Reagan Wasn’t Reagan

Ronald Reagan’s name is going to come up a lot – a lo-hot-hot-hot-hot – in the next few weeks as the Republican primary heats up. But really, the Reagan we fondly think of isn’t who he really was. He deserves a lot of credit for the fall of the Soviet empire, and for being the best president of the 20th centrury, but he also gave amnesty to 3 million illegals and tripled the national debt, from the $950bn range to $2.9tn (depending on which figures you look at). That’s a 200% increase, more than George W. Bush ($5.7T to $10.7T, or 88%) and Obama’s projected 8-year budget ($10.7T to $24T, or 124%).

Actually, let’s be fair – Obama would have broken 200% a few months ago, but no one has been stupid enough to tell him what comes after “trillion.”

Reagan also grew the size of the Federal Government by more than 60,000 employees – something that would boil the blood of modern-day Reagan worshipers. He bailed out Social Security to the tune of $165 billion, raised the corporate tax rate, and instituted the Earned Income Tax Credit, which turned millions of Americans who didn’t pay federal income tax into millions of Americans who received free money from taxpayers.

So, in the coming days, when every Republican gets rug burns fellating the legacy of Ronald Reagan, just remember: Even Reagan wasn’t Reagan.

Reagan Wasn’t Reagan

Ronald Reagan’s name is going to come up a lot – a lo-hot-hot-hot-hot – in the next few weeks as the Republican primary heats up. But really, the Reagan we fondly think of isn’t who he really was. He deserves a lot of credit for the fall of the Soviet empire, and for being the best president of the 20th centrury, but he also gave amnesty to 3 million illegals and tripled the national debt, from the $950bn range to $2.9tn (depending on which figures you look at). That’s a 200% increase, more than George W. Bush ($5.7T to $10.7T, or 88%) and Obama’s projected 8-year budget ($10.7T to $24T, or 124%).

Actually, let’s be fair – Obama would have broken 200% a few months ago, but no one has been stupid enough to tell him what comes after “trillion.”

Reagan also grew the size of the Federal Government by more than 60,000 employees – something that would boil the blood of modern-day Reagan worshipers. He bailed out Social Security to the tune of $165 billion, raised the corporate tax rate, and instituted the Earned Income Tax Credit, which turned millions of Americans who didn’t pay federal income tax into millions of Americans who received free money from taxpayers.

So, in the coming days, when every Republican gets rug burns fellating the legacy of Ronald Reagan, just remember: Even Reagan wasn’t Reagan.

Muslim Feelings More Important Than American Lives

Across the country, the debate roars on.

It’s not Team Edward vs. Team Jacob, nor is it “To McRib or not to McRib?”

It’s whether airline passengers should subject themselves to an AIT (Advanced Imaging Technology) scan, or get an equally intrusive and potentially humiliating “enhanced pat-down.”

Or, in the case of a growing number of angry travelers, neither one.

From the “touch my junk” guy to Ann Poe, a 37-year veteran of the aviation industry (and a pilot since 1981) who lost her job after refusing her umpteenth pat-down, Transportation Security Administration horror stories are popping up across the country… and so are the challenges to the TSA’s procedures.

This November 24th, the day before Thanksgiving, has been designated “National Opt-Out Day,” organized as a protest to the invasive screening process; those selected for random screenings are asked to opt out of the AIT scans and instead ask for the much slower pat-down.  The hope of organizers is that air traffic will slow to a crawl on what is traditionally one of the busiest travel days of the year.

Yesterday, Ron Paul (R-TX) introduced H.R. 6416, the American Traveler Dignity Act.   California is even considering legislation that would allow passengers to sue TSA screeners if they inappropriately touch passengers – screeners who are, in the vast majority of cases, merely doing what they have been trained to do.

Often overlooked in the civil rights conversation and the tsunami of junk-touching jokes, however, are undeniable facts:  The TSA’s new screening procedures — a direct result of political correctness run amok — are violating the civil rights of 99% of Americans while simultaneously making the United States more vulnerable to a terrorist attack.  And, frankly, it’s an easy argument to make.

First, consider that our airline security resources are finite.

Second, realize that neither the AIT scans nor the pat-downs make air passengers safer.

The bureaucracy involved in patting down Ms. Poe, a pilot who has been flying for 29 years, is absurd on its face and completely useless at its core.  Why?  Because if Ms. Poe wanted to destroy a plane and kill all of its passengers, she could simply FLY THE PLANE INTO A BUILDING.  Or the ground.  Or a mountain.  Or descend so rapidly that the wings rip off.

Similarly, if a flight attendant wanted to crash the plane, it would be remarkably easy:  Drop a couple of roofies into the pilot and co-pilot’s coffee, kick back, and wait for the inevitable.  Poison would work, too, hidden in a 2.9 oz shampoo bottle, and even a couple of well-timed laxatives could get the pilots out of the cockpit long enough the attendant to slip inside, lock the door, and send the plane into a nosedive.

Determined terrorists can smuggle explosives in body cavities; AIT scans do not penetrate far enough to see into the body, and as far as anyone knows, the TSA has not yet gone “all the way” with its groping sessions.

Also, imagine this:  A young man nervously walks into JFK Airport dragging a lone carry-on.  He bypasses the ticket counter — perhaps he printed a ticket online? — and approaches the security line, full of hundreds of eager travelers:  young mothers and their children, elderly couples going on second honeymoons, and maybe some Marines headed overseas to fight for our freedom.

And once he reaches the line, he pulls a detonator from his hoodie pocket, yells “Allahu Akbar,” and presses the button.  Fifty pounds of jagged metal propelled by 15 pounds of plastic explosives rip through the crowd, killing hundreds instantly.

This new 9/11 scenario might not be as dramatic as the sight of the Twin Towers collapsing and the Pentagon smoldering, but it would have the same effect on the United States:  Widespread panic, all flights shut down, airports taken over by the both military and law enforcement personnel,  a precipitous drop in the stock market, and tens of billions of dollars spent retrofitting airports.  (Which, by the way, still wouldn’t make us safe:  If there were metal detectors and security screens at the entrance to the airports, there would just be a line of people standing outside in the cold waiting to get in…. at which point a young man nervously walks up to the line dragging a lone carry-on….)

Third, consider what does work.  It’s something that our government so often asks Americans to do on a daily basis:  Keep an eye out for suspicious activities, and report them if you see them.  Our Israeli friends use this technique to extreme effectiveness.  Rather than looking for a bomb or a firearm or a weapon, as our TSA screeeners are instructed, the Israelis look at the people entering their airports.  Are they nervous?  Shifty?  Fidgety?  Acting in an otherwise irregular manner?  Walking strangely?

