"Fiscal Responsibility"

I’m inspired! In honor of President Obama’s new budget proposal, I think that we should all go out and practice his personal brand of “fiscal responsibility”.

Step number one is to go to the bank and find out what is the biggest loan that you can get. Take a second or third on your house if they will let you, throw in the cars, the dog, maybe even the kids as collateral and see how much you can get it up to. If they have the nerve to ask what the loan is for, just tell them that you are in a personal financial crisis and you are convinced that the best way to recover is to spend your way out of it.

Let me know how that works out.

I’m not sure what Keynesian planet our President and his advisors reside on, but I’m afraid they are about to coming crashing back down to earth, bringing the global economy down with them.

His current budget proposal reflects a $1.7 TRILLION deficit. Can you even conceive of how much money that is? Think of it this way, the population of the U.S. is about 300 million people. A $1.7 TRILLION deficit means that we have to take out a LOAN of over $5600 for every man, woman, and child in this country. Our Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton is on a world tour right now, which included talks with the Chinese where she had to beg them to purchase more American debt. I am sure that the Chinese will comply and purchase more debt, but as they do they will want more return, especially as our credit rating starts to dip. That’s what happens when you have a ton of debt, out of control spending obligations, and sinking revenues; your credit rating falls. As it does you become higher risk and the lenders demander higher interest to purchase the debt. What you will soon see, and we are getting a glimpse, is a sharp uptick in inflation as the global economy has been flooded with the US dollar. Along with that we will see rising interest rates, as our lenders demand more return on their ‘risky’ investment. Rising inflation and rising interest rates. Sound familiar to anyone?

Throw into the mix a TRILLION dollar tax increase on businesses and individuals.

Let’s address the issue of “fairness” for a second (one of our President’s favorite words when he talks about tax increases). The upper 1% of income earners in this country bring in about 22% of all of the personal income. That’s a big chunk. They currently pay 40% of the total personal income tax that the federal government collects. 22% vs. 40%. Are we still talking about “fairness”?

Now lets talk about potential. President Obama proposes raising income tax on people making over $250K/year. That’s a good chunk of change and just to add a disclaimer, does not include myself. Who are these people? For the most part they are business owners. Small business owners to be more precise. They are individuals with the means and desire to create jobs for other people. When you raise their taxes, it decreases their potential to hire new employees, in fact it may even cause them to have to get rid of current employees. It is clearly and ANTI-stimulus to our economy. Is that what we need?

Businesses. Well, if you look at the tax increases on businesses, a good portion of them fall on oil companies. That’s an easy target, they are everyone’s favorite villain right? Do you like paying more at the pump? Oil companies are like all companies. They don’t pay taxes, their customers do. When you see increases on taxes for oil companies you need to understand that YOU are the one who is going to pay that tax. You will pay it on every single item you purchase, as well as when you fill up your car. Things don’t appear in stores magically, they are driven there in trucks and trucks use… gas!

So, when you hear our president get up at the State of the Union and say that if you make less than $250K a year you will not pay one dime more in taxes, he is doing two things. Number one he is lying to you. YOU are going to pay the taxes, because YOU are the consumer. Number two he is fueling the fire of petty class warfare. Not for your benefit, but for his personal purposes to try and enact his personal agenda. This is a tactic that he adopted and was taught to do as a community organizer. It is dishonest and it is divisive and takes into account the desires of the few to the detriment and demise of the whole.

Finally the biggest losers in all of this are the poor. “But wait, “ you say, “I thought we were doing more to help poor people?” Unfortunately that is not the case. Charitable donations have already decreased with the sinking economy. Add to that President Obama’s plan to rescind tax benefits for wealthy individuals making charitable donations, along with repealing certain provisions for itemization and you have people seeing less benefit in giving to charity. Instead of rewarding good and generous behavior, the President’s plan will punish hard work and discourage charitable giving. In the end the poor will suffer.

When you hear the President mention “fiscal responsibility” you need to look beyond the words and pay attention to the actions. If this course continues you will see rising inflation, rising unemployment, rising interest rates, rising gas prices, and increased poverty. These are not the hallmarks of “fiscal responsibility” but rather the effects of reckless fiscal mismanagement.

A Classic from the TN Rep

Classic. You can order yours at www.tngop.org

HT: MM

Dogbert is my new favorite all time cartoon character.

If you were laid up in bed taking muscle relaxers, like I was yesterday, then you might have missed one of the best Dilbert strips of all time.

Classic.

The Other 85%

The "other" part of the State of the Union.

I thought I would start this post by saying a few bad words, that’s right, I’m laying them all out on the table.

“big business”
“CEO”
“profit”
“oil”

If you listen to President Obama or any of the Congressional leadership recently, you would think I was some type of charlatan, throwing around words like that.

