No wonder she wants population control included in the “stimulus” plan so badly: more people means way more unemployment!
Consider: There are currently just over 305 million people in America. However, as Rep. Pelosi (D) warns us in the video below, “Every month that we do not have an economic recovery package, 500 million Americans lose their jobs.”
Wow. Now that’s some powerful stuff there. Who says Democrats from San Francisco aren’t the sharpest knives in the drawer?
Then again, maybe this is an example of the same Obamathematics that turned 12 dead in Kansas tornadoes into “10,000 dead, an entire city destroyed.” The ratios sure seem to be fairly consistent…
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
In the Spirit of Bipartisanship, I Wholly Approve This Plan
It has been probably two years since I have agreed with Markos Moulitsas about anything. But it appears that Barack Obama really is bringing change to this country, because I fully endorse the Moulitsas Deficit Reduction Act of 2009.
Here’s how it works:
Since the only time rich DC party insiders seem to get around to paying their taxes is when nominated to Obama’s cabinet, I’d require that they all be nominated to Obama’s cabinet. Suddenly, these people would discover this strange creature called the “accountant” who would quickly identify failed tax payments totaling in the tens (or even hundreds) of thousands.
Collectively, the Treasury could raise hundreds of billions, while Obama would continue to vouch for their “integrity”. It’s a perk of being part of that club.
As for the rest of us poor shlubs, don’t forget to carry that one when doing your taxes. We don’t get to be treasury secretaries when we screw up.
Well said, sir, and a fine idea to boot. Get on the horn and call your Senator today and tell them to support the Moulitsas Deficit Reduction act of 2009. The Obama Administration and our country need this revenue at this time of economic crisis.
Also, open thread, and apologies for not opening one sooner.
Here’s how it works:
Since the only time rich DC party insiders seem to get around to paying their taxes is when nominated to Obama’s cabinet, I’d require that they all be nominated to Obama’s cabinet. Suddenly, these people would discover this strange creature called the “accountant” who would quickly identify failed tax payments totaling in the tens (or even hundreds) of thousands.
Collectively, the Treasury could raise hundreds of billions, while Obama would continue to vouch for their “integrity”. It’s a perk of being part of that club.
As for the rest of us poor shlubs, don’t forget to carry that one when doing your taxes. We don’t get to be treasury secretaries when we screw up.
Well said, sir, and a fine idea to boot. Get on the horn and call your Senator today and tell them to support the Moulitsas Deficit Reduction act of 2009. The Obama Administration and our country need this revenue at this time of economic crisis.
Also, open thread, and apologies for not opening one sooner.
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
3 of Obamas picks for cabinet have tried to not pay taxes.
This Geithner, the guy that's been appointed Treasury secretary, failed to pay his taxes and his nanny's taxes, too. "No big deal. Oh, no, we need this guy so much, we can't let these little technicalities hold him back." He didn't pay his taxes! He was audited by the IRS. Now one of the things about this that's curious to me, he worked at the IMF, the International Monetary Fund and apparently when you work there you're an independent contractor, you are self-employed, as such, there are no tax deductions, you are paid the gross. Thus it is up to you to file quarterly estimates.
He didn't do this for a number of years on the basis that it just slipped his mind? That he wasn't aware? The guy ran the New York Federal Reserve. He is said to be the only guy that can run the Treasury department to bail us out of all the problems that we're in, and he doesn't know about -- I just find this hard to believe. Forgot it? The nanny thing is one thing, that's equally as problematic, but the thing about this that gets me is that he's getting a pass and claimed not to know he had to pay taxes on gross income. I know he didn't blame his wife like he didn't blame anybody else, but some of this stuff is just unbelievable.
These are the smartest people in the world, and they get away, whether they're in Chicago or in Washington, of acting in the stupidest ways you can possibly imagine educated people to act. Jose Serrano, a Democrat congressman from New York, has proposed an amendment to the constitution to repeal the Twenty-Second Amendment. Now, for those of you who voted for Obama, the Twenty-Second Amendment is the amendment which limits the presidency to two terms of four years. Jose Serrano not waiting for the inauguration, they want to eliminate the Twenty-Second Amendment so that Obama could perhaps serve forever.
Tom Daschle has withdrawn as the nominee for Secretary of Health and Human Services.
Maybe President Obama should do what he did following Bill Richardson's withdrawal as the Commerce Secretary nominee -- look to a Republican. There's a better chance of avoiding an ethics problem that way.
UPDATE: Nancy Killefer, Obama's nominee for "Chief Performance Officer," an OMB position, has also withdrawn due to tax payment issues.
I'm reminded of David Frum's story about the legendary Harvard Law School professor Paul Bator, whose course in civil procedure I had the privilege of taking when he visited at Stanford. David recalls how Bator, one of the few conservatives teaching at an elite law school, told his class the story of James Landis. Landis was a famous New Deal figure, the dean of Harvard Law School, and a friend and adviser to the Kennedy family. It was widely assumed, when John Kennedy became president, that Landis would be nominated to the Supreme Court -- until it was discovered that Landis hadn't filed tax returns for years.
Bator's comment was: "What is it with these liberals?"
JOHN adds: Maybe the commercial was the last straw.
The Obama administration is off to a surprisingly rocky start. They ran a great campaign, but after only two weeks in office the wheels are starting to come off. Nothing that can't be remedied--yet--but it's going to be a long four years if Team Obama doesn't get its act together.
He didn't do this for a number of years on the basis that it just slipped his mind? That he wasn't aware? The guy ran the New York Federal Reserve. He is said to be the only guy that can run the Treasury department to bail us out of all the problems that we're in, and he doesn't know about -- I just find this hard to believe. Forgot it? The nanny thing is one thing, that's equally as problematic, but the thing about this that gets me is that he's getting a pass and claimed not to know he had to pay taxes on gross income. I know he didn't blame his wife like he didn't blame anybody else, but some of this stuff is just unbelievable.
These are the smartest people in the world, and they get away, whether they're in Chicago or in Washington, of acting in the stupidest ways you can possibly imagine educated people to act. Jose Serrano, a Democrat congressman from New York, has proposed an amendment to the constitution to repeal the Twenty-Second Amendment. Now, for those of you who voted for Obama, the Twenty-Second Amendment is the amendment which limits the presidency to two terms of four years. Jose Serrano not waiting for the inauguration, they want to eliminate the Twenty-Second Amendment so that Obama could perhaps serve forever.
Tom Daschle has withdrawn as the nominee for Secretary of Health and Human Services.
Maybe President Obama should do what he did following Bill Richardson's withdrawal as the Commerce Secretary nominee -- look to a Republican. There's a better chance of avoiding an ethics problem that way.
UPDATE: Nancy Killefer, Obama's nominee for "Chief Performance Officer," an OMB position, has also withdrawn due to tax payment issues.
I'm reminded of David Frum's story about the legendary Harvard Law School professor Paul Bator, whose course in civil procedure I had the privilege of taking when he visited at Stanford. David recalls how Bator, one of the few conservatives teaching at an elite law school, told his class the story of James Landis. Landis was a famous New Deal figure, the dean of Harvard Law School, and a friend and adviser to the Kennedy family. It was widely assumed, when John Kennedy became president, that Landis would be nominated to the Supreme Court -- until it was discovered that Landis hadn't filed tax returns for years.
Bator's comment was: "What is it with these liberals?"
JOHN adds: Maybe the commercial was the last straw.
The Obama administration is off to a surprisingly rocky start. They ran a great campaign, but after only two weeks in office the wheels are starting to come off. Nothing that can't be remedied--yet--but it's going to be a long four years if Team Obama doesn't get its act together.
Monday, February 2, 2009
PROMISES, PROMISES: No lobbyists at WH, except ...
WASHINGTON – Barack Obama promised a "clean break from business as usual" in Washington. It hasn't quite worked out that way.
From the start, he made exceptions to his no-lobbyist rule. And now, embarrassing details about Cabinet-nominee Tom Daschle's tax problems and big paychecks from special interest groups are raising new questions about the reach and sweep of the new president's promised reforms.
Maybe he shouldn't have promised so much, some open-government advocates say. They're willing to cut him some slack — for now.
