Archive for the ‘Newt’ Category
According to this Weekly Standard article, Dianne Feinstein’s anti-Second Amendment bill would exempt government officials:
Not everyone will have to abide by Senator Dianne Feinstein’s gun control bill. If the proposed legislation becomes law, government officials and others will be exempt.
“Mrs. Feinstein’s measure would exempt more than 2,200 types of hunting and sporting rifles; guns manually operated by bolt, pump, lever or slide action; and weapons used by government officials, law enforcement and retired law enforcement personnel,” the Washington Times reports.
In other words, the elitists have a right to protection but Main Street doesn’t have the right to self-protection. That’s typical elitist behavior. Compare that with ‘evil’ Newt Gingrich’s Contract With America:
FIRST, require all laws that apply to the rest of the country also apply equally to the Congress;
Liberal elitists villify Speaker Gingrich and sing praises to Sen. Feinstein, which is odd considering the fact that Sen. Feinstein apparently thinks elitists like her are entitled to special treatment.
Why shouldn’t Main Street Americans be entitled to self-protection with the weapons Sen. Feinstein wants to ban? Don’t Main Street Americans contribute mightily to the health of this nation? Shouldn’t they be entitled to the same protection as elitists like Sen. Feinstein?
I’d love hearing Sen. Feinstein argue against that argument.
Tags: Second Amendment, Dianne Feinstein, Assault Weapons Ban, Liberal Elitists, Do As I Say, Not As I Do, Liberalism, Contract With America, Newt Gingrich, TEA Party, Main Street
John Boehner is failing. He’s playing President Obama’s game on President Obama’s court. He’s prosecuting the wrong case. Rather than discussing the terms of the fiscal cliff debate, Speaker Boehner should be talking about why Republicans’ pro-growth tax policies are America’s only hope for a variety of Obama-created ills.
First, Speaker Boehner should highlight the fact that President Clinton’s high tax rates didn’t trigger the great economy. He should remind the nation that it was Newt’s capital gains tax cuts that sent the economy into high gear. Prior to those tax cuts, the economy was doing ok. After cutting the capital gains tax, growth exploded.
Another thing that Speaker Boehner must do is remind people that Republicans’ insisting on balancing the federal budget helped strengthen the dollar, which led to a dramatic shrinking of America’s trade deficit. That especially affected gas prices.
Third, Speaker Boehner should shout from the rooftops that revenues during the Bush tax cuts were significantly bigger than revenues are today. If Speaker Boehner asked President Obama why he’s insisting on anti-growth policies that tamp the economy down rather than implementing new pro-growth policies that strengthen the economy, President Obama might well blow a gasket.
This is the debate we should start. This is the debate President Obama can’t win. This is the conversation that would expose President Obama’s motivation for imposing higher tax rates.
Rather than the pattern of proposal-counterproposal, then a counter offer to the counterproposal, with each side publicly stating that the other side needs to put forth a serious proposal, Speaker Boehner should ditch that pattern, especially the taunting language.
Instead, Speaker Boehner, followed by every Republican in Congress talking with their local newspapers and TV outlets about how cutting spending is what’s fair to taxpayers and how reforming the tax code, highlighted by fewer deductions and lower tax rates, would strengthen the economy.
Highlight the fact that this was the real reason why the economy was strong during the Clinton administration. Highlight the fact that the economy didn’t take off until Newt changed the trajectory of the debate.
President Obama is too arrogant to be frightened by that debate, which means Speaker Boehner should be able to turn this situation into a discussion on getting America’s economy going for the first time during President Obama’s administration.
With expensive utility bills, shrinking paychecks, high gas and grocery prices and unacceptably high unemployment rates, the indictment against President Obama’s mishandling of the economy should be lengthy and powerful.
Finally, he should unleash Paul Ryan. Speaker Boehner should insist on a televised fiscal cliff summit, with Ryan leading the prosecution of the case against President Obama’s reckless spending. Dave Camp should prosecute the case for why the GOP tax reform plan will strengthen the economy.
