Gangster Government

(h/t: Witkowski)

Wake up, people.

We are so fucked.

Soooo.... How you liking yo' Change™ so far?

In a legal sleight of hand, the New York Federal Reserve -- under Geithner's supervision and in corroboration with then-Secretary Hank Paulson -- established the AIG trust, an ill-conceived and likely unconstitutional arrangement. According to Geithner's scheme, three handpicked government trustees represent taxpayer interests with indemnity from lawsuits and exemptions that allow them to take advantage of business opportunities for personal profit that would otherwise benefit AIG.

A sweetheart deal to be sure. And while it's easy to see how the trust was structured to protect the trustees -- and perhaps the Treasury, in whose interests they are legally compelled to act -- there is almost no protection for the taxpayers who fronted the cash that's keeping AIG afloat.

In fact, provisions of the AIG trust threaten U.S. taxpayers. By tying the trustees' fiduciary duty to the Treasury -- now run by Secretary Geithner -- the risk that short-term political interests will trump long-term financial soundness is intensified.

Moreover, where ordinary trustees are generally prohibited from exploiting investment opportunities that they learn about as a direct result of their responsibilities, the AIG trustees are free to secretly invest their own capital without disclosure.

Finally, Secretary Geithner has ensured the broadest possible indemnity protections for AIG trustees. Ostensibly, the trustees could initiate a clandestine investment plan to pad their own portfolios, appoint directors complicit in the fraudulent scheme, run AIG into the ground while making dollar-for-dollar counterparty payments and leave U.S. taxpayers holding a paper company with no market capitalization and drowning in debt -- all without any legal recourse.

In the end, the bailout of AIG has made U.S. taxpayers more vulnerable, not less. It has established a dangerous precedent for impulsive federal control of private corporations, siphoned off billions of taxpayer dollars and aggravated our economic pain rather than heal it.

Astoundingly, Secretary Geithner recently announced the possibility of structuring a similar bailout trust for Citigroup. If insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results, I'm afraid the inmates are running the asylum over at the Department of Treasury.

Yet another reason our Creator endowed us with the unalienable right to keep and bear arms.

"Write Your Congressman" -- Not Just a Cliché Anymore...

I don't remember ever writing to any of my elected representatives before, but I feel compelled to do so now. Here is my first (of many?) letters to Chet Edwards (D-TX), who represents the 17th Congressional District of Texas in which I currently reside:

Dear Congressman Edwards,

It has been said that if one's elected representatives do not know you, then they can not, and do not, represent you. With this in mind, I write to you to introduce myself. I am a new resident of your district, having left New Jersey after 45 years to settle in central Texas with my family. I choose to live in Texas, in part, because I believe in freedom; I oppose punitive taxation; and I take the Second Amendment literally. The elected officials in New Jersey clearly do not share my beliefs, therefore I voted with a U-Haul truck last August and now happily reside in the great state of Texas.

I am a member of no political party; I view Republicans and Democrats with equal suspicion. I judge politicians by their votes and actions, not their promises and rhetoric. Being new to your district, I know little about you other than what I've read on your web site and by briefly searching the Congressional records on THOMAS.

I applaud your support for our veterans, for domestic oil drilling, and for border security, yet I'm disappointed by your votes on the so-called "stimulus" package and other spending bills. I am of the opinion that government must live within its financial means just as my family must. If our household budget runs into a deficit, we do not have the option of transferring wealth from others in order to cover our shortfall; that government does this through forced taxation is irresponsible and contrary to everything I believe in.

After perusing your web site I am happy to see that you share my beliefs with respect to American citizens' Constitutional right to keep and bear arms. Therefore, I urge you to support the National Right-to-Carry Reciprocity Act of 2009 (H.R. 197). The notion that I can cross a state border and instantly be transformed from a law-abiding citizen into a felon is pure insanity and antithetical to the Second Amendment which grants citizens of the United States of America gun ownership and possession rights, regardless of what state they happen to find themselves in. Any state law that infringes upon this right, I believe, is unconstitutional. While H.R. 197 is not a perfect solution to unconstitutional firearm laws, it is certainly a step in the right direction and must be enacted into law as soon as possible.

I also urge you to oppose all current and future anti-gun legislation, including the so-called "assault rifle" ban which targets firearms for their looks, not their function. Even though a blackened rifle with a folding stock might be too scary-looking for certain elected officials and bureaucrats, and even though the mere sight of such weapons might cause them to soil their panties, that is not reason enough to infringe on the Constitutional rights of honest, law-abiding citizens who keep and bear such arms for self-defense and sporting purposes. I do not own any rifles at this time, scary-looking or otherwise, but I reserve my right to own one or more in the future and resent a government that attempts to decide which firearms I may or may not own; that they would do so based on cosmetics makes it all the more insulting.

Thank you for taking the time to listen. I will be following your voting record closely during this 111th Congress and sincerely hope that you will earn my support in the next election.

I will post any and all future correspondence here.

Of Parasites and Hosts.

"Owners of capital will stimulate the working class to buy more and more of expensive goods, houses and technology, pushing them to take more and more expensive credits, until their debt becomes unbearable. The unpaid debt will lead to bankruptcy of banks, which will have to be nationalized, and the State will have to take the road which will eventually lead to communism."

Karl Marx, Das Kapital, 1867

(h/t: Konstantine)

The Swedish Model

Wonderful.

