Run Sarah Run
Has there ever been a better candidate to represent the Republicans in 2012 than Sarah Palin? A week ago she was welcomed by the Tea Party movement as their key note speaker. It became very apparent that she should be the nominee for the Republican Party in 2012.
From all of us with a brain used to reason with, there would be no better candidate to go up against than Sarah Palin. She has an impeccable resume starting out as the Mayor of Wasilla, Alaska with a population of 5469 in 2000 when the last census was taken. She was then thrust into the Governor’s mansion where she did not complete her full first term (just over 2 ½ years) before resigning. During her time in office she was chosen by then presidential candidate Senator John McCain in what now seems like a last act of desperation in trying to win the presidency. While not done completely single handedly she was a major contributor in helping him self-destruct. While spending a whole 90 days on the campaign trail she not only stole the spotlight from McCain, there were rumors that she was more concerned with her wardrobe than she for was preparing interviews with the national media who wanted to understand her where she stood on the issues in perhaps the most important election of our time. When asked by CBS’s Katie Couric as question as simple as can you tell me about some of the books and magazines you read she responded by saying that she would get back to her on that.
Jimmy Carter had his brother capitalizing on his brother political success by producing beer and occasionally getting himself into trouble in his home state. Ronald Reagan had his daughter and his son who questioned his ideology publically while in office. While Barak Obama seems to have a pretty quiet family, his adversary, Sarah Palin, is dogging him like a long lost illegitimate half sister.
What is just beyond comprehension is Sarah Palin’s view of reality. The first being that she is a relevant politician. She has held one major office, the Governorship of Alaska, and could not even complete that. She is nothing more than a pretty face, winning a former Miss Alaska pageant. Congratulations. She was a sportscaster in her home state reading off of a TelePrompTer yet she criticizes her half brother, Obama, for doing the same. Every President in the modern age has used a TelePrompTer to give speeches. Yet to her this must be some type of new invention because at every turn she seems to think that this device is some type of chief executive novelty. This was made even more evident during her time on the podium when rather than using a TelePrompTer; Palin used her hand as a speech making aid while speaking and during the question and answer session.
But while the issues of the Tea Party participants are very real, the horse they have hitched their wagon to is lame. Political celebrity Palin is clueless on the issues and full of glittering generalities offering no new ideas to help the most unfortunate who have been left behind by the Republican leadership during the past nine years. Yet, if you think Palin is really one of those who you can identify with as “one of us Tea Partiers,” she took $100,000 of your money to speak at your convention in an attempt to further her own ambitions. After resigning her position as governor in Alaska, few details emerged as to why. But one detail slipped though her PR machine: Sarah Palin was going to pen a book on her illustrious political career and 90 day run as a Vice Presidential candidate. That book and subsequent speaking engagements would make her an instant multi millionaire.
So you say that Sarah Palin is a smart, patriotic savvy politician and business woman. Do not tell that to Ms. Palin. She seems to have something against a good education; especially a higher education. Yet Palin herself attended four institutions of higher learning including private, public and junior colleges before getting a B.S. from the University of Idaho in 1987. While many in this country would aspire to attend a college but are prevented by in doing so by academic requirements or funding, Palin seems to think that people running this country should not be well educated. She seems to take swipes at our current president every chance she gets for completing a Harvard education and being a former professor at an institution of higher learning. Perhaps she forgets that the previous president, one from her own party was educated at another pretty good school, Yale. She also forgets that our current president worked in some of the poorest neighborhoods in Chicago helping those who were the most desperate of the desperate.
Could you imagine President Palin going up again Vladimir Putin, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, or Hugo Chavez to name just a few of the crazies we deal with on a daily and weekly basis? Maybe just once we would match crazy with crazy; But maybe not. It would not be long before we would be speaking Farsi, Russian and Spanish. Palin to date has little or no foreign policy experience. McCain aids said that during debate preparation in 2008, Palin was completely uninterested and had little feel or interest for foreign policy subject matter. She had no idea of why we were in Afghanistan. She explained to her debate preparation team that she did not realize that Iraq and Sadam Hussein were not responsible for the holocaust on 911. While she does understand that Russia is not too far away from Alaska, her first speaking engagement after resigning as governor was to a group in Japan so that she could appear to become more internationally focused. Of course that speech was not open to the press.
While being coy about running for president in 2012 she is beefing up her conservative credentials by joining, “Fair and Balanced” Fox News as a contributor. In a fair and balanced analysis she called for Obama’s Chief of Staff to resign for calling Congress “retards” while excusing her patron saint Rush Limbaugh for using the same term to describe personnel in the White House. She called Limbaugh’s tirade “satire.” Sarah, it looks like you found a running mate. Yet when comedian David Letterman told a joke about her daughter in what clearly was satire she spent days in public forums demanding an apology from him. Rather than let the circus continue, Letterman finally apologized. Congratulations and good luck in 2012.
Sunday, February 14, 2010
Saturday, January 30, 2010
The Year in Review Part II
This past week President Obama gave his State of The Union Speech. Many pundits thought that this was his opportunity to start over again. Here is what took place in the past year.
While legislation was passed prior to Obama taking the reins, it was up to his administration’s team and to that of The Federal Reserve’s Ben Bernanke to lead the country out of the financial mess we had built for ourselves. While hundreds billions of dollars were lent to the banking and insurance sectors to get their shops in order, the term “too big to fail” was coined. The conservatives who voted for the stimulus package under the former President Bush were now heard criticizing the plan because they said that this money would never be paid back and that we were mortgaging our kid’s futures. Just under a year later all the large banks have paid back the money lent to them. While the banks do not lay blameless and played a large role in economic meltdown, what can be said is that one year after Obama became president, the US taxpayer is no longer an investor in big banking. As a footnote it should be said that the banks did no one but themselves a favor during this time charging scathingly high rates for credit cards and being all but totally uncooperative toward the consumers which help build their institutions. The banks in conjunction with the government put themselves in a no lose situation. If they refused to lend the government was bailing them out. If they did lend, it was to only those who could qualify and rates that were uncompetitive to those they borrowers were paying presently. Banks that have become too big to fail should not become too big. But for now, though fragile our financial system seems to have stabilized. Grade B.
Because of the financial situation or perhaps in a show of early bipartisanship and reaching out to the conservatives, President Obama left in place the sitting Bush administration Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates who it was announced this week has just agreed to stay on for another year. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have in the past year been largely unchanged. Iraq is winding down. Whether or not things are better there or not, we hear little about what goes on there day to day. Afghanistan is another story. In the late summer a very public debate took place between the sitting general in the region Stanley McChrystal and The President. McChrystal wanted 40,000 troops to complete the still largely undefined mission in Afghanistan. Obama, who has been largely criticized by the conservatives, led by the former Vice President, gave McChrystal 30,000 additional troops and 18 months before saying that he will begin a troop draw down in that region. Will it help? Will it make a difference? History is not on our side and no one really knows at this point. Now we have Yemen as the base for the latest terrorist threat. Grade C+.
Every major decision seems to draw the opposition out against the Obama administration. One recent firestorm was the decision by the Justice Department to try some of the September 11 terrorists in open court in New York City close to where the twin towers fell. This, as opposed to trying them in a military court. The same critics that wanted these trials held behind closed doors are many of the same ones that applauded the former president for prosecuting these terrorist the same way. Yet they call Obama weak on the war on terrorism. But when it comes to the Constitutional rights granted us by our founders, they are all too quick to relinquish those in the name of security. While we are at war with terrorists and terrorism we are not at war with a sovereign nation state. Therefore to grant a military trial recognizes terrorists as a sovereign body; a nation state. It gives them a defacto political status. By trying these people in open court not only re enforces our fair and open system of justice but does not lend legitimacy to the ideals for which they claim to be fighting for. The previous administration left the messy ordeal of trying terrorists to the new administration after holding them in Cuba for nearly seven years. But again our former vice president is quick to react to what his administration and many would say he would not do himself; set a trial venue, determine a method of justice and move forward. Grade: B.
In 2008 our auto industry was in a tailspin. Ford was shedding subsidiaries like Jaguar (to India), Aston Martin (private investors and Kuwait) and had put up Volvo for sale. Ford was in the best shape of the big US automakers. Chrysler was legitimately bankrupt and GM an icon of US business for the past 75 years was bleeding cash an unable to sell cars. It was unprecedented that a population of 300 million people could not sustain three auto companies and the Japanese, our largest competitors were healthy by comparison. As a symbol of how out of touch this industry had become, each company head traveled to Washington D.C. without a plan on their own private aircraft and naively asked for hundreds millions of dollars to right themselves. They were turned down flatly. A year later Ford asked for no government funding , is building cars that people are buying and is committed to being profitable by 2011. GM received loans and has recently committed to paying the money back to get the tax payer out of their board room. This week they say that they may be profitable this year. Chrysler was saved from receivership, largely to save jobs, by the Obama administration that pumped money into the company. Chrysler was later purchased by Fiat, Italy’s largest automaker that will be re entering the US market after being gone from our market for 25 years. In late summer as part of the stimulus package the Obama administration implemented the Cash for Clunkers program which jump started the auto industry if not just temporarily. As Obama enters the second year of his first term, the auto industry is not out of the woods but it is no longer endangered as it was a year ago. What can be said is that we still have an auto industry in this country a year later which was truly a question as we entered 2009. Grade: B+.
