Superfreaks and Supercommittees

Question: How many Supercommittees does it take to change a light bulb?

Answer: Who knows? No Supercommittee has ever carried out such a feat.

I made that observation in a tweet back in August, half joking, half prepared to watch the chosen twelve member panel display the ineptness of so-called bipartisan committees. So when the Supercommittee did indeed "fail" last week, it barely registered on my radar. After all, why should the Supercommitte succeed in reaching a debt deal where all of Washington had failed, including the President, Vice-President, Speaker of the House, and two previous commissions?

Democrats, of course, are blaming the Tea Party and uncompromising fiscal conservatives. As E.J. Dionne at the Washington Post writes:

"It’s absurd to pretend that we can shrink the deficit over the long term without substantial tax increases... The least we can do under those circumstances is to repeal the tax cuts for the wealthy enacted under President George W. Bush. Yet the only revenue conservatives on the supercommittee put on the table involved $300 billion, most of it from ill-defined tax reforms, in exchange for lower tax rates on the rich and making something like $3.7 trillion worth of tax cuts permanent."

Exactly which tax reforms set to bring in $300 billion are so ill-defined, E.J. Dionne doesn't specify. But let's examine the absurdity of his first statement, that deficits can't be solved without substantial tax increases. Doesn't it seem convenient that this is always the favored argument of the very people who want Big Government?

Imagine a struggling business that does $400,000 in revenue but has $450,000 in annual expenses. Isn't the simplest way to get back in the black to cut $50,000 of expenses? Of course. Elementary, my dear Watson, and why not? The only other alternative, absent more customers, is for the business to raise prices in an effort to raise revenue, but higher prices could actually discourage sales. In many cases, this is exactly how tax increases work - money is maneuvered to avoid the increase, and the net result is a loss of revenue.

If we had a revenue problem and not a spending problem, you would see years of decreasing revenue despite flat or decreasing spending. But revenue over the past few years is only down slightly, while spending has increased almost twofold since 2006. Why do I bring up 2006? That was the year that the federal government brought in the most revenue, four years after the Bush tax cuts took place. The dirty little secret that progressive like E.J. Dionne don't want you to know is that revenue went up, not down, as a result of the Bush tax cuts. Unfortunately, spending has gone up way more during the same period.

The truth of the matter for most Democrats, and for progressives in particular, is they have yet to experience a level of government spending that is too much. Even today's stimulus stacked upon outrageous stimulus is insufficient to meet their wants. Thus, any deficit talk is only about one problem in their mind - not raising enough taxes to cover all the wonderful programs they have plans for. After all, how can a Supercommittee on deficit reduction take their job seriously when the president is out there proposing a half trillion dollar spending increase at the same time?

President Obama has taken three stabs at deficit reduction now, including the appointment of two separate bipartisan commissions, and gotten nowhere. A simpler tax code with lower overall rates and fewer loopholes has been endorsed by key members of two separate commissions. But apparently, the president doesn't like those solutions. And while Obama himself wisely extended the Bush tax cuts last December, signing a bill passed by a Democratic controlled House and Senate, he and his base now want to pretend it's Republicans who are unreasonably adding to the deficit by blocking revenue.

If I didn't know better, I would think the whole thing is a charade to stall meaningful legislative progress so Obama can claim he tried to cut the deficit but was stymied by a no-good, do-nothing Congress. But no leader would dare act against the best interest of the country for a little more political power, would they?

It's super debt, that's for sure. And the more it piles up, the more future generations are on the hook to pay for it while the superfreaks of statism use it as an excuse to strip more wealth and property away from what was once America's enterprising private sector.

Campaign 2012: Empty Words vs. Awkward Silences

In the modern political climate, it seems that the worst offense a candidate can commit is to be rendered speechless. By now, we are all familiar with Rick Perry's unintentional imitation of Colin Firth in The King's Speech during last week's debate in which the Governor spent a half minute stammering over which bureaucracies he would eliminate. And now Herman Cain is on the hot seat, this time not for what he allegedly said to a former female employee, but what he failed to say to an editorial board about Libya and the time it took him to answer their question.

