PLEDGE TO AMERICA
Comments:Criticize a public figure regarding their public work only when you have backings in the form of solid citations, quotes or proofs from authority sources. Don’t attack a private citizen by name. Refrain from criticizing an identifiable person repeatedly. Refrain from making false statements about any one. If someone has broken these rules, call it to our attention immediately.
Friday, February 20, 2009
Who Wrote the Stimulus Bill?
Pelosi and David Obey, Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee wrote the Stimulus Bill. So, can someone explain to me how this cartoon was seen by some as a racist cartoon. I must be a little slow, but I just don't get the connection here.
57
comments:
matt
said...
The first time I saw it, I thought it was a reference to Pelosi et al. being criminals since the cops are shooting them....I am not sure how that translated to "Obama is a monkey"
Obama isn't campaigning anymore...you can put down the race card
Another bogus belief by an Obama Lefty in AG Holder's idiotic " Americans are cowards..." proclamation. The white Left (Pelosi/Obey...etc.) is afraid they won't appear racially sensitive enough, so they grab at straws, often making fools of themselves to all.
The Left (AG Holder...etc.) made political correctness the law of the land, then complain about it's results.
September 30, 1999 Fannie Mae Eases Credit To Aid Mortgage Lending By STEVEN A. HOLMES
In a move that could help increase home ownership rates among minorities and low-income consumers, the Fannie Mae Corporation is easing the credit requirements on loans that it will purchase from banks and other lenders.
The action, which will begin as a pilot program involving 24 banks in 15 markets -- including the New York metropolitan region -- will encourage those banks to extend home mortgages to individuals whose credit is generally not good enough to qualify for conventional loans. Fannie Mae officials say they hope to make it a nationwide program by next spring.
Fannie Mae, the nation's biggest underwriter of home mortgages, has been under increasing pressure from the Clinton Administration to expand mortgage loans among low and moderate income people and felt pressure from stock holders to maintain its phenomenal growth in profits.
In addition, banks, thrift institutions and mortgage companies have been pressing Fannie Mae to help them make more loans to so-called subprime borrowers. These borrowers whose incomes, credit ratings and savings are not good enough to qualify for conventional loans, can only get loans from finance companies that charge much higher interest rates -- anywhere from three to four percentage points higher than conventional loans.
''Fannie Mae has expanded home ownership for millions of families in the 1990's by reducing down payment requirements,'' said Franklin D. Raines, Fannie Mae's chairman and chief executive officer. ''Yet there remain too many borrowers whose credit is just a notch below what our underwriting has required who have been relegated to paying significantly higher mortgage rates in the so-called subprime market.''
Demographic information on these borrowers is sketchy. But at least one study indicates that 18 percent of the loans in the subprime market went to black borrowers, compared to 5 per cent of loans in the conventional loan market.
In moving, even tentatively, into this new area of lending, Fannie Mae is taking on significantly more risk, which may not pose any difficulties during flush economic times. But the government-subsidized corporation may run into trouble in an economic downturn, prompting a government rescue similar to that of the savings and loan industry in the 1980's.
''From the perspective of many people, including me, this is another thrift industry growing up around us,'' said Peter Wallison a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. ''If they fail, the government will have to step up and bail them out the way it stepped up and bailed out the thrift industry.''
Under Fannie Mae's pilot program, consumers who qualify can secure a mortgage with an interest rate one percentage point above that of a conventional, 30-year fixed rate mortgage of less than $240,000 -- a rate that currently averages about 7.76 per cent. If the borrower makes his or her monthly payments on time for two years, the one percentage point premium is dropped.
Fannie Mae, the nation's biggest underwriter of home mortgages, does not lend money directly to consumers. Instead, it purchases loans that banks make on what is called the secondary market. By expanding the type of loans that it will buy, Fannie Mae is hoping to spur banks to make more loans to people with less-than-stellar credit ratings.
Fannie Mae officials stress that the new mortgages will be extended to all potential borrowers who can qualify for a mortgage. But they add that the move is intended in part to increase the number of minority and low income home owners who tend to have worse credit ratings than non-Hispanic whites.
Home ownership has, in fact, exploded among minorities during the economic boom of the 1990's. The number of mortgages extended to Hispanic applicants jumped by 87.2 per cent from 1993 to 1998, according to Harvard University's Joint Center for Housing Studies. During that same period the number of African Americans who got mortgages to buy a home increased by 71.9 per cent and the number of Asian Americans by 46.3 per cent.
In contrast, the number of non-Hispanic whites who received loans for homes increased by 31.2 per cent.
Despite these gains, home ownership rates for minorities continue to lag behind non-Hispanic whites, in part because blacks and Hispanics in particular tend to have on average worse credit ratings.
In July, the Department of Housing and Urban Development proposed that by the year 2001, 50 percent of Fannie Mae's and Freddie Mac's portfolio be made up of loans to low and moderate-income borrowers. Last year, 44 percent of the loans Fannie Mae purchased were from these groups.
The change in policy also comes at the same time that HUD is investigating allegations of racial discrimination in the automated underwriting systems used by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to determine the credit-worthiness of credit applicants.
Note also Franklin Raines Chief Financial adviser to President Obama.
Note- "In moving, even tentatively, into this new area of lending, Fannie Mae is taking on significantly more risk, which may not pose any difficulties during flush economic times. But the government-subsidized corporation may run into trouble in an economic downturn"
That's a good one Sark, I agree. When I first saw the cartoon, I thought of the experiments where chimps throwing darts did better in the stock market that brokers. Then I thought of the saying about if you put enough chimps in a room with typewriters they'd eventually write "War and Peace". The word "racist" never occurred to me.
771 Comments 68 Recommend Public funds to pay for private debt Houston aims to clear balances so some can buy homes By CAROLYN FEIBEL Copyright 2009 Houston Chronicle Feb. 23, 2009, 10:19PM
Share Print Email Del.icio.usDiggTechnoratiYahoo! Buzz Houston taxpayers could start footing the bill to help first-time homebuyers pay off debts and improve their credit scores, under a proposal before City Council this week. The “Credit Score Enhancement Program” will give up to $3,000 in grants to individuals who are trying to qualify for mortgages through the city’s homebuyers assistance program. City officials say some applicants fall short of eligibility by only 10 or 20 points on their credit scores, and paying off some debt balances can quickly improve their numbers. The proposal has aroused critics who say the city should not use public funds to help people pay down car loans, credit card balances, or other debts — even if the slight credit bump would help them realize the dream of home- ownership. THE END
Did anyone else notice I posted a NY Times article yesterday that today was profiled on Rush? If I get all my info from Rush/Hannity Liberal POV, how did I scoop Rush?
Liberal POV where is the MORAL outrage on wasting public money? I guess if you own the paper on the sweet heart mortgage on Obamas' Chicago mansion its OK. lets not mention Resko sold the house and adjacent land, that Blagos wife was the Realtor, or its Ayers neighborhood. Liberal POV be brave and defend this.
A bank that received $1.6 billion in bailout money just spent a fortune last week in L.A. hosting a series of lavish parties and concerts with famous singers ... and TMZ cameras caught it all.
Northern Trust, a Chicago-based bank, sponsored the Northern Trust Open at the Riviera Country Club in L.A. We're told Northern Trust paid millions to sponsor the PGA event which ended Sunday, but what happened off the golf course is even more shocking.
Northern Trust flew hundreds of clients and employees to L.A. and put many of them up at some of the fanciest and priciest hotels in the city. We're told more than a hundred people were put up at the Beverly Wilshire in Beverly Hills, and another hundred stayed at the Loews Santa Monica Beach Hotel. Still more stayed at the Ritz Carlton in Marina Del Rey and others at Casa Del Mar in Santa Monica.
Urine or your out! Now since I must pass an employer drug urine test to earn a paycheck to pay taxes, my patriotic duty( Thanks Biden)! I purpose that in order to receive any public assistance( Food stamps, welfare, unemployment, etc) you must also pass a drug urine test every time in order to receive a check. Solves multiple problems at once we help people who need help to get back on their feet and we save millions in bogus deadbeat druggie assistance checks. Plus the drug trade loses paying customers its win win for all.
Leave it to Grandpa to explain the stimulus bill to me clearly. After struggling with the Stimulus Bill concept for way too long I asked Grandpa if he could put the whole Stimulus Bill and Great Depression into perspective for me since he was around during FDR.
Grandpa rubbed his chin awhile then got up from the kitchen table asked me to follow him outside. Standing by the pool with a bucket which he promptly handed to me, Grandpa told me to go to the deep end of the pool and fill the bucket by dipping it in to the water. Complying to his request I was about to hand the full bucket back to Grandpa when he instructed me to dump the water into the shallow end. I did this still confused, but trusting Grandpa's wisdom. Upon emptying the bucket Grandpa instructed me to repeat the exercise. After the sixth time I stopped and inquired of dear old Grandpa "What am I trying to do?". He replied, "I am having you make the shallow end deeper." Grandpa are you nuts the water level will stay the same you can't make the shallow end deeper! This ends the lesson Grandpa smirked and left me standing there. Now I truly understand Obama's plan Thanks Grandpa. I hope Liberal POV will see Grandpas wisdom before its too late.