The question is, when did running a big company become bad? Why is it suddenly equivalent to selling your soul to the devil to become successful in corporate America? Don’t we WANT businesses to be successful? Don’t we want them to have money to pay workers salaries and maybe even a dividend on their stock?

If you listened to the State of the Union, you heard quite a bit of CEO, bank, and business bashing. Isn’t some of this deserved? Absolutely. However, having Democratic law makers (of which our president WAS one recently) bashing banks and CEOs for mismanagement and wasting tax payer dollars is kind of like a drug dealer ratting out one of his customers to the police. President Obama threw out a lot of blame in his State of the Union address, but it wasn’t directed at all of the right people. There seems to be a prevailing opinion among liberals that the ONLY honest people in the world are liberal politicians and really, really poor people.

Of course they must be pretending that we haven’t been paying attention to the President’s cabinet appointments.

President Obama never acknowledged the fact that GOVERNMENT should bare the bulk of the blame for this whole economic disaster, starting with the Clinton administration. He also said that de-regulation is to blame and called for “legislation that will finally reform our outdated regulatory system”. How about law makers that will actually LISTEN to federal regulators? It is absolutely DISHONEST to stand there and point the finger at the banks and say that “everyone is suffering in part from their bad decisions” and not even MENTION the politicians who ignored corruption at Fannie and Freddie and even berated regulators who came and testified to it!

The blame game wasn’t the only subject of the night. Big tax increases came up on multiple occasions. They weren’t introduced that way of course. Obama pressed hard for a cap and trade system to “save our planet from the ravages of climate change”. Not mentioning the fact that a) climate change is not controlled nor can it be managed by human factors and b) this is actually a TRILLION dollar tax increase in disguise. Of course he re-iterated that “if your family earns less than $250,000 a year, you will not see your taxes increased a single dime.” Obviously he means direct taxes. Indirectly your taxes will go up in direct proportion to the cap and trade system, because after all, businesses don’t pay taxes; their customers do. Who is going to pay for the TRILLION dollar cap and trade? You. On every purchase of every product.

But my favorite totally off the wall statement of the night was that Universal Heath Care will help us bring down the deficit. Did you miss it? Here is it in its entirety.

“This budget builds on these reforms. It includes an historic commitment to comprehensive health care reform – a down-payment on the principle that we must have quality, affordable health care for every American. It’s a commitment that’s paid for by efficiencies in our system that are long overdue. And it’s a step we must take if we hope to bring down our deficit in the years to come.”

What? That makes no sense. Ask the UK how much their National Health System has helped their budget? It definitely would affect the deficit, but not in the direction that the President was alluding to.

Last but not least, there were several, shall we say 'disingenuous remarks', but considering he is discussing massive new regulations, a government cap and trade system, and a plan to nationalize healthcare, I would consider the following statement an out right lie:
“Not because I believe in bigger government – I don’t.”

Pa-lease.

The speech would have been a lot shorter if he would have just said, “Big business, big medicine, big oil, and rich people. That is the problem. A massive, all encompassing government is the only solution.”

The Good Part in the State of the Union

If you checked the blog yesterday expecting to see a breakdown of the pseudo State of the Union, I’m sorry I disappointed. Unfortunately I spent most of the last two days on muscle relaxers with either ice or heat on my lower back. Not real conducive to blogging.

I printed the transcript from the speech, which can be found on the White House website, so I actually missed the delivery, which I’m sure was interrupted numerous times by standing ovations from at least half of the assembled lawmakers. Some of which I would say was appropriate. There was one portion of the speech that contained several applause worthy sections.

While discussing education he pointed out that, “In the end, there is no program or policy that can substitute for a mother or father who will attend those parent/teacher conferences, or help with homework after dinner, or turn off the TV, put away the video games, and read to their child.” Excellent point! He was actually on to something!

Then he moved on to budget cuts and mentioned that they were going through the budget line by line “in order to eliminate wasteful and ineffective programs… We have already identified two trillion dollars in savings over the next decade.” While I was excited about this statement, I was a little concerned about which programs had been identified. I would hope that these are not cuts in defense spending, but he followed up with some encouraging remarks indicating that they in part came from cutting some agricultural subsidies, something that is LONG overdue.

He finished up the section by talking about personal savings accounts as part of Social Security reform, and increasing pay and benefits to the military. If that section was the whole speech I would have been thrilled. Unfortunately it was actually a very small portion and only one page of seven that I printed out.

But this was the good part and I want it to be seen on its own, so I’ll comment on the other 85% in my next post.

My T.O. list... rapid fire!

Oh my, where to begin with all of the stuff going on. I was stumped, so I decided I would make a list of the stuff this week that was just outrageous to me (politically) and give you a quick hits list.

