A Double Dose of Failure

Let’s cover two short issues today. First, we have economic data which confirms the middle class is getting crushed under Obama. Secondly, the NRA and Indiana seem determined to set back the cause of gun rights.

Issue One: The surest way to determine what chance a president has at being re-elected is to ask the question Reagan made famous: “are you better off today than you were four years ago?” Obama desperately needs to hope no one asks that. Why? How about these numbers:

● Unemployment: At 8.2%, unemployment is at one of its highest points in decades. In May, 12.7 million Americans were officially unemployed, with another 24 million unofficially unemployed or underemployed. Five million people have been officially unemployed for more than two years now.

● Falling Incomes: Since 2007, the median income for all American families has fallen 7.7%.

● Inflation: Inflation is eating away at spending power. A dollar today is only worth 32 cents of what it was worth in 1979. That means inflation has eaten 68% of the value of the dollar in 33 years. When you factor in wage increases, the middle class already took a 28% pay cut between 1979 and when Obama took office (the poor took a 50% pay cut). Official inflation under Obama has been minor, but that’s a fake number. Gas prices are up 83% and meat is up 24%, and real inflation is estimated at around 12%. Factor in the falling wages of 7.7% with the pay-cut of inflation at 12%, and you have a huge pay cut being taken year after year.

● Falling Net Worth: Since 2007, the median net worth of American families has fallen by 38.8% from $126,400 to $77,300. This is largely (but not entirely) the result of falling housing prices. In the West, this decline was 55%.

This tells us that the American public is taking a beating. Their savings have been cut by a third, their incomes are falling (those that are even employed), and inflation is eating away at all of it. So much for being better off today than anyone was four years ago. The exception, of course, is Club Fed which increased its spending 714% since 1979 and 33% since Obama took office.

Issue Two: Indiana has passed a law at the behest of the National Rifle Association which allows residents to use deadly force against government employees, including law enforcement officers, who “unlawfully” enter their homes. Mitch Daniels signed this in March.

This is a HORRIBLE idea!

First of all, let me ask why we need this? Is there a problem with cops attacking people in their homes in Indiana? If not, then there’s no reason for this. Secondly, has anyone asked what this will cause? How do you decide if the police are there unlawfully? Doesn’t this give people a false belief that they have a right to shoot at the cops no matter why the police are there? This is a stupid bill which will get police (and civilians) killed. And there is no need for this bill because it doesn’t stop any real problem.

This is a classic example of the stupidity of activists. Some jerkoff at the NRA decided this would be a good idea for whatever reason and the other jerkoffs talked themselves into it without every stopping to ask someone with common sense if this was a good idea. By pushing this, the NRA has put the “responsible” gun lobby on the side of fringe politics and irresponsible laws. This is, in fact, the very type of law which turns people off the cause being promoted. This is Planned Parenthood defending partial-birth abortion or gay marriage activists suing churches to force them to perform gay marriages. This is stupid. This is the kind of bill guaranteed to bring a backlash. And this is yet another reason I won’t support the NRA despite firmly believing in the Second Amendment.

Thoughts?

[+] Read More...

[-] Collapse Post...

Suckers For Chris Christie

Christ Christie is reconsidering whether or not to run for the Presidency. Ok. I don’t think the Democrats will give him the nod over Obama, but he’s entitled to try. Wait, he’s thinking about running as a Republican? And there are conservatives pushing him? Grrr.

Rick Perry is flaming out. After Perry’s horrible debate performance, Herman Cain cleaned his clock in the Florida straw poll (37% Cain, 15% Perry) and Romney took him out in Michigan (51% Romney, 17% Perry). This has created an opening if someone else with strong name recognition wants to jump in. And to some people that means Christie.

Apparently, several big money types, including Rupert Murdoch and the billionaire Koch brothers have spoken to Christie about running. A group of 50 business leaders including Ken Langone, Jack Welch, Charles Schwab and Mort Zuckerman appealed to him in person. Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal has been pimping him as well. So has The Weekly Standard and Bill Kristol. Even Ann Coulter, normally a thoughtful conservative, is a fan of Chris Christie and encouraged him to run as recently as this summer.

Mitch Daniels, who is generally conservative, has been agitating for someone new to jump into the race as well, and he just had a private meeting with Christie. Said Daniels of Christie, “he’s different, right?” Yes he is, but not in a good way.