"I hope Liberal POV will see Grandpas wisdom before its too late."
Now we both know your grandpa never really said this. More made up Republican myths.
The reality is Roosevelt's new deal created opportunities for millions and an infrastructure that allowed us to win world war II and create the great prosperity we have enjoyed for 75 years and now its time to make a similar investment.
Do you have the courage to post all the new deal projects and list to one you would not have wanted?
No, you just want to make general negative statements but avoid reality of the great New Deal vision.
I will give you this Liberal POV Obama says nothing better than anyone else! I hope the lack of detailed plan will inspire Wall st to rally something seriously lacking since he won the Election.
I will gladly, with courage, list all that I like from the new deal.
lets see... The end of prohibition in 1933...if that counts.
And, I will probably disagree with some of my libertarian friends here. But the need for an SEC I think was also a lesson from the stock market crash. I think it should be funded solely from a 1 cent charge on each trade on stocks and bonds, so only people who buy and sell stocks pay for it...but I guess that counts.
I think everything else in the new deal has lead us as a nation to become dependent on government, and given too few too much power.
How about listing things like infustructure projects like the Blue Ridge Parkway, Post office in Boone, Cove Creek School, TVA, Grand Coolie Dam, Social Security, just to name a few so you can be on record that you acually know what the new deal did and what? I hope Ms Foxx will do the same thing publicly.
Barney Bombs Obama's Bank Posted by HughS Published: February 25, 2009 - 2:17 PM
House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney "I'm the boss of you" Frank (D-MA) worked himself into a serious snit yesterday when he demanded that Northern Trust (President Obama's bank and mortgage holder), arguably one of the most well capitalized and profitable of the TARP funded banks, return to the government the money the bank spent on entertaining clients at the Northern Trust Open last week.
Frank, along with several other similarly obtuse congressmen, sent a letter to Northern President Frederick H. Waddell scolding and shaming him for spending tax payer funds on business development. (Never mind that Northern actually makes a profit or that the bank was brow beaten into taking the TARP funds. Never mind that the Northern sponsorship of the tournament, which they contracturally agreed to two years ago, has resulted in millions of charitable donations to Los Angeles inner city outreach programs).
This is the new face of Government for businesses that choose to take on Congress as a financial partner. If there were any doubts as to how federal intervention in the private markets would play out they should be gone now. Barney and his buddies are the boss now. Not satisfied with scolding bankers about private jets, the massive egos of Frank & Co. want to micromanage every aspect of these banks.
This incident should be submitted as Exhibit A when taxpayers start complaining about the types of cars Detroit produces after their new Congressional masters finish with that bailout.
Lib, the safety pin deal is my beef as well as others.
Why do you insist on living in the past? People in the US have changed. A lot of people have become lazy, not all, but a lot. I am anxious to see how many will actually want to work when these so called jobs come through.
"People in the US have changed. A lot of people have become lazy, not all, but a lot."
This is another Republican myth.
Yeah, we have a few that are just lazy, some that can't pass a drug test, DUI problems. Some of these are just beat down by not being able to make a living wage and the broken system of loosing heath care when work is available and having to continually jump on and off public assistance. Another reason for universal health care.
The problem is Republican want to make that everyone that is trying their best to support a family. All of those furniture factories, mills, Banking, Auto industry,people that were laid off at local building supply stores, Building industry worker were hard working employees. The thousands that line up for job fairs across the country. Why do you want to blame those suffering most?
You may start to loose your core gun and fundamentally religious Republicans here and the you will only have the 5% of the wealth's Americans left. Not only has the Right wing nuts ran the country into the ditch you have ran you own party into the ditch and too damn stubborn to admit a mistake of any kind. Stay the course over the cliff.
We have more citizens out of work trying to support their families and keep their home and children in school every week. Are you pretending nothing is wrong?
Aside from the fact that we have a stock market that has fallen over a thousand points since Obama came into office, a tax cheat for Secretary of the Treasury, Summers asleep at the wheel, three tries at Commerce so that Obama can add yet more choices for "race" on the census form when there should be none, Homeland security won't even say the word "terrorist", a President that views letting people keep more of what they,ve earned as a "transfer of wealth" to the rich, we've already in one month spent more than the equivalent of a million dollars a day since Jesus was born, Iran with nukes and evil plotting mass murder everything's fine.
Out of curiousity Lib, what have you done to help in these desperate times? Do you volunteer your time to help the unfortunate people?
When you use the term "beaten down", heck Lib we're beaten down too, but we get back up, dust ourselves off and jump back in. I don't want to be dependent on anyone, especially our govt. This is where you and I differ. You take the cheese and fuel because it's there, I stop and get a few gallons on the way home and do without the cheese. It's pride that would stand in my way of depending on the government for handouts. I know God hates pride, but in this case, I'm sure it's a different kind.
Obama Less Popular Than Bush After First Month in Office Photo of Noel Sheppard. By Noel Sheppard (Bio | Archive) February 24, 2009 - 22:51 ET
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As Obama-loving media gush and swoon while they report the new President's popularity, an inconvenient truth emerged Tuesday that seems destined to get ignored: after one month in office, George W. Bush was more popular than the current White House occupant.
Impossible, you say?
Well, before Obama stepped in front of Congress this evening, Gallup published the following:
For the first time since Gallup began tracking Barack Obama's presidential job approval rating on Jan. 21, fewer than 60% of Americans approve of the job he is doing as president. In Feb. 21-23 polling, 59% of Americans give Obama a positive review, while 25% say they disapprove, and 16% have no opinion.
Almost exactly eight years ago, then newly-elected President Bush's numbers were 62 percent approving his performance, 21 percent disapproving, and 17 percent having no opinion (scroll about 3/4 down this Polling Report link).
As such, regardless of how hard media are working to foster this view that this is the most popular president in the modern era, such is not the case.
In fact, even ABC's director of polling reported Tuesday that Obama's current numbers are actually quite average with George H. W. Bush, John F. Kennedy, and even Jimmy Carter being more popular after just a month in the White House.
I somehow doubt this will get a lot of attention from the teeming hordes of press members who worked so diligently to get him elected.
your question to POV: "Out of curiousity Lib, what have you done to help in these desperate times? Do you volunteer your time to help the unfortunate people? "
Answer: He takes lots of vacation time and travels Europe and South America.
What is not sinking in to him and most of the lefties...even our own governor is using the terms, create or keep the jobs here now. When someone uses the OR in a sentence, it's usually because they don't know the answer themselves.
This stimulus money will be gone in a flash. GM, Chrysler and the banks have already proven this as a fact.
Speaking of shooting monkeys, AG Holder announced the intent to ban "assault" weapons again. The stores have ben selling out of "assault" weapons since it became evident Obama the illegal alien would win. There are tens of thousands of more "assault" weapons owned by citizens today then there were 4 months ago. So far, the only results of Obama being elected are "assault" weapon proliferation and a massive sell off in the Stock Market.
Sark, as you probably know, most of the guns the liberals call assault weapons are simply semi-automatic rifles or shotguns that are no different in their operation than the Ruger or Marlin .22 that you buy for your son / daughter. An assualut rifle has to be capable of fully automatic fire or selective fire. As with everything, liberals are more concerned with image than performance.
You make an interesting point about the huge increase in the ownership of these type of weapons. When the "assault weapon" ban first came out, there were many people that owned them, but nothing like the present number. The majority of the gun owners that I know own at least one gun that would qualify as an "assault weapon". This includes trap and skeet shooters as well as rifle competitors. You are very low in your estimates. If you go back to the time the ban "sunsetted", we are talking millions of guns, not tens of thousands.
Have you seen the Glen Beck show concerning his comments on the Bubba effect? Maybe people are finally starting to wake up. The one thing Beck has not made clear is that the Bubba effect includes people from all walks of life ranging from judges, doctors, attorneys,etc. to the smartest businessmen in the world, the family farmer.
The gun stores are definitely not suffering Obama's recession. Between the "assault" weapons and the high capacity handguns being sold since November, they are in the black.
Obama's bottom line on budget By: Josh Gerstein February 26, 2009 05:46 PM EST
One of Barack Obama’s most audacious claims in his budget Thursday is that he has identified more than $2 trillion in savings over 10 years.
But his budget document shows that a big chunk of those savings comes from a flick of the budgetary pen — a helpful side effect of Obama’s pledge to be more open with war costs than his predecessor.
