The odds that Democrats will lose the House

Intrade shows Democrats losing control of the House as being very likely.

Obama wants to cut a $250 check to seniors

Since the Social Security Administration won't be adjusting it's payout upwards due to negative inflation, President Obama proposes a one-time payment of $250 to senior citizens. First thought, does he really think $250 is enough? I mean, that's less than 5 bucks a week...that's hardly enough for a gallon of milk. Secondly, now that the value of a dollar has started to slide (partly due to our massive deficit spending) and commodities have started to rise in response because of inflation fears, the $250 bucks amount will essentially amount to squat by the time the bill for it gets through Congress. Thirdly, the funds for this "one-time payment" has to come from somewhere: It's going to come from borrowed funds ("The White House put the cost at $13 billion.") that will have to be paid back with interest. This "one-time" payment is going to be royally expensive and not very effective in reducing economic pain for seniors. Of course, the propaganda from Democrats and the White House is going to be in full tilt for this one. There's nothing like feigning compassion for a powerful voting bloc by granting them funds that is taken from some other group. It works like a charm and it's difficult to argue against.

This leads me to believe that this may be a political ploy by Democrats and the WH to try to pin Republicans (who may resist this one-time payment idea) as being cold, angry, and anti-senior citizens. The timing is interesting because of the health care fire that's dominating Washington right now. And afterall, some of the "brown shirted thugs" at the town hall protests were grandma and grandpa, what better way to win some of their support than to grease their palms with "compassion" bucks. Never underestimate the power of an emotional argument.

Words of economic wisdom from Nancy Pelosi

From the WSJ:

Blue Dogs who are dragged into Speaker Pelosi’s office should be aware of just how she is selling the health care bill. Yesterday, she told supporters it represented “real change,” because it meant “a cap on your [health care] costs, but no cap on your benefit.”

Yup. This is the kind of ass-backwards economics that is driving health care "reform" by Democrats. Doesn't Pelosi understand that what she is proposing is simply economically untenable? Apparently not. Here's a video of Ms. Pelosi selling her brand of economics.

He really was more of a Democrat

Spector switches party. Is anybody really surprised? I'm not. Politicians look out for themselves and their elected office. They will see which way the wind is blowing and they act accordingly. This is another example of how citizens should never trust politicians or government.

House passes Omnibus bill

$410 billion worth of spending and this includes about $5 billion in earmarks. Can you smell the bacon?

Democrats and Deficits

Remember all the flack and hate that Democrats and liberals generated when Dick Cheney uttered these words: "Deficits Don't Matter." Well, now that they have one of their own in the White House and Democrats control both houses, it seems that they have forgotten their bitter arguments against growing national deficits. Now it's "spending is stimulus!" If government spending is good for the economy, why wasn't it good when the Bush administration was doing it? Now that Democrats have abandoned the charade of fiscal responsibility and "pay as you go" (remember that bull crap) they have unveiled a new and bigger fiscal budget for 2009 and it's an 8.7% increase from the 2008 budget. Despite Obama's jawing about "fiscal responsibility" and cutting the deficit in half by his first term, taxpayers should brace to get socked with higher taxes in the very near future. Sadly, this is exactly the sort of change that I expected from Barack Obama.

Unions call for "Buy Canadian" policy

Canadian unions are taking their cue from their American counterparts by calling for a "Buy Canadian" policy. Can you smell protectionism and a trade war? Thank you, Democrats.

Their calls to for a "Buy Canadian" policy come after the federal government lobbied hard against efforts in Washington to attach a "Buy American" policy to a multibillion-dollar bailout program...Last Tuesday, Layton urged that Canada should adopt a "Buy Canadian" strategy in response to the "Buy American" clause included in the proposed U.S. stimulus package.

Mr. President, there is no Santa Claus

Walter E. Williams on the stimulus package:

Suppose the value of all that we will produce in 2009, our gross domestic product (GDP), totals $14 trillion. There cannot be any disagreement that if Congress spends $4 trillion, of necessity there is only $10 trillion left over for us to spend privately. In other words, if Congress is going to spend $4 trillion, it must find a way to get us to spend $4 trillion less. The most open and aboveboard method to force us to spend less privately is to tax us to the tune of $4 trillion.

You might say, "Congress doesn't have to tax us $4 trillion. They could tax us $3 trillion and run a $1 trillion budget deficit." You have that wrong. There is no way for Congress to spend $4 trillion out of our 2009 $14 trillion GDP by getting us to spend only $3 trillion less privately. It has to be $4 trillion less. Another method to force us to spend less privately is to print money and inflate the currency. Rising prices reduce our ability to spend privately since each dollar we hold will not buy as much. Another way is for Congress to borrow, thereby reducing our ability to spend privately. By the way, all of this means that in any real economic sense the federal budget is always balanced. That is, if Congress spends $4 trillion we must privately spend $4 trillion less whether it is accomplished through taxation, inflation or borrowing.

