stimulus

Albert Einstein once said “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” By that definition President Obama has gone insane. Or perhaps he’s not so much insane as he is just suffering from a bout of memory loss. Does he not remember how badly his previous effort at pumping money into the economy went? Nevertheless, here we are, a year and a half later and creeping unemployment remains undeterred by the federal government’s intervention and the President is pitching another stimulus.

By politically necessity this one is much smaller. He’s decided to take a piecemeal approach, breaking the approach into three prongs: (1) $50 billion in infrastructure improvements, (2) a R&D tax credit extension, and (3) an investment tax rebate. Nevermind that President Obama attempted to sell his $800 billion stimulus plan last February by listing previous “failed theories that helped lead us into this crisis” including “that we can meet our enormous tests with half-steps and piecemeal measures.” Sounds to me like he’s embraced the piecemeal approach. Must be that memory loss.

The worst of the plan is President Obama’s decision to throw $50 billion at infrastructure improvements. After all, what happened to all those “shovel-ready” infrastructure jobs that the first stimulus was supposed to contain? An even better question was posed in this Investor’s Business Daily editorial,

But why in the world do we need another stimulus when we’re not even close to exhausting the funds allocated for the last one?

This when $275 billion of the original $838 billion has still yet to be doled out. More specifically, less than a third of the $230 billion allocated to infrastructure projects has been spent. So with literally hundreds of billions of dollars worth of infrastructure investment still pending, why are we tacking on an additional $50 billion?

Well, because it sounds good. 150,000 miles of roads will be rebuilt. 4,000 miles of rail will be constructed or maintained. 150 miles of runways will be rehabilitated.

But while Obama was clear about how many miles of pavement or tracks would be laid, there was never a hint of how many jobs would be created. Apparently, the government is finally getting out of the “jobs created or saved” business. What it should be getting out of is the stimulus business altogether. The first one was an utter failure. In the last quarter the economy grew at 1.6 percent – not even fast enough to keep unemployment stable, much less than the speed necessary to actually create jobs. In fact the economy shed 54,000 jobs in August, a depressing finale to what was billed as the “Recovery Summer.”

The only true history made by the stimulus bill was the record levels of debt and deficits it has wrought upon America’s balance sheet. As the CBO wrote in their latest Budget and Economic Outlook, “relative to the size of the economy, this year’s deficit is expected to be the second largest shortfall in the past 65 years.” I’m betting you could guess what year had the largest. Things are not projected to get much better. As the CBO explains, “Beyond the 10-year budget window, the nation will face daunting long-term fiscal challenges . . . Continued large deficits and the resulting increases in federal debt over time would reduce long-term economic growth.”

$50 billion is not the cure to our problems, it only adds to them. The economic multiplier effect of Keynesian economics only works in theory. In the harsh reality we live in businesses care little for economic theory. They care about their bottom lines. They care about an uncertain policy environment clouded by an activist government. They care about how much taxes they are going to have to pay now, and in the future, as we are forced to pay for this unprecedented spending binge.

Democrats have already gone “all in” on their original stimulus package. They gambled with taxpayer money and lost. Now they want to ante up another $50 billion. But they’ve tried spending us out of this recession over and over again. Can we really expect different results this time around? A sane question likely to be ignored by an out-of-touch Washington.

by Brandon Greife, Political Director of the College Republican National Committee

http://speakout.crnc.org/blog/2010/09/08/trying-the-same-thing-but-expecting-different-results/

We’re heading into the home stretch. We’ve rounded the final corner and are now speeding towards the November finish line. If you haven’t figured it out I’m talking about the upcoming elections where Democrats are trying their best to stay ahead of the Republicans in the race for Congressional control. But Democrats appear to be running out of fuel, the result of a failed “Recovery Summer” and the consistent lack of results from their tax-and-spend policies. Republican’s on the other hand have filled up their gas tank, fueled by voter response to their vision of change.

