President Obama has just created a panel to figure out how to get our debt under control.  Even when he makes a decision, such as this one, it is to pass the buck to someone else to do the heavy lifting.  His attempt to overhaul health care turned into the Harry and Nancy Show.  Obama campaigned and gave speeches while Pelosi and Reid shut out the Republicans and created the bill that could not be passed.  Obama is now trying to put lipstick on that pig, by calling for a bipartisan meeting.  But instead of starting over and getting ideas from everyone, they are basically going to pick over the stinking corpse of the bill that the Democrats could not get passed.  It is obvious that the real objective is to either get some Republicans to sign on or to use the meeting as a club to beat the Republicans as the “party of No.”

Stop Me Before I Spend

This president can’t seem to control himself and he finds that he painted himself into a corner.  If he tries to raise taxes on those who make less than $250,000 per year he will be breaking a major campaign promise.  If he stops spending on his own, he will lose the left which is about the only support he has remaining.  So he calls in Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles to co-chair a committee charged with making the president a tailor made fig leaf, to allow him to cut spending and raise taxes, while shrugging his shoulders and saying, “I can’t go a gainst the excellent advice of this august commission.”

If he wants to cut spending, he can just cut spending.  He doesn’t need a commission to do so.  How about an across the board spending freeze, except for national defense, until the the economy grows enough to balance the budget and not with gimmicks like increasing discretionary spending now 24% and then saying you will freeze that same spending for the next threee years?  How about freezing government hiring?  How about returning $500 billion in unspent stimulus money and $400 billion in repaid TARP money, plus interest, to the Treasury?  Don’t hold your breath.  That would require someone with executive experience who knows how to make a decision, rather than deliberating, like a legislator.  Sarah Palin comes to mind, as does George Bush (I & II), Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan.  These experienced executives knew how to put together a budget and make decisions.  Chris Christie in New Jersey was just sworn in last month as governor and he immediately identified the problem as too much spending and got to work cutting it back.  All that President Obama seems to know how to do is talk. 

If we start advertising now, we may get enough resumes to review to find a replacement by 2012.

When will our President come to the realization that the government does not have any money save that which is provided by its citizens?  If he understood that, he wouldn’t have said this:

“Just as it would be a terrible mistake to borrow against our children’s future to pay our way today, it would be equally wrong to neglect their future by failing to invest in areas that will determine our economic success in this new century,” Mr. Obama said at the White House.

Let me posit a translation: we shouldn’t borrow against our children’s future, so we should borrow against our children’s future.  And let me add another pet peeve and that is how the statists have redefined the word “invest”.  What they really mean is spend, but invest sounds so much more grown up.  However, most intelligent people understand invest to mean when you put your money into something with the belief you will get all your money back plus a premium.  You don’t invest in the stock market with the idea you will never see your money again and will subsequently put more money into it next year.  You invest in a house with the idea that you will sell it later for more money.  You don’t invest in a house if you expect it to go down in value.  But our elected representatives would have you believe that pouring money down a rat hole is an investment.

Immature and Irresponsible

Like a child caught standing over his mother’s prized china lying shattered on the floor, President Obama wants us to believe it’s not his fault, no, we are going to have trillion dollar plus deficits for the next ten years because of Bush and the Republicans.  He is one year into his presidency.  This is his budget, not Bush’s.  If he can’t handle the job he should resign and turn it over to, er, Biden?  Check that.  Perhaps he can just go watch television in the White House for the next three years and leave the rest of us alone.  Doing nothing would cause less damage than what he has planned.  He jacked up spending 24% and then “courageously” instituted a freeze on that spending for three years.  Think about it.  If I gave you a 24% raise on Monday and then came back on Friday and said, “Gee, I’m really sorry to have to do this, but times are really tough.  I’m going to have to freeze your new salary for the next three years.  Can you ever forgive me?”  Could you not burst out laughing?

We’re Going to Make Some Tough Decisions…Next Year

We are in a fiscal crisis, but don’t think for a moment you are going to see any tough decisions in an election year, particularly when so many Democrats are in danger of having to find jobs in the real world.  So this year is tough talk.  Next year we get busy!

