A Hypothetical Conversation with President Obama

Mister President, thank you for taking the time to meet today.

POTUS: You're welcome

Today, your approval ratings sit at near lows and the economy is still in the doldrums. Do you see things turning around soon?

POTUS: I still believe that the stimulus package saved us from catastrophe and will help the economy gain strength.

Mr. President, I would argue the stimulus package hurt you in two big ways: your poor approval and the birth of the Tea Party movement.

POTUS: How can you make that argument? They are not related.

I believe they are. First, One of the biggest criticisms of you when you were a candidate was that you had little executive experience. In all honesty, even Gov. Palin had a lot more experience than you in executive positions and your campaign operatives hammered her endlessly about being inexperienced. But the stimulus package is where the narrative was reinforced: I believe that when your economists advised you that if you didn't put $750 billion into the economy it would tank, so you tried to do it in good faith. However, you made a rookie mistake; you trusted Speaker Pelosi.

POTUS: Rep. Pelosi is a strong and loyal public servant.

I know you believe that but she went to Rep. David Obey, Chairman of Appropriations, and said "spend $750 billion". He, in turn, went around to every Congressman he could find and asked them what pet projects they wanted to spend money on. That is how you ended up defending $789 billion of crap.

POTUS: I wouldn't put it that way. A lot of those projects were very worthwhile.

Maybe so, but you ended up defending stuff that even you had to turn your nose up at. An experienced executive would have crafted a bill with projects that had to be paid for anyway: bridges, schools, roads, the electrical grid, etc. and sent that bill to Congress. All that would have happened was you'd be moving necessary projects forward. You got boxed in and embarrassed by your Democratic Congress despite good intentions.

POTUS: That may be how you see it but how does that have anything to do with the Tea Party?

There was a lot of unrest with the government during the last years of the Bush administration with rising spending and the wars. You ran on a promise to change things. Many people who knew that you were no where near as qualified as Senator McCain voted for you because of the ideal you represented: no more status quo, transparency, change, etc. When your administration started doing things without transparency, sneaking through unpopular bills by bending rules, spending even more than the Bush Administration, doing almost everything for the benefit of labor unions, the people had finally had enough. Because you had represented yourself as different, and turned to be a larger version of the same old politicians, there was a lot more disappointment with your administration than there would usually be. Because the Republicans were big spenders and Democrats turned out to be even bigger spenders, along comes the Tea Party.

POTUS: You seem to forget that I ran on green jobs, ending the Iraq War, closing Guantanamo Bay, and bringing a different tone to Washington.

Mr. President, the Iraq War was won when you came into office. That was a done deal. If anything, the Democratic Congress made the tone in Washington much worse. Republicans weren't even able to present ideas on any of the major bills. You know you can't close Guantanamo Bay and send those prisoners back into the fight. And until technology improves, green energy will destroy our economy. Besides, this winter is making Al Gore look a little foolish.

POTUS: Climate change is an important issue. We need to be the leader in this regard.

True, but you and everyone else knows that until India and China sign on, anything we do here will not only be futile, it will give those two countries a competitive advantage. Beside, real data contradicts the UN's computer models about the effect of carbon dioxide on the atmosphere.

Moving on, the biggest controversy in Washington these days is the health care bill. Admit it, you could not have possibly known all the junk that was in that bill and it certainly wasn't written in a few weeks.

POTUS: There are some things in the bill that need to be adjusted, like the 1099 requirement for small business. But a lot of other parts of the bill are monumental achievements, like the pre-existing conditions section.

Since you bring that up, let's take two scenarios: 1) A 55 year old man has been working for the same company since he was 18. He has always paid his taxes, never been in trouble, a stellar citizen. He has hypertension and mild diabetes. His company goes out of business. He can't get insurance at his new job. Clearly that is wrong.

POTUS: That is exactly the person we are trying to help. This bill prevents that from happening.

Fair enough. Scenario 2: We have a 32 year old male. He has never worked a day in his life. He is perfectly healthy. He chooses not to work. He never pays taxes. He even sells a little bit of crack to school children to get by. One day, he has a pain and goes to his emergency room for some free care. He finds out he needs a major operation and long term postoperative care. He has a pre-existing condition. What obligation do the people who have been paying into the system their whole lives have provide him insurance?

POTUS: That is a little extreme for an example.

No. They are both pre-existing conditions. Wouldn't it have been better to allow all people to purchase across state lines and to own their own policy so they can carry it from job to job?

POTUS: I have said anyone with good ideas can bring them to me.

Those ideas were brought to you before the bill was passed and the Republicans were not allowed to offer amendments. That is why people are fed up.

POTUS: I agree there are adjustments that have to be made.

Moving on, we have massive debt now. You offered to freeze spending. But that was after you raised spending for most domestic programs by about 24%. That is like curing binge drinking by not drinking more than you did when you were drinking the most alcohol.

POTUS: We are trying to reduce the rate of growth.

That doesn't make sense. You don't reduce the first derivative. You have to make the amount go down, not how fast it gets bigger.

One last question: You work closely with Sen. Reid. How can you possibly put up with that guy?

POTUS: Senator Reid is a great public servant who worked hard to get many of my agenda items passed.

True, but it is one thing when a politician lies to you. It is another when he is lying, you know he is lying, he knows that you know that he is lying, but still lies to you anyway.

POTUS: Lying about what?

You know as well as I do that the set of suppositions and nonsense that was given to the Congressional Budget Office about the health care bill, such as ten years of taxes to offset six years of benefits and a separate bill to fix reimbursement for physicians in Medicare, was garbage just to make the numbers turn out in your favor. Sen. Reid always talks about how the bill will bring down costs when he knows it isn't true.