To be sure, it's important for a president to be able to articulate his views and demonstrate a broad knowledge of the issues facing our country. But in the YouTube era where gaffes become instant viral sensations spread like wildfire by social media, are we becoming hypersensitive to these moments of human fallibility? After all, they're nothing new. Just ask Howard Dean.

I have heard a number of Republican donors and strategists say it's over for Perry and Cain, that they don't have what it takes to be president because they fumbled their words. Maybe they're right. Or maybe, just maybe, we have formulated a process for electing our leaders that borders on the absurd. We parade candidates through more goofy debates than a season's worth of Curb Your Enthusiasm episodes, turning game show style questions into game changers while ignoring the substance of their positions. We hang on every word and measure the evening's performance far more than we measure how their policies have or actually will perform.

I have always referred to President Obama as the first American Idol president, an inexperienced half-term senator with a paper-thin resume elected by a generation conditioned to text in their vote for whoever puts on the best show. Experience and achievement don't matter to this crowd. It's all about the moment. Team Obama gave us plenty of those made-for-TV moments during the 2008 campaign. It hasn't translated to a competent presidency or a prosperous four years for America.

Herman Cain and Rick Perry have more executive experience than every other candidate in the field with the exception of Mitt Romney. They have demonstrated leadership and proven results that others only wish they could emulate. But unlike Romney, they haven't mastered the showmanship we demand to be fooled by. We have told our candidates that words matter more than actions or accomplishments. And in the Age of Obama, empty words matter most of all, certainly more than empty silences.

It's a strange way to pick a president, but at least it boosts cable news ratings.

Occupy Wall Street Marches for Billionaire George Soros, Multi-Millionaire John Kerry

If there is a point to Occupy Wall Street, it seems to be bemoaning what some consider an unfair distribution of wealth - even though our nation provides the greatest opportunities for success of any nation on earth. Go ahead. Find me the Oprah Winfreys and Steve Jobses of China. Find me the Google and WalMart of France. Find me the European leaders born to immigrant parents who overcame poverty and made a name for themselves. Find me the Condoleeza Rices, Bobby Jindals, and Barack Hussein Obamas.

Certainly America has become less of a meritocracy under President Obama, where cronyism (see Solyndra, GM, and GE) is rewarded to the detriment of free enterprise. And yet the Occupy Wall Street crowd isn't protesting the interference of government to unfairly influence  and corrupt business, but instead asking for more government meddling and less free enterprise. In essence, the solution they offer is to strip wealth away from MILLIONS of shareholders, investors, entrepreneurs, and financial decision makers and put it in the hands of ONE centrally planned government. That's hardly what one would call fair distribution.

No wonder the protest has garnered the sympathy of America's hardest working poor. You know, the likes of John Kerry, Nancy Pelosi, Alec Baldwin, and Micheal Moore, not to mention our arugula chomping Millionaire-in-Chief and his jet-setting wife. These big government pariahs have actually seen their share of wealth increase during the Great Recession. Obama's biggest donors include Goldman Sachs, and the president regularly charges more per plate at his fundraisers than the average American makes in a year. But don't worry, because they feel your pain.

"I'm very understanding of where they're coming from," boasted the richest guy in Washington, Senator John Kerry, who owns a 76 foot luxury yacht he doesn't think he should pay taxes on and claims a net worth of $200 million.

"God bless them for their spontaneity. It's independent, it's young, it's focused. And it's going to be effective," parroted the wealthiest former Speaker in the history of the U.S. House, Nancy Pelosi, who continues to ask lobbyists to write the bills she passes to find out what's in them.

"I think it expresses the frustrations the American people feel... I'm going to fight every inch of the way to make sure that we have a consumer watchdog that is preventing abusive practices by the financial sector," added President Obama. No word on whether that same watchdog would prevent $500 million of corporate welfare from being handed out to failed companies backed by his biggest fundraisers like Solyndra.

With Occupy Wall Street, it appears our uber-wealthy politicos have found a group of useful idiots to march on their behalf and help pry the rest of America's wealth into their greedy government hands. And yes, that includes billionaire George Soros, now that his well-funded MoveOn.org has endorsed the protests. Got that, occupiers? You're now marching for the richest 1%.

