Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Barker's Newsbites: Tuesday, February 8, 2011


Ask yourselves, folks... where else but here are you gonna stumble upon a video of a talkin' truck regaling you with an uplifting story of self-sacrifice?
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12 comments:

William R. Barker said...

http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2011-02-08-editorial08_ST1_N.htm?loc=interstitialskip

* BY SEN. JIM DEMINT (R-SC)

Endlessly borrowing more money to spend more money is a ruinous economic strategy, yet that's exactly what leaders in Washington are proposing.

President Obama wants to raise the debt ceiling for the fourth time since he entered office to allow the government to keep up its big spending spree.

Keep in mind, Congress has voted to raise the debt ceiling 10 times in the past 10 years - twice in 2008 and 2009.

Both parties bear responsibility. Since 1990, the debt has increased over 450%, from $3 trillion to over $14 trillion today.

It's on course to nearly double in the next 10 years, to $26 trillion.

Washington will never voluntarily shrink its size until it is forced to by law. Republicans should oppose another debt limit increase unless Congress first passes a balanced budget amendment that requires a two-thirds majority to raise taxes.

The borrow-and-spend strategists falsely claim a failure to increase the debt ceiling, again, will be "catastrophic."

(*SNICKER*) THEY'RE FRIGG'N LIARS. PERIOD.

As Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA) has noted, Treasury has the ability to prioritize payments on the debt without defaulting.

(*NOD*) EXACTLY!

Republicans have offered ways to begin cutting $2.5 trillion in spending over the next 10 years...

* WITH DEBT DEFICITS OF $1.5 TRILLION A YEAR $2.5 TRILLION IN SPENDING CUTS OVER 10 YEARS DOESN'T SOUND ALL THAT IMPRESSIVE, JIM. (STILL... HE'S ON THE RIGHT TRACK.)

Even President Obama's own bipartisan deficit commission concluded that massive spending cuts and entitlement reforms are critical to avoiding bankruptcy. Yet, the president and Democrats are ignoring the warnings and are calling for new spending under the euphemism of "investments."

A vote to increase the debt ceiling without any plan to cut spending is a vote to bring the debt even closer to crushing the economy.

* AGREED.

February 8, 2011 at 8:45 AM
William R. Barker said...

http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2011/02/07/school-sends-teachers-to-vegas-spa-on-taxpayers-dime/

The Chicago Public Schools system is suffering from a $700 million budget shortfall. So why did some educators travel to Las Vegas just days after a travel restriction was ordered?

(*SMIRK*)

Former Scammon Elementary School teacher Laura Hoffman is angry that 14 of her Chicago Public School co-workers went on an all-expense paid trip to a Las Vegas resort and spa for a conference last year.

* LISTEN. THE TEACHERS TOOK ADVANTAGE OF THE SITUATION; WATER UNDER THE BRIDGE. BUT AS FOR THE ADMINISTRATORS WHO GREEN-LIGHTED THE TRIP... THEY SHOULD BE FIRED. AS FOR THE SCHOOL BOARD MEMBERS WHO FAILED TO PROPERLY OVERSEE THEIR CHARGES... THERE'S ALWAYS THE NEXT ELECTION.

The school’s principal, Mary Weaver, went on the trip with her staff and [they] allegedly missed their own school’s report card pick up day.

* SCUM.

An analysis of an internal CPS investigation found hundreds of thousands of dollars in wasteful spending by Chicago School Board members. Tax dollars were spent on champagne costing $125 a bottle; thousands more on limousines, steak lunches and a food and liquor bill from a Soldier Field skybox event that alone cost more than $6,000.

* PERHAPS LAWS WERE BROKEN? IF SO... (*RUBBING MY HANDS*)... ARREST, TRY, CONVICT, AND JAIL THE SCUM!

In the case of the Las Vegas trip, a CPS spokesman says the conference was required for educational development plans...

* NEED I SAY MORE...???

