Category Archives: blogs

$1,331,714.29 per job

Posted on by

Here is an internet gem I just discovered:

Debbie Wasserman-Schultz claims that Democrats have created 2.1 million private-sector jobs in 2 1/2 years and I’m willing to take her at her word for the next paragraph or so. But let’s look at how much of our money she and her comrades have spend to get that job increase.

I understand, by the way, that I will likely leave out a few dozen billion dollars somewhere along that way. I’m not including the pre-Obama bailouts for Bear Stearns and Citigroup, the billions the Fed ponied up (since they are, at least on paper, not subject to the whims of either political party), or TARP I. I’ll just go with the big, basic programs I can remember since the Age of Obama began in January, 2009.

  • 2/09, The Stimulus Bill: $787 billion…whoops! I meant $862 billion. (though high-end numbers puts that total, including debt service at well over $3 trillion, I’ll go with the “official” number).
  • Summer/09, Cash for Clunkers: $3 billion.
  • 3/10, Jobs Bill: $17.6 billion.
  • 3/10, Obamacare Bill: $1 trillion, at least. I’m hedging the numbers here because I don’t think anyone knows exactly how much Obamacare will cost once it’s run its 10-year course. However, two things are true. First, the President touted the bill as a job-creator. Second, it’s already affected how private companies do business.
  • 8/10, State Payroll Bailout Bill: $26 billion.
  • 9/10, Small Business Bill: $30 billion.
  • 12/10, Tax Hike Prevention Act: $858 billion.

All those bills come to a grand total of 2,796,600,000,000, or almost 3 trillion dollars (and remember, I know I haven’t included everything)…

So how much did Debbie Wasserman-Schultz and her Merry Band of spend-happy Democrats pay for each one of those 2.1 million jobs she says they’ve created? A little division gives us the answer: $1,331,714.29 per job.

As I’ve said before… not only was this a terrible deal… most of the jobs that were ‘saved or created’ were state union employee jobs (the dues of which heavily fund Democratic campaign coffers).

What I’m reading…

Posted on by

This from the AP:

WASHINGTON – Thousands of companies that cashed in on President Barack Obama’s economic stimulus package owed the government millions in unpaid taxes, congressional investigators have found.

The Government Accountability Office, in a report being released Tuesday, said at least 3,700 government contractors and nonprofit organizations that received more than $24 billion from the stimulus effort owed $757 million in back taxes as of Sept. 30, 2009, the end of the budget year…

Among the examples was an engineering firm that received a $100,000 stimulus act contract but owed $6 million in taxes. The IRS called it “an extreme case of noncompliance.” A social services nonprofit that received more than $1 million in stimulus funds owed taxes of $2 million.

The stimulus package, enacted in February 2009, funneled some $821 billion into the recession-hit economy. Of that, about $275 billion was designated for contracts and grants, of which nearly $200 billion had been paid out as of March 25, 2011.

Here’s my favorite bit:

Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., chairman of the Finance Committee, said every unpaid tax dollar was “added to our deficit or taken from future generations, so I will certainly use the conclusions from this report to look for new ways to ensure everyone pays their fair share.”

So… how is it that when people don’t pay taxes… we are stealing from future generations… but when government borrows trillions… and Republicans say the same thing… we’re just being scare mongers…

And then there’s Larry Kudlow…:

First there was the massive Obama stimulus spending. Then QE1 (The Fed’s quantitative-easing program). And now QE2 is winding down. And what did we get for all this? Slower growth overall, paltry job creation, more energy and commodities inflation, continued housing deflation, and virtually no new business start-up entrepreneurship…

All that money-printing stimulus worked to depreciate the dollar and jack-up commodity prices, especially oil and gasoline, but also food. So both companies and consumers have been punished…

Some demand-side boneheads on Wall Street want the Fed to move to QE3, allegedly to fight a stalling economy. But if the central bank prints another $600 billion or so, all that will do is sink the greenback another 10 percent and drive oil and gasoline prices higher and higher. And that, in turn, will slow business and consumers even more.

And even the Huffington Post acknowledges that Obama’s economic policies haven’t been a smashing success… to say the least:

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama cannot escape one giant vulnerability as he bids to keep his job: Millions of voters still don’t have one.

Suddenly, the snapshot of the American economy is depressing again.

Job creation is down. So is consumer confidence. And homes sales, auto sales, construction spending, manufacturing expansion.

The brutal month of May was a reminder of the economy’s fragility and the risks for an incumbent president.

A finally forming field of Republican presidential competitors is maneuvering into the space for the public’s attention with this message: Obama has failed.

“This economy took a big hit,” Obama said Friday in Ohio, a pivotal 2012 state. “You know, it’s just like if you had a bad illness, if you got hit by a truck, it’s going to take a while for you to mend. And that’s what’s happened to our economy. It’s taking a while to mend.”

