GHEI: The unstimulated economy - Washington Times
Presidential spending binge brings more unemployment, not less
President Obama rammed his so-called stimulus bill through a Democratic Congress less than a month after taking office in 2009. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) will cost Americans $840 billion. Unfortunately, this massive sum has failed to buy Americans any respite from economic woe. It has done little more than bury Americans under yet more debt and lengthen lines at the unemployment office. The nation's jobless rate climbed to 9.2 percent last month, according to figures released Friday. We're headed in the wrong direction.
Mr. Obama's top advisers would have us believe otherwise. In its Seventh Quarterly Report, issued July 1, the President's Council of Economic Advisers concluded that $666 billion spent through the third quarter of last year resulted in "creating or saving" about 2.4 million jobs. Accepting the claim at face value, that works out to $277,500 per job. It would have been cheaper to cut a $100,000 check to each "job" holder and pocket the $426 billion difference. The unemployment rate has gone up, not down, since then.
Stanford University economist John Taylor followed the billions and documented how the concept was flawed from the start. The president's giveaway scheme had three parts: tax credits and transfer payments, which went to households; direct federal spending; and grants to state and local bureaucracies.
Household goodies included a one-time $250 payment, refundable credits and the "making work pay" tax credit. The idea - stolen from the John Maynard Keynes playbook - was that increasing disposable income would make people spend more and boost aggregate demand. The federal government was supposed to undertake infrastructure investment immediately to stimulate demand. State and local governments received massive amounts of funds for projects requiring the purchase of goods and services to jump-start aggregate demand.
It sounds great in theory, but none of this ever happened. Households, in an entirely rational response, socked away the one-time transfers to their savings accounts. They saw no need to change their consumption patterns based on temporary boosts to their incomes. The federal government discovered, as Mr. Obama himself has admitted, that the shovels weren't exactly ready. Mr. Taylor estimates that at the peak of the stimulus spending binge, federal government purchases credited to ARRA reached 0.21 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) and federal infrastructure expenditures just 0.05 percent of GDP.
The failure of countercyclical spending policy was just as complete at the state and local level. As the $126 billion cash infusion began flowing, most of the funds were used as a backdoor bailout for reckless, near bankrupt statehouses and big-city mayors. As Mr. Taylor points out, the expected increase in state and local government purchases never happened during this period. Cash-strapped states used the federal funds to cut back on borrowing; those in better fiscal shape show an increase in net lending, which, in fact, was the smart thing to do with a one-time cash infusion.
The overall reason for the stimulus failure was that people are, for the most part, rational. They do not change their consumption behavior in response to temporary changes in disposable income - especially when they are aware that the bill will come due soon in the form of higher taxes. It's a pity Congress and the president didn't figure this out $840 billion ago.
Nita Ghei is a contributing Opinion writer for The Washington Times.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/jul/8/the-unstimulated-economy/print/
Friday, July 22, 2011
True origins of the financial crisis
True origins of the financial crisis via Powerline
Gretchen Moregenson is the New York Times business reporter and columnist as well as a Pulitzer Prize-winning alumna of St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota, and of Forbes. She is also the coauthor (with Joshua Rosner) of Reckless Endangerment, one of the most important books out about the origins of the financial crisis. Robert Reich’s review of the book provides a convenient summary.
The book was the subject of an admiring column by George Will. Most recently, Peter Wallison cited it as authoritative in the Wall Street Journal column “Government-sponsored meltdown.”
The book belies the master Democratic/media narrative regarding the financial crisis. Attention must be paid. Earlier this week Sean Hannity directed the attention of his audience to the book in a short interview with Morgenson (below) . (DP: Apologies for the ad in the start of video as this blog is not monetized. Ad was part of video--just mute it and let the rest finish buffering to watch and learn)
Gretchen Moregenson is the New York Times business reporter and columnist as well as a Pulitzer Prize-winning alumna of St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota, and of Forbes. She is also the coauthor (with Joshua Rosner) of Reckless Endangerment, one of the most important books out about the origins of the financial crisis. Robert Reich’s review of the book provides a convenient summary.
The book was the subject of an admiring column by George Will. Most recently, Peter Wallison cited it as authoritative in the Wall Street Journal column “Government-sponsored meltdown.”
The book belies the master Democratic/media narrative regarding the financial crisis. Attention must be paid. Earlier this week Sean Hannity directed the attention of his audience to the book in a short interview with Morgenson (below) . (DP: Apologies for the ad in the start of video as this blog is not monetized. Ad was part of video--just mute it and let the rest finish buffering to watch and learn)
Thursday, July 21, 2011
Obama’s EPA adds Texas to new cross state emissions rule at the last minute
Obama’s EPA adds Texas to new cross state emissions rule at the last minute
Unemployment is at 9.2% nationally, thanks in no small part to Obama’s failed policies, while Texas’ unemployment rate is more than a point lower than the national average. Texas has its own power grid, and was supposed to be left off the EPA’s new cross state emissions rule — but the Lone Star state got added anyway on Thursday. And Obama’s EPA administrator doesn’t care a bit about the people who are losing their jobs or will end up seeing their energy rates skyrocket because of this. She is just doing her boss’ bidding.
EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said those fears were exaggerated, particularly in Texas, where some already have moved to clean up their coal-fired plants.
Yes, Texas is already cleaning up its air on its own, and has been since the 1990s. So why the meddling? Politics.
“Texas has an ample range of cost-effective emission reduction options for complying with the requirements of this rule without threatening reliability or the continued operation of coal-burning units,” Jackson said.
CPS Energy last month announced it would shutter its two oldest and dirtiest coal plants by 2018, 13 years ahead of their planned retirement date, rather than spend upward of $550 million on new pollution-control equipment.
That’s going to cost jobs. This is politics disguised as science. Just take a look at the states the EPA decided to leave off the rule change.
The challenge from the new rule, known as the Cross State Air Pollution Rule, is that stricter limits take effect next year, giving power-plant owners little time to comply.
Texas was not included in the EPA’s draft rule related to sulfur dioxide cuts because EPA modeling had shown little downwind impact from Texas power plants on other states.
On Thursday, however, the EPA said Texas would be required to meet lower SO2 limits to avoid allowing the state to increase emissions.
Five states — Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Louisiana, Massachusetts, along with the District of Columbia — were dropped from the final EPA rule.
Three blue states and two swing states get left off, while Texas gets added even though the EPA’s own model shows little evidence that emissions from Texas impact other states at all. Nah, there’s no politics here.
Gov. Perry has issued a statement slamming the EPA’s decision, but it may be time to challenge Obama on these moves more directly.
http://pajamasmedia.com/tatler/2011/07/08/obamas-epa-adds-texas-to-new-cross-state-emissions-rule-at-the-last-minute/
Unemployment is at 9.2% nationally, thanks in no small part to Obama’s failed policies, while Texas’ unemployment rate is more than a point lower than the national average. Texas has its own power grid, and was supposed to be left off the EPA’s new cross state emissions rule — but the Lone Star state got added anyway on Thursday. And Obama’s EPA administrator doesn’t care a bit about the people who are losing their jobs or will end up seeing their energy rates skyrocket because of this. She is just doing her boss’ bidding.
EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said those fears were exaggerated, particularly in Texas, where some already have moved to clean up their coal-fired plants.
Yes, Texas is already cleaning up its air on its own, and has been since the 1990s. So why the meddling? Politics.
“Texas has an ample range of cost-effective emission reduction options for complying with the requirements of this rule without threatening reliability or the continued operation of coal-burning units,” Jackson said.
CPS Energy last month announced it would shutter its two oldest and dirtiest coal plants by 2018, 13 years ahead of their planned retirement date, rather than spend upward of $550 million on new pollution-control equipment.
That’s going to cost jobs. This is politics disguised as science. Just take a look at the states the EPA decided to leave off the rule change.
The challenge from the new rule, known as the Cross State Air Pollution Rule, is that stricter limits take effect next year, giving power-plant owners little time to comply.
Texas was not included in the EPA’s draft rule related to sulfur dioxide cuts because EPA modeling had shown little downwind impact from Texas power plants on other states.
On Thursday, however, the EPA said Texas would be required to meet lower SO2 limits to avoid allowing the state to increase emissions.
Five states — Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Louisiana, Massachusetts, along with the District of Columbia — were dropped from the final EPA rule.
Three blue states and two swing states get left off, while Texas gets added even though the EPA’s own model shows little evidence that emissions from Texas impact other states at all. Nah, there’s no politics here.
Gov. Perry has issued a statement slamming the EPA’s decision, but it may be time to challenge Obama on these moves more directly.
http://pajamasmedia.com/tatler/2011/07/08/obamas-epa-adds-texas-to-new-cross-state-emissions-rule-at-the-last-minute/
Left Turn: A Preface--essential analysis of media bias/turning Americans more liberal in the process of shaping news
Left Turn: A Preface by Scott Johnson
On this coming Tuesday St. Martin’s Press will publish Left Turn: How Liberal Media Bias Distorts the American Mind, by Tim Groseclose. Groseclose is a distinguished professor of political science. He is the Marvin Hoffenberg Professor of American Politics at UCLA. He holds joint appointments in the political science and economics departments. He has held previous faculty appointments at universities including Stanford and Harvard. He is not, shall we say, a right-wing ranter.
The publication of Professor Groseclose’s book — previewed here by Paul Bedard at USNews and here by Professor Groseclose himself — is a signal event. To the vexed question of media bias, Professor Groselose brings the methodology of the social sciences.
Professor Groseclose and his publisher have kindly granted us permission to publish the preface, introduction (Monday) and eighth chapter of his book (Tuesday through Friday), starring our friend Katherine Kersten, over the course of this week. Here is the preface (footnotes omitted):
In at least one important way journalists are very different from the rest of us—they are more liberal. For instance, according to surveys, in a typical presidential election, Washington correspondents vote about 93-7 for the Democrat, while the rest of us vote about 50-50 for the two candidates.
What happens when our view of the world is filtered through the eyes, ears, and minds of such a liberal group?
As I demonstrate—using objective, social-scientific methods—the filtering prevents us from seeing the world as it really is. Instead, we only see a distorted version of it. It is as if we see the world through a glass—a glass that magnifies the facts that liberals want us to see and shrinks the facts that conservatives want us to see.
The metaphoric glass affects not just what we see, but how we think. That is, media bias really does make us more liberal.
Perhaps worst of all, media bias feeds on itself. That is, the bias makes us more liberal, which makes us less able to detect the bias, which allows the media to get away with more bias, which makes us even more liberal, and so on.
All of this means that the political views that we currently see in Americans are not their natural views. We only see an artificial, distorted version of those views.
In the book I calculate the precise degree to which those views have been distorted. Specifically, I answer the question: What if we could magically remove the metaphoric glass and see, face-to-face, the average American, once his political views are no longer distorted by media bias? What would we see?
The answer, basically, is Ben Stein.
Main Conclusions of the Book
Yes, the actor, author, commentator, and former host of Win Ben Stein’s Money. More specific, the person whom we’d see is anyone—like Ben Stein—who has a Political Quotient near 25. The Political Quotient is a device that I construct to measure political views in a precise, objective, and quantitative way. A person’s PQ indicates the degree to which he is liberal. For instance, as I have calculated, the PQs of Barney Frank (D-Mass.) and Nancy Pelosi (D-Ca.) are approximately 100. Meanwhile the PQs of noted conservatives Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) and Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) are approximately 0.
Two other people whose PQs are approximately 25 are Bill O’Reilly and Dennis Miller. They are significantly more conservative than the average American voter, whose PQ is approximately 50. But they are significantly more liberal than politicians like Michele Bachmann or Jim DeMint.
As my results show, if we could magically eliminate media bias, then the average American would think and vote like Stein, Miller, O’Reilly, and others who have a PQ near 25.
In this magical world—call it a Ben Stein-ocracy—there would be just as many politicians to the left of Stein, O’Reilly and Miller as there are to their right. The same thing would be true of policies—that is, Stein, O’Reilly, and Miller would complain just as often that U.S. policies are too conservative as they would complain that they are too liberal.
In such a world, American political values would mirror those of present-day regions where the average voter has a 25 PQ. Such regions include the states of Kansas, Texas, and South Dakota. They also include Orange County, California and Salt Lake County, Utah.
To the liberal elite, such places are a nightmare. They are family-friendly, largely suburban, and a large fraction of their residents go to church on Sundays. “Ahh, don’t cross the Orange Curtain,” a Hollywood acquaintance once said to another Hollywood acquaitance, referring to a visit to Orange County.
In an episode of the Sopranos, Tony goes into a coma after being shot. He dreams that he is stuck in a hotel in Costa Mesa (a town in Orange County). He and the other guests of the hotel slowly realize that they are not free to leave. The hotel, many believe, was intended by the Sopranos writers to represent Purgatory.
To the liberal elite, that’s the way the world would be if media bias were to disappear—like Orange County, not quite hell, but a step in that direction.
Construction of the Book’s Argument
To some people, the above conclusions will sound shocking. However, they are supported by: (i) eight years of research; (ii) some state-of-the-art statistical and social-scientific methods; and (iii) some recent, little-noticed, yet brilliant, research by some rising-star professors of economics and political science.
In addition, once you learn some not-so-shocking intermediate conclusions that I construct, the main conclusion might not seem so shocking. The following are some of those intermediate conclusions:
• The PQ is based upon issues chosen by the Americans for Democratic Action, a liberal interest group. Thus, to demonstrate liberal media bias, I use a measuring rod, which was ultimately created by liberals.
• Through the notion of a Slant Quotient, I show that media bias—like political views—can be measured objectively and quantitatively.
• According to these Slant Quotients, every mainstream national news outlet in the U.S. has a liberal bias.
• Of the one hundred or so news outlets that I examine, only a handful lean right. These include: the Washington Times, the Daily Oklahoman, the (Tucson) Arizona Daily Star, and Fox News’ Special Report.
• But even the latter, supposedly conservative news outlets, are not far-right. For instance, Special Report is more centrist than any of the three network evening news shows. That is, its conservative bias is less than the liberal bias of ABC, CBS, or NBC.
