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2010
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September
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- This Newsbite Deserves a Stand-Alone Posting
- Barker's Newsbites: Thursday, September 30, 2010
- Car Rental Trivia
- Barker's Newsbites: Wednesday, September 29, 2010
- Barker's Newsbites: Tuesday, September 28, 2010
- Barker's Newsbites: Monday, September 27, 2010
- Weekend Newsbites: Sat. & Sun., September 25 & 26
- Barker's Newsbites: Friday, September, 24, 2010
- Barker's Newsbites: Thursday, September 23, 2010
- Barker's Newsbites: Tuesday, September 21, 2010
- Barker's Newsbites: Monday, September 20, 2010
- Abbreviated Weekend Newsbites: Sunday, September 1...
- Barker's Newsbites: Friday, September 17, 2010
- Barker's Newsbites: Thursday, September 16, 2010
- The Coming Republican Revolution
- Barker's Newsbites: Wednesday, September 15, 2010
- Barker's Newsbites: Monday, September 13, 2010
- Weekend Newsbites: Sat. & Sun., September 11 & 12,...
- September 11, 2010
- Barker's Newsbites: Friday, September 10, 2010
- Barker's Newsbites: Thursday, September 9, 2010
- Barker's Newsbites: Wednesday, September 8, 2010
- Barker's Newsbites: Tuesday, September 7, 2010
- Labor Day Weekend Newsbites 2010
- U-6 Unemployment
- Barker's Newsbites: Friday, September 3, 2010
- Barker's Newsbites: Thursday, September 2, 2010
- This Newsbite Deserves Its Own Stand-Alone Posting
- Barker's Newsbites: Wednesday, September 1, 2010
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September
(29)
About Me
- William R. Barker
- Pearl River, NY High School Class of '81; Northeastern University, Boston, MA Class of '87.
11 comments:
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-lapd-shooting-20100908,0,5823510.story
As Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck defended the fatal shooting of a day laborer and officials called for calm, protesters and officers clashed Tuesday night in Westlake near the site of the incident.
* BY "DAY LABORER" ARE WE TALKING ILLEGAL ALIEN?
About 300 demonstrators gathered at the LAPD's Rampart Station. Some in the crowd hurled eggs at police cars and others threw objects at the station windows, prompting officers in riot gear to push the throng along 6th Street.
* HMM... I WONDER HOW MANY OF THE 300 "DEMONSTRATORS" ARE ILLEGAL ALIENS OR OFFSPRING OF ILLEGAL ALIENS.
About 9:30 p.m., police declared the protest an unlawful assembly and moved in to disperse the crowd as trash cans were set on fire and rocks and bottles were thrown at officers. As police pushed crowds on 6th, some protesters climbed atop multistory apartment buildings, where they threw objects at officers below.
* NAH... WE'RE NOT LOSING CONTROL OF OUR MAJOR CITIES... (*SMIRK*)
Several officers suffered minor injuries after being hit by bottles and rocks, police said. At least 22 people were arrested on charges such as failure to disperse, said LAPD Sgt. Alex Chogyoji.
* AND WILL THESE 22 PEOPLE HAVE THEIR CITIZENSHIP STATUS EXAMINED? IF IT TURNS OUT ANY ARE IN OUR COUNTRY ILLEGALLY WILL THEY BE SUMMARILY DEPORTED...???
* ANYWAY... HERE'S WHAT THE "DEMONSTRATORS" ARE UPSET ABOUT: http://apnews.myway.com/article/20100908/D9I3K8IO0.html
Guatemalan immigrant Manuel Jamines, 37, was shot twice by a police officer Sunday afternoon near MacArthur Park, a poor neighborhood packed with recent immigrants from Central America.
* RECENT ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS...???
[T]he "incident" involving Jamines started when someone flagged down three bicycle officers to tell them a man was threatening people with a knife.
