image toon 1st mny fnn - Photo of Pelosi stoned w-writing spending bill
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
'I won': GOP words to live by
When President Barack Obama used those words to reply to Republican objections to the massive spending bill working its way through Congress, he did much more than deliver a good laugh line and declare the GOP proposals irrelevant.
Obama also signaled to us all that the campaign talk about bipartisanship and “a new way” was just the clever rhetoric of a highly choreographed campaign.
“I won” is the confident declaration of a leader who doesn’t need his opponents’ approval or votes. “I won” is a little extra measure of contempt, though surely delivered with a grin. “I won” means the Republicans lost and they had better get used to being ignored.
It is also a tremendously liberating and unmistakable message to the GOP as its House wing gathers on retreat this weekend. They don’t have to worry about being accused by the president’s wall-to-wall admirers in the mainstream media of a grumpy, “old politics” attachment to partisanship in Washington’s new era.
Obama brought the curtain down on the 48-hour era of bipartisanship with those two words...
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Subject: image toon - crpt reps mny - Reps given post-it to add ideas to stimulus pkg
Obama's Leninism
Obama’s recent frustrations and impatience over the “Stimulus Bill” have less to do with his claims of “catastrophe” and “crisis” and much more, it seems to me, to do with his breathtaking inexperience in a true marketplace of ideas. And just where was Obama supposed to learn how to debate? In liberal academia? From his “adversarial” minions in the press? Community organizing?
The Founding Fathers divided the American government against itself so that, according to James Madison, “ambition is made to check ambition.” The purpose was to preserve our freedom and make it impossible for leaders to frighten and manipulate the citizens into accepting rash and precipitous proposals.
The cost may be a certain clumsiness in reacting to pressing social issues, but the benefit is twofold: a healthy debate from each branch of government, and the knowledge that the Constitution remains the final arbiter, not fallible men who claim “I won.”
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A shameful pressure tactic
A fortnight is a long time in politics. It corresponds most recently to the time between Barack Obama's inauguration as the 44th President of the United States, on the final crest of the "politics of hope," and his definitive exploitation of the "politics of fear" to get a near trillion-dollar stimulus package through the U.S. Senate."This recession might linger for years. Our economy will lose five million more jobs. Unemployment will approach double digits. Our nation will sink deeper into a crisis that, at some point, we may not be able to reverse." [never reverse?]
Compare, if you will, another Democrat president, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who took office under considerably grimmer circumstances -- at the very bottom of the Depression -- in 1933:"This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself -- nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance."
Mr. Obama demands non-partisanship to get the bill passed. But opposition to the bill is huge, growing, and itself essentially non-partisan. Americans themselves are deeply troubled by the proposal that they should mortgage their children's future for a constantly growing bailout scheme that must, of necessity, reward the undeserving.
To try to frighten people, as President Obama has done, with the consequences to them if someone else does not pass a profligate spending bill, is an entirely illegitimate use of the weapon from every conceivable point of view. It is not a moral warning, but a shameful pressuring tactic.
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48% Say Increased Government Spending Hurts Economy
Forty-eight percent (48%) of U.S. voters say that, generally speaking, increased government spending is bad for the economy.
Thirty-five percent (35%) believe more government spending will help the economy, and seven percent (7%) say it’s likely to have no impact, according to the latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey.
Democrats have a fundamentally different perspective than Republicans or unaffiliated voters. By a 63% to 23% margin, Democrats say more government spending is likely to help the economy. By a 77% to nine percent (9%) margin, Republicans take the opposite view and believe more spending will hurt.
As for those not affiliated with either party, 52% say more government spending generally hurts the economy while 25% believe it helps.
Those who earn less than $40,000 a year are evenly divided on the question while a majority of those who earn more than $40,000 a year say increased spending is more likely to hurt than help.
By a 54% to 31% margin, investors say increased government spending generally hurts the economy while non-investors are more evenly divided.
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62% Want Stimulus Plan to Have More Tax Cuts, Less Spending
With the Senate poised to vote Tuesday on an $827-billion version of the economic recovery plan, 62% of U.S. voters want the plan to include more tax cuts and less government spending. Just 14% would like to move in the opposite direction with more government spending and fewer tax cuts, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey.
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Obama’s Economic Stimulus Plan Clears Senate Hurdle
An economic stimulus package sought by President Barack Obama cleared a key procedural hurdle in the U.S. Senate today as lawmakers scrambled to complete work on the plan by the end of the week.(Snip)
Three Republicans voted to advance the measure: Senators Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe of Maine and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania.