The method: bringing hundreds of billions of dollars in Iraq and Afghanistan costs onto the budget’s bottom line, and then reducing them over time.
That alone allows Obama to count $1.5 trillion in savings — by not spending money on wars that most Americans hope will be resolved before the end of Obama’s 10-year budget window anyway.
The budget outline indicates the administration will ask for an additional $75.5 billion in the current fiscal year and $130 billion in 2010. A placeholder estimate of $50 billion is used for operations in both countries through 2019.
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs insisted that it was fair to describe those expected decreases as “savings” the new president’s team had identified.
“It’s an end to the commitment and the spending of that money,” Gibbs said. “When you’re not spending money and the budget deficit goes down, that certainly counts for a decrease in that deficit.”
A former Congressional Budget Office director, Robert Reischauer, said pushing up the baseline now does ease claims of savings later.
“Some purists will yell and scream and say, ‘That’s really not the best baseline to use,’” said Reischauer, now president of the Urban Institute. “It’s awful hard in the defense area to figure out what makes the most sense. While we’ll save some money in the short run, we also have to refurbish and rebuild a lot of the equipment we’ve burned up. ... The right number is probably somewhere in between.”
At a briefing Thursday, Obama’s budget chief, Peter Orszag, defended the claim of savings.
“Being very clear, we are not raising the price before a sale,” he said. “This is deficit reduction relative to the deficit we inherited before the recovery act and before any of our policy interventions, that deficit will be reduced in half before the end of the president’s first term.”
Reischauer offered praise for the Obama team’s stance on fiscal reporting, though he made clear his view was skewed a bit by his revulsion at Bush’s approach.
“I give the [Obama] administration a gold star — at least if we’re grading on a curve,” the veteran budgetwatcher said. “The Bush administration engaged in every juvenile gimmick known to budgeteers.”
Obama also described the $2 trillion not as spending cuts but as “savings.” That’s because about half the money comes from tax increases.
Tuesday night, Obama mentioned only doing away with corporate tax breaks relating to profits American companies make abroad, a tax benefit which the president contends encourages firms to move their operations overseas.
On Wednesday, though, administration officials confirmed another big tax hike that is part of the $2 trillion “savings” — a $318 billion boost in income taxes over ten years. The increase would be accomplished by limiting itemized deductions for families making more than $250,000 a year.
Gibbs also asserted that Obama’s plan to end President Bush’s tax cuts for upper-income earners contributes to the $2 trillion savings. However, those tax cuts were already set to expire in 2011 and are not part of the Congressional budget baseline. A White House spokeswoman declined to clarify Gibbs’ claim.
In Tuesday’s address, Obama said his team planned to “end education programs that don’t work.” He also discussed plans to cut agriculture subsidies, to end no-bid contracts, reform weapons procurement, and to “root out waste fraud and abuse in the Medicare program.”
“The line in the speech is a lot easier than the job of doing it,” said Donald Kettl, a University of Pennsylvania professor who studies public management. “It quickly becomes hard to get all the numbers to add up.”
Kettl said finding substantial savings from waste has proved difficult for prior administrations. “You’ve got to try to get at it same way a butcher goes at a piece of beef that’s marbled. You have to be very careful,” he said.
“It’s possible to make enormous budget savings if willing make major policy decisions, but it’s hard to chalk up enormous amounts of cash through management efficiencies alone,” the professor said. “It’s not that there isn’t waste, fraud and abuse. It’s just that, as Ronald Reagan discovered, there’s no line item for waste in the federal budget.”
Daniel Henniger's shot across the bow Rick Moran Deputy editor of the Wall Street Journal's editorial page Daniel Henninger has fired a 16 inch shell across the bow of the Obama administration.
In this editorial, Henninger uses the "R" word - perhaps a word not seen in a major print publication in a quarter century:
When Barack Obama delivered his 44-minute acceptance speech in August among the majestic columns of Denver, it was apparent his would be an expansive presidency. Some wondered whether his solutions for a very long list of problems was too ambitious. On Tuesday, before Congress, he made clear across 52 minutes that the economic downturn would not deflect him from his Denver vision.
Instead, the economic crisis, as it did for Franklin D. Roosevelt, will serve as a stepping stone to a radical shift in the relationship between the people and their government. It will bind Americans to their government in ways not experienced since the New Deal. This tectonic shift, if successful, will be equal to the forces of public authority set in motion by Lyndon Johnson's Great Society. The Obama presidency is going to be a radical presidency.
Barack Obama is proposing that the U.S. alter the relationship between the national government and private sector that was put in place by Ronald Reagan and largely continued by the presidencies of Bill Clinton and the Bushes. Then, the private sector led the economy. Now Washington will chart its course.
Mr. Obama was clear about his intention. "Our economy did not fall into this decline overnight," he said. Instead, an "era" has "failed" to think about the nation's long-term future. With the urgency of a prophet, he says the "day of reckoning has arrived." The president said his purpose is not to "only revive this economy."
Henninger points out that Obama is trying to solve the economic crisis while at the same time, radicalizing the relationship between government and the private sector. The two may seem connected more closely than they actually are. By radically increasing government intervention into the economy, the changes that result are cultural and social changes, not just economic. They go to the very foundation of who we are as a people and seek to permanently alter the face of America.
Obama did not run promising to do anything remotely like this. He knew full well that if he did, he would not have won and he would have been rejected as just another liberal seeking to install socialism. In short, Obama obtained the presidency under the false flag of moderation and bi-partisanship - two things he has totally and utterly failed to accomplish so far as president.
February 27, 2009 Obama's Busted Budget By Randall Hoven I wrote recently of the real state of the federal budget. In that article, I projected a "rosy scenario" budget. Now President Obama has proposed a budget of his own, which he titles, without irony, "A New Era of Responsibility". Want to compare them?
Hoven
Obama
Spending 2012
20.4
22.2
Deficit 2012
2.1
3.5
Debt 2012
55.8
66.7
Spending 2016
21.9
22.4
Deficit 2016
3.6
3.2
Debt 2016
67.9
66.3
(All figures are given as percent of GDP. "Debt" is the federal debt held by the public. The source for Obama's budget numbers was Table S-1 of his budget.)
As you can see, President Obama's budget is less rosy than my rosy scenario throughout his first term. By the end of his second term, we are close.
When do deficits go below 3% of GDP in President Obama's projections? Basically, never. Two years after his second term would end, in 2018, he projects them at 2.9%. But then they go back up to 3.1% in 2019, the last year of his projections.
Folks, 3% of GDP is considered high for a deficit. The European Union sanctions it members if their deficits exceed that level. Obama can't even see his way to that low by 2019, much less a balanced budget.
And how does he expect them to come down even that much? By assuming that by 2012, the last year of his first term, revenues will exceed the average of the previous 25 years (indeed, the last 50 years) for every year from then on. In short, he assumes unprecedented revenues to start flowing in, year after year, from 2012 onward. He also assumes unspecified savings in those years way past his first term.
Concerning the short term, where numbers are more solid, don't even look at his budget if you are at all squeamish. He puts the deficit at 12.3% of GDP in 2009. Throughout the Great Depression, whether under Hoover or FDR, the deficit never exceeded 6% of GDP. Under Reagan, with his inherited recession and his tax cuts, it never exceeded 6% of GDP. Under George W. Bush, with his inherited recession and his tax cuts, it never even got to 4% of GDP.
In fact, in only five years since 1930 has the deficit exceeded 6% of GDP: 1942-46. It has exceeded Obama's 12.3% only from 1942 to 1945. That was World War II. Then, defense spending was about 40% of GDP. Now it is about 4%.
President Obama projects debt held by the public at 59% of GDP in 2009, and about 65% of GDP thereafter, as far as his projections go.
You have to go back to Truman to see debts that high. And Truman was paying off World War II costs. It's been below 50% of GDP since 1957. For the first time since then, it will exceed that level this year, going from 41% to 59% of GDP in a single year.
This is a terrible budget. In Obama's first term, it is even worse than my predictions. Into his second term and beyond, it is still bad, and held together only with rosy assumptions on both the revenue and spending sides. When things can be expected to get really bad, by 2020 and beyond, he makes no projections at all.
This is not what Obama fears; it is what he hopes. The reality will be even worse than his projections -- after Congress, the real behavior of the economy, and who-knows-what in terms of future bailouts, hurricanes, earthquakes, terrorist attacks, etc. are factored in.
Head Cheerleader Balks?, Liberal POV moves up in ranks to replace Head Obama Cheerleader spot.
Pelosi butts heads with Obama By: John Bresnahan February 27, 2009 04:31 AM EST
Nancy Pelosi repeatedly stood to applaud Barack Obama when he addressed a joint session of Congress Tuesday night. But in the days since, the speaker of the House has been standing up for herself — distancing herself from the president on Iraq, on tax cuts and on the prosecution of former Bush administration officials.
