The annual charade known as the “State of the Union Address” has clearly become the most telling example of everything that ever went awry within the federal government over the past few decades. Compared to the constitutional premise on which it is based, the fraudulent and politically tainted monstrosity presented to the Congress and the American people this week represented a total departure from its originally stated purpose. Yet it was typical of the rash of nanny state excesses obsessively advanced by the Obama regime.
As the nation lurches into the 2012 election season, the propagandists of the liberal media have gone into high gear. Their singular job is to prevent the American people from correctly assessing the precarious condition of their country, what needs to be done about it and, most dangerously of all, who among the major Republican contenders could best assume the helm of the nation’s government in order to implement a proper course of action.
Democrats created what they thought was a good wedge issue in foreign policy, and since about 2006 or so----after the Iraq war became sufficiently unpopular----they advanced it in the form of the mantra, “we must talk to our enemies.”
After President Clinton took a drubbing from voters in the 1994 Congressional election, he realized his policies weren’t working. He promptly declared, “The era of big government is over,” and he then went about making good on that declaration:
• He reduced spending by a miraculous 3 1/2 percent of GDP.
• He attacked entitlement spending and abolished the [...]
After President Clinton took a drubbing from voters in the 1994 Congressional election, he realized his policies weren’t working. He promptly declared, “The era of big government is over,” and he then went about making good on that declaration:
• He reduced spending by a miraculous 3 1/2 percent of GDP.
• He attacked entitlement spending and abolished the ballooning open-ended welfare system.
• He signed what amounted to the biggest capital gains tax cut in American history.
• He delivered the only four budget surpluses in four decades.
• And he produced a period of prolonged economic expansion.
President Obama faced a similar cross-road as he delivered his fourth State of the Union Address to Congress. If he had followed the example of his successful Democratic predecessor, he could have redeemed his presidency, revived the economy and rallied the country.
Instead, he succumbed to the basic ingredient of hubris: that the more we invest in our mistakes, the less willing we are to correct them.
Instead, his fourth State of the Union Address was indistinguishable from the three before it – the same big government bromides that have utterly failed to revive the economy while squandering trillions of dollars of the nation’s wealth.
For two full years, lopsided Democratic majorities in Congress responded to eerily similar addresses by giving him everything he asked for, including the biggest single spending bill in history that he promised would keep the unemployment rate under eight percent.
His fourth State of the Union speech came on the 35th consecutive month of unemployment rates over eight percent — unemployment rates that would be still higher except that millions of Americans have simply given up looking for work and therefore are no longer counted among the unemployed. Indeed, fewer Americans are working today than on Inauguration day, 2009.
In pursuing these policies, he has piled up as much debt in three years as the nation acquired from the first day of the George Washington administration to the last day of the George H. W. Bush administration and destroyed America’s Triple-A credit rating.
True, Mr. Obama inherited a terrible mess caused by his predecessor. George W. Bush went on his own spending and borrowing binge to “stimulate” the economy. He approved the biggest expansion of entitlement spending since the Great Society. He intervened in the housing market by guaranteeing that struggling taxpayers would bail out banks from their bad decisions. He ran up crippling budget deficits (that now seem quaint by today’s standards).
Yet instead of reversing these disastrous policies, Barack Obama has spent the last three years doubling down on them, and he showed no interest in changing course in the final year of his term.
Ronald Reagan inherited an economy plagued by double-digit unemployment, double-digit inflation, mile-long lines around gas stations and interest rates at 21 ½ percent. He told the country, “In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem — government IS the problem.”
Reagan reduced the tax and regulatory burdens that were crushing the economy and produced a period of prolonged economic expansion and prosperity. Former Senator Phil Gramm recently estimated that if the economy under Obama tracked as it had under Reagan, 15.7 million more Americans would be working today and per capita income would be over $4,000 higher than it is today.
Nor was Reagan a pioneer. Warren Harding, Harry Truman and John F. Kennedy, pursued similar policies and produced similar results.