Democrats or Republicans or maybe the Tea Party movement is going to have to act, sooner rather than later.  Here is how the federal government breaks down:

• Medicare and Medicaid — 33%
• Social Security — 21%
• Interest on the Debt — 8%
• Defense — 20%
• Non-Defense Discretionary — 18%

The first three items continue to grow with no signs of slowing and interest will really take off when the Fed stops the easy money program.  Defense can shrink as Iraq and Afghanistan stabilize, but not a lot as this is still job number one for the federal government.  So do you see the problem?  You can thank Democratic President Lyndon Baines Johnson for the first ticking time bomb above.  You can thank Democratic President Franklin Delano Roosevelt for the second ticking time bomb.  You can now thank President Barack Obama for what is becoming the third ticking time bomb and that is without his Health Care, and Cap and Trade.

So how is President Obama going to “solve” this problem?  By tinkering with the last item, Non-Defense Discretionary spending.  But don’t worry, he will also tax those evil rich and make sure they pay their fair share.  But before he goes too far down that path I have a suggestion for him:

1. Listen closely to the Beatles song “Taxman“
2. Ask yourself why the members of the band moved to the United States?

High tax states like New York and California are finding that a significant number of their wealthy citizenry are moving to lower tax states, exacerbating those states’ fiscal problems.  If you look at the percentage of the population that pays the lion’s share of the taxes you will quickly see that if a relatively small percentage of the population, who can afford to live anywhere, actually decide to leave the United States of Tax the Rich, the resulting fiscal problem will be very, very severe. Obama can only poke his tax stick in that cage so long before he gets a nasty reaction.

We’re All Standing On the Third Rail

Social Security has been called the third rail of politics, but the reality is that we are all standing on the third rail trying to keep our balance and if anyone slips and touches the ground, we’re all fried.  We have to suck up the courage to address Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.  If we can’t slow the growth of these programs so that they take a smaller amount of the budget pie each year, we are toast.  None of those programs is in the Constitution, but the liberals/progressives created them with empty promises of benefits without costs.  This should have been the first clue:

“Ida May Fuller worked for three years under the Social Security program. The accumulated taxes on her salary during those three years was a total of $24.75. Her initial monthly check was $22.54. During her lifetime she collected a total of $22,888.92 in Social Security benefits.”

Ida May Fuller was the first recipient of monthly S.S. checks when she retired in 1940. She lived to be 100.

She almost got paid back in full with her first check. She got 926 times more than what she paid in. That’s a 92,600% return on “investment.” Not bad, huh?

She got back almost everything she paid in with her first check.  Instead of ringing alarm bells all over the country, politicians patted themselves on the back for the great system they created.  We sent Bernie Madoff to jail, why should Congress be exempt?  What Bernie Madoff did was child’s play in comparison.  Where he fell short was that he couldn’t force people to participate through payroll taxes, and he couldn’t print money.  So why is what he did criminal and what Congress is doing not?  He had to get his participants to voluntarily turn over their money.  He promised returns of 40% per year.  Ida may got 92,600% return on her investment.

Burn the Ships

There is the story of a general who landed on a beach to face an formidable enemy.  He ordered that the ships that brought them there be burned.  By doing so, he knew his men would fight ferociously because there was no escape, either they fought to win or they died.  Perhaps we should do the same with Congress and President Obama.  Fix Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid or you join Bernie Madoff in Cell Block “C”, for running a massive Ponzi scheme.  What has kept Congress from fixing this in the past is the fear of not getting reelected.  Let’s raise the stakes so that not getting reelected would pale in comparison to incarceration.  It’s time our elected officials started paying attention to the people and not their perks.  The disaster train is going downhill and picking up speed, headed for a cliff.  It’s time ALL politicians put the country first and fixed this problem that, after all, they created.  It’s fun to give out the goodies, but this is a crisis that cannot be shunned.  It must be dealt with head on.