- Our newly appointed Attorney General, who had issues during confirmation because of his involvement in the Clinton pardon scandals, said that we are a "nation of COWARDS" when it comes to race. Hello? I thought the election of Barack Obama was deemed as the beginning of post-racial America. This irritates me to know end! Personally I don’t care if a person it black, white, Hispanic, oriental, Asian, or anything else; if the person is fun to hang out with and can have a decent conversation then we’re cool. It seems to me that 90% of the country is OVER race. They just don’t care! The other 10% is racist, not because they despise or prefer any certain race, but because they CAN’T STOP OBSESSING ABOUT IT!!

- President Obama talking DOWN our economy. This is not the Great Depression! 8% unemployment is nothing like 30%. This is not the worst economy since the 1930s, although if you keep beating it down it WILL BE. I thought America voted for HOPE over FEAR? There is only ONE reason I can think of that a leader would use the bully pulpit to BEAT THE HOPE out of our economy and that is to advance his own agenda. That is pathetic and it makes me mad.

- The non-stimulating stimulus. Just a mental check here. If legislation passes that is going to help our economy, what happens? The indicators for the future of our economy suddenly go up, right? What is the greatest indicator/predictor of where our economy is going? THE STOCK MARKET. Investors not only PREDICT what will happen with our economy, they actually BET on it. They put their MONEY where their HOPE is and guess what? They have no hope in the future off our economy right now because the course our government is on has been historically proven to be WRONG for the economy.

- Inflation. I’ve mentioned it before and here it comes, you keep interest rates too low for too long and throw money into the system like it’s a bottomless pit, and in an economy where we import most things, you are going to have inflation. So now it’s coming. Add onto that the recent implementation of the new anti-lead bill that just took effect on kids’ toys and the budget for a family with four kids just took a kick in the groin. By the way, this same legislation just killed a whole industry that produced dirt bikes for kids… because the MOTORS have lead in them! WHAT?! And every toy that is made for kids will soon have to have EVERY COMPONENT of the toy tested for lead by an independent company. Just think of how expensive NEXT Christmas is going to be! Hope the circuit board in your Xbox didn’t contain tin-lead solder. That’s dangerous, because after all a kid could open that up and LICK the printed circuit boards. COME ON PEOPLE!!!

- Our freedoms eroding. The EPA is now actually considering a 2 year old court ruling that says it should evaluate whether or not CO2 should be regulated. Hmm… I wonder how the Lib’s investigation of that will go? Soon they will be regulating how much you can drive, how many kids you can have, how much you can exercise, and whether or not you can even go to a certain city, because after all there are too many CO2 producing people there already. You might have to get on a waiting list. They have already talked about new taxes on COWS, taxing you for every MILE you drive, regulating how often you can take an airplane… at this point we should all go out and buy horses… but they would probably slap a tax on that too.

- Members of Congress and leadership that don’t follow the STINKING TAX LAWS THAT THEY WROTE AND ARE IN CHARGE OF ADMINISTERING!!! Hello? If President Obama really wanted to boost the revenues to the Treasury and make a move that would send his popularity through the roof, he would request that the IRS perform an audit of all members of Congress. Just in appointing cabinet members he was able to collect on almost a quarter of a million in back taxes. Just think how much we could get auditing all 535 members of Congress?

I feel better now… okay not really, because all of these things have the potential to get worse before they get better. Buckle your seatbelts people, this could be a rough four years. Let just hope we can get some real conservatives (not R.I.N.O.s but CONSERVATIVES) in the Congress in 2010.

Please Pray Today for Caridee Sage Gill

There are tons of political things that I could talk about today, but I'll put that aside for now.

There is something much more important and close to my heart today.

At 9:00 this morning my sweet little niece Caridee Sage Gill will go in for surgery to fix a problem with her aorta. There are two sections of her aorta that are too narrow and they are restricting the free flow of blood. This causes her heart to have to work too hard and is also inhibiting her growth and development. This is a side effect of the Turner's Syndrome. She is about 6 months old now, which is what the doctors were waiting for. She is just as precious as can be.

Please take a minute and go to her Caring Bridge website.

Also, just because it will make you smile, go to this post on our family blog and watch little Caridee laugh, it's absolutely priceless.

But above all, please pray earnestly for my sweet little niece.

Thanks,

Keith

Sin Taxes and What we are Teaching People

As state governments around the country start to feel the pinch of hard times coupled with their gross reckless spending, new forms of taxes are springing up all over the country. The federal government in the name of increasing healthcare for needy children (the merits of the SCHIP bill are an entirely different matter) just raised taxes on cigarettes… again. In Oregon they are proposing a 1900% increase on beer taxes. NY was considering a “fat tax” on soda and now there is talk of a “porn tax”. These are also known as “sin taxes” and they have a dual intent. The first intent is to raise money, obviously, but the second intent, and by far more ‘noble’ purpose of these politicians is to discourage the activity. It follows common sense and everyone seems to get it. If you tax something you discourage it. The more you tax it, the more you discourage it.

