government reform

Poll Reveals Americans Understand Big Goverment Scam

Mark Noonan38 Comments

From Rasmussen:

…A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 71% of American Adults say the bigger problem with welfare programs in the United States is that too many people get welfare who should not be getting it. Just 18% say the bigger issue is that too many people who should receive welfare do not get it, while another 11% are not sure.

Republicans (91%) and adults not affiliated with either political party (70%) believe much more strongly than Democrats (51%) that the bigger problem with welfare is that too many ineligible people are on it.

Fifty-nine percent (59%) of all Americans think immigrants who follow the law and enter the United States legally should have to wait three years or more before collecting welfare benefits, including 31% who believe they should wait more than five years. Seventeen percent (17%) think three years is enough, while 11% prefer a five-year waiting period…

What is the scam?  Get as many people as possible hooked on Big Government hand outs, then claim that any proposed cut is a cruel, inhuman cut-off of someone who otherwise will die.  Use these in alternating efforts to continually grow government so that you can get ever richer and more powerful.  For the longest time, this worked…but this poll indicates that more and more people are understanding that massive numbers of people are on the dole who really shouldn’t be.

While I have no way to test my theory – it would take a large staff and a pretty big budget to do it – I firmly assert that at least half of the people receiving government benefits should be kicked off and forced to get back to work.  As I’ve said elsewhere, I’ve got a pretty high standard for disability…no one will ever be able to erase from my memory my late colleague who was a wheelchair-bound victim of a horrific genetic disease who couldn’t even use all the fingers of her hands and yet managed to hold down a 40 hour a week job until just a few months before her death.

If she could work, then most people on disability can work.  Period.  End of story.  No, shut up you lazy SOBs with your whines about “stress”…get back to work and get off my wallet.  I’ve got stress, too – a great deal of which stems from having to get up and go to work in the morning while millions of people are on their backside watching daytime television and waiting for their EBT card to be re-filled.  In my view, you’re only excused from working if you can’t work…can’t get out of bed, can’t stand up for more than a few minutes, can’t sit down for more than a few minutes, are blind…missing your legs or arms…something like that (and this is Biblical – In fact, when we were with you, we instructed you that if anyone was unwilling to work, neither should that one eat – 2 Thessalonians 3:10 – so don’t any of you liberals try to throw Christian charity at me…I know the command to charity; but charity isn’t the act of supporting layabouts who can otherwise support themselves).

A great deal of the reform of America will be re-imposing the requirement of hard work.  Hard, dirty work, at that.  A nation which will not engage in hard work is a nation which will die – it is really just as simple as that.  Each person is required to labor to the limit of the talents God has provided him or her – those who can do much, must do so; those who can do little, must still do at least that…and those who really can do nothing, must be provided with every last thing they need from those of us who can.  But there are no free rides – if you are living off the wealth of others then it must only be because there is no other way for you to live.  A complete review of all those on government aid should be done – excluding only those on social security retirement and military pensions (you get SS because you earned it by working…you get your military pension because you earned it by risking your life over many years for your nation) – everyone on government aid should be forced to justify their dependency.  Tell us why you can’t work – show us your complete incapacity for any work whatsoever.  If that is indeed the case, then you can count on us to provide all you need…but if you can work, at all, then you’d better get to work.

Enough is enough – there really is no free lunch and it is time we called a halt to this liberal nonsense.

Who is Bankrupting America?

Mark Noonan21 Comments

Tino over at Super-Economy has the chart:

 

There is simply no arguing with this – Obama has massively increased spending since he took office.  It isn’t just a slight difference, it is night and day.  He’s gone on a binge of spending – and that means that if we want to get our deficit under control, the only rational thing to do is at least return it to the average.

The reason Obama and his Democrats won’t do this is because when they finally gained full control of the government in January of 2009 – for the first time since 1994 – they were determined to pump up all the spending they couldn’t get when all or part of the government was under GOP control.  They pined away for this…for years they dreamed of the day when the Treasury and the printing press would be entirely theirs and they could spend to their heart’s content.  They aren’t about to give it up.  First off because a reduction in spending would reduce their immediate power (they ability to buy votes with taxpayer money), secondly because they have vastly enriched their cronies and don’t dare take it away.

This isn’t about tossing granny over the cliff – cutting spending is about taking Democrat special interest groups and crony-capitalists off the government teat.  That is what the whole debate really comes down to – will we reduce the spending, save our economy and rebuild our nation?  Or will we continue to lavish money on Democrats and their hangers-on until America is destroyed?

The fight is on – 2012 will decide it; but as we fight it, don’t for a minute let Democrats tell you they are helping granny…they are just helping themselves and greedily and senselessly want to keep doing it no matter what happens.

Postal Service Seeks to Cut 120,000 Jobs

Mark Noonan32 Comments

From the Washington Post:

The financially strapped U.S. Postal Service is proposing to cut its workforce by 20 percent and to withdraw from the federal health and retirement plans because it believes it could provide benefits at a lower cost.

The layoffs would be achieved in part by breaking labor agreements, a proposal that drew swift fire from postal unions. The plan would require congressional approval but, if successful, could be precedent-setting, with possible ripple effects throughout government. It would also deliver a major blow to the nation’s labor movement…

First off, I’d like to say I never knew we had 120,000 postal workers.  Whenever I go to the post office I see 10 windows and two clerks.  Where are the rest?

That aside, this proposal will be fought tooth and nail – Democrats simply do not want 120,000 dues-paying (ie Democrat-donating) union workers let go, not right in front of an election year.  Doesn’t matter that the postal service is going bankrupt…all that matters is keeping the dues (donations) flowing.  But something does have to be done – and if any Democrat thinks there is an increased postal service subsidy waiting to come out of the House, he’s got rocks in his head (or, more accurately, more rocks than usual).

How this comes out in the end remains a mystery, but get ready for one heck of a fight…bet the Democrats try to tack a postal service rescue amendment to whatever the debt committee comes up with.

Sen. Toomey to the Debt Committee

Mark Noonan14 Comments

From NRO’s The Corner:

Sen. Pat Toomey (R., Pa.), who found out this morning that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) had selected him to serve on the congressional “super-committee,” said he “very strongly hopes” the panel can reach an agreement to avoid triggering the fallback measure that includes deep cuts to defense spending. In order for that to happen, Toomey told reporters on a conference call Wednesday, both parties will have to compromise. “If this committee is going to be successful, it absolutely has to have bipartisan support,” he said. “That’s how it was set up. This has to be done in a cooperative fashion.”

The freshman senator and former Club for Growth president said his “guiding principles” on the committee will be “the twin goals of reducing the deficit and continuing to promote economic growth.” To that end, he hopes to reform the tax code in order to broaden the base while lowering rates and growing the economy. “That will also generate more revenue,” he said. “A stronger economy always does.”…

Toomey is an excellent choice and, also, a pledge to the TEA Party and conservatism in general that they have a voice in this committee.  Do read the whole linked article as Toomey lays out an excellent vision of what this committee can and should accomplish.  If good will and public spirit can accomplish anything, then Toomey will do it.

On the other hand, the purpose of the committee – as far as Democrats are concerned – is to cut defense and ratify tax hikes (especially on those “millionaires and billionaires” who make $200,000.00 a year).  Failing that, the Democrats’ hope that a smash up of the committee can be blamed on the Republicans and be used as part of the overall “smear and fear” campaign they are planning for 2012 (very telling is Reid’s selection of Sen. Murray for the committee – she is chair of the Democrat Senatorial Campaign Committee…in other words, the Democrat Senator with the most vested interest in playing pure politics on the committee).  In short, while Toomey wants to do what is right, Democrats want to claw on to power…it’ll make for an interesting battle.

At the end of it, either Toomey’s spirit of patriotic compromise will prevail, or the whole thing will blow up…but if the Republicans on the committee hang tough on core principals (genuine spending reduction and tax reform which doesn’t punish the middle class nor destroy wealth creation), then the blow up will be right in the Democrats’ face.  Fundamentally, the American people are on the side of reasonable compromise to reduce spending and grow the economy…that is what they want, and that is what the GOP must stand for.  If Democrats sabotage it then the people will see right through that…and only if the GOP caves in and goes along will we be blamed for any failure.

We are at a crossroads for our nation – between now and November of 2012 we will decide if we remain a great, free and prosperous nation, or if we are to sink in to decline and eventual destruction.  Each step we take must be informed by a genuinely patriotic desire to do what is best for America…in this, there is a time to fight it out in the trenches, and a time to seek reasonable compromise.  The opening of the debt committee is the time for reasonable compromise.  The Democrats will, I am certain, reject this course…but let them do it, first…then we’ll have the approval of the American people to get down and dirty with them.

Democrats Refuse to Admit Defeat…

Mark Noonan11 Comments

…or go within a country mile of sanity.  They’re at it again, now working on a recall effort against Governor Walker.  From Hot Air:

You’ve got to chase your dreams. Ahab had Moby Dick, Javert had Valjean, and these tools have a guy whose collective bargaining bill is a fiscal success even according to Milwaukee’s favorite newspaper.

Can we get them to flush a bunch of money down the toilet next year that might otherwise go towards reelecting Barack Obama in a crucial swing state? Yes, we can.

“‘If we can do all of this against entrenched Republicans on their own turf, imagine our success … when all of Wisconsin can have its voice heard on Gov. Walker’s extreme, divisive agenda,’ Wisconsin state party chairman Mike Tate wrote in a memo to reporters Wednesday…'”

W. C. Fields once said that if at first you don’t succeed; try, try again.  And then quit.  No sense being a damn fool about it.  Our Democrats seem determined on being the fool.

They just spent $30 million to win two State legislative seats, one of which was held by a man who got himself mired in a sex scandal.  What’s next?  $60 million to try and bounce Walker from the governorship?  Goodness, even if they did it, if the GOP controls the legislature then a Democrat governor still wouldn’t be able to undo Walker’s reforms.  Furthermore, as Walker’s reforms are starting to take hold, all of the news is good (late breaking good news for Walker probably saved one or two of the GOP seats on Tuesday) – for Wisconsin’s budget, for Wisconsin’s taxpayers, for Wisconsin’s schools…for all aspects of Wisconsin life, except for corrupt union bosses and their bought Democrat politicians.  By the time the Democrats could get a recall off the ground against Walker (I understand that under Wisconsin law they couldn’t try until some time in 2012) things might be going so well that Walker is politically bullet proof.

I do appreciate the appeal to the voters aspect of this – something all too often absent from the left.  But the purpose of recall is not just to undo every election you don’t like, but to remove from office those politicians who prove egregiously corrupt or entirely out of tune with what they ran on.  Democrats are just throwing a temper tantrum here…

But, by all means, have at it…each cent spent on a quixotic attack against Walker is one cent less Barry and the Boys will have to stave off disaster in 2012.

The Big Government Failure – California Edition

Mark Noonan26 Comments

From Bloomberg:

California faces “drastic” cuts to universities, schools and social programs if revenue continues to trail budget forecasts, the state controller said after July collections fell short by about 10 percent.

A series of “triggers” written into the most-populous state’s $86 billion general-fund budget would cut spending on universities, home care for seniors and the disabled, libraries and other programs if revenue falls $1 billion short of plan. A $2 billion gap would mean a seven-day cut in the school year and an end to busing subsidies…

The reason I bring this up is to point out that Big Government always gets it wrong.  When faced with having to cut spending or pretending that enough money will come in, Big Government will invariably opt for pretending…or, lying, if you want to be strictly accurate.  We here in Nevada have the same problem – though on a much smaller scale – where our budget was “balanced” because we’re pretending that we’ll have a big increase in revenues (anyone driving around Las Vegas can see that we’ll be lucky if revenues don’t crash through the floor…things are just lousy out here, and Las Vegas accounts for the majority of Nevada’s revenues).  We also have this problem – on a much larger scale – nationally, where our recent budget deal was predicated upon projections of revenue which are laughably optimistic (remember, official projections are based upon official data which indicates we are officially in economic recovery mode).  This means that, just like California, we can expect revenues to fall short of what we predict, and thus we’ll have a larger deficit than expected.

The dishonesty of Big Government is endemic – there is nothing it can do but lie because the basic concept is false.  You can’t make the majority – or even a large minority – of people happy, free, safe and prosperous if you are trying to do it by government action.  You can certainly enrich a Ruling Class of politicians and their crony-capitalists, but you can’t do anything worthwhile for most of the people.

This is because no government, no matter how well disposed, can ever figure out what people need, nor what people want.  Government can play a role in assisting people who have determined, on the local level, what they need but they can’t command results from on high.  There just isn’t – and never can be – sufficient knowledge for such results.  The lies we see in the budgeting process are just one part of it…you can also see it every time some Big Government booster speaks of a grand plan.  Remember, we have a Department of Education because our education was bad in the 70’s and the Department was supposed to figure out what education needed and wanted and fix everything up.  How has that worked out?   Just apply that same standard to all Big Government activities and you’ll get the same result.

Dismantling the beast of Big Government is a necessity – it is the only way we can restore freedom and prosperity in our nation.  And the sooner we get at it, the better.

Sarah Palin Proves She’d be a Better President

Mark Noonan35 Comments

A long article on her Facebook page says all that needs to be said – do read the whole thing.  Here’s the crux of the matter regarding our debt:

… we need to get serious about our deficit. No more accounting gimmicks. No more cuts in “out-years” that never materialize. The permanent political class in D.C. might be fooling themselves with these Enron-like accounting games, but they’re not fooling the world’s capital markets. And we don’t need any more happy talk from the White House about “investing” in solar shingles and really fast trains. The White House shouldn’t even bother floating these new spending programs. We can’t afford them. Period. We need to stop this deficit spending, balance our budget, repeal Obamacare, cancel all unused stimulus funds, and reform our entitlement programs. We have to have an adult conversation about our spending commitments; circumstances have changed, and we must adapt. I know none of this will be easy, but, “thick” or not, the average American outside the D.C. politico bubble knows that we no longer have a choice! We will have entitlement reform and a balanced budget; it’s just a matter of how. We can do it ourselves in a calm, methodical, and responsible manner, or we can wait for the world’s capital markets to ram it down on us. Let’s be responsible and do it ourselves. And let’s get serious about reducing the size of government across the board and rooting out waste. How many more reports (that today are destined to merely gather dust on the shelf) do we need about duplicative and unnecessary programs before we actually do something about government waste?…

The whole thing is clear and concise and lays out the problem – fearlessly stating truths that Obama turns away from.  Obama would prefer to carp about “millionaires and billionaires” and have his minions try to make “TEA Party downgrade” go viral…but a real President will face the facts and propose changes which will solve the problem.

I don’t know if Sarah Palin will run – but if she does and obtains the nomination she’ll beat Obama in a landslide for the simple fact that she tells the truth and Obama doesn’t.

Defending the TEA Party

Mark Noonan55 Comments

From NRO’s The Corner:

Sen. John McCain defended the Tea Party against Sen. John Kerry’s “tea party downgrade” remark on Meet the Press this morning.

“We could have reached an agreement a lot earlier, but the members of the House of Representatives had a mandate last November, and it was jobs and the economy and it was spending. And for them to then agree to tax increases and spending increases was obviously a repudiation of the mandate they felt they had from last November,” McCain said.

He said that much of the “dysfunction” in the current political system could be attributed to “the failure of the president of the United States to lead.”…

Some times John McCain can be infuriating, other times he’s just so right.  And gutsy – right now, the MSM/DNC drumbeat is that the TEA Party caused the problem.  Here is a chance for “moderate” GOPers to flee and mumble their agreement.  Not for John McCain – he just told it like it is:  the TEA Party is about cutting government spending.  To have agreed to tax hikes in lieu of serious spending cuts (and what we got in the deal was no where near “serious” enough to warrant signing off on revenue increases) would have been a rank betrayal.

To be sure, Democrats are all about that – in fact, over the past 40 years Democrats have mostly managed to advance their cause by gift of GOPers betraying principle and go along with whatever liberal flapdoodle is the fashion of the moment.  Remember Arlen Specter – that was the sort of “Republican” who was forever cutting the GOP off at the knees.  And that is precisely the sort of Republican the TEA Party people will not be.

Ultimately, we may have to obtain higher revenues in order to get out of this mess – but the fact of the matter is that Democrats will just lie about the spending cuts and greedily spend any increased revenue on their special interests.  In a very real sense, the Democrat leadership in the United States doesn’t care about the United States.  If they did, they would have proposed a real cut in next year’s spending – even if it were a symbolic cut of 10 or 20 billion.  I mean, of course, real cuts – not reductions in the rate of growth, but an actual spending of less money next year than we did this year.  Until Democrats show a real change of heart – show that they care more about America than they do about their own power and wealth – then we simply cannot go along with them…and thus the TEA Party standing firm against any tax hikes was an act of sublime patriotism.  It took away from those who are destroying the United States part of their ability to keep doing it.

McCain sees it; I see it, too.  Eventually, the whole country will see it – and I do believe that this growing understanding of what is really happening will destroy liberalism in 2012.

UPDATE:  In Canada, Saskatchewan gets a “TEA Party upgrade” to it’s bond rating:

…Rather than quickly spending its newly-earned wealth, the provincial government has put its tax revenue toward paying the bills. S&P gave special credit to Saskatchewan for its “low-and-declining debt burden.” As of March 31, the province’s fiscal year-end, Saskatchewan’s debt totalled $4.6-billion, representing 38 per cent of this year’s projected operating revenues and only 8 per cent of its gross domestic product. Canada’s federal debt-to-GDP ratio sits at around 35 per cent…

Rational tax and regulatory policies, a pro-business environment, fiscal responsibility which puts a premium on living within means and paying debt.  This isn’t rocket science, people…

Municipal Bonds on the Chopping Block?

Mark Noonan5 Comments

From Zero Hedge:

While the impact on Treasuries as a result of the downgrade may be limited (after all the other side of the Atlantic is about as ugly as the US, so where could $8 trillion in marketable USTs practically go… at least for now), the same may not be said about the far smaller, $2.9 trillion municipal market, which is about to see a blanket downgrade tomorrow as S&P warned on Friday night, and of which Matt Fabian of Municipal Market Advisors earlier said that “There will be hundreds and hundreds of municipal downgrades, which will not do well to bolster investor confidence.” The scary bit: “Treasuries may be able to shake off a real impact from the downgrade. Munis I’m less sure about…

This could be devastating to the already stressed budgets of municipalities – many of them, burdened under bloated pension budgets and other foolhardy spending, are just an ace away from bankruptcy, as it is.  Put a bit more pressure on them and a lot could fail.  And even if they manage to scrape through, this will mean less money for police, fire and schools…and likely further rounds of government worker layoffs (which, in a macro sense, aren’t bad, but are plain and simple lousy for the people losing their jobs).

Learn the lesson – debt is poison.  No government should ever carry any of it – certainly not for anything less important than fighting a World War.  To mortgage the future under the best of circumstances is foolish..to mortgage it in order to keep up a bloated, wasteful government entity is criminal.  The change must come, and we might as well get over the worst of it right away…slash budgets until no more bonds need to be sold, and then rebuild from there.

Did You Ever See a Stock Market Crash?

Mark Noonan40 Comments

The Tel Aviv market gives a good indication of what it looks like – and here’s the really bad news:  Israel’s economy is healthy.

Of course, by the time the markets open tomorrow Bernanke and the boys might have figured out some way to finesse around the downgrade and the spreading crisis in the Eurozone.  I honestly don’t know what will happen tomorrow – but things are looking really dicey both in the short and long term.

We’ve got one heck of a mess and it won’t be easy to get out of…and we need a government which recognizes the mess (no more happy talk about how things are moving in the right direction when they’re not) and has the guts to do what is right.  We need to massively reduce spending, reform taxes and entitlements and free up the wealth-creating capacity of the American economy.  This will infuriate all those special interests who are still living off the carcass of Big Government, but it has to be done.