On Jan. 21, the day after his inauguration, Obama issued an executive order barring any former lobbyists who join his administration from dealing with matters or agencies related to their lobbying work. Nor could they join agencies they had lobbied in the previous two years.
However, William J. Lynn III, his choice to become the No. 2 official at the Defense Department, recently lobbied for military contractor Raytheon. And William Corr, tapped as deputy secretary at Health and Human Services, lobbied through most of last year as an anti-tobacco advocate. Corr says he will take no part in tobacco matters in the new administration.
"Even the toughest rules require reasonable exceptions," said White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs.
That was a big step back from Obama's unambiguous swipe at lobbyists in November 2007, while campaigning for the Democratic presidential nomination. "I don't take a dime of their money," he said, "and when I am president, they won't find a job in my White House."
The waivers granted for Lynn and Corr caused some in Washington to wince. But others, including many longtime advocates of tougher ethical standards, suggest it all says as much about deeply ingrained practices — and even necessities — in Washington as about a new president.
"Sometimes you can over-promise," said former Sen. Warren Rudman, a Republican from New Hampshire.
"This government is very complicated," he said. "Often you'll need people with a lot of experience in certain areas," and current or former lobbyists sometimes fit that bill best.
"It was probably a mistake to come down so hard on lobbyists," said Melanie Sloan, who is not shy about criticizing lobbyists or politicians as executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. "I think the Obama folks' intentions were great here," she said. "But sometimes you realize you can't actually govern on just what you campaigned on."
Sloan and others said embarrassments over Daschle, one of several top Obama appointees with a history of influencing government for clients, should not detract from the president's first-day vow to sharply limit the role of lobbyists in his administration.
Daschle, a former senator tapped to head Health and Human Services, is not technically a lobbyist. But he was paid more than $5.2 million over the past two years as he advised health insurers and hospitals and worked in other industries such as energy and telecommunications.
Fred Wertheimer of Democracy21 is one of Washington's best-known advocates of more open and honest government. He called Obama's executive order "unprecedented and almost revolutionary in nature" and "a direct attack on the culture of Washington and the way business is done here."
"A few waivers will not undermine it," he said, provided they are justified and limited.
The best way to limit the influence of wealthy special interests, Wertheimer said, is to increase public funding for presidential elections and restrict the amount that private business can pump into campaigns and politics. That could pave the way for tighter restrictions on influence-peddling in Congress, he said.
Obama declined public financing for his campaign so he could raise and spend hundreds of millions of dollars on his own. Some people saw that a virtual death knell for campaign public financing, but Wertheimer said he believes Obama will deliver on aides' promises to help "repair the system."
Daschle, the former Senate majority leader from South Dakota, strikes many in Washington as a good example of why the revolving door between government and highly paid private-sector jobs can be troubling, but also why an outright ban on such movements would be unwise.
Even Republicans praised Daschle's cerebral, soft-spoken approach to government and politics, and his expertise on subjects including health care. He didn't choose to leave Congress for a high-paying job, but was defeated in a close re-election bid in 2004.
Once out, he was attractive and valuable to all sorts of government-regulated industries, even if he never registered as a lobbyist who could make straightforward appeals for or against legislation affecting his clients.
He received more than $2 million over two years as a senior policy adviser for the Washington law firm Alston & Bird. He also earned more than $2 million in consulting fees from InterMedia Advisors LLC of New York, an investment firm specializing in buyouts and industry consolidation. An associate let Daschle use his car and driver, for which Daschle had to pay late taxes and interest.
Several health groups also paid Daschle $15,000 or more to speak to their gatherings.
"He welcomed every opportunity to make his case to the American public at large, and the health industry in particular, that America can't afford to ignore the health care crisis any longer," said his spokeswoman Jenny Backus.
Wertheimer, of Democracy21, said that rather than dwell on Daschle's problems or the Corr and Lynn waivers, he focuses on Obama's executive order and the hope of progress to come on public financing of campaigns.
The executive order "laid down a mark," Wertheimer said. "More has to be done, and tough battles have to be won."
___
Associated Press writer Julie Pace contributed to this report.
From the start, he made exceptions to his no-lobbyist rule. And now, embarrassing details about Cabinet-nominee Tom Daschle's tax problems and big paychecks from special interest groups are raising new questions about the reach and sweep of the new president's promised reforms.
Maybe he shouldn't have promised so much, some open-government advocates say. They're willing to cut him some slack — for now.
On Jan. 21, the day after his inauguration, Obama issued an executive order barring any former lobbyists who join his administration from dealing with matters or agencies related to their lobbying work. Nor could they join agencies they had lobbied in the previous two years.
However, William J. Lynn III, his choice to become the No. 2 official at the Defense Department, recently lobbied for military contractor Raytheon. And William Corr, tapped as deputy secretary at Health and Human Services, lobbied through most of last year as an anti-tobacco advocate. Corr says he will take no part in tobacco matters in the new administration.
"Even the toughest rules require reasonable exceptions," said White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs.
That was a big step back from Obama's unambiguous swipe at lobbyists in November 2007, while campaigning for the Democratic presidential nomination. "I don't take a dime of their money," he said, "and when I am president, they won't find a job in my White House."
The waivers granted for Lynn and Corr caused some in Washington to wince. But others, including many longtime advocates of tougher ethical standards, suggest it all says as much about deeply ingrained practices — and even necessities — in Washington as about a new president.
"Sometimes you can over-promise," said former Sen. Warren Rudman, a Republican from New Hampshire.
"This government is very complicated," he said. "Often you'll need people with a lot of experience in certain areas," and current or former lobbyists sometimes fit that bill best.
"It was probably a mistake to come down so hard on lobbyists," said Melanie Sloan, who is not shy about criticizing lobbyists or politicians as executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. "I think the Obama folks' intentions were great here," she said. "But sometimes you realize you can't actually govern on just what you campaigned on."
Sloan and others said embarrassments over Daschle, one of several top Obama appointees with a history of influencing government for clients, should not detract from the president's first-day vow to sharply limit the role of lobbyists in his administration.
Daschle, a former senator tapped to head Health and Human Services, is not technically a lobbyist. But he was paid more than $5.2 million over the past two years as he advised health insurers and hospitals and worked in other industries such as energy and telecommunications.
Fred Wertheimer of Democracy21 is one of Washington's best-known advocates of more open and honest government. He called Obama's executive order "unprecedented and almost revolutionary in nature" and "a direct attack on the culture of Washington and the way business is done here."
"A few waivers will not undermine it," he said, provided they are justified and limited.
The best way to limit the influence of wealthy special interests, Wertheimer said, is to increase public funding for presidential elections and restrict the amount that private business can pump into campaigns and politics. That could pave the way for tighter restrictions on influence-peddling in Congress, he said.
Obama declined public financing for his campaign so he could raise and spend hundreds of millions of dollars on his own. Some people saw that a virtual death knell for campaign public financing, but Wertheimer said he believes Obama will deliver on aides' promises to help "repair the system."
Daschle, the former Senate majority leader from South Dakota, strikes many in Washington as a good example of why the revolving door between government and highly paid private-sector jobs can be troubling, but also why an outright ban on such movements would be unwise.
Even Republicans praised Daschle's cerebral, soft-spoken approach to government and politics, and his expertise on subjects including health care. He didn't choose to leave Congress for a high-paying job, but was defeated in a close re-election bid in 2004.
Once out, he was attractive and valuable to all sorts of government-regulated industries, even if he never registered as a lobbyist who could make straightforward appeals for or against legislation affecting his clients.
He received more than $2 million over two years as a senior policy adviser for the Washington law firm Alston & Bird. He also earned more than $2 million in consulting fees from InterMedia Advisors LLC of New York, an investment firm specializing in buyouts and industry consolidation. An associate let Daschle use his car and driver, for which Daschle had to pay late taxes and interest.
Several health groups also paid Daschle $15,000 or more to speak to their gatherings.
"He welcomed every opportunity to make his case to the American public at large, and the health industry in particular, that America can't afford to ignore the health care crisis any longer," said his spokeswoman Jenny Backus.
Wertheimer, of Democracy21, said that rather than dwell on Daschle's problems or the Corr and Lynn waivers, he focuses on Obama's executive order and the hope of progress to come on public financing of campaigns.
