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Obama’s debt plan fails the truth test

And the money quote:

“Obama hiked spending by one-third in three years without improving our lives; he can cut it by an equal amount without destroying them.”

Something Obama says is untrue? Now there’s a shocker for you.



http://www.detnews.com/article/20110707/OPINION03/107070334/1008/OPINION01/Obama

Last Updated: July 07. 2011 1:00AM

Nolan Finley

Obama’s debt plan fails the truth test

Credit counselors offer standard advice to clients overwhelmed by debt: Tear up the credit cards and start paying down the balance before spending another dime on nonessentials.

That’s just common sense. Yet President Barack Obama is trying to sell us on the opposite approach for an overextended federal government. He wants us to issue him another credit card while he keeps spending as if the bills will never come due.

Obama has no credibility in the current showdown over raising the debt ceiling because he’s pitching a bundle of fibs to cover the reality that he doesn’t believe government spending is a problem.

Continue reading

Message to the Republican Party

If the republican party caves on the debt limit and spending cuts, as it appears they will, they will have officially rendered themselves completely irrelevant, and a successor to the Whig party which also went the way of the dinosaur. The message below was posted on the GOP/RNC Facebook page, and will find its way to the inboxes of many republican senators and representatives. In encourage you to do the same. Copy this if you want, or write your own, but fax, call, write, and e-mail these idiots and pressure them to do the right thing, not the easy thing which is to just keep spending to keep the special interest groups quiet.

When are TAXPAYERS going to be considered a ‘special interest group’ I suspect it will be when the producers go ‘Galt’ and simply quit laying the golden eggs that fund government’s lavish spending.


http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/07/06/house-republican-leader-flexible-in-deficit-talks/

Message to the Republican Party: You have rendered yourselves irrelevant

All of your ads castigating Obama are nice, but they are hollow, and indeed disingenuous. The GOP is finished, going the way of the Whigs. You have caved in to liberalism too many times, and despite your words, as a party you refuse to change course.

You are holding all the cards on the issue of debt and spending, but under the ‘leadership’ of Mr. ‘Crying Game’ Boehner you play the game like you have a pair of deuces. You could stand firm on the no tax increases/cut spending or no debt limit increase, but once again you cave and kick the can down the road. Our country is on track to be Greece raised to the power of 3, yet you just allow Obama and the democrats (and many of you) to just keep spending.

Now republicrats in the house have caved AGAIN in the issue of ‘revenue’ increases (http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/07/06/house-republican-leader-flexible-in-deficit-talks/), which unless you strictly stick to selling government owned/confiscated land/property, you might as well just say tax increases. You talk of “closing loopholes,” but NONE of you are in the slightest bit serious about reforming a burdensome tax code that costs government, and therefore taxpayers, billions of dollars per year. For example, if you have a 30% tax rate, but people in that bracket are only paying 15% because of the loopholes, exemptions, and shelters that YOU wrote into the thousands of pages of tax law, just go to a 15% FLAT TAX with NO EXCEPTIONS, LOOPHOLES, or SHELTERS. You pay your 15% off the top, you don’t file any tax returns, you don’t get any refunds, YOU CAN DO AWAY WITH THE IRS, and therefore save taxpayers the $13 to $14 BILLION dollars that the IRS is costing us every year. Not to mention the money saved/not spent on accountants and other things to keep from getting screwed by said IRS. But that makes far too much sense to EVER happen in Washington, and it would force you all to give up the coercive power you have in the IRS.

ALL of you are more concerned about your political careers than you are for the preservation of our constitution and our liberties, so there is absolutely ZERO chance that any REAL reforms will be made that actually help our nation. When a politician says “reform,” it usually means more laws, higher taxes, and bigger government. In concert with the democrats, you are driving the citizens of this nation into a corner from which they have no escape. You are turning us all into slaves and/or cornered animals. Both yearn for freedom, and will struggle for it until the end. I mourn what our nation has become, and I mourn for what I fear will soon happen if brave men and women are unwilling to make courageous but probably painful decisions that will return us to our constitutional path. In the short term, understand that no matter which way you vote your political future will not be a long one. But I pray that you will make the choices that will allow a revived America to view you kindly through the prism of history.


Chrysler won’t repay bailout money

We were lied to, and are being screwed by Obama yet again. They never intended to pay back any of that money. It was all just political payoff. When enough Americans wakes up, it will be too late to do anything about the treachery.


http://money.cnn.com/2009/05/05/news/companies/chrysler_loans/

Chrysler won’t repay bailout money

An administration official confirms that a $4 billion bridge loan and $3.2 billion in bankruptcy financing won’t be paid back by Chrysler following bankruptcy.

By Chris Isidore, CNNMoney.com senior writer
Last Updated: May 6, 2009: 3:44 AM ET

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Chrysler LLC will not repay U.S. taxpayers more than $7 billion in bailout money it received earlier this year and as part of its bankruptcy filing.

This revelation was buried within Chrysler’s bankruptcy filings last week and confirmed by the Obama administration Tuesday. The filings included a list of business assumptions from one of the company’s key financial advisors in the bankruptcy case.

Some of the main assumptions listed by Robert Manzo of Capstone Advisory Group were that the Treasury would forgive a $4 billion bridge loan given to Chrysler in the closing days of the Bush administration, a $300 million fee on that loan, and the $3.2 billion in financing approved last week by the Obama administration to fund Chrysler’s operations during bankruptcy.

An Obama administration official confirmed Tuesday that Chrysler won’t be repaying the loans, though a portion of the bridge loan may be recovered by Treasury from the assets of Chrysler Financial, the former credit arm of the automaker which is essentially going out of business as part of the reorganization.


Federal debt tops $13 trillion, Deficit Grows by $5 Billion Every Day

It is now undeniable, but the issue was never really in question.  Obamanomics is a failure.  Obamanomics is simply repackaged Keynesian economics mixed with socialism, progressivism, and sprinkled with a healthy dose of narcissism.

The “stimulus” hasn’t stimulated anything.  The only jobs being created are in government, and many of those are temporary.  The government is lying about these temporary jobs to build the false impression that companies are hiring and the recession is ending (gov’t fuels 413,000 gain with temp census hires).  Census workers report being hired and fired multiple times and each instance of their hiring being reported as a new job, and their firing being done in a way to prevent collection of unemployment (Census Worker Claims Job Numbers Are Being Inflated)

Obama can no longer blame Bush for anything happening to the economy now.  Obama’s continued deficit spending, giveaways and bailouts are breaking us.  Obama and the left are ignoring the warning signs coming from Europe, and the signs staring us in the face here in our own country.  This can be nothing more than the intentional destruction of the American economy and our capitalist system by a far left ideologue and his henchmen.

Wake up, America!  If we don’t “drain the swamp” of corruption in Washington NOW, we likely won’t have the chance to do it later.


http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/jun/2/federal-debt-tops-13-trillion-mark/

Federal debt tops $13 trillion mark

GOP sounds ‘alarm’ on red ink

President Barack Obama speaks in the Rose Garden of the White  House in Washington, Tuesday, June 1, 20010, after meeting with the BP  Oil Spill Commission co-chairs. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

President Barack Obama speaks in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, Tuesday, June 1, 20010, after meeting with the BP Oil Spill Commission co-chairs. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

By Stephen Dinan

9:38 p.m., Wednesday, June 2, 2010

The federal government is now $13 trillion in the red, the Treasury Department reported Wednesday, marking the first time the government has sunk that far into debt and putting a sharp point on the spending debate on Capitol Hill.

Calculated down to the exact penny, the debt totaled $13,050,826,460,886.97 as of Tuesday, leaping nearly $60 billion since Friday, the previous day for which figures were released.

At $13 trillion, that figure has risen by $2.4 trillion in about 500 days since President Obama took office, or an average of $4.9 billion a day. That’s almost three times the daily average of $1.7 billion under the previous administration, and led Republicans on Wednesday to place blame squarely at the feet of Mr. Obama and his fellow Democrats.

“A $13 trillion debt is an alarm bell and a wake-up call combined, but Democrats are not even trying to pass a budget,” said House Minority Leader John A. Boehner, Ohio Republican. “How out of touch can Washington Democrats get? Instead of continuing to pay lip service to this issue, President Obama should call on congressional Democrats to pass a budget that provides the fiscal discipline economists say is needed to create jobs and grow our economy.”

The White House would not comment for the record, but an official speaking on the condition of anonymity said the administration is “committed to restoring fiscal responsibility.”