Pelosi’s aides say the speaker was comfortable playing the role of Obama’s shield during the stimulus fight — Republicans teed off on her rather than on the immensely popular new president — and that she remains strongly supportive of the administration on health care, energy and education reform.
But on Iraq and other high-profile issues that matter to her, aides say Pelosi has no intention of holding her tongue when she thinks Obama is wrong.
And she’s not alone.
While Newt Gingrich complained that Tuesday’s night unofficial State of the Union looked like a “Democratic pep rally,” the aftermath has looked more like a sibling rivalry.
On Wednesday morning, Sen. Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.) — the longest-serving member of the Senate — accused Obama of trying to steal power from Congress by appointing White House “czars” to handle issues that would otherwise be handled by departments subject to congressional oversight.
On Wednesday night, Pelosi made it clear to MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow that she wasn’t happy with Obama’s plan to leave 50,000 U.S. troops in Iraq and that, unlike Obama, she “absolutely” favors criminal prosecutions for any Bush administration officials involved in torture or other excesses in the fight against terrorism.
On Thursday, Pelosi said she’d move “faster” than Obama is to roll back Bush-era tax cuts. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Senate Democratic Caucus Vice Chairman Charles Schumer joined Pelosi’s critique of Obama’s plan to leave. Reid urged Obama not to push too hard to eliminate congressional earmarks. And Democratic Rep. Gene Taylor of Mississippi took a shot at Obama’s budget, saying “change is not running up even bigger deficits that George Bush did.”
Congressional Democrats are hardly in open revolt. But Obama apparently took the criticisms of his Iraq plan seriously enough that he summoned Democratic and Republican leaders to the White House to brief them on the plan Thursday evening in advance of his rollout Friday at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina.
A senior Pelosi aide said Thursday that the president and the speaker share “the same vision” and “the same goals” overall.
“She is totally supportive of him on most things,” the aide said. “But as with anything, there are going to be disagreements.”
Pelosi's public disagreements with Obama reflect her strongly held personal views — as well as the views of the majority of her caucus, which is liberal/progressive. Pelosi is always cognizant that her most important constituency is her base among House Democrats.
As she respects and protects that base, pushing back against the president has its advantages. Democratic aides have talked over the past few weeks of Pelosi's need to sometimes "triangulate" against Obama with Reid — to deliver a don't-tread-on-me message to the White House and to keep Reid and Obama from establishing a permanent political double-team.
The end-game of the stimulus — during which Pelosi was forced to grapple with a final Obama-Reid deal — reinforced those motives.
"We can't let the Senate always push us around by shouting, 'We need 60!'" a House Democratic aide said a week ago.
Some of the disagreements between Pelosi and Obama are substantive; some of them are about turf.
Even before Obama took office, Pelosi told his soon-to-be chief of staff, former Rep. Rahm Emanuel, to butt out of House Democratic affairs.
In a recent private meeting, Democratic insiders say Pelosi and Obama butted heads over his desire to cut down in earmarks in annual apending bills.
The earmarks are popular punching bags — the Obama administration vowed that there’d be none in the stimulus package — but they’re also popular with a lot of lawmakers on both sides of the aisle. Pelosi, aware of that reality, told Obama that she’d help to cut back on earmarks, but not as quickly as he might like, insiders said.
“We are reducing them, but members still want them,” a Democratic insider said Pelosi told the president.
Pelosi, of course, remains a strong Obama supporter.
On Thursday, she called his 2010 budget proposal “a message of realism, but ... also a message of optimism and hope.” And she expressed support for Obama’s proposal to set aside $634 billion as a down payment toward health care reform. Pelosi argued that the country must make changes to the Medicare and Medicaid programs in order to put its financial house in order, and she chided Republicans by arguing that Obama’s plan represents the “entitlement reform” for which they often clamor.
“If we are ever going to address the fiscal challenge that we face — and that includes all of our spending, but sometimes more frequently described through the entitlements — we must have health care reform,” Pelosi said.
Top Pelosi aides downplayed the differences she has with the president, and note that she supports “95 percent” of his agenda.
They also point out that Pelosi has stated repeatedly that her role is not to simply execute the president’s wishes — a lapdog role she repeatedly accused former Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) of playing when the GOP controlled the House during the Bush years.
“She has a difference of opinion” with Obama on some issues, a senior Democratic staffer acknowledged. “But unlike recent Republican speakers, she’s not going to be a rubber stamp for the president.”
Another hinky Obamian from the Bronx Daily News: The man who is President Obama's newly minted Urban Czar pocketed thousands of dollars in campaign cash from city developers whose projects he approved or funded with taxpayers' money, a Daily News probe found. Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrion often received contributions just before or after he sponsored money for projects or approved important zoning changes, records show. Most donations were organized and well-timed. In one case, a developer became a Carrion fund-raiser two months before the borough president signed off on his project, raising more than $6,000 in campaign cash. In another, eight Boricua College officials came up with $8,000 on the same day for Carrion three weeks before the school filed plans to build a new tower. Carrion ultimately approved the project and sponsored millions in taxpayer funds for it. Carrion resigned as borough president effective Sunday and begins his new job as director of the White House Office on Urban Policy Monday.
The liberals didn't want Bush to tap calls for national security, let's see how this one goes over:
LIFE WITH BIG BROTHER Radio chip coming soon to your driver's license? Homeland Security seeks next-generation REAL ID Posted: February 28, 2009 12:25 am Eastern
Washington state's enhanced driver's license Privacy advocates are issuing warnings about a new radio chip plan that ultimately could provide electronic identification for every adult in the U.S. and allow agents to compile attendance lists at anti-government rallies simply by walking through the assembly.
The proposal, which has earned the support of Janet Napolitano, the newly chosen chief of the Department of Homeland Security, would embed radio chips in driver's licenses, or "enhanced driver's licenses."
"Enhanced driver's licenses give confidence that the person holding the card is the person who is supposed to be holding the card, and it's less elaborate than REAL ID," Napolitano said in a Washington Times report.
REAL ID is a plan for a federal identification system standardized across the nation that so alarmed governors many states have adopted formal plans to oppose it. However, a privacy advocate today told WND that the EDLs are many times worse.
Radio talk show host and identity chip expert Katherine Albrecht said REAL ID earned the opposition of Christians because of its resemblance to the biblical "mark of the beast," civil libertarians opposed it for its "big brother" connotations and others worried about identity theft issues with the proposed databases.
"We got rid of the REAL ID program, but [this one] is way more insidious," she said.
Enhanced driver's licenses have built-in radio chips providing an identifying number or information that can be accessed by a remote reading unit while the license is inside a wallet or purse.
The technology already had been implemented in Washington state, where it is promoted as an alternative to a passport for traveling to Canada. So far, the program is optional.
But there are other agreements already approved with Michigan, Vermont, New York and Arizona, and plans are under way in other states, including Texas, she said.
Three contractors are bidding to fix a broken fence at the White House. One is from Chicago , another is from Tennessee , and the third is from Minnesota . All three go with a White House official to examine the fence. The Minnesota contractor takes out a tape measure and does some measuring then works some figures with a pencil. "Well," he says, "I figure the job will runabout $900: $400 for materials, $400 for my crew and $100 profit for me." The Tennessee contractor also does some measuring and figuring, then says, "I can do this job for $700: $300 for materials, $300 for my crew and $100 profit for me." The Chicago contractor doesn't measure or figure, but leans over to the White House official and whispers, "$2,700." The official, incredulous, says, "You didn't even measure like the other guys! How did you come up with such a high figure?" The Chicago contractor whispers back, "$1000 for me, $1000 for you, and we hire the guy from Tennessee to fix the fence." "Done!" replies the government official. And that, my friends, is how the new stimulus plan will work.
57 comments:
The first time I saw it, I thought it was a reference to Pelosi et al. being criminals since the cops are shooting them....I am not sure how that translated to "Obama is a monkey"
Obama isn't campaigning anymore...you can put down the race card
Another bogus belief by an Obama Lefty in AG Holder's idiotic " Americans are cowards..." proclamation.
The white Left (Pelosi/Obey...etc.) is afraid they won't appear racially sensitive enough, so they grab at straws, often making fools of themselves to all.
The Left (AG Holder...etc.) made political correctness the law of the land, then complain about it's results.
NY TIMES
September 30, 1999
Fannie Mae Eases Credit To Aid Mortgage Lending
By STEVEN A. HOLMES
In a move that could help increase home ownership rates among minorities and low-income consumers, the Fannie Mae Corporation is easing the credit requirements on loans that it will purchase from banks and other lenders.
The action, which will begin as a pilot program involving 24 banks in 15 markets -- including the New York metropolitan region -- will encourage those banks to extend home mortgages to individuals whose credit is generally not good enough to qualify for conventional loans. Fannie Mae officials say they hope to make it a nationwide program by next spring.
