Not My Mess

It dawned on me today that Democrats remind me of my kids. 

In an online debate I was having I pointed out how nearly every single poster who was positive about Obama was going on about how "historic" it was he was being sworn in for a 2nd term because he was our first black president.  I pointed out that since there was nothing being said of his character and accomplishments and instead the focus was on the color of his skin we clearly haven't accomplished the dream MLK had.

At this point I would have thought a well informed Democrat would list out the accomplishments they credit Obama with.  Of course none did.  Instead the argument turned back that he had to inherit all these problems from Bush and from there they repeated talking point after talking point.  You know the ones... the Iraq war on credit cards, Bush ruined the Economy etc. etc. etc..

I gave our leftist friends a 2nd chance to show me up asking point blank, can you please site some of Obama's accomplishments since unemployment is no better today then it was when he took office, the wars in the middle east he said he'd end continue worse then ever, the Patriot Act that Democrats blasted Bush for was expanded under Obama, the deficit has gone up so high that it makes even the last 2 years under Bush look good, GITMO prison which was so evil has been expanded, taxes on those of us making less then $250,000 a year have gone up, ObamaCare is now starting to show is increasing health care costs instead of decreasing as it was suppose to... what is better off today as a result of Obama and his policies?

Did even a single person come back with anything?

I was at least expecting that he killed Osama or he opened it up to allowing gays in the military.  Granted the first was accomplished using intelligence gathered under Bush using "torture" and the 2nd is subject to point of view as whether or not it was an accomplishment but I'll give those two to him.

But what else did he accomplish?  Anything?

The responses came back once again blaming Bush for everything under the sun.

This brings us back to my kids and how they remind me of this group of Democrats.

I walk into a room full of toys.  It doesn't matter who's toys they are or how they got on the floor, I just want them picked up.  I say to my kids that it's time to pick up the toys.  Instead of doing this they argue back that it was the other one who made the mess.  I say again, it doesn't matter who made the mess but you have to clean it up.

Obama didn't make the mess, this I'll agree on.  The economic down turn started before he became president (let's ignore any responsibility he had in office prior to becoming president and since we're being generous let's also ignore that Democrats held the house and senate since the 2006 elections).  However he ran for office as the guy who would clean up the mess.  He's had 4 years so far and the mess is still on the floor.

Democrats, instead of focusing on the mess and discussing how to clean it up, continue to argue about who made the mess in the first place and just like my kids attempt to draw focus onto something different ignoring the mess that they should be responsible for cleaning up.

Update on Thursday, January 24, 2013 at 10:55AM by Rick Barnes

Obama Job Growth

By now I'm sure you've seen the chart popping all over the internet showing jobs decreasing under Bush and everything turning around bright and sunny under Obama.  If you haven't here it is:

First thing off the bat that caught my eye was how they start the chart at Jan 2008.  This is well after Democrats took control of both the House and Senate and had plenty of time for their policies to begin taking effect.

Then I noticed it stopped at March 2011, why?  The data is available well after that date, why stop showing how well Obama has been doing.  Oh wait, in April 2011 job growth fell another -190 and in June 2011 it feel another -445.

Here is the data in full as provided by the Bureau of Labor Statistics:

Year	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec	Annual
2002	-346	737	-261	-51	413	-124	-2	292	597	-294	-487	-95	379
2003	991	65	-48	199	-89	246	-316	75	60	375	440	-13	1985
2004	61	70	-89	227	172	322	382	17	-86	245	499	-106	1714
2005	120	140	269	600	355	105	312	408	-33	147	-49	253	2627
2006	398	307	284	20	328	264	-151	423	190	499	220	436	3218
2007	58	29	263	-734	317	160	-158	-223	562	-298	649	-322	303
2008	124	-240	-49	22	-201	-191	-208	-334	-137	-267	-714	-750	-2945
2009	-1141	-527	-906	-100	-360	-291	-112	-433	-683	-374	206	-639	-5360
2010	532	165	171	470	34	-203	2	199	6	-272	-135	283	1252
2011	110	221	213	-136	180	-423	65	304	353	190	317	176	1570
2012	847												847

(numbers in thousands)

We took a hit after 9-11 and you can see the economy was unstable going into 2002 but Bush with Republican control kept the country headed in the right direction.

It wasn't until well into 2006 after Democrats swept the house and senate that we saw any real down turn.

In 2010 the government dumped a ton of money into the economy with the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, otherwise known as the Obama stimulus.  One of the criticisms of the stimulus however is that the money spent will be divided over several years, we're currently in those years.  What happens when the spending stops?

Of the 3,669,000 jobs created since 2010 how many are permanent that can sustain themselves without government having to take wealth from others to create the impression of job growth?

The other factor this chart doesn't account for is underemployment.  This would be someone working at a high paying job who became unemployed settling for half or even less of their current salary just to get back to work.

