Time to Get Tough Read Free Page A

country, he’d correct them and say, “No, that’s not your country, you represent the United States.” Leadership starts with the person at the top. The president sets the tone. Ronald Reagan put America first, and he knew how to negotiate. Barack Obama is no Ronald Reagan—not even close. And that’s why we’re in the mess we’re in and why our nation is on the wrong track and doing so badly.
    Until we get a new president, our congressmen will continue to be treated with contempt by the Iraqi government, that government will continue to run a surplus at our expense, and we will continue to suffer economically because the Iraqi government, and everyone else, knows
Obama is weak and won’t stand up for America’s interests. The man’s natural instinct is to bow before every foreign leader he can find.
    We don’t owe the Middle East any apologies. America is not what’s wrong with the world. We’re an example of freedom to the world. No one can match America. We have big hearts—and the courage to do what’s right. But we’re not the world’s policemen. And if we have to take on that role, we need to send a clear message that protection comes at a price. If other countries benefit from our armed forces protecting them, those countries should cover the costs. Period.

Leadership Is Down, Gas Prices Are Up
    Beyond simple justice, and beyond reducing our national debt, another advantage of taking the oil is that it will significantly bring down the price of gas. Gas prices are crippling our economy. In the first two years of the Obama administration, gas prices leapt a shocking 104 percent. That’s hardly the “hope and change” Americans voted for. That said, there are many environmentalists who are cheering and applauding higher prices. Their logic, if you can call it that, is that if we drive less we will emit less carbon, which will allegedly help alleviate the make-believe problem of global warming. Don’t forget, when he was a United States senator, Obama himself suggested that higher gas prices would be a good thing, but that he would prefer a “gradual adjustment.” 3
    Then look at the person Obama appoints as his Energy Secretary—Steven Chu, a guy who actually told the Wall Street Journal , “Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe.” 4 So the fact that we’ve seen a 104 percent jump in the price of a
gallon of gas since Obama was elected president should hardly come as a surprise to anyone who was paying attention. He and his supporters telegraphed as much all along. As crazy as it sounds, these folks want higher energy prices because they believe that will force Americans to drive less and businesses to slow down on production and transportation, which they think is a good thing, but which in fact will only cost us more jobs and put us at a greater economic disadvantage against China. Whose side are they on, anyway?
    Here’s another one: Cap and Tax (or as they called it, Cap and Trade). Remember that? When he was campaigning to become president, Obama outright admitted that his plan to tax businesses on carbon emissions that exceeded his arbitrary cap would drive energy prices sky high. Here’s exactly what he said:
    Under my plan of a cap and trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket, even regardless of what I say about whether coal is good or bad, because I’m capping greenhouse gases, coal-powered plants, you know, natural gas, you name it. Whatever the plants were, whatever the industry was, they would have to, uh, retrofit their operations. That will cost money. They will pass that money on to consumers. 5
    Most of us shake our heads in disbelief at this stuff. But you really have to understand the fringe Left’s radical mindset and just how extreme and out of touch with reality this president and his dwindling group of