• The effects of media bias are real and significant. My results suggest that media bias aids Democratic candidates by about 8-10 percentage points in a typical election. I find, for instance, that if media bias didn’t exist, then John McCain would have defeated Barack Obama 56-42, instead of losing 53-46.
• In our current world, where views are distorted by media bias, the PQ of the average voter is approximately 50. This is about the score of Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) or Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine).
• However, if we could magically eliminate media bias, then the PQ of the average voter would decrease to approximately 25 or 30.
• In our current world, where views have been distorted left, news outlets like the Washington Times and Fox News’ Special Report seem conservative. However, if we could remove the leftwing bias of the media as a whole—and thus change the average voter’s PQ to 25 or 30—then the Washington Times and Special Report would seem slightly left-leaning.
From Left Turn by Tim Groseclose, PhD. Copyright © 2011 by the author and reprinted by kind permission of St. Martin’s Press, LLC. All rights reserved.
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2011/07/left-turn-a-preface.php
On this coming Tuesday St. Martin’s Press will publish Left Turn: How Liberal Media Bias Distorts the American Mind, by Tim Groseclose. Groseclose is a distinguished professor of political science. He is the Marvin Hoffenberg Professor of American Politics at UCLA. He holds joint appointments in the political science and economics departments. He has held previous faculty appointments at universities including Stanford and Harvard. He is not, shall we say, a right-wing ranter.
The publication of Professor Groseclose’s book — previewed here by Paul Bedard at USNews and here by Professor Groseclose himself — is a signal event. To the vexed question of media bias, Professor Groselose brings the methodology of the social sciences.
Professor Groseclose and his publisher have kindly granted us permission to publish the preface, introduction (Monday) and eighth chapter of his book (Tuesday through Friday), starring our friend Katherine Kersten, over the course of this week. Here is the preface (footnotes omitted):
In at least one important way journalists are very different from the rest of us—they are more liberal. For instance, according to surveys, in a typical presidential election, Washington correspondents vote about 93-7 for the Democrat, while the rest of us vote about 50-50 for the two candidates.
What happens when our view of the world is filtered through the eyes, ears, and minds of such a liberal group?
As I demonstrate—using objective, social-scientific methods—the filtering prevents us from seeing the world as it really is. Instead, we only see a distorted version of it. It is as if we see the world through a glass—a glass that magnifies the facts that liberals want us to see and shrinks the facts that conservatives want us to see.
The metaphoric glass affects not just what we see, but how we think. That is, media bias really does make us more liberal.
Perhaps worst of all, media bias feeds on itself. That is, the bias makes us more liberal, which makes us less able to detect the bias, which allows the media to get away with more bias, which makes us even more liberal, and so on.
All of this means that the political views that we currently see in Americans are not their natural views. We only see an artificial, distorted version of those views.
In the book I calculate the precise degree to which those views have been distorted. Specifically, I answer the question: What if we could magically remove the metaphoric glass and see, face-to-face, the average American, once his political views are no longer distorted by media bias? What would we see?
The answer, basically, is Ben Stein.
Main Conclusions of the Book
Yes, the actor, author, commentator, and former host of Win Ben Stein’s Money. More specific, the person whom we’d see is anyone—like Ben Stein—who has a Political Quotient near 25. The Political Quotient is a device that I construct to measure political views in a precise, objective, and quantitative way. A person’s PQ indicates the degree to which he is liberal. For instance, as I have calculated, the PQs of Barney Frank (D-Mass.) and Nancy Pelosi (D-Ca.) are approximately 100. Meanwhile the PQs of noted conservatives Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) and Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) are approximately 0.
Two other people whose PQs are approximately 25 are Bill O’Reilly and Dennis Miller. They are significantly more conservative than the average American voter, whose PQ is approximately 50. But they are significantly more liberal than politicians like Michele Bachmann or Jim DeMint.
As my results show, if we could magically eliminate media bias, then the average American would think and vote like Stein, Miller, O’Reilly, and others who have a PQ near 25.
In this magical world—call it a Ben Stein-ocracy—there would be just as many politicians to the left of Stein, O’Reilly and Miller as there are to their right. The same thing would be true of policies—that is, Stein, O’Reilly, and Miller would complain just as often that U.S. policies are too conservative as they would complain that they are too liberal.
In such a world, American political values would mirror those of present-day regions where the average voter has a 25 PQ. Such regions include the states of Kansas, Texas, and South Dakota. They also include Orange County, California and Salt Lake County, Utah.
To the liberal elite, such places are a nightmare. They are family-friendly, largely suburban, and a large fraction of their residents go to church on Sundays. “Ahh, don’t cross the Orange Curtain,” a Hollywood acquaintance once said to another Hollywood acquaitance, referring to a visit to Orange County.
In an episode of the Sopranos, Tony goes into a coma after being shot. He dreams that he is stuck in a hotel in Costa Mesa (a town in Orange County). He and the other guests of the hotel slowly realize that they are not free to leave. The hotel, many believe, was intended by the Sopranos writers to represent Purgatory.
To the liberal elite, that’s the way the world would be if media bias were to disappear—like Orange County, not quite hell, but a step in that direction.
Construction of the Book’s Argument
To some people, the above conclusions will sound shocking. However, they are supported by: (i) eight years of research; (ii) some state-of-the-art statistical and social-scientific methods; and (iii) some recent, little-noticed, yet brilliant, research by some rising-star professors of economics and political science.
In addition, once you learn some not-so-shocking intermediate conclusions that I construct, the main conclusion might not seem so shocking. The following are some of those intermediate conclusions:
• The PQ is based upon issues chosen by the Americans for Democratic Action, a liberal interest group. Thus, to demonstrate liberal media bias, I use a measuring rod, which was ultimately created by liberals.
• Through the notion of a Slant Quotient, I show that media bias—like political views—can be measured objectively and quantitatively.
• According to these Slant Quotients, every mainstream national news outlet in the U.S. has a liberal bias.
• Of the one hundred or so news outlets that I examine, only a handful lean right. These include: the Washington Times, the Daily Oklahoman, the (Tucson) Arizona Daily Star, and Fox News’ Special Report.
• But even the latter, supposedly conservative news outlets, are not far-right. For instance, Special Report is more centrist than any of the three network evening news shows. That is, its conservative bias is less than the liberal bias of ABC, CBS, or NBC.
• The effects of media bias are real and significant. My results suggest that media bias aids Democratic candidates by about 8-10 percentage points in a typical election. I find, for instance, that if media bias didn’t exist, then John McCain would have defeated Barack Obama 56-42, instead of losing 53-46.
• In our current world, where views are distorted by media bias, the PQ of the average voter is approximately 50. This is about the score of Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) or Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine).
• However, if we could magically eliminate media bias, then the PQ of the average voter would decrease to approximately 25 or 30.
• In our current world, where views have been distorted left, news outlets like the Washington Times and Fox News’ Special Report seem conservative. However, if we could remove the leftwing bias of the media as a whole—and thus change the average voter’s PQ to 25 or 30—then the Washington Times and Special Report would seem slightly left-leaning.
From Left Turn by Tim Groseclose, PhD. Copyright © 2011 by the author and reprinted by kind permission of St. Martin’s Press, LLC. All rights reserved.
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2011/07/left-turn-a-preface.php
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Welcome to Jimmy Carter's 2nd term - Washington Times
HURT: Welcome to Jimmy Carter's 2nd term - Washington Times
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By Charles Hurt
It has taken three decades, but Americans are finally living through Jimmy Carter's second term.
Now we've got Jimmy Jr. barking at us from the White House about eating our peas and ripping off our Band-Aid. He might not even let us have our Social Security checks.
These are just the latest in a long line of nagging lectures. Already, we have been taught how we should sneeze into the crook of our arm. We need to drive less. And we need to caulk up those drafty houses of ours.
What ever happened to the soaring rhetoric and big bold ideas President Obama promised us in that historic election of his?
Is this what he meant by a new kind of politics? If so, no thanks. Oh, and it is not new. Jimmy already dragged us through all this once and we just barely survived it.
One of the most unpleasant things about Mr. Carter was the condescending disdain he could barely disguise for struggling Americans and their irritating malaise.
Increasingly, Jimmy Jr. is having difficulty concealing that very same disdain for us as the political winds around him turn hostile and all of his bright ideas lie fallow as nothing more than socialist hocus-pocus.
But even Mr. Carter never laid bare so baldly and plainly as Mr. Obama did earlier this week his deep-seated contempt for this whole annoying process we call "democracy."
The problem with reaching a deal to raise the debt ceiling, he explained in a long sermon, is that there is this huge wave of Republicans who won control of the House in the last election by promising not to raise any more taxes and to cut the absurd overspending that has driven this town for decades.
He bemoaned - in public - that these Republicans are more concerned about the "next election" rather than doing "what's right for the country." In other words, he is saying the honorable thing would be for these Republicans to ignore the expressed wishes of voters, break their campaign promises and raise taxes. Wow.
As if the whole problem of Washington spending us into oblivion is the fault of stingy taxpayers and stupid voters. And what we really need is Jimmy Jr., who knows what is best for us despite what we may think.
Continuing his lecture, Mr. Obama then complained about America's "political process, where folks are rewarded for saying irresponsible things to win elections."
How did this man get past sixth-grade social studies, much less Iowa?
When Mr. Obama finished his sermon about the contemptible Republicans keeping faith with their voters like a bunch of chumps, he then turned to his own intentions - and revealed even more of his contempt for us.
All this talk about "raising revenue" - the deceitful line he uses to describe raising taxes - has been most unhelpful, he said. "I want to be crystal clear," he said. "Nobody has talked about increasing taxes now. Nobody has talked about increasing taxes next year."
So when would these tax hikes that he is demanding take effect?
In 2013, well after Mr. Obama must face voters for re-election.
Lucky for us, it appears more and more unlikely every day that we will have to suffer through a third term of Jimmy Carter's.
• Charlie Hurt's column appears Wednesdays. He can be reached at charleshurt@live.com.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/jul/12/hurt-welcome-to-jimmy-carters-2nd-term/?page=all#pagebreak
By Charles Hurt
It has taken three decades, but Americans are finally living through Jimmy Carter's second term.
Now we've got Jimmy Jr. barking at us from the White House about eating our peas and ripping off our Band-Aid. He might not even let us have our Social Security checks.
These are just the latest in a long line of nagging lectures. Already, we have been taught how we should sneeze into the crook of our arm. We need to drive less. And we need to caulk up those drafty houses of ours.
What ever happened to the soaring rhetoric and big bold ideas President Obama promised us in that historic election of his?
Is this what he meant by a new kind of politics? If so, no thanks. Oh, and it is not new. Jimmy already dragged us through all this once and we just barely survived it.
One of the most unpleasant things about Mr. Carter was the condescending disdain he could barely disguise for struggling Americans and their irritating malaise.
Increasingly, Jimmy Jr. is having difficulty concealing that very same disdain for us as the political winds around him turn hostile and all of his bright ideas lie fallow as nothing more than socialist hocus-pocus.
But even Mr. Carter never laid bare so baldly and plainly as Mr. Obama did earlier this week his deep-seated contempt for this whole annoying process we call "democracy."
The problem with reaching a deal to raise the debt ceiling, he explained in a long sermon, is that there is this huge wave of Republicans who won control of the House in the last election by promising not to raise any more taxes and to cut the absurd overspending that has driven this town for decades.
He bemoaned - in public - that these Republicans are more concerned about the "next election" rather than doing "what's right for the country." In other words, he is saying the honorable thing would be for these Republicans to ignore the expressed wishes of voters, break their campaign promises and raise taxes. Wow.
As if the whole problem of Washington spending us into oblivion is the fault of stingy taxpayers and stupid voters. And what we really need is Jimmy Jr., who knows what is best for us despite what we may think.
Continuing his lecture, Mr. Obama then complained about America's "political process, where folks are rewarded for saying irresponsible things to win elections."
How did this man get past sixth-grade social studies, much less Iowa?
When Mr. Obama finished his sermon about the contemptible Republicans keeping faith with their voters like a bunch of chumps, he then turned to his own intentions - and revealed even more of his contempt for us.
All this talk about "raising revenue" - the deceitful line he uses to describe raising taxes - has been most unhelpful, he said. "I want to be crystal clear," he said. "Nobody has talked about increasing taxes now. Nobody has talked about increasing taxes next year."
So when would these tax hikes that he is demanding take effect?
In 2013, well after Mr. Obama must face voters for re-election.
Lucky for us, it appears more and more unlikely every day that we will have to suffer through a third term of Jimmy Carter's.
• Charlie Hurt's column appears Wednesdays. He can be reached at charleshurt@live.com.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/jul/12/hurt-welcome-to-jimmy-carters-2nd-term/?page=all#pagebreak
Gloomy Goldman Sachs sees high unemployment, possible recession
Panic at the White House? Gloomy Goldman Sachs sees high unemployment, possible recession
by James Pethokoukis
Last night in a new report, Democrat-friendly Goldman Sachs dropped an economic bomb on President Obama’s chances for reelection:
Following another week of weak economic data, we have cut our estimates for real GDP growth in the second and third quarter of 2011 to 1.5% and 2.5%, respectively, from 2% and 3.25%. Our forecasts for Q4 and 2012 are under review, but even excluding any further changes we now expect the unemployment rate to come down only modestly to 8¾% at the end of 2012.
The main reason for the downgrade is that the high-frequency information on overall economic activity has continued to fall substantially short of our expectations. … Some of this weakness is undoubtedly related to the disruptions to the supply chain—specifically in the auto sector—following the East Japan earthquake. By our estimates, this disruption has subtracted around ½ percentage point from second-quarter GDP growth. We expect this hit to reverse fully in the next couple of months, and this could add ½ point to third-quarter GDP growth. Moreover, some of the hit from higher energy costs is probably also temporary, as crude prices are down on net over the past three months. But the slowdown of recent months goes well beyond what can be explained with these temporary effects. … final demand growth has slowed to a pace that is typically only seen in recessions. .. Moreover, if the economy returns to recession—not our forecast, but clearly a possibility given the recent numbers …
Alarms bells must be ringing all over Obamaland today. Unemployment on Election Day about where it is right now? Sputtering — if not stalling — economic growth? To many Americans that would sound like the car is back in the ditch — if it was ever out. Maybe Goldman is wrong, but economists across Wall Street have been growing more bearish.
