American Elephants

In this week’s weekly address, President Obama told the American people that the “stalemate in Washington is holding our economy back during this make-or-break moment for the middle class.”Uh huh. Translation:”The Republicans won’t pass my jobs bill.’ He’s sent his bill over to Congress twice now, and it has been unanimously rejected twice. “Unanimously” means that none of the Democrats would vote for it either.

The president doesn’t seem to know how jobs are created, and even the part of his jobs bill that has passed, the temporary continuation of the cut in the payroll tax, goes to those who are working, and have jobs.  They will get a little more in their  pay envelopes, but  it will do nothing whatsoever to create jobs. It does, however, cut back on what those receiving the money eventually get from Social Security.

I assume that this goes back to the Democrats fixed idea that if you just put more money into the economy, there will be a multiplier effect as the money (taxpayer money)  circulates through the economy and passes from hand to hand.  If there is such an effect, it is very small, but it is a matter of faith to the left.

History shows that the money that individuals and businesses invest and spend, if left alone to do so, generates far more wealth and new jobs than any government-directed spending.  The most successful cities and states dedicate their resources in creating the kind of conditions that attract private investment rather than pouring public money into centrally planned visions of economic development.
(Brian Anderson City Journal, Autumn 2001)

Obama repeated his idea that Congress should pass a bill to help states put thousands of teachers, firefighters and police officers back on the job. And he wants a bill to put union construction workers back to work building his fabled infrastructure — those crumbling roads and bridges and runways.

Public school employment has climbed by nearly 100% since 1970, while the enrollment of pupils has only climbed by about 10%. We seem to be overloaded with school administrators, yet the left persists.  And class sizes have dropped by 40 percent since 1960, but class size remains a constant issue.

If the states, struggling to balance their budgets, have laid off teachers, firefighters or police, that is a choice that they made. It is not up to the federal government to use taxpayer money to rehire employees that the states have decided they can’t afford to pay.

After Solyndra and all the other bankrupt “green energy” companies, he want more tax credits for clean energy manufacturers? I’m afraid the president is indeed a slow learner. Ryan Lizza, writing in the New Yorker says that President Obama plans to make climate change his top priority for his second term.

“Obama has an ambitious second-term agenda. The President has said that the most important policy he could address in his second term is climate change,” supposedly to “improve the world.”

Obama’s belief in big government goes deep. He seems to hold the private sector in contempt. According to David Maraniss’s new biography Barack Obama: The Story, Obama did work in the private sector for a year, writing newsletters for American companies doing business abroad. He hated it. He quit after fulfilling his initial one year commitment. He had no prospects, but wanted to do public sector work.

Obama’s work in the public sector took place in Chicago, where those in the public sector help each other. You do nice things for your friends and they do nice things for you, and the taxpayers have the benefit of paying for it all.

There is a stalemate between the two parties. Some claim that both parties have moved to extremes. Certainly the Democratic party has been in the hands of the hard left, but Democrats’ idea that the Tea Party is something extreme is laughable. Surely some nice grey-haired ladies carrying signs and Gadsden flags aren’t that scary, are they? Although Obama did call out a Swat team to deal with them in Ohio. The Tea Party Patriots wanted more respect for the Constitution and adherence to it, obviously a radical position.

The Constitution is “extreme” to the hard left. They are offended that it has not been changed enough to be more compatible with their current thinking. Their prominent legal scholars would prefer a “living” constitution — one that is more in line with their ideas. Some think we should pay more attention to European law. You will notice headline news  concerns “Citizens United” — a Supreme Court decision protecting free speech, and another upcoming Supreme Court case again involving the First Amendment, and the protection of Freedom of Religion. This not a dusty old discussion, but important today.

Most Americans believe the Constitution has served us well. It has only been amended twenty-seven times in 225 years. The president took an oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution. That oath neither changes nor is modified simply because this is an election year.