Showing posts with label Pelosi. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pelosi. Show all posts

Friday, August 14, 2009

Two Speakers in One!


James Taranto:



• "I say to the president, Mr. President, if you think that our troops in Iraq are there to fight for democracy, do not destroy it at home by cutting off our freedom of speech. . . . "So I thank all of you who have spoken out for your courage, your point of view. All of it. Your advocacy is very American and very important. . . . There's nothing more articulate, or more eloquent, to a member of Congress than the voice of his or her own constituent. . . . I'm a fan of disruptors," -- Nancy Pelosi, speaking to a San Francisco town hall meeting, Jan. 17, 2006

• "I think they're AstroTurf. You be the judge. They're carrying swastikas and symbols like that to a town meeting on health care." -- Nancy Pelosi on disruptive constituents, Aug. 5, 2009


Monday, August 10, 2009

Green Jobs, Green Shoots... Brown Economy


While the Associated Press and NBC excitedly report on an incipient and miraculous economic recovery, the real signs of a turnaround have yet to be seen by those outside Washington. Consider:

Bankruptcies just hit their highest monthly total in four years, 126,434 in July. This represents a 34% increase year-over-year and an 8.7% increase from June.


Unemployment is rising, despite the slight drop in the official U-2 rate (9.5% to 9.4%). As the accompanying Calculated Risk graph illustrates, the employed percentage of the population continues to drop like Michael Moore in freefall.

Job losses continue at a horrific pace: "Over 400,000 people disappeared from the workforce last month - they gave up, dropping the participation rate. That's where the 'improvement' in the jobs number came from."

Government Spending Has Skyrocketed: "Annualized, the $181 billion deficit increase in July alone is approaching one half of the full year 2008 deficit - in one month - and Treasury has announced it is going to sell almost half that much again this week in new Treasury issuance - that is, yet more deficit."

Meanwhile, Tax Revenues Have Plummeted: "Tax revenue for the first three quarters of 2009 has fallen by approximately $350 billion, or 17 percent compared to the same period last year... Unemployment benefits have more than doubled, Medicaid spending has grown by a quarter and Medicare spending has increased by 11 percent."


The S&P 500 is wildly overvalued using any conventional measure: The S&P 500's price-to-earnings (PE) is over 140 today. It was over 100 during the first quarter of 2009, "a level never before reached in the index's history".

'Cash for Clunkers' is a Disaster: While the sycophants of stimulus are crowing about an 11.5 million unit annualized sales rate for (for July and August), 80% of the top-selling models are foreign. Typical of Politburo-style, centralized planning efforts, the unintended consequences of the program have yet to be felt; "..what of the lower-income Americans who depended on those cars - the clunkers - to be able to afford any transportation at all? Are they supposed to walk - or starve? When I was younger I was one of those individuals; today, this program would have left me unable to afford a car so I could get to work. I'm sure all the college students and recent grads, struggling to find a job, are saying 'Thanks Mr. President for destroying all the cars we could afford to buy.'"

The 'Green Jobs' Myth: "...experts in economics and the energy industry say having more people work in alternative energy will actually lower our standard of living, by making energy more expensive." James Hamilton, a professor of economics at UC San Diego, calls the assertion that funding green jobs will improve employment a "pretense".

The following is not an overstatement: the current Democrat leadership is on course to bankrupt the United States of America.

No cuts in the size of government: it keeps growing. No cuts in federal spending: all of the programs just keep growing. No cuts in federal hiring, salaries, bonuses or benefits: their workforce just keeps growing, on the taxpayer's dime.

Democrats are destroying the economic future of this country, piece by piece; mortgaging the next generation without permission of those affected; nationalizing industry after industry; spending like drunken liberals; and issuing edict after edict, regulation after regulation through dozens of unaccountable 'czars' who are literally strangling the real economy.

The hard left wing of the Democrat party must be politically punished in 2010 if we are to save this country.


Related: America's NOD. Linked by: BizzyBlog. Thanks!

Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Drudge Report Headline o' the Month


If Plugs and Blinky disappear for a week this summer, it'll be to get one last Botox apiece before the new taxes kick in.

Monday, July 27, 2009

California Dreamin': Now a Nightmare


Democrats have controlled California for over two decades. Their policies have transformed a beautiful, industrious state into a monumental catastrophe.

Open Borders and Easy Access to Welfare: as the stack graph shows, California accounts for 12% of the nation's population but 32% of welfare recipients. Only California and Texas registered high enough to include the state name on the Y-axis. Texas has 8% of the U.S. population and is equally burdened by border issues but has only 1/10th of California's welfare rolls.

More Open Borders, More Welfare: This pie will give you indigestion; California represents 32% of America's welfare caseload. Chuck Devore explains, "California's share of the nation's welfare recipients has been soaring since Democrat legislators severely relaxed welfare rules and eligibility while hiking benefits around 2001. The result was as predictable for welfare as California's high taxes and heavy regulations have been for jobs and business."

Even More Open Borders and More Relaxed Welfare Policies: While the Blue State of New York has its own bragging rights (highest per capita spending on welfare rolls), the distance between New York and the other states compared to California is like the distance between the Earth (other states), the Moon (New York), and the Sun (California). California is the only state that refuses to "seriously enforce the federal lifetime limit of 5 years of welfare for able-bodied adults."

California faces the biggest financial crisis in its history due in no small part to the waste, fraud, and abuse related to its outrageous entitlement programs. Devore calls them "a honey pot for many in America who find it easier to accept a taxpayer handout than to work."

This "generosity" with other peoples’ money impels Sacramento lawmakers to give such large sums of working Californians' money to non-working Californians inevitably results in less of the former and more of the latter. This is simple economics, and it's a shame that it escapes the architects of our state's governance today.


Powerful and Unaccountable Unions: San Francisco, to use a simple example, employs at least 100 unionized workers who earn over $200,000 annually (including a $350,000 a year "Special Nurse").

Los Angeles has nearly 300 retirees earning over $100,000 a year.

The website Pension Tsunami recently noted several articles of interest related to union pension funds. “Hidden Pension Fiasco May Foment Another $1 Trillion Bailout” summarizes how public employee pension funds have cooked their books for years. This has gotten worse in recent years, as public sector employee unions have, "consolidated their power in state and local governments by controlling elections [and] demanded unsustainable increases to the benefit packages of their members – often retroactively – from politicians whose survival depended on their obedience."

Gee, by all means, let's pass card-check (also known as "The Employee No Choice Act")!

The facts are indisputable: Blue States are melting down.

California is an ominous preview into America's future. Perhaps an enterprising progressive (or is that an oxymoron?) could explain why we should follow the Obama-Pelosi-Reid brain-trust into certain oblivion.


Hat tips: Chuck DeVore will be a candidate for Senate in 2010, challenging the egregious Barbara "Call Me Senator" Boxer, No Oil For Pacifists. Linked by: Maggie's Farm and Ed Driscoll. Thanks!

Thursday, July 23, 2009

Fitting Accoutrements for Obamacare


You can avoid long lines for medical care with Self-Treatment Kits, available only from Government Pharmacies™.




Hat tip: Reliapundit.

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Good News: Abortions and Assisted Suicides will NOT be Rationed!


The Economic Policy Journal points us to Peter Fleckstein, who twittered the contents of the House Socialized Medicine bill. Oh, what a treat your family is in for.

