USDA gun buy is symptom of too-large government but not tyranny

In recent years, a number of alarmist reports have detailed how various agencies of the federal government have planned to purchase large quantities of ammunition and weapons. The most recent such report, a solicitation for bids to provide .40 caliber submachine guns to the Department of Agriculture, was detailed in May. Many conspiracy theorists believe that the purchase orders are harbingers of the government’s intention to impose martial law and declare war on its own citizens.

The solicitation, posted on the FedBizOpps website on May 7, specifies that the weapons be equipped with “semi-automatic or 2 shot burts [sic] trigger group, Tritium night sights for front and rear, rails for attachment of flashlight (front under fore grip) and scope (top rear), stock-collapsilbe [sic] or folding, magazine - 30 rd. capacity, sling, light weight, and oversized trigger guard for gloved operation.” The posting is real and the website is a legitimate federal government website.

The previous reports of purchases of large quantities of ammunition by federal agencies as varied as the Postal Service, the Department of Education and Homeland Security, while real, have been thoroughly debunked as an indication of imminent tyranny by sites such as the conservative Breitbart.com as well the longtime debunker, Snopes. These sites point out that the conspiracy theorists underestimate the amount of ammunition required for currency and training. They also fail to account for the fact that the government contracts are multi-year purchases that specify an upper range of quantity. Ammunition, like other commodities, is purchased in bulk in order to obtain volume discounts.

An additional theory is that the government was attempting to corner the market on ammunition in order to facilitate de facto gun control. With ammunition in short supply, guns would be almost useless. Forbes found a different explanation. Record high purchases of firearms logically lead to record high purchases of ammunition. There is a shortage of ammunition because there are many new gun owners. Dean Weingarten, writing on TheTruthAboutGuns.com recently suggested that pent up demand for ammunition is being satisfied and that prices are already dropping.

Ammunition shortages are easily debunked, but why does the Department of Agriculture need submachine guns? To find out, Examiner spoke with Alison Decker, Assistant Counsel to the USDA Inspector General.

In a prepared statement, Ms. Decker said that the submachine guns were intended to replace older, semi-automatic weapons used by agents of the USDA Office of the Inspector General. The weapons are intended to be used by USDA OIG agents in conducting “hundreds of criminal investigations each year” into “criminal activities such as fraud in farm programs; significant thefts of Government property or funds; bribery and extortion; smuggling; and assaults and threats of violence against USDA employees.”

The USDA was authorized to investigate and prosecute criminal activity that affected USDA programs and activities by the Inspector General Act of 1978. According to Ms. Decker, the OIG’s law enforcement activities led to more than “2,000 indictments, 1,350 convictions, and over $460 million in monetary results” from fiscal year 2012 through March 2014.

There is no evidence that the firearms purchased by the USDA are part of a sinister plot to impose martial law or tyranny on the American people. In fact, the very idea seems to defy logic. If the federal government intended to impose martial law, there are already hundreds of thousands of combat-experienced, well-armed soldiers in the U.S. Army, Marine Corps, and National Guard. There are also thousands of armed federal agents already positioned throughout the country. It seems ludicrous to suggest that such a plot would hinge on equipping the agents of the USDA Office of the Inspector General with .40 caliber automatics.

While not a sign of imminent danger or martial law, the USDA gun procurement may be symptomatic of a too large federal government in which a myriad of federal agencies duplicate efforts. In 2011, the Wall St. Journal detailed how the sharp increase in the number of criminal laws and regulations had led to a surge in the number of federal law enforcement agents. By the Journal’s estimate, there are more than 138,000 armed federal agents from more than 70 agencies. Fox puts the number at high as 73.

The expansion of rulemaking and policing has led to more criminal prosecutions for trivial matters. Enforcement of rules that was once a civil matter can now bring a raid by a squad of federal agents armed with assault rifles. This was the case for Morgan Mok in 2008 when agents of NOAA and the Fish and Wildlife Service raided her Miami business looking for illegal coral. According to the WSJ, Mok had obtained the coral legally, but paid a $500 fine for failing to complete the paperwork properly. A similar instance from 2011 involved a raid on Gibson Guitar by armed Fish and Wildlife agents searching for illegal wood. No criminal charges were filed, but the company agreed to pay $350,000 in penalties reported CNS News. In 2012, Fox News reported that armed EPA agents in body armor descended on an Alaska town looking for violations of the Clean Water Act.

The USDA OIG website details a number of recent investigations. The majority of these investigations seem to be the equivalent of “white collar” crimes such as crop insurance fraud, SNAP (food stamp) fraud, misbranding meat or the sale of property that was collateral for USDA loans. Some investigations, such as the attempted theft of a truckload of meat, could have legitimately required armed officers.

A question to consider is whether the number of crimes that require armed intervention is enough to justify the USDA’s own armed agents. In many instances, the USDA could be backed up by local law enforcement or other armed federal agents such as the FBI or US Marshals. A Freedom of Information Act request was submitted to USDA for more information on OIG investigations and use of force, but a reply has not yet been received.

The core problem is that the federal government is too large, not that it is about to implement martial law. The answer is reform, not revolution. Law enforcement officers and military personnel are not the enemy.

