No Runny Eggs

The repository of one hard-boiled egg from the south suburbs of Milwaukee, Wisconsin (and the occassional guest-blogger). The ramblings within may or may not offend, shock and awe you, but they are what I (or my guest-bloggers) think.

Archive for February, 2009

February 28, 2009

Larry Kudlow – Damn Straight!

by @ 9:10. Filed under Economy.

From Kudlow’s post on CNBC:

He (Obama)  is declaring war on investors, entrepreneurs, small businesses, large corporations, and private-equity and venture-capital funds.

and:

Study after study over the past several decades has shown how countries that spend more produce less, while nations that tax less produce more. Obama is doing it wrong on both counts.

and finally:

Noteworthy up here on Wall Street, a great many Obama supporters "” especially hedge-fund types who voted for "change" "” are becoming disillusioned with the performances of Obama and Treasury man Geithner.

There is a growing sense of buyer’s remorse.

Well then, do conservatives dare say: We told you so?

One of the rare cases where additional editorial or clarification is not required.

Day-late Chicago Tea Party, DC edition mini-wrap

by @ 7:27. Tags:
Filed under Politics - National.

Doug Welch, Skye, a couple others and I decided to blow off Newt Gingrich at CPAC and head to Lafayette Park for the Chicago Tea Party. Yes, we arrived a little late, but we still had a couple hundred people at a good, if ill-timed tea party. In addition to the DC protest trifecta of Uncle Jimbo, concretebob and Michelle Malkin, I also ran into Krystle, and Skye was interviewed by Joe the Plumber.

I’ll try something new; a WordPress photo album.

More on the crappy-crap-crap war on toilet paper

by @ 7:06. Filed under Envirowhackos, Politics - Wisconsin.

There is a reason why I call Kevin Binversie one of the great ones. He has a memory that far outstrips my own, and reminds us that it’s not just a war on comfortable toilet paper, but a war on Green Bay.

Bonus item – Kevin sees it as another step in the soon-to-be-very-hot war between envirowhackos and Big Labor. The main goal of the labor unions is mutually exclusive to the main jobs-related effects of the radical environmentalists. Neither is exactly known for accepting compromise.

February 27, 2009

Home Work Assignment

by @ 20:29. Filed under Miscellaneous.

As you watch the Obama Administration:

  • Spend money they don’t care how they’ll ever pay back
  • Nationalize entire industries
  • Force other industries into permanent national servitude by virtue of providing financial advantage to a few of the large competitors
  • Promulgate policies that rewards inefficiency and punishes accomplishment all in the name of “fairness”

Are you feeling like you’re living in the middle of a made for TV movie?   Do you wonder how this can possibly be happening and why didn’t someone see this coming?   Someone did.

If you haven’t, or even if you have but it’s been awhile, go out this weekend and plunk down $8.95 for the paperback version of Atlas Shrugged.   Yes, it’s a long book but you don’t need to read it all this weekend.   Find time to read the first 200 pages.   We will be testing on your assignment next week!

Real Man Of Genius!

by @ 20:28. Filed under Miscellaneous.

Reason.tv salutes you, Mr. Plagiarizing, Gaffe-Prone, Hair-Plug-Wearing Vice President.

You’ve got to love the Reason TV folks…equal opportunity skewerers!

TARP Repaid

by @ 16:27. Filed under Business, Economy.

A ray of hope on a Friday afternoon.   This article just breaking from Reuters:

Iberiabank shares rally, to repay TARP loans

This is the first bank to fully repay loans it received under the TARP.

Most interesting is the reason they are paying their TARP loan back:

“Recent actions, interpretations, and commentary regarding various aspects of the program places our company at an unacceptable competitive disadvantage,” the bank said in a statement, adding that continued participation “is no longer in the best interest of our company and its shareholders.”

Translation:   We’re tired of having the government looking over our shoulder and having to be worried about stupid people seconding guessing every action we take to run our bank!

I also just heard but haven’t been able to confirm, that Northern Trust Corp., the bank that just got all the negative PR over the party they recently threw, is also soon to pay its loan back.

