Tag Archives: Budget Deficit

Obama spent $1.6 billion on Chinese wind and $2 billion on Brazilian oil

Obama Budget Deficit 2011
Obama Budget Deficit 2011

ABC News reports on the subsidies for Chinese wind turbines. (H/T GP)

Excerpt:

Despite all the talk of green jobs, the overwhelming majority of stimulus money spent on wind power has gone to foreign companies, according to a new report by the Investigative Reporting Workshop at the American University’s School of Communication in Washington, D.C.

Nearly $2 billion in money from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act has been spent on wind power, funding the creation of enough new wind farms to power 2.4 million homes over the past year. But the study found that nearly 80 percent of that money has gone to foreign manufacturers of wind turbines.

“Most of the jobs are going overseas,” said Russ Choma at the Investigative Reporting Workshop. He analyzed which foreign firms had accepted the most stimulus money. “According to our estimates, about 6,000 jobs have been created overseas, and maybe a couple hundred have been created in the U.S.”

Even with the infusion of so much stimulus money, a recent report by American Wind Energy Association showed a drop in U.S. wind manufacturing jobs last year.

NewsMax reports on the subsidies for Brazilian oil driling. (H/T GP)

Excerpt:

Gulf Oil CEO Joe Petrowski says President Barack Obama’s weekend comments in Brazil that the United States looks forward to purchasing oil drilled for offshore by that nation “is rather puzzling,” and “hypocritical” as his administration has imposed a virtual moratorium Gulf Oil,Joe Petrowski, Barack Obama, Brazil, Drillingon domestic drilling. The signal to purchase more foreign oil comes after the U.S. Export-Import Bank invested more than $2 billion with Brazil’s state-owned oil company, Petrobras, to finance exploration.

“Any drilling, or any new production, especially production outside the Mideast – that is inherently unstable and probably is going to become more unstable as we move forward – is a positive,” Petrowski said Tuesday on Fox News.

“But why Brazil, when we could have the jobs and foreign exchange in this country, is rather puzzling – and I’d say somewhat humorous,” Petrowski told Fox News’ Neal Cavuto. “What is it about Brazil that they have that we don’t have?

“What concerns me – in addition to we are going to lose the jobs, and in addition to not having the foreign exchange – is one of the untold problems, I think, in the world oil markets, besides that we are getting too much of our oil from the Mideast, is 75 percent of our oil is being produced by government-run entities,” he continued.

“And I just have a theory that private companies are going to be more efficient in finding it, and getting it out at a more reasonable price, than state-owned companies,” Petrowski said.

Cavuto asked whether buying oil from Brazil is bad for the U.S. economy.

“It would be a lot better if we had the drilling here,” Petrowski said. “And it seems a double standard and it seems somewhat hypocritical [that] a country that desperately needs jobs, and we need them here, that we are encouraging other countries to create the jobs that we need.”

Obama has so much taxpayer money to hand out to China and Brazil, but now he wants to prevent AMERICAN oil companies from getting tax deductions for asset depreciation (depletion allowance).

What happens when we use American taxpayer dollars to stimulate energy production in other countries?

Gas Prices under Obama and Bush
Gas Prices under Obama and Bush

We pay more for energy, that’s what. Because we shipped our energy sector jobs overseas.

From the Washington Examiner. (H/T JWF)

Excerpt:

At least $53 million in federal funds have gone to ACORN activists since 1994, and the controversial group could get up to $8.5 billion more tax dollars despite being under investigation for voter registration fraud in a dozen states.

The economic stimulus bill enacted in February contains $3 billion that the non-profit activist group known more formally as the Association for Community Organizations for Reform Now could receive, and 2010 federal budget contains another $5.5 billion that could also find its way into the group’s coffers.

An Examiner review of federal spending data found that ACORN has received at least $53 million in federal money since 1994.