What is yet to materialize is a jobs recovery. This week a jobs report came out and it was not particularly encouraging. People are out of work and continue to lose jobs. It is happening across all sectors in all areas of the country. Small business is suffering, big business has continued to lay off thousands of people. This trickles down to the retail sector and no one is spending money. “It’s the economy stupid,” was coined a generation ago by Ronald Reagan and the economy either good or bad is based on whether or not you are employed. Certain inner cities are seeing unemployment in the area of 16%. California is seeing an unemployment rate of over 10%. One thing is certain: Our economy will not recover until our employment numbers improve dramatically. All the good that has been done on a national level will not mean much unless people are working. The Obama administration has implemented the cash for clunkers program and has poured billions of dollars into infrastructure repair and while both are needed and in the case of rebuilding crumbling infrastructure, overdue, these jobs created are as good as the long as the jobs are active. They largely benefit the construction sector. Some trickle down effect is felt with suppliers but not widespread. More, much more needs to be done in 2010 when it comes to creating jobs and incentives to get employers to hire. One such suggestion is a real tax break for employers to hire, companies to purchase capital equipment , and continue with research and development. The Obama administration could also provide incentives to emerging technologies such as the green sciences and industry, nano technology and bio sciences. All of these areas provide a future for our children, our economy and the world. Grade: C-.
A note to republicans. Whether you agree or disagree with the policies, as Americans you should want America to succeed. An argument can certainly be made that we “failed” under the policies of the previous administration. Right after Obama was inaugurated, the republicans started in on the wild spending policies of the democratic president. The eight year run of George W. Bush, A REPUBLICAN, caused a deficit and wild spending of unprecedented proportions. They did this while they had a majority in both houses of Congress. That included pork barrel spending as well. No one party can no lay claim that they are fiscally conservative.
A lot of crazy stuff has been said in the past year. It started days after the president was sworn in. The best was that once Obama was sworn in, he would be recruiting a national police force to implement martial law. Fringe groups called Obama a Kenyan and a secret Muslim. Conservative talk show hosts shed tears. The most remarkable statement made by talk show host Rush Limbaugh in the early days of the Obama presidency was that he wanted Obama to fail. That meant his show would continue to flourish with added ditto heads. Good for him, bad for us.
Before then and since, continued opposition by the conservatives have organized rallies against the administration vowing opposition to Obama’s health care policy and policies for economic recovery even before the details were known. What was so brilliant about these demonstrations were that were being popularized by the right’s media personalities and attended by the very people that the administration was trying to help. The republicans have not been on board with a single Obama initiative even though many of them began in the waning days of the Bush administration. Just saying no makes you look at best stupid and at worst uncaring toward a populous that you represent. Pork project benefiting a few are part of our legislative process. But no one party can claim virtue on this issue. It is an unfortunate part of our political process. But Obama and his people were charged with implementing many of the programs and policies initiated by Bush and the democratic Congress in the waning days of his administration . One has to wonder if the opposing party is more concerned about winning back power than actually helping the country overcome its problems. They should provide legitimate opposition and an alternative proposals which is their job. No substantive proposals regarding any of the primary issues have been proposed during the past year. They simply say no.
We are in a crisis that this country has not seen in generations. Partisan bickering which was business as usual should not be tolerated by the electorate. But this situation is not unique. Democratic bickering happens when the republicans are in power too. It just seems as time goes on the nastiness is taken to a whole new level. This helps no one. Could things be better right now? Yes. Governing is not an exact science. Call it an average performance this past year. But could they have been much much worse? Yes. We were headed down that road just 12 months ago. Whether or not you agree with the measures that were implemented in the past year to halt the recession, at least the problems were met head on and were being addressed. While some, even in his own party are not satisfied with the Obama leadership, a sense of reasonableness should prevail. A lot has been done over the past year. A lot still needs to be done. We have many problems that need to be addressed. But if nothing else we have a chief executive that is engaged in the problems of our time.
This past week President Obama gave his State of The Union Speech. Many pundits thought that this was his opportunity to start over again. Here is what took place in the past year.
While legislation was passed prior to Obama taking the reins, it was up to his administration’s team and to that of The Federal Reserve’s Ben Bernanke to lead the country out of the financial mess we had built for ourselves. While hundreds billions of dollars were lent to the banking and insurance sectors to get their shops in order, the term “too big to fail” was coined. The conservatives who voted for the stimulus package under the former President Bush were now heard criticizing the plan because they said that this money would never be paid back and that we were mortgaging our kid’s futures. Just under a year later all the large banks have paid back the money lent to them. While the banks do not lay blameless and played a large role in economic meltdown, what can be said is that one year after Obama became president, the US taxpayer is no longer an investor in big banking. As a footnote it should be said that the banks did no one but themselves a favor during this time charging scathingly high rates for credit cards and being all but totally uncooperative toward the consumers which help build their institutions. The banks in conjunction with the government put themselves in a no lose situation. If they refused to lend the government was bailing them out. If they did lend, it was to only those who could qualify and rates that were uncompetitive to those they borrowers were paying presently. Banks that have become too big to fail should not become too big. But for now, though fragile our financial system seems to have stabilized. Grade B.
Because of the financial situation or perhaps in a show of early bipartisanship and reaching out to the conservatives, President Obama left in place the sitting Bush administration Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates who it was announced this week has just agreed to stay on for another year. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have in the past year been largely unchanged. Iraq is winding down. Whether or not things are better there or not, we hear little about what goes on there day to day. Afghanistan is another story. In the late summer a very public debate took place between the sitting general in the region Stanley McChrystal and The President. McChrystal wanted 40,000 troops to complete the still largely undefined mission in Afghanistan. Obama, who has been largely criticized by the conservatives, led by the former Vice President, gave McChrystal 30,000 additional troops and 18 months before saying that he will begin a troop draw down in that region. Will it help? Will it make a difference? History is not on our side and no one really knows at this point. Now we have Yemen as the base for the latest terrorist threat. Grade C+.
Every major decision seems to draw the opposition out against the Obama administration. One recent firestorm was the decision by the Justice Department to try some of the September 11 terrorists in open court in New York City close to where the twin towers fell. This, as opposed to trying them in a military court. The same critics that wanted these trials held behind closed doors are many of the same ones that applauded the former president for prosecuting these terrorist the same way. Yet they call Obama weak on the war on terrorism. But when it comes to the Constitutional rights granted us by our founders, they are all too quick to relinquish those in the name of security. While we are at war with terrorists and terrorism we are not at war with a sovereign nation state. Therefore to grant a military trial recognizes terrorists as a sovereign body; a nation state. It gives them a defacto political status. By trying these people in open court not only re enforces our fair and open system of justice but does not lend legitimacy to the ideals for which they claim to be fighting for. The previous administration left the messy ordeal of trying terrorists to the new administration after holding them in Cuba for nearly seven years. But again our former vice president is quick to react to what his administration and many would say he would not do himself; set a trial venue, determine a method of justice and move forward. Grade: B.
In 2008 our auto industry was in a tailspin. Ford was shedding subsidiaries like Jaguar (to India), Aston Martin (private investors and Kuwait) and had put up Volvo for sale. Ford was in the best shape of the big US automakers. Chrysler was legitimately bankrupt and GM an icon of US business for the past 75 years was bleeding cash an unable to sell cars. It was unprecedented that a population of 300 million people could not sustain three auto companies and the Japanese, our largest competitors were healthy by comparison. As a symbol of how out of touch this industry had become, each company head traveled to Washington D.C. without a plan on their own private aircraft and naively asked for hundreds millions of dollars to right themselves. They were turned down flatly. A year later Ford asked for no government funding , is building cars that people are buying and is committed to being profitable by 2011. GM received loans and has recently committed to paying the money back to get the tax payer out of their board room. This week they say that they may be profitable this year. Chrysler was saved from receivership, largely to save jobs, by the Obama administration that pumped money into the company. Chrysler was later purchased by Fiat, Italy’s largest automaker that will be re entering the US market after being gone from our market for 25 years. In late summer as part of the stimulus package the Obama administration implemented the Cash for Clunkers program which jump started the auto industry if not just temporarily. As Obama enters the second year of his first term, the auto industry is not out of the woods but it is no longer endangered as it was a year ago. What can be said is that we still have an auto industry in this country a year later which was truly a question as we entered 2009. Grade: B+.
