No Loss for Words

President Obama often talks about how everyone needs to pay their fair share and then points to successful citizens as taking advantage of the system; but in a negative way, rather than using their example of success as encouragement for others to be successful as well.  At a time when many Americans are struggling, Obama and many of his ilk are angry because some Americans are not struggling so much.

Think about all the immigrants who became the foundation of our country over the years.  When asked why they sacrificed everything to come to America, they answered with two things; liberty and economic opportunity.  They wanted to be free and have the chance to work hard and be successful in America.

Liberty and Economic Opportunity!

When the Democrats try to rationalize how folks who don’t pay a dime of federal income tax are paying more than their fair share, they compile all the increases in their cost of living as evidence supporting their case. 

So who or what is driving up the cost of living for Americans?

The short answer, your government!

Who wrote the tax code that gives General Electric the loopholes so they pay no tax?  Who wrote the regulations that told banks to make loans to folks who couldn’t afford to pay for them?  Who passed the laws that enable a single person to file a frivolous lawsuit that prevents a factory from being built without either proof or economic penalty for failing to provide proof?

Don’t get me started about why food cost has risen so much!

Once again, your government!

I remember when he was Candidate Obama he said that by necessity energy costs would have to increase.  He didn’t explain too well why it was necessary but knowing that higher energy costs would unfairly target lower income Americans he spent the past two and a half years working to raise energy costs.  I think the strategy was to raise the price on current cheap energy so the really expensive “ALTERNATIVE ENERGY” companies the President and his cronies wanted to promote appeared more competitive.  We all know how that worked out with Solyndra and others.

It appears that strategy worked as far a supporting Obama’s core supporters, but hardly Main Street Americans.  Could it be that average Americans are not his first priority?  Think about those union construction workers not going to work because of the Keystone Pipeline deal being delayed.  Could it be that the rank and file union workers are not his first priority either?

At a time when the President talks about energy independence from foreign sources, he turns his back on American energy companies and offers billions of American dollars to Brazil to develop their petroleum resources which just happen to be found in deep water off their coast. 

So the President is subsidizing oil exploration and development for Brazil so we can pay them for the foreign oil rather than Saudi Arabia or Kuwait while depriving American workers of family wage jobs on the oil rigs and in the refineries here at home.

I would think that if deep water drilling is as risky to the environment as the President suggests, then it shouldn’t matter if it’s in Louisiana or Brazil, should it?  And, maybe if we shouldn’t be subsidizing American oil companies, certainly we shouldn’t be subsidizing foreign oil companies either.  And if it’s good for the Brazilian economy to create jobs in the petroleum industry it’s got to be really good for Americans too, right?

When the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency was asked in a Congressional hearing whether his folks ever considered the economic impacts of the regulations they adopted, he indicated that they did not.  So what’s so important about that?  Well, think about the Endangered Species Act and the Clean Water Act for starters.  Your utility bills in your homes are impacted by changing standards for you local water and sewer providers.  Your PUD rates are severely impacted by regulatory changes for our hydro-electric and nuclear energy producers.

Folks in my small city experience these impacts every day.  In 1992 we built a state of the art sewage treatment plant designed to meet current and future discharge standards as outlined by the Washington State Department of Ecology but in 1993 when the plant was completed, Federal regulations had changed to the point where the plant was out of compliance before it ever processed a gallon of sewage. 

Since I was Mayor at the time, I took a lot of heat for that but we did what we were told by both the state and federal regulators at the time.  Those changes affected thousands of other small cities and millions of people; and not in a positive way.  When asked whether he was concerned about those folks who had been damaged, a DOE staffer replied that it wasn’t his job to be concerned about economic hardships.

There is no doubt that the cost of living has increased substantially, but I suspect that if you want to point fingers, the Democrats are more responsible for those increases than Republicans.

Our challenge today is to get Americans back to work at jobs that will support families.  That means the government has to roll back regulations that strangle job producers while still considering the mission of their agency.  The EPA still needs to do a job, but not at the expense of our economy.

Those Occupy Wall Street protesters may have a legitimate beef, but the culprit is not the guy that followed the rules, it’s the government for making the rules.  How many times have you yourself said “just tell me what the rules are so I can get on with my project?”

Given the choice of creating family wage jobs in the energy industries and even the financial industry or inhibiting job creation with more excessive regulation, the President and the Democrats consistently choose more regulation.  What does that tell you about their priorities?

Then take a look at their fall back position on every issue today; raising income tax rates on everyone earning more than a million dollars per year.  Even though studies show that the revenue needed to solve even one of the problems would not be collected by the increase they propose.  Remember the discussions about raising the debt ceiling, RAISE TAXES ON THE RICH!  Remember the Super Committee, cut spending by RAISING TAXES ON THE RICH!  Remember talks about Entitlement Reform, RAISE TAXES ON THE RICH!

Our problems have gotten so big even Bill Gates and Warren Buffet can’t come to our rescue.

Why isn’t anyone talking about that?

Raising taxes on rich folks will not solve a problem with spending that increases 8% per year, every year while the economy only grows at 2%.