Tag Archives: Spending

News

What is the cost of extending unemployment benefits?

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Consider this piece in the Denver Post. (H/T Michelle Malkin)

Excerpt:

Businesses are being hit with large premium increases to prop up Colorado’s broke unemployment-insurance fund.

In notices that went out over the past two weeks, some firms are facing rates that have more than quadrupled from last year.

“I had to pick myself up off the floor after I opened the letter,” said Linda Greene, owner of Westminster-based Merry Maids North. Her first-quarter premium for 2011 will be $2,200, compared with $497 a year earlier.

“Money doesn’t just fall out of the sky, so I’m going to have to totally rework my budget and hope for the best,” said Greene, who employs 28 workers.

The Colorado Unemployment Insurance Trust Fund covers the cost of payments to jobless workers. Record numbers of unemployment claims caused the fund to go broke this year, forcing Colorado to borrow, so far, $368.5 million from the U.S. government.

At least 40 other states also are borrowing from the federal government to cover their fund deficits.

Colorado’s unemployment-benefit payments rose from $305 million in 2005 to $1.06 billion in 2009.

…In prior years, firms that never had laid off workers had relatively low premiums.

But for 2011, those businesses are facing big increases along with companies that have histories of layoffs.

Colorado labor department executive director Don Mares said many companies with higher claims histories already are near the state’s maximum rate of 5.4 percent of the first $10,000 a worker earns.

As a result, businesses with low claims histories are being required to pay higher rates to make up the deficit.

“This is a huge inequity,” said Chuck Mock, owner of a Longmont-based software-consulting firm. “If you keep paying into the system and don’t take anything out, that should be a good thing. But not in this case.”

Wow. Could it be that it is these constant extensions of unemployment benefits that are scaring small businesses into not hiring anyone? Could it be that this is just another one of Obama’s stealth tax hikes?

You can’t argue with the fact that Obama is the worst jobs President ever. Maybe it’s Obama’s policies that are causing the record unemployment. Maybe effects have causes. Maybe having an ACORN lawyer as President is not the best thing to do in a recession.

News

Republicans block Democrats’ attempt to raise taxes on job creators

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From Fox News.

Excerpt:

Senate Republicans on Saturday voted against President Obama’s plan to extend the Bush tax cuts to only the middle class in a pair of votes Democrats are seizing to paint the GOP as guardians of the rich.

The Senate voted 53-36 to extend all expiring tax cuts on individuals with incomes of less than $200,000 a year and married couples making less than $250,000 — seven shy of the required 60 to advance.

Now keep in mind that “the rich” are the very people who own the small businesses that create most of the jobs. That is why constant slamming of the rich with taxes and health care mandates has raised the unemployment rate to 9.8% and kept it above 9% for 19 months – a record never before seen in the history of the country. When Obama says “the wealthiest 2%”, you need to hear “9.8% unemployment”. The wealthy are the ones who create the jobs. Bash the wealthy, and you get fewer jobs.

Obama says:

President Obama said he was “very disappointed” in the Senate’s verdict.

“Those provisions should have passed,” he said.”It makes no sense to to hold tax cuts for the middle class hostage to permanent tax cuts for the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans especially when those high-income tax cuts would cost an additional $700 billion that we don’t have and would add to our deficit.”

“But with so much at stake, today’s votes cannot be the end of the discussion,” he said. “It’s absolutely essential to hardworking middle class families and to the economy to make sure their taxes don’t go up on Jan. 1.”

But the truth is:

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell immediately slammed the political maneuvering by Democrats after the votes.

“According to the strange the logic of Democratic leaders in Congress, the best way to show middle class Americans that they care about creating jobs is to slam some of America’s top job creators with a massive tax hike,” he said on the Senate floor.

“Today’s vote was an affront to the millions of Americans who are struggling to find work and a clear signal that Democrats in Congress still haven’t got the message from the November elections,” he said.

Obama is anti-middle class because he is anti-small-business, and small businesses hire the middle class.

