Greetings from the Left Coast, where we here at Left Coast Blues do the heavy thinking for those who just can’t be bothered.
That knocking sound you heard Sunday morning was the sound of me pounding my forehead on the kitchen table after reading about how, after pushing the projected 2009 budget deficit to 12% of GDP – fully twice the old record set back in 1983 – President Obama is now announcing his plan to cut the annual deficit in half by the end of his first term.
Now how, boys and girls, would you expect the candidate of Hope and Change to do that? Yes? A gold star to that cynical lad in the back row who guessed that he would fall back on the same old liberal Democrat positions we’ve heard over and over again: he’s going to raise taxes on the wealthy, increase the capital gains tax, “target corporate loopholes,” and, yes, allow those Bush tax cuts to expire. In fact, tax collections under the plan are expected to rise from 16% of GDP to 19% of GDP by 2013. As Iago the parrot says in Disney’s Alladin, “Oh there’s a big surprise…I think I’m gonna have a heart attack and die of not-surprise!”
White House advisor David Axelrod opined that “This is consistent with what the president talked about throughout the campaign,” and “restores some balance to the tax code in a way that protects the middle class…Most Americans will come out very well here.” Ah, yes, the old class warfare card – another Democrat standby. Unfortunately, it tends to work all too well…partly because only 5% of households make more than roughly $157,000, and that 5% already pays 58% of all Income Tax collected. Doesn’t sound very balanced to me, but there’s not much they can do when the other 95% of the population decides to gang up on them. Heck, 41% of all Americans paid no federal Income Tax in 2006! It’s not too tough to convince them that other people should pay even higher taxes.
But here’s where it all falls down: jobs are created by business growth, and business growth is fueled by investment. Boosting the capital gains tax by a third, which is what Obama wants to do, makes investing less attractive. That means we will have less of it, and that means that fewer jobs will be created than otherwise would be. Raising taxes on the wealthy means that the people who have the most money to invest will now have less money to invest. Therefore there will be less investment, therefore fewer jobs will be created. Raising taxes on those nasty corporations means they will have less money to pay employees. You guessed it – fewer jobs.
The problem is that, like many Washington politicians, Barak Obama has never run a business in the private sector or created a single private sector job. Neither has Barney Frank, the chair of the House Financial Services Committee. Neither has Chris Dodd, the chair of the Senate Banking Committee. They’ve never lain awake at night wondering whether they could meet their next payroll and still make their own mortgage payment. They’ve never worried whether they were going to miss the performance indicators required by their bankers and possibly lose their line of credit. They don’t have a clue about the realities that private sector businesses face day after day just to try to keep their doors open, let alone grow and create more jobs. Yet they’re the ones we’re supposed to trust to lead us out of what we are being told (falsely) is an unprecedented crisis.
Wall Street clearly doesn’t think that Obama knows what he’s doing…as indicated by the fact that the market has lost more value since the election than it did in September and October. It seems that every time he or one of his advisors opens his mouth about the stimulus plan or the next bailout the market loses another few hundred points. The frightening reality is that the market is probably right. That’s why, after allowing himself to be swept into power on a wave of pure emotion, Obama is now doing everything he possibly can to reduce people’s expectations – which were so high that no mortal man could have possibly met them all under the best of circumstances. I could almost feel sorry for him if it wasn’t for the damage he’s causing to the country’s financial future.
Thanks for listening.
Monday, February 23, 2009
A Shout Out to Bill and Sean
Greetings from the Left Coast, where we here at Left Coast Blues do the heavy thinking for those who just can't be bothered.
This is a really short post. I just wanted to give a big shout out to Bill Mar and Sean Penn for validating my decision not to watch the Oscars. I saw and read enough in today's news coverage to confirm that it was indeed not worth my time.
For the record, I wouldn't walk across the street to attend the Oscars if you gave me a front-row seat. And as for Mar and Penn, life is too short to waste any more of my time on either of them.
Thanks for listening.
This is a really short post. I just wanted to give a big shout out to Bill Mar and Sean Penn for validating my decision not to watch the Oscars. I saw and read enough in today's news coverage to confirm that it was indeed not worth my time.
For the record, I wouldn't walk across the street to attend the Oscars if you gave me a front-row seat. And as for Mar and Penn, life is too short to waste any more of my time on either of them.
