$634 Billion Swindle

Obama just asked Congress for $634 billion for a "down payment" on Health Care Reform. He plans on raising taxes and cutting cost in Medicare. Most experts say that, that number is really low and can go as high as $1 trillion dollars.
This is on top of the more than $410 billion dollars that just passed the House. Which oddly enough has $7.7 million dollars for an earmark by President Obama. This of course is the same Obama, that repeatedly pledged to not have any earmarks. This is also the President that promised to go "line by line" to cut wastefull spending. Like everything else, it was a lie. File it with his promise to have Bills online for 5 days before he'd sign it, with allowing 48 hours to read Bills before they went to a vote, and of course his whole promise of bipartisanship.
The bigger picture about Obama's Health Care proposal is that it part of a $1.5 Trillion dollar deficit this year. We don't know what it will be next year, or four years from now. Of course this leads to the question of where is the money going to come from. The only answer any Democrat will give is of course new taxes.
Apperently no one told President Obama, that raising taxes on anyone in a recession, even if its half as bad as Obama keeps trying to say it is, is a very bad thing to do. So when will Obama break his promise to not raise taxes for couples making less than $250,000? I'm pretty sure anyone that isn't a Pod, knows it is coming. It's only a matter of when.
Oh wait, Obama has asked for another $75 billion for his wars in Afganistan and Iraq. You know the one's he promised to get out of. Now he is even asking for money for a TARP II.
It's audactious!

Oh and the kicker, as if we needed anymore, Obama wants to institute a cap and trade scheme here in the US like they have in Europe. That's great news for the Global Warming/Climate Change crowd. The science dosen't back them up but what science can't provide, ideology will surely make up for. Unfortunatley, the carbon trading scheme, Obama wants, has already failed in Europe.

Few but the professionals, however, know that this market is now failing in its purpose: to edge up the cost of emitting CO2.

The next four years are going to be rough with Obama at the helm. I only hope we can weather the storm and make it through.

Contradictions

It's amazing how Obama can go from the "Catastrophic" to the "the United States of America will emerge stronger than ever" in the matter of weeks without anyone calling him out on it. I mean of course the Mainstream Media. There are blogs out there, with people like me who see the bold face hypocrisy.

Let's have some Tea

Something really remarkable is happening in America. You can thank President Obama for actually bringing people to together for a common purpose. The problem for Obama, is that the people are protesting his Stimulus/Housing Bill.

Tea Party U.S.A.: The movement grows

You can thank CNBC's Rick Santelli for his rant on cable TV that has gotten a lot of taxpayers thinking.

Santelli asked traders on the floor: "This is America! How many of you people want to pay for your neighbor's mortgage that has an extra bathroom and can't pay their bills? Raise their hand. (no hands raised, lots of booing) President Obama, are you listening?"
“You know, Cuba used to have mansions and a relatively decent economy. They moved from the individual to the collective. Now, they’re driving ‘54 Chevys, maybe the last great car to come out of Detroit. [Traders are] thinking of having a Chicago Tea Party in July. All you capitalists that want to show up to Lake Michigan, I’m gonna start organizing...”

Boston had a tea party thanks to people being over taxed. It's about time for another one.

Tea Parties are being organized in San Diego, Chicago, Fayetteville, NC, San Diego, Omaha, Kansas City and Atlanta.

Here's how to organize your own.

I actually agree with Krugman.

Paul Krugman, the Nobel Prize winning NYT columnist writes today some very interesting things about the Recession.

Well, the Great Depression did eventually come to an end, but that was thanks to an enormous war, something we’d rather not emulate.

This comes after telling the reader that Obama's plan is a bunch of crap, only trying to mitigate the crisis, not actually doing anything about it. Is Krugman actually going to start to criticize the One now?
It leads to the question how will we get out of this?

The same story can be told for durable goods and assets throughout the economy: given time, the current slump will end itself, the way slumps did in the 19th century.

Of course Krugman doesn't say it but how did your Great Grandfather's recession end? Without Government interference and through Market forces.
In a round about way Krugman is validating exactly what I have been saying.
The New Deal didn't end the Depression (only prolonged it) and only through Market forces (capitalism) will this recession end itself. Obama is only making the matter worse, thanks to his new New Deal stimulus package.
Obama keeps talking about the failed policies of the past, so what is he doing. Continuing the same failed policies of the past! Of course, it's change we can believe in.

Enemy of my Enemy...

"Every drop of blood that was shed or is being shed in Afghanistan and Iraq is the responsibility of bin Laden and Zawahiri and their followers," writes Dr Fadl.