What is yet to materialize is a jobs recovery. This week a jobs report came out and it was not particularly encouraging. People are out of work and continue to lose jobs. It is happening across all sectors in all areas of the country. Small business is suffering, big business has continued to lay off thousands of people. This trickles down to the retail sector and no one is spending money. “It’s the economy stupid,” was coined a generation ago by Ronald Reagan and the economy either good or bad is based on whether or not you are employed. Certain inner cities are seeing unemployment in the area of 16%. California is seeing an unemployment rate of over 10%. One thing is certain: Our economy will not recover until our employment numbers improve dramatically. All the good that has been done on a national level will not mean much unless people are working. The Obama administration has implemented the cash for clunkers program and has poured billions of dollars into infrastructure repair and while both are needed and in the case of rebuilding crumbling infrastructure, overdue, these jobs created are as good as the long as the jobs are active. They largely benefit the construction sector. Some trickle down effect is felt with suppliers but not widespread. More, much more needs to be done in 2010 when it comes to creating jobs and incentives to get employers to hire. One such suggestion is a real tax break for employers to hire, companies to purchase capital equipment , and continue with research and development. The Obama administration could also provide incentives to emerging technologies such as the green sciences and industry, nano technology and bio sciences. All of these areas provide a future for our children, our economy and the world. Grade: C-.
A note to republicans. Whether you agree or disagree with the policies, as Americans you should want America to succeed. An argument can certainly be made that we “failed” under the policies of the previous administration. Right after Obama was inaugurated, the republicans started in on the wild spending policies of the democratic president. The eight year run of George W. Bush, A REPUBLICAN, caused a deficit and wild spending of unprecedented proportions. They did this while they had a majority in both houses of Congress. That included pork barrel spending as well. No one party can no lay claim that they are fiscally conservative.
A lot of crazy stuff has been said in the past year. It started days after the president was sworn in. The best was that once Obama was sworn in, he would be recruiting a national police force to implement martial law. Fringe groups called Obama a Kenyan and a secret Muslim. Conservative talk show hosts shed tears. The most remarkable statement made by talk show host Rush Limbaugh in the early days of the Obama presidency was that he wanted Obama to fail. That meant his show would continue to flourish with added ditto heads. Good for him, bad for us.
Before then and since, continued opposition by the conservatives have organized rallies against the administration vowing opposition to Obama’s health care policy and policies for economic recovery even before the details were known. What was so brilliant about these demonstrations were that were being popularized by the right’s media personalities and attended by the very people that the administration was trying to help. The republicans have not been on board with a single Obama initiative even though many of them began in the waning days of the Bush administration. Just saying no makes you look at best stupid and at worst uncaring toward a populous that you represent. Pork project benefiting a few are part of our legislative process. But no one party can claim virtue on this issue. It is an unfortunate part of our political process. But Obama and his people were charged with implementing many of the programs and policies initiated by Bush and the democratic Congress in the waning days of his administration . One has to wonder if the opposing party is more concerned about winning back power than actually helping the country overcome its problems. They should provide legitimate opposition and an alternative proposals which is their job. No substantive proposals regarding any of the primary issues have been proposed during the past year. They simply say no.
We are in a crisis that this country has not seen in generations. Partisan bickering which was business as usual should not be tolerated by the electorate. But this situation is not unique. Democratic bickering happens when the republicans are in power too. It just seems as time goes on the nastiness is taken to a whole new level. This helps no one. Could things be better right now? Yes. Governing is not an exact science. Call it an average performance this past year. But could they have been much much worse? Yes. We were headed down that road just 12 months ago. Whether or not you agree with the measures that were implemented in the past year to halt the recession, at least the problems were met head on and were being addressed. While some, even in his own party are not satisfied with the Obama leadership, a sense of reasonableness should prevail. A lot has been done over the past year. A lot still needs to be done. We have many problems that need to be addressed. But if nothing else we have a chief executive that is engaged in the problems of our time.
Sunday, January 17, 2010
The Year In Review Part I
If there might be one thing that democrats and republicans would agree on, it is that the last year has been a busy year in Washington. Our current president was voted into office a year ago with a wave of optimism and hope that had not been seen since the Kennedy era. The country was reeling from what everyone feared (and soon to be officially confirmed) was the worst recession since the Great Depression. There was an undercurrent of hope that a new leader would somehow bring us out of this national funk that had existed for the past several years.
How would you grade the president’s performance as a leader since taking office in January 2009? What has he done and what is still left to do for him to be considered a mediocre, good or even a great president? What events could take place that would have him as one of the more forgettable leaders of our time? Would he quiet his critics who said that he had little or no executive experience? Could he begin to make a case for a second term?
It is fair to say that leaders do not succeed or fail in a vacuum. They have help. We have had average presidents who have surrounded themselves with great people and therefore became great. We have had very intelligent chief executives who have been pounded by the opposition and by circumstances largely not of their own making and been forgotten.
Pounded by the opposition is a fair way to describe what happened to Obama in the weeks after he took office. The Republican Party reeling from a defeat where they lost both the Executive Branch in 2008 and both houses of Congress in 2006, began their attack of the new president as soon as he and his family moved into 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. His detractors on the right were many. But the most vocal in the early days was conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh who simply said that he wished the President “would fail.” Conservatives branded him a socialist and even some democrats questioned the amount of money lent to the financial sector and others under the guise of a stimulus. To many it looked like a big giveaway to the biggest and greediest banks in the country who some accused of starting this financial crisis.
But these are unusual times. There were few similarities in the first six months between our former president and Barack Obama. George W. Bush inherited a relatively healthy America. Though peaked by 2000, Bush had been voted into office in the most robust economic climate in a generation. Our country’s economy was stable with a balanced federal budget and a deficit dating back to the Reagan administration that had been erased. Some of the administrative oversight seen in the previous democratic administration was relaxed in favor of a self regulation. Bush in the early days of his administration laid out a conservative agenda that included a stem cell research ban and announced it as a priority to crackdown on pornography in the United States headed by his newly confirmed Attorney General John Ashcroft. Some said that he would be a “caretaker president” who simply presided over a calm and self-sustaining American economy. Though the President of the United State never really gets a full vacation, within the first eight months George Bush took 96 days of vacation. The only president with more vacation time under his belt was his father George H.W. Bush. Of course the Bush agenda changed with 911.
Contrast this with Barack Obama’s first six months in office. The president, from the moment he took office was under siege by an economic meltdown. Our stock market was dropping like a rock. The auto industry was failing. Our real estate market, long the bell weather for our economy was in an unprecedented slump not seen since the great depression and our banking system was in a shambles. This was just the beginning. Unemployment was rising at an unchecked rate. Small business and Main Street were badly wounded with consumer spending and confidence down dramatically. AIG, among the largest insurers in the world was in need of a government bailout because of bad investments by just a few unchecked employees. Our national debt was exploding to levels never seen before. This and we were fighting wars on two fronts one of which we were mired in with no defined mission or exit strategy. Our economic problems interconnected with European and Asian economies. Their economies were following ours with rising unemployment and an economic downturn. It was a perfect storm of devastatingly bad news worldwide. While candidate for President John McCain called the “fundamentals of our economy essentially strong,” few could look at the glass as half full.
In the past we had sectors of poor performance in the economy while others did well. But our country had seen nothing approaching an assault of our economy of this scale in our generation. Muslim extremists went as far as saying that it was the crumbling of the Infidels’ Western Civilization built around capitalism.
These were the conditions that existed in the US economy in January, 2009. If you had money, it was a great time to buy. But few had any wealth to speak of. Stock values and personal portfolios dropped. Home equity evaporated. Manufacturing had disintegrated. New orders for goods and capital expenditures came to a halt. The real estate industry which had been flying high just a year and a half before was laying off agents and brokerages were closing. Foreclosures were at levels not seen since the Great Depression. Mortgage brokers and departments were being eliminated. You counted yourself lucky if you had a job.
In the next week, we will examine the steps taken to turn around the faltering economy. How far have we come in the past year and what is left to accomplish to turn around the faltering American economy? How has America rebounded in the past year? What is left to do and how well would you grade the existing administration in attempting to fix our economy? What about the President's agenda to move our country forward? The answers in part II.
If there might be one thing that democrats and republicans would agree on, it is that the last year has been a busy year in Washington. Our current president was voted into office a year ago with a wave of optimism and hope that had not been seen since the Kennedy era. The country was reeling from what everyone feared (and soon to be officially confirmed) was the worst recession since the Great Depression. There was an undercurrent of hope that a new leader would somehow bring us out of this national funk that had existed for the past several years.
