President Obama

President Obama to push U.S.-Korea FTA

by Fran Smith on June 28, 2010

in Economy, International, Trade

Economic reality is beginning to take the place of anti-trade rhetoric on the U.S.-South Korea Free Trade Agreement, which has been on hold since it was signed three years ago.  Today, the Wall Street Journal reported that President Obama has said he will resolve issues relating to beef and autos for the November G-20 meeting in Seoul and then push for ratification of the FTA soon after.

According to the U.S. Trade Representative, that would be good news for the still-faltering economy.  It is estimated that Korea under the FTA would be reducing tariffs and quotas on goods and services, with goods alone adding “$10 billion to $12 billion to annual U.S. Gross Domestic Product and around $10 billion to annual merchandise exports to Korea.”

The pressure is on from other countries pursuing trade agreements with Korea. Last fall the European Union and Korea signed a trade pact, which has to be voted on by Members of the European Parliament.  Canada too has a pending trade agreement with Korea.

Check out CEI’s Issue Analysis on why the U.S. should move ahead on the FTA.

New Federal Interference With Oil-Spill Clean-Up: Feds Stop Louisiana From Dredging Needed to Create Protective Sand Berms

by Hans Bader on June 23, 2010 · 2 comments

in Agriculture, Economy, Employment, Energy, Environment, Ethanol, Global Warming, International, Labor, Legal, Mobility, Natural Resources, Politics as Usual, Precaution & Risk, Regulation, Sanctimony, Stimulus to Nowhere, Trade, Zeitgeist

A TV station in New Orleans reports that “the federal government is shutting down the dredging that was being done to create protective sand berms in the Gulf of Mexico.”   Louisiana planned to create the sand berms to prevent the massive BP oil spill from polluting its coastline.

Earlier, a federal judge blocked Obama’s drilling ban on offshore drilling, citing deception by Obama administration officials.  The ban applied mostly to oil companies with radically better safety records than BP.  (BP’s executives gave lots of money to Obama and lobbied for his legislation.)

Obama delayed the clean-up of the Gulf of Mexico by blocking foreign crews from operating sophisticated clean-up vessels.  The Jones Act bans foreign vessels and crews from working in U.S. waters, but it gives the President the authority to completely waive that ban if he wishes.  Obama refused to lift the ban, even though American shippers who generally support the ban said they wouldn’t object to lifting it to fight the spill.  As a result of the ban, the U.S. rejected a lot of foreign aid from counties with expertise in fighting oil spills, and accepted only a small amount of foreign equipment to fight the spill.

The federal government has routinely been a thorn in the side of Louisiana as it seeks to fight the huge oil spill.  It recently used red tape to force Louisiana to stop using 16 barges that were cleaning up the Gulf of Mexico by sucking thousands of gallons of oil out of Louisiana’s oil-soaked waters.  Earlier, four oil skimmers needed to clean the Gulf were blocked by EPA officials.

The oil spill has been called “Obama’s Katrina,” but Gulf Coast resident Paul Rubin says this is unfair to George Bush, who was not nearly as incompetent as Obama has been in dealing with the spill at BP’s Deepwater Horizon.  In the Wall Street Journal, Rubin notes that the oil spill occurred in federal waters and thus was a federal responsibility, while Hurricane Katrina occurred mostly on state land and thus was largely a state, not federal, responsibility, enabling incompetent local officials in cities like New Orleans to “interfere” with federal relief efforts:

In many respects, the Deepwater Horizon disaster and Katrina are mirror images of each other. The harm from Katrina was on state land—mainly Louisiana, but also Florida, Alabama and Mississippi. As a result, President George W. Bush and the federal government were limited in what they could do. For example, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff wanted to take command of disaster relief on the day before landfall, but Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco refused. Federal response was hindered because the law gave first authority to state and local authorities.  State and local efforts—particularly in New Orleans, and Louisiana more broadly—interfered with what actions the federal government could actually take. New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin was late in ordering an evacuation and did not allow the use of school buses for evacuation, which could have saved hundreds of lives. President Bush had no power to change that decision.  The Deepwater Horizon oil spill is on federal offshore territory. The federal government has primary responsibility for handling the situation, while state and local governments remain limited in what they can do. For example, the Environmental Protection Agency has repeatedly changed its mind regarding the chemical dispersants that Louisiana is allowed to use. . . .As opposed to Katrina, state and local attempts to address the oil spill have been hindered by an ineffectual and chaotic federal response.

