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

Thursday, March 01, 2012

7 Obamanomics Charts That Legacy Media Won't Show You

Earlier today, James Pethokoukis, the nation's premier economic reporter, published "The economic case against Obamanomics in 13 charts."

The seven most shocking, in my opinion, are the following:

...The actual share of the the population with a job has collapsed and remains low.


... The size of the U.S. labor force has also collapsed, partly due to discouraged Americans giving up looking for a job...


...Those without a job have been without a job for a long, long, long time...


This recovery has lagged others in terms of economic output or GDP growth (via the Minneapolis Fed)...


The result of the weak recovery is a huge gap between where the economy should be, in terms of growth, and where it is...


The slow, anemic recovery has contributed to keeping the housing market in a depressed state...


The White House itself admits that its new budget plan would keep the national debt on a dangerous and unsustainable trajectory (source: The White House)...


The next time I get a "Stimulus Package", I want the Democrats to buy me flowers first.


Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Shhh... no one tell the idiot legislators in California: job growth 52% higher in states with low business taxes

Governor Moonbeam hardest hit.

An executive looking for a place to locate his company might do well to consider Wyoming. That state is the most business-friendly in the country, at least when it comes to taxes, according to a new study.

The study, released by the Tax Foundation on Wednesday, found that when all the taxes businesses pay are factored in, Wyoming's rate is less than half the national average. The state is one of three — Nevada and South Dakota are the others — that doesn't have a corporate income tax.

Pennsylvania, meanwhile, wins the dubious distinction of imposing the heaviest tax burden on its businesses, with an overall effective rate that's 45% above the national average.

The study, titled "Location Matters," looked at a range of business taxes — corporate income, sales, property, unemployment, gross receipts and others. The accounting firm KPMG collaborated on the report with the Tax Foundation.

Among the most-populated states, California ranked 34th, Texas 12th, New York 42nd, Florida 19th, and Illinois came in 45th. Ohio, which came in 5th, imposes a low-rate gross receipts tax instead of a corporate income tax...

...A separate analysis by IBD found that states imposing the lowest tax rates on both new and existing businesses produced more jobs during the economic recovery than those states with the highest tax burdens.

You mean stealing more money from businesses -- to fund a bloated, unaccountable public sector -- leaves companies with less money to hire workers?

Gee, that logic is sooo difficult to comprehend. That is, if you're a Democrat or an idiot. But I repeat myself.


The curious case of the missing $800 billion

James Pethokoukis points us to an astounding observation by economist Mike Darda of MKM Partners:

Wages and salaries advanced at a 5.4% annualized rate after rising at a 6.5% rate in Q3. After adjusting for prices, real wage and salary income rose 4.5% A.R. in Q4 after a 3.9% annualized rise in Q3. Real wages and salaries are up 3% y/y, the fastest annual rate of increase since 3Q07...

Unfortunately, due to the depth of the 2007-2009 recession, wage and salary income is still 11% below its pre-crisis trend. This fact is reflected in the still-low employment/population ratio for prime age adults (25-54) and the still-high level of underemployment and near-record level of long-term unemployment. So, while the recent data are encouraging, there is a long way to go.

Pethokoukis adds: "Fun coincidence: The missing wage and salary income, $800 billion, is about the same as the cost of the Obama stimulus."


Monday, February 27, 2012

It's for the children: Nevada teachers union bosses hit the taxpayer-funded jackpot

Reason number 40 jazillion that collective bargaining must be banned.

In Las Vegas, you don’t have to be a gambling addict to strike it rich. In fact, you only need to become a union boss and the odds are, you too can be a ‘one percenter.’

According to the Las Vegas Review-Journal [emphasis added]:

In 2009, the last year for which a required Internal Revenue Service report is available, more than a third of the union’s $4.1 million budget went to pay just nine leaders. Each earned between $139,785 and $208,683 for a total of $1.5 million, according to the Clark County Education Association’s report to the IRS.

John Jasonek, then executive director, got $208,683 for running the union but also received $423,863 from two affiliated organizations — the union’s Community Foundation and Center for Teaching Excellence — making his total pay $632,546.

In addition, union-created Teachers Health Trust CEO Peter Alpert was paid $546,133.

Unfortunately, unlike the one-armed bandits that line the Vegas Strip, becoming rich as a union boss is a little less random. [Hint: Knowing someone helps.]

Hey, the taxpayers, they gots plenty o' dough, right?

They'se never gonna miss it!

And it's for the kids, see?


Cartoon by: A. F. Branco.