GOP senators and governors should take part in this summit, too. One tactic President Obama has overplayed is saying that ‘we can talk about that’ on a variety of policies, then dropping that position the minute he’s out of the room. Republicans should tell him that implementing a pro-growth economic plan is non-negotiable.
Finally, make the case that raising the top marginal tax rates won’t affect the Warren Buffetts of the world because their income comes from investments, not wages. Make the case that raising the top marginal tax rates will hurt small businesses, not the evil Wall Street fatcats President Obama always talks about.
President Obama’s policies are failing. Speaker Boehner’s ineptitude in highlighting those failures has the fiscal cliff conversation heading in the wrong direction. It’s time to change the direction of that conversation.
Tags: Fiscal Cliff, John Boehner, Debate, Fiscal Cliff Summit, Paul Ryan, Dave Camp, John Kasich, Bobby Jindal, Marco Rubio, Tax Reform, Spending Reform, GOP, President Obama, Unemployment, Deficits, Gas Prices, Electric Bills, Groceries, Inflation, Median Household Income, Democrats
Newt Gingrich is one of the best political strategists of our time. Whether you agree or disagree with his policies, whether you think he’s too temperamental or whether you think he’s utterly brilliant, there’s no denying the fact that he’s got a fantastic knack of understanding main street. This video is a tour de force presentation by Newt:
Here’s the first thing Newt said that caught my attention:
It’s great. It’s the American drama. After all the talk, after all the ads, after all the pontificating, the American people get to tell us.
I’ll just say this. It’s about time. Let’s get this started. I’ve had enough of looking at deceitful polls. I’m tired of listening to President Obama’s stump speech. It isn’t time for the pontificators to leave the stage. It’s just time for them to add insight into why the American people made the decision they made.
This is the next thing Newt said that caught my attention:
I’ll give you one example. They’re talking about Democratic early voting in Ohio but they’re counting the counties along the Ohio River, which is coal country, which are Second Amendment gun rights country, which are God-fearing counttry, which are the very things that Obama had contempt for in San Fransisco. Those Democrats are going to vote against Obama.
It’s wrong to think of these coal-mining Democrats as Romney Democrats, at least at this point. It’s possible they’d be accurately described as Romney Democrats. It’s entirely possible they’ll just join the GOP.
At this point, though, it’s best calling them anti-Obama Democrats. At this point, they’re best described as people agitated that a Democrat wouldn’t fight for the blue collar Democrats that once was the backbone of the Democratic Party.
This statement spoke volumes to me:
NEWT: I was struck by something Jeff Zeleny of the New York Times, hardly a right wing reporter, said that the states he’d been in this week, his phrase was “The organic enthusiasm was for Romney.” There was a mechanical machine for Obama but there was an organic enthusiasm for Romney. My experience in politics is that organic enthusiasm,. the whole wave effect, always defeats the mechanical machine.
Notice that Newt didn’t criticize the machine. He simply said that a mob of genuinely enthusiastic voters will defeat the machine every time. I couldn’t dispute that if I wanted to.
Later, they talked about Todd Akin. Here’s what Newt said there:
Well, first of all, Callista and I have both been out campaigning with him. I’ve really liked Todd Akin. He was given a very bum rap by the national establishment. She is a very Obama-like voter in a state that voted by 71% against Obamacare and then she voted for Obamacare six weeks later. And Romney’s going to carry the state by 8-12 point so I think Akin wins by 3 points.
Frankly, I hadn’t thought about the folks along Ohio River Democrats voting early for Mitt but it makes sense. If that’s what’s happened, then that drops Ohio comfortably into Mitt’s lap. Similarly, if Mitt’s winning Missouri by double-digits and if Missourans don’t like Claire McCaskill like I think is the case, then I think Todd Akin wins.