Democrats don’t understand how jobs are created

In fact, the unemployment rate has been steadily rising since the Democrats took control of the spending process by winning the House and Senate in January 2007. The left side of this graph begins when Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid took control of the House and Senate in January 2007.

Democrats took control of the economy in 2007
Democrats took control of the economy in 2007

The chart doesn’t lie. When the Democrats control the budget, spending and unemployment rise a lot. When the Republicans controlled the House and Senate, the unemployment rate was 4.5%. These numbers do not lie. When they told you that more spending (the “recovery plan”) to their favored special interest groups will create private sector jobs, they lied. The numbers show that they lied.

People like Michele Bachmann actually OWN SMALL BUSINESSES and they HIRE AMERICAN WORKERS. People like Michele Bachmann should be in charge of the economy. Not people like Obama. Obama had a rich grandmother who paid for all his schooling at expensive private schools. He had his life handed to him on a silver platter. Michele Bachmann grew up poor.

News

Does government spend money as well as Christian taxpayers?

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Here’s an interesting story from CNS News showing how the money of Christian taxpayers is spend by the Smithsonian Institution, which receives 65% of its annual $761 million budget from taxpayers. (H/T ECM, Neil Simpson’s latest round-up)

Excerpt:

The federally funded National Portrait Gallery, one of the museums of the Smithsonian Institution, is currently showing an exhibition that features images of an ant-covered Jesus, male genitals, naked brothers kissing, men in chains, Ellen DeGeneres grabbing her breasts, and a painting the Smithsonian itself describes in the show’s catalog as “homoerotic.”

The exhibit, “Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture,” opened on Oct. 30 and will run throughout the Christmas Season, closing on Feb. 13.

[…]”These themes, historic and artistic, come together in ‘Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture,’ the first major exhibition to examine the influence of gay and lesbian artists in creating modern American portraiture,” says the plaque. “‘Hide/Seek’ chronicles how, as outsiders, gay and lesbian artists occupied a position that turned to their advantage, making essential contributions to both the art of portraiture and to the creation of modern American culture.”

The Smithsonian Institution has an annual budget of $761 million, 65 percent of which comes from the federal government, according to Linda St. Thomas, the Smithsonian’s chief spokesperson. The National Portrait Gallery itself received $5.8 million in federal funding in fiscal year 2010, according to St. Thomas. It also received $5.8 million in federal funding in fiscal 2009, according to the museum’s annual report. The gallery’s overall funding in that year was $8 million.

[…]Co-curator David Ward told CNSNews.com the “Hide/Seek” exhibit is in keeping with the National Portrait Gallery’s mission.

[…]“Hide/Seek evolved from the Portrait Gallery’s ongoing commitment to represent the diversity of our people in recognizing the contribution that gay and lesbian Americans made to American art and culture during the last century,” Ward said.

The museum claims that the taxpayer money is only used to pay for the building, etc., not the exhibits themselves, but:

Chris Edwards, director of tax policy studies at the Cato Institute and a former senior economist on the congressional Joint Economic Committee, told CNSNews.com, “If the Smithsonian didn’t have the taxpayer-funded building, they would have no space to present the exhibit, right? In my own view, if someone takes taxpayer money, then I think the taxpayers have every right to question the institutions where the money’s going.”

“Think about the Washington Post,” he said. “They don’t have to publish every op-ed that they get, right? They own the platform. In this case [the Smithsonian Institution], the taxpayers own the platform and so the taxpayers should decide what is presented on that platform.”

Click through to the articles for all the details of what the secular left considers to be “art”. Warning: it’s pretty sick stuff.

This is why I always recommend to socially conservative Christians – if you want to help the poor, help the poor with your own money. Do not let the government have your money thinking that they will use it to help the poor. They will never use it to honor Christ the way you could use it to honor Christ. In many cases, they could make it harder or even impossible for you to live out your authentic Christian life in the public square. (Think of the movie “Expelled” for instance)