Wasting Time With Alex
Elections
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Campaign promises, fiscal responsibility, debt, ethical scandals, and hope and change
Democrats ran and won in 2006, and then again in 2008, on the bad behavior of republicans. Republicans were successfully and correctly painted as having lost their fiscal sanity for the deficit spending prior to 2006, only to have democrats gain control of congress and the spending purse after the 2006 elections, and set new spending records they then blamed Bush for. The leftwing machine’s manipulations of the facts, with big-time help from a complicit media that didn’t point out democrats were always worse at that stuff anyway when in charge, allowed them to run on the lack of fiscal responsibility of the republicans in 2008 again, using the crisis of their own making that they then blamed on Bush yet again, to win big, only to then proceed to set new deficit spending records. Here is the graph for those of you that want to dispute the deficit spending facts, so spare us the bull:
As this projection showed Obama’s deficit spending in his first year ended up being more than all 8 years of Bush. Oh sure, as I already pointed out Obama is blaming Bush for having to do so. Democrats have successfully convinced so many that the financial crisis we are in isn’t tied to those idiotic collectivist economic lending practices they forced upon the market in the last 3 decades. Even worse, they successfully have covered up the rigged games Franks and Dodd set up with Fannie and Freddie to keep those faulty economic policies afloat, and how those trading scams then led to the implosion of the housing market and then the financial sector. But that “It’s Bush’s fault” excuse is wearing thin as people are slowly seeing the truth. Almost $2 trillion of the tax payer’s dollars has been funneled to democrats and their friends, through one collectivist economic scam or another promising salvation, but delivering nothing but a drastically growing government bureaucracy, while the private sector continues to bleed jobs and contract. And the WH remains focused on tacking on trillions more in new taxes and debt so they can give government control of healthcare moneys and decisions, with a scam which purports to reign in costs and be fiscally responsible by of all things taxing us for 10 years to provide 5 or 6 years of coverage, while ignoring the economic disaster they are leaving in their wake. And the one thing they should be addressing, the lack of jobs, gets nothing but some meaningless political play. In the mean time the hole is growing deeper and the spending of money we simply don’t have continues to rise. This year is looking like it will set even higher and wasteful deficit spending records as this February’s $220.9 billion single month record is showing. This seems to be our economic future thanks to the democrats and their economics. But the fact that democrats are destroying our economy, and are trying hard to destroy healthcare, is not the thing I want to address here. I want to talk a bit about one of the other lies they told to get themselves elected.
If you have been following the whole Eric Massa fiasco, you know this stuff has turned into a soap opera writ large. Frankly I do not know if Massa is telling the truth. He is a democrat after all, and lying is second nature for them. However, I do not put it past this WH to do what Massa has accused them of doing either. Based on what I have seen them do in just this first year, I have no doubt that this bunch is probably the most corrupt crew I have ever seen. We are dealing with Chicago politics here, and this – hope & change! - is SOP for these people. My bet is that since Obama wants this monster passed, his team is going to make it happen. Even if they have to do what Massa has accused them of. In fact I do not put it past them to resort to openly committing felonies to do so considering the vested interest they have in making this the law of the lad. After all, they control the levers of power and the press, so whose gonna be able to do anything about anything bad they do? If the stuff that has been going on so far hasn’t made the case yet, I doubt anything they do will.
And that brings me to my point about this whole Massa thing. If you don’t remember Nancy promising to drain the republican swamp and end the culture of corruption back in 2006, here is just one of the instances the sympathetic press gave her words play. Unfortunately, as case after case proves – Chris Dodd, Barney Franks, Charley Rangel, and a plethora of others – Nancy lied, and the corruption and criminal behavior, like the deficit spending and the fiscal irresponsibility I talked about before, is also setting new records. Don’t take my word for it. The case with Massa is more of the same. Even more important is the fact that while Pelosi is now claiming ignorance that’s a blatant lie because Nancy knew months ago about Massa’s behavior. And while Nancy is playing dumb, just a little research would have made it all obvious from records going back to Massa’s NAVY days showing that Massa was a time bomb waiting to explode.
As is the case in all these other stories of corruption that the MSM is ignoring or down playing, we are being lied to by these democrats that want to pretend real criminal activity and serious ethics violations, stuff that makes what happens when the republicans were in charge look tame, isn’t their modus operandi. And keep in mind that it is this scandal driven congress which is ignoring the will of the people and pushing forward with an unpopular government takeover of healthcare. Why isn’t the MSM up in arms about all this corruption and the will of the people being ignored? I guess that’s more of that hope and change for you.
Blogging • Insane Stuff • All Things Government • Elections • Healthcare Reform • Economics • News • Liberal Media • The Left • (0) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
ACORN on the record..
As the left actively but falsely tries to discredit O’Keefe’s work in exposing ACORN’s criminal activities, of all things by attacking his choice of clothing or by creating the false illusion that his video editing distorted the facts, it bears to point out that ACORN has a long history of other criminal activity. Oh sure, the left will say that it’s always about voter registration and unimportant because nobody can “definitely prove” there was any actual voter fraud, or some such, but the latest case says otherwise:
Milwaukee police officers sat on their hands for months last year instead of investigating possible voter fraud cases from the 2008 general election. It’s an incredible claim, but it’s coming from a credible source: Assistant District Attorney Bruce Landgraf, the Milwaukee County prosecutor responsible for overseeing campaign and election issues. “Honestly, the Milwaukee Police Department largely ignored your double voter (and other) referrals received in January 2009 for the first six months of 2009,” Landgraf wrote in an e-mail to a city elections official on Jan. 26.
Speaking with unguarded candor, the veteran prosecutor said in his note that MPD’s tardy response had a major impact. The cases involve voters who may have cast more than one ballot, felons who may have voted illegally and other cases of possible election fraud. “Sadly, several probable cases of genuine voter fraud were harmed by that delay,” Landgraf wrote in an e-mail obtained through an open records request. The assistant district attorney was even more pessimistic about the investigation of more than 500 individuals who registered to vote on election day but whose addresses could not be confirmed later by postcard. “I do not expect them to ever get to the Address Cards,” he said of the Milwaukee cops.
On Friday, Landgraf declined to provide specifics, referring questions to his boss, District Attorney John Chisholm. Interestingly, Chisholm wouldn’t elaborate on his assistant’s concerns. “I’ll let the e-mail speak for itself,” he said while praising Landgraf’s experience and knowledge.
That emphasis is mine. We are dealing with accusations of voter fraud here, not voter registration fraud. I use “accusations”, because obviously there never was a real investigation despite the obvious. We all know better though. This is SOP from ACORN. It’s what they exist for. And it is clear that there was a delay, on purpose, to make sure any investigation in this case didn’t pan out. You have to wonder how many of these other instances are out there.
Oh yeah, for you clever lefties that will immediately point out that the Milwaukee Journal article never mentions ACORN, that’s likely on purpose. However, you can have a look at this AG indictment which clearly shows that 2 of those co-conspirators being looked at in this case were ACORN employees.
