No Runny Eggs

It’s not often that I fisk an entire article but this one was so blatant it deserved a response.

Frank: Partisanship is out of control in Congress

Even the title is laughable. Other than Nancy Pelosi, I can’t think of anyone in Congress who is as arrogant, belittling, as drunk on their own power or as partisan as Barney Frank!

At a book signing at the University of Massachusetts, Frank commented on Evan Bayh’s retirement announcement:

“I don’t understand how you make things better from the outside. I share the frustration, but I would have hoped he would have stayed around and voted to change the filibuster rule,” Frank said.

Really? You can’t think of one way that it would be better to be on the outside than on the inside? Other than the obvious point that Frank being out would definitely lower the partisanship, how about if you were a Representative who actually had a conscience, a Representative who did not think driving the country into an inescapable black hole of debt? What if you thought that the far left of your party had become so partisan that they had severed themselves from all sense of reality? What if you were tired of being counted amongst those who were responsible for the destruction of the United States? What if you thought that your party leadership were part of the problem? What if you actually paid attention to your constituents and heard the anger, frustration and concern? If you were that person, wouldn’t you think that going to your constituents with a clean slate and removing your personal desires from the equation might be a good thing?

But partisanship was a theme to which he returned again and again, saying he believes a clear shift began under Republican Newt Gingrich’s tenure as House speaker in the second half of the 1990s.

Before that, he said, Democrats and Republicans could disagree but remain cordial and work toward compromise. Now, though, the pressure to please the party’s base to win primary elections has spawned a Congress in which the sides are “very ideologically differentiated,” he said.

“Compromise” has been a word that means we continually slide to the left. On days that Republicans are called “ideologues,” we slide just a bit to the left. On days that Republicans cosponsor legislation with Democrats, we run wildly to the left. While there may be some legitimate argument that the United States has moved left socially, moving left fiscally means a complete disregard for basic economics.

We are now “very ideologically differentiated” because fiscally, we are at a dire point. The Left wants to abandon any fiscal discipline of any kind. They want to spend with the belief that examples of economic stagnation of Europe and the demise of the Soviet Union’s economy were a result of not having people who were enlightened enough to create money out of thin air as the current Left believes they can. The Right, whether they actually believe it or it is now fashionable, want to stop the country from committing financial Harri Kari. The reason that people like Frank see this as partisanship is that the Left is incapable of seeing any issue in the terms of black and white or right and wrong. The core of the Left ideology is that everybody’s opinion is as valid as the next person. There is no right or wrong, just opinions. This thinking leaves them claiming that all issues should be negotiated and compromised. I don’t think anyone with a correct brain would believe that what Hitler did to the Jews was able to be compromised about. What the Left is looking to do the US financially has the potential to have consequences every bit as horrific.

Frank goes on to blame the partisanship in the electorate on where people choose to get their information:

He believes that’s also evident in the electorate, in which the most ardent liberals and conservatives are getting their news from such different sources that they often seem to be discussing completely different topics.

“People are almost in a parallel universe. They are not getting a common set of facts and most of the people they talk to are those who agree with them,” Frank said.

Barney, Barney, Barney, facts, by their very definition are, well, facts. There can not be more than one set of facts in a situation. “Barney says” is not fact. While it may (highly unlikely) contain facts, it is not all fact.

If Barney wants to complain about us getting information from the people we know who we agree with, perhaps Barney should look at the legislative process. If Barney listened to his own words, he would be much more open to opposing health care reform, shrinking or disbanding FREDDIE and FANNIE and avoiding additional spending of any kind!

Barney Frank is the worst kind of hypocrite.  Not only does he not see his own failings, he actually views his failings as being the answer to the problem he sees as existing.

Much as been made of President Obama’s ego and his apparent lack of appreciation for reality.  President Obama is Aristotle to Frank’s Peter Pan when it comes to living in reality.  Who knows, with the election of Scott Brown, anything now seems possible!

Earlier this week, President Obama announced that he would hold a televised meeting that would include himself and leaders of both Congressional Chambers on February 25th.  According to Obama, the purpose of the meeting is to hear ideas from all parties, forge them in a bipartisan bill and get health care reform passed.

Coincidental with the announcement of his desire to hear Republican input on health care, Obama has increased the volume and frequency of accusing Republicans of being the “party of no.”  Last Wednesday, President Obama called Republicans “obstructionists” during a meeting with Democrat lawmakers.  On Monday of this week, President Obama characterized the Republican desire to start the health care process over again as “doing nothing.”  With this kind of rhetoric, some, including myself, wonder whether President Obama is sincere in is attempt to hear ideas or whether the health care meeting is a first step in an attempt to color the Republicans as the “party of no” in an attempt to save the sure November disaster waiting for the Democrats.

