They are still using the same tired rhetoric, about inheriting the worst economic calamity since the Great Depression. The truth is that the worst economic calamity since the Great Depression is the Obama administration. Barack Obama stands with Herbert Hoover as the only presidents with negative job growth during their administrations. As if stuck in the 1930s, Obama dusted off FDR’s playbook, since he had no personal executive experience to draw on, and that playbook didn’t work then and it’s not working now.

So along comes an opportunity for a major “shovel ready” project, backed by unions, that can create thousands of jobs, move us closer to energy independence, help us depend less on getting oil from Middle East despots, and what does Obama do? He kills it. What he wanted to do, was defer a decision on this until after the election, eleven months away. He wanted to do what he does best, vote “present”.

Congress, particularly the Republicans who seem to be the only adults working on Capital Hill, included a provision in the payroll tax holiday extension, to make a decision within sixty days. People are hurting, gas prices are creeping up, unemployment benefits have been extended to extraordinary lengths, and this incompetent president says that sixty days was not enough time to review the proposal so he had to, sadly, reject it. Perhaps if he hadn’t played all those rounds of golf, perhaps if he had studied it a little closer instead of spending all that time in Hawaii, perhaps if he put this job creating proposal on the top of the EPA’s to-do list instead of their focusing on the job killing regulations to limit power plant emissions, he would have gotten his job done. But no, sorry, I don’t have my homework, teacher, I dunno, I forgot, my dog…. Enough!

Let China make an oil deal with Canada. We can always buy the oil back from them at a premium. Why not, they probably don’t have enough of our dollars as it is now. Why not give them more? This president is making decisions that will cobble together a coalition of supporters to get him reelected. This is about appeasing the environmental movement so that they won’t abandon him.

At an event in Ottumwa, Iowa, on Dec. 31, Rick Santorum mocked the idea that the pipeline posed the threat of environmental damage, noting that there were already many other pipelines in the area it would go through. “This is just, again, pandering to radical environmentalists who don’t want energy production, who don’t want us to burn more carbon,” Mr. Santorum said.

The State Department, which has authority over this since it goes between us and Canada, “said there was not enough time to draw a new route for the pipeline and assess the environmental harm.” Bullfeathers. It’s a 1700 mile pipeline. The area in question is a fraction of that length. Agree to the pipeline, get started hiring people and building it in areas not in dispute, and work to resolve the section in question. But unless it is killed, Obama risks losing the green vote and what is more important, America or Obama’s reelection?

I’d like to ask my Congressman, Tim Bishop, to weigh in. What do you have to say about this, Tim? Or are you too busy manufacturing your own campaign issue around outsourced phone center jobs. If jobs are really important to you, you would stand up and challenge Obama for killing an opportunity for good, high paying, union jobs in America. On the other hand you can stay silent, not challenge President Obama’s error and risk his ire and possibly lose campaign funds and support. So what do you stand for, Tim? Putting America first or putting your interests right up there with President Obama’s and above America’s.

That’s my opinion; I’d like to know yours. Please comment below.

Tim Bishop likes manufacturing. The manufacturing of campaign issues, that is. In his effort to manufacture a campaign issue around overseas outsourcing, he got a lifeline from the White House yesterday when President Obama held an “insourcing” forum yesterday to encourage companies to “bring jobs back to America.” An editorial in the Wall Street Journal titled, “Insourcing for Dummies” describes the effort.

Having spent his entire adult working life at either Southampton College, which went out of business and was acquired by the State University of New York, and the House of Representatives, Mr. Bishop should be forgiven if his grasp of economics is lacking. So let’s try to help get him up to speed.

Coming from academia, I am sure Mr. Bishop will give due deference to a study on outsourcing from an Ivy League University. Matthew J. Slaughter, an economist at Dartmouth’s Amos Tuck School of Business, conducted a study where he found that for every job outsourced overseas, two jobs were created in the U.S. How could that possibly be? It works something like this.

Let’s say a company has an opportunity to outsource its call center overseas and takes advantage of doing so. It utilizes a well-educated work force in India, and let’s say it cuts its cost allocated to that call center in half. It now has additional capital to invest in growing the business. To do so, it hires more sales people, who in turn need sales engineers to explain their widgets to their perspective customers, and when the customers buy more widgets, more people are needed to process the orders and build the widgets. This boost of growth results in a boost in jobs.

