Obama Keeps Lying About The Economy

“Fish story.”  “Such statements hurt his credibility.”  Let’s just call it what it is: a pile of lies from a profoundly dishonest man.

JULY 21, 2010
Obama’s Economic Fish Stories
On unemployment, the president claims that the stimulus bill was several times more potent than his chief economic adviser estimates. Such statements hurt his credibility.
By MICHAEL J. BOSKIN

A president’s most valuable asset—with voters, Congress, allies and enemies—is credibility. So it is unfortunate when extreme exaggeration emanates from the White House.

All presidents wind up saying some things that make even their own economists cringe (often the brainchild of political advisers unconstrained by economic principles, facts or arithmetic). Usually, economic advisers manage to correct these problematic statements before delivery. Sometimes they get channeled into relatively harmless nonsense, such as President Gerald Ford’s “Whip Inflation Now” buttons. Other times they produce damaging policies, such as President Richard Nixon’s wage and price controls. The most illiterate statement was President Jimmy Carter’s late-1970s plea to the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates to combat high inflation, the exact opposite of what it should do. Not surprisingly, the value of the dollar collapsed.

Martin Kozlowski

President Obama says “every economist who’s looked at it says that the Recovery Act has done its job”—i.e., the stimulus bill has turned the economy around. That’s nonsense. Opinions differ widely and many leading economists believe that its impact has been small. Why? The expectation of future spending and future tax hikes to pay for the stimulus and Mr. Obama’s vast expansion of government are offsetting the direct short-run expansionary effect. That is standard in all macroeconomic theories.

So, as I and others warned in 2008, the permanent government expansion and higher tax rate agenda is a classic example of what not to do during bad economic times. Worse yet, all the subsidies, bailouts, regulations and mandates are forcing noncommercial decisions on the economy, which now awaits literally thousands of new diktats as a result of things like ObamaCare and the financial reform bill. The uncertainty is impeding investment and hiring.

The president does not say that economists agree that the high future taxes to finance the stimulus will hurt the economy. (The University of Chicago’s Harald Uhlig estimates $3.40 of lost output for every dollar of government spending.) Either the president is not being told of serious alternative viewpoints, or serious viewpoints are defined as only those that support his position. In either case, he is being ill-served by his staff.

Mr. Obama’s economic statements are increasingly divorced not only from competing viewpoints but from those of his own economic advisers. It is surprising how many numerically challenged pronouncements come from this most scripted and political of White Houses. One slip is eventually forgiven, but when a pattern emerges, no one believes it is an accident.

For example, on the anniversary of the stimulus bill, Mr. Obama declared, “It is largely thanks to the Recovery Act that a second Depression is no longer a possibility.” Yet his Council of Economic Advisers just estimated the stimulus bill’s effect on GDP at its trough was 1%-2%.

The most common definition of a depression is a long period in which GDP or consumption declines at least 10%. The decline in GDP in the recent recession was 3.8%, in consumption 2%. No one disputes the recession was severe, but to reach a 10% GDP decline requires tripling the administration’s estimate (three times their 2% effect) added to the actual 3.8% decline. On the alternative consumption standard, the math is even more absurd. The depression statement isn’t credible. The stimulus bill has assumed certain mystic powers in administration discourse, but revoking the laws of arithmetic shouldn’t be one of them.

The recession would have been worse if not for the Fed’s monetary policy and quantitative easing. Also important were the unmentioned automatic stabilizers—taxes falling more than income, cushioning declines in after-tax incomes and consumption—which were far larger than the spending and tax rebates in the stimulus bill. Arguing that all these policies (including injecting capital into banks, which was necessary but done poorly) may have prevented a depression is perhaps still an exaggeration but at least is within hailing distance of plausibility. On that scale, the effect of the stimulus was puny.

On his recent “Recovery Tour,” Mr. Obama boasted, “The stimulus bill prevented the unemployment rate from “getting up to . . . 15%.” But the president’s own chief economic adviser, Christina Romer, has estimated that the stimulus bill reduced peak unemployment by one percentage point—i.e., since the unemployment rate peaked at 10.1%, it prevented the unemployment rate from rising to just over 11%. So Mr. Obama claims that the stimulus bill was several times more potent than his chief economic adviser estimates.

Perhaps the most serious disconnect concerns the impending expiration of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, which will raise the top two income tax rates and the rates on dividends and capital gains. If these growth inhibiting tax increases occur—about $75 billion in tax increases next year, $1.4 trillion over 10 years—there will be serious economic damage.

In the most recent issue of the American Economic Review, Ms. Romer (and her husband David H. Romer) conclude that “tax increases are highly contractionary . . . tax cuts have very large and persistent positive output effects.” Their estimates imply the tax increases would depress GDP by roughly half the growth rate in this so-far-anemic recovery.

If Mr. Obama is really serious about a second stimulus, by far the best thing he can do is have Congress quickly extend the expiring Bush tax cuts, combined with real spending cuts set to take effect as the economy improves.

The president badly needs to make more realistic pronouncements. No one expects him to say his policies have failed (although most have delivered far less than claimed at large cost). A little candor about the results of experimentation in uncharted waters would go a long way. But at the very least, his staff needs to avoid putting these exaggerations on the teleprompter. It undermines confidence and raises concerns about competence. It’s doing nobody any good—not the economy and certainly not Mr. Obama.

Mr. Boskin is a professor of economics at Stanford University and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. He chaired the Council of Economic Advisers under President George H.W. Bush.

Day after day after day, Obama touts slivers of good news as magnificent, while ignoring pile on top of pile of bad news.  We keep getting these tortured numbers, cherry-picked out of a a rotten mess.  And we’re constantly told the increasingly laughable narrative that Obama’s incredible leadership is what kept everything from being even worse than it is.

The funniest aspect of all is when Obama and his mouthpiece Robert Gibbs keep assuring us that no economist disagrees with their policies when their very own chief economist is on record disagreeing with Obama’s policies.

Obama mouthpiece Gibbs declares:

I’ll let Congressman Boehner unwind his eloquent argument for preserving the tax cuts for those that are quite wealthy.  I don’t think the President believes — I don’t think there’s an economist that believes there’s a stimulative effect to — or a good reason in terms of economic growth to extend those tax cuts, particularly given the choice that one has to make about the budget deficit.

Forbes Magazine demonstrates how fallacious and even dishonest Obama’s and Gibbs’ statements have been in pointing out that the:

chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, Christina Romer, herself a Keynesian, has done research that undercuts the Keynesian view of good fiscal policy.  Some of this research is in a March 2007 paper, “The Macroeconomic Effects of Tax Changes: Estimates Based on a New Measure of Fiscal Shocks,” co-authored with her husband, fellow University of California, Berkeley, economist David Romer.

In their article, they find that “tax increases are highly contractionary” and that tax cuts are highly expansionary.

And Forbes goes on to conclude:

“In other words, if she believes her own research, Christina Romer should be a strong critic of her new boss’s policies.”

So maybe you guys should stop making flagrantly false statements that all the economists agree with you, when in point of fact even your own economist doesn’t agree with you.  Or, at least only agrees with you by denying her own academic research for the sake of appearances.

That may be why she’s leaving the White House.  She can finally tell the truth – something that the Obama White House would never even dream of allowing her to do.

Absence Of Values: Obama Targets American Citizen For Death Without Trial

There’s a phrase that Francis Schaeffer used: “feet firmly planted in mid-air.”  It aptly describes the plight of the secular humanist left.  Here’s a quote to familiarize yourself with the concept:

Since present day Humanism vilifies Judeo-Christianity as backward, its goal to assure progress through education necessitates an effort to keep all mention of theism out of the classroom. Here we have the irony of twentieth century Humanism, a belief system recognized by the Supreme Court as a non-theistic religion, foisting upon society the unconstitutional prospect of establishment of a state-sanctioned non-theistic religion which legislates against the expression of a theistic one by arguing separation of church & state. To dwell here in more detail is beyond the scope of this article, but to close, here are some other considerations:

In the earlier spirit of cooperation with the Christian church the ethics or values of the faith were “borrowed” by the humanists. In their secular framework, however, denying the transcendent, they negated the theocentric foundation of those values, (the character of God), while attempting to retain the ethics. So it can be said that the Humanist, then, lives on “borrowed capital”. In describing this stuation, Francis Schaeffer observed that: “…the Humanist has both feet firmly planted in mid-air.” His meaning here is that while the Humanist may have noble ideals, there is no rational foundation for them. An anthropocentric view says that mankind is a “cosmic accident”; he comes from nothing, he goes to nothing, but in between he’s a being of supreme dignity. What the Humanist fails to face is that with no ultimate basis, his ideals, virtues and values are mere preferences, not principles. Judging by this standard of “no ultimate standard”, who is to say whose preferences are to be “dignified”, ultimately?

What happens when “preferences, not principles” encounters a difficulty?  The preferences will go out the window every single time.  Call it a “preference” for “the ends justify the means.”  Who needs moral principles when Obama has political pragmatism?  And bye-bye, any professed principles.

“Feet firmly planted in mid-air,” and the abandonment of principles in favor of a constant stream of moral relativism and ends-justifies-the-means thinking has plagued the amoral Obama administration again and again.  Obama damned Bush over Gitmo; but he’s doing the same thing.  Obama damned Bush over military tribunals.  What is he doing now?  He damned Bush over the surge strategy in Iraq; what in the world would you call the strategy he’s employing now in Afghanistan?  Obama damned Bush over the practice of rendition, but he’s doing it as much as Bush did.  Obama denounced Bush for holding terrorist detainees without trial, but he’s doing the same exact thing.  The list goes on and on.  Obama attacked Bush over his lack of transparency, only to be far less transparent than Bush ever was.  Obama criticized Bush for protecting the wealthy at the expense of the poor, but has since engaged in bailout after bailout of the rich and powerful.  Obama blasted Bush for being partisan, but he has become the most partisan president in American history.  Obama denounced the right for using reconciliation to pass key legislation, and then used it to pass the most significant legislation this country has seen in 60 years.  For all Obama’s lefty rhetoric, he has abandoned virtually every principle he professed.

Quite possibly above everything else, Obama pronounced himself the man who would end the war on terror – if nothing else than by the sheer magnificence of his person – and restore all the principles of liberalism’s views toward constitutional protections to the enemies we would confront on the battlefield.

But when the rubber met the road, the amoral president demonstrated that his moral values amounted to dust in the wind, which would blow away in the face of the next challenge.

From the New York Times:

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration’s decision to authorize the killing by the Central Intelligence Agency of a terrorism suspect who is an American citizen has set off a debate over the legal and political limits of drone missile strikes, a mainstay of the campaign against terrorism.