And recall that back in August of 2009, the White House — after having a half year to view the economy and its $800 billion stimulus response — made an astoundingly optimistic forecast. Starting in 2011, with Obamanomics fully in gear and the recession over, growth would take off. GDP would rise 4.3 percent in 2011, followed by … 4.3 percent growth in 2012 and 2013, too! And 2014? Another year of 4.0 percent growth. Off to the races, America.
Even in its forecast earlier this year, Team Obama said it was looking for 3.5 percent GDP growth in 2012, followed by 4.4 percent in 2013, 4.3 percent in 2014.
Goldman Sachs doesn’t have to tell you things are bad. I don’t have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad. Unemployment is at 9.2 percent (11.4 percent if the official labor force hadn’t collapsed since 2008 and 16.2 percent if you include discouraged and underemployed workers.) Moreover, the economy grew at just 1.9 percent in the first quarter of this year and may have grown less than 2 percent in the second. Wages and income are going nowhere fast.
When will the White House signal a change of economic direction? Will cutting tax rates and regulation ever make it on the agenda? That may be the only way Obama can win another term. And time is running short.
http://blogs.reuters.com/james-pethokoukis/2011/07/16/panic-at-the-white-house-gloomy-goldman-sachs-sees-high-unemployment-possible-recession/
by James Pethokoukis
Last night in a new report, Democrat-friendly Goldman Sachs dropped an economic bomb on President Obama’s chances for reelection:
Following another week of weak economic data, we have cut our estimates for real GDP growth in the second and third quarter of 2011 to 1.5% and 2.5%, respectively, from 2% and 3.25%. Our forecasts for Q4 and 2012 are under review, but even excluding any further changes we now expect the unemployment rate to come down only modestly to 8¾% at the end of 2012.
The main reason for the downgrade is that the high-frequency information on overall economic activity has continued to fall substantially short of our expectations. … Some of this weakness is undoubtedly related to the disruptions to the supply chain—specifically in the auto sector—following the East Japan earthquake. By our estimates, this disruption has subtracted around ½ percentage point from second-quarter GDP growth. We expect this hit to reverse fully in the next couple of months, and this could add ½ point to third-quarter GDP growth. Moreover, some of the hit from higher energy costs is probably also temporary, as crude prices are down on net over the past three months. But the slowdown of recent months goes well beyond what can be explained with these temporary effects. … final demand growth has slowed to a pace that is typically only seen in recessions. .. Moreover, if the economy returns to recession—not our forecast, but clearly a possibility given the recent numbers …
Alarms bells must be ringing all over Obamaland today. Unemployment on Election Day about where it is right now? Sputtering — if not stalling — economic growth? To many Americans that would sound like the car is back in the ditch — if it was ever out. Maybe Goldman is wrong, but economists across Wall Street have been growing more bearish.
And recall that back in August of 2009, the White House — after having a half year to view the economy and its $800 billion stimulus response — made an astoundingly optimistic forecast. Starting in 2011, with Obamanomics fully in gear and the recession over, growth would take off. GDP would rise 4.3 percent in 2011, followed by … 4.3 percent growth in 2012 and 2013, too! And 2014? Another year of 4.0 percent growth. Off to the races, America.
Even in its forecast earlier this year, Team Obama said it was looking for 3.5 percent GDP growth in 2012, followed by 4.4 percent in 2013, 4.3 percent in 2014.
Goldman Sachs doesn’t have to tell you things are bad. I don’t have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad. Unemployment is at 9.2 percent (11.4 percent if the official labor force hadn’t collapsed since 2008 and 16.2 percent if you include discouraged and underemployed workers.) Moreover, the economy grew at just 1.9 percent in the first quarter of this year and may have grown less than 2 percent in the second. Wages and income are going nowhere fast.
When will the White House signal a change of economic direction? Will cutting tax rates and regulation ever make it on the agenda? That may be the only way Obama can win another term. And time is running short.
http://blogs.reuters.com/james-pethokoukis/2011/07/16/panic-at-the-white-house-gloomy-goldman-sachs-sees-high-unemployment-possible-recession/
"Republican Candidate" Extends Lead vs. Obama to 47% to 39%
"Republican Candidate" Extends Lead vs. Obama to 47% to 39%
Margin marks first statistically significant lead among registered voters by Jeffrey M. Jones
PRINCETON, NJ -- Registered voters by a significant margin now say they are more likely to vote for the "Republican Party's candidate for president" than for President Barack Obama in the 2012 election, 47% to 39%. Preferences had been fairly evenly divided this year in this test of Obama's re-election prospects.
(Use link to see charts at Gallup)
The latest results are based on a July 7-10 poll, and show that the Republican has an edge for the second consecutive month. Obama held a slight edge in May, when his approval rating increased after the death of Osama bin Laden. As his rating has come back down during the last two months, so has his standing on the presidential "generic ballot."
Gallup typically uses this question format when a president is seeking re-election but his likely opponent is unknown, as was the case in 1991-1992 and 2003-2004, when incumbents George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush, respectively, were seeking re-election.
The elder Bush held large leads over his generic Democratic opponent throughout 1991, but early 1992 preferences were more evenly divided and Bush eventually lost his re-election bid. The younger Bush also consistently maintained at least a small advantage over the Democrat throughout 2003, before winning re-election in a close contest in November 2004.
Thus, the results more than a year ahead of the election do not have a large degree of predictive ability, and underscore that things can change greatly in the final year or more before an election.
Both Bushes had higher job approval ratings in the year before their re-election contests than Obama does now, helping explain why Obama has fared less well on the generic ballot in the year prior to the election year. George H.W. Bush's approval rating in July 1991 averaged 71%, while George W. Bush's July 2003 average was 60%. Obama's latest weekly average is 46%.
Obama Trailing Among Independent Voters
Independent registered voters are currently more likely to vote for the Republican candidate (44%) than for Obama (34%), though one in five do not have an opinion. Republicans and Democrats show strong party loyalty in their vote choices, with Republicans showing somewhat stronger loyalty.
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Independents' preferences are similar to what Gallup measured last month, while Republicans' support for the Republican candidate has increased slightly.
Implications
President Obama's re-election prospects do not look very favorable at this point -- if the election were held today, as measured by the generic presidential ballot. However, that result does not necessarily mean he is likely to be denied a second term in November 2012. At this point in 1991, George H.W. Bush looked like a sure bet to win a second term, but he was defeated.
One key factor in determining Obama's eventual electoral fate is whom the Republican Party nominates as its presidential candidate and the appeal that person has compared with Obama. Mitt Romney is the presumptive front-runner, but Americans have generally not held very positive opinions of him the last few years.
The state of the nation will also influence whether Obama is elected to a second term. Right now, Americans are especially dissatisfied with the way things are going in this country, and economic confidence is lagging.
However, the political environment can certainly change in the 16 months leading up to the election, something that occurred during the 1984 and 1996 election cycles (in the incumbent's favor) and 1992 cycle (in the opponent's favor) when incumbent presidents were seeking re-election.
Track every angle of the presidential race on Gallup.com's Election 2012 page.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/148487/Republican-Candidate-Extends-Lead-Obama.aspx
Margin marks first statistically significant lead among registered voters by Jeffrey M. Jones
PRINCETON, NJ -- Registered voters by a significant margin now say they are more likely to vote for the "Republican Party's candidate for president" than for President Barack Obama in the 2012 election, 47% to 39%. Preferences had been fairly evenly divided this year in this test of Obama's re-election prospects.
(Use link to see charts at Gallup)
The latest results are based on a July 7-10 poll, and show that the Republican has an edge for the second consecutive month. Obama held a slight edge in May, when his approval rating increased after the death of Osama bin Laden. As his rating has come back down during the last two months, so has his standing on the presidential "generic ballot."
Gallup typically uses this question format when a president is seeking re-election but his likely opponent is unknown, as was the case in 1991-1992 and 2003-2004, when incumbents George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush, respectively, were seeking re-election.
The elder Bush held large leads over his generic Democratic opponent throughout 1991, but early 1992 preferences were more evenly divided and Bush eventually lost his re-election bid. The younger Bush also consistently maintained at least a small advantage over the Democrat throughout 2003, before winning re-election in a close contest in November 2004.
Thus, the results more than a year ahead of the election do not have a large degree of predictive ability, and underscore that things can change greatly in the final year or more before an election.
Both Bushes had higher job approval ratings in the year before their re-election contests than Obama does now, helping explain why Obama has fared less well on the generic ballot in the year prior to the election year. George H.W. Bush's approval rating in July 1991 averaged 71%, while George W. Bush's July 2003 average was 60%. Obama's latest weekly average is 46%.
Obama Trailing Among Independent Voters
Independent registered voters are currently more likely to vote for the Republican candidate (44%) than for Obama (34%), though one in five do not have an opinion. Republicans and Democrats show strong party loyalty in their vote choices, with Republicans showing somewhat stronger loyalty.
Independents' preferences are similar to what Gallup measured last month, while Republicans' support for the Republican candidate has increased slightly.
Implications
President Obama's re-election prospects do not look very favorable at this point -- if the election were held today, as measured by the generic presidential ballot. However, that result does not necessarily mean he is likely to be denied a second term in November 2012. At this point in 1991, George H.W. Bush looked like a sure bet to win a second term, but he was defeated.
One key factor in determining Obama's eventual electoral fate is whom the Republican Party nominates as its presidential candidate and the appeal that person has compared with Obama. Mitt Romney is the presumptive front-runner, but Americans have generally not held very positive opinions of him the last few years.
The state of the nation will also influence whether Obama is elected to a second term. Right now, Americans are especially dissatisfied with the way things are going in this country, and economic confidence is lagging.
However, the political environment can certainly change in the 16 months leading up to the election, something that occurred during the 1984 and 1996 election cycles (in the incumbent's favor) and 1992 cycle (in the opponent's favor) when incumbent presidents were seeking re-election.
Track every angle of the presidential race on Gallup.com's Election 2012 page.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/148487/Republican-Candidate-Extends-Lead-Obama.aspx
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
Who Is Winning the Political Debt Battle?
Who Is Winning the Political Debt Battle? by by John Hinderaker/Powerline
The liberal media are in full-spin mode, trying to promote President Obama’s position in his battle with Congressional Republicans over the debt limit. That assumes, of course, that Obama has a position. The only tangible proposal he has put forward was his FY 2012 budget, which was greeted with snickers and failed to garner a single vote in the United States Senate.
But that is a subject for another day. The fact that they have no answer to the question that Marco Rubio posed to Bob Schieffer on Face the Nation yesterday–”where is the President’s plan?”–doesn’t deter liberal journalists from trying to do their duty toward their party. The real question is, have the administration, the Congressional Democrats and their media enablers succeeded in pulling the wool over the eyes of American voters?
The answer seems to be No. Despite the most hysterical efforts of the liberal media, a majority of Americans don’t want the debt limit increased. They understand that the problem we face is one of excessive government spending, and they are ready to start confronting the issue head-on. Other data from Rasmussen Reports tend toward the same conclusion.
First, President Obama’s standing with voters continues to be poor. His Approval Index, the difference between those who strongly approve and strongly disapprove of his performance, is in the pits at -18:
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For a long time, a plurality of American voters have believed that Obama is doing an awful job. The debt ceiling debate hasn’t changed their opinion.
Second, in the generic Congressional preference poll, the GOP continues to hold a meaningful lead over the Democrats, 44-38. The public’s preference for Republican over Democratic candidates hasn’t wavered, notwithstanding the outpouring of hysteria from the leftist media.
All in all, poll data suggest that Republicans are winning the debt limit debate, and that they should not succumb to inside-the-beltway panic.
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2011/07/who-is-winning-the-political-debt-battle.php
The liberal media are in full-spin mode, trying to promote President Obama’s position in his battle with Congressional Republicans over the debt limit. That assumes, of course, that Obama has a position. The only tangible proposal he has put forward was his FY 2012 budget, which was greeted with snickers and failed to garner a single vote in the United States Senate.
But that is a subject for another day. The fact that they have no answer to the question that Marco Rubio posed to Bob Schieffer on Face the Nation yesterday–”where is the President’s plan?”–doesn’t deter liberal journalists from trying to do their duty toward their party. The real question is, have the administration, the Congressional Democrats and their media enablers succeeded in pulling the wool over the eyes of American voters?
The answer seems to be No. Despite the most hysterical efforts of the liberal media, a majority of Americans don’t want the debt limit increased. They understand that the problem we face is one of excessive government spending, and they are ready to start confronting the issue head-on. Other data from Rasmussen Reports tend toward the same conclusion.
First, President Obama’s standing with voters continues to be poor. His Approval Index, the difference between those who strongly approve and strongly disapprove of his performance, is in the pits at -18:
Second, in the generic Congressional preference poll, the GOP continues to hold a meaningful lead over the Democrats, 44-38. The public’s preference for Republican over Democratic candidates hasn’t wavered, notwithstanding the outpouring of hysteria from the leftist media.
All in all, poll data suggest that Republicans are winning the debt limit debate, and that they should not succumb to inside-the-beltway panic.
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2011/07/who-is-winning-the-political-debt-battle.php
55% Oppose Tax Hike In Debt Ceiling Deal
55% Oppose Tax Hike In Debt Ceiling Deal
As the Beltway politicians try to figure out how they will raise the debt ceiling and for how long, most voters oppose including tax hikes in the deal.
Just 34% think a tax hike should be included in any legislation to raise the debt ceiling. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 55% disagree and say it should not. (To see survey question wording, click here.)
There is a huge partisan divide on the question. Fifty-eight percent (58%) of Democrats want a tax hike in the deal while 82% of Republicans do not. Among those not affiliated with either major political party, 35% favor a tax hike and 51% are opposed.
Americans who earn more than $75,000 a year are evenly divided as to whether a tax hike should be included in the debt ceiling deal. Those who earn less are opposed to including tax hikes.
Voters remain very concerned about the debt ceiling issue. Sixty-nine percent (69%) believe that it would be bad for the economy if a failure to raise the debt ceiling led to government defaults. Only 6% believe it would be good for theeconomy. Fourteen percent (14%) believe it would have no impact and 11% are notsure. These figures are little changed from a few weeks ago.