(read complete article HERE)


Harry Reid Caught Lying About Healthcare Bill Price Tag

In the first clip you see and hear Harry Reid in his previous lie about how much healthcare reform was going to cost.  He said “approaching 1 trillion dollars…”  This was in the face of several reliable, independent estimates that more than doubled the estimate.

In the second clip you see and hear Harry Reid belittling the idea and push for tort reform and caps on medical malpractice.  It is said that these thing alone could save around 54 billion dollars.  Yet the soon to be deposed senator Reid says that “…we’re talking about 2 trillion dollars,  54 billion dollars compared to 2 trillion dollars.  You can do the math, we can all do the math.  It’s a very small percent.”

Yes, Mr. Reid, we can do the math.  I’m told that the government CURRENTLY is spending about 400 billion a year on Medicare/Medicaid and other healtcare related expenditures.  54 billion dollars is almost 14% of the total expenditure.  By instituting tort reforms and liability caps and changing NOTHING ELSE, that’s 54 BILLION DOLLARS that the taxpayers would not be getting raped for every year.  This as opposed to getting raped and sodomized for an ADDITIONAL 2 TRILLION DOLLARS.

Yes, indeed, Mr. Reid, we can do the math.  And the numbers add up to the fact that we the American people are being lied to, stolen from, and forced into modern slavery.

See below for an explanation of just how big a trillion REALLY is.

-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

With all this talk of “billions” and “trillions”, I thought a quick refresher was in order on the real magnitude of those numbers.

One TRILLION dollars…

What does that look like? I mean, these various numbers are tossed around like so many doggie treats, so I thought I’d take Google Sketchup out for a test drive and try to get a sense of what exactly a trillion dollars looks like.

We’ll start with a $100 dollar bill. Currently the largest U.S. denomination in general circulation. Most everyone has seen them, slighty fewer have owned them. Guaranteed to make friends wherever they go.

$100

A packet of one hundred $100 bills is less than 1/2″ thick and contains $10,000. Fits in your pocket easily and is more than enough for week or two of shamefully decadent fun.

$10,000

Believe it or not, this next little pile is $1 million dollars (100 packets of $10,000). You could stuff that into a grocery bag and walk around with it.

$1,000,000 (one million dollars)

While a measly $1 million looked a little unimpressive, $100 million is a little more respectable. It fits neatly on a standard pallet…

$100,000,000 (one hundred million dollars)

And $1 BILLION dollars… now we’re really getting somewhere…

$1,000,000,000 (one billion dollars)

Next we’ll look at ONE TRILLION dollars. This is that number we’ve been hearing so much about. What is a trillion dollars? Well, it’s a million million. It’s a thousand billion. It’s a one followed by 12 zeros.

You ready for this?

It’s pretty surprising.

Go ahead…

Scroll down…

Ladies and gentlemen… I give you $1 trillion dollars

$1,000,000,000,000 (one trillion dollars)

Notice the man standing at the left front corner for size reference.

(And notice those pallets are double stacked.)

So the next time you hear someone toss around the phrase “trillion dollars”… that’s what they’re talking about

** Keep in mind, what you see is NOT one trillion $1 bills, it is 10,000,000,000 $100 bills.

Here’s a breakdown of size if you stacked the following amounts in $1 bills

How tall is 1 trillion dollars

A stack of one trillion $1 bills would make just over 16 round trips from New York to Los Angeles.

A stack of one trillion $1 bills would make 3.17 laps around the earth at the equator.

A stack of one trillion $1 bills would reach over 1/3 of the way to the moon.

Sound like a lot of dollars to you?  Yet these idiots in Washington, many of whom have never had to earn an honest days wage, throw these numbers around like they don’t mean anything.  To them it doesn’t mean anything because they won’t be the ones paying for it.

-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

Just the Fax, Senator.

My latest letter to our pole-iticians.  It was faxed to every senator that published a fax number on his/her web page, as well as the news outlets listed in the CC block.

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

September 27, 2009

From:     xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Subject: Transparency, Healthcare, Tyranny, and the Relevance of the House and Senate

To:          All Members of the United States Senate

Cc:          xxxxxxxxx, New York Times, Washington Post, Fox News, CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS, Roger Hedgecock, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity

Senators,

It is with a heavy heart that I write this letter.  As the polls taken all over the country indicate, Americans increasingly do not trust Mr. Obama, and we increasingly do not trust you.  You may ask why this may be so.  Let me scratch the surface.

During his campaign, Mr. Obama promised “transparency.”  He promised that everything about his administration would be out in the open for all to see.  All of you applauded.  What has been the reality since the election of Mr. Obama?  We have an $800 billion non-stimulating stimulus package that was crammed down our throats with lots of back room deals and cloak-and-dagger secrecy.  The promised review periods?  Never happened.  “Czar” and cabinet appointments?  Secret appointments of unknown, un-vetted people who would never be able to get a job in our government if there were any investigation of their backgrounds.  Now you are racing to pass legislation which on its face is excessively burdensome, and at its core is unconstitutional.  Many of you insult us and say we don’t need time to read the bill because it’s too complex for us to understand.  Many of you call those of us who question the need for this bill “racist,” “Nazis,” “un-American,” or worse.  Some of you stir up fear and say if we don’t act now, millions will die.  Similar hollow promises and threats were made when many House and Senate members were hoodwinked into voting for the stimulus bill.  We were promised that the unemployment would not go above 8%, and that the economy would immediately turn around if we let you spend this $800 billion dollars.  You lied.  Even worse, most of the money in the bill is not stimulus related.  It is mostly political payoff and pork.  Recently a few of you actually listened to your constituents and have pushed for an amendment that would require the bill to be available for public review for 3 days before any vote on it.  Once again, those of you seeking power for yourselves at the expense of American taxpayers sent us a loud and clear message.  You think that we work for you.  You think we just need to be quiet because you are smarter than any of us and therefore know better than we do what is good for America.  Those of you who voted to continue lying to Americans know who you are, and so do we.

As you continue to push for this massive reform of healthcare, and ultimately a government takeover of the entire system, any rational person must ask “why?”  If the baby’s bath water is cold and/or dirty, you simply change the water.  You are throwing out the baby and keeping the dirty water.  It would take me more pages than you will ever read to dissect what is wrong with the reform bill(s) being shoved through the house and senate right now.  You haven’t read any legislation passed in the last year (maybe more), so why would I expect you to read this letter.  The one thing all of us can agree on is that healthcare costs are too high.  Why?  Two primary reasons: (1) government involvement, and (2) trial lawyers.  Yet what does this bill do?  It has the government that can’t run the Post Office, or manage the government run healthcare we already have take over even more of the healthcare industry, and it ignores tort reform.  Then there are the simple economic principles of supply and demand.  Because even today you will not allow doctors to refuse ANYONE healthcare if they show up at a hospital (especially illegal aliens), and you allow many frivolous lawsuits against those doctors and hospitals with outrageous settlements, you have driven, and will drive more of the BEST doctors from practice.  There will be millions more people to be covered under your mandatory plan and fewer doctors to treat them.  It doesn’t add up to anything but healthcare rationing, and a lower quality of healthcare.  Who will decide who gets healthcare and who does not?  Under this bill, it will be you.  Even if I can afford better healthcare, you will not allow me to get it.  Yet to add insult to injury, since you are all so superior to the rest of us, you will not be forced to take part in this abortion of a plan.  What should put the final nail in the coffin of this plan is the fact that we will have no choice in whether or not we buy the government healthcare.  We will be fined $1,900 to $25,000 if we don’t buy government healthcare, or face jail time.  We are told that our taxes will not go up, yet the IRS is the primary enforcement agent of this plan.  Something rotten in Denmark (or Washington), wouldn’t you say?  Do you see why so many Americans are angry about this?  I didn’t think so.

The way you are treating Americans amounts to tyranny.  For those of you who haven’t read the definition, it means the arbitrary or unrestrained despotic exercise and abuse of power or authority.  Here’s the funniest part about this.  Those of you abusing your positions actually think you will matter when all is said and done.  In reality you are being used as useful idiots.  Do you remember the “czars” I mentioned earlier?  With his use of the “czars” and several other slashes he has taken at the constitution, Mr. Obama is rendering you irrelevant.  As soon as he gets what he wants, you will all no longer matter.  And you are the ones letting it happen.  Sadly, what is worse is that we the people will no longer have the government our founding fathers envisioned which worked FOR the people.  Nor will we have the chance to peacefully continue or regain it.

I will end with words from the Declaration of Independence, words which reflect the brilliance of our founding fathers to those who love freedom.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. …”

I will also remind you of the oath of office that you swore upon taking office.