The Joke is on You

Joe Biden just held a press event to reveal how he was going to help the middle class.  The man who has a hard time reaching into his own pocket for more than $1 a day in charity to give to his fellow man, has no problem reaching into your pocket and give the fruit of your labor to someone else.  It’s a win-win.  It doesn’t cost Joe Biden and it helps him keep getting elected and drawing a salary that you pay for.

Here is what he revealed:

1. Nearly Doubling the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit — in an economy that has over 10% unemployment this administration is focusing on helping those who already have a job and income.  I’m all for tax cuts, but not targeted cuts.  Cut income tax rates and jobs will be created.  I don’t believe this administration knows how to aim anything well enough to hit a target
2. Limiting a student’s federal loan payments to 10 percent of his/her income above a basic living allowance — the administration is concerned about how much debt students leave college with.  Does it have any concern about how much debt they are piling on everyone, not just college graduates?  Biden pointed to the average indebtedness of around $25,000 for college graduates.  The federal debt is about $35,000 for every man, woman and child in America, not just college graduates and this administration shows no signs of stopping it.
3. Creating a system of automatic workplace IRAs — government first got involved in retirement with Social Security.  That system is bankrupt and this administration has no interest in fixing it.  When Republicans floated the idea of taking a portion of the Social Security payroll tax and diverting it to higher return private savings, the Democrats savaged them.  So the Democrat solution is to ignore the bankrupt Social Security system and start telling business what to do.
4. Expanding tax credits to match retirement savings and enacting new safeguards to protect retirement savings — again with Social Security bankrupt, they want to put more tax dollars into retirement.  How different is this than the Republican plan to take what exists and allow it to get better returns than the paltry rate it currently gets within the Social Security system? The difference is that the Republican plan wouldn’t cost anything extra.  The Democrat plan will either increase payroll taxes or increase the deficit.  Surprise!!!
5. Expanding support for families balancing work with caring for elderly relatives –I thought the Democrats had fixed this with “end of life counseling” in their health care plan, coupled with bringing back the Death Tax next year.

Fumbling and Stumbling

The way to create jobs is to let the job creators keep their money to invest in their business and expand.  Small business owners are stuck waiting to learn how much all of Obama’s social re-engineering is going to cost them and until they know that, hiring is the last thing they will do.  The only thing this administration seems to know how to do is bash business and spend money and the more they spend the longer the recover will take.  They are now planning another stimulus plan to follow the last stimulus plan that didn’t work, and the deficit continues to grow and grow and grow.

President Obama wants to create a bipartisan panel to recommend how to reduce the deficit.  He gives the back of his hand to bipartisanship when it comes to workable solutions to real problems, but he loves bipartisanship when it gives him political cover to make unpopular decisions.  All of his supporters love to say that experience doesn’t matter and that President Obama is the smartest guy in the room.  If that is true, he should not be afraid to propose bold spending cuts and shrinking government and be smart enough to explain it to Congress on his own.  If he does so, I am sure many Republicans would support him and vote for it (and almost all Democrats vote against it).  But he wants it both ways, he wants Republicans to yield to tie spending cuts to tax increases and put the package to an up or down vote.  He will then take that on the campaign trail to tell the world how Republicans voted for tax increases.  If you don’t believe me, look to history.  George Herbert Walker Bush, of the “no new taxes” pledge, got Congress to agree with spending cuts in return for a tax increase.  Bill Clinton clubbed him to death, like a baby seal, with that pledge and then enjoyed Bush’s restraint upon Congress on the spending side to generate budget surpluses.  Let President Obama take the lead.  Wasn’t that why he was elected?  Because he was a different kind of leader?  So, lead away.

Daniel Henninger wrote in the Wall Street Journal:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid tells of congratulating freshman Sen. Obama on a phenomenal speech. Without a hint of conceit, Mr. Obama replied, “Harry, I have a gift.”

In the article he also describes this observation:

Harvard Law Prof. Charles Ogletree told how Mr. Obama spoke on one contentious issue at the law school, and each side thought he was endorsing their view. Mr. Ogletree said: “Everyone was nodding, Oh, he agrees with me.”

