Obama's Big Government Approach Turning Off Voters

Latest from Rasmussen:

Sixty percent (60%) of Americans say the federal government has too much power and too much money, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey.

Just nine percent (9%) say the government has too little power and money. Twenty-four percent (24%) believe the government has about the right amount of both.

While slightly more than half of those working for both the government and private industry say the government is too big, 79% of entrepreneurs feel that way.

Republicans and adults not affiliated with either major political party are far more concerned about the government’s size and wealth than Democrats are. Eighty-eight percent (88%) of Republicans and 62% of unaffiliateds say the federal government as too much power and money. Among Democrats, however, just 35% agree, while 44% think the size of government is about right.

Those who earn less than $40,000 per year are more wary of the size of the government than are those who earn more. Sixty-two percent (62%) of investors say the government has too much money and power, compared to 57% of non-investors.

Call To Let Big Bad Banks Fail, falls on Obama's Deaf Ears!

Those big ears must be useless.

From a recent testimony by some prominent economists:

Columbia University professor Joseph Stiglitz and MIT professor Simon Johnson warned the Joint Economic Committee of Congress that the current government policy of propping up troubled financial giants could impede an economic recovery.

They each said spending taxpayer dollars freely on behalf of struggling big banks risks drowning U.S. productive capacity in debt -- while handing what amounts to an enormously costly subsidy to politically powerful financial sector insiders.

If the Obama administration fails to hold troubled banks accountable for their problems, the U.S. could face a lost decade of economic growth like Japan's in the 1990s, they said.

The third skeptic, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City President Thomas Hoenig, said policymakers must allow troubled firms to fail rather than propping them up, a la AIG (AIG, Fortune 500). He said banks must be treated consistently, regardless of their size or connections, for the sake of restoring confidence to markets and normal function to the economy.

Will Aneesh Chopra (New CTO) Teach Obama A Thing or Two

From a speech Aneesh Chopara gave in 2006

To make health care and other core services more readily available to people in need, management efficiencies will never go far enough, he said, speaking Sept. 10 at the Commonwealth of Virginia Innovative Technology Symposium.

During the group’s travels, they visited a hospital dedicated to heart care. More than 6,000 patients have open heart surgery at the hospital each year, with surgeons performing an average of 14 a day at a cost of $1,500 each. In contrast, the average doctor in the United States performs at most four a day, at a cost of $35,000 or more, Chopra said. Yet the doctors in India do not make dramatically less money than their U.S. counterparts, he said.

Electronic medical records are another example of where the debate must change. EMRs have the potential to improve care for everyone, but such systems can cost $30,000. Many people are wondering how physicians will pay for that, Chopra said, when they really should be asking how to lower that price to $1,000

Obama & Liberals Blowing Smoke on Uninsured Americans

From Keith Hennessey:

The traditional Beltway logic on health care reform goes like this:

• The problem is that 46 million Americans lack health insurance.
  
• Government should provide health insurance to those 46 million people, or at least pay for it.
• Let’s expand a taxpayer-subsidized health insurance program to cover the 46 million, or maybe create a new program.
  • (Alternately: Let’s mandate that everyone has to buy/have health insurance.)
• This means everyone will have health insurance. We have solved the problem.

Much of the health policy debate centers on how to solve this problem. Liberals want to expand government programs:

Now Is No Time to Give Up on Markets

Words of wisdom from Gray Becker.

What Mr. Becker has seen over a career spanning more than five decades is that free markets are good for human progress. And at a time when increasing government intervention in the economy is all the rage, he insists that economic liberals must not withdraw from the debate simply because their cause, for now, appears quixotic.

But he complains about "counterproductive" government policies "designed to lower mortgage rates to stimulate demand." He says he was against the Bush Treasury's idea of capping mortgage rates (which was only floated) and he has "opposed the mortgage plan of President Obama." "It goes against both these adjustments . . . it would hold up prices and increase construction. I think that's a bad idea at this time."

On the subject of recovery, Mr. Becker repeats his call for lower taxes, applauds the Fed's action to "raise reserves," (meaning money creation, though he said this before the Fed's action a few days ago), and he says "I do believe one has to try to do something more directly to help with the toxic assets of the banks."

"When you get a larger government, when you have the government taking over Social Security, government taking over health care and with further proposals now for the government to take over more activities, more entitlements, the rational response is to have less responsibility. You don't have to worry about things and plan on your own as much."

Striking The Iron While Its Hot Against Obama & The Democrats

I love it! The AIG Stimulus!