Lastly, of course, what the Israelis and otherwise sane people call “observation,” far-left wing-nuts and apologist Muslim groups like CAIR (the Council on American-Islamic Relations) call “profiling.”  And profiling is wrong, they will tell you.  Profiling is racist.  Profiling alienates Muslims.  In fact, CAIR is  instructing Muslim women wearing burqas to decline all screening that occurs below the neck… and Janet Napolitano is considering granting them an exemption from screening!

(Perhaps Ms. Napolitano has never heard of the myriad female suicide bombers that have ravaged Israel over the years.)

So, instead of profiling, we apply the affirmative action/quota system to selecting who gets enhanced screening and who doesn’t. Despite the fact that just about every attempt to destroy a plane in the past 30 years has been perpetrated by a Muslim, the TSA continues to pat down crying three-year-old girls, gray-haired grandmothers, pilots, and flight attendants while refusing to look under the clothing of a Muslim woman.   By doing so, the left can claim to be protecting the civil rights of Muslims… by violating the Fourth Amendment rights of everyone else, and increasing the chances that a plane will explode in mid-air.

So, to recap (in language so plain that even Janet Napolitano can undertand it):

Our security resources are finite.  We waste many of them on procedures that do not make us safer in the slightest.  Therefore, we have fewer resources than we normally would, meaning we are less safe than we could be.  And the reason we waste our resources on these procedures is so that we can wave our hands and say, “Look at us!  We respect Muslims!” and hide behind political correctness.

In other words, the feelings of Muslims are more important to the left than the lives of ordinary Americans.

Obamateurism, Go!

You have to hand it to the current administration… they keep coming up with ways to embarrass America and diminish its standing on the world stage.

In the past week: the President’s kowtowing to dictators and terrorism-supporting states has allowed the United States’ record on human rights to be lambasted at the United Nations, TOTUS’s massive ego misinterpreted a gesture of capitalist goodwill as personal praise, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs got into a physical altercation because only 5 American reporters would be allowed into a photoshoot (instead of 8), and FLOTUS Michelle Obama foisted a handshake upon a hardline Muslim who believes his religion prohibits him from making physical contact with a female outside of his family.

Woo hah!

Conservative pundits have termed the President’s economic theory “Obamunism,” a vision of communism/socialism in the United States.  His arguments for immigration reform have been called “shamnesty. ” And recently, we’re increasingly being show signs of “Obamateurism,” a term used to describe the absolute amateurism being exhibited by the left, and Obama’s White House specifically.

Obamateurism is sharply on the rise in the past week, as the above-mentioned four incidents attest.  However, it is certainly not a new phenomenon:  The not-yet-ready-for-primetime President has been acting decidedly unpresidential since the day he took office.

In July, 2009:  Obama infamously said that Cambridge Police “acted stupidly” in their detention of Henry Gates, Jr. , then held a “beer summit” and hammed it up for the cameras while urging Americans to learn from this “teachable moment.”  To this day, every time I hear someone use the phrase “teachable moment,” I want to smack them in the head with the 2,800 page healthcare bill.

Obama has slandered and shamed the Special Olympics, Nancy Reagan, the Constitution, the Supreme Court, Las Vegas, female reporters, the Bible, conservative Pennsylvanians, the American capitalist system, the Tea Party, and Navy Corpsmen everywhere.

In one of his most laughable arguments, he compared himself to other “great communicators” while, in the same breath, blaming the unpopularity of his healthcare policy on the fact that he hadn’t effectively communicated his message to America (despite having given 50+ speeches on the so-called benefits of ObamaCare).

That brings us to the events of the past week.

The United Nations’ Human Rights Council established a “review” system in 2006, under which member nations would self-report perceived violations. George W. Bush refused to subject the United States to the review process; he knew that it would merely serve to offer up the opportunity for nutjobs like Presidents Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Raul Castro, and Hugo Chavez to criticize the U.S. in a very public forum.

Obama, of course, took off on his “Apology Tour, 2009″ shortly after taking office, and agreed to self-report.

Well, Ahmadinejad, Castro, and Chavez are now the least of the embarrassments coming out of this deal.  Russia now demands that the United States “fully investigate” allegations that torture occurred at interrogation camps.  Ireland and France expect Guantanamo Bay to be closed immediately.  Switzerland, Belgium, and the U.K. want the death penalty abolished.  Antonio Ginatta, U.S. advocacy director of Human Rights Watch, criticized what was offered up by the U.S., saying, “U.S. officials were often reduced to restating current practices that grossly violate human rights, like the death penalty, poor prison conditions and sentencing youth offenders to life without parole.”

Meanwhile, while tin-pot dictators and allies alike criticize the freest country in the world, the Administration is busy sticking its foot in its mouth (among other things) in Southeast Asia during what is quickly turning into the “Amateur Hour Tour, 2010.”  (Any chance we’ll get the “I Finally Get It Tour, 2011″?  No?  Didn’t think so.)

First, Obama made himself look like an ass on Saturday at a meeting in Mumbia.

From Hot Air:

“Foreign trips are always breeding grounds for Obamateurisms, and our President got off to a good start this weekend.  Jake Tapper calls this “an odd little moment” from Barack Obama’s meeting with CEOs in Mumbai, India on Saturday, but it’s a revealing one, although not for the reason Jake thinks.  The founder of Spice Jet wanted to draw attention to the shared Kenyan heritage between himself and Obama to make a point, but it wasn’t the point that the President assumed:

MR. KANSAGRA:  Thank you.  Welcome, Mr. President, to India.  As a fellow Kenyan, I’m very proud to see that you have made –

THE PRESIDENT:  Made something of myself.  (Laughter.)

MR. KANSAGRA: — India as the focus of your drive for exports out of the U.S.

Perhaps he should have waited to find out exactly what Mr. Kansagra meant to say.  Ironically, it was to compliment the President on his focus on India.  Sorry, Mr. President.  Not everything is all about you.”

Then, on Monday, reports began to surface that Robert Gibbs, unhappy with the fact the only five of the so-called “White House 8″ (the eight reporters accompanying Obama on his 11-day trip) would be allowed into a meeting between President Obama and Prime Minister Singh, literally used his foot to prevent the Indian security forces from closing the door on him.  He then loudly and repeatedly asked if the Indian security team was “going to break [his] foot” and threatened to yank Obama from the meeting if the remaining three reporters were allowed inside.

Further American humiliation ensued when it was reported that the so-called meeting was nothing more than a photo op.  Our Press Secretary got into a physical altercation to make sure that three more reporters could get in on the pictures.  Yikes.