Voter’s desire for a new perspective in Washington is most clear when there is money on the line. In this cash-strapped, job-hunting society, the only thing we care about more than money is what diet Kim and Khloe Kardashian are on this week (or, if you’re a guy, the fact that the NFL starts next week). But still, money is king. It is what gives us the roof over our heads, puts food on the table, and puts the kids through college. Without Mr. Franklin and Mr. Grant backing up our country (for me its more like Mr. Washington and Mr. Lincoln) it will be impossible for us to remain an economic superpower.

This importance is evidence in the polls. According to Gallup, 93 percent of those polled believe that the economy is at least “very important” in determining their vote in the fall. That is trailed only slightly by job (92 percent) and federal spending (81 percent). That means three of the top four voting cues all have one thing in common – money – either the ability to earn it or the concern that Congress is mishandling it.

Saying an issue is important doesn’t necessarily tell you very much, so let’s dig a little deeper into the numbers. Now that we know everyone is anxious to have a few more greenback’s in their pockets, the key question is which party do you believe can help you do that?

Of those polled by Gallup, 49 percent believe that Republicans would do a better job at fixing the economy while 38 percent believed Democrats would do a better job. That’s a +11 for the GOP. Americans also said they trust Republicans more than Democrats on the issue of jobs, albeit by a slimmer 5 percent margin. But rather than analyze issue by issue, there is a greater trend at play here. Of the nine issues asked about in the polls Americans trusted Republicans more than Democrats on seven of them (and healthcare was essentially a tie).

Democrats have squandered our trust. In October of 2006, just prior to Democrats’ making major gains following George Bush’s reelection, Democrats led on all eight issues polled at the time. Americans reward trust and punish any breach of it. We were given reason to hope that the “Washington way “would be changed. Promise after promise was thrown at us. Everything from a promise to “drain the swamp,” to a promise to pay for “every dime” of their plans, to a promise that if the stimulus passed unemployment would fall below 8 percent. But none of it came true. Promises of change were dashed against the rocks of the same old Washington. Nothing is different, except for now things are worse.

The economy is comatose, largely the result of uncertainty caused by overregulation and the necessity of tax hikes to pay off our crushing debts. Unemployment remains high because no companies are willing to make the commitment to hire unless the government makes a commitment to back off. And federal spending has soared with years of historic deficits still ahead. For better or worse Americans care a lot about money, and the government hasn’t given us much reason to trust what they are doing with it. Their seeming addiction to the “spend, spend, and spend some more” mindset is leading us into serious trouble. They spend on stimulus, they spend on bailouts, they spend for healthcare reform. I can’t even list all their spending bills because I just don’t have the room.

Americans live within a budget. We are forced to balance our checkbooks, keep our accounts in the positive, and make regular payments on any debts we have. Why should we trust a Democratic Party who thinks they play by different rules? We shouldn’t. Or given the recent poll results perhaps it would be more appropriate to say – we don’t. Fortunately, with November right around the corner we’ll soon have an opportunity to show them just how much we appreciate their breach of trust.

by Brandon Greife, Political Director of the College Republican National Commitee

http://speakout.crnc.org/blog/2010/09/02/democrats-breach-of-trust-could-lead-to-big-november-losses/

It looks like Arizona has a lot of serious company out there just now. No fewer than twenty two states are in the process of drafting, or seeking to pass, legislation such as was passed by Arizona. Others are looking at the Arizona law with renewed interest.

Representative Debbie Riddle of Texas aims to pass a new immigration law in January.

The cash strapped municipalities, counties and states can ill afford the lavish largesse, once routinely offered to illegals by liberal governments. The gravy train is petering out for one reason… there is no money. Federal programs and make-work grants are fizzling out.

The stimulus simply didn’t work. That money is running out. The sectors favored most by the infusion of these federal dollars are of course the people to whom Obama and his DeMarxist Congress were most beholden… the public sector unions, the SEIU, the teachers’ unions. So far, they’ve largely avoided the brutal layoff / no job nightmare the rest of us have been living with, only because of repeated bail outs.

It will be increasingly difficult to keep these jobs off the chopping block as further bailouts seem unlikely, given the proximity of the elections and the mood in the country about any further deficit spending. Once the public sector starts to feel the bite, more dissatisfaction will be directed towards Obama and his government.

These twenty two states are legislating in the face of the government’s lawsuit which challenges the legality of Arizona’s ‘tough’ illegal immigration law, which is nothing more than federal law enforced. I think more states will start looking really hard at enacting similar laws, as they have to face how much catering to illegals is really costing them.

Encourage your lawmakers to consider Arizona-style legislation. If we dry up the goodies we won’t have to deport them, because they’ll go back where they came from if there’s no work or welfare to attract and hold them.

Semper Vigilans, Semper Fidelis

© Skip MacLure 2010

Watching Barack Obama neatly separate British Petroleum from some twenty billion dollars to be administered by an independent party, Obama’s pay tsar, Kenneth Feinberg, has been called to lend the veneer of respectability to the ‘distribution’ of the funds to gulf oil victims.

Kenneth Feinberg

This move is to forestall the criticism sure to come from the right, who claim that much of the TARP bailout and 800 billion dollar stimulus funds were wasted and misused. So much money was directed on the basis of political quid pro quo and cronyism, that an accurate accounting for the American people would be difficult. If anyone out there doesn’t think that Democrats divert what money they can, they had better check their reality meter.

It reminds me of the woman in Florida during the campaign, who said in front of network cameras that she was going to vote for Obama because then she wouldn’t have to worry about her mortgage or car payments any more, as Obama is going to take care of everything. Asked by an intrepid news hawk where Obama was going to get the money she replied that she didn’t know… after a pause she said, “He’s going to get it from his stash.” That the woman was entirely sincere in what she believed says worlds about Obama’s support base.

British Petroleum has behaved pretty well so far, given the obstructionism presented by the ineffectual Obama administration. Twenty billion dollars is a pretty substantial surety towards British Petroleum’s good behavior. The administration could have done much to ameliorate the problem by moving first and talking later. A rapid marshaling of the nation’s emergency resources, placed at the disposal of the people best suited to deal with the well blow out, would have put us far in advance of where we stand today, at least in terms of combating the oil already loose in the gulf.

Obama’s great illusion of green energy. It’s the left’s holy grail. It’s non-existent technology that will not now, or for the foreseeable future, provide more than a fraction of our energy requirements. Obama’s rigid ideological drive is focused on destroying the energy sector of this country along with our economy, to rebuild it into the twisted vision of Obama and the DeMarxist Congress. Obama’s ‘stash’ is your future, the futures of your children and the futures of their children.

Semper Vigilans, Semper Fidelis

© Skip MacLure 2010

It’s a saga that would have challenged the imagination of an ancient Nordic bard… the dragon, the perfidious gods, the legendary heroes, the evil villains… sorry folks, there’s no maxi-sized soprano hoisting a spear and shield in this one.

Barack Hussein Obama is presiding over the worst economy and economic outlook since the great depression. There are some that would argue that we’re already there. After helping to engineer the collapse of the mortgage banking industry, the same people who were screaming ‘hang the bankers’ are the same ones who repeatedly blocked investigation and regulation of the mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Our president was on that list, along with a who’s who of Congressional DeMarxists.

So they create the disaster, howling through the megaphone of the statist lame stream media at the same time, saying we have to have this money today. Right now. The sky is falling! Then they say that only we can save you, and that the only way to end the daily worsening recession is to pump an immense infusion of currency into the economy. We were assured on a daily basis of immediate and long range job growth— any day now— hold on… any second now.

800 billion dollars and eighteen months later and we are in far worse shape than we should be… this is intentional. The 800 billion didn’t go out to the marketplace, where it would have generated investment in business and thereby jobs in the private sector. The money went instead to states and municipalities. The money didn’t go to help Americans… it went to public employee unions. It went to states. Not to help solve their fiscal funding or to reign in the unions, whose underfunded/unfunded retirement obligations have threatened to bankrupt states and cities alike, but to pump money into the same losing programs and administrations time after time.

The government grew by four hundred thousand jobs, as opposed to forty one thousand jobs created in the private sector during the same period. What’s with that picture? Barack is having one heck of a time convincing America that we have to have another 50 billion to ‘keep police, firefighters and teachers working’. This is code for: The stimulus money is all gone. What do we do now, chief?