Brief CPAC Friday AM/Chicago Tea Party, DC edition update

by @ 13:09. Tags: ,
Filed under Conservatism.

– Listened to a number of Congresscritters in the early morning session before catching up with Kevin Binversie. He may have less blogs in his reader than I do, but he makes the most of them.

– Bailed out for the DC Tea Party at Lafayette Park with Doug Welch, Skye, and a few others, and because I’m the guy with the most Metro experience, I got to be tour guide. We had a few hundred people in, Skye got interviewed by Joe the Plumber, and I hit a trifecta in run-ins: Uncle Jimbo, concretebob (both sporting Don’t Be A Dou’Che shirts) and Michelle Malkin. When I get back to the room and if I am not too hammered, I will have cell-“quality” pics up. The good news is I likely won’t have to do another 26-minute walk; the Metro runs later Fridays and Saturdays.

Back to the fun.

Call Me Carnac

by @ 10:42. Filed under Call me Carnac, Economy, Politics - National.

So you thought I was just pulling numbers out of my rectum with my earlier post?   How about this:

Economy shrinks at fastest pace in 26 years

Specifically, look at this statistic:

With Friday’s figures, Mayland lowered his forecast for this year to show a deeper contraction of just over 2 percent.

Hmmmm, President Obama said it was only going to be -1.2% when most private economists were already saying -2.2%.   Seems like President Obama is “ofer” in his attempt to prognosticate economic statistics.   It’s going to take a lot of hope to think his forecasting prowess will improve anytime soon.

An extra entrant in the Deep Tunnel Awards

by @ 9:23. Filed under Envirowhackos.

(H/T – Jon Ham)

The New York Times reports on the next target of the envirowhackos – comfortable toilet paper. The story hits all the hot-button envirowhacko issues, from how many trees are cut down to how much water is used to bleach to (yes, you guessed it) Gorebal “Warming”.

For those of you not from Milwaukee, there’s a reason why I invoked Charlie Sykes’ Deep Tunnel Awards (which are aired on 620WTMJ every Friday at about 11:35 am Central). The local sewer utility, MMSD (The Clean Crappy Water People), has a somewhat/almost/not quite deep enough tunnel, and MMSD tends to dump sewage (be it “blended” or “raw”) when the “100-year rains” hit on the average 3-4 times a year. That also sort of wipes out the landfill argument, because those dumps tend to send toilet paper into Lake Michigan.

Revisions/extensions (1:16 pm 2/27/2009) – Speaking of Charlie, he’s all over this.

Obamanomics 101

by @ 5:19. Filed under Economy, Politics - National.

Between,  his Tuesday night address to Congress and a speech today, President Obama has revealed his budget proposals not only for the coming fiscal year but in large part, for the length of his Presidency.

First, let’s deal with the issue that is budget proposals are somehow different than those provided by previous administrations.   They aren’t.   While there have been different methods of presenting the budget such as continuing operations versus special appropriations for Iraq, there has been one constant comparable in all of them; the increase in debt required to service them.   Put in other words, each of the fiscal years, regardless of how the budget was compiled, can be compared based upon the year end debt that they created.

When President Bush took office, the US debt was approximately $5.7 Trillion.   At the end of Bush’s first term, total debt was $7.4 T, an average increase of $350 Billion per year.   During Bush’s second term debt ended around $10.6 T with $1.6 T of that coming in the last year alone.   If you take out the last year the average increase was $500 billion per year and that was while paying for the Iraq war.

Enter President Obama.

I won’t pick apart what he’s done to the deficit this year, except to say that while Obama is quick to talk about what he “inherited,” he’s not so ready to discuss that he is just as responsible for the $1.75 T projected deficit of this year as Bush is.   After all, wasn’t it than   Senator Barack Obama who assured us that he was “just a phone call away” working to persuade Congress to pass the $700 B TARP.   And wasn’t PEBO who was consulted on the auto bailout?   Wasn’t it also PEBO who made the ultimate decision on requesting the second tranche for Tarp?   Finally, as President Obama wasn’t it he who led the way to the stimulus package, the largest single expenditure ever in the US?   The only people who believe that this deficit was “inherited” are those who worship at the altar of Obama or simply chose to be ignorant.

