Political Football

Check down below on this blog to a post I wrote a month or so ago about Econ 101 – if you want LESS of something TAX it.  It worked on cigarrette taxing, and many other things.

Now a member of the Obama Administration is admitting that people could avoid tax penalties by earning less income.

“If we’re going to play that game, I think that game can be played here as well, because after all, the minimum coverage provision only kicks in after people have earned a minimum amount of income,” Kaytal said. “So it’s a penalty on earning a certain amount of income and self insuring. It’s not just on self insuring on its own. So I guess one could say, just as the restaurant owner could depart the market in Heart of Atlanta Motel, someone doesn’t need to earn that much income. I think both are kind of fanciful and I think get at…”
Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/2011/06/obama-solicitor-general-if-you-dont-mandate-earn-less-money#ixzz1OBHsRc3J

Let me rephrase that.  A member of the Obama Administration admits this part of the Health Care Act reduces incentives to work.  Wow.  That is sick.  People should be encouraged to create their own wealth. What if all “rich people” decided to earn 30% less money.  Think that though carefully.

What has happened to America?  Are we heading towards class warfare?

and then there’s this: 71% of Democrats want to redistribute wealth

How do you decide to redistribute wealth and what is the result when only half of the US Citizens currently pay ANY taxes.  I’m just saying there is a difference between providing a safety net to those in need and those capable of working getting a generational free ride.  This is a very slippery slope we’re riding and the ending could be bad for all of us.

Dame M. Thatcher said famously, “The problem with socialism is, eventually you run out of other people’s money.”

California is deciding now if they should raise taxes or lay off 19,000 school teachers. (teachers are an unfortunate but easy target of budget shortfalls)

Referencing this data (some details below) California is already the 49th WORST state to live re: taxes.  (click to enlarge)

It only stands to reason that raising taxes will create a condition where more people flee California – like Hollywood film makers who like to shoot in Canada, or Intel who recently decided to build in Arizona.  EVENTUALLY California WILL run out of “other people’s money” because those “other people” will leave.

You can also see here that Iowa is a pretty crappy place to live – tax wize too but Gov. Branstad should change that.

With all this, 47% of households in the US have a negative tax liability. READ HERE

and finally taxing the rich more will solve everything?  NOT SO FAST!!!

Reading this timeline of money squeezing is worth your time.  There aren’t enough Rich people to tax to balance the budget, and even if we did take their $ it would be a one time hit – what would we do next year?    TAX WHAT YOU WANT LESS OF…   READ MORE HERE from IowaHawkBlog – just 11 billion $ a day.  Easy.

Illinois just passed a tax that will lose them money not gain it. They are taxing affiliates of Amazon over 6%. Before now internet acquisitions were not taxed in Illinois.

“Illinois has about 9,000 affiliates, said Rebecca Madigan, director of an affiliate trade group called the Performance Marketing Association. She said the Illinois affiliates generated $611 million in advertising revenue in 2009 and tax revenue of $18 million. She estimates that the state will lose 25% to 30% of that tax revenue because the affiliates will lose business, cut jobs or move out of the state.”

Read more here.

Amazon is also seriously considering moving their Warehouses in Illinois to a more tax friendly Indiana.

Texas tried to do the same thing with the same results, so I can only guess this is truly what the Illinois Governor wanted to do – drive more business out of Illinois.

This is similar to what Iowa did when cigarette taxes were raised a few years ago. But that also had an added value of having some people decide to quit smoking. The bad thing is – the Democrat controlled 2008 Iowa legislature also budgeted that entire tax revenue before they learned – yeah, people either quit smoking or went to Missouri to buy their smokes, so tax revenues were not as expected. But one thing is clear – Legislatures are addicted to tax revenue.

When you think of it, this speaks to any wealth. If you want less of it – tax it. It’s the wealthy that have the flexibility to make decisions on where to live or start businesses. We need a friendly tax structure to encourage businesses to flourish in Iowa.

I usually write at least a January 1 blog post but never got around TUIT.

Dr. Miller-Meeks is still in the confirmation stages of becoming the Director of Iowa Public Health. I think she’ll do a great job and is actually made for this job. I applaud both her and Governor Branstad for taking drastic pay cuts (by more than half?) to serve our state.

Everyone has been watching the craziness in Wisconsin; I don’t know anything about Wisconsin politics other than the 2010 elections turned what was a fairly reliable BLUE state, purple if not RED. As we painfully learned in 2008 – elections have consequences. I just wish the traditional media would spend more time showing the thuggish behavior of the left – since they seem to think the right is “violent”. Don’t say this public versus private sector union issue is a new thing: Read THIS

Bottom line is there are plenty of regulations to protect government workers and governments don’t show “profits” from which you can negotiate pay increases. Interesting article HERE.

Everyone has been watching the middle east turmoil, wondering what type of governments we’ll end up seeing over there… all very interesting if not scary.

Random thoughts:

I hope to deploy some new graphics at the top of the page soon – a bit nicer looking and professional, perhaps to time with the confirmation of my friend, Dr. Miller-Meeks as the new Director of Iowa Public Health – which I am hoping to be sometime in April.

I think I’m done buying laptops for a while – I want an ipad type toy – we’ll see what comes up – thinking Motorola Xoom.

Iowa Spring game coming up – I’m watching some of the NFL combine where Stanzi, Clayborn, Ballard and Reisner are competing…

Still not in tune with the move to a cloud computing – although I like the commercial with the family trying to get a good picture and can’t without editing… “to the cloud”… my vision of the future is not something I can see very clearly.

