GOP Should Extract Major Concessions From Dems Before Raising Debt Ceiling

The U.S. Government will hit its Debt Ceiling of $14.3 trillion around March or April of this year. Given the Democrats’ reckless spending spree of $5 trillion over the past two years under the leadership of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, it is clear that the Dems will want to raise the ceiling in the hopes of continuing their wasteful programs and passing the bill along to our grandchildren.

First, it is nonsense to think that one should pay off a credit card by using another credit card with a higher interest rate. Second, the “full faith and credit” of the United states government is in greater danger from ballooning deficits and higher national debts than it will ever be from a capped Debt Ceiling.

Thus, I have a proposal. The GOP should extract two concessions from the Dems before agreeing to raising the Ceiling.

1. Any legislation that raises the Debt Ceiling must include a Balanced Budget Amendment.

2. Any legislation that raises the Debt Ceiling must repeal and permanently defund Obamacare.

If the GOP was really listening last November, they will demand these consessions and not back down from them.

Video Trailer: I Want Your Money (2010)

Excellent video. I love the comparisons between Reagan and Obama. I also love the part where Nancy Pelosi is promising no legislation or spending that adds to the deficit.

“We could say they spend like drunken sailors. But that would be unfair to drunken sailors ’cause the sailors are spending their own money.” – Ronald Reagan.

Real Or Fake? Can You Spot The Bogus Government Programs Funded By The Stimulus Package?

Watch this video:

How much more evidence do we need to prove that the government has done nothing but squander our hard earned tax dollars for the past year and a half?

Remember in November.

Pigs Of Waste – The Nuge Weighs In

I think that Ted Nugent may be a better writer than Ann Coulter. He certainly has the wit and humor to match and his premises are valid and based in reality.

That’s what makes his latest column so funny, and so angering at the same time. He takes on Government waste a la the failed Stimuls package. From his article:

Fedzilla shoveled two million of our tax dollars into a fire pit so that the California Academy of Sciences could send photographers to the Southwest Indian Ocean and to East Africa to take pictures of ants. That’s right, ants. Seventy-two thousand more of our hard-earned tax dollars was given to Wake Forest University so that they could set it on fire by studying how monkeys react when stoned on cocaine. Read the Kurt Cobain story. It’s been done. If that isn’t insulting enough, Georgia State University received almost $700,000 to determine how monkeys and chimps respond to “distributional inequality” and “unfairness.” Rumor has it that Koko the gorilla responded “yes” by pressing a blue button when asked if she thought the study was discriminatory because gorillas were not included. King Kong could not be reached for comment. Jane Goodall, please report to your parole officer immediately.

Yes, this is funny. But it also highlights how asanine the pols in DC have become when it comes to spending our money. The Dem-controlled Congress has no idea that people are not able to send their high school graduates to college nor do they have any idea that people with young children need that money to feed and clothe them. No, Congress thinks that it can take your money and just give to whomever they please for whatever reason they please and your family that needs that money be damned.

November can’t come soon enough.

You can access the complete column on-line here:

Pigs Of Waste
Ted Nugent
HumanEvents.com
August 26, 2010

Where Are The Jobs? Why Are So Few Hiring?

I’ve seen alot of squawking on the Internet about how corporations and businesses are sitting on $8 trillion in assets but won’t hire new workers. As the husband of a woman who owns a small business, I have yet to see any of that $8 trillion in my wife’s bookkeeping.

But, even if that $8 trillion really existed, the question of so few hirings would have nothing to do with that money and have everything to do with government constantly intervening in economic matters, usually at the expense of the economy in general.

John Stossel has this to say about why there are so few new hires right now:

The problem today is that the economy is not being left alone. Instead, it is haunted by uncertainty on a hundred fronts. When rules are unintelligible and unpredictable, when new workers are potential threats because of Labor Department regulations, businesses have little confidence to hire. President Obama’s vaunted legislative record not only left entrepreneurs with the burden of bigger government, it also makes it impossible for them to accurately estimate the new burden. In at least three big areas — health insurance, financial regulation, and taxes — no one can know what will happen. New intrusive rules for health insurance are yet to be written, and those rules will affect hiring, since most health insurance is provided by employers. Thanks to the new 2,300 page Dodd-Frank finance regulatory act, The Wall Street Journal reports, there will be “no fewer than 243 new formal rule-makings by 11 different federal agencies.” These as-yet unknown rules will govern lending to business and other key financial activity. The George W. Bush tax cuts might be allowed to expire. But maybe not. Social Security and Medicare are dangerously shaky. Will Congress raise the payroll tax? A “distinguished” deficit commission is meeting. What will it do? Recommend a value-added tax? Who knows? But few employers will commit to a big investment with those clouds hanging over our heads.

It wouldn’t matter if the assets totaled more than $8 quadrillion or $8 quintillion. With uncertainty like this coming out of the Obama White House and the Pelosi-Reid Congress, hiring on the scale we need to boost the economy is not going to happen anytime soon.

You can access the complete column on-line here:

Big Government Policies Aren’t Creating New Jobs
John Stossel
NewsMax.com
August 24, 2010

The White House War On Jobs

If Joeseph Goebbels were re-incarnated and alive today, he would be somewhere in the Obama administration writing press releases about how jobs were being created or had been thus far saved. Those proclamations from the Obama White House are certainly strange, especially when the concurrent news stories are about how jobless claims are increasing on a monthly basis.

I don’t think that Baghdad Bob would approve of such efforts at misleading propaganda.

But, Obama still has trouble accepting responsibility for the failed stimulus package and preferes to continue assigning blame to George W. Bush, who has been out of office for over a year-and-a-half now. Joe Biden is loathe to go back to the “good old days” when people had stable jobs and steady paychecks.

Michelle Malkin has a great article regarding the jobs being lost, even as Obama and family enjoy an upper-class vacation at Martha’s Vineyard when most Americans can barely afford to take any kind of vacation at all.

From her column:

