Monday, August 08, 2011
Obama, 8 Aug 2011
Last Friday the United States was downgraded by a rating agency for the first time in history. Markets world-wide reacted negatively. This morning, about 20 min. ago, Obama spoke in public for the first time on the event. His reaction: more of the same.
He gave his #@&*! campaign speech! Blame S&P, blame the Repubs and Tea Party, blame Europe, blame tsunamis. He said he'd lay out his plan for recovery "in the coming weeks" and would work with the supercommittee on crafting legislation to deal with the debt. The only ideas he set out with any specificity were to extend the payroll tax holiday, extend unemployment, "invest" in infrastructure. The man hasn't had a new idea since February 2009!
I hate to say it but our President is a useless piece of baggage and is doing more to exacerbate the problem than to solve it. November 2012 can't come soon enough.
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He gave his #@&*! campaign speech! Blame S&P, blame the Repubs and Tea Party, blame Europe, blame tsunamis. He said he'd lay out his plan for recovery "in the coming weeks" and would work with the supercommittee on crafting legislation to deal with the debt. The only ideas he set out with any specificity were to extend the payroll tax holiday, extend unemployment, "invest" in infrastructure. The man hasn't had a new idea since February 2009!
I hate to say it but our President is a useless piece of baggage and is doing more to exacerbate the problem than to solve it. November 2012 can't come soon enough.
Labels: Debt, Deficit, Downgrade, Economy, Europe, Federal budget, Obama, Recession, Recovery, Republicans, Tax policy, Tea Party, Unemployment
Wednesday, August 03, 2011
The Debt "Deal" II
So, all over the media yesterday and this morning are comments, headlines and assertions that the "Tea Party won", that it "permanently changed the conversation" and that "from now on there'll never be an increase in the debt limit that doesn't involve deficit reduction".
OK, so how come it doesn't feel like the powers of light won?
How come both Obama and Chuckie Schumer both stated yesterday that now we've put the debt limit fight behind us, we can get back to the business of "investing" in new infrastructure, training, education, etc. ad nauseam. Doesn't sound like the conversation changed much to me.
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OK, so how come it doesn't feel like the powers of light won?
How come both Obama and Chuckie Schumer both stated yesterday that now we've put the debt limit fight behind us, we can get back to the business of "investing" in new infrastructure, training, education, etc. ad nauseam. Doesn't sound like the conversation changed much to me.
Labels: Debt, Deficit, Democrats, Federal budget, government, Obama, Tea Party
Friday, July 08, 2011
Epic Economic Fail
The President's (and Pelosi's and Reid's) "stimulus" program and associated policies have failed miserably. Witness today's news on jobs created and unemployment rate for June. Anybody who denies that the President's policies have failed is either insane or an idiot. The whole thing has been a Keynesian wet dream, and it has produced what one might expect from a wet dream--a sticky mess.
Congress MUST act now to reduce government spending, reduce the size of government and ease overly restrictive regulations and policies (the Canadian pipeline being only one case in point) in order to give the private sector some confidence that whatever they create won't be effectively confiscated. Any politician of any party who votes to kick the can down the road or votes in favor of anything that will increase the budget deficit (i.e., increase the national debt) should be turned out of office at the earliest opportunity. And by the way, the use of the term "spending cut" to describe a reduction in the increase in spending should be cause for tarring and feathering.
On its part, the public MUST wean itself from sucking at the federal teat and each person has to take steps to ensure his own economic well-being, as best he can. The alternative is turning the world's largest economy into mega-Greece, complete with riots in the streets.
If the people of this country spent as much time and effort focusing on the problems we face and studying the potential solutions as we have on the Casey Anthony trial, I'd feel a lot better about our future prospects. As it is, it feels more like we're on a party barge floating downstream on the Niagara River, and hardly anyone's listening to the roar of the falls.