Fannie Mae, the nation's biggest underwriter of home mortgages, has been under increasing pressure from the Clinton Administration to expand mortgage loans among low and moderate income people and felt pressure from stock holders to maintain its phenomenal growth in profits.
In addition, banks, thrift institutions and mortgage companies have been pressing Fannie Mae to help them make more loans to so-called subprime borrowers. These borrowers whose incomes, credit ratings and savings are not good enough to qualify for conventional loans, can only get loans from finance companies that charge much higher interest rates -- anywhere from three to four percentage points higher than conventional loans.
''Fannie Mae has expanded home ownership for millions of families in the 1990's by reducing down payment requirements,'' said Franklin D. Raines, Fannie Mae's chairman and chief executive officer. ''Yet there remain too many borrowers whose credit is just a notch below what our underwriting has required who have been relegated to paying significantly higher mortgage rates in the so-called subprime market.''
Demographic information on these borrowers is sketchy. But at least one study indicates that 18 percent of the loans in the subprime market went to black borrowers, compared to 5 per cent of loans in the conventional loan market.
In moving, even tentatively, into this new area of lending, Fannie Mae is taking on significantly more risk, which may not pose any difficulties during flush economic times. But the government-subsidized corporation may run into trouble in an economic downturn, prompting a government rescue similar to that of the savings and loan industry in the 1980's.
''From the perspective of many people, including me, this is another thrift industry growing up around us,'' said Peter Wallison a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. ''If they fail, the government will have to step up and bail them out the way it stepped up and bailed out the thrift industry.''
Under Fannie Mae's pilot program, consumers who qualify can secure a mortgage with an interest rate one percentage point above that of a conventional, 30-year fixed rate mortgage of less than $240,000 -- a rate that currently averages about 7.76 per cent. If the borrower makes his or her monthly payments on time for two years, the one percentage point premium is dropped.
Fannie Mae, the nation's biggest underwriter of home mortgages, does not lend money directly to consumers. Instead, it purchases loans that banks make on what is called the secondary market. By expanding the type of loans that it will buy, Fannie Mae is hoping to spur banks to make more loans to people with less-than-stellar credit ratings.
Fannie Mae officials stress that the new mortgages will be extended to all potential borrowers who can qualify for a mortgage. But they add that the move is intended in part to increase the number of minority and low income home owners who tend to have worse credit ratings than non-Hispanic whites.
Home ownership has, in fact, exploded among minorities during the economic boom of the 1990's. The number of mortgages extended to Hispanic applicants jumped by 87.2 per cent from 1993 to 1998, according to Harvard University's Joint Center for Housing Studies. During that same period the number of African Americans who got mortgages to buy a home increased by 71.9 per cent and the number of Asian Americans by 46.3 per cent.
In contrast, the number of non-Hispanic whites who received loans for homes increased by 31.2 per cent.
Despite these gains, home ownership rates for minorities continue to lag behind non-Hispanic whites, in part because blacks and Hispanics in particular tend to have on average worse credit ratings.
In July, the Department of Housing and Urban Development proposed that by the year 2001, 50 percent of Fannie Mae's and Freddie Mac's portfolio be made up of loans to low and moderate-income borrowers. Last year, 44 percent of the loans Fannie Mae purchased were from these groups.
The change in policy also comes at the same time that HUD is investigating allegations of racial discrimination in the automated underwriting systems used by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to determine the credit-worthiness of credit applicants.
Liberal POV- Note 1999 Pre-Bush!
Note also Franklin Raines Chief Financial adviser to President Obama.
Note- "In moving, even tentatively, into this new area of lending, Fannie Mae is taking on significantly more risk, which may not pose any difficulties during flush economic times. But the government-subsidized corporation may run into trouble in an economic downturn"
The cartoon is an insult to monkeys. There is no porkulous bill author as smart as a monkey.
That's a good one Sark, I agree. When I first saw the cartoon, I thought of the experiments where chimps throwing darts did better in the stock market that brokers. Then I thought of the saying about if you put enough chimps in a room with typewriters they'd eventually write "War and Peace". The word "racist" never occurred to me.
American Government explained best 10 min you will spend.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DioQooFIcgE
Oatz,
That video was a good refresher course. It went well with a cup of coffee.
Even Houston is being eaten alive by Numbnutz:
771 Comments 68 Recommend
Public funds to pay for private debt
Houston aims to clear balances so some can buy homes
By CAROLYN FEIBEL Copyright 2009 Houston Chronicle
Feb. 23, 2009, 10:19PM
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Houston taxpayers could start footing the bill to help first-time homebuyers pay off debts and improve their credit scores, under a proposal before City Council this week.
The “Credit Score Enhancement Program” will give up to $3,000 in grants to individuals who are trying to qualify for mortgages through the city’s homebuyers assistance program. City officials say some applicants fall short of eligibility by only 10 or 20 points on their credit scores, and paying off some debt balances can quickly improve their numbers.
The proposal has aroused critics who say the city should not use public funds to help people pay down car loans, credit card balances, or other debts — even if the slight credit bump would help them realize the dream of home- ownership. THE END
Did anyone else notice I posted a NY Times article yesterday that today was profiled on Rush? If I get all my info from Rush/Hannity Liberal POV, how did I scoop Rush?
Liberal POV where is the MORAL outrage on wasting public money? I guess if you own the paper on the sweet heart mortgage on Obamas' Chicago mansion its OK. lets not mention Resko sold the house and adjacent land, that Blagos wife was the Realtor, or its Ayers neighborhood. Liberal POV be brave and defend this.
A bank that received $1.6 billion in bailout money just spent a fortune last week in L.A. hosting a series of lavish parties and concerts with famous singers ... and TMZ cameras caught it all.
Northern Trust, a Chicago-based bank, sponsored the Northern Trust Open at the Riviera Country Club in L.A. We're told Northern Trust paid millions to sponsor the PGA event which ended Sunday, but what happened off the golf course is even more shocking.
Northern Trust flew hundreds of clients and employees to L.A. and put many of them up at some of the fanciest and priciest hotels in the city. We're told more than a hundred people were put up at the Beverly Wilshire in Beverly Hills, and another hundred stayed at the Loews Santa Monica Beach Hotel. Still more stayed at the Ritz Carlton in Marina Del Rey and others at Casa Del Mar in Santa Monica.
Truer words have yet to be spoken on Obama....http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmujttc0oJc&feature=ytn%3Amptnews
Urine or your out! Now since I must pass an employer drug urine test to earn a paycheck to pay taxes, my patriotic duty( Thanks Biden)! I purpose that in order to receive any public assistance( Food stamps, welfare, unemployment, etc) you must also pass a drug urine test every time in order to receive a check. Solves multiple problems at once we help people who need help to get back on their feet and we save millions in bogus deadbeat druggie assistance checks. Plus the drug trade loses paying customers its win win for all.
Leave it to Grandpa to explain the stimulus bill to me clearly. After struggling with the Stimulus Bill concept for way too long I asked Grandpa if he could put the whole Stimulus Bill and Great Depression into perspective for me since he was around during FDR.
Grandpa rubbed his chin awhile then got up from the kitchen table asked me to follow him outside. Standing by the pool with a bucket which he promptly handed to me, Grandpa told me to go to the deep end of the pool and fill the bucket by dipping it in to the water. Complying to his request I was about to hand the full bucket back to Grandpa when he instructed me to dump the water into the shallow end. I did this still confused, but trusting Grandpa's wisdom. Upon emptying the bucket Grandpa instructed me to repeat the exercise. After the sixth time I stopped and inquired of dear old Grandpa "What am I trying to do?". He replied, "I am having you make the shallow end deeper." Grandpa are you nuts the water level will stay the same you can't make the shallow end deeper! This ends the lesson Grandpa smirked and left me standing there. Now I truly understand Obama's plan Thanks Grandpa. I hope Liberal POV will see Grandpas wisdom before its too late.
I searched for the video of Lawrence Summers falling asleep at the Obama School of ........... and it has already been removed from Youtube.
Hey Sark here is a pic...
http://www.modernconservative.com/metablog_single.php?p=3020
Oatz,
I heard Rush today and was logging on to ask how you scooped him, amazing.
BTW you have a smart Grandpa.
Oatz
"I hope Liberal POV will see Grandpas wisdom before its too late."
Now we both know your grandpa never really said this.
More made up Republican myths.
The reality is Roosevelt's new deal created opportunities for millions and an infrastructure that allowed us to win world war II and create the great prosperity we have enjoyed for 75 years and now its time to make a similar investment.
Do you have the courage to post all the new deal projects and list to one you would not have wanted?
No, you just want to make general negative statements but avoid reality of the great New Deal vision.
I will give you this Liberal POV Obama says nothing better than anyone else! I hope the lack of detailed plan will inspire Wall st to rally something seriously lacking since he won the Election.
