Obama and Congress Fiddle While America Burns

by Ed Mattson

President Obama is off to Martha’s Vineyard for a ten-day vacation; Congress, at $174,500/year salary is gone as well.

Many working Americans are hard pressed to even get a single day off less risk taking an annual vacation for fear they may not have a job when they come home. The cost of gas, the hassle of getting through airport screening with the extra cost to take along golf clubs, a fishing pole, or for that matter to take a change of clothes, makes vacationing for John Q. Public not affordable for many. Yet our beloved politicians are taking off again.

Here’s some questions and answer for you to ponder:

1. If there really is such urgency in our financial situation (and I believe there really is when we stare at a $16 trillion dollar debt), why won’t we see every member of Congress and every member of the Senate in meaningful discussions on how to deal with the situation come Monday at 8 AM?

2. Why is it that Congress and the President can’t do what every family in America has to do every year…balance the budget?

3. If we are held hostage to oil producing countries when we have our own untapped resources right here at home, why can’t those in government see the obvious solution to the problem?

4. If about 70-80% of the real jobs in America are provided by private sector entrepreneurs and small business corporations, why is government trying to restrict their growth with so much bureaucratic red tape, regulation, taxation, and new mandates?

5. And my final question to everyone in America…Why would any person vote for a legislator, Congressman or Senator, who voted for a Congressional pay increase this last time around?

Let’s take question number 1 first… It is a simple question even a third grader on an allowance can figure out. My family has to live within its means and when the cost of living goes up we must adapt. 10lbs of potatoes went up $1.20 yesterday and gas didn’t go down in price (even though the price for a barrel of oil has dropped significantly the past two weeks), so we have to adjust what we eat and where we drive. The government thinks it’s a mystery.

Question 2 takes a little more thought. The U.S government has revenue coming in every day in the form of taxes, sales and leases of federal lands, royalties off what those lands produce, import/export tariffs, and countless other ways used to raise money. From the revenue collected, they must pay the expense of running the government (payroll, rent, etc), specific benefits contracted for under Social Security, Medicare, Veterans Administration, the interest on the national debt, and other essentials.

Other government expenditures like federal aid to all the pet and pork-barrel projects one can image, aid to foreign governments, additional aid to prop-up foreign governments, expenses and dues to the United Nations, NATO, school loans, grants for research and development “studies” for a lot of dubious programs and ideas, and countless other things. If the government has a shrinking revenue situation, probably caused by policies of their own creation, then it becomes decision making time. They should pay the essentials and forget about the rest if they can’t squeeze them out of the collected revenue. That my friends, is a no-brainer.

Question number 3 really pertains to energy independence. Remember back in 1977, the massive department of Energy was create to make us self-sufficient in energy, but like nearly every government program, today we haven’t even come close to energy independence and are in fact relying on more imported oil, at a higher cost, than we did in 1977.

The environmentalist will tell you we are running out of fossil fuels and must go completely green. Nothing could be further from the truth. Transportation utilizes 80.5% of the energy consumed in the US . We are the most productive country on earth because we have great transportation. Now this is not to say we can’t do better, but the fact is it is not going to be solved by government, and is not going to happen overnight. We have great new ideas in transportation developed by several auto makers, including Honda (FCX Clarity), Ford (FCV Focus) and GM (the Hy-Wire) with hydrogen fuel cell cars which are estimated to be in production in the next fifteen years. The problem is to convert the 117,100 gas stations into fuel stations. Such cars are available today, but are very expensive and with no place to refuel.

In 2010 the US invested $243 billion in renewable energy, and yet less than 5% of the nation’s energy requirement comes from alternative energy production. At that rate we are looking at trillions more just to scratch our energy needs. Folks, right now alternative energy is all hype, and while we must continue doing what is economically feasible to find new sources, we are decades away from a solution going down this road.