How would you grade the president’s performance as a leader since taking office in January 2009? What has he done and what is still left to do for him to be considered a mediocre, good or even a great president? What events could take place that would have him as one of the more forgettable leaders of our time? Would he quiet his critics who said that he had little or no executive experience? Could he begin to make a case for a second term?
It is fair to say that leaders do not succeed or fail in a vacuum. They have help. We have had average presidents who have surrounded themselves with great people and therefore became great. We have had very intelligent chief executives who have been pounded by the opposition and by circumstances largely not of their own making and been forgotten.
Pounded by the opposition is a fair way to describe what happened to Obama in the weeks after he took office. The Republican Party reeling from a defeat where they lost both the Executive Branch in 2008 and both houses of Congress in 2006, began their attack of the new president as soon as he and his family moved into 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. His detractors on the right were many. But the most vocal in the early days was conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh who simply said that he wished the President “would fail.” Conservatives branded him a socialist and even some democrats questioned the amount of money lent to the financial sector and others under the guise of a stimulus. To many it looked like a big giveaway to the biggest and greediest banks in the country who some accused of starting this financial crisis.
But these are unusual times. There were few similarities in the first six months between our former president and Barack Obama. George W. Bush inherited a relatively healthy America. Though peaked by 2000, Bush had been voted into office in the most robust economic climate in a generation. Our country’s economy was stable with a balanced federal budget and a deficit dating back to the Reagan administration that had been erased. Some of the administrative oversight seen in the previous democratic administration was relaxed in favor of a self regulation. Bush in the early days of his administration laid out a conservative agenda that included a stem cell research ban and announced it as a priority to crackdown on pornography in the United States headed by his newly confirmed Attorney General John Ashcroft. Some said that he would be a “caretaker president” who simply presided over a calm and self-sustaining American economy. Though the President of the United State never really gets a full vacation, within the first eight months George Bush took 96 days of vacation. The only president with more vacation time under his belt was his father George H.W. Bush. Of course the Bush agenda changed with 911.
Contrast this with Barack Obama’s first six months in office. The president, from the moment he took office was under siege by an economic meltdown. Our stock market was dropping like a rock. The auto industry was failing. Our real estate market, long the bell weather for our economy was in an unprecedented slump not seen since the great depression and our banking system was in a shambles. This was just the beginning. Unemployment was rising at an unchecked rate. Small business and Main Street were badly wounded with consumer spending and confidence down dramatically. AIG, among the largest insurers in the world was in need of a government bailout because of bad investments by just a few unchecked employees. Our national debt was exploding to levels never seen before. This and we were fighting wars on two fronts one of which we were mired in with no defined mission or exit strategy. Our economic problems interconnected with European and Asian economies. Their economies were following ours with rising unemployment and an economic downturn. It was a perfect storm of devastatingly bad news worldwide. While candidate for President John McCain called the “fundamentals of our economy essentially strong,” few could look at the glass as half full.
In the past we had sectors of poor performance in the economy while others did well. But our country had seen nothing approaching an assault of our economy of this scale in our generation. Muslim extremists went as far as saying that it was the crumbling of the Infidels’ Western Civilization built around capitalism.
These were the conditions that existed in the US economy in January, 2009. If you had money, it was a great time to buy. But few had any wealth to speak of. Stock values and personal portfolios dropped. Home equity evaporated. Manufacturing had disintegrated. New orders for goods and capital expenditures came to a halt. The real estate industry which had been flying high just a year and a half before was laying off agents and brokerages were closing. Foreclosures were at levels not seen since the Great Depression. Mortgage brokers and departments were being eliminated. You counted yourself lucky if you had a job.
In the next week, we will examine the steps taken to turn around the faltering economy. How far have we come in the past year and what is left to accomplish to turn around the faltering American economy? How has America rebounded in the past year? What is left to do and how well would you grade the existing administration in attempting to fix our economy? What about the President's agenda to move our country forward? The answers in part II.
Sunday, January 3, 2010
The Fix
So what can be done to begin to fix just a few of the problems we are facing today both at home and abroad? Perhaps ironically our problems abroad can be fixed by focusing our resources domestically. The United States needs a domestic energy program that will sustain itself for the next generation and the generations beyond. We also need a healthcare system that will allow those in need to be covered whether for the flu or the most life threatening disease. We need to shore up our social security system; a system that everyone agrees is broken but no one has the courage to fix. We need to strengthen our economy and realize that we simply cannot outsource ourselves to prosperity. Finally, our elected officials cannot be exclusively beholden to those who have the means to buy themselves influence.
Leadership with regards to a national energy policy has been lacking for the past 20 years. While our leaders have given lip service to the need for an energy policy, the reality is that our energy policy is to drill for and seek additional sources for oil. This policy is so well re-enforced, in the early days of the Bush administration that our vice president held a secret meeting with executives from the energy industry that to this day the agenda and the participants are still unknown. Alternative energy for day to day use is just now becoming a reality for some. While green energy sources are available they continue to be expensive to the average energy consumer. It is a fact that while the US is a leading producer of solar energy systems, those systems are exported to countries like Germany, a leader in the use of solar electricity. With actions dating all the way back to the Reagan administration, tax breaks for wind driven energy were cut while today we publicly enhance oil company profits with generous tax incentives.
Technology is available to assist us in becoming less dependent on oil. It is naive to think that oil will be completely eliminated as an energy source nor should it be. Oil is plentiful. But much of it resides in hostile, remote or unstable regions of the world. Oil needs to be part of an overall equation that makes up our domestic energy policy. It should become a diminishing part of that equation. The same incentives given to the large oil companies should be instituted down to the consumer level for those who deploy energy means not dependent on oil. This should include conservation as well as fossil fuel alternatives. Just as the modern version of the combustion engine has changed so to will the oil independent alternatives.
We should not wait for the best alternative but rather use what is available and the market will evolve with better and more efficient alternatives to oil. Incentives should also be given to those who wish to invent and create better and more efficient ways of producing and transporting energy. We need to change the way we think about our use of energy. Our parents had the luxury of a limitless supply of energy. Our children will not have that same luxury. This generation is wrestling with how to make the transition while not impacting our way of life. It is important that we learn from other countries around the world on how to save our resources. Many of those countries are well ahead of us when it comes to alternative energy sources and conservation. What we do poorly is look to other cultures and countries as examples of what we could do better. We also need to insist that the international community step up and join us as partners worldwide. The US cannot continue to go at it alone. Finally, our leaders should lead. We elect them not only as representatives but as examples. They should not only use, but be leaders in promoting visible and high profile methods off alternatives to oil. Would it be nice to hear a story about how our elected officials were not jockeying for a bigger plane in their new position, but rather about how they were considering an alternative to travel to bring them closer to their constituents?
It is time for our leadership to make difficult decisions. It is said that we cannot kill off the domestic oil industry that employs hundreds of thousands if not millions of people world-wide. We have already done this to our manufacturing sector under the guise of globalization. It would seem that we are more reluctant to decimate the white collar jobs that makes up much of oil industry. The good news is that much of this sector could easily be re-employed innovating new alternatives to energy. Furthermore, the oil companies while chasing drilling sites all over the world could themselves be private sector leaders in alternative energy sources.
Finally, we need to take a good hard look at ourselves. While somewhat changed during the past year, we need to ask ourselves why the view of America falls so quickly in the eyes of the world community? One answer is that we make up a very small percentage of the world’s population yet we consume a disproportionate amount of the world’s resources. That may have worked for us sixty-five years ago right after World War II, but the world has evolved since then and our foreign policy has not.
Another answer may be that rather than continuing to pillage the world’s resources, we now compete with emerging countries such as India and China on the open market for these same limited resources. Finally, much resentment seems to have come through globalization which has brought American products to foreign countries displacing local shopkeepers, store owners and proprietors of food and lodging establishments. Is this really the way to spread the American way of life? Just as we wish to preserve our heritage, others wish to do the same. Does might make right? If we continue to spread one form of democracy, one form of capitalism and tell others that they should be more like us, we can only expect what we get when it is asked “why do they hate us?”
So what can be done to begin to fix just a few of the problems we are facing today both at home and abroad? Perhaps ironically our problems abroad can be fixed by focusing our resources domestically. The United States needs a domestic energy program that will sustain itself for the next generation and the generations beyond. We also need a healthcare system that will allow those in need to be covered whether for the flu or the most life threatening disease. We need to shore up our social security system; a system that everyone agrees is broken but no one has the courage to fix. We need to strengthen our economy and realize that we simply cannot outsource ourselves to prosperity. Finally, our elected officials cannot be exclusively beholden to those who have the means to buy themselves influence.
