Yielding to pressure from President Obama, Senate Democrats last night
softened the Buy American requirements in the economic stimulus package in
an attempt not to scuttle U.S. global trade relations.
The Senate approved an amendment by voice vote Wednesday night that states the Buy American provisions be "applied in a manner consistent with U.S. obligations under international agreements." Reportedly, the President's former White House rival Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) was a key figure behind an from the bill completely. McCain rightly calls the Buy American proposal (with or without the modification) dangerous, and one that "echoes of the disastrous Smoot-Hawley tariff act," the 1930s trade legislation blamed for prolonging the Great Depression. "It sends a message to the world that the United States is going back to protectionism," McCain added. McCain's amendment failed 65-31. But, like so much of the pending stimulus package, the more time that passes, the more vulnerable it becomes to thoughtful consideration about its lasting effects.
Submitted by ASO member: John C. Kalitka
Thursday, February 5, 2009
“Buy American” Could Buy Trouble
The $825 billion stimulus bill making its way through Congress includes certain “Buy American” requirements that may jeopardize the stated purpose of the legislation by exposing the United States to retaliatory trade actions that could further aggravate our economic malaise.
Provisions of the House bill (the “American Recovery and Reinvestment Tax Act of 2009”), which passed 244-188 on Wednesday, obligate public works infrastructure projects funded by the stimulus legislation to use only American-made iron and steel. The House Buy American measures specifically include projects involving airports, bridges, canals, dams, dikes, pipelines, railroads, multiline mass transit systems, roads, tunnels, harbors, and piers. A Senate version reportedly goes further, requiring most stimulus-funded projects include only American-made equipment and goods.
At first glance, the concept seems attractive. All things being equal, why wouldn’t one naturally choose U.S.-sourced goods and inputs? Wouldn’t such an attitude also present an attractive means of helping along our faltering economy? After all, government procurement represents a very significant portion of the economy, often 10-15 percent of GDP.
Government procurement is a significant aspect of international trade. Open, transparent and non-discriminatory procurement is generally considered the most economically efficient model for government procurement since it bolsters competition among potential suppliers, regardless of their location. However, it seems that little consideration is given to the potential free market efficiencies that will be lost through the proposed legislation.
More importantly, legislators have included the Buy American language despite the objections of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other business groups which rightly note it would set a bad example for other countries considering their own economic stimulus plans. In other words, the proposed Buy American legislation in the stimulus bill could spark a global trade war with consequences not unlike the give-and-take protectionism that prevailed in the 1930s, and which had a cascading effect that crushed global trade and turned a one-year recession into the Great Depression. As the Chamber notes, “Since 95% of the world’s consumers live outside the United States, American workers would be the first to suffer as “Buy American” provisions trigger retaliation by other countries (that is, “Buy German,” “Buy Chinese,” and so on).”
The Buy American requirements may also be inconsistent with respect to U.S. commitments on government procurement within the World Trade Organization (WTO). European Union officials have already signaled a likely challenge of the provisions if they ever become law. The WTO dispute settlement system includes provisions for compensation and retaliatory measures to counter market access restrictions like the proposed Buy American provisions that would only intensify the protectionist tendencies underscoring them.
Congress should reconsider its options before committing itself to a course of action that previously sparked a global trade war that devastated our economy for a decade or more. Congress must eliminate the Buy American requirements from the stimulus bill.
Submitted by ASO member: John Kalitka
Provisions of the House bill (the “American Recovery and Reinvestment Tax Act of 2009”), which passed 244-188 on Wednesday, obligate public works infrastructure projects funded by the stimulus legislation to use only American-made iron and steel. The House Buy American measures specifically include projects involving airports, bridges, canals, dams, dikes, pipelines, railroads, multiline mass transit systems, roads, tunnels, harbors, and piers. A Senate version reportedly goes further, requiring most stimulus-funded projects include only American-made equipment and goods.
At first glance, the concept seems attractive. All things being equal, why wouldn’t one naturally choose U.S.-sourced goods and inputs? Wouldn’t such an attitude also present an attractive means of helping along our faltering economy? After all, government procurement represents a very significant portion of the economy, often 10-15 percent of GDP.
Government procurement is a significant aspect of international trade. Open, transparent and non-discriminatory procurement is generally considered the most economically efficient model for government procurement since it bolsters competition among potential suppliers, regardless of their location. However, it seems that little consideration is given to the potential free market efficiencies that will be lost through the proposed legislation.