The executive order "laid down a mark," Wertheimer said. "More has to be done, and tough battles have to be won."
___
Associated Press writer Julie Pace contributed to this report.
Michele Bachmann: The perils of spending like it's 1929:
By Michele Bachmann
Star Tribune
January 29, 2009
It's been almost one year and $1.5 trillion since the government began its historic slate of financial bailouts -- and all we have to show for it is red ink dripping from our nation's balance sheet.
Congress has been busy writing checks to everyone from Detroit automakers to Wall Street day traders. We're now nearing a historic $11 trillion debt. Each time Congress goes to the taxpayer ATM, it claims that this will be the bailout that gets the economy moving again.
For instance, on the night the Senate passed the $700 billion Wall Street bailout, the Senate's finance chairman, Max Baucus, confidently declared: "I'm very proud of what we did. This is going to mark the time when we've turned the corner. And we will begin to see this financial crisis beginning to abate."
But things got only worse. And despite the serious risks to our long-term stability, this failed strategy of big-government stimulus continues in full force. This week, in fact, President Obama and the Democratic Congress asked for another near-trillion in federal deficit spending.
Their plan promises an agenda styled after the economic policies of the Great Depression -- government jobs programs, enormous infrastructure spending, huge amounts of pork and a slew of government handouts. But before we return to the 1930s, we may want to review a little history.
The stock market collapse of 1929 brought a crashing halt to the Roaring Twenties. But President Herbert Hoover's response to the economic crisis ensured that it became a genuine catastrophe. Contrary to popular perception, Hoover did not respond to the downturn with inaction or indifference -- rather, he pursued a series of misguided big-government adventures that lengthened and deepened our economic woes.
Hoover not only dramatically hiked income and import taxes, but he instituted big-government spending programs all but identical to those being debated today. Hoover's Reconstruction Finance Corporation tried to ease economic pain by funneling tax money to state governments, local governments, banks and a variety of businesses. His Federal Home Loan Bank Act extended loans in an effort to increase low-income housing -- beginning the ill-fated history of federal intervention in the housing market.
These measures proved a dismal failure, and things got only worse. In the 1932 campaign, Franklin Roosevelt actually attacked Hoover for his big-government policies, decrying Hoover's presidency as "the greatest spending administration in peacetime in all of history."
Yet, once elected, Roosevelt not only maintained Hoover's programs, he used them as a foundation for his titanic New Deal expenditures. He even expanded Hoover's failed housing program and launched the now-infamous mortgage giant Fannie Mae. And even in the face of a staggering 25 percent unemployment, FDR held fast to the big-government philosophy -- jobs programs, handouts, tax hikes -- and, as a result, presided over a decade of economic misery.
FDR's own treasury secretary, Henry Morgenthau, had to admit as much in 1939: "We are spending more than we have ever spent before, and it does not work. ... 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!"
Instead of pursuing the tragic economic policies of Hoover and FDR, we should follow the model of presidents who successfully met the economic challenges of their times and ushered in prosperity. In recent memory, Presidents John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan dramatically cut taxes to stimulate growth and create jobs -- and their policies succeeded.
When Jimmy Carter left office, the economy was slumping, unemployment was higher than today and inflation was in the double digits. Reagan's economic policy, which included massive tax cuts, reversed a worsening situation, and the economy surged on every level -- 17 million jobs were created, employee compensation increased, inflation was conquered and the longest peacetime boom in our history was born.
So with two paths ahead -- one that emphasizes tax reform and one that emphasizes big government -- the right path is clear. We either learn from the mistakes of history or we repeat them
Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., is a member of the U.S. House of Representatives.
© 2009 Star Tribune. All rights reserved.
Star Tribune
January 29, 2009
It's been almost one year and $1.5 trillion since the government began its historic slate of financial bailouts -- and all we have to show for it is red ink dripping from our nation's balance sheet.
Congress has been busy writing checks to everyone from Detroit automakers to Wall Street day traders. We're now nearing a historic $11 trillion debt. Each time Congress goes to the taxpayer ATM, it claims that this will be the bailout that gets the economy moving again.
For instance, on the night the Senate passed the $700 billion Wall Street bailout, the Senate's finance chairman, Max Baucus, confidently declared: "I'm very proud of what we did. This is going to mark the time when we've turned the corner. And we will begin to see this financial crisis beginning to abate."
But things got only worse. And despite the serious risks to our long-term stability, this failed strategy of big-government stimulus continues in full force. This week, in fact, President Obama and the Democratic Congress asked for another near-trillion in federal deficit spending.
Their plan promises an agenda styled after the economic policies of the Great Depression -- government jobs programs, enormous infrastructure spending, huge amounts of pork and a slew of government handouts. But before we return to the 1930s, we may want to review a little history.
The stock market collapse of 1929 brought a crashing halt to the Roaring Twenties. But President Herbert Hoover's response to the economic crisis ensured that it became a genuine catastrophe. Contrary to popular perception, Hoover did not respond to the downturn with inaction or indifference -- rather, he pursued a series of misguided big-government adventures that lengthened and deepened our economic woes.
Hoover not only dramatically hiked income and import taxes, but he instituted big-government spending programs all but identical to those being debated today. Hoover's Reconstruction Finance Corporation tried to ease economic pain by funneling tax money to state governments, local governments, banks and a variety of businesses. His Federal Home Loan Bank Act extended loans in an effort to increase low-income housing -- beginning the ill-fated history of federal intervention in the housing market.
These measures proved a dismal failure, and things got only worse. In the 1932 campaign, Franklin Roosevelt actually attacked Hoover for his big-government policies, decrying Hoover's presidency as "the greatest spending administration in peacetime in all of history."
Yet, once elected, Roosevelt not only maintained Hoover's programs, he used them as a foundation for his titanic New Deal expenditures. He even expanded Hoover's failed housing program and launched the now-infamous mortgage giant Fannie Mae. And even in the face of a staggering 25 percent unemployment, FDR held fast to the big-government philosophy -- jobs programs, handouts, tax hikes -- and, as a result, presided over a decade of economic misery.
FDR's own treasury secretary, Henry Morgenthau, had to admit as much in 1939: "We are spending more than we have ever spent before, and it does not work. ... 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!"
Instead of pursuing the tragic economic policies of Hoover and FDR, we should follow the model of presidents who successfully met the economic challenges of their times and ushered in prosperity. In recent memory, Presidents John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan dramatically cut taxes to stimulate growth and create jobs -- and their policies succeeded.
When Jimmy Carter left office, the economy was slumping, unemployment was higher than today and inflation was in the double digits. Reagan's economic policy, which included massive tax cuts, reversed a worsening situation, and the economy surged on every level -- 17 million jobs were created, employee compensation increased, inflation was conquered and the longest peacetime boom in our history was born.
So with two paths ahead -- one that emphasizes tax reform and one that emphasizes big government -- the right path is clear. We either learn from the mistakes of history or we repeat them
Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., is a member of the U.S. House of Representatives.
© 2009 Star Tribune. All rights reserved.
Here is what the republicans supported for a bailout.
The House of Representatives passed a so-called stimulus package last week that, when the more than $300 billion in interest payments are added in will cost the American taxpayers over $1.1 trillion. I could not support this package, which I felt included far too little actual stimulus, included far too much plain old political pork, and added way too much debt to the already over-burdened American taxpayer, as well as generations of taxpayers to come.
The idea of investing in shovel-ready transportation and infrastructure projects to stimulate the economy is one worthy of Congress’ support. It would quickly inject money into the economy by getting construction and related job sectors working – while also taking care of important infrastructure projects that have been on the nation’s “to do list” for some time. Unfortunately, the package passed by the House last week, included such funding almost as an afterthought. It was overshadowed by hundreds of billions of dollars for brand-new programs, the National Endowment for the Arts, federal government office buildings, and more.
I supported an alternative package that really would stimulate the economy by putting more money in the hands of small businesses and families that can really use it to create jobs, purchase goods, and more. Amongst other things, the Republican Economic Recovery Plan would:
• Reduce the lowest individual tax rates from 15% to 10% and from 10% to 5%, helping more than 500,000 filers in Minnesota’s Sixth District alone.
• Allow small businesses to take a tax deduction equal to 20% of their income.
