Readers of this blog know that I have been using this month to write a series of posts about why I am voting for Mitt Romney as opposed to simply voting against Barack Obama. The first two posts in this series, Why, as an Evangelical Christian, I am Voting for Mitt Romney and Not Just Against Barack Obama, and Reason # 8 Why, as an Evangelical Christian, I am Voting For Mitt Romney and Not Just Against Barack Obama told why in the context of my faith I am choosing to vote for Mitt Romney. Today I am listing three more reasons why from the perspective of a freedom loving American who believes in what our country has to offer, I will be casting my vote for Mitt Romney in a little under three weeks.
I watched the debate between Obama and Romney with a lot of anticipation on Tuesday night. I think that Gov. Romney did exceptionally well in holding the President accountable for a lot of his actions over the past four years. But other than the heated exchange over Libya, which I know we will get back to in next week's debate, the more interesting part of the night for me was the exchange over high gas prices. Romney pointed out correctly that when Obama took office in 2008 the average price of gas was about $1.87 per gallon. This week the average price of gas is about $3.70 per gallon, which means that gas prices have doubled during the last four years. (This is, by the way, not a surprising revelation to all of us who are struggling to come up with the $50.00 we need to fill up our mid-size cars.) Romney was making the case that Obama's energy policies have failed--if they had not failed, gas prices would be down instead of up.
In what was in my opinion the most asinine response of the entire evening, Obama responded that of course gas prices were lower in 2008--we were heading into the worst recession since the Great Depression and a terrible economy always makes energy prices lower. In an effort to save Obama from his own rhetoric, moderator Candy Crowley stepped in and asked Obama a follow up question which I think is the real key to this whole issue. She asked the president whether high gas prices were not just the "new normal" for Americans, and he responded that they were. He also answered that his energy policy includes new mileage standards for cars which will make them more fuel efficient and will use less energy.
This "new normal" question is the true mantra of liberals in the United States. This phrase actually translates to, "All of the good times are gone, all of the prosperity is gone, and all of the opportunity is gone. There's nothing you can do about it. Deal with it."
Aside from the absurdity of pretending that low gas prices are a function of a failing economy--an argument so preposterous that even my 91-year-old grandmother, who is a life-long left-leaning Democrat, knows its ridiculous--this energy policy debate involves a number of issues that no one has mentioned. First, according to the National Automobile Dealers Association, the new mileage standards will increase the average price of cars by $3000.00 and the price of some models by as much as $12,000.00 pricing as many as 7 million people out of the new car market. In spite of what liberals pretend, this is not an achievement to brag about. Millions of people who cannot afford cars mean millions more who will rely on public transit. And although the new efficiency standards will supposedly save consumers $500 in year in gas for drivers driving 15,000 miles annually, those savings can be eaten up by increasingly rising fuel costs. The facts are simply this--the Obama Administration pursues an energy policy that makes gasoline increasingly expensive because in order to implement its green agendas Americans have to stop driving. In March of this year, Energy Secretary Steven Chu made headlines when he testified before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee that he would give himself an "A" in his handling of energy policy. While many conservatives shook their heads at his grading system, the truth is that Chu believes he deserves an A because his energy policies are moving the United States in exactly the direction the Obama Administration wants us to go. In 2008, Chu stated that Americans will not change their driving habits unless we have gas prices in the U.S. as high as they are in Europe. Since green energy and green agendas are a major focus of the Obama Administration, which has squandered $90 billion dollars of U.S. tax money throwing our hard earned dollars at now bankrupt green energy companies, pursuing an energy policy that brings down fuel prices would be counter-productive. It is simply not going to happen. For more background and perspective on this see Nowhere to Hide--Looking Forward to $9.00 a Gallon Gas.
Mitt Romney has stated that he will approve the Keystone Pipeline--something that Obama will never do for the reasons I have outlined above. By opening drilling and exploration and lifting burdensome regulations from the coal industries, Romney will be doing more than creating jobs--he will be allowing us to have access to the energy that preserves our way of life.