Bank nationalisation gains ground with Republicans

Long regarded in the US as a folly of Europeans, nationalisation is gaining rapid acceptance among Washington opinion-formers – and not just with Alan Greenspan, former Federal Reserve chairman. Perhaps stranger still, many of those talking about nationalising banks are Republicans.

Lindsey Graham, the Republican senator for South Carolina, says that many of his colleagues, including John McCain, the defeated presidential candidate, agree with his view that nationalisation of some banks should be “on the table”.

Mr Graham says that people across the US accept his argument that it is untenable to keep throwing good money after bad into institutions such as Citigroup and Bank of America, which now have a lower net value than the amount of public funds they have received.

“You should not get caught up on a word [nationalisation],” he told the Financial Times in an interview. “I would argue that we cannot be ideologically a little bit pregnant. It doesn’t matter what you call it, but we can’t keep on funding these zombie banks [without gaining public control]. That’s what the Japanese did.”

Barack Obama, the president, who has tried to avoid panicking lawmakers and markets by entertaining the idea, has moved more towards what he calls the “Swedish model” – an approach backed strongly by Mr Graham. In the early 1990s Sweden nationalised its banking sector then auctioned banks having cleaned up balance sheets. “In limited circumstances the Swedish model makes sense for the US,” says Mr Graham.

Now, I'm all for Swedish models...


...but I fear this is the Swedish model that Obama and the "Me too!" Republicans are talking about:

• Swedish economic growth hits 30 year low
• Unemployment forecast to top 9 percent by 2010
• More pessimism over Swedish economy

A Tale of Two Poster Chidren

This is the story of two American citizens. Both had the opportunity to meet Barack Obama up close and personal. Both are now famous for what they asked him. Compare and contrast.

Meet Joe:



Joe is a plumber. He works hard and has dreams of someday owning his own business someday. He asked Obama why he shouldn't be allowed to keep more of his earnings, illiciting Obama's now famous response about how spreading the wealth around is a good thing. Within a couple of days, a video of Joe's meeting with Obama was distributed all over the internet. This embarrassed Obama and made Leftists angry.

Soon, late-night comedians were all over Joe the Plumber. Democrat government officials were releasing confidential personal records to the media. The media, in turn, was focusing on the questioner rather than the question he asked. "Who is Joe the Plumber?," they asked. "What is the truth about him?" Accusations abounded: he's a tax-cheat; he's not a "real" plumber; he's divorced; he's Charles Keating's son-in-law; he's not even registered to vote (apparently ACORN doesn't organize his community). Despite these things having nothing to do with Joe's question, or the answer which exposed Obama as a naked Socialist, Joe the Plumber became the election season's Public Enemy #1.

Why? Because Joe symbolizes greed and selfishness in the eyes of the American Left. He and others like him expect to reap the wealth that they create for themselves; they don't believe an individual's wealth should be "spread around" to those who did not create it.

Meet Henrietta:



Henrietta is a welfare recipient. She's been on the government dole since 1983, but she wants more. Henrietta dreams of government supplying a new house for her. So she asked Obama for one. Within a couple of days, a video of Henrietta's meeting with Obama was distributed all over the internet. This made Obama smile.

Soon, Henrietta had offers of a house to live in, her son had a job offer, and Henrietta the Welfare Recipient, who hasn't worked in over twenty years, was portrayed as a hero. She even has her own web site now! The media didn't as why she should be given free housing while millions of Americans who do work are struggling to make their rent and mortgage payments because government takes nearly half their earnings.

Why? Henrietta symbolizes victimization in the eyes of the American Left. She and others like her expect to reap the wealth of others; they don't understand why "the rich" should have all the houses while they have none. Free houses at taxpayers expense is one of the good things that happens when other peoples' wealth is "spread around."

No word on who will be paying Henrietta's utility bills, insurance, and other housing-related expenses. No details have been released regarding the job offer allegedly offered to her son. None of this matters -- all that matters is, people care. No one cares that Joe the Plumber gets punished for achievement; what's important is that Henrietta the Welfare Recipient be rewarded for failure.

After the initial media love fest, certain information did arise about the plight of Henrietta the Welfare Recipient -- not in the mainstream media, mind you, but in the blogosphere. Little factoids like this:

At President Obama's town hall meeting in Fort Myers on Tuesday, Henrietta Hughes stood up and told the President she has been homeless since 2003 and can't find a job. She also says she's reach a dead end with government assistance and none of the local charity agencies will help. However, a local organization is coming forward saying Hughes isn't being honest about how much help she's had in the past. The director of We Care Outreach Ministry, Tanya Johnson, says just last month she offered Henrietta Hughes permanent housing and a place to stay free for three months, but Hughes refused. "We would have allowed her to stay for the first 90 days, no income. You know free," said Tanya Johnson. We Care Outreach Ministry is a faith based organization in Fort Myers. Johnson says she also gave Henrietta and her son Corey, money, food and offered Corey job training courses, but it was refused. "We have extended a lot of her services to her," Johnson said. But Henrietta Hughes says these services weren't free and the apartment in East Fort Myers came with a price tag.

Yes, Henrietta -- housing typically comes with a price tag. It's sometimes called rent, at other times a mortgage. That's why people work, so they can afford to house themselves and their unemployed thirty-something year old "children."

It remains to be seen whether the media will dig through Henrietta the Welfare Reciepient's trash like they did Joe the Plumber's. Maybe they can help answer some of the obvious questions, like: Why did she turn down previous offers of affordable housing? How long does she expect to be allowed to live in someone else's house free of charge? Will she be required to pay income tax on all of the donations she is receiving?