Read the full article on Atlanta Conservative Examiner

Comparing Obama and Bush on debt and spending

A common liberal answer to conservative complaints about the size of government and the federal debt is that George W. Bush also grew government and ran deficits. Rather than taking these claims at face value, conservatives should present liberals with counterarguments that delve deeper into the issues at hand.

First, examine the details of the growth of government under George W. Bush. According to the Office of Personnel Management, in 2000 there were 4,129,000 federal workers. By 2008, there were 4,206,000 federal workers, a total increase of 77,000 employees. Executive branch employees increased by 53,000 and military personnel increased by 24,000.

Much of this increase in the federal workforce is explained by the fact that the nation went to war on George W. Bush’s watch. Bipartisan votes in congress authorized the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq after the United States was attacked on September 11, 2001. The increase in military personnel was needed to fight these wars.

The jump in executive branch employees is also a result of the wars against terrorists. The increase is almost totally accounted for by the creation of the Department of Homeland Security. According to CNN, the Transportation Security Administration, which is part of DHS, employs approximately 60,000 federal workers. The TSA employs screeners, air marshals, inspectors, explosives detection teams, and, of course, bureaucrats.

For Obama’s part, federal employment also increased from 2008 through 2011, the last year for which statistics were available. In 2011, there were 4,403,000 federal workers, an increase of 197,000 from 2008. The 2011 total was slightly lower than 2010, due to the inclusion of temporary census workers in 2010. Under Obama, executive branch employees increased by 64,000 and uniformed military personnel increased by 133,000.

With respect to spending, President Bush inherited a surplus according to historical data from the White House Office of Management and Budget. There was a federal surplus of $128 billion in 2001. The recession and the new war combined to create a $158 billion deficit in 2002 as revenues fell and spending increased.

During the Bush Administration, total outlays increased every year from $1.8 trillion in 2001 to $2.9 trillion in 2008. The average deficit during the Bush years was $250 billion. As a percentage of GDP, the average deficit was two percent. President Bush’s largest deficit was $458 billion in 2008 when the financial crisis led to the creation of the Troubled Asset Relief Program and several corporate bailouts.

During President Obama’s first term, federal outlays increased from $3.5 trillion in 2009 to $3.6 trillion in 2011. The estimated total outlays for 2012 are estimated to be $3.8 trillion. In Obama’s first year, the deficit increased by almost a trillion dollars from 2008. Obama has not had a single year in which the deficit was less than a trillion dollars. Obama’s average deficit was $1.3 trillion during his first three years. This translates into an average deficit that is 9.2 percent of GDP.

Under President Obama, spending dramatically increased at the same time that tax revenues dropped sharply due to the Great Recession. By 2012, revenues were almost recovered to pre-2008 levels, but spending had risen even faster. Even three years in to the recovery, deficit levels remain above eight percent of GDP.

Some liberals might prefer to use 2009 numbers rather than 2008, but that would let Obama escape responsibility for the stimulus spending that he initiated. In reality, President Obama’s “emergency” stimulus spending never went away and the increased spending levels have now become permanent.

It is true that Bush left office in 2009, but he served less than a month. President Bush submitted the proposed budget for the 2009 fiscal year to Congress, but it was President Obama who signed it into law. In either case, the average deficit under Obama is more than four times greater than that of President Bush.

Both presidents increased the national debt according to statistical data from the U.S. Treasury. On January 20, 2001 when President Bush took office, the total national debt stood at $5.7 trillion. Eight years later on January 20, 2009 the debt had risen to $10.6 trillion.

During President Obama’s first term the debt increased to $16.4 trillion on January 20, 2013. This means that under Obama, the debt had increased by $5.8 trillion in four years as opposed to President Bush’s increase of $4.9 trillion over eight years.

In the final analysis, both presidents grew government and spent and borrowed far too much. President Obama’s spending and borrowing is in a league by itself, however. Obama is the only president in U.S. history to preside over trillion dollar deficits and one has occurred each year of his presidency.

The only other period in American history in which spending levels matched those under Obama was when the country mobilized to fight the Axis during World War II. In the 1940s, government spending decreased at the end of the war. So far President Obama has shown no signs of ever slowing his spending.

Originally published on Examiner.com:

http://www.examiner.com/article/obama-v-bush-on-spending-debt-and-growth-of-government?cid=db_articles

White House treatment of Arizona is election issue

In the wake of this week’s Supreme Court decision striking down parts of the controversial Arizona immigration law, the White House announced President Obama’s decision to unilaterally cancel agreements between the federal government and seven Arizona law enforcement agencies. These “287 (g)” agreements had allowed state officials to request that federal officials pick up illegal immigrants held in state and local jails. Previously, the federal government had also allowed state officials to ask federal agencies to check the immigration status of people who were arrested or stopped for traffic violations.

The Supreme Court’s ruling upheld this cooperation between state and federal agencies, but, according to the Daily Caller, administration officials say that Arizona will not be allowed to transfer illegal aliens to federal custody unless they are felons or are known to have recently crossed the border. The practical effect of the White House announcement is to invalidate Arizona’s ability to check immigration status.

The Supreme Court ruling largely invoked the pre-eminence of federal law, but President Obama is choosing not to enforce those same laws. Essentially, President Obama is ignoring federal immigration law and is preventing the states from taking action to protect their own borders and citizens.

