There has never been an infant administration so replete with errors, gaffs, misjudgement, so plagued with scandal. We have predicted some of it and documented most of it. Still, we must reserve hope and shed judgement and allot praise when appropriate. Obama’s ag policy gives us a chance to do just that.
In his speech Obama’s farm payments pledge was specific - "In this budget, we will.....end direct payments to large agribusiness that don’t need them." This echoes McCain’s campaign pledge. And Obama didn’t mean agribusiness as in conglomerate, but as in farmer. Still, despite the error, we commend the spirit of this tack, echoing of course earlier comments by Ag Sect Vilsack urging farmers not to rely on direct payments.
From dairymen to grain growers, these guys make welfare queens look like entrepreneurs. Farm-state Congressmen will fight this like the living daylights of course but we can retrieve some hope in Senate Ag Comm chair Harkin’s statement, "I am encouraged that President Obama called for limitations on commodity payments to large agribusinesses." Good luck guys.
Robert Craven
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
The Speech
Obama’s advisers, including Bill Clinton (do you find yourself wishing we had that guy back?) told Obama to lay off the "end of the world" stuff last night, and he did. But key is that he didn’t know any better; he has been spouting that stuff for two weeks; he had to be told. That’s what we mean about judgement - he has none.
How about facts? We repeat the following from the original effort of AP reporters Tom Raum, Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar and Dina Cappiello (a liberal has to really go the distance to gag the AP).
Obama: "We have launched a housing plan that will help responsible families facing the threat of foreclosure lower their monthly payments and refinance their mortgages. It's a plan that won't help speculators or that neighbor down the street who bought a house he could never hope to afford, but it will help millions of Americans who are struggling with declining home values."
FACT: If the administration has come up with a way to ensure money only goes to those who got in honest trouble, it hasn't said so. The head of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. suggested this month it's not likely aid will be denied to homeowners who overstated their income or assets to get a mortgage they couldn't afford.
Obama: "I believe the nation that invented the automobile cannot walk away from it."
FACT: According to the Library of Congress, the inventor of the first true automobile was Germany's Karl Benz, who created the first auto powered by an internal combustion gasoline engine, in 1885 or 1886.
Obama: "We have known for decades that our survival depends on finding new sources of energy. Yet we import more oil today than ever before."
FACT: Oil imports peaked in 2005 at just over 5 billion barrels, and have been declining since.
Obama: We have already identified $2 trillion in savings over the next decade."
FACT: Obama only has a real say on spending during the four years of his term. He may not be president after that and he certainly won't be 10 years from now.
Obama: "Regulations were gutted for the sake of a quick profit at the expense of a healthy market."
FACT: This slap at the Republicans is false. It was the Bush administration which tried repeatedly to reform, regulate the twins (Fannie / Freddie), fearing just the catastrophe that ensued. The key near-criminals here - Frank and Dodd. The twins were a cash cow to these clowns, ranking #1 and #2 on the recipient list. - Obama ranked #5 or #6 as a senator, just behind Clinton.
Obama: "In this budget, we will end education programs that don't work and end direct payments to large agribusinesses that don't need them. We'll eliminate the no-bid contracts that have wasted billions in Iraq, and reform our defense budget so that we're not paying for Cold War-era weapons systems we don't use. We will root out the waste, fraud and abuse in our Medicare program that doesn't make our seniors any healthier, and we will restore a sense of fairness and balance to our tax code by finally ending the tax breaks for corporations that ship our jobs overseas."
FACT : First, his budget does not accomplish any of that. It only proposes those steps. That's all a president can do because control over spending rests with Congress. Obama's proposals here are a wish list.
Obama: "Over the next two years, this plan will save or create 3.5 million jobs."
FACT: The president's own economists, in a report prepared last month, stated, "It should be understood that all of the estimates presented in this memo are subject to significant margins of error."
Four years to go? Let’s hope the tabloid folks (and now at least two American soldiers) are right and this guy 1) was born out of the country to a mother too young at the time of his birth to confer American citizenship or 2) his father was a dual citizen. The framers exclude dual citizens from qualifying as "natural born" - the requirement, Article 2, Section 1 of the Constitution.
Robert Craven
How about facts? We repeat the following from the original effort of AP reporters Tom Raum, Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar and Dina Cappiello (a liberal has to really go the distance to gag the AP).
