Obama's First Miracle - he conveniently found savings to pay for National Healthcare!

Obama's Healthcare Plan will be one of the biggest frauds ever perpetrated upon the American People.

from Yahoo News
by Josh Gerstein
June 13, 2009

President Barack Obama says he's now found savings that will pay almost all the costs of a massive overhaul of America's health care system.

Obama on Saturday is announcing an additional $313 billion in new proposed savings that he says would bring the total funding available for his top-priority health insurance reform to nearly $950 billion over 10 years.

White House officials insisted the new savings were rock-solid, but also acknowledged they had yet to settle on a specific mechanism to achieve lower prescription drug costs that make up nearly one-quarter of the new savings.

“Any honest accounting must prepare for the fact that health care reform will require additional costs in the short term in order to reduce spending in the long term,” Obama says in his weekly radio and Internet address. “Today, I am announcing an additional $313 billion in savings that will rein in unnecessary spending, and increase efficiency and the quality of care.”

The new proposals from Obama came as the drive for health care reform reaches a pivotal juncture in Congress. On Monday, the Senate Finance Committee is scheduled to receive Congressional Budget Office estimates on a slew of health-care options. On Wednesday, the committee is expected to unveil proposed legislation.

In advance of those milestones, the White House was moving aggressively to counter public criticism that funding plans for the health reform effort are unrealistic, particularly in the face of an expected 10-year pricetag of $1 trillion or more. Some analysts have faulted the White House for being overly optimistic about savings and tone-deaf to which tax-raising proposals are likely to fly in Congress.

In his address Saturday, Obama refers to a 10-year total of more than $600 billion in “savings” for health care. However, he does not explain in his latest comments that, under his revised budget released last month, $326 billion of that amount would come from tax hikes on Americans making over $250,000 a year, “loophole closers,” and higher fees for some government services.

In a conference call with reporters Friday, Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag said the latest announcement signaled that the White House had met its obligation to identify funding sources for a broad-based effort to make health insurance more affordable and more widely available.

“We are making good on this promise to fully finance health care reform over the next decade,” Orszag declared.

The bulk of the new $313 billion in savings would come from cutting or reducing the growth of payments to hospitals, medical equipment manufacturers and laboratories — though the major cuts don't target doctors, Orszag said.

Over the next decade, $110 billion is slated to come from reducing reimbursements to take account of what Orszag described as the ability of providers to improve their efficiency. “Health care services should be able to achieve and do achieve productivity improvements over time,” he said. According to a fact sheet released by the White House, future increases in such Medicare payments would be reduced based on an assumption that health care providers achieve half the productivity increases seen elsewhere in the economy. The budget official said the reductions would take place even if providers failed to garner the projected efficiencies.

Another $106 billion would come from cuts in so-called disproportionate share payments the federal government makes to hospitals with large numbers of uninsured patients. “As the ranks of uninsured decline under health reform, those payments become less necessary,” Orszag said.

About $75 billion is slated to come from lower payments for prescription drugs. However, Orszag said the White House was “in discussions with stakeholders over the best way of achieving that $75 billion.”

Notwithstanding that ambiguity, Orszag asserted that the White House had put forward $950 billion in budgetary offsets that could be use to fund health reform. He called the proposals "hard" and "scoreable," meaning that they were sufficiently certain and specific to pass muster with CBO officials who formally tally the cost of budget items.

Asked about the discrepancy, Orszag said, “There’s been continuous skepticism that we will come forward with detail….The detail on the $75 billion for prescription drugs will be forthcoming in the very near future and I will rest my reputation as a former CBO director on the fact that there are multiple ways in which those savings can be achieved and we are committed to achieving that level of savings in this package.”

There were signs that the announcement of the additional $313 billion of savings may have been rushed. In addition to the vagueness about the $75 billion in lower drug costs, the White House’s health care reform coordinator, Nancy-Ann DeParle, did not join a conference call with reporters to announce the new proposals. Her presence had been advertised in advance, but a spokesman said she was in another meeting and could not participate.

The cuts and savings are likely to engender warnings from providers that de-facto rationing will occur as patients in some areas find themselves unable to find providers willing to perform lab tests, X-rays and the like, due to the lower reimbursement rates.

Hospitals are also likely to protest that the disproportionate share payments, which are targeted for cuts of 75 percent, are vital to maintaining hospitals in costly urban centers, and to keeping teaching hospitals viable.

“It is unlikely to be an exact match on a hospital-by-hospital basis but what we believe will occur is that the remaining DSH payments that will still exist can be better targeted to the hospitals most in need,” Orszag said.

Hey Obama: Americans Say Your Takeover Of GM Sucks!

image by rees

from Fox News
June 11, 2009

Most Americans are unhappy with the actions the federal government has taken with General Motors, and people are uncertain about GM's future -- even with the government's help, according to a FOX News poll released Thursday.

Considering economic conditions overall, most people say things haven't been this bad since the Great Depression. Views are split, however, over whether the economy is getting better or worse.

