Hopefully, The Lame Duck GOP Won't be So Stubborn

Most or all of my right wing friends on this blog have a dirty little secret - and I know what it is. With respect to the budget and taxes, you know I am right. Pride prevents you from admitting it as does the fear of reproach from your fellow Republicans.

Unfortunately, Congress operates the same way. Members of the GOP Caucus - most of whom are bright, overachieving guys - know that we have to raise massive revenue or eliminate Social Security and Medicare, which is not going to happen. The problem is, they saw what happened when George HW Bush broke his promise. They saw what happened to the Democrats after the budget balancing 1993 Budget Bill. They have all sworn off tax hikes. Self preservation means opposing any and all tax hikes if you are a 2010 Republican officeholder.

They complain about a $1.4T deficit, but they know that Bush handed Obama $1.3T of annual red ink that was rapidly growing. Objectively, from a fiscally conservative standpoint, the administration has done a good job on the budget. Had Bushes trajectory continued, we'd be >$2.6T in the soup this year.

So - we have a huge structural fiscal imbalance. That's a fact. The Debt Commission will report it's recommendations in November or December. Will Congress have the courage to do the right thing? Can we cut discretionary spending, gradually raise the entitlement ages, and significantly raise taxes in a manner that causes the least drag on our economy? We'll have to - the world's future depends on it. We cannot lead the world if we are broke and can't borrow money and that is the path that we are on. If the system is broken, we will arrive at that sorry destination sooner rather than later.

How to be Unpresidential

Has everyone seen the latest from our current liar in chief?

In response to the public's correct view that this President is unqualified to be a leader during disasters, Barry makes the following comment: "I was down there a month ago, before most of these talking heads were even paying attention to the gulf. A month ago I was meeting with fishermen down there, standing in the rain (poor baby) talking about what a potential crisis this could be," Obama said, defending his administration's handling of the spill. "And I don't sit around just talking to experts because this is a college seminar; we talk to these folks because they potentially have the best answers, so I know whose ass to kick."

Tough words from the person who has allegedly been in charge the entire time. How about starting with your own? Add this to his unpresidential statement of how he has his boot on the neck of BP. Then add on how he was spouting about forcing BP not to pay their dividend. Why doesn't he just force BP into bankruptcy? Is Barry short BP stock or something? I would like to know how many retirees depend on BP dividends. Maybe he should just take over BP, I am sure that would make the average American feel so much better given Barry's tremendous experience at being in a position of executive leadership.

According to the latest ABC/Washington Post poll, more than two-thirds of those polled, 69 percent, disapprove of the federal government's handling of the spill. That's higher than the outrage over the Bush administration's handling of Hurricane Katrina.

Rich, that number is 69%! Unfortunately thus far Barry has made most of my pre-election predictions come true. The only people still supporting him are the hard core liberal Kool Aid drinkers or those that stand to gain financially because of Barry taking care of them. Rich has pointed out that President Reagan's poll numbers were lower at this juncture. But what you fail to mention in your attempt to rewrite history is that Barry was at a 69% approval rating in January of 2009. No President has fallen farther and faster at this point in their Presidency! Barry came in promising a new and better world and he is delivering the exact opposite. Instead of hope we are getting despair!

President Reagan was blessed with his unbridled optimism and the fact that he had experience being an executive where Barry has this so called cool, laid back demeanor coupled with tremendous arrogance and a hair trigger temper. Not qualities to give the American public confidence that things are going to get better. We are all witnessing the fall of the US mostly due to the ugly fact that the liberals still believe in Keynesian economic principles even though they have been shown to be ineffectual over and over and over again. We cannot continue to sustain the pace of spending 100s of thousands of dollars for each temporary job that this Administration creates. It is clearly unsustainable and the road to ruin as a nation.

Why are Jews Liberals?

 Dick Morris  June 5, 2010

It is the question that sooner or later baffles every political pundit, consultant, expert, or observer. Why do American Jews persist in their adoration of the Democratic Party? Why, like an abused spouse, do they tolerate Israel-bashing, support for the Palestinians and Democratic softness on terrorism and still return for more? As the richest demographic group in our population, why do they still vote for Obama and donate money to him when he specifically proposes to raise the taxes on those making more than $200,000 per year?
Why do they let liberal politicians embrace the likes of Louis Farrakhan and Rev. Jeremiah Wright and still support them on Election Day?
I don´t have an answer and have never heard a satisfactory one from any leader of an American Jewish or pro-Israeli organization.

