Tag: budget

Detroit: the triumph of progressive public policy.

10:21 am

Detroit: the triumph of progressive public policy.

Imagine a city where all the major economic planks of the statist or “progressive” platform have been enacted:

  • A “living wage” ordinance, far above the federal minimum wage, for all public employees and private contractors.
  • A school system that spends significantly more per pupil than the national average.
  • A powerful school employee union that militantly defends the exceptional pay, benefits and job security it has won for its members.
  • Other government employee unions that do the same for their members.
  • A tax system that aggressively redistributes income from businesses and the wealthy to the poor and to government bureaucracies.

Would this be a shining city on a hill, exciting the admiration of all? We don’t have to guess, because there is such a city right here in our state: Detroit.

Read the above article and then compare it to this essay: A thought experiment: Imagining the Republican majority in the House in complete control of Washington.

The contrasts are most illuminating.

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Great Scott

10:33 pm

Great Scott.

Meanwhile, the results of the changes began coming in. In Milwaukee, the reforms saved some $11 million, an embarrassing windfall for Democratic mayor Tom Barrett, who had predicted that the city’s structural deficit would “explode.” Localities across the state have seen similar savings. There is no disputing the central fact of Walker’s tenure as governor: His reforms are working.

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A thought experiment: Imagining the Republican majority in the House ran things in Washington.

9:13 am

A thought experiment: Imagining the Republican majority in the House in complete control of Washington.

This is not an altogether quixotic exercise. A thorough review of roll-call votes cast since the 2010 electoral upheaval allows us to approximate the world view that guides the 243-member House Republican caucus. … It would: repeal Obamacare; place a firm limit on how much in taxes Washington can take from our paychecks; require federal bureaucracies to think before they regulate; restore considerable authority and decision-making power to state governments; and alter the structural DNA of two of the Big Three entitlement programs — Medicare and Medicaid. (Fundamental overhaul of Social Security, it seems, will have to wait.).

In a nutshell, the GOP House agenda would place the federal government on a fiscally sustainable path without eviscerating national security. America would reclaim its status as one of the freest and most opportunity-laden economies in the world. There would be real and enforceable limits on the power of the federal government. And our ability to defend America’s interests around the world would be robust and enduring.

Read the whole thing, especially if you have doubts about what a Republican Congress and President might do. Even if you disagree with many conservative goals, nothing described here is unreasonable, and all of it seems necessary, considering the bankrupt state of the federal government.

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The chief architect of Obamacare now admits — in complete contradiction to what he claimed before the law was passed — that Obamacare will cause medical insurance premiums to rise.

12:18 am

Surprise, surprise! The chief architect of Obamacare now admits — in complete contradiction to what he claimed before the law was passed — that Obamacare will cause medical insurance premiums to rise.

Gruber’s new reports are in direct contrast Obama’s words — and with claims Gruber himself made in 2009. Then, the economics professor said that based on figures provided by the independent Congressional Budget Office, “[health care] reform will significantly reduce, not increase, non-group premiums.”

During his presentation to Wisconsin officials in August 2011, Gruber revealed that while about 57 percent of those who get their insurance through the individual market will benefit in one way or another from the law’s subsides, an even larger majority of the individual market will end up paying drastically more overall. “After the application of tax subsidies, 59 percent of the individual market will experience an average premium increase of 31 percent,” Gruber reported. [emphasis mine]

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The White House has confirmed that the Obama budget to be announced on Monday will predict a $1.3 trillion deficit for 2012.

3:40 pm

The bigger picture: The White House has confirmed that the Obama 2013 budget proposal to be announced on Monday will predict a $1.3 trillion deficit in 2012, and only try to shrink that to $900 billion in 2013.

Numbers like this demonstrate the need for further budget cuts, even in areas that I think are important, such as space exploration. However, these numbers also illustrate one clear fact: the Obama administration is not serious about balancing the budget. That the administration has applied the knife to the Mars planetary program while allowing other less successful NASA programs to flourish proves this administration’s poor sense of priorities in these difficult financial times.

More thoughts next week.

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Ed Weiler quit NASA over Mars planetary program cuts to be announced Monday

12:53 pm

Ed Weiler quit NASA in September because of the cuts to the Mars planetary program that the Obama administration will announce on Monday.

Weiler was NASA’s chief science administrator for most of the past thirty years.

As I have already noted, the programs that NASA shouldn’t cut are its planetary and astronomy programs. Far better to dump the Space Launch System, which eats up a lot more cash and will end up producing nothing. By doing so you would not only reduce NASA’s actual budget — thereby saving the federal government money — you could simultaneously increase the budgets of the planetary and astronomy programs.

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According to scientists, Obama’s proposed budget — to be announced on Monday — will cut the planetary program severely.

12:36 am

According to scientists, Obama’s proposed budget — to be announced on Monday — will severely cut NASA’s planetary program.

We will find out if this is true on Monday. However, I suspect it is, as all the rumors have pointed that way for months.

Meanwhile, Congress is forcing NASA to spend $3 billion on the Space Launch System (SLS), a rocket that will never get finished. As I have written previously, this is a very bad use of the taxpayer’s money. Better to get rid of SLS, put half the savings into the science program (which would almost certainly increase its overall budget) and pocket the rest as budget savings.

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All NASA funding for the European ExoMars mission appears to have been cut by the Obama administration.

9:13 pm

All NASA funding for ESA’s unmanned ExoMars mission appears to have been cut by the Obama administration.

A public announcement by Nasa of its withdrawal from the ExoMars programme, as it is known in Europe, will probably come once President Obama’s 2013 Federal Budget Request is submitted. This request, expected in the coming days, will give the US space agency a much clearer view of how much money it has to implement its various projects. “The Americans have indicated that the possibility of them participating is now low – very low. It’s highly unlikely,” said Alvaro Gimenez, Esa’s director of science.