• Provide a home-buyers credit of $7500 for those who can make a minimum down-payment of 5%.
I also supported a motion to recommit, or to send the Democrat package back to committee to make the following changes:
• Increase investment in shovel-ready transportation and infrastructure projects by $60.25 billion.
• Eliminate $135.8 billion in funding for 32 new discretionary programs created by the bill.
• Eliminate Fiscal Year 2010 funding for 17 existing federal programs – funding that jumps the gun on a budgeting process that hasn’t even begun yet.
• Reduce funding for the National Endowment for the Arts, Americorps, GSA federal office buildings, and NOAA Habitat Restoration.
Last week, I also published a column in the Star Tribune that sought to put the massive $825-billion stimulus package in some historical context. In case you missed it, you can read it here:
The idea of investing in shovel-ready transportation and infrastructure projects to stimulate the economy is one worthy of Congress’ support. It would quickly inject money into the economy by getting construction and related job sectors working – while also taking care of important infrastructure projects that have been on the nation’s “to do list” for some time. Unfortunately, the package passed by the House last week, included such funding almost as an afterthought. It was overshadowed by hundreds of billions of dollars for brand-new programs, the National Endowment for the Arts, federal government office buildings, and more.
I supported an alternative package that really would stimulate the economy by putting more money in the hands of small businesses and families that can really use it to create jobs, purchase goods, and more. Amongst other things, the Republican Economic Recovery Plan would:
• Reduce the lowest individual tax rates from 15% to 10% and from 10% to 5%, helping more than 500,000 filers in Minnesota’s Sixth District alone.
• Allow small businesses to take a tax deduction equal to 20% of their income.
• Provide a home-buyers credit of $7500 for those who can make a minimum down-payment of 5%.
I also supported a motion to recommit, or to send the Democrat package back to committee to make the following changes:
• Increase investment in shovel-ready transportation and infrastructure projects by $60.25 billion.
• Eliminate $135.8 billion in funding for 32 new discretionary programs created by the bill.
• Eliminate Fiscal Year 2010 funding for 17 existing federal programs – funding that jumps the gun on a budgeting process that hasn’t even begun yet.
• Reduce funding for the National Endowment for the Arts, Americorps, GSA federal office buildings, and NOAA Habitat Restoration.
Last week, I also published a column in the Star Tribune that sought to put the massive $825-billion stimulus package in some historical context. In case you missed it, you can read it here:
Even the socialist French don't want to be as socialist as Obama.
LYON: Prime Minister François Fillon on Monday rejected demands that the French government seek to stimulate consumer spending, rather than follow his plan to stimulate corporate and infrastructure investment, to lift France out of its economic slump.
"It would be irresponsible to chose another policy, which would increase our country's indebtedness without having more infrastructure and increased competitiveness in the end," Fillon said in a speech in Lyon.
More than 1.1 million people took to the streets across France last Thursday, according to the Interior Ministry, with unions putting the number of protesters at 2.5 million, to call on President Nicolas Sarkozy to stop cutting government jobs, increase the minimum wage and spend more on households as the economy enters its first recession since 1993.
Opponents of the government have been calling for an "Obama-style" stimulus plan, one that puts money directly into the pockets of working people.
French unemployment rose by about 45,000 people in December, Finance Minister Christine Lagarde said Monday, taking the jobless ranks to the highest level in about two years.
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The European Commission expects France's economy to contract 1.8 percent this year, the worst performance since World War II. Lagarde said the government would revise its economic forecast to project a contraction this year.
After the strike, Sarkozy adopted a conciliatory tone, noting that the public had "legitimate concerns," and he said he would meet with union leaders in February to explain his 2009 agenda and discuss how to best carry it out.
In December, Sarkozy announced a stimulus package worth €26 billion, or $33.4 billion, over 2009 and 2010, including €11.4 billion in early state reimbursement to companies, and about €10 billion in infrastructure investment by the government, local authorities and state-controlled companies.
Fillon said Monday that Électricité de France would increase investment this year by €2.5 billion to build and renovate new power plants and its grid. GDF Suez, the natural gas and water utility, would lift investment by €200 million.
The Paris transportation authority and the national railroad would increase investment on new trains and infrastructure by €1.35 billion.
The government would spend €400 million on road building and renovation, €300 million on railroads, and €170 million on ports and river infrastructure. It would spend €731 million on universities and research centers and €620 million to renovate prisons, courts and more than 70 monuments and 50 cathedrals.
"It would be irresponsible to chose another policy, which would increase our country's indebtedness without having more infrastructure and increased competitiveness in the end," Fillon said in a speech in Lyon.
More than 1.1 million people took to the streets across France last Thursday, according to the Interior Ministry, with unions putting the number of protesters at 2.5 million, to call on President Nicolas Sarkozy to stop cutting government jobs, increase the minimum wage and spend more on households as the economy enters its first recession since 1993.
Opponents of the government have been calling for an "Obama-style" stimulus plan, one that puts money directly into the pockets of working people.
French unemployment rose by about 45,000 people in December, Finance Minister Christine Lagarde said Monday, taking the jobless ranks to the highest level in about two years.
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The European Commission expects France's economy to contract 1.8 percent this year, the worst performance since World War II. Lagarde said the government would revise its economic forecast to project a contraction this year.
After the strike, Sarkozy adopted a conciliatory tone, noting that the public had "legitimate concerns," and he said he would meet with union leaders in February to explain his 2009 agenda and discuss how to best carry it out.
In December, Sarkozy announced a stimulus package worth €26 billion, or $33.4 billion, over 2009 and 2010, including €11.4 billion in early state reimbursement to companies, and about €10 billion in infrastructure investment by the government, local authorities and state-controlled companies.
Fillon said Monday that Électricité de France would increase investment this year by €2.5 billion to build and renovate new power plants and its grid. GDF Suez, the natural gas and water utility, would lift investment by €200 million.
The Paris transportation authority and the national railroad would increase investment on new trains and infrastructure by €1.35 billion.
The government would spend €400 million on road building and renovation, €300 million on railroads, and €170 million on ports and river infrastructure. It would spend €731 million on universities and research centers and €620 million to renovate prisons, courts and more than 70 monuments and 50 cathedrals.
Saturday, January 31, 2009
How is any of this going to stimulate the economy?
Barack Obama and Congressional Democrats are playing the voters for fools with the so-called stimulus package. The massive $825 billion package is not even targeted on programs to stimulate the economy. Instead, it is laced with runaway government spending for increased welfare, overgrown bureaucracy, pork, political payoffs, and other waste. That runaway spending is causing record smashing deficits of $1.5 trillion or more, equivalent to over 50% of the entire federal budget for fiscal 2008.
For example, the "stimulus" package includes $50 million for the National Endowment of the Arts to help "the arts community throughout the United States." Wouldn't want our economy to get behind in the international arts competition. The government is going to borrow $50 million out of the private economy to spend on this, which will result in a net loss of economic output rather than a net gain.
Another $2.1 billion is for Head Start, another program not previously known for stimulating the economy. A further $2 billion is to be spent on Child Care Development Block Grants, which provide day care. We are going to revive economic growth through the federal government spending billions on babysitting, rather than tax cuts for capital investment. A similar initiative involves $120 million to finance part-time work for seniors in community service agencies.
Then there is $500 million to speed the processing of applications for Social Security disability claims. This has already created one net new job in the employment of a person within the Obama Administration assigned to figure out what this has to do with stimulating the economy.
Another $6 billion goes to college and universities. We already spend hundreds of billions on these schools, and such education provides valuable long-term benefits. But this is not a means to spark a booming economy in the short term. The same is true of the $13 billion in Title I grants "to provide extra academic support to help raise the achievement of students at risk of educational failure or to help all students in high-poverty schools meet challenging State academic standards," as the congressional report accompanying the bill explains. Ditto that for the $13 billion in IDEA, Part B State grants to help pay for "the excess costs of providing special education and related services to children with disabilities."
