The number of Americans dependent on government rose substantially during the first two years of Obama's presidency:

The American public's dependence on the federal government shot up 23% in just two years under President Obama, with 67 million now relying on some federal program, according to a newly released study by the Heritage Foundation.

It would be easy to write this off as the normal effect of the recession, except for one thing – the number of people dependent on the government has been going up for decades:

Dependence on the government has climbed steadily since 1962, when the index stood at 19. By 1980, the index had risen to 100. It stood at 294 in 2010, the last year for which the data are available.

Here's a chart of the trend:

This increased dependence on government is the biggest reason for the huge increases in government spending:

The report also found that spending on "dependence programs" accounts for more than 70% of the federal budget. That, too, is up dramatically. In 1990, for example, the figure stood at 48.5%, and in 1962 just over a quarter of federal spending went to dependence programs.

Look at it this way. With dependence programs (enttlements) consuming over 70% of the budget, we could cease ALL other federal government functions and we still wouldn't have a balanced budget. We'd still be in the red. All federal revenue combined won't pay for the entitlements alone. Think about this the next time you hear liberals blasting Republicans for pushing entitlement reform. The Republicans push it because WE HAVE TO DO IT. The Republicans are the only ones with the guts to admit it. Liberals remain in denial, playing partisan games. Such irresponsibility should NOT be respected or rewarded.

At the same time government spending is shooting up as more people become dependent on government, fewer people are contributing to the revenue pool:

…fewer Americans pay income taxes, the report notes. Almost half (49.5%) didn't pay income taxes in 2009, the latest year for which the researchers have data. Back in the late 1960s, only 12% of Americans escaped the income tax burden.

Income taxes are the federal government's number one source of revenue, and almost half the citizenry isn't paying them. And liberals are bashing the rich, the people who pay the most in taxes. As usual, liberals are being less than honest about what is really taking place.

We are getting dangerously near the tipping point:

In 2010, for the first time ever, average spending on dependence programs per recipient exceeded the country's per-capita disposable income.

These numbers are about to get much worse.

In 2014, ObamaCare will begin adding millions to the dependency rolls.

In 2011, the first of the largest generation of Americans, the baby boomers, turned 65 and began retiring. That trend will continue for 17 more years, with 76 milion boomers retiring. The dependency rolls will begin to burst as the boomers collect Social Security and Medicare en masse. The number of workers supplying revenue to the government will wane at the same time. The government has not, to date, approved any plan to meet the entitlement demand of the retiring boomers. The amount of the unfunded entitlement estimates vary based on the amount of time over which you calculate them, but any way you look at it, they are set to explode, and our debt is ALREADY the size of our economy.

As we are headed over a financial cliff, what do liberals push ??? MORE entitlements, of course. They fiddle as the Titanic sinks, and then they pretend that some minor tax increases on the rich are going to pay for it all, when it won't come close. Those liberals should be laughed out of the country. Unfortunately, one of those liberals is the President. We will have an opportunity to correct that situation later this year. We best not miss it.

I really don't care about your political ideology. I care most about the numbers, and that's the main reason why I bash liberals on this blog. Liberals HAVE to know the numbers don't add up, but they keep pushing for more and more spending, more and more entitlements. They HAVE to know we can't tax our way out of this problem without absolutely crushing the economy, but they keep pretending we can. They HAVE to know this isn't about hating the poor, or hating minorities, or hating anyone, but they keep pretending it is. Well, there are some things more important that partisan politics, and the fiscal sustainability of our country is one of those things. If we go down in the flames of debt and fiscal madness, we all go down together. And that's precisely what I wish to avoid. Go ahead and argue with me if you want liberals, but it's your funeral too. And please spare me any further phony rhetoric about taxing the rich, which at best will take the deficit from $1.2 trillion down to…ONLY…$1 trillion !!! Big whoop. As Larry the cable guy would say, that won't "git 'er done".

As for our current economic (non)plan, since the Democrat-led Senate can't be bothered to produce an actual budget, and hasn't for over 1000 days (somebody tell me why I should vote for Democrats again ???), I can only give you Obama's 10-year budget, which adds between $7.2-9.5 trillion to the debt over a decade. He will have added $5 trillion in new debt by the time the next election rolls around. The $7.2 trillion number (which is an Obama fantasy dream number) is the rosiest scenario in a robust economy with excellent economic growth. That rosy scenario has not mamifested itself to date. I repeat, another $7.2 trillion in new debt was Obama's BEST CASE SCENARIO. It looks much more likely that two terms of Obama would add $8-10 trillion to the debt in eight years. Any questions about where he's leading this country ??? C'mon liberals, this isn't' rocket science. The answer is obvious.

The bottom line is this – A dependent nation of takers is a recipe for certain disaster. Until liberals can admit that much, the bashings will continue until morale improves.

After watching President Obama's State Of The Union (SOTU) speech last night, I have to say, the man simply astounds me. Obama is the ultimate politician, a very good performer. I have to give him that much. He knows how to give a speech. They say politics is the art of manipulation (or maybe it's just me saying it). Obama has that game down pat. He knows how to tell people what they want to hear, and more importantly, he knows how to leave out the parts people don't want to hear, the parts Obama doesn't want the people to know.

If you had arrived in America for the first time yesterday and listened to Obama's SOTU, you'd think things were going really well in America. If all you listened to was this President, you'd think he has done a fabulous job, because he told you he has. You wouldn't know how deeply we are in debt. You wouldn't know we have record deficits. You wouldn't know our entitlement programs are unfunded. You wouldn't know unemployment is so high. You wouldn't know our public schools are falling short. You wouldn't know our health care costs are still skyrocketing. You wouldn't know we're on an unsustainable fiscal path. You wouldn't know the federal government is borrowing 43 cents out of every dollar it spends. You wouldn't know Obama's net record on private sector job creation is below zero. You wouldn't know the federal government is spending more money than at any other time in American history barring WWII. You wouldn't know we have record numbers of people on government assistance. You wouldn't know energy costs are rising. You wouldn't know so many people had simply given up looking for work. You wouldn't know any of these things, and that's my first major problem with Obama's speech. He managed to give a State Of The Union speech without ever leveling with the American people about the actual state of the union.

The reason the President didn't level with the American people is simple – he wasn't giving a SOTU speech at all. He was giving his re-election speech. He was campaigning last night. What we witnessed was Obama's 2012 strategy.

Obama started out by giving our troops well-deserved congratulations for carrying out their missions in Iraq and Afghanistan:

These achievements are a testament to the courage, selflessness, and teamwork of America’s Armed Forces. At a time when too many of our institutions have let us down, they exceed all expectations. They’re not consumed with personal ambition. They don’t obsess over their differences. They focus on the mission at hand. They work together. Imagine what we could accomplish if we followed their example.

Yes, imagine what we could accomplish if we all worked together…and forget all about the fact that Obama and his Democratic party tried for years to LOSE the Iraq War when our President was named Bush.

Obama followed the above statement with this one:

Think about the America within our reach: A country that leads the world in educating its people. An America that attracts a new generation of high-tech manufacturing and high-paying jobs. A future where we’re in control of our own energy, and our security and prosperity aren’t so tied to unstable parts of the world. An economy built to last, where hard work pays off, and responsibility is rewarded.

Okay, Mr. President, I am thinking about these things…and I can't help but remember that you are against school vouchers that would help the poorest kids in the worst schools attend better schools. I can't help but remember that your party opposed No Child Left Behind to measure school performance. I can't help but remember that you put the special interests of the teachers unions above all else. I can't help but remember how your party's anti-business, anti-wealth, anti-capitalist, high tax rhetoric and legislation does precisely the opposite of attracting high-tech, high-paying jobs to this country. I can't help but remember how you opposed energy independence by shooting down the Keystone XL pipeline from Canada. I can't help but remember how your party opposes drilling in ANWR. Why aren't we "working together" on these things ??? Why is it only "working together" when you get what you want ?

Obama spoke of the promise of America:

…the basic American promise that if you worked hard, you could do well enough to raise a family, own a home, send your kids to college, and put a little away for retirement.

Sure, Barry. Your Democrats pushed for higher home ownership for decades…and then when those policies blew up in all our faces and brought the economy to it's knees, you pretended you had nothing to do with it. Your Democrats created Social Security for our retirements…and then the government raided the Social Security Trust Fund, leaving us nothing but a bunch of IOU's to fund our retirements. And now you're doing the same thing to federal pension programs. Excuse me if I'm not overly impressed with the way we've been "working together" up until now.

As is Obama's habit, he splits the world into an "us vs. them" battle:

We can either settle for a country where a shrinking number of people do really well, while a growing number of Americans barely get by. Or we can restore an economy where everyone gets a fair shot, everyone does their fair share, and everyone plays by the same set of rules. What’s at stake are not Democratic values or Republican values, but American values. We have to reclaim them.

Liberals always lose me with this scarecrow tactic. On the heels of his "we should all work together" remarks, Obama immediately begins splitting us apart, putting the wealthy into one box and everyone else into another box. That's not how things actually work. In reality, we're all in the same box. For example, if Steve Jobs becomes a billionaire by creating and selling his products, that in turn creates jobs and prosperity for others. It creates economic growth and opportunity. That's how "everyone gets a fair shot". It's a symbiotic relationship, but liberals pretend the wealth of a person like Steve Jobs somehow comes at the expense of someone else. Liberals pretend Steve Jobs is somehow stealing from the poor. Their position is absurd and counterproductive.

Not everything in Obama's speech was wrong, however. He made some good points, and many of those points should be attractive to Republicans. In fact, entire segments of Obama's speech sounded like things Republicans have been saying for years, as follows:

…we have a huge opportunity, at this moment, to bring manufacturing back. But we have to seize it…companies that choose to stay in America get hit with one of the highest tax rates in the world. It makes no sense, and everyone knows it.

Correct, Mr. President. I've been telling your liberal brethren that for years. They never believe me. Hopefully, they will believe you. What are the President's specific plans ?:

First, if you’re a business that wants to outsource jobs, you shouldn’t get a tax deduction for doing it. That money should be used to cover moving expenses for companies like Master Lock that decide to bring jobs home.

Second, no American company should be able to avoid paying its fair share of taxes by moving jobs and profits overseas. From now on, every multinational company should have to pay a basic minimum tax. And every penny should go towards lowering taxes for companies that choose to stay here and hire here in America.

Third, if you’re an American manufacturer, you should get a bigger tax cut. If you’re a high-tech manufacturer, we should double the tax deduction you get for making your products here. And if you want to relocate in a community that was hit hard when a factory left town, you should get help financing a new plant, equipment, or training for new workers.

So my message is simple. It is time to stop rewarding businesses that ship jobs overseas, and start rewarding companies that create jobs right here in America. Send me these tax reforms, and I will sign them right away.

Hmmm. That wasn't very specific, but it will play well. If the President wants Congress to "send me these tax reforms", it would be helpful if he spelled them out. Obama also co-opted the Republicans 'All Of The Above" position on energy.

No Obama speech would be complete without his usual basket of distortions and falsehoods. I don't call him the Great Prevaricator for nothing. Here are a few:

I set a goal of doubling U.S. exports over five years. With the bipartisan trade agreements we signed into law, we’re on track to meet that goal ahead of schedule.

Facts – U.S. exports were $1.842 trillion in 2008 before Obama. U.S. exports were $1.837 trillion in 2010 (link). Doesn't sound like were "on track" to double exports to me.

On immigration, Obama said:

I believe as strongly as ever that we should take on illegal immigration. That’s why my administration has put more boots on the border than ever before. That’s why there are fewer illegal crossings than when I took office.

It's true that illegal border crossings are down, but it's the recession that accomplished it. Fewer illegals come here for jobs when there aren't any jobs.

Here's one that made me want to throw a brick at my television:

During the Great Depression, America built the Hoover Dam and the Golden Gate Bridge. After World War II, we connected our states with a system of highways. Democratic and Republican administrations invested in great projects that benefited everybody, from the workers who built them to the businesses that still use them today.

In the next few weeks, I will sign an executive order clearing away the red tape that slows down too many construction projects. But you need to fund these projects. Take the money we’re no longer spending at war, use half of it to pay down our debt, and use the rest to do some nation-building right here at home.

There’s never been a better time to build, especially since the construction industry was one of the hardest hit when the housing bubble burst. Of course, construction workers weren’t the only ones who were hurt.

Gee, if only we had spent some money on infrastructure during Obama's reign…like the $800 billion stimulus package that was passed !!! That was sold to us as "shovel ready projects" to rebuild our infrastructure, but it seems our infrastructure was NOT rebuilt with that money. Unbelievable.

Here's another example of Obama adopting a faux Republican stance in a pretense of bipartisanship:

There’s no question that some regulations are outdated, unnecessary, or too costly. In fact, I’ve approved fewer regulations in the first three years of my presidency than my Republican predecessor did in his.

LOL. Obama as a regulation reducer ??? Not hardly. Here are the facts:

The report says the Obama administration has "imposed 75 new major regulations costing more than $380 billion over ten years." In addition, the report says there are 219 more "economically significant regulations" in the works which will cost businesses $100 million or more each year — for a minimum cost of $21 billion over ten years. The number of pages in the Federal Register, in which such rules are recorded, is increasing rapidly, the report says, and "pages devoted to final rules rose by 20 percent between 2009 and 2010, and proposed rules have increased from 2,044 in 2009 to 2,439 in 2010."

But the biggest laugh-out-loud line of all from the Great Prevaricator was this one:

I’m a Democrat. But I believe what Republican Abraham Lincoln believed: That government should do for people only what they cannot do better by themselves, and no more.

Ho-ly crap-salad. I can't believe he said that. Is this the same guy who has increased federal spending by $900 billion per year in only three years on the job ? Is this the same guy who created the largest new entitlement since Medicare ? Is this the same guy who passed an $800 stimulus ? Is this the same guy who proposes new federal spending for everything imaginable, and is running up record debt because of it ? Allow me to explain what liberals believe people cannot do for themselves. Liberals believe people can't feed themselves, house themselves, obtain medical care, save for their own retirements, choose a school for their kids to attend, choose what food to eat, choose a mortgage, pay for college, pay their energy bills, understand credit card terms, find a job without the government's help, invest wisely, etc, etc. I could go on and on. About the only thing liberals believe people CAN do for themselves is pay taxes. Outside of that, they think we're a bunch of helpless children who wouldn't know enough to come in out of the rain without the loving assistance of Big Brother.

If you want to know the true state of the union, you'll get a much more accurate picture from the Republican response to Obama's speech, from Gov. Mitch Daniels:

Voter ID frauds: A few weeks ago, I excoriated the Obama Justice Dept. for blocking South Carolina's voter ID law. Every time I mention voter ID laws, liberals tell me voter ID is racist (because voter ID is applied equally to all voters, by definition it cannot be racist). Liberals also tell me there is no voter fraud problem to justify the implementation of voter ID. As usual, liberals are lying:

South Carolina's attorney general has notified the U.S. Justice Department of potential voter fraud.

Attorney General Alan Wilson sent details of an analysis by the Department of Motor Vehicles to U.S. Attorney Bill Nettles.

In a letter dated Thursday, Wilson says the analysis found 953 ballots cast by voters listed as dead. In 71 percent of those cases, ballots were cast between two months and 76 months after the people died. That means they "voted" up to 6 1/3 years after their death.