And today, controversy is swirling around Michelle Obama, who, despite her husband’s love affair with Islam, still doesn’t understand many things about the religion.  She’s shown in widely-available video walking behind her husband, shaking the hands of male Muslims.  While most Muslims in Indonesia are described as “moderates,” one proudly conservative Muslim official says he “unwillingly” shook her hand, as he believes in a strict interpretation of the Qu’ran that prohibits men from touching females were are not family members.   Regardless, the fact that the wife of the most powerful man in the world would be so naive as to extend her hand to any Muslim man – especially in such close proximity to the President, who might perceive a refusal to shake hands as an insult – is especially embarrassing.

The gaffe machine is chugging away, and Obamateurism is leading the way.

The November 3rd Hangover

In November of 1994, I was knee-deep in midterms during my second year at Virginia Tech.  Kurt Cobain had killed himself earlier in the year, but Pearl Jam was keeping Grunge alive.  The economy was slowly improving, and the internet was a strange new world, what with email and websites and online library lookups and the like.  (That year at Virginia Tech, only 75 people were capable of being online at any time – and we were the leading school when it came to internet access.)   Alanis Morrissette was still an unknown.  No one knew who Monica Lewinsky was.  I had a dozen flannel shirts, but not much deodorant.  The populace was in the process of rejecting HillaryCare, and Michael Jordan was in the midst of his first retirement.  And, of course, Republicans were sweeping into power by picking up 52 seats in the House of Representatives.

Back in those days, Republicans and Democrats were at odds over taxes, gays in the military, abortion rights, welfare, and so many other things that it seemed as though the twain would never meet.

Newt Gingrich and his “Class of ’94″ came out with the Contract With America, guns blazing, promising a new conservative order.  At the time, federal spending ran around $1.4 trillion a year.

By the time the Democrats swept back into power in 2006, the federal budget was $2.6 trillion a year.

Think about that:  In twelve short years, the federal government figured out how to spend an additional $1.2 trillion a year.

Since the great “Republican Revolution” of 1994, annual federal spending has increased roughly 170%, while revenues via taxation have only increased about 50%.  In 1994, we took in and spent $1.4 trillion; in 2010, we took in $2.1 trillion and spent $3.8 trillion.

The problem is, of course, entitlements:  Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid will cost the U.S. $1.4 trillion this year.  Add in the Department of Defense, and you’re up to $2.06 trillion.  Since we only reaped $2.105 trillion in taxes last year, all of our money is spent before we even count it – and this doesn’t account for the $165 billion in interest on the national debt that we have to pay.

In short, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and the National Defense cost more than the United States reaps in taxes.  If we paid our 3.2 million federal workers $1 a year, and shut down the EPA, the Department of Education, the IRS, the FBI, the CIA, the VA, the Social Security Administration, NASA, and myriad other Federal agencies, we’d STILL BE RUNNING A DEFICIT.

To make things worse, President Obama wants to let the Bush tax cuts on the wealthiest 2% of Americans lapse, meaning the top rate of 36% would go to 39.6%.  His rationale is that it would “save” America $700 billion over ten years.

Let’s ignore the fact that money belongs to those who earn it, and the top earners are the ones that create jobs  Let’s ignore that whole argument, and just pay attention to reality.  Fact:  A 3.6% nominal increase in the top tax rate will generate $70 billion in revenue for the government.

So, raising the top rate from 36% to 39.6% will generate $70 billion more for Washington to spend.  Through basic economics, another 3.6% raise will generate ANOTHER $70 billion… so by raising the top rate to 43.2%, we’ll raise $140 billion a year.  46.8%?  $210 billion!  Follow the logic to the top, and Obama could raise the top tax rate to 100% — in other words, take every dollar over $250,000 that every American makes — and he could raise about $1.26 trillion each and every year.

Guess what? Even if we raised the top tax rate to 100%, and we took in that extra $1.26 trillion, we’d STILL BE RUNNING A DEFICIT!

Raising taxes on the people who create jobs is not the answer.  Reducing spending is the answer.  We gave Newt the power in 1994, and he failed miserably.  Jim DeMint, Marco Rubio, Rand Paul, and the rest of the Tea Party favorites have a choice:  They can either confront the problem, or act like typical politicians.  For the first time in history, though, we have a group of politicians that want to give their power back — as the 10th Amendment requires –  “to the states, respectively, or to the people.”

One of these days, we will have fixed America.  We will be able to go back to our comfortable lives, debating taxes, gays in the military, abortion rights, welfare, and so many other things.  Until the fiscal sanity of the country is restored, however, those things must be pushed to the back burner.

I was partying last night, watching the election returns.  Now?  I have a hardcore hangover.  Every new Congressional class has spent money like it was water.  Let’s do ourselves — and our children — a favor, and make sure that our elected officials don’t do what every other politician has done.

PAYGO? What’s PAYGO?

So once again, Democrats have cherry-picked a few of the same gullible Republicans — the “Usual Suspects,” as it were — and managed to avoid a filibuster and force a vote this evening on extending jobless benefits without cutting spending (or raising taxes) to compensate, in violation of the PAYGO requirements that they passed & Obama signed into law two months ago.  The last time I wrote about this was at the end of the one-man middle finger that Jim Bunning was giving the hypocrites in the Senate.  Those February extensions passed, and our national deficit went up by $10 billion.  Tonight, we added another $18 billion to the total.

As in February, turncoat Republican Senators Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe of Maine, Scott Brown of Massachusetts, and George Voinovich of Ohio sided with Democrats in forcing an up-or-down vote on extending unemployment benefits for people who have been out of work for over 26 weeks.  (Personally, I have been out of work for 60 weeks.  I’m just sayin’….)

However, Democrats once again refused to cut spending in other areas to cover the $18 billion cost of the new extension, thereby increasing the national debt, which will break $14 trillion (with a “T”) by next summer. Four bills with pricetags have come to Congress since PAYGO was established, and all four were deemed to be “emergencies,” thereby skirting the newly-minted law.

Under this assumption, everything the government pays for is an “emergency.”  It’s one of the reasons Republicans voted against PAYGO; they knew Democrats would never cut spending in other areas, meaning that tax increases were inevitable.  The Bush tax cuts, which provide relief to the middle class, are going to expire without being renewed at the end of 2010.  And, as we all remember during the Presidential campaign, candidate Obama promised no tax increases for the middle class.  The average American’s “Bullshit Detector” should be blaring right now, as the expiration of the Bush tax cuts means an average $2,000 tax hike per household beginning next year.  President Obama also claims that he has “cut taxes for 95% of Americans,” which is fantastic if you don’t realize that 47% of Americans don’t pay federal income tax.  His implementation of the “making work pay” refundable tax credit means that not only are 47% of Americans not paying federal income tax, they’re actually getting paid by the government.

