Politics and the US Economy

[RightField]

Part of the 2008 budget was passed yesterday. The government's fiscal year starts in October so it's only 3 months late, but Harry Reid and Nancy Reid couldn't get all their earmark-pork spending lined up early enough so they took an extra three months for it. Of course, they reduced the amount of money that goes to the military and to the border fence to fund their pork projects, but that's a later discussion.

Will this spending package for 2008 help or hurt the economy?

Senate OKs spending bill, war funds
By S.A. Miller
December 19, 2007

As House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland yesterday detailed the agriculture disaster assistance provisions in the spending bill, he was flanked by fellow Democratic Reps. Bob Etheridge of North Carolina (back row from left), Artur Davis of Alabama, John Barrow of Georgia and Tim Mahoney of Florida. (Michael Connor / The Washington Times)

Senate Democrats last night acquiesced to President Bush's demand for $70 billion in emergency war funds, overwhelmingly approving the funding with passage of a catch-all spending bill that promised to wrap up the chamber's business for the year.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said the $554 billion spending bill represented a compromise that did not fully satisfy the Democrat-led Congress or the White House.

"We are not really happy in being pushed into doing what has been done," the Nevada Democrat said shortly after the war funds were approved 70-25 and the outcome for the spending bill took shape.

Sen. Gordon Smith of Oregon cast the sole Republican vote against the war funds, while 21 Democrats crossed the aisle to support the measure.

The entire spending package, which funds every Cabinet agency except the Pentagon for the budget year that began Oct. 1, passed 76-17.

The House was left to finish the spending bill and other legislation before adjourning for the year and taking a Christmas break scheduled to start by Friday.

Senate Republicans spurred the war debate after blocking the House-passed spending bill, which was written by Democrats and provided $31 billion for the war in Afghanistan, but no money for the Iraq mission.

"It leaves the troops in Iraq to fend for themselves. This is unacceptable," said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Kentucky Republican, who introduced an amendment for a total of $70 billion in emergency funds for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Mr. Bush last month signed the $459 billion defense appropriations bill that did not include war funds and prompted Pentagon officials to plan furloughs for 100,000 civilian military employees to free up money for the war. He promised to veto the next spending bill if it lacked war funds.

The bill had already surrendered to Mr. Bush's other budget demand that total nonmilitary discretionary spending not exceed $933 billion, which it did, excluding $11.2 billion in emergency spending for veterans, border security and other programs.

Democrats reached his goal in part by slashing his defense and foreign-aid priorities to pay for added domestic spending.

Republicans criticized the majority for rushing to pass a 3,500-page bill that conceals more than 9,000 pork projects and some abrupt policy shifts, including a provision that undermines current plans for a U.S.-Mexico border fence.

The 2006 Secure Fence Act specifically called for "two layers of reinforced fencing" and listed five specific sections of border where it should be installed. The spending bill nixed the two-tier requirement and the list of locations.

The White House criticized Democrats for throwing "unnecessary and excessive procedural hurdles in the path of the DHS building a fence on the border," but vowed not to let the measure impede building about 670 miles of border fence by the end of 2008.

"Nothing in the omnibus [spending bill] changes our commitment to securing the border through fencing and technological infrastructure," said White House spokesman Scott M. Stanzel. "The American people want more border security, and we're delivering it."

Senate Democrats countered the $70 billion war-funds demand — a down payment on the $196.4 billion war request for 2008 — with two ill-fated amendments advocating a U.S. pullout, despite similar measures failing on at least three previous occasions.

An amendment by Sen. Russ Feingold, Wisconsin Democrat, that would have required a nearly complete troop withdrawal in a year was defeated 71-24, falling far short of the 60 votes required for passage.

Sen. Carl Levin, Michigan Democrat and chairman of the Armed Services Committee, offered a nonbinding amendment voicing support of drastically limiting the U.S. mission to a supporting role for Iraqi forces by the end of 2008. His amendment died 50-45 in a vote that also required 60 for passage.

Republicans also helped kill a House-passed bill to stop the alternative minimum tax (AMT) from hitting middle-class families this year and "pay for" it with new taxes on Wall Street fund managers.

They previously defeated similar measures, objecting to imposing new taxes as a replacement for the AMT, which is set to raise taxes Jan. 1 by an average $2,000 for 23 million middle-class families.

The bill's demise in a 48-46 vote — 12 shy of the 60 needed for passage — is expected to clear the way for a House vote on a tax-increase-free AMT fix the Senate overwhelmingly approved earlier this month.

