The Tyrants Are Watching Barry Obama

The Perspective: Perhaps the major reason it has been 200 years since pirates dared challenge the United States of America on the high seas was the decisive action taken by Thomas Jefferson (the first Democrat) against them. Jefferson dispatched the schooner USS Enterprise in 1801 to the same Barbary Coast where today’s Somali (and as back then) Islamic pirates demanded financial tribute from the United States. The U.S. Navy soundly defeated the pirates.

Two years later the pirates were back for more. This time, they captured the USS Philadelphia along with its captain, William Bainbridge, the officers and crew and held them hostage. On the night of Feb. 16, 1804, Lt. Stephen Decatur, Jr. led a small band of the first American Marines. The Marines commandeered a Tripolitan ketch, which they re-christened USS Intrepid, to deceive the guards on board the Philadelphia and get close enough to the ship to storm the vessel. With support from American ships, the Marines set fire to the Philadelphia, preventing her use by the pirates and went on to capture the city of Tripoli. This is where the line came from in the Marine H ymn about “the shores of Tripoli”.

So far, the reaction by modern Democrats has been less than inspiring. Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry has threatened to hold hearings! That should strike fear into the hearts of the pirates. What will the Obama administration do if the pirates are captured alive? He won’t sent them to Gitmo, which he is closing down. Will they get ACLU lawyers? Will there be testimony from a “pirates rights” group? Will they be released on a technicality after a trial in U.S. courts? If there is not as forceful a response as there was during the Jefferson administration, it will invite more of these incidents. The world’s tyrants are watching to see how President Obama reacts. The message they get will determine how they respond to America and whether we will be in greater peril.

Amnesty=Bullshit.

The Perspective: It's all about taxes.

The New York Times reports this morning that President Obama intends to make immigration “reform” a priority this year. The Times quotes Cecilia Muñoz, deputy assistant to the president and director of intergovernmental affairs in the White House, calling for “policy reform that controls immigration and makes it an orderly system.”

Translating through the policy speak, Ms. Munoz is calling for amnesty. But what she is not calling for is any sort of fence, to secure the U.S.-Mexican border. Amnesty + No Fence is a formula for disaster.

But that’s the liberal Democratic agenda (shared by some Republicans, unfortunately), and it must be stopped. Open border advocates and some in Congress are urging Obama to stop construction of the 670 mile fence along the Mexican border.

Others are are even pushing for the fence to be completely dismantled, ignoring the will of the American people who overwhelmingly rejected the McCain-Kennedy amnesty plan in 2007 and instead supported border security.

During the recent presidential elections, the illegal immigration crisis was downplayed by both major party presidential candidates and virtually ignored by the elite media and pundits in New York and Washington. That was good news for Obama, who supported amnesty in 2007, but it was bad news for John McCain, who never could see that border security was a potential game-changer for him.

Many “Washington political experts” stated that illegal immigration was no longer an issue. But according to a recent Rasmussen Reports national survey, most Americans support the continued construction of a fence along the U.S.-Mexico border and the use of the military, if necessary, in border areas.

The pro-open border, anti-fence activists are now emboldened because former Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano, the new Secretary of Homeland Security, is perceived to be one of them and may try to halt or further delay construction of the much-needed barrier.

The issue of border security is all the more important at a time when Mexico is in crisis. Some 5,700 deaths last year in Mexico were blamed on drug violence–is now the time to make it easier to cross the border?

In addition, America is now plunging into what could be a deep and protracted recession. With unemployment on the rise, American workers need the work, and the United States government can no longer afford the economic costs associated with illegal immigration.

The Obama administration should complete the fence and secure our borders. The legal status of those here illegally should wait–although, of course, all Americans should obey the law, and nobody should be here illegally.

If Obama won’t fulfill his sworn duty to defend the nation, and to protect the American people, then he should be held to account, by peaceful political action.

And that calling to account will happen, starting with the 2009 elections, in Virginia and New Jersey.