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God.

Mr. or Ms. Senator, it is my duty and our duty as Americans to do whatever is necessary to preserve our constitution, our freedom, our republic, and our way of life.  An increasing number of Americans are becoming aware of that responsibility with each passing day.  We will fight to the end to preserve these things.  The only question is whether we will do it with or without your help.

Sincerely,

/// SIGNED ///

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Obamanomics: Deficit Has TRIPLED, and Will Likely Increase by at Least $1 Trillion a Year

By the White House’s own estimates, the deficit over the next decade will increase by not just $1 Trillion, but by $1 Trillion EACH YEAR! That’s a conservative estimate, as most experts are beginning to feel that under Obama’s “leadership” our deficits will increase by nearly double that.  Russia and the Soviet Union already tried this and failed.  WHY ARE WE LETTING THIS COMU-SOCIALIST AND HIS DEMOCRAT MINIONS TRY IT AGAIN HERE IN AMERICA?

THEY MUST BE STOPPED AT ALL COST.

With this new admission of debt guilt, shouldn’t this pretty much drive the last nail in the coffin of Health Care Reform/Takeover?  Not to mention Cap-and-Tax.

Our economy and nation can’t hide behind fake figures and phony numbers for much longer.  Not with the staggering debt Obama is piling on to the next 10 generations.  It’s like Michael Moore trying to hide behind a blade of grass.  As the rate of decay of our economy increases at a blistering pace, pretty soon everything we own will be worthless, our currency will be worthless, and no one will earn enough money to buy even a loaf of bread.  Anyone remember pre-war Germany?  A wheelbarrow full of D-Marks wouldn’t buy a loaf of bread.  We will all be peasants.

The scene towards the end of “History of the World, part 1” is especially poignant here.  As the peasants are storming the castle, the king is told by his adviser that “the peasants are revolting!”  The king ignorantly and snobbishly replies “They certainly are!”  Dictator Obama and the liberal rats in Washington better wise up before they find themselves roasting on a spit.

http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/20090824/cumulative-deficit-estimate-for-next-decade-increasedtrillion-since-may.htm

Cumulative Deficit Estimate for Next Decade Increased $2 Trillion… Since May

By Trader Mark
Posted 24 August 2009 @ 07:45 am ET

I guess we’ll post this along the lines of “if you pass the stimulus plan, unemployment will only go to mid 8%” or “if you don’t give Goldman Sachs the TARP money, the world will end immediately” and other such incorrect mythologies. Long time readers know where I stand on government figures which are backwards looking; not to mention guestimates of the future… if the guess from government is correct THIS time around (chuckle here) the budget deficit for the next decade now will stand at $9 Trillion.

Last time government chimed in with an estimate? Way back… 3 whole months ago; when they said the deficit would be $7.1 Trillion. Missed it by *that* much. That’s ok, government estimates are made to be broken. Usually I try to give them more than 3 months to be wrong by a factor of 27% but I think within government circles that accuracy (+/- 25%) is considered “dead on”, and reason for promotion.

$9 Trillion over a decade is just under $1 Trillion a year. Consider until this year (partly by phony accounting for wars and financial rescues that were not counted in the budget by the former administration) the largest annual budget deficit we ever had was under $500 Billion. [Jul 28, 2008: US Budget Deficit to Half a Trillion] This year we have an excellent chance of $1.6 Trillion. Heck we just put up a $180B month [Aug 12, 2009: July Budget Deficit $180.7B]. With the economy only slowly recovering in 2010 (and subject to a double dip with higher inflation), and the main drivers of tax revenue (employment, real estate, consumption) not expected to be recovering much next year I think we have an excellent chance for another $1.5ish Trillion year in ’10. Especially after Obama and the Dems number fall this winter as the “Main Street” economy is not quite so awesome as the “Wall Street” economy and plans for Stimulus 8.0 are drawn up. Plus the next housing program give away; the next cars program; and helping the states out with their budget shortfalls in 2010. Oh yes, increased food stamps, another 13 week extension of long term unemployment, increased welfare for those who still fall out of unemployment, and I am sure a few other things I am forgetting. (cursory green shoots inserted here)

Now the good thing by layering on debt to inflate asset values AND stoke “prosperity” [Jun 5, 2009: 1 in 6 Dollars of Income Now Via Government; Highest Since 1929] [Jul 30, 2009: Cash for Clunkers a Bit Hit, Government Asks “What Can we Buy You Next?”] , is you might punish your currency month after month, but it should drive incremental tax revenue gains from stocks and (gosh) even real estate as more (ahem) “wealth” is created. Not in real terms, but in nominal… and most Americans only live in a nominal world. So if the currency drops 15% and your government is able to stoke some combination of your 401k, and house up 15% – you really gained nothing but you’ll feel great because most people only look at their 401k and housing values, without understanding the currency. Now if you happen to be one of those American souls who simply is trying to get by in a harsh world, and you don’t happen to own stocks or real estate? Well, you’re job then is to pay for your life with 15% more of a devalued currency – making everything 15% more expensive in real terms. But really, it’s not about you – we have a financial and political elite to take care of and only by coming together as one can we do it. Reverse Robin Hood style. Remember, inflation is GREEEEEEAT! (as long as your are not in the bottom half) [Aug 18, 2009: Bloomberg Opinion – Deflation Theory is Lemon We’ve Been Sold]

Even more funny is that the nominal increase in tax revenue (created by government shuffling money from the future to now to create “GDP growth”) might put a dent in near term deficits … by pathetically adding to long term deficits. Remember – in a nominal world there is no cost benefit analysis; only benefit benefit analysis. We get our goodies today, and the costs get stuffed “somewhere else” for “someone else” to deal with. Listen to the masses with the siren call of “free government money, I want mine!” not realizing they are taking from themselves… with interest. That’s called living in a nominal world. And not being real.

***********************

(Don’t miss this last paragraph.  This sums up why our money and economy will be worthless in the very near future if we don’t STOP THIS INSANE SPENDING AND ALL OF THESE SENSELESS BAILOUTS.  Obama and the democrats are killing our country.  We MUST stop them, any way we can.)

America is (but not for long) still under 100% debt to GDP. We are on a clear path to surpass Japanese debt to GDP (a staggering 200% debt to GDP) within the decade. US Debt Clock (as of Aug 09) read $11.7T; GDP is say $13.5T. Throw the next decade’s (conservative) $9T on top and you are at a juicy $21T debt circa 2019 aka 150% of GDP. I think that’s conservative – we are overachievers and will “beat” that. Since the government figures just were raised $1.9T in 3 months you can see how quickly we could jump from $21T in 2019 to (some higher number). Once we pass 200% debt to GDP, it will all be uncharted territory for a modern developed country. Our annual growth rate of debt is now trouncing Japan, so it’s the story of the tortoise and the hare. Although in this case you don’t really want to be the hare. I also conveniently left out the $40T in unfunded liabilities (i.e. IOUs) sitting in Medicare. I’ve also left out the healthcare “reform” – considering the original estimates of Medicare were off by a factor of 10x within the first year of it’s implementation… well, you can do the math. And just for kicks let’s throw in the $1 Trillion pension disaster that is looming (currently being hidden by… accounting tricks) [Mar 4, 2009: Bloomberg – Hidden Pension Fiasco May Foment Another $1 Trillion Bailout] That’s just sort of icing on the cake at this point.

Did I mention how the debt will increase even more quickly if government debt interest rates permanently jump up as the world sees the increasing risk of investing in America?

Stanford University economics professor John Taylor, an influential economist, told Reuters Television Friday the U.S. budget deficit poses a greater risk to the financial system than the collapse in commercial real estate prices.”If that gets out of control, if interest rates start to rise because people are reluctant to buy all that debt, then that can slow the economy down. So, that’s the more systemic concern I have,” Taylor said.

Via Bloomberg

  • The U.S. government’s long-term budget outlook is darker than expected, with projected deficits over the next 10 years totaling $2 trillion more than had been forecast, according to an Obama administration official.
  • A White House budget review set for release Aug. 25 will show cumulative deficits over the next decade amounting to $9 trillion, up from $7.1 trillion that the administration predicted in May, the official said on condition of anonymity because the figures haven’t been made public.