As the AIG bonus scandal explodes, Republicans are looking for ways to blame the president and the majority party. Privately, some admit that this is the first attack that’s sticking after two months of grappling with the administration and its economic policies. In private and in public, some conservatives are cool toward attacking AIG’s bonuses and demanding more government regulation of companies that receive TARP money — even if it’s a one-time deal. And some conservatives are attempting to shift the focus of voter outrage from the bonuses to the bailouts themselves.

“There is a fair degree of hypocrisy in this,” said one Republican House staffer. “It’s as if Geithner had been Treasury secretary for last three years and Obama was president in September. We had a bipartisan vote for the bailout - although the opposition was bipartisan, too. Neither party comes to this with clean hands.” The staffer echoed the public statements of some conservative members of Congress — that the frenzy of bonus-bashing was moving the debate further to the left, and losing focus for the larger battle against endless big-business rescue packages and government intervention in the economy.

There is no unified Republican argument against the AIG bonuses, and there is some surprise at how quickly the party’s leaders have adopted a populist campaign to penalize AIG and pull back the bonuses. The NRCC and House Minority Whip Eric Cantor are attacking Democrats as tacit supporters of the AIG stimulus, a strategy that took several days to get off the ground.

Obama & The Democrats in a Political Bind over AIG

“Tim Geithner didn’t draft these contracts with A.I.G.,” Mr. Obama told reporters as he left for California on Wednesday.

But Obama and the Democrats wrote and passed a law that protected the bonuses paid out by AIG and other institutions that received TARP funds.

"Fair or not, questions about why Mr. Geithner did not know sooner about the A.I.G. bonuses and act to stop them threaten to overwhelm his achievements and undermine Mr. Obama’s overall economic agenda."

As Treasury Secretary, Geithner is responsible for communicating with the Federal Reserve since these two institutions work hand in hand. Since the Federal Reserve legally owns the AIG stake, and the Treasure is part of the Executive branch, the Treasury is responsible for acting like the owner and keep a close watch on AIG. Apparently nothing happened.

"The A.I.G. tempest has been especially explosive for Mr. Geithner because, as president of the New York Fed, he was the one administration official who had been involved in the Bush-era bailouts. "

How long will he last?

Obama Should Cap His Bovine Scatalogy And Tax Bovine Scatalogy

Obama's zeal for implementing costly measures to reduce green house gases in a economic depression (the Obama Depression) is misplaced. He should target the real source of green house gases: cows.

From the timesonline:

Livestock contribute 18 per cent of the greenhouse gases believed to cause global warming, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation. The Danish Tax Commission estimates that a cow will emit four tonnes of methane a year in burps and flatulence, compared with 2.7 tonnes of carbon dioxide for an average car.

He should also consider taxing all the hot air coming from his administration.

Obama's Hypocrisy - Or How I got My Grove Back

From the NYTimes:

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is signaling to Congress that the president could support taxing some employee health benefits, as several influential lawmakers and many economists favor, to help pay for overhauling the health care system.

The proposal is politically problematic for President Obama, however, since it is similar to one he denounced in the presidential campaign as “the largest middle-class tax increase in history.” Most Americans with insurance get it from their employers, and taxing workers for the benefit is opposed by union leaders and some businesses.

In television advertisements last fall, Mr. Obama criticized his Republican rival for the presidency, Senator John McCain of Arizona, for proposing to tax all employer-provided health benefits. The benefits have long been tax-free, regardless of how generous they are or how much an employee earns. The advertisements did not point out that Mr. McCain, in exchange, wanted to give all families a tax credit to subsidize the purchase of coverage.

Will Obama's Fortunes Follow Gov Corzine's (D-NJ) ?

According to Rasmussen Reports:

New Jersey’s Democratic Governor Jon S. Corzine, who hopes to win a second term in November, has now fallen behind Republican challenger Christopher J. Christie by 15 points – 49% to 34%.

The survey was taken Tuesday, the day Corzine was announcing $916 million in new and increased taxes as part of his $29.8 billion state budget for 2010.

This might be a glimpse into the mood of the electorate. With Obama's reckless spending, higher taxes, higher deficts, higher debt, lower poll numbers, you can make a strong case that the narrow margin of victory is pretty shaky for Obama.

Obama's Gov Can Do Cancer Is Taking Hold

I had to laugh at the following quotes from the new federal CIO Vivek Kundra.

Kundra told attendees that in his new role as federal CIO, he is "embarking on a technology revolution in government." But much of his talk to an audience of government workers and federal IT vendors was a morale-boosting rally.

