Federal Government’s Continued Medling in the Private Sector Will Make It Impossible For US Industry to Recover
The oppressiveness of our federal government continues to constrain any real recovery in our economy and until we can get them off the private sectors back, economic stagnation will continue in the US making us more and more non-competitive in both our own markets and overseas markets.
Take the example that I am pointing out in only a single industry and multiply the same kind of behavior across many industries including the power sector, the energy sector, and others. It is no wonder we can’t snap out of this recession that we find ourselves in today.
The airline industry in the US is a significant “driver” of our economic engine. Yet our federal government continues to use the industry and their investors as a piggy bank to fund their outrageous, undisciplined, and out of control spending. The airlines today and we the passengers currently pay 17 different federal aviation taxes and fees which totaled last year $16.5 billion. Federal taxes have increased from 7 percent of the price of a ticket in 1972 to 20 percent in 2011. By the way, this excludes income taxes paid by the airline companies! When is this going to end? Just imagine if you started a business and the federal government took 20% off the top before you saw any money coming into your business operations. Airlines are now taxed higher than the so-called “sin” taxes which are applied to alcohol, tobacco, and firearms.
The airline industry is a significant driving force to the US’s economic activity and employs millions of Americans. They also are involved in creating lots of jobs at hub cities and reaching out to small and medium-sized communities. Why do they deserve to be taxed as they are today? When will it stop?
Guess what, the federal government is not stopping here. Obama administration is now proposing under the American Jobs Act a new $100 per flight tax that would cost $11 billion over the next 10 years. The proposal also seeks increase the passenger security tax from today’s minimum of $2.50 per customer per flight segment to $7.50! This is outrageous—a 3x increase! This proposed increase would cost nearly $25 billion over 10 years. More than half of that would be not to improve security but instead applied to paying down our federal government’s debt. Why should the airline industry be singled out to pay for Washington’s irresponsible spending?
If these major tax increases get put into place, not only will we as consumers be saddled with them but airlines themselves being increasingly squeezed, will be forced to pull out of serving smaller communities. The airlines then will be forced to lay off more employees as it downsizes to eliminate routes and service that become unprofitable. It is a death spiral.
Our airlines also compete against foreign airline companies whose government in many cases have enlightened aviation policies.
Again, just multiply these oppressive government taxes and tariffs across many other industries and it does not take a rocket scientist to understanding how damaging the current federal government is to industry and job creation.
EPA and Obama are Bullies
Please email your Senator in support of Senator. Mike Johanns, R-Neb., bill introduced into the Senate on Nov. 3 that prohibits the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency from rejecting a state implementation plan under certain provisions of the Clean Air Act when the state has not been given “reasonable time” to develop the plan.
The bill, S. 1805, comes in response to EPA’s Cross-State Air Pollution Rule, which addresses power plant emissions the agency has identified as crossing state lines. The EPA rule became final in July and requires compliance starting in January 2012, a timeframe many state officials have argued will be nearly impossible to meet. Under the legislation, the compliance deadline for the rule would be
delayed until states have been given at least two years to develop a state regulatory plan.
The fact is that the EPA is crafting new rules left and right with little to no regard for their practicality and negative consequences on our economy, the cost of electricity, and the severe unemployment situation that the US is currently dealing with at this time. Complying with these rules under the current timeline is not feasible and freezing states out of the due process is unprecedented and wrong,” The states in the past have always had a chance to at minimum develop their own rules to try to balance environmental issues and to protect jobs and avoid skyrocketing electricity bills. The proposed legislation trying to move back to the ways the process used to work, not as it is working under the current administration.
States have long been given the power to develop their own regulatory regimes, with federal intervention occurring only under limited circumstances.
EPA and the Obama administration in recent months has taken steps to disregard this process by implementing federal emissions rules on a rushed timeline without giving states adequate time to develop their own plans. Unless action is taken states are faced with meeting new EPA regulations starting in January, which could lead to layoffs, tens of millions of dollars in increased utilities costs and dramatically increased electricity prices for many Americans. S. 1805 requires the EPA to give states at least two years to submit their own regulatory plan and prohibits the agency from implementing a federal plan if states have not been given enough time.
By a vote of 249-169, the House of Representatives on Sept. 23 approved H.R. 2401, the Transparency in Regulatory Analysis of Impacts on the Nation Act, which mandates a study of the cumulative impact of several EPA rules, including the cross-state rule, on the economy. The White House threatened to veto the House legislation.
The Obama administration under his leadership either doesn’t appreciate or understand the impact of these onerous EPA mandates or they do and are supporting them with no interest of truly trying to get our country back on the right track but instead are doing it exclusively for political means. I think the latter is the case.
