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POPSMYG | Arnold plans to take another stab at this budget mess "I will talk more about this in my State of the State but the bottom line is, our budget and tax systems are the root of a lot of our state's fiscal problems," CA GOV Arnold Schwarzenegger said Friday 1Jan 2009 in his New Year's radio address. ___ http://google.twi.bz/qu ___ http://altacities.com
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POPSMYG | California has hands out for Feds help California faces a $21 billion budget gap in the coming fiscal year. And this painful budget follows two years of already deep cuts in spending in the Golden State. ___ http://google.twi.bz/Cn ___ http://altacities.com
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POPSBlue State Governors Cry Foul Over Health Care Bill “When asked for my support, I was assured that federal legislation would not increase costs to California or include new unfunded mandates,” Schwarzenegger wrote. “Unfortunately, under nearly every scenario we can predict, the federal health care reform legislation being debated would cost California’s General Fund an additional $3 billion to $4 billion annually.” ….. Arnold’s already looking for a bailout from Uncle Sam. They loved Porkulus,but it’s not going to help them now. The sad thing is, it’s doubtful either one of them has anything against government takeover of health care. They just don’t want it passed onto their state budgets. By Lonely Conservative December 30, 2009 http://bit.ly/7EANYE
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POPSBush's Final Report Card: Biggest Spender Since LBJ Fair and balanced analysis from Cato Institute. Republicans need to confess this if they expect to have any credibility in criticizing Obama's liberal spending. The American people are sick of bi-partisan lying and hypocritical finger-pointing Obama's first report card, where all spending is under his watch, will not be available until next year, 2010 (which should be a doozy too). President George W. Bush’s last year was fiscal 2009. Outlays that year were $3.522 trillion, according to the CBO. However, $108 billion was spending for the 2009 economic stimulus package passed under President Obama. Bush was thus roughly responsible for $3.414 trillion of spending in 2009, which includes outlays for the financial bailouts enacted under his watch.
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POPS The Audacity of Debt 
Democrats ridiculed Mr. Bush as "the most fiscally irresponsible President in history," but then they saw him and raised. They took an $800 billion deficit and made it $1.4 trillion in 2009 and perhaps that high again in 2010. In 10 months they have approved more than $1 trillion in spending that has saved union public jobs but has done little to assist private job creation. Still to come is the multitrillion-dollar health bill and another $100 billion to $200 billion "jobs" bill. We've never obsessed over the budget deficit, because the true cost of government is the amount it spends, not the amount it borrows. Milton Friedman used to say that the nation would be far better off with a budget half the current size but with larger deficits. Mr. Obama and his allies in Congress have done the opposite: They have increased the budget by 50% and financed the spending with IOUs. The national debt held by the public reached its peak in the Reagan years at 40.9% and hit 49.2% in 1995.
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POPSIndependent commission led by former lawmakers, economists releases plan to control federal debt 
The rest of the plan includes an enforcement mechanism to stay on track (featuring automatic triggers to raise taxes and cut spending if targets aren’t met), then actually stabilizing the debt in 2018, followed by continued debt reductions toward the nation’s 50-year average of below 40%. The nation’s public debt is now 53% of U.S. gross domestic product — up from 41% a year ago — and on track to become 85% of GDP by 2018, 100% by 2022 and 200% by 2038, under the commission’s projections. The group says before those levels are reached, the U.S. would likely face a debt-driven crisis in which interest rates spiral higher and squeeze out other priorities. “The tipping point is impossible to predict, but the United States is already hearing concerns about its fiscal management from some of its largest creditors, and the country is uncomfortably vulnerable to shifts in confidence around the world,” the report stated.
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POPSSenate OKs $1.1 TRILLION Spending Bill The Audacity!! And look what they're tacking onto the Defense Bill. Now if anyone dares to vote against it they will be accused of 'not supporting our troops'. I would be ashamed to be in this Congress...but apparently they have no shame.
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POPS Dems to Skyrocket National Debt: Obama’s Leadership Failure He had the audacity to hold one of his White House “Summits” on fiscal responsibility in February where he once again promised: “We need to send a signal that we are serious” about solving these fiscal problems. All this time the red ink flows like a Tsunami of proportions that have never been seen before. Republicans Stand United and Firm in Opposition to Fiscal Irresponsiblity Before Democrats can pass the 2,500 page omnibus spending bill to fully fund government operations for the remainder of this fiscal year they must pass the increase in the debt ceiling. Action starts in the House of Representatives where Republicans are standing firm: I think it’s very credible to oppose increase in the debt ceiling, and you’ll see Republicans vote against it. And we’ll vote against it because of their trillion-dollar stimulus plan that hasn’t worked. We’ll vote against it because of all of this excessive spending that’s in this bill right here, a 12 percent increase ...
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POPSCarmax Carmax auto retailer reviews and reports at pissed consumer. The leading auto loan retailer in the US.
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POPSJapan GDP revised heavily downward Governments took a bet with stimulous policy: double or nothing. And they keep doubling. Any betting man will say this bet a very easy way to lose a lot of money, and is a sign of complete desperation.