MILWAUKEE – Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen announced today that the Milwaukee Election Fraud Task Force has brought additional electoral fraud cases against five Wisconsin residents. The Department of Justice, acting as Special Prosecutor for Milwaukee County, has filed felony charges against Maria Miles, Kevin Clancy, Michael Henderson, Herbert Gunka, and Suzanne Gunka, all alleging election fraud arising out of the November 4, 2008, Presidential Election.
“The integrity of elections is dependent upon citizens and officials insisting they be conducted lawfully. Wisconsin’s citizens should not have to wonder whether their vote has been negated or diminished by illegally cast ballots,” Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen said.
According to the criminal complaints, Miles and Clancy served as Special Registration Deputies (“SRD”) for the City of Milwaukee in advance of the 2008 Presidential Election. Each worked for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (“ACORN”). Miles and Clancy are each charged with the felony offense of Falsely Procuring Voter Registration as Party to a Crime. The complaint alleges that Miles and Clancy submitted multiple voter registration applications for the same individuals, and also were part of a scheme in which they and other SRDs registered each other to vote multiple times in order to meet voter registration quotas imposed by ACORN.
If you want the reference for that, it is here.
Clearly ACORN employees helped commit voter fraud. Sadly, the Milwaukee police dept dropped the ball, and the usual suspects are doing their best to not point out that connection. But we can continue to pretend the crook is the guy that dressed up as a pimp or not and got ACORN employees giving him advice on how to pimp children and/or foreigners that also might be under age, hide the income to avoid taxes, and then run for office as a democrat.
Blogging • Insane Stuff • All Things Government • Elections • News • Liberal Media • The Left • (0) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink
Friday, January 22, 2010
The more things change, the more they stay the same…
So, now that the government healthcare takeover agenda seems to be all bud dead, the leftists are setting their sight on taking over the financial sector. They are going to cripple the economy and get their hands on our money one way or another, because we are too stupid to understand that they know what’s best for us. Wall Street reacted appropriately, and from the looks of it, despite the concern by some, there will be more of the same to come. Before you start ranting about the evils of Wall Street remember that they are not able to do anything without the tacit and regulatory approval of a politician, and while the left has made a great case of convincing people that these favors are the acts of the right, the truth is that the real big and rewarding sweetheart deals – think AIG bonuses for example – come from democrats. They are the ones that are the easiest to buy. Anyway, I guess this is how Obama plans to help the economy create more jobs? How much longer do we have to endure this destructive economic crap before the next elections clean house?
All Things Government • Elections • Economics • News • Liberal Media • The Left • (0) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink
Monday, January 18, 2010
Government healthcare takeover plan is doing so good that..
The democrats are now threatening to ignore the rules.
BOSTON (AP) - A panicky White House and Democratic allies scrambled Sunday for a plan to salvage their hard-fought health care package in case a Republican wins Tuesday’s Senate race in Massachusetts, which would enable the GOP to block further Senate action. The likeliest scenario would require persuading House Democrats to accept a bill the Senate passed last month, despite their objections to several parts. Aides consulted Sunday amid fears that Republican Scott Brown will defeat Democrat Martha Coakley in the special election to fill the late Edward M. Kennedy’s seat. A Brown win would give the GOP 41 Senate votes, enough to filibuster and block final passage of the House-Senate compromise on health care now being crafted.
I wonder if the leftists see the irony that this story originated out of Boston Mass., where we all know the democrats, whom took the Kennedy seat for granted, seem poised to lose that Senate seat in the special election to Scott Brown. Obama’s visit Sunday was a bust - AP reports mixed results because they are MSM shills, but barely 2000 - 2500 people showed up for that freakshow - while the Scott Brown meeting was a big win. And while democrats have plans for the 2010 elections and likely are counting on more of the same in MA., with some union thuggery thrown in for good measure. After all, the Obama Admin is likely to turn a blind eye to any kind of voter intimidation or fraud that helps them as the dismissed cases of blatant criminal activity in the 2008 election proves.
But, let us get back to the government healthcare takeover attempt by the collectivists. It looks like the troops are reading the writing on the wall, and many are not liking it much. Maybe they figure no amount of cheating or cover from the MSM will spare them a defeat in 2010. Lucky for us most of these hyenas will not simply go along with something that spells suicide for their personal political careers even if it helps their party cement a permanent hold on the American political landscape (when people need you for their benefits, they must keep you in power). Their problem is that the writing is on the wall. The democrats managed in but a single year to remind America why they should never be trusted with power. I hope that idiotic meme that democrats are better for the economy dies a painful and quick death. I never understood how anyone could take the collectivist’s view of the economy as anything good for anyone but the politicians. To quote Clinton: “It’s the economy stupid”. And the current approach of wrecking it permanently, isn’t doing well.
UPDATE: And if you doubt that the left thinks cheating is a fine thing as long as they are doing it, here is MSNBC’s Ed Schultz making a startling remark on his radio show yesterday about supporting voter fraud in Massachusetts. You got that right. The advice from the MSM cronies is to cheat. Not like they would ever report it if it hurt “the cause”.
Blogging • Insane Stuff • All Things Government • Elections • Healthcare Reform • Economics • News • Liberal Media • The Left • (0) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink
Friday, December 18, 2009
It IS a patronage bill…
If you have any doubt that the stimulus patronage bill was nothing but more corruption and graft, take a look at this:
A new analysis of the $157 billion distributed by the American Reinvestment and Recovery act, popularly known as the stimulus bill, shows that the funds were distributed without regard for what states were most in need of jobs. “You would think that if the stimulus money was actually spent to create jobs, there would be more stimulus money spent in high unemployment states,” said Veronique de Rugy, a scholar at the Mercatus Center who produced the analysis. “But we don’t find any correlation.” The Mercatus Center at George Mason University in Virginia is one of the nation’s most respected economic and regulatory think tanks and has a Nobel prize-winning economist on staff. The econometric analysis was done using data provided by Recovery.gov—the government website devoted to tracking the stimulus data—as well as a host of other government databases.
Additionally, Mercatus found that stimulus funds were not disbursed geographically with any special regard for low-income Americans. “We find no correlation between economic indicators and stimulus funding. Preliminary results find no statistically significant effect of unemployment, median income or mean income on stimulus funds allocation,” said the report. The Mercatus Center analysis also found that Democratic congressional districts received on average almost double the funding of Republican congressional districts. Republican congressional districts received on average $232 million in stimulus funds while Democratic districts received $439 million on average.
So the stimulus bill that was supposed to create jobs, had the bulk of the money to democratic enclaves and not even the ones that needed job creation? No way! How could the geniuses over at the WH and Congress, the anti-Bushes, have gotten this wrong? One would almost be inclined to think this was nothing but the fleecing of tax payers to line the pockets of friends, activists, lobbyists, and campaign coffers by democrats! All kidding aside, it gets even better:
Finally, the Mercatus analysis shows that a majority of the funds allocated went to public rather than private entities—nearly $88 billion to $69 billion. While some of the money given to public entities may eventually filter down to the private sector, it’s much less transparent how money given to public entities is spurring economic growth and job creation.
