Flight of the Greenbacks

It’s doubtful the outcome of the November, 2008 election will be determined by rational thinking. This bodes well for Democrats. With anger and frustration trumping common sense, it doesn’t take a clairvoyant to see that the Republicans could be in for a real drubbing this fall.

Family incomes are being stretched to the limit by energy costs. People feel they are in jeopardy and are looking for a safe harbor. Unfortunately for Senator McCain, after thirty years of negligence, this predictable energy crisis climaxed on President Bush’s watch.

McCain, the man, isn’t promising miracles because he is restrained by honesty. He feels a moral obligation to explain the cost and consequences of his proposals. This is a wonderful trait for a leader, but an anchor around the neck of a presidential candidate.

In the tradition of Democratic candidates since Mondale, Senator Obama doesn’t suffer from this moral imperative. His campaign is all about benefits. He promises goodies for all. Naturally, he claims that others will be saddled with the bills.

Obama’s brand of unbridled welfare is based on the expectation that the productive members of society won’t protect themselves. Liberals never learn. This false assumption has already led to the near extinction of US based manufacturing.

Obama economics will incite a reign of terror on business. The “others” he targets include companies and individuals who can move their assets off-shore to protect their investors and accumulated wealth. This shift has already accelerated the decline of the New York Stock Exchange.

A microcosm of this cause and effect is being documented in Michigan, California and Massachusetts. Businesses and the educated are bailing out of these brutally taxed liberal conclaves in droves. The migration of talent drains theses states of investment capital, employment opportunities and future prosperity. This is a preview of Obama economics which will bleed the nation dry.

The Democrats control the Senate and the House. While the minority party, Republicans, demand that the abundant US energy reserves be tapped while alternative energy sources come online, the Democrats are selling windmills, sunshine and higher energy taxes as the only solution.

The United States will collapse within a decade if it continues to transfer $700 billion annually to foreign countries. The value of its currency is already plummeting to dangerous lows.

This reality isn’t perceived as a negative by the advocates of big government. Private enterprise has always managed to rebound. Senator Obama and the Democrats are depending on the creativity of private enterprise to cover the cost of their expanded welfare initiatives.

But business can’t survive without affordable energy. So if Obama is elected expect to see a new phenomenon, investors fleeing US markets as rapidly as business abandoned US manufacturing. It will be called Green Flight.

Angry Americans

Many Americans remember the ugly years of stagflation during President Carter’s administration.

The country was embroiled in the Iranian hostage crisis for 444 days, there were severe fuel shortages, Egypt and Syria attacked Israel, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan and US unemployment reached 8.3%.

The Middle East was a tinderbox, the economy was slithering down a rat hole and the Democrats controlling Congress stopped supporting Carter’s initiatives. Does this have a familiar smell?

In response to the Carter years, the economist, Arthur Okun, created the Misery Index, which measured America’s economic pain from inflation and unemployment. Carter scored 16.27, the worst number ever recorded. President Eisenhower has the best score (6.26), and surprisingly, presidents George W. Bush and Lyndon Johnson are tied for the second lowest numbers.

The Bush Administration was greeted by the technology bubble bursting, then came 9/11, Iraq, Afghanistan, Hurricane Katrina and now, the financial fallout from 25 years of Equal Opportunity Lending in the mortgage industry. Americans are being stuck for the cost of government guaranteed loans to borrowers who were never credit worthy.

Compared to Carter’s term in office, this Administration has done a decent job of keeping the economy’s head above water. But this time around it is not inflation, unemployment and interest rates that have Americans screaming for blood.

They are angry about the cost of healthcare, education, energy and food. Many are frightened by the cost of heating their homes this winter. They see coddled illegal aliens swamping our infrastructure and undermining wages, and have witnessed the near disappearance of US manufactured goods.

The anger is further inflamed by the impasse between the major parties. It’s obvious to any casual observer that Congress is not interested in solutions. Both sides have dug in their political heels for the sole purpose of making the opposition look bad.

Congress is filled with party hacks. Can anyone remember the last time one of these self-serving slim balls stood in front of a microphone and didn’t immediately blame the opposition for the mess we are in?

Only the miserably stupid believe that just Republicans or Democrats are solely responsible for the energy crisis, the disappearance of manufacturing and the other economic calamities the nation sees on its horizon. These issues have been festering since Jimmy Carter created the Department of Energy.

And only the truly stupid believe that higher taxation will solve the Medicare and Social Security time bombs and remedy the nation’s ailments. Opportunity after opportunity is being squandered by both sides of the political aisle. And time is running out.

The federal government will rake in over $3 trillion in revenues this year. That’s a staggering sum of money by any historical standards.

Money is not the problem. It’s the featherbedding mentality that permeates all levels of government that siphons funds away from the strategic challenges the nation faces. Forget solutions! This Congress can’t even agree on priorities. And that’s why America is hurting.

