CA Bans Mail Order Ammo Sales
California Gov. Arnold Schwartzenegger did not sign, but did not veto, AB962, the Mail Order Ammo Ban. Since California has no pocket veto, that means the bill becomes law without his signature.
This means that, as of 1 Feb 2011, all handgun ammunition sales in California will require a face-to-face transaction between buyer and seller, and sellers will have to obtain a thumbprint and other data from the buyer.
Stimulus? Try Offshore Drilling
During the last days of the Bush administration, there was a small flurry of hope among proponents of drilling for oil and gas which is off our coast. The president lifted the ban on offshore oil drilling and Congress, understanding the politics of the moment, let their ban expire. As the Washington Examiner explains, that leaves only one obstacle to the US finally going after what is thought to be about 3 billion barrels of oil and 11 trillion cubic feet of natural gas:
So the only thing keeping U.S. firms from drilling off our own continental shelf is President Barack Obama and his secretary of the interior, Ken Salazar, who is slow-walking the approval process that must be cleared before the work can begin.
However, President Obama has managed to break 2 billion of your dollars loose to loan to Brazil to help bankroll their offshore drilling in the Atlantic. One assumes that will give Brazil a savings which will allow them pursue drilling in the Gulf of Mexico as well, since they are one of a number of nations pursuing oil and gas there:
Brazil, China, India, Norway, Spain and Russia have all signed agreements with Cuba and the Bahamas to initiate exploration and production in the Gulf of Mexico within the next two years. So the prospect of seeing Russian oil rigs 45 miles off the Florida Keys — where American oil companies are now forbidden to drill — is a very real possibility.
That “very real possibility” would see us buying oil from the Gulf from foreign oil producers when it was just as readily available to us and our own companies.
And who would you rather produced it – US companies who have proven over the years that they have the ability to recover both oil and gas safely and in an environmentally sensitive way or foreign companies 45 miles off your coast who could give a good rip one way or the other how environmentally safe their methods were?
Then there’s the recession, jobs and the government’s hunt for revenue. This seems like a natural “shovel ready” industry that wouldn’t cost the taxpayer a nickle to crank up but would benefit the economy and the tax base:
According to the American Petroleum Institute, the development of America’s coastal oil and gas resources would generate more than $1.3 trillion in new government revenue and 160,000 high-paying jobs over the next two decades.
Instead of going full bore and trying to get this program off the ground – or in this case, in the water, we’re still piddling around trying to pass legislation:
Senators Lisa Murkowski, R-Ak., and Mary Landrieu, D-La., are bipartisan co-sponsors of a bill that provides coastal states such as Florida their fair share of revenues produced by off-shore drilling and production. The same thing should be done for states on the East and West coasts. California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the state’s lawmakers hope to tap deposits off Santa Barbara to generate billions in royalties, and Virginia’s front-running gubernatorial candidate Bob McDonnell has made drilling 50 miles off that state’s coast a key component of his energy plan.
Meanwhile foreign nations are moving to exploit resources we should have been exploiting for decades.
We have a huge looming energy gap. We’re behind the curve as it stands right now. While all the politics is focused on health care reform, this need isn’t going away and only becomes worse. Instead of “slow-walking” this, Barack Obama and Ken Salazar should be fast-tracking it and getting us out in those offshore areas to grab the most productive regions first. If we don’t, we’ll be moaning about how the percentage of oil and gas we import has gone up again.
And, as usual, that will be our own negligent fault.
~McQ
There Is A Solution
Although many people don’t want to hear it.
Arnold Schwarzenegger on the situation in California:
“People come up to me all the time, pleading ‘governor, please don’t cut my program,’” he said. “They tell me how the cuts will affect them and their loved ones. I see the pain in their eyes and hear the fear in their voice. It’s an awful feeling. But we have no choice.
“Our wallet is empty. Our bank is closed. Our credit is dried up.”
Then. Cut. Spending.
For real this time.
~McQ
Meanwhile In California …
The expected happened:
California voters soundly rejected a package of ballot measures Tuesday that would have reduced the state’s projected budget deficit of $21.3 billion to something slightly less overwhelming: $15.4 billion.
The defeat of the measures means that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the state Legislature will have to consider deeper cuts to education, public safety, and health and human services, officials have said.
Propositions 1A through 1E – which would have changed the state’s budgeting system, ensured money to schools in future years and generated billions of dollars of revenue for the state’s general fund – fell well behind in early returns and never recovered.
The only measure that voters approved was Proposition 1F, which will freeze salaries of top state officials, including lawmakers and the governor, during tough budget years.
Schwarzenegger, however, still doesn’t get it:
In a written statement Tuesday night, Schwarzenegger said that he believes Californians are simply frustrated with the state’s dysfunctional budget system.
“Now we must move forward from this point to begin to address our fiscal crisis with constructive solutions,” the governor said.
In reality it has nothing especially to do with the state’s “dysfunctional budget system”, but instead with the state’s profligate spending which has landed it in overwhelming debt. And the most “constructive solutions” would be to – wait for it – cut spending.
Why is it I have a feeling that such a solution will be mostly absent from whatever CA legislators come up with?
~McQ
Arnold Schwarzenegger: Dope Of the Week
Where to start with this joker:
California Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger suggested that his party is out of touch with average Americans on the issue of health care.
“You’ve got to listen to the people. If the nation is screaming out loud, ‘We need health care reform. We want to have universal health care. We want to have everyone insured. We want to bring the costs down. We want everyone to have access.’ I mean, that’s what they want; that’s what you do,” Schwarzenegger said on ABC’s “This Week.”
Arguing that California Republicans were out of touch with the majority of Californians who wanted to raise taxes to fix the state’s budget crisis, Schwarzenegger said it is “the same nationwide.”
He said Republicans need to embrace what the people want, even if it means accepting tax increases that go against their party principles:
“Even though it maybe is against your principles or philosophy, you still have to go, because that’s what the people want you to do,” he said.
A) Healthcare: the nation isn’t screaming any of that out loud. A definite minority want it. But just as large a minority don’t want any part of it. A third minority isn’t sure one way or the other.
B) If the purpose of government is to simply give the people everything they want, then there’s no reason for a budget, a legislature or a governor. Just put everything to a direct vote via referendum, write a program that can figure the cost of each “yes” referendum, figure the tax necessary to fund the approved program and assess the tax. If you must have a legislature or governor, they would only write the law and rubber stamp it based on the referendum (per the Schwarzenegger “philosophy” only unanimous approvals allowed) and the “governor” is there to do nothing more than to sign it into law – period. Once taxes reach 100% nothing else can be signed into law and the legislature is in permanent recess and the governor is no longer needed (hey I can be just as absurd as Schwarzenegger).
Oh, wait, I forgot – you have to have a governor and a legislature to pile up trillions of dollars of debt “giving the people what they want” and drive the state into bankruptcy – my bad.
C) Why have principles if you’re not supposed to live by them/act on them. Why run on them, tell voters they’ll be your guide and get elected because of them? Schwarzenegger has gone from a somewhat entertaining RINO to an outright idiot.
“Even though it may be against your principles or philosophy” do it anyway because that’s what the people want? This guy would obviously rather be liked than principled (if he ever was really principled). Principles are a hindrance to his pursuit of approval (see what steroids will do to your brain?). And my guess is, he’d label this nonsense as “leadership”.
Lord help California. Schwarzenegger makes Gray Davis look great.
~McQ