POTUS: He and I believe that it is true.

That just about says it all. Thank you Mister President.

How the Economy Doesn't Work and More Fabrications

A collection of thoughts about the last couple of weeks:

The "stimulus" bill now being considered in the Senate which passed in the House is being talked about non-stop by all the talking heads on television. As it continues to languish, someone described it as a rotting corpse. The longer is is exposed to the sunshine, the more it begins to stink.

Rep. Nancy Pelosi was just on television yesterday saying that "every month that the stimulus package is not passed, 500 million Americans will lose their jobs". I find that statistic interesting in that the population of the United States is just over 300 million people. How she can say something like that with a straight face means that she must have had a stroke or slow virus brain disease. It is not possible for what she said to be true and any middle schooler could tell you that it was not possible.

Spending by the government is a revolving door and does not stimulate the economy. You take taxes in, pay them out, and take them in again. It doesn't produce anything. It is money that is just being printed by the government and being covered by borrowing from foreign countries. In order for the economy to function, private industry must generate wealth and pay taxes into the government. The workers who are employed by those private industries must earn wages and pay taxes into the government. It is private industry that generates revenue, not the government. To think that the economic crisis will be resolved by just printing more money is idiotic and not very reassuring about the competence of those advocating that course. It has never worked in the past and is silly.

Another big lie is that this current wish list of a bill is a stimulus package at all. It is a laundry list of liberal wishes. Some of the ideas may have merit but they are not stimulative to the economy. As the people have seen more and more of this bill, public opinion has turned against it and rightly so. Fred Smith, CEO of Fedex was on television the other day and pointed out that the United States Tax Code is weighted substantially toward helping financial institutions and inhibiting the manufacturing sector. The Democrats constantly rail against manufacturers relocating facilities overseas yet never admit that their own tax policies are causing the movement. The obligation of any CEO of a corporation is to make a profit for the stockholders. If that CEO can find a more favorable environment to manufacture the companies products, he has an obligation to do so. Since the United States has the highest business taxes in the world, should it surprise anyone that businesses are going elsewhere? We have seen the same phenomenon within the United States with businesses relocating from the industrial north (Michigan, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, etc.) to the Southeast where the weather is better and the local and state governments are more friendly to business and the tax structure is better for business. That very thing is what has happened to the automobile industry in Michigan where dumb business decisions and liberal policies have whacked the industry. Automobile manufacturers in South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas are doing fine.

If the Democrats wanted to stimulate the economy, they could have money in the people's pockets in two weeks: reduce payroll taxes. It would only require the stroke of a pen. There are things in the stimulus bill which cost tens of millions of dollars and produce only a dozen jobs. If you are you going to do that, just give me ten million dollars and say it is a job. I won't even tell on you. In every single instance in United States history, reducing the capital gains tax has resulted in increased revenue for the government. Additionally, every single time capital gains taxes are raised, government revenue decreases. Can anyone see what the right thing is to do? Duh.

The Obama people say giving a rebate check to the people is stimulative. Consider this when comparing the rebate check to tax relief: Would you be more likely to make a big purchase (car, washer, refrigerator, computer, etc.) with a single rebate check, or with more money every paycheck for the forseeable future? Anyone can see that tax relief makes more sense and will be more stimulative to the economy. To say otherwise is to show your partisanship and no knowledge of the economy.

The left, in order to pay back the big labor unions for their support in the elections, is trying to pass the goofy "card check" legislation which will take the right to secret ballots away from union elections. Perhaps we can establish a KGB and a Ministry of Propaganda as well. The secret ballot vote is a fundamental right of all Americans in all elections. How anyone can claim it is progress is demeaning to anyone that can think.

If only these guys would start looking out for the people and less about their own butts.

Fooling Them Most of the Time

An interesting Zogby poll came out in the last couple of days which shows some of the influence of the main stream media and in some ways how it causes results it doesn’t desire. While the networks and cable outlets have been trashing the Bush Administration for years and managed to get the approval rating for the President down to the lower 30s, the approval ratings for the Democrat-led Congress they favor is down to a historically low 18%. The House of Representatives under Nancy Pelosi has effectively done nothing and the Senate is the same under Harry Reid. Both leaders spend all their time making speeches about how bad the current administration is but never seem to offer more effective alternatives. In the public’s view, the Democratic Party is determined to lose the war without regard to consequences and they plan to lose it as a way to gain political power. This is clearly not the way to win in November 2008. The latest stay up all night and debate Iraq stunt was seen for the inane political theater it was and the public does not seem to be pleased. I have no idea who is advising Harry Reid but, whoever he is, his former career as a grocery bagger seems a safe bet in the near future. Reid, one of the two Senators from “the state which shouldn’t even be a state” (almost all federal property), is the poster child for inability and distasteful politics. The best thing for the Republicans to do between now and November 2008 is to have Reid and Pelosi on television as much as possible. By constantly giving coverage to these two shrill whiners, the networks have created a result they clearly don't want.

The other interesting item from that poll is how about 60-70% of people polled were quite content with their personal finances. However, despite all-time record high stock market closings, low unemployment, record home ownership, etc., only 20% thought the US economy was doing well. Let’s see if I have that straight: most feel they are doing well, almost everyone has a job and has a place to live, stocks are booming but the economy stinks. That demonstrates the mainstream media in action. They rave about how good the economy was at the end of the Clinton presidency, which was not nearly as strong as today’s, but at the same time say today’s economy stinks. These are the same people who lambaste Fox News and claim that they themselves have no political agenda. There are a lot of ill-informed and gullible people in this country but I don’t think there are enough for the Democrats to pull this off. At least I hope not.