Oatz, Guy, Blogger, Gregg, Matt, Reader, MS Foxx
Do you have the courage to post all the new deal projects and list to ones you would not have wanted?
No, I didn't think so.
If you did there would be no way Republicans could ever be elected again.
Make believe is easier.
That's the wrong question Lib.
Pov,
I will gladly, with courage, list all that I like from the new deal.
lets see...
The end of prohibition in 1933...if that counts.
And, I will probably disagree with some of my libertarian friends here. But the need for an SEC I think was also a lesson from the stock market crash. I think it should be funded solely from a 1 cent charge on each trade on stocks and bonds, so only people who buy and sell stocks pay for it...but I guess that counts.
I think everything else in the new deal has lead us as a nation to become dependent on government, and given too few too much power.
Mattt
How about listing things like infustructure projects like the Blue Ridge Parkway, Post office in Boone, Cove Creek School, TVA, Grand Coolie Dam, Social Security, just to name a few so you can be on record that you acually know what the new deal did and what?
I hope Ms Foxx will do the same thing publicly.
Barney Bombs Obama's Bank
Posted by HughS
Published: February 25, 2009 - 2:17 PM
House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney "I'm the boss of you" Frank (D-MA) worked himself into a serious snit yesterday when he demanded that Northern Trust (President Obama's bank and mortgage holder), arguably one of the most well capitalized and profitable of the TARP funded banks, return to the government the money the bank spent on entertaining clients at the Northern Trust Open last week.
Frank, along with several other similarly obtuse congressmen, sent a letter to Northern President Frederick H. Waddell scolding and shaming him for spending tax payer funds on business development. (Never mind that Northern actually makes a profit or that the bank was brow beaten into taking the TARP funds. Never mind that the Northern sponsorship of the tournament, which they contracturally agreed to two years ago, has resulted in millions of charitable donations to Los Angeles inner city outreach programs).
This is the new face of Government for businesses that choose to take on Congress as a financial partner. If there were any doubts as to how federal intervention in the private markets would play out they should be gone now. Barney and his buddies are the boss now. Not satisfied with scolding bankers about private jets, the massive egos of Frank & Co. want to micromanage every aspect of these banks.
This incident should be submitted as Exhibit A when taxpayers start complaining about the types of cars Detroit produces after their new Congressional masters finish with that bailout.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/180551/page/1
Lib, the safety pin deal is my beef as well as others.
Why do you insist on living in the past? People in the US have changed. A lot of people have become lazy, not all, but a lot. I am anxious to see how many will actually want to work when these so called jobs come through.
Reader
"People in the US have changed. A lot of people have become lazy, not all, but a lot."
This is another Republican myth.
Yeah, we have a few that are just lazy, some that can't pass a drug test, DUI problems.
Some of these are just beat down by not being able to make a living wage and the broken system of loosing heath care when work is available and having to continually jump on and off public assistance. Another reason for universal health care.
The problem is Republican want to make that everyone that is trying their best to support a family. All of those furniture factories, mills, Banking, Auto industry,people that were laid off at local building supply stores, Building industry worker were hard working employees. The thousands that line up for job fairs across the country.
Why do you want to blame those suffering most?
You may start to loose your core gun and fundamentally religious Republicans here and the you will only have the 5% of the wealth's Americans left.
Not only has the Right wing nuts ran the country into the ditch you have ran you own party into the ditch and too damn stubborn to admit a mistake of any kind. Stay the course over the cliff.
This country is not full of suffering helpless victims! I'm with reader.
Gregg
We have more citizens out of work trying to support their families and keep their home and children in school every week.
Are you pretending nothing is wrong?
"Are you pretending nothing is wrong?"-Lib
Aside from the fact that we have a stock market that has fallen over a thousand points since Obama came into office, a tax cheat for Secretary of the Treasury, Summers asleep at the wheel, three tries at Commerce so that Obama can add yet more choices for "race" on the census form when there should be none, Homeland security won't even say the word "terrorist", a President that views letting people keep more of what they,ve earned as a "transfer of wealth" to the rich, we've already in one month spent more than the equivalent of a million dollars a day since Jesus was born, Iran with nukes and evil plotting mass murder everything's fine.
Out of curiousity Lib, what have you done to help in these desperate times? Do you volunteer your time to help the unfortunate people?
When you use the term "beaten down", heck Lib we're beaten down too, but we get back up, dust ourselves off and jump back in. I don't want to be dependent on anyone, especially our govt. This is where you and I differ. You take the cheese and fuel because it's there, I stop and get a few gallons on the way home and do without the cheese. It's pride that would stand in my way of depending on the government for handouts. I know God hates pride, but in this case, I'm sure it's a different kind.
Obama Less Popular Than Bush After First Month in Office
Photo of Noel Sheppard.
By Noel Sheppard (Bio | Archive)
February 24, 2009 - 22:51 ET
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As Obama-loving media gush and swoon while they report the new President's popularity, an inconvenient truth emerged Tuesday that seems destined to get ignored: after one month in office, George W. Bush was more popular than the current White House occupant.
Impossible, you say?
Well, before Obama stepped in front of Congress this evening, Gallup published the following:
For the first time since Gallup began tracking Barack Obama's presidential job approval rating on Jan. 21, fewer than 60% of Americans approve of the job he is doing as president. In Feb. 21-23 polling, 59% of Americans give Obama a positive review, while 25% say they disapprove, and 16% have no opinion.
Almost exactly eight years ago, then newly-elected President Bush's numbers were 62 percent approving his performance, 21 percent disapproving, and 17 percent having no opinion (scroll about 3/4 down this Polling Report link).
As such, regardless of how hard media are working to foster this view that this is the most popular president in the modern era, such is not the case.
In fact, even ABC's director of polling reported Tuesday that Obama's current numbers are actually quite average with George H. W. Bush, John F. Kennedy, and even Jimmy Carter being more popular after just a month in the White House.
I somehow doubt this will get a lot of attention from the teeming hordes of press members who worked so diligently to get him elected.
Reader,
your question to POV: "Out of curiousity Lib, what have you done to help in these desperate times? Do you volunteer your time to help the unfortunate people? "
Answer: He takes lots of vacation time and travels Europe and South America.
Sark, on one of those high speed rails?
What is not sinking in to him and most of the lefties...even our own governor is using the terms, create or keep the jobs here now. When someone uses the OR in a sentence, it's usually because they don't know the answer themselves.
This stimulus money will be gone in a flash. GM, Chrysler and the banks have already proven this as a fact.
Speaking of shooting monkeys, AG Holder announced the intent to ban "assault" weapons again. The stores have ben selling out of "assault" weapons since it became evident Obama the illegal alien would win.
There are tens of thousands of more "assault" weapons owned by citizens today then there were 4 months ago.
So far, the only results of Obama being elected are "assault" weapon proliferation and a massive sell off in the Stock Market.
Sark, as you probably know, most of the guns the liberals call assault weapons are simply semi-automatic rifles or shotguns that are no different in their operation than the Ruger or Marlin .22 that you buy for your son / daughter. An assualut rifle has to be capable of fully automatic fire or selective fire. As with everything, liberals are more concerned with image than performance.
You make an interesting point about the huge increase in the ownership of these type of weapons. When the "assault weapon" ban first came out, there were many people that owned them, but nothing like the present number. The majority of the gun owners that I know own at least one gun that would qualify as an "assault weapon". This includes trap and skeet shooters as well as rifle competitors. You are very low in your estimates. If you go back to the time the ban "sunsetted", we are talking millions of guns, not tens of thousands.
Have you seen the Glen Beck show concerning his comments on the Bubba effect? Maybe people are finally starting to wake up. The one thing Beck has not made clear is that the Bubba effect includes people from all walks of life ranging from judges, doctors, attorneys,etc. to the smartest businessmen in the world, the family farmer.
Guy Faulkes
The gun stores are definitely not suffering Obama's recession. Between the "assault" weapons and the high capacity handguns being sold since November, they are in the black.
Obama's bottom line on budget
By: Josh Gerstein
February 26, 2009 05:46 PM EST
One of Barack Obama’s most audacious claims in his budget Thursday is that he has identified more than $2 trillion in savings over 10 years.
But his budget document shows that a big chunk of those savings comes from a flick of the budgetary pen — a helpful side effect of Obama’s pledge to be more open with war costs than his predecessor.
The method: bringing hundreds of billions of dollars in Iraq and Afghanistan costs onto the budget’s bottom line, and then reducing them over time.
That alone allows Obama to count $1.5 trillion in savings — by not spending money on wars that most Americans hope will be resolved before the end of Obama’s 10-year budget window anyway.
The budget outline indicates the administration will ask for an additional $75.5 billion in the current fiscal year and $130 billion in 2010. A placeholder estimate of $50 billion is used for operations in both countries through 2019.
