Are We Being Hustled?

By Alan Caruba

I am perhaps naïve, but I can’t shake the feeling that the politicians are once again hustling us all with the endless talk about “bailouts” and “TARP” and the constant repetition that the nation is in a deep recession and that billions must be spent to escape it before a depression sets in.

I am well aware that some banks have failed, that AIG the giant insurance firm could not be allowed to fail without taking whole national economies with it, that there are foreclosures on homes when the owners could not pay their mortgages, and that there is something in the area of 7% unemployment. To me, however, that reads like 93% of the working population remains employed.

The problem comes down to getting the banks to begin lending again and, apparently, having thrown $350 billion at them—no strings attached—they still aren’t doing that. The nation got into this mess when banks and mortgage lenders were compelled by law to make bad loans so it is unlikely they are in much of a mood to starting lending again. Let’s begin by repealing or rescinding those bad laws.

Lending, however, is what they’re in business to do and I keep thinking the government, if it is going to do anything sensible, has got to drag some bankers into the spotlight and ask them when they will begin to lend. We went through a song-and-dance with Detroit auto manufacturers that everyone knows will declare bankruptcy about 48 hours after the new President is sworn into office.

What is taking place now is politics, not sound fiscal policy. If we had had a sound fiscal policy none of this would be happening.

Not only did the last administration spend every cent Congress asked it to, but they borrowed and borrowed in order to keep spending. Shame on you George W. Bush. Shame on Republican leaders in Congress and, for the last two years, Democrat leaders in Congress.

Leaders are not elected to bankrupt the nation, but we have a new President coming into office who is apparently convinced that the answer to the present problem is to spend a trillion dollars.
One trillion dollars is roughly one-sixth of the entire outstanding U.S. federal debt held by the public and one-tenth if you include intro-governmental debt such as Social Security IOUs. Yes, that’s right, the government keeps those “entitlement” programs going by borrowing from itself.
A trillion dollars is more than the Gross Domestic Product of all but twelve countries in 2007.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt kept the last Depression going for seven years by having the government hire folks instead of instituting programs that would encourage private business to do so. Roosevelt wasn’t keen on competition, but Roosevelt had never run so much as a corner store or met a payroll. His mommy held the purse strings of the family fortune and FDR lived on an allowance.

The Congress is full of lawyers, elected to public office, and living off public funding that includes all kinds of perks. Why should we trust or expect these people to have any insight to the way the marketplace functions? Lawyers live rather parasitically off of the need of businesses and individuals who, while performing a useful service for customers, lack the time to deal with the morass of paperwork the government requires.

What these useful members of society would tell Congress and the mainstream media right about now is to SHUT UP. And SIT DOWN. The frantic and secret negotiations going on behind closed doors right now to divvy up that trillion dollars should STOP.

Don’t bail out the Detroit auto makers. Don’t bail out the States coming hat in hand for the opportunity to waste more public funds. Don’t pick and choose between who gets what and how much. Shut off the spigot. And then go back to the bankers and demand to know what they are not providing mortgages, car loans, college loans, and the kind of loans that keep businesses functioning.

Congress has to tend to the problem of foreclosures in order to avoid destabilizing neighborhoods with good, but empty homes. It has to attend to the losses involved with the “toxic paper” that is the “bundled loans” for which no one was ultimately responsible to pay. But a trillion dollars? No.

The example of the successful recovery of the savings and loan industry in the 1980s is a good example of how the current problem should be solved, but a massive distribution of more borrowed public funds is such a bad idea that the only way to get it done is to frighten Americans into believing it is the only answer.

It isn’t. It isn’t even an answer. It’s a toboggan ride to the next Great Depression.

Write your Senator and write your Congress critter. Tell them you don’t want them to run up any more debt for the U.S.A. Period.

Election Tutorial: Immigration

By Alan Caruba

Oil and more precisely the price of a gallon of gas has emerged as probably the number one issue of the forthcoming national election, but right behind it will be immigration. Other than energy, population has the most impact on a way of life American’s prefer.