Thanks for listening.
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Remedial Economics 001
Gather round, boys and girls, and Uncle Sid will share with you some truths that you probably never heard in school…although you should have. If your parents want to read along, that’s fine too – Lord knows we wouldn’t be in the mess we’re in right now if they all understood what I’m about to say.
Listen very carefully: The government does not, indeed it cannot, create wealth. (Which is not to say that some individuals haven’t become quite wealthy from dealing with the government.) All the government can do is to redistribute wealth. Wealth is created by private individuals operating within a free market system. In the simplest possible terms, wealth is created when somebody sells something at a profit.
Wealth is created by people who get up every morning and work 60, 70, and 80-hour weeks busting their backsides to build a small business. It’s created by publicly held corporations that operate at a profit so they can provide their shareholders with a return on their investment. And it’s created by ordinary people who save or invest their money in everything from savings accounts to 401k retirement plans, which then gets loaned to other people and used to build companies and create jobs.
In fact – and this is something that most labor unions just don’t get – the only reason a corporation exists is to make money for its shareholders. Boeing exists to make money for its shareholders…it so happens that one of the ways it does this is by building airplanes. Microsoft exists to make money for its shareholders…it happens to do that by making software. And General Motors doesn’t exist to make cars, it exists to make money for its shareholders…which it’s trying, and failing, to do by making cars.
There are only three ways that the government can get the money it spends:
First, it can take it from you. This is called taxation. Even tariffs (another word for taxes) on imports and exports - which was the primary way the federal government was funded before the creation of the income tax - end up being reflected in what you pay for the goods, so it is ultimately taken from you. We’re expected to jump for joy when the government gives us a tax rebate – but think for a moment about how wasteful that is, when you take into account the cost of collecting the money from you in the first place, keeping track of it, and then writing a check back to you, compared to just letting you keep more of your money in the first place. And if you’re giving a “tax cut” or a “tax rebate” to someone who isn’t paying any taxes, then you are taking money away from someone who has earned it, and giving it to someone who has not earned it. That’s income redistribution, no matter how much President Obama tries to pretend that it isn’t.
Second, it can borrow the money. We have, and are, borrowing billions of dollars from other countries, including China. Eventually that money will have to be paid back, with interest.
Third, it can simply print more money. But that obviously increases the total amount of money that’s in circulation. And if the amount of money in circulation grows faster than the growth of goods and services that are being bought and sold, prices will go up. That’s called inflation. And if inflation gets bad enough, the only way to bring it under control is to crank down the money supply and increase interest rates, which generally causes a painful recession. Just ask an older relative who lived through the Carter administration how much fun that was.
The government is getting ready to spend $787 billion that it doesn’t have. And we’re being told that’s just the beginning of what we’re going to need to do to get out of our current recession. Where do you suppose the money is going to come from? Well, boys and girls, one way or another, it’s going to come from you and your kids. Sorry about that. But then most of the people in government who are responsible for this will be long gone by the time that bill comes due, so they don’t really care. Remember that when you get old enough to vote.
Thanks for listening.
Listen very carefully: The government does not, indeed it cannot, create wealth. (Which is not to say that some individuals haven’t become quite wealthy from dealing with the government.) All the government can do is to redistribute wealth. Wealth is created by private individuals operating within a free market system. In the simplest possible terms, wealth is created when somebody sells something at a profit.
Wealth is created by people who get up every morning and work 60, 70, and 80-hour weeks busting their backsides to build a small business. It’s created by publicly held corporations that operate at a profit so they can provide their shareholders with a return on their investment. And it’s created by ordinary people who save or invest their money in everything from savings accounts to 401k retirement plans, which then gets loaned to other people and used to build companies and create jobs.
In fact – and this is something that most labor unions just don’t get – the only reason a corporation exists is to make money for its shareholders. Boeing exists to make money for its shareholders…it so happens that one of the ways it does this is by building airplanes. Microsoft exists to make money for its shareholders…it happens to do that by making software. And General Motors doesn’t exist to make cars, it exists to make money for its shareholders…which it’s trying, and failing, to do by making cars.
