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President Obama is trying to push back against Republicans who oppose the stimulus and Democrats who are opposing his government-run health-care plan. Politico.com reports that Obama’s team specifically attacked Arizona Sen. Jon Kyl, who blasted the stimulus, by sending a letter to the Arizona governor, who is a Republican, asking if she wanted to turn away the money for state projects. The governor did not do so. Similarly, the Obama team has begun running advertisements in more conservative states, such as North Dakota and Louisiana, where Democrats are balking at the size of health-care reform.
Neither Republicans nor Democrats should be swayed by Obama’s heavy handedness. Obama’s rationales for the stimulus and the so-called health-care reform are reckless and damaging to the American economy. People who oppose them ultimately will have more credibility than if they give in to Obama’s pressure.
The stimulus clearly has not worked. Obama may tout a few make work government jobs that it has created, but overall, government created jobs and government spending do not heal an ailing economy. This lesson should have been learned in the 1930s. The only real engine for job growth is the private sector, and one of the main engines in the private sector is the small business. If the government wastes time and money trying to create its own jobs, it only takes money away from the private sector. If the private sector, particularly small businesses, has less money to spend, fewer jobs will be created. Instead, the unemployment rate will rise, and Obama will continue to argue that more money needs to spent.
The decision to target Kyl by the Obama team is the wrong approach for Obama to take. Unfortunately, politicians at all levels want money to fund pet projects. Obama is now simply handing them this money without any condition that they spend it responsibly. Instead of openly bribing state politicians and encouraging them to waste money, Obama should be showing fiscal discipline. It is the president’s job to set priorities, and Obama apparently is working very hard to set an example that wasting money is perfectly O.K.
Health-care reform promises to waste money as well, which is why Democrats in more conservative states are hesitant to back it. Giving health-care to all people is a noble goal. But any government run health program is unlikely to achieve such a result, but instead will make health care worse for everyone and raise taxes in the process.
Two key points that Obama continually makes show the folly of entrusting health care to the government. The first point Obama often brings up is that insurance companies ration care. However, if the government were running the health-care system, Obama claims that costs will come down. These goals conflict. The only way to really keep costs down is to ration care at some point. In countries with government run health care, reports of rationing are abundant. The situation is actually worse if government is rationing health care as opposed to private insurance companies because private insurance companies can be compelled to change their minds about a decision more easily than a government bureaucracy. Obama cannot eliminate rationing health care if he wants to reduce costs. But moving rationing from private insurance to the government will make the problem far worse.
Obama also is using a favorite bad guy, the rich, in discussing how he wants to pay for health care. Taxing the rich is his solution. This plan will lead to either of two results. Either the tax will fall on rich people, and they will invest less money in the economy, and jobs will be lost. Or rich people, however they are defined, will find a way out of the tax, and the burden of paying for substandard government health care will fall on middle class people.
Instead of attacking Republicans, and Democrats in more conservative states, Obama should be thanking them for trying to restore some fiscal sanity. If left to his own devices, Obama would bankrupt the country. Any legislators who speak out against Obama’s unrealistic and grandiose plans should be commended.

Sarah Palin’s decision to resign as governor of Alaska, at the very least, will not hurt her prospects for becoming the Republican Party presidential nominee in 2012.
In the best-case scenario, Palin’s resignation will prove to be a shrewd political maneuver that allows her to raise enough money and build up her profile to where she is a serious presidential contender in 2012. The only downside for Palin will be if she fails to become a serious contender in 2012. Then her future prospects likely will dim.
Resigning as governor of Alaska is a good move if Palin is considering running for president in 2012 because she will be freed up to begin building a national political organization. Running for president takes more advance preparation than ever. A serious candidate must begin raising money and working on a national profile two or perhaps three years in advance. Candidates must be ready to debate at least a year in advance.
Palin would not be ready in any of these respects if she remained governor of Alaska.
She is too far away to make quick trips to campaign for candidates in other states, which is essential to running for president. She would have to fly a long distance to these states, and critics would say she was using taxpayer money to make the trips and that she was ignoring her job as governor. By resigning, Palin has short circuited any such criticism, and she now is free to campaign for other candidates and raise money.