Moving past ’09, President Obama’s budget plan will optimistically, increase the US debt by a minimum of $1T in the first two years and $500 B in the second two years of his administration, a total of a $3 T increase in debt in only 4 years!   Enormous deficits especially when you consider that  Obama will no longer have a war to finance, he will not have to spend to “reclaim the economy” after this year and the previous CBO budget had projected that the deficits during this same time frame would be “merely” $1.7 T!

I noted that the deficits that Obama is projecting are optimistic.   In fact, the deficits are likely not even nearly achievable.   Why do I say that?   After all, isn’t part of Obama’s plan to increase taxes on “the rich,” close loopholes and find other ways to raise tax revenue?   Yes he is.   However, Obama has overlooked one very basic economic fundamental.

Back in June of last year I introduced you to Hauser’s Law.   Hauser’s Law, simply put, says that no matter what you do to tax rates, how you open or close tax loopholes, whether you increase one type of rate and decrease another, tax income tends to equalize around 19.5% of GDP.   Nobody can explain for certain why this happens but, when you see a trend that holds over nearly 60 years, across numerous administrations, spending and taxing philosophies, if it isn’t a law, it should be made one.  

What’s Hauser’s Law got to do with Obama’s deficits?   Simple.

Obama is banking on a rapid return of income that he can tax.   Obama’s budget assumes that growth will be negative 1.2% this year returning to a robust 3.2% next year.   The CBO which is in line with many private economists, believes growth will be negative 2.2% this year and positive 1.5% next year.   Doesn’t sound like much until you realize that Hauser’s Law says that each percentage point equates to about $28 B of missed tax revenue and that it compounds over the time frame.   If Obama is off by just 1% in each of the years that translates to a deficit understatement of over $130 B (remember when a Billion used to be a big number?).   If the CBO is right and Obama wrong, the first two years alone will translate to over $130 B with additional shortages in the last two years because of a lower GDP run rate.  

As an aside, isn’t it ironic that Obama’s budget is highly optimistic in projecting revenue when he’s been telling us for months that this is the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression?   If you look at what happened to GDP the years following the depression Obama is not just optimistic, he’s delusional!

On top of the overly optimistic growth rates is another problem for Obama’s tax revenue.   Obama has committed to significantly increasing a number of taxes to increase the revenue.   He has even proposed a new tax, a carbon tax to generate significant amounts of new revenue.   Economists of all persuasions will tell you that increasing taxes will reduce overall GDP.   Increasing taxes on something will always cause less of that something to be consumed or created.   Don’t believe me?   Just take one look at what is happening to cigarette consumption as taxes continue to be increased on them…it’s not going up!   Now we can discuss what the elasticity of that change is i.e. do you have to double the taxes before GDP is impacted or will a 1% increase in taxes impact GDP.   However, Hauser’s law says that the elasticity discussion is moot.   Hauser’s Law will say that the very fact that less GDP is generated will result in less tax revenue being generated regardless of what the actual rates are.

Everything Obama does is for the optics or in how the action supports his ideology.   It’s too bad that he doesn’t approach issues from an actual intelectual honesty and curiousity.   If he had in the case of his budget, he may have learned the core fact from Hauser’s Law:

Putting it a different way, capital migrates away from regimes in which it is treated harshly, and toward regimes in which it is free to be invested profitably and safely. In this regard, the capital controlled by our richest citizens is especially tax-intolerant.

Contrary to Obama and Gibb’s protestations that this is the first budget with “full disclosure,” this is a budget that is built on more optimism than all the “Hope” in Obamaland.   The budget will fail on any measure of fiscal integrity and responsibility.   My hope is that the country doesn’t fail economically along with it.

Brief CPAC very-early Friday morning update

by @ 1:33. Tags:
Filed under Conservatism.

– I attended a very interesting session on Al Franken and ACORN, which I recorded for a couple people who had other engagements on and around Bloggers’ Row (which makes up for the piss-poor performance on TEMS).