At the same time, however, 52% believe it would beeven more dangerous to raise the debt ceiling without making significant cuts in government spending. Thirty-seven percent (37%) take the opposite view and believe a government default would be more dangerous.
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/business/taxes/july_2011/55_oppose_tax_hike_in_debt_ceiling_deal
As the Beltway politicians try to figure out how they will raise the debt ceiling and for how long, most voters oppose including tax hikes in the deal.
Just 34% think a tax hike should be included in any legislation to raise the debt ceiling. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 55% disagree and say it should not. (To see survey question wording, click here.)
There is a huge partisan divide on the question. Fifty-eight percent (58%) of Democrats want a tax hike in the deal while 82% of Republicans do not. Among those not affiliated with either major political party, 35% favor a tax hike and 51% are opposed.
Americans who earn more than $75,000 a year are evenly divided as to whether a tax hike should be included in the debt ceiling deal. Those who earn less are opposed to including tax hikes.
Voters remain very concerned about the debt ceiling issue. Sixty-nine percent (69%) believe that it would be bad for the economy if a failure to raise the debt ceiling led to government defaults. Only 6% believe it would be good for theeconomy. Fourteen percent (14%) believe it would have no impact and 11% are notsure. These figures are little changed from a few weeks ago.
At the same time, however, 52% believe it would beeven more dangerous to raise the debt ceiling without making significant cuts in government spending. Thirty-seven percent (37%) take the opposite view and believe a government default would be more dangerous.
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/business/taxes/july_2011/55_oppose_tax_hike_in_debt_ceiling_deal
Top 3 U.S. Oil Companies Paid $42.8 Billion in Income Taxes in 2010
Top 3 U.S. Oil Companies Paid $42.8 Billion in Income Taxes in 2010 By Jarod McHenry
(CNSNews.com) – In commenting on the talks about deficit reduction and raising the federal debt limit, President Barack Obama said he wanted to eliminate tax deductions for oil and gas companies “that are making hundreds of billions of dollars.” However, he did not mention that the top three U.S. oil companies alone paid $42.8 billion in income taxes in 2010, according to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
At his June 29 press conference at the White House, Obama said, “There’s been a lot of discussion about revenues and raising taxes in recent weeks, so I want to be clear about what we’re proposing here. I spent the last two years cutting taxes for ordinary Americans, and I want to extend those middle-class tax cuts. The tax cuts I’m proposing we get rid of are tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires, tax breaks for oil companies and hedge fund managers and corporate jet owners.”
“[I]f if we choose to keep tax breaks for oil and gas companies that are making hundreds of billions of dollars, then that means we’ve got to cut some kids off from getting a college scholarship,” said Obama. “I think it’s only fair to ask an oil company or a corporate jet owner that has done so well to give up a tax break that no other business enjoys.”
The top three oil companies in the United States are ExxonMobil, ConocoPhillips and Chevron. According to the SEC filings of those companies, as analyzed by Forbes, ExxonMobil’s pretax income in 2010 was $52 billion, from which it paid $21.6 billion in income taxes worldwide, leaving a net income of $30.5 billion. That equals a tax rate of 45 percent, which is 10 percent above the statutory corporate rate of 35 percent.
ConocoPhillips earned $19.8 billion in pretax income in 2010 and it paid $8.3 billion in taxes, leaving $11.4 billion in income. That equals a tax rate of 42 percent. Chevron made $32 billion and then paid $12.9 billion in income taxes, leaving a net income of $19.1 billion, which equals a tax rate of 40 percent.
ExxonMobil’s total tax bill, worldwide, was $89 billion in 2010, comprised mostly of sales and excise taxes. ConocoPhillips, for comparison, paid an additional $16.8 billion in “other taxes” beyond its income taxes, reported Forbes, and Chevron paid an additional $18.2 billion in “other taxes” in 2010.
According to the American Petroleum Institute (API), oil and natural gas companies employ 9.2 million Americans and account for 7.5 percent of GDP. Those companies added about 2 million jobs to the economy between 2204 and 2007. As of 2010, the five largest American oil companies employed a combined 245,390 people.
The API further reported that in 2010, oil and natural gas companies averaged a net profit of 5.7 cents per dollar of income. Also, an average of 49.5 cents of every dollar oil companies made in 2010 went to income taxes.
Gulf Coast oil workers listen to Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal in Houma, La., on June 24, 2010. Gov. Jindal spoke against the six-month moratorium on deepwater drilling, saying it would kill thousands of Louisiana jobs. (AP File Photo/Gregory Bull)
According to a May 2011 report by the accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers, the 9.2 million American jobs supported by the oil and natural gas industry translates into 5.3 percent of U.S. employment. Some of those industry jobs include 900,000 in California; 275,000 in Pennsylvania; and approximately 250,000 in New York.
The oil and gas industry also generates $533.5 billion in labor income, which equals about 6 percent of U.S. labor income, according to the study. The value added to the U.S. economy by the oil and natural gas industry is $1.1 trillion (7.7 percent of GDP), according to PricewaterhouseCoopers.
In 2010, the oil and gas industry spent roughly $275 billion on capital projects and since 2000, the industry has invested $2 trillion in American capital projects in resource exploration, acquisition, research and alternative energy moving America towards energy independence and cleaner energy, according to API.
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/top-3-us-oil-companies-paid-428-billion
(CNSNews.com) – In commenting on the talks about deficit reduction and raising the federal debt limit, President Barack Obama said he wanted to eliminate tax deductions for oil and gas companies “that are making hundreds of billions of dollars.” However, he did not mention that the top three U.S. oil companies alone paid $42.8 billion in income taxes in 2010, according to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
At his June 29 press conference at the White House, Obama said, “There’s been a lot of discussion about revenues and raising taxes in recent weeks, so I want to be clear about what we’re proposing here. I spent the last two years cutting taxes for ordinary Americans, and I want to extend those middle-class tax cuts. The tax cuts I’m proposing we get rid of are tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires, tax breaks for oil companies and hedge fund managers and corporate jet owners.”
“[I]f if we choose to keep tax breaks for oil and gas companies that are making hundreds of billions of dollars, then that means we’ve got to cut some kids off from getting a college scholarship,” said Obama. “I think it’s only fair to ask an oil company or a corporate jet owner that has done so well to give up a tax break that no other business enjoys.”
The top three oil companies in the United States are ExxonMobil, ConocoPhillips and Chevron. According to the SEC filings of those companies, as analyzed by Forbes, ExxonMobil’s pretax income in 2010 was $52 billion, from which it paid $21.6 billion in income taxes worldwide, leaving a net income of $30.5 billion. That equals a tax rate of 45 percent, which is 10 percent above the statutory corporate rate of 35 percent.
ConocoPhillips earned $19.8 billion in pretax income in 2010 and it paid $8.3 billion in taxes, leaving $11.4 billion in income. That equals a tax rate of 42 percent. Chevron made $32 billion and then paid $12.9 billion in income taxes, leaving a net income of $19.1 billion, which equals a tax rate of 40 percent.
ExxonMobil’s total tax bill, worldwide, was $89 billion in 2010, comprised mostly of sales and excise taxes. ConocoPhillips, for comparison, paid an additional $16.8 billion in “other taxes” beyond its income taxes, reported Forbes, and Chevron paid an additional $18.2 billion in “other taxes” in 2010.
According to the American Petroleum Institute (API), oil and natural gas companies employ 9.2 million Americans and account for 7.5 percent of GDP. Those companies added about 2 million jobs to the economy between 2204 and 2007. As of 2010, the five largest American oil companies employed a combined 245,390 people.
The API further reported that in 2010, oil and natural gas companies averaged a net profit of 5.7 cents per dollar of income. Also, an average of 49.5 cents of every dollar oil companies made in 2010 went to income taxes.
Gulf Coast oil workers listen to Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal in Houma, La., on June 24, 2010. Gov. Jindal spoke against the six-month moratorium on deepwater drilling, saying it would kill thousands of Louisiana jobs. (AP File Photo/Gregory Bull)
According to a May 2011 report by the accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers, the 9.2 million American jobs supported by the oil and natural gas industry translates into 5.3 percent of U.S. employment. Some of those industry jobs include 900,000 in California; 275,000 in Pennsylvania; and approximately 250,000 in New York.
The oil and gas industry also generates $533.5 billion in labor income, which equals about 6 percent of U.S. labor income, according to the study. The value added to the U.S. economy by the oil and natural gas industry is $1.1 trillion (7.7 percent of GDP), according to PricewaterhouseCoopers.
In 2010, the oil and gas industry spent roughly $275 billion on capital projects and since 2000, the industry has invested $2 trillion in American capital projects in resource exploration, acquisition, research and alternative energy moving America towards energy independence and cleaner energy, according to API.
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/top-3-us-oil-companies-paid-428-billion
Monday, July 18, 2011
Do we really have a revenue problem?
Do we really have a revenue problem? by Ed Morrissey
Over the last couple of days, we’ve had a good debate at Hot Air over the nature of our fiscal crisis between Jazz Shaw, and J. E. Dyer, and me. At least we all recognize that we have a fiscal crisis; some members of Congress and “intellectual authorities” (with interesting if unreported conflicts of interest) still act as though nothing at all is wrong. My friend Jazz wrote yesterday that we have a revenue problem as well as a spending problem in answer to my post rebutting David Brooks’ column, so let’s take a look at federal revenue to see whether Jazz’ contention holds up.
The Heritage Foundation provides this chart of federal revenue over the last 50 years in inflation-adjusted 2010 dollars, and the data is pretty clear that we have a recession problem, not a revenue problem:
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Take a look at the trends here, again remembering that the data is all in 2010 dollars. In fifty years, we have tripled overall federal revenue, and prior to the current recession/stagnation we had quadrupled it. The current trough from the 2007 peak resulted from the fall in economic activity, not from tax cuts or any other intervention. It’s similar to what happened in the prior trough, when the 2000-1 recession and the 9/11 attacks cut economic activity through 2003.
For that matter, look what happened to federal revenue after the much-maligned Bush tax cuts took full effect in 2003. Economic activity expanded rapidly — and so did federal revenues. In fact, the economy during that period boomed, and receipts from both personal and corporate taxes peaked as a result. The Bush tax rates, as they are properly called today, did not create a revenue vacuum; they helped produce an expansion that enhanced rather than lost revenue.
Now, let’s put the data in this chart with one showing the rate of spending in inflation-adjusted 2010 dollars:
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While revenues have tripled during this period, federal spending has more than quintupled. The economic expansion of the 1990s (including the dot-com bubble) temporarily raised revenue above the spending trendline, but the slope on spending increased in the early 2000s, and practically launched spaceward in 2007 when Democrats took control of Congress. Had spending increased at a rate of inflation from 2001 forward, we would probably not been in deficit at all. Had it stayed at the rate of inflation from 2006 forward, we’d probably be looking at historically average deficits in terms of GDP. But the chart shows very, very clearly that we have a recession problem combined with both a short- and long-term problem with expanding federal budgets — and the latter is the reason why we have a fiscal crisis, not some presumed revenue starvation.
It’s true that most of that spending problem comes from entitlements. That’s why Republicans have focused their efforts on that sector of the federal budget, and not on hiking taxes. The GOP wants to attack the recession problem by rolling back the regulatory adventurism of the Obama administration, especially in ObamaCare and at the EPA, in order to stimulate the economy and recover the revenue that we’re losing in the recession/stagflation period. Raising taxes will have the opposite effect, and as we have seen any number of times, will not produce the revenues estimated by tax-hike advocates using static tax analysis.
Let’s confront the real problem in our fiscal crisis, and not make the recession crisis any worse than it already is.
http://hotair.com/archives/2011/07/07/do-we-really-have-a-revenue-problem/
Over the last couple of days, we’ve had a good debate at Hot Air over the nature of our fiscal crisis between Jazz Shaw, and J. E. Dyer, and me. At least we all recognize that we have a fiscal crisis; some members of Congress and “intellectual authorities” (with interesting if unreported conflicts of interest) still act as though nothing at all is wrong. My friend Jazz wrote yesterday that we have a revenue problem as well as a spending problem in answer to my post rebutting David Brooks’ column, so let’s take a look at federal revenue to see whether Jazz’ contention holds up.
The Heritage Foundation provides this chart of federal revenue over the last 50 years in inflation-adjusted 2010 dollars, and the data is pretty clear that we have a recession problem, not a revenue problem:
Take a look at the trends here, again remembering that the data is all in 2010 dollars. In fifty years, we have tripled overall federal revenue, and prior to the current recession/stagnation we had quadrupled it. The current trough from the 2007 peak resulted from the fall in economic activity, not from tax cuts or any other intervention. It’s similar to what happened in the prior trough, when the 2000-1 recession and the 9/11 attacks cut economic activity through 2003.
For that matter, look what happened to federal revenue after the much-maligned Bush tax cuts took full effect in 2003. Economic activity expanded rapidly — and so did federal revenues. In fact, the economy during that period boomed, and receipts from both personal and corporate taxes peaked as a result. The Bush tax rates, as they are properly called today, did not create a revenue vacuum; they helped produce an expansion that enhanced rather than lost revenue.
Now, let’s put the data in this chart with one showing the rate of spending in inflation-adjusted 2010 dollars:
While revenues have tripled during this period, federal spending has more than quintupled. The economic expansion of the 1990s (including the dot-com bubble) temporarily raised revenue above the spending trendline, but the slope on spending increased in the early 2000s, and practically launched spaceward in 2007 when Democrats took control of Congress. Had spending increased at a rate of inflation from 2001 forward, we would probably not been in deficit at all. Had it stayed at the rate of inflation from 2006 forward, we’d probably be looking at historically average deficits in terms of GDP. But the chart shows very, very clearly that we have a recession problem combined with both a short- and long-term problem with expanding federal budgets — and the latter is the reason why we have a fiscal crisis, not some presumed revenue starvation.
It’s true that most of that spending problem comes from entitlements. That’s why Republicans have focused their efforts on that sector of the federal budget, and not on hiking taxes. The GOP wants to attack the recession problem by rolling back the regulatory adventurism of the Obama administration, especially in ObamaCare and at the EPA, in order to stimulate the economy and recover the revenue that we’re losing in the recession/stagflation period. Raising taxes will have the opposite effect, and as we have seen any number of times, will not produce the revenues estimated by tax-hike advocates using static tax analysis.