And then there's the web site. It is registered to a "marketing strategist" in Florida:

Oddly enough, Ms. Hughes is also dubbed “the face of the economic crisis” on a new web site, just created, called henriettahughes.com. The site is registered to a Judah Fontz, whose LinkedIn profile describes him as an online marketing strategist at a company called VeraData. I wonder what his angle is . . .

[Via Patterico]

Who is exactly funding the HenriettaHughes.com web site, producing the content, and using this poor, unfortunate soul in such a way for political purposes? Is it Judah Fontz? Why? Who is he? Is Henrietta the Welfare Recipient just another "marketing strategy" for him? Or is someone else behind this? I'm sure MSNBC and CNN are all over this story with the same vigor they exhibited in the investigations of Joe the Plumber; we should have the answers in a day or two.

Sarcasm aside, I feel bad for Henrietta*; she may very well be deserving of help, and if nothing else this incident proves that there are plenty of private individuals and organizations who are willing to step up and give it to her. Whether government should be a source of help is debatable, but that's not the point. The story here is the marked difference in coverage between Joe Wurlzelbacher and Henrietta Hughes: One just wants to work and enjoy the fruits of his labor without government interference and punishment; for this, he is attacked, ridiculed, and mocked. The other wants free this and free that, and wants others to pay for it; and for this, she is lionized and turned into a political icon for the Fascist Progressive movement.

Maybe the "Fairness" Doctrine isn't such a bad idea after all...

* But not her son -- I have zero sympathy for oxygen thiefs. The idea that my tax dollars should in any way continue to enable him to live off the backs of the working in this country is beyond defense. He's young enough and healthy enough to get off his lazy fucking ass and roll burritos at Taco Bell if he can't find a better job. Period.

Stimulus Fascist Wealth Redistribution Bill Passes House

Pam Meister on PJ Media writes:

Back when Barack Obama was running for president, he famously explained his socialist governing philosophy to a five-year-old:

"We’ve got to make sure that people who have more money help the people who have less money. If you had a whole pizza, and your friend had no pizza, would you give him a slice?"

He made a similar analogy later on in the campaign when responding to John McCain’s assertions that Obama is a socialist:

"By the end of the week, he’ll be accusing me of being a secret communist because I shared my toys in kindergarten. I shared my peanut butter and jelly sandwich."

No one’s arguing about how nice it is to share pizza, toys, and PB&J sandwiches. And Americans as a whole are a generous people. Back in 2007, charitable giving in this nation exceeded $300 billion for the first time. The problem is when a third party — government bureaucracy — takes your pizza, toys, and sandwiches and decides how much you get to keep and how much goes to the people they decide are worthy of enjoying the things you bought and paid for with the money you earned.

That’s not sharing. That’s redistribution. It’s something that had its start with FDR’s New Deal, reemerged during LBJ’s Great Society, and now seems poised to catch up to the socialist states that the American left has long admired in Europe.

Emphasis mine.

Fascists, unfortunately, don't see government wealth distribution as a problem, but rather a duty. After a whopping 90 minutes of floor "debate" (i.e., reading of bumper sticker slogans) -- and this coming less than 12 hours after the text of the 1,000+ page bill was released in the middle of the night -- Congressional Fascists today did their duty and passed H.R. 1, after locking Republican representatives out of the deliberations, without the 48-hours of review promised by Politburo leadership, and before member of the House could have a chance to read the bill and figure out what, exactly, they were voting on.

The text of this bill was released while the citizens slept, passed by the House before we could have our day's second cup of coffee, will surely fly through the Senate before people get home from work tonight, and will be signed into law Monday before any any of this sinks in and public outrage can be registered -- this, despite Obama's promise not to sign any bill into law until "the American public [has] an opportunity to review and comment on the White House website for five days."

By "American people," he must have meant Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid who, technically, are American people who have been commenting on the "stimulus" for well over five days.

During his floor speech, Aaron Schock (R-IL) quoted Lincoln: "What kills a skunk is the publicity it brings itself." Indeed, the surest way to avoid publicity and public scrutiny is to implement "Change" behind closed doors under the cover of darkness. The fact is, Obama-friendly lobbyists had more time to read the bill than did our elected representatives before casting their vote. If this doesn't clue you in to the way this government plans to operate in coming years, then nothing will.

Update 5:10PM: A video is worth a thousand words.

Open and Transparent

Obamunist Party Ministry of Propaganda sez:

My Administration is committed to creating an unprecedented level of openness in Government. We will work together to ensure the public trust and establish a system of transparency, public participation, and collaboration. Openness will strengthen our democracy and promote efficiency and effectiveness in Government.

Government should be transparent. Transparency promotes accountability and provides information for citizens about what their Government is doing. Information maintained by the Federal Government is a national asset. My Administration will take appropriate action, consistent with law and policy, to disclose information rapidly in forms that the public can readily find and use. Executive departments and agencies should harness new technologies to put information about their operations and decisions online and readily available to the public. Executive departments and agencies should also solicit public feedback to identify information of greatest use to the public.

Deeds, not words, you douchebags. Apparently Congress is exempt from all this Hope-Changey transparency:

Chairman of Republican Study Committee Rep. Tom Price blasts congressional leaders for not making the stimulus bill negotiations open to the public.