These are not the wealthy fat cats and Big Business titans Democrats love to demonize. They’re employees of companies like Assurant Health, which announced last week that it would slash 130 jobs at its offices in Milwaukee and Plymouth, Minn., to prepare for costly Obamacare mandates. They’re employees of medical device firms in Massachusetts, where officials say they’ll be forced to cut back on operational costs and jobs thanks to a little-noticed Obamacare tax on their products that goes into effect in 2013. They’re employees of restaurants like White Castle and International House of Pancakes, whose executives say they will be forced into layoffs and premium hikes to cope with the federal law’s $3,000-per-employee penalty on companies whose workers pay more than 9.5 percent of household income in premiums for company-provided insurance. They’re mom-and-pop enterprises across the country that must now deal with Obamacare’s onerous Section 9006 tax-filing mandate. It requires them to file 1099 forms with the IRS for every vendor from whom they purchase $600 or more in goods. Nebraska GOP Sen. Mike Johanns calls it one of many “job-crushing provisions” that will bury small business in paperwork and legal costs. They’re the estimated 23,000 workers in the deepwater drilling industry whom the White House deliberately wrote off in pursuit of its junk science-based drilling moratorium. They’re the estimated tens of thousands of workers employed by car dealers that were shut down by Obama’s auto czars at a time, as the TARP inspector general pointed out last month, “when the country was experiencing the worst economic downturn in generations and the government was asking its taxpayers to support a $787 billion stimulus package designed primarily to preserve jobs… — all based on a theory and without sufficient consideration of the decisions’ broader economic impact.” They’re employees of Utah oil and gas companies whose leases have been pulled without cause by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar. The Interior Department’s own Inspector General rejected Salazar’s explanation that the Bush administration had rushed the leases through. The Deseret News reports that “rescinding these leases has likely cost the state millions already. Officials in Uintah county estimate the county lost 3,000 jobs in 2009, and Duchesne lost 1,000 jobs.” They’re employees of commercial and recreational fishing businesses in New England, who have organized a flotilla on Martha’s Vineyard on Thursday to protest the Obama administration’s restrictive environmental policies and stealth regulatory ocean grab.

It’s no wonder that Democrats up for re-election this year are stampeding as fast as they can away from the White House and its current occupant.

You can access the complete article on-line here:

The White House War on Jobs
Michelle Malkin
TownHall.com
August 25, 2010

Leftist Judge Susan Bolton Sides With Illegals And Drug Lords Against America

No, that’s not sour grapes in the title. It’s the bare truth. Essentially, Susan Bolton is saying that Arizona cannot enforce Federal Law and that the Feds do not have to enforce their own laws.

Think I’m kidding? Here is what Investor’s Business Daily notes:

Bolton blocked the main provisions of Arizona’s law requiring state lawmen to ask people they come into legitimate contact with to show documentation if there’s reasonable suspicion they’re here illegally. So now a van driver arrested by a state trooper for driving 120 miles per hour with 30 people stuffed under his floorboards will still get a speeding ticket, but the officer can’t ask about his immigration status. Nothing to see here; move along. Bolton also blocked provisions requiring foreigners to carry papers at all times (as federal law already requires), as well as a section prohibiting public solicitation of work. Likewise, a section allowing warrantless arrests on probable cause was tossed.

Judging Arizona
Investor’s Business Daily
July 28, 2010

In essence, by tossing the Arizona law, Bolton also tossed Federal Law.

Now, we have nothing to contain the tide of illegals, drugs and other contraband that is coming across the Mexican border. Barack Obama has gotten his wish, as he expressed to Senator Kyl of Arizona:

Obama Won’t Secure Border Until Lawmakers Move on Immigration Package
Fox News
June 21, 2010

So, what we have here is a situation where the Federal Government is refusing to carry out its responsibility to protect the citizens of the United States and it is prohibiting the citizens from protecting themselves. That is a volatile combination, one that will either have mildly serious consequences or majorly serious consequences down the road.

I don’t know who, but someone once said: “When the government fails in its responsibility to protect its citizens, it is the duty of the citizen to take up that responsibility for himself.” That is going to come into play here very soon. It will come in two phases.

First, the November elections are coming up fast. The mood across the United States is clear. The Obama Administration is in the toilet and this ruling against a state law that enjoyed broad support across the United States is only going to make that worse. There were several Democrat Governors visiting the White House who expressed their concern that the actions against Arizona are “toxic” to the election and re-election hopes of Democrats.

Governors Voice Grave Concerns On Immigration
Abby Goodnough
New York Times
July 11, 2010

After the November elections, if the Federal Government doesn’t get the message from the American people, then the people will begin taking matters into their own hands. A nation that is truly free must have laws and those laws must be enforced by the government entrusted to enforce them. If the government decided to pick and choose which laws it will enforce and which laws it will ignore, it will destroy the confidence of the people and the people will respond accordingly.

We may very likely begin seeing a violent backlash against illegals in the country with a concurrent attempt by the government to stem this backlash. But that will only fuel the fire. People will see a government cracking down on its own citizens while ignoring the threat coming across the border. That will, in turn, result in more violence.

Think that’s exaggerating? Consider this:

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer put on a brave face, saying the battle was “far from over” and her state would fight all the way to the Supreme Court. But this will take decades, giving Mexico’s murderous cartels many years of people-smuggling profits. So the delay itself amounts to a victory for the law’s foes. In addition to paying for the expensive litigation, Arizona can look forward to a growing bill for housing, schooling, jailing and providing “free” health care for the illegals who will now flow into the state. And it can’t say no. Isn’t that taxation without representation? Some 15,000 Arizona state officers could be helping the federal government enforce the laws it isn’t enforcing now. Now, they’ll do other things instead. By the logic of Bolton’s ruling, the state trooper who arrested Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh on a speeding violation in 1995 would now be prohibited from arresting him for the federal crime of the bombing, too. If it wasn’t clear before, it is now: The federal government has no intent of enforcing the laws against rampant and brazen illegal immigration. Indeed, it will punish those states that try, leaving them at the mercy of the kidnappers, terrorists, gangsters, drug dealers and human traffickers that now freely cross our southern border.

Once that level has been achieved, the Federal government will have no way of controlling it. Think law enforcement agencies will be able to handle what is coming? No, it will be too big. Think using the military will work? No, most members of the military will refuse to take action against American citizens and will openly question why the illegal invasion was allowed to go unchecked in the first place.

Susan Bolton may very well have written the modern day Uncle Tom’s Cabin that will spark a modern civil war, a war that the Federal Government will not be able to win this time.

How The Death Tax Kills Small Businesses, Communities—And Civil Society

Think that the “Death Tax” is an engine for redistributing wealth from the wealthy to the needy? Not so. A more accurate description would be that it redistrubutes wealth from small communities to large corporations.

This isn’t to say that large super-chains like Wal-Mart and Target are to blame. No, far from it. The large corporations are simply taking advantage of the opportunities that the Death Tax makes available to them.

When the owner of a business or farm whose valuation is over the Death Tax threshold dies, those who stand to inherit the estate will have to pay the Death Tax. Now, if the deceased did not leave enough cash reserves to pay off the Death Tax, the heirs will have to come up with the money. That usually means selling off land or assets and most often, a large corporation will be there to make the purchase.

But it isn’t only the business or farm that suffers. The community around which the business or farm existed also suffers, especially now since the new owner’s have no vested interest in the local community the way a family-owned business does.

