President Trump: All I Want For Christmas Is A Government Shutdown

Americans must have been naughty this year because it looks as if one of their early Christmas gifts may be a government shutdown, courtesy of President Trump, Speaker-elect Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.). After a contentious Oval Office meeting on Tuesday, there seems little chance of agreement on a stop-gap measure to fund the government through the holidays. Unless a funding bill is passed, the government will shut down on Dec. 21.

In the televised meeting, the president repeatedly emphasized the need for border security that specifically includes a wall and threatened to shut the government down in order to get it. Pelosi and Schumer repeatedly said that they were seeking a compromise that would keep the government open.

“I am proud to shut down the government for border security,” President Trump stated as the discussion became heated, “because the people of this country don’t want criminals and people that have lots of problems and drugs pouring into our country. So, I will take the mantle. I will be the one to shut it down. I’m not going to blame you for it. The last time you shut it down, it didn’t work. I will take the mantle of shutting down.”

Leaving aside that the Democrats do make valid points (a phrase I seldom have to type) about the cost, practicality, and effectiveness of the wall, the president’s embrace of the shutdown strategy is a losing proposition. Although government shutdowns play well with the Republican base, they seldom achieve their policy objectives and usually end in an abject surrender often by Republicans who normally are shutting the government down because they lack votes.

Government shutdowns call to mind the Underpants Gnomes of “SouthPark.” The Gnomes famously described their business plan as follows:

Phase 1: Collect underpants

Phase 2: ?

Phase 3: Profit

In the case of government shutdowns, the plan seems similar:

Phase 1: Shut down the government

Phase 2: ?

Phase 3: Victory

Like the Underpants Gnomes, shutdown advocates focus on Phase 1 and Phase 3 while the vital details of the all-important Phase 2 remain sketchy. In fact, no one has ever been able to give me a reasonable explanation of Phase 2.

When it comes to passing legislation, the Constitution is specific about the process. Those of us who came of age in the ‘80s learned about it between Saturday morning cartoons with a Schoolhouse Rock short called, “I’m Just a Bill.” The abridged version is that any bill, including Trump’s border wall funding proposal, has to be passed by both houses of Congress.

The rub for the current Congress is a detail not mentioned by Schoolhouse Rock, the filibuster and cloture votes. Even though Republicans control both houses of Congress until the new Congress convenes in January, their slim majority in the Senate means that they don’t have enough votes for cloture.

Senate rules require a cloture vote to end debate on any bill. This modern, “gentlemen’s” filibuster requires 60 votes to advance a bill to a floor vote in the Senate. In practical terms, that means that Republicans need a minimum of nine Democrats to vote for cloture and end a filibuster.

What does this have to do with government shutdowns? Everything. The only way to pass a bill is to have the required number of votes. If Republicans can’t get Democrats to cross the aisle then the wall funding bill won’t pass, shutdown or no shutdown.

The problem for President Trump is that shutting down the government does nothing to entice Democrats to vote for the wall. If President Trump leads Republicans into a shutdown over wall funding, my prediction is that Republicans will eventually surrender and agree to reopen the open the government after a few days or weeks of wrangling.

This is what happened in 2013 when Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) led Republicans to shut down the government over Obamacare. The shutdown lasted 16 days during which Republican approval ratings plummeted to their lowest level in history (up to that point anyway). Republicans surrendered and agreed to a deal to reopen the government and increase the debt limit. The Affordable Care Act survives to this day. The shutdown cost taxpayers $24 billion.

The shoe was on the other foot earlier this year when Democrats shut down the government in hopes of forcing an immigration deal that would legalize Dreamers. In this case, Democrats were the ones lacking the votes and they eventually had to give in.

The bottom line is that whichever party enters a shutdown without the votes they need is going to exit the shutdown without the votes that they need. There are only two ways to change votes in Congress: compromises and elections. Shutdowns just force both sides to dig in deeper. Both parties lose in public opinion. The other big loser is taxpayers who foot the bill for all the political drama. Contrary to popular belief, shutdowns cost more than keeping the government open.  

President Trump wants border security in the form of a wall, but he won’t get it from a shutdown. His best bet would be to embrace his status as an artist of deal-making and present Democrats with an offer too good to refuse. That’s what he promised in the campaign and what voters sent him to Washington to do. Pressing ahead to a government shutdown is setting himself and his party up for failure.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Attacks on Amazon Threaten Middle Class Wallets

President Trump has recently turned his attention from the NFL and North Korea to launch a sustained attack on Amazon.com. The assault on the online retailer is based on faulty assumptions by the president and risks angering a large swath of voters.

In a series of tweets, president has claimed that Amazon unfairly avoids paying sales taxes and benefits from low Post Office rates for delivering their products at the expense of taxpayers. The attacks have driven down Amazon's stock price and the value of NASDAQ as a whole.

Fox News' Shepherd Smith pointed out that the president's claim that “The Post Office is losing billions of dollars, and the taxpayers are paying for that money because it delivers packages for Amazon at a very below cost” is blatantly false.

“The Postal Service's own numbers show it makes money by delivering packages for Amazon and other companies,” Smith said. “As for taxpayers, the Post Office's own website points out, and I quote, 'The Postal Service receives no tax dollars for operating expenses.'”

President Trump also claimed that the Post Office “loses $1.47 on every package” it delivers for Amazon. Smith noted that the figure came from a Citigroup study that found that the Postal Service was charging “$1.46 below market rates for package delivery,” but not necessarily that it was losing the money.

Like other bulk shippers, Amazon negotiates shipping rates with the Post Office, but the Post Office is required to cover its costs. “By law our competitive package products, including those that we deliver for Amazon, must cover their costs,” an August 2017 USPS press release cited by Politifact said. “Our regulator, the Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC), looks carefully at this question every year and has determined that they do. The PRC has also noted that competitive products help fund the infrastructure of the Postal Service.”

Politifact also pointed out that package delivery is one of the few growth areas in the Post Office business. First-class mail delivery has declined with the growing popularity of email, but parcel delivery accounted for 28 percent of Post Office revenue in 2017, the largest revenue increase of any sector at $2.1 billion.