– I was “intercepted” by a few friends while on my way to the official CPAC dinner (note to self: save $550 if you show up next year by not buying the diamond package). It turned into a bloggers’ dinner with Kevin Binversie, Stephen Green, Sean Hackbarth, Melissa Clouthier, Katie Favazza, Fausta Wertz, Rick Moran, and a few others my alcohol-addled brain (more on that in a bit) can’t quite remember. Random question; should I be disturbed that Kevin called me instead of Sean to find out where everybody was?

– Afterwards, most of us ended up back at the Omni’s bar, where I split time between that group and Doug Welch. Eventually, Mary Katharine Ham and then Ace rolled in. No, you’re not going to get what was said from me; I have been bound to silence, and before I tell you, I would have to kill you. However, it was worth missing the last Metro train back to the Carlyle and taking a 26-minute walk back.

Given it’s somewhere around 2:30 Eastern, the first speaker is up at 8 local, and the DC Tea Party in Lafayette Park is at noon, I am calling it a night.

February 26, 2009

Brief CPAC Thursday afternoon update

by @ 17:28. Tags:
Filed under Conservatism.

– First things first, I found the time to get back to the room and upload the Paul Ryan audio from this morning.

– Ed Morrissey and Jim Geraghty decided to drag me into Ed’s interview with Jim. Folks, that’s the reason why I don’t do multimedia involving me.

– In addition to Jim, I ran into Justin Higgins. Even though he’s THAT GOOD (good enough to get a Rush Limbaugh mention or two), he’s still amazed that he’s taken seriously as a 19-year-old. Like I said, he is THAT GOOD, so it shouldn’t be a surprise.

Back to the grind party, then who knows where.

Roll bloat – after dark edition

by @ 12:05. Filed under The Blog.

Yes, I know, it’s just after noon back in the land of ice cream and frozen beer (and 1 pm in the bowels of CPAC), but I need to add Skye and MidnightBlue.

Brief CPAC Thursday AM update

by @ 10:49. Tags:
Filed under Conservatism.

– Listened to Paul Ryan open up CPAC. He got a lot of applause, as he was on a roll. One odd thing; he seems to be a bit of a goldbug. I do have audio and pics, but since I’m posting from a borrowed computer and cell coverage is at best spotty, I don’t have a way to pull it off the digital voice recorder and phone (respectively).

– There’s somewhere between 8,500 and 9,000 of us floating here. For those paying attention, that is a record.

– Last night, I ran into Sean Hackbarth, Melissa Clouthier, Ali Akbar, Matt Margolis, and a couple other silent types. Sean, Melissa and Ali put on Politics 625.

– Today, I ran into Katie Favazza, Rick Moran, Ed Morrissey, Fausta Wertz, and had my copy of the “Pretty in Mink” calendar signed by Amanda Carpenter.

– The BHO weekly passes for the Metro SUCK! First one demagnetized on me after 3 trips.

Oops; just missed a session I wanted to hit. DAMMIT!

Revisions/extensions (12:07 pm 2/26/2009) – Right after I posted, I ran into Krystle Weeks, and a bit after that, Doug Welch and Skye.

February 25, 2009

Is There a Draft In Here?

by @ 10:05. Filed under Politics - National.

Even “American Pravda” couldn’t listen to President Obama’s speech without noticing a few, shall we say, stretches of the truth.

FACT CHECK: Obama’s words on home aid ring hollow

OK, I’m not going to quibble over who exactly created the first thing called an automobile but not knowing what the total imported oil level is?   Come on, Buuuuuuuuuuush would have been crucified for misses like that.

When American Pravda is able and willing to point out “inaccuracies” in PEBO’s facts, it is now politically acceptable to say “The Emperor has no clothes!”   The speed with which this happened must be what was referred to, as an Obama administration official told Jake Tapper:

“President Obama has accomplished more in 30 days than any president in modern history!”

Not since Britney Spears’ wedding to Jason Allen Alexander, has there been a honeymoon that has been this disastrous and this brief!