February 8, 2011 at 9:45 AM
William R. Barker said...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704422204576130171566311388.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop

Bill O'Reilly's Fox interview with President Obama on Sunday [laid before viewers the] President's claim that "I didn't raise taxes once. I lowered taxes over the last two years."

(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)

The Presidency is demanding, and with the Egypt mess and his other duties, perhaps Mr. Obama has forgotten some of his tax achievements.

(*CHUCKLE*)

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.

As for tax increases on individuals, perhaps he forgot the health-care bill's new 0.9% 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.

February 8, 2011 at 10:00 AM
William R. Barker said...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703507804576130890724243616.html?mod=WSJ_hp_MIDDLENexttoWhatsNewsTop

* SUBTITLE: "FRIGG'N OBAMA - STILL AT IT!"

President Barack Obama's budget proposal is expected to give states a way to collect more payroll taxes from businesses...

(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)

The proposal would...[raise] the amount of wages on which companies must pay unemployment taxes to $15,000, more than double the $7,000 in place since 1983.

* I'M GUESSING NO CONNECTION WHATSOEVER TO ACTUARIAL REALITY...

(*SIGH*)

The plan, which would take effect in 2014, could increase payroll taxes by as much as $100 billion over a decade, according to a person involved in its construction.

(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)

To avoid hitting businesses with a tax increase during the economic recovery, the proposal would delay the new rules until 2014. The plan is expected to be included in Mr. Obama's budget proposal for fiscal 2012, to be released Monday.

(*STILL SHAKING MY HEAD*)

* PHONY, MANIPULATIVE, LYING BASTARD...

February 8, 2011 at 10:01 AM
Moose said...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/wikileaks/8304654/WikiLeaks-cables-US-agrees-to-tell-Russia-Britains-nuclear-secrets.html

Thought you'd find this interesting, Bill. Hope all is well.

Moose

February 8, 2011 at 12:41 PM
William R. Barker said...

Thanks, Moose.

I posted the news of this yesterday or perhaps the day before.

(See... if you read Barker's Newsbites EVERY DAY you wouldn't have to wait for the Telegraph!)

(*WINK*)

Thanks for stopping by!

BILL

February 8, 2011 at 2:07 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110208/ap_on_bi_ge/us_job_openings_2

Employers posted fewer job openings in December, the second straight month of declines.

* THE OBAMA RECOVERY CONTINUES...

(*SIGH*)

The Labor Department said Tuesday that employers advertised nearly 3.1 million jobs that month, a drop of almost 140,000 from November. That's the lowest total since September.

* CHRISTMAS IS OVER, KIDS...

* BTW... WHAT "TYPES" OF "JOB OPENINGS" DO YOU SUPPOSE WE'RE TALKING ABOUT?

(*SMIRK*)

Nearly 14.5 million people were out of work in December.

(*SARCASTIC CLAP-CLAP-CLAP*)

[O]n average there were 4.7 people competing for each available job. That's below the ratio of 6-3, reached in November 2009, the highest since the department began tracking job openings in 2000.

* WAY TO GO, OBAMA...!!! HEY BERNANKE... GREAT JOB...! MARKETS ARE UP...!!!

(*SNICKER*) (*SNORT*) (*SMIRK*)

February 8, 2011 at 2:07 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/259266/yes-we-icani-cut-defense-budget-stephanie-gutmann

I love my fellow conservatives (well, most of them) but often find myself getting very frustrated over an apparent blind spot. There’s this idea that cutting spending is great, except for the military budget, which apparently is sacred.

* YEP! RIGHT ON TARGET. THERE CAN BE NO SACRED COWS.

“How much is world order worth?” asked a prominent analyst in the Wall Street Journal the other day.

* OFF THE TOP OF MY HEAD... I'D SAY WE IMMEDIATELY BRING THE DEFENSE BUDGET DOWN TO 2006 LEVELS AND THEN LOOK TO CUT BEYOND THAT.

