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2013
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February
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- Barker's Newsbites: Thursday, February 28, 2013
- Barker's Newsbites: Wednesday, February 27, 2013
- Barker's Ramblings
- Pat Buchanan (and yours truly) Opine on What the S...
- Barker's Newsbites: Monday, February 25, 2013
- Weekend Newsbites: Sat. & Sun., Feb. 23 & 24, 2013
- The Wisdom of Patrick J. Buchanan
- Barker's Newsbites: Thursday, February 21, 2013
- Barker's Newsbites: Wednesday, February 20, 2013
- Barker's Newsbites: Tuesday, February 19, 2013
- Barker's Newsbites: Monday, February 18, 2013
- Barker's Newsbites: Thursday, February 14, 2013
- Barker's Newsbites: Wednesday, February 13, 2013
- Barker's Newsbites: Monday, February 11, 2013
- I... Want... Them... Dead...!!!
- Barker's Newsbites: Friday, February 8, 2013
- Censor the Truth...? Or Just Ignore It...?
- Barker's Newsbites: Thursday, February 7, 2013
- Just a Quick Note...
- Weekend Newsbites: Sat. & Sun., Feb. 2 & 3, 2013
- And We're Back! Dow 14,000 Fuels a New Wealth Boom!
- Barker's Newsbites: Friday, February 1, 2013
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February
(22)
About Me
- William R. Barker
- Pearl River, NY High School Class of '81; Northeastern University, Boston, MA Class of '87.
8 comments:
* THREE-PARTER... (Part 1 of 3)
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323468604578248111350472602.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop
President Reagan inspired and cut taxes, [but] he did not reduce the deficit.
* NO PRESIDENT CAN BY HIMSELF. IT TAKES CONGRESS!
He did not even cut the budget.
* AGAIN... THE PRESIDENT CAN PROPOSE... BUT CONGRESS CONTROLS THE PURSE STRINGS.
But if you look back, past Dwight Eisenhower and around the curve of history, you can find a Republican who did all those things: Calvin Coolidge.
A New Englander and former Massachusetts governor, Coolidge came to Washington as vice president and moved into the White House only in 1923 after the sudden death of President Warren Harding.
He later won the office himself and served until 1929.
The 30th president cut the top income-tax rate to 25% (lower than the 28% of the historic Reagan cut of 1986). Coolidge reduced the national debt and balanced the budget. When he departed the White House for his home in Northampton, Mass., he left a federal budget smaller than the one he found.
* GOD BLESS CALVIN COOLIDGE!
* CONTINUING... (Part 2 of 3)
Three factors gave Silent Cal the ability to cut as he did, each suggesting a governing approach that would be useful today.
The first advantage was a gift from his predecessor, President Harding: the Budget and Accounting Act of 1921. Theretofore, the president had enjoyed no general oversight of the budget. Bills came to the chief executive's desk like requests crafted by clever children, hard to turn down. Under the Accounting Act, the executive branch gained the authority to present a unified budget and a research staff in the form of the Budget Bureau, a forerunner to today's Office of Management and Budget. The executive also had the authority to impound money already appropriated.
The second advantage was one Coolidge himself supplied: the discipline to use budget tools, new and old. Harding had dramatically cut the budget, still bloated from World War I, but he lacked the stamina to keep up the work. Harding also made bad appointments of profligates or outright criminals, whose corrupt agencies undermined his savings drive. By the time Harding died,
Congress was already weary of post-war austerity and confident it could squeeze more spending out of Coolidge, who might only hold office until elections the next year. But Coolidge came in like a lion, determined to make austerity permanent. Coolidge met with his budget director, Gen. Herbert Lord, on his first day in office and routinely thereafter. The two men soon announced that they would deepen planned cuts in two politically sensitive areas: veterans and on District of Columbia public works. "I am for economy, and after that I am for more economy," Coolidge told voters — who gladly kept him in the White House when he ran in 1924.
Against Congress, Coolidge also moved boldly. The jovial Harding had vetoed only six bills. Coolidge vetoed 50. "It is much more important to kill bad bills than to pass good ones," Coolidge once advised his father.
