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

Monday, April 18, 2011

Reuters: 'Capitalism is failing the middle class'

Someone at Reuters named 'Chrystia Freeland' -- if that is her real name -- wasted thousands of bytes of valuable web real estate the other day relaying a study that found 'Capitalism is failing the middle class'. It's as if she believes our economic system really is capitalism:

Global capitalism isn’t working for the American middle class. That isn’t a headline from the left-leaning Huffington Post, or a comment on Glenn Beck’s right-wing populist blackboard. It is, instead, the conclusion of a rigorous analysis bearing the imprimatur of the U.S. establishment: the paper’s lead author is Michael Spence, recipient of the Nobel Prize in economic sciences, and it was published by the Council on Foreign Relations...

...Spence and his co-author, Sandile Hlatshwayo, examined the changes in the structure of the U.S. economy, particularly employment trends, over the past 20 years. They found that value added per U.S. worker increased sharply during that period – 21 per cent for the economy as a whole, and 44 per cent in the “tradable” sector, which is geek-speak for those businesses integrated into the global economy. But even as productivity soared, wages and job opportunities stagnated.

Put yourself back in time 20 years. Take away your cellphone, your flat-screen, your car that does 0-60 in under 8 seconds, your Internet connection, your incredible selection of foods at the local grocery store, and every other innovation of our magnificent (capitalist) free market system.

Is the average worker really worse off now than 20 years ago? Could their quality of life truly be characterized as "stagnant"?

Of course not.

The headline should read 'Crony Capitalism is Failing the Middle Class'.

We've seen decade after decade of bigger, more centralized, government in the United States. The federal government has become so unmoored from the Constitution that it would be well nigh unrecognizable to our nation's founders.

Consider the tentacles that intertwine Goldman Sachs and the U.S. Treasury Department. Or General Electric and the Department of Health and Human Services.

The free market hasn't failed "the middle class" (whoever that is - and, by the way, that phrasing is prototypical Marx-Alinsky class warfare rhetoric).

Monstrous government programs have failed Americans: from disastrous housing debacles like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac; the control of more and more elements of the energy sector in the name of a "global warming" fraud; "financial reform" authored by the likes of Barney Frank and Chris Dodd; further centralization of the health care industry; the failing welfare state; open borders; Social Security, Medicare, and dozens of other programs that are little more than legalized Ponzi schemes.

If Americans can ever restrain the government to its constitutional duties, we might truly unleash the "middle class".

What we have today is an out-of-control leviathan of a federal government, mandating our light bulbs, electric cars, low-flow shower heads, what kinds of insurance we must buy, and controlling literally every aspect of our lives.

It's not capitalism that's at fault. It's a bloated federal government and its pal, crony capitalism.


Sunday, April 17, 2011

Finally: an Honest 'Stimulus' Construction Sign

Courtesy of Woody, a truly honest construction sign for the American Recovery and Ripoff Act of 2009.

It would be great to have these printed up as full-sized stickers. Interested parties could then overlay them on the ridiculously commonplace construction signs to remind people where this money is really coming from.

Hat tip: Boy Moto.

Linked by: Weasel Zippers. Thanks!

Timeline Illustrates Precisely Why We Need a New Speaker: John Boehner's Profile in Ineptitude

Can someone send a copy of Negotiating for Dummies to Speaker Boehner? Please consider the Speaker's feckless statements and actions over the last several months -- after being handed his position by a huge groundswell of conservative support known as the Tea Party movement.

1/7/2011: Boehner Doubles Down On Promise To Cut $100 Billion: "Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH) yesterday doubled down on $100 billion in cuts. 'No ifs, ands or buts about it,' he said."

2/20/2011: House Approves $61 Billion Spending Cuts, Raising Risk of Federal Shutdown: "Senate Democrats already have said they won’t accept the cuts in the $1.2 trillion spending bill, and Obama’s budget office has threatened a presidential veto. "

3/2/2011: Boehner: Compromise Will Trim GOP’s $61 Billion Budget Cuts: "Responding to a question Tuesday about whether he foresees the House ultimately budging from the $61 billion figure, the Ohio Republican did not say that the chamber would hold firm when the Senate returns their proposal, which will likely include less than a $61 billion reduction in spending levels."

