I want a bumper sticker,
“I survived the ‘historic blizzard’ of 2015,” though I must ask, how
do they define history, using what years? And what does “snowstorm
of the century” mean only 15 years into said century?
It seemed reasonable to
close the state highways. A governor can either order us to stay off
the roads except for emergencies, or announce that if we don’t
cooperate no one is going to rescue us when we get stuck, so take
your chances.
I did hear some official
in New Hampshire say that its citizens are never ordered off the
roads, they are simply asked to stay home, with the assumption that
they have enough common sense to make the right decision. I do
understand that this Granite State assumption might be wrong in
Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island.
Charlie Baker handled the
“historic blizzard” just fine. What was odd was hearing a
semi-hysterical Jeff Kuhner, who comes from Montreal, which
apparently doesn’t have winter, demanding to know on WRKO early
Monday morning, “where are Charlie Baker and Marty Walsh?” Why
weren’t they dealing with the monster storm that’s on the way? He
also said people in New York City were panicking in the streets. I
wanted to witness this so I turned on the television, but just saw a
New York reporter in a split screen with a Boston reporter who was
trying to gin up some panic for the viewers.
Predictably, on Wednesday
Kuhner was attacking the states who “overreacted” by closing the
highways. I’m switching to WMEX.
It’s interesting that
while weather forecasters’ “computer model” predicted up to three
feet of snow in New York City arriving later that same day, causing
one panicky mayor to needlessly shut down the subway system for the
first time since it was built, climate-change alarmists are telling
us exactly what “global warming” will do by 2025.
Last week world leaders
and celebrities flew in roughly
1,700 private planes to the 2015 World Economic Forum in Davos,
Switzerland, where the top article on the agenda states that
“decarbonising the global economy in a matter of decades is the
number one priority.” Former Vice President Al Gore will be speaking
there “to stress the importance of tackling climate change.”
Hey, Al, until you
hypocrites plane-pool to these conferences on commercial airlines,
don’t lecture me about my carbon footprint and the carbon tax you
want me to pay because I drive a Honda CR-V instead of a Prius,
which would no longer be visible under the drifts of warm globe in
my yard today.
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Barbara's
Honda CR-V —
almost free |
Maybe we should switch
President Obama with a weather media-type for their respective
presentations. If the president spoke about the weather the way he
spoke about the State of the Union last week, no one would panic: he
would assure us that everything is fine, nothing to worry about,
he’s in charge, he’ll keep the storm from storming just as he said
during his first campaign that he’d keep the warming seas from
rising.
This year’s State of the
Union address, which included remarks on the state of the world, was
very well-presented, very positive and optimistic. I have no idea
what union or what planet Obama was talking about, though.
If a weather media-type
had addressed Congress, he would have warned it and the American
people about the monster threat from radical Islam around the world,
from globalization and uncontrolled illegal immigration, new strains
of disease combined with shortage of doctors, the historic national
debt that may soon make it almost impossible to address these
things.
I wonder though: would
Obama call for “weather fairness” making sure that all parts of the
country, all citizens, suffer from equal amounts of blizzard
effects? Though that seems obviously absurd, it’s no worse than the
never-ending liberal insistence that there be “fairness” in the
other aspects of our lives. Reality check: life isn’t fair.
Government can’t make it fair, and anytime it’s tried it’s been a
“historic disaster,” eg., communism and socialism, when regular
citizens get to be equally miserable, and the powerful political
leaders get all the unfair wealth and advantages.
Yet, last week Obama made
another pitch for “tax fairness” with what the media is calling,
incorrectly, a “Robin Hood tax proposal.” Actually, Robin Hood was
one of the rich, who when overtaxed by the wicked government of
Prince John and the Sheriff of Nottingham, fled to Sherwood Forest
to lead also-overtaxed peasants in revolt – the first “historic”
taxpayer group! Robin would not be trying to break the commitment on
the 529 college savings plans, that if parents saved for college
with money they’d paid taxes on, the account wouldn’t be taxed again
when the money was withdrawn.
I didn’t open one of those
for my twin grandchildren, for the same reason I never used a Roth
IRA: I don’t trust the government to keep its word so preferred to
take my tax break up front. Fortunately the new Republican Congress
put the immediate kibosh on Obama’s “fairness,” supported by some
leading Democrats who immediately sensed middle-class constituent
backlash. It’s reassuring to know that more of Obama’s lofty
socialist goals probably won’t pass during his remaining term.
Not sure what Congress
will do with the rest of his “education” plan, the expanded tuition
tax credits, which he planned to fund by taxing the rich middle
class’s savings. Let me put on my weather-cap to ominously warn
again about the historic national debt. Obama bragged about “cutting
the deficit” but a new Congressional Budget Office report shows
soaring deficits by 2025, leading to $21.6 trillion in what CBO
calls “unsustainable” national debt.
The seas may or may not be
rising; our grandchildren will, however, definitely be drowning.
Let’s panic just enough to insist on turning our country around in
2016.
Barbara Anderson of
Marblehead is president of Citizens for Limited Taxation and a Salem
News columnist.