Confirmed: Obama Slashes Health Care Funding for Seniors and the Military; Spigot to Public Sector Unions Still Wide Open

Of course, members of the armed forces and senior citizens aren't required to contribute to a proxy for the Democrat Party, but I'm sure that's just coincidental:

Exhibit A - Tricare costs would jump in budget plan:

Pentagon officials will continue pressing in 2013 for significantly higher Tricare fees for military retirees, including older retirees covered by Tricare for Life, as well as higher drug co-pays for all Tricare beneficiaries.

The Defense Department’s proposed 2013 budget calls for annual enrollment fees for retirees in Tricare Prime to rise next year by 30 percent to 78 percent... depending on military retirement income.

Exhibit B - Paul Ryan: Obamacare is Real Medicare Killer:

House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan says contrary to what Democrats are saying, it is Obamacare — not his budget plan — that will kill Medicare... “Obamacare kills Medicare as we know it,” Ryan said. "Obamacare raids $500 billion from Medicare to spend on Obamacare, puts in place a [15-member] board to ration Medicare."

Exhibit C - Obama’s budget calls for federal pay raises; workforce size stays flat:

President Obama wants to give raises to people collecting federal paychecks... The White House budget plan released Monday would increase federal civilian pay by a modest 0.5 percent... The budget proposal also projects that federal employment levels will remain essentially flat in fiscal 2013, growing by 0.1 percent, or 2,400 employees, to 2.1 million from the 2012 estimated level.

Exhibit D - Obama budget slashes military spending, sends 'savings' to domestic agenda:

President Obama sent an annual budget request to Capitol Hill today that does little to reduce the deficit but dramatically cuts military spending anyway. Even though last year’s debt ceiling deal was supposedly agreed to in order to reduce America’s crushing debt burden, Obama is apparently planning to use half of the cuts in war spending to “help finance a major six-year, 50 percent increase in transportation spending.”

Defense cuts in the name of debt reduction are really for increased domestic spending. This is not a surprise. Last summer, President Obama made his priorities clear: social spending trumps national security...

Executive Summary


Obama's priorities are: (a) stealing redistributing money from seniors, the military and the intelligence community; and (b) spending those funds on public sector union wages from which mandatory union dues are deducted.

Those dues, in turn, end up laundered into Obama's campaign coffers.

Which explains his priorities. Not health care. Not national security. Not seniors. Getting reelected. First, last and everything in between. That is his priority.


Sunday, February 26, 2012

The nauseating employment chart that President Obama and the Democrats don't want you to see

Via MetricMash comes this stunning chart that depicts just how dire the employment situation has become under the SCOAMF.

As this chart illustrates:

• Over the last 30 years, we have never seen the kind of sustained decline in the labor-force participation rate we're experiencing under Obama. More people are dropping out of the labor force at a faster clip than during any recent stretch and, worse, there's absolutely no sign of recovery.

• The unparalleled success of the Reagan tax cuts is on full display: not only did unemployment drop, but the labor-force participation rate increased at a phenomenal angle. All Americans benefited from these tax cuts and the job creation spurred by Reagan went well into the Clinton years.

Which is why Democrats and the media -- but I repeat myself -- shield you from information like this. There is only one way out of this economic mess: unleashing the private sector by slashing taxes, minimizing the size of government, and obliterating the out-of-control regulatory state. But Democrats prefer failure, so long as they get to control you, the individual. Because they're power-hungry statists, trying to maintain a white-knuckled death grip on the reins of government.


Saturday, February 25, 2012

Recovery Shart of the Day. I mean Chart.

Are we really in a recovery? Even ignoring gas prices, the deteriorating situation in Europe, and the can-kicking going on here in the U.S., the raw data from the Bureau of Labor Propaganda Statistics refutes any notion that things are on the upswing.

Earlier today, ...a Democratic pollster [warned] about trying to use an “America is Back” slogan for Barack Obama’s re-election, commenter TopDog linked to a chart that explains very clearly why that strategy won’t work. Stanley Greenberg (PDF) wants Obama to argue instead for a less-specific declaration that America is now headed in the right direction, and that Obama has gotten job creation kick-started already:

In 2009, we were losing 750,000 jobs a month. Our biggest banks and auto companies were on the brink of pulling down the whole economy. But we righted the ship. We did not tip into a Great Depression. And over the last 22 months, businesses have created more than 3 million jobs, the most since 2005 and more manufacturing jobs than since the 1990s. We still have a long way to go but we have restored hope and possibility to the economy.