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image toon - crpt reps bddbdd crpt - RINOs = 3
62% Say U.S. & Allies Winning the War on Terror
Sixty-two percent (62%) of likely voters now say the United States and its allies are winning the War on Terror. That's the highest level of confidence found in five years of tracking, and is up from 55% in late January.
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Biden seeks allies help with Gitmo detainees
Vice President Joe Biden tells world leaders the U.S. needs their help in taking the detainees now held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Speaking at an international security conference, Biden repeated President Barack Obama's vow that the U.S. will adhere to its values and not torture, and will close the detention center that has spurred such criticism from European allies...
[Am I the only one embarrassed by these folks' behavior? Compromising the security of our fellow citizens to assuage 'criticism' from the likes of europe? ]
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Beijing to world: Don't take Chinese from Gitmo
Beijing warned other countries on Thursday not to accept Chinese Muslim detainees released from the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay, reiterating a long-standing demand that they be returned to China. (Snip) The U.S. government and human rights groups say they could be abused and tortured if returned to China.
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Official: Yemen releases 170 al-Qaida suspects
SAN'A, Yemen – Yemen released 170 men it had arrested on suspicion of having ties to al-Qaida, security officials said Sunday, two weeks after the terror group announced that Yemen had become the base of its activities for the whole Arabian peninsula. (Snip) The men were freed Friday and Saturday after signing pledges not to engage in terrorism — a strategy the Yemeni government has often used...
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Germany, France dodge Afghanistan troop issue
MUNICH — NATO's top official chastised Germany and France for refusing to commit more troops to Afghanistan, but the two European powers skirted the issue Saturday even while agreeing that Washington should not be left to fight international conflicts alone. (Snip)
But Biden kept his Afghan comments general in an apparent attempt to avoid a heated public dispute among allies.
[allies?]
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Marines move through the snow in Afghanistan to cut off enemies.
Subject: image photo gdd gwot afghanistan Cristmas in Afghanistan
Susan Rice plays to the crowd in Sold Out Debut at UN
Our newly minted UN Ambassador Susan Rice made her debut at the UN yesterday, giving a speech that brought down the house made up of the usual anti-American, anti-Israeli crowds and wowed liberal critics in the MSM. Her performance bodes well for the future.
If you support Palestinian terrorists.
For Ambassador Rice, her speech dripping with platitudes, it was a maiden speech that set out a new. more evenhanded approach to Israel: Call out your own ally on possible war crimes thus putting them on the same moral plane with their deadly enemy: [snip]
In any case, this is a shot across the bow and insulting to an ally, beleaguered by adversaries that surround her and desire her destruction.
But it plays well in Paris, Berlin, The Hague, and other places where the truth gets a rough ride from governments who routinely blame Israel for defending themselves.
[we are going to miss Bolton]
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THE OPTIMUM GOVERNMENT
In a just completed paper, economists at the Institute for Market Economics in Sofia, Bulgaria, have provided new estimates of the optimum size of government, using standard models, with the latest data from a broader spectrum of countries than had been previously available. Their conclusion is that there is a 95 percent probability that the optimal size of government is less than 25 percent of gross domestic product (GDP).
The ramifications of this study and previous ones are important for the current debate going on in the United States and many other countries, about having the government spend more to "stimulate" the economy -- i.e. create jobs and increase growth rates.
Rather than increasing the size of government, the empirical evidence shows that sharply reducing taxes, regulations and government spending down to no more than 25 percent of GDP would do the most to spur economic growth and create more jobs over the long run.
Those members of Congress and parliamentarians in other countries who vote for a "stimulus package" that increases the size of government will be voting for slower economic recovery and higher rates of unemployment over the long run, based on solid empirical evidence.
[This is consistant with the recent OECD {of all organizations} study:
OECD Study Acknowledges Laffer Curve, Admits Progressivity Bad for Growth
and the fact that it's now generally acknowledged that a 20% tax rate is historically optimal, i.e. securing the maximum revenue to the state. Anything above that actually reduces receipts within 2-5 years - but good luck getting the liberal demagogues to admit it. As Obama has said: even if it results in less money to the treasury, he's for them on the basis of 'fairness' {ironic, given that flat tax rates are perfectly progressive/fair}.]
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How Congress is harming the economy
Diana Furchtgott-Roth, is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and former chief economist at the U.S. Department of Labor.
At the very time that the Senate is debating whether to spend $800 billion or $900 billion to stimulate the economy, the government is considering other legislative and regulatory initiatives that would impede economic recovery. [snip]
Growing Protectionism
By inserting protectionist provisions that require some goods financed by the stimulus bill to be made in America, Congress is risking a trade war with important trading partners in Europe and Asia. A trade war would reduce exports, potentially destroying millions of American jobs. [snip]
Cutting Defense Spending
President Obama promising to deploy more troops to Afghanistan, so you'd think America needs more defense spending - yet he's calling for less. America needs to purchase more weapons, ordnance, vehicles, and body armor so that our troops have the best equipment possible. Defense supplies are generally made in America, and so employs Americans.
