What Will Obama’s Legacy Be?

March 7, 2013 3 Comments

Ryan Lizza of the New Yorker has an interesting piece about the powerless President Obama. The President last week complained that he doesn’t have a secret formula to force Boehner and the Republicans to see he’s right. This despite the fact that Obama is convinced all reasonable people see things his way. Lizza notes that Obama is one of the few President’s to publicly whine about their power limits. Lizza’s thesis is that in order for a President to be truly successful, he needs to have his party in control of Congress. Otherwise the government is divided and divided government leads to a weak President.

In some respects Lizza is right. Obama has become increasingly powerless against a united Republican opposition. He couldn’t work out a sequestration deal and odds are he’s going to have a hard time getting much of anything passed in the next couple years. The administration has so much as admitted they’re campaigning for 2014, hoping to win back a Democrat House majority. What we’re likely to see in 2013 and 2014 is an administration talking about building bridges with the GOP while refusing to actually sit down and negotiate any deals. When negotiation does take place, Obama will refuse a deal and try to paint the GOP as extreme. It’s all a rouse, he wants no deal because no deal aids the Democrats midterm election arguments.

Lizza’s argument fails because there are two President’s in recent memory who worked with opposition Congress’s and got part of their agenda passed. Reagan worked with a full Democrat Congress for six years and a Democrat House for eight. He negotiated with Congress. He won tax cuts and military spending increases, he gave up cuts to social programs in exchange. Clinton worked with a Republican majority for six years, he won a welfare reform battle where he co-opted the issue winning the reform plan he wanted. In both cases the President worked with and negotiated with Congress. They didn’t get everything they wanted but they got something done.

Obama was elected in 2008 claiming to be post-partisan. In his first week in office he declared that he had won and refused to listen to Republicans concerning the Stimulus bill. He set the tone for his Presidency, he likely had no clue the GOP would win the House in 2010. It’s very en vogue to blame gridlock in Washington on extreme partisanship.The reality is that Democrats and Republicans have been at each others throats in DC for 150 years. There was plenty of partisan rancor when Reagan and Clinton were in the White House. Recall Clinton was impeached while Reagan was subjected to Iran-Contra hearings.

Yet Reagan and Clinton were able to work with an opposition Congress and Obama has not been able to. The media won’t ever put the blame on Obama, they wonder why he can’t just lock them in a room and force Congress to negotiate. However blame certainly can be laid at the steps of the White House. This is a President who spent two years shutting the GOP out, now he wants something from them. That isn’t how it works in politics. You never shut out the opposition, you never get so arrogant as to think you or your party will never lose. A good President understand that he never knows what the future will bring and it’s best to keep as many political doors open as possible.

Obama expects everyone to cater to him because he’s the President. From day one he’s had a very elementary school view of the Presidency. He won’t work with Republicans because Republicans won’t give in to his every demand. When he gets Republicans to agree to something, he suddenly wants more like he did during the 2011 debt ceiling negotiation that gave us sequestration. Obama wants it all, he is unwilling to seriously negotiate. That’s on him, it isn’t on a suddenly united GOP front. When and if the Democrats fail to retake the House next year, the majority of Obama’s Presidency will have been spent on minor squabbles with the House. That will this President’s legacy. If that comes true, it will be on the President alone. The buck stops at the Oval Office.

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Like Other Second Terms, Obama’s Won’t Be A Success

November 12, 2012 1 Comment

President Obama is now a lame duck. Unable to run for re-election, Obama is now free to do whatever he pleases as President. What that means remains to be seen. We still have a Constitutional republic, which means Obama must contend with Congress and in particular a Republican House. He’s going to have to negotiate a deal to increase the debt ceiling and he’ll have to negotiate a deal around the upcoming expiration of the Bush tax cuts. If history is any indication Obama’s second term will be a dismal failure. It will feature scandal, top staff turnover and weakening influence over domestic policy. Historically a President’s second term is only successful on the international front.