The Obama's Administration's war on fuel goes hand in hand nicely with its war on single family housing and home ownership. When Obama and Biden attack Romney for saying that he wants to repeal Dodd-Frank, they frame the argument as if it is a pro-big business move. But Romney is exactly right when he says that Dodd Frank was the biggest "kiss" the mega banks have ever received. The real losers in Dodd Frank are community banks and small businesses and consumers. Next week I will address these issues from the perspective of the small business owner, but today I want to address some of the impact on consumers.
Many Americans do not realize that we are now just weeks away from new mortgage regulations being unveiled that will regulate most Americans out of homeownership. When the "qualified mortgage" guidelines are unveiled right after the election, we are going to see new guidelines for down payment and debt qualifications so restrictive that many Americans will never be able to buy a home, sell their existing home or refinance their existing home. Those restrictions, coupled with new servicing guidelines that force banks to make fewer mortgage loans and implement punitive actions by the government against the mortgage industry, are going to mean that homeownership is going to go from the American Dream that everyone can aspire to, to a privilege of the upper classes only. Lack of access to mortgage capital is going to leave Americans renting micro apartments under 200 square feet like those currently being built in New York City by Mayor Bloomberg and depending on public transportation wherever they go. Repealing Dodd Frank is not about giving a pass to financial institutions--it is about restoring freedom and opportunity to the American people. We are about to see our entire way of life disappear in this country to be replaced by a society where the government tells us where we can live, where we can go, and how we can travel there.
Without repeal of Dodd Frank we will never have access to the capital we need to make our dreams a reality. Dodd-Frank cuts off and strangles capital and lending thereby cutting off access to freedom and opportunity. These new regulations, coupled with trillions of dollars in tax increases that the Obama Administration will impose in a second term, will strip away every opportunity for people to advance, build wealth and acquire assets. Mitt Romney will repeal this awful, abusive piece of legislation, and that repeal, coupled with lowering taxes, will preserve opportunity and advancement in our nation. For that alone he has my vote.
Finally, I am voting for Mitt Romney because he reminds us that we don't have to settle for a country in which 23 million Americans are unemployed, 47 million people are on food stamps, business owners can't stay open because of oppressive regulations and gas prices continue to rise. Do we want a financially stable nation, or do we want a nation with $16 trillion in debt where every penny we earn is subject to massive taxes to pay for an ever increasing bureaucracy? While the liberals tell us that the mess we are in is the "new normal" and we had better just get used to it, Romney reminds us that we don't have to live this way.
The 2012 elections are a crossroads for this country. We are going to determine whether we want to be a free, prosperous nation with private property, private enterprise and opportunity, or whether we want to descend into poverty and socialism where no one has freedom or opportunity. The ultimate battle here is about more than cars and housing--it is about whether we will pass on to our children a nation with the same opportunities and responsibilities that we inherited or whether we are going to pass on to them a land where their efforts are not rewarded, where they have no hope and no opportunity.
On November 6th, I am voting for Freedom, Opportunity and Prosperity. I am voting for Mitt Romney. I hope you will join me.
Read Alexandra's novel, The Planner, about an out of control, environmentally-driven federal government, free on Kindle October 17 through October 21st.
Alexandra Swann is the author of No Regrets: How Homeschooling Earned me a Master's Degree at Age Sixteen and several other books. Her newest novel, The Chosen, about one small group of Americans' fight to restore the Constitution and end indefinite detentions without trial, is available on Kindle and in paperback. For more information, visit her website at http://www.frontier2000.net.
Read Alexandra's novel, The Planner, about an out of control, environmentally-driven federal government, free on Kindle October 17 through October 21st.
Alexandra Swann is the author of No Regrets: How Homeschooling Earned me a Master's Degree at Age Sixteen and several other books. Her newest novel, The Chosen, about one small group of Americans' fight to restore the Constitution and end indefinite detentions without trial, is available on Kindle and in paperback. For more information, visit her website at http://www.frontier2000.net.
