Another BO Record!

Reliance on Uncle Sam hits a record - USATODAY.com

There is no doubt that the BO presidency is a catastrophe of record proportions, and here we have another:

A record 18.3% of the nation's total personal income was a payment from the government for Social Security, Medicare, food stamps, unemployment benefits and other programs in 2010. Wages accounted for the lowest share of income — 51.0% — since the government began keeping track in 1929.

Wow, A record that has stood for over 80 years smashed after just over two very long years in the pungent cloud of BO.

Being As SImple As Possible

RealClearPolitics - The First Adult -- AWOL:

A good article covering the general shape that the discussion of the budget and debt eventually has to take:

- How big a government do we want? For four decades, federal spending has averaged 21 percent of gross domestic product. An aging population and high health costs mean that average spending, as a share of GDP, will rise by a third or more in the next 10 to 15 years if today's programs simply continue.

-- Who deserves government subsidies and how much? About 55 percent of spending goes to individuals, including the elderly, veterans, farmers, students, the disabled and the poor.

-- How much, if at all, should social spending be allowed to squeeze national defense?

-- If taxes rise, how much and on whom? What taxes would least hurt economic growth?

I'd modify the questions slightly:

1). What is the total tax bill that we are willing to shoulder as a nation in a given year? (Income)

2). How much do we want to pay down the debt in that year? 10% of total income ought to be the minimum ("savings")

3). How do we want to spend what we have left?

Adults start their budget with MEANS and end it with DESIRES, with RESPONSIBILITY in between. Caring enough to write someone a bad check is not really caring -- it is just wishful thinking. Writing someone a check on the backs of future generations is also not caring, it is financial child abuse. We as a nation have been doing a "teen budget" that begins with our wants, throws in whatever income shows up, and ends with a bloated credit card bill. It is no surprise we have ended up where we have.

#3 is a long but worthy discussion. #1 ought to be easy ... something less than 20% of projected GDP gathered as widely as possible, a "flat tax". America of all nations ought to completely repudiate the concept of "eating the rich". The fallacy of doing so is as old as killing the goose that laid golden eggs. The biggest problem with the "tax the rich approach" is that it is merely an extension of the "teen budget" -- "Mom and Dad will bail me out". That form of thinking assumes someone else has infinite resources (they never do), and it allows desires to run wild against an irresponsible and incorrect financial model.

The president keeps promoting an "adult conversation" about the budget, but that can't happen if the First Adult doesn't play his part. Obama is eager to be all things to all people. He's against the debt and its adverse consequences, but he's for preserving Social Security and Medicare without major changes. He's for "tough cuts," but he's against saying what they are and defending them. He pronounces ambitious goals without saying how they'd be reached. Mainly, he's for scoring political points against Republicans.

At some point, we as a nation will have to generally grow up so that BO style blather is seen as the juvenile wishful thinking that it is, and therefore unhelpful. Let us pray it is quick!

Birther Bush AWOL

Debunking the birther claim – CNN Political Ticker - CNN.com Blogs

I love the difference in MSM treatment of BO's double secret Birth Certificate and "charges from some" that Bush didn't fulfill his TX National Guard service.

Normally, the issue with ones military service is honorable discharge, yes/no. Unless you are running on being a war hero or because of something else, the only criteria anyone cares about is if you received an honorable discharge. Flying a fighter and having more than one person remember they saw you while you were there is a plus, and a BIG plus on top of maybe saying you graduated from Columbia, yet nobody recalls you being there. http://reason.com/archives/2008/09/05/wayne-allyn-roots-million-doll
If nobody recalled Bush being in the TX National Guard, might that have been a news story??

Since Trump has brought up the birth issue again, the MSM is out in full defense of BO. Here we have their "airtight evidence":

Dr. Chiyome Fukino, the former director of Hawaii's Department of Health, says she has personally viewed the president's original vital records and verified that he was born in Hawaii.

Former Hawaii Gov. Linda Lingle, a Republican, has been quoted as saying, "I had my health director, who is a physician by background, go personally view the birth certificate in the birth records at the Department of Health. We issued a news release at the time saying the president was, in fact, born at Kapi'olani Hospital in Honolulu, Hawaii. And that is just a fact."

