A couple weeks back a very important story broke. This story involves a downright frightening abuse of power by the Obama administration and a blatant disregard for our free market system. Now just in case you read the New York Times and watch MSNBC to get your news I’ll now attempt to explain the dire scenario in the simplest of terms.
In the waning days of the Bush administration banks were brought in to have TARP money thrown their way. The problem is that not every bank that got TARP funds needed said funds. This however is not the fault of the banks. It was the government that forced this money down the throats of banks that were still solvent at this point in the financial crisis. The logic behind this strong-arming was to spread the doubt about the banks around and make sure that no bank(s) was singled out as particularly more troubled thereby avoiding a run on such a bank(s). This thought process was sound enough at the time and at least had the best of economic intentions in mind.
Enter Obama, Geithner, and the left wing legislature. Treasury Secretary Geithner with the support of President Barack Obama and the Democrat majorities in the House and Senate decides that the government should have the power to evaluate the operations of banks that “took” TARP money, and if their practices are deemed too risky the government can come in and do essentially whatever they want with the company. Now the definition of risky is purposely left completely ambiguous in every interview with Geithner, administration officials, and legislators so naturally the banks start to worry about the government coming in and tinkering with their operation.
One of the banks that didn’t need or want the TARP money then now tells the feds that they would be more than happy to give all the money back plus interest. What does the government do when offered this cash? Before you answer, please remember if this was your cash that you leant out, and it really is, you would most likely take it all back plus interest in a heartbeat. But not the federal government, they refused to take even one penny. As a matter of fact, this bank was actually threatened that they better cease their attempts to pay the money back (the money they never wanted to “borrow” in the first place) lest they suffer consequences.
Now why would the government behave in such a way if it wasn’t to keep their hooks in the banks and ensure their lasting authority over the financial system of this country? Having trouble coming up with an alternative motive? That’s because there isn’t any. This is nothing but a backdoor technique of nationalizing the banks masquerading as an attempt to keep these “irresponsible” institutions accountable while they enjoy the benefits of a loan from the tax payers. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry when I consider the notion that tax payers had the money forcibly taken from them, so the funds could be forcibly “leant,” to a bank that is being forced to keep it, so the government can force them to operate as they see fit. Actually, I think I’ll cry, because I just described a series of government actions that adhere to the very definition of tyranny.
Surely our free press is going to swoop in and expose this socialist plot against our American way of free market capitalism. Not quite, the liberal media outlets (that’s almost all of them for those of you who are keeping count) are way too busy denigrating the tea party protests that happened around the country on tax day. Too bad it wasn’t a nationwide collection of hippies sucking down bong loads to pronounce their aversion to war and gasoline. That would’ve had these so called journalists out in droves salivating over the prospect of another “Bush lied, people died” sound bite. Next time the fiscally conservative patriots out there should actually dress up as Indians (feather, not dot) like the original Boston Tea Party. That way at least the leftist media will come out to portray them as racists, because you know what they say, there’s no such thing as bad publicity.
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Smoked Gouda
Given what has transpired since I last posted I was practically salivating at the prospect of going on yet another diatribe about this countries downward spiral towards totalitarian socialism under the lead of comrade Obama. But despite all the great blog fodder that’s come out Washington lately, I’m compelled to take a break from beating that long since dead horse. At this point Old Lefty (that’s my dead horse) is actually starting to tenderize and smell quite pungent. So I feel some Glade Plug-Ins, a week or so in a well vented room, and a reprieve from the lashings are long overdue. Instead I’d like to focus on the inherent hypocrisy in some of the social engineering policies put forth by politicians.
The most recent and most egregious example of this hypocrisy is the cigarette and chewing tobacco tax hike that President Obama signed into law which goes into effect this Wednesday (4/1/09). The tax on a pack of cigarettes will leap from 39 cents to $1.01. Chewing tobacco will be taxed 50 cents a pound, up from 19.5 cents. Smokers and dippers, I know what you’re thinking, or at the very least hoping. But alas, this not an April fool’s prank, this is the real deal. Just to clear the air, no pun intended, I would like to state that I myself used to smoke cigarettes (about a pack a day for five years) until one day my left lung partially collapsed and I elected to cease that self destructive habit. That being said, I am all for an individual’s right to put just about whatever they want into their own body so long as I don’t have to pay for their medical expenses. The real reason I am so riled up by this tax hike is that it is so blatantly hypocritical. On the one hand, proponents of the sky high taxes argue that tobacco use decreases as the tax increases. This is probably true, and even if it isn’t, I’m not interested in arguing whether or not the relationship between high tobacco tax and low tobacco use is causation or correlation. What I am interested in arguing is that politicians like to proudly expound on how they’re doing this to save the public’s health while hiding the fact there is an obvious ulterior motive in the form of increased tax revenues for the government. So while trying to get everyone to stop using tobacco (something that would destroy another industry and cause yet another surge in unemployment) they have to be “secretly” ecstatic about the possibility of a stable population of nicotine addicts, and in actuality, it would suit them just fine if the number of tobacco users grew. In a sense they are really no different from a tobacco company with the major exception that they enjoy the luxury of being able to tell you they’re saving you while being at best indifferent to whether or not you smoke yourself into a tracheotomy.
Another great example of this is New York Governor David Patterson’s proposal of an 18 percent tax on non-diet soft drinks as included in his budget proposal last December. Again, this was done under the guise of protecting citizens from themselves. In this case it was to curb obesity in children by artificially placing the less desirable soft drinks into a higher price point. However, his budget proposal went on to suggest that the amount of revenues that would be generated from such a tax levying would actually increase from 2009-2010 to 2010-2011 (see Steven Milloy’s Junk Science Column from 12/24/08 for more information and a good laugh). So Governor Patterson wasn’t just secretly hoping that all the portly tots of New York kept suckling away at the sugary teat of Mistress Fanta Von Sunkist, he was actually counting on it. Here we see yet another politician lives the impossible dream of both having and eating their proverbial cake (I hope it’s at least sugar free cake in this case).
What really gets me irate about these scenarios is that I subscribe to the notion that the government has no business levying punitive taxes on anything in an effort to push society away from what they’ve deemed undesirable or unacceptable. If I at least thought for a millisecond that their hearts were in the right place I might at lease dissent in a more cuddly fashion. But this nonsense about telling people how they should live and then profiting off it when they don’t is reprehensible. At least the companies that sell and distribute the products that the government finds questionable have a single and well known agenda. They want you to use their product and they even have to tell you what’s in it and in some cases warn you not to use it while the politicians play two face and never get called on it.
What’s scarier still is the presentation of yet another slippery slope. It’s all so easy to agree with them when you don’t smoke or imbibe sugary soft drinks and they tell you that they’re doing to render the nation cancer and obesity free. Of course you agree and with their stated intent, and gladly support them in their “noble” crusade against society’s ills. But what happens when they come after something you do use, something you use responsibly and in moderation. It could be anything. Is it so farfetched to picture a politician at a dais spouting save the nation from itself rhetoric in regards to cheese? Cheese is very fattening and quite bad for you according to most doctors so shouldn’t it be taxed higher to discourage you from potentially fattening yourself up like Hansel and/or Gretel? The government is not in the business of giving back any of the money, rights, or control that it’s been “given” so be very careful what let you them do in the name of the greater good.