Obama is now using the BP oil spill to push a corporate-welfare-filled global-warming bill crafted partly by BP’s lobbyists.  Obama’s global warming legislation expands ethanol subsidies, which cause famine, starvation, and food riots in poor countries by shrinking the food supply, and also result in deforestation, soil erosion, and water pollution. Subsidies for biofuels like ethanol are a big source of corporate welfare: “BP has lobbied for and profited from subsidies for biofuels . . . that cannot break even without government support.”

The $800 billion stimulus package is using taxpayer subsidies to replace U.S. jobs with foreign green jobs. It is also destroying jobs in America’s export sector.

Judiciary Committee Votes to Promote Judge Who Made Excuses for Roadside Strangler, Claiming His “Sexual Sadism” Was a “Mitigating Factor”

by Hans Bader on June 10, 2010 · 3 comments

in Culture, Legal, Personal Liberty, Politics as Usual, Zeitgeist

On a party-line vote, the Senate Judiciary Committee has approved President Obama’s promotion of a federal judge who tried to block the execution of a serial killer and rapist known as the Roadside Strangler based on the unbelievable ground that this serial killer’s  “sexual sadism” was a mitigating factor.  The judge did so even though this serial killer admitted his sentence was appropriate and did not seek to challenge it. Obama nominated this judge to serve on a federal appeals court known as the 2nd Circuit.  The newspaper Roll Call reports:

“The Senate Judiciary Committee approved the nomination of Judge Robert Chatigny to the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Thursday on a largely party-line vote despite stiff GOP opposition over his handling of child pornography and rape cases as a district court judge. With Sen. Dianne Feinstein (Calif.) abstaining on the vote, the committee’s other 11 Democrats approved the nomination Thursday morning, while the committee’s entire seven-member contingent of Republicans voted ‘no.’ In a series of cases involving defendants found guilty of child pornography, rape and sexual assault cases, Chatigny used the process of downward departure to reduce their sentences. Chatigny also played a central role in the ‘roadside strangler’ case. In that case, Chatigny allegedly threatened to pull the law license of the attorney for a convicted killer — who has been on death row for 15 years — unless he continued his efforts to have the sentence overturned. Chatigny’s nomination has been hotly contested by victims’ rights advocates and the families of several high-profile victims, including the family of Elizabeth Smart, who was kidnapped in 2002.”

The Judiciary Committee ignored objections from victims-rights advocates like Edward Smart of the Surviving Parents Coalition, who noted that Judge Chatigny had not just opposed the execution of “Roadside Strangler” Michael Ross, but also gone further, to question his very conviction, based on silly reasons: “Judge Chatigny claimed Ross was incompetent to stand trial based on the prison environment and Ross’s sexual sadism.”  This sort of making excuses for dangerous criminals to overturn their convictions (and potentially set them free) is extremely disturbing.

Footage of the Judiciary Committee hearing makes clear that even some liberal Senators found Chatigny’s record disturbing, but they voted for him anyway out of blind party loyalty to Obama, who nominated him.  Conservative Senator Sessions discusses and criticizes the nomination here.

An even more radical Obama nominee, Goodwin Liu, was previously approved on a party-line vote by the Senate Judiciary Committee.  Liu is a Berkeley law professor who believes that the Constitution requires racial quotas and welfare, and is hostile to “free enterprise, private ownership of property, and limited government.”  If confirmed by the full Senate, Liu would sit on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, the nation’s largest federal appeals court.

Obama’s recent Supreme Court nominee, Elena Kagan, shirked her duty to defend federal laws protecting crime victims, while in her current position as Solicitor General, to which she was appointed by Obama.