So big government just told us we were in a crisis that required us to allow them to spend close to a trillion dollars without actually seeing how, then they used the bulk of those funds to increase the size of government, line their own and their friends pockets, and enrich their campaign coffers. Why no cry from the MSM? Remember the good old days of the “culture of corruption” talk? This is real graft on a scale that dwarfs the other crap, and yet we hear nothing. I am sure the usual idiots that want to pretend there isn’t any media bias will tell me this isn’t a story because there isn’t enough blood. The American tax payers, the American people, are all being bled and strangled, and yet, this isn’t a story. Go figure. And we are being told we need to let them do more of this, straddle us with crappy healthcare and punitive energy costs, all because they mean well. F them all.
Blogging • Insane Stuff • All Things Government • Elections • Healthcare Reform • Economics • News • Liberal Media • The Left • (0) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Real voter fraud happened, and guess who was involved?
Do it enough times, and you will eventually get caught. And that’s what happened to the case of the Working Families Party registration drive: they got caught red handed rigging an election. In case you were not privy to the facts, the WFP is nothing but some shell organization of our favorite leftist crime syndicate: ACORN. You have to read this stuff.
Thirty-eight forged or fraudulent ballots have been thrown out—enough votes, an election official admits, to likely have tipped the city council and county elections in November to the Democrats. Candidates would have been able to run both on the Democratic and Working Families Party lines in two weeks, and that could have given the Democrats the general election.
You have to figure if they are this blatant rigging a local election where this stuff is so easy to figure out, how often do they do it in bigger elections where the numbers simply make this stuff so much harder to track.
A special prosecutor is investigating the case and criminal charges are possible. New York State Supreme Court Judge Michael Lynch ruled that there were “significant election law violations that have compromised the rights of numerous voters and the integrity of the election process.”
Among the reasons cited on the fraudulent forms for absentee voting: “traveling to Buffalo,” attending a “screen printing conference in Syracuse,” “working late shift,” “working construction,” and “home—ill.”
And this happened in NY State, a bastion of leftist stuff like this. They got caught. This is not going to bode well for these people and their election rigging schemes. For one they are going to be under much more scrutiny going forward. For another, people are finally gunning to get them, even if the MSM is doing its best not to cover the story.
All Things Government • Elections • News • Liberal Media • The Left • (0) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink
Friday, October 02, 2009
I know why he did it!
The Messiah has crashed and burned, and there will be no Chicago Olympics: it is going to Rio. With Obama jetting there, I thought this was a done deal. But it seems that my belief Obama was just going to capitalize on the given, was wrong. One is now left wondering WTF he was thinking. This is an epic fail, and the left is already blaming the right for it. I think I know the plan though, with horrible unemployment, the deteriorating Afghanistan situation, the mounting deficit spending, a Nuclear Iran, the Public Option failure, ACORN going down in flames, taxes going up, and yet another public sector crisis in the making, this trip to Copenhagen to fail was being done to distract from these things. Everybody will be talking about how the world, which we were all told would love us again if we elected Obama, just dicked us, this weekend. And in the mean time the democrats will continue to destroy the country without any worries as all are distracted by this crap.
Blogging • Insane Stuff • Conflicts & Wars • War on Terror • Homeland Security • All Things Government • Elections • Healthcare Reform • Economics • News • Liberal Media • The Left • Science & Technology • (0) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink
Some reality about all this talk of economic recovery.. Part Deux
Looks like the September numbers are in and unemployment is up to 9.8% (over 16% if you count those no longer bothering or doing part time work), some 263K people have lost their jobs in September despite much fanfare and upbeat predictions that originally put that number at less than 180K, but AP continues to stubbornly pretend that the economy is heading in the right direction, despite this “glitch”. I don’t know about you, but when people tell me that the economy has made a turn for the better, a turn I do not see when I filter out the biased propaganda and look at the real numbers, I wonder why. Especially when these same people constantly reported great economic news under a different president in a negative light. And MSNBC is not much better:
NEW YORK— There were some hopeful signs among the blizzard of economic data released this week. But the recovery from the worst downturn in decades remains hostage to one of the ugliest numbers on the list: the unemployment rate. “The hole that has been blown in the labor market is absolutely enormous,” said Heidi Shierholz, an economist with the Economic Policy Institute. That hole continues to widen. On Thursday, the Labor Department said initial claims for unemployment insurance rose to a seasonally adjusted 551,000 — up from 534,000 in the previous week and more than Wall Street economists expected. The data followed a report Wednesday from payroll manager ADP showing that U.S. companies cut 254,000 jobs in September, also more than forecast. Government figures for September, including the official unemployment rate, will be released Friday morning.
The elephant in the room is that perpetually climbing unemployment rate. Despite all their efforts to paint a rosy picture, the reality is that businesses don’t buy it. They see a hostile government that is intrusive and out of control, and literally are hunkering down and hoping these idiots get sent packing sooner than later. Don’t believe me, here is MSNBC on that:
“The world recovery is going to be led by Asia, although it’s going to be very challenging. I think this recovery is going to be a slow one,” Robson Walton told a global CEO business conference in Kuala Lampur, Malaysia. Walton, the eldest son of Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton, said “sales have been tough,” even though the retailer was benefiting from the economic downturn as more people shop at discounters for bargains.
Of course, it will be led by someone else! Economic recovery will never come from government deficit spending, no matter how massive and crazy the number of dollars being flushed down the drain by our government is, or what collectivist ideologues passing themselves off as economists say to the contrary. This stuff has never worked and practically always served to prolong the economic downturn. The definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over while expecting a different result. That’s our current economic policy.
We have a government that is horribly hostile to the free market and the private sector, has nationalized car manufacturing companies and a large segment of the banking and lending industry, and then compounded their efforts to make the underlying rules and regulations that created the crisis in the first place even more intrusive and complicated, is printing and borrowing money at such an alarming rate the European socialists and our primary lenders in the Chinese government both are worrying and telling us to reign in this insanity, and then funnels this money to their operatives, lobbyists, and donors and tell us that it is fixing the economy, and then wonder why people keep losing their jobs?
In the mean time our president and the democrat controlled congress are ignoring the GWoT and our growing problems in Afghanistan. Scrambling to cut their connections to ACORN. Raising our taxes – not just for the rich but for everyone – across the board but doing it in such a way that they can argue it isn’t really a tax hike (“Cap & Tax” anyone?). Dedicating practically all their time to on the one hand convince the American people that government should be given control of healthcare decisions and dollars, and on the other swearing that’s not the end game - to cut costs, add 47 million people to the ranks of the insured, and fix healthcare of all reasons when we can clearly see that with the exception of the military everything else run by government is a failure – of their plan. And wasting our time with such other idiotic and mundane things as jetting off, at the tax payer’s expense, to go secure the Olympic Games for Chicago: so their buddies can make some more money off the deal.
We are in great hands! The economy is getting better! We have transparency and an ethical government! They care about us little people! Ignore the unemployment numbers! It seems to me that what we have now is everything that they accused the republicans of doing back when, plus a whole lot more of “the worse”. The democrats, on a scale from 1 to 10, went from the 4 that the republicans where at to 12. The beatings will continue until morale improves!
Blogging • Insane Stuff • Conflicts & Wars • War on Terror • All Things Government • Elections • Economics • News • Liberal Media • The Left • (0) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink
Thursday, October 01, 2009
ACORN leadership was warned!
