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

Friday, August 17, 2012

Political Banner o' the Day

This sign is a two-fer. Not only does this sign pertain to one of Joe Biden's predictably idiotic statements, but it also alludes to an op-ed in yesterday's Wall Street Journal by Senator Rob Portman (R-OH):


The Regulatory Cliff Is Nearly as Steep as the Fiscal One

The president has postponed damaging rules until after the November election.


After three years of bureaucratic excess, the Obama administration has been quietly postponing several multibillion-dollar regulations until after the November election. Those delayed rules, together with more than 130 unfinished mandates under the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial law, could significantly increase the regulatory drag on our economy in 2013.

The Labor Department, for example, is working on a regulation that would increase the cost of retirement planning for middle-class workers, to "protect" them from investment help... A study last year by the Oliver Wyman Group found that the Fiduciary Rule could result in higher retirement account minimums and cause 7.2 million individual retirement account (IRA) holders to lose access to investment advice...

...Then there is the mega-rule on the shelf at the Environment Protection Agency (EPA) that could block business expansion in many areas of the country. Proposed in 2010, the Ozone Rule would impose a limit on ozone (which creates haze from emissions from cars, power plants and factories) so strict that up to 85% of U.S. counties monitored by the EPA would be in violation.

Portman notes a 2011 Gallup survey in which small business owners listed overregulation as the "most important problem" facing them.

There's only one way to flush the left-wing regulatory state out of the cesspool that is Washington. Vote the straight Republican ticket. It's the only way to be sure.



Thursday, August 16, 2012

The Big Lie: Jay Carney attacks Ryan Budget for "not balancing the budget fast enough"

Words. Escape. Me.

Steven Dennis of the magazine Roll Call -- which is not what you would call a hotbed of conservative thought -- was incredulous after White House spokes-hack Jay Carney offered that Paul Ryan's budget didn't attack deficit reduction quickly enough.


How much hubris is required to make this kind of assertion? As James Pethokoukis reminds us:

The Obama budget leaves us on a path to fiscal collapse. Once again, here is a stunning long-term budget chart — produced by the White House (PDF) — from Obama’s 2013 budget:


And here is a comparison of the two paths, the Ryan path and the Obama path:


This is yet another example of the Obama administration's craven use of "The Big Lie".

His primary rules were: never allow the public to cool off; never admit a fault or wrong; never concede that there may be some good in your enemy; never leave room for alternatives; never accept blame; concentrate on one enemy at a time and blame him for everything that goes wrong; people will believe a big lie sooner than a little one; and if you repeat it frequently enough people will sooner or later believe it.

As for the above paragraph: it is left as an exercise for the reader to determine its origin and subject.


QOTD: Krauthammer nukes the case for Obama's reelection

Oh, my:

There are two ways to run against Barack Obama: stewardship or ideology. You can run against his record, or you can run against his ideas.

The stewardship case is pretty straightforward: the worst recovery in U.S. history, 42 consecutive months of 8-plus percent unemployment, declining economic growth - all achieved at a price of another $5 trillion of accumulated debt.

The ideological case is also simple. Just play in toto (and therefore in context) Obama's Roanoke riff telling small business owners: "You didn't build that." Real credit for your success belongs not to you - you think you did well because of your smarts and sweat? he asked mockingly - but to government that built the infrastructure without which you would have nothing.

Play it. Then ask: Is that the governing philosophy you want for this nation?

For you drones reading along (moving your lips, I'm sure), that's a rhetorical question.


Hat tip: RJCHQ.

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Speaking Truth to Power: Iowa Deli Owner Caters Obama Event Wearing "Government Didn't Build My Business" T-Shirt

As Mr. Burns might say... exxxxxxxxxxxcellent:

Obama’s “you didn’t build that” remark continues to haunt him politically.

Photo credit: Nikki Kahn of the Washington Post

For proof, look no further than here…:

DAVENPORT, Iowa — Ross Murty likes business, but he doesn’t like President Obama.

