Illinois, destroyed:

Illinois lawmakers were in disarray Thursday as they groped for stopgap measures to address a $13 billion deficit equaling nearly half of the state’s general-fund revenue.

The state faces one of the nation’s worst budget crises, spilled over in part from the broader national economic crunch, and its current bond ratings lag only California’s. But the confusion in the legislature indicates that serious steps to fix state finances won’t be taken until after the November elections—if then…

…Any hopes that the national economic recovery would help the budget discussions were dashed this week when Illinois disclosed that revenue for April —when most citizens pay taxes—fell more than 15% from the same month a year ago, or $501 million, in part because of a $345 million drop in federal aid. Gross personal income-tax receipts, a major revenue source, dropped $103 million, or 8.1%.

And that last bit, by the way, puts to rest any notion that we are in a recovery. If we were recovering, then State tax revenues would at least be stabilizing, but they are still falling. They might not be falling as precipitously as they were last year, but they are still falling. Which means that less people are working; working people are earning less; people are spending less…the economy is contracting.

Illinois – like California, New York and New Jersey – just illustrate in the most stark terms where liberalism brings you: to bankruptcy. Liberals have just spent and spent and when revenues didn’t keep up with political promises, they borrowed. And now the bill has come due – and there simply isn’t enough money to pay for liberalism.

Naturally, liberals are refusing to face reality. New Jersey has proven lucky in getting Chris Christie as governor – the governor has the power (and Christie has the guts) to do do what is necessary to bring things under control. Elsewhere, it will actually take the votes of liberals to undue the damage of liberalism. And so it isn’t happening – as you can see, in Illinois they are just trying to find some sort of stop gap to keep things going for a little while…until after the elections, when either the GOP will be saddled with the problem, or re-elected Democrats will feel safe in hammering the Illinois taxpayer.

The States are in acute crisis because they can’t print money. The United States appears to be a going financial concern because the Federal Reserve can print money – and by printing a couple trillion over the past year, the Federal Reserve has made it seem like a recovery is ongoing. But, it isn’t – and, in fact, all the fake money has just made things worse (we’ve taken the bad debts of stupid bankers and turned them in to the bad debts of an electorate which elected Obama). But even with the magic of Federal Reserve, there is a limit – and we’re very fast approaching it (maybe by as soon as 2013).

We hit that wall, and complete collapse will greet us, just as it is greeting the great State of Illinois – not enough money to pay all the promises. We can still avert if, if we elect a Republican Congress in November – but it will be a close run thing. We might not have enough time to avert the worst sort of crash (there will be a crash – what remains to be determined is how bad it will be).

HAT TIP: Mish’s

From Rasmussen:

Americans continue to overwhelmingly believe that English should be the official language of the United States and reject by sizable margins the idea that such a move is racist or a violation of free speech.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 87% of Adults favor making English the nation’s official language…

Me: I disagree with making English the official language. But I also see this for what it is: the people are tired of multi-culturalism and all the rest of the PC claptrap the liberals have been foisting on us for a generation.

The left in America had better start to tread with care – the people are fed up. Press just a bit more, and the backlash will be astounding. I’m not just talking about a good GOP year in 2010, but majorities being elected capable of amending the Constitution. The line has been drawn – the people are determined to keep their freedom, and keep their country.

Poor guy:

Tory leader David Cameron has entered Number 10 Downing Street as Prime Minister for the first time – and said: “This is going to be hard and difficult work.”

Uh, David, old buddy – its going to be impossible work. The only way to save Britain’s economy: massive spending cuts. Your coalition partners: Liberal Democrats who simply won’t go along in a serious way. What will happen: eventually double-dip for which you will get blamed. Long term result: Labour back in power, Tories disgraced and out of power for a generation.

I hope it works out differently, but I don’t see much hope.

Socialism is evil. This video will make our liberals blow a gasket. T

Republicans retain lead in “generic” ballot – by 6 points, which is the narrowest GOP lead in 2010. Reason? Financial reform has hit us a bit – unfairly, but politics isn’t fair. But all the issues are on our side – I expect that we’ll maintain and perhaps expand our lead as we head in to the fall.

A Chinese TEA Party?

Brits still yammering on about whom shall preside over the final collapse of Britain’s economy.

I’m of the opinion that Obama is a fool – a man without the requisite knowledge or character thrust in to office by a set of odd circumstances. For an alternative position, we go to Wayne Allen Root over at Nevada News and Views:

It’s time to stop mincing words. Obama is not a fool. He is not incompetent. He is not a madman. He knows exactly what he’s doing. He is purposely overwhelming the U.S. economy to create systemic failure, economic crisis, and social chaos- thereby destroying capitalism and our country from within. But the bonus is brilliant…as he destroys and taxes to death business owners, he also cripples his political opposition.

Rahm Emanuel cynically said, “You never want a crisis to go to waste.” It is now becoming clear that the crisis he was referring to is Obama’s Presidency. As Glenn Beck correctly predicted from day one, Obama is following the plan of Cloward & Piven, two professors at Obama’s Columbia University. In 1966, they outlined a plan to socialize America by OVERWHELMING the system with government spending and entitlement demands…

Root was the Libertarian Vice Presidential candidate in 2008. I don’t subscribe to this view that Obama is deliberately wrecking things – but one doesn’t have to in order to agree that Obama’s policies are immensely destructive. If one were setting out to bankrupt America, nothing worse could be done.

The varied expedients which have been used to keep things afloat in America are going to fail. There is just no way to back up all the debt we’re piling up – we can’t tax enough to pay what we owe; taxing at that level would kill economic activity, altogether, and thus make our problem worse.

And so, we’ll slip slide down this hill until we hit bottom – and hopefully learn our lesson both about electing liberals and trying to borrow and spend our way in to wealth.

The bit of good we’ll pull out of the coming financial crash (temporarily delayed by European governments stealing from their people to cover the losses of gamblers dressed up as investors):

What we’re seeing in Greece is the death spiral of the welfare state. This isn’t Greece’s problem alone, and that’s why its crisis has rattled global stock markets and threatens economic recovery. Virtually every advanced nation, including the United States, faces the same prospect. Aging populations have been promised huge health and retirement benefits, which countries haven’t fully covered with taxes. The reckoning has arrived in Greece, but it awaits most wealthy societies.

Americans dislike the term “welfare state” and substitute the bland word “entitlements.” The vocabulary doesn’t alter the reality. Countries cannot overspend and overborrow forever. By delaying hard decisions about spending and taxes, governments maneuver themselves into a cul de sac…

We’re not as deep in that cul de sac as Greece, but Obama is hustling us down the road as fast as he can. But, also, don’t work yourself up too much blaming him – he’s clueless about economics and is merely carrying out the socialist/Kenyesian instructions of others. It sounds like it should work, and so off Obama goes – keep in mind that a bit of the money being picked from pockets to pay off Greek bond holders is coming out of your pocket…Obama made no objection to IMF funding for Greece, and that means your tax dollars are now at work in Europe.

Fun, huh?

Anyways…

The whole concept of a welfare State was never workable. When it was first proposed, the idea was that if you gave everyone a middle class income it would spur such growth as to pay for itself. Ok, ok – stop laughing. Seriously, that is how it was sold…

Of course, what happened was lower productivity, increased dependence, vastly greater expenses than anticipated, and lower economic growth resultant upon higher taxes on productive enterprise. That didn’t stop it – in fact, it was just expanded more and more. Europe got even further in to it than anywhere else because they could gut their military spending and rely on the United States to pick up the slack.

But now the proverbial poop has hit the fan – there simply isn’t enough money in the entire world to cover all the debt and promises. Something has got to give – and it will have to be either sovereign default followed by financial collapse, or financial collapse followed by sovereign default. There is no easy way out of this – the piper must be paid.

The breaking news:

President Barack Obama will nominate U.S. Solicitor General Elena Kagan to serve as an associate justice on the U.S. Supreme Court, NBC News’ Pete Williams reported late Sunday night.

Kagan, 50, served as the Dean of Harvard Law School from 2003 to 2009. Obama nominated her to serve in her current post as solicitor general early in 2009, and she won Senate confirmation by a vote of 61-31. She is the first woman to serve as solicitor general of the United States.

There will be a lot of hoopla, but in the end she’ll just be another mindless drone for the left on the Court.

UPDATE: Sessions says Kagan had a hand in banning military recruitment at Harvard Law. If this proves the case, then she is unfit to serve on the Supreme Court.

Republicans got rid of Bennett in Utah – will Democrats in Pennsylvania get rid of Specter?

Not A Bad Weekend At All for Congressman Joe Sestak, who’s opened up a 4-point lead (46-42percent) over U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter in the daily Morning Call/Muhlenberg College tracking poll.

With just about 10 days left until the primary, 12 percent of the 404 likely primary voters in the daily canvass are still undecided.

And as the poll, itself, has a margin of error of +/-5 percentage points, this is still a toss up race. But I think that even Democrats are getting a little tired of the party bosses deciding who gets to run. Who is Specter to life-long Democrats?

To be sure, he was a tolerable Republican who could pull in some Democrat votes from time to time, but he was obviously never near and dear to the hearts of Democrats. But then he had to switch or get blown out of the water in the GOP primary – and the Democrats, desperate to get their 60th Senate vote – snatched him and up and tried to suppress primary opposition.

Well, that 60th vote thing didn’t work out as well as they hoped – and now it seems that at least a lot of Pennsylvania Democrats would prefer to have a Democrat as their candidate. DINOs and RINOs both seem to be on the endangered species list.

(Ed. Note: please remember that I have no use for an uber-liberal like Sestak…but I am highly sympathetic to Democrats who don’t wan to be saddled with Specter; I still hope that Specter pulls it off, because that make our victory almost existentially certain…but we can beat Sestak, too.)

From Reason:

…The “one-off” attack line came from the highest official in the American government charged with preventing attacks exactly like Shahzad’s: Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano.

Napolitano’s rhetorical slip is a little too serious to be palmed off with some linguistic woolgathering. She has made clear repeatedly that she believes people with Gadsden flag bumper stickers are a greater threat to domestic tranquility than out-of-the-closet terrorists who receive training and material assistance in foreign terror centers. She has been wrong about this every time, and she will continue to be wrong until Americans actually die.

And it will, unfortunately, take more corpses before we can get Napolitano out. And even then it won’t be because of the dead, but because of her increasing political liability. Democrats don’t care about what happens except as it relates to electoral results – as long as you don’t risk a lost vote, you’re ok as far as Democrats go.

So far, we’ve lucked out incredibly since Obama took office – but we won’t luck out forever. Eventually, they’ll get through – and all of the “engagement” and glad handing of our enemies will be exposed for the fraud it is.