Wednesday, February 11, 2009
$646,214 PER GOVERNMENT JOB
Most of the spending in the House 825B$ 'stimulus bill' is unlikely to be timely or temporary. Strangely, most of it is targeted toward sectors of the economy where unemployment is the lowest. Consider:
• The December unemployment rate was only 2.3 percent for government workers [unionized] and 3.8 percent in education [unionized] and health [unionized].
• Unemployment rates in manufacturing and construction, by contrast, were 8.3 percent and 15.2 percent respectively.
• Yet 39 percent of the $550 billion in the bill would go to state and local governments.
• Another 17.3 percent would go to health and education -- sectors where relatively secure government jobs are also prevalent.
If the intent of the plan is to alleviate unemployment, why spend over half of the money on sectors where unemployment is lowest? [they're unionized]
The Obama administration claims the stimulus bill will "create or save three or four million jobs over the next two years . . . with over 90 percent (of those jobs) in the private sector." To prove it, they issued a report from Christina Romer, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, and Jared Bernstein, chief economic adviser to Vice President Joe Biden. Its key estimates, however, were simply lifted from an outdated paper by Mark Zandi of Moody's economy.com :
• Zandi's current estimates have government employment growing by 330,400 over two years as a result of the House bill (compared with 244,000 in Bernstein-Romer paper).
• Yet even that updated figure still amounts to only 8.3 percent of total jobs added, even though state and local governments are to receive 39 percent of the funds.
• Spending $214.5 billion to create or save 330,400 government jobs implies that taxpayers are being asked to spend $646,214 per job.
In short, another $550 billion of deficit spending on top of a deficit already above $1 trillion is likely to prove more dangerous than helpful to an economy already overloaded with risky debt.
[As always, when hard times hit every sector cuts back - except one...]
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Unions Fight to End American Capitalism
While Americas trade unions are hardly conspiring to bring capitalism down about our ears, trade union leadership couldnt care less about the current economic crisis. Theyre still pushing for their perks. The union leadership is no longer in business to create decent jobs -- the union leadership is in business to boost its own power... [snip]
The renewed growth of the private sector union [via Obama's supported 'card-check' legislation] spells disaster for American industry. With consumers staying home and product prices dropping rapidly, a free market in labor becomes the most integral element to economic recovery. Companies must cut costs in order to remain in business, providing cheap goods that ramp up demand again. But those cheap goods become unavailable when the cost of labor remains high. And so the companies shut down, and millions of jobs are lost.
Why would the union bosses allow private businesses to go bankrupt? Because they aren't uncomfortable with the idea of the government running American businesses... [snip]
America is no longer a nation of Norma Raes. We dont need union heavies breathing down our necks, asking for our protection money while forcing us into the unemployment lines. No one is reverting to the bad old days of child labor and worker maltreatment. Once worker safety has been achieved, the free market must take over, or well all be working for the government.
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HOW TAX RELIEF CAN STIMULATE ECONOMIC GROWTH
The Congressional Budget Office estimates that less than 40 percent of the proposed infrastructure spending in the stimulus bill will be spent within two years. Tax cuts, by contrast, can have an immediate effect.
A recent study by Christina D. Romer, one of President Obama's top economic advisers, found that a dollar of tax cuts raises gross domestic product (GDP) by about $3... [snip]
Cut Payroll Tax Rates:
• For about the cost of the $825 billion House version of the stimulus bill, payroll taxes for Social Security could be cut in half, says former Federal Reserve Board member Lawrence B. Lindsey.
• A 3 percentage-point reduction in payroll taxes would increase workers' take home pay an average of $1,500.
• Reducing the employer's tax share by 3 percentage points would increase businesses' cash flow an average of $1,500 per worker.
• This tax cut would reduce unemployment by lowering labor costs.
Cut Corporate Tax Rates:
• Cutting taxes on future profits is much more likely to spur new investment.
• Congressional Republicans propose a step in the right direction: reducing the corporate income tax rate from 35 percent to 25 percent -- the average rate in the European Union.
• This would encourage businesses to hire additional workers, accelerate investment and make American companies more competitive internationally.
Cut Capital Gains Tax Rates:
• Republicans have also proposed reducing the capital gains tax levied on the increased value of an asset, such as stock or real estate, when it is sold.READ MORE
• The current 15 percent rate is scheduled to rise to 20 percent as the Bush tax cuts expire. [I.e., a 33% tax increase]
• Making the lower rate permanent would be helpful.
• Past capital gains tax cuts have yielded an immediate increase in government revenue.
Dear Taxpayer,
Will you join me in taking a stand in the first major policy battle of President Obama's Administration?
Stop the Pelosi-Reid-Obama Trillion Dollar Spending Bill, Sign Our Online NO Stimulus Petition TODAY- Click Here
Earlier today in the U.S. Senate we suffered a difficult defeat as the $838 billion senate version of the Pelosi-Reid-Obama spending bill passed the senate with 61 votes. While today's vote is a disappointing setback we cannot be discouraged. Much of this fight still lies ahead in the next few days.