The move is apparently an attempt to punish Arizona for enacting its own immigration law against the Obama Administration’s wishes. Several other states have enacted similar legislation that allows state and local police to check the immigration status of suspects and detain illegal aliens. Georgia passed an immigration bill modeled on the Arizona law in 2011.

The move by the White House, together with its announcement last week that it would not deport illegal aliens who entered the U.S. as children, is an obvious attempt to solidify Obama’s support in the Latino community. The president might be disappointed in the results. A recent Gallup poll shows that only 12 percent of Hispanic registered voters view immigration as the most important issue. Healthcare, unemployment, the economy and the gap between rich and poor all rank higher.

The president’s unilateral policy also states that the Department of Homeland Security would issue work visas to the affected young people. President Obama lacks the authority under the Constitution to issue these visas since only Congress is granted the power to “regulate commerce with foreign nations” and “establish a uniform rule of naturalization.” In any case, since the policy was established by an executive order and not by act of Congress, it is unlikely to last long past the election.

President Obama’s decision not to take border security seriously is a gamble with national security. According to Customs and Border Patrol data obtained by CNS News, agents apprehended 255 illegal aliens from “special interest countries” along the southwestern border in 2011. These included people from Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Somalia and Sudan, all countries “that have shown a tendency to promote, produce, or protect terrorist organizations or their members” according to the Department of Homeland Security.

Obama’s moves may cost him support in other areas. A Pew poll from June 2012 showed that 70 percent of Americans believe that border security should be the first priority or equal in importance to a pathway to citizenship for illegals. This may explain why the president’s approval index by Rasmussen has dropped by six points over the past week.

Aside from the immigration question, the unilateral move is another in a series of executive power grabs by President Obama. His decision not to enforce constitutional laws that were duly passed by Congress may not play well with Americans who value the objective rule of law over the subjective whims of whoever happens to reside in the Oval Office.

In traditional American government, Congress, the legislative branch, makes the laws and the president, the executive branch, enforces them. Short of a judicial ruling that forces him to carry out the duties of his office, Congress cannot make President Obama do his job. Generally, if a president does not like the law as it is written, he works with his allies in Congress to pass new laws, not simply announce that the law will no longer be enforced.

The ultimate control over the executive branch lies in the hands of the electorate. If voters believe that President Obama is not doing his duty as president, they may well decide that his contract does not deserve to be renewed for another four years.

Read this article on Examiner.com:

http://www.examiner.com/article/obama-s-non-enforcement-of-immigration-law-is-election-issue

Obama vs. Bush

In the campaign for his re-election, President Obama often points to the fact that the country was in a deep recession when he took office. Obama’s reasoning is that the country was in such a dreadful state in 2008 that it is taking much longer than he originally thought to restore it to prosperity.

It can be instructive to look at the results of the policies of both President Bush and President Obama and compare them side by side. One common criticism of President Obama is his administration’s spending habits. When he recently claimed that “Federal spending since I took office has risen at the slowest pace of any president in almost 60 years,” CNS News and many other outlets fact checked the claim and found it to be untrue. In fact, a chart from USgovernmentspending.com shows that, as a percentage of GDP, President Obama’s spending is at a higher level than at any other time in our history except World War II. While spending did increase slowly under most of George W. Bush’s tenure, it was only in 2008, when TARP was enacted, that it jumped sharply.

A closer look shows that, according to figures from the Tax Policy Center, President Bush ran a deficit for all but the first year of his administration. As a percentage of GDP, Bush’s average deficit was about 2 percent. In dollars, Bush averaged deficits of about $251 billion per year. In contrast, in President Obama’s three years, he has averaged deficits of more than nine percent. In each year of his administration, the federal deficit has been more than $1 trillion. Obama’s average deficit in dollars was $1.33 trillion.

When viewing the data from the Tax Policy Center, it is easy to see why deficits increased so rapidly under President Obama. Even as President Obama was increasing federal spending with his various attempts at stimulus, tax revenues were falling due to the recession. Since spending increased at the same time that the government was taking in less money, the difference had to be made up in borrowing.

Borrowing leads to an increasing federal debt. It is true that the debt increased dramatically under George W. Bush. On January 1, 2001, just before President Bush took office, the federal debt stood at $5.6 trillion according to U.S. Treasury figures. When he left office on January 20, 2009, the debt stood at $10.6 trillion, an increase of almost five trillion dollars. As of June 1, 2012, the federal debt was at $15.7 trillion, an increase of $5.1 trillion. The federal debt has increased by as much under President Obama in three years as it did under Bush in eight. CNS News noted in October 2011 that President Obama had added more debt than all other presidents from George Washington to George Herbert Walker Bush.

The difference is even more stark if the election of 2006 is considered to be the dividing line. In 2006, Democrats took control of both houses of Congress. At the beginning of 2007, as the new Democrats took office, the debt was at $8.6 trillion, which means that three trillion dollars was amassed by President Bush and congressional Republicans. It also means that a staggering $7.1 trillion was borrowed by the Democrats from 2007 through 2012. A chart from USgovernmentspending.com illustrates how radically government spending increased after 2006, when Senator Harry Reid and Rep. Nancy Pelosi assumed control of Congress.