During these difficult times, why is our administration and the EPA pushing accelerated and overly controlling restrictions on our economy when in fact our economy especially now, needs to recover. It simply makes no logical sense. There are reasonable balances and trade offs in all choices that are made—why doesn’t our federal government recognize this—well—you know the answer to that question now don’t you?
Action Alert – Congressional “Super Committee”
We need everyone to contact the Super Committee with your demands. Their contact information is below but first, here is a little background information that you may or may not know.
The “Super Committee” was formed as a condition to the “Debt Ceiling” debate, this past late-summer’s effort to increase federal spending authority for the president without really saying so.
We believe it is an unconstitutional construct, but it is there and we have to deal with it.
This Super Committee, comprised of twelve Congressmen (six from each party; half from the House and half from the Senate) was tasked to reduce the deficit. If the Super Committee does not come to bi-partisan terms, and Congress fails to pass the recommendations they propose, automatic “cuts” kick in.
Democrats are looking to pass $1.3 trillion in tax increases, with a similar amount in cuts, over the next 10 years. As usual, especially with the likes of Sen. John Kerry and Sen. Patty Murray sitting on this Super Committee, the Democrats are pushing for more spending on top of the tax increases. The same game plan they have been preaching for the last 3 years.
For a good analysis on the Super Committee, see this from The Heritage Foundation:
http://heritageaction.com/2011/10/note-to-super-committee-don%e2%80%99t-raise-taxes/
It appears that those involved are NOT attempting to look for real cuts. And any cuts to Medicare/Medicaid will be overturned as soon as the next Congress convenes.
Republicans offer to cut deficits by about $2.2 trillion over a decade; about one-third of that coming from increases in items such as Medicare premiums, the sale of public lands and airport fees — measures that increase government revenue without raising taxes. The GOP plan also assumes that tax reform would generate economic growth that would also lift revenues.
The GOP plan would also cut about $500 billion from Medicare over the next decade and $185 billion from Medicaid, officials said.
Democrats say that elsewhere in the budget they plan to reduce deficits by more than $3 trillion over the coming decade, while financing a $450 billion jobs bill along the lines that President Barack Obama is recommending. The same worthless “jobs bill” that was defeated in the Senate.
If the Democrats were serious, they would cut Obamacare, which could save over $2 trillion during same time ten-year period. See this link for the detail:
http://www.kiowacountysignal.com/opinions/x703875050/Repeal-of-Obamacare-could-save-2-6-trillion
Tea Party Patriots has railed over the last 2 ½ years – Reduce the size of government; Slash spending and Repeal Obamacare – for trillions in savings!
Credit rating agencies, yet again, have stated emphatically that nothing less than $4 to $5 trillion in spending cuts will stem another downgrade in the U.S. credit rating… but, apparently, members of the Super Committee believe their half-baked ideas (that they know will be rejected) will lead to some sort of consensus (and maybe political gain) in 2012?
Write to the Super Committee – but don’t just stop there; e-mail, phone, fax, and tweet!
Here is a direct link to their website:
http://www.deficitreduction.gov/public/index.cfm/contact
Whatever you can do – create a presence, from the Palm Beach County Tea Party as well as for the Tea Party Patriots groups all across the country!
The lobbyists are all there, waiting to add more dollars to Super Committee members’ campaign coffers! We have millions of members, enthusiastic Patriots who stand for their Country, NOT Party! Put pressure on them for: NO increase in ANY taxes, and CUT spending, PERIOD!
Here are your “Super Committee” members:
Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-TX) Committee Co-Chair: @RepHensarling
Phone: 202-225-3484 Fax: 202-226-4888
Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) Committee Co-Chair: @PattyMurray
Phone: 202-224-2621 Fax: 202-224-0238 Toll Free: 866-481-9186
Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD): @ChrisVanHollen
Phone: 202-225-5341 Fax: 202-225-0375
Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ): @SenJonKyl
Phone: 202-224-4521 Fax: 202-224-2207
Sen. John Kerry (D-MA): @JohnKerry
Phone: 202-224-2742
Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA): @SenToomey
Phone: 202-224-4254 Fax: 202-228-0284
Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT): No Known Twitter Account
Phone: 202-224-2651 Fax: 202-224-9412
Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH): @robportman
Phone: 202-224-3353
Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-CA): @RepBecerra
Phone: 202-225-6235
Rep. Dave Camp (R-MI): No Known Twitter Account
Phone: 202-225-3561 Fax: 202-225-9679
Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC): @Clyburn
Phone: 202-225-3315 Fax: 202-225-2313
Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI): @RepFredUpton
Phone: 202-225-3761 Fax: 202-225-4986
Tweeting to the Super Committee, should have a # setup… something like this:
@RepHensarling #SuperCommittee – NO tax inc., CUT spending #tpp
@RepHensarling #SuperCommittee – Repeal Obamacare, Save $2T #tpp
The Federal Government is Out of Control
Our founding fathers warned us about the natural progression of the federal government—and they drafted a brilliant document called the US Constitution to try to preclude this from happening. However, the majority of our elected officials today either don’t understand or appreciate what is in this document—the attached video is worth watching—all this is going on under “YOUR” watch—and there is only one way in this country that you can change this—it will happen in November of 2012—don’t miss it—each and everyone of you can make a “CHANGE”. If it is not changed in Nov 2012—it is not “their” fault—it IS YOURS!