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Congress MUST act now to reduce government spending, reduce the size of government and ease overly restrictive regulations and policies (the Canadian pipeline being only one case in point) in order to give the private sector some confidence that whatever they create won't be effectively confiscated. Any politician of any party who votes to kick the can down the road or votes in favor of anything that will increase the budget deficit (i.e., increase the national debt) should be turned out of office at the earliest opportunity. And by the way, the use of the term "spending cut" to describe a reduction in the increase in spending should be cause for tarring and feathering.
On its part, the public MUST wean itself from sucking at the federal teat and each person has to take steps to ensure his own economic well-being, as best he can. The alternative is turning the world's largest economy into mega-Greece, complete with riots in the streets.
If the people of this country spent as much time and effort focusing on the problems we face and studying the potential solutions as we have on the Casey Anthony trial, I'd feel a lot better about our future prospects. As it is, it feels more like we're on a party barge floating downstream on the Niagara River, and hardly anyone's listening to the roar of the falls.
Labels: Congress, Deficit, Economy, Federal budget, Financial crisis, government, Obama, Pelosi, Recession, Regulation, Reid, Stimulus, Unemployment
Tuesday, April 05, 2011
Budget Battles
In the face of all kinds of forecasts that predict fiscal disaster for the United States if current spending levels are allowed to continue, the Democrats in Congress, especially the Pelosi-Reid bloc, together with the President, are adamantly opposing any serious spending cuts. Apparently they believe that they can raise taxes to balance the budget, but at the rate we're borrowing, it will be impossible to balance the budget by raising taxes, because unless something is done, spending will exceed the GDP before too long.
This leads me to the regrettable conclusion that Obama, Pelosi and Reid and their followers either have the goal of bringing this country down, or they are imbeciles. I don't think they're imbeciles. Historically, when democracies have self-destructed they are inevitably replaced by dictatorships, going all the way back to ancient Rome. This sequence of events typically occurs during a crisis, and it appears that the aforementioned Democrats have created and are bent on perpetuating a fiscal crisis of epic proportions. This cannot be allowed to continue because it constitutes an existential threat to the United States of America that is at least the equal of anything that the Axis powers of WWII or the Soviet Union could have mounted.
Wake up! In the words of Thomas Paine, "These are times that try mens souls ...." Americans of all political persuasions need to acquaint themselves with the facts--ALL the facts, not just the ones they want to hear, then think hard about what future they wish for the United States and vote accordingly.
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This leads me to the regrettable conclusion that Obama, Pelosi and Reid and their followers either have the goal of bringing this country down, or they are imbeciles. I don't think they're imbeciles. Historically, when democracies have self-destructed they are inevitably replaced by dictatorships, going all the way back to ancient Rome. This sequence of events typically occurs during a crisis, and it appears that the aforementioned Democrats have created and are bent on perpetuating a fiscal crisis of epic proportions. This cannot be allowed to continue because it constitutes an existential threat to the United States of America that is at least the equal of anything that the Axis powers of WWII or the Soviet Union could have mounted.
Wake up! In the words of Thomas Paine, "These are times that try mens souls ...." Americans of all political persuasions need to acquaint themselves with the facts--ALL the facts, not just the ones they want to hear, then think hard about what future they wish for the United States and vote accordingly.
Labels: Congress, Constitution, Debt, Deficit, Democrats, Economy, Federal budget, Financial crisis, History, Obama, Pelosi, politics, Reid, Republicans
Saturday, March 19, 2011
Throw the President Under The Bus
Let's face it, friends, we've elected as our President a narcissistic incompetent boob who makes Hamlet look decisive, and who's giving socialism a bad name. The man couldn't lead himself into a mens room, and his foreign policy consists of emboldening our enemies while simultaneously alienating our allies. He has made himself a national liability, and as Glenn Reynolds has repeatedly said, a reprise of the Carter years is now the best case scenario for the Obama administration.
