Jane Chastain : Politically Direct

In an undisclosed location in the White House, unnamed Obama Administration advisors huddle to discuss the impending sequestration.  No official transcript exists because (for the record) this meeting NEVER happened.

The mood was grim.  The hot topic was a statement from Emily Holubowich, a lobbyists who represents a coalition of 3,000 nonprofit groups fighting the cuts, who accidentally spoke the truth to aWashington Post reporter:  “The worst case scenario for us is the sequester hits and nothing bad really happens!”

Advisor # 1:  Emily is right.  What if nothing bad happens as a result of the sequester?  The president is going to look like a doofus.  He will be a laughing stock, the brunt of all the jokes on late night TV.

Advisor # 2:  We’ve got to turn up the rhetoric.  Send out Janet Napolitano to say that we will no longer be able to enforce immigration laws.

Advisor # 1:  We already did that, and besides, we’re not enforcing immigration laws now.!

Advisor # 3:  We could not enforce them more.

(Silence)

Advisor # 2:  We can close the Washington Monument and the White House Visitors Center.  That’s never failed in past budget standoffs.

Advisor # 1:  That’s not enough.  The president said there will be real pain and there must be REAL PAIN!  Remember, no pain, no gain for us.

Advisor # 2:  We can tell them TSA agents screening airport passengers will have to be furloughed.  It will mean long lines.

Advisor # 1:  The lines are already long.  Besides, if the agents are forced by time constants to stop groping grannies and toddlers, who is going to complain?

Advisor # 2:  Scare them.  Tell them it means less air traffic controllers.  Airplanes will be flying blind.

Advisor # 1:  Hell, Reagan fired all of them and there was barely a hiccup.

Advisor # 3:  We could limit the number of children who attend Head Start.  When the going gets tough, hide behind poor children.  That always works.

Advisor # 1:  The program is already a disaster.  All the benefits are erased by the third grade.  It might cause further scrutiny of this program and, worse still, it might stir the pot for real education reform and increase the call for vouchers. That will bring the teacher’s union down on us.  No, we’d better drop that.

Advisor # 4:  I know!  Tell the it will cut out school lunches.  Imagine the angst it would create among the nation’s poor parents!

Advisor # 1:  Another boondoggle! We’re spending so much on food stamps and other food assistant programs, folks are wondering why welfare recipients can’t take some of that free food and pack lunches for their kids.  Better not hit that one too hard.

Advisor # 6:  Let’s  stay on the subject of the poor.  We can bring up the weatherization program for low income homes.  Energy Secretary Stephen Chu said it will mean up to 1,000 homes won’t receive free makeovers.  Think of all those people who won’t get new drywall, calking and new appliances.

Advisor # 1:  Yes, but some smart journalist would point out that we could simply  reduce the regulations that are driving up the cost of energy.  Energy costs for the poor (and everyone else) would remain the same and we could save millions by eliminating this program.  Also, that might trigger another discussion about all the money we’ve thrown at failed energy companies like Solyndra.  No, no, that is much too risky.  Let’s not beat that drum.

Advisors # 5:  I know. We can go back to scaring seniors.  They know their Social Security benefits are safe, but if we could tell them there won’t be enough workers to process those checks and they might arrive late . . .

Advisor # 1:  At best we’re only talking about cutting less that one and a half cents on the dollar.  That’s not going to happen unless we order the federal workers who process those checks to go to sleep at their work stations.

Advisors # 2:  Yes, but they already go to sleep at their work stations and it would take an act of Congress to be able to fire even one of them.

Advisor # 4:  An act of Congress, hum.  What if, what if Congress acts in the 11th hour and gives the president “transfer authority”?  You know, gives him the ability to pick and choose where to make those cuts in order to lessen the pain or eliminate it entirely?

Advisor # 1:  That would put the ball squarely in our court.  We’d have to eliminate worthless programs.  We could no longer reward our friends and get away with it. (Cringe) That would be a real disaster!

Advisors 2 – 6:  Agreed!

It is becoming clear that the Republican successor to Ronald Reagan may not come from Congress.  He may not have executive experience as a governor of a state, though these are the roads most often traveled to the White House.

There is a new name on the lips of the politically engaged.   To the uninitiated he might appear a most unlikely candidate.

Benjamin Carson is a physician, a gifted neurosurgeon who has a way with words as well as a scalpel.  In fact, many say his speech at the National Prayer Breakfast on February 7, cut the President of the United States, who was seated just a few feet away, to the quick.   Some, like conservative commentator Cal Thomas, called his remarks “inappropriate.”  Others say they were a breath of fresh air, a lesson in economics mixed with Biblical truths that are indisputable.

The truth is that Dr. Carson, a devout man, did not direct his remarks to the president.  He has been writing and speaking about these issues for some time.  However, he did not pull any punches in this venue simply because Barack Obama chose to attend. Read the rest of this entry »

It is morning in Amerika and the majority of people who voted to reelect Barack Obama president don’t even know it.  Everything appears to be normal but everything has changed.  The United States will not be the same.

I have never felt that all was lost after a single election as I do today.  The ship of state has been described as a battleship.  Its course cannot be changed abruptly.   A major correction is a long slow process.

Barack Obama didn’t begin the process that changed us from a democratic republic to a democratic socialist country but he will finish it, or at the very least, take us to the point of no return. Read the rest of this entry »

With the nation careening toward a fiscal cliff from which there will be no escape, the national debate has centered on a popular children’s television character who goes by the name of Big Bird.

In last week’s presidential debate, Barack Obama was unable to give us a plan to solve our current economic woes other than taxing the evil job creators. As a result, the president’s polling numbers are sinking and his advisers are looking for anything that might be a distraction.

Grasping at straw, or in this case, feathers, they pounced on Mitt Romney’s promise to put everything in the federal budget, including Public Broadcasting and Big Bird’s popular television program Sesame Street to this test: “Is the program so critical it’s worth borrowing money from China to pay for it? “ Read the rest of this entry »

He was a charismatic guy with big ears and an important message that resonated with the American people. No, it wasn’t Barack Obama. (He had fuzzy words and no message.) It was Ross Perot 20 years ago.

In 1992, using charts and graphs on 30-minute infomercials funded out of his personal fortune, Perot ran the most successful 3rd party bid for the presidency in a century and received 19 percent of the vote. His message was simple: The country is going broke. We have made too many promises we can’t keep. Our level of spending cannot be sustained. This has to stop!

Unfortunately, there was a major flaw in his show and tell which kept those who interpret the numbers churned out by the government from getting on board and taking him seriously. Some believed he was playing the old political game of “envy and greed” in an effort to win votes. Others thought it an honest mistake. Read the rest of this entry »