Today, President Obama had a closed door meeting with Nancy Pelosi and John Boehner.  The meeting was set to discuss what was to be included in and how to pass a “jobs bill.”  Reportedly, on the topic of credits for jobs created, Nancy Pelosi expressed skepticism of the bill and said that she knew of no one who believed the plan would actually create any jobs!

Hallelujah!  I’m not sure that I’ve ever agreed with Nancy Pelosi before!  Further, I think this may be the first time this session that Pelosi and Boehner agree, although they may not realize it!

Boenher has diagnosed the problem properly.  Jobs are not returning because businesses have too many uncertainties.  Health care costs, energy costs, capital gains, income taxes and many other items are currently being considered by the Obama administration.  In each case, the administration is proposing legislation that would either cost businesses more or put further regulation on their ability to do business.  When businesses see uncertainty that they have no ability to hedge against, they respond by taking less risk.  Taking less risk translates to less hiring and fewer jobs.

Pelosi is also right, even though she doesn’t know why.  Given the uncertainty described previously, jobs credits will have little to no effect on hiring.  The issue, simply, is that employers are not hiring because they see high risk in expanding their business.  Increasing hiring, even if it’s partially paid for by the government, does nothing to change the broader economic issues.

Who would have guessed that when it came to assessing a jobs program, Nancy Pelosi and John Boehner would be on the same side of the argument, neither party wants to pursue one.

So, who’s the “party of no” now?

Talking just days after the election as he talked about the challengesPresident elect Obama faced, Rahm Emanuel made his famous quote:

Never allow a crisis to go to waste.

Emanuel explained this quote by saying that extreme circumstances allow you the opportunity to do big things.  The Democrat trilogy of Obama, Reid and Pelosi have spent the first 13 months of the Obama administration fulfilling Emanuel’s prophecy.

Health care “reform”, cap and trade, take over of portions of the financial and automotive industry, moving terror trials to New York and appointing Cabinet memebers and Czars who are out right Marxists are all examples of the Obama Administration doing “big things” because they thought they could.

The response to Obama’s action have been definite and specific.

Beginning as early as April of last year, people gathered in various parts of the country under the banner of Tea Parties.  Initially, these gatherings were a general protest against ever growing government, the taxes required to support it and the freedom that it extinguished. 

As time went on, the tea parties came to be a lead organization for protests against the attempt to take over the health care industry via the proposed health care “reform.”  Later, they became a major driver in the near victory of Doug Hoffman in NY.  Most recently, the financial support from those aligned with the tea parties allowed Scott Brown to be elected to the seat previously owned by Ted Kennedy and along with it, defeat Obama’s desire to control the health care industry.

It’s clear that much of the American population, including those affiliated with the tea parties, have grown tired of President Obama’s approach.  Whether it is ideology, naievete or stupidity, it is clear that Obama’s policies are driving us quickly to the edge of a financial cliff.

This week, President Obama proposed a nearly $4T budget with a deficit of nearly $1.6T.  These number are obscene by any definition.  What makes the situation move beyond obscene to grotesque is Obama’s chiding that we must become fiscally responsible and that somehow these numbers are a result of President George Bush’s making.

Folks, this budget needs to be defeated.  We need to do to it what was done to health care reform.  We need to take it apart line by line, word by word and expose it to the American people.  Unless Americans are unwilling to make any sacrifices, in which case we’re screwed, they will quickly see an audacity similar to that of health care reform and revolt against it.  If we have any hope of reversing the coming fiscal disaster and possibly, the ruin of our country, we need to start now! 

We’ve removed the super majority in the Senate and with it much of Obama’s political capital.  We have the momentum, the American people and principle on our side.  We have elections on the mind of every House member and many endangered Senators.

If ever there was a time to take on a challenge as large as fundamentally changing how budgets are viewed in Washington, now is the time.  If we wait until the next budget, people may be lulled to sleep thinking that the newly elected Republicans will solve the problem.

Rahm Emanuel laid out our came plan perfectly: Never allow a crisis to go to waste.  In extreme circumstances we have the opportunity to do big things.  Doubt me?  Ask the people of Massachusetts!