The notion that the government can, in effect, execute one of its own citizens far from a combat zone, with no judicial process and based on secret intelligence, makes some legal authorities deeply uneasy.

To eavesdrop on the terrorism suspect who was added to the target list, the American-born radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who is hiding in Yemen, intelligence agencies would have to get a court warrant. But designating him for death, as C.I.A. officials did early this year with the National Security Council’s approval, required no judicial review.

“Congress has protected Awlaki’s cellphone calls,” said Vicki Divoll, a former C.I.A. lawyer who now teaches at the United States Naval Academy. “But it has not provided any protections for his life. That makes no sense.”

Obama and his supporters have routinely depicted Obama (somewhat falsely) as “a constitutional law professor.”  But stop and think about it: this “constitutional law professor” now has the view that it’s okay to blow away an American citizen without any form of legitimate trial.  He’s dogmatic about protecting the sanctity of the guy’s cellphone calls, but he has no compunction about ordering the guy to be blown to bits without a trial based on secret intelligence.

A pretty remarkable degree of chutzpah from a guy who once demagogued a president over his treatment of foreign terrorists.

Now, one might think that the political left and the liberal mainstream media would be frothing in outrage over all of these abandonments of principle, but the left is as incapable of genuine moral outrage as they are of genuine moral principles.  Which is to say that the media damned Bush over every breach of constitutional ethics from a leftist perspective, but they largely never mention all of Obama’s myriad breaches of the very same ethics.

Whenever the left offered its next political Utopia, the mainstream media of the day sanctified the government takeover as wonderful.  And then failed to speak out as the next regime, and then the next, and then the next, became a living hell on earth (as an example, here’s an article about the “hidden” history of evil in the Soviet Union.  Why is it “hidden”?  Because the left has steadfastly refused to look at the ugly face of socialism/communism).

Standing for nothing, with their feet firmly planted in mid-air, Barack Obama and the leftist radicals he champions have no principles to plant their feet upon.  The result has been one abandonment of principle after another beyond anything I’ve ever seen in my lifetime.

Hypocrite Obama At It Again: Attacks GOP Leader For Wall St. Meetings Even As His Chief Of Staff Does Same Thing

Let’s see, the definition of “hypocrite“: a person who professes beliefs and opinions that he or she does not hold in order to conceal his or her real feelings or motives.

Yep.  That’s pretty much Barry Hussein – our hypocrite in chief – in a nutshell.

Obama Calls Wall Street Meetings ‘Shocking’ as Rahm Emanuel Meets with Wall Street Investors
by  Connie Hair
04/20/2010

White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel met with Wall Street investors Sunday, the night before his boss, President Obama, criticized such meetings with Wall Street investors.

In Los Angeles trying to help Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) boost her sagging senatorial campaign that is in serious trouble, Obama Monday called such Wall Street meetings “shocking.”

“The Senate Republican leader, he paid a visit to Wall Street a week or two ago,” Obama said.  “He took along the chairman of their campaign committee. He met with some of the movers and shakers up there. I don’t know exactly what was discussed. All I can tell you is when he came back, he promptly announced he would oppose the financial regulatory reform.  He would oppose it.  Shocking.”

Just one day before, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel was meeting with Wall Street “movers and shakers” working out the finer details of the Democrats’ Wall Street reform that sets up a permanent taxpayer-funded bailout structure for “too big to fail” companies.

How is that NOT hypocrisy?  “How DARE you do the same thing my guy just did!  How DARE YOU!!!”

So what is really “shocking” is just what a loathsome, lying, hypocrite demagogue our president is.

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell had absolutely every right and reason to meet with the Wall Street figures, given the fact that he had been blasting the $50 billion in “too big to fail” bailout money that the Democrat legislation had stuffed in it.  That was so heinous that even Obama was trying to strip out the uber-obvious unpopular bailout cash for Wall Street big boys.  Obama said he would onlyonly sign a bill if it passed the test of putting an end to bailouts; this bill contains a gigantic bailout slush fund – and promises many more bailouts to come.  And there is other bad news in that power-grab Obama calls a bill.

Hey, Barry Hussein, how about if we ask one of your Democrats how he feels about that fifty billion bucks that McConnell had been outraged about.  Ask your fellow Democrat how HE feels about your turd of a bill:

(As Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.), a Democrat member of the House Financial Services Committee, told the Politico yesterday that even if the $50 billion bailout slush fund currently in the bill were stripped out, “The Dodd bill has unlimited executive bailout authority. … The bill contains permanent, unlimited bailout authority.”)

The Washington Post reports:

“As President Obama prepares to deliver a speech in New York later this week that will attempt to align his administration squarely on the side of American taxpayers furious with Wall Street, his chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, met privately on Sunday night with some of the city’s top investors,” The Washington Post’s Jason Horowitz and Michael Shear report. “At a private cocktail reception at the Park Avenue home of investors Jane Hartley and Ralph Schlosstein, Emanuel joked about how each of the 60 guests should take a work of art home before speaking seriously about the administration’s commitment to regulation reform.”

Perhaps Obama didn’t get the Rahmbo memo?

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) blasted Democrats for their support of the $50 billion Wall Street bailout fund from the Senate floor today:

“It is important for the country and taxpayer that we get this right, that we put them before politics.  That’s why I was disappointed to read that Senate Democrats are refusing to drop the $50 billion bailout fund — a fund that the Treasury Secretary himself opposes — unless Republicans pay a price for taking it out. This is exactly what Americans don’t like about Washington: when one side tries to ‘get’ something for doing what they should have done in the first place.  If everyone agrees it should be dropped, then it should be dropped.  And if Senate Democrats think it should stay, then they should explain why they think the Treasury Secretary was wrong when he said that this bailout fund ‘would create expectations that the government would step in to protect shareholders and creditors from losses.’

“Both sides have expressed a willingness to make the changes needed to ensure without any doubt that this bill won’t put taxpayers on the hook for future bailouts of Wall Street banks. Let’s just do that.”

Apparently Mitch McConnell is suffering from something slightly worse than Stockholm Syndrome, given the fact that he seems to think the depraved demagogues across the aisle actually have a “willingness” to make “changes needed.”  That just isn’t the way Democrats roll, Mitch: rather, they try to shove through one hard-core partisan bill after another, and then demonize and demagogue anybody who points out what’s wrong with the crap they’re pushing.

You should really KNOW that, Mitch.  After all, Barry Hussein just literally got through doing that very thing to you.

The often-way-too-infuriatingly moderate Susan Collins explained what was wrong with the Democrats’ thrust-into-our-face financial overhaul bill this way:

SEN. SUSAN COLLINS, R-ME.: I don’t think you do it by creating a moral hazard, by putting a big fat fund out there in the first place that tells financial institutions don’t worry, you can engage in risky practices, high-risk products, there is going to be a fund, there it is, $50 billion all ready to bail you out.

But Democrats LOVE moral hazard.  They LOVE rewarding the people who created the mess we’re in to begin with.  And those morally hazardous special interests KNOW it: that’s why Goldman Sachs was the SECOND BIGGEST FINANCIAL CONTRIBUTOR TO OBAMA DURING THE CAMPAIGN.  It’s also why John Paulson, the slimeball investor who made billions screwing America by getting investors to buy investments he was betting would fail, was a major Democrat donor and major supporter of Democrat Chuck Schumer.

Charles Krauthammer points out the fundamental power-grab that this bill truly is:

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER, SYNDICATED COLUMNIST: I think what is so interesting about the bill that is now proposed is that it is Congress once again voluntarily emasculating itself.

The bailout as proposed in the bill would allow the executive branch on its own, without appropriation from Congress, any approval from Congress, to seize, essentially seize a firm it designates again unilaterally as systematically risky, take it over, have the treasury back all of the bad loans, and then have the Fed print the money to pay them off.

Now, when we did the Chrysler bailout, or the bailout of TARP, which we had in 2008, we had to get the Congress along. This is an interesting and I think a disturbing trend where so much arbitrary power is not only in Washington, but not only in the executive, there is no checks, no balance.

That means you get a few powerful people in Washington, secretary of the treasury, head of the FDIC. You walk into a large institution and say we might designate you systematically risky. We want you to do “x,” “y” and “z.” I can assure you they will do “x,” “y” and “z.”

And that’s what happens in Putin’s Russia when he takes over oil. That’s not the way it should be. Congress ought to stay engaged, and that it’s willingly giving up its prerogative is remarkable.

As usual, Democrats are counting upon outright lies and demagoguery to sell a truly terrible bill.  They present the facade that they are against Wall Street – even though Wall Street has been lining Democrats’ pockets with millions and millions in contributions, and even though Obama’s chief of staff Rahm Emanuel came out of Goldman Sachs – and that Republicans are somehow opposing everything that is good and right by standing against Obama’s next Washington power-grab.

The fact of the matter is that the biggest and most scandal-ridden Wall Street firms such as Goldman Sachs would BENEFIT from Obama’s “regulatory reform.” That’s because the president would have so much power to dole out bailouts and benefits to the most politically-connected Wall Street power-players.  Big Wall Street firms would be able to benefit from low interest government loans and undercut smaller and less politically-connected firms.

To quote the president of Americans for Tax Reform:

The new bank bill would institutionalize more bailouts. No longer would congressmen vote on bailouts, they would be run by bureaucrats and flow automatically from the pockets of taxpayers to the pockets of banks that contribute enough to the Chicago political machine to make the list.

Do you actually want that?  You are literally enabling Obama and Democrats to receive millions and millions of dollars in campaign contributions to help them win reelection even as they give huge Wall Street firms billions and billions in future rewards courtesy of taxpayers.

Please don’t believe the constant stream of lies that spew out of the mouth of your hypocrite-in-chief.

66% of Independents Say Obama A Leftist – And What That Means

By a two-to-one margin, independents are saying that Obama is a leftist.  And only 14% of unaffiliated voters say they are more liberal than Obama.  And for those independents who have strongly made up their mind one way or the other, the margin dramatically increases to a six-to-one margin believing that Obama is a leftist.

For a story like this, we need to go back a little further, when we found out that Barry Hussein was THE most polarizing president in history:

In his first two months in office, President Barack Obama has succeeded in widening the political gulf among Americans more than any other president in modern history, according to a new poll. The “partisan gap” between Republicans and Democrats is 10 points larger than it was under George W. Bush.

The gulf – between Democrats and Republicans who say President Obama is succeeding – is also showing signs of further widening, according to a new Pew Research poll.

And widen it did.  It’s not just Republicans who overwhelmingly disapprove of Obama; it’s independents.  It’s the unaffiliated voters who now understand that Barack Obama misrepresented himself when he claimed he was a centrist who wanted what they wanted.

