Archive for the ‘Economy’ Category

Here is an interesting clip on the auto bailout form MSNBC’s Harball featuring Pat Buchanan (looking more like an idiot really, though he makes an occasional reasonable point) and James Gattuso of the Heritage Foundation.

In addition, here is your bailout thread for Friday.

It’s practically official, if only because he was unopposed, but Mike Pence is going to become the next Chairman of the Republican Conference.

The Indy Star Reports:

Rep. Mike Pence’s communications skills and conservative credentials are about to land him the House’s No. 3 Republican leadership position, giving him a key role in shaping and delivering the GOP message as the party regroups after its November losses.

The Columbus lawmaker is running unopposed for Republican conference chairman, the lead GOP communications job and one of the leadership positions House Republicans will fill during closed-door elections today.

He does have a challenge ahead of him though should he be in pursuit of higher office.

Whether this is the start of an even bigger political future for Pence depends on how well his party does in finding a path back to a majority in Congress and in retaking the White House.

“It makes him more prominent. It gets him more media time,” said Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics. “But you have to have a message that sells, once you get access to people.”

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Please feel free to disagree with me, to add, to revise or append … but the worst thing we can all do is sit back and watch our leaders flounder without discussing these options with us:

While reading a post by Robert Reich tonite it occurred to me that 2009 will feature a battle of epic proportions, with the now styled Mini-Depression at center stage.

“First, understand that the main problem right now is not the supply of credit. Yes, Wall Street is paralyzed at the moment because the bursting of the housing and other asset bubbles means that lenders are fearful that creditors won’t repay loans. But even if credit were flowing, those loans wouldn’t save jobs …This means bailing out Wall Street or the auto industry or the insurance industry or the housing industry may at most help satisfy creditors for a time and put off the day of reckoning, but industry bailouts won’t reverse the downward cycle of job losses.”

Ok, so far we agree, which is hard to believe since Reich comes from so far away to get even here. Now from my perspective he shows his true big government colors:

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Thursday’s edition of the Wall Street Journal’s Political Journal (available by subscription only-unfortunately), had a piece on Congressman Mike Pence and his bid for House GOP Conference Chairman. The writer, Stephen Moore, did a solid job of covering and profiling the Mike Pence that we know; the Mike Pence that can re-energize and revitalize the Republican message and prepare our party and the conservative movement for a comeback in 2010 and 2012.

Hoosier Hero

By: Stephen Moore

The message of this election and the 2006 election is simple: “Big government Republicanism is a failed experiment.”

So says Rep. Mike Pence, the Indiana Republican. Mr. Pence is running to become chairman of the House Republican Conference, the No. 3 power slot and effectively the communications director of the Republican Party. He is currently unopposed, but Dan Lungren of California has hinted he might also vie for the job. The leadership elections are next week.

(Read More below the Fold)

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Wasn’t this the guy that was really pushing that $700 billion bailout of Wall Street just two months ago?  Even had to address the nation about it from what I recall.

From Bloomberg.com:

In a speech at the Manhattan Institute in New York before weekend talks among leaders from the Group of 20 nations, (George W.) Bush said policy makers should resist the urge to meddle too much in markets as they seek to reverse the financial and economic turmoil now engulfing the world.

“History has shown that the greater threat to economic prosperity is not too little government involvement in the market, but too much,” Bush said. “Our aim should not be more government, it should be smarter government.”

Too little too late W?

Thanks to Steve Dalton, I was reminded of great advice that Governor Mitch Daniels gave Congress yesterday regarding the potential auto industry bailout.

Gov. Mitch Daniels said today that he’s skeptical that Congress can help the struggling U.S. auto industry.

“Let’s give Congress a chance, but there’s nothing in recent history that suggests they have an answer for this,” Daniels said. “The only thing we know for certain is the way they’ve been doing business does not work and throwing taxpayer dollars after it won’t make it work.”

I love it!  He’s in DC yesterday to receive an (or yet another) award, this time from Governing Magazine and he comes out telling it like it is!  This is why I like Mitch.  Now, don’t count me on the bandwagon to see him run for higher office in 2012, but he certainly is among some of the brightest stars in the GOP amongst the states Republican governors (in addition to Sarah Palin, Bobby Jindal, Tim Pawlenty and Mark Sanford).

And though he says he wasn’t there to give advice to Congress, he did happen to mention one of their oversights since they happen to be passing out money willy-nilly:

“I’m not here to give them advice,” Daniels said. “I just think caution is the watch word. And I don’t know where it ends. I didn’t notice anyone throwing money at the RV industry and that cost Indiana a lot of jobs.”

Zing!

Mike Pence had this to say about a potential auto industry bailout.

“Rep. Mike Pence, R-6th, said he’s not an absolute “no” on a proposal to help the industry, “but I don’t believe we can bail our way out of a failing economy.” He said he would listen to the argument for a loan to GM, Ford and Chrysler, but he is “very hesitant” to use any of the $700 billion financial-sector rescue money to help the auto industry.”

I admire Congressman Pence for listening, but I’d rather he give an absolute no. We’ll see what the argument is though first.