Another big shot opined in Commentary that “serious cuts to the defense budget” necessarily mean that “the armed services are almost certainly going to have to make do in the future with even fewer resources than they have in the past few years.”

* RIDICULOUS. FURTHERMORE, IF IT WERE TRUE (WHICH IT ISN'T), THE LOGICAL WAY TO DEAL WITH THIS WOULD BE TO CUT BACK ON OVERSEAS COMMITMENTS.

The Department of Defense is a government bureaucracy, cousin to the Department of Education, the Department of Agriculture, and the rest. That means it has the same Dawn of the Dead–zombie instincts. Its underlying, primal, blind, grasping need is to feed and repel threats - and always, always to expand itself.

(*NOD*)

If the U.S. military seems perpetually short on money (as when soldiers in Iraq complained about not having hard-shelled vehicles), it’s because a top layer of bureaucracy soaks up most of the bucks before they can trickle down to the guys on the ground. Conservatives understand this dynamic when applied to the Department of Education, so why not the DOD?

* YEP...!

[C]ommon sense says there’s a nice layer of lard that can be pared before we hit muscle and bone. Who knows, the services might even work better if forced to run a little leaner. The Marines, the service that gets the least money per capita, is also considered to be the most effective.

(*NOD*)

At least we could go over the budgets with the proverbial fine-toothed comb. At least we could talk about what we might cut.

February 8, 2011 at 2:07 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/housing/2011-02-04-under-water-chart_N.htm

At least half of homeowners with a mortgage owe more than their homes are worth in 17 of 386 U.S. counties. Counties with the highest percentage of mortgages under water as of Sept. 30:

1) Clark County, Nevada

2) Osceola County, Florida

3) Merced County, California

* O.K., KIDS... ONE MORE TIME...

* THIS WHOLE "UNDERWATER" BUSINESS IS BULLSHIT. RAISE YOUR HAND IF YOU'RE "UNDERWATER" ON YOUR CARS... YOUR FURNITURE... YOUR JEWERY... ETC.

* THE ONLY THINK THAT MATTERS - THE ONLY THING THAT SHOULD MATTER - IS WHETHER A HOMEOWNER CAN AFFORD TO KEEP UP WITH THEIR MORTGAGE AND PROPERTY/SCHOOL TAX BILLS. IF THE ANSWER IS YES... FINE; IF THE ANSWER IS NO... THEN THE BANK GETS THE HOUSE AND HOPEFULLY SELLS IT TO A RESPONSIBLE NEW OWNER WHO GOT A GOOD DEAL DUE TO THE PREVIOUS "OWNER'S" IRRESPONSIBILITY.

February 8, 2011 at 2:07 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://issa.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=625&Itemid=92

President Barack Obama’s $814 billion economic expansion has woefully failed to reach each of its self-imposed targets.

The president’s stimulus package promised (after adjusting for inflation) that gross domestic product in the fourth quarter of 2010 would be roughly $15,200 billion. Yet the latest figures, released this month, fell short by some $400 billion. (Instead of being an important milestone for the global recovery, the data are just one further example of the failure of Mr Obama’s Keynesian misadventure.)

The fourth quarter target was set in a now-infamous January 2009 report, written by Christina Romer and Jared Bernstein, then economic advisers to Mr Obama and vice-president Joe Biden. Their analysis also concluded that US unemployment would never surpass 8%, and by now would be in the neighbourhood of 7%.

Payroll employment was also projected to be 137.6 million.

In fact, unemployment has stayed stubbornly above 9% for 20 consecutive months, while employment is currently 6.8 million below [Obama's] target - and that is without even counting those who have given up looking for work.

(*SIGH*)

The figures get worse the more you dig into them.

Some 47 out of 50 US states, for instance, have lost jobs since the stimulus was passed.

A recent report from the House Committee on Ways and Means also detailed further failures, in part using a composite measure of debt held by the public and the unemployment rate - dubbed the “Obama Misery Index” - which has increased by a staggering 70% since January 2009.