3/10/2011: Tea Party pressures Boehner in budget battle: "Complaints by Tea Party Republicans have already forced Boehner to almost double the amount of spending cuts proposed this year from $32 billion."

4/4/2011: Boehner says $33 billion in cuts is not enough: "I’ve made clear that their $33 billion is not enough and many of the cuts that the White House and Senate Democrats are talking about are full of smoke and mirrors. That’s unacceptable," the Speaker said.

4/7/2011: Interviewed on ABC News, Speaker Boehner vows not to shut down the government over a 2011 "continuing resolution" budget impasse: "I've said that 1,000 times since the first of the year. I do not want to shut the government down. I think that is irresponsible." [Ed: As an aside, the government has been shut down numerous times in recent years including a 21-day impasse during the Clinton administration.]

4/12/2011: Boehner touts fact that ''Budget Agreement Eliminates Funding for Obama Czars' as a reason to support the continuing resolution budget deal.

4/14/2011: Boehner: I’m standing by the $38 billion number: Boehner stands by the $38 billion in cuts, saying that this was really "$78.5 billion less than what the president wanted to spend... [and that he was] very disappointed in [Obama’s] speech yesterday,"

4/15/2011: CBO Says Spending Cuts Aren't As Advertised: "The Congressional Budget Office reports that the $38 billion in cuts to the budget for the current fiscal year will actually reduce this year's deficit by only about $352 million."

4/16/2011: Boehner’s office is not surprised Obama found a way to circumvent Congress, according to a staffer. A spokesman for Boehner said that the Speaker was not surprised that Obama has chosen to ignore the budget rider eliminating funding for the "Czars".

In other words, Boehner held the trump card -- a partial shutdown of the government -- in his hands and threw it away. Without leverage, he was unable to live up to anything resembling his promises. Promises that the American people support and demand.

As Paul Ryan put it after witnessing the president's hyper-partisan campaign speech on Wednesday, "the gauntlet has been thrown down" by Obama. He's gone all in. The big entitlement programs and the American economic system itself are headed for collapse. That's not what I say. That's what Peter Orszag, Obama's former economic adviser, says: 'If policymakers will not act before we have a fiscal crisis at the federal level, a fiscal crisis we will ultimately have.'

We need a new Speaker of the House. Someone who understands that we're up against true sixties radicals. These are people who want to see the whole society burn down. Because that's where we're headed without a major course correction.

We need a fighter and a competent negotiator. Boehner has proven that he ain't it.

How does Speaker of the House Allen West sound?


Saturday, April 16, 2011

Another Leftist Meme Obliterated: 'Evil' Health Insurers Reject Far Less Health Care Claims Than... Medicare

You know, back in the day, Democrats and Donald Trump got lots of mileage out of the "Bush Lied" meme. But even a partial list of the current president's lies boggles the mind of an independent observer.

And when it comes to health care, among his favorite talking points are that health insurers are out to deny claims ("More and more Americans pay their premiums, only to discover that their insurance company has dropped their coverage when they get sick, or won’t pay the full cost of care. It happens every day.") and that Medicare is the most awesome health plan evah. Turns out, like so many of his fabrications, those assertions are pure, unmitigated horse manure.

According to the American Medical Association’s National Health Insurer Report Card for 2008, the government’s health plan, Medicare, denied medical claims at nearly double the average for private insurers: Medicare denied 6.85% of claims. The highest private insurance denier was Aetna @ 6.8%, followed by Anthem Blue Cross @ 3.44, with an average denial rate of medical claims by private insurers of 3.88%

In its 2009 National Health Insurer Report Card, the AMA reports that Medicare denied only 4% of claims—a big improvement, but outpaced better still by the private insurers. The prior year’s high private denier, Aetna, reduced denials to 1.81%—an astounding 75% improvement—with similar declines by all other private insurers, to average only 2.79%.

Maybe there’s something to be said for the need to keep your customers satisfied in order to make that profit after all.

Paul Ryan's budget plan is as good a start as any. It protects those in or near retirement and starts privatizing the rest. It offers means-tested subsidies for those truly in need and lets the free market (you know, drones -- competition) work its magic.

Ask any physician how they like Medicare and you're likely to get cursed at -- or worse. The data shows that Medicare and, by extension, Obamacare, are far worse for patients than private health insurance.