Really a trillion here, a trillion there – what does it matter. All I know is many Americans were gleeful per my review of national news this weekend they got new cars. (granted many now have a new layer of debt) Others are gleeful they can get their first house via money trees grown in D.C.. (and when many default on their close to no money down mortgages in 3 years – it will be ok, no skin in the game after all) Citigroup and Bank of America bondholders are happy that they never had to take a hit despite the biggest crisis in 80 years. Goldman Sachs is happy they got fulfilled dollar for dollar on AIG counterparty risk. AIG is just happy to be in existence and seeing its stock surge 20% a day, subsidized by US taxpayer. And we’re all happy these actions plus more are making the stock market inflate. It’s really all about happiness after all. Can we put a price on that?[Mar 31, 2009: Financial Rescue Pledges Now $12.8 Trillion] Hey! That was supposed to be a rhetorical question!

[May 29, 2009: In 1 year, US Taxpayer on the Hook for $55,000 More per Household] Stop it! There is no price too high to bear for happiness of our people and concurrent transfer of wealth from the middle to our financial oligarchs. Get with the program!

For another source to fact check the Administration:

  • The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has estimated deficits between 2010 and 2019 will total $9.14 trillion.

Considering the CBO thought we’d be $1.1 T in hock for 2009 in (one third of the way into the fiscal 2009 year) December 2008 – they only understated the reality by 45% …Now we want them to guestimate how bad things will be not 1 year but 10 years out, so let’s take it all with multiple grains of salt. If they are only off in the decade by the same amount they were off in this 1 year it is really +/- $5 Trillion over 10 years. And since no one really knows how it will turn out, the best course of action is to continue policies as is and buy happiness (not to mention higher equity prices). “Someone else” (benefit benefit) analysis will worry about these things in 2019.

[May 23, 2008: David Walker on CNBC this Morning]

[Mar 26, 2008: Annual Spring Entitlement Warning Falls on Deaf Ears]

[Nov 23, 2008: David Walker in Fortune Magazine]

[Jun 12, 2009: NYT – America’s Sea of Red Ink was Years in the Making]

[Aug 5, 2009: Federal Tax Revenue Plummeting]

Obama’s Pentagon Cuts

Obama doesn’t know Bo, Jack, Diddley, or Bubkiss.  Not only is he the driving force in the destruction of our economic system, he is doing everything he can to destroy our military capability and ensure our removal from the world stage as a superpower.  The one and only thing the constitution provides the authority to tax for is national defense.  Yet defense is being sacrificed for vote-buying give away programs funded involuntarily with our money.  But we the sheeple have allowed our morals and ethics to be eroded, and our government to take so much of our freedom, that there may be no turning back.  America, it’s time to take back our country.

Obama’s Pentagon Cuts

The unclassified version of the 2009 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) — the U.S. Defense Dept.’s four-year strategy planning exercise — has yet to be released. But an unprecedented gag order placed on those responsible for developing the QDR, combined with Monday’s proposed terminations of programs — like the Air Force’s newly operational air-superiority fighter, the F-22 Raptor — has military experts concerned the writing may already be on the wall.

“I am appalled at the decisions just made by the secretary, as are other very senior Air Force general officers,” retired Lt. Gen. Thomas G. McInerney (U.S. Air Force), told HUMAN EVENTS following U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ press conference yesterday.

Gates proposed delays and terminations of current and next-generation platforms and weapons systems programs, which included, among other particulars:

  • cutting aircraft carriers from 11 to 10 and decreasing production of other surface combatants
  • delaying amphibious ship programs
  • halting the planned increase of ground-based interceptors in Alaska
  • cancelling a second airborne laser (antimissile) aircraft
  • terminating the ground-vehicle element of the Army’s Future Combat Systems (essentially killing the program)
  • delaying production of a new presidential helicopter
  • ending development of a new Air Force search and rescue helicopter
  • canceling the development of a new bomber
  • ending the C-17 transport aircraft, and
  • stopping production of the F-22 at 187 fighters

Additionally, the secretary of defense vowed to “maximize the production” of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and up the purchase of the Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps’ F-35 Joint Strike Fighter from 14 to 30 in Fiscal Year 2010.

“But the F-35 cannot survive a Russian S-300 surface-to-air missile, and the F-22 can,” says McInerney, a former assistant vice chief of staff of the Air Force. “The question should be, why don’t we have a fly-off between the F-22 and the Joint Strike Fighter?”

McInerney adds, “He [Gates] is trying to make the Air Force a supporting service. He does not understand airpower.”

Among the concerns expressed — in the wake of yesterday’s proposed cuts before the QDR — is that the current crop of defense planners and policymakers may be suffering from shortsightedness. They may be dismissing potential strategic military threats to the U.S. as overblown. They may be capitulating to the “change” crowd in Washington. Or all of the above.

Asked if he was “walking into a buzzsaw,” Gates responded: “There’s no question a lot of these decisions will be controversial. My hope is that — as we have tried to do here in this building [the Pentagon] — the members of Congress will rise above parochial interests and consider what is in the best interest of the nation as a whole.”

But Gates’ remarks in 2008 in which he said, “I have noticed too much of a tendency towards what might be called ‘next war-it is,’” have fueled fears among many retired generals. And the QDR gag order (a non-disclosure agreement reportedly signed by defense officials stating they will not discuss the QDR) is certainly not alleviating any concerns.

“It’s the first time it [the agreement] has ever been done in history,” says McInerney. “If I was one of the chiefs, I would have said there is no way I’m signing anything.”

A general who spoke on condition of anonymity added, “[A] serious naiveté has begun to fester [in the Beltway],” and the White House and senior defense officials “want to shape the military the way they think it should be without debate. They don’t see Russia or China as a threat. And the idea that we should not focus on future potential conflicts — from guerrilla operations to even air or sea battles — is troubling.”

Retired Maj. Gen. Paul E. Vallely (U.S. Army), former deputy commanding general of U.S. Army Forces Pacific, tells HUMAN EVENTS, “There is no overriding strategy, not only for the war against radical Islam — the planners don’t even know what to call it anymore — but no broad strategy for the Middle East and beyond. We do not seem to have senior people — particularly among the political appointees — who understand the threats against us, much less how to develop a strategy to meet those threats.”

McInerney says — based on information he and other retired general and flag officers are gleaning — whatever strategy is being planned seems to be too narrowly focused on ground-centric, irregular warfare operations and forces. Though, he adds, those forces are critically important in the 21st century, so are sea, air, and space forces which must never be neglected in the face of emerging and yet-unseen threats to national defense.

“Ground forces will not deter China from going into Taiwan,” says McInerney. “The Air Force and the Navy’s carrier strike groups have been fighting for 19 years. They are worn out. They need money.” The money, he argues, is desperately needed for recapitalization (also known as resetting — essentially putting a new engine in an old F-15) and modernization (replacing an F-15 with a brand-new F-22).

Retired Brig. Gen. Jim Cash (U.S. Air Force), former vice commander of the 7th Air Force, agrees.

“I think there is some shortsightedness,” Cash tells HUMAN EVENTS. “The Sec. Def. does not seem to realize that the major long term threat to this country may well come from Russia and China. The only way to negate that threat is through development and maintenance of a continuing strong deterrent. The F-22 will provide that deterrent by insuring command of the skies over the battlefield for the next 50 years. UAVs will not.”

Cash says U.S. Army and Marine forces have enjoyed air-superiority above their battlespaces “almost continually since the inception of air warfare” without which those ground forces could not survive.

Therein may lie one of the problems: America’s air and sea forces are indeed so dominant — the equipment and technology so superior to anything fielded by other nations, and the training of American airmen and sailors so effective — that much of America has grown to take that dominance for granted. “Our equipment and people are simply so good, they make warfighting look easy. But there is nothing easy about what we do,” Lt. Gen. Gary L. North, commanding general of U.S. Central Command’s Air Forces, told me back in 2007.

Peter Brookes, a former CIA operations officer who also served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Asian and Pacific Affairs, tells HUMAN EVENTS, “The QDR needs to show a balanced force capable of dealing with a range of contingencies because the next war is not necessarily going to be like an Iraq or Afghanistan. It could be with Russia, China, even a conventional war with Iran or North Korea. And because of the lag time [from drawing board to fielding] of these weapons systems, we must be moving out smartly on next generation systems.”

As Brookes says, “You can build a second lieutenant in six weeks, but you can’t build a ship or a tank in that same time.” And the longer we postpone production of a new weapons system, the more expensive that system becomes.

But it’s not simply development lag time and increasing costs: America’s Defense-Industrial base cannot afford to atrophy. If production of ships, planes, and tanks is halted, it will be difficult — perhaps impossible — to reengineer and retool from “cold iron” quickly enough to defend the country in a 21st-century environment. “The world is far different today than it was in World War II,” says Brookes. Time is critical.