If we look at the last five second terms (we’ll include LBJ’s term which was a continuation of the Kennedy term) they have been largely failures. LBJ’s second term didn’t get much passed through Congress, his most important legislation was passed shortly after Kennedy’s death. LBJ oversaw an escalation of the Vietnam War, which was becoming increasingly unpopular. There was civil unrest throughout the country that LBJ was inept at responding to. He had several scandals, including one involving an appointee to the Supreme Court. So bad was LBJ’s second term that his party prevented him from running for a full second term in 1968.

Nixon’s second term was arguably the most disastrous in American history. He got little done legislatively, most of his international accomplishments occurred during his first term. Nixon’s second term was dominated by Watergate and a tax scandal involving Vice President Spiro Agnew. Both resigned, leaving Gerald Ford as President. It’s hard to imagine Obama having a worse second term than Nixon had. Considering the partisan bitterness in DC today, it seems almost unimaginable that Obama would be removed from office if impeached no matter what the offense.

Reagan’s second term was a mixed bag. Internationally he had several successful summits with the Soviet Union Ultimately the success of his second term could be seen in the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the Soviet Union in 1991. But as successful as Reagan was internationally, domestically he made huge blunders and was forced to defend the Iran-Contra scandal. His blunders include amnesty for illegals in 1986 and raising taxes in 1987. He lost many of his important first term advisers and cabinet members and his administration never recovered from these important losses.

Clinton also had a failed second term. He got almost nothing done domestically during his second term. He had modest successes internationally. But his second term was dominated by the Monica Lewinsky scandal wherein the President lied under oath. Clinton was ultimately impeached, becoming only the second President in American history to be impeached by the House. Clinton defenders will blame Republicans but the fact is his second term was derailed by Clinton’s lying under oath and other scandals surrounding him and his administration.

Bush 43 had the same problems as Clinton. He got nothing done domestically, failing immediately at his social security privatization attempt. Bush oversaw two wars that became increasingly unpopular during his second term while scandal resulted in Scooter Libby’s conviction for obstruction of justice. While Bush was able to turn around the wars, particularly Iraq during the second half of his term, he was never overcome the unpopularity of the wars.

Obama is looking at a failed second term, just like the others. Scandal is already looking him in the face with Benghazi and the Petraus’ affair/resignation. He’s looking at losing Eric Holder and Hillary Clinton, as well as several other advisers which will hurt Obama’s ability to run a smooth White House. Domestically what piece of legislation is Obama going to be able to pass that will be significant in any way? He won’t have a Democrat Congress, it’s highly unlikely he’ll win the House back in 2014. His best hope for success is in foreign affairs. But even there, war seems to be on the horizon in Israel.

People might not like hearing it but Obama’s second term is unlikely to be successful. Of the last five second terms, none of them could be considered incredible successes. Reagan’s was the closest but only because his second term helped destroy a long time enemy and end the 40 year long Cold War. If that hadn’t happened we would be lying to ourselves if we said Reagan’s second term was a success. Obama won’t be any different. He’s not nearly as smart or politically astute as he thinks he is. Little will happen during his second term, he’ll get very little passed through Congress. He’ll lose continuity in his administration and scandal will hang over the White House. Hope and Change has been gone for awhile, it won’t come back during the second term.

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Is The President’s Life In Danger?

April 18, 2012 Leave a comment

Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan is well known for making inflammatory statements against Jews, white people and pretty much anyone he doesn’t like. On his recent college tour, Farrakhan makes some statements that one could construe is a threat against the President. If this is the case, surely the Secret Service would want to look into this once they’ve paid their Columbian prostitutes. Yet you know they won’t do anything. For whatever reason Farrakhan is off limits to investigation, much less prosecution.

It’s important to put Farrakhan’s statement into context, particularly historical context. In 2008 Farrakhan supported Obama for President, going so far as to call him the black Messiah. Keep in mind, Farrakhan’s version of Islam isn’t much different than Jeremiah Wright’s version of Christianity, he views the world as a giant racial battle. Clearly Farrakhan believed Obama was going to usher in a new era of race relations with blacks in position to destroy whites. He believed the next stage was set with Obama, which is why he called him the black Messiah.

