For the last six weeks, Joe Biden has been hosting “talks” on our budget crisis. As of yesterday, the shit hit the fan. GOP representatives in the talks Eric Cantor and Jon Kyl pulled out of the talks. The reason? The inability to come to an agreement on taxes. We’ll get to more on that in a minute, but the Democrats insist on raising taxes in order to come up with a deficit-reduction package of $4 trillion, which would be tied to an increase in the federal debt limit. The Republicans do not want to raise taxes. And after six weeks of this song and dance, Cantor and Kyl realized that they weren’t getting anywhere. So now the task rests in the hands of Barack Obama, John Boehner and Harry Reid. Meanwhile, Eric Cantor says that he will propose a Balanced Budget Amendment to the Constitution.
Barack Obama … it’s time to take a stand. Will you fight to increase taxes as your fellow Democrats insist, or will you recognize the effect of lower tax rates on economic behavior? I assume that wealth envy will ultimately prevail.
So what if Democrats manage to convince the Republicans (not like with a Republican-led House) that we need to end the Bush tax cuts and return to the tax rates we had under Bill Clinton. That’s no longer good enough. Why? Because our government spending has grown tremendously since the days of Clinton! Don’t they get it? This isn’t a revenue problem.
It’s a spending problem. Here are some specifics from the Washington Examiner:
In 2000, the last full-year of President Clinton’s administration, tax revenues were 20.6 percent of GDP, according to the CBO. (The White House Office of Management and Budget puts it slightly higher, at 20.9 percent, which places it in a tie with 1944 for the highest ever level in U.S. history). But the CBO’s long-term fiscal outlook released yesterday predicts that by 2035, total spending will reach a stunning 33.9 percent of GDP if lawmakers pursue their predictable course. That means even if revenues returned to the coveted pre-Bush tax cut levels, there would be a 13 percent difference.
Yet President Obama’s former OMB director Peter Orszag has written that, “a sustainable level is more like 3 percent (of GDP) or lower.” So that would put the deficits, even with Clinton-era revenues, at more than four times their sustainable levels.
Increasing taxes is a Democrat strategy to pander to wealthy envy voters. This has nothing to do with our debt or deficit and everything to do with re-election.
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Off the cliff
Yesterday the CBO rocked the news cycle by releasing new estimates on our future fiscal situation. It wasn’t pretty, though that shouldn’t come as a shock to you. The CBO released what is being referred to as a more “politically-realistic alternative scenario.” So these numbers are based on what the CBO expects to happen in the future: the Bush tax cuts will be extended and Medicare spending will not be cut.
So what was the result of these new numbers?
Federal debt as a share of our GDP will be 109% by 2021. By the year 2035, it will be closer to 190% of GDP.
Wow. How in the world did we get to this point? Well Barack Obama surely didn’t help. His own stimulus plan managed to nearly DOUBLE our debt. The Washington Examiner reports:
The 2011 Long-Term Budget Outlook, released Wednesday morning, reports that the “the combination of automatic budgetary responses” and Obama’s stimulus “had a profound impact on the federal budget.” According to CBO projections, before Obama’s stimulus became law, federal debt equaled 36 percent of GDP and was projected to decline slightly over the next few years. Instead, thanks in large part to the stimulus, debt reached 62 percent of GDP by 2010.
So in the wake of this news about our debt, what are the Democrats planning to do? They have two ideas.
#1: Spend more money. No, this is not a joke. A headline from Reuters, not from the Onion, reads: Democrats call for new spending in US debt deal. Yesterday, Democrats in the Senate called on Joe Biden to include “new economic stimulus spending” in his deficit reduction talks. You just read the information above … Barack Obama’s grand stimulus plan nearly DOUBLED our debt, and what do we have to show for it?
#2: Increase taxes. Because the CBO numbers assume that the Bush tax cuts will be extended, the Democrats immediately claim that if it wasn’t for the Bush tax cuts, these CBO estimates wouldn’t be nearly as dire. Guess what, they would be. According to the CBO’s own alternative scenario, even if the Bush tax cuts are extended along with the Alternative Minimum Tax, “federal revenues as a share of GDP will still exceed the post-war average by the decade’s end.” Even if the Democrats managed to repeal the Bush tax cuts, therefore increasing taxes on millions of Americans … would that solve our debt crisis? Of course not! I’ve shared the following information with you before, but considering this latest push to repeal the Bush tax cuts, it is worth sharing again …
In a static world repealing these tax cuts would get you about $3 trillion over ten years. Our federal deficit is almost one half of that every year. Static world? That’s the wonderful world of liberalism where you operate on the assumption that nobody ever changes their economic behavior when tax rates go up or down. History shows that when tax rates go some people reduce their economic activity, and other simply shift their earnings around to avoid the higher taxes … and they do it legally.