The Washington Post has reported that negotiations between House and Senate Democrats have resulted in a stimulus bill with a price tag of “about $789.5 billion.” This agreement raised the ire of Rep. Tom Price, R-Ga., and he went outside of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office to express it.

“My name’s Tom Price and I represent the Sixth District of Georgia and [am] the privileged chair of the Republican Study Committee,” Price said. “It’s now noon on Wednesday. I’m standing outside the office of the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi. The door is closed. We just heard news break there’s been an agreement between the House and the Senate on the non-stimulus bill."

Negotiators were slated to meet later in the day. However, since news of a deal was leaked to the media, Price questioned if there were “shady deals” going on.

“It’s curious because Republicans were invited to a meeting they said at 3 o’clock this afternoon,” Price continued. “What this means is there are more shady deals going on behind closed doors -- without the public, without Republicans in attendance.”

Who said "bipartisan"????

Update 7:59PM: Lobbyists, however, are part of the "transparency"...

Congressional Offices Don't Have the Stimulus Bill, Lobbyists Do
February 12, 2009 04:14 PM ET
By Paul Bedard, Washington Whispers

We're receiving E-mails from Capitol Hill staffers expressing frustration that they can't get a copy of the stimulus bill agreed to last night at a price of $789 billion. What's more, staffers are complaining about who does have a copy: K Street lobbyists. E-mails one key Democratic staffer: "K Street has the bill, or chunks of it, already, and the congressional offices don't. So, the Hill is getting calls from the press (because it's leaking out) asking us to confirm or talk about what we know—but we can't do that because we haven't seen the bill. Anyway, peeps up here are sort of a combo of confused and like, 'Is this really happening?'" Reporters pressing for details, meanwhile, are getting different numbers from different offices, especially when seeking the details of specific programs.

Worse, there seem to be several different versions of what was agreed upon, with some officials circulating older versions of the package that seems to still be developing. Leadership aides said that it will work out later today and promised that lawmakers will get time to review the bill before Friday's vote.

Like, what... 15 minutes worth of time? The only thing transparent about this insanity is that some of us see right through the Democrat lies.

(h/t: Power Line)

Or To Put It Another Way...

If there were a country called Stimutopia and its Gross Domestic Product equaled the total Stimulus Bill, it would have the 12th largest GDP in the world. That’s bigger than India or China. The interest alone would be the 27th-largest economy in the world. If we put Stimutopia in South America, the interest payments alone would be the second-largest economy on the continent. The entire bill would be a mere $141 billion smaller from taking the top spot from Brazil.

...

If you started right now and spent a million dollars every day until you had spent the principle amount of the Stimulus Bill ($825 billion) today, you would spend your last penny on June 19, 4395. Well, you wouldn’t. Your descendants 82 generations from now would finish the job you started.

The Sundries Shack (h/t: Two-Four)

Fuckers.

Indefensible

Ya know, I was being sarcastic recently when I said, "If the first $9.7 trillion spending spree doesn't help, then what? Another $9.7 trillion? 'Cause you know, if the first "stimulus" heist doesn't spend America into prosperity, the only reason must be that you didn't spend enough."

But truth is the essence of proper sarcasm, as proven once again by primo asshat Jonathan Chait:

TRB: In Defense of Waste

Note to Republicans: The whole point of the stimulus is to spend money!

Republicans like to accuse Democrats of wasting taxpayer dollars and being condescending eggheads. But if President Obama's economic stimulus fails to prevent a depression--and I'm not saying it will--it will be because he didn't waste enough money, and didn't spend enough time being a condescending egghead.

Let's start with the egghead part. The stimulus bill is based on Keynesian theory, which I'll briefly explain in the condescending manner we liberals so enjoy using. When we're in a severe recession, good productive capacity goes to waste. Autoworkers sit home unemployed because nobody has money to buy cars, and cooks sit home unemployed because nobody has money to go out to dinner. The first thing for government to try is to reduce interest rates, to encourage businesses to borrow money to hire more workers and buy equipment. But, if interest rates hit bottom, then the government has to shock the system back to life by spending money directly. Say, Washington hires construction workers to build something, and those workers start buying cars and going to restaurants, and, after a while, the economy is running again.

So Obama decided to spend a lot of money. The Republicans' hoary opposition technique is to boil any legislation down to one or two silly-sounding expenditures that Joe Sixpack can understand--Midnight basketball! A bear DNA study! Obama anticipated this critique and tried to eliminate all waste from the bill. He kept earmarks out and focused the spending on public investments like energy efficiency and education. The logic went beyond just politics. If you're going to spend a lot of money, you might as well get something useful for it.

This manifest of naked hubris, published by the formerly third-rate New Republic (it's hovering somewhere around eighth-rate these days), is yet another focused snapshot of the Left's unconstrained vision that we discussed the other day -- specifically, the belief that an economy is best run by "the best and the wisest" rather than through systemic processes that have evolved over the centuries and have been proven to work best when government interference is kept to a minimum. The Left believes we're not brilliant (like them) so we can't possibly understand the nuanced details of how an economy ostensibly "ruined" by Bush's excessive spending can only be "fixed" by more excessive spending, or how throwing "stimulus" dollars at political cronies for porkbarrel projects is not "pork" or "waste." Therefore, we should just shut our pieholes and let the geniuses run the show. Pure elitist claptrap. I'm undecided as to what angers me more -- the fact that they actually believe they possess the unique wisdom to wonk they're way out of the economic downturn, or that they have the balls to admit that they think they're better and smarter than the rest of us.