The officers approached the suspect and told him in Spanish and English to put down the weapon. Instead, Jamines raised the knife above his head and lunged at Officer Frank Hernandez, a 13-year veteran of the department... Eyewitness accounts from six civilians, nine police personnel and two fire department staff indicate Hernandez fired twice "in immediate defense of life..." ... Jamines, 37, died at the scene.
* SO WHAT'S THE PROBLEM? SEEMS PRETTY CUT AND DRY TO ME. THE COPS DID THEIR JOB. SOUNDS LIKE L.A. IS A SAFER PLACE NOW THAT JAMINES IS DEAD. (*SHRUG*)
Investigators recovered a bloody, 6-inch knife at the scene but didn't know where the blood came from.
(*ROLLING MY EYES*)
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2010/09/08/afghanistan-war-costs-jump-congressional-report-shows/
The monthly cost of fighting the war in Iraq declined this year, but not enough to offset increasing expenses in Afghanistan, according to a new report from the Congressional Research Service.
Overall, CRS estimates that the U.S. has spent $1.1 trillion on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The report says that per-troop costs in Iraq and Afghanistan are likely to rise next year, but CRS, the research arm of Congress, contends the war will not be as expensive as the White House is budgeting.
* REPEAT AFTER ME, KIDS:
S*L*U*S*H
F*U*N*D!
Between 2005 and 2009, it cost an average of $425,000 for each U.S. service member in Afghanistan[;] the average cost per service member is expected to rise to $694,000.
(*SARCASTIC CLAP-CLAP-CLAP*)
The CRS report’s per troop cost are dramatically lower than the White House’s, which generally uses the estimate of $1 million a year per service member.
* HMM... $1,000,000 MINUS $694,000 EQUALS... A POTENTIAL SLUSH FUND OF $306,000 PER SOLDIER TIMES... (*SHRUG*)
* CHICAGO MATH...???
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703720004575478200948908976.html?mod=WSJ_hps_MIDDLESecondNews
Health insurers say they plan to raise premiums for some Americans as a direct result of the health overhaul in coming weeks...
* BIG SURRISE... (*SMIRK*)
Aetna Inc., some BlueCross BlueShield plans and other smaller carriers have asked for premium increases of between 1% and 9% to pay for extra benefits required under the law...
* WHAT...?!?! DO YOU MEAN TO TELL ME THAT MANDATING EXTRA BENEFITS LEADS TO (*GULP*) A NEED TO PAY FOR THE COST OF THESE SAME EXTRA BENEFITS...??? WHO COULD HAVE POSSIBLY GUESSED THAT?! (*SNORT*)
These and other insurers say Congress's landmark refashioning of U.S. health coverage, which passed in March after a brutal fight, is causing them to pass on more costs to consumers than Democrats predicted.
(*ROLLING MY EYES*)
The rate increases largely apply to policies for individuals and small businesses and don't include people covered by a big employer...
* HOW'S OBAMA'S CRONY CAPITALISM WORKING FOR YOU SO FAR?
[S]ome consumers could face total premium increases of more than 20%.
(*SARCASTIC CLAP-CLAP-CLAP*)
In addition to pledging that the law would restrain increases in Americans' insurance premiums, Democrats front-loaded the legislation with early provisions they hoped would boost public support. Those include letting children stay on their parents' insurance policies until age 26, eliminating co-payments for preventive care and barring insurers from denying policies to children with pre-existing conditions, plus the elimination of the coverage caps.
Weeks before the election, insurance companies began telling state regulators it is those very provisions that are forcing them to increase their rates.
In Wisconsin and North Carolina, Celtic Insurance Co. says half of the 18% increase it is seeking comes from complying with health-law mandates.
(*SIGH*)
Previously the administration had calculated that the batch of changes taking effect this fall would raise premiums no more than 1% to 2%, on average.