Tags: Newt Gingrich, Predictions, Ohio River, Coal Country, Ohio, Pittsburgh, Enthusiasm Gap, Mitt Romney, Todd Akin, Missouri, GOP, Election 2012
This article from Salena Zito and this article highlight the lengths the Obama administration will go in shutting down the mining industry.
This is from Ms. Zito’s article:
“His vice president said coal is more dangerous than terrorists. Can you imagine that?” Romney told a cheering crowd of about 2,600 people in the village of Beallsville, where 70 miners from American Energy Corp.’s Century Mine joined him onstage. “This tells you precisely what he actually feels and what he’s done, and his policies over the last three-and-a-half years have put in place the very vision he had when he was running for office.”
Romney said he and mine owner Bob Murray, whose Cleveland-based Murray Energy Corp. digs 60 percent of the state’s coal, listened to an Obama campaign ad on the car radio, in which the president said he supports “clean coal.” Yet, Obama tells audiences in Western states that he supports only energy resources that come from aboveground, Romney said.
“I thought, how in the world can you go out there and tell people things that just aren’t true?” he said. “If you believe the whole answer for energy needs is wind and solar, then say that.”
Mr. President, it’s shameful that you’d lie to the people of Ohio like that. Speaker Gingrich was right when he called Steven Chu the anti-energy secretary.
Here’s something scary from Michael Bastasch’s article:
In May, the EPA released its watershed assessment of large-scale mining by Pebble LP at Bristol Bay, which could be one of the largest copper and gold mines in the world, and expressed concerns over impact the mine would have on local salmon habitats and surrounding wetlands.
Under the Clean Water Act, operations that dump “dredge or fill materials” into wetlands, rivers, lakes, or streams are required to obtain a Section 404 permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The EPA can revoke this permit if there are “unacceptable adverse impacts on municipal water supplies, shellfish beds and fishery areas, wildlife, or recreational areas.”
However, the watershed assessment did not evaluate any actual plans for the Pebble Mine, as none have been put forward, instead it evaluates a hypothetical mine. Independent scientists have also expressed concerns over this approach and have said the assessment was rushed.
That’s chilling. The EPA is making a judgment based on…assumptions? Shouldn’t their decisions be based on actual plans?
President Obama campaigned on the notion that he’d base his decisions on science. That’s BS. He’s basing his decisions on political ideology, not verifiable facts.
As a direct result of his EPA’s decisions, gas prices have doubled since he took office, electric bills are more expensive, mining jobs are endangered and the price of products affected by higher gas prices is more expensive.
That’s the direct result of his political ideology and the Democratic Party’s reliance on campaign contributions from the trust fund elitists who fund the militant environmentalists.
This administration’s hostility towards mines of all kinds is appalling. We The People can’t afford their hostility towards mining.
That’s why firing this president this November isn’t just important, it’s imperative.
Tags: President Obama, Bristol Bay, Pebble LP, Gold, Copper, Mining, EPA, Democrats, Mitt Romney, Coal, Cincinnati, Ohio, Jobs, GOP, Election 2012
Last night on Piers Morgan’s show, Newt Gingrich utterly dismantled a) Piers Morgan’s chanting points and b) Democrats everywhere. This video summarizes it perfectly:
Here’s the transcript of their exchange:
PIERS MORGAN, HOST: I suppose the fundamental debate that’s going to be had, though, will come down to whether the Republicans can sell to the American people that they are really concerned about jobs, about people’s livelihoods, and all the rest of it. If they’re also scratching the backs of their rich and wealthy members, which is clearly I think the flaw in the Ryan plan is that it just does. I mean, if you’re very wealthy, you’re going to be doing a lot better out of Paul Ryan than you would out of Barack Obama who believes fundamentally the rich should pay more tax.