By 58 percent to 38 percent voters across the country say they disapprove of the government takeover and majority ownership stake in General Motors. Majorities of Republicans (79 percent) and independents (59 percent) think it was a bad move, as well as a sizable minority of Democrats (39 percent).

And by an 8 percentage point margin slightly more Americans think the government should have let the market decide GM's fate (52 percent) than believe it was in the country's best interest to save the car maker (44 percent).

A majority of Democrats (62 percent) support the government intervening in GM, while majorities of Republicans (72 percent) and independents (54 percent) back letting market forces decide.

Does the government takeover mean GM will get back on track? When asked to look five years down the road, about half of Americans think the company will be profitable (22 percent) or breaking even (32 percent). Others are more pessimistic, including about one in five (21 percent) who think GM will be out of business, and 17 percent think it will still be losing money.

Among Democrats, who are more likely to support the government takeover, nearly a third think GM will either be gone (15 percent) or still showing red ink (13 percent).

Opinion Dynamics Corp. conducted the national telephone poll of 900 registered voters for FOX News from June 9 to June 10. The poll has a 3-point error margin.

Labor unions have been front and center in the government's rescue of GM -- and Chrysler as well. The largest number of Americans -- 43 percent -- think labor unions have too much influence on the Obama administration, 29 percent say the right amount and 12 percent too little influence.

Economic Conditions

The public is split on how things are going today, as about equal numbers say the economy is getting better (40 percent) as say it is getting worse (42 percent). Even this question reveals a partisan divide: Half of Democrats (50 percent) say things are getting better -- that's almost double the number of Republicans (27 percent) who feel the same way. A 57 percent majority of Republicans say things are getting worse. Independents split: 41 percent better and 41 percent worse.

Similarly, when asked if the government stimulus spending is working, 46 percent of Americans say yes, while almost as many people -- 39 percent -- say no. Three months ago sentiments were reversed, as 38 percent thought government actions were working and 44 percent disagreed (3-4 March 2009).

Nearly two-thirds of Americans (65 percent) think the country is in the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.

Do the tough times make you more appreciative for what you have? You bet -- 84 percent say they feel more grateful these days. Only 9 percent are "angry" they don't have as much as they used to have.

Among the car companies tested, Ford -- which has not taken government bailout money -- has the highest favorable rating at 72 percent, followed by Honda at 69 percent favorable. Just under half of Americans have a positive view of General Motors (48 percent) and Chrysler (46 percent).

Click to read the rest of the article and the comments

New Chairman of GM: "I don't know Jack about cars!" - he actually said "anything"

This should make the taxpayers who involunteerily invested billons into GM, feel good about the odds that GM might actually recover. Nice job Obama! Way to install the right people into the critical positions to give GM it's best chance to survive. You have your car czar who doesn't know Jack, choose a chairman of the board who also doesn't know Jack.

Hey Obama: You, the new GM CEO and the new Chairman of the Board are all morons. Good luck on your future success.
Rees

from Cheat-Seeking Missiles
by Laer
June 10, 2009

"I don’t know anything about cars.” - Edward E. Whitacre, Jr., Newly
Annointed Chairman Of GM

I really can’t believe I’m in America, reading in American media what an American president is doing to an American enterprise. But I am. It is true. The government has named a new chairman for General Motors. Not the GM board of directors, not the shareholders, but Steven Rattner, Obama’s car czar, who knows about as much about cars as the new chairman, Edward Whitacre.

This is far more radical than anything I thought Obama would be able to pull off, even in eight years, let alone 14 weeks. Following on yesterday’s SCOTUS decision which said, basically, a contract is no longer a contract so investors can expect no protections, the critical condition of glorious American capitalism could not be more apparent. I worry that it will not survive until 2010’s mid-term elections.

Whitacre was picked for two reasons. The published one is that he guided AT&T through the transition from land-based wire telephone carrier to a leader in the wireless industry. The Obamaites see a similar future for GM, with it transforming from a market-driven car company to a government-driven car company, manufacturing cars Big Brother wants us to drive, whether we want to or not.

The unspoken reason for his selection is because Whitacre can be counted on to do what government tells him to do, as was evident when he quickly (and rightly) acquiesced to government pressure to open AT&T’s hardware to the feds for post-9/11 surveillance purposes. Not all telcom CEOs folded so quickly to government pressure, and since folding to government pressure is what’s in store for GM, Whitacre will make an ideal Obama-era chairman for the company.

The appointment should infuriate the Left. Besides being a lackey to George Bush’s gestapo security machine, Whitacre received a peon-snubbing $158.8 million retirement package from AT&T and was involved in some pretty brutal corporate downsizings (probably in no small part due to shifting jobs overseas). Oh, and let’s not forget that under his tenure AT&T censored (oops!) a Pearl Jam concert right when the band was blasting George Bush.