And so the co-owner of the Village Corner Deli here agreed to cater Obama’s visit Wednesday — but not before donning a t-shirt blaring the message: “Government didn’t build my business. I did."

It was a reference to a remark Obama made several weeks ago that his Republican opponent, Mitt Romney, has seized upon to portray Obama as anti-business...


Typical Washington Post spin at the end there. Mitt Romney has not portrayed Obama as anti-business.

OBAMA has portrayed Obama as anti-business. One could easily make the argument that Obama’s entire political philosophy and career is anti-business. He views success in business and the system of capitalism with total contempt.

I challenge any member of the so-called professional media or political class to name one thing Obama has done to help small business owners and entrepreneurs since taking office.

Name one.

Don't hold your breath, Glob. Unless, that is, you're being driven around Martha's Vineyard by a Kennedy.



The "Dude, Where's My Trillion Dollars?" Chart

The reason the Obama campaign's slogan is "Forward" is obvious: they don't want you looking back at their actual record.


Everything President Obama has done has failed, which is just as he intended it.

It's called The Cloward-Piven Strategy. Check it out and see for yourself.



Today begins the mad rush by illegal aliens to take advantage of Obama's illegal amnesty order

"No society can exist unless the laws are respected to a certain degree. The safest way to make laws respected is to make them respectable. When law and morality contradict each other, the citizen has the cruel alternative of either losing his moral sense or losing his respect for the law. These two evils are of equal consequence, and it would be difficult for a person to choose between them." --Frédéric Bastiat, The Law, 1850

Over the past five decades, no laws in the United States have been more abused by the political class than immigration laws. And no administration has been more breathtakingly lawless than the Obama White House, which has directed the federal bureaucracies to ignore immigration laws altogether.


Through an Executive Order, President Obama recently implemented the so-called DREAM Act by fiat, when it could not pass muster in Congress, even with a Democrat supermajority.

The result: millions of illegals began entering the workforce today without fear of punishment and millions more are certain to enter the country in violation of federal law to take advantage of Obama's lawless actions.

Obama’s lawless bypass of Congress in granting blanket amnesty to millions of illegal aliens began this morning across America.

Tens of thousands of illegals lined up early, and flooded into DHS centers to apply for nearly automatic 2-year stays from deportation and work permits, with far looser provisions and requirements than were ever imagined in any version of the 3-times defeated ‘Dream Act’ in Congress.

Thanks to Obama’s decree on June 15th, blanket amnesty for illegal aliens under 30 begins today as the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) begins accepting applications for “deferred action” and work authorization.


To soften the public relations blow, the White House estimated that about “only 800,000″ illegal aliens would be covered under this amnesty, when Obama issued his edict – a complete fiction that he knew the media would not challenge. However, the figure was disputed by the Pew Hispanic Center, which estimated about 1.4 million beneficiaries. Then last week, the pro-amnesty Migration Policy Institute estimated that 1.76 million illegal aliens will be eligible.

In reality, the numbers will be higher – FAR higher. Why? Because, as House Judiciary chairman Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) and Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) told DHS Secretary Napolitano in an August 13th letter, there are no mechanisms in place to detect, deter, or to punish fraud.

Well, that should do wonders for unemployment.

No country is guaranteed to survive from generation to generation. And with political hacks like these in office that actively promote lawbreaking -- against the will of the people, Congress and the law itself -- the very fabric of the civil society is beginning to tear.

I will say it again: if we don't vote this pathetic excuse for a political party -- the entire Democrat machine -- out of office in November, this country could well be lost forever.


Monday, August 13, 2012

Yea, Obama! Middle-class taxpayers will pay a mere 50 percent of their income in taxes next year!

Turns out that total taxes -- even for the most modest of middle-class incomes -- will total around a shocking 50 percent next year:

A middle-class taxpayer’s income is subject to a 25 percent federal income tax. Then there is the federal Social Security and Medicare payroll tax of 13.3 percent in 2012—5.65 percent of that is removed from the employee’s paycheck, and the remaining 7.65 percent is paid by the employer. (In reality, the employee pays the entire 13.3 percent, because the employer’s portion of the tax does not affect the cost of labor: The employer would pay the employee 7.65 percent more if there were no employer’s portion of the payroll tax.)


