Political Football

LINK

I have ALWAYS used single ply, no aloe, etc. – I don’t drive a Hummer, I drive a Toyota that gives me 35MPH on average so I am a greenie!

But let’s not be messin’ with my toilet paper.

HERE you FIRST

LINK and this howler…

EPA says farm dust requires regulation

Under Obama plan, tax burden shifts to the wealthy

- Link
How biased a headline is that. Finally the Rich are Taxed their fair share.  Seriously? That is sick; and it is wrong.

Yes. What Larry Kudlow says. Read here a bit posted here:

Study after study over the past several decades has shown how countries that spend more produce less, while nations that tax less produce more. Obama is doing it wrong on both counts.

Many people making in the $250,000-$500,000 (lower) range of what will see increased taxes are the local store or business owners you see hiring people (or not if they have to pay more taxes).  The higher brackets? Oh they just create more jobs… What don’t Democrats get?  You tax you lose businesses.

The share of the richest 1% jumped to 20.8% of total income in 2000, from 14% in 1990, but increased only slightly to 21.2% in 2005. This makes it hard to pin their claim of “rising inequality” on the Bush tax cuts, though the income redistributionists are trying. By this measure, the Clinton years were far worse for “inequality.”

Notably, however, the share of taxes paid by the top 1% has kept climbing this decade — to 39.4% in 2005, from 37.4% in 2000. The share paid by the top 5% has increased even more rapidly. In other words, despite the tax reductions of 2001 and 2003, the rich saw their share of taxes paid rise at a faster rate than their share of income. How could this be?

LINK to rest of article

to me, the President is trying to start some type of class warfare.

Attributed to Margaret Thatcher:

“The problem with Socialism is that eventually, you run out of other people’s money.”

Maggie where are you!

President Obama says he’s going to balance the budget based on 2 Trillion dollars in savings over the next 10 years. However, the money is NOT coming from reduction in traditional spending; he’s saying it’s coming from taking what we spend in IRAQ today – projecting it until 2019 and cutting that spending – and of course, tax increases on the wealthy.

I remember one of my favorite Tennis players in the 1970’s (Bjorn Borg) as a Swedish Citizen.  As his fame (and wealth) grew he “moved” (his citizenship at least) to Switzerland to avoid the extraordinary taxes in Sweden.  The effect of raising taxes on the rich, those most capable of moving to somewhere “less taxing”, is incredibly stupid.

Now today Sweden has its problems, but Corporate taxes is not one of them. Iowa’s Federal and State adjusted rate is 41.6% (highest in the US and the World!) and Sweden’s is 28%. Sweden has been trending down for years. What will keep our wealthy people from doing the same thing? You can’t heal a moribund economy by over taxing the rich or businesses.  All you do re-distribute wealth; but that is our current President’s intent.

See? Even Bono does it!

here is a dialog Powerlineblog posted of the press conference between BHO’s press secretary and reporters where this tax savings was discussed:

REPORTER: We were told last night that [the $2 trillion savings pledge] basically refers to two things. One is the expiration of tax cuts on the wealthy that would happen next year; and two is a reduction of what we are currently spending in Iraq.

GIBBS: No, I don’t — I — I don’t think so at all. It’s an end of — it’s an end to the commitment and the spending of that money . . .

GIBBS: I think that’s — I think that’s certainly a decent part of it. I don’t know, not having seen — at least not having in front of me the formal documents to know whether that’s a hundred percent.”

REPORTER: Okay. But let me ask, is it transparent to say that tax increases are part of savings? And is it transparent to say that we’re going to be saving that much from Iraq, when nobody expects that 10 years out we would be spending what we’re spending today in Iraq? Even the previous administration agreed to get out of Iraq by 2012…

GIBBS: Well, I mean, if we’re not spending the money and the money doesn’t go out the door and the money doesn’t increase the deficit, and the deficit decreases by some amount, ultimately getting you to the president’s goal of halving a 1.2 (trillion dollar) to $1.3 trillion deficit in his first four years in office.