It's an immutable fact. Government-run health care combines the convenience of the Department of Motor Vehicles with the efficiency of a Poliburo-style central planning committee. The result will be a lawful Ponzi scheme that necessarily entails misery, rationing and premature deaths. Period.

History, logic, facts and reason are all on the side of conservatives. Conversely, hope, unicorns and mythology appear to be the only philosophical tenets of the modern, Soros-controlled Democrat Party.


Hat tip: Mark Levin.

Thursday, April 14, 2011

Grove Parc America

For more than five weeks during the brutally cold winter of 1997, tenants suffered without any heat in a government-subsidized apartment building. The 31-unit building in Chicago's Englewood neighborhood had been "rehabbed" just four years prior at taxpayer expense, no less.

How cold was it? Temperatures routinely dipped around ten below zero. With wind-chills factored in, the effective temperatures approached 30 below.

And the residents of the building had no heat for more than a month.

The building's owner -- Rezmar Corporation -- didn't bother to turn on the heat for weeks. In fact, it didn't do so until it was sued.

And the Englewood building wasn't the only one of Rezmar's properties that had scores of code violations. At least a dozen times, Rezmar had to be sued in order to simply turn on the heat in its properties.

Rezmar's properties turned out to be catastrophic failures: 17 buildings ended up in foreclosure, 6 are boarded up, hundreds of apartments are vacant and require repair... and taxpayers were stuck with millions in unpaid loans.

All of these buildings were in -- or just blocks away from -- a single state senator's district. A district belonging to a young, up-and-coming politician named Barack Obama.

In fact, during the brutal winter of 1997, even while Rezmar refused to heat its Englewood apartments, it was donating $1,000 to state senator Obama's campaign fund.

During the winter or the scores of subsequent code violations, did state senator Obama ever lift a finger to protect his constituents from "predatory slumlords" like Rezmar?

The answer appears to be a resounding "No". In 2007, Obama's own campaign staff stated, "Senator Obama does not remember having conversations... about properties that [Rezmar] owned.."

The shivering tenants in in and around the district were left defenseless for weeks at a time. Assailed on one side by predatory slumlords like Rezmar, they were -- for all intents and purposes -- left out in the cold by their state senator, Barack Obama.

There's a simple reason Obama didn't lift a finger to protest these horrific violations. His political patron, Tony Rezko, was the driving force behind Rezmar. And Rezko helped raise a quarter of a million dollars for Obama's various campaigns.

And after stating he'd "never done any favors for" Rezko, the Chicago Sun-Times discovered letters Obama wrote to city and state officials supporting Rezko's bid for $14 million in taxpayers' money for an elder-care facility.

While Obama didn't expend an ounce of energy to protest Rezko's outrageous violations, he did take time to write letters on behalf of Rezko in his efforts to secure an additional $14 million in taxpayer funds.

State senator Obama couldn't effectively represent his abused constituents... perhaps because he was otherwise occupied helping his slumlord patrons advance their own agendas.

And as a so-called "community organizer" and then a state senator, Obama -- and close friend and confidante Valerie Jarrett, who was responsible for property management -- couldn't even keep huge, federally subsidized housing complexes like Grove Parc habitable. And 'habitable' is kind of a low bar, I would think.

State Senator Barack Obama did a really lousy job representing his constituents in a tiny district in Chicago's south side, appearing to side more often with corporate interests than his own, downtrodden citizens.

And his cronies -- like Valerie Jarrett -- were linked to dozens of failed projects that burned through millions in taxpayer funds.

And, thanks to legacy media, which failed to vet Obama and his malevolent claque of sycophants, we watch in horror as all of America turns into Grove Parc.


Rep. Allen West on the Continuing Resolution Budget Scam: We're kicking the can down the road on the way to economic catastrophe

GOP superstar Rep. Allen West (FL-22) entered the following statement into the Congressional Record earlier today to express his extreme displeasure with the Continuing Resolution. He voted against it, joining

...When my daughter was born in 1993 the Federal Government debt was $4.3 trillion. Just 18 years later, I will shortly be faced with a vote on whether to raise the debt limit to over $15 trillion dollars. When I held my daughter as a baby, I never thought that our nation would be in such financial distress and on its way to a major economic catastrophe.