That’s essentially how he got elected.  With a heaping helping hand from the popular media, many people saw Obama as a blank screen upon which they could project their own views and see those as Obama’s own.  He’s our man!  He listens.  He cares deeply.  For a politician it is a phenomenal gift.  For a legislator it is an extremely valuable gift.  For an executive it is poison.

Pulling the Trigger

As a politician or a legislator you are in the role of persuader; somebody else makes the decision to vote for you or vote with you, respectively.  As an executive you are in the role of the decider.  You must make a decision and every decision, especially the tough ones are going to make a good many people unhappy.  Perhaps that explains why, in the Illinois Senate, Obama voted “Present” so many times.  Voting “Present” rather than “Yea” or “Nay” allowed him to hold that special place where everyone felt he agreed with them.  Too many decisions one way or another would have tarnished “the gift”.  So why is “the gift” poison for an executive?  If you don’t have “the gift” and you make a decision your opponents may disagree with you, but they are not surprised.  If you have “the gift” and you make a decision, those on the short side feel betrayed and angry, because they thought you agreed with them and then “sold out” and decided the other way.

Obama is in a tight spot where he has to make decisions and decisions have consequences.  When you make a decision it is very hard to make it seem like everyone got their way.  His complete lack of executive experience is telling.  If he had some executive experience, such as a mayor or a governor, he might have had enough practice learning how to make his decisions appear to satisfy everyone, as his campaign speeches did.  But that’s the thing about decisions.  If everyone supports them, they’re not much of a decision, like deciding to pardon a turkey on Thanksgiving.  Everyone enjoys the decision, but it’s really not what we elect presidents for.

I’ll Have the Waffles, Please

If you watch closely, you can see that Obama is struggling to preserve “the gift”.  He said he is for closing Guantanamo, but not yet.  He is for pulling out of Iraq, but no timetable.  The general he put in charge of Afghanistan, McChrystal, said he needed 40,000 more troops, but Obama could not bring himself to say yes or no.  He had to ponder, think, consult, weigh alternatives, and three months later, he gave McChrystal what he asked for.  Those on the left complained that he was not pulling out.  Those on the right complained that he wasted precious time while our troops were on the battlefield.  His backers tried to give him the fig leaf of showing gravitas.   He can’t seem to find the magic formula where everyone applauds him.  From “the gift” he has gone to “the anti-gift”.  Instead of satisfying everyone, he is finding that he is satisfying no one.

Move On

It’s time for Obama to “Move On”.  He should put “the gift” in his trophy case right next to his Nobel Peace Prize.  It got him to the White House.  How much more can he ask of such a thing?  So drop the pretense.  We all know he is a hard left guy, so he should just be who he is.  He may suddenly face a more hostile press, or they may love him more, although that would be hard to believe.  But when he makes a decision he will at least please his base, and then his opponents can fight his statist goals without being branded as racists.  As a hard left guy he will probably not get re-elected because America is not a hard left country, on the contrary the majority of Americans describe themselves as conservative.  But by choosing he can try to do what he can within one term.  It will be a battle. Obama’s poll ratings have dropped steadily since his inauguration and the Democrats are likely to lose seats in Congress this fall.  As an old acquaintance once said to me, “It’s like standing in the middle of the road.  Choose left or choose right, but choose; otherwise you get hit by traffic coming in both directions.”

For the second time in two months there has been a terrorist attack or an attempted attack on U.S. soil.  How is this administration responding?  Well, if grandma is planning to visit the family for the next holiday and she has a bladder problem, she had better drive or take the train, because she won’t be allowed to use the bathroom during the last hour of an airplane flight.  Whew!  That was close.  I feel so much better now that we kept grandma from flying.  Don’t you feel safer?

Who’s Minding the Store?

As pointed out in several other posts, Barack Obama was elected with zero executive experience and we hold our breath as he stumbles about trying to learn what an executive is supposed to do.  He put Janet Napolitano in charge of the Homeland Security department, because her home state borders on Mexico, but without any security experience.  This was put on full display when she went on the Sunday talk shows to say the administration response to the terrorist bomber went very well and then goes on the Monday morning news shows to say they failed.  President Obama put Leon Panetta in charge of the CIA even though he has no intelligence experience.  Feeling a little uncomfortable?