Remaining as governor of Alaska, on the other hand, would have brought little reward for Palin in a possible 2012 presidential bid. Critics who now claim that she is too inexperienced because she is governor of Alaska would be making the same claims whether she finished her term or not. Additionally, with her status as a national figure, governing Alaska likely would become increasingly difficult for Palin.
The only way Palin’s move hurts her is if she tries and does not succeed in running for president in 2012. In that case, she will be out of a job and her political prospects likely would fade.
But it makes the most sense for Palin to try to run for president now while her name is fresh and conservatives like her.
The Republican Party is without a clear leader, and Palin could step right in. To make her move pay off, Palin must spend her time becoming well versed in economics and foreign policy. She needs to be able to discuss these issues as if she has studied them all her life.
When voters are looking for an alternative to President Obama in 2012, Sarah Palin could emerge as a viable option. Now that she has resigned as governor of Alaska, she must build her national contact and fundraising network. She must be well versed in economics and foreign policy to the point where she can offer a conservative alternative to Obama’s big spending.
The path to the Republican nomination could be wide open. If Palin could get the nomination, she will have a good chance, depending on the issues in 2012, of actually winning the presidency.
Her resignation as governor of Alaska is just the first step toward this goal.

The cap and trade environmental bill recently passed by the House of Representatives must go down to defeat in the Senate. This bill is simply another effort put forth by President Obama to enact a utopian leftist agenda, and in the meantime siphon off money from taxpayers and businesses. The Senate, even though controlled by a 60 to 40 margin by Democrats, should reject this monstrous piece of legislation.
The exact dimensions of this bill are difficult to grasp. Obama said it will help create green jobs. Critics say the bill could cost as much as $2 trillion and will result in rising energy costs to both businesses and consumers. Businesses and consumers are looking at higher energy costs because of the tax that this bill places on traditional sources of energy.
The bill would create higher costs because the government would monitor the carbon emissions given off by businesses, and they only would be allowed to emit a certain amount, or else they would have to pay more for the energy. These costs would be passed along to consumers, who will face higher heating bills and other costs.
The objective of this bill is to stop global pollution, rescue the environment and encourage people to use more eco friendly forms of energy production, such as windmills and solar panels. These goals are fine, but placing massive financial burdens on businesses and consumers is not the way to achieve them.
If windmills and solar panels were great and economical ways to harness energy, they would have been in widespread use long ago. The fact is that they are not practical on a wide scale, and if the private sector is forced to adopt them or pay higher taxes to use oil and coal, the result will be a burdened economy.
Adopting a bill of this magnitude also requires believing that global warming is an overwhelming crisis that must be confronted immediately. But consensus is far from settled on this issue. To stake the country’s entire economic fortunes on something that cannot be proven conclusively could prove disastrous.
Gambling on global warming and a bunch of uneconomical technologies, while effectively taxing the use of energy and hurting our economy, does not make sense. Obama frequently decried companies moving overseas during the presidential campaign. Regulations such as the cap and trade bill only will make this problem worse, however. The harder politicians make it on companies to do business in the United States, the more jobs that are likely to be lost. Although the cap and trade bill is hundreds of pages long, it can be summed up rather easily: higher taxes and fewer jobs.
This environmental bill is the latest in a series of big-spending, big government control initiatives that Obama has backed. These measures threaten to make the economy worse than it is. Even though it is controlled by Democrats, the Senate is the last hope for defeating what is an ill conceived bill.

The complaint filed by reality TV star Kate Gosselin asking for divorce from husband Jon Gosselin says that Kate will file an affidavit at a hearing alleging that they “lived separate and apart for at least two years.”
However, this allegation does not mean that they were living in separate homes.
In Pennsylvania, “separate and apart” means that the couple did not act as married people would act. A party can show being “separate and apart” from a spouse by “cessation of cohabitation, whether living in the same residence or not.”
Basically, this phrase means that the marital relationship had broken down.