It looks like ACORN had been warned back in 2008, by a lawyer no less, that they had some real serious problems that had to be addressed if they wanted to avoid the smack down. Matthew Vadum over at American Spectator has a a post dealing with the memo produced by the lawyer in question, Elizabeth Kingsley of Harmon, Curran, Spielberg Eisenberg LLP, and some of the things covered by that memo. Vadun’s post at BigGovernment, which has been putting out a lot of the ACORN stories that the MSM finds unfit to be covered, has a link to that memo. These articles contain such doozies as the following:
Underscoring how important the document is to ACORN, all pages except the first page bear lawyerly caveats at the top: “Sensitive Report—Do Not Distribute Beyond Initial Recipient List.” Perhaps that’s community organizer-speak for “TOP SECRET.”
Things that make you go hmmmmm.
Key ACORN affiliates argue they are not “‘affiliated,’ ‘related,’ or ‘controlled’ by or with each other, for various legal purposes, while allowing actual control to be exercised in a highly coordinated manner,” she writes. ACORN suffers from “an organizational culture that resembles a family business more than an accountable organization.”
I know some of those families the author might be referring to. I think their last names are Gatti or Corleone! And my favorite one:
Kingsley also warns of the danger posed by the affiliates’ lack of proper documentation showing that the ACORN network has been following IRS rules on nonprofit behavior. There is too much overlap between various employees representing different affiliates and confusion about who is controlling which funds and this can only lead to trouble, she argues. She warns ACORN that “merely papering the transfer of money is not sufficient.” The nonprofits have to be able to show that their funds were used for appropriate purposes.
That’s likely because ACORN didn’t want people to see what was really going on. I firmly believe that this was not a thing of chance. The IRS is covering its tracks, because it knows ACORN investigations mean trouble for them too. That chummy relationship and lack of oversight should anger the American people.
Suffice it to say, Kingsley lets her client know it is in big trouble. There are further serious questions about the use of pension funds and about the Dale Rathke embezzlement and coverup.
Unfortunately I think that for ACORN, but fortunately for the rest of us that don’t simply tolerate or defend a criminal organization because they promote our ideology and help our politicians win elections, the good old days where the MSM gave them a pass as they went about their business, are now over. And as people dig, they are going to find a lot of dirt.
ACORN, as it turns out, is an ugly, corrupt organization. It is just as bad, just as evil, as people said it was. If you don’t believe me, ask Elizabeth Kingsley.
Defending ACORN, or pretending that there is no big story here, with serious implications for democrats, their voter registration and get out the vote drives, and possibly even to the president which up until ACORN employees had been caught red handed on video breaking the law was in bed with them, sure looks to be getting much, much harder. Because we don’t have a media that is doing its job though, ACORN’s fall will be a long one. The thing is that I think that in the long run this will be a lot more damaging as the story never goes away and people keep being reminded about the ties between democrats and ACORN.
Update: For a non-story - what the left keeps saying the whole ACORN scandal is - things are sure getting hot for the community organization. The State of California is joining the ranks of those that are opening ACORN investigations. Unfortunately for ACORN, and as the memo this post originally points out, practically every branch or subsidiary of ACORN has been so sloppy and careless - and that’s on purpose, I tell you - that it is almost impossible that there aren’t going to be big problems for ACORN, arising from these investigations.
My favorite topic though are the several ACORN municipalities scattered across the nation that have deep tax problems but seem to have been given a pass on this. The IRS used to play nice with them and treat them with kid gloves, a courtesy I am certain none of us would get if we where delinquent in our taxes and didn’t have powerful democrats indebted to us willing to provide cover, but those days are over. The cockroaches are looking for cover, and ACORN is on his own.
All Things Government • Elections • News • Liberal Media • The Left • (0) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Fiscal disaster on the horizon?
This one is for the usual Bush, America, and capitalism hating lunatics that constantly try to repeat the same lies in order to divert attention from their disastrous economic policies. You can’t make this crap up:
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The U.S. government will have issued $7 trillion in bonds by the time the current fiscal year ends next week, but it expects the debt deluge to stabilize by mid 2010, a Treasury official said on Wednesday. .
WTF? $7 trillion in one year? Who’s in charge and doing this kind of borrowing? And why the “expectation” things will stabilize by mid 2010? I see nothing other than fluff and lies from people that now, because the guy in the WH has a (D) by his name, switched from reporting real good economic news as bad or insignificant for the 8 years before this new occupant moved in, to reporting bad news as improvements or good news in the last 9 months. Wishing for it to be better is not going to make it so. Here are some hard facts about the spending being done.
Though markets and the economy are improving, efforts to provide a firm foundation for recovery will require increases to the U.S. Treasury’s conventional bonds going forward, as well as debt securities that are indexed to inflation.
I do not buy the premise that the economy is improving. It’s all artificial. Sure, things are not getting bad as fast as they where before, but that, as I already pointed out above, would never have been reported as anything but bad news if the guy in the WH didn’t have a (D) by his name. And what do securities indexed to inflation mean to the economy? Is this the dreaded inflation monster that has to eventually rear its ugly head as these collectivists continue to print money like it was Monopoly cash? The fact this is glanced over or ignored is not coincidental, IMO.
However, this expansion may take place in an environment where investors consider leaving the safe-haven Treasury market for riskier assets, and debt issuance is likely to level off mid next year, said Treasury Acting Assistant Secretary for Financial Markets Karthik Ramanathan.
Likely to level off? What’s this being based on? The collectivists have already told us that we have seen nothing yet. They plan to do even more radical collectivist crap. And that stuff is bound to costs us oodles of cash. The need to keep borrowing is not going to go away. Maybe the AS mentioned above means that they will give up on issuing these bonds. Again, the borrowing and spending seems not to have any kind of end in sight. And it’s a question of time before things go belly up. An issue of when. I am surprised investors have not bailed on these idiots yet. It’s going to happen however. While the stock market may be climbing now, I hear from friends that are traders that most of them are selling off their stuff. They know something.
“In fiscal year 2009, which ends next week, Treasury will have issued $7 trillion in gross issuance—that’s in a 12-month period,” Ramanathan told a financial markets conference in New York.
Let that number sink in. When was the last time the US Treasury did anything like this? And we have not yet dealt with the consequences of this stunt either. The fact is that we are setting new records in spending what we don’t have, and the collectivists have no plan to scale it back. This warning from Obama is likely because he expects us to end up a broke banana republic and unable to do much.
“This issuance was necessary to meet nearly $1.7 trillion in net marketable borrowing needs, nearly $1 trillion more than what we raised last year,” he added.
But Bush is the bad guy, and conservatives are fiscally irresponsible! The debt we now carry, your average collectivist twit will tell you, is because of those evil wars Bush started. From the CBS article I linked above:
(CNSNews.com) – As a candidate for president, Barack Obama decried the financial toll that the Iraq war was taking on the economy, but Obama’s proposed spending on welfare through 2010 will eclipse Bush’s war spending by more than $260 billion. “Because of the Bush-McCain policies, our debt has ballooned,” then-Sen. Barack Obama told a Charleston, W.V., crowd in March 2008. “This is creating problems in our fragile economy. And that kind of debt also places an unfair burden on our children and grandchildren, who will have to repay it.” During the entire administration of George W. Bush, the Iraq war cost a total of $622 billion, according to the Congressional Research Service. President Obama’s welfare spending will reach $888 billion in a single fiscal year--2010--more than the Bush administration spent on war in Iraq from the first “shock and awe” attack in 2003 until Bush left office in January. Obama’s spending proposals call for the largest increases in welfare benefits in U.S. history, according to a report by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank. This will lead to a spending total of $10.3 trillion over the next decade on various welfare programs.