Planning to Fail

President Obama has taken just about every step he can to dismantle what Bush and Cheney put in place and to discredit how they kept us safe.  Even today, Obama insiders were whispering to the Washington Post that this was all Bush’s fault.  Let’s look at the Obama record:

• Closing Guantanamo — this is one of Obama’s top priorities.  Rather than keep these enemy combatants off shore and in military hands, as any battlefield captives should be held, he is planning to release Yemenis back to Yemen.  Where did the bomber obtain instructions?  That’s right Yemen.
• Curtail Interrogation techniques — calling a technique that has no lasting physical effects on prisoner torture, and requiring that prisoners be asked only name, rank and serial number, this administration cuts off sources of valuable information that can save lives.
• Calling the War on Terror, the Overseas Contingency Operation and changing us from a war footing to a law and order footing.
• Letting the bomber lawyer up — instead of treating the bomber as a foot soldier in the War on Terror he is treated like some delinquent trying to knock over a Seven Eleven.  We should be putting him under intense interrogation to find out everything we can from him on the operation behind him.  Instead we are reading him Miranda rights, getting him a lawyer, putting him in one of the best burn center hospitals in the country, and planning to give him skin grafts.  I guess he’s part of the new health care plan.

Correctness or Political Correctness

Profiling works.  When are we going to stop ignoring this simple fact?  Look at any one of the known terrorist attacks around the world.  When someone gets on line at an airport who fits the profile of a young, male, single, Middle Eastern, African or South Asian, then pull them out of the line and give them a more thorough screening.  Pat them down.  Swab every bag for explosive residue rather than a sampling, open and examine closely everything.  Don’t say we can’t check this one because we have already checked two others and until we check our quota of old men, white grandmas, Asian children, etc. we cannot check another Middle Eastern man because we may hurt their feelings.

If enough of them get their feelings hurt, maybe all the other fair minded and peace loving Muslims around the world will rise up and take back their faith from those who have hijacked it for their own murderous aims.  Until then, we should err on the side of caution and pray that this administration figures out what they are doing to protect us.  If they don’t know what to do they should leave what Bush and Cheney did well enough alone.  It kept us safe for seven years.

Yesterday in an interview with Oprah Winfrey for her Christmas special, President Obama magnanimously gave himself a grade of a “solid B+” on his first eleven months in office.  Now that’s grading on a curve!  I once had a very good professor who opened the first class with his philosophy of grading.  He said:

“I don’t believe in grading on a curve.  I don’t subscribe to the theory that if everyone learns nothing, you all get A’s”

Amen, brother.  Now if you revisit President Obama’s statement, he must have really, really done badly, because grading his class of one student, he couldn’t even pull that “A”.  Let’s look at his achievements:

• A stimulus plan promised to hold the unemployment rate to 8%, and if not passed the unemployment rate would rise to 9%.  His team must have really screwed up that project because it caused the unemployment rate to rise 1.2% above the “do nothing” scenario, and we are $787 billion poorer to boot.
• Cap and Trade — the Climategate scandal gives credence to the hypothesis that pro cap and trade scientists were cooking the books to manufacture conclusions that supported their political agenda.  Rather than backing away from it as it if were a skunk at a garden party.  President Obama is embracing it and pushing forward.
• Health Care — President Obama is trying to have the federal government take over 1/6 of the U.S. economy, because in doing so they will lower costs and make sure everyone is covered.  Sensible market based ideas such as: tort reform, patient control over how patients money is spent, insurance available across state lines, etc., need not apply.  How likely is this to work? (see bullet #1 above). Because this hasn’t passed yet was one of the only reasons Obama didn’t give himself an “A”.
• Continuing to blame President Bush for his shortcomings sounds a lot like “my dog ate my homework,”
• Agreeing to try the 9/11 suspects in civilian court rather than in a military tribunal.  Although President Obama says they are guilty and will be executed (can you say mistrial?) how many of us are looking forward to a replay of the O.J. Simpson trial with the acquittal included?
• Meanwhile, Black Panther’s who stood outside a Philadelphia polling place brandishing clubs have their case dropped by the Obama administration, even though there was a default judgement against the men for not showing up in court to face the charges. Talk about snatching defeat from the jaws of victory!
• Yes, they’re Fat Cats but their MY Fat Cats:  After blasting bankers for being Fat Cats, why does Obama have so many Goldman Sachs almumni in his administration?  Mark Patterson, former Goldman lobbyist, Treasury Secretary Geithner’s chief of staff; Reuben Jeffrey III, undersecretary of state for economic, business and agricultural affairs; Neel Kaskari, assistant secretary of the treasury for financial stability, administering the TARP funds; Dianna Farrell, deputy director of National Economic Council.
• In the midst of all this mayhem, he finds time to go pitch Chicago for the 2016 Olympics.
• He is piling so much debt upon our children and grandchildren that they will probably have to work 3/4 of the year, just to pay their taxes.