“There are always going to be bumps on the road to recovery,” Obama said.

Right… well, so far we’ve had close to 3 straight years of bumps… you can’t blame the bumps forever, Obama.

Breitbart at his best…

Posted on by

I was reading Ricochet today… and came across what might be the most compelling television interview of the year, Andrew Breitbart vs Martin Bashir on MSNBC.  This is some brilliant back-and-forth here:

Breitbart was basically ambushed by Bashir… who used the release of Breitbart’s book as a pretext to slam Bretibart as a racist through misrepresentation and association of Breitbart’s previous stories and relationships… refusing to acknowledge the larger context of Breitbart’s original story… and refusing to hear any complete thought without interruption.

Now, I happen to really like Bashir’s style… and think on the whole, he is a good journalist… but unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your point of view) this interview encapsulates EXACTLY what is wrong with the media… it exemplifies the insidious way which labels of racisim are painted on anyone who threatens the political Left… validating everything Breitbart has been saying in the process.

Breitbart continually asks “what have I not told the truth about?!”… a question which fell on deaf ears… and then is confronted with a despicably racist photograph of Obama in a family of apes… and was then asked to condemn the graphic… as if Breitbart had previously endorsed this characachure… as if he created it himself… as if he needed to beg forgiveness for his racist sins.

He charges right back at Bashir with this:

You are trying to insinuate that I am a racist here which is what MSNBC does to Conservatives every single day.  The entire context of this entire conversation is what the NAACP and what the Democratic party has been doing to the Tea Party for the last year.  The entire context of this… the subtext of this interview [has been just this].

Damn Straight.

Huffpocrisy?

Posted on by

Merely mentioning the name “Andrew Breitbart” in certain circles is certain to cause the average blood-pressure to rise to dangerous levels very quickly. A former Drudge Report editor and Huffington Post consultant, Breitbart currently manages such sites as BigGovernment.com and Breitbart.com — both of which chronicle the hypocrisy what Breitbart sees as the dangers of the liberal agenda. As one would expect, this makes Breitbart somewhat of a target for the left; in fact, it would not be unreasonable to say that Breitbart threatens the left because of his fearlessness in attacking their agenda.

What surprised me over the course of the last week was just how threatened the left is by Breitbart… particularly when he starts putting his toes in the water of the liberal media outlets. None of this was more evident than when he was asked to contribute articles to the recently AOL acquired online magazine… The Huffington Post, a bastion of progressive thought. Once the left saw Breitbart encroaching on the pages of their sacred media outlet, cries of outrage began to fill the internet(s). If you follow the twitterverse like I do… outrage was everywhere:

cdashiell @ariannahuff It doesn’t matter where you put Breitbart. As long as he’s contributing to HuffPo it makes you illegitimate.

@ColorOfChange applauds @HuffingtonPost‘s decision 2 keep @AndrewBreitbart from front page of its site

Penny_G So sad @andrewbreitbart kicked out of another party (@huffingtonpost) tht he desperately wanted 2 b seen at#playthevictim

And, of course, my favorite:

knoxkp so the racist @andrewbreitbart got turfed! Nice. means i can keep reading the huffpo. FU reich wing! #p2#tcot

Now, the prevailing pretext for this outrage is that Breitbart engaged in Ad Hominem attacks against Van Jones, founder of “Color of Change” and former Green Energy Czar to President Barack Obama. In particular, Breitbart said that Van Jones was a “commie punk” and “a cop killer-supporting, racist, demagogic freak”. Now, Breitbart has documented his reasons for his statements on his website… and while I’m not sure he was entirely justified in going as far as he did, he certainly was not creating these allegations from whole cloth. Furthermore, its not as if the Huffington Post is the New York Times, either. I read the HuffPo fairly regularly and expect to hear outrageous opinions. In fact, I can only imagine that this is exactly the image Adrianna Huffington intended to create for her paper. And, its not as if this is the first time Ad-Hominem attacks have been carried out by bloggers who write for the Huffington post, either. Breitbart is taking the opportunity to document the editorial hypocrisy for their selective decision to ban his articles from the homepage.

In short, what we see here is what happens when liberals encounter ideas and people that threaten them. Instead of ignoring the idea, or writing posts that debunk the accusation, they demand the writer should be silenced… banned from the paper. The very people who claim to be such passionate supporters of free speech seem to (in practice) only support free speech that re-enforces their world view. As soon as critical voice enters their realm — they simply reject its validity and attempt to destroy the person speaking.

In fact, I’ve written about this topic before:

[Liberals] cannot stand hearing such a favorable picture of Bush and they lash out with all their hatred and prejudice. Instead of offering constructive analysis and alternative perspectives… they simply disqualify the idea up front and avoid the difficult task of rational discussion.