Democrats argue that deficit spending was needed to combat the 2008 recession, but what did taxpayers get for their money? According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, unemployment averaged 5.26 percent during the Bush years. The average during the Obama years was 9.26 percent.

Even more telling is the fact that the Civilian Labor Force Participation Rate, the percentage of Americans working, has declined from 67.2 percent in January 2001 to 65.7 in January 2009 and to 63.8 percent in May 2012. According to Multpl.com, the U.S. population increased in each of those years, from 285 million in 2001 to 306 million in 2009. The U.S. population now stands at 313 million according to the U.S. Census. This means that fewer total Americans are working now than when President Obama took office even though the population has increased by 7 million. When President Bush left office 20.1 million Americans were working. Today only 19.9 million are in spite of a population growth of seven million.

Even though the Great Recession officially ended in June 2009, five months into Obama’s presidency and three years ago, the economy and the job markets have not recovered. By many measures, the economy is worse today than it was three years ago. The Federal Reserve announced last week that American wealth had decreased by 40 percent between 2007 and 2011. Home prices, which crashed in 2008, have not recovered and continue to decline in many markets. The Wall St. Journal reports that economists are “increasingly pessimistic” and more are predicting that the stagnant recovery will turn into another recession.

Foreign policy was an area where President Bush faced intense criticism. The 9/11 attacks, along with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, were the defining events of his time in office. President Obama campaigned against the wars and Bush policies such as the detention of terrorists at Guantanamo Bay. Three years later, the prison there remains open. Many leftists decried Bush’s “illegal wars” in Iraq and Afghanistan even though he sought and obtained congressional approval. President Obama did not notify Congress or seek approval before intervening in Libya.

In fact, Obama has quietly adopted a defense policy that is similar to that of President Bush. Perhaps the biggest difference is George W. Bush’s policy of capturing and interrogating terrorists where Obama primarily targets them from afar with drones. Obama’s personal involvement in targeting terrorists is reminiscent of President Lyndon Johnson’s personal involvement in selecting targets – and placing others off limits - during the Vietnam War. Obama did remove all but a token force of U.S. troops from Iraq, but American forces remain in Afghanistan. Perhaps this, along with his reluctance to embrace uprisings in Muslim countries, is why many Arab countries have an even more negative view of the United States under Obama than they did under President Bush according to Pew Global.

With respect to Iran, President Obama’s record is mixed. Obama resisted toughening sanctions on Iran until he was mandated by Congress. Obama also continued Bush’s program of cyber attacks against the Iranian nuclear program, but leaks from his administration detailing these and other intelligence matters have hurt U.S. interests. Breaches of security from the administration may have led to the life sentence for treason of Shakil Afridi, a doctor in Pakistan who helped the CIA determine bin Laden’s location.

Perhaps the greatest missed opportunity of the Obama era was the president’s failure to capitalize on the 2009 Green Revolution uprising in Iran. A secret memo obtained by the Washington Examiner reveals that leaders of the dissidents had requested American help in toppling the regime. President Obama failed to act and, as a result, the Iranian government is growing ever closer to becoming a nuclear power.

President Obama’s greatest triumph, foreign policy or domestic, was undoubtedly the killing of Osama bin Laden, yet if Obama had his way the programs that generated much of the intelligence that led to bin Laden’s whereabouts would have been closed down years ago. As Real Clear Politics explains, the enhanced interrogation techniques used during the Bush Administration uncovered much of the intelligence that led to bin Laden. Obama should get credit for issuing the order to attack, but President Bush should also get credit for making the attack possible.

Liberals charge that Bush’s defense and war spending is what led to the massive federal debt. A chart from USgovernmentspending.com does show that defense spending in total dollars increased under President Bush, but it has also continued to increase under President Obama. However, between 2002 and 2008, defense spending as a percentage of GDP remained between four and five percent under President Bush. Total defense dollars and defense spending as a percentage of GDP both increased under President Obama. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, defense spending makes up 20 percent of the federal budget and is dwarfed by Social Security, Medicare, other safety net programs and interest on the federal debt, which together account for 60 percent of the budget.

As Americans head to the polls this November, President Obama is unlikely to ask, “Are you better off now than you were four years ago?” as President Reagan famously did in 1984. Three years after the official end of the Great Recession, President Obama and his policies deserve the blame for the lack of recovery. Obama has yet to offer any new tactic that has not been tried previously without success. On foreign policy, Obama’s position has evolved, but he has displayed little desire to take strong and decisive action, resulting in many missed opportunities.

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The end of America? Tell us what you think

A famous poem written by T.S. Eliot includes the line, “This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but with a whimper.” Years later, this may have inspired Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev (or whoever wrote the quote that is often attributed to him) when he said, “We cannot expect Americans to jump from capitalism to Communism, b

ut we can assist their elected leaders in giving Americans small doses of socialism until they suddenly awake to find they have Communism.” Whether Khrushchev said it or not, the sentiment is proving accurate.

