I've been taking a break. I am bored blogging about Obama because the blogger with many visions™ declared he was a socialist WAY before he began to demonstrate it on a day-to-day basis. Disaster.

Wrong Bill At The Wrong Time
ObamaCare and the downfall of the Democratic Party.

The real reason why ObamaCare is so unpopular is that it is proposing a giant expansion of the entitlement state precisely when this state everywhere is coming apart: here and abroad; at the federal level and the state; in the public sector and the private. Suggesting a giant government takeover of a sixth of the economy can't be a popular selling point in a country whose DNA has a programmed hostility to Big Government.

There are not enough taxpayers in the country or creditors in China capable of financing all these promises. Expanding this massive, multifarious entitlement state even more strikes most normal people as sheer lunacy--especially now that it is visibly coming apart at the seams.

Labels: obama, pelosi, reid

Another Liberal Crackup (WSJ)
The real source of this mess is the agenda that Democrats have tried to ram through the political system. Far from offering new ideas to reform the welfare state or compete better against rising global powers, Democrats have with rare exception tried to impose the same spending, tax and regulatory agenda that failed in the 1960s, 1970s and 1990s. Mr. Obama was a new face promising new hope, but his ideas are as old as the average Congressional Chairman.

Related
Party Like It's 1773?

Labels: obama, pelosi, reid

Labels: obama, pelosi, reid

The Obama Spell Is Broken: Unlike this president, John Kennedy was an ironist who never fell for his own mystique.

The curtain has come down on what can best be described as a brief un-American moment in our history. That moment began in the fall of 2008, with the great financial panic, and gave rise to the Barack Obama phenomenon.

Progressives pressed for a draconian attack on the workings of our health care, and on the broader balance between the state and the marketplace. The economic stimulus, ObamaCare, the large deficits, the bailout package for the automobile industry—these, and so much more, were nothing short of a fundamental assault on the givens of the American social compact.

Americans don't deify their leaders or hang on their utterances, but Mr. Obama succumbed to what the devotees said of him: He was the Awaited One. A measure of reticence could have served him. But the flight had been heady, and in the manner of Icarus, Mr. Obama flew too close to the sun.

Limestone Commentary
My declaration of the death of European-Style Socialism was way premature.

According to Rep. Paul Ryan (R., Wis.), the Obama budget is a "firm step toward transforming America into a collectivist society overseen by a social-welfare state."

This budget is about more than specific programs or policies. It is really about the American idea, and whether we want to move towards a European-style welfare state. I know that seems like those are big words, but those are the stakes. It is hard to come to another conclusion when you look at our debt and how we are spending. We are in a very dire fiscal situation."

Labels: obama, pelosi, reid

Victor Davis Hanson takes a look at where we are after twelve months of Obama.

Spoiler alert: It ain't pretty.

Obama simply does not have the popularity to carry unpopular legislation forward. Indeed, he is reaching a point where he may poll more negatively than his agenda does. "Let me be perfectly clear" and "make no mistake about it" are now caricatures.

So where are we at twelve months? Obama showed the country his vision of where he wanted us to go; he had both houses of Congress, a toady media, and enormous personal popularity — and he is getting nowhere. Why? Because most Americans are vehemently opposed to taking their country in the direction that Obama, Pelosi, and Reid would prefer.

Since Obama is both inexperienced and apparently a stubborn ideologue, I think all we will be left with when the novelty wears off is rhetoric and euphemism.

Labels: obama, pelosi, reid

The Global Debt Bomb: Spending our way out of worldwide recession will take years to pay back--and create a lot of pain. (Forbes)

National governments will issue an estimated $4.5 trillion in debt this year, almost triple the average for mature economies over the preceding five years. The U.S. has allowed the total federal debt (including debt held by government agencies, like the Social Security fund) to balloon by 50% since 2006 to $12.3 trillion. The pain of repayment is not yet being felt, because interest rates are so low--close to 0% on short-term Treasury bills. Someday those rates are going to rise. Then the taxpayer will have the devil to pay.

Related
Figures on government spending and debt
News Flash: Entitlement Spending Grows Like Giant Cancer on U.S. Economy (via Instapundit)

Labels: economics, obama, pelosi, reid

The Fall of the House of Kennedy: The battle over who defines the work and institutions that make a nation thrive and grow. (WSJ)

"The central battle in our time is over political primacy. It is a competition between the public sector and the private sector over who defines the work and the institutions that make a nation thrive and grow..."

Labels: clintons, democrats, obama, pelosi, reid

The States and the Stimulus: How a supposed boon has become a fiscal burden. (WSJ)

Keyword: Jimmy Carter II

Labels: obama, pelosi, reid

It's the gift that keeps on giving‡. I find it ironic how aggressively the MSM targeted 'Joe the Plumber' after he asked Obama about his redistribution ethos during the election run-up.

‡Giving = Taking away and giving to someone else.

CBO: Insurance Premiums Will Increase by 10% Under ObamaCare (Ace)

There are winners and losers here. If you've got insurance, you're a loser: Congratulations, you will now basically have a complete stranger's health care added to your premiums as if he's a member of your family, because you can afford it.

If you don't have insurance, you may be a winner... sort of. As regards primary effects you come out ahead -- free money! -- but there will be secondary effects, too, as all health care overall is driven to a lower quality.

Broken record time: This is and always was about only one thing. A fairly direct transfer of wealth, and the services that wealth buys, from the middle class to the lower class. There is plenty of reason for the uninsured and poor to support this plan; there is no reason for anyone middle-class and insured to support it. For the latter, there are no benefits whatsoever, and only costs -- except for the benefit of knowing you have basically added a stranger as a family member to your plan, and you can now enjoy the satisfaction of knowing all the extra money you're paying, and all the treatments you're personally be denied, are going to help someone else. Maybe.

Related
Nicholas Kristof, Obamacare, and the Broken Window Fallacy

Labels: obama, pelosi, reid

'Cap and Trade Is Dead'

The more than 3,000 emails and documents from the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit (CRU) that have found their way to the Internet have blown the lid off the "science" of manmade global warming. CRU is a nerve center for many of those researchers who have authored the United Nations' global warming reports and fueled the political movement to regulate carbon.

Their correspondence show a claque of scientists massaging data to make it fit their theories, squelching scientists who disagreed, punishing academic journals that didn't toe the apocalyptic line, and hiding their work from public view. "It's no use pretending that this isn't a major blow," glumly wrote George Monbiot, a U.K. writer who has been among the fiercest warming alarmists. The documents "could scarcely be more damaging." And that's from a believer.

This scandal has real implications. Mr. Inhofe notes that international and U.S. efforts to regulate carbon were already on the ropes. The growing fear of Democrats and environmentalists is that the CRU uproar will prove a tipping point, and mark a permanent end to those ambitions.

I'm a little late to the party but it's just one more example of how out of touch Nancy/Harry/MSM are. Or are they? The reality is that global warming, just like the "crises" in health care and the economy, offer her ilk the opportunity to enlarge the scale/scope of government. Frankly, I think Nancy eats paste and probably "believes" the "science" of global warming. This is the Speaker of the House who accused the CIA of lying (but we're making jobs).

Labels: economics, global warming, left-wing media, pelosi, reid

The government of China is also providing these high-quality "I Am with Stupid" t-shirts* to members of Congress and the Obama administration. As a display of goodwill the Federal Reserve is reciprocating these niceties (trillion dollar underwrting and spiff) by 'printing money'.

*T-shirts are 100% cotton and manufactured by Chinese factory workers.

Related
A $4.9 Trillion Spending Increase
Hammond: Section by Section Analysis of the Reid Bill
China warns Federal Reserve over 'printing money'
Clinton To China: Keep Buying Our Debt (CBS)

Labels: china, economics, obama, pelosi, reid

Stimulus Spent Over $617k in Non-Existent Missouri District

This seems to the norm rather than the exception. More examples here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here.