The "o" listens...a little

Let's take a wild guess which programs won't be touched.  Probably the same which were supported by the "you voted for me" reward program known as the stimulus.



"The public wants to know that we're willing to be very aggressive on spending. They're willing to invest, but they also want to know that you're going to wear the green eyeshades," Emanuel said in an interview Monday. "That's exactly what's happening here."


Previous administrations have asked agency heads to justify programs, but budget analysts said they could not recall a time when agencies had been ordered to volunteer programs for elimination. To encourage cooperation, Obama also will ask Congress for new authority to let agencies keep half the savings they identify, administration officials said. The agencies could then put the cash toward higher priorities rather than surrendering it all for deficit reduction, as is typical.

It is hard to say which programs are likely to attract the ax. Administration officials frequently refer to dozens of duplicative programs scattered across government. In a speech he is set to deliver Tuesday, Orszag will point to 110 programs dedicated to advancing science and math education, more than 100 to youth mentoring, and more than 40 to employment and job training.

"This redundancy wastes resources and makes it harder to act on each of these worthy goals," Orszag will say, according to an advance copy of the speech.

Union pensions

Can someone tell me why my taxes should go to bail out a non Federal employee union pension fund?

These unions have the most underfunded pensions in the country due to their mismanagement and now seek to have their useful idiots in congress pass legislation to bail them out. Can you tell me why these unions can continue to spend untold millions on political campaigns but not have to use the money to shore up their obligations to their members? That should be a crime like management diverting money that should have been paid for payroll taxes.

Liberals love to talk about "fairness" and "justice" yet they never think twice about putting their hand in my pocket and taking my money to give to their cronies.

When most Americans have to work longer because their 401 K has lost value due to the downturn that is being exacerbated by the massive spending and anti business policies of the current administration many liberals see no problem in not requiring union members to make similar adjustments due to the fact that their pension investments have also gone south.

Where is the "fairness" in that? Shouldn't the unions themselves be required to stop spending their money on political ads until they have their pensions properly funded?

It is time for the unions to go under the microscope.

Are they really this stupid!

Last week we saw this administration through the champion of hair plugs and others trumpeting the jobs number before it came out on Friday morning. The market appeared to have factored a good jobs number in prior to Friday because what did we see? That is correct, A huge down turn in the market.

The question one needs to ask is: is this administration that stupid that they actually believed that the market would not be able to see that most of the jobs in the report are temporary? On top of it we now know that these slime balls in charge have been firing people and then rehiring them over and over and counting these as new jobs each time. You certainly do not give the public confidence in this manner. Now we are getting to the point where people are starting to not believe anything this adminstration says because of there lack of credibility.

Not even the Nixon administration was this arrogant, this condescending, this thin skinned, and this dishonest. They are really starting to make Jimmy Carter look good as a President!

In way over his head

Peggy Noonan had a great editorial talking about how our underqualified President is actually showing us that he was never qualified for the job.

Now it appears that there is lots of buyer's remorse out there.

I said it numerous times leading up to this election and I stand by those comments. You do not meet the qualifications to be the leader of the most powerful country in the nation during times like these by being the President of Harvard's Law Review, a community organizer and a US Senator for about one half of a term.

We as a nation have really shown how naive we are by putting this clown in the White House. Now he thinks he can show leadership by acting like he is mad.

Watch those poll numbers free fall. How can anyone in their right mind defend this guy? They are even questioning his competency on the Huffington Post!

Yet we have Rich who must have been dropped on his head as a baby to continue to not see what is happening out there.

Oh that is right I forgot. All of the bad things that have happned during Barry's time in office are Bush's fault!

Seems the Republic agrees with me.

Tax cuts!

Egghead economists (or Realtors blogging in their underwear:),  may judge economic progress in all sorts of ways, but to the man and woman on the street, the only thing that matters is jobs.
And if the billions of dollars being spent on the economic stimulus are not producing those jobs, then they are contributing to a toxic byproduct: debt. Enormous, dangerous, economically counterproductive national debt.