Duh.

Any parent or teacher can tell you that good behavior should be rewarded, or reinforced and bad behavior discouraged. Your child brings home a good report card; he gets to choose where the family will go out to dinner. Your child forgets to turn in his assignments and you follow him to class and wait with him and his friends in utter embarrassment until he pulls the assignment out of his bag and hands it to the teacher (I’m getting very close on this one). Reward the good, discourage the bad.

Adults aren’t much different than children.

Let’s look at our new stimulus bill and this endless succession of bailouts all funded from the tax payers.

The states that have been spending money in a fiscally responsible manner get… squat.
The homeowners who can and do, still pay their mortgage every month get… squat.
The bank and business owners who have been responsible and prudent with their businesses get… squat.

Automakers who push subpar quality cars and cow tow to the UAW get… BILLIONS in bailouts.
Bankers who bought up junk mortgage backed securities get… a TRILLION dollar bailout.

These are the most heinous examples, but the new stimulus bill also effectively rolls back the welfare reform of the 90s. The ones that the Republicans tried to force on Pres. Clinton repeatedly and finally convinced him to sign (when he was facing re-election). The same welfare reform that Clinton began claiming as his own because it was so successful in reducing welfare rolls and getting people back to work that he couldn’t pass up the opportunity for good PR.

Now let’s think back to the “sin taxes”. If you want to encourage something you provide incentives for it. If you want to discourage something you tax it.

So we just provided $800 billion in incentives to people who have been exhibiting irresponsible behavior (not including the families who came into bad times through no fault of their own), in addition to the TARP bailout of $700 billion, in addition to the $1 TRILLION bank bailout, in addition to the bailout (and soon increased bailout) of Fannie and Freddie, and countless other financial institution bailouts.

What are we encouraging?

What are we discouraging?

Some Reading Notes

Having been down for a "procedure" on Friday, I have been a little out of touch with the news and what is going on in the world, but it did give me an opportunity to finish up my book on Gorbachev, read another one on Reagan, and then a final book on Billy the Kid. All very interesting reads.

I was fascinated with several aspects of the book on Reagan. It is called When Character was King by Peggy Noonan, who was a former speech writer for the president. It was truly inspiring and just a further affirmation of what a genuinely amazing leader and person that Ronald Reagan was.

One thing that Peggy brought up was that after WWII, the upper income tax rate had soared to 94%. That was shocking, but it was also reassuring. If we think the punitive tax increases that we will see in the future are bad, they are nothing compared to what they were before Kennedy and Reagan got to them.

The other thing, and something that made a very big impression on me, was the assassination attempt that was made on Reagan by the mentally ill Hinckley. Not the attempt itself, but the amazing split second response by the secret service. These men jumped into action so quickly it is mind boggling. As the first shots were fired (and there were six of them) the first agent(Parr) doubled Reagan over and pushed him into the car, doing everything he could to shield the president with his own body. Another agent, McCarthy, who opened the door of the car did something that is so counter intuitive that can only be achieved through countless ours of mental and physical training. As gun shots are being fired and everyone is ducking for cover he turns to find the gunman and puts himself between the gunman and the president, with his arms spread out to INCREASE his chances of taking a bullet for the president. In this case, he was effective. In the video you can see as the agent is struck on his right side and nearly lifted off of his feet.

The end result is that the president escapes. The only bullet that strikes him is one that ricochets off the door frame. Of course that was almost enough to kill the 70 year old president, when the bullet came within an inch of his heart.

These two men changed the history of the United States and quite possibly the world by their selfless actions. Just a few months into his presidency, Ronald Wilson Reagan had already begun to shake things up, but not nearly as much as he would.

Thank you Jerry Parr and agent Timothy McCarthy

Lincoln's Birthday

Today is the 200th anniversary of the birth of the sixteenth President of the United States, and by far one of our most popular and historically significant presidents, Abraham Lincoln. A powerful president and a true leader, Lincoln was a man of exceptional talent and skill. Although he was a lawyer before turning to politics, Lincoln never obtained a law degree because he never attended more than a year or so of any formal schooling. He was an avid reader and an amazing observer of life. Lincoln was a storyteller and always had a good tale to help prove a point or teach a lesson.

One of the many things that I like about Lincoln was his incredible writing ability. Back in those days politicians usually wrote their own material and Lincoln was a master at it. Articulate, clear, eloquent, and above all his words were always heartfelt. He was a sincere man of character who lived and governed by his core beliefs.