BP Supported Obama Stimulus Package, Global Warming Bill, and Corporate Welfare; BP Bankrolled Obama Campaign

by Hans Bader on June 9, 2010

in Agriculture, Bailout Watch, Deregulate to Stimulate, Economy, Employment, Energy, Environment, Ethanol, Global Warming, Health and Illness, International, Natural Resources, Politics as Usual, Precaution & Risk, Regulation, Sanctimony, Stimulus to Nowhere, Trade, Zeitgeist

Columnist Tim Carney notes that BP, responsible for the massive oil spill, is “a close friend of big government whenever it serves the company’s bottom line.” It lobbied for President Obama’s $800 billion stimulus package, the “cap-and-trade” global-warming bills backed by Obama, and “the Wall Street bailout” that Obama voted for.  “BP has more Democratic lobbyists than Republicans.”  Obama is the biggest recipient of campaign cash from BP executives.

Obama’s global warming legislation expands ethanol subsidies, which cause famine, starvation, and food riots in poor countries by shrinking the food supply, and also result in deforestation, soil erosion, and water pollution. Subsidies for biofuels like ethanol are a big source of corporate welfare: “BP has lobbied for and profited from subsidies for biofuels . . . that cannot break even without government support.”

The $800 billion stimulus package is using taxpayer subsidies to replace U.S. jobs with foreign green jobs. It is also destroying jobs in America’s export sector.

Obama falsely claimed that the stimulus package was needed to prevent “irreversible decline,” but the Congressional Budget Office admitted that it would actually shrink the economy “in the long run.”  Unemployment has skyrocketed past European levels, as big-spending countries have fared worse than thrifty ones.  As the Examiner notes, “If his stimulus program was approved, Obama promised, unemployment would not go above 8 percent . . . The reality is that it passed 10.3 percent.”  In 2008, Obama promised a “net spending cut,” but as soon as he was elected, he proposed massive spending increases.

Obama’s global warming legislation would also drive jobs overseas, since it would impose a costly cap-and-trade carbon rationing scheme on American industry, while leaving foreign plants operated by multinational corporations unregulated.  That’s one reason why many big companies with plants overseas are lobbying for the global-warming legislation, which would give them an advantage over competitors that make their products largely in America.  The legislation would result in a tax increase for American consumers of up to $200 billion a year or $1,761 per household.

Unlike other oil companies, which have good records of safety and avoiding spills when it comes to oil drilling, BP has a bad record, earning it the label of “serial environmental criminal” from critics.  The Obama administration granted BP a waiver of environmental regulations in April 2009, yet it blocked Louisiana from protecting its coastline against the oil spill by delaying rather than expediting regulatory approval of essential protective measures.  It has also chosen not to use what has been described as “the most effective method” of fighting the spill, a method successfully used in other oil spills.  Democratic strategist James Carville called Obama’s handling of the oil spill “lackadaisical” and “unbelievable” in its “stupidity.”

Obama is now using BP’s oil spill to push the global-warming legislation that BP had lobbied for.

ObamaCare Deeply Unpopular: Democratic Congressman Who Voted for Health Care Bill Loses Primary Election

by Hans Bader on May 12, 2010 · 1 comment

in Deregulate to Stimulate, Economy, Health and Illness, Healthcare, Insurance, Legal, Nanny State, Personal Liberty, Politics as Usual, Precaution & Risk, Regulation, Sanctimony, Zeitgeist

ObamaCare is so unpopular in West Virginia that veteran Democratic Congressman Alan Mollohan lost reelection in yesterday’s Democratic primary to a state senator who opposes the health care legislation backed by President Obama.  Mollohan lost by a decisive 56-to-44 percent margin to Mike Oliverio, “a conservative Democrat,” amidst record turnout for a primary.   In November, Oliverio will face the Republican nominee, David McKinley, who called Mollohan’s defeat a referendum on President Barack Obama.  Mollohan had easily won reelection in past races ever since being elected in 1982, despite corruption allegations.

The Congressional Budget Office now admits that ObamaCare will cost at least $115 billion more than previously estimated.  An Atlanta newspaper column says that the healthcare legislation will “bury businesses under a blizzard of costly new paperwork,” requiring them to spent vast amounts “collecting data, filling out forms, reprogramming computers, hiring accountants and wrestling with the IRS bureaucracy.”

