Archive for September, 2010

VOTING “PRESENT”

Sunday, September 26th, 2010

Some things never change, and when it comes to politicians, when things do change, it’s usually not for the better.  One of my biggest complaints with Barack Obama during his campaign, was his less-than-stellar voting record during his short term in the Senate.  On very few occasions did he tender a “yes” or “no” vote on any matter, almost always opting for the ridiculous option of “present”.

I used to joke, then, about the very fact that voting “present’ was even an option.  Only in our Federal Government could such an insipid notion hold water.  What does that mean?  “I’m here!”  Great, but you were elected to represent, to lead, to make decisions.  I found it to be one of the most unsettling things about the man.  He clearly is adverse to making any decision that may irritate or alienate any substantial group of voters.  Whether they be Muslims, Hispanics or African-Americans, any issue that may lead him into their disfavor will always find a soft spot with out President.  Only if you’re an average white person should you be concerned about being ignored by our President, or be the victim of a knee-jerk reaction.  Think “Cambridge Police Department”.

With immigration he came in squarely on the side of Mexico.  These decisions are always easy for him.  Health care “reform” was also a no-brainer because it is the Crown Jewel of his party and he was determined to get it through, even at the expense of a second-term.  But hard calls are not his cup of tea.  Compare him to McCain, who, even in his weakened political state, and even though he has made decisions based on political expediency at times, he was never one to shy away from something he truly believed in, even if it cost him friends and political allies.  It was McCain, after all, who demanded the surge in Iraq which eventually led to our victory there.  He paved the way through the political jungle for Bush, knowing we had to either give our troops what they needed to win, or get out.  Now…Obama is quick to claim some sort of credit for the outcome there, even though voting against that same surge was one of the few decisive votes he ever made.  Again…it was a vote that was easy for someone from the far-left.

And now it is the Bush Tax Cuts.  Obama has decided to instruct his political army to wait until after the November elections for that vote.  Thanks.  Even as businesses wait to see what their future will be, unemployment and the economy in general gets worse and worse, it is once again politics winning out over common sense.  I guess the fact that he wants to wait until AFTER November gives us all a pretty good idea what the vote will be.  An excellent time to raise taxes and bleed yet more money from the private sector.

Anyone who voted for this guy and is still singing his praises should be credited for only one thing.  Blind loyalty.

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SLOW TRAIN COMIN’

Sunday, September 19th, 2010

To borrow a song title from Bob Dylan, I hear a slow train comin’.  While the voter turn out at last weeks primaries was a little dismal, all signs point to a major turn over in November.  It is fascinating to watch as the voice of the country is heard, and especially in light of the twister of political and cultural turmoil that has lifted so many of us from our couch, and landed us on our collective State house steps.  As the arguments over immigration, health care, the ground zero mosque, the burning of Korans, racism and the future of America in general, escalates, a clearer picture emerges each day.

I am glad to see that the Tea Party has coalesced into something tangible and with influence.  Yet not so much influence that it sways every race.  The Tea Party is credited with the stunning win by Christine O’Donnell in Delaware, yet in the New Hampshire race it seemed to have less impact.  It was Kelly Ayotte who won, but barely, over Ovide Lamontagne, but Lamontagnes rise over the last several weeks is noteworthy.  I supported Kelly, so I’m happy, though Ovide seemed a solid guy to me, but it is the nature of the people running and the races that is so interesting.

Across the country, “average-Joes” are throwing their hat into the ring.  I think this is a good thing.  Despite Karl Rove whining about the O’Donnell win and worrying about the Republican party, I think what we are seeing is a return to regular people stepping up to serve their country. This is true Democracy.  My feeling is that if it takes an election cycle or two to shake out, we’ll all be better for it, and the election reinforces the notion that folks are fed up with both parties.  Rep. Paul Ryan (R), Wisconsin, made the salient point that there is more to this than winning seats and taking back both Houses.  There will be something new after the elections in November…the expectation of performance.  This will be key, otherwise we could spend the next century flip-flopping back and forth between different groups of hacks.  The message from the majority of Americans is clear.  We want real change, and we want it now.

I have felt all along that this is not so much a contest between Republicans and Democrats, but a contest between pragmatism and wizardry.  We are tired of the promises of the magic wand.  The regular folks who gather at the Tea Party outings, and who the national media love to diminish, deride and ridicule, are actually smarter than the folks inside the beltway.  For years, even generations, they have worked hard, paid their bills, lived within their means, given back to their community, and, in short, demonstrated what works and why.   It’s not rocket science.  They are tired of being promised results and instead receiving only an ever-increasing bill.