But don’t believe me; believe the experts at the Heritage Foundation. I’d highly recommend that you read this column in the Wall Street Journal by Brian Riedl:
The Bush Tax Cuts and the Deficit Myth. I’ll give you just a few of the highlights:
… the much-maligned Bush tax cuts .. caused just 14% of the swing from projected surpluses to actual deficits (and that is according to a "static" analysis, excluding any revenues recovered from faster economic growth induced by the cuts). The bulk of the swing resulted from economic and technical revisions (33%), other new spending (32%), net interest on the debt (12%), the 2009 stimulus (6%) and other tax cuts (3%). Specifically, the tax cuts for those earning more than $250,000 are responsible for just 4% of the swing. If there were no Bush tax cuts, runaway spending and economic factors would have guaranteed more than $4 trillion in deficits over the decade and kept the budget in deficit every year except 2007.
Why are Democrats pushing the repeal of the Bush tax cuts? Because they can’t stand the idea that you can spend your money better and more efficiently than they can. And by “better” I mean that you have the power of choice to spend your money wherever you see fit, without the point of a gun. It takes politicians out of the equation, thereby diminishing their power over you.
So what was the result of these new numbers?
Federal debt as a share of our GDP will be 109% by 2021. By the year 2035, it will be closer to 190% of GDP.
Wow. How in the world did we get to this point? Well Barack Obama surely didn’t help. His own stimulus plan managed to nearly DOUBLE our debt. The Washington Examiner reports:
The 2011 Long-Term Budget Outlook, released Wednesday morning, reports that the “the combination of automatic budgetary responses” and Obama’s stimulus “had a profound impact on the federal budget.” According to CBO projections, before Obama’s stimulus became law, federal debt equaled 36 percent of GDP and was projected to decline slightly over the next few years. Instead, thanks in large part to the stimulus, debt reached 62 percent of GDP by 2010.
So in the wake of this news about our debt, what are the Democrats planning to do? They have two ideas.
#1: Spend more money. No, this is not a joke. A headline from Reuters, not from the Onion, reads: Democrats call for new spending in US debt deal. Yesterday, Democrats in the Senate called on Joe Biden to include “new economic stimulus spending” in his deficit reduction talks. You just read the information above … Barack Obama’s grand stimulus plan nearly DOUBLED our debt, and what do we have to show for it?
#2: Increase taxes. Because the CBO numbers assume that the Bush tax cuts will be extended, the Democrats immediately claim that if it wasn’t for the Bush tax cuts, these CBO estimates wouldn’t be nearly as dire. Guess what, they would be. According to the CBO’s own alternative scenario, even if the Bush tax cuts are extended along with the Alternative Minimum Tax, “federal revenues as a share of GDP will still exceed the post-war average by the decade’s end.” Even if the Democrats managed to repeal the Bush tax cuts, therefore increasing taxes on millions of Americans … would that solve our debt crisis? Of course not! I’ve shared the following information with you before, but considering this latest push to repeal the Bush tax cuts, it is worth sharing again …
In a static world repealing these tax cuts would get you about $3 trillion over ten years. Our federal deficit is almost one half of that every year. Static world? That’s the wonderful world of liberalism where you operate on the assumption that nobody ever changes their economic behavior when tax rates go up or down. History shows that when tax rates go some people reduce their economic activity, and other simply shift their earnings around to avoid the higher taxes … and they do it legally.
But don’t believe me; believe the experts at the Heritage Foundation. I’d highly recommend that you read this column in the Wall Street Journal by Brian Riedl:
The Bush Tax Cuts and the Deficit Myth. I’ll give you just a few of the highlights:
… the much-maligned Bush tax cuts .. caused just 14% of the swing from projected surpluses to actual deficits (and that is according to a "static" analysis, excluding any revenues recovered from faster economic growth induced by the cuts). The bulk of the swing resulted from economic and technical revisions (33%), other new spending (32%), net interest on the debt (12%), the 2009 stimulus (6%) and other tax cuts (3%). Specifically, the tax cuts for those earning more than $250,000 are responsible for just 4% of the swing. If there were no Bush tax cuts, runaway spending and economic factors would have guaranteed more than $4 trillion in deficits over the decade and kept the budget in deficit every year except 2007.
Why are Democrats pushing the repeal of the Bush tax cuts? Because they can’t stand the idea that you can spend your money better and more efficiently than they can. And by “better” I mean that you have the power of choice to spend your money wherever you see fit, without the point of a gun. It takes politicians out of the equation, thereby diminishing their power over you.