REPORTER: But if nobody expects to spend 10 years from now what we’re spending today in Iraq, and we use that as our baseline, saying, “Oh, we’re saving because we’re not spending what we did 10 years ago,” I mean, isn’t that sort of setting up a funny money comparison?

so much for transparency.
The Wall Street Journal doesn’t think much of the plan either…

and how about this

SHREVEPORT, LA (KSLA) – In giving the republican response to President Obama’s speech Tuesday night, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal pointed out fundamental differences in how republicans and democrats see the economy.

Wednesday morning on the CBS Early Show, Vice President Joe Biden asked, “But what I don’t understand from Governor Jindal is what would he do? In Louisiana, there’s 400 people a day losing their jobs. What’s he doing?”

But that claim is wrong if you look at the numbers from the Louisiana Workforce Commission.

“In December, Louisiana was the only state in the nation besides the District of Columbia, according to the national press release, that added employment over the month,” said Patty Granier with the Louisiana Workforce Commission.

Rest of the article here

You MUST get past the water torture of MSM babble Barry is Great, Barry is Great… and get down to facts you can substantiate. One of my favorite sayings is “those who don’t understand history are doomed to repeat it”. Not enough people study history these sorry days…

your first reading assignment is THIS and please note the date – September 1999 – 15 months before W took office. read some below, the full article in the link above.

In a move that could help increase home ownership rates among minorities and low-income consumers, the Fannie Mae Corporation is easing the credit requirements on loans that it will purchase from banks and other lenders.

The action, which will begin as a pilot program involving 24 banks in 15 markets — including the New York metropolitan region — will encourage those banks to extend home mortgages to individuals whose credit is generally not good enough to qualify for conventional loans. Fannie Mae officials say they hope to make it a nationwide program by next spring.

But it all started well before 1999.

Now read some old posts HERE and HERE and take the links and read them.

I will check the links soon, hope they are all still active.

back soon to finish. now read. I’m going to bed.

but one more thing.

dig this
http://www.theiowarepublican.com/
Launch 7am March 4

I know I promised my next post to be about the economy and W, but I can’t stand this.

Dig this.

An Iowa Senate Committee just passed a bill to the Senate that is about the dumbest thing I have ever seen in politics. They calmly 8-7 (2 Dems voted no) passed a bill out of committee that will require the Iowa electoral votes to go to the Presidential Candidate that wins the popular vote – effectively killing the beautiful symmetry that is the electoral college.

This vote would make Iowa irrelevant to national politics. It makes no sense, unless you want urban areas (that have more Democrat votes – hmmm trending to a conclusion here) to have control over who’s President.

You did know that Presidents are not elected by popular vote, right? Iowa has 7 electoral votes (soon to be reduced to 6 after this census results go into affect – because of population shifts). That’s why I find it odd that this President feels the need to move control of the census under the White House. After all, what ARE community organizers without lists?

ANYWAY (I keep getting side tracked – twitter keeps reporting what he’s saying…) This is where I believe our Founding Fathers were so brilliant in their construction of this Republic. Watch this 10 minute YOU TUBE video that explains further.

Also read HERE where our Governor (aka “the Big Lug”) is telling us the tax code is confusing so we should remove a provision to deduct our federal tax payment before computing our state taxes! HOLD ON TO YOUR WALLETS.

So, now while President Obama is telling you all (and you’re all watching Him on TV right? I’m not.) what a mess he was left to clean up, I will write the note about why this President cannot blame His immediate past President for this pretty pickle.

The rest of the world seems to have gone mad – why not Iowa?

Wait. more thing. Grant Young’s Rant on the Electoral College is funny. If we can’t shoot ‘em – we need to laugh, right?

