Showing posts with label Economy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Economy. Show all posts

Saturday, December 18, 2010

Eurozone's Debt Crisis an Ominous Preview of the Collapsing Welfare States (and Democrat Utopias) of California and Illinois

I'll let several of today's less publicized news stories set some context.

Spain’s Debt Crisis Bodes Ill for Our Own


Events in Spain need to be watched closely. Spain is in the midst of a credit crisis, a major debt crisis. The reality is Spain has tapped the financial markets through borrowing treasury bills. Spain is paying more than a percentage point higher in interest than a month ago... Why should be watch these developments in Spain?

In the US we have at least a $12 trillion federal debt with government tax receipts of $2 trillion. Much of the debt is not on long term interest rates. There are groups debating what [the] limit [should] be on the federal debt. Should our federal debt limit be $20 trillion, $25 trillion, or unlimited? What is forgotten is how or when will we stop growing our federal debt and begin to reduce the federal debt? More important what happens when, not if, the interest rates on our federal debt increase? That is exactly what is happening in Spain...

Consider, if you will, the Blue State Utopia of California.

California Eyes Doomsday Budget


The Legislative Analyst’s Office is now projecting a structural general fund budget gap of up to $28 billion over the next 18 months.

The outgoing governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, proclaimed a fiscal emergency when lawmakers were sworn in Dec. 6, and opened a special session of the Legislature to deal with the $6 billion gap expected in the current fiscal year, which ends June 30... But nearly all of the solutions Schwarzenegger proposed would not take effect until after the new fiscal year starts July 1.

...Brown cited the LAO’s estimate that at least 75% of the solutions used to bring the last three state budgets into balance were either short-term in nature or failed to materialize, without addressing the long-term structural imbalance between spending and revenue.

“We’ve been living in a fantasy world,” Brown said Tuesday. “It’s much worse than I thought.”

...[Next year is] when things get a lot worse, with end of federal stimulus funding that brought California about $17 billion over three years, and the expiration of temporary state taxes that are bringing about $8.3 billion into the general fund in the current year... The widespread speculation is that Brown is angling toward the early adoption of an extremely austere budget, while going to the voters in mid-2011 and ­giving them the option to extend the temporary taxes in order to save some programs that would otherwise be axed.

And Illinois:

City, state end year on the brink


...as the year comes to a close, there is reason to be gravely concerned... Illinois is a state on the brink and Chicago is a city on the brink... Our financial calamity threatens the stability of citizens from Rockford to Cairo.

...The state’s budget deficit is anywhere from $13 billion to $15 billion. We are 50th out of 50 states in unfunded pensions. The National Conference of State Legislatures calls Illinois’ fiscal crisis the worst in the nation.

...Mayor Daley’s final budget was $650 million out of whack. He “balanced” it, as Sun-Times’ Fran Spielman reported, with a mix of TIF funds, parking meter and Chicago Skyway reserves, budget and job cuts, and debt refinancing and restructuring... Like a ghost of Christmas past, this unfortunate use of reserve funds will haunt the next mayor.

Taxes will be raised. Or services will be drastically cut. Or both... Awful decisions are ahead at City Hall and at the Capitol... How is it that a state that can so boldly and progressively pass controversial civil union legislation cannot summon the will or the way to face up to its economic plight?

On Thursday, William Jacobson's excellent comparison of our financial position with that of the defunct Soviet Union contained a prediction.

...Hanson's description of modern California would be a fitting updated version of my observations of the Soviet Union in the early 1980s. The analogy is not exact, of course, because the political and economic systems, and the root causes, are so different.

But the result is the same. An increasing inability of the economic system to support the agenda of the first world cities and political elites... ...It can't last another decade. You are my witnesses.

What do you think California's public sector unions will do when Jerry Brown, their supposed savior, slashes jobs, salaries and benefits -- as he must?

How about the plutocrats in Springfield, Illinois, who have allowed their state to operate with a Zimbabwean balance sheet?

