Here are a couple good links about Obama’s spending bill. Neither is by a famous econ professor, but they’re both good reads.

Just because it creates a job, doesn’t mean it was worth creating…

Link 1 – Ben Shapiro

Link 2 – John Stossel

Before the election I saw a lot of posts about how Christians don’t have to be Republicans, and maybe Obama really can change the world. Usually those people never debated the issues at all…it was like voting for President was a popularity contest. It’s much easier to post a long winded letter written by someone else about how they are smitten with Obama than it is to detail how his liberal policies would be good for America.

Now that Obama has been successful on his first major goal (spending even more of our money), I was wondering how those people above feel now? Did you expect Obama to spend nearly a trillion of our dollars, a move that will most certainly prolong our recession? Do you feel $300 million for electronic golf carts is a good way to stimulate the economy? Do you feel Obama’s rhetoric that Republicans want to do nothing is fulfilling his promise of bipartisanship?

There are a LOT of stupid things in this “stimulus” bill. Let’s list them!

Pump prices have been lower for quite a while now, so this might not be extremely interesting, but I’ll post it anyways.

I remember that at the height of gas prices there was a TON of complaining. It was Bush’s fault, the government should do something, the oil companies are evil, etc. Once you see the following though, you will be a better informed citizen, and when you hear people say stupid things, you can then correct them.

Gasoline prices are directly related to the price of oil. The price of oil gets set in a fashion similar to the stock market. That’s not something the government controls, or George Bush (or now Obama), or the evil oil companies. It’s set on the open market, and take a look at the graph below. The price of oil and the price of a gallon of gas are perfectly aligned. In the future, the next time you see Congress summon the heads of the major oil companies to see if they are in collusion, now you will know what a bunch of idiots they are.

To make your own chart go here.

Obama is the President-Elect! Overall I can’t say I’m too surprised. I was holding out hope that the polls weren’t accurate, but overall they pretty much were. I think McCain just had too much to overcome. The combination of Bush being extremely unpopular and the financial crisis sending the entire country into the doldrums didn’t help. I think this was much more about people being unhappy with government than it was about a mandate for Obama’s politics.

There are two things I want to bring up about Obama’s impending Presidency. First, while I think it’s great we have our first black President, I’m over it already. Is this going to be the new benchmark to establish when a minority group is no longer opressed? Poor hispanics and asians are going to have to wait for a President that can affirm their ability to do whatever they want. That being said, I don’t think the cries of discrimination are going to stop anytime soon. The black community faces many unique challenges like high crime rates and out of wedlock births, and an Obama presidency will do little to change those problems. How long will it take before the black community turns on Obama for not fixing their problems?

Speaking of Obama and fixing problems…it will be interesting to see how he governs. He set the bar awfully high when he promised to change the world. He does realize he’s only in charge of one country right? With so much power in congress I fully expect the Democrats to embrace a leftist agenda. Don’t expect them to tackle the problems with social security or earmarks, but instead look for topics like healthcare and social spending. Clinton’s eight years were relatively mild because he was kept in check by a Republican congress. The last time the Democrats were in this position was when Carter was in office.

I’ve seen talk already of the Republican party realizing they need to get back to the basics of limited government. They screwed the pooch royally over the last eight years of Bush and the six years of their majority in congress. If Obama does govern to the left, and prolongs the economic troubles we face, Republicans will be in a good position to come back to the people and preach about limited government.

One thing I pledge to do over the next four years is to respect the office of the Presidency. I’m sure I will have many disagreements with Obama’s vision for our country, so don’t be surprised to find me critical of his politics. However, I promise to keep it on an even keel, which hopefully isn’t a surprise to most that read this blog.

Look for another post soon with baby pictures and Little Big Planet!

I wanted to get this post up before any real voting is done or there is any hint of how today will go. I want you to have my personally biased assessment before the fun begins tonight!