But Daily Kos has nothing posted on him as of his hour. Democratic Underground? Mum. [By the way, I typed "democraticunderground" instead of "democraticunderground.com," and was redirected to one of those stupid sponsored-link pages. Guess who came out on top? Barbara Boxer!] As for Huffington Post, which as I predicted in a tweet earlier today leads with how Homeland Security foresaw today’s attack on the Holocaust Museum in its report on right-wing radicalism, it also couldn’t find a reason to cover - let alone criticize - Whitacre’s appointment.

Of course not. They know what’s going on. Their long-awaited revolution is happening and they don’t want to crow about it too early because suddenly they’re very concerned about the enemy getting wind of our intentions. Not al-Qaeda - tell them anything - they don’t want their enemy, normal Americans, to wake up to what’s going on. No, they want to be much further down the road to economic ruin in the name of wealth redistribution before they haul out the red flags and have a victory parade.
Click to read the comments and other excellent articles at Cheat-Seeking Missiles

Fed threatened bank CEO - Obama Thugocracy

image by rees

from Yahoo News
By Anne Flaherty
Associated Press Writer
Jun 10, 2009


WASHINGTON – The Federal Reserve threatened to force the ouster of Bank of America CEO Kenneth Lewis if he didn't follow through with plans to buy Merrill Lynch & Co., Republicans said Wednesday after reviewing internal documents.

Republicans also said there was evidence that the government tried to restrict information related to the merger from being publicly released.

However, none of the documents showed that the government explicitly instructed Bank of America to hide Merrill Lynch's losses from shareholders, they said.

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee is investigating claims that top government officials, including then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, urged Lewis to go through with the acquisition and not disclose to shareholders the details of Merrill Lynch's deteriorating financial state.

Lewis was scheduled to testify on Thursday before the panel, which is chaired by Rep. Edolphus Towns, D-N.Y.

Bank of America has received $45 billion from the government's $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program. As part of that money, the bank received $20 billion in January after Lewis requested it to help offset mounting losses at Merrill Lynch.

According to an internal memo prepared by the committee's Republican staff, Paulson and Bernanke "put a gun to the head" of Lewis and Bank of America's board of directors to force the merger even though Lewis "felt it was his duty to his shareholders to try his luck in the legal system and back out of the deal."

As proof, Republicans cite several documents including an e-mail by an employee at the Richmond Federal Reserve who said Bernake had made it clear that if Bank of America backed out and needed financial assistance, "management is gone."

Just a few weeks after the deal was completed, Bank of America's fourth-quarter earnings report showed the hit its balance sheet took on the Merrill Lynch transaction, making Lewis the target of shareholder anger.

In January, Bank of America reported a $2.39 billion fourth-quarter loss and Merrill Lynch disclosed a loss of more than $15 billion.

Click to read the rest of the article and the comments

Obama moves to outlaw 8 of 10 pocketknives - what's next hammers, screwdrivers?

Why doesn't Obama outlaw cars and trucks too? More people die in auto accidents each day than are murdered with knives. He's working towards making all weapons illegal.

Here are the government statistics for 2002. Knives aren't even listed because they are such an insignificant percentage.
Rees

Cause of Death - All Ages
Total Number of Deaths - 2,403,351
Major Cadiovascular Diseases - 936,923 - 2,567 people per day
Malignant Neoplasms - 553,091
Chronic Lower Respiratory Diseases - 122,009
Diabetes Mellitus - 69,301
Influenza and Pneumonia - 65,313
Alzheimers - 49,558
Motor Vehicle Accidents - 43,354 = 668 people per day
Renal Failure - 36,471
Septicemia - 31,224
Firearms - 28,663
knives - ?
screwdrivers - ?
hammers - ?
2x4's - ?
frying pans - ?
NOTE: Firearms Statistics Include Gang Warfare, Self Defense Shootings and Criminals Killed by Police

'If this were to pass and you cross the state line with one, it's a felony'

By Bob Unruh
from WorldNetDaily

The U.S. Customs and Border Protection Agency is proposing a new definition that could be used to eliminate 8 of 10 legal pocketknives in the United States right now, according to activists who are gearing up to fight the plan.

The federal bureaucracy is accepting comments – written only – that must be received by June 21 before its planned changes could become final, but Doug Ritter of KnifeRights.org, said the implications of the decision would be far-reaching, since many state and federal agencies depend on the agency's definitions to determine what is legal in the United States.

For a long time, those switchblades that have long stiletto blades that are spring-ejected powerfully from the side or end of the handle have been illegal in the United States, but now a review by the agency of its own approval in 2008 of a particular type of knife for import is raising serious alarms.

Ritter said the effect of the proposed change would be that the new design in knives, many of which contain a tiny spring to help the user pull open the blade and lock it into position, would be classified alongside those true weapons where the user just presses a button and the blade is ejected

"They are saying that any knife that you can open quickly or any knife that you can open with one hand is therefore a switchblade," Ritter told WND.