(*SNICKER*)
Massachusetts, which enacted universal insurance coverage several years ago, also has seen steadily rising insurance premiums since then. Proponents of that plan attribute the hikes there to an overall increase in medical costs, while insurers cite it as a cautionary example of what can happen when new mandates to improve benefits...
* "...WHEN NEW MANDATES HAVE TO BE PAID FOR...!!!"
(*DISGUSTED SNORT*)
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703618504575459511831427690.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEFTTopOpinion
The centerpiece of "New Start," the arms-control treaty that President Barack Obama signed with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in April, is its reduction in nuclear warheads. Less well-understood - but profoundly misguided - is the treaty's return to outmoded Cold War limits on weapons launchers, which will require the United States, but not Russia, to dismantle existing delivery systems. This could cripple America's long-range conventional warhead delivery capabilities...
* JUST GUESSING, BUT I'D SUGGEST "HAMPER" WOULD BE A MORE ACCURATE DESCRIPTION THAN "CRIPPLE."
Russia's global position is nowhere near that of the U.S., and its current launcher capabilities are far inferior. Nominally equal limitations can have dramatically unequal consequences in the real world.
In pursuing New Start, the Obama administration has essentially jettisoned the 2002 Treaty of Moscow, which only dealt with the limitation of nuclear warheads that were operationally deployed. That freed large numbers of U.S. launchers (land-based and submarine-based ballistic missiles, along with heavy bombers such as the B-2) to carry conventional payloads world-wide - a concept known as "conventional prompt global strike." Such delivery flexibility is far more important to America than to Russia, given our global interests and alliances. (Its wisdom was evident after 9/11, as we fought in Iraq, Afghanistan and beyond.)
New Start encumbers us with unnecessary constraints that will distort strategic priorities and weapons-development for decades.
Mr. Obama hopes to avoid debating limits on conventional-weapons delivery capabilities. In this he is aided by decades of eye-glazing arms-control language that intimidates the uninitiated, and by the White House spin that the Pentagon fully supports his treaty. But New Start's limits on delivery systems reflect military judgments only marginally. Fundamentally, they are political, diplomatic and legal in nature.
The Pentagon is being told to structure its forces according to the treaty's limits, including a ceiling of 700 launchers. This sort of compulsion has happened before, as was the case with both Start I and Start II. Forced to live within limits, and knowing that thinking outside the treaty's four corners isn't career-enhancing, the military will do what it must. It has no other choice.
* WELL... GENERALS AND ADMIRALS COULD RESIGN IN ORDER TO BE FREE TO SPEAK OUT AGAINST THE TREATY. (*SHRUG*)
The Pentagon today is increasing planning for smaller-scale conflicts in which the need for global, conventional warhead launchers will be particularly acute. But New Start, with its myopic focus on Russian arms levels, will severely limit our small-war capabilities. Since launchers can be used for either conventional or nuclear purposes, limiting their number to 700 forces war-planners to consider that any launcher used for conventional purposes is in effect one less launcher in the nuclear arsenal. Both conventional and nuclear capabilities are needed, and yet New Start forces a damaging trade-off.
Moreover, on the other end of the threat spectrum, China is systematically expanding its nuclear-warhead and delivery capabilities, totally unconstrained by treaty limits.
http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article/546236/201009071835/The-Mess-Bush-Left-And-Other-Obama-Fables.aspx
President Obama boldly proclaims, "The buck stops here!" But, whenever his policies are criticized, he acts as if the buck stopped with George W. Bush.
The party line that we are likely to be hearing from now until the November elections is that Obama "inherited" the big federal budget deficits and that he has to "clean up the mess" left in the economy by the Republicans. This may convince those who want to be convinced, but it will not stand up under scrutiny.
No president of the United States can create either a budget deficit or a budget surplus. All spending bills originate in the House of Representatives, and all taxes are voted into law by Congress. Democrats controlled both houses of Congress before Barack Obama became president. The deficit he inherited was created by the congressional Democrats, including Sen. Barack Obama, who did absolutely nothing to oppose the runaway spending. He was one of the biggest of the big spenders.