I love the smell of transparency in the morning.

Labels: dodd, economics, obama, pelosi, reid, signage

"Under the terms of the Pelosi health-care bill, "Americans who do not maintain acceptable health insurance coverage and who choose not to pay the bill's new individual mandate tax (generally 2.5% of income), are subject to numerous civil and criminal penalties, including criminal fines of up to $250,000 and imprisonment of up to five years."

And so we have, yet again, a perfect illustration of the truism that socialism would work perfectly if only there were no people. Since we do have people, with all their self-interested motives and unwillingness to bend their inherent nature to ideological demands, socialism in practice encounters problems, known as Enemies of the People."

Source: Critical Condition on National Review Online

Related
Dem Congresswoman Threatens IRS Retribution Against Catholic Church for Supporting Stupak Amendment
Attacking the Catholic Church

Labels: obama, pelosi, reid

If only CNN/MSNBC/NYTIMES/ABC/NBC/NEWSWEEK/NPR would report on news like the burgeoning deficit instead of stories like balloon boy.

Related...

I had to read this post three times before the absolute insanity of what the DEMS are doing sank in.

First, the White House announces a $250 payment to every senior for inflation that didn’t exist. “In effect, a COLA was paid on inflation that no longer existed,” notes Andrew Biggs of the American Enterprise Institute.

Second, the White House in its desperate attempts to get its health reform passed, has tasked the all-too-willing Majority Leader Reid to walk the plank by convincing him to push a $247 billion portion of health reform as an off-budget item, in a separate bill, to be on the Senate floor this week before moving to the merged ObamaCare bill. Even the Washington Post editorial board said “Mr. Reid proposes not to pay for any of it, not even $11 billion, but simply to write a $247 billion IOU.”

Absolute madness.

Labels: connecticut post, democrats, left-wing media, obama, pelosi, reid

Cash for Oldsters
A $250 bribe to help the ObamaCare medicine go down.

No one ever went broke underestimating political cynicism, but these days even we can't keep up: On Wednesday, President Obama announced that he wants to send every American senior a $250 check.

The $250 checks will funnel $13 billion to some 57 million beneficiaries—in addition to whatever they have already received as part of the $787 billion stimulus.

Related
Deficit Hits $1.4 Trillion, Complicating Stimulus Plans
Lawmakers Eye Untapped Stimulus Funds as Obama Proposes New Spending

Labels: china, economics, obama, pelosi, reid

The House Ethics Committee announces that it is expanding Rangel investigation into "all Financial Disclosure Statements and all amendments filed in the calendar year 2009."

Remember When...
Pelosi Says She Would Drain GOP 'Swamp'

There's another little gem in that article. According to Pelosi, "All the days after that: "Pay as you go," meaning no increasing the deficit, whether the issue is middle class tax relief, health care or some other priority."



Related
Obama under fire over falling dollar
To Fix The Global Economy, Fix The Dollar

Labels: economics, obama, pelosi, rangel

Obama readies second stimulus following wildly successful $800 BILLION version:

Oct. 6 (Bloomberg) -- Barack Obama is considering a mix of spending programs and tax cuts to respond to widening job losses that would amount to an additional economic stimulus without carrying that label.

Related
Why has the president’s stimulus package had less than intended results? Dr. Timothy G. Nash and Dr. Keith A. Pretty of Northwood University ask that question and look at some common sense alternatives

The problem is not, as Mr. Biden would have us believe, that the government didn’t spend enough, or that government bureaucracy is slowing the pace of stimulus spending, which it is. The problem is with a package that didn’t cut taxes enough or in all the right places. People have little confidence in government spending as a catalyst for economic growth and long term prosperity. They know that business creates jobs; government largely creates taxes, regulations and spends. The U.S. economy is burdened by: onerous regulations, the third highest corporate income tax rate (39.27 percent) in the world, and a combined state and federal personal income tax rate that can exceed 46 percent in certain states.

Despite all the money coming in, the U.S. national debt is now $11.2 trillion dollars, or 78 percent of U.S. GDP, and will likely be above 100 percent of GDP by the end of next fiscal year, surpassing the 1949 level of 97.5 percent which included costs associated with World War II and post war reconstruction.

Labels: china, economics, obama, pelosi, reid

(1) Foreclosures, Delinquencies Continue to Rise

(2) Paul Volcker: You Call This An Economic Recovery?

(3) U.S. Economy: Chicago, Jobs Data Signal Slow Rebound

(4) Greenspan Sees Growth Slowing as Stocks ‘Flatten Out’

(5) Manufacturing, employment data push stocks lower

(6) Goldman Sachs Changes U.S. Jobs Forecast to Show Larger Cuts

(7) Stocks Slump Before Key Jobs Data

Labels: economics, obama, pelosi, reid

This is a work in progress and I still have to source the authors. I took some liberty with the bit about the liberal(s) lust for dictatorship.

I originally wanted to title the post 'Why Daddy is a Democrat' but this title fits better. This was an easy list to compile since liberals seem to exemplify cognitive dissonance.

(1) Liberals assume that their cosmic humanitarianism and brotherly egalitarianism exempt them from following mere mortal laws. [Victor Davis Hanson]

Example: Rangel Failed to Disclose $500,000 in Assets for ’07

(2) In order to enact state planning, and superimpose an overarching government plan onto our own messy agendas, we must bow to a technocracy. [Victor Davis Hanson]

Example: Find a copy of Liberal Fascism or The Road to Wigan Pier

(3) Mythologizing Guevara, Castro, and the Communist dictatorship must never end because some dismaying percentage of liberals actually like (prefer?) them. [Source Jay Nordlinger]

Example: "You can think whatever you want to about Fidel Castro, but he was one of the brightest leaders I have ever met." (Rep. Diane Watson [D])

(4) Embracing liberal policies grants a politician carte blanche in his personal or private life. [Andrew Breitbart]

Example: The Silky Pony (AKA John Edwards) and Ted Kennedy

(5) Liberals aren't good with numbers. [Commenter on Ace of Spades HQ]

Example: "We have to spend money to keep from going bankrupt"

(6) Liberals Love the Masses; They Just Don't Want to be Seen With Them [Ace from Ace of Spades HQ]

Example: "We won't smell the tourists anymore." (Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid [D])

(7) Liberals need a leader to put their minds in the right place to do the right thing. They are not heroic individualists seeking to extend America’s promise but conformists who chose to sit out and complain during the tough years in order to ensure their guy got in the next go-around. [Andrew Breitbart]

Example: The Pledge

Labels: connecticut post, cuba, dodd, liberals, pelosi, rangel

Hugo Chávez seeks to catch them young
A hastily passed education law is part of the president’s plan to take control of all aspects of Venezuelan society

What is apparent is that the law was not framed in parliament but by a team of ideologues in the presidential palace. Legislators suspect Cuban specialists had a hand in it, along with radicals from the Spanish left in Mr Chávez’s close circle.

University rectors say the hasty way the law was passed violated both parliamentary norms and the constitution. They were tear-gassed when they approached parliament as it was being debated, to try to deliver a document criticising its content. But a campaign of peaceful resistance is gathering strength.

Since winning a referendum in February abolishing term limits (thus allowing him to seek re-election again in 2012), Mr Chávez has stepped up the pace of his revolution. He has taken powers and funds from mayors and governors, clamped down on independent trade unions and broadcasters, and passed a law which will allow the government-controlled electoral authority to gerrymander constituency boundaries. A wilting economy and a lack of money to spend on his ambitious welfare programmes have begun to sap Mr Chávez’s popularity, forcing him to keep casting around for fresh scapegoats.