NEWT GINGRICH: You know, I don’t want to sound disrespectful, but I do wonder sometimes if you guys all get off in a little club and learn a brand new mantra and then all repeat it mindlessly. The fact is, these kinds of things were said about Ronald Reagan. Ronald Reagan’s tax cut – which was developed by Jack Kemp who Paul Ryan worked for – Ronald Reagan’s tax cut raised more people to middle class status, took more people out of poverty, created more jobs.
You know, this is the core thing that liberals don’t get. If you want to have jobs, you have to encourage job creators. If you discourage job creators, if you engage in class warfare, if you do what Barack Obama’s been doing, you have what we currently have. This is the worst recovery in 75 years.
Now, nobody in the media seems to want to come to grips with the fact that the Obama economic policy is a disaster for the poor. Look at the unemployment rate for black teenagers. Look at the unemployment rate for Latino teenagers. At what point do we hold the president accountable for a policy which is crippling the poor in America by crushing the economy under big government?
Ryan and Romney represent a different approach. And I think there’s this mantra you guys almost sound like you’re an extension of the Obama campaign. The Ryan/Romney plan empowers middle class Americans to get a job. When they get a job, their income goes up. They pay more taxes. They are independent. They’re able to live their own lives.
Obama worries about student loans. None of those students are going to get any jobs under Obama. Ryan and Romney are worried about getting jobs for those students so they can pay off the Obama loans.
I think this is a fundamentally different model, and I know everybody in the media wants to rush down and narrow it down to one point. So I’m going to rush down and narrow it down to one point: how long are we going to tolerate a president who makes the poorest Americans more unemployed, who pushes more poor Americans on to food stamps, and who eliminates hope for minorities? And that’s the Barack Obama record after four years.
Most Republicans would’ve tried defending ‘tax cuts for the rich’. Newt didn’t have time for that. He attacked the underlying principle, essentially saying what Ronald Reagan said decades ago: You can’t be pro jobs and hate job creators.
President Obama has villified entrepreneurs all of his adult life. He’s even had to put out an ad saying that he loves small business:
That ad was hastily thrown together right after his infamous “You didn’t build that” speech from Roanoke, VA.
Newt’s message is refreshing because he doesn’t accept the progressives’ premise. After demolishing the progressives’ premise, Newt then proceeded to highlight this administration’s failures in helping the poor, especially minorities.
The end result is Newt making a brilliant case for capitalism being the best path to prosperity for minorities.
That’s what happens when you aren’t restricted to mindlessly repeating the progressives’ chanting points.
Tags: Media, Media Bias, Piers Morgan, CNN, Chanting Points, President Obama, Unemployment, You Didn’t Build That, Progressives, Newt Gingrich, Capitalism, GOP, Election 2012
Newt Gingrich is one of the most astute political strategists in American history. I know that I’ll catch flack over that statement but there’s no denying his putting together a revolution that took back the House for the first time in 40 years.
That’s why I’m paying attention to Newt’s latest article:
The announcement that former President Bill Clinton had been personally asked by President Obama to place his name in nomination at the Democratic Convention struck me as potentially a major mistake.
Bill Clinton is one of the most effective and aggressive speakers in the Democratic Party.
His attacks on Republicans will be witty, memorable, and effective for the moment.
The problem for Democrats is that while those who listen to Clinton’s speech and cheer him will be excited, those who think about Clinton and Obama in the same thought will begin to realize how bad Obama really has been as President.
Republicans should take every opportunity to drive home the amazing contrast between Clinton’s bipartisan achievements working with a Republican Congress and Obama’s absolute inability to work across the aisle.
I’ve thought the same thing since the announcement. I can’t argue that Clinton won’t electrify the people watching, whether they’re in the convention hall or watching their TVs.
I don’t doubt that he’ll pull off convincing people, albeit momentarily, that there isn’t a dime’s worth of difference between himself and President Obama. That image won’t last long. It might not make it through the weekend.