If Barack Obama had presented a comparable vision, he would have had the enthusiastic support of the Republican majority in the House and a year from now could claim the mantle of leadership in putting the nation back on the road to prosperity. Instead, what he prescribed is guaranteed to produce gridlock, finger-pointing and sniping, as his combative tone clearly signaled is his intention.
That’s a tragic waste of an entire crucial year when we could be implementing policies to relieve our economy of the burdens that are crushing it – just as a Democratic President working with a Republican Congress did during the Clinton years.
Whittier’s words haunt the country in the aftermath of this lost opportunity: “Of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these: ‘it might have been.’”
Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-AL), who was the subject of allegations of congressional insider trading, has indicated that he will not seek to extend his term as chair of the House Financial Services Committee after 2012.
Bachus was one of several Capitol Hill leaders from both parties involved in insider trading, according to Breitbart editor Peter Schweizer, [...]
Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-AL), who was the subject of allegations of congressional insider trading, has indicated that he will not seek to extend his term as chair of the House Financial Services Committee after 2012.
Bachus was one of several Capitol Hill leaders from both parties involved in insider trading, according to Breitbart editor Peter Schweizer, who raised the issue in his recent book, Throw Them All Out. Subsequently, President Barack Obama called on Congress this week to pass a law banning congressional insider trading–though the book also documented crony capitalism in the Obama administration’s green energy programs.
Bachus could have sought a waiver from the Republicans Party’s self-imposed six-year term limit on committee chairs, which includes time spent leading the minority as ranking members. However, he chose not to do so, though he has indicated that he wishes to play a role in selecting his successor.
Bachus faces a challenge in the Republican primary from Alabama state senator Scott Benson.
It’s always the little things that make me miss George W. Bush. Yes, his public profligacy gave us Obama, which in turn gave us the Tea Party. New York Times reporter Jodi Kantor’s book, The Obamas, makes me love him all the more. The book gushes a little much about Michelle Obama’s sense of style.
We learn, [...]
It’s always the little things that make me miss George W. Bush. Yes, his public profligacy gave us Obama, which in turn gave us the Tea Party. New York Times reporter Jodi Kantor’s book, The Obamas, makes me love him all the more. The book gushes a little much about Michelle Obama’s sense of style.
We learn, this, for instance:
[The First Lady] hired a wardrobe assistant; when she traveled abroad, she wanted to bring her own hair and makeup assistants; and to redecorate the private quarters of the White House, she passed over little-known designers in favor of Michael Smith, who had done houses for Steven Spielberg and Rupert Murdoch. (85)
(A few days after the inauguration we learn that Michael Smith had also redone the executive suite of John Thain, the fired CEO of Merrill Lynch, for $1.2 million after having gotten $20 billion bailout money.)
Congress typically sets aside $100,000 to help the president-elect and his family move in, but the Bushes used their own money instead and left their $200,000 in the White House bank accounts for the Obamas to blow.
Re-elect Obama: vote Newt -
The media cheerleads for Obama after SOTU -
The GOP's electoral college "Newt-mare" -
Obama's unfair tax plan -
Time for a stupidity tax -
Obama forgets 1st two years in SOTU address
As I reported Monday, polls taken immediately after South Carolina's primary last Saturday showed Newt Gingrich enjoying a substantial bounce in Florida.
He climbed from 20 points down to 9 points up in one poll in a matter of days. Now, as is the case with a bouncing ball, ...
Sheriff Joe Biden may only half-heartedly believe what he’s saying here. It’s just that word around Capitol Hill is that if you help convince Nancy that her reunion with the Speaker’s gavel is imminent, there’s a good chance she’ll throw a pretty good stock tip your way, so what the heck.
House Democrats will win the House in November, swinging the gavel back into the hands of Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Vice President Joe Biden predicted Friday.
“Nancy, I think, is not going to be remembered just for being the first woman Speaker,” Biden said, “she’s going to remembered for being the second woman speaker.”
Addressing House Democrats gathered on the Eastern Shore for their annual retreat, Biden said the combination of GOP obstructionism and a strengthening economy will propel the Democrats back into control of the lower chamber after just two years in the minority.
“It’s becoming absolutely clear the decisions that we made … are actually working,” Biden said, speaking softly because he said he’s battling a cold.