We’re tired of being told that a broken economy can be fixed with borrowed money and that government can “create” jobs.  We watch, grimacing, as federal program after federal program squanders our hard earned money, fails, and then is quickly heralded as a success.  Cash for clunkers?  That cost the taxpayer about 45 grand per car.  Excellent.  The health care overhaul?  Already over-budget and under-performing.  The stimulus bill?  Didn’t do a thing as unemployment continues to rise, along with foreclosures and bankruptcies.
And none of us are surprised, because we knew it didn’t make any sense in the first place.  But we are tired of being painted as idiots.

Yeah…there’s a train coming.  And I didn’t call it an approaching storm for a reason.  Storms are fickle and can fizzle out and float away.  A run away train, on the other hand, has weight and momentum, and presents an ominous future for anything in its path.  In this particular case, that would be Democrats, and the train should be arriving right on time, in early November.

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THE TOP TEN

Sunday, September 12th, 2010

Be grateful for the little things.  As rough as the economy is right here In New Hampshire, one need not look far to see straits more dire.  A recently compiled list of the ten worst places to live, based on a variety of components, makes things look comparatively rosy here.  Then again, the suffering in these places may also be little more than a sign of things to come.

Topping the list was El Centro, CA, a relatively small town but situated right on the border with Mexicali.  The unemployment rate is 27.5%, roughly three times the national average.  It is a crop town, and close to the border, with a floating population of migrant workers, but then again, field work is only number four in terms of being the largest employment sector.  The largest employment sector in the country?  Government…followed by the transportation industry and then utilities.  Which one doesn’t fit?  Can’t be picking fruits and vegetables, we all have to eat.  Transportation?  I doubt it.  Cargo and people have got to move or everything collapses.  Utilities?  I don’t think so.  We’ve got to have lights, telephone, internet, water and energy for the same reason.  That leaves the “government” jobs.  What are all of those people doing, I wonder?  Essential, or “non-essential”?  You be the judge.

Coming in second in the “worst-places-to-live” competition is Cleveland, OH.  Forbes named it the #1 most miserable city in the country.  It has been nicknamed the “Mistake by the Lake”.   I was surprised to learn it is one of the most politically corrupt cities in the country.  That’s not an easy trophy.  Also, there are the lake-effect snows, averaging in excess of 60″ per year, and the cold temperatures that go with it.  Scratch Cleveland off your bucket list.

Detroit ranked third in this dismal contest.  No surprise.  Ravaged by the collapse of the auto industry, Motown has been in a state of decline for years.  It has been called the “most dangerous” city in the country and foreclosures for the first six months of this year were up a whopping 35% over the same period last year.  There is a 30% vacancy rate for office and commercial space.  Homes were being offered for less than $10,000.00 with no takers, and entire neighborhoods have been vacated, looted and abandoned.  There is a glimmer of hope, as the auto industry begins a modest recovery, but this once iconic city will never be the same.

Roll the dice.  Snake Eyes.  Las Vegas is number four, one of the hardest hit areas in the country as the housing bubble burst.  While the national average foreclosure rate hovers around 2.1%, Vegas rolls in at 12% .  Like Detroit, entire neighborhoods were abandoned.  Unlike Detroit, they have the Tumbleweeds to complete the picture.  Fortunately, they had the helping hand of our President admonishing people for wasting their money and suggesting that as we tighten our belts, we cancel that trip to Vegas at the same time.  Still, of all the top ten, my money is on Vegas to rebound.

Oddly, Oklahoma City ranked fifth of the worst.  This surprised and disheartened me as I have always had a soft spot for Oklahoma and I don’t even know why.  That “Heartland” thing, I suppose?  While they weren’t particularly worse than the country at large in terms of economy, they were deemed the “unhealthiest” city based on medical statitistics for obesity and heart disease.  Depending on how much you like to eat, this could easily be moved to one of the best places to live.

Los Angeles.  Number six.  Crime, corruption, traffic and the worst pollution in the country.  L.A. has the most ozone of any city in the country.  I’m not talking the upper atmosphere ozone, but rather the close-to-the-ground stuff that makes breathing unhealthy on nearly every day of the year.  Randy Newman loves L.A. .  I’ll take the clean air of New Hampshire.

The only thing surprising about Phoenix, AZ is that it didn’t score higher in this contest.  Forbes ranked it within the top ten worst real estate markets in the country.  The immigration problem is bad enough, but add to it the unintended ramifications of that problem, i.e.: the press coverage, the back and forth between Governor Jan Brewer and Washington, and the nearly-constant protesting in the streets, and you have a state that is in trouble.  Still, like Vegas, Phoenix is on my list of places that will recover.  Arizona is beautiful, it has allure, and that will always be the case.  For the most part, they can’t screw up the natural beauty of the place, so I have faith in Phoenix rising from the ashes.