Then there is the effort to stimulate the economy by increasing welfare spending. There is $20 billion for increased food stamps, including lifting restrictions on how long welfare dependents can receive food stamp benefits. Another $1.7 billion is to be spent to help the homeless, not previously in our history a significant source of economic growth. Another $1 billion goes for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance program, to help low income families pay their heating bills, a worthy objective that has nothing to do with stimulating the economy. Still another billion goes to the Community Services Block Grant to support "employment, food, housing, health, and emergency assistance to low-income families and individuals." Another $200 million goes for senior nutrition programs, such as Meals on Wheels. Then there is an additional $200 million for AmeriCorps, to help satisfy "increased demand for services for vulnerable populations to meet critical needs in communities across the U.S." Another $5 billion is devoted to public housing. None of this increased welfare spending has anything to do with promoting economic growth. Rather, it retards growth by inducing more dependency on government.
Another $87 billion is to be spent on Medicaid, a welfare program already costing roughly $400 billion per year. Those funds would be spent in part on "family planning services," meaning contraception. Reagan created a 25-year economic boom in part by cutting top marginal income tax rates. Liberal Democrats are now going to try to do it by passing out condoms.
Medicaid is one of the major entitlement programs projected to explode to overwhelming costs in the future. Obama is assuring the more conservative Blue Dog Democrats that he will address runaway entitlement costs as soon as next month. But to start let's increase those costs by almost $100 billion right now.
Then there is the funding to maintain and expand bureaucracy and overall big government spending. The "stimulus" package includes $2.5 billion for the National Science Foundation, $2.0 billion for the National Park Service, $650 million for the U.S. Forest Service, $600 million for NASA, $800 million for AMTRAK, $276 million to the State Department to upgrade and modernize its information technology, $150 million for maintenance work at the Smithsonian Institution, $209 million for maintenance work for the Federal Agricultural Research Service, $44 million for repairs and improvements at the Washington, D.C. headquarters of the Department of Agriculture, and $245 million to upgrade the information technology of the Farm Service Agency. Borrowing money from the private sector to spend on these bureaucracies will not provide a boost to the economy. It will likely again produce a net loss of output.
A shocking provision provides $1.1 billion for so-called federal comparative effectiveness research in regard to health-care services. The congressional report explaining the stimulus bill says:
By knowing what works best and presenting this information more broadly to patients and healthcare professionals, those items, procedures, and interventions that are most effective to prevent, control, and treat health conditions will be utilized, while those that are found to be less effective and in some cases, more expensive, will no longer be prescribed.
But a government bureaucracy in Washington is never going to know what "items, procedures and interventions are most effective to prevent, control and treat health conditions" for each patient, regardless of how much federal research is done. This is what doctors are for. This bureaucratic initiative is really laying the foundation for the eventual health care rationing to be imposed under the new Obama "universal" health care entitlement program, which is coming soon. I told you so, in previous columns.
To call this spending economic recovery stimulus, however, is an abuse of the English language.
Another abuse is to be found in the $4.2 billion provided to the Neighborhood Stabilization Fund, which provides the funds to local governments to purchase and rehab vacant housing due to foreclosure. The congressional report accompanying the stimulus bill states, "Up to $750 million may be used for a competition for nonprofit entities to enhance the funding included under this heading through capitalization of the funds." Reportedly, this funding is intended to be siphoned off to ACORN, the far-left, rogue, lawbreaking organization prosecuted across the country in the past couple of years for voter fraud. ACORN has also used violent intimidation tactics in the past to pursue its goals, and was heavily involved in housing programs in the past that led to widespread bad loans.
Another $79 billion is to go the states to maintain their runaway government spending, particularly for such spendthrift jurisdictions as California, New York, New Jersey, and Massachusetts. High state government spending is also not a source of economic growth.
Then there are other items in the "stimulus" package that may involve desirable government spending, but do not involve stimulating the economy, and should be subject to the normal budget process. These include $3 billion for health care prevention and wellness programs, such as childhood immunizations and other state and local public health programs, $2.4 billion for projects demonstrating carbon capture technology, $17 billion for Pell Grants, $1 billion for Technology Education, $1.9 billion for the Energy Department for "basic research into the physical sciences," $650 million for digital TV coupons to help Americans upgrade to digital cable television, $100 million to reduce lead-based paint hazards for children in low income housing, $400 million for "habitat restoration projects" of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, $1.2 billion for summer jobs for youth, $2 billion for Superfund cleanup, and others.
For example, the "stimulus" package includes $50 million for the National Endowment of the Arts to help "the arts community throughout the United States." Wouldn't want our economy to get behind in the international arts competition. The government is going to borrow $50 million out of the private economy to spend on this, which will result in a net loss of economic output rather than a net gain.
Another $2.1 billion is for Head Start, another program not previously known for stimulating the economy. A further $2 billion is to be spent on Child Care Development Block Grants, which provide day care. We are going to revive economic growth through the federal government spending billions on babysitting, rather than tax cuts for capital investment. A similar initiative involves $120 million to finance part-time work for seniors in community service agencies.
Then there is $500 million to speed the processing of applications for Social Security disability claims. This has already created one net new job in the employment of a person within the Obama Administration assigned to figure out what this has to do with stimulating the economy.
Another $6 billion goes to college and universities. We already spend hundreds of billions on these schools, and such education provides valuable long-term benefits. But this is not a means to spark a booming economy in the short term. The same is true of the $13 billion in Title I grants "to provide extra academic support to help raise the achievement of students at risk of educational failure or to help all students in high-poverty schools meet challenging State academic standards," as the congressional report accompanying the bill explains. Ditto that for the $13 billion in IDEA, Part B State grants to help pay for "the excess costs of providing special education and related services to children with disabilities."
Then there is the effort to stimulate the economy by increasing welfare spending. There is $20 billion for increased food stamps, including lifting restrictions on how long welfare dependents can receive food stamp benefits. Another $1.7 billion is to be spent to help the homeless, not previously in our history a significant source of economic growth. Another $1 billion goes for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance program, to help low income families pay their heating bills, a worthy objective that has nothing to do with stimulating the economy. Still another billion goes to the Community Services Block Grant to support "employment, food, housing, health, and emergency assistance to low-income families and individuals." Another $200 million goes for senior nutrition programs, such as Meals on Wheels. Then there is an additional $200 million for AmeriCorps, to help satisfy "increased demand for services for vulnerable populations to meet critical needs in communities across the U.S." Another $5 billion is devoted to public housing. None of this increased welfare spending has anything to do with promoting economic growth. Rather, it retards growth by inducing more dependency on government.
Another $87 billion is to be spent on Medicaid, a welfare program already costing roughly $400 billion per year. Those funds would be spent in part on "family planning services," meaning contraception. Reagan created a 25-year economic boom in part by cutting top marginal income tax rates. Liberal Democrats are now going to try to do it by passing out condoms.
Medicaid is one of the major entitlement programs projected to explode to overwhelming costs in the future. Obama is assuring the more conservative Blue Dog Democrats that he will address runaway entitlement costs as soon as next month. But to start let's increase those costs by almost $100 billion right now.
Then there is the funding to maintain and expand bureaucracy and overall big government spending. The "stimulus" package includes $2.5 billion for the National Science Foundation, $2.0 billion for the National Park Service, $650 million for the U.S. Forest Service, $600 million for NASA, $800 million for AMTRAK, $276 million to the State Department to upgrade and modernize its information technology, $150 million for maintenance work at the Smithsonian Institution, $209 million for maintenance work for the Federal Agricultural Research Service, $44 million for repairs and improvements at the Washington, D.C. headquarters of the Department of Agriculture, and $245 million to upgrade the information technology of the Farm Service Agency. Borrowing money from the private sector to spend on these bureaucracies will not provide a boost to the economy. It will likely again produce a net loss of output.
A shocking provision provides $1.1 billion for so-called federal comparative effectiveness research in regard to health-care services. The congressional report explaining the stimulus bill says:
By knowing what works best and presenting this information more broadly to patients and healthcare professionals, those items, procedures, and interventions that are most effective to prevent, control, and treat health conditions will be utilized, while those that are found to be less effective and in some cases, more expensive, will no longer be prescribed.
But a government bureaucracy in Washington is never going to know what "items, procedures and interventions are most effective to prevent, control and treat health conditions" for each patient, regardless of how much federal research is done. This is what doctors are for. This bureaucratic initiative is really laying the foundation for the eventual health care rationing to be imposed under the new Obama "universal" health care entitlement program, which is coming soon. I told you so, in previous columns.
