The election and the inauguration are now in the past. The hippy hoopla is also now in the past. What we are left with is the very sad truth that much, if not all, we were told during the last six months of 2012 was apparently manipulated by the Obama administration in order to secure his re-election. Evidence to that effect is coming out of Washington every single day.
We have only now learned that fourth-quarter GDP retracted, this for the first time since 2009. One more quarter like this and we will officially be back in a recession. Interestingly enough, the Obama administration claims this as an unusual situation based on a slowdown in government spending. Hum... What they really mean is that they front-loaded government spending and hiring in the second quarter of 2012 in order to persuade the electorate later in the year how much better things were becoming. Further validation comes from the significant increase in first-time unemployment applications, which increased by 38,000 last week. Do these numbers jive with the glorious reports that Obama provided during the campaign? Could this be why the president in his wonderful and eloquent inauguration speech, failed to mention anything on the economy or jobs? Of course, there is much more such news…
The debt ceiling has been raised by an additional $450 billion. We can all be happy this avoids a potential government shutdown. This keeps the federal government in operation through May of this year. Think of what that means. In just the next few months, the government will spend $450 billion more than it takes in. Senator Harry Reid is criticizing the Republicans for continuing to harp on cutting government expenditures. I guess he is hoping if they stop talking about it, it will just go away.
Now there is a major bipartisan plan on immigration reform, only four years after the president insisted that it was a top priority. Much is still to be worked out between the bipartisan Senate plan and that of the president. What continues to confound is that under neither plan has there been any discussion concerning the cost of the reform or any pertinent discussion about the economic loss from crossing delays. Thus, we can expect under either plan: additional bureaucracy, no serious improvement, and considerable new federal outlays. Just what we have come to expect of the political class.
Perhaps it is coincidental but after a few months of declining gas prices, all the sudden it is reported the gas prices will be vastly increasing and that those of us in California should expect to be paying well over $4 a gallon very soon.
To top it all off, sources within the Obama administration suggest that the president is likely going to lift the ban on the Keystone pipeline project. What? This from the guy, who during the campaign, concluded that it would be devastating to the environment! The one who seemed not to care that it might help us achieve energy independence or might possibly have created thousands and thousands of new jobs.
No, quite sadly we are getting everything we asked for. We have in office perhaps the most manipulative, cunning and untruthful administration in our history. The president is good at eloquence: words without substance. He seems bent on saying and doing only what may ensure his” legacy” as the great liberal titan of the 21st century — at the expense, of course, of everything we once cherished as the American way. For those who believe in the One, far easier to be captivated by the rhetoric than to seek out the truth. For those who have seen behind the words to the truth, there is nothing to do for the moment but to be comforted by the fact that the One cannot run again. I think!
Jon Edney is a former El Centro city councilman.
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