But things haven’t gone as Farrakhan would have liked. The Nation of Islam was very much opposed to Obama’s actions in Libya. For whatever reason the Nation of Islam viewed Gaddafi as an ally. This led Farrakhan to call Obama the “son of the devil” and a “frontman for criminals.” Obama did not behave in what Farrakhan imagines was in the best interest of black people in taking out Gaddafi. There were other minor incidents as well, but Libya is no doubt the biggest problem Farrakhan has with Obama.

Fast forward to the other day when Farrakhan said the following to a group of college kids at LeMoyne-Owens College:

You want to be leaders, right? You sure, you sure? You better check yourself, because leadership is nothing to play with, because people tomorrow,  maybe in a few days, are going to kill their leaders who have been selling them out. That‘s why we’re in the shape we’re in right now because we had corrupt people or people who started out good and got corrupted.

In Farrakhan’s world Obama started out good, he’s the black Messiah. Then he became corrupted and is a frontman for criminals and the son of the devil. Couple this with Farrakhan’s threat that in a matter of days leaders who sold out will be killed and one wonders why no one in the media is covering this and why there isn’t a Secret Service investigation. Obama is a sell out to the black cause according to Farrakhan, he’s a corrupted leader who started out good. Is it so outlandish as to conclude that Obama is a target for assassination?

Let’s look at Farrakhan’s history a little bit. He has assassinated people before. He so much as admits the Nation of Islam had Malcolm X killed. Watch the video, Farrakhan doesn’t “care about no white people’s law.” He claims they dealt with Malcolm “as a nation” and if they killed him “what the hell business is it of yours?” Take two things away from the video. Apparently murder is a “white people” law that blacks don’t have to follow. That generally fits in well with Islam, but we know the overwhelming majority of blacks don’t agree. Second, take away the brazenness of Farrakhan’s speech. He and the Nation of Islam had Malcolm X assassinated. When Farrakhan makes veiled threats of murder against corrupted sell outs and the President who was once considered the Messiah is now considered a corrupted sell out, his statements should be taken very seriously.

God forbid anything happen to President Obama. It would be a national tragedy if he should be assassinated or harmed in any way. As Christians we must pray for our leaders, no matter how much we disagree, no matter how evil they may be. We must pray that God would protect them and save their souls. Louis Farrakhan seems to be threatening the President. Doesn’t that at least deserve an investigation if not media coverage?

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Not A Good Week For Obama

March 31, 2012 3 Comments

It’s been a bad week for Obama. It started out bad with the President saying sweet nothings into the Russian President’s ear, all while a microphone picked up the entire conversation. Apparently the President is urging the Russians to wait until after the election wherein Obama will have the flexibility to disarm the nation as a lame duck President. Then he waded into the Trayvon Martin controversy and bizarrely personalized the story, which only escalated matters. Then Obamacare was ripped to shreds in the Supreme Court, making Obama look like he doesn’t understand the Constitution.

Peggy Noonan has a piece out this week wherein she details some of the problems with Obama. Her issue isn’t that Obama is a liberal, her issue is that he appears devious and underhanded. Take the Russian flap this week, the President looks devious in this situation. He tells the Russians to wait until after the election when he’ll have more flexibility. In short he’s telling the Russians that he isn’t going to talk about what he’s going to do with the American people, so just wait until I’m re-elected and can do it without consulting them. He was devious in his handling of the contraception issue he created a couple months ago. His compromise was devious, it still required churches to pay for that which they find evil only in a round about way. People recognize this sort of thing.