Americans Know It

The recent stimulus package is the government’s acknowledgment that the current economic path is sucking the life out of consumers.

The majority of Americans know the country is in deep trouble. The favorability numbers of President Bush and Congress are in the tank. Americans, whether conservative, moderate or liberal, have concluded the country is tumbling in the wrong direction.

The politicians, including Barack, Hillary and John, spend their energy pointing fingers across the aisle, while filling their campaign coffers by pretending to share our pain. In reality, they are little more than the designated, wannabe, keepers of the solution free zone we call DC.

The international scene is bleak. Afghanistan’s path to democracy seems stuck in neutral, except for its ability to grow and ship heroin. Iraq is improving, but there is no end in site. North Korea and Iran are neck deep in militarized nuclear programs, and China’s military is growing at an alarming rate.

Muslims are gunning to destroy Israel and Western Civilization. And even our so-called friends in the Middle East, like Saudi Arabia, are funding schools worldwide, including the United States, which preach the overthrow of democracy.

Our traditional allies have all but relinquished even the pretense of sharing the responsibility for stabilizing and protecting the West’s future. Like the UN, they just sit on the sidelines and carp.

The United States has all but forsaken manufacturing stateside. The source of most consumer products is China, India, South Korea, Japan and Indonesia. When the impact of this negative cash flow is combined with the dollars spent on foreign oil, it’s a wonder that the US currency is stronger than the Mexican peso.

Now factor in the US immigration policy. President Bush and Congress have abdicated control of our borders, abdicated our sovereignty. Those that can’t sneak in illegally are provided temporary visas. This influx is padded with droves of HB1 workers.

This endless flow is the wedge that business employs to depress the wages of US families, and increase its profits. Because the cost of illegal immigration is borne by local and state governments, Reid, Pelosi and Bush get a freebie for their constituencies.

Our primary education system is in default. We’re graduating illiterates at record levels. The decay of scholarship is destroying our ability to compete in a global market. By taking the work out of learning, we’re taken learning out of work.

Now throw in the pervasive attacks on Christianity and the Constitution, the deterioration of our infra-structure, the rampant pork barrel politics, the energy crisis, the soaring cost of food and the national media’s contempt for truth. Then stir in the anti-military sentiment, the decline of personal responsibility and free-for-all litigation.

Right now this nation is eating its young, and surviving on the reserves accumulated by previous generations. It can’t last. And Americans know it.

Global Warming and Socialism

It must be an election year because every Democratic politician is expressing sympathy for the Middle Class. To hear them tell it, this segment of society is used and abused by the Republicans and their nasty friends involved in private enterprise.

Enjoy the sound bites while they last. The day after the election this voter block will be silently battered for another four years. If the Democrats retain control of Congress, it will be business as usual in Washington DC—just another prolonged attempt to heap taxes on Middle Class families.

Socialism is a hungry beast. It takes a lot of revenue to feed, groom and grow the Democrats’ entitlement hungry constituency. If Senators Edwards, Clinton or Obama win the White House, the Middle Class will remain the unnamed revenue source for earmarks and trillions of dollars in new entitlement schemes.

Granted you’ve heard the Democratic presidential candidates promise that they will only tax the rich. That’s always the promise. But remember that these are the same Democrats who promised to end earmarks. Evidently, Democrats reserved the right to change their minds after the last election and crammed $15 billion in earmarks into the pending appropriation bill.

Global warming is the liberals’ latest cause celeb for feeding the unquenchable appetite of the entitlement monster. The leftwing zealots trash any scholar who challenges the scientific data Al Gore collected to build the hysteria. We are to believe that Al Gore’s ranting is inspired by his love of the planet. That’s a joke.

Liberals are not interested in the truth, nor in US energy independence; they are interested in building a socialist state. They see energy as a wedge issue to expand government’s control over individual freedom and private enterprise.

And it is a united front. Every Democratic contender has promised to tax the profits of those greedy sellers of petroleum products. Only the truly ignorant believe the energy producers will pay these taxes.

Corporate America bundles taxes into the cost of its goods and services. The higher energy costs—caused by stiff taxes on industry profits—will be passed through to the consumers.

The inflated cost of energy will cripple the economy and the already staggering Middle Class. To quiet the predictable protest and “for the sake of the planet,” the Democrats will propose price caps, and introduce rationing under the guise of affordable energy.

Be guaranteed that they will adopt legislation that prescribes the acceptable size of a family’s carbon footprint. This is the pretense they will use to create standards for the size of the homes and vehicles Americans own. It’s the ultimate income redistribution program.

Energy suppliers will be transformed into energy police. Those families who exceed the usage standards set by Washington bureaucrats will be brutally taxed for excess consumption. This will be an historic step for socialism. Welcome to the Democratic vision . . . . Welcome to Senator Clinton’s America.