Let’s confront the real problem in our fiscal crisis, and not make the recession crisis any worse than it already is.
http://hotair.com/archives/2011/07/07/do-we-really-have-a-revenue-problem/
Romney's Right: It Is Worse Now
Romney's Right: It Is Worse Now - Investors.com
Romney's Right: It Is Worse Now
The Obama administration recently created a new White House post charged with rapidly responding to unfavorable stories. They could have spared the taxpayers $72,500, since the mainstream press is already doing that job free of charge.
A case in point is the media's rapid and fierce response to Mitt Romney's claim that President Obama's economic policies have made the country worse off. Rather than investigate the claim, they've made it their mission to debunk it.
Reporters are challenging Romney at every stop, demanding that he square his talking point with the fact that, gosh, GDP is growing and the number of workers with jobs seems to be growing, too. And, look, the stock market is higher than when Obama took office. And so, too, are corporate profits. What right does he have to make such outlandish claims?
But — can you believe it? — Romney won't stop! CBS News' latest dispatch even complained in the headline that "Romney repeats disputed charge, says again that Obama made recession worse." Sure, they noted, the economic numbers "aren't stellar" but they "clearly paint a picture that shows improvement from a very weak starting point." So there.
To be sure, Romney muddied his message a bit, seeming to backtrack at one point in response to a reporter challenging his claim. And, to be completely accurate, Obama hasn't made the recession worse, since it was almost over by the time he got into office and before any of his policies had a chance to make a real impact.
But it's clear he's made the recovery worse. And there are, in fact, many economic indicators that are demonstrably worse since Obama took office. Here are a few we've noted in this space before:
There are 2 million fewer private-sector jobs now than when Obama was sworn in, and the unemployment rate is 1.5 percentage points higher.
• There are now more long-term unemployed than at any time since the government started keeping records.
• The number of Americans on food stamps has climbed 37%.
• The Misery Index (unemployment plus inflation) is up 62%.
• And the national debt is about 40% higher than it was in January 2009.
In fact, reporters who bother to look will discover that Obama has managed to produce the worst recovery on record.
By this point in the Reagan recovery after the 1981-82 recession, for example, unemployment had been knocked down to 7.4% from a peak of 10.8%, and quarterly GDP growth averaged a screaming 7%.
Under Obama's recovery, we're stuck with 9.1% unemployment, and an economy that's managed to eke out an average of just 2.8% growth since the recession ended two years ago.
Meanwhile, 70% of small businesses report that they've delayed hiring thanks to economic uncertainties, and more than three-quarters say the country is still in a recession.
And a forthcoming report by Stanford University economist John Taylor finds that the stimulus was a bust, noting that while backers claim the economy "would have been worse" had Obama not stepped in, "the results do not support that view."
Even the Wall Street Journal's news pages — which can hardly be described as right wing — have managed to discover what's been going on. "Across a wide range of measures," the paper noted, "the economy's improvement since the recession's end in June 2009 has been the worst, or one of the worst, since the government started tracking these trends after World War II."
No doubt the rest of the news media are busy trying to explain this away, or blame it all on George W. Bush. But Romney would do himself, and the country, a lot of good by sticking to his message. Whatever the media might think, at least it has the virtue of being true.
http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=577501
Romney's Right: It Is Worse Now
The Obama administration recently created a new White House post charged with rapidly responding to unfavorable stories. They could have spared the taxpayers $72,500, since the mainstream press is already doing that job free of charge.
A case in point is the media's rapid and fierce response to Mitt Romney's claim that President Obama's economic policies have made the country worse off. Rather than investigate the claim, they've made it their mission to debunk it.
Reporters are challenging Romney at every stop, demanding that he square his talking point with the fact that, gosh, GDP is growing and the number of workers with jobs seems to be growing, too. And, look, the stock market is higher than when Obama took office. And so, too, are corporate profits. What right does he have to make such outlandish claims?
But — can you believe it? — Romney won't stop! CBS News' latest dispatch even complained in the headline that "Romney repeats disputed charge, says again that Obama made recession worse." Sure, they noted, the economic numbers "aren't stellar" but they "clearly paint a picture that shows improvement from a very weak starting point." So there.
To be sure, Romney muddied his message a bit, seeming to backtrack at one point in response to a reporter challenging his claim. And, to be completely accurate, Obama hasn't made the recession worse, since it was almost over by the time he got into office and before any of his policies had a chance to make a real impact.
But it's clear he's made the recovery worse. And there are, in fact, many economic indicators that are demonstrably worse since Obama took office. Here are a few we've noted in this space before:
There are 2 million fewer private-sector jobs now than when Obama was sworn in, and the unemployment rate is 1.5 percentage points higher.
• There are now more long-term unemployed than at any time since the government started keeping records.
• The number of Americans on food stamps has climbed 37%.
• The Misery Index (unemployment plus inflation) is up 62%.
• And the national debt is about 40% higher than it was in January 2009.
In fact, reporters who bother to look will discover that Obama has managed to produce the worst recovery on record.
By this point in the Reagan recovery after the 1981-82 recession, for example, unemployment had been knocked down to 7.4% from a peak of 10.8%, and quarterly GDP growth averaged a screaming 7%.
Under Obama's recovery, we're stuck with 9.1% unemployment, and an economy that's managed to eke out an average of just 2.8% growth since the recession ended two years ago.
Meanwhile, 70% of small businesses report that they've delayed hiring thanks to economic uncertainties, and more than three-quarters say the country is still in a recession.
And a forthcoming report by Stanford University economist John Taylor finds that the stimulus was a bust, noting that while backers claim the economy "would have been worse" had Obama not stepped in, "the results do not support that view."
Even the Wall Street Journal's news pages — which can hardly be described as right wing — have managed to discover what's been going on. "Across a wide range of measures," the paper noted, "the economy's improvement since the recession's end in June 2009 has been the worst, or one of the worst, since the government started tracking these trends after World War II."
No doubt the rest of the news media are busy trying to explain this away, or blame it all on George W. Bush. But Romney would do himself, and the country, a lot of good by sticking to his message. Whatever the media might think, at least it has the virtue of being true.
http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=577501
Sunday, July 17, 2011
EPA Funds Green Groups That Sue The Agency To Expand
EPA Funds Greens That Sue It - Investors.com
EPA Funds Green Groups That Sue The Agency To Expand By JOHN MERLINE
New EPA rules will force Western coal-fired power plants to install haze-reducing pollution-control equipment at a cost of $1.5 billion a year.... View Enlarged Image
When the Environmental Protection Agency said in late June that it would force Western coal-fired power plants to install haze-reducing pollution-control equipment at a cost of $1.5 billion a year, it said it had to in order to settle a lawsuit by environmental groups.
One organization involved in the suit, the Environmental Defense Fund, has a long history of taking the EPA to court. In fact, a cursory review finds almost half a dozen cases in the past 10 years.
The odd thing is that the EPA, in turn, has handed EDF $2.76 million in grants over that same period, according to an IBD review of the agency's grant database.
This strange relationship goes well beyond EDF. Indeed, several environmental groups that have received millions in EPA grants regularly file suit against that same agency. A dozen green groups were responsible for more than 3,000 suits against the EPA and other government agencies over the past decade, according to a study by the Wyoming-based Budd-Falen Law Offices.
The EPA even tacitly encourages such suits, going so far as to pay for and promote a "Citizen's Guide" that, among other things, explains how to sue the agency under "citizen suit" provisions in environmental laws. The guide's author — the Environmental Law Institute — has received $9.9 million in EPA grants over the past decade.
And, to top it off, critics say the EPA often ends up paying the groups' legal fees under the Equal Access to Justice Act.
'Sweetheart Suits'
What's going on?
"The EPA isn't harmed by these suits," said Jeffrey Holmstead, who was an EPA official during the Bush administration. "Often the suits involve things the EPA wants to do anyway. By inviting a lawsuit and then signing a consent decree, the agency gets legal cover from political heat."
Holmstead called this kind of litigation "sweetheart suits."
He cites the EPA settlement of a greenhouse gas emissions suit as a good example.
The suit, filed in 2008 by EDF, the Natural Resources Defense Council (which has received $6.5 million in EPA grants since 2000), the Sierra Club and several states, sought to compel the EPA to issue greenhouse gas "performance standards" for power plants and refineries. In its settlement, the EPA agreed to do that.
"This is hard to describe as anything other than a victory for the states and the environmental plaintiffs," wrote Nathan Richardson of the nonpartisan think tank Resources for the Future in a paper. "By committing to performance standards in the settlement agreement, the agency is tying its own hands."
That sparked an outraged letter from House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., and Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., ranking member of the relevant Senate panel, who said the costly settlement was "concocted in secret" and that it was "entirely discretionary, no court ordered them."
The EPA and EDF did not respond to requests for comment.
Rep. Ed Whitfield, R-Ky., who heads the Energy and Commerce Committee's energy and power panel, warns that environmental policy is increasingly being "being determined by privately settled lawsuits and monetary payoffs with absolutely no input from elected representatives."
Other examples of EPA grantees suing the agency:
In 2005, several states and environmental groups — including EDF and NRDC, along with Physicians for Social Responsibility ($135,000 in an EPA grant) — sued the EPA claiming its mercury rule didn't go far enough. In 2008, the courts agreed. Now the EPA, under a court-supervised deadline negotiated by the EPA, the EDF and others, has until mid-November to complete rules cutting emissions of mercury and other toxins that the agency says will cost $11 billion a year.
• In 2006, EDF, the NRDC and others — including several states — sued the agency for its decision not to regulate carbon dioxide.
• In January 2009, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation filed suit claiming the EPA wasn't doing enough to clean the bay. That July, the EPA gave the foundation a $1.3 million grant to retrofit a dozen boats as part of the stimulus bill.
• Last year, the Pesticide Action Network ($238,000 in EPA grants) and the NRDC sued to force the agency to ban the pesticide chlorpyrifos.
• This May, the NRDC, Physicians for Social Responsibility and others announced plans to sue the EPA for failing to enforce smog standards in California.
Defenders of all this litigation say there's no connection between the grant money — which is for specific projects or programs — and the suits, and point out that these groups are simply trying to get the EPA to do what the law requires them to do.
But those suits could be less frequent if Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., has his way. His bill would deny environmental groups whose net worth exceeds $7 million from getting their legal fees paid for by the Equal Access to Justice Act. He'd also cap attorney fees at $175 an hour.
http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=577430&src=HPLNews
EPA Funds Green Groups That Sue The Agency To Expand By JOHN MERLINE
New EPA rules will force Western coal-fired power plants to install haze-reducing pollution-control equipment at a cost of $1.5 billion a year.... View Enlarged Image
When the Environmental Protection Agency said in late June that it would force Western coal-fired power plants to install haze-reducing pollution-control equipment at a cost of $1.5 billion a year, it said it had to in order to settle a lawsuit by environmental groups.
One organization involved in the suit, the Environmental Defense Fund, has a long history of taking the EPA to court. In fact, a cursory review finds almost half a dozen cases in the past 10 years.
The odd thing is that the EPA, in turn, has handed EDF $2.76 million in grants over that same period, according to an IBD review of the agency's grant database.
This strange relationship goes well beyond EDF. Indeed, several environmental groups that have received millions in EPA grants regularly file suit against that same agency. A dozen green groups were responsible for more than 3,000 suits against the EPA and other government agencies over the past decade, according to a study by the Wyoming-based Budd-Falen Law Offices.
The EPA even tacitly encourages such suits, going so far as to pay for and promote a "Citizen's Guide" that, among other things, explains how to sue the agency under "citizen suit" provisions in environmental laws. The guide's author — the Environmental Law Institute — has received $9.9 million in EPA grants over the past decade.
And, to top it off, critics say the EPA often ends up paying the groups' legal fees under the Equal Access to Justice Act.
'Sweetheart Suits'
What's going on?
"The EPA isn't harmed by these suits," said Jeffrey Holmstead, who was an EPA official during the Bush administration. "Often the suits involve things the EPA wants to do anyway. By inviting a lawsuit and then signing a consent decree, the agency gets legal cover from political heat."
Holmstead called this kind of litigation "sweetheart suits."
He cites the EPA settlement of a greenhouse gas emissions suit as a good example.
The suit, filed in 2008 by EDF, the Natural Resources Defense Council (which has received $6.5 million in EPA grants since 2000), the Sierra Club and several states, sought to compel the EPA to issue greenhouse gas "performance standards" for power plants and refineries. In its settlement, the EPA agreed to do that.
"This is hard to describe as anything other than a victory for the states and the environmental plaintiffs," wrote Nathan Richardson of the nonpartisan think tank Resources for the Future in a paper. "By committing to performance standards in the settlement agreement, the agency is tying its own hands."
That sparked an outraged letter from House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., and Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., ranking member of the relevant Senate panel, who said the costly settlement was "concocted in secret" and that it was "entirely discretionary, no court ordered them."
The EPA and EDF did not respond to requests for comment.
Rep. Ed Whitfield, R-Ky., who heads the Energy and Commerce Committee's energy and power panel, warns that environmental policy is increasingly being "being determined by privately settled lawsuits and monetary payoffs with absolutely no input from elected representatives."
Other examples of EPA grantees suing the agency:
In 2005, several states and environmental groups — including EDF and NRDC, along with Physicians for Social Responsibility ($135,000 in an EPA grant) — sued the EPA claiming its mercury rule didn't go far enough. In 2008, the courts agreed. Now the EPA, under a court-supervised deadline negotiated by the EPA, the EDF and others, has until mid-November to complete rules cutting emissions of mercury and other toxins that the agency says will cost $11 billion a year.
• In 2006, EDF, the NRDC and others — including several states — sued the agency for its decision not to regulate carbon dioxide.
• In January 2009, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation filed suit claiming the EPA wasn't doing enough to clean the bay. That July, the EPA gave the foundation a $1.3 million grant to retrofit a dozen boats as part of the stimulus bill.
• Last year, the Pesticide Action Network ($238,000 in EPA grants) and the NRDC sued to force the agency to ban the pesticide chlorpyrifos.