The other question to ask is at what cost are the jobs we're seeing coming at?  Obama's new budget has nearly 1 trillion in deficit spending, a debt that will be passed on to our children.  And even with this out of control spending we still have over 4.6 million jobs still to be created just to get us back to close to where we were before Democrats took control of the House and Senate.

Carol's stupidity and another key statement made

The debate waging on about what Carol Shea Porter may or may not have said in a round table discussion on ABC is interesting but it's taking away from a key statement made that neither the left nor the right seem to want to discuss.

For starters let's settle the Carol debate once and for all, some are claiming that she made a statement that the Chinese are pumping in special interest money into elections and others such as our friends at Blue Hampshire are claiming she said no such thing.

It's easy enough to prove one way or the other if she said it or not since the video is hosted on the ABC news website HERE.  They also supply the direct quote:

Shea-Porter said watching the growing influence of special interest money had been her biggest disappointment, calling it "awful for democracy."

"I think it's strangling us," she said. "They're in the halls of Congress everywhere, and it means, for example, that you sit on a committee and you say something about concern about Chinese influence or something, you don't even know if in the next election, somehow or another, they manage to send some money to some group that now doesn't even have to say where they got it."

The word "They" underlined above refers back to someone or something, so who exactly would "They" be?  In this case she directly prefaces it with a statement about Chinese influence in elections so "They" would be the Chinese.  And since the video is hosted on ABC's site its fairly easy to watch about 9:40 into it and confirm she did in fact say that.

End of debate, she said it.

Now here's the real story...

In that same round table discussion there was another statement made:

"The Tea Party movement really is quite a bit different than the old Republican conservative movementl, " Castle said. "They're more than willing to take out Republicans, call us Republicans in name only, or whatever it may be. It was one thing when you were dealing with Democrats and Republicans. Now you're dealing with divisions within your own party."

Castle, a known centrist, also said that working with the other party -- the Democrats -- once seen as the cornerstone of a functioning democracy, has become a punishable offense.

Castle also goes on that he's sure democrats are concerned they will soon see division like that in their own party as well.

The question I have in return is, is that a bad thing?

I for one support mostly Republicans because more often then not they are the ones who support smaller government and lower taxes.  When Democrats are pushing to spend an extra $1,000 of my money I don't want a republican who will "work with them" and justify it by saying its at least being spent on my state.  No, I want someone who refuses to work with them and says NO you cannot spend that money!

One of the reasons McCain lost wasn't because he didn't work with Democrats, he did.  In fact it was his working with them that produced the unconstitutional McCain Fiengold bill that stripped away political free speech.  It was his working with the Democrats that cost him votes.

ObamaCare was another perfect example.  Parts of it are already being found unconstitutional.  I don't want republicans who will work with Democrats to produce unconstitutional bills, I want Republicans who will stand up against them and say NO!

And as more Democrats who supported Clinton because of the balanced budget (delivered with help from the Republican house and senate) and attacked Bush II (rightly so) for his out of control spending now see the party that for the past 10 plus years championed itself as the party of Clinton's balanced budget now is spending levels that make the Bush deficits look good in comparison they will see the same thing if Republicans fail to turn things around.

People are sick of both sides.  They are sick of seeing half their incomes taken by local, state and federal governments and they are sick of the fat cat politicians who shrug their shoulders saying there is nothing to be cut and turn to the old fear stand by of police, fire and schools being impacted any time spending cuts are suggested.

The fact that these four wind bags from both parties are sitting arguing that they fail to understand why its a sin to work together on the growing deficits, unconstitutional bills and of all things fear that the Chinese are influencing NH elections proves that the house cleaning this past fall was long over due and I for one don't think we're through yet.

I Would Be Happy To Fix It

I'd like to thank our friends over at Blue Hampshire for bringing up a data visualization tool provided by the NY Times that shows projected budget shortfalls on the federal level and gives you several options of things you can check off as areas you'd support cutting from the federal budget or new taxes you'd support to help fill the budget gaps.

I'll save you the trouble of trying it yourself, you can check off every single cut they list and not eliminate the budget short fall.  Checking every single spending cut without tax increases or penalties on tax payers in some way gives you only $405 savings compared to the $418 billion shortfall projection they list between now and 2015.

Unless you are unthinking, clearly it should speak out to you that this whole exteriorize is a bias joke because you can cut the budget down to eliminate the debt only areas that have room to cut are not areas the NY Times would want to consider.

Look closer at the options they give, sure they list some of the ones people bring up alot such as cutting foreign aid (which they only give the option of cutting it in half rather then eliminating it) and eliminating earmarks but the remaining are all health care related and military related.  And it's even more obvious that this "tool" is a bias joke when you look at the details even closer.  The only health cost options are things like increasing retirement age to 65 or 70 or reducing benefits for those with higher incomes.