Because voter ID laws would have prevented every one of these fraudulent votes by dead people, I'm left once again to conclude that liberals are in FAVOR of voter fraud. There is no other rational explanation for their position on the issue.
====
On The Brink: The European Union announced an oil embargo against Iran in response to Iran's alleged nuclear weapons program. Iran's response:

Tensions in the Gulf could reach a breaking point as a senior Iranian official said Iran would “definitely” close the Strait of Hormuz if an EU oil embargo disrupted the export of crude oil, the semi-official Fars news agency reports.

The announcement came in response to a decision by the European Union on Monday to impose an oil embargo on Iran over the country’s alleged nuclear weapons program.

“The pressure of sanctions is designed to try and make sure that Iran takes seriously our request to come to the table,” EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said.

The Strait of Hormuz is the vital link between the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman.

It is also one of the most strategic chokepoints in the world when it comes to oil transit.

With world oil output estimated at some 88 million barrels per day in 2011, the US Energy Information Administration estimated that some 17 million of those barrels passed through the Strait.

If economic sanctions sufficiently pressure Iran to retaliate by closing down the Strait, nearly 20 per cent of worldwide oil trade would be impacted, resulting in a massive spike in global energy costs.

However, with Washington’s decision to deploy a second carrier strike group in the Gulf, the EU’s attempt to pressure Iran economically could greatly increase the likelihood of all-out war in the region.

If Iran tries to close the Strait Of Hormuz, there will be war, period, and this time, it really will be what liberals have been crying wolf about for years, a "war for oil". The reality is, a closed Strait Of Hormuz would bring the west to it's knees economically. The United States will never allow that to happen.
===
Dismal State Of The Union: Here's an opinion/analysis piece from the Washington Times that hits the mark. Not much for me to add to it:

There is one person — one American among the 300 million of us — who is not to blame for the state of the union. Everyone else, each of you, in some small or large way, bears some share of the blame, but not this guy. Not one little bit.

This guy is Barack Obama. He is not the least bit to blame for the dismal state of the U.S. economy. George W. Bush is, for sure, and that evil Dick Cheney, oh, no doubt. House Speaker John A. Boehner — evil, too — is, of course, to blame. But guess what? So is Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, and every Democrat in the House and Senate.

Now, President Truman made it very clear: The buck stops with him. No passing the buck for that guy. But Mr. Obama blames everyone but himself. Mr. Bush, he says, left the nation in a ditch, a deep ditch, and he’s been digging out since he took office. And Congress? Those guys are just plain awful, he says. So mean. Wah, they won’t do anything I want done! Mr. Obama feels so sure about it that he’s basing his re-election campaign on bashing Capitol Hill.

But with the president delivering his State of the Union speech to Congress Tuesday night, let’s pause here to take as hard look at the real state of America, by the numbers, using only cold, hard facts.

The unemployment rate when Mr. Obama was elected was 6.8 percent; today it is 8.5 percent — at least that’s the official number. In reality, the Financial Times writes, “if the same number of people were seeking work today as in 2007, the jobless rate would be 11 percent.”

In addition, there are now fewer payroll jobs in America than there were in 2000 — 12 years ago — and now, 40 percent of those jobs are considered “low paying,” up 10 percent from when President Reagan took office. The number of self-employed has dropped 2 million to 14.5 million in just six years.

Regular gasoline per gallon cost $1.68 in January 2009. Today, it’s $3.39 — that’s a 102 percent increase in just three years. (By the way, if you’re keeping score at home, gas was $1.40 a gallon when George W. Bush took office in 2001, $1.68 when he left office — a 20 percent increase.)

Electricity bills have also skyrocketed, with households now paying a record $1,420 annually on average, up some $300.

Some 48 percent of all Americans — 146.4 million — are considered by the Census Bureau either as “low-income” or living in poverty, up 4 million from when Mr. Obama took office; 57 percent of all children in America now live in such homes.

Since December 2008, a month before Mr. Obama took office, food-stamp use has increased 46 percent. Total spending has more than doubled in just four years to a record high of $75 billion. In 2011, more than 46 million people — about one in seven Americans — got food stamps. That’s 14 million more than when Mr. Obama took office.

Median household income has dropped nearly 7 percent in the last six years, taking inflation into account. What’s more, nearly 20 percent of males age 25 to 34 now live with their parents.

Low- and middle-income Americans 65 and older now hold more than $10,000 in credit card debt, up 26 percent since 2005. The average age of the American car is 10 years; in 1990, it was 6.5 years old (by the way, in 1985, Americans bought 11 million cars; in 2009, less than half that, 5.4 million).

On the macro side, America’s annual budget has jumped to $3.8 trillion — and yet the United States brings in only about $2.1 trillion in revenue. The U.S. trade deficit for 2011 was $558 billion. America’s total public debt stands at $15.23 trillion; in January 2009, the debt was $10.62 trillion. Mr. Obama is on pace to borrow $6.2 trillion in just one term — more debt than was amassed by all presidents from Washington through Bill Clinton combined. The debt is rising by $4.2 billion every day — $175 million per hour, nearly $3 million per minute.

So, America, that is the State of Your Union. But remember, Mr. Obama had not one thing to do with it. So don’t blame him when you go to the polls. Blame everyone else, especially yourself.

The era of big government is back with a vengeance, and has been for the last decade. The negative results are plain to see, and President Barack "The Buck Stops There" Obama is preparing to argue that the answer is…BIGGER government, where the lines between pubic and private enterprise are blurred even further. Heaven help us if we give this man a second term. American liberty hangs in the balance.

In trying to decide who should be our next President, we first have to ask if our current President deserves a second term. This should be based upon his performance in office, not on the political party to which he belongs.

Does Obama deserve a second term ?

Let's look at his record.

I have to start in February 2008, when then candidate Obama brought his campaign roadshow to Ohio. I went to see him speak at Youngstown State University. The three biggest cheers Obama received from Ohioans that day were when he 1) promised to rework NAFTA, 2) promised to close Guantanamo Bay within 12 months, and 3) promised to end the Iraq War in 2009.

Needless to say, none of those things happened. Obama never had any intention of reworking NAFTA. He forgot that promise the minute he left Ohio. As President, Obama has pushed for more free trade agreements, and recently signed free trade agreements with South Korea, Panama, and Columbia. These were the largest free trade deals signed by the United States since NAFTA.

Guantanamo Bay is still open.

The Iraq War ended, but it ended under the timeline established by Obama's predecessor, President Bush. It definitely didn't end in 2009, as Obama promised Ohioans.

Obama lied to my face and to every Ohioan that day in 2008. An inauspicious start. I knew he was lying then, that he was the kind of guy who would tell people whatever they wanted to hear in order to become President. I don't trust those kinds of politicians, which is why I voted for Hillary Clinton in the 2008 Democratic primary. Obama was not only as inexperienced a politico as any who ever ran for President, with zero prior management experience, but he was dishonest as well. I did what I could to defeat him, but alas, it didn't work, and now we're in the toilet.

Obama did keep some of his 2008 promises to Ohioans, like ObamaCare. He also promised to increase federal spending by $874 billion per year that day at Youngstown State, though he didn't put it into those words, because the electorate would have had a negative reaction to that type of honesty. Instead of putting price tags on his spending binge, Obama made all sorts of promises about "investing" in this, that, and almost everything, while never mentioning the costs. This President has never met any spending he doesn't like. Obama has "accomplished" every bit of his spending increase promise, which leads me to the primary reason we shouldn't give Obama a second term in office…he is the most fiscally irresponsible President in American history, bar none.

We have had annual deficits over $1 trillion ever year Obama has been in office. He has run up $4.6 trillion in debt in only 3 years in office. This far outpaces the previous "most fiscally irresponsible" President, George W. Bush, who ran up $4.8 trillion in debt over 8 years in office. Anybody who would vote for a second Obama term after such a record should have his/her head examined. The only people who should be supporting Obama's fiscal recklessness are citizens of China, who stand to gain from our destruction.

And what has all Obama's fiscal insanity accomplished ??? Unemployment is STILL at 8.5%, and it has been over 9% for the majority of Obama's presidency. If you recall, it was 7.6% when Obama took office. We have a huge net job loss during Obama's reign, though to hear him tell it, he is creating all kinds of jobs. That's one reason of many I call him the Great Prevaricator. Unemployment was mostly in the 5% range when Bush was President. Great job, Barry. Not only are you spending us into oblivion and wrecking the future of our country, but we aren't even gaining any temporary benefit from it now. You have managed to be the worst of both worlds. Most amazingly of all, the new ObamaCare spending hasn't even kicked in yet. That starts in full force in 2014. Federal spending is already the highest in the history of the country (barring WWII), and Obama's BIG spending program hasn't even started yet. We are borrowing 43 cents of every dollar the federal government spends WITHOUT ObamaCare spending in place. Imagine what it will be AFTER ObamaCare.

While I'm on the subject of ObamaCare, let's not forget that the Obama admimistration lied about it's costs and effects on the debt. The Great Prevaricator claims ObamaCare will decrease the debt, but he made that calculation by having the CBO measure ten years of revenue against only six years of benefits. That is profoundly dishonest, and sadly typical of the way our government misleads us.

Then the Great Prevaricator has the audacity to pretend increasing taxes on the rich by 5% is going to pay for all his crazy spending increases. That may be his most egregious lie of all. There is NO WAY his numbers come anywhere close to adding up, but I rarely hear a peep about this from the mainstream media. Perhaps there would be a few more media types peeping if 90% of them weren't Democrats. We'd be hearing the truth about the high speed rail to fiscal destruction we are on if the President was a Republican. Of that I have no doubt, but when a Democrat sits in the catbird seat, all we hear about is taxing the rich. I hate to break it to you America, but everyone's taxes will have to go through the roof in one way or another to pay for all this spending and government growth. Those are the facts, even though your illustrious media doesn't want to clue you in to the facts. The prevarication goes far beyond just the White House.

Somebody will also have to explain to me exactly how we are supposed to create jobs in this country going forward when our government spending and taxation levels, our unpaid-for entitlement explosion, and our building Mount Everest of debt are going to drain our pocketbooks and decrease consumer demand for generations to come. How does that work, exactly ??? The unvarnished facts there are, it DOESN'T work. At all. It would be real nice if we had a President who would level with us about these things, rather than the performing circus clown we have in office now.

Just say NO-bama. Change starts at the top. Obama has had his chance, and he failed miserably. It's time to try someone else.

Alternately, you could oppose Mitt Romney and support Obama's reign of destruction because Romney's a Mormon, Romney worked for Bain Capital, or because Romney changed his position on abortion and health care…..but that would make you somewhat of a self-destructive fool, wouldn't it ? We already KNOW Obama is a failure. Romney hasn't had his chance yet. If Romney turned out to be as bad as Obama, we'd be breaking even. But there's a very good chance Romney's policies would be better for the country. I don't know about the rest of you, but when my car falls apart and won't run, I don't try to keep driving it. I get a new one. 2012 is definitely the time for a new car. The Obama-mobile is a lemon.

Newt Watch: With Gingrich leading in the Republican primary polls, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) threatened to release a thousand pages of material from Gingrich's 90's ethics investigation. Unfortunately for Mrs. Pelosi, Gingrich quickly pointed out that it would be a violation of House ethics rules were Pelosi to release that information. Oops. How ironic. Caught with her pants down, Pelosi is now backtracking, and trying to say she didn't say what she said.

I mentioned before on this blog that Gingrich pled to one House ethics violation in the 90's, though Gingrich contended he didn't do anything wrong. There was a question about funding for a class Gingrich taught being a violation of that organization's tax-exempt status. The House ethics investigation was widely reported. What I didn't report before, and what was not widely reported, was that the IRS subsequently cleared the organization, and thus Gingrich, of all wrongdoing. From the Washington Post:

The Internal Revenue Service has cleared an organization of charges that it violated its tax-exempt status when it helped fund a college course taught by former House speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), the organization said yesterday.

The IRS, concluding a three-year investigation, ruled that the Progress and Freedom Foundation's donations to Gingrich were "consistent with its stated exempt purposes," and Gingrich's course and course book "were educational in content."

In its ruling, the IRS said the content of Gingrich's course "was educational and never favored or opposed a candidate for public office."

It said the foundation "did not intervene on behalf of candidates of the Republican Party merely by promoting" themes in the course.

Funny how Pelosi didn't mention that. Must have slipped her mind.

Presidential Polling: With Ohio being a key election swing state, a new Quinnipiac poll is pretty interesting. Quinnipiac has Gingrich leading Romney in the Ohio GOP primary, but both Gingrich and Romney lead Obama in Ohio, though the numbers are very close. The swing state poll also included Florida and Pennsylvania:

Florida: Romney with 45 percent to Obama's 42 percent; Obama at 46 percent to Gingrich's 44 percent.
Ohio: Romney at 43 percent to Obama's 42 percent; Gingrich with 43 percent to Obama's 42 percent.
Pennsylvania: Obama edging Romney 46 – 43 percent; Obama tops Gingrich 48 – 40 percent

As of today, the presidency is in play.

The Class Warfare Speech: President Obama gave his class warfare speech a couple days ago in Kansas. The speech included Obama's recurrent theme that everything is the Republicans fault. Same old, same old. Basically, Obama said America was losing it's middle class, and that Republicans think "we are better off when everyone is left to fend for themselves and play by their own rules". I always thought fending for yourself was a basic requirement in life, but I guess not, according to Obama. The President gave us a brief history lesson on the decline of the American middle class, which he attributed to "inequality"…and the Republicans, of course:

Inequality also distorts our democracy. It gives an outsized voice to the few who can afford high-priced lobbyists and unlimited campaign contributions, and runs the risk of selling out our democracy to the highest bidder. And it leaves everyone else rightly suspicious that the system in Washington is rigged against them – that our elected representatives aren’t looking out for the interests of most Americans.

More fundamentally, this kind of gaping inequality gives lie to the promise at the very heart of America: that this is the place where you can make it if you try. We tell people that in this country, even if you’re born with nothing, hard work can get you into the middle class; and that your children will have the chance to do even better than you. That’s why immigrants from around the world flocked to our shores.

And yet, over the last few decades, the rungs on the ladder of opportunity have grown farther and farther apart, and the middle class has shrunk. A few years after World War II, a child who was born into poverty had a slightly better than 50-50 chance of becoming middle class as an adult. By 1980, that chance fell to around 40%. And if the trend of rising inequality over the last few decades continues, it’s estimated that a child born today will only have a 1 in 3 chance of making it to the middle class.

So, from the 50's until today, the middle class has been steadily slipping away, along with opportunity in America, according to Obama. He contends this has happened because we haven't had ENOUGH government, that the Republicans' "on your own" economic philosophy is the culprit. Does this strike anyone else as being extremely disingenuous, and exactly the opposite of what has really happened over the last 50 years ? Over the last half-century, there has been an unprecedented explosion in government spending, anti-poverty programs, and entitlements. The number of government subsidy programs has been soaring. There hasn't been any "on your own" philosophy in play at all. It's been just the opposite. Bigger and bigger government has been the trend. The size of the federal government has doubled every ten years. That sure doesn't sound like "on your own" to me. If Obama wants to equate a disappearing middle class with the activities of the government, that sure isn't an indictment of small government. It's an indictment of big government, the kind Obama promotes.