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs insisted that it was fair to describe those expected decreases as “savings” the new president’s team had identified.
“It’s an end to the commitment and the spending of that money,” Gibbs said. “When you’re not spending money and the budget deficit goes down, that certainly counts for a decrease in that deficit.”
A former Congressional Budget Office director, Robert Reischauer, said pushing up the baseline now does ease claims of savings later.
“Some purists will yell and scream and say, ‘That’s really not the best baseline to use,’” said Reischauer, now president of the Urban Institute. “It’s awful hard in the defense area to figure out what makes the most sense. While we’ll save some money in the short run, we also have to refurbish and rebuild a lot of the equipment we’ve burned up. ... The right number is probably somewhere in between.”
At a briefing Thursday, Obama’s budget chief, Peter Orszag, defended the claim of savings.
“Being very clear, we are not raising the price before a sale,” he said. “This is deficit reduction relative to the deficit we inherited before the recovery act and before any of our policy interventions, that deficit will be reduced in half before the end of the president’s first term.”
Reischauer offered praise for the Obama team’s stance on fiscal reporting, though he made clear his view was skewed a bit by his revulsion at Bush’s approach.
“I give the [Obama] administration a gold star — at least if we’re grading on a curve,” the veteran budgetwatcher said. “The Bush administration engaged in every juvenile gimmick known to budgeteers.”
Obama also described the $2 trillion not as spending cuts but as “savings.” That’s because about half the money comes from tax increases.
Tuesday night, Obama mentioned only doing away with corporate tax breaks relating to profits American companies make abroad, a tax benefit which the president contends encourages firms to move their operations overseas.
On Wednesday, though, administration officials confirmed another big tax hike that is part of the $2 trillion “savings” — a $318 billion boost in income taxes over ten years. The increase would be accomplished by limiting itemized deductions for families making more than $250,000 a year.
Gibbs also asserted that Obama’s plan to end President Bush’s tax cuts for upper-income earners contributes to the $2 trillion savings. However, those tax cuts were already set to expire in 2011 and are not part of the Congressional budget baseline. A White House spokeswoman declined to clarify Gibbs’ claim.
In Tuesday’s address, Obama said his team planned to “end education programs that don’t work.” He also discussed plans to cut agriculture subsidies, to end no-bid contracts, reform weapons procurement, and to “root out waste fraud and abuse in the Medicare program.”
“The line in the speech is a lot easier than the job of doing it,” said Donald Kettl, a University of Pennsylvania professor who studies public management. “It quickly becomes hard to get all the numbers to add up.”
Kettl said finding substantial savings from waste has proved difficult for prior administrations. “You’ve got to try to get at it same way a butcher goes at a piece of beef that’s marbled. You have to be very careful,” he said.
“It’s possible to make enormous budget savings if willing make major policy decisions, but it’s hard to chalk up enormous amounts of cash through management efficiencies alone,” the professor said. “It’s not that there isn’t waste, fraud and abuse. It’s just that, as Ronald Reagan discovered, there’s no line item for waste in the federal budget.”
Oatz
I believe it was Republican HW Bush that coined the term VooDoo economics.
Non-sequitur Lib. You're living in the past. You're not addressing the substance of Oatz's post at all. Nice.
Daniel Henniger's shot across the bow
Rick Moran
Deputy editor of the Wall Street Journal's editorial page Daniel Henninger has fired a 16 inch shell across the bow of the Obama administration.
In this editorial, Henninger uses the "R" word - perhaps a word not seen in a major print publication in a quarter century:
When Barack Obama delivered his 44-minute acceptance speech in August among the majestic columns of Denver, it was apparent his would be an expansive presidency. Some wondered whether his solutions for a very long list of problems was too ambitious. On Tuesday, before Congress, he made clear across 52 minutes that the economic downturn would not deflect him from his Denver vision.
Instead, the economic crisis, as it did for Franklin D. Roosevelt, will serve as a stepping stone to a radical shift in the relationship between the people and their government. It will bind Americans to their government in ways not experienced since the New Deal. This tectonic shift, if successful, will be equal to the forces of public authority set in motion by Lyndon Johnson's Great Society. The Obama presidency is going to be a radical presidency.
Barack Obama is proposing that the U.S. alter the relationship between the national government and private sector that was put in place by Ronald Reagan and largely continued by the presidencies of Bill Clinton and the Bushes. Then, the private sector led the economy. Now Washington will chart its course.
Mr. Obama was clear about his intention. "Our economy did not fall into this decline overnight," he said. Instead, an "era" has "failed" to think about the nation's long-term future. With the urgency of a prophet, he says the "day of reckoning has arrived." The president said his purpose is not to "only revive this economy."
Henninger points out that Obama is trying to solve the economic crisis while at the same time, radicalizing the relationship between government and the private sector. The two may seem connected more closely than they actually are. By radically increasing government intervention into the economy, the changes that result are cultural and social changes, not just economic. They go to the very foundation of who we are as a people and seek to permanently alter the face of America.
Obama did not run promising to do anything remotely like this. He knew full well that if he did, he would not have won and he would have been rejected as just another liberal seeking to install socialism. In short, Obama obtained the presidency under the false flag of moderation and bi-partisanship - two things he has totally and utterly failed to accomplish so far as president.
February 27, 2009
Obama's Busted Budget
By Randall Hoven
I wrote recently of the real state of the federal budget. In that article, I projected a "rosy scenario" budget. Now President Obama has proposed a budget of his own, which he titles, without irony, "A New Era of Responsibility". Want to compare them?
Hoven
Obama
Spending 2012
20.4
22.2
Deficit 2012
2.1
3.5
Debt 2012
55.8
66.7
Spending 2016
21.9
22.4
Deficit 2016
3.6
3.2
Debt 2016
67.9
66.3
(All figures are given as percent of GDP. "Debt" is the federal debt held by the public. The source for Obama's budget numbers was Table S-1 of his budget.)
As you can see, President Obama's budget is less rosy than my rosy scenario throughout his first term. By the end of his second term, we are close.
When do deficits go below 3% of GDP in President Obama's projections? Basically, never. Two years after his second term would end, in 2018, he projects them at 2.9%. But then they go back up to 3.1% in 2019, the last year of his projections.
Folks, 3% of GDP is considered high for a deficit. The European Union sanctions it members if their deficits exceed that level. Obama can't even see his way to that low by 2019, much less a balanced budget.
And how does he expect them to come down even that much? By assuming that by 2012, the last year of his first term, revenues will exceed the average of the previous 25 years (indeed, the last 50 years) for every year from then on. In short, he assumes unprecedented revenues to start flowing in, year after year, from 2012 onward. He also assumes unspecified savings in those years way past his first term.
Concerning the short term, where numbers are more solid, don't even look at his budget if you are at all squeamish. He puts the deficit at 12.3% of GDP in 2009. Throughout the Great Depression, whether under Hoover or FDR, the deficit never exceeded 6% of GDP. Under Reagan, with his inherited recession and his tax cuts, it never exceeded 6% of GDP. Under George W. Bush, with his inherited recession and his tax cuts, it never even got to 4% of GDP.
In fact, in only five years since 1930 has the deficit exceeded 6% of GDP: 1942-46. It has exceeded Obama's 12.3% only from 1942 to 1945. That was World War II. Then, defense spending was about 40% of GDP. Now it is about 4%.
President Obama projects debt held by the public at 59% of GDP in 2009, and about 65% of GDP thereafter, as far as his projections go.
You have to go back to Truman to see debts that high. And Truman was paying off World War II costs. It's been below 50% of GDP since 1957. For the first time since then, it will exceed that level this year, going from 41% to 59% of GDP in a single year.
This is a terrible budget. In Obama's first term, it is even worse than my predictions. Into his second term and beyond, it is still bad, and held together only with rosy assumptions on both the revenue and spending sides. When things can be expected to get really bad, by 2020 and beyond, he makes no projections at all.
This is not what Obama fears; it is what he hopes. The reality will be even worse than his projections -- after Congress, the real behavior of the economy, and who-knows-what in terms of future bailouts, hurricanes, earthquakes, terrorist attacks, etc. are factored in.
POV, I think Gregg may have given you a more accurate screen name:
"Non-sequitur Lib"
Here is a google map of all the porkulus projects of particular note is only one(1) project west of I-77.
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=http:%2F%2Fspreadsheets.google.com%2Fpub%3Fkey%3DpqxnHT66fIAqY0H6YdMyJJg%26output%3Dtxt%26gid%3D0%26range%3Dkml_output%26time1%3D3987055&ie=UTF8&ll=47.398349,-71.894531&spn=33.695471,73.828125&z=3
Head Cheerleader Balks?, Liberal POV moves up in ranks to replace Head Obama Cheerleader spot.
