Conservative Donnybrook

Good evening America,

Over the course of the last few weeks, the news has focused on the proposed mosque near Ground Zero.  Ground Zero, of course, possesses a tremendous amount of significance to Americans as the place where nineteen Muslim extremists conspired to kill thousands of Americans on September 11, 2001.  Such an act can never be forgotten.  Likewise, the building a mosque mere steps from the site of such a tremendous evil, conjures the prospect that it is being done for reasons that are less than pure.  I cannot say, from my vantage point what the motives are of those who wish to build a mosque in this location in a city that already contains so many hundreds of mosques.  But I can say without reservation that the appearance that it is calculated to reinforce and celebrate that act of terrorism is undeniable.  Consequently, I cannot personally support the building of a mosque on that property.

Furthermore, I cannot imagine that economically such an endeavor is wise.  I don’t know for sure how things are in New York, but in my hometown of Chicago, I know that such a project would require the cooperation of the unions.  I can’t believe things are much different in New York City.  Union members are patriotic Americans and their personal beliefs are sure to run contrary to the building of such a monument to anti-Americanism.  As advice to those who seek to build such a mosque, I can only imagine that the cost will exceed your estimates by at least six-fold, and the length of time you believe the mosque will take to erect will be multiplied by five.  There is little that the government can, or in most places will, do to sanction unions.  These calculations should be taken into account by those who wish to build such a mosque as it may prove a foolhardy project with little hope for relief from local government.

That said, there is nothing that government can do to obstruct the project.  The Constitution prohibits the federal government from interfering in the exercise of one’s religion. Our Supreme Court has extended that prohibition to the States.  The plans for the mosque are perfectly legal constitutionally and there is little that government can do to obstruct it.  All faiths are welcome in this country, which is part of what make America the greatest nation on earth.  We look forward to the day when Muslims, Christians, Jews, and all the religions of the world, worship side-by-side in perfect peace.  America is the only place on earth where that dream is obtainable.

God Bless America,

And good night.

The Tasmanian rat has chewed through its enclosure at Moorpark College.  Federal, state and local officials are working together to track down twelve 120 pound menaces.  If allowed to mate in the wild, these animals could spell disaster for the local fruit and Feral cat populations.  Luckily, the Santa Paula police officers responsible for shooting the terrifying 10 pound mountain lion cub last year will lead the expedition into the wilds of Simi Valley. Good luck officers, and God speed.

The Department of Justice seeks retarded lawyers. From a job announcement, now deleted from the DOJ Web site:

The Civil Rights Division encourages qualified applicants with targeted disabilities to apply. Targeted disabilities are deafness, blindness, missing extremities, partial or complete paralysis, convulsive disorder, mental retardation, mental illness, severe distortion of limbs and/or spine. Applicants who meet the qualification requirements and are able to perform the essential functions of the position with or without reasonable accommodation are encouraged to identify targeted disabilities in response to the questions in the Avue application system seeking that information.

Trijicon, maker of exception scopes for military and civilian use, has come under fire for inscriptions which appear on the company’s hardware. The inscriptions reference bible passages, often regarding Christ. The Muslim Public Affairs Council wants the inscriptions removed and no further shipments made to the U.S. military of hardware containing references to scripture. MPAC said the references “feed into the violent extremists’ narrative that the ongoing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are a ‘crusade against Islam.’”

If references to God are unacceptable on military hardware, then the same argument can be made against sending U.S. Treasury notes to Muslim nations. Shall we stop sending bills with references to God on them to Afghanistan? Iraq? Think before you complain, MPAC.

Michael Kinsley once defined a gaffe as when a politician accidentally tells the truth.

As we’ve all heard, according to Harry Reid, among Obama’s electoral advantages is that he’s “light-skinned … with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one.”

Now, certainly, this comment sets off all sorts of PC alarm bells, but of course, it’s basically true, right? What’s more, it’s obviously not racist at all.

OK, it’s not nice to use the term “Negro” any more, fine, but give me a break, the man’s 70 years old, and it’s not exactly a racial epithet — just an old term that’s fallen out of fashion.