Listen conservative suckers, this has to stop. Christie is barely even a RINO, much less a conservative. They think he’s a pro-life conservative who appeals to conservatives, moderates and liberals because he has Tea Party ideas, but isn’t ideological and won’t “demagogue” on issues like abortion or immigration. But that's not true. Consider these FACTS (read: not delusions) about Christie:

● Christie has been a tax raiser. His first budget included $250 million in new taxes and eliminated $1.3 billion in property tax refunds.

● Christie has been a big spender. Christie claims he cut spending by 9% ($2.56 billion), but spending actually increased by 6%. And even that relies on gimmicks like delaying $3 billion in payments a couple weeks into the next budget and forcing $1.2 billion in spending down to the local level through unfunded mandates.

● Christie took $1 billion in stimulus money, after promising he wouldn’t. And he borrowed $750 million to build schools in Democratic districts, after promising he would never borrow money.

● Christie took on the unions right? Wrong. There don’t appear to have been any job cuts and salaries went up 7% per year.

● He believes in global warming. In the past, he claimed he wasn’t sure, but now he claims he’s always been sure:

“In the past I’ve always said that climate change is real and it’s impacting our state. (lie) There’s undeniable data that CO2 levels and other greenhouse gases in our atmosphere are increasing. (wrong) This decade, average temperatures have been rising. (wrong) Temperature changes are affecting weather patterns and our climate. (wrong) . . . When you have over 90 percent of the world’s scientists who have studied this stating that climate change is occurring and that humans play a contributing role, it’s time to defer to the experts. (false logic)”

● Christie favors unspecified gun control because he “wants to make sure that we don’t have an abundance of guns out there.”

● Christie favors amnesty for illegal aliens:

“Being in this country without proper documentation is not a crime. The whole phrase of ‘illegal immigrant’ connotes that the person, by just being here, is committing a crime. . . It is not.”

* * *

“What I support is making sure that the federal government plays each and every one of its roles: Securing the border, enforcing immigration laws, and having an orderly process — whatever that process is — for people to gain citizenship. It’s a very easy issue to demagogue and I’m just not going to participate in that.”

● He appointed liberals to all of his key positions. He appointed liberal Democrat Paula Dow as Attorney General of New Jersey. He appointed a global warming enthusiast as Commissioner of the Department of Environmental Protection. He appointed an ObamaCare supporter as Commissioner of the Department of Health and Senior Services.

● He tried to appoint a Kinseyan (sexual perversion advocacy, masquerading as science) as Director of the Department of Children and Families.

● He fired the only conservative in his cabinet (Brett Schundler, his Commissioner of Education) for failing to grab Stimulus money which Christie had previously promised he would not accept.

So how is he different than Obama?

Let me say this to the conservative glitterati: do your damn research! Stop falling for soundbites and false images. Politicians have records and you need to examine them. If you don’t, then you end up choosing the wrong people, people who will destroy and discredit conservatism. . . people like your latest crush, Chris Christie.

[+] Read More...

[-] Collapse Post...

2012 Contender: Mitch Daniels, Conservative?

Who is Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels? That’s a good question. The establishment loves him. Indeed, everyone from establishment conservatives like George Will to establishment liberals like The Economist and The New York Times heap praise upon him. Is it deserved? That’s hard to say because divining Daniels’ true beliefs is difficult because every time Daniels giveth, Daniels taketh away.

Daniels’ history is that of a consummate insider. He spent years working for RINO Richard Lugar, he served as Reagan’s budget director, he ran the US operations for Eli Lilly (a big pharmaceuticals firm), he was president of the Hudson Institute (a conservative think tank), and he served as Bush II’s budget director. As governor of Indiana has been known for being pragmatic and “not dogmatic.” Here’s why:

● Smaller (Growing) Government: Daniels talks about making the government smaller, BUT then says the government must be aggressive at doing things the private sector cannot, “like improving schools” (which frankly, the private sector is doing better). He further says, “the nation really needs to rebuild,” a standard Democratic trope for spending. As Governor, Daniels has kept spending growth below inflation, BUT he hasn’t actually cut the budget.

● Stimulus: He derided the stimulus BUT took the cash he was offered.