66% Of Independents Say Obama Is To Their Left
By Ed Carson
Tue., March 09, ’10

Supporters like to portray President Obama and his agenda as centrist. But those actually in the political center beg to differ. In fact, 66% of independents say their ideology is to the right of Obama, according to the latest IBD/TIPP poll. Just 14% say they’re more liberal.

Independents:

• Oppose Obama’s handling of the economy by 2-to-1. Among those with strong opinions, disapproval soars to 6-to-1 — 30% vs. 5%.
• On health care, 53% disapprove vs. 23% who approve. 35% say Obama’s doing an unacceptable job vs. just 9% who give him an A.
• 55% have a dim view of Obama on the budget. Just 17% who like his work. They strongly disapprove 34%-6%.

(Among all respondents, results were generally slightly less negative due to strong Democratic support for the president.)

These issues feed off each other. Obama and the Democratic Congress have spent vast sums on bailouts and a mammoth stimulus that are driving deficits to truly unsustainable levels. Ordinary Americans haven’t seen much benefit because job losses continue and unemployment remains near 10%.

But Democrats still haven’t made the economy their top issue. Instead, they spend their time and political capital on health care, even though voters have signaled they don’t like Democrats’ health plans.

That’s inspired and fueled the fast-growing Tea Party movement. A February IBD/TIPP poll showed 75% of independents favor that movement.

41% of Americans say they are more likely to oppose a candidate that supports the current health care bill, according to the IBD/TIPP poll. Just 27% say they would be more apt to vote for that person. Among independents, the ratio is 2-to-1 against.

These are all chilling results for Democrats facing re-election. How many from moderate districts will lash themselves to Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s mast?

As for Obama’s overall approval rating, the IBD/TIPP Presidential Leadership Index dipped 0.2 point in March to 50, split between approval and disapproval. That’s down from 71 in February 2009, just after he took office.

Meanwhile, the IBD/TIPP Economic Optimism Index fell 3% in March to 45.4, the lowest in a year.

IBD/TIPP conducted the national telephone poll of 903 adults from March 1 to March 7.

And what’s the result of all of this?

A substantial majority of Americans now believe that the massive government this leftist president is trying to create represents a threat to their rights:

CNN Poll: Majority says government a threat to citizens’ rights
Posted: February 26th, 2010 09:00 AM ET

From CNN Deputy Political Director Paul Steinhauser

Washington (CNN) – A majority of Americans think the federal government poses a threat to rights of Americans, according to a new national poll.

Fifty-six percent of people questioned in a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Friday say they think the federal government’s become so large and powerful that it poses an immediate threat to the rights and freedoms of ordinary citizens. Forty-four percent of those polled disagree.

The survey indicates a partisan divide on the question: only 37 percent of Democrats, 63 percent of Independents and nearly 7 in 10 Republicans say the federal government poses a threat to the rights of Americans.

According to CNN poll numbers released Sunday, Americans overwhelmingly think that the U.S. government is broken – though the public overwhelmingly holds out hope that what’s broken can be fixed.

So we find that 66% of independents believe that Obama is to their left, and 63% of independents believe that the government Obama is presiding over is a threat to their rights.  See the near perfect dovetailing?

What we are seeing is one of the most cynical and disingenuous presidents in American history attempt to establish himself as transcending political divides while simultaneously demagoguing and demonizing his opposition in a manner this generation has never seen.  And the mainstream media have broadcast his political narrative in a way very reminiscent of Joseph Goebbels broadcasting the narrative of his party.

Fortunately, this fascist technique hasn’t worked.  Mainstream media news outlets such as ABC, NBC and CBS are imploding:

The American mainstream media has been on a collision course with reality for several years.  It appears the day of reckoning has arrived as both ABC News and CBS News make announcements today that indicate deep financial woes.  In short, the mainstream media is going down as the big news giants begin to implode.

For quite some time now it has been widely known that NBC News and its sister networks MSNBC and CNBC are in dire financial straits.  That news was confirmed with the sale of the entity a few months ago.

Today, however, ABC News announced that it is cutting its news correspondent staff by half and that it will close all of its ‘brick and mortar’ news bureaus, except for its Washington hub.

In addition, CBS News is reportedly talking with CNN’s Anderson Cooper concerning an anchor position with the network. CBS has already been forced to cut Katie Couric’s salary, and Couric’s contract is set to expire in a little over a year.

The crash of big mainstream media is not confined to television, however.  Liberal, mainstream newspapers, such as the New York Times, continue to operate under heavy financial pressure as subscriptions tank and advertising revenues fall to historic lows.

Meanwhile Fox News, The Wall Street Journal, and Rush Limbaugh are thriving.  After a year of unrelenting Obama demagoguing, Fox News is now THE most trusted name in news.

Shockingly (and I actually say that without irony), Americans still don’t want to be indoctrinated when they have a choice.

Obama has gone way, WAAAAYYYY downhill from the days when journalists and other passionate Obama supporters literally breathlessly compared him favorably to the divine Son of God.  I think of the Newsweek editor saying, “I mean in a way Obama’s standing above the country, above – above the world, he’s sort of God.”  I think of Chris Matthews saying he felt this thrill going up his leg as Obama spoke.  Here’s where “the One” stands after a year of gracing an undeserving wolrd with his exalted magnificence, according to Rasmussen:

Tuesday, March 09, 2010

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Tuesday shows that 22% of the nation’s voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President.  Forty-one percent (41%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -19 (see trends). […]

Overall, 44% of voters say they at least somewhat approve of the President’s performance. Fifty-four percent (54%) disapprove.

And Democrats are swirling the drain for a massive defeat that might not only reach 1994-levels, but even make 1994 look like a good year for Democrats.  From Rasmussen:

Tuesday, March 09, 2010

Republican candidates lead Democrats by seven points in the latest edition of the Generic Congressional Ballot.

The new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that 44% would vote for their district’s Republican congressional candidate while 37% would opt for his or her Democratic opponent. Voter support for GOP congressional candidates held steady from last week, while support for Democrats is up a point.

Voters not affiliated with either major party continue to favor the GOP by a 42% to 22% margin, showing little change for several months now. In February, the number of unaffiliated voters increased by half a percentage point as both Republicans and Democrats lost further ground.

Republicans started 2010 ahead by nine points — their largest lead in several years — while support for Democrats fell to its lowest level over the same period. Towards the end of 2009, GOP candidates enjoyed a more modest lead over Democrats, with the gap between the two down to four points in early December. Since the beginning of the year, however, the Republican lead hasn’t dipped below seven points.

The latest numbers continue to highlight a remarkable change in the political environment over the past year. This time last year, Democrats led Republicans 42% to 38%.

On January 18, 2009, Democrats led Republicans 42% to 35%.  How the tables have turned.  That’s a 14-point swing since Obama started ruining the country.  And the trend has been going steadily down-the-drain-ward for Democrats.

Even Democrat polling shows Democrats are in big, big trouble:

The national mood continues to sour, with the share who see the country headed in the wrong direction moving up 4 points since mid-January, up to 62 percent, the highest mark in a year

The also left-leaning Washington Post, reporting on the Democrat organization’s polling, wrote in an article entitled, “Poll shows Obama, Dems losing ground,” that:

“The erosion since May is especially strong among women, and among independents, who now favor Republicans on this question by a 56 to 20 percent margin,” the pollsters said in their findings.

That’s really bad, considering that women have always been primary voters for Democrats, and it was independents’ votes that brought both Obama and Democrat over the top in 2008.

And what are Barry Hussein and Democrats going to do?  Prove every nasty thing that people now believe right.  Thus Democrats are pursuing a strategy that they themselves have said is immoral and unAmerican to pass a bill that Americans overwhelmingly do not want.

Why should Americans trust Democrats, given that they are now doing the very thing they themselves said was a terrible thing to do, and given all the Louisiana Purchases, all the Cornhusker Kickbacks, all the Gator-aids, and all the other illegitimate and even illegal acts of political sleazy backroom deals?

These same people promised us that unemployment would stay under 8% if we supported their now $862 billion stimulus.  And that was so false that only 6% of Americans believe it has created any jobs at all, according to a poll by the New York Times and CBS.

Why should we want that kind of massively expensive failure with our health care system?

Look at the numbers demonstrating how Americans think about health care:

Fifty-seven percent (57%) of voters say the health care reform plan now working its way through Congress will hurt the U.S. economy.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that just 25% think the plan will help the economy. But only seven percent (7%) say it will have no impact. Twelve percent (12%) aren’t sure.

Two-out-of-three voters (66%) also believe the health care plan proposed by President Obama and congressional Democrats is likely to increase the federal deficit. That’s up six points from late November and comparable to findings just after the contentious August congressional recess. Ten percent (10%) say the plan is more likely to reduce the deficit and 14% say it will have no impact on the deficit.

Underlying this concern is a lack of trust in the government numbers. Eighty-one percent (81%) believe it is at least somewhat likely that the health care reform plan will cost more than official estimates. That number includes 66% who say it is very likely that the official projections understate the true cost of the plan.

Just 10% have confidence in the official estimates and say the actual costs are unlikely to be higher.

Seventy-eight percent (78%) also believe it is at least somewhat likely that taxes will have to be raised on the middle class to cover the cost of health care reform. This includes 65% who say middle-class tax hikes are very likely, a six-point increase from late November.

Do you really believe that the government will reduce the cost of anything?  This is something that can very quickly begin to explode out of control.  And by the time it does, it will be too late to do anything about it.

Obama keeps assuring us that his plan will lower the deficit, but we can’t even trust him on his own budget figures: the CBO recently reported that the Obama budget deficit will be a massive $1.2 trillion more than Obama said it would.

You can’t trust Obama on keeping his promises, and you certainly can’t trust him on bringing down costs.  On energy prices, Obama said the following:

“Under my plan of a cap and trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket.”

He doesn’t care about keeping his word, and he certainly doesn’t care about making vital services cost less.  The man is an ideologue – and he only cares about imposing his statist ideology.

The American people, including independents, don’t want statism, but they know they’ve got exactly that in Barack Obama.  They clearly don’t want a big government takeover of their health care, but the Democrats are apparently determined to impose it anyway.

China has had enough of the Democrats and their reckless spending: they are now preparing to sever the historic tie between their currency and that of the U.S. dollar.

Democrats are counting on the fact that the American people are simply too stupid to remember what Democrats did eight months before the election.  The question is, is that true?

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi thinks the American people are dumb enough to buy anything, saying:

“We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it.”

Let’s make a deal: give me trillions of dollars, and I’ll show you what’s in the bag I’m holding.

And pretty soon America is going to open their door in surprise to see a flaming bag filled with dog crap.  Try to stomp out the flames at your peril.

The United States of America is more vulnerable than it has ever been, due to deficits and spending that are simply out of control.