Slaughter studied Bureau of Economic Analysis data, reported annually between 1991 and 2001 for 2,500 multinational companies. This was a time when India and China were ramping up their operations to take on outsourcing roles. What Slaughter found was that while employment in their foreign affiliates grew by 2.8 million jobs, U.S. based employment in the parent firms grew by 5.5 million jobs. Taking it a step further, when that job growth is compared to total job growth, those multinational created more jobs faster than the economy as a whole.

Tim Bishop’s Plan

So what is Tim Bishop’s big idea? He wants companies to shut foreign outsourcing or have two call centers that callers can choose between. That means there is no savings from the call centers, which translates into fewer profits to use to grow the business and hire fewer people. Also lower profits, means less tax revenues because what are companies taxed on? Correct! Profits!

So in the midst of a dastardly economy with high unemployment, and staggering deficits, Tim Bishop wants to curtail corporate growth, reverse conditions for job growth, and reduce tax revenues. What a trifecta! This is all so that Tim Bishop can have something, anything, to build a reelection campaign around. There no major call centers in his district, so this is a bald-faced effort to cling to office. If he was serious about the economy, he would be advocating for slashing the corporate tax rate or even backing the Fair Tax, so that money held overseas could flow back to the U.S. and perhaps other countries would build factories here and create even more jobs. But that would require a grasp of economics, instead of an iron grasp on his House seat.

That’s my opinion; I’d like to know yours. Please comment below.

The Democrats are nothing if not persistent. After trying to hang this dismal economy on President Bush while the Obama administration repeats every mistake from the Great Depression to create their own version, Tim Bishop says let’s go all in!

After spending so much as to add more to the national debt than all previous presidents combined, all to no effect, why not move on to the next disaster of the Great Depression, a trade war. In the Great Depression it was the Smoot-Hawley tariffs. Today we have Tim Bishop looking to attack call centers in India and the Philippines. With allies like us, who needs enemies?  The governments in India and the Philippines are cranking up the diplomatic channels to stop Bishop’s bill. It will be interesting to see how Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will react. I doubt she will be saying, “Thanks, Tim!”

The man who has spent his entire career in academia and government had this to say on the news of the diplomatic activity:

“Frankly, the fact that both the Indian government and the Filipino government are reacting like this says that our bill is very badly needed,” he said. Most of the call center jobs lost in the U.S. are “sent primarily to India and the Philippines. So I hope [the bill] does have an impact.”

Did I read that right? Legislation is badly needed to provoke our allies? Don’t we need India as a counterbalance to Pakistan? Wasn’t it Obama who came to office saying he was going to make nice with everyone around the world and apologize for that cowboy Bush’s behavior? Didn’t Tim Bishop get the memo? Here is some more Bishop deep thinking.

In addition to making them ineligible for federal loans, the call center bill would place stiff mandates on companies that chose to outsource their call centers. Customer service reps working in those companies’ call centers overseas would be required to disclose their locations when asked by American callers, as well as provide callers with the option of being transferred to a call center in the U.S. — stipulations likely aimed at pleasing constituents who are tired of dealing with customer service reps based in other countries.

Although I am sure most of my regular readers can see right through that, let me reveal the devilishly clever thinking of Mr. Bishop. By requiring that call centers provide the option of being transferred to a call center in the U.S., companies would basically have to have two call centers, thereby eliminating any savings. Mr. Bishop seems to believe that companies will gladly force bad service on customers to save some money regardless of any complaints. How does that explain how Dell Computer moved some of its call centers back to the U.S. in 2004 when the quality couldn’t keep up with the company’s growth. But who should make that decision, the CEO or Dell or Tim Bishop?

Why is Tim Bishop, a Congressman from Eastern Long Island, the driving force behind this? Are there a lot of call centers in his district that are moving overseas? None that I could find. It’s all about politics. Tim Bishop is facing a tough reelection battle and he is afraid to run on his record. So he needs to drum up an issue. He squeaked by his last reelection by accusing his opponent of being an outsourcer. It worked last time, so let’s fire up that old chestnut and see if it’s got legs. Don’t let the free market decide, don’t worry if it damages relations with our allies. It makes the Communications Workers of America union happy and isn’t that what’s really important?