What policies would Obama pursue to rid ourselves of this inequality and foundering middle class ? More government, of course. He'd return tax rates to Clintonian levels for the wealthy (which would barely make a dent in the deficit much less end income inequality). He'd have the government invest (spend) more on education, infrastructure, and new technology (I guess this is supposed to stand in opposition to all those crazy right-wingers who are against education, infrastructure, and new technology, though I don't know any of those people, because they don't exist outside Obama's imagination). And he'd create more regulations and more entitlements. That's his entire plan. More of the very same things we've been doing for the last 50 years, the very same things that are bankrupting us. Brilliant.

Four months ago, one of the largest Tea Party groups, Freedomworks, created a Tea Party Debt Commission to address the red ink in which this country is drowning. Because our current non-leader is doing nothing but fiddling while Rome burns, I'm happy to present the results of the Tea Party's work, the Tea Party Budget.

Here's what the Tea Party Budget will do to our debt picture in comparison to non-leader Obama's non-plan, and in comparison to the House GOP plan.

The ten year Tea Party Budget plan would balance the budget in four years, and then start paying off the debt, reducing it to 75% of GDP by 2021 (as opposed to non-leader Obama's Greece-like 120%). Gone would be the trillion+ dollar deficits. Gone would be America's high-speed rail to fiscal destruction. Gone would be the crippling of our children's futures.

And the Tea Party does it without raising taxes.

Here are some of the features:

“Cuts, caps, and balances” federal spending.

Balances the budget in four years, and keeps it balanced, without tax hikes.

Closes an historically large budget gap, equal to almost one-tenth of our economy.

Reduces federal spending by $9.7 trillion over the next 10 years, as opposed to the President’s plan to increase spending by $2.3 trillion.

Shrinks the federal government from 24 percent of GDP — a level exceeded only in World War II— to about 16 percent, in line with the postwar norm.

Stops the growth of the debt, and begins paying it down, with a goal of eliminating it within thisgeneration.To achieve these goals, our plan, among other things:

Repeals ObamaCare in toto.

Eliminates four Cabinet agencies — Energy, Education, Commerce, and HUD — and reduces or privatizes many others, including EPA, TSA, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac.

Ends farm subsidies, government student loans, and foreign aid to countries that don’t support us— luxuries we can no longer afford.

Saves Social Security and greatly improves future benefits by shifting ownership and control from government to individuals, through new SMART Accounts.

Gives Medicare seniors the right to opt into the Congressional health care plan.

Suspends pension contributions and COLAs for Members of Congress, whenever the budget is in deficit.

The Tea Party budget contains a Balanced Budget Amendment to prevent future Obama-like non-leaders from embarking on courses of fiscal lunacy. It makes the Bush tax cuts permanent.

Here's a very brief description of what is wrong with our federal government:

At the root of these problems is our own federal government — its size, its reach, and many of its policies. Washington is simply too big. Our government is doing too many things it can’t do well, or shouldn’t do at all, with money it doesn’t have. We are borrowing 43 cents of every dollar we spend. Waste and duplication abound. A report published this past March by the Government Accountability Office counted no fewer than 47 job training programs, 56 financial literacy programs, 80 economic development programs, 18 food assistance programs, 20 programs for the homeless, 82 teacher-quality programs spread across 10 agencies, and more than 2,100 data centers. All told, we have nearly 2,200 federal programs. What human being could ever know or monitor them all? Who’s minding this mess?

Perhaps the best summation of this lamentable state of affairs came at our field hearing in Indianapolis,from a young lady named Chloe Minor, age 15: “Government today is making a mess of things. My generation has absolutely no say in the matter. Each of us owes over $44,000 to pay off the national debt. It is obvious to me what is needed in this country is some teenage supervision!”

Yes, when our federal government acts more irresponsibly than any random 10-year old, perhaps teenage supervision is called for. The federal government is a monstrous bureaucratic maze of waste, propped up solely by the continuing rape of hard-working taxpayers. There will NEVER be enough money to feed the ravenous maw of ideologically-driven non-leaders like Obama. The only sane course of action is to rein in our own government. Otherwise, we're headed for the same fiscal collapse that is now threatening Europe. Who could possibly want to follow that path ?

Contrast the Tea Party budget with the failure of the Not-So-Super Committee's weak efforts:

..if the Super Committee succeeds, it will reduce spending by about $1.2 trillion over the next decade, from a steeply rising baseline. Our plan, by contrast, would reduce spending by eight times that amount, $9.7 trillion. Or to put it in percentageterms, assuming they meet their full charge without gimmicks or double-counting, the Super Committee plan would slightly reduce ten-year spending from $44 trillion to $43 trillion, a 2.3 percent trim. Our plan would reduce ten-year spending from $44 trillion to $34 trillion, a 23 percent reduction.

This is what is needed to get our nation off the financial suicide train.

The Tea Party budget was based upon principles in the Tea Party's Contract From America platform, as follows:

1. Protect the Constitution
2. Reject Cap & Trade
3. Demand a Balanced Budget
4. Enact Fundamental Tax Reform
5. Restore Fiscal Responsibility & Constitutionally Limited Government
6. End Runaway Government Spending
7. Defund, Repeal, & Replace Government-Run Health Care
8. Pass an ‘All-of-the-Above’ Energy Policy
9. Stop the Pork
10.Stop the Tax Hikes

All the savings details are too long for me to list here, but you can find all the details at the Tea Party Budget link above.

Because no balanced budget or debt reduction is possible without touching the third rail of politics, the Tea Party budget does address Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid. Here's what they do with Social Security:

The Challenge. Social Security is going broke, and beginning about 25 years from now will only have enough funds to pay about 75 percent of promised benefits. Benefits are also comparatively meager, and cannot be passed down to one’s heirs, should one die before reaching retirement age.

Our Answer. Successful experiments have proved that we can make this program sustainable and actually improve benefits. How? By harnessing the power of compound interest.Three decades ago, Chile embarked on a bold transformation of its retirement security system. Today, that system is the envy of the world, giving seniors far better benefits than the old, government-run system ever did. Soon after the Chilean reform got underway, three Texas county governments opted out of Social Security in favor of personal accounts. Today, county workers in those three jurisdictions retire with much more money and have significantly more generous death and disability supplemental benefits than do Social Security participants. And those three counties—unlike almost all others in the U.S.—face no long-term unfunded pension liabilities. All state and local governments should have the option of opting into the “Galveston model.” And all young people should have the option of opting into a better future with personal accounts like those found in Chile. The Tea Party Budget embraces the Chilean/Galveston approach, specifically by enacting a modified version of Rep. Jeff Flake’s (R-AZ) SMART Act. That bold reform allows new workers born after 1981 to invest one-half of their payroll taxes (7.65%) in a SMART Account, which they can use to fund their retirement and health care costs in retirement. If they prefer, they can give up their account and opt back into traditional Social Security at retirement.Thanks to this modern approach, our plan:

Improves benefits.
Doesn’t increase the retirement age.
Doesn’t means-test benefits.
Doesn’t cut benefits for people in or nearing retirement.
Doesn’t touch the existing Social Security Disability Insurance program.
Shores up the long-term solvency of traditional Social Security by slowing the growth of benefits (with “progressive price indexing”).
This reform — which we expect to be very popular — reduces federal payroll tax receipts by about $500 billion over the ten-year period—an excellent investment on a better system, and one that is fully paid for in this plan.

This would mark the beginning of the end for the government-run S.S. scam. No longer would the government be able to steal your retirement funds, then turn around and jack up your payroll taxes in Ponzi-like fashion to cover up their misdeeds. I not only say "yes", I say "hell yes !"

There's lot more to say here, but this is getting rather lengthy. I urge you all to read the details of the Tea Party budget. It's the best plan I've heard to date for fixing this mess, though there's still some room for improvement. Maybe I'll address more aspects of the budget in a future post.

One other interesting note. After the Tea Party produced their plan, they were going to present their recommendations to Congress…until the Senate Rules Committee, headed up by Chuck The Schmuck Schumer (D-NY), took away their microphones and locked them out minutes before the hearing was scheduled to start. Fascist jerk.

While the Occupy movement sits around in drum circles spouting inanities like "Capitalism Is Evil" and "Abolish Money", the Tea Party is actually doing work and coming up with solutions. The only problem I see with the Tea Party people is, there aren't enough of them…YET.

In reference to cutting government spending, President Obama likes to say we should use a "scalpel" instead of a "machete".

Obama couldn't be more wrong. We should be using a howitzer instead of a machete on government spending. Using a scalpel just ain't gonna git her done, because we're on an unsustainable fiscal path straight to economic hell.

Unfortunately, we have two political parties of big spenders. We just witnessed the complete failure of 12 members of those big spending parties (the Not-So-Super Committee) to agree on $1.2 trillion in future cuts to future spending increases. The game those two parties played was, they both made offers they knew the other side would reject, then after the Super Committee failed, they both hoped to gain politically by blaming the other side. This is how our leading politicians act when the future of America is on the line. They look after themselves and their party instead of the people. If the two parties, can't even agree on something so minor, what hope is there they will ever implement the changes necessary to put this country back on a sustainable fiscal path ?

It seems the worst thing that can happen in Washington D.C. is for one party to gain complete power.

When Obama and the Democrats gained complete control in 2009-2010, they rammed through unprecedented spending increases and created the largest new entitlement program (ObamaCare) since the creation of Medicare in 1965. They did this with the full knowledge that our current entitlement programs were unsustainable. They did this despite warnings from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) that ObamaCare would bend the health care cost curve up instead of down. They did this despite the fact that Medicare was already our largest unsustainable entitlement liability going forward, the single biggest future government expense. ObamaCare will add trillions in new spending, and add tens of millions of people to the Medicaid rolls when the states are already struggling to pay for existing Medicaid spending. The Democrats did this when the country was in a major recession with unemployment at 9%. The Democrats made our unsustainable entitlement picture even more unsustainable, and they did it against the will of the American public. The Democrats also made trillion dollar plus deficits routine, and Obama has run up debt faster than any other American president in history. We just passed the $15 trillion debt mark, with no signs of the red ink slowing. Democrat control was a complete and utter failure.

Prior to Obama, we had President Bush and the Republicans in complete control from 2001-2006. What were the results when the so-called "conservative" party was in power ? Massive spending increases, an unnecessary war, and…a new entitlement program (Medicare Part D, the Prescription Drug program) !!! Defense and social spending both rose rapidly under Bush, and Bush accumulated $5 trillion in debt over eight years. Federal spending skyrocketed during the Bush years. If this is what we're calling "conservative" these days, no thank you. Real inflation-adjusted military spending is twice what it was a decade ago, yet the "conservative" Republicans are resisting major defense cuts, as are the Pentagon and the Obama administration. The leading Republican presidential contenders are all acting like hawks, and so is the Obama administration.

It's time for a major reality check for both political parties. While they play their partisan reindeer games, America is going down the tubes. We literally can't afford all this government spending any longer. We can't tax our way out of the problem, and we sure as hell can't "tax the rich" to pay for it all, which is the canard the Democrats keep pimping. Reversing the Bush tax cuts for the rich would add maybe $75 billion in new revenue over the next year. How does that address our $1.2 trillion deficit ? It doesn't. The Democrats are talking economic gobbledygook, and even though the American people agree with increasing taxes on the wealthy, it doesn't get us anywhere near to solving our economic sustainability problem. Not to mention that increasing taxes during this Great Recession would be galactically stupid and take even more money out of the hands of struggling American taxpayers and job creators. Lots of those "rich" people are business owners. The Democrats need to be reminded that those are the people who employ workers. Putting more expenses on their backs will only make matters worse. We're losing enough jobs as it is already.

It's time to refocus our Defense budget on what it is supposed to be for, DEFENSE…of America, not the defense of every country around the world. We can't afford to be the world's policeman any longer. This should be pretty obvious when the federal government is borrowing 43 cents of every dollar it spends. We can't justify spending $900 billion on the military when our Social Security and Medicare programs aren't funded. What does that say about our priorities ? The Republicans need to get off the neocon bandwagon already and admit this. It's indefensible, no pun intended.

The only way to get spending in line is to address the main drivers of current and future spending, and those are – Defense, Medicare/Medicaid, Social Security, and interest payments. Here is a pie chart of the 2012 federal budget:

From the above chart, we see that defense, entitlements (health care/pensions/welfare), and interest consume a whopping 88% of the federal budget. Even if Rick Perry could remember all three of the federal departments he wants to close, that 88% in spending would still remain, and nothing would change. Interest payments may seem relatively small at 6%, but they are growing so fast due to our massive deficits/debt that if we don't get our budget under control, the CBO estimates interest payments will soar to $800 billion per year by 2020. That is a tremendous amount of taxpayer money to flush down the toilet, money that could be used for other things, such as Social Security, Medicare, etc. Our unrestrained debt is stealing the future away. Obama and Congress are doing a great job, but only if the goal IS to destroy the country. Otherwise, we need some major changes, and we need them very soon. It's a shame that all we seem to get is the same old partisan rhetoric leading to nowhere, the same old false choices, the same old entrenched interests, the same old choices of Democrat poison or Republican poison. I'd say we deserve better than that, but I'm not sure we do.

Some day people may realize that the libertarian impulses were right, but I fear it will be too late by then. Many people seem to believe the ideas of limiting government and maximizing liberty are too radical, which actually makes me laugh (instead of cry) considering how extremely radical our current fiscal picture has become. How can things get more radical than pursuing policies of national economic suicide ??? It boggles my mind, as does the massive entitlement mentality that has taken over much of this country. We've become warring special interests instead of a united people. That is something else that has to change before we can hope to address our problems. I'm not optimistic.

Good luck, America. You're going to need it.

As expected, the Super Committtee failed. Gee, what a shocker. This is about as surprising as the sun coming up this morning. Here's part of the statement from the chairs of the Super Failures, congratulating themselves for their failed work and stressing their commitment to future failed efforts:

"After months of hard work and intense deliberations, we have come to the conclusion today that it will not be possible to make any bipartisan agreement available to the public before the committee’s deadline.

"Despite our inability to bridge the committee's significant differences, we end this process united in our belief that the nation's fiscal crisis must be addressed and that we cannot leave it for the next generation to solve. We remain hopeful that Congress can build on this committee’s work and can find a way to tackle this issue in a way that works for the American people and our economy.

"We are deeply disappointed that we have been unable to come to a bipartisan deficit reduction agreement, but as we approach the uniquely American holiday of Thanksgiving, we want to express our appreciation to every member of this committee, each of whom came into the process committed to achieving a solution that has eluded many groups before us. Most importantly, we want to thank the American people for sharing thoughts and ideas and for providing support and good will as we worked to accomplish this difficult task.

That's sweet, Supers. As to the committee's "significant differences", there is basically only one I'd call a deal breaker. Democrats wanted a trillion dollar tax increase, and Republicans didn't. The Republicans offered two deals (a plan, and a backup plan) that contained revenue increases of hundreds of billions of dollars. The Republicans bent some on their no-tax pledge, but it wasn't enough for the Democrats. They wanted the big tax enchilada or nothing. As for the Super plan of the Democrats, they proposed the same "grand bargain" plan Republicans have been rejecting for the last year, and then they didn't budge an inch. The end.

Now we get to watch the two dysfunctional political parties blame each other and try to use the Super failure to gain a political edge for the coming elections. Oh joy.

