Tag: barack obama

Categories
government transparency national politics & policies

Absolute Safety Never Assured

There’s this old joke. “How do you know when a politician is lying? He’s moving his lips.”

Regarding President Obama’s recent speech about the ongoing oil spill disaster, Byron York of the Washington Examiner noted “one particularly striking moment …

midway through his talk, Obama acknowledged that he had approved new offshore drilling a few weeks before the Deepwater Horizon rig explosion on April 20. But Obama said he had done so only “under the assurance that it would be absolutely safe.”

York then quoted industry experts swearing on a stack of scientific reports that, regarding oil drilling, there is no such thing as “absolutely safe.” So, the intrepid reporter wanted to know, who told Obama that new deep sea oil drilling would be safe?

Long story short: He got a lot of administrative runaround from the Administration.

But who in their right mind believes anything is “absolutely safe”? Water isn’t. Chewing gum isn’t. As Thomas Sowell has explained in books like Applied Economics, we never choose between the risky and the absolutely safe. There’s risk all around. And trade-offs. 

Assuming that Obama is not a nitwit (a pretty safe assumption), when he spoke the “absolutely safe” line, he simply wasn’t being honest.

Why? Because he looks bad. But this could have been an opportunity for America (and its president) to confront reality.

Of course, for a sitting politician, that’s the furthest thing from safe.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
national politics & policies tax policy

But He Promised

Like the rest of us, politicians can honestly change their mind about an issue.

But when a presidential candidate “firmly” pledges to, say, never act to raise taxes of any kind on families earning less than $250,000 a year, and then reneges, that doesn’t quite count. And then when, soon after being elected, the politician pretends that his earlier pledge doesn’t mean what it plainly meant — or even pretends that he never made the pledge at all — one suspects that the original promise was really a fib, a falsehood. From the get-go.

In an interview with George Stephanopoulos given last September during the health care debate, Barack Obama tried to escape his no-​new-​taxes pledge by asserting that the new taxes that would be imposed on Americans declining to buy health insurance under his health care plan would not in fact be taxes. With a straight face, Obama even disputed the dictionary definition of “tax” that Stephanopoulos recited to him.

Now we’re hearing from an administration official that the president never even made the pledge. According to White House Budget Director Peter Orszag, it was merely an expression of a “preference.” We’ll have to wait until a bipartisan commission (on how to tax us more) finishes its work before we learn whether it will be viable for Obama to hew to that “preference.”

Meanwhile, those who prefer truth can view the video proof of an actual pledge on YouTube.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
national politics & policies

Democrats versus Majoritarian Tyranny

Senate Democrats are firmly against any attempt to circumvent the 60-​vote majority that Senate rules require to prevent a filibuster of major legislation. On principle!

Forget that the recent election of Republican Scott Brown deprives Democrats of their filibuster-​proof majority. Democrats won’t even consider trying to shunt that rule aside so they can foist Obamacare on us. No, no, no.

Of course, strangely, newspaper reports say they looking at doing just that. But I can prove otherwise. With evidence from five years ago. Here’s what Senator Obama had to say in 2005: “… prompting a change in the Senate rules that really, I think, would change the character of the Senate forever … Majoritarian absolute power.… and that’s just not what the Founders intended.”

Senator Schumer: “We are on the precipice of a crisis, a constitutional crisis. The checks and balances which have been at the core of this republic are about to be evaporated by the ‘nuclear option.’ The checks and balances which say that if you get 51 percent of the vote, you don’t get your way 100 percent of the time.”

Senator Reid: “Mr. President, the right to extend debate is never more important than when one party controls Congress and the White House. In these cases, the filibuster serves as a check on power and preserves our limited government.”

Wow. Sounds like they really mean it. And they do, right?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
education and schooling free trade & free markets too much government

Take That Money

I didn’t notice it right away, but President Obama included some strange stuff about student loans in his State of the Union address. He called the current system an “unwarranted” taxpayer subsidy to banks.

Well, yeah. His solution? Another unwarranted taxpayer subsidy.

The president seeks to give families a $10,000 tax credit for sending kids to college. He also insists that no student spend more than 10 percent of his income to pay back loans, and that the unpaid portion of loans be forgiven after 20 years.

Further, if the former student happens to work for the government, the loan would be forgiven in half that time — just ten years!

This amounts to a huge special favor to government workers, of course. It may sound nice and patriotic when the president calls it “public service,” but it seems less so when you realize that government workers now earn, on average, more than private sector workers. Perhaps the fact that public employee unions are a big spending political powerhouse for Obama and Democrats matters in some small way.

Alas, more vote buying.

The president used an interesting phrase, explaining what he’s up to. He instructs us to “take that money” now loaned by banks and “give to families.” This is pseudo-​specific. It’s not the same money.

But a politician obscuring the real source of wealth is nothing new.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
too much government U.S. Constitution

The Man Who Would Be Missed

A billboard went up in Wyoming, Minnesota. It features a photo of ex-​prez George W. Bush, with a goofy smile and one of his off-​kilter, clumsy poses, with the large caption “Miss Me Yet?”

Some dispute the intent of the message. The anonymous businessmen who paid for it aren’t talking. But it seems pretty clear to me. To ask the question is to challenge the current man in the hot seat.

For my part, I never hated George W. Bush the way some did — but I never admired him as did many others. In my mind, Bush didn’t do much for limited government and the rule of law. He mostly moved things in the other direction.

Sadly, that “other direction” is not exactly a new direction. It’s old hat. More government. More regulation. More spending. More debt.

And, even sadder, the current president likes George W. Bush’s direction. He’s taken Bush’s Keynesian stimulus ideas, and upped the ante. He took the bailouts, and bailed out more businesses. And he took Bush’s two wars, and he’s put more money and men and women into them.

Miss Mr. Bush? There are days when it looks like we’re experiencing his third term. And enough was enough already, long ago.

How long ago?

Picture good ol’ Grover Cleveland, and picture that picture with the caption, “Miss Me Yet?”

Well, yes.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
national politics & policies too much government

Do the Right Thing – Later

Late in life, St. Augustine characterized his youthful, wayward ways in a droll prayer: “Lord, make me chaste and celibate — but not yet!”

Today, politicians of both parties understand the sentiment. 

On Monday of last week, President Barack Obama unveiled his budget to Congress with this nicely worded maxim: “We simply cannot continue to spend as if deficits don’t have consequences, as if waste doesn’t matter, as if the hard-​earned tax money of the American people can be treated like Monopoly money.”

Obama proposed a record budget of $3.8 trillion — including a deficit of well over $1 trillion. We can’t keep deficit spending like this, but we keep deficit spending like this.

Talking to reporters, Obama admitted that he and his friends in Congress “won’t be able to bring down this deficit overnight.” He cited the need for more job creation as reason to continue to spend so much money.

Money we don’t have. So it will be borrowed. Against future taxes. Or future default.

Sure, the president is proposing a freeze. To start next fiscal year. And he’s proposing a bipartisan committee to cook up some way to balance the budget. The committee hasn’t been formed yet.

That seems like too much procrastination for the state of our nation. I think St. Augustine would agree with me: Virtue is not something you put off until next year.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.