No Belt Tightening Inside the Beltway

No sacrifices being shared inside the bloated D.C. beltway: 


President's annual salary:  $400,000. 
Annual retirement pay of former presidents: $180,000. 
Annual salary of Speaker of the House:  $223,500.
Annual salary of the majority and minority leaders:  $193,400.
Annual salary of 532 other members of congress:  $174,000.

Not too shabby when one considers that these "public servants" also get annual "cost-of living" raises (that they deny to recipients of Social Security retirement benefits) and have virtually all of their hefty (and often bogus) expenses (including sumptuous vacations) paid by the taxpayers. The system enables them to live almost entirely at the expense of the public treasury.


(Average Americans earn from $33,000 to $77,000 a year.)


And those large living inside the D.C. Beltway aren't just to the elected elitists. Their staff members share in the public treasury's largess. So too do members of the White House staff -- click on this chart to enlarge it for viewing:

No wonder they're clueless 

about why we serfs are 

madder than hell.

$16 Trillion in Secret Bailouts

The first ever GAO(Government Accountability Office) audit of the Federal Reserve was carried out in the past few months due to the Ron Paul, Alan Grayson Amendment to the Dodd-Frank bill, which passed last year. Jim DeMint, a Republican senator, and Bernie Sanders, an independent senator, led the charge for a Federal Reserve audit in the senate, but watered down the original language of the house bill(HR1207), so that a complete audit would not be carried out. Ben Bernanke, Alan Greenspan, and various other bankers vehemently opposed the audit and lied to Congress about the effects an audit would have on markets. Nevertheless, the results of the first audit in the Federal Reserve’s nearly 100 year history were posted on Senator Sander’s webpage this month (July 2011).

What was revealed in the audit was startling: 


$16,000,000,000,000.00 had been secretly given out to U.S. banks and corporations and foreign banks everywhere from France to Scotland . From the period between December 2007 and June 2010, the Federal Reserve had secretly bailed out many of the world’s banks, corporations, and governments. The Federal Reserve likes to refer to these secret bailouts as an all-inclusive loan program, but virtually none of the money has been returned and it was loaned out at 0% interest. Why the Federal Reserve had never been public about this or even informed the United States Congress about the $16 trillion dollar bailout is obvious — the American public would have been outraged to find out that the Federal Reserve bailed out foreign banks while Americans were struggling to find jobs.

To place $16 trillion into perspective, remember that GDP of the United States is only $14.12 trillion. The entire national debt of the United States government spanning its 200+ year history is “only” $14.5 trillion. The budget that is being debated so heavily in Congress and the Senate is “only” $3.5 trillion. Take all of the outrage and debate over the $1.5 trillion deficit into consideration, and swallow this red pill: There was no debate about whether $16,000,000,000,000 would be given to failing banks and failing corporations around the world.

In late 2008, the TARP Bailout bill was passed and loans of $800 billion were given to failing banks and companies. That was a blatant lie considering the fact that Goldman Sachs alone received 814 billion dollars. As is turns out, the Federal Reserve donated $2.5 trillion to Citigroup, while Morgan Stanley received $2.04 trillion. The Royal Bank of Scotland and Deutsche Bank, a German bank, split about a trillion and numerous other banks received hefty chunks of the $16 trillion.

This is a clear case of socialism for the rich and rugged, you’re-on-your-own individualism for everyone else.. 

. . . Bernie Sanders 

U. S.  Senator (I-VT)

When you have conservative Republican stalwarts like Jim DeMint (R-SC) and Ron Paul (R-TX) as well as self identified Democratic socialists like Bernie Sanders all fighting against the Federal Reserve, you know that it is no longer an issue of Right versus Left. When you have every single member of the Republican Party in Congress and progressive Congressmen like Dennis Kucinich sponsoring a bill to audit the Federal Reserve, you realize that the Federal Reserve is an entity onto itself, which has no oversight and no accountability.

A Question That Has To Be Asked

Is the current occupant of the White House truly over his head and as startlingly incompetent, misguided, and stupid as he appears to be,

or

Is he a brilliant and well trained strategist and tactician skillfully implementing  a cleverly calculated plan to bring the United States down to the level of Europe's lethargic socialist states or perhaps even the level of all those squalid third world make-believe countries?

The Good News May Be the Bad News

The good news is that Obama and his economic team members might be right when they claim that the recession has ended.

The bad news is that Obama and his economic team members may be right when they claim that the recession has ended . . . and the economic stagnation with staggeringly high unemployment that his changed America is experiencing may be the new normal of the Anointed One's burdensomely regulated "spread it around" socialist state. This may be as good as its going to get as long as the Annoying One is in the White House.