Coolidge proved a maestro of the pocket veto. He twice vetoed farming subsidies and he stopped government entry into the utilities industry by killing a project to operate the old wartime plant at Muscle Shoals in Alabama.
* TO BE CONTINUED...
* CONCLUDING... (Part 3 of 3)
Coolidge's third advantage was insight into what might be called fiscal trust.
The president understood that ambitious budget cuts would be accepted if he could "align" them with ambitious tax cuts. The press wondered how two such taciturn men as Coolidge and his Treasury secretary, Andrew Mellon, managed to chat long enough to plot a tax crusade. But the two shared an outlook and "conversed in pauses," as was written at the time.
After congressional resistance compromised their first legislation so badly that an editorial in this newspaper assailed lawmakers for "hazing the president," Coolidge and Mellon redoubled their effort. Finally, in 1926, Coolidge won his 25% tax rate. Coolidge and Mellon carefully underscored the technical evidence, and there was plenty, that greater revenues might follow tax rate cuts. But they still insisted on twinning tax cuts with budget cuts, so voters and markets would never be betrayed. When an admirer in South Africa sent two lion cubs to the president, Coolidge named them Budget Bureau and Tax Reduction to emphasize the linked approach.
President Reagan recognized Coolidge's achievement, and upon taking office in 1981 he had a neglected Coolidge picture restored to a place of honor near Lincoln and Jefferson in the Cabinet Room. It is too much to hope that President Obama would take Coolidge's example to heart. But those who are even now pondering presidential runs for 2016 would do well to heed Silent Cal's deeds.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323495104578312144239116904.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop
First President Obama rehabilitates the reputation of the Cayman Islands as a tax shelter by nominating Jack Lew to be Treasury Secretary...
* YES... TO FOLLOW IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF TIM "THE TAX CHEAT" GEITHNER.
...and now Mr. Obama's most famous business cheerleader Warren Buffett is bidding to revive the good name of the private-equity leveraged buyout.
* I'VE JUST EMAILED THIS ARTICLE TO "HE WHOSE NAME DARE NOT BE MENTIONED." (WHO IS A HUGE BUFFETT FAN!) (OR AT LEAST... WHO WAS A HUGE BUFFETT FAN...)
Mr. Buffett's contribution to high-debt takeover finance comes in the form of his conglomerate's proposed $23 billion acquisition of H.J. Heinz, the ketchup and food company.
Berkshire Hathaway is supplying some $12 billion in return for 50% ownership, while leaving the operations to its acquisition partner, the Brazilian-owned private-equity firm, 3G Capital.
* BRAZILIAN-OWNED PRIVATE-EQUITY FIRM...
(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)
Mr. Buffett has invested in many famous consumer brands over the years, but what is fascinating here is the role of 3G Capital, which has a reputation for cost-cutting and layoffs that would make Bain Capital blush. In October 2010, for example, 3G Capital bought Burger King for about $4 billion including debt from a group that included Bain, Goldman Sachs and TPG. The company proceeded to fire the CEO and cut the fast-food chain's employees by thousands in little more than a year. The Wall Street Journal reports that 413 people were sacked on a single day in December 2010.
However, profits began to rise, the company is now adding new restaurants, and 3G Capital was able to take Burger King public again last June after only 20 months of private ownership.
To believers in free markets, this sounds like a classic private-equity turnaround in which better management improves the value of a business.
But Burger King and 3G Capital have also been targets of liberal media critics who view private-equity firms as rapacious capitalists.
Imagine how 3G Capital's cost-cutting at Burger King would look if compiled by an Obama Super Pac into a black-and-white TV ad featuring interviews with workers who lost their jobs.
Heinz has a reputation for being leaner and better run than Burger King was, so perhaps 3G Capital will need to be less ruthless. The buyers have promised to keep the Heinz headquarters in Pittsburgh. But the takeover will also be financed with significant new borrowing, which the Wall Street Journal reports will double Heinz's debt load to more than $12 billion.
(Fitch Ratings downgraded Heinz's debt to BB+, or junk bond territory, citing the heavier debt load.)
(Heinz will also have to pay Berkshire a 9% rate on its investment in preferred shares, or about $720 million a year.)