This is desperation spending. Obama knows that he’d better get it now if he can. Come November, things could change dramatically.

Semper Vigilans, Semper Fidelis

© Skip MacLure 2010

First of all let me thank Dee, who aside from her own schedule and work on our site, found time to lend her considerable journalistic talents covering for me while I was off for a few days. I was out of touch for much of this week, so it was with great pleasure that I read Dee’s articles this morning. Her essay into the comparison between us and European/Brit socialism was, I think, a very instructive window on where this country is headed if we don’t stop it.

The news cycle ground on while I was gone and I’ve spent most of today just trying to make sense of it. It looks like there’s more of the administration’s bi-polar unemployment figures out there for us, touting a 260,000 increase in employment as evidence that the economy ‘has turned the corner’. This administration has used that same pitch now for over a year. Back then the stimulus was going to do it for us, remember? We had nothing to worry about because the Obama administration had it all under control. A year and four months later and we get a new econo-fantasy-a-day out of Obama’s government.

At the same time as they’re talking about a jobs increase they’re reporting higher unemployment. We are now officially at 9.9 %. The real figure is the one they don’t want you know. It’s the one that reflects the underemployed, as well as the unemployed who have given up and aren’t currently looking. That figure was 17.1% last time I checked. Some sources claim that that figure is much closer to 20%. If that’s true then we are much closer to depression era unemployment than anyone is willing to admit.

The country will only sink farther into this miasma, created by Obama and the DeMarxists, if we as citizens don’t step in and stop them.

Semper Vigilans, Semper Fidelis

© Skip MacLure 2010

 Talk about missing the mark! 

Granted, some polls are far better than others and many of them you simply cannot trust because they are skewed to make a person appear to be ahead or behind.  Such an example would be one of CBS fame that printed “0% of African Americans disapprove of Obama.”  The flaws are obvious given the very person alone currently writing this.  On the flip side of the coin are polls that just simply show what is on people’s minds and allow you to make what you want of them.  One such poll revealed some startling concerns of the American people in terms of their priorities.   As Obama Bashing becomes as much as a leisurely past time for many as does Bush Blaming for others, it becomes apparently clear that the Obama Bashing opportunities have been handed forth on a silver platter trimmed ornate gold.

The top three priorities for Americans this year are; strengthening the economy, improving the job situation and defending the US against terrorism.  Clearly the administration has done too little and many will even argue that they have failed because so much attention has paid to three other areas; the stimulus, health care reform and cap and trade legislature.  It is here is where they have missed the mark.

A year after the stimulus, the president is passing words on a spending freeze; something many of the best economists argue should have been done a year ago.  Blow after blow suffered by health care reform was met by steadfast Democratic determination to get it passed.  The ever echoing words of the president in regards to whether or not people want it have come to fruition.  In fact, the people “who want it” has dropped steadily since 2005!  (60, 59, 56, 54, 52 to 49% each year respectively ending in the 2010 survey of “providing health ins to the uninsured”).  Not only does the word “mandatory” begin to make sense since fewer each year were actually listing this as a top priority, it makes sense why the arguments and rhetoric behind it have become so intense.  The administration has insisted on an issue that was actually dead in the water before it started.  Because of this, they used everything from race baiting to emotive desires like “broken” and the “American Holocaust” to incite and interest that clearly was not there to begin with!

Picking up the tail end of American issues of priority was “dealing with global warming” at 28%.  As with its issue predecessor of wasted time and effort of providing insurance, it too dropped markedly over the course of the last several of years.  In 2007 38% of Americans identified this as a top issue and it steadily declined to 35, 30 and to 28 percent this year.  Perhaps this is because we suffered a severe winter making it difficult to support such allegations that man is warming the planet by driving too much, or even because Obama said his plan would “cause electricity prices to skyrocket.”  Then again it may be that people have been brought to remember a not so recent attempt of such cap and trade style taxation with the ever thinning ozone layer at the hands of our gluttonous ways only to discover it was mere cow farts.  Who knows and who cares?  The bottom line is that the Obama administration has sorely missed the mark of the concerns of the people despite the fact that the people’s interests in their (the administration’s) agenda has been decreasing over the past years.  Imagine if you would, where would we be today if the administration’s priorities were that of the people they are representatives of?

Of the bashings befallen Obama, the most consistent is that he is too self-centered to put the people’s agenda before that of his own.  An ego maniacal narcissist or not, at least half the accusation is completely true.   You simply cannot hit the mark if you are aiming at the wrong target!

If the stimulus were replaced with fiscal conservatism then instead of now, and the efforts on health care reform and cap and trade legislation would have been focused on the top the American issues of concern, Obama may not have hit the bull’s eye, but he would have at least been within the mark.

As we listen to rhetoric coming out of DC, it is not clear whether or not Obama actually gets it.  The mixed signals are everywhere from Obama stating on his radio address that health care pushes in the future will be harder and more focused, to him saying he has lost touch with his base.  Of concern is the fact that he feels he must get in front of the people more.  441 speeches in 2009 and he thinks getting in front of a teleprompter more frequently will aid this problem is only a testimony to narcissistic tendencies.  T he American people want the rubber to actually meet the road, not be told the rubber is going to.  We have heard that four hundred and forty one times with far too little to show for it.  Speaking about it 500 times in 2010 will literally be more of the same.

The spark is gone, the honeymoon long since over, and the president’s influence has proven to do more damage than good.  It’s not just the polls we are talking about, it is expectations.  The American people expected much because he told them much was to be delivered.  Then he kept telling and telling while the whole time the delivery van was going in a direction the American people felt was on an unneeded route to nowhere.

The Obama Promises Delivery Van is now stopped on the side of the road on a rural route with no American homes on it.  He has the map with the target destination on it; the question is… can he read it not?

How far would Barack Obama and his administration go in order to gin up support/panic for his signature health care legislation? If you’ll remember, the grandstanding and informational blitz for the ‘UPCOMING’ H1N1 started back around January and February of last year. The Democrats were shouting from the roof tops that “THE PANDEMIC IS COMING, THE PANDEMIC IS COMING”. We HAD to have health care passed right now! Sounded an awful lot like the bleating that was going on with the ’stimulus’ didn’t it? We absolutely, positively had to have it or the banks would collapse. Wall Street would fold up and go home and the economy would collapse.

As such things usually do in the light of sober reflection, it is apparent that we would have been SO much better off had we simply allowed the banks, the investment houses and the auto manufacturers to fail and go into bankruptcy, which is precisely why the bankruptcy laws had been written into the Constitution in the first place. The market place would have adjusted, reorganizations and bankruptcy courts would have adjudicated and the void would have been filled, because nature abhors a vacuum.

As it was, we allowed the ‘leaders’ who had us dead in their sights, with SAP written all over us, to panic the country into the MASSIVE PORK FEED that is the stimulus and every single ancillary piece of paper that has come out of Washington remotely associated with it. Keep in mind that many of these so called leaders are the very ones who knowingly fostered and promoted the very factors that created the situation to start with.

In any given year in this country there will be approximately 36,000 deaths from influenza (CDC figure). In any given year world-wide there are between 250,000 to 500,000 deaths from influenza. If you add up all the space given to the ‘approaching’ pandemic, in the shameless and cowardly effort to promote the THEFT of our freedoms through these scare tactics, it would come to tens of thousands of column inches.

Pandemic FACT. To this date a total of 14,286 deaths have been attributed to the H1N1 virus WORLD WIDE. There are approximately 43,000 deaths caused by auto accidents every year in this country alone. Seen in this light it’s sort of like the PANDEMIC that wasn’t, promoted by the presidency that ISN’T.

Semper Vigilans, Semper Fidelis

© Skip MacLure 2010

Like every thing else about this Obama Presidency and administration, nothing is straight forward. It’s always a conjuration of smoke and mirrors. It’s just like Rush Limbaugh used to say about the Clinton administration, “These people get out of bed in the morning saying to themselves, ‘HOW CAN WE FOOL THEM TODAY?’ “

Fact is, it’s getting a lot harder to do. The leftists can no longer depend on calling up the same old reliable chimera time after time to bend issues and opinion to their will. Some of their favorite issues just aren’t playing like they used to and in a strange case of role reversal they just don’t seem to grasp what’s happened to them.