Over the weekend... I thought even harder about what the United States will be like when she will be my age and what would her son or daughter, my grandchildren, think when they look back in the history books at this critical time in our Republic’s history.

Last November, the citizens of the 22nd Congressional District, and millions of Americans, voted for a new direction for our country. They sent a message to our elected representatives that we needed to end out-of-control government spending, reduce our national debt, and get our fiscal house in order.

The Democrat Majority and President Obama over the last two years have produced deficits of $1.4 and $1.25 trillion, and the President has produced a Budget for Fiscal Year 2012 which would add another $1.6 trillion. The American people know that the federal government is collecting $2.2 trillion and spending $3.7 trillion this year.

The American people know that forty cents of every dollar the federal government spends is borrowed, much of it from China. The American people also know our nation is piling up new debt at the rate of $4 billion a day.

As we are all aware, the 111th Congress was controlled by overwhelming Democrat majorities in the House of Representatives and the United States Senate. Yet even with these enormous majorities, Congress failed to pass a budget or any of the Appropriations bills.

Members of the former Majority Party in the House of Representatives have now resorted to the political rhetoric that the Republican Party is trying to kill women, starve seniors, and the budget deal is the functional equivalent of bombing innocent civilians. They make these statements even after Majority Leader Reid and President Obama recognize that we need to cut federal spending,

This type of political rhetoric is beneath us. We can disagree on the direction we are taking our nation, but let us have a debate on the facts and policies. The American people demand an adult conversation instead of childish name calling.

Mr. Speaker, I want to take a moment to briefly summarize my thoughts and votes during the negotiations for the Budget for Fiscal Year 2011. I voted for the first short term Continuing Resolution in the 112th Congress in order to provide Speaker Boehner the necessary time to negotiate with an intransigent United States Senate and White House.

I voted against the second Continuing Resolution because I believed that we were continuing to kick a can down the road, and that the Obama Administration and Members of the Democrat Party wanted to force the Federal Government into a shutdown in order to win political points. It seems their goal is the hope that by shutting down the Federal Government, the American people will perceive an inflexible Republican Party and return the Democrats to power in the next election.

...At the Army Airborne school in 1984 I had a black hat instructor say, “If you set the bar low, you will jump low!” Today, I will be voting against the negotiated agreement because I believe that we set the bar too low and it does not fulfill the promise I made to the constituents of the 22nd Congressional District of Florida. While this bill is a step in the right direction, I am voting against the Department of Defense and Full-Year Continuing Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2011, H.R. 1473 because it is important for elected leaders to stand by the pledges we make to the American People.

It takes five miles to turn an aircraft carrier, I am pleased, that finally, the Republican Leadership has finally taken control of the helm and begun to turn the wheel. However, I believe we need to turn the wheel a little harder. At this moment in our nation’s history, when the facts are so clear and the political hyperbole is so hollow, my vote reflects that we need more to get our ship of state on the right course.

John Boehner may be a very patriotic citizen, but as a House Speaker he appears slow-witted and fearful of confrontations. When our country is headed right for the fiscal abyss, confrontations are precisely what we need. And the American people will support these fights. Hell, Mr. Speaker, why do you think we're calling you Mr. Speaker? And this ain't 1995, Karl Rove.

I salute Allen West, Michele Bachmann, Steve King, and the other House Republicans who opposed this historic scam. The time to fight is now. Door-to-door. Every block, every manhole cover. We must fight!

And, unlike the radical Marxist Left, we really are doing it for the children.


Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Democrat Math: Even the Kooks Running San Francisco Understand that Tax Breaks Help Businesses Hire More Employees

Gee, doesn't this directly refute President Obama's assertion that taxing "the rich" (whoever that is) will somehow help the budget deficit?

Doesn't Twitter count as the evil rich, to be vilified and shunned?

As expected, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors today approved a payroll tax cap for some businesses willing to move to the city's Mid-Market neighborhood.

The legislation and subsequent amendments passed by a vote of 8 to 3... Mayor Ed Lee has said he will sign the measure.

The legislation's passing should come as good news to growing businesses in the city, but the poster child for this effort has been Twitter. The company currently resides in a building in the South of Market neighborhood and has been considering a move out of the city due to San Francisco's high payroll taxes and rents. Other tech firms like social-gaming company Zynga and Yelp, all born in San Francisco, have also threatened to leave the city for similar reasons.