In his weekly broadcast on August 16th he promised a stimulus package but gave no indication of how he would pay for it. With public dissent growing, his response has been to stifle sources of independent thinking, be they private television channels, trade unions, the church or the schools and universities. However, once he has achieved complete dominance over them all, there will be no one left to blame for the country’s ills but himself.

Limestone Commentary
We're probably a failed treasury auction or two away from a banana republic. Obama had Pelosi/Reid draft the $800 BILLION and they did so with the help of special interest groups. He is doing the same thing with OBAMACARE (outsourcing) and asking the radicals to shove this transformational "bill" down our throats (despite overwhelming public/citizen opposition). Meanwhile the MSM marginalizes the opposition by portraying any act of civil disobedience as organized thuggery.

As the economy worsens he (and his enablers) thrash about searching for scapegoats. The witch hunt at the CIA is red meat for lefty radicals chasing a phantom menace while providing a thinly veiled (wink, wink on the 'we weed up') smoke screen against his untenable/unsustainable deficits (all hyper-accelerated by his partisan wish list - cap and trade, national health care).

One final thought...Obama also equals Chávez in ideological heroes. Obama has Alinsky/Wright while his South American equal has Bolívar/Gramsci.

Labels: china, left-wing media, obama, pelosi, reid

Remember this sign when interest rates soar, the value of the dollar plummets, taxes (at all levels) increase and a loaf of bread and a gallon of milk (INFLATION) costs $15.00. I really hope China keeps financing the reckless spending of our political class.

Related
AP sources: $2 trillion higher deficit projected
The Obama Deficit (Instapundit)
Obama Administration to Adjust Projected Deficit; $7 Trillion 10-Year-Defict to Become...$9 Trillion (ACE)
It was an August Friday afternoon, at the start of peak vacation season
Friday Night News Dump

Why the Stimulus Flopped by Mark Steyn

The other day, wending my way from Woodsville, N.H., 40 miles south to Plymouth, I came across several “stimulus” projects — every few miles, and heralded by a two-tone sign, a hitherto rare sight on Granite State highways. The orange strip at the top said “PUTTING AMERICA BACK TO WORK” with a silhouette of a man with a shovel, and the green part underneath informed you that what you were about to see was a “PROJECT FUNDED BY THE AMERICAN RECOVERY AND REINVESTMENT ACT.” There then followed a few yards of desolate, abandoned, scarified pavement, followed by an “END OF ROAD WORKS” sign, until the next “stimulus” project a couple of bends down a quiet rural blacktop.

Labels: china, economics, obama, pelosi, reid, signage

Obama Misread His Mandate by Jay Cost
Now that his legislative agenda is stalling, we're seeing the predictable critiques about the outdated United States Senate, which is the real source of the bottleneck: the Connecticut Compromise was meant to protect the interests of small states, but not states that are this small. Rhode Island, yes. Wyoming, no! These arguments will be conveniently tabled whenever the Democrats return to minority status, so I won't bother to address their merits. The bigger question is: what did they think was going to happen? It's one thing to bemoan the fundamental unfairness of the Senate; it's another thing to overlook it when you're formulating your legislative program.

Channeling your inner Goldstein by Roger Kimball
Obama came to office promising to “fundamentally transform the United States of America.” Establishing his virtuous Green Republic requires not only cadres of self righteous ideologues. It also requires enemies. Linda Douglass, Obama’s communications director, has already invited you to send her the names of anyone who says or writes something “fishy” about the President’s policies. Nancy Pelosi, poor thing, sees swastikas everywhere, while Barbara Boxer and Robert Gibbs are terrified that some of the people criticizing the President are “well-dressed.”

Our Ongoing Catharsis by Victor Davis Hanson
So the Bush-era inability to articulate positions, to balance budgets, to explain what we were doing in Iraq, to admonish Wall Street grandees to slow it down a bit, translated into Obamism. By 2008, we did not wish to hear the surge finally worked and Iraq with it, that Bush gave billions to African AIDs relief, worked with allies, ran a clean government, and kept us safe from terrorist attacks for seven years. No, the country was angry for his lapses and was ripe for a Cleon right out of Aristophanes. And so again, we got Obama. And now the American public belatedly learns that the reaction to Bush is not balanced budgets, careful clear exegesis, but rather the Hollywood alternative of cap-and-trade, enormous tax increases, soaring deficits, nationalized health care, a general attitude that “they” owe “us,” and Europe is our model.

Obama's healthcare horror by Camille Paglia
But who would have thought that the sober, deliberative Barack Obama would have nothing to propose but vague and slippery promises -- or that he would so easily cede the leadership clout of the executive branch to a chaotic, rapacious, solipsistic Congress? House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, whom I used to admire for her smooth aplomb under pressure, has clearly gone off the deep end with her bizarre rants about legitimate town-hall protests by American citizens. She is doing grievous damage to the party and should immediately step down.

Labels: obama, pelosi, reid

Labels: obama, pelosi, reid

August Recess Reading
(1) Our Angry Aristocracy by Victor Davis Hanson

Scolding Americans for our various sins is proving popular among an elite group of self-appointed moralists...Yet these influential prophets of doom do not have lives remotely similar to the lesser folk they lecture.

Do the wealthy and the powerful lecture us about our wrongs because they know their own insider status ensures that they are exempt from the harsh medicine they advocate for others? Or does the hypocrisy grow out of a sort of class snobbery?

Do elites hector the crass middle class because it lacks their own taste, rare insight, and privileged style? Or is the new hypocrisy an eerie sort of psychological compensation at work?

(2) ObamaCare in Trouble by Karl Rove
Polls are turning against President Barack Obama’s health-care plan...The polls are crumbling because of a flood of bad news about Mr. Obama’s health-care proposals.

But the most damaging news came from Congressional Budget Office (CBO) Director Douglas Elmendorf, who said last week that the White House’s health-care proposals would not “reduce the trajectory of federal health spending by a significant amount.”

Democratic leaders, including the president, are now backing away from a vote on health care before August. But that’s not likely to decrease voter angst. Americans for Prosperity and others are already organizing voters to attend public meetings with members of Congress this summer. My guess is that members of Congress are about to hear a lot from their voters on the government takeover of health care, new energy taxes, the failed stimulus, record deficits, and growing joblessness.

Labels: dodd, obama, pelosi, rangel, reid, weekend

Knowing the Endgame — in Chess and the Economy

In the agon we are considering, Barack Obama is an unskilled player. Timothy Geithner is an unskilled player. Larry Summers, Christina Romer, and Austan Goolsbee are unskilled players. (The jury is out on Ben Bernanke.) The moves they are now making will see to their embarrassment when they try to unkink the sinuosities of the endgame — assuming, as with my five-year-old, that they get that far. Indeed it appears that almost everyone in the administration is either an unskilled player, an old hack player (Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton), or a weirdo player (John Holdren, Van Jones).

This also appears to be the case with the Democratic Congress and its attendant RINOs. Duffers all or most. They cannot adhere, in Harry Frankfurt’s words, to “a disinterested and austere discipline” since they do not understand the game they are playing or are merely incapable of taking it seriously. They do not even read the bills that they pass. They are, in fact, prone to “some kind of laxity,” they are “trying to get away with something,” and they are blithely making up the rules as they go along. Frankfurt would not hesitate, despite his cachet as a Princeton philosopher, to call them bullsh*tters. But when one tackles a vital issue like the economy, there is no room for ignorance or frivolity — or bullsh*t.

Related
Granholm’s California-by-the-Lakes

Labels: economics, obama, pelosi, reid

Orwell was a genius. Most writers quote 1984 and/or Animal Farm but it is his work in The Road to Wigan Pier that most devastatingly reveals how and why the left can embrace fascism/statism.

