America Goes To School On Obamacare & Socialism 101

Dr. Krauthammer does a superb job of describing the intent, arrogance and fraud of the Obamacare design.



Obamacare, sold on breathtaking lies (keep your insurance, keep your doctor, lower your healthcare premiums, better insurance, reduce the deficit) and built on a mountain of perverse incentives (part time work chief among them), is finally hitting home for the many Obama supporters. They are being schooled in Obamacare and socialism. Idiots.

Have we finally reached the point of far left overreach? I hope so, for the nation.

Many Democrat legislators who voted for Obamacare are now seeing their political obituaries written for 2014. They have no way to fix the Obamacare obscenity, but they are clamoring to put off Obamacare for another year - to get them past the next election. I have two thoughts on that. One, the damage is done, so Republicans agreeing to such an extension would be giving up very little. Two, they should only agree to that single change in exchange for medical malpractice tort reform - something that actually would stop defensive medicine and, if done properly, would actually bend down the cost curve of medical care. Other than that, let Obama and every naive idiot that voted for him - or indeed, any Democrat - twist on the end of the Obamacare rope.

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Krauthammer On The Gospel According To Obama

Pinhead does his best Obama imitation:

 

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In his column this week, Charles Krauthammer disects Obama's forays into the pontifical:

At the National Prayer Breakfast last week, seeking theological underpinning for his drive to raise taxes on the rich, President Obama invoked the highest possible authority. His policy, he testified “as a Christian,” “coincides with Jesus’s teaching that ‘for unto whom much is given, much shall be required.’ ”

Now, I’m no theologian, but I’m fairly certain that neither Jesus nor his rabbinic forebears, when speaking of giving, meant some obligation to the state. You tithe the priest, not the tax man.

The Judeo-Christian tradition commands personal generosity as represented, for example, by the biblical injunction against retrieving any sheaf left behind while harvesting one’s own field. That is for the gleaners — “the poor and the alien” (Leviticus 19:10). Like Ruth in the field of Boaz. As far as I can tell, that charitable transaction involved no mediation by the IRS.

. . . But this Gospel according to Obama has a rival — the newly revealed Gospel according to Sebelius, over which has erupted quite a contretemps. By some peculiar logic, it falls to the health and human services secretary to promulgate the definition of “religious” — for the purposes, for example, of exempting religious institutions from certain regulatory dictates.

Such exemptions are granted in grudging recognition that, whereas the rest of civil society may be broken to the will of the state’s regulators, our quaint Constitution grants special autonomy to religious institutions.

Accordingly, it would be a mockery of the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment if, for example, the Catholic Church were required by law to freely provide such “health care services” (in secularist parlance) as contraception, sterilization and pharmacological abortion — to which Catholicism is doctrinally opposed as a grave contravention of its teachings about the sanctity of life.

Ah. But there would be no such Free Exercise violation if the institutions so mandated are deemed, by regulatory fiat, not religious.

And thus, the word came forth from Sebelius decreeing the exact criteria required (a) to meet her definition of “religious” and thus (b) to qualify for a modicum of independence from newly enacted state control of American health care, under which the aforementioned Sebelius and her phalanx of experts determine everything — from who is to be covered, to which treatments are to be guaranteed free of charge.

Criterion 1: A “religious institution” must have “the inculcation of religious values as its purpose.” But that’s not the purpose of Catholic charities; it’s to give succor to the poor. That’s not the purpose of Catholic hospitals; it’s to give succor to the sick. Therefore, they don’t qualify as “religious” — and therefore can be required, among other things, to provide free morning-after abortifacients.

Criterion 2: Any exempt institution must be one that “primarily employs” and “primarily serves persons who share its religious tenets.” Catholic soup kitchens do not demand religious IDs from either the hungry they feed or the custodians they employ. Catholic charities and hospitals — even Catholic schools — do not turn away Hindu or Jew.

Their vocation is universal, precisely the kind of universal love-thy-neighbor vocation that is the very definition of religiosity as celebrated by the Gospel of Obama. Yet according to the Gospel of Sebelius, these very same Catholic institutions are not religious at all — under the secularist assumption that religion is what happens on Sunday under some Gothic spire, while good works are “social services” properly rendered up unto Caesar.

. . . To flatter his faith-breakfast guests and justify his tax policies, Obama declares good works to be the essence of religiosity. Yet he turns around and, through Sebelius, tells the faithful who engage in good works that what they’re doing is not religion at all. You want to do religion? Get thee to a nunnery. You want shelter from the power of the state? Get out of your soup kitchen and back to your pews. Outside, Leviathan rules.

The contradiction is glaring, the hypocrisy breathtaking. But that’s not why Obama offered a hasty compromise on Friday. It’s because the firestorm of protest was becoming a threat to his reelection. Sure, health care, good works and religion are important. But reelection is divine.

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Obama's Claim: "I Didn't Raise Taxes, I Lowered Them"

Adolf Hitler once said "The great masses of the people will more easily fall victims to a big lie than to a small one." Who knew Obama studied the wit and wisdom of der Furher. But that apparently is the case. Exhibit one, his claim in an interview on Sunday with O'Reilly - "I didn't raise taxes; I lowered them over the past two years." Lolllll. This joker must think we live in an alternative universe where the Lincoln hypothesis - that you can't fool all of the people all of the time - doesn't apply.

Obama's problem is that what may have been true in 1935 is not true in 2011, when there are a huge pool of people sitting at their keyboards with access to the internt. This from the WSJ:

. . . Perhaps Mr. Obama has forgotten some of his tax achievements. Allow us to refresh his memory. In his historic health-care bill, for example, there is the new $27 billion "fee" on drug companies that is already in effect. Next year, device manufacturers will get hit to the tune of $20 billion, and heath insurers will pay $60 billion starting in 2014—all of which are de facto tax increases because these collections will be passed on to consumers as higher costs. Of course, these are merely tax increases on business.

As for tax increases on individuals, perhaps he forgot the health-care bill's new 0.9 percentage point increase in the Medicare payroll tax for families making over $250,000 and singles over $200,000. That tax increase takes effect in 2013, as will the application of what will be a 3.8% Medicare surtax (up from 2.9% today) to "unearned income" for the first time. This is a tax hike on investment and interest income, which will reduce the incentive to save and invest.

Mr. Obama also told Mr. O'Reilly that he hasn't moved to the "center" since November's Democratic election defeat, saying "I'm the same guy." Save for a couple of tactical retreats that he couldn't avoid, we agree with him. As the President said recently in the State of the Union, he's going to insist on raising taxes again on people making over $200,000 when his deal with Republicans in Congress expires in 2012. Definitely the same guy.

And then there is this from the Americans For Tax Relief:

ATR says the $1 trillion health care overhaul alone added numerous taxes, including the individual mandate that requires most Americans to purchase health insurance or else pay a fine.