Stock markets took a huge tumble Friday on news of job gains that proved lower than anticipated, with the Dow Jones industrial average dropping an unnerving 3 percent to a close of 9,931.
There were a number of factors driving the down draft, including news that yet another member of the European Union, Hungary, is joining Greece, Spain, Portugal and Italy on the list of debt-laden countries dragging down the European currency, the euro.

But, in the U.S., the lack of new jobs unrelated to federal stimulus spending is what is shaking investors.

The economy will kick into gear again when the private sector begins adding jobs. Investors were spooked Friday because it isn't doing that yet. Of the 413,000 jobs added in May, just 41,000 of them were in the private sector, barely a fifth of what economists expected, and many of those jobs were temporary ones. Speaking of which, virtually all the public-sector job increases were the result of temporary workers hired by the U.S. Census Bureau.

"We know that employment is the lagging indicator, but . . . we've been saying that for a year. There comes a time where we're really going to have to see that number pick up," said Robert Froehlich, senior managing director of the Hartford Mutual Funds.

Even anemic job-growth numbers would have been enough to cheer investors, who have come to expect a slow, shallow recovery. But a report showing essentially no private-sector job growth links the worst fears the Europeans are facing - unsustainable debt - with a growing concern here that the nearly trillion-dollar federal stimulus package has failed to accomplish anything more than add to this country's debt.
The Keynesians who advocate for bigger stimulus spending to avoid a double-dip recession are beginning to bump up against the limits of their argument that deficit spending can lead the economy back to a growth cycle. The stimulus spending has to show some private-sector results. We can't keep pointing to the census workers, teachers and other public-sector jobs that have been "kept" thanks to stimulus money.
Why not? The best answer to that question is unfolding in Europe. No, the U.S. is not Greece. Nor is it Hungary. Nor Ireland nor Spain.
But by trillion-dollar strides, we are getting closer to that precarious model. And by the evidence of the first stimulus, a second such addition to the deficit would bring the U.S. one giant stride closer.

Truth

$13,050,826,460,886.97  That’s what the National Debt topped this week, a record.


Go ahead, let it soak in: Thirteen trillion, fifty billion, eight hundred twenty-six million, four hundred sixty thousand, eight hundred eighty-six dollars . . . and ninety-seven cents.


Seen on the “debt clock” in Times Square, that number seems little more than an abstraction, something almost impossible to process. But think about it this way: If you earned one dollar every second, it would take you 416,000 years to earn enough money to pay it off. Or consider: Alex Rodriguez earned $33 million last year, making him the highest paid player in baseball. It would take nearly 400,000 Rodriguezes to earn that much money.  But that’s what our children and grandchildren now owe.

Actually, that’s just part of the debt we have dumped on future generations. That’s because most of what the government owes isn’t on the official books.


Social Security, for instance, faces unfunded liabilities of more than $15.8 trillion. And while that sounds like a lot of money, it is dwarfed by Medicare’s looming budget shortfall of between $50 trillion and $100 trillion, depending on which accounting measure is used.

So the real national debt may be as much as nine times bigger than the official estimate.  No wonder the bond-rating firm Moody’s recently warned that the US government was at risk of losing its AAA credit rating.

This is not a partisan issue. When George W. Bush became president, the entire federal budget was $1.2 trillion. By the time he left office, it was $2.9 trillion, the biggest increase since World War II. A budget surplus in 2000 had become a $400 billion deficit at the end of Bush’s term.


Contrary to Republican mythology, it was not just because of increased defense spending and the “war on terror.” President Bush increased domestic discretionary spending faster than any president since Lyndon Johnson. His signature accomplishment was a new Medicare prescription drug entitlement that added more than $13 trillion to the program’s future liabilities.


But President Obama makes Bush look like a skinflint. He’s proposed a budget this year that would top $3.8 trillion.  His signature initiative so far is a new health care entitlement, which will add hundreds of billions to the federal deficit over the next 10 years, and trillions more beyond that.


As a result of this bipartisan profligacy, federal spending topped 24.7% of gross domestic product last year, the highest peacetime percentage in US history. The optimistic projections of the most recent Obama budget see that declining ever so slightly to 23.7% by 2020 (for comparison, the historical average has been roughly 21% of GDP). But that respite, such as it is, will be only temporary. As the full force of entitlement programs kicks in, the federal government will consume more than 40% of GDP by the middle of the century, and rise to an unfathomable 80% of GDP beyond that.