Now, I have spoken in generalities… I admit. Not all Liberals are incapable of rational discussion (I have a number of liberal friends who are actually quite gifted rhetorically). Even so, perhaps the more important lesson to learn from this squabble is this: Liberals will always tell you who they fear by who they try to destroy. And if the attacks on Breitbart are any indication, he really threatens them.

What I’m Reading…

Posted on by

Colman McCarthy, a former Washington Post columnist and director of the “Center for Teaching Peace” wrote an article in the Washington Post this past week discussing the end of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’… and the possible implications such a repeal might have – particularly in universities who banned ROTC because of that policy. Here’s a brief segment of his argument:

It should not be forgotten that schools have legitimate and moral reasons for keeping the military at bay, regardless of the repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell.” They can stand with those who for reasons of conscience reject military solutions to conflicts.

[T]hey can argue the impracticality of maintaining a military that has helped drive this country into record depths of debt. The defense budget has more than doubled since 2000, to over $700 billion…

While McCarthy would like us all to believe that defense spending is the cause of our record deficits, it is really a much smaller and more manageable percentage of our GDP than entitlement spending — the costs of which are rapidly growing out of control.

Will the Ivies have the courage for such stands? I’m doubtful. Only one of the eight Ivy League schools – Cornell – offers a degree in peace studies. Their pride in running programs in women’s studies, black studies, and gay and lesbian studies is well-founded, but schools have small claims to greatness so long as the study of peace is not equal to the other departments when it comes to size and funding…

Ahh yes, __fill__in__the_blank__STUDIES PROGRAMS.  If you ever questioned what is wrong with our higher education system… you have to look no further than the useless of the higher ed curricula.

To oppose ROTC, as I have since my college days in the 1960s, when my school enticed too many of my classmates into joining, is not to be anti-soldier. I admire those who join armies, whether America’s or the Taliban’s: for their discipline, for their loyalty to their buddies and to their principles, for their sacrifices to be away from home.

You admire those who join armies… for everything but their actual job description… which you despise.

ROTC and its warrior ethic taint the intellectual purity of a school… If a school such as Harvard does sell out to the military, let it at least be honest and add a sign at its Cambridge front portal: Harvard, a Pentagon Annex.

Jonah Goldberg at National Review has a biting review over on the Corner Blog:

This is a riot of intellectual and moral confusion. First of all, the idea that any of the Ivies currently enjoys something that might be called “intellectual purity” is a compliment unearned (but such flattery will no doubt be eagerly accepted). Second, the notion that intellectualism is somehow at odds with military values or ethics is willfully dishonest (paging VDH!). Since when has “intellectual purity” or intellectualism of any kind been defined by its antipathy to the military?  Third, the idea that nations cannot wage war for peace is one of the most easily disproved and transparently silly utopian notions out there. The post-WWII peace was bought with a lot of killing and destroying, not with a seminar.

And Victor Davis Hanson chimes in as well:

Note McCarthy’s passing admiration for the spirit of the U.S. military as well as that of the Taliban (“I admire those who join armies, whether America’s or the Taliban’s”). One force is trying to create consensual government, the other executes gays and non-believers, blows up cultural monuments, hangs and stones women, and on and on. For McCarthy, both are reduced to the same moral plane by virtue of similarly using arms. One could say the same abhorrent thing about the Waffen SS and those who landed at Normandy.

the perils of radical, social transformation

Posted on by

Dennis Prager provides a concise overview of the differences between the Liberal’s worldview – one of transforming society for the better – and the conservative worldview – marked by the desire to defend against such transformation:

A world without God to give people some certitude that all their suffering is not meaningless is a nightmare. A world without religion means a world without any systematic way of ennobling people. A world without countries is a world without the United States of America; a world governed by the ruthless tyrannies and by the morally imbecilic United Nations, where mass murderers sit on its “human rights” councils. A world without heaven or hell is a world without any ultimate justice, where torturers and their victims have identical fates — oblivion. A world without possessions is a world in which some enormous state possesses everything and the individual is reduced to the status of a serf.

Liberals frequently criticize conservatives for fearing change. That is not correct. We fear transforming that which is already good. The moral record of humanity does not fill us with optimism about “fundamentally transforming” something as rare as America. Evil is normal. America is not.

Well Put, Dennis.

via Why the Right Fears Transforming America – Article – National Review Online.

Podcasting humor…

Posted on by

I may have found another podcast to add to my library.  It’s called Ricochet.  Here’s a quote; You really need to listen to it for full effect:

“It’s sort of inconceivable… right… you could be sitting on your macbook pro… watching the world cup soccer… and writing an essay for one of our favorite publications… in defense of Sarah Palin… right… I mean… you can’t do all those things on a mac… it’s like everything kind of rejects itself…”

- (17th min) contributor on ricochet podcast.

When you have Tucker Carlson, Jonah Goldberg and Andrew Klavan on the same podcast… it’s kinda hard NOT to listen.