I have a better idea. Why don’t we approach Tata Motors, the Indian automobile company that now owns Jaguar and Land Rover and get them to build factories in the U.S.? We can outsource low paying call center jobs to them while they outsource high paying manufacturing jobs to us. It makes economic sense, but then again, that won’t help Tim Bishop get reelected, will it? Oh, well.

That’s my opinion; I’d like to know yours. Please comment below.

In his recent telephone town hall meeting, Tim Bishop expressed his support for the continued payroll tax holiday but making it clear that it would have no impact on the Social Security Trust Fund. Money for Social Security would continue to go into the trust fund from other sources. What other sources you might ask? I may have an answer for you.

In an article in HousingWire magazine, the author points out that:

The Federal Housing Finance Agency will increase guarantee fees on single-family mortgage-backed securities charged by the government-sponsored enterprises by 10 basis points effective April 1, 2012, in response to the new funding mechanism for the payroll tax cut extension passed by Congress.

So it seems that the Social Security Trust fund will get its money from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, or more accurately, from new home buyers. So for a two month extension of the payroll tax holiday that will prevent taxpayers from paying an additional $130 into the Social Security Trust Fund, that everyone expects to get back anyway, new home buyers will have to pay thousands in new fees.

The g-fee increase will remain in effect through Oct. 1, 2021. The Congressional Budget Office estimated the g-fees would offset about $35.7 billion in the costs of the tax cut. Mortgage Bankers Association CEO David Stevens said the increase could mean an extra $4,000 in fees on a $200,000 mortgage.

One of the problems facing Long Island is affordable housing. Our young people are leaving Long Island for areas were there is a larger rental stock that they can start out in, rather than living in mom and dad’s basement, and where they can afford to buy a house after saving a down payment for a couple of years. Apparently for the benefit of a political talking point Tim Bishop votes to slam an already weak housing marking with additional fees. After all who can really call a two month anything sound fiscal policy? Notice there is no spending cut mentioned here, it is an increase in taxes and fees. This is what Tim Bishop was telling his constituents not to worry about in his town hall meeting? What will become of his district, if nobody lives here but retirees? Is that his plan to solve the unemployment problem? Drive enough young people away until the number of jobs fits the remaining population?

The problem is spending. It was only last week that Joe Biden was attacking Mitt Romney’s policies by saying:

“His proposal would actually double down on the policies that caused the greatest economic calamity since the Great Depression and accelerated a decades-long assault on the middle class,” Biden added.

Decades long assault on the middle class? I guess he means you too, Bill Clinton. The greatest economic calamity since the Great Depression has been the Obama administration and if he were to get reelected it would finish America off. We have had the worst consistent unemployment since the Great Depression for the entire Obama administration. We have had the worst record of job creation, loss actually, since Herbert Hoover. The National Bureau of Economic Research says the recession ended in June of 2009. Does it feel like it to you? Most recoveries from economic downturns are mirror images of the slump. A gradual recession is followed by a gradual recovery; a sharp downturn is followed by a sharp upswing. Not this time. Just look at the job creation record of Team Obama.

This chart goes all the way back to Harry Truman and Obama’s performance stands alone.  Let’s put to rest the “eight years of failed Bush policy, yada, yada, yada” and face the fact that Obama and his spending, heavy-handed regulations, and insatiable appetite to fix everything by taxing more has put us into an economic winter. Tim Bishop has happily ignored the needs of his constituents to buy favor from the Democratic leadership and their special interest pals. They have done an awful job and we need to turn them out, before they turn us into Greece.

That’s my opinion; I’d like to know yours. Please comment below.

Tim Bishop has submitted legislation to punish firms that use overseas call centers. He is desperate. He needs an issue that he hopes will sneak him past the electorate into office for another two years. Outsourcing worked for him last time, so he is trying to put lipstick on that pig and pass it off as bold, new thinking. What I am thinking is when is Tim Bishop ever going to represent the people who actually live in his district?

How many call centers are in his district that are threatening to move overseas? How may call centers are trying to decide between locating in his district or locating in India? If the answer to either of the above questions is none, why is he spending time on this?

