True Grit

My younger son asked why I wasn't more positive about Obama's performance. Although I was not caught up in Obamamania last fall, the platform of change, progress did create some expectations in many people including me . My concerns were and are entered on management experience, skills and whether he was tough enough [ I called it cajones]. In deference to John Wayne, I will start calling it "true grit".

The climate change bill passed by the house, all ~1300 pages of it, gives away 85% of the permits to emit CO2. The Dept of Agriculture gets to monitor the "offsets" that farmers can sell...why not the EPA since this is a climate change bill? Obama extolled the "millions of green jobs" to be created and the reduction in "dangerous dependence on foreign energy". Not a word about the jobs that will be destroyed by a "low carbon economy" not a word about the fact that the proceeds from auctioning permits was to go to help finance the new health care plans. Not a word about the impact on GDP growth. Why doesn't the great communicator tells us the facts; moving to a low carbon economy will cost the US citizen money [much more than $175 per person, the CBO estimated for 2020 well before the bill really kicks in]. Is he being selective with the facts? I trust he is bullying the senate to correct some of the nonense we are seeing in the house bill .

It's difficult to reconcile this energy bill with what we heard earlier from the WH; its difficult to reconcile the present lack of candor with all the promises we heard about fulsome communications. Most importantly, it's difficult to understand how the house got where it did given Obama's earlier statements...so much for presidential direction influencing legislation. I do hope Obama does something to demonstrate that this not going to be the "most congress centric administration" in decades. Particularly with a congress of this ilk. I do hope he does something, almost anything, to help me believe he just might possibly have true grit.

After ~ 200 days, school is out, Mr President.