Commentary by James Shott
As the economic non-recovery crawls into 2014, the “good news” on the jobs front – that the unemployment rate dropped .3 percent in December to 6.7 percent – is far less impressive when you look beneath the surface.
The reason the unemployment rate dropped was not that a strengthening economy produced a sharply higher number of new jobs, as should be expected in a true recovery. December showed only a puny 74,000 new payroll jobs were added. Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) indicates that the drop resulted because five times that many people – 374,000 – became discouraged that they couldn’t find work and dropped out of the labor force.
Adding even a small number like 74,000 to a smaller labor force misleads us into thinking things have improved.
The BLS identifies June of 2009 as the official end of the recession, at which time the labor force participation rate was 65.7 percent (162 million workers). At the end of December, the rate stood at a pitiful 62.8 percent (155 million workers).
Using the size of the labor force in 2009 and the adding back into the equation the 7 million who have dropped out, the unemployment rate is just under 11 percent.
We should not celebrate a drop in the unemployment rate to 6.7 percent when 7 million Americans have given up looking for work because the economy still has not produced jobs for them.
Hopefully, the New Year will bring an infection of fiscal responsibility to our national leaders. It is interesting how liberals see global warming/climate change – a widely popular but unproven theory – as a true crisis, but don’t see years of budget deficits near and above a trillion dollars, and a national debt of nearly $17 trillion, as a problem.
President Barack Obama’s first year in office, 2009, saw a deficit of $1.4 trillion, which gets credited to George W. Bush, but contained the contribution of nearly $200 billion from the Obama stimulus. But over the next four years Mr. Obama racked up more than $4.2 trillion in deficits – FY 2010: $1,294 billion; FY 2011: $1,300 billion; FY 2012: $1,087 billion; FY 2013: $680 billion. This fiscal year the projection is a deficit of $744 billion, and the FY2015 deficit is projected at $577 billion.
To help put this in perspective, The Weekly Standard noted back in November of 2012 that, “According to the White House OMB, we ran up $1.8 trillion in real (inflation-adjusted) deficit spending during fiscal years 1942-45,” and that “we’ve now run up $3.4 trillion in real (inflation-adjusted) deficit spending under Obama — in less time than it took us to fight World War II.”
If there is good news in Obama deficit numbers it is that the deficits are coming down, but real good news would be Congress and the president taking concrete steps to get spending under control.
That seems unlikely, given Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) opinion that “The cupboard is bare. There’s no more cuts to make,” a position gleefully adopted by most, if not all, Congressional Democrats.
In her view there is no waste, fraud or abuse, despite more than ample evidence to the contrary, and there’s no unnecessary spending, either.
Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) issues an annual report on government waste, and in “Wastebook 2013,” he lists 100 examples totaling $30 billion. Heaven only knows the total of all the wasteful spending of the federal government.
* The military has destroyed more than 170 million pounds of useable vehicles and other military equipment, approximately 20 percent of the total U.S. war material in Afghanistan, totaling $7 billion, rather than sell it or ship it home.
* The SuperStop is a $1 million bus stop complete with heated benches and sidewalks, and wireless zones for personal computers. Yet its roof doesn’t protect from the rain, snow, wind or blazing sun.
* One of NASA’s next research missions won’t be exploring an alien planet or distant galaxy. Instead, it is spending $3 million to go to Washington, D.C. and study one of the greatest mysteries in the universe — how Congress works.
* When officials at the Manchester Boston Regional Airport in New Hampshire installed new solar panels costing $3.5 million, they did not anticipate one quarter of them would not be used 18 months later because the reflection from the panels blinds pilots and controllers.
* The Treasury Department’s Inspector General for Tax Administration discovered the IRS paid up to $13.6 billion in false Earned Income Tax Credits in 2012.
* While millions of Americans continue to pay taxes on their hard earned wages, many federal employees are tax cheats, to the tune of $3.6 billion.
* The feds keep the lights on in empty and little used federal buildings, costing $1.5 billion.
* Out of the $33.5 billion in Pell Grants the federal government doled out last year, individuals posing as students took off with $1.2 billion.
When an elected public servant believes there can be no spending cuts in the face of such wanton waste, it speaks volumes about the integrity and motivation of that individual.
Federal spending is a giant problem that we had better address soon.