“Economic experts from President Obama’s own Health and Human Services Department have released a devastating report noting that ObamaCare ‘will increase national health care spending by $311 billion from 2010-2019,’ according to the Associated Press. Even worse, ‘Medicare cuts may be unrealistic and unsustainable, driving about 15 percent of hospitals into the red and ‘possibly jeopardizing access’ to care for seniors.’”  This contradicts Obama’s claims that the health care law would “bend the cost curve down” and cut the cost of health insurance.  Starting in 2013, the health care legislation will also dramatically increase the taxes of “15 million very sick people” with “major medical expenses.”

“The administration’s own actuary reported on Thursday that millions of people could lose their health insurance, that health-care costs will rise faster than they would have if the law hadn’t passed, and that the overhaul will mean that people will have a harder and harder time finding physicians to see them.”

“Billions of more documents” will be have to be filled out by small businesses for the IRS so that a “spendthrift Congress can shake a few extra bucks out of” them to pay for ObamaCare. They will have to spend countless hours to “gather information,” such as about the person they buy a used car from, and the mom-and-pop landlords who lease space to them, even if the small business has to spend more money gathering the information than the IRS will collect in taxes as a result.  (The new health care law will raise far more revenue by taking away medical tax-deductions of “15 million very sick people” with “major medical expenses” starting in 2013.)

The health care bill vastly expands the power of the IRS.  The Washington Examiner says that “16,500 more IRS agents” will be “needed to enforce Obamacare.”  That’s “the biggest expansion of the IRS since World War II.”

ObamaCare is also costing major employers who provide health coverage for retirees billions of dollars.  “When companies started reporting the write-downs they’d take as a result of the passage of ObamaCare,” congressional Democrats “reacted with outrage at the announcements, and scheduled hearings to demand answers . . . from AT&T, Caterpillar, Deere, and Verizon.”  But now, the massive costs of ObamaCare are so obvious and undeniable that even congressional Democrats have “admitted that CEOs who reported billions in losses due to ObamaCare were required to state those losses after all,” and that their “companies acted properly and in accordance with” federal “accounting standards.”

To try to offset and hide the increased cost of health care resulting from their ill-conceived health care law, the Obama administration and congressional leaders are now proposing a new bill to “impose price controls on insurance,” even though similar legislation is already backfiring in Massachusetts, where health care costs spiraled upwards after the state government adopted a prototype of ObamaCare several years ago, resulting in “explosive costs.”

The health care legislation backed by Obama contains many penny-wise, pound-foolish provisions.  It spends money on frills like “cultural competency,” while cutting spending on crucial things like anesthesia.

14 attorneys general are challenging provisions of the new health care law in court.  Their lawsuits argue that forcing people to buy health insurance is not a valid exercise of Congress’s power to regulate interstate commerce.

The new law imposes many middle-class tax increases, such as taxes on uninsured individuals, on cosmetic surgery, on medical devices, and on certain health care plans.  It also increases taxes on many investors and imposes marriage penalties.

The new health care law will reduce lifesaving medical innovation, raise taxes, drive up insurance premiums, break many campaign promises, and increase state budget deficits.  It  will jeopardize the quality of medical care, while imposing restrictions that failed when tried at the state level.  It ignores advice from doctors and federal experts, and lessons from countries with universal health care, about how to keep costs down.

While the CBO deceptively scored the health care bill as not increasing the federal deficit, thanks to the many tax increases in the bill, it did so only because it was required to accept many accounting gimmicks that even pro-administration journalists have admitted conceal the bill’s enormous cost and the fact that it will massively increase the deficit.  The New York Times‘ David Brooks, once a staunch supporter of President Obama, recently said that the bill’s drafters were “corrupted by power” and called arguments for the law “unbelievable” and “insane.”  The Atlantic’s Megan McArdle, who also voted for Obama, wrote that the law “is a fiscal disaster waiting to happen.”

Millions of Seniors to be Dumped from Health Plans Due to New Health Care Law

by Hans Bader on March 30, 2010

in Health and Illness, Healthcare, Insurance, Legal, Nanny State, Personal Liberty, Regulation

Two million seniors are expected to be dumped onto Medicare from company prescription medication plans, thanks to a poorly-vetted provision of the new health care law signed by the president this week. It will cost the taxpayers billions in higher Medicare costs, and the companies hundreds of millions of dollars in lost tax deductions.

It’s one of many penny-wise, pound-foolish provisions in the new health care law. It spends money on frills like “cultural competency,” while cutting spending on crucial things like anesthesia.