Also, for the 48% of Americans that are seeing Obama’s so-called tax cuts, the $500 “making work pay” credit they see this year will be wiped out by the $2,000 increase in taxes next year to the average household when Bush’s tax cuts expire.  Obama tends to take a liberal interpretation of how other taxes will be cut, giving this example on his website:

A single parent making $40,000 with two young children and childcare expenses will see a $500 universal mortgage credit.

Erm… okay, so maybe I’m a giant cynic, but I don’t know any single parents with two kids, paying for childcare, who can afford a home.

Either way, the extra “tax cuts” Obama takes credit for are the “efficient appliance” tax credits and the “first-time homebuyer” tax credits, which mean you have to buy an expensive item to get a small tax credit.  Sounds vaguely like the healthcare bill, which requires you to purchase healthcare insurance if you don’t want to go to jail or have your assets seized.  Seig Heil, baby.

I’m sure that many people see the numbers and say, “$18 billion?  That’s it?”  Well, that’s the problem.  There are only about 120 million people in the workforce, and half of those don’t pay a penny in federal taxes.  So, 60 million Americans who pay federal taxes just coughed up about $300 each to pay for this newest extension of benefits (which includes the revocation of the 21% pay cut to doctors accepting Medicare/Medicaid established recently).

In February, a $10 billion bill passed, also without adhering to PAYGO rules (see the above attached articles).  That translates to about $166 per taxpaying citizen, meaning that in the first 3 1/2 months of 2010, federal taxpayers have  each been slapped with a $466 bill. Taxes are everywhere.  Democrats claim they don’t exist, refuse to cut spending, and somehow expect to remain in power in 2010, 2012, and beyond.

Red Dogs Outnumber Blue Dogs

The house.gov website for the Blue Dog Coalition, a 54-member contingent of House Democrats, describes the Coalition thusly:

“As independent voices for fiscal responsibility and accountability, the Blue Dogs have a proven track record of offering bipartisan, commonsense solutions to some of the most pressing issues facing the United States.”

The roster of Blue Dogs includes the names of ten House members – previous “no” votes on ObamaCare — that were recently wooed by the President for their votes the second time around. Of the ten, three eventually voted “yes”: Allen Boyd (FL-02), Betsy Markey (CO-04), and Scott Murphy (NY-20).

During the first 14 months of the 111st session of Congress, three behemoth measures have been passed in the House that will (or would) have a dramatic effect on the U.S. economy.

First, there was the $787 $862 billion stimulus bill that had to be passed immediately, or unemployment would rise above 8%.

Next came cap and trade, an experiment that has been such a failure in Britain and elsewhere in Europe that lawmakers in France today announced their plans to scrap the program.

Finally, there is the healthcare bill, a brand-new entitlement program that seems destined to bankrupt healthcare providers and health insurance companies.

Of the 54 Blue Dog Democrats – self-described fiscal conservatives – how many voted against each of these economy-busting measures?

The answer:  Three.  Bobby Bright (AL-02), Walt Minnick (ID-01), and Gene Taylor (MS-04) are the only Blue Dogs who stuck to their fiscally conservative principles.

On the flip side, there are eight Republicans who voted for at least one of the bills:  Joseph Cao (LA-02) voted for healthcare in its original form, and Representatives Mary Bono-Mack (CA-45), Mike Castle (DE-at large), Mark Kirk (IL-10), Leonard Lance (NJ-07), Frank LoBiondo (NJ-02), Dave Reichert (WA-08), and Chris Smith (NJ-04) all voted for cap and trade.

All but Smith are members of the Republican Main Street Partnership, which is essentially the Republican, or Red, version of the Blue Dog Coalition.  Perhaps unsurprisingly, the only three Senators in the Partnership are John McCain (R-AZ) and the two Senators from Maine, Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe – widely regarded as RINOs, or Republicans In Name Only, because of their progressive attitudes towards government spending and social entitlement programs.

The Blue Dogs get a lot of praise in the press for their “bipartisan” efforts, but the number of true fiscally-conservative Democrats pales in comparison to the number of fiscally-liberal, progressive Red Dog Republicans lurking within the party.  Tea Party activists, take notice.

Pay No Attention to the Man Behind the Curtain

It has become easy to get distracted over the past few months when it comes to politics.

We had the long run-up to the Senate passing their version of healthcare reform on Christmas Eve and Scott Brown’s upset win in Massachusetts. There was the State of the Union address, the Patterson-Rangel-Massa drama going on in New York, and the PAYGO-Jim Bunning affair.  Now there’s a new March 18th deadline for final healthcare package.

But while we’re all paying attention to the scandals and the debate over 1/6 of the U.S. economy, the man behind the curtain is doing some truly ridiculous things.

Plans are in the works for President to sign, via executive order, new legislation that will vastly reduce — or even prohibit — the ability of everyday Americans to fish recreationally.  And when you see quotes like the ones in the linked article, you can’t help but be shocked at the repeated arrogance of this Administration.

As with healthcare (“Everything there is to say about health care has been said and just about everyone has said it, so now is the time to make a decision”) and climate change (“the science is settled” and “the time for talk is over”), public discussion is simply not appreciated by Obama:

The Obama administration will accept no more public input for a federal strategy that could prohibit U.S. citizens from fishing some of the nation’s oceans, coastal areas, Great Lakes, and even inland waters.

Never mind that up to 1 million jobs could be lost; groups like the World Wildlife Fund and the International Fund for Animal Welfare apparently think that saving poor little fishies from evil, evil humans is more important.

It doesn’t stop there.  Once again, taxing sugar under the pretense that it will save people from themselves is a hot-button issue,  backed by new research that claims that soft drinks are bad for you:

Increasing consumption of sugary soft drinks contributed to 130,000 new cases of diabetes, 14,000 new cases of heart disease and 50,000 more life-years burdened with heart disease in the last decade, a new U.S. study finds.

California, Kansas, and New York are just some of the states considering tax hikes on sugary drinks.  A tax on pizza might be next.

Nancy Pelosi says we have to pass the healthcare bill, and she has a dynamite reason, too:

…we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it…

The hubris coming out of Washington is startling.  Politicians don’t want us to fish, drink sodas, eat pizza, or debate anything anymore.  It’s time for some good-old Ronald Reagan in DC — just replace the word “Russia” with “Liberals” in this clip, and we’re well on our way.