Budget Tricks

The Perspective:

Congressional Democrats reacted to the shocking scope of President Obama’s plan to spend $3.6 trillion next year in his budget (and a stunning $42.2 trillion over ten years) the way Washington insiders usually do — they turned to tricks and gimmicks. They “trimmed” his budget and got it down to $3.0 trillion for next year and about $15 trillion over five years without actually cutting any spending. Strip off the gimmicks, however, and the Congressional budgets still look almost exactly like the president’s budget.

Here are the top 5 tricks they used to do it:

5. Hiding Years 6 Through 10

President Obama criticized Bush for not following the practice of the Clinton years of doing 10-year budgeting, opting instead for shorter 5-year budgets. The White House made the case that showing longer-term obligations was important given the enormity of the country’s fiscal challenges. Congressional Democrats, however, decided that the quickest and easiest way to conceal a huge portion of the Obama budget from the public was to simply shorten it to 5 years, hiding some of the biggest big ticket items in the secret second 5 years.

4. A Hidden Wall Street Bailout

President Obama included $250 billion in additional Wall Street bailouts in his budget (a bit of a budget trick in itself — since it assumes that $750 billion in assets would be purchased that could later be sold for $500 billion). Both the House and Senate budget resolutions failed to show any funding for the almost certain new rounds of Wall Street bailouts, despite the fact that Treasury Secretary Geithner has already announced an expanded plan, and the Washington-Wall Street bailout machine shows no signs of slowing down. Future bailouts could cost hundreds of billions or trillions of dollars, making a budget that fails to include them an extreme low-ball.

3. Hidden Tax Hikes

The Senate and House both pretend that the Making Work Pay tax credit — Obama’s big campaign promise, originally a $500 per worker credit that’s since been trimmed to $400 — will expire after 2010 (House) or 2012 (Senate). Obama would pay for those so-called tax cuts (more than 42 percent, according to the White House which would take the form of checks to non-income tax payers) through revenues from his cap-and-trade energy tax.

Cap-and-trade is included in the Congressional budgets but there is no word about how high the tax hike would be. In fact, the Congressional budgets claim, unbelievably, that this tax would be “revenue-neutral.” Congress also pretends that the Alternative Minimum Tax will be allowed to slam the middle class, providing only for a 1-year fix, despite the White House insistence that there be a permanent reform. Even the 1-year cost, though, is hidden from the deficit total through a reserve fund.

2. Secret Reserve Funds

Speaking of reserve funds, lots of them are being used to hide a wide variety of tax hikes and policy changes that would substantially change the overall budget numbers — making them look like the original Obama budget — it they were properly accounted for. The House has 17 reserve funds and the Senate 15, most of which claim to be deficit-neutral without any explanation of how substantial tax cuts and spending increases could be done in a deficit-neutral fashion without big tax hikes. One reserve fund that does have an associated funding level is the Medicare reserve fund that would increase mandatory spending $285 billion over 10 years-on top of the reported total numbers for spending and deficits. These reserve funds serve no purpose other than to avoid accountability and transparency, and make the budget look a lot smaller than it really is.

1. Using the Reconciliation Trick for Health Care

This is by far the worst and most dangerous trick in the budget. The cap-and-trade energy tax could potentially be forced through Congress in budget reconciliation, a trick to avoid proper debate and the normal 60 vote requirement for important legislation. Fortunately, last week Sen. Mike Johanns of Nebraska introduced a budget amendment to prohibit the use of reconciliation for cap-and-trade, and it passed on a solid 67-31 vote. Every Republican supported the amendment, as did 26 Democrats. Unfortunately, Democrats are still poised to pull the same reconciliation trick for their plan to nationalize and ration health care.

While the Senate passed a budget resolution without reconciliation language, the House budget specifically includes a section authorizing the use of reconciliation for a national health care plan. This is despite the fact that reconciliation only matters in the Senate, where it can short-circuit debate and pass legislation with only 50 votes instead of the regular sixty. This sets up a conference committee where Senate reconciliation instructions can be inserted and railroaded through, despite the fact that the Senate already rejected this approach.

