Obama and the Gulf: Two Toxic Gushers

Americans have two toxic, spreading slicks that must be cleaned up. One is in the Gulf where we are haunted by pictures of a never-ending flow of oil. The other uncapped gusher, of even more dangerous toxins, is in Washington and flows from a broken pipe out of the Obama White House. This toxin is going to be even harder to clean up.

While most Americans’ attention is focused on the oil-spill tragedy unfolding off the shores of Louisiana, back in Washington, Team Obama is pressing forward, determined not to waste this crisis and use it to instill fear in Americans and loathing for all oil drilling and energy independence. Their goal is to scare Americans into support for 2000+ pages of flawed, and openly corrupt, Waxman-Markey energy legislation. Here we go again.

Instead of Waxman’s “Cap and Trade Bill”, our country would be far wiser to cap the relentless flow of Obama policies specifically designed to destroy wealth, expand government control over the daily lives of all Americans, while simultaneously cramping innovation and job creation.

Look at the toxins that have already spewed out of Washington and are just beginning to sludge up the economy.

The Stimulus (Feb 2009) did little to energize the U.S. economy, did not fulfill its promise of "shovel-ready" critical infrastructure projects, failed keep unemployment under 8% and failed to generate the 3.5 million jobs promised.

Consider Obama's promise of "unprecedented transparency" in executive branch dealings. Instead, Obama has overseen the largest expansion of senior government advisors by creating countless Czars, advisors who have the president's ear, who shut out the senate-confirmed cabinet members from close, regular conference with the president—czars who manage enormous staffs and budgets at taxpayer expense, some of whom have not been fully vetted, nor confirmed, by the Senate.

Consider Obama's Healthcare reform legislation. The promise to "insure all Americans", expand coverage, increase benefits and wring great savings from the system was always a cruel and hollow promise. Unfortunately, the full impact of that particular sludge and toxic mess is now beginning to be understood as more credible and realistic estimates of true costs and impacts are being revealed. Longer term horrors and additional costs of silly decisions to consider 26-year olds as "children", in order to ensure healthcare coverage, will not be fully known for years. But, I fear that for a country, which was founded on the principles of independence and autonomy, Obama has set the stage to eradicate that ideology, with profound long-term repercussions.

The Obama Administration pumped out more sludge addressing the banking crisis, making it harder for small businesses to have access to capital. Many of the small, local and regional banks, watching the punitive actions of Obama's Pay Czar, are rightfully wary of federal government involvement in all aspects of their well-run enterprises. Here too, Obama’s policies will restrict small business access to capital and drive up lending costs.

For example, the Obama Administration embedded in the financial reform legislation (Section 740B) language that will put small businesses seeking loans at risk, forcing banks to release confidential information about small businesses to the public. This is but one example of a rising tide of toxic sludge. Our small businesses, much like the pelicans in the Gulf, are being drowned, and many small businesses will not recover. So much for Obama’s promises of private sector job growth!

Most toxic of all, the Obama Administration and the Majority in congress have cranked up the federal debt to $13,000,000,000,000.00, even as they plan continued expansions of entitlements, pork spending, and even more boons to their unions allies and friends. That pipe just cannot get capped.

The oil spill in the Gulf is a tragedy and will harm opportunities in Louisiana and in my home town of New Orleans for years to come. Louisianians are innovative and creative folks who will find ways to speed the clean up, discover new and safer technologies for future wells, and they will bounce back with courage and grit. Have no fear.

What Americans should be afraid of is the uncapped gusher in Washington. How soon can we recover from the huge, deficit spending, wealth destruction, job-killing toxic sludge that just keeps on spewing out of the Obama White House? Team Obama has taken a short-term, self-indulgent approach deciding to indulge their personal ambitions of wealth redistribution at the cost of the futures of generations of our children.

Who will clean up that mess? How long will it take? Or is the damage so great that America can never recover?