Writing for the Heritage Foundation, Patrick Fagan, Ph.D., illustrates this with crystal clear reasoning:

All across America, the day-to-day richness of Americans’ way of life is evident among families who live in tight-knit towns and small communities. Com­munities are formed through an intricate web of con­nections. The typical web-building process is familiar: Children gather at a local swimming pool or join a Boys & Girls Club. Their parents become acquainted. Parents and children form friendships and find their lives intersecting in a widening variety of places—at church, at school and local civic organizations, on ath­letic teams, and through charitable projects. They visit in one another’s homes, share their concerns about their children’s schools, and render mutual aid and moral support in times of difficulty. Through such interactions, individuals and families spontaneously knit the fabric of a community. Then the boy mar­ries the girl and it all starts over again. But community is not an inevitable result even when people live in close proximity to each other. The associations that form a community are like an ecosystem, where all the complex interactions depend on a few sources of sustenance: air, water, sunlight. Degrade one of those sources, and the eco­system is vulnerable to systemic breakdown. So, too, with communities. By undermining a primary source of sustenance for communities, the small business, the “death tax” (the federal estate tax levied on individuals, including owners of small companies, after their death) is a direct assault on a community’s ecosystem. In any typ­ical community, small businesses are not external sources of nurturance, like sunlight cast on an ecosys­tem from afar. They are integral parts of—and active participants in—a community. As such, they generate some of the most critical forces that knit communities together. These crucial economic resources are often destroyed by death taxes. … Playgrounds, senior centers, volunteer organiza­tions—are all spaces within which people interact to form community. These spaces are not optional; a community cannot exist without them. In threatening the source of their support, the death tax is the Grim Reaper that can gut small communities by uprooting people’s livelihoods, decimating charity flow, cutting down young entrepreneurial talent, while in the pro­cess robbing small-town America and city neighbor­hoods of much of their civil society underpinnings.

While the Obama administration deems many businesses (usually those with large bodies of Union employees) as “too big to fail” they have yet to declare any community as “too small to steam roll.”

You can access the complete article on-line here:

How The Death Tax Kills Small Businesses, Communities—And Civil Society
Patrick Fagan
Heritage Foundation
July 26, 2010

Tax Hikes And The Coming 2011 Economic Collapse

Arthur Laffer is probably best known for the “Laffer Curve” which showed the relationship between tax rates versus government income from taxes. In essence, lower tax rates translate into more government revenues. This theory has been tested time and time again against empirical data and has been shown to be extrememly sound.

But today, he has penned a very prophetic essay for the Wall Street Journal in which he shows exactly how allowing the Bush Tax cuts to expire will hasten the collapse of the U.S. economy beginning in January of 2011.

From his article:

It shouldn’t surprise anyone that the nine states without an income tax are growing far faster and attracting more people than are the nine states with the highest income tax rates. People and businesses change the location of income based on incentives. … [I]t’s also simple enough for most people to understand that if the government taxes people who work and pays people not to work, fewer people will work. Incentives matter.

People do not like to go to work only to see their money confiscated by the government and given to someone who did not work to earn that money. Along the same line of logic, those who get money without having to work for it will never want to work.

More:

On or about Jan. 1, 2011, federal, state and local tax rates are scheduled to rise quite sharply. President George W. Bush’s tax cuts expire on that date, meaning that the highest federal personal income tax rate will go 39.6% from 35%, the highest federal dividend tax rate pops up to 39.6% from 15%, the capital gains tax rate to 20% from 15%, and the estate tax rate to 55% from zero. Lots and lots of other changes will also occur as a result of the sunset provision in the Bush tax cuts. Tax rates have been and will be raised on income earned from off-shore investments. Payroll taxes are already scheduled to rise in 2013 and the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) will be digging deeper and deeper into middle-income taxpayers. And there’s always the celebrated tax increase on Cadillac health care plans. State and local tax rates are also going up in 2011 as they did in 2010. Tax rate increases next year are everywhere.

The people who see this coming will do something this year to avoid the massive losses they will face next year when their taxes will dramatically go up.

They will shift production and income out of next year into this year to the extent possible. As a result, income this year has already been inflated above where it otherwise should be and next year, 2011, income will be lower than it otherwise should be. Also, the prospect of rising prices, higher interest rates and more regulations next year will further entice demand and supply to be shifted from 2011 into 2010. In my view, this shift of income and demand is a major reason that the economy in 2010 has appeared as strong as it has. When we pass the tax boundary of Jan. 1, 2011, my best guess is that the train goes off the tracks and we get our worst nightmare of a severe “double dip” recession.

This is in contrast to the Reagan tax cuts, a fair bulk of which did not take effect until January 1, 1983, after which the economy took off like a bat out of hell. The coming tax cut expirations (which Barack Obama and the Democrats are more than happy to allow) will have the exact opposite effect of the Reagan tax cuts. When this happens, we really will have the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression and only Barack Obama and the Democrats can be blamed. Of course, Obama and the Dems will try to assign blame everywhere else.

And if you have retirement accounts that will be affected:

In 2010, without any prepayment penalties, people can cash in their Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs), Keough deferred income accounts and 401(k) deferred income accounts. After paying their taxes, these deferred income accounts can be rolled into Roth IRAs that provide after-tax income to their owners into the future. Given what’s going to happen to tax rates, this conversion seems like a no-brainer.

Get ready. The Obama Depression is just around the corner and the President is travelling for photo-ops and parties instead of taking steps to effectively deal with it.

You can access the complete column on-line here:

Tax Hikes And The 2011 Economic Collapse
Arthur Laffer
Wall Street Journal
June 7, 2010

Mothers Against Debt Video

This is the first of what will probably be multiple videos. The politicians in Washington D.C. clearly do not care what sort of hardships they are saddling on our children and grandchildren as a result of all this out of control government spending. Fortunately, the Mothers of America are stepping up and raising their voices. Which political party is going to listen first?

And check out the U.S. Debt Clock:

U.S. Debt Clock

Given that we are being forewarned about the economic catastrophe we are heading into, no one, especially the politicians who are currently in power, should be the least bit surprised by it nor should they make any attempt to assign blame to anyone else.

Democrats Admit Companies Were Right To Claim Obamacare Would Make Costs Higher Rather Than Lower

Now, before you start thinking this is some sort of right-wing Tea Party claim, look at the source:

Inquiry Says Health Care Charges Were Proper
Robert Pear
New York Times
April 26, 2010

Yes, you read that right. The New York Times. Hardly a bastion of right-wing thought.

Here is what Mr. Pear wrote:

When major companies declared that a provision of the new health care law would hurt earnings, Democrats were skeptical. But after investigating, House Democrats have concluded that the companies were right to tell investors and the government about the expected adverse effects of the law on their financial results. … Within days after President Obama signed the law on March 23, companies filed reports with the Securities and Exchange Commission, saying the tax change would have a material adverse effect on their earnings. The White House suggested that companies were exaggerating the effects of the tax change. The commerce secretary, Gary F. Locke, said the companies were being “premature and irresponsible” in taking such write-downs.

“Irresonsible?” This from a hard-core leftist administration that is squandering our grandchildren’s and great-grandchildren’s futures as we speak?

Well, it turns out that the companies were right and the Dems were wrong:

In a memorandum summarizing its investigation, the Democratic staff of the committee said, “The companies acted properly and in accordance with accounting standards in submitting filings to the S.E.C. in March and April.” Moreover, it said, “these one-time charges were required by applicable accounting rules.” The committee staff said this view was confirmed by independent experts at the Financial Accounting Standards Board and the American Academy of Actuaries.