Does ANYONE that ever reads MSM news doubt at all that were BO a Republican, the required level of evidence would be quite simple??? Show the $#%$@ Birth Certificate!!!! There is no way the MSM would EVER take the word of ANYONE if they could raise any question on something like this against a Republican, and they would NEVER give up!!

Just consider the difference with the Bush Guard "issue". It was in no way disqualifying for president under any circumstances. There was no doubt Bush got an honorable discharge. Can you even IMAGINE what kind of media circus there would have been if he was trotting out "people who had SEEN the records of his honorable discharge"??! Dan Rather lost his job over having a full hour special on it in the fall of '04 based on FORGED DOCUMENTS to attempt to influence the election for Bush's second term, and we already KNEW he had gotten an honorable discharge!

Ask yourself: What would the assumption have been if the best evidence of Bush's honorable discharge was identical to this evidence for BO's Birth Certificate?? What would an article in CNN or a show on CBS have said about it in '00 or '04??? 

If it takes you more than a second to answer that, you really do need to think a bit about your partisanship completely destroying your reason. Oh, and BTW, why is it important for CNN to defend BO?? Does BO not have a staff? Is there not a Democratic party?  How many MSM articles / shows did you see DEFENDING Bush on the Guard issue?? 

How Bad Can You Hate Palin?

Wonkette Makes Fun of Trig Palin, Calls Him “Retarded” - Big Journalism

I guess bad enough that you are willing to pick on retarded children -- at least if you are "progressive" enough.

Need anyone really be reminded that if the MSM could find ANYONE that they even DREAMED was somehow "Conservative or Republican" -- like say the koran burning FL pastor or the gay bashing military Kansas protestors from some church, or whatever, it would need to be close to front page news a few hundred times?

This? It has the MSM anonymity it so richly deserves. Wish they could be more even handed about anonymity.

Willie Sutton on Taxes

Review & Outlook: Where the Tax Money Is - WSJ.com

BO and the Democrats like to lie a lot. If they want to pay for all of their vote buying attempts, the people that make from $50K - $500K are going to carry the freight, especially those that make from $100-$200K.

War is now Civil

War on the Weak - Newsweek:

This article is an orgy of misdirection. For one thing, we resurrect an old bogeyman of the left; Ayn Rand. It is always amazing to me after exposure to a constant stream of leftist thinking from grammer school through college, how completely threatening the left finds the fact that some people read one chain smoking dead megalomaniac semi-libertarian. I suspect that book burning would be one of their favorite hobbies if they could get just a bit more control.

Is the thinking of the left so fragile that rather than talk of specific policies, we need to open with a character assassination because somebody has read a book??? One would think that BO's paean to anti-white racism, tribalism, weird ties to old ancestors, soil attachment, drugs and various discredited leftists; "Dreams from my Father", would be more dangerous to read than Ayn -- let alone having it be written by the president!!

Remember Congresswoman Giffords? Shot in the head due to the uncivil rhetoric of Sarah Palin and other Tea Party wackos if you are a Democrat or MSM sheep. BO used the term "an assault on unions" to describe WI Governor Walker's attempt to balance the WI budget. I've renamed my M4 Bushmaster .223 to a "Civil Rifle" in BO's honor!  It really makes more sense -- it is far more likely to be used in defense of my family or the liberty of all than in anything like an "assault".

Here we see "War" used to describe a budget. Is the term "war" now not a "warlike metaphor"??? Isn't this exactly the kind of overheated rhetoric that was so dangerous as recently as January?? Oh wait, that only applies to Republicans -- rhetoric, nasty signs, death threats and vandalism are all "just politics" when they come from the left.

Aside from attempts to tell us how to think, the biggest difference here can be summed up by what your worldview is. If you believe that resources are close to infinite, no matter what the level of debt or deficit is, and "balance" is simply a matter of loading more on the folks that already pay 90% of the total tax bill, then by all means -- spend away. For the most needy, the might be needy, or even the not needy at all, but likely to vote for your party.

