The Biggest Economic Mistake Since The Days Of Herbert Hoover

Rep. McClintock gave the following floor speech in opposition to the Cap and Trade legislation on June 26, 2009.

I had a strange sense of Deja Vu as I watched the self-congratulatory rhetoric on the house floor tonight, and I feel compelled to offer this warning from the Left Coast.

Three years ago, I stood on the floor of the California Senate and watched a similar celebration over a similar bill, AB 32. And I have spend the last three years watching as that law has dangerously deepened California’s recession. It uses a different mechanism than Cap and Trade, but the objective is the same: to force a dramatic reduction in carbon dioxide emissions.

Up until that bill took effect, California’s unemployment numbers tracked very closely with the national unemployment rate. But then in January of 2007, California’s unemployment rate began a steady upward divergence from the national jobless figures. Today, California’s unemployment rate is more than two points above the national rate, and at its highest point since 1941.

What is it that happened in January of 2007? AB 32 took effect and began shutting down entire segments of California’s economy. Let me give you one example from my district. The City of Truckee, California was about to sign a long-term power contract to get its electricity from a new, EPA-approved coal-fired electricity plant in Utah. AB 32 and companion legislation caused them to abandon that contract. The replacement power they acquired literally doubled their electricity costs.

So when economists warn that we can expect electricity prices to double under the cap and trade bill, I can tell you from bitter experience that in my district, that’s not a future prediction, that is an historical fact.

Gov. Schwarzenegger assured us that AB 32 would mean an explosion of new, green jobs — exactly the same promises we’re hearing from cap and trade supporters. In California, exactly the opposite has happened. We have lost so many jobs that the UCSB economic forecast is now using the D-word – Depression – to discuss California’s job market.

M. Speaker, the Cap and Trade bill proposes what amounts to endlessly increasing taxes on any enterprises that produce carbon dioxide or other so-called greenhouse gas emissions. We need to understand what that means. It has profound implications for agriculture, construction, cargo and passenger transportation, energy production, baking and brewing – all of which produce enormous quantities this innocuous and ubiquitous compound. In fact, every human being produces 2.2 pounds of carbon dioxide every day – just by breathing.

So applying a tax to the economy designed to radically constrict carbon dioxide emissions means radically constricting the economy.

And this brings us to the fine point of it.

When you discuss the folly of the Hoover Administration – how it turned the recession of 1929 into the depression of the 1930’s, the first thing that economists point to is the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act that imposed new taxes on over 20,000 imported products.

Waxman Markey is our generation’s Smoot Hawley. In fact, it’s worse because it imposes new taxes on an infinitely larger number of domestic products on a scale that utterly dwarfs Smoot-Hawley.

Let’s ignore for the moment the fact that the planet’s climate is constantly changing and that long term global warming has been going on since the last ice age. Let’s ignore the fact that within recorded history we know of periods when the earth’s climate has been much warmer than it is today and others when it has been much cooler. Let’s ignore the thousands of climate scientists and meteorologists who have concluded that human-produced greenhouse gases are a negligible factor in global warming or climate change.

Ignore all of that and still we are left with one lousy sense of timing. In the most serious recession since the Great Depression – why would members of this house want to repeat the same mistakes that produced that Great Depression? Watching how California has just wrecked its economy and destroyed its finances, why would they want to do the same thing to our nation?

M. Speaker, this is deadly serious stuff. It transcends ideology and politics. This House has just made the biggest economic mistake since the days of Herbert Hoover.

If this measure becomes law, two things are certain.

First, our planet will continue to warm and cool as it has been doing for billions of years.

Second: Congress will have delivered a staggering blow to our nation’s economy at precisely that moment when that economy was the most vulnerable.

FIREARMS REFRESHER COURSE

"Those who hammer their guns into plows will plow for those who do not." ~ Thomas Jefferson

1. An armed man is a citizen. An unarmed man is a subject.

2. A gun in the hand is better than a cop on the phone.


3. Colt: The original point and click interface.

4. Gun control is not about guns; it's about control.

5. If guns are outlawed, can we use swords?

6. If guns cause crime, then pencils cause misspelled words.

7. Free men do not ask permission to bear arms.

8. If you don't know your rights, you don't have any.

9. Those who trade liberty for security have neither.

10. The United States Constitution (c) 1791. All Rights Reserved.

11. What part of 'shall not be infringed' do you not understand?

12. The Second Amendment is in place in case the politicians ignore the others.

13. 64,999,987 firearms owners killed no one yesterday.

