Thursday, May 27, 2010

Money, It’s A Gas

The United States is in deep deficit doo doo. Like Greece, we are flirting with insolvency. So what do you do if you are one of the Democrats who has driven us to the verge of bankruptcy? How about spend more money? Pink Floyd once said about money: “if you ask for a raise, it’s no surprise that they’re giving none away.” Apparently, Congress is intent on proving that wrong. Here are some of the spending bills Reid, Pelosi and the crew are planning before November.

Another Jobs Bill: First, they need another jobs bill because the last three or four jobs bills didn’t produce any jobs. . . unless you count the people who got paid to print the bills. This time they want to spend $190 billion. But there’s a problem. Moderate Democrats are freaking out about the price tag. Said Evan Bayh (D-Ind.) “With the entire world focused on sovereign debt, [this] is not moving in the right direction. I am highly skeptical.” Government “worker” unions aren’t skeptical though, so look for this giveaway to pass.

Interestingly, to get the price tag down they cut a few things from the bill. First, while the bill does extend jobless benefits, that provision will now expire on November 30. Call me crazy, but something about that timing seems suspicious. . . though I can’t quite put my finger on what is happening in November? Secondly, they have cut back on the “doctor fix,” because those greedy Medicare doctors don’t deserve to be paid 50% of the cost of the treatment they provide!

As an aside, the New York Post is now reporting a “jobs creation” scam that the Census Bureau is running. Apparently, they have been hiring people, firing them for the slightest cause, and then rehiring them. . . repeatedly. The reason is that any employee who works one day or more gets counted as a new job created, even if they were just fired from the same job. Thus, several whistleblowers are now claiming that they’ve been counted as new hires as many as four times in recent months.

Afghanistan: This week, the White House will send a second emergency appropriations bill to the Congress, seeking $58.8 billion, give or take a few pennies, to keep the troops in Afghanistan long enough to make it look like the administration isn’t soft on terror.

Meanwhile, Congressional Democrats are hoping to add numerous spending provisions to show that they aren’t soft on pork. After all, this is the same Congress that passed an omnibus spending bill in December that included 5,000 earmarks costing $447 billion.

Skool Is Cool: Finally, the Democrats are planning to give $23 billion to local school districts to prevent them from laying off fat-cat administrators, er, teachers. Sadly, the teachers unions apparently haven’t donated enough yet, because the White House has been noncommittal on this (though Secretary of Education Spending Arne Duncan says this is “an absolute myth”. . . as compared to the “partial myth” about Democrats being tax and spenders, or the just plain old "myth" that is the Easter Bunny). Still, the Democrats plan to sneak this into the military emergency appropriations bill, because nothing says national defense quite like wasteful spending.

No word on any new mascots they may be planning to create, but I hear a crack team of government operatives are working on a budget mascot called "Willy Wasteful."


So there you have it: $271.8 billion in good money to be thrown after $2.184 trillion in bad money. Thank you team Donkey.

21 comments:

USArtguy said...

Time to dust off the Golden Fleece Award and bring it out of retirement.

Let's see, Obama created the impression he would "bring the troops home" on day one of his presidency. When that didn't happen, it was "in six months". When that didn't happen...

"What... it's, uh, been a year and half, uh... already? You say my Democrat Congress, who was fond of the word "quagmire" during the, uh, previous administration... is, uh... authorizing even more money for troops in Afghanistan while loading it down with irrelevant spending...? Well knock me over with a feather! I, uh.. think we need 3,000 pages of reform, uh, immediately."

AndrewPrice said...

USArtguy, That sums up the Democratic position pretty well. They oppose all military action when Republicans are in office and then discover how vital it is that we keep fighting when they are in office. And they have no shame about using military appropriations to pass pork prjects.

StanH said...

Great article Andrew, but par for the coarse for statist Keynesian liberals.

The one that is most alarming to me, is the proposed bailout of the union pension funds, to the tune of $165 Billion to start with. My question is where is the SEC in this regard, under funded pensions, I believe is a felony in the private sector.

Writer X said...

I can see November from my house!
And it can't come soon enough!!

I loved a comment that Gov. Christie said to a perturbed teacher this week at a townhall who was told she wouldn't be receiving a pay increase. He said, "You could always do something else." Can we clone this guy?

AndrewPrice said...

Stan, The UAW has become a ward of the state with full access to the piggy bank. I think when they write the history of this Second Gilded Age, that will be one of the big things that future generations look back on with stunned amazement.

AndrewPrice said...

Writer X, Agreed, he's doing great in New Jersey. Did you see that the teacher who made that claims is earning $86,000 a year?!

patti said...

concerning the schools: we homeschooled all 12 years for under 4400 PER YEAR. that included private fencing lessons with the olympic pentathlon team's coach and many other once in a lifetime opportunities available because of our flexible schedule. colleges came to US. scholarship money was offered. no university applied to gave a denial. even the air force academy came knocking. and this was back when homeschooling was fringe and weird (but we remained ohso cool). my point is EVERYTHING the government does can be done better and unbelievably cheaper. but you guys know that. you live in the real world. oy, my head...

patti said...

oh lawsy....make that under $400 a year. damn fat fingers.

AndrewPrice said...

Patti, That's a great point that has been proven over and over and over again -- "EVERYTHING the government does can be done better and unbelievably cheaper".

I was involved in some attempts to privatize various government functions and the savings (and improvements) were amazing. But we had to fight the unions tooth and nail.

CrisD said...

Great article. Hadn't heard about the census scam. Dark comedy.

A 85 year old liberal man told me that since the 50's or so there is no such thing as money, or dollars. He said I should not worry about debt because it is not real it is all just computerized on a piece of paper. He gave me a litany of all the presidents since then and ended by saying "and now we have Rand Paul."

I tried to resist correcting my elder but I felt compelled to point out that now we had Barack Obama. He said "they" would shoot him.

Anyway, that's the economy from here at our little retirement condo community in Massachusetts.

AndrewPrice said...

CrisD, Thanks! Dark comedy indeed.

I don't know what to say about your retired friend except, "uh. . . yeah." Lots of people make this mistake that anything they can't touch, i.e. "electronic money", isn't real. The reality is that debt is real and it has consequences. And failing to pay debt has even bigger consequences.

What's going on in Greece right now is the realization that these things are real. They thought it was all just on paper too and could be avoided. Now they are paying the consequences and it's hitting every single one of them. . . and there's nothing they can do about it. Greece is about to enter some dark times for the next couple of decades.

As for "now we have Rand Paul," I see that as progress frankly. I can't say that I agree with everything he says or does or believes, but his civil rights act point is the most logical, principled statement I've ever heard a politician make about this act. He's drawn the very appropriate distinction between what the government's powers are and aren't, and he's made the very real distinction between private actions and government actions. Of course, I don't expect liberals to understand that. But then I've stopped caring what they "think" because they don't think.

Unknown said...

Andrew: Suddenly, a slightly different version of a song from The Music Man started running around in my head: "Spend a little, talk a little, spend a little, talk a little; spend spend spend, spend a lot, spend a little more."

Anonymous said...

Thanks Andrew,
I guess I should send "computerized" tax money to our President ( I am pretty sure it IS Barack Obama) because then I won't really be paying money!

:D

CrisD said...

whoops. That was me!

AndrewPrice said...

Lawhawk, I thought long and hard about including a reference to "Money" from Cabaret! LOL! I stuck with Floyd.

AndrewPrice said...

CrisD, Good luck with that! If it works let me know, I'd happily do the same! :-)

Actually, maybe we should just send IOUs?

Game Master Rob Adams said...

I have my anti-incumbent red pen ready and loaded!

AndrewPrice said...

ACG, Good! It's time to throw the bums out. Let's just hope the next group of bums aren't as big of a group of thieves as the last set.

Individualist said...

So if I take Chris D friend and other liberals at there word then money is an illusion, morality is an illusion, desire is an illusion, the world is just one philosophical jigsaw puzzle where everthing is just a distortion of perception.

Unless it is a graph in the shape of a hockey stick then it is inviolate and how dare you deny it.

Hmmmm..........

Individualist said...

their

**yikes** always doing that

AndrewPrice said...

Individualist, I think you've got the concept! Scary huh?

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