If you on the other hand believe that resources are finite, and saving some safety for the most needy even if that means encouraging the close to needy to work, and the not needy at all to just take care of themselves, then you might want to look a the Ryan proposal with something other than an 80% ad hominem attack on his reading history as a reason for rejecting it!

Attacking the man is always easier than making a real argument.

Paying For BO

Phil Gramm: The Obama Growth Discount - WSJ.com

If somebody hadn't screwed up the recovery, history tells us we would be way better off by now. BO and the Democrats actually looked at the tea leaves in spring '09 and felt that the economy would move into growth with no extra spending -- they just decided to shower their cronies with a Trillion in extra spending primarily as a political payback, and with idea that "it can't do anything but help".

Most folks discover drunken disaster and hangovers in young adulthood -- apparently BO is still of the "if some is good, more is better"philosophy.

If we had matched the 1982 recovery rate, today annual per-capita income would be $4,154 higher than before the recession—that's an extra $16,600 for a family of four—and some 15.7 million more Americans would have jobs. That's enough jobs to employ 100% of the 13.5 million Americans currently classified as unemployed. In addition, we would have provided jobs for 30% of both the 2.4 million discouraged or marginally attached workers and the 4.8 million who have totally dropped out of the work force since January 2008.

Dayton Targets Job Creators in MN

http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2011/02/16/wisconsin-unions/

Here we have a mild contrast in press treatment. Mark Dayton in MN has proposed taxes which would make MN the most "wealth unfriendly" state in the US, yet I've yet to hear that called "anti-wealth", or "anti-jobs" in the MSM. In fact, most all the news outlets of an MSM ilk, and especially "unbiased" MPR that draws deeply from the public teat finds it to be a generally positive idea.

Somehow, not so the idea that folks drawing salaries at the public expense, unsurprisingly major supporters of Democrats, government spending in general, higher taxes, and public largesse in most forms taking any sort of a cut at all.

Thousands of teachers, prison guards and students descended on the Wisconsin Capitol for a second day Wednesday to fight a move to take union rights away from government workers in the state that first granted them more than a half-century ago.

"fight a move to take union rights away". Huh? Can we just have "fight a move to steal more private property from wealthy Minnesotans"??? for the opponents of Dayton's tax plan??  Apparently what Dayton and the Democrats propose is ALWAYS about "the budget", if not "the children", or "the most vulnerable"??? I'm CERTAIN they would NEVER just target some group that doesn't tend to vote for them!!

Apparently, Walker and the Republicans just went out to "take union rights away" for no reason other than the standard Republican meanness of heart. Meanwhile, Dayton and Democrats in MN are working to try to improve "fairness", get "appropriate revenues from those most able to pay", etc, etc.

Could we just have the merest glimmer of an attempt to use similar rhetoric for similar things since we are spending public dollars to get this supposed "no slant, no rant" version of the news???

Never Smile At A Crocodile

Budget good will: Vanished without a trace - CNN.com:

As I said in December http://bilber99.blogspot.com/2010/12/why-bipartisanship-is-stupid-for.html, Republicans just plain can't get over stupid!! They give in to BO over a supposed measly $38 Billion in cuts that is in fact less than a billion, so they take all the abuse for cutting without any actual results. One top of that, BO comes out and does a macho campaign speech BEFORE they even vote on it, and the rubes STILL vote it through. Stupid is as stupid does.

Now, I understand that if they had stood up like humans rather than mice and said "hey buster, you want to make a deal that is supposed to be "bi-partisan" and then come out and piss on our tennies before we even vote on it? Sorry, NO DEAL!!! Roll that in your cigarette and smoke it!!!"

Nope, Republicans let BO arrive late to the game, run roughshod over them so the Dems win again, and America loses. I'm starting to think I'm completely stupid for not accepting that this is just plain HOPELESS!!!

The Budget is Least of Our Problems

RealClearPolitics - 'Coming Apart at the Seams'

Sadly, the accelerating leftward slide of America that dominated the 20th century has left us morally as well as economically bankrupt.

These trends mean, just as it is suffering economically, the working class is getting cut off from the richest sources of social capital: marriage, two-parent families, and church-going. More people are falling into a lower class characterized by men who can't make a minimal living and single women with children. Murray argues that America can maintain its national power even if these trends continue. With a growing lower class "increasingly unsuited for citizenry in a free society," though, it will no longer be the country we once knew.

