This was in response to a question about Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts’ remarks regarding Pres. Obama’s State of the Union comments pertaining to the recent Supreme Court Decision on campaign finance; comments that broke with both tradition and decorum.  During the Q&A session following a speech at the University of Alabama, Chief Justice Roberts said the following in response to a student’s question:

“So I have no problems with that,” he said. “On the other hand, there is the issue of the setting, the circumstances and the decorum. The image of having the members of one branch of government standing up, literally surrounding the Supreme Court, cheering and hollering while the court — according the requirements of protocol — has to sit there expressionless, I think is very troubling.”

Of course, Gibbs completely ignored the part in Robert’s comments about the appropriateness of the time and place of Pres. Obama’s remarks on a decision made by one of the Constitutional Branches of our government.  Instead, he showed real concern about the voice of the little guy – you and me; how touching.

Hey, this might actually be a breakthrough for this administration.  I’m wondering if our President will start to pay attention to the voice of the people on the proposed healthcare legislation.  Maybe he will show genuine concern for the fact that the latest Rasmussen poll shows that:

• 81% of voters say the current healthcare reform legislation will cost more then the government projections.
• 57% say the legislation will hurt the economy while only 25% think the plan will help the economy
• 66% believe the legislation will add to the budget deficit
• 78% believe that taxes will go up on the middle-class as a result of this legislation

I guess I’m feeling a little bit like the people from Who-ville in the Dr. Seuss book “Horton Hears a Who”.  Could it be that Pres. Obama will perk-up his pachyderm-like ears and finally hear the faint voice of the American people exclaiming, “We’re here, and were not buying what you’re selling!”

Okay, so that’s one example – right?  Well, how about the other government backed stimulus program – the one targeted at saving the real estate industry.  In this program, the government is giving home buyers an $8,000 tax credit.  This program was originally estimated to cost us – the taxpayer – a mere $7 billion.  It is now on track to cost us double that – or $15 billion.  So, what are we getting for our money?  Well, according to the National Association of Realtors, the program has created 350,000 new sales [2].  A simply analysis shows that this little program cost the taxpayer only $43,000 per a sale.  Oh, and Sen. Reid wants to expand this program, set to expire soon, to the end of 2010.  The projected cost – an additional $30 billion dollars.  The projected impact– an additional 500,000 in home sales.   This means that extending this program will cost the taxpayer $60,000 for each additional house sold.  Great idea Harry.

CAN WE JUST STOP THIS NONSENSE PLEASE!  Is it any wonder our Nation’s financial house is an absolute mess.  Look, I know first-hand people who have good paying jobs, who could well afford to buy a car without any incentive by the government, who were in fact in the market to buy a car.  And here comes the government, dropping eight grand in their lap for doing something they were going to do anyway.  And one by one, the politicians step up to the microphone and proclaim what a great job they are doing for our benefit.

I thought we had Czars with vast experience in business giving the President advice on how to best stimulate the economy.  I guess we have a new adage:  “Those who can’t succeed in business try politics. And those who can’t succeed in politics become Czars.”

Footnotes:

[1] Edmunds.com Press Release: Cash for Clunkers Results Finally In; Oct. 28, 2009

[2] The Washington Post: The home-buyer tax credit; throwing good money after bad; Oct. 27, 2009

Cheng Siwei, a leading Chinese economic spokesman was very critical of Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke’s monetary policies stating, “If they keep printing money to buy bonds it will lead to inflation, and after a year or two the dollar will fall hard.”  He went on to say that China is so concerned that they have started to “diversify” their holdings of roughly $700 billion of U.S. foreign-exchange reserves, opting to sell their holdings off and purchase gold as a hedge to the dollar “falling hard”.

This is not good news for the U.S. economy.  China is the largest purchaser of our federal debt.  For years they have been financing our government’s addiction to deficit spending.  China is signaling very clearly that they will be less and less likely to continue this practice because of concern of the credit worthiness of our nation.  If the Chinese credit pool dries up, then the U.S. government will be left with a very limited number of choices:  raise taxes significantly on everyone, print more money, and/or drastically cut government spending.

While Pres. Obama sends Vice-Pres. Biden around the country to tell the American people that the “stimulus is working just as we planned”, I’m left to wonder what the heck their plan is anyway.  As of yesterday:

• The value of the dollar has fallen to the point where global monetary investors are pulling money out of U.S. Monetary funds and placing their investments with emerging markets like Brazil.
• Unemployment deepened with the announcement this week that we are now at 9.7% for the nation.  When you factor in those who have given up on looking for jobs or who can only get part-time work to replace their lost full-time job, we are at 16% unemployment/underemployment.
• Trillion dollar deficit spending has become the new billion dollar deficit spending
• We now learn that taxpayers will most likely never recover $80 billion of the automotive bail-out
• There appears to be no end to the Obama administration’s willingness to spend then tax.

Mr. Vice-President – if all is going “according to plan”, then where is your plan taking us?  China seems to know, do you?