You independents – who are now beginning to at least understand the risk the president and party you voted for in 2008 presents to this country – had now better get off your butts and join Republicans in screaming this ObamaCare boondoggle down.  Because this incredibly partisan health care bill will very likely be the anvil that breaks this nation’s back if it is passed.

Sarah Palin Demolishes Obama’s Pretentions State of the Deception Speech

From Sarah Palin’s Facebook page:

The Credibility Gap

Today at 2:17pm

While I don’t wish to speak too harshly about President Obama’s state of the union address, we live in challenging times that call for candor. I call them as I see them, and I hope my frank assessment will be taken as an honest effort to move this conversation forward.

Last night, the president spoke of the “credibility gap” between the public’s expectations of their leaders and what those leaders actually deliver. “Credibility gap” is a good way to describe the chasm between rhetoric and reality in the president’s address. The contradictions seemed endless.

He called for Democrats and Republicans to “work through our differences,” but last year he dismissed any notion of bipartisanship when he smugly told Republicans, “I won.”

He talked like a Washington “outsider,” but he runs Washington! He’s had everything any president could ask for – an overwhelming majority in Congress and a fawning press corps that feels tingles every time he speaks. There was nothing preventing him from pursuing “common sense” solutions all along. He didn’t pursue them because they weren’t his priorities, and he spent his speech blaming Republicans for the problems caused by his own policies.

He dared us to “let him know” if we have a better health care plan, but he refused to allow Republicans in on the negotiations or consider any ideas for real free market and patient-centered reforms. We’ve been “letting him know” our ideas for months from the town halls to the tea parties, but he isn’t interested in listening. Instead he keeps making the nonsensical claim that his massive trillion-dollar health care bill won’t increase the deficit.

Americans are suffering from job losses and lower wages, yet the president practically demanded applause when he mentioned tax cuts, as if allowing people to keep more of their own hard-earned money is an act of noblesse oblige. He claims that he cut taxes, but I must have missed that. I see his policies as paving the way for massive tax increases and inflation, which is the “hidden tax” that most hurts the poor and the elderly living on fixed incomes.

He condemned lobbyists, but his White House is filled with former lobbyists, and this has been a banner year for K Street with his stimulus bill, aka the Lobbyist’s Full Employment Act. He talked about a “deficit of trust” and the need to “do our work in the open,” but he chased away the C-SPAN cameras and cut deals with insurance industry lobbyists behind closed doors.

He spoke of doing what’s best for the next generation and not leaving our children with a “mountain of debt,” but under his watch this year, government spending is up by 22%, and his budget will triple our national debt.

He spoke of a spending freeze, but doesn’t he realize that each new program he’s proposing comes with a new price tag? A spending freeze is a nice idea, but it doesn’t address the root cause of the problem. We need a comprehensive examination of the role of government spending. The president’s deficit commission is little more than a bipartisan tax hike committee, lending political cover to raise taxes without seriously addressing the problem of spending.

He condemned bailouts, but he voted for them and then expanded and extended them. He praised the House’s financial reform bill, but where was Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae in that bill? He still hasn’t told us when we’ll be getting out of the auto and the mortgage industries. He praised small businesses, but he’s spent the past year as a friend to big corporations and their lobbyists, who always find a way to make government regulations work in their favor at the expense of their mom & pop competitors.

He praised the effectiveness of his stimulus bill, but then he called for another one – this time cleverly renamed a “jobs bill.” The first stimulus was sold to us as a jobs bill that would keep unemployment under 8%. We now have double digit unemployment with no end in sight. Why should we trust this new “jobs bill”?

He talked about “making tough decisions about opening new offshore areas for oil and gas development,” but apparently it’s still too tough for his Interior Secretary to move ahead with Virginia’s offshore oil and gas leases. If they’re dragging their feet on leases, how long will it take them to build “safe, clean nuclear power plants”? Meanwhile, he continued to emphasize “green jobs,” which require massive government subsidies for inefficient technologies that can’t survive on their own in the real world of the free market.

He spoke of supporting young girls in Afghanistan who want to go to school and young women in Iran who courageously protest in the streets, but where were his words of encouragement to the young girls of Afghanistan in his West Point speech? And where was his support for the young women of Iran when they were being gunned down in the streets of Tehran?

Despite speaking for over an hour, the president only spent 10% of his speech on foreign policy, and he left us with many unanswered questions. Does he still think trying the 9/11 terrorists in New York is a good idea? Does he still think closing Gitmo is a good idea? Does he still believe in Mirandizing terrorists after the Christmas bomber fiasco? Does he believe we’re in a war against terrorists, or does he think this is just a global crime spree? Does he understand that the first priority of our government is to keep our country safe?

In his address last night, the president once again revealed that there’s a fundamental disconnect between what the American people expect from their government, and what he wants to deliver. He’s still proposing failed top-down big government solutions to our problems. Instead of smaller, smarter government, he’s taken a government that was already too big and supersized it.

Real private sector jobs are created when taxes are low, investment is high, and people are free to go about their business without the heavy hand of government. The president thinks innovation comes from government subsidies. Common sense conservatives know innovation comes from unleashing the creative energy of American entrepreneurs.

Everything seems to be “unexpected” to this administration: unexpected job losses; unexpected housing numbers; unexpected political losses in Massachusetts, Virginia, and New Jersey. True leaders lead best when confronted with the unexpected. But instead of leading us, the president lectured us. He lectured Wall Street; he lectured Main Street; he lectured Congress; he even lectured our Supreme Court Justices.

He criticized politicians who “wage a perpetual campaign,” but he gave a campaign speech instead of a state of the union address. The campaign is over, and President Obama now has something that candidate Obama never had: an actual track record in office. We now can see the failed policies behind the flowery words. If Americans feel as cynical as the president suggests, perhaps it’s because the audacity of his recycled rhetoric no longer inspires hope.

Real leadership requires results. Real hope lies in the ingenuity, generosity, and boundless courage of the American people whose voices are still not being heard in Washington.

– Sarah Palin

She nailed it.

With Eyes Finally Wide-Open, Reconsider Why The Economy Collapsed In The First Place

We are now able to see that from the very beginning of the Obama administration, the Republican Party has again and again demonstrated that they were completely right and Democrats were completely wrong.  Whether you look at the stimulus, cap-and-trade, bogus climate change claims, health care, or terrorism, Americans now solidly agree that Republicans were represent the people; and that Democrats do NOT represent the people.

Right now, a solid plurality of Americans thinks the stimulus (that 99% of Republicans voted against) harmed the economy.  And the people are starting to realize what an ideological partisan slush fund the stimulus was (also predicted by Republicans).

When Obama was elected, unemployment was at 6.6%.  He promised that his stimulus would prevent unemployment from reaching 8%.  And now it’s at 10%, and it’s going to get higher.

Obama demagogued Bush’s spending.  But Bush deficits -bad as they were – were only 2-3% of GDP.  Obama’s deficits are 12.8% of GDP – which is five to six times higher.

Now that your eyes are finally beginning to open wide and see Obama and the Democrats for who and what they truly are, let me point out a few things about the past collapse.

What Americans – and particularly Americans who actually vote – need to realize is that Democrats were trying to do this kind of crap and play these kind of games all along.  They were trying to do it throughout the Bush years, when George Bush tried 17 times to regulate the out of control and Fannie-Mac-and-Freddie-Mae-dominated housing mortgage markets – and Democrats thwarted him over and over again.

Why do I mention the Government Supported Enterprises (GSEs) Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac?  Because they were at the very heart of the mortgage meltdown.

The LA Times writes on May 31, 1999 that:

Lenders also have opened the door wider to minorities because of new initiatives at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac–the giant federally chartered corporations that play critical, if obscure, roles in the home finance system. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac buy mortgages from lenders and bundle them into securities; that provides lenders the funds to lend more. . . .

LaVaughn M. Henry, Ph.D. Director, U.S. Economic Analysis The PMI Group, Inc. December 9, 2008, pointed out:

The Role of the GSEs is to provide liquidity and stability to the U.S. housing and mortgage markets. Step 1 Banks lend money to Households to purchase and refinance home mortgages Step 2 The GSEs purchase these mortgage from the banks Step 3 GSEs bundle the mortgages into mortgage-backed securities Step 4 GSEs sell mortgage-backed and debt securities to domestic and international capital investors Step 5 Investors pay GSEs for purchase of debt and securities Step 6 GSEs return funds to banks to lend out again for the issuance of new mortgage loans.

It was steps 3-5 that messed us up.  Fannie and Freddie bought mortgages – including many mortgages that poor and minority homeowners couldn’t begin to afford under the mandate of the Community Reinvestment Act – bundled them such that no one could assess their risk, and then sold them to private companies such as Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers.  Fannie and Freddie were exempt from SEC [Securities and Exchange Commission] regulations.   The GSEs could bundle up mortgages, which would then be rated AAA, with no requirement to make clear what was in the bundle.  Private companies believed that the bundled securities were guaranteed, since they were essentially being sold by the federal government.

But there were many who predicted that this system – created and maintained by Democrats – could explode.

From the New York Times in September 30, 1999:

In moving, even tentatively, into this new area of lending, Fannie Mae is taking on significantly more risk, which may not pose any difficulties during flush economic times. But the government-subsidized corporation may run into trouble in an economic downturn, prompting a government rescue similar to that of the savings and loan industry in the 1980’s.“

”From the perspective of many people, including me, this is another thrift industry growing up around us,” said Peter Wallison a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. ”If they fail, the government will have to step up and bail them out the way it stepped up and bailed out the thrift industry.” . . .

And that is precisely what happened.  There was a downturn (and there will ALWAYS be downturns, won’t there?), and Fannie and Freddie were so leveraged that they collapsed and caused the collapse of the entire industry.  Financial experts anxiously pointed out that a decline of only 1.3% would bankrupt Fannie and Freddie because they were leveraged to the tune of 60%? to 78%.

Democrats were the priests and acolytes of the GSE system.  They protected it, and they were the ones who pressed all the buttons and pulled all the levers.

Keven Hasset concludes an article titled, “How the Democrats Created the Financial Crisis“, concludes by saying:

Now that the collapse has occurred, the roadblock built by Senate Democrats in 2005 is unforgivable. Many who opposed the bill doubtlessly did so for honorable reasons.  Fannie and Freddie provided mounds of materials defending their practices.  Perhaps some found their propaganda convincing.