Cross-posted from Observations
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Is Congress finally getting serious about spending and the debt?
The Congressional Fiscal 2014 Budget Conference Committee met for the first time last week. It is a bipartisan, bicameral committee that includes all members of the Senate Budget Committee, and the Chairman and Ranking Members on the House side, is about even politically, with 15 Democrats and 14 Republicans, but is heavily weighted towards the Senate, with 22 senators and seven representatives.
The budget reform panel was mandated in the bill that raised the debt ceiling and ended the government shutdown, and has until December 13 to find a budget compromise or face the likelihood of another government shutdown in mid-January when funding for the government runs out.
The group is reportedly focused on finding ways to replace across the board spending cuts, known as sequestration, with more sensible reductions in federal largess.
Representative Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) is chair of the joint committee, and in opening remarks said that the debt held by the public has doubled in just the last 5 years and is only getting worse. It’s a drag on the economy, he said. With 10,000 Baby Boomers retiring every day, Medicare and Social Security are going broke.
The debt, he said, hurts economic growth and job creation, and noted the message from the Congressional Budget Office, which warned that if something isn’t done soon, there will be a debt crisis. “We’ve got to get a handle on our debt, and we have got to get a handle on it now,” he stated, and the way he believes we must work our way out of this is through tax reform, including getting rid of carve-outs and kickbacks, and through a growing economy, and not by raising taxes.
The federal budget is a huge mess. In FY2013 the federal government took in revenue of $2.8 trillion, but spent $3.5 trillion, and owes $17 trillion to debt holders.
This compares to a family of four that earns $36,000 annually, but spends $45,000 each year and has accumulated debt totaling $219,000. This family clearly needs to cut down on its spending.
But the federal government cannot do that. At least not if we believe House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Cal.), who said in an interview in September on CNN’s “State of the Union” that “The cupboard is bare. There’s (sic) no more cuts to make. It’s really important that people understand that.”
Ms. Pelosi is apparently unaware that the federal government spent your tax dollars on such important things as exotic dancers, robotic squirrels, studying pig poop, and a reality TV show in India. And she also doesn’t know about the Government Accountability Office estimate of roughly $17 billion of improper Medicare payments each year, or the billions of dollars of mismanagement, corruption, and wasteful spending in federal housing subsidies, and the fraud and abuse in the food stamp program, school lunch, and child care programs, and in Veteran’s Affairs.
Maybe she’s forgotten that we pay people with our tax dollars at the NSA to record terabytes of information about us, and IRS employees to harass Republican/conservative organizations applying for non-profit status, and federal SWAT teams to kick down the doors of people whose student loans are in arrears and besiege a mine operation in Alaska to check for compliance with the Clean Water Act.
And then there are the 31 areas of spending on duplicative federal programs, spelled out in a report by the Government Accountability Office that waste billions annually, such as at least 23 different federal agencies running hundreds of programs to support renewable energy, and the 29 Department of Homeland Security contracts that partly or completely overlapped with research being done by another part of the same department.
Despite these examples of waste, fraud and abuse, and also despite the record $2.8 trillion in revenue the federal treasury collected in FY2013 – which provided President Barack Obama the opportunity to claim credit for a sizeable reduction in the annual budget deficit – Nancy Pelosi thinks that in negotiations about debt reduction “revenue needs to be on the table.”
But, no, Ms. Pelosi. You and your big spending comrades don’t get another dime.
Before the middle class or even the wealthiest Americans are further burdened with additional taxes, the federal government needs to get its act together and start operating efficiently. It must eliminate the billions of dollars in waste, fraud and abuse, and eliminate duplication.
Taxes should be evenly applied and high enough to support only essential government services. And, the most important word in that concept is “essential.”
Congress must get rid of carve-outs and kickbacks, eliminate pork barrel projects, stop the unconstitutional passing of Congressional responsibility to Executive Branch agencies, and restrict legislative activity to necessary and useful laws.
And the federal government must begin to operate with an attitude that demonstrates the obligation every federal worker – from the President of the United States, to Cabinet Secretaries, to Members of Congress, to the lowest paid employee – owes to the people they work for, the taxpayers. Perhaps then each of them will earn through job performance the high status some of them assume they are due “just because” they hold a high elective or appointed position.