At dinner recently with a coworker, the discussion turned to the upcoming election. My friend stated his belief that President Obama would be re-elected and that the second Obama term would seal the fate of the United States, not with the bang of a nuclear holocaust, but with the whimper of an economy that is doomed to collapse under the weight of a bloated federal debt that can no longer be financed or paid off without painful and draconian cuts that are not politically possible. In short, my friend believes that the United States is about to experience a Greek economic crisis.

He justifies his belief by noting that almost half of all Americans pay no income taxes. Many of these people who pay no taxes get large tax “refunds” nonetheless. Further, the percentage of Americans who are receiving government benefits is at an all-time high. He believes that the vast majority of these people will vote to return President Obama to the White House in order to keep the gravy train rolling.

My own opinion differs slightly. I agree that the current economic situation is dire. However, I believe that many of the Americans who are not paying taxes and who are getting government checks are doing so because they are unemployed and unable to find a job. Many of these people might be persuaded to vote for a Republican challenger with a pro-growth platform that will help the economy recover. I believe that my opinion is backed up by the Republican landslide of 2010 and early indications that the Republicans may well take control of the senate in 2012. Polls also show that Americans want competition and free markets rather than more federal regulation.

Getting the Democrats out of Washington is only half the battle. The other half of the battle is more difficult. Once the free-spending Democrats have been shown the door, the Republicans have to maintain discipline and avoid a return to their own free-spending ways. In this, recent events offer some encouragement.

Most importantly, Republicans in the House of Representatives have held the line on spending and taxes since the election of 2010. In 2011, the GOP house members held spending almost level in spite of the vocal objections of President Obama and the Democrat-led senate. This was the first time in decades that federal spending had not increased sharply, but instead remained almost level.

Republican successes at the state level are also encouraging. Republican governors in Wisconsin and Indiana have rolled back the power of unions. Wisconsin governor Scott Walker was vilified for breaking the teacher’s union’s power of collective bargaining, but the legislation arguably put Wisconsin on the road to economic recovery. In Indiana, Governor Mitch Daniels passed right-to-work legislation that gives employees the freedom to choose whether to become a union member or not. In contrast, deep blue states like Michigan, California, and New York are basket cases.

According to the Washington Post, at 85 percent, the United States has the world’s seventh highest debt-to-GDP ratio. Under Barack Obama’s borrow-and-spend policies, this ratio is increasing. This puts the U.S. close behind such nations as Portugal (101 percent), Italy (120 percent), and Greece (168 percent). The number one debtor nation with respect to GDP is Japan at 233 percent. Where the U.S. has some advantages over the European countries, such as the ability to manipulate its currency and the size of its economy, there are also disadvantages as well: There is no country big enough to bail out the U.S. President Obama pays lip service to deficit reduction, but his 2012 budget adds $8 billion to the deficit according to MSNBC.

My friend was under the impression that no nation has ever recovered from debt-to-GDP ratio of 100 percent, but this appears not to be true. According to Global Financial Data, several nations including Australia and Canada have paid down extremely high levels of government debt in the past. The process of paying down these high debt levels is long and politically difficult, often taking decades. According to the National Bureau of Economic Research, the consequences of not paying the debt down could mean be continued economic stagnation, high unemployment, and slow economic growth, especially as the ratio goes above 90 percent.

It could also be as bad as the hyperinflation as experienced by Germany in the 1920s when the Weimar Republic used their version of “quantitative easing” to print money to pay reparations from WWI. PBS tells how the price of coffee could almost double at a restaurant between ordering and getting the bill. In 1923, one dollar was equal to a trillion marks. Even a milder inflation such as the U.S. experienced in the 1970s led to a dismal and stagnant decade.

Holding the line on federal spending is not enough. Since the federal government borrows almost 40 cents of every dollar it spends, heavy cuts are needed in order to actually reduce the federal deficit and debt. With Occupiers already rioting in some cities and Democrats using scare tactics over Social Security and Medicare reform, cutting entitlement spending is sure to be difficult. A large and looming question is whether Republicans in Washington and Americans in voting booths around the country have the intestinal fortitude to make the needed cuts and stand by them.

If not, then it is only a matter of time until the collapse of our economy. American will end, not with a bang at the hands of the likes of Osama bin Laden or the Soviet Union, but with a whimper of government paralysis, inflation, and economic stagnation. The United States of America may continue to exist as a country, but it will bear little resemblance to the America that we know.

My belief is that the Republicans will win big this November, but on the long-term question, I rate their chances at about 50-50.

What do you think? Let me know by leaving a comment below.

Originally published on Examiner.com:

http://www.examiner.com/conservative-in-atlanta/the-end-of-america-tell-us-what-you-think

Barack Obama: The wrong man for the wrong time

As the presidential election of 2012 approaches, Americans will be looking back over President Obama’s first term in office in an attempt to determine whether he is worthy of a second term. Obama’s first term began with high hopes that he would be able to heal the partisan rift that split the nation, heal the wounds left by the recession and restore the image of America abroad that was tarnished by the wars against the terrorists.

President Obama entered office with a strong mandate and high approval ratings. Almost immediately he began to expend his political capital on the stimulus law of February 2009 that he said would keep unemployment rates from rising above eight percent and help put America back to work. While the stimulus did include some “shovel-ready” public works projects and minor tax cuts, much of the nearly $821 billion was wasted on a laundry list of long-time liberal wishes. The CBO estimates the cost of each stimulus job created or saved at $228,055.