On his organization's website there are suggested letters for consumers to reproduce and dispatch to both the Customs agency as well as their members of Congress over the issue.

Ritter suggested that up to 80 percent of the pocketknives sold in America today either are one-handed opening knives or so-called assisted opening knives – and they all suddenly would be classified as illegal switchblades.

The agency change came in a case involving a knife called the "VanHoy Assist," whose importers were represented in a request for affirmation of its legality by a San Francisco law firm.

Such determinations are not unusual since an importer does not want to have a shipment of products sitting on a ship waiting for unloading only to have a federal agent call them illegal.

The knives first were approved by the agency in 2008. But only a few weeks ago, Frederick McCray of the agency's Intellectual Property Rights and Restricted Merchandise Branch did a review.

"This is in reference to Headquarters Ruling Letter ('HQ') H032255, dated August 12, 2008, which concerned the admissibility of the 'VanHoy Assist,' a 'release-assisted' knife described below, pursuant to the Switchblade Knife Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1241, et seq. In the referenced ruling, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (hereinafter 'CBP') determined that the knives at issue were admissible into the United States pursuant to the Switchblade Knife Act. We have reconsidered the rationale of, and the admissibility determination made in HQ H032255 and found both to be in error. For the reasons set forth below, we hereby revoke HQ H032255," the letter said.

That could mean headaches for the knife industry, Ritter said.

"Customs," continued Ritter, "is the only place where the switchblade is interpreted in various rulings. Whenever a federal, state, or local jurisdiction is looking at what a switchblade is, whenever there's a court case or whatever … they will look to the feds."

He said the change came after the incoming administration of President Barack Obama reassigned some managers at the agency.

"What we do know is when the incoming administration reshuffled assignments at Customs, it moved the responsibility for knives and switchblades from one organization with Customs to a new organization," he said. "That group has, as far we can tell, virtually no experiences, background or anything with knives."

Officials with Customs told WND that they do not comment on issues during an open comment period, such as going on for the regulation change right now.

"We do not comment on pending proposals for changes in our rulings under 19 USC 1625. We are in the comment period and we will carefully weigh the comments that we receive before deciding whether to proceed to a final decision," the prepared statement e-mailed to WND said.

Ritter said the reason for the change isn't clear, "but certainly this administration is no friend to things like knives and guns," he said.

A successful campaign to change the definition would mean thousands would be out of work in the knife industry, and the impact would have far-reaching effects.

For example, if someone would be caught with a newly-illegal "pocketknife," would the resulting charges be structured to allege that person was dangerous or had an illegal weapon, and how would that change the defendant's right to own a firearm, he wondered.

"If this law were to pass and you cross the state line with a folder (pocketknife) in your pocket, it would be a federal felony," he said.

In reality, pocketknives are tools, he said. "Certainly they can be used as a weapon." But so could a screw driver or other hand tools.

He said the proposal, which puts pocketknives in the classification of switchblades – described by a Senate committee as "almost exclusively the weapon of the thug and the delinquent" – isn't fair.

"There are 40 million people in America walking around with pocketknives in their pocket," he said.

Further, the majority of crimes committed with knives are done with the "lowly kitchen knife," he said.

According to Ritter's website, the proposed revocation of the approval for "assisted opening knives," would impact "most other pocketknives, even simple old-fashioned slip-joints."

Click to read the article and the comments

More Empty Words and Political Showmanship

This is an excellent article from America's Right detailing Obama's absurd announcement admonishing fiscal restraint. As they say, you can't make this stuff up.
Rees

from America's Right
by Jeff Schreiber
June 9, 2009

I heard him make the announcement today, and tried as hard as I could not to laugh or cry.

What position is Barack Obama in to preach fiscal responsibility and restraint? My goodness, the hypocrisy is so gosh-darned thick here that even Al Gore, riding in his carbon-spewing private jet on the way to a "climate change" conference, is likely shaking his head.

Furthermore, what the AP piece doesn't seem to mention is that Congress already has a "PAYGO" rule in place, and has had that rule in place since 2007. The problem, contends the Heritage Foundation, is that it is "merely a congressional rule" and therefore can be easily waived by elected officials. In fact, such a waiver happened recently -- for Barack Obama's so-called "stimulus" bill.

From that same February 26, 2009 Heritage piece, a list of six problems with PAYGO:

•PAYGO Would Not Decrease the Growth of Federal Spending. PAYGO is not designed to reduce federal spending. It is not even designed to slow the growth rate of spending. It only limits the creation of new entitlement benefits above the spending growth baseline. In fact, entitlement spending grew faster after statutory PAYGO took effect in 1991.[2]

•PAYGO Exempts Discretionary Spending. Discretionary spending programs--which comprise nearly 40 percent of the federal budget--are totally exempt from PAYGO rules. In other words, Congress could provide unlimited budget increases to most defense, education, health research, justice, international, environmental, veterans' health, homeland security, and housing programs without triggering PAYGO. This loophole is a major flaw that substantially weakens PAYGO.

