Tag Archives: Spending

News

Is Obama correct to think that Republicans don’t know what to cut?

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From David Freddoso, in the Washington Examiner.(H/T Nice Deb)

Excerpt:

He finished speaking in Cleveland by urging his audience to “choose the future over the past.” A good thing — we should move on to 2011 instead of repeating the year 2009. Anyway, here were his “they-have-no-ideas” remarks, in part:

Just this year, these same Republicans voted against a bipartisan fiscal commission that they themselves proposed.  And when you ask them what programs they’d actually cut, they usually don’t have an answer.

House Minority Whip Eric Cantor, R-Va., replies:

“President Obama must have misspoken today, because I have personally sat across the table from him and suggested specific ways to cut spending. Furthermore, House Republican Leader John Boehner and I urged President Obama to work with Republicans to cut spending by using his authority to send Congress a “rescissions” package.  In fact, we sent President Obama a letter twice pledging to work together with him on that effort. We still have not heard back – seven months later. It doesn’t end there, through the YouCut program House Republicans have offered over $120 billion in spending cuts, only to be voted down by Democrats in the House. Finally, House Republicans Jeb Hensarling and Paul Ryan have introduced a “Cut Spending Now” package of specific cuts that would save taxpayers $1.3 trillion.

“President Obama is entitled to his opinion, but he’s not entitled to his own facts, and with that in mind I am asking him to either clarify or withdraw the accusation that he made earlier today.”

If you want to cut spending, you vote for Republicans. If you want 3 trillion in deficits over two years, vote Democrat.

News

Obama wants at least 50 billion more for another bailout

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Great article by Hans Bader in the Examiner.

Excerpt:

President Obama now wants Congress to spend $50 billion to keep state governments from laying off their employees.  In essence, this is a bailout for the state-government-employee unions that bankroll liberal politicians.  Earlier, Obama’s allies in Congress proposed spending billions to bail out mismanaged and underfunded union pension funds.

The state governments will never have to pay back any of this bailout money, which rewards them for irresponsibly increasing their employees’ pay much faster than inflation, to levels much higher than in the private sector.

By contrast, the private banks that were bailed out have repaid most of the money they received, while their shareholders lost most of their money–92.6 percent at Citibank.

While millions of private sector employees have been laid off in the current recession, few government employees have been.

[…]Obama has not hidden his bias towards these powerful unions.  As he noted in a 2006 book, “I owe those unions. . .When their leaders call, I do my best to call them back right away.  I don’t mind feeling obligated.”

How wisely is government money spent, anyway?

$700,000 for research on jokes. (H/T The Blog Prof)

It reminds me of this Monty Python sketch:

This is why the unemployment rate has gone UP with all of this stimulus spending. Government isn’t as efficient at creating jobs as private businesses… government wastes money because it’s not their money. They have nothing to gain by being efficient,  but private businesses have to be efficient.

Bader’s article is worth reading in full because it explains in detail how the Democrats caused the mortgage crisis.

News

Unemployment up to 9.6%, 283K jobs lost during recovery summer

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Detroit Job Fair
Detroit Job Fair (AP Photo)

This is from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Excerpt:

Nonfarm payroll employment changed little (-54,000) in August, and the unemployment rate was about unchanged at 9.6 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Government employment fell, as 114,000 temporary workers hired for the decennial census completed their work. Private-sector payroll employment continued to trend up modestly (+67,000).

Household Survey Data

The number of unemployed persons (14.9 million) and the unemployment rate (9.6 percent) were little changed in August. From May through August, the jobless rate remained in the range of 9.5 to 9.7 percent. (See table A-1.)

Among the major worker groups, the unemployment rate for adult men (9.8 percent), adult women (8.0 percent), teenagers (26.3 percent), whites (8.7 percent), blacks (16.3 percent), and Hispanics (12.0 percent) showed little change in August. The jobless rate for Asians was 7.2 percent, not seasonally adjusted. (See tables A-1, A-2, and A-3.)

The total number of jobs lost during the Democrats’ “recovery summer” is now at 283,000.  283,000 jobs lost during the “summer of recovery”. No amount of good intentions and fine speeches is going to change the laws of economics – if you take money from the private sector and spend it on government programs and you will lose jobs.

I notice that the mainstream media and the White House are spinning the job numbers by talking about the jobs gained number instead of the net jobs lost, or the rising unemployment rate, so I had to set things straight.

And keep in mind that the Democrats intend to allow the Bush tax cuts to expire, which really means implementing the largest tax hike in history. It will totally destroy the economy.

Nonfarm payroll employment changed little (-54,000) in August, and the unem-
ployment rate was about unchanged at 9.6 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor
Statistics reported today. Government employment fell, as 114,000 temporary
workers hired for the decennial census completed their work. Private-sector
payroll employment continued to trend up modestly (+67,000).

Household Survey Data

The number of unemployed persons (14.9 million) and the unemployment rate
(9.6 percent) were little changed in August. From May through August, the
jobless rate remained in the range of 9.5 to 9.7 percent. (See table A-1.)

Among the major worker groups, the unemployment rate for adult men (9.8 per-
cent), adult women (8.0 percent), teenagers (26.3 percent), whites (8.7 per-
cent), blacks (16.3 percent), and Hispanics (12.0 percent) showed little
change in August. The jobless rate for Asians was 7.2 percent, not season-
ally adjusted. (See tables A-1, A-2, and A-3.)