I hope I'm wrong, but I don't think we'll have to wait even three years to see the kind of unrest charring the streets of Europe.

Our Republic is a fragile vessel; and the Democrat Party's malevolent support for insane social engineering programs, illegal immigration, and general lawlessness have put it on the edge of the abyss.


Thursday, December 16, 2010

At least someone will have read it: GOP to 'paralyze' Senate by reading the disastrous 2,000-page, trillion-plus spending bill

The left-leaning political journal The Hill makes the tactic sound, oh, I don't know... dire? Their headline reads, "GOP will paralyze Senate floor with reading of 1,924-page spending bill".

Hey, schmucks: is it really too much to ask that our representatives read the damn bills before they vote on them?

I will assert the following: the 111th Congress will go down in history as the most rabid, radical and destructive enemies of the state ever to assume power in America.

Republicans will paralyze the Senate floor for 50 hours by forcing clerks to read every single paragraph of the 1,924-page, $1.1 trillion omnibus spending bill.

Senate clerks are expected to read the massive bill in rotating shifts around the clock — taking breaks to drink water and pop throat lozenges — to keep legislative business on track, according to a Democratic leadership aide... The bill is so long that it took the Government Printing Office two days to print it...

Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), the Senate Republican Steering Committee chairman, vowed not to back down... “If they bring this up, they’re going to read it. It’ll take them a day or two to read it,” DeMint said on Fox News. “Again, we’re trying to run out the clock. They should not be able to pass this kind of legislation in a lame-duck Congress.”

Senator DeMint, I'll say it again: you need to run for President in 2012.

I know you don't want the job. But neither did George Washington. And I happen to think that the men who don't want the job are among the best choices.


Linked by: Michelle Malkin. Thanks!

Wednesday, December 15, 2010

So Simple a Caveman Can Do It: Deconstructing the Idiocy of Comparing Health Insurance to Car Insurance

In an exclusive interview with Tampa Bay Online, President Barack Obama rolled out the old liberal canard comparing health insurance to car insurance.

Think about it -- when it comes to car insurance, we wouldn't say that you can wait until you get into a car wreck and then you can go to the insurance company, say hey, I want to buy some insurance for my car. If you can't do that for car insurance, why can you do that for health insurance.

How can you wait until you get sick and then go and say I want to buy some insurance? That isn't fair and I think most people understand it isn't fair. All we've said is everybody has to get some basic insurance so that we're not paying for you when you get sick. And that helps keep everybody's cost down and it makes sure that that insurance company can't discriminate against you if you've got pre-existing conditions. It's the right thing to do, and I'm confident that the courts will uphold it.

Using Ed Morrissey's guide as a reference (and augmenting it), let's deconstruct this epic fail.

1. Drivers carry required insurance to cover damage done to others, not themselves.

2. States impose the insurance requirement, not the federal government, because states license drivers and vehicles.

3. Driving is a voluntary activity conducted on public property (roads); there is no requirement for licensing or insurance for those who drive only on their private property. People who don’t drive on public roads aren’t required to buy a license or the insurance.

4. Those who do have auto insurance only file claims when significant damage occurs.

5. Auto insurance doesn’t pay for routine maintenance, like oil changes, lube jobs, and tire rotation. That’s why auto insurance is relatively affordable.

6. Auto insurance is priced to risk. If a driver lives in a high-crime area, then the premiums will rise to cover the risks associated with theft. If they drive badly (get moving violations and accidents), premiums will go up, or in some cases, the insurer will drop the driver.

7. Policies are priced for risk according to age as well; the youngest and oldest drivers pay more due to their propensity for causing losses. Those who drive well and present a lower risk get rewarded with lower premiums. Right now, the federal government is preventing insurers in some instances from risk-pricing health insurance to impose government-approved fairness. That means we all pay more, removing the incentive to lower risk.