The “dialect”? I think we’ve all noticed Obama turn on Great Black Orator mode, even though he’s not very good at it, in contrast with his more natural Midwest Whitebread mode. But I think it’s safe to say that the more “black” your speech, the less likely average white folks are to vote for you. Now take that as an indictment of white racism or whatever, but it seems pretty inarguable to me.

Why, here’s Camille Paglia writing during the ’08 campaign:

I have become increasingly uneasy about Obama’s efforts to sound folksy and approachable by reflexively using inner-city African-American tones and locutions, which as a native of Hawaii he acquired relatively late in his development and which are painfully wrong for the target audience of rural working-class whites that he has been trying to reach. Obama on the road and even in major interviews has been droppin’ his g’s like there’s no tomorrow.

But these ideas are forbidden! Paglia must resign! Willmoore must resign!

The most dubious part of the comment is probably the “light-skinned” part — I’m not so sure that makes such a big difference, but who knows? It’s not a crazy notion.

But the funny thing about all of this is that what Reid is basically saying is that he thinks whites are racist. Normally, the assumption of the bigotry on the part of white Americans is not only condoned, but it serves as one of the core background assumptions to the entire PC project.

Then again, these PC rituals of outrage and contrition never seem to have a close relationship with what the offender actually said. But Reid crossed some PC tripwires with his vaguely icky turns of phrase, and therefore he must prostrate himself before the sensitivity gods.

But what about double standards? Wouldn’t a Republican have suffered more for saying the same thing? Well, of course he would, but that’s life. And ultimately, conservatives do themselves no favors for playing this game.

Sure, it’s nice to get the chance to watch a big-time Democrat squirm under the rules set down by his PC brethren. It seems like Ann Coulter had great fun with this when, on Geraldo Rivera’s show, after Sharpton went on at length about what a swell guy Harry Reid is, Coulter asked, “Did he ask you to stop using your Negro dialect too?”

Well hey! That’s pretty funny, and if anyone deserves it, it’s Sharpton. But ultimately, isn’t it pretty stupid for conservatives to get into the game of jumping all over folks who broach subjects forbidden by PC fashion? This is a game that conservatives can never win, and the whole thing brings to mind a certain aphorism about getting into the mud with pigs.

The list of officially-sanctioned viewpoints and subjects for discussion grows ever-smaller. Why, these days, just opposing gay marriage can cost you your job. Conservatives will not benefit by throwing in their lot with the PC thought police. Paul Gottfried puts it best:

What the GOP is doing will have dire consequences, beyond the richly deserved fate of making the party look foolish. It will stifle the freedom to engage in honest political discussion, an activity that the attack on Reid and before that on Lott is going to make more difficult. As the “sensitivity” net widens and as unauthorized questions about race, gender, and lifestyle are put outside the limits of “sensitive” dialogue, we will suffer as an already diminished free society. While there is plenty of blame to go around for this situation, the GOP has done its part here, in its desperate hunger for minority votes. … Now the GOP has moved out in front as an advocate of leftwing thought and speech control. The campaign against Reid illustrates this.

As I sang the first one to my daughter before bed last night, I began to wonder: What is the saddest song ever recorded?  I nominate the two below, though the first takes it for me.  What say you?

UPDATE: I just remembered this one….

… whether this editorial from NRO was real or an Onion parody.

I mean, really? Bernanke “is the principal architect of the government’s interventions in the banking industry during the financial crisis. That intervention probably represented the best available course of action in the circumstances, and it very likely averted a much worse recession… .” New Deal Republicans stand by their man.

Furthermore: “Bernanke has earned himself some enemies — enemies to be proud of [sic].” So, because Ron Paul doesn’t like you, you’re a genius? That’s the standard at NRO these days, it would appear. No, “the first order of business for Bernanke and the Fed is to lead the slow return to financial normalcy while standing ready to mitigate the effects of any unexpected economic shocks that may come… …to press for radical restructuring at the Fed, as Paul and Frank do, is hazardous.”

We must maintain the status quo in order to prevent the disastrous results we can necessarily expect from having, well, instituted that very status quo. Don’t you ninnies get it? Back to work, serfs, and spend EVERY DIME we graciously give you, whether earned or extended through whatever credit we deign to leak to you!

And the icing on the cake: NRO schlocks calling Ron Paul for being “a little dishonest” because, even though he makes no bones about wanting to abolish the Fed, somehow his initial tactic of calling for a full, independent audit as a first step in that direction is just disingenuous and mean. Poor Ben. Poor, poor Ben. He’s got all of these problems – the weight of the financial world – on his shoulders, and he’s got a “puritanical libertarian” [I swear they juxtaposed those terms] and a corrupt homosexual politician asking unfriendly question about what he’s doing with Americans’ life savings, tax revenues, and interest rates! The horror!

While conceding that we “wouldn’t know it to hear Bernanke speak lately,” he is really busy trying to maintain low prices [obviously for "consumers" in our "consumer economy" in which we are all simply supposed to "consume" and "consume."]. “For the past many decades, that has come to mean keeping a damper on inflation, a critically important task. We have severe unemployment and jaw-dropping deficits that Democrats are laboring mightily to make worse. The dollar and the creditworthiness of the U.S. government are objects of skepticism, and a serious spike in inflation would exacerbate that.” Nevermind that Ron Paul’s other crazy ideas would counteract inflation far better (indeed, the usual canard is that he would cause hysteria-inducing, starvation-causing “deflation”). No, any stick at hand with which to beat a straw man.

They caution us that “a central bank in thrall to the short-term political needs of congressmen would be a catastrophe.” Indeed, it would. And that is actually what we have today. Because the money behind those short-sighted congressmen which keeps them in power is the money that is coming from and simultaneously keeping afloat that very central bank. And who, precisely, do the editors of the magazine-formerly-known-as-the-premiere-conservative-periodical think Paul wants doing the audit? Other Congressmen or the CBO? Something – a hunch, call it – tells me Ron might be thinking more along the lines of independent, contracted, professional forensic accountants.

“Independence is the Fed’s characteristic virtue, as solvency is the FDIC’s and creditworthiness is the Treasury’s.” Oooops, bad choice of analogies. (“The FDIC’s Deposit Insurance Fund, which protects bank deposits, fell below zero in the third quarter of this year. Fifty U.S. banks failed, taking the fund down to negative $8.2 billion. It’s only the second time in the agency’s history that it has slipped into the red.” says the NPR article.)

Maybe when the kids at NRO finish prep school, they’ll have a little more clarity and credibility.

Genesis 25:27-34  (MRAV – modern revised American version):

27                As the boys grew up, Esau became a Democrat, a man who loved big government; whereas Jacob was a simple man, who kept to his tents.

28                The people loved Esau, because they were fond of largesse; but the founding fathers preferred Jacob.

29                Once, when Jacob was treating a wounded sheep, Esau came in from the open, with a hangnail.

30                He said to Jacob, “Give me some of that medical treatment, I am uncomfortable.” (That is why he was called America.)

31                But Jacob replied, “First give me your birthright in exchange for it.”

32                “Look,” said Esau, “I’m on the point of dying. What good will my freedoms and liberties do me?”

33                But Jacob insisted, “Swear to me first!” So he sold Jacob his birthright under oath.

34                Jacob then treated his hangnail, and Esau sighed in relief, got up, and went his way. Esau cared little for his birthright.

thanks to immigration advocates or libertarians like Lindsey Graham, John McCain, and, sad to say, Ron Paul.

Our country was yet again grievously wounded because of “free trade,” “tolerance,” and interventionism.

Would that the myriad soldiers — in Texas, of all places — had availed themselves of the duty to protect themselves and their comrades and loved ones by carrying concealed weapons, this comatose piece of excrement would have been dead after the first shot was fired.

I weep for the country that used to be the United States of America but which is now the United State of Aetna, indivisible, with tyranny, oppression, and “free” “healthcare” for all.

On the same day that Michael Jackson beat it for the great beyond, Pelosi and her cohort passed the largest tax increase in the history of history. Perhaps you missed it; the news tended to focus only on the passing of a pop singer of doubtful moral character to the exclusion of a number of other stories. Can anybody tell me what ever happened with that North Korean freighter that the U.S. Navy was bird-dogging? Anybody hear about the AMA revolting against Obama’s healthcare scheme? You might have heard that we won the war in Iraq. Maybe not. Did anyone hear that an American soldier was captured by the Taliban in Afghanistan this week? How about that Barack Obama’s nominee for the upcoming Supreme Court vacancy was overturned this week by that same Court?