For instance, Kundra promised to undo the image of the federal government as a laggard in technology adoption and innovation. "We can be thought leaders when it comes to innovation," he said.

Kundra promised to hold voluntary open-door sessions on weekends for federal IT workers who want to share their views on "high-level" technology issues. He said that he has been "amazed" by the IT talent he is finding within the government, and that some of "the smartest people I've ever met in my life are federal government employees."

The Great Obama Depression

Looks like Obama is on track to preside over the second great economic depression in the United States. Only history will tell if this will by pass the FDR depression to make the current downturn the worst in US history. Obama is on track to spend $5 TRILLION before the year out through and is on track to incurr the largest deficit and expansion of debt in the history of the US.

The consumer's mind set is now turning to a economic depression according to a Rasmussen poll.

Most Americans (53%) now think the United States is at least somewhat likely to enter a 1930’s-like depression within the next few years.

The latest results are more pessimistic than those found in early January, when 44% said a 1930’s-like depression was likely in the next few years, and 46% disagreed.

In March 2008, only 38% of adults said the country is likely to slip into a depression, while most (55%) disagreed.

The most recent survey also found that half of all adults (49%) say today’s children will not be better off than their parents. Only 26% hold the more optimistic view, while another 25% are not sure. Those results have changed little from January, when only 27% said children will be better off and 47% disagreed. Twenty-six percent (26%) were undecided at that time.

Team Obama Loves The Liberal Press In Their Corner Pocket

It is clear now that team Obama has influenced the liberal media more than any one imagined. They continue to employ that charm to hoodwink the media and put the their brand of spin.

The Politico has an interesting piece on this. Some highlights:

“I’ve had more unsolicited offers for participation from the Obama people in 45 days than in the last eight years from Bush,” said Rosenthal (NYT Editorial page director).

Rosenthal said the Obama administration’s approach is consistent with the one the Obama campaign used, and for a reason: It worked. Citing an example, he said that an Obama campaign aide succeeded in convincing him back in July — before an editorial ran — that Obama had not, in fact, reversed his position on a controversial D.C. handgun ban.

Washington Post editorial page editor Fred Hiatt said in an e-mail that the Obama team has been “open and responsive” to requests from The Post’s editorial writers. Hiatt said that helps The Post “produce smarter and more knowledgeable editorials.”

But the White House knows that what gets written in Washington and New York filters out into the country — and that it needs support from those who are most likely to get their news from the inside-the-Beltway press, members of Congress, policy wonks and, of course, other journalists.

Obama Should Scrap The Stimulus & Let The Tax Payers Save

Go savings Go!!!!

From Marketwatch:

With disposable incomes rising faster than spending, the personal savings rate rose to 5%, the highest since March 1995. At an annual rate, personal savings rose to a record $545.5 billion.

A year ago, the personal savings rate was 0.1%.

"The rise in the savings rate has very positive long-term implications but in the meantime is destructive," wrote Tony Crescenzi, chief bond market strategist for Miller Tabak & Co.

The savings rate could go even higher, with consumers trying to pay down their debts, live within their means and boost their savings to make up for their lost wealth. The savings rate "has a long way further to go," said Ian Shepherdson, chief domestic economist for High Frequency Economics.

Creszenzi figured consumers might go back to saving about 9% of their disposable incomes, the savings rate that prevailed from the 1950s through the early 1980s.

Obama Does Not Inspire Confidnece In The Economy

From Emanuel Derman:

Which brings me to the bailout.The psychological trouble with current attempts to fix the economy by stimulation is that they don't have that air of unpredictable inevitability that is associated with good music and inspired action. Everything the people in authority now do has an air of delayed predictability. The nationalization of failing banks, when it comes, will be accompanied by the sound of dragging heels. I have an image of a child being reluctantly pulled towards the bedroom, his heels scraping against the carpet as he resists the inevitable bedtime.

What's needed is to get people confident enough about the future to spend again. I'm increasingly skeptical that public spending will quickly effect this, because confidence is shot. Everyone is going to be cautious about spending for a long time from now on, Keynes or no Keynes. The velocity of money slows as everyone starts to hoard, and GDP declines despite an increase in money supply. One way to fix this is to charge a fee for saving your money, i.e. negative interest, or high inflation, use it or you lose it, but that's fearful velocity, not confident velocity. Another is lower taxes, putting more money permanently in people's pockets, but that leaves less for government spending initially, and has no effect on the unemployed. A third is a charismatic confidence-inspiring leadership, but think Germany in the Thirties. I'm a little stymied for now, and so, I sense, is everyone else. There's no quick fix and no substitute for good fresh wise leadership.

