President Obama, in his weekly address Saturday, said the country cannot “settle for a future of rising deficits and debts that our children cannot pay.”
…and the members of OPEC would like you to conserve fossil fuels. Oh and – hee hee – Jim Cramer has a stock tip for you. Uhhh, and Dan Rather has invited you to an “Ethics in Journalism” seminar. Oooo – Madonna and Alec Baldwin are co-authoring a book on parenting.
Meanwhile Brack O’Bomba is spending your Billions.
The audacity indeed.
That is the percentage Obama is proposing to cut from the budget to reduce the deficit.
A senior administration officials says President Barack Obama is ready to ask federal department and agency chiefs to find $100 million to cut from the budget when he holds his first formal Cabinet meeting.
Now before you jump to the conclusion that this is some sort of PR stunt on the part of Jimmy Carter II, consider this:
If you were applying the same reduction to the purchase of a $50,000 car, it would amount to $1.41. If you were applying the same reduction to a family’s monthly budget of $4000 per month, it would amount to 11 cents per month. (!!!)
OK – go ahead and jump to the aforementioned conclusions now.
As for me, I can’t wait to get home tonight and tell my kids that our government is mortgaging their future a wee bit less than we thought!
…You’re only a Year Awaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!
Barack Obama is tough on earmarks! Just like he campaigned.
White House budget director Peter Orszag says the Obama administration isn’t happy with the billions of dollars aimed at lawmakers’ pet projects – also known as earmarks. Obama had campaigned on changing the way such money is appropriated by Congress.
Gosh darn it. The President’s not happy. So he’s going to use his Veto power, right?
Nope.
Yet Orszag says Obama doesn’t want to revisit the spending bill Congress put together before he was elected and wants to move on. Next year, according to Orszag, when Obama is fully involved in the next budget from the start, earmarks will be handled differently.
Sure they will. It takes more than a year to grow a spine does it?
That’s Change® you’ll just have to wait for.
Fresch Fisch asks:
The “stimulus” money coming to Minnesota will be full of strings and conditions in order to accept the money. Will our state elected officials let us read the details of the handouts before they accept them?
Oh, goodness no. Any good con man knows that getting in and out fast is the key to pulling a fast one on a ripe suck.
To: President Barack Obama
From: Mitch Berg – American, Citizen, Accidental Constituent
Re: Geese and Ganders
Mr. President,
As a person with an innate notion of common sense and right and wrong, I don’t disagree that it’s really, really bad PR for Wall Street firms and banks that are asking for government bailouts to be giving out nearly $20 billion in bonuses.
The tongue-lashing you gave them…:
Summoning reporters after a closed meeting with Mr. Geithner, Mr. Obama blasted earlier news that Wall Street had paid out $18.4 billion in bonuses, calling it “the height of irresponsibility” and “shameful.””There will be time for them to make profits, and there will be time for them to get bonuses,” he said. “Now is not that time.”
The tough talk suggested a firmer stand from the administration in its oversight of banks. But it also had a political purpose: eliciting support for an expensive and unpopular bailout program that will likely require more cash from Congress.
…makes political sense.
On the other hand, the bonuses are attempts to retain top “talent” at firms that do drive this nation’s economic engine. Right? Wrong? I’m not sure.
But it’s certainly no worse than the hundreds of millions – billions – your administration is planning to give to ACORN, the National Endowment for the Arts, global warming cultists, unions, and Trojan-brand condoms – none of which brings a single job to this nation (other than, I suppose, at Trojan – although I suppose you know that recessions actually help the market for contraceptives, among other less-clinical goodies).
If I didn’t know better – and as a bitter, gun-clinging Jesus freak, you just know I don’t, right? – I’d almost thing you were trying an FDR-like bit of populist displacement, to focus the people’s attention on these (ill-timed) bonuses via the lens of your friends in tingly-leg media, to drown out questions about the pork your “stimulus” plan is shoveling.
Please get back to me. Thanks.
That is all.
…but sometimes they’re just stupid.