There are only three ways that the government can get the money it spends:
First, it can take it from you. This is called taxation. Even tariffs (another word for taxes) on imports and exports - which was the primary way the federal government was funded before the creation of the income tax - end up being reflected in what you pay for the goods, so it is ultimately taken from you. We’re expected to jump for joy when the government gives us a tax rebate – but think for a moment about how wasteful that is, when you take into account the cost of collecting the money from you in the first place, keeping track of it, and then writing a check back to you, compared to just letting you keep more of your money in the first place. And if you’re giving a “tax cut” or a “tax rebate” to someone who isn’t paying any taxes, then you are taking money away from someone who has earned it, and giving it to someone who has not earned it. That’s income redistribution, no matter how much President Obama tries to pretend that it isn’t.
Second, it can borrow the money. We have, and are, borrowing billions of dollars from other countries, including China. Eventually that money will have to be paid back, with interest.
Third, it can simply print more money. But that obviously increases the total amount of money that’s in circulation. And if the amount of money in circulation grows faster than the growth of goods and services that are being bought and sold, prices will go up. That’s called inflation. And if inflation gets bad enough, the only way to bring it under control is to crank down the money supply and increase interest rates, which generally causes a painful recession. Just ask an older relative who lived through the Carter administration how much fun that was.
The government is getting ready to spend $787 billion that it doesn’t have. And we’re being told that’s just the beginning of what we’re going to need to do to get out of our current recession. Where do you suppose the money is going to come from? Well, boys and girls, one way or another, it’s going to come from you and your kids. Sorry about that. But then most of the people in government who are responsible for this will be long gone by the time that bill comes due, so they don’t really care. Remember that when you get old enough to vote.
Thanks for listening.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
The 787 Takes Flight
…no, not the Boeing aircraft – I’m talking about the new $787 billion stimulus package. Which President Obama allowed to sit on his desk for four days before he signed it after insisting that it had to be passed now. Now! Right now, or the country will collapse! Everything you hold dear is on the verge of disaster! My God, what part of “now” don’t you understand? Nownownowrightfreakingnow!!!
Greetings from the Left Coast, where we here at Left Coast Blues do the heavy thinking for those who just can’t be bothered.
Just to put that number in perspective, if you had started spending $1 million every day on the day Jesus Christ was born, you’d still have roughly 150 years to go before you spent $787 billion. It’s the biggest single spending bill ever in the history of the nation – both in dollars and in percent of Gross Domestic Product. It’s over 1,000 pages long, so most people have no idea exactly what’s in it…probably including many of the legislators who voted for it.
And no one will ever know whether it worked. If the economy recovers, which it would have eventually done regardless, the proponents of the bill will claim the credit. If it doesn’t work, they’ll simply claim that things would be even worse if it hadn’t been passed, and, besides, it was the fault of the mean old Republicans who didn’t let us spend enough.
This spending bill was drafted entirely by House Democrats, who jumped at the chance to throw in every pet project that they'd been denied for the last 8 years. It was debated for less than an hour by the House of Representatives before it was pushed through. It went to the Senate, where their version was drafted entirely by Democrats. The Senate allowed less than two hours of debate on it before it was pushed through. The Senate/House conference committee who worked out the differences between the two bills was composed entirely of Democrats – Republicans were completely shut out of the process. Yet many in the media seemed amazed that no House Republicans and only three Republican Senators were willing to vote for it.
Barak Obama was supposed to be the post-partisan president. On January 20, he said we had “come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn out dogmas, that for far too long have strangled our politics.” He promised that, “Those of us who manage the public’s dollars will be held to account – to spend wisely, reform bad habits, and do our business in the light of day…” He was going to reach across party lines and bring us all together.
Now we know. He did reach across the aisle, but only to tell Republicans, “Look, we had an election, I won, so shut up, get in line, and do what I say.” This was good, old-fashioned Vengeance Politics. This was “we’re-finally-back-in-power-so-bend-over-and-brace-yourself-because-it’s-payback-time” politics. Or, as they call it on Obama’s side of the Looking Glass, “Change You Can Believe In.”
Thanks for listening.
Greetings from the Left Coast, where we here at Left Coast Blues do the heavy thinking for those who just can’t be bothered.
Just to put that number in perspective, if you had started spending $1 million every day on the day Jesus Christ was born, you’d still have roughly 150 years to go before you spent $787 billion. It’s the biggest single spending bill ever in the history of the nation – both in dollars and in percent of Gross Domestic Product. It’s over 1,000 pages long, so most people have no idea exactly what’s in it…probably including many of the legislators who voted for it.
