It's The Spending, Stupid!: April 2011 Archives

While killing a little slow time at our business this morning, I came across this at Instapundit, and it stuck a chord. Let's face it, despite what the media is reporting and the government is claiming, we're still within the grips of a what feels like a never-ending recession. The American people's confidence in the President is plummeting as he fails to deal with the economy.

One of Glenn's readers, Bill Archer, e-mailed him, telling him that the latest Quinnipiac University poll is right on target:

As a PA resident I can attest to the sea change in attitudes towards Barack Obama here.

It's public, it's palpable and it's entirely due to inflation.

It's astonishing to me that a bunch of guys who are supposed to be so smart think that women aren't going to the grocery store and leaving in a state of shock, disbelief and, occasionally, panic.

And a Democrat who frightens women cannot win anything. Period.

I just started playing a sort of instant citizen poll at stores. It began a week or so ago at Sams' Club: I was in one of THOSE lines and ended up chatting with a well dressed middle aged woman with a cart half full of grocery items.

I made mention of the fact that while I didn't normally make the hike to Sams' that with prices going up I figured I had to make the effort.

She exploded: Prices are sky high, she's feeding three kids, eating store brands and sale items but can't afford to stock up, on and on.

Then the lady in front of HER piped in: if prices keep going up she doesn't know what she'll do, their budget is already at the breaking point, trying to keep a daughter in college, off she goes. Then a man in the next line over heard them and HE jumped in: this is ridiculous, Washington is killing us, economy broken, he's off to the races.

I thought maybe this was just a coincidence, so I've started the same conversation in store lines twice more in the past week and it's exactly the same: people are frightened and EVERYONE wants to talk about it out loud.

The interesting thing to me is that everyone used to be very reluctant to speak out in public against Obama. You were always afraid some leftie whackjob would hear you and tear into you. You know what I mean.

But now the gloves are off, people are freaking out and Obama can raise FIVE billion dollars for his campaign and organize until the cows come home and call everyone in the country a racist until he turns blue but it's not going to convince anyone that they're not paying an arm and a leg for half a cart worth of food.

There is no more basic thing to people, and it's off the hook.

I don't see how the Republicans could possibly mess this up. Then again, after a lifetime of watching them do just that, if there's way they'll find it.

I have heard many of the same things at the local supermarkets, WalMarts, and the BJ's discount club. The subject also came up with some of our customers this morning. A few that I knew had been staunch Obama supporters have stated quite openly that they won't vote for him again, particularly if energy and food prices keep going up as they have.

Around here pay raises (assuming anyone actually gets one) aren't keeping up with the rise in prices. Gas prices are expected to be double what they were around here last summer, which will put something of a damper on some activities. (A lot of folks aren't going to be willing to pay $5 or even $6 per gallon for gas to run their boats, particularly if a fill up will cost $200 or more for a day out on the lake. Of those vacationers visiting this area over the summer, most will be from New Hampshire, staying close to home because they can't afford to travel very far for vacation. Even one of the biggest summertime events in central New Hampshire - Bike Week - is expected to have lower than average attendance this year due to the general economic conditions and the price of gas and amenities.

If prices continue to rise and the economic situation does not improve greatly, Obama will see his presidency end in January 2013, no matter how much money he spends on his re-election campaign.

I've seen this on at least one other occasion, but it's still as powerful as when it was first published back in 1985, and again in both 1995 and 2008 (with some additions and changes).

"This" is an editorial written by Charley Reese and it rightly attributes all of this country's problems to the 545 people in Washington who are, at the heart of it, responsible for the ills we've suffered for decades (and particularly the past few years). Reese doesn't play the partisan card, blasting both Democrats and Republicans for the troubles they've caused.

The portion quoted below is from the 1995 version.

Politicians, as I have always said, are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them.

Everything on the Republican contract ( Newt Gingrich's Contract With America - ed.) is a problem created by Congress.

Too much bureaucracy? Blame Congress. Too many rules? Blame Congress.