Nancy Pelosi gave up on the condoms today, but stimuless dollars for ACORN?
Seriously?!
Republican lawmakers are raising concerns that ACORN, the low-income advocacy group under investigation for voter registration fraud, could be eligible for billions in aid from the economic stimulus proposal working its way through the House.
House Republican Leader John Boehner issued a statement over the weekend noting that the stimulus bill wending its way through Congress provides $4.19 billion for “neighborhood stabilization activities.”
…probably won’t make it through the Senate, but come on.
Weasels.
Conservative Republicans in Congress may out-numbered but they may still be in the majority.
The real fiscal policy battle is going to be among liberal and conservative Democrats, the “Blue Dogs” as they are known, and they seem to think Barack Obama is one of them.
“Barack totally gets it . . . He is smarter than Bill Clinton and disciplined.” So says Tennessee Democratic Congressman Jim Cooper on the Thursday before Mr. Obama’s inauguration.
Sitting in his office a stone’s throw from where the festivities will take place, I ask about his role in the big transformation coming to Washington. He’s one of the leaders of a gang of moderate Democrats called the Blue Dogs. They’re meeting their first Democratic president in a while, and Mr. Cooper may have a big effect on the agenda. He smiles gently and says, “If we were to ally with the Republicans, we could swing any vote in the House of Representatives.”
The Blue Dogs gang is growing and is made up of a number of Democrats that didn’t vote for the first Stimuless Package, or the Big Three (…Two…One) Bailout, are against tax increases and actually favor “targeted” tax cuts.
So far they want to play nice with Lefty Pond Scum like Frank ‘n Beans, Pelosi and Reid, but this could be the makings of a surprise and possibly epic battle for the high ground.
If they are inclined to wrangle with Nancy Pelosi and the more liberal contingent in the Democratic Party, they will drive policy, especially as a check on spending. “Ideally the White House will see things our way, so they will present legislation on the Hill that we find acceptable,” Mr. Cooper says. “If they stray too much from that or if a certain part of Congress strays too much from that, then we may have to object.”
But is Barack one of them?
Obama said that he has made clear to his advisers that some of the difficult choices–particularly in regards to entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare – should be made on his watch. “We’ve kicked this can down the road and now we are at the end of the road,” he said.
The question is whether Obama actually used the perjorative “entitlement” and whether his idea of “choices” is cutting benefits and/or forcing Social Security and other entitlements to do more with less…or just raising taxes.
If the Blue Dogs are right, we might actually have another Bill Clinton on our hands, one that won’t dip his pen in the company ink (Michelle would rip his head off I surmise), which given the fiscal policies of GWB, might be Change© we fiscal conservatives can live with.
…albeit given the lack of choice in the matter for the next two to four years.
But what of the monster stimulus package? What doth the Chien Bleu say of that?
“…I think there are infrastructure things that are legitimate to spend money on,” like the interstate highway system. “For the stimulus package to work in the economy, you have to have long-term credibility. If people think we are inviting inflation back in, or if we’re not going to prudently manage the nation’s finances, the stimulus package is largely a waste of time.”
A great thing about Mr. Obama’s plan, he says, is the tax cuts. “I think stimulus can come in a variety of forms, but I think the key message is Democrats are not for tax increases. Democrats can be for tax cuts when appropriate, when needed, when targeted. We can argue about the type of cut, but the key element of this proposal was facing the payroll tax. That is the most regressive, most antijob tax in America and very few presidents in American history have touched it. And Barack is touching it in this package. That is an achievement of immense proportions in and of itself.”
I’m still not convinced this stimulus will stimulate anything and I remain skeptical of Barack Obama’s definition of a “tax cut.”
In the mean time, check out these quotes…from a Democrat no less…Blue Dog Cooper:
[The deficit is] even worse than most people think, he says, because of dodgy accounting used by the federal government.
“The U.S. government uses cash accounting,” he says. “That is illegal for any enterprise of any size in America except for the U.S. government. Every for-profit business, every not-for-profit business, every state and local government has to use real accounting except for Uncle Sam.”
