Mar 17 2009
Doubts About The Obama Administration Continue To Grow
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Those of us who raised the warning flags about Obama’s lack of experience (both politically and as an executive) are going to be proved correct much sooner than I expected. President Obama is floundering, his own party sees it. And now he is going back to the only thing he knows how to do well – campaign. He is back on the road trying to sell his Porkulus 3 budget for 2010, including a government take over of Health Care and a energy tax which will bring back the days of $4/gallon gasoline. It seems fitting this joke of a budget will be touted on Leno.
But this time I don’t get the feeling the old Barack magic will work as well. The shine is off the man of Hope and Change – now we all hope someone can reign in his rampant and unfocused change. It will be decades before this nation is lulled by the term ‘change’ again.
Here are some interesting indications of how bad it is getting for Obama in DC. First, Dems are balking at the Cap & Trade energy tax charade:
Eight Senate Democrats are opposing speedy action on President Barack Obama’s bill to combat global warming, complicating prospects for the legislation and creating problems for their party’s leaders.
The eight Democrats disapprove of using the annual budget debate to pass Obama’s “cap and trade” bill to fight greenhouse gas emissions, a measure that divides lawmakers, environmentalists and businesses. The lawmakers’ opposition makes it more difficult for Democratic leaders to move the bill without a threat of a Republican filibuster.
The budget debate is the only way to circumvent Senate rules that allow a unified GOP to stop a bill through filibusters.
“Enactment of a cap-and-trade regime is likely to influence nearly every feature of the U.S. economy,” wrote the Democratic senators, mostly moderates. They were joined by 25 Republicans. “Legislation so far-reaching should be fully vetted and given appropriate time for debate.”
Wow, he can’t even get democrats to raise taxes on the evils of oil and gas! It must be bad. More bad news in the democrat ranks on spending:
Government spending on most domestic programs is growing at its fastest pace in nearly 30 years, and a lot of worried Democrats are seeking ways to rewrite and reduce the size of President Barack Obama’s budget proposals.
As a result, “you’ll see a budget come out of the House that spends considerably less,” said Rep. Allen Boyd, D-Fla., a leader of the Blue Dog Democrats, a group of 47 of the party’s House of Representatives conservatives and moderates.
If all 47 Blue Dogs joined the House’s 178 Republicans, they could deny Democratic leaders a House majority of 218.
Interesting, the “tax and spend” democrats are apparently discovering that the gluttonous policies of Barack Obama and the liberal DC congressional leaders are too much to swallow. Now some behind the scenes hand wringing by a democrat DC insider:
Not long ago, after a string of especially bad days for the Obamaadministration, a veteran Democratic pol approached me with a pained look on his face and asked, “Do you think they know what they’re doing?”
The question caught me off guard because the man is a well-known Obama supporter. As we talked, I quickly realized his asking suggested his own considerable doubts.
Yes, it’s early, but an eerily familiar feeling is spreading across party lines and seeping into the national conversation. It’s a nagging doubt about the competency of the White House.
Is President Barack Obama trying to do too many things at the expense of focusing on Job One: the economy?
While the world awaits a coherent plan to fix America’s banks, the president also is urging a vast overhaul of health care, a plan to tax and thus limit tailpipe and smokestack emissions thought to causeglobal warming, the development of alternative energy systems, a dramatic shift of the nation’s tax burden, ambitious new education initiatives and a rewrite of financial regulations.
If that weren’t enough in his first 50 days, he’s also found time to create a White House council on women and girls and to travel weekly to politically key states. This week, he heads to California for two days to talk about the economy.
If he tries to do too much, some analysts say, he could end up a modern-day Jimmy Carter , blazing into town and throwing the kitchen sink at Congress , only to end his first year in office with a pile of broken plumbing.
I could go on and on it seems. But here is the bottom line – Obama’s is trying to do to much, and is not doing anyone thing well at all. In fact, like most people who try to take on too much he is screwing up more than anything else. And his aggressive and naive policies are starting to send tremors through not only DC, but society as well. The man is a bit of an egomaniac, and in way over his head.
And America is starting to see this as his support continues to collapse:
Happy St Patrick’s Day all
A good day to start taking America back or get drunk trying.
Maybe Ol’ St Pat can take his act to the snakes in Washington, I know more than a lot who could use a few good whacks from the business end of a shillelagh.
Not to mention pushing Card Check forward in the face of a majority who sees unionization as the problem.
AJ:
First – the idea that 8 Democrats who come from coal-heavy districts oppose restrictions on carbon emissions is hardly world-shattering news.
Second – big props for the Mr. Creosote pic. “Eet’s wahh-fer theen!”
gwood:
“Not to mention pushing Card Check forward in the face of a majority who sees unionization as the problem.”
Really? The “majority”? Then how do you explain this poll that shows the exact opposite:
Generally speaking, would you favor or oppose a new law that would make it easier for labor unions to organize workers?
Favor – 53%
Oppose – 39%
No opinion – 8%
Wow, it’s almost as if you have no idea what you’re talking about, isn’t it?
Keep believing what you post, Gy. LOL!
Libs are completely out of touch with America. Why do they live here in the first place? All they want to do is change it to their miserable way of life!
From the very same article that gy is trumpeting:
“Those most closely following news about the union-organizing bill are the most opposed to the general concept of a law making it easier for unions to organize: just 40% are in favor; 58% are opposed. The bill enjoys its highest support — 58% — among those not following the bill at all.”