• This May, the NRDC, Physicians for Social Responsibility and others announced plans to sue the EPA for failing to enforce smog standards in California.
Defenders of all this litigation say there's no connection between the grant money — which is for specific projects or programs — and the suits, and point out that these groups are simply trying to get the EPA to do what the law requires them to do.
But those suits could be less frequent if Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., has his way. His bill would deny environmental groups whose net worth exceeds $7 million from getting their legal fees paid for by the Equal Access to Justice Act. He'd also cap attorney fees at $175 an hour.
http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=577430&src=HPLNews
Email Confirms ‘Gunwalker’ Known Throughout Justice Department
Email Confirms ‘Gunwalker’ Known Throughout Justice Department By Bob Owens
An email cited in Senator Charles Grassley’s testimony in front of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on Operation Fast and Furious indicates that knowledge of the program was spread across the highest levels of the Justice Department. This lends even greater suspicion to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder’s claim that he knew nothing about the program until well after Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was killed.
The October 27, 2009 email [1] from ATF Phoenix Field Division Special Agent in Charge (SAC) William Newell regarded a Southwest Border Strategy Group meeting that focused on Fast and Furious. It contained a laundry list of high ranking Justice Department officials that attended the meeting, including:
•Assistant Attorney General (Criminal Division) Lanny Breuer,
•Kenneth Melson, Acting Director, ATF
•William Hoover, Acting Deputy Director, ATF
•Michele Leonhart, Administrator, DEA
•Robert Mueller, Director FBI
Four other Justice Department directors or their representatives came from the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF), Bureau of Prisons (BOP), U.S. Marshals Service (USMS), and the Executive Office for United States Attorneys (EOUSA). The chair of the Attorney Generals Advisory Committee (AGAC) also attended the session. Their names were redacted in the released document. U.S. attorneys for all four southwest border states also attended.
Operation Fast and Furious, now known to many by the more accurate name of “Gunwalker,” was a multi-agency operation that allowed and — in some instances — approved the purchase of firearms destined for Mexican drug cartels by so-called “straw buyers.” The purchasers, who had clean criminal records, would buy firearms from U.S. gun stores for drug gangs. While most gun smuggling involves small quantities of weapons, a small number of high-volume straw purchasers each bought hundreds of firearms for the cartels.
ATF agents were told by their supervisors to ignore their agency’s charter and training and allow the guns to be smuggled into Mexico without interdiction. Roughly 2,000 firearms — ranging from pistols and AK-pattern semi-automatic rifles to .50 BMG sniper rifles — were smuggled into Mexico under Gunwalker and without the knowledge of Mexican authorities. Hundreds of smuggled weapons have turned up at crime scenes across Mexico and the U.S. border states and at least 152 law enforcement officers and soldiers have been killed with Gunwalker weapons.
While it has been known since the beginning of the investigation that the ATF, DOJ, DHS, and the IRS were heavily involved in Gunwalker, the Newell email confirms that every major agency within the Department of Justice was briefed on Gunwalker, including the AGAC, which has the formally ordered functions of giving U.S attorneys a voice in department policies and advising the attorney general.
It strains credibility to claim that the assistant attorney general, the AGAC, the directors of the five major DOJ agencies in charge of law enforcement, and all the U.S. attorneys in the Southwest region were privy to Gunwalker, but that the attorney general himself was unaware of the operation. It suggests that either Holder is being untruthful about what he knew about the operation, and when he knew about it, or that he is so out of touch with a major operation conducted by his key law enforcement agencies that he is too incompetent to fulfill his official duties.
Senator Grassley made an observation in his presentation to the House Oversight Committee that indicates that DOJ-wide incompetence or politics may be in play as well [2]:
According to an internal briefing paper, Operation Fast and Furious was intentionally designed to “allow the transfer of firearms to continue to take place.”[3] [3]
Why would the ATF do such a thing?
Well, the next line in the brief paper tells us. It was, “to further the investigation and allow for the identification of additional co-conspirators[.]”[4] [4] So, that was the goal. The purpose of allowing straw buyers to keep buying was to find out who else might be working with them — who else might be in their network of gun traffickers. Of course, that assumes that they are part of a big, sophisticated network. That kind of assumption can cause you to start with a conclusion and work backwards, looking for facts that fit. Until you figure out that you’ve got the cart before the horse, you’re probably not going to get anywhere.
Professor of Criminology Gary Kleck recently published an article in the Wall Street Journal called “The Myth of Big-Time Gun Trafficking.”[5] [5] Professor Kleck said that according to his study of national crime data, ATF handles only about 15 operations each year that involve more than 250 guns.[6] [6] According to his study, a typical trafficking operation involves fewer than 12 guns.[7] [7]
The operation was a snipe hunt. Operation Fast and Furious was chasing a phantom network that DOJ either imagined or was desperate to create in order to perpetuate the Obama-administration lie [8] that 90-percent of crime guns in Mexico originated from the United States.
Newsmax interviewed Senator Grassley in an article published Monday, and asked him whether or not the operation was an attempt by the administration to change public opinion on “assault weapons” in order to lead to the introduction of gun control measures by Democrats. Grassley was not ready to discount that hypothesis, a wise move considering the forum Rep. Elijah Cummings conducted last week to demonize gun owners. The report Cummings issued called for no less than three gun control measures [9].
Predictably, most mainstream media organizations covering Gunwalker aren’t willing to acknowledge the depth, breadth, or severity of the scandal or its illegality. Judged by the numbers of crimes committed, lives lost, and executive branch officials involved, Gunwalker has the potential to surpass both Watergate and Iran-Contra as one of the worst scandals in American political history just based upon what little we publicly know of the operation and its equally abortive and incompetent cover-up.
Let us lay this out as clearly and unambiguously as possible, so there can be no mistake.
Senior law enforcement officers within the Department of Justice and Department of Homeland Security, including government appointees, potentially committed felonies that led to the deaths of dozens, if not hundreds of Mexican police, soldiers, and civilians, and the murders of least two American federal agents. This program was put in place in order to pursue a phantom gun-smuggling network that only seemed to exist in the the minds of those pushing a political agenda of gun control championed exclusively by the left wing of the Democratic Party, Attorney General Eric Holder himself, and the president of the United States, Barack Obama.
Mexican government officials are infuriated by the scandal, and unlike the New York Times and Washington Post that seek to minimize it, they want justice.
Senator Rene Arce is chairman of Mexico’s Commission for National Security, a congressional panel similar to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee. He told Fox News that the American officials that authorized Gunwalker should face felony charges [10] in the United States, and then be extradited to Mexico to stand trial there.
It is highly unlikely that we will see Janet Napolitano, Eric Holder, Lanny Breuer, Kenneth Melson, or any other government officials in Mexico to face the possibility of life in a Mexican prison, but the fact that senior government officials in Mexico think that Gunwalker is that serious should turn heads here in the United States.
When Justice is administered by the lawless, there is no justice. We must have criminal investigations into Gunwalker. There simply is no other option in a lawful society.
Article printed from Pajamas Media: http://pajamasmedia.com
URL to article: http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/email-confirms-gunwalker-known-throughout-justice-department/
An email cited in Senator Charles Grassley’s testimony in front of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on Operation Fast and Furious indicates that knowledge of the program was spread across the highest levels of the Justice Department. This lends even greater suspicion to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder’s claim that he knew nothing about the program until well after Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was killed.
The October 27, 2009 email [1] from ATF Phoenix Field Division Special Agent in Charge (SAC) William Newell regarded a Southwest Border Strategy Group meeting that focused on Fast and Furious. It contained a laundry list of high ranking Justice Department officials that attended the meeting, including:
•Assistant Attorney General (Criminal Division) Lanny Breuer,
•Kenneth Melson, Acting Director, ATF
•William Hoover, Acting Deputy Director, ATF
•Michele Leonhart, Administrator, DEA
•Robert Mueller, Director FBI
Four other Justice Department directors or their representatives came from the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF), Bureau of Prisons (BOP), U.S. Marshals Service (USMS), and the Executive Office for United States Attorneys (EOUSA). The chair of the Attorney Generals Advisory Committee (AGAC) also attended the session. Their names were redacted in the released document. U.S. attorneys for all four southwest border states also attended.
Operation Fast and Furious, now known to many by the more accurate name of “Gunwalker,” was a multi-agency operation that allowed and — in some instances — approved the purchase of firearms destined for Mexican drug cartels by so-called “straw buyers.” The purchasers, who had clean criminal records, would buy firearms from U.S. gun stores for drug gangs. While most gun smuggling involves small quantities of weapons, a small number of high-volume straw purchasers each bought hundreds of firearms for the cartels.
ATF agents were told by their supervisors to ignore their agency’s charter and training and allow the guns to be smuggled into Mexico without interdiction. Roughly 2,000 firearms — ranging from pistols and AK-pattern semi-automatic rifles to .50 BMG sniper rifles — were smuggled into Mexico under Gunwalker and without the knowledge of Mexican authorities. Hundreds of smuggled weapons have turned up at crime scenes across Mexico and the U.S. border states and at least 152 law enforcement officers and soldiers have been killed with Gunwalker weapons.
While it has been known since the beginning of the investigation that the ATF, DOJ, DHS, and the IRS were heavily involved in Gunwalker, the Newell email confirms that every major agency within the Department of Justice was briefed on Gunwalker, including the AGAC, which has the formally ordered functions of giving U.S attorneys a voice in department policies and advising the attorney general.
It strains credibility to claim that the assistant attorney general, the AGAC, the directors of the five major DOJ agencies in charge of law enforcement, and all the U.S. attorneys in the Southwest region were privy to Gunwalker, but that the attorney general himself was unaware of the operation. It suggests that either Holder is being untruthful about what he knew about the operation, and when he knew about it, or that he is so out of touch with a major operation conducted by his key law enforcement agencies that he is too incompetent to fulfill his official duties.
Senator Grassley made an observation in his presentation to the House Oversight Committee that indicates that DOJ-wide incompetence or politics may be in play as well [2]:
According to an internal briefing paper, Operation Fast and Furious was intentionally designed to “allow the transfer of firearms to continue to take place.”[3] [3]
Why would the ATF do such a thing?
Well, the next line in the brief paper tells us. It was, “to further the investigation and allow for the identification of additional co-conspirators[.]”[4] [4] So, that was the goal. The purpose of allowing straw buyers to keep buying was to find out who else might be working with them — who else might be in their network of gun traffickers. Of course, that assumes that they are part of a big, sophisticated network. That kind of assumption can cause you to start with a conclusion and work backwards, looking for facts that fit. Until you figure out that you’ve got the cart before the horse, you’re probably not going to get anywhere.
Professor of Criminology Gary Kleck recently published an article in the Wall Street Journal called “The Myth of Big-Time Gun Trafficking.”[5] [5] Professor Kleck said that according to his study of national crime data, ATF handles only about 15 operations each year that involve more than 250 guns.[6] [6] According to his study, a typical trafficking operation involves fewer than 12 guns.[7] [7]
The operation was a snipe hunt. Operation Fast and Furious was chasing a phantom network that DOJ either imagined or was desperate to create in order to perpetuate the Obama-administration lie [8] that 90-percent of crime guns in Mexico originated from the United States.
Newsmax interviewed Senator Grassley in an article published Monday, and asked him whether or not the operation was an attempt by the administration to change public opinion on “assault weapons” in order to lead to the introduction of gun control measures by Democrats. Grassley was not ready to discount that hypothesis, a wise move considering the forum Rep. Elijah Cummings conducted last week to demonize gun owners. The report Cummings issued called for no less than three gun control measures [9].
Predictably, most mainstream media organizations covering Gunwalker aren’t willing to acknowledge the depth, breadth, or severity of the scandal or its illegality. Judged by the numbers of crimes committed, lives lost, and executive branch officials involved, Gunwalker has the potential to surpass both Watergate and Iran-Contra as one of the worst scandals in American political history just based upon what little we publicly know of the operation and its equally abortive and incompetent cover-up.
Let us lay this out as clearly and unambiguously as possible, so there can be no mistake.
Senior law enforcement officers within the Department of Justice and Department of Homeland Security, including government appointees, potentially committed felonies that led to the deaths of dozens, if not hundreds of Mexican police, soldiers, and civilians, and the murders of least two American federal agents. This program was put in place in order to pursue a phantom gun-smuggling network that only seemed to exist in the the minds of those pushing a political agenda of gun control championed exclusively by the left wing of the Democratic Party, Attorney General Eric Holder himself, and the president of the United States, Barack Obama.
Mexican government officials are infuriated by the scandal, and unlike the New York Times and Washington Post that seek to minimize it, they want justice.
Senator Rene Arce is chairman of Mexico’s Commission for National Security, a congressional panel similar to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee. He told Fox News that the American officials that authorized Gunwalker should face felony charges [10] in the United States, and then be extradited to Mexico to stand trial there.
It is highly unlikely that we will see Janet Napolitano, Eric Holder, Lanny Breuer, Kenneth Melson, or any other government officials in Mexico to face the possibility of life in a Mexican prison, but the fact that senior government officials in Mexico think that Gunwalker is that serious should turn heads here in the United States.
When Justice is administered by the lawless, there is no justice. We must have criminal investigations into Gunwalker. There simply is no other option in a lawful society.
Article printed from Pajamas Media: http://pajamasmedia.com
URL to article: http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/email-confirms-gunwalker-known-throughout-justice-department/
Saturday, July 16, 2011
Conservatives Outnumber Liberals 3-1
Conservatives Outnumber Liberals 3-1 by John Hinderaker/Powerline
If you follow polling data, you know that year in and year out, self-described conservatives outnumber self-described liberals in the general population by 1 1/2 to 2 to 1. Yesterday’s Rasmussen Reports adds another useful way to look at the data as they relate to likely voters as opposed to all adults.
We generally think of those who are conservatives on both fiscal and social issues as “solid conservatives,” while those who are liberal on both fiscal and social issues are “far gone liberals.” Rasmussen found that 29% of likely voters are conservative on both sets of issues, while only 10% are liberal on both. Those numbers, especially given that they apply to likely voters, would seem to have great political significance.
