Where Is the Outrage?

Published in the Lynchburg Ledger on March 11, 2011 

When Barack H. Obama took office in 2009, the price of gas at the pump was $1.95 a gallon.  As of last Tuesday, the national average is $3.52, an increase of 81 percent.  With the price of crude oil on the rise due to the unrest in the Middle East, we could easily see $4.00 gas by Easter and $5.00 gas by Memorial Day.

So where is the outrage from the mainstream media?  You know if this happened during a Republican administration, the media would be on the warpath and demanding the government do something.

Well, it is the government doing something, that is partially responsible for the high prices.  What they are doing is preventing our vast domestic sources of oil to be tapped.  We need to revive “Drill Baby, Drill” but because of all the hype over the spill in the Gulf of Mexico, we are drilling less, not more.

Obama still has a hold on drilling in the Gulf in spite of a court ruling against him. The administration late last Friday appealed a judge’s orders directing the Interior Department to act on several pending Gulf Coast deep-water drilling permits.  Meanwhile, many of the drilling rigs have departed for more friendly locations, costing Louisiana some 30,000 jobs.

It is not as if we haven’t had a warning.  As far back as 1973 when the members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) proclaimed an oil embargo against the U.S in response to our support for Israel, we knew we were vulnerable.

For 38 years, we have heard talk about becoming energy independent, all the while becoming more and more dependent on foreign sources of oil.  The problem is not technical, it is political, specifically the left-wing, environmental wacko type of political opposition.

On Feb 16, 2011, President Obama declared oil was the “fuel of the past “without really being specific as to what the “fuel of the future” might be.  Sure, he talked about alternate sources, but they will never meet our needs and he knows it.  I believe he actually wants $5.00 per gallon gas because it is not energy independence he wants, but behavior modification.

When it comes to energy, there are only three sources on earth: solar, lunar and nuclear.  All energy can be put into one of the three categories.

The least obvious is lunar power, the gravitational pull the moon has on the seas causing tides.  I see some TV commercials talking about harnessing the tides to generate electricity.  You would need specific areas where tides are abnormally high, such as in the Bay of Fundy.  Each day 100 billion tons of seawater flows in and out of the Bay of Fundy during one tide cycle.  That would be fine as long as you didn’t need any power during the two low and high tides in every day. 

That is the problem, having energy available in the quantities you need, when you need it.

The second in nuclear power which produces about 13-14 percent of the world’s energy needs.  Where France derives over 75% of its electricity from nuclear energy, the US derives only 20 percent of our total electric power from nuclear.  We currently have 104 nuclear reactors on line producing 799 billion kilowatt hours of power.

The US has not built a new nuclear power plant for the past 30 years.  The accident at Three Mile Island, which injured nobody, gave the environmental wacko’s all the ammunition they needed to pull the plug on nuclear.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Navy currently operated approximately 150 nuclear powered ships and has done so safely for years.

One of the problems with nuclear is the storage of spent fuel rods.  Again, this is not a technical problem but a political one.  A depository under Yucca Mountain in Nevada is all ready to accept spent fuel rods but Democrat Harry Reid has blocked that for years.

Finally there is solar energy, by far the biggest source. 

Usually when we hear the term solar, we think of a bank of photovoltaic cells that generate electricity when exposed to sunlight.  However, every other form of energy we use is part of the solar family.

Wind energy is solar.  The sun is the only cause of our climate.  It created areas of high and low pressure and winds are generated as the high pressure winds flow towards low pressure areas.

Hydroelectric power is also solar.  The sun evaporated the water from the seas and it falls back to earth in the form of precipitation at higher elevations.  Power is generated as this water attempts to flow back to the sea under the force of gravity.  This is called a “renewable” form of energy and we get about 10 percent of our power from hydroelectric.  All the potential dam sights have been developed so there will be no expansion in this form of energy generation.

Bio-fuels are also solar, without the sun, nothing will grow.

Finally, oil, gas, wood and coal are forms of stored solar energy.  They were all living organisms at one time, dependent on the sun.

We get about 50 percent of our electric power from coal and 20 percent from natural gas.

Oil produces the fuel we need for transportation because it is easily stored, converted and transported.  The US has sufficient reserves to last for at least 100 more years.  I remember back in the ‘70’s, the predictions were we would run out of oil by 2000.

In 1995, Congress passed legislation to open ANWR to drilling, but “William the Impeached” veto’s it.  Since then, the Democrats have blocked just about every attempt to develop domestic sources of oil.

Petroleum is the fuel of the past, but it is also the fuel of the present and the future.  If we don’t kick these liberal Democrats out of office in 2012 and begin developing our own oil and gas reserves as well as opening up more coal mining, in a very short period of time $5 gas will seem like a bargain.

