The AP is reporting that President Obama is “looking at any way to create jobs”. That’s interesting. He must not be looking very hard. Or maybe he really is looking, but managed to get something in his eye. Or maybe he’s faking it. Never waste a crisis, you know. It’d be hard to imagine that Americans would be too eager to shift complete control of their lives to the federal government if unemployment was not at 10% and the housing market hadn’t collapsed. That’s got to be it, then. He’s not really interested in finding any way to create jobs because as long as we’re all unemployed, we’ll continue to be led around like sheep. That’s why all of Obama’s “fixes” all smell funny. His fingers are too deep in all of them.

Here’s more from the AP:

SPRINGFIELD, Va. (AP) – Standing at the site of a highway project funded by his massive economic stimulus plan, President Barack Obama said Wednesday he is committed to exploring all avenues to create jobs.

“Middle-class Americans are the ones who built this country,” Obama said. “They deserve leaders in Washington who are willing to work as hard as they work.”

[ . . . ]

Despite the stimulus, the national unemployment rate stands at 9.8 percent. Economists have said unemployment could continue to rise.

First—Obama is certainly not committed to “exploring all avenues to create jobs”. That’s just a lie. Note that the AP isn’t quoting Obama directly for that little nugget. If Obama were willing to explore “all” avenues, he’d think about tax cuts for small businesses. Tax cuts, after all, will permit these businesses to keep more of the money they earn…which they would of course use to…hire people. With less money left after taxes, businesses are not too motivated to employ more people.

Second—However nice it sounds to your populist disciples, America wasn’t built by Middle Class people. Not if the word “built” means anything, that is. Sure, they’re the ones that may have wielded the hammers and populated the plants, but these people were uniformly employees—hired by rich people with ideas to move technology forward. The Rockefellers, Carnegies, Vanderbilts and Fords which dot our history are the ones that “built” America. Not by themselves, of course, but without their entrepreneurial spirit and capital, America doesn’t become industrialized and that’s just a fact. It’s a hard fact for the left to acknowledge, however, and it’s the reason why they see “tax cuts for the rich” as “unfairly” lining the pockets of those in least need of the extra money. The fact is that one of the primary functions in our society of rich corporations is that they hire the rest of us. They enable us all to have health insurance. To save for our retirements and the education of our children. Without rich people who make things and hire people, we’d all be poor. So unless Mr. Obama is exploring ways to incentivize rich people to hire more of us so we can make more stuff, he’s spinning his wheels. Every second he talks about taxing corporations to death, he’s making it more and more likely that unemployment will continue to rise and the recession will continue to grow. Spending billions of TAXPAYER dollars to hire people doesn’t do the trick, either. Tax dollars must first come from someone who earned that money. It is not in itself the product of any growth. That’s why this Stimulus is just a gigantic shell game. Borrowing from Peter to pay Paul, if you will. Eventually the bills become due. Eventually, we’ll understand that shifting money around like this without creating any new growth is a dead end.

Which brings us to that last bit of the article. Incredulously, the AP admits that “despite the stimulus” unemployment is at 9.8%! As if the stimulus would lead to any other result except higher unemployment. This is shocking? When you take money away from rich people, they have nothing left to hire new people and make new things. They contract. It’s no surprise (to anyone except the AP, that is) that economists are saying that unemployment “could” continue to rise. High taxes work as disincentives for corporations and big business to hire people and make things. THe higher taxes go, the less things are made. The less people are hired. The longer unemployment lasts.

Someone named Noam N. Levey penned this wonderful little bit of misinformation in today’s LA Times:

Imagine the debate over healthcare legislation on Capitol Hill as a tussle among three friends out for dinner.

All three have been struggling to pay their bills lately. When the check arrives, they try to figure out how to divide it. The problem is no one can really afford the meal. And if one manages to pay less, the other two will go home even deeper in the hole.

That is the dilemma facing President Obama and his congressional allies as they try to develop healthcare legislation that can unite liberal and conservative Democrats and make it to the president’s desk by the end of the year.

“It is all a question of balancing,” said Ken Thorpe, a healthcare economist at Emory University who has advised congressional Democrats working on healthcare bills.

Think of our three friends as consumers, businesses and government, the three major groups that pay for healthcare in America.

The check is the nation’s healthcare tab, which now tops $2.5 trillion a year.

via Splitting healthcare tab is a balancing act — latimes.com.