First, they suggest that there is little reason for Republican politicians to fear either the fiscal issues or the social issues; consistent conservatism passes muster not just with Republican primary voters, but with voters as a whole. Second, they raise, once again, the question why conservatives can’t get better results politically, since we represent a clear plurality of American voters. The answer to that question is complex, but as we enter another showdown with the left, conservatives should take comfort from the fact that far more Americans are with us than with the other side. Conservatives need to improve our strategy, our tactics and our messaging, and we need to be more loyal to politicians who are solid if not perfectly pure supporters. But we start from a strong position with those who count most, the voters.
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2011/07/conservatives-outnumber-liberals-3-1.php
http://liten.be//SC4P6
Obama really might have made it worse
Obama really might have made it worse
The Republican charge is a body shot aimed right at the belly of President Barack Obama’s re-election effort: He made it worse.
No, not that White House efforts at boosting the American economy and creating jobs and “winning the future” were merely inefficient or wasteful, which they certainly were. Even Obama finally seems to understand that. “Shovel-ready was not as shovel-ready as we expected,” he joked lamely at a meeting of his jobs council.
Rather, that the product of all the administration’s stimulating and regulating is an economy that’s in significantly worse competitive and productive shape than when Obama took the oath in January 2009. He was dealt a bad hand, to be sure – and then proceeded to play it badly. At least, that is what Republicans have been saying. “He didn’t cause the recession as we know,” presidential candidate Mitt Romney said in New Hampshire yesterday. “He didn’t make it better, he made things worse.”
Team Obama offers a different narrative, of course. As the president said in his State of the Union address earlier this year, “Two years after the worst recession most of us have ever known, the stock market has come roaring back. Corporate profits are up. The economy is growing again. … These steps we’ve taken over the last two years may have broken the back of this recession.” He somehow failed to insert his usual boilerplate about the economy losing 700,000 jobs a month when he took office.
But Obama is correct, to a degree. The economy is growing (slowly) now and adding jobs (modestly) whereas neither was happening back in early 2009. Of course, economies in recession will eventually recover even without government action. So the question is whether Obamanomics helped, hurt or was inconsequential.
The centerpiece of Obama’s plan to “push the car out of the ditch” was the trillion-dollar (including interest expense on the borrowed money) American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. A recent article in The Weekly Standard determined that it may have cost as much as $278,000 for each job created. But that’s generous. Respected Stanford economist John Taylor, perhaps the next chairman of the Federal Reserve, has analyzed the actual results of the ARRA. Not what the White House’s garbage-in, garbage-out models say happened, but what actually happened as gleaned from government statistics. Taylor, simply put, looked at whether consumers actually consumed and whether government actually spent in a way that produced real growth and jobs. His devastating conclusion:
Individuals and families largely saved the transfers and tax rebates. The federal government increased purchases, but by only an immaterial amount. State and local governments used the stimulus grants to reduce their net borrowing (largely by acquiring more financial assets) rather than to increase expenditures, and they shifted expenditures away from purchases toward transfers. Some argue that the economy would have been worse off without these stimulus packages, but the results do not support that view.
Indeed, the results are horrifying. The two-year-old recovery’s terrible tale of the tape: A 9.1 percent unemployment rate that’s probably closer to 16 percent counting the discouraged and underemployed, the worst income growth and weakest GDP growth of any upturn since World War II, a still-weakening housing market. Oh, and a trillion bucks down the tube. Oh, and two-and-a-half years … and counting … wasted during which time the skills of unemployed workers continue to erode and the careers of younger Americans suffer long-term income damage. Losing the future.
Next, add in healthcare reform that Medicare’s chief actuary says will not slow the overall growth of healthcare spending. (Even its Obama administration godfather, Peter Orszag, warns that “more drastic measures may ultimately be needed.”) And toss in a financial reform plan that the outspoken and independent president of the Kansas City Fed says he “can’t imagine” working. “I don’t have faith in it all.” Indeed, markets continue to treat the biggest banks as if they are still too big to fail.
But wait there’s more. Obama created a debt commission that produced a reasonable though imperfect plan to deal with America’s long-term fiscal woes. But he stiffed it and then failed to supply a plan of his own, sowing the seeds for an impending debt ceiling crisis and making an eventual fiscal fix that much harder. One more step along the path not taken, along with pro-growth tax and regulatory policies that would have reduced policy and economic uncertainty and unleashed the private sector to invest, expand and create.
Elections have results. So do bad policies. Obama’s choices on taxing and spending and regulating, sorry to say, seem to have made things worse.
http://blogs.reuters.com/james-pethokoukis/2011/07/06/obama-really-may-have-made-it-worse/
The Republican charge is a body shot aimed right at the belly of President Barack Obama’s re-election effort: He made it worse.
No, not that White House efforts at boosting the American economy and creating jobs and “winning the future” were merely inefficient or wasteful, which they certainly were. Even Obama finally seems to understand that. “Shovel-ready was not as shovel-ready as we expected,” he joked lamely at a meeting of his jobs council.
Rather, that the product of all the administration’s stimulating and regulating is an economy that’s in significantly worse competitive and productive shape than when Obama took the oath in January 2009. He was dealt a bad hand, to be sure – and then proceeded to play it badly. At least, that is what Republicans have been saying. “He didn’t cause the recession as we know,” presidential candidate Mitt Romney said in New Hampshire yesterday. “He didn’t make it better, he made things worse.”
Team Obama offers a different narrative, of course. As the president said in his State of the Union address earlier this year, “Two years after the worst recession most of us have ever known, the stock market has come roaring back. Corporate profits are up. The economy is growing again. … These steps we’ve taken over the last two years may have broken the back of this recession.” He somehow failed to insert his usual boilerplate about the economy losing 700,000 jobs a month when he took office.
But Obama is correct, to a degree. The economy is growing (slowly) now and adding jobs (modestly) whereas neither was happening back in early 2009. Of course, economies in recession will eventually recover even without government action. So the question is whether Obamanomics helped, hurt or was inconsequential.
The centerpiece of Obama’s plan to “push the car out of the ditch” was the trillion-dollar (including interest expense on the borrowed money) American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. A recent article in The Weekly Standard determined that it may have cost as much as $278,000 for each job created. But that’s generous. Respected Stanford economist John Taylor, perhaps the next chairman of the Federal Reserve, has analyzed the actual results of the ARRA. Not what the White House’s garbage-in, garbage-out models say happened, but what actually happened as gleaned from government statistics. Taylor, simply put, looked at whether consumers actually consumed and whether government actually spent in a way that produced real growth and jobs. His devastating conclusion:
Individuals and families largely saved the transfers and tax rebates. The federal government increased purchases, but by only an immaterial amount. State and local governments used the stimulus grants to reduce their net borrowing (largely by acquiring more financial assets) rather than to increase expenditures, and they shifted expenditures away from purchases toward transfers. Some argue that the economy would have been worse off without these stimulus packages, but the results do not support that view.
Indeed, the results are horrifying. The two-year-old recovery’s terrible tale of the tape: A 9.1 percent unemployment rate that’s probably closer to 16 percent counting the discouraged and underemployed, the worst income growth and weakest GDP growth of any upturn since World War II, a still-weakening housing market. Oh, and a trillion bucks down the tube. Oh, and two-and-a-half years … and counting … wasted during which time the skills of unemployed workers continue to erode and the careers of younger Americans suffer long-term income damage. Losing the future.
Next, add in healthcare reform that Medicare’s chief actuary says will not slow the overall growth of healthcare spending. (Even its Obama administration godfather, Peter Orszag, warns that “more drastic measures may ultimately be needed.”) And toss in a financial reform plan that the outspoken and independent president of the Kansas City Fed says he “can’t imagine” working. “I don’t have faith in it all.” Indeed, markets continue to treat the biggest banks as if they are still too big to fail.
But wait there’s more. Obama created a debt commission that produced a reasonable though imperfect plan to deal with America’s long-term fiscal woes. But he stiffed it and then failed to supply a plan of his own, sowing the seeds for an impending debt ceiling crisis and making an eventual fiscal fix that much harder. One more step along the path not taken, along with pro-growth tax and regulatory policies that would have reduced policy and economic uncertainty and unleashed the private sector to invest, expand and create.
Elections have results. So do bad policies. Obama’s choices on taxing and spending and regulating, sorry to say, seem to have made things worse.
http://blogs.reuters.com/james-pethokoukis/2011/07/06/obama-really-may-have-made-it-worse/
Give Peace a Chance--same media that lied about tea party violence covers up violence on left
Give Peace a Chance
Why does the media keep downplaying the violence at left-wing protests?
Boy, those sure have been some mighty peaceful protests against government budget cuts in Greece, haven’t they? You bet they have—at least if you ignore the rock-throwing, fire-setting, window-smashing, and blood-spilling.
Which, it seems clear, a lot of major news organs would like to do. According to one story in The Wall Street Journal, the demonstrations "began peacefully." According to another, last week Constitution Square in Athens "seethed with indignant, but peaceful, demonstrators."
"The day began noisily but peacefully," intoned The New York Times on Wednesday. The Washington Post likewise observed that "a peaceful protest . . . quickly degenerated into violence." Reuters reported that, regardless of "clashes between stone-throwing masked youths and riot police . . . thousands of peaceful protesters demonstrated against the austerity plan."
Sure, blood was spilled. But don’t blame the protesters. As the Journal reported, it was Greece’s parliament that approved a "widely hated austerity package" despite "the best efforts of peaceful grass-roots activists., megaphone-touting [sic] labor unionists, and stone-throwing anarchists."
This is a sharp contrast from how, say, Tea Party protests against the passage of ObamaCare were treated.
The D.C. protests in March of last year were nonviolent affairs, without a single arrest despite one disputed episode in which someone allegedly hurled a racial slur at Rep. John Lewis and spat on Rep. Emanuel Cleaver. (No independent report could verify the allegations.) But that didn’t stop ABC’s David Muir from reporting that "shouted words turned very ugly," and reporting on "late word from Washington tonight about just how ugly the crowds gathered outside the Longworth office building have become."
Last April, a New York Times news story tsk-tsked "the pitched attacks by some Republicans and conservatives during the health care fight," which "have drawn criticism as incendiary." ("Tea Party Supporters Doing Fine, But Angry Nonetheless," the paper noted in yet another fair and balanced look at the movement.) "Protesters at some town hall meetings have drowned out congresspeople and caused unrest and even violence," reported CBS. Were the town halls "mostly peaceful"? Didn't they "begin peacefully"? Sure—but CBS didn’t say so. Wonder how come.
Allegations of violent tendencies continue to dog the tea party despite the fact that it is, like its liberal analogs, "mostly peaceful." "Tea Party Getting Violent?" asked CBS News last March. To the Christian Science Monitor, a Boston tea party event (no arrests there either) was made up of "an angry white mob." At a Tea Party event in Nevada, Time magazine lamented the presence of (brace yourself) "ugly signs."
Hey, what happened to "indignant but peaceful"?
It's obvious what happened: big-government bias. To much of the establishment media, a preference for limited government is a dangerous idea. Ergo, its supporters must be dangerous, too. But liberals don't find a preference for big government threatening, so they view its supporters as non-threatening as well.
Nanoseconds after Jared Loughner went on his shooting rampage in Arizona in January, huge numbers of opinionators in the media knew just whom to blame: Sarah Palin, leaders of the Tea Party movement, and, by implication, anyone who thinks the government spends too much. As it turned out, Loughner—a schizophrenic declared incompetent to stand trial—was motivated by none of the above. Oops!
Fast-forward to the protests earlier this year against Republican Gov. Scott Walker’s austerity measures in Wisconsin. Those protests involved the occupation of the statehouse, nine arrests in the first three days, and more than a few "ugly signs." Nevertheless, they were termed "largely peaceful" (The Washington Post); "largely peaceful, with only nine people cited for minor acts of civil disobedience" (ABC News); "loud but peaceful" (The New York Times); "peaceful" (San Francisco Chronicle); "respectful and peaceful" (USA Today); etc.
So it was with the protests against the World Trade Organization in 1999:
"Some demonstrators fired bolts from slingshots, and others slashed the tires of squad cars," noted one news account. Nevertheless, Time magazine termed them—you guessed it—"largely peaceful." Likewise the 2003 protests leading up to the Iraq War: "The vast majority of demonstrators were peaceful," as a typical news story noted; a 2006 demonstration for immigrant rights ("largely peaceful"—CBS News, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, et al.) as well as another pro-immigration rally two years later ("largely peaceful"—The New York Times); protests by environmentalists in Denmark in 2009—where, according to UPI, "climate activists clashed with police at several demonstrations over the weekend." UPI nevertheless termed the affair "largely peaceful." Protests against Arizona’s tough anti-immigration law? "Largely peaceful"—USA Today.
What about protests in favor of taking a hard line on immigration? Well, on rare occasions they do lead to violence. "L.A. Anti-Immigration Rally Turns Violent," CNN noted a number of years ago. Ironically, the immigration opponents were peaceful but "a group holding a counter-rally across the street marched over and began throwing punches, bottles, and full soda cans."
None of us should be so foolish as to think violence and incendiary rhetoric are the exclusive province of one side only. They’re part of human nature, which everyone shares. So you have to wonder why press reports so insistently call one side "largely peaceful," even when it’s not, while insinuating, with zero evidence, that the other side is about two seconds away from a killing spree.
It’s enough to make a guy feel downright indignant . . . but peaceful, of course. Indignant but peaceful.
A. Barton Hinkle is a columnist at the Richmond Times-Dispatch. This article originally appeared at the Richmond Times-Dispatch.
http://reason.com/archives/2011/07/05/give-peace-a-chance
Why does the media keep downplaying the violence at left-wing protests?
Boy, those sure have been some mighty peaceful protests against government budget cuts in Greece, haven’t they? You bet they have—at least if you ignore the rock-throwing, fire-setting, window-smashing, and blood-spilling.
Which, it seems clear, a lot of major news organs would like to do. According to one story in The Wall Street Journal, the demonstrations "began peacefully." According to another, last week Constitution Square in Athens "seethed with indignant, but peaceful, demonstrators."
"The day began noisily but peacefully," intoned The New York Times on Wednesday. The Washington Post likewise observed that "a peaceful protest . . . quickly degenerated into violence." Reuters reported that, regardless of "clashes between stone-throwing masked youths and riot police . . . thousands of peaceful protesters demonstrated against the austerity plan."
