The Democratic Energy Plan: Be Careful What You Vote For!

Over the years, I have concluded that the main difference between Republicans and Democrats is how they view an apple pie. Democrats assume that the size of the pie is constant, and wish to divvy it up into smaller but “fairer” slices. Republicans assume that the pie is expanding, and that there is no need to shrink anyone’s portion so long as we can keep baking larger and better apple pies. The Republican view is the consensus of most of Americans, if it works properly.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise, then, that the Democrats and the current Democratic Congress have done nothing relating to energy. They view the current amount of energy as a constant. It will not increase, and more importantly, nor should we try to increase it. We just have to learn to live with less. After all, we are selfish and greedy, and we have to be “fair.” The party is controlled by environmental ideologues whom would be happy if our only means of transportation could be reduced to walking, and bikes if regulated.

While there is plenty of blame to go around Washington relating to energy policy, I am more disturbed about the Democrats and their intransient position to new energy sources. No to drilling. No to nuclear power. No to wind power. No to solar energy. While they say they want alternative sources for energy, they have to be “studied” (translate delay). America is a sinful nation and has to suffer for our excesses. We are killing the planet, don’t you know. The environmental whackos control the party, and you will see nothing done to increase energy supplies as they continually spew their global warming venom, their the “wind generators will kill migratory birds” claptrap, the “pipeline will kill the caribou” propaganda, the “solar power panels will hurt the desert lizards” lament, and the ever popular “we will all turn green with nuclear power” rant.

I will guarantee you that if Obama is elected President, here is the only energy policy the Democratic Congress will allow him to implement.

1) Reduce the speed limit to 55 mph.

2) Rationing of gasoline.

3) Taxation on home use of natural gas or electricity over specified limits to be determined by Congress, if you can get it at all. I would not be surprised if they attempt to actually come into your home and put a regulator in.

4) Massive subsidies to the “poor” who can’t afford gasoline and heat.

5) Tap the strategic oil reserve. So much for gas when we go to was with Iran.

And Obama will agree. Obama’s response to high gasoline prices: “I would have preferred a gradual adjustment.” He thinks that high energy prices are a good thing. You will be paying for your high energy prices, and for someone else's, too. How many of this country's ills can be cured by "taxing the rich"? Sooner or later, you will run out of rich to tax, and that includes you.

When you vote in November, always remember that when you vote “against” something, you are also voting “for” something. Do you prefer an energy policy of doing with less, or an energy policy of producing more? You decide.

Obama Heatlh Care: Worth a Close Look

There are many things about Barack Obama that I don’t like, but his health care plan is worth a second look. I have read many articles and heard many claims that Obama is pushing a single payer, universal, socialized medicine health care plan like Canada and many countries in Europe. Hillary Clinton tried it with Hillary Care; failed miserably; and pushed both houses of Congress into Republican control. Americans didn’t want a forced government system then, and they don’t want now. Both candidates for President have learned the lesson.

I am 58 years old, and because I have colitis and have taken anti-depressants over the years, I am uninsurable. My wife continues to work because she carries the benefits. If she were to retire, she is insured through STRS, and I am able to buy health insurance through the system for myself…but there is no guaranty it will be there until I am 65, and it is very expensive. There is no state mandate requiring STRS to provide health care for anybody, including the retirees. It has been trying to years to eliminate, or at least curtail, the amount of health care insurance that is available to the families of retirees.

I have heard the 45 million uninsured Americans hype by the Dems for years, and for the most part, it is a crock. Included in the figure are illegal immigrants, those between jobs, with the a large portion of the uninsured being those who choose not to carry insurance because they feel they don’t need it. Those are mostly 20 somethings who are feeling invincible.

On the other hand, health care is a national issue, and it is based on private insurers spreading the risk over a pool of insureds. If those young people don’t pay for insurance, the risk can’t be spread among the population in a meaningful manner that would help health insurance be affordable.