Keep an eye on healthcare, but don’t forget to pay attention to the man behind the curtain… and keep two hands on your wallet.

Right a Wrong, Stimulate the Economy

The United States has the second-highest corporate income tax in the industrialized world.

In FY2009, total Federal Government revenue via taxation was $2.105 trillion.

Quickly:  How much of that revenue did the Federal Government collect from corporate income tax?

No cheating.

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

Answer:  $138 billion.

That’s it.

This begs the question:  Why bother taxing corporations at all?  Dividends paid to shareholders are taxed, capital gains are taxed, payrolls are taxed, and salaries paid to employees are taxed.  Why the double taxation?

In the coming months, you’re going to hear an awful lot of ideas on how to “stimulate” the economy.  Most will revolve around tax credits, so-called “green jobs” funded by taxpayer dollars, and other government-controlled programs.  The problem is that government is bloated and inefficient.

(If you disagree, you probably haven’t had to wait for the Post Office to deliver a tax rebate from the IRS so that you could take Amtrak to the DMV to get your expired tags renewed.)

Further, most of the price tags for these so-called “stimulus” plans are going to be well above the $138 billion collected from businesses every year.   A 2,000 page bill will be written by lobbyists and aides, debated for weeks, and ramrodded through Congress (without offsets required by PAYGO) under the false premise that it is an “emergency” measure designed to “save the economy from collapse.”

Here’s a novel thought:  Write a one-page bill.  It’ll look something like this:

All corporate income taxes are hereby abolished.

The $138 billion in tax revenue that Congress forgoes will be more than made up for by the dramatic rise in hiring, production, and efficiency that only the private sector can provide.  Let’s pretend for a second that Obama’s stimulus bill “saved or created” 2 million jobs — an out-and-out lie, but still — and consider that so far, about $300 billion of the stimulus funds have been spent.  Simple math says that it costs the government $150,000 to create a job.  The cost of creating a quality, full-time job in the private sector is roughly half that.

Additionally, eliminating corporate income tax will not be subject to additional “emergency refunding” like current stimulus plans.  The $787 $862 billion stimulus from last year created a slew of jobs that will eventually go away if not “refunded” — causing more and more spending every year, more red tape, more bureaucracy, and more fraud, waste & abuse.

Eliminating corporate income tax also has the side benefit of eliminating a bunch of IRS jobs.  Shrinking the federal government, stimulating the economy, and creating jobs is the right prescription for what ails America.  Unused stimulus money could be used to offset the “cost” of the plan and bring it in line with PAYGO rules.

Where’s Senator Jim Bunning’s phone number?  We need him for one last hurrah.

Harry Reid: Still Clueless

So, there’s this little gem floating around the internet this morning after the jobs report came out, in which Harry Reid says, “Today is a big day in America.  Only 36,000 people lost their jobs today, which is really good.”:

He meant to say that only 36,000 jobs were lost in all of February, but whatever: Dingy Harry is clearly out of touch with the average American and their plight.  We’ve been hearing for months now how the economy is “still on track” to recover, but none of the underlying indicators seem to be able to move to positive ground, and none have led to hiring in the private sector.

Despite the economy shedding 36,000 jobs — more than were lost in January — unemployment remained steady at 9.7% due to the fact that many people continue to drop out of the job market.  Also, the average employee worked fewer hours per week in February than in January; this is considered an important indicator, as employers usually prefer to increase hours for existing employees before going out and hiring new ones.

Further, the public sector saw the Postal system shed 15,000 jobs, but the change isn’t noticeable because the U.S. Census Bureau hired about the same number of people to short-term, part-time jobs.  The lower-level Census jobs last about two months, and the entire Census 2010 project will conclude in March 2011.

Talking heads point to the optimism surrounding the hiring of nearly a million people to help conduct the Census, but this really just causes a distortion in the unemployment rate.  Working 20 hours a week at $15 an hour (paid for by the government) produces just about as much purchasing power as receiving unemployment benefits (paid for by the government).

In the previous twelve months, the U.S. workforce has shrunk from 155 million to 153 million, further obfuscating the continued downward trend in the job market.  The underemployment rate — those either unemployed, working part-time while seeking full-time work, or who have given up looking — rose from 16.5% to 16.8%.  Add in the people who haven’t been identified as no longer looking for work — and the graduating who don’t have jobs waiting for them — and an 18-20% underemployment rate is in play.  All told, the US has shed 8.4 million jobs since the start of the recession, and any temporary easing via mass-hiring by the Census Bureau will be gone in a year’s time.

Should the President ram through his healthcare bill by March 18, his newest deadline (following previous deadlines of August 31, 2009, then September 30, 2009, then by the end of 2009, and then by the State of the Union), massive job losses and a freeze on new hiring will invariably ensue due to fears of the spiraling costs associated with nationalized healthcare.  Welcome to the United Socialist States of America, 2010-style.

President’s Vote-Buying Goes to Extremes

(Zomg, this is obviously a humor piece.  Enough with the hate mail.)

Ten Congressmen who voted against the House healthcare bill were invited by Barack Obama to the White House Wednesday evening in an attempt to convince them to support the President’s initiatives as outlined last week.

The ten being wooed by Obama are:

Jason Altmire                                      Allen Boyd                             Lincoln Davis

Stephanie Herseth-Sandlin           Frank Kratovil                      Betsy Markey

Jim Matheson                                      Scott Murphy                        Heath Shuler

John Tanner

As you may have heard, Matheson, a five-term member of the House, has a brother Scott who today was nominated by Obama to the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit.  Many conservatives are skeptical of the timing of the move, considering the evening summit.  The Weekly Standard raises an excellent point:  Is Obama selling judgeships for healthcare votes?

In that same article, John McCormack links this move to the Joe Sestak (D-PA) story, where Sestak claimed he was offered a high-ranking position in the Department of Defense (most likely the Secretary of the Navy) by the White House in exchange for dropping his bid to unseat Senator Arlen Specter (D-PA) in the Democratic primary, which is scheduled for May 18^th.

I got bored this evening, and decided to camp out at the White House fences to see what was going on.  As the ten Congressmen filed out, I noticed that some were carrying large gift bags and marveling at the goodies packed inside.  Markey (D-CO) was heard screaming, “An iPad! And a Kindle!”  Kratovil (D-MD) was holding a fistful of hundred dollar bills, which he showed to Shuler (D-NC).  Shuler, a Heisman runner-up quarterback at the University of Tennessee and later a bust with the Redskins, Saints, and Raiders, responded by saying, “Oh, man, that’s nice, but not as nice as Obama getting me into the NFL Hall of Fame.”