The President apparently thinks the Republicans are descending into “madness.” What kind of President talks about his political opposition in this manner? I guess the same kind who while campaigning tells a group of latino voters to “defeat your enemies.” The enemies very clearly being the Republicans. Obama was supposed to be a post-partisan, post-racial President. He’s been nothing of the sort. He’s the most bitterly partisan President the nation has ever had. He passed Obamacare and the Stimulus in a partisan manner, he has refused to work with the GOP House on any number of issues. The House has passed numerous budgets which the President won’t push the Senate to vote on. Obama’s budget was defeated 417-0 in the House and 97-0 in the Senate. But the President will not sign on to anything associated with the GOP.

Why would he sign on to anything the GOP supports? We’re the “enemy” after all and we’re descending into “madness.” It’s one thing to think that of your political opposition, it’s another thing to say it in public when you’re the President. Especially when you actually have to deal with that political opposition. Obama cannot bypass Congress, no matter how much he would like to. If he’s re-elected it will only get worse for him as the Senate is almost certain to be won by the Republicans.

Obama is likely to win re-election only because the GOP has picked the worst possible candidate to oppose him. Otherwise, this President would lose decisively. Especially after a bad week like this where everything that has gone wrong has exposed a fundamental flaw. The economy is still a mess, the President has no major accomplishments which have been successful (the Stimulus is universally panned and Obamacare looks like it’s going down) and internationally the world hates us now more under Obama than they did under Bush. In short the man doesn’t deserve to be re-elected. Sadly the GOP has been snookered into voting for the man least likely to beat Obama by convincing themselves he’s the only one who can.

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Malia Obama’s Mexico Trip Shows Lack Of Judgment By The President

March 20, 2012 26 Comments

Who sends their 13 year old on a spring break vacation to Mexico? Alone no less? The Obama’s do apparently as 13 year old Malia Obama is spending spring break in Oaxaca Mexico. This story has gotten a  lot of air play because the Obama’s apparently asked the media to remove the story about the trip and the media has largely complied. This story is interesting for other reasons though as it shows a complete lack of judgment on the part of the Obama’s. Young children need not be gallivanting around a dangerous country such as Mexico, even with 25 tax funded secret service agents.

In February the State Department issued a travel warning about Mexico in which it said “homicide, gun battles, kidnapping, carjacking and highway robbery” were serious risks. The State Department warned Americans not to draw attention to themselves or wear valuable jewelery. While Oaxaca isn’t the subject of current warnings, it has been in the past. In fact, a bordering town is on the State Department’s warning list. We know that Mexican drug cartels are a serious danger throughout the country, it should disturb us all that the President is sending his 13 year old to such a dangerous country alone.

The average parent wouldn’t send their 13 year old to Mexico for spring break, especially in light of how dangerous it is. So what is President Obama thinking when he allows his 13 year old to go to Mexico without her parents? Malia isn’t just your average 13 year old, she’s the President’s daughter. Can you imagine what would happen if a drug cartel attempted to kidnap her? Can you imagine what would happen if one of the drug cartels were successful in kidnapping her? God forbid it would ever happen but Mexico is a dangerous place and surely someone in the administration warned Obama about it. Yet he sent his daughter anyway. That shows a complete lack of judgment on the President’s part.

If something happened to Malia in Mexico our entire country would be turned upside down. Obama would be forced to take military action in order to retrieve his daughter and/or punish those who kidnapped her. The cost would be astronomical. Yet we would rightly support his actions, we cannot allow drug cartels to kidnap or harm the President’s children. But at the end of the day wouldn’t we have to ask ourselves why the President is sending his 13 year old, alone no less, to a dangerous country like Mexico?

I have never heard of 13 year olds going on vacation without their parents. But if Malia must partake in spring break, why can’t she go somewhere in the United States? Don’t we have 50 beautiful states each with multiple destinations to choose from? This is the second time an Obama has chosen to vacation out of the country, you’ll recall Michelle’s infamous trip to Spain in 2010. Why do the Obama’s choose to vacation out of our country? Couldn’t tourism use a boost here at home? Aren’t there nice places to shop in the United States? Aren’t there plenty of historical or cultural sites to visit here? Yet the Obama’s, individually anyway, choose to vacation out of the country.

