Giving money away is not spending

It is no mystery why the stimulus has failed to reverse the course of unemployment. Much of those 'expenditures' were actually transfer payments ... money taken from one group of citizens and given to other groups of citizens. In so doing, our government has intentionally taken resources away from those are productive and transferred them to those who are unproductive.

It has been over a full year since the stimulus became law, and it is, in fact, highly logical that our economy is worse than before the stimulus. Unemployment is higher - as is the unemployment rate - because business owners have less money to hire new workers, expand their business or to purchase additional goods and services. They would have more money, except that it's been taken from them and given to folks that are not in a position to ... hire new workers, expand a business or purchase additional goods and services.

Vanishing credibility

Our economy is sputtering. The signs of recovery are being overwhelmed by persistently high unemployment and real inflationary pressures. The two are linked. And this administration seems determined to steer clear of any action that would actually help. Instead, they seek to distract the voters by blaming someone.

It is not credible for the administration to endorse Ben Bernanke's decision to flood the world with dollars — and then denounce China for manipulating its currency.
Bret Stephens, WSJ (link requires subscription)

This is exactly what the thugs in the middle East have been doing for 50 years. They demonize Israel so as to distract their populations from their economic failure and absolute oppression.

We must not allow this to continue. We must elect new leadership.

No ability and no right

One of the tenets of the modern American liberal belief system is that the broad sociological and economic improvements can be achieved through scientific means. Therefore, a highly advanced thinker can, by the power of their superior intellectual capabilities, devise a strategy that will change society for the better. You can see this in action when tax credits are implemented for certain types of activity, like using solar energy. You can also see it when government agencies decide the content of school curricula.

Government agencies are made up (for now at least) of a minority of our population. Yet they make decisions that affect people of every walk of life. Modern American liberalism is content with this, since those agencies are made up of specialists, who presumably know more about their field than the rest of us. For a liberal, that superior knowledge gives them the authority to make those decisions.

The reality is, though, that the men and women who make up those agencies cannot possibly possess enough knowledge to surpass the population at large. The citizenry has, collectively, the benefit of its full experience and knowledge. Therefore, citizens make far more productive decisions and make far better choices than government agents.

Government agencies have no right to favor certain industries with subsidies, and penalize others with additional taxes. They do it anyway ... and we can see the entirely predictable results: anemic growth across broad swaths of our economy.

Except for the government agencies.

Energy Indepenence is possible

The fringe environmentalists want us to believe that so-called green energy is vital to our national security. We need to be independent of foreign oil in order to stop supporting regimes that are hostile to our interests. But they are lying.

If they were truly serious about energy independence, then they would stop blocking the development of the abundant natural resources in our own backyard. The North Slope pipeline in Alaska can safely transport upwards of 2.2 million barrels of oil each day from the oil fields to the refineries. Currently, there are three untapped oil fields in Alaska: the National Petroleum Reserve, the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas, and the 0.0087% of the 23 million acre ANWR that is necessary to begin oil production. Those fields contain an estimated 60 billion barrels of oil. At the peak transport capacity of 2.2 million barrels a day, that is over 70 years of production.

Is that a permanent answer? No. But it is a safe and affordable alternative to foreign oil that would give us time to develop other non-petroleum based fuel sources.

If our government was serious about energy independence, they would open these areas up for oil production.