This chart from the Bureau of Labor Statistics utterly destroys that argument. The BLS measures the percentage of working-age adults currently employed in the population — and as can easily be seen, three years of Barack Obama has not made any dent in the trough created by the recession:

That is not recovery. It’s not even a start to a recovery. By cherry-picking 22 months, the best Greenberg can claim is job growth of 136,370 jobs per month, which would barely exceed the needed job growth per month to keep up with population growth.

Why cherry-picking? I explained the issue when Obama tried using this claim during his Google+ hangout at the beginning of the month:

But why 22 months? Obama began his term in January 2009, and the recession ended in June 2009. What’s so special about March 2010? Well, not so surprisingly, that’s almost the nadir of employment during Obama’s presidency, which actually took place in February 2010, two years ago this month. Even if he’d picked the right month, it would still only have been 2.654 million, not 3 million.

Calculating from the end of the recession, the net job creation from those 31 months is only 1.407 million, a wan 45,390 net jobs a month, far below the pace needed to keep up with population growth. Calculating for the entirety of his presidency, we’re actually in the hole 937,000 jobs. Obama tried to cherry-pick the worst month in order to claim the most credit he could possible for job growth, and managed to get both the month and the math wrong anyway.

Obama and his strategists can cherry-pick all they like. This chart tells the real story of Obamanomics and job creation during his term.

I had this discussion with a colleague at lunch the other day. He was worried that the headline unemployment number would give Americans comfort that Obama's strategies are working. I said the reality on the street would be obvious to Americans eveywhere. Are housing prices going up? Are foreclosures dropping rapidly? Are more jobs really available? Does this feel like a recovery?

No, no, no and no.

Americans understand what's happening, along with the urgency of flushing this administration -- and the entire Democrat Party -- from office in 2012.


Friday, February 24, 2012

Grass roots: Romney gives economic speech in front of 65,000 empty seats

But, Melvin, he's the only one who can win!

Mitt Romney's economic speech falls flat at near-empty stadium


Romney fails to elaborate on his 20% tax cut in awkward speech setting where he let slip another gaffe about his wealth

Republican frontrunner Mitt Romney's much-heralded economic speech flopped Friday, overshadowed by a gaffe over luxury Cadillacs and his choice of an over-ambitious venue, the Detroit Lions' football field.

Romney opened himself up to derision for choosing a 70,000-seat stadium which attracted just over 1,000 people, many of them school children bussed in to help fill out the crowd, tucked into a corner of the astro-turf pitch.

The small crowd underlined again his inability to draw large numbers of supporters and to excite the conservative base.

The speech too turned out to be a flop. Having been hyped by his campaign staff all week, Romney had little new to say... ...Political opponents quickly waded in. Obama's campaign adviser, David Axelrod, in a tweet, wrote: "Judging from pictures, looks like Mitt pinned himself in inside the 20."

After delivering his speech, Romney made a throwaway remark about cars that will be replayed when the speech itself will have been long forgotten.

In an attempt to ingratiate himself in the motor capital of America and undo some of the damage caused by a call in 2008 to let the car industry go bankrupt rather than be bailed out by the federal government, he listed cars owned by himself and his wife Ann.

He would be a president who loves cars, he said. "I like the fact that most of the cars I see are Detroit-made automobiles. I drive a Mustang and a Chevy pick-up truck. Ann drives a couple of Cadillacs, actually. And I used to have a Dodge truck, so I used to have all three covered."

Look, I think it's great Romney's rich. I love the fact that he's successful. But, hell, don't give the opposition easy soundbites!

Speaking of which, Rick Santorum was interviewed by Mark Levin tonight; the Right Scoop has the audio of the complete interview.

Have I mentioned that I support Rick Santorum for President?


Wednesday, February 22, 2012

GM: Only about 30 times worse than Solyndra

Say, how's that GM investment working out for taxpayers?

BailoutCost.com calculates to the second and to the penny how much we are in the hole on the Government Motors bailout.

Briefly: We own about 500 million GM shares. To break even, they need to be sold at $53 per. Right now they're trading at about $26.

Which loses us about $13 billion.

Remember, Solyndra lost us: $0.5 billion.

I'm not real good at math, but that seems like a lot more.

20-30 times more (again, depending on the share price whence we sell).

Besides abrogating bankruptcy law to hand the UAW an immense payoff, let's not forget the administration's skulduggery surrounding Dealergate and the hundreds of selective dealer closings that seemed curiously -- how you say in English? -- selective and partisan.

When the complete history of the Obama-Holder administration is finally written, I'm certain it will make Nixon and Mitchell look like the children who stole fizzy-lifting drinks from Willy Wonka's factory.


The Obama budget in pictures (or, as I like to call it, the Democrat plan for national fiscal suicide)

Speaking of Greece, I just received these charts from Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL).