If I’m the Romney campaign, I’d have ads in the can with Clinton “ending welfare as we know it” vs. President Obama gutting welfare reform, then finishing with a picture of Bill Clinton with John Kasich with captioning reading “four straight surpluses, millions of new jobs created” just to remind people that creating a robust economy isn’t impossible.
You wouldn’t need to highlight that against a clip of President Obama. The message is already etched into people’s minds. That’s already ‘baked into the cake.’
These statistics are a stunning indictment against this administration:
With Clinton and a Republican Congress unemployment fell from 7.3 percent to 4.2 percent. Under Obama unemployment has been stuck at 8.2 percent (now moving up to 8.3percent this month). Obama has the worst job collapse in 75 years. Obama has had over 8 percent unemployment for 41 straight months. In fact under Obama unemployment went up from 7.8 percent to today’s 8.3 percent.
President Obama’s $5.2 trillion in deficits is a sharp contrast to Clinton’s balanced budgets.
During the bipartisan period from 1995 to 1999, debt held by the public as a percentage of GDP dropped 23 percent. Under Obama, it rose from 40.5 percent in 2008 to an estimated 74 percent in 2012—an increase of more than 83 percent. And under President Obama, gross federal debt passed 100 percent of GDP for the first time since 1947.
When I was sworn in as speaker in January 1995, the Congressional Budget Office projected cumulative federal budget deficits of $2.7 trillion over the next decade. After four years of bipartisan rule, in 1999, the CBO projected a $2.3 trillion surplus, a turnaround of $5 trillion. Under Obama, the CBO this year estimated a ten-year cumulative deficit of $2.9 trillion.
The President’s jobs failure has left 46 million Americans in poverty, the largest number in history.
If Mitt picks Paul Ryan or Bob McDonnell as his runningmate, they’ll likely campaign on a theme of ‘Reforms that work’. That’s a powerful message this campaign season. I might even be tempted to appropriate Bill Clinton language.
I’m one of the people that remember Al Gore before he flipped out. Bill Clinton put him in charge of a project called “Re-inventing Government.” There’s no reason why a Mitt-Ryan ticket or a Mitt-McDonnell ticket couldn’t run on the theme of “Re-inventing Government, Part II.”
That theme would play well with independents who aren’t that ideological. Independents want government to do its job right without intruding into their lives. Play on the themes of creating a robust domestic energy plan, getting rid of the corruption within the EPA and the crony capitalism of Solyndra.
Couple that with talking about building a 21st Century health care system and this could turn into a rout fairly quickly.
Doing those things would remind people of what it was like to have a functioning government that got things right without unduly burdening their families and their businesses.
Tags: President Obama, Democratic National Convention, Bill Clinton, The Era of Big Government is Over, Deficits, Democrats, Newt Gingrich, Welfare Reform, John Kasich, Jobs, Surpluses, Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan, Bob McDonnell, Re-inventing Government, GOP, Election 2012
Newt Gingrich isn’t staying silent about the media’s crucifixion of Michele Bachmann, Louie Gohmert, Tom Rooney, Trent Franks and Lynn Westmoreland, aka the National Five. Gingrich used this Politico op-ed to ridicule the Washington elites from both parties:
The recent assault on the National Security Five is only the most recent example of the fear our elites have about discussing and understanding radical Islamists.
When an orchestrated assault is launched on the right to ask questions in an effort to stop members of Congress from even inquiring about a topic, you know the fix is in.
The intensity of the attack on Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) as well as Republican Reps. Trent Franks of Arizona, Louie Gohmert of Texas, Tom Rooney of Florida and Lynn Westmoreland of Georgia is a reminder of how desperate our elites are to avoid this discussion. Yet consider this rush to silence questions in light of our history of unpleasant surprises during the Cold War.
It’s shameful that political opportunists like Jim Graves and go-along-to-get-along types like Speaker Boehner and Sen. McCain have taken shots at Michele. I can partially excuse Graves because I don’t expect much from DFL candidates. I won’t excuse Boehner’s and McCain’s behavior because they should know that the National Security Five asked totally legitimate questions.