I find it odd there is a tremendous uptick of gasoline explosions all over the world – old infrastructure, not well maintained I’m being told… yuck. 5,6 so far in PA, OH, IN and another in Canada.

the end – have a nice weekend

A message from Representative Jeff Kaufmann (IA-79)                      
Representing parts of Muscatine, Cedar and Johnson Counties in Iowa.

Last week I participated in an outstanding Veterans Day service at the Tipton Middle School. The brief video “We Fought For You” was shown and it is the best presentation of the meaning of this day that I have ever seen. I promise you that this is worth the watch! There is a link to the video below.

 To my veterans of eastern Iowa…thank you…from the bottom of my heart.

Jeff Kaufmann

Everyone seems to be wringing their hands over the weak economy.  The price of gas goes up with every oil spill or pipe line break and Economists hover over jobs reports and love to tell us the stock market is rising.

When will the cycle of bad economic trends break?  I’m not understanding why it’s that hard to figure out.  We have heard for the last two years that small businesses are the engine of today’s economy in the USA, right?

I’m reading an article about a proposed speech from the head of the AFL-CIO saying he will accuse business (therefore Republicans) of “economic treason”.

Trumka’s charge is centered on his anger at private sector business and corporations for sitting on capital — as much as $2 trillion by some estimates — instead of spending it to expand and create jobs, and at insurers for proposing rate hikes.

HOW DARE THEY SIT ON THEIR MONEY!!!  If this wasn’t so scary it would be funny.  Union leadership has hurt American Business, all the while unions could and should play an important partnership with business.   This is just nuts.

Business DOES NOT INVEST IN AN UNCERTAIN BUSINESS CLIMATE.  Eli Goldratt has a saying:

Tell me how you measure me and I will tell you how I’ll perform.

That is a scientific fact.  Like gravity  the way business works  is predictable, if you understand the principles involved.  But now we have a President who indicates he can’t push through some policy of his (Cap and Tax) he threatens to “legislate by fiat” through the EPA.  If he can’t get a bill past this Democrat controlled Congress, Folks, it’s a BAD BILL.

Unions are trying to get “card check” passed, as well as “fair share”.  Both of those will hurt the very businesses that employ union workers.  Card Check’s formal name is the lovely sounding “Free Choice Act”, which is opposite its name!  This act removes the use of private ballots for Union votes and more (your union boss can see how you voted).  I’m still trying to figure out who gains free choice when a secret ballot is removed, but hey, that’s just me.

Today in Obamaland

Fair Share has been pushed in the last three legislative sessions in Iowa, I probably wrote about it if you search this site, yeah I’m pretty sure I did…  Fair Share is a bill that will require workers in jobs where unions exist, to pay union dues whether they want to belong to the union or not. 

Today, states that allow workers to decide if they want to pay union dues or not, are considered “business friendly” and are aligned with what is called “right to work” status.  That status is a key element  reviewed in a state’s model before a business decides to move or incorporate in that state.  Not sure what’s fair about Fair Share, but it’s bad for economic development.

It’s interesting for all it’s “fairness” and the fact that the Iowa House and Senate have been Democrat (as well as the Gov) for the three sessions… Fair Share has not passed because at least 5,6 Democrats blocked it.  It’s just not good legislation.

One thing that really made me sick, is the GM bailout.  NO ONE would want to see one of our biggest car manufacturer fail. 

Detroit’s auto workers remain among the highest paid manufacturing workers in the world – paid sometimes even when they don’t work,” NBC’s chief investigative correspondent Lisa Myers said. “That’s right. Under union contracts, thousands of laid-off workers receive 95 percent of their salary for doing nothing, for up to two years.”

more here

But this takes the cake!  While unions spend tens of millions of Dollars of worker’s dues to elect Democrats (95-98% was the last number I saw) union leaders now want the tax payer to bail out pension plans that are in trouble.

At issue are multi-employer pension plans, in which companies across an industry pay into a single pension pool. The plans are predominately run by unions and for years have distinguished themselves by poor management

more here

Finally about those Insurance Company bad guys.  When I read this I just shook my head.  a snip of that is posted below

Although the law’s big expansion of coverage under the law won’t take place until 2014, several new benefits go into effect starting later this month. Lifetime dollar caps on coverage are abolished, and plans must allow parents to keep their children on the policy up to age 26. Many plans will also have to guarantee coverage for children regardless of a medical condition, and provide preventive care with no cost-sharing for the patient.

Let me get this right.  Just because lifetime dollar caps are abolished and plans have to guarantee coverage they didn’t before – they CAN NOT raise their prices?  The government is now all knowing.

She warned that bad actors may be excluded from new health insurance markets that will open in 2014 under the law.

Sounds like Chicago THUG politics to me.  Listen there are bad players in every business – but government is a business too and we are the shareholders.  Is there any wonder, now, that the majority of union workers now work for the government, not private business?  We are in a deep mess folks.

So, there you are.   The Economy would be fine if Policies didn’t SUCK.

In Representative Loebsack’s world, his “representation” of IA-02 seems to have started just a few months ago when Dr. Miller-Meeks charged out of the Republican primary with an over whelming victory.  But hey, we haven’t heard from him except for some very pretty (expensive) franked (I paid for it) mail, and now a TV ad showing smiling people at a Town Hall (that he has not conducted in 2010).

Miller-Meeks was a serious contender in 2008, and actually won the debate they had on KCRG…  I can’t remember how many times he said “Mariannette’s right”, or “she’s correct” or other words agreeing with her points.