It’s sort of a “bad thought, good thought” situation. The bad is that Joe Biden is predicting the Dems will control the House after the election. The good is that in 2010 he predicted the same thing, and, well, you know how that turned out.
In November, Democrat Sen. Claire McCaskill — chair of the Senate Subcommittee on Contracting and Oversight and up for re-election in less than a year — asked HHS to review the contract.
Last week, the NYPost reported that SIGA execs dumped stock when they learned the contract would be far less than they anticipated last spring.
“Yesterday afternoon I submitted my second letter to the Inspector General at the Department of Health and Human Services regarding apparent gross impropriety on behalf of the Obama Administration.”
“The more I investigate this deal, the more shocked I become at the potential corruption and insider influence taking place at the highest levels of our government. I cannot help but see the similarities between this case and the Solyndra scandal, since both involve rewarding companies tied to Obama donors, billions in taxpayer dollars, and insider dealing.”
“The decisions made by HHS have caused a legitimate small business in North Carolina to be denied a level playing field to provide smallpox treatments in the event of a national emergency. I will be very interested to see how the Administration explains their actions in awarding a billion-dollar corporation such a substantial contract when it falsely claimed to be a small business.”
Federal law requires that a certain amount of grants for this research and production be set aside for small businesses. In turn, small businesses will compete for these contracts and “grant awards” while convincing the government that their products will provide the most effective treatment and protections, at the lowest cost to the American taxpayer.
The two companies at the center of this – SIGA and Chimerix – competed for this award and submitted their own proposals for drugs to combat smallpox. SIGA’s small business status was challenged and the SBA ruled twice that they were “Other Than Small,” and therefore ineligible for a small business set-aside contract. But rather than acknowledging SBA’s decision, HHS pulled the small business set-aside and reissued the contract as a sole-source, non-compete to SIGA Corp. for $2.8 billion.
MacAndrews & Forbes Holdings, Inc. is a corporation wholly owned by Ronald Perelman, and TransTech Pharma, Inc. (a privately-held drug discovery company controlled by MacAndrews & Forbes). In November 2003, Perelman announced he would invest $10 million through MacAndrews and Forbes into SIGA Technologies – at the time a tiny biotech company that was developing oral drugs to prevent and treat diseases, including smallpox and anthrax.
Back in November, I spotlighted Obama’s half-billion-dollar crony drug deal involving a no-bid contract with politically-connected SIGA. Refresher course here. In November, Democrat Sen. Claire McCaskill — chair of the Senate Subcommittee on Contracting and Oversight and up for re-election in less than a year — asked HHS to review the contract. Last week, the [...]
Mr. and Mrs. Cranky Pants
by Michelle Malkin Creators Syndicate
Copyright 2012
So, it turns out that the cool cat billed as “No Drama Obama” by his sycophants is actually quite the drama queen. While the White House publicly pretends to ignore conservative detractors of his administration, Chief Touchy-Touchy seems to be personally consumed by our critiques. Yes, mine included.
On Wednesday, the president had himself a mini-”Toddlers and Tiaras”-style meltdown with Arizona GOP Gov. Jan Brewer after landing in Phoenix for a post-State of the Union dog-and-pony show. As Brewer told pool reporters on the scene, Obama took umbrage at Brewer’s recent memoir. She minced no words on the cover: “Scorpions for Breakfast: My Fight Against Special Interests, Liberal Media, and Cynical Politicos to Secure America’s Border.”
And she minced no words describing her impressions of Obama as they sparred over her state’s tough immigration enforcement law, which is now the subject of a Justice Department witch-hunt. Brewer called Obama “patronizing” and “condescending.” I’d say she was excruciatingly polite.
According to Brewer, “He was a little disturbed about my book. … I said to him that I have all the respect in the world for the office of the president. The book is what the book is. I asked him if he read the book. He said he read (an) excerpt.” In the shadow of Air Force One, Obama complained that Brewer hadn’t “treated him cordially” and then stalked off while she was responding mid-sentence.
