Obama's "Save My Job" Bill

By now, most of us have digested President Obama's jobs speech before a joint session of Congress three weeks ago: "You give me $447 billion more in taxpayer funds to spend on government subsidies and I'll give you a $240 billion payroll tax cut for employers and employees." Even on that symbolic night, Obama's applause line, "Pass this bill," had degenerated by the 15th repetition into near-mania. It sounded more like, "Pass this Save My Job bill."

It still does. Obama's bumper sticker slogan has lived on in constant White House nagging at Congress, from speeches in Raleigh, N.C.; Richmond, Va.; and Cincinnati's decaying Brent Spence Bridge -- all in swing states he wants to win to get re-elected in 2012.

But Congress, even Harry Reid's Democrat-controlled Senate, is in no hurry to pass Obama's American Jobs Act . However, in his joint session speech, the president may have made a strategic blunder. After all his histrionics, he closed by saying that he "would consider all good ideas." And, two Republicans took him up on it. Sen. John Barrasso (Wyoming) and Rep. Steve Pearce (N.M), respective chairmen of the Senate and Congressional Western Caucuses, gave him more than 40 good ideas. They wrote a joint letter to the president and sent him their detailed "Jobs Frontiers" report with more than 40 bills "as a collection of ideas for your additional consideration."

The "Jobs Frontiers" bills weren't just ideas. They had already been introduced in one or both chambers of Congress with triggers for instant shovel-ready jobs, unlike Obama's bureaucrat-laden, grow-the-government, beyond-the-horizon loans and grants and hopes. Barrasso and Pearce were determined that their good ideas would not dissolve into Obama's predictions of 13 million new jobs -- with two years of help from a Democrat-controlled House and Senate -- that instead lost 2.3 million jobs, and sent unemployment climbing from 7.8 percent to 9.1 percent. The Jobs Frontier bills deliberately and defiantly cut bureaucratic red tape, proposed developing American energy on American soil, and sought right-now, boots-on jobs in the West and across the country. Barrasso and Pearce gave Obama examples: "For instance, Mr. President, the Southeast Arizona Land Exchange and Conservation Act offered by Congressman Paul Gosar [R Ariz.] would pave the way for a copper mine in Superior. Arizona, and immediately bring 1400 new jobs to an area in desperate need. The San Joaquin Valley legislation offered by Congressman Devin Nunes [R Calif.] would bring 25,000 to 30,000 jobs back to California." The two caucus leaders patiently explained some of their other bills. Bills offered by Congressman Hastings [R Wash.] would create 250,000 short term jobs and over 1.2 million jobs in the long term. The Domestic Jobs, Domestic Energy and Deficit Reduction Act offered by Senator David Vitter and Congressman Rob Bishop would create over 2 million jobs and $10 trillion in Gross Domestic Product at zero cost to the taxpayer. The two lawmakers closed politely: "We take you at your word that you will consider all good proposals."

The letter and report appear to have submerged into the White House oblivion file. It was predictable. The White House regularly takes action against specific industries with lots of jobs to kill: for example Obama targets oil and gas (9 million jobs); coal (550,000); hydropower (200-300,000); geothermal (13,000); meat production (6.2 million); forest products (900,000); hunting and fishing (1.1 million jobs).

My vote for worst Obama job killers goes to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and Environmental Protection Agency head Lisa Jackson. I'm not pointing my finger at them, I'm just pointing to the door where they should march immediately, then out to the unemployment line with their countless victims.

Illinois Pension Reform Should Matter to You

If you’re not a teacher or government worker hoping to cash in on a pension when you retire, you may be wondering why pension reform matters to you.

Try this on for size: The rising costs of government pensions will cost you one week’s paycheck this year.

How?

In January, Gov. Pat Quinn signed a 67 percent income tax hike into law. While it was sold as necessary to pay down the state’s operating debt, the comptroller is now reporting that Illinois’ debt backlog at the end of the year will be around $8 billion — about the same amount as before the tax hike. Why? Most of the extra money is going to making the state’s growing pension payment.