* ALL TRUE! (NOT TO ABSOLVE BUSH AND CERTAINLY NOT TO ABSOLVE THE RINOs, BUT IF THEY REPRESENTED THE FRYING PAN, THAN CERTAINLY THE DEMS REPRESENT THE FIRE.)
The last time the federal government had a budget surplus, Bill Clinton was president, so it was called "the Clinton surplus." But Republicans controlled the House of Representatives, where all spending bills originate, for the first time in 40 years. It was also the first budget surplus in more than a quarter of a century.
* YEP.
The only direct power that any president has that can affect deficits and surpluses is the power to veto spending bills. President Bush did not veto enough spending bills, but Sen. Obama and his fellow Democrats in control of Congress were the ones who passed the spending bills.
Today, with Barack Obama in the White House, allied with Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi in charge in Congress, the national debt is a bigger share of the national output than it has been in more than half a century. And its share is projected to continue going up for years to come, becoming larger than national output in 2012.
* THESE ARE INDEED THE FACTS, MY FRIENDS... (*SIGH*)
Another political fable is that the current economic downturn is due to insufficient government regulation of the housing and financial markets. But it was precisely the government regulators, under pressure from politicians, who forced banks and other lending institutions to lower their standards for making mortgage loans.
These risky loans, and the defaults that followed, were what set off a chain reaction of massive financial losses that brought down the whole economy. Was this due to George W. Bush and the Republicans? Only partly. Most of those who pushed the lowering of mortgage lending standards were Democrats - notably Rep. Barney Frank and Sen. Christopher Dodd (though too many Republicans went along).
When President Bush said in 2004 that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac should be reined in, 76 members of the House of Representatives issued a statement to the contrary. These included Barney Frank, Nancy Pelosi, Maxine Waters and Charles Rangel.
* THE FACES OF THE DEMOCRATIC CONGRESSIONAL MAJORITY... (*SIGH*)
http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article/546283/201009071858/Sheriff-Joe-Arpaio-In-The-Dock.aspx
Our misnamed Department of Justice has filed a lawsuit against an Arizona sheriff at the top of the administration's enemies list.
The Justice Department has filed a lawsuit against the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office, the county itself and outspoken Sheriff Joe Arpaio.
Prosecute border sheriffs and sue states but protect the Black Panthers? Gotcha.
* WELCOME TO THE AGE OF OBAMA!
What makes the case interesting, as the Washington Examiner's Byron York reports, is that in September 2008, four months before the Obama administration took over and nine months before the Justice Department first informed Arpaio of its investigation, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) conducted its own investigation of Arpaio's office and procedures and found nothing inappropriate or illegal.
The Maricopa County Sheriff's Office has 189 officers trained under the federal 287(g) program to enforce federal immigration laws. According to the ICE report, "The OI (Homeland Security's Office of Investigation) and DRO (Detention and Removal Operations office) consider the conduct and performance of the MCSO ... officers to be professional and meeting the standards of the MOA."
Thomas Perez, assistant attorney general for the department's civil rights division [,seems to be the administration's point man on the case]. [N]ote...that Perez was the Justice Department point man in explaining to the U.S. Civil Rights Commission why Justice was reluctant - no, refused - to prosecute the New Black Panther Party for its voter intimidation outside a Philadelphia polling place in 2008.
(*SMIRK*)
While Arpaio is being persecuted, er, prosecuted by the Justice Department, Pinal County [AZ] Sheriff Paul Babeu notes that when 3,000 National Guard troops were requested by Arizona law enforcement and both U.S. senators, the Obama administration sent a paltry 30.
Incredible.
Meanwhile, the Bureau of Land Management has felt it necessary to place 15 signs along a 60-mile stretch of Interstate 8 that links Phoenix, San Diego and Tucson warning travelers that they "may encounter armed criminals and smuggling vehicles traveling at high speed." The signs are 70 to 80 miles north of the border in what may now be called "occupied Arizona."