The other landmark legislation of his first term, the Affordable Care Act or “Obamacare,” ignored the priority of the American people that the government foster job creation and instead introduced a host of new taxes and regulatory requirements. The net effect of Obamacare will be to stifle job creation as it makes it more expensive for employers to hire new workers. Much of the damage is being postponed by the host of waivers issued by the federal government that allow companies to delay complying with the law’s provisions. These waivers will run out in 2014. Tellingly, the law itself does not give the government authority to issue these waivers.

Despite the enactment of these and numerous other smaller stimulus laws, from the expansion of unemployment to raising the minimum wage to mortgage modifications to cash-for-clunkers, there has been no appreciable change in the economy since President Obama took office in January 2009. Unemployment is still significantly higher than the president promised. In Georgia, it has consistently been higher than the national average. Real estate prices are still depressed and Atlanta has one of the worst housing markets in the nation. The growth rate for the economy is anemic at best and is far below that of other industrialized nations.

In exchange for the near stagnant economy, the federal government has increased its debt by 34 percent according to debt statistics from treasurydirect.gov. Since President Obama took office, the federal debt has increased from $10.69 trillion in December 2008 to $14.34 trillion at the end of July 2011. Government spending as a percentage of GDP is approaching levels that have not been seen since World War II. In those days, the money went to arm the U.S. and its allies in the fight against Hitler and Imperial Japan. It was understood that spending would decrease when the war was over and the U.S. would pay off its debts. Today, the largest part of the money goes to entitlement programs and nonmilitary discretionary spending that have no end in sight short of the government losing its ability to borrow.

Perhaps the largest tragedy of the Obama Administration is the lost opportunity of the Arab Spring. For years, liberals have criticized the Arab dictatorships that were supported by American foreign aid and revenues funneled from American consumers through the oil companies. In the prelude to the Iraq War, many liberals said that the fight against Saddam was the fight of the Iraqi people and that U.S. troops should not be used to free a people who would not fight for themselves.

Yet, during President Obama’s administration, when Arab and Iranian (who are of Persian descent and are not Arabs) protestors rose against authoritarian governments to throw off their shackles the U.S. stood idly by. Even in the case of Iran, a nation solidly linked to terrorism and nuclear proliferation, where it is decidedly within U.S. interests to undermine the ruling theocracy, President Obama failed to take any action to support the Green Revolution in the wake of rigged elections that returned President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to office for another term. Instead, President Obama’s response to the uprising and the crackdown that followed was muted.

This missed chance means that Iran’s nuclear weapons program is unlikely to be stopped without military action by either the U.S. or Israel. An Iranian nuclear warhead could conceivably be launched from a ship in international waters to strike American coastal cities. Iranian missiles could even reach as far inland as Atlanta. The development of Iranian ICBMs means that a warhead exploded high over the central United States could shut down electrical power grids across the country.

Similarly, President Obama sat on the sidelines of the Egyptian revolution until it became apparent that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak had lost the support of both the people and the military. Ironically, it was in Cairo, that Obama delivered a speech proclaiming a new era in U.S.-Muslim relations. In Libya, he dithered until Gadhafi loyalists had almost crushed the rebellion and even after ordering air strikes at the behest of our European allies his support for the rebels was lukewarm at best. The situation is the same in Syria where the Syrian army is currently using tanks to crack down on protesters, killing thousands and detaining tens of thousands. The Obama Administration has yet to even recall the U.S. ambassador in protest.

There is one nation on which the Obama Administration has taken a hard line. That is the nation of Israel. First, Obama demanded that Israel stop construction of homes in what Arabs call the “Occupied Territories,” including the West Bank, where Israel’s capitol, Jerusalem, is located. More recently, Obama changed longstanding U.S. policy when he insisted that Israel should return to national boundaries that pre-date the Six Day War of 1967 and that would be indefensible today.

Israel is the lone democracy in the Middle East and has long been an ally of the United States. It is constantly bombarded by rockets fired from Gaza and Lebanon by Hamas and Hezbollah, terrorist groups funded by Iran. Israel is surrounded by hostile nations and has been attacked by its neighbors numerous times throughout its short modern existence.

While well-intentioned, President Obama’s policy failures have disappointed both liberals and conservatives. His decision to ram unpopular bills through Congress confirmed the fears of conservatives and obliterated any chance of bringing both parties together. Americans might have excused this partisan tack if his policies had been effective, but they were not. Instead, billions of dollars have been spent to no effect and a valuable chance to expand freedom and democracy in the Middle East is being lost.

http://www.examiner.com/conservative-in-atlanta/barack-obama-the-wrong-man-for-the-wrong-time 

Photo credit:  Wikimedia/Matthias.kötter

Debt limit and federal default: What they are and what they mean to you

As the deadline for an agreement on raising the debt ceiling approaches on August 2, it remains to be seen whether the Democrats and Republicans in Congress can reach a compromise that will allow the federal government to continue to meet its obligations. Many Americans do not understand the background of the debt limit debate. Many others don’t believe that it will have an impact on them.