The most recent and most egregious example of this hypocrisy is the cigarette and chewing tobacco tax hike that President Obama signed into law which goes into effect this Wednesday (4/1/09). The tax on a pack of cigarettes will leap from 39 cents to $1.01. Chewing tobacco will be taxed 50 cents a pound, up from 19.5 cents. Smokers and dippers, I know what you’re thinking, or at the very least hoping. But alas, this not an April fool’s prank, this is the real deal. Just to clear the air, no pun intended, I would like to state that I myself used to smoke cigarettes (about a pack a day for five years) until one day my left lung partially collapsed and I elected to cease that self destructive habit. That being said, I am all for an individual’s right to put just about whatever they want into their own body so long as I don’t have to pay for their medical expenses. The real reason I am so riled up by this tax hike is that it is so blatantly hypocritical. On the one hand, proponents of the sky high taxes argue that tobacco use decreases as the tax increases. This is probably true, and even if it isn’t, I’m not interested in arguing whether or not the relationship between high tobacco tax and low tobacco use is causation or correlation. What I am interested in arguing is that politicians like to proudly expound on how they’re doing this to save the public’s health while hiding the fact there is an obvious ulterior motive in the form of increased tax revenues for the government. So while trying to get everyone to stop using tobacco (something that would destroy another industry and cause yet another surge in unemployment) they have to be “secretly” ecstatic about the possibility of a stable population of nicotine addicts, and in actuality, it would suit them just fine if the number of tobacco users grew. In a sense they are really no different from a tobacco company with the major exception that they enjoy the luxury of being able to tell you they’re saving you while being at best indifferent to whether or not you smoke yourself into a tracheotomy.
Another great example of this is New York Governor David Patterson’s proposal of an 18 percent tax on non-diet soft drinks as included in his budget proposal last December. Again, this was done under the guise of protecting citizens from themselves. In this case it was to curb obesity in children by artificially placing the less desirable soft drinks into a higher price point. However, his budget proposal went on to suggest that the amount of revenues that would be generated from such a tax levying would actually increase from 2009-2010 to 2010-2011 (see Steven Milloy’s Junk Science Column from 12/24/08 for more information and a good laugh). So Governor Patterson wasn’t just secretly hoping that all the portly tots of New York kept suckling away at the sugary teat of Mistress Fanta Von Sunkist, he was actually counting on it. Here we see yet another politician lives the impossible dream of both having and eating their proverbial cake (I hope it’s at least sugar free cake in this case).
What really gets me irate about these scenarios is that I subscribe to the notion that the government has no business levying punitive taxes on anything in an effort to push society away from what they’ve deemed undesirable or unacceptable. If I at least thought for a millisecond that their hearts were in the right place I might at lease dissent in a more cuddly fashion. But this nonsense about telling people how they should live and then profiting off it when they don’t is reprehensible. At least the companies that sell and distribute the products that the government finds questionable have a single and well known agenda. They want you to use their product and they even have to tell you what’s in it and in some cases warn you not to use it while the politicians play two face and never get called on it.
What’s scarier still is the presentation of yet another slippery slope. It’s all so easy to agree with them when you don’t smoke or imbibe sugary soft drinks and they tell you that they’re doing to render the nation cancer and obesity free. Of course you agree and with their stated intent, and gladly support them in their “noble” crusade against society’s ills. But what happens when they come after something you do use, something you use responsibly and in moderation. It could be anything. Is it so farfetched to picture a politician at a dais spouting save the nation from itself rhetoric in regards to cheese? Cheese is very fattening and quite bad for you according to most doctors so shouldn’t it be taxed higher to discourage you from potentially fattening yourself up like Hansel and/or Gretel? The government is not in the business of giving back any of the money, rights, or control that it’s been “given” so be very careful what let you them do in the name of the greater good.
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Circle The Band Wagons
First off, I’d like to apologize to all five of my devoted readers for neglecting my responsibilities as a blogger this month. I don’t want to make excuses but March truly came in like the proverbial lion for me not just in the weather but at work as well so I’ve been trying to relax as much as possible. In any event, I’m sorry, and I will do my best to make sure it doesn’t happen again. Now on with the show.
Today I’d like to layout the four distinct groups of citizens who voted for Barak Obama. I understand that writing on this topic may come off as too late to be relevant, but I promise my overall point is a current one.
I really want to address this subject for two reasons. One reason is to show how diverse this voting bloc was, and the other is to point out the one faction within that I have nothing but disdain for and is still causing me grief to this day. Now please don’t let that last remark dissuade you from reading on, I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised by those I let off the hook. I will attempt to describe each group via an interpretation of the “Hope and Change” slogan that was so readily swallowed by the masses. And without further ado, here’s the list:
1) Radical Leftists: This is the group that defined “Hope and Change” as “The hope Obama dismantles every capitalist or free market aspect of our economy in the name of fairness or wealth redistribution (socialism).” They also thought of this motto in terms of “The hope that every conservative or Judeo-Christian value left in our society is quelled by policies that embrace a sense of moral relativism where no one is truly accountable for their wrong doings (except for capitalist swine of course).” The far left of this country banked on these “hopes and changes” in addition to many more that can be found in Marx’s Communist Manifesto, and just about any Noam Chomsky book. They found themselves drunk on the notion that the tide had finally turned. Now you might think that this is the group of Obama supporters whom I detest. You are dead wrong. I can no more faults these individuals for supporting Barak Obama then I could condemn geese from replacing every picturesque grassy surface they find with a thick layer of green, black, and white shit. The support of the radical left should’ve been fully expected, and if anything, given his sometimes moderate campaign rhetoric, one should praise the far left for sustaining their fervor for a candidate that some misguided individuals actually thought was more of a centrist (see group 3 for details on this bunch of schmucks).
2) Run of the Mill Liberals: This group defined “Hope and Change” as “The hope that a President Obama would undo the previous administrations policies and replace them with ones that were more in tune with the basic liberal mindset. This is not as severe as the radical leftists’ desire to invoke socialism, moral relativism, and the national denouncement of any God immediately and permanently. The standard liberal is content to have a “sensible” mix of the Carter and Clinton years. They’re down with welfare, a weak national defense, plenty of government spending, and sky high taxes. That being said, they draw the line at the nationalization of banks and other corporations. They also shun the idea that capitalism and the free market needs to be completely abandoned in the interest of the common good. These folks should not be held to task for feeling this way or for voting the way they did. Again, it was completely expected that these citizens would vote this way just as it was with the far leftists. They are liberal in their values and politics so it makes perfect sense that they would vote for the most liberal candidate in history, even if they thought that some of his ideas and or policies would be a little further left then they’d normally be comfortable with.
3) Moderate Suckers: These people had good intentions. They kept up with the election and the issues and picked what they most likely considered the lesser of two evils. Their “hope” was that they would truly see an end to “politics as usual.” Their “change” was that we might actually move away from the all the partisan nonsense and become a land of the people again. Unfortunately, they were duped and that’s why I’m referring to them as suckers. Their eyes must still be itching furiously from all the wool that was pulled over them. I mean we’re talking bushels and bushels of wool here. There’s probably a sheep farmer out there somewhere that thanks to the Obama campaign and its surrogates (CNN, NBC, The New York Times, etc.) will be the last one impacted by this economy. In truth one would have to be drinking the Kool-Aid hard to believe that Barak Obama is more moderate than John McCain. According to the National Journal, Barak Obama was literally the most liberal senator in 2007 based on his voting record. Now in the interest of fairness I would like to point out that McCain missed more than half the votes that were rated by the National Journal in 2007 so he wasn’t even ranked that year. But, I must also point out that John McCain wasn’t even in the top 40 of the most conservative senators in 2006 while Obama still ranked 10th overall that year. And in 2005, when McCain had also not reached the top 40 most conservative senators, Obama was rated the 16th most liberal senator. Now I’m no genius, but I’m pretty sure that going from 16th place to the top 10 in one year, and then becoming the most liberal senator is certainly not the path that of a moderate. So did anyone with any level of credibility have any business describing Barak Obama as a moderate Democrat? Of course not. Should it have been crystal sparkling clear that John McCain was a considerably more moderate as a Republican? You bet your sweet ass it should have. And anyone who was convinced otherwise and then voted accordingly is, unfortunately, a sucker.