Where he defeated Dr. Miller-Meeks convincingly in 2008 at the polls with Bush and Obama’s help (not to speak of the second “500 year flood” to hit Iowa in the last 15 years) Mariannette is gaining traction in the last weeks as Loeby is losing it.  He’s so overtly shifting to the right, even the Quad City Times is noting it:

CEDAR RAPIDS — U.S. Rep. Dave Loebsack is rethinking his position on ending the Bush tax cuts and might be willing to consider a Republican proposal to extend them for two years.  read more HERE

DON’T BELIEVE IT FOLKS, he votes however the SPEAKER tells him to vote.

Continuing an old theme of mine (learning from HISTORY as to not repeat bad things…) some HISTORY:

We, sadly, can learn from Castro HERE… a snip of it posted below…

HAVANA – Cuba announced Monday it will cast off at least half a million state workers by early next year and reduce restrictions on private enterprise to help them find new jobs.   …..

Currently the state employs 95% of the official workforce.

95%!!!  That’s where we’re heading.  I am so sick of people thinking they have a right to Health Care or a job - I know a lot of well meaning people believe in some or all of this - but it’s unsustainable.

Dame Margaret Thatcher said it best – “Socialism is fine, until you run out of other people’s money.” 

HERE The government of Spain is trying to make the county competitive again in the global marketplace, and UNIONS are striking AGAINST that effort.  And Spain’s experience in Green jobs:

The study’s results demonstrate how such “green jobs” policy clearly hinders Spain’s way out of the current economic crisis, even while U.S. politicians insist that rushing into such a scheme will ease their own emergence from the turmoil.  more HERE

Vote Miller-Meeks for Congress!!!

The November elections seem like a long time from now but also seem to be right around the corner and we’re not ready; we haven’t done all we could to ensure victory.  With the reports of a 10 point lead for a generic Republican over a generic Democrat – a tsunami seems inevitable, but projecting victory is just that – a projection.

The larger question is if we do win, if we do take one or both houses of the national (or state) legislatures, what do we do?  How do we keep ourselves from executing the same over-reaching program that doomed us after the 1994 elections?  I disagree with some congressmen that want to investigate the Obama White House.  I don’t see a way around anything but a two party system, both sides have their problems with leadership.  Is it possible for Republicans to “get anything done” if we do win in November?

In any case these are my priorities for the next Congress in no specific order.

Find a way to repeal and re-write the Health Care Bill.  No bill should be so large that a congressman can’t read and understand it.  This law seems to have been written by lawyers for bureaucrats. Over 100 new agencies?  wow.  What should stay?  Portable health care that YOU own not provided by your employer.  Portable across state lines too. 

As Dr. Miller-Meeks (my candidate for the CD2 Congressional seat in Iowa) says, “We don’t say the Auto Industry is broken when everyone can’t afford the high end car we want to own”.  There should be a menu driven plan that starts by protecting us from catastrophic illness, then deductibles as we can afford them.  The only support the government should provide is a pool of money for high risk Americans.  No one should be denied insurance because of a pre-existing condition.  However, insurance companies should not be “made” to cover 100% of Americans.  At some level the government should step in and help with that steeper cost.

Speaking of agencies, we should take a look at the Department of Education and the TSA.  Since they were enacted, has there been improvement?  I like the idea that I think Paul Ryan promotes – every bill that adds cost to the budget must have a sunset clause and reviewed to see if it did what it said it was going to do.  Education has not improved in my opinion, since the Department of Education was established.

No job should exist in the goverment that can’t be jobbed out to the private sector.  Jobs in the private sector create revenue.  Jobs in the government just cost us more money in the long run.

Our Veterans returning from combat should be given all the medical treatment they need. 

Amnesty?  We can’t deport 12 million illegal aliens.  Again, I agree with Dr. Miller-Meeks when she said we should not hire the 15,000 new IRS workers to parse through our personal files, but increase the number of people working on immigration to improve the fast track to citizenship.  We need workers and they would pay taxes.  And build the damn wall between the US and Mexico.  It won’t stop but it will reduce.

Keep the unions from enacting Card Check, Fair Share, what ever it’s called.  Stupid-ass laws, get a grip, how stupid is this?  “Employee Free Choice Act” is actually a bill that REQUIRES that Union votes are NOT private.  This is simply to provide intimidation and is clearly in support of unions.  What a stupid and misleading name.  Unions would also be able to collect more dues to donate to more democratic candidates. Fair Share is only “fair” to union bosses, not even the unions themselves.

We need to elect people to represent us that have comment sense, not vendettas.  We need to work together to make this country strong again.  We are lazy, don’t take care of ourselves or plan for the future.  The people who believe “Health Care is Free” need to be taught a lesson in business.  The people who believe the US Treasury is a bank account that will never run out of money need to understand it already has run out of money.  The people who believe economic stimulus plans that pay for government jobs need to explain to me how that does more than push that debt down the road for someone else to pay.

Dr. Miller-Meeks not only “gets it” but has a common sense approach that can calm the waters not stir things up more.  Take a look at her website and if you agree with me, send in what  you can to support her campaign.

VOTE MILLER-MEEKS on NOVEMBER 2

Many of us in Muscatine will be spending our summer and fall finding as many independent votes for MMM as we can.  Muscatine County Republicans voted overwhelmingly for MMM (almost 70% of the votes in a 4 candidate race) but Muscatine is almost equaly divided R / I / D – maybe slanted I at this point.

Although there was some talk of a mass voting movement to get D’s to cross over in the primary to vote for BVP, IMO the weaker candidate against Culver – I don’t think that happened much in Muscatine.  I know for a fact that some D’s switched to vote for MMM, but the ones I know about, I’m confident will vote for MMM in the general election.

The State GOP convention June 26, will be less stressful,  now that all of the federal races have been decided in the primary.  No one outside MMM’s team expected her to win with 51% of the vote but she has a very strong “ground game” and has worked extraordinarily hard for the last two years.

