Garden State Patriot

Looks like Obama and Geithner are going to have to attend summer school this years because they are failing economics. Apparently, they’ll be joining Jon Corzine in class.

U.S. President Barack Obama and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner received failing grades for their efforts to revive the economy from participants in the latest Wall Street Journal forecasting survey.

The economists’ assessment stands in stark contrast with Mr. Obama’s popularity with the public, with a recent Wall Street Journal/NBC poll giving him a 60% approval rating. A majority of the 49 economists polled said they were dissatisfied with the administration’s economic policies.

On average, they gave the president a grade of 59 out of 100, and although there was a broad range of marks, 42% of respondents rated Mr. Obama below 60. Mr. Geithner received an average grade of 51. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke scored better, with an average 71.

And why the low grades? Because they are two clueless schmoes without a plan (shock!).

However, economists’ main criticism of the Obama team centered on delays in enacting key parts of plans to rescue banks. “They overpromised and underdelivered,” said Stephen Stanley of RBS Greenwich Capital. “Secretary Geithner scheduled a big speech and came out with just a vague blueprint. The uncertainty is hanging over everyone’s head.”

Mr. Geithner unveiled the Obama administration’s plans Feb. 10, but he offered few details, and stocks sank on the news. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is down almost 20% since the announcement, as multiple issues have weighed on investors’ confidence. The Treasury secretary has since appeared before Congress and offered more specifics but has said action on key parts of the plan still is weeks away.

Feeling any more confident yet? Yeah, I didn’t think so.

Cross-posted at Conservatives with Attitude!

From ABC News:

Obama’s Budget: Almost $1 Trillion in New Taxes Over Next 10 yrs, Starting 2011
February 26, 2009 12:00 PM

President Obama’s budget proposes $989 billion in new taxes over the course of the next 10 years, starting fiscal year 2011, most of which are tax increases on individuals.

1) On people making more than $250,000.

$338 billion – Bush tax cuts expire
$179 billlion – eliminate itemized deduction
$118 billion – capital gains tax hike

Total: $636 billion/10 years

2) Businesses:

$17 billion – Reinstate Superfund taxes
$24 billion – tax carried-interest as income
$5 billion – codify “economic substance doctrine”
$61 billion – repeal LIFO
$210 billion – international enforcement, reform deferral, other tax reform
$4 billion – information reporting for rental payments
$5.3 billion – excise tax on Gulf of Mexico oil and gas
$3.4 billion – repeal expensing of tangible drilling costs
$62 million – repeal deduction for tertiary injectants
$49 million – repeal passive loss exception for working interests in oil and natural gas properties
$13 billion – repeal manufacturing tax deduction for oil and natural gas companies
$1 billion – increase to 7 years geological and geophysical amortization period for independent producers
$882 million – eliminate advanced earned income tax credit

Total: $353 billion/10 years

And we’re supposed to grow the economy in this environment? My goodness.

Cross-posted at Conservatives with Attitude!

Via Gateway Pundit, in just one month the Democrats and Barack Obama have TRIPLED the nation’s deficit.

For all the complaining about Bush era spending, the new administration has already spent more than the entire Iraq War.

And they are..not…done!!

Obama also wants $634B for a health care reserve fund (read: socializing healthcare). And Bank Bailout II which could be as much as $750B! Then there’s the cap and trade debacle that will just cripple this economy by causing energy costs to skyrocket.

This is no longer Bush’s mess. The deficit and debt being racked up by Obama and the Democrats is now THEIR MESS.

Of course, we all know where this is leading to. Taxes that will inevitably go through the roof. Obama wants us to believe that he can do this by letting the Bush tax cuts expire and just taxing the ‘rich’ who make over $250k. But even the ‘rich’ won’t be able to subsidize all of this. An article today in the Wall Street Journal, which I highly recommend reading, explains:

Consider the IRS data for 2006, the most recent year that such tax data are available and a good year for the economy and “the wealthiest 2%.” Roughly 3.8 million filers had adjusted gross incomes above $200,000 in 2006. (That’s about 7% of all returns; the data aren’t broken down at the $250,000 point.) These people paid about $522 billion in income taxes, or roughly 62% of all federal individual income receipts. The richest 1% — about 1.65 million filers making above $388,806 — paid some $408 billion, or 39.9% of all income tax revenues, while earning about 22% of all reported U.S. income.