Does Mr. Levey not realize that “government” pays for nothing? Every dollar spent by government must first come from a “consumer” or a “business” that created it in the first place.

Some might ask (and they’d be right in asking) why government needs to place itself in between citizens and their health care at all. Wouldn’t it all be more efficient to permit citizens and businesses who create their dollars to pay it directly to the insurance companies themselves? Wouldn’t it make sense to permit interstate competition between health insurance companies? Wouldn’t that competition (like competition between potato chip and motor oil companies) result in more choices for the consumers? Lower prices? Better quality? And wouldn’t it also make sense to permit consumers to purchase insurance against whatever type of contingencies they wish? Shouldn’t a healthy 22 year old male be free to insure against ONLY catastrophic occurrences? Why is he instead required to obtain and pay for a policy insuring things he doesn’t need?

Ah…and now we get to the reason for government. The reason that the government insists on insinuating itself between citizens and their health care is that without the government, the millions and millions of people who feel that they are entitled to FREE health care and who exist like CHILDREN within the soft fluffy womb of Big Government Insulation would be out of luck.

I’m not talking about people who despite their best efforts find themselves temporarily in need of assistance. I’m also not talking about the old, the young, the truly poor, the incapacitated. These people should be helped by the government and the government should be able to collect a little bit of money from the hundreds of millions of us who have some in order to help those who absolutely cannot help themselves.

But there are ALREADY government programs like that. Tremendously wasteful and inefficient ones, I grant you, but systems currently being funded that help the young (SCHIP), the old (MEDICARE) and the poor (MEDICAID). Not to mention social security.

Why isn’t “health care reform” focusing on fixing EXISTING programs to more effectively help those who are already eligible to receive that help?

Because that misses the point, doesn’t it? The object of the current Obama-liberal reform packages is to insure that the producers in this country are screwed to the highest possible degree so that those who are content to recline in the padded lap of government may do so from cradle to grave.

That’s why the various free market approaches that I outline above won’t be seriously entertained by any liberal. Because just as the Stimulus wasn’t created to stimulate anything except the liberal base, so too is health care ‘reform’ not intended to reform anything except capitalism.

The cure for capitalism is a heavy dose of socialism….and that’s just what Obama is planning to deliver.

If recent polls are any indicator though, these plans may be crumbling. Which of course is a good thing, despite what great thinkers like Noam N. Levey believe. The more Obama and his liberal cabal open their mouths to scold Americans on health care ‘reform’, the more we learn of his socialist mischief and the more sick and tired we become of his Presidency.

This chart from Rasmussen says it all:

Keep talking, Mr. President. Keep talking.

The socialists are promising that THIS time it will be different. Forget about that whole Medicare thing where we promised to take care of a small SLIVER of our population (the elderly). Forget that we utterly failed. Focus instead how THIS TIME it will be different and that we’re more effectively manage the health of the ENTIRE population. Doesn’t matter that we couldn’t do it for a sliver. Trust us to do it BETTER with MORE people at stake.

Consider:

At its inception in 1966, Medicare carried an annual price tag of $3 billion. Its Congressional founders predicted that cost would rise to $12 billion a year by 1990 – a figure that accounted for inflation.

The true cost of Medicare is stunning. In 1990, rather than costing American taxpayers $12 billion, Medicare cost $107 billion – an increase of 800% over the government’s best guess at the program’s cost 23 years before. That cost has increased exponentially as the years have passed since 1990. This year, $484 billion will be spent on mandatory Medicare outlays; by 2018, that number will be $885.1 billion, according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office. The total amount owed Medicare beneficiaries (American workers who are at least 22 years old and who have paid into the system, meaning they are due Medicare coverage upon retirement) is a staggering $32.3 trillion – an amount over twice America’s GDP, and nearly five times the publicized national debt.

The fact that the federal government has allowed a key health coverage program with which it has been entrusted to fall over thirty trillion dollars in debt should send a powerful message about Washington’s ability (or, more correctly, inability) to be a good steward of Americans’ health care dollars and coverage.

Further, the fact that Congress has refused to do away with a law requiring seniors to enroll in Medicare or forfeit their Social Security benefits – a regulation that is currently being challenged in federal court by a group of plaintiffs led by former Republican Congressman Dick Armey – for fear of losing massive numbers of seniors to private health coverage serves to reinforce both the undesirability of the government-run program. It also demonstrates the federal government’s willingness, when given the opportunity, to force citizens onto the rolls of government care by denying them the opportunity to choose their coverage.