•PAYGO Exempts Current Entitlement Benefits. Under PAYGO, current entitlement programs can continue to grow on autopilot. Only newly created entitlement benefits must be offset. In short, PAYGO would not prevent (a) Social Security from growing 6 percent annually; (b) Medicare and Medicaid from growing 7 percent annually; and (c) Nominal entitlement spending from nearly doubling over the next decade. PAYGO could theoretically slow down the creation of any new entitlements. Yet the nation's main budgetary challenges stem from the $44 trillion unfunded obligation from Social Security and Medicare, as well as the growing costs of current entitlements like Medicaid. PAYGO would do nothing to reduce the growth rate of these programs.

•PAYGO Employs a Double Standard That Raises Taxes. Every few years, Congress must review and renew most entitlement programs and many tax cuts. PAYGO sensibly says that renewing an existing entitlement program is not "new" spending and therefore does not need to be offset. However, PAYGO applies a different standard to tax cuts. It classifies tax cut extensions as "new" tax cuts that violate PAYGO and must be offset. This makes no sense. PAYGO was intended to block the creation of new policies that increase the deficit. Simply keeping current tax policies in place should not be treated as "new" tax cuts. Additionally, the blatant double standard of allowing entitlement spending policies but not tax policies to be extended constitutes a major bias towards higher taxes and spending. For instance, PAYGO allows the extension of expiring SCHIP and farm subsidy laws, but it does not allow the extension of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts or the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) to be patched without offsets. Even President Obama has criticized this double standard, and Congress should eliminate this baseline disparity from any PAYGO statute.

•Previous PAYGO Statutes Were Never Enforced--Even Once. Congress already had a PAYGO statute from 1991 to 2002. But this law was never enforced. Over the statute's 12 years, Congress enacted more than $700 billion in new entitlement spending and tax cuts--and then enacted legislation cancelling every single sequestration. Even if Congress had allowed sequestration, they had already enacted legislation exempting 97 percent of all entitlement spending--all but $31 billion--from being part of any sequestration. The law was practically designed to fail. Entitlement spending actually grew faster during the 12 years of PAYGO (1991-2002) than in the 12 previous years (1980-1991). The budget did temporarily achieve balance during that period. Yet PAYGO had very little to do with it. The budget was balanced by the combination of the dot com bubble revenue boom, defense savings after the Cold War ended, and declining net interest costs.

•Current PAYGO Rules Are Not Enforced. Congress has operated under a PAYGO rule since 2007. In that short period of time, Congress has already bypassed PAYGO to: (a) Enact a stimulus bill that cost $479 billion in new entitlements and tax cuts; (b) Enact a veterans' education entitlement bill costing $63 billion; (c) Enact a student loan expansion costing $15 billion; (d) Twice patch the AMT; and (e) Enact SCHIP and farm bills that used blatant gimmicks to hide tens of billions of dollars in new entitlement benefits.

This is not a fix. This isn't even substantial enough to qualify as a gimmick. Our spendthrift president calling a press conference and advocating PAYGO is merely an act of political gamesmanship born from West Wing worry about the perception of this administration's lack of fiscal restraint and meant to appeal to the lowest common denominator in terms of those who pay attention to the goings-on in Washington, D.C. It's meant for a soundbite to be heard by clueless people from coast to coast as they wait for the five-day forecast from their local news station. It's meant for a headline in Obama-friendly newspapers to be read by people, through the plexi-glass of the vending machine, as they wait on a train or bus or traffic light.

Then again, how is this any different than anything done by this administration so far?
Click to read the comments and other great articles at America's Right

Obama Triples Deficit then pitches pay-as-you-go plan! - What BS! - Has he no shame?

Obama more than triples the deficit, then pretends to be innocent of the whole process by offering this self-righteous "if you irresponsible people are going to continue to spend foolishly, I'm going to have to impose on you a "pay-as-you-go plan" to reign things in. He is unbelievable. He truly does believe that the majority of American voters are absolutely stupid. He'll find out how stupid we are all in 2010 and 2012.
Rees

Obama pitches pay-as-you-go plan for Congress
from Yahoo News
by Ben Feller
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama on Tuesday challenged Congress to pay for new increases in federal benefit programs as it goes rather than sink the nation deeper into a debt, calling it a matter of public responsibility. Republicans lashed back that Obama is no voice of fiscal restraint as the deficit soars.

The president's plan would require Congress to pay for new entitlement spending, such as health care, by raising taxes or coming up with budget cuts — a "pay-as-you-go" system that would have the force of law. Under the proposal, if new spending or tax reductions are not offset, there would be automatic cuts in so-called mandatory programs — although Social Security payments and some other programs would be exempt.

Not noted by the president: Tuesday's plan is a watered-down version of the so-called "PAYGO" rules proposed just last month in his own budget plan.