The usual media critics of private equity are ignoring 3G Capital's takeover history, perhaps because of the role of Mr. Buffett, the billionaire patron saint of taxing the rich. The proposed deal is even being portrayed as one sign of the return of business animal spirits and a healthier economy. So much the better if they're right, but Mr. Romney is still entitled to some head-shaking about deal-making and political double standards.
http://www.judicialwatch.org/press-room/press-releases/jw-releases-confidential-usda-videos-revealing-cultural-sensitivity-training-program/
Judicial Watch today released previously unseen USDA videos revealing a compulsory “Cultural Sensitivity Training” program.
A whistleblower reported to Judicial Watch that employees were required to bang on tables, chanting in unison “The pilgrims were illegal aliens” while being instructed to no longer use the word “minorities,” but to replace it with “emerging majorities.”
Judicial Watch received the videos pursuant to a May 18, 2012, Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.
The sensitivity training sessions, described as “a huge expense” by diversity awareness trainer and self-described “citizen of the world” Samuel Betances, were held on USDA premises. The diversity event is apparently part of what USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack described in a memo sent to all agency employees as a “new era of Civil Rights” and “a broader effort towards cultural transformation at USDA.”
In 2011 and 2012, the USDA paid Betances and his firm nearly $200,000 for their part in the “cultural transformation” program.
USDA Training Administrator, Vincent Loran, in an October 10, 2011, email previously revealed by Judicial Watch, asked Betances for a copy of a training video vowing to keep it secret. “It will not be used for or show [sic] in any way shape or form,” Loran promised. Nevertheless, Judicial Watch was able to obtain the video.
“This USDA diversity training video depicts out-of-control political correctness,” said Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch. “Can someone please explain how any of this helps USDA employees to better serve the American taxpayer? This video further confirms that politically-correct diversity training programs are both offensive and a waste of taxpayer money. No wonder it took over half a year to obtain this video from the Obama administration.”
http://dailycaller.com/2013/02/18/usdamexican-consulates-to-immigrants-dont-worry-food-stamps-wont-affect-citizenship-chances/#ixzz2LMsdIOQX
The United States Department of Agriculture has been working to dispel immigrants’ concerns that getting on Food Stamps will harm their chances of becoming U.S. citizens.
* OF... COURSE... THEY... ARE...
(*SIGH*)
The USDA addresses those fears in Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or food stamp, brochures it distributes to Mexican consulates as part of its “partnership” with the Mexican government...
(*MIGRAINE HEADACHE*)
...“to help educate eligible Mexican nationals living in the United States about available nutrition assistance.”
* THE BARKER FIVE POINT PLAN: 1) SEND; 2) 'EM; 3) BACK; 4) TO; 5) MEXICO
In one portion of the brochure, USDA’s text asks, “If I get on SNAP benefits, will I be a ‘public charge?’” The brochure then answers: “No. You and your family can apply for and receive SNAP benefits without hurting your chance of becoming U.S. citizens.”
* WHICH IS THE FUCKING PROBLEM...!!!
The brochure further advises immigrants that members of their family could qualify for food stamps, even if they do not. “If you are not eligible due to your immigration status, your legal immigrant or citizen children may still qualify,” the brochure reads. ”You do not have to provide immigration information about yourself when you apply for your legal immigrant or citizen children.”
* SOME "PARTNERSHIP" WITH MEXICO, HUH?
Legal immigrants may obtain SNAP benefits after a five-year wait. Children under 18, refugees, asylees, and some disabled and elderly do not have to wait, as the pamphlet notes.
(*CLAP...CLAP...CLAP*)
The USDA/Mexico partnership started in 2004 under the Bush administration.
(*CLAP...CLAP...CLAP*)
Since that time, USDA personnel have met more than 150 times with the Mexican government to promote American nutrition-assistance programs.
(*PURSED LIPS*)
An analysis of March 2011 Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey data by Steven Camarota, director of research for the Center for Immigration Studies, revealed that heads of households born in Mexico are the most likely nationality to be on some form of food assistance, with 45.3% reporting use of food assistance.
[I]n general 24.1% of all immigrant household heads report some food assistance use.