So the 25 percent federal income tax plus 13.3 Social Security and Medicare payroll taxes equals 38.3 percent going to federal taxes in 2012.

And then there are state taxes. According to the Tax Foundation, the average state’s income tax rate for the middle-class taxpayer is 4.82 percent, which brings the total to 43.12 percent in federal and state taxes. And it’s going higher, thanks to the nearly $500 billion in tax increases for 2013 that some have called Taxmageddon. In January of next year, the federal income tax rate for middle-class taxpayers is scheduled to rise from 25 percent to 28 percent, and the payroll tax is scheduled to rise from 13.3 percent to 15.3 percent. This drives the marginal tax rate based on the aforementioned three taxes to 48.12 percent. Add in state and local property, corporate, excise, and other state and local taxes, and the percentage of each additional dollar that is taxed hovers around 50 percent.

...It is outrageous that any dollar earned by a middle-class taxpayer would go as much to taxes as to supporting the taxpayer’s family. The government didn’t earn the taxpayer’s paycheck and shouldn’t be entitled to it.

Oh, but this bloated, unconstitutional, bankrupt leviathan is a bargain at half the price!



Good News: More and More Seniors Face Reduced Social Security Payments Because They're Late on... Student Loans

Seniors are rightfully concerned about the horrific damage that Obamacare does to Medicare.

Well, the hits just keep on coming.

It turns out that the government's incessant meddling with the student loan business has not only spiked college tuition prices, but those loans are now slamming seniors in addition to kids.

According to government data, compiled by the Treasury Department at the request of SmartMoney.com, the federal government is withholding money from a rapidly growing number of Social Security recipients who have fallen behind on federal student loans. From January through August 6, the government reduced the size of roughly 115,000 retirees’ Social Security checks on those grounds. That’s nearly double the pace of the department’s enforcement in 2011; it’s up from around 60,000 cases in all of 2007 and just 6 cases in 2000.

Many of these retirees aren’t even in hock for their own educations. Consumer advocates say that in the majority of the cases they’ve seen, the borrowers went into debt later in life to help defray education costs for their children or other dependents.

...Roughly 2.2 million student-loan debtors were 60 and older during the first quarter of 2012, and nearly 10% of their loans were 90 days or more past due, up from 6% during the first quarter of 2005, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. “It’s really a unique problem we haven’t had to face before, and it’s only going to grow,” said Robert Applebaum, founder of Student Debt Crisis, a nonprofit advocacy group in Staten Island, N.Y.

The threat of Social Security cuts adds to the overall financial woes faced by the aging baby boomer generation. Almost 45% of people aged 48 to 64 won’t save enough money to cover basic needs and uninsured health care costs in retirement, according to the Employee Benefit Research Institute. Experts say reducing Social Security benefits could set them back even more.

...Compared to present-day retirees, younger generations are in deeper debt, which means stories of Social Security garnishment could become more commonplace when they enter retirement. Borrowers in their 20s and 30s owe roughly $600 billion, according to the New York Fed. They’re also leaving college with more debt than their predecessors: 66% graduated this spring with debt, and their student loans averaging $28,720, up from $9,320 in 1993, according to FinAid.org.

Th-th-th-th-th-th-at's Obamanomics, folks!


Hat tip: BadBlue.com/Money.


Truly Terrifying Quote o' the Day

No additional setup is required:

Obama: "A New Vision Of An America In Which Prosperity Is Shared"


"Too many folks still don't have a sense that tomorrow will be better than today. And so, the question in this election is which way do we go?" President Obama asked at a fundraiser in Chicago on Sunday.

"Do we go forward towards a new vision of an America in which prosperity is shared?" Obama asked. "Or do we go backward to the same policies that got us in the mess in the first place?"

"I believe we have to go forward," Obama said. "I believe we have to keep working to create an America where no matter who you are, no matter what you look like, no matter where you come from, no matter what your last name is, no matter who you love, you can make it here if you try. That's what's at stake in November. That's what is why I am running for a second term as president of the United States of America."