Maj. Gen. George B. Patrick III, former special assistant to the director of Air National Guard and chief of staff U.S. Air Force, believes that much of what we will see in the forthcoming QDR will reflect Gates’ belief that the focus should be on the near-term threat. “But some of our high-tech weaponry that has been broadly listed under this ‘next-war-it is’ heading, is very effective in the global war on terror,” Patrick tells HUMAN EVENTS. “And if we do not continue to leverage the technology that’s available to us, and if we don’t pursue the fifth-generation fighters and other systems, potential peer competitors will.”

Patrick adds, “In my opinion, the QDR over the years has become something of a budget drill, making the threat and the resources needed to address the threat match the reality of the projected budget. It should, however, be a true empirical analysis of what our threats are regardless of budget.”

Barack Obama’s 2010 baseline defense budget is $534 billion: Still, “$26 billion below four percent of GDP, according to the Senate analysis,” writes Rowan Scarborough. Four percent is what many analysts and experts believe we should be spending as a minimum on defense.

For perspective, the U.S. was spending a whopping 34.5 percent of GDP for Defense in World War II. We spent 11.7 at the height of the Korean War, nearly 10 percent at the height of the Vietnam War, six percent under President Reagan in 1986, and 4.6 percent in 1991, the year of Gulf War I.

“Four percent for baseline Defense budget is certainly not too much to ask,” says McInerney. “After all, we spent $787-billion on a stimulus package that gives $3-billion to ACORN.”

Mr. Smith is a contributor to Human Events. A former U.S. Marine rifle-squad leader and counterterrorism instructor, he writes about military/defense issues and has covered conflict in the Balkans, on the West Bank, in Iraq and Lebanon. He is the author of six books, and his articles appear in a variety of publications. E-mail him at marine1@uswriter.com.

_______________________________________________________________________________________

Obama Raising Taxes $26,000 per year on Tax Paying Families Over Next Decade

Don’t look behind the curtain.  These are not the tax cuts you’re looking for.  What we’ve got here is failure to realize your failed communist policies have failed every time in history they have been tried.  Our wannabe-communist liberals believe that the only reason communism failed is that not enough freedom was taken, not enough taxes were confiscated, and not enough money was spent.  Well, now they have their chance to prove their point and have ALREADY demonstrated the historic truth that communism and socialism are simply and demonstrably failed ideologies.  Over spending and borrowing what you can’t afford to pay back are what got America into its current mess.  So why is it suddenly a good idea to borrow TRILLIONS of dollars we can’t afford to pay back just so we can spend most of it on pork projects designed to get politicians re-elected? These lying, power-hungry scumbags are taxing and spending us into oblivion.  We can’t afford any more of Obama’s  lies or broken promises.  We can’t even afford for Uh-Bama to tell the truth.  The few times he’s honest, we get a glimpse into the “1984” Big-Brother future he has planned for us.  He promises to raise a civilian security force as well funded as the military (Brown Shirts).  He promises to destroy the coal mining industry in this country.  He promises to make other countries like us again (by destroying us so we are no longer the lone super power).  America can not afford Obama.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again.  TERM LIMITS. The liberals are shredding the constitution as fast as they can feed it into the shredder.  What is it going to take to MAKE THEM STOP?

Obama’s $163,000 Tax Bomb

Families well below the president’s ‘no-tax’ threshold will get a six-figure bill.

The House and Senate are preparing to pass President Barack Obama’s radical budget blueprint, with only minor modifications, by using (abusing would be more accurate) the budget “reconciliation” process. This process circumvents the Senate’s normal rules requiring 60 votes to prevent a filibuster. Reconciliation was created by Congress in the mid-1970s to enforce deficit reduction, the opposite of what the president and his party are aiming for.

[Commentary] AP

The immense increase in nondefense spending and taxes, and the tripling of the national debt in Mr. Obama’s budget, have been the subject of considerable scrutiny since it was announced. Mr. Obama and his economic officials respond, not without justification, that he inherited an enormous economic and financial crisis and a large deficit. All presidents present the best possible case for their budgets, but a mind-numbing array of numbers offers innumerable opportunities to conjure up misleading comparisons.

Mr. Obama’s characterizations of his budget unfortunately fall into this pattern. He claims to reduce the deficit by half, to shave $2 trillion off the debt (the cumulative deficit over his 10-year budget horizon), and not to raise taxes on anyone making less than $250,000 a year. While in a Clintonian sense correct (depends on what the definition of “is” is), it is far more accurate to describe Mr. Obama’s budget as almost tripling the deficit. It adds $6.5 trillion to the national debt, and leaves future U.S. taxpayers (many of whom will make far less than $250,000) with the tab. And all this before dealing with the looming Medicare and Social Security cost explosion.

[Commentary]

Some have laid the total estimated deficits and debt projections (as more realistically tallied by the Congressional Budget Office) on Mr. Obama’s doorstep. But on this score the president is correct. He cannot rightly be blamed for what he inherited. A more accurate comparison calculates what he has already added and proposes to add by his policies, compared to a “do-nothing” baseline (see nearby chart).

The CBO baseline cumulative deficit for the Obama 2010-2019 budget is $9.3 trillion. How much additional deficit and debt does Mr. Obama add relative to a do-nothing budget with none of his programs? Mr. Obama’s “debt difference” is $4.829 trillion — i.e., his tax and spending proposals add $4.829 trillion to the CBO do-nothing baseline deficit. The Obama budget also adds $177 billion to the fiscal year 2009 budget. To this must be added the $195 billion of 2009 legislated add-ons (e.g., the stimulus bill) since Mr. Obama’s election that were already incorporated in the CBO baseline and the corresponding $1.267 trillion in add-ons for 2010-2019. This brings Mr. Obama’s total additional debt to $6.5 trillion, not his claimed $2 trillion reduction. That was mostly a phantom cut from an imagined 10-year continuation of peak Iraq war spending.

The claim to reduce the deficit by half compares this year’s immense (mostly inherited) deficit to the projected fiscal year 2013 deficit, the last of his current term. While it is technically correct that the deficit would be less than half this year’s engorged level, a do-nothing budget would reduce it by 84%. Compared to do-nothing, Mr. Obama’s deficit is more than two and a half times larger in fiscal year 2013. Just his addition to the budget deficit, $459 billion, is bigger than any deficit in the nation’s history. And the 2013 deficit is supposed to be after several years of economic recovery, funds are being returned from the financial bailouts, and we are out of Iraq.

Finally, what of the claim not to raise taxes on anyone earning less than $250,000 a year? Even ignoring his large energy taxes, Mr. Obama must reconcile his arithmetic. Every dollar of debt he runs up means that future taxes must be $1 higher in present-value terms. Mr. Obama is going to leave a discounted present-value legacy of $6.5 trillion of additional future taxes, unless he dramatically cuts spending. (With interest the future tax hikes would be much larger later on.) Call it a stealth tax increase or ticking tax time-bomb.

What does $6.5 trillion of additional debt imply for the typical family? If spread evenly over all those paying income taxes (which under Mr. Obama’s plan would shrink to a little over 50% of the population), every income-tax paying family would get a tax bill for $163,000. (In ten years, interest would bring the total to well over $200,000, if paid all at once. If paid annually over the succeeding ten years, the tax hike per year would average almost $26,000.) That’s in addition to his explicit tax hikes. While the future tax time-bomb is pushed beyond Mr. Obama’s budget horizon, and future presidents and Congresses will decide how it will be paid, it is likely to be paid by future income tax hikes as these are general fund deficits.

We can get a rough idea of who is likely to pay them by distributing this $6.5 trillion of future taxes according to the most recent distribution of income-tax burdens. We know the top 1% or 5% of income-taxpayers pay vastly disproportionate shares of taxes, and much larger shares than their shares of income. But it also turns out that Mr. Obama’s massive additional debt implies a tax hike, if paid today, of well over $100,000 for people with incomes of $150,000, far below Mr. Obama’s tax-hike cut-off of $250,000 (over $130,000 in ten years and over $16,000 a year if paid annually over the following ten years). In other words, a middle-aged two-career couple in New York or California could get a future tax bill as big as their mortgage.

While Mr. Obama’s higher tax rates are economically harmful, some of his tax policies deserve wide support, e.g., permanently indexing the alternative minimum tax. Ditto some of the spending increases, including the extension of unemployment benefits, given the severe recession.

