Ray Harvey

“Well, you know, here’s what I would say. I think we should acknowledge that some welfare programs in the past were not well designed and in some cases did encourage dependency. As somebody who worked in low income neighborhoods, I’ve seen it, where people weren’t encouraged to work, weren’t encouraged to upgrade their skills, were just getting a check, and, over time, their motivation started to diminish. And I think even if you’re progressive you’ve got to acknowledge that some of these things have not been well designed.”

(Link)

Well, you know, you’re only a trillion dollars too late.

And dependency is just one of the many intractable problems with a welfare state.

It is, to say the least of it, a very horrifying thing indeed that someone in this position of power actually believes an economic canard of this caliber — a canard that’s been bunked a billion times, and which, in fact, is so easily debunked — and yet it’s even more horrifying to realize that so much of this country’s economic fate is in the hands of one whose economic knowledge is this puerile.

I, for one, was absolutely appalled when I saw the following:

Russell Roberts, professor of economics at George Mason University and a research fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution, recently rebutted and demolished Obama’s absurd notions, by pointing out the obvious:

The story goes that Milton Friedman was once taken to see a massive government project somewhere in Asia. Thousands of workers using shovels were building a canal. Friedman was puzzled. Why weren’t there any excavators or any mechanized earth-moving equipment? A government official explained that using shovels created more jobs. Friedman’s response: “Then why not use spoons instead of shovels?”

… Or look at eggs. Today, a couple of workers can manage an egg-laying operation of almost a million chickens laying 240,000,000 eggs a year. How can two people pick up those eggs or feed those chickens or keep them healthy with medication? They can’t. The hen house does the work—it’s really smart. The two workers keep an eye on a highly mechanized, computerized process that would have been unimaginable 50 years ago.

The savings from higher productivity don’t just go to the owners of the textile factory or the mega hen house who now have lower costs of doing business. Lower costs don’t always mean higher profits. Or not for long. Those lower costs lead to lower prices as businesses compete with each other to appeal to consumers.

… Despite losing millions of jobs to technology and to trade, even in a recession we have more total jobs than we did when the steel and auto and telephone and food industries had a lot more workers and a lot fewer machines.

Why do new jobs get created? When it gets cheaper to make food and clothing, there are more resources and people available to create new products that didn’t exist before. Fifty years ago, the computer industry was tiny. It was able to expand because we no longer had to have so many workers connecting telephone calls. So many job descriptions exist today that didn’t even exist 15 or 20 years ago. That’s only possible when technology makes workers more productive (boldface mine).

(Read the full article here.)

This, incidentally, is another manifestation of Bastiat’s economic law: “What is seen and what is not seen.”

In North Carolina yesterday, meeting with the Council on Jobs and Competiveness, Barack Obama was questioned about the fact that government bureaucracy invariably delays projects and even oftentimes puts a stop to them altogether, to which Obama jokingly replied:

“Shovel-ready was not as — uh — shovel-ready as we expected.”

This clever remark got some pretty good laughs, and I, for one, find it very amusing indeed that these left-wing elitist, among whom Barack Obama is top of the heap, regard their deadly economic philosophy as a kind of joke, which I suppose in one sense it actually is: a complete joke, as a matter of fact, a joke of staggering proportions, a joke about as funny as a cry for help — a joke, in short, that’s nearly as laughable as Obama’s boast that he now “has a better plane” than three years ago, and that he now travels “with a bigger entourage,” while the rest of us pay the price for it.

I imagine, though, that the people who have been out of work for months on end are not laughing nearly as hard as Obama and his clownish administration.

Recall also Barack Obama telling us that his so-called Stimulus had to be passed before it was read because “it would provide for hundreds of thousands of shovel-ready projects that will bring our unemployment rate below 8 percent.”

And yet $821 billion later: “Unemployment is now 25 percent higher than when [Obama] took office, the deficit is 35 percent higher, and gas prices have more than doubled”(source).

Moreover:

“Obama’s stimulus included $28 billion in new highway money, which he said would ‘create or save’ 150,000 jobs by the end of 2010. These are the quintessential ‘shovel-ready’ jobs that Obama jokes turned out to be not so shovel ready.”

From Investors Business Daily:

A new study by economists Timothy Conley of the University of Western Ontario and Bill Dupor of Ohio State found that despite the influx of all that federal money, highway construction jobs actually plunged by nearly 70,000 between 2008 and 2010.

