Saturday, July 23, 2011

Obama's Economic Brutality

July 23, 2011
By Jen Kuznicki

In a 2001 radio interview, then-Illinois State Senator Barack Obama lamented that our Constitution described a bunch of negative rights -- things government cannot do, as opposed to things government can do.  That the Constitution says what the federal government can't do to you, but doesn't say what the federal government or state government must do on your behalf.

We have come to find out that Obama governs in a way that's consistent with that lament.  Instead of the Constitution telling his government what it can't do,  his government is telling us what we cannot do anymore -- and provides the conditions to make us go along.

In his own words, we cannot drive SUVs, build coal plants, eat what we want, or be comfortable in our own homes.

There has never been an American president who denounced the American way of life like Barack Obama does.  During his campaign, he pointed to all of the above in our domestic policy as atrocities committed by Americans against the world.  We supposedly use too much of the world's resources, and it has to stop before we run out.  It can be shown that since day one, Obama has set into motion an authoritarian and punishing economic policy that amounts to economic assault and battery on the American people.

The American people are for the most part hardworking, resourceful, industrious, and innovative.  It is hard to beat us down and keep us down.  In order to be effective, then, Obama's domestic energy policy has to be far-reaching, all-encompassing, and inclined to put obstacles in the way of those who wish to produce.

Inflation is said to be stable, but since energy and food prices are not included in the equation, we feel the pain even though it's not being measured for a concrete example, as if it is officially not happening.  The administration argues that inflation was worse under Bush and whips out a chart that proves it.  Of course, unemployment combined with the rising costs of gas, electricity, and groceries creates a misery index, which is felt in our households and businesses.  In the private sector, the pain is being felt, but it is not just an unexplained bumpy ride -- it is being inflicted upon us.

Invisible taxation due to regulation costs American families more money than necessary.  Take for example our president's push toward a green economy.  Wind and solar are subsidized while oil and coal are manipulated into scarcity.  He and his party pushed hard for a global warming bill that promised to decrease consumption of oil and coal and natural gas.  But when gas prices reach their highest level ever recorded in America, he released the strategic oil reserves and spoke glowingly of drilling, proving that he believes that an increase in oil supply offers relief at the pump.  At the same time, his administration argued that we cannot get immediate relief from drilling, and so he continues to discount and avoid the practice, forcing Americans to pay more money for something he is causing to be scarce.

Electricity costs are rising, mainly because the Obama administration has been effectively decreasing the supply of coal by refusing to issue permits to coal-mining companies, while at the same time using taxpayer money to prop up solar and windmill use and their advocacies through awarding grants, as well as playing favorites with subsidized clean coal.  Obama has taken a cheap, abundant resource and made it hard to get. 

 He has used terribly flawed science to convince Americans that using coal, no matter what innovative American minds can invent to decrease its output of emissions, is no longer feasible.

His administration is looking for ways to punish food companies.  A commission made up of several agencies in the administration is targeting snack foods and cereals that do not comply with regulations they made up. 

 They are forcing companies like Kellogg's and others to change their recipes or give up their target market.  

Such companies have to decide, and then finance the choice that was forced upon them.  All because a few people in an authoritarian administration decided on limits and arbitrary levels of ingredients acceptable to the administration.

Using corn for ethanol is not working.  It is minimizing farmland normally used for food, and it is not getting into the tanks of vehicles because there are not enough pumps installed for it (and there won't be any time soon).  Not to mention how hard it is for many Americans to purchase new vehicles during this "greatest recession since the depression."

What is striking is that when a crisis presents itself, whether pertaining to energy or other domestic issues, Obama decides on a course of political action, and he immediately resorts to violent rhetoric.  That's how it begins.

When presented with a disaster that killed eleven people and poured unfathomable amounts of crude into the ocean, not only was his response slow, but it focused solely on the environmental aspect.  It was violent, too -- Obama looked for "whose ass to kick," and his cabinet member gushed about keeping his "boot on the neck" of the company at fault.

When the subprime mortgage crisis came to a head, Obama decided to pursue AIG and others by saying that his administration was "the only thing standing between them and the pitchforks."  He actually had union members carrying signs and shouting and threatening people in their homes.

When talking to union members, he said of the Republicans, "They bring a knife; we bring a gun."

He told the Republicans during the debt talks that "the debt ceiling should not be used as a gun against the heads of Americans to retain breaks for corporate jet owners or oil and gas companies."

Interestingly, Obama was applauded as a dove when campaigning.  It was said by his supporters that his foreign policy would be employing what they thought Bush did not, that he would be the one to use diplomacy.  Members of Obama's sycophantic press said, "If George W. Bush was a cowboy, Obama is a group hug."  In the two and a half years since his presidency began, Obama has not exactly fulfilled that characterization, since we are involved very heavily in the Middle East militarily, but Obama's domestic policy is not dovish, either.  It can only be concluded that the president's "group" is not the American people, and that he is interested in punishing them through the economy.

It is not whether the president is presiding over a passed-down horrible economy, nor is it that he is unknowingly making it worse.  Economic brutality is being inflicted upon us by our own president.

American Thinker