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Mark Steyn reacts to the administration’s endless need to spend money we don’t have.
… It’s just about possible to foresee, say, Iceland or Ireland getting its spending under control. But, when a nation of 300 million people presumes to determine grade-school hiring and almost everything else through an ever more centralized bureaucracy, you’re setting yourself up for waste on a scale unknown to history. For example, under the Obama “stimulus,” U.S. taxpayers gave a $529 million loan guarantee to the company Fisker to build their Karma electric car. At a factory in Finland.
If you’re wondering how giving half-a-billion dollars to a Finnish factory stimulates the U.S. economy, well, what’s a lousy half-bil in a multitrillion-dollar sinkhole? Besides, in the 2009 global rankings, Finnish schoolkids placed sixth in math, third in reading and second in science, while suffering under the burden of a per-student budget half that of York City. By comparison, America placed 17th in reading, 23rd in science, and 31st in math. So the good news is that, by using U.S. government money to fund a factory in Finland, Fisker may be able to hire workers smart enough to figure out how to build an unwanted electric car that doesn’t lose its entire U.S. taxpayer investment.
In a sane world, Joe Biden’s remarks would be greeted by derisive laughter, even by fourth-graders. Certainly by Finnish fourth-graders.
Peter Ferrara in Forbes notes how the people are being ignored.
In 2010, the American people delivered a stinging rebuke to President Obama. The 63 seat Republican gain in the House was a New Deal size landslide, harking back to a time when America was choosing a fundamental change of course. In the Senate, Republicans came back from a minority unable to even mount a filibuster to within three seats of the Democrats, after some party infighting fumbled away a couple of quite possible wins.
For Democrats, that does not bode well for a 2012 election with 23 Democrat Senate seats at stake, and a filibuster proof Republican majority possible by winning only half of those. The people elected these Republicans in 2010 to stop the emergent Obama agenda, not to cooperate in its advancement.
But President Barack Obama refused to heed the people and change course. The election results only changed the means by which he has pursued the most left wing policies of any President in U.S. history. Recognizing that he could no longer advance his agenda through Congress, Obama pivoted to maximizing the vast regulatory powers of the Executive Branch.
For example, since cap and trade legislation obviously no longer had any prayer of getting through Congress (even the overwhelmingly Democrat Congress of 2009-2010 wouldn’t pass it), Obama said after the election, “Cap and trade was just one way of skinning the cat; it was not the only way. It was a means, not an end.” Sometimes this pivot has involved ignoring legal rulings, breaking agreements with Congress, and exceeding statutory authority. …
National Journal reports on a retiring Dem slamming the administration.
Rep. Dennis Cardoza, D-Calif., announced his retirement from Congress this afternoon — and he issued a scathing parting shot at President Obama’s track record on his way out.
In a statement explaining his decision, Cardoza, a leader of the centrist Blue Dog Coalition, said he was “dismayed” by the administration’s “failure to understand and effectively address the current housing foreclosure crisis.”
“Home foreclosures are destroying communities and crushing our economy, and the Administration’s inaction is infuriating,” Cardoza said.
A former chairman of the moderate Blue Dog Caucus, Cardoza also bemoaned the increasing partisanship in Washington, and blamed the media for fueling the ideological divide in the country, not giving enough attention to moderates. …
Alana Goodman posts on Obama’s Carter-like poll numbers.
Obama is getting down to the wire. There is a strong historical correlation between where a president’s approval ratings are around this point in his presidency, and whether he goes on to win a second term. And yet there’s no indication that Obama’s approval ratings are improving. In fact, Gallup finds that his 11th quarter numbers are the worst of Obama’s presidency–as well as the worst of any recent president except Jimmy Carter?:
“Only one elected president since Dwight D. Eisenhower, Jimmy Carter, had a lower 11th quarter average than Obama. Carter averaged 31% during his 11th quarter, which was marked by a poor economy and high energy prices. Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton were the only other post-World War II presidents whose job approval averages were below 50% in their 11th quarter in office.”
According to Gallup’s analysis, “an incumbent president’s 12th- and 13th-quarter averages give a strong indication of whether he will win a second term.” So the crucial test is whether Obama can perk up his approval ratings between now and January. …
Peter Wehner wants to know when the anti-Semitism of the Occupy group will be criticized by the president.