Individual Emissions Standards for States
Earlier this week auto companies revealed that sales had reached a 27-year low. Yet, under a new directive from President Obama, states such as California would be able to set their own emissions standards, which will be—you guessed it—stricter than federal law. This would complicate engineering and production, raise costs, and send the industry into an even greater decline.
Employee Free Choice Act
This misnamed bill would change the law to allow workplaces to be unionized without secret ballots, exposing workers to union intimidation.
One of the bill’s House sponsors was House Committee on Education and Labor Chairman George Miller. In 2001, he and five colleagues wrote to the state arbitration board of Puebla, Mexico, saying, “we feel that the secret ballot is absolutely necessary in order to ensure that workers are not intimidated into voting for a union they might not otherwise choose.”
If Mexicans deserve a secret ballot, so do Americans.
As well as protectionism, cuts in defense spending, unionization by intimidation, and arbitrary environmental standards, the economic stimulus bill would open the floodgates of deficit spending. The ensuing debt would burden Americans far into the future.
The Democrats, who control both the White House and Congress, should know better. No wonder consumers are scared, financial markets are tumbling, and unemployment continues to rise.
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A NO COST STIMULUS PLAN
The U.S. economy has entered the second year of a deepening recession -- a downward spiral fueled significantly by severe limits on liquidity and credit. In light of this, the Obama team should implement a private-sector funded stimulus and allow a temporary reduction in the 35 percent tax rate that U.S. companies pay to repatriate foreign subsidiary earnings.
Doing so could inject more than $545 billion into the U.S. economy without expanding the deficit, says Allen Sinai, chief global economist, strategist and president of Decision Economics, Inc., a global economics and financial markets information firm. According to a new study by Decision Economics Inc.:
• Lowering the tax on repatriating foreign-earned income would inject $545 billion into our economy.
• The injection of these funds into this credit-constrained environment could supplement, or substitute for, credit.
• In turn, this would alleviate companies' reliance on commercial paper, bonds, stock and the federal government.
• This measure would also stimulate real economic activity (an additional $110 billion in real GDP in 2010); increase capital expenditures including R improve business financial conditions; and, with lags, produce more jobs (net increase of 614,000 in 2011).
The study also indicates that the U.S. Treasury would receive tax revenue it would not otherwise get: an average of $28 billion per year for five years. The resulting increase in aggregate economic activity -- higher personal income, corporate profits, capital gains, Social Security and excise taxes paid -- would generate even more tax receipts. State governments would also see some increase in revenues.
A private-sector stimulus could be a win-win for government and U.S. businesses, without further straining an already overextended Federal Reserve balance sheet.
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Most Say Media Hype Global Warming Dangers
More bad news for the [major] media.
Fifty-four percent (54%) of U.S. voters say the news media make global warming appear worse than it really is. Only 21% say the media present an accurate picture, according to a new survey...
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Green activists find new ally in US unions
Some U.S. labor groups that have long feared environmental campaigns as a threat to American jobs are starting to see advantages in going green.
This evolution was clear at December's U.N. climate talks in Poland, where several American labor groups and environmental activists made joint appeals for policies that would promote high-tech renewable energy as the answer to both climate change and job losses. [snip]
For example, the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Sierra Club have endorsed the Employee Free Choice Act, a union-backed bill that would 'protect' workers' rights to join unions [by removing their right to a secret ballot].
The Sierra Club has mobilized members to write to their Congress members to support the bill...
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DRILL LIKE BRAZIL
As the United States seeks to get its economy going by building roads, bridges and bicycle paths, Brazil has decided to create jobs and move toward energy independence by investing in its energy infrastructure and the liquid gold that lies just off its pristine beaches:
Brazil's state-owned energy giant, Petrobras, announced on Friday that it plans to spend $174.4 billion on developing its huge recent offshore oil finds through 2013.
A $28.6 billion spending plan for this year will be financed in part on loans from Brazil's state development bank.
"This is not a rescue," Petrobras CEO Jose Sergio Gabrielli told reporters in Rio de Janeiro. "This is very different than what is happening in other countries. This is not a bailout." "The volumes of investments will have an important macroeconomic impact in Brazil," said Gabrielli.
Such investments could have a similar beneficial impact on the American economy, and the irony is that the oil companies are willing to use their own money here if we let them. Yet, even more restrictions on U.S. domestic production are planned.