You can see an example of what I am talking about in an excerpt from a letter he wrote to a widow, who had lost five sons in the Civil War.

I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and
leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride
that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom.

Powerful.

A Lesson From General Secretary Gorbachev

I’m finishing up a biography on Mikhail Gorbachev called Gorbachev, Heretic in the Kremlin. It’s not a bad read, but I find myself going through it slowly as I take notes and underline different items. I read quite a bit, but almost exclusively non-fiction. If I am going to take the time to read something I always enjoy it more if I am learning something. This book has been especially educational and filled with all kinds of memorable and instructional quotes and observations.

One I read recently was that Gorbachev in his quest to achieve Perestroika (the Russian term for reform), he sought to achieve the difficult task of “lighting a fire without creating flames”. The idea is that the reforms he was seeking were monumental and vast; a redefinition of the Soviet Union in terms of their economical and political systems. He wanted to communicate his vision to the people and get them excited about it (building the fire), but he wanted to limit their immediate expectations (without the flame). Gorbachev knew that if the expectations were too high, then Perestroika would fail because the changes wouldn’t have the positive benefit quickly enough to meet the expectations. The Russian people had been led by tsars, authoritarians, and eventually by an old, harsh, and stodgy Politburo that had controlled every aspect of life and the economy, while limiting ingenuity and entrepreneurship, even punishing those who sought to improve their lives by ‘capitalistic’ means. Anything that did not benefit, or was not pursued through, the Communist Party, was by definition shear heresy. The people were lethargic and after centuries of being told what to do and cut off from the outside world by a government controlled press, they were completely ignorant of how to proceed. The process of reform and education would be slow and painful, and Gorbachev knew it.

President Obama would have done well to learn from the lessons that history has taught. All through the campaign season, then candidate Obama and his team filled their speeches, web pages, literature, and abundant press reports with lots of lofty rhetoric and grandiose, even ethereal images of how the country and the world would prosper under an Obama administration. As he delivered a victory speech in St. Paul he said,

…this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to
the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and
our planet began to heal; this was the moment when we ended a war and secured
our nation and restored our image as the last, best hope on Earth. This was the
moment – this was the time – when we came together to remake this great nation
so that it may always reflect our very best selves, and our highest ideals.

All flame. No fire.

Now he is banking a good portion of his political capital on a stimulus plan that even the CBO says will end up hurting the country. More importantly any average Tom reading it can see that it will do little if anything to prop up the faltering world economy. It will end up passing, directly along partisan lines. A majority of Americans will be against it and even more will be highly skeptical of it. It can’t succeed. It will be a burst of flame and sputter, then what? More stimulus programs?

The problem of having a flame without a fire is that it comes and goes quickly, but it can still burn you. President Obama would have been better to focus on fiscal responsibility, sound economic policy, open markets, smaller government, and lower taxes.

But then again the American people would have been better to look for character rather than charisma.

A Consensus Among Economists

It’s not surprising that the Libertarian leaning CATO Institute is not in favor of the “stimulus” plan that President Obama is now actively campaigning for. They have recently created a petition stating,

More government spending by Hoover and Roosevelt did not pull the United States
economy out of the Great Depression in the 1930s. More government spending did
not solve Japan’s “lost decade” in the 1990s. As such, it is a triumph of hope
over experience to believe that more government spending will help the U.S.
today. To improve the economy, policymakers should focus on reforms that remove
impediments to work, saving, investment and production. Lower tax rates and a
reduction in the burden of government are the best ways of using fiscal policy
to boost growth.

What is most impressive about the petition are the 200 noted economists that signed it, including several Nobel Laureates.

As President Obama and his team go on TV, on-line, and in house meetings and claim that there is a consensus among economists that we need this stimulus, come back and read this list.

Getting this economy fixed is not about consensus, it’s about history and experience. The New Deal failed to end the Great Depression, WWII did that. Over $6 TRILLION in government "stimulus" in Japan failed to improve their economy during the 1990s.

We don't need consensus, we just need common sense. (sorry I couldn't resist, I should have, but I couldn't)

More garbage in the stimulus

More garbage, and I use that term VERY intentionally, is coming out about the stimulus. This isn’t about a ‘bad apple spoiling a bunch’, it’s about a whole bushel of bad apples being crammed down our throat because “we need it”.

As an example (and a frightening one at that) of what I am talking about, you need to pay attention to the Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research and the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology, two new entities that would be created by the stimulus. The idea tracks with some of President Obama’s campaign promises, including making all medical records electronic. He mentioned that this would save HUGE amounts of money, which made me laugh at the time, now it makes me sick to my stomach. The missing piece is finally being revealed. Once your medical records are electronic, then the government can start looking at your condition and the treatments that you are receiving. Then the government panel can start regulating how conditions and patients are treated. The electronic system is actually a stepping stone to nationalized healthcare.

The Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research can use government funding like puppet strings to control what doctors can and can’t treat, and how they can treat it. They can also slow and limit the development of new treatments.

To get the full low down on what I am talking about, read this article that makes some great points about the healthcare provisions in the ‘stimulus’. What is being sold as the bill to save our economy, could cost you a lot more than just your wallet.

Here are the most interesting and frightening quotes:

The goal, Daschle’s book explained, is to slow the development and use of
new medications and technologies because they are driving up costs. He
praises Europeans for being more willing to accept “hopeless diagnoses” and
“forgo experimental treatments,” and he chastises Americans for expecting too
much from the health-care system.

Are YOU willing to accept a "hopeless dianoses"? Wait I thought Americans voted for hope?

Daschle says health-care reform “will not be pain free.” Seniors should
be more accepting of the conditions that come with age instead of treating
them. That means the elderly will bear the brunt.
Medicare now pays for treatments deemed safe and effective. The stimulus bill would change that and apply a cost- effectiveness standard set by the Federal Council (464).

Can't wait to hear that from my doctor, "we have this medicine that could help you live with a lot less pain, but it was determined that at your age, we wouldn't see enough benefit to our healthcare system." BTW, this applies to all treatments. For instance, in some countries things like pacemakers are rationed. If you aren't on the top of the list, you don't get one, even if it could drastically improve your quality of life. That's why Canadians are willing to come to the US and pay for treatments out of their own pockets! The government in Canada won't LET them pay for additional serves with their own money.

In 2006, a U.K. health board decreed that elderly patients with macular
degeneration had to wait until they went blind in one eye before they could get
a costly new drug to save the other eye. It took almost three years of public
protests before the board reversed its decision.

Come on, you still have ONE that kind of works!

The stimulus bill will affect every part of health care, from medical and
nursing education, to how patients are treated and how much hospitals get
paid. The bill allocates more funding for this bureaucracy than for
the Army, Navy, Marines, and Air Force combined (90-92, 174-177,
181).

I hope you are beginning to understand that this is not a stimulus package. It is a way to push through President Obama's agenda as quickly and with as little oversite and scrutiny as possible. Call your representatives and tell them NO STIMULUS IS BETTER THAN A PILE OF GARBAGE!

****** UPDATE: Chuck Schumer says that Americans don't care about all of the "porky things" in this bill. REALLY!!!!!

A story and a point

Back in a more foolish time I made the mistake of entering some else’s back yard. It was the middle of the night and my brother, my friend, and I had been engaged in other delinquent activities and were already fleeing a small group of angry home owners. We landed in the dead grass and crept along between the hull of a sail boat and the wooden fence. As we proceeded back toward the house the back porch light suddenly came on. We all froze waiting to see what would happen. Was it just a motion sensor? A voice inside the house quickly answered our question, “I’m going to kill you, you little sons of…!”

That was all we needed to hear, we turned around and headed for the back fence. I made the mistake of actually climbing the fence, while my brother and my friend simply harnessed the power of their adrenaline and hurdled the six foot wooden fence like a couple of gazelles. My foot caught the top of the fence and the next thing I knew I was enjoying a rather peaceful slumber, which was only disturbed by the man pointing a 357 magnum in my face.

I’ll spare you the rest of the sordid details, but to make my point the man held me at gunpoint on his front drive way until the police officer arrived to take me into custody and drive me home. I wasn’t technically arrested and fortunately for me my parents just found out about the whole incident a couple of months ago (thanks Kristen).

My point in this story is that I was in the wrong. The home owner, while being a little on the paranoid side, was perfectly within his rights to defend himself and his property, as the police officer reminded me on my way home.

That’s why this story makes me so mad. For the last eleven years Roger Barnett has taken it upon himself to defend his land from illegal aliens crossing through his ranch on the way up from Mexico. They have vandalized his property, left a river of garbage, killed his livestock, stolen his vehicles, destroyed equipment, and even burglarized his house. Shockingly enough, he finally got tired of it.

Since 1998 he has apprehended over 12,000 illegal aliens and handed them peacefully over to immigration officials. During this time he carried a firearm, but fortunately has never had to use it on anyone. Quite impressive restraint considering the number of apprehensions and the danger associated with this activity.

Now the group MALDEF (Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund) is representing 16 trespassers against this Arizona land owner. The complaint? He apprehended them and handed them over to immigration enforcement. During that time he held a gun on them (but didn’t shoot) and had his dog with him. He also threatened to shoot if they tried to escape(in English and Spanish).