How Bad is Bad?

What kind of calamity would we have to be in for Obama to give himself a “C” let alone an “F”?  So we know where Obama’s ego is, and it is doing well, thank you very much.  But the American people have their own report card and it shows that support for Obama has been on a downward straight line since his inauguration with his approval rating now in the mid to upper 40s, the lowest level in history for a president at the same point in his tenure.

Such a disconnect between Obama’s opinion of himself and the American people’s opinion is a serious problem.  It drives him to continue to pursue policies that Americans adamantly oppose (e.g., 61% oppose the Senate health care bill).  Most reasonable people would take such feedback and reassess their actions.  But if an employee is blind to his shortcomings, the only thing to do is show them the door.  The sooner, the better, folks because it’s not going to get any better.

As the number of czars continues to grow Americans are becoming more concerned about losing control of their government.  What can be done about it?  Try this.  If a czar comes calling to check on your salary, tell him to go stuff it.

What is a czar?

Czars are special advisers to the President.  As such they do not require Senate confirmation.  The President can have his Uncle Charlie as an adviser, for all that matters.  He can get advice from anyone.  However, he cannot legally give his authority to a czar.  So let’s do this about the czars.  Ignore them.  If President Obama wants his czars whispering in his ear all day long, so be it.  If he wants to give them any authority, then he should appoint them to a political position in his administration that is subject to the advice and consent of the Senate.  In that process we will learn a lot more about who these characters are, and we can voice our opinions of them.  Otherwise, President Obama is going to have to do the heavy lifting and take responsibility for everything he brought his czars on board to do.

The statists like dissent if they are dissenting from a conservative view point, as Hillary Clinton explains here:

Hillary Defends Challenging the Administration

But if you stand for liberty and against big government dissent is a very bad thing, as Nancy Pelosi explains:

Nancy Pelosi Hints Town Hall Opposition are Nazis

So if you bash Bush, you are a patriot.  If you question Barack Obama, you are a Nazi.  So our statist friends only believe the First Amendment applies to them and it is not available to those who oppose them.  Turn them in to the White House!  Have union goons give them a beat down.

Camerawoman is Hit by SEIU member

In this raw video an SEIU member attacks a man for selling flags that say, “Don’t Tread On Me.”

SEIU Member Attacks a Black Conservative

Does this not sound like Hitler’s brown shirts? his Gestapo?  The left who like to throw down, in addition to the race card, the Nazi card look more like Nazis than conservatives ever did.

$18 Million for This?

$18 million folks, that’s how much the federal government is going to spend to improve the web site that tells us how they are spending the stimulus money. $18 million. They will be spending $9.5 through January, and another $8.5 million through 2014.  I don’t need a calendar nor a calculator to figure out that’s five years from now.  Are they trying to tell us now that this recession is going to last five years?

Stagnant Stimulus

If we remember President Obama and Vice President Biden telling us how urgently we needed the stimulus package and that there was no time to waste to avert a catastrophe.  Right now the unemployment rate with the stimulus is higher than they told us it would be if they did NOTHING.