The good news, if there can be such a thing as good news when our country is on the road to economic ruin, is that there are still spending cuts on the table. This is called sequestration. As part of the debt ceiling deal, automatic spending cuts of $1 trillion take place in the likely event of a Super flameout of the Superfriends Committee. These cuts consist of half in entitlement cuts, and half in defense cuts. Neither the Democrats nor the Republicans really want the sequestration cuts to occur, so it will be interesting watching them try to snake their way out of them. President Obama, who provided no leadership during the Super Committee discussions other than the normal and endless Democrat cries to "tax the rich", is now saying he will veto attempts to stop the sequestration cuts.

If you're counting, we now have the following debt reduction committee results to date under the current administration:

1) President announces Simpson/Bowles deficit reduction commission – The commission worked for a year to come up with it's deficit reduction measures, and then both Congress and the President completely ignored them.
2) Debt ceiling deal – Produced the Super Committee to come up with future cuts in spending increases in exchange for raising the debt ceiling
3) Super Committee fails to do it's job and agree to cuts

Great job, Congress. No wonder your approval rating is 12%. Btw, who are these 12% who actually think Congress is doing a good job ? Those folks must be scary stupid.

Meanwhile, the United States Of America goes $4 billion deeper into debt…every…single…day.

But when it comes time for Congress to spend money, well hell, money's no object, whether they have it or not (and they don't).

Who do these sons of b*tches think they are ?

Why do we let them keep stealing money from our children and grandchildren ???

What kind of people does that make us ???

Obama Fails Geography And Economics:

Here's President Obama answering a question about budget cuts during a press conference in Honolulu, Hawaii last week:

"When I meet with world leaders, what's striking — whether it's in Europe or here in Asia — the kinds of fundamental reforms and changes, both on the revenue side and the public pension side, that other countries are having to make are so much more significant than what we need to do in order to get our books in order".

Three things. First – Hawaii, our 50th state (out of 57 or 58 states, according to Obama), is obviously not in Asia. You'd think Obama would know this, seeing as how he was born in Hawaii and lived there for about 13 years. Second – if Obama believes the needed U.S. budget changes to "get our books in order" are not so "significant"…then why can't we make them ? Third – how scary is it that we have a President who believes $1.3 trillion deficits and $15 trillion in national debt is not "significant" ? The federal government is borrowing 43 cents out of every dollar it spends. I'd sure call that significant.

I hope the Birthers don't start citing this as Obama admitting he was born in Asia. As Obama's grandmother has already stated, Obama was born in Kenya (which must be somewhere outside Honolulu). In related news, President George W. Bush, the famous Texan, was born in Connecticut. Senator John McCain, Obama's 2008 presidential opponent, was born in the Panama Canal zone, and was born again hard in Vietnam. Obama's prior military experience consisted of playing with a G.I. Joe doll as a child.
===

Obama's Head Start BS:

As part of his "we can't wait" initiative to bypass the "do-nothing" Republicans in Congress, Obama has taken the initiative to implement a Head Start program:

“The Republicans in Washington are trying to gut our investments in education. … We can’t wait to give our youngest children the same basic opportunities we give all children,” [Obama] told the assembled cameras and reporters.

White House officials billed the campaign event as another opportunity to highlight the 2012 campaign’s ‘We Can’t Wait” theme. That theme seeks to portray the president as actively helping Americans while partisan, self-interested Republicans block beneficial government action.

There's one teensy, weensy little problem with Obama's "it's the Republicans fault" narrative here. The Head Start program Obama is talking about was already made law…by the Republicans:

[Obama is] actually implementing a modest children’s education reform signed into law by Republican President George W. Bush in 2007.

The event “is a photo-op for the implementation of a law that has already passed,” said John Hood, director of the John Locke Foundation in North Carolina.

The Bush-signed reform is titled the “Improving Head Start for School Readiness Act.” The reform law was unanimously approved by the [Republican-controlled] Senate and overwhelmingly supported by the [Republican-controlled] House of Representatives 381 to 36, before it was signed by Bush in December 2007…The reform has been underway for more than three years, and the first changes to grant holders [they may be changed if they underperform] may be announced next month.

Oops. Another perfectly good Obama fiction goes out the window.

But at least the little children are going to be helped, right ?

Not according to a study conducted by the Obama administration:

“The advantages children gained during their Head Start and age four years yielded only a few statistically significant differences in outcomes at the end of 1st grade for the sample as a whole,” concluded a Health and Human Services study of almost 5,000 kids. The study, released by the Obama administration in January 2010, is titled the “Head Start Impact Study.”

The federal government has spent more than $100 billion on the program since 1965

A 2006 study by the Brookings Institute reached this conclusion:

"Head Start "has no demonstrable impact on [students'] academic, socio-emotional, or health status at the end of first grade. That's right. If you were a mother who lost the lottery, couldn't get your child into Head Start, and had to care for her at home, she was no worse off at the end of first grade than she would have been had she gotten into Head Start."

Nothing like wasting a $100 billion on a program that doesn't work.

But these are mere facts, and we don't need no stinking facts when Obama has an election to win and Americans to mislead.

===
Gabrielle Giffords' Great Idea:

A few days before Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was wounded in an attack by a crazed liberal anarchist metalhead druggie burnout (in other words, it was Sarah Palin's fault), Rep. Giffords proposed that Congress slash it's pay by 5%. Now, she is reminding the Super Committee of that proposal as the Committee discusses ways to trim $1.2 trillion from future spending increases. Cutting the pay of Congress would save $50 million over ten years.

In a letter to the debt-reduction supercommittee organized by Giffords’ Washington office, 25 lawmakers urged the supercommittee to cut lawmakers’ salaries to reduce the federal deficit.

The letter, sent Thursday and signed by 11 Republicans and 14 Democrats, said a paycut would be a “commonsense” way to cut the required $1.5 trillion from the federal budget, as well as “a powerful message to the American people that Congress should not be exempt from the sacrifices it will take to balance the budget.”

Kudos to Mrs. Gifford. I would go a bit further. As someone else said recently (can't remember who it was), if you want Congress to balance the budget, write a law that says Congress doesn't get paid UNLESS it balances the budget. That's the least we should expect from them. Let's put that referendum on the ballot in all 50 states and see what the voters have to say about it.

Because I have spent the last two posts going after Newt Gingrich to an extent, in fairness I am providing a link to Gingrich's website, where he answers recent charges made against him. I report, you decide (hmmm. Where have I heard that phrase before ? Sounds familiar).
===
Larry Elder Treats Chris Matthews Like Chris Matthews And Every Other MSNBC Host Treats Conservative Guests…And Matthews Doesn't Like It One Bit:

Payback is a you-know-what, Mr. Matthews.
===
House Rejects Balanced Budget Amendment (link):

The U.S. House of Representatives rejected a proposal Friday to amend the Constitution to require a balanced budget, seen by many as the only way to force lawmakers to hold the fiscal line and reverse the flow of federal red ink.

The 261-165 vote, though a clear majority, was 23 votes short of the two-thirds required to advance a constitutional amendment. Democrats voted overwhelmingly against it, apparently swayed by the arguments of their leaders that a balanced budget requirement would force Congress to make devastating cuts to social programs.

Four Republicans joined the Democrats in opposing the measure: House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), House Rules Committee Chairman David Dreier (R-Calif.), Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.) and and Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas.).

$15 trillion in national debt, annual trillion dollar deficits, and Congress doesn't have the votes for a balanced budget amendment. Yet another sign of our destruction.

I expect Democrats to vote against fiscal sanity, but….did I see that right ? Rep. Ryan voted AGAINST the balanced budget amendment ? What's up with that ? Here's Ryan's explanation:

Ryan said he was worried the version of the amendment could pave the way for more taxes, instead of reducing spending, to balance the budget, The Hill reported.

“Spending is the problem, yet this version of the BBA makes it more likely taxes will be raised, government will grow, and economic freedom will be diminished,” Ryan said. “Without a limit on government spending, I cannot support this amendment.”

Can't say I agree with Ryan's logic there. Tax increases may be bad, but this out-of-control debt bomb is far worse.

This is the first balanced budget amendment vote in 16 years. In 1995, a balanced budget amendment passed the House, when Republicans and 72 Democrats voted for it. That effort failed to pass the Senate by one vote, thanks to Democrat obstruction. Think of how much better off this country would be today if we had passed that amendment in 1995, and had not accumulated $10 trillion in new debt since. Thanks for nothing, Dumb-o-crats. This time around, only 25 Democrats in the House voted for a balanced budget amendment. I guess the Democratic party prefers national bankruptcy. In fact, I think that should be Obama's 2012 campaign slogan. DEBT FOREVER ! VOTE OBAMA.
===
White House Shooter Made Videos:
I've been wondering why Oscar Ortega-Hernandez, the man suspected of shooting at the White House in an assassination attempt (his bullet was stopped by bulletproof glass), hated Obama so much. Ortega-Hernandez has referred to himself as a modern day Jesus, and called Obama the anti-Christ. As it turns out, Ortega-Hernandez made a video in hopes of being on Oprah's show:

VIDEO: Alleged White House Shooter Oscar Ortega-Hernandez: MyFoxDC.com

I wonder where our modern day Jesus/assassin got that "war for oil" stuff ??? Any liberals out there wish to hazard a guess ? I know how concerned y'all are about political rhetoric leading to violence.

In related news, the Occupy San Diego dumbsh*ts held a moment of silence to express "solidarity" with the shooter, because authorities thought Ortega-Hernandez may have been hanging out with the Occupy D.C. crowd (which seems now not to be the case).

Real brainiacs, those Occupiers. The Occupier arrest count now tops 3,600.
===
My, How That Hope Did Change:

Here's candidate Obama in 2008, castigating Bush (justifiably) for Bush's debt accumulation:

"The problem is that the way Bush has done it over the last eight years is to take out a credit card from the Bank of China in the name of our children, driving up our national debt from $5 trillion for the first 42 presidents, [and] number 43 added $4 trillion dollars by his lonesome, so that we now have over $9 trillion of debt."

Obama called Bush's spending and debt runup "unpatriotic" then, but now he calls Republicans unpatriotic because they won't spend and runup even more debt. Go figure. Obama has added $4.5 trillion to the debt in less than three years. It took Bush nearly eight years to do the same. If the debt trajectory continues and Obama is elected to a second term, he will add more to the national debt than every other President in U.S. history COMBINED. That is called epic fail, my friends.

In my ongoing quest to educate liberals, I have often pointed out a basic economic point – increasing taxes on businesses causes job losses. Therefore, I keep advocating massive business tax cuts to stimulate job creation in this country and end the recession. For some reason, liberals keep arguing with me, though for the life of me I can't figure out what they are arguing with. Here is yet more proof of what I'm talking about:

Stryker, the Kalamazoo-based maker of artificial hips and knees, will cut 5% of its global workforce by the end of next year to reduce costs in the face of new fees on device makers required by the U.S. health care law [aka, ObamaCare].

The job cuts will reduce annual pretax operating costs by more than $100 million beginning in 2013, when the medical-device excise tax is scheduled to take effect, Stryker said Thursday in a statement. Stryker had more than 20,000 employees as of Dec. 31, according to Bloomberg News data.

Liberals run around crowing about poverty, greed, taxing the rich, fair shares, income disparity, class warfare, etc, etc, etc., but the best anti-poverty program ever invented is called a J-O-B, and liberal tax and spend policies INHIBIT job creation.

While I'm on the subject of ObamaCare, here's another unintended effect of that ill-conceived legislation:

Gallup reports that from the first quarter of 2010 (when Obama signed Obamacare into law) to the third quarter of this year, 2 percent of American adults lost their employer sponsored health insurance. In other words, about 4.5 million Americans lost their employer-sponsored insurance over a span of just 18 months.

This is not what the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) had predicted would happen. Rather, the CBO had predicted that Obamacare would increase the number of people with employer-sponsored insurance by now. It had predicted that, under Obamacare, 6 million more Americans would have employer-sponsored insurance in 2011 than in 2010…

“The nation's largest private employer, Wal-Mart, announced in October that new part-time employees who work less than an average of 24 hours a week would no longer be able to get their health insurance from the company. Wal-Mart laid out several other cuts to its health insurance offerings, including some workers’ ability get coverage for their spouses. Other companies have already made and will likely continue to make similar changes to their health insurance benefits….

“If Wal-Mart's decision is a precursor of how employers intend to manage their healthcare costs, the downward trend in employer-based healthcare will likely continue.”

So in addition to costing about $2.5 trillion over its real first decade (2014 to 2023), looting nearly $1 trillion from Medicare over that time (according to the CBO), forcing Americans to buy government-approved health insurance under penalty of law, and amassing unprecedented power and money in Washington at the expense of Americans’ liberty — if Obamacare stays on the books, you may like your health care plan, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you can keep your health care plan.

This is yet another example of liberals loading costs onto the American private business sector, with predictable negative side effects. It also explains why the Obama administration has granted 1800 waivers to companies excluding them from ObamaCare regulations. If ObamaCare was actually helping businesses to compete in this country, that would not be necessary. Our brilliant President and his equally brilliant Democratic Congress actually designed a health care law that HURTS business and inhibits job creation, right smack dab in the middle of what Obama himself calls "the worst recession since the Great Depression".

Add this to the fact that Obama has run up a record amount of debt, with projected $1 trillion deficits as far as the eye can see, and my only question becomes…is Obama TRYING to destroy the country, or is he merely the dumbest and worst President in American history ??? In either case, unless we have a desire to commit national suicide, we better not elect him to a second term, and we better get rid of all the anti-business Democrats in Congress while we're at it. If there was ever a time for America to pursue pro-business job creation and economic growth policies, it's now. Unfortunately, Democrats are standing directly in the way, blocking the road to prosperity. There is no valid economic reason for it, which I suppose explains all the class warfare doubletalk Obama and the Democrats are engaging in. They would rather propagandize the country to win the next election than implement policies to get us out of economic flatline. They complain about jobs going overseas, while at the same time promoting tax increases, regulations, and spending policies that will send more jobs overseas. It's shameful, and it's far past time for somebody to call them out on it.