President Obama took an unnecessary risk in allowing Malia to vacation alone in Mexico. It’s bad enough that he’s letting a child go on a spring break trip without her parents. But as President of the United States he put our national security at risk by allowing his young daughter to vacation in a very dangerous country. Malia is 13 and doesn’t have the sense to realize how dangerous Mexico is. But the President should have the sense. His children have been threatened before and yet he allowed his daughter to vacation in an extremely risky part of the world. He put our national security at risk, we must ask ourselves why our President has such poor judgment.

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Obama AWOL On Supercommittee Negotiations

November 22, 2011 Leave a comment

President Obama and the Democrats are whining about the supercommittee failure to reach an agreement to cut $1.2 trillion over a decade. As a result of the failure, the government will automatically cut the military budget by around $60 billion a year and it will cut various entitlements. Obama is outraged and the Democrats are whining about a do nothing Congress. In reality we have a do nothing President and a do nothing Senate.

President Obama was AWOL during the debt ceiling negotiations that led to this supercommittee nonsense. Knowing the debt ceiling needed to be raised throughout July, Obama did nothing until the very last minute. Even in that, he stormed out of negotiations and ultimately left that job to his subordinates. With the supercommittee in place, instead of trying to lead the committee and negotiate within its structure, Obama did nothing. He’s spent October on his pass this bill tour and he’s spend November doing absolutely nothing. He then has the audacity to whine when the supercommittee couldn’t agree to anything. Where was the President to negotiate?

Obama wants tax increases rather than spending cuts. This is an interesting shift considering that just last December the President forced the Democrat Congress to pass an extension of Bush’s tax cuts for two years. At the time Obama said it would be unwise to raise taxes during a recession. Apparently today is a time to be unwise. Yet instead of really going to bat for tax increases, the President has once again stood on the sidelines and done nothing. This seems to be his mode of operation. He did it with the Stimulus, letting Congress and special interests write the legislation. He did it with Obamacare and the debt ceiling as well.

Yet Obama accuses the Congress of doing nothing. It is in fact the President who has done nothing. He didn’t even try to get involved with the supercommittee. He barely got involved in the debt ceiling negotiations. He’s never done anything on his jobs bill other than pointless run around the country promoting it. We don’t have a do nothing Congress, we have a do nothing President who refuses to negotiate or otherwise get involved.

If we have a do nothing Congress it isn’t because of the Republican House, it’s because of the Democrat Senate. It’s been over 900 days since the Democrat controlled Senate has passed a budget. The Republican House has passed dozens of bills, including  a budget and a jobs bill, all of which have died in a Senate that refuses to consider their own bills, much less House bills. Republicans aren’t to blame for inaction in Washington. The President and Senate Democrats are.

But of course don’t expect the media to report that. The media is to busy pushing for big tax increases and complaining about Republicans to notice that Obama has been AWOL in most negotiations. In fact they’re to busy whining about the GOP to notice Obama has largely been AWOL the entire month of November. The fact though is that the GOP House has passed dozens of bills and the Democrat Senate won’t consider them. The Democrat Senate hasn’t passed a budget in nearly three years, they’re the guys doing nothing along with the President.

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Obama’s Lost Ambition Speech Reveals His Socialism

October 27, 2011 6 Comments

At a $5,000 per ticket fundraiser (I assume the 1% attended this not the 99%) President Obama said the following:

We’ve lost our ambition, our — our imagination, and — and — our willingness to do the things that built the Golden Gate Bridge and Hoover Dam and unleashed all the potential in this country.

Conservative commentators such as Rush Limbaugh have compared Obama’s statement to one of several made by Jimmy Carter back in the 70′s. Carter declared that the US had a “crisis of confidence” and we suffered from an “intense malaise.” There is a valid connection between Obama’s declaration that we’ve “lost our ambition” and Carter’s “crisis of confidence.”