Out-of-control bureaucracy? Congress authorizes everything bureaucracies do. Americans dying in Third World ratholes on stupid UN missions? Congress allows it. The annual deficits? Congress votes for them. The $4 trillion debt (now $14 trillion -ed.)? Congress created it.

To put it into perspective just remember that 100 percent of the power of the federal government comes from the U.S Constitution. If it's not in the Constitution, it's not authorized.

Though a little dated, the points Reese brings up are just as valid today as they were 16 years ago.

As the saying goes, Read The Whole Thing.

I was involved in a lengthy discussion with one of our customers this morning about the state of the nation, particularly when it came to the economy, the national budget, and taxes. To say that we did not see eye to eye would be accurate.

What set off the discussion was the customer's claim that the rich should "pay their fair share" of taxes. So I had to ask "What's their fair share?" The answer was, predictably, "More than they pay now."

From there it was the usual litany of liberal talking points, including the claim the Bush tax cuts only helped the rich. Never mind that those same tax cuts removed a number of those with middle and lower end incomes from the tax rolls. Never mind that the rich already pay a majority of the taxes. It wasn't enough for her.

A little further along in our discussion I had to ask how much money the higher taxes on the rich would collect. "It would erase the budget deficit!"

The answer merely proved she hadn't really thought it out and was merely parroting what she'd heard elsewhere. When I replied that even if the tax rate on the rich was raised to 100%, the theoretical revenues derived would cover about a fourth of the deficit, she didn't believe me. This is something easily verifiable and I even made a few suggestions of some websites where she could run the numbers herself. She wasn't interested.

That's when I realized I was wasting my time and, as politely as possible, ended the discussion.

As she was leaving she stopped at the door and said, "You sound like one of those f*****g Tea Party wackos!"

So much for polite political discourse.

As the clock ticks onwards towards midnight, Congress is still stalemated, with the possibility of a partial government shutdown looming.

The GOP wants to extend the continuing resolution that has funded government operations for the past 6 months for another week, but only if they can squeeze in $60 billion in spending cuts, which is about 1.6% of the total budget and 3.75% of this fiscal year's deficit.

But the Democrats want none of it. They want everything to continue as is. In fact, they have already stated the won't support cuts of any kind. That pompous ass Harry Reid has labeled the cuts as 'draconian', as if that piddling amount of money would be stealing the food out of the mouths of children and dumping the sick out of the hospitals and into the middle of the street. Harry Reid and his cohorts have pissed away over $4 trillion the government doesn't have over the past four years and he's complaining about cutting back spending by less than 2 percent?

I don't know about you, but my family and I have had to cut our budget by over 15% over the past 2 years, and while it hasn't been fun, we're surviving quite nicely, thank you. Is Harry (and the rest of the Democrats) saying it isn't possible to trim less than 2% from such a bloated budget? If so, then perhaps they should be fired.

Is it because he and the rest of the spendthrift Congresscritters in both parties have been in Washington far too long and have lost touch with reality? It's appearing that may indeed be the case.

When your elected representatives stop representing you and start representing a tax and spend-spend-spend ideology, it's time for them to be replaced with people who still remember what it's like out here in the real world.

UPDATE: Nick Gillespie reminds Obama and the Democrats "that they are in a pickle is because they utterly failed to pass a fricking budget last year even though they controlled the White House, the Senate, and the House of Representatives."

You know the President and Democrats in Congress are in trouble when the New York Times is telling them it's time to fish or cut bait.

As David Brooks writes:

Over the past few weeks, a number of groups, including the ex-chairmen of the Council of Economic Advisers and 64 prominent budget experts, have issued letters arguing that the debt situation is so dire that doing nothing is not a survivable option. What they lacked was courageous political leadership -- a powerful elected official willing to issue a proposal, willing to take a stand, willing to face the political perils.

Neither the President or the Democrats in Congress seem to be willing to take the necessary steps to actually fix the problem, particularly when the only answer seems to be to boost taxes. If it were that simple we would have had the problems fixed long ago. But it's not that simple.