The legislation that officially passed today will cap payroll taxes for companies with a payroll of at least $1 million for the next seven years. That cap would remain even if the companies add to their ranks. Additionally, employee income from exercising stock options will not be taxed.

So even the far let nuts in San Francisco understand that "taxing the rich" simply drives them away.

It punishes hard work.

It rewards the slothful.

Letting the government have more money now is akin to giving a heroin addict clean needles and cash.

Oh.

Wait. The liberals did that too. My bad.


Greatest Spendthrift in World History Tells Americans to Make Do With Less

Oh, it's disguised under the same pablum it always is: Marxist class-warfare rhetoric. And it's just as convincing as his promises that Obamacare would reduce premiums an average of $2,500 a year. How's that working out for ya', Sparky?

Obama gave a four-step plan to confront the massive and crippling deficits ahead of us that entirely relies on the kind of proposals he’s already aired in the past.  He gave little in the way of specifics, and made no mention at all of his deficit commission again.  Instead of offering specifics on cuts, Obama instead offered specifics on … more spending:...

...For a budget-cutting speech, it certainly seemed that Obama was a lot more interested in defending spending than defunding government. Of course, that depends on what part of government we’re cutting. Obama spent most of his time looking at the Pentagon instead of anywhere else...

...Obama wants tax deductions curtailed. But which tax deductions? He never put any specific recommendation on the table. He just says that he’s going to tell Congress to figure it out. Couldn’t he have committed to even one specific proposal, rather than just list a few possibilities? How hard would it have been to say, for example, “The home mortgage interest deduction should be limited to no more than $20,000 in a year”? Apparently, too hard for this President.

As for the public sector unions whose compensation, benefits and pension plans are infinitely better than most Americans? Are they going to have to sacrifice?

Uhm, no.

And the president -- who will not rest until he has addressed unemployment, affordable housing, skyrocketing energy prices and righting the economy -- well, he has a plan.

He's taking off for Chicago tomorrow to collect campaign contributions at three separate fundraising events.

A study by the Tax Foundation finds that Americans will pay more in taxes in 2011 than the amount they spend on food, clothing and housing combined.

But that's still not enough for the radical Marxist Democrats. They want more. No amount of your money can satisfy their insatiable greed for money and power.

No amount can satisfy them.


Hat tip: Memeorandum.

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

After today's budget revelations, I'd be too embarrassed to tweet this

RINOs lied, their credibility died.

Mark Levin was prescient on Saturday, asking: "What if $10 billion of the $38.5 billion actually is from the prior two CRs? And what if another $12 billion of the remaining $28.5 billion actually comes from a change in the budget baseline that would have occurred anyway?"

And that's precisely what happened.

So the RINOs in the House lied to us. They misplayed their hand and they lied. They cut virtually nothing from the budget that wasn't already getting cut.

It's time for new leadership in the House. New, conservative leadership who have as their goal the rescue of this country from the fiscal abyss. If that's extreme, then I want two hundred more extremists in Congress.


The Obama Legacy: 8 Charts That Will Blow Your Mind

It's one thing to review the raw data, but it's another thing altogether to see the numbers represented in graphical form.








For those of you still trying to grasp the impact -- I mean you liberals -- I'll try to put it in small words and say it slllloooowwwwly for you:

The economy sucks.

And the country is bankrupt.

Mission Accomplished!


Update: CNBC -- "Inflation Actually Near 10% Using Older Measure"


Hat tip: Moe Lane.

Epic Fail: John Boehner's $14.7B capitulation

Question: When is $100B in budget cuts actually less than $15B?

Answer: When a feckless House leadership gets played like a cheap accordion.


Remember that $100 billion in 2011 spending cuts the Republican minority promised to enact last October if they were able to regain control of the House?

During the recent midterm elections campaign, Republican leaders pledged to reduce non-entitlement spending by a whopping $100 billion.

“The Republican leadership has committed to this $100 billion cut,” says Brian Riedl, lead budget analyst for the Heritage Foundation. “I expect them to do everything in their power to enact it. They’re on the record, they ran on this, and if it’s brushed aside there would be harsh political consequences.”