In a previous case, Frey v. Frey, which was in Pennsylvania Superior Court, a husband was able to show that he lived separate and apart from his wife because “they slept in separate beds, ate almost all their meals separately, and took vacations together only for the benefit of their daughter.”
The husband proved that he lived separate and apart from his wife even though they lived in the same home. After the husband proved that they lived separate and apart, he was able to obtain the separation date he specified.
“Separate and apart” is vague and can include sporadic contact that might occur between people who are married.
In addition to alleging that she and Jon lived separate and apart, Kate alleges that the marriage is “irretrievably broken.”
Pennsylvania law defines “irretrievably broken” as “estrangement due to marital difficulties with no reasonable prospect of reconciliation.” Basically, the marriage has problems and the husband and wife cannot reconcile their differences.
After receiving the complaint, the court can grant the divorce if Jon does not deny the allegations that Kate has made, or if he does deny one or more the allegations, the court can determine that the parties have lived separate and apart for at least two years and that the marriage is irretrievably broken.
Additionally, Kate is asking for a divorce under the “mutual consent” section of the divorce code, which does not have the separate and apart requirement.
For mutual consent, the marriage must be irretrievably broken and both parties must file an affidavit that they consent to the divorce.
The reason that Kate is making these allegations about living separate and apart, and that the marriage is irretrievably broken in the divorce complaint is that she wants to obtain a no-fault divorce.
Ultimately, what “separate and apart” specifically entails in this case cannot be determined. If the parties agree to a divorce, Kate might not have to explain what she means.

The recent jokes that David Letterman made about Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and her children has elicited a strong response from Palin, and strong reaction from people who support her. The joke about Palin’s children should not have been made at all. The children of political figures of either party should be off limits to comedians.
The Herald dislikes the joke about Palin herself, however, because it feeds into a popular stereotype that Palin is somehow inexperienced, gets by on her looks or does not belong on the national stage.
This joke misses the mark because if Palin were president right now, she likely could do a better job running the country than President Obama.
It is true that Palin does not have much experience in economics or foreign policy, and when running as a vice presidential candidate, she did not come up with completely discernible views on either subject.
However, it is safe to say Palin would not pursue economic policies that would put the country trillions of dollars in debt. She would not have nationalized car companies. She would not be looking to massively raise taxes to pay for irresponsible spending. She would not be pursuing a health-care plan that also will cost trillions and may actually make the quality of health care worse. Despite what her critics say about her, Palin could easily have avoided these simple and obvious pitfalls.
Although critics have derided Palin’s lack of experience, her tenure as Alaska governor does provide an accurate forecast about what she would have done if she had the opportunity to be president. Although there have been minor instances in which Palin may have condoned wasteful spending, she did not embark on the wholesale irresponsibility now being practiced in Washington. As president, Palin would have at least tried to reduce the deficit, rather than increase wasteful spending with abandon.
If Palin were elected president, she would not have much foreign policy experience. But she does have the courage to challenge what she does not believe is right, as she showed when she took on the Republican Party in Alaska. In dealing with the current situation in Iran, Palin would not have been timid in backing the protestors calling for more democracy. She has the right instincts to deal with this situation.
Palin also favored domestic energy production, which would have brought energy prices down. She does not have an environmental agenda that calls for higher energy prices to promote other forms of energy that may not work and may not prove cost effective on a large scale, all the while driving up people’s energy bills.
It is true that Obama is better than Palin in answering questions one on one with television interviewers. This skill is one that Palin probably will never be able to match. But when Palin and Obama each gave prepared speeches during the campaign, Palin was at least as good, if not better. On the issues, that really matter, though, Palin would be able to run the United States much more effectively than the current administration.
Of course, Palin never was nominated to be president. But if she ever does get that chance, people should look past her problems in dealing with television interviews. She has the ability to lead the country in the right direction.

The Herald does not normally enjoy political speeches made by celebrities. They often are far to the left and do not seem rooted in reality. Additionally, these types of speeches generate more attention than is warranted because the person making the speech is famous.
Actor Jon Voight’s recent speech criticizing President Obama’s foreign and economic policies was a welcome addition to the national political debate, however. Voight’s speech came at a time when more Americans need to speak out against the nationalization of American companies at home and weakness abroad.
In his speech at a Republican dinner, Voight said he was embarrassed by Obama; Obama was turning America into a “weak nation” and would lead to the “downfall” of America; and labeled the Obama’s governance as “Obama oppression,” according to the Washington Examiner.
Although he is a celebrity, Voight’s comments should receive more credibility than the standard political fare from actors. He was speaking at a Republican dinner, which shows that he was not trying to appear non-partisan.
He did not make his remarks at an awards show, where such remarks are out of place, but in a forum in which political remarks are expected. By choosing an appropriate forum, Voight was not using his celebrity to force his remarks on an unwilling audience.
The content of Voight’s speech is even more important. Obama has to be questioned in a direct and straightforward manner. He is taking over companies with billions of taxpayer money and no clear plan of how to get these companies running again. The most likely result of this plan is that the money will be wasted because government cannot run companies profitably. Instead of making the best decisions for the companies, the government will make political decisions that are not related to profitability.
Obama also is appointing a government employee to tell people in the private sector how much money they should be making. Additionally, Obama’s stimulus plan is costing taxpayers trillions of dollars that the government does not have, and it has not created jobs. Nationalizing companies and massive government overspending will not lead America in a positive direction.
In foreign policy, Obama is overeager to please brutal dictatorships that are enemies of the United States.
He also is overeager to apologize for America, even though America has done more to advance the cause of freedom than any country in the world.
The country would be better off if Obama simply stayed home.
By attacking the direction in which Obama is taking the country, Voight stood up for conservative values in a straightforward way at a time when articulate opposition is needed. The Republican Party has not found a consistent voice to oppose Obama, in large part because no leader for the party has emerged since Sen. John McCain was defeated in the presidential election.
By criticizing Obama, hopefully Voight’s speech will lead people to focus their attention on the fact that the Obama administration is nationalizing companies, needlessly apologizing for the country abroad and moving to try terrorist suspects in the United States.
Jon Voight’s forceful speech was needed and hopefully will get the opposition to Obama to coalesce and be able to stop some of his destructive policies. Unlike the Obama administration economic plan, Jon Voight’s speech was right on the money.

The government, unfortunately, is now immersed in running the auto industry. As part of the bankruptcy deal for General Motors, the federal government took a 60 percent interest in the company. This plan creates innumerable problems and makes President Bush’s handling of the economic crisis last year seem deft by comparison.
The government’s ownership percentage in General Motors gives it the controlling vote in how the company is run.
President Obama has said the stake is temporary, but rumblings from Congress suggest that the government may interfere on where plants are located and what kinds of cars are built.
With the government calling the shots, General Motors is far less likely to be able to emerge as a viable company from bankruptcy. Obama is known for wanting tougher emissions standards and smaller vehicles, but American automakers make most of their money off bigger vehicles, such as trucks and sport utility vehicles.
Americans like driving these types of vehicles. Because of the higher wages and benefits that are paid to unionized workers, smaller cars have not been as profitable and are not competitive on price with foreign manufacturers.
Now, Obama has the power to take away the only advantage that American car manufacturers have, the larger vehicles. Additionally, with the government running the car company, other decisions in running the company likely are to be politicized as well.
The people stuck with the bill for this disastrous plan are the American taxpayers. If General Motors were allowed to go into full bankruptcy without the government interfering, the company would more quickly be able to become profitable again because it could freely deal with its main problem, union expenses.
Now, General Motors has been dealing with union expenses, which are its underlying problem, but is subject to whatever constraints the government wishes to impose.
With government ownership of General Motors, taxpayers will be funding an increasingly shaky company for an unknown amount of time.
This move by Obama makes President Bush’s economic record at the end of his term look stellar by comparison. Bush bailed out banks for billions of dollars, but at least the government was not attempting to run them. Bush’s policy was not good, but Obama’s policy of actually buying and running General Motors is one of the worst ever domestic economic policies. The government buying General Motors is not a step toward socialism. It is socialism. Obama should jettison this plan immediately and allow the private sector to work its way out of the economic downturn.