Congress doesn’t seem to care, treating debt as an abstraction, monopoly money, someone else’s problem. Let them deal with what happens when the US becomes Greece. Except that day may be sooner than they think.


There is no way to tax our way out of this mess. Just keeping up with currently projected spending would require raising both the corporate tax rate and top income tax rate from their current 35% to 88%, the current 25% tax rate for middle-income workers to 63%, and the 10% tax bracket for low-income workers to 25%.

And that’s just at the federal level. State and local taxes would be added on top of that.


Does anyone really believe that our economy can survive that kind of taxation? Yes Rich does!


If Democrats and Republicans continue to spend like drunken sailors, it won’t really matter who pays the bar bill.


Whether government borrows the money or raises it in taxes, every dollar that government spends is a dollar siphoned off from American workers, making us less productive, less prosperous and less free.


Sooner or later, someone is going to have to have the courage to say “No.”


Surprisingly, that line may be drawn here — in New York and New Jersey. In Jersey, which faces a nearly $1 billion budget shortfall, Gov. Chris Christie has refused to raise taxes, and has made real cuts in state spending. Meanwhile, Andrew Cuomo, the leading candidate to become New York’s next governor, has rejected a proposal by Lt. Gov. Richard Ravitch to borrow $6 billion to close the state’s budget gap. Perhaps at least some politicians are learning to live within their means.


Now, if only a tiny bit of that courage would bubble up to Congress.

Double Dip (no not Terry and Rich)

I want smart. GWB was way over his head. Cronyism!


Let's see what 2010 brings us:

First, apparently the White House feels it is appropriate to interfere with the citizens of Pennsylvania and their choice of Senator. Their defenders scream, this has always been done! Showing no examples.

Oil leaks. One cannot fault "o" for the accident but the cleanup, the prevention of the damage, after the governor of the state ASKED for help? You bet!

During the hurricane, there was this little LAW issue, the governor had to ask for help, didn't until a little too late. The equivalent of a nuclear bomb had gone off and folks were struggling. But oil leaking? Not too hard to respond. But how did the great Barry respond? After the Governor ASKED for help? Golf and his usual primary function as Demagogue in Chief. Instead of helping, he blamed.

On to immigration, we have an immigration problem correct? A state traumatized by illegal immigration passes a law. Does Barry read the law, do those in his administration who manage the issue, including the former governor of the involved state? Of course not! Why address an issue when you can... now here it is again...demagogue!

Lastly the economy. We are broke, we have no reserves. Conservatives can blame government intervention in the housing market, Liberals can blame the lack of oversight, but however we arrived here (actually we arrived here in 2008) we are here and it needs to be managed.

Now our friend Eric, of syntax and the stock market, says we are in for a big ass kicking.

Agree, but if the cause is deflation of housing prices and stock prices, surely a cure would be an improved business environment which would lower the unemployment rate (reducing government expenditures) and improve tax revenues. How? Tax cuts! Broad based tax cuts to free up capital and hiring.

But no, what Barry and his minions promote is another stimulus as they...here it is again...demagogue "tax cuts for the rich".

Now argue as you might Dear Mr. Baxter the Stimulator, but the first one, the one where we borrowed money from ourselves to pay ourselves has been a spectacular failure. Your boys theme, that tax cuts would just cause folks to save the money has been completely wrong. That scenario, the people holding on to their money, has been brought to fruition with stimulus, health care, and new taxes.

As sure as day follows night, there will be a response.

Before you write, let's visit yesterdays employment numbers, that of only 41,000 private jobs created, the rest related to the census which will presumably return to the legions of the unemployed after August.

The Demagogue in Chief spoke, saying we cannot go back, cannot return to the calamity that caused the housing crisis (he really did) as if the housing crisis of 2008 would continue to limit employment opportunities in 2010. We must progress with "green" jobs, so says the Demagogue in Chief, without a smidgen of reality contained within that idea.

We should be creating a huge number of jobs except this administration is squarely in the way. We should be done with this recession but instead we are headed for a second dip.

November 2010, please come quickly.

