The Case for NOBAMA 2012

[Randy B Corporon]

Seth Leibsohn filling in for Bill Bennett on Morning in America makes the case for NOBAMA 2012:

"So, last week I was giving a talk on the election and was asked to give the briefest account of my objections to President Obama. Here is what I said:

Unemployment was 7.6 percent when President Obama took office. His administration said we needed an 800 billion dollar stimulus to keep it from going to 8 percent. We got the stimulus and unemployment went over 10 percent. It's now still over 8. There are 1.2 million less people working than when Obama took office. He said in his second month in office he'd cut the deficit in half in his first term. He's now submitted four budgets in a row that contain over 1 trillion dollars in deficit spending. No president has ever done that. George Bush's last budget, for what it's worth, had 450 billion dollars in deficit spending. The debt when Obama took office was just over 10 trillion dollars. It's now over 15 trillion. Did not George Bush increase the debt the same amount, ie, by 5 trillion dollars? Yes, but over eight years and with two wars. Obama has done it in less than four years and after winding down one of those wars. Egypt was an ally when Obama took office. He called for our ally's ouster and now it is an enemy. Iran is closer to a nuclear weapon than when Obama took office. And Israel has never been more sidelined by the United States, never. 

That was my brief case. But we can of course say more, much more. President Obama has offended a great many allies. And, he has encouraged a great many of our enemies. And the world, even in just three years, has become more dangerous—from the Middle East to Asia to Latin America. So now, just this week we come to learn the administration is studying cutting our strategic nuclear forces by as much as 80 percent. We come to learn this as we have come to learn the President has decided to limit pay raises for troops, increase health insurance fees for military retirees and close bases in the United States, cutting by hundreds of billions of dollars our defense budget over the next several years. 

We come to learn this week that while gas prices have risen 83 percent during President Obama’s tenure thus far, he said this “We can’t drill our way to lower gas prices.” Why can’t we? We can’t because he won’t let us. Let’s remind our fellow citizens that when gas prices were at record highs in 2008, President Bush lifted a moratorium on offshore drilling. Gas prices fell immediately, from over $4.00 per gallon to $3.69 and to $1.66 by the end of the year. Of course more oil means lower gas prices because as any economist will tell you, more supply equals less cost of the product being supplied. When something is rare it is expensive. Don’t all grooms know that when they buy diamond rings?

But here’s the rub, the Wall Street Journal puts it this way:

According to the Greater New Orleans Gulf Permits Index for January 31, over the previous three months the feds issued an average of three deep-water drilling permits a month compared to the historical average of seven. Over the same three months, the feds approved an average of 4.7 shallow-water permits a month, compared to the historical average of 14.7.

Approval of an offshore drilling plan now takes 92 days, 31 more than the historical average. And so far in 2012, an average of 23% of all drilling plans have been approved, compared to the average of 73.4%.

Oh, and don't forget the Keystone XL pipeline, which would have increased the delivery of oil from Canada and North Dakota's Bakken Shale to Gulf Coast refineries, replacing oil from Venezuela.

This is all from an administration, a President, who selected as his Secretary of Energy a man who just months before he was selected said he wanted to drive the price of gas upward to the levels of Europe.

I think two things this morning. 1. We should have car stickers with Obama’s face on them and place them on the gas tank covers of our cars so every time we go to the pump to fill our tanks we think about the cost of “Obama gas.” 2. We need to start laying out these facts, all of them, to our fellow citizens and ask why would our President do this?

Why would the President want to make it more expensive to work and live in America? Why would the President want to take down our missile defense shields in Europe when even the European countries they were being built in wanted them? Why would our President warn Israel not to take out Iran’s nuclear facilities? Why would our President turn a deaf ear to Iran’s democratic revolutionaries and continue to convey respect and reach out to Iran’s mullahs? Why would our President tell our ally, the leader of Egypt, he had to go, only so he could be replaced by the Muslim Brotherhood whose motto is “Allah is our objective. The Prophet is our leader. Qur'an is our law. Jihad is our way. Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope.” Why would our President make America weaker and at the same time drive our debt up?

These are just some of the questions we are now impelled to ask. There are a lot more. And we ask them because the time for our judging objectionable or not our leadership is just nine months away. We will do more of this and more on this. But for now, let’s think on those questions. They beg to be asked. Because there’s another strong element of democracy staring us in the face: it’s called accountability."

Well done!