Conservative Principles Now

On November 29 the people of Honduras will vote for a new president and legislature to govern their country over the next four years. The elections are now the only fair and democratic way to heal the crisis begun well before the June 28th removal of President Manuel Zelaya.

Former president Zelaya, Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, the Organization of American States, and many liberals in the U.S. are banking on a low, indifferent turnout. They want to prove that a climate of repression, fear, and the lack of political options is keeping Hondurans away from the polls. Ironically, these “friends of democracy” are anxious to negate the vote of Hondurans in their effort to prove the only solution to the crisis is the restoration of Manuel Zelaya to presidential power.

A large turnout, regardless of who wins, will help swing U.S. and international opinion in the opposite direction. It will give fresh momentum to the president-elect as he builds a new leadership team and tries to heal the breach in Honduras’ body politic. It will direct attention away from the disgruntled Zelaya and toward the future.

The choice for Hondurans on Sunday November 29 is as follows:

• Stay Home, Don’t Vote, and Let Zelaya, Chavez & Co. Become the real winners. Low voter numbers will likely allow the political crisis to drag on indefinitely with charges and counter-charges about the legitimacy of the vote. It will give outsiders ammunition for further involvement in the internal affairs of Honduras.
• Go Out, Vote, and Let Honduras Move On. High voter turnout will not only give a powerful mandate to the winner, it will also demonstrate confidence in the ballot box as the only way to resolve the crisis. Big numbers will send a clear signal that the people of Honduras believe their votes must count, that their leaders are genuine, and that the electoral process is working.

In the 2005 elections, 2 million of Honduras’ 4 million registered voters went to the polls. Honduras’ future hinges on the individual choices of these four million Hondurans who have the right to decide what is best for their nation.

FYI: Three members of the Heritage Foundation staff – Ray Walser, Jim Roberts and Israel Ortega - will be in Honduras observing the elections, meeting with Hondurans, watching the vote count, and reporting back their observations.

Last year, with Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm standing by his side, President-elect Barack Obama proclaimed the importance of rapidly passing a stimulus package, described his intense focus on job creation, and noted that a new president can have an “enormous impact” on the economy.

This week, The Detroit Free Press reported that Obama’s stimulus package has “created or retained virtually no jobs” in Michigan, despite $1.2 billion in federal spending and the administration’s report that it created or retained 22,500 jobs in the Great Lakes State.

One wonders whether Michigan’s governor would still stand by Obama’s side and how she would rate the success of the president’s “enormous impact,” given that her state is currently suffering from a 15.3 percent unemployment rate.

There’s even more to the story. The Detroit Free Press reports that those who received stimulus funds or who have been promised stimulus funds greatly overstated the number of jobs created or protected. Shockingly, the paper’s analysis also revealed the following:

Three of every four stimulus grants, contracts and loans approved in Michigan created or retained one job or less.

Fewer than 700 awards had received some money, and nearly half of those — 327 — had created one job or less, at a cost per job of $2.7 million.

Some job estimates were wrong: General Motors Co., for instance, reported 105 jobs saved or created for a government purchase of 5,000 vehicles but later said no jobs were saved or created. The City of Detroit reported 342 jobs it now says were projections — not jobs already created or retained.

The news out of Michigan is a local angle to a mounting national story. An ABC News report reveals that the Obama administration altered its stimulus job growth numbers because its estimates are woefully inaccurate.

From ABC News:

The Obama administration, under fire for inflating job growth from the $787 billion stimulus plan, slashed over 60,000 jobs from its most recent report on the program because the reporting outlets had submitted “unrealistic data,” according to a document obtained by ABC News.

But this isn’t the first time this story has come to light. The Foundry previously wrote about the $25 billion in stimulus funds allocated for energy-efficiency that didn’t produce any of the promised jobs.

And in California, 26,156 jobs were reportedly “saved” with 268.5 million in stimulus dollars. In actuality, none of those jobs were in danger of being eliminated.

Given the nation’s 10.2 percent unemployment rate, when will the Obama administration quit playing games with its jobs numbers and be straight with the American people?