 9, 2012

Washington Post writer E.J. Dionne’s latest column When Liberals Stop Being Wimps is fine, until he gets to the first line of the column: “Conservatives are not accustomed to being on the defensive.”* Just about every word that comes out of a conservatives’ mouth nowadays is laced with qualifiers, and this is due to the fact that they fear the interpretation (see spin) the media will present to their viewers/readers. Liberals, on the other hand, are used to having their statements being taken at face value. Liberals are not used to backing up their statements with explanations. They’re not used to being called out on their statements, and they’re not accustomed to being on the defensive.

Ask Trent Lott what happens to a conservative when they’re not on the defense 100% of the time. In 2002, Lott made comments that suggested that the segregationist, Senator Strom Thurmond, “would have made a great president, and the rest of the nation should have followed (Lott’s home state of) Mississippi in voting for (Thurmond) as president.” This was said as an homage to Thurmond. Inappropriateness aside for just a moment, Lott made these statements to laud a friend. Lott’s words were the typical, unthinking statements made by one making a toast to a friend to suggest that that “man of the moment” was a swell feller.

Trent Lott spent the next couple of months issuing a mea culpa to anyone and everyone who would listen. He admitted that he didn’t think of the ramifications of his words when he made them. Lott slipped up. He got caught up in a moment, and he was not speaking from a defensive enough position for one of the few moments in his life. Even after all of these apologies, Lott’s words were deemed indefensible by the Senate, and he was forced to resign. One of those who openly called for Lott to resign was Senator Christopher Dodd.

Two years later, in a remarkably similar homage to another Senator, one named Robert Byrd, Senator Dodd claimed that Byrd would’ve made a great leader at any time in our history. Senator Byrd, you should be reminded, was a Kleagle in the Klu Klux Klan. In the Senate in June 1964, Mr. Byrd made a 14-hour filibuster speech in an unsuccessful effort to block passage of the Civil Rights Act. Remarkably similar right? According to then Senate minority leader, Tom Daschle, it was not.

To defend Dodd, Daschle said: “I would think even he (my emphasis) would tell you there’s no parallel (to Trent Lott’s comments).”**

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Obama attempts to rebalance the balance of powers

April 5, 2012

For years now, conservative radio and television commentators have made jokes about President Barack Obama being “the anointed one”. They have called him “the chosen one,” the “one that we’ve been waiting for,” and the many other nicknames that Obama and his followers have affixed upon the head of their favorite leader. These commentators have made these jokes based upon Obama’s belief in himself and his policies. The jokes are also based upon the titles the fainting, fawning fans have applied to Obama to add to his leadership mystique. Jokes of this nature are not usually funny if they don’t have a grain of truth to them. On Monday, 4/2/12, Obama added another grain to the truth to their truth.

Throughout George W. Bush’s tenure as president, liberals bemoaned the tyrannical nature in which the man tried to get things done. They claimed that Bush’s attempts to bypass Congress, through excessive use of the Executive Order privilege, brought the nation to the brink of totalitarianism. If we break these two presidential tenures down into months, however, we find that Obama is quite competitive to W. Bush administration in the average number of Executive Orders given per month. Bush was in office for ninety-six months, and he issued 291 Executive Orders. That gives us an average of roughly three Executive Orders per month. Obama has been in office for thirty-nine months, as of this post, and he has issued 115 Executive Orders. This gives him an average of roughly 2.9 Executive Orders issued a month.*

Another claim to bolster the liberal argument that Bush was bordering on the tyrannical was that Bush quadrupled the number of appointees put in positions of leadership without being confirmed in anyway by the Senate. (The media tabbed these unconfirmed appointees Czars while Richard Nixon was in office.) One look at the numbers bolsters this liberal claim. When President Bill Clinton left office, he had seven. There were twenty-eight Czars when Bush left office. That’s exactly four times as many Czars as Clinton had. If this is one of the definitions liberals have to support their claim that Bush was tyrannical, however, what does it mean to them that Obama now has thirty-three Czars?**

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Obamacare and medical technology

March 28, 2012

By all accounts Obamacare is in its infancy stage at this point, and we’re already seeing massive transformations in our country. Private insurance companies are raising their prices, doctors are saying that they’ll leave their profession if it’s implemented, and medical device manufacturers are raising prices and laying off employees. It’s only in its infancy.