A short video you really should see
Government jobs – This is truly shocking
Just a short video you really should and must see…..a real eye opener!
If you seldom watch a forwarded video, I urge you to watch this one.
I did not realize that the numbers were this large and was very shocked.
It’s rather short so does not take long to view it….
If this doesn’t open your eyes nothing will.
County Sets Tax Rate for 2012
County Tax Rate Comes Closer to TAB Target
Last evening at about 11:00pm, the County Commission voted to set the county-wide tax rate at $4.79 per $1K valuation, up 0.8% from last year. While still technically an increase, it is much better than the number set in the July meeting and an indication that all the work of the last few months has had an effect.
Thank you to those who attended or wrote letters and emails, but a very special thanks to those who stood up at the meeting and spoke their mind. Of the 80 people speaking at the meeting, 75% were there to protect “their” county funded programs, but 25% were on our side, a rising tide.
From South Florida 912, speakers included Marianne Polulack, Iris and Fred Scheibl, Rita and Jim Boger, Victoria Theil, Albert Key, Alison Rampersad, Nancy Hogan, Mike Lameyer, Shannon and Doug Armstrong, and Jason Shields.
Palm Beach County Tea Party was represented by Anita Carbone.
For a synopsis of the meeting and what the tax decision means, see: A Surrealistic Budget Hearing on the TAB website.
Solyndra – a perfect example of “Crony Capitalism”
The events surrounding the bankruptcy of Solyndra, Barack Obama’s favorite solar energy company, should remind us again why the federal government should not play venture capitalist with our money. You’ll recall that Soylyndra was given a loan guarantee of $535 Billion dollars by the administration. It appears to me that this waste of our money was prompted by 2 goals – 1) payback for generous campaign donations, and 2) an obsession with destroying the existing energy industry.
This ‘investment’ would not have been made by anyone with a basic understanding of economics. As recently as early 2010, an audit by Price Waterhouse concluded that Solyndra, which lost over $500M in its first 5 years of operation, “has suffered recurring losses from operations, negative cash flows since inception and has a net stockholders’ deficit that, among other factors, raise substantial doubt about its ability to continue as a going concern.” Despite this, Solyndra’s loan guarantees were fast-tracked, while an established solar company, Evergreen Solar in Massachusetts, was struggling, and in that same year moved to China (along with 800 jobs). Interestingly, Solyndra spent a half million dollars in 2010 lobbying Washington. And, curiously, as part of the deal the taxpayers interests were subordinated to those of George Kaiser, a wealthy billionaire and large contributer to Obama’s campaign. Guess he had his vision of “Hope and Change” fulfilled.
An FBI investigation has begun, but I don’t expect it to go anywhere with the current Justice Department. This is a prime example of the “crony capitalism” that Sarah Palin is always railing about.
Obama Administration Energy Obstructionism- Part II
There are so many examples demonstrating that this administration policy of anti-energy policy for the United States. Here is yet another example of this administrations agenda to drive energy prices higher and make us dependent on foreign energy sources when we have within our own indigenous country vast sources of energy.
There is current a pipeline trying to be developed by TransCanada, a large Canadian pipeline and energy company. The name of this pipeline is called the Keystone XL pipeline which if built, could deliver 830,000 barrels of crude oil a day from the tar sands of Alberta to refineries in Oklahoma and Texas. Just to give you an idea of how much oil this represents, Oman a country in the Middle East produces about this much oil! TransCanada estimates that this would bring $20 billion in investment to the US along with 13,000 jobs with sub-suppliers engaging another 118,000 jobs.
There is one big hurdle—the US State Department. Getting approval has proven to be extremely difficult in getting the 1,170 mile underground (that’s right underground so it would not be an eyesore or serve as an obstruction to some rare animal in it’s path)pipeline approved. In fact, TransCanada filed for a permit in 2008—that right almost four years ago. After dozens upon dozens of meetings, hundreds of thousands of comments, and extensive interaction with the EPA, DOT, USDA, DOI, DOE and numerous other federal and state agencies, finally an environmental impact statement was finally issued stating that the pipeline posed little risk to the environment.