Frankly speaking, Congress has been picking the pockets of the American taxpayers for so long they have come to believe the supply of money is endless. They certainly have been spending as if it were the case. Instead what we are suffering from is a spending problem rather than a revenue problem. To illustrate that point, assuming we were to tax the "rich", meaning anyone with an annual income above $250,000, at a rate of 100%, the Treasury would theoretically collect about $400 billion.

The problem? That covers only one-fourth of this year's budget deficit. Where's the rest going to come from? So boosting taxes just on the rich to confiscatory levels won't do the trick. If we made sure everyone paid income taxes, then that might raise another $200 billion, still leaving us over $1 trillion in the hole. So raising taxes isn't going to be the salve some think it will. Instead, it's time to consider something drastic, like cutting the budget.

And in case you believe such a plan would be impossible to accomplish, Representative Paul Ryan begs to differ.

His plan isn't something he slapped together overnight. He's been working on it for years and put a lot of thought and effort into his proposal. It will require sacrifice by everyone, across the board. And even if every one of his ideas were implemented, we'd still have deficits for years to come. All this plan will do is buy us some time to incorporate institutional fixes that will help prevent future deficit spending by restricting what the government and Congress can do with the taxpayers money.

All we need to pull this off is for the adults to step up and take over the process.

I find it interesting seeing President Obama blasting the House Republicans for their attempts to rein in profligate spending by attempting to cut a piddling $60 billion from the present budget, when he himself has run the country deep into the red with his $1 trillion-plus annual deficits.

To quote the President, twice: "Elections have consequences" and "We won". Both of those quotes have come back to haunt him. The GOP swept the House and gained seats in the Senate, a clear message the American people don't like what he, Pelosi, and Reid have done to us, our economy, and our pocketbooks. Yet he is unwilling to allow cuts of any kind even if those cuts amount to nothing more than a rounding error in comparison to the entire deficit.

He says wants to be able to bring about a 'compromise' with the GOP. Unfortunately it appears his definition of the term is still "Sit down, shut up, and vote the way I tell you to vote."

What an arrogant ass.

There was a huge demonstration outside the New Hampshire State House yesterday. As the Republican majority House voted on two budget bills, one which does away with so-called "evergreen" clauses in public employee contracts, many of those same public employees were protesting against the move (and the budget), saying the budget cuts went too far and that their collective bargaining rights were being taken away.

The House passed a $10.2 billion biennial budget (New Hampshire state budgets run for two years), a decrease of $742 million from the present budget. This move was made to address an estimated $800 million shortfall within the present budget.

It was no surprise the Democrats in the legislature wanted to increase spending rather than cutting it, tried to revise the revenue estimates upwards to allow for more spending (something they did for the previous two budgets, which is how the state came to be $800 million in the hole to begin with), and raise taxes and fees again to pay for more spending (something they also did during the previous two budgets with the result of less revenue being collected than projected).

Some of the budget cuts will hit services hard, but many of those services were boosted beyond all reason during the previous 4 years. Some see these cuts as a return to more reasonable and sustainable levels until the economy recovers. During those 4 years the Democrat majority House and Senate increased state spending 30%, well above the rate of inflation or population growth over that time. The frugality usually seen in the State House was nowhere to be seen during those 4 years. Now it's time for the state to live within its means.

The public employees unions were not pleased with the move to strip evergreen clauses from contracts. Those clauses allow an expired union contract to remain in force until a new contract is agreed upon and ratified by the union members. With the removal of evergreen clauses public employees would become employees-at-will (like most of the rest of us) if the old contract expires before a new contract is ratified.

I have a question I must ask of those public employees protesting inside and outside the State House: How many of you took paid time off from work to be there?

While there were supporters of the bills also at the State House, they weren't nearly as numerous as those protesting against them. It wasn't that there weren't more supporters of the legislature's efforts. It's that most of us were at work, making the money taxed to pay the public employees salaries and benefits.

Talk about irony.