Choice. Use It or Lose It.

Other than football or Davy Crockett, my favorite topic seems to be choice.  Choice is one of those topics that conservatives or Republicans have done a horrible job of presenting their case.  Choice is not only about the abortion issue.  But because Democrats claim to be the party of choice in the case of allowing a baby to live, they have claimed the mantle of the party of choice.  I would really like to see an instance of Democrats or Progressives actually favoring choice on any issue.  As of last January, they are taking away your choice of health care insurance.  Like it or not, you are going to be paying for Obamacare.  Does your local school district teach your child as well as you would like?  Would you prefer for the money you pay to support public schools to go toward your child's education at a private school or even better toward materials and programs to help you home school your child?  Thanks to your Progressive Democratic party, that's not an option.  In spite of the public support of a voucher system, all of your tax dollars allocated to education goes straight to teacher's unions through your local public school.  If you want to put your child in a private school, or home school your child, you'll be paying extra for that.

Do you want your tax dollars bailing out banks like J.P. Morgan Chase?  Your money being flooded into General Motors and Chrysler?  Do you believe that abortion is not a form of birth control, but is immoral?  Do you want your money going to Planned Parenthood, who in spite of the repeated lies by the president does NOT provide any type of cancer screening?  They are primarily an abortion provider.  Not just primarily, almost exclusively, an abortion provider.  Want your tax dollars going to them, so they can perform an act that you find immoral?  Do you want to invest in solar panel manufacturers with a very questionable chance of success, such as Solyndra?  Would you prefer to invest your hard earned money in proven oil, natural gas, or coal exploration and research?  Well, unfortunately you have absolutely no choice in any of those matters.  If you pay federal income tax, a portion of your money goes to teacher's unions, General Motors, Chrysler, and Planned Parenthood.

Whether you like it or not, your money went to green energy companies like Evergreen Solar, SpectraWatt, Solyndra, Beacon Power, Ener1, Abound Solar, A123 Systems, Willard & Kelsey Solar, Raser Technologies, and more.  This is just a portion of the list of companies that received YOUR money and later declared bankruptcy.  Here's a complete list of companies that received taxpayer money, including those now bankrupt.    These companies received a total of $80 billion of your money.  Companies that are no longer in business received $8 billion of that total.  Was that your idea?  Did you support that decision?

How about the federal regulations proposed solely by the appointed, not elected, EPA that severely limits the ability of oil companies to provide proven relatively inexpensive sources of energy for you everyday?  Want to eliminate the coal industry entirely?  Your president does.  He's doing it through the Environmental Protection Agency.  You vote for anyone in that agency?  Nope.  You couldn't.  It's staffed by presidential appointees.  Doesn't matter whether you approve or not.  There's absolutely nothing you can do about their actions.

If you think all these decisions that affect you everyday of your life are frustrating, just wait until Obamacare is fully implemented.  The federal government makes all these decisions on your behalf with really no justification.  Some, like many of the investments in green energy, were payback to donors to the president's campaign.  Some, like the bailout of General Motors and Chrysler were payback to unions for their support.  What do you think the federal government will do to your individual choice, your freedom, your bank account, using the cost of healthcare as justification?  Think Mayor Bloomberg in New York City has been heavy-handed by outlawing sugary drinks of more than 16 ounces?

Imagine that policy on a national level.  Think it will end there?  Or do you think that's just the start?  Is it more likely that, first sizes, then the availability altogether of candy, energy drinks, alcohol, fast food, snack food will be limited?  What about other things on the Progressive wish list that can be even remotely linked to healthcare costs?  Except for their own personal use (ever see how Al Gore gets to any of those climate change conferences?), Progressives absolutely hate big SUV's.  They emit too much CO2, right?  That's bad for your health.  If you must drive, your only choice will be to pay $40,000 for a Volt.  Do you own a gun?  It is a right guaranteed by the 2nd Amendment, but how long will it take to make it a right regulated by healthcare policies?  The government could eliminate hunting accidents by eliminating firearms, right?  If you really don't think that's not only a possibility, but a likely outcome just find a single instance in the past century  where the federal government exercised a newly gained power responsibly.  No, history shows that with power and the government, not just ours, but any government, the phrase "give them an inch and they'll take a mile" is actually an understatement.