Photogs captured the fracas on film. The civility police gasped at Brewer’s “disrespectful” finger-pointing. On cue, one progressive commentator insinuated the gesture was a “racist” jab tantamount to lynching.
The president was singing a more laid-back tune last summer. As debate on Capitol Hill over the debt ceiling and spending sizzled, Obama bragged to reporters: “I’m not trying to poke at you guys. … I generally don’t watch what is said about me on cable. I generally don’t read what’s said about me even in The Hill (newspaper), so part of this job is having a thick skin and understanding that a lot of this stuff is not personal.”
Uh-huh. At least two other Republican governors — Rick Perry of Texas and Bobby Jindal of Louisiana — have recounted similar presidential snit fits on the tarmac. He sulked over a letter Jindal wrote to the administration about food stamps for Gulf oil spill victims; he bolted after a half-minute meeting with Perry at an Austin airport over border security issues.
You know those “petty grievances” of “Washington politics” that Obama has long condemned? Now it can be told: He knows whereof he squawks.
As New York Times reporter Jodi Kantor’s new book, “The Obamas,” reveals, the president and his inner circle spent even more time carping about conservative influence on public opinion. “He wanted the media to be more of a referee; to put unfair Republican charges to rest,” Kantor discovered. “He could brush off the wildest, most baseless attacks themselves, he told (senior adviser and Chicago pal) Valerie Jarrett, along with (campaign finance bundler and treasurer) Marty Nesbitt and (bundler and finance mogul) John Rogers, at lunch in the little dining room next to the Oval Office.”
But what “galled him,” the book observed, “was when they gained mainstream credibility despite distortions of truth.”
Kantor then dutifully served as a pro-Obama referee:
“Rogers had just noticed a new book by the conservative columnist Michelle Malkin called ‘Culture of Corruption: Obama and His Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks and Cronies.’ Among many other allegations, Malkin wrote that Michelle Obama — the president’s ‘bitter half’ — was secretly running the country in Lady Macbeth-like fashion. Malkin even took a hatchet to long-dead Fraser Robinson (Mrs. Obama’s father), arguing with no evidence that his job at a water plant made him part of the ‘Chicago political corruptocracy.’ The book debuted at number one on The New York Times nonfiction bestseller list and stayed there for weeks.”
The facts? It was a former alderman in Chicago, Leon Depres, who provided evidence that Robinson’s job in the city water department was a reward for loyalty to the Daley political faction.
It was Washington Post writer Liza Mundy who reported that the department was “a renowned repository of patronage jobs.”
It’s the Illinois press that has long documented Mrs. Obama’s ties to the Chicago machine. It’s Kantor herself who spotlighted the first lady’s internecine warfare with her husband’s Cabinet. And from her meddling in everything from the AmeriCorps inspector general firing case to her aggressive, Big Labor-backed push for a publicly subsidized food police corps, Michelle Obama has been openly expanding her East Wing fiefdom in Marie Antoinette-like fashion.
How long before we see a FLOTUS tarmac tantrum? We did get two divas for the price of one. As longtime observers of the royal Obamas have long observed: Mr. and Mrs. Cranky Pants’ problem has never been the color of their skin. It’s the thinness.
Mr. and Mrs. Cranky Pants by Michelle Malkin Creators Syndicate Copyright 2012 So, it turns out that the cool cat billed as “No Drama Obama” by his sycophants is actually quite the drama queen. While the White House publicly pretends to ignore conservative detractors of his administration, Chief Touchy-Touchy seems to be personally consumed by [...]
Separation is in Everyone’s Best Interest
By Rachel Pendergraft
What is the most striking aspect of the image to the left? Is it the lovely hues of blue that are used. Maybe your eyes go straight to the dove – an often used image of peace with it’s origin in the Bible. Maybe the slogan of, “Peace [...]
Separation is in Everyone’s Best Interest
By Rachel Pendergraft
What is the most striking aspect of the image to the left? Is it the lovely hues of blue that are used. Maybe your eyes go straight to the dove – an often used image of peace with it’s origin in the Bible. Maybe the slogan of, “Peace Nowwww” is what sticks with you. To me the most striking part of this image is the rainbow.
