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PrintNovember 3, 2009
Can Obama's changes be reversed?
Even if Obama is limited to one term, the changes he has instituted may not be reversible. As Jonathan Weisman points out in today's Wall Street Journal, "Democrats' Quiet Changes Pile Up."
Won't the Republicans then reinstate programs like the F-22? Maybe not. The Republicans are such gutless wonders. For 8 years Bush II let the Dems rip him a new one every other day. I wrote an article asking why the GOP can't or won't play hardball.
The voters don't like the Democrats for what they are doing. They don't like the Republicans for what they are not doing. That is, not governing. We've given you the votes in Congress, guys. Use it or lose it. Don't run at the first whiff of voter response teased out of a poll cleverly structured to garner the desired result. Get everyone on the same page of the hymnal. Then show some backbone. Get up and go. Give better than you get. You can be gentlemen, but don't fight with a limp wrist.Play hardball!
Expect more military cuts as time goes on. The F-22 is probably just the start. Seems U.S. airpower is being systematically left to age, and not so gracefully at that. Michael Goldfarb imn the Weekly Standard:
There will soon be a crisis of American airpower: old F-15 and F-16s, aging F-18s and not enough of them to fill carrier decks, too few F-22s (that you're going to be very reluctant to use) and late arriving (and limited) F-35s (and what's the likelihood that F-35 goes forward according to plan?), plus a dinky and old bomber fleet. I haven't worked out the numbers, but if you look forward 7-10 years, the picture has got to be very ugly.
But then again, since there are going to be no tankers, it doesn't matter that there are no fighters
Where would we get the money to reverse this course? When it comes to the economy, well, we're already bankrupt, aren't we? Will we ever tell our foreign creditors to piss off and stop digging the debt hole? Don't think so. And with Barney Frank at the head of the House Financial Services Committee, reform means fixing it for his Wall Street pals to continue ripping off the taxpayer. Frank says otherwise, but then you have to read the fine print. He's Master of the Loophole. As a matter of fact, the finance 'reform' bill doesn't even purport to regulate derivatives. That's a hole the size of the Grand Canyon.
The House Financial Services Committee, for instance, approved a provision on Wednesday that Mr. Frank said would exempt "the great majority" of businesses that use derivative instruments to hedge their business risks from trading such instruments through exchanges or clearinghouses. Senior officials at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the Securities and Exchange Commission have been critical of the exemptions, saying they would create too large a loophole for financial instruments that were unregulated and played a central role in the economic crisis.
And you may want to watch the following 55m "Frontline" program video. It's definitely anti-Wall-Street slanted, but if you filter out the 'opinion' and stick with the 'facts' it offers some interesting history from the Clinton Administration on the politics of derivatives.