Neither a large deficit in a recession nor a small increase from the current modest level in the debt to GDP ratio is worrisome. And at a 50% debt-to-GDP ratio, with nominal GDP growing 4% (the CBO out-year forecast), deficits of 2% of GDP would not be increasing the debt burden relative to income.

But what is not just worrisome but dangerous are the growing trillion dollar deficits in the latter years of the Obama budget. These deficits are so large for a prosperous nation in peacetime — three times safe levels — that they would cause the debt burden to soar toward banana republic levels. That’s a recipe for a permanent drag on growth and serious pressure on the Federal Reserve to inflate, not the new era of rising prosperity that Mr. Obama and his advisers foresee.

Mr. Boskin is a professor of economics at Stanford University and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. He chaired the Council of Economic Advisers under President George H.W. Bush.

This story has been corrected. An earlier version included in two parenthetical statements calculations of additional taxes derived from the debt occurring over the period, rather than present discounted values.

Please add your comments to the Opinion Journal forum.

Obamas Sell Out America Road Show

With the audacity of a dope, Barack Hussein Obama, the Obamasiah, the distributor-in-chief of the earned to the undeserving, who has been groomed to sell out America since he was a young man studying at the feet of terrorists and communists, who has been rehearsing the sellout of his country since the beginning of his presidential campaign, has just put act one of the Great American Sellout on the public stage.  Apologizing for American greatness?  What has the great nation of America done to make the world better anyway?  Let’s look at a few examples.

  • Founded a nation based on individual freedom and capitalism that has advanced the human condition more in the last 200 years than in all of the previous history of mankind
  • Pulled Europe’s bacon out of the fire not once, not twice, but THREE times in the last century
    • World War One
    • World War Two
    • The Cold War
  • Saved the rest of the world twice
  • Following WWII, rebuilt most of the world AT OUR OWN EXPENSE including THE COUNTRIES RESPONSIBLE FOR DESTROYING IT IN THE FIRST PLACE
  • Even in the face of ever increasing taxes and a slide toward socialism, America is still THE MOST CHARITABLE NATION ON EARTH
  • Any time there is a disaster or trouble around the world, who does everyone turn to for help, money, and/or military force?
    • No other socio-economic system on earth has been able to generate the kind of wealth and prosperity that America has
    • More than any other nation on earth, that wealth and prosperity has been used for good and to foster freedom

Yes, Mr. Uh-Bama,  America may not be perfect.  However, she is light years better than any other nation on this planet.  If that were not true, why do millions of people risk everything to come to America every year?  For all of you apologists who keep putting down America, I have two words for you: GET OUT! There is no other nation on earth where you could put down your own country and government like you do without being thrown in jail or executed.  If you dislike America so much, I have a deal for you.  You renounce your citizenship, surrender your U.S. passport, and I’ll take up a collection to give you a ride to the border or the beach.  As you exit America, don’t let the door hit you in the butt on the way out.

Echo Of Europe

By INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Friday, April 03, 2009 4:20 PM PT

Leadership: Sixty-one years to the day after Truman signed the Marshall Plan rebuilding war-torn Europe, President Obama apologizes to French youth for U.S. arrogance. Our defense of freedom is no shame.


Read More: Business & Regulation


News reports quoted French men and women hailing the first African-American president of the United States as a hopeful sign for global racial reconciliation.

But is there another reason they’re so smitten? Might they be imagining the decline of America and the rise of a Eurocentric multilateralism?

Barack Obama’s words to the thousands of squealing young French and German fans at the Rhenus Sports Arena in Strasbourg certainly seem in harmony with such hopes.

“In America,” the president claimed, “there’s a failure to appreciate Europe’s leading role in the world. Instead of celebrating your dynamic union and seeking to partner with you to meet common challenges, there have been times where America has shown arrogance and been dismissive, even derisive.”

President Obama promised that “America is changing” and that there would now be “unprecedented coordination” in our policies.

He lamented that “we got sidetracked by Iraq”; he extolled the “social safety net that exists in almost all of Europe that doesn’t exist in the United States.”

And he described the G-20 summit he just attended in London last week as “a success of nations coming together, working out their differences, and moving boldly forward.”

But is multilateralism really the great hope for the future that the president and his French and German devotees are convinced it is?

“We just emerged from an era marked by irresponsibility,” the president claimed in reference to the global financial crisis.

But when he flaunts his “excellent meeting with President Medvedev of Russia” to begin the reduction of U.S. and Russian nuclear stockpiles with the claim that working with Moscow will “give us greater moral authority to say to Iran, ‘don’t develop a nuclear weapon,’ to say to North Korea, ‘don’t proliferate nuclear weapons,’ ” isn’t he actually embarking on a new era of naive foreign policy irresponsibility?

The Russia and Communist China the president wants to “partner” with are directly responsible for giving Iran and North Korea the nuclear expertise and equipment that have empowered those two oppressive terror states to pursue the ability to incinerate a city.

And does the president really believe that Kim Jong-il or the Ayatollah Khomenei respond, as he put it, to “moral authority” the way civilized leaders do?

It’s Europe that has things to learn from America, not vice versa.

Europe can learn that with an injection of U.S.-style market competition, French patients need not wait month-upon-month for heart bypass surgery. They can learn that Iran is a clear and present danger requiring force from a united free world, not talk.

While they’re at it, they might also learn to express some gratitude for the $13 billion American taxpayers shelled out during the post-war years (over $100 billion in current dollars) to rebuild their countries — after the U.S. came to their rescue during the war itself, spilling the blood of hundreds of thousands to defeat Hitler.

The United States of America is the world’s lone superpower — unless and until we choose to relinquish that responsibility.

The last thing our sometime friends and allies across the pond need is a U.S. president bemoaning America’s role in the world and serving as an echo chamber to those in Europe who would like to see us weakened or irrelevant.

Big transatlantic moment as Barack Obama bemoans “arrogance” of US and “insidious” anti-Americanism of Europe

Posted By: Toby Harnden at Apr 3, 2009 at 16:24:00 [General]

Posted in: Foreign Correspondents

Tags:

Barack Obama, Europe, nato, Rhenus Sports Arena, Strasbourg

Here in the Rhenus Sports Arena in Strasbourg, I’ve just witnessed what is surely a very important – I hesitate to say historic – moment in transatlantic relations. Barack Obama went further than any previous president in apologising for American behaviour.

“In America, there is a failure to appreciate Europe’s leading role in the world,” he said in a prepared speech delivered before a campaign-style town hall meeting in which he took questions from mainly French and German students.

“Instead of celebrating your dynamic union and seeking to partner with you to meet common challenges, there have been times where America has shown arrogance and been dismissive, even derisive.”

http://fast1.onesite.com/blogs.telegraph.co.uk/user/toby_harnden/f30d74364f89e99355ee16218544ece7.jpg?v=179400

Barack Obama at the Rhenus Arena Pic: Toby Harnden

But he balanced this startling mea culpa – or, perhaps more accurately, a George W. Bush culpa – with a clear message to Europeans that blaming America for everything was unacceptable.

“In Europe, there is an anti-Americanism that is at once casual, but can also be insidious. Instead of recognising the good that America so often does in the world, there have been times where Europeans choose to blame America for much of what is bad.”

Then, in classic Obama fashion, he sought to find a synthesis between the two poles. “On both sides of the Atlantic, these attitudes have become all too common. They are not wise. They do not represent the truth.

“They threaten to widen the divide across the Atlantic and leave us both more isolated. They fail to acknowledge the fundamental truth that America cannot confront the challenges of this century alone, but that Europe cannot confront them without America.”

I was standing beside a White House official who told me afterwards that the speech was a concerted attempt to draw a line under the Bush years and offer an olive branch to Europe.

The time is fast approaching when Obama will have to be more than the unBush – that will not get him a pass in Europe indefinitely. He recognises this, saying: “I think it is important for Europe to understand that even though I am president and George Bush is not president, al-Qaeda is still a threat.”

In concrete, immediate terms Obama wants to use his vow to rebuild America’s global relations by securing more troops for Afghanistan.

The rather woolly US language on this subject last week now seems to be hardening up considerably with Obama saying that although “we will be partnering with Europe on the development side and on the diplomatic side” that isn’t in itself enough.

“There will be a military component to it,” he said. “And Europe should not simply expect the United States to shoulder that burden alone. We should not, because this is a joint problem, and it requires joint effort.”

Word is that Gordon Brown has just pledged to send 1,000 more troops to Afghanistan. We should soon know whether the continental Europeans will also be – as Obama put it while standing alongside Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany – “stepping up to the plate”.