Despite today’s passage in the Senate, this fight is far from over!
The bill will still have to go to conference to work out differences between the House and Senate versions, before coming back to both chambers for another vote. They will fight to add back as much pork as possible, including brand new pork not in either the House or Senate version.
You can fight back today by clicking here and joining the growing army of taxpayers saying NO by signing Americans for Prosperity's petition to stop this disastrous trillion-dollar debt scheme.
We've got to keep raising awareness and increase the pressure against this spending and debt outrage. Thanks to the help of our signers forwarding this to their friends and family, calling talk radio, and promoting it on the internet, we've blown past 200,000 signed petitions!
Just what is wrong with this bill?
• Under the auspices of a “Comparative Effectiveness Review” the package heavily funds the first steps towards the government-mandated rationing of health care and tramples your right to medical privacy.
• The so-called “Stimulus Package” is being sold to taxpayers as an investment in useful infrastructure like roads and bridges. But the facts prove otherwise. Only 3.6% of the scheme’s $838 billion price tag would actually go to real, practical infrastructure projects--roads and bridges.
• This trillion-dollar debt and spending scheme will provide little or no stimulus, but will put each and every American household in at least $6,700 of new debt, to be paid by our children and grandchildren.
It is critical that we send a loud and clear message to DC politicians that ordinary citizens simply cannot afford the crushing burden and devastating consequences of this initiative.
Please act today to make your voice heard -- and encourage your friends and family to do the same -- by signing AFP's petition here.
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French diversity chief warns of upheaval
France's equality chief said Wednesday the country was heading "straight into apartheid" and toward a major social explosion unless changes are made rapidly.
French of immigrant origin, most often from Muslim North Africa and sub-Saharan Africa, fill the projects which ring major cities, and those who live there feel isolated from the mainstream.
One the agenda is making elite education more accessible to minorities by forcing schools to reserve 25 percent of their places for students receiving state aid.
Among other measures, political parties will be asked to sign a "diversity charter" that could become a criterion for receiving public funds, and TV stations will be required to spell out diversity goals to the country's audiovisual watchdog.
[unbelievable. These folks immigrated, went on the public dole, and now say it's not enough -- and the government will force {via withholding of funds and regulatory licensing} the rest of its society to give more because of the threat of violence if they don't. It can only do this because so many in France rely on the state for so much of their well being - like being reliant on a government run health care system. read and beware > Recommended > ]
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Another Right-Wing Conspiracy in Washington?
If you're looking for a break from those conservative voices that dominate talk radio, take time out today to listen to local station OBAMA 1260 AM. You'll hear the progressive voices of Stephanie Miller, Ed Schultz, Lionel -- or, during morning drive, my own "Bill Press Show".
Unfortunately, today's the last day you'll be able to do so.
As reported by The Post [Style, Feb. 2], Dan Snyder's Red Zebra Broadcasting Co., owner of OBAMA 1260, has announced plans to jettison all progressive talk and replace it with pre-recorded financial advice programming.
The commercial use of public airwaves is supposed to reflect the diversity of the local community, [STOP: false premise being pushed to disguise the true nature of the forthcoming 'fairness doctrine'. Read the sentence again: 'The commercial use of public airwaves ..."
Commercial - for a profit. Which is where nearly all of the liberal 'Air America' like programs fall apart: too few people want to here their tripe to make it commercially viable {evidently even less palatable than 'pre-recorded financial advice' (ouch)}
So what to do when folks don't want what you're selling? Well force them to consume it with legislation, of course. And if that still doesn't sell? That's ok, as long as any opposing views are removed from the airwaves as a byproduct - then TV will again become the primary arbiter of what's 'newsworthy'.
This is not a petty squabble between rival parties {neither of which are mine} - it's an unconscionable assault on free speech which will have dire consequences on future elections by denying one side in our eternal liberal-conservative debate from the broad access necessary to have an impact.
If it succeeds it will mean the death of conservative talk radio (for financial reasons) and you will not believe what 'everybody' believes 10 years from now ...
please join me in working against it by joining MRC's Free Speech Alliance - and as always, pass it on...]
BBC Shunned Me for 'Denying' Climate Change
FOR YEARS David Bellamy was one of the best known faces on TV. A respected botanist and the author of 35 books (snip) and was appreciated by audiences for his boundless enthusiasm. Yet for more than 10 years he has been out of the limelight, shunned by bosses at the BBC where he made his name, as well as fellow scientists and environmentalists.
His crime? Bellamy says he doesn’t believe in man-made global warming...
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Twofer...
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Oregon looks at taxing mileage instead of gasoline
Portland, Ore. -- Oregon is among a growing number of states exploring ways to tax drivers based on the number of miles the
y drive instead of how much gas they use, even going so far as to install GPS monitoring devices in 300 vehicles.
The idea first emerged nearly 10 years ago as Oregon lawmakers worried that fuel-efficient cars such as gas-electric hybrids could pose a threat to road upkeep, which is paid for largely with gasoline taxes.