This is unbelievable.
When the Deepwater Horizon oil-rig crisis hit, the administration's first response was to send a team of Justice Department lawyers and FBI agents to determine whom to prosecute. When Florida's Marco Rubio threatened the Senate bid of the Obama-friendly Charlie Crist, the IRS and the FBI opened investigations into the alleged misuse of Republican Party credit cards. And ObamaCare is riddled with fines and threats of imprisonment if you don't do what the government tells you.
Sheriff Joe Arpaio isn't the administration's only enemy threatened with government punishment. He's just at the top of the list right now.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/2a78bb78-bb2d-11df-b3f4-00144feab49a.html?ftcamp=rss
More than 500 women and children in the Democratic Republic of Congo have been raped in a systematic and organised campaign that United Nations peacekeepers "could have done more to prevent," the Security Council has been told.
(*SNORT*)
* AIN'T MULTILATERALISM GRAND!
Atul Khare, deputy head of peacekeeping, said: “While the primary responsibility for protection of civilians lies with the state, its national army and police force, clearly, we have also failed. Our actions were not adequate.”
* ...NOT ADEQUATE. (*SCOWL*) I SEE.
The rapes, mostly committed by anti-government rebels, happened just weeks after the Security Council voted to reduce the size of its 21,000-strong peacekeeping force under pressure from Joseph Kabila, president of Congo.
* HMM... ISN'T THE UNITED STATES A PERMANENT MEMBER OF THE SECURITY COUNCIL? DON'T WE HAVE VETO POWER...???
The true extent of the rape campaign trickled out only weeks after the incidents took place. Mr Khare, dispatched by Ban Ki-moon, UN secretary-general, to investigate the reports, said the toll in the latest attacks, notably in the villages of Luvungi and Uvira in South Kivu province, was twice as high as earlier estimates.
Some victims were attacked within a few miles of an outpost manned by UN peacekeeping soldiers.
* SICKENING. (AND TYPICAL.)
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/4843bd14-bb74-11df-a136-00144feab49a.html
In the ornate Shahista restaurant in Dubai, Afghans in traditional robes break the Ramadan fast with fare from their homeland, including “zaban” – or sheep’s tongue.
Yet the fleet of tinted and customised Mercedes parked outside the restaurant shows that the diners are not Afghan labourers who toil on the United Arab Emirates’ construction sites but scions of their country’s elite.
[A] scandal involving Kabul Bank, Afghanistan’s largest private lender, has highlighted the close but opaque ties between the Gulf’s commercial entrepot and the Afghan elite. The bank’s travails have also involved the blood relatives and political allies of President Hamid Karzai. It recently emerged that Sherkhan Farnood, then chairman of Kabul Bank and a key supporter of Mr Karzai’s government, had used the bank’s money to invest in Dubai real estate, including villas on the Palm Jumeirah artificial island. Mahmoud Karzai, the Afghan president’s brother and the bank’s third largest shareholder, with a 7.4% stake, lives in a beachside villa in Dubai.
* I'M SURE THESE SCUMBAGS APPRECIATE THE BLOOD AND TREASURE THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION AND DEMOCRATIC CONGRESS IS EXPENDING IN ORDER TO "HELP" AFGHANISTAN.
Mr Karzai, who bought his shareholding in the Kabul Bank through a loan from the same bank, says he was a “silent partner” in the enterprise. He will soon move out of the villa bought by Mr Farnood and rent another house nearby to avoid any impression of impropriety. He will lease the new villa for $5,000 a month from a “friend”, whom he declined to name.
[T]he Afghan business council estimates about $10 billion flows between Dubai and Afghanistan every year. Analysts and Afghans say most of it leaves the country and some of it is derived from corruption and shady business deals. “The closest functioning banking system is here, so a lot of the money coming in could be legitimate but a lot of it is not. It’s drug money, graft money, extortion money,” says Theodore Karasik, a director of the Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis.