4) Know Nothing Band Wagoneers: To this group “hope” was simply the desire to not be left out of the in-crowd. The only “change” that was necessary for these nitwits, was for them to appear to be informed for once. These are the individuals who voted for Obama for every reason under the sun other than his experience, his associations (good or bad), and his stated policy plans. These folks have almost no concept of history, economics, or politics to help them shape any valid opinions on policies and candidates so they had to hop on one of many band wagons and be told what to think about Barak Obama, Joe Biden, John McCain, and Sarah Palin. These citizens had never or infrequently voted before due to disinterest or apathy, that was until they were convinced that it was their duty to vote regardless of the aforementioned fact that they had little to no honest knowledge of the issues. Now this convincing was not done by ACORN or the like trying to get every possible voter (regardless of their knowledge or eligibility) to register and pull the lever for Obama. No, these morons convinced themselves that they had to take a ride on the Obama express because they saw so many O’s all around them on people's chests and car bumpers that at first they thought they were having that dream again where all the Cheerios they ate as a child were coming back to get them, but then they soon realized that it wasn’t a recurring nightmare that was unfolding around them. It was instead the greatest opportunity ever to appear to be involved, informed, and dare I say, cool. These are the same schmucks that buy Che Guevara shirts at Hot Topic for $25.00 because members of Rage Against the Machine and the coolest kid in eighth grade did the same. Meanwhile, they have no idea who the man was, what he stood for, and what he did (groups 1 and 2 probably think he’s great, but at least they read up on the guy). Now as I was saying, the band wagons were numerous and as a result parking was often limited at Obama rallies. The lamest of the band wagons that were eagerly booking passage throughout the campaign had to be the college students. Despite their so called “education” they tend to know next to nothing about history, economics, or current events. Their liberal indoctrinating professors and naïve indoctrinated peers see to that. Meanwhile, they had no qualms with telling every individual with an open ear and an empty mind how the world should be and how their anointed one was going to, in the words of Jean-Luc Piccard, “make it so.” These people bought bumper stickers, shirts, hats, plates, coins, socks, beer cozies, shower curtains, lingerie, toilet seat covers, bird feeders, venetian blinds, and even dragon repellant so long as it had the visage of Barak Obama on it. These overly enthusiastic sycophants made up a large portion of the Barak Obama voting bloc. Now I guess a win is a win, but I sure would prefer a President who actually persuaded every individual who voted for him or her rather than President who won thanks to a bunch of fools wearing “yes we can” tee shirts tipping the scales. I don’t know about you, but my polling place looked more like the line outside a Guns-N-Roses concert than a bunch of informed citizens waiting to elect a President. At one point I wasn’t sure if the woman in front of me was there to vote or get Slash to sign her left breast. In an effort to wrap it up on this group I’d just like to say that it’s really sad if you’d cherish the candidate's autograph on your hat more than you’d appreciate the substance of any of his or hers policy positions.
So it should it be clear now which group I have contempt for and which groups I let slide. To bring this to the present and add a dash of that relevance I promised you I’d like to address Obama’s approval rating. President Obama currently enjoys a 61% approval rating according to Gallup which is not far off from Bush’s approval rating at approximately the same time in his Presidency. What that really breaks down to in my opinion is the following.
The extremists on either side of the aisle tend to give high marks to the person they wanted in office regardless of his or her performance forever because they’re simply in too deep.
The tamer party affiliated individuals will probably give high marks regardless of actual results for at least the first the 100 days, but more like the entire first year or two.
The moderates and independents will do their best to be objective and not overly judgmental for the first 100 days and perhaps a bit beyond, but will sour quickly when they realize that they’re a member of group 3 and have zero chance of seeing the actualization of what they were promised. Group 3 (Moderate Suckers) is truly the most tragic in that they continue to believe in candidate after candidate when they promise to govern from the center and are systematically let down almost every time. The only time they’re happy is when they’re duped yet again into thinking they’ve been enjoying centrism (see Bill Clinton) when they really haven’t. I suppose these people are just too optimistic.
My concern is that for the first time ever we seem to have a massive amount of people that are part of group 4 (Know Nothing Band Wagoneers). These people will pollute the polling data as they continue to pretend they know what’s going on when they actually retreated right back to the vacuum from whence they came the second the inauguration was over like the many Red Sox fans that magically materialized outside of New England when they finally broke the “curse” and won the World Series again. I don’t want these ignoramuses padding the polls as Obama’s Presidency meanders on. Call me crazy, but I don’t have a problem with political disinterest or apathy if it’s only replaced by citizens who end up blindly accepting and adhering to whatever they’ve been spoon fed by radicals and ideologues no matter what side they prop up.
Sometimes I wonder if I should punt all of my politics and beliefs and just break down and buy a “yes we did” bumper sticker so everyone stuck behind me in rush hour traffic will think that I played a part in saving the world. Then I wonder how many Nazis were recruited in Hitler’s Germany because they thought the same thing. Now before you go bananas on me, I’m not saying that Obama is Hitler or that his under informed supporters are Nazis. All I’m suggesting is that when people decide to just go with the flow without figuring things out on their own when it pertains to something as important as their elected officials it can have disastrous effects.
Today I’d like to layout the four distinct groups of citizens who voted for Barak Obama. I understand that writing on this topic may come off as too late to be relevant, but I promise my overall point is a current one.
I really want to address this subject for two reasons. One reason is to show how diverse this voting bloc was, and the other is to point out the one faction within that I have nothing but disdain for and is still causing me grief to this day. Now please don’t let that last remark dissuade you from reading on, I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised by those I let off the hook. I will attempt to describe each group via an interpretation of the “Hope and Change” slogan that was so readily swallowed by the masses. And without further ado, here’s the list:
1) Radical Leftists: This is the group that defined “Hope and Change” as “The hope Obama dismantles every capitalist or free market aspect of our economy in the name of fairness or wealth redistribution (socialism).” They also thought of this motto in terms of “The hope that every conservative or Judeo-Christian value left in our society is quelled by policies that embrace a sense of moral relativism where no one is truly accountable for their wrong doings (except for capitalist swine of course).” The far left of this country banked on these “hopes and changes” in addition to many more that can be found in Marx’s Communist Manifesto, and just about any Noam Chomsky book. They found themselves drunk on the notion that the tide had finally turned. Now you might think that this is the group of Obama supporters whom I detest. You are dead wrong. I can no more faults these individuals for supporting Barak Obama then I could condemn geese from replacing every picturesque grassy surface they find with a thick layer of green, black, and white shit. The support of the radical left should’ve been fully expected, and if anything, given his sometimes moderate campaign rhetoric, one should praise the far left for sustaining their fervor for a candidate that some misguided individuals actually thought was more of a centrist (see group 3 for details on this bunch of schmucks).