Spending And Debt Per Household Under President Obama’s Budget Plan


President Obama’s formal FY 2013 budget, submitted on February 13th, represents his financial vision for the future, detailed in 2,571 pages as delivered by his Office of Management and Budget.



Only in the infantile mind of a Leftist could these blueprints for economic ruin make sense.

The debt that Obama and his sycophants are planning simply cannot be repaid.

We must stop these irresponsible Statist hacks who have set this country on a course for fiscal destruction.

These charts prove that there are no moderate Democrats left. In November, I urge you to wipe out every single Democrat at the ballot box -- at every level of government.

Do it for the children. And I mean that.


Yippee!!! Greece is saved! Greece is saved! Oh. Wait. Uhm, never mind.

The ludicrous Paul Krugman -- who was just extolling the wonders of the European Social Democrat Welfare State™ little more than two years ago -- hardest hit.

If it seems like it was only 5 days ago that Greek bonds could be had for the blockbuster yield of 638%, it is because it was As of today, the same bond was yielding an even more ridiculous 763% (and remember when the MSM fluffers were telling you to buy these at the bargain basement yield of 100% in September 2011?).


Greece should have been allowed to default two years ago, when it would have been much cheaper and less traumatic to the world banking system.

Instead, the masterminds running the Eurozone keep building floor upon floor of their increasingly complex house of cards. And when it all comes tumbling down, the damage will be felt globally -- for years to come.


Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Quote o' the Day: Gallup goes on Obama's 'Enemies List'

I sense an audit may be in Mr. Gallup's future. That is, if there is a Mr. Gallup.

Unemployment in the U.S. rose to nine percent in mid-February, up from 8.3 percent a month earlier, according to a new Gallup survey... "The U.S. unemployment rate, as measured by Gallup without seasonal adjustment, is 9.0% in mid-February," Gallup said in its mid-month unemployment survey, released on February 17. "The mid-month reading normally reflects what the U.S. government reports for the entire month, and is up from 8.3% in mid-January."

America really did get Obama's Stimulus package, if you know what I mean.

Real unemployment, including underemployment and discouraged workers, rose to 19%.

This [Gallup statement] seems like an odd thing to say in a report:

"Regardless of what the government reports, Gallup’s unemployment and underemployment measures show a sharp deterioration in job market conditions since mid-January."

Does Gallup have suspicions that the government won't report the rise?

Gee.

That seems so... out of character for the most transparent administration ever.


Image: Moonbattery.

Monday, February 20, 2012

In defense of Rick Santorum: no matter what Obama and the media say, this election is going to be about freedom, not contraception

This election will be about the future of America.

Do Americans want a nation flooded with food-stamps and welfare payments, a European-style decline, and an out-of-control president who flouts the very Constitution upon which he took an oath to uphold?

Or do they want a return to founding principles, fiscal discipline and respect for the rule of law?

Tonight on Fox News, Brit Hume asserted that Santorum's social conservatism would be "poison" in a general election. The media, willing accomplices to the Democrat Party, will be more than happy to paint the former Pennsylvania senator in that light.

But this is a false premise.

Faith, Family and Freedom

This election will be about founding principles, the most important of which are faith, family, private property rights and individual liberty. Those tenets were foundational to the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

Our rights are God-given, not offered in a bill by some bureaucrat in Washington. How can someone articulate the nature of American exceptionalism without a grounding in our founding document and our highest law?

The "Great Society" proved the defective nature of the Democrats' philosophy. Even if they were inspired by altruistic desires, Democrats have utterly destroyed the two-parent family, especially in the urban core.

Dozens of studies have proven that easy access to food stamps and welfare payments inflate the percentage of single-parent families. And single-parent families are linked directly to violent crime: in fact, no matter what race you are, you have the same chance of going to prison if you are raised in a single-parent household.

As for private property rights and the rule of law: the Constitution means what it says. To the extent that temporary politicians dismiss the genius of the Framers; strip away the bonds on the federal government placed explicitly upon it; and confiscate more and more private property in pursuit of a Utopian, benificent state that can't be and never was; they are corrupt and lawless. A government that takes your private property for purposes other than those specifically enunciated in the Constitution is operating outside of the law.

These lines are crystal clear and it will take an articulate conservative grounded in the founding principles to draw the sharpest contrast between the European nanny state that Obama seeks and the kind of government our Framers created.