Keynseian economics -- which Chait thinks we're all too stoopid to understand -- centers on the belief that an economy functions best when it is directly manipulated by government to produce desired results in the interest all people, and that those who do the tinkering are by necessity smarter than the majority of ignorant dolts in society (i.e., Liberals, a sentiment pretty much laid plain by Chait). Such a system can only be thought to work if one blinds oneself to historical evidence. History is persistent, however, and it has proven repeatedly that tax hikes and government spending during a recession always prolongs hard times and delays recovery; tax cuts always generate greater tax revenues; people always spend more when they are taxed less; and the economy always benefits when people spend their own money. Elitists refuse to recognize these historical factors while rationalizing their policies because they don't support their worldview.

The fact is, "the best and the wisest" were the ones who formulated the past economic policies which created the current mess. Regardless of who you blame -- Democrats, Republicans, Clinton, Bush, Frank, or Greenspan -- it all boils down to the same truth: tinkering with economic forces, most of which are beyond our control, never helps and usually makes things a lot worse. The best argument the Left seems capable of making is, "Our elitist geniuses are better than your elitist geniuses." What is lost in the debate between the elitists on both sides is, the citizens have zero confidence in any of them... and for good reason. They all like to proclaim to varying degrees that free markets have failed, even though they've never actually been allowed to flourish without government sticking their wrenches in the gears. And when the manipulation of market forces fail, their answer is always an argument for more of the same. Witness, for example, the result of government regulations which forced financial institutions lend to borrowers who everyone knew wouldn't be able to service their debt. The knee-jerk blame is placed on alleged "deregulation", and the knee-jerk solution is more regulation -- even though it was precisely government regulation that precipitated the whole sub-prime collapse in the first place!

Under the plan Chait argues for, "Joe Sixpack" works to earn money; a portion of this money is then confiscated by government in order to create more work for Joe, who then must labor to recover some of the money which he already earned but that was taken from him through confiscatory taxation! It's like buying your car stereo back from the thief who stole it.

Those of us in the Sixpack Community believe that if only we were allowed to keep the money we earned in the first place, we'd have already used it to stimulate the economy on our own terms through consumer spending -- spending which puts money into circulation in a much more efficient manner because there is no government overhead. Yes, the whole point of the stimulus is to spend money. The argument is, who gets to do the spending: us, or the government?

Chait's defense of government waste is, in fact, indefensible to anyone who has ever run a business or managed a family's finances. Government spending is and has always been inflationary and inefficient, and has never produced anything approaching the benefits to the individual that tax relief has consistently done. Both sides give lip service to the notion that putting money in people's pockets is the key to recovery. The difference is in the details: should this money be that which we've already earned and are allowed to keep and spend as we choose; or should it be money confiscated from the earners and distributed according to some grand plan designed by our intellectual overlords?

The Deja Vu Deal

America's highest-ranking Tax-Cheat speaks:

"We will have to adapt it as conditions change. We will have to try things we've never tried before. We will make mistakes. We will go through periods in which things get worse and progress is uneven or interrupted.

Translation: "We don't know what the fuck we're doing."

Welcome to the Deja Vu Deal, folks: In Liberal Fascism, Jonah Goldberg describes how the unconstrained social experimentation of the New Deal prolonged the Great Depression and left America with a permanent nanny state mentality, all due to this insane belief that "we have to DO something -- anything!," as opposed to making prudent decisions after careful consideration and cost-benefit analysis. Roosevelt said, "Take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly and try another."

The only coherent policy Roosevelt subscribe to was "bold, persistent experimentation." Conservatives were cast by FDR and his allies as opponents of all change, selfish slaves to the status quo. But stasis is not the American conservative position. Rather, conservatives believe that change for change's sake is folly. What kind of change? At what cost? For the liberals and progressives, everything was expendable, from tradition to individualism to "outdated" conceptions of freedom. They were all tired dogmas to be burned on the altars of the new age.

The result? A longer depression that worsened throughout the decade of the New Deal: Unemployment in 1939 (17.2%) was higher than in 1931 (16.3%), and the national debt increased from $16 billion in 1931 to $40 billion in 1939. [Source: Folsom, New Deal or Raw Deal]

And lo, BHO is now channeling the spirit of FDR, because it worked out so well the first time.

“What you see in FDR that I hope my team can emulate is not always getting it right, but projecting a sense of confidence and a willingness to try things and experiment in order to get people working again.”

Yeah, that's great. If the first $9.7 trillion spending spree doesn't help, then what? Another $9.7 trillion? 'Cause you know, if the first "stimulus" heist doesn't spend America into prosperity, the only reason must be that you didn't spend enough.

Geithner's FDR-era predecessor, Henry Morgenthau, Jr., at least had the intellectual honesty to "admit frankly" the FDR administration's mistakes to Congress in 1939:

"We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. ... We have never made good on our promises. ... I say after eight years of this Administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started. ... And an enormous debt to boot."

I don't, however, expect Geithner, Orbama, Pelosi, Reid, Snowe, Collins, Spector, or any other paragon of hubris involved in this "stimulus" debacle will ever, ever, hold themselves accountable in such a way.

Because, you know, it'll be Bush's fault.

Dear Santa Claus

All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth. And an armored transport, a mobile command center, some military grade carbines, and a few unmanned aerial surveillance drones.