One of her opposing candidates insisted that she shouldn’t be nominated because she lost to Loebsack already (in 2008) but that is hogwash.  In 2008 she had very little name recognition, especially in LINN County.  During the Summer of 2008, everyone was more occupied with the eastern Iowa flooding than the election.  As I noted elsewhere – there were frequent times when we wanted her to make calls to raise campaign funds, and we found her helping with sandbags in one of the counties affected instead.

Hopefully this will also be a November election that sends a message to Washington about spending money and leadership.  We have seen NO leadership out of this White House.  Faced with his own “disaster” all this President is doing is calling out the lawyers.  How clear is that message.  This isn’t about coming together to solve a problem this is about pointing fingers.  Plenty of time to do that in the future, Mr. President.  We need to see some leadership. 

When other countries offered to help because they had experience in oil spills, why were they denied access?  My sense is this President’s decision making has been made in the favor of special interest groups (Unions especially) not in the favor of the American People.  Also, let’s look at what all elected people own in stock or have received in campaign contributions.  Campaign contributions typically favor those in power.  We hope to change at least one branch of goverment’s power base in November and send a message to the others.  “We’re mad as H3LL and we’re not going to take it any more!!!”

!!!Vote Miller-Meeks for Congress 2010!!!

(posted on the internet – this is not my original writing)

Your economics lesson of the day……
 
Explanation of Derivative Markets:

Heidi is the proprietor of a bar in Detroit. She realizes that virtually all of her customers are unemployed alcoholics and, as such, can no longer afford to patronize her bar. To solve this problem, she comes up with new marketing plan that allows her customers to drink now, but pay later. She keeps track of the drinks consumed on a ledger (thereby granting the customers loans).

Word gets around about Heidi’s “drink now, pay later” marketing strategy and, as a result, increasing numbers of customers flood into Heidi’s bar. Soon she has the largest sales volume for any bar in Detroit .

By providing her customers’ freedom from immediate payment demands, Heidi gets no resistance when, at regular intervals, she substantially increases her prices for wine and beer, the most consumed beverages. Consequently, Heidi’s gross sales volume increases massively. A young and dynamic vice-president at the local bank recognizes that these customer debts constitute valuable future assets and increases Heidi’s borrowing limit. He sees no reason for any undue concern, since he has the debts of the unemployed alcoholics as collateral.

At the bank’s corporate headquarters, expert traders figure a way to make huge commissions, and transform these customer loans into DRINKBONDS, ALKIBONDS and PUKEBONDS. These securities are then bundled and traded on international security markets. Naive investors don’t really understand that the securities being sold to them as AAA secured bonds are really the debts of unemployed alcoholics. Nevertheless, the bond prices continuously climb, and the securities soon become the hottest-selling items for some of the nation’s leading brokerage houses.

One day, even though the bond prices are still climbing, a risk manager at the original local bank decides that the time has come to demand payment on the debts incurred by the drinkers at Heidi’s bar. He so informs Heidi.

Heidi then demands payment from her alcoholic patrons, but being unemployed alcoholics they cannot pay back their drinking debts. Since, Heidi cannot fulfill her loan obligations she is forced into bankruptcy. The bar closes and the eleven employees lose their jobs.

Overnight, DRINKBONDS, ALKIBONDS and PUKEBONDS drop in price by 90%. The collapsed bond asset value destroys the banks liquidity and prevents it from issuing new loans, thus freezing credit and economic activity in the community.

The suppliers of Heidi’s bar had granted her generous payment extensions and had invested their firms’ pension funds in the various BOND securities. They find they are now faced with having to write off her bad debt and with losing over 90% of the presumed value of the bonds. Her wine supplier also claims bankruptcy, closing the doors on a family business that had endured for three generations, her beer supplier is taken over by a competitor, who immediately closes the local plant and lays off 150 workers.

Fortunately though, the bank, the brokerage houses and their respective executives are saved and bailed out by a multi-billion dollar no-strings attached cash infusion from the Government.

The funds required for this bailout are obtained by new taxes levied on employed, middle-class, non-drinkers who have never been in Heidi’s bar.

Now, do you understand?

The talk of more and more Recession possibilities in the future and smaller recoveries reflect a dying economy.

China is even giving us good advice – stop building entitlement programs and attack your DEBT!

Can I be depressing enough to say I don’t even think we’re in a recovery. I think the world changed as much with the economic upheaval and the way it was managed, as the world changed after 9-11. It’s just that most people don’t GET that.

And when will everyone GET that this President doesn’t care about bipartisanship. If he did he would not be poking republicans in the eye on his HC victory. Very un-statesman like. What “about red America, blue America – I want to be President of the United States of America…” Well – not so much.

And don’t get me going on Israel… As goes Israel, so goes the USA in my opinion. We must support them strongly – we must give the rest of the Middle East a reason to negotiate. Valerie Jarrett? Really?

My whole world seems to stop on Super Bowl afternoon – so I’m catching up on a few organizational things including some blogging.  I’m watching the pre-game and may interject some comments.

Fun to watch the playoffs when I don’t care who wins.  What a finish to the season if WhO DaT NaTioN gets a super bowl championship; if the Colts win they are a blue collar team with Dallas Clark and Hawkeye History. 

I watched the Sarah Palin speech last night and am still looking for the next generation’s leaders.  President Obama can’t lead his way out of the proverbial paper sack – 13 months into his term he’s still campaigning.  I don’t see leadership in Gov. Palin either.  I like her, but people are pushing her into a leadership role for which she is not ready.