As these authors explain, many states simply took the free federal money and shifted their own highway funds to meet other needs. Examples:

Texas got $700 million in highway stimulus funds last year, but spent $560 million less on its roads in 2010 than it did in 2009.
New York’s highway spending was basically unchanged between 2009 and 2010, despite getting $522 million more in federal highway bucks.
Michigan boosted its highway spending just $17.4 million, far below the $189 million extra the feds handed the state for highway improvements.

And quoting Neal Boortz:

When others, like yours truly, were telling you that MORE government spending on “shovel-ready” projects were not going to be the way to save this nation and grow our economy, you passed the gargantuan bill, continued to pass other bills (like ObamaCare) that increased the size of government and then refused to do anything to actually tackle our entitlement crisis.

According to government figures: When you add up all of the money that we owe in order to cover our future liabilities in entitlements, our country is now in worse financial shape than Greece. Greece! While Obama has nearly doubled our debt to $14.3 trillion, that doesn’t even compare to the $50 trillion that we owe when you include Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.

Funniest of all, though — at least in my opinion — is the fact that Barack Obama was voted into power by people who, like Obama himself, have no understanding of economics whatsoever but chose him simply because it was the hip trendy thing to do.

Now that’s what I call a hilarious joke.

In addition to this awesomeness, Kiss star Gene Simmons — who was born and partially raised in Haifa, Israel, with the name Chaim Witz — recently contributed something equally excellent to the world:

(Video via mulhollanddose.)

Partial transcript:

JANE WELLS, CNBC: What do you think of President Obama’s suggestion that the borders be redrawn pre-67?

GENE SIMMONS, KISS: President Obama, I voted for an idea. What I didn’t realize what I was getting was an idealist. If you’ve never been to the moon, you can’t issue policy about the moon. You have no f—king idea what it’s like on the moon. For a president to be sitting in Washington, D.C., and saying, “Go back to your 67 borders in Israel,” how about you live there and try to defend an indefensible border nine miles wide? On one side you’ve got hundreds of millions of people who hate your guts, on the other side you’ve got the Mediterranean. Unless you control, in Israel, unless you control those Golan Heights, it’s an indefensible position….

“The most pathetic body on the face of the planet.” Simmons called the U.N. a “paper tiger” that allows dictators to spread propaganda.

(Hat tip Noel Sheppard.)

“[My grandmother] is a typical white person.”

– Nobel Peace Prize Winner Barack Obama, 2008

Now that the American military has at long last killed Osama bin Laden, Obama’s sagging approval ratings have jumped some six points. Obama is riding pretty high, and so I think it’s important to remind folks once again who this fellow really is and what he represents: a liar and a race-obsessed socialist.

Obama in his own words:

“Just because you possess an individual right doesn’t mean local governments can’t constrain the exercise of that right” (Barack Obama, 2008, Philadelphia primary).

“I ceased to advertise my mother’s race at the age of twelve or thirteen when I began to suspect that by doing so I was ingratiating myself to whites” (Barack Obama, Dreams From My Father, pg xiv).

“That’s just how white folks will do you. It wasn’t merely the cruelty involved; I was learning that black people could be mean and then some. It was a particular brand of arrogance, an obtuseness in otherwise sane people that brought forth our bitter laughter. It was as if whites didn’t know that they were being cruel in the first place. Or at least thought you deserving of their scorn” (Barack Obama, Ibid, pg. 80).

“Questions of competition, decisions forced by a market economy and majoritarian rule; issues of power. It was this unyielding reality-that whites were not only phantoms to be expunged from our dreams but were an active and varied fact of our everyday lives-that finally explained how nationalism could thrive as an emotion and flounder as a program” (Barack Obama, Ibid, Pg 202).

Here is Barack Obama’s admission that he’s not only a socialist, but a socialist of the black-nationalist variety:

Nationalism provided that history, an unambiguous morality tale that was easily communicated and easily grasped. A steady attack on the white race, the constant recitation of black people’s brutal experience in this country, served as the ballast that could prevent the ideas of personal and communal responsibility from tipping into an ocean of despair. Yes, the nationalist would say, whites are responsible for your sorry state, not any inherent flaws in you. In fact, whites are so heartless and devious that we can no longer expect anything from them. The self-loathing you feel, what keeps you drinking or thieving, is planted by them. Rid them from your mind and find your true power liberated. Rise up, ye mighty race! … In a sense, then, Rafiq was right when he insisted that, deep down, all blacks were potential nationalists. The anger was there, bottled up and often turned inward. And as I thought about Ruby and her blue eyes, the teenagers calling each other ‘nigger’ and worse, I wondered whether, for now at least, Rafiq wasn’t also right in preferring that that anger be redirected; whether a black politics that suppressed rage toward whites generally, or one that failed to elevate race loyalty above all else, was a politics inadequate to the the task.
It was a painful thought to consider, as painful now as it had been years ago. It contradicted the morality my mother had taught me, a morality of subtle distinctions — between individuals of goodwill and those wished me ill, between active malice and ignorance or indifference. I had a personal stake in that moral framework; I’d discovered that I couldn’t escape it if I tried…. And yet perhaps it was a framework that blacks in this country could no longer afford; perhaps it weakened black resolve, encouraged confusion within the ranks. Desperate times called for desperate measures, and for many blacks, time were chronically desperate. If nationalism could create a strong and effective insularity, deliver on its promise of self-respect, then the hurt it might cause well-meaning whites, or the inner turmoil it caused people like me, would be of little consequence…. If nationalism could deliver. As it turned out, questions of effectiveness, and not sentiment, caused most of my quarrels with Rafiq (Barack Obama, Ibid, Pg. 198-201, boldface mine).

Obama has also famously told us that Reverend Jeremiah Wright — the racist anti-American pastor whose church Obama attended for twenty years — was not only his pastor but also his “friend and mentor” and like a “member of the family.” Jeremiah Wright’s church, Obama once said, “helps me keep my moral compass straight and define my priorities.”

Here also are a handful of Barack Obama’s most recent lies:

No signing statements to nullify or undermine congressional instructions as enacted into law? (Obama Lies to Keep Czars).

No “boots” on the ground Libya. “Anyone that has worked with the AC-130 gunship can tell you, you need spotters to let aircraft know where the targets are. Usually it is Special Forces, Rangers etc trained for this mission” (it’s CIA Agents in Libya on the ground).

“Reform will also rein in the abuse and excess that nearly brought down our financial system. It will finally bring transparency to the kinds of complex, risky transactions that helped trigger the financial crisis (Obama Lies About Financial Reform Bill).

“I will not rest until the BP Oil Spill stops” (see Obama’s cushy schedule here).

“The health care bill will not increase the deficit by one dime.”

“If you like the health care plan you have you can keep it.”

“Under our plan, no federal dollars will be used to fund abortions, and federal conscience laws will remain in place.”

“The ObamaCare Fee is not a new tax.”

“We shouldn’t Mandate the purchase of health care” (Democratic Debate Lies).

That, of course, is only the tip of the iceberg.

As always, I’m interested in hearing from all Obama supporters on exactly how you defend this absolute rubbish.

After adding more to America’s national debt in his first 19 months than all presidents from Washington through Reagan combined, Barack Obama on Wednesday, April 14th, 2011, in a nationally televised speech, said the following:

“This is my vision for America: A vision where we live within our means while still investing in our future”

He was not, I presume, referring to his jaw-droppingly profligate “stimulus package,” which he forced upon us before anyone had actually read what was inside the package — a partial listing of which runs something like this:

• $44 million for construction, repair and improvements at US Department of Agriculture facilities
• $209 million for work on deferred maintenance at Agricultural Research Service facilities
• $245 million for maintaining and modernizing the IT system of the Farm Service Agency
• $175 million to buy and restore floodplain easements for flood prevention
• $50 million for “Watershed Rehab”
• $1.1 billion for rural community facilities direct loans
• $2 billion for rural business and industry guaranteed loans
• $2.7 billion for rural water and waste dispoal direct loans
• $22.1 billion for rural housing insurance fund loans
• $2.8 billion for loans to spur rural broadband
• $150 million for emergency food assistance
• $50 million for regional economic development commissions
• $1 billion for “Periodic Censuses and Programs”
• $350 million for State Broadband Data and Development Grants
• $1.8 billion for Rural Broadband Deployment Grants
• $1 billion for Rural Wireless Deployment Grants
• $650 million for Digital-to-Analog Converter Box Program
• $100 million for “Scientific and Technical Research and Services” at the National Institute of Standards And Technology
• $30 million for necessary expenses of the “Hollings Manufacturing Extension Partnership”
• $300 million for a competitive construction grant program for research science buildings
• $400 million for “habitat restoration and mitigation activities” at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
• $600 million for “accelerating satellite development and acquisition”
• $140 million for “climate data modeling”
• $3 billion for state and local law enforcement grants
• $1 billion for “Community Oriented Policing Services”
• $250 million for “accelerating the development of the tier 1 set of Earth science climate research missions recommended by the National Academies Decadal Survey.”
• $50 million for repairs to NASA facilities from storm damage
• $300 million for “Major Research Insrumentation program” (science)
• $200 million for “academic research facilities modernization”
• $100 million for “Education and Human Resources”
• $400 million for “Major Research Equipment and Facilities Construction”
• $4.5 billion to make military facilities more energy efficient
• $1.5 billion for Army Operation and Maintenance fund
• $624 million for Navy Operation and Maintenance
• $128 million for Marine Corps Operation and Maintenance
• $1.23 billion for Air Force Operation and Maintenance
• $454 million to “Defense Health Program”
• $110 million for Army Reserve Operation and Maintenance
• $62 million for Navy Reserve Operation and Maintenance
• $45 million for Marine Corps Reserve Operation and Maintenance
• $14 million for Air Force Reserve Operation and Maintenance
• $302 million for National Guard Operation and Maintenance
• $29 million for Air National Guard Operation and Maintenance
• $350 million for military energy research and development programs
• $2 billion for Army Corps of Engineers “Construction”
• $250 million for “Mississippi River and Tributaries”
• $2.2 billion for Army Corps “Operation and Maintenance”
• $25 million for an Army Corps “Regulatory Program”
• $126 million for Interior Department “water reclamation and reuse projects”
• $80 million for “rural water projects”
• $18.5 billion for “Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy” research in the Department of Energy. That money includes:
• $2 billion for development of advanced batteries
• $800 million of that is for biomass research and $400 million for geothermal technologies
• $1 billion in grants to “institutional entities for energy sustainability and efficiency”
• $6.2 billion for the Weatherization Assistance Program
• $3.5 billion for Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grants
• $3.4 billion for state energy programs
• $200 million for expenses to implement energy independence programs
• $300 million for expenses to implement Energy efficient appliance rebate programs including the Energy Star program
• $400 million for expenses to implement Alternative Fuel Vehicle and Infrastructure Grants to States and Local Governments
• $1 billion for expenses necessary for advanced battery manufacturing
• $4.5 billion to modernize the nation’s electricity grid
• $1 billion for the Advanced Battery Loan Guarantee Program
• $2.4 billion to demonstrate “carbon capture and sequestration technologies”
• $400 million for the Advanced Research Projects Agency (Science)
• $500 million for “Defense Environmental Cleanup”
• $1 billion for construction and repair of border facilities and land ports of entry
• $6 billion for energy efficiency projects on government buildings
• $600 million to buy and lease government plug-in and alternative fuel vehicles
• $426 million in small business loans
• $100 million for “non-intrusive detection technology to be deployed at sea ports of entry
• $150 million for repair and construction at land border ports of entry
• $500 million for explosive detection systems for aviation security
• $150 million for alteration or removal of obstructive bridges
• $200 million for FEMA Emergency Food and Shelter program
• $325 million for Interior Department road, bridge and trail repair projects
• $300 million for road and bridge work in Wildlife Refuges and Fish Hatcheries
• $1.7 billion for “critical deferred maintenance” in the National Park System
• $200 million to revitalize the National Mall in Washington, D.C.
• $100 million for National Park Service Centennial Challenge programs
• $200 million for repair of U.S. Geological Survey facilities
• $500 million for repair and replacement of schools, jails, roads, bridges, housing and more for Bureau of Indian Affairs
• $800 million for Superfund programs
• $200 million for leaking underground storage tank cleanup
• $8.4 billion in “State and Tribal Assistance Grants”
• $650 million in “Capital Improvement and Maintenance” at the Agriculture Dept.
• $850 million for “Wildland Fire Management”
• $550 million for Indian Health facilities
• $150 million for deferred maintenance at the Smithsonian museums
• $50 million in grants to fund “arts projects and activities which preserve jobs in the non-profit arts sector threatened by declines in philanthropic and other support during the current economic downturn” through the National Endowment for the Arts
• $1.2 billion in grants to states for youth summer jobs programs and other activities
• $1 billion for states in dislocated worker employment and training activities
• $500 million for the dislocated workers assistance national reserve
• $80 million for the enforcement of worker protection laws and regulations related to infrastructure and unemployment insurance investments
• $300 million for “construction, rehabilitation and acquisition of Job Corps Centers”
• $250 million for public health centers
• $1 billion for renovation and repair of health centers
• $600 million for nurse, physician and dentist training
• $462 million for renovation work at the Centers for Disease Control
• $1.5 billion for “National Center for Research Resources”
• $500 million for “Buildlings and Facilties” at the National Institutes of Health in suburban Washington, D.C.
• $700 million for “comparative effectiveness research” on prescription drugs
• $1 billion for Low-Income Home Energy Assistance
• $2 billion in Child Care and Development Block Grants for states
• $1 billion for Head Start programs
• $1.1 billion for Early Head Start programs
• $100 million for Social Security research programs
• $200 million for “Aging Services Programs”
• $2 billion for “Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology”
• $430 million for public health/social services emergency funds
• $2.3 billion for the Centers for Disease Control for a variety of programs
• $5.5 billion in targeted education grants
• $5.5 billion in “education finance incentive grants”
• $2 billion in “school improvement grants”
• $13.6 billion for Individuals with Disabilities Education Act
• $250 million for statewide education data systems
• $14 billion for school modernization, renovation and repair
• $160 million for AmeriCorps grants
• $400 million for the construction and costs to establish a new “National Computer Center” for the Social Security Administration
• $500 million to improve processing of disability and retirement claims
• $920 million for Army housing and child development centers
• $350 million for Navy and Marine Corps housing and child development centers
• $280 million in Air Force housing and child development centers
• $3.75 billion in military hospital and surgery center construction
• $140 million in Army National Guard construction projects
• $70 million in Air National Guard construction projects
• $100 million in Army Reserve construction projects
• $30 million in Navy Reserve construction projects
• $60 million in Air Force Reserve construction projects
• $950 million for VA

It’s hard to believe that a mere two months ago, in his February budget, Obama was still denying that America even faced a fiscal crisis, and yet today (April 14th) he not only admitted it: he attempted to describe it. About which, Yuval Levin said this:

It is certainly unorthodox for a president to renounce his own budget two months after proposing it, but that is just what the president did—implicitly dismissing even the goals set out by his budget in its own terms (let alone its potential to achieve them, as measured by the Congressional Budget Office) as totally inadequate. In that sense, the only immediate practical implication of the speech is that it throws the 2012 budget process into disarray (Yuval Levin, “The President’s Speech”).

So banal and so full of easy platitudes was Obama’s speech that one hardly faults Joe Biden for falling asleep:

Obama did at least make one true statement:

“There will be those who vigorously disagree with my approach.”

Yes!

He continued:

“Some will argue, we should not even consider ever, ever raising taxes even if only on the wealthiest Americans. It’s just an article of faith to them.”

An article of faith, or a working knowledge of economics?

Because make no mistake: the only real article of faith before us here is Obama’s blind belief that a country can tax-and-spend its way to prosperity.

Just like the conservatives and their absolutely absurd “war on drugs,” Barack Obama and his clownish administration have caused much unnecessary destruction and death, which nobody, right, left, or middle, should sanction. This is a war which, unlike the conservatives, Obama initially claimed he was opposed to, but which he nevertheless has cravenly and predictably gone right along with, in order to fuel his popularity and the bureaucratic system he loves:

And then there’s this (watch it — it’s probably not what you think):

Barack Obama — who, in 2008, at the Philadelphia primary, shocked and sickened so many of us when he said (and I quote) “Just because you have an individual right does not mean that state or local government can’t constrain the exercise of that right” — has suddenly, it seems, developed an inexplicable regard for individual rights, stating publicly this morning:

“I don’t think it does anybody any good when public employees are denigrated or vilified or their rights are infringed upon.”

Presumably, he’s forgetting his aforementioned conviction that “state and local governments [may legitimately] constrain the exercise of rights” — an ignorant and extraordinarily dangerous conviction which statists of every stripe have unsuccessfully tried to defend since the dawn of humankind, with spectacularly devastating results, and yet for once I agree with him: it is not ever good when individual rights are infringed upon. The real question, of course, which he could never answer, is this:

Why is it then okay that my rights are infringed upon — when I am forced, in other words, under threat of fine or imprisonment, to subsidize these public employees whom you champion?

Why must I be forced by government to live for others?

Says who? And why?

No good answer has ever been given to that question because no good answer for it exists.