The five disgusting Ps of the Obama/Reid Government Shutdown
We are led to believe the government shutdown is one of the worst things to afflict the country since … well, pick something.
But that’s just more exaggeration from the left in Washington and in the media. The vast majority of Americans would not notice the shut down absent the barrage of horror stories we’ve been treated to, and one other factor.
Shutdowns aren’t that unusual. Since 1976 there have been 17. Six occurred during the Carter administration, 8 during the Reagan administration, one during the elder Bush administration, and 2 during the Clinton administration.
Most lasted less than a week, but in the Carter administration 4 lasted 10 days or more, and the longest of all those shutdowns in 1996 lasted 21 days. On average, government shutdowns last about 6.5 days. There has been a lag in shutdowns since 1997 in the second Clinton term, through the George W. Bush administration, and through the first Obama term.
There is obvious discomfort among furloughed federal workers. However, the House of Representatives voted Saturday to fund back pay, which is what usually happens in shut downs. So, the real pain will be felt by some of the American people, due to the aforementioned “other factor.”
Three things are true about this shutdown: First, the Republican-led House passed three bills to restore government funding. Second, each House measure also sought to delay or defund the Affordable Care Act (ACA). And third, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid refused to act on the House measures and President Barack Obama threatened to veto them.
From this we see: a) House Republicans want to reopen the government and passed three measures to do so, and also wanted to save the American people from the ACA with its broken promises, serious problems, and goodies given to large employers and Members of Congress and their staffs. And b), to Sen. Reid and President Obama, putting the furloughed employees back to work, activating the inactive government functions and opening closed facilities are far less important than implementing the highly flawed ACA.
Mr. Obama is comfortable in his “It’s good to be the king” self-indulgence. But, he’s not “the” king, or even “a” king; he is merely the President of the United States, which is certainly an important and powerful position, but the Executive Branch of which he’s the head is just one-third of our government.
Those who took civics or other classes in American government know that among the ingenious features of the U.S. Constitution are the separation of powers and the system of checks and balances, which were designed to prevent any one branch from acquiring more power than the other two.
Mr. Obama – who was reportedly a constitutional law lecturer – believes that the president is the most important figure in the government, ignoring the Constitutional prohibition of any branch gaining the degree of power and control he desires.
Democrats hold this perspective about the ACA:
*It was passed by Congress and signed by the president.
*The Supreme Court found it constitutional.
*There was an election that confirmed the country’s support for Obamacare.
*Thus, the matter is settled: the ACA is the law of the land. End of discussion.
This scenario is rife with weaknesses. Every Republican in the House also won election in 2012, and nothing prevents a law being repealed or amended. And remember that at one time slavery was the “law of the land,” and Congress made a huge error in abolishing the sale of alcohol through the 18th Amendment.
Congress can right wrongs in the law, as it did with slavery; it can repeal bad laws, as it did with the 18th Amendment. And, it can repeal, defund, or amend the error-ridden ACA.
Because Republicans did not lie down and let the Democrats have their way, we have been treated to the aforementioned “other factor,” the 5 Ps: the petulant, peevish, petty, and punkish political behavior that characterizes the shut down.
Faced with an obstinate opposition party, President Obama convened his strategy team from a nearby elementary school, where members of the third grade gathered on the playground to formulate a plan.
Noting that monuments and memorials were not closed during previous shutdowns, they recommended this tactic to cause pain: Close national parks and monuments, as well as some facilities that receive no federal funds and are not federally owned, like Mount Vernon. Close Florida Bay and Biscayne Bay to commercial fishing. Place barriers to block the World War II Memorial that has no gates and is wide open to visitors. Tell people who rent slips for their live-on boats or own homes on Lake Mead they can’t stay there. Block scenic overlooks, like at Mt. Rushmore, by placing traffic cones that prevent drivers from pulling over to view the monuments. Perfect third grade strategy.
Wesley Pruden, writing in The Washington Times, quoted an angry Park Service Ranger, who confirmed that attitude: “It’s a cheap way to deal with the situation,” he said. “We’ve been told to make life as difficult for people as we can. It’s disgusting.”
You see, if the shutdown doesn’t hurt people, it doesn’t help the Democrats.