February 24, 2009

Steve is away working on his new KRM Proposal

by @ 22:42. Filed under Choo-choos.

I though I would give you a preview….n1270217983_294743_5575

Doyle sabotages the future (and new NRE poll)

by @ 18:01. Filed under NRE Polls, Politics - Wisconsin.

Buried in the FY2010/2011 Budget in Brief is a stinker of a table called the “General Fund Condition Under Governor’s Budget”. This year, it’s Table 9, on page 36 of the printed copy (page 39 of the PDF). It projects what the Department of Administration believes the proposed budget will do to the general fund in the biennium, as well as what it projects continuing that budget will do in the next one.

I would like to draw your attention to the “Balances” section of that chart, specfically what the 2011-2013 (FY2012/2013) projected balances are. The gross balance in FY2013 is projected to be -$559,500,000. For those that missed the minus sign, that’s a deficit of $559.5 million. That does not include the “required statutory” positive balance of $130 million, which would make the net deficit $689,500,000.

That is the second time a Doyle budget has admitted that it would short the following biennium budget. That is before the initial agency requests for mo’ money, mo’ money, mo’ money create a multi-billion deficit that supposedly gets filled. Let’s review the history of the Doyle budgets, with the previous budget’s projected surplus/deficit, and the “agency requests” deficit:

FY2004/2005

  • Previous budget (FY2002/2003) projected net surplus/(deficit) for FY2005 – unavailable (not part of Scott McCallum’s budget)
  • “Agency-request” net surplus/(deficit) for FY2005 (from Table 3) – ($966 million) (note: to match up with succeeding budget formats, this does not include FY2003 deficits and adjustments or a decision to increase shared revenue funding, but does include the structural deficit and adjustments to FY2004/2005 revenue)

FY2006/2007

  • Previous budget (FY2004/2005) projected net surplus/(deficit) for FY2007 (from Table 6 of that budget) – $146 million (includes withholding a required statutory balance of $251.4 million)
  • “Agency-request” net surplus/(deficit) for FY2007 (from Table 1) – ($1,666 million) (note: this does not include a re-estimate of the FY2005 Medical Assistance shortfall)

FY2008/2009

  • Previous budget (FY2006/2007) projected net surplus/(deficit) for FY2009 (from Table 5 of that budget) – ($232.7 million) (includes withholding a required statutory balance of $65 million)
  • “Agency-request” net surplus/(deficit) for FY2009 (from Table 1) – ($1,654 million) (note: this does not include FY2007 shortfalls)

FY2010/2011

  • Previous budget (FY2008/2009) projected net surplus/(deficit) for FY2011 (from Table 8 of that budget) – $212.5 million (includes withholding a required statutory balance of $130 million)
  • “Agency-request” net surplus/(deficit) for FY2011 (from Table 1) – ($5,945 million)

With that history of blowing budgets in mind, I present the latest NRE poll. What will the “agency-request” budget hole be next time around?

What will the Wisconsin "agency-requests" FY2013 (released in or around November 2010) deficit be?

Up to 1 answer(s) was/were allowed

  • Over $5,945,000,000 (55%, 12 Vote(s))
  • Between $1,666,000,001 and $5,945,000,000 (32%, 7 Vote(s))
  • There won't be a deficit (9%, 2 Vote(s))
  • Between $966,000,001 and $1,666,000,000 (5%, 1 Vote(s))
  • Between $1 and $1,000,000 (0%, 0 Vote(s))
  • Between $1,000,001 and $100,000,000 (0%, 0 Vote(s))
  • Between $100,000,001 and $966,000,000 (0%, 0 Vote(s))

Total Voters: 22

Loading ... Loading ...

More Necro-Budget numbers via Dennis Yor…er, Christian Schneider

by @ 15:02. Filed under Politics - Wisconsin.

For those of you who came into the Cheddarsphere after February 2007, you missed the best anonymous blogger ever, Dennis York. The man behind the legend, Christian Schneider, really went to town yesterday over at the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute, apologizing to the future for the Necro-Budget.