Many believe in mass transit, with even more tax money propping up the public transportation sector. Plumbers, electricians, traveling salesmen, grocery deliveries and more than 60% of the jobs in America require gas or diesel to get from point A to point B. If you can imagine a plumber coming out with his equipment and his roto-rooter to clean your sewage lines; if you can see the construction crew heading out to a construction site (saws and ladders in hand); or if you can visualize UPS showing up at your door to deliver parcels, by train, bicycle, bus or hitch-hiking, then bet the farm that mass transit will get the job done.

As to petroleum reserves, we are in great shape in the US. A new major discovery called Eagle Ford Shale located in South Texas near Corpus Christi, has lit a fuse under more exploration with every major oil company jumping in. Additionally, the Bakken Formation in North Dakota, increased our domestic reserves by a potential 10 times and has South Dakota sitting at a 3% unemployment rate. “America is sitting on top of a super massive 200 billion barrel oil field (The Bakken Formation) that could potentially make America Energy Independent and until now has largely gone unnoticed”. If you find that hard to believe, maybe you can believe the Bureau of Land Management which states, “the United States has the largest known deposits of oil shale in the world estimated at 2.175 trillion barrels of potentially recoverable oil”.  (John R. Dyni (2005). “Geology and Resources of Some World Oil-Shale Deposits”. Scientific Investigations Report 2005–5294. US Geological Survey. Retrieved 2008-08-11.)

Energy exploration, and production would solve our unemployment problem, increase tax revenue, lower our dependence on foreign petroleum, lessen our balance of trade, lower the cost of gasoline and diesel which in turn would lower the cost of food and other essentials, while firing-up a whole new industrial revolution in America.

But most Democrats in Washington, along with Barack Hussein Obama, and their environmental friends (including Al Gore) have been supporting legislation that is stifling new oil and gas exploration, halting any idea of building new more productive refineries, encouraging a complete shutdown for drilling in ANWR and offshore, and yet they claim to have “job creation” as their number one priority. Want full employment in the US? Bet on oil and gas exploration.

Question number 4 shows that government has it all wrong. Fifty years ago, a third of U.S. employees worked in factories, making everything from clothing to lipstick to cars. Today, a little more than one-tenth of the nation’s 131 million workers are employed by manufacturing firms. Four-fifths are in services. Manufacturing, as a share of the economy has been plummeting. In 1965, manufacturing accounted for 53 percent of the economy; it only accounted for 39 percent; and in 2004, a lousy 9%… the unintended consequence of over-regulation, mandates, over-taxation (on company profits and then again on payroll and dividends), and confiscatory capital gains taxes. No one in their right mind would want to start a company to build things in America.

And question number 5 shouldn’t even be an issue. America struggles with an economic situation brought-on by a bunch of inattentive, self-serving, aggrandizing, and overpaid politicians who allow their buddies on Wall Street and the Hollywood “Elites” to line their re-election coffers with money, while the regular folks struggle with making ends meet.

Check into your representative. If your legislative representative voted “YES” on the 2009 Congressional pay raise (millionaire Barbara Boxer, Barney Frank, Bernie Sanders, Richard Shelby, millionaire John Kerry, and a lot of others, many of whom claim to be “champions of the working people”) throw the bums out!

You can see how your legislator voted on all the key issue such as having a photo ID to vote, those who supports giving government workers four weeks of paid family leave, and those who are for open borders, by doing your homework.
Washington is afraid you will figure it all out so they keep the confusion and conflict going. It’s time to take the blinders off and pay attention.

Ed Mattson

Following his service in the Marine Corps Ed Mattson built a diverse career in business in both sales/marketing and management. He is a medical research specialist and published author. His latest book is Down on Main Street: Searching for American Exceptionalism

Ed is currently Development Director of the National Guard Bureau of International Affairs-State Partnership Program, Fundraising Coordinator for the Warrior2Citizen Project, and Managing Partner of Center-Point Consultants in North Carolina.

Mr. Mattson is a noted speaker and has addressed more than 3000 audiences in 42 states and 5 foreign countries. He has been awarded the Order of the Sword by American Cancer Society, is a Rotarian Paul Harris Fellow and appeared on more than 15 radio and television talk-shows.