Friday, June 10, 2011
The Obama Economy
The ObamaMedia is beside itself right now .. it can’t seem to understand why or how Barack Obama’s economic policies aren’t translating into jobs and growth. This must be the case because they seem to be caught quite off-guard with all of these “unexpected” jobs figures. Unwilling to blame their savior, Barack Obama, they are now trying to come up with other ways to justify this lousy economy.
I know … let’s blame the Republicans!
Take a look at this headline: Are Republicans Intentionally Sabotaging Economy For Political Gain? Can you believe that? The headline doesn’t ask if Democrats are scaring the diapers off old ladies for political gain. Not, it’s the Republicans sabotaging the economy.
Even though the Democrats held the presidency and the Senate since 2009 (the Democrats have held both houses from 2007 until last year), somehow it is all the Republicans’ fault. The Democrats haven’t presented a budget in how many years now? And it’s the Republicans who are sabotaging the economy? I’ve said it since the day Barack Obama was inaugurated .. I hoped that he would become the greatest president this nation has ever seen and that our economy would flourish over the next years. This is because I care about this country that I love more than I care about a Democrat getting credit for ‘saving’ it. Unfortunately that has not turned out to be the case. I now believe based on the decisions that Obama has made as president, that he has a fundamentally different idea of what makes this nation and our economy great. He is a man who believes in a centrally planned economy and bigger government. How is that working out for us?
If the rate of labor force participation in June 2011 were the same as it was in June 2009 (65.7%), the reported unemployment rate would be 11.2% rather than 9.1%. If June 2011 labor force participation were 66.2%, which is where it was when Obama promised that his “stimulus” program would prevent unemployment from exceeding 8.0%, the June 2011 unemployment rate would come in at 11.9%.
Being a leader means taking ownership of your triumphs and your failures, but with the ObamaMedia in tow, Obama isn’t really forced to do that.
I know … let’s blame the Republicans!
Take a look at this headline: Are Republicans Intentionally Sabotaging Economy For Political Gain? Can you believe that? The headline doesn’t ask if Democrats are scaring the diapers off old ladies for political gain. Not, it’s the Republicans sabotaging the economy.
Even though the Democrats held the presidency and the Senate since 2009 (the Democrats have held both houses from 2007 until last year), somehow it is all the Republicans’ fault. The Democrats haven’t presented a budget in how many years now? And it’s the Republicans who are sabotaging the economy? I’ve said it since the day Barack Obama was inaugurated .. I hoped that he would become the greatest president this nation has ever seen and that our economy would flourish over the next years. This is because I care about this country that I love more than I care about a Democrat getting credit for ‘saving’ it. Unfortunately that has not turned out to be the case. I now believe based on the decisions that Obama has made as president, that he has a fundamentally different idea of what makes this nation and our economy great. He is a man who believes in a centrally planned economy and bigger government. How is that working out for us?
If the rate of labor force participation in June 2011 were the same as it was in June 2009 (65.7%), the reported unemployment rate would be 11.2% rather than 9.1%. If June 2011 labor force participation were 66.2%, which is where it was when Obama promised that his “stimulus” program would prevent unemployment from exceeding 8.0%, the June 2011 unemployment rate would come in at 11.9%.
Being a leader means taking ownership of your triumphs and your failures, but with the ObamaMedia in tow, Obama isn’t really forced to do that.
Tuesday, June 07, 2011
Tony "Bada Bing" Weiner
That Anthony .. what a weiner!
OK …I’ll leave the weiner jokes to the experts, and to my Twitter followers. Someone did suggest that Barney Frank and Anthony Weiner could open a snack bar in Manhattan … Weiners and Franks. But I digress ….
OK, so Anthony Weiner lied. Big surprise, right? Now we have everyone and their hamster demanding that Weiner resign immediately. Others are saying that Weiner should pull out of contention in the next NYC mayoral election.
Look … he’s a liar. Not the first in Congress, won’t be the last. He’s a symbol of Washington power. These people – and I’m talking on both sides of the aisle – start to believe that they’re so powerful that they can get away with almost anything. Weiner got caught in the zipper of prevarication. That’s gotta hurt … look! He’s crying!
But should he resign? Frankly, I would rather he didn’t. Right now he’s a disgraced leftist House member. If he resigns he will just be replaced with a non-disgraced leftist House member. The disgraced variety of this particular vermin is much less dangerous than the non-disgraced.
As for the possibility of a Weiner being mayor of New York? Sure – that’s going to happen.