At this point, March 28, 2012, the question of the Constitutionality of the Obamacare law is before the Supreme Court in the form of oral arguments, and no one knows how the five non-liberal jurists will vote. Some have suggested that the votes of Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. are a fait accompli, and others have stated that Antonin Scalia and John Roberts past history dictates the manner in which they may vote, so that leaves one man to decide the future of our country: Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy.

If one were to tell The Founding Fathers that a piece of legislation that would transform this country in innumerable ways rests in the hands of one man, would they see this as a natural course of events, or would they roll over in their graves in shame? Would they say, for example, that if wasn’t a Supreme Court Justice, it might be a Senator being counted on for a sixtieth vote, or a president signing or vetoing a law? No matter who it is, they might say, most laws will come down to one man’s vote. We did our best to prevent it, with the separation of powers, but it’s impossible to stop in total.

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A review of HBO’s movie Game Change

March 14, 2012

This movie is largely taken from the perspective of McCain campaign’s senior advisor Steve Schmidt. The movie correctly details the fact that Schmidt took over a floundering presidential campaign three months before the election. Desperate for a game changer, in this malaise, Schmidt and company convince Candidate John McCain to nominate Sarah Palin as his vice-president. Although Palin provided the McCain campaign a much needed boost, Schmidt decided to say that the campaign’s decision to bring her on was the decision that brought down the entire campaign. Even though, thanks in part to Palin, the campaign was even with candidate Obama prior to the 9/08 financial crisis.

To be fair to the movie creators, there is a brief mention of the financial crisis and George W. Bush’s handling of it, in the waning moments of the movie. There is a follow up statement that suggests that the oncoming loss wasn’t as a result of nominating Sarah Palin, but I’ll bet you didn’t catch it. I barely did. It was said as a throwaway line in the agonizing scenes of the movie that precede the election.

Aside from that throwaway line, the portion of the book Game Change that HBO, and the movie’s creators, chose to concentrate on (the Republicans look bad portion) is basically one long attempt by Schmidt and the team of advisors to deflect blame for the loss of the 2008 presidential election. Anytime a campaign for president of the U.S. fails in such a manner, there is a mad rush by those involved to cast blame on anyone and everyone else in the campaign for the decisions that were made. They do this, if they ever want to work in another presidential election again. It was just Schmidt and company’s good fortune that they happened to cast that blame on someone that the makers of this movie, HBO, and the mainstream media were dying to dethrone.

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President Obama and the financial crisis: ‘We’ll do it my way’

March 3, 2012

Through the near four years that President Obama has been in office, facing a financial crisis that was given to him by the Bush Administration, the 110th session of Congress, Christopher Dodd and Barney Frank, and the votes of then Senator Obama, we’ve heard the refrain: “Hey, we’ve tried it their way, and they drove us into the ditch.”

First of all, President Obama usually doesn’t define ‘their way’, for doing so might better define ‘his way’ to his adversaries, but let’s assume when he says ‘their way’ he’s talking about dealing with a financial crisis is through free market principles and deregulation. I think it’s a safe assumption, based on some of the follow up explanations he and his supporters have made concerning ‘their way’.

I have no problem with a candidate, or a subsequent administration, deriding the way things were done in the previous administration. Teenagers deride their father in a quest to form their own identity, and nearly every president that has followed Thomas Jefferson has derided the way things were done in the previous administration to form their administration’s identity. It’s safe to say that every candidate is trying to appeal to the personality of this country when they go anti-authority in their candidacy, and this is particularly the case when the previous administration was of the other party. So when the Obama administration, and their supporters, go with an anti-authority ‘failures of the previous administration’ stance, I have no problem with it. When Obama insinuates that ‘their way’ means that previous administration dealt in deregulation or free-market principles to resolve the financial crisis, my hackles go up.

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