December Sundries

The 9/11 First Responders bill, aimed at providing additional healthcare coverage for the people who risked their lives in responding to the terrorist attacks on 9/11, is purportedly being held up by Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK).  I don't want to sound too Grinch-like here, but I have a few questions.

1) Why does this have to be done now?  This bill, or others like it, has been floating around Congress for nine years.  This should wait until it can be fully debated in a more responsible Congress.
2) The original price tag on this bill was for $9 billion dollars.  It's dropped to just over $6 billion to get more people to sign on.  The legislation covers approximately 50,000 workers and their families.  Have the needs of these people dropped by $3 billion dollars or was the price inflated to begin with?
3) The people this bill covers are public employees, mostly union, who have the best and most expensive healthcare plans available to anyone on earth (except for those serving in Congress).  Why are those plans now suddenly inadequate?
4)  When will Congress stop funding every perceived victim of every perceived disaster, like they are the nation's insurance company.  Stuff happens!  Nobody was wronged.  Reparations aren't always necessary.

I was watching CNBC yesterday and they were promoting a show to be aired later that night about the "looming crisis" of student financial aid.  From the promo, it was clear that the real target of this story was going to be "for-profit" schools, who apparently prey on the poor, and otherwise unsuspecting students, who sign up for expensive courses they can never repay.  The host of the show alarmingly claimed that the default rate for student loans in the "for-profit" industry was 48%.  Wouldn't that mean then that the majority of students defaulting on their loans were attending non-profit, government supported schools?

I was watching Fox News this morning and they showed a clip from Monday of ABC News' Diane Sawyer interviewing Obama's Director of National Intelligence James Clapper.  She asked him about his thoughts on the seriousness of the recent arrests of 12 terror suspects in London this past weekend.  He was stumped.  Hadn't heard a thing about it.  Don't you feel safer knowing this man is in charge or our nation's security?

Professor Kelly on Economics

Full disclosure; I am not a trained economist nor a veterinarian, but I do think I learned enough in college to spot BS when I see or hear it.  I offer the following examples for your consideration.
(Warning:  I could be wrong (but I don't think so).

I keep hearing these bogus economic theories, espoused by the left and of course everyone on MSNBC, that for every $1 spent on unemployment benefits, another $2 is generated in economic activity.  Same for food stamps, says Nancy Pelosi and the U. S. Department of Agriculture.  They tell us that for every $1 spent on food stamps, another $1.84 is put back into the economy.  Last summer, one of Jennifer Granholm's DHS bureaucrats tried peddling the magical multiplier effect of food stamps here in Saginaw.  Well if that were all true, then why not put us all on unemployment and food stamps and watch our GDP explode to new and dizzying heights of prosperity!

The other morning I heard Donny Deutsch say that Barack Obama had "never run anything in his life", prior to being elected president.  Donny is a big supporter of the Bamster.  He was explaining why the president's negotiating skills might look weak to the uninitiated.  Another honest moment emerged minutes later when Democrat Governor Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania, while defending the Obama/Republican tax deal as a defense against the possibility of a double dip recession, said quite frankly, "because he country is going to hell in a hand basket."  Just a hunch, but Gov. Rendell's invitation to the White House Christmas, er Holiday Party, may get lost in the mail.

Here's another from Ed Rendell during the same segment.  He said that Bill Clinton raised taxes on the highest 2% of income earners in the '90's and as a result, we had the "best period of economic growth in our lives."  Once again, Democrats see the sanctioned confiscation of someone else's earnings (taxes) as "growing" our economy.  Yes Virginia, when taxes go up they expand the governments' pockets, but for the private sector, and certainly for the individual who's paying those taxes, there is a net decrease.  They had it, now someone else does.  No new dollars have been added, so where's the "growth?"

Along those same lines, how can the extension of the "Bush tax cuts", our current rate of taxation by the way, which have been in place for several years now, add to the deficit?  When they were first implemented, they were indeed a tax cut.  The government raised x and then after the taxes were lowered, the government would presumably make less of x, right?  (*See below) Seems simple enough.  Okay, how then, if everything else stays the same, can we they say that by extending our current rate of taxation, we will increase our deficit by another trillion dollars?  We weren't expecting the money in the first place!  Why are we counting something that's not there?  How can you raise an additional, and fictitious, percentage of money on an already fixed percentage?  If I make $50,000 in salary, even though I'd really like to make $100,000, have I created a deficit for myself?  Of course not.  Only if I spend money like I was making $100,000.  And that my friends is the problem.      

* However, supply-siders will tell us that in reality, smaller tax rates increase the supply of money to the government because lower marginal rates leads to job growth which leads to more taxes being generated and subsequently paid to the government.  At least that's the theory.  The real problem is that promised reductions in government spending never follow the reductions in the tax rates.  But I am getting way beyond safe territory here and what I wanted to try and explain.  