The underlying motive of many Socialists, I believe, is simply a hypertrophied sense of order. The present state of affairs offends them not because it causes misery, still less because it makes freedom impossible, but because it is untidy; what they desire, basically, is to reduce the world to something resembling a chessboard.

Companion Piece
The Deeper Debate by Yuval Levin (***MUST READ***)

Labels: obama, pelosi, reid

Disarray. That's one word to describe the status of the Obama administration's legislative program as Congress heads into its final four weeks of work before the August recess...

Related
$1 Trillion Deficit Complicates Obama's Agenda (WSJ)
Federal budget deficit tops $1 trillion with 3 months left in budget year (USA Today)

Limestone Commentary
Who will the DEMS blame?

Labels: democrats, dodd, left-wing media, obama, pelosi, reid

Neal Boortz channels George Orwell:

All you have to do is recognize and acknowledge the true goal of the political class. It's summed up in one word: POWER. You think they actually give a flying Krispy Kreme about you? What? I know you were born at night, but was it last night? They may care about your vote .. but that's it. It's power, my friends. Power and little else.

Labels: obama, pelosi, reid

"The emperor needed the wealthier classes to help him run the empire. Senators in particular were the class he lived amongst and their attitude towards him tended to dictate how he would be portrayed in later histories."

- How Rome Fell, Adrian Goldsworthy

Related
Amid Criticism, Post Drops "Appalling" Plan to Sell Access (ABC)
Barack Obama Seeks to Turn America into a Third World Country
Again, Why the Diffidence?
National Security & the Cult of Personality
Congress's Travel Tab Swells: Spending on Taxpayer-Funded Trips Rises Tenfold; From Italy to the Galápagos (WSJ)

Labels: dodd, history, left-wing media, obama, pelosi, quotes, reid

The Job Market's Grim Picture: Unemployment flirts with an ugly truth--the possibility of hitting a new post-Depression high. (Forbes)

Stocks Skid on Payrolls Data (Wall Street Journal)

Unemployment in America: A rising tide (Economist)

America lost a further 467,000 non-farming jobs in June, pushing up the unemployment rate to 9.5%, a 26-year high.

Related
How Politicians Bankrupted California
Obama’s jobless ‘recovery’ - unemployment at 9.5%
A Miserable Failure
Forget Green Shoots: They’re Just Weeds

Labels: economics, obama, pelosi, reid

Why Obama’s big economic gamble is failing
Obama wagered that the deluge of money coming from the Federal Reserve would do the heavy lifting as far as stabilizing the financial sector and keeping the already apparent recession from turning into a real disaster. Voters would, thus, continue to support his policies to assert more government control over healthcare, heavily regulate energy through a costly cap-and-trade program and further intervene into the financial industry.

The gamble appears to have failed miserably, both economically and politically. The terrible tale of the tape: a) the current downturn is arguably the worse since the Great Depression; b) household wealth has fallen by $14 trillion during the past two years, including the first quarter of 2009; c) while the economy may not shrink as much this quarter as it did in the previous three months (-5.7 percent) or the final quarter of 2008 (-6.3 percent), unemployment is soaring; d) Obama himself said the jobless rate will hit 10 percent this year; d) even worse, the Federal Reserve sees it approaching 11 percent next year.

"Are you better off today than you were four years ago?"

Rich Gov, Poor Gov: Why Obama can't Fix the Economy

Obamaworld: Logic in the Age of Obama.

Labels: economics, obama, pelosi, reid

President Barack Obama has pushed the nation’s marketable debt to an unprecedented $6.36 trillion and raised estimates for the deficit this year to a record $1.84 trillion.‡

(1) Exploding Debt Threatens America

(2) Chi-Comms and Times Get It, Obama Doesn't

The Federal Reserve is printing money from thin air, and the government is issuing trillions of dollars in new debt as it tries to spend its way out of the recession with a huge stimulus package, new lending programs, health care overhauls and automotive rescues.

(3) More Treasury Bond Worries

(4) And It Gets Worse: The Coming 100% Inflation (Ace)

(5) Ouch: Federal Tax Revenues Fall By Over One Third (Ace)

Obama/Reid/Pelosi will need a VAT, Cap & Trade and a slew of other taxes (beer, tomatoes, lamb) to narrow (not close) the gap. The DEM penchant for spending (printing) has set the stage for slower growth and rising instability in commodity markets (Oil at $63 bbl). Will you be better off 6 months from now? Doubtful. And so much for Obama's pledge not to tax 95% of us (Obama's 95% Illusion). These not-so-hidden taxes will increase the burden all Americans endure to keep politicos and bureaucrats in their posh Washington DC offices.



The good news for the GOP is that current economic woes have nothing to do with what Obama inherited but what his (and his cohorts) have prescribed (spend, spend, spend and spend).

Related
Geithner To Travel To China For Economic Talks (Fox)
Get Ready For a VAT
Obama’s “Saved Or Created Jobs” Does Not Match Reality
‡Yield Curve Steepens to Record as Debt Sales Surge (Bloomberg)

Labels: economics, obama, pelosi, reid

"One of the most important talents for success in politics is the ability to make utter nonsense sound not only plausible but inspiring."

The quote is from "Our Confused Age" by Thomas Sowell.

This weekend, in an interview on C-SPAN, Obama told Americans: "We are out of money." But the cause is not his spending binge. The real cause, as he would have us believe, is the lack of socialized/nationalized health care! As Glenn Reynolds writes:

That [Obama's claim] goes beyond chutzpah to the edge of pathological dishonesty. Except, I guess, that it’s not pathological if you get away with it. And so far, he has.

Have you ever read two better quotes to describe Obama?

Related
Obama and the South Park Gnomes (Ace)

Labels: obama, pelosi, reid

...with the Credit Card Overhaul Bill means responsible individuals will bear the brunt (and endure the punishment) of those who choose to live beyond their means.

Now Congress is moving to limit the penalties on riskier borrowers, who have become a prime source of billions of dollars in fee revenue for the industry. And to make up for lost income, the card companies are going after those people with sterling credit.

Banks are expected to look at reviving annual fees, curtailing cash-back and other rewards programs and charging interest immediately on a purchase instead of allowing a grace period of weeks, according to bank officials and trade groups.

“It will be a different business,” said Edward L. Yingling, the chief executive of the American Bankers Association, which has been lobbying Congress for more lenient legislation on behalf of the nation’s biggest banks. “Those that manage their credit well will in some degree subsidize those that have credit problems.”

Obama's age of responsibility is such an utter farce.

Related
Good news: Responsible credit-card users to “subsidize” deadbeats now (Hot Air)

Labels: democrats, obama, pelosi, reid

Is Carol Gould writing about Dodd, Rangel and Murtha?

Every day one sees yet another shop being abandoned and boarded up; in London some local authorities are allowing charities and small groups to move into abandoned shop premises rather than let them become damp-ridden dumps. As this unfolds, members of Parliament are reported to have been claiming £18,000 for a bookcase and £6,000 for a wooden floor, while engaging in complicated “flipping” arrangements in which they received payments for switching homes every so often.

These politicos live fabulously (Chris Dodd's Irish 'Cottage') while pick pocketing us poor rubes. Where is the outrage as Gore stands to make millions from Cap-And-Trade (Con-And-Transfer)? How about tax cheat Geithner's auto industry adviser who is building a $15 MILLION DOLLAR summer home in Martha's Vineyard! Meanwhile all these schemes, while populist in tone, increase the every man(s) living expenses! The new CAFE standards will IMPOSE a $1,300 car tax on the working/middle class!

Related
British expense scandal ousts lower house speaker
Doing Penance

Labels: democrats, dodd, obama, pelosi, rangel, reid

The first 100 days have been fruitful comrade!

No. 1. Abolition of property in land application of all rents of land to public purposes.