• Thanks in part to a relentless pursuit of domestic energy resources, the Brazilian economy grew 5.8 percent in 2008 and is projected to expand 2.9 percent even in a tough 2009.
• If Brazil had copied our current energy policy, it wouldn't have discovered in November 2007 the Tupi field or in April 2008 the Carioca field in the deep-water Santos Basin off Brazil's southeastern coast.
• Tupi is estimated to contain 5 billion to 8 billon barrels of crude, and Carioca may hold up to 33 billion -- the third-largest oil field ever discovered and big enough to supply every refinery in the United States for six years.
These discoveries and others around the world show that oil has not 'peaked' [and never will], and new technologies continue to expand reserves beyond the level of consumption.
Other countries recognize the economic importance of domestic energy resources.
We are in fact the only industrial country to put our reserves off-limits,
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Legislators Push Ban on California Coast Oil Drilling
New legislation may prevent oil drilling off the California coast in Sonoma, Mendocino, Humboldt and Del Norte counties.
Two bills introduced when Congress convened this week place a ban on coastal oil drilling in Northern California, one by creating a marine sanctuary off the Sonoma coast.
Rep. Lynn Woolsey of Marin and Sonoma counties attempted to push the marine sanctuary bill through when a 26-year moratorium on offshore oil drilling expired last year.
Another bill by Rep. Mike Thompson of Northern California permanently bans drilling off the coasts of Mendocino, Humboldt and Del Norte counties.
Both said without quick action, new oil rigs may soon dot California’s coast.
[we should be so lucky...]
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"Oppose Woolsey/Thompson drilling bans"
Whitehouse: mailto:president@whitehouse.gov
House-Pelosi: http://speaker.house.gov/contact/
YOUR Congressman: https://forms.house.gov/wyr/welcome.shtml
or: Speed Message them with your personal distribution list...
and as always, pass it on...
..
Secondhand Children
It's been weeks since the last one, so on Sunday, The New York Times Magazine featured yet another cheery, upbeat article on single mothers. As with all its other promotional pieces on single motherhood over the years, the Times followed a specific formula to make this social disaster sound normal, blameless and harmless -- even brave.
These single motherhood advertisements include lots of conclusory statements to the effect that this is simply the way things are -- so get used to it, bourgeois America!"(A)n increasing number of unmarried mothers," ... look a lot more like Fran McElhill and Nancy Clark -- they are college-educated, and they are in their 30s, 40s and 50s."
Why isn't the number of smokers treated as a fait accompli that the rest of us just have to accept? Smoking causes a lot less damage and the harm befalls the person who chooses to smoke, not innocent children. [snip]
Smoking has no causal relationship to crime, has little effect on others. Controlling for income, education and occupation, it causes about 200,000 deaths per year, mostly of people in their 70s.
Single motherhood, by contrast, directly harms children, occurs at a rate of about 1.5 million a year and has a causal relationship to criminal behavior, substance abuse, juvenile delinquency, sexual victimization and almost every other social disorder.
If a pregnant woman smokes or drinks, we blame her. But if a woman decides to have a fatherless child, we praise her as brave -- even though the outcome for the child is much worse...
[statistically worse: making the successful job many single mothers do all the more impressive. Still, valid points and an example of the selectiveness of our chattering class's political correctness - and evidently not unique to the US...]
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Britain has produced unteachable 'uber-chavs'
Britain has produced a generation of "uber-chavs" who are unteachable and unemployable, a senior teaching official has claimed. Ralph Surman, a national executive member of the Association of Teacher and Lecturers, said a significant number of young people who were brought up by single mothers in the 1980s are now doing nothing with their lives, have no work ethic, few social skills and cause higher crime rates...
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MONEY FOR NOTHIN'
CALIFORNIA
The Golden State expects a record $42 billion deficit over the next year and a half, the largest pool of red ink ever in a state.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has pushed a wide range of new taxes on everything from golfers and car repairs to veterinary care and tickets to sporting events. And now, the $825 billion stimulus bill may bring billions more to California.
Is that a good thing? Probably not. It's not aid, per se; it's a bailout. Basically, California's irresponsible legislature has spent the state into near fiscal oblivion. Now it will get bailed out by its big-spending friends in Washington. So expect more fiscal irresponsibility in California, not less:
- According to the Milken Institute, California's business costs in 2006 were 22.9 percent higher than the average state; taxes were 21 percent higher.
- Now, new green rules to cut C02 emissions will only make things worse for businesses, which are leaving the state in droves.
- As for the budget, California's debts are already at junk status after a decade that saw spending soar 134 percent to $131 billion.
- Last year, 132,000 people -- many of them middle-class entrepreneurs -- pulled up stakes and left the state.
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