Mining Affairs Forum
“The President’s Socialist Agenda is Moving Forward”
By Ken Thornberg

President Obama’s socialist paradise is on course, although it could get slowed down after the coming election if the American public continues to wake up.  Recent primaries give one hope that Americans have begun to see the truth after one and one-half years of this debacle taking place.  We shall see…but in the meantime, why don’t we look at some of what he and his friends have been working on.

Seizing Land

                Obama has set his sights on the American West.  U.S. Senator Jim DeMint has exposed a 21-page secret document from the administration bearing the designation, “Internal Draft—NOT FOR RELEASE” wherein the President sets forth his plan to federalize more than 10 million more acres by placing them under the “protection” of the Dept. of the Interior.  Already, the feds own 650 million acres nationwide including 63% of Utah and 80% of Nevada.  Obama plans on adding these acres to the fed’s treasure chest with the stroke of a pen proclaiming them “monuments” under the Antiquities Act of 1906.   As one can expect, there will be a loss of jobs in farming, mining, forestry, and energy development from this robbery.   Eight state legislatures have passed resolutions opposing the move, which of course means nothing to this president.

Promoting Hunger

                Bill Gates pointed out a few months ago that the environmental extremists (supported by the administration) are opposing the use of genetically modified crops in Africa that would be able to reduce hunger and improve agriculture on that continent.  Environmentalists are “not regarding how much hunger and poverty might be reduced by it or what the farmers themselves might want,” said Gates.   Gates’ foundation is spending $1.2 billion developing agriculture for small farmers on the continent and bucking the opposition in Washington.

Cap and Trade

                The so-called American Clean Energy and Security Act, passed by the House last year, would increase federal taxes by $846 billion over ten years and federal spending by $821 billion.  As most readers know, that will be dwarfed before the whole thing washes out in ten years.  Most of the new revenue will come from the process of auctioning and freely distributing allowances under the bill’s cap-and-trade provisions.    Under this provision, carbon-dioxide and other emissions would be capped and the amount of allowable emissions would be reduced over time to 17% below 2005 levels in 2020 and 83% below by 2050.   As these emission levels are reduced, the cost of purchased allowances will skyrocket, thus sending electricity prices into the stratosphere.   Anything created from fossil fuels will be affected.   False assumptions of slowly-rising electric prices are due to the assumption that “renewable” energies required by the bill will actually replace conventional energy sources and not merely add to our energy costs.   Obama maintains that “the legislation will be paid for by the polluters who currently emit the dangerous carbon emissions that contaminate the air we breathe.”   He has publicly stated to the San Francisco Chronicle, “Under my plan of cap-and-trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket…because I’m capping greenhouse gases, coal power plants, natural gas, you name it…whatever the plants were, whatever the industry was, they would have to retrofit their operations.  That will cost money, and they will pass that [cost] on to consumers.”  This legislation will threaten to start a trade war unless foreign nations adopt similar carbon limits and obviously the world’s biggest polluter, Communist China, will assuredly not commit economic suicide in such a fashion.  The good news is that he is not taxing us for breathing, as humans exhale CO2 every time they let out a breath.

And there’s the Fed

                The President praises the effort of the Federal Reserve, ignoring the fact that it was almost single-handedly responsible for the housing boom and bust.  Its suppression of interest rates in 1999 led to loose credit and the Fed kept it there until the bubble was ready to burst, which it did.  Obama’s proposal is to give the Fed even more power than it already had.  What a good deal for an organization which is separate from our government and unable to be regulated by Congress.  One week later after this proposal, Obama denied that he was giving them more power while stating, “I am proposing that the Federal Reserve be granted new authority—and accountability—for regulating bank holding companies and other large firms that pose a risk to the entire economy in the event of failure.”  Since when is granting the Fed “new authority” not expanding its power?

Denied Allegations Against the Fed Proven True

                Congressman Ron Paul (R-TX) confronted Fed chairman Ben Bernanke about how the Fed actually facilitated a $5.5 billion loan to Saddam Hussein, which he used to purchase weapons from our military-industrial complex to fight Iran.  He also invested them in a nuclear reactor.  Bernanke claimed ignorance of such “bizarre” allegations.   Rep. Paul then provided proof in the Congressional Record to substantiate the claims.  Dr. Robert Auerbach, former economist with the Fed under four Fed chairmen, even proved that the cash used in Watergate came from the Fed!  Auerbach proceeded to explain how an Atlanta bank was used as the middle man in the exchange for Hussein and included lavish gifts between the New York Fed and the Atlanta banks’ New York office.   How I wish I had space to summarize how this scheme worked.