The Lord Of The Flies movement takes baby steps…

All Animals Are Equal, But Some Are More Equal Than Others: “We need to limit the amount of food we’re putting out to curb the influx of derelicts.” – OWS kitchen volunteer Rafael Moreno

All Animals Are Equal, But Some Are More Equal Than Others, Part II: "If you’re going to come here and get our food, bedding and clothing, have books and medical supplies for no charge, they need to give back. There’s a lot of takers here and they feel entitled. – OWS protestor Lauren Digiola (link)

Yes, we certainly can't have any entitlement-seekers infecting the Occupy movement of…um…entitlement-seekers. Gotta keep those losers out. The stuff the Occupiers have is THEIRS, dammit !!! They can't be expected to redistribute THEIR wealth to the less fortunate !!! We Are The 99%…except for those homeless derelicts !!!
===
Robbing Peter To Pay Paul: "With nine days to go before the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) faces default, a Senate committee on Wednesday is expected to vote on a new plan to address the crisis. … The legislation would … provide USPS billions in cash from taxpayers. Specifically, it would hand over some $7 billion in supposedly 'surplus' contributions the government has made to the Federal Employees Retirement System. Such temporary surpluses, however, are common and are typically erased by normal financial swings or amortization over time. Transfer of the entire pot to USPS leaves taxpayers vulnerable if USPS later falls behind (which, given its condition, is not unlikely) while allowing needed structural reforms to be delayed. … USPS, and mail delivery itself, faces an uncertain future. Comprehensive change is needed to prevent massive losses and virtual bankruptcy. The reforms being considered by the Senate, however, fall short — while putting taxpayers even more at risk for the consequences of failure." –The Heritage Foundation's James Gattuso

I call this the Social Security financial oversight model. When the government sees a pile of money, it can't keep it's grubby mitts off of it. Btw, there is about $17.5 trillion sitting in the retirement funds of Americans if you add all of them together. How much do you think the government money-grubbers would love to gain control of that pile of cash ??? You'd have to subtract the $2.5 trillion sitting in the Social Security Trust Fund from the $17.5 trillion amount, because those SS funds don't really exist (the government already "borrowed" that money), but still, that leaves $15 trillion in our retirement funds, which is almost the exact amount of the national debt. When the cash-strapped government is already thinking about "borrowing" money from the pensions of federal employees, how long will it be until your IRA's and 401K's are taken over ? Lest you think I'm engaging in some fanciful paranoid delusion…the Obama administration already has plans to takeover your 401K's, which it could then "borrow" from. Beware.
===
National Debate Loser: And what can we say about Rick Perry ? Trying to list the federal departments he would eliminate, Perry had an epic debate brain fart instead…

"Commerce, Education and the, uh, what's the third one there? Let's see…The third agency of government I would — I would do away with, Education, uh, the, uh, Commerce and, let's see,…I can't. The third one, I can't. Sorry. Oops."

Doh !!!! I think the third government department Perry was going for there is Lingerie, or maybe Junior Miss. Commodore Perry's presidential battleship may have just sunk.
===
When Life Gets Tough, Make Things Up: "From a policy standpoint I think it's really important to know that President Obama was a job creator from day one. Now, was the ditch that we were in so deep that when you're talking to people and they still don't have a job, that's any consolation to them? No. But I'll tell you this: If President Obama and the House congressional Democrats had not acted, we would be at 15 percent unemployment." –House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)

For the record, under Obama, the alleged "job creator from day one", we have lost about 2.4 million jobs, and nobody outside Pelosi's vivid imagination believes unemployment would have been at 15 percent without Obama's failed stimulus package. Pelosi is a perpetual brain fart.
===
Top 1% Denier: Here's an exchange between left-wing filmmaker Michael Moore and a CBS reporter…

Reporter: How are you helping these [Occupy protesters]?
Moore: Because I do well, I want taxes raised on people who do well, including mine.
Reporter: How are you helping these people with your $50 million?
Moore: I don't have $50 million.
Reporter: That's what it's rumored you are worth.
Moore: Well, really. Is that what you do is sell rumors?
Reporter: We're asking you for the truth.
Moore: You're just punk media is all you are. You lie. You lie to people. Stop lying to people. Stop lying.
Reporter: Are you not part of the 1 percent?
Moore: Just don't lie, okay?

I'm still waiting for the FIRST left-wing multi-millionaire like Moore to give their own personal riches away for the "cause". When they start doing that, I'll start taking them more seriously, and not a moment before. Before the wealth redistributors start spending other people's money, how about they spend their own ???
===
Unitary Executive Back In Style: "If the Republican Congress won't join us, we're going to continue to act on our own to make the changes that we can to bring relief to middle-class families and those aspiring to get in the middle class". – VP Joe Biden

Whatever you say, Joe, but what about those 15 jobs-producing bills the Republican House has already passed that are sitting in the Senate waiting for the Democrats to bring them up ? In addition, why does every Democrat "jobs package" have to end up costing the taxpayers between $450 billion and $1 trillion ? Do Democrats simply not know our national debt is about to pass $15 trillion any day now ? Maybe their entire party has had a brain fart. The Democrats idea of stimulus is to take a bucket of water out of one end of the pool and pour it into the other end. They seem to believe they can fill up the pool this way. It won't ever work, because it CAN'T work. The real answer is to take money out of the government's hands and put it back into the hands of the private sector where it can do some good. The private sector is where growth comes from, not the government.
===
And To Think, THIS Is the Guy They Call The Father Of The Democratic Party: "We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt." – Thomas Jefferson

While I'm quoting Jefferson, who in today's society believes these words ?…

"Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition". – Thomas Jefferson

Not the political left, I can tell you that for sure.

Here's more of Peter Schiff conversing with the OWSer crowd in New York:

I don't agree with everything Schiff said there, but most of it is exactly right. FDR didn't cause the Great Depression. It started a few years before he even took office. There is, however, a great deal of evidence that his policies interfered with economic recovery (read The Forgotten Man by Amity Shlaes, among other sources). What ended the Great Depression was WWII, not any of FDR's economic policies. Speaking of FDR policies, one New Deal policy was the creation of the secondary mortgage market. That started in 1938 with the creation of, drumroll please, Fannie Mae. Fannie created the mortgage-backed security in 1981. Fannie Mae, via the government, started the housing casino market on Wall Street. How'd those government policies work out ???

Here's something else interesting about Peter Schiff. As he tried to tell the OWSers, he warned of the real estate implosion before it happened:

In an August 2006 interview he said: "The United States economy is like the Titanic and I am here with the lifeboat trying to get people to leave the ship… I see a real financial crisis coming for the United States." On December 31, 2006 in debate on Fox News, Schiff forecast that "what's going to happen in 2007" is that "real estate prices are going to come crashing back down to Earth". Schiff is one of a minority of economists credited with accurately predicting the financial crisis of 2007–2010 while "nearly all [macroeconomists] failed to foresee the recession despite plenty of warning signs".

Bingo. Schiff was right on the money.

What does Schiff see coming in the future for the United States ? That can be summed up in one word – hyperinflation. It's hard to argue with him. The only question is when it will happen. The main reason will be our debt:

In a March 2009 speech Schiff said that it would be impossible for the U.S. debt to China to be repaid unless the U.S. dollar's value is substantially diluted through inflation. In September 2009 Schiff said that "I would not be surprised to see [gold] at $5,000 over the next several years" and that the 2009 stock market rally was a "bear market rally".

Diluting the value of the dollar to pay the debt is commonly called "monetizing" the debt, and I see no other way for us to payoff our debts either, given our current shortsighted debt-advocating government leadership. Unfortunately, monetization means the value of every asset of every citizen in the country becomes worth substantially less. Whatever method of debt repayment is ultimately used, there is no way to payoff the debt that will not extract tens of trillions of dollars from the citizens of this country. We will most likely be substantially poorer in the future. That's why this massive debt runup is a phenomenally bad idea that will harm this country for a generation or more, and that's why Schiff is recommending a gold investment. Gold, unlike our fiat currency, has a tangible value. The price of gold has risen by around 200% over the last 5 years, so Schiff is not the only person who sees the writing on the economic wall.

And as always, anyone who thinks we can fix our economic woes by imposing exorbitant new taxes on corporations and the rich, or by sending ever more of our hard-earned dollars to the government, should have his/her head examined. The biggest effect of those wrongheaded strategies will be more job losses and the further impoverishment of our citizens, exactly what we don't want.

Peter Schiff is a financial expert, the CEO of Euro Pacific Capital Inc. He's been in the financial industry for a very long time, and he's part of the top 1% the Occupy Wall Street protestors are going after. Watch as Schiff goes into the crowd of OWSers and asks them straightforward questions about taxes and business. The lack of straight answers from the OWSers illustrates their simplemindedness. Once you get past their canned talking points, there's nothing else there.

I have to give Schiff credit for walking into that crowd. Brave man. My favorite part was when one of the OWSers finally said 35% was Schiff's "fair share", and Schiff replied, "that would be a huge tax cut for me". Oops. OWSer heads have clearly been stuffed full of economic fairy tales and divisive class warfare rhetoric (see: President Obama and friends). They simply don't have a clue.

Now all liberals reading this can robotically accuse me of acting on behalf of the top 1%, though I have no idea why I would want to do that, being one of the 99% myself. Maybe it's because they believe I hate the poor, or something equally ridiculous. What liberals will never do is attempt to understand HOW JOBS ARE CREATED, or admit that I might have a legitimate desire to see them created to benefit the people, and that's what informs my thinking on tax policy. That would be waaaay too honest for liberals. After all, it's harder to demonize someone who has good intentions. You must turn them into a devil first. If you don't believe me, read a little of the liberal Blog Of Mass Destruction. That is a prime example of persuasion via demonization. It's basically an endless stream of name-calling, negative characterizations, and attribution of bad intent toward anything non-liberal. It's a pure hate-fest.

Leading Democrats have been trying to tell us the government needs to spend a boatload more money to get the nation back to work. Around $450 billion more.

This is from The Hill:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on Wednesday indicated Congress needs to worry about government jobs more than private-sector jobs, and that this is why Senate Democrats are pushing a bill aimed at shoring up teachers and first-responders.

"It's very clear that private-sector jobs have been doing just fine; it's the public-sector jobs where we've lost huge numbers, and that's what this legislation is all about," Reid said on the Senate floor.

Reid reiterated his emphasis on creating government jobs by saying Democrats are looking to "put hundreds of thousands of people back to work teaching children, have more police patrolling our streets, firefighters fighting our fires, doing the rescue work that they do so well … that's our priority."

Reid is talking about the teacher/first responder bill S. 1723, which was part of Obama's jobs bill that was defeated in the Senate.

I have no idea what Reid was smoking when he said "private-sector jobs have been doing just fine". Unemployment was 7.6% when Obama took office. It's 9.1% now, and has been stuck there for months. That's a far cry from "just fine". We've LOST private sector jobs since Obama took office, and private sector job creation is stagnant. Since Obama's stimulus bill was passed in 2009, we've LOST 1.2 million jobs.

Vice President Joe Biden upped the rhetoric on Obama's jobs bill way beyond the pale by playing the RAPE card. You won't believe this:

…on Tuesday during a speech at the University of Pennsylvania [Biden] argued that another round of government spending was needed to prevent sexual assaults. “It’s not temporary [administration’s proposed stimulus] when that 911 call comes in and a woman’s being raped, if a cop shows up in time to prevent the rape. It’s not temporary to that woman.” Then in the same speech he wished Republicans were themselves rape victims. “I wish they had some notion of what it was like to be on the other side of a gun, or [to have] a 200-pound man standing over you, telling you to submit.”

Freaking…WOW. That's the Vice President Of The United States talking, basically saying Republicans want women to be raped if they don't pass Obama's jobs bill. Politics of fear, anyone ? That's just despicable on Biden's part. Not to mention that police officers are hired from state and local government budgets, not by the federal government. In fact, if we want to keep more police officers on the job in Ohio, we could support Issue 2 in November, which will prevent a repeal of SB5. If that issue doesn't pass, police officers will probably be laid off due to Ohio's budget shortage. Democrats are AGAINST SB5, so…who wants to layoff police officers, Mr. Biden ??? If anybody wants Ohio women to be raped, it's…well, I won't go there. I'm not a low-down snake like Biden.

I also keep hearing about how our infrastructure is crumbling. Obama keeps saying it as he tries to push his jobs bill, and an Akron Beacon Journal article is today's newspaper talks about how so many Akron bridges are structurally deficient.

Every time I hear about how we can't afford teachers, police officers, firefighters, or infrastructure repair, one number keeps popping into my head. That number is $6.9 TRILLION.

$6.9 TRILLION is the total amount of money spent by federal, state, and local governments in the USA.

$6.9 TRILLION represents 46.5% of the total Gross Domestic Product of the USA. That's how big of a chunk the government is ALREADY taking out of our pocketbooks.

$6.9 TRILLION is an enormous amount of money, so much it's hard to even conceive.

And the Democrats are trying to tell us $6.9 TRILLION isn't enough money to provide teachers, police officers, firefighters, and infrastructure ?????????????

The Democrats are trying to tell us we need to spend $450 billion MORE to provide those things. You see, the $6.9 TRILLION currently spent by the government ISN'T ENOUGH to create jobs, according to the Obamanation administration.

Thanks Obamanators, but I dont think so. I was born, but I wasn't born yesterday. You can't sell your snake oil here.

But I have to hand it to the Democrats. When they pull a con, they don't go for the nickel and dime stuff. They go for the big con. The big score.

And we're all the marks.

If $6.9 TRILLION is not enough money for our government, then something is SERIOUSLY wrong…with our government. And that starts at the top. Let's correct that wrong next year.

After nearly three years of Obama's policies, we know this much – Obama's policies aren't working. Unemployment is still over 9%, despite trillions spent on stimulus measures and three years of deficits in excess of a trillion dollars.

The President has run up $4.2 trillion in debt during his short tenure in office. He has run up about $110 billion in new debt each month he's been in office. That is a staggering amount.

Federal spending has risen by nearly $900 billion per year since 2008, since Obama became President. Government spending at all levels comes to $6.957 trillion, and represents 46.7% of GDP. Government is out of control.

Despite nearly $7 trillion in government spending, despite our unparalleled debt accumulation, President Obama has the gall to go on the campaign trail and say the problem is that he hasn't been able to spend ENOUGH. He's asking for another $450 billion in new stimulus spending, which he calls a jobs act, and he blames the Republicans for not going along with his plan to continue leading this country on a high-speed rail to fiscal destruction. I guess the government's existing $132,000 debt PER TAXPAYER isn't sufficient for our spendthrift President. And then Obama has the incredible arrogance to pretend he is being the righteous one who is looking out for the people (by bankrupting them). By definition, the people cannot be helped by going further into massive debt, by having their future earnings stolen away from them. Obama is not being righteous at all. He's being an irresponsible jerk.

If we lived in a sane country, with a sane media, the President would be tarred and feathered for his loose fiscal policy and his epic wastes of taxpayer money (YOUR money), and nobody would EVER consider re-electing him. Sadly, we don't live in such a country. We live in a country where political smoke and mirrors have left many of us befuddled. There is a segment of our society that actually agrees with Obama, that believes spending trillions of dollars more than we have is a good idea, as long as it provides a temporary bump to the economy, even if it unquestionably harms the economy over the longer term. These poor misguided folks apparently believe the temporary false "stimulus" policies are to continue indefinitely, until the economy magically improves. These beliefs represent the absence of common sense, an inability to accept reality. They believe our economy must be FORCED to attain some pre-determined level they deem appropriate, and if that level doesn't exist, why, we should just PRETEND it does. It's the Peter Pan theory of governance. I used to like to play pretend when I was four years old too, but it's shocking when so-called adults continue in the fantasy.

My question is…can Obama really be dumb enough to believe the snake oil he's selling ? I mean, the guy graduated from Harvard. He can't be this clueless, can he ???

My conclusion is…no, Obama is not this clueless…but he thinks you are. And thus the title of this blog post.

Obama knows his stimulus/jobs bill won't provide any lasting stimulus or lasting jobs. He knows this because he already saw the effects of Stimulus I. But Peter Pan wants to keep his fantasy alive until after the 2012 elections. That's also why Obama's Lost Boys are creating an unsanitary nuisance down on Wall Street, as they demand free stuff just because they WANT free stuff. Peter Pan has convinced them that the reason they can't have all the free stuff they want is because the rich don't pay their "fair share" in taxes, which is an outright lie. Of course, Obama doesn't care if it's a lie or not, because Peter Pan needs an evil Captain Hook to battle, and the "rich" fill the bill as the Neverland villain in Obama's re-election morality play. If you doubt whether the Occupy Wall Street movement is about the 2012 elections, ask yourself why those protesters weren't down on Wall Street back when the bailouts and financial crisis were happening at the end of 2008 and the beginning of 2009. That's when the grassroots Tea Party movement happened. No, Obama's Lost Boys only show up three years later in time for presidential campaign season. What a coincidence !!!