There should be. Because, as it turns out, the "harsh, draconian" cuts that Speaker John Boehner negotiated last Friday weren't $100 billion or even the $38 billion figure that the Beltway insiders gleefully advertised.

The full extent of the budget deal reached late Friday did not become clear until today "after congressional aides worked all weekend and all day Monday to shape a detailed spending plan based on the framework that Obama and congressional leaders agreed to Friday," the Washington Post reports... "In several cases, what look like large reductions are actually accounting gimmicks."

National Journal: "The specifics show that finding nearly $40 billion in cuts during the 2011 fiscal year required clever accounting and, for the White House, a willingness to concede on rhetoric to find gains on substance. For example, the final cuts in the deal are advertised as $38.5 billion less than was appropriated in 2010, but after removing rescissions, cuts to reserve funds and reductions in mandatory spending programs, discretionary spending will be reduced only by $14.7 billion."

Let's recap.

Over the last two years, the Republicans -- Boehner and Cantor especially -- were treated like dirt by the Democrats. They were locked out of important policy debates, they were refused the opportunity to introduce amendments, and they had brutal bills like Cap-and-Trade and Obamacare slammed down their throats.

Furthermore, President Obama and the Democrats have set this country on a course for fiscal ruin.

The time for negotiation is long since past, yet the cowardly RINO leaders insist on "working with President Obama".

In the most recent case, Boehner held a nuclear weapon: a partial government shutdown. It was a weapon that has been used at least a dozen times in the recent past. Yet, right up front, Boehner told anyone who would listen that he would never shut down the government. Which meant he had no power in his "negotiations" with the radical Leftists who now control the Democrat Party.

And he got played.

$15 billion in cuts when $100 billion was promised? When the country is headed for a complete economic catastrophe?

We need a new Speaker of the House. Someone who will live up to their word. Someone like Michele Bachmann or Allen West.


Update: Budget deal includes cut of $226 million border fence at suggestion of Obama administration

Update II: A Scam of a Budget Deal.


Linked by: Michelle Malkin. Thanks!

Sunday, April 10, 2011

The Painfully Obvious Need for Government Employment Benefit Reform

James M. Hohman, writing at Michigan Capitol Confidential, offers the best illustration yet of "The Obvious Need for Government Employment Benefit Reform."

Public-sector compensation has been a matter of intense public debate in Michigan. On one side are public-sector employees fighting to keep union privileges, and on the other are those trying to lower the cost of government. But as a simple matter of fiscal prudence, any spending item that increases at a faster rate than the means to pay for it needs to be explored. For state and local governments, there’s no bigger area that needs exploration than government employment benefits.

Average benefits per employee at state and local governments (including public schools) increased 34 percent from 2000 to 2010, adjusted for inflation, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis.

In contrast, inflation-adjusted personal income fell 5 percent, inflation-adjusted gross domestic product fell 12 percent, and the inflation-adjusted pay, earnings, dividends, interest and rental income of Michigan residents fell 18 percent...

...Without a long look from policymakers, the state is resigning itself to unsustainable increases.

The average government employee earns benefits that are more expensive than the private-sector average. Bringing those in line with private-sector averages would save the state $5.7 billion.

Only the mathematical illiterates holding the reins of the Democrat Party think this sort of thing is sustainable.

Which is why they are as much an anachronism as the telegraph or the encyclopedia salesman.


Plouffe: Obama 'will not rest until he sees the long-term deficit reduced'

Okay, I'm paraphrasing.

"Later this week the president is going to speak about his approach to long-term deficit reduction," Plouffe said on CNN... "He's going to be clear about the type of deficit reduction we need in terms of dollar amounts, over what period of years..."

The White House advisor did not offer specifics of the president's plan, but he said that all options were on the table... "Obviously you've got to look everywhere; it's got to be a balanced approach. Every corner of the federal government has to be looked at here," he said.

Last week, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) introduced the GOP's budget blueprint for fiscal 2012... The ambitious legislation, which has virtually no chance of being approved in the Senate, reduces 10 years of deficits by $1.649 trillion compared to the status quo, and balances the budget shortly before 2040.

Let me be the very first to predict that Obama's efforts at deficit reduction will be about as successful as a Nissan Versa's ability to stop the Sendai Tsunami.