Watch this video showing how Goerge Bush and John McCain repeatedly warned of the economic collapse (length=4 min):

Watch this video of Democrats protecting and covering for Fannie Mae (length=8 min):

Here’s a video entitled “Burning Down the House: What Caused Our Economic Crisis?” (length=11 min)

And then we find that Barack Obama was in bed with Fannie and Freddie and their shockingly risky policies:

Who really exploded the economy in 2008, liberals or conservatives? Who do you think?  The liberal mainstream media allowed Democrats to blame George Bush simply because he was president at the time, never mentioning that the Democrats who controlled both the House and the Senate relentlessly opposed everything Bush tried to do; and it allowed Democrats to not have to account for the fact that they’d been in complete control of both the House and the Senate.  But remember that the economy went from outstanding to collapsed during the two years (2006-2008) that the Congress was under Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid.  The unemployment rate was 4.4% when Republicans last ran Congress.  What is it now, three years of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid later?

Few people understand how huge Fannie and Freddie are, or how deeply burrowed they are in the mortgage industry.  But let me put it to you this way: the federal government now underwrites 9 out of 10 residential mortgages.

John McCain tried to warn us in 2006:

I join as a cosponsor of the Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005, S. 190, to underscore my support for quick passage of GSE regulatory reform legislation. If Congress does not act, American taxpayers will continue to be exposed to the enormous risk that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pose to the housing market, the overall financial system, and the economy as a whole.

But he was ignored.

When George Bush first tried to regulate an already out-of-control liberal bastion of Fannie and Freddie, Barney Frank led the united Democrat opposition and said:

”These two entities — Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — are not facing any kind of financial crisis,” said Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee. ”The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.”

And just before Fannie and Freddie collapsed and brought down the entire housing mortgage industry with it creating the economic meltdown, Barney Frank – continuing to stop any regulation of Fannie and Freddie – said this:

REP. BARNEY FRANK, D-MASS.: I think this is a case where Fannie and Freddie are fundamentally sound, that they are not in danger of going under. They’re not the best investments these days from the long-term standpoint going back. I think they are in good shape going forward.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac went completely bankrupt, and had to be bailed out by the government.  It had been Fannie and Freddie which had the sole authority to buy mortgages, bundle them into the mortgage-backed securities which ultimately exploded, and sell those securities to private companies (as I have already shown).  Just as it was Fannie and Freddie which had been the seller of subprime loans.

Democrats demonized and demagogued Republicans by blaming them for a mess that DEMOCRATS created.  And Republicans were to blame primarily because they didn’t do enough to stand up and courageously oppose the disaster that Democrats had created

A couple weeks ago the New York Times reported that Fannie and Freddie would get a whopping $800 billion to cover losses incurred under the Obama administration (and see another article on this $800 billion fiasco here):

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which buy and resell mortgages, have used $112 billion — including $15 billion for Fannie in November — of a total $400 billion pledge from the Treasury. Now, according to people close to the talks, officials are discussing the possibility of increasing that commitment, possibly to $400 billion for each company, by year-end, after which the Treasury would need Congressional approval to extend it. Company and government officials declined to comment.

But it turned out that that was wrong.  Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac weren’t going to get $800 billion.  That won’t be nearly enough.  They are going to get an unlimited amount of funding (potentially in the trillions):

From the Wall Street Journal, December 26, 2009:

The Obama administration’s decision to cover an unlimited amount of losses at the mortgage-finance giants Fannie MaeFreddie Mac over the next three years and stirred controversy over the holiday.

A Newsbuster article, entitled, “Relief Without Limits,” provides an excellent resource of facts and commentary on this incredible and terrifying development.

Remember the righteous outrage of Democrats and the Obama administration over the compensation of CEOs of private banks?  The Democrats don’t seem to mind when Fannie and Freddie execs get huge compensation packages.

The monster rises yet again, and larger and uglier and more dangerous than it has ever been before.  And just like the first time it collapsed, Democrats are in total control of it.  Fannie and Freddie stock went up significantly as the news was announced.  Watch it dwindle back to zero by the end of 2010.

We’re facing another tsunami of foreclosures in 2010.  And three mortgages get worse for every single one that improves.

And even uber-liberal sources like the Huffington Post are acknowledging that Obama’s policies have utterly failed:

Anatomy of a Failed Foreclosure Program (dated 12-07-09)

Just how badly is President Obama’s $75 billion foreclosure program working out? Consider these newly-released numbers: Out of every 100 homeowners who came to JPMorgan Chase for help under the program, just 15 have or will likely receive a permanent payment reduction.

What happened to the other 85? For every 100 trial plans initiated from April through September 2009 under the Home Affordable Modification Program:

• 29 borrowers did not make all required payments under their trial plan;
• 20 borrowers did not submit all documents required for underwriting;
• 31 borrowers submitted all required documents but the documents did not meet HAMP underwriting standards, due to such things as missing signatures or nonstandard formats;
• 4 borrowers were or are likely to be rejected for undisclosed reasons;
• 1 borrower will not or is not likely to get their payment lowered.

The data comes from the prepared remarks bank officials plan to make Tuesday before the House Financial Services Committee. The testimony was posted Monday on the committee’s website.

It adds up to a brutal illustration of just how the HAMP program, which is supposed to reduce troubled homeowners’ monthly payments to 31 percent of their income, is failing.

Failing.  As in “failing grade.”  As in failed Obama presidency.

You still don’t know the half of it.  Obama’s $75 billion mortgage modification bailout is costing taxpayers an average of $870,967 PER HOUSE when the average house is worth only $177,900.

Famed analyst Meredith Whitney predicted that unemployment would rise to 13% or higher primarily due to the failure to contain the failure to deal with the mortgage industry:

Unemployment is likely to rise to 13 percent or higher and will weigh on the economy for several years, countering government efforts to stabilize the banking industry, analyst Meredith Whitney told CNBC. […]

“We underestimate how much the whole economy is dependent on the mortgage industry, and that has to change,” Whitney said. “This is what happens when you delay the inevitable. We’re buying time here, but we’re not restructuring the economy.”

Under the radar, and against the objections of Republicans that was primarily covered only by C-SPAN, Democrats implemented and then fiercely protected policies that were almost guaranteed to doom our economy.  When the meltdown finally occurred, the same Democrats who created the black hole in the first place flooded the airwaves and blamed George Bush – whom they had already vilified and brought down through unrelenting attacks using the Iraq War as their main foil.

The propaganda worked, and Barack Hussein Obama – a politician who is more beholden to corrupt and frankly un-American entities like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, ACORN, and the SEIU than any president in history.

And now we’re truly paying for our stupidity.

Obama is taking the same policies that imploded our economy, and multiplied them by a factor of ten.  It’s only a matter of time before his policies create a rotten floor for our economy to plunge through all over again — only this time far, far worse than before.

Someone might say, “But look, Obama is rebuilding the economy.  He’s brought back the stock market, and things are getting better.”

First of all, they really aren’t getting better, and the Dow can drop a lot faster than it can rise (history lesson: there were several rises and crashes of the stock market during the Great Depression).  And second of all, if you loan me a few billion dollars to spread around, I can temporarily bring up the production of my local economy, too.

Just don’t expect either me or Barack Hussein to repay the loan when it comes due.

Obama has been compared – and has compared himself – to FDR.  We now know that for all of FDR’s popularity, his “reforms” during the Great Depression were massive failures which actually kept the United States in depression for seven years longer than if he’d done nothing at all.

Henry Morganthau, FDR’s Treasury Secretary, said in May 1939, after nearly seven years in office:

“We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. And I have just one interest, and if I am wrong… somebody else can have my job. I want to see this country prosperous. I want to see people get a job. I want to see people get enough to eat. We have never made good on our promises… I say after eight years of this Administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started… And an enormous debt to boot!”

In believing the propaganda and lies of the Democrats and Barack Obama, Americans may have well placed the nation in a hole that it very may well not be able to climb out of.

On Totalitarian Sentimentality: What It Is, And Why We Should Fight It

Mark Steyn, who frequently serves as a fill-in for Rush Limbaugh and recently has been filling-in for Sean Hannity on his television program, is a genuine treasure.  He manages to combine a riotous sense of humor with conservative wisdom and his own je ne sais quoi.

Today, on Rush Limbaugh’s radio program, Steyn told a story about a funeral he recently attended in Europe at a church that had been built in the 11th century.

His party was in the vehicle immediately behind the hearse, so he couldn’t help but see a cart that looked to him like a shopping cart being wheeled up to the hearse.

He asked the pallbearers who were in the process of unloading the casket what the shopping cart was for.  And one of them answered and said, “It’s to bear the casket, mate.”

Steyn said, “I thought you were supposed to carry the casket in.”  He pointed to the handles and said, “Here are the handles.  You’re pallbearers.  You’re supposed to bear the pall.”

The pallbearer said, “Health Services regulations, mate.  We’re not allowed to carry the casket due to safety regulations.”

Steyn said, “Safety regulations?”

The pallbearer said, “The path is uneven.”

Mark Steyn then said, “This is a one thousand year-old church.  That same path has been uneven for a thousand years.  And now somebody decides its unsafe to carry a casket?”

The pallbearer repeated, “Safety regulations, mate.”  As though that was all the answer that was needed.

Mark Steyn and his brother decided that this wouldn’t do.  “We’ll carry the casket in ourselves.”

The pallbearers said, “You can’t.  You need to have a license from the state to be pallbearers.”

Steyn’s brother said, “What’s the point in becoming a licensed pallbearer if you’re not allowed to actually bear the pall?”

They argued about it for a little while, and finally decided that Steyn and his brother would assist the pallbearers in carrying the casket.

What’s the moral of this story?  Steyn said that this is just the way big government works in today’s modern Europeanized socialism.  It simply takes over everything with a gradual takeover of regulations.

And he pointed out that you have to fight against it in all the little things, because otherwise it will simply just keep regulating more and more little things and accumulating more and more power over every aspect of our lives.

Then he referenced an article entitled, “Totalitarian Sentimentality,” which I thought worthy of posting.

Totalitarian Sentimentality

By Roger Scruton from the December 2009-January 2010 issue

Conservatives recognize that social order is hard to achieve and easy to destroy, that it is held in place by discipline and sacrifice, and that the indulgence of criminality and vice is not an act of kindness but an injustice for which all of us will pay. Conservatives therefore maintain severe and — to many people — unattractive attitudes. They favor retributive punishment in the criminal law; they uphold traditional marriage and the sacrifices that it requires; they believe in discipline in schools and the value of hard work and military service. They believe in the family and think that the father is an essential part in it. They see welfare provisions as necessary, but also as a potential threat to genuine charity, and a way both of rewarding antisocial conduct and creating a culture of dependency. They value the hard-won legal and constitutional inheritance of their country and believe that immigrants must also value it if they are to be allowed to settle here. Conservatives do not think that war is caused by military strength, but on the contrary by military weakness, of a kind that tempts adventurers and tyrants. And a properly ordered society must be prepared to fight wars — even wars in foreign parts — if it is to enjoy a lasting peace in its homeland. In short conservatives are a hard and unfriendly bunch who, in the world in which we live, must steel themselves to be reviled and despised by all people who make compassion into the cornerstone of the moral life.

