No Silver Bullets and No Silver Linings

By William L. Garvin
“I place economy among the first and most important virtues and public debt as the greatest danger to be feared.” Thomas Jefferson

There isabsolutely no doubt that “figures don’t lie but liars figure.” The Office of Management and Budget scored ObamaCare and Congressional spending predicated on economic growth in 2011 at 3.1% and 2012 at 4.0%. Good luck with that. The Bureau of Economic Analysis previously reduced the rosy 2.5% growth in the third quarter to 2%. They finally settled in on 1.8%. That’s a 38% error rate for BEA but it was necessary to make Obamacare “revenue neutral.”

We hear the President saying “The economy is growing stronger. The recovery is speeding up.” That’s the rationale he relies upon to continue his astronomical deficit spending. Clearly he’s forgotten Alan Greenspan’s warning that “Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the hidden confiscation of wealth.” Or did he?

There’s also a cloud of smoke being blown about millions of jobs being “saved or created,” which is impossible to empirically verify. If you want to go through the trouble of sorting through Bureau of Labor Statistics data, it’s hard to believe any of the President’s rhetoric. Let’s make some simple comparisons between the fourth quarter of 2008 and the fourth quarter of 2011. In 2008, there were 143,328,000 people employed in the United States but in 2011, only 140,790,000 were employed. The net result is over 2.5 million fewer people are actually working! In 2008, there were 11,299,000 people listed as unemployed. In 2011, the number swelled to 13,097,000. Another curiosity is the total number of employed and unemployed has DECREASED over the last three years even though the U.S. population INCREASES about 165,000 each MONTH. To paraphrase Ricky Ricardo: “Barry, you got some ‘splainin’ to do!” We’ve misplaced an army of workers. Isn’t that a bit careless? Think about it, your buddy Jon Corzine only lost $1.2 billion. That was bad enough for the man you and your Vice-President called the “smartest man you know” and “literally the first person we called,” but really.

Then there’s this riff about “having increased oil production.” Sure, if you count state and private oil land production. On federal lands, it’s down. Remember when you and Senators Boxer and Feinstein complained that it would take 8-10 years to get new drillings into production? Well, if anything new is coming on line today, remember that 8-10 years ago it was George Bush who was president and approving the drilling. Thank you, President Bush. You may not have had a silver bullet but you certainly drove gasoline back down to below two dollars a gallon. Today it’s more than twice that much. Of course, that may not mean much to someone who spends $3,500 per night on their little Hawaiian hideaway over Christmas as the Obamas did. In any event, the money you are stealing from the Social Security trust fund and “redistributing” is going right down the tank…gas tank that is!

Stopping the “oil subsidies” (also known as tax breaks) would have been a good idea if you hadn’t doubled down on the green energy subsidies. You’ve got to admit that your track record in that arena has been pretty dismal. You previously said that electricity prices would “skyrocket” but you still keep pushing electric cars. At the same time, you’re closing down coal fired plants which produce the bulk of the electricity. It looks like you’re on track to make the skyrocket prediction come true for both electricity and gasoline.

Final proof there’s no silver lining is the lead bullet fired by the Food Police. One would think that the uproar created when Michelle said “We can’t just leave it up to parents,” and intruded into school bake sales would have been sufficient warning of clear and present danger. Now the Food Police are seizing homemade turkey and cheese sandwiches from four-year old girls and making them eat the MUCH healthier chicken nuggets. It’s surprising that Mom wasn’t arrested for endangering the health of a minor. It’s time to bring someone in who has realistic plans and who doesn’t rely on silver bullets.