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

Saturday, February 05, 2011

Memo to House GOP: Obama's Disregard of Court Orders Offers Perfect Covering Fire for Massive Budget Cuts--Starting with Interior and HHS

Word around the Beltway has it that the GOP has drastically scaled back its proposed spending cuts, which have shriveled from $100 to $32 billion.

Republicans controlling the House are promising to wring $32 billion from the 2011 budget in their drive to bring domestic spending back to the levels in place before President Barack Obama took office... House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan announced the move as Republicans gird for their first exercise in cutting domestic agencies' budgets by almost 20 percent over the upcoming year.

The cuts would bring dramatic changes to agencies used to budget boosts during Obama's first two years in office. The White House has vowed to fight them.

Republicans made a campaign promise to cut $100 billion from Obama's request for domestic agencies, such as the Department of Education, for the budget year that began in October. But with the year already under way, they're falling short of that...

I can't believe -- after the massive, Tea Party-led insurrection at the polls -- that establishment Republicans would be this timid.

And for next year, the lawless Obama administration has provided ample rationale for for massive cuts: the out-of-control, unelected bureaucracies are defying court orders and threatening a constitutional crisis.

• First, HHS continues to implement a law which a federal court vaporized after finding it unconstitutional. Experts believe such an action is a felony, punishable by up to ten years in prison

• Second, the Department of the Interior was found in contempt of court on Wednesday by defying a judge's order to lift the oil drilling moratorium in the Gulf of Mexico

The Interior Department and HHS will find it much more difficult to wreak havoc on the American public when they have no money.

Dear House Republicans: grow a few sets and start grabbing the power voters delivered to you last November. The time for action is now. Make your case: the American people are behind you.


Friday, February 04, 2011

How dishonest is the 9.0% unemployment number? Let's put it this way: a polygraph would explode into 10,000 pieces of shrapnel

Tyler Durden analyzes the labor force dropout rate and comes up with the real unemployment rate:

12.8%.

Probably the last chart to bury any doubt about just how truly horrible today's employment data was, comes from a little observed data metric: that showing the number of people who are not in the labor force, but who want a job now...

...The number just hit 6,643K, a jump of 431K from December, and the highest number in history. These are people that would send the unemployment rate to about 12.8% if they were in the labor force (and, as indicated, looking for a job). Nothing else needs to be said.

Oh, as an aside, the labor force participation rate just plunged to a 26-year low.

At 64.2%, the labor force participation rate (as a percentage of the total civilian non-institutional population) is now at a fresh 26 year low, the lowest since March 1984, and is the only reason why the unemployment rate dropped to 9% (labor force declined from 153,690 to 153,186)...

Those not in the Labor Force has increased from 83.9 million to 86.2 million, or 2.2 million in one year! As for the numerator in the fraction, the number of unemployed, it has plunged from 15 million to 13.9 million in two months! The only reason for this is due to the increasing disenchantment of those who completely fall off the BLS rolls and no longer even try to look for a job. Lastly, we won't even show what the labor force is as a percentage of total population. It is a vertical plunge.

About two years ago, I described the destruction of the economy as intentional. At that time, folks didn't believe me.

Most have reconsidered.


Update: Underemployment is 19.2%.
Linked by: Michelle Malkin. Thanks!

Thursday, February 03, 2011

Thought Experiment: What Would Have Happened if President George W. Bush Had Blatantly Failed to Comply With Two Federal Court Orders

Imagine if President George W. Bush has defied not one -- but two -- distinct federal court orders. For example, say that a federal court ordered all terrorist wiretaps halted and Gitmo closed. And -- further -- imagine Bush openly defied the courts and continued the wiretaps and Gitmo interrogations anyhow.

Try to imagine the indignant screeds, the raw outpouring of leftist hatred and the immense pressure brought to bear against the White House by legacy media and their complicit drones on the left. Imagine the calls for impeachment, the comparisons to Nixon, the Bush-as-Nazi posters, the high-pitched shrieks by Maureen Dowd and Frank Rich, the hatred and vitriol, the burn-him-in-effigy marches and protests, and other unspeakable acts of, uhm, incivility.

In that light, please consider the following news stories.

Obama Invites Crisis If He Ignores Ruling:
The decision by federal judge Roger Vinson striking down President Obama's signature health care law effectively ends ObamaCare unless some higher court overturns it... Failure of the Obama administration to stop all activity related to the law that the federal court held to be unconstitutional would create a potential constitutional showdown between the two branches rarely seen in our nation's history. When coupled with the state's refusal to submit to federal regulations implementing a law that has been stripped from the books, our nation is looking at a potentially historic fight not only between branches of government but between the states and the federal government.

Back in the 1970s, it was openly asked what would happen if President Nixon simply refused to hand over the taped conversations from the Oval Office in spite of the demands of the federal courts. Of course, that speculation proved unnecessary as Nixon did turn over the tapes, and resigned from office.

...Ultimately, the rule of law must prevail in this instance. Unless and until Judge Vinson's decision is overturned by a higher court, the federal government must follow it... Failure to do so would unnecessarily throw our nation into its worst constitutional crisis since the Nixon impeachment.

There's the 'I-word' again. I'm hearing it more and more these days.