Liberals are of course very different. They see criminals as victims of social hierarchy and unequal power, people who should be cured by kindness and not threatened with punishment. They wish all privileges to be shared by everyone, the privileges of marriage included. And if marriage can be reformed so as to remove the cost of it, so much the better. Children should be allowed to play and express their love of life; the last thing they need is discipline. Learning comes — didn’t Dewey prove as much? — from self-expression; and as for sex education, which gives the heebie-jeebies to social conservatives, no better way has ever been found of liberating children from the grip of the family and teaching them to enjoy their bodily rights. Immigrants are just migrants, victims of economic necessity, and if they are forced to come here illegally that only increases their claim on our compassion. Welfare provisions are not rewards to those who receive them, but costs to those who give — something that we owe to those less fortunate than ourselves. As for the legal and constitutional inheritance of the country, this is certainly to be respected — but it must “adapt” to new situations, so as to extend its protection to the new victim class. Wars are caused by military strength, by “boys with their toys,” who cannot resist the desire to flex their muscles, once they have acquired them. The way to peace is to get rid of the weapons, to reduce the army, and to educate children in the ways of soft power. In the world in which we live liberals are self-evidently lovable — emphasizing in all their words and gestures that, unlike the social conservatives, they are in every issue on the side of those who need protecting, and against the hierarchies that oppress them.

Those two portraits are familiar to everyone, and I have no doubt on which side the readers of this magazine will stand. What all conservatives know, however, is that it is they who are motivated by compassion, and that their cold-heartedness is only apparent. They are the ones who have taken up the cause of society, and who are prepared to pay the cost of upholding the principles on which we all — liberals included — depend. To be known as a social conservative is to lose all hope of an academic career; it is to be denied any chance of those prestigious prizes, from the MacArthur to the Nobel Peace Prize, which liberals confer only on each other. For an intellectual it is to throw away the prospect of a favorable review — or any review at all — in the New York Times or the New York Review of Books. Only someone with a conscience could possibly wish to expose himself to the inevitable vilification that attends such an “enemy of the people.” And this proves that the conservative conscience is governed not by self-interest but by a concern for the public good. Why else would anyone express it?

By contrast, as conservatives also know, the compassion displayed by the liberal is precisely that — compassion displayed, though not necessarily felt. The liberal knows in his heart that his “compassionating zeal,” as Rousseau described it, is a privilege for which he must thank the social order that sustains him. He knows that his emotion toward the victim class is (these days at least) more or less cost-free, that the few sacrifices he might have to make by way of proving his sincerity are nothing compared to the warm glow of approval by which he will be surrounded by declaring his sympathies. His compassion is a profoundly motivated state of mind, not the painful result of a conscience that will not be silenced, but the costless ticket to popular acclaim.

Why am I repeating those elementary truths, you ask? The answer is simple. The USA has descended from its special position as the principled guardian of Western civilization and joined the club of sentimentalists who have until now depended on American power. In the administration of President Obama we see the very same totalitarian sentimentality that has been at work in Europe, and which has replaced civil society with the state, the family with the adoption agency, work with welfare, and patriotic duty with universal “rights.” The lesson of postwar Europe is that it is easy to flaunt compassion, but harder to bear the cost of it. Far preferable to the hard life in which disciplined teaching, costly charity, and responsible attachment are the ruling principles is the life of sentimental display, in which others are encouraged to admire you for virtues you do not possess. This life of phony compassion is a life of transferred costs. Liberals who wax lyrical on the sufferings of the poor do not, on the whole, give their time and money to helping those less fortunate than themselves. On the contrary, they campaign for the state to assume the burden. The inevitable result of their sentimental approach to suffering is the expansion of the state and the increase in its power both to tax us and to control our lives.

As the state takes charge of our needs, and relieves people of the burdens that should rightly be theirs — the burdens that come from charity and neighborliness — serious feeling retreats. In place of it comes an aggressive sentimentality that seeks to dominate the public square. I call this sentimentality “totalitarian” since — like totalitarian government — it seeks out opposition and carefully extinguishes it, in all the places where opposition might form. Its goal is to “solve” our social problems, by imposing burdens on responsible citizens, and lifting burdens from the “victims,” who have a “right” to state support. The result is to replace old social problems, which might have been relieved by private charity, with the new and intransigent problems fostered by the state: for example, mass illegitimacy, the decline of the indigenous birthrate, and the emergence of the gang culture among the fatherless youth. We have seen this everywhere in Europe, whose situation is made worse by the pressure of mass immigration, subsidized by the state. The citizens whose taxes pay for the flood of incoming “victims” cannot protest, since the sentimentalists have succeeded in passing “hate speech” laws and in inventing crimes like “Islamophobia” which place their actions beyond discussion. This is just one example of a legislative tendency that can be observed in every area of social life: family, school, sexual relations, social initiatives, even the military — all are being deprived of their authority and brought under the control of the “soft power” that rules from above.

This is how we should understand the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to President Obama. To his credit he has made clear that he does not deserve it — though I assume he deserves it every bit as much as Al Gore. The prize is an endorsement from the European elite, a sigh of collective relief that America has at last taken the decisive step toward the modern consensus, by exchanging real for fake emotion, hard power for soft power, and truth for lies. What matters in Europe is the great fiction that things will stay in place forever, that peace will be permanent and society stable, just so long as everybody is “nice.” Under President Bush (who was, of course, no exemplary president, and certainly not nice) America maintained its old image, of national self-confidence and belligerent assertion of the right to be successful. Bush was the voice of a property-owning democracy, in which hard work and family values still achieved a public endorsement. As a result he was hated by the European elites, and hated all the more because Europe needs America and knows that, without America, it will die. Obama is welcomed as a savior: the American president for whom the Europeans have been hoping — the one who will rescue them from the truth.

How America itself will respond to this, however, remains doubtful. I suspect, from my neighbors in rural Virginia, that totalitarian sentimentality has no great appeal to them, and that they will be prepared to resist a government that seeks to destroy their savings and their social capital, for the sake of a compassion that it does not really feel.

This is no newly realized idea.  Alexis de Tocqueville understood this well more than a century ago when he wrote:

“Above this race of men stands an immense and tutelary power, which takes upon itself alone to secure their gratifications and to watch over their fate. That power is absolute, minute, regular, provident, and mild. It would be like the authority of a parent if, like that authority, its object was to prepare men for manhood; but it seeks, on the contrary, to keep them in perpetual childhood; it is well content that the people should rejoice, provided they think of nothing but rejoicing. For their happiness such a government willingly labors, but it chooses to be the sole agent and the only arbiter of that happiness; it provides for their security, foresees and supplies their necessities, facilitates their pleasures, manages their principal concerns, directs their industry, regulates the descent of property, and subdivides their inheritances; what remains, but to spare them all the care of thinking and all the trouble of living?”

Whether it is health care “reform” that will create a superstructure that liberals will continue to build more and more socialist big government control forever after; whether it is cap-and-trade, which will send energy prices through the roof and lead to government control over everything that produces or consumes energy, or has anything to do with energy in it’s development; whether it is federal government bailouts of every industry or institution deemed “too big to fail”; whether it is outright government ownership of private industry (such as the car companies); whether it is sweetheart deals offered to one politician, one state, or one industry or institution that correspondingly imposes burdens on others; whether it is the series of sweeping new regulations that strangle businesses and keep banks unable to make loans; we have to fight this agenda with everything we have.

First DemocRAT Jumps Off Sinking Ship

Parker Griffith ran for and was elected (in 2008) to office as a Blue Dog Democrat.  Which is to say as a moderate.

Unfortunately, nobody else in his party was a moderate.  And poor Rep.
Griffith – who is a medical doctor – got very frustrated trying to be a sane voice in a crazy party.

Dr. Griffith blamed Nancy Pelosi and the rest of his Stalinist party leadership for his party switch.  I blame it on his recognizing the handwriting on the wall.

In his own words, Dr. Griffith is

saying he can no longer align himself “with a party that continues to pursue legislation that is bad for our country, hurts our economy and drives us further and further into debt.”

“Unfortunately there are those in the Democratic Leadership that continue to push an agenda focused on massive new spending, tax increases, bailouts and a health care bill that is bad for our healthcare system,” Griffith said in a statement. “I have always considered myself to be an independent voice and I have tried to be that voice in Congress – but after watching this agenda firsthand I now believe that the differences in the two parties could not be more clear and that for me to be true to my core beliefs and values I must align myself with the Republican party and speak out clearly on these issues.”

“I want to make it perfectly clear that his bill is bad for our doctors, our patients and will have unintended consequences far beyond what we know today,” he said. “As a doctor and as a Republican, I plan to once again oppose this measure and hope that we can defeat this bill that is a major threat to our nation.”

I hope that Parker Griffith is the first of many moderate to conservative Democrats to abandon ship.  These Blue Dogs have got to realize that they are NOT going to be re-elected running as Democrats.  And they will be welcome to the Republican Party as long as they don’t embrace the “R.I.N.O.” philosophy.

From NPR, of all places:

Hours After Congressman Switches To GOP, Obama Talks Of ‘Major Disaster’ In Alabama

The big political news of the day is the party-switch by Alabama Rep. Parker Griffith. Elected to his first term in 2008 as a Democrat, today he announced he has become a Republican.

Meanwhile, a press release from the White House Office of the Press Secretary, which arrived only moments ago, reads as follows:

The President today declared a major disaster exists in the State of Alabama and ordered Federal aid to supplement State and local recovery efforts in the area struck by Tropical Storm Ida during the period of November 9-10, 2009.

There was more to the release, but let’s face it, we all know what Obama is talking about. Personally, I think he was overreacting.

But here’s some fun stuff about the Griffith switch — stuff I’m NOT making up.

Michael Steele, chairman of the Republican National Committee, was understandably thrilled with the news of Griffith joining the party:

I would like to sincerely welcome Congressman Parker Griffith to the Republican Party. On the eve of the Senate voting on President Obama’s and Harry Reid’s government-run health care experiment and in the wake of four House Democrats announcing their plans to retire, Dr. Griffith’s party switch sends a strong message to all Americans that there is no longer room in the Democrat Party for mainstream Americans. … Elected officials like Parker Griffith that faithfully represent their constituents and their own personal convictions even under the extreme political pressure are the kind of politicians Americans want and deserve.

John Boehner, the Republican leader in the House, was equally ebullient:

Parker Griffith is a dedicated public servant who has consistently put the best interests of his constituents first, and it is in that spirit that Republicans welcome him.

