What Are We Thinking?

            A friend of mine on the Front Range “clips” online articles on water issues when he comes across them and emails them to me. He recently sent two articles on the oil and gas companies’ use of hydraulic fracturing parts of the Earth’s crust to get at the trapped natural gas far below the surface that would otherwise not be accessible. One of the articles was pro and written by a conservative Democrat from Oklahoma who heads up the American Gas Association, the other was an opinion from Sam Schabacker of Food & Water Watch a consumer advocacy organization and it was con.

            As an educated left leaning centrist I have to wonder about the motives of the President of the American Gas Association when he is telling me that all is safe in oil, gas and “fracking”. On the other hand when it comes to someone worrying about what we eat or what we bath in I happen to believe that is as important to us as it was our ancestors, so I have to agree that intentionally polluting underground areas might not be in our best interest. The pro guy makes the “in vogue” case that the gas industry supplies and creates thousands of jobs for Colorado therefore we should support it no matter what. The job issue in this country is now held up for just about every cause even though often jobs are indeed never created.

            Along those lines and from “across the pond” I listened to an interview of Tony Blair with Wolf Blitzer and when asked if the going’s on of News Corp in Britain was a tad bit out of line and should be dealt with, he responded that it is par for news organizations over there and he wondered, with almost pity at American distaste for such antics. Tony Blair looked like a fat cat under a canary cage and went on about how this was business as usual never once mentioning that cell phone and computer hacking of anyone is illegal. The bottom line is both of these situations benefit someone therefore we should just ignore the consequences and except the defense of the practices as gospel. I cannot.

            I wonder regularly what it is about us that allows politicians and large corporations to pull the wool over our eyes so regularly that we accept being blind as a part of life. If some tidbit is repeated enough we take it as the whole truth and nothing but the truth and never bother to look up the facts. In the case of to “frack” or not to “frack” it makes only common sense that diesel fuel forced through small fissures underground will indeed find its way into the underground aquifers and it is only a matter of time before it shows up in our drinking water. Not to mention it takes millions of gallons of our precious water to hydraulically fracture in the first place. Yet, through both “public education” and political muscling, the oil and gas folks have managed to keep hydraulic fracturing off EPA regulations for safe water.  And they have managed to convince people so thoroughly that they are they are on the up and up the practice is being defended around the dinner table, especially if they are “creating jobs”. We are so naïve.

            It all boils down to money just like this ridiculous debate going on about our economy. If Obama has a double dip recession he loses in 2012 and that is the only thing motivating the new strain of politicians in D.C.  period. They could care less if we are teetering on financial disaster as long as he loses and that has been the goal from the beginning. Why does congress not embrace all ideas to get the economy moving? They keep pointing the finger at Obama for not doing this or that with the economy and the debt, yet they are the ones who are hired by us to make decisions, fix problems and create policy. The role of the President is to steer; the legislators’ role is to represent their districts and they are obviously not doing it for the districts are still not adding jobs. The conversation always turns to spending yet very few of these politicians have demanded that we get out of Iraq and Afghanistan which to date has cost us 1.2 trillion dollars and it is all borrowed money. That is our debt problem in the first place, not Obamacare, nor the bailouts which by the way have been nearly paid back and with interest. We have a spending problem alright, congress spending for their employers…oil and gas companies, tobacco companies, banks, you get the idea.

            I have to agree with my friend Mike…I have paid into Social Security and Medicare nearly my whole life so what makes it wrong that I receive benefits from it? We are crazy to buy into this especially since Social Security supports itself and can be viable for another 25 years without any additional funding. Yes, there are abuses to both systems that can be addressed and we can stop some needless bleeding, but benefit cuts handed to the people who built those funds in the first place, give me a break. Cutting taxes again and again for the rich is blatant support not for the folks that need it, but for the folks that control our government. For every dollar in tax breaks given I would bet my shrinking last dollar that four dollars come back to politicians that support the machine. We, the disappearing middle class cannot afford that kind of political game playing so they no longer work for us, and we buy into the lies that the rich create jobs. The only thing that is “trickling down” to us is the debt from borrowing money to give these people tax breaks. What are we thinking folks?

            There is no talk in any of this about getting small businesses back to Main Street and those my friends are what make this country go ‘round. Small businesses would benefit hugely by cutting the subsidies for big oil and giving it to solar entrepreneurs, but small businesses are not funding politicians, the biggest business of all. The loudest politicians for the most part are the ones who have been at it the longest and it is because they have been given the most money to keep doing what they do; benefit the lobbyists. One exception is Rand Paul the “rookie”, but he knows full well who scratches Kentucky’s bank, I mean back. Kentucky receives more federal dollars than just about any state out there and he will do nothing to topple that record, Tea Party affiliation or not.

            We can do a lot of federal cutting like subsidies to the rich in the form of tax cuts and ethanol which is causing our food prices to go through the roof. We can clean up government waste in general by tying record keeping together so duplicate spending is controlled and we can cut the Mother of all spending by nipping at the war machine budget. Most people do not know that the general defense budget has grown 67% since 2001 and is almost larger than the rest of the world combined…that is being paid for out of our taxes. When they increase defense spending, or any budget for that matter it is a tax increase. I do not care what you argue, this country is a machine and it is fed by taxes one way or the other. No matter what your party supposedly stands for they are taxing you.  

            This country is living truly on the edge when we talk of cutting the deficit instead of putting money into jobs. Jobs will cut the deficit by giving people the money to spend. You cannot pay household debts down without income, and you will not have income without a job…it is that simple. We almost bounced back from the Bush and Obama reinvestments but they were a little too late in the case of Bush and a little too small on Obama’s part. They did stop the job loss successfully, and added a few but we need to kick start things again or we will be in the same boat. The rest of the world invests heavily in their job creators and their students and we must do the same or dwindle away.  

            A strong nation starts with economics not war planes. We cannot run the engines of war without the money to do it anyway and that money is disappearing into investment banking, oil and gas production, big overseas business and now radical ideology. If we do not invest in the people of this country it will be belly up, it is that simple. If this country defaults many have no idea what will happen…let’s start with no 401 K’s…they will be empty. Jobs on every level will disappear making everything much worse than it already is. No stock market stability here or in the world and interest rates will go sky high deepening the problems. These politicians that are taking these silly pledges have no idea what they are doing and Boehner and a few other Republicans know it, yet they are playing along with the game because they are afraid they will lose our votes. Well, mine has not been there since we were lied to about Iraq so I will not cost them.