Monday, October 17, 2011

Barker's Newsbites: Monday, October 17, 2011


And to think... since 2009 it's only gotten progressively worse!

(Get it? Progressively worse! I made a punny...!!!)
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5 comments:

Mike D said...

Nope, nothing wrong here...

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/10/drone-virus-nuisance/

October 17, 2011 at 11:42 AM
William R. Barker said...

Jeezus Christ, Mike... thanks for bringing this to our attention!

Holy Skynet!

October 17, 2011 at 2:35 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://paul.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1919:the-business-of-government&catid=62:texas-straight-talk&Itemid=69

* BY THE HON. RON PAUL (R-TX)

Amid the din of economic nonsense being bandied about since the collapse of the housing bubble and the steep ramping up of our national debt, there has been the persistent refrain that Washington should be run more like a business.

Businesses seek primarily to increase their revenues and profits. Government revenue depends on taxes. Government accumulates taxmoney by squeezing it out of people's productive earnings with threats of audits, fines and imprisonment. Our government already collects roughly $2.1 trillion annually from the productive taxpayers of America. We hardly need to increase our federal government's revenues like a private business!

* HEAR! HEAR!

Businesses sell products or services to voluntary buyers, always looking to increase their market share as much as possible. But what is the federal government's product or service? Rules, regulations, bureaucracy, paperwork, red tape, hoops to jump through, uneven protection and security from people with guns, coercion and compliance through force and confiscation of assets, militarism instead of national defense, and of course a vast welfare state. Do we need more of these government services? Hardly. In fact, we have far too many of these destructive things already.

(*NOD*)

What we need is more freedom. Freedom is the simple ability of people to live their lives as they see fit without government coercion, provided they do not initiate force or fraud against others. What we really need is a less coercive government, not more revenues.

* YES...!!!

Washington needs to stop seeing itself as a growth industry... Washington certainly has expanded and grown and accumulated a great deal of the people's capital for itself, but this has been at the expense of our nation's prosperity. This trend needs to be reversed.

(*NOD*)

We don't need yet another "jobs" bill to supposedly put the American people back to work. Politicians need to realize that, aside from outright hiring some 14 million people, government does not create jobs. The only thing government does is hinder job creation by getting in the way and consuming otherwise private resources. Therefore, the most useful thing government can do for unemployment is to "liquidate" much of what government does in the first place.

* YES...!!!

One plain example is our tax policy that encourages U.S. corporations to accumulate foreign earnings abroad rather than repatriate such earnings. Currently there is over $1 trillion of capital that companies are keeping overseas because of the 35% tax charged for bringing it back [home]. Our government literally is pushing capital and jobs overseas that could be used to hire an estimated 2.5 million people here at home.

(*PURSED LIPS*) (*DOWNCAST EYES*) (*SHAKING MY HEAD AT THE ABSURDITY OF GOVERNMENT POLICIES*)

Businesses create jobs. Government is not a business. We don't need more stimulus or phony jobs bills. We don't need more revenue - $2 trillion is plenty to fund the federal government annually.

What we do need is a wholesale rejection of government as a central economic planner.

(*STANDING OVATION*)

October 17, 2011 at 10:06 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://blog.heritage.org/2011/10/17/morning-bell-1000-days-under-president-obama/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=Morning%2BBell

Today marks the 1,000th day of Barack Obama’s presidency, and unfortunately for America, those days have been marked by deeper deficits, lost jobs, prolonged unemployment, and bigger government.

* ACTUALLY... TO BE TOTALLY FAIR... SINCE PELOSI AND REID TOOK POWER IN JANUARY 2007 AND CONTROLLED CONGRESS THRU 2010... WELL... THEY TOO DESERVE "DISHONORABLE MENTION."

The national debt stands at $14.9 trillion - $4.2 trillion of which has been added since Obama took his oath of office.

* ONE... MORE... TIME: THE DEMS CONTROLLED CONTROLLED BOTH HOUSES OF CONGRESS IN 2007 AND 2008 (AS WELL AS 2009 AND 2010); LAYING THE SPENDING TAB AT THE FEET OF THE DEMOCRATS MUST START IN JANUARY 2007... NOT JANUARY 2009.

* WHY DO EVEN SELF-DESCRIBED CONSERVATIVES ALL TOO OFTEN NEGLECT TO POINT OUT WHAT I'VE JUST POINTED OUT? I DON'T KNOW. STUPIDITY...???