The president was also wrong about Amazon's avoidance of sales taxes. Sales taxes are a state and local matter and not all states collect sales taxes on internet purchases. CNN notes that internet retailers are not required to collect sales taxes in states where they do not have a physical presence, but Amazon announced last year that it would begin collecting sales taxes in every state. The company also pays property taxes on a network of distribution centers as well both property and sales taxes for its Whole Foods division.

In addition to being wrong on the facts, President Trump's attack on Amazon is not politically smart. As of September 2017, Amazon Prime had about 90 million subscribers. In other words, more than one in four Americans pays for Amazon's preferred shopping and shipping plan. There are more than 304 million active Amazon accounts, equivalent to more than nine in 10 Americans. When the president attacks Amazon, he is indirectly attacking American consumers in the same way that President Obama attacked blue collar Americans when he attacked Walmart.

Attacks on Amazon also hurt the entire stock market and a large number of 401(k) plans. CNN reports that Amazon is the fourth largest stock on the S&P 500 and is the 10^th most widely held stock by large financial institutions. Amazon stock has lost about 12 percent of its value within the last month as the president has hinted at the possibility of federal action to punish the company. The decline in value has helped to drive the market into an overall decline and is being felt across the nation in shrinking 401(k) balances.

Along with his tariff threats, Trump's war of words against Amazon also contributes to uncertainty about government policy of the sort that hampered the economy under President Obama. Businesses thrive in an environment where the rule of law is in place and it is easy to know what is expected. In such cases, planning for the future is simple. Under Obama and Trump, the business environment is uncertain and the possibility of a trade war could drastically increase costs and hurt sales. Companies cannot be sure that they won't be the next target of Trump's tweets with their associated publicity problems and the threat of new federal regulations and cost increases.

President Trump's attack on Amazon is another wrongheaded assault on free markets. The president has the underlying facts wrong and his antics are hurting American investors and may ultimately end up forcing consumers to pay more for the same products and shipping. The president's tax reform was a boon to the economy, but his anti-business actions threaten to undermine its success.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Will Democrats Shut Down the Government?

Another year, another looming government shutdown.

This year it is Democrats who are threatening to shut down the government to block funding for President Trump’s border wall. Fresh from their victory in blocking reform of the Affordable Care Act, Democrats say that they will filibuster the annual appropriations bill if it includes money for construction of the wall. The bill must pass before April 28 to avoid a shutdown.

“I thought we were going to get a check from Mexico,” Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) said in Politico. He added that the wall will “accomplish nothing. That’s $30 billion that can’t go into cancer research, diabetes research and veterans care.”

In recent memory, it has been Republicans who have threatened to shut the government down. The most recent example in 2013 followed several shutdowns during the Clinton Administration. While Democrats have been guilty of fomenting shutdowns, we must look all the way back to 1990 for the last example of a Democratic Congress shutting down the government under a Republican president.

While government shutdowns are not uncommon, they also are not popular with voters. Virtually every poll that asks about a government shutdown shows the voting public overwhelmingly opposed to and angry at the prospect. While shutdowns can be popular among the partisan base, most voters want the parties to work together for the good of the country.

When the Republicans shut down the government for 16 days in 2013, they not only failed to achieve their goal of defunding Obamacare, they also saw the party’s approval rating fall to a historic low. A year later, Obamacare’s skyrocketing increases in health insurance premiums and chronic problems with registration on exchange websites saved Republicans from an electoral drubbing. They weren’t so lucky in 1996 when Republican-led shutdowns arguably cost Bob Dole the presidency and ushered in a second term for Bill Clinton.

If Democrats haven’t learned from past shutdowns, Republican leaders apparently have. “We're not going to have a government shutdown,” Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) said on CBS last month. “The president doesn't want to have a government shutdown.”

Ryan suggested that the battle over appropriations for the wall could be delayed until next year since plans for the wall have not been finalized. “The big chunk of money for the wall, really, is...next fiscal year’s appropriations because they literally can’t start construction even this quickly,” he said.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) agreed, saying on Fox News that he was “very confident” that a shutdown could be avoided and argued that the Democrats had the most to lose from a potential shutdown. “I would advise President Trump: ‘Don't worry about them sticking that label on you. Congress owns the government shutdown brand,’” McConnell said. “There's no incentive, frankly, for either side to go to the brink.”

Republicans say they intend to keep controversial items out of the appropriations bill. Funding for the wall will be delayed and a measure defunding Planned Parenthood is likely to be inserted into the budget reconciliation, which cannot be filibustered. This may mean that Democrats are left with no hot button issues to demonize in the appropriations bill.

Nevertheless, Democrats in the past have shown a propensity for overreach. Overconfidence after the health care battle and an irrational emotional response to the mere existence of the Trump Administration could lead Democrats into a shutdown battle over nothing.

With President Trump’s approval rating at 35 percent in a recent Quinnipiac poll, Democrats would run the risk of blowback from a shutdown. The strategy might make the president more popular at their own expense. A maxim attributed to Napoleon is, “Never interfere with an enemy while he’s in the process of destroying himself.” Democrats would be smart to follow the French emperor’s advice. 

Originally published on The Resurgent

Can America be saved?

During the Obama Administration, a frequent rallying cry among conservatives has been the need to “take our country back.” The Obama era has brought the fundamental change that the future president promised in 2008, but has left many Americans feeling that the country is on the wrong track.

Much of the focus on restoring America is centered on restoring Republicans –constitutional conservatives in particular – to the White House. Winning the election of 2016, however, will prove much easier than reversing American decline. Many of the problems faced by the United States are in reality merely symptoms of deeper problems that may well prove impossible to fix, even with committed conservative Republicans in control of both houses of Congress and the presidency.

The national debt

The most obvious of long term problems is the mounting federal debt. The debt, which has been increasing for years under both Republicans and Democrats, almost doubled under President Obama and now stands at more than $18 trillion. If this were not bad enough, the figure is incomplete because it does not include unfunded liabilities for items such as entitlement programs and federal pensions. The true debt is more than $100 trillion according to Forbes, an amount that the government will almost certainly never be able to repay.