"Shared prosperity" is collectivism. Statism. Marxism. It means taking from those who produce goods and services to fund those who don't, which is certainly outside any legitimate function of government under the United States Constitution.

I wouldn't be all that concerned except... collectivism has failed every time it's ever been tried in all of human history, from Plato's Republic to the Soviet Union. It leads to despotism and tyranny, as surely as night follows day.


Hat tip: BadBlue News Service.

As Seniors Flock to Paul Ryan and Fiscal Sanity, Axelrod Campaign Dials Smear-Ray Setting to "100"

David Axelrod just ran to the bathroom to change his Depends: "Ryan’s Popularity Among Seniors Up 18% Since Saturday."

Despite the shameless demagoguery already on display it appears Paul Ryan is quite popular among seniors: As noted, seniors are of interest given Ryan’s proposal to revamp Medicare with a system in which the government would give older Americans a fixed sum with which to buy insurance. They moved in Ryan’s favor, from a 28-28 percent favorable-unfavorable view prospectively to 46-28 percent this weekend. Again a sizable number, 26 percent, are undecided; debate over Ryan’s position on Medicare may inform their views.

Oh, and then there's this report from Roll Call ("Retirees Shower Paul Ryan With Contributions"):

Democrats say presumptive GOP vice presidential nominee Rep. Paul Ryan is a senior citizen's worst nightmare, but retirees seem to have no problem writing him checks.

One of the most prolific fundraisers in Congress, Ryan has drawn nearly $400,000 from retirees this election cycle, dramatically outperforming most House lawmakers, according to data collected by the Center for Responsive Politics.

The seven-term Wisconsin Congressman and House Budget chairman has come under fire for the controversial budget proposal he released last year that called for dramatically reshaping Medicare and repealing President Barack Obama's health care law. The plan would transition Medicare into a voucher-like system by 2022 and strike the 2010 health care law

Let me guess the theme of Axelrod's next ad... wait, I've got it! Paul Ryan... killed a man in Reno... just to watch him die.


Images hat tip: NakedDC.


Sunday, August 12, 2012

Scrubbed: Evidence Stanley Kurtz was right about Barack Obama's plot to destroy suburbia

Most. Transparent. Administration. Evah!

A photo of President Obama was suddenly pulled from the website of the group Building One America, whose goals were documented extensively in Stanley Kurtz’s book Spreading the Wealth: How Obama is Robbing the Suburbs to Pay for the Cities. The book, which was released ten days ago, reveals what Kurtz refers to as Obama’s plan to undercut the political and economic independence of America's suburbs. Kurtz connects current Obama administration policy with his personal history, and with groups like Building One America in particular.


This website shows a cached viewof how the BuildingOneAmerica.org site looked on July 19th, 2012 -- with a photo of President Obama talking to Building One America’s President Mike Kruglik, which was taken during a 2011 meeting held at the White House. Kruglik’s official biography on the Building One America sitedescribes him thusly:

He has been developing grass-roots citizens’ power organizations since 1973 with the Industrial Areas Foundation, the Gamaliel Foundation and Building One America.

And also says:

From 1984 to 1998, he was co-director of the Calumet Community Religious Conference, the community organization that recruited and hired Barack Obama as a community organizer. Mr. Kruglik’s role as Barack Obama’s mentor has been chronicled in a number of works of history and periodicals.

Who is Kruglik and what is his agenda? Reviewer James R. Holland provides the backdrop:

Kurtz details how Obama has long believed that the residents who fled the cities are racists and need to be dragged back into the cities to help solve the problems festering there. If Obama's plans for this forced redistribution became common knowledge, then it would be cause his re-election campaign to crash and burn...

...For those naïve suburban voters who have only been paying attention to mainstream media, if following the news at all, they don't realize that the so-called trillion-dollar stimulus plan was really just a poverty program that was intentionally mis-named to fool the voters. That's why it had almost no effect and certainly produced no improvements.