There is a cure to the fantasy Neverland games of Peter Obama Pan and his Lost Boys. The cure is the truth. And the truth is, if we taxed all the millionaires in the country at 100%, it still wouldn't be enough to fund the existing government..and the ObamaCare mandate hasn't even taken effect yet, which is going to drive spending much higher. That's another reality the fantasy pushers won't fess up to.

I leave you with ten minutes of actual coherent problem-recognition and problem-solving policy as presented by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI). Contrast this with Obama's irresponsible divide-the-nation-and-conquer Neverland non-leadership. Ryan is light years ahead of Obama on economic matters. This video is well worth watching.

If you're not familiar with Reinhart and Rogoff's This Time Is Different, it's about how too much debt prevents the economy from growing, and it represents our future unless we change course.

Above is a photo of the Occupy Wall Street protesters tussling with police as they blocked off the Brooklyn Bridge:

About 700 protesters were arrested after a horde of anti-Wall Street demonstrators swarmed the Brooklyn Bridge yesterday, halting traffic for more than three hours and clashing with cops on the famed span. Up to 100 cars were left stranded as the loud, angry crowd covered the crossing from end to end in an inflamed day of demonstrations against high unemployment, bank bailouts and financial pain for the masses.

One irate driver, a Ground Zero construction worker, was livid. “I work my ass off all day, and these goddamned hippies close down the Brooklyn Bridge so I can’t get home?” he said. “This ain’t right!”

No, it certainly ain't right, but the OWSers don't care about that. In their quest for attention, they don't care about anyone else's rights, just their own. I'm not sure how the OWSers associate the Brooklyn Bridge with Wall Street greed, or how they think blocking traffic for hours is going to accomplish anything other than pissing people off. The arrest of the 700 was the largest mass arrest since 1200 lefties were arrested at the 2004 Republican National Convention. I bet the media is going to be all aflutter over this spectre of left-wing violence….or not. Media hysteria is reserved for peaceful right-wing protests. When lefties get arrested, the subject magically morphs into police brutality.

I have a few observations:
1) Who knew there were still hippies ? Far out, man. Let's have a concert ! We can call it it Wallstock.
2) Isn't this anti-Wall Street protest about three years late ? At least the Tea Partiers showed up to protest the bailouts AS THE BAILOUTS WERE HAPPENING. Where were the OWSers ? I assume they overslept, as hippies are prone to do.
3) If the OWSers were really looking for jobs, they wouldn't be protesting for weeks on end. Also, as stated in the above link, lots of OWSers are making trips to the ATM machine in between railing against corporate personhood and chanting "People Over Profits". They don't seem to mind when the corporate machine spits out twenty dollar bills at them.

Btw, has anyone noticed that the OWSers are overwhelmingly white ??? This seemed to be a big issue with the Tea Party protests for some reason, so I thought I'd mention it. I know how concerned liberals are about this type of thing.

The Occupy Wall Street protesters, to date, have been rebels without a cause. No, strike that. They have a cause, or at least a vague idea of a cause. The OWSers know they're against capitalist greed, namely Wall Street, but unlike most protest movements, the OWSers haven't had any list of demands or solutions. Their message, if there is one, is muddled. You'll see a guy with an "Equal Taxation For All" sign standing next to a guy holding an "Eat The Rich. 90% Top Tax Rate" sign. Rather than rebels without a cause, you might say they've been rebels without a clue.

But a message of sorts is forming. This comes from the Brooklyn Bridge fiasco:

Once the demonstrations began, the crowd bellowed together as they marched: “Show me what democracy looks like. This is what democracy looks like!” Organizers of the amorphous group issued an ominous “Declaration of the Occupation of New York City,” Thursday night.
“No true democracy is attainable when the process is determined by economic power,” the group declared. “We come to you at a time when corporations, which place profit over people, self-interest over justice, and oppression over equality, run our governments.”

And there you have it. According to the OWSers, democracy looks like, um, a small group of people imposing it's will on the general public. Yes, how very democratic of the OWSers, assuming the word "democratic" is synonymous with "mob rule". I'll have to check my Webster's. Something seems amiss. The rest of that OWSer philosophy sounds all too familiar. If only we could get rid of those private corporations who "run our governments", then we'd live in a world of "justice", without "oppression", and….blah, blah, blah. It's all been said a thousand times before. Some countries have even succeeded in getting rid of those private "robber barons" (USSR, Cuba, pre-market Communist China, etc). The only thing that has ever happened when free enterprise is repealed is that the government becomes an all-powerful tyrant where the people have no rights whatsoever, and no economic recourse whatsover. The people become serfs controlled 100% by their government overlords. At least with corporations, the participation of the public is voluntary. We don't have to buy their products or do business with any corporation. When the government is all-powerful, it FORCES you to bend to it's will. In the "true democracy" of the OWSers, individual choice is obliterated. What emerges from the ashes of free enterprise is totalitarianism. If that's OWS "democracy", you can count me out.

It seems some of the OWSers have developed a list of demands, which I call 'Repeal Reality And Replace With Economic Suicide'. Some of the individual ideas are not terrible, but when you take them all together…what a disaster:

Demand one: Restoration of the living wage. This demand can only be met by ending "Freetrade" by re-imposing trade tariffs on all imported goods entering the American market to level the playing field for domestic family farming and domestic manufacturing as most nations that are dumping cheap products onto the American market have radical wage and environmental regulation advantages. Another policy that must be instituted is raise the minimum wage to twenty dollars an hr.

Demand two: Institute a universal single payer healthcare system. To do this all private insurers must be banned from the healthcare market as their only effect on the health of patients is to take money away from doctors, nurses and hospitals preventing them from doing their jobs and hand that money to wall st. investors.

Demand three: Guaranteed living wage income regardless of employment.

Demand four: Free college education.

Demand five: Begin a fast track process to bring the fossil fuel economy to an end while at the same bringing the alternative energy economy up to energy demand.

Demand six: One trillion dollars in infrastructure (Water, Sewer, Rail, Roads and Bridges and Electrical Grid) spending now.

Demand seven: One trillion dollars in ecological restoration planting forests, reestablishing wetlands and the natural flow of river systems and decommissioning of all of America's nuclear power plants.

Demand eight: Racial and gender equal rights amendment.

Demand nine: Open borders migration. anyone can travel anywhere to work and live.

Demand ten: Bring American elections up to international standards of a paper ballot precinct counted and recounted in front of an independent and party observers system.

Demand eleven: Immediate across the board debt forgiveness for all. Debt forgiveness of sovereign debt, commercial loans, home mortgages, home equity loans, credit card debt, student loans and personal loans now! All debt must be stricken from the "Books." World Bank Loans to all Nations, Bank to Bank Debt and all Bonds and Margin Call Debt in the stock market including all Derivatives or Credit Default Swaps, all 65 trillion dollars of them must also be stricken from the "Books." And I don't mean debt that is in default, I mean all debt on the entire planet period.

Demand twelve: Outlaw all credit reporting agencies.

Demand thirteen: Allow all workers to sign a ballot at any time during a union organizing campaign or at any time that represents their yeah or nay to having a union represent them in collective bargaining or to form a union.

These demands will create so many jobs it will be completely impossible to fill them without an open borders policy.

Hopefully, I won't have to explain how insane the above collective demands are to anyone…except to the Reverend, of course. The debt forgiveness proposal alone would collapse our financial system in a hearbeat, while the $20 minimum wage would skyrocket unemployment at the same time the government is spending trillions and trillions of dollars and the open borders policy would bring in millions looking for jobs….oh sorry, I'm starting to explain the insanity, after I said I shouldn't have to. Maybe I should call the OWSer plan 'How To Turn America Into A Third World Country Overnight', because that's what it would do. God forbid these lefties ever get what they are asking for. I have too much compassion for them to wish them such a fate.

I have a special Homer Simpson "DOH!!!" shout-out for Demand Three, where people get a living income whether they have a job or not. Hippies everywhere will love that one, but, how many people would go to work if they were paid whether they did or not ??? Answer – not many. God, lefties are dumb. I never stop being amazed.

You can see some of the OWS signs here. Below is my absolute favorite Rebel Without A Clue OWS sign (Don't look if you are offended by obscene language):

Yeah, man !!! We're offended by sh*t ! It's bullsh*t, and we want it replaced with different sh*t !!! F*ck !..and oh yeah, Peace !

How eloquent. A product of the public school system, no doubt.

I keep hearing the Republicans are "The Party Of No", but it's the Democrats who keep rejecting legislation passed by the Republican-led House. Earlier this year, the Democrat-led Senate rejected the House budget proposal. In August, the Senate rejected the House's Cut, Cap, And Balance plan to raise the debt limit and balance the budget. Now, the real Party Of No is at it again. It has rejected a House Continuing Resolution (CR) to fund the government and provide relief for victims of Hurricane Irene and other disasters. Thus, we face ANOTHER possible government shutdown, because the real Party Of No, the Democrats, can never seem to agree on a budget. They haven't passed one in 2 1/2 years. They didn't even agree to pass Obama's budget. They rejected it unanimously.

The reason the Party Of No gave for its rejection this time is it's usual reason – Democrats don't want to cut spending, even though federal spending is far higher than usual and our deficit is astronomical.

The Senate on Friday rejected the GOP-led House's bill to avert a government shutdown, intensifying a partisan standoff that many in Congress hoped to avoid. The vote was 59-36.

Democrats in the Senate, who are in the majority, oppose Republican efforts to roll back "green" energy programs to pay for aid for victims of Hurricane Irene and other disasters. They say disaster aid, usually a bipartisan issue, should not require cuts elsewhere — especially to programs creating green jobs — as the GOP majority in the House now demands.

The two sides are racing the clock, as the Federal Emergency Management Agency is expected to run out of disaster money Monday.

It's deja vu all over again. This also makes me wonder how in the world Democrats are ever going to agree to the $1.5 trillion in spending cuts the Super Committee is supposed to recommend as part of the debt ceiling deal.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), ever the double-talking politician, had stressed the urgency of passing the CR on wednesday, but after the House passed a bill on friday, which Reid and company rejected, he changed his tune:

Earlier this week Mr. Reid was adamant that FEMA’s account was on the brink.

“The agency that rushes to help when disaster strikes will run out of money on Monday. I repeat, Monday,” he said Wednesday as he was pushing for quick action.

But by Friday he said he had been assured there was more time.

Sen. Mitch McConnell, Republicans’ leader in the chamber, tried to speed the vote up to Friday afternoon, but Mr. Reid objected, saying he wanted the cooling-off period.

“Cool off a little bit. Work this through. There’s a compromise here,” Mr. Reid said Friday, minutes after the Senate blocked back a bill drafted by House Republicans that would have replenished the disaster fund accounts through Nov. 18.

The CR would have kept the government running until 2012 had the Dems not rejected it:

The disaster money fight is tied to a broader bill that would keep the government open into fiscal year 2012, which begins Oct. 1. Congress has not passed any of the dozen spending bills required to fund basic operations, and without a stop-gap bill much of the government would shut down after Sept. 30.

In other words, we could have avoided this entire mess in the first place had Senate Democrats not rejected every budget placed before it while not offering any budget of it's own. The Senate has been in dereliction of it's basic duty for years.

In typical fashion, the fiscally irresponsible Democrats want the FEMA funds to be added to the deficit rather than display any shred of responsibility, which might harm their re-election chances:

Mr. Reid has called for a Monday vote on a new bill he wrote to accept the House-passed FEMA funding level, but to tack the additional spending onto the deficit rather than find cuts elsewhere.

Anybody remember the PAYGO legislation the Democrats passed a couple years ago, where the Dems proudly crowed about how federal spending would all be paid for now ??? The Democrats forgot all about that legislation the moment after it was passed. They scammed the American people. We've added $4 trillion to the debt in the 2 1/2 years Obummer has been President. The Democrats consistently vote for more fiscal irresponsibility, as they are doing here. They aren't just The Party Of No. They are The Party Of No Honor. Their lies flow like a river.

There's another reason Harry Reid wants a "cooling-off period" over the weekend:

Senate Democrats also have a major campaign event to raise money from high-dollar donors at the luxurious Kiawah Island in South Carolina this weekend.

Party on, Democrats. We know whose money you really care about…your own. While the Democrats wine and dine their well-heeled cronies (like the green entrepreneurs who funded Solyndra) on paradise island this weekend, I guess the business of the people can wait. Who cares if FEMA runs out of money on monday ? If that happens, I'm sure the Democrats can spin things to make it seem like the GOP's fault. That should be easy for a political party that has spent the last three years blaming everything on Bush, while it simultaneously destroys the economic future of this country.

Speaking of Solyndra, Barry's pals from Solyndra testified before Congress yesterday, if you can call pleading the 5th testifying. Here's a small example of the transparency and forthright honesty displayed by the Solyndra boys:

"Was the White House duped by Solyndra, or did they ignore the information to put green energy in a better light, or for more onerous reasons," asked Nebraska Rep. Lee Terry, a Republican.

One of Solyndra's main financial backers was also a big fundraiser for Obama in 2008 and lawmakers have questioned whether that played a part in the loan guarantee.

Lawmakers wanted to know the nature of several meetings between the Solyndra executives and White House aids over the last couple of years.

"On advice of my counsel, I invoke the privilege afforded by the fifth amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and I respectfully decline to answer any questions," was the response from each executive to every question.

Peachy. I guess the Solyndra boys had two choices – either plead the Fifth or say "I don't recall" like Hillary Clinton and the other Clintonistas did when asked about their scandals. The faulty memories of all those smart Clinton folk was known as Arkansas Alzheimer's back in the day.

I'll end with one comment about the Republican Fox/Google debate the other night. I'd vote for anybody on that stage over Barack Obama in 2012. Democrats keep talking about how Republicans would rather defeat Obama than help the American people. In my view, defeating Obama and helping the American people are the exact same thing. There is no distinction between the two.

"Middle-class families shouldn't pay higher taxes than millionaires and billionaires. "That's pretty straightforward. It's hard to argue against that." – Barack Obama, on monday.

Yes, it would be hard to argue against that…if it was the truth. But it's not the truth. Our President is a big fat liar. Here's AP Factcheck:

President Barack Obama makes it sound as if there are millionaires all over America paying taxes at lower rates than their secretaries…The data tell a different story. On average, the wealthiest people in America pay a lot more taxes than the middle class or the poor, according to private and government data. They pay at a higher rate, and as a group, they contribute a much larger share of the overall taxes collected by the federal government.

Obama says the top !% should pay their "fair share" of taxes, leading us to believe the rich are getting away with something. Wrong. From 2010 IRS data, it is known that the top 1% of earners in this country pay 38% of the federal income taxes, while making 20% of adjusted gross income, which means they are paying nearly double their "fair share". The top 20% of earners pay 87.3% of the federal income taxes. On the other end of the scale, nearly 50% of the workers pay no income taxes. The top 5% of earners pay more in income taxes than the bottom 95%. Enough of this "fair share" nonsense. Obama's tax proposal has nothing to do with fairness. Plus, the top 1% have a median income of $380,000 per year, not millions and billions. There are very few people in the million dollar earning range. In a country of 310 million people, only 236,000 have incomes above a million bucks. That's 0.007% of the population, and they already pay 20% of total federal income taxes. If anyone thinks taxing those few folks more is going to close a $1.6 trillion deficit and pay for the rest of us, you better think again.