[get this? we must all do the right thing and buy hybrids to save the planet ... despite their increased cost ... but it can't cost the government any of its dough...]
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Commission Urges 50 Percent Hike in Federal Gas Tax
[same-day story to above]
Washington - Motorists are driving less and buying less gasoline, which means fuel taxes aren't raising enough money to keep pace with the cost of road, bridge and transit programs. A federal commission created by Congress to find a way to make up the growing revenue shortfall in the program that funds highway repairs and construction is talking about increasing federal gas and diesel taxes.
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Proposed Utah coal plant blocked by EPA panel
WASHINGTON -- The feds have been blocked from issuing a permit for a coal burning power plant proposed in Utah. The reason is that it failed to adequately address possible controls on carbon dioxide, a leading greenhouse gas [not even close: water vapor is >96% of all 'green house gases']
The ruling Thursday comes from an Environmental Protection Agency appeals panel. Environmentalists say the ruling probably will affect other coal plant permit cases.
[national suicide: coal is this nation's primary (non-mobile) energy source - primary: more than all other sources combined {55%}]
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INVESTING IN WHAT DOESN'T WORK
President Barack Obama, in discussing the $800+ billion economic stimulus package now working its way through Congress, promised that "we will invest in what works." Well, if that's true, every piece of education spending -- totaling a whopping $150 billion -- in the mammoth spending bill should fall by the wayside, say Neal McCluskey, an associate director of the Cato Institute's Center for Educational Freedom.
More and better education may indeed be a good thing, but government spending doesn't give us that. What it gives us is more waste:
- The average, inflation-adjusted, per-pupil expenditure in the United States was $5,393 in 1970 according to the U.S. Department of Education's Digest of Education Statistics.
- By 2004 it had more than doubled to $11,470.
- Between 1973 and 2004 mathematics scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress rose just one percent for 17-year-olds.
- And math achievement was the good news. Between 1971 and 2004, their reading scores were completely flat.
- According to the State Higher Education Executive Officers, the overall trend for state and local expenditures per full-time-equivalent college student held steady at around $7,000 over the past 25 years.
- Enrollment, however, increased by more than a third, inflating the overall taxpayer bill.
- And student aid -- most of which came through government -- nearly tripled, hitting $10,392.
- Forty percent of people whose highest educational attainment was a bachelor's degree were proficient readers in 1992 according to the National Assessment of Adult Literacy; by 2003, only 31 percent were.
- For Americans with graduate degrees, 51 percent were proficient readers in 1992, but 11 years later, only 41 percent were.
- This lack of improvement is not limited to reading; between 1992 and 2003 bachelor's degree holders saw no change in quantitative proficiency, and graduate scores dropped.
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Labor unions press for confirmation of Solis
The nation's largest labor federation, the AFL-CIO, along with other unions, women's and Hispanic groups, began calling and writing lawmakers* Friday, urging them to confirm the California congresswoman."Enough is enough," AFL-CIO president John Sweeney said, warning GOP senators "to stop obstructing and confirm Rep. Solis now."
Enzi has spent weeks asking Solis for detailed written answers about her work with the group and suggested that Solis recuse herself from debate over the Employee Free Choice Act. [aka: "Freedom for Unions to Intimidate Act."]"Exercising due diligence and carefully reviewing nominations for critical cabinet positions isn't 'political' — it's the job of the Senate,"
Solis insists she will not stay out of the debate on card-check. Unions consider Enzi's questions a thinly veiled effort to expose Democrats early on what is expected to be a major fight over the union-backed measure.
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[*they're writing - are you?...
"OPPOSE SOLIS CONFIRMATION"
YOUR Congressman: https://forms.house.gov/wyr/welcome.shtml
or: Speed Message them with your personal distribution list...
and as always, pass it on...
.The True Origins of This Financial Crisis
Two narratives seem to be forming to describe the underlying causes of the financial crisis.
One, as outlined in a New York Times front-page story on Sunday, December 21, is that President Bush excessively promoted growth in home ownership without sufficiently regulating the banks and other mortgage lenders that made the bad loans.
The other narrative is that government policy over many years--particularly the use of the Community Reinvestment Act and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to distort the housing credit system.
If the Times diagnosis prevails, the prescription is more regulation of the financial system; if instead government policy is to blame, the prescription is to terminate those government policies that distort mortgage lending. [snip]
There really isn’t any question of approach is factually correct: right on the front page of the Times edition of December 21 is a chart that shows the growth of home ownership in the United States since 1990. In 1993 it was 63 percent; by the end of the Clinton administration it was 68 percent. The growth in the Bush administration was about 1 percent.
The Times itself reported in 1999 that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were under pressure from the Clinton administration to increase lending to minorities and low-income home buyers--a policy that necessarily entailed higher risks.
Can there really be a question, other than in the fevered imagination of the Times, where the push to reduce lending standards and boost home ownership came from?
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