Obama: "We have launched a housing plan that will help responsible families facing the threat of foreclosure lower their monthly payments and refinance their mortgages. It's a plan that won't help speculators or that neighbor down the street who bought a house he could never hope to afford, but it will help millions of Americans who are struggling with declining home values."
FACT: If the administration has come up with a way to ensure money only goes to those who got in honest trouble, it hasn't said so. The head of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. suggested this month it's not likely aid will be denied to homeowners who overstated their income or assets to get a mortgage they couldn't afford.
Obama: "I believe the nation that invented the automobile cannot walk away from it."
FACT: According to the Library of Congress, the inventor of the first true automobile was Germany's Karl Benz, who created the first auto powered by an internal combustion gasoline engine, in 1885 or 1886.
Obama: "We have known for decades that our survival depends on finding new sources of energy. Yet we import more oil today than ever before."
FACT: Oil imports peaked in 2005 at just over 5 billion barrels, and have been declining since.
Obama: We have already identified $2 trillion in savings over the next decade."
FACT: Obama only has a real say on spending during the four years of his term. He may not be president after that and he certainly won't be 10 years from now.
Obama: "Regulations were gutted for the sake of a quick profit at the expense of a healthy market."
FACT: This slap at the Republicans is false. It was the Bush administration which tried repeatedly to reform, regulate the twins (Fannie / Freddie), fearing just the catastrophe that ensued. The key near-criminals here - Frank and Dodd. The twins were a cash cow to these clowns, ranking #1 and #2 on the recipient list. - Obama ranked #5 or #6 as a senator, just behind Clinton.
Obama: "In this budget, we will end education programs that don't work and end direct payments to large agribusinesses that don't need them. We'll eliminate the no-bid contracts that have wasted billions in Iraq, and reform our defense budget so that we're not paying for Cold War-era weapons systems we don't use. We will root out the waste, fraud and abuse in our Medicare program that doesn't make our seniors any healthier, and we will restore a sense of fairness and balance to our tax code by finally ending the tax breaks for corporations that ship our jobs overseas."
FACT : First, his budget does not accomplish any of that. It only proposes those steps. That's all a president can do because control over spending rests with Congress. Obama's proposals here are a wish list.
Obama: "Over the next two years, this plan will save or create 3.5 million jobs."
FACT: The president's own economists, in a report prepared last month, stated, "It should be understood that all of the estimates presented in this memo are subject to significant margins of error."
Four years to go? Let’s hope the tabloid folks (and now at least two American soldiers) are right and this guy 1) was born out of the country to a mother too young at the time of his birth to confer American citizenship or 2) his father was a dual citizen. The framers exclude dual citizens from qualifying as "natural born" - the requirement, Article 2, Section 1 of the Constitution.
Robert Craven
Saturday, February 21, 2009
30 DAYS
Obama’s demonstrated lack of good judgement past 20 years has resurrected itself the past 30 days, exactly as we warned that it would. His associations with Rezko, ACORN, Wright, Blago, Ayers, Daley, his Senate voting record (against the successful surge / blocking reform of the twins - ground zero) all reflected less-than-sound judgement. Now, anyone who cares about the US must be very worried about what they have witnessed the last 4 weeks.
For example, the Kool-Aid crowd were prepared for soon-to-be-enacted revolutionary ethics. Instead we are witnessing one of the most scandal-plagued incipient administrations of the last half-century. Obama’s Treasury Sect (and nominal head of the IRS) is a tax dodger. Tom Daschle, who lectured all of us on prompt payment of our taxes, is a tax cheat. Reformist cabinet nominees like Bill Richardson and Hilda Solis could not themselves follow the laws they were asked to enforce. The would-be performance czar Nancy Killefer did not perform on her taxes. And then of course there is Burris. Too much.
Obama promised to clean up Washington; he bragged about his new no-lobbyist policies yet he hired insider lobbyists, ignoring his own ethics rules for example to appoint a lobbyist as Dep Sect of Defense! This is good judgement?
Now Obama, who claimed he would end politics as usual, plans to make Louis Susman, one of his biggest fundraisers, the new US ambassador to the UK. Sending a crony with zero pertinent experience to a plumb post wreaks of a "banana republic" as one observer put it. What is the difference between this and the "pay to play" scandal in which Blago apparently auctioned off Obama’s senate seat to the highest bidder. This reflects judgement?