This is another outcome of elections. Bad judges. A good judge would throw this case out and threaten to disbar the attorney for MALDEF. If Mr. Barnett is a smart man, he should get himself a good lawyer and sue the federal government for failing to protect his property from invasion by a foreign entity.

Congressional Budget Office says the 'stimulus' will hurt long term

The CBO just issued a report that says the stimulus will actually DECREASE GDP in the long term! Read it yourself.

Ouch. That has to hurt.

There are also reports coming out now that President Obama plans to announce on Monday a plan to use the rest of the TARP funds to bail out struggling mortgages by refinancing them down to the current market value. Of course, that's only for troubled homeowners. If you have been paying your mortgage on time every month and are upside down in your house... and oh yes, there are lots of us, then you get SQUAT! This bailout is only for those who are about to default on their loan.

Hmm... I wonder what that will do to the number of people that are suddenly "struggling".

Very interesting.

This would be called reinforcing bad behavior and every parent knows that is a bad idea.

Scare tactics from the President

Our President exercised his pull with the media this morning and ran an op-ed piece in the Washington Post detailing his reasons why the country needs this 1 trillion dollar “stimulus plan”. It is also posted on the White House Blog (link in my left hand column). At the very least I am disappointed at the scare tactics that the president is resorting too, intentionally bringing up tragedies in the past, such as Hurricane Katrina, the bridge collapse in Minnesota, and of course the Great Depression.

In his opening paragraph he states that we are in an economic crisis ”…as deep and dire as any since the days of the Great Depression.” I’m not sure which economic factors the president is referring to, but if he is looking at companies collapsing or on the brink of collapsing financially, then he is failing to observe that 2001 was a much bigger economic hiccup. If he is looking at unemployment and GDP then he is ignoring the Carter slump that carried into the early 80s. Obviously times are bad. My company yesterday announced the closing of their wafer fab in Phoenix, and 350 jobs with it. Most people I know are working under some type of work and or pay cut.

Times are tough, but let’s keep our perspective intact.

He goes on to say that “…each day we wait to begin the work of turning our economy around, more people lose their jobs, their savings and their homes. And if nothing is done, this recession might linger for years,” yet later he turns around and says that even if we pass the economic stimulus plan “our economic recovery will be measured in years, not months.”

So what is our ONE TRILLION DOLLAR debt plan going to get us?

The emphasis of the President’s whole piece is urgency. This plan needs to get passed today. But if you look at the Congressional Budget Office analysis of the stimulus only 60% of the money (at best) will go into the economy by the end of 2010. Almost TWO YEARS! If this is money that really could help the economy now, then why isn’t the bill structured to deliver the money now. Tax cuts are the most expedient way to do that because businesses see the benefit immediately; individuals see the benefit in their next pay check. Tax cuts put money into the market rapidly and with much greater efficiency.

Unfortunately President Obama doesn’t hold a very high opinion of tax cuts and doesn’t think that the American people do either. He states, “I reject these theories, and so did the American people when they went to the polls in November and voted resoundingly for change.” I’m sure that the change the people were wanting was not a dramatic leap in national debt or budget deficits. If the President would like to consult the people on this “change” then he would do well to analyze the most recent Gallup poll which shows that only 38% of the people want to see the current stimulus plan pass, or the Rasmussen poll that shows that 57% of Americans think tax cuts will stimulate the economy.

The fact is the American people are looking at this bill and realizing that it will do nothing for our economy accept suck more money out of it and put a huge increase in the debt that will be carried by Americans for generations. If this stimulus will really be so effective then President Obama would have been better off spending his time and editorial space to detail how this plan will actually create the 3 million jobs that he anticipates. Resorting to scare tactics and depression preaching says a lot about what this bill really is and unfortunately, a lot about the kind of leader that President Obama looks to be. Some things in Washington may have changed, but the “trust us, we know what’s best for you”, elitist mentality is fully intact.

If at first you don't succeed...

A little lite hearted link here about a grandma in South Korea trying to get her driver's license. She has been at it every day they are open since 2005.

She's taken the written test 771 times... and failed every time, but says she will continue to take it.

THAT'S persistence!

Pray for the health of Pres Obama and Vice Pres Biden

Otherwise this lady will be our president.


I realize the audio is a little weak. Sorry. But she claims that 500 million Americans lose their job every month. Considering there are about 300 million people in the US, and about 135 million of them are working, then each of them would have to lose their job three times every month.

It's sad but it wasn't the first time she said it... I think someone might need to actually TELL her that if she is going to pull numbers from some random orifice, that she should at least make them believable!

Go Sen. Coburn!!!!

Finally there is someone in the senate who is talking sense. Senator Tom Coburn makes some great points about the stimulus plan and details what should and shouldn’t be included in a bill to help boost the economy. He also points out that we are repeating the very same mistakes that got us into this mess.