Barack Obama is inheriting over $60 trillion of problems. This is not counting the bailout, or Social Security or anything.”
Standard & Poor’s reported that the U.S. Treasury bond would lose its AAA rating by 2012 because of the way Washington has been carrying on. America would have the same credit rating as Estonia and Greece, and then the same as Poland and Brazil, and then it would be like . . . Mexico. “Yet no one knows about this,” he says.
We will be watching Congressman Cooper and his Dogs.
Let the battle begin.
Barack Obama has a dream of affordable broadband internet for every American household and six billion dollars of the Democrats stimulus package is earmarked to that end.
Broadband carriers say it’s too little and it will be too late.
“I was incredibly impressed how quickly the House moved,” says Shirley Bloomfield, senior vice-president for federal relations at Qwest Communications (Q), a Denver-based communications provider that serves 14 Western states. “They’ve got some good concepts. But $6 billion is not going to get you to ubiquitous broadband.”
…some communications providers warn that the package as designed in the House bill may get bogged down by too much government bureaucracy, and fail to create jobs quickly—a key objective of the federal stimulus.
…the House bill is focused on using grants, loans, and loan guarantees, but it doesn’t use tax incentives at all. Grants would likely take many months to be distributed, whereas some companies say they could act much more quickly if they knew they could receive tax credits for their investments. “With grants it is eight months of bureaucracy before any money gets to its destination,” says an official for a large communications provider. “If you are looking for a quick stimulus hit, tax credits would be better.”
Do you mind if I repeat that?
“If you are looking for a quick stimulus hit, tax credits would be better.”
Just as giving free money to banks doesn’t guarantee they will lend it out, internet network providers may not be interested in stimulus money conditioned with government mandates, further diminishing the stimulus’ potential impact on growth.
However, some organizations such as Public Knowledge are hopeful that open access will mean that network builders—such as Verizon Communications (VZ), AT&T (T), Time Warner Cable (TWC), and Comcast (CMCSA)—must allow rivals to use their networks at wholesale prices.
“You would be required to lease space over these networks the way we used to do.”
If this is the case, ITIF’s Atkinson warns that many broadband providers would not participate in the program. “You’ll effectively have a boycott,” he says. “You’ll see very, very few takers.”
Internet access is a boon to the free flow of information, education and free enterprise, but high-speed access is not a right of every American citizen. Spending billions of dollars so more Americans can access their email, update their Facebook page and surf porn more efficiently has dubious value for the incremental creation of jobs.
I’m going to be sick.
I just read Nick Coleman’s snarky satire on Zygi’s recent offer to the good people of Minnesota: Vikings Stadium As Economic Stimulus.
Minnesota is in trouble, with a $5 billion deficit staring us in the face and more red ink to follow. We can’t cut our way out of budget problems like that. We have to spend our way out. That’s where Zygi comes in. Thanks to Zygi, we are almost out of trouble already.
Billion dollar football stadium? What are you talking about? That ain’t no stadium. That’s a public works project.
…and I agree.
I’m going to go lay down now.
Barack Obama’s trillion-dollar economic and job creation stimulus is a Trojan Horse for his Grand Vision of Mass Transit and The Battle for the Planet.
Obama wants a large portion of the money spent on mass transit but exactly how does the expansion of infrastructure that requires permanent public subsidy to serve a small segment of society qualify as a stimulus? You could argue that highways are of the same ilk, but highways are used by everyone in the food chain whereas mass transit requires the majority to subsidize the minority that are it’s patrons.
The states that would be in receipt of these ill-borrowed billions have it right.
Dec. 24 (Bloomberg) — Missouri’s plan to spend $750 million in federal money on highways and nothing on mass transit in St. Louis doesn’t square with President-elect Barack Obama’s vision for a revolutionary re-engineering of the nation’s infrastructure.
Utah would pour 87 percent of the funds it may receive in a new economic stimulus bill into new road capacity. Arizona would spend $869 million of its $1.2 billion wish list on highways.