Selective Memory

Befuddled, impotent, and left seemingly catatonic by the elections, Obama and the Democrats have nothing to offer but excuses.  They still have their majorities mind you, in both houses of Congress, but their message to everyone is they just can't do it alone.  They passed the stimulus alone, Obamacare without any help, and their version of Wall Street reform all by their lonesome, but apparently tax policy and the extension of unemployment benefits are just too heavy a burden to withstand all by themselves.

Aren't we all just a wee bit tired of this selective memory that the Democrats and the media are trying to pass off on the American public.  Blaming the Republicans time and again for any stalemate, on any issue important to the left, would be laughable if it weren't so darned insulting.  Really Mr. President, Mr. Reid, Ms. Pelosi, you can't find enough Democrat votes to extend unemployment benefits even with Christmas less then a month away.  Can't seem to muster enough votes from defeated members of Congress to lift the the tax cuts on people making over a million dollars per year?  While both of these policies may be wrong for the economy, and are mostly opposed by the Republicans, these should be bread and butter issues for you progressives.  If you can't get these things done then shame on you.

Stop complaining.  Stop your whining.  Either act or get the hell out of the way.  In any case, the public has lost interest in your historic victories of '08.  We are beyond the story line of the transformational presidency of Barack Obama.  What we have learned over the last two years, at a very great cost, is that the emperor has no clothes and that progressives are bereft of useful and constructive ideas to sustain the American way of life.  We have also been reminded that experience counts, and that community organizers with too few years of any practical legislative accomplishments, or without a shred of executive experience, can or should lead a free nation.  Those are lessons we cannot afford to forget any time soon.    
          

Happy Thanksgiving 2010

Happy Thanksgiving to all!  Hope your travels, and those of your loved ones, are safe and happy until your/their return home.  

Regime Change

Last Monday night, the Saginaw County Republican Party held their post election county convention to elect a new executive committee and officers for the next two years.  Having been elected as a county commissioner earlier this month, and having served our party as chairman for the last four years, I chose not to run for a third term.  Helene Wiltse, who had been our vice chair, was elected as our new chairwoman.  Greg Ostrom, was elected as vice chair, Randall Norton remains the treasurer, and Catherine Zemanek was elected as secretary.  Congratulations to all!

Since Citizen Leader's subtitle was "Thoughts, ideas, and reflections from the Chairman of the Saginaw County Republican Party," it has been changed to "Thoughts, ideas, and reflections from a Saginaw County Commissioner."  I hope that this change of status won't deter you from checking in from time to time.  Nevertheless, I will try to be more prolific with new posts.  There will be lots to share.

Memory Lapse

Nothing like a mid-term shellacking to improve one's memory.  This morning on MSNBC's Morning Joe, Vice President Joe Biden said that America needs to "remember who we are."  This was in response to a question about how we regain our competitiveness in the world market.  Forget for a moment that for the last twenty-two months his boss has tried in vain to erase our collective memories and diffuse our status as a superpower all around the globe.  Over the course of the last two years, Barack Obama has told the world that we are not a Christian nation, that we are no more exceptional than anyone else, and most recently that the U. S. was no longer in a position to "meet the rest of the world economically on our terms."

I agree with Mr. Biden that, we, as a country, should remember who we are and return to the policies and practices that have sustained us, and can continue to sustain our power and influence around the globe.  And for the most part, that would mean an abject rejection of the Obama policies.  Which again, for the most part, were rejected by the American electorate earlier this month.  So Mr. Vice President, instead of reminding us who we are, remind Mr. Obama.  Tell him to stop the apology tours and stop  the reordering of the world's dominant players.  Tell him to stop punishing our producers and stop rewarding our failures.  Tell him to listen to the American people and to stop ignoring us because we don't know what's good for us.  And finally, tell him that American's are comfortable with leading, even if he's not.              

Catching Up

It's been entirely too long since my last post so I will ease in gradually.  Lots to talk about.

Obviously this month's election was huge on many fronts.  I just hope that Republicans across the country will heed the message of the electorate and govern responsibly.  I think they will.

What was the message of November 2nd?  That America wants an end to big government enterprise at the expense of the private sector and capitalism.  We reject the progressive drive to be more like Europe.  We believe in the equality of opportunity, but not the equality of outcome.  Suck on that President Obama.

My first reaction to the initial report from the co-chairs of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform is that both parties should adopt and pass their recommendations entirely.
Stop the demoguoging!

I share my brother's reaction to the onset of cold weather; I hate having to wear a coat too.