2) Run of the Mill Liberals: This group defined “Hope and Change” as “The hope that a President Obama would undo the previous administrations policies and replace them with ones that were more in tune with the basic liberal mindset. This is not as severe as the radical leftists’ desire to invoke socialism, moral relativism, and the national denouncement of any God immediately and permanently. The standard liberal is content to have a “sensible” mix of the Carter and Clinton years. They’re down with welfare, a weak national defense, plenty of government spending, and sky high taxes. That being said, they draw the line at the nationalization of banks and other corporations. They also shun the idea that capitalism and the free market needs to be completely abandoned in the interest of the common good. These folks should not be held to task for feeling this way or for voting the way they did. Again, it was completely expected that these citizens would vote this way just as it was with the far leftists. They are liberal in their values and politics so it makes perfect sense that they would vote for the most liberal candidate in history, even if they thought that some of his ideas and or policies would be a little further left then they’d normally be comfortable with.
3) Moderate Suckers: These people had good intentions. They kept up with the election and the issues and picked what they most likely considered the lesser of two evils. Their “hope” was that they would truly see an end to “politics as usual.” Their “change” was that we might actually move away from the all the partisan nonsense and become a land of the people again. Unfortunately, they were duped and that’s why I’m referring to them as suckers. Their eyes must still be itching furiously from all the wool that was pulled over them. I mean we’re talking bushels and bushels of wool here. There’s probably a sheep farmer out there somewhere that thanks to the Obama campaign and its surrogates (CNN, NBC, The New York Times, etc.) will be the last one impacted by this economy. In truth one would have to be drinking the Kool-Aid hard to believe that Barak Obama is more moderate than John McCain. According to the National Journal, Barak Obama was literally the most liberal senator in 2007 based on his voting record. Now in the interest of fairness I would like to point out that McCain missed more than half the votes that were rated by the National Journal in 2007 so he wasn’t even ranked that year. But, I must also point out that John McCain wasn’t even in the top 40 of the most conservative senators in 2006 while Obama still ranked 10th overall that year. And in 2005, when McCain had also not reached the top 40 most conservative senators, Obama was rated the 16th most liberal senator. Now I’m no genius, but I’m pretty sure that going from 16th place to the top 10 in one year, and then becoming the most liberal senator is certainly not the path that of a moderate. So did anyone with any level of credibility have any business describing Barak Obama as a moderate Democrat? Of course not. Should it have been crystal sparkling clear that John McCain was a considerably more moderate as a Republican? You bet your sweet ass it should have. And anyone who was convinced otherwise and then voted accordingly is, unfortunately, a sucker.
4) Know Nothing Band Wagoneers: To this group “hope” was simply the desire to not be left out of the in-crowd. The only “change” that was necessary for these nitwits, was for them to appear to be informed for once. These are the individuals who voted for Obama for every reason under the sun other than his experience, his associations (good or bad), and his stated policy plans. These folks have almost no concept of history, economics, or politics to help them shape any valid opinions on policies and candidates so they had to hop on one of many band wagons and be told what to think about Barak Obama, Joe Biden, John McCain, and Sarah Palin. These citizens had never or infrequently voted before due to disinterest or apathy, that was until they were convinced that it was their duty to vote regardless of the aforementioned fact that they had little to no honest knowledge of the issues. Now this convincing was not done by ACORN or the like trying to get every possible voter (regardless of their knowledge or eligibility) to register and pull the lever for Obama. No, these morons convinced themselves that they had to take a ride on the Obama express because they saw so many O’s all around them on people's chests and car bumpers that at first they thought they were having that dream again where all the Cheerios they ate as a child were coming back to get them, but then they soon realized that it wasn’t a recurring nightmare that was unfolding around them. It was instead the greatest opportunity ever to appear to be involved, informed, and dare I say, cool. These are the same schmucks that buy Che Guevara shirts at Hot Topic for $25.00 because members of Rage Against the Machine and the coolest kid in eighth grade did the same. Meanwhile, they have no idea who the man was, what he stood for, and what he did (groups 1 and 2 probably think he’s great, but at least they read up on the guy). Now as I was saying, the band wagons were numerous and as a result parking was often limited at Obama rallies. The lamest of the band wagons that were eagerly booking passage throughout the campaign had to be the college students. Despite their so called “education” they tend to know next to nothing about history, economics, or current events. Their liberal indoctrinating professors and naïve indoctrinated peers see to that. Meanwhile, they had no qualms with telling every individual with an open ear and an empty mind how the world should be and how their anointed one was going to, in the words of Jean-Luc Piccard, “make it so.” These people bought bumper stickers, shirts, hats, plates, coins, socks, beer cozies, shower curtains, lingerie, toilet seat covers, bird feeders, venetian blinds, and even dragon repellant so long as it had the visage of Barak Obama on it. These overly enthusiastic sycophants made up a large portion of the Barak Obama voting bloc. Now I guess a win is a win, but I sure would prefer a President who actually persuaded every individual who voted for him or her rather than President who won thanks to a bunch of fools wearing “yes we can” tee shirts tipping the scales. I don’t know about you, but my polling place looked more like the line outside a Guns-N-Roses concert than a bunch of informed citizens waiting to elect a President. At one point I wasn’t sure if the woman in front of me was there to vote or get Slash to sign her left breast. In an effort to wrap it up on this group I’d just like to say that it’s really sad if you’d cherish the candidate's autograph on your hat more than you’d appreciate the substance of any of his or hers policy positions.
So it should it be clear now which group I have contempt for and which groups I let slide. To bring this to the present and add a dash of that relevance I promised you I’d like to address Obama’s approval rating. President Obama currently enjoys a 61% approval rating according to Gallup which is not far off from Bush’s approval rating at approximately the same time in his Presidency. What that really breaks down to in my opinion is the following.
The extremists on either side of the aisle tend to give high marks to the person they wanted in office regardless of his or her performance forever because they’re simply in too deep.
The tamer party affiliated individuals will probably give high marks regardless of actual results for at least the first the 100 days, but more like the entire first year or two.
The moderates and independents will do their best to be objective and not overly judgmental for the first 100 days and perhaps a bit beyond, but will sour quickly when they realize that they’re a member of group 3 and have zero chance of seeing the actualization of what they were promised. Group 3 (Moderate Suckers) is truly the most tragic in that they continue to believe in candidate after candidate when they promise to govern from the center and are systematically let down almost every time. The only time they’re happy is when they’re duped yet again into thinking they’ve been enjoying centrism (see Bill Clinton) when they really haven’t. I suppose these people are just too optimistic.
My concern is that for the first time ever we seem to have a massive amount of people that are part of group 4 (Know Nothing Band Wagoneers). These people will pollute the polling data as they continue to pretend they know what’s going on when they actually retreated right back to the vacuum from whence they came the second the inauguration was over like the many Red Sox fans that magically materialized outside of New England when they finally broke the “curse” and won the World Series again. I don’t want these ignoramuses padding the polls as Obama’s Presidency meanders on. Call me crazy, but I don’t have a problem with political disinterest or apathy if it’s only replaced by citizens who end up blindly accepting and adhering to whatever they’ve been spoon fed by radicals and ideologues no matter what side they prop up.