The argument is a labyrinth of cautionary tales.
Speaking of digging holes, Obama also wants to spend $60 billion to “provide financing to transportation infrastructure projects across the nation.” He says “these projects will create up to two million new direct and indirect jobs and stimulate approximately $35 billion per year in new economic activity.”
Fixing a bridge, widening a highway or building a light rail system may or may not make economic sense. But the fact that it involves paying people to operate jackhammers and pour concrete does not make it any more worthwhile. If creating jobs can justify transportation projects, why not fill the country with bridges to nowhere?
Consider:
We all know what a Liberal means when they use the word “innovative.” It condescends whatever their over-educated “elite” brains deem shall be the object of increased government spending. It’s how socialism became “progressive.”
In proposing a stimulus plan that could total as much as $1 trillion, Obama has promised a new federal infrastructure program that would dwarf President Dwight Eisenhower’s interstate highway system that began in 1956. Obama told reporters at a Dec. 7 news conference that his effort would go beyond “roads and bridges” and fund more innovative projects.
I wonder if anyone has considered that the value of our national interstate system was not the temporary and transient jobs it created but rather the stimulus it created for the economy via efficiencies and freedoms it afforded capitalism and the consumer?
We are fast realizing that Obama isn’t any more innovative than any of his liberal predecessors in the White House. His ideas are warmed-over versions of Eisenhower’s and FDR’s and differ only in scale. What glory after all could be gathered to the bosom of the motherland by a project “half as big” as Eisenhower’s?
If, as widely expected, Barack Obama faces a recession when he takes office in January, many Americans will expect him to deliver on his promise to “create jobs.” They probably will be disappointed, because Obama seems to view job creation not only as something the government does with taxpayers’ money but as an end in itself. That’s a recipe for wasteful spending that will divert resources from more productive uses, and ultimately for higher unemployment than would otherwise occur.
Obama says he will “transform the challenge of global climate change into an opportunity to create 5 million new green jobs,” which he likens to the economic activity triggered by the personal computer. This rosy way of looking at global warming is a variation on the “broken window” fallacy dissected by the classical liberal economist Frederic Bastiat, according to which the loss caused by smashing a window is offset by the employment it gives the glazier.
Leaving aside the desirability of “energy independence” and the merits of Obama’s approach to reducing carbon dioxide emissions (which has the government, rather than the market, picking the most efficient methods), the fact that he lists “jobs that can’t be outsourced” as a distinct goal is troubling. Paying people to dig holes and fill them in again also creates “jobs that can’t be outsourced,” but that doesn’t mean it’s a smart investment or an appropriate use of taxpayers’ money.Obama’s job fetish is apparent even when he talks about spontaneous economic activity. “Businesses should live up to their responsibilities to create American jobs,” he declared in his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention. In a free market, businesses exist because they provide goods or services that people value. A business that makes job creation its overriding goal will not be employing anyone for long.
The preclusion is that stimulus packages in the whole (pun intended), and especially those spent on social engineering projects or contrived global crises aren’t worth it.
All Hope® for Change® is lost.
As Governor Pawlenty prudently cuts aid to local government, these cities will in turn need to prioritize their expenditures.
I’ve got an idea. Cut lobbying expenditures.
Plymouth taking an exit from I-494 lobbying group
Unhappy that Interstate 494 has not been widened through Plymouth as it has through Minnetonka and Eden Prairie, Plymouth plans to pull out of the 494 Corridor Commission and pocket the $16,000 it would have contributed to the lobbying group next year.
Over the past 10 years, the city has paid more than $100,000 to be part of the multi-city group but without obvious benefit, Mayor Kelli Slavik said. “They don’t seem to be lobbying anything for Plymouth,” Slavik said. “If we are truly interested in getting a third lane on 494, then we need to refocus our efforts and spend that money more wisely.”
I can’t imagine $16,000 per year is a large line item for a city the size of Plymouth; that’s probably the annual fuel cost for one of their snow plows.
