THE SPENDING EXPLOSION

According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), federal expenditures on everything from roads to homeland security to health care will reach 21.5 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) next year. Federal outlays could be higher as a share of the economy than at anytime since World War II, says the Wall Street Journal.

In this decade alone, federal spending has increased by almost $1.2 trillion, or 57 percent. And the federal deficit is expected to hit $407 billion for fiscal 2008 and $438 billion next year. However, the deficit is expected to be only 3 percent of GDP, which is in line with the average of the last 30 years.

Contrary to popular belief, the Bush tax cuts and the war on terror are not the reason for the budget crisis, says the Journal:

• Until this year federal tax collections have been surging, and since the 2003 tax cuts have become law, tax receipts exploded by $785 billion.
• This year, revenues have declined by.8 percent due to the $150 billion bipartisan tax rebate that hit the Treasury.
• Without these nonstimulating rebates, federal tax payments would have climbed another 2.5 percent.
• Defense spending is $605 billion this year, or about 4.5 percent of GDP.
• That only seems large by comparison to the holiday from history of the 1990s, when defense fell to 3 percent of GDP.
• As recently as 1986, defense spending was 6.2 percent of GDP.

The real problem is a "substantial increase in spending" that is "on an unsustainable path," says the CBO. This year alone, federal agencies have lifted their spending by 8.1 percent, with another 7 percent raise expected for 2009. In the two years that Democrats have run Congress, federal expenditures are up $429 billion -- to $3.158 trillion.

Rather than sort through priorities, Congress is just spending more on everything, adds the Journal.

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"Tax Cut" is Income Redistribution

During his Fox News interview with Bill O'Reilly, Sen. Barack Obama responded to one question where the statistics contradicted his position by saying that "there are lies, damned lies, and statistics." He then went on to say that 95 percent of Americans would get a tax break under his economic plan. [snip]

Only 62 percent of Americans pay federal income tax, meaning that 38 percent get a 100 percent refund of any taxes withheld. So Mr. Obama's 95 percent that will receive money from the government includes roughly 33 percent of Americans who pay no income tax, yet would receive a government check of perhaps $1,000 or more.

That is pure income redistribution. Some pundits argue that this is Keynesian demand-side economics. It is not. Having the government take money from business entities or affluent individuals and giving it to those who pay no federal income taxes is not Keynesian. It's Marxist.

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CBS: Obama Tax Policy Better For Middle Class

"Obama's plan is to roll back the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy and use the savings for a middle-class tax cut... A recent study by the non-partisan Tax Policy Center says Obama's plan would give a cut of more than a thousand dollars to families making between $37,000 and $66,000 a year. Under McCain's plan, they'd get just $319."

The "non-partisan" Tax Policy Center is actually a product of the left-leaning Brookings Institution and Urban Institute. [and CBS knows it]

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Violence in Iraq Continues to Drop, Corps Commander Says

Violence in Iraq – even in the midst of the holy month of Ramadan, which has seen increases in violence in the past – continues its downward trend, the commander of coalition ground forces in Iraq said today.

“We've experienced continued low levels of violence, with 15 of the last 16 weeks remaining below the 200-attacks-per-week mark,” he said. “In Baghdad, … we've averaged less than four attacks per day for the last 13 weeks.”

It’s notable that the decrease has continued during Ramadan, Austin said.

“We did see a small spike in attacks over the weekend,” he acknowledged, “but I can tell you that even with the spike, we are well below what we saw last year and the year before that.”

While events are moving in a positive direction, there remains much to do, he said.

“The environment here … can change rapidly, and so we have to guard against things that could change our course,”

the general said.

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France to Stay Course in Afghanistan

The French lower house voted Monday to maintain a troop presence in Afghanistan despite crumbling public support. The lower house of Parliament voted 343 to 210 to keep France's 3,300 troops in Afghanistan and nearby areas. The upper house, the Senate, will also vote on the issue.

The French government is also to send more helicopters, equipment and an extra 100 troops to Afghanistan following the recent death of 10 of its soldiers in an ambush near Kabul.

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Iran gives full powers to hard-line Guards in Gulf

Iran announced Tuesday that it has put the elite Revolutionary Guards in charge of defending the country's territorial Persian Gulf waters in what appeared to be a hardening of its stance in the vital oil route.

U.S. commanders in the Gulf have in the past said they find Guards ships more confrontational than the regular Iranian navy, which until the new order was responsible for Iranian defenses in the Gulf.