This whole campaign reeks of misdirection to take attention away from the president's failures. The underlying message behind these disgusting protests is it's not government's fault for misallocating a trillion dollar stimulus bill and passing job-crippling regulations. No, it's your neighbor who drives a nicer car than you and works for an evil corporation.

Nothing unusual for Obama's America, where envy is a virtue and accountability is a vice.

UPDATE: Hollywood Occupies Wall Street? Millionaire Celebrities Now Flocking to Zuccotti Park (presumably to see how the other 99% live)

Our President: The Greatest Orator Like Ever

I'm paraphrasing former Rep. Harold Ford, who last month said "I think this president's the greatest orator the office has ever known" while giving a tough-as-smores interview to White House Press Secretary Jay Carney on where else but MSNBC. The evidence, of course, speaks for itself...





Class warrior? More like class clown. But if completely lying to sell your position, pausing awkwardly, mispronouncing words, inadvertently using the word Jew when talking about money hoarding (a Freudian slip?), and a false sense of bravado is your definition of a great orator, then sure, Obama certainly excels at this gobbledygook.

Too Green to Fail: Crony Capitalism in America II

Since President Obama came into office, the Department of Energy has become a piggy bank for some of the wealthiest venture capitalists in the world, a money-pumping machine that rewards the richest of the rich with multi-million dollar grants and loans under the guise of green energy. So far the DOE has awarded $20 billion in government handouts, far exceeding what the private sector spent on green energy according to the DOE's own website, and plans to hand out as much as $38 billion.

While most people recognize the potential benefits of green energy, dispersing billions to billionaires to create "green jobs" has failed to live up to any measurable standard. In fact, when government intervenes in a crowded industry of for-profit startups and strips away risks for some investors at the expense of others, that's the very definition of crony capitalism.  Even more troubling, it suggests corruption by an administration that is willfully using taxpayer money to only prop up businesses with ties to the president.

Everyone is familiar with the case of Solyndra, which we already covered in detail, but Solyndra isn't an isolated incident. As government auditors pointed out last summer, The Energy Department's loan guarantee program "has treated applicants inconsistently, favoring some and disadvantaging others." At what point do we start to recognize a pattern of corruption and call out the president for these continued conflicts of interest?

Take the Sunshot Awards. On September 1, the DOE announced $145 million dollars in government grants awarded to companies with investments in solar energy. Being grants, this money that does not have to be paid back. It is, in essence, corporate welfare. Winners of the Sunshot Award this year include GE, Solexel, and Dow Chemical. All three have strong ties to the Obama administration. GE, in particular, has been under the spotlight recently, given a NY Times article reporting that the multi-billion corporation paid no federal taxes last year despite earning billions in profits.

GE is led by Jeffrey Immelt, who also heads President Obama's Jobs Council and has a cozy enough relationship with the commander-in-chief to indulge in international travel on Air Force One. So it was no surprise to see Immelt sitting in the House Chamber as a special guest of the president when he touted his second stimulus, or $447 billion jobs bill, which promises to send more grants and corporate welfare Mr. Immelt's way.

President Obama, of course, has spent the better half of the year criticizing those who make hefty profits for not paying their "fair share", but apparently GE gets a waiver from this administration, just like all those waivers being handed out by the HHS to exempt companies from complying with the egregious costs of Obamacare. If the president is upset GE didn't pay more taxes given their profit margin, the least he could do is stop handing them free money. And yet the DOE awarded millions in corporate welfare to the under-taxed GE, collected, ironically, from American companies and individuals who did meet their tax obligations and pay their "fair share."

Dow Chemical is another Sunshot grant winner with deep ties to the Obama administration. Their CEO, Andrew N. Liversis, has been labeled "Obama's Aussie" and sat on the president's Export Council before being appointed co-chair of the president's Advanced Manufacturing Partnership (which brings with it another $500 million of U.S. government investment). He has visited the White House at least 18 times. As a token of his appreciation, Andrew Liversis has already endorsed Obama's $447 billion Baby Stimulus (or Porkulus II), one of the few CEOs to do so, and just weeks after receiving his company's grant.