Didn’t the Dems promise that Obamacare would make health care less expensive? This law is only going to make it more expensive and less accessible. Henry Waxman and Bart Stupak (both Democrats) were going to hold hearing on the claims these companies made until the two learned that the claims were well-founded. Those hearings have now been cancelled.

Fatal Flaws Of The Wall Street Bailout Bill

The Dems are at it again and this time they have to complicity of several Republicans. The current financial reform bill before the Senate (S. 3217) is supposed to make bailouts and financial crises a thing of the past. Unfortunately, it will do the exact opposite.

Writing for the Heritage Foundation, James L. Gattuso notes the following flaws:

Creates a protected class of “too big to fail” firms. Section 113 of the bill establishes a “Financial Stability Oversight Council,” charged with identifying firms that would “pose a threat to the financial security of the United States if they encounter “material financial distress.” These firms would be subject to enhanced regulation. However, such a designation would also signal to the marketplace that these firms are too important to be allowed to fail and, perversely, allow them to take on undue risk. As American Enterprise Institute scholar Peter Wallison wrote, “Designating large non-bank financial companies as too big to fail will be like creating Fannies and Freddies in every area of the economy.”[1] Provides for seizure of private property without meaningful judicial review. The bill, in Section 203(b), authorizes the Secretary of the Treasury to order the seizure of any financial firm that he finds is “in danger of default” and whose failure would have “serious adverse effects on financial stability.” This determination is subject to review in the courts only on a “substantial evidence” standard of review, meaning that the seizure must be upheld if the government produces any evidence in favor of its action. This makes reversal extremely difficult. Creates permanent bailout authority. Section 204 of the bill authorizes the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) to “make available … funds for the orderly liquidation of [a] covered financial institution.” Although no funds could be provided to compensate a firm’s shareholders, the firm’s other creditors would be eligible for a cash bailout. The situation is much like the scheme implemented for AIG in 2008, in which the largest beneficiaries were not stockholders but rather other creditors, such as Deutsche Bank and Goldman Sachs[2]—hardly a model to be emulated. Establishes a $50 billion fund to pay for bailouts. Funding for bailouts is to come from a $50 billion “Orderly Resolution Fund” created within the U.S. Treasury in Section 210(n)(1), funded by taxes on financial firms. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the ultimate cost of bank taxes will fall on the customers, employees, and investors of each firm.[3] Opens a “line of credit” to the Treasury for additional government funding. Under Section 210(n)(9), the FDIC is effectively granted a line of credit to the Treasury Department that is secured by the value of failing firms in its control, providing another taxpayer financial support. Authorizes regulators to guarantee the debt of solvent banks. Bailout authority is not limited to debt of failing institutions. Under Section 1155, the FDIC is authorized to guarantee the debt of “solvent depository institutions” if regulators declare that a liquidity crisis (“event”) exists. Limits financial choices of American consumers. The bill contains a new “Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection” with broad powers to limit what financial products and services can be offered to consumers. The intended purpose is to protect consumers from unfair practices. But the effect would be to reduce available choices, even in cases where a consumer fully understands and accepts the costs and risks. For many consumers, this will make credit more expensive and harder to get.[4] Undermines safety and soundness regulation. The proposed Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection would nominally be part of the Federal Reserve System, but it would have substantial autonomy. Decisions of the new bureau would not be subject to approval by the Fed. New rules could be stopped only through a cumbersome, after-the-fact review process involving a council of all the major regulatory agencies. This could impede efforts of economic (or “safety and soundness”) regulators to ensure the financial stability of regulated firms, as the new, independent “consumer” regulator would establish rules that conflict with that goal. Enriches trial lawyers by authorizing consumer regulators to ban arbitration agreements. Section 1028 specifically authorizes the new consumer regulatory agency to ban arbitration agreements between consumers and financial firms. By reducing the use of streamlined dispute resolution procedures, more consumers and businesses would be forced to pay the costs of litigation—to the benefit of trial lawyers. Subjects firms to hundreds of varying state and local rules. Section 1044 limits pre-emption of state and local rules, subjecting banks and their customers to confusing, costly, and inconsistent red tape imposed by regulators in jurisdictions across the country. Subjects non-financial firms to financial regulation. Regulation under this legislation would extend far beyond banks. Many firms largely outside the financial industry would find themselves caught in the regulatory net. Section 102(B)(ii) of the bill defines a “nonbank financial company”” as a company “substantially engaged in activities … that are financial in nature.” The phrase “financial in nature” is defined in existing law quite broadly. According to former Treasury official Gregory Zerzan, it includes things such as “holding assets of others in trust, investing in securities … or even leasing real estate and offering certain consulting services.”[5] As a result, a broad swath of private industry may find itself ensnared in the financial regulatory net. As Zerzan explains: “An airplane manufacturer that holds customer down payments for future delivery, a large home improvement chain that invests its profits as part of a plan to increase revenues, and an energy firm that makes markets in derivatives are all engaged in ‘financial activities’ and potentially subject to systemic risk regulation.” Imposes one-size-fits-all reform in derivative markets. The bill would subject derivatives now traded over-the-counter by banks and other financial institutions to regulation by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and/or the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). It would require most derivative contracts to be settled through a clearinghouse rather than directly between the parties. Yet derivatives are already increasingly being traded on clearinghouses thanks to private efforts coordinated by the New York Fed.[6] The Senate’s bill, however, would require virtually all derivatives to be so traded. Applying such ill-designed blanket regulation would make financial derivatives more costly, more difficult to customize, and, consequently, less widely used—which would increase overall risk in the economy.[7] Allows activist groups to use the corporate governance process for issues unrelated to the corporation or its shareholders. Section 972 of the bill authorizes the SEC to require firms to allow shareholders to nominate directors in proxy statement. Such proxy access turns corporate board elections from a process designed to ensure that each board has a good mix of skills and experience into a popularity contest where the long-term interests of the stockholders become secondary to political agendas or corporate raiders. The process can also be used by labor unions, politicians who manage public pension funds, and others to force corporations to respond to pet social or political causes. Does nothing to address problems at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. These two government-sponsored housing giants helped fuel the housing bubble. When it popped, taxpayers—because of an implicit guarantee by the U.S. Treasury—found themselves on the hook for some $125 billion in bailout money. Not only has little of this amount been paid back, but the Treasury Department recently eliminated the cap on how much more Fannie and Freddie can receive. Yet the bill does nothing to resolve the problem or reform these government-run enterprises.

Contact your Senators today and oppose what is turning out to be yet another piece of ignorant legislation that the idiots in Washington are imagining will somehow be good for us.

You can access the complete article on-line here:

Senator Dodd’s Regulation Plan: 14 Fatal Flaws
James Gattuso
Heritage.org
April 22, 2010

20 Ways Obamacare Will Take Away Our Freedoms

So, Obama, Pelosi and Reid said that Congress needs to pass the Health Care Bill so that America can see what’s really in it? Well, let’s get started! Below are 20 items in HR3590 as agreed to by the Senate and from the reconciliation bill as displayed by the Rules Committee. You will also read how it affects us Americans.