But Limbaugh and others are missing the biggest point point in Obama’s statement. We’ve lost our ambition, imagination and willingness to build the Golden Gate Bridge or the Hoover Dam. What are those two structures? They’re government funded of course. It’s fascinating to watch the socialist mind in action. When he declares that Americans have lost their ambition, in his mind ambition means building bit government funded projects. In other words, he’s pushing his jobs bill by suggesting that his jobs bill contains the next Golden Gate Bridge or Hoover dam but we just don’t have the ambition or imagination to push forward. Likely because of those cheap Republicans who want dirty air, uneducated children and Grandma eating Alpo.

Obama has America all wrong. In his mind America is great because of large, overpriced infrastructure projects. In his mind America’s jobs and prosperity come from the government. The reality is that American prosperity comes not from government but from private individuals. It isn’t the Golden Gate bridge that was a great innovation, it was the automobile and the assembly line that were great. It isn’t the Hoover Dam that made America prosperous, it was the telegraph and telephone.

Obama’s default is government. If government isn’t spending big money on infrastructure we’ve somehow lost our ambition and our imagination. Notice those two things require the collective to act. He doesn’t praise individual innovation, only collective action. The truth is the opposite. We’re prosperous not because the government runs things but precisely the opposite. Cars, airplanes, telephones, refrigerators, freezers and most recently computers are all things that were innovated for use not by the government but by private individuals with a profit motive. Steve Jobs and Apple Computers had an IPO in the late 70′s or early 80′s where Wall Street invested $120 million in their business. Jobs died worth $7 billion. That’s innovation, that’s ambition, that’s imagination. It’s the opposite of a government funded bridge.

Obama revealed himself as the socialist that he is. He believes everything begins at the top in DC and works down to all of us. Therefore any opposition to his big stimulus jobs bill is an attack on the collective. We, the people, will have lost our way if we don’t support it. He thinks and talks like a socialist. While the connection to Carter’s “crisis of confidence” and “intense malaise” comments is valid, Limbaugh and others miss what Obama’s real worldview is. Obama is a socialist and his comments at a $5,000 a ticket fundraiser in San Francisco confirm it.

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How Exactly Is Killing Gaddafi In America’s Best Interest?

October 24, 2011 1 Comment

Gaddafi is dead, apparently we’re supposed to rejoice. There’s no doubt that Gaddafi was a bad guy in the world. He’s responsible for terrorism in the 80′s and he led a generally repressive regime. But he did become a minor ally of the United States after the 9-11 terrorist attacks. Gaddafi provided the US information about a Qaeda, both Bush and Obama acknowledge this. Obama went so far as to meet Gaffafi. Now we have a dead former ally that we inexplicably turned on and his former country now being run by radical Muslims. How is this a victory for Obama or the United States?

Obama met with this guy in 2009. Gaffafi didn’t suddenly change between 2009 and April 2011. He didn’t suddenly take a pro-terrorist position, he didn’t become an al Qaeda member and he did nothing to hurt US interests in the middle east. The only thing that changed in the world is that the Muslim Brotherhood was starting uprisings in Egypt and elsewhere in the Arab world. Obama supports the Brotherhood because of their socialist leanings and because he has Brotherhood sympathizers within his administration.

This appears to be the sole reason for turning on Gaddafi. Obama’s talk about the Pan Am bombing over Scotland in the 80′s is disingenuous. If Obama is so outraged over the bombing why did he meet with Gaddafi and say pleasant things about him in 2009? It simply makes no sense. Obama’s reason for turning on Gaddafi have nothing to do with his former terrorist ties and everything to do with the Muslim Brotherhood.

Long term Obama has seriously hurt America’s position in the world. He’s more or less told regimes throughout the world to not trust us. Don’t become our allies because we’ll come after you anyway. Every tin pot dictator in Africa, the Middle East and Asia is now less likely to become our ally and share information that helps us, whether it’s concerning the War on Terror or any other subject. Why would any nation want to become our ally when we so quickly turn, without justification, against Gaddafi? Obama has seriously hurt our position in the world.

