Politics, Government & Public Policy: February 2009 Archives

Bill Hennessy has organized a St. Louis Tea Party this Friday (2/27) at the Arch at 11am. Gateway Pundit is on it.

Is it over the line to suggest that the exercise of our First Amendment rights might get more attention from our megalomaniacal elites if we peacefully and visibly exercise our Second Amendment rights at the same time?

The strength of the democratic system is that lots of people get a say in how things are run which reduces the power of tyrants and kleptocrats. The fatal chink in the armor is that some people are so dumb they shouldn't be let anywhere near a voting booth.

I've written before that voting is not a right and our society is foolish if we don't keep the idiots among us away from the levers of power.

A month ago President Obama lifted restrictions on taxpayer money paying for abortions, and now Congressional Democrats are upping the ante: let's pay to force abortions on unwilling women!

Congressional Democrats have unveiled their new omnibus spending bill that will fund federal government programs through the Autumn months. The measure, H.R. 1105, contains language that would restore the money President Bush withheld from the UNFPA because of its abortion activities.

Sending taxpayer dollars to the United Nations Population Fund, UNFPA, has been controversial because the group both advocates for abortion and has been involved in China's population control program.

Several investigations have shown the UNFPA to work hand-in-hand with the family planning officials in China that enforce its coercive one-child policy with forced abortions and sterilizations as well as other human rights abuses. ...

The omnibus bill adds language that makes it so the president or his administration is not required to sign off on the funding and make sure the UNFPA is not violating the Kemp-Kasten law which forbids funding groups involved in forced abortions.

The term "forced abortion" is subtly disingenuous, of course, because abortion is always a forcible act committed against the primary victim: the baby. But maybe the idea that even the mother isn't willing will propel various women's rights groups into action? (*Holds breath*)

(HT: Gateway Pundit.)

The public employment system in the United States needs a significant overhaul. In California, you've got public employees who make far more than their private-sector counterparts.

As has become well known at this point, since 2000 public employee pay in general has skyrocketed above private company wages in California. This is part of the reason for the structural imbalance that rarely gets talked about. Logic tells us that if you continuously raise the pay of public employees higher than the pay raises of private employees whose taxes go to pay for it all, you are going to hit a point of unsustainability. There is just no way around it.

The average salary for a CalPers employee in 2004 was about $46,000 and the average per capita income for all Californians was $35,000. Since then the gap has gotten bigger.

Except for the bottom fifth of employees, state worker pay has increased from 20 percent to 45 percent in less than five years. The top 20 percent’s median salary is now over $94,000 a year. Everyone has heard about the boom in State workers making over $200,000 by now, and in the UC system close to 10% of the employees make over $100,000 annually.

In 2000, local government wages in Sonoma County — including teachers' pay — were 1 percent higher than private-employer wages, according to the state Employment Development Department. By 2006 that gap was 11.5 percent. It is even higher today.

On the other hand, the US Postmaster General's relative pittance has provoked a Congressional investigation.

Congress will hold a hearing next month into why Postmaster General John E. Potter has gotten a nearly 40 percent pay raise since 2006 and was awarded a six-figure incentive bonus last year, even as the U.S. Postal Service faces a multibillion-dollar shortfall that threatens a day of mail delivery.

ALLISON SHELLEY/THE WASHINGTON TIMES REWARDED: Postmaster General John E. Potter received a compensation package totaling more than $800,000 for fiscal 2008.

"Last year, the Postal Service took a loss of nearly $3 billion and recommended that the public take austere cuts in service to allow it to operate, including cutting a day of mail delivery and raising the price of stamps," Rep. Stephen F. Lynch, Massachusetts Democrat, said Friday.

"All things considered, I think most postal customers feel that the huge increase in pay for Mr. Potter is incongruent with the post office's recent performance. I assure you that our subcommittee will look into this matter at a hearing in March," said Mr. Lynch, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform subcommittee that oversees the Postal Service.

Sounds bad? But:

On Tuesday, The Washington Times reported that Mr. Potter had received nearly 40 percent in pay raises since 2006 and about $135,000 in incentive bonuses last year. For fiscal 2008, including increases to the value of his two pensions, Mr. Potter's entire compensation package totaled more than $800,000, according to Postal Service financial records. ...

Postal officials defend the pay packages, saying their counterparts in private industry earn far more money. The chief executive of FedEx, for example, earned more than $10 million last year, according to Securities and Exchange Commission filings.

So low-level employees are paid far too much and executives are paid far too little. In the name of "equality" -- which decrees that the ratio of salary between the bottom and the top must be minimized -- we're strangling our public sector.

If we're fortunate, this present financial crisis will dislodge the logjams on both ends of the spectrum. If low-level employees want to earn the same (or more) as private sector workers, then they need to sacrifice their job security and gilded pensions. When the worst can be fired and the best promoted, the public sector as a whole will begin to attract better people than the merely mediocre.

At the top-end, why should the President of the United States earn a pathetic $400,000 per year? That's insane. Navy's college football coach made almost three times as much! If we want to attract the best people to high-level public sector jobs, then we need to quit acting like people don't care about money.

As a starting point, lets bump the President up to $20 million per year. Cabinet secretaries, Congressmen, Senators, Supreme Court Justices, Joint Chiefs: $10 million. Top generals, department heads: $5 million. Work down from there. Low-level employees should match their private sector counterparts (in pay and pension) and should be easier to promote and fire.

Revive the meritocracy and eliminate mediocrity!

As you watch this satirical video about NASA's stifling bureaucracy, just imagine the same thing happening to our health care system and pharmaceutical industry once the government socializes them.

(HT: RB.)

I know this is old news from Friday, but here's a good article that explains why the Democrats released the stimulus bill as a non-searchable PDF instead of a regular text file.

Instead of publishing the bill as a regular internet document -- which people can search by “key words” and otherwise, the Dems took hours to convert the final bill from the regular searchable format into “pdf” files, which can be read but not searched.

Three of the four .pdf files had no text embedded, just images of the text, which did not permit text searches of the bill. That move to conceal the bill’s provisions had not been remedied this morning at the time of publication of this article. (You can find the entire bill on the House Appropriations [http://appropriations.house.gov] website.)

So, what are they hiding? A lot.

We searched the bill randomly -- the only way possible -- to see what’s being hidden from the public and the members of Congress who will be voting on the bill today. We found one provision that may be a good example of why the Democrats are desperate to stop any exposure of what is in this bill. Like this gem:

SEC. 1607. (a) CERTIFICATION BY GOVERNOR -- Not later than 45 days after the date of enactment of this Act, for funds provided to any State or agency thereof, the Governor of the State shall certify that: 1) the State request and use funds provided by this Act , and; 2) funds be used to create jobs and promote economic growth.

(b) ACCEPTANCE BY STATE LEGISLATURE -- If funds provided to any State in any division of this Act are not accepted for use by the Governor, then acceptance by the State legislature, by means of the adoption of a concurrent resolution, shall be sufficient to provide funding to such State.

This provision -- apparently aimed at conservative governors such as South Carolina’s Mark Sanford who does not want the federal money -- would overturn state laws and constitutions, intervening directly in the state’s government to give the legislature the power to overturn a government’s decision.

This provision probably violates the U.S. Constitution, a matter which will be of no concern to Congressional Democrats.

Who knows what's hidden in the almost 1100 pages of the bill that no one has read? I guess we'll be finding out over the next couple of years, and I have a hard time believing that the drip drip drip of discovery will be beneficial to the Democrats.

Capitalism Gone Wild found some startling video from CSPAN dated January 27th, 2009. Congressman Paul Kanjorski (D-PA) told a caller that the United States barely survived an enormous financial terrorist attack on September 15th, 2008, and that the original TARP bailout was designed to counteract this attack.

Rep. Paul Kanjorski of Pennsylvania explains what former Treasury Secretary Paulson and Fed Chairman Bernanke told congress during the September 2008 closed door session. During the first third of the video an enraged caller is ranting to Rep. Kanjorski about how wasteful the first $700 billion bailout was. The best part is 2 minutes and 15 seconds into the tape where Rep. Kanjorski reveals what Paulson and Bernanke told congress that shocked them into supporting the first $700 billion bailout.

On Thursday Sept 15, 2008 at roughly 11 AM The Federal Reserve noticed a tremendous draw down of money market accounts in the USA to the tune of $550 Billion dollars in a matter of an hour or two. Money was being removed electronically.

The Treasury tried to help, opened their window and pumped in $150 Billion but quickly realized they could not stem the tide. We were having an electronic run on the banks. So they decided to closed down the accounts.

Had they not closed down the accounts they estimated that by 2 PM that afternoon. Within 3 hours. $5.5 Trillion would have been withdrawn and the entire economy of the United States would have collapsed, and within 24 hours the world economy would have collapsed.

As Atlas Shrugs notes September 15th, 2008, was a Monday, not a Thursday. The previous Thursday was... September 11th, 2008.

Do you understand what this means? Congress knew that the financial crisis was the result of an attack on America, but they didn't tell us. The financial crisis was the determining factor in the presidential election and directly led to victory for Barack Obama.

What else is going on right now that we don't know about? Who was behind this? When will our political leaders address this matter or explain it to us?

(HT: Gateway Pundit.)

Not one member of Congress has read the stimulus bill that's about to become law.

I'm glad the Democrats think this is funny.

When CNSNews.com asked members of both parties on Capitol Hill on Thursday whether they had read the full, final bill, not one member could say, "Yes." ...

Both Republicans and Democrats told CNSNews.com they were eager to read the unseen bill--once they could get get their hands on a copy of the final legislation.

Nonetheless, members from both sides of the aisle in both the House and Senate admitted they doubted they would have adequate time to read the bill before they actually voted for it. ...

Sen. Roland Burris (D-Ill.), President Barack Obama's successor in the Senate, seemed baffled by the thought of actually reading the entire bill--as did his press secretary.

“I think it’s about 800 pages,” Burris's press secretary said before laughing lightly. “We’ll do the best we can.”

Screw you, Congress. If this doesn't piss you, you don't deserve to be an American citizen.

Money phrase: "is it only a person when it's wanted?"

(HT: Allman's Electric Stove.)

It used to be that liberals wanted to free us from paternalistic authority, but President Obama's new regulatory chief, Cass Sunstein, is explicitly in favor of more paternalism.

The basic premise of libertarian paternalism is that the government should use its power to “nudge” people into acting in their best interest, while leaving them the choice to “opt out.” If the government decides that saving money is good, it would automatically divert a percentage of your paycheck into a savings account in your name unless you explicitly declined. Supporters claim that this preserves freedom because government is only changing the default, while leaving individuals the final choice. It is merely a gentle “nudge,” not a hard push.

However, nudging represents an assault on freedom, because it undermines man’s basic tool of survival — his mind. By creating a default, libertarian paternalism in essence says, “Don’t worry — we’ll do your thinking for you.” Sunstein’s book explicitly compares Americans to a bunch of Homer Simpsons in need of such guidance. If Americans surrender their minds to the government, they become easy prey for demagogues and dictators.

Once we concede the legitimacy of “nudging,” nudges will inevitably escalate. Over time, libertarian paternalism will become less “libertarian” and more “paternalistic.” The government that initially nudges you to save 5% of your income may next nudge you to save 25%. Or buy more vegetables. Or drive fewer miles. And once a default is set, government could make opting out increasingly difficult, then impossible.

Plus all the time you've got to waste keeping track of and undoing these "nudges". Can't they just leave us alone?

Wikileaks is an awesome new site where you can download public domain Congressional reports that your Congressman doesn't want you to see. Over $1 billion worth of reports online now. It's hard to stop reading them....

Buy your own Tim Geithner "TAX CHEAT!" stamps. Thanks to Gateway Pundit for the mention.

Just watched President Obama's spa speech and he must have forgotten his contact lenses or something. There were a few obvious mis-reads from his teleprompter, the most egregious of which was (paraphrase): "we must pass this stimulus so our school won't keep falling." I'm pretty sure that should've been "failing".

President Obama has replaced "Hail to the Chief" with "Desert Rose". Seriously. Is the guy lampooning himself?

On Day One of his presidency, everywhere Mr. Obama went they played "Hail to the Chief" for him – but not since. In fact the U.S. Marine Band's duties at the White House over the last 10 days appear to have been dramatically downsized.

Instead of the usual contingent of trumpets, tubas and drums, a single piano player now provides musical interludes before and after the president's appearance.

And the tunes have little connection to the military marching music of John Phillips Souza that is the usual accompaniment to presidential appearances. These days the pianist's repertoire includes Cole Porter's "Night and Day" and Sting’s "Desert Rose."

I feel sorry for the Marine pianist who must have to leave his balls back at the barracks before reporting for duty.

I, and many conservatives, have gone out of our ways to proclaim our support for the Presidency even though we don't care for the President. It would be nice if Obama showed the same respect for the office he holds.

Also: A Gateway Pundit commenter points out appropriate "Desert Rose" lyrics:

Lyrics from the song. "I realize that things are not what they seem."

I'll say!

It was pretty impressive that the milquetoast House Republicans managed to unanimously oppose the Democrat's "stimulus" bill, and here's the how it happened. It sounds like the Republicans respect President Obama a lot more than they do their Democrat colleagues.

“We gave the president what he asked for, a temporary stimulus bill,” said a senior Republican, “at half the cost of what the Democrats wrote. He knows it. They handed him a monster of spending. Rahm did this, and now he takes this to the Senate. Does Rahm want to be an honest broker, or does he want to be the guy who socks Republicans in the face? He isn’t helping with the Democrats, and he’s hurting with the Republicans.”

“Polling showed us that when we took the vote, independent support for the bill was collapsing,” a senior Republican said. “Democratic support was climbing while the independents ran away.”

“What does Rahm do? Is he going to go to the Democrats and say ‘no’ to this? Or is he going to make his president sign it?”

Obama isn't a fool. I have a feeling (hope! change!) that the bill will be moderated in the Senate.