On a related note, Barack Obama disclosed in that same speech this morning his economic illiteracy once again, telling state governors:

“As the Recovery Act funds that saw through many states over the last two years are phasing out and it is undeniable that the Recovery Act helped every single state represented in this room manage your budgets, whether you admit it or not.”

The refutation of this is sometimes referred to as the Broken Window Fallacy, a term that comes to us from a parable coined by the great French economist Frederic Bastiat (1801 – 1850), which parable demonstrates that wealth cannot come from destruction, that money taken by force — i.e. TARP and the so-called stimulus package — necessarily siphons money which would otherwise have been spent voluntarily on other things, thereby wreaking havoc on economies in an unseen way (indeed, Bastiat himself called this principle “That Which is Seen, and That Which is Not Seen”).

Here’s a two-minute explanation of the Broken Window Fallacy, by an economist and philosopher whom I admire named Dr. Tom Palmer:

And another:

In the biggest blow yet to ObamaCare, Judge Henry E. Hudson (U.S. District Court of Virginia) recognized the obvious: namely, it is utterly unconstitutional for any government to force its citizens to carry insurance, or pay a penalty if they don’t. In the Judge’s wise words: “[It] exceeds the constitutional boundaries of congressional power.”

And:

“[The individual mandate] would invite unbridled exercise of federal police powers. At its core, this dispute is not simply about regulating the business of insurance — or crafting a scheme of universal health insurance coverage — it’s about an individual’s right to choose to participate.”

Indeed, indeed. This is a textbook example (one of an endless number) of how so-called progressive liberalism is, like all other forms of socialism, a philosophy of force — a philosophy that must resort to force in order to achieve its goals. So don’t be duped by all their peace-loving talky-talky. In actuality, these people worship at the shrine of authoritarianism, governmental power, and state coercion. Their ideology cannot succeed in any other way.

Though this ruling will be appealed, drug-out, and very possibly overturned, it is appropriate, I think, for us to take a moment to say, thank you, Judge Henry E. Hudson, for recognizing and codifying the painfully obvious.

More here.

This isn’t new: everyone knows and has always known that the best doctors and the best healthcare in the world are to be found in the United States. Which is why, when the chips are down, the United States is precisely where they all come for treatment.

No, the reason this particular story is a little more interesting than the usual traduce-America’s-health-care-system-until-you-get-seriously-sick scenario is that Saudi King Abdullah reportedly phoned Obama the day after Obamacare was forced through congress (via the unlawful use of the reconciliation process) and congratulated him on its passage.
As Doug Powers reports:

The day after the Obamacare law passed, Saudi King Abdullah reportedly called President Obama to congratulate him. The bill, it seems, was one more step toward the US embracing a superior universal health care system like that which can be found in Saudi Arabia, where treatments for medical problems such as, oh, say, blood clots, are fully covered.

Now, the king of the country with that health care system that gives the US something to strive for won’t be treated in that system, but will instead come to the US for treatment. He’s lucky the law that will make US health care system more closely resemble the Saudi system — the one that isn’t good enough for Saudi royalty — hasn’t kicked in yet:

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia – Saudi Arabia’s aged ruler will fly to the United States for medical tests over a blood clot, according to a Saudi official, in a development that would renew questions about succession in the oil-rich kingdom.

The 86-year-old King Abdullah is set to leave on Monday, three days after he was admitted to the hospital suffering from back pain due to a blood clot, the official said late Saturday. The official didn’t say which hospital would receive the king.

To paraphrase John McCain’s question, when Obamacare is fully implemented in America, where will rich Saudis go for health care?

(Link)

Just recently, at a so-called CNBC Town Hall, a quondam Obot told Barack Obama to his face:

I’m one of your middle class Americans. And quite frankly, I’m exhausted. Exhausted of defending you, defending your administration, defending the mantle of change that I voted for.

My husband and I have joked for years that we thought we were well beyond the hot dogs and beans era of our lives, but, quite frankly, it’s starting to knock on our door and ring true that that might be where we’re headed again, and, quite frankly, Mr. President, I need you to answer this honestly. Is this my new reality?

Real Clear Politics hasn’t yet made the priceless video embeddable, but you can — and should — watch it here. It will make you laugh, or it will make you cry.

Just incidentally, if you want to get drunk while watching it, try this drinking game: take a guzzle of beer (or Evan Williams) every time she says “quite frankly,” and I virtually guarantee you that by the end of it, you’ll be shit-faced.

Just recently, Barack Obama said, for the five or sixth hundredth time in the last year and a half: “The worst thing we could do is to go back to the very same policies that created this mess in the first place.”

He was referring of course to the profligate policies instituted under George W. Bush — about whom I’ve written here — and yet the question remains: why then has Barack Obama, from the beginning of his term, “gone back to the very same policies” instituted by his favorite scapegoat, without whom he’d be lost?

Unfortunately, I have no good answer for that question, but here’s something everyone, including Barack Obama, should know:

The President of the United States can’t create budget deficits or budget surpluses.

All spending bills, without exception, are born in the House of Representatives, and all taxes are voted into law by Congress.

Quoting Thomas Sowell:

Democrats controlled both houses of Congress before Barack Obama became president. The deficit he inherited was created by the Congressional Democrats, including Senator Barack Obama, who did absolutely nothing to oppose the runaway spending. He was one of the biggest of the big spenders.

The last time the federal government had a budget surplus, Bill Clinton was president, so it was called “the Clinton surplus.” But Republicans controlled the House of Representatives, where all spending bills originate, for the first time in 40 years. It was also the first budget surplus in more than a quarter of a century.

The only direct power that any president has that can affect deficits and surpluses is the power to veto spending bills. President Bush did not veto enough spending bills but Senator Obama and his fellow Democrats in control of Congress were the ones who passed the spending bills.

Today, with Barack Obama in the White House, allied with Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi in charge in Congress, the national debt is a bigger share of the national output than it has been in more than half a century. And its share is projected to continue going up for years to come, becoming larger than national output in 2012.

Having created this scary situation, President Obama now says, “Don’t give in to fear. Let’s reach for hope.” The voters reached for hope when they elected Obama. The fear comes from what he has done since taking office.

“The worst thing we could do is to go back to the very same policies that created this mess in the first place,” he said recently. “In November, you’re going to have that choice.”

Another political fable is that the current economic downturn is due to not enough government regulation of the housing and financial markets. But it was precisely the government regulators, under pressure from politicians, who forced banks and other lending institutions to lower their standards for making mortgage loans.

These risky loans, and the defaults that followed, were what set off a chain reaction of massive financial losses that brought down the whole economy.

Was this due to George W. Bush and the Republicans? Only partly. Most of those who pushed the lowering of mortgage lending standards were Democrats– notably Congressman Barney Frank and Senator Christopher Dodd, though too many Republicans went along.

At the heart of these policies were Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, who bought huge amounts of risky mortgages, passing the risk on from the banks that lent the money (and made the profits) to the taxpayers who were not even aware that they would end up paying in the end.

When President Bush said in 2004 that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac should be reined in, 76 members of the House of Representatives issued a statement to the contrary. These included Barney Frank, Nancy Pelosi, Maxine Waters and Charles Rangel.

If we are going to talk about “the policies that created this mess in the first place,” let’s at least get the facts straight and the names right.

The current policies of the Obama administration are a continuation of the same reckless policies that brought on the current economic problems– all in the name of “change.” Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are still sacred cows in Washington, even though they have already required the biggest bailouts of all.

Why? Because they allow politicians to direct vast sums of money where it will do politicians the most good, either personally or in terms of buying votes in the next election.

(Link)

“I don’t,” said Barack Obama, when asked this morning if he regrets labeling the past three months of economic catastrophe a Recovery Summer.

Bill Clinton’s Labor Secretary Robert Reich does not, however, agree:

Doug Powers speculates that the following photos help explain Barack Obama’s inexplicable label:

(Hat tip HotAirPundit)

From a Providence newspaper, local fishermen are infuriated over the Obama administration’s junk science catch limits: “All these politicians scream about is jobs, jobs, jobs. Why are they putting us out of business?”

Another local fishermen took out the following full-page ad in the Martha’s Vineyard Gazette:

EDGARTOWN, Massachusetts – Aug 24, 2010 – The Northeast Seafood Coalition has taken out a full page ad in today’s Vineyard Gazette. The ad is an open letter to President Obama from Russell Sherman, captain of the Fishing Vessel Lade Jane of Gloucester, Massachusetts. The text follows:

“MR. PRESIDENT, WE NEED YOUR HELP”

Dear President Obama,

My name is Russell Sherman, and I am a life-long fisherman. Like New England fisherman before me have done for 387 years, I take my vessel, the 72-foot F/V Lady Jane from the port of Gloucester, Massachusetts, into North Atlantic waters to bring back cod, haddock, flounder, and other groundfish for America’s table. I hope that while you’re in New England, you and your family are enjoying a few meals of our fresh catch – there’s none better tasting or healthier in the world.