Sure, blood was spilled. But don’t blame the protesters. As the Journal reported, it was Greece’s parliament that approved a "widely hated austerity package" despite "the best efforts of peaceful grass-roots activists., megaphone-touting [sic] labor unionists, and stone-throwing anarchists."
This is a sharp contrast from how, say, Tea Party protests against the passage of ObamaCare were treated.
The D.C. protests in March of last year were nonviolent affairs, without a single arrest despite one disputed episode in which someone allegedly hurled a racial slur at Rep. John Lewis and spat on Rep. Emanuel Cleaver. (No independent report could verify the allegations.) But that didn’t stop ABC’s David Muir from reporting that "shouted words turned very ugly," and reporting on "late word from Washington tonight about just how ugly the crowds gathered outside the Longworth office building have become."
Last April, a New York Times news story tsk-tsked "the pitched attacks by some Republicans and conservatives during the health care fight," which "have drawn criticism as incendiary." ("Tea Party Supporters Doing Fine, But Angry Nonetheless," the paper noted in yet another fair and balanced look at the movement.) "Protesters at some town hall meetings have drowned out congresspeople and caused unrest and even violence," reported CBS. Were the town halls "mostly peaceful"? Didn't they "begin peacefully"? Sure—but CBS didn’t say so. Wonder how come.
Allegations of violent tendencies continue to dog the tea party despite the fact that it is, like its liberal analogs, "mostly peaceful." "Tea Party Getting Violent?" asked CBS News last March. To the Christian Science Monitor, a Boston tea party event (no arrests there either) was made up of "an angry white mob." At a Tea Party event in Nevada, Time magazine lamented the presence of (brace yourself) "ugly signs."
Hey, what happened to "indignant but peaceful"?
It's obvious what happened: big-government bias. To much of the establishment media, a preference for limited government is a dangerous idea. Ergo, its supporters must be dangerous, too. But liberals don't find a preference for big government threatening, so they view its supporters as non-threatening as well.
Nanoseconds after Jared Loughner went on his shooting rampage in Arizona in January, huge numbers of opinionators in the media knew just whom to blame: Sarah Palin, leaders of the Tea Party movement, and, by implication, anyone who thinks the government spends too much. As it turned out, Loughner—a schizophrenic declared incompetent to stand trial—was motivated by none of the above. Oops!
Fast-forward to the protests earlier this year against Republican Gov. Scott Walker’s austerity measures in Wisconsin. Those protests involved the occupation of the statehouse, nine arrests in the first three days, and more than a few "ugly signs." Nevertheless, they were termed "largely peaceful" (The Washington Post); "largely peaceful, with only nine people cited for minor acts of civil disobedience" (ABC News); "loud but peaceful" (The New York Times); "peaceful" (San Francisco Chronicle); "respectful and peaceful" (USA Today); etc.
So it was with the protests against the World Trade Organization in 1999:
"Some demonstrators fired bolts from slingshots, and others slashed the tires of squad cars," noted one news account. Nevertheless, Time magazine termed them—you guessed it—"largely peaceful." Likewise the 2003 protests leading up to the Iraq War: "The vast majority of demonstrators were peaceful," as a typical news story noted; a 2006 demonstration for immigrant rights ("largely peaceful"—CBS News, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, et al.) as well as another pro-immigration rally two years later ("largely peaceful"—The New York Times); protests by environmentalists in Denmark in 2009—where, according to UPI, "climate activists clashed with police at several demonstrations over the weekend." UPI nevertheless termed the affair "largely peaceful." Protests against Arizona’s tough anti-immigration law? "Largely peaceful"—USA Today.
What about protests in favor of taking a hard line on immigration? Well, on rare occasions they do lead to violence. "L.A. Anti-Immigration Rally Turns Violent," CNN noted a number of years ago. Ironically, the immigration opponents were peaceful but "a group holding a counter-rally across the street marched over and began throwing punches, bottles, and full soda cans."
None of us should be so foolish as to think violence and incendiary rhetoric are the exclusive province of one side only. They’re part of human nature, which everyone shares. So you have to wonder why press reports so insistently call one side "largely peaceful," even when it’s not, while insinuating, with zero evidence, that the other side is about two seconds away from a killing spree.
It’s enough to make a guy feel downright indignant . . . but peaceful, of course. Indignant but peaceful.
A. Barton Hinkle is a columnist at the Richmond Times-Dispatch. This article originally appeared at the Richmond Times-Dispatch.
http://reason.com/archives/2011/07/05/give-peace-a-chance
Friday, July 15, 2011
Warren Buffett’s Worst Investment - By Kevin D. Williamson - The Corner - National Review Online
Warren Buffett’s Worst Investment - By Kevin D. Williamson - The Corner - National Review Online
Warren Buffett’s Worst Investment By Kevin D. Williamson
Barack Obama must be the worst investment Warren Buffett has ever made.
The billionaire investor famously supported Barack Obama, who in turn used Buffett as his amulet of normalcy: What, me radical? Tell it to this rich white guy from Omaha. One of the lamest things I can remember having seen in politics transpired in 2008 when Obama was challenged on his radical associations and used Buffett to change the subject. His phrasing was memorably odd: “Let me tell you who I associate with. On economic policy, I associate with Warren Buffett and former Fed chairman Paul Volcker. If I’m interested in figuring out my foreign policy, [Editorial aside: “If”?] I associate myself with my running mate, Joe Biden, or with Dick Lugar, the Republican ranking member on the Senate Foreign Relations.”
So, here’s the wisdom of Associate Buffett on the debt ceiling: “We raised the debt ceiling seven times during the Bush administration. . . . We had debt at 120 percent of the GDP, far higher than this, after World War II, and no one went around threatening that we’re going to ruin the credit of the United States or something in order to get a better balance of debt to GDP.”
Saving the world from Hitler was expensive, to be sure. But in 2011, we haven’t just saved the world from Hitler — we’ve just saved a bunch of bureaucrats and layabouts from honest labor. Not exactly comparable.
But what about World War II, anyway? Coming in at 25.3 percent of GDP, federal spending is higher today than it has been in any year since 1945. What did we do at the end of World War II? We cut spending — radically. In 1944, federal spending was 43.6 percent of GDP. By 1948 it was down to 11.6 percent of GDP. It edged up after that, but from 1948–60, federal spending averaged less than 17 percent of GDP. (Those were not the worst years in the history of the republic.)
What that means is that if federal spending as a share of GDP were reduced to that postwar average from 2012–16, we could balance the budget, start paying down the national debt, and cut taxes by $1 trillion over those five years. Grover Norquist could get his tax cuts, I could get my balanced budget, and Barack Obama still would preside over a government considerably bigger than FDR’s New Deal regime. Not my ideal outcome, but a decent compromise.
Inescapable conclusion: Spending is what is out of whack.
The federal government does a lot more today than it did in 1960. Are those things worth what they’re costing us? The price difference between Eisenhower’s Washington and Obama’s Washington is about 8.4 percent of GDP in 2011, or about $1.25 trillion, roughly the annual economic output of Australia, the thirteenth-largest economy in the world, or just shy of two Switzerlands.
If Warren Buffett thinks that’s a good buy, he’s losing his edge.
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/271397/warren-buffett-s-worst-investment-kevin-d-williamson
Warren Buffett’s Worst Investment By Kevin D. Williamson
Barack Obama must be the worst investment Warren Buffett has ever made.
The billionaire investor famously supported Barack Obama, who in turn used Buffett as his amulet of normalcy: What, me radical? Tell it to this rich white guy from Omaha. One of the lamest things I can remember having seen in politics transpired in 2008 when Obama was challenged on his radical associations and used Buffett to change the subject. His phrasing was memorably odd: “Let me tell you who I associate with. On economic policy, I associate with Warren Buffett and former Fed chairman Paul Volcker. If I’m interested in figuring out my foreign policy, [Editorial aside: “If”?] I associate myself with my running mate, Joe Biden, or with Dick Lugar, the Republican ranking member on the Senate Foreign Relations.”
So, here’s the wisdom of Associate Buffett on the debt ceiling: “We raised the debt ceiling seven times during the Bush administration. . . . We had debt at 120 percent of the GDP, far higher than this, after World War II, and no one went around threatening that we’re going to ruin the credit of the United States or something in order to get a better balance of debt to GDP.”
Saving the world from Hitler was expensive, to be sure. But in 2011, we haven’t just saved the world from Hitler — we’ve just saved a bunch of bureaucrats and layabouts from honest labor. Not exactly comparable.
But what about World War II, anyway? Coming in at 25.3 percent of GDP, federal spending is higher today than it has been in any year since 1945. What did we do at the end of World War II? We cut spending — radically. In 1944, federal spending was 43.6 percent of GDP. By 1948 it was down to 11.6 percent of GDP. It edged up after that, but from 1948–60, federal spending averaged less than 17 percent of GDP. (Those were not the worst years in the history of the republic.)
What that means is that if federal spending as a share of GDP were reduced to that postwar average from 2012–16, we could balance the budget, start paying down the national debt, and cut taxes by $1 trillion over those five years. Grover Norquist could get his tax cuts, I could get my balanced budget, and Barack Obama still would preside over a government considerably bigger than FDR’s New Deal regime. Not my ideal outcome, but a decent compromise.
Inescapable conclusion: Spending is what is out of whack.
The federal government does a lot more today than it did in 1960. Are those things worth what they’re costing us? The price difference between Eisenhower’s Washington and Obama’s Washington is about 8.4 percent of GDP in 2011, or about $1.25 trillion, roughly the annual economic output of Australia, the thirteenth-largest economy in the world, or just shy of two Switzerlands.
If Warren Buffett thinks that’s a good buy, he’s losing his edge.
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/271397/warren-buffett-s-worst-investment-kevin-d-williamson
Fast and Furious vs. News of the World--MSM chosing "news" to cover
Fast and Furious vs. News of the World by John Hinderaker
If you read political sites like this one, you know all about Fast and Furious (or, as some prefer, Gunwalker), the biggest scandal to emerge from the Obama administration so far. The scandal involves several thousand guns which the Obama administration deliberately allowed into the hands of Mexican drug gangs, and may even have financed. It involves homicides, as a number of people were murdered with Fast and Furious weapons, including an American Border Patrol Agent. And it involves a cover-up, as the acting director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms has broken ranks with his superiors at Obama’s Department of Justice and has testified that DOJ, up to and including Eric Holder’s top deputy, has been involved in trying to stonewall Congress’s investigation into the scandal.
So Fast and Furious has all the ingredients of a major news story; a story that may force the resignation of the Attorney General.
Then we have the News of the World story. News of the World apparently is a British tabloid. I haven’t followed the story closely, but as I understand it, the paper somehow hacked into certain cell phones, including those of celebrities and crime victims. This revelation has provoked a considerable outcry in the U.K.
Now, which of these stories should be of greater significance to a serious American newspaper? Fast and Furious is an American scandal, while the News of the World story has little or nothing to do with the U.S. A number of people have died as a result of Fast and Furious, none from the British tabloid’s cell phone hacking. Fast and Furious involves serious misdeeds by appointed American officials, including high officers in the Obama administration. Whatever misdeeds may have occurred in the News of the World scandal were committed by private British citizens. And, while the News of the World story has no impact on American politics, Fast and Furious may well lead to a reshuffling of President Obama’s cabinet and could even give rise to calls for his resignation.
So, if you are a serious American newspaper, your coverage should tilt, what, ten to one in favor of Fast and Furious? Twenty to one? At least, I would say.
But the New York Times apparently doesn’t see it that way. My count, based on a search of the paper’s archives, is that the Times has run 42 articles, op-eds and editorials on the News of the World story. Fast and Furious? By my count, five. Does that bizarre ratio reflect the paper’s bias? Presumably so; it consistently tries to protect the Obama administration. But for a newspaper to virtually ignore a major story like Fast and Furious goes beyond bias. It suggests a complete lack of seriousness as a news source.
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2011/07/fast-and-furious-vs-news-of-the-world.php
If you read political sites like this one, you know all about Fast and Furious (or, as some prefer, Gunwalker), the biggest scandal to emerge from the Obama administration so far. The scandal involves several thousand guns which the Obama administration deliberately allowed into the hands of Mexican drug gangs, and may even have financed. It involves homicides, as a number of people were murdered with Fast and Furious weapons, including an American Border Patrol Agent. And it involves a cover-up, as the acting director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms has broken ranks with his superiors at Obama’s Department of Justice and has testified that DOJ, up to and including Eric Holder’s top deputy, has been involved in trying to stonewall Congress’s investigation into the scandal.
So Fast and Furious has all the ingredients of a major news story; a story that may force the resignation of the Attorney General.
Then we have the News of the World story. News of the World apparently is a British tabloid. I haven’t followed the story closely, but as I understand it, the paper somehow hacked into certain cell phones, including those of celebrities and crime victims. This revelation has provoked a considerable outcry in the U.K.
Now, which of these stories should be of greater significance to a serious American newspaper? Fast and Furious is an American scandal, while the News of the World story has little or nothing to do with the U.S. A number of people have died as a result of Fast and Furious, none from the British tabloid’s cell phone hacking. Fast and Furious involves serious misdeeds by appointed American officials, including high officers in the Obama administration. Whatever misdeeds may have occurred in the News of the World scandal were committed by private British citizens. And, while the News of the World story has no impact on American politics, Fast and Furious may well lead to a reshuffling of President Obama’s cabinet and could even give rise to calls for his resignation.
So, if you are a serious American newspaper, your coverage should tilt, what, ten to one in favor of Fast and Furious? Twenty to one? At least, I would say.
But the New York Times apparently doesn’t see it that way. My count, based on a search of the paper’s archives, is that the Times has run 42 articles, op-eds and editorials on the News of the World story. Fast and Furious? By my count, five. Does that bizarre ratio reflect the paper’s bias? Presumably so; it consistently tries to protect the Obama administration. But for a newspaper to virtually ignore a major story like Fast and Furious goes beyond bias. It suggests a complete lack of seriousness as a news source.
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2011/07/fast-and-furious-vs-news-of-the-world.php
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