8. Lastly, consider Obama's claim that "when it comes to car insurance, we wouldn't say that you can wait until you get into a car wreck and then you can go to the insurance company, say hey, I want to buy some insurance for my car." -- But that's precisely what he's saying with the Democrats' "pre-existing condition" nonsense. You can walk in to any health insurer, with any condition, and expect coverage.

In short, the level of dishonesty interwoven into the Democrats' claims is stunning. Remember: you wouldn't lose your existing coverage (lie). Your premiums would go down $2,500 a year (lie). There wouldn't be any death panels who would decide permissible treatments (lie). Obamacare would reduce the deficit (lie). And no one could be denied coverage (lie).

When the history of this Republic is written -- if it survives this disastrous crew -- the Democrat Party's health care bill will go down as one of the greatest crimes against the Constitution and the American people of all time.


Hat tips: Hot Air and Mark Levin. Images: Wrecked Exotics.

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

111th Congress flips off the American people again: unveils $1.1T omnibus spending bill to fund Obamacare and $8B in earmarks

Has any Congress ever treated the American people with the level of disrespect exhibited by the 111th? The terms "representative government" and "consent of the governed" no longer apply to the current crop of Democrats, despite a massive and historic repudiation at the polls last month.

Senate Democrats have filed a $1.1 trillion omnibus spending bill that would fund the government through fiscal year 2011, according to Senate GOP sources.

The 1,924-page bill includes funding to implement the sweeping healthcare reform bill Congress passed earlier this year as well as additional funds for Internal Revenue Service agents...

The bill reportedly spends $8 billion on 6,000 new earmarks including, according to Fox News, critical "beaver management" programs.

This rogue Democrat Congress is an abomination. And Republicans must block this bowel movement using every available procedural tactic.


Update: Fox News reports that Jim DeMint will require the bill to be read on the Senate floor, which will consume approximately 40 hours. Well done.

Hat tips: Michelle Malkin and Memeorandum

Monday, December 13, 2010

Remember All Those Banks That TARP Rescued? Looks Like Their Exposure to the European Debt Crisis Is No Prob--RUN AWAY!! RUN AWAY!!

As if U.S. banks didn't have enough troubles, we discover this delightful news out of the Bank of International Settlements (BIS).

Last night, the BIS released its latest quarterly review, as always chock full of useful information. The one major item that caught our eye was the updated exposure toward the PIIGS [Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece, Spain] countries by various foreign banks. And specifically the brand new category that had never been disclosed before by the BIS, namely the "other exposures" category, which per a rather closeted footnote is defined as: "other exposures consist of the positive market value of derivative contracts, guarantees extended and credit commitments." This is exposure that appears for the first time in an official BIS document. And it is sizable: while total foreign claims stood at $2,281 billion, the newly disclosed category accounts for a whopping two thirds of a trillion: $668 billion...

...How generous of the BIS to share this data which as recently as 2 years ago may have been considered as material, and these days is merely dismissed with a laugh. After all who cares unless the potential loss has at least 12 zeroes in it. Yet what is most significant for the US taxpayer... is that US exposure to the P(I)IGS (Italy excluded, for the time being - give it a few months), has just tripled as a result of this revelation. While before it was "common knowledge" that US banks have nothing to lose should Europe go down the drain, it has now been revealed that US banks actually have $353 billion in exposure, of which $233 billion is of this newly revealed "other category."

And now that it is pro forma common knowledge that should the PIGS fails, that at least a few domestic banks would be wiped out, it also should be appreciated why the ECB will do everything to prevent an impairment to bondholders: with just under $2.3 trillion in potential partial or full losses on total exposure, the domino effect would blow up Europe overnight, then promptly wipe out the US and the rest of the world with it.

The country with biggest exposure to the PIGS is not surprisingly Germany with $513 billion, followed by France at $410 billion, Great Britain at $370 billion, and... the US at $353 billion... Here [is a pretty chart] that show[s] just how screwed Europe (and America) is:


Just remember, folks: Tim Geithner is the only man smart enough to get us out of this mess.