Fourteen attorneys general are challenging provisions of the new health care law in court. Their lawsuits argue that forcing people to buy health insurance is not a valid exercise of Congress’s power to regulate interstate commerce.

The new law imposes many middle-class tax increases, such as taxes on uninsured individuals, on cosmetic surgery, on medical devices, and on certain health care plans. It also increases taxes on many investors and imposes marriage penalties.

The new health care law will reduce lifesaving medical innovation, raise taxes, drive up insurance premiums, break many campaign promises, and increase state budget deficits. It will jeopardize the quality of medical care, while imposing restrictions that failed when tried at the state level. It ignores advice from doctors and federal experts, and lessons from countries with universal healthcare, about how to keep costs down.

Governors of both political parties assailed the health care bill as a job-killer that will drive up state deficits, increase taxes, and harm the economy. The governors of New York and California earlier warned that “their states will be crushed by billions in new costs.”

While the CBO has scored the health care bill as not increasing the federal deficit, thanks to the many tax increases in the bill, it has done so only by accepting many accounting gimmicks that even pro-administration journalists have admitted conceal the bill’s enormous cost and the fact that it will massively increase the deficit. The New York Times‘ David Brooks, once a staunch supporter of President Obama, recently said that the bill’s drafters were “corrupted by power” and called arguments for the law “unbelievable” and “insane.” The Atlantic’s Megan McArdle, who also voted for Obama, wrote that the law “is a fiscal disaster waiting to happen.”

Tea Party antipathy

by Fran Smith on March 23, 2010

in Odds & Ends, Politics as Usual

In Cato’s blog today Roger Pilon takes up the Democratic left’s broad characterization of Tea Party protestors as unruly and misguided because of the taunts of a few reacting to Sunday’s health care vote. Pilon’s main points are three: (1) Pundits are making claims about some protestors’ actions in certain cases without a “shred of evidence”;  (2) even if the allegations are true, the whole Tea Party movement shouldn’t be condemned for the actions of a few; (3) and Pilon’s ending point:

“The symbolism of the Democratic left’s hostility to the ‘tea baggers’ should not go unnoticed.  The tea party movement’s roots are in the American Revolution.  These ordinary Americans are protesting the Washington ’Establishment’ – which presently is the Democratic juggernaut - much as American Patriots were protesting the oppressive British Establishment that was ‘eating out their substance’ with ‘a long train of abuses and usurpations.’  The Democratic left should think long and hard about those parallels.  The times they are a-changin’.”

I’ll second that and also offer some observations of the Democratic lefts’ behavior that was found wanting on a much larger scale.  Remember Inauguration Day, January 20, 2009, with some in the liberal media overcome by emotion as they watched the huge crowds hailing the incoming president?  Was I (no fan of the Bush Administration) the only one discomfited by the crescendo of boos and cat-calls that greeted President Bush and Vice President Cheney (in a wheelchair) as they took their places for the swearing-in of President Obama?  Using the logic of the Tea Party critics, one could say that those hundreds of thousands showing such disrespect tainted all the Obama supporters as a boorish, mean-spirited mob.  But one wouldn’t say that, of course, if one were in sympathy with their sentiments or if one realized that those were individuals acting independently or if one believed in free speech.

No, Pres. Obama, the health care vote was not “of the people”

by Michael Fumento on March 22, 2010 · 1 comment

in Healthcare

I have repeatedly defended Obama against what I’ve considered unfair attacks from the right. I believe his actions for the most part have not been nearly as “liberal” as some have claimed. It’s wrong to use his middle name of “Hussein” used against him, as if he could have chosen it in any case. And I don’t care for the conspiracy theories such as his alleged foreign birth.

But one of my objections to all this is it weakens legitimate arguments against those actions and words of his that truly threaten our nation.

That includes his utterly outrageous claim following the House vote approving the health care bill.

The vote, he said last night, “proved that this government – a government of the people and by the people – still works for the people.”

Just for using that cliche he merits 20,000 years in purgatory. I trust even my non-Catholic friends will stand by me on that.

But beyond that, we have those pesky surveys that repeatedly showed “the people” opposed the legislation. They include Gallup, Rasmussen, Fox, Pew, NBC/Wall Street Journal, and others. All were released anywhere from days to a week before the vote. All show only about a third of the electorate wanted the legislation to pass.