Over twenty years ago, while working at Citibank, they had a customer service center for credit cards in Melville. For cost reasons they were looking at shutting it down and moving it. I was asked to provide an analysis of the telecommunication costs in an effort to keep it in place. Based on the customer distribution, I showed that its current location was the best choice from a telecommunications basis, but it was not enough to offset the people cost. The alternatives considered were Maryland, South Dakota and Nevada. India was not on the list. But if you were a customer service rep on Long Island who didn’t want to move, was the fact that the job was staying in America, give you consolation? Your job went away

So what is Tim Bishop doing starting a trade war with India? How does that help his constituents?

 ”Outsourcing is one of the scourges of our economy and why we are struggling so to knock down the unemployment rate,” said Bishop.

In a previous post on Mr. Bishop’s insightfulness I pointed out that the largest Toyota factory outside of Japan is in Georgetown, Kentucky. Through a new free trade agreement that plant will now begin exporting Toyotas from the U.S. to South Korea. If Toyota didn’t outsource those jobs to the U.S. but kept them in Japan, there would be 7,400 fewer Americans employed in Kentucky than there are today. So how does Bishop square this with his statement that outsourcing is a scourge and contributes to unemployment when this is proof of the opposite? Perhaps if our tax structure wasn’t so abysmal, other companies would locate their factories here? But we have one of the highest corporate tax rates in the world, so why build here? But when was the last time you heard Tim Bishop pounding the podium for lower tax rates?

With the stimulus plan, Congressman Bishop voted to spend a trillion dollars across the country to be paid for by whom? Well, consistent with the Democratic message of “tax the rich”, when compared to other states, New York is relatively rich, so we get a bigger share of the bill and a smaller cut of the benefits. How did Congressman Bishop’s vote help his district? Most of the money that did come here went to people who already had a job, and a union card, the teachers. Who is backing Mr. Bishop on his phone center folly? The Communication Workers of America. Bishop knows he needs union muscle if he has a prayer of getting reelected.

He also likes the idea of the payroll tax holiday and tells people at his town hall meeting, not to worry about the Social Security Trust Fund losing important funding, that money will come from elsewhere. Where exactly? Does Mr. Bishop have some magic beans or a goose laying golden eggs like a gatling gun? We’re broke thanks to Mr. Bishop and his pals spending, spending, and spending.

So Tim Bishop looks out for Tim Bishop first, Nancy Pelosi second, and if he can help his constituents cut through some bureaucratic red tape, cut through it but not eliminate it, he will do so. But he needs something, anything, to take the voters eyes off his dismal record in Congress, so let’s try another new twist on outsourcing, whether it is germane to his constituents or not. After all, where else is Tim Bishop going to land a job that pays $174,000 a year with his resume?

That’s my opinion; I’d like to know yours. Please comment below.

Congressman Tim Bishop held an online town hall meeting to hear questions from constituents and give his answers. Perhaps he thought this a safer forum than a live town hall meeting. Last year’s meeting in Setauket did not go well and was soon viral on You Tube.

I will comment on three of the topics from that meeting: the payroll tax cut, regulations, and manufacturing jobs.

Payroll Tax Cut

Congressman Bishop came out heavily pitching the extension of the payroll tax cut, from the normal level of 6.2% to the current level of 4.2% and even to go lower to 3.1%, for at least another year. He made the startling claim, quoting some experts that if the payroll tax cut wasn’t retained it would cost 400,000 jobs. It must be from the loss of all that spending power generated from a 2% cut in the payroll tax. I am sure pizza parlors will be devastated, as the weekly savings to a typical family will be about the cost of a pizza pie. The other statistic was that if the payroll tax was cut further to 3.1%, 750,000 new jobs would be created. Interesting. Raise the tax by 2% and 400,000 jobs would be lost, cut it by an additional 1.1% and nearly twice as many jobs would be created. Like prior predictions of how government intervention would affect jobs, we are supposed to believe that employers will start hiring if the cost of hiring a new employee  is reduced by 3.1% for just one year, before going back up. Only those people who never worked in private industry, like Bishop, Schumer, Obama, would believe that.