The unemployment rate has been above 9% for 840 of the 1,000 days [Obama has sat in the Oval Office], and the average unemployed worker has been without a job for more than 9 months. All told, 2.2 million jobs have been lost under Obama’s watch...

(*SIGH*)

Unfortunately, instead of leading America toward fiscal sanity and a stronger economy, the President is taking the country in the opposite direction. Last week, his latest proposal to “stimulate” the economy with another $447 billion in spending failed to pass the [Democrat-controlled] Senate, but instead of recognizing that more taxing and spending is not what America wants or needs, he’s redoubling his efforts.

Today, the President is starting another bus tour to sell a different version of the same plan–this time broken up into pieces of taxing and spending still big enough to choke a horse. It’s the same plan, only in different packaging.

(*MIGRAINE HEADACHE*)

While it’s good news that the [Democrat-controlled] Senate rejected the President’s jobs plan, the bad news is that the [Reid] Senate has utterly failed to help put America back on a strong fiscal path. [I]t’s been 900 days since Senate Democrats last adopted a formal budget plan...

* I POINT THIS SAD TRUTH OUT FAIRLY OFTEN HERE AT USUALLY RIGHT, BUT I DOUBT MORE THAN A RELATIVE HANDFUL OF AMERICANS ARE AWARE OF THIS REALITY.

What we have seen from the Obama Administration is bigger government, more regulations, and massive amounts of government spending in the hopes of stimulating the economy. The trouble is that it hasn’t worked... Obama promised that his $787 billion stimulus would save or create 3.3 million jobs by the end of 2010. It didn’t, and given the jobs that were lost, he came up 7.3 million jobs short of his goal.

(*SIGH*)

His health care plan, better known as ObamaCare, did not reduce health care costs as promised and is in fact responsible for increasing costs in 2011. On top of that, the law will price many unskilled workers out of full-time employment.

(*GNASHING MY TEETH*)

Over the last 1,000 days, America has seen increased regulations, a 9,000-earmark omnibus bill, a government union bailout, a Wall Street reform bill that will do more harm than good...a refusal to expand domestic energy production, federal overreach into education, an undermining of the rule of law, and...

* AND ON AND ON AND ON. (*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*) NEWSBITE AFTER NEWSBITE CHRONICLE THE DISASTERS OF THE AGE OF OBAMA.

October 17, 2011 at 10:24 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://blog.heritage.org/2011/10/14/morning-bell-why-obamacare-might-cost-you-a-job/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=Morning%2BBell

Back in February 2010, when Congress was still debating ObamaCare, then-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) proclaimed to America that the law “will create 400,000 jobs almost immediately.”

(*SNORT*)

[A]ccording to a new report by Heritage’s James Sherk, ObamaCare will have the opposite effect - pricing many unskilled workers out of full-time employment due to the law’s requirement that employers offer health benefits to full-time employees.

(*BANGING MY HEAD ON THE DESKTOP*)

According to Sherk, the minimum cost of employing full-time workers under Obamacare amounts to an average of $27,500, more than what many unskilled employees produce.

(*BANGING HARDER*)

He explains in his paper, “ObamaCare Will Price Less Skilled Workers Out of Full-Time Jobs” why increased costs will lead employers to shift to employing part-time workers:

* KEEP READING!

"After paying the new health premiums, the minimum wage, payroll taxes, and unemployment insurance taxes, hiring a full-time worker will cost employers at least $10.03 per hour. Full-time workers with family health plans will cost $13.75 per hour. Employers who hire workers with productivity below these rates will lose money. Businesses employing less skilled workers will probably respond by dumping their employees onto the federally subsidized health care exchanges and replacing full-time positions with part-time jobs."

(*SIGH*)

Fewer full-time jobs in favor of more part-time positions is not what America needs, particularly as it struggles with a stagnant economy, 9.1% unemployment and 14,000,000 people out of work.

[J]ust when the United States needs businesses to expand, grow, and invest, ObamaCare is piling on the costs and regulations - making it more difficult for businesses to create new jobs.

* FOLKS... I CAN'T GO ON. FOLLOW THE LINK TO READ THE FULL HERITAGE WHITE POWER FOR YOURSELVES IF YOU CAN STOMACH DOING SO.

October 17, 2011 at 10:39 PM

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