The country deserves an honest, public discussion of where we’re going on issues like health care, energy, taxes, and spending. Unfortunately we have a Congress whose budget is a big bag of tricks and gimmicks to hide its true cost and to slip major policy changes in through the back door.

The "Reckless Generation"

The Perspective:

Our parents and grandparents were part of what has been recognized as the “Greatest Generation.” With sheer grit and unflinching will they conquered fascism, saved freedom, and put America on course to a level of prosperity never before seen. Through their efforts, they left us a legacy that even centuries from now, history will regard with awe.

But, if we are not careful, the legacy of our generation will be very different. If we follow the course set forth in Washington by Democrats’ stunning budget proposal, we will shirk our responsibilities to our children and grandchildren, burying our nation in an avalanche of debt.

The Democrats’ budget proposal will double the national debt in five years and triple it in ten! Our nation’s debt will increase to more than 82% of our nation’s entire GDP by the last year of the budget. We are talking year after year of record spending, record taxes, and record deficits.

When Americans are feeling the squeeze of a painful recession and tightening their belts, this budget will squeeze them even tighter -– and it will take from, instead of providing for, generations to come.

It’s time to stop mortgaging our children’s future and time to start building them a better tomorrow. We cannot let history record that we were the “Reckless Generation.”

The expansion of the federal government in this budget is shocking. Call your representatives in Congress today, and tell them to vote against this massive increase in spending and debt and put America on the road to recovery –- not bankruptcy.

Let me make it easy for you. Here’s the number for the Congressional switchboard: (202) 224-3121

Not what I promised, still adding the finishing touches to that segment, you should get it by Sunday.

Mr. Obama WHAT ABOUT FORD?

The Perspective:

Drastic times call for drastic measures.

With billions of TARP dollars being tossed to GM, interim CEO Fritz Henderson today said that they need to change big and change fast. My guess is that they will cut brands and "lines" (models within the brand). I would recommend that they keep Cadillac and Chevrolet and let the rest go to the junkyard in the sky. Bye, see ya later, alligator, sayonara... You cannot compete with so many different makes and models. The bailed-out auto maker should focus its marketing dollars and design talent toward the two relatively successful brands already within GM domestic.

Chrysler is majority owned by Cerberus Capital, a hedge fund. It still infuriates me that a hedge fund is the ultimate beneficiary of my tax dollars. Cerberus, for those who have forgotten, bought Chrysler in a move of financial bravado. They overpaid massively, but justified it by claiming Chrysler was an American brand that would thrive. Thrive it did not -- and now our tax dollars are bailing out a hedge-fund bet gone bad.

What has been lost in all this? The fate of the one U.S. car manufacturer that has done things right: Ford. With billions of dollars of free money being thrown at GM and Chrysler, Ford has been placed at a competitive disadvantage. While Ford is still paying high fees to service its debt the old fashion way, its major competitors GM and Chrysler are receiving free cash to shore up their businesses.

Think of it as a neighborhood where homeowner Ford is making its high-rate mortgage payments on time while you and me are paying for neighbors GM’s and Chrysler’s mortgages. Ridiculous, isn't it?

Where are you, Obama administration? Why aren't you pointing out that Ford is doing things right? Why aren't you arranging deals for Ford internationally?

Will you join me to promote Ford as the one U.S. auto corporation that is actually doing things right ...

Tomorrow, another short one, but one that will open your mind...

Here's To A One Term President Obama

The Perspective:

On Monday, the president of the United States, a man who never had to meet a payroll in his life, fired the chief executive officer of General Motors. Obama did so because he didn’t like General Motors’ reorganization plan–it was reportedly not tough enough on the bondholders. In Old America, GM would have gone into bankruptcy and been forced to sit down with bondholders, shareholders, unions and other creditors and worked it out. But no more. Obama, having failed to deliver on card checks to his union constituency, wasn’t about to let established bankruptcy procedure resolve the problem possibly at the expense of unions.