Bishop insisted that these cuts would have no impact to the Social Security Trust Fund. Considering that there is nothing in the Social Security Trust Fund other than a bunch of IOUs from Uncle Sam’s other pocket, he may be correct on that front, but he said that the cut would be paid for cutting spending elsewhere. Not surprisingly, he didn’t say where exactly “elsewhere” was.

Throughout the call, Bishop’s press secretary was conducting a dopey poll. To paraphrase, “If you are in favor of the payroll tax cut that will put $1,500 in your pocket, press 1, if not, press 2.” Who wouldn’t press 1? What would the results be if he asked, “If you are in favor of borrowing $600 from China that your children and grandchildren will have to pay back, so that we can give you $1,500 today, press 1, if you think more borrowing and debt is a bad idea, press 2,” I think the poll would turn out quite differently.

Regulations

A caller who owned a small construction company asked about all the regulations and paperwork that businesses had to deal with. Bishop said that President Obama had things well under control forming a commission to “zero base” all regulations and hundreds and hundreds of regulations have been taken off the books. In the Wall Street Journal today there is an editorial titled, “Regulation for Dummies,” that paints a very different picture.

To answer the most basic question—has regulation increased?—we’ll focus on what the government defines as “economically significant” regulations. Those are rules that impose more than $100 million in annual costs on the economy, though there are hundreds if not thousands of new rules every year that fall well short of that.

According to an analysis of the Federal Register by George Mason University’s Mercatus Center, the Cabinet departments and agencies finalized 84 such regulations annually on average in President Obama’s first two years. The annual average under President Bush was 62 and under President Clinton 56

As the graph clearly shows the number of “economically significant” regulations under Obama has skyrocketed. This is what is causing the uncertainty that is hindering employment. How can this be curtailed? A bill just passed in the House of Representatives called the “Regulation from the Executive In Need of Scrutiny Act (REINS)”. This would require any of these economically significant regulations to be sent to Congress for approval before becoming being enacted. What the process is today is that Congress can vote against regulations, but that can be vetoed by the President. If the regulations are coming from the president, wouldn’t you expect him to veto it? This turns it around so that the Congress has to approve the regulations, if they don’t, there is nothing for the president to veto. The Democrats say this is a Congressional encroachment of the Executive.

“The REINS Act would undermine our ability to protect children from harmful toys, prevent asthma and lung ailments resulting from pollution, and ensure that our small businesses can compete fairly in the marketplace,” House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer added. “At the same time, it would force Congress to play a larger role in the regulatory process, leading to even more gridlock in Washington.”

Surely he forgot to mention killing bunnies in there somewhere. But let’s look at the process: Congress passes a law; departments in the Executive branch write regulations to carry out the law Congress passed. So why is it an outrage that Congress reviews economically significant regulations to see if the Executive is actually implementing what they passed? Tim Bishop voted against the REINS Act. This is another case of Democrats focusing on piddling regulations while saying “hands off” the really impactful ones.

Manufacturing Jobs

Another caller asked the Congressman about manufacturing jobs. He patted himself on the back for helping to bail out the auto industry. He said if he and others hadn’t done that that hundreds of thousands of jobs would be lost. I addressed the implausibility of this in an earlier post. In that post I argued that if GM and Chrysler went bankrupt and even if they didn’t come out of it leaner and meaner, people still needed transportation. They would buy Fords, Toyotas, Nissans, Hondas, etc., that are currently built here in the U.S. Those car companies would need to increase their purchases from suppliers and those who formerly supplied GM and Chrysler would be well situated to supply the remaining car companies. The argument that we don’t manufacture here anymore is a myth. On a dollar volume basis, we still manufacture more than any country on earth. A few miles from where I am writing this, in Georgetown, Kentucky, is the largest Toyota factory outside of Japan. Due to a free trade agreement with South Korea that the Democrats blocked for years, that Toyota plant will begin exporting about 6,000 Camrys a year from Kentucky to South Korea.

One of the reasons we don’t build more here is our lousy tax code. Fix it. A reason there is not more manufacturing in Mr. Bishop’s district on Long Island is high electric rates. Factories run on power and power on Long Island is expensive. One of the reasons for that is that government approved the building of a $5 billion nuclear power plant on Long Island, and then when it was ready to throw the switch, they changed direction and said it couldn’t open. So Long Island rate payers had to find and buy electric from other sources and pay for the mothballed plant that produced nothing. Once again, the government helping us out.