The multi colored rainbow is used many times by peace advocates to advance their vision of world peace through racial diversity. I agree. The contrasting vibrant colors of the rainbow do represent a type of racial harmony. But here is the kicker that never seems to sink in. The colors are separate. In fact, the only reason you can see the different colors of the rainbow is for the exact reason that the colors are unique. This is not a gray rainbow. There is no such thing as a gray rainbow. To integrate or mix the colors of the rainbow would mean that the very essence that is trying to be achieved (diversity) no longer exists.
The concept of diversity is so misunderstood that a large portion of the population actually believes a mixture of all racial groups will mean more diversity when the opposite is the true result. It is so mind boggling simple that a very small child can understand it – that is until his idea is “corrected” by social engineers who supposedly know better.
W e have said it over and over again. We have advocated this concept for years. Separation works. While Europe has seen violence and bloodshed in the past due to the clashing of cultures, the brilliance of our founding fathers and by Godly providence, America was enshrouded by a sense of cooperation between different families of the same racial group.
Whether they be English, German, Italian, Russian, French, Irish, or one of the many other racially white, but ethnically diverse cultures, they all originated from the same racial people group. Though differing in language, dress, dance, food, or custom, their nature was the same.
Out of this group of people came the concept of self-government and our constitutional republic. Our values and morals were the same. And while there were differences of opinion in regard to Christian doctrine, they were Christian none-the-less and adhered to the basic tenants of the Christian faith. Their view of America was a nation open freely to all nationalities of white people (citizenship was restricted to white people) and men and women were recognized to have the freedom to belong to the Christian denomination of their choice. (the true intention of the First Amendment)
Slavery should never have been an option and our people have suffered because of it. But also, the descendants of the 400,000 Africans brought here as slaves still labor under the idea that white Americans are out to get them. And once again, racial tension seeps to the surface.
This was the purpose behind the Back to Africa movement supported by Abraham Lincoln and also black nationalist Marcus Garvey. Thomas Jefferson was an advocate of racial separation (too bad his quote was edited when carved in stone at the Jefferson Memorial in D.C.)
And there were women such as Clare Luce Boothe (her husband was the founder of Time, Fortune, Life, and Sports Illustrated magazines) she wrote for Vogue and Vanity Fair, was an U.S. Ambassador to Italy and Brazil, was a Broadway playright with numerous credits, was a Congresswoman, served during Reagan’s term on the President’s Foregin Advisory Board, was named Woman of the Century, received the U.S. Medal of Honor, was an avowed Christian and warned that non-white immigration would destroy the U.S. (Note: I include Booth’s credentials because the media has implied that the concept of racial separation is an idea purported by evil white men. When in fact it is an idea cherished by America’s white majority – male and female – until quite recently and by those of all economic and educational backgrounds)
To truly be free, you must have your own space, to succeed or fail on your own, to make your own decisions.
The institution of slavery broke down the hegemony of our nation and created a crisis that we are still having to grapple with. Separation is a virtuous idea that must be given serious contemplation once again. Even cultures within a racial group can clash on occasion – more so when completely different racial groups are forced together through government edict.
The genetic difference between the races is so expansive that friction is always the result. Social engineers have attempted to solve the problem by discrediting solid scientific and historic evidence that the racial groups are so unique. By ignoring what is generally known and substituting in its place a new age cultural phenomena by which white people are relegated to a position void of appreciation for their own culture, whites are increasingly adopting the culture of non-white racial groups. This unnatural and engineered assimilation of whites and non-whites is leading toward the genocide of our people.
It is only fair that all people groups have their own nation, create their own laws and government, and control their own destiny. I don’t care about controlling what happens in India or China. And except for the genocide of whites in South Africa and Zimbabwe (former white nations without a sizable native presence until whites brought prosperity) I think the nations of Africa should be free to solve their own problems.
Weakness cannot be overcome by having some other nation solve your problems – just like you can’t build muscle by watching someone else lift weights. Weak nations grow strong and prosper by doing it themselves. Still, who are we to say that what is normal to us is normal to them. Let them create and enjoy their own culture. It is called self-determination.