* SO... HOW'S THE HOPE AND CHANGE WORKING OUT FOR YOU SO FAR?
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/7ef7e004-bb3a-11df-b3f4-00144feab49a.html
President Barack Obama on Wednesday [hawked a] $180 billion package of proposals to "stimulate" the anaemic US economy and show the American public he is working to boost the recovery.
* NOW IT'S $180 BILLION...?!?! YESTERDAY IT WAS "ONLY" $50 BILLION!
* SERIOUSLY... I CAN THINK OF NO OTHER REASONABLE EXPLANATION FOR THE PRESIDENT'S POLICIES OTHER THAN A DELIBERATE DESIRE TO BANKRUPT THE NATION AND CAUSE A ECONOMIC CRISIS. ("DON'T LET A GOOD CRISIS GO TO WASTE!")
At a speech in Cleveland, Ohio, Mr Obama made a strong case for permanently extending Bush-era tax cuts for the middle class.
* BUT I THOUGHT BUSH WAS THE DEVIL AND EVERYTHING HE DID WAS WRONG...???
* IN ANY CASE, THE POLITICIANS ARE DISTRACTING US FROM THE REALITY THAT WHAT'S NEEDED IS A THOROUGH RE-WRITE OF THE U.S. TAX CODE. TINKERING JUST AIN'T GONNA CUT IT.
The White House wants the top-tax cuts - which reduced the tax rate for individuals earning more than $200,000 and couples earning more than $250,000 from 39% to 35% - to expire at the end of the year.
* QUESTION: WHY SHOULD ANY AMERICAN HAVE TO PAY EVEN 35% OF HIS INCOME TO THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT? THROUGHOUT THE HISTORY OF MANKIND, GOD HAS BEEN PRETTY HAPPY WITH 10%! (*SMIRK*) SERIOUSLY... WHY SHOULD THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT GET TO TAKE MORE THAN 10%... 20%... 25%... EVEN UP TO 33% LAWFUL EARNINGS?
In his speech on Wednesday, Mr Obama pushed plans, already announced by the White House, to allow companies to write off all capital investments until the end of next year.
* AHH... BUT THE FLY IN THE OINTMENT IS THE DEFINITION OF "INVESTMENTS." ARE FANCY BUSINESS DINNERS "INVESTMENTS?" HOW ABOUT 5-STAR HOTEL SUITES? LIMOSINES? CORPORATE JETS? HOW ABOUT "INVESTMENTS" THAT FAIL TO TURN A PROFIT, THAT BECOME WHITE ELEPHANTS? WHY SHOULD THE AVERAGE TAXPAYER SUBSIDIZE BUSINESS SPENDING...???
[Obama] will also ask Congress to fund a $50 billion infrastructure plan to build roads, railways and airport runways, in addition to the investments made under the $862 billion stimulus package.
* SO LET ME GET THIS STRAIGHT: THE $50 BILLION IS IN ADDITION TO THE $180 BILLION THAT THE ARTICLE FOCUSES ON INITIALLY...?!?! (SO IT'S NOW $50 BILLION + $180 BILLION ON TOP OF THE INITIAL $862 BILLION...?!?!)
(*TEARING MY HAIR OUT*)
The third plank of Mr Obama’s new economic plans would call for Congress to expand and make permanent a business tax credit for research and development, costing about $100 billion over 10 years.
* FOLKS... THIS ADMINISTRATION IS ALL ABOUT CRONY CAPITALISM.
http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article/546302/201009071908/Not-So-Stimulating.aspx
* IT'S NOT JUST ME FOLKS! (*GRIN*) LOOK AT THE OPENING PARAGRAPH OF THIS IBD EDITORIAL!
The Obama administration's latest idea for "stimulating" the economy is - you guessed it - more spending. Is this just a campaign ploy, or is the White House ruining the economy on purpose?