 

[RightField]

Pork snouts in budget tent
By Donald Lambro
December 20, 2007

Thousands of pork-filled giveaways that do not pass the smell test were stuffed into a bloated end-of-the-year spending bill that passed both houses of Congress this week.

Practicing a dead-of-night thievery long associated with big budget bills, the Democratic House leadership released this 1,482-page monstrosity in the wee hours of Monday morning and quickly scheduled floor debate by 6 p.m. the same day. That left budget-cutters scant time to uncover how much fiscal skullduggery their colleagues had perpetrated.

The so-called catch-all, omnibus appropriations bill that tipped the scales at $516 billion contained 9,170 parochial spending projects, according to Sen. Tom Coburn, the Oklahoma Republican who has become the GOP's chief waste-fighter on Capitol Hill. These are projects the government's departments and agencies did not ask for, that the administration did not seek or approve and that were not subjected to even a minimal scrutiny by the congressional committees that have jurisdiction over them. They were inserted into the bill by members of both parties, with the leadership's acquiescence, to help them win next year's election — usually by those who loudly proclaim their allegiance to fiscal responsibility.

Two lawmakers heavily associated with these "earmarks" are Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York,whose name appears 50 times in the budget disclosure form, and her chief rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, whose name appears 22 times. Sen. Jim DeMint, South Carolina Republican, another sworn enemy of pork-barrel spending, said the earmarks in this week's bill total more than $12 billion.

In many cases, these giveaway grants and assorted appropriations go to private organizations in a member's state or district. Often, this money is extracted from Congress with the help of lobbyists paid big bucks to grease the wheels of the earmark spending machine.

"It is business as usual. The Democratic leadership failed to keep its promise to cut earmarks by 50 percent," said Tom Schatz, president of Citizens Against Government Waste.

In macro budget numbers, there was some solace for President Bush who had vowed to veto the bill when Democrats proposed adding $27 billion more than he requested. Democrats cut their wish list to $11 billion and Mr. Bush threatened to kill that, too.

But in its latest version, Democrats claimed they had met the president's demands, using some legerdemain that pushed some of the funds into the off-budget "emergency" gray zone. Still, Mr. Bush said he was pleased with the final numbers, with the exception of funding for Iraq: There was none.

The Senate added $70 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan Tuesday night and sent it back to the House, which was expected to clear the bill yesterday.

The overall budget battle will go down as a defeat for the Democrats. They had sought a 7 percent increase in domestic spending, the president wanted about 1 percent, the bill will weigh in at about 4 percent, including "emergency" funding.

"The result is to effectively surrender 80 percent of what Democrats once hoped to add to the president's top line," writes Wall Street Journal congressional reporter David Rogers.

Even so, Mr. Bush's victory comes at an enormous price, as the budget's list of 696 pages of earmarks makes so painfully clear.

The Democrats ran on reining in pork-barrel spending and ending the earmark abuses, but this grotesquely overweight budget proves they failed to keep their promise — and had no intention of doing so.

Hillary Clinton, her presidential rivals and the leadership of their party are promising to raise taxes if they win back the White House. Their argument is twofold: First, that Mr. Bush's tax cuts slashed taxes on the wealthy who thus do not pay their fair share. Second, there is not enough money flowing into the Treasury to cut the deficit. Translation: not enough money to pay for the Democrats' big spending promises.

But the U.S. Treasury and the Congressional Budget Office released IRS tax revenue numbers for 2005 last week, showing the wealthiest 1 percent of all income earners paid 39 percent of all income taxes that year. The top 5 percent, who earned 36 percent of all income, paid nearly 60 percent of all income taxes. And the wealthiest 10 percent paid 70 percent.

The IRS showed that since the Bush tax cuts were enacted, the level of income taxes the richest Americans paid were up every year since 1990. Notably, taxpayers below the median income level — half of all households — paid 3 percent of all income taxes.

Then there is the claim that the Treasury needs more of our money to pay its bills. Hillary Clinton says, if elected president in 2008, she will push the top income tax rate to nearly 40 percent from the 35 percent rate we have now.

But this year's waste-ridden budget — spending $12 billion on projects the government didn't ask for — suggests that maybe Congress is getting too much of our money as it is.

 

[Cap’n AMatrixca]

Pork spending is a small percentage of what will kill the economy; it's more a symptom of corruption, a corruption codified and celebrated; it's just how we get things done, we bribe each other instead of reasoning with each other because they are bad people with whom you cannot reason.