Here’s how I see things. McCain certainly has an uphill battle. There are some key states that he really needs to win like Florida and Ohio, and recent polls show him clearly in contention there. If Obama wins PA and NH (which recent polls show likely) then McCain really has his work cut out for him. There are a number of states he needs to win, like NV, NM, and CO to name a couple, and the polls in all of those are either very close or have Obama slightly ahead.

Speaking of polls though, I think the polls have overstated Obama’s lead for a while now. When pollsters come up with their polling numbers, they determine what percentage of the electorate will be Democrat and Republican. Many pollsters are giving Democrats a 6% advantage this year…but that hasn’t happened in the last 8 years! Over the last few election cycles the number of Republicans and Democrats that showed up were either tied, or Democrats showed up 2-4% more frequently, but never 6%. The last Presidential election was a tie, and to assume that four years later will be a huge Democrat turnout might be wishful thinking. Another promsing nugget is that several times in the primaries Obama was expected to win handily, sometimes by as much as double-digits, but he lost to Hillary in some of those states. Over and over Obama hasn’t been able to close the deal, and with some polls showing almost 10% of people unsure of whom they will vote for, that means McCain can still have a lot of votes in play. Since most of my readers are on the West coast, make sure you ignore any exit polling you hear because it consistently overstates support for the Democrat, and make sure you get out and vote. Here in California we’ve got other important things on our minds like Prop 8!

But either way, it should be interesting tonight. I’ve got some sausages to grill and some beers to drink, but whoever wins tonight wins. Obviously I think an Obama win would be bad for the country, but I’ve never had a blog while someone of the opposing party was in the White House. That might be fun, but I’ll certainly trade that for McCain and his supreme court nominees.

Here is my “guide” as requested by a couple people. Thanks to GeekyWeekly for doing the work on the Judicial nominees. Those are always a pain. Have fun tonight everyone!

Federal and Statewide
President/Vice President – John McCain/Sarah Palin
House and Senate Seats – Republican

Judicial
Office #72 – Hilleri Grossman Merritt
Office #82 – Thomas Rubinson
Office #84 – Pat Connolly
Office #94 – Michael J. O’Gara
Office #154 – Michael Jesic

Propositions
Prop 1A – No
Prop 2 – No
Prop 3 – No
Prop 4 – Yes
Prop 5 – No
Prop 6 – No
Prop 7 – No
Prop 8 – Yes
Prop 9 – Yes
Prop 10 – No
Prop 11 – Yes
Prop 12 – Yes
Measure R – No

In case you hadn’t been paying attention, Obama wants to raise people’s taxes. Sure, he goes on and on about how he wants a tax cut for 95% of the working people, but he never mentions that a large portion of that 95% don’t pay any income taxes to begin with. So if someone is getting a check in the mail, but they didn’t pay the government anything in the first place, who’s money are they getting?

If Obama has his way, they’ll be getting Joe the Plumber’s money. As Obama said on the campaign trail, he wants to spread the wealth around. When confronted all Obama can do is say things like “Warren Buffet can pay more!” or his favorite “Exxon Mobil is the devil,” but what about Joe the Plumber? Does Obama seriously think that raising the taxes of those making more than $250,000 and giving it to someone at McDonald’s will help the economy?

Silly Obama…here in the USA we practice capitalism. If he loves socialism so much he should go see if Castro has any openings.

Video of Obama wanting to Spread the Wealth Around

Video of Joe the Plumber being Interviewed After

Update: Found a good article about Obama’s incessant line that 95% of American’s will get a tax cut. Read that here.

In the last couple weeks the financial crisis has single-handedly given Obama a comfortable lead in the national polls, and made the electoral road map very tough for McCain. He will need to win almost all the battleground states and find some way to flip a state like New Mexico, Minnesota, or Virginia where Obama has established significant leads. Is the race over? No, and it’s hard to tell how accurate the polls are. I heard an interview with Zogby I think it was who said that 80% of their calls they get hung up on. That means to get a poll of 3,000 people to answer there were 12,000 that hung up.