* ...OR IS THE WHITE HOUSE RUINING THE ECONOMY ON PURPOSE.
* FOLKS... IT'S NOT JUST BILL BARKER ON HIS LITTLE BLOG (*CHUCKLE*) ASKING THIS QUESTION.
The President's latest plan calls for another $50 billion in "stimulus" for infrastructure. ... But why in the world do we need another stimulus when we're not even close to exhausting the funds allocated for the last one?
According to Darrell Issa, ranking member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, $275 billion of the initial $787 billion cost of that stimulus remains unspent.
* PAY ATTENTION, FOLKS; THIS AIN'T ROCKET SCIENCE! OBAMA AND THE DEMS ARE PLAYING US FOR FOOLS!
And of the $512 billion that has been spent, just $18.5 billion - or less than 7% - has been paid out by the Transportation Department, the main government infrastructure provider.
(*SNORT*) (*SHRUG*) SEE WHAT THEY'RE SAYING...? SEE WHAT I'M SAYING...?!?! THEY PROMISE YOU ONE THING AND DELIVER QUITE ANOTHER.
Here's what President Obama said about the stimulus bill he signed into law Feb. 17, 2009:
"Because of this investment, nearly 400,000 men and women will go to work rebuilding our crumbling roads and bridges, repairing our faulty dams and levees, bringing critical broadband connections to businesses and homes in nearly every community in America, upgrading mass transit, building high-speed rail lines that will improve travel and commerce throughout our nation."
Sounded great at the time, but few, if any, of those things got done.
(*NOD*)
Moreover, since the recession began, federal employment has jumped by 10%, or nearly 200,000 positions, while private-sector employment has plunged 7%, or 7.8 million jobs.
So who really benefited from the stimulus? Big Government and its unions.
(*NOD*)
The stimulus did do one thing, however: It set the stage for massive spending and an unprecedented expansion of the role of the U.S. government in the American economy. This, in retrospect, appears to be the real aim of the Democratic stimulus - not jobs or infrastructure or any other real-world accomplishment.
http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article/546302/201009071908/Not-So-Stimulating.aspx
Even as the President released his latest "stimulus" ideas, the CBO quietly issued its own estimate for spending over the next 10 years.
We were struck by the sheer size of it: $44.5 trillion from 2010 to 2020 - an 82% jump from $24.5 trillion spent in the last decade.
That, in a nutshell, is the real problem - not too little stimulus, but too much spending.
Over 10 years, the CBO sees deficits of $6.25 trillion.
* OH... AND GET THIS...
And to keep the projection that low, the agency had to pretend the Bush tax cuts all expire, that Congress does nothing about fixing the Alternative Minimum Tax, that Social Security and Medicare are allowed to fester, and that after all this stimulus is done, "future annual appropriations will be kept constant in real (inflation-adjusted) terms."
(*SMIRK*) (*SNICKER*)
Not one of those things is likely to happen.
A more realistic appraisal of the deficit comes from the Concord Coalition, which expects deficits more than twice as large - $15 trillion over 10 years, or $1.5 trillion a year on average. That could push U.S. publicly held debt from last year's level of $7.5 trillion, or 53% of GDP, to as much as $25.1 trillion, or 108% of GDP, in 2020.
These numbers may not mean much now, but they will soon: Such abrupt changes mark an economy careening towards bankruptcy. Piling on more spending now isn't just unwise policy, it's a form of fiscal insanity.
* AGAIN, FOLKS... ASK YOURSELVES... COULD THE DEMOCRATS REALLY BE THIS DUMB WHEN IT COMES TO BASIC MATH, OR... DO THEY HAVE A GOAL WHICH IN ORDER TO ACHIEVE REQUIRES A BIT MORE "CHANGE" THAN PEOPLE WOULD KNOWINGLY, WILLINGLY, ACCEPT?
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