Social Issues and the Media

In a debate, when some left-wing hack like George Stephanapolous kicks off the proceedings by asking about contraceptives, Rick Santorum should respond as follows:

"Are you having problems getting contraceptives, George? Is someone proposing to ban them? I reject your question. This country faces existential threats economically and from nuclear-armed terror states. I respectfully request that you prioritize your questions in terms of importance to all Americans and not just your personal issues in getting access to contraceptives. So let's start off the debate with a question about something truly important to all Americans."

Legacy media is doubly irrelevant. Not only do most Americans dismiss the notion that journalists are "unbiased arbiters", but they also realize that journalists have a dog in the hunt. Newt Gingrich used this approach effectively to shred several left-wing debate moderators and that template still applies.

The Duplicity of Karl Rove

The "big-government Republican" label is a meme promulgated by the same folks who twisted the arms of GOP senators to support President Bush. For Karl Rove to criticize Santorum for anything is laughable.

So Rick Santorum's really a 'Big Government' guy?

Santorum has a legislative record. Check it out.

Rated 0% by NARAL, indicating a pro-life voting record. (Dec 2003)
Voted YES on $40B in reduced federal overall spending. (Dec 2005)
Voted YES on prioritizing national debt reduction below tax cuts. (Apr 2000)
Voted YES on 1998 GOP budget. (May 1997)
Voted YES on Balanced-budget constitutional amendment. (Mar 1997)

Rated 25% by CURE, indicating anti-rehabilitation crime votes. (Dec 2000)
Rated 27% by the NEA, indicating anti-public education votes. (Dec 2003)
Rated 0% by the LCV, indicating anti-environment votes. (Dec 2003)
Rated 100% by CATO, indicating a pro-free trade voting record. (Dec 2002)
Rated 0% by APHA, indicating a anti-public health voting record. (Dec 2003)
Rated 0% by the AFL-CIO, indicating an anti-union voting record. (Dec 2003)
Rated 81% by NTU, indicating a “Taxpayer’s Friend” on tax votes. (Dec 2003)

--Source: Issues 2000 Legislation Tracker

I'll say this:

So the man who led the only successful reform of an entitlement program -- the 1996 Welfare Reform Act -- is in favor of "big government"?

Rick Santorum is a true, God-fearing, Constitutional conservative in the mold of Ronald Reagan. If we are to begin repairing this country, we need him or someone like him as President.

What this election will be about

Mark Levin, Rush Limbaugh, and Sarah Palin -- all of whom have praised Santorum effusively -- can't all be wrong.

This election won't be about access to condoms. It's going to be about freedom. What it means to be an American. And Rick Santorum would be an outstanding choice as president.


Related: Rick Santorum for President Website

Let's Go Back to the Replay: How Bob Casey Beat Rick Santorum in 2006

What happened in Washington? Millions of jobs lost. The largest deficit ever. An arrogant government out of touch. "Pennsylvania deserves a senator in touch with Pennsylvania... we need someone fighting for fair-trade laws, that don't give away our jobs... someone who will stand up against the partisan politics in Washington... someone who's fiscally responsible... who balances a budget, just like you do, every day of your lives. We can do better in Washington, and we will. I'm Bob Casey, and I approve this message." --Transcript of Bob Casey, Democrat for Senate Ad, 2006

The midterm elections held on November 7, 2006 resulted in a massive victory for Democrats, allowing them to capture the House, the Senate, and a majority of state legislatures and governorships from the GOP.

Senator Rick Santorum was one of the victims of the sweeping Republican loss, falling to Bob Casey by a double-digit margin.

Wikipedia describes some of the major reasons for the national power shift, which included "the decline of the public image of George W. Bush, the dissatisfaction of the handling of both Hurricane Katrina and the War in Iraq, Bush's legislative defeat regarding Social Security Reform, and the culture of corruption, which were the series of scandals in 2006 involving Republican politicians."

As for Santorum himself, The Washington Examiner notes that:

The biggest policy reason for Santorum's loss was his outspoken support for the war in Iraq. By November 2006, the war was going badly and threatened to turn into a full-scale catastrophe. President Bush resisted calls to change course and had not yet settled on the troop surge that would ultimately rescue the situation from disaster. While Santorum's Democratic opponent, Bob Casey, called for a different course, Santorum stuck with the president, and with the war.

"As other Republicans attempt to steer away from Iraq and terrorism, Sen. Rick Santorum argued yesterday that America must stop 'sleepwalking' while 'evil enemies' plot the nation's destruction, making foreign policy a focal point in the final days of his campaign," the Philadelphia Inquirer reported on October 27, 2006. Santorum made the finale of his campaign into a so-called "Gathering Storm" tour, in which he mixed support of the war with calls for continuing vigilance in the war on terror. In making the war such a central part of his campaign, Santorum stubbornly kept the focus on the weakest part of his candidacy.

The voters clobbered him for it. In Pennsylvania exit polls, 61 percent of voters said they disapproved of the war. Santorum lost among them, 15 percent to Casey's 85 percent. Among the largest sub-group of war opponents, the 42 percent of voters who said they strongly disapproved of the war, Santorum lost seven percent to 93 percent. That by itself was enough to doom any hopes for a third term.

That Mitt Romney criticizes Santorum for losing an election -- primarily for his support of the Iraq 'Surge' that the Massachusetts Governor also backed -- is disingeuous at best. Romney didn't run for reelection in 2006.

In this morning’s debate on NBC, Rick Santorum questioned Mitt Romney’s decision not to run for reelection when he was governor of Massachusetts... “Well, if his record was so great as governor of Massachusetts why didn't he run for reelection?” Santorum asked. “I mean if you didn't want to even stand before the people of Massachusetts and run on your record--if it was that great, why did you bail out?”

...Had Romney accomplished the majority of the “100 things [he] wanted to do” in office, or enough of them to be satisfied? Had he decided, at that point, to run for president in 2008 and that the best way to do that would be outside the governor’s mansion in Boston? Or had Romney looked at the poll numbers, which were declining throughout the second half of his term (he was spending a lot of time in Iowa and New Hampshire around then), and concluded that he couldn’t win reelection against a popular Democrat?

A review of Bob Casey's television ads paint a clear picture of his approach to defeating Santorum. In short, he ran to the right of Rick Santorum, promising:

• Fiscal responsibility

• A balanced federal budget

• Stronger border security

• Less centralized government in Washington

Bob Casey beat Rick Santorum in 2006 the way all Democrats win in the rational 46 states (California, Hawaii, Illinois and New York not included): He lied. He lied early, often and about everyone and everything.

Fiscal responsibility? While endorsing Barack Obama, voting for out-of-control federal spending, Obamacare, and supporting amnesty for illegal immigration?

How's that working out for you, Pennsylvania?

The Casey game-plan for victory over Santorum has about as much relevance for the Obama campaign as salads have for Michael Moore. Which is to say: none at all.


Sunday, February 19, 2012

Ratio of Americans paying NO taxes explodes to 49% thanks to Obama fairness initiative and suicidal lib policies, but mostly suicidal lib policies

No society can long survive this form of madness:

This year’s Index of Dependence on Government presented startling findings about the sharp increase of Americans who rely on the federal government for housing, food, income, student aid or other assistance. (See last week’s chart.)

Another eye-popping number was the percentage of Americans who don’t pay income taxes, which now accounts for nearly half of the U.S. population. Meanwhile, most of that population receives generous federal benefits.

“One of the most worrying trends in the Index is the coinciding growth in the non-taxpaying public,” wrote Heritage authors Bill Beach and Patrick Tyrrell. “The percentage of people who do not pay federal income taxes, and who are not claimed as dependents by someone who does pay them, jumped from 14.8 percent in 1984 to 49.5 percent in 2009.”

That means 151.7 million Americans paid nothing in 2009. By comparison, 34.8 million tax filers paid no taxes in 1984.

The rapid growth of Americans who don’t pay income taxes is particularly alarming...


Alarming, yes, since on the Obama path, "the economy, according to the CBO, shuts down in 2027."

Democrats like to claim that they're the party of science and intelligence. You'd never know it by their inability to grasp the laws of mathematics.


Related: Chart: We are the forgotten 33%.

Saturday, February 18, 2012

Dreams From My Single-Parent Family

In September of 2009, a cell-phone video that depicted Chicago public school students beating a fellow teen to death circulated throughout the Internet and the mainstream media.

Curiously, none of the media outlets that covered the story bothered to recollect that President Barack Obama had once served as a community organizer and then a state senator in these very same South Side neighborhoods.

Throughout his years working for "change", Obama paid scant heed to the primary cause of violence and dependency in the area: the eradication of the black two-parent family by decades of Democrat policies.

Community organizing had gotten its start in Chicago under the direction of an activist named Saul Alinsky. Alinsky believed that poverty was the result of political inequities. He envisioned a power-grab by the "have-nots" of society, who would form massive, grassroots coalitions that would defeat the rich and redistribute their possessions.

But the Alinsky movement suffered two calamitous setbacks in the years leading up to the Obama era. First, the "War on Poverty" had established a governmental community organizing bureaucracy called the Community Action Agency. Rife with corruption, the agency's money was misappropriated and used to fund gang warfare, rape and murder.

