Obama’s Cap and Trade Bill and Light Bulbs
June 30, 2009 by Steven Ting
Filed under Business, Economy, General, Politics
The passage of the new climate bill is a terrible thing as it is the largest tax placed on Americans. While the concept might seem great, the cost of cap and trade is passed on to the consumer. The purpose of the bill was to help us get away from foreign oil. It will actually do the opposite.
When oil producers have to pay a tax, it increases their costs. Those costs get passed on to us. Once the costs get too high, the only thing the domestic producers will be able to do is shut down refineries and reduce production.  This bill is going to raise the cost of oil so much that we’re going to start importing oil again.
Besides this effect, it doesn’t help that 300 pages were added to the bill at the very last minute. How many of the democratic congress men actually read the bill? To top it off, Obama’s “Energy Czar” hasn’t even read the bill. Jimmie, from the Sundries Shack has a nice opinion on that.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Aiming to keep the focus on climate change legislation, President Barack Obama put a plug in for administration efforts to make lamps and lighting equipment use less energy.
“I know light bulbs may not seem sexy, but this simple action holds enormous promise because 7 percent of all the energy consumed in America is used to light our homes and businesses,” the president said, standing alongside Energy Secretary Steven Chu at the White House.
And by “better” the administration means “whatever crappy expensive new lighting General Electric happens to be making that might possibly eke out an infinitesimal energy savings, damn the cost to you or your employer”.
Now Obama wants to regulate your lightbulb. I knew that we would have big government with Obama, but this is more than I would have thought. If Obama would let capitalism run its course, we would have more efficient bulbs. It is not government that is the creator of new ideas, it is the entrepreneur. As Obama and his government get more mixed in with business, they will continue to stifle the economy.
Obama pointed out the following in the article.
He pointed to the state of California as an example of what stricter energy efficiency standards could achieve. In the late 1970′s, California enacted tougher energy policies, which the president said, helped create millions of jobs. Today, he said, Californians consume 40 percent less energy per person than the national average.
Ya, California is an example of all that is good. <Sarcasm> Does that also include their $24 Billion in deficits this year? Government should be small. It should mind its own business and let the people take care of themselves.
Obama and the Press
June 26, 2009 by I.P.Freeley
Filed under General, Politics
I have recently seen Obama on a few press interviews where he becomes frustrated with their questions and just simply says, “I’m the President.” As if that is supposed to end the questioning and solve everything. You know, I think that is a bit arrogant. The President of the United States is not a person, it’s a role. It is not the office that makes the man, it is the man that makes the office and we, as Citizens of the United States, have given you the grace of being in that role. You are responsible to us. Stop trying to ignore our questions and stop trying to avoid answers by claiming a defacto position of Deity. Being the President of the United Stated doesn’t give you power to do what you want, it gives you power to serve the people who elected you (yes Congress, you should listen too). Remember, in the end you answer to those who elected you. Please don’t forget that; for I can guarantee you that as Americans we won’t.  No matter how much you try to change America and make change, you will not be able to change the fact that for the past 200 plus years we have a cultural heritage of preserving and fighting for the freedoms of individuals in our nation. Though we may not be perfect at it, we keep trying. It is by answering tough questions that we do this and it is by holding our elected officials accountable for their servitude to us that this nation rolls forward. It is not by ending the conversation with, “I’m the President”, because the statement, “I elected you” will always trump the person in office.
Obama challenged on Healthcare
June 25, 2009 by Steven Ting
Filed under General, Health Care, Politics
During Obama’s 75 minutes of primetime coverage, he was questioned by some doctors regarding a scenario on what he would do if his family became sick. Would Obama make a pledge to use his own plan and go with the public option? His response:
“…if it’s my family member, if it’s my wife, if it’s my children, if it’s my grandmother, I always want them to get the very best care.
In otherwords, no. He wouldn’t use his own plan. Like everyone else, he wants the very best. That means use of private insurers. With a government regulated health plan, they’re going to cut cost by limiting what treatment can be done.
The GOP Senators also have a concern.
“At a time when major government programs like Medicare and Medicaid are already on a path to fiscal insolvency, creating a brand new government program will not only worsen our long-term financial outlook but also negatively impact American families who enjoy the private coverage of their choice,” the senators wrote.
“The end result would be a federal government takeover of our health care system, taking decisions out of the hands of doctors and patients and placing them in the hands of a Washington bureaucracy.”