Sunday, December 12, 2010

Federal Housing Agency Looking for an Associate Director of Minority Inclusion--But Only Willing to Pay $255K of Your Money In Salary

Should you need additional proof that the Democrat-controlled federal government is completely and utterly out of control, may I present Exhibit 9 Bazillion?

...Through subordinate staff, you will assess and analyze the diversity policies and practices of FHFA and the regulated entities and the Office of Finance. Other responsibilities include: Directing the development and implementation of standards and procedures to ensure the fair inclusion and utilization of minorities, women, the disabled, veterans and minority-owned and women-owned businesses in all business and activities of FHFA at all levels, including in procurement and all types of contracts;

...The person selected as the Associate Director for Women and Minority Inclusion will lead this new office. Additional vacancies will be advertised in the near future...

That last paragraph is important: after all their regulations failed to avert the mortgage crisis (thanks especially to Chris Dodd, Barney Frank and Maxine Waters), the Democrats are busy building up new agencies and new offices to oversee the same losers that failed the last time.

Democrats don't mind that the country is bankrupt. They've emptied the Treasury with trillions in failed spending programs. And still they spend, hiring new bureaucrats as greedily as Michael Moore hordes french fries at Johnny Rocket's.

By the way, if you want to apply for the job, please contact Marisa Harper, a Human Resources Specialist at Federal Housing Finance Agency in Washington, DC. Please be polite and tell her I sent you. Maybe I'll get a referral fee.


Hat tip: Brad.

Brilliant: Legacy Media Still Asking Whether California Should Raise Taxes--While Average State Worker's Total Compensation is 107K

Quick quiz: see if you can spot the complete detachment from reality exhibited by the Bakersfield Whatever:

Gov.-elect Jerry Brown has an enormous burden on his shoulders -- a $25 billion state budget deficit -- and seriously limited options in his quest to eliminate it. His best potential allies: California voters.

Brown appears to be leaning strongly toward proposing a special election next year in which voters will be asked to either approve new taxes to help close the gap, or accept a state government that offers far less in the way of services -- many we take for granted...

...The problem is startlingly vast: The budget gap, Brown says, outstrips combined annual spending on public assistance, corrections and the state's two public college systems.

Here's a really cool idea. It's one I borrowed from the real world. Spend less than you take in. To put it in terms California's Democrats can understand: it's, like, what the rest of us have to do. Dude.

Oh, and here's one place you can start.

[With retirement, health care, extra vacation and paid time off, you can] apply a 56% overhead rate to an average [public sector] base salary of $68,500, you arrive at a total compensation estimate for the average state or local government worker in California of $106,860 per year. As also explored in the earlier post, “Public Employee Compensation,” the average private sector worker’s total compensation in California is estimated at $57,000 per year – probably well under that, since the data sets used did not include self-employed individuals...

...There are solutions that would go a long way towards solving these problems, such as implementing pay and benefit cuts that target the most highly compensated, most overpaid strata of the public workforce, or streamlining top-heavy bureaucracies and cutting costs from the top down instead of from the bottom up, or, gasp, making pay-cuts more palatable to public employees by reinventing the regulatory environment to actually lower the cost of living in California.

Dare to dream, folks. Dare to dream.


Warmal Colding Maps o' the Day

As of about 9:00am ET, these are the temperatures around the continental United States.

I'd like you to consider the following assertion:

No matter how many temperature stations they position to get extra heat, no matter how many manatees die of hypothermia, no matter how many respected scientists tell them that global warming is no more caused by humans than is the sun's heat, and no matter how many record low temperatures the U.S. experiences, you won't change the global warmists' opinions.

Because it has nothing to do with science. It has to do with money. Wealth redistribution, to be more precise.

The environmental movement is a crypto-Marxist movement. And everyone knows it now. Science is the last thing on their minds. Confiscating your wealth is their highest priority, and the EPA is their preferred mechanism to do so: an unelected, unaccountable bureaucracy setting industrial policy without any checks or balances.

Some might call that kind of system a dictatorship. Whatever it is, it's certainly not the form of government our founders created.