Leadership with regards to a national energy policy has been lacking for the past 20 years. While our leaders have given lip service to the need for an energy policy, the reality is that our energy policy is to drill for and seek additional sources for oil. This policy is so well re-enforced, in the early days of the Bush administration that our vice president held a secret meeting with executives from the energy industry that to this day the agenda and the participants are still unknown. Alternative energy for day to day use is just now becoming a reality for some. While green energy sources are available they continue to be expensive to the average energy consumer. It is a fact that while the US is a leading producer of solar energy systems, those systems are exported to countries like Germany, a leader in the use of solar electricity. With actions dating all the way back to the Reagan administration, tax breaks for wind driven energy were cut while today we publicly enhance oil company profits with generous tax incentives.
Technology is available to assist us in becoming less dependent on oil. It is naive to think that oil will be completely eliminated as an energy source nor should it be. Oil is plentiful. But much of it resides in hostile, remote or unstable regions of the world. Oil needs to be part of an overall equation that makes up our domestic energy policy. It should become a diminishing part of that equation. The same incentives given to the large oil companies should be instituted down to the consumer level for those who deploy energy means not dependent on oil. This should include conservation as well as fossil fuel alternatives. Just as the modern version of the combustion engine has changed so to will the oil independent alternatives.
We should not wait for the best alternative but rather use what is available and the market will evolve with better and more efficient alternatives to oil. Incentives should also be given to those who wish to invent and create better and more efficient ways of producing and transporting energy. We need to change the way we think about our use of energy. Our parents had the luxury of a limitless supply of energy. Our children will not have that same luxury. This generation is wrestling with how to make the transition while not impacting our way of life. It is important that we learn from other countries around the world on how to save our resources. Many of those countries are well ahead of us when it comes to alternative energy sources and conservation. What we do poorly is look to other cultures and countries as examples of what we could do better. We also need to insist that the international community step up and join us as partners worldwide. The US cannot continue to go at it alone. Finally, our leaders should lead. We elect them not only as representatives but as examples. They should not only use, but be leaders in promoting visible and high profile methods off alternatives to oil. Would it be nice to hear a story about how our elected officials were not jockeying for a bigger plane in their new position, but rather about how they were considering an alternative to travel to bring them closer to their constituents?
It is time for our leadership to make difficult decisions. It is said that we cannot kill off the domestic oil industry that employs hundreds of thousands if not millions of people world-wide. We have already done this to our manufacturing sector under the guise of globalization. It would seem that we are more reluctant to decimate the white collar jobs that makes up much of oil industry. The good news is that much of this sector could easily be re-employed innovating new alternatives to energy. Furthermore, the oil companies while chasing drilling sites all over the world could themselves be private sector leaders in alternative energy sources.
Finally, we need to take a good hard look at ourselves. While somewhat changed during the past year, we need to ask ourselves why the view of America falls so quickly in the eyes of the world community? One answer is that we make up a very small percentage of the world’s population yet we consume a disproportionate amount of the world’s resources. That may have worked for us sixty-five years ago right after World War II, but the world has evolved since then and our foreign policy has not.
Another answer may be that rather than continuing to pillage the world’s resources, we now compete with emerging countries such as India and China on the open market for these same limited resources. Finally, much resentment seems to have come through globalization which has brought American products to foreign countries displacing local shopkeepers, store owners and proprietors of food and lodging establishments. Is this really the way to spread the American way of life? Just as we wish to preserve our heritage, others wish to do the same. Does might make right? If we continue to spread one form of democracy, one form of capitalism and tell others that they should be more like us, we can only expect what we get when it is asked “why do they hate us?”
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Mad
It has been over eight years since the world trade center towers were attached by Muslim extremists. Our lives would be changed forever. The victims extended beyond those in the towers, in the four aircraft, those offering support in the months after the disaster and countless families from all over the country. Thousands of innocent people died that day and today many still suffer the psychological and physical effects of those attacks. Our decade has largely been defined by what took place that day.
We depend on our government for among other things protection and defense. What has been done in the eight years to insure that an attack of this magnitude never takes place again? What has really changed with regards to public safety in this country during the past six years? Have those who are responsible for the attacks of September 11 really been brought to justice? Has our government done what it is supposed to do by protecting us against threats both foreign and domestic?
We got the answer to that question last week when a young Nigerian man 23 years of age tried to detonate his underpants which had PETN explosives sewn into them. He would have been successful in doing so had it not been for the quick response of passengers and crew aboard the aircraft.
In response to the attacks of September 11, the US Government established the Department of Homeland Security. Billions of dollars have been spent to secure our borders and make us safe, but the same problem existed on December 25, 2009. Our government, for some yet unexplained reason was unable to connect the dots even though yet again all the warning signs were available to us to thwart this attach.
So what has changed since the towers were brought down? To our credit it would appear that we are better about coordinating interagency communication. Thankfully there has been no disaster in the US anywhere approaching the scale of what took place in 2001 to test that claim. Yet we have been told that should a disaster take place we are now better prepared than we were. This contention was apparently proven false last week. Perhaps our most visible sign of change since 911 has been that air travel is now more difficult and will likely become more so. In this day of political correctness 70 year old ladies are being searched along with those who obviously fit a profile more along the lines of those who wish to hurt us. In the most egregious example of creating a two tier have/have-not hierarchy, private companies had set up camp at some of our busiest airports and created a pre-screening process that allows those who pay a fee to whisk through security lines faster than those who do not fly regularly or do not have the means to pay that extra fee. Thankfully the system has been dismantled and the company is now out of business. All this while innocent citizens of the US with the “wrong name” are placed on a no-fly list and are unable to board a plane.
So how close are we to putting the genie back in the bottle? $250 million was budgeted during the last year of the Bush administration to capture Al Qaeda’s leaders. Though at times during the past ten years we have had the opportunity to capture several in the leadership ranks, today we cannot say exactly where Osama Bin Laden resides. What is being said is that Al Qaeda has regrouped and is working back up to full strength. Yemen is the latest country to harbor and train these terrorist. The two who assisted in training the underwear bomber of the past week were said to have been released from Guantanamo Bay and “rehabilitated” by the Saudis. The Taliban, the government harboring Al Qaeda in Afghanistan in 2001has again gained strength and persecuting women in Afghanistan and is claiming responsibility for kidnappings and killings and have regained control of remote areas of that country. We wait anxiously to see if 18 months and 30,000 troops will make a difference in that largely ungoverned country. When asked why we cannot search Pakistan for Al Qaeda operatives and perhaps Bin Laden himself, we are told that there are complexities in doing so even though we know those who are harboring Bin Laden (and growing opium bound for the US as heroin) are located there.
Our government points to no terrorist attack taking place on US soil as success of our war on terrorism. But attacks on the European continent and Britain show that our neighbors and allies that gains are negligible. In this country freedoms granted and taken for granted for over 200 years have been diluted under the guise of the “Patriot Act.” While goods and services move more freely than ever between the borders of Mexico and Canada and the United States, citizens are now required for the first time to possess passports to travel legally to each of those two countries. Countless other civil liberties have been watered down including the government ‘s warrantless wiretaps and ability to know which books you check out from the library.
The citizens of the United States need to remember that our constitutional republic was founded on a government for and by the people. It is our responsibility to demand from those that we place into office that they work on issues that really matter to our country and our allies. Does it really matter if those who are homosexual want to marry? Or does it matter that thousands are never the victims of an unprovoked attack on US soil ever again? Does it really matter if someone burns the US flag? Or does it matter that we have no long-term energy policy that allows us to no longer rely on those who hate us and are empowered to fund wars against us by the very dollars that we provide them?
As much as we want to deny it, 911 demonstrated the US is no longer an outpost and geographically immune to attack. We need to work more closely with our allies. While the US may lead, we cannot afford to go it alone. Muslim extremists view their jihad against the infidels as world-wide. Our plan to combat this enemy needs to be worldwide and in cooperation with those who have shown over the years to be our unwavering friends. Our politicians need to tackle the difficult issues and stop distracting us and themselves with divisive and diversionary rhetoric and party politics. Today, there is no head of Homeland Security for the simple reason that republicans think that the nominated candidate for the position is pro-union. As a result they have held up his nomination. Among the first lessons of American Revolution, our founding fathers said that if we do not hang together, we will most assuredly all hang separately. That sentiment has never been truer than it is today.
It has been over eight years since the world trade center towers were attached by Muslim extremists. Our lives would be changed forever. The victims extended beyond those in the towers, in the four aircraft, those offering support in the months after the disaster and countless families from all over the country. Thousands of innocent people died that day and today many still suffer the psychological and physical effects of those attacks. Our decade has largely been defined by what took place that day.
We depend on our government for among other things protection and defense. What has been done in the eight years to insure that an attack of this magnitude never takes place again? What has really changed with regards to public safety in this country during the past six years? Have those who are responsible for the attacks of September 11 really been brought to justice? Has our government done what it is supposed to do by protecting us against threats both foreign and domestic?