Unfortunately for most Americans, both Barack Obama and John McCain, their parties, current and previous administrations have been hell-bent to artificially and unnecessarily increase the nation’s population by (a) turning a blind eye to the massive annual invasions of illegal aliens, (b) advocating amnesty for those already here, and (c) doing virtually nothing to impede the flow of both legal and illegal immigrants.

The massive citizen outcry in 2007 when an amnesty bill was being considered by Congress should have sent a message to the nation’s politicians, but the government has been intent on growing the nation’s population despite the wisdom of native-born and naturalized citizens who understand that this is a bad idea.

They understand it when they are stuck in traffic congestion. They understand it as more and more illegal immigrants crowd into our cities and suburbs while, at the same time, costing taxpayers millions to maintain schools crowded with their children, special programs for those who do not speak English, hospitals whose emergency rooms are the only access to care many can afford (the cost must be absorbed by the hospital and government agencies), and a variety of welfare programs because unskilled and frequently uneducated illegal immigrants make greater use of them. Predictably, they experience a higher rate of poverty than the general population. Why?

Despite ample evidence that a moratorium on immigration would have many benefits, our political elites refuse to acknowledge that America is being harmed by the burden of more than 12 million illegal aliens in our midst and more arriving every day. As Mark Krikorian says in his new book, “The New Case Against Immigration”, an amnesty would result in “nearly triple the fiscal burden they place on the federal budget, from $10.4 billion a year to $28.8 billion.”

If politicians will not even consider an immigration moratorium, they could at least respond to the public’s demand for better enforcement of existing immigration laws. Krikorian points out that the current illegal population could be reduced “through consistent, across-the-board enforcement of the immigration law.”

The reality is that our immigration system is broken, understaffed, and leaves Americans vulnerable to future attacks on the homeland. “On any given day, the United States Customs and Immigration Service processes 30,000 applications, conducts 135,000 national security background checks, answers 82,000 telephone inquiries, and more”

“In 2005, about 800 visa officers issued about 6 million visas to foreigners, an average of 75,000 visas per officer, roughly one every fifteen minutes” Many visas, of course, were for business travelers and tourists, but the system is so overwhelmed that it makes it too easy for people with bad intentions to slip through or just overstay their visit. And that’s not counting the millions who simply sneak into the United States.

It is madness to do nothing to slow down both the legal and illegal immigration process. Americans understand that instinctively even if they don’t have the statistics at their fingertips.

The problem remains that those in Congress or the White House who take an oath to protect this nation just don’t care who gets in or how many. The result is bleeding taxpayers who must pay out billions for the many ways illegal immigration imposes huge burdens on our society.

Between now and Election Day would be a good time to let the candidates know how you feel about this. It might help.

Al Qaeda Kills Itself...with Some Help from the USA

By Alan Caruba

An article in the Washington Post reports that the Central Intelligence Agency believes that al Qaeda has been, for the most part, defeated.

Forgive me for not celebrating quite yet because, if memory serves me right, the trillion dollars we spend annually on intelligence gathering has not always produced the most sterling results.

Wasn’t this the same agency that provided “evidence” of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq? Isn’t this the same agency that leaks politically sensitive information to the press to undermine administrations with which it is at odds? Isn’t this the same agency that ate up and spit out Porter Goss when he was sent there to get it under control for such misbehavior? Isn’t this the former employer of Valerie Plame whose husband, Joe Wilson, attacked the decision to invade Iraq?

Et cetera!

This is not to suggest that having a CIA isn’t a good idea in a dangerous world, but the agency has in recent years become too involved in domestic politics, thus leading me to believe that its most recent announcement about al Qaeda, while good news, may also have a subtext.

I, frankly, would be happier if the CIA returned to destabilizing unfriendly governments. Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez comes to mind or Iran’s Mamoud Amadinejad, but we’re told that the CIA doesn’t do that any more. It is useful to remember they were both elected to office. The ruin that such people inevitably cause is usually sufficient to bring about their overthrow at some point. The lesson is that it takes time, but Americans are an impatient lot.

The likelihood that al Qaeda is in big trouble is attributable to its policy of killing as many fellow Muslims as possible in order to make way for a new caliphate with Osama bin Laden as the new mahdi. He is reportedly in charge of a small hut in Waziristan somewhere in the northwestern frontier region of Afghanistan, an area whose local chamber of commerce has failed miserably to turn into a tourist destination.

Several times in the past Islam has gone forth to bring the blessings of Muhammad to the world with its armies. It was repulsed in Europe, the seat of Western Civilization, Now it depends on a handful of faithful whose job is to blow up themselves and others to achieve this. This latter technique has not gone unnoticed in the Middle East, as well as in places like Madrid, London, and Bali. Surely paradise is running out of virgins by now.

When al Qaeda destroyed the Twin Towers and attacked the Pentagon on 9/11, the Bush administration sent some CIA folk, along with some military, to chase them and the Taliban out of Afghanistan with some success. Since we were in the vicinity, the decision was made to topple Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, a dictator. Libya's dictator took note, gave up its nuclear program, and has been less of a problem of late.

History is experienced by those who live it day to day and the loss of military personnel is always painful, the waste of money is always predictable. Wars of transformation are always messy. However, the CIA is quite accurate in saying that al Qaeda in Iraq has been defeated. Its methods managed to achieve the impossible, the cooperation of Sunnis and Shias with one another.

In much the same way Truman’s decision to drive the North Koreans back beyond the 38th parallel has long since been vindicated by a thriving, democratic South Korea, I suspect that in fifty years or so Americans will look back at the Iraq invasion and occupation as a success as well. Like Truman, Bush will leave office with the lowest popularity ratings, but being President isn’t always about being popular. It is about being right.

The CIA has probably been wrong as many times as it has been right. A fresh batch of spies and analysts has largely replaced the old guard. I hope and believe it is right about al Qaeda.

Would You Hire This Man?

By Alan Caruba

It’s not likely that former Bush press secretary, Scott McClellan, is going to find any work in Washington, D.C. in the wake of his “tell all” book about his years in the White House job.

People tend to forget that his predecessor, Ari Fleischer, wrote a book about the same job and came away with a more positive impression of his co-workers. The reason that Fleischer’s book did not attract the kind of attention that McClellan’s is getting is that Fleischer did not throw the left-leaning press corps any raw meat by asserting the utter evil of the Bush administration.

McClellan is your typical disgruntled former employee, a backstabber that has to make everyone around him look bad in order to cover up his own incompetence. He better hope enough Bush-haters and knee-jerk liberals buy his book because it may be a while before a good job offer comes along.

It’s likely McClellan was fired and for good reason. I recall watching the Pillsbury Doughboy during his daily press briefings and, as a former journalist, I recall thinking he was way out his league with the sharks in that room. I even began to think they were going easy on him for fear that he might burst into tears or wet his pants.

You may recall who replaced him. It was Tony Snow. Snow arrived on the job with impeccable journalism credentials and was both respected and liked by his colleagues, albeit adversaries, despite their quest for an answer to some question that fit their particular agendas.

On MSNBC’s nightly “Hard Ball”, David Gregory, one of the most aggressive reporters in the White House press room during the tenure of Fleischer, McClellan, and Snow, lamented that in the run-up to the second Iraq war he and his colleagues did not do enough to dispute the justifications being made for it by the White House. In hindsight, Gregory said the press corps was “manipulated.”

This is a major cop-out, not unlike McClellan’s assertion that he was not in the loop inside the White House. In hindsight, not telling McClellan anything he would later blab all over town to make himself look good was probably a good idea. As it is, his recollections of what occurred are significantly out of synch with others who served at the same time.

There is no question that the White House orchestrated its case for going to war, just as there is no question that Rumsfeld made one horrendously bad decision after another until Bush could finally push him out of his job as Secretary of Defense. I cannot wait to read his memoirs! His press conferences were love fests and, for a time, Rumsfeld was being touted as the nation’s sexiest senior citizen.

Scott McClellan is going to be one very brief asterisk when the history of the Bush administration is written. I’m betting he will end up in some Texas public relations firm writing news releases about the opening of a new boutique in Dallas.