Sanford D. Horn | Obama, La Hood-winked, Caterpillar and Canoodling
The oft-used phrase politics makes strange bedfellows could not be more apt when examining the relationship between two Illinois politicos Barack Obama and Transportation Secretary Ray La Hood. Of all places for Obama to visit in the latest stop along his “I’ve got to shove the stimulus package down America’s throats” tour was the East Peoria plant of Caterpillar.
Obama had scheduled stops in Illinois for the same day, Feb. 12, to commemorate the bicentennial of the birth of Abraham Lincoln. I don’t think Honest Abe would have looked too kindly upon Obama or La Hood. But all places Obama could have visited, why Caterpillar?
Well, the over 80-year-old company that manufactures construction and mining equipment had planned to lay off roughly 22,000 workers according to forbes.com. Yet, one day prior, while speaking in Springfield, Va., Obama referenced Caterpillar in conjunction with upcoming construction projects and how the company would be able to rehire many of the unemployed. Obama reiterated the same thought while at Caterpillar noting that “Jim” could rehire workers upon passage of the stimulus bill.
At that point people’s crap detectors should have been working overtime. Jim, who Obama mentioned while at Caterpillar, is the beleaguered company’s CEO James W. Owens, who said there would be more layoffs before they start hiring again, also according to forbes.com.
So back to why Caterpillar for Obama’s visit. This is where La Hood comes in. La Hood is the former Republican Congressman who represented the district that includes Caterpillar’s corporate headquarters in Peoria prior to serving in Obama’s cabinet. Perhaps Caterpillar wouldn’t be in the financial straits it is currently experiencing if it hadn’t decided that a museum to itself was at the top of its “to do” list.
As I wrote on Jan. 17, the Lakeview Museum in Peoria became possible partly due to a $330,000 earmark of La Hood’s and also due to Caterpillar’s own largesse. Oh, by the way, Caterpillar was La Hood’s biggest campaign donor. This earmark was merely the tip of the La Hood-wink pork-laden iceberg.
In 2008 alone La Hood sent up legislation calling for $60 million in earmarks, ranking him in the top 10 percent of all Congressional porkers. This was partly made possible by sitting on the highly coveted Appropriations Committee and allowed La Hood-wink to funnel larded-up legislation toward some of his more generous political donors.
And while the record is being set straight, Obama’s got a lot of ‘splainin’ to do regarding his own mathematics. During his speech-conference on Monday night Feb. 9, Obama said his stimulus albatross would create or save 4 million jobs, yet two days later in Springfield, Va., at 11:18 a.m., he said his crap package would create or save 3 million jobs. Seems reminiscent of his campaign when each day the bar on the amount of income to be tax-increased kept dropping. Perhaps he just “misremembered.”
Additionally, Obama should be ashamed of himself for attempting to publicly embarrass freshman Rep. Aaron Schock (R-Ill.) and shanghai his vote on the stimulus monstrosity. This Obama did during his speech at Caterpillar, which is located in the heart of the 18th District once represented by La Hood, and now Schock. This is just the kind of arm-twisting that would make Rahm Emanuel proud.
Making matters worse is that this so-called stimulus package is due to be voted upon Friday, Feb. 13, which violates Obama’s own campaign pledge of five days of sunshine prior to signing. The sunshine refers to the opportunity for the bill to be examined by the public in Obama’s so-called era of transparency.
As of 10:15 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 12, Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-S.C.) still had not received the bill, nor had his fellow legislators, he said, while being interviewed by Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren. Graham further said, “I’m embarrassed to be in a Congress that would pass this spend-fest.” Graham was then critical of the $400 million returned to the package to prevent sexually transmitted diseases and the $1 billion to NASA, calling it a “national disgrace,” and that this is not a bill to create “jobs, but to help senators get reelected.”
If the senator thinks his hands are tied, imagine how the American people must feel. This is the kind of powerlessness of which revolutions are born.
- Column by Sanford D. Horn
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Interesting, this embarrassment from Sen. Graham. Me, I’d be embarrassed to be playing the role of Herbert Hoover in this great debate. Because, no, doing nothing is not an answer to what we’re facing as a country right now. And playing politics by advocating doing nothing is the lowest of all lows. But I do admire the chutzpah of those Republicans who are playing this politics. They’re gambling that their do-nothing approach will work for them. Strange calculation there to me – the gamble is that the economy stays in the tank. Some gamble with our future!