Less than 10% of the stimulus money has been spent with most of it being transfers to state and local government.  The economy is showing signs of turning around on its own, and I say that because with such a small percentage of the stimulus having been spent it contributed little to the improving conditions.  So naturally, the political class is starting to talk about another stimulus package.  You would almost think that they wanted to drag this out.

Reminiscent of Roosevelt

Through the Great Depression, the steps that Roosevelt took didn’t turn the economy around.  Unemployment remained high until World War II absorbed every able bodied man into the armed forces.  Yet Roosevelt was elected to four terms in office.  Why?  The first three terms were through the Depression.  Although Roosevelt’s policies didn’t work, he knew how to communicate on a personal level.  He held “fireside chats.”  He, through the radio, came into people’s living rooms and soothingly assured them that we have nothing to fear but fear itself.  Trust Roosevelt, he will take care of us, he will see us through.

President Obama’s personal approval ratings continue to fly high, even as the wreckage of almost every campaign promise is strewn around the countryside.  He is certainly likable and his election is historic, but will that be enough to carry him as his inexperience is laid bare at every turn.  But, as the former governor of New York and Secretary of the Navy, Roosevelt had executive experience.  Obama brought no executive experience with him.

Czars Aplenty

So who is running the government?  Obama had 16-18 Czars, depending on who is counting, who are not vetted by the Senate like Cabinet Secretaries and a host of other appointees are.  So where are the checks and balances?  Even Robert Byrd is concerned that the may be violating the Constitution.  If this weren’t so serious, you would think it was a pilot for a sitcom.  What aspect of this administration is not out of control?  Let’s hope we can all survive long enough to make it back to the voting booth.

Money for Nothing

The Commerce Department released the second revision to first quarter GDP and it is the second time it was revised upward.  Originally it was reported that GDP fell by 6.1%, not much different that the fourth quarter’s 6.3%.  Subsequently it was first revised to 5.7% and the last report pegs it at 5.5%.  So what does this mean?

The Economy Bottomed in 4Q08

These figures point to the economy hitting bottom in the fourth quarter of 2008, which means the economy was already on the mend before President Obama took office.  Since President Obama didn’t take the oath of office until 2/3 of the way through January, and rushing through the stimulus package that nobody read took until the mid-point of the first quarter,  the economy improved without any help from the new president.

Medicine or Poison?

With the massive government spending that the Obama Administration and the Democratic Congress is heaping on us, the other economic data bears watching.  The inflation rate nearly doubled to 1.6% in the first quarter from 0.9% in the fourth quarter.  The unprecedented borrowing that the government is undertaking will drive up interest rates and inflation and may likely kill the recovery.  Again, since the Obama effect has not yet kicked in, we haven’t seen anything yet.

Today, the House of Representatives is poised to pass the most massive tax increase in history with Cap and Trade.  Energy costs will skyrocket so that global temperatures will be curtailed by 0.2 degrees Celsius over the next 100 years.  I’m feeling better already.

Money Down the Drain

$787 billion is being spent to stimulate an economy that is recovering on its own, spread pork across the land, and saddle us with unnecessary debt.  That works out to $2,300 for every man, woman, and child in America.  Add in health care at $1 trillion to $1.6 trillion ($4,700 per man, woman, and child), Cap and Trade that will double the cost of gasoline, heating your home, cooking your food, etc.  When will this stop?  If you still believe that no couples making under $250,000 will see any increases in their taxes, snap out of it! We do not have enough rich people in this country to cover the bill even if we tax them at 100%.

At the state level we are already seeing the mobility of the wealthy.  Maryland slapped a new tax on the rich and then discovered that 1/3 of the rich moved out of the state of Maryland.  So you say, “What are the rich going to do?  Move out of America?”  While you giggle over that one, ask your self this.  Why did the Beatles all move to America?  If you don’t know the answer to that one go read the lyrics to their song, The Taxman. It was to avoid the crushing tax burden in the U.K.  Don’t think that trend can’t reverse itself.

I’ll see you at the next Tea Party.