It's time for government to quit masking the symptoms and deal with this crisis
at its source: toxic assets in the mortgage market and a federal government that
continues to pollute our economy with pork and failed interventionist policies.

You can find the whole text of his oped piece on his website. His plan and his amendments focus on FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY. Finally SOMEBODY is speaking the right language!

These are the amendments to the bill the Sen. Coburn is pushing. They are a good start. If you go to his website and check here he gives a comprehensive list of the pork and just plain bad ideas that are in the bill.

1. Require that all money in the bill given to states be a loan that must be repaid.
2. Strike $246 million “Hollywood earmark” for the purchase of motion picture film.
3. Strike “biggest earmark of all time” – $2 billion for FutureGen clean coal power plant.
4. Sense of the Senate that the Congress should support President Obama’s “Plan for Restoring Fiscal Discipline.” (Specifically relating to cutting costs and inefficiencies of government.)
5. No funds shall be used for casinos, aquariums, zoos, museums, golf courses, or swimming pools (mirror House language).
6. No more than $1 billion may be spent on projects for federal agencies inside the beltway.
7. Require that any contract that is awarded must be competitively bid.
8. Convert $9 billion for broadband into loans for internet service providers/telecom companies to build infrastructure in market-sustainable areas.
9. Prohibit any Corps construction funds appropriated in this Act from being used for initial construction projects until all unfinished Corps projects have been completed.
10. No funds from the Federal Building Fund may be used to construct new federal buildings until the government reduces its inventory of surplus/excess real property by 50 percent as of the date of bill passage.
11. None of the funds made available for the National Park Service may be expended unless such funding directly reduces the deferred maintenance backlog.
12. Strike authority for the Director of Indian Health Service to spend all health information technology funds ($85 million) at his discretion, regardless of current law (competitive awards, bidding, etc).
13. Cut $3.25 billion in funding for Workforce Investment Act programs since WIA has not been reauthorized and GAO has found duplicative job-training programs across 8 different federal agencies.
14. No funds in the Act may go to a public or private institution of high education that has an endowment of more than $15 billion and/or spends more than $100,000 on lobbying annually. 15. Make the “making work pay” tax credit non-refundable (the plan to give $500 or $1,000 checks of every family).

Ata boy Mr. President!

I have no doubt that Pres Obama is going to take a beating in the press and in the conservative alternative media, for the next couple of days over the three nominees who have turned up with tax problems. As he should. In my opinion it was bad judgment to nominate all three of these people. Obama’s team of ‘vetters’ and advisors should be beaten senseless, by the President himself.

However, that being said, what you are watching is some seriously smart political moves by the president. Instead of blaming it on his staff, which he had a tendency to do during the campaign, he accepted full responsibility and said that HE was sending the wrong message to the American people by nominating these tax evading knuckleheads. He didn’t say that this was all news to him, like he did with the Rev. Wright issue. He didn’t say that this was the fault of the vetting process, or try and blame the system. In this statement Pres. Obama not only OWNED the mistake, but owned the EFFECTS of the mistake. It wasn’t only that he put forward people that had tax issues, but that he put forward multiple people that hadn’t paid taxes that they should have and that communicated the wrong message to the average American. That’s how you take responsibility.

Well done Mr. President, very well done.

Mitch... you're killin' me... not as much as the others... but you're still killin' me.

Excuse me?

Normally I like Mitch McConnell, but on some occasions he frustrates me. In this case, I’m not sure what all is going through his head.

I would assume that this is more of a political ploy than anything. The ‘stimulus plan’ is bad, just bad. Mitch McConnell wants to get American families into lower interest loans to free up money and get people spending again. I understand that and if I could get a 4% interest load, I would take it.

But his plan is the bad. Not as bad as the rest of the ‘stimulus’ but still bad. Let’s see, politicians want to tell the government owned mortgage companies, that shouldn't exist, how to run their business and force them to take low interest loans. Then they want those same messed up government owned mortgage companies, that shouldn’t exist, to put pressure on banks to make these low interest loans to ‘credit worthy borrowers’.

Let’s see, didn’t we get INTO this whole mess because politicians were telling Fannie and Freddie to open up loans to people and make it easier for people to get loans? Didn’t that roll down hill in a giant mound of excrement when Fannie and Freddie put that same pressure on banks to make bad loans? Banks that are now either failing or going to the government for a hand out?

How do you clean up a mess by repeating the cycle?

I appreciate the effort. And I appreciate the fact that he appears to be the only one trying to help people that have been good about actually paying their bills.

I’m just disappointed that the first thought isn’t to retract the size, scope, and cost of the government and roll out massive tax cuts. In tough times you stick to the principles.

Smaller government.

Lower taxes.