I thought for sure you’d put Sen. Graham (no relation).
The Republican view is not just “do nothing,” but do no harm and I bet those old Democratic ideas will do harm. We’re not rooting for the economy staying down, but expecting it to stay down with this hodge-podge items.
One good idea has been a payroll tax holiday that would give money directly to the people. It doesn’t stand a chance in today’s environment, but I look forward to the one-month tax holiday early in the Sarah Palin administration in 2013.
This is perhaps Sanford’s best column I’ve ever read. It is funny, incisive, informative, and tells the truth.
If the stimulus money is going to Catepillar, then why did the CEO say that they would have to lay off workers before they could rehire them? Seems that Obama got his facts wrong, again.
You can fund the company ad infinitum, but if there aren’t enough customers to keep up a demand for a product, in the end you get surplus products, declining to ceased production, and layoffs, if not eventual bankruptcy.
“Marxist-market” Obama seems to have forgotten about the law of supply and demand. People who need a product, in this case, tractors, trucks, mining equipment, etc, usually don’t have the cash to pay outright for it. That is why they get loans from the banks so that they can spread out the payments over time, while getting the equipment immediately so that they can do their work and get paid for it. When they get paid, their workers get paid and the banks get paid. A win-win situation for all.
Yet the Obama Treasury Dept in Thief Geitner cannot tell us where the money is that they (and Paulson, Volcker, etc) advocated be given to the banks, or who personally gave them the money. This is no way to run a “reform” govt.
I worry if I misplace a $20 bill. That’s a lot of groceries for us, as I’m a good shopper.
If Catepillar cannot sell their equipment on a regular and profitable basis, then all the “stimulus money” that they get will have gone down the drain, along with the company.
Also, for those readers who are interested in security issues, there is a coordinated effort by the marxist-left and the Hamas/jihadist support groups, to have an international boycott of Catepillar because one of its tractors was used to accidentally kill a marxist, Hamas supporter, Rachel Corrie International Solidarity Movement, an avowed marxist group) in “Palestine.”
She decided to become a human shield but was stupid enough to stand in a blind spot behind a building that was being destroyed by Israeli defense forces because it was used either as a sniper’s nest or because it was used as a gathering place for Palestinian terrorists from whence they would attack civilians in Israel proper.
Now her wacked out family and their far-left and Islamic/terrorist allies are going after Catepillar, often approaching churches to support the boycott (and the radical “liberation theology” leftists of Jim Wallis’ “Sojourners” and the National Council of Churches are supporting it, among others.
Therefore, despite any money that Catepillar gave LaHood, and despite any money that the porky stimulus package might give them, if they can’t get enough paying customers, it’s hasta la vista baby. The company loses, the workers lose, the taxpayers lose, and Obama and LaHood stay employed without any penalties.
Where the hell is all that money that was thrown at the banks, and why isn’t it been lent out to those who need it so that they can stay employed, and also help keep others working?
Until Obama and his band of merry marxists come under some kind of fiscal accountability, the economy will continue to decline, and big brother control of US financial institutions will end up in the hands of Obama, Emanuel, Pelosi, Reid, Geitner, LaHood, and those from the URPE school of marxist economics.
This is not the “change” we were promised, or was it?
Keep looking forward to that tax holiday in the Palin administration in 2013, Mike. So that’s when you’re moving to Alaska, huh? That’s a long haul from Fishersville, but I hear the moose are always in season, so you’ll have that working for ya, you betcha!
I feel sorry for the diehards here who have been reduced to denigrating every attempt at action a la Herbert Hoover in hopes of political opportunity in the future. (And for the likes of Sarah Palin. God help us all.)
In case you guys have forgotten, we’re still fighting two foreign wars and now a Great Recession. And you guys are still playin’ politics as if there’s an election in two weeks. News flash: At some point, we’d like you to join us adults over here trying to get our country back on track. That, or you can continue relegating yourselves to the Romper Room.
One idea that I like from the Obama team is the approach to do the direct stimulus to taxpayers in the form of a reduction in withholding. That gives people money directly every week, and it cuts down on the time and expense involved in getting the IRS to cut and mail checks like we had to do with last year’s stimulus.
Any guess as to when we last did a stimulus of this nature to try to fight back a recession?
TIme’s up. It was 1992, during the first President Bush administration.
Republicans have had plenty of good ideas. I seriously welcome more of the same. (And no, sitting on the sidelines is not a good idea.)
I just posted on my blog Bill Kristol’s piece on the Weekly Standard’s website today. Apparently, there’s $8 billion for a high-speed train between L.A. and Las Vegas that wasn’t even in the original House bill. Because Harry Reid wants that project.
Politicians play politics. It’s what they do. The Republicans are just getting ready for their next chance, which will be here pretty soon at this rate.
Could be. The gamble is too much for me. Me, I’d advise Republicans to note objections, then vote to approve “out of concern for the direction of the country.” Call heads and tails, essentially. That way if the stimulus works, which of course it will, because we’ve done stimulus programs every 20-25 years dating back to 1837, then great, see, we were on board, and we directed the money to the right projects. If it doesn’t work, slight chance that this happens, but just for argument’s sake, then hey, see, we told you, and we tried, but those darn Democrats just insisted.
The GOP is now (outside of Specter, Collins and Snowe) left to stand on the sidelines and root for this not to work. And again, historically these programs do work, because it can only help an economy to have in 2009 dollars now nearly a trillion dollars injected into it when the number of unemployed and underemployed is reaching into dangerous territory and the 85 percent of us who are working are pulling back on our spending out of fear that we haven’t hit rock bottom yet.
That said, that gamble wouldn’t make me comfortable. And as much as the commenters in this forum might not believe this, I don’t want to see the GOP take too big a hit on this. I’m a centrist Democrat, a fiscal conservative (albeit from left of center) and social progressive. And us centrist Democrats have had a good run of partnering with like-minded Republicans on fiscal matters dating back to the ’90s. The party chair in me of course wants to win every election, but maybe 50.5 percent to 49.5 percent, because that keeps the country in the center, and I think a government run from the center, with proper injections of perpsective from both sides, is best poised to represent our diversity.
Didn’t Barack Obama boost his political career in 2002 by saying we should sit on the sidelines (or just continue what we’re doing) in Iraq?
If he’d have gone along with the consensus, then Hillary Clinton would be president.
So Obama isn’t here if he doesn’t oppose Iraq (as an Illinois state senator), or if Clinton opposes Iraq (as the junior U.S. senator from New York). Interesting perspective. Awfully reductive, but an interesting perspective. And you’re conceding that Iraq was wrong, which has to be a big thing for a hard-right conservative blogger to do, but I admire that out of you. I don’t know how it advances your arguments, but hey, I admire it just the same.
For those of you who have been following this forum discussion and are starved for something substantive from the Republican side, read David Reynolds’ recent column, “Wasting away.” David is a lifelong Republican with some solid policy ideas and real-world solutions to issues that we’re facing as a country right now. And he offers his ideas without calling anybody a “marxist” or “socialist” or throwing his party’s two most recent presidential candidates under the bus.
I just realized the first criticism that will come Dave’s way after reading my comment above.
I’ll phrase it in the form of a one-liner.
Q: Whaddya call a Republican with substantive policy ideas?
A: RINO
Nah, I don’t concede Iraq was wrong. In hindsight now, we should have gone in during the fall of 2002. We waited six months and got very little. In those six months the weapons of mass destruction every one thought was there disappeared.
And more importantly, in the fall of 2002 Saddam cleaned out his jails. Post-invasion life would have gone closer to plan if the pool of criminals had not been available to those who wanted to disrupt the American effort.
Their position on Iraq in 2002 was the main difference between Obama and Clinton. Clinton thought she had to vote for to preserve her political future. Obama’s opinion that fall had the same weight as yours or mine – the view of an ordinary citizen.
I love hearing good spin. Thanks for making me smile, Mike!
I thought I got you with the Obama line. Hope I at least made you stop a moment and think.
It was a good comeback, to be sure. I think we both are making the other think. Thanks for engaging. I’ll need to comment on your site some so that your regular readers get the benefit of some of this back-and-forth.
Thanks to sitemeter, I know I have a regular reader – in France. I’m doing this for my own enjoyment, and if someone else enjoys it – great.
I learned a great lesson 17 years ago while working at the Bluefield newspaper. The sports section I worked hard on Sunday night was someone’s science project about recycling Monday morning.
I’m looking for my niche in the blog world.
If you ever want to share a column that we can post and then send people back your way, feel free. I very much want to see us expand the local blog universe. The more we get people interested across the board, the better off we all are.