Judge holds Interior Dept. in contempt over ban:

The federal judge who struck down the Obama administration's moratorium on deepwater drilling after the Gulf oil spill held the Interior Department in contempt Wednesday, and ordered the federal agency to pay attorneys' fees for several offshore oil companies... U.S. District Judge Martin Feldman chided the department for its 'dismissive conduct' after he overturned the agency's decision to halt any new permits for deepwater projects and suspend drilling on 33 exploratory wells after the Deepwater Horizon blast...

Gee, I wonder whose money the Interior Department will use to pay those fines? And whether they care?

Put simply, Barack Obama is playing with fire: he is flirting with a true, Nixonian constitutional crisis in which the executive openly defies court orders by the judicial branch.

Contact your Representative in Congress now and demand that HHS Secretary Sebelius and Interior Secretary Salazar be subpoenaed post haste. Have Congress ask them whether they are complying with the courts and, if they are not, take every available legal action possible against them.


Monday, January 31, 2011

A Panoply of Headlines From the Collapsing Democrat Utopia of California

If Democrats weren't in power, they'd be useful only as comic relief. Consider this panoply of headlines from the last 24 hours that illustrate the complete and abject failure of the Democrat Party's brand of Statism. As an aside, reading these gives me a morbid sense of curiosity, kind of like when there's a wreck on the interstate and everyone slows down to check it out. Because that's what California is: a freaking wreck.

Moody’s begins treating pensions like bond debt - " A leading credit-rating agency, Moody’s, has begun treating unfunded pensions like bond debt, giving California a combined tax-supported debt of $136.9 billion that is well beyond other states but also may be understated... The decision to add pensions to bond debt announced by Moody’s Investors Services last week reflects concern about public employee pension costs, which are growing as state budgets plunge deep into the red..."

Well, that should help borrowing costs.

Pension tsunami has reached shoreline - "There is a scholarly consensus that governments in the U.S. face a $6 trillion shortfall in paying for their employees' retirements. A Stanford University study last year estimated California's potential pension liability makes up one sixth of the nationwide obligation, about $500 billion. That's six times the current state budget..."

Sounds reasonable -- if you spend like a drunken liberal.

California’s Pension Crisis Takes Another Step Toward Populist Revolt as Courts Refuse to Help - "one of the reasons runaway public employee pensions poses such a different problem is because California's courts have steadfastly undone voters’ efforts to make it easier. At least three provisions of the California Constitution, for example, make retroactive pension agreements void ab initio. Yet, the Second District Court of Appeal out of Los Angeles last week brushed aside each of these important citizen taxpayer protections to side instead with the public employee union... California taxpayers have done what they’re supposed to: they enshrined prohibitions in their state constitution to avoid amassing large public debts. It is instead our elected officials—such as Jerry Brown, who empowered public employees to unionize—and our judges who have failed our state. Indeed, despite recently proposing an aggressive budget, Governor Brown still refuses to go after low-hanging fruit when it comes to pension reform."

Stunner.

Fiscal crisis will hang over Brown's speech - "while those close to the governor expect him to at least touch on the need for pension reform - a rallying cry for Republicans - it's doubtful that he'll propose anything too detailed. Brown can't risk alienating the powerful public employee unions he needs to help persuade voters to extend tax increases on a June ballot, a key part of his budget proposal..."

Rock. Hard place.

CalPERS: the opposite of leadership - "The California Public Employees’ Retirement System faces legitimate criticism on many fronts – for a corruption scandal allegedly involving its former CEO and other top officials; for its role in promoting huge retroactive pension increases at all levels of government that are now proving to be unaffordable; for downplaying and obscuring its funding problems; and more... Yet calpensions.org reports that a recent CalPERS board retreat turned into a self-pity fest, with bitter complaints about the unfairness of media coverage of pension issues... CalPERS badly needs a reality check – and an attitude change."

Look up 'dysfunctional' in the dictionary and odds are you'll see a picture of Jerry Brown

Brian Calle nails it when he writes, "To curb union influence and prevent future pension outrages, state lawmakers should begin limiting the role of unions in collective bargaining; change the way unions can collect and spend member dues on political causes, and alter laws to make contract negotiations public. In Indiana, for example, Gov. Daniels decertified unions so they no longer can represent government workers in contract negotiations."

California's Governor Moonbeam is both a product and an enabler of the public sector unions, so it's highly unlikely he will confront the most powerful force in the state. That being the case, unless Brown can coax his pet unicorn into crapping some gold nuggets, events could get decidedly, uhm, dicey.


Hat tip: Pension Tsunami.

Sunday, January 30, 2011

The most frightening sentence you will read today

Consider this missive published in today's Toledo Blade:

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a Washington think tank, reported this month that states used $158 billion in stimulus funds to balance their budgets for the last three fiscal years, to end June 30.

In other words, a massive chunk of the Obama 'Stimulus' package was used to keep dues flowing into the coffers of the states' public sector unions.

Those dues, in turn, were contributed to the campaign funds of Democrats who had passed the Stimulus package.

A more nefarious and disgusting misuse of taxpayer funds you'd be hard-pressed to imagine.

Late in 2010 President Obama went on the record (with The New York Times no less), admitting that there's no such thing as a 'shovel-ready project'.

In short, Democrats allowed states to kick the can down the road rather than to begin the necessary, painful steps of reining in spending. And now the piper must be paid.

Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life -- but that is precisely how Democrats behave, no matter how much experience, history, logic, facts and reason tell them otherwise.


Saturday, January 29, 2011

Abusing the Children Americans Won't Abuse

The sheer madness of the Democrats' dystopian immigration policies was tragically illustrated last week in northern Virginia.

Salvador Portillo-Saravia, a member of the MS-13 street gang, was charged with raping an 8-year-old girl at her Fairfax County home last month. But he never should have been in Fairfax in the first place... Federal officials deported Portillo-Saravia, of Sterling, to El Salvador in 2003, and he sneaked back in illegally. Now, officials are wondering why a much-touted federal program didn't catch him before the rape...

...Four weeks before the crime, Portillo-Saravia was in the Loudoun County jail for public intoxication. That's when the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) program, called Secure Communities, should have identified him...

...ICE said Portillo-Saravia illegally entered the country in 2000. He was deported in October 2003 after what ICE called an encounter with the Prince William police gang unit. It is not known when he reentered the country, but reentry is a federal offense.

This nation's porous borders are a disgrace and a danger. The panderers in the Democrat Party could not care less about the safety of America's "middle class". They want Balkanization and they need the votes, illegal or not.

In California alone, the cost of educating, incarcerating and caring for illegals first surpassed $10 billion in 2004. Today the expenditure is well above that.

But those numbers don't reflect the human toll. Allowing anyone at all -- criminals and terrorists among them -- to walk into this country, without so much as a pat-down or a background check, is an affront to the notion of government.

Think about it. Protecting America's borders is the one damn thing that this federal government is supposed to do -- is constitutionally required to do -- yet it won't do it.

Just as with Iraq, Democrats are willing to play politics with the lives of Americans in the hopes of stealing more power.


It's Not Just Egypt: Japan Is Headed for the Brink

The headline sounds relatively innocuous: "Japan Credit Rating Cut by S&P on Absence of Strategy to Curb Debt Levels". However, the ramifications are anything but.

Japan’s credit rating was cut for the first time in nine years by Standard & Poor’s as persistent deflation and political gridlock undermine efforts to reduce a 943 trillion yen ($11 trillion) debt burden.

Azusa Kota, a Tokyo economist, hopes the flailing Japanese government gets the message, going on record with a dire warning: "...they have absolutely no sense of crisis. Once bond yields spike and the fire is lit, the amount needed to finance Japan’s borrowing needs is going to jump and it’s going to be too late."

Mike Shedlock describes the complications arising noiselessly, yet urgently, for the Japanese government.

The key to understanding the urgency now is the warning from Finance Minister Yoshihiko Noda that Japan's debt burden has risen to a point where Japan can’t rely on bond sales to cover revenue shortfalls...

Japan has reached the point where its [retiring] savers need to draw down their savings in retirement, and thus need to sell Japanese government bonds, not buy them...

...However, the Japanese government has squandered those savings (and 100% more of GDP as well) building bridges to nowhere [while] fighting deflation.

Nations often default on foreign debt, but this is debt the government owes the Japanese people...

...Should [their] interest rates rise to a mere 3% or so, interest on Japan's national debt will consume most of its revenue.

This mess shows the foolishness of using Keynesian and Monetarist stimulus to defeat deflation. [Ed: Yes, this means you, Paul Krugman, you liberal nutcase.] Neither worked...

...Now Japan is left with an enormous debt problem and no way to solve it.

So what's the concern for us? Why do I mention this troubling little incident in some far off corner of the world? I mention it because Japan is one of the United States' biggest bankers -- holding a huge chunk of our debt.

As our government attempts to "roll" its own debt (refinance our gargantuan loan obligations), it should become clear that some of our major, current holders of Treasuries -- Japan, Egypt, Ireland to name just a few -- will probably lack the necessary wherewithal or the appetite for risk to re-up.

Which, for those of you uninterested in economics, translates roughly to, "Oh, s***."


Friday, January 28, 2011

Where's the Damn Report Card?

You know how normal people get report cards in school to tell them how they're doing?

And professionals receive performance reviews?

How about Democrats? Do Democrats ever look back? Ever do any introspection?

How's FDR's Social Security program doing? On solid ground after being sold to the American people as insurance, but defended in the Supreme Court as a tax?

What happened to all of those trillions of dollars paid in by retirees? Could it be that Social Security is bankrupt and headed to collapse in just a couple of decades?

Oh, and I've been out of town. How did LBJ's "Great Society" work out? All of those housing projects and wealth transfers? Did that "War on Poverty" succeed?

And how's 'Chain Migration' doing? Letting illegals stream over the border, give birth and claim citizenship? That working out well? All that Balkanization of large swaths of the United States? Going swimmingly?

And Medicare? You know, the medical program that is hemorrhaging $100 billion a year in fraud alone? How's that Medicare 'trust fund' working out? Going well?

And the Democrats' incessant push to lower eligibility for welfare payments, food stamps and tax credits? Is that cutting down on single-parent families and inner-city blight?

Oh -- and how's that Post Office thingy doing? Making lots of money? The paragon of efficiency?

What about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac? How'd those 'job shops for connected Democrats' turn out? Those help the economy?

Anyone know what ever happened with the SEC? They still protecting investors from crooks like Bernie Madoff and Allen Stanford? Keeping folks safe from AIG and Enron?

* * * * * * * * *

Before they embark on brand new social engineering programs like Obamacare, couldn't we grade the Democrats' performance on their existing programs? Issue a report card before they nationalize even more sectors of the economy?

Couldn't we evaluate what's in place now? Before implementing a trillion-dollar "Stimulus" program, Cap-and-Trade, socialized medicine, a 2400-page "financial overhaul", and "comprehensive immigration reform"?