The average Illinois household was set to spend $10,988 in state and local taxes this year, but the average state tax bill will climb by an extra $1,594, thanks to Gov. Quinn’s tax increase. This increase is nearly equal to what an average Illinois household spends annually on clothing.

Another way to look at the higher tax bill is to estimate the additional time spent working to pay for it. Before the tax hike, it took 58 minutes per workday to pay the average state and local tax bill. Now, it will take 67 minutes because of the state income tax increase.

Over a full year, this adds up to an entire workweek.

If you’re not happy about losing out on a week’s pay, you’re not alone. According to a January poll, most Illinoisans would rather keep that money for their own families.

The poll asked likely Illinois voters how the state should address its increasing pension payment. Fifty-nine percent of respondents said that future benefits for current workers should be reduced, while just 21 percent supported raising taxes.

Personal bank accounts aside, the increasingly large pension payment is squeezing funding for core government services — services that you may count on.

Take education, for example. The cost of contributions to the Teachers’ Retirement System already exceeds general state aid to K-12 schools. And in higher education, if Illinois continues on its current path, the state will spend more money on contributions to the State Universities Retirement System in 20 years than on public universities and community colleges.

That doesn’t bode well for the next generation in Illinois, but unfortunately similar “crowd out” stories can be told for human services, transportation and public safety.

Big picture, Illinois’ economic outlook — and jobs climate — won’t improve until we get our state budget under control. And balancing our budget requires reforming pensions.

For that to happen, we need legislators to have the courage to do right by all of their constituents.
 
Everyone is feeling the pain from losing an extra week of pay this year. Lawmakers in Springfield can ease that pain by enacting pension reform that rights the state’s fiscal ship and sets all Illinoisans back on the path to prosperity.

Leading From Behind

Obama may be moving toward something resembling a doctrine. One of his advisers described the president's actions in Libya as "leading from behind."
-- Ryan Lizza, The New Yorker, May 2 issue

Leading from behind is a style, not a doctrine. Doctrines involve ideas, but since there are no discernible ones that make sense of Obama foreign policy this will have to do.

And it surely is an accurate description, from President Obama's shocking passivity during Iran's 2009 Green Revolution to his dithering on Libya.  It's been a foreign policy of hesitation, delay and indecision, marked by plaintive appeals to the (fictional) "international community" to do what only America can.

However, Obama advisers assure us there really are ideas. Indeed, "two unspoken beliefs," explains Lizza. "That the relative power of the U.S. is declining, as rivals like China rise, and that the U.S. is reviled in many parts of the world."

Amazing!  This is why Obama is deliberately diminishing American presence, standing and leadership in the world?

Take proposition one: We must "lead from behind" because U.S. relative power is declining. Even if you accept the premise, it's a complete non sequitur. What does China's rising GDP have to do with American buck-passing on Libya, misjudging Iran, appeasing Syria?

True, China is rising. But first, it is the only power of any significance rising militarily relative to us. And second, the challenge of a rising Chinese military is still exclusively regional. It would affect a war over Taiwan. It has zero effect on anything significantly beyond China's coast. China has no blue-water navy. It has no foreign bases. It cannot project power globally. It might in the future -- but by what logic should that paralyze us today?

Proposition two: We must lead from behind because we are hated. But, when were we not? During Vietnam? Or earlier, under Eisenhower? When his vice president was sent on a good will trip to Latin America, he was spat upon and so threatened by the crowds that he had to cut short his trip. Or maybe later, under the blessed Reagan? The Reagan years were marked by vast demonstrations in the capitals of our closest allies denouncing America as a warmongering menace taking the world into nuclear winter.

"Obama came of age politically," explains Lizza, "during the post-Cold War era, a time when America's unmatched power created widespread resentment." But the world did not begin with the coming to consciousness of Barack Obama. Cold War resentments ran just as deep.

It is the fate of any assertive superpower to be envied, denounced and blamed for everything under the sun. Nothing has changed. Moreover, for a country so deeply reviled, why during the massive unrest in Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain, Yemen, Jordan and Syria have anti-American demonstrations been such a rarity?