Note that federal income taxes are already “progressive” with a 35% top marginal rate, and that Mr. Obama is (so far) proposing to raise it only to 39.6%, plus another two percentage points in hidden deduction phase-outs. He’d also raise capital gains and dividend rates, but those both yield far less revenue than the income tax. These combined increases won’t come close to raising the hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue that Mr. Obama is going to need.

Bottom line: the money isn’t there and the middle class will have to eventually bear the burden.  There’s no way around it.

It’s only taken a month and this Congress and Administration are already the most reckless and irresponsible we’ve ever seen.

Cross-posted at Conservatives with Attitude!

As if we need more reasons to oppose the Scheme-ulous Bill, I give you wasteful school construction spending.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the bill will spend nearly twice as much on schools than we did in 2007. Some $88.6M will go to the Milwaukee Public School system even though the city currently has 15 VACANT chools and enrollment is actually dropping.

To understand the problem with the stimulus bill, it helps to focus on specific parts. Take the $142 billion for schools, which is nearly double the total outlays of the Department of Education in 2007. Now consider that much of this cash would go to public-school systems that don’t even need the money for its earmarked purposes.

The Milwaukee Public School system, for example, would receive $88.6 million over two years for new construction projects under the House version of the stimulus — even though the district currently has 15 vacant school buildings and declining enrollment. Between 1990 and 2008, inflation-adjusted MPS spending rose by 35%, per-pupil spending increased by 36% and state aid grew by 58%. Over the same period, enrollment fell by a percentage point and is projected to continue falling, leaving the system with enough excess capacity for some 22,000 students.

“In general, MPS facilities have been described by school officials as being in good to better-than-good condition,” reports the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “The kind of situations that create urgent needs for renovation or new construction in some cities have not been on the priority list for MPS officials in recent years.”

What’s worse, though, is the bill prohibits dollars from going to students to attend private schools. It just so happens that Milwaukee has one of the better voucher programs in the nation which is helping to educate otherwise disadvantaged students.

The Milwaukee situation is instructive for another reason. The city is home to the country’s oldest and largest school voucher program, which provides public funds for children to attend private schools. Families who participate in the means-tested voucher program receive $6,700 per pupil, while the city spends more than $13,000 per student. In addition to saving the taxpayers money, voucher students graduate at higher rates and outscore their counterparts on reading and math exams, which is one reason waiting lists for the program are common.

Yet language in the stimulus bill expressly prohibits any dollars from going toward financial assistance to students attending private schools. In other words, Milwaukee can use the money to build schools it doesn’t need, but not to expand education programs that are producing better outcomes for disadvantaged kids. The Senate version excludes provisions in the House bill for teacher merit pay and charter schools now serving more than a million students, two more education reforms that are gaining popularity nationwide despite opposition from teachers unions and local school boards.

So, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelousy, Barack Obama & Company - the ones who claim the high ground when it comes to education - are doing nothing more than throwing disadvantaged kids under the bus subjecting them to worse educations and ultimately worse futures.

Change!

Cross-posted at Conservatives with Attitude!

This is what we conservatives are up against. A truly sad state of affairs. We have a class of people in this nation who have been literally brainwashed into thinking that government is there for their subsistence. How we overcome this culture of dependency and entitlement, which only seems to be growing, I have no idea.

Interestingly, an e-mailer to Michelle Malkin’s blog raised some insightful points with respect to Henrietta Hughes and Julio the McDonald’s guy. Very much worth sharing.

You know you cannot just “enter” an Obama town hall meeting. They give out tickets in advance. Who gets the tickets? People who stand in line and wait. Who tells people when and where Obama will appear next? Certainly not the Secret Service who has to protect this man. Not the MSM, who are too busy telling us how great he is without asking any critical questions.

Sooooo… how does a 61 year-old homeless woman who’s living in a pickup truck with her son JUST HAPPEN to get a ticket so she can VERY PUBLICALLY ask Prez. Obama for a HOUSE? Anyone? Who pushes her up on stage? She’s right at the front of the crowd. Did she just happen to get a seat there?

Now, within moments of this happening, it’s trumpeted all over the news. AND, surprise, surprise, the wife of State Representative Nick Thompson, Chene Thompson JUST HAPPENS to have a spare house worth $150,000 lying around, so she GIVES it to this unemployed, homeless, living-in-a-truck woman. They’ve been homeless for “more than a year”, which coincidentally, predates the current housing and banking crisis by quite a while. How did they learn about the “Obama Town Hall and Tent Revival”? Were homeless people simply rounded up? Did someone pre-canvas the area in search of “great, tear-jerking stories”? Of all the people in the audience, SHE’S one of the ones Obama chooses to ask a question?

BTW-the taxes which will be charged on this “free house” will bankrupt the poor woman. Taxes are levied based on the home’s assessed value, not on the basis of it being a “free gift”.

On a second, double-snort, the last guy who gets to ask a question JUST HAPPENS to be a 19-year-old kid of Hispanic descent who’s going to Edison State College (free tuition perhaps for in-state students?) and has worked at McDonalds for FOUR AND A HALF YEARS. By my math, he started working there when he was 14! Florida child-labor law infraction, anyone? Now, having worked at McDs several times in my past I can say that they DO offer health care plans. You have to PAY for it, just like everyone else in the country does. It’s OPTIONAL. It’s not a God-given right.

…Do the Thompsons get to claim this as a charitable tax deduction against their (probably) considerable 2009 income? How many houses do they own?

Is there anyone left in the media who will ask these questions? Ever?

From the AP:

The Pentagon’s senior judge overseeing terror trials at Guantanamo Bay dropped charges Thursday against an al-Qaida suspect in the 2000 USS Cole bombing, upholding President Barack Obama’s order to freeze military tribunals there.

The charges against suspected al-Qaida bomber Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri marked the last active Guantanamo war crimes case.

The legal move by Susan J. Crawford, the top legal authority for military trials at Guantanamo, brings all cases into compliance with Obama’s Jan. 22 executive order to halt terrorist court proceedings at the U.S. Navy base in Cuba.

Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said Crawford withdrew the charges against al-Nashiri. However, new charges can be brought again later, and al-Nashiri will remain in prison for the time being.

“It was her decision, but it reflects the fact that the president has issued an executive order which mandates that the military commissions be halted, pending the outcome of several reviews of our operations down at Guantanamo,” Morrell said late Thursday night.

17 American sailors lost their lives in the Cole bombing. Their families deserve justice but Barack Obama has seen to it that their justice will be delayed if not altogether denied.

Amazing. Could this administration be off to a worse start?

Two weeks in and ‘hope’ is already by the boards. Faced with his first real political challenge – trying to get the scheme-ulous/stimu-less/porkulous/crap sandwich passed – Obama has turned to the liberal fear-mongering playbook.

Indeed, Obama actually had the gall to say that if we don’t pass this fraud of a bill the damage to the economy could be ‘IRREVERSIBLE.’

President Barack Obama warned on Thursday that failure to act on an economic recovery package could plunge the nation into a long-lasting recession that might prove irreversible, a fresh call to a recalcitrant Congress to move quickly.

In an op-ed piece in The Washington Post, the president argued that each day without his stimulus package, Americans lose more jobs, savings and homes. His message came as congressional leaders struggle to control the huge stimulus bill that’s been growing larger by the day in the Senate. The addition of a new tax break for homebuyers Wednesday evening sent the price tag well past $900 billion.

Senate Democratic leaders hope for passage of the legislation by Friday at the latest, although prospects appear to hinge on crafting a series of spending reductions that would make the bill more palatable to centrists in both parties.

Obama painted a bleak picture if lawmakers do nothing.

“This recession might linger for years. Our economy will lose 5 million more jobs. Unemployment will approach double digits. Our nation will sink deeper into a crisis that, at some point, we may not be able to reverse,” Obama wrote in the newspaper piece titled, “The Action Americans Need.”

He rejected the argument that more tax cuts are needed in the plan and that piecemeal measures would be sufficient, arguing that Americans made their intentions clear in the election.

“I reject these theories, and so did the American people when they went to the polls in November and voted resoundingly for change,” he wrote.

Are you reading into this? This man is incredibly arrogant. He really thinks he has a mandate for his socialist policies. Come hell or high water he’s going to force his bad medicine down our throats.

I have feared that Baracky was destined for 2 terms, but for the first time I think he is starting down the road to a failed 1-term Presidency.

Cross-posted at Conservatives with Attitude!

ABC is reporting that New Hampshire Senator Judd Gregg could be tapped as Obama’s Commerce Secretary on Monday. If he takes the job it will open up his senate seat, which would be filled by Democratic Governor John Lynch. Lynch would most assuredly fill the position with another Democrat giving the Democrats a filibuster-proof Senate unless Norm Coleman somehow wins in Minnesota.

Judd Gregg Could Be Picked for Commerce as Soon as Monday
January 31, 2009 11:48 AM

An Obama administration official tells ABC News that Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., is now the leading candidate for Commerce Secretary and could be announced as soon as Monday.

Gregg would be at least the third Republican to join the Obama administration, joining the ranks of Transportation Secretary and former GOP congressman Ray LaHood and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. (The political party of National Security Advisor and retired Army General Jim Jones is unclear, though he is a longtime friend of Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and appeared at a McCain campaign event.)

Gregg’s announcement, while making the Obama administration more bipartisan, would likely have the opposite effect on the U.S. Senate. New Hampshire’s Democratic governor John Lynch could appoint a Democrat to replace Gregg, thus delivering to Democrats their elusive 60-vote majority, empowering them to stave off Republican filibusters.

Gregg, a former governor, is up for re-election in 2010 in a state that has been trending Democratic for the last few years.

This would be the ultimate backstabbing of his own party if Gregg takes the job. It’s time to get on the horn and start e-mailing Gregg’s office to tell him to stay put and not to sell out his own party!!

http://gregg.senate.gov/public/

Washington
393 Russell Senate Office Bldg
Washington, DC 20510
(202) 224-3324

Berlin
60 Pleasant Street
Berlin, NH 03570
(603) 752-2604

Concord
125 North Main Street
Concord, NH 03301
(603) 225-7115

Manchester
41 Hooksett Road
Manchester, NH 03104
(603) 622-7979

Portsmouth
16 Pease Boulevard
Portsmouth, NH 03801
(603) 431-2171

UPDATE: I tried calling Gregg’s Washington office. Mailbox is already full. Sent an e-mail through his web site.

Here’s some more info from freerepublic.com: http://www.freerepublic.com/tag/juddgregg/index?tab=articles

Watch our new President attack the profit motive. But don’t worry, he’s going to create jobs. Sure.

The key moments occur around the 3:00 mark and after.

“There will be time for them to make profits, and there will be time for them to get bonuses — now is not that time. And that’s a message that I intend to send directly to them.”

God help us.

In Barack Obama’s Inaugural Address he said:

Recall that earlier generations faced down fascism and communism not just with missiles and tanks, but with sturdy alliances and enduring convictions.

There is nothing disagreeable in Obama’s statement, but as this administration embarks on efforts to ‘engage’ one of the worst regimes on the planet – Iran – one wonders just what our convictions are.

• Are our convictions to help defend and protect the lone true democracy and American ally in the Middle East – Israel?
• Are our convictions to stop the spread of terrorism around the globe?
• Are our convictions to stand against the oppression of the Iranian people and for their freedom?

Even with Obama prepared to extend a hand to the Iranian regime their leaders continue to exhibit hostility towards America and unabated hatred towards Jews. Just yesterday, Mahmoud ‘Ahmadeni-jihad’ had these scornful words to say:

“The change will be to apologize to the Iranian nation and try to compensate for their dark records and the crimes they have committed against the Iranian nation,” he said.

The hardline president also called on Washington to withdraw its troops from around the world and stop supporting Israel.

“Change means giving up support for the rootless, uncivilized, fabricated, murdering… Zionists and let the Palestinian nation decide its own destiny,” he said. “Change means putting an end to US military presence in (different parts of) the world.”

And Iran’s government spokesman, Gholam Hossein Elham, continued to promulgate the vicious, ugly falsehood that the Holocaust never happened.

“The Holocaust is a concept coming from a big lie in order to settle a rootless regime in the heart of the Islamic world”

Herein lays the problem with Obama’s approach toward Iran. One can not engage in diplomacy – which entails negotiation, finding common ground and compromise – when the ‘partner’ at the table is an opponent of the convictions and values your nation stands for. To do so would be pacifism. And as history has taught us pacifying enemies of freedom only leads to more violence, war and tyranny, not less. One can only hope that history isn’t about to repeat itself.

Cross-posted at Conservatives with Attitude!