If you can’t beat ‘em, I suppose, you join ‘em. So, I will show how even the the Michael Jackson estate would be affected by the Cap and Trade bill that the House of Representatives passed last week. But first, a little about the bill itself. The bill itself states that its purpose is ”[t]o create clean energy jobs, achieve energy independence, reduce global warming pollution and transition to a clean energy economy.” Some of that may need to be explained. For instance, global warming pollution is carbon dioxide – the same stuff you exhale. Indeed, each respirating organism on earth is now categorized as a polluter. For an idea of what “transitioning to a clean energy economy” looks like, take a look at Spain. Apparently, if we look at Spain, it is possible to create clean energy jobs, but each one will cost between $750,000 and $1.4 million and will cost 2.2 jobs in other areas per job created. On other hand, we will be saving the planet, right?

But, how do they propose to do it? The bill is designed to increase the price of energy in order to drive down consumption.

During the campaign, Obama also pledged that he would never raise taxes in any form on Americans making less than $250,000 per year. But his cap and trade tax is estimated to cost American families almost $2,000 a year when it becomes effective, growing to almost $7,000 a year for a family of four by 2035. That will be paid through higher prices for electricity, oil, gasoline, natural gas, home heating oil, coal, food, and every product that is produced or transported using energy.

In short the Cap and Trade proposal passed out of the House last week is a “Tax on Everything” – everything that uses energy. An interesting exercise is to try to think of anything that you purchase that requires no energy to produce, deliver, sell, or consume. The increased costs associated with that energy usage will be embedded in the price of every consumer good and service that Americans utilize. As a result, Americans will purchase fewer goods and services. If Americans purchase fewer goods and services, then companies who provide those goods and services will be forced to cut production (read: jobs). But, hey, we’re saving the planet.

One of my “favorite” provisions of the bill is in sections 201-203, which requires every State to adopt the building codes of California. (See ACES Sec. 201(c)(3) which reads “COMPLIANT CODE — For the purposes of meeting the target described in subsection (a)(1)(A) [which required that State's become compliant within one year of enactment] for residential buildings, a State that adopts the code represented in California’s Title 24-2009 by the date two years after the enactment of the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 shall be considered to have met the requirements of this subsection for the applicable period.”) The code then goes on to dictate to State legislatures the legislation it is required to pass and the timeline on which it is required to pass it.  The States are to be denied federal funding from the Act if they are found to be noncompliant. Indeed, if  the State fails to enforce compliant building codes within 2 years, the Secretary of Energy shall enforce the codes within that State.

The bill requires not only new buildings to satisfy whatever arbitrary standard the Secretary chooses, but it also places the burden on homeowners of existing houses to “retrofit” their property before they are allowed to sell them. This provision alone will place an incredible economic burden on homeowners whether they earn $250,000 or not.  Their mobility, their choice of where to live, their ability to change jobs will be affected by this single onerous provision. But, we will gladly sacrifice our freedom because it’s saving the planet, right? I hope MJ installed new windows and an EnergyStar compliant furnace before he died, otherwise his estate’s going to get hit with a gigantic bill to retrofit Neverland Ranch before they can sell it and distribute the proceeds to his heirs.

There is plenty more where that came from in the bill that has nothing to do with the actual Cap and Trade bits and which are sure to raise the eyebrows (or ire) of anyone who loves his freedom. For instance, there is an entire section regulating outdoor lightbulbs to be brighter and last longer. There’s even a provision regulating the type of bulb one can use to illuminate their artwork, including mandating its color spectrum and power factor.

As mentioned earlier, outrageously, this bill passed the House of Representatives 219-212. Now the bill goes to the Senate. If the Senate passes the bill, it will become law. If the Senate passes any kind of compromise bill, it will go to conference and will become law in some form. The only hope now is that the Senate stops this bill dead. “Obi Wan Senati, you’re our only hope!”

After all that, I apologize, but I don’t really care how this bill will affect the Jackson estate. I can assure you it would be bad. But, thanks for all the MJ Googlers for stopping in.

On the way home from work this evening I was listening to talk radio (as I do) and there was a PSA that came on during one of the programming breaks that concerned mortgage debt. There was a woman talking about how she got behind in her bills and how she was afraid to talk to bill collectors. In the background there was the sound of someone using a shovel to dig a hole. At the end, the announcer said let whatever organization it was “dig yourself out of the hole.” It is this phrase which I object to. If one is digging a hole and has found themselves at its bottom, the last thing that person should do in order to escape is to “dig.” The advertisement should have said something like “let us help you climb out of debt (or the whole you’ve dug).”

In light of this stupid ad, I thought I would open a discussion. Are there other stupid phrases which nettle you? Digging oneself out of a hole is certainly one for me. The phrase itself suggests exactly the opposite of a solution which might work. Anyway, give me your phraseological pet peeves.

Earlier today Obama and Hillary Clinton arrived in Cairo. Apparently someone was pulling the SecState’s leg and told her it was a costume party. She went as a Teletubby.

Obama announced yesterday that Corporate Auto Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards would be raised to 35.5 miles per gallon by 2016. Mugging for the photo op, were Governors Jennifer Granholm (MI), Arnold Schwarzenegger (CA), and Deval Patrick(MA), each of whom presides over some of the worst economic conditions in their respective states and each having proven to be inept at balancing a budget. The president and governors were abetted by Union capo, Ron Gettelfinger and members of Congress. Smiles and backpats were the order of the day.

Meanwhile, I can’t help but wonder. ARE THEY INSANE? Haven’t we been hearing about the bad financial straits that the automakers have been suffering through recently? Why in the world would anyone do anything to increase the cost of their products when they are having a hard time selling their products as it is? One estimate is that the new standard will add $4,000 to $10,000 to the cost of each new vehicle. It seems the administration and his admirers have set out to destroy the automakers even as they lavish untold amounts of taxpayer monies upon them.

The model is not new. It seems that Obama is following a model in which you take a formerly productive member of society, promise to pay him money seized from other taxpayers, and meanwhile create roadblocks to allowing that member of society becoming productive again. This way, one can create a dependent constituency who, even if he realizes that he has become a slave and is being hurt by the “kindness” being shown him by his master, nonetheless can see no option but to vote to keep the checks coming. Obama seems to be offering the carrot to the automakers at the same time he is making more carrots more necessary.

The rational thing to do at this point when the automakers are struggling to survive would be to lighten the regulatory burden that Big Government has placed on them. Instead, it appears the federal government will be increasing the regulatory burden of 49 states, by exporting California’s repressive auto emission standards to the rest of the nation, further increasing the costs associated with the automakers’ products for the other 49.

None of this will be good for the automakers and it certainly will hurt the consumer on Main Street.

Every time I see the new Pepsi logo, it reminds me of the Barack Obama campaign logo. As a result, I urge everyone to drink Coca-Cola.

I have been a subscriber to MLB.TV for five years now. As a Cubs fan, spending the money was not strictly necessary when I first signed up, because WGN was carrying almost all of their games and my cable provider includes WGN in its channel lineup. I could watch virtually every game at home. Nonetheless, I wanted to be able to watch games when I was not at home on my laptop. As soon as I signed up, I realized that half the games were blacked out. However, back then, the blackout only applied to home games, so I still received half the games. I was a little miffed, but I accepted that as part of the deal. The Cubs are not in business to give away their product. Fair enough. And, in any event, even though I am a Cubs fan, I am also a baseball fan and have been known to watch almost any team.

However, as time has gone by, the blackout restrictions have become worse. Now ALL televised games are blacked out – not just home games. Furthermore, WGN now has only about a third or less of the televised games. If I lived in Chicago or the surrounding area, I would not have much of a problem with this situation. However, I live in Indianapolis, 180 miles and three and one half hours’ drive away. I hardly live in the local area. Moreover, not only are the Cubs blacked out here, but the White Sox and Reds are as well. In other words, if you live in Indianapolis, you are credited with having THREE home teams, even though there are none in Indy. What’s more is that I cannot even tune in the WGN radio broadcasts and there does not appear to be an Indianapolis radio station that broadcasts Cubs games (Reds, yes; Cubs, no). Supposedly WNDE AM-1260 carries the games, but it seems every time I want to listen to one, they are either not broadcasting it or my reception is terrible (AM radio at night is an iffy proposition).

When I moved up to Ann Arbor, Michigan for law school, I signed up as I always do, but found myself blacked out up there even though the area in which I lived was not a blackout area. MLB explained to me that the applicable blackout area is based upon where the credit card securing the account is billed. In my case, my credit card bills were still being sent home to Indy. I suffered through my first year of law school getting only half the games. During my second year, I changed my billing address to Ann Arbor and enjoyed a summer full of Cubs baseball. However, when I graduated and moved back to Indy, I had to change my billing address and am now stuck with the blackouts. It looks as though this may have changed and is now based on the location of the server from which you are accessing the game. If so, it may be possible to access the game through a proxy. Unfortunately, this seems dishonest to me and it really should not be necessary for someone like me where MLB has denied us a local franchise.

Astoundingly, it is even worse at my father’s home in Spencer, Iowa. In Spencer, they are blacked out from the Twins (221 miles), White Sox (495 miles), Cardinals (534 miles), Royals (353 miles), Cubs (495 miles) and Brewers (453 miles)! How in the world does that make sense? If every one of those teams were broadcast on local television stations, I could understand that. But, in fact, the only “local” team (in that their games are regularly broadcast) is the Twins from what I can tell when I visit. It is as though MLB is intentionally going out of its way to make sure nobody ever purchases their product! Of course, I probably shouldn’t be surprised by the idiocy of an organization that would hire Keith Olbermann.

I am inclined to tell MLB to get bent altogether. In fact, if I could get English broadcasts of Japanese games, I’d probably just become a Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters fan and abandon MLB entirely. But, if MLB were involved in the enterprise, we would probably find that anyone who did not already have a Japanese franchise in their city would be blacked out of most of the broadcasts!

What I find completely ridiculous, as I mentioned, is that in no rational sense can I be said to be living in the local Cubs viewing area (or the Reds for that matter – it is no hardship to be blacked out of the White Sox games). Furthermore, the annual cost for MLB.TV is $109.95 so it is not exactly like I am trying to avoid paying for the product I wish to receive.

What I am saying is that I will not be signing up for another year of MLB.TV again unless they change the breadth of the areas caught up in the local blackout areas. I urge anyone considering spending money on MLB’s product to think carefully about it. If you are a Cubs fan that lives in Los Angeles and don’t care about watching Dodgers or Angels games, then you’ll be fine. But, if not, you may find yourself being screwed on the very games you most want to see.

How much is a trillion dollars? One trillion dollars is $1,000,000 every day for the next 2,740 years. Just so we know what we’re talking about here.

With the defection of Specter, Snowe and Collins, the Senate passed Obama’s stimulus package. If the House can reconcile its version with that passed by the Senate, there is little doubt that Obama will sign it into law. As time goes by, more of the details of the package become known.

And those details are alarming. For instance, buried in the fine print is some fundamental changes to the way health care is handled in the United States. One such change is the formation of a new bureaucracy called the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology. That organization will be charged with tracking the decisions and treatments of your doctor to ensure that he is doing everything possible to reduce the costs of health care. The idea, it seems, was cribbed from Tom Daschle’s book, Critical: What We Can Do About the Health-Care Crisis. In that book, Daschle said of your family doctor, that he should give up the notion of autonomy and “learn to operate less like solo practitioners.”

Toward that end, the stimulus package institutes a new nationwide electronic health records system, its use hospitals and doctors will have to be “meaningful users” of. What that means, nobody knows, nor does anybody know what the penalty for transgressing the new requirements might be. What is known is that the Secretary of Health and Human Services will be empowered with progressively stronger measures to see to its enforcement.

In his book, Daschle remarked that the elderly will have to be “more accepting of the conditions that come with age instead of treating them.” Nonetheless, who wants to bet that the liberal AARP laps this up?

With items like this buried in the fine print, we can only urge our Senators and Representatives to rethink their votes and to block reconciliation. It is the only hope that this travesty can be stopped. I am not optimistic about that.

As a service to the hordes of readers of Conservative Donnybrook, I have read the House version of Obama’s $825 billion economic stimulus package so you don’t have to.

General Attributes of the Plan

As mentioned above the current overall price tag (before amendments and the inevitable earmark add-ons) is $825 billion. That is split into two general categories of spending.

The first category is $275 billion in “economic recovery tax cuts.” Presumably this is the “tax cuts for 95% of Americans” that Obama continuously talked about on the campaign trail. If there are 305 million Americans and they split the tax cut evenly, each would enjoy a lessened tax burden of $949.09 each. I’ll take it gladly; indeed, they owe us more of our own money back. Unfortunately, this will almost certainly be offset by the sun-setting of the Bush tax cuts, which there is little doubt Congress and the President will allow to expire.

The second category is $550 billion in “targeted priority investments.” According to the summary from the Committee on Appropriations, “[t]his package is the crucial first step in a concerted effort to create and save 3 to 4 million jobs, jumpstart our economy, and being the process of transforming it for the 21^st century.” The committee summary goes on to state that, “with the passage of this package, unemployment rates are expected to rise to between eight and nine percent this year. Without this package, we are warned that unemployment could explode to near twelve percent.” As such, assuming these numbers are correct and this package would prevent the unemployment rate from experiencing an additional 3% rise, the package will prevent the loss of 3.93 million jobs* through new unemployment claims. This means that by their own numbers, this package will not create any new jobs, as Obama has been touting, but rather would prevent the anticipated loss of 4 million jobs.

* In case anyone is interested, I came up with this number by looking at the increase in unemployment as reported on the Bureau of Labor Statistics website (http://www.bls.gov/ces/) for the December report. That report said unemployment rose from 6.8% to 7.2% or by +0.4%. That increase corresponded with a decrease in the number of jobs of 524,000. If 0.4% is equivalent to 524,000 jobs, then 4% would equal 3.93 million jobs.

The summary acknowledges that the plan will result in “a large deficit for years to come.” But, justifies its passage by playing on the fears of not passing it: “Without it, those deficits will be devastating [as though the deficits we invite will not be] and we will face the risk of economic chaos.”

Since 2001, as worker productivity went up, 96% of the income growth in this country went to the wealthiest 10% of society [I assume they are not referring to the government]. While they were benefiting from record high worker productivity, the remaining 90% of Americans were struggling to sustain their standard [sic] of living. They sustained it by borrowing…and borrowing…and borrowing, and when they couldn’t borrow anymore, the bottom fell out. This plan will strengthen the middle class, not just Wall Street CEOs and special interests in Washington [who have already received government welfare in the form of bailouts which took priority over taxpayer relief].

Finally, before getting into the specifics of the “targeted priority investments,” it should be noted that “[t]here are no earmarks in this package.” I guess I don’t really know what an earmark, because I thought it was an appropriation that was targeted to a particular project, or “priority investment,” if you prefer. Oh well. Orwell lives.

One last note before we dive into an examination of the specific spending proposals. We should probably keep in mind that, according to most of the economists I’ve heard speak about the crisis, the overriding problem is that credit is unavailable to consumers and businesses. It is probably helpful to hold this in the forefront of one’s thoughts as he approaches each of these broad spending categories. A thoughtful person would probably ask, “Does this spending help to free up credit to consumers and businesses?” Continue Reading »

At first I thought maybe I should not post this as it may upset some of you.  But then I realized that I just don’t care.  This is a funny video of Lutherans processing into an Iceland church.

In his second day of office, President Barack Obama signed three executive orders.  Not only did Obama stumble through the press conference reminicient of George Bush, but he had no clue as to what he was signing!  Several times during the nearly eight minute video Obama has to ask the White House Counsel what the Executive Orders do and say.  At one point Obama actually quotes Greg Craig verbatim as Mr. Craig tells the President what he is signing!  It is clear that the Executive is unaware of what the Executive orders do or even say!  If Bush had done this in front of a room full of reporters we would have been tarred and feathered.

So I ask: “Who is the President, Greg?”