The Democrat Party is the federal bureaucracy. Any attempts to slash the latter mortally wounds the former. And remember: the public sector union bosses spent tens of millions of dollars electing Obama in 2008.

And he's counting on the unions to pony up hundreds of million in 2012.

So there's as much chance of Obama slashing the size of government as there is Michael Moore begging off a second helping of mashed potatoes.


Update: An anonymized commenter wins our coveted Comment o' the Day Award.

This will be very predictable. Obama will spend all week looking at polling to determine what he can get away with saying. He will then stand up and make a speech, littered with references to himself, green energy, green jobs, and absolutely wild lies about the cost of Obamacare. He will claim he is the polar opposite of what he is. He will close by bashing the obstructionist and dangerous Republicans who want crazy things like smaller government and less spending.

He will have given no specifics. Then he will play some more golf.


Hat tip: Michelle Malkin. Linked by: Campaign Spot. Thanks!

The United States is a 700-lb. man stuck in his bed

Mark Steyn likens America and its staggering debt to a man so obese he is dependent upon others to feed him and service his waste.

I always enjoy those stories that crop up periodically on the local news where some 700lb guy who can’t get out of bed needs to go to hospital and the fire department has to slice off the second-floor clapboards and framing to winch him out of there. When you’re 50lbs overweight, it’s worth laying off the pasta and desserts. When you’re 500lbs over, you just lie there and wait for someone else to keep the chow coming – the Chinese, Japanese, Saudis, Russians… Hey, what difference does it make? And if the bed sores get too bad the Beijing Fire Department will be there to saw the wall off and get you outta there. After all, it’s in their interest, right?

A Baltimore reader sent me his guide to crisis management in advanced democracies:

Phase 1) A crisis is coming. But we still have time. There’s no need to act yet.
Phase 2) Yes, a crisis is coming. But we still have time. There’s no need to act yet.
Phase 3) We’re out of time. There’s no reason to act, because it’s too late.


Much of the political establishment is officially in Phase Two – sure, this stuff is a problem but not until 2080, 2060, whenever – but substantively in Phase Three.

Tyler Durden illustrates the issue with what he describes "the only charts that matter".

The federal budget is seriously, seriously out-of-whack.

The debt ceiling will be breached in the next month or two.

And, ominously, "for the purists, ... another chart, this time showing the continuing persistent deterioration in the budget due to mandatory spending. The question is where, absent someone discovering teleportation or some other revolutionary technological invention, will the paradigm technological step up allowing for a surge in revenues, come from."

And these are the important deadlines for the fiscal battles yet to come.

Does the House leadership possess the mettle to save America from fiscal calamity? Or will it allow the country to die, stuck in its chair, as it negotiates fiscal trivialities?


Saturday, April 09, 2011

Attention John Boehner and Eric Cantor: Moreballstra™ Can Help!



Debt Jumped $54 Billion in 8 Days Leading Up to the 'Historic' Obama-Boehner Budget Deal That Cut $38 Billion

To illustrate just how unserious last night's budget deal was, consider that the debt climbed more in the last eight days than the entire amount of the extreme 2011 cuts ("extreme" is the word the Democrat Caucus told me to use).

The federal debt increased $54.1 billion in the eight days preceding the deal made by President Barack Obama, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D.-Nev.) and House Speaker John Boehner (R.-Ohio) to cut $38.5 billion in federal spending for the remainder of fiscal year 2011, which runs through September.

That's right: even crediting the $38 billion in cuts, the deficit increased more than $15 billion over the last eight days.


Genius!

And what goodies did the Republicans get for their courageous bluster?

Democrats knocked off most of the controversial policy riders that House Republicans had included in H.R. 1, the package of spending cuts that passed in February, including one on funding Planned Parenthood, which provides abortion services.

"We also prevented this important debate from being overtaken by politics and unrelated disagreements on social issues," the president said in his morning address.

Republicans, however, won the inclusion of a rider to expand the District of Columbia’s school voucher program and to authorize a Government Accountability Office study of a financial oversight board established by the Wall Street reform bill.

That's right: they didn't de-fund Obamacare. They didn't get a straight up vote on reducing the EPA's power. They didn't de-fund Planned Parenthood.


Oh: but they did get school vouchers in the District of Columbia.

Winning!


Linked by: Michelle Malkin. Thanks!