But regardless of the polls, I’ve already accepted that Obama might be the next President, and sadly I think it has much less to do with the vision and philosophy that Obama has put out, and more to do with the Republicans lack of fiscal restraint. Don’t get me wrong, I think Obama and his Herbert Hoover style of raising taxes will be worse for the economy than anything John McCain does, but right now the general public wants something new. I’m surprised I haven’t heard anyone mention how different the race might be right now if it was Romney against Obama, but no one could have predicted the economy would be the sole issue this election.

With the public declaring they want something new, I don’t think there is much McCain can do to change their minds. What he needs to do is come out and say that he will decrease the size of government and lower taxes (which would be in stark contrast to Obama), and while he has sort of said that, there are two big problems he faces. The first is that on one hand he says that, and then he says he wants to bailout all the stupid people that bought houses they can’t afford. The second is that people have lost faith in Republicans as believers in smaller government.

I think George W. Bush’s greatest mistake was letting government spending run rampant because he has damaged the Republican brand immensely. I think the War on Terror will be judged positively if Iraq becomes a beacon of hope in the region (and there hasn’t been another 9/11, which Bush deserves credit for). The economic issues have been pushed to the side though, and that’s what has McCain in such a pickle. He can’t come out and say the best way to get out of a financial crisis is lower taxes and smaller government, because people think he’s full of crap. It’s in this that I think Republicans have hope for the future.

If Obama wins and Democrats control Congress and the White House, I think Republicans should take a long look at what they stand for. I’ve said before that I’m a conservative first and a Republican second, and in recent years the Republicans in office have strayed a great deal from conservative principals of smaller government. If the Republicans find themselves in the minority in the next four years they need to stop and think about how they got there. Being “democrat-lite” is not what people want.

I think Obama’s policies will self-destruct if he governs anything like he talks and has voted in the past. Herbert Hoover was a one term President, so it’s possible the Republican party can turn itself around in four years. My biggest fear is that the economy recovers like it did in the early 90′s under Clinton. The economy had started a major upswing right before he got into office, and instead of the first Bush getting the credit it was Clinton. I’m not sure that can happen with Obama because we’ve just started to have major problems, and the end isn’t even in sight. That being said, once we hit bottom, there is only one way to go, and that is up. I guarantee if things get better the media will make sure it was Obama’s doing.

If that happens, the road for the Republicans is more difficult, but only time will tell. Whether Republicans can keep the White House or not, they’ve been getting spanked in Congress for a while now, so they need to sit down and really think about what they’ve done, and what they need to change. Get back to the party of limited government and lower taxes, and maybe then the people would be willing to trust you in office.

I’m not an economist. I have a minor in economics, but that’s only because I needed one extra class in college. I’ve been reading about the financial “crisis” since it became headline news, and frankly, I still don’t understand why it was necessary for congress to pass a $700 billion dollar bailout. If anyone has an article about how we would have most certainly gone into a depression without it, I’d love to read it.

In the meantime, I’ve been gathering a wealth of articles to help me (and you) better understand where the problem came from and what should have been done instead of a bailout. I think you’ll also notice a theme that shows how more government involvement is not the answer, but if anything is the reason we have this mess in the first place.

Trust Capitalism – This piece makes me think the bailout wasn’t necessary, and also shows how the federal government screwed with the free market.

Democrats to Blame? – This article talks about how President Bush tried to get something done in 2003, but how Democrats blocked those efforts. Funny how we keep hearing that this is all Bush’s fault though.

Bailout Politics – A great article by Thomas Sowell about how Barney Frank and Christopher Dodd, two democrats, can be saddled with a lot of the blame. Funny how the MSM hasn’t brought this up and simply let’s Obama off the hook whenever he blames Bush.

How is Obama Connected? – Another Thomas Sowell article detailing what role Obama has had in this mess.

But despite all the facts, my faith in the general public to think intelligently about these subjects is decreasing every day. Few people think about how the government’s role in all of this matters, but instead go along with the notion that the sky is falling, it’s all President Bush’s fault, and the only one that can save mankind is Barack Obama. That sounds like a best selling novel!