No. Democrats never look back. Never learn from failure. Never educate themselves. Because their ideology trumps history, facts, logic and reason. Which is why we must defeat them in 2012. Before it's too late.
 

Thursday, January 27, 2011

C'mon, Speaker Boehner: Gird Your Loins and Tell the Truth to the American People--Of Course the Damn Retirement Age Needs to Be Raised

Everyone knows it, Speaker Boehner. So don't be a Sputnik -- just say so.

House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said he "made a mistake" when he suggested raising the retirement age to 70 last year... The Speaker indicated he was premature in suggesting raising the legal age at which retirees are eligible for full Social Security benefits, since he didn't want to pre-judge a debate over how to fix the entitlement program. He said he wouldn't rule out raising the retirement age, however.

...His comments walk back remarks from late June, when he said the retirement age would eventually need to be raised by five years, from 65 to 70.

...Democrats, for their part, have seized on those fears and sought to use them to their political advantage. They accused Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), who delivered the official Republican response to Obama, of wanting to do away with Social Security...

Hey, schmucks: you've already destroyed Social Security, according to the CBO.

It's already running a deficit and is slated to run dry way ahead of schedule. You created this monstrosity -- and you destroyed it. So be proud, Democrats! Take credit for the havoc you've wrought!

...Fueling the new worry is a report this week from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office that suggests Social Security may be more of a drain on scarce resources - or in need of strengthening - than had been thought previously... The CBO said that if interest were excluded, the system would run a deficit of $45 billion this year and a total of $547 billion from 2012 to 2021.

Outlays for Social Security, the CBO said, will hit $727 billion this year, 4.8 percent of the gross domestic product. In 10 years, as baby boomers retire in big numbers and benefits increase, the CBO estimates those expenses will reach $1.3 trillion, 5.3 percent of the GDP.

In other words, the program could be a drain on an already-strained federal system, so the Capitol buzz is this: Something has to be done. But it's difficult: About 53 million people got Social Security benefits last year, and the CBO estimates that will grow to 71 million by 2021.

You read that right. Social Security is headed right into the tarmac -- the way all Democrat social engineering efforts do.

Is that so difficult to fix? Of course not.

Washington indexes all kinds of entitlement payments to inflation. Gee, brainstorm! How about we index retirement to average life expectancy?

C'mon, Speaker Boehner. The American people aren't idiots. They respect politicians who tell the truth. So tell the damn truth and be proud of telling it. Stop playing Beltway politics as usual. The stakes are way too high to dissemble. Leave that up to the Soros-controlled Democrat Party.


Kudos to Senators Cornyn and Hatch: Propose Amendment Tying Spending Cap and Balanced Budget to Lifting Debt Ceiling

I'm warning you right now to prepare yourself for the propaganda. Legacy media will do anything -- anything -- to promote the notion that a failure to meekly raise the debt ceiling would result in utter disaster. Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together... mass hysteria! Hell, based on the track record, some CBS anchor could very well go out and cap some homeless person if that would help sway public opinion.

So I have to extend my congratulations to Senators Orrin Hatch and John Cornyn -- both of whom I've leveled plenty of criticism at in the past -- for their negotiation tactics.

Sens. Orrin Hatch (R., Utah) and John Cornyn (R., Texas) are pushing for a balanced-budget amendment as part of any negotiations to raise the federal debt ceiling... Their proposal has gained support within the Republican caucus, but Senate Democrats have not yet signaled they would include it in any package that raises the debt ceiling above the $14.3 trillion level set by Congress last year. The Obama administration has said the U.S. could hit the $14.3 trillion debt level as soon as March 31, and they are pushing Congress to raise the limit soon. As of Friday, federal debt subject to the limit stood at $14.008 trillion.

The Hatch/Cornyn plan would, among other things, mandate total budgetary outlays for any fiscal year not exceed revenues; cap federal spending at 20% of GDP; [and] prohibit revenue raising moves that aren’t approved by two-thirds of the House and Senate. ... The House and Senate would have to sign off on any exemptions, with a two-thirds vote. Provisions could also be waived if there is a formal declaration of war or because of national security concerns.

Call your representatives and tell them you support this measure: No more blank checks.

This. Is. Sparta!


Hat tip: Mark Levin.

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Orange County Register: 'Jerry Brown is Doomed'

California Governor Jerry Brown -- both a product and an enabler of the state's powerful public sector union caucus -- is caught between a rock and a hard place. The Orange County Register's Shawn Steel explains:

Jerry Brown is doomed. That's one way to read his new state budget, which seeks to eliminate the $25 billion deficit with equal parts spending cuts (primarily to social services) and tax increases. The new governor wants voters to re-impose the 2009 tax hikes on themselves for another five years – the same taxes they overwhelmingly refused to extend for two years. Mindful of that outcome, Brown has embraced blackmail: Renew the tax hikes or school spending will be slashed.

Brown's budget is a doomed half-measure that confirms he is a conventional liberal. The spending cuts are significant but insufficient, and in the unlikely event voters renew the tax hikes, the damage to our anemic economy virtually guarantees the promised revenue won't materialize.

A recent study of how governments cope with deep deficits and debt found those that successfully restored fiscal order employed budget solutions consisting, on average, of 85 percent spending cuts (including 22 percent cut from government wages and salaries). The typical failed solutions [Ed.: i.e., the typical Democrat solutions] relied on equal parts tax hikes and spending cuts – Jerry Brown's formula.