Will We See a Repeat of 1995?

Published in the Lynchburg Ledger on March 4, 2011 

Congress has just kicked the can down the road, postponing a potential government shutdown by two weeks.  In the continuing resolution which passed by the House by a 335 to 91 vote, the government will be funded from March 4^th until March 18^th and cut spending by $4 billion.  Senate Democrats have indicated they will pass the extension and Barack Obama has indicated he would sign it although he favored a 4-week extension. 

By way of a review, we are at this stage because the last Congress failed to pass a budget for the fiscal year which began October 1, 2010.  The Democrat-dominated House, led by frequent-flyer Nancy Pelosi, did not even attempt to produce a budget because last year was an election year.  The voters noticed and fired her for non-performance of duty.  Since October 1^st, the government has been running on “continuing resolutions” which keeps the government running at current spending levels.

The U.S. House has passed a budget to fund the federal government to the end of the fiscal year, September 30, 2011, but removed funding for many of the Democrat’s pet projects for a total savings for the remainder of the year of $61 Billion.  All the Senate has to do is pass the House budget bill and send it to President Obama for his signature, but the Democrats are stalling. 

Some of the cuts in spending that infuriate the Democrats are the de-funding of Planned Parenthood, The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, $14 million for the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and certain EPA and Department of Energy programs.  The Republicans cut the EPA budget by about 29% and included prohibitions to fund programs implementing carbon dioxide regulations and regulation of cement plants, which is the Obama Administration’s way of implementing Cap and Trade, which failed in Congress.

The Republican House, the Democrat Senate and White House are playing the old game of chicken.  None wants to be the first to blink.  Democrats must think the two-week extension will give them time to sway public opinion to their side.  I don’t see that happening.

It was the Democrats in the last Congress that rushed legislation like ObamaCare though Congress without giving legislators and the public time to read them.  Now those the shoes is on the other foot, Democrats seem more than willing to slow things down.

Failure to reach a settlement by March 18th will result in a shutdown of the non-essential functions of the federal government. Would that be a good or bad thing?

The last time the federal government shut down was in 1995 under similar circumstances.  Back then, we had a Republican House and Senate and “William the Impeached” in the White House.  Once again, it was the Republicans trying to rein in spending and the tax-and spend Democrats in opposition.

In 1995, the Republicans took a short-term public relations hit and were the first to blink.  In the long-term, they suffered little ill effects at the polls.  They lost only nine House seats in 1996, easily retaining their majority.  In the Senate, they gained two seats.

Where they did suffer was in the personal attacks lunched against them by Democrats.  Their philosophy has always been if you can’t beat them at the polls, smear their reputation.  Then - Speaker Newt Gingrich was targeted by the Democrats on a phony ethics issue.  Democrats are already trying the same tactic this year.

The entire political climate has changed in the 16 years since the last government shutdown.  In 1995, about the only well known conservative talk show host was Rush Limbaugh; there was no blogosphere, no Fox News Network, no Tea Party movement and no Lynchburg Ledger.

Today, all that has changed.  Much more unbiased information is available today than ever before.  In 1995, the three major TV networks, the New York Times and the Washington Post dominated the news with their liberal bias and spin.  The Fox News Network, now available in 102 million households across the country, was launched on October 7, 1996 and quickly grew to be the top TV news provider in the nation.

The Internet has also had a major impact and provided a much needed alternate source for news.  Outlets such as The Drudge Report, Real Clear Politics and Townhall.com are just a couple of excellent sources of information.

A Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey reported last Monday that fifty-eight percent (58%) of the respondents say it’s better to have a partial shutdown until Democrats and Republicans can agree on what spending to cut.  The Democrats have lost the argument in the public square and they are beginning to step out of denial.

With a possible government shutdown looming, bureaucrats in federal agencies will be scrambling to determine how many “essential” workers will stay on the job.  They will decide just who qualifies as essential personnel, earning the right to continue working even as the rest of the government gets furloughed.

With the rebellion of unionized government workers in Wisconsin and other states, I think it is about time the nation had the debate over rights of the taxpayers and the unionized public employees.  Today, the percentage of unionized workers is approximately 11 percent and half of those are government workers.  Government workers now make on average more than the taxpayers who pay their salaries and benefits.

The federal government needs to trim its spending as the various states do.  In some cases, cuts will hurt, but for the long-term economic health of the nation, they must be made.

Let us hope the Republicans won’t be the first ones to blink this time as the public is solidly in their corner this time.

Republicans Keeping Their Promises

 Published  in the Lynchburg Ledger on February 25, 2011

Republicans elected last November are keeping their promises, and the Democrats are going ballistic.