The 912 and Tea Party movements are engaging more citizens in politics, that is a good thing, and Gov. Palin’s speech was from the heart.  But those who are looking for the next Ronald Reagan in Palin, forget his “time in the wilderness” where he honed his philosophical tone by writing a-lot speaking around the nation and on TV.  Watch this TV broadcast from 1964 – 16 years before he was President.  YOU TUBE BROADCAST HERE   There is no Ronald Reagan type in either party today and I am afraid for the future.

To me it’s as simple as this.  Those who refuse to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.  I’m not looking up the orgins of that quote – it just makes sense doesn’t it?

2008 campaign article

Study shows FDR spending policies lengthened, did not shorten the Depression.

I wish I started to buy gold when it was $400, not doing it now.  I hope the continued unravelling of the Global Warming Myth is turned into a new effort to protect the environment and an understanding that we need to learn how to help future generations survive this climate change we are seeing.  Science based on urgent collection of grant monies and financial profit - is an evil effort and must be stopped. 

Walter Payton :::tears::: gone too soon, we still love you.  Queen Latifa Rocked American the Beautiful…  No one will out do Whitney Houston’s Star Spangled Banner… what was a long time ago, I didn’t think much of this lady today…

Where I do appreciate every candidate and citizen that is newly engaged, this two party system has to come back and find a way to work together.  I hope Republicans do regain control of the 2011 congress and pass a fair and responsible reorganization of our healthcare system.  A reorganization that pays for itself by cutting waste, is portable and covers pre-existing conditions.  I am supporting Dr. Miller-Meeks for Congress in that effort.

I’m down to one bowl game yet tonight, so I thought I would blog for a while.  I’m waiting with much anticipation for the Iowa Georgia Tech game on Tuesday, and am glad Iowa plays on a night where there is only one game.  They will acquit themselves well, will have national coverage and I don’t have to worry through other games to get to the Hawkeyes…   In Kirk we Trust…

It’s also been restful that the holiday comes in front of the weekend so after the family events of the Holidays there is time to regroup for the work year…   World events aren’t as simply watched and worried about.

It’s going to get worse, not better.

I believe those who said that some predicted the upswing (I guess they are thinking about the stock market I haven’t seen any other upswing) but fewer predict it continuing.  I for one expect a miserable 2010 when it comes to world confidence and business growth.

My model will continue to find ways to be self sufficient (which is easy in rural American but tough in the upper midwest) planting, harvesting and canning the result in a cooperative effort with friends and family.  More target shooting with my gun, and helping others do the same…   Trying to get back to basics, putting some $ where my mouth is re: charities and politics…  what is important today?

As far as world events, I continue to be confused why smart people avoid the study of history.  A metaphor that has been used for economic issues today is this: Those who believe government bailouts work, must also believe that taking pails of water from the deep end of a swimming pool and dumping it into the shallow end will increase the depth of the shallow pool.  The government has no money; but it must TAKE money from those who are creating jobs for the government to do anything.  Government can’t create jobs; well they can but only short term jobs taking money from those who could create long term jobs.  Government can’t create prosperity.

Let’s go back to look at the War on Poverty – begun in 1964.  We’ve lost that too.  We now have generations that are used to welfare.

When are we going to man up and fix things?  It may already be too late.

The Health Care Bill is Crazy and what is this about calling it the Protection and Affordable Care Act – what a joke.

As you can tell by some previous posts I don’t believe in Global Warming.  I do believe in Climate Change and do believe we must be good stewards of our environment. The myth of Global Warming and Algore’s taking amazingly irresponsible advantage of the myth for financial gain has been more damaging to the world than the War on Terror has been. 

That said, I love LIVING WITH ED, the show on GREEN TV staring Ed Begley and his wife.  If everyone was as honest and empassioned as Ed Begley we would not be where we are today.

We are at a cross road – and have no leadership in the world today.  When will the voice of reason be heard?

What IS important today, in 2010?

Here’s a start: Vote Miller-Meeks

Link to article on Obama’s proposed changes

why overhaul?  “sweeping regulatory changes” …   it wasn’t enough to try to control 17% of the national economy with a health care bill…  (and I would like someone to study how much of HR3200 is really health care… )

I have a huge problem that most if not all of the Hope and Change this President wants to push through, needs to be driven by an attempt to panic rather than lead.

I’ve read things like none of this (HR3200) even starts until 2013, so what’s the hurry.

Then another thing surprised me in the last days.  Why would the President want to piss off China?  Talk about the new “sleeping giant”. (tires… o, it’s a union thing I get it)

But now that the Health Care bill is going south he wants to do something bigger to the economy.

The billions spent for “stimulus” have done nothing except to pay employment rather than laying off various state’s employees and some short term building projects – and less than 25% of the billions have been spent.

People are  saving now, but it’s out of fear.  No one (that has a brain) wants to extend their debt or take any risks that will grow the economy and I’ve read it has to grow @ 3% just to stay even.

I can understand some tightening of SEC regulations that may have caused some of the Wall Street and banking problems, but let’s not forget, the SEC is a government agency and their lack of foresight is what got us here.  From what I’ve read, the problems did sift up (Maddoff, etc) – either people were too scared or too ignorant to pull the plug.  Governments don’t run businesses well, there is a ton of evidence to prove that.

I think I will dig up some documentation for some of the things I’ve written here and more now…  I just want what’s left of my401K to be there for me when I retire.  If I retire.  I still feel like we’re teetering on the edge of a cliff and this President’s adviser’s main advice is to “never waste a good crisis”.

