Tag: Congress

The Democrats in the Senate have passed their tax plan.

4:16 pm

The Democrats in the Senate have passed their tax plan, extending the Bush tax rates for families making under $250,000 for one year while allowing the rates for families earning above $250,000 to expire.

The big Democratic claim has been that in order to balance the budget richer people have to pay more of their fair share. Okay, so now they’ve made their point by law. If I were the Republicans I’d accept it, since we all know that this tax increase on higher income taxpayers will do nothing to lower the deficit. We could raise the tax rate for anyone earning more than $250K to 100 percent and we would still have a gigantic yearly deficit.

What will the Democrats next claim when this tax increase fails? It won’t matter. The problem is spending, and the failure of this tax plan will further demonstrate that point. The federal government has to learn to live within its means.

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“The suspicions that the system is rigged in favor of the largest banks and their elites, so they play by their own set of rules to the disfavor of the taxpayers who funded their bailout, are true.”

9:27 pm

From the man whose job it was to police the $700 billion TARP bailout:

The suspicions that the system is rigged in favor of the largest banks and their elites, so they play by their own set of rules to the disfavor of the taxpayers who funded their bailout, are true.

The regulatory culture of the banking industry that this book describes possibiy explains why Jon Corzine has not yet been prosecuted. Regulators and prosecutors are afraid to proceed out of fear of hurting their careers.

Worse, Barofsky describes a banking regulatory system that is still in place, and is therefore ripe for another collapse. No wonder the tea party movement was born out of outrage over TARP and the bank bailout, and is still growing.

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A proposal by three Republican senators to avoid a “lame-duck looting session” after the November election.

3:46 pm

A proposal by three Republican senators to avoid a “lame-duck looting session” after the November election.

DeMint, Graham and Johnson want their House GOP counterparts to act before the August recess to fund the government through early next year. That would avoid the threat of a government shutdown before Sept. 30 and leave it in the hands of a new Congress and, perhaps, a new president.

What a concept! A proposal that the present Congress do its job now, rather than wait.

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Democrats in Congress proposed on Friday creating a federal program to develop and implement “forensic science standards.”

9:04 am

Democrats in Congress proposed on Friday creating a federal program to develop and implement “forensic science standards.”

The bill calls for the creation of a forensic science committee chaired by the National Institute of Science and Technology (NIST), which would assess how to best handle material from a crime scene, for example, and issue guidelines. Meanwhile, basic research into new forensic science tools and techniques might fall under the guise of a proposed National Forensic Science Coordinating Office, housed at the National Science Foundation (NSF). Over the next five years, the bill would provide $200 million in grants for forensic science research, and $100 million for the development of forensic science standards.

Two new federal agencies, costing millions. Gee, I wonder where these Democrats think the money will come from? And that ignores the more fundamental question of what business is it of the federal government to do this? Law enforcement is a state issue.

If this bill passes (which I suspect is quite unlikely), all it will probably accomplish is to create a new bureaucracy in Washington (jobs for the buddies of these politicians!).

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“Systematically and in all sorts of ways, old people are doing everything possible to rob you [today’s youth] of your money, your future, your dignity, and your freedom.”

11:22 am

“Systematically and in all sorts of ways, old people are doing everything possible to rob you [today’s youth] of your money, your future, your dignity, and your freedom.”

I am sometimes more ashamed of my baby boomer generation than I can possibly express.

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At least 80 House Republicans have signed a letter demanding that Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) block any further funding of Obamacare.

7:24 pm

At least 80 House Republicans have signed a letter demanding that Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) block any further funding of Obamacare.

This story illustrates two things. First, the House Republican leadership has been timid about using its power to block the implementation of Obamacare, even though the public clearly wants it blocked. Second, that about a third of the House Republican membership has already signed the letter, with more signatures expected, suggests that the bulk of the Republican Party is not as timid as their leadership. Moreover, I expect the November election to significantly strengthen this fiscally conservative trend.

Thus, it will not surprise me if we see some very radical budget cuts in the next Congress.

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A Tea Party event today in Tucson

10:28 pm

Last week I received an email from the local Tucson tea party, asking if I would be willing to attend a demonstration today in response to last week’s Supreme Court decision on Obamacare. To quote the email,

We would like to stage two simultaneous protests against the train wreck they call ObamaCare, at two separate locations Monday July 2nd, 4:00pm-5:45pm. 75 people at both locations are needed to make the necessary impact. They say the Tea Party is dead. What say ye? We need your commitment.

Today those protests took place at two different prominent street corners in the Tucson area. At each location there were about fifty people lining the sidewalk and holding signs and American flags out to passing motorists. My wife Diane and I went to one of those protests. Here are my impressions:
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NASA today unveiled for the press the Orion capsule scheduled for the program’s first test flight in 2014.

9:35 pm

NASA today unveiled for the press the Orion capsule scheduled for the program’s first test flight in 2014.

Today’s unveiling was essentially a PR event designed to boost political support for the Space Launch System (SLS) and the Orion capsule program. And though we should definitely give kudos to Lockheed Martin for its progress on Orion, it is also important to note that the building of this capsule took 8 years and about $6.5 billion. And it won’t go into space for still another two years at best. Compare that to SpaceX’s Dragon, which took about four years from concept to launch, with a cost of about $1 billion.

It is this contrast that is worrying the political supporters of SLS and Orion. Consider for example this quote from the above article:

But the Orion schedule assumes steady funding by Congress, which is an open question given the current debate over federal budget deficits, taxes and a general push to reduce federal spending. “We have to be concerned about that because we are in an era of government spending where you have to do more with a limited amount,” Nelson said. “That, of course, is going to be one of the main things we’re going to have to look at in the future.” [emphasis mine]

Nelson has been a big backer of SLS from the moment Congress decided to force it down NASA’s throat. It is very clear from his comments above however that he recognizes the political difficulties that this very expensive program faces.

As I’ve said before, I expect SLS to die sometime in the next three years. Faced with a ungodly federal deficit, the next Congress is going to look for ways to save money and — assuming the commercial space companies like SpaceX continue to have success — Congress will see this program as one of those ways.

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A Modest Proposal

9:48 am

“A Modest Proposal.”

Now that the Roberts Court has affirmed that the government has the power to mandate purchases of private goods and services as long as it’s structured as a tax, I propose that we put this new-found authority in the service of an explicit Constitutional right. For far too long, too many Americans have suffered from an inequal distribution of firearms, despite the Second Amendment’s express exhortation to “keep and bear arms,” in large part because income inequality in this nation has kept the poor and working classes from having the proper protection for themselves and their loved ones. We need to end this disparity now by applying the ObamaCare model immediately.

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