Thursday – February 19, 2009

from the Iowa House Minority Leader Kraig Paulsen

9:16 a.m. House convenes with the expectation we will begin debating HF 333 in the morning. The Majority Leader tells me Rep. Olson will have a corrective amendment coming, they expect it around lunch time and we will begin debate then. We recess until 1 p.m.

1:00 p.m. Olson amendment has not arrived – we sit and wait.

7:56 p.m. Olson amendment finally arrives – Republicans go to caucus.

9:00 p.m. I inform the Speaker and Majority Leader that Republicans will not permit this bill to be passed in the middle of the night and we will be staying in caucus to work on amendments until the sun comes up.

10:00 p.m. Majority Leader agrees to start debate at noon on Friday if we agree to limit debate to five hours. We agree.

Friday

11:00 a.m. Republicans caucus for final discussions on bill. I asked the caucus to be thoughtful, respectful, and passionate – but win the debate. The final vote count is in doubt.

12:05 p.m. The House convenes.

12:15 p.m. Rumored the democrats now have 51 votes (exact number needed for passage).

12:18 p.m. Majority Leader calls up Price Fixing Act for debate with a end time and vote at 5:20 p.m.

12:20 p.m. Debate begins.

2:00 p.m. Begin debate on main Democrat amendment.

2:30 p.m. It’s rumored they are back to 50 votes.

3:30 p.m. Rep. Bailey (D) announces on floor he will vote “no” unless the bill gets changed.

4:00 p.m. House defers on main Democrat amendment so that Bailey corrective amendment can be drafted. Presumably now they are back to 51 votes.

4:15 p.m. We begin debate on the Grassley amendment to protect disaster victims.

4:40 p.m. Rep Bailey informs me that if I prevent debate on his corrective amendment he will vote for the bill on final passage.

4:45 p.m. Corrective amendment arrives

4:50 p.m. I speak on the Grassley amendment. While speaking it appears to me that Democrat Leader is having his members request time to speak. This will have the effect of running out the clock and prevent us from debating the corrective amendment for procedural reasons.

5:00 p.m. I decide to let him run out the clock and have Republicans end remarks.

5:15 p.m. Grassley’s amendment fails.

5:16 p.m. Rather than call up Bailey amendment they just move on and run the clock out.

5:20 p.m. Speaker Murphy closes debate and calls the question.

5:30 p.m. Vote count sits at 50 – 46 – Bill fails

5:40 p.m. Speaker announces he will hold the voting machine open until Monday at 1 p.m.

11:40 p.m. Rep Scott Raecker (R-Urbandale) votes “no”, vote now sits at 50 – 47 – bill fails

Saturday – nothing happens

Sunday

5:20 p.m. Rep Greg Forristall (R-Macedonia) votes “no”, vote now sits at 50 – 48 – bill fails

Monday

1:09p.m. The Majority leader switches vote to “no” so he can file a motion to reconsider and the speaker closes the vote. Final vote 49 aye – 49 no, 2 absent, the bill fails.

1:10 p.m. House adjourns and finally the legislative day of Thursday, Feb 19, 2009 is over.

When is the Iowa Spring Game? Will we have one with the turf change?
ok back to politics.

This is certainly not the way I expected 2009 to roll out, but I cannot say I’m surprised. I mean, who of you thought the price of housing would continue to rise forever and 0% down made sense.

About 10 things have struck me to say, “I need to go post that” but I haven’t, because I have so much to say I don’t know where to start. There are times when I feel like Alice gone through the Looking Glass.

The last thing that struck me to think of posting hit me at a time where I had a moment to post. Since Saturday Night Live doesn’t have a republican president to make fun of any more, they are making fun of the republican (minority) in congress. I continue to question the ability of the comedy writers of the world; they are cracking each other up. whatever… even though this skit was kept from being shown during the election, making fun of democrats.

There is some good news. The Iowa House refused to vote a Union sponsored bill into law by one vote. Now usually bills don’t go up for a vote unless the group submitting it believes they have the votes. They ended up one short as 5 democrats voted with 100% of the republican House to kill the bill, at least for now. It will probably come back later in the session but this was a big victory for Iowa. There are three more such bills this session – Democrats will approach those with much more care moving forward.