Republicans took control of the House of Representatives with a landslide that has not been seen in decades.  They made significant gains in the Senate but failed to win a majority, which will now make for interesting political debates and standoffs.

Republicans also took 10 governorships from Democrats, adding to the two they took from Democrats in 2009; one being Bob McDonnell here in Virginia.  Republicans also made significant gains in state legislatures.

One of the biggest Republican campaign promises was to cut spending and that they are doing.  But the Democrats, who apparently were tone deaf last November, are doing everything they can to preserve their tax-and-spend ways.

The U.S. House passed a repeal of ObamaCare only to be shunned by the still Democrat-controlled U.S. Senate.  Senator Harry Reid simply refuses to deal with the House passed bill, for now anyway.

Last weekend, the House passed a budget bill for the remainder of FY 2011, which began October 1, 2010.  The Democrats under the leadership of Nancy Pelosi simply refused to do their job.  Budget bills are to originate in the House, and Pelosi never bothered to address the budget, opting instead to spend their time on ObamaCare, Cap and Trade and repealing “Don’t Ask – Don’t Tell.”  The government was kept running on continuing resolutions.

In the budget for the remainder of this fiscal year, Republicans slashed $61 billion from current spending, just as they promised to do.  They cut funding drastically and in some cases de-funded programs completely. 

They cut funding for implementing ObamaCare, de-funded Planned Parenthood and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) which I was thrilled to see.

Planned Parenthood is the largest provider of abortions in America, while CPB has outlived its usefulness and become a liberal propaganda outlet.

Senate Democrats have vowed to block the budget, and Obama has promised to veto it, setting up the possibility of a government shutdown.

The last time the government was shut down over spending was in 1995 when the Republicans instituted similar spending reforms, and President William (the Impeached) Clinton vetoed it. 

It was the Republicans who took the public relations hit after the liberal media spun the issue to favor Clinton and the Democrats.  However, today, the climate is a bit different.  With the Internet, blogs, talk radio, Fox News Network (fair and balanced) and the Tea Party movement which has educated many, the liberal media will not have it so easy pinning it on Republicans this time around.

With Jim Webb announcing he will not run in 2012, we will see just how much of a liberal he is when the House budget bill arrives.  We know Mark Warner is a liberal, but we may be able to apply pressure on him to heed the will of the people.

Financial reform is also being felt in the individual states; the most notable being Wisconsin.  The outgoing Democrat governor left Republican Governor Scott Walker a $3.6 Billion deficit to deal with.  Wisconsin, like most of the states, must balance their budget every year.  To deal with the looming financial disaster, the state House passed a bill requested by Walker which included some much needed financial reforms. 

Much of the reforms addressed the out-of-control costs of the state’s public employees, who are all unionized.  They responded by calling Walker a Nazi (and a dictator generally); signs calling him a rapist; and signs calling for his death.  The liberal media has also chimed in with similar rhetoric.  I guess they didn’t get the Obama memo on “civility.”

Union members are being asked to increase their contribution to their health care from 5 to 12.4 percent.  They are also being asked to contribute 5.8 percent of their own retirement, which is currently totally taxpayer-funded.  Other reforms include limiting collective bargaining to base pay only, stopping the state from collecting union dues, requiring an annual secret ballot to keep unions certified, and for union dues to be voluntary and not required as a condition of employment.  Walker’s proposed union bargaining reforms will exempt police and firemen.

Walker, a former county executive, says that for local governments to balance their budgets, they must have these reforms.

The teacher’s unions are the largest unions in the state and have reacted the most violently.  Teachers have called in sick en masse, only to show up at the state capitol in Madison to protest.  With Wisconsin scoring 44^th out of all the states in standardized testing, right at the bottom, perhaps the state needs a massive turnover in the teacher ranks.

The average pay and benefits package for a Wisconsin public employee is $89,500 where the average for workers in the private sector in only $67,000.  Is it any wonder that Republicans promising financial reform were swept in all over the country?

The Democrats in the Wisconsin Senate fled the state so there would be no quorum in the Senate to vote on the bill.  Republicans hold the majority in the Wisconsin Senate so not one Democrat vote is needed.  These Democrats are blocking the democratic process from following the will of the people.

Wisconsin is just the beginning   Financial reform is on tap for many states such as Ohio, Florida, New York and even California, and the public employee unions in each state will undoubtedly react just like as in Wisconsin.  That is why Scott Walker and the Wisconsin Republicans must stand their ground. 

We should be very thankful Virginia is a “Right to Work” state and the unions can not bankrupt us as they have so many other states.