The stimulus package, otherwise known as the soaking of the American taxpayer part two, is essentially a massive transfer of wealth that will not do enough to create jobs in the private sector. Oh, I will admit that it will create some jobs, mostly in the public sector. But the private sector of the economy will see little to no real benefit. Senate Republicans need to vote against this wasteful package; they need to resist the President's attempt to guile them into backing a bill that will eventually fail. Let the Democrats own it. And when it flies like a lead zeppelin, they won't be able to hide behind the excuse that Republicans thought that it would work too.

Tom Daschle Ad

I couldn't help myself. Here is an old Daschle political ad where we see the tax scofflaw driving himself around in an old beater.

Obama's appointments don't worry about raising taxes, they just don't pay them!

Obama's vetting process is obviously faulty: Daschle falls on his sword and withdraws as Obama's Health and Human Services secretary. And Nancy Killefer withdraws from consideration to be the federal government's chief performance officer--a new position created by the Obama administration. Well, ladies and gentlemen, here is change we can believe in!

HT: Carpe Diem for cartoon.

How to piss off our friends

Europeans are not very happy about the "Buy American" clause in the current stimulus bill:

The EU and Canadian ambassadors to Washington have already warned that the clause could promote protectionism and trigger retaliatory moves.

UPDATE: The Chef over at The Economist's Cookbook deftly expands on this post. Please take some time to take a look.

Democrats eat their own too

From the WSJ:

An Illinois court will eventually decide if Governor Rod Blagojevich is guilty of corruption. But on at least one issue he is more law-abiding than Majority Leader Harry Reid and fellow Democrats: the seating of Roland Burris to replace Barack Obama in the U.S. Senate.

Mr. Blagojevich appointed Mr. Burris to represent Illinois on Tuesday, ahead of the official start of the 111th Congress next week. This was certainly an act of brash defiance given that nearly everyone had warned the Governor not to do so after he was heard on tape contemplating the sale of the seat for personal gain. But under Illinois law, Mr. Blagojevich had every legal right to do so.

As the Governor said in his announcement, the Illinois public also deserves its full measure of representation in Washington. Mr. Burris is a former state attorney general who is untainted by the charges against Mr. Blagojevich. After the Blagojevich tapes were made public, Democrats who run the state legislature said they'd pass a law to require a special election for the Senate. But their passion for that option ebbed when it became clear that a Republican could win, especially amid this Democratic fiasco. When the legislature failed to act, Mr. Blagojevich saw his opening to name Mr. Burris.

Meanwhile, Mr. Reid and Washington Democrats are refusing to seat Mr. Burris, never mind their lack of authority to do so. As an initial matter, they're hiding behind the Illinois secretary of state, who is refusing to certify the appointment. But Mr. Burris has asked a court to order the secretary of state to carry out what under state law would typically be a nondiscretionary duty. In any event, Beltway Democrats can't inject themselves into what is clearly a matter of Illinois law.

The legal precedent here is the Supreme Court's 7-1 decision in Powell v. McCormack in 1969. Congressman Adam Clayton Powell had been accused of corruption but was nonetheless re-elected in 1966. House Democrats declined to seat him, Powell sued, and the Supreme Court ruled that Congress had acted unconstitutionally in denying him his seat. Congress could have expelled Powell with a two-thirds vote, as stipulated in the Constitution, but it couldn't deny him the seat in the first instance.

Mr. Reid is also attempting the dodge of referring the matter to the Senate Rules Committee, which is run by Democrats, but the Powell precedent ought to be clear even to political lawyers. If Mr. Reid wants to banish Mr. Burris, he must first seat him and then persuade two-thirds of the Senate to expel him. Needless to say, the last thing Mr. Reid wants to do is create turmoil in his party by expelling an African-American Democrat whose only offense has been to accept an appointment to serve. But if Mr. Reid does go that route, we'd suggest worthier expulsion possibilities, such as Connecticut's Chris Dodd, who received sweetheart mortgages from Countrywide Financial while sitting on the Banking Committee.

Comment: This whole pathetic episode and the fallout yet to come points to a very obvious liberal trait: When it is one of their enemies or a perceived threat--even within their own party--they easily make allowances for ignoring the rules of law and jurisprudence in order to rid or crush the perceived threat no matter what. Who needs rule of law when you have self-righteous indignation, right? With little angry men like Harry Reid in charge of congress for the next couple of years, we can expect more of this crass behavior.

Banking deregulation reduces racial wage gap

A recent study by a group of Brown University academics found that one of the benefits of a deregulated banking industry is a reduced (but not eliminate) wage gap between blacks and whites. The theory is that when laws preventing banks from incorporating in other states (than they were already operating in) were eliminated, this eventually led to increased competition and it also created better access for entrepreneurs to start up businesses that would employ more people. The more people employed the more likely hood that racial bias would be reduced. The states with the highest racial wage gap before deregulation seemed to have benefited the most after deregulation. Big government advocates that want to punish the banking industry for the recent financial crisis would do well to look over this study carefully before over-reacting with regulatory schemes.