If the Democrats in Congress are smart, they'll throw him under the bus and start working with the Repubs to solve the budget, debt and policy problems that are rapidly heading toward becoming an existential threat to our Republic. (Not that I have any hope for the likes of Reid and Pelosi.) This process has to be bipartisan, because if it's not, neither side will have the political courage to push what needs to be done to bring spending under control and allow the economy to reenergize itself. A cheap way to start would be to kill Cap 'n' Tax once and for all, get rid of Elizabeth Warren and her Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and generally get out of the business of regulating everything at the Federal level. States need to have more power to manage their own affairs, because most of them are on the verge of going broke.
In order to have a zero-debt national budget, spending would have to be cut by at least 30 percent, and if you believe the Wikipedia article, more like 40 percent in FY 2012. That's on the order of a $1.5 trillion reduction in spending, yet Congress is wasting time and perfectly good oxygen arguing over whether to cut $6 billion (Dems) or $60 billion (Repubs) from spending in the current fiscal year. Let's use $50 billion as a compromise--let's see, that's 5 followed by 10 zeros divided by 15 followed by 11 zeros--canceling zeros ... 5 over 150 equals 3 and 1/3 percent, or .0333 of what needs to be cut in order to stop the national debt from growing. And Harry Reid and his buddies talk about "draconian" cuts proposed by the Repubs. Idiots! We need to get rid of whole departments!
Not that there's a shortage of idiocy floating around. The MSM won't report this because they're ideologically in bed with the Reids and Pelosis of the world, so voters, who have a vague idea that we have too much debt and are adding to it at the rate of some $4 billion a day, still don't grasp either the magnitude of the problem or how close we are to crashing. I know austerity is painful, but not as painful as a total fiscal collapse of the country.
All I can say is that our political class better start growing some cojones or we'll all be dumpster diving for dinner before we know it, because the crash will make the Great Depression seem like a kindergarten picnic.
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If the Democrats in Congress are smart, they'll throw him under the bus and start working with the Repubs to solve the budget, debt and policy problems that are rapidly heading toward becoming an existential threat to our Republic. (Not that I have any hope for the likes of Reid and Pelosi.) This process has to be bipartisan, because if it's not, neither side will have the political courage to push what needs to be done to bring spending under control and allow the economy to reenergize itself. A cheap way to start would be to kill Cap 'n' Tax once and for all, get rid of Elizabeth Warren and her Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and generally get out of the business of regulating everything at the Federal level. States need to have more power to manage their own affairs, because most of them are on the verge of going broke.
In order to have a zero-debt national budget, spending would have to be cut by at least 30 percent, and if you believe the Wikipedia article, more like 40 percent in FY 2012. That's on the order of a $1.5 trillion reduction in spending, yet Congress is wasting time and perfectly good oxygen arguing over whether to cut $6 billion (Dems) or $60 billion (Repubs) from spending in the current fiscal year. Let's use $50 billion as a compromise--let's see, that's 5 followed by 10 zeros divided by 15 followed by 11 zeros--canceling zeros ... 5 over 150 equals 3 and 1/3 percent, or .0333 of what needs to be cut in order to stop the national debt from growing. And Harry Reid and his buddies talk about "draconian" cuts proposed by the Repubs. Idiots! We need to get rid of whole departments!
Not that there's a shortage of idiocy floating around. The MSM won't report this because they're ideologically in bed with the Reids and Pelosis of the world, so voters, who have a vague idea that we have too much debt and are adding to it at the rate of some $4 billion a day, still don't grasp either the magnitude of the problem or how close we are to crashing. I know austerity is painful, but not as painful as a total fiscal collapse of the country.
All I can say is that our political class better start growing some cojones or we'll all be dumpster diving for dinner before we know it, because the crash will make the Great Depression seem like a kindergarten picnic.
Labels: Congress, Debt, Deficit, Democrats, Federal budget, government, Media inanity, Obama, Pelosi, politicians, politics, Reid, Republicans
Friday, February 05, 2010
Fisking the Obama Budget Message
Keith Hennessey dismantles President Obama's whiny budget message, and provides rational and well-reasoned talking points for anyone who has to argue with liberals on the subject. It's a must-read.
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Labels: Economics, Economy, Federal budget, Finance, government, Obama, Tax policy