Sometimes I wonder if I should punt all of my politics and beliefs and just break down and buy a “yes we did” bumper sticker so everyone stuck behind me in rush hour traffic will think that I played a part in saving the world. Then I wonder how many Nazis were recruited in Hitler’s Germany because they thought the same thing. Now before you go bananas on me, I’m not saying that Obama is Hitler or that his under informed supporters are Nazis. All I’m suggesting is that when people decide to just go with the flow without figuring things out on their own when it pertains to something as important as their elected officials it can have disastrous effects.
Saturday, February 28, 2009
All The King's Horses, And All The King's Men...
When did the basis of our country’s economy become multiple choice? We do not operate under a free market, capitalist system just for the hell of it. We do so because it is the only system that follows the laws of economics. Now let me clarify something here; the laws of economics exist and remain true whether you subscribe to them or not, much like the laws of physics. Hard core liberals love to tell people of faith (really just Christians and Jews) that they must give up their foolish beliefs and devote themselves to the definitive realities of science. Yet, just as easily as they cling to Darwin and other scientific theories and facts, they dismiss the laws of economics.
Our forefathers (who happened to be the same type of “god fearing lunatics” that many liberals despise) designed this country under the concept that we all were entitled to liberty and the pursuit of private property and wealth. This capitalist and free market mindset has enabled this country to grow from a group of abusively taxed, under class, farmers and tradesmen to the greatest economic and military superpower the world has ever seen, in considerably less than 200 years.
Now I ask you, where has embracing a socialist style of governance (specifically in economic policy) ever benefited any nation the way free market capitalism has benefited ours? Can’t think of one country that practices socialist style economic policy that is better off than us? Shocker! Now tell me how many free market societies have found themselves underfoot of a totalitarian regime while staying true to the practice of capitalism and democracy? Oh, that’s right, the answer is zero! Yet how many times in our world’s history has socialism lead to totalitarian, fascist regimes? Even with a liberal college education you couldn't deny the disastrous results of socialism. And to those who have some examples of successful socialist countries I would offer that those places are “successful” in spite of themselves due to a small docile population.
Why then is the United States embracing more and more socialist policies every week? The answer is simple. The President of the United States as well as the majorities of both the House of Representatives and the Senate fully subscribe to a liberal socialist ideology. They feel, and govern, quite unapologetically that the way to solve all of the world's ills is to have gigantic government apparatus that oversees and/or controls just about everything. They have no faith in the free market and they have no faith in you.
Some folks say that corrupt capitalists allowed to run amuck by an administration that was asleep at the wheel are to blame for our current economic crisis. To counter that point (and it is a good one on its face) I would argue that the government’s interference in the free market was the true catalyst for the corruption. I can’t absolve the previous administration from not creating or maintaining the appropriate oversight, but I can explain why that lack oversight wouldn’t have been as big a problem had our government not meddled with the private sector to being with.
Once upon a time the reputable banks in this country operated under strict self imposed guidelines regarding the lending of money. They would only enter into transactions with borrowers who met certain criteria such as having collateral and being able to demonstrate that they could regularly pay down their debts with interest and someday pay off the loan in its entirety. I don’t know about you but that looks like a pretty sound way to do business. You really do have to admit that it makes a lot of financial sense to operate a bank this way, don’t you? Granted, in this system, if you could not afford something (i.e. a home) you were unable to get it. But that doesn’t sound so bad does it? I’m sure you can think of a handful of things that you want but can’t have because you can’t afford them. And, if you’re a reasonable person, you don’t think that you’re entitled to those things and let the absence of those possessions make you bitter and angry with the world. However, if you’re a liberal, progressive, socialist ideologue you have a major entitlement issues not just for yourself, but on behalf all those who you feel have been let down by the cold dispassionate capitalist system.
Enter the government. Some liberal democrats had the happy pink bunny rabbit idea that everyone should be able to “own” a home no matter how little income they had. So they applied pressure on the banks to make bad loans to unqualified borrowers. Much of this started with the Jimmy Carter era’s “Community Reinvestment Act.” President Clinton signed into law further legislation that helped beef up Carter’s act and made bad loans even more accessible to people who had no business being in the housing market. Now I’m all for people having a decent place to live and raise their children, but a family can live in an apartment or a small house as opposed to their dream home if that’s what their financial situation dictates. If you have an issue with slum lords and/or the condition of low income housing (and we certainly do), laws should be passed to deal with those problems directly rather than lowering the bar for home ownership in general.
So people got loans they could never pay back. More and more homes were built and sold. Home values went up and up so the people who couldn’t afford these houses to begin with were able to borrow more money against the value of their home to buy more things they couldn’t afford. On and on it went until the real estate bubble burst and everything came tumbling after.
Now I promised earlier that I would show you how corrupt capitalism played a role in this as well, so here it goes. Once forced into poor banking practices the bankers found a way to profit immensely of off these bad loans (capitalism at work). They decided to lend people all the money they needed, even more than they needed actually. They would then collect their commissions on the loans upfront rather than waiting for the “investment” to prove viable or god forbid turn a profit. Because after all, one bad banking/financial policy deserves another (I think this statement is at the top of Barney Frank’s stationary). And with little to no federal oversight from the lefts favorite punching bag, President Bush, this greedy exploitation of a terrible yet feel good government policy went unchecked.
Now you know what really happened and how the largest fault lies in our government’s intervention in matters that are way above its pay grade. A control/power hungry rabble comprised mostly of lawyers and career politicians stuck their nose where it didn’t belong and now we have the biggest economic crisis since the great depression. The good news is that their plan to save us from it is more of the same big government nationalization nonsense. It relies almost entirely on big brothers abilities rather than the free markets. If you objectively look at both of their track records I think you’ll see that we’d be better off betting on the Knicks to go to the NBA finals this year than putting all of our eggs in the government’s basket. But chin up, the government now owns a 40% stake in Citibank (by the way you can say that’s not the nationalization of bank all you want, but that doesn’t make it so). And the best news yet has to be that Vice President Joe Biden, another career lawyer/politician with little to no real business experience, is in charge overseeing the execution/implementation of this massive “stimulus” package.
Somewhere in heaven George Washington, Ayn Rand, and Ronald Reagan must be crying on each other’s shoulders.
Our forefathers (who happened to be the same type of “god fearing lunatics” that many liberals despise) designed this country under the concept that we all were entitled to liberty and the pursuit of private property and wealth. This capitalist and free market mindset has enabled this country to grow from a group of abusively taxed, under class, farmers and tradesmen to the greatest economic and military superpower the world has ever seen, in considerably less than 200 years.
Now I ask you, where has embracing a socialist style of governance (specifically in economic policy) ever benefited any nation the way free market capitalism has benefited ours? Can’t think of one country that practices socialist style economic policy that is better off than us? Shocker! Now tell me how many free market societies have found themselves underfoot of a totalitarian regime while staying true to the practice of capitalism and democracy? Oh, that’s right, the answer is zero! Yet how many times in our world’s history has socialism lead to totalitarian, fascist regimes? Even with a liberal college education you couldn't deny the disastrous results of socialism. And to those who have some examples of successful socialist countries I would offer that those places are “successful” in spite of themselves due to a small docile population.
Why then is the United States embracing more and more socialist policies every week? The answer is simple. The President of the United States as well as the majorities of both the House of Representatives and the Senate fully subscribe to a liberal socialist ideology. They feel, and govern, quite unapologetically that the way to solve all of the world's ills is to have gigantic government apparatus that oversees and/or controls just about everything. They have no faith in the free market and they have no faith in you.