That version would have required, on average, all affected legislation to be paid for in the very first year. The new plan only requires such legislation to be financed over the coming decade. That mirrors congressional rules and reflects the likelihood that health care reform will add to the deficit in the early years.

Obama said the principle is simple: Congress can only spend a dollar if it saves a dollar somewhere else.

"It is no coincidence that this rule was in place when we moved from record deficits to record surpluses in the 1990s — and that when this rule was abandoned, we returned to record deficits that doubled the national debt," Obama said, flanked at the White House by supportive Democratic lawmakers.

"Entitlement increases and tax cuts need to be paid for," he said. "They're not free, and borrowing to finance them is not a sustainable long-term policy."

Republican leaders, critical of the Obama-championed $787 billion stimulus package and other deficit spending, called the president disingenuous.

"It's as if the administration and these Democrat leaders are living in an alternate universe," said House Republican Whip Eric Cantor of Virginia. "The quickest way to save money is to stop recklessly spending it."

The pay-as-you-go rules would not apply to discretionary spending — the portion that Congress decides how to spend each year — which accounts for almost 40 percent of the budget, said Peter Orszag, the administration's budget director.

Obama's call for binding legislation comes as a reward to moderate-to-conservative "Blue Dog" Democrats who are big believers in pay-as-you go. Their votes were crucial to passing a congressional budget blueprint that generally follows Obama's budget.

The House and Senate already have their own PAYGO rules, but have routinely found ways around them. For example, a bill to effectively double GI Bill education benefits was enacted last year because of a loophole in congressional rules.

Obama's "PAYGO" plan would also require future tax cuts to be financed by tax increases elsewhere in the code, though exceptions are made for extending President George W. Bush's 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, as well as other tax cuts that are scheduled to expire.

The federal deficit is on pace to explode past $1.8 trillion this year, more than four times last year's all-time high.

The deficit figures flow from the deep recession, the Wall Street bailout and the cost of the economic stimulus bill. Obama has defended the massive stimulus plan as essential to helping pump some life back in the economy, one that is still shedding jobs but showing more signs of life in recent weeks.

"The fact is, there are few who aren't distressed by deficits," Obama said. He said restoring a pay-as-you-go method under law would force lawmakers to deal not just with the politics and crises of the day, but also remain fixed on the nation's long-term financial health.
Click to read the article and the comments

Obama Learn A Lesson From Europe??? - It's not going to happen

Europe's Lesson
By Investor's Business Daily
June 08, 2009

Stimulus: With the votes tallied from a weekend election, it's now apparent that the European Union has taken another step to the right. There's a message in this for both the White House and the U.S. Congress.

Results from the vote for the EU Parliament showed huge disaffection among Europeans for state-directed answers to the economic crisis — specifically, for the kinds of massive stimulus programs pushed by the U.S.

Parties allied with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy — who have both made a point of opposing any kind of U.S.-style stimulus — made big gains. Even Italy's Silvio Berlusconi, embroiled in a scandal in his home country, saw his party increase its strength in the Euro Parliament.

We mention this because, just one day after this sweeping repudiation of statism in Europe, the White House is doubling down on a losing bet, moving to "accelerate" stimulus spending and claiming it'll "save or create" up to 600,000 jobs.

Pardon us if we're skeptical. Earlier this year, the White House predicted the jobless rate would top out at 8% if Congress passed the $787 billion stimulus package. Well, since then, 1.5 million jobs have been lost, and unemployment just hit a 26-year high of 9.4%. So, by the administration's own yardstick, it hasn't worked at all.

Ignoring this reality, the new "Roadmap to Recovery" unveiled Monday seeks to accelerate stimulus spending on 10 major projects, ranging from road and airport repairs to hiring 135,000 teachers to finding 125,000 summer jobs for youth.

It sounds noble, but it's just plain foolish.

As we've written before, the economy's already on the mend and likely to show positive GDP growth before the end of the year — and perhaps as early as the third quarter. The $787 billion stimulus, which is only 6% spent, has nothing to do with this. It won't even start being spent in significant amounts until early next year.

Virtually all of the jobs in Monday's stimulus do-over are nonproductive government jobs — not productive private sector ones. Virtually all economists agree: Real job creation means permanent jobs in the private sector, not make-work jobs for government.

The short-term recovery that looks under way was baked in the cake when the Fed cut interest rates to a record low 0% last December. Still, with economic policy favoring high taxes and government over the private sector, the rebound's not likely to be a strong one. And looking long term, the outlook is troubling. With an estimated $13 trillion in new spending planned by 2019, the U.S. government is fast becoming a bloated leviathan.

Americans will pay for this through higher taxes, more regulation, fewer jobs, lower incomes and less freedom. The surge in government spending and taxes will significantly hurt our productivity, damaging our economy's long-term growth.

Just half a decade ago, it was commonly assumed that U.S. GDP could grow indefinitely by 3.5% or more, thanks to surging productivity. Now economists think we'll be lucky to get 2% growth.