Rather than sitting around demanding his resignation, let’s take not of how Weiner handled this debacle when the news first broke. Not only did he lie (par for this hole) but he blamed it all on right-wingers. It was that evil Andrew Breitbart behind this terrible plot to disgrace a very important and effective member of congress. Yeah! That’s it! This is a right-wing plot and the result of all that right-wing hatred out there.
I want Weiner to remain right where he is. First – he’s weakened. Second – we don’t need him hosting a show on CNN (The Weiner Factor?), and third; he stands as a constant reminder of the knee-jerk “blame the right wing” yak squeeze liberals love to float when they’re caught with their pants bulging.
OK …I’ll leave the weiner jokes to the experts, and to my Twitter followers. Someone did suggest that Barney Frank and Anthony Weiner could open a snack bar in Manhattan … Weiners and Franks. But I digress ….
OK, so Anthony Weiner lied. Big surprise, right? Now we have everyone and their hamster demanding that Weiner resign immediately. Others are saying that Weiner should pull out of contention in the next NYC mayoral election.
Look … he’s a liar. Not the first in Congress, won’t be the last. He’s a symbol of Washington power. These people – and I’m talking on both sides of the aisle – start to believe that they’re so powerful that they can get away with almost anything. Weiner got caught in the zipper of prevarication. That’s gotta hurt … look! He’s crying!
But should he resign? Frankly, I would rather he didn’t. Right now he’s a disgraced leftist House member. If he resigns he will just be replaced with a non-disgraced leftist House member. The disgraced variety of this particular vermin is much less dangerous than the non-disgraced.
As for the possibility of a Weiner being mayor of New York? Sure – that’s going to happen.
Rather than sitting around demanding his resignation, let’s take not of how Weiner handled this debacle when the news first broke. Not only did he lie (par for this hole) but he blamed it all on right-wingers. It was that evil Andrew Breitbart behind this terrible plot to disgrace a very important and effective member of congress. Yeah! That’s it! This is a right-wing plot and the result of all that right-wing hatred out there.
I want Weiner to remain right where he is. First – he’s weakened. Second – we don’t need him hosting a show on CNN (The Weiner Factor?), and third; he stands as a constant reminder of the knee-jerk “blame the right wing” yak squeeze liberals love to float when they’re caught with their pants bulging.
Monday, June 06, 2011
Some folks in ObamaLand are talking about a new stimulus bill.
Obama’s first stimulus plan cost around $800 billion and change. You are hard pressed to find an economist who will tell you that this $800 billion played any meaningful role in an economic recovery. Remember Dear Ruler telling us that if we didn’t have the stimulus bill unemployment would remain above 9%. Were you paying attention on Friday? Unemployment is still above 9%.
Let me tell you how this stimulus plan was developed. It’s just this simple: Obama comes into office with a mandate to do something to bring us out of the recession and to get people working again. There was a problem though. Obama had no clue what to do. He had no experience he could draw upon to develop a recovery plan. He did have a mindset though, and that mindset was that government is good and the private sector is bad, so whatever was to be done had to strengthen government and involve the private sector only to the degree absolutely necessary. So Obama went to Nancy Pelosi and simply told her to get the Democrat caucus together and instruct them to dust off any and all spending plans they’ve been proposing or considering over the past few years and put them into a giant spending bill. Keep it under one trillion dollars, and we’ll present it to the people as a stimulus bill. Whether or not it really contributes to an economic recovery will be beside the point. The plan will give Democrat members of congress the ability to go to the voters in their home districts with “Look at the money I brought back to our district” newsletters and speeches.
And so it goes--the unions benefited, the public service workers held on for another year, but in the end it did nothing.
Obama’s first stimulus plan cost around $800 billion and change. You are hard pressed to find an economist who will tell you that this $800 billion played any meaningful role in an economic recovery. Remember Dear Ruler telling us that if we didn’t have the stimulus bill unemployment would remain above 9%. Were you paying attention on Friday? Unemployment is still above 9%.
Let me tell you how this stimulus plan was developed. It’s just this simple: Obama comes into office with a mandate to do something to bring us out of the recession and to get people working again. There was a problem though. Obama had no clue what to do. He had no experience he could draw upon to develop a recovery plan. He did have a mindset though, and that mindset was that government is good and the private sector is bad, so whatever was to be done had to strengthen government and involve the private sector only to the degree absolutely necessary. So Obama went to Nancy Pelosi and simply told her to get the Democrat caucus together and instruct them to dust off any and all spending plans they’ve been proposing or considering over the past few years and put them into a giant spending bill. Keep it under one trillion dollars, and we’ll present it to the people as a stimulus bill. Whether or not it really contributes to an economic recovery will be beside the point. The plan will give Democrat members of congress the ability to go to the voters in their home districts with “Look at the money I brought back to our district” newsletters and speeches.