To call this spending economic recovery stimulus, however, is an abuse of the English language.
Another abuse is to be found in the $4.2 billion provided to the Neighborhood Stabilization Fund, which provides the funds to local governments to purchase and rehab vacant housing due to foreclosure. The congressional report accompanying the stimulus bill states, "Up to $750 million may be used for a competition for nonprofit entities to enhance the funding included under this heading through capitalization of the funds." Reportedly, this funding is intended to be siphoned off to ACORN, the far-left, rogue, lawbreaking organization prosecuted across the country in the past couple of years for voter fraud. ACORN has also used violent intimidation tactics in the past to pursue its goals, and was heavily involved in housing programs in the past that led to widespread bad loans.
Another $79 billion is to go the states to maintain their runaway government spending, particularly for such spendthrift jurisdictions as California, New York, New Jersey, and Massachusetts. High state government spending is also not a source of economic growth.
Then there are other items in the "stimulus" package that may involve desirable government spending, but do not involve stimulating the economy, and should be subject to the normal budget process. These include $3 billion for health care prevention and wellness programs, such as childhood immunizations and other state and local public health programs, $2.4 billion for projects demonstrating carbon capture technology, $17 billion for Pell Grants, $1 billion for Technology Education, $1.9 billion for the Energy Department for "basic research into the physical sciences," $650 million for digital TV coupons to help Americans upgrade to digital cable television, $100 million to reduce lead-based paint hazards for children in low income housing, $400 million for "habitat restoration projects" of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, $1.2 billion for summer jobs for youth, $2 billion for Superfund cleanup, and others.
The great Obama's plan to talk and tell the crazy Iranians that they should like us, doesn't appear to be working.
President Barack Obama's olive branch to Iran was seriously snubbed in the past couple of days as key figures within the Islamic nation made it clear that they have no interest in talking with America unless we change our policies.
Even worse, an Iranian government spokesman said Obama's statement on Al Arabiya Wednesday concerning a willingness to talk to Iran "means Western ideology has become passive, that capitalist thought and the system of domination have failed."
Might this alter the press's repeated view the previous eight years that tensions in the Middle East were largely caused by President Bush's refusal to talk to Iran without preconditions concerning that nation's nuclear buildup, and that all would be well in the world if we would just agree to meet with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on any terms?
Even worse, an Iranian government spokesman said Obama's statement on Al Arabiya Wednesday concerning a willingness to talk to Iran "means Western ideology has become passive, that capitalist thought and the system of domination have failed."
Might this alter the press's repeated view the previous eight years that tensions in the Middle East were largely caused by President Bush's refusal to talk to Iran without preconditions concerning that nation's nuclear buildup, and that all would be well in the world if we would just agree to meet with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on any terms?
Another thing we the taxpayers get to pay for. The estimated hospital bill for the 8 babies, 3.2million.
She clearly needs help.
The California woman who gave birth to octuplets is a single mom who already has six other children - and as if that's not enough, they all live with her parents, who last year went bankrupt.
Octo-mom Nadya Suleman, 33, works in a fertility clinic and used the same sperm donor for all 14 kids, neighbors told The Post.
In addition to her octuplets, she has three sets of twins, aged 5, 3, and 2, neighbors said.
Last night Suleman's mom, Angela, improbably insisted that science played no role in the production of this massive brood.
"She was not on fertility drugs," Angela Suleman told The Post.
Suleman's father Ed, a Palestinian immigrant who hails from Jerusalem, brought bags of cookies and diapers into the family's three-bedroom house yesterday. He said the eight new bundles of joy were "God's wish," and added, "I have no idea what to do with God."
Nadya Suleman gave birth to the octuplets Monday at Kaiser Permanente Bellflower Medical Center.
Her father said, "They're all fine."
Suleman's parents were almost $1 million in debt and declared bankruptcy in March 2008 after foreclosure proceedings began on one of their homes. Ed then went to Iraq to do translation work as a contractor to earn extra money for the family.
Nadya did not plan to have eight babies at once, her mother, Angela, said - in fact, doctors advised her to consider selectively reducing the number of fetuses. But she ignored advice about the risks to both her and her babies, she said.
"What do you suggest she should have done? She refused to have them killed," Angela told the Los Angeles Times, insisting her daughter "is not evil." "That is a very painful thing."
Nadya never expected all eight embryos would take, her mom said.
The birth of octuplets to a single mother with six prior children posed a slew of ethical questions, experts said,.
During in vitro fertilization, the ovaries are stimulated to release an excessive number of eggs, which then are surgically retrieved and fertilized in a petri dish.
Fertility doctors typically never transfer more than two embryos at a time when a woman is under the age of 35 - and transferring eight is a gross violation of accepted practice, according to the American Society for Reproductive Medicine.
"I would never do that," said Dr. Jamie Grifo of the NYU Fertility Center, who helped create some of the guidelines currently in place.
"Sometimes patients ask us to do crazy things, but most of the time we are able to precounsel them about the risks," he said. "Some clinics have much poorer success rates and therefore put back many more embryos."
Although twins are common with in-vitro pregnancies, high-order multiples are rare, Grifo said.
If a patient is staunchly anti-abortion and opposed to selective reduction, the doctor has an ethical responsibility to steer them away from situations that could result in high-order multiple births, experts said.
But doctors do not believe it is their place to dictate how many children women can have.
"I don't think it's our job to tell them how many babies they're allowed to have.," Grifo said.
It's unclear where Suleman received her fertility treatments, but based on the success of her prior three sets of twins, there was no medical reason to transfer eight embryos, Grifo said.
It also is unclear how she is going to get the money to pay for 14 children - though welfare is generous in California, which has three times more people getting assistance than any other state.
According to one neighbor, Suleman used the same sperm donor for all 14 kids. The donor was an acquaintance, who after getting married recently, asked her no longer to use his sperm, a neighbor said. "But she did it anyway," the neighbor said.
The six boys and two girls are only the second set of octuplets born alive in the US. They were delivered nine weeks premature and ranged between 1 pound, 8 ounces and 3 pounds, 4 ounces at birth.
Dr. Mandhir Gupta said seven of the babies were breathing without assistance. One was still receiving oxygen through a tube in his nose.
The California woman who gave birth to octuplets is a single mom who already has six other children - and as if that's not enough, they all live with her parents, who last year went bankrupt.
Octo-mom Nadya Suleman, 33, works in a fertility clinic and used the same sperm donor for all 14 kids, neighbors told The Post.
In addition to her octuplets, she has three sets of twins, aged 5, 3, and 2, neighbors said.
Last night Suleman's mom, Angela, improbably insisted that science played no role in the production of this massive brood.
"She was not on fertility drugs," Angela Suleman told The Post.
Suleman's father Ed, a Palestinian immigrant who hails from Jerusalem, brought bags of cookies and diapers into the family's three-bedroom house yesterday. He said the eight new bundles of joy were "God's wish," and added, "I have no idea what to do with God."
Nadya Suleman gave birth to the octuplets Monday at Kaiser Permanente Bellflower Medical Center.
Her father said, "They're all fine."
Suleman's parents were almost $1 million in debt and declared bankruptcy in March 2008 after foreclosure proceedings began on one of their homes. Ed then went to Iraq to do translation work as a contractor to earn extra money for the family.
Nadya did not plan to have eight babies at once, her mother, Angela, said - in fact, doctors advised her to consider selectively reducing the number of fetuses. But she ignored advice about the risks to both her and her babies, she said.
"What do you suggest she should have done? She refused to have them killed," Angela told the Los Angeles Times, insisting her daughter "is not evil." "That is a very painful thing."
Nadya never expected all eight embryos would take, her mom said.
The birth of octuplets to a single mother with six prior children posed a slew of ethical questions, experts said,.
During in vitro fertilization, the ovaries are stimulated to release an excessive number of eggs, which then are surgically retrieved and fertilized in a petri dish.
Fertility doctors typically never transfer more than two embryos at a time when a woman is under the age of 35 - and transferring eight is a gross violation of accepted practice, according to the American Society for Reproductive Medicine.
"I would never do that," said Dr. Jamie Grifo of the NYU Fertility Center, who helped create some of the guidelines currently in place.