Hilarious Harry's Spending Cuts

Light weight Harry Reid, the leader of the Demorat majority in the United States Skanksty, has proposed $2.7 trillion in government spending cuts.


Of that amount, $1 trillion is what the government is going to save in any event by completing its already scheduled drawdown of our forces from the Middle East.


Another $400 billion of what he has come up with is the savings of interest that, were it not for the pullout, would have to be paid on what the government would have to borrow to extend the deployment of the troops.


A tip of the hat to Hilarious Harry for proving once again that while figures may not lie, liars indeed can figure.  

Simple Way to Balance the Federal Budget Pronto

It can be accomplished right now by just suspending all compensation and other payments to member of Congress, their staffers, the president, and all members of the cabinet so long as the budget is out of balance.


Incentives do work -- even the  crazies who sit in the California legislature managed to come up with a budget that is nominally balanced. They miraculously acted with great alacrity once failing to adopt a budget that could be claimed to be balanced meant they wouldn't be getting paid.

America Transformed . . . and It Isn't Pretty

Recent economic reports show the extent to which supinely complacent or cowardly Americans have permitted our ruling elites to fundamentally change the United States.

Taxes, regulations, legislation, and the corresponding expansion in the size and scope of government into a monster that intrudes into every aspect of the lives of American citizens have brought almost to a standstill what had been the envy of the world -- the greatest economic machine ever to exist on this earth.

The basic nature of the nation's transformation is reflected by the most recent report on the housing market. It is in distress across the country. It's still going down in many places, barely holding its own in others, and inching up in a very few locales. The dismal bright spot -- get this and think about its implications -- is Washington, D.C., and its environs. The market is booming there.

That's hardly surprising. The parasitic seat of the federal government is  waxing fat and happy on the life blood that it has been sucking out of the rest of the country.

The fundamental transformation is the change from a government that serves the nation to government that is served by the nation. Our elected officials and their minions have managed to transform themselves from public servants, servants of the nation's citizens, to rulers who are served by, command, and live large off the people.

Obama's Friends and the Big Birthday Bash

The big money Wall Street crowd is ponying up big time for Obama's reelction campaign. They're his biggest supporters, as is detailed in this report.


Guess the Wall Street plutocrats will outnumber common folk at the big bash the prez is throwing for himself in New York to celebrate his fiftieth birthday. It's costing $38,500 a couple to attend.


It's more than slightly ironic that the celebratory gala will take place on August 3 -- the day after the government debt crisis supposedly will kick in if Obama doesn't get his way on an increase in the federal debt ceiling.  Fear not though, he's threatening to throw a tantrum and hold his breath until he gets what he wants . . . and the nation may be on the verge of getting its first apoplectic blue president.

Clever Critters

Click on Image to Enlarge for Viewing

Kansas Highway Sign

There's nothing wrong with Kansas -- someone there has it exactly right. This sign is located on highway 59 at its intersection with highway 43, across the road from Marshall High School, 35 miles southeast of  Wichita: 

Why Are American Jews Supporting AntiSemites?

Multiple explanations have been offered for why so may American Jews continue to support Obama and his Democrat progressives who openly espouse antiSemitic positions and clearly are hostile to Israel.


Whatever the reason, such Jews have become house slaves who remain faithful to their 'progressive' plantation masters no matter how harshly they are treated. Why? Who knows? But what is obvious is that the Jews who behave in this fashion have turned their backs on their heritage. They have abandoned Judaism, the faith of Moses, Abraham, and David, and swapped it for an altogether different faith -- the religion of liberalism.  

Not To Be Missed

Lee Rodgers is especially sharp today. Be sure to take a look at all of the current posts on his blog here.

When Insults Had Class

These glorious insults are from an era before the English language got boiled down to four letter words:  A member of Parliament to Disraeli: Sir, you will either die on the gallows or of some unspeakable disease." "That depends, Sir, said Disraeli, whether I embrace  your policies or your mistress.  He had delusions of adequacy. - Walter Kerr He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices  I admire. - Winston Churchill I have never killed a man, but I have read many  obituaries with great pleasure. Clarence Darrow  He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary. - William Faulkner (about Ernest Hemingway) Thank you for sending me a copy of your book; I'll  waste no time reading it. - Moses Hadas I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying  I approved of it. - Mark Twain He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked  by his friends. - Oscar Wilde I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play; bring a friend, if you have one. - George Bernard Shaw to Winston Churchill Cannot possibly attend first night, will attend second  . . . if there is one. - Winston Churchill, in response. I feel so miserable without you; it's almost like having you here. - Stephen Bishop He is a self-made man and worships his creator.  - John Bright I've just learned about his illness. Let's hope  it's nothing trivial. - Irvin S. Cobb  He is not only dull himself; he is the cause of dullness  in others. - Samuel Johnson He is simply a shiver looking for a spine to run up.  - Paul Keating In order to avoid being called a flirt, she always  yielded easily. - Charles, Count Talleyrand He loves nature in spite of what it did to him.  - Forrest Tucker Why do you sit there looking like an envelope without any address on it? - Mark Twain His mother should have thrown him away and  kept the stork. - Mae West Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go. - Oscar Wilde He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts . . . for support rather than illumination.  - Andrew Lang (1844-1912) He has Van Gogh's ear for music. - Billy Wilder I've had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this  wasn't it. - Groucho Marx

Autopsying the Dismayed Left's Unfunny Comedians and Ludicrous Journalice

Their ugliness -- [referring to what we are seeing from  leftist comedians] --  seems to be escalating day by day, and with it the dishonesty, distortions, and bullying anger of their mainstream-media fellow travelers. There’s a reason for this, I think. It’s the increasingly apparent failure of Barack Obama. With the notable exception of Osama bin Laden’s execution, the Obama presidency has resembled nothing so much as an episode of "Mr. Bean," one slapstick misadventure after another. The stagnant economy, the rising unemployment, the staggering, soon-to-be-crippling debt—hiked more under Obama than under every president from Washington to Reagan combined—these can no longer be blamed on his predecessor but are his to own.

This has to be fantastically humiliating for our left-wing media. If you’ve forgotten what they were like during Obama’s 2008 candidacy—the weirdly sexual thrills up their legs, the unreasoning comparison of Obama with America’s greatest men, the pseudo-religious idolatry . . . .

* * *

What might once have been dismissed as an embarrassing lapse into bobby-soxer squealery now has to be recognized as a desperate attempt to keep a dying euphoria alive.  * * *  It may, on the one hand, be the tactic of second-rung celebrities desperate for more attention, but it may at the same time represent the dismay of yet another generation of leftists waking from yet another utopian daydream to find themselves in a disaster of their own making.

The above is an edited excerpt from an excellent longer City Journal essay by Andrew Klavan that can be accessed by clicking here.

Politicians Can Fix Anything and Everything, and Solve All Our Problems

Our Tax Dollars at Work

We're supposed to go further into debt to continue this disgrace?

Snippet of Wisdom

Don't Worry About Old Age; It Doesn't Last Long

Frenzy Over Sky Not Falling

Reversing course, Obama and his fellow progressives now are letting it be known that they will go along with a short term or temporary increase in the ceiling on the government's economy crushing indebtedness.


They say the change in their position is to allow time to work out the details of a longer term and more comprehensive debt limit increase deal.


That is a disingenuous explanation of what is motivating them    . . . or, in simple terms, a lie.


They, and not the public, are in a panic. They fear the possibility of no debt ceiling increase in place by their August 2 deadline and the public noticing  on August 3 that the sky had not fallen or given any real indication that it would fall *.


Were this to occur, they foresee it more difficult to frighten the populace sufficiently to cause the kind of stampede necessary to enact their bogus problem solving programs in the future. Who would ever again believe them about anything?


Another fear of his crowd, as shown by this report, is a debt ceiling increase deal that would make it harder to raise taxes in the future.


Also, the American Spectator has this good on line piece about the politics of the debt increase.
_______________
* Note: Our President apparently doesn't expect the sky to have fallen or to be falling on August 3. That's when he is throwing himself a New York City bash to mark his 50th birthday with his fellow citizens or, at least, those able and willing to pay $38,500 a couple to celebrate the event with him. 

Promoting Panic To Push Hasty (and Worse Than Useless) Legislation

The whole aim of practical politics is 

to keep the populace alarmed (and hence 

clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it 

with an endless series of hobgoblins, 

all of them imaginary.

Congress -- the body that went for years without finding it necessary or being able to adopt a budget -- is stampeding or being stampeded toward lifting the government's debt ceiling     . . . something that we are being told absolutely must be done by August 2.


Consider, if you will, that every significant ill conceived Obama backed measure that has been enacted into law has been passed hastily, before it could be carefully examined and considered, to meet similar arbitrary deadlines. Remember the Troubled Asset Relief Program, the Stimulus package (and all those shovel ready projects), Obamacare?


There are lessons in those examples:


*  The urgency isn't real, and


*  Legislating (like marrying) in haste leads to repenting at leisure.


As has been noted on this blog previously, no increase in the government's indebtedness would be necessary were it to curtail its spending to no more than it takes in.


New debt could be incurred to retire existing debt as it becomes due, dollar for dollar with no increase. And contrary to all the scare talk, the government has ample funds to meet its current Social Security and other obligations.


The push is on to permit the federal debt to soar to fund all the new and additional things that the ruling class wants the government to do at the expense of future generations.


The ruling political elite and its usually coterie of statist supporters want to alarm the public, to induce panic, and to create a stampede to lift the government debt ceiling supposedly to avert the fictitious looming catastrophe but actually to enable it to continue to increase its profligate spending and expansion.


Fortunately, we have among us well educated individuals with cool heads in which rational thought takes place. One such individual is the eminent John Lott who dissects the debt ceiling myths in this analytical essay.


As for the rest of us, we would do well to (i) recall predictions of catastrophes that never occurred -- a global cooling crisis just a few decades ago, the population/mass starvation disaster that was supposed to follow it (emulating Malthus centuries earlier), all the nutty end-of-the-world pronouncements by deranged clergymen, the now exploded global warming disaster forecasts, and even L.A.'s Carmageddon, and (ii) keep in mind the astute observation of Henry L. Mencken quoted at the beginning of this post.  

Half Dozen Halfwits Hatch Half Baked Scheme

Our chattering ruling class is euphoric over the idea hatched by the so-called "gang of six" that is supposed to cut the size of government, its unending deficits and its ever expanding indebtedness by -- get this -- giving it a trillion dollars more in taxes with which to play.


The trillion is clearly set forth to come at the front end and, as always, cutbacks are promised but -- except for a fraction of the tax increases -- left to be definitively decided upon and put into effect down the road . . . manana . . . at some future date. There is ample history evidencing that such future savings never are realized.


To know evaluate the bona fides of the scheme one has to know only two things: 


*  First, the composition of the gang from which it emerged. It was bipartisan in that it included three of the United State's Sty's biggest spending progressive Demorats and three of their Republicon (actually RINO) accomplices.


*  Second and not surprisingly, what they have sprung on us, under the guise of justifying a government debt ceiling increase, is viewed with favor by the current occupant of the White House. Of course, as is detailed in this Wall Street Journal analysis, that guy is looking forward to shared sacrifices and painful cutbacks that involve $136 billion in new spending.


Any lackwit who buys into this charade truly belongs in the bridge buying business.

Standing Up To California's Tax and Loot Crowd

Three cheers for Amazon for fighting back against efforts to force the internet company to collect and pay into California's coffers taxes on the company's sales to residents of the state.


Several problems with the tax and loot campaign are ignored by its supporting members of the political ruling class and their academic and media cohorts who are on a never ending quest for ever more tax dollars

The statist looters don't want to address the fact that the out-of-state businesses they are targeting use no California facilities or services. They neither need nor receive anything from the state so there is no justification for compelling them to do anything for, or pay anything to the state.

Second -- although this is an ideological rather than a legal difficulty -- out-of-state merchants do not vote or have any voice in California. Even though politicians love to extract money from those who have no recourse against them at the ballot box, the rest of us used to believe something along the lines of taxation without representation being tyranny.

Third, the argument that being able to sell merchandise without collecting sales taxes for the state gives  out-of-state catalog and internet enterprises an unfair advantage over local businesses is false as any sales tax savings is roughly offset by the shipping costs that the distant businesses have to collect or bear.

Fight back and keep doing so. We've got to stop feeding the big government monster ! ! ! !

Government Cost Estimates

When Medicare began in 1966, it cost $3 billion; congressional estimates were that, by 1990, it would cost about $12 billion, allowing for inflation. The actual figure turned out to be $107 billion. Today, Medicare's future unfunded obligations total at least $36 trillion

. . . From the New York Post

Our Two Party System

We have:


*  Demorats who are truly evil and fanatical,  somewhat demented, and slightly stupid,

and

*  Republicons who are astoundingly stupid and spineless, somewhat loony, and slightly evil.


Who says we don't have a choice?

Everything Comes As A Surprise To The Oval Office

Every significant occurrence -- even those he has brought about -- seems to astonish the doofus we have installed in the White House, as set forth in this tally of the surprising record of Obama's surprises. (If you access the link other than on July 18, scroll down to click on the column for that date).


Someone in the Czech Republic got it exactly right with the following observation:


The danger to America is not Barack Obama but a citizenry capable of entrusting a man like him with the Presidency. It will be far easier to limit and undo the follies of an Obama presidency than to restore the necessary common sense and good judgment to a depraved electorate willing to have such a man for their president. The problem is much deeper and far more serious than Mr. Obama, who is a mere symptom of what ails America . Blaming the prince of the fools should not blind anyone to the vast confederacy of fools that made him their prince. The Republic can survive a Barack Obama, who is, after all, merely a fool. It is less likely to survive a multitude of fools such as those who made him their president.

Enjoying Obama's Third Grand Recovery Summer?