But Tim Bishop has a solution. He wrote a bill to ban offshore call centers from federal contracts or loan guarantees for five-year. Nothing like micromanaging a corner of the economy while the rest of it burns. Why not look to the root cause? Tax structure, too much regulations, ObamaCare, out of control government spending. If Congress would fix those problems maybe companies wouldn’t look offshore to set up call centers.

The Budget

Tim Bishop also touched on the deficit and debt. He said we need to cut spending, but he never said what he would cut; he said we needed to control entitlement spending, but he didn’t say how he would do that; and he said we needed to add revenue, but he knew exactly how to do that, tax the rich. Here’s how I see it. The government got us into this mess by spending too much money, they should get us out of it by spending less money. Asking for any more tax revenue is just shirking their responsibility for which they are paid handsomely, and passing the problem on to us. Who couldn’t solve the problem with enough money?

That’s my opinion; I’d like to know yours. Please comment below.

Democrat Tim Bishop recently sent an e-mail to his constituents blaming Republicans, although they only hold the House while Democrats hold the Senate and the White House, for being against bipartisanship. So what does Tim Bishop do when the opportunity for bipartisanship presents itself? He cements his far left credentials by voting against it.

Three free trade agreements, with Colombia, South Korea, and Panama, passed the House by wide margins (262-167, 278-151, 300-129, respectively). They passed the Senate by similarly large margins (66-33, 83-15, 77-22, respectively). President Obama supports the passage of all three. So, Tim Bishop, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid hung tough in their fight against a strong bipartisan measure.

Proponents of the trade deals, including Mr. Obama, Republican leaders and centrist Democrats, predict that they will reduce prices for American consumers and increase foreign sales of American goods and services, providing a much-needed jolt to the sluggish economy.  — New York Times, October 12, 2011.

The House also passed a measure that would provide expanded benefits for workers who lose their jobs to foreign competition.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton hailed the deals Wednesday as an important victory for American foreign policy. And she said she expected that the South Korea pact alone would create 70,000 American jobs. “By opening new markets to American exports and attracting new investments to American communities, our economic statecraft is creating jobs and spurring growth here at home,” Ms. Clinton said at a Washington event.

Perhaps instead of having to fight Washington so that Long Island vintners can get their wine bottles and labels approved, Tim Bishop should encourage the US Trade Representative to promote those wines to Columbia, South Korea and Panama. How about Tim Bishop doing something useful rather than spending money we don’t have, loading debt upon his constituents to pay for government spending elsewhere in America, trying to prop up a bankrupt postal service, and asking constituents how we can make Washington bigger and more costly and get more deeply involved in our lives. Please, Tim, don’t help us any more.

That’s my opinion; I’d like to know yours. Please comment below.

photo by kevin dooley

Tim Bishop is frustrated. He says so in an e-mail to constituents. When you have subsisted in Washington by spending other people’s money while making it appear you are Santa Claus, you get frustrated when the spending spigot is shut off. He laments that the Republican leadership in the House of Representatives has not “advanced a real agenda”. Really? The House passed a budget. How are Tim’s Bishop’s colleagues in the Senate doing with that? With the nation sinking under $16 trillion in debt, about $6 billion of which was added since Tim Bishop went to Congress, the Republicans passed “Cut, Cap, and Balance.” Tim Bishop voted against it, and his colleagues in the Senate wouldn’t even vote on it. Just what does the term “real agenda” mean to Tim Bishop?

Tim Bishop voted against a bill that would halt new EPA regulations on cement companies until the matter was studied further. Tim Bishop voted billions of dollars for “shovel ready” projects that President Obama later snickered weren’t so shovel ready (another revelation for the most inexperienced president in our history). Who knew? Now if I am not mistaken, as an engineer I believe a fair amount of concrete would be needed in most construction projects. So again, we have Tim Bishop in a fight with himself. He calls for more infrastructure spending, and then opposes delaying new regulations on cement companies, cement being one of the primary ingredients in concrete. What a concept; let’s spend boatloads of money on construction and make construction more expensive at the same time so that we get the least amount of bang for our buck.