14. Guns only have two enemies; rust and politicians.

15. Know guns, know peace, know safety. No guns, no peace, no safety.

16. You don't shoot to kill; you shoot to stay alive.

17. 911: Government sponsored Dial-a-Prayer.

18. Assault is a behavior, not a device.


19. Criminals love gun control; it makes their jobs safer.

20. If guns cause crime, then matches cause arson.

21. Only a government that is afraid of its citizens tries to control them.

22. You have only the rights you are willing to fight for.

23. Enforce the gun control laws we ALREADY have; don't make more.

24. When you remove the people's right to bear arms, you create slaves.


25. The American Revolution would never have happened with gun control.


God Bless America!













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The Plantation

Article by:

Star Parker - Syndicated Columnist

Six years ago I wrote a book called Uncle Sam’s Plantation. I wrote the book to tell my own story of what I saw living inside the welfare state and my own transformation out of it. I said in that book that indeed there are twoAmericas - a poor America on socialism and a wealthy America on capitalism.

I talked about government programs like Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), Job Opportunities and Basic Skills Training (JOBS), Emergency Assistance to Needy Families with Children (EANF), Section 8 Housing, and Food Stamps. A vast sea of perhaps well-intentioned government programs, all initially set into motion in the 1960s that were going to lift the nation's poor out of poverty. A benevolent Uncle Sam welcomed mostly poor black Americans onto the government plantation. Those who accepted the invitation switched mindsets from "How do I take care of myself?" to "What do I have to do to stay on the plantation?"

Instead of solving economic problems, government welfare socialism created monstrous moral and spiritual problems - the kind of problems that are inevitable when individuals turn responsibility for their lives over to others. The legacy of American socialism is our blighted inner cities, dysfunctional inner city schools, and broken black families.

Through God’s grace, I found my way out. It was then that I understood what freedom meant and how great this country is.

I had the privilege of working on welfare reform in 1996, passed by a Republican Congress and signed 50 percent. I thought we were on the road to moving socialism out of our poor black communities and replacing it with wealth-producing American capitalism. But, incredibly, we are going in the opposite direction.

Instead of poorAmerica on socialism becoming more like rich American on capitalism, richAmerica on capitalism is becoming like poorAmerica on socialism. Uncle Sam has welcomed our banks onto the plantation and they have said, "Thank you, Suh."

Now, instead of thinking about what creative things need to be done to serve customers, they are thinking about what they have to tell Massah in order to get their cash. There is some kind of irony that this is all happening under our first black president on the 200th anniversary of the birthday of Abraham Lincoln.

Worse, socialism seems to be the element of our new young president. And maybe even more troubling, our corporate executives seem happy to move onto the plantation.

In an op-ed on the opinion page of the Washington Post, Mr. Obama is clear that the goal of his trillion dollar spending plan is much more than short term economic stimulus. "This plan is more than a prescription for short-term spending - it's a strategy forAmerica ’s long-term growth and opportunity in areas such as renewable energy, healthcare, and education."

Perhaps more incredibly, Obama seems to think that government taking over an economy is a new idea. Or that massive growth in government can take place "with unprecedented transparency and accountability."

Yes, sir, we heard it from Jimmy Carter when he created the Department of Energy, the Synfuels Corporation, and the Department of Education. Or how about the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964 - The War on Poverty - which President Johnson said "...does not merely expand old programs or improve what is already being done.. It charts a new course. It strikes at the causes, not just the consequences of poverty.”

Trillions of dollars later, black poverty is the same. But black families are not, with triple the incidence of single-parent homes and out-of-wedlock births.

It's not complicated. Americans can accept Barack Obama’s invitation to move onto the plantation. Or they can choose personal responsibility and freedom. Does anyone really need to think about what the choice should be?

"The trouble with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money."

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Labor Unions Have Outlived Their Usefulness and Must Go

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Labor Unions in the United States have outlived their usefulness and need to be outlawed. As we look back we see that the Labor Union movement is barely over 125 years old. It can be tracked back to about 1880, maybe a bit beyond. When we consider the conditions for workers back then and through the Great Depression, the need for labor unions is apparent. If not for unions, children would be working in factories, people would be working much longer hours every day, and there would be no weekends off; all these are important facts. I believe unions were absolutely necessary and historically served a good purpose. I also believe they no longer serve a positive purpose, but they have actually contributed in a big way to our current economic crisis. We have come too far for our society to allow the conditions mentioned above, even without labor unions.

