Honesty and transparency | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's Note: Jim Bispo's weekly column appears in the Beaufort Observer.

    We hear the Prez talking to the Russian President and telling him that after the election he will have more latitude to do things (than he does in the run-up to the election). Of course there are a lot of folks who would like to see him have a whole lot more latitude to do things after the election. Things like shoveling snow off the sidewalks in front of his Chicago residence and working on his Library. Anything but playing President.

    We then hear one of his EPA political appointees explaining his Machiavellian approach to bringing the oil companies (and anyone else he sets his mind to) to their knees through fear and intimidation. He has since apologized and resigned. The original rhetoric was clearly a Kingsley Gaffe (i.e. Telling the truth by accident).

    We turn down the construction of a pipeline that would bring Canadian "oil sands" oil to our Louisiana refineries because the "green movement" doesn't like the way the oil is extracted. What they don't seem to think about (or, perhaps, care about) is that if the oil is sold to the Chinese it will be extracted using the exact same process they object to when the oil is bound for the USA. What's wrong with this picture??

    We get "Recess Appointments" when there is no recess. Suddenly the NLRB is standing on their head to satisfy every last union demand.

    We get job (and industry) killing coal mining restrictions.

    We get job killing oil drilling restrictions. We get cabinet Secretaries ignoring Federal Judges: Think drilling restrictions in the Gulf and Sec. Salazar's responsiveness (that would be non-responsiveness) to the Federal Judge in New Orleans who told him to stop fooling with the oil drilling permits. What is interesting about this situation is that the Anointed One brags about the US oil industry pumping more oil than ever. What he fails to mention is that the oil he is bragging about is oil from private lands. No mention of the fact that oil recovery from federal lands is down. The same sycophant (Salazar) now proposes to bar uranium mining in Northern Arizona on what he calls "scientific bases". Do you suppose he is being advised by the "British global warming scientists"?? Or maybe he simply "edited" the recommendations from a legitimate group of scientists (which would not include the Brits) as he has been accused of doing before. Hmmm...

    We get other Cabinet Secretaries trying to tell religious groups to ignore their own teachings because she wants them to pay for contraceptives. In an effort to turn a "Freedom of Religion" argument into a attack on women argument, the Secretary produces a young lady (from Georgetown University) who just happened to show up and who claims anyone who would not be willing to cover a $3000 per year cost for contraceptives is surely engaging in gender discrimination. This from an individual attending an institution where tuition runs in the vicinity of $40K per year. As an aside, I will not even suggest how "active" she would have to be to use $3K worth of contraceptives per year.

    Our Attorney General goes after the State of Florida for purging ineligible voters from their voter registration lists. He says they are violating the law. What they are more likely doing is making it much more difficult for the Dems to "influence elections" much as they did when they kept discovering more and more ballots and counting and recounting in Minnesota until Al Franken was finally the victor. Apparently the "Vote Early - Vote Often" school of winning elections is alive and well in the AG's office. Why else would he want to ensure that the voter registration lists contain the names of a lot of voters who are not otherwise authorized to vote (e.g. dead people, criminals who have lost their voting privilege, people who have moved away, and the like)??

    And, now he has reportedly appointed two (not one, but two) DOJ "prosecutors" to ferret out the leaks of classified information allegedly emanating from the White House. Talk about the fox watching the hen house... And then the Anointed One says "Not from MY White House. "MY" White House?? Wow.. Talk about hubris.

    In a seemingly desperate "Hope Springs Eternal" exercise, we give big time handouts to the solar industry, despite a virtually non-existent record of success. Or could this simply be Crony capitalism at its worst?? However, you've got to give credit where credit is due. If this administration is good at anything, its crony capitalism and wasting taxpayer money.

    And now there would seem to be an effort to mislead us into believing that the reason the oil companies make such unconscionable profits (according to those pushing class warfare) is by overcharging us for gasoline. It's either that or the speculators who are holding the price of gasoline (and diesel) up. We have also been hearing a lot about so called tax "loopholes" as contributing to the huge profits they report.

    We are told that "loopholes" that favor the oil industry must be closed. It is only later that we discover that these so called "loopholes" are really tax deductions available to virtually all businesses. Suddenly legitimate deductions available to every business become "loopholes" when the oil companies are involved. We are told that the oil companies are stealing from the folks with all their big profits; clearly a case of promoting "Class warfare". Apparently GE is the only big company entitled to tax deductions. What else could account for their avoiding all income taxes over the last couple of years. Maybe we need a corporate AMT to address the GE tax situation. (As you may recall the AMT was originally implemented - by the Reps - to keep rich folks from avoiding taxation as the result of all the "legal" deductions they were able to take.)

    I would suggest that there are a lot of us who believe that loopholes need to be closed. That would be "loopholes" as used to evade legitimate tax (i.e. beat the system).. Legitimate deductions also deserve a close look, but not under the guise of "closing loopholes".

    By calling legitimate deductions "loopholes" it would seem that the Anointed One and his spear carriers are trying to make us believe that somehow the oil companies are taking advantage of us by evading rules and laws, not simply taking advantage of the deductions allowed by the tax code.

    But wait, what is the truth about the excessive profits attributed to the oil companies?? According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 3rd quarter 2011 earnings on oil and natural gas were 6.7¢ per dollar of revenue which left them in tenth place behind Drugs & Medicines (22.2¢ per dollar of revenue), computers and peripherals (21.8¢ per dollar of revenue), Beverages & Tobacco (20.1¢ per dollar of revenue), and so it goes all the way down to tenth place. They barely nosed out Cars, trucks, and parts at 6.6¢ per dollar of revenue.. So why is it that we are picking on the oil companies?? Because it's a big industry?? Because their profit numbers are big (with no reference to the size of their investments)??. Because there aren't all that many competitors and they represent a fairly easy target?? Or could it possibly be the fact that they bring us energy for a small fraction of the cost of the Anointed One's favorite: green energy?? Actually, the combined amount the various levels of Government collect on a gallon of gasoline is larger than the amount the oil companies earn on that same gallon. (Note that there is a distinction between "collect" and "earn".)

    Are these things examples of the honesty and transparency we were promised by candidate Obama?? Well, transparency seems to be there. It seems pretty transparent that they are trying to "make over" America into the vision of the Anointed One. It is not clear that the transparency we are seeing is in quite the same context as the transparency we were promised.

    Honesty would be a virtue whose meaning seems to be missing altogether (if it ever existed) in the lexicon of this group of patricians.

    God help us if they get returned to office for another four years...

    D'ya think??