Some perspective:
Local governments spent a total of $7,817,620 on lobbying activities in 2007.
Sixty-five local governments (two more than in 2006) directly employed or hired contract
lobbyists in 2007Local governments paid dues of $10,024,137 in 2007 to local government associations that also represented their interests before the legislature.
Statewide, $18,000,000 per year and growing. Seems like a lot of money to hire someone else to spam the legislature with phone calls and emails.
Dopey me, I guess. I am sure there is so much more to the art of being a lobbyist.
Somehow the idea of taxpayer money being spent to lobby for taxpayer money smacks of government waste at best; corruption at worst.
I used to hate these bumper stickers.
Now I want one.
Visiting with business-owner and otherwise conservative clients these past few days, I have found a consistent level of puzzlement at best – ire more often – with President Bush’s move to override Congress, a GOP filibuster, and public opinion with his move this week to issue a bailout for GM and Chrysler in the waning days of his Presidency.
Why, Mr. President, Why?
To divide the GOP even further?
…exit the White House on a positive note (one that resonates only with other liberals)?
Use it or lose it? Did George Bush feel the need to spend his last dollar of political capital?
Conservatives are more pissed off with Bush than ever before.
Ford says “No Thanks.” Henry would be proud.
Cerberus, Chrysler’s privately-held owner says “You first”, Mr. and Mrs. Taxpayer.
Cerberus Capital Management…said Friday that it would put $2 billion from Chrysler Financial into the automaker’s operations after being granted a $4 billion government loan.
Cerberus…previously resisted making further investments in Chrysler, citing its obligations to its investors (who must not be taxpayers?-JR). But Friday, after the government announced emergency loans for Chrysler and General Motors, Cerberus relented.
“In connection with the loan to be provided by Treasury, Cerberus has agreed to utilize the first $2 billion of proceeds from Chrysler Financial to backstop the loan allocated to Chrysler automotive,” the firm said in statement.
As for General Motors, Chapter 11 is the best and inevitable option – the only way to force true restructuring of the nation’s largest automaker.
As for you George, Don’t let the door hitcha’.
…if the Senate denies The Big Three bailout.
Ford Bailout Money Unnecessary, Company Says
DEARBORN, Mich. — By shunning government loans, Ford Motor Co.’s top executives say they hope to buff up the automaker’s image and set it apart from its cash-starved Detroit competitors, General Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC.
Why is Cerberus, one of the world’s richest private equity firms, begging for a bailout?
Buried on the business page of The New York Times Saturday were the details of Detroit’s biggest snow job yet–literally as well as figuratively. Turns out that Cerberus CEO John Snow, who spent three-and-a-half lackluster, and some might say lap-doggish, years as President Bush’s second Treasury secretary, is leading a who’s who of crony capitalists in a lobbying campaign for a taxpayer bailout to “salvage Cerberus’ investment in Chrysler.”
That’s right. Not to save the jobs of Chrysler employees or America’s disappearing manufacturing base, mind you, but to prevent “one of the world’s richest and most secretive private investment companies” from having to take a relatively modest financial hit and use some of its own capital to prop up the smallest of the major automakers.
As it turns out, this may end up being a GM-only bailout. Assuming Cerberus shows some integrity, and Ford isn’t willing to sell it’s soul to Congress for a handout, will the Senate be able to save one and not give something to the other two?
UPDATE: Auto Bailout Appears Dead in Senate as G.O.P. Resists
…so that we can load it up with the most useless projects we can devise…but we’ll call them “Infrastructure,” and taxpayers will look the other way.
From a couple posts ago…
“We understand that we’ve got to provide a blood infusion to the patient right now to make sure that the patient is stabilized. And that means that we can’t worry short term about the deficit. We’ve got to make sure that the economic stimulus plan is large enough to get the economy moving,” he said.
Let’s dissect what Mr. Jimmy just said. We have to make sure to print and/or borrow so much money that the economy will have to get better?
Obama’s words rang out like a dog whistle for liberals everywhere.
And not surprisingly, the term “Infrastructure” gained a new, broader meaning.