In his latest speech, which comes on the heels of his speech proposing $447 billion in new stimulus measures, the President has proposed $3 trillion in deficit reduction. According to the Prez, his deficit reduction will consist of $1.5 trillion in spending cuts and $1.5 trillion in tax increases, but as usual with this President, things are not what they appear to be. Let's take a closer look at that proposal.

On the spending side, Obama is counting as cuts $1 trillion in savings on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. There's some major deception by the big fat liar here:

$1 trillion saved by ending combat missions in Iraq and Afghanistan. Republicans and some independent budget analysts say this is a gimmick because the troop drawdowns were already under way and amount to an accounting adjustment.

In other words, Obama is counting as savings $1 trillion in military spending that was never going to happen anyway. The real savings here is zero. The President is not the only big fat liar in this area. The Republicans also counted the phantom military savings as deficit reduction in their House budget proposal.

Obama's plan is really a $2 trillion deficit reduction package, 3/4's of which consists of various tax increases. Here are the rest of Obama's proposed spending cuts:

MEDICARE AND MEDICAID: $248 billion in reductions to Medicare. About 90 percent of the Medicare cuts would be squeezed from service providers such as drug companies, hospitals and nursing homes. Starting in 2017, the plan would significantly increase what many seniors pay for premiums, copayments and deductibles. Medicaid and other federal health care programs would be cut by about $73 billion. Among the proposals would be measures designed to reduce federal Medicaid payments to states.

OTHER MANDATORY SPENDING: $260 billion in cuts to other mandatory spending programs, including $33 billion by ending income support payments to farmers. The plan also would reduce federal workers' paychecks by 1.2 percent over three years, saving the government about $21 billion over 10 years. The plan estimates savings of nearly $78 billion by reducing waste and abuse in federal programs.

All I can say is, if a Republican President proposed cutting Medicare/Medicaid payments and raising premiums, copays, and deductibles, every liberal from coast to coast would be screaming about how the Republicans don't care about seniors and the poor. Remember the reaction to the Ryan plan ? And don't forget that ObamaCare already allegedly cuts $500 billion from Medicare. Also, notice the 2017 start date for the increased costs to seniors. Those would conveniently start right AFTER Obama completed his second term. What courage. And liberals, did y'all notice that Obama wants to cut the salaries of federal workers ? What about collective bargaining rights ? Oh wait. Those federal workers don't have them. Never did. When will you launch the 'Recall Obama' campaign, like you did to legislators in Wisconsin, or the 'Repeal SB5' campaign, like you did in Ohio ? Hmmm ? I can't hear you….

On the tax side, Obama wants to end the Bush tax cuts for couples making over $250,000, limit tax deductions for the wealthy, and end some corporate loopholes and subsidies. This comes on top of the $1 trillion in spending cuts the super committee is working on as a result of the August debt deal. The rosiest way to look at all this is, if the entire $3 trillion in revenue increases and spending cuts over ten years is enacted, our annual deficit will drop ALL THE WAY DOWN TO $1.3 TRILLION !!! Hurrah !!! Mission Accomplished !!! Four More Years !!! Four More Years !!! It's not exactly Morning In America, but AT LEAST IT'S NOT THE GREAT DEPRESSION !!!

I just thought of something. Doesn't conventional economic wisdom say one shouldn't raise taxes during a recession ??? I thought so, and here's what one of the leaders of our country said a couple years ago…

"The last thing you want to do is raise taxes during a recession, because that would just suck up, take more demand out of the economy, and further put businesses in a hole" – Barack Obama, August 2009.

Yes, I agree. Maybe somebody should introduce this Barack Obama to that other Barack Obama guy. Who knew there were two of them ?

If any of you are wondering why I haven't mentioned the proposed Buffett Rule…it's because there ISN'T a proposal:

…the administration said it wanted the Buffett Rule to be a guiding principle for tax reform. But that was it on details. "We're not going to give the Congress a detailed proposal for how to meet that specific principle now because there's lots of different ways to do that," Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner said Monday.

Perhaps on another day, once the administration figures it out.

When you ask liberals if they believe in corporate welfare, they will overwhelmingly say 'no'. They are outraged over corporate welfare !!! I'm down with that…but then ask those same liberals if Uncle Sam should subsidize renewable energy initiatives, and the answer magically changes to 'yes'. Therefore, liberals are against corporate welfare, except when they are for it.

The country's head liberal, President Obama, is one of those who rails against corporate welfare while he pushes corporate welfare at the same time. As the Prez has told us countless times, he thinks green jobs are the future. That may be true, but Obama omits the part about American green jobs not being so much the NOW. Obama is all about subsidizing green companies at taxpayer risk. As we have seen from the collapse of Obama's favorite green-tech company, Solyndra, along with the collapse of other green companies that were funded by Obama's Stimulus plan, the President's wishes don't make things so. Obama can engage in all the hope and change dreams he wants, but somewhere along the line, reality must be taken into account.

Here was the reality of Solyndra:

An Associated Press review of regulatory filings shows that Solyndra was hemorrhaging hundreds of millions of dollars for years before the Obama administration signed off on the original $535 million loan guarantee in September 2009. The company eventually got $528 million.

Sounds like a great investment, eh ? But I want to be fair. Startup up companies sometimes do lose money initially. It's the profit potential that motivates investors. What were Solyndra's future prospects ?:

"We have incurred significant net losses since our inception, including a net loss of $114.1 million in 2007, $232.1 million in 2008 and $119.8 million in the first nine months of fiscal 2009, and we had an accumulated deficit of $505 million at Oct. 3, 2009," the company said in a December 2009 filing to the SEC. "We expect to continue to incur significant operating and net losses and negative cash flow from operations for the foreseeable future."

Hmmm. So, when the Obama administration looked at Solyndra, a company that had lost hundreds of millions of dollars from day one, a company that expected to lose hundreds of millions of dollars more in the "foreseeable future", a company that lost money on every single product it sold,…Obama decided to lend THAT company $535 million in taxpayer-guaranteed money and make it the highlight company for his green jobs agenda. That sounds more like a pipedream than hope to me. And then when Solyndra, as predicted, burned through it's cash like a Texas wildfire, the Obama administration restructured the loan so the private investors would be repaid ahead of the taxpayers….and one of those private investors just so happened to be a big-time Obama campaign contributor !!!:

Under terms of the February loan restructuring, two private investors — Argonaut Ventures I LLC and Madrone Partners LP — stand to be repaid before the U.S. government if the solar company is liquidated. The two firms gave the company a total of $69 million in emergency loans. The loans are the only portion of their investments that have repayment priority above the U.S. government.

Argonaut is an investment vehicle of the George Kaiser Family Foundation of Tulsa, Okla. The foundation is headed by billionaire George Kaiser, a major Obama campaign contributor and a frequent visitor to the White House. Kaiser raised between $50,000 and $100,000 for Obama's 2008 campaign, federal election records show. Kaiser has made at least 16 visits to the president's aides since 2009, according to White House visitor logs.

Ka-ching !!! That must be the 'Change' part of Hope And Change. Cronies get paid first.

This all sounds pretty bad. Why would the government do this ? Let's turn to the DOE for an explanation:

Energy Department spokesman Damien LaVera said Friday that the company's financial losses were not uncommon for a high-tech startup and were a major reason Solyndra applied for the federal loan. The loan program is intended to help promising companies that cannot receive financing through private banks because of high risk.

Okay, now it all makes perfect sense. You see, when the government runs across a company so risky and shaky that the banks won't lend it money, THAT'S when the taxpayers should be put on the hook for the dough…when it's likely the company will, you know, collapse. Sigh. This stuff is getting so outrageous that I can't even be outraged anymore. I'm getting numb to it. When did this country enter the Twilight Zone, and how do we get out ? Now we have the federal government gambling taxpayer dollars like it's playing roulette in Vegas. Only the "high risk" companies merit taxpayer investment ??? WTF ?!?!?!

I can't stand it anymore. Over and out.

My PC crashed the day before Obama's "jobs" speech, where we discovered that our spendthrift President wants to fork over another $450 billion in hard-earned taxpayer cash for Stimulus II, the American Jobs Act. Because the federal government doesn't actually pay for anything anymore, the bill for Obama's latest spend-o-rama will come due on some future date, to be paid by some future put-upon taxpaying schlub, assuming there are any taxpayers left by then. Oh wait. I nearly forgot. Obama said every penny of Stimulus II is paid for. It's easy to forget that, mainly because Obama didn't say how it will be paid for. He just waved his magic future spending cut wand and commanded the congressional Super Committee to add another $450 billion to the $1.5 trillion in spending cuts the bipartisan committee will never agree upon. No problem. Heck, I don't know why Obama didn't just order that committee to cut $14.6 trillion from future spending and payoff the entire national debt. That would really solve our problems…but only if you believe in magic like Obama does. Using Obama's "it's all paid for because I told them to pay for it later" (ill) logic, everything the federal government has ever done is paid for, because it all will be paid by someone, somehow, someday. The two trillion dollar question is HOW, but our President can't be bothered with such trivialities, not when there's an election to win.

While I was off the grid, our feckless President urged Congress to pass his jobs bill immediately. He took to the campaign trail, leading his shrinking base in choruses of "pass the bill", even though the bill hadn't even been presented to Congress yet. The Prez ain't much of a details guy. We are seeing more evidence of that as we learn the White House pressured the OMB to approve the Solyndra deal in time for VP Biden's photo op, despite the OMB's objections, and despite a credit agency's estimate that Solyndra would run out of money in September 2011, which is exactly what did happen. That cost the put-upon taxpaying schlubs another half billion bucks, but it almost seems like we're talking about Monopoly money these days, the numbers are so large. I remember a time when a half billion dollars seemed like a lot of money, but that was before the Great Fiscal Insanity descended on America like a plague of locusts. Nowadays, a half billion dollars sounds almost like spare change. I'm sure all you put-upon taxpaying schlubs out there can cough up that much dough, can't you ? After all, you are the backstop for every collosal waste of money that any politician in Washington D.C. can dream up.

The Prez is out on the trail, talking about all those infrastructure jobs again, all those roads and bridges that are falling apart. I wonder how that can be the case after Obama's $817 billion Stimulus I allegedly addressed that very same problem over the last two years. I mean, the Department Of Transportation's entire 2011 budget is only $79 billion. After Stimulus I, those "shovel-ready projects" should have fixed us up, no ? The President's words today say otherwise, but I guess y'all aren't supposed to remember what Obama said last year or the year before. If you do remember, the White House will call it a smear, which you can report to Obama's internet snitch line. When I'm finished with this post, maybe I'll report myself. Then again, I don't want the Feds raiding my house like I was some kind of Gibson wood-buying desperado. Perhaps I'll make a donation to the Re-elect Clueless Obama campaign instead. A very small donation.

If I do report myself to Obama's snitch line, I guess I better have some advice for the President, so here it is….Mr. President, we don't need another $450 billion in temporary stimulus measures that will wear off a year from now. That will change nothing over the long haul. All it will do is put us put-upon taxpaying schlubs even deeper in debt. What we need are permanent changes to help our businesses thrive and succeed in today's world. Nothing else will work. Get some new economists. The ones you have don't seem to get it, just like you don't get it. Our jobs don't come from the government. Our jobs come from the business sector. Stop treating business like it's your enemy. It isn't. It's the golden goose, and killing it is never a good idea.

Anyone still wondering who is the forgotten man ? If so, it's you, the taxpayers. You are the people who must pay for all this spending madness. The big spenders in Washington D.C. care not a whit for you. They are abusing you at every turn. They take your hard-earned dollars and hand it over to their cronies without a thought given to how it will affect you, the people. Your government isn't serving you. It's robbing you blind. Future generations will suffer because of it, and the big spenders don't care anything about them either. The people are being sold down the river so the big government types can throw your money at any constituency it thinks will garner them some votes. They have divided the nation against itself for the same purpose. Things have deteriorated to a point where everybody in this country has their hand out, looking for the government to bail them out. It's pathetic. It's not the America I love, and it sure isn't just the so-called welfare queens doing it. It's everyone. It's all the corporate CEO's, Wall Street, banks, foreign governments, the United Nations, unions, the military-industrial complex, farmers, health-care hucksters, etc. It's all the lobbyists, lawyers, activist groups, cronies, campaign donators, even the government bailing out itself at taxpayer expense. It's Democrats and Republicans doing it. Everyone expects to be subsidized by the American taxpayer. It's endemic. It's everyone. And we have stood by and let it all happen. It's time to wake up, America, because our time is running out.

There's nothing that irks me more than left-wing demands for enormous new federal spending stimulus programs to boost the economy, after we've already spent trillions on those types of stimulus. Such calls seem to be all the rage these days in left-wing circles. I can't turn on a political television program without hearing this insanity being offerred as a solution to our economic woes. Lefties generally accompany their stimulus spending demands with fond reminiscences of the New Deal, along with references to our "manufactured debt crisis", as if those evil right-wingers are making the whole thing up. The favored left-wing conspiracy theories have the GOP "manufacturing" a debt crisis because right-wingers A) Hate black people, and/or B) Want Goldman Sachs to make bigger profits. And lets not forget the ever popular, C) War for oil.

What the leftos can NEVER bring themselves to accept is D) Reality.

So let's gently remind those tin foil hat wearing, conspiratorial code word seeking, ADHD afflicted, left-wing folks once again…

If we don't change course on our spending/debt explosion, the Government Accounting Office (GAO) has estimated where our federal tax dollars will go by 2020, just nine short years from now:

When I point out this information, the lefto reaction is usually to condemn Bush, after which the leftos propose yet more spending and more debt (as in their stimulus proposal). They condemn the fiscal irresponsibility of the Bush administration, and then they recommend more fiscal irresponsibility as a solution. Somehow, such contradictory rhetoric makes sense to them, though to me it sounds a lot like a mental disorder.

The #1 reason I warn of our debt/deficit situation all the time has nothing to do with political ideology. It's all about economics. It's about dollars and cents. On our current economic trajectory, by 2020, we will be taking $900 billion out of taxpayer pockets just to pay interest on the debt. In case the leftos have forgotten (assuming they ever knew), $900 billion is a hell of a lot of money. We'd basically be flushing $900 billion down the drain EVERY SINGLE YEAR. Those interest payments would fund no government program, and would help not one American do anything but become poorer. Imagine the negative effects of that on the nation. If, on the other hand, we stop accumulating this incredibly destructive debt, the enormous amount of money we save could fund all kinds of programs, even ones that leftos like !

Imagine it's 2020, and 92% of federal spending goes to interest on the debt, Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. That wouldn't leave any money for anything else. Government services would collapse, or else we'd have such prohibitive levels of taxation that our economy would collapse in a different way from the destruction of wealth. When mentally challenged leftos look at this information, they see no problem whatsoever with Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security spending, even those are the drivers of the future spending explosion. Their level of denial is mind boggling. These same people must look at the water all over the ground after a storm and say "it can't be due to the rain !"

