“Now, people when I say that look at me and say, ‘What are you talking about, Joe? You’re telling me we have to go spend money to keep from going bankrupt?’”
“The answer is yes, that’s what I’m telling you.”
Elect “silver spoon” Democrats, and this is what you get.
U.S. leaders should be open to the possibility of a second stimulus package to jolt the economy out of a recession still causing job losses, House of Representatives Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said on Tuesday.
…President Barack Obama led the charge for a two-year $787 billion stimulus package that his fellow Democrats who control Congress pushed through the House and Senate in February and he has argued it would help create or save up to 4 million jobs.
Create 4 million jobs? He’s lost 2.5 million jobs so far. Maybe he doesn’t know what the word create means?
As you all have heard, Laura D’Andrea Tyson, the Clinton economic adviser now on Team Obama, has floated a second stimulus plan. Democrat Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island has echoed the call. Other Democrats are open to it.
Only 10 percent of Porkulus One has been spent, misspent, or gone untracked, but who’s counting?
I’ve uploaded two documents for your perusal this morning: The first is a GAO report on stimulus spending by states and localities, which will be released this morning at a House oversight hearing.
Bottom line: The funds are not being spent on what they’re supposed to be spent on. States made up their own criteria for spending. School and transportation bureaucrats preserved their own jobs instead of “stimulating” others.
Michelle lists a few of the key findings from the second document.
National Debt
Why didn’t the massive Democrat spending spree work?
This is lesson one of Economics 101. When government spends money, the money comes out of the private sector. Government is not even close to allocating capital and producing wealth as efficiently as the free market system.
Here’s where we get into the “saved or created” dodge of the Obama administration. The Porkulus money may have “saved” jobs, but they were government jobs, not the private sector. Most government employees have union representation, primarily by the SEIU. The only jobs Porkulus may have saved were those of bureaucrats in state government, and mostly to make sure the unions stay on the side of the Democrats.
None of that money went into promoting growth in the private sector, which is why unemployment skyrocketed. Capital stayed out of the market, in part because of fears of confiscatory tax increases and in part because of the amount of regulation threatened by the Obama administration, and what capital was left will get eaten up by the cost of Porkulus eventually. And the GAO says it will take months just to get effective reporting on how that money gets spent, regardless of where it goes.
Obama’s support is now virtually 50-50 according to Rasmussen Reports.But he won’t care, because he’s the Obamessiah! As long as the left-wing fascists and terrorists love him, who cares what economically-literate peons like us think?
Speaking out against my tax increases is terrorism! Give me your money, and shut up!
Stop the ACLU links to this LA Times interview with California Speaker of the House Karen Bass. As you know, California is in the worst financial crisis in all 50 states. Karen is very angry that Republicans are pressured by voters to vote against tax increases. She thinks that Republicans should vote like Democrats, regardless of what their constituents want.
Excerpt:
How do you think conservative talk radio has affected the Legislature’s work?
The Republicans were essentially threatened and terrorized against voting for revenue. Now [some] are facing recalls. They operate under a terrorist threat: “You vote for revenue and your career is over.” I don’t know why we allow that kind of terrorism to exist. I guess it’s about free speech, but it’s extremely unfair.
See, California is running a 24.3 BILLION dollar deficit, which is half the deficit that Canada is running this year. It’s so bad that they are issuing IOUs to contractors. And the Democrats think that tax hikes are the answer. By the way, her background is “community organizing” as well.
There’s a lot of stupidity and tyranny locked into those few words. The First Amendment guarantees the right to petition the government for redress of grievances, even apart from the “free speech” issues Bass casually discards. Elected politicians are accountable to the people who elect them in a free society. Politicians do not acquire lordly status when they go to the Assembly, or anywhere else.
Usually, politicians are smart enough to at least pay lip service to getting feedback from their constituents. Instead, Bass calls them “terrorists” for … what? Calling their representatives and telling them not to raise taxes even higher, in the state with the sixth-highest per capita tax burden in the nation? Expressing their opinions? Telling politicians they won’t get their support if they vote for a tax hike? That’s democracy, not terrorism, although I’m hardly surprised that Bass can’t tell the difference.
…Beware the politicians who consider dissent terrorism. They’re either idiotic beyond belief, or tyrants waiting for an opportunity. Bass might just be both.
Remember when dissent was the highest form of patriotism? Yeah, now dissent makes you a terrorist. This is what secularism and socialism amounts to: disagree with me and you’re the worst person in the world and anything I do to you is morally justified.
There is no difference between communists in North Korea and communists is the United States. They believe the same things. They are just on different stages of the same road to serfdom.