Saturday, December 11, 2010

Alan Grayson Explains the Democrat Position on Estate Taxes

So you've worked hard your whole life, paid your taxes and accumulated some sort of estate. And you want to pass that on to your heirs, your church, your favorite charities and schools.

Well, Democrats don't want you to. They want to steal what little they haven't confiscated from you over your entire working life. And, as usual, the legacy media is working its propaganda magic to back their efforts.


Friday, December 10, 2010

Warmal Colding News Roundup: Hypothermia Killed Record Number of Ultra-Cute Manatees in 2010 and Al Gore Doesn't Give a Crap

Curiously, this headline isn't getting much play in legacy media:

Cold caused record manatee deaths in 2010


Florida's record number of manatee deaths in 2010 — 699 — were largely blamed on the severe cold last winter. And that count could rise with more cold temperatures expected next week...

...Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission officials said Friday that 2010 saw an unprecedented die-off for the endangered mammals...

...Last winter's freezing temperatures gave many manatees an acute cold shock, like severe hypothermia, that killed them faster than in previous winters [and] the cold weather spread as far south as the Everglades and Florida Keys, areas where manatees usually don't see many cold-related deaths...

Oh. And yesterday Syracuse, New York experienced its single-day snowfall record of 14.9 inches, six inches greater than the previous record set in '61.

And:

Cancun hosts warming conference amid record cold temps


As negotiators from nearly 200 countries met in Cancun to strategize ways to keep the planet from getting hotter, the temperature in the seaside Mexican city plunged to a 100-year record low of 54° F. Climate-change skeptics are gleefully calling Cancun's weather the latest example of the "Gore Effect"...

...ClimateGate was "bad enough," says Duncan Davidson in Wall Street Pit, but Cancun's weather is particularly "inconvenient" for global-warming alarmists. It's a reminder that global temperatures have "flatlined" despite rising carbon dioxide levels, "which is decidedly chilling against the concept of hampering economic growth to limit Co2 emissions."

While the EPA prepares to implement cap-and-trade by edict, the world appears to be entering a new Ice Age. But, now that I think about it, that's the kind of epic fail we've come to expect from Democrats.


Update:
Long Island hits record-low 13 degrees
Athens [Georgia] Morning Cold May Be Record
Frigid South Florida Seeing Record Lows
Record-breaking cold blows into Austin [Texas]
Cold spell breaks 169-year record in Fort Lauderdale

Stark Naked Proof: Unemployment Benefits Must Be Time-Boxed. At Least, That's the Claim of the Teabaggers at The New York Times

Even the Gray Lady can't hide the fact that 2 + 2 equals 4. At least, not yet. Nan G, a commenter at Flopping Aces, observes:

Have you ever seen a chart [illustrating] when people find work in comparison to when their benefits run out? Here’s one such chart:

The chart displays the fraction of persons (in Pittsburgh) receiving unemployment benefits who began working again, as a function of the number of weeks until their unemployment benefits were scheduled to be exhausted.

For example, a “hazard” value of “0.04″ for week “-14″ means that, among unemployed persons with 14 weeks remaining until their benefit exhaustion date, 4 percent of them either began working a new job or returned to their previous job.

Notice the VAST majority of unemployed persons got employed during their last week of benefits and the 1st week AFTER benefits ran out.

The rest of the NYTimes story (from [March] 2010) about this chart is here: http://tinyurl.com/TheNewYorkTimesSucks*. And it is worth a read.

Indeed it is.

Because it isn't often you see the Leftist crackpots at the Times printing the truth.


Time-Traveling Blue Dog Democrats Finally Arrive in the Year 2007

The Hill reports that the "fiscally conservative" Blue Dog Democrats (try not to chuckle) finally arrived in the year 2007. By that I mean the few "moderate Dems" who survived the 2010 Midterm beatdown at last organized themselves sufficiently to create a Twitter account.

The Blue Dog Democrats now have their own Twitter account under the handle @BlueDogPress.