The leftos, of course, can't think past the ends of their own noses. They can't see past right now, today. They can't see the lefto big government future is one where everyone is taxed to death, goods are too expensive to buy, economic growth is retarded, the government runs everything, and we the people are powerless, dependent serfs who can't look sideways without coming under suspicion of breaking a law. This is how things work in every left-wing controlled government. It has always been that way, and it always will be that way. So, to left-wing thugs everywhere, I say, "Viva la revolucion!", you clueless fools. May heaven help you should you ever get exactly what you're asking for. Only then will you slow learners realize what you have lost.

Lest anyone should think I'm some kind of footsoldier for the GOP, I'll say this. The GOP is only marginally better on fiscal issues, and on other political issues, they are worse. But if you want to know how truly messed up this country is, and how insane and pervasive the lefto influence has become……the most demonized political movement in this country is the one that proposes we don't go down this road of spending/debt craziness, the one that actually promotes fiscal responsibility, the Tea Party movement. The TPers are called radical and extreme by the lefto radicals and extremists. Now that I think about it, in a country that has gone fiscally looney tunes, that might actually be a compliment of sorts. As they say, in a world gone mad, the sane man must appear crazy. If you need an example of this, look no further than the balanced budget amendment proposed by the Republicans. That came from the Tea Party coalition in the House Of Representatives. The Democrats were overwhelmingly against a balanced budget amendment. If being against balanced budgets ain't radical, I don't know what would be. Maybe one of the Democrats can attempt to explain how paying $900 billion each year in interest on the debt would be a good thing. Let them try. I can hear the Dems now in 2020, saying "it's Bush's fault !", after Obama has run up about $10 trillion in debt. Can't wait.

President Obama has nominated a Princeton economics professor to head up his White House Council Of Economic Advisors, in a continuing shakeup of his economic team.

The good news is, it's not Paul Krugman, thank god:

President Barack Obama has chosen labor economist Alan Krueger for a top administration post as the White House scrambles for solutions to boost a fragile economy with the 2012 election looming…If confirmed by the Senate, he would replace Austan Goolsbee, who left the administration earlier this month.

Goolsbee follows Larry Summers and Christina Romer out the door. The only top dog remaining from Obama's original economic team is Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.

Being an industrious little blogger, I read over the material I could find on the internet about Obama's new man, Krueger.

That's where the bad news starts. From the articles I read, Krueger seems to hold a number of illogical positions that go against the economic mainstream, positions that seem to be ideologically driven. For example…

Krueger published a book concluding that increases in the minimum wage have no correlation to job losses. This is equivalent to saying increased business costs have no effect on a business. His proposition is so easy to shoot down that I shouldn't even have to mention it. Here's the experiment – let's raise the minimum wage to $20 per hour and see what happens to unemployment. I guarantee you it would go way up, as jobs were lost by the bushel. The alternate effect is for prices to go way up. Either way, the effect is negative for consumers and demand. I cannot believe an economist, of all people, would try to pass off such a transparently false proposition. Not one whose name isn't Krugman, anyway.

Krueger published a study saying school vouchers have no effect on academic achievement, despite massive evidence to the contrary. Krueger accomplished that bit of sophistry by skewing the sample base. This one is just sad and pathetic. Others studied the same data as Krueger and came up with the OPPOSITE conclusion about vouchers. The mainstream conclusions say vouchers help black and poor kids the most.

Krueger wrote an article in January 2009 proposing the implementation of a 5% consumption tax in 2011. He actually thought this would help the economy. Imagine the negative economic effects we'd be having now had his proposal become law. His tax on all consumer goods, which he claimed would bring in $500 billion in tax revenue per year, would further depress demand in an economy most everyone agrees is lacking in demand. Just flipping brilliant. Is something wrong with the drinking water at Princeton, or what ? How can Princeton have TWO economists who are out to lunch ? Maybe we should study the phenomenon.

So far, the picture we have of Krueger is one of a guy who seems to believe taxes and business costs are irrelevant to the functioning of the economy. He also seems to be carrying water for the public education system. No wonder Obama picked him.

In another article from July of this year, Krueger opined that we should NOT have a debt limit ceiling. Here's the interesting part of that piece:

The debt ceiling is a funny animal. Congress tells Treasury to spend money on various programs, and it authorizes the collection of a certain amount of tax revenue, expecting Treasury to borrow to make up for any shortfall of revenues over spending. Yet, it also sets a limit on how much debt the government can accumulate. The Treasury isn't borrowing money because it wants to; it is borrowing because Congress chose to spend more money than it chose to collect. If Congress wants to limit the debt, it should vote to cut spending and/or raise revenues — and it can do that independently of voting to raise the debt ceiling. So, in my view, the debt ceiling is an unnecessary constraint that can cause severe damage to the financial reputation of the United States and health of the world economy if it is not raised in an orderly way that is congruent with past spending and taxing decisions.

There's some logic behind Krueger's argument here, but in the end, he ignores realities and is putting forth partisan rhetoric. Imagine for a moment that we didn't have a debt ceiling. Would there have been ANY Congressional negotations to reduce the debt without one ??? Of course not. We'd still be happily spending away unrestrained on the credit card like the ship of fools we are. Even the minor debt deal that was achieved would not have been achieved. Heck, Congress couldn't even bother itself to come up with a budget in over two years. Do you think Congress will do much of anything about the debt/deficit without it's feet being held to the fire first ??? No, me neither. That's why we need a debt ceiling statute. It would be extremely irresponsible for Congress and the President to pass the largest debt ceiling increase in American history, as we just did, without some kind of provisions to reign in the debt in the future. That's the very minimum we should expect from them, and Krueger wants to abolish the mechanism that made it possible.

Obama's new chief economist dude isn't exactly filling me with hope, but he sounds about par for the course for this President. Yet another ivory tower academic who has no idea how the real world functions, just like Obama himself.

President Obama talks about closing corporate tax loopholes and taxing companies who move profits offshore. He calls this 'shared sacrifice". This kind of talk makes for a good class warfare political talking point, and Obama repeats this kind of stuff endlessly, but there's much Obama fails to tell us. Some of what Obama conveniently forgets to say was brought up on CBS' 60 Minutes program last night, in a repeat of a report it aired in March. 60 Minutes reported on corporate tax havens:

"Our government is in knots over ways to lower the federal budget deficit. Well, what if we told you we found a pot of money – over $60 billion a year – that could be used to help out?

That bundle is tax money not coming in to the IRS from American corporations. One major way they avoid paying the tax man is by parking their profits overseas. They'll tell you they're forced to do that because the corporate 35 percent tax rate is high in relation to other countries, and indeed it seems the tax code actually encourages companies to move their businesses out of the countryAmerican corporations. One major way they avoid paying the tax man is by parking their profits overseas. They'll tell you they're forced to do that because the corporate 35 percent tax rate is high in relation to other countries, and indeed it seems the tax code actually encourages companies to move their businesses out of the country.

Obama and his fellow liberals would dearly love to get their hands on that $60 billion in overseas corporate tax revenue. No doubt about that. They talk about it all the time. Some Republicans talk about it too. What the liberals generally don't talk about is WHY all those profits move to overseas tax shelters in the first place. One big reason is the USA's sky high corporate tax rates. What Obama also doesn't mention is that if we do his bidding and remove the corporate tax loopholes, while still leaving our corporate tax rates the highest in the world, the only thing we'd be encouraging is for MORE companies to relocate overseas. Talk about counterproductive. I thought the idea was to attract business to our shores, not to drive it away. Obama might as well take out an ad touting the USA as the 'anti-business capital of the world'. When I hear Obama talking about "shared sacrifice", I think about all the jobs and American wealth he wants to sacrifice. We'd certainly all share in that loss.

Another thing Obama fails to mention is what has happened in the past when the government tried to collect overseas corporate taxes:

Congress tried to put a stop to that with a law passed in 2004, mandating that any company that wanted to move offshore would still have to pay the 35 percent. But because of loopholes in the tax code, companies can substantially lower their taxes by moving chunks of their businesses to their foreign subsidiaries.

The result of the 2004 law was that companies moved even more of their operations overseas. Again, talk about counterproductive.

Here's the reality of the situation in the world today:

"We are dealing with a tax system that is a dinosaur," Cisco CEO John Chambers told Stahl.

One CEO who would talk to us was Chambers. Cisco is the giant high tech company headquartered in San Jose, Calif. He says our tax rate is insane. It's forcing companies into these maneuvers, especially when many other industrialized countries including Canada are busy lowering their tax rates in order to lure our companies and our jobs away.

"Every other government in the world has realized that the U.S. has it wrong. They're saying, 'I'm going to have lower taxes, period.' That's what you see all across Western Europe, that's what you see in Asia in the developed countries," Chambers said.

When asked if he's judged as a CEO on issues like taxes, Chambers said, "Absolutely."

He's been expanding Cisco overseas because of growing demand abroad, but also to lower the company's taxes: their average rate over the last three years was just 20 percent.

Economist Martin Sullivan says it's standard operating procedure for companies like Cisco. "U.S. multinationals are shifting their research facilities, shifting their manufacturing facilities, and shifting some regional headquarters into Switzerland and into Ireland. And those are massive numbers of jobs," he told Stahl.

Sullivan says Ireland taxes corporations at just a third of the U.S. rate, so no wonder the outskirts of Dublin look like Silicon Valley. Many well-known companies are all but obliged to go abroad.

"Well, if you have a 35 percent rate in the United States and, for example, a 12.5 percent rate in Ireland, there's a incentive to move your factory to Ireland," he explained.

"Six hundred American companies are in Ireland and they employ 100,000 people," Stahl pointed out. "Those are jobs that aren't here. And they moved to Ireland because of taxes."

"The U.S. Treasury in effect is subsidizing investment in Ireland," Sullivan said.

"Why isn't everybody in Ireland if it's that great?" Stahl asked.

"Almost everybody is in Ireland," Sullivan said. "All the pharmaceutical companies, all the high tech companies. You're stupid if you're not in Ireland," he replied.

"We notice that you have an awful lotta companies in Ireland," Stahl told Cisco's John Chambers.

"Yes we do," he acknowledged.

By Stahl's count, Cisco has eight companies in Ireland.

"We do what makes sense to the shareholders," Chambers said. "We go where there are incentives in countries that say, 'We want you here, we're going to give you tax advantages, and we want you to add jobs here, etc.' We can no longer in America say, 'This is how we do it, therefore you must do it.' We've gotta change, or we're going to be left behind."

That's good for Ireland, but not so good for us. If our biggest problem is jobs (and it is), then why the hell are we continuing policies that drive jobs away ? That isn't shared sacrifice, it's shared stupidity. And how much money are we talking about that is sitting overseas ???:

Chambers told Stahl Cisco has almost $40 billion overseas that could be brought back to the U.S.

The total amount of money U.S. companies have trapped overseas is $1.2 trillion. Chambers is advocating for a one-time tax break to allow them to bring that money home at a rate of, say five percent. That would, he says, stimulate the economy and create jobs.

As Obama leaves on his bus tour to "pivot to jobs" (about the 15th time he's made such a pivot), maybe this time he could try something that actually would work – dropping the corporate tax rate dramatically. Unless, of course, he really doesn't give a damn about the American people he's hurting.

President Obama said the following in his latest redundant speech:

Last week, we reached an agreement that will make historic cuts to defense and domestic spending. But there’s not much further we can cut in either of those categories. What we need to do now is combine those spending cuts with two additional steps: tax reform that will ask those who can afford it to pay their fair share and modest adjustments to health care programs like Medicare

I'd hardly refer to last week's debt deal as "historic cuts". They were more like taking a teaspoon of water out of a gallon jug, if that. Obama was just patting himself on the back in his usual self-congratulatory style, but the line that really raised my eyebrows was when he said there's not much more we can do to cut defense or domestic spending, which are commonly known as discretionary spending. My bs-o-meter started beeping like mad with that line. Let's see if our fearless leader is telling the truth. Here's a graph of federal spending prepared by the Heritage Foundation. It's important to note that the following federal spending figures are adjusted for inflation:

While it's true that mandatory spending growth is the lion's share of the debt problem, discretionary spending has also been increasing like crazy. If you trace discretionary spending from 1965-2000, you'll see that it rose modestly after adjusting for inflation. After that it rose dramatically, yet Obama is saying there's nothing more to cut ??? If looks to me like discretionary spending has risen by about $400 billion per year since 2005, and has doubled since around 1998. It sounds to me like there's plenty more to cut, contrary to Obama's dubious claim. Several hundred billions dollars more can be cut out of the annual discretionary spending budget by returning to the funding levels of a mere decade ago (in anticipation of my rabid liberal blogger pal, The Reverend, accusing me of being a Tea Party anarchist extremist on austerity crack for suggesting such cuts, I'd like to go on record as saying I didn't consider the Clinton-era to be one of anarchy and austerity. Times were pretty good then).

What the Republican party has to come to terms with is, discretionary spending cuts mean cuts in DEFENSE spending. I want America to be the strongest nation in the world, and I also believe in America going after the bad guys in principle, but I don't believe in bankrupting this nation, and that's what we're doing. We won't be strong when we're in the fiscal toilet. And the cost of the ongoing wars is harming us. Ten years in Afghanistan ? C'mon now. We're following the path of the Soviets, and look what happened to them. We can defend this country and still save tons on defense spending. If other countries want our protection, then fine. Let them pay us for it. I'm also growing pretty weary of those who would put us under the thumb of U.N. dictates. We aren't governed by the U.N.

Speaking of Clinton, it is a source of neverending astonishment to me when liberals brag about Clinton balancing the budget, when, as you can see from the above graph, discretionary spending under Clinton actually went DOWN, and as you can also see, spending exploded AFTER Clinton. And what are liberals dead set against today ??? SPENDING CUTS. They act like the world is about to end because the debt deal cut discretionary spending by $22 billion next year. Liberal Chicken Littles are running around talking about how that infinitesimal drop in the spending bucket will usher in the next Great Depression. They used terms like "terrorists" and "hostage-takers" to refer to the relatively minor spending cuts congressional Republicans insisted on in the debt deal. Liberals reject the very Clinton-era fiscal policies today that they take credit for then. Go figure. If I'm a Tea Party anarchist, so was President Clinton. His last budget was $1.789 trillion. This year's budget under Lord Obummer is $3.8 trillion. Liberals insanely refer to this skyrocketing spending situation as… drumroll please…a revenue problem.

Despite whatever the liberal intelligentsia might try to get you to believe, the bottom line is – liberals want YOUR money. If you have some money, liberals want it. That's all there is to it, and they spend all day every day devising ways to get at your money. That's why they favor the government controlling everything, and they talk about a free private sector like it's the spawn of Satan. Under government control, liberals, like all dictators, know they can get at your money through the tax code and regulations. They can literally legislate your money into their hands. They really like that idea, being the thieves and control freaks that they are. That's why they talk about the evil rich so much, and have wet dreams about confiscating the money of "billionaires" (in ObamaSpeak, "billionaires" make $200,000+ per year).

An old friend and I were talking yesterday, and we both agreed Obama was killing the country. The difference was, I thought Obama was pretty much an unqualified clueless fool, while he thought Obama was an evil genius trying to collapse the country on purpose. He said to me, "if Obama was intentionally trying to destroy the American economy, what would he have done differently than he has already done ?" I have to admit, I was stumped. The only thing I could think of was that Obama would have pushed for yet trillions MORE in debt, probably under the guise of more "stimulus" spending. That would ruin us quicker…and it's also exactly what left-wingers are calling for.