THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume XI, Issue # 101, April 13, 2009
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
PRESIDENT OBAMA'S RED SEA: IRRESPONSIBLE FEDERAL SPENDING
& ENERGY & CLIMATE CHANGE POLICIES WILL BANKRUPT AMERICA
By Paul K. Driessen
THE OBAMA PRESIDENCY, THE DEMOCRATIC CONGRESS, & THE U.S. GOVERNMENT'S FISCAL, ECONOMIC, ENERGY, &
CLIMATE CHANGE POLICIES: THE RADICAL, REDISTRIBUTIONIST, STATIST & TOTALITARIAN POLITICAL AGENDA
CURRENTLY BEING PURSUED BY ENVIRONMENTALISTS, LIBERAL LEFTISTS, & BLATANTLY PARTISAN DEMOCRATS IN
CONGRESS & THE OBAMA WHITE HOUSE -- PURSUIT OF POLICIES THAT WILL UNDERMINE & DESTROY AMERICA'S
ECONOMY & THE AMERICAN SYSTEM OF CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT, CHECKS & BALANCES, & INDIVIDUAL LIBERTY
FULL STORY:
America is diving into a Marianas Trench of red ink. There is barely a digit of black anywhere on the balance sheet,
and spendthrift congressional lawmakers are closing off numerous sources of positive revenue.
On the spending side of the ledger, the U.S. Congress, under the control of Liberal Leftist Democrats and driven by
partisan politics and Obama White House pressure, enacted a $700-billion financial bailout, followed by an
earmark-laden $787-billion “stimulus” law, and plans to ladle out $1.6 billion in federal government bonuses in 2009.
Then came a $3.5 trillion “red sea” FY 2010 budget, and the prospect of $9.3 trillion in total indebtedness over the
coming decade.
A March 31, 2009, Bloomberg study found that the U.S. Treasury Department, the Federal Reserve, the FDIC, and
HUD have thus far obligated generations of Americans to $12.8 trillion in debt. That’s 90% of our nation’s entire
2008 Gross Domestic Product, notes columnist Deroy Murdock!
It’s more accrued debt than 43 previous administrations combined, and it doesn’t include the cost of servicing this
debt – or the U.S. share of the $1.1 trillion “global stimulus” devised by the Group of 20, to be administered by
professional spenders at the International Monetary Fund.
Taxes will soar, to pay off these debts – and cover new levies on everything we do.
As 2,600 delegates flew greenhouse-gas-spewing jetliners to Bonn for another five-star-hotel UN climate change
confab, envoy Todd Stern announced that the White House is “seized with the urgency” of tackling runaway
global warming. Looming on the horizon is a hulking 648-page U.S. House climate change bill. Equally monstrous,
Senate and EPA versions of the proposed legislation wait in the wings.
President Obama wants energy prices to “skyrocket,” to coerce Americans to slash carbon dioxide emissions 80%
below 1990 levels by 2050 – to levels last seen in 1905! He says cap-and-trade will “raise” $656 billion between 2012
and 2019, to fund green energy, green jobs, and other government programs. The National Economic Council and
other analysts put the tax bite at $1.3 to $3.0 trillion.
This is not monetary manna. It is a massive wealth transfer – extracted from every hydrocarbon-using business,
motorist and family, and doled out by Congress and government bureaucrats to politically favored constituencies.
These all-intrusive energy taxes will hit poorest households hardest.
Cap-and-tax will also clobber manufacturing and heavy-industry jobs. Twenty states get 60-98% of their electricity
from coal. They form our manufacturing heartland, and every increase in electricity prices will result in more
businesses laying off workers or closing their doors, more jobs sent overseas, more homes forced into foreclosure,
more families into welfare, and more school districts, hospitals and churches into whirlpools of red ink.
Soaring gasoline and natural gas prices will do likewise.