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POPSThe Obama Recovery In Full Effect: Deficits Running 25% Higher Than Highest Estimates If the deficits continue to overshoot prior estimates, which they almost certainly will, the country is headed for total, hyper-inflationary meltdown: China and Japan will simply cease buying debt that can't be repaid. Oh, and recall that these totals don't even include state and local governments -- like the Blue State Utopias of California, Michigan, New York and New Jersey -- that are hemorrhaging revenues and residents as fast as they can pack their belongings, stuff them in U-Hauls and clear out for greener pastures. That deficit represents a 25% overshoot. Congratulations, Mr. President: your strategy is working. Hat tip: Denninger
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POPS Taxation With Representation a windfall profits tax on health insurance companies, a value-added tax (VAT), and an increase in the Medicare portion of the payroll tax, among others. The Heritage analysis further notes, “The full list of taxes proposed to pay for health care reform is provided because taxes currently left out of the Senate or House bills could reappear at any point. For instance, the tax on cosmetic surgery listed above (sometimes called the “Botox tax”) was written off long ago as a laughable way to pay for health care reform. Nevertheless, it somehow found its way into the current version of the Senate bill…As the legislative process continues and Congress’s desperation to pass a bill increases, it could propose even more tax hikes to pay for its massive expansion of government size and power…” This appalling example of the excess of legislative zeal to impose taxes further illustrates that the reason our taxes have been increasing exponentially over the years is because the .....
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POPSObama Will Bankrupt America The Numbers. What a depressing and alarming read! And yet there is no stopping him. That being said, Congress is equally responsible.
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POPSThe $100 Million Senator's Vote? Section 1905 of the Social Security Act (42 U.S.C. 1396d), as amended by sections 2001(a)(3) and 2001(b)(2), is amended— (1) in subsection (b), in the first sentence, by striking ‘‘subsection (y)’’ and inserting ‘‘subsections (y) and (aa)’’; and (2) by adding at the end the following new subsection: ‘‘(aa)(1) Notwithstanding subsection (b), beginning January 1, 2011, the Federal medical assistance percentage for a fiscal year for a disaster-recovery FMAP adjustment State shall be equal to the following: ‘(A) In the case of the first fiscal year (or part of a fiscal year) for which this subsection applies to the State, the Federal medical assistance percentage determined for the fiscal year without regard to this subsection and subsection (y), increased by 50 percent of the number of percentage points by which the Federal medical assistance percentage determined for the State for the fiscal year without regard to this subsection and subsection (y) ..... blah, blah, blah .....
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POPSNat'l Debt Now Tops $12 TRILLION!!!!! Deficits and debts that he multiplied...and now he thinks it's time to bring them under control. What a novice!! We have a dumb-bunny for a President and insane people in Congress. To think our own government is destroying us. Who owns us, baby? Everyone. :~(
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POPSThe Audacity of Failure: The 4-year presidency of Barack Hoover Obama
This clip from Politico tells us more about the people surrounding Obama, than it tells us about Obama himself. Clearly, his chief lieutenants are just as committed to savaging Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security as their GOP counterparts. This is obvious by the way they've handled the fiscal stimulus. Where are the jobs programs, the boost to Green Technology, the massive infrastructure rebuild? Nowhere. Because the industry-reps and bank lobbyists who fill out the Obama roster adhere to the same pro-business credo as the members of Team Bush, that is, that all public assets and resources should be strip-mined from their rightful owners and transferred to the robber barons at the top of the economic food-chain. There's no way that Geithner, Summers and the rest of the Wall Street insiders would ever dream of rebuilding the public safety net they've been trying to destroy for the last decade or more. That's not in their interests at all. The administration's announce
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POPSSave $110 Billion or Spend $6.3 Trillion? Many say we can't afford the House's health care bill, which the CBO says will result in a net budget effect over 10 years of MINUS $110 Billion - a terrific return on our money. Yet we swallow the Pentagon's budget with scarcely a murmer, blithely spending $6.3 TRILLION over the same time, and ponder sending more troops abroad. It's absurd!
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POPSFannie & Freddie NOT included in Obama's Financial Regulations In analyzing the mortgage crisis, economist Walter E. Williams has written: “Starting with the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977, that was given more teeth during the Clinton administration, Congress started intimidating banks and other financial institutions into making loans, so-called sub-prime loans, to high-risk homebuyers and businesses. “The carrot offered was that these high-risk loans would be purchased by the government-sponsored enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Anyone with an ounce of brains would have known that this was a prescription for disaster but there was a congressional chorus of denial,” he added. “The financial collapse of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is not a failure of the free market because lending institutions in a free market would not have taken on the high-risk loans,” said Williams. “They were forced to by the heavy hand of government.”
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POPS Uncle Sam’s Collections Continue Their Steep Drop It is ironic to say the least that Congress and the Obama administration are glorifying the idea of a “public option” that would ultimately lead to government-run health care while Treasury receipts continue to shrink. If the private health insurance market disappears, so will its taxes. To name just one example, Aetna’s recorded income tax expense on its financial statements for 2005-2008 (including state and local taxes) averaged roughly $900 million per year. Put the company’s health insurance segment out of business, and a large portion of those taxes would stop coming in, digging the country’s and various states’ debt holes that much deeper. The establishment press has paid very little attention to fiscal 2009’s drop of 19.5% in receipts from economic activity, so I expect similar treatment of October’s continuation of the trend. It would appear that they don’t want any unsettling news getting in the way of the statist agenda.
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