—————–

stupid little hint for the day:  removing Firefox AVG toolbar

I like to use firefox when blogging because it has a spell checker that IE doesn’t.  In FF updates, they tend to add on a AVG toolbar – and I hate extra tool bars on my screen.  (now this may be only for AVG users which I am, but) if you want to remove the AVG toolbar in firefox – take this link: disable AVG toolbar in Firefox

HERE is a Link to the full text of an August Press Presidential Conference on Health Care.
[my comments]

Each and every day in this country, Americans are grappling with health care premiums that are growing three times the rate of wages and insurance company policies that limit coverage and raise out-of-pocket costs. Thousands are losing their insurance coverage each day.

[turning things over to the government isn't going to make things cheaper - and if you think it will, you may want to stop reading this post right now]

Without real reform, the burdens on America’s families and businesses will continue to multiply. We’ve had a vigorous debate about health insurance reform, and rightly so. This is an issue of vital concern to every American, and I’m glad that so many are engaged.

[real reform can come in many ways that will relieve burden on America's families - it doesn't have to come at the deconstruction of 1/6 of our economy. THAT is what is scaring people.]

But it also should be an honest debate, not one dominated by willful misrepresentations and outright distortions, spread by the very folks who would benefit the most by keeping things exactly as they are.

[The President of course is disavowing that misrepresentation (willful or not) is coming from him and his administration - moving on...]

So today, I want to spend a few minutes debunking some of the more outrageous myths circulating on the internet, on cable TV, and repeated at some town halls across this country.

Let’s start with the false claim that illegal immigrants will get health insurance under reform. That’s not true. Illegal immigrants would not be covered. That idea has never even been on the table. Some are also saying that coverage for abortions would be mandated under reform. Also false. When it comes to the current ban on using tax dollars for abortions, nothing will change under reform. And as every credible person who has looked into it has said, there are no so-called “death panels” – an offensive notion to me and to the American people. These are phony claims meant to divide us.

[Illegal immigrants already get health care today. No one can legally be turned away from an ER room at a hospital. I will address this further as well as abortions in another post. Dr. Miller-Meeks covered the Death panel issue in her last blog post today.]

And we’ve all heard the charge that reform will somehow bring about a government takeover of health care. I know that sounds scary to many folks. It sounds scary to me, too. But here’s the thing: it’s not true. I no sooner want government to get between you and your doctor than I want insurance companies to make arbitrary decisions about what medical care is best for you, as they do today. As I’ve said from the beginning, under the reform we seek, if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor. If you like your private health insurance plan, you can keep your plan. Period.

[But here's the thing: once a government sponsored health care plan is on the table, let's say 5 million uninsured (that can still get care in ERs) sign up for the Government plan. It is the Government's studied assumption that 3 million more small business owners will drop their coverage - pushing their employees into the government plan.

Not all Doctors will be IN the government plan, so guess what? you MAY lose your doctor. Your private health insurance plan today for the most part is offered by the generosity and business smarts of your employer. (who may likely be hammered by this Administration as one of the Evil Rich.

You don't know what your employer will do - and we all know how well the Government planned and estimated cost and interest of the Cash for Clunkers program right?]

Now, the source of a lot of these fears about government-run health care is confusion over what’s called the public option. This is one idea among many to provide more competition and choice, especially in the many places around the country where just one insurer thoroughly dominates the marketplace. This alternative would have to operate as any other insurer, on the basis of the premiums it collects. And let me repeat – it would be just an option; those who prefer their private insurer would be under no obligation to shift to a public plan.

[OK, so options are a good thing? Cool.  I have heard there are about 1300 different insurance companies in the US, but only a few in Iowa. Why not allow all 1300 to compete in all 50 states? If 400 "go away", we sill have a lot from which to choose.

The GOVERNMENT has set these conditions and boundaries on state insurance commissions. Change THAT process. INCREASE competition!  But if your employer drops carrying insurance from what I read - you will be shifted to the Government plan.]

The insurance companies and their allies don’t like this idea, or any that would promote greater competition. I get that. And I expect there will be a lot of discussion about it when Congress returns.

[My suggestion would create MUCH MORE competition - so MUCH that some providers will fade away. But if the government competes in this market, they have a huge advantage. An insurance company by law must carry X% of their potential liabilities in cash reserves. I have seen the government set up no such provision for themselves. That is an unfair competitive advantage.]

But this one aspect of the health care debate shouldn’t overshadow the other important steps we can and must take to reduce the increasing burdens families and businesses face.

So let me stress them again: If you don’t have insurance, you will finally have access to quality coverage you can afford. If you do have coverage, you will benefit from more security and more stability when it comes to your insurance. If you move, lose your job, or change jobs, you will not have to worry about losing health coverage. And we will set up tough consumer protections that will hold insurance companies accountable and stop them from exploiting you with unfair practices.

[PS the Government has the ability to make insurance portable between jobs and between states today. Let's do it!]

We’ll prohibit insurance companies from denying coverage because of a person’s medical history. They will not be able to drop your coverage if you get sick. They will not be able to water down your coverage when you need it most. They will no longer be able to place some arbitrary cap on the amount of coverage you can receive in a given year or a lifetime. We’ll place a limit on how much you can be charged for out-of-pocket expenses, because no one in America should go broke because they get sick.

[what's in bold and blue above is the first common sense true statement in this speech, IMO]

And we will require insurance companies to cover routine checkups and preventive care, like mammograms and colonoscopies. There’s no reason we shouldn’t be catching diseases like breast cancer and colon cancer on the front end. That makes sense, it saves lives, and it will also save money over the long-run. Taken together, the reforms we’re seeking will help bring down skyrocketing costs, which will mean real savings for families, businesses, and government.

[No, No, no.  You cannot assume that. Anyone good at math can figure this out. When we prevent more diseases, people live longer. Where's the savings! I mean I'm all for pro-active health care, but there have been recent studies done that say it won't save money in the long run.  Think about how much more social security benefits are going out to people now that fewer people smoke!]