From the U.S. Conference of Mayors wish list of all the things mayors across the country want the federal government to fund in the name of “stimulus” comes my own selection of some of the dodgier requests from North Texas cities. It starts on page 293, and my short list here is just a taste of the absurdity.

• Frisco wants $125,000 for an armored vehicle and $200,000 for a mobile command vehicle. You know, for all that gang tank warfare going on up in Frisco.
  
  
• McKinney wants $5 million for SWAT toys and stuff.
  
  
• North Richland Hills wants $51,000 for volunteer patrol volunteers. Let’s throw in $10 for a dictionary so they can look up the word “volunteer.”
  
  
• Irving wants $5 million for biometric scanners, digital cameras, RFID scanners — nothing Big Brother there.
  
  
• Grand Prairie wants $1.25 million for nicer landscaping around the public safety building.
  
  
• And finally, Arlington is really gearing up for urban warfare. Arlington wants $1.6 million for SWAT toys including more equipment for those deadly but camera-friendly no-knock raids, $56,000 for military grade carbines, $625,000 for unmanned aerial surveillance drones, and $130,000 for “covert ops.”

Are you stimulated yet?

The first question that pops into my head is, when the revolution inevitably comes will these, uh, stimulae be used by or against the citizens of Texas and other free-minded states who finally get fed up and decide to fight for their Constitutional right to secede from the Union?

(h/t: Reason)

Update: The Great Stimulus Heist of 2009

Malkin posts on the "compromise":

Here’s where things stand. The Senate will be in session today from about noon to 3:00pm Eastern. Members will speak, but there won’t be any roll call votes. Cloture will reportedly be filed on the Cave-In/”Compromise” amendment from Sens. Collins and Nelson. The cloture vote (to end debate) on the amendment is scheduled for Monday at 5:30pm Eastern. GOP minority leader Mitch McConnell’s office tells us that “if cloture is invoked on the amendment post cloture time will run until noon on Tuesday. At noon on Tuesday the bill will be subject to another 60 vote hurdle by either waiving a budget point of order or achieving 60 votes on final passage.”

They’re taking Sunday off.

Question: Who has seen the Collins/Nelson cave-in amendment? Where is it? When can we, the taxpayers, see it? SHOW US THE BILL.

Nah, we'd just pick it apart; that would be unpatriotic. We'll just find out that it's more of the same pork. So what? It's better that Congress vote it into law quickly, under cover of darkness. No need to let those of us who will ultimately foot the bill know what the hell we're in for until it's a done deal.

Catastrophe Update

Herr Krauthammer is on the money about the D.C. Doomsayers:

Catastrophe, mind you. So much for the president who in his inaugural address two weeks earlier declared "we have chosen hope over fear." Until, that is, you need fear to pass a bill.

[...] It's not just pages and pages of special-interest tax breaks, giveaways and protections, one of which would set off a ruinous Smoot-Hawley trade war. It's not just the waste, such as the $88.6 million for new construction for Milwaukee Public Schools, which, reports the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, have shrinking enrollment, 15 vacant schools and, quite logically, no plans for new construction.

It's the essential fraud of rushing through a bill in which the normal rules (committee hearings, finding revenue to pay for the programs) are suspended on the grounds that a national emergency requires an immediate job-creating stimulus -- and then throwing into it hundreds of billions that have nothing to do with stimulus, that Congress's own budget office says won't be spent until 2011 and beyond, and that are little more than the back-scratching, special-interest, lobby-driven parochialism that Obama came to Washington to abolish. He said. [Emphasis mine.]

Yep. "He said."

Obama said lots of things, and some of us even listened to what he had to say, which is why all of this "stimulus" scheme is anything but a shock to me -- he's doing exactly what he promised when he talked about "spreading the wealth around."

After Obama's miraculous 2008 presidential campaign, it was clear that at some point the magical mystery tour would have to end. The nation would rub its eyes and begin to emerge from its reverie. The hallucinatory Obama would give way to the mere mortal. The great ethical transformations promised would be seen as a fairy tale that all presidents tell -- and that this president told better than anyone.

I thought the awakening would take six months. It took two and a half weeks.

Rise and shine, sleepyheads!

H.R. 1, Taxpayers 0

House Resolution No. 1: "Making supplemental appropriations for job preservation and creation, infrastructure investment, energy efficiency and science, assistance to the unemployed, and State and local fiscal stabilization, for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2009, and for other purposes."

Yeah, well... it's clearly the "other purposes" that people are finally starting to wake up to, which is why popular support for this farce is dropping faster than Monica Lewinski's face on Slick Willie's cock. This whole "Stimulus" package heist nonsense has me so angry I can't think straight enough to comment without expletives and wild hand gestures. Thankfully, we have the pure, undiluted wisdom and exemplary wordcraft of Velociman:

Let us gaze upon our immediate future: the stimulus package is not an $800 billion jolt meant to defibrillate the heart of the American economy; it is a greasy mafiosi-style payoff to the bequeathers' collective patrons, from community outreach organizers to eco-terrorists to pork barrel profiteers to failure-sodden speculators to public works defalcators. T'would be better in my estimation to give every man, woman, and child (and, yes, morphodite) in the country a check for $2500, and see how quickly the economy was stimulated. Even when a large percentage of the population frittered the money on extravagances like paying off credit card debt, or purchasing mail-order Ukranian brides, the economy would reply like one does after a sweet soft kiss in the ear.