Mr. President, my fellow fishermen and I need your leadership. We are small businessmen and women who want to continue the profession we love. We have worked hard over the past 16 years to rebuild groundfish stocks. Today, some stocks are fully rebuilt, and most others are expected to rebuild in three years, by 2014. According to federal forecasts, a fully rebuilt fishery will yield a sustainable catch nearly five times current landings.

At a time when we should be hopeful about the future of our businesses, we are desperate instead. We are being driven from our work and the fishery we have helped to rebuild. Ironically, what’s putting us out of work are the rules to rebuild the fishery. The most recent version of these rules – effective on May 1, 2010 – impose very low annual catch limits on stocks for the next three years, and at the same time institute a
“catch share” system.

Take my case. Under the 2010 rules, my permit allows an annual catch of only 60,000 lbs of groundfish. At an average price of $1.50 a pound, that’s an annual gross of $90,000, or about one-quarter of my business’ gross income last year. I simply cannot run my business and support my crew of four – each with a family – on only $90,000 a year.

My business is only one of hundreds facing extinction. While there will be a small handful of “winners” under these new rules, the vast majority of us will be losers. And when we “losers” are forced out, jobs will be lost, coastal communities gutted, and crucial commercial fishing infrastructure gone forever. Is this the way to rebuild our storied, centuries-old groundfish fishery?

I belong to an organization called the Northeast Seafood Coalition, a New England-wide organization of 255 small, entrepreneurial fishing businesses and allied support businesses that participates in the public process. The Coalition has tried to bring this matter to the attention of your Department of Commerce. We have tried to offer constructive solutions to the challenge of rebuilding fisheries without at the same time destroying them. But our efforts have fallen on deaf ears.

Mr. President, we desperately need your leadership. We ask that you please direct your Department of Commerce to listen to us and work with us. We know that we can meet this challenge by working together.

Sincerely yours,
Russell Sherman, Captain, F/V Lady Jane Port of Gloucester, Massachusetts

Here’s the video footage:

Not quite ten years ago, in May of 2001, Robert Tracinski wrote the following:

Past regulations have been imposed in the same manner that the new, less-restrictive process is being adopted: by executive-branch decree. The result of those decrees over the past three decades has been a vast environmentalist land grab, with millions of acres of land sealed off from logging, mining, grazing and even recreation. This is a basic technique used by the Left to achieve through the regulatory agencies what they could not achieve in an open vote. The technique is to introduce legislation to achieve some vague, positive-sounding generality, such as “worker safety” or “environmental protection” – things no politician will want to go on record voting against….

Consider that federal regulatory agencies make thousands of rulings each year, adding about 80,000 pages annually to the Federal Register. Do you think Congress can exercise “oversight” by debating all 80,000 pages of these regulations? Do you think the president, his advisors and his cabinet officers can consider and personally approve all of these decrees?

Of course not.

And the very process which Robert Tracinski describes above, far from diminishing, has suddenly accelerated. To wit:

On April 16th, 2010, Barack Obama released a so-called Presidential Memorandum, which he and his clownish administration termed “A 21st Century Strategy for America’s Great Outdoors.” Did you hear about it? You’re not alone. In fact, that’s part of the point: legislation by stealth.

Quoting Michelle Malkin:

Across the country, White House officials have been meeting quietly with environmental groups to map out government plans for acquiring untold millions of acres of both public and private land. It’s another stealthy power grab through executive order that promises to radically transform the American way of life….

Take my home state of Colorado. The Obama administration is considering locking up some 380,000 acres of Bureau of Land Management land and private land in Colorado under the 1906 Antiquities Act. The Vermillion Basin and the Alpine Triangle would be shut off to mining, hunting, grazing, oil and gas development and recreational activities. Alan Foutz, president of the Colorado Farm Bureau, blasted the administration’s meddling: “Deer and elk populations are thriving, and we in Colorado don’t need help from the federal government in order to manage them effectively.”

The bureaucrats behind Obama’s “Great Outdoors Initiative” plan on wrapping up their public comment solicitation by November 15. The initiative’s taxpayer-funded website has been dominated by left-wing environmental activists proposing human population reduction, private property confiscation, and gun bans, hunting bans and vehicle bans in national parks.

Make no mistake: this issue is entirely about private property, which is the crux of freedom, and which the religion of environmentalism explicitly seeks to do away with.