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The debt limit is the congressionally imposed limit on borrowing. According to Factcheck.org, the federal government is currently borrowing thirty-six cents for every dollar that it spends. Part of the problem is that tax revenues have fallen since the onset of the recession in 2008, while federal spending has increased. When the federal government reaches the limit of what Congress allows it to borrow, it will have to begin choosing what bills to pay and which ones to default on.

The situation is similar to that of many families in Atlanta, around Georgia and throughout the country that were financing a plush lifestyle with mortgages and credit cards before the recession started. The breadwinners in the family took pay cuts, like many others in the country, but imagine that in this case, rather than cutting back on spending when they realized that they were bringing home less money, they started borrowing more in an attempt to preserve their old lifestyle. In fact, with the huge increases in federal spending, it is like the family took a pay cut and then went out and bought a new luxury car on credit. Everything that they used to pay cash for, the family now charges to their credit cards. The hope is that if they can borrow until more money starts coming in and avoid making painful spending cuts entirely.

The problem is that there are consequences to excessive borrowing. The federal debt limit is analogous to the family’s credit limit. The family, like the federal government, cannot borrow indefinitely. Sooner or later, the overspending family will max out their credit cards. As their debt increases, it will get harder to find places to borrow more money and the interest rate for their borrowing will increase because loans to this family will be considered more and more risky for the lender. Eventually they will be forced to stop borrowing and make cuts to their spending when they are not able to borrow any more money.

At this point, the federal government has refused to make meaningful spending cuts and is seeking to raise the credit limit on its old credit card and apply for new ones. One price that the government might pay for running up the balance on its credit cards even higher is a downgrade to the United State bond ratings.

U.S. treasury bonds are currently rated AAA and are considered the safest investment in the world, but massive increases in federal debt and spending have led rating agencies to warn that they may have to downgrade the rating on U.S. bonds. This is akin to the hypothetical family’s credit score being downgraded from 700 to 600. It means that interest rates will be higher for future bond sales which will increase the cost of government borrowing. It also means that unless changes are made, further downgrades could come soon.

It is likely that the federal debt limit will be raised, but that won’t solve the federal government’s problem. The fundamental problem is that the government spends much more than it receives in taxes. Like a family with a pay cut, the federal government faces two options. First, it can cut spending and live within its means. The problem with this option is that federal spending is made up of popular but expensive programs. Any attempt to cut any federal program meets with resistance from voters and activists. It is like facing opposition from mother for cuts to the grocery budget. Brother doesn’t want to spend less on video games while sister needs her clothing allowance. Father doesn’t want to eliminate cable television from the family budget.

A second option is find a way to increase the money coming in. For the family, that means finding a job that pays more or working a second job. For Congress, it would mean raising taxes. The problem with this option is that, just as most Americans can’t find a higher-paying job, they also can’t afford to pay higher taxes without further damaging the economy.

Ironically, the Laffer Curve, an economic principle, shows that beyond a certain point even an increase in taxes won’t generate more tax revenues. As tax rates increase, so much money is leaving the private economy and going to the government that it discourages investment and production. Consequently, tax revenues fall and the government collects less money. Even if the government can generate some additional tax revenue by raising taxes, the government’s spending problem is so large that it cannot be solved without spending cuts.

If Congress fails to raise the debt limit, the government will not be broke because some tax money will be coming in; it just won’t be enough to pay everything. The government will have to choose which bills to pay and which ones to defer until it has more money, just as many families have to choose which bills to pay. Theoretically, the government could pay important bills, like Social Security payments and military salaries, while delaying payment on less important things like Senator Harry Reid’s cowboy poetry festival and the thousands of other wasteful items in the federal budget. In the final analysis, practically everything the government spends money on, especially the big-ticket items like Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, and defense, will have to be reconsidered and restructured, but that is a long-term problem.

In the short term, the effect of a default would depend on what Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and President Obama decide to stop paying. They could choose to stop making Social Security payments to increase pressure on Republicans. They could divert money from defense and other federal departments to keep social spending active. Many government employees might be laid off.

Companies that do business with the federal government would likely not receive payments. That might mean that workers at these companies would be laid off or go unpaid. The uncertainty in the economy could cause the stock market to crash.

Georgia and other states might not receive federal grants and subsidies which would mean tighter states budgets and more layoffs for state employees. Many of these states, like Georgia, have already made painful cuts to state government budgets and experienced rounds of layoffs rather than financing their spending with more debt. Unlike the federal government, thirty-seven states have balanced budget laws that do not allow a deficit to be carried forward according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Georgia does not have such a law.

If the U.S. bond rating is downgraded, interest rates will likely rise on treasury bonds. The increase in interest rates will ripple through the economy. Interest rates will rise on everything from mortgages to credit cards. Borrowing will be more expensive for American companies and consumers as well as the government.

The ultimate outcome of the battles over spending, taxes and the federal debt remain to be seen. What is obvious is that the U.S. is on an unsustainable course. The failures of national economies such as Greece are a warning to Americans that reckless spending cannot be financed with borrowing indefinitely without doing serious damage to the nation.

What is net neutrality?

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Georgians by now realize that the fancy, technical names given by politicians to laws and policies are often misleading. The Democrats seem especially guilty of this tactic since so many of their ideas would be unpopular if the people knew their details. After all, if the people of Georgia and America knew that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act would actually drive up prices and lead to shortages of health insurance, it would have been even more unpopular than it already was.