More IPCC Climate Change  Falsehoods

                The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change messed up again in its Fourth Assessment Report by claiming that Holland was 55% under water and thus subject to massive flooding soon.  Oops—the Dutch report that only 26% is under sea level and that they have it all under control (I know they do—I’ve been there a dozen times!).  In the same report, they quoted the World Wildlife Fund’s assertion that 40% of the Brazilian rain forest was posed to be destroyed by global warming, but they failed to give the WWF credit for this presumption that was not based upon any science.   The WWF said that small reductions in rain could make it susceptible to fire, but the IPCC re-worded it to say that it included the entire Amazon (not just Brazil’s share) and it concluded that all trees would die from lack of rain, not just from fire.   What’s next?

Americans Don’t Trust our Government

                According to Pew Research Center, a poll released in April shows that 4 of 5 Americans have “epic discontent with Congress and elected officials.”    Only 22% said they can trust Washington, among the lowest measures in half a century.   30% feel the federal government is a major threat to their personal freedom, up from 18% in a 2003 ABC News/Washington Post survey.   Well, if we keep educating the public, maybe that last number will climb over 50% soon.

Obamacare will “Control the People”

                Congressman John Dingell, (D-Mich.), the longest serving member of the House in U.S. history, accidentally let slip a truth about Obama’s new healthcare package.  In a Detroit radio show, he said that the new healthcare law will “control the people.”   He stated that “it takes a long time to do the necessary administrative steps that have to be taken to put the legislation together to control the people…” Later, when confronted by the comment, he said that he was referring to insurance companies, not people.  Yeah, sure…

Stimulus Raises Debt and Unemployment

                In spite of Vice President Joe Biden’s assertion that Americans got their money’s worth from the $787 billion Stimulus Package, facts show otherwise.  Biden said that the money invested saved two million jobs, which must be making mention of the institutions the government ended up owning as a result!   In the end, $862 billon was spent, mostly increasing debt and government jobs, not those from the private sector.   There are now 153,000 more federal civilian employees on the payroll this fiscal year, bringing the total to 1.43 million.  That is one huge increase all at once!   And each one has pay and benefits more than double that of the average worker in the private sector.  As more and more Americans are realizing, government does not create wealth, but instead only inhibits it and gobbles it up.
                What the administration did say is that if the so-called stimulus were not passed, unemployment just might jump to 9%, but instead when the bill did pass, the rate actually surpassed 10%.  Only 6% of the American public polled early this year actually believed that it would create jobs.  So we might ask, why if the first stimulus bill was such a great deal for the economy, was a second one needed?   Says Biden, “The job-creating portions are really loaded in the second half.”  Why didn’t he tell us that before the first one was passed?  Now we owe about $1.6 trillion more than we did the year before!   Biden has to think it is rather strange that one dollar when he was born has the same buying power as $13.93 this year.
                The Wall Street Journal has chronicled how stimulus spending was just transferred to government jobs and services:  of $179 billion in funds paid out in 2009, $112 billion has gone out in the form of large checks to state governments to plug holes in schools, Medicaid and unemployment budgets, or to increase funding for programs such as food stamps…an additional $700 million was spent on administration and about $47 billion has left D.C. in transfer payments.
                Even the tax cuts were just a redistribution of wealth or a cash flow ruse.  In spite of the administration reducing withholding to stimulate spending, citizens will find out that the taxes they pay out are the same as they were before.   Says Harvard economist Robert Barro, ”…the fiscal stimulus package is a way to get an extra $600 billion of public spending at the cost of $900 billion in private expenditure.  This is a bad deal.”   Alan Reynolds, author of Income and Wealth, pointed out in Investor’s Business Daily, that only $200 billion was actually spent in 2009, prompting him to ask how that could have had anything to do with the 5.7% increase in GDP for which the administration is taking credit.  In 2010, the Act is mainly a stimulus to government.  Nearly half the outlays in 2010 will be for programs administered by Health and Human Services or the Dept. of Education.  Reynolds concludes that the stimulus added about 2% to the U.S. unemployment rate. 

In short, a country cannot spend itself to prosperity.  To believe otherwise is to be out of touch with reality.  The reality is that the spending explosion did create even larger government and more expensive debt, so large this author can see no way out except for the nation to declare bankruptcy.