The issuance of this EIS was in April of 2010. But, the EPA cried foul. Sixteen months later, another impact statement was produced. The first volume of the EIS was more than 500 pages, and there were actually eight volumes. Once again, in the second report, the conclusion was that the pipeline posed no significant impact to the environment.
The State Department is the ruling authority for the final permitting. After the submission and approval of the second EIS, the State Department issued a press release stating that the impact statement now will be followed by a 90 day review to “determine if the proposed project is in the national interest.”
During this time period, the State Department will consult with at least eight agencies identified in President Obama’s executive order to obtain their views. The State Department will also solicit public comments and meetings in at least six states through which the proposed pipeline will pass.
Meanwhile, separately, the “greenies” are gearing up for a fight with the Administration that they feel they were not given an ample opportunity to resist the project and state their opposition. There actually have been days of protests outside the White House resulting in arrests of a number of these greenies. The Sierra Club is warning President Obama that is will not mobilize its environmental voter base if he approves the project.
We yet do not know where Obama will come down on this; however don’t hold your breath. On the one hand he has driven unemployment to unprecedented levels even after clearly his fiscal stimulus give away has failed. This was substantiated just today when the White House projects unemployment to remain above 9% throughout calendar year 2012! What a sad state of affairs—we need energy security, we need jobs, and this kind of opposition goes on right before our very eyes.
Ladies and gentlemen, change is not only desired it is a necessity—get out and vote in November 2012 and make some real change—the Presidency and the Senate must be placed in the hands of people that will return our nation to greatness!
Obama Administration Energy Obstructionism
I have in the past written a number of articles on the current administrations “anti-energy” policy. Regardless of what this administration says, it is imperative to watch what they do because their actions are generally diametrically opposite to what they say!
Consider the recent discovery by ExxonMobil of the Julia oil field in the Gulf of Mexico. The field is believed to hold more than 700 million barrels of oil and gas equivalent. Exploiting the newly discovered field would yield billions of dollars for both ExxonMobil and royalties paid to the US government, not to mention the creation of thousands of jobs. In fact, a 1 billion barrel field could generate around $10.95 billion in government royalties—Mr. Obama—that is revenues—like taxes! Mr. Obama—this is called becoming “energy independent” and less dependent on the 60% of our oil that we now import from hostile people that want to do ill will to the United States. Get it!
Obama’s Interior Department is fighting this development. The Interior Department regulates offshore drilling and they are claiming that Exxon’s leases have expired and the company hasn’t’ met the requirements for an extension. In this industry, the re-instatement of leases has been in the past almost a rubber stamp, but for whatever reason, this is not the case for the Julia field. This discovery is one of the largest ever.
There is currently a court battle in place and the government is denying the oil company’s lease on the field, despite it being the biggest oil find ever! Furthermore, the signal to the industry that the Interior Department’s current position is extremely damaging for oil producers—typical Obama administration behavior—that is create as much uncertainty for industry so they do nothing—don’t invest, don’t create jobs—it is the same signal that they continue to send industry either through this kind of governmental restrictions or EPA rulings or nationalized healthcare. Same old same old.
Please find one of the best articles that I have recently read that appeared in today’s Wall Street Journal opinion page. The fallacy of “green energy” producing jobs has been proven over and over—it doesn’t—in fact, it costs jobs as these projects do not require nearly the labor to build as conventional sources plus the high cost of subsidy pulls money from the economy that private industry otherwise would invest in real wealth producing ventures that would in fact produce jobs. The cost of energy resulting from these green technologies also drive companies to move overseas for production due to higher electricity costs all of which diminish the number of US jobs!
Please read this article–it is very good!
By STEPHEN MOORE WSJ Opinion Section September 2, 2011
CLICK HERE for the article.
How Long Can We Ignore Our National Debt?
It continues to amaze me how grown men and women in Congress can continue down the path to disaster by taking no serious action on our debt issue. This has to go down as one of the most irresponsible and despicable behaviors of our President and Congress in our nation’s history. And where are the young folks who are going to have to bear this burden? They are nowhere to be seen.
A friend recently sent me an email to better characterize the recent “cuts” that Congress made. When you see the numbers it pretty much puts everything in perspective when looking at our spending problem—and THAT is the problem—yes, federal revenues are down due to an impotent growth strategy (s) that the current administration is promoting, but the real problem is spending. We all know this clearly.