When Europeans trooped to the polls, they gave a definitive "no" to more and bigger government. Maybe Americans are ready to do the same; last weekend, a Gallup Poll showed most Americans for the first time view President Obama unfavorably when it comes to "controlling federal spending."

There's a lesson in this for the White House, if it's willing to listen.
Click to read this and other great articles at Investor's Business Daily

Barack Obama Saved or Created Thousands of Jobs

more from How The World Works

Urkelnomics, Oops, Obamanomics Creating MORE Unemployment

from Flopping Aces
June 7, 2009
Posted by: Mike's America

So much for the promise of three million new or “saved” jobs!

Readers may recall that the Congressional Budget Office warned in February that passing the massive stimulus bill might actually damage the economy and in many ways was worse than doing nothing.

Democrats who cited the CBO as the gold standard of economic analysis when it criticized Bush Administration forecasts were quick to dismiss the CBO report.

Guess who was right?

Christina Romer, who now chairs the White House Council of Economic Advisors, put out this report as part of the incoming Administrations forecast of how Obama’s plan would save jobs. The following chart is taken from page 5 of the pdf of that report, with the actual unemployment numbers added in red by Innocent Bystander.


Sure does look like Obama’s plan is worse than doing nothing!

What’s worse is that the same bunch who brought you this obvious fiasco have published budget and spending forecasts that nearly all independent analysts criticize for being hopelessly flawed. The massive deficits, already at levels higher than at any time in our nation’s history, will cause even greater economic disruption.

Yes, Rosy Scenario is back in town in D.C. but she brought along her brother, Painful Truth. And the painful reality of the Obama Administration’s sheer incompetence on economic matters is already abundantly clear to the millions who are out of work due to Obamanomics.
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How Stupid Does Obama Think We Are? - Pretty Stupid...

from The Corner
by Andy McCarthy
June 7, 2009

Obamanomics: How Stupid Do They Think We Are?

Pretty stupid.

Watching Fox News Sunday, I caught a panel on which Obama economic advisor Austin Goolsbee conceded that the administration had previously predicted unemployment would top out at around 8%, that it was now up to 9.4%, and that double-digit unemployment was a distinct possibility in the near future. Goolsbee didn't resort to the administrations's blather about "saving or creating jobs," but he did repeat its fustian about how last month's loss of 345,000 jobs (resulting in a half percentage point jump in the jobless rate) is somehow good news because it beat predictions (I don't recall him saying whose) of even more dire loss numbers. It made me wonder why, if those predictions either existed or were serious, the Obama administration would have previously predicted that unemployment would top out at 8%?

Goolsbee then laughably intimated that the steep jump in the jobless rate could be attributable to hopeful signs that the economy is improving. Huh? See if you can follow this: he says flashes of hope that we are on the verge of a revival have purportedly caused previously uncounted jobless people to seek (but not find) work — that is, they waited out prosperous times, deciding to leap into the job hunt only when hundreds of thousands of heretofore gainfully employed people got pink-slipped and began competing for a declining pool of jobs. Of course, why shouldn't Goolsbee think he can get away with these fables when the Obamedia has taken to repeating them verbatim? Witness the headline on page one of yesterday's Wall Street Journal: "Slower Job Losses Lift Hopes" — I'm sure that's exactly the headline Bush would have gotten after a half-point jump in an already sky-rocketing jobless rate.

If that weren't enough to make your head spin, Goolsbee also blamed Obama's handling (i.e., nationalizing) of the auto industry on ... President Bush. Obama, you see, was saddled with this mess because Bush — over the objections of his own party — decided back in December to raid billions in public money intended for bailing out the financial sector in order to bail out the automakers.

Again, how stupid does he think we are? Bush's move came after then President-elect Obama implored him to take action to stave off the collapse of the auto-industry. This was one of the major topics of their meeting in the White House on November 11, covered here by the Wall Street Journal. Back then, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Majority Leader Harry Reid were already urging Bush to study whether — regardless of how Democrat sponsored auto bail-out legislation fared — the president already had the authority to divert financial sector bail-out funds for Detroit. So it was that when Republicans defeated the auto bail-out bill December, Bush, at the urging of Obama and the Democrats, made one of the worst gaffes of his presidency by extending over $17B in government "loans" to GM and Chysler. For the Obama/Democrat line to now be that Bush foisted this mess on the new administration, and that Bush is to blame for Obama's geometric exacerbation of the problem, is breathtaking.

Finally, Goolsbee explained that it was unfair to accuse Pres. Obama of a flip-flop just because he is now amenable to taxing employer-provided health benefits despite arguing during the campaign that it was shameful for Sen. McCain to suggest taxing employer-provided health benefits. After all, Goolsbee elaborated, the initiative to tax the benefits is not Obama's idea; it is an idea of top Democrats (with whom the White House closely coordinates) to which Obama is listening because he's just that kinda open-minded guy. Uh-huh.