It is a given that printing large bundles of cash by any government will only create massive debt and devalue the currency. We call this the Mugabe Rule. Even the window lickers get that. The truly risible part of the cornholing is the conveyance of this largesse into the hands of the fucking knaves responsible for our misfortune in the first place. There is a term for giving good money after bad: enabling. So, as the fast-buck artists of Wall Street failed and fucked their clientele, so shall we reward them. No issue of remorse or correcting the model. The only issue thus far is the half a million cap on executive salaries, and the wail of the banshee on this point is disgusting. The only thing more putrid than the greed of the boomer elitists is their lack of history. They act as if they are the first people in history to strike a Mephistophilian bargain, only to be impaled by the conditions. The Devil always exacts his due, you fucking twats. And as one devil to another you should consider it professional courtesy betwixt the damned.

Emphasis mine. This is what truly rankles mine ire -- giving money and power to government, a philosopher-gentleman once said, is like giving whiskey and car keys to a teenage boys... yet we do it time and time again. Government spends its way into economic ruin, so the obvious solution is to spend even more. So now we find ourselves pinning our "Hope" on having Congress fleece the citizens out of yet another $1,000,000,000,000, a sizable percentage of which to be parsed out to the special interests that put the current ruling party in power.

"The time for talk is over," our dauntless leader tells us.

Mr Obama says while his plan deserves scrutiny, the worsening economic situation demands a swift vote by the Senate.

That's right, make haste. Don't dawdle, don't even read the 600+ pages of legislation; just pass the damn thing already. Obama's sense of urgency isn't surprising since the more we talk, the more clear the scheme becomes. Thankfully, someone is reading the fine print; from NRO:

Then there are the usual welfare-expansion programs that sound nice but repeatedly fail cost-benefit analyses. The bill provides $380 million to set up a rainy-day fund for a nutrition program that serves low-income women and children, and $300 million for grants to combat violence against women. Laudable goals, perhaps, but where’s the economic stimulus? And the bill would double the amount spent on federal child-care subsidies. Brian Riedl, a budget expert with the Heritage Foundation, quips, “Maybe it’s to help future Obama cabinet secretaries, so that they don’t have to pay taxes on their nannies.”

Perhaps spending $6 billion on university building projects will put some unemployed construction workers to work, but how does a $15 billion expansion of the Pell Grant program meet the standard of “temporary, timely, and targeted”? Another provision would allocate an extra $1.2 billion to a “youth” summer-jobs program—and increase the age-eligibility limit from 21 to 24. Federal job-training programs—despite a long track record of failure—come in for $4 billion total in additional funding through the stimulus.

Of course, it wouldn’t be a liberal wish list if it didn’t include something for ACORN, and sure enough, there is $5.2 billion for community-development block grants and “neighborhood stabilization activities,” which ACORN is eligible to apply for. Finally, the bill allocates $650 million for activities related to the switch from analog to digital TV, including $90 million to educate “vulnerable populations” that they need to go out and get their converter boxes or lose their TV signals. Obviously, this is stimulative stuff: Any economist will tell you that you can’t get higher productivity and economic growth without access to reruns of Family Feud.

Summary:

• $50 million for the National Endowment for the Arts
• $380 million in the Senate bill for the Women, Infants and Children program
• $300 million for grants to combat violence against women
• $2 billion for federal child-care block grants
• $6 billion for university building projects
• $15 billion for boosting Pell Grant college scholarships
• $4 billion for job-training programs, including $1.2 billion for “youths” up to the age of 24
• $1 billion for community-development block grants
• $4.2 billion for “neighborhood stabilization activities”
• $650 million for digital-TV coupons; $90 million to educate “vulnerable populations”

Are you stimulated yet? It gets better; read the rest.

(And by the way... $200,000,000 for global warming research? Why? I thought the science was settled and the debate was over.)

Y'know what? In the sprirt of "bipartisianship" I say: Go ahead, pass the fucking bill. Just get it over with; this country is already headed down the road to ruination, why not move it into the fast lane?

Two short weeks in office. That's all it took for this to happen. During the campaign, whenever people tried to warn us they were called alarmists and red-baiters. And here we are. But cheer up, there are only 204 weeks to go until 2012. By then I'm sure the Republicans will find another mummified career politician to nominate.

Shrumming Down America

Damn! Seems like all of the Clintonoid retreads are crawling out from under their rocks. This pearl of wisdom from Robert Shrumm:

Attack of the Zombie Republicans

So after all the bipartisan ambience generated by the White House, the stimulus package passed the House of Representatives without a single Republican vote. The President says he’ll win over some Republicans in the Senate, but Arizona Republican John Kyl claims GOP support there is already “eroding.”

They won’t admit it, but like the de facto leader of their party, Rush Limbaugh, Republicans want the President to “fail.” Their arguments—if one can dignify them as such—are by turns petty, dishonest or ignorant, ahistorical and ugly.

Listen up, folks. Methinks Shrumm is on to something, and no one could possibly know better -- after all, his ilk wrote the book when it comes to pettiness, dishonesty, ignorance, and... um, ahistorical-ness? And let's not even talk ugly.

The pettiest point was their complaint about the modest funding for birth control in the original version of the House stimulus bill. Heaven forbid—or at least Pat Robertson does—that the poor would have access to family planning. So at the President’s request, the provision was removed; the funding will come later in a different piece of legislation.