Bizarre ideas on the left do nothing to straighten out the country
By James H. Shott
Harry Belafonte is an African-American entertainer best known for the 1956 Calypso hit "The Banana Boat Song"; who in more recent years has been known for his civil rights activism, left-wing activism and his admiration of Third World dictators; and who has now voiced his opinion on gun control, claiming that “white Americans” who support the 2nd Amendment's protection of gun rights are ignoring the black “river of blood that washes the streets of our nation.”
"America has the largest prison population in the world," he noted. "And of the over 2 million men, women and children who make up the incarcerated, the overwhelming majority is black. We are the most unemployed, the most caught in the unjust systems of justice, and in the gun game, we are the most hunted.”
He continued: “The river of blood that washes the streets of our nation flows mostly from the bodies of our black children. Yet, as the great debate emerges on the question of the gun, white America discusses the constitutional issue of ownership, while no one speaks of the consequences of our racial carnage.”
Columnist Walter Williams notes that, "though blacks are 13 percent of the nation’s population, they account for more than 50 percent of homicide victims. Nationally, the black homicide victimization rate is six times that of whites, and in some cities, it’s 22 times that of whites. Each year, roughly 7,000 blacks are murdered. Ninety-four percent of the time, the murderer is another black person."
Mr. Belafonte tries to hang the responsibility for black-on-black murder around the necks of white America because they want to honor the U.S. Constitution, an argument that wildly misses the mark. Black youths dying in the streets is indeed a tragedy, but it is not because white people defend the Constitution.
Mr. Belafonte is also confused about the results of the 2012 election, believing that President Obama's thin victory in the popular vote constitutes a mandate from the people to do whatever he wants. But the margin of victory was only 3.84 percent. That constitutes a win, but it’s far from a mandate. This win was just over half the margin in 2008, which means that American voters are less in love with Mr. Obama and his agenda after seeing it in action for four years.
He also does not understand the American system of government, which in his mind enables President Obama to jail those that disagree with him. “The only thing left for Barack Obama to do is to work like a Third World dictator and just put all of these [white] guys in jail. You’re violating the American desire,” he said on the Al Sharpton TV program.
Perhaps Mr. Belafonte should review the founding principles of the country that was so good to him before he fell into the irrelevance that mediocrity brings. Maybe a better idea is for him to move on from what he believes is a horrible country to one of the paradises he so admires, like Cuba or Venezuela.
Harry Belafonte's racist and communist ideas are grossly un-American and are blessedly shared by only a small minority. Others on the left, however, are also confused about what is going on.
Nancy Pelosi, the House Minority Leader from California, also harbors some nutty ideas. Despite consistent budget deficits exceeding a trillion dollars a year throughout Barack Obama's tenure and a $16 trillion national debt that has increased by about 50 percent over that same period, Ms. Pelosi not only says with a straight face that we don't have a spending problem, but she is miffed that the pay raise proposed for all federal employees seems destined for the trash heap.
"I think we should respect the work we do,” Ms. Pelosi told reporters. “I think it’s necessary for us to have the dignity of the job....” Just because the nation is drowning in red ink is no reason to fail to show due deference to our employees in the Congress, right?
Congressional Democrats twist themselves into knots trying to convince us that it's okay to spend 40 percent more than the revenue we collect every year. Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin commented that “We are now the richest nation in the world. We have the highest per capita income of any major nation. That kind of begs the question, doesn’t it? If we’re so rich, why are we so broke? Is it a spending problem? No.”
Sen. Harkin and Congresswoman Pelosi, and a whole gaggle of others see salvation in taking even more hard-earned money from the citizens, or at least some of them. However, a new poll shows 83 percent of Americans disagree. They have had it with fiscal irresponsibility and piling debt on future generations.
Here's a lesson in good government for public servants from someone who actually understood the concept: “A wise and frugal government … shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government.” — Thomas Jefferson
Cross-posted from Observations
Obama to Top Brass: Will you fire on American Citizens?
This may be the most important interview you will have seen within the last year. I do have a little bit of skepticism associated with it...but not much.