Then there are those who are deemed to be uninsurable. The obvious case is a person with cancer or aids…but the insurance companies cast a wide net looking for things to keep from selling you insurance, including issues of smoking, weight (too heavy or too thin), colitis, depression…ad infinitum. Pretty much everyone over the age of 50 will be denied insurance, pre-existing condition exceptions not even an option. No Insurance!!!

Some of the states have tried to alleviate the problem with state sponsored health care plans. Ohio is not one of them, but does require those selling insurance to have open enrollment periods each year in which they sell a very expensive, barely basic policy to those who are otherwise would not be able to buy insurance. You have to look for the time period. It is not advertised in a meaningful fashion, and it is a different time period for each insurance company.

Obama’s plan addresses those issues without forcing a single payer system down the country’s throat. The goal is to widen the choices that are available to Americans who need health insurance. Private insurance through employers will still be available. The government would expand the health care policy currently available to Federal employees if someone wanted to buy in. The government would provide a clearinghouse for private insurance. The issue of non-insurability would go away.

Of course, the devil is in the details. Hillary would require EVERYONE to be insured under a similar system. Obama does not, which tightens the risk pool. And because Obama is the leftist’s leftist, I don’t trust him to be able to resist a single payer system as in Canada or Great Britain, which would be disastrous. Even the Canadian Supreme Court has just ruled that Canada has to provide for private pay insurance if the wait for a procedure is so long as to effectively deny the individual of treatment or choice of treatment. On the other hand, McCain sole reliance on private insurers doesn’t work, or the health care issues would be fixed by now.

As a McCain supporter, I hope that he would give Obama’s plan some serious scrutiny. Is the health care issue enough to make me vote for Obama? No. But if he loses, I hope that he puts forth the effort in Congress to pass a health care plan like he has outlined. We would be the better for it. The only question I have is why the Democratic Congress hasn’t done it already?? Mmmmm?

Flirting with Liberalism Again

Once again the American electorate is flirting with liberalism. It has been a long time since we have done a mating dance with liberals, and the flirtations have been tenuous at best. Since the end of World War II, there has only been one liberal (re: progressive) President as we currently define it.

John Kennedy was not “liberal” in the modern sense. He cut taxes and believed in a strong defense. A military man himself, he was not afraid to use American power. He learned his lesson in the botched Bay of Pigs invasion and after naively meeting with Nikita Khrushchev without an agenda. Khrushchev believed Kennedy to be weak, which led directly to the Cuban Missile Crisis. But Kennedy understood the military and the use of American power, and the rest is history.

Lyndon Johnson was the first modern president that could fit the “progressive” mode, with his Great Society programs and Civil Rights legislation. But on defense, he was conservative. One can debate the Vietnam War forever, but in my humble opinion, the war was lost not on the battlefield, but here at home. Ho Chi Minh stated overtly that American politics was his strongest weapon. Johnson, and subsequently Nixon, was forced to fight the war with one hand tied behind his back, never allowing the full force of the American military to do its job.

That gave rise to Eugene McCarthy, who almost defeated Johnson in New Hampshire. Eugene McCarthy was the first modern progressive to gain a foothold in American politics, not Bobby Kennedy, as the latest television docudrama would have you believe. Kennedy was late to the party, only entering the race after McCarthy destroyed the chance for a Johnson second term, and when Kennedy was sure that Hubert Humphrey could be beat at the Democratic Convention, something McCarthy could not do.

Jimmy Carter was the first true modern progressive president. It was a failed presidency. Those of us old enough to remember the Carter years try to block out the misery index, more commonly known as stagflation. Income tax rates were high. So were interest rates, choking off the housing industry, industrial expansion, and just about everything else. Inflation was rampant…and Carter lusted in his heart while complaining about American malaise. Then came the beginning of the escalation of problems in the Mideast from regional distress to a world class crisis. We are still paying the price for Carter failing to deal with the Iran hostage situation, which cost him the presidency.