Medicare, the chief example of health care as run by the federal government, is an utter mess that is losing doctors, resorting to anti-choice laws to keep seniors enrolled, and hemorrhaging taxpayer dollars by the trillions. President Obama and his allies in the Democratic-led Congress should demonstrate their ability to be good stewards of the people’s health care dollars and coverage by fixing their own Medicare mess before they seek to expand their grip on America’s health care system as a whole.

Do you know what they take you for?

Fools.

Has Obama rescued the economy? You very well may think that if you get your news from the NY Times or MSNBC or any one of a trillion other mouthpieces for the Democrat party, but reality (as it often does) has intervened to spoil the party.

Cast thine eyes on this from the indispensible Innocent Bystanders blog (I know, I’m late to the party on this, but well, I’m late to the party on lots of things and haven’t let that stop me before):

So Obama didn’t know what he was talking about when estimating the effects of the recession OR what he should do about it.

Do we need to trust him on anything else, particularly health care?

From the “if we don’t want it, what are our elected officials doing pushing for it” file, comes this latest Rasmussen report:

The health care reform legislation working its way through Congress has lost support over the past month. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that 44% of U.S. voters are at least somewhat in favor of the reform effort while 53% are at least somewhat opposed.

Today’s 44% level of support is down from 46% two weeks ago, and 50% in late June.

Opposition has grown from 45% in late June to 49% two weeks ago and 53% today.

As in earlier surveys, those with strong opinions are more likely to oppose the plan rather than support it. The current numbers: 24% strongly favor and 37% strongly oppose.

[ . . . ]

There is a huge partisan divide on the health care plan. Sixty-eight percent (68%) of Democrats favor it. However, the plan is opposed by 80% of Republicans and 60% of those not affiliated with either major party.

via Rasmussen Reports™: The Most Comprehensive Public Opinion Data Anywhere.

It’s what the Tea Party movement is actually about, isn’t it? Taxation without representation. Sure, those are our elected officials inhabiting Washington, but are they representing our wishes? Are they doing what the majority of the population wants them to do on issues such as health care? Well, the answer is surely ‘no’ if they succeed in cramming this rotten apple of a health care ‘fix’ down our throats. And if our officials are no longer representing us?

Who are they representing?

Our officials MUST be sent the message that they serve in Washington at OUR sufferance. They are not elected to go be ‘avant gard’  and to enact the pipe dream fantasies of their socialist forbears.  Inasmuch as they’re doing that, they’re doing so without the approval of the people, and without that approval, they should be bounced when their terms are up.

Will we do it? Will we hold these people accountable? Not if the press has any say about it (and they most certainly do). They know that what these officials are doing is counter to the wishes of a large majority of the country, so they won’t DARE let you know about it in their daily newspapers and television shows. If you knew, you’d of course bounce them, and the pipe dreams will die….which is a bad thing when you’re a 14 year old trapped in the body of an adult news professional. Don’t you know that the world stopped when they turned 14 and we owe it to them to give birth to their adolescent fantasies?

Turn on, tune in, drop out. That’s the advice I’m giving you (in the spirit of the counterculture still unfortunately so relevant to many of our press and elected officials). Turn in to the new wave of citizens taking back their government. Tune in to the message being broadcast load and clear beneath the frothy veneer of “acceptable” political commentary at the NYT, the WaPO and MSNBC. Drop out from the zombie rank and file.

Cancel your subscriptions.

Sometimes an apt analogy is the perfect medicine for thick-headedness.

Check this out:

The NY Times doing its’ usual cheerleading:

WASHINGTON — Badly outnumbered and months behind in the debate on energy and climate change, House Republicans plan to introduce an energy bill on Wednesday as an alternative to the Democratic plan barreling toward a House vote this month.

How’s that for a lede? The Republicans have a plan, but they’re SO behind the times that nobody should really take them seriously.

The Republican proposal, drafted by a group led by Representative Mike Pence of Indiana, leans heavily on nuclear power, setting a goal of building 100 reactors over the next 20 years. No new nuclear plants have been ordered in the United States since 1978 because of the high cost of construction and uncertainty about regulatory approval.