More importantly, legislators have included the Buy American language despite the objections of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other business groups which rightly note it would set a bad example for other countries considering their own economic stimulus plans. In other words, the proposed Buy American legislation in the stimulus bill could spark a global trade war with consequences not unlike the give-and-take protectionism that prevailed in the 1930s, and which had a cascading effect that crushed global trade and turned a one-year recession into the Great Depression. As the Chamber notes, “Since 95% of the world’s consumers live outside the United States, American workers would be the first to suffer as “Buy American” provisions trigger retaliation by other countries (that is, “Buy German,” “Buy Chinese,” and so on).”
The Buy American requirements may also be inconsistent with respect to U.S. commitments on government procurement within the World Trade Organization (WTO). European Union officials have already signaled a likely challenge of the provisions if they ever become law. The WTO dispute settlement system includes provisions for compensation and retaliatory measures to counter market access restrictions like the proposed Buy American provisions that would only intensify the protectionist tendencies underscoring them.
Congress should reconsider its options before committing itself to a course of action that previously sparked a global trade war that devastated our economy for a decade or more. Congress must eliminate the Buy American requirements from the stimulus bill.
Submitted by ASO member: John Kalitka
Earth to Senators: Think of Small Business
Okay, so the House passed a bill that seems pretty unlikely to provide
anywhere near the stimulus the economy needs - and might do long-term
damage in terms of government growth and spending. Principled
Republicans and Democrats voted against it. Fine.
So now we (the people and our economy) need the Senate. We need them to
do the right thing. Pretty badly. We need them to remember that small
businesses generate 60 to 80 percent of net new jobs. The small-business
provisions in the current "stimulus" bill need to be greatly expanded..
Help for small firms - in the form of tax relief, increased expensing,
etc. - should crowd out a good deal of the muck in the current bill that
is just spending, not stimulus.
I implore the Senate: please don't screw around on this. Help the job
creators!
Submitted by ASO member: Self-Employed in Virginia
anywhere near the stimulus the economy needs - and might do long-term
damage in terms of government growth and spending. Principled
Republicans and Democrats voted against it. Fine.
So now we (the people and our economy) need the Senate. We need them to
do the right thing. Pretty badly. We need them to remember that small
businesses generate 60 to 80 percent of net new jobs. The small-business
provisions in the current "stimulus" bill need to be greatly expanded..
Help for small firms - in the form of tax relief, increased expensing,
etc. - should crowd out a good deal of the muck in the current bill that
is just spending, not stimulus.
I implore the Senate: please don't screw around on this. Help the job
creators!
Submitted by ASO member: Self-Employed in Virginia
Best Analogy Yet for Pork Stimulus Package
Loved last week’s Walter Williams piece http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/jan/30/no-free-ride-claus/ on the "stimulus" plan. It gives a good explanation of how government spending impacts private spending and the overall GDP. He also comes up with a great image/analogy for the whole mess: "Imagine you see a person at work taking buckets of water from the deep end of a swimming pool and dumping them into the shallow end in an attempt to make it deeper. You would deem him stupid. That scenario is equivalent to what Congress and the new president proposes for the economy."
Submitted by ASO member: Washington Times Reader
Submitted by ASO member: Washington Times Reader
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Mark Salter: Featured Blogger
Bipartisanship and Its Pretenders.
The growing center of American political opinion disdains, and rightly so, the puerile bluster and incivility often employed in the practice of politics. That sentiment stongly influences the new President's governing style, expressed in his prudential inaugural address, and his graceful moves to woo the opposition and impress the voters by paying a friendly respect to the station, if not always the views, of Republican office holders and conservative opinion leaders.
President Obama has a wily -- and I use that adjective admiringly -- sense of how to appear in perfect accord with the sentiment of a majority of the public that perceives in partisanship a root cause of the various economic ailments afflicting the country, and the lack of progress toward remedying them. He has done so by being genuinely agreeable in the company of Republicans and appearing patient with their assertions of honest policy differences, without yet hazarding the more complicated work of incorporating any Republican prescriptions into the current fiscal policies of his administration as written into law by Democrats in Congress. Although, it’s fair to note, he has managed to dissuade House Democrats from persisting in a couple of their more politically maladroit maneuvers, recognizing the jeopardy they posed to passage of his stimulus bill. (Taxpayer funded birth control may indeed stimulate activity but, alas, not much in the nature of immediate economic activity beyond, perhaps, the purchase of flowers and a nice meal.)
We are not yet two weeks into his administration, but President Obama has swiftly exercised the enormous political talent that won the presidency by using his considerable charm and graciousness to aggrandize an economic stimulus bill that is unique only for its immense size and otherwise quite common in its appetite for unproductive and, in many respects, injurious government spending and policymaking, into a much desired break with those dreaded “failed policies of the past” (would that America might live to see the day when any failed government spending policy is consigned forever to the past). He understands that if you can’t have bipartisanship in the realm of policymaking a spirit of civility and an advertising wizard’s creativity in marketing the old as new will do in a pinch.
