Vice President Joe Biden announced two days ago that the American people agree with the Democrat party “on every major issue.” Whether or not this is true remains to be seen, but this we can know with certainty: on issues of economics, enterprise, and environmental policy, the other industrialized nations of the world have been moving in the exact opposite direction of President Barack Obama and the U.S. federal government for at least the past two years.
As the President pushes for a $1 billion “climate resilience fund” to save America from global warming – and as he presides over more than $17 trillion in government debt with no plan to either boost economic output nor cut government spending – free people on at least three different continents have elected governments that are behaving more like Reagan and Bush than either Obama or Biden. One of the most obvious examples of this is just a bit further northward, but right here in North America.
Consider Stephen Harper, the Prime Minster of Canada. First elected in 2006 on a campaign pledge to, among other things, foster close ties to President George W Bush and America’s efforts to fight terrorism, Harper has over the past eight years championed free trade, federal government spending reductions, and a significant boost in oil production. Today the Canadian government is on track to be debt-free in 2015, as Harper tirelessly lobbies the U.S. to become more cooperative with oil pipeline projects and energy exploration.
Then there’s Alison Redford, the Premier of the Province of Alberta (a provincial premier is a counterpart to the Governor of a U.S. state). Redford agreed to serve on a panel with former Vice President Al Gore to discuss oil energy production and “climate change” at last month’s World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, and the panel discussion quickly turned in to a debate between the two.
After the event both Al Gore and the Huffington Post were convinced that Al Gore’s presentation had been brilliant. Yet European media marveled at Redford’s willingness to call-out Gore’s “erroneous” assertions about petroleum-based energy and her “new way of looking at things” pertaining to economic growth.
Then consider the country of Australia and it’s new Prime Minister Tony Abbott. It wasn’t sufficient that in 2013 Australia was already a global leader in iron ore and timber production and that’s its’ government was set to close out the calendar year debt-free – no, the citizenry of the land “down under” wanted an even more business-friendly and fiscally sound government for themselves, so they elected a candidate for Prime Mister who repeated from the campaign trail that the global climate change agenda is “absolute crap.”
Shortly before his election win Abbott was asked in a nationwide television interview “with our government debt so low, why do you want to cut government spending even further?”
“Because there’s still waste in our government, that’s why” Abbott replied. Shortly after his September 7, 2013 landslide victory he set a date of July 1, 2014 by which he intends to eliminate his nation’s “carbon tax.”
And – gasp! – could it be that the European nations are abandoning their “green” status? It would appear that way. Last month the European commission, the legislative body of the union that sets policies shared among the member nations, voted to officially abandon specific sets of “climate change protocols.” Even more stunning, the commission appears to be preparing to allow fracking among the member nations, with the hope of making Europe a leader in the global natural gas and oil shale markets.
America may very well still be with Obama, Biden and the Democrat party on “every major issue.” But the rest of the industrialized world is moving in the exact opposite direction of our President and Vice President, away from the Obama traditions of dangerous government debt and economy-killing environmental zealotry.