Marriage, Family, Church, Community, Thrift, Delayed Gratification, Personal Responsibility, Maturity, a sense of culture in history (American Exceptionalism), ability to support factually and argue positions with civility .... the list is endless. All squandered without very much of a fight at over decades of statist/leftist/progressive attack.

The CAUSES of American decline are these, and have NOTHING to do with "global competition" or "concentration of wealth". Those bogymen are just excuses from the left for the destruction they have created. Blacks in this country were in better shape in every way -- economically, crime rate, divorce rate, illegitimate birth rate, church attendance, etc, etc BEFORE the mid '60s. Then the "great society" took hold with government replacing god, dad, and personal responsibility, and the black culture fell.

Government is a racially blind destroyer. The destruction of the white American culture is now WELL under way as this article shows. Remove religion as a source of morality (and in fact, make it a sign of "bigotry" as in "gay rights"), encourage children out of wedlock and in single families, promote dependency or the federal government for every phase of life ... creating the idea that being responsible for yourself isn't even a reasonable goal. All of life supposedly requires government involvement. 

and so we reap.

NYTimes Mythology

Budget Battles - Tax and Spending Myths and Realities - NYTimes.com

The NYTimes is expert on mythology. In this particular version, the KEY myth to keep in mind is that the budget is done by the president. In case you are recently returned from another dimension, the last couple of weeks ought to have that firmly in any mind that operates in this universe, but we can see that the Times is exempt from that designation.

Let's start at the top:

Here are two numbers to keep in mind when thinking about the House Republicans’ budget plan: They want to cut spending on government programs over the next decade by $4.3 trillion. And they want to cut tax revenues over the same period by $4.2 trillion.

Actually, the Republicans don't plan to cut ANY government programs over the next decade. They just aim to grow them a lot less rapidly than the Democrats. To claim they want to cut tax REVENUES is just completely stupid -- they want to cut tax RATES and INCREASE tax revenues. ALL the budget assumptions from BOTH sides make assumptions and projections about GROWTH. The fundamental disagreement is about "where does growth come from"? Democrats believe that taxes are a magic form of expense (to the people paying them) that will not affect behavior. While giving people benefits modifies their behavior to vote for those they see as providing the benefit, or increasing the minium wage encourages people to work, and more money given to teachers gives both votes for Democrats and causes the teachers to teach better, taxes are the ONE exception -- no matter how much you raise them, nobody is affected to try to avoid them. Taxes are the magic elixir of Democrats! (well, taxes, union campaign contributions and abortion).

We’ve seen this play before. President Ronald Reagan promised that tax cuts would spur more economic growth and pay for themselves. During his tenure, the deficit hit what was then a peacetime high of 6 percent of gross domestic product, and he eventually decided that he had no other alternative but to raise taxes to try to close the gap.

Remember who controls the budget. Democrats were firmly entrenched in the house from '55 - '95. Anyone that knows enough to ignore the three-card Monty of the Dems and the MSM realizes that "blaming the president" is just done to confuse the rubes. Revenues DID rise under Reagan as he had predicted -- but the Democrats made sure that SPENDING rose even faster. Even crazier,  the "bi-partisan FICA agreement" was a goose that dumped golden eggs on the floor from the early '80s until the early '00s ... one of the reasons for the trouble in the '00s is that the cozy double Ponzi on top of the granddaddy of ponzi schemes (Social Security) of stealing FICA money from BOTH the elderly and the young at the same time is running out. Even scams that are "too big to fail" ala Madoff, have to come to an end. The 900lb invisible gorilla (to the NYT) in this whole discussion is the fantasy of FICA / medicare. 

The Clinton years disproved the notion that higher taxes would inevitably stifle economic growth, or cost politicians their jobs. Taxes were raised in 1993, including higher income tax rates on the wealthiest. The economy was strong, and the stock market surged. Taxes were then cut in 1997 in a deal with the Republican-controlled Congress, but by then the combination of higher tax rates on the wealthy, a strong economy and a rising stock market was boosting revenues significantly.