So, Guy is excited that Obama can still count on the support of the self-admittedly ignorant, who at this time are still a majority of voters. Those who have actually read the proposed law, however, are very strongly opposed to it.
This pretty much makes the case that you only airheaded morons support Obama’s policies.
From this poll
crosspatch:
And that poll would mean something, if it had anything to do with this legislation. This isn’t a matter of whether *you* want to join a union – it’s whether you think it’s okay for somebody else to form a union.
I, personally, don’t want to join a union. But, I’m favor of the EFCA. Hence – your poll is meaningless.
GuyF, politics is basically a popularity contest. You don’t get popular by backing legislation that allows the voters to be intimidated by union thugs.
Industrial unions are basically a tax put on workers to facilitate political corruption.
I do support some kinds of unions. Unions for tradesmen, for example, who work projects and don’t have a permanent employer make sense and provide a valuable service for the users and generally to their industry through things like apprenticeship programs. Unionizing industrial workers, though, is generally just a racket that extorts part of their pay to be funneled off for political purposes and allow political “strongarming” of various industries.
My mother was a union member for all her working life and she detested them. She had no choice, though. She was forced to be in the union or she couldn’t work and she had two kids to raise on her own. I have another family member who was rather high in a major union’s hierarchy and managed the majority of their money. There is generally nothing honest about a labor union.
“I do support some kinds of unions. Unions for tradesmen, for example, who work projects and don’t have a permanent employer make sense and provide a valuable service for the users and generally to their industry through things like apprenticeship programs.”
Well, hey – we do agree on something. That is exactly the kind of union my father was in for 35 years, as well as my grandfather and uncle. I was in it myself for 2 years, before I decided to go back and finish my bachelors.
Unions got started with a very simple purpose: stop employee abuse. You can’t seriously tell me that the improvements over the last 100 years in the working environment are insignificant. (And if you think employers would have made those changes all on their own, you are naive.) And I think there’s still some rampant abuse, especially in certain industries and/or companies: try Googling “Wal-mart employee abuse” sometime.
But the simple fact is that the EFCA does not do anywhere near what it’s loudest opponents claim. All it does is say:
Employees can choose whether to hold a vote on unionization through an open vote, or secret ballot.
That’s it. It doesn’t get rid of the secret ballot. It doesn’t force any employee to join a union, or any employer to allow a union.
Why is this simple concept suddenly the end of civilization as we know it?
Employees can choose whether to hold a vote on unionization through an open vote, or secret ballot.
That’s it. It doesn’t get rid of the secret ballot. It doesn’t force any employee to join a union, or any employer to allow a union.
Actually, it does eliminate the secret ballot. If more than 50% of the employees sign authorization cards, the union is automatically formed under EFCA. And that is the entirety of the problem.
GuyFawkes, let us conduct a thought experiment. Let us expand the concept of EFCA to electoral ballots. (Surely, if EFCA is good for eliminating the one ballot, it must be good to eliminate them all.) If a candidate for public office gets 50% of the registered voters in a district to sign authorization cards supporting him, the election is cancelled and the candidate is automatically elected.
Let us hypothetically suppose that you are opposed to Candidate A, but are greeted one evening by a few rather burly-and-surly “campaign workers” for Candidate A who proceed to impress upon you the vital importance of signing your authorization card for Candidate A forthwith–how, indeed, it might be a matter of life and death whether or not you do so.
You realize that you have exactly two options: sign the damn card or spend some quality time in the hospital.
So, are you signing the card, or not?
In your purely hypothetical situation, I report this highly illegal activity to the police and the local paper. Candidate A is disgraced, and never runs for political office again.
Well, that was pretty easy. Any more questions?
Guy doesn’t understand that the police will be the ones at the door demanding that he sign the card.
And just as now, the papers will simply be the mouthpieces for the ruling party.
This is what secret ballots are meant to prevent. And this is why leftists always slide into totalitarianism.
WWS:
Just so we’re clear – are you one of the people that is convinced about the FEMA concentration camps that Glenn Beck has been promoting?
I just want to know what level of craziness I’m dealing with on this blog.
Obama’s Debt Star … it may be heading your way
“Unions got started with a very simple purpose: stop employee abuse. You can’t seriously tell me that the improvements over the last 100 years in the working environment are insignificant.”
Most of the improvements that unions worked to implement are now codified in law. We now have government child labor laws, minimum wages, work hour limits, overtime rules, etc.
The “abuse” Walmart is accused of is pretty much just whining by lazy people. They want money without having to work for it and when they are required to actually work for it, they complain.
Unions institutionalize laziness, actually encourage it. If my mother’s production line got to far ahead of their contracted output, someone would “accidentally” spill and entire night’s run of product on the floor and it would have to be thrown away and the entire shift’s output was zero for the day. They were afraid that if production levels went up, the expectation would be set for higher production going forward. So they made sure that the numbers were met but never or very rarely exceeded.
Unions, like Democrats, institutionalize inefficiency.
“Unions, like Democrats, institutionalize inefficiency.”
My God, how intellectually lazy ARE you? Demonizing your opponents through cariactures and over-generalizations – what exactly is the goal of that? Do you expect someone to read that statement and immediately declare, “By George, they’re RIGHT! How could have been so blind???”
I mean, it takes no effort whatsoever to type “Republicans are all racist warmongers who get aroused by blowing up brown people”. But what the hell does that achieve, other than to make sure the signal-to-noise ratio stays low?
If you can’t debate an issue without depending upon weak sauce like that – just give up.