We got the answer to that question last week when a young Nigerian man 23 years of age tried to detonate his underpants which had PETN explosives sewn into them. He would have been successful in doing so had it not been for the quick response of passengers and crew aboard the aircraft.
In response to the attacks of September 11, the US Government established the Department of Homeland Security. Billions of dollars have been spent to secure our borders and make us safe, but the same problem existed on December 25, 2009. Our government, for some yet unexplained reason was unable to connect the dots even though yet again all the warning signs were available to us to thwart this attach.
So what has changed since the towers were brought down? To our credit it would appear that we are better about coordinating interagency communication. Thankfully there has been no disaster in the US anywhere approaching the scale of what took place in 2001 to test that claim. Yet we have been told that should a disaster take place we are now better prepared than we were. This contention was apparently proven false last week. Perhaps our most visible sign of change since 911 has been that air travel is now more difficult and will likely become more so. In this day of political correctness 70 year old ladies are being searched along with those who obviously fit a profile more along the lines of those who wish to hurt us. In the most egregious example of creating a two tier have/have-not hierarchy, private companies had set up camp at some of our busiest airports and created a pre-screening process that allows those who pay a fee to whisk through security lines faster than those who do not fly regularly or do not have the means to pay that extra fee. Thankfully the system has been dismantled and the company is now out of business. All this while innocent citizens of the US with the “wrong name” are placed on a no-fly list and are unable to board a plane.
So how close are we to putting the genie back in the bottle? $250 million was budgeted during the last year of the Bush administration to capture Al Qaeda’s leaders. Though at times during the past ten years we have had the opportunity to capture several in the leadership ranks, today we cannot say exactly where Osama Bin Laden resides. What is being said is that Al Qaeda has regrouped and is working back up to full strength. Yemen is the latest country to harbor and train these terrorist. The two who assisted in training the underwear bomber of the past week were said to have been released from Guantanamo Bay and “rehabilitated” by the Saudis. The Taliban, the government harboring Al Qaeda in Afghanistan in 2001has again gained strength and persecuting women in Afghanistan and is claiming responsibility for kidnappings and killings and have regained control of remote areas of that country. We wait anxiously to see if 18 months and 30,000 troops will make a difference in that largely ungoverned country. When asked why we cannot search Pakistan for Al Qaeda operatives and perhaps Bin Laden himself, we are told that there are complexities in doing so even though we know those who are harboring Bin Laden (and growing opium bound for the US as heroin) are located there.
Our government points to no terrorist attack taking place on US soil as success of our war on terrorism. But attacks on the European continent and Britain show that our neighbors and allies that gains are negligible. In this country freedoms granted and taken for granted for over 200 years have been diluted under the guise of the “Patriot Act.” While goods and services move more freely than ever between the borders of Mexico and Canada and the United States, citizens are now required for the first time to possess passports to travel legally to each of those two countries. Countless other civil liberties have been watered down including the government ‘s warrantless wiretaps and ability to know which books you check out from the library.
The citizens of the United States need to remember that our constitutional republic was founded on a government for and by the people. It is our responsibility to demand from those that we place into office that they work on issues that really matter to our country and our allies. Does it really matter if those who are homosexual want to marry? Or does it matter that thousands are never the victims of an unprovoked attack on US soil ever again? Does it really matter if someone burns the US flag? Or does it matter that we have no long-term energy policy that allows us to no longer rely on those who hate us and are empowered to fund wars against us by the very dollars that we provide them?
As much as we want to deny it, 911 demonstrated the US is no longer an outpost and geographically immune to attack. We need to work more closely with our allies. While the US may lead, we cannot afford to go it alone. Muslim extremists view their jihad against the infidels as world-wide. Our plan to combat this enemy needs to be worldwide and in cooperation with those who have shown over the years to be our unwavering friends. Our politicians need to tackle the difficult issues and stop distracting us and themselves with divisive and diversionary rhetoric and party politics. Today, there is no head of Homeland Security for the simple reason that republicans think that the nominated candidate for the position is pro-union. As a result they have held up his nomination. Among the first lessons of American Revolution, our founding fathers said that if we do not hang together, we will most assuredly all hang separately. That sentiment has never been truer than it is today.
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Out of Touch
Those who represent us seem to be out of touch. Not all, but most. Recently I heard one of them on the radio talking about services and taxes. He said that the people want their schools funded and their roads fixed. But they are not willing to pay for any of this. If it is said on the radio, it must be true.
I guess you can fool some of the people some of the time.
Back in 1984, nearly a quarter century ago the people of California voted for the California state lottery. The slogan to pass this initiative was “our schools win too.” The ballot measure was sold to voters and residents that a percentage of the lottery money would fund schools. Well, that is exactly what happened. But what they did not tell us was that right after implemented the pre-lottery funding for California schools would be cut to offset the new source of funding from the new lottery. The long-term net addition to schools funding was essentially zero and a new self-sustaining bureaucracy was created. The lottery that was supposed to be a win for our schools was not.
The voters in the State of California have been voting for propositions to increase funding for highways in this state. I have lost count of how many ballot measures we have actually voted for to save our highways, our infrastructure and our schools. The voters have continuously voted for an extra quarter penny for sales tax, or a parcel tax, gas tax or a bond measure. We have been voting for nearly twenty years. During that time we it was determined that these funds that were supposed to be destined for roads, bridge repair, low classroom sizes or something very specific only to see those fund end up in the state’s general fund. It got so ridiculous that voters even needed to vote on a ballot measure that said that when voters vote for better roads or better schools or better something , that those funds cannot be diverted to the general fund. This, even though the funds were voted on to handle a specific problem or item in the first place. The biggest joke is that the same political action committee (the road construction lobby) that shills for better roads every election begins anew after every election for additional road funding. Their latest pitch is for a “private public partnership.” Translated: Toll roads. So after nearly 20 years of funding requests and the most recent a bond measure that mortgaged our children’s future to save crumbling infrastructure, they want toll roads which will require us to pay for the roads that we voted to pay for in the first place.
In my town they recently completed an addition to city hall after it was remodeled and expanded 20 years earlier. There were no real issues with the old city hall although it may have been slightly dated and a little small to handle the bloated bureaucracy that it was designed to handle when it was last refurbished. No public vote. Nothing more than the city council public hearings that no one knew about or had time to attend funding its expansion. A few years later it became apparent that the city’s library, across the street from city hall, needed replacement. Originally built in the late 1950’s it was long obvious that the small, dingy, and out-of-date facility needed to be rebuilt. The city next to ours with about 1/3 the population of our town had already made plans to replace their library. This city does not have a formal city hall and you would be hard pressed to find their offices. Our city had asked our voters to approve in one vote a sales tax increase and in another parcel tax to fund the library. Fed up with their hands always out for more funding, the citizens of our city voted the ballot measure down both times. Finally, the city realizing that the voters were fed up decided to build a scaled down version of the library. The new library finally broke ground and is being built about five years after the city hall had been completed. Moral of the story: If you want to build the Taj Mahal of a city hall with little or no public feedback and fill it with additional employees, no problem. But a new facility that will benefit the entire community requires years of votes and your dollars in the form of a parcel tax to get it done.
Politicians are now asking for more taxes from their constituents while those very constituents have difficulty with day to day expenses. When will it stop? We are about 225 years into the founding of our country. As citizens we pay at least 50% of our incomes in taxes after sales tax, state income tax, Federal income tax, social security tax, licenses, tolls and fees . That plus all the school fundraisers and cars washes for sporting equipment that are funded as part of a normal education in other parts of the country. Embarrassing. Critics of our low taxes say other countries pay more. Well, other countries were not built on the foundation of innovation and the ability to get ahead while keeping most of what you make. Other countries also have more to show their citizens for the high taxes they pay. Better care for the elderly, health insurance, a decent education and quality public transportation systems are just a few examples of what other countries get for their tax dollars.
In the last ten years in this country we have seen a stock boom that brought prosperity through sales tax, capital gains tax and income tax. We have experienced a building boom throughout the nation that had not been seen since the end of World War II. These events reaped hundreds of billions if not trillions of tax dollars into state and Federal coffers. Still our politicians cannot fix our roads, cannot fund our schools to decent levels and continue to ask us for more. They spend irresponsibly and vote to appoint commissions to give themselves raises. Funding for programs are not granted on need or merit but rather by those lobbyists who wield the most power and have the most influence. We have forgotten about what is right and what is needed. This became apparent when our politicians, who are supposed to represent us, say that is we that are out of touch.
Those who represent us seem to be out of touch. Not all, but most. Recently I heard one of them on the radio talking about services and taxes. He said that the people want their schools funded and their roads fixed. But they are not willing to pay for any of this. If it is said on the radio, it must be true.
I guess you can fool some of the people some of the time.