(*CLAP...CLAP...CLAP*
[F]ood stamp use (or potential food stamp use) is not taken into account when the government considers an applicant’s request for an immigration status adjustment or entry into the United States — nor is use of the majority of the government’s more than 80 federal means-tested assistance programs.
* THE INMATES ARE RUNNING THE ASYLUM...
The Daily Caller has previously reported that the restriction on public-charge entries (contained in the Immigration and Nationality Act) are currently minimally enforced, and the enforcement of immigrants granted legal access who subsequently become public charges is essentially non-existent.
USDA did not respond to request for comment.
* TWO-PARTER... (Part 1 of 2)
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/340972/faux-empiricist-rich-lowry
The least-plausible sentence in the English language is “We know this works,” when those words are spoken by President Barack Obama.
He said them the other day in his State of the Union address about early-childhood education.
President Obama called for universal pre-school funded by the [indebted, chronically deficit-running] federal government in cooperation with the [debt-ridden, many to soon require bailing out by the indebted, chronically deficit-running federal government] states.
He cited “study after study” showing that "investment" in pre-K pays for itself several times over by creating better outcomes for children.
* IT DOESN'T. READ ON.
He said this about two months after the release of a devastating report on the ineffectiveness of the federal government’s already existing $8 billion-a-year pre-K program, Head Start.
The study wasn’t published by The Heritage Foundation.
The Kochs didn’t fund it.
It was conducted by the Department of Health and Human Services, which presumably doesn’t have a right-wing agenda or bristle with hostility toward children.
Grover Whitehurst of the Brookings Institution calls the study “one of the most ambitious, methodologically rigorous, and expensive federal-program evaluations carried out in the last quarter century.”
He might have added “one of the most inconvenient.”
Since it was released the Friday before Christmas, the best day of the year to bury bad news, even the president and his speechwriters might have missed it. The HHS study concluded: “There were initial positive impacts from having access to Head Start, but by the end of 3rd grade there were very few impacts . . . in any of the four domains of cognitive, social-emotional, health and parenting practices. The few impacts that were found did not show a clear pattern of favorable or unfavorable impacts for children.”
* FOLKS... THIS MERELY CONFIRMED WHAT WE ALREADY KNEW FROM DECADES OF PREVIOUS RESEARCH.
(*SIGH*)
* TO BE CONTINUED...
* CONCLUDING... (Part 2 of 2)
In other words, paraphrasing [what] the president [should have] said, “we know this program does not work.”
One would have thought that an elaborate, state-of-the-art study of Head Start would have merited mention in a speech advocating expansion of Head Start–like programs. One would have hoped a brave policy wonk would have piped up in the drafting process and told the president, “Uh, sir, what you are about to say about this issue is so selective as to verge on an outright lie.”
(*SNORT*)
Instead, the president invoked “study after study” to create an impression of empirical certainty that, at the very least, doesn’t exist. He said the experience of Oklahoma and Georgia with pre-K is that it makes it more likely kids will go on to graduate high school, hold jobs, and form stable families. (Glenn Kessler, the fact-checker at the Washington Post, interviewed people close to the Oklahoma and Georgia programs, and they didn’t know what the president was talking about. They are hopeful about early results, but don’t have anything close to long-term returns.)
Believers in pre-K usually cite the success of the Perry Pre-school Project and the Abecedarian Project, widely heralded early-childhood education programs from the 1960s and the 1970s. But Grover Whitehurst notes what sets them apart: They were very small, lavishly funded, multiyear programs run by small teams of highly committed experts. The question is whether they can replicate them on a vast scale. The 40-year experience of Head Start, now serving 1 million children, says “no.”
If the state of the research mattered to the president, he would be cautious rather than audacious in his pre-K goals. He would focus on at-risk kids, who have the most to gain from pre-K, rather than launching a new universal program. He would want more research on what does and doesn’t work at the state level rather than declaring the question settled for all time. He would support incrementalism rather than a vast expansion on top of a failed Head Start.
* BUT THIS PRESIDENT ISN'T ABOUT WHAT WORKS...
President Obama has an ideological commitment to an expansive government and an unshakable faith in its ability, given enough funding and the right rules and regulations, to overcome any obstacle. So impervious is his point of view to the evidence that even his own Department of Health and Human Services can’t penetrate it.
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