The Bankrupt States of America

Mark Noonan53 Comments

From USA Today:

…The big difference between the official deficit and standard accounting: Congress exempts itself from including the cost of promised retirement benefits. Yet companies, states and local governments must include retirement commitments in financial statements, as required by federal law and private boards that set accounting rules.

The deficit was $5 trillion last year under those rules. The official number was $1.3 trillion. Liabilities for Social Security, Medicare and other retirement programs rose by $3.7 trillion in 2011, according to government actuaries, but the amount was not registered on the government’s books… (emphasis added)

The report goes on to note, among other things, that for Social Security to be solvent we’d need to have $22.2 trillion set aside and earning interest.  Clearly, that is an impossible sum – we don’t have it and we can’t get it, ever.  And that is just Social Security – it doesn’t count the cost of Medicare, Medicaid, the upcoming ObamaCare bill, other entitlements and, of course, all the other bloated, wasteful spending which is built in to our government.  And it entirely leaves aside the amount of debt our State and local governments have accrued.  The bottom line:  the United States is bankrupt.

For now, we’re able to play around with this – pretend, that is, that we’re not bankrupt and that money will be there for everything.  But the reality is there – Paul Ryan is right:  we’re heading for the most predictable financial disaster in human history.  Unless we take charge of our nation and reform our taxing, spending and regulations, we’re doomed to an economic wipe out which will make the Great Depression seem like small potatoes.  If you want to see where we’re heading, look at Greece…and land of riots, bank runs and a government which can’t even pony up for the prescription drugs they promised the people of Greece; and I don’t mean “having trouble paying”…the Greek government simply stopped paying for the drugs.  They are out of money.

We’re probably three to five years away from that point…maybe as many as 7 years if we really go flat out with money-printing and financial gimmicks (which would also be disastrous in terms of rapid inflation and other dislocations).  But unless we fundamentally change how things are done, we’re doomed sooner or later (and I think sooner – the latest data from Europe and China indicates they are in recession and I bet we’ve been in recession for a couple months now, but the data are being fudged…they were being fudged in Europe and, especially, China, too…but you can’t “hide the decline” forever).  This is why November 6th is so crucial – a re-elected Obama, even if he’s set with a fully GOP Congress, simply will not make any move to disturb business as usual.  Even if he’s not able to increase spending the fact that we won’t have a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate will prevent any budget from being passed…and we’ll be saddled with year after year of “continuing resolutions” which lock in place the bonanza of extra spending Reid and Pelosi piled on in 2009.  Obama must go if America is to avoid catastrophe.

Romney, on the other hand, is enough of a business man to know we can’t go on like this – and while he might want to compromise more with the left than we’d like, an increasingly conservative/libertarian Congress will ensure that a lot of really good policies are enacted.  Additionally, the force of circumstances will push Romney and the Congress towards the radical solutions needed.  It won’t do anyone any good getting a good write-up about bi-partisanship in the Washington Post if failure to act responsibly leads to35% unemployment in 2014.  With their backs against the wall, a GOP government has a good chance of doing something worthwhile.

This is serious, good people – we’re in quite a fix and like Obama’s old preacher used to say, “America’s chickens are coming home to roost”.  We’ve spent too much for too long while harrying wealth creators with a regressive tax and regulatory system.  It is change it, or die.

 

Gingrich Gets it Right

Mark Noonan165 Comments

From CNN:

“I am not for a narrow victory,” he said. “I am for crushing the left in every single way.”

Gingrich was, of course, Matt’s first choice for nominee – he was my 2nd or 3rd (Santorum was always my first).  For me, Romney was a bit back there in the pack but always with the understanding that the crucial necessity is to ensure that Obama leaves office on January 20th, 2013.

The capstone for getting rid of Obama came, in my view, just recently – when it was revealed that in 1991 he was described as being born in Kenya.  Naturally, the Obamatons leaped to in action when this came out and called it a “mistake”.  But I don’t buy that – I call it a lie, instead.   Here is the key to Obama:  he’ll say or do anything to advance himself.  Back when he was just starting out being from an upper class, white Hawaiian family just didn’t cut enough liberal ice – being a foreign born son of a radical anti-British communist!  Well, that did the trick quite nicely.

From “composite” girlfriends in his autobiography (which, it would seem, millions of liberal pinheads bought but few read) to joining Wright’s racist church, Obama has merely crafted a narrative for himself as best suited his immediate needs.  And the cruelty with which he tosses aside old friends like Wright (say what you will about Wright, but have some sympathy:  for 20 years Obama and Wright were close and then Wright got in the way of the newest narrative, and he had to go) is just another indicator of the wrongness of Obama.

I don’t really know what Obama is up to – he’s up to radical leftism, but with what goal in mind, I don’t know:  I suspect there isn’t one in the traditional, political sense.  All we’re seeing now is yet another narrative, this one designed to get Obama re-elected.  After that, he’ll just go on to the next narrative – whatever makes him continue to rise up the ladder in his own estimation.  The trouble is that we need a President – someone who cares less about himself and more about the United States.  A re-elected Obama will not just pursue stupid, destructive policies, but he’ll also ignore any problem which can’t lead to more glory for Obama – and that is a recipe for national and global catastrophe.

Gingrich sees this – and sees more:  Obama must go, but the left as a whole must be crushed.  Our only task as conservatives, patriots and Americans from now until November 6th is to beat these people.  Because if we don’t, we’re going to pay too high a price for failure.

The Wisconsin Recall Election

Retired Spook127 Comments

There’s a really interesting dynamic at work in Wisconsin, in the run up to the June 5th recall election of Governor Scott Walker.

The majority of polls show Walker once against beating Barrett, with a recent Public Policy Polling poll showing Walker garnering 50 percent of the vote to Barrett’s 45 percent.

This 5 percent margin was unchanged since PPP last polled Wisconsin voters in April, showing that the May 8 Democratic primary did nothing to help boost Barrett’s chances at beating Walker in June.

However, Barrett’s failure to catch steam might be at the fault of the Democratic National Committee (DNC). In an exclusive report by the Washington Post, top Wisconsin Democrats are furious at the DNC for not helping to fund Barrett’s gubernatorial bid against Walker.

“We are frustrated by the lack of support from the Democratic National Committee and the Democratic Governors Association,” a top Wisconsin Democratic Party official told the Washington Post. “Scott Walker has the full support and backing of the Republican Party and all its tentacles. We are not getting similar support.”

One has to wonder just what development has stalled the near hysterical fervor of Democrats to get rid of Scott Walker.  The secret could well lie in recent revelations that the Bureau of Labor Statistics may have knowingly or unknowingly represented a false picture of the jobs and unemployment situation in Wisconsin (gee, where have we heard that allegation before?)  I had read a while back that unemployment in Wisconsin had dropped from 7.8% to 6.9% in Walker’s first year in office, and figured that would be a plus in the recall election.  So I was more than a little surprised when Democrats began charging that, under Walker’s leadership, Wisconsin had the WORST job creation record in the entire country.  Sounded like fuzzy math to me, until a read this piece today:

Relying on an alternative set of jobs numbers, embattled Wisconsin Gov Scott Walker is touting job creation during his term in office, saying numbers from the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics — which show Wisconsin losing jobs during that period — are not accurate.

The new numbers from the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages, released by the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development, calculate that Wisconsin added more than 23,000 jobs between December 2010 and December 2011, the first full year of Walker’s term.

During his campaign, Walker promised to add 250,000 private sector jobs in his first term as governor.

The numbers diverge sharply from BLS stats, which showed Wisconsin lost 33,900 jobs over that same period. That put the Badger State in last place for job creation nationwide.

Wisconsin’s number-crunchers claim their numbers are more accurate because they are based on data from “nearly all Wisconsin businesses.” The BLS numbers, by contrast, are an estimate based on data from 5,500 Wisconsin companies, which comprise just 3.5 percent of the Wisconsin workforce.

“It looks like 160,000 Wisconsin employers helped show us the thousands of new jobs that BLS estimates missed last year,” Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development Secretary Reggie Newson said in a press release. “The bottom line is Wisconsin added jobs in 2011.”

Obama’s only chance at getting reelected is for published national unemployment figures to come down at least another percentage point, since no president since FDR has been reelected with unemployment over 7.2%.  It’s pretty clear that what we need on the national level is a coordinated effort on the part of the Departments of Workforce Development from each state to come up with a comprehensive report and then compare it to the figures presented by the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics.  My sense is that most thinking Americans already know that the 8.3% unemployment and the 4.1 million jobs created or saved are simply made up figures, but it would be nice to have something besides a NewsMax headline telling them that their intuition is right.

