The Conservative Edge

Blitskrieg. That word comes to mind as I watch the Democrats smash through Constitutional principles in an attempt to establish a new American order. While they have the congressional and presidential advantages, they are fervently implementing their socialist and collectivist ideologies.

The ideas coming into shape are manifold. First, there is an obvious war against personal wealth. In a country that offers the greatest opportunity for an individual to be successful, it is amazing at the number of people who heap the blame for our country’s problems on the wealthy. The liberals have become proponents of this view, seeking to take from the “rich” to give handouts to the poor. The only problem is, wealth is not transferred to the poor—no one can amass any kind of fortune on government stipends. The government, instead, is the beneficiary of its plundering of the wealthy. Not only does the government reap increased revenue for additional spending, but government bureaucrats earn nice salaries and benefits as well.

There is also a grand notion that government is somehow better suited to make our life decisions than we are. The leading congressional Democrats, and the Democratic president, are working in tandem to pass massive amounts of legislation that will give them unprecedented control. They accept no debate or questioning of their actions. They forced a 2,600-page health care bill through Congress, and are now working on a 1,600-page financial overhaul bill. Meanwhile, a revised cap-and-trade bill is being readied for a vote, with Senator Harry Reid circumventing any ordinary committee process that could slow it down.

These bills are designed to give the federal government more control of our lives (and livelihoods), and more reason to increase revenues, also known as taxes. A first analysis of the health care bill, for example, reveals that costs won’t likely decrease as expected. The Associated Press reported that, “Economic experts at the Health and Human Services Department concluded in a report issued Thursday that the health care remake will achieve Obama’s aim of expanding health insurance — adding 34 million to the coverage rolls. But the analysis also found that the law falls short of the president’s twin goal of controlling runaway costs, raising projected spending by about 1 percent over 10 years. That increase could get bigger, since Medicare cuts in the law may be unrealistic and unsustainable, the report warned.”

The Democrats know this. That is why President Obama has spoken of the possibility of a national VAT tax being imposed. Of course, higher taxes and a redistribution of wealth have been the liberals’ prime goals all along. They can only impose taxes after first authorizing massive expenditures like health care, financial reform, and climate change legislation. Meanwhile, Obama has reneged on perhaps the primary campaign promise—reviving the economy. The White House would like to rejoice about a tiny drop in the unemployment rate, but it still remains that there is a record number of people who have been unemployed longer than six months. So much for that “quick jolt” Obama promised.

Perhaps the best response to all of this heavy-handed legislating will come in November. As someone once famously remarked, we should “Throw the bums out!”

A few days ago, a column written by Nicholas Kristof appeared in my local newspaper, the Dayton Daily News. Mr. Kristof’s piece stated that Americans are unable to process the oncoming threat of global warming. He asserts that we have a cavalier attitude that prevents us from perceiving future dangers, even though we are alerted at more immediate ones.

I felt compelled to write a letter to the paper, pointing out that global warming is not presented in a factual, common-sense manner. Most global warming supporters use emotionally-based arguments and presentations to make their points.

If you’d like to see the letter, and accompanying responses, follow this link to the Dayton Daily News website. Feel free to post a response either here at this blog, or at the paper’s opinion page. You might be surprised at how many people are refusing to accept the dubious global warming theory.

One of the liberals’ favorite mantras during the Bush administration was “Bush lied, people died.” The Democrats in Congress and in the media were obsessed with the idea that the Iraq war was accompanied by a massive cover-up of information. We supposedly went to war knowing that there were no WMDs in Iraq. All of the pied pipers in the media said that we had been misled and lied to, and that the government had suppressed vital intelligence information.

The Obama administration was going to be different. “Transparency” was a key word used to describe the truthfulness of the new presidency. But we’ve all been lied to since last November. Obama campaigned on putting Americans to work. He said that the economy was going to get a “quick jolt.” But, as Ohio’s own John Boehner recently asked, “Where are the jobs?”

The Obama administration is giving us a green version of deception and cover-up, with help from the Environmental Protection Agency. Research conducted by the EPA’s National Center for Environmental Economics challenges the prevailing notion that global warming is an increasing danger to the environment. But it seems that the report was intentionally suppressed in order to allow the EPA to support the administration’s efforts to regulate carbon dioxide emissions.

The June 29 edition of the Investor’s Business Daily notes that the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) released the EPA study on its own website. Among the findings are interesting statements such as: “Given the downward trend in temperatures since 1998, there is no particular reason to rush into decisions based on a scientific hypothesis that does not appear to explain most of the available data.” And this one: “The idea that warming temperatures will cause Greenland to rapidly shed its ice has been greatly diminished by new results indicating little evidence for operations of such process.”

Apparently, the person responsible for producing the report at the EPA has been removed from all climate-related work. He has even been advised to hire an attorney. He is in hot water for suggesting that science is being ignored in the evaluation of CO2 as a pollutant.

If his research had been released before the House vote on the cap-and-trade bill, the outcome might have been different. It’s no wonder the Obama administration is moving so quickly on climate change legislation. They are intentionally suppressing information that would blow holes in the global warming theory, and allow millions of reasonable Americans to see what a farce the theory really is. Remember Y2K? It never happened.

You can read more of the IBD editorial here. I would also recommend a visit to a highly regarded science blog, Watts Up With That? You’ll find that not only are global warming dissenters being intentionally silenced, but that climate data is manipulated to produce desired results that support climate legislation.

Jobs? We don’t need them. The liberals are convinced that America needs more legislation and regulation. They are taking care of both with unprecedented speed and ruthlessness.

On Friday, June 12, I heard Larry Summers defend the government’s involvement in private companies. Speaking at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, Summers said that President Obama “did not, as he has said many times, run for president to manage banks, insurance or car companies.”

That’s understandable. If Obama had mentioned those ideas, he might not have been elected. Like Bill Clinton in 1992, Obama campaigned on fixing the economy, but, once in office, began implementing the Democrats’ real agenda.

If Obama had been completely honest, before the election, about the liberals’ real intentions, he would have told us that (among other things):

• They would impose outrageous and illogical taxes on tobacco products (supposedly to fund health insurance for children), with further tobacco regulation directed by the FDA.
• They would decimate the American auto industry, causing the additional loss of thousands more jobs. They would have the authority to fire the CEO of GM, and arrange the sale of Chrysler’s assets to a foreign car maker. They would increase the regulation of the auto industry, with the EPA to be in charge of auto emissions.
• They would permit the White House to oversee the upcoming Census, removing the Department of Commerce oversight.
• They would increase spending and our national deficit, leading to inflation and higher interest rates.
• They would refuse to expand the exploration and utilization of our energy resources, risking our national security and maintaining our dependence on foreign oil supplies.

That’s been the focus of the administration during the first few months. There doesn’t seem to be much emphasis on job creation. We were supposed to get a “quick jolt” to the economy, but I haven’t noticed it yet. Most of the new jobs the Obama administration takes credit for have come from preparation for the Census. Unemployment has spiked well beyond government estimations. And the run-up in oil prices means that the markets are anticipating increases in inflation, due to the massive amounts of new money being released by the government.

It gets worse. If the Obama administration authorizes the pending cap-and-trade legislation, we will all be spending more on energy to heat and cool our homes. That’s besides the higher gasoline prices that are sure to come, because the Democrats refuse to capitalize on American resources. The real growth we are witnessing is not in job creation, but in the size and authority of the Federal government. God help us.