Tim Bishop voted against a bill that would require the economic impact of EPA regulations be evaluated. If it is okay to require an environmental impact statement on construction projects, why not require an economic impact statement on EPA regulations? Tim says that would be bad.

If that is not enough, he closes his e-mail by asking constituents to send him ideas on how Washington should get more involved. This is from the Congressman who had to intervene on behalf of Long Island wineries to get Washington to speed up on the approval of the shape of their wine bottles and their labels. This we need more of? If you look at the Constitution, half of what the federal government does is not in there and should be shut down.

Tim Bishop voted for the stimulus that will have to be paid back. Based on the fact that his district is wealthier than average (let’s chant together, “Tax the Rich! Tax the Rich!”), we will end up paying about $3 billion of that tab while the district got about $600 million in funds. That means that Tim Bishop voted in favor of a program that will provide about $3 billion in funding somewhere else at a cost of around $600 million to those citizens. This has typically been the case in New York. Our heavily Democrat congressional delegation keeps voting for bigger and bigger government that New Yorkers have to pay far more for than they ever receive in benefits and they wonder why New Yorkers are moving elsewhere? (Hint: that’s why we are losing two Congressional seats). How dumb is that?

Tim Bishop doesn’t have a clue, and doesn’t appear to be looking for one. It is time for a change.

That’s my opinion; I’d like to know yours. Please comment below.

President Obama Speaking at Solyndra

Congressman Tim Bishop has not been able to keep from spending, no matter what. The Postal Service has an $8.5 billion deficit, and Tim Bishop is out there fighting to keep an unneeded post office open. We are trillions of dollars in debt and he comes out blasting the Tea Party, because they want Congress to not waste anymore money on green boondoggles like Solyndra.

At issue is a Continuing Resolution, that is, a bill to provide temporary funding to the government. At the heart of the issue is that the Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA) has run out of money, so there is an issue of whether to give them $3 billion more or $6 billion more. In addition the Republicans want to cut funding for such green projects like Solyndra, which just declared bankruptcy after getting a $500 million taxpayer-funded loan guarantee. How heartless can those Tea Party people be to not want to send good money after bad for progressive boondoggles? But of course we should listen to Tim Bishop. After all he has been such a trusted steward of our money so far, right?

The above chart shows how much debt limit has been increased by Congress to keep the government functioning, since 1940, when it was almost zero. Tim Bishop was sworn into Congress in January of 2003, from a point where it had leveled off, the line almost goes vertical. That is eight trillion dollars in additional borrowing in just ten years in office, and he has the utter gall to say the Tea Party’s calls for restraint are unwarranted? Somebody has to do it. If Tim Bishop and Nancy Pelosi had not spent trillions of dollars that the government didn’t have, maybe we wouldn’t be quibbling over $3 billion.

Waste and Fraud

It remains to be seen if Solyndra was a massive fraud or the Democrats thinking they are really investment bankers and venture capitalists rather than elected officials, but we could have used that $500 million rather than waste it. But Bishop objects:

“Even worse, the Republican bill calls for much of that sum to be funded by cutting federal loan programs that have encouraged new job creation by U.S. automakers and clean energy manufacturers.” — e-mail message from Tim Bishop to his constituents.

$39 billion in stimulus dollars have been earmarked for green energy jobs. So far, $19 billion has been spent and 3,500 jobs have been created. That’s $5.4 million per job, people, do you think we can do better than that in the private sector? But what is a “green job?” According to Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, if you drive a hybrid bus, it’s a green job, if you drive a gas-powered bus it is not a green job.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1scrqqWpFlM

As one pundit put it, Washington is the only place where the circus never leaves town. This is what Congressman Bishop decries that Republicans are trying to cut. Do you think your hard-earned money is being well spent?

There is a report out today that the federal government paid about $600 million to federal workers who are DEAD! The Justice Department buys muffins for a meeting that cost $16 each! Medicare and Medicaid routinely have $60-$100 billion per stolen, and Tim Bishop has no suggestions how to cut, and even takes the time to write his constituents that, “I am sick and tired of this divisive posturing we have come to expect from the Republican Tea Party Caucus.”