"Sometimes patients ask us to do crazy things, but most of the time we are able to precounsel them about the risks," he said. "Some clinics have much poorer success rates and therefore put back many more embryos."
Although twins are common with in-vitro pregnancies, high-order multiples are rare, Grifo said.
If a patient is staunchly anti-abortion and opposed to selective reduction, the doctor has an ethical responsibility to steer them away from situations that could result in high-order multiple births, experts said.
But doctors do not believe it is their place to dictate how many children women can have.
"I don't think it's our job to tell them how many babies they're allowed to have.," Grifo said.
It's unclear where Suleman received her fertility treatments, but based on the success of her prior three sets of twins, there was no medical reason to transfer eight embryos, Grifo said.
It also is unclear how she is going to get the money to pay for 14 children - though welfare is generous in California, which has three times more people getting assistance than any other state.
According to one neighbor, Suleman used the same sperm donor for all 14 kids. The donor was an acquaintance, who after getting married recently, asked her no longer to use his sperm, a neighbor said. "But she did it anyway," the neighbor said.
The six boys and two girls are only the second set of octuplets born alive in the US. They were delivered nine weeks premature and ranged between 1 pound, 8 ounces and 3 pounds, 4 ounces at birth.
Dr. Mandhir Gupta said seven of the babies were breathing without assistance. One was still receiving oxygen through a tube in his nose.
More change, It looks like not paying taxes is part of the change for the new administration.
From the early days of his campaign, Obama made with the flourish that, should he be elected, lobbyists would not be welcome in his new tone Washington, his Washington of change and hope. Soon after the election, Obama’s spokesman John Podesta made a great show of announcing that Obama was insisting on the “strictest ethics rules ever applied” to his ongoing choices for members of his administration and his transition team.
In the early November news conference, Podesta proudly proclaimed that Obama was so interested in distancing himself from the old, business-as-usual Washington that they didn’t care if they were excluding people of long Washington experience with their supposed strict ethics rules. Podesta sternly told reporters, “I’ve heard the complaint that we’re leaving all these extra people on the side, that we’re leaving all the people that know everything out in the cold. So be it. That’s a commitment that is one the American people expect and one the President-elect made.”
Yet within weeks it became clear that this new ethical standard was merely so much window dressing. Now, lobbyists abound in Obama’s administration and have since day one. Not only that, but tax cheats seem to be particularly drawn to the new president.
Several high profile Obama appointees have had major tax issues chief of whom is Timothy Geithner, Obama’s new Secretary of Treasury. But, late last week, it also came to light that Obama’s choice to head the Department of Health and Human Services, Tom Dsaschle, seemed to have conveniently forgotten to claim a free car and driver as income on his taxes and had somehow made this tax faux pas for years.
Naturally, during the vetting process to be approved as the new HHS head, Daschle mysteriously “remembered” the oversight and “repaid” the IRS $101,943 which is the cost of the free limo service and the interest on the “accidentally” forgotten income tax.
And let us not forget that former New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson had to withdraw his name for consideration as head of the the Department of Transportation because he is connected to illegal pay-to-play schemes in his state.
Then there are the many lobbyists that have joined the anti-lobbyist president in Washington.
Recently Politico detailed a list of some of the many lobbyists that Barack Obama has seen fit to “bend his rules” to allow into his administration. They find “at least a dozen” lobbyists have entered this purportedly anti-lobbyist administration.
Here is the list of lobbyists joining the Obama administration Politico came up with:
Eric Holder, attorney general nominee, was registered to lobby until 2004 on behalf of clients including Global Crossing, a bankrupt telecommunications firm.
Tom Vilsack, secretary of agriculture nominee, was registered to lobby as recently as last year on behalf of the National Education Association.
William Lynn, deputy defense secretary nominee, was registered to lobby as recently as last year for defense contractor Raytheon, where he was a top executive.
William Corr, deputy health and human services secretary nominee, was registered to lobby until last year for the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, a non-profit that pushes to limit tobacco use.
David Hayes, deputy interior secretary nominee, was registered to lobby until 2006 for clients, including the regional utility San Diego Gas & Electric.
Mark Patterson, chief of staff to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, was registered to lobby as recently as last year for financial giant Goldman Sachs.
Ron Klain, chief of staff to Vice President Joe Biden, was registered to lobby until 2005 for clients, including the Coalition for Asbestos Resolution, U.S. Airways, Airborne Express and drug-maker ImClone.
Mona Sutphen, deputy White House chief of staff, was registered to lobby for clients, including Angliss International in 2003.
Melody Barnes, domestic policy council director, lobbied in 2003 and 2004 for liberal advocacy groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, the American Constitution Society and the Center for Reproductive Rights.
Cecilia Munoz, White House director of intergovernmental affairs, was a lobbyist as recently as last year for the National Council of La Raza, a Hispanic advocacy group.
Patrick Gaspard, White House political affairs director, was a lobbyist for the Service Employees International Union.
Michael Strautmanis, chief of staff to the president’s assistant for intergovernmental relations, lobbied for the American Association of Justice from 2001 until 2005.
Doubtless this will be just the beginning.
Obama’s lip service to which he subsequently fails to adhere is nothing new. He has built a career on it. For decades in Chicago Obama used as a weapon with which to disarm his opponents his rhetoric of hope-n-change, his breathless exclamations that we all need to be working together. He’s claimed for a decade that he wants to reach across the aisle and work with anyone that wants to do so. Yet, he has no actual voting record to prove the rhetoric. He has talked a great game, but every time it has come to crunch time, Obama always votes for an agenda that is strictly in keeping with the far left.
So, it is clear that his acclaimed rhetoric on ethics is in keeping with his long standing practice of issuing flowery speeches and then voting against his own words. After all, from what we’ve seen so far, Obama will hire anyone he wants quite regardless of his so-called “strict ethics.” Lobbyists and tax cheats quite aside.
In the early November news conference, Podesta proudly proclaimed that Obama was so interested in distancing himself from the old, business-as-usual Washington that they didn’t care if they were excluding people of long Washington experience with their supposed strict ethics rules. Podesta sternly told reporters, “I’ve heard the complaint that we’re leaving all these extra people on the side, that we’re leaving all the people that know everything out in the cold. So be it. That’s a commitment that is one the American people expect and one the President-elect made.”
Yet within weeks it became clear that this new ethical standard was merely so much window dressing. Now, lobbyists abound in Obama’s administration and have since day one. Not only that, but tax cheats seem to be particularly drawn to the new president.
Several high profile Obama appointees have had major tax issues chief of whom is Timothy Geithner, Obama’s new Secretary of Treasury. But, late last week, it also came to light that Obama’s choice to head the Department of Health and Human Services, Tom Dsaschle, seemed to have conveniently forgotten to claim a free car and driver as income on his taxes and had somehow made this tax faux pas for years.
Naturally, during the vetting process to be approved as the new HHS head, Daschle mysteriously “remembered” the oversight and “repaid” the IRS $101,943 which is the cost of the free limo service and the interest on the “accidentally” forgotten income tax.
And let us not forget that former New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson had to withdraw his name for consideration as head of the the Department of Transportation because he is connected to illegal pay-to-play schemes in his state.
Then there are the many lobbyists that have joined the anti-lobbyist president in Washington.
Recently Politico detailed a list of some of the many lobbyists that Barack Obama has seen fit to “bend his rules” to allow into his administration. They find “at least a dozen” lobbyists have entered this purportedly anti-lobbyist administration.
Here is the list of lobbyists joining the Obama administration Politico came up with:
Eric Holder, attorney general nominee, was registered to lobby until 2004 on behalf of clients including Global Crossing, a bankrupt telecommunications firm.
Tom Vilsack, secretary of agriculture nominee, was registered to lobby as recently as last year on behalf of the National Education Association.
William Lynn, deputy defense secretary nominee, was registered to lobby as recently as last year for defense contractor Raytheon, where he was a top executive.
William Corr, deputy health and human services secretary nominee, was registered to lobby until last year for the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, a non-profit that pushes to limit tobacco use.
David Hayes, deputy interior secretary nominee, was registered to lobby until 2006 for clients, including the regional utility San Diego Gas & Electric.