Some folks say that corrupt capitalists allowed to run amuck by an administration that was asleep at the wheel are to blame for our current economic crisis. To counter that point (and it is a good one on its face) I would argue that the government’s interference in the free market was the true catalyst for the corruption. I can’t absolve the previous administration from not creating or maintaining the appropriate oversight, but I can explain why that lack oversight wouldn’t have been as big a problem had our government not meddled with the private sector to being with.
Once upon a time the reputable banks in this country operated under strict self imposed guidelines regarding the lending of money. They would only enter into transactions with borrowers who met certain criteria such as having collateral and being able to demonstrate that they could regularly pay down their debts with interest and someday pay off the loan in its entirety. I don’t know about you but that looks like a pretty sound way to do business. You really do have to admit that it makes a lot of financial sense to operate a bank this way, don’t you? Granted, in this system, if you could not afford something (i.e. a home) you were unable to get it. But that doesn’t sound so bad does it? I’m sure you can think of a handful of things that you want but can’t have because you can’t afford them. And, if you’re a reasonable person, you don’t think that you’re entitled to those things and let the absence of those possessions make you bitter and angry with the world. However, if you’re a liberal, progressive, socialist ideologue you have a major entitlement issues not just for yourself, but on behalf all those who you feel have been let down by the cold dispassionate capitalist system.
Enter the government. Some liberal democrats had the happy pink bunny rabbit idea that everyone should be able to “own” a home no matter how little income they had. So they applied pressure on the banks to make bad loans to unqualified borrowers. Much of this started with the Jimmy Carter era’s “Community Reinvestment Act.” President Clinton signed into law further legislation that helped beef up Carter’s act and made bad loans even more accessible to people who had no business being in the housing market. Now I’m all for people having a decent place to live and raise their children, but a family can live in an apartment or a small house as opposed to their dream home if that’s what their financial situation dictates. If you have an issue with slum lords and/or the condition of low income housing (and we certainly do), laws should be passed to deal with those problems directly rather than lowering the bar for home ownership in general.
So people got loans they could never pay back. More and more homes were built and sold. Home values went up and up so the people who couldn’t afford these houses to begin with were able to borrow more money against the value of their home to buy more things they couldn’t afford. On and on it went until the real estate bubble burst and everything came tumbling after.
Now I promised earlier that I would show you how corrupt capitalism played a role in this as well, so here it goes. Once forced into poor banking practices the bankers found a way to profit immensely of off these bad loans (capitalism at work). They decided to lend people all the money they needed, even more than they needed actually. They would then collect their commissions on the loans upfront rather than waiting for the “investment” to prove viable or god forbid turn a profit. Because after all, one bad banking/financial policy deserves another (I think this statement is at the top of Barney Frank’s stationary). And with little to no federal oversight from the lefts favorite punching bag, President Bush, this greedy exploitation of a terrible yet feel good government policy went unchecked.
Now you know what really happened and how the largest fault lies in our government’s intervention in matters that are way above its pay grade. A control/power hungry rabble comprised mostly of lawyers and career politicians stuck their nose where it didn’t belong and now we have the biggest economic crisis since the great depression. The good news is that their plan to save us from it is more of the same big government nationalization nonsense. It relies almost entirely on big brothers abilities rather than the free markets. If you objectively look at both of their track records I think you’ll see that we’d be better off betting on the Knicks to go to the NBA finals this year than putting all of our eggs in the government’s basket. But chin up, the government now owns a 40% stake in Citibank (by the way you can say that’s not the nationalization of bank all you want, but that doesn’t make it so). And the best news yet has to be that Vice President Joe Biden, another career lawyer/politician with little to no real business experience, is in charge overseeing the execution/implementation of this massive “stimulus” package.
Somewhere in heaven George Washington, Ayn Rand, and Ronald Reagan must be crying on each other’s shoulders.
Monday, February 16, 2009
Bloodshed Biryani
I went online to check the headlines Monday morning and this is what I found:
“PESHAWAR, Pakistan — The government agreed to impose Islamic law and suspend a military offensive across a large swath of northwest Pakistan on Monday in concessions aimed at pacifying a spreading Taliban insurgency there.” (Associated Press)
Now let me see if I understand this properly. The Taliban has been gallivanting across Pakistan leaving a trail of severed heads in their wake and they are rewarded by getting exactly what they wanted, the imposition of Shariah Law. How this any different giving a two year old the cookie he’s been whining about for over an hour because he just punched you in the nuts? How is it any better then neighborhood shopkeepers paying the mobster that terrorizes them for protection money? What differentiates this from letting a date rapist get away with it because if you don’t he says he’ll come back and hurt you again? The answer is NOTHING!!! This is the very complacency that the Islamic extremists count on.
We saw what Taliban rule had to offer Afghanistan. We’re seeing what a Taliban resurgence is doing to the people of Afghanistan and the men and women of our brave military deployed there. Now think of the Taliban as a hockey team and Afghanistan is their home ice. Now imagine that team USA came into town and hit them hard against the boards. As a result the Taliban plays dirty and ends up being sent (retreating) to the penalty box (Pakistan) to sit it out for a while. So instead of sitting quietly in the penalty box awaiting their chance to make it 5 on 5 again, they move to take over the penalty box and stage attacks on the ice while doing so. Using the hockey analogy almost makes it sound cute and fun. The one big problem is that the penalty box that the refs are so ready to capitulate is nuclear armed and the ice has our soldiers on it.
No quality parent handles their child’s tantrums by purchasing for them the most expensive toy they desire. No good wife combats her husband’s philandering by inviting her sultry bisexual friend over for some hot three way action. Likewise, there should be no country, no matter how battered, that abdicates their jurisdiction in an effort to appease those who are insatiable in their quest for dominance. To do so makes a mockery of the governing body itself and opens the door for further coups of greater degree. I fear that this is just beginning of the capitulation in Pakistan. What’s scarier still is what might happen when nuclear armed India starts contemplating what it would be like to live next door to a nuclear armed Pakistan that’s under Taliban control.
“PESHAWAR, Pakistan — The government agreed to impose Islamic law and suspend a military offensive across a large swath of northwest Pakistan on Monday in concessions aimed at pacifying a spreading Taliban insurgency there.” (Associated Press)
Now let me see if I understand this properly. The Taliban has been gallivanting across Pakistan leaving a trail of severed heads in their wake and they are rewarded by getting exactly what they wanted, the imposition of Shariah Law. How this any different giving a two year old the cookie he’s been whining about for over an hour because he just punched you in the nuts? How is it any better then neighborhood shopkeepers paying the mobster that terrorizes them for protection money? What differentiates this from letting a date rapist get away with it because if you don’t he says he’ll come back and hurt you again? The answer is NOTHING!!! This is the very complacency that the Islamic extremists count on.
We saw what Taliban rule had to offer Afghanistan. We’re seeing what a Taliban resurgence is doing to the people of Afghanistan and the men and women of our brave military deployed there. Now think of the Taliban as a hockey team and Afghanistan is their home ice. Now imagine that team USA came into town and hit them hard against the boards. As a result the Taliban plays dirty and ends up being sent (retreating) to the penalty box (Pakistan) to sit it out for a while. So instead of sitting quietly in the penalty box awaiting their chance to make it 5 on 5 again, they move to take over the penalty box and stage attacks on the ice while doing so. Using the hockey analogy almost makes it sound cute and fun. The one big problem is that the penalty box that the refs are so ready to capitulate is nuclear armed and the ice has our soldiers on it.