In the video that follows, Gary Franchi of the Next News Network interviews Dr. Jim Garrow about the call he claims to have received from a retired, high-ranking military officer who told him that the Administration is beginning to ask military officers whether or not they will be willing to fire on American citizens if those citizens refuse to surrender their arms when ordered to do so. One of the more interesting pieces in the interview is when Dr. Garrow talks about China, our debt to them, and how our natural resources are being given away to them as a way of paying off American debt to China.
I have not yet seen any corroborating evidence in regards to this reported "litmus test" of military leadership, so it is something we need to keep an eye on. I have seen some "hits" on the Chinese being allowed into our nation to exploit our natural resources, but have not yet been able to draw any conclusions from them.
Link to video
Other commentary on this issue:
-- Rick Wiles (TRUNEWS) interview with Dr. Jim Garrow (23 Jan 13)
-- Examiner.com article "Renowned author: Obama wants military leaders who will fire on U.S. citizens" (22 Jan 13)
Cross-posted from Against All Enemies
In the video that follows, Gary Franchi of the Next News Network interviews Dr. Jim Garrow about the call he claims to have received from a retired, high-ranking military officer who told him that the Administration is beginning to ask military officers whether or not they will be willing to fire on American citizens if those citizens refuse to surrender their arms when ordered to do so. One of the more interesting pieces in the interview is when Dr. Garrow talks about China, our debt to them, and how our natural resources are being given away to them as a way of paying off American debt to China.
I have not yet seen any corroborating evidence in regards to this reported "litmus test" of military leadership, so it is something we need to keep an eye on. I have seen some "hits" on the Chinese being allowed into our nation to exploit our natural resources, but have not yet been able to draw any conclusions from them.
Link to video
Other commentary on this issue:
-- Rick Wiles (TRUNEWS) interview with Dr. Jim Garrow (23 Jan 13)
-- Examiner.com article "Renowned author: Obama wants military leaders who will fire on U.S. citizens" (22 Jan 13)
Cross-posted from Against All Enemies
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Jack Lew's Signature
This is the signature of the nominee to be the next Secretary of the Treasury:
It looks like a child's doodle, not even coming close to resembling his name except for perhaps the first loops potentially forming a "J." (My signature is not awesome, but at least I make an attempt and can explain its form.)
I'm not trained to interpret people's personalities based on their handwriting, but in this case I'm going to anyway.
Is his signature reflective of some sort of nihilist, post-modern world view that he may possess, where nothing, including his own name, has any meaning? This world view will help in Washington since fiscal responsibility apparently has no meaning anyway.
Or perhaps it is a sign of supreme arrogance--he is so great, why should he have to lower himself to sign his name for those beneath him?
If he can't even take the time to make his signature even remotely reflect his name, why should we think for a minute that he will take the time to ensure his policies make sense for the people of the United States within the framework of our Constitution? (I bet he does not hold the Constitution in high regard at all.)
His signature is ridiculous. Here is some background on the man:
Here's Obama's Message to GOP by Appointing Lew Treasury Secretary
This is certainly a blow to any hope that Republicans might have had that Obama would flinch from his pledge not to negotiate over the debt ceiling. The president has said he will demand a clean bill raising the debt ceiling, unattached to any conditions or spending cuts.
 |
| Lew's Loopdeloop |
It looks like a child's doodle, not even coming close to resembling his name except for perhaps the first loops potentially forming a "J." (My signature is not awesome, but at least I make an attempt and can explain its form.)
I'm not trained to interpret people's personalities based on their handwriting, but in this case I'm going to anyway.
Is his signature reflective of some sort of nihilist, post-modern world view that he may possess, where nothing, including his own name, has any meaning? This world view will help in Washington since fiscal responsibility apparently has no meaning anyway.
Or perhaps it is a sign of supreme arrogance--he is so great, why should he have to lower himself to sign his name for those beneath him?
If he can't even take the time to make his signature even remotely reflect his name, why should we think for a minute that he will take the time to ensure his policies make sense for the people of the United States within the framework of our Constitution? (I bet he does not hold the Constitution in high regard at all.)
His signature is ridiculous. Here is some background on the man:
Here's Obama's Message to GOP by Appointing Lew Treasury Secretary
Senior Editor, CNBC.com (link to article)
President Barack Obama is sending a pointed message to Republicans by nominating Jack Lew as Treasury Secretary: I'm not backing down from this budget fight.
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Blog: http://aaenemies.blogspot.com
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