Welcome to the New America.

What should we call this place? Lately, on the right, and in various Tea Parties held across the country, the word “socialism” has cropped up. But this doesn’t quite fit.

New America: Authoritarian.

New America’s Managerial State has not been that programmatic. There’s no wholesale nationalization or expropriation. Instead, these statist elites seem to be operating more episodically, accumulating power in increments large and small, and here and there — to what cumulative end none can say.

But it’s not too early to label what to call this New America: Authoritarian. At the moment, it’s a mild authoritarianism, not too burdensome, more conceptual than actual.

Sound too paranoid? Perhaps. But consider some recent troubling events. Congress passes a 400 page, $780 billion dollar budget without bothering to read it! – If this happened in a country called Nicamala, we’d smile and call it a “rubber stamp” legislature; then, when President Obama gets caught including AIG bonuses in that budget — an tax subsidized organization with suspiciously close ties to the president’s resume and campaign — he helps deflect attention by sponsoring menacing visits to the homes of AIG executives. Meanwhile, paid political hacks and presidential surrogates are sent forth to attack radio talk show hosts, TV stock gurus, all the while whispering “Fairness Doctrine.” If this happened in a country called Venezil, we’d call it political thuggery and figure that one can’t expect any better from banana republics. Obamistas?

Meanwhile, the private sector is breathlessly hyper-focused on Washington rather than building a better mousetrap. The irony of all this is that owing to voters’ bad judgment and stupidity (yes, I’ll be among the first to publicly say it), we’ve elected a man to find us jobs who has never had a real job and a guy with no corporate experience to straighten out our largest companies.

As Howard Dirksen says, there are reasons why state governments don’t let 11-year-olds drive cars. There are also reasons why Americans have generally not elected neophytes to high office. But to paraphrase another old saying, if you’re having bad presidency, make it a short one.

Here’s to a one-term President Obama.

Tomorrow I have a short one on FORD.

Mr. Obama Goes To War...

The Perspective:

Sixty days into his presidency, it’s official: President Barack Hussein Obama now owns the war in Afghanistan and has expanded it to Pakistan. And not a minute too soon.

As the president was unveiling his new strategy to “disrupt, dismantle and defeat al Qaeda” and its allies, Pakistanis were cleaning up the debris of a suicide bomber’s latest attack in northern Pakistan – an explosion inside a mosque, of all places, which killed 48 Muslims and wounded dozens more. Meanwhile, key Taliban leaders in Afghanistan and Pakistan were distributing an agreement to bury their differences in order to counter the new American-led offensive “for the sake of God, God’s happiness, and the strength of religion.”

Here’s what has changed, and what hasn’t, in the strategy that Mr. Obama and his key aides unveiled today:

First, the president’s policy is a “surge” of forces, though he studiously avoided using that word for fear of paying any tribute to what former President George Bush learned and accomplished, albeit belatedly, in Iraq. The addition of 4,000 more troops to the 17,000 the president has already committed will bring the number of combat, training, and support troops on the Afghan ground from the 31,000 deployed at the end of Mr. Bush’s term in December, 2008 to some 68,000 by this fall, senior military officials say. So those who have urged Mr. Obama to reduce America’s commitment to the Af-Pak conflict are likely to be disappointed. Indeed, Senator Carl Levin, Democrat of Michigan, lost little time today in criticizing the strategy.

Second, Mr. Obama is adding hundreds more civilians to the effort to encourage Afghanistan’s development and internal stability and is tripling development aid to Pakistan. This “surge” of civilian forces and resources means that President Obama eschewed the advice of those in his inner circle – among them, Vice President Biden and adviser Jim Steinberg – who reportedly lobbied for downsizing our efforts and adopting a narrower counter-terrorism strategy that would have enabled Washington to build and train the Afghan army and police, declare victory and leave. President Obama’s announcement, followed by a briefing by three key advisors at the White House, suggests that the president has opted for the broader strategy favored by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Afghan special Af-Pak envoy Richard Holbrooke, and CENTCOM chief General David Petraeus. The goal of that more ambitious strategy is, in Mr. Obama’s words, to enhance the “military, governance, and economic capacity of Afghanistan and Pakistan.”