No quality parent handles their child’s tantrums by purchasing for them the most expensive toy they desire. No good wife combats her husband’s philandering by inviting her sultry bisexual friend over for some hot three way action. Likewise, there should be no country, no matter how battered, that abdicates their jurisdiction in an effort to appease those who are insatiable in their quest for dominance. To do so makes a mockery of the governing body itself and opens the door for further coups of greater degree. I fear that this is just beginning of the capitulation in Pakistan. What’s scarier still is what might happen when nuclear armed India starts contemplating what it would be like to live next door to a nuclear armed Pakistan that’s under Taliban control.
Sunday, February 8, 2009
Keep the Change
Last week we chatted about how partisan the House version of the economic “stimulus” bill was and how simulative it wasn’t. This week we’ve seen the Senate attempt to shave a hundred billion or so off the bill after public opinion on the “stimulus” package started slipping. We’ve also been privy to some bipartisanship, but not from the man that promised it. Instead of strong bipartisan leadership, President Obama gave us all a dose of what the left used to call Bush style fear tactics and a load of partisan rhetoric.
President Obama opined in the Washington Post that if this stimulus bill is not passed soon we could face a deeper and potentially irreparable recession. He wrote the following, “And, if nothing is done, this recession might linger for years ... our nation will sink deeper into a crisis that, at some point, we may not be able to reverse.” Now I’m not a professor of literature, but that sentence sure sounds like it’s meant to persuade those who do not support this bill by inspiring fear of a “deeper” or “irreversible” recession. Many Obama supporters used to accuse President Bush of being a fear monger when he would address his detractors by warning of the dangers inherent in having weak national defense policies. It shouldn’t take Kreskin to guess whether or not the same will be said of Obama now that he is employing the same tactics. The only difference is that Bush was right. There is a direct correlation between being more susceptible to attack and having less stringent defense measures. The same correlation does not exist between the absence of Obama’s “stimulus” plan and an enduring economic recession or depression.
Our President also wrote the following in last weeks op-ed piece in response to the criticism the bill has received, “I reject these theories, and so did the American people when they went to the polls in November and voted resoundingly for change. They know that we have tried it those ways for too long.” Again, I’m no Mensa candidate, but that doesn’t exactly sound like someone that’s embracing the opposition, or reaching across the aisle. What it sounds like to me is some highly partisan rhetoric reminiscent of when he was on the campaign trail. In truth, the Republicans over the last eight years were not fiscally conservative. They spent big time, and it’s a large factor in why their ranks have dwindled and they’ve suffered so many losses in the 2006 and 2008 elections. They did offer tax relief and that did help the economy, but not enough to fend off the inevitable bursting of the housing market bubble and the subsequent credit freeze. I’m not trying to absolve the Republicans of any guilt in this nations current economic woes, but I will contend that this crisis is a culmination of overall government failure. For some reason everyone is supposed to be ready to let the federal government mortgage the future to get us out of this hole through pork spending, increases in entitlements, and some tax refunds? Why? Because the new guys are so much better and more worthy of our trust then the old guys? Sorry, I just don’t buy that.
In the meantime, while Mr. Obama was writing his Washington Post op-ed designed to scare everyone into supporting Pelosi and his bogus bill before any of the pork could be slashed, Senators Ben Nelson (D-NE) and Susan Collins (R-ME) were actually demonstrating some bipartisan leadership by heading up an effort to clean up this bill and make it more palatable for Republicans and fiscally conservative Democrats (yes, there are a few). Now I am still by no means in support of the bill, but this week showed me that I should no longer attempt to give President Obama the benefit of the doubt as I did last week. He proved himself to be every bit the partisan he claimed he wasn’t. He also showed himself to be willing to act quite similarly (if you subscribe to the left’s rhetoric) to the man he spent his entire campaign denigrating, President George W. Bush.
In the end there’s only one stimulus that’s guaranteed to work and that’s giving the taxpayers their money back. If every taxpayer was given a chunk of what is now $827 billion, there is literally nothing they could do with the money that wouldn’t stimulate the economy other then burying it in the yard like some kind of suburban pirate. If they put it in the bank to bolster their savings, the economy gets stimulated. If they spend all the money, the economy gets stimulated. If they invest it in the stock market, it stimulates the economy. If they use the money to pay off some or all of their debts, the economy gets stimulated. The list goes on, but I think you get the point. Unless they light the money ablaze, the result of giving the taxpayers the money will be 100% economic stimulus. Incidentally, I’m pretty sure burning money is how those spoiled douche bags used to start the bonfires on Laguna Beach.
President Obama opined in the Washington Post that if this stimulus bill is not passed soon we could face a deeper and potentially irreparable recession. He wrote the following, “And, if nothing is done, this recession might linger for years ... our nation will sink deeper into a crisis that, at some point, we may not be able to reverse.” Now I’m not a professor of literature, but that sentence sure sounds like it’s meant to persuade those who do not support this bill by inspiring fear of a “deeper” or “irreversible” recession. Many Obama supporters used to accuse President Bush of being a fear monger when he would address his detractors by warning of the dangers inherent in having weak national defense policies. It shouldn’t take Kreskin to guess whether or not the same will be said of Obama now that he is employing the same tactics. The only difference is that Bush was right. There is a direct correlation between being more susceptible to attack and having less stringent defense measures. The same correlation does not exist between the absence of Obama’s “stimulus” plan and an enduring economic recession or depression.
Our President also wrote the following in last weeks op-ed piece in response to the criticism the bill has received, “I reject these theories, and so did the American people when they went to the polls in November and voted resoundingly for change. They know that we have tried it those ways for too long.” Again, I’m no Mensa candidate, but that doesn’t exactly sound like someone that’s embracing the opposition, or reaching across the aisle. What it sounds like to me is some highly partisan rhetoric reminiscent of when he was on the campaign trail. In truth, the Republicans over the last eight years were not fiscally conservative. They spent big time, and it’s a large factor in why their ranks have dwindled and they’ve suffered so many losses in the 2006 and 2008 elections. They did offer tax relief and that did help the economy, but not enough to fend off the inevitable bursting of the housing market bubble and the subsequent credit freeze. I’m not trying to absolve the Republicans of any guilt in this nations current economic woes, but I will contend that this crisis is a culmination of overall government failure. For some reason everyone is supposed to be ready to let the federal government mortgage the future to get us out of this hole through pork spending, increases in entitlements, and some tax refunds? Why? Because the new guys are so much better and more worthy of our trust then the old guys? Sorry, I just don’t buy that.
In the meantime, while Mr. Obama was writing his Washington Post op-ed designed to scare everyone into supporting Pelosi and his bogus bill before any of the pork could be slashed, Senators Ben Nelson (D-NE) and Susan Collins (R-ME) were actually demonstrating some bipartisan leadership by heading up an effort to clean up this bill and make it more palatable for Republicans and fiscally conservative Democrats (yes, there are a few). Now I am still by no means in support of the bill, but this week showed me that I should no longer attempt to give President Obama the benefit of the doubt as I did last week. He proved himself to be every bit the partisan he claimed he wasn’t. He also showed himself to be willing to act quite similarly (if you subscribe to the left’s rhetoric) to the man he spent his entire campaign denigrating, President George W. Bush.