The country shifted dramatically back to the right under Ronald Reagan. Then George H.W. Bush violated his pledge of “read my lips, no more taxes,” and the country once again shifted to the left and elected Bill Clinton, who learned a hard lesson. His election wasn't a mandate to shift to the left, but rather a repudiation of the first President Bush’s broken promises. Two years later, Bill Clinton was forced to govern from the center after the country rejected the progressive policies implemented when the Democrats controlled of both houses of Congress and the Presidency. The electorate switched control of both Houses to the Republicans.

Now we are flirting with progressive liberalism again, or are we? Since the 1932 election of President Roosevelt, America has NEVER voted “for” progressive liberalism, but only against the failure of the incumbent conservative President to deliver his conservative promises. Richard Nixon soundly defeated George McGovern’s progressive liberalism in 1972. Jimmy Carter was elected as a result of Watergate and Gerald Ford’s pardoning of Nixon, only to be defeated soundly by Ronald Reagan 4 years later. Bill Clinton defeated George H.W. Bush on the basis of broken promises about taxes, only to be neutered by the electorate two years later after a failed attempt to nationalize health care as the Republicans took over both houses of Congress in the midterm elections. George W. Bush defeated two progressive liberals, Al Gore and John Kerry.

I don’t think that this year will be any different. George W. Bush has failed to deliver on his promises of fiscal conservatism. He failed to deliver on his promises relating to partial birth abortion. He failed to deliver on his promises relating to illegal immigration. You can debate the merits of the Iraq war, but had it been managed better, it would not be an issue today. Proper military tactics have all but removed it from the front page of the newspapers.

As bad as the Bush numbers are, the popularity of the Democratic controlled Congress is even less, by almost 50%. What does that tell you? It tells you America doesn’t buy the Nancy Pelosi/Harry Reid agenda. If Obama should be elected President, he should know that a repudiation of George Bush is not a repudiation of the center/right ideological base of the American electorate. If Obama is elected President and views it as a “mandate” for a left wing political agenda, he will meet the same fate as Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton.

America’s flirtations with liberalism always remind me of Jimmy Carter just a tad. We may lust in our hearts…but at the end of the day, we don’t touch.

Are We Better Off Than Our Parents?

I was watching Fox News this morning, and Frank Luntz, the best pollster around, got into a discussion with his focus group about whether or not they are better off than their parents. He was somewhat surprised when most of the group answered yes. That, in turn, led to a very early morning (not the best time of day) between myself and my wife as to whether we are better off than our parents. After much “too heavy for 7:00 AM” discussion, we decided that our answer is yes….but!

On the face of it, there is no question that we are better off, and so is most of the country. The percentage of home ownership in the United States, especially among minorities, is the highest in US history. Look at the size of the homes that are being built for the middle class. Three cars garages are the norm, and some have 4 car garages. Square footage is up substantially. A house with less than 2 full baths just doesn’t sell these days.

When I was growing up, we had one car. When we got a second car, it was a stripped down Plymouth with vinyl floors, a heater, and no radio. Air conditioning? Fuggetaboutit. We called it “the radiator” in Italian. We had one television set in the living room, and one telephone in an alcove in the hallway, and a radio in the kitchen. We ate out one or two times a month.

Today, I have 4 cars, one of them being a 1991 Caddy. Houses without air conditioning are the exception instead of the rule. I have 5 television sets in various parts of the house, along with 8 telephones (kitchen, family room, 3 bedrooms, and 3 phones in my very long basement). Two phone lines go to two of the phones. That doesn’t count the three cells phones I pay for. Although we don’t do a whole lot of traveling (we are just too pooped to pop), people around me are flying off to Florida and Las Vegas like they were driving to Warren.

When I was growing up, if you got cancer, it was a death sentence. If you had a heart attack or a stroke, you would die. The average life expectancy continues to increase. Although there are some challenges to our health care system, people still flock to the United States for the best health care in the world.