And no one will ever know whether it worked. If the economy recovers, which it would have eventually done regardless, the proponents of the bill will claim the credit. If it doesn’t work, they’ll simply claim that things would be even worse if it hadn’t been passed, and, besides, it was the fault of the mean old Republicans who didn’t let us spend enough.
This spending bill was drafted entirely by House Democrats, who jumped at the chance to throw in every pet project that they'd been denied for the last 8 years. It was debated for less than an hour by the House of Representatives before it was pushed through. It went to the Senate, where their version was drafted entirely by Democrats. The Senate allowed less than two hours of debate on it before it was pushed through. The Senate/House conference committee who worked out the differences between the two bills was composed entirely of Democrats – Republicans were completely shut out of the process. Yet many in the media seemed amazed that no House Republicans and only three Republican Senators were willing to vote for it.
Barak Obama was supposed to be the post-partisan president. On January 20, he said we had “come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn out dogmas, that for far too long have strangled our politics.” He promised that, “Those of us who manage the public’s dollars will be held to account – to spend wisely, reform bad habits, and do our business in the light of day…” He was going to reach across party lines and bring us all together.
Now we know. He did reach across the aisle, but only to tell Republicans, “Look, we had an election, I won, so shut up, get in line, and do what I say.” This was good, old-fashioned Vengeance Politics. This was “we’re-finally-back-in-power-so-bend-over-and-brace-yourself-because-it’s-payback-time” politics. Or, as they call it on Obama’s side of the Looking Glass, “Change You Can Believe In.”
Thanks for listening.
Thursday, February 5, 2009
What Exactly Are We Stimulating?
Greetings from the Left Coast, where we here at Left Coast Blues do the heavy thinking for those who just can’t be bothered.
Back in early January, the New York Post reported that then President-elect Obama had warned Congress that he would bar all pork-barrel projects from the stimulus plan he was asking them to pass. He said that his program “will have a higher standard of accountability, transparence and oversight.”
So how did that work out?
It’s tough to find out exactly what’s in the bill that the House of Representatives passed – after all, it’s 600 pages long. But we have heard about:
I could go on and on. In fact, you can read the 13-page summary released by the House Committed on Appropriations at http://appropriations.house.gov/pdf/PressSummary01-15-09.pdf. The question is: How, exactly, will these specifically address the causes of the current recession, stimulate the economy and benefit the ordinary Americans who are hurting right now? They may be worthy things to fund – but they should be put forward, debated, and voted on in their own right as part of a spending package, not buried in a so-called economic stimulus package that is being promoted with an “Oh-my-God-we-have-to-do-something-right-now!” urgency. Even Democrat Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska is saying that “tens of billions” of dollars need to be stripped out of the package.
So how did it get to be this way? Let me remind you of Rahm Emmanuel’s comment at that Wall Street Journal conference back in November: “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. And what I mean by that is an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.” So Rahm’s former colleagues in the House seized the opportunity to advance their liberal social agenda under the guise of an economic stimulus package, and Nancy Pelosi rammed it through despite bipartisan opposition. (Yes, the package was so egregious that eleven Democrats in the House broke with their party to vote against it.)
I agree that we need to invest some money on infrastructure in this country. And there are portions of this package that will help put people to work and help speed the economic recovery – particularly the tax cuts. But the Democrats should be ashamed of themselves for all the irrelevant spending they’ve jammed into this bill...but they aren’t – because to any good Liberal, the end justifies the means. I hope that the Senate stands firm and brings some sanity to the package.
It’s hard to imagine how much money we’re talking about. If you had been spending $1 million every day since the day Jesus was born, you still wouldn’t have spent as much money as the stimulus package will spend – you’d have another five hundred years to go.
Heck, if the government just has to spend a trillion dollars or so, how about this idea: The Federal Reserve estimates that in November, 2008, the total amount of revolving debt (of which credit card debt is the biggest component) in America was about $982 billion. So let’s take the stimulus money and just pay off everyone’s credit card balances! Now there’s a bailout I could get behind! It would immediately clear a lot of risky outstanding credit off the books of the banking institutions, and lift a huge debt load from the backs of consumers! The resulting consumer spending spree would jump-start the economy in a heartbeat!
Thanks for listening.
