Daily Archives: February 24, 2012

2012 Primary, Budget, Education, Energy Policy, Obama, True Talking Points, Unions

Forbes: Government Education Spending Up 7 Times & Nothing To Show For It

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Forbes:

Solyndra’s in the classroom.

Accordingly, the “investment in education” that Obama wants more (and more, and more) of is actually “federal-government-directed investment in education”. When considering whether we really want more of this, it is important to remember that it was “federal-government-directed investment in energy” that gave us Solyndra, Ener1, and Beacon Power, and that it was “federal-government-directed investment in housing” that has cost taxpayers more than $150 billion in losses (thus far) at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

So, how would we know if increased government “investment” in education was producing a return? We would see a steady rise in the ratio of GDP to “nonresidential produced assets” over time. Our GDP is produced by a combination of physical capital and human capital. Accordingly, if the economic value of our human capital were rising, the impact would show up in the numbers as increasing productivity of physical capital.

Now, here is the bad news. While total real ($2010) government spending on education increased almost 13-fold from 1951 to 2009, the measured GDP return on physical capital actually declined slightly, from 47.7% to 44.1%. This could not have happened if we were getting an appreciable economic return on our huge “investment” in education.

What follows is a “first approximation analysis”. The numbers could be done with more precision, but they are good enough to give us an idea of what the nation has been getting (actually, not getting) for its massive “investments” in education.

Assuming that about 25% of our total population is in school at any one time, average real (2010 dollars) government spending per student rose from $1,763 in 1951 to $12,209 in 2009. This is an increase of about 7 times. Assuming an average of 13 years of education per student (some go to college, some drop out of high school), this means that during this 58-year time period, we increased our real “investment” in the human capital represented by each student from $22,913 to $158,717.

More:

Also, imagine if, instead of being given a 2009 education for $158,717, an average student were given a 1967-style education for about $58,000, and $100,000 in capital with which to start his working life. This would be sufficient to start any number of small businesses. Alternatively, if put in an IRA earning a real return of 6%, the $100,000 would grow to about $1.8 million over 50 years.

The huge government “investments” made in education over the past 50 years have produced little more than “Solyndras in the classroom”. They have enriched teachers unions and other rent-seekers, but have added little or nothing to the economic prospects of students. America does not need more such “investment”.

Read more HERE.

 

2012 Primary, Energy Policy, Obama, True Talking Points

IBD: Five Biggest Whoppers In Obama’s Energy Speech – UPDATED!

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Who did not see this piece coming form a mile away:

IBD:

Energy: The White House billed President Obama’s energy policy speech as a response to mounting criticism of record high gas prices. What he delivered was a grab bag of excuses and outright falsehoods.

Obama’s main message to struggling motorists was: It’s not my fault, so stop whining. The speech only got worse from there, recycling excuses and myths that Obama’s peddled for years. But there were some standout whoppers that deserve debunking. The five biggest:

“We’re focused on production.”

Fact: While production is up under Obama, this has nothing to do with his policies, but is the result of permits and private industry efforts that began long before Obama occupied the White House.

Obama has chosen almost always to limit production. He canceled leases on federal lands in Utah, suspended them in Montana, delayed them in Colorado and Utah, and canceled lease sales off the Virginia coast.

His administration also has been slow-walking permits in the Gulf of Mexico, approving far fewer while stretching out review times, according to the Greater New Orleans Gulf Permit Index. The Energy Dept. says Gulf oil output will be down 17% by the end of 2013, compared with the start of 2011. Swift Energy President Bruce Vincent is right to say Obama has “done nothing but restrict access and delay permitting.”

“The U.S. consumes more than a fifth of the world’s oil. But we only have 2% of the world’s oil reserves.”

Fact: Obama constantly refers to this statistic to buttress his claim that “we can’t drill our way to lower gas prices.” The argument goes that since the U.S. supply is limited, it won’t ever make a difference to world prices.

It’s bogus. New exploration and drilling technologies have uncovered vast amounts of recoverable oil.

In fact, the U.S. has a mind-boggling 1.4 trillion barrels of oil, enough to “fuel the present needs in the U.S. for around 250 years,” according to the Institute for Energy Research. The problem is the government has put most of this supply off limits.

“Because of the investments we’ve made, the use of clean, renewable energy in this country has nearly doubled.”

Fact: Production of renewable energy — biomass, wind, solar and the like — climbed just 12% between 2008 and 2011, according to the federal Energy Information Administration.

“We need to double-down on a clean energy industry that’s never been more promising.”

Fact: Renewable energy simply won’t play an important role in the country’s energy picture anytime soon, accounting for just 13% of U.S. energy production by 2035, according to the EIA.

“There are no short-term silver bullets when it comes to gas prices.”

Fact: Obama could drive down oil prices right now simply by announcing a more aggressive effort to boost domestic supplies. When President Bush lifted a moratorium in 2008, oil prices immediately fell $9 a barrel.