Stealing From Charity To Pay For

Talk about lunacy!

From the Washington Times:

The charitable giving deduction reduction, which would limit deductions for couples making $250,000 or individuals making $200,000, provoked the most heat Thursday. Mr. Obama is counting on that provision to raise $179.8 billion over 10 years.

"This will lead people to give less to charities if they behave the way they've behaved in the past," he said. "We've already seen a drop in giving as a result of the economic collapse. On top of that, this will just reduce the amount of giving."

Asked about that, Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag said Mr. Obama took care of that by giving charities government money to make up part of the difference. "Contained in the recovery act, there's $100 million to support nonprofits and charities as we get through this period of economic difficulty," he said.

The Investment Biker Rips Into Obama

Comments from Jim Rogers :

The government is making it worse. It's pretty embarrassing for President Obama, who doesn't seem to have a clue what's going on—which would make sense from his background. And he has hired people who are part of the problem. [Treasury Secretary Tim] Geithner was head of the New York Fed, which was supposedly in charge of Wall Street and the banks more than anybody else. And as you remember, [Obama's chief economic adviser, Larry] Summers helped bail out Long-Term Capital Management years ago. These are people who think the only solution is to save their friends on Wall Street rather than to save 300 million Americans.

I'd like to see them let these people go bankrupt, let the bankrupt go bankrupt, stop bailing them out. There are plenty of banks in America that saw this coming, that kept their powder dry and have been waiting for the opportunity to go in and take over the assets of the incompetent. Likewise, many, many homeowners didn't go out and buy five homes with no income. Many homeowners have been waiting for this, and now all of a sudden the government is saying: "Well, too bad for you. We don't care if you did it right or not, we're going to bail out the 100,000 or 200,000 who did it wrong." I mean, this is outrageous economics, and it's terrible morality.

Obama's Over Confidence In His Economic Policy

From Christina Romer:

The bottom line is that I fully believe the American Recovery and Reinvestment
Act will have the effects we said it would.

We are projecting somewhat stronger growth than some private forecasters. In part, this is due to the fact that we did the forecast two months ago, and the economic news since then has not been good. But the more fundamental reason is that we firmly believe the stimulus package, together
with financial stabilization and our housing policy, will have a tremendous impact. I understand that actual developments may prove me wrong. But everything I know from history and macroeconomics tells me that the policies we are taking will make a crucial difference.

Given the breadth, depth, and expected length of the downturn, we need broad stimulus – some that will come on line quickly and some that will give the economy a boost next year, and stimulus that will affect all sectors and regions.

Obama Will Short Change Future Generations

From Greg Mankiw:

If you are a deficit hawk who lamented the Bush budget deficits, the new administration's budget should not make you feel much better. President Obama will give us different fiscal priorities than President Bush did, but the borrowing and debt imposed on future generations will not be very different, at least if the numbers presented in the Obama administration's own budget document can be trusted.

During the period 2005 to 2007, the U.S. unemployment rate hovered in the ballpark of 5 percent. What was the budget balance? According to OMB historical documents, the budget deficit averaged just under 2 percent of GDP during those three years.

Now compare these results to the new Obama budget. According to their numbers, under their proposed policies, the budget deficit will average a bit over 3 percent of GDP during that time.

Yet Another Campaign Promise Bites The Dust...And Another One Bites

From the NYT:

White House officials said Sunday that President Obama would sign a $410 billion spending bill that includes thousands of pet projects, known as earmarks, despite campaign promises to put an end to the practice.

In appearances on television talk shows, Mr. Obama’s budget director and chief of staff both played down the issue. “We want to just move on. Let’s get this bill done, get it into law and move forward.”

Officials estimate that the omnibus spending bill, meant to pay for government operations through Sept. 30, contains nearly 9,000 provisions added by legislators to use public money to pay for projects in their home districts.

The earmarks account for at least $3.8 billion of the total spending in the package, according to estimates, including $1 million to control Mormon crickets in Utah, $162,000 to control rodents in Hawaii, and money for the presidential libraries of three Democrats: Franklin D. Roosevelt ($17.5 million), John F. Kennedy ($22 million) and Lyndon B. Johnson ($2 million).

The legislation would increase overall spending by 9 percent compared with last year, including significant increases for health care, education and energy.