No. 2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.

No. 3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance.

No. 4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.

No. 5. Centralization of credit in the hands of the State, by means of a national bank with State capital and exclusive monopoly.

No. 6. Centralization of the means of communication and transport in the hands of State.

No. 7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State; the bringing into cultivation of waste lands, and the improvement of the soil in accordance with a common plan.

No. 8. Equal liability of all to labor. Establishment of industrial armies; especially for agriculture.

No. 9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of the distinction between town and country, by a more equable distribution of the population over the country.

No. 10. Free education for all children in public schools.

Source: Getting Rid of Communism by Leonard E. Read

Labels: obama, pelosi, reid

That's how U.S. Rep. Jim Himes (D-4th) describes the mind-numbing $787 billion available for redistribution. The availability of funds is creating such a tsunami that Himes has appointed a "recovery director" to assist with the redistribution.

Most recently Himes has been busy teaching nonprofits how to waddle up to the trough for some of that; (a) newly printed money, (b) Chinese held debt, (c) stolen from the most productive, and (d) soon to be raised from a bevy of new taxes levied against 95% of all Americans.

trough (noun) - a long, narrow, open receptacle, usually boxlike in shape, used chiefly to hold water or food for animals.

Labels: obama, pelosi, reid

$1 billion a day for stimulus (CNN)
The Obama administration has committed $75 billion in stimulus money in 10 weeks. So far $14.5 billion has been spent, mostly for Medicaid.

Many would-be recipients are still wading through all the recovery program's requirements or waiting for guidance from federal agencies before they put in requests.

Lastly, a significant amount of funding won't be made available until recipients either sign contracts or file grant applications. And in some cases, new programs must be created before the money can flow.

Labels: obama, pelosi, reid

"Starting in the 1960s, Detroit began a precipitous decline. Most scholars blame rapid suburbanization, outsourcing of manufacturing jobs, and federal programs they say exacerbated the situation by creating a culture of joblessness and dependency."

Source: America's Most Dangerous Cities (Forbes)

Related
‘Going Galt’ Got Going Last Summer: How Pelosi, Obama, and Reid began the recession — and then worsened it.

Labels: obama, pelosi, reid

This post (YouTube link) by Glenn Reynolds about John Murtha's Vanity Airport is like the 'ghost airport' in South Korea. The cause - 'incompetent planning and administration' by previous liberal governments - is even identical. I think the water level in Nancy's swamp is rising.

Labels: airports, democrats, pelosi

Black Breath - Name given to the fell influence of the Nazgûl, which resulted in despair, unconsciousness, and bad dreams, and after prolonged exposure, in death.

I think you can catch the equivalent from Barney Frank, Christopher "Countrywide" Dodd, Charles Rangel, Harry Reid, and Nancy Pelosi. I'm not sure who in this motley lot would play the Lord Of The Nazgûl.

Related
The Hunt For Gollum

Labels: dodd, obama, pelosi, rangel, reid

Obama to Order $100 Million in Budget Cuts

The Obama/Reid/Pelosi deficit is $3 TRILLION DOLLARS ($3 TRILLION DOLLARS)!!! According to Forbes, the NEW Yankee Stadium cost $1.4 BILLION. In ANY scope, the $100 Million in budget cuts Obama is "ordering" is pathetic.

Related
YOU'VE GOT TO BE KIDDING (Poor and Stupid)
AP: Obama's Cuts are Sick Joke
Smoke Signals

Obama’s $100 Million Cut

It is 1/40,000 of the federal budget;

It is 1/7,830 the size of the recent “stimulus” bill;

It would close 1/1,845 of this year’s budget deficit;

It is the amount the federal government spends every 13 minutes; and

For a family earning $40,000 annually, it is the equivalent of cutting $1 from their family budget.

Seriously. President Obama has reportedly been working closely with noted behavioral economists, and their studies have shown that most people are “insensitive to scope,” meaning they are not very good at putting large numbers in their proper context. People will react about the same to a policy proposal whether the cost/benefit is $10 million, $10 billion, or $10 trillion. Consequently, the $100 million cut may seem huge to many voters.

Labels: obama, pelosi, reid

Why Catholics Are Worried About Obama (RealClearPolitics)

The Ship is Sinking: Quick, Add Water (RealClearPolitics)

President Obama has reminded us countless times that he inherited a $1.3 trillion deficit. Even if he were about to propose the most responsible, prudent, visionary budget imaginable, that complaint would still be petulant and unseemly. But considering what Obama's own spending will do to the deficit, it's jaw-droppingly galling. He now proposes to increase that deficit to $7 trillion in 10 years. And that $7 trillion is probably a low estimate (the Congressional Budget Office estimates that it will be $2.3 trillion higher). When the new spending for programs like Pell Grants, education for handicapped children and so forth comes up for renewal in a few years, Congress is not going to let it lapse. So, to review, it was terrible for President Bush and the Democratic Congress (the president neglects to mention them) to saddle him with all this debt. His answer is to triple it. That's showing 'em!

Venezuelan Government Arrests Chávez Opponent (Wall Street Journal) - Just substitute Obama for Hugo to extract maximum clairvoyance. As an example:

Mr. Obama has remained popular among his mainly poor supporters, whose living standards have been improved by increased spending on welfare, food subsidies and other programs.

Clitonista stooge Robert Reich (didn't he work for Citibank?) calling for more stimulus.

Washington’s Socialist Spendathon: The federal bailout exceeds 90 percent of U.S. GDP. If that isn’t socialism, what is?

Bloomberg News has tallied Washington’s spending and promises as it props up banks, insurers, automakers, and seemingly everyone except hardworking taxpayers who promptly pay their bills. Bloomberg deserves great credit for focusing on this constantly moving target. In its latest estimate, Bloomberg correspondents Mark Pittman and Bob Ivry reported on March 31 that the Federal Reserve, Treasury, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and Department of Housing and Urban Development have saddled taxpayers with $12.8 trillion so far. America’s 2008 gross domestic product was $14.2 trillion. Hence, the federal bailout now equals 90.14 percent of GDP.

The Tea Party Google map

Labels: obama, pelosi, reid

Here's a bill sponsored by Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) that seeks to regulate small farms and roadside produce stands. (Hat Tip: Ace)

Labels: obama, pelosi, reid

I can't conclude a round of quotations on socialism without one from The Northwood Idea by V. Orval Watts.

With this elitist excuse for tyranny, governments organize militaristic and imperialistic gangs to substitute forms of slavery for the voluntary cooperation of free individuals. Then, as in Communist countries today, even the ablest of the ruling bureaucracies find that any individual is expendable - trapped and exploited or liquidated - as millions of humans are sacrificed on the altars of Planned Perfection. The Moral Law of the Golden Rule and of the Ten Commandments may be violated, but not with impunity. He who harms others, harms himself; he who deceives another, cheats himself.

Labels: obama, pelosi, reid

The question has come up whether or not the U.S. will embrace European style socialism. Fortunately, the Limestone Archives™ are as deep and vast as Helm's Deep.

I found an article from 1998 published by Mark L. Melcher and Stephen R. Soukup for Investor Weekly (Prudential Securities) that tries to answer the question. They conclude that socialism is unlikely to thrive here in the U.S. because the brand embraced by the left is based on idealism (sentimental egalitarians). Also, unlike Europe, it wasn't forged by revolution and fear.

I wish they would publish something new on the subject since the Vapid One ascended in November. I have tried, without success, to find them on the Web.

I also quote Mark Levin's new book Liberty & Tyranny as well as my trusty C.S. Lewis For The Third Millennium by Peter Kreeft. Finally, I pull a quote from Mother Angelica's on Teaspoon Destruction from her Little Book of Life Lessons and Everyday Spirituality. This is a diverse group of writers.