Now that Gaddafi is gone, who is he going to be replaced with? The current leader, Mustafa Abdel Ja­lil, has declared Sharia law in Libya. So we’ve helped replace one repressive violent regime with a regime that, if it strictly follows Sharia law, will be stoning raped women, supporting honor killings and cutting the heads off of infidels. Keep in mind of course that the proponents of Sharia law are the people who took down the World Trade Center. Why exactly are we favoring these people? Worse, al Qaeda is part of the group that revolted against Gaddafi. Again, why is the US supporting these people?

There’s no doubt that Gaddafi was an awful leader. He was brutal, arbitrary and had a terrorist past. But he was a known entity. He became a minor ally, he helped us fight al Qaeda. That doesn’t forgive what he did in the 80′s but it goes a long way. We’ve now helped replace him with radical Muslims who are bringing Sharia law to Libya. We’ve helped the Libyans trade one brutal dictatorship for another. How exactly was this in our best interest?

Obama has yet to adequately explain why getting rid of Gaddafi was in our best interest. Gaddafi’s terrorist past isn’t a valid excuse when he’s been an ally of Bush and Obama’s since 2004. Obama can’t meet with Gaddafi in 2009 and praise him then expect to get taken seriously when he calls him a terrorist in 2011. There was absolutely no justification for aiding the Muslim Brotherhood in getting rid of Gaddafi. We’ve now lost an ally, we’ve lost someone who provided us with intelligence on al Qaeda. We’ve helped replace him with a regime that supports terrorism, against us and Israel. Worse, that regime will keep Libyan’s in bondage just as much, if not more, than Gaddafi. How was this a victory for Obama and the United States?

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Venture Socialism Perfected By Obama

October 21, 2011 3 Comments

Venture socialism didn’t begin under President Obama, it’s simply been perfected by him. By perfected of course I mean he’s figured out how to reward his best donation bundlers with millions in government backed loans. Everyone knows about Solyndra, which went bankrupt despite over half a billion in government loans. Sunpower has over a billion in loans and is on the verge of bankruptcy. Now meet Fisker, an electric car start up company that got a $529 million government loan to build cars not in the US but in Finland. Fisker has political muscle with Al Gore, Elon Musk, Larry Page and Sergey Brin. All big Democrat donors and Obama bundlers.

There are two problems with Obama’s venture socialism. First the government has no business placing “bets” on companies. Second it’s pretty clear that the Energy Department has been giving preferential treatment to Obama campaign bundlers. Taking this issue first, if the White House is directing the Energy Dept. to hand out loans to these companies without doing a full analysis or in spite of a negative analysis it’s potentially criminal. What possible reason could there be to provide Solyndra with a loan but for their billionaire bundler? Everyone in the government knew Solyndra was a mess, the only reason to provide the loan was to payoff someone who raised thousands for Obama. The same is likely true with Fisker, Sunpower and others. This isn’t just crony capitalism, it’s a violation of Federal law.

Government shouldn’t be in the business of venture socialism in the first place. Venture capitalism is risky enough but the folks engage in that industry are at least using their own money. It’s high risk, high reward. Venture socialism takes tax money and throws it at politically connected businesses with the hands out. Most, if not all, of these business have already been rejected for loans by private banks. There’s a good reason for it, most have terrible business models and a product that is either overpriced or not in demand. Sometimes both. If banks or venture capitalists (sometimes both)  won’t loan or invest then that ought to be a pretty clear sign that the business isn’t in very good shape.

Unfortunately the state couldn’t care less about any of that. They’re only interested in two things. They want to reward those who donated to the President’s campaign and they want to push a certain agenda. In this case they want to push so-called green energy. The fact that all of these businesses have poor business models or make products no one wants doesn’t matter to them at all. They are only interested in appearances and pushing an agenda. That billions are lost matters not to the government, they aren’t risking their own money after all. They’re risking tax money, which the government treats like Monopoly money.