Silly Republicans…they don’t realize that we don’t DO nuclear here in the US. Didn’t they hear? They’re expensive and the government won’t allow them anyway! Expensive…maybe. But relative to the Obama plan of cap and trade? Not so much. Obama is talking freely about his plan bankrupting the coal industry. Nuclear energy is clean and building and maintaining plants will create thousands of jobs. No go. Didn’t you see China Syndrome? Silkwood? There’s “uncertainty” about regulatory approval of new plants because the government passed these regulations in the 1970’s during the hysteria evidenced by these 2 movies. More people are at risk of dying by cigarettes than were ever at risk of being contaminated by a “meltdown” at a nuclear power plant. Those sure were good movies, though.

The bill also provides incentives for increased oil and gas production on public and private lands and offshore. It would also authorize oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska, a focus of 30 years of controversy in Congress.

The Republican measure does not include any mandatory cap on emissions of heat-trapping gases, relying instead on nuclear energy, natural gas and renewable fuels like wind, solar and biomass power to reduce production of the gases, which have been linked to global warming.

No cap and trade? Will it must be half-cocked then. Said the buggy driver to the car dealer, “nice vehicle, but where do you put the horse?”. Cap and trade is the problem. That’s the very motivating factor behind the Republican proposal. The logjam in Congress these past 30 years prohibiting the exploration and recovery of our own natural resources has been caused almost completely by the Democrats being beholden to their environmental lobbyists and NOT to the American people.

“This is an alternative that takes us in the direction of energy independence and a clean environment without the national energy tax being offered by the Democrats,” Mr. Pence said.

Amen.

Had to read this headline twice.

Obama seeks fiscal responsibility mantle

He’s seeking it now? I mean, it’s nice, if it’s true, but I can’ t believe that this is about anything except Obama trying to cover his ass after his MASSIVE outlay of irresponsible spending contained in the “stimulus” package. Let’s see what you think.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama sought on Tuesday to show he was serious about improving the U.S. budget picture as he called on Congress to pass new limits on tax cuts and spending programs to avoid adding to deficits.

Obama urged passage of “pay-as-you-go” legislation that would require any new tax cut or automatic spending program to be paid for within the budget.

“The ‘pay as you go’ principle is very simple. Congress can only spend a dollar if it saves a dollar elsewhere,” Obama said in a speech at the White House attended by several Democratic members of Congress.

I guess that first sentence gives it away, doesn’t it? Reuters couldn’t help itself. Instead of saying that Obama’s plan is meant to actually IMPROVE an overtaxed economy that he himself created, they say that the move was designed to “show he was serious” about improving the economy. Is that the same thing as what I said? Not even close. I can either do something, or so something that “shows I’m serious” about doing something. If you actually had a vested interest in that thing I was supposed to be doing, would you rather I actually DID that thing or instead show merely that I was serious about doing it?

Second, he’s going to cut the deficit by removing tax cuts? Doesn’t he read the papers? Tax cuts increase revenue. By raising taxes he’s going to DECREASE the amount of money in the treasury and INCREASE deficits.

Finally, the kicker. He says that this “pay as you go” program will work by requiring that a dollar be “saved” before any new dollar can be spent. He did NOT say that a dollar of spending had to be CUT before another can be spent. He said that a dollar had to be SAVED….which is Obama-speak for….what, exactly?

Imagine the following scenario. Democrat pork-wranglers get together to propose a bill to increase spending by $100billion. According to Obama, he won’t sign it until the porkies can show that $100billion will be “saved” by the passage of that bill. What sort of proof does he need? Doesn’t say. I’d bet it’s a pretty low threshhold, what about you? The porkies would likely say that spending $100billion now will save $100billion in future costs.

And that will be that.

There’s one more piece to this ridiculous Reuters article that deserves mentioning:

Republicans have warned that programs such as the proposed health care plan would add to the budget deficit for years to come and have also criticized Obama’s $787 billion stimulus plan, which was passed by Congress in February.

Obama contends that much of the budget deficit was inherited from the Bush administration, which presided over a shift from record surpluses to huge increases in the deficit fueled by the financial crisis and spending for the Iraq war.

“The reckless fiscal policies of the past have left us in a very deep hole,” Obama said. “Digging our way out will take time and patience and tough choices.”

First, Republicans have warned that a complete government takeover of our health care system would “add to the deficit for years to come”??? Are the Republicans the only ones? How about a quote from a Democrat that says it won’t add to the deficit? Does any reasonable person believe this massive spending won’t add to the deficit? Unbelievable. Obama’s position is indefensible…except by the MSM.

Second, Bush left office with the deficit at a tick over $400billion. Obama’s projected deficit for 2009 is $1.85trillion….thanks to the massive pork burger he and his Liberal buddies in Congress just stuffed down our throats. It was sort of like being waterboarded, only half as polite. Here’s a handy chart to post on your night table so that you never forget how deeply and thoroughly we’re all being f***ed by the Lord High Obama:

Obama projected deficit compared to prior administrations

In early January, 2 members of President Elect Obama’s economic team, Christina Romer and Jared Bernstein, published what Team Obama was billing as their plan for economic recovery. You can find the full text of the document here. In it, we were shown how unprecedented massive government spending was to be our ticket out of the recession. The graph below was included in the study as Figure 1. We’d spend our way to more jobs, went the logic, and here’s how much better we’ll be than if we did nothing at all.

Now, 3 months in, isn’t it time to ask (to paraphrase former NYC Mayor Ed Koch) “How are we doing?”

Funny you should ask.

Of course the left will howl that it could have been “even worse” without the $1trillion, and of course they “could” be right…except that by accepting that premise, they’d be forced to concede the fact that their expert forecast of merely 3 short months ago (you know, the one which they relied on to steal nearly $1trillion in taxpayer money) was GROSSLY inaccurate. And if we accept that premise, doesn’t it follow that we’re now at square 1 and have absolutely no way of knowing (from the data provided from the administration) HOW or IF the stimulus did anything except flush $1trillion down the toilet? Sure it COULD have been worse, but we don’t know that based on the info in that chart (which has been proven to be amateurishly inept). Only if we accept as a matter of faith that ANYTHING Obama does makes the world a happier place can we also accept that the economy COULD HAVE BEEN WORSE without that spending. But since the chart itself is a turkey, doesn’t that mean that Obama is fallible? And if he’s fallible, then how can we accept on faith that this could all have been a lot worse?

What I’d like to see now are some CONSERVATIVE principles being engaged by the federal government to help reverse this recession. I’d like to see taxes lowered and incentives to growth encouraged, and end to bailouts, more bankruptcies with a resulting reapportionment of capital which will place it where it is most needed and most productive. If anything is clear from the table above it is that Obama certainly doesn’t have a clue. And since his gaffe cost us $1trillion dollars, perhaps the conservatives might be afforded the opportunity to fix things at absolutely no cost to the taxpayer.

Look at that chart again, if you can bear it. Obama said that if we spent $1trillion, that our unemployment rate would be around 8% today. We spent that $1trillion. Our unemployment rate is 9%. Which happens to be exactly what he said the rate would be if we spent nothing.

Governments don’t fix economies, people do. By getting out of the way and encouraging businesses to hire people and make things, governments foster an environment conducive to economic recovery. By confiscating the profits of our top producers and burdening our future generations with mountains of unprecedented debt, Obama is doing the opposite of that.

And surprise of surprises, our economy limps on bleeding.

When you’re volunteering at a food bank.

Via NY Daily News:

While volunteering Wednesday at a D.C. food bank, the First Lady sported her usual J.Crew cardigan, a pair of utilitarian capri pants and, on her feet, a sneaky splurge: trainers that go for $540.

That’s right: These sneakers – suede, with grosgrain ribbon laces and metallic pink toe caps – are made by French design house Lanvin, one of fashion’s hottest labels. They come in denim and satin versions, and have been a brisk seller all spring.

via First Lady Michelle Obama steps out in Lanvin sneakers and they’re only $540!.

$10 to the first person who tells me what “grosgrain” is. I’ve got the metallic pink toe caps and the suede. It’s that grosgrain that’s stumping me.

Good thing the economy’s doing so well, huh? Otherwise this sort of conspicuous consumption would stand out like a sore thumb.

And hey, as my parents always taught me, you can’t spend other people’s money, so I’m not so concerned about what people spend their money on. If they can afford it, then God bless. Key to this understanding is the “their money” part.

Keep your hands of mine, Mr. President, and maybe I won’t make such a big deal when your lady drops $500+ on sneakers.