In addition, the Alinsky playbook was doubly irrelevant because blacks occupied most of the positions of power in Chicago. The city had elected its first black mayor, Harold Washington; it had power-brokers like Emil Jones, Jr. in the State Senate; and Jesse Jackson would launch his 1984 presidential campaign in the south side.

Despite the sea-change in political influence, Chicago had exploded in a maelstrom of black-on-black violence. In 1984, the year Obama came to Chicago, one of the top high school basketball players in the country -- an immensely talented and likable center named Ben Wilson -- was murdered by gang members.

The outcry was as predictable as it was ineffectual. None of the power-brokers pointed out that all of Wilson's killers came from single-parent families. None concerned themselves with the mind-blowing statistic: 75% of all black Chicago kids were born out of wedlock. In fact, it became a cultural norm for young black men to father children and flee responsibility. The result was rampant crime. In fact, statistical studies show that, whether you are white, black or brown, you have the exact same chance of going to prison if you come from a single-parent family.

In Obama's book Dreams from My Father, his narrative "is almost devoid of men. With the exception of the local ministers and the occasional semi-crazed black nationalist, Obama inhabits a female world. His organizing targets are almost all single mothers. He never wonders where and who the fathers of their children are. When Obama sees a group of boys vandalizing a building, he asks rhetorically: 'Who will take care of them: the alderman, the social workers? The gangs?' The most appropriate candidate—'their fathers'—never occurs to him."

Rather than confront the central issue, Obama as community organizer initially struggled to find his role. He was relieved to find that a Mayor's Education and Training (MET) office had no branch in Roseland, and he promptly filed an application to open one. The office had as much of an effect on the area as his asbestos removal efforts, which is to say: none. In fact, youth violence continued to increase and by his third year, 57 children had been killed in the city.

In 1994, a series of brutal child murders galvanized public attention: an 11-year old gang member was executed to keep him from implicating others in an accidental shooting death. A month later, a five-year old boy who had refused to steal candy for two under-12 gang members was dropped from a 14-story building. Not one of the participants came from a two-parent family.

A year after these notorious murders, the would-be candidate for state senator granted an interview to The Chicago Reader. Rather than point out the lack of family structure endemic to the rampant violence, Obama instead attacked "the Christian Right and the Republican Congress for 'hijack[ing] the higher moral ground with this language of family values and moral responsibility.' Yeah, sure, family values are fine, he says, but what about 'collective action . . . collective institutions and organizations'? Let’s take 'these same values that are encouraged within our families,' he urges, 'and apply them to a larger society.'"

The ignorance or naivete inherent in these statements expose a bizarre worldview. Never in the history of western civilization has some collectivist framework served as a realistic substitute for the traditional family structure. In Obama's Chicago, fathers are AWOL; and some nebulous obligation for "collective action" has no chance of succeeding without a sense of personal responsibility. In fact, Obama downplays the notion of a familial duty and points to an overall societal failure, saying "...we have a society that talks about the irresponsibility of teens getting pregnant... [but] not the irresponsibility of a society that fails to educate them to aspire for more."

The ideology of Alinsky then -- as now -- appears to have polluted Obama's sense of right and wrong. Where history, facts, logic and reason point to the need to encourage, nurture and reward the traditional family unit, Obama instead vilifies family values and those who promote them.

For decades, Obama and the Democrats have embraced an utterly defective and destructive strategy: Crushing school choice. Incentivizing single-parent families. Encouraging a lifelong culture of dependency.

The children of Obama's South Side deserve better. They deserve more than a dream of a father.


Based upon: Heather Mac Donald, Chicago’s Real Crime Story, City Journal.

The .0000000001 percent

Keith Koffler of White House Dossier is the Sherlock Holmes of the press corps (pronounced /kôrps/):

Michelle Obama has embarked on a skiing vacation with her daughters in Aspen, Colorado, according to the Aspen Daily News.

The first lady, who just returned last month from 17 days of relaxation in Hawaii, is skiing in Colorado on Presidents’ Day Weekend for the second year in a row... Last year she went to Vail....

Michelle’s decision to ski out West again instead of hitting slopes closer to Washington would seem an inopportune choice for a first lady who is helping her husband campaign on issues of “fairness.”

The Obama campaign has set itself up as the defender of the poor and the middle class against the “One Percent,” a theme which clashes with the image a first lady who is taking frequent and exclusive vacations.

Just last August, she sojourned on Martha’s Vineyard, and the month before she travelled to southern Africa for a trip that mixed official business with tourist outings like an African safari. In July 2010, she took an exorbitant excursion to the southern coast of Spain, flying out with friends and family on a large jet that often serves as Air Force 2 and then staying at a ritzy hotel...