I guess Sweden is too far, let's be like China!

http://www.infowars.com/steve-wynn-takes-on-washington/

Don't you think it is ironic?

Don't you think it is ironic that the Barry administration trots out the former Liar-In-Chief, who had is law license suspended for lying to a Grand Jury under oath, as their point man on the Sestak affair? They have to be brain dead to think that the public and media are going to accept the credibility of Bill Clinton regarding this scandel in the making.

Never mind that the entire official explanation strains credibilty and facts past the breaking point. I told you about the Chicago style politics before the election. You are now seeing a demonstration of it over and over again as they continue to try and BS the American public as they glom more and more of the tax payer pie and redistribute it to their cronies and supporters. Doesn't it bother you to hear these clowns justify their behavir with comments like "politics have always been this way"? Really, please give us some examples of other administrations promising jobs to people for not running for election against their favorites.

This is probably not enough to get Barry impeached but I am predicting that these scandels are going to cost someone their job in this administration. The only question is who will they choose to be the sacrificial lamb.

Do you think that Israel know believes the entire world is against them?

More and more evidence is coming out that Israel was totally correct in their response to the flotilla.

It appears that our State Department urged Israel to use caution and restraint and that is why the Israeli soldiers had paintball guns instead of real weapons loaded with bullets. They were completely surprised by the violent response of the 50 or so men who ambushed the Israeli commandos as they rappelled onto the ship's deck.
http://maggiesfarm.anotherdotcom.com/archives/14600-EXPLOSIVE-Question-Did-Obamas-Urging-Lead-To-Paintball-Guns.html
The EU Parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee, led by the French, fully condemened Israel. "I hope that the death of these pacifists, these activists, will lead us to say this time: 'That's enough! It has to stop! ...Let us put an end to the impunity of Israel!'" Even when presented with the video images of the so called "pacifists" in action a French MEP stated that there is "no guarantee that the images that were shown are in any way authentic."

then the great leader of the Free World, Barry himself, again rushed to judgement, remember the way he rushed to judgement in the Cambridge police officer affair? He walks lock step with the huge anti-Semite himself, Jimmy Carter, who condemned Israel publicly as well.

Even that liberal, gay Jew, who is the Father of our current financial crisis, Barney Frank, condemned Israel before gathering any facts.

So Israel is always guilty in the eyes of left leaning politicians.

Here is an excellent take on the issue by Rich's favorite writer, Charles Krauthammer.
http://article.nationalreview.com/435513/israel-disarmed/charles-krauthammer

Aren't we all glad that Barry is in charge of the oil leak.

My gosh if Barry hadn't taken control of fixing the BP leak, in between his record number of rounds of golf and vacations for a President, it would have never passed the Exxon Valdez as the largest oil spill of all time.

Can Rich(ie) be far behind. Crazy Rich is already mad at him about the "war". Terry? You too?

Once More, With Feeling


By MAUREEN DOWD
President Spock’s behavior is illogical.


Once more, he has willfully and inexplicably resisted fulfilling a signal part of his job: being a prism in moments of fear and pride, reflecting what Americans feel so they know he gets it.   “This president needs to tell BP, ’I’m your daddy,’ “ scolded James Carville, a New Orleans resident, as he called Barack Obama’s response to Louisiana’s new watery heartbreak “lackadaisical.”


At a press conference, Obama said Malia had asked him, as he shaved, “Did you plug the hole yet, Daddy?” (That hole should be plugged with a junk-shot of Glenn Beck, who crudely mocked the adorable Malia.) Oddly, the good father who wrote so poignantly about growing up without a daddy scorns the paternal aspect of the presidency.


In the campaign, Obama’s fight flagged to the point that his donors openly upbraided him. In the Oval, he waited too long to express outrage and offer leadership on A.I.G., the banks, the bonuses, the job loss and mortgage fears, the Christmas underwear bomber, the death panel scare tactics, the ugly name-calling of Tea Party protesters.


Too often it feels as though Barry (now where have we hear Barry before?...that is right! Mark used Barry when he was warning us about this joker) is watching from a balcony, reluctant to enter the fray until the clamor of the crowd forces him to come down. The pattern is perverse. The man whose presidency is rooted in his ability to inspire withholds that inspiration when it is most needed.