You missed me, but you didn't get me flowers?
Well another week and another batch of comments to get through.
Enjoy.
Ken wrote: Missed you Tuesday. You tired or is Townhall tired? Noticed already you are not listed on the list of authors as most of the others are on the right. So, I ask for the daily sort, and there you are. –in response to Time for the Timid President
Dear Ken,
Thanks for missing me. I usually take a day off from writing during the week. Mid week is really busy for the site, so anything I write would just get ignored anyway. Plus I have to keep the site going 7 days a week and I’m in the middle of working on a book. It’s always busy for me.
Truthfully, I should write less, but see below.
Bob A. wrote: John Ransom should immediately seek help from his shrink about his "Obama Derangement Syndrome"!–in response to Time for the Timid President
Dear Bob A.,
I did seek help. It was recommended that I get out more and do something with people, so I spent 2009 helping beat back union encroachment on education choices in Colorado.
We were so successful that our new board of education was able to implement one of the most ambitious voucher systems in the country. It’s making its way through the court system now. If it holds up it will be one of the most impressive education reforms in the country in the last fifty years.
But still that wasn’t enough. I was told that traveling might help me with my Obama Derangement Syndrome.
So I traveled to Nevada where I spent the 2010 election cycle in the 3rd Congressional district educating voters about issues important to conservatives. Freshman incumbent Democrat Dina Titus lost her race in the 3rd to Republican Dr. Joe Heck by 1900 votes.
Well. Even after that I was still feeling most of the symptoms of Obama Derangement Syndrome. So it was recommended that I take up writing. And here we are.
I think there is really only one cure. That’ll come in November 2012.
But thanks Bob A. for expressing concern.
Sybil wrote: Ransom: "We are sitting on 4.3 trillion barrels of oil in the western US, enough to keep us going for 600 years without importing another drop." The vast majority of which is not commercially recoverable at this time. We cannot drill ourselves to energy independence; it's just that simple. Shale oil drilling is amazingly water intensive, and a man who lives in Douglas County, Colorado should know that we just don't have the water out there on the Roan Plateau. – in response to The Fragile Obama Whackosystem
Dear Sybil,
Any fractional part of 4.3 trillion barrels of oil that we can recover is plenty to start with. And while it’s true that water is an issue, if they can engineer solutions in the Negev desert, the Roan Plateau shouldn’t present a huge issue.
Colorado has a ton of water in the form of snow pack. Unfortunately it all flows out of the state via the Colorado, Platte and Arkansas rivers.
But here’s the issue: I’m willing to let private enterprise go out and try recovering the oil. After all, it’s their money and they feel confident that they can make a return on the investment.
You just don’t want any fossil fuel development for any reason. You rather the government put money into 100 Solyndras than see America become energy independent by using our own fossil fuels.
Firing Line wrote: Had we had an additional wartime gas tax the past eight years of ONE DOLLAR MORE to pay for our Republican social engineering project in Iraq; I doubt John McCain could have flippantly said we may be in Iraq for 100 years. – in response to The Fragile Obama Whackosystem
Dear Firing Line,
If we followed your advice by adding another dollar to the gas tax, our economy would have collapsed in 2005. Look at what’s happened over the past half a year as gas prices have surged. It was gas prices going up in 2008 that finally pushed the economy over the cliff.
One of the biggest drains on our economy is the price of energy. Adding a gas tax just makes that worse.
The truth is that the US is pretty darn efficient when it comes to energy use per dollar of economic output. Europe is a little more efficient, but that has more to do with having dense population centers compared to the US.
The bottom line is that there are legitimate ways to finance a war, but raising taxes isn’t one of the intelligent ones.
Alan Levy wrote: And GW was a champion of free-markets, wasn't he?- in response to Obama's Half-a-Billion Green Bankruptcy Just a Preview
Dear Alan,
If you’re coming here thinking that we are all going to jump to the defense of George Bush on free markets, you have come to the wrong place. I think you are looking for the presidential library site. There was much to be desired in Bush when it came to money and markets.
But Obama?
Give me a freakin’ break.
Dan wrote: Build more nuclear power plants. Build more oil refineries. Drill for more domestic oil and gas…There really isn't any other solution if America is going to continue to be a world power. - in response to Obama's Half-a-Billion Green Bankruptcy Just a Preview
Dear Dan,
Right on. America will continue to be a world power in part because we are the only ones with the cajones to protect the world oil supply. And if you doubt it, please see Libya.
Even Obama let himself be bullied by Hillary and company into bailing out European oil in Libya.
Illinois Roy wrote: I'd say that this organization is about as grassroots and populist as the Tea Party is.- in response to The Progressive Jobs Plan: Let's Start a Tea Party
Dear Roy,
You’re my favorite liberal here. You don’t call people names, you make your point, you’re good natured, even if you are flawed ideologically.
But look here: The biggest problem that progressives have is a misconception about who and what the Tea Party is. If you really knew what was behind the Tea Party, the names, the organizers, the institutions, as a liberal, you’d be scared to death.
There. I’ve said too much already.
Flying Baby Jeezis wrote: Dodd-Frank is a good piece of legislation, and it's about time. What's the matter, a little oversight scares you? Not letting a bank become "too big to fail" is a bad thing? Showing "off balance sheet" activity scares you?- Barney Frank’s Mob Violence
Dear Flying Baby Jeezis,
Sarbannes-Oxley was supposed to take care of off-balance sheet activity. It didn’t do that because it wasn’t written to actually address the issue legislators said it was. It was just a land grab by the government.
Same thing with Dodd-Frank.
Liberal and conservative economists agree that Dodd-Frank doesn’t solve the too-big-to-fail problem. If anything, it makes the problem worse.
We might not agree ideologically on things, but we should all agree that our government should not be allowed to write any more legislation that does not address the issues that they say they are trying to solve. If you really, truly want to solve the too-big-to-fail problem, the only proper attitude towards Dodd-Frank is outrage.
Liberals and conservatives disagree about a lot when it comes to Dodd-Frank, but there is fair unanimity that it’s an epic fail on the too-big-to-fail front.
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