The President’s wife has been taking a severe beating in the press after taking a luxurious vacation to Costa del Sol. The New York Daily News demonized Mrs. Obama, portraying her as a “modern-day Marie Antoinette”, spending extravagantly as the US sinks into an economic abyss.
Sacrifice is something that many Americans are becoming all too familiar with during this economic downturn. It was a key theme in President Obama’s inaugural address to the nation, and he’s referenced it numerous times when lecturing the country on how to get back on its feet.
But while most of the country is pinching pennies and downsizing summer sojourns - or forgoing them altogether - the Obamas don’t seem to be heeding their own advice. While many of us are struggling, the First Lady is spending the next few days in a five-star hotel on the chic Costa del Sol in southern Spain with 40 of her “closest friends.”
Mrs. Obama’s trip was obviously not a public relations coup for the White House but one must admire the refreshing honesty exhibited by her flamboyance. The trip was a blatant admission by the Obamas of the obvious fact that they are better than us, richer than us and certainly more powerful than us. All people are not equal regardless of what the politicians tell us in their wonderful speeches.
Michelle Obama was probably incredulous at the venomous press reaction to her trip - after all, this is how she lives every day of her life. The President and his wife are routinely surrounded by an army of servants 24/7 to attend to every conceivable need. The imperial life style of a President is not routinely reported in the press - maybe it should be.
Recent Census Bureau data is certain to ignite further debate over the issue of illegal immigration. According to The Wall Street Journal, although illegal immigrants make up 4% of the US population, they are reproducing at twice that rate, accounting for 8% of all US births.
“Unauthorized immigrants are younger than the rest of the population, are more likely to be married and have higher fertility rates than the rest of the population,” said Jeffrey Passel, a senior demographer at Pew in Washington, D.C.
The report, based on Census Bureau data and analysis of demographic characteristics of the undocumented population, also found that the lion’s share, or 79%, of the 5.1 million children of illegal immigrants residing in the U.S. in 2009 were born in the U.S. and therefore citizens.
Amid a heated national debate over illegal immigration, some Republican politicians have been calling for changes to the Constitution’s 14th Amendment, which grants citizenship to “all persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof,” in order to deny citizenship to children born in the U.S. to unlawful residents.
Late last month, South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham announced his support for reconsidering automatic U.S. citizenship for babies born to undocumented immigrants. He said the status quo enticed people to enter the country illegally and have children to qualify for U.S. benefits.
As the debt of the United States grows to levels that are clearly becoming unsustainable (see US Is Bankrupt And We Don’t Even Know It), the huge cost of providing free education to children of illegal immigrants needs to be reevaluated.
According to WikiAnswers, the national average cost per student in public schools is $9,666. The cost of educating 5.1 million children of illegal immigrants is costing the nation over $49 billion per year. The issue is complex since illegal immigrants also produce numerous economic benefits to the nation, which must be taken into account when evaluating the situation. Nonetheless, with many State governments on the verge of bankruptcy and legal US Citizens suffering economically, the country is no longer financially able to provide free education to an unlimited number of children born of illegal immigrants.
More On This Topic: Cost of Illegal Immigration In California Estimated At Nearly $9 Billion
The President’s criticism of “fat-cat bankers” has been relentless. Since taking office, Obama has seized every opportunity to flame the public hatred for bankers by portraying them as being greedy and insensitive.
Obama Criticizes Fat-Cat Bankers-Bloomberg - Dec 14, 2009 - “I did not run for office to be helping out a bunch of fat-cat bankers on Wall Street,” Obama said in an interview with CBS’s “60 Minutes” program.
“The people on Wall Street still don’t get it,” Obama said. “They’re still puzzled why is it that people are mad at the banks”.
Recently, Obama’s “pay czar” again publicly excoriated bankers for their greed.
TARP Pay Czar Criticizes Big Bank Bonuses - LA Times - July 24, 2010 - The Obama administration’s pay czar on Friday came to the same conclusion about fat Wall Street bonuses that average Americans have already reached: There’s no logic behind them, except greed.
Still, the findings sparked outrage from some in Congress, renewed calls for reining in Wall Street compensation and raised the prospect of re-energized efforts to impose hefty taxes on such bonuses.
President Obama said the “lavish bonuses” highlighted the need for provisions in the recently enacted financial regulatory reform that address executive compensation…
Does Obama really care how much bankers get paid or is he simply seizing a political opportunity to increase his poll numbers? As usual it’s not clear what Obama’s real values are, but flogging bankers hasn’t helped, as his poll ratings drop to all time lows (see Obama’s Approval Ratings Plunge).
Perhaps the cynicism is unwarranted - maybe bankers are indeed “greedy” and “just don’t get it” - maybe Obama truly feels that bankers are being unjustly enriched at the expense of the public. I would like to believe Obama’s motives are pure, but if so, where is the moral outrage when it comes to public officials blatantly looting the public treasury?
Although disclosure of public officials giving themselves outrageous pay and benefits in Bell City, California has outraged the public, not a word of recrimination has come out of the White House. The shameless looting of taxpayer monies by public officials sworn to work for the interests of those who elected them is almost beyond comprehension, as reported by The Wall Street Journal:
For an illustration of everything wrong with the nation’s public pensions, look no further than the compensation in Bell, California.
Bell City Manager Robert Rizzo stepped down three weeks ago after news broke that he was making $800,000 a year to oversee the blue-collar town of 40,000. Now the Los Angeles Times reports that records show Mr. Rizzo’s compensation was double that amount—some $1.5 million a year. That number included the 28 weeks of vacation and sick time Mr. Rizzo was allowed annually—at a cost of $386,000. Good work, if you can get it.
Mr. Bell’s comp also spiraled up thanks to the city’s contributions to his pension and other retirement plans. Mr. Rizzo is in line to collect at least $600,000 annually in guaranteed pension payouts upon retirement, thanks to California’s generous formulas based on time served and compensation. Those payouts—which could add up to tens of millions of dollars over Mr. Rizzo’s lifetime—help explain why the Golden State is currently $6.2 billion in the hole for retiree pension and benefit payments.
These paydays are the inevitable result of the dominance of government unions in city and state politics. While most private workers have 401(k)-type plans that rise and fall in value with economic growth, unions negotiate guaranteed payouts that stay lucrative whether or not the cities can afford them.
Bankers are not elected by the public and do not directly work for the taxpayers. Bankers may owe the public some accountability, but elected officials should certainly be held to a higher standard. If Mr Obama is looking to improve his poll standings, how about some outrage over public officials who breach the public trust and enrich themselves at public expense? Mr Obama should take a page out his banker’s book and propose taxing Mr. Rizzo’s ill gotten gains at 100%.
Deluged by the arrival of nonstop illegal immigrants, Arizona recently passed legislation to deal with the problem. Arizona was forced to take action after efforts by the Federal government to address illegal immigration were perceived as ineffective and indifferent.
Arizona’s new law quickly became controversial. The Obama administration immediately condemned Arizona and acted swiftly to block the new law, a move that left many average Americans scratching their heads. Why would the Federal government be outraged by a State seeking to identify illegal aliens residing within their borders?
According to the Gallup Daily Tracking poll, Washington’s posture diverges widely from the views of a majority of Americans. The Gallup poll reveals that the U.S. Justice Department lawsuit against the new Arizona immigration law are opposed by Americans by a 50% to 33% margin.
Feelings are running even higher in the State of Arizona as residents consider the Obama administration’s opposition to the new law as an infringement on State’s rights. As reported by CNS News, many view the Federal Government’s position as counterproductive and in direct opposition to common sense.
(CNSNews.com) – Pinal County (Ariz.) Sheriff Paul Babeu is hopping mad at the federal government.
Babeu told CNSNews.com that rather than help law enforcement in Arizona stop the hundreds of thousands of people who come into the United States illegally, the federal government is targeting the state and its law enforcement personnel.
“Our own government has become our enemy and is taking us to court at a time when we need help,” Babeu said.
“If the president would do his job and secure the border; send 3,000 armed soldiers to the Arizona border and stop the illegal immigration and the drug smuggling and the violence, we wouldn’t even be in this position where we’re forced to take matters into our own hands,” Babeu said.
Given the Government’s strident opposition to identifying illegal aliens in Arizona, one might expect that the national effort by the Feds to capture and deport illegal aliens would be muted or nonexistent, yet the opposite appears to be the case. Consider the increase in the number of deported illegal immigrants as reported by the Wall Street Journal:
A record number of criminal aliens have been deported so far this year, reflecting a shift in emphasis by the Obama administration, according to an independent analysis released Monday.
In the first nine months of fiscal year 2010, 137,000 illegal immigrants designated as criminal aliens were deported, according to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, 60% more than in a comparable period of the Bush administration’s last year and about one-third more than in a comparable period in the Obama administration’s first year.
The numbers reflect ICE’s implementation of a policy that targets illegal immigrants the government describes as criminal aliens who have been convicted of offenses since coming to the U.S. ranging from murder and sexual assault to property damage and traffic violations…
About 11 million illegal immigrants reside in the U.S., according to the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE.
A surge in deportations between fiscal years 2005 and 2009 was accomplished largely by “catching noncitizens who had not committed any crimes” other than sneaking across the border or entering the U.S. legally and overstaying their visas, the TRAC report said.
Despite the new emphasis, fewer than half of those removed, or 49%, were criminal aliens, compared with 51% who were not.
One may certainly wonder what the strategy of the U.S. government is when it comes to dealing with the issue of illegal immigrants. While attempting to crush the State of Arizona for asserting its right to deal with illegal aliens, the Feds are simultaneously deporting record numbers of illegal aliens. This Bizarro World strategy of “let them in so we can catch them” is nonsensical. It is difficult to discern a clear fundamental strategy by the President who daily seems more distant from the mainstream beliefs and values of average Americans. It is no wonder that Obama’s approval ratings are plunging.
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