For more than two decades, Obama and his fellow radical community activists, agitators have been working toward punishing all those people who voted with their feet and fled the cities and left them filled with only poor and minority residents. "Suburbs are for sellouts...For Obama, the suburbs are a defect in the very structure of American life. That is why the president backs his old friends' movement to abolish them."

"'We are battling apartheid in America.' So said Obama's onetime organizing mentor Mike Kruglik in 2005, explaining the philosophy behind his crusade for regional equity. At the the time, Kruglik was directing the regionalist efforts of the Gamaliel Foundation, a national network of community organizations that Obama himself had helped launch in the mid-1980s. Today Kruglik leads the Gamailied offshoot Building One American, which fights for regionalism in partnerships with the Obama White House, although few Americans have any idea that this is the case."

To the radicals, those suburban racists deserve to have their wealth taken away from them and given to the less fortunate but Obama can't publicly proclaim the details of the regulations to abolish the suburbs because, "Much of Obama's base, to say nothing of independents, would be alienated by the regionalist agenda; this explains the president's reticence. Openness about his antisuburban goals would expose Obama as standing to the left of many of his supporters. Middle-class African Americans and modestly successful suburbanites now disposed to vote for the president might think twice if they knew what Obama had in store for them."

"Kruglik and Obama plan to overcome this liability by splitting the suburbs against themselves, creating an alliance between cities and the relatively less well-off inner-ring suburbs."

They hope to achieve this basic change in America by expanding cities into regions that will all come under the control of the nearest cities. Obama and his allies consider everything about the suburbs to be bad. That's where the money has fled. That's where the SUV's and autos pollute the environment. That's where valuable farmland and forests are absorbed to build more urban sprawl. The suburbanites need to be dragged back into the cities and their love affair with the car crushed.

Mass transit is intended to stop the building of highways in order to help eliminate the use of automobiles. The health care laws are really designed to help bring about the redistribution of wealth from the suburbs to the poor.

This is an important goal of Obama and the leftists and if Obama serves another term, he will be able to punish the middle and upper class residents living outside the problems of American cities.

Lest you think all of this sounds outlandish, I encourage you to tick off the items on the checklist.


Friday, August 10, 2012

In a Single Chart: Why Goldman Sachs, Jon Corzine, and the Rest of Wall Street Will Never Face Prosecution From Democrats

Yes, it's. Just. This. Simple.


Hope and change, baby. Hope and change.



Democrats' Massive Tax Hike on the Middle Class, Conveniently Deferred Until After the Election

It's pretty hilarious that the Obama campaign is wasting money advertising on this august periodical with its usual litany of outrageous lies. This one, for example, is a classic:


What a crock. The actual Obama budget, according to The Washington Post, does anything but reduce the deficit.


As for "slashing taxes on the middle class", that's complete bunk as well. The actual toll from Obamacare alone will hit that segment hardest:


And let's not even discuss the onset of inflation -- from gas to food and everything in between -- thanks to Obama's deficit-spending and attendant money-printing.

Everything this man says is a lie. And if he caught himself telling the truth, he'd tell a lie just to keep his hand in (to paraphrase Harry Truman describing Richard Nixon).



Thursday, August 09, 2012

Genius: California Considering Giving Free, Taxpayer-Funded Life Insurance to All State Employees... and Retirees!

What could possibly go wrong with this plan?

Here's how [California's Assembly Bill 2451] would work:

Firefighter Jones or police Officer Smith retires in 2012 at age 53. Twenty-five years later, Smith or Jones die of a heart attack. Although there is a presumption in current law that heart ailments in firefighters and cops are job-related, there had been no evidence of a heart condition for either retiree before the fatal attack. Neither Jones nor Smith filed workers' compensation claims. Neither retired on disability. Their deaths occurred well beyond the 4 1/2-years-after-injury statute of limitations that governs job-related death benefit eligibility today.

Nonetheless, under this bill their survivors could claim a death benefit worth a quarter of a million dollars at minimum.