We have replaced tough mindedness about national security with a refusal to think seriously and substituted political correctness and a “solid” assurance that people must be OK because they are “nice” and “hard working” for the systematic, intense investigations of the past.
That’s the case the media and the left have made on Huma Abedin’s behalf. I’ve said throughout that I won’t accuse her of being a terrorist plant. There’s simply no evidence of that. I’ve been just as consistent in insisting that it’s perfectly legitimate for legislators to question the procedure by which she received a security clearance.
How bad is this denial? Here’s how bad it iss:
After Maj. Nidal Hasan shouted, “Allahu Akbar” (“God is great”) in Fort Hood, Texas, and killed 12 soldiers and one Army civilian while wounding 29 others, there was pressure to avoid confronting his acts as inspired by his support for radical Islamism.
An American of Palestinian descent, Hasan had been in touch with a radical American cleric in Yemen, Anwar al-Awlaki. He declared Hasan a hero. Al-Awlaki was himself declared a “specially designated global terrorist” and, with presidential approval, was killed by a predator missile.
Yet, despite the evidence, Wikipedia reports, “One year after the Fort Hood shooting, the motivations of the perpetrator were not yet established.”
It did offer suggestions about motivation, however. For example, “A review of Hasan’s computer and his multiple email accounts has revealed visits to websites espousing radical Islamist ideas.” Talking about Islam, he said, “Nonbelievers would be sent to Hell, decapitated, set on fire and have burning oil poured down their throats.”
A rational person would have some hints about what motivated a terrorist killing spree.
If even Wikipedia could reach some conclusion about motivation, you would think the national security system could do the same. Not so.
I wish I could say I’m surprised but I’m not. This administration say that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan weren’t wars but instead called “overseas contingency operations” and that terrorist attacks would be called “man-caused disasters.” Why should we be surprised that this administration won’t officially declare Maj. Hassan’s killing spree a terrorist attack?
Speaker Gingrich is a serious man when it comes to national and homeland security issues. It’s anything but surprising that he’s defending Michele and the National Security Five for asking unpopular but important questions.
If a few feathers get ruffled by asking the difficult questions, that’s the price that must be paid to do the right thing.
Mr. Graves’ cheapshot was a futile exercise in political opportunism. It wasn’t an act of bringing people together. It revealed his lack of foreign policy gravitas. It showed Graves’ willingness to play political games on important issues. Far from being the witch hunt that Graves calls it, it’s really a congresswoman taking national security seriously.
The reaction to the National Security Five and their request for investigations by the inspectors general must be seen in this context of willful avoidance and denial.
In fact, there is a good deal in the Obama administration’s national security and foreign policy to ask about. One theme of the inspectors general letters is the administration’s courting of individuals viewed as leaders by the U.S.-based Muslim Brotherhood. A recent terrorist finance trial produced 80 boxes of evidence related to the activities of the Muslim Brotherhood network in North America over the past 40 years.
Apparently, it isn’t PC to think that the Muslim Brotherhood wants to influence U.S. foreign policy just because there’s boxes of documentation showing the Muslim Brotherhood’s attempts to influence U.S. foreign policy.
The scandal isn’t that the National Security Five asked important questions. It’s that the media, Washington DC and political candidates turned this into a circus this easily. In that sense, it’s really an indictment of DC, the media and Jim Graves.
Tags: National Security Five, Michele Bachmann, Political Correctness, Newt, National Security, Muslim Brotherhood, Louie Gohmert, GOP, John Boehner, John McCain, Jim Graves, Witch Hunt, Election 2012
When Newt Gingrich squared off against Gov. Martin O’Malley on MTP, it wasn’t a fair fight. This clash is telling:
DAVID GREGORY: Unemployment rate in Massachusetts came down under his stewardship.
