Sen. Udall and Sen. Bingaman |
Bingaman and Udall Push Bill to Expand Zoning for Mexican Nationals to Travel
Posted by
Rachel Pulaski
on Saturday, October 22, 2011
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U.S. Politics
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Why We Are "Headed the Wrong Direction"
Posted by
Jim Spence
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Spence Columns
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Jim Spence |
Energy – Energy serves our economy as food serves our bodies. We buy the most expensive food. Why? The political reality is that radical environmentalists always vote for Democrats because Democrats appoint judges and bureaucrats that make energy expensive. As a matter of routine, America adds astronomical costs to our efforts to produce domestic energy. And accordingly, America forces itself to EXPORT all the economic benefits and wealth creation that comes with domestic energy production. The rest of the world laughs at us because this ridiculous process has led to a lower living standards and more joblessness in America for decades.
The costs for these stupid policies are tacked on the cost of EVERYTHING. President Obama’s solutions to domestic energy production can best be summarized as throwing more taxpayer money at companies like Solyndra, which he described as his vision of our future. There will be no end in sight to this outrageous approach to energy until we make a change.
Regulations – We have mountains of new laws and rules on the books since President Obama took office. For decades Congress has passed a plethora of new laws for businesses to bear the burden of following. Obamacare and the Dodd-Frank are the latest examples new costs. Rarely are any old archaic rules reformed or repealed.The amount of time and resources businesses spend on regulatory compliance makes it almost impossible for innovators to survive, let alone grow and prosper. Creating innovative products and services is now secondary to bureaucratic compliance. Since President Obama thinks government should protect America from business instead of encouraging businesses to prosper, there is no end in sight to new regulatory proposals in the pipeline.
Taxes – Supporting an ever growing army of bureaucrats that enforces an ever-increasing mountains of laws requires more and more taxes. Our tax burdens are widespread. We pay taxes on wages, social security, Medicare, unemployment, property, retail purchases, fuel, airline tickets, dividends, interest, capital gains, gifts, estate, and licenses. Paying taxes diverts our time and our efforts. Bureaucrats take money out of the system to calculate and enforce this burden on all of us. Unfortunately, President Obama is firmly aligned with fellow Democrats in Congress who believe job creators are under-taxed.
Education – Government manages our public education system. Through their allies in the Democratic Party, teacher unions have demanded and been granted a complete monopoly on this critical aspect of national life. With a complete absence of competition in our public education system, it has been failing for decades. Each decade educational bureaucrats funnel campaign contributions to Democrats. And each decade unions gather more resources from those they put in power. It is an endless death spiral. In the real world of competition, advances in science and technology are relentless. The inherent stagnation in our education structure is now producing millions of young people each year with worthless college degrees and no marketable skills. Though President Obama sends his own children to private schools, he is politically aligned with public education unions who are only interested in perpetuating their economic monopoly over education.
Security Costs – America bears the costs of mind numbing “security procedures.” Rather than choosing policies that strictly control the flow and identities of people who enter our country, we engage in expensive security charades in airports every day. The additional costs of mandatory processes required since 9-11 runs into the trillions. Standardized identification procedures and strict border enforcement that recognizes the new realities of terrorism could dramatically reduce costs. However, President Obama opposes policies that would result in security cost reductions. He opposes stricter control of driver’s license issuance, voter identification, and terrorist profiling. Education – Government manages our public education system. Through their allies in the Democratic Party, teacher unions have demanded and been granted a complete monopoly on this critical aspect of national life. With a complete absence of competition in our public education system, it has been failing for decades. Each decade educational bureaucrats funnel campaign contributions to Democrats. And each decade unions gather more resources from those they put in power. It is an endless death spiral. In the real world of competition, advances in science and technology are relentless. The inherent stagnation in our education structure is now producing millions of young people each year with worthless college degrees and no marketable skills. Though President Obama sends his own children to private schools, he is politically aligned with public education unions who are only interested in perpetuating their economic monopoly over education.
Financial Denial – Candidate Obama promised to go over the federal budget “line by line” looking for savings from wasteful programs. As president he has refused to implement a common sense approach to spending. Instead, the size of the federal budget has exploded. The U.S. is now borrowing $4 billion a day. All discussions of all expenditures must be held within the context of one simple fact. We are BROKE. Until we take $4 billion a day out of our government’s cost structure, we will continue to move closer and closer towards national insolvency.
The sense of the American people is correct. We are headed the wrong direction. Soon it will be time for voters to convert their “senses” into corrective “actions.” President Obama supports terrible energy policies. If allowed he will see to it that we continue to ignore our energy wealth and export our jobs. The president will continue to support an endless stream of new laws, rules, and regulations that will continue to pile incredible new costs on our job creators. Obama will take in millions in campaign contributions from teachers unions in the months ahead. In exchange for these dollars he will make sure public education acts as a monopoly no matter what the results are. The president will continue to try to pass laws that extract additional taxes from all Americans. His justification will be that he needs the funds to pay for the explosion in the number of bureaucrats feeding at the public trough. And finally, rather than tighten identification procedures and take meaningful steps to follow the 9-11 Commission recommendations, President Obama will continue to dump the burden of increased security costs on the American taxpayers.
There is no mystery associated with the reasons why the U.S. economy is floundering and jobs are hard to come by. President Obama, Harry Reid, and Nancy Pelosi have not demonstrated a grasp of the importance of reducing the burdens of bad policies on energy, regulations, taxes, education, security, and finances. The U.S. Senate, which is firmly in the hands of the Democratic Party, has not passed a budget for nine hundred days. And just this week, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said private sector job creation is “fine,” it is the bureaucrats we need to worry about. What else do we need to know?
Why We Are "Headed the Wrong Direction"