Fadl is one of the creators of Al-Qaeda with Bin Laden. This has some huge implications, but I doubt we will hear anything about it on MSNBC, CNN or CBS.

How I learned to love stop worring and love the War.

Awww, poor Barry. Seems like all that rhetoric was all for naught. I don't expect this article to be talked about on the news anytime soon.

A Pentagon review of conditions in the Guantanamo Bay military prison has concluded that the treatment of detainees meets the requirements of the Geneva Conventions but that prisoners in the highest-security camps should be allowed more religious and social interaction, according to a government official who has read the 85-page document.

So let us see:

• Obama signed an order to close GITMO within a year, citing of course the horrible conditions that those poor poor "So called" Terrorists have to endure. It was just so bad that it had to be closed. Of course, he didn't know what to do with the prisoners at all. Breaking his campaign promise to immediately end and close GITMO as soon as he becomes President. Yeah it's been a month now, still don't know what to do with those terrorist.
• Don't worry, he's just wingin' it.
• Obama then sends drones into Pakistan, in his first week, err first 3 days. 15 people are dead. Now if McCain would have done that, he immediately would be called a warmonger.
• Now of course comes the cu de gras. Obama announces 17,000 more troops to Afghanistan.

What's even better about the Afghan "surge" is that Obama didn't even have the decency to have a Press Conference about it. He just slipped it into a press release at 17:00 on Monday, waiting to have a statement on Tuesday.

"This reinforcement will contribute to the security of the Afghan people and to stability in Afghanistan," Obama said in a statement. "I recognize the extraordinary strain that this deployment places on our troops and military families. I honor their service, and will give them the support they need."

I wonder if code pinkers will be calling Obama warmonger anytime soon. Obama couldn't admit that the Surge worked, yet of course he is going to use the exact same strategy that he once called "a failure." Ha some change. I wonder if any Democrats will put funding cuts for Afghanistan in any bills this year?

One word to describe this administration so far: Hypocrisy.

More failed policies of the past?

Today President Obama put his Mortgage program.

On one hand, at least Obama learned to not delegate this plan to Pelosi and Reid (Stimulus) or Geitner (Tarp). Pelosi and Reid filled up the Stimulus full of Pork project that they have been dying to fund. I mean, gee, I wonder who would want an $8 billion dollar high-speed rail from Las Vegas to Los Angeles? Being from Las Vegas, I can make an educated guess, and it wasn’t John Ensign. Of course Obama said that there were no earmarks, so it must be true.

Geitner’s TARP plan is a joke. He will get us the details later.

Obama’s Housing Plan is a joke. I’ve been telling people at work for a while now, that Obama will spend as much money as he can all the while using Fear to sell it to the public. No matter if you think this recession is a catastrophe waiting to happen, or you’re like me and think its much ado about nothing is irrelevant.

The amount of money being thrown at it is horrendous. We already spend almost $700 billion for TARP, a program that was sold as a fix for the Housing Crisis. Where did the money go? Who knows, ask Pelosi and Reid. They wrote the original TARP bill. Bush did a terrible job handling it for sure. He never should have given money to GM and Chrysler too. Of course we are supposed to learn from our mistakes. Apparently not our new President, given that the second half of TARP money has no details either.

The new Housing bill, which I’m sure will be absolutely required to pass or yet another
”catastrophe” will happen, is the same old same old. Look at who gets the money.

• $100 Billion to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

They were too big to fail before, so lets just make it grow bigger. Instead of tackling the problem, the over valuation of housing in the US and irresponsible lending and borrowing habits of the American Public, we are rewarding Failure.

• A provision to “Allow Judicial Modifications of Home Mortgages.”

My gods, so now all those people that were irresponsible to begin with, borrowing money they couldn’t afford to pay back, will just get a pass? Why should I even pay my mortgage? Why should anyone? We can all just go into default, go to bankruptcy court and have the judge modify our mortgage contracts letting us off the hook. How are they going to do it? Will it be interest rates or principle? Who will qualify?

If you look at the bill, there is an awful lot of money going to “servicers” (third parties) and “mortgage holders” (banks). I wonder how many of them are friends of Chris Dodd? The only people this bill helps are bankers and lawyers.

Here are some questions that need asking:

1. Why should the Government be guaranteeing these at risk mortgages again, isn’t that why we got here in the first place?
2. Why should the Government (judges) be setting interest rates?
3. Who get the bailed out and who doesn’t?
4. Why are we rewarding irresponsible behavior?

