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.