The world that Obama lived in and shaped him intellectually: the elite universities; his Hyde Park milieu (including his not-to-be-mentioned friends, William Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn); the church he attended for two decades, ringing with sermons more virulently anti-American than anything heard in today's full-throated uprising of the Arab Street.

It is the liberal elites who hate America and devoutly wish to see it cut down to size. Leading from behind -- diminishing America's global standing and assertiveness -- is a reaction to American Liberal's view of America, not the world's.

Leading from behind is not leading. It is abdicating. It is also an oxymoron.

Patriotism Is Not A State Of Mind -- It Is A State Of Soul

Several times over the past year some of my liberal friends have questioned what they perceived to be my feigning patriotism to win a political argument or to advance a political agenda.  One even said that using false patriotism is “right out of the conservative play book.”  (Maybe, it is.  But, I wouldn’t know because I have never seen this play book.)  Every time I am accused of using patriotism for political gain, I am a surprised.  Usually, I am so surprised that I don’t know how to respond. 

How is it that these liberals don’t understand that my patriotism is sincere and not feigned?  How is it that they don’t feel the same love of America that I feel?  After all they have had all the same advantage that I have had and in many cases more.  Why can’t they see that I am not acting like a patriot because I am a conservative, I am conservative because I am first and foremost a patriot? 

I have been giving these questions a lot of thought lately.  I certainly don’t pretend to be a psychologist.  But, I think I can understand why liberals hate patriotism. Understanding that hate may be a strong word, but nevertheless, they are forever condemning patriotism as gauche, as overmuch, as garish, and it is clear that such displays make them uncomfortable and ill-at-ease.

Patriotism, first, is not a selfish thing. It is about something grander than one's self. This is axiomatically opposed to a liberal's core interest: themselves. The suppression of their own desires for one single moment must feel like an inward strangling. Because of this horror, they resist such displays at all costs.

Second, patriotism is not a matter of displaying one's supposed intellect or buttering up those in a higher position than you. It operates on the drives of selflessness, memory of history, and faith. Liberals possess none of these motivations in any great degree.

Third, liberals feel uncomfortable because they are being asked to do something they do not naturally do: express gratitude for things that they do not believe in (American uniqueness, American achievements, and freedom). Generally speaking, to be patriotic is to recognize America as a good thing. Liberals cannot do this because they do not believe that America is fundamentally good and they do not share in the common dreams and characteristics of Americans throughout the ages. So, patriotism is asking a liberal to be a fake, and thus, liberals deride patriotism as fakery and worse, as some sort of pornography. They do this because liberals never look inside and ask, "Is there something wrong with me?" They are confident in their own superiority, and thus, their conclusion is that patriotism is the problem, that, and all the unintellectual backwards nativists that practice it.

Patriotism reveals those who truly love their country, and those who are made uncomfortable by their country. Liberals will always fall into the latter camp, and this is because patriotism shines a very bright light upon a missing part of their heart and soul.

Gas Prices: the Disease or the Cure?

I was speaking with a colleague at work the other day.  We were discussing the general state of the economy.  We always have interesting discussions because we see things through the lenses of opposite political views.  He is, generally speaking, often liberal.  I am rather conservative.

My colleague made the point that he felt that if the Administration could figure out a way to get gas prices down to $2.00 to $2.50 a gallon, the economy would take off.  He also felt that the President would be re-elected in a landslide. I found it difficult to disagree with his logic.

However, it occurred to me this morning that thinking of gas prices in this way is wrong.  You see, the price of gas is not what is wrong with the economy.  The price of gas is a symptom of the disease it is not the disease.  Simply having a change in the price of gasoline will not fix the fundamental problems with the economy.  The cure to the disease has to be a fundamental shift in economic policy in the current Administration.  The country needs to significantly reduce government borrowing, stabilize taxes, decrease the cost of doing business in the US trough the loosening of regulation on business and repeal ObamaCare which has cost the economy 800,000 jobs by most estimates.

And, since I don’t think the Administration would be willing to do any of the above, I don’t see any way that gas prices will go down.  Therefore, the President will have a pretty tough time come November 2012.