Blue Dog Coalition is now on Twitter! reads the feed's first tweet. Follow this account for the latest info on the Blue Dogs in the House of Representatives.

The coalition's membership of centrist and conservative Democrats was slashed by at least half during the midterm elections. Two of its four leaders — Reps. Baron Hill (Ind.) and Stephanie Herseth (S.D.) — did not secure reelection.

So far, the account has 12 followers.

Which is about the same number of Americans who believe a modern Democrat can be fiscally conservative.


Thursday, December 09, 2010

I don't want to imply that our beloved Fed Chairman is an incoherent boob, but...

...this is definitely not good:

Bernanke on 60 Minutes two days ago: "We're not printing money." Bernanke on 60 Minutes 21 months ago: "We're printing money."

Perhaps that incoherence can help explain this headline in today's Financial Times:

US Treasuries hit by biggest sell-off in two years


US Treasuries suffered their biggest two-day sell-off since the collapse of Lehman Brothers, following a torrid month that has seen borrowing costs for western governments soar...

...The yield on 10-year US Treasuries hit a six-month high of 3.33 per cent on Wednesday, up 0.39 percentage points from Monday and 1 percentage point higher than its October low. Japanese five-year yields also rose the most in two years, while Germany’s benchmark borrowing costs hit 3 per cent. “People are getting out of the market and moving to the sidelines, feeling shellshocked at the speed of the rise in yields,” said David Ader, strategist at CRT Capital... “Yields at this level are clearly unsustainable,” said Paul Marson, chief investment officer at Lombard Odier, the Swiss private bank.

There's that word again.

"Unsustainable".

It's used to describe everything the modern Democrat Party touches, from Social Security, to Medicare, to Medicaid, public sector union pensions, unemployment insurance, the Post Office and MSNBC's ratings.

In fact, the Democrats' track record of economic destruction is so egregious that their "base" has been whittled down to union bosses, illegal aliens, felons, the deceased in Cook County, and the editorial board of The New York Times.


Wednesday, December 08, 2010

One Chart To Rule Us All

Using data from the Office of Personnel Management, I generated the following graph that depicts the number of federal employees, year by year, since 1940. I purposely omitted the Department of Defense, which it turns out is actually a legitimate function of the federal government.

Some striking observations:

• The raw growth in bureaucrats during Barack Obama's first year in office appears to be the largest since WWII.

• How did we ever survive before the Department of Transportation was created in the sixties?

• Are there really 100,000 Agriculture Department employees and, if so, what the hell are they doing?

• It would appear that we now have about 175,000 Homeland Security employees, yet we can't seem to secure the border with Mexico.

• Is anyone else curious about the roughly 300,000 employees marked "Other"?

A federal employee, fully loaded, runs about $100,000 annually -- more in the DC area. In rough terms, every 100,000 federal bureaucrats excised from the federal trough would cut $100 billion annually from the deficit. As Martin Lawrence used to say: "get to steppin'".

It's time to slash and privatize large swaths of this unaccountable bureaucracy that grows uncontrollably in good times and bad.

President Obama Lambastes Democrats in Congress for Holding the "American People Hostage" to Tax Cuts for the Rich

In yesterday's press conference, President Obama showed flashes of anger -- not about terrorism, North Korea or unemployment, but about the halfhearted criticism he's receiving from the professional Left.

I've said before that I felt that the middle-class tax cuts were being held hostage to the high-end tax cuts. I think it's tempting not to negotiate with hostage-takers, unless the hostage gets harmed. Then people will question the wisdom of that strategy. In this case, the hostage was the American people and I was not willing to see them get harmed.

Because Democrats hold super-majorities in both houses of Congress, the hostage-takers he's describing must be members of his own party.

This is not a situation in which I have failed to persuade the American people of the rightness of our position. I know the polls. The polls are on our side on this. We weren't operating from a position of political weakness with respect to public opinion.

So why not pass whatever you want with your super-majorities?

Oh, and concerning the fact that he's been forced to "compromise" (as opposed to capitulate, which is what most Americans would prefer), Obama used the following analogy -- roughly equivalent to having Michael Moore serve as a spokesman for Weightwatchers.

This is why FDR, when he started Social Security, it only affected widows and orphans. You did not qualify. And yet now it is something that really helps a lot of people. When Medicare was started, it was a small program. It grew.

And now they're bankrupt. In 2008 the head of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas estimated Social Security's unfunded liability at $14 trillion and those of Medicare at $86 trillion.

And that was before the meltdown.

These unfunded liabilities must either be repaid or defaulted upon. This is the infernal choice that Democrats have laid at the feet of our children and grandchildren.

The longer we wait to act, the more disastrous the effects upon our nation.

And one other thought: everything the President has said and done in the last two-plus years has been wrong. Everything. Gird your loins.


Hat tip: Mark Levin.

Tuesday, December 07, 2010

Can You Spell 'Delusional'? Leftist Media Pillories President Obama For Not Being Sufficiently Marxist; Kucinich Could Challenge in Primary

It would appear that the man who nationalized two auto companies; took over the student loan business; rang up $3.5 trillion in new deficit spending; orchestrated socialized medicine; controls most of the financial sector; and will regulate school vending machines isn't sufficiently Statist for the Soros-Democrat Party. Oh, it's not just me saying that. It's the Soros-Democrats themselves:

• "On the way to a failed presidency?" (Washington Post)
On the way? Holy shnikeys.

• A comment at Paul Krugman's latest secretion -- recommended by 156 readers -- laments the lack of a tax hike and its author waxes poetic, albeit pathetically: "I wish Obama would resign, With me his departure'd be fine, To keep my comment terse, Biden couldn't be worse, And is likely to be less benign." Oh, my.

• Little Dick Durbin: "Dems could 'walk out' on tax-cut deal"

• World's Dumbest Blogger: "we’re ... already looking forward to the day when the hole in the budget blown by the Bush tax cuts becomes rhetorical justification for spending cuts that undue [sic] the stimulative impact of the good ideas in here"
Suddenly dumbs*** is worried about a "hole in the budget". The Democrat House under Speaker Pelosi has added $5 trillion in deficit spending over the last four years alone. How's that "stimulative impact" working out from those five trillion wasted dollars, dumbs***?

• And, predictably, the Kos Krackpots are freaking: "The progressive rebellion to the deal is spreading. You can join it by signing our petition in support of the rebels here.".
Help 'em out and sign the petition.

Okay, I just made up that part about Dennis Kucinich offering a primary challenge to President Obama.

But I do think that Dennis would make an awesome presidential candidate for the Democrats.


Sunday, December 05, 2010

Great News, Chicagoans: Your Democrat Leaders Just Voted to Raise Property Taxes 100%!

I love the smell of blue-on-blue civil warfare in the morning.

The Illinois Senate on Thursday approved police and firefighter pension legislation that Mayor Daley warned would blow a $550 million hole in the city budget, but the top Senate Democrat pledged to try softening that financial hit next month.

...the legislation requires a steep ramp-up in contributions to the funds starting in 2015 -- and it mandates those contributions be paid for by property taxes. Daley estimates that would require a $550 million property tax increase.

Minutes before the Senate's vote, Daley -- for the third straight day -- spoke out against the bill... To place the entire burden on Chicago property owners -- and mandate the largest property tax increase in the city's history -- would paralyze home sales, the mayor said.

"From today on, you won't be able to sell your house. . . . These taxes are gonna go up by 100 percent or more,' " Daley said.

The lame-duck mayor noted that pension fund contributions by city employees have been frozen for 34 years and that an increase in employee contributions is inevitable, no matter how hard union leaders try to stop it...

Aren't the public sector unions -- which completely control the modern Democrat Party -- fun?


Saturday, December 04, 2010

Delightful: White House Seeks to Shred More of the Constitution by Eradicating House of Representatives' Power of the Purse

Ed Morrissey finds the buried gem inside a staid Politico report on the U.S. budget.

The action came as the administration sent to the Capitol more than 50 funding adjustments it wants considered as part of what would be a stripped-down appropriations package for the remainder of the 2011 fiscal year ending Sept. 30.

Many agencies would be left frozen at their current spending levels, but the documents indicate the White House is seeking more than $11.4 billion in new spending above 2010, chiefly for foreign aid and defense accounts as well as education initiatives and housing assistance for low-income tenants. The administration also wants to a remarkably open-ended authority to transfer funds between accounts — a power that is sure to be resisted by the Appropriations Committee leadership.

This is what’s known as “burying the lead” in journalism. A Republican House will have the “power of the purse” to put an end to executive branch overreach — for instance, the efforts at the EPA to create carbon caps outside of Congressional authorization, the FCC’s attempts to regulate the Internet, and so on. That power is a key part of the checks and balances in federal government...

...[Obama knows] that Republicans plan on using the power of the purse to keep the Obama administration from abusing its power and making end-runs around the legislature. It all but demands a blank check from Congress as a budget plan and ends their ability to direct funding as it sees fit. It’s a carte blanche for runaway executive power.

Senate Republicans must pledge to filibuster any budget with that kind of authority built into it.

Can you imagine the reaction of the media and the Left (but I repeat myself) if George W. Bush had attempted such an extra-Constitutional maneuver?

Morrissey is absolutely right to state that "every member of Congress should protest this demand to surrender the Constitutional prerogative of budgeting and the check on power it represents. Otherwise, they will consign the people’s branch to a mere rubber stamp for executive whims."

The nation's highest law -- the Constitution -- is a mere inconvenience for the great Barack Obama and the the most radical Congress in American history.

Constitutional attorney Mark Levin once called the Obama White House "as close to a dictatorship as this country has ever seen". Every day and in every way, Alinsky's most celebrated acolyte seems determined to prove his detractors right.


Hat tip: Dan Riehl.

Curiously juxtaposed headlines o' the day

Both of these headlines appeared on the same page of USA Today (hard copy edition):

Deficit commission calls for big spending cuts


and:

$4.5B Nutrition bill would limit bake sales


Genius: the biggest spending administration in world history -- $1 trillion in "stimulus"; $500 billion in Omnibus spending; cash-for-clunkers, HAMP, Obamacare, regulating bake sales, doubling the size of the EPA so it can lock up our energy resources tighter and tighter -- needs to cut spending?

Gee, what gave it away?

And try as I might, whenever I contemplate the bumbling authoritarians running the modern Democrat Party, I keep picturing Hogan's Heroes. With Barney Frank as Sergeant Schultz. And Harry Reid as Colonel Klink.


Friday, December 03, 2010

"Hey kid, you got a license to run dis bake sale?"

The bankrupt federal government has decided to spend $4.5 billion regulating bake sales and high school football concession stands. Because, it would appear, there's nothing more urgent than issuing licenses to sell chocolate chip cookies.

[The bill] adds another 115,000 children to subsidized school food programs, and adds a whole new class of entitled student, the school “dinner” student. This means the government in some schools will be serving low-income kids breakfast, lunch and dinner (take this a few years down the road and who needs parents? Just leave your kids at the warehouse.)

--“the legislation would apply to all foods sold in schools during regular class hours, including in the cafeteria line, vending machines and at fundraisers. It wouldn't apply to after-hours events or concession stands at sports events. Public health groups pushed for the language on fundraisers, which encourages the secretary of Agriculture to allow them only if they are infrequent.”

To be a member of the modern Democrat Party, you have to be exceedingly stupid. The voters just kicked the crap out of Democrats at every level of government for precisely this unconstitutional insanity.

And while they're regulating bake sales, the economy is trembling as taxes on every American are poised to increase. But the lame duck Democrats can't trifle with those minor concerns: vending machines are killing kids. Killing kids, I say!