GOV. MARTIN O’MALLEY: Well, the unemployment rate came down in a lot of states. They were different times. Right now our unemployment rate nationally has been driven down to the lowest level in three years. And it could be driven down further, more quickly with more job creation, if we would get beyond the sort of Tea Party Republican obstructionism that tries to prevent any modern investments to make this modern economy
Gov. O’Malley’s spin is sickening. TEA Party obstructionism isn’t what’s killing jobs. What’s killing jobs are the things that Democrats did the first 2 years of this administration.
The stimulus failed. Obamacare is a jobkilling machine that doesn’t help people get affordable health care. The EPA and NLRB have done their utmost to destroy jobs, too.
Thankfully, these things will get rectified when this administration is fired.
While Gov. O’Malley spun this administration’s economic record the best he could, Newt waited patiently for the right opportunity to pounce, which he did with this volley:
NEWT GINGRICH: So– so let’s start down that road. Why has unemployment come down? Unemployment’s come down because participation in the workforce is at the lowest point it’s been in three decades. People are retiring early because they can’t find a job. People have given up looking. If you look at the Gallup surveys, the real number of those who are unemployed, underemployed, and quit looking are around 19%.
This is a disastrous administration. And, candidly, if you wanna get into a fight over debt in an administration which raised the national debt from 47% of the economy to 74% in three and a half years, I– this is why Obama’s gonna have a hard time this fall. He can’t fight over jobs ’cause he isn’t creating them. He can’t fight over debt ’cause he’s increasing it.
He has policies that at least half of the American people find very unacceptable. And I think Romney has a pretty straightforward case. Can you afford four more years of Barack Obama? Can you really afford four more years of this kind of economy? Can you afford four more years of this kind of debt?
As good as that Gingrich volley was, it was surpassed by this devastating shot:
NEWT GINGRICH: I just wanna make one point. At this stage in 1984, no one on the Reagan team was talking about the Carter recession because they were talking about the Reagan recovery. They were talking about the rate of job creation under Reagan. They were talking about the success of Reagan. This is an administration which went from “yes, we can” to “why we couldn’t.”
In September, 1983, job creation exploded, with the economy creating 1,100,000 jobs. That’s the biggest single month since the BLS started collecting that data in 1939.
Some context is important in understanding these statistics. First, the Carter recession was worse than the Bush recession. Unemployment was high. Inflation was in the double digits. Interest rates for home mortgages peaked in the 16% range in Central Minnesota and nationwide.
Next, Reagan’s tax cuts, especially his capital gains tax cuts, changed the trajectory of the economy. He trusted the American people to invest in themselves and their futures. The Big Three automakers modernized their plants. Hundreds of thousands of people were hired. Michigan boomed so much that it became the home of an historical phenomenon known as the Reagan Democrat.
By contrast, this administration invested in their political allies. Their biggest campaign bundlers got taxpayer-subsidized loans. See Solyndra and LightSquared. This administration’s union allies got bailouts. See the UAW bailouts. See the PEU’s bailouts in the form of money to the sates via the stimulus.
Whereas President Reagan was creating Reagan Democrats, President Obama is having difficulty getting Democrats to support him. See West Virginia, where a convicted felon serving in a Texas prison got 41% of the vote. See Arkansas where a flake got 42% of the vote. See Kentucky, where someone who doesn’t exist (Uncommitted) got 41% of the vote.
Reagan attracted voters because his policies worked spectacularly. Obama is driving voters away because his policies have failed miserably.
Tags: President Obama, Martin O’Malley, Debt, Deficits, Bailouts, Stimulus, Obamacare, Jimmy Carter, Democrats, Reagan Democrats, Jobs, Reaganomics, Tax Cuts, Newt Gingrich, GOP, Election 2012
This video brightened my afternoon almost as the 70 degree weather outside:
I wouldn’t doubt that Mitch Berg will get upset with the video, though not because he’d disagree with the message or music. I’m betting that he’ll be upset that he didn’t think of it first.