During the legislative debate, Obama and Democrats in Congress argued that a penalty for not carrying insurance is not a tax. But in recent attempts to defend Obamacare as constitutional, the Obama Justice Department has called the penalty a tax.

The health care law’s employer mandate provision also should be considered a tax, ATR said. That provision requires companies to report all business-to-business sales of goods and services exceeding $600 to the Internal Revenue Service. In a bipartisan vote, the Senate recently voted to repeal the so-called 1099 provision, and Obama says he supports the repeal.

The health care law also includes a tax on medical device manufacturers, as well as a higher tax on withdrawals from health savings accounts and a cap on flexible spending accounts.

Other taxes in the health care law cited by ATR include a surtax on investment income, an excise tax on comprehensive health insurance plans, a hike the in the Medicare payroll tax and a tax on indoor tanning services. (See complete list)

On Feb. 4, 2009, Obama signed a federal tobacco tax hike, raising the excise tax 62 cents per pack. Critics, including ATR, said that tax alone violated Obama’s campaign pledge not to raise taxes on couples earning less than $250,000 and on individuals earning less than $200,000.

During Sunday’s interview, Bill O’Reilly asked Obama if he is “a man who wants to redistribute wealth,” as The Wall Street Journal has described him.

The president denied it, again saying, “I didn't raise taxes once; I lowered taxes over the last two years.”

Responding on Monday, ATR said Obama’s claim of being a net-tax-cutter “rests on the temporary tax relief he has signed into law. “That tax increases Obama has signed into law have invariably been permanent. In fact, Obama signed into law $7 in permanent tax hikes for every $1 in permanent tax cuts,” ATR said.

“Over 90 percent of the dollar value of the tax cuts Obama signed into law are only temporary,” said ATR. “100 percent of the tax increases Obama signed into law are, however, permanent … Permanent changes to tax law signed by Obama amount to a net tax hike of $618.7 billion.

Obama is shameless. As Harry Truman once said of Richard Nixon

[He] is a no good, lying bastard. He can lie out of both sides of his mouth at the same time, and if he ever caught himself telling the truth, he'd lie just to keep his hand in.

I think that could equally be said about Obama today.

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2011: The State Of The Union Economy

In the near future, Obama will be giving his State of the Union address. Here are some deeply troubling facts about our economy that you will not be hearing in that speech.

1. Food Prices At Record Highs & Heading Upwards; Ethanol Mandates & Subsidies Put Fuel In Competition With Food

Food prices are skyrocketing upward, running last month at an annualized rate of 8.7% inflation.

In December, the wholesale price of vegetables rose by 22.8 percent, and fruit was up 15.4 percent. . . . The price of beef rose 2.7 percent in December and was 15 percent higher than a year ago, the Department of Labor said in the PPI report. Pork is up 22.3 percent from a year ago, and fish is up almost as much. Turkey is up 18 percent.

This is a world wide issue. Food prices are at their highest ever. Just today, the chief executive of one of the world's largest food producers warned that the global crisis in food production is reaching "dangerous territory" with demand outstripping supply.

The causes are multiple, but a large portion of it is the insane push to create "bio-fuels" out of food crops and the concomitant misuse of agricultural land:

In the United States, which harvested 416 million tons of grain in 2009, 119 million tons went to ethanol distilleries to produce fuel for cars. That’s enough to feed 350 million people for a year. The massive U.S. investment in ethanol distilleries sets the stage for direct competition between cars and people for the world grain harvest. In Europe, where much of the auto fleet runs on diesel fuel, there is growing demand for plant-based diesel oil, principally from rapeseed and palm oil. This demand for oil-bearing crops is not only reducing the land available to produce food crops in Europe, it is also driving the clearing of rainforests in Indonesia and Malaysia for palm oil plantations.

Bio-fuels are the world's greatest boondoggle. The fuel is inefficient, expensive and actually contributes to the growth of CO2 in our atmosphere. Not only does it make no sense to mandate or subsidize ethanol, it is a major contributing factor to poverty and hunger world-wide. Yet it is now a vested interest and thus, seemingly impossible to dislodge.

This particular problem in America has bi-partisan origins. It began under the Bush administration and now being furthered by the Obama administration. Within the past months, Obama's EPA actually increased by 50% the amount of ethanol allowable in gasoline, from 10% to 15% ethanol. Between that and the recent renewal of the ethanol subsidy, this problem of food prices will only get worse.

2. Housing Market

Our housing market has crossed the threshold into uncharted territory - it is now worse than it was during the Great Depression. Home values have declined 26% since their 2006 peak and there is no end in site to the slide. Foreclosures this year are expected to top 2010's record of one million, and over five million people are over two months behind in their mortgage payments.

3. Obama's War On Domestic Oil & Gas

It is impossible to underestimate the cost to our economy of Obama's war on domestic production of oil. An incredible 62% of our entire trade deficit now comes from importing foreign oil.


And the situation is poised to become much worse. Many expect the price of gasoline seems to spiral upwards, beyond the $4 a gallon threshold that caused nationwide discontent two years ago. Gas could well hit $5 a gallon this year. Opening up oil and gas drilling throughout America would add significantly to jobs, fill our declining coffers and significantly increase the supply of oil and gas, thus reducing the cost of gasoline. Yet the Obama administration is taking the opposite tack, warring on our oil and gas infrastructure.

The administration, has shut down all new offshore drilling and is making it ever more difficult to drill for oil on federal lands. Further, the Obama administration is in the midst of massive land and ocean grabs specifically aimed at cutting off ever more of our natural resources from exploitation. Lastly, the administration is expected to introduce even more regulations and increase taxes on our domestic oil industry in response to the report of the deeply partisan Oil Spill Commission, which, while tasked with investigating BP, instead condemned the entire oil industry.

4. Obama Is Killing Coal Mining & The Use Of Coal For Electricity With Deep Ramifications In The Future For The Cost & Availability Of Energy In America

The war on oil and gas pales in comparison to the Obama administration's war on coal - the basis for over 50% of the electrical power generation in our country. The Obama administration is doing all that it can to completely kill our coal industry:

"Coal is a dead man walkin'," says Kevin Parker, global head of asset management and a member of the executive committee at Deutsche Bank. "Banks won't finance them. Insurance companies won't insure them. The EPA is coming after them. . . . And the economics to make it clean don't work." . . .

Not a single new coal power generation plant was built in 2010. And lest there be any question whether investors should put their money into coal mines, the EPA recently took the unprecedented step of withdrawing a Clean Water permit for a mine it had approved three years ago. This from the WSJ, via Bizzy Blog:

The Environmental Protection Agency, in an unusual move, revoked a key permit for one of the largest proposed mountaintop-removal coal-mining projects in Appalachia, drawing cheers from environmentalists and protests from business groups worried their projects could be next.

The decision to revoke the permit for Arch Coal Inc.’s Spruce Mine No. 1 in West Virginia’s rural Logan County marks the first time the EPA has withdrawn a water permit for a mining project that had previously been issued. . . .

A spokeswoman for Arch said the company was “shocked and dismayed” by the agency’s decision, which it said would block an additional $250 million investment that would create 250 jobs. The company said it would appeal to the courts.

… As the EPA stressed that the permit decision had no implications beyond the Spruce mine, business groups outside the coal industry said the government’s action raised questions about whether permits previously issued for other businesses could also be revoked, potentially stranding investments and costing jobs even as the economy continues to heal.

The EPA has just added a significant amount of risk for any investor considering investment in a coal mine. This is killing jobs in the oil and coal industries. This war on coal and oil will soon have major ramifications for the domestic cost and availability of energy.

Update: Obama conducts this war even though his push for "green energy" is falling utterly flat. American Thinker covers the moras Obama has created with solar energy - a black hole for tax dollars and Democratic corruption that will not be replacing coal in our lifetime, if ever.

5. The EPA Poised To Harm Our Economy

Regulation as a whole has been creating an anti-business momentum for decades. But under Obama, and in particular with the EPA, the regulatory bureaucracy has taken wing. While Congress has refused to legislate restrictions on CO2, the EPA, with an assist from the climate scientists sitting on the Supreme Court, has assumed the right to do so under the Clean Air Act, a law ill suited for the task. The first leg of EPA's new regulatory scheme for CO2 went into effect this month. It is initially aimed at the "largest emitters" - i.e., coal fired power plants, cement plants, etc.



It is expected that this power grab will EPA will cost our country a million jobs and drive up significantly the price of energy.

6. Environmental Groups & The Courts Driving Energy Policy

Unfortunately, it is not just the regulatory bureaucracy that is implicated in this ever greater assault on our economy. Each of the regulatory laws passed by Congress decades ago contain a provision giving the keys to the courthouse to environmentalists. Because of that, a major driver of our nation's environmental policy is being dictated by the Courts - with drastic consequences. For example, a Federal Court decision to protect the Delta Smelt has turned one of our nation's prime agricultural areas into "Zimbawbwe." For another example, enterprising lawyers are now filing nuisance suits to sue U.S. manufacturers and power plants for their contribution to global warming. Our Supreme Court recently opted to allow such cases to proceed. It is time for Congress to end standing for all private suits under our environmental laws as well as clarifying that the regulation of green house gasses are policy questions for our elected representatives and thus cannot be heard by state or federal Courts.

7. More Regulatory Overreach & The Looming Explosion In Regulations

Before leaving the question of the regulatory bureaucracy, it is of course not just the EPA that has engaged in power grabs of very dubious constitutionality. The FCC's recent decision to assume control over regulation of the internet is yet another shining example of regulatory agencies gone wild. And we see similar overreach by HHS as Kathleen Sebilius is in the process of taking control over health insurance pricing in the U.S. Meanwhile, hundreds of new bureaucracies remain to be staffed and reams of new regulations remain to be written for Obamacare and the Financial Regulatory bill.

The regulatory bureaucracy is clearly out of control, bastardizing our form of government. We are beginning to resemble the EU - a government run by unelected bureaucrats. That is far from the vision of our Founders. As George Will notes in a column today, reasserting Congressional authority and oversight over the regulatory bureaucracy should be at the top of the agenda for the 112th Congress. Indeed, I believe that Congress should immediately pass a law holding that no regulation will become binding and enforcable unless and until approved by Congress.

8. Obamacare's Looming Taxes & Costs

As to Obamacare, its first effects are just now being felt. What we as a nation have to look forward to in the offing - higher health insurance premiums as well as hundreds of billions in new taxes, all on top of the costs of compliance:

- Excise Tax on Charitable Hospitals (2010)
- Tax on Innovator Drug Companies (2010)
- Tax on Indoor Tanning Services (2010)
- Medicine Cabinet Tax (Jan 2011)
- HSA Withdrawal Tax Hike (Jan 2011)
- Corporate 1099-MISC Information Reporting (Jan 2012):
- Surtax on Investment Income (Jan. 2013)
- Flexible Spending Account Cap aka “Special Needs Kids Tax” (Jan 2013)
- Hike in Medicare Payroll Tax (Jan 2013)
- Tax on Medical Device Manufacturers (Jan 2013)
- Raise "Haircut" for Medical Itemized Deduction from 7.5% to 10% of AGI (Jan. 2013)
- Elimination of tax deduction for employer-provided retirement Rx drug coverage in coordination with Medicare Part D (Jan 2013)
- $500,000 Annual Executive Compensation Limit for Health Insurance Executives (Jan 2013)
- Individual Mandate Excise Tax (Jan 2014)
- Employer Mandate Tax (Jan 2014)
- Tax on Health Insurers (Jan 2014)
- Excise Tax on Comprehensive Health Insurance Plans (Jan 2018)

9. The National Debt & The Road To Becoming A Banana Republic

Our national debt is expected to balloon over the next decade, particularly in light of massive entitlement obligations. Obama and the left have us on track to have debt rise to $20 trillion, 90% of GDP, by 2020, the consequences of which will be calamitous. It means we will soon be facing massive increase in taxes, inflation, and the need for draconian cuts in spending - or default on our sovereign debt, with unimaginable consequences not just for us, but also for the world economy.

10. Unemployment

Since Obama assumed the Presidency, we have hemorrhaged millions of jobs and remain mired above 9% unemployment. For two years, Obama has concentrated on everything but the economy and jobs for Americans, apparently assuming that the economy would bounce back of its own accord while he focused on paying off labor unions and forcing through Obamacare. We are world's away from the Bush years, during which unemployment averaged 5.2%.

The December unemployment report showed that the jobless number dropped to 9.4%. That seemingly small piece of good news is illusory. This from Morning Bell via Bizzyblog:

You are going to hear a lot of noise from the White House about how this drop from a 9.8% unemployment rate to 9.4% means the economy is in a strong recovery. This is false. The reality is that the only reason the unemployment rate dropped is because the U.S. labor force decreased by 434,000. More importantly 260,000 Americans dropped out of the labor force entirely. This means that the Obama economy is now driving Americans out of the labor force faster than it is bringing them in.

Unemployment will remain an intractable problem under this deeply incompetent administration. Indeed, it will take a major change to all of the conditions dicussed above if we are to turn our country around, lower unemployment and grow our way out of this fiscal crisis.

11. Conclusion

Obama inherited a bad economy that he has made worse. Instead of changing tack, he is on the cusp of making our economy infinitely worse. True, he has finally appointed a token capitalist with business experience to his administration - William Daley. But unless this means Obama is willing to do an economic u-turn on gas, oil, Obamacare, the EPA, the FCC, ethanol and deficit spending, nothing is going to pull us out of our downward trajectory between now and 2012. The best we can hope for is for the House to slow the slide. But don't expect to hear any of that at the State of the Union.

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Obama and Keynes, Hayek and Laffer

Let us be honest. The US is still trapped in depression a full 18 months into zero interest rates, quantitative easing (QE), and fiscal stimulus that has pushed the budget deficit above 10% of GDP.

The share of the US working-age population with jobs in June actually fell from 58.7% to 58.5%. This is the real stress indicator. The ratio was 63% three years ago. Eight million jobs have been lost.

The average time needed to find a job has risen to a record 35.2 weeks. Nothing like this has been seen before in the post-war era. . . .

"Legions of individuals have been left with stale skills, and little prospect of finding meaningful work, and benefits that are being exhausted. By our math the crop of people who are unemployed but not receiving a check amounts to 9.2m."

. . . This really is starting to feel like 1932.

- Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, The Telegraph, With the US trapped in depression, this really is starting to feel like 1932, 4 July 2010

. . . With significantly lower revenues and higher outlays, debt would reach 87 percent of GDP by 2020, CBO projects. After that, the growing imbalance between revenues and noninterest spending, combined with spiraling interest payments, would swiftly push debt to unsustainable levels. Debt as a share of GDP would exceed its historical peak of 109 percent by 2025 and would reach 185 percent in 2035.

The CBO warns of potentially devastating consequence for the United States if this debt mountain is not tackled, and even points out that its “projections understate the severity of the long-term budget problem because they do not incorporate the significant negative effects that accumulating substantial amounts of additional federal debt would have on the economy” . . .

With his reckless big government policies, Barack Obama threatens to run his country into the ground, with American decline the inevitable end result. . . .

- Niles Gardner, The Telegraph, America is sinking under Obama’s towering debt, 2 July 2010

We are in a recession - if not a depression - that finally came to the fore in 2007 after two decades of Democrat social engineering of our financial sector. And we today are still in a recession - if not a depression - because of the election of a President who is deeply anti-business and who has demonized the profit motive. Indeed, it is those, along with his twin drives to socialize our economy and empower unions which have been the defining features of Obama's nearly eighteen months in office. Well, those four in addition to world record profligate spending. And on the horizon, Obama promises us massive new taxes ("don't read my lips"). Moreover, the centerpiece of his proposed financial regulations is to reinstall the same social engineering into our financial sector that led to our current economic mess in the first place. For the sake of brevity, I will stop my list there.

And yet now, Obama, in advance of November, is trying to convince America that he is not anti-business. According to Obama, all problems are the result of Republicans, he is struggling mightily to correct the situation (pay no attention to his projections in January 2009 that promised solutions if we immediately passed the Stimulus), and that he is a friend of business, both large and small. All of that is at least as outlandish as it would have been for Bill Clinton, during his last year in office, to try to convince America that he had always been deeply committed to monogamy.

I doubt much of America is fooled at this point:



(H/T Hot Air)

And then there was this the other day:

You’d think the well-heeled and enlightened eggheads at the Aspen Ideas Festival . . . would be receptive to an intellectually ambitious president with big ideas of his own.

In a way, the folks attending this cerebral conclave pairing the Aspen Institute think tank with the Atlantic Monthly magazine might even be seen as President Obama’s natural base.

Apparently not so much.

“The real problem we have,” Mort Zuckerman said, “are some of the worst economic policies in place today that, in my judgment, go directly against the long-term interests of this country.” . . .

“If you’re asking if the United States is about to become a socialist state, I’d say it’s actually about to become a European state, with the expansiveness of the welfare system and the progressive tax system like what we’ve already experienced in Western Europe,” Harvard business and history professor Niall Ferguson declared during Monday’s kickoff session, offering a withering critique of Obama’s economic policies, which he claimed were encouraging laziness.

“The curse of longterm unemployment is that if you pay people to do nothing, they’ll find themselves doing nothing for very long periods of time,” Ferguson said. “Long-term unemployment is at an all-time high in the United States, and it is a direct consequence of a misconceived public policy.”

Ferguson was joined in his harsh attack by billionaire real estate mogul and New York Daily News owner Mort Zuckerman. Both lambasted Obama’s trillion-dollar deficit spending program—in the name of economic stimulus to cushion the impact of the 2008 financial meltdown—as fiscally ruinous, potentially turning America into a second-rate power.

“We are, without question, in a period of decline, particularly in the business world,” Zuckerman said. “The real problem we have…are some of the worst economic policies in place today that, in my judgment, go directly against the long-term interests of this country.”

Zuckerman added that he detects in the Obama White House “hostility to the very kinds of [business] culture that have made this the great country that it is and was. I think we have to find some way of dealing with that or else we will do great damage to this country with a public policy that could ruin everything.”

Ferguson added: “The critical point is if your policy says you’re going run a trillion-dollar deficit for the rest of time, you’re riding for a fall…Then it really is goodbye.” A dashing Brit, Ferguson added: “Can I say that, having grown up in a declining empire, I do not recommend it. It’s just not a lot of fun actually—decline.”

Ferguson called for what he called “radical” measures. “I can’t emphasize strongly enough the need for radical fiscal reform to restore the incentives for work and remove the incentives for idleness.” He praised “really radical reform of the sort that, for example, Paul Ryan [the ranking Republican on the House Budget Committee] has outlined in his wonderful ‘Roadmap’ for radical, root-and-branch reform not only of the tax system but of the entitlement system” and “unleash entrepreneurial innovation.” Otherwise, Ferguson warned: “Do you want to be a kind of implicit part of the European Union?

This was greeted by hearty applause from a crowd that included Barbra Streisand and her husband James Brolin. “Depressing, but fantastic,” Streisand told me afterward, rendering her verdict on the session. “So exciting. Wonderful!”

Brolin’s assessment: “Mind-blowing.”

What does it say when even rabid lefties Brolin and Steisand start to think that you are too far to the left and are leading us into economic Armageddon?

The reality is that what Zuckerman and Ferguson point out is apparent to very many Americans. On a similar note, Wayne Allen Root colorfully described the situation in his column in the Las Vegas Review-Journal:

The current occupant of the White House claims to know how to create jobs. He claims jobs have been created. But so far the score is Great Obama Depression 2.2 million lost jobs, Obama 0 -- a blowout.

Obama is as hopeless, helpless, clueless and bankrupt of good ideas as the manager of the Chicago Cubs in late September. This "community organizer" knows as much about private-sector jobs as Pamela Anderson knows about nuclear physics.

It's time to call Obama what he is: The Great Jobs Killer. With his massive spending and tax hikes -- rewarding big government and big unions, while punishing taxpayers and business owners -- Obama has killed jobs, he has killed motivation to create new jobs, he has killed the motivation to invest in new businesses, or expand old ones. With all this killing, Obama should be given the top spot on the FBI's Most Wanted List.

Meanwhile, he has kept the union workers of GM and Chrysler employed (with taxpayer money). He has made sure that most government employee union members got their annual raises for sleeping on the job (with taxpayer money). He made sure that his voters got handouts mislabeled as "tax cuts" even though they never paid taxes (with taxpayer money). And he made sure that major campaign contributors collected billions off government stimulus (with taxpayer money).

As far as the taxpayers -- the people who actually take risks with our own money to create small businesses and jobs and pay most of the taxes -- we require protection under the Endangered Species Act. . . .

The days of believing the Obama propaganda about a jobs recovery are over. The trillion-dollar corporate handouts (neatly named "stimulus") may have kept big business in the money for the past 18 months, and artificially propped up the stock market, but small business is the real canary in the coal mine.

My small business-owning friends aren't creating one job. Not one. They are shedding jobs. They are learning to do more with fewer employees. They are creating high-tech businesses that don't need employees. And many business owners are making plans to leave the country. In a high-tech world where businesses can be run from anywhere, Obama has a problem. His one-trick pony -- raise taxes, raise taxes, raising taxes -- is chasing away the business owners he desperately needs to pay his bills. . . .

For less color, but more facts, there is this frightening report from the LA Times:

For the recovery to gain steam, most economists believe small businesses need to be strong enough to hire new workers. But according to one measure, the employment picture in this sector is weakening.

Intuit Inc., which provides payroll services for small employers, says the nation's tiniest companies had fewer new hires last month than any time since October.

The data are further evidence of a trend that has had many economists worried for months and intensifies concerns that smaller firms may not be robust enough to help lead the country out of its financial slump. The slowdown in hiring is particularly troublesome, experts say, because small businesses typically hire first during a recovery. A reluctance by little companies to add positions could mean that the big firms, which typically lag behind, will add jobs even more gradually.

"It's a bad sign," said Susan Woodward, an economist who tracks small business employment for Intuit. "Small businesses hire first — and they're losing their steam."

To calculate its estimate of national hiring, Intuit uses payroll information from its 56,000 small-business customers. The company defines small businesses as those with fewer than 20 employees.

Intuit's data show that small businesses hired just 18,000 additional workers last month. That's still positive territory, but it's less than a third of the 60,000 that were added in February, when it seemed that an employment recovery was imminent. Additional hiring dropped steadily during the spring, to 40,000 in April and 32,000 in May. Another payroll company, Automatic Data Processing Inc., painted an even gloomier picture, saying that small businesses lost 1,000 jobs nationwide in June. . . .

Robert Alva, who owns Super Cool Air Conditioning in South El Monte, said he's been trying for months to expand his four-person shop to about 10 people to break into the potentially lucrative business of installing solar energy systems. But customers are reluctant to buy new cooling systems right now or even repair their old ones, he said. Whereas he would normally be able to finance a modest expansion by obtaining a loan, Alva said, he's been turned down twice for a small-business loan — squeezed by the credit crunch that has affected thousands of small firms.

To understand the oversized importance of these little businesses to the U.S. jobs picture, consider that the smallest firms — those with fewer than 20 employees — employ more than one-sixth of the nation's workers. But so far this year, these companies have provided about one-third of all new private-sector jobs, said Brian Headd, an economist with the Small Business Administration. So any cutbacks would be felt disproportionately throughout the economy.

"Small-business hiring is right at the heart of it because small businesses usually are the engine of job creation in the U.S.," said John Challenger, president of the employment consulting firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas. "It's small businesses that drive the unemployment rate down, and if the small businesses are faltering, that suggests that the risks of recession are growing." . . .

As I pointed out in prior posts, Obama has done anything but help businesses generally or small business in particular. Every one of his goals for America, from Obamacare to cap and trade to a complete revamp of our financial regulations, involve vast increases in costs, both to individuals and businesses. And as to small businesses, well, Obama pays little beyond lip service. Of the $787 billion Stimulus, only 2.6% was earmarked to help with small business loans. The vast majority of the remainder was wasted subsidizing profligate state governments and public union employees for a year.

Which brings us to a final point. In the Depression of the 1930's, there were two schools of thought as to how to handle a deathly sick economy. One, that of John Maynard Keynes - and beloved of the budding socialists then and now - suggested that massive government spending was necessary to stimulate the economy and restore confidence. The second school of thought, that of Friedrich Von Hayek, was that the government needed to limit spending and reduce or remove regulations that stifled private sector growth and inhibited trade. Indeed, you can find dueling letters between Keynes and Hayek, setting forth their positions, printed in the 1932 newspaper, The Times.

The question of who was correct was never definitively answered at the time. FDR adopted the Keynesian approach, but we were still in the grips of the depression in 1941 when World War II intervened and solved the problem of double digit unemployment. Most economists agree that it was WWII that drove the end of the depression. So today, the question remains, what should we be doing to treat an economy in deep distress.

Clearly, Obama, like FDR before him, has followed Keynes, at least partly. Obama counted on the massive government stimulus - and Bush's TARP - to put the economy well on the road to recovery, projecting that unemployment would top out below 8% and then recede. But he also did something else that Keynes clearly never supported. Obama has attacked confidence in our economy by promising ever greater spending and taxes and by attacking the private sector and the profit motive.

On the other hand, there is economist Arthur Laffer. He recently wrote an artice in the WSJ taking Crazy Nancy to task for her wildly false assertion that funding yet another extension of unemployment benefits (on even more borrowed money - the left refuses to pay for it with existing borrowed funds) is the best way stimulate the economy and create new jobs. Indeed, even without an explanation from Dr. Laffer, the fact that extending such benefits hasn't worked for two years now ought to be a clue that Crazy Nancy is either being disingenuous or that she is clinically insane (I, in all honesty, think she is both). At the conclusion of his article, Laffer writes:

Any government program that would reduce unemployment has to make working more attractive for both employer and employee. Since late 2007 the federal government has spent somewhere around $3.6 trillion to stimulate the economy. That is a lot of money.

My suggestion would have been to take all $3.6 trillion and declare a federal tax holiday for 18 months. No income tax, no corporate profits tax, no capital gains tax, no estate tax, no payroll tax (FICA) either employee or employer, no Medicare or Medicaid taxes, no federal excise taxes, no tariffs, no federal taxes at all, which would have reduced federal revenues by $2.4 trillion annually. Can you imagine where employment would be today? How does a 2.5% unemployment rate sound

Interestingly, Laffer is a bit between Hayek and Keynes. He would use government revenues to ease the burden on the private sector.

I happen to agree wholeheartedly with Laffer. Whether Laffer is right will likely be a question argued in the halls of academia many years into the future. But in any event, what is quite clear today is is that a pure Keyesian answer to the problem, as instituted with an Obama twist, has proven a disaster. And it seems, to me at least, that he will lead us into a true depression if allowed to continue on his current path.

Welcome, Larwyn's Lynx readers.

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Jobs & Unemployment

According to Obama, this morning, our economy is moving in the right direction.



In claiming that we are recovering, he ignored the specifics of today's job's report and other economic indicators - that unemployment (U-3) is at 9.5%; that our economy shed another 125,000 jobs; that the work force contracted; that the average hourly earnings decreased; and that the actual measure of unemployment / underemployment stood at $16.5%. The sum total of these indicators point to "a rather serious softening in the employment market." Indeed, the "percentage of the overall working-age population that is in the labor force fell last month to 64.7% -- near a 25-year low." Further, Obama failed to note another ominous indicator:

New orders for factory products tumbled much more than expected in May, posting their sharpest drop since the depth of the recession and their first decline in nine months, a government report showed on Friday.

Ignoring all of the above, Obama claims that, this year alone, "government" created "600,000 private sector jobs." That is laughable.

The reality is that we have hemorrhaged over 8 million jobs since this recession began. As to Obama's arrogant assertion that he has created 600,000 private sector jobs - the government cannot create a single private sector job. What the government can do is twofold. One, government can direct funding for government contracts to the private sector. But Obama has gerrymandered that process by freezing out non-union businesses that make up 92% of the private sector.

Beyond such government contracting, government can only create the conditions effecting the entire economy that will help or hurt private sector employment. As near as I can tell, there is nothing that Obama has done to positively effect the economic environment. To the contrary, his massive increase in spending and entitlements, with the promise of more taxes and entitlements to follow, are creating the conditions for economic malaise. Indeed, Obama is directing our economy on a downward spiral of historic proportions. The graph below shows current job losses in comparison to previous post-WWII recessions:

So how is the left attempting to address this mismanagement of epic proportions? Beyond the fantasies spun by Obama, there is the effort to paint Republicans as heartless for refusing to sign yet another blank check to extend unemployment benefits. It is actually rather comic, between Nancy Pelosi claiming that unemployment benefits are the best method to increase employment to Harry Reid, et. al, screaming that the Republicans are intransigent and unfeeling while it is they themselves that are refusing any deal:

Congress adjourns this week for the July Fourth recess without having passed a bill to extend unemployment insurance benefits to 1.3 million people who started losing them this month.

Democrats have been painting Republicans as unsympathetic to the long-term unemployed who will be unable to collect benefits, but Democratic leaders have rejected several offers by the GOP to vote for the bill if at least some of it is paid for.

"My concern is that the Democrats are more interested in having this issue to demagogue for political gamesmanship than they are in simply passing the benefits extension," said Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, who offered a deal that was rejected by Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.

Democratic leaders were quick to attack Republicans for opposing the benefits, with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., calling their opposition "just cruel" and "contrary to what our country is about."

Republicans, meanwhile, stood firm in their argument that extending benefits should not add to the deficit.

Voinovich told Reid he would vote for extending benefits if at least half of the extension could be paid for with unused money from the $787 billion stimulus package.

"I came to the table with a fair compromise, and the ball is in their court," said Voinovich, whose state suffers from a 10.7 percent unemployment rate. . . .

Obama should be doing everything possible to create the environment for private sector job creation. It goes without saying that his administration is on the opposite course.

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The Left's Plan To Sell Us On "Pro-Growth" Taxation

We contend that for a nation to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.

- Sir Wintson Churchill

The Democrats appointed by Obama to his Budget Deficit Commission apparently haven't read Sir Winson. Having met just once, the commission is already floating as a fix to our deficit "pro-growth" tax hikes. As Hot Air points out, there has been no talk as of yet of cutting any of the 1 trillion in spending increases authorized by Democrats since 2007.

It has been no secret that this "Commission" is nothing but cover for Obama to raise taxes on all Americans. I have been pointing it out for months. And indeed, if the polls are accurate, most Americans realize as much.

When it comes to the economy, business, and our own personal incomes, there is no such thing as "pro-growth" taxation. The only thing that grows is the pot of money avaialable for our legislators to spend. If Obama thinks he and the left are going to spin the fairy tale of "pro-growth" taxation on America this time around, he will likely find few willing to believe.

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Pam Stout & The Tea Party Given Voice

According to Entertainment Weekly, David Letterman's interview with grandmother and local tea party leader Pam Stout gave the "Tea Party The Best Showcase Its Ever Had." And I have to agree. Ms. Stout is a matronly 66 yr. old former business woman and naturalized American. She currently presides over the local Tea Party in her area in Idaho. She is as articulate, simple and sincere a woman as you'll ever see.

Letterman kept a light touch throughout the interview, though he did bring his own biases into the interview - Obama's birth certificate, anti-Iraq war, anti-Glen Beck, the claim of Republican fiscal mismanagement - and to each, Ms. Stout's answers were quite good, never backing down and explaining her positions with grace and clarity. Do enjoy this one. Also note the tepid applause at her introduction and the louder applause at the interviews conclusion.







As the Entertainment Weekly author notes

Except nobody else is doing interviews with people like this on TV. Why is it that the most interesting questioning of political issues is still being done not on network news shows, but rather by people like Letterman, Jon Stewart, and Craig Ferguson?

I think that answer is self-evident. The left wants the face of the Tea Party to be Bull Connor. Under no circumstances do they want the general public associating the Tea Party movement with a Pam Stout.

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Continuing the Downward Economic Spiral

From the first few Drudgelines today:

New jobless claims rise 'more than expected'...
Retail sales drop in December; Sales for all of '09 plunge by record amount...
Record year for foreclosures...
NOW HE WANTS TO TAX BANKS?
Dollar 'Crisis' Looms if USA Doesn't Curb Debt...

We have real unemployment at 17.3% - at least - and that number is, according to AP today, on an upward trend. On top of that, "[r]etail sales unexpectedly fell in December, leaving 2009 with the biggest yearly drop on record." For the year, retail sales were off 6.2% from 2008, a year when retail sales dropped 0.5%. 2009 is by leaps and bounds the worst year of decline on record for retail sales. Also, foreclosures were up 21% in 2009 and are expected to go higher in 2010.

Obama has proposed a new tax on some of our nations largest "financial companies" to make up for the costs of TARP. Designed to raise $117 billion, the tax would hit certain financial companies with over $50 billion in assets. It would exempt government controlled companies such as GMAC. This will of course drive up the costs of banking for all of us, but it does enjoy the support of Barney Frank - a man with a proven track record of some economic consequence to our nation. This comes on top of the recent decision of our government to de facto fully nationalize Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, making the taxpayer liable for all the losses they incur.

Now another organization, this time a think tank - The Committee On The Fiscal Future Of The United States - is sounding the alarm that the "U.S. soon raise taxes or cut government spending to curb its debt, and failure to act will risk a crippling dollar crisis as investor confidence ebbs . . ." Tell us something we don't know. Our debt stands at over 50% of GDP and is continuing to rise. Social Security is still a time bomb, and Obama is attempting to deal with Medicare by making the situation far worse.

There is some really good news for the economy however. We were told just the other day that the Obama administration, as if by magic, created or saved, 2 million jobs with the pork laden stimulus. And yes, that would be the same stimulus wherein Dems allocated all of 2.6% of $789 billion to funding small business programs and tax breaks.

Time to quote Ed Morrissey at Hot Air:

We’re not in a recovery, especially not in employment. Production may have incrementally improved in 2009Q3, but hardly enough to stimulate job creation. Rep. John Carter uses similar data at Big Government to make the same point. The economic policies of the Obama administration have lengthened the recession and delayed what would be the normal recovery process, mainly by signaling to investors and businesses that costs will go up in taxes and energy prices, as well as burdensome mandates on health insurance. As a result, people are not investing their money into job-creating risk but are sheltering their cash instead.

The US needs a change in direction, and fast. Another Porkulus will give the illusion of action while deepening our debt and creating more need for higher taxes in the future. We have to make investment attractive, and the only way to do that is to cut taxes, pare back government programs, close the deficit through belt-tightening, and get Congress out of the private sector.

Update: Hot Air also has some excellent graphs showing how deep this recession is compared to all other post-WWII recessions. This is by far the deepest and the longest, with no end in sight.

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Heading Towards A Massive Tax Increase

“Nothing is so well calculated to produce a death-like torpor in the country as an extended system of taxation and a great national debt.”

William Cobbett, English pamphleteer and journalist, February 10, 1804

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It would seem that what we are doing today is reinventing a very old wheel. We have the "great national debt," compliments of a left wing spending spree of astronomical proportions. Indeed, the level of debt and borrowing and the massive increase in the money supply is, to quote economist Arthur Laffer, "potentially far more inflationary than were the monetary policies of the 1970s, when the prime interest rate peaked at 21.5% and inflation peaked in the low double digits."

We are not on the road to economic recovery. Indeed, Bizzyblog documents that the Treasury is showing that federal tax receipts continue their steady decline, with yet another slump in June. Obama's Keynesian experiment in using massive government spending to make the economy grow is failing spectacularly. But Obama is clearly not going to forego any of his plans for ever more massive spending, making confiscatory new taxes inevitable.

As it stands today, no new taxes are in the cards for anyone who earns under $250,000 - unless of course they use tobacco, they use energy or purchase any good or service that requires energy, or they get non-union health care benefits. But even those proposed or already enacted taxes - which in the case of cap and trade will be massive - will not be enough to fund the grandiose socialist schemes of our Profligate Spender In Chief. So what will be the next to fall?

According to Roger Altman, Bill Clinton's Deputy Treasury Secretary, more taxation is inevitable and will likely come in the form of a VAT tax - driving up the cost of every good and service in our country in what amounts to highly regressive national sales tax. This from Mr. Altman writing in the WSJ:

Only five months after Inauguration Day, the focus of Washington's economic and domestic policy is already shifting. This reflects the emergence of much larger budget deficits than anyone expected.

Larger than anyone expected? Obama just borrowed and spent us into penury and the deficit surprises Altman? Apparently he was in suspended animation until yesterday.

. . . Why has the deficit outlook changed? Two main reasons: The burst of spending in recent years and the growing likelihood of a weak economic recovery.

Burst of spending in recent years? Try the burst of uncontrolled spending since January, 2009, multiplying the 2008 deficit by a factor of 4.

[A weak economic recovery] would mean considerably lower federal revenues, the compiling of more interest on our growing debt, and thus higher deficits. Yes, the President's Council of Economic Advisors is still forecasting a traditional cyclical recovery -- i.e., real growth of 3.2% next year and 4% in 2011. But the latest data suggests that we're on a much slower path. Probably along the lines of the most recent Goldman Sachs and International Monetary Fund forecasts, whose growth rates average about 2% for 2010-2011.

A speedy recovery is highly unlikely given the financial condition of American households, whose spending represents 70% of GDP. Household net worth has fallen more than 20% since its mid-2007 peak. This drop began just when household debt reached 130% of income, a modern record. This lethal combination has forced households to lower their spending to reduce their debt. So far, however, they have just begun to pay it down. This implies subdued spending and weak national growth for some time.

In a March 27 forecast, Goldman Sachs estimated average annual deficits of $940 billion through 2019. If this proves true, deficits would remain above 4% of GDP through the next decade and the national debt would reach a whopping 83% of GDP, a level not seen since World War II. The public is restive over this threat: In a recent Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, Americans were asked which economic issue facing the country concerned them most. Respondents chose deficit reduction over health care by a ratio of 2 to 1.

Mr. Obama and his economic advisers understand this deficit outlook and undoubtedly view it as unsustainable.

I think Mr. Altman assumes too much. Obama seems bound and determined to push ahead with his massive plans irrespective of the cost to our economy. As to what Mr. Obama "understands," I think that is very much at issue, particularly in light of his incredibly cynical push for "paygo" legislation that would exempt his massive pet projects from its provisions. I have yet to see a single thing from Obama that he understands the debt he proposes to saddle us with is "unsustainable."

. . . The poor budget outlook may impel the administration to follow up health-care legislation with an effort to fix Social Security. The shortfall in Social Security's trust funds -- which adds to the long-term deficit -- is much smaller than the companion problem in Medicare funding. Public anxiety over deficits may make this fix possible now even though it has been elusive for years. If this could be done, confidence in Washington's capacity to address its debt challenge would rise.

But even with a Social Security fix the medium-term deficit outlook will be poor. Sometime soon, perhaps in 2010, Main Street and financial markets will exert irresistible pressure to reduce the deficit.

The problem is the deficit's sheer size, which goes way beyond potential savings from cuts in discretionary spending or defense. It's entirely possible that Medicare and Social Security will already have been addressed, and thus taken off the table. In short we'll have to raise taxes.

Today, the U.S. ranks next to last among the 28 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development nations in total federal revenue as a share of GDP. Our federal revenues represent 18% of national output, down from 20% just 10 years ago. That makes the mismatch between our spending and our revenue very large, producing the huge deficits we face.

We all know the recent and bitter history of tax struggles in Washington, let alone Mr. Obama's pledge to exempt those earning less than $250,000 from higher income taxes. This suggests that, possibly next year, Congress will seriously consider a value-added tax (VAT). A bipartisan deficit reduction commission, structured like the one on Social Security headed by Alan Greenspan in 1982, may be necessary to create sufficient support for a VAT or other new taxes.

This challenge may be the toughest one Mr. Obama faces in his first term. Fortunately, the new president is enormously gifted. That's important, because it is no longer a matter of whether tax revenues must increase, but how.

Hold on to your wallets. There has long been talk of using a VAT tax to replace the income tax system. But what Altman is suggesting is a VAT tax on top of the income tax. And the chances of this being a bipartisan effort - other than a bare handful of nominal Republicans in the House and Senate - is zero. The left has brought us to the brink with spending on a heretofore unseen scale. They own it. I hope the left enjoys their complete control of the levers of our federal government at the moment. File this one under "give 'em enough rope and they will hang themselves."

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What Was Voted On By The House Today

Obama was voted in to fix the economy. Instead, he is warring against it. He has done nothing to fix the original causes of our economic problems. Instead, in the midst of the deepest recession our economy has faced since the Great Depression, Obama and Speaker Pelosi have skirted the democratic process to force through possibly the most ill conceived attack on our economy in the history of our nation.



What the vote on Cap and Trade today actually was:

- A vote to enact perhaps the largest and most regressive tax in our nations history. It will hit hardest on our nation's poor and lower middle class.

- A rushed bill that Pelosi pushed through in a way that cynically circumvented our democratic process.

- A bill that not a single representative read cover to cover. Update: See this from the Strata-sphere discussing John Boehner's identification of some of the last minute changes put into this massive leftist power grab.

- A vote to creates a massive new bureaucracy.



- A vote to create a massive windfall for rent seekers such as Al Gore and his ilk who will grow fabulously wealth off this legislation while producing nothing of value.

- A vote to vastly expand the reach of federal government into every aspect of our economy and private lives.

- A vote to drive jobs overseas.

- A vote that will harm our infrastructure.

- A vote that will drive the cost of virtually every good and service in America skyward.

- A bill that will bring to a halt the building of new fossil fuel plants that our country requires to meet growing energy needs and to replace aging plants.

- A vote for a bill that requires tarrifs on countries that do not impose carbon regulation, thus making a trade war all but inevitable. Consider this the Obama/Pelosi version of the disastrous Smoot-Hawley Tarrif that greatly exacerbated the Depression.

- A vote for a bill that punishes traditional sources of energy at a point in time when not a single form of alternative energy has been proven cost effective or workable at scale.

- A vote that virtually insures that we will become ever more vulnerable to a true energy crisis that is all but inevitable.

- A vote for a bill based on highly politicized science falsely portrayed as settled.

- A vote to control carbon even as the last seven years have proven the falsity of the proposition that global temperatures rise with the increase of carbon.

- A vote to do all of this just as we are in the middle of the worst downturn since the Great Depression. Indeed, all major economic indicators are actually worse today than they were at the same point in time after the start of the Great Depression.

And For What:



This piece of economic sepuku passed the House 219 to 212. Eight Republicans voted for this abortion. They are:

Mary Bono, 45th Dist, Calif.
Michael Castle, Del.
Mark Kirk, 10th Dist, Ill.
Leonard Lance, 7th Dist, NJ
Frank LoBiondo, 2nd Dist., NJ
John McHugh, 23rd Dist, NY
David Reichert, 8th Dist., Wash.
Christopher Smith, 4th Dist., NJ

They deserve to be drummed out of the Republican Party.

Update: Michelle Malkin provides a "Wanted" poster for the eight individuals and wonders what they could have been promised in terms of earmarks to get their vote. R.S. McCain says something entirely appropriate - until these eight are gone, "not one red cent" to the N.R.C.C.

Update: EU Referendum notes the vote as a sign that "insanity rules" on this side of the pond as well as their own.

This is a dark day indeed. I am almost tempted to say that the Republicans should cease all opposition to this bill. Letting it into law will do more to spell the death knell for the far left than a thousand floor speeches will do.

Prior Posts:

25 June 09: What Was Voted On By The House Today
22 June 09: Making Pravda Blush
18 June 09: Depression (& Depressing) News
11 June 09: The Looming Crisis In Energy Costs
9 June 2009: Fiddling While Rome Freezes . . . And Crops Fail
8 June 2009: Of Villians, The Economy & On-Rushing Trains
3 June 2009: Road To Ruin
28 May 2009: A Bit Of Honest From Speaker Pelosi
22 May 2009: Beware The Climate Change Industrial Complex
16 May 2009: Cap, Trade & Theft
14 May 2009: Heading Towards A Self-Inflicted Depression
13 May 2009: EPA's Latest On CO2 - Bizarre, But Hardly Unwelcome
13 May 2009: Internal Dissent On Regulation Of Carbon Dioxide
12 May 2009: Cap & Trade - Back To The Future
29 April 2009: More Green Blasphemy
25 April 2009: Our Drive To A Green Nirvana
19 April 2009: Throwing Green Fuel On An Economic Fire

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The BNP Making Sense On Global Warming . . .

The BNP (British National Party) has just gone another notch up in my estimation. The Guardian has posted the following exchange between the BNP's Nick Griffin and a BBC interviewer who had just spent five minutes trying to get Griffin to say something that could be characterized as racist:

Nick Griffin: The BBC is obsessed with race and immigration. It would be great to talk about something else for once.

Nicky Campbell: What would you like to talk about? What's the thing you'd like to say given this platform to speak to the nation this morning?

Nick Griffin: OK, how about the fact that I believe, along with the Czech politician [Vaclav Klaus] everyone is berating, that global warming is essentially a hoax. It is being exploited by the liberal elite as a means of taxing and controlling us and the real crisis is peak oil. We're running out of proper, real energy. And it is something with an immediate and catastrophic effect in a few years' time potentially — not worrying about floating polar bears in a 150 years.

That about sums up reality in a paragraph. And if he is making sense while the left is doing nothing but making ad hominem attacks, the BNP might find itself on a real upward trend over the next few years. Let's hope they moderate a bit more, though. They may see global warming as a hoax, but, as EU Referendum points out, they have previously said that the Holocaust was a hoax also.

Update: Add to the above this article from the NYT:

The British National Party opposes what Mr. Griffin calls the “creeping Islamification” of Britain, supports voluntary repatriation of immigrants and wants to take Britain out of the European Union and NATO.

. . . Mr. Griffin’s victory is the culmination of a campaign to modernize the party and shake off a reputation for anti-Semitism and the politics of incitement it earned in a previous era.

I don't know about that drop out of the NATO bit. I'll have to read up a bit more on that.

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