I believe this sense of helplessly watching the federal government taking more and more of our choices away is the basis of the secession craze that took hold after the reelection of President Obama.  One positive of the past two election cycles is the return to office of Republican governors, even in traditional Democratic strongholds like Wisconsin and Ohio.  Governors and states need to find a backbone and stand up to the federal government as it grabs all this power.  Out of all the programs I have mentioned, how many are a power given to the federal government in our Constitution?  I'll give you a minute to do a little research.  You back yet?  Still looking?  I'll give you a hint how many.  The answer rhymes with "hero."  Or "done."  That's right zero.  None.  Zip.  Nada.  The federal government, mainly over the past 100 years, has just taken these programs upon themselves.  The programs, if they are to be implemented at all, are the right or responsibility of the individual states to implement.  Article I Section 8 of the Constitution lists 18 powers that We the People granted to our federal government.  By design, this is a short list.  The 10th Amendment to the Constitution reserves any other power, not part of this list of 18, to either the people or the states.

The states are supposed to be, as Mitt Romney said in one of the debates, the "laboratories of ideas."  Massachusetts can try a state run healthcare.  If it's successful, other states will follow suit.  If it's not, citizens of Massachusetts will have a choice, either end the experiment or move to a state without the policy.  Same with green energy projects, environmental regulations, land use restrictions, public education.  These policies should be state mandated.  Allow the citizens of the United States to vote with their feet.  They will move to a state that is successful, has jobs available, has affordable housing, and good schools.  Voters in other states will elect state officials that will bring successful policies to their state.  Even in times like now where the federal government has taken control and mandated so many of these failed policies nationally, there examples of states succeeding with their own policies.  See the gas boom in South Dakota for an obvious example.  Unemployment is almost non-existent in the state, the housing industry is booming, the  state is bringing in record amounts of tax revenue, not by raising tax rates, but because the citizens are prospering.  So if it is spent wisely, their education will improve and they will be a model for other states to look toward.

But as is usually the case, the federal government rarely celebrates success by an individual or a state.  Rather they seek to punish it.  Watch for the EPA's report on fracking, a main component of the success of the gas industry in South Dakota.  If past behavior is a predictor of future actions, the EPA will crack down on the practice.  States have been negligent in standing up to the federal government's power grabs.  I think that whether consciously or just intuitively, we the people, know these powers have been granted to us by our Creator, by Nature, or Nature's god as stated in the Declaration of Independence.  We failed to push our states to stand up to the federal government as it took more and more of our choices away.  The deep divisions in our society that seem to become so prominent in the past 10 years are a result of our choices being eliminated.  The current secession phenomenon is the latest consequence.  I hope our states push their Constitution-granted rights and that the Supreme Court is still responsible enough to uphold the Constitution. If not the next step is up to the we the people and our choices are becoming more limited by the day.

An Electric, or at least Hybrid Mess

The Obama administration has never been confused for the Bush administration when it comes to energy policy.    Even as a presidential candidate, Senator Obama told reporters that under his policy, "electricity prices would necessarily skyrocket."  Now this is not like the Sarah Palin "quote" that she could see Russia from her front porch.  That was actually Tina Fey on Saturday Night Live spoofing Palin, although you couldn't convince thousands of Palin-haters of that fact.  Senator/candidate Obama actually said his plan would cause the cost of energy for every American, no matter what their income, to "necessarily skyrocket."  And no news organization or "journalist" asked him about this plan, before or after the the election.  In fact, outside of a few conservative radio talk show hosts, you will never hear anything at all about this plan.