A visitor asked for a list of books/articles to read as a defense against the occupation and all four would make the list. The balance is forthcoming.

(1) This Urge To Plan Has Not Been Limited to Europe...The United States has "planners," of course. They are called liberals. And if they could, they would do exactly as Europe's "planners" have done. In my view, they would create a massive and deeply corrupt welfare state with chronic high unemployment, chronic labor unrest, and gross inefficiencies. But they cant.

It is true that since the mid-1930s, American liberals have exercised enormous influence over economic affairs. And I think a case can be made that they have done extensive damage to the nation's social fabric and to its economic health during that period. But they have never come close to wielding the kind of power their European counterparts have, largely because they have been up against a strong tradition of entrepreneurial, free-market capitalism and rugged individualism, which dates to the landing of the first English settlers in the early l6th century.

They have also had to contend with the fact that America has been, since its founding, a deeply religious nation, or as Chesterton put it, "a nation with the soul of a church." As such, it has a built-in aversion to socialism.

But American Planners Have Had A Markedly Inconsequential History...In short, American liberals are pale beer when compared to European socialists. Their history is short and their intellectual roots are shallow, most especially when it comes to economic thought. American schools don't routinely teach Marx, or any other far left socialist economist. Keynes is as close as they come, and his influence has been waning steadily for years.

(2) Socialism's dream is naïve because mere equality does not automatically destroy oppression. Egalitarianism can be as oppressive as any tyranny. De Tocqueville pointed out long ago that democratic totalitarianism is not a contradiction in terms and that Americans are naïve if they think that the sheer political structure of democracy will protect them against totalitarianism. For democracy and totalitarianism are not opposite answers to the same question, but answers to two different questions, and thus can be compatible. Democracy is an answer to the question: In whom is the social-political power located? Its answer is: in the people at large. Totalitarianism is an answer to the question: How much power are the social-political authorities to have? Its answer is: total power, power to reshape human life, human thought, human nature itself.

(3) The Statist, however, misuses equality to pursue uniform and economic and social outcomes. He must continuously enhance his power at the expense of self-government and violate the individual's property rights at the expense of individual liberty, for he believes that through persuasion, deception, and coercion he can tame man's natural state and man's perfection can, therefore, be achieved in Utopia.

American history and traditions make the transformation from civil society to tyranny more complicated for the Statist than in Europe and other places, which explains its slower pace...Still, tyranny is threat to that looms over all societies, preventable only by the active vigilance of the people. The Statist in America is no less resolute that his European counterpart but, by necessity, he is more cunning—where the European lurches and leaps, the American's steps are measured but steady. In America, the Statist understands that his counterrevolution must at least appear gradual and not revolutionary—sometimes even clothed in the flag and patriotism—lest his intentions become too obvious and thus alarming to his skeptics.

(4) If you look at the liberals throughout the years, you'll notice that they've got alot of patience. They practice what I call "teaspoon destruction." They don't do anything too suddenly, they just change things a teaspoon at a time. By the time you wake up, there's a bucket of water falling on top of you and the floor is drenched.

(1) A Specter Is Haunting Europe—The Specter of 'Planning' (Investor Weekly) by Mark L. Melcher and Stephen R. Soukup
(2) C.S. Lewis For The Third Millennium by Peter Kreeft
(3) Liberty and Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto by Mark R. Levin
(4) Mother Angelica's Little Book of Life Lessons and Everyday Spirituality

Labels: obama, pelosi, reid

Where is the outrage? Is this how it ends?

Congress: The spectacle of the very same people responsible for one of the nation's great financial calamities angling to be given even more control to fix the problem would be funny if it weren't so tragic.

Frank, one of the chief architects of the housing mess that's brought us so low, isn't satisfied merely with pretending he and his Democratic pals aren't to blame for all this. No, exploiting voter anger over the now-infamous AIG bonuses, he also wants to dictate to American capitalism what it can earn and what it can't.

This is the kind of thing that normally happens in Third World countries ruled by tinhorn dictators, or in fascist states, where the democratic rule of law has collapsed. Not the U.S.

Source: IBDeditorials.com

Related
ACORN Behind ‘Protests’ At AIG Homes
Busload of Crazies to Tour Homes of AIG Executives This Weekend

To GIVE and to SERVE: the $6 billion National Service boondoggle

Labels: democrats, dodd, pelosi, rangel, reid

Wall Street Pauses To Ponder Fed's Move
Commodities roar, stocks slip, bonds steady.

The dollar remained weak, a day after the Federal Reserve said it will pump $300.0 billion into Treasuries.

The reality of a deep-pocketed buyer for government debt with a virtual printing press in its basement derailed the greenback, as the euro climbed to $1.3676, from $1.3491 a day earlier.

Source: Forbes

Labels: democrats, economics, obama, pelosi, reid

While Dodd, Frank, Pelosi, Obama, Rangel, Reid and Geithner stomp around like a carnival act over the AIG/DNC taxpayer bonuses the Fed decided to create (PRINT) another $1.2 trillion of U.S. currency. Jim Manzi provides the details here but the money quote and eventual outcome is encapsulated in this formula.

More dollars + the same assets = more dollars per asset = inflation.

Related
The David Copperfield School of Economic Recovery
The Fed’s Monumental Move
The AIG Mystery Deepens
Dodd Admits Role In AIG Bonus Controversy
The Obama CYA Act of 2009

Labels: democrats, dodd, economics, obama, pelosi, rangel, reid

The Coming Depression

Update

>>> Holy Grue! <<< (in convenient chart form)

Additional background is available at Financial Armageddon and BobKrumm.com.

If you need a little palette cleanser take a look at Christopher Countrywide Dodd's nice Irish cottage. He lives like one of those greedy job-creating entrepreneurs he's always demonizing.

Related
Mean Street: Obama’s Dow 5000
$25,573.48 - what Barack Obama's budget will cost each taxpayer
The Coming Blue State Collapse

Labels: dodd, economics, end times, obama, pelosi, rangel, reid

Investor's Business Daily examines the market sell off (30% in six weeks).

My favorite quote:

"Business leaders are demonized. Yes, there are bad eggs out there like the Madoffs and Stanfords. But most CEOs are hugely talented, driven, highly intelligent people who make our corporations the most productive in the world and add trillions of dollars of value to our economy.

They don't deserve to be dragged before Congress, as they have been dozens of times in the past two years, for a ritual heaping of verbal abuse from the very people most responsible for our ills — our tragically inept, Democrat-led Congress."

Obama misspent his "mandate" when he outsourced the spending bill to Pelosi/Reid.

Why?

Did Obama owe them for his victory? Was his transition team too lazy to draft something on their own? Was his plan to have Pelosi/Reid own this travesty all along?

Or is Obama just a charlatan, slippery enough to hide his hard-core lefty ideology from a gullible public hungry for change after two decades of Bush/Clinton/Bush?

I'm not sure America would have given Obama a "mandate" for European style socialism had they known the truth. It's unfortunate he was abetted by the media (derelict in its duty) because the real cost of this debacle is now becoming clear. As Kudlow wrote a month ago capital is on strike and all those evil CEOs progressives decry provide the ornaments of civilization.

There is hope though! Congressional approval ratings were at an all time low in July (Gallup) and this cadre of miscreants (Pelosi/Reid/Dodd/Rangel/Frank) will be put before the American public again in 2010.

Related
Tea Party USA Watch: Taxpayers coming together

Labels: dodd, liberals, obama, pelosi, rangel, reid

Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit continues to cover the raw hypocrisy and ethical obtuseness of Christopher "Countrywide" Dodd. See here, here, here, and here.

I lived in Bridgeport, CT in 2004 when Dodd was running for re-election and I remember his goons swooping into the Black Rock Area and plastering it with hundreds of his hideous black and yellow signs.