I can’t even come close to duplicating the Schneider/York humor, but I can give the humor-challenged the hard, cold numbers gist:

– Included with $2.2 billion in tax hikes, supposedly only on the top 1% of wage-earners, is a $257 million cigarette tax hike. The cigarette tax is the most regressive tax that exists (i.e., it hits the poor harder)
– “Major cuts” equals an 8% spending hike (this number is rather fungible; but the lowest estimate, which is mine, is 5.4% and 6.3% once the budget “repair” bill is added in), funded in large part by the “one-time-only” $2.1 billion Generational Theft Law.
– The biggest, but not only, example was a swap of $498 million in state funds for the school equilization aid for $498 million in federal funds for the school equilization aid. Where do you suppose that $498 million is going to come from in 2 years?
– Despite the $2.2 billion tax hike in the budget, the aforementioned $2.1 billion from the Generational Theft Law, and the unmentioned $1.4 billion tax hike in the recently-signed budget “repair” bill (that itself increased the current-year deficit to something north of $400 million), the Generally Accepted Accounting Principles deficit in the general fund would only drop $138.1 million from FY2009 to FY2011 to $2,278.9 million (or $2.3 billion), and actually would increase $38.6 million from FY2009 to FY2010 to $2,455.6 million (or $2.5 billion).

Revisions/extensions (3:40 pm 2/24/2009) – If you want a truly-frightening experience, take a gander at Table 9 of the Budget in Brief, specifically the balances section for FY2012 and FY2013, found on page 36 (page 39 in the PDF file). For those of you without Adobe Acrobat, I’ll summarize:

  • FY2012 – Gross balance of -$127.6 million, net balance of -$257.6 million (there’s supposed to be a $130 million required statutory balance), and a structural balance of -$396.3 million
  • FY2013 – Gross balance of -$559.5 million (based off the gross balance of FY2012, not the net), net balance of -$689.5 million, and a structural balance of -$431.9 million

That’s right, all of those numbers are negative. For the first time in a Doyle budget, they are admitting that the following 2-year budget will be massively in the red.

Eggs on the road and Open Blog – rest of the week

by @ 13:48. Filed under Miscellaneous.

Tonight, 7 pm – Blog ‘n Grog, Sprizzos, 363 W Main in Waukesha (yes, this will preclude my participation in any ObamiNation address live thread)

Tonight, sometime after 9pm (if I’m not completely hammered from playing an ObamiNation drinking game) – Papa’s Fat Tuesday party, 7718 W Burleigh in Milwaukee

Tomrrow through Sunday – CPAC.

In For A Penny…

by @ 5:48. Filed under Economy, Politics - National.

What’s that I hear?   it’s the big sucking sound created by the Federal Government mucking around in things they know nothing about.   First on the list:

AIG Needs More Help After $60 Billion Loss

AIG, as you may remember, was the first “too big to fail,” after the Feds got nervous after Lehman hit the dust.   After two bites at the apple, AIG got a total of $150B government support.   Reports are that after several sales of profitable pieces of their company, AIG has gotten their outstanding balance down to $35B.   It’s believed that AIG will report the largest loss ever by a US company tomorrow at $60B.   Please note that we (and by we I mean the Federal Government) owns 80% of AIG so there should be no surprise when money is “shovel ready” to keep them afloat.

Next:

U.S. Eyes Large Stake in Citi

Citigroup Inc. is in talks with federal officials that could result in the U.S. government substantially expanding its ownership of the struggling bank, according to people familiar with the situation.

While the discussions could fall apart, the government could wind up holding as much as 40% of Citigroup’s common stock.

Here again, the Fed is already into Citi for $45B.   This little ditty has a twist from the others.   Citi is spinning this saying “it won’t cost the taxpayers a dime!”   Oh lucky us, not exactly.

You see, nearly all accounting and investing rules will tell you that at 40% ownership you effectively control the company.   Once you own the company, you are responsible for it.   Once you’re responsible for it, if the company should need additional capital, you as the major shareholder will be put in the position of either putting up that capital or diluting your ownership.   For an entity that can just run an inkjet to get the additional capital, the answer is easy.