We know what a failure to act would bring: More of the same. More of the same exploding costs. More of the same diminished coverage. If we fail to act, the crisis will grow. More families will go without coverage. More businesses will be forced to drop or water down their plans.

[This is one of my biggest gripes. No one is saying there aren't needs to address. fail to act, fail to act - must pass the plan... what's the rush! Let's put together a good plan!]

So we can push off the day of reckoning and fail to deal with the flaws in the system, just as Washington has done, year after year, decade after decade. Or we can take steps that will provide every American family and business a measure of security and stability they lack today.

[Pass this plan OR our country will implode.

Frankly I think it's the converse: Pass this plan AND our country will implode!]

It has never been easy, moving this nation forward. There are always those who oppose it, and those who use fear to block change. But what has always distinguished America is that when all the arguments have been heard, and all the concerns have been voiced, and the time comes to do what must be done, we rise above our differences, grasp each others’ hands, and march forward as one nation and one people, some of us Democrats, some of us Republicans, all of us Americans.

[This President: "fear fear fear - pass the bill. don't read, don't think - do it fast!"]

This is our chance to march forward. I cannot promise you that the reforms we seek will be perfect or make a difference overnight. But I can promise you this: if we pass health insurance reform, we will look back many years from now and say, this was the moment we summoned what’s best in each of us to make life better for all of us. This was the moment when we built a health care system worthy of the nation and the people we love. This was the moment we earned our place alongside the greatest generations. And that is what our generation of Americans is called to do right now.

[What's best in each of us is not being heard by this President. He speaks of a lack of bipartisanship, but that bipartisanship has been defined by "do it my way". I don't WANT to DO IT RIGHT NOW. I want to DO IT RIGHT. Now if he wants to throw a couple of trillion around (what comes after that it all seems like funny money by now) as a safety net for those he feels are in jeopardy - do it short term. DO IT RIGHT for the long term.]

I will try to document some of the statements I’ve made in my next posts. -pf

The Muscatine Town Hall was today and reports from the Louisa County Town Hall were the same as ours – it was “tame”. When I arrived at the Muscatine venue 90 minutes early I was pleased the auditorium was open, was not looking forward to standing in line.

For the first 30 minutes even as a few friends trickled in we were seriously outnumbered by opposition support. By the end of the session it sounded like it was fairly even but my sense was we were outnumbered about 60%-40%, and there were less than 200 people there.

The facts have become obscured with the passion and vitriol from each side over the last months, and I worry that our “tame” Town Halls give this Representative the opportunity to tell his leader Ms. Pelosi, that he can vote with her without concern of blow back.

With all due respect to my Democrat friends, where there is misinformation on both sides of the Health Care topic, our President takes the cake on hypocrisy.

No there is nothing formally labeled as Death anything in HR3200. But let’s look at this:

I was not surprised to learn that the VA panel of experts that sought to update “Your Life, Your Choices” between 2007-2008 did not include any representatives of faith groups or disability rights advocates. And as you might guess, only one organization was listed in the new version as a resource on advance directives: the Hemlock Society (now euphemistically known as “Compassion and Choices”).

to read more go here.

This VA “book” was first authored in the late 1990, and tabled during the Bush years. For this to be dusted off in the first 6 months of this administration speaks to focus. Read Section 1233 of HR 3200 and you tell me if this could eventually mutate into something similar to what some of my veteran friends call “The Death Book”.

Let’s look for more
here’s CNN on Lobbyists

here is another good article – read the posts too

I will try to post one of the President’s latest speeches and point out the misinformation there – his talks are filled with certainty about things that are simply not true.

Here is what should be done – this, does not turn 1/6 of our national economy over to the people who have made a shambles of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, the SEC…

1st: Create a temporary safety net re: catastrophic for uninsured.
2nd: Require Coverage for pre-existing conditions.
3rd: Redo State Insurance Commissions mandates on require specific coverage – change to a menu option/price
4th: Make insurance portable from job to job & state to state
5th: Watch the free market work
6th: offer a tax deduction for anyone who wants insurance that isn’t insured – now they can shop around and prices will be lower because of competition.

None of this requires the government to take over anything.

It has been absolutely stunning (and not in a good way) how this current administration has had their way, passing legislation that has headed this country in a very dangerous path.

- passing trillion dollar legislative bills with the majority of those voting admitting they have not read them
- the administration urges these changes using a panic mentality “do this or catastrophe!”
- 85% of Americans that have heath care are satisfied with their coverage yet this Administration uses the cost of health care as the primary fiscal “bad guy”, inferring if fixed, life will be good again
- NY and CA are talking about a tax rate as high as 58% for some citizens

This is crazy.

This administration is using scare tactics to enable passage of a universal health care bill. Apparently ANY universal health care bill. Everyone I know, agrees that people should not be bankrupted by catastrophic illness. Why not start there by protecting people from those.

I mean, we don’t want to study what was wrong or right about the MASS plan?

Creating a universal health care system that is government run can not be the solution to our financial problems. This Administration hates business (large and small), rich people, and most especially pharma and insurance companies. A cadre of Community Organizers can’t have the vision to solve this problem.

Now BHO is saying everyone must be optimistic. hello?

Those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it.

There is plenty of evidence to show tax increases do not increase tax revenue.