In the end there’s only one stimulus that’s guaranteed to work and that’s giving the taxpayers their money back. If every taxpayer was given a chunk of what is now $827 billion, there is literally nothing they could do with the money that wouldn’t stimulate the economy other then burying it in the yard like some kind of suburban pirate. If they put it in the bank to bolster their savings, the economy gets stimulated. If they spend all the money, the economy gets stimulated. If they invest it in the stock market, it stimulates the economy. If they use the money to pay off some or all of their debts, the economy gets stimulated. The list goes on, but I think you get the point. Unless they light the money ablaze, the result of giving the taxpayers the money will be 100% economic stimulus. Incidentally, I’m pretty sure burning money is how those spoiled douche bags used to start the bonfires on Laguna Beach.
Sunday, February 1, 2009
I Feel Stimulated
We are currently going through a major economic recession. House values have plummeted, thousands of jobs are being lost every week, and the credit markets are still frozen solid in spite of all the money given to the banks from that ingenious TARP fund. Last week the House passed an economic “stimulus” bill that would cost $819 billion. The vote was straight across party lines. Not one Republican, despite Obama’s out stretched hand, voted for the legislation. That might be because the bill, like every spending bill before it, is loaded with pork. This one however is probably the most partisan and deceptive spending bill I’ve ever seen.
Let’s start the evaluation by discussing how partisan this bill is. This bill wasn’t just passed entirely by the Democrats, it was written solely by the Democrats. This is something that Nancy Pelosi proudly pointed out when she said, “We won the election. We wrote the bill.” But her arrogance didn’t end with that statement, the Speaker and her fellow House Democrats began celebrating the bills passage before the vote even took place (it must be nice to have that comfy majority). My biggest problem here is that Obama promised bipartisanship and he made good on that by reaching out to the House Republicans (for all the good it did). I guess Pelosi and the rest of this bills architects didn’t get the memo because there is absolutely nothing bipartisan about the way this bill was written or passed.
Now let’s get into the pork. After President Obama promised us change, government transparency, and an end to “politics as usual,“ the Democrats push through a bill that has so much pork in it that to read it is like watching a lesbian porno staring Miss Piggy and Paula Dean. Here is a list of just some items you’ll find in this “stimulus” bill according to the Wall Street Journal:
- $81 billion for Medicaid.
- $66 billion for education.
- $36 billion for unemployment benefits.
- $30 billion for COBRA insurance extensions.
- $20 billion for food stamps.
- $8 billion for renewable energy funding.
- $7.5 billion for public housing.
- $7 billion for the modernization of federal facilities.
- $2.4 billion for carbon capture demonstration projects.
- $1 billion for Amtrak.
- $650 million for digital TV converter box coupons.
- $600 million for new cars for the federal government.
- $400 million for global warming research.
- $150 million for the Smithsonian.
- $50 million for the National Endowment for the Arts.
Which one of the items listed above is going to unfreeze the credit markets and allow existing companies to stay in business while new companies open? Can’t find one? Don’t feel bad, neither could I.
Which one of the items listed above is going to create new jobs and/or assure that more jobs won’t be lost? You could make a pretty shallow argument for a couple of them, but at the end of the day, the ones you have in mind probably benefit the federal government in the long term more then they help anyone else even in the short term.
Oh, I almost forgot. Which one of these is going to secure the value of your home and the equity you have in it? I know, I’m just being a wise ass. The answer is clearly none of them.
My detractors will most likely argue that I’m picking on just part of the “stimulus” bill and they would be correct. But then my counter argument would be, why is there anything in the “stimulus” bill that doesn’t have the express purpose of stimulating the economy? If the Democrats feel that these items are important and merit spending billions on while in this economic climate then they should have the courage to propose them in other bills rather then hiding them in what is supposed to be a life line for our economy (remember we were promised transparency and an end to “politics as usual” by President Obama).
If the House Democrats really believed in Obama’s message, the way 53% of the electorate did, they would have worked with the House Republicans when writing this bill. They also would have put forth their spending/social agenda in separate bills. Especially if they truly felt that the people who elected them would be proud to see this money spent this way while in the midst of a global recession.
All this “stimulus” bill really did was assure me of my worst fears when it became clear that Obama was going to win the White House. I was never concerned about the man himself, only those whom his presidency would empower (Pelosi, Reid, Frank, Boxer, Murtha, Kerry, etc.). I am very concerned that in an effort to elect someone that truly wanted to change Washington, those that voted for Obama merely insured that it would only get worse.
Let’s start the evaluation by discussing how partisan this bill is. This bill wasn’t just passed entirely by the Democrats, it was written solely by the Democrats. This is something that Nancy Pelosi proudly pointed out when she said, “We won the election. We wrote the bill.” But her arrogance didn’t end with that statement, the Speaker and her fellow House Democrats began celebrating the bills passage before the vote even took place (it must be nice to have that comfy majority). My biggest problem here is that Obama promised bipartisanship and he made good on that by reaching out to the House Republicans (for all the good it did). I guess Pelosi and the rest of this bills architects didn’t get the memo because there is absolutely nothing bipartisan about the way this bill was written or passed.
Now let’s get into the pork. After President Obama promised us change, government transparency, and an end to “politics as usual,“ the Democrats push through a bill that has so much pork in it that to read it is like watching a lesbian porno staring Miss Piggy and Paula Dean. Here is a list of just some items you’ll find in this “stimulus” bill according to the Wall Street Journal:
- $81 billion for Medicaid.
- $66 billion for education.
- $36 billion for unemployment benefits.
- $30 billion for COBRA insurance extensions.
- $20 billion for food stamps.
- $8 billion for renewable energy funding.
- $7.5 billion for public housing.
- $7 billion for the modernization of federal facilities.
- $2.4 billion for carbon capture demonstration projects.
- $1 billion for Amtrak.
- $650 million for digital TV converter box coupons.
- $600 million for new cars for the federal government.
- $400 million for global warming research.
- $150 million for the Smithsonian.
- $50 million for the National Endowment for the Arts.
Which one of the items listed above is going to unfreeze the credit markets and allow existing companies to stay in business while new companies open? Can’t find one? Don’t feel bad, neither could I.
Which one of the items listed above is going to create new jobs and/or assure that more jobs won’t be lost? You could make a pretty shallow argument for a couple of them, but at the end of the day, the ones you have in mind probably benefit the federal government in the long term more then they help anyone else even in the short term.
Oh, I almost forgot. Which one of these is going to secure the value of your home and the equity you have in it? I know, I’m just being a wise ass. The answer is clearly none of them.
My detractors will most likely argue that I’m picking on just part of the “stimulus” bill and they would be correct. But then my counter argument would be, why is there anything in the “stimulus” bill that doesn’t have the express purpose of stimulating the economy? If the Democrats feel that these items are important and merit spending billions on while in this economic climate then they should have the courage to propose them in other bills rather then hiding them in what is supposed to be a life line for our economy (remember we were promised transparency and an end to “politics as usual” by President Obama).
If the House Democrats really believed in Obama’s message, the way 53% of the electorate did, they would have worked with the House Republicans when writing this bill. They also would have put forth their spending/social agenda in separate bills. Especially if they truly felt that the people who elected them would be proud to see this money spent this way while in the midst of a global recession.
All this “stimulus” bill really did was assure me of my worst fears when it became clear that Obama was going to win the White House. I was never concerned about the man himself, only those whom his presidency would empower (Pelosi, Reid, Frank, Boxer, Murtha, Kerry, etc.). I am very concerned that in an effort to elect someone that truly wanted to change Washington, those that voted for Obama merely insured that it would only get worse.
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