Oh, and the part about not costing the taxpayers anything, not so much.   The preferred stock that we currently have gets periodic interest payments.   It is also in a senior position to common shareholders should the company go bankrupt.   By converting to common stock the interest payments will go away.   Thus, at the very least it will cost the taxpayer something short term and if the company ultimately fails or needs more money, it will definitely cost more.

Finally thought on this one; even though the Obama administration’s spokes person said just 3 days ago:

“This administration continues to strongly believe that a privately held banking system is the correct way to go, ensuring that they are regulated sufficiently by this government”

Don’t “bank that!”   Remember, all Obama positions have expiration dates.

Bringing it all together:

Remember that the automakers are back talking about plans for their future support.   If any of you believe that just one more government infusion will get the automakers back to a point where they’ll be able to function on their own please take note of what’s happening in the financial industry.   When it comes to government “help,” it’s fair to say:

In for a penny, in for a pound!

February 23, 2009

Did I Say Eliminate?

by @ 5:24. Filed under Economy, Politics - National.

As is apparent to anyone who has paid any attention lately, the economy is challenged.   The situation is so difficult that the latest forecast  from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), issued prior to the Stimulus bill, indicates that the deficit for the current year would be nearly $1.2 Trillion.   The CBO’s estimate of the impact Stimulus bill is to increase the deficit by another $185 Billion for a new total $1.4 Trillion.

This weekend in his weekly radio address, President Obama spoke about the need to get the deficit under control.   With a deficit of at least $1.4 Trillion this year, President Obama set out a goal of reducing the deficit to a mere $533 Billion by the end of his first term.    Simply amazing, or maybe not.

According to that same CBO forecast, the projected budget deficit for the last year of Obama’s first term, FY 2013, was projected to be $257 Billion.   Yeah, yeah, I know.   That nasty stimulus bill really jacked the future deficit up right?   According to the CBO’s analysis, the increase is $28 billion in 2013 for a total of $285 Billion.

Well, that’s odd!   Yes, but that’s not all.

In the same CBO forecast, they gave the estimated change to the deficit  for a variety of other actions.

You may remember that Obama has promised to remove troops from Iraq within 16 months?   You may also remember that Obama promised to make Bin Laden “Job #1”.   I think it’s safe to say he’ll have that solved in the same 16 month period and because Bin Laden is the only trouble maker in the region, we should be able to pull the troops out of Afghanistan, certainly by 2013.   The CBO forecast shows an alternative benefit of $30 billion if the total number of troops in Iraq and Afghanistan are reduced to 30,000 by 2013.   He shouldn’t need that many but I suppose a token force is OK.

The CBO forecast assumes that the “Bush tax cuts” are allowed to expire, something that Obama has promised, so you don’t need an adjustment there.

The AMT gets fixed each year so that new folks aren’t pulled into it.   While I doubt Obama will continue this because of his need to trap the few taxpayers left into higher brackets, I’ll be generous and take the $45 Billion, including interest, impact against the deficit.

That leaves us at a projected 2013 deficit of $290 Billion.   That looks to be more than 45% less, $243 billion below, the audacious target President Obama has set for himself.   Huh?   The CBO tells us that discretionary spending, that which Congress can control without changing things like Medicare, Social Security etc., will be $1.220 Trillion in 2013.   For the budget deficit to grow $243 Billion over the latest, adjusted for the Stimulus plan, forecast  by the CBO, Congress will need to increase their discretionary spending by 20% over the assumed increases for inflation, growth and GDP adjustments.   In the CBO’s forecast, discretionary spending is only expected to increase by $36 Billion over Obama’s term.   If discretionary spending does increase by $243 Billion over the rate that the CBO has projected, it will grow at a rate that is 675% higher than that projected rate.  

In November of 2008, while yet simply PEBO, Obama stated:

We will go through our federal budget – page by page, line by line – eliminating those programs we don’t need, and insisting that those we do operate in a sensible cost-effective way.

I guess this is yet another Obama promise that came with an expiration date.

On the plus side, a couple of additional announcements like this and Obama’s planned increase in the capital gains rate won’t be very news worthy.   What capital gains will be left to tax?