● Deficit Cutting: He sounds good on the deficit. He favors cuts in military spending. He intentionally avoids puffery statements like cutting “waste, fraud and abuse,” which are shorthand for “I have no idea.” He favors changes to Medicare and Social Security rather than tax increases to cut deficits. Specifically, he favors benefit cuts for high-income and healthy people. He favors slowing the yearly increase in benefits to reduce the real value of reimbursements over time. And he favors raising the age eligibility for both programs, i.e. the retirement age. These are good ideas. BUT, his track record is not as impressive. As Bush II’s budget director, Bush referred to Daniels as “the Blade,” but the budget went from a surplus of $236 billion to a deficit of $400 billion. Some conservatives accused him of “carr[ying] water. . . for some of the Bush administration’s more egregious budgets [and making] dubious public arguments in support of his boss’s agenda.” Of course, that was his job. FYI, he underestimated the cost of the Iraq War by more than 11 times.

● Taxes: In 2008, Daniels proposed and got a property tax ceiling put in place of 2% on rental properties and 3% on businesses. This resulted in an average property tax cut of 30% and gave Indiana one of the lowest property tax rates in the country (these caps were put into the state constitution in 2010 by voters). BUT, in exchange for that tax ceiling, he agreed to raise the state’s sales tax from 6% to 7%.

● Unions: Daniels reduced the number of state workers by 18% since he took over as Indiana’s Governor in 2005. BUT, Daniels definitely blew the recent union issue. When Democrats fled the state as they had in Wisconsin after Republicans introduced a right to work bill, Daniels first said he “saluted” the Democrats and that their actions were a “perfectly legitimate part of the process.” Here’s what he said: “Even the smallest minority. . . has every right to express the strength of its views and I salute those who did.” Then he tried to backtrack by saying he meant to salute the protestors, not the Democrats. The Democrats, he said, were “try[ing] to trash the process, run[ning] out to another state to hide out” and were behaving “totally unacceptably.” Of course, he’s wrong both times. The Democrats have the right to do what they are doing, but they should not be saluted for it. His job was to exploit their bad decision. He did not. Instead, he caved in to them, abandoning the right to work bill: “I’ve explained more than once, I thought there was a better time and place to have this very important and legitimate issue raised.” Really, when?

● Global Warming: With an eye on the White House, Daniels wrote an editorial in the Wall Street Journal in which he condemned the Democrats’ cap and trade bill. In that editorial, he echoes my arguments that the scheme would do nothing to affect global warming and would only put the US at a disadvantage to China and India. So far, so good. BUT, he also says he’s approaching the “‘climate change’ debate with an open-mind” and he will let “others” address the “scientific and economic questions.” Then he goes on to say that Indiana is “eager to pursue a new energy future” which he describes as biofuels, wind power, clean coal and “aggressive energy-conservation, indubitably the most cost-effective means of limiting CO2.” His clean coal push also involves “carbon capture.” In other words, he’s not sure about global warming, but he’s all in favor of limiting carbon, i.e. he favors fighting global warming. This is very troubling.

● ObamaCare: He supports repealing ObamaCare, BUT he also identifies reforms he would like to see if it isn’t repealed, none of which seem particularly conservative. Indeed, these seem mainly to include dumping Medicaid beneficiaries into Obama’s exchanges and demanding more reimbursement from the federal government. He also proposes giving insurers more flexibility in what they can offer. None of that is good.

● Immigration: Daniels has remained disturbingly silent on illegal immigration. He side-stepped questions about Arizona’s law by saying they had “every right to pass that law” (note he doesn’t actually say it’s legal) but that Indiana was “not in the same situation.” Now that a similar bill has been introduced in Indiana, which has an estimated 85,000 illegal immigrants, Daniels refuses to say if he supports it.

● Social Conservatism: Social conservatives have been rather upset at Daniels because he said that conservatives need to call “a truce” on social issues because politicians need to unite on urgent matters of national security and debt. Beyond that,

● Daniels claims to be anti-abortion.

● He claims to oppose same-sex marriage as well as recognizing civil unions.

● He supports affirmative action in government contracting and hiring, but not in college admissions.

● He’s a Syrian-American Presbyterian, who says that “atheism leads to brutality” and claims that “the whole idea of equality of men and women and of the races all springs from the notion that we’re all children of a just God,” BUT he also says: “I also take very seriously the responsibility to treat my public duties in a way that keeps separate church and state and respects alternative views.”

So who is the real Mitch Daniels? I honestly don’t know. If I had to pull out a label, I’d say he’s a moderately-conservative establishment type who believes in not rocking the boat. He’s very good at saying things that sound like he’s agreeing with them, without actually agreeing with them, and I have found no evidence that he’s pushing anything more than a veneer of a conservative agenda. He certainly avoids controversy. Would he make a good president? Probably. Would he make a good conservative president? Probably not. But in truth, I have no idea who he really is.

[+] Read More...

[-] Collapse Post...