Mark Patterson, chief of staff to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, was registered to lobby as recently as last year for financial giant Goldman Sachs.
Ron Klain, chief of staff to Vice President Joe Biden, was registered to lobby until 2005 for clients, including the Coalition for Asbestos Resolution, U.S. Airways, Airborne Express and drug-maker ImClone.
Mona Sutphen, deputy White House chief of staff, was registered to lobby for clients, including Angliss International in 2003.
Melody Barnes, domestic policy council director, lobbied in 2003 and 2004 for liberal advocacy groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, the American Constitution Society and the Center for Reproductive Rights.
Cecilia Munoz, White House director of intergovernmental affairs, was a lobbyist as recently as last year for the National Council of La Raza, a Hispanic advocacy group.
Patrick Gaspard, White House political affairs director, was a lobbyist for the Service Employees International Union.
Michael Strautmanis, chief of staff to the president’s assistant for intergovernmental relations, lobbied for the American Association of Justice from 2001 until 2005.
Doubtless this will be just the beginning.
Obama’s lip service to which he subsequently fails to adhere is nothing new. He has built a career on it. For decades in Chicago Obama used as a weapon with which to disarm his opponents his rhetoric of hope-n-change, his breathless exclamations that we all need to be working together. He’s claimed for a decade that he wants to reach across the aisle and work with anyone that wants to do so. Yet, he has no actual voting record to prove the rhetoric. He has talked a great game, but every time it has come to crunch time, Obama always votes for an agenda that is strictly in keeping with the far left.
So, it is clear that his acclaimed rhetoric on ethics is in keeping with his long standing practice of issuing flowery speeches and then voting against his own words. After all, from what we’ve seen so far, Obama will hire anyone he wants quite regardless of his so-called “strict ethics.” Lobbyists and tax cheats quite aside.
Another example of hope and change, at least the change part.
42 people dead; communities iced in and without lifesaving power for heat and cooking; conditions worsening — and FEMA nowhere to be found.
This isn’t a lefty caricature of disaster-response under the Bush administration; it’s real-life unresponsiveness under the leadership of President Obama (whose accession was supposed to mark a “return to competence” in government).
“In some parts of rural Kentucky, they’re getting water the old-fashioned way — with pails from a creek,” writes Associated Press reporter Bruce Schreiner. “There’s not room for one more sleeping bag on the shelter floor. The creative are flushing their toilets with melted snow.”
Schreiner continues:
Local officials were growing angry with what they said was a lack of help from the state and the Federal Emergency Management Agency. In Grayson County, about 80 miles southwest of Louisville, Emergency Management Director Randell Smith said the 25 National Guardsmen who have responded have no chain saws to clear fallen trees.
“We’ve got people out in some areas we haven’t even visited yet,” Smith said. “We don’t even know that they’re alive.”
Smith said FEMA has been a no-show so far.
“We’re asking people to pack a suitcase and head south and find a motel if they have the means, because we can’t service everybody in our shelter,” said Crittenden County Judge-Executive Fred Brown, who oversees about 9,000 people, many of whom are sleeping in the town’s elementary school.
“I’m not saying we can’t handle it; we’ll hand it,” Smith said. “But it would have made life a lot easier” if FEMA had reached the county sooner, he said.
Marty Hudak, spokesman for Obama FEMA director Nancy Ward, said emergency personnel can’t get to the people living (and dying) in these dangerous disaster areas because it’s, well, too dangerous to do so.
“We have plenty of folks ready to go, but there are some limitations with roads closed and icy conditions,” she told the AP.
“35,000 Dead”
When 12 people died in Kansas in May 2007 as a result of tornadoes, then-candidate Obama blamed the Iraq war for depleting the National Guard of needed resources to help the remaining victims.
“In case you missed it, this week, there was a tragedy in Kansas,” Obama said. “Ten thousand people died — an entire town destroyed; turns out that the National Guard in Kansas only had 40 percent of its equipment and they are having to slow down the recovery process.”
This brings up an interesting question. If twelve dead in reality was 10,000 in Obama’s head, shouldn’t this emergency situation, which has left 42 dead (that’s 35,000 in Obamathematics), be deserving of the promptest, most competent response possible?
Regardless, with a state of emergency that severe, and a number of Americans dead or dying, why is Barack Obama’s newly-competent Federal Emergency Management Agency sitting on its hands and waiting for the ice to melt and snow to clear before it actually responds to (or “manages”) this emergency?
Regardless, this is a serious situation which demands serious analysis and response. Like all of America’s natural disasters, the crisis in (majority-white) Kentucky is certainly no place for either side to inject race into the discussion. After all, that’s just unseemly, and neither side would ever do that — right?
Update by Jeff: The Daily Telegraph’s Tim Blair is calling this — you guessed it — “a Katrina moment for President Obama.” He says:
According to the Katrina template, this is all Obama’s fault. Yet Kentucky’s Democrat governor Steve Beshear earlier praised Obama’s swift action … in making a phone call:
“I can’t tell you how appreciative we were,” the governor said. “He not only expressed his concern, but he obviously had the Kentuckians in his thoughts and prayers, and he communicated that to us.”
This isn’t a lefty caricature of disaster-response under the Bush administration; it’s real-life unresponsiveness under the leadership of President Obama (whose accession was supposed to mark a “return to competence” in government).
“In some parts of rural Kentucky, they’re getting water the old-fashioned way — with pails from a creek,” writes Associated Press reporter Bruce Schreiner. “There’s not room for one more sleeping bag on the shelter floor. The creative are flushing their toilets with melted snow.”
Schreiner continues:
Local officials were growing angry with what they said was a lack of help from the state and the Federal Emergency Management Agency. In Grayson County, about 80 miles southwest of Louisville, Emergency Management Director Randell Smith said the 25 National Guardsmen who have responded have no chain saws to clear fallen trees.
“We’ve got people out in some areas we haven’t even visited yet,” Smith said. “We don’t even know that they’re alive.”
Smith said FEMA has been a no-show so far.
“We’re asking people to pack a suitcase and head south and find a motel if they have the means, because we can’t service everybody in our shelter,” said Crittenden County Judge-Executive Fred Brown, who oversees about 9,000 people, many of whom are sleeping in the town’s elementary school.
“I’m not saying we can’t handle it; we’ll hand it,” Smith said. “But it would have made life a lot easier” if FEMA had reached the county sooner, he said.
Marty Hudak, spokesman for Obama FEMA director Nancy Ward, said emergency personnel can’t get to the people living (and dying) in these dangerous disaster areas because it’s, well, too dangerous to do so.
“We have plenty of folks ready to go, but there are some limitations with roads closed and icy conditions,” she told the AP.
“35,000 Dead”
When 12 people died in Kansas in May 2007 as a result of tornadoes, then-candidate Obama blamed the Iraq war for depleting the National Guard of needed resources to help the remaining victims.
“In case you missed it, this week, there was a tragedy in Kansas,” Obama said. “Ten thousand people died — an entire town destroyed; turns out that the National Guard in Kansas only had 40 percent of its equipment and they are having to slow down the recovery process.”
This brings up an interesting question. If twelve dead in reality was 10,000 in Obama’s head, shouldn’t this emergency situation, which has left 42 dead (that’s 35,000 in Obamathematics), be deserving of the promptest, most competent response possible?
Regardless, with a state of emergency that severe, and a number of Americans dead or dying, why is Barack Obama’s newly-competent Federal Emergency Management Agency sitting on its hands and waiting for the ice to melt and snow to clear before it actually responds to (or “manages”) this emergency?
Regardless, this is a serious situation which demands serious analysis and response. Like all of America’s natural disasters, the crisis in (majority-white) Kentucky is certainly no place for either side to inject race into the discussion. After all, that’s just unseemly, and neither side would ever do that — right?
Update by Jeff: The Daily Telegraph’s Tim Blair is calling this — you guessed it — “a Katrina moment for President Obama.” He says:
According to the Katrina template, this is all Obama’s fault. Yet Kentucky’s Democrat governor Steve Beshear earlier praised Obama’s swift action … in making a phone call:
“I can’t tell you how appreciative we were,” the governor said. “He not only expressed his concern, but he obviously had the Kentuckians in his thoughts and prayers, and he communicated that to us.”
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