But does all of the above mean we are better off than our parents? It’s the intangibles that are missing. When my parents got a job, it was for life. Today, the average person will change jobs 4 -5 times. My parents knew what was right and what was wrong. Today, it is shades of grey. My parents had a sense of control over their lives. Today, we are the mercy of computers, digital machines, phone trees, and private and government bureaucrats. In my parents’ day, the nuclear family was the bedrock upon which our society was built. Now, Mom and Dad and Junior are the minority, as single family households lead the pack in our society. Familial commitment is a thing of the past. Our parents were secure in themselves. Today, there is nothing secure about anything, including social “security”.

Our national sense of destiny died with Ronald Reagan. Today, political ideologies have morphed into perversions of the American dream. What took a family now takes a village. The bad guys are the good guys. Self reliance is replaced by an omnipresent government that is looking out for you. The largest industry in the United States is now government, employing almost 60% of the workforce at some level. That is a scary statistic.

Are we better off than our parents? I suppose. But here is my question: Will my son be better off than me?

WE DESERVE BETTER!

We deserve better. For the first time I can remember, we are entering into a Presidential election and there is nobody I am for. Obama and McCain are two of the sorriest candidates I have ever seen. Here are our choices. We can pick between a 71 year old man who hopefully will learn to give a public speech after his doctors shoot him up with some B-12 and give him a Viagara pill. For God sakes, John, show some life. It’s bad enough that we can’t tell the difference between your policies and Hillary’s. Can your attempt to woo the conservative base be any more strained? And lose the green backdrop. You looked washed out as it is. I didn’t think anyone could make Bob Dole look good. We thank you for your military service. But being a hero 40 years ago doesn’t make you any more qualified to be President than the next guy. This is politics. The question is: what have you done for us lately?

Then there is Obama…the hippies last stand. Here is a classic leftist with a whole 4 years Senate experience, whose main claim to fame is he gave a great speech at the last Democratic Convention. His senate record is a big zero, with a propensity to vote present so he doesn’t have to take a stand on controversial issues. He has associated himself with left wing, racist, America hating, pacifist radicals, using them as a base to propel himself onto the national stage…and those associates have subjected this country to some of the most vile and racially charged comments I have heard publicly uttered in my lifetime. Senator, you are judged by the company you keep…and the company you keep stinks. So don’t look so innocent when we question what you truly believe. You gave that church money for 20 years, and got Father Pfleger a $100,000.00 of our tax money 2 years ago. These are your friends and supporters, not mine.

I am concerned for the future of the country if either of these folks is elected. What is wrong with our system that it has spawned two such mediocre Presidential candidates? Where is the leadership of Ronald Reagan, the quiet wisdom of Dwight Eisenhower, the idealism of John Kennedy, the guts of Harry Truman? In a time when our country craves leadership after 8 years of doing without, we are forced to choose between a redux of George H.W. Bush and Jimmy Carter. It is pitiful. It makes me longingly look overseas for the likes of Tony Blair, Margaret Thatcher, John Major. Even Nicolas Sarkozy, the current president of France, looks good. At least he married a babe after getting elected. We know he is alive.

It is my sincere hope that as we look at the crop of possible political candidates coming up behind this batch, that there is a true leader making his/her way to the forefront. We can always hope. The question is, what do we do now?

New Schools and the Taxpayers' Money

Over the past several years, the State of Ohio received its share of the so-called tobacco settlement (shakedown) from the tobacco companies. It was in the hundreds of millions of dollars, and was supposed to be put into a trust fund so that the interest it made could be used for various worthwhile state projects, such as they are. I read in the paper several weeks ago that the fund is now, for all intents and purposes, depleted. The money was spent on school improvements.

I didn’t have to look far to see where the money went. There is new East High School and new Chaney High School in Youngstown. There are several new elementary schools. The old schools have either been sold to charter schools, torn down, or abandoned. This was an investment in education…an investment in the future.

What a crock!!!!!!! Here’s a news flash. If you couldn’t teach these kids in the old schools, you sure as hell won’t be able to teach them in the new schools. The two most glaring examples of this boondoggle approach to education is Volney Rogers Jr. High School in Youngstown, and Warren Harding High School in Warren.