A Hero Recognized

Mark Noonan54 Comments

From a White House press release:

On May 16, President Barack Obama will award Specialist Leslie H. Sabo, Jr., U.S. Army, the Medal of Honor for conspicuous gallantry.

Specialist Sabo will receive the Medal of Honor posthumously for his heroic actions in combat on May 10, 1970, while serving as a rifleman in Company D, 3d Battalion, 506th Infantry, 101st Airborne Division in Se San, Cambodia.

On that day, when he and his platoon were ambushed by a large enemy force, Specialist Sabo immediately charged the enemy position, killing several enemy soldiers.  He then assaulted an enemy flanking force, successfully drawing their fire away from friendly soldiers and ultimately forcing the enemy to retreat.  While securing a re-supply of ammunition, an enemy grenade landed nearby.  Specialist Sabo picked it up, threw it, and shielded a wounded comrade with his own body – absorbing the brunt of the blast and saving his comrade’s life.  Although wounded by the grenade blast, he continued to charge the enemy’s bunker.  After receiving several serious wounds from automatic weapons fire, he crawled towards the enemy emplacement and, when in position, threw a grenade into the bunker.  The resulting explosion silenced the enemy fire, but also ended Specialist Sabo’s life.  His indomitable courage and complete disregard for his own safety saved the lives of many of his platoon members.

Specialist Sabo’s widow, Rose Mary Sabo-Brown and his brother, George Sabo, will join the President at the White House to commemorate his example of selfless service and sacrifice.

We are a nation as long as we can find men like Sabo among us.

What is Fairness?

Retired Spook117 Comments

Arthur Brooks new book, The Road to Freedom, is causing quite a stir, and hearing an interview of Brooks this week reminded me of an essay last fall that was inspired by Brooks previous book.  The essay dwelled on the philosophical difference in the way the concept of fairness is viewed by Conservatives and Liberals.

There are basically two ways to define “fairness” in an economic sense where there is mal-distribution of income. One is “redistributive fairness” which President Obama and other liberals in and out of congress favor. The idea is through taxes or financial favoritism to take from wealthier Americans and give to less wealthy Americans and thereby to even out, to some degree, the income people have regardless of whether they have earned it.

The other definition is “meritocracy fairness” which holds that people should receive monetary compensation based on hard work, ingenuity, and innovation – i.e. the money that people make should come as a result of merit.

In his 2010 book, The Battle: The Fight Between Free Enterprise and Big Government Will Shape America’s Future, Arthur Brooks states that inequality is “fair” if it is based on merit and equality would be “unfair” if what someone has earned on merit is redistributed to others who have not earned it. There should be penalties, not rewards, for corruption, stupidity, laziness, and incompetence. Where does the public come down in this? According to a comprehensive survey, 89% of Americans believe in “meritocracy fairness” and only 11% opt for “redistributive fairness.” People in the past, our ancestors, came to the United States for economic opportunity, not for redistribution of wealth.

Those numbers, to me, are staggering, and just completely belie the notion by nearly every Liberal who has ever posted here that they are in the mainstream of American political thought, and it’s Conservatives who represent the kook fringe.  It’s generally accepted that Liberals account for about 20% of the U.S. population, so almost half of those who self-identify as Liberals don’t even agree with redistributive fairness.

I think almost everyone who is paying the slightest bit of attention to this election cycle agrees that it’s one of the most important elections in generations, perhaps, as some contend, the most important since 1860.  November 6th will, I believe, be a referendum on how we as a people view not only the concept of fairness but the overall role, size and scope of government.  We are at a fork in the road, and this election will, I also believe, determine whether we take the road to serfdom or the road to freedom.

Obama Adds His Name Into Official White House Biographies of Past Presidents

Matt Margolis23 Comments

Have you heard this one yet?

Many of President Obama’s fervent devotees are young enough not to have much memory of the political world before the arrival of The One. Coincidentally, Obama himself feels the same way—and the White House’s official website reflects that.

The Heritage Foundation’s Rory Cooper tweeted that Obama had casually dropped his own name into Ronald Reagan’s official biography on http://www.whitehouse.gov, claiming credit for taking up the mantle of Reagan’s tax reform advocacy with his “Buffett Rule” gimmick. My first thought was, he must be joking. But he wasn’t—it turns out Obama has added bullet points bragging about his own accomplishments to the biographical sketches of every single U.S. president since Calvin Coolidge (except, for some reason, Gerald Ford). Here are a few examples:

Many call it creep, narcissistic, etc. etc… Sure, it’s all that. But I think there’s more to it, than Obama’s ego.

If you Google any president in history, their White House biograpy is one of the top five results. Could it be that this is merely a clever Google-bomb strategy?

Unless, of course, you think Obama is above turning the taxpayer-funded White House website into a campaign device.

The Easiest Prediction in the World: That Liberals Will Fail

Mark Noonan55 Comments

First off, a blast from the past – January 1st, 2011:

…the Californians wanted it. People get the government they deserve, and they usually get it good and hard. California is America’s Greece and when the collapse hits, hopefully a majority will wake up to the fact that liberalism is a failure.

And, now – from the New York Times:

The state budget shortfall in California has increased dramatically in the last six months, forcing state officials to assemble a series of new spending cuts that are likely to mean further reductions to schools, health care and other social programs already battered by nearly five years of budget retrenchment, state officials announced on Saturday.

Gov. Jerry Brown, disclosing the development in a video posted on YouTube, said that California’s shortfall was now projected to be $16 billion, up from $9.2 billion in January. Mr. Brown said that he would propose a revised budget on Monday to deal with it…

Given that this is the New Y0rk Times, you do have to be careful – the budget shortfall didn’t “increase dramatically”; it was built in.  When Jerry and the liberals of the California legislature passed their budget they made a whole bunch of absurd assumptions both as to revenues and expenditures…that they would be, respectively, much higher and much lower than what has actually happened.  Any real analyst would have predicted this right from the start –  or, even, just a moderately informed amateur, like me.

The key to understanding what is wrong with America is to understand three things:

1.  We spend too much money via government.

2.  Our debt is too large to be managed given our current ability to create wealth.

3.  Our ability to create wealth is hampered endlessly by the tax and regulatory system.

All three of these problems are liberal-created problems:  it is liberals who want to spend too much (yes, plenty of Republicans join in, but liberals always lead the way…as is shown by the fact that they increased federal spending by a trillion per year since Obama took office).  Because we spend too much, we end up borrowing too much – and now our debt (federal, State and local) is so large that, given our current base of wealth, it simply cannot be repaid (when you factor in the un-funded mandates).  Our only way out of this mess is to cut spending and grow wealth – but we can’t grow wealth effectively because liberals have erected a positively Byzantine tax and regulatory system which rewards failure and punishes effort and success.

Liberalism must go if America is to survive.  Remember this as we approach November.

 

 

 

::::Sniff:::::

Leo Pusateri97 Comments

So… Ol’ Joltin’ Joe Biden gets taken out to the woodshed for just forcing poor, hapless, Barack Hussein Obama to come out of his closet for gay marriage–earlier than he had planned…

This announcement was so unplanned, in fact, that merely hours after the announcement was made, I get a fundraising email from the Obama campaign:

Image

Which has a link, that takes you to this: Image

Yep… that was no doubt a heartfelt, unplanned, sincere, off-the-cuff, “aw shucks, ya got me” courageous coming out of the closet moment for Barry, wasn’t it?

And “Rufus” is so beside himself-just so— :::sniff::: happy.. brings a tear to your eye, don’t it?

Criminy.

Obama Takes Dick Cheney’s Position on Gay Marriage

Matt Margolis78 Comments

So, Obama announces that he’s for gay marriage (did anyone really believe otherwise) with the caveat that states on to decide on the issue. Okay. Hardly a gutsy move, especially when you consider the fact that the the position he’s taking on gay marriage is basically the same that former Vice-President Dick Cheney took… three years ago.

(June 1, 2009) Former vice president Richard Cheney waded into another simmering public debate today, suggesting he supports legalizing gay marriage as long as the issue is decided by the states rather than the federal government.

Cheney, whose youngest daughter is a lesbian with a longtime partner, said during an appearance at the National Press Club that “people ought to be free to enter into any kind of union they wish, any kind of arrangement they wish.”

He said he does not support federal action allowing gay marriages, however. “Historically the way marriage has been regulated is at the state level,” Cheney said. “It has always been a state issue and I think that is the way it ought to be handled, on a state-by-state basis.”

Cheney has long departed from conservative orthodoxy on the issue of gay marriage, saying during the 2000 presidential campaign that the matter should be left to the states. He also prompted an uproar during the 2004 race when he appeared to distance himself from a proposed constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, which was strongly supported by his boss, George W. Bush.

I don’t recall Cheney getting any praise from those pretending that Obama’s position is so groundbreaking.