'Seasonally Adjusted' Unemployment Variance.

The unemployment figures are a good example. After shouting to the heavens that if we passed his 787 BILLION DOLLAR stimulus, unemployment rates would not go above 8%. Well, billions and billions of absolutely wasted dollars later we have 10.1% unemployment, which has magically gone down to 9.7% despite the government’s own ‘adjusted’ figures for last year, showing an increase of unemployment from about 7.5 million jobs lost during this recession to EIGHT POINT FOUR MILLION. Jobs lost in December were revised from 85,000 to ONE HUNDRED FIFTY THOUSAND.

Umm, 9.7% ? Ok, if you say so. But then Obama is desperate and grasping for anything that will make his DISASTROUS Presidency just a little less catastrophic. He was forced to admit that his grandiose attempted RIP-OFF of ONE SIXTH of our total economy and the virtual enslavement of the people of this country is a failure. It was the pillar on which the rest of his Marxist dreams resided, ie: CAP and TAX, though we have to somehow prevent the EPA from passing it piecemeal through regulatory fiat. A Republican majority would do well to DEFUND AND DISMANTLE THE EPA!

Then there is that perennial Democrat dream of amnesty for about 20 MILLION ILLEGAL ALIENS residing in this country, burdening our tax systems and our citizens to say nothing of our national security. It’s too bad for Obama that Americans are so stubborn and so wedded to our freedoms that his promised socialist nirvana had no appeal, except to the permanently disaffected ten or so percent that is present in virtually any society.

Add to that the change that was brought about by the information technology revolution of which this column is part and as they say, the rest is/will be history. The battle is not yet won… in point of fact it has barely begun. But there is a clear path we as Conservatives have to follow to ensure that our country never again comes this close to allowing a totalitarian regime to gain power here.

Semper Vigilans, Semper Fidelis

© Skip MacLure 2010

There are a lot of self-important and self-aggrandizing ‘power brokers’ in Washington that won’t be there come this time next year. It’s not just the tunnel-visioned hypocrites in the Senate that are in the cross-hairs either. The House of Representatives has MUCH to answer to the American voters for also.

Look for the DeMarxists to try to drive a wedge between the GOP and the TEA PARTY CONSERVATIVES. The facts are that the VAST majority of this country do identify themselves as conservative, for all the bleating of the lame stream socio-marxist media and the Maobamatons of the administration. The very people they have been crapping all over for years have been bulking up on the CONSTITUTION and the words of the FOUNDERS, the BILL OF RIGHTS and the DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. They have remembered WHO and WHAT they are.

The Americans Are Coming!

All prognostications for next year’s elections are indicating grim prospects for politicians whom the American voter has determined are responsible for, and are in favor of, the OPPRESSIVE legislation now working its way through Congress. Whether by active or passive support, Americans are taking note and remembering. No matter if it was in favor of the massive pork ’stimulus’ funds the DeMarxists voted for themselves, or the fraudulent and UNCONSTITUTIONAL health care bill, to the economic disaster that is CAP and TAX, to the upcoming and soon to be introduced AMNESTY FOR ILLEGAL ALIENS – better known as the DeMarxist welfare constituent voter-for-life bill.

Americans have also figured out who and what was responsible for the economic collapse in the first place. The hysteria generation that worked so well that first time hasn’t done so well recently, have you noticed? The pandemic they worked so hard to gin up. When was the last time you heard about that? Notice the layers of lies they have piled on about the incipient environmental disasters we DON’T face, which are peeling away like the skins of an onion.

The CITIZENS AND TAXPAYERS OF AMERICA HAVE PLAINLY HAD IT. There is a new revolution out there and it’s growing in intensity daily. We will not be denied. It’s our America and we will preserve it.

Semper Vigilans, Semper Fidelis

© Skip MacLure 2009