From Investor’s Business Daily:

1. You are young and don’t want health insurance? You are starting up a small business and need to minimize expenses, and one way to do that is to forego health insurance? Tough. You have to pay $750 annually for the “privilege.” (Section 1501) 2. You are young and healthy and want to pay for insurance that reflects that status? Tough. You’ll have to pay for premiums that cover not only you, but also the guy who smokes three packs a day, drink a gallon of whiskey and eats chicken fat off the floor. That’s because insurance companies will no longer be able to underwrite on the basis of a person’s health status. (Section 2701). 3. You would like to pay less in premiums by buying insurance with lifetime or annual limits on coverage? Tough. Health insurers will no longer be able to offer such policies, even if that is what customers prefer. (Section 2711). 4. Think you’d like a policy that is cheaper because it doesn’t cover preventive care or requires cost-sharing for such care? Tough. Health insurers will no longer be able to offer policies that do not cover preventive services or offer them with cost-sharing, even if that’s what the customer wants. (Section 2712). 5. You are an employer and you would like to offer coverage that doesn’t allow your employers’ slacker children to stay on the policy until age 26? Tough. (Section 2714). 6. You must buy a policy that covers ambulatory patient services, emergency services, hospitalization, maternity and newborn care, mental health and substance use disorder services, including behavioral health treatment; prescription drugs; rehabilitative and habilitative services and devices; laboratory services; preventive and wellness services; chronic disease management; and pediatric services, including oral and vision care. You’re a single guy without children? Tough, your policy must cover pediatric services. You’re a woman who can’t have children? Tough, your policy must cover maternity services. You’re a teetotaler? Tough, your policy must cover substance abuse treatment. (Add your own violation of personal freedom here.) (Section 1302). 7. Do you want a plan with lots of cost-sharing and low premiums? Well, the best you can do is a “Bronze plan,” which has benefits that provide benefits that are actuarially equivalent to 60% of the full actuarial value of the benefits provided under the plan. Anything lower than that, tough. (Section 1302 (d) (1) (A)) 8. You are an employer in the small-group insurance market and you’d like to offer policies with deductibles higher than $2,000 for individuals and $4,000 for families? Tough. (Section 1302 (c) (2) (A). 9. If you are a large employer (defined as at least 101 employees) and you do not want to provide health insurance to your employee, then you will pay a $750 fine per employee (It could be $2,000 to $3,000 under the reconciliation changes). Think you know how to better spend that money? Tough. (Section 1513). 10. You are an employer who offers health flexible spending arrangements and your employees want to deduct more than $2,500 from their salaries for it? Sorry, can’t do that. (Section 9005 (i)). 11. If you are a physician and you don’t want the government looking over your shoulder? Tough. The Secretary of Health and Human Services is authorized to use your claims data to issue you reports that measure the resources you use, provide information on the quality of care you provide, and compare the resources you use to those used by other physicians. Of course, this will all be just for informational purposes. It’s not like the government will ever use it to intervene in your practice and patients’ care. Of course not. (Section 3003 (i)) 12. If you are a physician and you want to own your own hospital, you must be an owner and have a “Medicare provider agreement” by Feb. 1, 2010. (Dec. 31, 2010 in the reconciliation changes.) If you didn’t have those by then, you are out of luck. (Section 6001 (i) (1) (A)) 13. If you are a physician owner and you want to expand your hospital? Well, you can’t (Section 6001 (i) (1) (B). Unless, it is located in a country where, over the last five years, population growth has been 150% of what it has been in the state (Section 6601 (i) (3) ( E)). And then you cannot increase your capacity by more than 200% (Section 6001 (i) (3) (C)). 14. You are a health insurer and you want to raise premiums to meet costs? Well, if that increase is deemed “unreasonable” by the Secretary of Health and Human Services it will be subject to review and can be denied. (Section 1003) 15. The government will extract a fee of $2.3 billion annually from the pharmaceutical industry. If you are a pharmaceutical company what you will pay depends on the ratio of the number of brand-name drugs you sell to the total number of brand-name drugs sold in the U.S. So, if you sell 10% of the brand-name drugs in the U.S., what you pay will be 10% multiplied by $2.3 billion, or $230,000,000. (Under reconciliation, it starts at $2.55 billion, jumps to $3 billion in 2012, then to $3.5 billion in 2017 and $4.2 billion in 2018, before settling at $2.8 billion in 2019 (Section 1404)). Think you, as a pharmaceutical executive, know how to better use that money, say for research and development? Tough. (Section 9008 (b)). 16. The government will extract a fee of $2 billion annually from medical device makers. If you are a medical device maker what you will pay depends on your share of medical device sales in the U.S. So, if you sell 10% of the medical devices in the U.S., what you pay will be 10% multiplied by $2 billion, or $200,000,000. Think you, as a medical device maker, know how to better use that money, say for R&D? Tough. (Section 9009 (b)). The reconciliation package turns that into a 2.9% excise tax for medical device makers. Think you, as a medical device maker, know how to better use that money, say for research and development? Tough. (Section 1405). 17. The government will extract a fee of $6.7 billion annually from insurance companies. If you are an insurer, what you will pay depends on your share of net premiums plus 200% of your administrative costs. So, if your net premiums and administrative costs are equal to 10% of the total, you will pay 10% of $6.7 billion, or $670,000,000. In the reconciliation bill, the fee will start at $8 billion in 2014, $11.3 billion in 2015, $1.9 billion in 2017, and $14.3 billion in 2018 (Section 1406).Think you, as an insurance executive, know how to better spend that money? Tough.(Section 9010 (b) (1) (A and B).) 18. If an insurance company board or its stockholders think the CEO is worth more than $500,000 in deferred compensation? Tough.(Section 9014). 19. You will have to pay an additional 0.5% payroll tax on any dollar you make over $250,000 if you file a joint return and $200,000 if you file an individual return. What? You think you know how to spend the money you earned better than the government? Tough. (Section 9015). That amount will rise to a 3.8% tax if reconciliation passes. It will also apply to investment income, estates, and trusts. You think you know how to spend the money you earned better than the government? Like you need to ask. (Section 1402). 20. If you go for cosmetic surgery, you will pay an additional 5% tax on the cost of the procedure. Think you know how to spend that money you earned better than the government? Tough. (Section 9017).

Now, who are those idiots claiming that this isn’t socialized medicine?

There’s more in this bill that gives the government more power to regulate your lives and spending. But items #2 and #6 are particularly galling since they essentially amount to a welfare system for people who live unhealthy lifestyles. Items #12 and #13 will eventually lead to the same shortage of services that are being experienced in Canada and Great Britain.

And here’s a real kicker: Item 14# is designed only to put insurance companies out of business thereby giving the Socialists in the Democrat Party an excuse to go to the disastrous “single payer system.”