Republicans under John Boehner deserve credit for attacking this problem, but their efforts have been woefully inadequate, due in no small part to President Obama. The sequester led to the first real cuts in the federal budget since the 1950s. At this point, federal spending has declined for three consecutive years for the first time since the 1920s, but while the deficit has been reduced, it has not been eliminated. The federal debt continues to increase, albeit at a slower rate.

Federal borrowing has also been aided by historically low interest rates over the past decade, but this cannot be expected to continue indefinitely. Currently, interest payments make up seven percent of the federal budget according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. As the debt continues to grow and interest rates rise, payments on interest will crowd out other budget items. At some point, Americans will have to choose between national defense and entitlements.

The destruction of the family

Hidden behind many symptoms of American decline is the decline of the family. Statistics show that half a century ago, almost all children were born to intact families. Divorce was uncommon and most kids grew up with two parents. Today, almost half of first babies are born to unmarried mothers. Two things caused the change: birth control and the welfare programs of the Great Society.

Birth control eliminated the big reason that women had for abstaining from sex until marriage. The increased availability of sex outside of marriage eliminated a big reason for men to get married. Accordingly, marriage rates have dropped since birth control became widely available.

Complementary to birth control was the fact that, if a woman did get pregnant outside of marriage, the government would now subsidize the costs of raising children for single parents. Men need no longer feel the pressure to marry a woman that they had “knocked up.” Dad wasn’t needed because Uncle Sam would fill the void.

The problem is that a government check is not as effective a parent as an actual, flesh and blood father. Studies have shown that children of single-parent households are more at risk for juvenile delinquency and drug abuse than their peers and are more likely to live in poverty. They also tend to have more children outside of marriage, requiring more government financial assistance, in a vicious cycle that perpetuates itself and that will be harder and harder to break.

Executive usurpation of Congress

A less obvious threat to the future of the United States is the damage that President Obama has done to the balance of power between the presidency and Congress. After the 2010 elections, President Obama learned that he could bypass Congress to enact difficult-to-pass items of legislation through the administrative rulemaking process of executive agencies. Net neutrality and new carbon regulations by the Environmental Protection Agency are two examples of this.

When the Republicans took control of the House and then the Senate, Obama increasingly relied on Executive Orders and administrative rulemaking to advance his agenda. A well-known example is the president’s 2012 directive on immigration. Two more recent examples are the agreement with Iran, which Obama refuses to call a treaty because that would require ratification by the Senate, and this week’s revelation, reported by Maggie Gallagher in The Pulse, that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission unilaterally criminalized workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation under the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The law, as written, does not include sexual orientation as a protected class.

Republicans have made attempts to rein in the president, but, all too often, these attempts fall victim to Democratic filibusters or the president’s veto pen. The Constitution is inadequate to deal with a president who has no respect for the rule of law. This was noted by framer John Adams who said, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

It is unlikely that future presidents will not remember President Obama’s success at circumventing Congress with executive actions. It will be very tempting for Obama’s successors to adopt the same strategy of legislation by “a pen and a phone.”

The failure of the courts

Closely related to President Obama’s usurpation of congressional authority is the failure of the courts to adequately provide a check to unconstitutional laws and executive regulations. The appointment of liberal judicial activists for decades has eviscerated the judicial branch as a check to Congress and the president. The problem is not limited to the Supreme Court, but includes federal and state courts around the country, as evidenced by the plethora of state judicial decisions striking down definition of marriage of laws.

Likewise, the problem is not new. There have been many bad Supreme Court decisions throughout our history, notably the Dred Scott decision of 1857, but the idea of justices creating law rather than interpreting it stems back at least 80 years to the New Deal. In Wickard v. Filburn (1942), the Court ruled that the interstate commerce clause could be interpreted to mean that Congress could regulate commerce within a state, the opposite of what the Constitution says. Griswold v. Connecticut (1965) created the heretofore unknown “right to privacy” that led to other bad decisions such as Roe v. Wade (1973).

These earlier bad decisions are the direct lineage of more recent bad decisions like King v. Burwell (2015), in which a majority ruled that an “Exchange established by the State” can also mean “exchange set up by the federal government,” NFIB v. Sebelius (2012), where the Court ruled that Congress can tax people for not doing things it wants them to do, and Obergefell v. Hodges (2015), where a majority found that the dignity of homosexuals required the justices take defining marriage out of the hands of the states and place it into their own hands, the will of the people and the Constitution be damned. As Justice Scalia lamented in his King v. Burwell dissent, a judicial philosophy that allows judges to make “interpretive distortions… ignores the American people’s decision to give Congress ‘all legislative Powers’ enumerated in the Constitution.”

A constitutional republic requires the rule of law to exist. When judges rewrite laws based on their own desires, the rule of law is in peril. Judicial activism is a problem, but judicial restraint in the face of unconstitutional laws is just as threatening.

America’s core problems are deeply rooted in decades of progressive policies and social tinkering as well as a changing culture. The left has been very successful at shifting culture away from the liberty-focused, hardworking culture of our forefathers to an attitude of dependence on government. Top down policy changes cannot correct cultural issues. Conservatives must focus on changing the culture of America from the grass roots as well.

No one can say for sure how long America will continue to struggle along under the weight of these four possibly insurmountable obstacles. It might take decades for them to take their toll on the country. We might follow in the footsteps of Europe’s social democracies with a generation or more of stagnation and decline.

Or, just the opposite, our core problems might never run their full course. Outside influences – from ISIS to Iran to China – might hasten our decline since weakness is an invitation to adversaries. As Lenin said, “Probe with a bayonet: if you meet steel, stop. If you meet mush, then push.”

Read the full article on Examiner.com

Save America: Take your family to church

Recent polls now show that almost three quarters of Americans believe the nation is on the wrong track. The reality is that regardless of whether Republicans win control of the Senate this year and the presidency in 2016, it will be very difficult to solve the problems facing America today. Many of the most serious issues facing the country stem from cultural changes that cannot be solved solely by changes to government policies. Americans who are serious about changing the direction of the country should begin by taking their families to church. To save America, it will take a moral revolution that can only come from God, not government.