On Monday, the U.S. Conference of Mayors went to Capitol Hill to ask for a handout, or as they put it: “We are reporting that in 427 cities of all sizes in all regions of the country, a total of 11,391 infrastructure projects (emphasis mine-JR) are ‘ready to go.’ These projects represent an infrastructure investment of $73,163,299,303 that would be capable of producing an estimated 847,641 jobs in 2009 and 2010.”
…it turns out $73 Billion is “capable” of producing 847,641 temporary jobs.
A wish list that is 11,391 projects strong! What vital infrastructure projects would cash-strapped taxpayers get for their $73 billion? Here’s a sampling:
– Hercules, Calif., wants $2.5 million in hard-earned taxpayer money for a “Waterfront Duck Pond Park,” and another $200,000 for a dog park.
– Euless, Texas, wants $15 million for the Midway Park Family Life Center, which, you’ll be glad to note, includes both a senior center and aquatic facility.
– Natchez, Miss., “needs” a new $9.5 million sports complex “which would allow our city to host major regional and national sports tournaments.”
– Henderson, Nev., is asking for $20 million to help “develop a 60 acre multi-use sports field complex.”
– Brigham City, Utah, wants $15 million for a sports park.
– Arlington, Texas, needs $4 million to expand its tennis center.
It’s a simple fact. Liberals can not be trusted with the nation’s checkbook. In a time of world financial crisis, their solution is to spend more taxpayer money on even more useless pork.
The government does have a role to play: stimulate the economy by creating incentives for growth, incentives that will be permanent, paid for by cutting government down to size. But liberals would entertain that notion. Liberals seek to justify and extend government largess, not reduce it to it’s rightful weight.
Instead of stimulating the economy, Barack Obama and his faithful liberal lunatics in Congress aspire to become the economy.
…Just nod if you can hear me. Is there anyone home?
Barack Obama is already deflecting…this is going to be a long four years for everyone if our fears of his emptysuitedness manifest themselves.
All Americans should hope that Obama grows some, and fast. What America needs now is not the rhetoric and campaign promises that landed Obama in the White House on the backs of millions of people that think he is going to save them from their rightful obligations.
Otherwise, the office of President will be of no more value to America than the mock, ego-driven farce that is the “Office of the President-Elect.”
Democrats are growing impatient with President-elect Barack Obama’s refusal to inject himself in the major economic crises confronting the country. Obama has sidestepped some policy questions by saying there is only one president at a time. But the dodge is wearing thin.
He’s going to have to be more assertive than he’s been,” House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank, D-Mass., told consumer advocates Thursday.
Frank, who has been dealing with both the bailout of the financial industry and a proposed rescue of Detroit automakers, said Obama needs to play a more significant role on economic issues.
Could there be someone less qualified than Beans ‘n Frank to deal with this crisis? Yes. Barack Obama. At least Barney Frank knows how it happened on account of his personal culpability and corruption. Not only was he at ground zero, he lit the fuse.
Obama did stress that a significant component of the fund should be used to reduce the number of foreclosures. But he did not specify a particular remedy.
Not so fast, Mr. Jimmy. You might want to consider the effect of that on your soon-to-be-plummeting approval rating.
Many Americans are outraged that their money is being spent to rescue irresponsible mortgage borrowers. Still, that probably won’t stop government officials.
There are a lot of hard-working, responsible people out there, many of whom voted for you Mr. Oprah, who are dead set against bailing out those that took imprudent risk at the expense of those that saved and lived below their means.
Insert leadership here.
What America needs is a President that tells America the truth. Government can no longer cover your six if you make bad decisions. It can’t and it won’t. It’s the only intelligent thing Jesse Ventura ever said.
Based on some of BHO’s cabinet choices, I am guardedly optimistic that he in fact is weighing his options and that he truly wants to do what is best for America, within the limiting realm of his ideology; but the forces of opposition, Frank, Reid, Pelosi et al, are very strong.
And soon, may not even be on his team (which may be a good thing).