Back in 1984, nearly a quarter century ago the people of California voted for the California state lottery. The slogan to pass this initiative was “our schools win too.” The ballot measure was sold to voters and residents that a percentage of the lottery money would fund schools. Well, that is exactly what happened. But what they did not tell us was that right after implemented the pre-lottery funding for California schools would be cut to offset the new source of funding from the new lottery. The long-term net addition to schools funding was essentially zero and a new self-sustaining bureaucracy was created. The lottery that was supposed to be a win for our schools was not.
The voters in the State of California have been voting for propositions to increase funding for highways in this state. I have lost count of how many ballot measures we have actually voted for to save our highways, our infrastructure and our schools. The voters have continuously voted for an extra quarter penny for sales tax, or a parcel tax, gas tax or a bond measure. We have been voting for nearly twenty years. During that time we it was determined that these funds that were supposed to be destined for roads, bridge repair, low classroom sizes or something very specific only to see those fund end up in the state’s general fund. It got so ridiculous that voters even needed to vote on a ballot measure that said that when voters vote for better roads or better schools or better something , that those funds cannot be diverted to the general fund. This, even though the funds were voted on to handle a specific problem or item in the first place. The biggest joke is that the same political action committee (the road construction lobby) that shills for better roads every election begins anew after every election for additional road funding. Their latest pitch is for a “private public partnership.” Translated: Toll roads. So after nearly 20 years of funding requests and the most recent a bond measure that mortgaged our children’s future to save crumbling infrastructure, they want toll roads which will require us to pay for the roads that we voted to pay for in the first place.
In my town they recently completed an addition to city hall after it was remodeled and expanded 20 years earlier. There were no real issues with the old city hall although it may have been slightly dated and a little small to handle the bloated bureaucracy that it was designed to handle when it was last refurbished. No public vote. Nothing more than the city council public hearings that no one knew about or had time to attend funding its expansion. A few years later it became apparent that the city’s library, across the street from city hall, needed replacement. Originally built in the late 1950’s it was long obvious that the small, dingy, and out-of-date facility needed to be rebuilt. The city next to ours with about 1/3 the population of our town had already made plans to replace their library. This city does not have a formal city hall and you would be hard pressed to find their offices. Our city had asked our voters to approve in one vote a sales tax increase and in another parcel tax to fund the library. Fed up with their hands always out for more funding, the citizens of our city voted the ballot measure down both times. Finally, the city realizing that the voters were fed up decided to build a scaled down version of the library. The new library finally broke ground and is being built about five years after the city hall had been completed. Moral of the story: If you want to build the Taj Mahal of a city hall with little or no public feedback and fill it with additional employees, no problem. But a new facility that will benefit the entire community requires years of votes and your dollars in the form of a parcel tax to get it done.
Politicians are now asking for more taxes from their constituents while those very constituents have difficulty with day to day expenses. When will it stop? We are about 225 years into the founding of our country. As citizens we pay at least 50% of our incomes in taxes after sales tax, state income tax, Federal income tax, social security tax, licenses, tolls and fees . That plus all the school fundraisers and cars washes for sporting equipment that are funded as part of a normal education in other parts of the country. Embarrassing. Critics of our low taxes say other countries pay more. Well, other countries were not built on the foundation of innovation and the ability to get ahead while keeping most of what you make. Other countries also have more to show their citizens for the high taxes they pay. Better care for the elderly, health insurance, a decent education and quality public transportation systems are just a few examples of what other countries get for their tax dollars.
In the last ten years in this country we have seen a stock boom that brought prosperity through sales tax, capital gains tax and income tax. We have experienced a building boom throughout the nation that had not been seen since the end of World War II. These events reaped hundreds of billions if not trillions of tax dollars into state and Federal coffers. Still our politicians cannot fix our roads, cannot fund our schools to decent levels and continue to ask us for more. They spend irresponsibly and vote to appoint commissions to give themselves raises. Funding for programs are not granted on need or merit but rather by those lobbyists who wield the most power and have the most influence. We have forgotten about what is right and what is needed. This became apparent when our politicians, who are supposed to represent us, say that is we that are out of touch.
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Where Do You Stand?
Are you a Republican or a democrat?
As we enter the next decade, it’s vital that you think about where you stand and what you are for.
Perhaps we are not in as bad a shape as country or a culture as we were a year ago. But, depending on who you are, where you live and if you still have a job, make no mistake, we still live in trying times. Today our economy is in a fragile state. Has it failed? No. But few are singing “Happy Days are Here Again.”
So who will best lead us out of this? The conservatives or the liberals? The republications or the democrats?
Let’s start with the democrats or as the republicans like to say, “Liberals.” Their philosophy has been that the blue collar worker in our country needs a fair shake. That is why so many of the unions often endorse a democratic candidate. They have been dedicated to making sure that the working class has a fair wage for a fair day’s work. As a voting bloc, democrats seem to represent those who are not at the upper end of the economic spectrum. In a bygone era, it could be said that the democrats wanted higher taxes and more regulation in order to even out inequities between the rich and the poor; the worker and the business owner; the haves and the have nots. They have been portrayed as wild taxers of the wealthy and spenders of tax payer dollars with wild abandon.
The republications or “right wingers” have had a reputation as the party of the wealthy. Often large business owners and entrepreneurs were thought to be republicans. While there are exceptions, if you make a lot of money, you are a republican. Republicans were traditionally for less regulation and the ability to get the most productivity out of the working class and that meant getting the most out of the worker. As a group they were against the unions. Traditionally the republicans were for less regulation, more competition and a market driven economy where the fittest survived. In a bygone era the republicans wanted smaller government, less government interference and lower taxes that in theory would translate into more investment and a stronger economy. Their basic economic philosophy was grounded in a theory that if economic incentives were given to large companies and wealthy business owners, a trickledown effect would take place lifting all, the poor and the middle class as well as themselves into economic prosperity.
But into the beginning of the last decade of the 20th century to the present day something changed. The republicans realizing that the democrats held the executive branch would need the votes from outside their core constituency to reclaim what had been theirs for the better part of the previous two decades. They could not win future elections by simply appealing to the traditional ideology of the Republican Party. They continued to court the socially conservative religious right which began to move toward their party in the early 1980’s. This arrangement meant that the party had to denounce certain moral issues such as the right by women to have an abortion or for couples of the same gender to marry. This arrangement began to erode the traditional conservative philosophy of government interference in the worst way. Not only were republicans now advocating government interference, they were advocating the interference of a human right, and the basic freedoms guaranteed from the very time our country was born and in some examples affirmed by the Supreme Court.
The trickledown theory of economics has always been controversial. It starts by priming the economic pump from the top down. Whether or not the benefits really make it to the working classes is up for debate to this day. But at the turn of the century as the administration changed from democrat to republican and from one of the greatest boom periods to the economy we have today a strange thing happened. As that economic pump was being primed, technology, new laws and a lack of regulation and oversight allowed many of those large companies to send jobs off shore. Rather than allowing success and prosperity to trickle down, large companies sent jobs away. Unlike downturns previously, factories were being moved overseas where labor was plentiful and cheap and workers here were being asked to help pack factories up and close them down. White collar workers somewhat immune to previous downturns due to the skilled nature of their work were being asked to train their replacements that were educated but cheaper to employ in other countries. The profits and re-investment in our industry and our economy were being sent overseas with no apologies from big business. In some cases it has been just the opposite. Some companies which started and flourished in this country proclaimed that they no longer called themselves American companies but rather “global companies” with no national identity. In perhaps the most shameless example, one very a large corporation and defense contractor that received billions of dollars in no bid contracts from the US Government after the invasion of Iraq and whose headquarters was in Texas employing our former vice president as its former CEO has moved its headquarters to the United Arab Emirates.
Factories in manufacturing states like Michigan, Pennsylvania and Indiana lay idol. The lucky now work for retailers such as Wal Mart with wages far below what they were making just a few years ago and receive little or no benefits. The unlucky have lost everything. The Republican Party, which controlled the Executive Branch and the Legislative Branch from 2001 to 2006 did nothing to stop or even slow down this process. In a matter of fact in some cases incentives continue to flow to these companies.
Do you put your country first? Or is it country club first? Somehow if you oppose this winner take all attitude toward our economy and advocate toward a simple living wage you are not a true American. Today’s opposition likes to brand the democrats today as socialists for suggesting that the pendulum has swung too far to the right. We have a record deficit and owe foreign investors and governments hundreds of billions dollars. At the end of the Clinton administration the budget was balanced and there was no deficit. This deficit has been run up by the republicans, the party of less spending. Yet they continue to offer no way to stem the tide of red ink. If we operated our own households this way we would be called wildly irresponsible and would be destined to fail in obscurity. Yet to advocate for a method to pay for this deficit so that our children and grand children are not saddled with this debt makes you a tax and spend liberal.