Here are the numbers for this fiscal year:
US Tax Revenues: $2,170,000,000,000
Federal Budget: $3,820,000,000,000
New Debt: $1,650,000,000,000
National Debt: $14,272,000,000,000
Proposed Budget Cuts $38,500,000,000
Now just remove eight (8) zeros and pretend this is your family budget to get a real feel for how our gutless Congress and President acted a few months ago in “cutting” spending.
Annual Family Income: $21,700
Money the Family Spent: $38,200
New Debt on the Credit Card $16,500
Balance on the CC $142,710
Total Budget Cut $385
So you see, the budget cuts that were made are actually far less than the debt service even on the new debt on the credit card for the year—not to mention the debt service on the total outstanding balance. Would we get away with running our family budgets this way? Why should our elected officials get away with managing “our” money this way?
Let’s take a look at our total debt– $14,587 trillion (it is actually higher than reflected above in the numbers). This can be divided into public debt, that is, the Treasury securities held by individuals, financial institutions, and foreign governments AND the intra-government debt, the sum of Treasury bonds held by agencies of the federal government, principally the so-called Social Security Trust Fund. The liabilities represent the future pensions, health care, social security payments, etc that are promised under current legislation—both are REAL obligations.
The split between public debt and intra-governmental debt is $9.924 trillion and $4.666 trillion respectively. This is over 300 million times the country’s median household income! Stacked as dollar bills, it would reach 920,953 miles high, almost four times as far from Earth as the moon. The real issue here is the debt’s size relative to gross domestic product—what this is saying is no different than the way we individually measure our own debt. Translated, it is our personal debts measured against our income. The GDP of the US was $15 trillion at the end of the first quarter in 2011. This translates to making our public debt at 66.1% of GDP and the intra-governmental debt at 31.1%. Total debt is now 97.2% of GDP and growing!
The scary part is of course the size but the scarier part is the rate of growth. For example, our debt in 1946 was $269 billion and 14 years later in 1960 it was $286 billion. The economy during these years grew rapidly so that in 1960, the debt was only 58% of GDP.
In the 1970’s under Paul Volcker as Fed chief, the debt began its soaring. Why? Quite simple—Washington continued to increase spending faster than government revenues increased (Note: revenues increased a huge 99.4% in the 1980’s). The debt was 58% of GDP in 1990, a full 24 percentage points above its 1980 lows. It continued to increase dramatically in the early 1990’s under President Bill Clinton reaching 68% of GDP in 1994.
But, Newt and the republican Congress came into power, and represented the first time the Republicans controlled both houses of Congress since 1954. In the next six years, while revenues increased 61%, federal outlays increased ONLY 22%! As a result, the debt relative to GDP declined between 1994 and 2000 to 57% from 68%–and in 1998-2000 actually showed the first surpluses in the federal budget in over 30 years. I have written about this before—it was not due to Bill Clinton’s policies—it was due to the republican controlled house under Newt Gingrich-and their ability to cut spending—and move Clinton to the center. That is fact!
In 2001 following the collapse of the dot com bubble and rising unemployment, the 2003 debt to GDP ratio had risen to 61.7% Many did and continue to blame the Bush tax cuts for this however, that is simply wrong. As I have written many times in the past—when you cut rates, tax revenues actually increase because companies and individual entrepreneurs go out and invest, create jobs, and more jobs and healthier economies produce more wealth, which in turn generates more tax revenues. This is exactly what happened after the Bush tax cuts were put into place. Federal revenues before the Bush tax cuts were put into place declined 12% in the early part of the decade, but when the tax cuts were implemented in 2003, the economy began to grow strongly and federal revenues in the next four years grew by a staggering 44% while unemployment fell to 4.2% from 6.2%. Federal outlays increased during these years by a meager 26.4% and debt-to GDP ratio increased to 64.8% by 2007, which was below what it had been in 1994 (read this Mr. Obama and Nancy P, and Harry R).
In 2008, the debt-to GDP ratio soared to 67.7%. A year later, under President Obama, it took another leap to 84.4%, a year later to 93.8% and it is headed real quickly to 100%.
No one expects to pay off our $14 trillion debt, but we do expect our government officials to get a handle on our debt issue and put into place a comprehensive spending cutting plan that will get our debt- to –GDP ratio back down to historic levels. Specifically, they must not only stop the rate of growth, they must reduce the rate of growth over the next ten years. I have represented in the past that we should have a debt plan to reduce our debt by $1 trillion/year for the next 10 years!
This can ONLY happen if the American electorate sends a solid message in November 2012 and do exactly what they did in November of 2010. This is our system—this is our way to effect “change”.