In the hands of clumsier politicians, of course, such attempts at stylistic camouflage can come off quite comically. Witness Speaker Pelosi bumptious entrance into the new spirit of “partisan ambitions be damned; let’s get on with the people’s business.” After ramming through the House of Representatives without a single Republican vote a stimulus bill that harbored a great many objects of liberals’ pent up desire for government command of our economy, she protested her complete innocence as a Democratic party leader:
“I didn’t come here to be partisan. I didn’t come here to be bipartisan. I came here, as did my colleagues, to be nonpartisan, to work for the American people, to do what is in their interest.”
This news that the Speaker has risen above not only the implied vice of partisanship but the assumed virtue of bipartisanship will come as a surprise not only to Republicans in Congress, but to her liberal constituents, residing, as they do, in one of the more strenuously partisan congressional districts in the country.
Obviously, few in Washington, in either party, share the President’s adroitness at helping bad medicine go down tastefully by making civility appetizing enough for a public that thinks it’s hungry for bipartisanship, though many give it their earnest all. Even some of the keenest preachers of bipartisanship have abandoned their fondness for the notion in favor of the “being nice is good enough” school of advancing their governing agenda. The genial E.J. Dionne regularly used his perch on the op-ed page of the Washington Post to beseech Republicans in the years of their ascendancy to show more respect when tackling big national problems for the ideas and patriotism of the Democratic minority. Lately, he prefers a more tactical approach to cross-aisle comity. He laments the President, having treated Republicans nicely, received not a single one of their votes for the House passed stimulus bill, and, henceforth, he argues – and I’m putting it more vulgarly than E.J. ever would – the President should say “screw em,” and get on with the urgent task of expanding the welfare state.
There is confusion, in Washington and in the country at large, at the heart of this discordant and antique reality that remains lodged so firmly in the new era of hope and change.
Bipartisanship requires, irreducibly, a giving in and a standing by. That is the obvious nature of political compromise. Each side must bend their principles a little to accommodate those of the other side in exchange for preserving in whatever compromise policy results a respectable measure of those principles. It is tricky work that consumes enormous effort, to say the least. Naturally, given their possession of the White House and majorities in Congress, Democrats rightly expect to give in less and stand by their principles more than Republicans will, but give in to some extent they must if the President is, in fact, to employ bipartisan problem-solving in this our “winter of hardship,” as he aptly put it in his inaugural address.
Incivility has been one of the drearier qualities of political debate in the last twenty years or so, and it breeds personal animosities that bedevil even the sincerest efforts at political compromise. Both parties share in the blame for its occurrences, but it is not a partisan or institutional failing. Discourtesy never is. It is an entirely personal vice, which, when committed frequently by many individuals in a given profession, can falsely appear to be a flaw in that profession. The President’s genuine efforts to summon the better angels of our personal nature and his recognition that in this argumentative, heterogeneous society we are still bound closely together by the self-evident truths that are the basis of our political kinship are admirable. But civility is not now nor has it ever been a substitute for bipartisan policy accomplishment and the giving in and standing by it requires. It is simply good manners, and like good manners in any profession it smoothes the path to cooperation, but does not provide the hoped for product of that cooperation.
Republicans should never have been expected to endorse a free-for-all spending bill that substitutes the appropriators’ instinct for achieving occupational security at great public expense and Democrats’ faith in the virtues of big government for the most efficacious laws of free markets and free people. A truly bipartisan economic stimulus bill might have included more spending on public works than fiscal conservatives usually find advisable, given the inflation and higher interests rates it causes, in exchange for ensuring that the spending is, as some wise Democratic economists have urged, of reasonably short duration and actually stimulative. Or it might have permitted some of what Republicans judged nonsensical long term spending, and Democrats see as farsighted “investments in the future” in exchange for embracing the politically inconvenient but provably true conviction that reducing taxes on American businesses will do infinitely more good for the American people than handing them a check for $500.
Those are the kind of hard to swallow compromises that bipartisanship in deed and not just in name demands. Without it, we can surely still treat one another sociably, politely, respectfully as President Obama and Democratic majorities in Congress impose on the country a great many ineffectual or potentially ruinous fiscal policies. But button up your overcoat. This winter of hardship could last a while.
Submitted by ASO member: Mark Salter
The growing center of American political opinion disdains, and rightly so, the puerile bluster and incivility often employed in the practice of politics. That sentiment stongly influences the new President's governing style, expressed in his prudential inaugural address, and his graceful moves to woo the opposition and impress the voters by paying a friendly respect to the station, if not always the views, of Republican office holders and conservative opinion leaders.