Meanwhile, Obama gave $3 billion taxpayer dollars to ACORN, which has been indicted on voter fraud charges, and 0.35 billion taxpayer dollars to Planned Parenthood, which has been caught on film covering-up statutory rape. Why is it that organizations that support Democrats like ACORN and Planned Parenthood are below the radar, while Obama keeps complaining about oil companies? Does taxing oil companies make the price at the pump go down? Or rather, doesn’t taxing oil companies cause the price at the pump to go up? And if taxing companies is such a good idea, why did Obama’s favorite crony corporation GE make $14.2 billion in profits in 2010, but pay NOTHING in taxes?

UPDATE: This post linked by the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

New Michele Bachmann interviews on the economy

Let Americans spend their own money

Time to prioritize spending

Obama’s plan is to raise your taxes

Can we pay for Obama’s deficits by taxing ONLY the “rich”?

No, and George Mason University economist Walter Williams explains why.

Excerpt:

This year, Congress will spend $3.7 trillion dollars. That turns out to be about $10 billion per day. Can we prey upon the rich to cough up the money? According to IRS statistics, roughly 2 percent of U.S. households have an income of $250,000 and above. By the way, $250,000 per year hardly qualifies one as being rich. It’s not even yacht and Lear jet money. All told, households earning $250,000 and above account for 25 percent, or $1.97 trillion, of the nearly $8 trillion of total household income. If Congress imposed a 100 percent tax, taking all earnings above $250,000 per year, it would yield the princely sum of $1.4 trillion. That would keep the government running for 141 days, but there’s a problem because there are 224 more days left in the year.

How about corporate profits to fill the gap? Fortune 500 companies earn nearly $400 billion in profits. Since leftists think profits are little less than theft and greed, Congress might confiscate these ill-gotten gains so that they can be returned to their rightful owners. Taking corporate profits would keep the government running for another 40 days, but that along with confiscating all income above $250,000 would only get us to the end of June. Congress must search elsewhere.

According to Forbes 400, America has 400 billionaires with a combined net worth of $1.3 trillion. Congress could confiscate their stocks and bonds, and force them to sell their businesses, yachts, airplanes, mansions and jewelry. The problem is that after fleecing the rich of their income and net worth, and the Fortune 500 corporations of their profits, it would only get us to mid-August. The fact of the matter is there are not enough rich people to come anywhere close to satisfying Congress’ voracious spending appetite. They’re going to have to go after the non-rich.

Obama is going to have to tax you and me to pay for his trillions of dollars in spending.

What economic policies do left-wing and right-wing economists agree on?

This article is from Harvard economist Greg Mankiw. (H/T Michael)

Excerpt:

Here is the list, together with the percentage of economists who agree:

  1. A ceiling on rents reduces the quantity and quality of housing available. (93%)
  2. Tariffs and import quotas usually reduce general economic welfare. (93%)
  3. Flexible and floating exchange rates offer an effective international monetary arrangement. (90%)
  4. Fiscal policy (e.g., tax cut and/or government expenditure increase) has a significant stimulative impact on a less than fully employed economy. (90%)
  5. The United States should not restrict employers from outsourcing work to foreign countries. (90%)
  6. The United States should eliminate agricultural subsidies. (85%)
  7. Local and state governments should eliminate subsidies to professional sports franchises. (85%)
  8. If the federal budget is to be balanced, it should be done over the business cycle rather than yearly. (85%)
  9. The gap between Social Security funds and expenditures will become unsustainably large within the next fifty years if current policies remain unchanged. (85%)
  10. Cash payments increase the welfare of recipients to a greater degree than do transfers-in-kind of equal cash value. (84%)
  11. A large federal budget deficit has an adverse effect on the economy. (83%)
  12. A minimum wage increases unemployment among young and unskilled workers. (79%)
  13. The government should restructure the welfare system along the lines of a “negative income tax.” (79%)
  14. Effluent taxes and marketable pollution permits represent a better approach to pollution control than imposition of pollution ceilings. (78%)

I wonder which political party believes in most or all of these positions?

Hmmmmn.