This bill needs to get tossed out by the courts or repealed by Congress after we toss the Socialist bums out in 2010 and elect a Constitutional Conservative in 2012.

You can access the complete article on-line here:

20 Ways Obamacare Will Take Away Our Freedoms
David Hogberg
Investor’s Business Daily
March 21, 2010

Obama To Break Pledge Of Not Increasing Taxes On Incomes Of Less Than $250,000/yr

Well, it’s good to be back among the ranks of the employed. Now that I have an income again, I can devote just a little more time to helping the world stay informed about key issues we are facing.

Many of us knew that Barack Obama had absolutely no intention of keeping many of his campaign promises. Instead of allowing the health care debate to be made public over C-SPAN, he and his Democrat followers instead chose to hold their own meetings behind closed doors and completely shut out the Republicans. He promised that he would veto any bill that contained earmarks but instead has signed legislation that overall contains over 9,000 earmarks.

So, it should come as no surprise whatsoever that Obama is now poised to break a campaign promise he made on September 8, 2008:

“And I can make a firm pledge: Under my plan, no family making less than $250,000 will see their taxes increase—not your income taxes, not your payroll taxes, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes.”

It is becoming clear that Obama made this grandiose claim in an effort to get votes by painting himself as some sort of anti-tax candidate. Well, now that he got the votes, he’s singing a completely different tune:

According to Terrence Jeffrey at Cybercast News Service:

[T]he new health care plan released in summary form yesterday by the White House specifically calls for increasing the Medicare payroll tax on “households with incomes exceeding $200,000 for singles and $250,000 for married couples filing jointly.” Unless President Obama is prepared to say that the only type of “family” that qualifies as a “family” under his tax pledge is one that is formed around a “married couple filing jointly” than his new health care proposal violates his 2008 tax pledge on its face. The Internal Revenue Service, for example, makes clear that the “head of household” tax filing status is for “unmarried” taxpayers. A definition of the term “head of household” on the IRS Web site says: “Generally, you may claim head of household filing status on your tax return only if you are unmarried and pay more than 50% of the costs of keeping up a home for yourself and your dependent(s) or other qualifying individuals.”

That seems to be the mantra of the Democrats: Tax anything that can be taxed in order to pay for the irresponsible spending the Democrats have engaged in over the past year.

It’s true that Republicans went on a spending binge when they were in power, but the Democrats have far outstripped anything that Republicans have done since 1994. The republicans were bad, but the Democrats are infinitely worse.

More:

The White House posted the president’s tax increase proposal as part of the summary of the new health-care reform bill he is proposing. “Under current law, workers who earn a salary pay a flat tax of 1.45 percent of their wages to support the Medicare Hospital Insurance (HI) trust fund, but those who have substantial unearned income do not, raising issues of fairness,” says the summary of Title IX of the president’s proposal. “The Act will include an additional 0.9 percentage point Hospital Insurance tax for households with incomes exceeding $200,000 for singles and $250,000 for married couples filing jointly. In addition, it would add a 2.9 percent tax for such high-income households to unearned income including interest, dividends, annuities, royalties and rents (excluding income from active participation in S corporations).”

There it is. Clear and concise. Obama had no intention of keeping his “no tax increases” on anyone under $250,000/yr pledge.

You can access the complete article on-line here:

Breaking His Pledge? Obama Calls For Increasing Payroll Taxes On ‘Households’ Earning Less Than $250,000 Per Year
Terrence Jeffrey
Cybercast News Service
February 23, 2010

For The First Time In History, We Have A $1 Trillion Deficit

For all of you libs out there who are constantly repeating like trained parrots that George W. Bush brought us a $1 trillion deficit, the truth has come out. The honor of the first $1 trillion deficit goes to Barack Obama.

From Martin Crutsinger of the Associated Press:

Nine months into the fiscal year, the federal deficit has topped $1 trillion for the first time. The imbalance is intensifying fears about higher interest rates and inflation, and pressuring the value of the dollar. There’s also concern about trying to reverse the deficit — by reducing government spending or raising taxes — in the midst of a harsh recession. The Treasury Department said Monday that the deficit in June was $94.3 billion, pushing the total since the budget year started in October to nearly $1.1 trillion.

The Dems and Obama could have prevented this by cutting spending, but they didn’t.

The deficit has been propelled by the huge sum the government has spent to combat the recession and financial crisis, combined with a sharp decline in tax revenues.

I learned back in the 4th grade that one cannot spend more money than one makes. Companies go bankrupt, families lose homes and businesses close when that type of money mismanagement occurs. But the danger here is that the dollar might very well collapse and cause our entire economy to crash down around us.

You have to wonder if the Dems realize this, or do they live in a fantasy world where they believe that spending like drunken sailors is a good thing?

You can access the complete article on-line here:

Budget Deficit Tops $1 Trillion For First Time
Martin Crutsinger
Associated Press via KansasCity.com
July 13, 2009

As The Cap And Trade Energy Tax Heads To The Senate, We Must Look At Who Will Profit From It

One of the principles of ethics that should govern politicians and their dealings with the private sector is that politicians should not be voting on legislation that directly involves their own personal investments. Ideally, politicians shouldn’t be investing in the market at all since they can vote to influence the market in their favor. If they do have investments in the private sector, then they should recuse themsleves from voting on any legislation that would influence the profitability of those investments.

The Cap and Trace Energy Tax recently passed by the House of Representatives is a good case in point. Several lawmakers will enjoy direct financial benefits from the legislation should it become law. Among these are Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

From Mark Tapscott at the Washington Examiner:

How much money will Pelosi make if the measure (Obama-Waxman-Markey (OWM)) becomes law, as seems quite likely? Pelosi, of course, is not the only member of Congress to own significant shares of energy companies. Senators and representatives from all over the country do, not just the “oilies” from energy states like Texas, Oklahoma and Louisiana. But as House Speaker, Pelosi’s ownership of an unknown number of shares in the Clean Energy Fuels Corp. (CLNE) valued at between $15,000 and $50,000, may deserve particular attention. … Pelosi will profit because OWM will boost the price of natural gas on the market. This is because natural gas burns with significantly less carbon emissions than other fossil fuels. For companies trying to get under OWM limits for greenhouse gases emissions, burning more natural gas instead of, say coal, will be a no-brainer. That will drive up demand for natural gas, which in turn will create upward price pressures.

Pelosi claims that her husband handles the stocks and that she has no knowledge of what stocks he is purchasing. This is an irrelevent cop-out. Mr. Pelosi knows very well what legislation his wife is working on and whether or not it is likely to be passed. He further knows what effect such legislation would have on the stocks he will be purchasing. That is the same thing as insider trading and that makes it every bit as unethical as it would be if Speaker Pelosi purchased the stocks herself.

Rather than fulfill her 2006 promise of ridding D.C. of the culture of corruption, Pelosi and her fellow Dems simply claimed the cess pool as their own, jumped in and began splashing around.