Obama said in his speech that Americans aren’t stupid. He’s right about that, which is why most are giving his energy policy a thumbs down.

Tapper: Why Is Obama Asking “Indignant” About Higher Gas Prices When He Campaigned On It

Obama statements from 2008:

[youtube-http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3d_CJoO0OA]

[youtube-http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPyFbNWffHE]

Barack Obama 2008 ad on Gas Prices [Editor’s Note – and yes he did take money from oil companies, specifically BP… the oil spill company who got all those safety waivers]

Obama saying he wants $4.00 a gallon gas

Obama In 2008 Supported a Gas Pipeline From Canada

2012 Primary, Culture War, Mitt Romney, Obama, True Talking Points

Mitt Lied: Romney did require Catholic hospitals to provide morning-after pills

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Via Pundit and Pundette [Great work in finding this evidence P & P – Editor]:

The Boston Catholic Insider provides a detailed timeline that refutes Romney’s assertions about a Massachusetts morning-after pill mandate:

No, absolutely not. Of course not.
There was no requirement in Massachusetts for the Catholic Church to provide morning-after pills to rape victims. That was entirely voluntary on their part. There was no such requirement.

BCI finds the opposite to be true. Their synopsis:

In 2005 Romney vetoed a bill to provide access to the so-called “morning-after-pill,” knowing his veto would be overridden, but months later, he decided Catholic hospitals did have to give the morning-after pill to rape victims. Key points to note:

  1. Romney had publicly claimed the bill did not apply to private religious hospitals
  2. He reversed his own July 2005 veto against abortifacients by signing an October bill seeking a federal waiver to expand distribution of Plan B abortifacients.
  3. On December 7, 2005, Romney’s Department of Public Health said that Catholic and other privately-run hospitals could opt out of giving the morning-after pill to rape victims because of religious or moral objections
  4. On December 8, 2005 Romney reversed the legal opinion of his own State Department of Public Health, instructing all Catholic hospitals and others to provide the chemical Plan B “morning after pill” to rape victims.  He was quoted as saying, ““I think, in my personal view, it’s the right thing for hospitals to provide  information and access to emergency contraception to anyone who is a  victim of rape.”

Please note the principled leadership shown by Romney here. For it, against it, rinse, repeat.

BCI’s conclusion:

When Romney was asked in the debate if he had required Catholic hospitals to provide emergency contraception to rape victims and had infringed on Catholics’ rights, he responded, “No, absolutely not. Of course not.” That was untrue.

When Romney said “for the Catholic Church to provide morning-after pills to rape victims…was entirely voluntary on their part”, that was also untrue.

For him to suggest to the citizens of the United States on national television that Cardinal O’Malley and the Catholic Church would “voluntarily” provide morning-after pills is an egregious misrepresentation of Catholic Church teachings and an egregious misrepresentation of what actually happened in this situation.

BCI hopes that the media and other candidates call him out on this.

It’s a matter of public record. Not only did Romney destroy conscience protections, a la the Obama administration, but he lied outright about it as recently as two days ago. This should disqualify him as a serious candidate.

Culture War, Editorial, True Talking Points

Anti-conservatism is anti-intellectualism

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A good friend of mine sent me a link to a piece that contained every bigoted false claim in the book that progressive secular leftists use to smear traditionalists, Jews and Christians. Of course, only those who aren’t aware of history and the use of such smears, which are nothing more than discredited cliches, actually believe such nonsense. My friend asked me, “Does part of conservatism stand against reason in the sense of being simply anti-intellectual?”.

To answer my friend’s question I said, “Let me be clear; anti-conservatism is anti-intellectualism”. Why?

American Conservatism demands that we look at our history and traditions to use them as a guide. To ascertain works and what doesn’t in order to have the happiest and healthiest society we can while recognizing that man’s nature is flawed and that society will never be perfect.

Leftists, by and large, believe that rationality must be imposed from above.  They believe in a rule of the elite (oligarchy) over the “ignorant masses”. The believe that freedom leaves too much to chance. This kind of thinking is what our Founders, Alexis de Tocqueville and traditional American conservatives would call out as tyrannical. The progressive secular left believes that our traditions, Biblical codes, and history are merely mysticism (anti-intellectualism); thus they believe that 6,000 years of human experience means nothing now that they are here to enlighten us.

The left even rejects Aristotle’s Law of Identity, they believe that truth is fungible, relative to ones own ideology,  and that there are no truths that are self evident.

The left pushes for top down government and central planning for our economy and society, a plan and philosophy that has failed every time it has been tried; often with massive bloodshed to boot. Even in cases where there was not much bloodshed there was still a large amount of human suffering. We see this in Western Europe even now, and we see more suffering here at home as a result of our own dabbling in leftism.

We have seen study after study show that people are more free and have more wealth when they live in a society with the the Judea/Christian ethic.

Those who push Marxism/Leftism/Utopianism/Socialism/Communism/Progressivism or whatever one may wish to call it are selling a defective product and use deceptive advertising to sell it.