Davis and Tanner, both Democrats from Tennessee, approached Shuler and struck up a conversation about Shuler’s junior year at UT.  Davis appeared to be clutching a platinum-framed, autographed picture of Obama mid-golf swing, while Tanner’s fingers glittered with diamond-studded bling.  Boyd (D-FL) was chatting loudly on his cellphone and was heard saying, “I’m not kidding! You’ll be paroled first thing in the morning,” before turning to Shuler, giving him the bird, and saying, “Tennessee sucks, Gators rule!”

Murphy (D-NY) stopped to take a picture of Herseth-Sandlin (D-SD), who was babbling incoherently about how excited she was about “being on Mount Rushmore with Barry.”

“I am totally stoked about being immortalized in South Dakota, and especially right next to the Messiah himself,” she continued.

Murphy shot back, “Mount Rushmore is great, but having Central Park renamed ‘Scott Murphy Is Awesome Park’ is soooo much cooler.”

Altmire (D-PA) was practically floating behind the two, his skin radiantly glowing with the glistening glint that only a massage with a happy ending provides.  “The President’s hands are so strong,” he kept whispering to himself.

Coming out last and empty-handed was Matheson (D-UT).  He was heard muttering and cussing the fact that his “power-hungry attention-whore” older brother had to “steal his thunder” again.

“I didn’t get anything from Santa Obama,” he complained as he sulked out to a Rolls Royce with three buxom blondes in the back seat, waiting to whisk him back to his taxpayer-funded chalet.

[Actual meeting to be held Thursday night.]

Mitch McConnell Furthers Liberal Lies

After President Obama made his daily appearance on TV touting his healthcare bill earlier this afternoon, Mitch McConnell delivered a post-State of the Union-type response.

(I should clarify — Obama wasn’t “touting” his plan as much as he was threatening Democrats who oppose it, in addition to demonizing Republicans and the insurance industry.  In other words, a typical Obama photo op, complete with a bunch of doctors in white lab coats who were undoubtedly donors to his campaign.  But I digress…)

Anyway, Mitch McConnell — the 8th most conservative Senator — delivered a mostly-effective rebuttal to Obama’s threat to use reconciliation to pass healthcare reform:

“[Americans have] had enough of this yearlong effort to get a win for the Democratic Party at any price to the American people,” McConnell said on the Senate floor.

However, McConnell continued to bow to the liberal lie that healthcare reform is the most important thing on the average American’s mind.  In his speech, he pointed to exit polling in Massachusetts’ January special election that showed that 48% of voters were most concerned about healthcare, with no other issue even breaking 5%.

The reason that people in Massachusetts overwhelmingly cited healthcare is because the liberal candidate, Martha Coakley, would have been the 60th vote for ObamaCare, while Scott Brown would have been the 41st vote against it.  You can tell people didn’t know anything about Scott Brown outside of his “41st vote” status; when he turned around and voted for the jobs bill with four other RINOs, there was a mass defection from the “Brown for President” camp and a corresponding swelling of the ranks in the “Impeach Brown” crowd.

It has become common for conservatives to trot out the “everyone knows we need healthcare reform” line every time they’re asked about their efforts in Washington.  Frankly, it’s getting pretty damn annoying.  Polling by Rasmussen Reports shows that it’s the fifth-most important issue to Americans.

And while all of us would love to see the cost of healthcare go down, we aren’t exactly hanging politicians in effigy for not reforming the best healthcare system in the world:

According to a Sept. 11-13 USA Today/Gallup poll, the 85% of Americans with health insurance coverage are broadly satisfied with the quality of medical care they receive and with their healthcare costs.

There are simple, commonsense ways to lower the cost of healthcare — and thereby make it more accessible to every American — but President Obama has ignored them in favor of attacking insurance companies as the villians (and we all know why he has chosen that route).  Mitch McConnell did an excellent job of objecting to the reconciliation process by which proposed legislation would pass, but by acquiescing to the liberal lie that “we all know we need healthcare reform,” he is handing the far-left political capital in their fight for socialized medicine.

Allowing Democrats to go unchallenged in their attacks on the effect of rising healthcare costs — higher insurance premiums — rather than the cause of rising healthcare costs is another problem that conservatives have yet to tackle.  Republicans seem concerned with the image that they are, as Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) recently called them, “wholly-owned subsidiaries of the insurance industry.”  Since when did it become a crime to be supported by private businesses that only make 4.4% ROI?

Memo to Mitch McConnell:  Stand up and defend the insurance industry.

Memo to the Teleprompter of the United States:  If I had a job right now, I’m sure I could get health insurance through it.  Drop the healthcare nonsense and cut spending, cut taxes, and get the hell out of the way of private industry… and don’t let the door hit you in 2012.

Perspective on the Bunning Controversy

Senator Jim Bunning (R-KY) was first elected to the House of Representatives in 1986, and served six terms before successfully running for the Senate in 1998.  2010 will be Bunning’s last year in Congress, as polling indicates that he would be thumped by any of the four Democrats vying for his seat.

Bunning, who was recently declared the third-most conservative Senator by the National Journal, has been hailed as a hero by conservatives — and derided as callous and insensitive to the plight of the unemployed by the left — for his refusal to give in on the recent bill that would extend jobless benefits.  Largely abandoned by other Republican Senators — and even attacked by some, like Susan Collins (R-ME) — Bunning held up the bill for five days before relenting this evening.

In return for his consent, Bunning was guaranteed the right to propose an amendment to the bill, one that would have closed a tax loophole.  Not surprisingly, the amendment failed, and thus Bunning got nothing for his epic one-man, giant middle finger at the hypocrites on the other side of the aisle.

This episode is an apt eulogy for Bunning’s career:  Despite being one of the most conservative Congressmen in DC for the past 20+ years, Bunning has never been an effective leader, and has failed in his (admittedly modest) attempts to stop the onslaught of government-expanding policies during his tenure.

I recently put together a list of inflation-adjusted, per capita spending by the federal government for every year since 1940.  All figures were adjusted to FY2000 dollar values. (If you’d like a copy, feel free to email me at taffastrophe@yahoo.com and I’ll send you the Excel file.)

The analysis shows that in the 23 years Jim Bunning has been in office, per capita spending did what it has always done:  it went up.  The more Americans make, the more government spends.  When Bunning got to Washington in 1987, one of his first duties was to pass the FY1988 budget, one that saw the federal government spend $5,922 for every man, woman, and child in America.  And while the 1990s made history — the only decade to see federal per capita spending decrease — the out-of-control spending in the 2000s and into 2011 will see per capita spending skyrocket to $9,207.