Michelle Malkin has been covering the growing taxpayer (tea party) protests here. She was at the tea party in Denver on February 17.

Meanwhile Rich Karlgaard at Forbes.com explains how Obama has delegated domestic policy to a virulently anti-capitalistic House.

Lastly, Mark Steyn writes about the significance of Obama's decision to return the bust of Sir Winston Churchill to the British.

Conservatives need heroes and Mark Steyn, Michelle Malkin, and Glenn Reynolds are as BIG as they come. I would add Jonah Goldberg to this list as well.

Labels: dodd, england, obama, pelosi, the good guys

Slow Drip of Financial Ruin by Dennis Byrne

Reason is the facility of the mind used to intelligently form judgments, make decisions and solve problems. Emotions are feelings, desires, fears, hates and passionate drives—all of which are the tools that Obama deployed to sell the stimulus package to a gullible public. Endeavor to go through all 1,100 pages of this stuffed piggy and you'll find little rational connection between the nation's problems and its solutions—other than if we throw enough money out there, some of it will stick to the wall.

Yes, John Edwards, There Are Indeed ‘Two Americas’ by Jennifer Rubin

It is true that the stimulus bill was just passed so we have barely begun to feel its real-world impact. But consumer confidence indicators and the stock market are predictive of future behavior. If investors are fleeing to gold and selling stocks, consumers are not planning any major purchases, and the banks are declaring a lack of confidence in the man charged with the bank bailout, that says something about the Democrats’ handiwork so far.

And it is certainly true that the president’s own gloom and doom rhetoric has not helped matters. It is possible to talk down the market and scare consumers. There is a fine line between lowering expectations and creating a self-fulfilling prophesy.

Labels: obama, pelosi, quotes, reid

Then we have President Obama. Maybe a sincere, well-meaning guy. But, surrounded and advised by tax-scofflaws, connected former industry lobbyists, and some of the very politicians and financial scoundrels who let this mess develop, his lack of experience is really starting to show. Instead of engendering "hope" he sounds more like a funeral director who's misplaced late Aunt Ethel's corpus delecti. Not, "we're gonna fix this mess" but "it'll be years of pain." Judging by this “stimulus” package and who the money's going to, he's probably right. When people are told to expect “pain” they don’t tend to take a lot of air trips, printed-money stimulus checks notwithstanding.

Source

Related
The Real Stimulus Burden (WSJ)
We'll be paying for this in many ways, for many years.

We aren't deficit scolds, but these levels are uncharted territory, especially if any economic recovery is weak because the spending doesn't stimulate. The new spending means new federal debt in the trillions of dollars over the next few years, which will test the limits of America's credit-worthiness. To the extent that taxes rise to pay for it all, the U.S. will become less desirable as a destination for the world's capital. Perhaps the Federal Reserve will try to inflate away this growing debt, but the world's bond vigilantes will get a vote on that.

We recognize this bill is going to pass as early as today. But Americans need to understand the vast expansion of government they are getting -- and who voted to pass it.

Limestone Commentary
The chart in that WSJ article is frightening.

Labels: obama, pelosi, reid

No posts this weekend. Obama will be on national television tomorrow night trying to convince us that the sky is falling and that salvation rests in his TRILLION DOLLAR spending plan. The interest alone on the bill is 350 BILLION DOLLARS. When you include the TARP money the cost of all this government malfeasance is almost 3 TRILLION DOLLARS. Obama will blame some bogeyman tomorrow night but his cohorts (Dodd, Rangel, Franks and Pelosi) are a BIG part of the problem. No household in America could live as recklessly as the federal government without having a reckoning.

The Democrats will OWN this spending bill despite the "patriotic" support of 3 GOP Senators (Collins, Specter, Snowe). The NYTIMES can spin this anyway they want but this will pass along party lines. The good news is that the government can't print/borrow/tax 3 TRILLION DOLLARS without retarding growth (or inviting inflation). And Obama will need to play funny business with the census and make sure there's enough payouts to special interest groups (welfare and reparations) to stave off a one-term tour of duty or a referendum in the mid-term elections in 2010.

Michelle Malkin has a quick summary on the spending bill (see below).

Agriculture: $5,109,430
Commerce: $21,513,000
Defense: $3,746,000
Energy & Water: $53,843,000
Financial & Gen. Govt: $10,762,000
Homeland Security: $5,076,700
Interior: $11,643,600
Labor, HHS, Education: $169,184,000
Military & VA: $7,428,295
THUD: $60,580,500
Appropriations: $365,629,525 (of course, this one isn’t broken out)

Bottom line: Global Warming, Government Healthcare, Teachers Unions, School Building Contractors, Subsidized Housing, and MASSIVE Pork.

You can also download a copy of the bill in her post.

Labels: obama, pelosi, reid

"Everywhere I went during my 10-day road trip, people vented their disgust with New York and Washington. Bashing New York and Washington is a national pastime under any circumstances, but the vitriol now is three orders of magnitude greater. Respectable businesspeople said they wanted to put John Thain, Henry Paulson, Christopher Cox, Bernie Madoff, Barney Frank, Nancy Pelosi and numerous television talking heads before a firing squad. I’ve not heard talk like this since college, and never from business leaders.

Polls that show only 37% of Americans supporting the stimulus package overstate the support. Over the course of 10 days, I didn’t talk to a single person who thought the stimulus package made any sense. People at airports heckled White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs as he promoted the stimulus package on CNN."

Source: Ten Days' Thoughts On The Economy

Related
This article in Newsweek is pure bunk. If the Democrats really believed that their [denote ownership] TRILLION DOLLAR spending bill would work they wouldn't need Republicans to get on board.

But now Obama needs to remind the American people that unless the Republicans get on board, they will bear political responsibility for failing to act in the face of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.

Labels: left-wing media, pelosi, reid

We will either start living within the confines of realism and responsibility or we will blow it and we will create the downfall of the greatest Nation that ever lived. This bill is the start of that downfall. To abandon a market-oriented society and transfer it to a Soviet-style, government-centered, bureaucratic-run and mandated program, that is the thing that will put the stake in the heart of freedom in this country.

Labels: obama, pelosi, reid

I just pulled 5 but NRO lists 45 more just as silly!

$50 million for the National Endowment for the Arts
$87 million for a polar icebreaking ship
$650 million for digital TV coupons, including $90 million to educate “vulnerable populations”
$600 million to convert federal auto fleet to hybrids
$850 million for Amtrak

Labels: obama, pelosi, reid

Labels: obama, pelosi, reid

They don't need the GOP to pass this TRILLION DOLLAR spending bill. They have absolute control. And what party would want their name on this POS anyway?

Obama is essentially asking investors to fund a massive giveaway program stateside. The federal government will prop up corporations and pay individuals to work, all with money taxed or borrowed from the private economy.

Simplified, the Obama economic plan is one whereby we'll run deficits to fund welfare programs that, by definition, will slow economic growth. Indeed, individual stimulus will involve taking from the productive to aid the less productive, and it's easy to see how this will cause the productive among us to reduce their efforts.

The recent Daily Show promos are amusing. Stewart just prattles on about how the GOP is thwarting the spending bill. How exactly are they accomplishing this since they are powerless to stop the bill that Obama/Reid/Pelosi have authored?

Labels: obama, pelosi, reid

I don't normally blog about politics on the weekend but Michael Steele was just elected chairman of the Republican National Committee. I wrote about him in 2004 and again in 2006 (lest you think I'm jumping on the bandwagon). I'm not quite ready to write a check to the GOP but if the Senate holds the line on this TRILLION DOLLAR spending bill being shoved down our throats by Obama/Pelosi/Reid I may be inclined.

