Tar Heel Dispatch - Obama Doubletalk

June 26, 2008 02:51 pm

— Youtube.com is revolutionizing the way elections are run. Bill Clinton, campaigning for his wife for the past year, has learned he can’t get away with saying one thing one day, something else the next because everything is recorded on the Internet, just a click away. Sen. Barack Obama is learning that lesson, too.
On May 18 Barack Obama told a crowd at a campaign rally that Iran doesn’t pose a “serious threat” to the U.S. He continued, “You know, Iran – they spend one one-hundredth of what we spend on the military. I mean, if Iran ever tried to pose a serious threat to us, they wouldn’t stand a chance.”
The very next day Sen. Obama told another crowd, “I’ve made it clear for years that Iran is a grave threat.” He repeated, “Let me be absolutely clear: Iran is a grave threat. It has an illicit nuclear program and supports terrorism across the region.” Both speeches are all over youtube.com.
It’s hard to beat Sen. John Kerry’s “I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it,” mostly because Kerry’s flip-flop came in the same sentence and from his own mouth. Obama’s comments come in a close second place to Kerry’s famous flop.
Obama spoke at the American Israel Public Affairs Council (AIPAC) on June 4 where he promised to work to “eliminate” the threat Iran poses to Israel. He vowed to keep U.S. military action on the table to defend Israel. He also told the powerful Jewish lobbying group that Jerusalem should remain the undivided capital of Israel, a point of contention between the Israelis and Palestinians. How does he plan to eliminate the Iranian threat and defend Israel? Retreat from victory in Iraq to start another war?

Senate debates climate, economy sputters
Last week the U.S. Senate began debate on a novel of a bill, numbering 500 pages, designed to fight global warming. The measure, sponsored by Barbara Boxer, D-California, offers incentives for green technology, creates a “cap-and-trade” regime which would attempt to reduce carbon emissions two-thirds by mid century.
It would also increase federal gasoline taxes by 53 cents per gallon along with an estimated $6 trillion burden on the U.S. economy in the form of other taxes and regulation. Absent these drastic measures, climate change alarmists predict melting ice caps, rising sea levels, more frequent hurricanes, famines, no more ice cream, bad haircuts, and longer weekends with your mother-in-law.
While Democrats and fringe environmentalists are debating how best to strangle the American economy in pursuit of the lofty goal of slaying invisible environmental dragons, the rest of America is suffering. The value of the dollar is down, while gasoline and the price of food are on the rise. American families are struggling to put gas in their cars and food on their tables, but the politicians are talking about saving polar bears in the Antarctic.
In fact, we need to open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling. It’s nothing but frozen wasteland anyway! We also need to build oil refineries and nuclear power plants to wean ourselves off Middle Eastern oil. No refinery or nuclear power plant has been built in the U.S. in over 30 years.
Nuclear power emits zero pollution and it is safe. The Three Mile Island meltdown proved how safe American nuclear technology really is. There hasn’t been a single death or injury in the U.S. as a result of nuclear accidents. Indeed, Navy submarines have been running on nuclear power for 50 years!
The politicians would rather put partisanship and ideology over doing what’s right. Why not put the American people first? Why must Americans sacrifice our cars, food, jobs, economy to the insatiable goddess, Mother Nature? Mankind has dominion over the world, not the other way around.

Gift tax repeal – death tax won’t die
The N.C. Senate passed a measure last week (SB 1756) that would repeal the gift tax if it passes the House. Yet, legislators did not touch the estate – or “death” – tax, which accounts for a $170 million tax burden on North Carolina families, small farms and businesses.
A 2008 report, published by the Connecticut Department of Revenue, which has a death tax similar to North Carolina’s, discovered a net migration of residents out of that state in recent years. According to the study, 52 percent of retirees leaving Connecticut did so “primarily” because of the state’s death tax. Over 76 percent left the state “in part” due to the death tax.
The report also concluded that states with death taxes suffer economically. In the categories of employment, personal income, and gross state product, states with death taxes rank lower on average than states with no death tax. Yet the Democrats in Raleigh can’t find the political will to part ways with the death tax. It must be true, what they say, that the only thing certain in life is death and taxes … and death taxes.

Tar Heel Dispatch is written by Tyler Younts, a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Younts, who grew up in Farmer, has a passion for writing and for politics and for writing about politics.