All year long, Alabamians have been well-served by Congressman Griffith’s support for conservative principles and his rejection of Washington Democrats’ wrong-headed, liberal policies. Whether it was the trillion-dollar ‘stimulus,’ the national energy tax, or a government takeover of health care, Congressman Griffith has consistently sided with Republicans and the American people to call for better solutions rooted in common sense. He has also stood up to Speaker Pelosi by joining efforts to advance ‘read the bill’ reform and to ensure that not a single taxpayer dollar is used to fund abortions.

Now, check out the ad the National Republican Congressional Committee ran against Griffith in 2008, when he faced GOP candidate Wayne Parker, who was strongly backed by the NRCC. Politics is politics, but this one is worth watching (courtesy the Daily Beast):

Meanwhile, President Obama is making the ultimate sacrifice: He says he’s not going to begin his Christmas vacation in Hawaii until the Senate passes the overhaul of health care. Here’s the president, earlier today:

My attitude is that if they’re making these sacrifices to provide health care to all Americans then the least I can do is to be around and provide them any encouragement and last-minute help where necessary.

I think the President sends a very strong signal. We should all delay our Christmas vacations in Hawaii until the Senate passes the bill.

Dr. Griffith will be the first Republican to serve the Democrat, Huntsville-based district in Alabama, according to Politico.

Which pretty much puts the kibosh on the Democrat spin that he was somehow actually a Republican all along.

We also find out that Dr. Griffith got a massive earful of anger when his historically Democrat district erupted in anger at his fellow Democrats’ socialist takeover of the health care system.

Politico also reports that:

Griffith’s party switch comes on the eve of a pivotal congressional health care vote and will send a jolt through a Democratic House Caucus that has already been unnerved by the recent retirements of a handful of members who, like Griffith, hail from districts that offer prime pickup opportunities for the GOP in 2010

Unlike Democrats, who have to literally pay out billions of dollars in bribes to get their people to vote for their very sick health bill, Republicans didn’t have to offer Parker Griffith anything.

Since 2008, there has been a 15 point swing from a country that favored Democrats by 7 points to a country that now favors Republicans by 8 points.

Obama’s Plunging Polls Correspond To America’s Plunging Economy

President Obama’s biggest calender item yesterday was his scheduled “having a beer” with his good friend Henry Louis Gates and the man that both Gates (directly) and Obama (indirectly) called a racist, Sgt. James Crowley.  By sitting down for a beer, Obama was attempting to turn the giant turd he laid at his fourth prime time news conference in six months (which is how many George Bush gave in 8 entire YEARS btw) into a gold-plated turd.

I hope the three men clink their glasses to Obama’s plummeting poll numbers and America’s plummeting economy while they pondered why ‘Skip’ Gates is such a bigot and why Barry Obama acted so stupidly by claiming the Cambridge police “acted stupidly.”

Rasmussen has Obama at a -12 approval rating measuring the difference between those who strongly approve and those who strongly disapprove of his presidency; and he is now at only 48% approval – a far cry from his halcyon days of being in the high 60s.  Only 34% of likely voters think the country is headed in the right direction.  And 49% believe America’s best days have come and gone, versus only 38% who think the country will improve.

The hope that once swelled the hearts of Obama voters is fading fast – especially in the swing states he needs to win to have any chance at either future re-election or even current relevance.  “Hope and change” now means, “I hope I still have some change left in my pocket at the end of the month.”

As U.S. recession bites, Ohio hopes fade for Obama
Thu Jul 30, 2009 11:12am EDT
By Nick Carey

TOLEDO, Ohio (Reuters) – Hope and jobs are in short supply in Ohio eight months after President Barack Obama won the recession-battered state in the 2008 election with promises of a better future.

“People were looking for a savior to get us out of this mess and that’s why they voted for Obama,” said Jeff Fravor, 55, a retired train conductor on his way to breakfast on the outskirts of Toledo.

“I’ve nothing against Obama personally, but he’s new to the job and ‘hope’ won’t fix this mess.”

Candidate Obama delivered his message over and over again in Ohio, a politically diverse battleground state that often decides presidential elections. Obama went back to the state last week with an approval rating below 50 percent.

A Quinnipiac University opinion poll released on July 7 showed the Democratic president’s popularity in America’s seventh most populous state had fallen to 49 percent from 62 per cent in May. Even worse for Obama, 48 percent said they disapproved of his handling of the U.S. economy, with 46 percent approving.

The reason for the poll drop? Rising unemployment.

The downturn has pummeled Ohio’s manufacturing base.

“As jobs have gone away, that has created a true focus here on job creation,” said Andrew Doehrel, head of the Ohio Chamber of Commerce. “People look at what’s been done on a federal level in terms of bailouts and stimulus and they see that this has not equated to anything more than lost jobs in Ohio.”

Ohio has not been the state hardest hit by the U.S. recession that began in December 2007, but it is not far off.

Unemployment in the state of 11.5 million people reached 11.1 percent in June, compared with the national rate of 9.5 percent, making it the seventh highest rate in the country. Michigan was first with a rate of 15.2 percent.

TWICE THE UNEMPLOYMENT

Ohio’s unemployment has nearly doubled from 5.7 percent in January 2008. That is not a good start for Obama in a state with 20 electoral votes that could be vital for his re-election effort in 2012.

“It’s not a surprise Obama’s numbers have fallen here and they’ll continue to go down as long as jobs keep being lost here,” said Jim Rokakis, treasurer for Cuyahoga County, which includes Cleveland where unemployment hit 10.1 percent in June. “Americans always want a quick fix to problems, but they are going to relearn patience this time round.”

Toledo in northwest Ohio has been especially hard hit by the recession, in particular because of the auto industry-related plants that dot the area.

“Obama set expectations too high here and six months later, things haven’t got better, so some people are losing hope,” said John Johnson, branch manager of the Southeastern Container Inc plant in nearby Bowling Green, which makes plastic bottles for Coca-Cola Co..

Johnson said he had to turn away qualified workers from auto-related plastic companies seeking work. “When people are out of work for a long time, they become very impatient.”

Unemployment hit 14.2 percent in June in Toledo, a city of about 315,000 people. Many of the roads in and out of the city are in a poor state of repair and many downtown stores have closed down. Manufacturing brought the city wealth, so plant closures have taken a heavy toll.

‘DEPRESSION’

“We’re not just in a recession here, it’s a depression,” said Toledo Mayor Carty Finkbeiner. “This downturn has left Ohioans wondering if we’ve lost our place in the sun.”

According to a midyear survey from real estate service company CB Richard Ellis Reichle Klein, Toledo’s retail vacancy rate hit a record level of 14.6 percent.

“Everybody is having a hard time just existing right now,” said Bob Shelley, 72, who runs Shelley Rubber Stamp & Sign Inc for his father in downtown Toledo. “All businesses have been hit, so everybody’s giving everybody a break right now.”

Shelley said he felt Obama had an overcrowded agenda.

“He’s trying to satisfy everyone at once and he’s trying to rush everything through Congress,” he said. “But if you rush like that, you’re bound to make mistakes.”

Angie Carter, 32, a market research analyst in downtown Toledo, said she voted for Obama and he just needed time.

“This is a recession and we live in a manufacturing state,” she said on a cigarette break. “It’s going to take time to turn it around.”

When touting his $787 billion stimulus package earlier this year, Obama cautioned that a recovery would take time.

The president also has time to recover in Ohio if jobs come back. Aware of its importance, he was there last week to tout his healthcare plans. The last candidate who won Ohio but lost the election was Republican Richard Nixon in 1960.

Rokakis said Obama’s speech in Cleveland on July 23 was no accident.

“Obama is a smart man and he knows how important Ohio is,”

The article portrays Obama as having said that recovery would take time under his stimulus.  It fails to mention that the Obama administration – in pushing the failed stimulus package through Congress – predicted that unemployment would rise no higher than 8% if his stimulus passed.

As bad as things are now, there is no realistic reason to believe they will get better.  Meredith Whitney, the Wall Street analyst who gained much credibility in predicting the mortgage meltdown, is predicting unemployment will rise to 13% or higher.

The date for a housing market recovery stretches to 2015.

Obama’s deficits are soaring to stunning levels.  Back in March the Congressional Budget Office estimated that Obama’s “huge annual budget deficits that would force the nation to borrow nearly $9.3 trillion over the next decade — $2.3 trillion more than the president predicted when he unveiled his budget request just one month ago.” And that mindbogglingly ginormous figure doesn’t include the trillion plus hole we would dig passing Obama’s health care plan.

As the Wall Street Journal’s Michael Boskin puts it:

Mr. Obama’s $3.6 trillion budget blueprint, by his own admission, redefines the role of government in our economy and society. The budget more than doubles the national debt held by the public, adding more to the debt than all previous presidents — from George Washington to George W. Bush — combined.”

Obama has blamed President Bush for the deficits, but not only has he racked up far more debt than did Bush, but as a Senator Obama actually voted for the very Bush-budget that Obama is now blaming on Bush – including the $700 billion TARP bailout.

It is also worth knowing that the federal government has exposed itself to $23.7 trillion in risks with its bailouts since TARP (which is turning out to be a thinly disguised anagram for “TRAP”).

Those massive deficits guarantee future economic pain, but recent developments are beginning to show that our future pain may already be here right now:

Weak Treasury Auctions Raise Worries About US Debt Burden
By: Reuters     Wednesday, 29 Jul 2009

The U.S. Treasury sold $39 billion in five-year debt Wednesday in an auction that drew poor demand, raising worries over the cost of financing the government’s burgeoning budget deficit.

It was the second lackluster showing in as many days,  convincing analysts that the stellar results of debt auctions just a few weeks ago were a fluke and that Thursday’s $28 billion seven-year offering could suffer a similar fate.

Under the weight of the ballooning deficit, the government has raised auction volumes and analysts now wonder whether the strain on the market is showing.

“Obviously everyone is inferring that tomorrow’s won’t be good either,” said James Combias, head of government bond trading at Mizuho Securities USA in New York. “Maybe you will see more interest tomorrow but I think the increase in the auctions and the size of them may be starting to have an effect. These are very large auctions.”

We are witnessing a terrifying unfolding scenario in which “Interest due on the debt could easily be $1 trillion toward the end of the next decade.”

Like the Texas Hold’em player who pushes every last dime into the center of a poker table, the federal government is now “all in” with its commitment to push the national debt to 50% of GDP. The Congressional Budget Office believes that the Treasury will have to borrow nearly $2 trillion this year. None of that is new news, but what is beginning to emerge is a picture of a government which has narrowed its options for improving the economy down to one. Either GDP turns sharply up next year or the deficit will become an unmanageable burden. The Treasury will have to default on interest payments if sharply raising taxes in 2010 and 2011 does not bring IRS receipts to historic highs. That would not appear to be likely with unemployment moving toward 10% and American corporate earnings badly crippled.