President Obama has a wily -- and I use that adjective admiringly -- sense of how to appear in perfect accord with the sentiment of a majority of the public that perceives in partisanship a root cause of the various economic ailments afflicting the country, and the lack of progress toward remedying them. He has done so by being genuinely agreeable in the company of Republicans and appearing patient with their assertions of honest policy differences, without yet hazarding the more complicated work of incorporating any Republican prescriptions into the current fiscal policies of his administration as written into law by Democrats in Congress. Although, it’s fair to note, he has managed to dissuade House Democrats from persisting in a couple of their more politically maladroit maneuvers, recognizing the jeopardy they posed to passage of his stimulus bill. (Taxpayer funded birth control may indeed stimulate activity but, alas, not much in the nature of immediate economic activity beyond, perhaps, the purchase of flowers and a nice meal.)
We are not yet two weeks into his administration, but President Obama has swiftly exercised the enormous political talent that won the presidency by using his considerable charm and graciousness to aggrandize an economic stimulus bill that is unique only for its immense size and otherwise quite common in its appetite for unproductive and, in many respects, injurious government spending and policymaking, into a much desired break with those dreaded “failed policies of the past” (would that America might live to see the day when any failed government spending policy is consigned forever to the past). He understands that if you can’t have bipartisanship in the realm of policymaking a spirit of civility and an advertising wizard’s creativity in marketing the old as new will do in a pinch.
In the hands of clumsier politicians, of course, such attempts at stylistic camouflage can come off quite comically. Witness Speaker Pelosi bumptious entrance into the new spirit of “partisan ambitions be damned; let’s get on with the people’s business.” After ramming through the House of Representatives without a single Republican vote a stimulus bill that harbored a great many objects of liberals’ pent up desire for government command of our economy, she protested her complete innocence as a Democratic party leader:
“I didn’t come here to be partisan. I didn’t come here to be bipartisan. I came here, as did my colleagues, to be nonpartisan, to work for the American people, to do what is in their interest.”
This news that the Speaker has risen above not only the implied vice of partisanship but the assumed virtue of bipartisanship will come as a surprise not only to Republicans in Congress, but to her liberal constituents, residing, as they do, in one of the more strenuously partisan congressional districts in the country.
Obviously, few in Washington, in either party, share the President’s adroitness at helping bad medicine go down tastefully by making civility appetizing enough for a public that thinks it’s hungry for bipartisanship, though many give it their earnest all. Even some of the keenest preachers of bipartisanship have abandoned their fondness for the notion in favor of the “being nice is good enough” school of advancing their governing agenda. The genial E.J. Dionne regularly used his perch on the op-ed page of the Washington Post to beseech Republicans in the years of their ascendancy to show more respect when tackling big national problems for the ideas and patriotism of the Democratic minority. Lately, he prefers a more tactical approach to cross-aisle comity. He laments the President, having treated Republicans nicely, received not a single one of their votes for the House passed stimulus bill, and, henceforth, he argues – and I’m putting it more vulgarly than E.J. ever would – the President should say “screw em,” and get on with the urgent task of expanding the welfare state.
There is confusion, in Washington and in the country at large, at the heart of this discordant and antique reality that remains lodged so firmly in the new era of hope and change.
Bipartisanship requires, irreducibly, a giving in and a standing by. That is the obvious nature of political compromise. Each side must bend their principles a little to accommodate those of the other side in exchange for preserving in whatever compromise policy results a respectable measure of those principles. It is tricky work that consumes enormous effort, to say the least. Naturally, given their possession of the White House and majorities in Congress, Democrats rightly expect to give in less and stand by their principles more than Republicans will, but give in to some extent they must if the President is, in fact, to employ bipartisan problem-solving in this our “winter of hardship,” as he aptly put it in his inaugural address.
Incivility has been one of the drearier qualities of political debate in the last twenty years or so, and it breeds personal animosities that bedevil even the sincerest efforts at political compromise. Both parties share in the blame for its occurrences, but it is not a partisan or institutional failing. Discourtesy never is. It is an entirely personal vice, which, when committed frequently by many individuals in a given profession, can falsely appear to be a flaw in that profession. The President’s genuine efforts to summon the better angels of our personal nature and his recognition that in this argumentative, heterogeneous society we are still bound closely together by the self-evident truths that are the basis of our political kinship are admirable. But civility is not now nor has it ever been a substitute for bipartisan policy accomplishment and the giving in and standing by it requires. It is simply good manners, and like good manners in any profession it smoothes the path to cooperation, but does not provide the hoped for product of that cooperation.
Republicans should never have been expected to endorse a free-for-all spending bill that substitutes the appropriators’ instinct for achieving occupational security at great public expense and Democrats’ faith in the virtues of big government for the most efficacious laws of free markets and free people. A truly bipartisan economic stimulus bill might have included more spending on public works than fiscal conservatives usually find advisable, given the inflation and higher interests rates it causes, in exchange for ensuring that the spending is, as some wise Democratic economists have urged, of reasonably short duration and actually stimulative. Or it might have permitted some of what Republicans judged nonsensical long term spending, and Democrats see as farsighted “investments in the future” in exchange for embracing the politically inconvenient but provably true conviction that reducing taxes on American businesses will do infinitely more good for the American people than handing them a check for $500.
Those are the kind of hard to swallow compromises that bipartisanship in deed and not just in name demands. Without it, we can surely still treat one another sociably, politely, respectfully as President Obama and Democratic majorities in Congress impose on the country a great many ineffectual or potentially ruinous fiscal policies. But button up your overcoat. This winter of hardship could last a while.
Submitted by ASO member: Mark Salter
Orson Swindle: Featured Blogger
"It's like deja vu all over again"
...Yogi Berra New York Yankee
Baseball Hall of Fame
The Obama and House Democrat "economic stimulus" package is a train wreck looking for a place to happen. Should it be passed by the Senate and signed by the President, that "place" will be on the shoulders of future generations of Americans.
If past is prologue, our experiences tell us the package will do far more harm than good by growing government, raising taxes and wasting money. Once in place, a larger government will be difficult to trim.
The Pelosi-Obama package is primarily a huge expansion of government and Democrat control of that government. There is little immediate stimulus in the package. It is a payoff to many who supported Obama and the Democrats in last year’s election. Unions, special interest groups and existing government programs will benefit, not to mention a thinly veiled list of non-stimulus and wasteful earmarked appropriations for Democrat members of Congress. Didn’t Obama tell us that earmarks would be resisted in his new world of “hope and change”?
Hundreds of economists have attempted to remind the President that this kind of spending does not work. It did not work to pull the country (and the world) out of the Great Depression in the 1930s, nor did it work for Japan in the 1990s. The New Deal of President Franklin Roosevelt and The Great Society of President Johnson gave us much larger government, higher taxes and government controlling more and more of our lives.
In their well-propagandized pledge to listen, to welcome Republican ideas and work together, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the President have deceived the public. It sounded good; but apparently, they really did not want to hear nor did they want the input if it differed from theirs. As the President said recently, “I won.” So much for working together. The obscene House stimulus bill received no Republican votes for good reason.
As Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Economic Development for President Reagan in the late 1980s, I dealt with the aftermath of a dreadful “ economic stimulus” package by another Democrat Congress and President of the late 1970s. The Economic Development Administration, a creation of the Great Society programs of President Johnson, was expanded during the Carter Administration from a relatively small (hundreds of millions), highly questionable agency to one of over $6.5 billion under the “Local Public Works” economic stimulus program. It was a disaster, an enormous and shameful waste of millions of dollars.
That experience three decades ago ought to serve as a painful reminder of what government should and should not do. This kind of stimulus does not work. Overcoming the Carter Recession and ineffective economic policies required tax cuts, downsizing government and a strong leader and president wise enough to do it, and that was President Ronald Reagan.
Yogi Berra’s quip is so appropriate today. Have we learned nothing?
Each day the President speaks of dire consequences if Congress does not quickly approve the Democrat stimulus package (perhaps before we all figure it out.) The familiar Obama talent for appealing to emotions rather than reality is in full swing.
For certain, we have economic problems as credit tightens, consumers trim spending habits and hunker down in fear. Under the cover of addressing these serious problems, Obama and the Democrat congressional leadership seek to change the economic and social structure of our country, a structure that will be more socialistic with them in charge. They want to overpower wisdom and experience with the emotions of fear and their promised “hope and change”. Those who elected Obama are now being asked to pressure Senators for quick passage.
If Obama succeeds in this charade, be very concerned.
No Republican Senator should vote for this stimulus bill. You can help them to understand the lessons of yesterday’s experiences and be steadfast rather than give in to the emotional ploy of today. They need courage. America, speak on!
Submitted by ASO member: Orson Swindle
Orson Swindle served for eight years with the Reagan Administration, the last four as Assistant Secretary of Commerce, and recently, over seven years as a Commissioner at the Federal Trade Commission. A career Marine Corps officer and fighter pilot, he was a prisoner of war in Hanoi, Vietnam for over six years.
...Yogi Berra New York Yankee
Baseball Hall of Fame
The Obama and House Democrat "economic stimulus" package is a train wreck looking for a place to happen. Should it be passed by the Senate and signed by the President, that "place" will be on the shoulders of future generations of Americans.
If past is prologue, our experiences tell us the package will do far more harm than good by growing government, raising taxes and wasting money. Once in place, a larger government will be difficult to trim.
The Pelosi-Obama package is primarily a huge expansion of government and Democrat control of that government. There is little immediate stimulus in the package. It is a payoff to many who supported Obama and the Democrats in last year’s election. Unions, special interest groups and existing government programs will benefit, not to mention a thinly veiled list of non-stimulus and wasteful earmarked appropriations for Democrat members of Congress. Didn’t Obama tell us that earmarks would be resisted in his new world of “hope and change”?
Hundreds of economists have attempted to remind the President that this kind of spending does not work. It did not work to pull the country (and the world) out of the Great Depression in the 1930s, nor did it work for Japan in the 1990s. The New Deal of President Franklin Roosevelt and The Great Society of President Johnson gave us much larger government, higher taxes and government controlling more and more of our lives.
In their well-propagandized pledge to listen, to welcome Republican ideas and work together, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the President have deceived the public. It sounded good; but apparently, they really did not want to hear nor did they want the input if it differed from theirs. As the President said recently, “I won.” So much for working together. The obscene House stimulus bill received no Republican votes for good reason.
As Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Economic Development for President Reagan in the late 1980s, I dealt with the aftermath of a dreadful “ economic stimulus” package by another Democrat Congress and President of the late 1970s. The Economic Development Administration, a creation of the Great Society programs of President Johnson, was expanded during the Carter Administration from a relatively small (hundreds of millions), highly questionable agency to one of over $6.5 billion under the “Local Public Works” economic stimulus program. It was a disaster, an enormous and shameful waste of millions of dollars.
That experience three decades ago ought to serve as a painful reminder of what government should and should not do. This kind of stimulus does not work. Overcoming the Carter Recession and ineffective economic policies required tax cuts, downsizing government and a strong leader and president wise enough to do it, and that was President Ronald Reagan.
Yogi Berra’s quip is so appropriate today. Have we learned nothing?
Each day the President speaks of dire consequences if Congress does not quickly approve the Democrat stimulus package (perhaps before we all figure it out.) The familiar Obama talent for appealing to emotions rather than reality is in full swing.
For certain, we have economic problems as credit tightens, consumers trim spending habits and hunker down in fear. Under the cover of addressing these serious problems, Obama and the Democrat congressional leadership seek to change the economic and social structure of our country, a structure that will be more socialistic with them in charge. They want to overpower wisdom and experience with the emotions of fear and their promised “hope and change”. Those who elected Obama are now being asked to pressure Senators for quick passage.
If Obama succeeds in this charade, be very concerned.
No Republican Senator should vote for this stimulus bill. You can help them to understand the lessons of yesterday’s experiences and be steadfast rather than give in to the emotional ploy of today. They need courage. America, speak on!
Submitted by ASO member: Orson Swindle
Orson Swindle served for eight years with the Reagan Administration, the last four as Assistant Secretary of Commerce, and recently, over seven years as a Commissioner at the Federal Trade Commission. A career Marine Corps officer and fighter pilot, he was a prisoner of war in Hanoi, Vietnam for over six years.
The Government's Role in the Economic Recovery: A Partner, Not a Sponsor
The Washington Post reported last week that the President hasn't ventured beyond a four mile radius outside the White House since January 20th and the opponents of the economic stimulus bill couldn't be happier about it. By staying inside of Washington since his inaugural, the President has missed an opportunity to create public support for his stimulus package. There's one honeymoon per marriage, and he's blown his by relying on Beltway insiders to move the stimulus bill ahead
The new White House photographer, Pete Souza, should put his camera down and provide the President with some advice from another President that Souza worked for – Ronald Reagan. Reagan and company – Deaver, Meese, Rollins, Nofzinger et al understood all too well that public acceptance of legislation or public policy debuts had to happen beyond the opposite ends of Pennsylvania Avenue.
There are a multitude of “sets” President Obama could have visited to connect with the American voter on why the stimulus bill should be passed, and many of these locations are demonstrative of how jobs can be created when the private and public sectors work together. On second thought, perhaps that’s the reason the President didn’t visit these spots – because they represent Government as a partner, not a sponsor, of job growth.
Some of the best examples of public-private economic development partnerships can be found in University Research Parks. The parks have been around for years and have paid huge dividends to the regions where they are located. Economic cross pollination between graduates, entrepreneurs and venture capitalists combined with the intellectual horse power of the university scientists and professors create an environment where small businesses are created and thrive. Government money provided to the parks has been spent wisely and evenly – with outcomes and deliverables clearly measured.
Speaking of the Gipper, he would have loved the New Orleans Bio Innovation Center as a speech backdrop. A consortium of LSU, Tulane, the University of New Orleans and Xavier University, the center’s Technology Business Incubator has successfully stimulated entrepreneurial bio science companies in an area devastated by Katrina. The bio sciences field is growing at a pace comparable to the health care industry and higher skilled, higher paying jobs are being created right along with the growth.
Another Reagan-esque speech site is the University of Toledo’s Science and Technology Corridor project. Research, development and business generation in the corridor has focused on exploring alternative energy development. Toledo, long swaying in the economic doldrums, is coming alive again with young entrepreneurs creating spin-offs that support research into alternative methods of powering the United States well into the next century, without the need for foreign oil.
Both sites are excellent examples of long term, coordinated economic development collaboration between Universities and their surrounding regions, primed by well managed government funding seen as seed capital, not a bottomless pit of funding. Greenhouses of innovation and competitiveness, these parks are helping regional economies co-exist and thrive in the broader, world-wide economy.
The President had some tailor made examples of economic stimulus projects he could have spotlighted with a personal visit had he chose to. The facts and pictures would have spoken for themselves, and voters would see what public/private partnerships are capable of. The fact that he didn’t take advantage of pre-existing and successful models could signal a vision for economic recovery that trades sheer volumes of unfettered taxpayer money rained upon programs (and yet to be created programs) with little practical thought.
Submitted by ASO member: Matthew E. Crow
The new White House photographer, Pete Souza, should put his camera down and provide the President with some advice from another President that Souza worked for – Ronald Reagan. Reagan and company – Deaver, Meese, Rollins, Nofzinger et al understood all too well that public acceptance of legislation or public policy debuts had to happen beyond the opposite ends of Pennsylvania Avenue.
There are a multitude of “sets” President Obama could have visited to connect with the American voter on why the stimulus bill should be passed, and many of these locations are demonstrative of how jobs can be created when the private and public sectors work together. On second thought, perhaps that’s the reason the President didn’t visit these spots – because they represent Government as a partner, not a sponsor, of job growth.
Some of the best examples of public-private economic development partnerships can be found in University Research Parks. The parks have been around for years and have paid huge dividends to the regions where they are located. Economic cross pollination between graduates, entrepreneurs and venture capitalists combined with the intellectual horse power of the university scientists and professors create an environment where small businesses are created and thrive. Government money provided to the parks has been spent wisely and evenly – with outcomes and deliverables clearly measured.
Speaking of the Gipper, he would have loved the New Orleans Bio Innovation Center as a speech backdrop. A consortium of LSU, Tulane, the University of New Orleans and Xavier University, the center’s Technology Business Incubator has successfully stimulated entrepreneurial bio science companies in an area devastated by Katrina. The bio sciences field is growing at a pace comparable to the health care industry and higher skilled, higher paying jobs are being created right along with the growth.
Another Reagan-esque speech site is the University of Toledo’s Science and Technology Corridor project. Research, development and business generation in the corridor has focused on exploring alternative energy development. Toledo, long swaying in the economic doldrums, is coming alive again with young entrepreneurs creating spin-offs that support research into alternative methods of powering the United States well into the next century, without the need for foreign oil.
Both sites are excellent examples of long term, coordinated economic development collaboration between Universities and their surrounding regions, primed by well managed government funding seen as seed capital, not a bottomless pit of funding. Greenhouses of innovation and competitiveness, these parks are helping regional economies co-exist and thrive in the broader, world-wide economy.
The President had some tailor made examples of economic stimulus projects he could have spotlighted with a personal visit had he chose to. The facts and pictures would have spoken for themselves, and voters would see what public/private partnerships are capable of. The fact that he didn’t take advantage of pre-existing and successful models could signal a vision for economic recovery that trades sheer volumes of unfettered taxpayer money rained upon programs (and yet to be created programs) with little practical thought.
Submitted by ASO member: Matthew E. Crow
The Stimulus Package – designed by worshippers of government
Check out this editorial from the Wall Street Journal on the so-called stimulus package: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123310466514522309.html
I don’t know about you, but reading this kind of breakdown of what’s in that beast made me a little sick to my stomach. It looks to me like this bill was written by people who really love government, who think government solves all problems, and don’t have a clue about how the free-market economy works.
We are still a free-market economy, right? Gulp. Right?
Submitted by ASO member: Jean Card
I don’t know about you, but reading this kind of breakdown of what’s in that beast made me a little sick to my stomach. It looks to me like this bill was written by people who really love government, who think government solves all problems, and don’t have a clue about how the free-market economy works.
We are still a free-market economy, right? Gulp. Right?
Submitted by ASO member: Jean Card
Think Long
"Think Long" urged Secretary George Schulz in a recent WSJ column http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123327859990131639.html.
He's right. America needs to think long - and act long - on every serious challenge we're facing. That's a lot of challenges. If you count this author's checkbook. that's about a zillion (whoops, forgot to carry the one), a gazillion serious challenges.
The same is true of the Fairness Doctrine. We need to think long about what could happen if we stifle speech, or at least give it a bad sniffle. The last thing free speech needs right now is a hacking cough.
After all, thinking long demands speaking clearly. It demands that every idea for making it through this present crisis is spoken, cleanly and perhaps even loudly. It demands that solutions can be suggested, laughed at, improved and perhaps even used.
There’s no need to squelch the megaphones that are already out there (and good luck turning off that golden mike: http://www.boston.com/news/politics/politicalintelligence/2009/01/obama_vs_limbau.html) but it is essential that even whispers have the chance to be heard.
So by all means, let’s think long. Let’s speak clearly too, and let all the voices be heard. And with time, and a whole lot of luck, we’ll somehow find the way through our zillion – forgot to add the one again – gazillion challenges.
Submitted by ASO member: The Cappuccino Conservative
He's right. America needs to think long - and act long - on every serious challenge we're facing. That's a lot of challenges. If you count this author's checkbook. that's about a zillion (whoops, forgot to carry the one), a gazillion serious challenges.
The same is true of the Fairness Doctrine. We need to think long about what could happen if we stifle speech, or at least give it a bad sniffle. The last thing free speech needs right now is a hacking cough.
After all, thinking long demands speaking clearly. It demands that every idea for making it through this present crisis is spoken, cleanly and perhaps even loudly. It demands that solutions can be suggested, laughed at, improved and perhaps even used.
There’s no need to squelch the megaphones that are already out there (and good luck turning off that golden mike: http://www.boston.com/news/politics/politicalintelligence/2009/01/obama_vs_limbau.html) but it is essential that even whispers have the chance to be heard.
So by all means, let’s think long. Let’s speak clearly too, and let all the voices be heard. And with time, and a whole lot of luck, we’ll somehow find the way through our zillion – forgot to add the one again – gazillion challenges.
Submitted by ASO member: The Cappuccino Conservative
The Bailout
247 to 188; these are two numbers we should keep in mind over the upcoming months and years.
Other than immediately attempting to remedy our Nation's current financial challenges, one of President Obama's most sought after goals as our new leader is to bridge the ever growing partisan divide. Say what you may about the new Administration's economic stimulus package, but I believe its secondary mission to begin the healing process between the left and right missed the target altogether. The aforementioned tally paints an ugly yet clear picture; on top of 11 Democrats, not one Republican Congressperson voted for the stimulus plan. It seems that these 188 Representatives see that the truth lies in the bill's attempt to cement the Democratic stranglehold on Washington D.C. for the next generation.
So, what's next? If this attempt doesn't turn around the struggling economy in the near future, what will President Obama and his allies present as their next solution? History tells us that they will come back with a second similar bill, with an even higher price tag. And, if this pattern continues, the real question we as American citizens need to ask ourselves is "Is this the change we believed in or is this just FDR reincarnated?" Personally, I hope this is just me playing devil's advocate, but any student of history should know that the Great Depression did not end as a result of huge government outlays.
Submitted by ASO member: The Philadelphians
Other than immediately attempting to remedy our Nation's current financial challenges, one of President Obama's most sought after goals as our new leader is to bridge the ever growing partisan divide. Say what you may about the new Administration's economic stimulus package, but I believe its secondary mission to begin the healing process between the left and right missed the target altogether. The aforementioned tally paints an ugly yet clear picture; on top of 11 Democrats, not one Republican Congressperson voted for the stimulus plan. It seems that these 188 Representatives see that the truth lies in the bill's attempt to cement the Democratic stranglehold on Washington D.C. for the next generation.
So, what's next? If this attempt doesn't turn around the struggling economy in the near future, what will President Obama and his allies present as their next solution? History tells us that they will come back with a second similar bill, with an even higher price tag. And, if this pattern continues, the real question we as American citizens need to ask ourselves is "Is this the change we believed in or is this just FDR reincarnated?" Personally, I hope this is just me playing devil's advocate, but any student of history should know that the Great Depression did not end as a result of huge government outlays.
Submitted by ASO member: The Philadelphians
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