February 22, 2009

Two in a row!

by @ 21:36. Tags: ,
Filed under Sports.

Matt Kenseth has become the 5th driver in the history of NASCAR to win the first 2 races of the season in the premier series. While there was some rain this time, it was the Bees that made the difference. Other than one bad stop about mid-race, they picked up a lot of spots on pit road, and Matt held off Jeff Gordon at the end.

On to Vegas and a shot at doing what they say can’t be done – start the season 3-for-3.

February 21, 2009

By the numbers – Wisconsin budget

by @ 12:26. Filed under Politics - Wisconsin.

Revisions/extensions (11:38 pm 2/22/2009) – I used an initial estimate of $59.5 billion for state spending in FY2008/2009, $62.3 billion in initial requests for the FY2010/2011 budget, and some subtraction for the increases in spending in the Necro-Budget as I hadn’t seen hard numbers when I originally wrote this. A pair of sources, the Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance and the Legislative Fiscal Bureau (H/T – Patrick McIlheran via Dad29), pegs the Necro-Budget spending at $62.7 billion, though both state the FY2008/2009 spending at lower numbers than my estimates. I’ll continue to use the $59.5 billion FY2008/2009 spending estimate.

Since I’m a numbers guy, I’ll reduce the end of the FY2008/2009 Wisconsin budget and the (proposed) FY2010/2011 Wisconsin budget to some easy to ang…er, understand numbers:

– Tax increases in the Wisconsin version of Porkulus (meant to be a budget “repair” bill; more on that in a bit) between 1/1/2009 and 6/30/2011: $1.4 billion
– Tax increases in the Necro-Budget proposal (thanks for the name, Kevin) over that same time frame: $2.1 billion
– Total tax increases between 1/1/2009 and 6/30/2011: $3.5 billion (13.4% increase over the pre-increase FY2007/2008 amount)
– Money anticipated from the federal Generational Theft Law of 2009: just over $2 billion
– Total additional money going to Uncle Craps between 1/1/2009 and 6/30/2011: $5.5 billion
– FY2008/2009 budget shortfall after Wisconsin’s Porkulus: $0.42 billion (up from $0.39 billion in November 2008)
– FY2010/2011 budget “shortfall” before the effects of all the tax increases and the Generational Theft Law of 2009 (hereafter refered to as the “initial FY2010/2011 budget”): $5.7 billion
– Spending increases in the initial FY2010/2011 budget: $2.8 billion (4.7% increase over FY2008/2009)
– Spending increases between Wisconsin’s Porkulus and the Necro-Budget (estimated; assumes no deficit on 6/30/2011 even though I’ve seen projections of a $2.1 billion structural deficit at that point): $2.2 billion (3.7% increase over FY2008/2009)
– Spending increases between Wisconsin’s Porkulus and the Necro-Budget (estimated; assumes a $2.1 billion structural deficit on 6/30/2011): $4.3 billion (7.2% increase over FY2008/2009)

(Added 2/22/2009) Spending increases from the initial FY2010/2011 budget and the Necro-Budget: $0.4 billion (to $63.7 billion)
(Added 2/22/2009) Spending increases from the FY2008/2009 budget and the Necro-Budget/Wisconsin’s Porkulus combo (includes $300 million from the Generational Theft Law stuck into Wisconsin’s Porkulus per the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel): $3.7 billion (6.2% increase over FY2008/2009)

That’s right; even after the “to-the-bone cuts” and the through-the-roof tax increases, Jim Doyle and the Spendocrats (off-topic; I need to create a Josie and the Pussycats Photoshop) are massively increasing spending.

Way To Go Mr. President!

by @ 5:37. Filed under Economy, Politics - National.

priceless1

Calling Mr. Geithner, Mr. Tim Geithner

by @ 5:29. Filed under Economy, Miscellaneous, Politics - National.

Is it just me or has Tim Geithner been noticeably absent since his ill fated coming out event with Congress.

I’m sure there’s no reason for concern but just in case, it may not hurt to distribute the following:

geithner

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