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Obama is Czar of the Czars - enough with the Czar crap!

from The Wall Street Journal
By Deborah Solomon
JUNE 5, 2009

White House Set to Appoint a Pay Czar

WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration plans to appoint a "Special Master for Compensation" to ensure that companies receiving federal bailout funds are abiding by executive-pay guidelines, according to people familiar with the matter.

The administration is expected to name Kenneth Feinberg, who oversaw the federal government's compensation fund for victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, to act as a pay czar for the Treasury Department, these people said.

Mr. Feinberg's appointment could be announced as early as next week, when the administration is expected to release executive-compensation guidelines for firms receiving aid from the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program. Those companies, which include banks, insurers and auto makers, are subject to a host of compensation restrictions imposed by the Bush and Obama administrations and by Congress.

Wall Street has been anxiously awaiting more details on how the rules will be applied. "The law is confusing and a bit ambiguous, and so we're looking for certainty as to how to structure pay incentives," said Scott Talbott, senior vice president of government affairs for the Financial Services Roundtable, a trade association.

The move comes amid a series of sometimes-overlapping efforts to curb pay at financial firms following perceived industry excesses that led to the lending boom and bust.

The Obama administration earlier this year issued guidelines that include limiting salary for top executives at some firms receiving TARP funds and requiring that additional pay be in the form of restricted stock, vesting only after the company repays its debt, with interest, to the government. Congress then chimed in with even tougher rules curbing bonuses for top earners at firms receiving TARP money. As part of that effort, lawmakers barred those firms from paying top earners bonuses that equal more than a third of their total compensation.

The White House has been wrestling with how to marry those two efforts, which in combination are more punitive than administration officials had intended.

The government is also pursuing a separate revamping of financial-sector rules that could change industry compensation practices more broadly. For instance, the Federal Reserve is considering rules that would curb banks' ability to pay employees in a way that would threaten the "safety and soundness" of the bank.

Mr. Feinberg is expected to focus on pay restrictions related to firms receiving TARP bailout funds, helping companies to interpret the rules and ensure that they are being followed.

For instance, companies have been confused about whether to pay 2008 bonuses, since restrictions on incentive pay didn't go into effect until early 2009. Some firms have made the payments while others have held off. Many firms are also unsure whether the "top earners" targeted by Congress include rank-and-file employees or just executives.

Journal Community

“ Obama is establishing a new cabinet of officials who are accountable only to him. This is an unprecedented power grab." - Kathryn Reagan

Mr. Feinberg will report to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, but he is expected to have wide discretion on how the rules should be interpreted. Firms likely won't be able to appeal decisions that Mr. Feinberg makes to Mr. Geithner, according to people familiar with the matter.

Mr. Feinberg, founder and managing partner of the law firm Feinberg Rozen LLP, spent several years overseeing payouts totaling more than $7 billion to victims of the 9/11 attacks. He personally reviewed every claim, approving or denying awards and allocating sums to be paid out of the Treasury.

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$787 billion stimulus = in 4 months unemployment rises from 7.6% to 9.4%

from Don Surber
June 5, 2009

Fudging the numbers

Add to January’s jobless numbers, lowball May’s and presto! “Today’s jobs report qualifies as very good news.”

Feb. 6: “Employers slashed their payrolls by 598,000 jobs in January…”

June 5 (today) : “Despite the jump in the unemployment rate, today’s jobs report qualifies as very good news. The economy lost 345,000 jobs in May, the smallest loss since October and a significantly smaller one than economists were expecting. The monthly job loss has now declined for four straight months, after a peak decline of 741,000 jobs in January.”

We have gone from 7.6% unemployment to 9.4% unemployment in just 4 months.

After a $787 billion stimulus.

Click to go to this and other great articles at Don Surber

Obama gangland tactics at work.

White House pushing to gag stimulus critics
From Michelle Malkin.com
By Michelle Malkin
May 30, 2009

In keeping with his past campaign tactics to shut critics up through brute force, the White House appears to be taking steps to crack down on critics of the trillion-dollar porkulus law.

Is anyone surprised? Mark Tapscott at the Examiner reports:

A new White House policy on permissible lobbying on economic recovery and stimulus project has taken a decidedly anti-First Amendment turn. It’s a classic illustration of Big Government trying to control every aspect of a particular activity and in the process running up against civil liberty.

Check out this passage from a post on the White House blog by Norm Eisen, Special Counsel to the President on Ethics and Government Reform (emphasis added):

“First, we will expand the restriction on oral communications to cover all persons, not just federally registered lobbyists. For the first time, we will reach contacts not only by registered lobbyists but also by unregistered ones, as well as anyone else exerting influence on the process. We concluded this was necessary under the unique circumstances of the stimulus program.

Writes Tapscott:

The key passage is the reference to expanding regulation from registered lobbyists to “anyone else exerting influence on the process. We concluded this was necessary under the unique circumstances of the stimulus program.”

This is the Camel’s nose under the tent…

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