The next time you hear your average economically illiterate and reality challenged collectivist harping about how our economy is in bad shape, because of the evil Bush wars, remember this, and hammer the idiot for his stupidity. And this is likely just the start. That welfare spending is not likely to go down next year. We could fight the equivalent of the Iraqi war some 12-15 times for the welfare money that these collectivist plan to flush down the toilet every year. That’s some $10.3 trillion dollars in the next 10 years. If this was going to actually help improve things, like the Iraq war did, it might be worth it. But this $10.3 will not do anything other expand the number of people dependant on government handouts, added to the ranks of the poor and unemployed, and voting for democrats. Guess if you are a progressive and a democrat this is great fiscal policy. For the rest of us it is a disaster. Looks like Obama didn’t learn from Bill Clinton.
And when the Obama people come out and say they have to go against this suggestion because it costs too much, remember the above. Democrats do not have a problem with spending us into banana republic status. They just don’t like any kind of spending, even spending that helps national security, unless that spending helps them win elections. One thing is certain: we are going to pay the price for the collectivisation of America.
Blogging • Insane Stuff • Conflicts & Wars • War on Terror • Homeland Security • All Things Government • Elections • Healthcare Reform • Economics • News • Liberal Media • The Left • (0) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink
Wednesday, September 02, 2009
Crash and Burn?
Kevin McCullough over at FOXNews.com has one heck of a piece in which he is predicting the implosion of the Obama administration, and he attributes it to the following factors, which I agree with:
1. Health Care’s Long and Painful Death: Barring the existing possibility that the Democrats cram a reform bill down the throats of actively protesting Americans through an ultra-partisan process that would shut out conservatives and Republicans from even being allowed to contribute to the discussion, health care reform is dead. It actually died a good while back when the president decided to pivot and create a new issue that no one had been discussing--health insurance reform. The American people will want to know why we should spend $4 billion to cover everyone in America “efficiently,” when we already do so with inefficiencies like people using the emergency room as their general practitioner for $2.5 billion. Deep thinkers on the issue also want to know why the president hasn’t entertained one item of tort reform-- protecting his friends, the trial lawyers-- yet is willing to claim that doctors are eager to lop off feet, tonsils, and other body parts just to make a buck.
2. Cap-and-Trade Will Be the Largest Tax Increase in American History: With the 2010 election cycle just around the corner, it won’t be too long before the campaign ads are drafted. With cap-and-trade still sitting in legislative limbo (and the president’s own adviser--Warren Buffet-- now opposing it openly in the media), with anti-tax Democrats, Republicans, and Independents coming to Washington on September 12, and with “Blue Dog” Democrats getting hammered by constituents during the August recess, the chance of an ultra-partisan “ram through” victory on the legislation would not be wise. Cap-and-trade, if passed, will contribute to unemployment, Wall Street stop and starts, and ultimately reduced treasury revenues. It would serve as the single largest tax increase on the average American in all of American history. Even President Obama admitted as much, predicting that electric bill prices, in his words, would, “skyrocket.” Those that have looked at the specifics tell us that the average utility bill in America will go from $167 to $307 per month, per family.
3. Unemployment Will Remain: By now several Washington organizations, from left and right, and one of note consisting of both--the Congressional Budget Office, predict that unemployment will not shrink from the predicted “Obama high” of eight percent. Instead, nearly without fail, economists are predicting that unemployment will be at or over 10% for up to the next 24 months.-- That is a nearly 250% increase in the unemployment rate under Bush for nearly the duration of his two-term presidency. We did not see the unemployment climb this high during President Bush’s entire two-term presidency. If more people were working, higher taxes and possible new health care entitlements could be considered, but with at least ten percent of the population out of work, it is political suicide for Democrats to even think of it.
4. Obama’s Integrity Has Been Tarnished in August: Not a great deal has been made of the whoppers that the president has been spewing while Congress has been away during the summer recess but it turns out that more people than I realized have also noticed the president wildly “exaggerating” in his talks on health care. For instance, the president confused the $500 physicians actually get to amputate a foot as opposed to the $50,000 that he claimed they got. He also showed an utter disregard for the reputation of those doctors he talks about, the “facts” he uses to make his argument, and is highly overly optimistic about the results of his policies. Long story short, at the beginning of the summer Americans mostly trusted him, his passion index was at +10, he heads into the fall at -14.
5. A $3 Trillion Dollar Budget: There was lots of new spending for this and it sure added up. And that brings me to number 6.
6. A Coming Middle Class Tax Hike: The Obama administration will hem and haw about hiking taxes.—There will be an official, and arrogant, explanation given by Robert Gibbs from the podium in the White House briefing room about why they must to do this to be “good stewards” and to be a “responsible administration” that “pays as it goes.” But the truth is, in order to pay for everything the Obama administration has promised (and budgeted for), a tax hike is looming for small businesses and the working families that President Obama promised would never come. And as an aside, the president was going to break that promise all along. Because the minute the Bush tax relief measures run out in 2010, middle class taxes would be going up in the Obama administration. That means that, fundamentally, that Obama’s “not a single dime” pledge on the campaign trail was just hot air from start to finish.
And these things are actually much worse than he presents them as IMO. Let me enumerate and elaborate on a few of these.
On healthcare: The democrats can not abandon the healthcare takeover plan by government. From the start the plan was to grab those dollars, and the power that comes with them, to enhance democratic control and entrench them in DC. Without provisions or a framework that allows them to pull this off later, any reform will be meaningless to them. But anything that even opens the door to the public option and a future takeover of this money by government, will be akin to a poison pill. They might choose to pass something that will simply cause more damage to the system and come back a few years from now to retry this takeover, but after failing twice - Clinton and Obama - this is starting to look like the American people will not go along with this idiotic plan. So will they just push it through on a pure partisan vote and deal with the fall out? We are talking about people that believe collectivism works, and with that kind of insanity, who knows.
On Cap & Tax: There is nothing good about this vampire. Basically democrats used the most base and vile form of fear mongering to convince people they should be allowed to suck up a huge chunk of change from the private industry so they can then pay off their cronies and friends with it. There won’t be any worthwhile environmental impact either. This thing is just another scam for bureaucrats to shuffle around cash and line their and their friend’s pockets. When it kills even more jobs, the donkeys are going to pay for it.
On unemployment. I pine for the bad days where it we had the MSM constantly tell us things were heading in the wrong direction because unemployment was only at 4%. Many people out of work are likely figuring out the same. Nuff said.
On Obama’s integrity: Never thought he had any to begin with. The perception of integrity is crumbling, as the mask drops and people get to see that “Hope & Change” is nothing but a catchy slogan, while the actions show that we have more of the same discredited economic policies that got the democrats in trouble back in the Carter days. Remember how Bush was accused of being a liar? This guy is the biggest liar I have ever seen, and yet, they are making like he is smart: enlightened. Go figure. Just look at the dregs he is surrounded by for proof that his administration and congress are trying to set a new low.