“That One” spent two years telling us “Yes We Can.” Now it’s time to tell us “No We Can’t.”
As long as we are “lowering” expectations for his disciples, here’s another Hopey-Changey campaign promise that needs to be broken.
Let’s be clear on how wealth and jobs are created because a politician that says “we (the government) will create jobs” is either unaware of how capitalism works, or is (once again) just plain lying to the American people in the interest of political gain. In the case of [the man formerly known as Obammy], I’d say it’s a little of both. “Jobs” are not “created” by the government.
Make no mistake, the government has many legitimate functions. Those functions are funded and employees are hired to implement and administer them. Those particular jobs however, are not yielding net economic benefit and as such should not be taken into account as it relates to economic benefit. Creating even more of them for their own sake is simple liberal lunacy.
The dollars to fund whatever program for whom these employees would work have to come from somewhere, and there is always an opportunity cost, short term and long term, for those dollars, usually borne in “real” jobs lost somewhere else.
Nowhere is it mentioned that these “green-collar jobs” would be terribly costly, and that the planned “investments” are really just subsidies. And, as we know, things that require subsidies aren’t competitive in the market, and thus aren’t profitable.
Spending money on projects where costs exceed benefits simply to “create jobs” is a bad idea. Taking capital from productive uses and redeploying it to politically popular but nonproductive uses lowers productivity by paying those with “green jobs” more than their output is worth. It’s not welfare, it’s “greenfare.”
The “Green” movement is big business, from Hybrid cars to new forms and uses of battery and lighting technology to specialized architectural disciplines. If Obama’s ideas are superterrific, why aren’t entrepreneurs lining up first?
Claims that such “investments” will create five million jobs are false. It’s likely more jobs will be killed than created due to higher costs and increased inefficiency of the U.S. economy. A recent report from the Center for Data Analysis at the Heritage Foundation found that limiting CO2 emissions under recent proposed legislation would destroy 900,000 net jobs.
Until Barack Obama starts getting behind proven strategies like tax and (especially) spending cuts to stimulate our economy, stagnation, job loss and a volatile stock market will rule; the cycle will continue to repeat itself. Government largess got us here; it won’t get us out of here.
2008 Grants Recipients Artist Initiative
Media arts
Number of grants: 12
Total dollars granted: $59,000
Mauricio Arango, Saint Paul
$5,000 — to produce a video essay dealing with the lives of the inhabitants of the town of San Jose de Apartado in northern Colombia…so I don’t have to get a job.
Peter B. Becker Nelson, Minneapolis
$6,000 — to purchase video equipment and create a new video work that explores themes of relationships, empathy, sexuality, and gender…so I don’t have to get a job.
Paul R. Danhauser, Minneapolis
$5,200 — for a two-dimensional animated short film called “Bitter and Crabby” that deals with cute cartoon characters who are confronted by real-world morality…so I don’t have to get a job.
Amber Ellison Walker, Minneapolis
$2,000 — to increase the post-production quality of her video work and the overall quality of her publicity materials, and to have her work seen by a broader audience…so she doesn’t have to get a job.
Timothy A. Fort, Inver Grove Heights
$6,000 — for the creation of a professional broadcast-quality video of his kinetic art for Internet and television distribution…so he doesn’t have to get a job.
Nathaniel H. Freeman, Minneapolis
$6,000 — for a sixteen-stage video installation that shows the opening scene of sixteen imagined narratives, all informed by the people and events of his northeast Minneapolis neighborhood…so they don’t have to get a job.
Heather R. Johnson, Minneapolis
$5,000 — for a documentary film, titled, “No Ugly Trees,” that explores women’s body and self-esteem issues…so I don’t have to get a job.
Daniel J. Lundquist, Bloomington
$5,000 — for creative time to finish hand coloring “Boris,” an animation about overcoming difficult circumstances to live a happy life…so I don’t have to get a job.
Kevin S. McKeever, Saint Paul
$800 — to produce duplicates of his documentary that examines one man’s success in helping inner-city youths rise above crime and violence, prepare and produce related publicity packets, and submit the film to festivals…so he doesn’t have to get a job.