You can access this story on on-line here:

Pelosi Will Profit From Obama-Waxman-Markey Cap-And-Trade Energy Bill
Mark Tapscott
Washington Examiner
June 24, 2009

And who else stands to make bank from this legislation? Al Gore and Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA) for two. Markey holds between $51,000 and $115,000 in investments in Firsthand Technology Value Fund (solar-evergy manufacturers) and Al Gore has $6 million in the Venture Capital Group (CO₂ emmissions tracking software), both of which will make very nice profits under the cap-and-trade tax. Profits that will come from fleecing the American people through higher taxes.

Before this gets voted on in the Senate, we should seriously look into which members of Congress will make a profit off of it and how they voted or intend to vote.

Book Review: COMMON SENSE By Glenn Beck

The out-of-control government spending we are witnessing right now began under George W. Bush. That much is true. But, just because Bush did it does that mean that it is okay for Obama and the Dems to accelerate it? No, absolutely not. If Bush was wrong for running up a $2 trillion debt, then Obama is five and a half times as wrong for wanting to run up an $11 trillion debt. (For those of you who don’t understand the math, here is the equation: 11/2 = 5 1/2.)

That basically sums up Glenn Beck’s thesis in his #1 bestseller Common Sense. Taking some inspiration from Thomas Paine, the author of the original Common Sense, Glenn has built up an argument that shows us why we, as a nation, are on the wrong path, what will likely happen as a result of going down this path and why we should hold those in power (both Democrat and Republican) accountable for what they’ve done.

The Founding Fathers who wrote the U.S. Constitution knew what dangers there were in a government that over-reaches its powers. Glenn reminds us of this throughout the book with passages such as the following:

Thomas Jefferson knew that government debt was not only bad economic policy but also morally unacceptable because it effectively makes your children responsible to pay for what you bought. He said, “The principle of spending money to be paid by posterity under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.” If that wasn’t clear enough, he also said that politicians should consider themselves “unauthorized to saddle posterity with our debts, and morally bound to pay them ourselves …”

I am not aware of any other commentator who even knows about that quote from Jefferson much less actually reminds us of it. But, since most of us don’t know the numbers or don’t seem to care enough about what those numbers mean, we simply let it go and expect someone else to handle the problem for us.

That is not possible in the current situation. Here’s why: Our interest payment to service our debt stands at $26 billion per month. That’s right, per month. That’s money that is sent to our creditors rather than going to upgrade schools or roads here in the U.S. Multiply that by 12 and you get $312 billion per year. If the government taxed away the total profits of Exxon-Mobil, General Electric, Wal-Mart and IBM, we wouldn’t even have enough to pay one-third of the interest payment on the debt much less pay down the debt! Where is the rest of this money going to come from? Small businesses? Higher taxes on the middle class? (As I write this, the Dems in Congress are already working on several new plans that will raise taxes and depress our economy even further which means even less ability to pay down the debt.)

With this type of insanity going on in Washington D.C., Glenn asks another very important question: “Why do we keep sending these bozos back to Congress?” Therein lies the crux of the title of this book. Sending the current crop of politicians back to D.C. defies common sense.

And here is another good excerpt:

President Obama announced that his 2009 budget was projected to produce a $1,700,000,000,000 deficit. If you break that down you find that we’re spending $4,657 billion every day for a year, which breaks down to $53,906.64 per second.

Our government is spending in one second what most Americans don’t even make in a year! How sustainable is that? It isn’t, which is why all of this fiscal madness is only going to bring us to economic disaster and ruin.

And this brings us to one of the most poignant questions any commentator has ever asked:

Borrowed money has to be paid back – but it won’t be us who will have to do it. Our children will question our sanity for spending money we did not have on “bridges to nowhere,” skateboard parks, tattoo removel, and other pork-laden projects that politicians stuffed into “must pass” legislation. They will wonder why we tolerated such reckless behavior from our elected leaders instead of holding them accountable. How will we respond?

Indeed, how will we respond? More specifically, how will you respond if your child or grand-child comes up to you after they’ve turned 18 and asks why they are working to pay off a debt that they didn’t vote to incur and from which they are getting no benefit at all?

I doubt anyone will have a good answer to that question. I know I don’t.

I highly recommend this book to all Americans whether Democrat, Republican, Lbertarian or otherwise. The issues brought up by Glenn Beck are not political so much as they are national concerns that will touch every single one of us in very negative ways.

Each of us has a choice. Either a) stand up and finally tell Congress to bring spending under control or risk losing their next elections, or b) just sit back, do nothing and wait until the dollar collapses and our children wake up to find themselves up to their foreheads in a debt that they did not incur but will be held responsible for.

I’m sure that you can see choosing the latter will mean that you waited too long to become active.

Small Businesses Will Get Hammered Under The Cap And Trade Energy Tax

You know, the Dems try to paint themselves as friends of “the little guy,” but since their takeover of Congress in 2006 and the election of Barack Obama to the White House, it is clear that the Democrats are all about big government and controlling the people. There really is no counter-argument to that since is it simply a fact that cannot be denied.

The energy tax that was passed by the House Dems (and 8 back-stabbing Republicans) is a perfect example of how the Dems really want to control “the little guy” through big government intervention rather than do anything to help.

McArthur’s Bakery in St. Louis will be facing a very difficult time because of Pelosi’s energy tax. The owner, David McArthur explains why.

From Fox News:

David McArthur, vice president of the 52-year-old family operation, a Gateway City institution, is one of a growing number of business owners and taxpayers nationwide who are mobilizing against the so-called cap-and-trade bill, which would levy harsh fines on energy consumption … … McArthur told FOXNews.com that every aspect of his business relies on the forms of energy targeted by the American Clean Energy and Security Act, and that his congressman, Carnahan, was supporting “a direct tax increase on small business” by voting for it. “We make (our product) with electricity, we bake it with gas, we refrigerate and freeze it with electricity and we distribute it with gas and oil,” said McArthur, who said he worries that high prices could cost his company up to $15,000 a year in an industry with a very tight margin for profit.

Think about all the small businesses that rely on energy. Basically, all of them. If this energy tax passes the Senate, it will hit small businesses like 10 tons of bricks. Beauty salons that require electricity to run dryers and water heaters will begin to close. Delivery companies will have to raise their rates to account for the gasoline and diesel that their trucks use. Farming will become more expensive. In turn, food prices will go up as will the price of any commodity that needs to be transported from producer to market.

Very few small businesses will be able to withstand such an economic onslaught. Most will have to lay off workers in order to make ends meet. That will mean fewer people getting paychecks while prices will be going higher.

This cap and trade energy tax is a disaster waiting to happen and the Dems (and a few short-sighted Republicans) are completely blind to the danger. Instead, they have beholden themsleves to the junk science espoused by Al Gore.

What is even worse is that once again, the House of Representatives voted on a bill that members did not get a chance to read:

“He’s killing small business — he’s killing us,” McArthur said of Carnahan, who was one of a majority of Democrats who voted for the bill in a closely fought 219-212 vote. McArthur, who penned a scathing letter to Carnahan, is not alone in taking the message directly to his congressman. Dozens of small protests were organized at the end of June at federal buildings and outside the offices of national lawmakers who voted for the bill. Mike Wilson, who led a protest in Cincinnati of about 100 people on June 27 across from the offices of Rep. Steve Driehaus, D-Ohio, said he was appalled by the 1,500-page legislation, which was fast-tracked by House leaders for a vote Friday. A 310-page amendment was slapped onto the bill Friday morning. “It was, quite frankly, criminal passing a bill that you didn’t read,” said Wilson, founder of the anti-tax group Cincinnati Tea Party.

One thing is certain though. If this becomes law, the effects will be harsh and far-reaching. And the Dems will not be able to blame this on George W. Bush. Blame will rest solely and squarely on the shoulders of the current party in power.

You can access the complete article on-line here:

Small Businesses Irate Over Climate Change Bill
Joseph Abrams
FoxNews.com
July 7, 2009

Political Humor: Divorce Agreement

I got this in an email from my sister today:

Dear American liberals, leftists, social progressives, socialists, Marxists and Obama supporters, et al: We have stuck together since the late 1950′s, but the whole of this latest election process has made me realize that I want a divorce. I know we tolerated each other for many years for the sake of future generations, but sadly, this relationship has run its course. Our two ideological sides of America cannot and will not ever agree on what is right so let’s just end it on friendly terms. We can smile and chalk it up to irreconcilable differences and go our own way. Here is a model separation agreement: Our two groups can equitably divide up this country by landmass each taking a portion. That will be the difficult part, but I am sure our two sides can come to a friendly agreement. After that, it should be relatively easy! Our respective representatives can effortlessly divide other assets since both sides have such distinct and disparate tastes. We don’t like redistributive taxes so you can keep them. You are welcome to the liberal judges and the ACLU. Since you hate guns and war, we’ll take our firearms, the cops, the NRA and the military. You can keep Oprah, Michael Moore and Rosie O’Donnell (You are, however, responsible for finding a bio-diesel vehicle big enough to move all three of them). We’ll keep the capitalism, greedy corporations, pharmaceutical companies, Wal-Mart and Wall Street. You can have your beloved homeboys, hippies and illegal aliens. We’ll keep the hot Alaskan hockey moms, greedy CEO’s and rednecks. We’ll keep the Bibles and give you NBC and Hollywood. You can make nice with Iran and Palestine and we’ll retain the right to invade and hammer places that threaten us. You can have the peaceniks and war protesters. When our allies or our way of life are under assault, we’ll help provide them security. We’ll keep our Judeo-Christian values.. You are welcome to Islam, Scientology, Humanism and Shirley McClain. You can also have the U.N. but we will no longer be paying the bill. We’ll keep the SUVs, pickup trucks and oversized luxury cars. You can take every Volkswagon you can find. We’ll keep The Battle Hymn of the Republic and the National Anthem. I’m sure you’ll be happy to substitute Imagine, I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing, Kum Ba Ya or We Are the World. We’ll practice trickle down economics and you can give trickle up poverty your best shot. Since it often so offends you, we’ll keep our history, our name and our flag. Would you agree to this? If so, please pass it along to other like minded liberal and conservative patriots and if you do not agree, just hit delete. In the spirit of friendly parting, I’ll bet you which one of us will need whose help in 15 years. Sincerely, John J. Wall Law Student and an American P.S. Also, please take Barbara Streisand & Jane Fonda with you.

The sad part is that if the Dems succeed in inflicting socialism on the United States in such a way that it become irreverisble through the electoral process, what you just read above may actually happen and the U.S. will split into to distinctly separate nations with one nation embracing the disaster known as socialism and the other going back to the roots of our Founding Fathers. You can already see the beginnings of it from the states that are declaring their sovereignty from the Federal government.

The Ehthanol Hoax: Still Going Strong

I posted last year about how ethanol was one big hoax. You can read that blog entry here:

Big Corn And Ethanol Hoax
84rules
March 13, 2008

And you can get information about the side effects here:

Ethanol: The Side Effects
84rules
April 29, 2008

Well, ethanol is still a big hoax and the Obama adminstration thinks that you and I are still dumb enough to fall for it. From the Wall Street Journal:

The biofuels industry already receives a 45 cent tax credit for every gallon of ethanol produced, or about $3 billion a year. Meanwhile, import tariffs of 54 cents a gallon and an ad valorem tariff of four to seven cents a gallon keep out sugar-based ethanol from Brazil and the Caribbean. The federal 10% blending requirement insures a market for ethanol whether consumers want it or not — a market Congress has mandated will double to 20.5 billion gallons in 2015.

What has happened here is that the Big Corn/Ethanol lobby has successfully conned Congress into giving them a monopoly over the ethanol industry and forced Americans to buy only from this monopoly. (Where are the trust-busters now?)

And then there are the side effects:

The Congressional Budget Office reported last month that Americans pay another surcharge for ethanol in higher food prices. CBO estimates that from April 2007 to April 2008 “the increased use of ethanol accounted for about 10 percent to 15 percent of the rise in food prices.” Ethanol raises food prices because millions of acres of farmland and three billion bushels of corn were diverted to ethanol from food production. Americans spend about $1.1 trillion a year on food, so in 2007 the ethanol subsidy cost families between $5.5 billion and $8.8 billion in higher grocery bills.

So, not only are you paying higher gas prices, but you are paying higher food prices as well.

But, many of you out there will say, “We’re helping the environment, though!” Not so. Ethanol is having negligible effects, and in many instances, negative effects.

A second study — by the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Transportation and Air Quality — explains that the reduction in CO2 emissions from burning ethanol are minimal and maybe negative. Making ethanol requires new land from clearing forest and grasslands that would otherwise sequester carbon emissions. “As with petroleum based fuels,” the report concludes: “GHG [greenhouse gas] emissions are associated with the conversion and combustion of bio-fuels and every year they are produced GHG emissions could be released through time if new acres are needed to produce corn or other crops for biofuels.” The EPA study also explores a series of alternative scenarios over 30 to 100 years. In some cases ethanol leads to a net reduction in carbon relative to using gasoline. But many other long-term scenarios observe a net increase in CO2 relative to burning fossil fuels. Ethanol produced in a “basic natural gas fired dry mill” will over a 30-year horizon produce “a 5% increase in GHG emissions compared to petroleum gasoline.” When ethanol is produced with coal burning mills, the process “significantly worsens the lifecycle GHG impact of ethanol” creating 34% more greenhouse gases than gasoline does over 30 years.

And the parting shot:

As public policy, ethanol is like the joke about the baseball prospect who is a poor hitter but a bad fielder. It doesn’t reduce CO2 but it does cost more. Imagine how many subsidies the Beltway would throw at ethanol if the fuel actually had any benefits.

You can access the complete article on-line here:

Ethanol’s Grocery Bill
Review & Outlook
Wall Street Journal
June 2, 2009