The quest for affordable housing is what got us in this mess. It lead to the Government forcing banks to give home loans to people that should never have gotten them in the first place. The Community Reinvestment Act, singed into law by Carter, and expanded by Clinton started this whole snowball, all in the name of fairness. How is it fair that I now have to pay, through taxation, for other peoples reckless borrowing? I work, pay my taxes, pay my mortgage for a house I knew I could afford, yet now have to pay for someone else’s house because they cashed out their equity during the bubble? Paying for the people that willfully signed onto an Adjustable Rate Mortgage. I am being forced to pay for people that thought they could afford a $300,000 home, even though they only made $30,000 a year. Please explain to me how that is fair?

Afternoon update

The Obots are starting to see the shine come off.

Liberal Blogger Glenn Greenwald compares Obama to Cheney now.

Obama wants to spend 275 billion more tax dollars. He will not stop wanting to spend. After this bill, if it gets passed, Obama will want to spend another 300 billion for National Health Care.

This is how socialism infects. Little by little, we will move more and more to a european style socialism. How has that worked for the British? Or the Germans. They live in permanent 10% unemployment. Yeah that's change I want.

Write your Senators and Congressmen. If they don't listen, then do what you can to ensure they are voted out in 2010.

My Letter to Editor

Here is what I wrote to the Arkansas Democratic Gazette in a letter to the editor. It's my first letter, sparked in part to an ongoing debate over at Liberal Rapture on global warming.

There is a growing fallacy in America that science has "proven" Anthropogenic (man-made) Global Warming (AGW).

Science is a tricky fellow. True science can never be proven only disproved. Ask any scientist who is worth anything. Better yet ask Einstein, "No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong."

This leads me, or hopefully any rational person, to believe that anyone claiming that science has "proven" that man is the cause of Global Warming is full of it.

There is no consensus in the scientific community. As recently as December in Poznan, over 650 scientists, including some former IPCC scientists, have now come out against the notion of AGW. Antarctic Sea Ice is up 35% since 1997 according to NSIDC. There have been scientists who have fudged the data to stoke the fires of alarmism, google James Hansen.

This is not an all-encompassing argument, but just a fraction of the debate. It should be debated, especially considering the economic consequences, which will have drastic long term often unforeseen consequences. The one's trying to stifle the debate are usually the ones telling you that science has "proven" AGW. For them AGW is Dogma. The problem with Dogma, no matter what stripe, is that it's hard to prove and even harder to admit that it might be wrong.

The New New Deal will fail.

"We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work."

Sounds like something Boehner might say right?

"I want to see this country prosperous. I want to see people get a job. I want to see people get enough to eat. We have never made good on our promises."
"I say after eight years of this Administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started. ... And an enormous debt to boot!"
Something Kucinich or Pelosi might say right?

All wrong.

They were said by Henry Morgenthau Jr., FDR's Treasury Secretary in 1939 about....gasp....The New Deal.

Remember those who refuse to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

Bloggin Around

Here is what I said at Liberal Rapture, in response to the economy.

No I'm talking about the language coming from the Obama administration. They will tell you, no matter what the data, that the stimulus is helping. It's Orwellian for sure, but that's what they are going to tell you. Then in 2011, they will try and blame Bush, in hopes of getting re-elected. It's a shell game.

I agree with most economists that the recession will probably not reach Great Depression era unemployment, I'm thinking it'll top out at 11%. The stimulus won't effect unemployment to the degree Obama wants everyone to believe. Look at Japan, for Thor's sake...we should be learning what not to do from Japan, not trying to recreate it here. Obama is setting us up for our own "Lost Decade."

Only through the 2010 election, can we do something about it. Vote out every Democrat and Republican that voted for the Stimulus Bill, I'm trying to get it started here in Little Rock. Make them accountable for their votes. Write letters to the Editor and letters to donators. I don't advocate anything on par with the Prop 8 scum, but a civil boycott of groups that donate to politicians that voted for it is in order. You get enough people to tell a company that you aren't going to buy their product because they donate to X Senator or Y Congressman, they won't donate. We have the all the tools, we just need the will to use them.

*hops off soap box*

WaPO

Washington Post has a nice little graphic of the huge turd sandwich Congress just passed.

Check it out.