GM gets on line for some of our money

There was a time when automakers wanted protection from competition and they lobbied government hard for it. This time around they seem to want to protect themselves from risk and the bad decisions that have wrought havoc to their companies. The current national and global economic crisis has created a seemingly legitimate reason for a bailout package for the automakers and also for many other corporations. But taxpayers should not be lulled into believing that a bailout for Detroit is sound policy. The federal government is largely responsible for plenty of Detroit’s ills and much of the legislation currently discussed to be tied to a bailout is politically motivated and not really based on making the companies successful. I say let them file for chapter eleven and then they can restructure their operations just like many airlines have done over the years. And the argument I keep hearing from advocates of a bailout that claim that filing chapter eleven would not work for automakers because consumers would not buy cars of a bankrupt company--this is fallacious; Consumers willingly paid and walked onto planes of bankrupt airlines without a hitch. This madness of bailing out every company that asks must stop.

Democrats ready to reward unions

Congressional Democrats are already trying to move on some of their crony-capitalist ideals by announcing that they intend to double the aid to U.S. automakers. The aid would be included as part of a second stimulus package; the first stimulus package did very little to prop the ailing economy but maybe if they try it again, it might just work, right? Democrats are beholden to union members (a very small portion--7.5%--of private sector workers and responsible for spending $400 million on the election) for their support during this last election, so it is no surprise that such a tasty little aid plan ($50 billion in taxpayer funds) would be brought to the feet of the United Auto Workers and the fledgling car companies. Ask yourself, would Democrats do the same for other industries that didn't pass their ideological muster? A better question is should government be aiding any failed business at the expense of others? We have already seen what the $700 billion bailout has borne out, should our government be allowed to play favorites again?

Oh, you just wait till they control everything--SCARY!

How Democrats protected Fannie and Freddie

Rep. Barney Frank (D., Mass.): I worry, frankly, that there's a tension here. The more people, in my judgment, exaggerate a threat of safety and soundness, the more people conjure up the possibility of serious financial losses to the Treasury, which I do not see. I think we see entities that are fundamentally sound financially and withstand some of the disaster scenarios. . . .

Rep. Maxine Waters (D., Calif.), speaking to Housing and Urban Development Secretary Mel Martinez:
Secretary Martinez, if it ain't broke, why do you want to fix it? Have the GSEs [government-sponsored enterprises] ever missed their housing goals?

House Financial Services Committee hearing, Sept. 25, 2003:
Rep. Frank: I do think I do not want the same kind of focus on safety and soundness that we have in OCC [Office of the Comptroller of the Currency] and OTS [Office of Thrift Supervision]. I want to roll the dice a little bit more in this situation towards subsidized housing. . . .

House Financial Services Committee hearing, Sept. 25, 2003:
Rep. Gregory Meeks, (D., N.Y.): . . . I am just pissed off at Ofheo [Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight] because if it wasn't for you I don't think that we would be here in the first place. And Freddie Mac, who on its own, you know, came out front and indicated it is wrong, and now the problem that we have and that we are faced with is maybe some individuals who wanted to do away with GSEs in the first place, you have given them an excuse to try to have this forum so that we can talk about it and maybe change the direction and the mission of what the GSEs had, which they have done a tremendous job. . .

Read more wonderful quotes from those that brought us financial crisis

Some of the best posts I’ve read on the “Wall Street Bailout.”

From The Bobo Files:

There is an overwhelmingly clear majority in both the House and the Senate in Congress. If the Dems really wanted to pass a bill, they could do it on their own. I don’t buy their bullshit that they want to pass a partisan bill. They could care less about anything else, so why this? Could it be the fact that they are trying to siphon off 20% from the $700 Billion + to go to ACORN (the organization that Obama worked with) and other housing organizations? That 20% which is supposed to be going to pay down debt - they want to put it back in to the same kind of freakin’ organizations that caused this problem in the first place. They want to bail out stupid and/or unqualified homeowners on our dollar. They want to give money to an organization that is currently under investigation for voter fraud. Is it any wonder the Republicans won’t sign off on it?

From Shaving Leviathan:

Thanks to the creation and favored treatment of Fannie and Freddie, the CRA, the Tax Act Reform of 1986, and a host of other legislation, the mortgage lending market was severely distorted. Self-limiting free-market mechanisms that constrain bad investment decisions was thus removed. The Fed greased the wheels, and put the whole train on a roller coaster, through a years-long policy of artificial manipulation of interest rates.

(This is not to mention the ample funds Obama himself received from Fannie and Freddie. However, even at #2 on the list of recipients, $135,000 over three years isn't enough to make the case that he was bought, as is common currency on conservative blogs. It's chump change and a tiny percentage of the $150 million those two paid to politicians over the years.)

Offshore drilling ban due to expire?

I heard about this in the afternoon and I was simply incredulous: The Democrats are going to let the offshore drilling ban expire. Hmmm, we’ll see.

Pelosi's Energy News Conference Gets Overwhelmed by Pro-Drilling Americans, Then She Hops in an SUV

HT:Americans for Prosperity