Seth Leibson 03-23-2012

Time To Wake Up

As Broadcast on Bill Bennett’s Morning in America

March 23, 2012

By Seth Leibsohn



I wish to pick up where we were last week, discussing how to talk to Democrats and Independents about the election.  As we were saying, we must engage these discussions with “Intuitive empathy.”  Just to go back,   “Intuitive” means instinctive or something based on feeling rather than reason.  “Empathy” means to share feelings, out of concern.  So what we are asking for here is that we speak to our fellow countrymen with a sincere sharing of deep concern about our country or, as I should like to do today: about our countrymen, our citizens.  And for what it’s worth, I think it was Michael Deaver who wrote that Ronald Reagan’s favorite word was “citizen.”



So, for size, try a fact or series of facts that concern you and should concern others and follow it or them up with a question such as I posed last week: “Why would our president do this?”  Here are some examples and I’d love for you to call and email in with more:



Last week, we talked about how the President has made the country weaker as a matter of national defense.  This week, let’s talk about our own general welfare.  What has the President done to make life easier to live, to work, to support your family?  What has he done—in the words of the Constitution—to provide for the General Welfare?  Has he, and have his policies, indeed made life easier in this country or more difficult?  Easier to find work, easier to get to work, easier to raise and support a family?  Or, in fact, have his policies made life more difficult—more difficult to find work, to get to work, to raise and support a family?



Let’s go to the first thing most of us deal with every week—at a minimum: Gas prices.  Gas prices affect all of this and all of us.  Today, the national average gas price is $3.88.  That’s the average—in some places in the country it’s actually $4.50.  In January 2009, when President Obama came into office, the average gas price was just over $1.80.  President Obama had just hired as his Energy Secretary a man who just four months prior said “Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe.”



Why would our President hire a man as his Energy Secretary who wanted to make gas prices higher in America?



And did President Obama and the Obama administration help make gas prices higher?  According to the President of the Institute for Energy Research (as quoted over at the Powerline blog), this administration has “closed development of millions of acres of onshore and offshore federal lands for oil and gas production.”  Additionally, “the Energy Information Administration released data this month that shows oil production on federal lands is down 13 percent this year under the Obama administration. Natural gas production is at a 9 year low.”



Yesterday, the President gave a speech in Oklahoma trying to take credit for opening some oil pipelines.  But the reason they aren’t open now is due to his administration.  And, if he had approved the XL Pipeline: “America would be well on its way to bringing more than 700,000 barrels of Canadian oil on line. That’s more than twice the oil that was produced on federal onshore lands last year, and it could have created as many as 20,000 jobs in the process.”



Now, just briefly, let’s look at a few other energy policies this administration has taken (courtesy of John Boehner’s office):



The Obama administration scrapped “leases for oil-shale development” and canceled 77 leases for oil and gas production in Utah in its first year in office.



In January of 2010, the Obama administration announced new bureaucratic hurdles to American energy production that Secretary Salazar admitted “could add delays to the leasing and drilling process.”



In March of 2010, instead of opening new areas to energy exploration and development, President Obama blocked deep-ocean energy production on 60 percent of America’s Outer Continental Shelf.



In December of 2010, the president re-imposed and expanded the moratorium on offshore energy production.



In May of last year, President Obama issued a formal statement opposing House-passed Restarting American Offshore Leasing Now Act and Putting the Gulf of Mexico Back to Work Act, legislation designed to jumpstart American energy production, address rising gas prices, and help create new jobs.



In June of last year, the White House opposed the House-passed Jobs & Energy Permitting Act that would unlock an estimated 27 billion barrels of oil and 132 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.



In November of last year, the Obama Administration released a plan for a five-year moratorium on offshore energy production, placing “some of the most promising energy resources in the world off-limits.”



Let me give you a few more from last year and you tell me if this administration is trying to make energy—for your homes, for your cars—easier to come by or harder, less expensive or more expensive.  These stats from the API:



-The Administration proposed billions in new taxes on oil and gas industry in FY 2012 budget proposal (February).

-The Administration issued an Advance Notice regarding new regulations for gas gathering lines that would substantially impact development of the Marcellus Shale (August).

-The Administration proposed one-size-fits-all new source performance standards that, lacking a phase-in period to manufacture the control equipment, may significantly hamper oil and gas operations (August).

-The Administration again proposed billions in new taxes on the oil and gas industry (September).

-The Administration issued a new 2012-2017 five-year plan that fails to open any new offshore areas to oil and gas development (November).

-The Administration raised the minimum bid amount for offshore lease blocks in water depths of 400 meters and greater from $37.50 per acre to $100 per acre (December).



So, present any of these facts to your friends and ask: “Why would the President do this?”  Ask: “Do any of these things make life easier or harder on Americans?”



Let’s ask a few more fact-based questions.  What have the administration’s rule-making and regulating policies led to?  More employment and growth of the economy?  More businesses opening up here?  No.  The opposite. According to the Heritage Foundation/Wall Street Journal measure of economic freedom, the United States has fallen from No. 6 to No. 10 since the end of the George W. Bush administration in 2009. The U.S. also has dropped rank in the ease of doing business, as measured by the World Bank, and in global competitiveness, as measured by the World Economic Forum.  The question:  Why has this happened?  Why won’t the administration move heaven and earth in its regulatory agencies to reverse this decline?  Why does it want to tax business owners and entrepreneurs more when it proposes budgets no amount of taxation on the business or owner class can meet?  And, ultimately, who pays for all this?  The wealthy; or the poor and middle class?



Finally, this—Unemployment under President Obama has gone up from over 7 percent to over 10 percent and is now settled at over 8 percent.  Please name me one major business or entrepreneurial incentive program this administration has championed.  Truly, can you name one?  Just one. I’m guessing you cannot.  If you cannot, why not?



What will this President be known for on the domestic front?  Health Care Reform is clearly a contender if not the absolute right answer.  But then ask your friends this: If the President’s health care overhaul was such a good idea, why is it now coming in at a much higher cost than was promised, why have waivers to it been granted to select corporations, and why is it true that today, today, more American adults lack health insurance coverage than in any year since Gallup and Healthways started tracking this in 2008?



These are facts—and these are the questions.  Simple questions that beg answers.  They beg answers of concern to our fellow countrymen, our fellow citizens….because in this democratic country of ours where we hold our officials accountable, such evidence of making life harder and more expensive demands a verdict.



Final note.  It needs to be reported.  After all the alarums and excursions by the Democrats generally, and Barack Obama specifically, about the ruined international relations of the George Bush Presidency, I give you this headline from Gallup this morning: “The majority of Egyptians (56%) now see closer relations with the U.S. as a bad thing for their country, up sharply from 40% in December 2011. They are more likely to see a benefit from closer relations with Turkey and Iran.”  We’ve moved the largest Arab country in the world—an ally—into an enemy, and drove it to Iran.  George Bush do anything like that?  Just another question.