And for what? Hundreds of climate scientists say CO2 plays little or no substantive role in climate change. They
point out that even total elimination of U.S. carbon dioxide emissions would quickly be offset by emissions from
China, India and other rapidly developing nations.
Thankfully, sensible Republicans and a few Democrats are raising red flags about these economy-killing proposals.
But a White House/EPA rulemaking would require no congressional vote – and they’re reportedly going to drop
that bombshell this month.
On the revenue side, the situation is equally irresponsible. Lock up the best and tax the rest, is the motto. Whether
it’s oil and natural gas (onshore or off), coal or coal-to-gas or shale oil or uranium, Congress and the White House
are making America’s best prospects off limits. They are imposing punitive taxes and regulations on prospects that
are not in no-access categories, to curtail development.
That means rejecting trillions in potential bonus, rent, royalty and tax revenues that could help pay for this
spending binge.
Developing just our off-limits oil and natural gas resources in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge, the Outer Continental
Shelves, and the Rocky Mountains could generate over $1.7 trillion in government revenue and create 114,000 new
jobs, a recent ICF International study concluded. The petroleum would eliminate one-fifth of the nation’s $350-700
billion annual oil imports bill. Developing all U.S. oil and natural gas resources on federal lands could generate $4
trillion.
The American Energy Alliance and other experts say the benefits would be even greater. And this is just
conventional oil and natural gas revenue. It does not include trillions more in revenues from oil shale, tar sands, methane
hydrates, coal, uranium, and other deposits that Congress, bureaucrats, judges and Green activists have conspired
to put off limits to the American taxpayers and consumers who own them.
It does not consider the regulatory stranglehold on coal and nuclear power plant construction – and thus on jobs
and revenues that those projects and their energy would provide.
This is Real Energy, Real Revenue, Real Employment. Hydrocarbons and nuclear generate 93% of all the energy
that safeguards our jobs, health, living standards, and national security. With 90% reliability, they keep the lights
on and make America work and prosper.
But they are being closed down – to be “replaced” by pixie dust energy from wind turbines and solar panels that
now meet barely 1% of our total energy requirements.
Wind turbines actually generate electricity only 2-6 hours a day, on average. They are built and operated only
because of billions in taxpayer subsidies. And they require large swaths of land and prodigious amounts of
concrete, steel, copper, and fiberglass: 700 tons for each 1.5 MW turbine – plus enormous additional quantities for
natural-gas-fired electrical generators that kick in every time the wind dies down.
Solar doesn’t even make a perceptible contribution to our energy needs.
Two-thirds of Americans want our petroleum and nuclear energy developed. They want jobs, security, economic
recovery, power that works 24/7. They don’t want to see America file for bankruptcy.
But their rights are being trampled on by political environmentalists, Liberal Leftist partisan Democrats, and
totalitarian ideologues in the U.S. government -- subversives whose agenda and decrees violate America’s sacred
traditions of constitutional government, checks and balances, civil liberties guarantees, open, robust debate, sound
science and economics, democratic accountability of public officials, majority rule with protection of minority rights,
and freedom of expression and opinion on critical issues. Whatever happened to the bipartisanship and responsible
government that voters thought they were electing last Fall?
It’s time to say, enough!
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
American Government & the U.S. Presidency:
Presidential Politics & National Leadership
Fiscal Policy: Taxation & Government Spending
Political Economy -- Philosophies, Systems, & Public Policies:
Government, the Economy, & Economic Prosperity
Political Environmentalism Versus Human Progress & Prosperity:
Policy Issues Relating to Energy, Environment,
& Natural Resources
Paul Driessen is senior policy advisor for the Congress of Racial Equality and the Committee For A Constructive
Tomorrow. He is author of Eco-Imperialism: Green Power, Black Death.
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THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Conservative & Free-Market Analysis of Government, Politics & Public Policy, Covering Political, Legal, Constitutional, Economic,
Cultural, Military, International, Strategic, & Geopolitical Issues
Conservative Government Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity