Random Thoughts – 2/14

There’s a lot of praise of late for President Obama’s latest speech on the situation in Egypt. And some of it was good, someone with dozens of speechwriters on staff should be able to get one out there that will be at least inoffensive. The trouble is that it was a speech making all kinds of grandiose statements about an event that has not yet played out and inserted person who had nothing to do with those events (Obama) into the middle of it. The president seemed to wait things out, making squishy statements as the tides changed and in the end came out supporting the protesters. Which ones (remember there were pro-Mubarak demonstrators out there) exactly he didn’t say. Mubarak wasn’t a voice for freedom but when things went down, he didn’t shoot protestors like in Iran or run over them with a tank like in China. My point is that there are worse out there. When did the president ever support the most recent uprising in Iran after that “election”? When has he said anything about the similar events now taking place in Tunisia? There is something unsettling about the administration’s fence sitting and opportunistic statements. Good luck to the people of Egypt and may their road to self-governance actually exist.

President Obama’s budget proposal for FY2012 features a whopping 2% in cuts from the post stimulus baseline of 2008. Meaning that after saying that it was a onetime thing, the White House is attempting to include the failed, so-called stimulus (because it didn’t stimulate anything of lasting value) in future budgets. And much of what is being advertised as savings is coming in future years from raising taxes in multiple ways. This will fail for many different reasons. There is less revenue this year than previous years but is mostly due to the high levels of unemployment under this regime. Paying extended unemployment benefits and not collecting taxes from those being paid does not increase revenue. Attacking higher earners is only a distraction peddled by the administration and is no excuse for spending more than we have on too many things that we don’t want or need.

Vice President Joe Biden was known as a booster of Amtrak when he was a Senator from Delaware because he often spoke of his commuting by train. And now, because of the Vice President’s personal preference we are being forced to spend billions of dollars on nonsense high speed rail projects all over the country. Delaware and Washington DC are so close that travel by rail might make sense for those who don’t like to drive the sparse and low speed limited roads of Delaware. For everyone else, traveling by train is miserable. And even where it is more prevalent, it’s expensive. The Amtrak route from New York City to Washington DC costs more and takes longer than taking an airplane. New Mexico has had to learn the hard way that rail travel is just not that great. Who cares if France’s and Japan’s passenger rail systems work better than ours? That just means that it works for those countries. Our rail system works best at freight transport, which will be hurt by increased passenger train enthusiasm because they have track priority and will lead to delays and lower capacity of shipments.

Ron Paul won the presidential straw poll for 2012 at CPAC. Congressman Paul is a good legislator but would not make a good executive. While there is much to admire in Paul’s positions many should also be questioned. Putting him out there only makes CPAC seem to be out of touch.