It is more of a strong signal to everyone with investment wealth; we're not going to do one damned thing to slow down the creeping death of over-taxation in order to cure a vast myriad of imaginary social problems and we expect you to pay for it, because thanks to us, our laws, you had the opportunity to make that wealth at the expense of others, and we aim to right that wrong. It's our job.

 

[RightField]

Pork spending is a small percentage of what will kill the economy; it's more a symptom of corruption, a corruption codified and celebrated; it's just how we get things done, we bribe each other instead of reasoning with each other because they are bad people with whom you cannot reason.

Yes, I agree. That is the frightening thing about it.

 

[Cap’n AMatrixca]

It is a slow Friday...

You would think there would be a token of Democrat indignation at neo-con hypocrisy that Democrats are doing exactly what the Republicans did; maintain the culture of corruption.






*Yawn*




*stretch*

 

[RightField]

2009 Issues:

From todays Economist Magazine (5/29/09) by David Gerson:

In his zeal to fix capitalism, Barack Obama must not stifle America’s dynamism

......But the Democrats’ present zeal for government activism often goes well beyond addressing market failures. The president and Congress seem to believe that they can surgically intervene in the economy but overlook the unintended consequences. They are willing to demonise business when doing so furthers their aims. In one breath Mr Obama praises a bank that wrote down its claims on Chrysler and in the next lashes out at investors who, as was their right, did not.

Members of his team believe that tougher rules for business are necessary to cool voter anger that would otherwise result in even more vindictive measures. But rather than tamping down the backlash, they may only feed it. They aggravate that risk by outsourcing rule-writing to Congress, as with the fiscal stimulus and carbon emissions and, soon, health care. Congress is much more likely than the executive branch to let special interests or demagoguery shape the outcome.

Creating new monsters
Too often, the result is overkill. Last December the Federal Reserve approved sweeping new rules on credit cards. Congress said it was not enough, and passed its own law which takes effect sooner and is even more restrictive. Some provisions restrain genuinely odious practices, such as charging interest on already-paid balances, but others prevent banks from tailoring interest rates to customers’ changing risks.

The approach to energy is worse. Under a mammoth carbon-emissions bill now working its way through Congress, 85% of valuable permits to emit carbon dioxide (which might all have been auctioned) will be given away free. This creates a huge new pot of favours for government to hand out, and new incentives for businesses to lobby. It will be costlier to fight climate change, while harder to avoid political favour-trading. (My note.....we're inviting corruption and fraud with this...with capital letters and an exclamation point.....another Chrysler/GM situation where laws get ignored and "friends" of the administration take the bacon).

Mr Obama’s people seem sincere when they say they want to rid the government of its stakes in banks and carmakers as soon as possible. But in the meantime they are introducing new rules, such as limits on performance-related pay at banks, that could do more harm than good (see article). Nor can they resist using that ownership to push goals unrelated to the firms’ welfare, such as pressing banks to relent on foreclosures or carmakers to make alternative-fuel cars for which there is no obvious demand. On top of that, they are passing more stringent fuel-economy standards that favour light trucks over cars. A far less distorting (and transparent) way to cut carbon emissions and raise fuel economy would be a carbon tax—but almost no one in Washington has the courage to propose one.

These mistakes matter because, for all Mr Obama’s oratory, it will be very hard to reverse course in future. Regulations and interventions spawn constituencies that will fight any paring of their benefits. The federal government created Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the big mortgage agencies, in the interest of raising home-ownership. But long after that goal was met, the housing lobby barred almost all efforts to rein them in. Only massive taxpayer bail-outs have prevented their collapse.

America’s free-market capitalism has always been a model for the rest of the world. By all means fix its flaws, Mr Obama; but do not take its dynamism for granted.

 

[Frisco_Slug_Esq]

President Obama told us during the campaign that he planned to end the capitalist economy in lieu of a "fair" economy, be be sure to bring your pig to the fair to swap for some corn!

Joe, I'm going to make sure you never have to undergo the crushing responsibility and burden of running your own plumbing business, instead, we're going to "organize" plumbing and you can be an employee with full benefits and protections in US R Plumbing...

 

[tactful]

Politics and economy, like oil and vinegar,
where's the salad, I'm hungry.

 

[unregistered]

 

[Frisco_Slug_Esq]

Politics and economy, like oil and vinegar,
where's the salad, I'm hungry.

It's still out in the garden.

When the deck is stripped bare, you eat. Last man in line isn't hungry enough to eat!

He won't become one of the ate!

 

[Frisco_Slug_Esq]

The first two articles are dated in 2007.

BB left me some too.

The Repblicans are going to morph from the party of just say no (as in know!) to the party of "I TOLD YOU SO!"

 

[RightField]

The first two articles are dated in 2007.

BB left me some too.

Ah yes, it's an ongoing situation...not just today. I resurrected an old thread instead of creating a new one.

 

[RightField]

Catch you guys later, I have to go to work (not retired or independendly wealthy).

 

[Frisco_Slug_Esq]

Catch you guys later, I have to go to work (not retired or independendly wealthy).

Good thing! I need someone to pick up my tab!

 

[unregistered]

 

[Frisco_Slug_Esq]

May 29 (Bloomberg) -- Louis Susman has one thing in common with many of his predecessors nominated to be the U.S. ambassador to the United Kingdom: money.

Susman, 71, a retired Citigroup Inc. senior investment banker, raised between $200,000 and $500,000 for President Barack Obama’s presidential campaign and another $300,000 for his inauguration. On Wednesday, Obama nominated Susman to the post formally known as the Court of St. James.

Like Andrew Mellon, Joseph Kennedy and Walter Annenberg before him, Susman’s credentials stem more from involvement in financing party politics than foreign policy experience.

Even with his pledges to change government, Obama is following the tradition of his predecessors by offering some ambassadorships to top campaign backers, including four of the 12 nominations this week. The president acknowledged in a news conference in January that donors might get plum postings.

“The practice of rewarding donors is a remnant of the spoils system that we abolished in the civil service,” said career diplomat Ronald Neumann, president of the American Academy of Diplomacy and a former ambassador to Afghanistan. “It is a dismal testimony to the importance of money in our electoral system.”

CHANGE we can believe in! Yes HE can!

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=washingtonstory&sid=adfv4RHV3Kmk

 

[RightField]

Good thing! I need someone to pick up my tab!

I gotta go work so I can pay my due (50%) so a retired UAW guy can get his viagra under his government subsidized medical plan.

 

[Frisco_Slug_Esq]

I gotta go work so I can pay my due (50%) so a retired UAW guy can get his viagra under his government subsidized medical plan.

You looking forward to a good union fucking?

 

[Frisco_Slug_Esq]

You ain't seen nuttin' yet!
B-b-b-baybee, you just ain't seen nuttin' yet!
Here's something that you're never gonna forget...

Joining the celebrities feting Obama were Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) and Republican-turned-Democratic Sen. Arlen Specter (Pa.), "the newest member of our caucus."

Obama was introduced by Dreamworks CEO and longtime Democratic donor Jeffrey Katzenberg. The president thanked Katzenberg, saying: "If it weren't for you, we would not be in the White House."

The trip here came on the heels of a fundraising jaunt to Las Vegas to raise about $2 million for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), according to aides.

...

At the concert, headlined by Jennifer Hudson and Earth, Wind and Fire, Obama responded to an audience member yelling, "Yes we can" by saying, "Yes we have. But we've got more work to do. We can't rest on our laurels.

"We didn't ask for the challenges that we face, but we don't shrink from them either," he said. "It won't be easy. There will be setbacks. It will take time."

The president conceded that his administration "had our fits and starts."

"I've made some mistakes, and I guarantee you I'll make some more," he said.

But Obama said in promising to continue to work hard, "Los Angeles, you ain't seen nothing yet."

http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/obama-in-l.a.-confident-but-not-yet-content-2009-05-27.html

 

[Frisco_Slug_Esq]

CHANGE we can believe in! Yes HE can!

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=washingtonstory&sid=adfv4RHV3Kmk

Joining the celebrities feting Obama were Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) and Republican-turned-Democratic Sen. Arlen Specter (Pa.), "the newest member of our caucus."

Obama was introduced by Dreamworks CEO and longtime Democratic donor Jeffrey Katzenberg. The president thanked Katzenberg, saying: "If it weren't for you, we would not be in the White House."

The trip here came on the heels of a fundraising jaunt to Las Vegas to raise about $2 million for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), according to aides.

 

[unregistered]

 

[Frisco_Slug_Esq]

The land of make believe, finally got their make believe President.

Good observation, good line.

Maybe if you had been writing busybody's material, but, alas...

 

[off2bed]

Obama is president of Never Never Land.

 

[unregistered]

 

[Frisco_Slug_Esq]

He's A LOON!




AXE anybody!