"The economy was strong, and the stock market surged". Well, no more than the housing market "surged" under Bush. The stock market "bubbled", and it crashed in '00, and Bush came into office in a recession that double dipped on 9/11/2001 -- a small factor that the NYTs seems to have missed, even though given they are in the same city as Wall Street and the now absent WTC, one would think that at least that much of reality would have seeped into their lefty skulls. I guess the Clinton years proved that higher taxes don't inevitably stifle a stock market bubble in the same way that the Bush years proved that lower taxes and a housing bubble don't automatically provide a surplus. From where we are now though, the $167 Billion deficit in '07 that is 10% of what BOs deficits are running makes one wistful for those "failed Bush policies". 

President George W. Bush and Congress undid that progress with $1.65 trillion in tax cuts, heavily skewed to high earners. The economic recovery of the Bush years was extraordinarily weak by historical standards. By early 2009, shortly before Mr. Obama took office, the Congressional Budget Office projected a budget deficit for that year of more than $1 trillion.

One has to be solidly in the left camp to think that "progress" is $1,65 Trillion in extra taxes over a 10 year period. BO and the Democrats must agree, because they haven't raised those taxes even now. One gasps just a bit to think that after 8 years of the illustrious Clinton, we needed a "recovery", but of course those are the facts, plus 9/11/2001. Were that to have happened on a Democrats watch, it would be the excuse to end all excuses -- no level of spending, no level of economic depth would be too much to escape the all-purpose coverage of the 9-11 excuse. 


"heavily skewed to high earners" ... the people over $250K that pay 95% of taxes got 25% of the relief,  the people under $250K that pay 5% of the tax got 75% of the relief.  How is that "skewed"? If you pay over $50K a year in income taxes, your personal amount of tax relief was higher than that for folks that paid $1k. Get it? To a Democrat, that isn't "fair". 


So did we have any elections in '06? Did anything change? Oh, wait -- Congress DID manage to get a budget through in both '07 and '08. What kind of congress was it??? Hmm, a DEMOCRAT Congress. True, Bush signed the budgets, but one would have to agree that he was the lamest of lame ducks by then and in '08, does one REALLY think it was going to help anything to shut down the government to negotiate with Nancy and Harry about lower spending? 


So we don't quote the $167 Billion Deficit in '07 -- Republican President, Republican Congress created. We wait for the '09!!!! budget -- both houses Democrat creating and passing, Bush signing as a lame duck in a bad economy in an election year. Yea, the Democrats and the MSM know all about "fairness" ... not to mention propaganda! 

Budgets, Deficits and Blame

CORRECTED-U.S. fiscal 2007 budget deficit falls to $163 bln | Reuters

Bush/Republicans actual 2007 deficit was $163 Billion. When Democrats run on "change", you can REALLY believe it!

As I'm sure some Democrats and MSM folks are noticing now, the budget of the US Government is the responsibility of CONGRESS, meaning that it has to pass THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES!!! It is true that the President ultimately SIGNS the budget, but the way the MSM works in this country, that has some special meaning:

When a Republican is President, as in Bush 1, and the Congress is Democrat, when President fails to sign a budget and the government shuts down, it is HIS FAULT!! (see 1990 shutdown).

When a Democrat is President, as in Clinton, and the congress is Republican, when the President fails to sign the budget and the government shuts down it is CONGRESS'S FAULT!! (see 1995 shutdown)

So a couple minor points:

1). '07 was really the last Republican budget. While Bush was there in '08, he was the lamest of lame ducks with Nancy and Harry proudly in charge of our nations budget., Bush's only choice would have been to "cause a government shutdown" on top of the explosion of 30 years of Democrat bad loans through Fannie and Freddie killing the markets. Thanks Nancy and Harry! With a belated tip o' the hat to Jimmuh Carter, whose folks thought up the entire brilliant idea of sub-prime mortgages. Where would this country be without Democrats?

2). Stay tuned for the potential of a shutdown, the rules are it will be the "Republican's fault" ... meaning Congress this time. I've leave it to you to figure out WHY that is the rule.