But are you a patriot? If you oppose a war that was started and fought under false pretenses, has killed over 5,000 and maimed countless others you are unpatriotic. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were started by a republican administration that pledged not to nation build. After the election that administration had advocated that there was no middle ground. “You are either with us or against us.” But make no mistake. The wealthy are not fighting this war. The bottom line is that the republicans would have you believe that it’s unpatriotic to question any decision made in “the country’s best interest.” Do not take lightly newly advocated laws or regulations that restrict your rights under the guise of fighting terrorism. If you give up your rights and freedoms hard fought after 225 years then the terrorists really have won. If you somehow speak out or oppose with fact and logic you are somehow branded an elitist.
Who are the elitists? If celebrities speak out, they are the “Hollywood Elite.” If the media reports they are the “Media Elite.” If the educated speak out they are the “Liberal Elite.” Guess what: Both sides, the left and the right have Ivy League graduates vying for and wanting to run this country. In our most recent national election, on one side there was a candidate who doesn’t know how many houses he owned and whose wife is worth $100 million. On the other side the candidate and his wife graduated from Harvard, the most prestigious school in our country. Our previous president graduated from Yale, an Ivy League school also listed as one of the top colleges in the country. If this sounds like you then you too are among the elite. If you are like the rest of us, then be happy that “elitists” run or want to run our country. Take some comfort that even these smart people can screw things up too and at the end of the day we are pretty much all alike. The fact is that both sides, the left and the right need intelligent, well educated people working for them and us. Running a country is not an exact science. So by accusing a group of being elite really means that you are just trying to distract the rest of us from your own shortcomings.
Don’t be fooled or distracted. We are all lucky to have a constitutionally mandated ability to voice an opinion. Just understand that because you are paid to do so does not make you an expert. You probably just look better on television than most of us do. So just think. We all have the ability to reason. God probably is not interested in a country or a political ideology? After all God has been around a lot longer than America or our system of democracy. But if you do believe in God, or not, you have been given a brain. Use it. Every man woman and child has been born with one. Reason with it. Don’t let someone else make important decisions for you. Make the best choice for what you believe will better this country, your community and your family.
As we enter the next decade, it’s vital that you think about where you stand and what you are for.
Perhaps we are not in as bad a shape as country or a culture as we were a year ago. But, depending on who you are, where you live and if you still have a job, make no mistake, we still live in trying times. Today our economy is in a fragile state. Has it failed? No. But few are singing “Happy Days are Here Again.”
So who will best lead us out of this? The conservatives or the liberals? The republications or the democrats?
Let’s start with the democrats or as the republicans like to say, “Liberals.” Their philosophy has been that the blue collar worker in our country needs a fair shake. That is why so many of the unions often endorse a democratic candidate. They have been dedicated to making sure that the working class has a fair wage for a fair day’s work. As a voting bloc, democrats seem to represent those who are not at the upper end of the economic spectrum. In a bygone era, it could be said that the democrats wanted higher taxes and more regulation in order to even out inequities between the rich and the poor; the worker and the business owner; the haves and the have nots. They have been portrayed as wild taxers of the wealthy and spenders of tax payer dollars with wild abandon.
The republications or “right wingers” have had a reputation as the party of the wealthy. Often large business owners and entrepreneurs were thought to be republicans. While there are exceptions, if you make a lot of money, you are a republican. Republicans were traditionally for less regulation and the ability to get the most productivity out of the working class and that meant getting the most out of the worker. As a group they were against the unions. Traditionally the republicans were for less regulation, more competition and a market driven economy where the fittest survived. In a bygone era the republicans wanted smaller government, less government interference and lower taxes that in theory would translate into more investment and a stronger economy. Their basic economic philosophy was grounded in a theory that if economic incentives were given to large companies and wealthy business owners, a trickledown effect would take place lifting all, the poor and the middle class as well as themselves into economic prosperity.
But into the beginning of the last decade of the 20th century to the present day something changed. The republicans realizing that the democrats held the executive branch would need the votes from outside their core constituency to reclaim what had been theirs for the better part of the previous two decades. They could not win future elections by simply appealing to the traditional ideology of the Republican Party. They continued to court the socially conservative religious right which began to move toward their party in the early 1980’s. This arrangement meant that the party had to denounce certain moral issues such as the right by women to have an abortion or for couples of the same gender to marry. This arrangement began to erode the traditional conservative philosophy of government interference in the worst way. Not only were republicans now advocating government interference, they were advocating the interference of a human right, and the basic freedoms guaranteed from the very time our country was born and in some examples affirmed by the Supreme Court.
The trickledown theory of economics has always been controversial. It starts by priming the economic pump from the top down. Whether or not the benefits really make it to the working classes is up for debate to this day. But at the turn of the century as the administration changed from democrat to republican and from one of the greatest boom periods to the economy we have today a strange thing happened. As that economic pump was being primed, technology, new laws and a lack of regulation and oversight allowed many of those large companies to send jobs off shore. Rather than allowing success and prosperity to trickle down, large companies sent jobs away. Unlike downturns previously, factories were being moved overseas where labor was plentiful and cheap and workers here were being asked to help pack factories up and close them down. White collar workers somewhat immune to previous downturns due to the skilled nature of their work were being asked to train their replacements that were educated but cheaper to employ in other countries. The profits and re-investment in our industry and our economy were being sent overseas with no apologies from big business. In some cases it has been just the opposite. Some companies which started and flourished in this country proclaimed that they no longer called themselves American companies but rather “global companies” with no national identity. In perhaps the most shameless example, one very a large corporation and defense contractor that received billions of dollars in no bid contracts from the US Government after the invasion of Iraq and whose headquarters was in Texas employing our former vice president as its former CEO has moved its headquarters to the United Arab Emirates.
Factories in manufacturing states like Michigan, Pennsylvania and Indiana lay idol. The lucky now work for retailers such as Wal Mart with wages far below what they were making just a few years ago and receive little or no benefits. The unlucky have lost everything. The Republican Party, which controlled the Executive Branch and the Legislative Branch from 2001 to 2006 did nothing to stop or even slow down this process. In a matter of fact in some cases incentives continue to flow to these companies.
Do you put your country first? Or is it country club first? Somehow if you oppose this winner take all attitude toward our economy and advocate toward a simple living wage you are not a true American. Today’s opposition likes to brand the democrats today as socialists for suggesting that the pendulum has swung too far to the right. We have a record deficit and owe foreign investors and governments hundreds of billions dollars. At the end of the Clinton administration the budget was balanced and there was no deficit. This deficit has been run up by the republicans, the party of less spending. Yet they continue to offer no way to stem the tide of red ink. If we operated our own households this way we would be called wildly irresponsible and would be destined to fail in obscurity. Yet to advocate for a method to pay for this deficit so that our children and grand children are not saddled with this debt makes you a tax and spend liberal.
But are you a patriot? If you oppose a war that was started and fought under false pretenses, has killed over 5,000 and maimed countless others you are unpatriotic. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were started by a republican administration that pledged not to nation build. After the election that administration had advocated that there was no middle ground. “You are either with us or against us.” But make no mistake. The wealthy are not fighting this war. The bottom line is that the republicans would have you believe that it’s unpatriotic to question any decision made in “the country’s best interest.” Do not take lightly newly advocated laws or regulations that restrict your rights under the guise of fighting terrorism. If you give up your rights and freedoms hard fought after 225 years then the terrorists really have won. If you somehow speak out or oppose with fact and logic you are somehow branded an elitist.
Who are the elitists? If celebrities speak out, they are the “Hollywood Elite.” If the media reports they are the “Media Elite.” If the educated speak out they are the “Liberal Elite.” Guess what: Both sides, the left and the right have Ivy League graduates vying for and wanting to run this country. In our most recent national election, on one side there was a candidate who doesn’t know how many houses he owned and whose wife is worth $100 million. On the other side the candidate and his wife graduated from Harvard, the most prestigious school in our country. Our previous president graduated from Yale, an Ivy League school also listed as one of the top colleges in the country. If this sounds like you then you too are among the elite. If you are like the rest of us, then be happy that “elitists” run or want to run our country. Take some comfort that even these smart people can screw things up too and at the end of the day we are pretty much all alike. The fact is that both sides, the left and the right need intelligent, well educated people working for them and us. Running a country is not an exact science. So by accusing a group of being elite really means that you are just trying to distract the rest of us from your own shortcomings.
Don’t be fooled or distracted. We are all lucky to have a constitutionally mandated ability to voice an opinion. Just understand that because you are paid to do so does not make you an expert. You probably just look better on television than most of us do. So just think. We all have the ability to reason. God probably is not interested in a country or a political ideology? After all God has been around a lot longer than America or our system of democracy. But if you do believe in God, or not, you have been given a brain. Use it. Every man woman and child has been born with one. Reason with it. Don’t let someone else make important decisions for you. Make the best choice for what you believe will better this country, your community and your family.
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