• Page 22: Mandates audits of all employers that self-insure!
• Page 29: Admission: your health care will be rationed!
• Page 30: A government committee will decide what treatments and benefits you get (and, unlike an insurer, there will be no appeals process)
• Page 42: The "Health Choices Commissioner" will decide health benefits for you. You will have no choice. None.
• Page 50: All non-US citizens, illegal or not, will be provided with free healthcare services.
• Page 58: Every person will be issued a National ID Healthcard.
• Page 59: The federal government will have direct, real-time access to all individual bank accounts for electronic funds transfer.
• Page 65: Taxpayers will subsidize all union retiree and community organizer health plans (read: SEIU, UAW and ACORN)
• Page 72: All private healthcare plans must conform to government rules to participate in a Healthcare Exchange.
• Page 84: All private healthcare plans must participate in the Healthcare Exchange (i.e., total government control of private plans)
• Page 91: Government mandates linguistic infrastructure for services; translation: illegal aliens
• Page 95: The Government will pay ACORN and Americorps to sign up individuals for Government-run Health Care plan.
• Page 102: Those eligible for Medicaid will be automatically enrolled: you have no choice in the matter.
• Page 124: No company can sue the government for price-fixing. No "judicial review" is permitted against the government monopoly. Put simply, private insurers will be crushed.
• Page 127: The AMA sold doctors out: the government will set wages.
• Page 145: An employer MUST auto-enroll employees into the government-run public plan. No alternatives.
• Page 126: Employers MUST pay healthcare bills for part-time employees AND their families.
• Page 149: Any employer with a payroll of $400K or more, who does not offer the public option, pays an 8% tax on payroll
• Page 150: Any employer with a payroll of $250K-400K or more, who does not offer the public option, pays a 2 to 6% tax on payroll
• Page 167: Any individual who doesnt' have acceptable healthcare (according to the government) will be taxed 2.5% of income.
• Page 170: Any NON-RESIDENT alien is exempt from individual taxes (Americans will pay for them).
• Page 195: Officers and employees of Government Healthcare Bureaucracy will have access to ALL American financial and personal records.
• Page 203: "The tax imposed under this section shall not be treated as tax." Yes, it really says that.
• Page 239: Bill will reduce physician services for Medicaid. Seniors and the poor most affected."
• Page 241: Doctors: no matter what speciality you have, you'll all be paid the same (thanks, AMA!)
• Page 253: Government sets value of doctors' time, their professional judgment, etc.
• Page 265: Government mandates and controls productivity for private healthcare industries.
• Page 268: Government regulates rental and purchase of power-driven wheelchairs.
• Page 272: Cancer patients: welcome to the wonderful world of rationing!
• Page 280: Hospitals will be penalized for what the government deems preventable re-admissions.
• Page 298: Doctors: if you treat a patient during an initial admission that results in a readmission, you will be penalized by the government.
• Page 317: Doctors: you are now prohibited for owning and investing in healthcare companies!
• Page 318: Prohibition on hospital expansion. Hospitals cannot expand without government approval.
• Page 321: Hospital expansion hinges on "community" input: in other words, yet another payoff for ACORN.
• Page 335: Government mandates establishment of outcome-based measures: i.e., rationing.
• Page 341: Government has authority to disqualify Medicare Advantage Plans, HMOs, etc.
• Page 354: Government will restrict enrollment of SPECIAL NEEDS individuals.
• Page 379: More bureaucracy: Telehealth Advisory Committee (healthcare by phone).
• Page 425: More bureaucracy: Advance Care Planning Consult: Senior Citizens, assisted suicide, euthanasia?
• Page 425: Government will instruct and consult regarding living wills, durable powers of attorney, etc. Mandatory. Appears to lock in estate taxes ahead of time.
• Page 425: Goverment provides approved list of end-of-life resources, guiding you in death.
• Page 427: Government mandates program that orders end-of-life treatment; government dictates how your life ends.
• Page 429: Advance Care Planning Consult will be used to dictate treatment as patient's health deteriorates. This can include an ORDER for end-of-life plans. An ORDER from the GOVERNMENT.
• Page 430: Government will decide what level of treatments you may have at end-of-life.
• Page 469: Community-based Home Medical Services: more payoffs for ACORN.
• Page 472: Payments to Community-based organizations: more payoffs for ACORN.
• Page 489: Government will cover marriage and family therapy. Government intervenes in your marriage.
• Page 494: Government will cover mental health services: defining, creating and rationing those services.

What is it with Democrats? The only medical services that they don't want to ration are abortion and assisted suicide!