Even though some polls show that church attendance is still strong in the US, ChurchLeaders.com reports that counts by denominations and local churches show that church attendance is down and still declining. Although about 40 percent of the population reports that they attend church, the real number is probably less than 20 percent and not keeping pace with population growth.

It is likely that the decline in church attendance can be connected with many of America’s social and economic ills. Movement away from traditional Judeo-Christian morality may be responsible for a change in social mores that has led to an expansion of government and a growth in entitlement spending.

While there is no hard data or studies establishing a causal relationship between church attendance and fundamental shifts in American society, it is easy to see a correlation between the two. The movement away from traditional religion has occurred at the same time as a sharp decline in marriage. According to Census data, the share of unmarried couples cohabiting has risen from one percent in 1960 to more than 11 percent today. At the same time, the marriage rate has declined from 90 percent in 1950 to 36 percent. Both men and women are delaying marriage until later in life.

Unsurprisingly, the decline of marriage has led to an increase in the share of children living in single-parent homes. Two-parent families have declined from almost 90 percent in 1960 to less than 70 percent today. Put another way, according to The Atlantic, at 31 percent of U.S. households, “single parents have more than tripled as a share of American households since 1960.”

The change is even pronounced in black families where more than two-thirds of children belong to single-parent families. Many children who do live in two-parent families are not with both biological parents. The trend is not limited to black families. Nationwide, one out of every three children live in homes where the biological father is absent.

Given the enormous costs of raising children, it should come as no surprise that with the growth of single parent families has come a similar growth in federal entitlement spending. As more children grow up within broken families, the federal government has borne an ever larger financial share of the burden of parenthood. Federal entitlement spending has grown from less than one percent to approximately 13 percent of GDP with no sign of slowing.

The effects of single-parent families on children are well documented. According to the National Father Initiative, growing up in single-parent families, particularly families where the father is absent, puts children at risk for a variety of negative outcomes. Such families are more likely to live in poverty due to the fact that a single mother often cannot work a full-time job and care for her children. Children of absent fathers are more at risk for emotional and behavioral problems, juvenile delinquency, drug and alcohol abuse, sexual activity and teen pregnancy, and even bad grades.

The problem of single-parent families is a vicious cycle. Statistics show that children who grow up in single-parent families are more likely to experience divorce themselves as well as being less likely to marry in the first place. In many cases, children of single parents grow up to head their own single-parent families, which in turn require more government help.

Due to the unintended consequences of entitlements, such programs would be problematic even if the federal government could afford them. In reality, entitlements are unaffordable. The Heritage Foundation points out that 61 percent of federal spending is on mandatory items such as entitlements. Further, 31 cents of every federal dollar spent is borrowed. This has led to a federal debt of more than $17 trillion. When unfunded liabilities such as Social Security and Medicare are included, the total debt comes to $127 trillion, according to Forbes.

The problem of the growth of government deficit spending on entitlements is not merely an economic issue. It is also a moral issue. Growth in government is largely a response to the decline of the family and entitlements fill the vacuum of money and stability in single-parent families. Because a government check cannot fully replace a missing mother or father, these entitlement payments make the problem worse in the end by making marriage and traditional families seem optional.

The destruction of the family causes other problems as well. The problem of out-of-wedlock pregnancy is undoubtedly related to the abortion issue as well. According to the Centers for Disease Control, more than 85 percent of women who abort their babies are unmarried. The Guttmacher Institute notes that 75 percent say that they cannot afford a child, a problem that is often associated with single-parent, single-income families. Half specifically cite their desire to not be a single parent or problems with their husband or partner. While the rate of abortions in the U.S. is declining somewhat, more than 1 million abortions still occur in the U.S. each year.

Another possible, but less conclusive, result of the destruction of the family is increased homosexuality. Accurate statistics on the rate of homosexuality are hard to find (due to small sample size and self selection), but the theory that homosexuality in some people is related to domineering mothers has been around for decades, such as a paper by Dr. Marvin Siegelman from 1974 and several books by Dr. Joseph Nicolosi, author of “A Parent’s Guide to Preventing Homosexuality.” While the left disputes this view, little is definitely known about the root causes of homosexuality.

Some psychologists and psychiatrists have advanced therapies based on these theories of environmental causes for homosexuality. In spite of being attacked by gay activists and leftists, there is evidence that these therapies can help some homosexuals. In some cases, liberals have sought bans against gay reparative therapy, even though such bans violate the freedom of speech of doctors and the freedom of choice of families. If homosexuality is a result of strong mother figures for some gays, then the rate of homosexuality should increase as the rate of single-parent families increases.

The negative effects of homosexuality are less disputed. Dr. Timothy Dailey of the Center for Marriage and Family Studies summarized the risks of homosexuality. These include an increased risk of suicide, domestic violence, and substance abuse in addition to greater risk for a variety of sexually transmitted diseases. Lesbians also have a higher risk for a variety of cancers.

Today, the United States resembles the Israel of the Bible in many ways. As Isaiah described, in spite of the blessings that God has bestowed upon America, the nation increasingly produces “bad fruit.”Americans increasingly revel in pleasure and immorality and our moral compasses are so distorted that we frequently “call evil good and good evil.” In America today, religion is being from the public square and people who follow the teachings of the Bible are increasingly in conflict with laws enforcing the new morality. Ancient Israel was destroyed by God’s judgment and some, such as Rabbi Jonathan Cahn, believe that America is already undergoing the early stages of judgment as well.

When viewed in context, it is apparent that a change in governmental policy is not sufficient to reverse the decline of the American family and the budget-busting entitlements that go along with it. What is needed is a national revival and a return to traditional family models.

The only way to reverse the trend of ever-increasing government entitlements is to reduce the need for those entitlements in the first place. By returning to a traditional family model where two parents share the responsibility for raising children, there will be less need for government intervention and support. Changes in policy without attacking the underlying problems will be doomed to failure.

The government cannot force Americans to return to traditional and time-proven methods of bearing and raising children, but a true revival and voluntary return to the Biblical teachings has the capability to change the course of American society and culture. Such a cultural shift will be necessary for the long term prosperity – and even survival – of the United States.

A revival has to start somewhere. If you want to save America, take your family to church. Teach your kids the value of the traditional family. Show them that when spouses fight, it doesn’t mean that the marriage has to end. If you love your children, try to make your marriage work. You can start this process by taking your family to church to learn about God’s forgiveness. You might save your country as well as your soul.

Read the full article on Examiner.com

Lessons Republicans should learn from the government shutdown

The Republican Party suffered another humiliating defeat at the hands of Barack Obama yesterday. The Republicans essentially got nothing in the deal to end the government shutdown and were barely able to keep the spending caps of the sequestration, one of their few victories, in place.

The past few weeks have seen Republican approval plummet to record lows in several polls including those by Gallup and NBC News/Wall Street Journal. A new Pew poll released Oct. 16 shows that Tea Party support among Republicans has fallen by nine points since June. Independents disapprove of the Tea Party by a 19 point margin. GOP supporters feel betrayed by the deal. Reactions range from anger at “RINOs” or the Tea Party to resignation that the Republican Party is totally ineffective and unworthy of support.

While there is very little upside to the debacle in the short term for Republicans, it does provide them with a few hard lessons to learn. If the GOP can take these lessons to heart, it may eventually save itself and the turn the country around in the process.

Lesson 1. Check your math. The inevitability of defeat in the defund battle could be summed up in the mathematical expression 45<55. Forty-five Republican senators are less than 55 Democratic senators. The Republican will always lose in the Senate unless they can sway Democrats to vote with them. In the defund battle, there was little, if any, effort expended on pressuring red state Democrats to join the Republicans.

It does not matter if the Republicans are standing for principle. It does not matter how courageous they are. In an election, math trumps everything. The only way to win is to change the math. Subtract votes from the Democrats and add them to the Republicans.

Dividing the party into “RINOs” and Tea Partiers is counter-productive. Neither faction can win without the other. Division only subtracts from the Republican votes and gives the Democrats a larger majority.

Lesson 2. Pick your battles. The Republicans are a minority party. They cannot take on the majority party head-to-head and win. Even if every RINO and every Tea Partier is united in the cause, 45 is still less than 55 (see lesson 1.)

Republicans should take a lesson from General George Washington. Rather than wasting time and resources on a head-to-head battle that has no chance of success and will likely destroy their force, Republicans should fight smaller battles when they have a reasonable chance of winning.

In the early days of the American Revolution, Gen. George Washington faced the world’s most powerful army with a ragtag band of militia. Washington did not march his men straight into the British cannons. Rather, he acted to preserve his army and made strategic withdrawals when the conditions were unfavorable. His most famous retreat came in August 1776 during the Battle of Long Island in which a fog that many attribute to divine intervention saved the Continental Army.

Washington picked his battles and attacked when conditions were favorable. A few months later on Christmas Day 1776, he made his famous crossing of the Delaware to surprise the British at Trenton. As Washington grew stronger and received reinforcements from the French, he was able to fight the British more directly. It was only after the Americans outnumbered the British that they were able to surround them and force their surrender at Yorktown.

If the Republicans had chosen to make a stand over congressional exemptions or the mounting federal debt rather than over defunding Obamacare, the results might have been different. While only a slight majority disapproves of Obamacare, a staggering 94 percent of voters in an Independent Women’s Voice poll opposed the exemption. Likewise, 61 percent told Gallup that the federal budget deficit worried them “a great deal.” These are bipartisan issues where the Democrats would be vulnerable to a “flank attack.” The Democrats would be forced to vote with the Republicans or go on record against strong public opinion.

Lesson 3. Pay attention to polls. Polls should not be used to determine your principles, but they are invaluable in determining a strategy. As Examiner reported in September, a poll commissioned by Republican congressmen themselves found that 71 percent of Americans opposed shutting down the government to fight Obamacare. Scores of other polls gave the same warning.

While Republicans claimed to be fighting for what the people wanted, they were instead ignoring the people’s mandate to keep the government opening. As a result, they paid dearly in terms of public approval.

Lesson 4. When your enemy is about to destroy himself, don’t stop him. The rollout of the Obamacare exchanges was an unmitigated disaster. Even worse for the Democrats, high premiums across much of the country challenge the underlying economic assumptions behind the law.

Fortunately for the Democrats, much of the country was distracted by news coverage of the government shutdown. If the Republicans had simply stood by as President Obama’s signature law imploded, they might have improved their chances of winning the Senate in 2014. Instead, generic congressional ballots, which had been tied before the shutdown, uniformly shifted toward the Democrats according to the Real Clear Politics roundup of polls.

Lesson 6. Think long term. The Constitution requires a majority to pass laws. The Republicans are a minority. Therefore, their focus should be on becoming a majority (see Lesson 1.)

Long term Republican success depends on appealing to moderates as well as the party’s base. Gallup’s most recent party identification poll gives Republicans 20 percent and Democrats 30 percent. Forty-seven percent of the electorate is independent. The party makeup in the states is similar. Neither party can win without winning independents. It is these moderate voters who decide elections.

A successful Republican strategy will appeal to both the party’s base and the country’s moderates. A politician or a party that cannot appeal to both the base and moderates is what is known as a loser.

Thinking long term also includes having an endgame or a Plan B. When the initial Republican demand for defunding Obamacare was rejected, the Republicans seemed totally unprepared. The party was trapped with no way out. With approval ratings falling fast, the Democrats could have demanded almost anything to reopen government and the Republicans would have had no choice but to take the deal or let Obama lead the nation into a default for which the GOP would surely take the blame.

It would have been wiser to have positions to fall back to when the initial demand failed. These strategic withdrawals should have been accompanied a common message that focused on what the Democrats were doing to harm the American people, not what other Republicans were doing to harm the party.

Lesson 7. Perception is political reality. Communication shapes perceptions. President Obama and the Democrats refused to negotiate, but the public perception was that Republicans wanted the shutdown so they took the lion’s share of the blame.

While Republicans dithered and squabbled, Daniel Henninger notes that Team Obama launched a withering assault of tweets to complement friendly news coverage. The Democrats never strayed from their message that “Tea Party Republicans” were threatening to destroy the economy. Without a coordinated response from the Republicans, Obama’s message became the defining story of the shutdown. Republicans must learn to use the social media to counter Democratic propaganda in both the mainstream media and the twitterverse.

By focusing on the long-term and uniting with disaffected moderates against President Obama and the Democrats, the Republicans still have a chance to make a comeback before next year’s midterm elections. A strong showing could change the equation in the Senate (Lesson 1). The structure of the races favors Republican gains in the Senate, but a strategy of tilting at windmills is likely to result in yet another missed opportunity.

Originally published on Atlanta Conservative Examiner

Shutdown may threaten GOP House majority

A new poll released Oct. 10 shows that the government shutdown has had a devastating impact on the Republican Party. The NBC News/Wall St. Journal poll found public approval of the Republican Party at historic lows.

The new poll found that 24 percent approved of the Republicans while 53 percent disapproved. Approval for the GOP has fallen eight points since June. The high point for the Republicans was in December 2001 with 57 percent approval. Tea Party approval declined to 21 percent from 26 percent in June. This also represents a historic low. The Tea Party’s highest approval was in June 2010 with 34 percent.

The poll found Democratic approval at 39 percent with 40 percent disapproval. Democratic approval numbers were unchanged since June. President Obama’s approval stands at 47 percent, which is identical to his approval rating in June. Obama’s high was in February 2009 and his low was in 2006. The high for the Democrats was in 2000 and their low was in 2006.

The poll found that Republicans were blamed for the government shutdown by a 22 point margin over President Obama (53-31 percent). Forty-six percent consider the shutdown extremely serious even though 68 percent had not been directly affected.

A strong majority, 70 percent, believe that Republicans are putting their political agenda ahead of what is good for the country. Fifty-one percent believe the same of President Obama.

In another disturbing trend for Republicans, the poll showed a drop in the preference for Republicans in Congress. In the poll, voters preferred a Democratic-controlled Congress by 47-39 percent. For much of the past year, the two parties have been deadlocked in the poll for congressional preference. Currently, 70 percent disapprove of the Republicans in Congress while 59 percent approve of the Democrats.

These trends show clearly that the Republican Party is taking the brunt of the blame for the government shutdown. As Examiner reported previously, the makeup of Senate races in 2014 gives the GOP an edge, but plummeting approval ratings from the government shutdown may threaten Republican chances for a Senate takeover.

If the shutdown continues or the nation defaults, it might even become likely that the Republicans lose their majority in the House of Representatives in the next election. In 2012, House Democrats actually received more votes than House Republicans, but Republican advantages due to redistricting allowed them to retain the majority.

There were few winners in the poll. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), the Republican senator who pushed the strategy of defunding Obamacare, gained slightly. Cruz’ approval rating now stands at 14 percent. His June approval was 10 percent.

Barack Obama is the biggest winner. At 47 percent approval and 41 percent disapproval, the president is the only figure or group with a higher approval than disapproval.

 

Originally published on Elections 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

Answering the religious left

The religious left, while still small, has grown somewhat over the last decade. While often perceived as hostile to religion, particularly Christianity, Democrats are somewhat tolerant of religious leftists. As an example, black voters are both heavily religious and heavily Democratic.

The signature issues of the religious left are war, the environment, and poverty. As the American involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq winds down and concerns about global warming abate, the major point of contention between the religious right and left concerns how to address poverty.

A passage frequently cited by religious leftists is Matthew 25:40, “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’” The theme of charity occurs throughout the Bible. Religious conservatives don’t dispute Jesus’ command to help the poor. The question is how best to do so.

Religious leftists advocate government anti-poverty programs. These programs are notoriously expensive, inefficient and prone to fraud. According to the Cato Institute, the state and federal governments spend more than $1 trillion annually on anti-poverty programs. This translates to $20,610 for every poor person in America, yet the poverty rate is still almost unchanged from 1964 when Lyndon Johnson declared war on poverty. As Ronald Reagan put it, “Some years ago the federal government declared war on poverty - and poverty won.”

The left is also fond of pointing to Matthew 22:21 where Jesus tells the Pharisees to “render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's….” Often the second part of the verse, “and unto God the things that are God's” is not quoted. Christians should pay taxes, but they are also commanded to support their local churches and charities. Ironically, statistics from the book “Who really cares?” by Arthur Brooks show that although liberals tend to earn more than conservatives, they give less in terms of money, time and even blood.

The fallacy with unquestioningly rendering to Caesar is that we do not (at least not yet) live under an authoritarian regime. As participants in a republican democracy, it is our duty to make sure that our tax money is spent wisely. In fact the Bible commands it. Since voters are responsible for their government in a republic, they must ensure that the government is a good steward of tax money.

According to Jesus in Luke 16:1-2, a good steward is not wasteful. A good steward works diligently for his money (Proverbs 28:20, Colossians 3:23-24). A good steward invests wisely and diversifies (Ecclesiastes 11:2). Good stewards provide for their own families (1 Timothy 5:8). Even though a good steward pays taxes (Romans 13:6-7), that does not alleviate the responsibility of personally helping the poor and doing so cheerfully (2 Corinthians 9:6-8, Acts 20:35).

Government-enforced charity runs afoul of Biblical doctrines in several areas. First and most obvious, the Bible calls for voluntary and cheerful giving. This is not consistent with mandates and taxes that are enforced by the government at the point of a gun.

Second, the Bible clearly values honest work. People who are legitimately in need should be helped, but those who are capable of working should support themselves and their families. In 2 Thessalonians 3:10 Paul wrote, “For even when we were with you, we gave you this rule: ‘The one who is unwilling to work shall not eat.’” Charity should not go to people who could be working to support themselves. Many government programs actually encourage people not to work because they lose their benefits if they do.