Here's an idea, let's look at ALL departments and give options to cut everything and anything from the budget.  They project a $418 billion shortfall over the next 5 years.  Now based on the trillion+ in debt we've added this year and last year I have a hard time believing that the projected shortfall for the following five years will only be $418 billion, but suspending that disbelief I took a look at the 2010 federal budget found HERE.  By the way, the 2010 budget shows revenue coming in at $2.381 trillion and expenditures at $3.55 trillion so in one year we've already more then doubled the projected five year deficit the Times projects.  But as I said, we're going to ignore that and focus on only the $418 billion they claim...

We spend $46.7 billion on the department of education (up over 12% over the last budget).  Think about for a moment and reflect back to the $41 million we actually received from the federal government that I wrote about early this week.  Even if we just scaled that back to half we'd see a five year savings of $116.75 billion.  That already is about a quarter of what we need to come up with according to the Times.

Then there's the "Department of state" which Obama has increased spending on by 40.9% in the past budget.  That comes in at $51.7 billion.  Let's just roll that back by the 40.9% Obama increased it back to $25.4 billion.  That's a savings of $26.3 billion per year or a five year savings of $131.5

Just those two cuts alone put us up to $248.25 of the $418 billion shortfalls the Times projects.

And since Democrats love attacking military spending let's consider the department of defense which comes in at $663.7 billion.  This number has been increased by Obama by 12.7%, not very leftist of him.  That's an increase of $84.29 billion per year.  We would only need to cut $33.95 billion per year off that amount to make up the remaining $169.75 billion the Times projects.

There it is, done in 3 cuts.  Two of which are only cutting the new spending Obama added to the budget.

Now admittedly that's only a drop in the bucket compared to the real cuts that need to be made in order to eliminate the deficit but based on the Times and our friends at Blue Hampshire, it shows why Democrats lack the willingness to do what needs to be done to get this country back on the right track.  Heck, I'm not sure all the Republicans have the willingness to make the tough choices that need to be made.

Until we as a country wake up and realize that we need to truly cut back not only on wasteful spending but on the handouts and services we've passed from ourselves onto the government to care for we will continue to see red ink.

So what will it be folks?  Tough cuts or handing our paychecks to the government each week in hopes of them caring for us?

Talk About Not Getting it

After take a "shellacking" in this past Tuesday's elections (Obama's term) you would think he was re-evaluate what he and the Democrats have been doing the past two years and make changes to compensate.  Instead we see him planning a trip to India which has costs estimated as high as $200 million per day.

Democrats of course are defending it saying the estimates are incorrect but even if it is high, is now the time to spend anything above and beyond?  In their defense they point to a trip Bill Clinton took.

Back in 1999, the General Accounting Office did a study of a 10-day trip to Africa by President Bill Clinton. The report found that the total cost for the trip was $42 million.

That figure did not take into account the airplanes, helicopters and support personnel who accompany the president, however. (The personnel would presumably be paid whether or not a trip took place.) The operating cost of Air Force One is over $100,000 per hour, and a ten-hour flight from DC to Mumbai would thus tack on a million dollars to a trip's cost.

Let's say this trip is on par with that adjusted for inflation, after losing because of trillion dollar debt at a time when we have nearly 10% unemployement should the president be taking any form of luxury trips?  I don't think so.

Let's look at what's going behind the cost of this Obama trip.

For starters security had to be sent in early.

Obama’s personal security staff itself will be huge, and it has already started making its own arrangements in Mumbai. “A team of secret service agents has already arrived, and has surveyed the areas of his stay and the roads and places on his itinerary,” the officer said.

And they aren't staying at the Best Western.

To ensure fool-proof security, the President’s team has booked the entire the Taj Mahal Hotel, including 570 rooms, all banquets and restaurants. Since his security contingent and staff will comprise a huge number, 125 rooms at Taj President have also been booked, apart from 80 to 90 rooms each in Grand Hyatt and The Oberoi hotels. The NCPA, where the President is expected to meet representatives from the business community, has also been entirely booked.
The officer said, “Obama’s contingent is huge. There are two jumbo jets coming along with Air Force One, which will be flanked by security jets. There will be 30 to 40 secret service agents, who will arrive before him. The President’s convoy has 45 cars, including the Lincoln Continental in which the President travels.”

Since Obama will stay in a hotel that is on sea front, elaborate coastal security arrangements have been made by the US Navy in consonance with the Indian Navy and the Coast Guard. “There will be US naval ships, along with Indian vessels , patrolling the sea till about 330-km from the shore. This is to negate the possibility of a missile being fired from a distance,” the officer said.

The President will be accompanied by his chefs, not because he would not like to savour Indian cuisine, but to ensure his food is not spiked.

So even if Democrats are right and the $200 million per day is wildly inflated and it turns out the trip is ONLY say $50 million for the entire 10 days, does that make it any better?

Talk about not getting it as a result of the elections.  Looks like 2012 is going to be even worse for Democrats at this rate.