Throughout the campaign and regularly since his inauguration, now President Obama, has been telling us how “Green Jobs” will lead the way to prosperity in our economy.  High pay, sustainability, friendly to the earth have all been arguments he’s made for the creation of “green jobs”.  It appears he got at least a part of his promise right.

On Friday (how come they always announce these things when they think people are paying the least attention?) the White house announced $2.3 billion in tax credits to create ‘green jobs.”   The plan is to create 17,000 green jobs.  If they’re successful, those jobs will be worth over $135K each!

The median family income is around $50K/year.  at $135K per job, the families that get this federal handout will earn better than 2X the average national income! 

While I certainly favor tax credits as a means of market stimulation over direct government purchases, I don’t like credits that apply to specific industries or jobs.  That folks, is thinking you know better than the market, where the money works best.  As a second thought, at this level, one that is certainly not sustainable and highly subsidized, what will happen to these jobs in the second year when the tax credits cease?  Who thinks these jobs are “sustainable” without lots of additional government help to sustain them?

I worked for a guy once who operated in a way that if he believed it to be true, it was.  It didn’t matter what laws of physics or economics his “beliefs’ violated.  He was not a well liked person and eventually failed as a result of his caustic, “nobody is as smart as me,” attitude.  The only difference between he and President Obama is that President Obama can cause money to be generated to create the illusion that he’s right.  In the end, he will be just as big a failure!

Listen my children and hear the drama of the one, the only Barack Obama.

Our story starts as President Obama leaves the golf course and returns to his family.  As he approaches his house he is met by the Hawaiian god Pelee.  Pelee tells Obama that he will has not been a good steward for America.  He says that Obama has made a mockery of the term “fiscal restraint.”  Pelee goes on to tell Obama that he must change his ways.  He tells him that Obama will be visited by three spirits during the evening.

Obama, as all good scrooges including George C. Scott, refused to believe that what he had just seen was real.  That said, he was unsettled from the experience.  He entered his house, bypassed the reports authored by Janet Napolitano which attempt to show she has any competency, kisses the woman who is recently, just proud of her country and heads to bed.

At about 11 PM the first spirit arrives.  As Obama peers out from under his blankets and four poster bed with all the trimmings, he can’t believe his eye.  There stands the spirit of economy past; Ronald Reagan!

Reagan tells Obama that he’s mucked up the economy something terrible.  He tells him that increasing the deficit and attempting to buy jobs via “stimulus” is the wrong way to go.  As Obama begins a retort that included, “I inherited,” Reagan stops him with “There you go again!”

Reagan tells Obama that he too inherited a recession.  One that had not been seen since the days of the great depression.  On top of that, there was a malaise in the country that had seriously hindered the ability to harness any hope and optimism from the American people.  Reagan told Obama that the only way to deal with a serious recession is through taxes.  Reagan told Obama how through his tax reductions, the country was able to pull itself up by its bootstraps and right its economic self.  Reagan pointed out to Obama that regardless of what you do, tax receipts will always hover between 8% to 8.5% of GDP.  If you cant to spend more you have to grow the economy.  There is no way to tax or spend your way out of a recession.  To enforce his point, Reagan put the following graph up for Obama to study.

With the presentation of the graph, Reagan was gone. Obama was unconvinced and went back to sleep.

Barely an hour went by and once again, Obama was awaken. This time he was awakened be the spirit of economy present. This spirit greatly resembled Sarah Palin, although it couldn’t be, she hadn’t be done in by the left, was still alive.

Sarah, ah, the spirit, told Obama that despite his protestations, he and he alone has put the federal budget on a path where in just a few short years the budget will require the public portion of debt to be over 80% of the GDP.  Of course, this doesn’t count the unfunded debts like social security, medicare etc.  Sarah departed after leaving Obama the next graph and warning him that without changes, dire consequences will come.

Obama remained unmoved by the pleadings of Sarah and once again, went back to bed.

Sometime in the wee hours of the morning, Obama was awoken once again. This time, as he looked out from his bed linens he saw not one but many, many spirits. These were the spirits of the future economy.

Theses spirits were the faces, if not the bodies of all of our children, grand children, great grand children etc. They moaned and wailed as their leader approached Obama. This time Obama was taken aback. As he peered beyond his blankets, he looked into the face and eyes of his own daughter, Sasha.

Sasha began to explain that the reason for all the moaning and wailing was that these generations had become enslaved. Enslaved to the debt that Obama and others had left for future generations to deal with. These future generations have no hope, and expect no change as unlike her father and his administration, these future generations don’t get the ability to ignore and avoid realities. By the time Sasha is an adult, the annual taxes collected will no longer be enough to cover even the obligations of the entitlement programs that exist. This is a fact even before the enactment of placebocare which is sure to accelerate the date on which this occurs. Sasha left with the other spirits after telling Obama that if he doesn’t change, he will go down in history as the most reviled president ever for having eliminated the economic freedom of all future generations.