Obama responds by saying that they’re wrong. Obama has no executive experience. He has no business experience. How can he say they are wrong? Obama claims that the public option would have lower administrative costs. That’s a bunch of horse pucky. Since when has government ever had lower costs? It never has. Take Congress as an example. Congress can’t even live within it’s means. Now Obama is promising that a public run health care system will cost us less?
Obama continues on to say that:
he didn’t understand those advocates of the free market who constantly say the private sector can do things better and are yet worried about this plan.
He also said:
that the private sector might not necessarily be better, point out that users of Medicare and Veterans Administration hospitals constantly rate “pretty high satisfaction.”
The reason that he doesn’t understand is because he is dumb. He apparently doesn’t remember the VA hospital fiasco a couple years back. The only reason Medicare and the VA have “pretty high satisfaction” is because they have unlimited money through tax dollars. If the public plan is to compete and ofter the same great service, we will spend more than the promised “low administrative costs.”
And the only reason the administrative costs “might” be lower is because the costs is subsidized by the government. Since the private sector uses the free market, that is how much the services are worth. When government offers something for less, they have to subsidize it. It ends up costing more. How ever much we “save” on administrative costs are collected through taxes.
Obama’s so-called “transparency”
June 21, 2009 by Steven Ting
Filed under General
The June 20, 2009 Newsweek article by Michael Isikoff starts with the following:
As a senator, Barack Obama denounced the Bush administration for holding “secret energy meetings” with oil executives at the White House. But last week public-interest groups were dismayed when his own administration rejected a Freedom of Information Act request for Secret Service logs showing the identities of coal executives who had visited the White House to discuss Obama’s “clean coal” policies. One reason: the disclosure of such records might impinge on privileged “presidential communications.” The refusal, approved by White House counsel Greg Craig’s office, is the latest in a series of cases in which Obama officials have opted against public disclosure. Since Obama pledged on his first day in office to usher in a “new era” of openness, “nothing has changed,” says David -Sobel, a lawyer who litigates FOIA cases. “For a president who said he was going to bring unprecedented transparency to government, you would certainly expect more than the recycling of old Bush secrecy policies.”
According to the article, it’s the way the transparency memo was written, that allowed the president to not provide this information. It’s politics as usual. Clayton Cramer summarizes the problem in three short paragraphs, particularly the last one regarding Sarah Palin and her executive experience.
The Obama Administration told a bunch of whoppers: it was going to support gay rights; it was going to repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell; it was going to close Gitmo right away; it was going to pull our troops out of Iraq almost immediately; it was going to have no lobbyists working in the government; it was going to be transparent; it was going to have every bill visible in final form for five days before Obama signed it.
And unfortunately, the mainstream media bought all this garbage, asking no questions, never challenging candidate Obama about how all this was going to happen. And they are now just barely starting to challenge President Obama when they discover that he either lied to them, or didn’t have a clue what he was getting himself into as President.
I had some concerns that Sarah Palin wasn’t qualified to be President, in the event that McCain didn’t last the first term. But I’m guessing that being governor of a state–even a small population state like Alaska–means that she has had at least a few hints about what is involved in running the executive branch of a government. It’s clear that Obama did not have a clue, and even McCain’s knowledge was necessarily limited to what he learned from being in Congress.
We’ve already identified as a Flip-Flop. Eventually, everyone will know Obama’s true nature. Hopefully it’s not too late by then.
Obama has new Iran response
June 20, 2009 by Steven Ting
Filed under Civil Rights, General, International, Politics
Yesterday, Obama updated his response to Iran.
The Iranian government must understand that the world is watching. We mourn each and every innocent life that is lost. We call on the Iranian government to stop all violent and unjust actions against its own people. The universal rights to assembly and free speech must be respected, and the United States stands with all who seek to exercise those rights.
As I said in Cairo, suppressing ideas never succeeds in making them go away. The Iranian people will ultimately judge the actions of their own government. If the Iranian government seeks the respect of the international community, it must respect the dignity of its own people and govern through consent, not coercion.
Martin Luther King once said – “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” I believe that. The international community believes that. And right now, we are bearing witness to the Iranian peoples’ belief in that truth, and we will continue to bear witness.
This is what he should have said the first time. Also, the right to assembly and free speech might be universial rights in the United States, but they are not necessarily rights in other countries. Take China as an example. China censors everything like crazy but the United States doesn’t lecture them. Why is it that we only respond when there is a problem? Because it’s politically advantageous.
So previously, Obama did not want the United States to appear as meddling. So what are we doing now? From the Iran Government perspective, this is now meddling. Once again, Obama gets schooled in International Politics.