On the budget deficit: It’s going to be worse next year. And as the dollar collapses and our economy starts tracking towards that of Zimbabwe, it is going to get “progressively” worse. Methinks that’s the agenda however. A broke America is no longer a super power, and hence, not able to stand in the way of the world government progressive movement. Be afraid.
On the tax hike: What do you mean about “coming”? We already have seen indirect taxes because of the shenanigans of these scoundrels. Why do you think the correct name is “Cap & Tax”? And we knew even before the 2008 elections that the left was going to let the Bush tax cuts expire. They were not “progressive” enough. That’s code for they didn’t screw us all hard enough. And that $250K limit? More like $25K. Get ready for it. The middle class will soon realize that for all the demonizing of the Bush tax cuts by the usual leftists propagandists in the MSM and the DNC as a scam to benefit the rich, what they are getting from the democrats will really harm them big time. In fact I bet they soon will pine for the Bush tax cuts again.
Kevin is right. Americans, the sane ones at least, are realizing that they were had. They are angry and getting angrier as they see us pick up speed to go off that cliff. And they are going to turn on these democrats. Now if we only had people with clear cut and fiscally responsible answers to these problems waiting in the wings, we would be all set.
All Things Government • Elections • Healthcare Reform • Economics • News • Liberal Media • The Left • Science & Technology • Global Warming • (0) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink
Saturday, August 29, 2009
Obama’s “Read my lips!” moment in the making?
Who can forget George Bush Sr.’s promise “Read my lips, no new taxes!”, and how the democrats turned that against him back in 1989? With democrats in charge of congress and able to ram through the taxes, he was set up and taken down by their shrewd manipulations and machinations. Not making excuses for the guy: I was always lukewarm about him personally. But the fact is that he was had by democrats that used deficit spending to force an unbalanced budget and a economic slump to make him eat crow. Fast forward a couple of decades and now we have a democrat that won the WH on what I am certain was the most effective and deceptive campaign of distorted facts, vague promises of positive changes and hope, fiscal responsibility, and a hard promise not to raise taxes on anyone making less than $250K.
We already know that the distorted facts continue to be passed off as truths, and that the promise of fiscal responsibility must have been a joke. Only moonbats will argue the fact that Obama and his people plan to outright double our debt - at this pace, my guess is that it will be tripled - and are set to break all imaginable records of deficit spending, totally directed at expanding their power, and nothing else. Oh, the usual people blame Bush, defense spending, the GWoT, and everything but these democrats, but people that prefer facts over bull know Obama’s people have taken what they got from Bush and have exponentially made it worse, defense and GWoT war money is a drop in the bucket when you are about to flush away a projected $9 to $15 trillion plus, and that there is nobody to blame for this fiscal meltdown but the democrats. Not much “Hope” these days for the future, and many people are now certain that when these democrats talk about change, what they are referring to is what they plan to leave in our wallets after they rob us of all they can.
Our taxes are going up, even though it is done by hiding them in such disgusting “Rob Peter to pay Paul – after taking a hefty commission for themselves, of course – scams” as the ridiculous and criminal “Cap & Tax” schemes. Let us not forget the massive taxes around the government takeover of the healthcare dollars, a full 1/6th of our current economy, based on lies about first healthcare, and now insurance reform - a patent and blatant attempt to garner support for their scam by tapping into a manufactured public dissatisfaction with insurance, is also vanishing fast – and sold as a measure to fix a crisis of the collectivist’s in government’s own making. Thank the powers that be this is also imploding fast as people figure out the scam. But the one thing that might be the nail in Obama and these collectivist’s coffins, is the fact that they have made things so bad that they will not be able to avoid people figuring out that they are going to have to raise taxes on the middle class to pay for their disastrous policies, as this article in the WaPo lays the ground work for.
During last year’s campaign, President Obama vowed to enact a bold agenda without raising taxes for the middle class, a pledge budget experts viewed with skepticism. Since then, a severe recession, massive deficits and a national debt that is swelling toward a 50-year high have only made his promise harder to keep. The Obama administration has insisted that the pledge will stand. But the president’s top economic advisers have refused to rule out broad-based tax increases to close the yawning gap between federal revenue and government spending and are warning of tough choices ahead.That’s because these democrats lied and planned to raise the taxes from the beginning, just like they lied about being fiscally disciplined. The middle class is about to get socked hard by the “party of the little guy” to pay for their government expansion. There simply are not enough rich people, well rich people that are not democrats with friends in congress and the WH to help them keep their huge piles of cash, to pay for even a fraction of their wasteful spending. The middle class is about to get shafted by the people that constantly tell them a tax cut is only great for the rich, not the. And Obama is going to have to deal with that consequences. I wonder if they will try to postpone this until after the 2012 elections though.
One more thing while we are on the subject of taxes. Speaking of rich democrat fat cats: how much will the Ted Kennedy estate pay in “death taxes”? That will be some story to cover. My guess is that Ted had already made preparations to shelter his family’s wealth from government confiscation of more than half of it at his passing. I doubt the MSM people will fulminate over the billions in taxes that the Feds will not collect from good old Teddy. I think this would make for one hot blog topic of its own as well. Guess I should research that story.
All Things Government • Elections • Economics • News • Liberal Media • The Left • (0) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Here is what happens when government helps you.. Part Deux
I am worried that everyone here, including myself got way too focused on the first part dealing with the credit card issue, in my post below, and either ignored or missed the real big point in my post: that the collectivists screwed our economy up, even worse than usual, policy wise, and that it is going to get worse if they keep at it.
I used the example of how they rammed through the stimulus patronage bill, but everyone of their big policy pushed through was disastrous for the economy. Let me enumerate them for you. I hope for the day that we do not need to go into the details and the consequences of the left’s response to the economic crisis of their own making either, but the truth, facts, and logic, never seem to be things the left cares for, so I guess I need to quantify that again. Despite their best efforts, the truth has come out. Those that want to know the facts know that we are where we are today because of ideological policy. It was ideology that drove these politicians to legislate the conditions that resulted in the economic collapse we experienced. Lending institutions were forced by law into giving money to seriously unqualified people. Then when this still was not working the same politicians legislated a hokey and completely opaque trading scheme for those securities based on toxic assets, and used Freddie and Fannie to showcase government backing of these dangerous schemes and legitimize them. Finally they decided to bring down the house of cards, right before an election – so they could score on the political perception, one I never quite understood, that democrats are better for the economy – to win the presidency and big gains. Now their solution to an economic slump that I am certain they did not predict or expect to be this big, is for them to meddle even more but keep the underlying fundamental and illogical problem in place. That’s going to work well.
That above brings us to the government takeover of the banking and lending industry, and the consequences of that. While they demonized the TARP program as corporate bailouts with tax payer money, these leftists not only saw the $700 billion that the Bush people put up, but raised it to over $3 trillion, and are even floating the idea government might have to buy out the entire system fro some $29 trillion. Many of those institutions that lined up to drink at the trough of public cash, now regret the deal, but the real and frightening danger is this concept that government should micromanage the private sector and directly work against market influences collectivists don’t like or approve of. The same ideologues in control of government that created the problem in the first place, I should add. As I already said: this is going to work out well.
