No Runny Eggs

The original was posted at Sister Toldjah on April 3. Since the comments timed out there, I’m reposting it here, and moving the placeholder, also posted on the 3rd, below the fold

ST put this warning from Newt Gingrich about a third party springing up in 2012 up in Hot Headlines yesterday, which gives me the perfect opportunity to launch into my thoughts on this possibility. I’ve been tossing this around for the last 4 years, since President Bush’s re-election, when I became convinced that a significant portion of the Republican Party was more interested in purchasing the middle by growing government than actually opposing the Socialization of America espoused by the Democrats since LBJ. I’ve alluded to my thought process several times in my looks at where conservatism has been the last couple years.

First, allow me to summarize the gist of Gingrich’s comments. He notes that all of the Obama administration spending excesses were set up by the Bush administration, and that there is an undercurrent of disgust aimed at both parties. We all know about the right-v-Republican-v-right battle, and there was at one point a rather heated left-v-Democrat one. However, the Democrats in power are rapidly healing that rift, even as there are rumblings of a center-v-Democrat one. I’m not exactly convinced that “Blue Dog Democrats” or PUMAs exist, but if they do, they could make a third party a much more intriguing proposition.

The essential part of creating a third party is finding something that is not addressed by either of the two existing parties, but is popular enough to create an electoral majority. The ideology that is closest to being able to create that, social conservatism, has been sufficiently tarred by the left that even though individual issues still win on the ballot, politicians are sufficiently scared of the tar to actually attach themselves to it.

I wish I could believe that fiscal conservatism could be that glue. The scope of the various Tea Parties are encouraging. However, I’ve seen this before in the county I live in (Milwaukee County, Wisconsin), and while we still have the County Executive that got swept in, a supermajority of the County Board went back to the tax-and-spend-and-tax-and-spend-and-tax-and-spend tactics that ultimately led to the pension scandal that sparked the temporary tax revolt.

Even if a conservative glue could be found, there’s the matter of supplanting the Republican Party as the “Not-Democrat” Party. In most states, the existing “third” parties have consistently failed to get more than a handful of votes. Given the plurality-wins structure in most states, there will necessarily be a rather lengthy stretch of comlete Democrat control of government.

That brings me to the other limiting factor; time. There are actually three different clocks running; the 2010 elections, the point at which the “looters” and “moochers” are a majority, and the point at which the entitlement scheme starts drawing from the general fund rather than supplementing it. One could argue that we’re already past the second point; the fact that President Obama took a majority of the vote with a very-thinly-veiled Socialist agenda, and the Democrats in Congress and in statehouses increased their majorities with an unveiled Socialist one, would suggest that point has been crossed.

Similarily, it probably is too late to create a new “Not-Democrat” Party that will have a chance in the 2010 elections. It took the Republicans 6 years to be a force on the national scene. I’ve stated time and again that today’s Democrats will try their hardest to not repeat the mistakes of the 1850s and allow an “upstart” party to get enough roots to challenge their hegemony.

While there still is almost a decade before Social Security goes into the red, the problem is that those in office after the 2010 elections will be the ones to redraw the districts. Meanwhile, not only is nothing being done to correct the problem, but the things that can correct the problem have been systematically wrecked.

If someone could give me good news I could believe in, I would appreciate it.
(more…)

I wrote here about President Obama’s steadily declining approval numbers.  I posted a poll asking when his net positive number, as measured by Rasmussen Reports, would drop below 0.  One of the options in the poll was by today, April 3rd.  If you voted for that option you were close but no cigar!

Rasmussen reports that Obama’s net approval rating has dropped to it’s lowest level thus far +3, just barely above sea level.

Of interest in the poll this week is that for the first time in over a month there was a day, March 31st, where Obama’s net approval number moved back into positive double digit territory at +11.  I’m guessing it was not coincidental that this was the same day that President Obama left the United States.  I suspect many people, myself included, felt safer with him gone.

Also interesting this week is that after a couple of days of higher than recent ratings, Obama’s ratings are right back on the path to go below zero in the not too distant future.  Again, I doubt it is any coincidence that the new low approval rating comes on the day when it is obvious that Obama is not staying in Europe but is planning to come back to the US.

If Obama really does pay attention to polling do you think we could find him a nice, lonely, isolated island far from the shores of the US to live on?  It would help his approval rating!