In remarks after the president spoke, Bruce Riedel, an author of the new Af-Pak strategy, specifically rejected the term “nation-building” to describe what the Obama Administration will do in Af-Pak. But his description of the road ahead sounds an awful lot like, well, nation building. “There are 396 districts in Afghanistan. There’s been no training at that level; There are lots of things like that we can do,” he said.

The aides also stressed Washington’s desire to help Afghanistan improve its embattled agricultural sector, hit hard by war and competition from the more lucrative poppy crops in southern Afghanistan, largely controlled by the Taliban. America and its NATO allies will also step up efforts to train more police, help protect judges, and stand up for courts at the district and provincial levels. Richard Holbrooke focused on the need to strengthen the psychological and communications aspects of the Af-Pak war. Washington, he said, would not repeat its mistake of ignoring the 150 illegal FM radio stations and the Taliban’s nightly broadcasts of “names of people they’re going to behead or they’ve beheaded.”

Make no mistake: this is an ambitious agenda.

Third, despite Mr. Obama’s call for a trilateral “dialogue” with Afghanistan and Pakistan, President Obama seems committed to continuing, and even increasing, the Predator attacks on Al Qaeda safe havens in Pakistan that have already killed an estimated 9 of the top 20 Al Qaeda leaders. Although the president only alluded to the strikes in his remarks, Michelle Flournoy, his number three at the Pentagon, said that the “counterterrorism piece” of the Af-Pak strategy would remain “a central part of this mission,.” Indeed, she added, “I certainly believe we are going to be increasing our intelligence focus in this theater, and as opportunities arise that may increase the pace of operations, as well.”

How different is the strategy announced today from what candidate Obama promised or for that matter, what leading Republicans have pressed for? Not very different, say some Washington insiders. Max Boot, a conservative analyst at the Council on Foreign Relations, concluded that President Obama’s strategy was “pretty much all that supporters of the war effort could have asked for, and probably pretty similar to what a President McCain would have decided on.”

James S. Robbins, a former Pentagon official with the American Foreign Policy Council in Washington, noted that the Obama strategy was remarkably similar to what former President Bush had proposed in 2004. The Bush strategy had “five pillars” that strongly resembled those outlined by Mr. Obama today: defeat terrorism, help build and strengthen the Afghan security structure, help Afghanistan“clear and hold” territory, promote reconstruction and good governance, and engage regional states in ensuring Afghanistan’s success.

But President Bush’s war of choice in Iraq sapped priority and resources from the war of necessity in Afghanistan. President Obama now intends to reverse that flow and also to place greater priority on stabilizing Pakistan, without which Afghan security is a non-starter.

Whether President Obama succeeds will depend on how he implements his strategy. And implementation is still a work in process, his aides acknowledge. Team Obama also chose not to clarify how they will reconcile the sometimes contradictory goals Obama endorsed with the realities of the region. For instance, how will they reconcile their determination to work closely with Pakistan with their knowledge that elements in the Pakistani security services are aiding and abetting the Taliban inside Afghanistan?

They also said little about the specific “benchmarks” they would adopt for measuring progress in this war. How will they measure, say, a decline in Afghan corruption? The President’s strategy, says Mr. Riedel, is a “road map for moving forward,” not a “campaign plan” or a “straightjacket.”

Giving your administration diplomatic and military wiggle room is almost always wise. But by making the defeat of Al-Qaeda and its allies in Afghanistan and Pakistan a key foreign policy objective, President Obama has now given the nation a benchmark for measuring him, his staying power, and the effectiveness of his foreign policy.