Number eight.  Newark, New Jersey.   Self-explanatory.

How sweet it is.  Remember Jackie Gleason’s opening line from the Honeymooners, shot live from Miami Beach?  Well, it’s not as sweet as it used to be. Miami ranked number nine in the misery game. The foreclosure rate is through the roof, and it has perhaps the highest “abandonment” rate in the country.  This is folks who just roll up the rugs and leave.  See ya later.  There is something about that that ratchets up the misery level.  Foreclosure is bad enough.  Losing your home is traumatic.  But how stunningly bad do things have to be that you just back out of the driveway and leave?  Miami-bad…that’s how bad.

Finally, Memphis, TN took the number ten spot.  This surprised me as well but this report cited violence and corruption as the primary reasons for not wanting to settle in Memphis.  Some of the increases in violence, and even the political corruption to some degree, can be traced to the poor economy, but it’s still not a place that I would think of as dismal.  There are a lot of great songs about Memphis and a terminal romance about the name, so I put it firmly on my list of places I expect to rebound.

What is most unsettling about all of this is the disparity in places that made this list.  Only about half of this list were places I expected to see.  Detroit? No surprise.  Cleveland?  If you say so.  Oklahoma City?  Didn’t see that one coming.  The overview is that what is happening to all of these places, is also happening to the rest of the country.  It’s a bit of a crystal ball, I think, of what the rest of us can expect if the economy continues to unravel and unemployment continues to rise.  No matter where you live, your own town or city is feeling the crunch.  Take a look around your neighborhood tonight, and imagine it dark, with windows boarded up, lawns overgrown and not a soul in sight.  Coming soon to your town?

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RECOVERING FROM THE SUMMER OF RECOVERY

Sunday, September 5th, 2010

Go ahead…breath a sigh of relief.  The 787 billion dollar stimulus package that most of us had thought did seemingly nothing for the economy, was, as it turns out, a great success.  Vice President Joe Biden was in New Hampshire recently telling us so.
A valuable asset to the President, if for no other reason than his willingness to go out with a straight face and continue to insist that we are in the throes of the “Summer of Recovery”, Biden is as likeable a guy as one could ever meet.

But let’s face it…”recovery”?  Maybe the rest of us simply misunderstood the meaning here.  This could be nothing more than a case of misconstrued semantics.  We were thinking they meant “recovery” as in…something returning to normal, or, something that is “on the mend”…getting better…you know…recovering.  Maybe, though, what they really meant was “recovery” as in retrieving the hull of a great sunken ship, the USS Economy, from the depths of the Marianna Trench, or recovering the pieces of a once-majestic aircraft that got flown into the side of a mountain.

To be fair, this administration had their hands full when they took over the helm, but every conceivable error has been made since.  As Charles Krauthammer pointed out some time ago, Obama sees his job as plowing through legislation from the liberal handbook.  A massive overhaul of the healthcare system, that just weeks after it was passed, was determined to have been built on some flawed math and indeed was going to come with a hefty price tag.  As Nancy Pelosi reminded us…”you have to pass it to know what’s in it…”.  Thanks for the sage advice.  Being President is much more than herding legislation through the narrows, it is about leadership.  This administration is lost at sea, with no bearing, and no understanding that the overwhelming majority of the citizens of this country want, more than anything, for the spending to stop.

During Biden’s trip to New Hampshire he visited a home that was being weatherized under a federal program meant to save energy costs.  He boasted how this particular home would save up to $600.00 a year on energy costs and how much that money must mean to “a single Mom raising two kids”.  Sure, fair enough.  But the increased tax burden to that same mom eats into that, doesn’t it?  I mean…the federal program uses money collected from workers and businesses.  With fewer and fewer workers, and fewer and fewer businesses, doesn’t that mean that inevitably and eventually the bill for all of this federal spending will be paid by the average worker?

How does one strut through town heralding the great recovery while unemployment continues to rise, foreclosures and bankruptcies continue to rise, and the financial future of more and more people seems more and more tenuous?  The way one does that is with a blind allegiance to a person or philosophy.  With a willingness to simply ignore facts and warning signs in favor of unflappable optimism based on nothing.  Historically, people like this have been dangerous.

At the end of the day none of it is a surprise to sensible people.  A child knows you can’t fix a debt problem with borrowed money.  That’s what the stimulus package was.  The money evanesced into thin air.  Nobody even knows where most of it went.  We know it didn’t work, though.  All the talk of the efforts to help small businesses expand and “hire workers” is nonsense.  Small businesses need more business to hire more workers, not a handout from the government.  It is a circular infinity of borrowing and spending that leads nowhere.  It leaves me wondering how long before the government introduces the “Recovery from the Recovery Stimulus Package”.

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