During one of the GOP presidential debates, two or three people in an audience of more than 5,000 booed a question posed by a gay soldier, not the gay soldier himself. As one might expect, though, many journalists, as well as the president, decided to make a big deal of this. It was held up as an example of Republican bigotry. President Civility, Barack Obama, decided to put his own interpretation on things:
‘ “We don’t believe in the kind of smallness that says it’s OK for a stage full of political leaders — one of whom could end up being the president of the United States — being silent when an American soldier is booed,” Obama said at a Human Rights Campaign dinner. ‘
To repeat: the soldier was not booed; his question was. But no matter; Obama had political points to score and a base to energize. Yet with the precedent Obama is setting in place, I do wonder: The Occupy Wall Street movement is rife with anti-Semitism. The statements we’re hearing from the protesters are vile, ugly and seemingly endless. And yet this is a movement Obama, Vice President Biden, Minority Leader Pelosi, and DNC chairwoman Wasserman Schultz have all warmly embraced. Revealingly, they have yet to denounce the unvarnished anti-Semitism they must be aware of by now. ‘
I don’t know about you, but I don’t believe in the kind of smallness that says it’s OK for a president and Democratic leaders – including one who could end up being re-elected as president of the United States – being silent when a movement they have praised and are provoking is spewing forth anti-Semitic bile on a daily basis. It would be nice, and exceedingly rare, for the president to show even a spark of moral leadership.
If he’s not careful, one might begin to (reasonably) conclude the president isn’t terribly bothered by anti-Semitism. Because if he were, he would actually speak out against it. Even once.
Investor’s.com editors want the GOP contenders to pin the mortgage mess on the government.
If Republicans are to take back the White House and Senate, they need to do a better job tying Democrats and Washington to the subprime crisis. It’s not hard, yet even their front-runner struggles to make the case.
On Wednesday night, CNN host Piers Morgan guilted Cain into allowing that banks were, as Morgan put it, “effectively preying on the most vulnerable elements of American society,” and that Wall Street deserves at least partial blame for the crisis and should be held to account. “I wouldn’t defend the banks,” Cain said, “because I happen to think that the banks are part of the problem. Wall Street is.”
Cain belatedly also faulted Fannie and Freddie, and the Democrats in Washington who protected them. Piers then pressed him to come up with a pie chart alloting blame — Washington vs. Wall Street—and Cain assigned neither a majority responsibility for the mess.
But based on the number of toxic loans in the system in 2008, the government was responsible for not just a simple majority, but more than two-thirds. It’s quantifiable — 71% to be exact (see chart). And the remaining 29% of private-label junk was mostly attributable to Countrywide Financial, which was under the heel of HUD and its “fair-lending” edicts. …
New York Magazine reports on the Occupy folks turning towards Animal Farm. Next will they turn towards Lord of the Flies?
All occupiers are equal — but some occupiers are more equal than others. In wind-whipped Zuccotti Park, new divisions and hierarchies are threatening to upend Occupy Wall Street and its leaderless collective.
As the protest has grown, some of the occupiers have spontaneously taken charge on projects large and small. But many of the people in Zuccotti Park aren’t taking direction well, leading to a tense Thursday of political disagreements, the occasional shouting match, and at least one fistfight.
It began, as it so often does, with a drum circle. The ten-hour groove marathons weren’t sitting well with the neighborhood’s community board, the ironically situated High School of Economics and Finance that sits on the corner of Zuccotti Park, or many of the sleep-deprived protesters.
“[The high school] couldn’t teach,” explained Josh Nelson, a 27-year-old occupier from Nebraska. “And we’ve had issues with the drummers too. They drum incessantly all day, and really loud.” Facilitators spearheaded a General Assembly proposal to limit the drumming to two hours a day. “The drumming is a major issue which has the potential to get us kicked out,” said Lauren Digion, a leader on the sanitation working group.
But the drums were fun. They brought in publicity and money. Many non-facilitators were infuriated by the decision and claimed that it had been forced through the General Assembly.
“They’re imposing a structure on the natural flow of music,” said Seth Harper, an 18-year-old from Georgia. “The GA decided to do it … they suppressed people’s opinions. I wanted to do introduce a different proposal, but a big black organizer chick with an Afro said I couldn’t.” …