Then there are the numbers in the House vote itself.

It squeaked by with just seven more yeas than nays, or 50.8 percent of those voting. It got zero votes from opposition party and had 17 defectors from the majority party. That doesn’t invalidate the vote, of course. It legally passed. But is that the kind of victory margin you’d really want for sweeping legislation that will affect all Americans presumably for the rest of our history?

Obviously it’s not what Obama would have wanted. But what he wanted more was a political victory and a massive expansion of government, and now he’s got them. Goody for him. But don’t pretend this is what we wanted.

National ID Plan Insults Americans

by Alex Nowrasteh on March 19, 2010

in Legal, Privacy, Regulation

President Obama recently gave his thumbs-up to an immigration compromise plan formulated by Chucky “Why Am I So Annoying” Schumer (D-NY) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) that includes a national biometric ID card for all Americans.  I already outlined here some of the major objections to any national biometric ID but the government is moving forward with the plan anyway.

I expected this proposal to be terrifying, but I wasn’t prepared to be personally insulted.  As was reported here:

“The cards would include biometric information designed to prevent counterfeiting — but the senators said the information would not be stored in a government database.”

I don’t believe in conspiracies, but when the government says they are going to set up a national biometric ID card BUT not store all of our information in a database, it smells fishy.  Sure . . . (wink-wink) the national biometric ID won’t store our personal biological information in a government database . . . and our Social Security numbers will only be used to track our Social Security benefits, right?    Nothing good has ever come about from the issuance of a national ID, let alone one that includes biometric information.

But the Senator’s statements, if true, negate the entire purpose of have a national biometric ID!  If the information is not stored in a database, there is nothing to check your national biometric ID card against.  That would make it incredibly easy to counterfeit.  How is the government, or a private employer, supposed to know it’s a forgery?  All national biometric ID cards, or ID cards of any type, require a central database of personal information to have a chance at being successful.  What are Graham and Schumer thinking?

The good parts of the Senator’s plan, of which there are several, are totally overshadowed by this and the extension of an Electronic Employment Verification System (EEVS).  These provisions have turned what could be an important bill into a terrifying extension of government power that won’t even cut down on illegal immigration.  A bill like this that focuses on enforcement and amnesty only will not be successful.

Undocumented immigration is a problem but the solution is not scanning American’s biological information into a biometric national ID card that must be presented to employers and checked against a mandatory EEVS.  The solution is to allow mass legal immigration to the United States to move immigration out of an unregulated black market and into the legal market.  Americans are already punished by the government’s insistence that legal immigration be kept at artificially low levels; let’s not punish them more by submitting their most intimate information to a government database.

Senate Passes $18,000,000,000 Spending Bill: Will it Create Jobs?

by Ryan Young on March 17, 2010

in Economy, Stimulus to Nowhere

The Senate just passed an $18 billion spending bill. Since the House already passed it, the legislation is now headed to President Obama’s desk to await his signature and become law.

The hope is that the spending will create jobs. If you’re reading this blog, then you probably know enough about economics to know that isn’t what will actually happen. Remember: anything that Washington giveth, it must first taketh away from somewhere else. It’s a zero-sum game. All those new jobs that politicians will be touting for the cameras will have come at the expense of other jobs elsewhere. On net, they’re not creating a thing.

Take, for example, the bill’s payroll tax break for small businesses. Yes, those small businesses benefit. Maybe the money they save will even be used to hire more workers. That’s easy enough to see. But that money had to come from somewhere. That is harder to see. Too hard for the Senate to see, at the very least.

The reason is this: the government is foregoing some payroll tax revenue. But since it isn’t cutting spending to match, it has to borrow more. And there’s only so much investment capital to go around. Because Washington is borrowing more, less is left over for private investment opportunities. At the very least, companies will have to offer investors higher interest rates to lure them away from government bonds.

That makes getting loans more expensive. And when something gets more expensive, there tends to be less of it. Because of today’s bill, about $18 billion less capital will be available for the private sector to create jobs.

The legislation the Senate passed today is no jobs bill, at least on net. It is a spending bill. It doesn’t create jobs, it only redirects them.

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