As these are inflation-adjusted numbers, the irrefutable truth is that government is bigger than it has ever been, spending even more than it did in building up our military during World War II.  Despite Bunning’s conservative rating, he has been complicit in allowing government spending to balloon to ridiculous proportions.  Over the past year, Americans have slowly come to realize the gravity of our current predicament, and that’s why a guy like Bunning was in serious danger of being voted out of office despite being the 3rd most conservative Senator in Washington.

In his 23 years in DC, Bunning has failed to staunch the bleeding — no, hemorrhaging — of cash.  His retirement from the Senate is welcomed by fans of smaller government.  Other so-called conservative Congressmen should take note.  Even when there is a surplus of tax revenue, Americans don’t expect spending to go up.  They want taxes to go down.

At a recent anti-tax rally in Olympia, Washington, angry citizens showed up to protest a proposed $11 billion state tax hike.  Shelby Blakely, the Executive Director of New Patriot Journal, found Brad Klippert, a Republican in the Washington State House of Representatives, and had the following conversation:

Shelby Blakely: Will you vote to raise revenue this year?

Brad Klippert: The way you phrased that makes it hard to answer. Will I vote to raise taxes? No. Do I want to increase revenue? Absolutely. I want revenue to go up because that means the economy is doing better and the state overall is doing better so yes, I want revenue to go up.

SB: Do you think the State of Washington has enough money?

BK: Yes.

SB: Then why would you want to increase revenue? Wouldn’t it be better to leave that money in the economy and never have it go through Olympia in the first place?

BK: (Long pause)

Yes, you’re absolutely right; it should stay in the economy. Washington State government has enough money… leaving that capital outside Olympia and in the economy is the way to create revenue.  People need money in their own pockets.

(Note that Klippert referenced “creat[ing] revenue” in his last statement, revealing himself as another Republican that still doesn’t get it.)

Sixty million Tea Party voices are finally being heard, but the message still isn’t being understood by politicians.  Economic growth is a staple — a hallmark, really — of the American capitalist environment.  Government — and even solidly conservative Congressmen like Jim Bunning — should not interpret our prosperity as a green light to spend more money.

Hoyer: “If you’re going to buy, you need to pay.”

There is a movement in America to convince people that they should no longer look at the “R” or the “D” next to a candidate’s name; rather, some would have voters believe that we should look closely at their policies and their voting record.

The movement is half-right.  You should always look at the voting record of a Republican.  But if there’s a “D” involved, you can bet your life that they’ll want to raise your taxes.

The latest culprit is Steny Hoyer (D-MD), widely considered a “moderate” Democrat.  Speaking at the Brookings Institution on Monday, Hoyer raised the possibility that taxes would be raised despite the current economic recession:

“No one likes raising revenue, and understandably so, but if you’re going to buy, you need to pay.”

As usual, the House Majority Leader doesn’t get it.  The American People are not “buying” anything; we’re watching in horror as our elected representatives spend this country into oblivion.  We’re begging Washington to stop spending.  Hoyer’s response – that Americans have to pay for the massive entitlement programs that have been enacted over the past 75 years – is naïve and overly simplistic.

In 2000 – when this country was humming along beautifully just before the horrific attacks on 9/11/2001 – our government was spending $1.8 trillion a year, while collecting about $2 trillion in taxes.  President Obama’s FY2011 budget plans to spend $3.83 trillion a year, while collecting about $2.3 trillion in taxes.

Over the past decade, the government’s tax revenue has increased approximately 16%, but spending has gone up 113%.  Are there any Americans out there who more than double their spending after getting a 16% raise?

The only way to reduce the deficit is a combination of tax cuts and lowered federal spending.  Until those two ideas merge, we’ll all keep paying.  Sadly for Maryland’s Fifth District, Steny Hoyer seems oblivious to fundamental economic truths.

Health Insurers: The Last Line of Defense

President Obama has launched an all-out attack on the insurance companies in his new healthcare plan.  Unfortunately for Americans, the private insurance industry is the last thing standing between us and socialized medicine — and as a result, socialism.

In his first major piece of legislation, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 — i.e. the stimulus bill — President Obama created a couple of agencies that might have raised some eyebrows if anyone in Washington had read the bill before voting on it.

One, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, is supposed to help facilitate the computerization of medical records.  One mandate of the Office, though, is to provide “appropriate information to help guide medical decisions at the time and place of care.”

The other, the Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research, has a seemingly innocuous agenda:

SEC. 804. FEDERAL COORDINATING COUNCIL FOR COMPARATIVE
EFFECTIVENESS RESEARCH. (a) ESTABLISHMENT.—There is hereby
established a Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative
Effectiveness Research (in this section referred to as the ‘‘Council’’).
(b) PURPOSE.—The Council shall foster optimum coordination
of comparative effectiveness and related health services research
conducted or supported by relevant Federal departments and agencies,
with the goal of reducing duplicative efforts and encouraging
coordinated and complementary use of resources.
(c) DUTIES.—The Council shall—
(1) assist the offices and agencies of the Federal Government,
including the Departments of Health and Human Services,
Veterans Affairs, and Defense, and other Federal departments
or agencies, to coordinate the conduct or support of
comparative effectiveness and related health services research;
and
(2) advise the President and Congress on—
(A) strategies with respect to the infrastructure needs
of comparative effectiveness research within the Federal
Government; and
(B) organizational expenditures for comparative
effectiveness research.

So, what is comparative effectiveness research?  It’s a framework for determining what works and what doesn’t, and leans heavily on Health Technology Assessment (HTA) to allow policy-makers and those directly involved in healthcare to speak a common language.  Liken it to a hospital administrator trying to figure out if an uninsured patient will receive a procedure or not — the doctor explains the procedures needed, and the administrator figures out whether the benefit to the patient is worth the cost to the hospital.

In HTA, the predominant language spoken is Quality-Adjusted Life Years (QALY):

The QALY is based on the number of years of life that would be added by the intervention. Each year in perfect health is assigned the value of 1.0 down to a value of 0.0 for death. If the extra years would not be lived in full health, for example if the patient would lose a limb, or be blind or have to use a wheelchair, then the extra life-years are given a value between 0 and 1 to account for this.  The QALY is used in cost-utility analysis to calculate the ratio of cost to QALYs saved for a particular health care intervention. This is then used to allocate healthcare resources, with an intervention with a lower cost to QALY saved ratio being preferred over an intervention with a higher ratio. This method is controversial because it means that some people will not receive treatment as it is calculated that cost of the intervention is not warranted by the benefit to their quality of life. However, its supporters argue that since health care resources are inevitably limited, this method enables them to be allocated in the way that is approximately optimal for society, including most patients.