Pamela Nice, Saint Paul
$6,000 — for funds to help film interviews in Twin Cities coffeehouses for her next documentary, “Desert in the Coffeehouse,” a film that asks what Minnesotans know about Arab and Muslim lives…so I don’t have to get a job in a coffeehouse.
James M. Vogel, Minneapolis
$6,000 — for funds to film an observational documentary about drug abuse…so I don’t have to get a job and actually pass a drug test.
Rosemary T. Williams, Saint Paul
$6,000 — to film the documentary “Futures,” which will document open call trading at the last few North American exchanges that have not switched to digital trading…so I don’t have to get an analog job in a digital world.
The cause of our current financial system crisis, overarching government meddling and regulation, set in place by liberals, bolstered by the Clinton Administration and allowed to remain during the Bush Administration is not going away any time soon.
The Community Reinvestment Act is to blame for the financial crisis, but it so powerfully serves Democrats’ interests that they’ll do anything to protect it — including revising history.
But powerful Democrats in Washington want to protect the act — along with Fannie and Freddie — and spin the subprime scandal as the result of too little regulation, not too much.
“Repealing or weakening the CRA would be a mistake,” warns Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd, D-Conn., who argues that the CRA should be strengthened.
Dodd, the top recipient of Fannie donations and himself a beneficiary of a sweetheart mortgage brokered by a subprime lender, recently invited one of Clinton’s top enforcers of the CRA to testify.
Read the whole article for the facts.
Liberal Democrats caused this crisis, Liberal Republicans allowed it to remain, and the American people rewarded them by voting in an ever larger number of liberal politicians without the tools or the wherewithal to bring us out of this crisis. As usual, those that are responsible, productive and truly conservative will pay the price, and ultimately come to the rescue of our economy.
Democratic leaders in Congress denied the Jet-Setting Big Three CEO’s saying show us your plan before we show you the money.
The Big Three are on their own for now.
Congressional efforts to rescue Detroit’s auto makers collapsed Thursday, with lawmakers saying the industry lacked credible plans to return to profitability.
The decision came after two days in which leaders of three of America’s largest corporations pleaded for a taxpayer-financed rescue from lawmakers in front of a national television audience. The spurning of their pleas leaves in question the future of companies that have been synonymous with American industry for decades and together employ 239,000 people in the U.S. (Please see related article on Page B3.)
Democrats in Congress offered only a glimmer of hope, saying they would reconsider a rescue if General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler LLC submit convincing turnaround plans by Dec. 2.
This is a dire, critical juncture for America’s auto makers but you have to admit, Congress asking The Big Three for a business plan laying out their plans for the money if they got it? Requesting accountability? Discerning fiscal efficiency?
That’s humor.
…and it would be funny if it wasn’t real.
Frank, Pelosi and Reid wouldn’t know a business plan if they saw one let alone offering anything in the way of analysis or assessing viability.
That would be like getting marital advice from Barney Frank. Advice on manners and professional comportment from Al Franken. Executive leadership advice from Barack Obama.
Good luck Big Three. Just copy some economics paper from your freshman year of college and show it to them. They’ll never know the difference.
As in Pork that is.
As Congress debated the historic financial rescue package on Oct. 3, the world economy was hanging in the balance. The House already had rejected Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson’s emergency $700 billion banking bailout plan. The Senate, hoping to get the House to relent, added $110 billion in “sweeteners” and sent the bill back.
One of those sweeteners jumped out at Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio). It would permit Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands to pocket $192 million in federal excise taxes collected from rum-makers in those territories.
“Madam speaker, the Senate’s response to the House rejection of the Paulson plan was to add more spending. So we got tax breaks for rum,” Kaptur said from the well of the House. “You’ve got it right. R-U-M.”
This is an outrage! I rarely drink rum. If this were Brandy or Single-Malt Scotch, I would be in full support. Rum (save 151) is a waste of taxpayer dollars!