Pelosi butts heads with Obama
By: John Bresnahan
February 27, 2009 04:31 AM EST
Nancy Pelosi repeatedly stood to applaud Barack Obama when he addressed a joint session of Congress Tuesday night. But in the days since, the speaker of the House has been standing up for herself — distancing herself from the president on Iraq, on tax cuts and on the prosecution of former Bush administration officials.
Pelosi’s aides say the speaker was comfortable playing the role of Obama’s shield during the stimulus fight — Republicans teed off on her rather than on the immensely popular new president — and that she remains strongly supportive of the administration on health care, energy and education reform.
But on Iraq and other high-profile issues that matter to her, aides say Pelosi has no intention of holding her tongue when she thinks Obama is wrong.
And she’s not alone.
While Newt Gingrich complained that Tuesday’s night unofficial State of the Union looked like a “Democratic pep rally,” the aftermath has looked more like a sibling rivalry.
On Wednesday morning, Sen. Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.) — the longest-serving member of the Senate — accused Obama of trying to steal power from Congress by appointing White House “czars” to handle issues that would otherwise be handled by departments subject to congressional oversight.
On Wednesday night, Pelosi made it clear to MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow that she wasn’t happy with Obama’s plan to leave 50,000 U.S. troops in Iraq and that, unlike Obama, she “absolutely” favors criminal prosecutions for any Bush administration officials involved in torture or other excesses in the fight against terrorism.
On Thursday, Pelosi said she’d move “faster” than Obama is to roll back Bush-era tax cuts. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Senate Democratic Caucus Vice Chairman Charles Schumer joined Pelosi’s critique of Obama’s plan to leave. Reid urged Obama not to push too hard to eliminate congressional earmarks. And Democratic Rep. Gene Taylor of Mississippi took a shot at Obama’s budget, saying “change is not running up even bigger deficits that George Bush did.”
Congressional Democrats are hardly in open revolt. But Obama apparently took the criticisms of his Iraq plan seriously enough that he summoned Democratic and Republican leaders to the White House to brief them on the plan Thursday evening in advance of his rollout Friday at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina.
A senior Pelosi aide said Thursday that the president and the speaker share “the same vision” and “the same goals” overall.
“She is totally supportive of him on most things,” the aide said. “But as with anything, there are going to be disagreements.”
Pelosi's public disagreements with Obama reflect her strongly held personal views — as well as the views of the majority of her caucus, which is liberal/progressive. Pelosi is always cognizant that her most important constituency is her base among House Democrats.
As she respects and protects that base, pushing back against the president has its advantages. Democratic aides have talked over the past few weeks of Pelosi's need to sometimes "triangulate" against Obama with Reid — to deliver a don't-tread-on-me message to the White House and to keep Reid and Obama from establishing a permanent political double-team.
The end-game of the stimulus — during which Pelosi was forced to grapple with a final Obama-Reid deal — reinforced those motives.
"We can't let the Senate always push us around by shouting, 'We need 60!'" a House Democratic aide said a week ago.
Some of the disagreements between Pelosi and Obama are substantive; some of them are about turf.
Even before Obama took office, Pelosi told his soon-to-be chief of staff, former Rep. Rahm Emanuel, to butt out of House Democratic affairs.
In a recent private meeting, Democratic insiders say Pelosi and Obama butted heads over his desire to cut down in earmarks in annual apending bills.
The earmarks are popular punching bags — the Obama administration vowed that there’d be none in the stimulus package — but they’re also popular with a lot of lawmakers on both sides of the aisle. Pelosi, aware of that reality, told Obama that she’d help to cut back on earmarks, but not as quickly as he might like, insiders said.
“We are reducing them, but members still want them,” a Democratic insider said Pelosi told the president.
Pelosi, of course, remains a strong Obama supporter.
On Thursday, she called his 2010 budget proposal “a message of realism, but ... also a message of optimism and hope.” And she expressed support for Obama’s proposal to set aside $634 billion as a down payment toward health care reform. Pelosi argued that the country must make changes to the Medicare and Medicaid programs in order to put its financial house in order, and she chided Republicans by arguing that Obama’s plan represents the “entitlement reform” for which they often clamor.
“If we are ever going to address the fiscal challenge that we face — and that includes all of our spending, but sometimes more frequently described through the entitlements — we must have health care reform,” Pelosi said.
Top Pelosi aides downplayed the differences she has with the president, and note that she supports “95 percent” of his agenda.
They also point out that Pelosi has stated repeatedly that her role is not to simply execute the president’s wishes — a lapdog role she repeatedly accused former Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) of playing when the GOP controlled the House during the Bush years.
“She has a difference of opinion” with Obama on some issues, a senior Democratic staffer acknowledged. “But unlike recent Republican speakers, she’s not going to be a rubber stamp for the president.”
Glenn Thrush contributed to this report.
Blogger, did you ever hear from Hagan?
Larry KIng, a great liberal. Cut this picture out for the wallet:
http://www.ebaumsworld.com/pictures/view/49665/
Pres.Obama and Biden on Iraq will not say Pres.Bush you were right.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aryTu4ZlhZc&eur
Reader, Never heard from Hagan. Maybe she is still trying to find time to read what she signed and can't get around to her constituents.
I'm sure she is Blogger. What a mess this has become. Just read about the mexican drug cartel in Arizona. This is going to be a bad 4 years.
Another hinky Obamian from the Bronx Daily News: The man who is President Obama's newly minted Urban Czar pocketed thousands of dollars in campaign cash from city developers whose projects he approved or funded with taxpayers' money, a Daily News probe found.
Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrion often received contributions just before or after he sponsored money for projects or approved important zoning changes, records show.
Most donations were organized and well-timed.
In one case, a developer became a Carrion fund-raiser two months before the borough president signed off on his project, raising more than $6,000 in campaign cash.
In another, eight Boricua College officials came up with $8,000 on the same day for Carrion three weeks before the school filed plans to build a new tower. Carrion ultimately approved the project and sponsored millions in taxpayer funds for it.
Carrion resigned as borough president effective Sunday and begins his new job as director of the White House Office on Urban Policy Monday.
The liberals didn't want Bush to tap calls for national security, let's see how this one goes over:
LIFE WITH BIG BROTHER
Radio chip coming soon to your driver's license?
Homeland Security seeks next-generation REAL ID
Posted: February 28, 2009
12:25 am Eastern
By Bob Unruh
© 2009 WorldNetDaily
Washington state's enhanced driver's license
Privacy advocates are issuing warnings about a new radio chip plan that ultimately could provide electronic identification for every adult in the U.S. and allow agents to compile attendance lists at anti-government rallies simply by walking through the assembly.
The proposal, which has earned the support of Janet Napolitano, the newly chosen chief of the Department of Homeland Security, would embed radio chips in driver's licenses, or "enhanced driver's licenses."
"Enhanced driver's licenses give confidence that the person holding the card is the person who is supposed to be holding the card, and it's less elaborate than REAL ID," Napolitano said in a Washington Times report.
REAL ID is a plan for a federal identification system standardized across the nation that so alarmed governors many states have adopted formal plans to oppose it. However, a privacy advocate today told WND that the EDLs are many times worse.
Radio talk show host and identity chip expert Katherine Albrecht said REAL ID earned the opposition of Christians because of its resemblance to the biblical "mark of the beast," civil libertarians opposed it for its "big brother" connotations and others worried about identity theft issues with the proposed databases.
"We got rid of the REAL ID program, but [this one] is way more insidious," she said.
Enhanced driver's licenses have built-in radio chips providing an identifying number or information that can be accessed by a remote reading unit while the license is inside a wallet or purse.
The technology already had been implemented in Washington state, where it is promoted as an alternative to a passport for traveling to Canada. So far, the program is optional.
But there are other agreements already approved with Michigan, Vermont, New York and Arizona, and plans are under way in other states, including Texas, she said.
Obama refers to the loss of half the value of the Stock market as day to day fluctuations. This is truly a dunder-head.
Three contractors are bidding to fix a broken fence at the White House.
One is from Chicago , another is from Tennessee , and the third is from Minnesota .
All three go with a White House official to examine the fence.
The Minnesota contractor takes out a tape measure and does some measuring then works some figures with a pencil.
"Well," he says, "I figure the job will runabout $900: $400 for materials, $400 for my crew and $100 profit for me."
The Tennessee contractor also does some measuring and figuring, then says, "I can do this job for $700: $300 for materials, $300 for my crew and $100 profit for me."
The Chicago contractor doesn't measure or figure, but leans over to the White House official and whispers, "$2,700."
The official, incredulous, says, "You didn't even measure like the other guys! How did you come up with such a high figure?"
The Chicago contractor whispers back, "$1000 for me, $1000 for you, and we hire the guy from Tennessee to fix the fence."
"Done!" replies the government official.
And that, my friends, is how the new stimulus plan will work.
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