We’ve got some incredibly dedicated legislators, (Jeff Kaufmann, Tom Sands, Dawn Pettengill to name a few of my favorites) and it’s inspiring to watch their dedication to the task at hand.
http://iowahouserepublicans.com/

Iowa is not in bad shape as compared to other states; but with the devastation of the flooding in the Cedar and Iowa River valleys not cleaned up, we are short of ready cash. In the last 2,3 years we’ve spent more than we should. Good thing Iowa mandates operating with a balanced budget, although there’s some robbing peter to pay paul (but that’s a post for another day).

Iowa is already listed as 2nd to last (read this) best place to have a business (12% corporate TAX rate) but now we need to add a bunch of Union issues to the mix? I don’t think so. We’ll be reporting on those labor bills as they move forward.

One of the reasons I haven’t been active on the blog is that the new State Republican Chair (Matt Strawn) has brought the state party into the 21st century asking everyone to build a presence on FaceBook and is setting some other communication links that will help us in the next election cycle. So free time has been spent there. But nothing stirs up the base like Union issues at the statehouse. And our College Republican Group @ Iowa State has been getting some publicity this weekend too – you can read here and here if you don’t already follow this Iowa news.

Financially, I’m so sorry, but these are the things my parents taught me that apparently was not conventional wisdom of the majority of Americans:
1) if it’s too good to be true, it probably is
2) if you work for something (earn it) you’ll take better care of it
3) hard work will pay off
4) the housing you buy should represent no more than 3X your annual NET salary
5) keep enough in the bank to last you a year without a job

Worse, our current government is making my parents out to be liars.
1) you should expect the government to provide for you
2) you don’t need to work
3) doing nothing pays off
4) you can buy housing for 0% down and NOT TO WORRY, we’ll GIVE you 10-20% of the purchase price in free money (just tack it on to that loan) – because the value of your house will go up X% in the next years.
5) who me? save?

There are problems on Wall Street too – so why should we watch or care about price of stocks? All this
“too big to fail” and funny stuff going on… But I did get a kick of out Rick Santelli’s rant, and who could blame him?

Mayor Bloomberg was interviewed last week about the financial situation of NYC and he was very clear about the “cost of raising taxes”. Actually he sounded like Rudy in this interview.

“One percent of the households that file in this city pay something like 50% of the taxes,” explained the Mayor. “In the city, that’s something like 40,000 people. If a handful left, any raise would make it revenue neutral. The question is what’s fair. If 1% are paying 50% of the taxes, you want to make it even more?”

ok enough for one post… I need to get to bed, make sure I get to work early to contribute to the success of the corporation I work for so I will keep my …. oh wait, maybe I don’t.

when is the Iowa Spring Game?
Combines are this weekend – check out Shonn’s stats

Next Post – why you can’t blame W.

and ya just knew it wasn’t political didn’t you.  Well if it isn’t politics it must be Football!

Ferentz has a 70-53 record at Iowa, including two Big Ten championships.
Iowa Football Coach Ferentz Gets 7-year Extension

IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) -Iowa football coach Kirk Ferentz has agreed to a new, seven-year contract that includes the same salary and bonus structures as his previous deal. Athletic director Gary Barta made the announcement on Thursday. The contract will run through the 2015 season. Last year, Ferentz’s average annual salary was $2.84 million.

Under the new agreement, Ferentz’s assistant coaches will be eligible for additional compensation for significant achievements.

“As our head coach the past 10 years, he’s proven himself to be a winner and a strong leader of the Hawkeye program,” Barta said in a statement. “I’m thrilled to have him as Iowa’s head football coach.”

Last season, Ferentz led the Hawkeyes to a 9-4 record and a 31-10 win against South Carolina in the Outback Bowl on Jan. 2.

ESPN

2009 Schedule