Most revealing is what the new budget plan doesn't do: tackle the pension time bomb and the bloated state payroll. Given the magnitude of our chronic deficits, the state payroll should be rolled back at least to 2000 levels, yet Brown's budget [does little].

Why target welfare recipients instead of state employees? Because welfare recipients don't have a union. Public employee unions spent $40 million on Brown's behalf, and they expect a return on their investment. On his first day in office, Brown replaced seven pro-charter-school reformers on the state Board of Education with status quo educrats – including the lobbyist for the state teachers union. [Ed.: But remember: it's all about the children with Democrats. They care. Deeply]

The hard truth is: Restoring California's fiscal health requires dramatically downsizing the number of state employees and their unsustainable pensions and benefits. That would require Jerry Brown turning on the public employee unions that elected him – an act of [unprecedented] political audacity...

...We're just entering what the rest of country went through in 2009-10: an era of complete liberal Democratic dominance. There were no Republican fingerprints on President Barack Obama's Great Leap Leftward, and American voters responded by handing the GOP historically huge gains... Granted, Brown took office amidst a mess – but one in large measure the handiwork of the government unions that put him in office...

...His budget plan doesn't go far enough to stop California's slouch to insolvency. The further cuts will send union members into the streets, earning Brown their hostility but with not offsetting credit with voters. Jerry Brown will never be re-elected if he allows California to become even a shadow of Greece. He is doomed unless he breaks the power of the government unions.

I predict that Brown doesn't have the spine to buck the unions.

No Democrat does. The unions, along with trial lawyers, illegal immigrants and the dead are their most important constituencies.

Just imagine how many union members would vote Democrat after getting hosed by Brown?

No, my prediction is simple: civil unrest and chaos in California. I would hate to see it, but can't envision another way out.

And isn't that how all socialist systems end -- in utter collapse? You know, the line about at some point, you run out of other people's money?

As an aside: when we build a border fence after booting 44 out of office, can we also build one around California?


Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Democrat Governors Turn Teabagger

Isn't it curious how -- after all of their social engineering programs and union payoffs have collapsed into bankruptcy -- Democrats at the state level have begun to wake up, sounding a lot like members of the Tea Party? Exhibit A: New York Governor Andrew Cuomo:

This is a time of crisis for our state... We have the worst business tax climate in the nation, period. Our taxes are 66% higher than the national average... The State of New York spends too much money, it is that blunt and it is that simple...

...most damaging, our expenses in this state far exceed revenue [and this year we face a] very large deficit about $10 billion ... Next year, the problem goes to $14 billion. The year after, the deficit goes to $17 billion...

...We spend more money on education than any state in the nation and we are number 34 in terms of results. We spend more money on Medicaid than any other state in the nation and we are number 21 in results. We spend about $1.6 billion per year in economic development and we are number 50 in terms of results... We now have more than 600 Executive branch agencies.

...We have to hold the line on taxes for now and reduce taxes in the future. New York has no future as the tax capital of the nation. Our young people will not stay. Our business will not come...

Andrew Cuomo is a true far Left progressive. Yet even he has given up on the progressive agenda. California's Jerry Brown, himself such a radical progressive that his nickname is 'Moonbeam', is now recommending $12.5 billion in spending cuts next year (hint: it's not nearly enough).

Yet still Barack Obama refuses to cut. He organized a deficit commission and then promptly ignored its recommendations. The country is monetizing its own debt at a frightening clip, yet Obama's spending agenda persists. Republicans proposed a return to 2006 spending levels -- and Obama can't find anything to cut, despite adding $5.2 trillion in new deficits since Democrats took control of the purse-strings.

Even the hard-core Leftists in power -- like Cuomo and Brown -- have given up on their failed and unsustainable social engineering programs. All of them are cutting spending, enacting austerity measures, and trying to wrestle deficits to the ground.

All of them that is, except for President Obama, who seems bound and determined to Cloward-Pivenize the United States.


Monday, January 24, 2011

Wow: Non-Partisan Insurance Magazine Demolishes Liberals' Argument That Obamacare 'Isn't a Takeover of the Health Care Industry'

Insurance & Financial Advisor Magazine isn't exactly a venue for political opinion pieces. But the incessant march of the Statist Democrats is changing the status quo. As more areas of the private sector are regulated, constricted and absorbed into the leviathan known as the federal bureaucracy, industries are pushing back through political activism. In that vein, please consider the unassailable logic of "Health reform is takeover, ‘social engineering by federal government’".

Please read the following statements below and decide for yourself whether or not the Patient Protection Affordable Care Act is a federal takeover of our healthcare system.

• The McCarran-Ferguson Act passed in the 1940s said that states regulate insurance. Now the federal government regulates health insurance or tells the states how they will regulate health insurance.
• The U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) now gets to review any health insurance price increase more than 10%, according to its Dec. 21, 2010, statement, something formally reserved for the state insurance departments.
• Any health insurance plan that is not grandfathered (in place before March 23, 2010, without any reductions in benefits) must provide first-dollar payment by an insurance company for preventive care services as defined by an HHS committee.
• The states used to have the power to decide what minimum benefits a plan would have. By 2014, HHS will decide what coverage is included for all plans.
• Until faced with tremendous public pressure and forced to reverse itself, HHS even said that a business which did not reduce benefits and simply changed insurance companies to get a better deal would lose its grandfather status and have to include all the new benefits and resulting increases in premiums.
• The new law dictates how much an insurance company can have to pay its bills, pay for marketing, employee salaries, utilities, investments, etc. Although the goal is to have the lion’s share go toward medical claims, its consequence will be to drive smaller companies out of the market altogether because they may not be able to make this government-dictated arbitrary level. If the federal government dictates what a private sector insurance company spends premiums on, is that not control?
• A federal requirement that everyone have health insurance or pay a fine sounds like a takeover. A federal requirement that businesses over a certain size have to offer health insurance or pay a minimal fine sounds like the government wants businesses to stop offering health insurance to employees and instead put them into the new government-sanctioned health insurance exchanges, where people can compare prices and buy coverage. The nice tax credits to help individuals purchase insurance is only available if the insurance is in the exchange and private-sector companies outside of the exchange are frozen out of offering the subsidies.
• A good example of this slippery slope toward government taking over health care is found with the much-touted small business health insurance premium tax credits, which will only be eligible for businesses giving up the private sector for the government-run exchanges in 2014.

In this legislation of over 2,000 pages, there are numerous other examples of the federal government showing a bias against the private sector and for its own control over health care but these examples of health insurance takeover/control serve to get the point across.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is social engineering by a federal government that believes that it must control health care and health insurance.

Which is a more, ahem, civil way of saying that the PPACA is a ginormous cluster***.


Sunday, January 23, 2011

The Atlantic asks the question no one else is stupid enough to ask: Will the coal-powered Chevy Volt help reduce global warming?

How many epic fails can you count in this hilarious snippet by The Atlantic's Christine Russell?

Transportation accounts for a big chunk of all U.S. greenhouse gas emissions today -- more than one-fourth of the total... [A Pew] report notes that "electricity has recently reappeared as a strong contender, thanks to the development of lithium-ion batteries and plug-in electric hybrid vehicles" with electric ranges of up to 40 miles that can then shift to gasoline operation when the battery runs out...

...[Electric cars like the Chevy Volt] are on the cutting edge of several promising new clean car and truck technologies with the potential to substantially reduce oil consumption, drive down air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, and help curb climate change in the decades to come

Really? Really? Let's ignore -- for a moment -- the fact that "global warming" is a bonafide scam that is collapsing as we speak... to the point that even editorial boards in California are demanding federal investigations. Let's ignore all that.

Let's instead just consider where electric power comes from:

Coal, natural gas and nuclear are -- by far -- the dominant sources of electricity in this country and will be for decades. For all intents and purposes, the Volt is powered by... coal.

Sounds... green.

And consider some of the minor inconveniences you'll encounter if you have the coin to pony up for the $41,000 Obamamobile:

• It takes ten (10) hours to charge

• It can travel a whopping 35 miles on a charge (at which point the, uhm, gas engine kicks in)

• And you're paying for the Volt's production through a $7,500 "tax credit" for each car sold that is offered by the Obama administration

Now when Chevy Volt sales fail to materialize -- except as a novelty item and a must-have fashion accoutrement for wealthy moonbats -- the Obama administration will blame everyone and everything up to and including Sarah Palin and Fox News.

But it will simply be another in a series of predictable disasters orchestrated by the Democrats' infernal, Soviet-style central planning mentality.


Great News: Feds Will Open Billion-Dollar Drug Development Center Because Pharma Companies Are Under-Regulated or Something

Having thrown bibles of regulation at the pharmaceutical industry, the Obama administration is upset that new drug development has slowed. It has therefore decided to create a -- wait for it... -- government-run drug development center.

The Obama administration has become so concerned about the slowing pace of new drugs coming out of the pharmaceutical industry that officials have decided to start a billion-dollar government drug development center to help create medicines.

The new effort comes as many large drugmakers, unable to find enough new drugs, are paring back research. Promising discoveries in such illnesses as depression and Parkinson's that once would have led to clinical trials are instead going unexplored because companies have neither the will nor the resources to undertake the effort. Drug companies have typically spent twice as much on marketing as on research, a business model that is increasingly suspect.

The initial financing of the government's new drug center is small compared with the $45.8 billion that the industry estimates it invested in research in 2009. The cost of bringing a single drug to market can exceed $1 billion, according to some estimates...

Gee, I wonder why "companies have neither the will nor the resources to undertake the effort" to explore new drugs?

Could it be because the FDA, which is busy regulating everything from toothbrushes to advertisements to aspirin, created one of the most complex approval processes imaginable? Or, as Health Affairs Magazine describes it:

[The] U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) drug review bears a structural similarity to many decisions made by other regulatory agencies: high uncertainty, low reversibility, avoidance of observable error, and high political stakes that induce lobbying by interested parties...

...The marketplace for pharmaceuticals is one of the most highly regulated industries in the U.S. economy... The agency’s drug review decisions are essentially final (contesting them is extremely difficult and costly) and immensely consequential (regulators in other nations frequently cue off of the FDA’s decisions). If the FDA so chooses, it can materially impede the flow of new products to the pharmaceutical marketplace, or it can help accelerate that flow.

Which tells you why the feds are now trying to nationalize pharmaceutical R&D: having strangled drugmakers with regulations, they complain the drugmakers aren't innovating fast enough. And, therefore, the taxpayers must fund a Politburo-style research center to create new drugs faster.

This should sound familiar if you grew up in the old Soviet Union.


Obama's State of the Union: If There's Anything We Learned From the Last 2 Years, It's That We Know How to Spend Your Money Better Than You Do

Well, this certainly seems so... centrist and... civil:

President Barack Obama will call for new government spending on infrastructure, education and research in his State of the Union address Tuesday, sharpening his response to Republicans in Congress who are demanding deep budget cuts, people familiar with the speech said.

Mr. Obama will argue that the U.S., even while trying to reduce its budget deficit, must make targeted investments to foster job growth and boost U.S. competitiveness in the world economy. The new spending could include initiatives aimed at building the renewable-energy sector—which received billions of dollars in stimulus funding—and rebuilding roads to improve transportation, people familiar with the matter said.

It should be apparent to everyone -- from the hard-to-educate Frums and Noonans of the world to legacy media -- that the Emperor truly has no clothes.

After all, the President and his sycophants in Congress have a perfect track record when it comes to centrally planning the economy.

 FAIL: The "Cash-for-Clunkers" program cost taxpayers between $20,000 and $45,000 per vehicle purchased.

 FAIL: The "Stimulus" program, which cost $787 billion and was rammed through Congress using the premise that, without it, unemployment would not pass 8%, has resulted in persistent 10% unemployment and 17% "under-employment" (U-6). And the tab will be paid for by your children and grandchildren.

 FAIL: The $60 billion bailout of GM and Chrysler -- abrogating bankruptcy law with payoffs to various union bosses -- is an utter and complete failure. The businesses are unsustainable without a massive restructuring, including dramatically retooling union contracts.

 FAIL: HAMP and other centrally planned "housing recovery" programs have worsened the housing market to the point that the current downturn represents the worst in all of American history -- even worse than the Great Depression.

 FAIL: "Green jobs" in the form of weatherization programs that have been utter, cash-burning frauds and failures. A series of spot-check audits of the $5 billion program indicates that fraud is rampant -- easily 20% can be chalked up to phantom services, blatant overspending on simple items, and unverifiable expenses. But not to worry -- it's only a billion dollars of wasted money, a pittance for this administration.

 FAIL: The bailout of AIG, orchestrated by the then-head of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (FRBNY) Timothy F. Geithner, "wasted billions" of taxpayer money according to the inspector generator of the TARP program. The initial $85 billion rescue failed, forcing the Fed to pay above-market for the swaps it acquired. The result? "There is no question that the effect of the FRBNY's decision - indeed, the very design of the federal assistance to AIG - was that tens of billions of dollars of government money was funneled inexorably and directly to AIG's counterparties," according to the inspector general. In fact, the terms of the plan were so flawed that the Treasury Department had to dole out an additional $40 billion to AIG just weeks later. For his part in the debacle, FRBNY chairman Geithner was rewarded with a Secretary of the Treasury role by President Obama.

These are the economic qualifications of the very same masterminds who are in the process of nationalizing the health care sector.

It's time to turn the bums out -- and let's be quite uncivil about it.


Saturday, January 22, 2011

Map o' the Day: Matching U.S. States to Countries Based on GDP

Jeff Carter, writing at Points and Figures.

A bit of a tangent. For those of you that are depressed because you feel China is going to take the US over by pure economic force, have a look at the map from The Economist below.

The American economy is still the most robust and energetic economy in the world. If we support and create entrepreneurs, we will stay there. China eventually may have a bigger economy simply by virtue of more population. The critical thing is that America needs to be the place where innovation happens. Generation Y can do that with the correct support.

In summary, we have to create smaller more efficient government. Government has to do more with less. We need to invest in smart infrastructure and rethink how we retool our existing metropolitan areas. We need to invest in better, less government controlled, educational systems for our kids, and support entrepreneurship to grow.

If we don’t, in no time we will look like the quasi-socialist societies of Western Europe. Stagnant, with only memories of what it once was, and visions of what it could be.

Liberalism is Immoral [Mark Levin]

Cub Reporter Biff Spackle transcribed this soliloquy by one of our national treasures, Mark Levin.

My proposition is that liberalism -- or Statism -- is inherently immoral.

It is inherently immoral. Any philosophy that has, at its core, the belief that thievery is a virtue -- is immoral.

If you steal from a bank, that is, you rob a bank but you intend to use that money to feed the homeless -- the act of robbing is still immoral. You've taken somebody else's money. Perhaps taken it from people of modest means to advance a belief that you have.

A liberal may be moral in his or her own life, of course. They may be honorable and ethical in all they do personally, of course.

But then to support a political philosophy that seeks to do that which is immoral when done outside the realm of government -- that is, stealing -- then what is that?

How can that be moral?

To vote to put people in office who campaign on stealing -- who campaign on stealing -- to oversee such an agenda, which promotes a fundamental power-grab, to confiscate somebody else's property and to assign to some other use, is that not an immoral act? Whatever that use may be?

I'm not done: Liberalism is inherently immoral.

When you run up deficits -- and I don't just mean Democrats, liberal Republicans too -- when you run up deficits that are so massive, that you create a crisis and that crisis gets worse and worse and could destabilize our society someday soon... and could destroy the opportunities for our children and our grandchildren one day, is that moral?

No, that's immoral.

If you keep telling people that pay into Social Security that they're paying into a non-existent trust fund, and if you keep voting time and time again to use the money that's supposed to be put aside for Social Security to pay for every-expanding programs and spending for other things... then is not the act of lying -- not just lying once, but lying repeatedly, lying as a matter of philosophy, is that not immoral?

Yes, it's immoral.

Liberalism is inherently immoral. And there's no getting around it.

You can hear this debate around Obamacare. Look at the statistics that have been knowingly used to promote a lie: that adding 30 million more people to health care, massively increasing the federal government's role, massively increasing subsidies, will cut the deficit?

That's a lie. And it's immoral. And it's immoral to keep saying it.

Yet that's what liberals are doing.


Illinois: Still Circling the Drain Despite Massive Tax Hikes

The deep blue state of Illinois looks to get bluer over the coming months. Business owners are facing a 30 percent increase in corporate tax rates while individuals get socked with a 66% hike. Yet even those hefty increases aren't enough.

The Illinois Statehouse News reports that "the state's stack of unpaid bills will soon double despite an income tax increase." The state comptroller is now working on paying last August's bills and says that the current $6 billion backlog will probably double in four years.

The Chicago Tribune notes that the state corporate income tax hikes will slam firms headquartered in the state hardest. An Illinois medical device firm is typical of many small businesses: it only became profitable in 2008 and its tax bill will go from zero to nearly $100,000 -- forcing it to defer the hiring of two R&D employees. Caterpillar says that it will pay an additional $42 million to the state, which will prevent it from aggressive hiring as well.

The Belleville News Democrat relays the rage of the owner of a 100-year old Illinois trucking company who says, "...'it's ridculous. We will try to move whatever business we can out of this state. It's one of the worst states there is to do business."

Sunday's Trib will also report just how well the pols take care of the taxpayers' funds. In the midst of the worst budget crisis in history, the newspaper discovered that a state program helped deliver $8 million to a Chicago meat-packing company -- which promptly went bankrupt, leaving $9.5 million in unpaid bills.

After finding out about the massive new tax hikes in Illinois, Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels quipped, "You guys are nothing if not entertaining over there. It’s like living next door to 'the Simpsons' – the dysfunctional family down the block."

An Illinois Manufacturers’ Association executive said, "... the only businesses that will benefit are the moving companies that will be helping many of my members move out of this particular state."

* * * * * * * * *

The only way Illinois can begin to repair the damage inflicted upon its taxpayers is to decertify all public sector unions, renegotiate labor contracts and slash pension payments.

But don't hold your breath. The nefarious alliance of Democrat pols and union bosses remains in power. Until the good people of Illinois realize just how much trouble they're in (hint: 'Iceberg, dead ahead!'), the state will continue to unravel. Just how far it will unwind is anyone's guess. But if history is a guide, the end will come quickly and catch many innocents by surprise.


Friday, January 21, 2011

Illinois: It's the New Detroit

Runner-up headline: Oops! Economist Says That Massive Tax Hikes in Illinois Aren't Enough to Close Deficit, But Will Cause People, Businesses to Flee

Illinois. It's the new Detroit.

...Illinois has a $15 billion budget deficit that analysts suggest is leading the state into insolvency. In addition, the state owes $8 billion to vendors and has $78 billion in underfunded pension liabilities.

This is a problem, says David Merriman, a professor of public administration at the University of Illinois at Chicago and coauthor of a 2011 study examining Illinois’ budget crisis.

He says Illinois is in a precarious situation because the current tax rates are not enough to lower its deficit in a significant way, and the package approved Wednesday does not include enough safeguards to ensure that spending caps have integrity.

The founder of Jimmy John's Gourmet Sandwiches says he and his family are leaving -- and his company may be following closely on their heels.

The founder of Jimmy John's Gourmet Sandwiches is considering moving the chain's headquarters out of Illinois... Jimmy John Liautaud told the News-Gazette newspaper in Champaign, where the company is headquartered, that he's angry the corporate tax rate is being increased to 9.5% from 7.3% and individual taxes to 5% from 3%.

...Jimmy John's has more than 1,000 sandwich shops nationwide, many of them franchise operations, and employs 100 workers at its headquarters... "All they do is stick it to us," he told the paper, adding that the General Assembly and Gov. Pat Quinn showed "a clear lack of understanding."

Chicago Now asks an intriguing question:

Did Governor Pat Quinn trade an $86,000.00 job for a "yes" vote on the tax increase?

It's good to see old school Democratic party politics back at work in Springfield... [as] Governor Quinn appointed Carenne Gordon a member of the Illinois Prisoner Review Board. Carenne Gordon was a Democratic state representative from Morris, who lost her November re-election bid. After her term ended Wednesday, Governor Quinn appointed Gordon to the Illinois Prisoner Review Board, earning $86,000.00 annually.

Gordon was given this job after she was one of the 60 legislators who voted for the 66% tax increase [in the lame duck session] demanded by her new employer, Governor Quinn. It took 60 votes to pass the measure; without Gordon's vote, the tax hike would not have passed.

Of course there is no connection, the Governor's office claims. It just seems like the same old tricks that everyone accused Rod Blagojevich of doing are still being done by another governor. Pay to play politics is still alive and well in Illinois. We pay- $1,000.00 more in taxes for a household earning $50,000.00 annually- while they play. An $86,000.00 job given to a representative who lost re-election. But on her way out the door, she is the last yes vote for Governor Quinn's income tax increase.

A few years from now, when Illinois resembles Detroit, let's remember to thank the Democrat Party for another success story.