Cynics may shrug their shoulders at these instances of cronyism and insider deals, but it's important to recall President Obama ran as a different kind of candidate who was going to "lead the most transparent administration in our nation's history." Even now, the president continues to blast special interests and lobbyists who demand special deals, but as Solyndra, GE, and Dow Chemical have proven, the president is encouraging these very deals behind closed doors. This administration is bought and paid for by Big Business, and vice versa.

All of which leads to Solexel, another California solar company like Solyndra. Solexel received $13 million from President Obama's DOE, which is fine and dandy except that surprise! the investors behind this company include two of President Obama's biggest fundraiser, John Doerr of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (which also has ties to Al Gore), and Steve Westly of The Westly Group, who bundled half a million dollars for the president's campaign and sat on the Secretary of Energy's Advisory Panel.

Steve Westly wrote about the underlying spoils of his privileged position on his website in 2010, bragging, "We believe that with the Obama administration, and other governments … committing hundreds of billions of dollars to clean tech, there has never been a better time to launch clean tech companies. The Westly Group is uniquely positioned to take advantage of this surge of interest and growth."

Uniquely positioned indeed. Like Mr. Liversis, Mr. Westly has also vocally supported the president's $447 billion "jobs plan", no doubt expecting billions of the second stimulus to land squarely where the first stimulus did - in his wallet. Mr. Westly has already pocketed $500 million from the Department of Energy for his investment in Tesla, which manufactures and sells high-end electric cars to millionaires.

If you want to see what greasing the wheels of crony capitalism will do for a president's re-election efforts, just watch the clip below as venture capitalist Steve Westly gushes over everything Obama has done for him. This is a man who won't give an on-camera interview to ABC News to answer questions about how so much taxpayer money just happens to find its way to his pockets, but he certainly isn't camera shy when it comes to praising his sugar daddy in the White House. Heck, he can probably even afford to throw some of that free government money back at the president's re-election campaign. What? You say he already has? No kidding.

None of this is by accident. It's a pattern. And not surprisingly, it's terrible for the economy, as those with rich connections get richer while an increased regulatory climate squeezes small businesses and entrepreneurs from hiring and investing. Meanwhile, private sector dollars follow the path of least resistance, investing where government protects them from risk - i.e. inefficient government projects.

We are now on the brink of a double dip recession. Unfortunately, the mainstream media is asleep at the wheel while President Obama and his cronies take the rest of us to the cleaners.

Too Green to Fail: Crony Capitalism in America

You would have to live in a cave to not know about Solyndra by now. Either that or get your news from MSNBC, were the network has failed to mention the story at all, obviously too busy questioning the sexuality of Michele Bachmann's husband and whether or not the outspoken candidate submits to him. If only MSNBC would submit to facts and cast some sunlight on the Enron-esque collapse of the president's pet energy project.

SolarGate, as some are calling it, revolves around a solar company (no pun intended) that received $535 million from President Obama's Department of Energy as part of the stimulus bill. In this case, the loans were guaranteed, meaning the government has promised to make good on them even if the company can't.

Guess what? The company can't.

Not only that, but Solyndra's loan was fast-tracked for approval by the administration despite red flags about its potential to pay the money back... kind of like those subprime mortgages the government used to guarantee way back in 2007 before the housing sector collapsed and caused the Great Recession. Nevertheless, Solyndra lobbied hard and eventually secured funding for their questionable business plan. According to records, company executives visited the White House at least 20 times before the loan was approved, and newly discovered emails show staffers pleading for the Department of Energy to move quickly so the vice-president could use Solyndra for an upcoming photo-op (NOTE: this could make Biden a potential fall guy for Democrats wishing to revitalize the 2012 ticket).

Since then, the company has been nothing less than a disaster, first canceling its IPO, then closing its factory doors, laying off its employees, and declaring bankruptcy before being raided by the FBI. This, just months after President Obama toured the factory, hailing it as "the true engine of economic growth."

