Quote of the Day
To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle, requires creative imagination and marks real advance in science.
Albert Einstein
Sunday Talk Soup and Obama Caught Lying At Press Conference
I was listening to the Sunday morning podcasts when I heard a preposterous claim made by one of the Democrats that they have put on the table setting domestic spending levels to the lowest level since the Eisenhower Administration. I thought my ears were playing tricks on me, until I read that Obama had made that ludicrous claim during last Friday's news conference which I hadn't seen: "I have already said I am willing to take down domestic spending to the lowest percentage of our overall economy since Dwight Eisenhower."
Before we go any further, that one statement alone is enough to win this blog's first ever "LIAR, LIAR, PANTS ON FIRE" award and to earn the first nomination of Obama to my tongue-in-cheek Jackass of the Year (2011) competition. Former Congressman Weiner seemed to have the inside track, but Obama's lack of leadership and fundamental dishonesty during this crisis may trump even Weiner's boorish behavior.
Outside of the fact that nobody seems to recall him making this statement before even once, and I for one am sick and tired of hearing the Obama Administration demagogues gripe about they had inherited a mess (let's point out most of the jobs lost in the recession occurred on Bush's side of the ledger and the recession officially ended 5 months into Obama's administration, but two years into the recovery, we are spending 25.3% of GDP on the federal level and using Obama's own budget numbers, we will spend over 20% of GDP on an ongoing basis over the coming decade). Related expenditures have increased by 20% over the last Congress while revenues dropped by double-digit percentages, we have the weakest economic growth of any recession in decades and economic conditions are hardly the worst-case scenario Democratic partisans have misleadingly implied: look at economic-crippling, far higher inflation and interest rates Ronald Reagan inherited about 30 years ago. If we look at 1% of $15T GDP, we get about $150B. If we were to get down to the 18% GDP or so of federal spending under Eisenhower, we would be going to cut nearly a $1T PER YEAR (i.e., below $3T federal spending); the GOP would take that deal in a heartbeat. The most aggressive plans I've heard speak of about $4T over TEN YEARS. That works out to $400B per year.
Now let's talk about the facts of life. Older people are living longer, which means that our outlays are increasing even if we assume the number of new senior beneficiaries remains constant. But we already know the largest count population of American people (between 1945 and 1965), means that Medicare/social security enrollments are about to escalate radically. We have $50T in unfunded entitlement liabilities. And we haven't even talked about ObamaCare which will be heavily subsidized by the government. Medicare and Medicaid are already implicitly subsidized by shrinking private-sector plans. If companies start dumping their own plans (because program penalties are far cheaper than providing the benefit), program subsidies will skyrocket--totally missing from Democrats' Ponzi scheme smoke-and-mirrors accounting projections.
Let's now go back to Obama's disingenuous, deliberately misleading rhetoric. Pelosi argues that any cuts in the 60% of the budget in entitlements and social safety net are not acceptable. Obama suggests a quid pro quo in exchange for class warfare tax hikes--which would bring in roughly $70B. I've heard some proposals which reflect things like increased age criteria and COLA changes, but any of these would likely get phased in over several years. Do you think there's any chance Obama whom hasn't supported a single meaningful cut in domestic spending over the past 2.5 years, hasn't actively proposed or supported austerity in even a single category of spending, hasn't announced any meaningful layoffs or salary cuts and refuses to give back residual TARP money or unspent allocated stimulus money, will even give back any of the 20% domestic expenditure dollars increases won over the last Congress, never mind scale back failed post-Eisenhower Great Society programs? If you believe that, there's a bridge in Brooklyn that Anthony Weiner will sell you.
Jeff Flake R-AZ: US Senate 2012: Thumbs UP!
I have favored candidates in this blog (McCain over Obama was a no-brainer), but I haven't formally endorsed candidates. (Maybe I have an occasional Arizona reader of this blog; my endorsement and $5 will get Jeff a cup of coffee at Starbucks.) In this case one of the best Congressmen in the past 50 years is running to succeed retiring Jon Kyl. He has been strongly pro-economic growth, a fiscal hawk, pro-immigration reform, and pro-limited government. He has been endorsed by probably the highest IQ executive at the state or federal level, another personal favorite, Gov. Bobby Jindal (R-LA), House Budget chair Paul Ryan (R-WI), the Club for Growth and a Tea Party offshoot.
Guest Editorial: A. Barton Hinkle/Reason.com,
"The TSA's Invasive Search Contest"
Satire: Thumbs UP!