I won’t waste too much time on the government take over of two out of three American car manufacturing companies. There is no way of defending the tax payer funded takeover of these companies. Even more disgraceful is how that tax payer money was not used to pay off those people that put their own money on the line as investments in GM or Chrysler, but to prop up unions as majority stake holders. Yes, the same unions that are the fundamental underlying problem which made these companies unable to compete and cranked out the low quality wares that turned people off. Talk about your mob style pay-offs. And now the politicians in DC can tell both Chrysler and GM to make cars nobody really wants too. I am sure that once other companies, but especially Ford, all start running circles around these two, that the politicians will use the power of government to rig the system in favor of their new holdings. At the tax payer’s expense, of course. What do you think the “Cash for Clunkers” program was all about anyway? How well has that worked?
We also got graced by the watermelons – the collectivists masquerading as environmentalists – with the “Cap & Tax” bill: the largest and most massive single tax increase passed ever by our politicians. The average American family of four will now get to pay anywhere from $1000 to $4000, depending at whom is talking and how they come up with their umbers, in extra costs and fees tied to their energy use every year. Since they are “costs and fees” I guess we could all tongue in cheek try to defend Obama’s blatant lie that he would not raise taxes on anyone making less than $250K. Don’t worry this going back on his promises, especially about taxes and who will pay them, is going to happen so often we will soon be numb to it. It is all going to work out well!
Every one of these moves was intended to bring in some huge section of the private sector, and more importantly the money in it, under control of the federal government. But no plan was as ambitious, or deceptive, as the healthcare insurance
The only place that these leftists have felt spending needs to be cut is in defense. I am sure that it will be these same people telling us the next time that we need to send our troops into harms way that we should not because they lack equipment. Kind of like when we had to go deal with Iraq and they tried to blame Bush for the defense cuts of the Clinton years. Defense jobs I guess are the types of jobs collectivists think are bad, I guess. How long before the democrats undo the sacrifices of the last 7 years and guarantee us a future war in the ME that will cost us 10 times as much as what we already paid? That’s coming. That’s coming, and I can’t wait to see how well it works for us.
There are many more examples of this. It has not been more than what, 9 months, since they have taken over, and foreign and economic policy decisions have all been disastrous. While the rest of the world looks to be moving out of the recession, we are going deeper into it. Don’t believe the constant MSM propaganda saying otherwise. These people are covering for the incompetent ideologues in DC because they have a vested interest. About the only thing that the Obama people have gotten right is the Bush GWoT policies the left used – notice I say used to – get totally crazy about. Funny that huh? I think Obama’s actions are working well to vindicate Bush.
Blogging • Insane Stuff • Conflicts & Wars • Old & New Empires • War on Terror • Homeland Security • All Things Government • Elections • Healthcare Reform • Tort Reform • Economics • News • Liberal Media • The Left • Science & Technology • Energy • Global Warming • (0) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink
Saturday, August 22, 2009
Here is what happens when government helps you..
One of the big things the collectivists in power did when they got control of all three branches of government after the last election cycle, was to pass new and sweeping credit card legislation to prevent the greedy credit card companies from screwing irresponsible and stupid people that spent beyond their means and got themselves in deep debt. As usual government meddling has had the exact opposite effect as they wanted, and it is hurting those of us that are not complete and total idiots.
If your credit is good, or your credit card balance is low, you may soon pay more on every credit card bill. Why? Congress passed a misguided new credit card law, the Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure Act of 2009. As a result of it, you may end up paying an annual fee. And you may end up losing your percentage rebates, your cash back, or your rewards program.
The new law arbitrarily limits credit card companies’ ability to increase rates on credit card balances, even when a cardholder’s balance has been rapidly increasing —meaning that a sensible bank might raise the interest rate, because a rising balance drives up the risk that the credit card company won’t get paid what it’s owed. (Increasing numbers of credit cardholders have run up big balances in recent years, then failed to pay them off).
In response to the new law, some credit card companies are starting to charge annual fees on their credit cards to protect themselves against potential losses. Others will likely drop their rewards programs, or stop giving customers’ percentage rebates on credit card purchases. For example, I and my wife get 3% to 5% back on most of our credit card purchases.
One of my co-workers just emailed me that since the new law, he will now be charged an annual fee on what he calls “the best reward card I ever found.” It’s the same card I use for many of my purchases. The new law is supposed to “protect” cardholders. But what it really does is transfer wealth from people who pay off their credit card bills at the end of every month, (or have good enough credit that the credit card company would not likely have increased their interest rate anyway) to people with bad credit who have run up big balances.
So again, government is subsidizing bad behavior at the expense of those of us that avoid it. That’s collectivism in a nut shell for you: in the name of helping those that chronically do stupid things and hence find themselves in “the sh*t”, politicians help those idiots by creating programs that punish those that do the right things. And then people wonder why destructive behavior becomes the norm. Yeah, I am one of those idiots that pays my credit card every month and never spends more than I can afford or pay off. So now I get to help pay for those other people. I am ecstatic as you can tell.
But this stuff with the credit cards isn’t the worse government has done for us yet. That honor goes, for now, and until they pass healthcare insurance reform and basically have these collectivist government bureaucrats take over 1/5th of our annual economy – trillions of more dollars and life & death decisions in the hands of uncaring unionized government thugs - to the stimulus patronage bill. Mark Steyn as usual has an awesome piece showing how well that $800 billion of our tax payer cash that the democrats in power have funneled to their operatives, partners, lobbyists, and donors so they could flood their campaign coffers with slush funds for the 2010 elections has worked for us: it has kept our economy down.
Meanwhile, in Brazil, India, China, Japan, and much of continental Europe the recession has ended. In the second quarter this year, both the French and German economies grew by 0.3 percent, while the U.S. economy shrank by 1 percent. How can that be? Unlike America, France and Germany had no government stimulus worth speaking of, the Germans declining to go the Obama route on the quaint grounds that they couldn’t afford it. They did not invest in the critical signage-in-front-of-holes-in-the-road sector. And yet their recession has gone away. Of the world’s biggest economies, only the U.S., Britain, and Italy are still contracting. All three are big stimulators, though Gordon Brown and Silvio Berlusconi can’t compete with Obama’s $800 billion porkapalooza. The president has borrowed more money to spend to less effect than anybody on the planet.
Actually, when I say “to less effect,” that’s not strictly true: Thanks to Obama, one of the least indebted developed nations is now one of the most indebted — and getting ever more so. We’ve become the third most debt-ridden country after Japan and Italy. According to last month’s IMF report, general government debt as a percentage of GDP will rise from 63 percent in 2007 to 88.8 percent this year and to 99.8 percent of GDP next year.
There you have it in a nutshell. Obama whom ran on the exaggerated lie of lack of fiscal responsibility by republicans, whom had been far from fiscally responsible, but nowhere as irresponsible as democrats had been those last 2 years they had control of congress during the Bush years, is now literally destroying our future and projected – and I think this number is way on the low side – to add another $9 trillion to our deficit in the next few years. This collectivist government has crippled our private sector and all but guaranteed no chance for an economic recovery here when other countries are already making moves in the right direction. And it is not even close to being done screwing us. Now under the guise of fixing a crisis of their own making, they are trying to get their hands of 1/5th of our economy by taking over healthcare. We are getting screwed by everything this government is doing.