Consider that in modern times there is not one major corporation subject to labor union organization of its employees that has been successful. Not a single one! Oh, you will be able to find some second tier companies that seem successful in spite of unionization, but on some of these the jury is still out. Additionally, if you look at heavily unionized states, like California, it is pretty easy to see the enormous negative impact of the labor unions. If the state of California were not controlled by the unions and their unreasonable contracts, it would have a far easier path out of its financial woes.

Let’s take a look at the General Motors situation. With the U.S. economy continuing to shed jobs—In Detroit, the UAW has been in the way of a reasonable solution. While they have agreed to some concessions as part of the GM's bankruptcy negotiations with the federal government, their real goal was and is to keep GM afloat to provide jobs for their membership. GM has become about jobs, not about building automobiles. It should have been allowed to fail without government intervention, and it most likely would have were it not for the labor unions. Let’s face it… had the labor unions been eliminated five years ago GM would probably not have found itself in it’s current financial condition. Oh, I know there are some other factors, but those probably could have been dealt with were it not for the unions.

So, GM exists only to provide jobs for the union workers, and for no other reason. Even our government has acknowledged that allowing GM to disappear would cause such unemployment directly and in allied businesses, that it may be the kiss of death for our economy. However, having said that, it is my bet that GM will be allowed to fail as soon as it is determined that the economy could survive the impact.

A wise move by the United States government would be to outlaw all labor unions right now, before it has to deal with the Union Bosses when the time to let GM fail arrives. Outlawing all labor unions at this time would also prove to be an economic blessing to California and other states finding themselves in a similar position.

Tough times require tough decisions. I hope we are up to the challenge.

Be blessed,
Wayne

Love all – Trust some – Harm none

Link to me at: www.LinkedIn.com/in/wcweeks

Follow me at: http://twitter.com/wcweeks

Be a friend at: www.Facebook.com

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A Review of "Historic Photos of the Chinese in California"

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Text and Captions by Hannah Clayborn – Copyright (c) 2009 – Turner Publishing Company, Nashville, TN 37219
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The book "Historic Photos of the Chinese in California" recently came into my possession. It looked like the standard coffee table book of photos. However, there was something about the picture on the cover that caused me to examine it carefully. I was then compelled to turn it over and look at the nine photos reproduced on the back cover. Each one commanded a bit of my time to study it fully. I was drawn to each photo.

I found the same thing happened when I opened the book. I was not able to put it down and, in fact went completely through it twice, and no doubt will visit it again.

Being a California native, I have a modicum of knowledge about how the Chinese fit into the development of California. I think most of us know there was a significant Chinese contribution to the establishment of the railroads, at least in the west, but the enormous offering made to railroad construction overshadowed some of their other contributions to California. Having lived in northern California, I was also aware of the hundreds of miles of rock walls built by the Chinese as fences for the ranchers marking the boundaries of their lands. Beyond that, I knew very little of California Chinese history.

Hannah Clayborn has done a stellar job of bringing some of the other Chinese contributions to light by way of an excellent photographic journal, combined with on-target comments and captions. Like many others, the Chinese were attracted to California in part as a result of the Gold Rush. However, because they were unable to own land or file gold claims they mostly ended up working for others for very low laborer’s wages. Their dreams of riches by way of gold were pretty much wiped away.

In 1850 there were 25,000 Chinese in California as recorded in California’s 1852 census. Many left the gold fields to seek employment and income elsewhere. As Chinese women were somewhat restricted from immigrating, this was a largely male population and a very able work force. By 1870 Chinese made up ten percent of California’s population, but accounted for almost 25 percent of the unskilled labor force. Chinese laborers were active in farming, fishing, sharecropping resulting in vegetable sales and other menial labor-intensive tasks as well as working the gold fields. In addition they proved to be very adept as cooks and shopkeepers.

While I am able to relay a bit of Chinese history here, I want to credit Hannah Clayborn, as this book is the only reference I used as a source of information. If you have found what I have written interesting, I must tell you it pales in comparison to Hannah’s book. The book "Historic Photos of the Chinese in California" is a must see. From beginning to end, with hundreds of photos and comments, the history unfolds. If you are at all like me you will be spellbound.

I understand this review may seem more like a promotional piece for the book rather than an objective review, but there was just no other way I could write it. This book is an exciting piece of work.


Be blessed,
Wayne

Love all – Trust some – Harm none

Link to me at: www.LinkedIn.com/in/wcweeks
Follow me at: http://twitter.com/wcweeks
Be a friend at: http://www.facebook.com/

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