(NOT TO BE CONFUSED WITH THE TRADITIONAL CARTER YEARS MISERY INDEX WHICH ADDED UNEMPLOYMENT TO INFLATION TO REACH A TOTAL.)

The stimulus did not even deliver on the kinds of jobs it promised to fund. Mr Obama pledged that 90% of the jobs the package “created or saved” - a dubious calculus already rejected by the body charged with stimulus oversight - would come from the private sector. Studies have since concluded that the majority of jobs funded were in the public sector.

(*RUEFUL SNORT*)

The abysmal results came as no surprise to those who knew that the Keynesian doctrine of spending your way to prosperity had been discredited decades ago.

The stimulus packages has left taxpayers $814 billion out of pocket, plus interest.

Mr Obama’s Keynesian experiment amounted to little more than an exercise in the redistribution of wealth from our grandchildren, to today’s special interest groups.

* I WONDER IF SOME DAY IN THE NOT SO DISTANT FUTURE GOLDMAN SACHS IS GOING TO BE RENAMED GOLDMAN, SACHS & OBAMA?

* FOLKS... ALL WISEASS CRACKS ASIDE... THERE'S NOTHING FUNNY ABOUT WHAT OBAMANOMICS HAS DONE TO THIS COUNTRY.

* ...AND AGAIN... SERIOUSLY... WE ALL KNOW WHO HAS PROFITED BY OBAMANOMICS.

(*NOD*)

February 8, 2011 at 2:46 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.detnews.com/article/20110208/METRO/102080391/1361/Details-of-Obama-s-upcoming-trip-to-U.P.-released

Northern Michigan University will be in the spotlight Thursday as the Upper Peninsula college plays host to President Barack Obama.

[The President's] remarks at the university - expected to highlight the institution's growing WiMax high-speed wireless data network - are slated to begin at 1:20 p.m.

The speech in the university's Superior Dome sports facility is open to the public by invitation only.

* SO MUCH FOR BEING A PUBLIC TAXPAYER SUPPORTED UNIVERSITY...

February 8, 2011 at 2:46 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41021318/ns/business/

Vice President Joe Biden on Tuesday announced an ambitious $53 billion program to build new high-speed rail networks and make existing ones faster over the next six years.

* I TRULY WONDER IF A MILD FORM OF MENTAL RETARDATION IS AT THE HEART OF JOE BIDEN'S PROBLEM.

(*ROLLING MY EYES*)

President Barack Obama's budget for fiscal year 2012, to be unveiled next week, includes $8 billion for the plan. The rest of the money would be allocated over the six-year time period.

* OBVIOUSLY WE'RE TALKING "DEAD ON ARRIVAL," BUT THE LARGER POINT IS THAT THIS TELLS YOU WHO THE TRUE OBAMA IS. HE HAS NO INTEREST IN CUTTING SPENDING, DEFICITS, OR DEBT. TO THE CONTRARY, HIS GOAL IS TO FURTHER INDEBT US AND OUR CHILDREN AND GRANDCHILDREN.

* I TRULY BELIEVE OBAMA IS DELIBERATELY TRYING TO HURT OUR COUNTRY. THERE'S JUST NO OTHER EXPLANATION.

Obama has said he wants to target "investments" in areas such as infrastructure...

* WAIT FOR IT... WAIT FOR IT...

...while reducing spending to tackle the budget deficit.

(*SIGH*)

* FOLKS... THEY'RE NOT EVEN TRYING TO COME ACROSS AS SERIOUS.

The announcement follows Monday's news that Amtrak, the nation's largest passenger rail service, plans a $13.5 billion commuter-rail project connecting New York City and New Jersey, reviving an idea rejected late last year by New Jersey's Republican governor, Chris Christie, as too expensive.

* I'M ASSUMING THE REPUBLICANS WILL BE ABLE TO SCOTCH THIS IDEA.

February 8, 2011 at 2:47 PM

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