[WASHINGTONTIMES] Barack Obama It's very rare that I come to an event where I'm like the fifth- or sixth-most interesting person.... needed not one, but two autobiographies to tell the story of the first half of his life. He called the second version ?The Audacity of Hope.? When he writes his account of the second half of his second term he should call it ?The Audacity of Hype.? It will be the fanciful tale of how his economic policies were responsible for the modest recovery from six years of presidential mismanagement of the economy.
Mr. Obama sprained his wrist patting himself on the back just before he left for a gasoline-guzzling Christmas holiday in Hawaii for what he calls ?a surging economy.? Shortly afterward his administration took credit for a 5 percent increase in the gross domestic product in the third quarter. But the economic ?recovery,? such as it may be, is less a result of Mr. Obama?s economic policies of higher taxes and suffocating regulations than improvement in spite of them. The American economy is so big and so resilient that it?s difficult even for incompetence at the top to keep it throttled for long.
The recovery might be robust if Mr. Obama?s policies had not hamstrung recovery every step of the way, especially in the energy sector, where the president has been particularly hostile to affordable energy. With his monomaniacal effort to put coal mines out of business, his curbing exploration for oil and natural gas on federal lands, opposition to fracking, construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, and expensive carbon-emissions regulations, Mr. Obama has been the obstructionist-in-chief to affordable energy.
He employed remarkable audacity ? the unkind might say mendacity ? to take credit for the plunge in the price of gasoline over the past year.
?America is now the No. 1 producer of oil, the No. 1 producer of natural gas,? Mr. Obama boasted. ?We?re saving drivers about 70 cents a gallon at the pump over last Christmas.?
According to the AAA, the national average price of regular unleaded gasoline was $2.29 a gallon this week, having plummeted $1.38, or nearly 40 percent, since June, and down $1.02 per gallon from this date last year. AAA estimates that ?drivers are saving more than $500 million per day, compared to the highs in both spring and summer.? The average price of a gallon of gas in January 2009, when Mr. Obama took office, was $1.89 a gallon. The price of gasoline is returning what it was in the final days of the Bush administration.
The drop at the pump is welcome, not only as measured in the wallets of motorists, but in the transportation sector and the economy as a whole. The cost of energy is reflected in the price of everything, since it goes into everything manufactured and since goods must be trucked or otherwise transported to market.
But the credit for the plunging price rightly goes to the increase in U.S. oil production, made possible in no small part by fracking and horizontal-drilling technology, which enables the extraction of oil and natural gas from hitherto inaccessible places and by extraction from shale. The resulting glut of oil dropped the price of U.S. crude this week to just under $54 a barrel. That?s the lowest since May 2009.
Mr. Obama and his Energy Department and Environmental Protection Agency have thrown up as many obstacles as possible to block the very technologies that have produced that abundance. That?s the audacity, and the American people, smart with preserving their pennies at the pump and the supermarket, are not likely to fall for it.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/04/2015 00:00 ||
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#1
But the credit for the plunging price rightly goes to the increase in U.S. oil production, made possible in no small part by fracking and horizontal-drilling technology.....
#4
People + the MSM-Net keep saying that gas prices may go down to under US$2.0 a gallon, but thus far I don't see the econ takeoff that many are simul hoping for???
[FOXNEWS] U.S. Senator Tom Coburn released his final oversight report on the Department of Homeland Security, which has found major problems in the branch.
The report finds that Homeland Security is not successfully executing any of its five main missions.
?Ten years of oversight of the Department of Homeland Security finds that the Department still has a lot of work to do to strengthen our nation?s security,? Coburn explained. ?Congress needs to review the Department?s mission and programs and refocus DHS on national priorities where DHS has a lead responsibility.?
Homeland Security spent $50 billion over the past 11 years on counterterrorism programs, but the Department cannot demonstrate if the nation is more secure as a result.
Coburn also found that 700 miles of the nation?s southern border remain unsecured. The DHS is not effectively administering or enforcing the nation?s immigration laws, while only 3 in 100 undocumented Democrats will ever face deportation.
The report also found that the DHS spends more than $700 million annually to lead the federal government?s efforts on cybersecurity, but struggles to protect itself, federal and civilian networks from the most serious cyberattacks.
The Department has spent $170 billion for natural disasters since 2002 because of an increased federal role in which the costs of small storms are declared ?major disasters.?
Even with the grim findings, Coburn expressed optimism about the Department?s future if Congress acts swiftly to address the problems in the report.
?I am confident that Secretary Jeh Johnson is leading the Department in the right direction,? Coburn commented. ?One of the biggest challenges that Sec. Johnson and DHS face is Congress and its dysfunctional approach to setting priorities for the Department. Congress needs to work with the Department to refocus its missions on national priorities and give Secretary Johnson the authority to lead and fix the Department.?
Coburn served his final day as senator. He thanked his fellow members of the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/04/2015 00:00 ||
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#1
Disband it. That, the No Child Left Behind Act, and Medicare expansion were the 3 largest errors Bush made domestically as president.
#3
The report finds that Homeland Security is not successfully executing any of its five main missions. Do you suppose it has anything to do with politicizing the agency and filling it with hacks?
#5
OS, 2 of those can be chalked up to "compassionate conservatism" and the DHS to his muddled world view trying to go along with Dimwitcrats. After 9/11 should "Go Shopping" really have been his rallying cry?
#9
A;anC, there's more to that than you might think. Back about 2003 or so, I first heard the grumbling about not putting us on a war footing inside the military community. Along the lines of "We went to war, and America went to the Mall" or "The President sent us to war, and told America to go to the mall".
However you want to argue it, the 3 things I cited were huge domestic errors by Bush43. And hardly conservative at all - they all expanded government massively, and also curtailed liberty except for some cronies. The Bush, and the current GOP leadership have been "waterboys for the Chamber of Commerce" and servants of the crony capitalists who use government to control competition (thus destroying the free market). Time for that to stop.
#11
Even with the grim findings, Coburn expressed optimism about the Department?s future if Congress acts swiftly to address the problems in the report.
#12
OS, Argue it?? I AGREE with what you said. Just trying to pinpoint the psychological underpinnings.
"Compassionate conservatism" runs hand in hand with Noblesse Oblige which seems to be a genetic trait in all Bushes. DHS doesn't fit that model, it fits the get along with the dhimmis model.
#13
Bush 43 was better than the alternatives, better than what came before him, and WAY better than what followed him. Suggests that his politics, bad as they are, are about the best we can expect in these times?
The last time I voted against a Bush was GHW in '92, couldn't vote for Slick Willie or the Texas Troll either so I went Libertarian. Of course living in Massaholia it was a moot point.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Obamas head to luxury Japanese eatery Nobu just 24 hours after dining at Hawaii restaurant that charges members $500k