Relative peace can be had by recognizing the right of people to their own land and government. That is a right that should be afforded to white people as well. It is fair to all. Geographic separation is the only solution to lasting peace and conflict resolution. Intelligent people of all racial families should give it serious consideration.
It isn’t about hate. It is about common sense and human dignity. It is about the preservation of unique people groups as God designed. Many people of different racial backgrounds agree with this. It is about time that white people learn to love each other without feeling that a trip to a counselor is in order.
There is nothing wrong with advocating for and loving your race. Separation will reduce the chaos, anxiety, and suspicion that ultimately arises through integration. And as a white person filled with compassion for my own people, but also empathetic to the feelings of others, I must stay true to the legacy of my own race. Knowing that our people are so few in number on a global perspective I know that separation is not only good for all races, but it is also good for my race…for my race is the race that faces genocide on a mass scale through the engineered reduction of the white population.
So work for your own people, but allow us to work for our people. If the world can work together to save an endanged bird, whale, or insect, doesn’t it make sense to save an entire group of people? I think it does. But maybe I just have too big of a heart and care too much.
Today is January 27th. On this date in 1756, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born in Salzburg, Austria, thereby laying the ground work for Falco to top the charts 230 years later. (Which I’m sure was his reasoning in being born.) Today is also the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz by Soviet forces. I would also like to note that this week was National School Choice Week. I attended a school choice event here in Charlotte last night and will have a post up later today on that. As always, consider this an Open Thread.
Elliott Abrams Caught Misleading on Newt | American Spectator
“I can only say that what Elliott Abrams wrote in NRO about Newt Gingrich based on this long ago speech is not worthy of Elliott Abrams. Specifically, Abrams implies that Newt Gingrich was spewing mindless vitriol about Reagan on the House floor. Not only not so, it was quite to the contrary.”
Alternative Certification and ‘Colorblind Racism’ | WSJ
“So IQ tests are racist, except when they’re used to ‘prove’ that people with ‘socially conservative ideologies’ are racist and intellectually inferior.”
President Opts For Small-Ball Demagoguery | Charles Krauthammer
“This is redistribution for its own sake — the cost be damned. It took Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels about 30 seconds of his State of the Union rebuttal to demolish that idea.”
NYT Quotes ‘Retired Cuban Leader’ Castro on ‘Idiocy’ of GOP Field | Newsbusters
“They even suggested the dictator (who they merely called ‘the retired Cuban leader’) ‘had reason to be annoyed’ at threats voiced by Republican candidates Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney.”
Today’s word of the day comes from Wordsmith.org. gascon (GAS-kuhn): noun A braggart. adjective Boastful.
It is a sad commentary on the state of our world that stories like this one (warning, .pdf) (via the Population Research Institute) barely shock us anymore. The gist of the story is as follows: a Massachusetts woman, identified in court pleadings only as Mary Moe, is pregnant with her third child. She aborted her first child. Sometime between this abortion and the birth of her second child, she suffered a “psychotic break” and was diagnosed with shizophrenia and bipolar mood disorder, for which she takes medication. Reading inbetween the lines, it is reasonable to assume that the woman’s first abortion may have been a contributing factor in her mental illness:
The GAL report and the record generally provide additional background. The defendant suffered a psychotic break when she was a college student. Thereafter, she believed people were staring at her and stating that she killed her baby. She becomes agitated and emotional when discussing the pregnancy that ended in an abortion.
Now that Moe is pregnant for the third time, her parents went to a probate judge in Massachusetts in an attempt to get a court to force her to have an abortion, apparently on the theory that the medications Moe takes for her mental illness would be harmful to Moe’s unborn child. Somewhat unsurprisingly, given this history, Moe went to great lengths in front of the judge to avoid having an abortion forced on her, claiming devout Catholicism (a contention that her parents dispute) and denying that she even was pregnant.