You may not know it, but your government under Obama has gambled this country’s future – and gambled poorly.  Obama believed his $787 billion stimulus – which was actually scored by the CBO to be $3.27 trillion – would stimulate big, but it has been a total dud.  And as we continue to pile on debt on top of debt on top of debt, and combine that with continuing high unemployment and low economic output, the result is insolvency and doom.  And it is already beginning to rush toward us like an enraged Kodiak bear.

Some are pointing at the seemingly recovering Dow Index to argue that the worst is behind us and that we are on the road to recovery.  As reported by Reuters:

No Economic Recovery in Sight, Only Inflation
Mon May 11, 2009 9:01am EDT

FORT LEE, N.J., May 11 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — The National Inflation Association yesterday released the following statement to its http://inflation.us members:

“Wall Street would like you to believe that the Dow Jones’ recent 33% rally from March’s low is due to improving economic fundamentals, but it is our belief this rally is due to nothing but inflation.

“Jobs data released on Friday shows that U.S. employers cut 539,000 jobs in April, the fewest since October. However, these numbers were artificially strong due to the U.S. government increasing their payrolls by 72,000, which included the hiring of about 60,000 temporary workers in preparation for the 2010 census.

“Government jobs are non-productive jobs that normally get paid for by taxpayers. However, because the U.S. already has a huge budget deficit with tax revenues likely to decline substantially, these jobs will be paid for through inflation. An increase in government jobs is not a sign that the economy is improving, but only a sign that we are digging our economy into a deeper hole that will ultimately lead to the U.S. dollar collapsing.

“Even Warren Buffett, who is a huge supporter of Obama and has defended his economic policies, said last week that with political leaders showing little inclination to raise taxes, the only way to pay for excess spending will be by inflating the currency and shrinking the value of the dollar.

“The worst of the recession is not behind us. Nominally, anything can happen to the Dow Jones. If the Federal Reserve prints enough money, the Dow Jones could go back to 14,000, but it won’t mean anything if it costs $2,000 to fill your refrigerator with groceries.

Obama’s spending has put us into a genuine crisis: we are now in a situation where any recovery will be immediately followed by sharp increases in inflation, unless government either sharply raise taxes across the board (which will undermine the economy) or unless they sharply raise interest rates (which will also undermine the economy).  Both options are politically unacceptable.

You’d better be thinking about getting a wheelbarrow, because you’re eventually going to need to one to bring enough cash to the grocery store to buy your daily bread.

That was my long-winded way of saying that Obama’s polls are likely to drop to the point where angry villagers armed with pitchforks and torches start storming Castle Obamastein as the economy drops right along with his popularity by the end of his one-term presidency.

Taxpayers Now On Hook For $23.7 TRILLION In Bailout Money

I don’t know if I should be more scared than angry or more angry than scared.  Suffice it to say, I’m both angry and scared as hell.

The Obama presidency is just one giant nightmare.  And just like most nightmares, it’s going to keep getting scarier and scarier and crazier and crazier the longer it goes on.

While Obama has promised us unparalleled transparency, we have had the truth concealed from us, and we have been lied to.  And the TARP Inspector General’s report should wake up every American and

U.S. Rescue May Reach $23.7 Trillion, Barofsky Says (Update3)

By Dawn Kopecki and Catherine Dodge

July 20 (Bloomberg) — U.S. taxpayers may be on the hook for as much as $23.7 trillion to bolster the economy and bail out financial companies, said Neil Barofsky, special inspector general for the Treasury’s Troubled Asset Relief Program.

The Treasury’s $700 billion bank-investment program represents a fraction of all federal support to resuscitate the U.S. financial system, including $6.8 trillion in aid offered by the Federal Reserve, Barofsky said in a report released today.

“TARP has evolved into a program of unprecedented scope, scale and complexity,” Barofsky said in testimony prepared for a hearing tomorrow before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

Treasury spokesman Andrew Williams said the U.S. has spent less than $2 trillion so far and that Barofsky’s estimates are flawed because they don’t take into account assets that back those programs or fees charged to recoup some costs shouldered by taxpayers.

“These estimates of potential exposures do not provide a useful framework for evaluating the potential cost of these programs,” Williams said. “This estimate includes programs at their hypothetical maximum size, and it was never likely that the programs would be maxed out at the same time.”

Barofsky’s estimates include $2.3 trillion in programs offered by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., $7.4 trillion in TARP and other aid from the Treasury and $7.2 trillion in federal money for Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, credit unions, Veterans Affairs and other federal programs.

Treasury’s Comment

Williams said the programs include escalating fee structures designed to make them “increasingly unattractive as financial markets normalize.” Dependence on these federal programs has begun to decline, as shown by $70 billion in TARP capital investments that has already been repaid, Williams said.

Barofsky offered criticism in a separate quarterly report of Treasury’s implementation of TARP, saying the department has “repeatedly failed to adopt recommendations” needed to provide transparency and fulfill the administration’s goal to implement TARP “with the highest degree of accountability.”

As a result, taxpayers don’t know how TARP recipients are using the money or the value of the investments, he said in the report.

‘Falling Short’

“This administration promised an ‘unprecedented level’ of accountability and oversight, but as this report reveals, they are falling far short of that promise,” Representative Darrell Issa of California, the top Republican on the oversight committee, said in a statement. “The American people deserve to know how their tax dollars are being spent.”

The Treasury has spent $441 billion of TARP funds so far and has allocated $202.1 billion more for other spending, according to Barofsky. In the nine months since Congress authorized TARP, Treasury has created 12 programs involving funds that may reach almost $3 trillion, he said.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner should press banks for more information on how they use the more than $200 billion the government has pumped into U.S. financial institutions, Barofsky said in a separate report.

The inspector general surveyed 360 banks that have received TARP capital, including Bank of America Corp., JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Wells Fargo & Co. The responses, which the inspector general said it didn’t verify independently, showed that 83 percent of banks used TARP money for lending, while 43 percent used funds to add to their capital cushion and 31 percent made new investments.

Barofsky said the TARP inspector general’s office has 35 ongoing criminal and civil investigations that include suspected accounting, securities and mortgage fraud; insider trading; and tax investigations related to the abuse of TARP programs.

We were sold the stimulus (more commonly known to people who actually knew what was going on as ‘porkulus,’ and more accurately known as the Generational Theft Act) as a $787 billion package.  But it was actually no such thing.  The media kept talking about billions; but the actual figure was $3.27 TRILLION.  That’s right.  $3.27 trillion.  We were lied to.  Costs that were clearly part of the legislation weren’t disclosed to us, and now on top of getting far less than what was advertised, we are paying far more for the privilege than was advertised.

Now we find out that Obama and his gang of thieves has done much the same with TARP.  Somehow, while we weren’t looking, “TARP evolved into a program of unprecedented scope, scale and complexity.”  And by the same people who promised us an “‘unprecedented level’ of accountability and oversight.”  And lo and behold, TARP has exploded under all the darkness into a mushroom cloud of government obligations that dwarf anything imaginable.

And all that’s coming out of the Obama administration is some stumbling excuse from the Treasury Department’s spin doctor that it really isn’t as bad as the inspector general scrutinizing TARP says it is.

What we are getting from the Obama administration is an unceasing projection of rosey-colored scenarios that have no connection whatsoever to reality.  When they are forced to offer some sort of excuse, they claim they didn’t realize the economy was so weak (even when they were fearmongering it into comparisons of the Great Depression to sell their stimulus package) – and then they immediately offer up yet another mindlessly and freakishly rosy scenario in their very next breaths!!!  And then, of course, based on these projections, they are racking up insane spending atop insane spending.

Wall Street analyst Meredith Whitney, who gained a reputation of credibility after boldly predicting doom when everyone around her was seeing roses last year, is now predicting 13% unemployment and a very tough future for banks due to the continuing mortgage meltdown.

The White House is refusing to release its own annual midsummer US budget update because it doesn’t want the American people to see how bad things are until after they’ve passed their massive health care boondoggle.  Many now believe that budget release accounts for Obama’s frenzied push to pass health care before the August recess.  How’s THAT for “unparalleled transparency”?

As said, Meredith Whitney is predicting 13% or higher unemployment.  What you may not know is that we are already at Great Depression levels of unemployment right now, and that our current 9.5% unemployment rate would be nearing 20% if it were calculated the way it was in 1980.

Note: The SGS Alternate Unemployment Rate reflects current unemployment reporting methodology adjusted for SGS-estimated “discouraged workers” defined away during the Clinton Administration added to the existing BLS estimates of level U-6 unemployment.

We face a future damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t dilemma: the only reason interest rates aren’t shooting skyward is because the market is in such a doldrum.  But the moment recovery begins to rear its head in Barack Obama’s game of economic Whack-a-Mole (where he whacks down small businesses and private-sector employment), hyperinflation due to our massive indebtedness will likely attack us.  The prospect of a jobless recovery, followed by Zimbabwe-levels of inflation looms very large in our future.

We’ve set ourselves up for hyperinflation.  We have massively increased our money supply even as our GDP has plummeted.  We have an increasing lack of confidence on the part of investors that we will be able to maintain the value of our currency (and see here), forcing demand for higher and higher interest rate payments on future bonds.  Those were the conditions of the Wiemar Republic; those were the conditions of Zimbabwe; and those are the conditions in the Late Great USA.

Pretty soon, we will be facing the Sophie’s Choice prospect of whether we want massively high interest rates, or massively high inflation – or best of both worlds – both massive interest AND hyperinflation.  We’ve got experts such as Johns Hopkins Professor of applied economics Steve Hanke and National Bureau of Economic Research economist Anna Schwartz seeing the inflation bogeyman rearing its genuinely ugly head.  And we’ve got investors beginning to start betting big on a coming hyperinflationary economy.

The thing is, we have a giant mega-trillion ton anvil cued over our collective heads.  And it is just waiting to drop.

So you see massive debt exposure to US economic structures.  You see higher unemployment.  You see historically low levels of tax revenue.  You see terrible recent mortgage default rates now turning “markedly worse.” You see all kinds of indicators that our debts are getting larger and larger even as our ability to repay them becomes smaller and smaller.

And it is with that backdrop that we should contemplate the massive, mind-numbingly enormous numbers hanging over everything this administration has done, is doing, or is trying to do.  With the debt he’s accumulating going up by the trillions, Obama issued the petty promise to cut his spending by a measly $100 million.  And he couldn’t even fulfill that insignificant budget cut.  All he knows how to do is spend and spend and spend.

So get scared.  Get angry.  And get ready for the beast.

We voted for “No, no, no.  Not God bless America.  God damn America!”  And now we’re going to get to see what “God damn America” looks like.