Instead of drawing up his own economic stimulus bill he sub-contracted the job to Pelosi and that bunch and hit the campaign trail (actually, he never left it). That was poor judgement. As our readers know, the final bill is a fraud. Obama will not say "No" to the far left of his party because he is one of them. So instead of having Emanuel keep congressional Democrats in line, he left the bill to the most partisan members of Congress who then convinced the masses that it was irresponsible NOT to waste a boatload of their money.
Obama’s habit of predicting economic doomsday is just plain stupid. As the IBD put it, "Words like ‘catastrophe,’ ‘crisis’ and ‘depression’ are coming from the mouth of the newly elected president, rather than words of hope and optimism."
His housing plan is a flop from the get go. The crafting of that $75 billion bailout for 9 million Americans who face foreclosure, regardless of how they got into financial trouble, is Obama’s answer to the housing crunch. This exercise reflects poor judgement. Americans who have scrupulously kept up with payments now get to subsidize those who have not.
Obama let internal disputes over the question of bank policy result in a disastrous non-announcement of a non-plan. That was poor judgement.
Obama allowed Rahm Emanuel to politicize the Census Bureau, losing as a result the credible Judd Gregg as Commerce secty. That was poor judgement.
As Democrat Vic Hansen lamented recently, "For two years the media and the left transmogrified a bright and talented, though inexperienced Chicago pol into some sort of divine totem in which they could invest all their hopes and seek penance for all their sins. They are now learning ... that scoring points against Bush on the campaign trail and offering soaring platitudes with Rev Wright cadences, were not the same as governing the United States."
Bright and talented maybe, but judgement, common sense? The building blocks aren’t there.
Robert Craven
For example, the Kool-Aid crowd were prepared for soon-to-be-enacted revolutionary ethics. Instead we are witnessing one of the most scandal-plagued incipient administrations of the last half-century. Obama’s Treasury Sect (and nominal head of the IRS) is a tax dodger. Tom Daschle, who lectured all of us on prompt payment of our taxes, is a tax cheat. Reformist cabinet nominees like Bill Richardson and Hilda Solis could not themselves follow the laws they were asked to enforce. The would-be performance czar Nancy Killefer did not perform on her taxes. And then of course there is Burris. Too much.
Obama promised to clean up Washington; he bragged about his new no-lobbyist policies yet he hired insider lobbyists, ignoring his own ethics rules for example to appoint a lobbyist as Dep Sect of Defense! This is good judgement?
Now Obama, who claimed he would end politics as usual, plans to make Louis Susman, one of his biggest fundraisers, the new US ambassador to the UK. Sending a crony with zero pertinent experience to a plumb post wreaks of a "banana republic" as one observer put it. What is the difference between this and the "pay to play" scandal in which Blago apparently auctioned off Obama’s senate seat to the highest bidder. This reflects judgement?
Instead of drawing up his own economic stimulus bill he sub-contracted the job to Pelosi and that bunch and hit the campaign trail (actually, he never left it). That was poor judgement. As our readers know, the final bill is a fraud. Obama will not say "No" to the far left of his party because he is one of them. So instead of having Emanuel keep congressional Democrats in line, he left the bill to the most partisan members of Congress who then convinced the masses that it was irresponsible NOT to waste a boatload of their money.
Obama’s habit of predicting economic doomsday is just plain stupid. As the IBD put it, "Words like ‘catastrophe,’ ‘crisis’ and ‘depression’ are coming from the mouth of the newly elected president, rather than words of hope and optimism."
His housing plan is a flop from the get go. The crafting of that $75 billion bailout for 9 million Americans who face foreclosure, regardless of how they got into financial trouble, is Obama’s answer to the housing crunch. This exercise reflects poor judgement. Americans who have scrupulously kept up with payments now get to subsidize those who have not.
Obama let internal disputes over the question of bank policy result in a disastrous non-announcement of a non-plan. That was poor judgement.
Obama allowed Rahm Emanuel to politicize the Census Bureau, losing as a result the credible Judd Gregg as Commerce secty. That was poor judgement.
As Democrat Vic Hansen lamented recently, "For two years the media and the left transmogrified a bright and talented, though inexperienced Chicago pol into some sort of divine totem in which they could invest all their hopes and seek penance for all their sins. They are now learning ... that scoring points against Bush on the campaign trail and offering soaring platitudes with Rev Wright cadences, were not the same as governing the United States."
Bright and talented maybe, but judgement, common sense? The building blocks aren’t there.
Robert Craven
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