I only wish The Wall Street Journal were pulling an April Fool’s prank with this story on Congressional bonuses. However, they’re not. The highlowlights:

• Congressional bonuses increased House aide pay by an average of 17% in the 4th quarter of 2008.
• Rather than return $9.1 million in budgeted-but-not-spent taxpayer-funded office budgets, which vary between $1.3 million and $1.9 million per member, 200 House members, both Democrats and Republicans, showered that on their staffs.
• Barney Frank (D-MA), chairman of the Financial Services Committee, gave bonuses to dozens of committee members who worked on criminalizing bonuses for employees who took TARP money.
• Loretta Sanches (D-CA) holds the record for the largest individual bonuses, dishing out $14,000 apiece to 3 aides.
• Tom Udall (D-UT) rewarded the members of his staff who took time off to work on his successful Senate campaign with those bonuses, increasing the net pay of 19 of his 22 aides to an annualized salary of $163,795 (including a part-time employee).
• Heather Wilson (R-NM) gave 13 aides up to $3,000 apiece in bonuses after her Senate bid fell short.
• Thelma Drake (R-VA) divvied up $40,000 among a dozen aides as a going-away gift after she lost her re-election bid.

The story does not mention how much in excess office funds was returned this year, but notes that in a typical year, between $1 million and $2 million gets returned, and that in 2006 (the previous election year), just $36,549 was returned.

I wonder if President Obama has considered nominating a Democrat who hasn’t been caught making “errors” on their tax returns?

Sebelius Failed to Pay Taxes

President Obama’s nominee for secretary of Health and Human Services, Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, failed to pay $7,918 in taxes and interest, she writes in a letter sent today to Senators Max Baucus and Charles Grassley.

OK, to be fair, it does appear that her issues may have been a bit less straight forward than Geithner’s:

According to Sebelius, an accountant who was hired to review tax returns for 2005, 2006, and 2007 discovered a number of errors. “In July of 2006, my husband and I sold our home for an amount less than the outstanding balance on our mortgage,” Sebelius writes. “We continued paying off the loan, including interest we mistakenly believed continued to be deductible mortgage interest.”

In addition to this error, there were three charitable contributions for which they “could not locate our acknowledgement letter.” She adds she had “insufficient documentation” for some tax deductions for business expenses, though these adjustments did not affect the amount of tax owed because she paid the Alternative Minimum Tax.

In separate news, Sebelius testified today for her potential appointment to HHS Secretary.  She claims that she will attack fraud in the medical industry:

“Having a few strike operations may be the most effective way to send the signal that there’s a new sheriff in town, and I intend to take this very, very seriously,” Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius told the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.

I don’t know about you but, anyone who “could not locate our acknowledgement letter,” for charitable deductions and has to back out business deductions because of “insufficient documentation,”  sounds pretty close to having committed fraud.  Perhaps we voters should consider

“Having a few strike operations may be the most effective way to send the signal that there’s a new sheriff in town, and we intend to take this very, very seriously!”

In defending his proposal for new, broader regulations that would allow the Treasury to step in and control any company that they deemed “too big to fail,” Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said:

the markets have become “too unstable and fragile.” He said, “To address this will require comprehensive reform. Not modest repairs at the margin, but new rules of the game.”

Hmmmm, new rules…. 

Have you noticed how every time something happens that wasn’t anticipated by this administration, their response is to provide “new rules?” 

Have you noticed how the phrase “new rules” does not mean more flexibility but always means more government control and involvement with the industry or company the “new rules” are promulgated on?

Have you noticed that “new rules” by the government never make the industry or company more competitive or run more efficiently?

Has anyone noticed that the industries that led us to this economic difficulty are among those that already have the highest number of rules to follow?  Banking, Insurance, Mortgage, Securities; all industries that have government telling them more about how they must operate their businesses than nearly all other industries.

In defending his demand for the termination of GM’s CEO, President Barack Obama said he

has “no intention” of running General Motors.

hmmmm, not running the company……

Have you known anybody able to fire an employee of a company that was not running at least that part of the company?

Have you known anyone able to retroactively dress down individuals and companies for how they use the company’s assets who wasn’t “running the company?”

Have you known anyone able to determine acceptable compensation levels for employees that wasn’t “running the company?”

Have you known anyone able to make a determination to unilaterally terminate company contracts and accept the risk of that termination on behalf of the company, without being someone who runs the company?

Did you notice how just a couple of weeks ago, President Obama was too tired to meet with the Prime Minister of Britain but yesterday, he took on another full time job to run GM?