That’s why the “stimulus” flopped. It didn’t just fail to stimulate, it actively deterred stimulation, because it was the first explicit signal to America and the world that the Democrats’ political priorities overrode everything else. If you’re a business owner, why take on extra employees when cap’n’trade is promising increased regulatory costs and health “reform” wants to stick you with an 8 percent tax for not having a company insurance plan? Obama’s leviathan sends a consistent message to business and consumers alike: When he’s spending this crazy, maybe the smart thing for you to do is hunker down until the dust’s settled and you get a better sense of just how broke he’s going to make you. For this level of “community organization,” there aren’t enough of “the rich” to pay for it. That leaves you.
For Obama, government health care is the fastest way to a permanent left-of-center political culture in which all elections and most public discourse will be conducted on Democratic terms. It’s no surprise that the president can’t make a coherent economic or medical argument for Obamacare, because that’s not what it’s about — and for all his cool, he can’t quite disguise that. Apropos a new poll, the Associated Press reports that Americans “are losing faith in Barack Obama.”
Yeah, again those of us that did not make the bad choices or actually did the smart things, are going to be left paying for those that chronically make bad choices and decisions. And that’s why in a nutshell I believe collectivism’s goodness is simply paving the road to hell for us. These people are doing what no enemy has ever been able to do: bring America down. And they are doing it from within, and under the guise of doing it for noble and good reasons. Those dumb Islamists should have just waited another decade or two for the left to truly and totally emasculate us before they had made their move, and they would have crushed us by now.
Blogging • Insane Stuff • Conflicts & Wars • War on Terror • All Things Government • Elections • Healthcare Reform • Economics • Social Security • News • Liberal Media • The Left • Science & Technology • Energy • Global Warming • (0) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
The effects of the “Cap and Tax” bill the democrats pushed through..
The Heritage Foundation has a great piece dealing with the impact of the Waxman-Markley bill on Americans, which was passed in a hurry and with minimal if any debate or scrutiny, and it is not pretty. In fact it is scary. The 1427 page bill portents to regulate and limit green house gas emissions, mainly carbon dioxide from the combustion of coal, oil, and natural gas, but when explored is really nothing but a shell game intended to allow the usual collectivists in government to collect some pretty hefty hidden fees and taxes on the average American family, while doing absolutely nothing helpful to the environment. In fact the idiotic AGW premise the bill is based on is pure and unadulterated myth anyway, and the fact that the bill, like every other such bill passed world wide, really makes absolutely no difference at all. That is unless you are one of the watermelons hoping to collect some big cash from the scams.
Waxman-Markey extracts trillions of dollars from the energy-using public and delivers this wealth to various groups--some of whom may be more deserving than others, and some who are simply better at lobbying. That could mean low-income households in an attempt to compensate them for sharply higher energy costs, or regulated industries that have effectively lobbied for compliance assistance. In any event, cap-and-trade allowances are a tax and would be the largest tax increase in recent history.
This collectivist centralized government stuff has never worked out. In fact it has always been disastrous. We keep getting told we should not worry because of all the “green jobs” this bill portends to generate, but even if any jobs are generated, the numbers will be meaningless compared to the jobs that will be otherwise lost. Here are some of the numbers:
Implementing the Waxman-Markey legislation will be very costly, even given the rather optimistic assumptions about how effective it will be in reducing CO2 emissions and how accommodating the economy will be to the added energy costs. The Heritage Foundation’s dynamic analysis of these economic costs are summarized as follows (adjusted for inflation to 2009 dollars):
•Cumulative gross domestic product (GDP) losses are $9.4 trillion between 2012 and 2035;
•Single-year GDP losses reach $400 billion by 2025 and will ultimately exceed $700 billion;
•Net job losses approach 1.9 million in 2012 and could approach 2.5 million by 2035. Manufacturing loses 1.4 million jobs in 2035;
•The annual cost of emissions permits to energy users will be at least $100 billion by 2012 and could exceed $390 billion by 2035;
•A typical family of four will pay, on average, an additional $829 each year for energy-based utility costs; and
•Gasoline prices will rise by 58 percent ($1.38 more per gallon) and average household electric rates will increase by 90 percent.
This CDA analysis extends only to 2035, as this is the forecasting horizon for the macroeconomic model used to prepare these estimates. But it should be noted that the emissions reductions continue to tighten through 2050 and that model-based analysis by other groups whose models extend beyond 2035 shows increasing harm to the U.S. economy.
That’s a ton of money and a lot of jobs. And that gasoline price hike is going to hurt the economy big time too. I guess the left found a way to raise gasoline taxes without admitting they are raising gasoline taxes. And this doesn’t even deal with the impact on industry where this boondoggle will likely do a lot more damage. Everything will be impacted by this bill. Some industries, the energy intensive ones, will get hammered. That means jobs losses in scary and large numbers.
The Waxman-Markey bill affects the economy directly through higher prices for carbon-based energy, which reduces quantity demanded and, thus, the quantity supplied of energy from carbon fuels. Energy prices rise because energy producers must pay a fee for each ton of carbon they emit. The fee structure is intended to create an incentive for producers to invest in technologies that reduce carbon emissions during energy production. The bill’s sponsors and supporters hope that the fees are sufficiently high to create a strong incentive and demand for cleaner energy production and for the widespread adoption of carbon capture and sequestration technology.
The economic model that CDA analysts used to estimate the bill’s broad economic effects treats the fees as a tax on energy producers. Thus, energy prices increase by the amount of the fee or tax. The demand for energy, which largely determines the consumption and, thus, the taxes collected, responds to higher energy prices both directly and indirectly. The direct effect is a reduction in the consumption of carbon-based energy.
The indirect effects are more complex. Generally speaking, the carbon fees reduce the amount of energy used in producing goods and services, which slows the demand for labor and capital and reduces the rate of return on productive capital. This “supply-side” impact exerts the predictable secondary effects on labor and capital income, which depresses consumption.[7]
This will lead to economic output declines, contraction of GDP, and even though the damned collectivists can’t see it yet, a decrease in the total tax income as things slow down economically. Taxes work to slow economic growth, and this tax, a massive and all reaching one, will hit the economy hard. One is left to wonder why the left would do something like this in the middle of a recession. Think the deficit spending now is bad? What do you think about an economy that stays in a slump and results in decades of massive deficit spending? Well, at least until we end up like Zimbabwe.
Even if we manage to stop the healthcare takeover by government, Americans are going to be straddled with a disastrous and stupid bill that does nothing to help the environment, will negatively impact the economy, deficit, employment, energy, and all Americans, but especially the middle and lower classes, and be ruinous all so collectivists can get more power over us. Now wonder our competition across the globe was ecstatic to see these people elected to power. They are going to dismantle America from within. Lets hope we can get rid of these bums and this idiotic bill ASAP, before nothing is left to save.
All Things Government • Elections • Healthcare Reform • Economics • News • Liberal Media • The Left • Science & Technology • Energy • Global Warming • (0) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink