A Welcome Return

The sky was falling. At one point this summer the NFL had created contingency plans for a shortened season in case a new collective bargaining agreement with the player’s union was not completed. Every day in the off season while discussions occurred, various talking heads breathlessly harped on and on and on about every conceivable doomsday scenario and blamed everyone and everything for the presumptive lack of professional football. One NFL player predicted widespread violence while another (who, according to his own words in a recent ESPN magazine issue still doesn’t understand why what he said was uncouth and unlikely to endear him to most anyone) compared the plight of him and his fellow players to SLAVERY!?

In the end, at what was effectively the last minute before actually needing that contingency plan agreement was reached. When it was announced there were some players still talking trash (some people just can’t help themselves), probably because it’s harder to obtain agreement from 1600 players than 32 owners. After the tantrums were calmed the deal was signed and a week later a flurry of personnel activity because of an accelerated free agent and trading period caused widespread overdoses of joy from a once nervous public and punditry.

Tonight the preseason starts and the Broncos face the Cowboys in Dallas. The only thing better would be if the Denver affiliate finally broke down and invested in High Definition (I’ve been complaining about this for years); instead I’m forced to watch the Cowboy’s broadcast and their insufferable announcers. That’s what mute buttons are for I suppose. In summation, football’s back and that’s awesome. Go Broncos.

Obama a Republican?

Discussing politics with someone of a viewpoint opposite that of your own is a certain path to disagreement. And that disagreement is often impossible to bridge because political policy is often speculative and it is very likely for two views to be completely irreconcilable making compromise practically impossible. Sometimes a political conversation can start innocuously, over a simple comment and then lead to conflicting terms. I found myself in just that sort of conversation recently when I responded to a friend’s posting after the “debt ceiling” bill where they called the President a Republican.

I was appalled by the suggestion and responded by pointing out the massive accumulation of debt, spent on social programs that did nothing to help an ailing economy, instead making it worse and pointed out that the debt ceiling deal didn’t cut anything, instead slowing the rate of growth in future years that can be reinstated by a future congress. My friend, unfazed, retorted with talking points and blamed today’s spending on the previous President. Back and forth we went, with me using inferential statistics based on the White House Office of Management and Budget’s historical tables and my friend using democrat talking points. I gave up with a final rant attempting to clarify dozens of contradictions ignored by my friend who got to his main talking point, that the real reason why we don’t live in a socialist utopia is because real progressive policies have never been attempted and that progressives always lose because they are afraid of Republicans.

There is no way to rationally discuss political policy with someone of this opinion. Every year the federal government has grown. Under our last President, a Republican, a new cabinet level department, a new Medicare entitlement, $168 trillion in do-nothing stimulus, private bank bailouts and a large education initiative were added. And under the current President, a democrat, more private bank bailouts, auto company bailouts, a new trillion dollar health care bill, an $800 billion do-nothing stimulus, a $400 billion omnibus spending boondoggle, an automobile purchasing program, a housing purchasing program, unemployment benefit expansion to two freaking years, repeal of 1990’s era welfare reform leading to record numbers of recipients and double digit increases to democrat favored departments amongst other new spending has been added. A progressive complaining about a lack of progressive policy under this administration is akin to Michael Jordan complaining about a lack of NBA championships, absurd.

The problem with the federal government is that it is too progressive. Massive entitlement programs have changed the government into a check-writing enterprise, using the taxes of some citizens to pay for the livelihoods of others, effectively making them wards of the state. Many of these beneficiaries have no idea where the money comes from other than the government and the government uses this fact to utilize them as votes for expansion. One of the President’s favorite talking points is to demand sacrifice from higher income taxpayers, taxpayers that already pay a share of taxes disproportionate to their share of income. How that is supposed to be fair and how increasing taxes even further is fair, I don’t understand.

Progressive political policy, as defined as the unfettered expansion of government in scope and consumption of resources, has won consistently for too many years. Progressive detractors of the current President’s methods are too-clever by half. Those who claim to be upset with the President’s lack of “progressivism” are simply impatient and aren’t paying attention. The President seems to understand that progressive policies take time to grow and need to start small (believe it or not, Obamacare is considered ‘small’ by self-identified “progressives”) in order to not be noticed by an electorate that is not enamored by such things. Progressives who claim that the President will lose their support in 2012 are either deceptive or just whining because the prison in Guantanamo Bay is still operating or some other nonsense and unreasonable leftist promise hasn’t been fulfilled. Who else are they going to vote for? And if Obama’s is not “progressive” enough, would they really stay home and allow a Republican bogeyman to be elected? If Obama’s a Republican and not “progressive” enough then the Earth is flat. Progressive policies have brought this country to insolvency and the only way out is to shrink government and foster a culture of responsibility, rather than dependency on progressive overlords, er experts.

Another Historic First

For the first time in history, the credit rating of the United States of America has been downgraded. Just Remember, to liberals not only does the spending under this administration not count, in order to blame all spending from the beginning of time on the former President personally (many seem to actually believe as an article of faith that at the end of the Clinton presidency there was no debt) and that a desire for not spending more than what we have makes one a terrorist and that the stimulus would have worked only if it were larger and that shovel-ready doesn't quite mean what it means unless millions of construction workers can be awoken Han Solo like by infrastructure 'investments' while the white house can't create jobs, just save or create. No doubt, while taking a break from campaigning, the President will be able to tell us exactly why this happened when he said it wouldn't if the deal was made and proceed to lecture those fortunate to have a job that they aren't doing their fair share and to remind us that the jobs market is getting better as defined by 120,000 people leaving the job market which magically equates to 117,000 new jobs. I suppose it's time for the media to feign surprise.

When will the President actually be President?

Because democrats are sore losers and don’t understand that not everyone agrees with them about everything President George W. Bush had a curious beginning to his administration. Before he was even inaugurated the new President was described as a failure. liberal conventional wisdom crafted the myth of an illegitimate President who was destroying the work of hero Bill Clinton and was hurting the disadvantaged for the benefit of heartless corporations. Myths and a barrage of hateful statements were heaved at President Bush constantly every moment he was in office. And he never complained. He gracefully accepted the responsibilities of the position that he had campaigned for and rightfully earned by the vote of his fellow citizens. This demeanor is what endeared the former President to many, even those who at times disagreed with his positions.

In the latest version of ESPN the magazine is a story containing statements from various athletes about anything at all. Former NFL wide receiver Jerry Rice takes his space to first mention that he does not like to comment on politics and then regurgitates the liberal conventional wisdom that everything deficient in our country today is unequivocally the responsibility of former President Bush and that President Obama has done nothing to be responsible for it and should be given a chance because he is doing everything that he can to steer us all in the right direction and that things under former President Bush were so bad that it will take a very long time to correct. Normally this claptrap could be dismissed as ignorance from a former professional athlete but this line is conventional wisdom to many and is expressed by President Obama often and parroted by many straight news stories as if it were undeniable truth.

There is no doubt that economic circumstances were unfavorable when President Obama assumed office, however, he campaigned on his ability to make things better almost instantly. The entire premise of “Hope and Change” rested on the premise of President Obama as a redemptive, all-knowing oracle-like figure who would save the soul of our country and propel our economy to heights unknown. Two and a half years later the country’s economy is worse than it was when President Obama was inaugurated. Unemployment is lower than promised by the President as a result of the stimulus and has sustained a high rate longer than ever before. The time in which the unemployed remain that way is the longest in United States history. GDP is lower today than in 2007. Tax receipts as a portion of GDP are 4 percentage points lower than the historical average. This year’s single deficit is the largest in history and greater than the first four years of the prior administration combined. Since the current President was inaugurated the nation debt has grown by more than 4.5 trillion dollars, an amount greater than the combined deficits of the previous administration.

There is no empirical or inferential way to prove that anything done today is the result of the policies of former President Bush. The wars in Iraq in Afghanistan were started under the previous administration, but, they were authorized by congress and their costs have decreased in recent years. Anything else, such as the Medicare prescription drug benefit, no child left behind and the Department of Homeland Security could have been cut by the President with both houses of congress being democrat his first two years in office but he did not. Additionally the largest deficits occurred during the last administration following the 2006 elections when both houses of congress, and therefore budgetary authority, switched to democrat control.

But never mind. Eight years of transforming George W. Bush into some kind of mythical demon worked and no amount of inferential statistics on the economy, empirical economic numbers, the average unemployment rate in the eight years of the Bush administration (5.2%) can change a conventional wisdom that is completely made up. So long as it holds President Obama will never have to be responsible for any policies. The President and his acolytes are too simply too blinded by talking points and too lazy to do the hard work of analyzing the real numbers. And they will never tell anyone when President Obama is actually responsible so long as President Bush can be blamed. President Bush will be treated kindly by history because it’s impossible to hide reality for too long and the conventional wisdom will eventually unravel. Unfortunately it may be too late to help more people understand the irresponsible fiscal policies of President Obama and democrat legislators.