Obama was returned to his room just as the sun was dawning.

In all other versions of “The Carol,” the scrooge has a change of heart and immediately goes about to right the wrongs of his past and present. Will Scrooge Obama experience the same impact? It’s not the new year yet so we don’t know. Perhaps this version too will end like all those that are true to Dickens’ version. If not, we may well see a new version. This version will be one penned by the Brothers Grimm!

Happy New Year to all!

My thanks to Heritage.org for each of the graphs.

Since his inauguration, President Obama has explained away every negative facing him, economy, Iraq, Afghanistan, bank lending, unemployment, etc., etc., etc., as having “inherited it.”

From the AP yesterday:

The federal deficit for the first two months of the new budget year is piling up faster than last year’s record imbalance.

I only have one question:  When will Obama’s inheritance run out?

That’s right; at the end of the business day on November 16, 2009, the national debt topped $12 trillion for the first time in history. Things only get worse when one looks at the growing rate of the debt:

• Over his first 300 days (209 business days at the Treasury), Obama presided over a $1,404,422,137,377.00 increase in the national debt. That’s right; 11.67 cents of every dollar of debt is on him.
• Speaking of that $1.4 trillion increase in debt on Obama’s watch, that is a 13.22% increase over that 300 days, or 14.38% on an annual basis.
• On a year-to-year basis, the 163 biggest increases of the debt in absolute dollars since January 1993-January 1994, and 144 biggest increases of the debt in percentage terms, had 2009 ending dates, including a high of $2.167 trillion (22.76%) between 9/16/2008 and 9/15/2009, with Obama responsible for $1.207 trillion of that.
• On a quarterly basis, the 1st ($427 billion, 3.99% increase), 2nd ($418 billion, 3.76% increase) and 3rd ($365 billion, 3.16% increase) quarters of 2009 were the 3rd, 4th, and 5th-largest increases in absolute size, and 3rd, 4th and 7th-largest increases in percentage terms, of the debt since 1993. They trailed, in order, the 4th quarter of 2008 and the 3rd quarter of 2008, with 2nd quarter of 2003 and the 4th quarter of 2003 having the 5th and 6th-largest percentage increases. Do remember that, while Obama was not in the Senate for No Child Left Behind and Medicare Part D, he was there to vote for TARP.
• On an absolute basis, six months (February, March, April, June, July and August) had increases in the debt that were in the top 10 since 1993.
• Perhaps the scariest bit of news – the debt is almost certainly higher than total personal income. The Bureau of Economic Analysis pegged personal income at $11.956 trillion in the third quarter of this year and declining, while the debt stood at $11.910 trillion on 9/30/2009. While the debt is still barely under the $14.302 trillion the GDP was estimated to be in the third quarter, it is also catching that.

No wonder why Obama is bowing, groveling, and otherwise licking the boots of any foreign leader perceived to have money.

Revisions/extensions (9:35 pm 11/17/209) - For more reading, head on over to Hot Air, where Allahpundit caught a whiff of the ultimate expiration date/red lips moment trial balloon of repealing every last Bush tax cut which, with all the other non-PlaceboCare tax hikes, would represent a $3 trillion/10 years tax hike (assuming, of course, that the money doesn’t just vanish). I wonder if the White House is paying attention to my last point of confiscating every last dime every last American makes in a year not eliminating the debt.

Also, stop on in CBS News’ Mark Knoller’s place, as it was his Tweet that launched my lenghty math exercise. I do have a math lesson for Mark – Bush’s $4.899 trillion increase in the debt was over 8 years, which makes that an 8.03% annual increase. Even the second term increase of $3.014 trillion represents only a 8.70% annual increase, far less than Obama’s 14.38% annualized rate. It is, however true, that Bush’s last-year increase of $1.438 trillion, which was a 15.65% annual increase, does top Obama’s current annualized rate (just wait for PlaceboCare to hit for that score to change).

It was probably, in the end, a complete waste of taxpayer money.

Oh, just read the article and think of how many different activities that phrase could fully summarize.

h/t Instapundit

(H/T – Robert Stacy McCain)

If memory serves, both Shoebox and I have pointed out the reluctance of the Chinese to continue to soak up American debt. The Daily Telegraph has the latest in the coming ChiCom shift away from the US Dollar:

Cheng Siwei, former vice-chairman of the Standing Committee and now head of China’s green energy drive, said Beijing was dismayed by the Fed’s recourse to “credit easing”.