Labels: obama, pelosi, reid, the good guys

The GOP finds its voice (wink wink) and votes unanimously against the Generational Theft Act of 2009. This makes the Democrats the authors and owners of this $850,000,000,000 POS. Nancy and Charlie "Tax Scat" Rangel will have no one to blame if all this spending (and titanic wealth redistribution) on the arts, education and chlamydia/HIV tests fails to reduce unemployment.

Related
A 40-Year Wish List: You won't believe what's in that stimulus bill.

Labels: obama, pelosi, rangel

$850,000,000,000

The European Social Welfare State Bill
“Stimulus” you can’t afford
Stimulus Bill Near $900 Billion (WSJ)
Stimulus Bill Carries $347B in Interest
Republicans Object to Stimulus Dollars for ACORN
Stimulus 101: The Pelosi-Reid-Obama Debt Plan

The Hysterical Style

If anyone wished to know what the baby-boomer generation would do when, in its full maturity, it hit its first self-created, big-time recession, I think we are seeing the hysterical results. After two decades of unprecedented economic growth, rampant consumer spending, and unimaginable borrowing to satisfy our insatiable appetites, we are suddenly going into even larger debt and printing trillions of dollars in paper money to ensure that someone else after we are gone pays the debt. As if the permanent solution to a financial panic and years of spending wealth we didn't create were a government take-over of the economy in the manner we currently witness in Spain, Italy, and Greece—or the high-tax, high-spend ethos of a bankrupt California.

Labels: democrats, generational conflict, liberals, obama, pelosi, reid

An Uneasy Feeling
I distilled from the press coverage and the crowds and the punditry yesterday that for all too many suddenly a vote for Obama redeems America. Now, to paraphrase Michelle Obama, for the first time in their lives they are apparently proud of the United States.

So I am surprised that suddenly the election of a single individual means that we are united, patriotic, proud of America? Suddenly Okinawa or Antietam, or all those who died at the Argonne, are ours to claim again?

But America was always ours, the public, and the nation transcends the proposition of whether Obama gets elected or not—given that the United States, in its worst hour, was better than the alternatives at their best. So I think it would be wise to cool it on the “I am now proud of America” rhetoric. If getting your way means suddenly the dead at Iwo or those who were blown up in B-17s over Germany are at last your own and matter, then we are in deep trouble.

More from Victor Davis Hanson

As Obama begins to govern and as the public sees that he simply borrowed Bush’s foreign policy rhetoric, jazzed it up with his cadences and pauses, and then took either Bushites or Democratic centrists and called them hope and change, and as he glued new rhetorical veneers on the Patriot Act and FISA, and as he alienates many by making decisions other than voting present, and as the gaffes begin (Biden and Michelle can’t be put under wraps forever), and the Chicago fumes linger (Blago ain’t through yet), the fawning media will begin to look embarrassed, then ridiculous, and finally completely bankrupt. They offered no audit of Obama, no tough treatment, no honest examination of his flips, no balance in their treatment of Bush, and they will soon pay a terrible price for that derelection and worse, as the public sees them as the state megaphones that they have so sadly become. The only suspense? Will they play Pravda to the end?

The point of all this? Excuse me, but as a cynic I confess the politics of the left are now about power, ego, status, and the notion of control, rather than genuine concern for the planet, or the creed of egalitarianism or for freedoms of the people. The conservative grandee at least lives by his unapologetic creed, one that we sometimes abhor, but accept is consistent with the natural law of the jungle in that the stronger and more capable claim that that they deserve a greater material reward for their greater accomplishments or, barring that, even unabashedly for their greater luck in being born lucky.

But for the leftist. the desire for wealth, status, exceptional treatment, all this earns the additional wages of hypocrisy. We all know the conservative failing—that a Larry Craig or Mark Foley who preaches constraint and traditional values are themselves slaves to nefarious and destructive appetites. But ignored are their liberal counterparts in hypocrisy—that men and women of the people no more wish to live as the people than the rich they so loudly despise. If some conservatives adopt the patina of a Cato’s stern agrarian conservatism to mask their own weakness for drink, or drug, or sex, then at least grant such psychological states exist for many liberals who demand global parity as a sort of psychological get out of jail card for their cravings for money, status, and privilege.

Labels: dodd, left-wing media, liberals, obama, pelosi, rangel, reid

Buffett's Burlington Northern Binge
The billionaire scoops up more of the ailing railroad's shares.

This is a smart play (especially now that government is choosing winners and losers in this newly nationalized economy).

Labels: obama, pelosi, railroads

Rangel to reintroduce military draft measure

Will the "army" be connected to this creepy endeavor being promoted by Obama during thirty second spots on Cartoon Network?

Labels: obama, pelosi, weekend

With his simian air of ferocious, sullen reserve, he exuded an intensely intimidating power dedicated to horses, graft and politics. For decades, Tammany Hall had ruled through a very simple formula, explained by Croker in a rare interview: "Think of the hundreds of foreigners dumped into our city. They are too old to go to school. There is not a mugwump [reformer] who would shake hands with them...Tammany looks after them for the sake of their vote, grafts them upon the Republic, makes them citizens in short; and although you may not like our motives or our methods, what other agency is there...If we go down into the gutter, it is because there are men in the gutter."

It was really quite elementary, wrote muckraker Lincoln Steffens: Tammany owned the "plain people" because in the absence of government services, Tammany provided a helping hand. "They speak pleasant words, smile friendly smiles, notice the baby, give picnics up the River or the Sound, or a slap on the back; find jobs, most of them at city expense, but they also have news-stands, peddling privileges, railroad and other business places to dispense." And with those votes, Tammany ruled the city government and its tens of thousands of jobs and the vast ocean of boodle harvested from controlling the docks, the police, the health department, and the courts. It was a reliably rich take.

- Conquering Gotham, Jill Jonnes

History Repeats Itself

Christopher Dodd coerced banks via the Community Reinvestment Act to extend loans to uncreditworthy persons. In a free market, unfettered by interlopers, lending institutions would not have assumed such risk.

Thanks to Sen. Christopher Dodd, Rep. Barney Frank and others, the lending industry spent years issuing mortgages to millions of Americans who had no hope of repaying. Sen. Dodd and Rep. Frank believe homeownership is a right unfettered by income or credit history, and over time, they were instrumental in forcing the industry to lend to some of the least creditworthy Americans.

As everyone knows, the results were disastrous. The housing bubble they helped create and inflate has burst, driving the economy into recession, the lending industry into chaos and millions of Americans into foreclosure, bankruptcy or both. (But at least Sen. Dodd got his millions in campaign cash from the financial industry and special rates on his mortgages from Countrywide Financial.)

And how about this via Instapundit:

The main problem with a payroll tax holiday is that it minimizes Congressional opportunities for graft and larding out goodies to their contributors. That makes it both wise and politically unfeasible, at least until we get a better class of congresscritter.

How about one more? This one puts the DEMOCRATIC graft in perspective:

A GS-9, or a lowly municipal clerk, has far more life-and-death power over us. It's they to whom we must turn to for permission to build a house, ply a trade, open a restaurant and myriad other activities. It's government people, not rich people, who have the power to coerce and make our lives miserable. Coercive power goes a long way toward explaining political corruption.

Gov. Rod Blagojevich's hawking of Barack Obama's vacated U.S. Senate seat; Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charlie Rangel's alleged tax-writing favors; former Rep. William Jefferson's business bribes; and the Jack Abramoff scandal are mere pimples on the government corruption landscape. We can think of these and similar acts as jailable illegal corruption. They pale in comparison to what's for all practical purposes the same thing, but simply legal corruption.

The cost of this government largesse/graft is going to come in the form of higher taxes and there are some estimates that taxes as a share of GDP will be 24 percent by 2050!

Labels: books, economics, history, obama, pelosi, reid