The official Doug Ross Hypocrisy-Meter broke long ago after this administration pegged the needle a record 804 times in 2011 alone.


Image: HillBuzz.

Friday, February 17, 2012

Chart: We Are The Forgotten 33%

Look up the word unsustainable in the dictionary and you might see a chart that looks like this.

Much has been made of the 1% vs. the 99%; the “super-rich” vs. the rest of us, who are presumably the hard working, loyal Americans who’ve been left behind. But who are the rest of us, and how does who we are affect how much we pay in taxes, and how we may vote?

The chart ... depicts the American electorate divided not into two groups – the 1% vs. the 99%, but four groups – the 1% super-rich, then 20% representing government workers, 46% representing citizens who either pay zero taxes or negative taxes (ala the “earned income credit”), and the remaining 33% who are neither super-rich, government employees, or not paying taxes. One might term this group the forgotten 33%, because no special interest will speak for them. They have neither the numbers nor the financial wherewithal to decisively influence elections...

...This identity of interests between the political class and the entitled class has created a supermajority of voters in America who have a self-interest in supporting big-government.

Perhaps the most appalling – and unchallenged – fallacy promoted by the big-government supermajority, primarily through their spokespersons in the public sector unions, is that the super-rich are “trying to destroy the middle-class by pitting the private sector workers against the public sector workers.” Nothing could be further from the truth.

With the dramatic extensions to unemployment insurance implemented by the Obama Democrats, the private sector is now paying people not to work:

President Obama is crowing that the unemployment rate is falling—to 8.3% in January—but he and his party are still insisting as part of the payroll tax deal that payments to the jobless must increase again. So add on another $30 billion or so to the $200 billion that this extra "unemployment insurance" has already cost since the recession...

...But for the last three and a half years those payments—about 35% to 40% of the worker's last pay check—have been extended eight times to an all-time high 99 weeks in many states. So now taxpayers pick up the check for as much as two years of not working, even as jobs become easier to find...

...[But t]wo of President Obama's most senior economists—former White House aide Larry Summers and current Council of Economic Advisers chairman Alan Krueger—have published studies documenting this antiwork incentive. According to a study co-authored by Mr. Krueger in 2002: "Higher and longer duration UI benefits will cause unemployed workers who receive UI to take longer to find a new job."

The sooner the Democrat Party is wiped out at the ballot box, the sooner this insanity can end. Before it's too late.


Democrat Civility, Exhibit #4,305

I wonder what Gabbi Giffords and her family think of this display:

Earlier this month, Arizona State Senator Rick Murphy introduced four bills designed to curb union’s collective bargaining rights in the state. Union members/occupiers held a protest rally against the measures on February 3rd. One of the signs carried at the rally shows the kind of civility we can expect from progressives:

You can see the video this came from here. Keep in mind, this protest took place in Tucson where, just last January, Jared Loughner shot 19 people, leading to a nationwide call for more civility and a “new tone” in politics. The President himself weighed in on this during a nationally televised memorial service.

So the unions want to kill state representatives for proposing bills let workers opt out of paying dues. Delightful.

Collective bargaining, which requires workers to pay dues whether they want to join a union or not, is legalized thievery. If you are compelled to pay dues against your will -- to a group of fat-cat union bosses with none of your interests in mind -- you are an indentured servant.

Collective bargaining needs to go.


The White House: laser-focused on making condoms easier to get than jobs

Two figures spotted at The Right Scoop illustrate how close we are to the precipice:

This is stunning. Zero Hedge has an article today showcasing research from Wyatt Emerich of The Cleveland Current. He shows how a single parent making minimum wage, with a family of 3 children, has more disposable income that someone making $60k/year...

And this is in Mississippi, not California. Who knows how much more they are getting there...

For another reality check, we look at a chart that PowerLine picked up from the Republican Study Committee on the decline in jobs. Here is how they describe it...:

It depicts the percentage of Americans in the labor force from January 2005 (commonly known as the “good old days” through January 2012. The decline in the number of working Americans is staggering. And note that Barack Obama became president in January 2009, about 3/4 of the way through the gray “recession,” and just before the “stimulus” that is marked with a red dot. What has happened since Obama took office is that the jobs situation has steadily deteriorated:


This is why we are headed for a debt crisis. No jobs and we’re subsidizing everything under the sun.

If only Obama would expend as much energy on private sector job creation as he does on mandating abortion pills.


Hat tips: BadBlue. Headline idea: Mark Levin.