I have a piece of news for you, Congressman, in case you have not been paying attention. The last Democrat who thought it would be a great idea to attack his opponent as beholden to the Tea Party was a guy named David Weprin in the 9th Congressional District of New York special election. In a district that was 3:1 Democrat registered voters, he lost big. Many Tea Party members from the heart of your district traveled on their own time and at their own expense into Brooklyn and Queens to get out the vote for Bob Turner. If you think it is a winning strategy to attack the Tea Party, I have three words for you. Bring it on.

That’s my opinion; I’d like to know yours. Please comment below.

President Obama laid out his jobs plan and its more of the same. Tax more. Spend more. Calling more taxes, savings and more spending, investment. Is this president incapable of learning from his mistakes or is he going “all in” for a class warfare strategy to get reelected?

But it is not just the president. Democrats in Congress are circling the wagons and backing the president to the hilt, but they are starting to get nervous. They are worried if President Obama’s ratings keep falling, they may be dragged down with him.

In the First Congressional District of New York there will be a rematch between professional politician and Democrat Tim Bishop vs. entrepreneur Randy Altschuler. Bishop was in academia before getting elected to Congress in 2002, and that represents the sum total of his career. He eventually rose through the ranks at Southampton College, but just a few years after he left, in 2005, the college closed its doors, eventually being bought by the State University of New York.

After many years of fiscal mismanagement, the University announced a multi-million dollar capital campaign, launched a new interdisciplinary CORE curriculum and the construction of a new library (almost completed) to re-vamp the campus. After one year of a 10-year plan however, Long Island University officials ceased all plans and Long Island University decided to effectively close the campus. This forced most students to either move to University’s Nassau County location, C.W. Post Campus or transfer elsewhere.

That’s not an impressive record from a Democrat who likes to blame everything on President Bush. I wonder if he apologized to his successor at Southampton College for the terrible mess he left them. Since entering Congress he has voted with Nancy Pelosi 97% of the time. More than $5 trillion has been added to the national debt since Tim Bishop has been in Congress under both a Republican and a Democrat in the White House. However, with the recognition that spending has to be reined in, Bishop has given it lip service, but he cannot seem to bring himself to cut any real spending. The only thing he has seemed to offer up is closing a tax loophole on five oil companies which would close 0.2% of the current year budget deficit. With the U.S. Postal Service announcing an $8.5 billion budget deficit, Tim Bishop was out fighting to keep a superfluous post office in Setauket, NY. In addition, he voted against stopping the National Labor Relations Board from killing 2,500 jobs in South Carolina being created by Boeing. This has to stop. Tim Bishop cannot control his urge to spend, so he has to be replaced.

President Obama says we cannot cut our way out of the situation we are in. But we managed to spend our way into this mess. In Tim Bishop’s district, over $100 million of stimulus money went to school districts, who reported creating fifteen jobs. The green initiative that Obama and Bishop support has already spent $19 billion and has created only 3500 jobs; that’s $5.4 million per job! This administration guaranteed loans to a company called Solyndra, that is now bankrupt only one year after getting the loan guarantee. One of the biggest investors in Solyndra was also a campaign bundler for Obama, raising $84,000 for his presidential campaign.

Bishop’s challenger, Randy Altschuler, has created two companies and created hundreds of jobs. He decided to go into politics as he contemplated the future facing his young son. We need people in Congress who have felt the burden of trying to create jobs under the anti-business environment that exits today in America. We cannot continue to live in a fantasy world of spend, spend, spend and things will be better.

Think of a very successful company like Home Depot, which has created thousands of jobs. One of the founders of that company Bernie Marcus was recently interviewed by Neil Cavuto. Many of the suggestions he had to fix the mess we are in, have been advocated here, but they are also the very opposite of what those who are strangers to private industry are advocating, people like Barack Obama, Tim Bishop, and Chuck Schumer. We need more of the thinking and experience of those who have lived under the rules of Congress in private industry and less of those whose careers have been around telling others how to live their lives.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHUREbTn0Qo

It’s time to send Tim Bishop home and put some fresh thinking and problem solving in Washington. That’s why I support Randy Altschuler.

That’s my opinion; I’d like to know yours. Please comment below.