Back in early January, the New York Post reported that then President-elect Obama had warned Congress that he would bar all pork-barrel projects from the stimulus plan he was asking them to pass. He said that his program “will have a higher standard of accountability, transparence and oversight.”
So how did that work out?
It’s tough to find out exactly what’s in the bill that the House of Representatives passed – after all, it’s 600 pages long. But we have heard about:
- $400 million for sexually transmitted disease prevention
- $350 million for computers at the USDA
- $400 million to replace the Social Security Administration’s National Computer Center
- $8 billion to upgrade facilities and information technology at the State Department
- $10 billion for science facilities, research, and instrumentation
- $6.7 billion for renovations and repairs to federal buildings
- $462 million for the Centers for Disease Control to “complete its Buildings and Facilities Master Plan”
- $400 million to “put more scientists to work doing climate change research”
- $209 million for agricultural research facilities
- $200 million “to address the deterioration of the National Mall,” $150 million to “address the repair backlog at the Smithsonian,” and $50 million for the National Endowment for the Arts.
- Tax “rebates” for people who don’t make enough to pay any income tax. (But don’t you dare call this “income redistribution!”)
I could go on and on. In fact, you can read the 13-page summary released by the House Committed on Appropriations at http://appropriations.house.gov/pdf/PressSummary01-15-09.pdf. The question is: How, exactly, will these specifically address the causes of the current recession, stimulate the economy and benefit the ordinary Americans who are hurting right now? They may be worthy things to fund – but they should be put forward, debated, and voted on in their own right as part of a spending package, not buried in a so-called economic stimulus package that is being promoted with an “Oh-my-God-we-have-to-do-something-right-now!” urgency. Even Democrat Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska is saying that “tens of billions” of dollars need to be stripped out of the package.
So how did it get to be this way? Let me remind you of Rahm Emmanuel’s comment at that Wall Street Journal conference back in November: “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. And what I mean by that is an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.” So Rahm’s former colleagues in the House seized the opportunity to advance their liberal social agenda under the guise of an economic stimulus package, and Nancy Pelosi rammed it through despite bipartisan opposition. (Yes, the package was so egregious that eleven Democrats in the House broke with their party to vote against it.)
I agree that we need to invest some money on infrastructure in this country. And there are portions of this package that will help put people to work and help speed the economic recovery – particularly the tax cuts. But the Democrats should be ashamed of themselves for all the irrelevant spending they’ve jammed into this bill...but they aren’t – because to any good Liberal, the end justifies the means. I hope that the Senate stands firm and brings some sanity to the package.
It’s hard to imagine how much money we’re talking about. If you had been spending $1 million every day since the day Jesus was born, you still wouldn’t have spent as much money as the stimulus package will spend – you’d have another five hundred years to go.
Heck, if the government just has to spend a trillion dollars or so, how about this idea: The Federal Reserve estimates that in November, 2008, the total amount of revolving debt (of which credit card debt is the biggest component) in America was about $982 billion. So let’s take the stimulus money and just pay off everyone’s credit card balances! Now there’s a bailout I could get behind! It would immediately clear a lot of risky outstanding credit off the books of the banking institutions, and lift a huge debt load from the backs of consumers! The resulting consumer spending spree would jump-start the economy in a heartbeat!
Thanks for listening.
Monday, February 2, 2009
Elections Have Consequences
Greetings from the Left Coast, where we here at Left Coast Blues do the heavy thinking for those who just can’t be bothered.
“Elections have consequences” – thus opined Senator John McCain in the third Presidential debate back on October 15. At the time, he was explaining why he had voted to confirm Supreme Court Justices Breyer and Ginsberg, even though he didn’t agree with their ideology. He reasoned that the Constitution gives the President the authority to nominate Supreme Court Justices, the President nominated these two individuals, and he didn’t believe that he should oppose them on ideological grounds if they were otherwise qualified. After all, if the American people didn’t want Justices of that ideology on the Supreme Court, they shouldn’t have elected the President who nominated them. (Needless to say, this is a rare position for any Senator to take – and absolutely unheard of among those on the Democratic side of the aisle, as Clarence Thomas and Robert Bork can attest.)