Somehow the judge, a Dukakis appointee, got the idea that the best thing for this poor woman would be to force her to have another abortion (because the first one clearly worked wonders for her mental health). This despite the fact that the guardian ad litem appointed by the judge had found that if Moe were not suffering from mental illness, she would not herself choose to have the abortion. The judge astoundingly ordered that Moe’s parents should get her to the abortion clinic even if Moe had to be “coaxed, bribed, or even enticed … by ruse[.]” Additionally, even though no one (including Moe’s delightful parents) had asked for this remedy, the judge sua sponte ordered that once Moe’s parents had successfully conned her into the abortion clinic, Moe must be sterilized so she could never get pregnant again.
Thankfully, the probate judge was overruled on appeal, mainly for failing to make appropriate factual findings and failing to appropriately consider the recommendations of the guardian ad litem. Thus, in this one case, the appropriate result was reached, but reading the judge’s opinion, a different set of circumstances might very well have permitted “Mary Moe”‘s parents to force her to have an abortion against her will. This is the inevitable consequence of a society that has accepted the false premise that under certain circumstances, abortion is the only choice a sane person would make. Such a premise should be rejected by anyone who is truly “pro-choice,” but happily too many who claim to be “pro-choice” let the mask slip from time to time and show us all that when the chips are down, they really are pro-abortion, and nothing else.
So this is what the “age of budget austerity” looks like?
Yesterday, the Senate voted against a measure to disapprove of Obama’s request for an additional $1.2 trillion of debt. Every Democrat (except for Ben Nelson and Joe Manchin) voted against the resolution. Consequently, pursuant to the Budget Control Act (the “debt ceiling deal”), Obama will automatically get his new credit card. Our debt will increase by another $1.2 trillion, topping $16.4 trillion by the end of the year.
Here are the relevant numbers that should define Obama’s presidency, yet they will not be disseminated in the major media. When Obama took office, the total federal debt stood at $10.6 trillion. By the end of his first term, the debt will be at least $16.4 trillion, an increase of $5.8 trillion. To put that in perspective, it took us until late 2001 (from our nation’s founding) to accrue $5.8 trillion in debt. Even President Bush, who was a big-spending Republican, racked up “only” $4.9 trillion over 8 years.
Let’s now explicate the debt figures as a percentage of our economy. Our total federal debt and our GDP stand at parity. The debt is $15.281 trillion, while our GDP is 15.294 trillion. It is unlikely that our economy will grow by more than a 2-2.5% annualized rate in the coming year. On the other hand, with the additional $1.2 trillion of debt, our national debt will grow by 7.9%. In other words, our GDP will remain below our gross debt indefinitely.
Unfortunately, the Republicans are not innocent from reproach in this debt crisis. While every Republican except for Scott Brown voted for the resolution of disapproval, most of them supported the debt ceiling deal that engendered this disaster in the first place. Only 19 of the 47 Senate Republicans opposed the debt deal, which gave Obama a defacto blank check to raise $2.1 trillion in debt without any transformational budget reforms. We have already raised the debt ceiling by $900 billion since passage of the Budget Out of Control Act. Today, by default, Obama was granted the rest.
This just underscores the need to focus on congressional races. We might win back the Senate in November; however, if we continue to elect those who will vote for similar inane legislation, it will be worthless.
On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Brad Jackson and Ben Domenech are joined by Francis Cianfrocca to discuss the Fed’s interest rate announcement, the divided cultural experiences of America’s upper and lower class, and whether or not “the American way of life” still exists.
We’re brought to you as always by BigGovernment and Stephen Clouse and Associates. If you’d like to email us, you can do so at coffee[at]newledger.com. We hope you enjoy the show.
Obama has "a deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture." Glenn Beck
What should we do with Obama the racist?
"In Obama's America, the white kids now get beat up with the black kids cheering, 'Yay, right on, right on, right on, right on,'
We need segregated buses. This is Obamas America."
Rush Limbaugh
What should we do with Obama the racist?
Where is Dick when we need him?
For the woman in your life, get her something that says what should happen to Obama.
Cook him good...
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Print a PDF File, sign it
and carry it with you. Notify others in an emergency, that you
do not want your children adopted or cared for by homosexuals.
For the woman in your life, get her something that says what should happen to Obama.
Cook him good...