Sorry but I don’t think we need or can afford any more of these bailouts. What the entire country needs are more buyers of real estate, and a whole bunch of people in our industry need to stop talking the market down just to slam easy price cut deals. Sorry that’s my opinion, I won’t ever be working with an agent that slam-talked the market on the way down personally.

Sign “no auto industry bailout” at #dontgo

Remember the excitement of this summer’s #dontgo Revolution? When Republican Congressional members debated in the dark, demanding that Speaker Pelosi let them vote on oil drilling. She kept the lights and microphones off, so technology kicked in and members with phones twittered using the #dontgo hashtag to get the word out to all of us.

Well that same group, of dedicated conservative activists, #dontgo movement is hosting a petition drive to say “NO AUTO INDUSTRY BAILOUT” to Congress, the President and the President-elect.

Go to #dontgo Movement to sign the petition and while there check out the activities and action network.

For those in our area worried about the steel business, remember the best thing that happened to that industry was when they were forced to reorganize to get leaner, to produce faster, to produce the best steel in the world!

Here are the future #2 and #3 Republicans in the House, congressmen Eric Cantor of Virginia and Indiana’s own Mike Pence.

Last night I had the great fortune of attending the 19th Annual Indiana Chamber Awards dinner.  The featured speaker was Newt Gingrich and what an event that was.  Should the rumors of Gingrich seeking the RNC Chairmanship indeed be true and should he attain it, our party will be much the better for it.  We won’t be out of the wilderness, but would have a dedicated leader for our conservative cause who could potentially lead us out of the wilderness and keep the Obama Administration and the Democrat controlled congress on it’s toes.

He didn’t spend the evening talking about Republicans vs. Democrats, however.  He spent the evening talking about what makes good business sense and how to get our economy out of the doldrums.  He talked about the successes of small business and the failures of a bloated government.  He talked about solutions that makes sense and lauded praise on President-Elect Obama for his historic victory.

He injected humor and candor in his speech that he gave without notes.  He gave us all, as it were, fatherly advice, and left us with so much to think about.  One portion of the evening did stick out to me, that he mentioned also happens to be on youtube.  He was talking in practicalities about how small businesses make some of the most difficult tasks look simple, yet the Federal Government takes the simplest task and makes it exceedingly difficult.  He used the illegal immigration as an example.  And since I was in no position to take notes, the least I can do is share the video.  Maybe you’ve seen it, maybe you haven’t.  Either way, it explains why Newt Gingrich is a voice that conservatism needs again.

After you’re done watching the video, check out the Indiana Chamber blog for their take on the evening.

(Post updated to reflect Democrat Scott Reske’s victory in HD 37 after barely holding off Republican challenger Kelly Gaskill)

Here is a note to my fellow conservatives and Republicans.

I did not have the highest of expectation for last night.  I had hope that John McCain might some how pull off a miracle (because really that’s what he needed to win), but it wasn’t a lot of hope.  And like many of you who may have stayed up fairly late (after the webcast which ended at midnight, I went out and picked up yard signs to get some much needed alone time) I’m still recovering from yesterday’s action.  But I came to this conclusion.

It’s time to face the facts.  Barack Obama will be our 44th president.  And a historic congratulations should be sent his way.  But we should take solace in the fact that Democrats did not net major gains in the House or get their filibuster proof Senate, though they could still up with (a worst case scenario) 59 seats.

But there were some positives for us as well last night.  Governor Daniels smoked Jill Long Thompson (no surprise there) and Greg Zoeller and Tony Bennett won their statewide races.  The Indiana House will end up with only one seat gained by the Democrats after much hand wringing they could end up with as many as a three to four seat gain. On the congressional level.  Everybody stayed the same.  Many thought Congressman Souder could be a loss in the Republican column, but he showed his tenacity and didn’t just win by a small margin, he kicked his young upstart opponent to the curb.

But now onto my message.

Fellow Republicans, this is no time to give up.  This is also no time to resort to childish pettiness, bemoaning and name calling that the left resorts to when they lose.  This is a time to step up!  We do have a lot of ground to make up nationally, and while our state still leans red, it certainly is becoming a closely and evenly divided state.

We need to re-energize our base and return to what made our party great!  I encourage our state and national Republicans to return to the principles and virtues of the Contract with America.  We need to raise the level of discourse on the issues that matter most to Americans at this time; the economy and energy independence.  And while I believe social values cannot be ignored (though we must never give up on the issue of Abortion), we must understand, as a Party, that in these tough economic times, voters are thinking mostly with their wallets.  We must return to a message of fiscal restraint.  We must hammer the message of an “all of the above’ approach to energy independence.  We must hold our new President’s feet to the fire when it comes to the issues of coal and nuclear power.  Nothing can be off the table if we want to break free from the shackles of foreign oil.  President-Elect Obama seeks energy independence, but he must seek all avenues, closing off nothing.

We lost the American’s public’s faith in us when we lost our way as a party.  We have only ourselves to blame for the situation we are in.  Now is the time to make up for our past mistakes.  Now is the time to take action and to be the party of solutions and ideas.  We gave that away, but it’s time to take it back!

(But should you need it, here is Red State’s Obama Administration Survial Guide)