Seriously, though, the video is a reminder that President Obama’s anti-energy policies have hurt the nation. High gas prices are crippling family budgets, both by eating up families’ earnings and by adding to grocery bills.
That’s before talking about how President Obama’s moratorium in the Gulf of Mexico has destabilized gas prices. The truth is that you’d have to try hard to get gas and electricity prices much higher.
Unfortunately, Steven Chu, President Obama’s anti-energy secretary, has been working on policies that would make energy prices much higher for years. That’s his Holy Grail achievement.
Thankfully, most people disagree with President Obama’s and Secretary Chu’s anti-energy policies. Thankfully, Republicans have great spokespeople on the subject of drilling. When Sarah Palin talks about “Drill, Baby, Drill”, the American people understand that increasing oil production is the fastest way to cheap energy. When Speaker Gingrich talks about “Drill here, drill now, pay less”, the American people agree with him.
If President Obama insists that his policies are the right policies, then he’ll get thumped because the American people disagree with his anti-energy policies.
Tags: Chuck Berry, Johnny B Goode, President Obama, Steven Chu, Oil, Fossil Fuels, Democrats, Newt Gingrich, Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less, Sarah Palin, Drill, Baby, Drill, GOP, Election 2012
Sen. Klobuchar and Sen. Franken are doing their best to hide their disdain for fossil fuels. Meanwhile, the Strib’s Kevin Diaz is doing his best to hide their disdain for fossil fuels:
The price of oil is spiking, and Minnesota motorists are buying gas now at nearly $4 a gallon.
With the summer driving season close at hand, and a presidential election right behind, lawmakers in Washington are scrambling for answers. Republicans in Congress have renewed their calls for more domestic oil drilling and the speedy approval of the controversial Keystone XL pipeline, which would carry oil from Canada to refineries across the United States.
But Minnesota Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Al Franken, both Democrats, say they have an additional solution: Clamp down on oil speculators.
I don’t doubt that speculators have something to do with driving up oil prices. I’m certain that President Obama’s trillion dollar deficits are driving oil prices higher by driving gold prices higher.
Ultimately, though, President Obama’s failed energy policies are what’s driving gas prices soaring. President Obama’s insistence on funding failures like Solyndra, coupled with his hostility towards fossil fuels, are driving prices higher.
Klobuchar and Franken have just introduced a long-shot bill to limit “excessive speculation.” The term, which has so far eluded a precise definition, re-opens a volatile election-year debate about the true causes of rising gas prices.
This is the type of non-solution BS that Minnesota voters should expect from Sen. Klobuchar and Sen. Franken. Not only does their legislation not fix the underlying problem. It’s wording is so vague that it defies definition.
If Sen. Klobuchar and Sen. Franken aren’t willing to think this through long enough to even give “excessive speculation” a definition, then it isn’t legislation that should be taken seriously. It should be viewed as a PR stunt, something that Sen. Klobuchar is an expert at.
Neither Sen. Klobuchar or Sen. Franken will admit this but increasing oil production will lower gas prices:
NEWT GINGRICH: It’s a funny thing. They’ve asked the Saudi Arabians to pump alot more oil. Dr. Chu, the Secretary of Energy, said that he was grateful that they were going to do it. He said he hoped it would drive down prices. So apparently, drilling in Saudi Arabia is fine. Paying the Saudis billions of dollars is fine. Having the royalties go to the Saudis is fine. It’s the Americans that Obama doesn’t want to help.
If Sen. Klobuchar and Sen. Franken won’t be honest with Minnesotans about gas prices, why should Minnesotans trust them about anything?
Sen. Klobuchar hasn’t done a thing to show she’s for fossil fuels. Neither has Sen. Franken. Until they do, Minnesotans should expect them to do nothing substantive to lower gas prices.
Tags: Gas, High Prices, Amy Klobuchar, Al Franken, Steven Chu, Democrats, Newt Gingrich, Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less, GOP