Freedom Line Blog

Are Barack Obama’s economic policies sucking oxygen from our precarious economic recovery?  Economic numbers released at the end of last week provide the latest evidence of that troublesome possibility.

On Thursday, the Federal Reserve reported that American businesses were hoarding an all-time record $1.84 trillion in cash and other liquid assets at the end of March.  This inclination to sock away their accumulated dollars rather than spend on expansion or new hiring suggests trepidation regarding the prospects of near-term economic recovery.

Then, on Friday, the Commerce Department reported that consumer spending – which constitutes over 2/3 of our economy – unexpectedly plummeted 1.2% from April to May.  This was the first month-on-month decline in seven months, and prompted The Wall Street Journal to report that, “the surprisingly poor sales cast fresh doubt on the durability of a rebound in consumer spending that had allowed economists to raise their forecasts for U.S. growth this year despite a moribund housing market, a dismal job market and tepid business investment.”

Obama and his allies continue to claim credit for the cyclical end of the 2008-2009 recession, but it appears more likely that their policies are stifling it.  Coming out of our most recent severe recession, the U.S. achieved rapid gross domestic product (GDP) growth of 8%.  Now, in contrast, we’re witnessing lukewarm 3% growth and depressing employment numbers.

With Obama promising even more tax hikes, deficit spending and unpredictable new regulations, it’s becoming increasingly apparent that both businesses and consumers are bracing for an Obamanomics storm, not a spring bloom.

“Americans are not very satisfied with most prominent institutions.”  That’s the opening comment of a scientific poll released today by the Pew Research Center.

A striking exception?  Technology companies.

By an enormous 68% to 18% margin, Americans state that technology companies have a positive “effect on the way things are going in the country.”  This stands among the highest of thirteen institutions rated, including such entities as Congress, the federal government, religious institutions and the entertainment industry.  Small businesses also scored high in public esteem, by a 71% to 19% margin.

Yet Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski and pro-regulation activists push “Net Neutrality” Internet regulation under the myth that we’re facing some alleged broadband or technological crisis?  This vivid poll result should open their eyes, especially following our observation yesterday that 91% are happy with their home broadband speed.

In contrast, the public rates the very federal government that would impose “Net Neutrality” negatively by a 65% to 25% margin.  Congress is also rated negatively by a 65% to 24% margin, and labor unions disfavored by a 49% to 32% margin.

The crisis isn’t in broadband or the state of our technology sector, Chairman Genachowski.  The crisis lies in public confidence in over-regulatory federal bureaucracies like yours.

We don’t know whether this is positive news or depressing news, but Barack Obama has flip-flopped once again.  Now, he says he will meet with British Petroleum CEO Tony Hayward after all, just days after stating that he was not interested in such a meeting.

We suppose this is good news in the sense that if Obama is willing to meet murderous dictators like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad “without preconditions,” then he should at least be willing to meet the CEO of the company desperately attempting to stop the worst oil spill in American history.

On the other hand, it demonstrates once again that a pledge from Obama is about as dependable as a teleprompter during a rainstorm.  His broken promises include a solemn vow not to raise taxes on anyone earning over $250,000, to comply with public campaign finance restrictions, to exclude lobbyists from his administration and to close the Guantanamo detention facility.  Many of Obama’s promises were ill-advised when offered, but how can businesses, foreign allies or anyone else gain any certainty from a man who reverses pledges he made only days earlier?

It’s a terrible prospect for the economy, which relies upon expectation stability, and international security to have such an unreliable White House occupant.

When was the last time that a scientific survey reported 91% agreement on anything, other than that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D – Nevada) is a really creepy guy?

Yet that’s precisely the consensus contained in a survey released by the very Federal Communications Commission (FCC) that continues to push so-called “Net Neutrality” despite overwhelming public, judicial and bipartisan Congressional opposition.  According to the FCC itself, nine out of ten respondents are happy with their broadband speed:

Fully 91% of broadband users say they are ‘very’ or ‘somewhat’ satisfied with the speed they get at home.”

Yet the FCC continues to concoct an imaginary broadband crisis just around the corner as an alibi for proposed “Net Neutrality” regulation.

With this reality staring it straight in the face, why does the FCC persist in pushing “Net Neutrality” upon the American public?  Also consider that the D.C. Court of Appeals ruled that the FCC does not possess authority to impose “Net Neutrality,” which merely triggered the FCC shenanigan of announcing that it would reclassify Internet service under Depression-era rules created to govern 1930s landline telephones.  Also consider that the public opposes “Net Neutrality” by a two-to-one margin (a dramatic turnaround since 2008), and both Democrats and Republicans in Congress sent separate letters to the FCC opposing this atrocious proposal.