Such is the case with net neutrality. If Georgians knew that it was going to result in more government regulation of the internet and higher costs to access the web, while at the same time discouraging investment and stifling innovation, they would have strongly opposed the policy. Instead, almost nobody noticed the bland-sounding policy.

The term “net neutrality” evokes images of protecting the internet from undue political or corporate influence, yet in reality the opposite is true. Net neutrality was a call from leftists groups for increased government regulation and oversight of the internet.

Writing in the Wall Street Journal, John Fund describes the backers of net neutrality. The concept began as a media reform campaign by Robert McChesney’s Free Press organization. McChesney wrote that “the battle over network neutrality is not to completely eliminate the telephone and cable companies… but the ultimate goal is to get rid of the media capitalists in the phone and cable companies and to divest them from control.”

Fund goes on to describe how a confederation that included most of the same groups that created the “Astroturf” movement demanding campaign finance reform has pushed net neutrality. Campaign finance reform resulted in the McCain-Feingold law, which was ultimately ruled to be an unconstitutional limit on free speech. These leftist groups, including Free Press and the Pew Charitable Trusts, sponsored studies backing net neutrality. These studies were prominently cited in the FCC’s “National Broadband Plan.”

The FCC originally tried to impose net neutrality in a ruling against Comcast in August 2008. However, in April 2010, a federal appeals court in Washington, DC decided that Congress had not given the FCC legal authority to regulate the internet.

The following month, a bipartisan group of congressmen sent letters to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski stating in no uncertain terms that his plans for net neutrality were a bad idea. A letter by seventy-four Democrats stated that it would “jeopardize jobs" and "should not be done without additional direction from Congress.” Thirty-seven Republicans wrote that Genachowski’s planned rules were “heavy-handed 19th century regulations" that are "inconceivable" and illegal.


In response, the FCC unilaterally decided to reinterpret its jurisdiction over telephones to include the authority to regulate the internet. This week’s vote to impose net neutrality rules in a party line vote among the FCC’s five-member board. Chairman Genachowski and two Democratic members of the board voted for net neutrality, while the two Republican members opposed it. The FCC essentially extended government control over the internet after being told by both Congress and the courts that it did not have that authority. President Obama appointed Chairman Genachowski and the FCC answers to the President.

What does net neutrality mean for you?

The new net neutrality regulations will prohibit internet service providers (ISPs) from blocking access to legal websites and allow the FCC to determine if ISPs are “unreasonable” in prioritizing internet traffic on its network.

However, there has been no history of companies blocking access to websites. This was a manufactured crisis (a la Rahm Emanuel) in order to justify increased regulation. In reality, ISPs have voluntarily refrained from blocking web access. In contrast, the federal government has been shutting down websites without due process.

The use of the word “unreasonable” is ambiguous. As Republican Commissioner Robert McDowell said, it is “perhaps the most litigated word in American history.” The wording leaves the enforcement of the regulations open to arbitrary interpretation. This means that, not only will there be legal challenges, but internet companies will be forced to lobby FCC and other government officials to gain approval for their business plans. As Woodrow Wilson said, “If the government is to tell big business men how to run their business, then don't you see that big business men have to get closer to the government even than they are now? Don't you see that they must capture the government, in order not to be restrained too much by it?”

Additionally, the new rules say that ISPs can charge more to customers who use more bandwidth. This means that, where most internet users now pay roughly the same, if you watch a lot of online videos or movies or play memory-intensive games, you might have to pay more for your internet access in the near future.

Finally, the new rules will likely inhibit investment and innovation. New regulations will likely make it harder for new companies to enter the web marketplace. In the past few years, new internet companies have risen from inception to multi-billion dollar firms in a few short years. Google and Facebook are both ubiquitous but less than fifteen years old. New hardware, software and websites are being introduced constantly. Government interference can only slow and hamper this process.

In summary, everyone is unhappy with the FCC’s net neutrality rules. Leftists who fear corporations and embrace government control want harsher rules. Conservatives and libertarians who believe in limited government feel that the FCC should stay out of the internet, especially since Congress has not extended the agency authority to regulate it. There will almost certainly be legal challenges due the vague and arbitrary nature of the law. Equally certain is that the Republicans will seek to rein in President Obama and his rogue agency when they take control of the House of Representatives next year.

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Thomas Jefferson on the Role of the Federal Government

Let the national government be entrusted with the defense of the nation, and its foreign and federal relations; the State governments with the civil rights, laws, police, and administration of what concerns the State generally; the counties with the local concerns of the counties, and each ward (township) direct the interests within itself. It is by dividing and subdividing these republics, from the great national one down through all its subordinations, until it ends in the administration of every man’s farm by himself; by placing under every one what his own eye may superintend, that all will be done for the best. What has destroyed liberty and the rights of man in every government which has ever existed under the sun? The generalizing and concentrating of all cares powers into one body, no matter whether of the autocrats of Russia or France, or of the aristocrats of a Venetian senate.
-Thomas Jefferson

As quoted in the 5000 Year Leap by W. Cleon Skousen