Third, government is wasteful. No one seriously doubts that much of the money that the government confiscates to help the needy is wasted. The waste is two-fold. First, the money flows through bureaucracies at both the state and federal levels. These bureaucracies have high overhead due to expensive buildings and pay and benefits for employees that are substantially higher than their private sector counterparts according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Second, fraud is rampant in government entitlement programs. Untold billions of dollars are lost to fraud every year. Bureaucratic caseworkers with scant contact with their charges are often unable to tell when they are being duped. As entitlement programs grow, the propensity for fraud becomes more likely due to the sheer numbers of people involved.

Finally, government programs ignore the Bible’s warnings against incurring debt. Proverbs 22:7 warns that “The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is slave to the lender.” Psalm 37:21 says, “The wicked borrow and do not repay, but the righteous give generously.” Paul writes in Romans 13:8, “Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another….” and admonishes “You were bought at a price; do not become slaves of human beings” (1 Corinthians 7:23).
What, then, would God think about borrowing 40 cents on the dollar and confiscating money from workers trying to feed their families to pay for a wasteful and inefficient system that encourages the poor not to work? It is hard to imagine that he would be pleased.

The religious left also lacks Biblical support for two other prominent issues. First, with respect to abortion, it is clear from numerous Bible passages such as Matthew 19:14 that Jesus loved little children. In Matthew 18:6, Jesus said that it would be better for a person to have a “great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea” than to cause a child to sin. How much worse would it be to physically harm a child than to cause one to sin?

The Old Testament was even more specific saying, “Cursed be anyone who takes a bribe to shed innocent blood” (Deuteronomy 27:25). In Exodus 21:22-23, there was something akin to a personhood law: “When men strive together and hit a pregnant woman, so that her children come out, but there is no harm, the one who hit her shall surely be fined, as the woman's husband shall impose on him, and he shall pay as the judges determine. But if there is harm, then you shall pay life for life…. ” Jeremiah 1:5 indicates that a baby in the womb is already a person known to God.

The Bible is also clear on same-sex marriage. Most people are familiar with the Old Testament laws concerning homosexuality in Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13. There are also hints that homosexuality was one of the sins that led to the destruction of Sodom (from which we get the word “sodomy”) and Gomorrah in Genesis 19. Christians are not bound by Old Testament law (Galatians 5:18). Neither is the United States a theocracy (nor should it be). Old Testament laws do provide clues to right and wrong however.

Less commonly known is the New Testament’s condemnation of homosexuality. In Romans 1:24-27, homosexuality is described as God’s judgment on people who “exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator….” In 1 Timothy 1:9-11, homosexuals are listed with other sinners including the sexually immoral, slave traders, liars and perjurers. Jude 7 confirms that homosexuality was one of the sins for which Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed.

Nowhere does God command Christians to hate homosexuals, but it is clear that God considers homosexuality to be a sinful act that should not be encouraged. Especially when the welfare of children and God’s prohibition against leading children astray (Matthew 18:6) are considered, it becomes clear that same-sex marriage should not be considered for societal as well as religious reasons. The New Family Structures Study by Mark Regnerus, associate professor of sociology at the University of Texas at Austin, offers compelling evidence that children of same-sex couples do not fare nearly as well as children of traditional families.

Members of the religious left are free to vote for whoever they choose and upon whatever basis they choose. If they believe that their political views are aligned with their religious views, however, they should seek to learn what Jesus and the Bible say about the issues at hand.

 

Read this article on Examiner.com:

http://www.examiner.com/article/answering-the-religious-left

Bank of America’s retreat show limit of corporate power

When Bank of America retreated from its plan to charge a $5 fee to its account holders who use debit cards, it was a victory for consumers. Bank of America’s announcement of the fee a month ago sparked widespread anger and was a factor in the birth of the Occupier movement.

Many on the left are suspicious and angry at corporations. A common theme among progressives is that the government is more responsive to the people because government officials are elected by and are responsible to the people. On the other hand, this view holds that corporations are responsible only to their officers and shareholders, people whom consumers have no voice in choosing. The Bank of America saga gives lie to this idea.

Even though Bank of America can rightly be considered an international mega-corporation, the prospect of hemorrhaging account holders and deposits brought it to its knees in a matter of weeks. Consumers exercise this same power over almost every corporation in existence. Consumers have the right to fire any company that does not earn their business. If the company is fired by enough customers, it will either change its ways or go bankrupt.  Corporations can only thrive and survive by giving people what they want.

A similar corporate turnaround occurred several decades ago with an Atlanta-based mega-corporation. In 1985, Coca-Cola decided to replace its century-old soft drink recipe with a new one. The introduction of New Coke went down in the annals of business history as “the biggest marketing blunder of all time.” It took Coke about six weeks to bring back the original formula as Coca-Cola Classic. New Coke has not been produced since 2002.

It is only in the rare case of a monopoly that companies have little incentive to try to please customers. There are very few monopolies today, however. Federal antitrust laws allow the government to veto mergers and break up companies that control too large a share of their markets. Standard Oil and “Ma” Bell Telephone are two examples of mega-corporations that were broken up by the federal government. Most monopolies today exist only in cooperation with government. Local cable television and telephone monopolies are examples.

Even where monopolies do exist, technology is making them less of a factor. Cable companies are vulnerable to competition from satellite television providers such as Dish Network and streaming web content on sites like Hulu.com. Landline telephones are increasingly an anachronism as they are replaced by wireless telephones and voice-over-internet phone calls.

The only real monopoly that exists in the United States today is government. No American has any choice when it comes to dealing with the government. Taxes must be paid to the IRS. Cars must be registered with the DMV. There is no alternative to participating in Social Security and Medicare.

In 2010, the federal government made a marketing blunder on the level of New Coke. Over the loud objections of a majority of the American people, Congress passed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, more commonly known as Obamacare. According to Rasmussen, immediately after passage of the law, Americans favored its repeal by a margin of 55-42 percent. In the most recent poll, repeal is still favored by 54-39 percent, yet Congress continues to reject legislation to do just that.