But in case you think this was just another bad decision by an administration famous for bad economic decisions, be aware that Solyndra's private sector investors were offered the loan at a fraction of the interest rate that other companies received from the DOE program. And one of the chief benefactors of this favorable loan was none other than George Kaiser, an Obama donor who raised $50,000 for the president's campaign in 2008. Even worse, the terms of the agreement put the taxpayer on the hook, allowing the Tulsa billionaire's foundation to recoup any of his investment before the government.

All of this would be bad enough if Solyndra was as an isolated incident. It's not. In fact, Solyndra is just the tip of the iceberg, not only an example of failed policy and a waste of a half billion dollars when government debt is discouraging job creation, but part of a bigger pattern of crony capitalism that is emerging with green energy. Incidents of the president's donors receiving loans and grants from the Department of Energy over the past two years are almost too numerous to count. And with the Obama campaign's stated goal of raising $1 billion for 2012, it's no wonder the president is paying back his friends so they can enrich his campaign coffers.

The truth is very little stimulus actually went to help the middle class or small businesses. That's why one trillion dollars later unemployment is still the worst it's been in 20 years. A large chunk of Obama's spending spree is redistributed not among the needy, but among the wealthy and influential, somehow seeming to trickle its way up to the biggest financial backers of the Democrat Party every time.

For the next few weeks, this blog will examine the seedy relationship between the Department of Energy and Obama's biggest donors. Make no mistake. It is a culture of corruption.

With Big 12 in Turmoil, Is This Baylor's Last Hurrah?

Friday night the Baylor Bears achieved excellence on the football field with a victory over old Southwest Conference foe TCU, which came into Waco ranked 14th in the country and riding a 25-game winning streak. It was a marquee win over a well-respected program on national TV. For the first time in a long time, Baylor football is relevant. Unfortunately, the Big 12 may not be.

Since Texas A&M announced their intention to leave the conference, the college football landscape for Big 12 schools has changed dramatically. It was one thing to lose Nebraska and Colorado, but the Aggies jilting of the conference a mere year after agreeing to the terms that kept it together is back-breaking. Now the Big 12 is left with nine teams, and it's going to be hard to find a school that fits the gaping hole left by A&M's departure.

The Aggies claim they left for the SEC due to the University of Texas' arrogance and the formation of the Longhorn Television network, but the truth is Texas A&M has been crying about Texas arrogance as long as there has been a Varsity football team, and the Aggies flirted with going to the SEC last year before the Longhorn Network even existed.

Now it appears the Big 12 is on its last legs, done in by the pride and hubris of the maroon and white. True, BYU would be an interesting addition and save the conference for at least a few more years. And BYU brings more national exposure than Texas A&M did in terms of television audience. TCU, loser of the thrilling 50-48 finish to Baylor, would also be a desirable addition, but just agreed to terms with the Big East and may not have an out.

Should no marquee university be willing to step in to fill the shoes of the Aggies, the next most likely scenario has Oklahoma bolting for the Pac-12, forcing Texas, which turned down the conference's offer last year (partly because they couldn't entice the Aggies to come along), to reconsider and follow suit. A football landscape that doesn't include TX-OU seems unimaginable, but then again a season without UT-A&M also seemed like a longshot a few months ago.

This leaves the smaller schools of the Big 12 scrambling to find a new home and a way to replace the $15 million they currently receive thanks to their affiliation with a conference that includes Texas and Oklahoma. It is assumed Oklahoma State and Texas Tech, with pressure from the state legislatures, would also get invites to the Pac-12, giving the new superconference 16 teams.

Left behind in the wreckage would be Baylor, Kansas, Kansas State, Iowa State, and Missouri. That's a shame given Kansas' basketball pedigree. And it's a shame given the programs Baylor has built in basketball and football, including a Heisman candidate in Robert Griffin III and a realistic chance to finish second this year in the Big 12.

In other words, 2011 could be Baylor's last hurrah, but don't blame the Longhorns. Texas has used its position of strength to try and keep this conference and its traditional rivalries together. Meanwhile, A&M is jumping ship for a place among the nation's most competitive football programs before they have built anything remotely competitive. Evidence of a premature move by the Aggies includes an 0-5 record in recent bowl games, no BCS bowl appearances, and just one Big 12 title way back in 1998.