Yeah, well, I'm no Pat Robertson, especially when it comes to the baby-killing issue -- in fact, I'm all for any program which prevents Liberal assholes from breeding. But it takes a special kind of fuckwit to keep a straight face while explaining to me why birth control should be part of a stimulus bill. Will this bill require taxpayer-funded condoms to be "ribbed... for her pleasure"? Is that the kind of stimulus we're talking about? For Christ's sake...

At least their quick, cheap hit on contraception lacked the intellectual slovenliness of their other objections. Once and future presidential candidate Mitt Romney told the GOP House retreat that the size of the recovery package threatened to set off hyperinflation. Either he was intentionally deceptive or, like George W. Bush, he slept through economics classes at Harvard Business School.

Gee. How non-petty is that? You're sooooo fucking clever, Shrumm. My knee hurts from the slapping. As for the intellectual slovenliness of the Republican's (and my) objection, I ask this: if you're so in favor of public funding of contraception, why are you hiding the provision for it in a stimulus bill? Why not introduce legislation specifically for that program? Face it -- you're afraid the American public will oppose it, so you do what duplicitous DC cowards always do: you quielty slip it in some other legislation and hope no one notices. Well, someone noticed this time. Too fucking bad. If there was any public support for your free government rubbers program it would still be in the bill. But there's not, so you blame... the Republicans? Tell me about intellectual slovenliness sometime.

The danger now is not inflation, but a descent into deflation. An economy with a paralyzed private sector needs public spending to create demand, production, and jobs.

But spending won’t work, according to the conservative oppositionists. Look at the New Deal, they say, it failed! This Republican fiction assumes that in 1936 Americans suffered from mass delusion as they reelected FDR in a huge landslide. Apparently voters hadn’t noticed his conspicuous failure in office.

In fact, as I’ve pointed out before, from 1933 through 1937, unemployment declined year on year in what was then the largest period of uninterrupted growth in American history; the Dow-Jones Industrial average rose nearly 400 percent. The New Deal only faltered afterwards, in 1938, as the President prematurely moved toward a balanced budget with less stimulative spending—precisely the course the Romneys, Kyls and Republican ideologues now demand.

Forgive my ugly, ignorant ahistorical-ness, but if government spending results in economic strength, after eight long years of beltway Republicans spending our money like, well, like Democrats, by Shrumm's so-called logic this should already be the strongest economy in world history. Maybe I'm missing something; perhaps economic prosperity only occurs when we give billions of dollars worth of condoms to ACORN, or something like that.

And on and on it goes... until Shrumm gets to (what I assume is) his point:

In light of all this, I’m not in as bipartisan a mood these days as President Obama. But I think he really means it when he says he wants to be. He doesn’t lose his temper so I’ll bet he keeps trying. In the end, he’ll agree to some additional changes in the stimulus and it will pass the Senate too—with or without substantial Republican support. And if Obama’s extended hand is met by a Republican clenched fist, the President will only strengthen his hand with the American people—while Republicans further weaken theirs.

Let's talk about extended hands. Exactly how much hand-extending, bipartisanship and compromise occurred on his side of the aisle during the past 8 years?

Just 27 percent of Americans gave the GOP a favorable rating in December. That’s almost a Bush league low, but they can go down from there—and seem determined to do so.

How much lower? I dunno... how about 9% -- you know, the approval rating of the Democrat-controlled congress?

They even called a press conference to charge that the stimulus bill might aid illegal immigrants. Why pass up an opportunity for more of the Hispanic-bashing that cost them so dearly in the last campaign?

Alas, the mandatory charge of racism. That should make the Republicans cave in. Thankfully, I'm not a Republican.

Right now, Republicans are out of ideas, offering little more than resentment and right wing talking points. Maybe Frum can come up with a substantive agenda for them. Or maybe Republicans are just brain dead. In that case, the voters will surely put more of them out of their misery in 2010 and 2012.

Well, he's right about one thing: Republicans are out of ideas. At least good ideas. If the best they can do is offer up tired, washed-up, career beltway pimps like John McCain, they can look forward to spending the rest of their miserable lives in the minority.

And what, pray tell, is the Democrat party's advice to Republicans? Stop listening to Rush Limbaugh. God forbid they might pick up a few ideas.

Sayonara, Douchebag.

And don't come back:

WASHINGTON (AP) - Tom Daschle withdrew his nomination on Tuesday to be President Barack Obama's Health and Human Services secretary, dealing potential blows to both speedy health care reform and Obama's hopes for a smoother start as president.

"Now we must move forward," Obama said in a written statement accepting "with sadness and regret" Daschle's surprise request to be removed from consideration. A day earlier, Obama had said he "absolutely" stood by Daschle in the face of problems over back taxes and potential conflicts of interest.

Indeed, let's move forward:

NBC News has learned that the president's choice for "chief performance officer" -- technically a deputy OMB director post -- could end up having to withdraw over a number of issues, including tax problems. The withdrawal of Nancy Killefer could happen as soon as today. So far the White House has no comment on the situation.

No, I wouldn't expect them to comment. But I have a comment -- actually a question: Are we now allowed to question their patriotism?

Good News for Daschle and Geithner

Quote of the Day

“Make no mistake, tax cheaters cheat us all, and the IRS should enforce our laws to the letter. ” Sen. Tom Daschle, Congressional Record, May 7, 1998, p. S4507.

(h/t: NRO, via Cold Fury, Malkin, et al.)