Historic Press Conference

"We have nothing to fear but fear itself." "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country." When most people hear those words, a sense of hope, real hope emerges.
Those words are meant to inspire people, to make them think of a better tomorrow. It gives people a real sense that anything can be accomplished.
Failure to act "could turn a crisis into a catastrophe." The tone set by the Obama administration is a very dire and depressing one. When he says it's only going to get worse, people don't look to a brighter future. They only look to a bleak, bumpy road ahead. There are arguments for Obama being pragmatic and telling people what they need to hear. There are of course arguments for trying to inspire people and give them hope. I believe both are valid. Of course I didn't run the entire campaign on a message of "Hope" and "Change."
"Change" is dead. It was put on life support with Tim Geithner's tax problems. It died when Daschle stepped down for failure to pay his taxes. Now of course "Hope" is being put on life support.
Let me be clear, I know why Obama is using doom and fear to sell his bill. He has too, it's the only way on earth that the bill could pass. It was loaded wall to wall with Democrat pork. Obama said tonight during his first press conference, that there were no earmarks. Yet, what Obama failed to mention is that there doesn't have to be. Giving how many billions to bail out states like California, Michigan, New York, all big democrat leading states. It is all one big earmark, paid to Democrat special interest groups. How many millions for "global warming research?" That only makes Democrats happy, of course that it fails to create any jobs is irrelevant. If we don't give it money will will have a "catastrophe" on our hands.
Obama did what he needed to do. He has to sell his bill and he went back to campaign mode to do it. It's what he is good at. I'm actually really delighted that he laid out some guidelines on how to measure the stimulus bill.

• It has to create 4 million jobs.

There is no timetable of course, he is smart enough to give himself some wiggle room later on. Have to remember 2012 is just around the corner.

• It has to get money flowing through the banks.

Meaning that, we have to see an increase in loans to individuals to buy that ugly Prius after all. The stimulus bill doesn't do anything for lending organizations at all. Facts can be a distraction after all.

• It has to stabilize the housing market.

Other than the billions going to Community block grants (For future Tony Rezkos to exploit the poor to get government money), the Stimulus does what for homeowners? The only relief so far is in the Senate bill as a tax credit for buy new homes. The best idea, I thought, was in the Republican amendment to refinance houses on the market. It would decrease interest costs and put more money into homeowners pockets, to invest or spend as they see fit. I'd love to refinance at a 4% rate. Since I bought my house a month to early to qualify for this years first time home buyers tax credit, I could use the extra cash for a new floor, bed, pavers, whatever. The point is I would be using that cash and injecting it into my local economy. That's real long term stimulus.
This all brings up another point. This stimulus bill is only focused on jobs. That's my take on what Obama said at his press conference. He already is passing the buck to Geithner to do something about the credit crunch. Who is going to be in charge of fixing the housing problem. More importantly. How much money are we going to throw around? How many bills will have to be passed to do it? Obama is trying to label the current Stimulus bill as an omnibus for all three problems. He even says that's how it will be measured. The reality is that we (You, me and every person who pays taxes) will be spending even more money on TARP. The last 300 billion isn't enough. Obama pulled out his Ali impersonation ducking that question. We will have to have yet another bill and another couple hundred billion to do something about the housing problem.
I think it's very disingenuous for Obama to portray to the American public that this one bill will solve all those problems. Please Mr. President, how will $1.7 billion for the National Park System, help anyone in foreclosure or trying to get a car loan? How will $2.4 billion for carbon-capture demonstration projects, create any new blue collar jobs? $1.5 billion for green-technology loan guarantees, will only give loans to a very few and soon to be very wealthy friends of Al Gore, not for Joe Blow trying to buy a house.
All that being said, I think Obama is doing what he has to do. Pelosi and Reid dealt him low cards and Obama is trying to check. Hoping the "turn" gives him gives him a pair or 3 of a kind. Obama knows his name will be on the bill. He is in a bind. He should have done a lot of things, but hey rookie mistake right? I just hope this one doesn't turn out to be as bad as JFK's. How does the old adage go, with friends like these, who needs enemies.

A Democrat with a backbone?

At least there are some Democrats with a backbone. Who's all for moving to Oregon? I love it there. Portland is a great city.


"Every penny of the $825 billion is borrowed against the future of our kids and grandkids, and so the question is: What benefit are we providing them? What are we doing for the country? It's the difference between real investment that will serve the nation for 30, 50 years and tax cuts, and that's a very poor tradeoff," said Rep. Peter A. DeFazio (D-Ore.). "I go to my district and people say, 'Yeah, I can use 10 extra bucks a week, but I would rather see more substantial investment.' We've gone through a couple bubbles that were borrowing and consumer-driven. We want a recovery that's solid and based in investment and productivity, and that points us at building things that will serve us decades to come."

BBQ Pork Sandwich

Americans, by enlarge, have elected more than just a man for President, but a system of government. Most Americans were not aware of it last November. They wanted “Change.” Like most of what your parents told you when you were young, but never listened; beware what you with for, you just might get it.