In short, if a liver transplant would give a patient an extra 30 years of life, it is considered a good use of an organ.  However, if the recipient is blind and in a wheelchair, his QALY might be reduced to 5 or 10 years.  A bureaucratic system provides “quantitative proof” that the liver should go to a more healthy candidate who won’t live as long, but will live a better quality of life.  That’s rationed healthcare at its best, and is surely where the United States is heading if and when we add 46 million uninsured Americans to the already overloaded healthcare system.

Now consider the areas that HTA covers:

Any intervention that may be used to promote health, to prevent, diagnose or treat disease or for rehabilitation or long-term care. This includes the pharmaceuticals, devices, procedures and organizational systems used in health care.

Finally, take a look at President Obama’s proposed healthcare plan.  Despite the fact that insurance companies have averaged only about a 4% return on investment over the past four years — in the bottom third of American industries — and is battling spiraling healthcare costs, Obama wants to set up a panel that will effectively cap or deny hikes in health insurance rates.  He wants insurance companies to be forced to provide insurance to people with pre-existing conditions; such plans cost insurers hundreds of millions of dollars every year.  Further, he is imposing large taxes and/or free-market restrictions on the exact same pharmaceutical and device-manufacturing companies that are “examined” under HTA.

The framework for universal healthcare was laid in the stimulus bill.  Government has access to your records and the records of people against whom you will compete, for lack of a better word, for rationed healthcare.  They are putting in place the QALY system to determine who will receive treatment and who will not.

The final brick in the implementation of Obama’s plan to socialize medicine is being blocked by those evil private insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, and medical device manufacturers.  Once the government bankrupts these private sectors and jumps in with a “bailout,” they will have regulatory control over what medicines, devices, procedures, and care you receive.

(And in case anyone still wants to deny that Obama is a socialist, just read the  bottom of the second page of the letter he sent to Congress accompanying his FY2011 budget):

“In the aftermath of this crisis, what is clear is that we cannot simply go back to business as usual. We cannot go back to an economy that yielded cycle after cycle of speculative booms and painful busts.”

Obama is a Harvard-educated guy.  He knows that an economic cycle isn’t that May was good, but July was bad.

He’s talking about the Roaring 20s, the Great Depression, the stock market boom of the 50s, the 1973-1974 crash that saw stock values fall 48%, the great years under Reagan-Bush-Clinton, the stock crash after 9/11, the meteoric rise to the Dow peaking above 14,000 under Bush in 2007, and the precipitous decline after the bank bailouts and TARP.  He’s talking about long-term, generational cycles, and that it’s “clear” that we “cannot go back” to that kind of economy.

In other words, say goodbye to capitalism and hello to socialism.

Obama: “I am a giant hypocrite.”

So it’s official — Andy Stern, head of SEIU, is now on the supposedly bipartisan Fiscal Commission that President Obama has created (via Executive Order, after the Senate failed to pass it) to examine the debt.

Let’s get this straight:  Obama spends money at a record pace, and then appoints a union chief to a panel to figure out how to fix it?  That’s sort of like overdosing on cocaine, and then asking your drug dealer to help examine what happened:  You might figure out the cause, but the drug dealer is still going to try to sell you more blow.

Remember when Obama told America that there was no place in his administration for lobbyists?  In the State of the Union, he said:

“We face a deficit of trust — deep and corrosive doubts about how Washington works that have been growing for years.  To close that credibility gap, we have to take action on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue — to end the outsized influence of lobbyists; to do our work openly; to give our people the government they deserve.”

Let’s think about this.  Andy Stern’s sole job is to gain more influence for SEIU in the public sector.  He employs hundreds of lobbyists.  Hell, he’s THE lobbyist in Washington, the most frequent visitor to the White House during Obama’s first year in office.

So, in accordance with his pledge to “end the outsized influence of lobbyists,” the Teleprompter of the United States has bypassed Congress to create a Fiscal Commission to study why he’s addicted to spending — and then appoints the King of Lobbyists to help.

Pot, meet kettle.

Dems pass PAYGO, then join with Republicans to circumvent PAYGO

(This is an article first posted as a diary entry at RedState, who subsequently told me that I could no longer use the word “traitorous” unless it conformed to the definition of treason as outlined in Article III, Section 3 of the Constitution.  No, I am not kidding.  When I replied that by voting with far-left liberals, Republicans were giving Aid and Comfort to the Enemy — progressives who are destroying America as we know it — I was called numerous names and banned from RedState.)

Exactly a month ago, Democrats voted on the last piece of legislation they would take up before Scott Brown was seated:  Raising the debt ceiling from $12.394 trillion to $14.294 trillion.  Included in that bill was an amendment instituting PAYGO, or a pay-as-you go provision that requires that any new mandatory spending be offset by either a reduction in spending elsewhere, or a tax increase.  In order to circumvent this, a three-fifths majority would be required.

The vote was 60-40 in favor, strictly along party lines.  Republicans objected on that grounds that since spending is almost never cut, taxes would inevitably rise.

This idea was echoed by Glenn Beck in his CPAC keynote address:  Both parties will spend, but the Democrats want to raise your taxes, too.

Jim Bunning (R-KY) has staged a one-man quasi-filibuster to block a bill that would spend $10 billion to extend jobless benefits for a month and keep other local projects running.  His objection is that Democrats are unwilling to make spending cuts in other areas in order to comply with the newly-passed PAYGO rules.  (It’s not a true filibuster, because the Dems who put up the bill simply asked for unanimous consent to pass it, rather than spending the week or so it takes to go through the procedures of passing a bill. Basically, Congress waited until the last minute to fund the programs in the bill, and Bunning is taking full advantage of their awkward position to ram his point home.)

However, today reports have surfaced that Senator John Kyl (R-AZ) expects that the bill will pass.  That means that at least one Republican will vote in favor of the bill.

I assume that the traitorous Republican In Name Only will be one of the five who voted for cloture on the jobs bill:  Kit Bond (RINO-MO), Scott Brown (RINO-MA), Susan Collins & Olympia Snowe (two-headed RINO-ME), or George Voinovich (RINO-OH).

Glenn Beck, where are ya when we need ya?  There are Republicans addicted to spending who are in need of a spanking.

[Update:  As of 2:30pm on Tuesday, March 2nd, Bunning is apparently cutting a deal with Dems to get the funding measure passed.  It is rumored that unspent stimulus money will be used.  Traitorous RINOs can breathe easier now -- they won't be forced to expose their treachery publicly.]