ANTI-GROWTH
“The Obama budget envisions an explosion of economic growth as the country recovers from the current recession - more than 4 percent a year from 2011 through 2013. This will supposedly be sufficient to halve the $1.75 trillion deficit it projects for 2009. But there is something off here,” writes at www.commentarymagazine.com.
“Many of the policies Obama and his team are pursuing, cap-and-trade [a tax on carbon-based energy] being the most obvious, are likely to interfere with growth in exactly the sectors in which the United States will need it. If the goal is growth, as it should be, the role of government should be to determine ways in which its conduct can fuel that growth. And that is precisely what Obama is not doing,” said Mr. Gordon, author of “An Empire of Wealth: The Epic History of American Economic Power.”
“The cap-and-trade tax will inescapably and adversely impact the economic recovery and future growth rates. If passed, it will act on the economy as a whole exactly the way a governor acts on a steam engine, increasingly resisting any increase in revolutions per minute. With the supply of licenses to emit carbon dioxide fixed, the price of the permits will inevitably rise as economic activity picks up. That means that any increase in overall demand will increase the price of energy, and thus, in a feedback loop, nearly everything else. That will damp down demand. The more the economy tries to speed up, the more the carbon tax will work to prevent it from doing so.
“The same is true of many of the other policies embedded in Obama’s budget. He will raise taxes on high earners rather than lowering them to give those earners an incentive to put their money into the private markets. He intends to increase the number of federal regulations on private business and industry, rather than reduce the number of those regulations for the purpose of eliminating barriers to growth. Taken together, these counterproductive actions will make job creation in the private sector difficult, because they will make it more expensive to hire new workers. The Obama plan will, in general, make it more expensive to do business at a time when one would think he and the nation as a whole have every reason to make it as inexpensive as possible to do business.”
HIDDEN REPORT
“On January 24, more than two months ago, Newsweek’s reported on a new Pentagon report on former Guantanamo detainees who had returned to the jihad after their release. The report, he wrote, could be released in days,” notes in a blog at www.weeklystandard.com.
“The Weekly Standard followed up. On the morning of Feb. 2, Pentagon spokesman told us to check the Pentagon Web site - www.defenselink.mil - for the report. We did. It wasn’t there,” Mr. Hayes said.
“It hasn’t been released. And it now looks like the Pentagon is attempting to hide it further behind a bureaucratic blind. In an e-mail two weeks ago, we were told that in order to see the report we would have to submit a Freedom of Information Act request - a process that can take months, even years. Why did the self-described ’most transparent administration in history’ suddenly reverse itself? Where is the report? …
“As it happens, the continued suppression of the Gitmo report took place during national ’Sunshine Week,’ a ’national initiative to open a dialogue about the importance of open government and freedom of information,’ sponsored by the American Society of Newspaper Editors.
“In a nod toward increased government openness, announced that he would order government agencies to lean towards openness and transparency when considering the public disclosure of government information. It’s a move that won him high praise from transparency advocates. But the Obama administration risks losing that good will - or at least putting it at risk - if it engages in selective openness.”
’TONE-DEAF’
“One of the many bummers of our ongoing miseries at the moment is that they have deprived Obama devotees of their expected post-electoral nirvana,” writes in a blog at www.thedailybeast.com.
“Stem-cell research is restored, torture is stopped, diplomacy is back, high-speed rail is on the way! But where are the balloons and high fives and Yes We Did parties? Buried under an avalanche of toxic assets,” the writer said.
“Obama is the only person walking around with a big smile on his face. That onset of wild laughter on ’60 Minutes’ about how humorous it is that no one in America, I mean no one, wants a bailout for the auto companies was one of the more surreal presidential performances lately.
“Why has Obama suddenly turned into the of teachable moments? We realize he’s just trying to shore up his poll ratings so he can distance himself from Pelosi’s pitchfork mob, but a ’60 Minutes’ sitdown right after the Leno armchair session on the preceding Thursday seemed - for him - strangely tone-deaf to the risk of overexposure. (Thank god he skipped the Gridiron Dinner.)”
TWO AT HERITAGE
The Heritage Foundation has named a veteran foreign correspondent and Wall Street Journal editor to lead its communications shop.
, who covered the stock market for the Journal before editing its opinion pages in Europe and Asia during 11 years at the newspaper, joined Heritage on Monday as vice president of communications.
Mr. Gonzalez’s appointment follows the promotion of , a familiar face in D.C. media, policy and political circles, to vice president of strategic initiatives. She has worked on strategic planning at the conservative think tank since 2006.
“Mike and Genevieve, and their departments, shoulder a big part of Heritage´s mission to persuade the arbiters of tomorrow´s political and pop culture that only conservative principles will build an America where freedom, opportunity, prosperity and civil society flourish,” Heritage President Edwin J. Feulner said in announcing the appointments.
• Greg Pierce can be reached at 202/636-3285 or gpierce@washingtontimes.com.
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