A few weeks after that debate, 52% of the American people chose the most liberal Senator in the United States Senate to be their next President. Not because they particularly liked where he stood on the issues – I can state that with assurance, because he went out of his way not to state where he stood on the issues – but because he was a charismatic public figure and an excellent public speaker who had the media so far in the tank for him that he was able to sell “hope,” “change,” and “yes, we can,” without ever being required to explain exactly what that meant.
We are just beginning to see the consequences:
Personally, I’m still hoping for change…specifically, I’m hoping that President Obama changes course and decides to govern from the center rather than from the left. But based on what I’ve seen so far, I’m not holding my breath. In the meantime, I’m trying to live by the inspiring words of our new Secretary of State: “We need to stand up and say we’re Americans, and we have the right to debate and disagree with any administration.”
Thanks for listening.
“Elections have consequences” – thus opined Senator John McCain in the third Presidential debate back on October 15. At the time, he was explaining why he had voted to confirm Supreme Court Justices Breyer and Ginsberg, even though he didn’t agree with their ideology. He reasoned that the Constitution gives the President the authority to nominate Supreme Court Justices, the President nominated these two individuals, and he didn’t believe that he should oppose them on ideological grounds if they were otherwise qualified. After all, if the American people didn’t want Justices of that ideology on the Supreme Court, they shouldn’t have elected the President who nominated them. (Needless to say, this is a rare position for any Senator to take – and absolutely unheard of among those on the Democratic side of the aisle, as Clarence Thomas and Robert Bork can attest.)
A few weeks after that debate, 52% of the American people chose the most liberal Senator in the United States Senate to be their next President. Not because they particularly liked where he stood on the issues – I can state that with assurance, because he went out of his way not to state where he stood on the issues – but because he was a charismatic public figure and an excellent public speaker who had the media so far in the tank for him that he was able to sell “hope,” “change,” and “yes, we can,” without ever being required to explain exactly what that meant.
We are just beginning to see the consequences:
- As Chief of Staff, we have Rahm Emmanuel, another product of the Chicago political machine, who stated, at a mid-November Wall Street Journal conference, “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. And what I mean by that is an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.” If you keep this comment in mind, it’s much easier to understand why the “economic stimulus” bill looks the way it does. I’ve got more to say on that, but I’ll save it for a future post.
- We have a Secretary of State whose primary qualification for the job appears to be that it makes it unlikely she will challenge Obama’s re-election bid in 2012. No one seems bothered by the millions of dollars her husband has received from speaking and consulting engagements with Middle Eastern nations with which she will be dealing. But then New York is not a community property state, so, technically, it’s not her money…
- We have two cabinet nominees who have “tax issues.” By “tax issues,” I mean that they somehow overlooked their obligations to pay tens of thousands of dollars to the IRS. But that’s OK, because they said they were sorry and paid up as soon as they got caught. One of these men will be the new Secretary of the United States Treasury. Oh, and it turns out that he hired a housekeeper who may have been in the country illegally.
- We have an Attorney General who was involved up to his ears in the most egregious last-minute pardons of the Clinton Administration, including that of Marc Rich.
- We have a “global warming czar” who was listed on Socialist International’s Web site as one of the leaders of their “Commission for a Sustainable World Society” – until her selection by Obama was announced, whereupon her name and bio mysteriously disappeared from the Web site. This is a newly created, non-Cabinet-level position, and not subject to Senate confirmation, so you and your elected representatives have nothing to say about it until November, 2012. Elections have consequences.
- We have an executive order that mandates the closing of the terrorist detention center at Guantanamo Bay within a year. I’ll have more to say on this as well.
- We have a “Presidential memorandum” that removes the restriction on “nongovernmental organizations” who receive Federal funds through the United States Agency for International Development from using those funds “to pay for the performance of abortions as a method of family planning, or to motivate or coerce any person to practice abortions.” Don’t want your tax dollars going to support or promote abortions in other countries? Tough. Elections have consequences.
- We have a national news media that no longer even pretends to be impartial. If you have any doubts about that, just read through the above bullet points again, and ask yourself what the media reaction would have been had, say, George Bush made cabinet appointments like these.
Personally, I’m still hoping for change…specifically, I’m hoping that President Obama changes course and decides to govern from the center rather than from the left. But based on what I’ve seen so far, I’m not holding my breath. In the meantime, I’m trying to live by the inspiring words of our new Secretary of State: “We need to stand up and say we’re Americans, and we have the right to debate and disagree with any administration.”
Thanks for listening.
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