This benefit would cover not just current firefighters, police officers, prison guards and other public safety workers but retirees as well. So, on the day AB 2451 becomes law, when any ex-firefighter dies of a heart attack at age 80 or cancer at age 90, his widow or children, or other relatives -- the list of eligible survivors is extensive -- becomes eligible for a benefit typically valued at between $250,000 and $300,000...

...This benefit would cover not just current firefighters, police officers, prison guards and other public safety workers but retirees as well. So, on the day AB 2451 becomes law, when any ex-firefighter dies of a heart attack at age 80 or cancer at age 90, his widow or children, or other relatives -- the list of eligible survivors is extensive -- becomes eligible for a benefit typically valued at between $250,000 and $300,000.

It's almost as if California's Democrat leaders are all racing each other to see who can bankrupt the state first.


Hat tip: BadBlue.com/Money.

Wednesday, August 08, 2012

Please make sure that you are sitting down and that you have taken your blood pressure medication before viewing this chart

Don't say I didn't warn you.

The Senate Budget Committee Republican staff under Ranking Member Jeff Sessions [R-AL] on Wednesday released this depressing chart:


Are you serious? Over 110,000,000* in the U.S. are currently receiving some form of government welfare?

..."[S]ince 2000 Medicaid has increased from 34 million people to 54 million in 2011 and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, or food stamps) from 17 million to 45 million in 2011,” according to a statement released on Wednesday by Sen. Sessions’ office... >But here’s our favorite part: “Spending on food stamps alone is projected to reach nearly $800 billion over the next decade.”...

..."These figures include not only citizens, but non-citizens as well. For instance, USDA has acknowledged a formal partnership with Mexico to boost food stamp enrollment amongst non-citizens, migrant workers and foreign nationals. In a ‘radio novela’ USDA even depicted an individual who resisted food stamp enrollment (saying her husband earned enough to take care of them) but who was successfully pressured into enrollment.

Yep. Non-citizens enrolled in the Mexico-U.S. food stamp program.

While gut-wrenching, this graph represents a perfect illustration of the Obama administration -- or should we call it the Cloward-Piven administration?

President Obama is at war with the American taxpayer... and future generations.

Pass it on. Because this madness must end in November. Or the Republic will.


Tuesday, August 07, 2012

The EBT President

Joanne writes:

I've attached two receipts someone gave me within the last month.

The short hand "MRBL SHT CKE" is for a decorated marble sheet cake that costs $46.99.

In both cases, each were paid with food stamps or EBT cards as they are known today.

That's right, two different people, supposedly down on their luck, paid for birthday cakes with your money. Did they get box of Betty Crocker cake mix, a container of frosting, and some eggs for less than $5 and make their own cake?

Nope! Instead, they billed a premium -- some would say non-essential -- party item to the taxpayer. And that is just the tip of the iceberg.


With scanners and UPC's, items like this could easily be excluded from purchase under the EBT program. Yet, in essence, our government is subsiding the lifestyles of those on welfare.

It's like what Texas Senatorial candidate Ted Cruz said earlier today:

Right now, we’re engaged in a national debate over big government solutions versus individual responsibility and I think this issue powerfully illustrates the different approaches between President Obama and Governor Romney.

In my view, there are three critical failings behind President Obama’s new policy on welfare. Number one, it’s fiscally irresponsible. At a time when our nation has sixteen trillion dollars in national debt, the idea that this president would eliminate one of the key requirements that reduced the welfare caseload and reduced federal government spending makes no sense.


Number two, it is yet another action of executive arrogance by this president—President Obama, if he disagreed with requiring welfare recipients to work or to seek work. He could have gone to Congress. He could have proposed new legislation. He could have tried to make the case to the American people. But he did not do that. He didn’t try to make the argument to anybody that work requirements were unnecessary or were counterproductive in welfare. Instead, he simply decreed it by executive order and this has been a pattern of this administration where they believe their own ideology trumps the views of the American people.

And the third critical failing of this new policy is that it hurts the recipients of welfare. The most compelling reason behind the bipartisan welfare reform that we saw is that helping those receiving government assistance to get jobs, to stand on their own feet fundamentally transforms their lives. We are not doing anybody a favor by giving them welfare in perpetuity and making them dependent on government.