Venture socialism, which could perhaps better be called venture fascism, is a giant waste of tax money. Government is not equipped to play venture capitalist because it doesn’t think like a capitalist. Government thinks like a bureaucrat, only interested in pushing whatever agenda they’re pushing. That’s not how venture capitalism works. Government wants to loan money not to financially sound companies that can pay back loans but to risky businesses that fit an agenda. They want a splashy Presidential visit, not a repayment of a loan. Obama has perfected venture socialism, he’s wasting tax money on businesses that have donated to his campaign. Taxpayers are now on the hook for billions of paybacks while Obama shrugs his shoulders.

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OWS Rabble Should Blame Obama Not Wall Street

October 20, 2011 Leave a comment

Americans standard of living has dropped around during the Obama administration. Americans are now taking, after taxes, around $1,300 less today than they were in 2008. The economy clearly isn’t growing. While Federal taxes have more or less remained steady, state and local taxes have increased substantially in the last few years. What this statistic doesn’t show is how the increased cost of healthcare, largely caused by Obamacare, has affected Americans take home pay. You can bet our income is down even more when healthcare is taken into account.

The Occupy Wall Street crowd has legitimate concerns about the economy but they have misplaced their blame. We’re not talking about the leaders of the OWS movement like Van Jones, George Soros or the unions who are in this to push socialism. We’re talking about the rank and file kids, most of whom don’t really know why they’re protesting but for some reason hate Wall Street and banks. The kids are about three years late on the blame train, even then the economic downturn was caused more so by government (through Fannie and Freddie) than Wall Street. These kids want to talk about income disparity, it begins with a government that is doing everything possible to stagnate the economy. They shouldn’t be occupying Wall Street, they should be occupying the White House. Or at least occupying the space closest to the White House that the Secret Service will let them have.

Government cost certainty is what’s keeping businesses from expanding and thus keeping jobs from being created and incomes from going up. Government regulations have created cost uncertainty for small businesses. Taxes are set to increase in 2012, which creates uncertainty in the marketplace. Obama is threatening to raise taxes, which creates uncertainty in the market. Obamacare has increased costs already and no one knows how much more it will cost once it’s fully implemented in 2014. These are all problems created by government that have had a profound affect on business. The OWS kids want to blame Wall Street but Wall Street has little say over how Obama regulates healthcare and how much he wants to increase taxes.

Wall Street and banks would love to see the economy rolling again. The better the economy is doing the more money these people will make. If the economy is rolling not only will these guys increase their wealth but those of us in the middle class will also see our wealth increase. There will be more jobs, more high paying jobs, more upward movement. It isn’t Wall Street that’s keeping the economy down at all. A lot of those guys have lost a lot of money over the past three years. They’re not keeping the economy down, government is. In particular President Obama and his policies are keeping the economy down.

The organizers of OWS know that Obama’s socialist policies are keeping the economy from thriving. They don’t care because socialism is their chief objective. But the kids, the rank and file rabble, they have no idea what socialism or capitalism even are. They’ve been fed a bunch of propaganda at their over priced universities, they’ve been fed propaganda at these protests. They’ve become group thinkers, incapable of thinking on their own when in the crowd. Unless there’s a massive revolution, which is what the organizers want, at least half of these kids will be Republicans in 10 years. The key is getting them graduated from college and out in the real world. The real world turns plenty of people into Republicans.

The OWS crowd has misplaced their anger. Their anger should be directed at President Obama who has done everything in his power to ensure that there is no economic upswing. His policies have wasted tax money and created nearly $5 trillion in new debt in just three years in office. Couple that with massive regulations and Obamacare and it is the Obama administration’s creation of uncertainty that has stifled an economic rebound. The OWS kids are three years late in blaming Wall Street. They should move their protests to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. It is Obama who is the real jobs and economic villan these days.

Filed under economy, Obama, Politics Tagged with , , , , , , ,

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