Though this story doesn’t confirm the earlier rumors that the Obama administration was going to eliminate the entire NASA planetary program, it sure lends those rumors further weight. However, the new budget should be released any day now, when we will finally find out.

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By a significant majority the House has voted to repeal part of Obamacare.

8:43 pm

More House action: By a significant majority the House has voted to repeal part of Obamacare.

Once again, that a significant number of Democrats joined the Republicans in this vote illustrates where the political power lies. The Democratic leadership and President Obama are fighting a losing battle trying to support this turkey, especially since this section of Obamacare has already been abandoned as unworkable by the White House.

Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius effectively suspended the program last fall, conceding she couldn’t find a way to make it pay for itself. And the Congressional Budget Office took the program off the books, releasing lawmakers from budget rules that would have otherwise required them to replace the lost savings.

Since the rest of Obamacare is unworkable as well, expect more action to repeal it after the November election. And I expect that effort to succeed.

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The House has voted to freeze all congressional and federal pay for another year, through 2013.

8:34 pm

The House has voted to freeze all congressional and federal pay for another year, through 2013.

On a vote of 309 to 117, GOP supporters scored the two-thirds majority needed to approve the measure under a suspension of normal procedural roles. The bill, introduced by Rep. Sean Duffy (R-Wis.), would extend the current two-year freeze on federal cost-of-living raises for an additional year starting next January. Lawmakers haven’t raised congressional pay in four of the last six years.

The bill would need to be approved by the Senate before becoming law.

The yay votes above included a significant number of Democrats, once again indicating where the political winds are blowing. Even as their leadership poo-poos this vote, their membership knows what the voters want.

The last sentence in the quote above illustrates again which party in Congress is really doing nothing, as it is the Senate where this bill might die, and it is the Senate that the Democrats control.

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The NY Times reported today that the investigation into MF Global’s bankrucpty has located most of the missing $1.2 billion of customer money

9:25 am

The NY Times reported today that the investigation into MF Global’s bankrucpty has located most of the missing $1.2 billion of customer money.

Investigators have determined what happened to nearly all of the customer money that disappeared from MF Global around the time of its bankruptcy last Oct. 31, but have not publicly disclosed their progress, fearing that doing so might cripple efforts to recover the cash and pursue potential wrongdoing, people briefed on the investigation said.

While authorities have traced hundreds of millions of dollars to banks, MF Global’s trading partners and even the firm’s securities customers, investigators remain uncertain about whether they can retrieve the money.

As I was reading this article I had the strange feeling that I lived in an alternative universe. At no point did the New York Times bother to mention the name of former Democratic New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine, the economic go-to guy for the Obama administration and the man who was in charge of MF Global when all of this illegal and incompetent activity occurred. For those that want to know a bit more about the story, you might want to go to this New York Post editorial today, which lays out the issues that the New York Times so conveniently wants everyone to forget, and also notes that even now Corzine is out there campaigning and raising funds for Obama’s re-election.

Well, as they say, birds of a feather will flock together.

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The CBO has projected another trillion plus deficit for 2012, the fourth year in a row the U.S. government has produced such a deficit.

10:18 am

The day of reckoning looms: The CBO now predicts another trillion-plus deficit for 2012, the fourth year in a row the U.S. government has produced such a deficit.

For those who like to blame Bush for everything, it must be noted that these deficits, all during the Obama administration, are three to four times larger than any previous single year deficit of any previous administration. As bad as the deficits were in the Bush years — and they were bad — they don’t hold a candle to what Obama has done.

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Investigators now think that MF Global, the company run by Jon Corzine, Obama adviser and fundraiser, lost its customers’ money in “a labyrinth of shady trading and raids.”

9:42 am

Investigators now think that MF Global, the company run by former Democratic governor Jon Corzine, Obama adviser and fundraiser, lost $1.2 billion of its customers’ money in “a labyrinth of shady trading and raids.”

In the end, Jon Corzine faces the serious possibility of prison time for his part in this scandal. And he was the go-to guy of the Obama administration for economic advice.

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15 Questions The Mainstream Media Would Ask Barack Obama If He Were A Republican

9:28 am

Fifteen questions the mainstream press would ask Barack Obama if he were a Republican.

While many of these questions are simply intended as a way to attack Obama (which of course is what the press does to Republican candidates), the last three are perfectly reasonable and do address directly the actual failures of his administration.

13) Why should the American people reelect you when your 10 year budget saddles America with more debt than all previous Presidents combined?

14) Your stimulus bill cost more in real dollars than the moon landing and the interstate highway system combined. What do we have to show for all of that money spent?

15) Members of your administration promised that the trillion dollar stimulus would keep unemployment under 8 percent. Instead, we’ve had 35+ months of 8% and above unemployment. Doesn’t that mean we wasted a trillion dollars on nothing?

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On Tuesday the Treasury Department began using pension funds to keep the federal debt below the debt limit.

9:31 pm

The day of reckoning looms closer all the time: On Tuesday the Treasury Department began using pension funds to keep the federal debt below the debt limit.

This action is, at this time, only a stop-gap until the debt ceiling is raised $1.2 trillion as per Obama’s request. Nonetheless, it signals the federal government’s increasingly dire debt problems.

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Obama asks for more power to consolidate government agencies

10:18 am

President Obama today asked Congress for additional power to consolidate six government agencies.

While this at first sounds like a very good idea, I must admit that it is difficult for me to trust this man with more power, at any time. In addition, how serious can we take his claim of desiring to save money when his administration is on a pace to increase the federal debt by more than $6 trillion, exceeding the debt accumulated by all Presidents from George Washington to Bill Clinton?

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