“We hope there will be a change in monetary policy as soon as they have positive growth again,” he said at the Ambrosetti Workshop, a policy gathering on Lake Como.

“If they keep printing money to buy bonds it will lead to inflation, and after a year or two the dollar will fall hard. Most of our foreign reserves are in US bonds and this is very difficult to change, so we will diversify incremental reserves into euros, yen, and other currencies,” he said.

The Chinese are the single biggest foreign holder of US government debt, and they’re saying once again that they may well not continue to buy more. There simply are not enough buyers out there to soak up another $9+ trillion in US government debt over the next 9 years, which begs the question of whether the Fed will really flood the market with more dollars or whether the Treasury (really, Congress and the President) will do something that has never been done and default on US government debt.

In related reading, Charles K. Rowley, General Director of The Locke Institute and Duncan Black Professor of Economics at George Mason University, says that we could follow Argentina under socialist Juan Peron from the First World to the Third World. Why do I get the feeling that is precisely the ObamiNation’s goal?

Revisions/extensions (11:52 am 9/7/2009) - I know I’ve got too many blogs in the reader. As part of his look at George Friedman’s projections for the next 100 years on September 1, CDR Salamander wrote this little gem:

I agree with the last statement, but America can degrade itself though economic malpractice inline with what Argentina did to herself in the 1900s – but on a much larger scale. You cannot be the world’s greatest debtor and continue to run the world. It is unsustainable. Do not discount relative decline.

There is good relative decline; the USA % of global GDP decreases as other nations leave the 3rd to progress towards the 1st World. There is bad relative decline; the USA % of global GDP falls due to real falling national GDP and degrading internal economic factors and external competitiveness….

The only way the USA will lose its position over this century will be if we follow the Argentine model and economically destroy ourselves – something the present administration is doing very well from a debt-load POV.

Revisions/extensions (12:37 pm 9/12/2009) - Welcome to the party, fellow FMJRA devotees. Unlike RSM, this short-order cook doesn’t have a tip jar to hit, but between Shoebox and I, we do have some pretty good reading. And Smitty, I hear you on the 6-hour Mike Foxtrot shotgun sessions. If I had a tip jar, I might restart my version, but other than Rule 2, I don’t quite have the temperment to get enough hits for that to matter.

(H/T – The Senate Republicans)

Now that the Bureau of Labor Statistics has come out with the all-sector August jobs report, which shows a preliminary 216,000 job loss for August, it’s time to update the earlier private-sector-only post of 3.487 million private-sector jobs lost since the end of January. With the creation of 377,000 government jobs since the end of January, the economy has lost 3,110,000 jobs since then.

The Senate Republicans helpfully included a summary of what the Human Gaffe Machine Vice President Joe Biden (he of the three-letter J-O-B-S utterance) uttered to the Brookings Institution just yesterday:

“Analysts from Moody’s to IHS Global Insight to the Economic Policy Institute and others all estimate the Recovery Act has created or saved between 500,000 and 750,000 jobs. Matter of fact: Some notable economists suggest the number is as high as a million.”

That’s funny; even if one included only the government sector (which I believe the ObamiNation thinks is the only sector that matters), Porkulus fell short.

King Banian, my favorite economics professor from St. Cloud State University, ran with the latest Office of Management and Budget projections for 2010 employment, which includes a 2010 fourth-quarter unemployment rate of 9.7%, and put together a quick-and-dirty spreadsheet (Excel 2007; those of you with Excel 2003 will either need a conversion tool from Microsoft to open or will want my Excel 2003 copy) to gauge what the projections actually mean. For those of you who can’t open Excel files, here’s a screencap of the spreadsheet:

Not only do the employment rolls drop by 1.96 million between the 4th quarter of 2008 and the 4th quarter of 2010, but the unemployment rolls increase by 4.59 million over the same 2 years. This is If you want percentage terms, employment rolls would drop 1.36%, while unemployment rolls would go up 42.96%.

That does assume that the Labor Force Participation Rate would bounce back to 66.0% from the current 65.8% and the 2009 first quarter 65.6%, which means those retiring, those without work for so long that they no longer count as “unemployed”, and others who are not part of the labor force would not increase as rapidly as the rest of the population. If the LFPR were not to bounce back as much, the employment roll drop would be even larger.