Farm Bill Is a Fraud

After the Federal Agriculture Reform and Risk Management, widely known as the Farm Bill, failed to pass in the House of Representatives, there was a lot of finger pointing. But the finger should be pointed at every Congress since 1933 — the year the Agricultural Adjustment Act was passed to help small farms with crop insurance, price supports, import barriers and other forms of aid to farmers who were earning barely enough to survive. Unfortunately, like most government-administered programs, agricultural subsidies have become grossly perverted, and they no longer serve the constituencies for which they were designed. This Congress was voting on a bill worth almost $500 billion, where the majority of the money now goes to food stamps and to giant agricultural concerns, not small farms. Preserving... Read More

China: It’s Complicated

China’s relationship with the United States is increasingly complex and competitive, and it’s bound to get even more complex as China pursues an aggressive growth strategy. As Chinese President Xi Jinping and President Obama met last weekend in California to try and mend their often tenuous relationship, it was clear that China had its own agenda and this meeting was more show than a sincere desire for the two leaders to work together. While Obama resolved to address cyber security, particularly serious Internet hacking charges against China, Xi could barely suppress a smile knowing that National Security Agency leaker, Edward Snowden, was stowed away in Hong Kong. Snowden, arguably America’s biggest turncoat since Benedict Arnold, was now fair game for interrogation and revelations... Read More

Is Energy Independence a Pipe Dream?

Once again the Obama administration is picking winners and losers when it comes to energy. The president has vowed that America will be a net energy exporter. There’s only one roadblock: Obama himself. While the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has cracked down on American coal production, which adds more than $1 trillion in gross domestic product (GDP), generates more than $360 billion in household income, and supports nearly 7 million jobs, the Obama administration has “discovered” that the United States has solid reserves of natural gas. From 2008 to 2012, it is estimated that domestic natural gas production rose 20 percent. As a result of new technologies, there is enough natural gas, which combined with coal, to turn America into a net energy exporter. So, is it... Read More

Pipe(line) Dreams

Once again, the Obama administration is picking winners and losers when it comes to energy. The president has vowed that America will be a net energy exporter. There’s only one roadblock: Obama himself. While the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has cracked down on American coal production, which adds more than $1 trillion in gross domestic product (GDP), generates more than $360 billion in household income and supports nearly 7 million jobs, the Obama administration has “discovered” that the United States has solid reserves of natural gas. From 2008 to 2012, it is estimated that domestic natural gas production rose 20 percent. As a result of new technologies, there is enough natural gas, which combined with coal, to turn America into a net energy exporter. So is it time... Read More

Regulations Are Killing Jobs

When companies must spend money to comply with an ever-increasing flood of federal regulations, they need to make cuts in other areas. This usually means holding off on job creation or even cutting their existing work force and employee hours. What does it cost American businesses to comply with excessive federal regulations? The Competitive Enterprise Institute puts the figure at $1.8 trillion a year. This amount is more than half what it costs to run the federal government. Plus, government agencies spend $61 billion per year just to administer and enforce federal regulations — a 50 percent increase in the last decade. Our government has added more than 80,000 regulations in the last 20 years — 3,708 in the last year alone. This equates to a new rule being enacted every 2½ hours. In... Read More

Increase Jobs by Reducing Regulations

When companies must spend money to comply with an ever-increasing flood of federal regulations, they need to make cuts in other areas. This usually means holding off on job creation or even cutting their existing work force and employee hours. What does it cost American businesses to comply with federal regulations? The Competitive Enterprise Institute puts the figure at $1.8 trillion a year — more than half what it costs to run the federal government. Government agencies spend $61 billion per year just to administer and enforce federal regulations — a 50 percent increase in the last decade. Our government has added more than 80,000 regulations in the last 20 years — 3,708 in the last year alone. This equates to a new rule being enacted every 2½ hours. In a press conference on June 29,... Read More

Culture of Corruption

As I tried to suppress my anger over the news this week about the unfolding corruption within the Obama administration, I took a look back to see if our Founding Fathers had anticipated this. It didn’t take me long to find a quote from Thomas Jefferson, who wrote: “Experience has shown that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.” This is precisely what we are facing today with the Obama administration perverting its power to create a Culture of Corruption. The executive branch has become the defacto center of power, with the Constitution’s advocacy for checks and balances with the other two branches nowhere to be seen. In his 2012 State of the Union Address, President Obama... Read More

Hurdles Facing Obama’s Plan To Double Exports in Five Years

As an exporter, I half-heartedly believed in President Obama’s proposal to double U.S. exports in five years. That pledge was made in his State of the Union address in 2010, which means the clock is ticking on his plan to double American exports from $1 trillion to $2 trillion by 2015. His National Export Initiative (NEI) was supposed to “help farmers and small businesses increase their exports.” At the core of this plan was the creation of an environment that allows American exporters to compete freely and fairly with other countries. To date, Obama has not initiated a single free-trade agreement, although he likes to take credit for the free-trade agreements signed with Panama, South Korea and Colombia, which were all initiated and negotiated by the previous administration. Obama... Read More

Better Late Than Never

As an exporter, I half-heartedly believed President Obama’s proposal to double U.S. exports in five years. That pledge was made in his State of the Union address in 2010, which means the clock is ticking on his plan to double American exports from $1 trillion to $2 trillion by 2015. His National Export Initiative (NEI) was supposed to “help farmers and small businesses increase their exports.” At the core of this plan was to create an environment that allows American exporters to compete freely and fairly with other countries. To date, Obama has not initiated a single free-trade agreement, although he likes to take credit for the free-trade agreements signed with Panama, South Korea and Colombia, which were all initiated and negotiated by the previous administration. Next... Read More

The Cost of Permanent Patients

The United States currently has an estimated 11 million immigrants who entered this country illegally. According to the National Research Council, the migration of these individuals into the United States costs American taxpayers $346 billion annually. Now we are starting to get a feel for the costs being absorbed by one sector — the U.S. healthcare system — to treat this population. And the cost is staggering. The Center for Immigration Studies estimates that the current cost of treating uninsured immigrants who entered this country illegally at all levels of government to be $4.3 billion a year, primarily at emergency rooms and free clinics. This doesn’t take into account the billions being absorbed by in-patient care delivered by hospitals. Who is picking up these costs? Every... Read More