All right, the president plans to make our electricity rates skyrocket.  Surely he won't mess with our other energy costs too, right?  What is the president's plan to reduce the emissions from our cars?  Well, first of all he had to takeover a car maker - GM.  Then he had to force GM to manufacture a car that the American buyer didn't want or need and that GM was not ready to manufacture, the all-electric Volt.  Now the Volt may be the "car of the future," as the president of GM - Barack Obama claimed.  But as one reviewer said, "only if your future is 40 miles away.  Actually 20 if you want to get back home again."  That's right, the Volt has a range of 40 miles in its all-electric version.  After these horrible reviews, Chevrolet announced that the Volt now has a greatly improved range.  They basically turned it into a hybrid.  You know the kind of car that Honda, Toyota, and Nissan have been producing for years.  Only it's smaller and not as reliable as the Honda, Toyota, or Nissan.  Oh yeah, it's more expensive too.  Only $40,000 for a subcompact car.  Who doesn't want to pay $40,000 for a Cavalier or Focus?  American car buyers, apparently.  In January and February combined Chevrolet sold 602 Volts, up from its double digit sales from each of the previous four months.  This incredible increase proved that Americans were starting to warm up to the idea of an overpriced, unreliable clown car, right?  Well not exactly.  They also announced sales of over 5,000 Tahoes.  If you are not familiar with the Tahoe; and judging from the lack of sales by the company, most Americans are not, the Tahoe has enough space to haul everyone in my hometown of Graham, TX and their luggage on a two week vacation.  With enough room leftover to pick up a few souvenirs on the trip.  While that be a slight exaggeration, it would take the vacation budget of Graham to buy the fuel needed for a long trip.  The new fuel-efficient hybrid version of the Tahoe gets 20 miles per gallon!  So obviously gas mileage is not a major concern for the American car buyer. 

So what is the president of GM, Barack Obama, to do to encourage Americans to pay too much for a car they don't really want?  Go back to the engineering drawing board and design an electric car big enough, reliable enough, and efficient enough that the buyer will be happy to pay for it?  Don't know what country you're from, but that's not Barack Obama's America!  His plan is to take taxpayer money and give it to anyone who buys an all-electric car, in the form of a $7,500 tax credit to the buyer.  That would make the Volt a $32,500 embarrassment, rather than a $40,000 embarrassment.  Well, apparently, not enough people that pay enough taxes (49% pay nothing at all, but that's for another post) to make a $7500 credit worthwhile fell for the scam.  Those folks generally travel more than 40 miles per trip and carry cargo larger than a bag of M&M's, so the Volt isn't too practical.  Another slight glitch in the plan - to get anyone to buy the Volt at any price, with any incentive, Chevrolet had to go back to the 1990's hybrid technology.  So now the credit has been re-written to include hybrids.  And rather than a tax credit, the Obama administration is planning take the $7,500 straight out of the dealer's overflowing bank account and give it to anyone who buys a Volt.  The dealer is then responsible for filing for reimbursement from the similiarly overflowing vaults of the United States Treasury.  Most auto dealers who dealt with the government in the "cash for clunkers" scam will tell you how excited they are to participate in this plan.

What's the next step in getting the public to buy government-produced electric cars?  How about $4+ per gallon for gasoline.  I'll get to that in my next post.

Rainbows, Unicorns, and Government-Created Jobs!

The Obama administration has already hired their 16,000 IRS agents to help enforce the new healthcare laws and their 1.5 million census workers.  Apparently those were their only two ideas.  Now they are asking for ideas from the public.  Well, any ideas except those dealing with tax cuts to businesses that can actually create jobs.

Two ideas that have already been dismissed:  1.  Do away with self-service at gas stations.  Attendants would be required to pump your gas and make sure your tires are properly inflated.  Remember the tire gauge was going to end our dependence on foreign oil according to candidate Obama.  Well maybe not.  The administration decided that would just be a "make busy" job.  
2.  Federal subsidies for "urban farms" like Michelle Obama's.  Unless they were growing medicinal marijuana, it would again be a "make busy" job.

One they did like?  If a company is contemplating layoffs, they should eliminate a position, and take the two full-time employees and make them part-time.  Then no jobs are lost!  How easy was that?  They also announced the reason for the continued high unemployment is that for every new job listed, there are five applicants.  And not as many jobs are being created as are being lost.  Whew, that clears up that question.

 Completely unrelated, I love this web ad from the republican party.