P2P vs WTF

Paul Ryan: The GOP Path to Prosperity - WSJ.com

BO is on the "Winning The Future" (WTF) plan, this article gives a snapshot of the "Path to Prosperity" the chart ought to be etched in every Americans brain.

From Moose Tracks

Budget Suicide

RealClearPolitics - Big Government on the Brink

A little optimistic, but worth the read. The bottom line problem is that VERY few people realize that "The Pig(federal gov) is Dead". They keep talking about "this and that won't work, something HAS to be done". Have none of these people ever seen a loved one die?? It seems "unthinkable" -- we will just need to do this ... or that, or why can't they do THIS, or, or ... . And then it is over, they are gone. You are still here, the world goes on, but it isn't the same world -- what you thought could not possibly happen has happened, and you are sadder but maybe wiser.

We took a wrong turn in '06. The sign said "Dead End" very clearly, but we pushed the accelerator to the floor. We went by a sign in '08 that said "Danger, STOP !! High Cliff Ahead!!!" ... we took a strong swig of whiskey and pushed on the gas even harder. As the darkness falling away into the abyss started to enter our awareness in '10, we hired some folks willing to turn on the headlights. But most folks seem to have just decided to shut their eyes when it comes to painful realities.

We don't HAVE to have our loved ones alive. So surprise -- there is no "law of nature" that we HAVE to have Social Security, Medicare, Defense, a job, any assets, shelter, clothing, enough to eat, etc. **ALL** of those things have to be EARNED!!! If not by us now, then by SOMEONE -- either "wealthier", or from past generations wealth that was saved, or from future generations wealth being borrowed, or by conquest of other nations wealth ... it all comes from somewhere.

So when folks say things like "Paul Ryan's plan won't work because someone will HAVE to do xxx, to cover yyyy", or "Republicans thought that idea X was good in 1970, or 2003, or whenever, but now they seem to have changed their minds, there is a failure to understand the effects of time. Microsoft was a superb stock to buy in 1985 ... it may still be fine now, but it is very unlikely that it is as good now as then. Fixing FICA and helping the economy by doing some sorts of privatization or incentives in even '03 may well have been very helpful, but we missed that opportunity. We have a lot less flexibility now. Ditto with a lot of good ideas on healthcare, if some of the best advice had been followed EARLIER, when the problems were not so deep and the time frame longer. Sadly, the same is still the case -- we are like a drinker that has continued to drink and now the liver is dead. Quitting earlier would have been A LOT less painful -- in fact, maybe we are too late to avoid death.

In any case, the solutions to a system that anyone that wanted to look could see was unsustainable decades ago are FAR more painful now than they were even a few years ago. Why? Because when you are in the final stages of liver disease and you decide that the right answer is to go on a multi-month bender, the end can come very very quickly. That is the course we chose in '06, and accelerated in '08, and now we don't like the pain that is required to have even the very smallest of chances of even a very damaged recovery.

There is always an alternative, it is just that in the final analysis it is always death.

BO's Sorry Now

The Associated Press: WH: Obama regrets vote against raising debt limit

Being a Democrat means that "mistakes" are free. Oh yes, the MSM "reports it", but they don't make it an obsession --- "Dan Quayle ... misspelled potato". George Bush -- "Mission Accomplished, No WMD found, HUGE deficits". Has BO had any deficits yet?

Here is what the guy that was such a great perspecitve president that he made Chis Matthews leg shiver had to say on the subhject of raising the debt ceiling back in '06:

"The fact that we are here today to debate raising America's debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. ... Increasing America's debt weakens us domestically and internationally. Leadership means that 'the buck stops here.' Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem."

So do we have ANY nice headlines like "Obama Said Raising Debt Ceiling Failure of Leadership" ??? Why not? Did Americans quit liking sensational "Gotcha journalism"? Did our media decide that the president needed to be supported when there was an "important military operation under way"?? (Libya).

Could it be that they are just biases and they really get no enjoyment whatsoever in making BO's job more difficult -- something that they enjoyed IMMENSELY when W was in office? Nah, just listen to NPR, they are completely unbiased!!! They say it themselves, so it must be true!

Is there just a SMIDGE of a chance that BO was completely clueless then and he is completely clueless now???