Volney Rogers High School was for all intents purposes “new”. It was only 35 years old and in good condition. It was built on the Westside of town when I was in high school. St. Christine’s Catholic School, right down the street was built at about the same time, and is still up operating just fine…teaching kids the old fashioned way. 2 x 2 still equals 4 no matter what the age of the structure in which it is taught.

What is disturbing is that there was absolutely nothing wrong with the structure that was there. Only in the public sector can a 35 year old building be deemed insufficient to teach the same things they were teaching in one room school houses as late as 70 years ago.

Warren Harding High School is a magnificent structure that couldn’t be duplicated today at an acceptable price even if they tried. Instead of preserving the building, and fixing it up, they are tearing it down, and have built a new Harding High with construction that I guarantee you will be nowhere near the quality of the one that is being torn down. New construction, these days, usually means cheap and shoddy.

The new Chaney High School in Youngstown is 2 years old, and has a feature that the original Chaney did not have… a lock up room that serves as a jail cell to incarcerate violent students while waiting for the police. Although I haven’t seen it for myself, sources tell me that school is fairly beat up for being as new as it is.

Here’s the basic truth. Unless there is discipline and self motivation, you can throw all the money you want at schools, and learning will not improve; not for the students, nor for the government who is wasting your money

Energy Madness

Are you tired of paying $3.60/gal for gasoline? Then you are in luck. Pretty soon you will be paying $4.00/gal. But don’t you worry, Congress is on the job, and has determined the solution is to mandate that 7.5 billion gallons of Ethanol be added to the nation’s fuel supply by 1012, and that starts with “E” and that rhymes with “c” and that stands for corn. So in addition to $4.00/gal gas, you will be paying $8.00 for cereal and $4.00 for bread as farmers plant more corn instead of wheat. Isn’t government wonderful?

Here is the lesson to be learned. Whenever government interferes in free markets, chaos ensues. Now, everybody agrees that some regulation is needed to prevent abuses and fluctuations in free markets, such as banking regulations. But when it involves social engineering resulting from a vocal bunch of whackos who can holler louder than anyone else, stuff happens. Make no mistake about it, environmentalism is not only social engineering, it has become a religion. And for some reason, all of these rules and regs only apply to the United States.

We are the laughing stock of the world as we slowly strangle our economy with environmental regulations that are not only over the top, but off the charts entirely. The surprise isn’t that energy prices are so high, it’s that they aren’t higher. And folks, they are going to the stratosphere unless this country comes to its senses.

Clinton, Obama, and McCain can point their fingers at the oil company “windfall” profits all they want. At the end of the day, they are operating at an 8% profit margin, which is the generally accepted profit margin for most American companies. All of the energy companies have done a miraculous job in provided somewhat reasonably priced energy in the face of regulations that should have put them out of business, and will put us out of business unless they are changed.

Is there anywhere in the United States you can drill for oil either on or offshore? The Chinese are drilling for oil at the limits of Cuba’s territorial waters…taking our oil. Bill Clinton vetoed a regulated plan to allow for drilling in ANWAR 10 years ago saying that it would take 10 years for it to come online and was therefore unnecessary. Well, 10 years is up, and wouldn’t it be nice if it were coming on line now. So much for strategic planning.

Ted Kennedy sued to prevent the establishment of a wind energy farm off the coast of Cape Cod because it would ruin his view. And Al Gore, Mr. Global Warming, is making a fortune trading so called “carbon credits” notwithstanding the reality that more of the earth’s oceans are covered in ice than has been evidenced in the last 50 years and the mean temperature of the earth is actually going down. You think what Enron did was bad? Carbon credits are a fiction on pieces of paper, and you are footing the bill. This is snake oil, folks!! Wake Up America!!!!

When was the last time we built a nuclear power plant? When was the last time we built a refinery? When was the last time we built a hydroelectric dam? Now the whackos are out to stop solar energy farms and wind power farms. To make things worse, we are using food for fuel, which is downright immoral.

When the rest of you are ready to shout “uncle”, let me know. Until then…happy $200.00/barrel oil.