Stop the Obama Plan to Take Total Control


Stop the Obama Plan to Take Total Control

The extreme-left is desperately trying to take over every aspect of your life.

In case you haven’t noticed, they’re taking control of the banking industry, they’re trying to take control of your family’s healthcare, they’re taking control of the auto industry and the energy industry… .

But, most horrifically, THEY’RE TRYING TO TAKE CONTROL OF YOU. And, make no mistake; the so-called $3.6 TRILLION BUDGET ABOMINATION IS THEIR MEANS TO DO IT.

Some critics, to borrow a phrase from the good folks at FreedomWorks, are saying that this $ 3.6 trillion budget abomination “taxes too much, spends too much, and borrows too much.”

But the simple fact that $3.6 trillion is a mind-boggling figure is just one small piece of the puzzle.

The one thing that no one is really taking about (the 800 pound gorilla in the room) is that this $3.6 trillion budget abomination is ALSO the LARGEST AND MOST AMBITIOUS GOVERNMENT POWER GRAB IN THE HISTORY OF THIS COUNTRY.

And if it passes, you can kiss the free-market system goodbye. If it passes, you can kiss your personal liberties goodbye.

Here are just a handful of the highlights:

Health Care: According to the typically pro-Obama New York Times: “Mr. Obama asked Congress to set aside $634 billion in a ‘reserve fund for health care reform.’ He provided no new information about how to cover the uninsured, saying he would work out the details with Congress later this year.” (The only plan they have is to take your money and your choice on what you can get for your health care dollar. Under this system, a government agency will decide what treatment is available to you, and whether you will get that treatment based on how much value (i.e. tax paying potential) you have left in your life. Are you nearing retirement age? Don’t count on that hip replacement or triple-bypass. It doesn’t matter if you (still) have enough of your own money to pay for the procedure. You will not be allowed to have that health care. Oh, but if you’re part of the ruling class as designated by emperor Uh-Bama, you’ll have your own private doctors and first class medical care.)

The Times also stated that Obama “would also increase premiums charged to Medicare beneficiaries….” No, your eyes are not playing tricks on you. Obama is asking Congress for $634 billion dollars of your money, is offering no clear plan as to what he wants to do with the money (he’ll get to that later, after the money is appropriated) and wants to cut back on benefits. The only thing that is certain is the government will start taking money out of your pocket and start making your healthcare decisions for you.

Taxes: Moveon.org, while promoting the $3.6 trillion budget abomination, repeats the Obama mantra that it: “Reduces taxes for 95% of working Americans. And if your family makes less than $250,000, your taxes won’t go up one dime.”

The truth of the matter, however, is that this $3.6 trillion budget calls for a number of hidden taxes. One of these is a cap-and-trade energy tax which, according to The Wall Street Journal “would cost the average household in the bottom-income quintile about 3.3 percent of its after-tax income every year. That’s about $680, not including the costs of reduced employment and output. The three middle quintiles would see their paychecks cut between $880 and $1,500, or 2.9 percent to 2.7 percent of income.” (This was supposedly removed from the current version of the budget because even some democrats were asking how we could possibly afford this. Have no doubt that they will find another way to put this over on this, and here’s why. Don’t miss this. Cap-and-Trade, carbon tax, or whatever label they place on it is the one, single way to tax and control EVERY ASPECT OF YOUR LIFE. Think about it. We are a carbon based economy. Is there ANYTHING that you use, consume, buy, etc. that isn’t produced with carbon based energy, made from carbon fuel derivatives (i.e. plastics come from oil), and/or delivered in a vehicle that burns carbon based fuel? This includes the electricity that lights, heats, and cools your home, and cooks your food. The producers will be taxed on the carbon used to produce, this tax will of course be passed on to you, the consumer. The consumer will also be taxed on the carbon they consume. This will doubly and heavily burden you and I with massive taxes, and will eventually drive producers out of business because we can’t afford to buy their products. They close, we lose jobs, the tax base of both producers and consumers shrinks, the government has fewer dollars they can tax, the nation goes deeper in debt, and the death spiral of our country’s economy continues.)

The Wall Street Journal concludes: “Cap and trade, in other words, is a scheme to redistribute income and wealth–but in a very curious way. It takes from the working class and gives to the affluent; takes from Miami, Ohio, and gives to Miami, Florida; and takes from an industrial America that is already struggling and gives to rich Silicon Valley and Wall Street ‘green tech’ investors who know how to leverage the political class.” (Do you understand how this will redistribute wealth? Whatever international agency is in charge of issuing carbon credits will issue lots of credits to underdeveloped nations that will never be able to use all of the credits they are given. Developed nations such as the U.S. will not be given enough credits to operate at a level that sustains our economy and way of life. To operate at our current economic level under the cap-and-trade system, we would be forced to buy excess credits from 3rd world countries at exorbitant prices, thus transferring the wealth we have produced and earned to nations, dictators, and people who have not earned it, and DO NOT DESERVE IT.)

Jobs: MoveOn.org claims the budget “Invests more than $100 billion in clean energy technology, creating millions of green jobs that can never be outsourced.”

The folks at FreedomWorks have this to say: “The numbers being used here, like the numbers used in the stimulus debate, are deceptive in that they hide the less rosy bigger picture. It is a classic case of ‘what is seen and what is not seen’ as described so clearly by economists Frederic Bastiat and Henry Hazlitt. What is seen are the jobs that will certainly result from the government spending $100 billion. What is not seen are all the jobs that are lost because the government has to take those $100 billion out of one part of the economy to spend it somewhere else.” (Government, by definition, CAN NOT create wealth or jobs. Government acquires all of its money and resources from the private sector (that’s businesses that earn a profit and create REAL jobs, and you and me the taxpayers). Because of the inefficiencies and corruption of government, the level of which is directly proportional to the size of government, much of the wealth that is TAKEN from the private sector evaporates long before it reaches its intended recipients. Imagine you see a homeless person and want to give him $10 to get something to eat. If you give it directly to him, he gets the full $10. If government taxes that $10 from you in order to “end homelessness,” “feed/house the underprivileged,” or whatever feel-good label the government puts on their excuse to take your money, the value of that $10 immediately gets diluted. The agency that is taxing you takes a cut for their overhead. Portions of it are taxed away for other government causes. Portions of it are lost to outright corruption. By the time the $10 that were liberated from you works its way through the government system to the homeless person you wanted to help in the first place, he will be lucky to get $1 out of the original $10.)

You’re starting to get the picture. This $3.6 trillion budget has nothing to do with stimulating the economy, or making life better for the average Joe; unless, of course, you believe that the redistribution of YOUR income and government intrusion into YOUR life are good things.

Perhaps that’s why Senator Judd Gregg called Obama’s $3.6 trillion budget “an extraordinary move of our government to the left.” Gregg added that President Obama “is proposing the largest tax increase in history…”

Compromise Is Not An Option. Compromise Means Obama Wins And The American People Lose

President Obama knows that when his $3.6 trillion budget is debated in the Senate that our elected officials will be inclined do what they always do… he knows the first thought that will spring to their minds is “compromise.” (This is where the Republicans who have betrayed conservative principles will once again show their true colors. Rather than going down fighting, they will go down compromising. There is a time for compromise, but now is not that time. It is time to actually stand for something, and not to compromise what you stand for. Those Republicans who claimed to be conservatives, but have compromised our nation into the position we are in now, are just as much to blame for the condition we find ourselves in now. THEY COULD HAVE STOPPED THIS WHEN THEY WERE IN CONTROL OF THE HOUSE AND SENATE, BUT INSTEAD OF PURSUING THE CONSERVATIVE AGENDA THEY RAN ON AS AGRESSIVELY AS OBAMA IS PURSUING HIS COMMUNIST AGENDA, THEY COMPROMISED!) Just as the socialists like Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, and the like need to be tarred, feathered, and run out of Washington D.C. on a rail, so to do the Republican compromisers who went along with them.)

Obama knows their inclination will be to put lipstick on this pig under the idiotic assumption that cutting a little bit of the fat will somehow make it palatable to the American people. After all, that’s so much easier than simply fighting for what is right.

We cannot let that happen because “compromise” simply means that Obama gets 95% of what he wants… 95% European-style socialism… 95% income redistribution… 95% economic destruction.

Cutting a few hundred-billion here or a few hundred-billion there is NOT going to make this $3.6 trillion monster significantly smaller, NOR WILL IT DAMPEN THE ASSAULT ON OUR INDIVIDUAL FREEDOM. OBAMA’s $3.6 TRILLION BUDGET MUST DIE!