Ted, it's called "The Cloward-Piven Strategy". It's time we referred to it by its proper name.


Related: "Not even the USDA knows what people are buying with food stamps"

Monday, August 06, 2012

Blue State Ransacking: "The fiscal mayhem has only begun."

The perfect Democrat Utopia of California -- governed by loopy environmentalists, public sector unions and La Raza -- is melting down as we speak. One editorial board in Southern California goes so far as to call the state's economic policies "Fiscal Ransacking":

Californians fill ... special funds, which are separate from the state’s general fund, through fees dedicated to specific programs. The fee on bottled drinks, for example, goes toward the cost of recycling bottles and cans. These special funds account for a sizable share of state spending: $39.4 billion this fiscal year, compared to the $91.3 billion general fund budget.

A hidden stash of special fund money does signal a disturbing fiscal carelessness. But a report issued last week by the Department of Finance also suggests recklessness in the handling of this money. The document shows that the state’s general fund owes $4.3 billion to hundreds of special funds across state government. Four years ago, the general fund owed only $749 million to the special funds, but the borrowing snowballed as the economy melted.

So the billions in special fund borrowing the state eventually has to repay, for example, includes $40 million to the Oil Spill Response Trust Fund, $139 million to the Vehicle Inspection and Repair Fund and $350 million to the State Court Facilities Construction Fund. The state also has to repay hundreds of millions of dollars legislators have grabbed in recent years from a variety of transportation special funds...

...Since 2011, the state has borrowed $616 million from a disability insurance fund — dollars from a payroll tax on California workers — to make interest payments to the federal government. The state required a federal loan to pay unemployment benefits, because the state’s unemployment insurance fund has a $10 billion deficit. The Legislature helped create that mess in 2001 by boosting unemployment benefits without providing any way to fund the higher costs.

Borrowing to cover ongoing expenses is a pathway to insolvency, and a sign of political — if not actual — bankruptcy. Ransacking specially funded programs and hoping the economy improves is not a workable plan.

It gets worse. Much worse.

California, Illinois, New Jersey and New York are even securitizing their future tax revenue—that is, not merely borrowing with bonds that must be serviced but selling their projected tax collections to investors. So to "balance" their budgets today, they're making it far harder to correct them in the future and locking in higher tax rates. Even Greece doesn't do that.

The message of the Ravitch-Volcker report is that some large portion of the states are replicating the dysfunctions of Washington—adding to entitlements that crowd out priorities like schools and bridges, and then concealing the real danger when they're not ignoring it. State and local governments now spend $2.5 trillion, and rising. Without 49 more Scott Walkers, the fiscal mayhem has only begun.

What do California, Illinois, New Jersey and New York have in common? They've suffered for decades under craven Democrat governance.

Vote accordingly in November. It may be your last chance.


Related: Great News: ex-World Bank Official Says United States Debt Has Finally Achieved "Death Spiral" Status.


You built that, Mr. President. You made that happen.



Hat tip: P.O.

Billboard Campaign o' the Day: Stop Digging

I like the idea.

Bankrupting America, a project of Public Notice, today announced the posting of 48 billboards in 10 different states across the country highlighting the harmful impact of America’s skyrocketing national debt and urging policymakers in Washington to take meaningful action to cut spending. This is part of Bankrupting America’s “Stop Digging” campaign sending the message to Congress and the president to focus on reducing the debt in the run-up to the November elections.




...The billboards are located in major media markets in Ohio, Virginia, Florida, North Carolina, Nevada, Iowa, Colorado, New Mexico, Texas and Oklahoma. Three different designs, titled “Not-So-Sweet 16,” “$16 Trillion in the Hole,” and “The Debt Falls on Their Shoulders” – each conveying the severity of our fiscal crisis – will run from Aug. 6 through Sept. 30.

If you care to donate to the campaign, click here.

Oh. And there's always my favorite bumper-sticker, which isn't affiliated with the billboard campaign: