Tuesday, February 2, 2010
A New Feature: "Barker's Newsbites"
Yesterday I posted "One of My Sisters-in-Law Once Asked Me..." in which I premiered the concept of "Barker's Newsbites."
The long and short of the concept is this:
I do a great deal of reading each day. In addition to the reading I take notes and use these notes as the foundation for emails "spreading the news" as well as providing my own reactions, analysis, and commentary related to each item.
Well, I figure, why not use this blog to share these notes, these "newsbites?"
After all, I'm doing the work anyway - the reading, the note taking - why not share fruits of my labors?
These threads are not intended to be - and will NOT be - a substitute for reading the newspapers and staying up on current events. Nope. These "newsbites" are items that I find of particular interest and while my assumption is that by browsing through them readers will learn something, basically this isn't so much intended as a "public service" for its own sake, but rather, as I noted above, I figure since I'm compiling the "notes" anyway... why not post them here on my blog so that others can be exposed to them and take from them what they will?
Bottom line -- Throughout the day I'll be posting my "research notes" within this thread utilizing the thread's Comments Section. Each day (at least that's the plan!) I'll create a new "daily newsbites" thread.
Enjoy!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
25 comments:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/feb/01/leaked-emails-climate-jones-chinese
Professor Phil Jones, who was director of the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) and a professor of environmental sciences at the University of East Anglia in Norwich is facing fresh claims that he sought to hide problems in key temperature data on which some of his work was based. A Guardian investigation of thousands of emails and documents from the University of East Anglia's climatic research unit has found evidence that a series of measurements from Chinese weather stations were seriously flawed and that documents relating to them could not be produced. [In addition] Jones withheld information requested under freedom of information laws. [These findings] call into question the probity of some climate change science. The apparent attempts to cover up problems with temperature data from the Chinese weather stations provide the first link between the email scandal and the UN's embattled climate science body, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, as a paper based on the measurements was used to bolster IPCC statements about rapid global warming in recent decades. [N]ew information brought to light today indicates at least one senior colleague [of Wei-Chyung Wang of the University at Albany] had serious concerns about the affair. It also emerges that documents which Wang claimed would exonerate him and Jones did not exist. The Guardian has learned that of 105 freedom of information requests to the university concerning the climatic research unit (CRU), which Jones headed up to the end of December, only 10 had been released in full. The leaked emails from the CRU reveal that the former director of the unit, Tom Wigley, harboured grave doubts about the cover-up of the shortcomings in Jones and Wang's work. Wigley was in charge of CRU when the original paper was published. "Were you taking W-CW [Wang] on trust?" he asked Jones. He continued: "Why, why, why did you and W-CW not simply say this right at the start?" Last week the Information Commissioner's Office – the body that administers the Freedom of Information Act – said the University of East Anglia had flouted the rules in its handling of an FOI request in May 2008. Days after receiving the request for information from the British climate change {researcher] David Holland, Jones asked Prof Mike Mann of Pennsylvania State University in the United States: "Can you delete any emails you may have had with Keith [Briffa] re AR4? Keith will do likewise." "Can you also email Gene [Eugene Wahl, a paleoclimatologist in Boulder, Colorado] and get him to do the same ... We will be getting Caspar [Ammann, also from Boulder] to do the same."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100201/bs_nm/us_budget_backdoortaxes
If the provisions [of the "Bush Tax Cuts"] are allowed to expire on December 31, the top-tier personal income tax rate will rise to 39.6 percent from 35 percent. But lower-income families will pay more as well: the 25 percent tax bracket will revert back to 28 percent; the 28 percent bracket will increase to 31 percent; and the 33 percent bracket will increase to 36 percent. [Obama proposals include] the capital-gains tax increasing to 20 percent from 15 percent. [And that would be for all Americans in all tax brackets; anyone who reports capital gains.] Millions of middle-class households already may be facing higher taxes in 2010 because Congress has failed to extend tax breaks that expired on January 1, most notably a "patch" that limited the impact of the alternative minimum tax. The AMT, initially designed to prevent the very rich from avoiding income taxes, was never indexed for inflation. Now the tax is affecting millions of middle-income households...Without annual legislation to renew the patch this year, the AMT could affect an estimated 25 million taxpayers with incomes as low as $33,750 (or $45,000 for joint filers). Even if the patch is extended to last year's levels, the tax will hit American families that can hardly be considered wealthy -- the AMT exemption for 2009 was $46,700 for singles and $70,950 for married couples filing jointly. Individuals who don't itemize will no longer be able to increase their standard deduction by up to $1,000 for property taxes paid. The first $2,400 of unemployment benefits are taxable, in 2009 that amount was tax-free.
http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=2510700
Newfoundland [a provence of Canada] Premier Danny Williams will undergo heart surgery later this week in the United States. [Not Toronto. Not Ottawa. Not Vancouver.] A decision to leave Canada for the surgery, especially if it is available here, raises questions about the Premier's confidence in Newfoundland's health care system.
re: "Newsbite" #2 - http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100201/bs_nm/us_budget_backdoortaxes
OK, another thing about me; I'm absolutely anal about "getting it right."
While no one is "always right," there's a reason I titled this blog "Usually Right."
These notes/excerpts aren't "neutral." What they are - what their original purpose is and was always meant to be - are the raw material - the quotes, the stats - from which I'll draw in order to write formal presentations and proposals, op-eds and position papers.
The quotes ARE indeed direct, but they're mainly quotes I feel I can use. I make no attempt to show "evenhandedness" via highlight other perspectives and analysis which may be presented either through the authors' choice of emphasis, descriptive language, or "voice."
Nevertheless, my goal is that each and every sentence (each word!) and paragraph be accurate and thus not open to factual challenge.
SO... with this in mind... a clarification re: "Newsbite #2":
* I PREVIOUSLY NOTED --
[Obama proposals include] the capital-gains tax increasing to 20 percent from 15 percent. [And that would be for all Americans in all tax brackets; anyone who reports capital gains.]
** Well... first of all note the brackets. I'm referring to words within []. These are my words. (That's why they're bracketed.) I utilize the brackets so that it's always made clear which lines (words) are direct quotes and which words are "mine" (added either simply to make the sentence flow OR to insert my own commentary for future building upon).
To CLARIFY both the excerpts as they stand AND also my bracketed thoughts, allow me to note:
Even as I was reading and taking notes from the article in question I wondered to myself whether capital gains are indeed "across the board." So... I called up Mary (my wife) to double-check. (She works at a CPA/Investment firm.)
HERE'S THE DEAL:
CURRENTLY... those in the 10% tax bracket pay zero long term capital gains.
CURRENTLY... those in the 15% tax bracket pay 10% long term capital gains tax.
OBAMA PROPOSES... to eliminate the 10% tax bracket. Furthermore, under Obama's proposal, those in the 15% tax bracket will see their long term capital gains tax rate increase from 10% to 15%. Those in the higher income tax brackets (everyone who falls into an income tax bracket higher than 15%) will see their long term capital gains tax rate increased from the current 15% to the higher 20% rate.
BILL
http://www.sj-r.com/carousel/x231968722/City-still-waiting-for-reimbursement-from-2008-visit-by-Obama
The city of Springfield still hasn’t been fully repaid for costs associated with hosting then- U.S. Sen. Barack Obama’s presidential campaign stop in the fall of 2008. Obama’s presidential campaign was sent a bill for $68,139, and still owes the city $55,457, according to Ernie Slottag, the city’s spokesman. The city has been trying — unsuccessfully — to collect payment, Ken Crutcher, the city’s director of office of budget and management told aldermen recently. “We’ve spoken to a lot of people and have found a lot of circles,” Crutcher said. … “We’ve been kind of bounced from place to place with respect to that particular event.” Attempts to get a comment for this story from the Obama campaign were unsuccessful. The White House referred comments to the Democratic National Committee. A spokesman at the DNC didn’t respond to questions sent via e-mail.
http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view/20100202fate_of_obamas_aunt_to_be_fought_behind_closed_doors/srvc=home&position=5
The illegal alien aunt of President Obama could learn this week whether she can put down roots in Boston - or start packing her bags for a one-way trip back to Kenya. And, save for U.S. Immigration Court Judge Leonard I. Shapiro, she’ll know before anyone else. Zeituni Polly Onyango has persuaded Shapiro to bar the public from her removal proceeding Thursday morning at the John F. Kennedy Federal Building, though it’s unclear why. Onyango, a computer programmer, has been in the country illegally since 2004, when Shapiro ordered her to leave. Recent attempts to reach her at the South Boston housing development where she’s been living since a December 2008 stay of her deportation have been unsuccessful.
http://washingtontimes.com/news/2010/feb/02/burgeoning-federal-payroll-signals-return-of-big-g/
The era of big government has returned with a vengeance, in the form of the largest federal work force in modern history. The Obama administration says the government will grow to 2.15 million employees this year, topping 2 million for the first time since President Clinton declared that "the era of big government is over." Most of the increases are on the civilian side, which will grow by 153,000 workers, to 1.43 million people, in fiscal 2010. Mr. Obama says the civilian work force will drop by 80,000 next year, mostly because of a reduction in U.S. census workers added in 2010 but then dropped in 2011 after the national population count is finished. That still leaves 1.35 million civilian federal employees on the payroll in 2011. From 1981 through 2008, the civilian work force remained at about 1.1 million to 1.2 million, with a low of 1.07 million in 1986 and a high of more than 1.2 million in 1993 and in 2008. In 2009, the number jumped to 1.28 million. Including both the civilian and defense sectors, the federal government will employ 2.15 million people in 2010 and 2.11 million in 2011, excluding Postal Service workers. After years of decline at the end of the Cold War, the Defense Department is restaffing. Mr. Obama estimated that the Pentagon will have 720,000 employees this year and 757,000 employees next year - up from a low of 649,000 in 2003. The data also show that the Department of Homeland Security will grow by 7,000 a year in 2010 and 2011, and the Veterans Affairs Department will grow by 12,000 in 2010 and an additional 4,000 in 2011. The administration has called for federal workers to get a 1.4 percent pay raise next year.
Hmm! Now THIS is fascinating:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100202/bs_nm/us_budget_backdoortaxes
"The story Backdoor taxes to hit middle class has been withdrawn. A replacement story will run later in the week."
Very, VERY interesting...
(They're talking about the story my "Newsbite #2 was taken from!)
BILL
w/r/t your newsbite on the Canadian pol opting for surgery in the U.S.--you continue to confuse, or conflate, medical technology with health care delivery; they aren't the same thing. Nobody disputes that U.S. technology is world-class, or that U.S. physicians are well-trained. The U.S. is rich: why wouldn't they be? But that is a completely separate issue from making that excellent health care available to non-Heads-of-State and non-millionaires at affordable prices, and without reference to pre-existing conditions as the rest of it. It says nothing about health care delivery per se, as opposed to Candian health care delivery per se, that this individual with resources has chosen a U.S. hospital for his surgery.
Thanks for chiming in, Rob, but...
WRONG AGAIN.
(*SHRUG*)
I "confuse" nothing; I "conflate" nothing.
Listen... you're free to take away what you will from my "notes," but I'm confident that the vast majority of Americans would - if they read the "newsbite" in question - be on "my" side rather than react as you have - with typical knee-jerk defense of socialism... even in the face of the failures of that system.
BILL
Clarification:
Rob. When I wrote "socialism" with regard to Canadian healthcare I was using "shorthand" to describe Canada's health insurance/healthcare system in relation to ours in SIMPLEST terms.
Heck... if we want to be technical, Canada doesn't even have true "nationalized health care;" their system is "province based."
Anyway... just wanted to be clear that I wasn't throwing out "red meat" to throw out red meat, but rather, I was using "shorthand" (basic conversational language) to describe Canada's more "socialistic" system as opposed to ours.
BILL
P.S. - The latest Heritage Foundation ranking of "Economic Freedom" has Canada ahead of the U.S.!
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/29/AR2010012903954.html
Part 1 --
[By Michael V. Hayden, director of the CIA from 2006 to 2009]. We got it wrong in Detroit on Christmas Day. We allowed an enemy combatant the protections of our Constitution before we had adequately interrogated him. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab is not "an isolated extremist." He is the tip of the spear of a complex al-Qaeda plot to kill Americans in our homeland. In the 50 minutes the FBI had to question him, agents reportedly got actionable intelligence. Good. But were there any experts on al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula in the room (other than Abdulmutallab)? Was there anyone intimately familiar with any National Security Agency raw traffic to, from or about the captured terrorist? Did they have a list or photos of suspected recruits? When questioning its detainees, the CIA routinely turns the information provided over to its experts for verification and recommendations for follow-up. The responses of these experts -- "Press him more on this, he knows the details" or "First time we've heard that" -- helps set up more detailed questioning. None of that happened in Detroit. In fact, we ensured that it wouldn't. After the first session, the FBI Mirandized Abdulmutallab and -- to preserve a potential prosecution -- sent in a "clean team" of agents who could have no knowledge of what Abdulmutallab had provided before he was given his constitutional warnings. As has been widely reported, Abdulmutallab then exercised his right to remain silent. [T]he inadvisability of this approach seems self-evident. Two days after his inauguration, President Obama issued an executive order that limited all interrogations by the U.S. government to the techniques authorized in the Army Field Manual. The CIA had not seen the final draft of the order, let alone been allowed to comment, before it was issued. A similar drama unfolded in April over the release of Justice Department memos that had authorized the CIA interrogation program.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/29/AR2010012903954.html
Part 2 --
CIA Director Leon Panetta and several of his predecessors opposed public release of the memos...On this policy (not legal) question, the president sided with his attorney general rather than his CIA chief. In August, seemingly again in contradiction to the president's policy of not looking backward and over the objections of the CIA, Justice pushed to release the CIA inspector general's report on the interrogation program. Then Justice decided to reopen investigations of CIA officers that had been concluded by career prosecutors years ago, even though Panetta and seven of his predecessors said that doing so would be unfair, unwarranted and harmful to the agency's current mission.In November, Justice announced that it intended to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and several others in civilian courts for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. The White House made clear that this was a Justice Department decision, which is odd because the decision was not legally compelled (other detainees are to be tried by military commissions) and the reasons given for making it (military trials could serve as a recruitment tool for al-Qaeda, harm relations with allies, etc.) were not legal but political. Intelligence officers need to know that someone has their back. After the Justice memos were released in April, CIA officers began to ask whether the people doing things that were currently authorized would be dragged through this kind of public knothole in five years. No one could guarantee that they would not. That apparently no one recommended on Christmas Day that Abdulmutallab be handled, at least for a time, as an enemy combatant should be concerning. Blair suggested that the High Value Detainee Interrogation Group (HIG), announced by the administration in August, should have been called in. A government spokesman later pointed out that the group does not yet exist. There's a final oddity. In August, the government unveiled the HIG for questioning al-Qaeda and announced that the FBI would begin questioning CIA officers about the alleged abuses in the 2004 inspector general's report. They are apparently still getting organized for the al-Qaeda interrogations. But the interrogations of CIA personnel are well underway.
http://article.nationalreview.com/423598/the-budget-poseur/rich-lowry
In his “question time” exchange with Republican House members, Obama proved for anyone who might have forgotten that he’s whip-smart, unflappable, and glib; it’s the facts that are his undoing. Anyone listening to him describe his budget would stock extra foodstuffs in the pantry for the lean times ahead — and would be shocked to learn that Obama was speaking of the most extravagant budget in American history. It’s a Keynesian blowout wrapped in an Eisenhower-era-sensible-Republican cloth coat. National debt will exceed GDP in 2012, a staggering fact. Internationally, we will share that distinction with such fine fiscal company as Iceland, Greece, and Italy. Even Brazil, Pakistan, and Malawi have a lower debt as a percentage of GDP. Whether he’s profligate or austere, Obama is always spending more.
http://article.nationalreview.com/423603/an-obama-sized-government/the-editors
Between 1789 and 2008, the U.S. government borrowed a total of $5.8 trillion. But in just the first three years of the Obama administration, the government is set borrow $4.4 trillion more. If the Obama budget is adopted in full, federal borrowing will top $18 trillion by 2020. Over the period 2011 to 2020, the president’s plan is to run deficits totaling an astounding $8.5 trillion. The problem is quite plainly runaway government spending. The administration employs all kinds of smoke and mirrors in an attempt to dress up massive governmental excess as necessary and restrained investments. But their own bottom-line numbers betray the real story. In 2008, total spending stood at nearly $3.0 trillion — not exactly government on a strict diet. But Obama wants to take the juggernaut he inherited and supersize it. By 2020, governmental spending would reach $5.7 trillion, driven heavily by mounting entitlement costs. Spending on Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid alone would nearly double over a decade, going from $1.4 trillion in 2009 to $2.6 trillion in 2020. Indeed, the Obama budget spends so freely and recklessly that not even a massive tax increase can stem the flood of red ink. According to the Republican staff of the Senate Budget Committee, the planned tax hikes in the Obama budget plan exceed $2.3 trillion over ten years, and that doesn’t even count $800 billion from “cap and trade” and about $500 billion from the health-care plan the Democrats continue to push.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/5f5669ce-1012-11df-841f-00144feab49a.html
Tim Geithner, US Treasury secretary, received strong criticism from Democrats on the Senate finance committee...in a sign that the administration will not get an easy ride from members of its own party, Blanche Lincoln, the Democratic senator from Arkansas, said: “I see additional tax and regulatory burdens being placed on small businesses and the self-employed.” She said she could not understand the administration’s economic vision and neither could the voters from her state, where she faces a tough re-election fight in November.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704722304575037640975408612.html
Chicago Mayor Richard Daley is looking to lure employers from Oregon after that state's voters approved a huge tax increase last week. The tax hike in Oregon "will help our economic development immediately. You'd better believe it," Hizzoner told the Chicago Sun Times late last week. "We'll be out in Oregon enticing corporations to relocate to Chicago." It's nice to know there is at least one prominent Democrat who realizes the folly of raising tax rates to balance state and city budgets. As Mr. Daley puts it, businesses can "go to Wisconsin. They can go Indiana. They can go to India. They can go to China. So if you want to beat up businesses, go beat them up and when they leave, just wave to them, and they're going to wave back to you." Can we swap the mayor for Rahm Emanuel?
http://article.nationalreview.com/423612/what-i-said-to-the-republican-members-of-congress/dennis-prager
[Prager's address to the Republican House Caucus]. I have never been as proud to be a Republican as I have this past year, with your unanimity in opposing Obamacare and the other bills that would transform America. It is harder to sell truths than to sell falsehoods. It is very easy to say, “Vote for us and we will give you, we will give you, we will give you.” It is much harder to advocate what is right and to say “Vote for us, but no, we won’t give you” — even though that is the more moral and the more American position. So you have the far more difficult task. Every change for good must be constantly renewed, but changes for the worse are often permanent. Goodness must be fought for every day, over and over. That is why every American generation has to be inculcated with American values. But once the change for bad is made, it is close to irreversible. The Democratic attempt to vastly expand the state’s power would likely be a permanent change for the worse in American life. When they’re candid, they admit that the health-care bill is their way to get to single-payer medicine and, more important, to a government takeover of another sixth of the American economy. You are not fighting liberals. You are fighting the Left. Democrats were once liberals. But you are not fighting liberals any longer. You are fighting the Left. And as leftists, they do not like to confront reality, even if it means rewriting it. The other example is what is now happening with Scott Brown’s victory in Massachusetts. Everybody knows why he was voted in. It was, after all, Scott “41” Brown. We all knew why he was elected. But if you read left-wing commentators, this history is being rewritten. They say it had nothing to do with opposing Obamacare. Nothing to do with it! In the Soviet Union it took ten years to write Trotsky out of the Russian Revolution. But this is a rewrite of history in one week! Scott “41” Brown’s victory was not about opposing Obamacare. Most people on the Left are True Believers. This is critical to understand. They are willing to lose Congress; Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid are prepared to lose both houses to get this through. Why? Because losing an election cycle means nothing compared to taking over more of the American economy. I can give you an example from our side. There are many folks on our side who, if they could pass an amendment against abortion, would happily sacrifice both houses for a period of time. Understand that just as strongly as some are pro-life or religiously Christian or Jewish, that is how strongly many leftists believe in leftism. Leftism is a substitute religion. For the Left, the “health-care” bill transcends politics. You are fighting people who will go down with the ship in order to transform this country into a leftist one. And an ever expanding state is the Left’s central credo. I have a motto that I offer to you because this is the ultimate moral case for us: “The bigger the government, the smaller the citizen.” The dream of America was that the individual was to be a giant. The state stays small so as to enable each of us to be as big as we can be. How can they, with a serious face, tell us that Medicare and Medicaid and Social Security are going bankrupt, and therefore the solution is to take over more of health care? How does one say that with a straight face? How does one look a fellow American in the eye and say, “Yes, we have failed in almost every way that government has significantly intruded, and that’s why we need more government intrusion”? It is mind-boggling. But that is what has happened. People get smaller, and pettier, as the government and state get bigger. That’s what you are fighting.
http://media.nationalreview.com/
The continuing story of the "disappearing Reuter's story" can be found via the link provided up above.
BILL
This is TRULY fascinating - and illuminating!
http://blog.american.com/?p=10105
(In case anyone is wondering, I'm still referring to the "Reuters story" which I excerpted from in today's "Newsbite #2."
Now I've considered deleting "Newsbite #2," but rejected the idea. Rather than "subtract" from the record, I choose to ADD to the record by now highlighting an American Enterprise Institute critique of the Reuters story.
Here goes (EXCERPTING) --
Although Reuters has pulled the article, many people are still reading it at various websites, so it is important to note and correct its appalling inaccuracies:
The article asserted that the Obama budget would allow the 10 percent, 25 percent, and 28 percent brackets to expire, boosting those rates to 15, 28, and 31 percent, respectively. In reality, the budget would permanently extend the lower rates.
The article asserted that the Obama budget would raise the dividend tax rate to 39.6 percent. In reality, the budget would raise the rate only to 20 percent.
The article asserted that the Obama budget would allow taxpayers’ option to deduct state and local sales taxes to expire. In reality, the budget would extend that option through 2011.
President Obama would permanently extend the Bush tax cuts for households with incomes below $200,000 ($250,000 for couples); statements that the president would allow the Bush tax cuts to expire are true only for households above those income levels. The president has also proposed some additional middle-class tax cuts.
Evaluation of the administration’s policies must be based on facts, not fabrications and false rumors. The Obama budget wouldn’t raise income taxes on the middle class. But it would increase marginal tax rates, threatening the long-run growth that sustains the well-being of Americans in all income groups.
* Now, folks... I'm all about the facts! I'm ANAL about the facts! Is this going to be the last word on the "Reuters story?" Perhaps. If so, if this AEI article is indeed correct then so be it.
* One thing you folks can count on... I'll NEVER deliberately steer you wrong.
BILL
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0110/32282.html
[By Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty]. The U.S. attorney general recently announced that the Justice Department is beefing up its efforts to fight financial fraud such as Ponzi schemes. Good. The agency should start by reviewing the spending habits of the federal government, which is running the largest Ponzi scheme our country has ever seen. In a Ponzi scheme, organizers create the illusion of profit for early investors by siphoning money from later participants. It works until there is not enough income to pay the promised dividends, exposing the fraud and leaving everyone broke. That is essentially what the federal government is doing, as it continues to spend and promise far more than can ever be paid for by current and future revenues. Last week, the U.S. Senate increased the nation’s debt ceiling by an additional $1.9 trillion. That vote was necessary to further the Ponzi scheme. It should serve as a wake-up call that this level of spending is unsustainable. The debate is no longer between competing political philosophies — it is a matter of basic mathematics. Here is a sampling of the facts: Federal government spending has grown nearly seven times faster than median income since 1970, according to the U.S. Census Bureau and Office of Management and Budget. At more than $12 trillion, the federal debt is already more than 80 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product and growing fast. The federal government’s total debt, including unfunded liabilities, means about $600,000 of debt for every U.S. household. Sooner or later, the federal government’s scheme will come crashing down, and the loss will be mammoth. When the bathtub is overflowing, a wise first response is to turn off the faucet. The federal government’s spending-increase spigot needs to be shut off. We need to admit our addiction to the illusion of government “free stuff” and demand that spending be cut in almost all areas. [W]e need an amendment to the U.S. Constitution to require a balanced budget with limited exceptions for war, natural disasters and other emergencies. Every state but one has a balanced budget requirement, and while such requirements make for difficult decisions, they work. The president also should be given line-item veto authority power as a budget enforcement tool. The experience of the states shows that this is an effective way of preventing excessive spending. We must also grow the economy. To that end, Congress should reject federal legislation that places additional burdens on growth, such as the proposed health care overhaul, cap-and-trade bill, labor union card check and tax increases. Ponzi schemes succeed because people want to believe in a free lunch as long as the easy money is rolling in. But a day of reckoning always arrives, and ours is right around the corner. The sooner we open our eyes, the sooner we can clean up this mess.
http://article.nationalreview.com/423592/stuck-on-yucca/mona-charen
he perennially optimistic strained to find evidence of a new centrism in President Obama’s State of the Union address. Well, the Hyde Park liberal embraced nuclear power, they say. And he did seem to. “To create more . . . clean-energy jobs,” the president intoned, “we need more production, more efficiency, more incentives. And that means building a new generation of safe, clean nuclear power plants in this country.” It’s a nice sentiment. The Nuclear Energy Institute pronounced itself “delighted.” But hold the champagne. The other nuclear news this week is that the Obama administration’s new budget will propose to zero out funding for Nevada’s Yucca Mountain nuclear repository — in effect, killing it. American taxpayers have already invested more than $13 billion over 30 years to build the facility and make it redundantly safe. In 1982, the U.S. government agreed to begin accepting nuclear waste at the site in 1998. Failure to meet that deadline has already cost us $565 million in legal settlements and is estimated to run up to $11 billion over the next decade. The Yucca Mountain repository is 1,000 feet underground in the most lifeless desert of North America. Its storage tunnels have been engineered to enhance the natural protective effect of thick rock by adding multiple layers of steel, titanium drip shields to prevent erosion, and other safety features to ensure that the waste (which becomes less harmful with the passage of time) will not leak. How safe is it? Consider millirems, units of radiation. A cross-country airplane ride subjects travelers to 2 or 3 millirems (from cosmic rays). A dental x-ray yields 1 millirem. People who live in Denver get twice the dose (50 per year) as those who live at sea level. An earlier Energy Department study examined whether the Yucca containment facility could withstand normal aging, plus volcanoes and earthquakes. The conclusion was that it would emit no more than 1 millirem of radiation per year for 750,000 years! But goodbye to all that. It wasn’t safe enough for Sen. Harry Reid (D., Nev.), who has worked to kill the Yucca facility. (Reid was not alone among Nevada politicians. Former senator Chic Hecht had memorably promised to oppose “nuclear suppositories” in his state.) And it was not safe enough for Barack Obama, who campaigned energetically in Nevada promising to terminate the project. In addition to zeroing out funding, the administration proposes to suspend the license application for the facility and withdraw it completely within the month. There is nothing dishonorable about opposing nuclear energy — though the greenies who claim that global warming is their chief worry have some explaining to do if they reject nuclear power — but there is something dishonest about claiming to favor nuclear power while simultaneously short-circuiting the most viable solution to the problem of long-term waste storage. They are wasting their time, squandering our money, and insulting our intelligence.
This isn't so much a "newsbite" as it is a "must read" for anyone and everyone who voted for McCain in November '08.
http://race42008.com/2010/02/02/one-year-into-the-mccain-administration/
I actually "know" the kid who wrote this. He's ok! I used to go back and forth with him over at David Frum's website back before Frum designated me "persona non grata."
(*GRIN*)
Seriously... check out the kid's "alternate history." He's basically channeling... er... yours truly.
(*WINK*)
BILL
http://online.barrons.com/article/SB126499304219238387.html?mod=BOL_hpp_dc
After stripping away the effects of reduced-inventory liquidation and a smaller trade deficit, what's left (dubbed "real final sales to domestic producers" in economists' inelegant terminology) actually slowed down to a 1.7% annual rate of expansion after inflation in the latest quarter...That was down from the 2.3% pace in the third quarter -- just the opposite of the pickup in headline GDP to 5.7% from 2.2%. Do you think the voters of Massachusetts believed the economy accelerated to a booming 5.7% annual-growth rate in the fourth quarter from 2.2%, as the GDP data indicated? Or did they think the economy slowed to a sluggish 1.7% pace from an already tepid 2.3%, as the real-final sales to domestic producers indicated? And did they see any improvement in jobs as a result? [T]he Obama Administration's proposed fiscal 2011 budget includes massive tax increases on upper incomes -- those who pay the lion's share of taxes and are most likely to invest, expand new businesses, and hire employees.
http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/02/01/what-every-american-should-know-about-the-national-debt/
Q. Say America was a person, how much credit card debt would America have?
A. Let's put it this way: Spending last year was about $3.5 trillion. The deficit was $1.42 trillion, which means that revenues were about $2.1 trillion. So $2.1 trillion is equal to their annual income. The total national debt right now is $12.3 trillion. So we owe five to six times more than we make every year. But that's not the big deal. In addition to that, there is another $45 trillion to $50 trillion in unfunded obligations that are off the balance sheet, which I think you ought to count. Medicare is the biggest part of it by far, and Social Security is a large part, too. So in reality, we owe between 25 and 30 times what we make every year.
Q. For somebody going through their day, gassing up the car, dropping off the kids and going to work, why does the debt matter? How does it affect their lives?
A. We're mortgaging the future of the country, and their children and grandchildren. At the same time, because of the growth of spending, we're reducing the role of investments in our future because the budget on the discretionary side is getting squeezed at a time when America is facing growing competition in a global economy. Also, there are two kinds of taxes: current taxes and deferred taxes. To the extent that we're not paying our way now, somebody is going to end up having to pay down the road.
Q. When you say our children and grandchildren will pay for it, does that mean they will literally have higher taxes?
A. Much higher. If we don't end up reforming our ways, federal taxes will have to double within the next 20 to 30 years, just to stop the bleeding.
Q. That money would go toward paying for our future obligations?
A. And toward paying interest on the federal debt. In fact within 12 years, without an increase in interest rates, interest on the national debt is expected to be the largest item in the budget. And you get nothing for it.
Q. What does trouble look like?
A. That means the dollar will drop dramatically, interest rates will go up, unemployment would go up dramatically and you'll have something much worse than a recession.
Post a Comment