President Obama won partly, because of the current economic downturn. He proclaimed that that the current market system in the US had failed. He promised change, never really explaining what would change or what the new system would look like. Most people now don’t remember Obama saying, he would pursue a “pay as you go” fiscal policy or that he would curb government spending. He promised to take a scalpel instead of a hatchet to the pork barrel spending that was that dominated “old politics.”

Now let’s fast forward 3 months.

The Senate looks poised to pass its own version of the House “Porkulus”/Stimulus bill. It is estimated to be around $780,000,000,000. Sen. Carl Levin promises to reinsert the money cut to bring over 3 Republican Senators, Sen. Collins (Maine), Sen. Snowe (Maine) and Sen. Specter (PA); when the Senate and House compromise committee meets. It is a bill full of Pork. Some of the spending has merit; most of it does and will not have any simulative effect at all. Democrats are evoking the revered James Maynard Keynes in order to justify their Bill. I do say it is their Bill, because 3 centrist Republicans do not make it a bipartisan bill.

Keynes theorized that there were two approaches to stimulate the Economy.

Through a reduction of interest rates and though Government spending on infrastructure. It is easy to see the similarities to Keynesian economics and the New Deal. Keynesians advocate deficit spending to invest on infrastructure, which in turn will stimulate more productions and investment, starting a cascade of events which is the basis for the multiplier effect, we hear about in the current Stimulus Bill debate.

The Keynesian approach is what brought Bush and Congress last year to give out Rebate Checks. Bush and Congress had hoped that the influx of cash would induce more spending. It was assumed that this increase of spending would nip the coming recession in the proverbial bud. President Obama claimed, during the campaign, claimed that his ideas were basis for the bill. When the rebate checks failed to induce the spending, as most Keynesians thought, Obama stopped making that claim.

I’m assuming here, that the prevailing thought, among Democrats, is that any and all government spending will beneficial and the bigger the federal deficit the better. What would Keynes think about $5,200,000,000 more for community block grants? They do not offer any simulative effects at all? The US government has been pumping money into block grant programs since the 70’s. They do nothing for infrastructure nor do they do anything to create jobs. What they do offer is political payback to ACORN. $15,000,000,000 more for Pell Grants is a good idea, to be debated during a regular budget session. They do not however, do anything for interest rates or infrastructure (Keynesian) nor are they temporary, targeted but they are substantial. If this passes into law, the next budget session, the Democrats will charge anyone wanting to stop the $15,000,000,000 as being against education.

$2,000,000,000 for renewable energy research, with $400,000,000 going towards global warming research do not meet either the Keynesian or Summers’ definition of stimulus at all. The list of un-simulative and un-Keynesian projects is massive.

• $4.5 billion for U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
• $850 million for Amtrak
• $87 million for a polar icebreaking ship
• $1.7 billion for the National Park System
• $55 million for Historic Preservation Fund
• $89 billion for Medicaid
• $30 billion for COBRA insurance extension
• $36 billion for expanded unemployment benefits
• $20 billion for food stamps
• $600 million for NOAA (carve-out for “climate modeling”)
• $600 million to convert the federal auto fleet to hybrids
• $450 million for NASA (carve-out for “climate-research missions”)
• $1 billion for the Census Bureau
• $350 million for Agriculture Department computers
• $150 million for the Smithsonian
• $34 million to renovate the Department of Commerce headquarters
• $6 billion for university building projects
• $2 billion for federal child-care block grants
• $300 million for grants to combat violence against women
• $380 million in the Senate bill for the Women, Infants and Children program
• $50 million for the National Endowment for the Arts
• $1.5 billion for green-technology loan guarantees
• $2.4 billion for carbon-capture demonstration projects
• $400 million for hybrid cars for state and local governments
• $6.2 billion for the Weatherization Assistance Program

This is not stimulus by any sense of the word. It is pure pork. The same pork President Obama cried out against during his campaign.

GO Sarah!

Let me say right now, that I like Sarah Palin. She is the kind of person this country needs right now. A leader not entrenched in Washington politics. An outsider with a known background to fight corruption. I hope she runs for POTUS in 2012. The Media outlets will try bully her, they won't publish anything favorble to her. I'm happy that she formed her own PAC. http://sarahpac.com/

Victory in Iraq

Of course the Obama administration will never admit this, but George W. Bush won in Iraq.

The second elections came and went. How many rioters where there? None It was more orderly than the last US presidential elections. The result won't be in for another week or so, but that doesn't matter.
What was once though to be impossible 10 years ago is a now a reality.
Obama's position throughout his national political life, is to deny and try to thwart, what we hold dear in this country.

Thank you President Bush.

We will have to see if President Obama is willing to let the people in Iraq have the same luxury we have in the US.

SuperDUD!

Where was the Booth Review?