Archive for category Congress
The Gavel!
Permit me a little fun with this from Mark Bailey: To Good To Be True!
Merry Christmas…but for how long?
Posted by Tom in Bankruptcy, Centrally Managed Economy, Congress, Deficit, Fiscal Policy, National Debt, Statism on December 25, 2010
Check out OweNo.com, a project of the Peter J. Peterson foundation. Here’s a sample:
Foreign Debt from Hugh Jidette on Vimeo.
Obama’s Leftist NLRB Run Amuck
Posted by Tom in Centrally Managed Economy, Congress, Statism, Unions on December 23, 2010
As we all know the unions own a big piece of Obama and he acknowledged this with his sponsorship of the Employee Free Choice Act permitting “card-check” unionization which eliminated those messy secret ballot elections. This passed in Pelosi’s House but failed to pass the Senate arguable because of the high unemployment rate of almost 10%. If this indeed was a reason for the failure, it’s a rare and happy sense of economics out of this august body. Unionization causes unemployment just as the minimum wage causes unemployment.
When legislation fails Obama shifts to the regulatory arena which he did at the NLRB by appointing Lafe Solomon, a career board lawyer, as “acting general counsel.” Now, the NLRB General Counsel is a position that requires Senate confirmation, but Obama has nominated no one as general counsel!
Why, you ask? Because Solomon is a radical leftist labor organizer. Without nomination or confirmation this wild man has started a rule making process which inter alia would require open shop employers to give the unions the names and addresses of the workers to promote unionization.
Is it fair to conclude that Obama favors economic barriers to full employment? This regulatory subterfuge would support that conclusion. Favor unions over the economy. The GM government takeover is another example of this.
Diana Furchtgott-Roth, an adjunct fellow at the Manhattan Institute, posted an excellent RCP article today, Where Unions Are, Americans Aren’t. In it she demonstrates how right-to-work states have gained congressional representation while forced unionization states have lost it. Winners like Texas and Florida are in the south and west, losers like New York and Illinois are in the northeast and midwest. In fact this has been the case for the last 25 years with right-to-work states growth more than double the growth of the forced unionization states. The recent Republican surge in the House, Senate and state governments confirms the voters attitude toward Obama’s more radical statist agenda.
Obama from the get-go has embarked on a statist, economy killing, job killing agenda. Whether it was Obamacare, cap and trade, or financial regulation, everything he and his minions along with Pelosi and Reid have created drag and uncertainties in the economy.
Despite his press conference Wednesday where he stated that “we now have to pivot and focus on jobs and growth,” he still tolerates radicals like Solomon in critical positions. Methinks that paleface speaks with forked tongue.
Everything government does beyond its legitimate scope, increases uncertainty and decreases growth and employment. Unionization and minimum wages are prime examples! That he ignores the law to pay back the unions he owes, is all the more damnable!
Christmas Surprise: FCC Expropriation & Internet Control
Posted by Tom in Centrally Managed Economy, Congress, Constitution, FCC, Free Speech, Government Regulation, Statism on December 20, 2010
It’s been long brewing but Obama’s unelected regulators at the FCC will tomorrow issue the order for “net neutrality” and internet regulation. As discussed in a prior post, net neutrality forces carriers to favor bandwidth hogs at no additional costs. Even though those carriers have invested significant dollars in their infrastructure, they will not be allowed to charge an appropriate return on their investment. This is a pure and simple a taking of property without just compensation, a confiscation of invested capital.
Worse, it is a first step to regulatory assertion of the right to regulate the internet without specific statutory authority to do so. It is legally an ultra vires action of government bureaucrats. Commissioner Robert McDowell tells the story in yesterday’s WSJ, The FCC’s Threat to Internet Freedom.
So why the Christmas surprise in this busy season as the infamous 111th Congress draws to a close? The usurpers of power, the Democratic dictators at the FCC know that the congress only has 60 days to review and potentially stop this illegal FCC action. If the holidays occupy 10 of those days, and organization of the new 112th Congress occupies another 10 or so days, then there will only be 40 days left for review. And as we all know there are more pressing national fiscal problems that will command higher congressional priority. Obama’s expropriators are hoping to float this usurpation under the radar.
Indeed it is the regulatory regime that will sustain this lame duck president during the next two years. And it is in this arena that major uncertainty will be created which will further damage the economy, indeed, the republic. The FCC will potentially damage our freedom of speech and freedom of the press, while the EPA can proceed to bankrupt our nation with cap and trade regulation of CO2!
Internet Freedom Coalition posted an excellent article on the subject, Silencing the voices of Internet dissent. It is a call to action to alert congressional representatives to review and reject the threat to free speech and free press. This is a critical effort.
Absent internet criticism of Obama and his ilk, we will become another Russia or China.
SHUT IT DOWN!
Posted by Tom in Congress, Entitlements, Federalism, Individual Freedom, Law, Morality & Religion in the Public Square, National Character, Statism, Subsidies, Welfare on December 15, 2010
It just burns money. It’s fraught with fraud and waste. It is not in touch with the will of the governed. It has little if any legitimacy. That’s our federal government which will shut down without the passage of an omnibus spending bill of 1,924 pages, pages that no legislator has read or fully understands.
Republicans want earmarks stripped from the bill before they will support it. That’s what the results of the last election would indicate the voters of America are demanding. This seems a reasonable interpretation of the November election results.
The existing stopgap measure that funds the current government operation is set to expire at midnight on Saturday. Absent legislation the government stops.
What a concept! The government stops! How would we function without a government? We would need to conduct our affairs with regard to others. We would need to help others in need. We would need to promote the general welfare of our immediate communities. We would need to come together to settle our private disputes, or, failing that, find a neutral arbitrator to settle them.
Now, the congregate victim class would have no ready bankroll and would need to deal with others on a reasonable basis. There would be no automatic handouts to the entitlement class, but those in need would be required to demonstrate that need.
Commerce would be conducted on a market basis. There would be no subsidies to favor one product or solution over another. Competition would prevail in quality, price, availability, etc. Markets would be allowed to work.
People who wanted services like education, medical treatment, transportation, etc. would pay for them, unless they could claim a real hardship, in which case others would help them. In other words, everyone would pay for what he gets.
If our nation were attacked we would need to take up arms to defend our hearth and home. If hooligans ran roughshod in our streets, we would need to band together to collar them and bring them to local justice.
On balance, all this might not be too bad. A teachable moment as our president is wont to say! Think what burdens would be lifted and what responsibilities would be replaced!
The Fox article today reports the brouhaha as well as any. McCain’s take is enlightening:
“Sen. John McCain tweeted the top 10 earmarks in the spending bill, including $247,000 for virus free wine grapes in Washington State, $413,000 for peanut research in Alabama, $235,000 for noxious weed management in Nevada and $400,000 for solar parking canopies and plug-in electric stations in Kansas.”
“McCain expressed disbelief about the projects.”
“Are we tone deaf? Are we stricken with amnesia?” he said, adding that voters made it clear in last month’s midterm elections that they’re tired of business as usual in Washington.”
When left a choice between stealing from other taxpayers with earmarks and continuing to steal from our grandchildren with every thing else or alternatively shutting down a government that doesn’t work, I say, SHUT IT DOWN!
Common Good? What Common Good?
Senators load the tax bill with so-called Christmas trees! That’s short for selling their votes. So what was a negotiated deal between Obama and the Republican leadership on a two year continuation of the current income tax rates with an increase in estate tax rates has been loaded up with “extras.” These are the quid pro quo that elected representatives extort for voting on the main bill.
The worst of these is the ethanol tax and tariff subsidies. And the worst of the whores are the Iowa Senators, Tom Harkin and Chuck Grassley. Rich Lowry flags it in his NRO post, The Ethanol Idiocy that Will Not Die. And, today’s WSJ editorializes on The Hawkeye Handouts:
“One measure of ethanol’s political clout is that reformers merely hoped to cut the tax credit for blending ethanol into gasoline to 36 cents per gallon from the current 45 cents that was due to expire at the end of the year. Instead, the deal keeps the full subsidy in place for another year, at a cost to taxpayers of $4.9 billion, and it retains the 54-cent per gallon tariff on ethanol imports that was also expiring.”
“Direct subsidies and trade protectionism, plus mandates that force consumers to buy ethanol: This is the trifecta of government support, and all for an industry that is 30 years old and that even Al Gore now admits serves none of its advertised environmental purposes.”
“The ethanol extension is the bipartisan handiwork of Iowa Senators Chuck Grassley and Tom Harkin, who both regularly abandon their professed principles (fiscal conservatism for the Republican and equity for the Democrat) in the service of agribusiness.”
It’s frustrating, infuriating, immoral and damnable that our elected representatives are the whores of special interests. The farm lobby is one example of corporate welfare at its best. Special interests control our government whether they be unions like the UAW and SEIU or corporate giants like ADM and GE. These are rent seekers, gaining from the public coffers, from the taxpayers, what they cannot get in a competitive environment. They and the elected representatives they buy are stealing from the rest of us.