None of this seems to interrupt Chairman Julius Genachowski and his slim FCC majority.  “Net Neutrality” will be defeated, whether via judicial, Congressional or administrative avenues.  But how long will it take for Genachowski to wake up and smell that coffee?

“Americans don’t blame Mr. Obama for the oil spill, but they are beginning to doubt the competence of a President whose decisions suggest political panic more than careful policy.”

That was the cogent observation of The Wall Street Journal today, and it captures the essence of why Americans now rate the federal government’s response to the Gulf oil spill even worse than its 2005 response to Hurricane Katrina.  It obviously wasn’t Barack Obama that caused the oil rig collapse, but he’s ultimately responsible for the manner in which his administration has reacted.  For example, Obama’s order of a six-month moratorium on deepwater drilling has exacerbated job loss in the region and further eroded our ability to access non-foreign oil sources.

And now, the same Barack Obama who breezily offered to meet such dictators as Kim Jong Il and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad “without preconditions” now refuses to even meet with the CEO of the corporation desperately trying to cap the oil leak and minimize the damage that will ultimately hit its bottom line.  In a video interview for NBC’s Today show, Obama proclaimed his childish refusal to sit down with British Petroleum CEO Tony Hayward:

I have not spoken to [BP CEO Tony Hayward] directly, and here’s the reason.  Because, uh, my experience is, uh, when you talk to, uh, uh, a guy like, uh, a BP CEO, he’s gonna say all the right things to me.  I’m not interested in words, I’m interested in actions.”

And precisely what do you expect from murderous dictators with whom you gladly offer to meet?  Earnest concessions?  Honest negotiation?  Substantive results?

Is it possible that Barack Obama actually holds corporations and their CEOs in higher contempt than genocidal dictators?

Following up on our commentary last week that Turkey’s increased malfeasance illustrates the Obama Doctrine’s failure, today’s Wall Street Journal includes a commentary by Eliot A. Cohen entitled With Friends Like the United States…

Cohen points out that even in supposedly Obama-loving Europe, America’s standing has declined, not risen:

When asked about relations with the U.S. under President Barack Obama, 17% of Britons in a recent poll thought they had improved; 25% thought they had deteriorated.”

Cohen also notes Obama’s poor treatment of such friends as Colombia and Israel, alongside his spinelessness toward North Korea, Iran, China and other antagonists.  As he cogently summarizes, “The Obama Administration has managed to convince most countries around the world that we are worth little as friends and even less as enemies.”

More ominously, Cohen concludes, “the administration is making a dangerous world even more so.”

Dr. Donald Berwick, the Obama Administration’s nominee to oversee the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, once praised Britain at the expense of America by saying, “at last a nation where healthcare is a right and carrying a semi-automatic machine gun is a privilege, instead of the other way around.”

Dr. Berwick had worked with Britain’s National Health Service, and callously wrote in 2002 that “most people who have serious pain do not need advanced methods – they just need the morphine and counseling that have been available for centuries.”

Naturally, the Obama Administration said that Dr. Berwick’s comments were “taken out of context” in attempting to sweep the rising controversy under the rug.  The statements, however, speak for themselves.

Get a good look at the potential future under ObamaCare, America.

As a candidate for the White House, when it was easy to throw rocks at the Bush Administration from afar, Barack Obama falsely attributed international disaccord to Bush’s policies.  Obama famously raised eyebrows in 2007 when he promised to meet such leaders as Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and North Korea’s Kim Jong Il “without preconditions.”  As he sanctimoniously put it, “the notion that somehow not talking to countries is punishment to them, which has been the guiding diplomatic principle of this administration, is ridiculous.”

At approximately the same time, Obama predicted that not only would Bush’s troop surge strategy in Iraq not succeed, it would somehow make things worse.

The scorecard three years later is not kind to Obama.  The Iraq surge has succeeded beyond anyone’s most optimistic expectations, while Obama’s doctrine of “peace through apology” is failing miserably.

Turkey now provides another vivid illustration of the continuing failure of this Obama Doctrine.

Not long ago, Turkey stood as an important pro-American ally.  Indeed, Turkey was Israel’s most friendly neighbor, and the site for one of Obama’s more disgraceful “Apology Tour” speeches.  Today, however, Turkey has shifted its friendly gestures from Israel to Iran.  Turkey also sanctions the militant group IHH that attacked Israeli commandos and attempted to run the Gaza blockade, and lectured Obama that his condemnation of Israel’s act of self-defense wasn’t strong enough.

Along with North Korea, Iran, Russia, Venezuela and Syria, Turkey provides another instructive illustration that Obama’s spineless foreign policy has degraded, not improved, international relations.

We all know that driving with one foot on the gas and the other  on the brake  just slows you down.  And that dieting by day while binging by night will negate your weight loss efforts.

Similarly, spending billions of taxpayer dollars to “stimulate” the economy and job growth, while simultaneously proposing tax increases that would stymie investments in new jobs, won’t help us get our economy back on track.

Unfortunately, that is just the proposal before the U.S. Congress, in the form of the so-called Baucus/Levin American Jobs and Closing Tax Loopholes Act. What’s doubly unfortunate is the rush by some Congressional leaders to hastily pass this legislation without any public debate.

Among the provisions in the bill is a tax increase on “carried interest,” which is the profit from a successful investment. Carried interest earnings are often used to spur further investment, and don’t fairly constitute regular job income because the return on investment isn’t guaranteed like a paycheck is. The proposed increase would take the tax from the current capital gains tax level of 15% (20% in 2011) to a punishing 40%.  Consequently, investment partnerships would not invest as much as they do now.

Even some Senate Democrats recognize the folly in discouraging job-creating investments with this sort of tax increase. Four Democrats—Patty Murray (WA), Mark Warner (VA), Bob Casey (PA), and Jeanne Shaheen (NH)—along with Scott Brown (R-MA) have said that taxing venture firms at higher rates would merely hurt job creation and “could not occur at a worse time.”

There are additional reasons the carried-interest tax hike is a bad idea:

• While President Obama has admitted that small businesses are responsible for 70 percent of the nation’s net new jobs in the last decade, this legislation would translate to an $11.2 billion tax increase on some of those same small businesses.   How can this be an engine of job creation?

• The tax hike would also discourage investment and take away money used to start, grow and rescue companies.

• Under such high tax rates, the United States would be at a severe global disadvantage in terms of attracting investment.  The winners would be countries such as India, China, and the U.K., with carried interest tax rates of 0%, 10% and 18%, respectively.  Why drive jobs and businesses to overseas competitors?

Senator Max Baucus (D-MT) and Representative Sander Levin (D-MI) just introduced their ill-advised legislation on May 20, yet they are driving for quick passage.  This rush only serves to deprive everyday constituents of the ability to weigh in with their elected representatives on the legislation.

Is it any wonder that with such stealth legislating, millions of Americans are losing their confidence and trust in Congress’s ability to boost the economy?

As the Center for Individual Freedom sees it, this is another case of government “help” we can’t afford.

Few events could better illustrate the moral and intellectual decadence of the “international community.”  To wit, a collective global yawn greets North Korea after sinking a South Korean naval ship and killing 46, while feigned outrage greets Israeli commandos’ self-defense against an attacking militant mob.

Let’s recap:  A flotilla of 800 militants, which The Wall Street Journal aptly notes “falsely billed itself as a ‘humanitarian’ mission – organized by a radical Turkish group with close ties to Hamas, the terrorist group that illegally seized pwer in Gaza in 2007,” belligerently steams toward Gaza.  Gaza, of course, stands subject to a mutual blockade by both Egypt and Israel to prevent importation of weapons.  That blockade already allows passage of food, medical supplies and other legitimately “humanitarian” materials, meaning that there would be no need for any truly humanitarian shipment to challenge it.  The Israeli Navy repeatedly warns the flotilla that it must either turn back or submit to inspection for weapons.  After repeated advisories, the Israelis announce that they will have no choice but to board the vessels, just as any nation would do with a convoy approaching its shores.  Israeli commandos then repel from helicopters to the ships, at which point a violent mob attacks them with clubs, knives and the commandos’ own weapons.  One Israeli is even beaten and hurled overboard.

And all of this is caught on video.

Threatened with potentially deadly force against their soldiers, the Israeli Defense Forces then respond in self-defense, ultimately killing nine attackers.

Predictably, the “international community” – composed predominantly by dictators, kleptocrats, anti-American and anti-Semitic thugs – expresses its outrage, and the United Nations Security Council convenes an “emergency meeting” to consider condemning Israel.

It’s all something to remember the next time one hears appeals to the United Nations or international consensus by Barack Obama or other fatuous leaders.

Regardless of one’s political preference, no patriotic American welcomes economic misfortune.  With this week’s news, however, one wonders whether we’re witnessing the onset of “Obama Malaise.”

Yesterday, the Commerce Department revised its already-sluggish initial 3.2% first quarter gross domestic product (GDP) estimate downward to 3.0%.  Additionally, the Commerce Department reported that corporate profits slowed to 5.5% in the first quarter of 2010, down from the 8% growth rate of the 2009 fourth quarter.

These numbers are disturbing because our economic recovery should be much stronger at this point, and gaining steam rather than slowing.  Coming out of the 1981-1982 recession, the last downturn comparable to the 2008-2009 recession, the U.S. logged remarkable GDP quarterly growth rates of 5.1%, 9.3%, 8.1% and 8.5% for 1983.  America’s torrid Reagan Recovery continued into 1984, with 8.0% and 7.1% growth rates in the first two quarters.  That constituted impressive growth, on the heels of Reagan’s tax-cutting and deregulatory platform.

In contrast, we’ve now witnessed GDP growth rates of 2.2%, 5.6% and now a deceleration to 3.0%.  Obama and Democrats take joy in claiming credit for our natural cyclical recovery, but what they should instead be doing is explaining why their policies are tossing a wet blanket over what should be stronger growth.

One of the pillars of Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign was that America had become too didactic toward the rest of the world, particularly toward the more anti-American elements of Europe.  A kinder, gentler Obama would be the ointment to soothe all international discord, they promised.

But the Obama Administration has proven even more didactic than the Bush Administration.  The primary difference is that Obama bows to antagonists like Russia and the Palestinians, while disrespecting friends like Israel.

Now, Obama is even reneging on his “reset” stance toward Europe and self-righteously instructing them on how to pilot their economies.  Consider this opening paragraph from today’s Wall Street Journal front-page article entitled “U.S. Chides Europe’s Crisis Response:”

U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner landed in Europe and reasserted a traditional American role of dispenser of financial advice to the world, telling European governments to get their fiscal houses in order.”

That’s pretty amusing stuff from an administration that quadrupled America’s deficit in its very first year.  What’s worse, his administration is insisting on more of the very policies that caused Europe’s economic and budgetary maladies.  Greece’s welfare spending required a $1 trillion bailout, and Portugal, Spain and England may not be far behind. Despite this self-evident reality, the Obama Administration instructs them to pursue more of the same.  According to the report, Geithner admonished European leaders “to keep pumping stimulus into their economies.”

This prompts the question of whether there exists any remaining tether whatsoever between the Obama Administration and reality.  The euro has plummeted following Greece’s bailout, and even the American Dow Jones Industrial Average fell below 10,000 yesterday on fears that the contagion will spread.

A word of advice to Europe:  reconsider your love affair with Obama before he steers you toward even greater catastrophe.

This was Barack Obama’s official campaign website on September 9, 2008:

Today, we learned that Washington has run up a record budget deficit of $407 billion this year…  Obama will bring real change by cutting taxes for middle-class families and small businesses, paying for all his proposals to reduce the deficit, and will put America on a path towards fiscal responsibility and a stronger economy.”

Pretty bold stuff.  Reasonable minds knew then that an Obama victory would only exacerbate the nation’s deficit, even if the fawning mainstream media was refusing to press him on tough questions.  But even skeptics didn’t foresee just how bad and how rapidly he would do so.  Today, we received sobering news that the national debt surpassed the $13 trillion mark overnight.  That’s now $42,000 per American citizen, and $118,000 per American taxpayer.

And that $407 billion deficit that Obama cavalierly promised to reduce in September 2008?  He’s now raised it from $400 billion to $1.4 trillion.

That’s the type of change for which only America’s enemies could have hoped.

Two weeks ago, in a commentary entitled Obama’s Big Fat Greek Bailout, we noted the alarming parallels between Greece’s meltdown and America’s trajectory.  Following years of unsustainable welfare-state spending, Greece’s deficit stands at 13% of gross domestic product (GDP), and its cumulative debt stands at 110% of GDP.  Unfortunately, America isn’t far off, with a deficit approaching 11% of GDP and cumulative debt under Obama heading toward 90% of GDP.

Well, other observers are beginning to draw the same parallel we did.  Robert Samuelson notes his commentary The Welfare State’s Death Spiral that “virtually every advanced nation, including the United States, faces the same prospect.”  Pat Buchanan echoes our observation in his commentary The End of La Dolce Vita:

For the nations of Europe have made commitments beyond their capacity to keep, given their growing debts and aging populations.  And America is not all that far behind.  While the federal deficit is not 14% of GDP, it was 10% in 2009 and may reach 11% in 2010.  Trillion-dollar deficits are projected through the decade, bringing the public debt – held by citizens, companies, foreign governments and sovereign wealth funds – close to 100% of GDP.  And the unfunded liabilities of Social Security, Medicare and federal pensions rival those of Western Europe.  States like California and New York, larger than Greece, look a lot like Greece.”

And today, we wake up to the news that Fannie Mae seeks yet another $8.4 billion federal lifeline.  Fannie was originally rescued by the federal government in September 2008, but at least that bailout was capped at $400 billion.  Last year, however, the Obama Administration agreed to remove even that limit, pledging unlimited loss coverage. Fannie’s total now stands at $83.6 billion, with Fannie Mae’s and Freddie Mac’s cumulative bailout costing American taxpayers $145 billion.

But just like Greece, whose original bailout estimate of $45 billion has now risen to $1 trillion, there is no end in sight for Fannie, Freddie or the United States.  Who knows how many more bailouts will be sought by Fannie and Freddie, not to mention other dysfunctional states like California and industries dominated by unions whose bosses are on Obama’s speed dial?

Can you hear the Greek wedding music growing louder?

Just last month, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit held unanimously that Obama’s Federal Communications Commission (FCC) doesn’t possess authority to nationalize the Internet via so-called “Net Neutrality.” And in the court of public opinion, the American electorate opposes this destructive scheme to dictate Internet traffic flow by a 2-to-1 margin.

So how is the hyper-politicized FCC choosing to respond?  By reverting to decades-old New Deal-era laws to shoehorn the Internet into statutes drafted for 1930s landline telephones. Since the advent of the Internet era in 1996, Congress, the courts and the FCC have rightfully designated the Internet an “information service,” and therefore subject to different rules than archaic early telephone lines.

But according to news reports, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski will announce today his reckless “damn the torpedoes” approach.  Just as Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid reverted to every available scheme to impose ObamaCare on an unwilling public, the FCC will apparently adopt the same approach to federalize Internet service, one of the few sectors that has maintained its dynamism during the economic downturn.  With its humiliating Court of Appeals defeat to one side and looming November elections on the other, yet another Obama Administration arm thus prefers hyperpartisanship over compromise and reasonability.

As always, American consumers and our economy will pay the price for this component of the Obama Agenda, since it will stifle the private investment and broadband buildout necessary to keep pace with ever-increasing Internet use.  Fortunately, this scheme will ultimately meet the same result handed down by the Court of Appeals last month, but only after years of costly litigation, regulatory limbo and acrimony.

Justice will prevail and we will win this battle, but it’s going to take another good fight.  The stakes are too high to relent.

Amidst the endless onslaught of regulatory aggression by the Obama Administration, it’s nice to receive some potentially good news every now and then.

On that note, reports are surfacing that Obama’s Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and its Chairman Julius Genachowski may be abandoning their effort to regulate the Internet via “Net Neutrality.”  According to sources, Genachowski has smelled the coffee following the D.C. Court of Appeals decision rebuking the FCC’s power grab:

The sources said Genachowski thinks ‘reclassifying’ broadband to allow for more regulation would be overly burdensome on carriers and would deter investment. But they said he also thinks the current regulatory framework would lead to constant legal challenges to the FCC’s authority every time it attempted to pursue a broadband policy.”

That is precisely correct.  “Net Neutrality” would have an effect 180 degrees opposite of what its name implies by increasing governmental interference over the heretofore free Internet, and would trigger a flood of litigation and regulatory limbo.  Ultimately, the FCC would meet a judicial rebuke similar to the one it just suffered in the Court of Appeals.

“Net Neutrality” isn’t dead yet, and this is certainly no time to rest.  Those of us who believe in individual freedom and limited government must keep up our pressure and efforts to stop this big government boondoggle.  Still, it’s nice to receive potentially positive news once in a while to see that our efforts are having a positive effect.

What is it with Barack Obama and his habitual slurs against police, anyway?

Speaking about Arizona’s new immigration law during one of his “perpetual campaign” rallies in Iowa, Obama employed his usual caricature of Gestapo-like American police officers:

You can imagine if you’re a Hispanic American in Arizona, your great-great-grandparents may have been there before Arizona was even a state.  But now, suddenly, if you don’t have your papers and you took your kid out to get ice cream, you’re going to be harassed.  That’s something that could potentially happen.”

“You’re going to be harassed?”

Well, if you’re living in Community Organizer-in-Chief Obama’s world, anyway.  Recall that he descended into the same anti-police slander when he accused Cambridge, Massachusetts police of acting “stupidly” during the Officer Crowley-Professor Gates incident.  It turned out, of course, that Officer Crowley behaved professionally, just as almost all of our nation’s officers do on a daily basis.

Well, at least we know now that Obama was paying attention during Reverend Jeremiah “G-d Damn America” Wright’s sermons.

Thank goodness for people like Anne Meagher Northup, a commissioner on the federal Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC). Writing on her blog this week, Commissioner Northup provides an insider’s first-hand perspective on how big government bureaucracy suffocates small businesses unable to satisfy the sheer regulatory costs and testing burdens heaped upon such harmless everyday products as children’s toys.

What’s that you say?  You haven’t heard about the pandemic of American children suddenly dropping like flies after playing with their plastic dolls?

That hasn’t happened, of course.  But what has happened is the CPSC imposing unmanageable costs of testing and compliance upon small businesses.  To illustrate, Commissioner Northup discusses the example of a Kentucky doll maker who suddenly faces testing costs of $1500-$4500 per doll:

Last week we selected several more products to eliminate from our product offerings. The products are safe, do not violate any of the CPSIA standards and have been around for over 50 years, but they are too complicated and have too many different parts. Therefore they are too costly to have tested and retested over and over again to prove they are safe. I hope some small companies and some decent product selection can survive in this new world where all products are presumed to be guilty. The only survivors will be the ones that are safe and can also afford to prove they are safe.

The group of items that we decided to discontinue are several kinds of dolls that have lots of different colors and accessories and some plastic to test for phthalates. We would have an average about $1500/doll each time we had to test due to a batch change. If we order them 3 times per year it would be $4500/doll in testing costs to be certain that nothing had changed from any of the suppliers that provide the raw materials that make up the doll parts and/or colors and accessories. With 26 different types of dolls, that would come out to $117,000 per year we would spend on testing. Based upon our sales volume we would lose money every time we order the doll.”

Big government may not be doing much to reduce unemployment or stop destructive Ponzi schemes, but it’s certainly adept at crippling small businesses and removing harmless children’s toys from store shelves.

Pardon our John Kerry-accented French, but who the hell does Barack Obama think he is?

This was Obama, once again saturated in his own false sense of economic prowess, speaking yesterday to an ever-dwindling audience of true believers in Illinois:

I do think, at a certain point, you’ve made too much money.”

Really?  Does the $5,505,409 that Obama earned last year happen to conveniently fall just below that “too much money” threshold?  What about his multimillionaire supporters Oprah Winfrey and George Soros?  And more importantly, who does this man think he is to instruct the most dynamic and prosperous society in human history that “you’ve made too much money?”

Somewhere, Joe the Plumber must be shaking his head over a cold beer and sighing, “I tried to warn you.”  It’s too bad that more people didn’t heed his warning after Obama suggested that we “spread the wealth around” during the 2008 campaign, but there’s always the opportunity for a “do over” in November 2010 and 2012.

Why is it that defenders of the Big Labor agenda never seem to engage in honest, straightforward, factual debate?

Washington Post columnist Harold Myerson provides the latest illustration in his commentary today.  Myerson carries Big Labor’s water by arguing that FedEx, which is a longtime target of Big Labor’s ire due to its failure to capitulate to union campaigns, should be regulated in the same way as more heavily-unionized UPS.  UPS falls under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), whereas FedEx falls under the Railway Labor Act (RLA).

And for very good reason.

Approximately 85% of FedEx parcels are shipped by air, whereas UPS delivers 85% of its packages locally via truck.   That makes FedEx subject to the RLA, and UPS to the NLRA, which Congress specifically determined.  But Myerson, unsurprisingly, avoids mentioning this critical distinction in his column.  As one predictable consequence of UPS’s NLRA classification, it was brutalized by a costly 1997 strike.  So now, UPS, Congressional liberals and Big Labor seek to cripple FedEx by shoehorning it into the same classification as UPS.

UPS seems to follow the adage “if you can’t beat ’em, unionize ’em,” but it would be nice if Big Labor and its apologists could at least argue honestly once in a while.