If they “compromise,” we all lose. The American people lose… your children and grandchildren lose… even the people who are being hoodwinked into supporting this $3.6 trillion budget will lose.

If they “compromise,” the United States will take one giant leap into European-style socialism.

That’s why we must take this bull by the horns and let our elected officials know right now that we don’t want any “compromises” or any lipstick put on this pig.

We want Obama’s $3.6 trillion budget DEAD… a stake driven through its evil heart. Anything less means the American people LOSE.

This is not just a partisan budget battle. Our future and the future for our children and grandchildren hang in the balance!

AIG Bill: Counterproductive and Unconstitutional

Do you think they’ll stop their “collections” with the AIG execs? If you do, I have some beachfront property in Florida I’ll sell you when the tide goes down. Once Obama and Co. un-cork the bottle that’s holding the tax genie, that genie will likely never go back in the bottle. Is what they’re attempting to do constitutional? Constitution, shmonstitution. Who needs rules? Obama, Pelosi, Reid, Dodd, Frank and company don’t care about the constitution or us peasants. They have an agenda, constitution be damned.

The AIG (And Everyone Else) Bill: Counterproductive and Unconstitutional

Posted By Rory Cooper On March 20, 2009 @ 11:43 am In Ongoing Priorities | 33 Comments

Whom It Really Targets

  • The Hit List: H.R. 1586 retroactively taxes AIG employees who are due deferred compensation and would tax that compensation at a 90% rate [1].
  • A Much Broader Sweep: Going forward, the bill also imposes a 90% federal tax rate [1] on anyone employed by a company receiving $5 billion in TARP funds who has a family income over $250,000, individual income over $125,000 (if single or married but filing separately), or performance pay larger than adjusted gross income.
  • What Defines a Bonus? Under H.R. 1586, a “bonus [1]” is any amount over an employee’s base salary, including retention and performance pay and even deferred compensation. But compensation in banking and finance is heavily geared towards performance, with relatively lower base salaries.
  • Counterproductive Policy: While taxpayer money shouldn’t be spent on excessive bonus compensation, broad-based pay caps and punitive clawbacks will hurt performance and slow economic recovery. The government is ill-suited to set private-sector pay scales and risks causing more financial damage.
  • Your Branch Manager: Anecdotally, a “Regional Branch Manager” for Bank of America who makes $250,000 plus bonuses for outstanding customer service at his branches would be taxed at 90% due to this bill.

The Real Problem, Plain and Simple

  • How We Got Here: Senator Chris Dodd would like you to forget [2] that he inserted specific language recognizing AIG’s executive compensation into the $800 billion stimulus bill, which Finance Chairman Max Baucus now admits [3] nobody read.
  • Government Bailouts: This is the inevitable result of government bailouts, which turn private concerns (such as compensation agreements between private parties) into public business, bringing politics where it is likely to do damage.
  • Hasty Bills Make Disastrous Policy: The very fact that this problem was created by a mega-bill that wasn’t properly reviewed before passage—and is now being “corrected” by a hastily put together bill that hasn’t been properly reviewed—is beyond ironic.
  • Avoid This in the Future: To avoid further entanglement of the federal government and taxpayers in routine business matters, President Obama and Congress should reject further bailouts and insist those already done be unwound as quickly as possible.

It’s Not Constitutional, Plain and Simple

  • Bill of Attainder: The Constitution prohibits Congress [4] from punishing individuals, which is the role of the justice system. This prevents legislative tyranny and is essential to ensuring that those accused of wrongs receive due process and can mount a defense. It also encourages “sound legislation,” which is not accomplished by legislators being whipped into a frenzy and interfering in personal and economic affairs.
  • An End Run? Congress added more taxes to the bill to get around the bar of bills of attainder, but it can’t make an unconstitutional act permissible by cloaking it in the guise of a tax bill.
  • Taxation Not the Answer: Congress is prohibited [4] from using the tax code as a weapon of convenience against a select group of unfavorable people, even when the political opportunity exists.

Goodbye, America! It Was Fun While It Lasted

Do you actually like your parents and grandparents, and wish them good health and long life? Soon, if they get sick, wishes are the only form of medical treatment they are going to get. Over 40 yourself? Better take your vitamins. If you don’t have many good tax paying years left in front of you, you should probably avoid contact with people and stay off of ladders so you don’t get sick or hurt. Make sure your will is up to date, and make peace with your relatives. Oh, by the way, don’t forget to apologize to your kids for the financial penalty you are about to make them pay when you die because of the inheritance (“death”) tax.

Goodbye, America! It Was Fun While It Lasted
by Ann Coulter (more by this author)
Posted 02/11/2009 ET
Updated 02/11/2009 ET

It’s bad enough when illiterate jurors issue damages awards in the billions of dollars because they don’t grasp the difference between a million and a billion. Now it turns out the Democrats don’t know the difference between a million and a trillion.

Why not make the “stimulus bill” a kazillion dollars?

All Americans who work for a living, or who plan to work for a living sometime in the next century, are about to be stuck with a trillion-dollar bill to fund yet more oppressive government bureaucracies. Or as I call it, a trillion dollars and change.

The stimulus bill isn’t as bad as we had expected — it’s much worse. Instead of merely creating useless, make-work jobs digging ditches — or “shovel-ready,” in the Democrats’ felicitous phrase — the “stimulus” bill will create an endless army of government bureaucrats aggressively intervening in our lives. Instead of digging ditches, American taxpayers will be digging our own graves.

There are hundreds of examples in the 800-page “stimulus” bill, but here are just two.

First, the welfare bureaucrats are coming back.

For half a century, the welfare establishment had the bright idea to pay women to have children out of wedlock. Following the iron laws of economics — subsidize something, you get more of it; tax it, you get less of it — the number of children being born out of wedlock skyrocketed.

The 1996 Welfare Reform bill marked the first time any government entitlement had ever been rolled back. Despite liberal howling and foot-stomping, not subsidizing illegitimacy led, like night into day, to less illegitimacy.

Welfare recipients got jobs, as the hard-core unemployables were coaxed away from their TV sets and into the workforce. For the first time in decades, the ever-increasing illegitimacy rate stopped spiraling upward.

As proof that that welfare reform was a smashing success, a few years later, Bill Clinton started claiming full credit for the bill.

Well, that’s over. The stimulus bill goes a long way toward repealing the work requirement of the 1996 Republican Welfare Reform bill and rewards states that increase their welfare caseloads by paying unwed mothers to sit home doing nothing.

Second, bureaucrats at Health and Human Services will electronically collect every citizen’s complete medical records and determine appropriate medical care.

Judging by the care that the State Department took with private visa records last year, that the Ohio government took with Joe the Plumber’s government records, that the Pentagon took with Linda Tripp’s employment records in 1998, and that the FBI took with thousands of top secret “raw” background files in President Clinton’s first term, the bright side is: We’ll finally be able to find out if Bill Clinton has syphilis — all thanks to the stimulus bill!

HHS bureaucrats will soon be empowered to overrule your doctor. Doctors who don’t comply with the government’s treatment protocols will be fined. That’s right: Instead of your treatment being determined by your doctor, it will be settled on by some narcoleptic half-wit in Washington who couldn’t get a job in the private sector.

And a brand-new set of bureaucrats in the newly created office of “National Coordinator of Health Information Technology” will be empowered to cut off treatments that merely prolong life. Sorry, Mom and Pop, Big Brother said it’s time to go.

At every other workplace in the nation — even Wal-Mart! — workers are being laid off. But no one at any of the bloated government bureaucracies ever need fear receiving a pink slip. All 64,750 employees at the department of Health and Human Services are apparently absolutely crucial to the smooth functioning of the department.

With the stimulus bill, liberals plan to move unfirable government workers into every activity in America, where they will superintend all aspects of our lives.

Also, thanks to the stimulus bill, the private sector will gradually shrivel and die. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the cost of servicing the bill’s nearly trillion-dollar debt will shrink the economy within a decade.

Robert Kennedy famously said: “There are those who look at things the way they are and ask, ‘Why?’ I dream of things that never were and ask, ‘Why not?'”

The new liberal version is: There are those who look at things and ask, “Why on earth should the government be paying for that?” I dream of things that never were funded by the government and ask, “Why not?”

Ann Coulter is Legal Affairs Correspondent for HUMAN EVENTS and author of “High Crimes and Misdemeanors,” “Slander,” “”How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must),” “Godless,” “If Democrats Had Any Brains, They’d Be Republicans” and most recently, Guilty: Liberal “Victims” and their Assault on America.