The Christmas trees and earmarks should be banned. There should be up or down votes on single issues. Let ethanol stand or fall on its own. If we do not have the political will to take this simple procedural step in the legislative process we will not balance a budget.
There is no legitimate argument in favor of ethanol. Political whores of special interests know no common good! Nor do they know their Constitutional duty!
Congress Needs Some Time Off
This from Paul Burkett is kid safe, and a good lesson for adults!
Deficit Reduction-Competing Plans
Posted by Tom in Business, Centrally Managed Economy, Congress, Deficit, Democrats, Entitlements, Environment, Financial Policy, Foreign Trade, Government Regulation, National Character, National Debt, National Endowments and GSEs, Social Security, Taxation, Unions on November 17, 2010
Now we have another deficit reduction plan to compare the the Obama Deficit Reduction Commission plan, this the “Bipartisan Policy Center Debt Reduction Task Force” announced by Alice Rivlin and Pete Domenici. Here’s the WSJ high level comparison:
We won’t reduce deficits and their concomitant generation burdening debt until we reform congressional spending. Listening to another commission or task-force will not do the trick. Congress must get serious and tell the truth to the America people–there is no free lunch, THERE IS NO FREE LUNCH!
In addition to reducing the deficit, we must promote an environment for growth: certainty of taxation well into the future, certainty of limited regulation of business, and elimination of rent-seeking-giving subsidies and regulations.
All the principles of freedom and growth are anathema to the current state of Obamaism: Instead of reforming Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security Obama’s Democrats added Obamacare as an additional unsustainable entitlement with concomitant business and personal uncertainty. Instead of cleaning up the Fannie-Freddie generated financial mess Obama’s Democrats continued the charade of propping them up to do more future damage. Instead of cutting unnecessary spending, Obama’s Democrats passes such folly as cash for clunkers and bought GM for the UAW. So, bottom line, oppose Obama’s Democrats while they’re in office and turn them out of office ASAP.
A few basic economic growth imperatives;
- Repeal Obamacare while eliminating employer tax benefit subsidies, while eliminating interstate insurance competition barriers and while enacting stringent malpractice tort reform; reform Medicare over time as a high-deductible insurance policy with means testing; and reform Social Security with later retirement, means-testing and private accounts as an option for the means tested high-earners.
- Go for a flat, low-rate income tax both personal and corporate, eliminating extraterritorial corporate taxation, and all personal deductions, including home mortgage deductions.
- Eliminate all federal agency rule-making. If Congress can’t define it specifically as a law, then it should not govern, period! Now, there will obviously be extremely well defined and narrow exceptions to this like the difference in typeface, boldness or color of signs and warnings!
- Abolish all subsidies and mandates, farm subsidies/mandates, green subsidies/mandates, ethanol subsidies/mandates. If a product or service is not in and of itself economic enough or green enough to make it in the free market, then it should fail. In no case should it be subsidized.
- Eliminate all trade barriers that protect unions or their work rules. The Mexican trucking proscription under NAFTA is an example.
- Negotiate, sign and ratify as many free trade deals as are reasonable. As the world’s largest consumer, we hav the leverage, if we would only use it intelligently.
- Preclude all public service unions. Repeal Taft-Hartley and minimum wage laws.
- Eliminate all unnecessary government spending like, NPR, NEH, Department of Education, etc.
- Eliminate and forego all unfunded mandates to the states. Federalism must be re-energized and government pushed down to lower levels.
We need to get the point across to the American people that we are broke. We can’t afford the free lunches anymore. We need individual responsibility. We are not a socialistic nation.
In short, if we got government out of the way, this country would once again blossom!
State Bankruptcy Law Needed, Likewise an Amendment
Posted by Tom in Bankruptcy, California, Congress, Constitution, Federalism, National Character, National Debt, State Finances, Unions on November 14, 2010
Fehrenbach’s San Antonio Express-News post in RCP today scared me. In discussing the states pension ponzi schemes, California and New York worst among them, he concludes: “When they go broke, no way will the federal apparat, Democrat or Republican, let them wreck the American economy through bankruptcy. Not the American way. We’ll print money, bail them out, while they re-elect the same folks who led them into Red Sea waters.” While this is contrary to the hope expressed in my recent post, it presents a stark warning that demands prescriptive action.
No one doubts that several states are de facto bankrupt. Their current expenses exceed their receipts. Their long term liabilities are unfunded and in most cases unrecorded. The assumptions for these long term obligations are unrealistic. Their public employee unions will not relent in demands for increases nor will they ever consider givebacks. Their liberal politicians will not cut government services since to do so will offend public employee unions. And while those politicians will raise taxes, to do so is to drive out taxpayers and taxpaying businesses who can vote with their feet. Finally, their credit ratings continue to deteriorate bringing these states ever closer to the financial precipice. Only last year California was issuing IOUs to suppliers.
The U.S. Bankruptcy Code provides for bankruptcies of municipalities, cities, counties, etc. but does not provide for the bankruptcy of states. This needs to be remedied immediately.
First, the new congress should pass legislation providing for state bankruptcy. There is no other logical way to reform state obligations.
Next, the new congress should also propose a constitutional amendment prohibiting the federal government from bailing out states that face bankruptcy.
The combination of these two measures if adopted will lend added force to political solutions necessary to reform these spendthrift states. Finally, this is a necessary step to a long needed return to the federalism this country was founded upon.
The United States simply cannot afford to bail out the bankrupt states. The federal government itself is close to bankruptcy.
Election 2010…Read the Tea Leaves (no pun intended!)
What happens in 2012 as far as the Democratic Senators are concerned? These solons are smart politicians. They look at the Republican tsunami in the House, the state houses, the governor elections and they conclude that the electorate has rejected the Obama-Pelosi-Reid leftist socialism. They see that the public is tired of big, intrusive government, generation choking deficits, and concomitant bankrupting debt.
Several of these Democratic senators are up for reelection two years hence in 2012. And several of those want to be returned to the Senate at that time. QED, they start to move to the center. Just as the 2010 Democrats distanced themselves from Obamacare, so will these “greedy” (for power!) Democrats.
Republican House leadership proposes and pases legislation designed to reduce the deficit, limit intrusive regulation, or repeal Obamacare. It’s sent to the Senate. Time to vote. Who among them wants to be on what side of the very sharp and heavy guillotine? With 2012 elections in ever larger view on the horizon, I submit that more than a few will vote with the increased Republican minority. Of course, I rely on my sense of human nature and greed for power.
Well then, who is up for reelection or retirement in 2012? As we know Senators have six year terms with about a third of the body turning over every two years. Makes for continuity in office. Isn’t that wonderful! According to Wickepedia, and who can quarrel with that, this is what’s up: 33 Senators are up for reelection, 2 independents, 10 Republicans, AND 21 DEMOCRATS! The details below:
| State | Incumbent | Party | State | Incumbent | Party |
| Arizona | Jon Kyl | Republican | New Jersey | Bob Menendez | Democratic |
| California | Dianne Feinstein | Democratic | New Mexico | Jeff Bingaman | Democratic |
| Connecticut | Joe Lieberman | Independent Democrat | New York | Kirsten Gillibrand | Democratic |
| Delaware | Tom Carper | Democratic | North Dakota | Kent Conrad | Democratic |
| Florida | Bill Nelson | Democratic | Ohio | Sherrod Brown | Democratic |
| Hawaii | Daniel Akaka | Democratic | Pennsylvania | Bob Casey, Jr. | Democratic |
| Indiana | Richard Lugar | Republican | Rhode Island | Sheldon Whitehouse | Democratic |
| Maine | Olympia Snowe | Republican | Tennessee | Bob Corker | Republican |
| Maryland | Ben Cardin | Democratic | Texas | Kay Bailey Hutchison | Republican |
| Massachusetts | Scott Brown | Republican | Utah | Orrin Hatch | Republican |
| Michigan | Debbie Stabenow | Democratic | Vermont | Bernie Sanders | Independent |
| Minnesota | Amy Klobuchar | Democratic | Virginia | Jim Webb | Democratic |
| Mississippi | Roger Wicker | Republican | Washington | Maria Cantwell | Democratic |
| Missouri | Claire McCaskill | Democratic | West Virginia | Joe Manchin III | Democratic |
| Montana | Jon Tester | Democratic | Wisconsin | Herb Kohl | Democratic |
| Nebraska | Ben Nelson | Democratic | Wyoming | John Barrasso | Republican |
| Nevada | John Ensign | Republican | |||
Here’s a little guessing game for you: pick the top ten Democratic Senators to be the first to switch and side with the Republicans when that critical vote comes around?
And just for fun, assuming enough of them switch to pass the Republican bill, how quickly will Hussein Obama step up to the guillotine with a veto?
Boy, I thought the next two years would be a guerilla-war-like stalemate. Given the new Republican dominance in the state legislatures and the upcoming redistricting, I’m now beginning to think it will be quite interesting! KEEP SMILING!