And so it goes--the unions benefited, the public service workers held on for another year, but in the end it did nothing.
Wednesday, June 01, 2011
They bought his act and now they have to defend him
It’s no wonder that the ObamaMedia isn’t all that enthused in covering the 2012 presidential election … because it means that somebody is challenging Their Guy … Their almost-a-God … Their Messiah … Barack Obama – the man who had to “step down” to the Oval Office (Now the Offal Office).
The ObamaMedia is my name for the mainstream Washington and New York press corps. Right now, with very rare exception, those in the mainstream media are suffering from a severe case of Obama-awe, or “ObamaAwe.” This awe-inspiring leader of ours has turned the mainstream media into a roaming hoard of zombies who have no desire to report the news in an objective manner. Their job gets in the way of wiping up the drool from their ObamaZombie state of existence. Sufferers of ObamaAwe experience a myriad of symptoms including tingles up their legs, delusional cases of mistaken identity – mistaking Obama for God – or even a lost sense of reality.
For example, the ObamaZombies can’t seem to understand why spending close to $1 trillion of money that we don’t have isn’t working out so well for our economy. Most students who just graduated from a government high school could tell you why our current economic state isn’t all that “shocking” … though the ObamaMedia seems to think it is.
This ObamaAwe is starting to affect their work, as reporters are being forced to cover potential Republican challengers to Obama’s throne. As Politico points out, by this time in 2007, major newspapers and newswires already had assigned reporters to leading candidates in the race for the 2008 presidential bid. Such is not the case with the current crop of Republican candidates. Why would the ObamaMedia want to “go behind enemy lines” and cover the camp that could potentially unseat their Dear Ruler? Would Obama think less of any ObamaMedia member who dared to write a fair news report on a Republican, much less a glowing report? And let’s not forget what happened to the Boston Herald. Its reporters were shut out completely from a local Obama Boston fundraiser after the paper ran a Mitt Romney op-ed on the front page and didn’t give the president’s visit the same “fair” treatment.
What it really comes down to is that the next presidential race is going to force the ObamaMedia to defend “their guy.” They are finally going to have to come to grips with the complete and utter failure of his presidency. When asked to present facts, they will be left with drool stains and quip about racist Americans who don’t support Obama because he is black.
Barack Obama won one election based on nothing but his charisma. Even with four failing years as President of the United States to add to his credentials column, looks like he will have yet another campaign with nothing but his charisma to hang his hat on.
The ObamaMedia is my name for the mainstream Washington and New York press corps. Right now, with very rare exception, those in the mainstream media are suffering from a severe case of Obama-awe, or “ObamaAwe.” This awe-inspiring leader of ours has turned the mainstream media into a roaming hoard of zombies who have no desire to report the news in an objective manner. Their job gets in the way of wiping up the drool from their ObamaZombie state of existence. Sufferers of ObamaAwe experience a myriad of symptoms including tingles up their legs, delusional cases of mistaken identity – mistaking Obama for God – or even a lost sense of reality.
For example, the ObamaZombies can’t seem to understand why spending close to $1 trillion of money that we don’t have isn’t working out so well for our economy. Most students who just graduated from a government high school could tell you why our current economic state isn’t all that “shocking” … though the ObamaMedia seems to think it is.
This ObamaAwe is starting to affect their work, as reporters are being forced to cover potential Republican challengers to Obama’s throne. As Politico points out, by this time in 2007, major newspapers and newswires already had assigned reporters to leading candidates in the race for the 2008 presidential bid. Such is not the case with the current crop of Republican candidates. Why would the ObamaMedia want to “go behind enemy lines” and cover the camp that could potentially unseat their Dear Ruler? Would Obama think less of any ObamaMedia member who dared to write a fair news report on a Republican, much less a glowing report? And let’s not forget what happened to the Boston Herald. Its reporters were shut out completely from a local Obama Boston fundraiser after the paper ran a Mitt Romney op-ed on the front page and didn’t give the president’s visit the same “fair” treatment.
What it really comes down to is that the next presidential race is going to force the ObamaMedia to defend “their guy.” They are finally going to have to come to grips with the complete and utter failure of his presidency. When asked to present facts, they will be left with drool stains and quip about racist Americans who don’t support Obama because he is black.
Barack Obama won one election based on nothing but his charisma. Even with four failing years as President of the United States to add to his credentials column, looks like he will have yet another campaign with nothing but his charisma to hang his hat on.
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