You can catch what may be the last possible football game between Baylor-A&M on October 15. Here's hoping the electrifying RGIII solidifies his Heisman Trophy campaign that day and gives Bears fans something to remember for a long time. The future looks less promising.

UPDATE: There is no Big 12 South anymore. I fixed this part of the post.

Democrats, Unions, and the War on Small Business

When a business closes its doors, there are no mass protests. There are no advocates marching in the streets demanding the business be kept open. You won't see a publicity push from the mainstream media to save working class jobs even though middle class families are affected. The free market has spoken.

This is not the case with public sector jobs. What a relief it must be to know that if your job is ever on the chopping block, if one small cut is suggested to reduce the burden of government on taxpayers, thousands of demonstrators can be organized at a moment's notice to raise a ruckus and make class warfare on your behalf. 

While most of us sacrifice and put less into our retirement during tough times, while businesses actually face difficult decisions in order to survive a downturn, public sector unions threaten to take more. They protest every measure of government austerity as the end of civilization while private sector jobs are lost everyday without much of a fuss.

Let's be clear. Public sector unions don't represent the working class. They represent the freeloading class. They demand small businesses and family farmers work longer hours, pay higher taxes, and sacrifice more to subsidize union pensions and give members access to higher wages for shorter hours of work. This is immoral behavior.

How awesome it must be to fund your political activities on the very taxpayers you wish to take advantage of, to use large union coffers funded by tax revenue on successful small businesses to smear them. This is the Leftism that always comes to fruition in the long run, a built-in hatred of those who dare succeed as individuals, to demonize those self-made businessmen who refuse to allow their hard work to be used to make the fiefdom wealthy. It's a medieval mentality, the same mob mentality that buses paid activists to protest outside the homes and businesses of private citizens.

Meanwhile, the Democrat Party's entire means of survival rests on this dubious scheme. Higher taxes mean more excuses to spend, and more money coming into the government means more money for union coffers (which also means more money for Democrats). Thus, public sector unions, government workers, and the politicians they support have a vested interest in always supporting bigger government and higher taxes. It's not really about the "poor" or "working class" at all.

How is this good for the local mom and pop store or the entrepreneur with a great idea trying to build a company in their garage like Apple or Dell? The plain truth is it isn't, but the minute one hard-working family farmer or small business owner who risks their job security everyday, who puts their savings back into the business to keep it going, stands up and points this incestuous relationship out, they are immediately demonized as "greedy" and "against the working class." Worse, they are smeared using their own tax dollars by groups who couldn't exist without their productivity.

Nothing has highlighted the bad behavior of the Left like the budget battle in Wisconsin. Unions have demanded to have their pensions completely funded by the same taxpayers who struggle to afford their own pensions, the same farmers and business owners who risk their savings while the government worker risks nothing. And as the unions lose the debate, they have staged mobs and vandalized schools. They have been a force of destruction, not an example, for the very children they claim to want to educate. Even still, they are threatening to cost taxpayers more money in the form of recall elections to try and dispose of legitimate and law-abiding elected officials. Governor Scott Walker may just be latest to face a recall, who by standing up to public sector unions has saved schools (and taxpayers) millions.

Ultimately, there is nothing a union shill won't do to keep the free rent coming, including the attempt to isolate, ostracize, and starve the families of those in the community who disagree with them. In Wisconsin, that has included organized boycotts of small businesses who refused to display pro-unions signs in their window. Not only do they not care if private sector jobs are lost as a result of government excess, the greedy union machine is literally trying to force entrepreneurs out of business in their own communities.

The absurd mantra of the Left can easily be summed up as, "Let's fight poverty by destroying wealth." But in the case of public sector unions, it's worse than that. It's literally the behavior of a parasite feeding off it's productive host until eventually the host can no longer survive and both parties collapse in chaos and ruin, or what Marx called "an endless revolution." That is a far cry from utopia.