It is true that elected officials can be fired by their constituents, but only at multi-year intervals. Many congressmen were fired in 2010 and, if the current mood persists, many more will be fired in 2012. On the other hand, the nameless bureaucrats that operate the machinery of government on a daily basis are untouchable to normal citizens and are even difficult for their bosses to fire. In contrast, normal citizens can fire any corporation that they do business with at any time.

Consumers should also remember why Bank of America decided to start charging the $5 fee to its customers in the first place. The move came as a result of the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill, which also became law in 2010. The law limited the amount that banks could charge merchants for using debit cards. Since banks couldn’t charge merchants, Bank of America decided to charge its cardholders. Despite the public outcry, Congress shows no signs of repealing this law either.

Read this article on Examiner.com:

http://www.examiner.com/conservative-in-atlanta/bank-of-america-s-retreat-shows-limits-of-corporate-power

What about chemtrails?

Fir0002/Flagstaffotos (http://www.flagstaffotos.com.au/gallery2/main.php)

 

 

This week we once again don our tinfoil hats to investigate a long-lived conspiracy theory.  For years, some people have charged that airline pilots are spraying toxic chemicals into the air high above the United States.  The nature of these chemicals and the purpose of the spraying is a matter of conjecture, but a recent version of the theory holds that the chemicals are intended to combat global warming.  The theory even received mainstream attention recently in a new story featured on CBS Atlanta.

C-141 leaving contrails

As a pilot of both airline and corporate jet aircraft for years, I can now step forward to resolve the mystery.  The mysterious chemical trails seen in the sky are made up of dihydrogen monoxide.  This substance is colorless and odorless.  It can cause death even when inhaled in small quantities.  Dihydrogen monoxide has been linked to destructive weather including deadly hurricanes and massive blizzards.  Further, the substance causes soil erosion, it corrodes metals, and if exposed to electrical systems can cause short circuits.  Perhaps most disturbing, dihydrogen monoxide is found in biopsies of pre-cancerous tumors and lesions.  Dihydrogen monoxide is also known by the generic term “water.”

Yes, that’s right.  “Chemtrails” are actually composed of water vapor.  More accurately they are known as contrails, or condensation trails.  These trails occur when the cold air at high altitudes is meets the warm exhaust of an aircraft’s engine.  The fuel burned by the engine contains water.  As the water in the exhaust cools, it forms ice crystals or water droplets, forming a cloud.  This is similar to how fog comes from a car’s exhaust on a cold day.  Keep in mind that even if the temperature is hot on the ground, it is very cold at high alititudes where jets fly.  There are many pictures of WWII bombers with piston engines leaving contrails in the sky.  These pictures predate jet airliners and global warming theory by decades.

Vapor trails behind an L1011

If you watch airplanes landing on a damp day, you might also see a different kind of vapor trail.  On some occasions, you can see vapor trails streaming from a plane’s wingtip close to the ground.  These trails can be caused by the wing of the airplane changing the pressure of the air it flies through.  Vortices from the wingtips reduce pressure and allow the already humid air to condense.

There are some airplanes that really do spray chemicals.  These are known as crop dusters and if you live in an area with a lot of agriculture, you may have seen one.  I have watched a number of crop dusters spraying fields in rural Georgia over the years.

If you watch a crop duster, you will notice two things about the spraying operation.  First, the airplane only sprays very close to the ground.  The higher the chemical is released, the greater the chance that will disperse or be blown away before settling on to the crop.  A crop duster normally flies and dusts from altitudes lower and telephone and power poles.

Contrails left by B-17s in WWII.

Second, you can also see that crop dusters have a lot of plumbing on the trailing edge of the wings.  These lines and nozzles are where the chemical is sprayed from.  Airliners and military jets have no such apparatus.  A typical jet’s wing has many moving parts such as flaps, slats, and spoilers that are designed to improve handling, especially at low airspeeds, and to slow the airplane down for landing.  They have nothing in the way of pipes and nozzles, however. 

Additionally, fuel is a major component of the weight of an airplane, especially one that travels for long distances.  If an airliner were to carry enough fuel to fly across the country or the ocean as well as a heavy load of chemicals to spray, there would be no room left for passengers or baggage.  

Crop dusters have been considered as a possible terrorist weapon.  It is not outside of the realm of possibility that a terrorist group could launch a chemical or biological attack.  This would require not only flying the airplane low over an urban area, but also the technical knowledge necessary to get the proper mixture of the chemical or biological agent to work with the spraying equipment.  This makes such a scenario unlikely.

Crop duster spray nozzles (Jenni Jones)

There have been attempts to modify the weather with aviation, typically through cloud seeding.  Cloud seeding is an attempt to control where rain falls by dropping materials such as dry ice or silver iodide into clouds to promote the formation of rain.  In WWII, the British experimented with cloud seeding and may have caused a flood that killed 35 people.  In June 2010, Smithsonian Air & Space magazine detailed a US effort to divert hurricanes.  Project Stormfury began in the 1940s and lasted until the 1980s when the experiment was deemed ineffective.  In 2008, the Chinese attempted to seed clouds to prevent rain during the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

After the 9/11 attacks, when all flights above the US were grounded for three days, scientists did have a rare opportunity to conduct a study of how contrails affect climate.  They did determine that contrails affect temperature, just as other clouds do.  Scientists believe that contrails help to reduce the temperature range between daytime highs and nightly lows.  Some scientists believe that, because contrails are more prevalent when the sun is out, that they may actually help to reduce global warming. 

Airliners do not have spray equipment.

It is not surprising that conspiracists would find many “chemtrails” in the skies over Georgia.  Atlanta is the home of Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, which is a major hub for both Delta and Airtran, as well as a destination for many other airlines from around the world.  A lot of airplanes means a lot of contrails.

In the end, there really is a chemtrail conspiracy.  Like many other conspiracy theories, it is a conspiracy to separate gullible people from their money.  The sites that promote the chemtrail conspiracy often sell documentaries that purport to tell the “truth” about chemtrails and other conspiracies.  Save your money.

For there is nothing hidden that will not be disclosed, and nothing concealed that will not be known or brought out into the open. – Luke 8:17

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