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Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's Triumph

Imagine yourself as Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, now in your fourth year as president of Iran and about to make yet another appearance at the U.N.'s General Assembly in New York... [snip]

... since you took over you have installed thousands of centrifuges, spinning uranium roughly at a rate of a bomb's worth of fissile material every year. You've also caused Russia and China to split with the rest of the Security Council over stiffer penalties. Better yet, the Bush administration has gone from refusing to negotiate, to offering conditional negotiations, to pursuing low-level negotiations and now, lately, feeling its way toward tacit diplomatic normalization.

All that without you bending an inch toward the West.

Above all, you have given the world time to digest the notion that Iran will inevitably become a nuclear power, and that nothing can be done to stop it.

Will Americans agree to open a third military front in the Middle East? Does Israel want to roll the dice on a bombing run that will spark another bloody regional war but retard Iran's nuclear programs by at most a few years? How will the U.S. afford its epic Wall Street bailouts if you shut down the Straits of Hormuz?

Surely your enemies will take no such risks. Which is why you're pleased that the more far-seeing Americans are coming around to your point of view. Look at former CIA spy Robert Baer. Mr. Baer has a new book arguing that the U.S. ought not "to stand in the way of Iran's quest to dominate Islam." He thinks Israel's nuclear arms should be put under U.N. supervision. He believes the U.S. and Iran are ripe for the kind of alliance Nixon forged with Mao.

It cannot surprise you that such ideas are now taking root with the American intelligentsia; useful idiots always contribute to the revolution...

[this is the cost of communicating weakness: he's been convinced by Western Idiots that we'll do nothing, pushing us toward the least desirable option - again]

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Radical environmentalists part of economic meltdown

Collapse of financial institutions is just part of a disturbing failure of leadership in the business segment of society.

It is part of a wider crisis of leadership at all levels of society, but is the most immediate and potentially dangerous right now. The business world pushed by government has capitulated to greed and deception and has put people in financial jeopardy.

Sadly, all this plays to a conundrum identified by David Lillenthal, Big business is basic to the very life of this country; and yet many--perhaps most--Americans have a deep-seated fear and an emotional repugnance to it. Here is monumental contradiction... [snip]

The financial debacle is serious but ultimately small change compared to the cost of unnecessary programs to deal with non-existent global warming, natural climate change and many other so-called environmental problems.

Business with collusion from government began the capitulation when it surrendered to the bullying of environmentalists. It was exacerbated when they exploited the opportunities to make money from peoples’ fears and lack of knowledge, but none of which resolved any problems.

In the long run, this will be more devastating and costly to political freedom and global economies. It is already costing the poor people of the world with higher costs or even complete unavailability of the very basics of life. It is more than mere financial greed, which people despise but expect.

It includes greed but is also deliberate and cynical exploitation...

[which will impact our childrens' lives more than our own if not stopped]

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Good News & Bad...

Democrats have decided to allow a quarter-century ban on drilling for oil off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts to expire next week, conceding defeat in an month-long battle with the White House and Republicans set off by $4 a gallon gasoline prices this summer.

[A] provision continuing the moratorium will be dropped this year from a stopgap spending bill to keep the government running after Congress recesses for the election.

[it's good news that the Dems don't plan to blackmail the country by including a continuation in our needed spending bill - but please note they consider it a 'defeat' to allow drilling -- and vote wisely this November, at all levels]

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Biden: 'No coal plants here in America'

Some great rope line video from Joe Biden's recent Ohio swing, where he was asked by an anti-pollution campaigner about clean coal -- a controversial approach in Democratic circles for which Obama has voiced support, particularly during the Kentucky primary.

Biden's apparent answer: He supports clean coal for China, but not for the United States...

[as I said: November, important.]

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Our 'intelligentsia'...

[actually the UK's, but same difference...]

Old people with dementia have a duty to die and should be pushed towards death,
Elderly people with dementia are 'wasting' the lives of those who have to care for them, one of the country's most influential experts on medical ethics said yesterday. Baroness Warnock said that for the old and sick who are contemplating dying, 'there is nothing wrong with feeling you ought to do so'. (Snip) euthanasia should not only be legal but that elderly people should be pressed towards death.
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Now old have a 'duty to die', we are on the path to barbarism
Has there ever been anyone who has displayed more inhumanity towards her fellow human beings, and yet had more influence over British society, than the noble Baroness Warnock? In an article for a church magazine, Lady Warnock has declared that elderly people with dementia are 'wasting' the lives of those who care for them, and have a duty to die in order to stop being a burden to others.
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[yes a duplicate post, but the title made me do it]

Oregon's Suicidal Approach to Health Care

.
Oregon seems to have found a surefire way to lower health care costs: Tell the patient you'll pay for drugs that will end her life, but not those that would extend her life. Here's how it works: [you have to read it to believe it > ]

[this is government health 'care']

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Patrol the turnover

The disturbingly high turnover rate of new U.S. Border Patrol agents -- about 30 percent of entry-level agents leave within the first 18 months -- suggests the underlying problems are at the highest levels of the government.

Perhaps … they come to realize that their employer could turn on them as it did on former agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean, serving draconian prison sentences for wounding a Mexican drug smuggler.

The 200 or more incursions by the Mexican military in the last 10 years also might be a factor.

If it hasn't already done so, the government should ask all former agents why they left. A problem must be identified before it can be fixed.

An inexperienced, undermanned and overworked Border Patrol, especially along America's southern front, is a grave problem that must be corrected...

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Anti-gang efforts target San Jose's 6-year olds

California

With violent crime rising in San Jose, officials Tuesday will consider an updated long-term strategy for combating street gangs that includes reaching out to young women and to children as early as first grade.

Mayor Chuck Reed said the Mayor's Gang Prevention Task Force's strategic work plan for the next three years is "a call to action for our community." The city council will consider the plan Tuesday evening. [snip]

A trend toward younger gang offenders and victims has prompted the focus on younger kids. The number of gang offenders and victims in the 10- to 14-year-old age group more than doubled from 2005 to 2007, although the biggest numbers remain among those 15 to 19 years old.

The plan update also calls for more gender-specific youth outreach to "meet the distinct developmental needs of female youth," and to hold young offenders more accountable for minor crimes.

"We've got to engage with them earlier so they're not committing five or six offenses between their first offense and the time they see a judge," Reed said...

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Jon Stewart is a foreign policy dunce

Ed Lasky points us to this revealing article from Commentary Magazine's blog by James Kirchick that proves John Stewart doesn't know squat about foreign policy.

The scary part is that Stewart's Daily Show is taken as gospel by millions of under 30 dimwitted Americans who believe the world is straight man to Stewart's comic "genius." Case in point:

Stewart's interview last week with former British Prime Minister Tony Blair. Stewart tries to mock both Blair and President Bush's belief that if more countries become democratic, there is less chance they will war with each other.

This is called Democratic Peace Theory, it's been in existence for decades, and is hardly an idea popularized only by rapacious neocons, George W. Bush and Tony Blair. It also, unfortunately for Stewart, has the benefit of being largely true.

Maybe the kids who get most of their news from Stewart's show should try the Cartoon Network.

[worse: what is Tony Blair doing being 'interviewed' by Stewart in the first place? He should know better]

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History Will Judge

For the past 150 years, most American war presidents -- most notably Lincoln, Wilson and Roosevelt -- have entered (or reentered) office knowing war was looming. Not so George W. Bush. Not so the war on terror. The 9/11 attacks literally came out of the blue.

Indeed, the three presidential campaigns between the fall of the Berlin Wall and Sept. 11, 2001, were the most devoid of foreign policy debate of any in the 20th century. The commander-in-chief question that dominates our campaigns today was almost nowhere in evidence during our '90s holiday from history... [snip]

... beyond preventing a second attack, he is bequeathing to his successor the kinds of powers and institutions the next president will need to prevent further attack and successfully prosecute the long war. In this respect, Bush is much like Truman, who developed the sinews of war for a new era (the Department of Defense, the CIA, the NSA), and ultimately engaged in a war (Korea) -- also absent an attack on the United States -- that proved highly unpopular.

So unpopular that Truman left office disparaged and highly out of favor. History has revised that verdict. I have little doubt that Bush will be the subject of a similar reconsideration.

[Highly Recommended > ]

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Biden Depression history

Joe Biden's denunciation of his own campaign's ad to Katie Couric got so much attention last night that another odd note in the interview slipped by. He was speaking about the role of the White House in a financial crisis.

"When the stock market crashed, Franklin Roosevelt got on the television and didn't just talk about the princes of greed," Biden told Couric. "He said, 'Look, here's what happened.'"

As Reason's Jesse Walker footnotes it: "And if you owned an experimental TV set in 1929, you would have seen him. And you would have said to yourself, 'Who is that guy? What happened to President Hoover?

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dilemma