On one hand raising panic to pass huge state or personal entitlement bills, then later urging optimism about this country’s future with the bloat of debt – is an abomination, it’s idiotic and speaks to the dysfunction that we are seeing at all levels of this country.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/ContePnt/Public/Articles/000/000/016/677plgab.asp

http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/07/enough_is_enough.html

Please let this be true.

why does it seem like we’re heading into trouble here with American Companies Google, FACEBOOK and Microsoft feverishly fighting for technical superiority when cyber terrorism is very much on the rise…

what’s important here folks.
http://www.cnn.com/TECH/

http://trendmicro.mediaroom.com/index.php?s=43&item=727&WT.mc_id=2008HP_News

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7990997.stm

http://perens.com/works/articles/MorganHill/

Declaration of Independence

(Adopted by Congress on July 4, 1776)

The Unanimous Declaration of the Thirteen United States of America

When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. –Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large for their exercise; the state remaining in the meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states; for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands.

He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers.

He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies without the consent of our legislature.

He has affected to render the military independent of and superior to civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by mock trial, from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states:

For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing taxes on us without our consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury:

For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses:

For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule in these colonies:

For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments:

For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection and waging war against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burned our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow citizens taken captive on the high seas to bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare, is undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms: our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have we been wanting in attention to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends.

We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name, and by the authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare, that these united colonies are, and of right ought to be free and independent states; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as free and independent states, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do. And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.

New Hampshire: Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton
Massachusetts: John Hancock, Samual Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry
Rhode Island: Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery
Connecticut: Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott
New York: William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris
New Jersey: Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark
Pennsylvania: Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross
Delaware: Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean
Maryland: Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton
Virginia: George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton
North Carolina: William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn
South Carolina: Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton
Georgia: Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton

Hedge Funds, Sub Prime Mortgage bundling, now Carbon Offsets.

We’ve been heading for the disaster we’re living in now – ever since we started the WAR on POVERTY 45 years ago – (which we’ve never made a dent in, by the way)…. http://www.city-journal.org/html/14_3_sndgs01.html

All I really need to understand is George Soros was an early supporter of Hedge Funds to understand – this can’t be good.

A fund, usually used by wealthy individuals and institutions, which is allowed to use aggressive strategies that are unavailable to mutual funds, including selling short, leverage, program trading, swaps, arbitrage, and derivatives. Hedge funds are exempt from many of the rules and regulations governing other mutual funds, which allows them to accomplish aggressive investing goals. They are restricted by law to no more than 100 investors per fund, and as a result most hedge funds set extremely high minimum investment amounts, ranging anywhere from $250,000 to over $1 million. As with traditional mutual funds, investors in hedge funds pay a management fee; however, hedge funds also collect a percentage of the profits (usually 20%).

More information here where I grabbed the paragraph.

Hedge Funds then the bundling of bad mortgages into subprime mortgages and selling them, IMO are the prime elements of this crisis. It’s not an economic down turn, it’s payback for all the stupid things that people have done to “make a buck” or “keep up with the Jones’”. Everything from salaries to houses were too inflated, as well as people’s drive for “things”. I have a sister that always parses things simply by “wants” v “needs”. More people should be like her.

Now, every day I think about my fairly substantial 401k and if it will be there tomorrow. I don’t worry about its value – I wonder if it will be there – if someone will take it – or maybe it’s not really there… Is that nuts?

The world today seems to be “about the scam” – about taking advantage of the crisis. You have been instructed that you don’t need to pay your credit card bill or house payments, but still buy your new ipod or blackberry… get a stay at home job and make 6 figures a year. Even the congress has to rush to pass 1,000 + pages bills costing Trillions of dollars, and almost all of the legislators admit to not reading the bill. what’s the rush! What are they hiding? What’s the scam?

I’ve told my friends, prepare to live without your cell phone or internet access or even your car and try to remember (or learn) how exist – it is getting just that odd out in the real world.

Carbon offsets are becoming an increasingly popular way for individuals and businesses to participate in solutions to global warming. The basic idea of a carbon offset is to figure out your personal contribution level to the global warming problem from such activities as driving, flying, or home energy use. This contribution is called a “carbon footprint.” The term refers to carbon dioxide, the principal greenhouse gas. You can balance out your carbon footprint by buying carbon offsets. Your purchase funds reductions in greenhouse gas emissions through projects such as wind farms, which produce clean energy that displaces energy from fossil fuels. By funding these reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, you balance out, or offset, your own impact by an equivalent amount. Carbon offsets help you take personal responsibility for the environmental consequences of your activities.

Anything that is difficult to audit is ready for corruption. Bernie Maddoff? Enron? Have we learned nothing?

One of my favorite TV shows is “Living with Ed” the Greenman Ed Begley, the actor, and his wife star in a reality show. Ed is Green, very Green and his wife appreciates it but frequently thinks he goes too far. But I like him and think more people should live like him. No one needs a 50,000 sq ft mansion to live, I don’t care how rich you are. But you can’t make laws to tell people they can’t build 50,000 sq ft mansions! Anyway – Ed is always hopping on his computer to buy carbon credits. Last show I watched, it was because his wife was flying to Utah for a film festival and Ed was driving his hybrid. Guilt payments. I learn a lot from the show and it’s fun to watch. Ed doesn’t “force” his lifestyle on others but teaches. But do carbon credits work?

Then you have my candidate, Dr. Miller-Meeks. She was an alternate delegate to the AMA convention a few weeks ago when the President spoke in Chicago. She wrote about it several times in her blog – here is the link. She talks about the AMA going Green – sending out PDFs of the events, etc… hundreds of pages, but then everyone brings their laptops! Carbon Offset anyone???

Fossil fuel and cement emissions increased by 3.3 percent per year during 2000-2006, compared to 1.3 percent per year in the 1990s. Similarly, atmospheric C02 concentrations increased by 1.93 parts per million per year during 2000-2006, compared to 1.58 ppm in the 1990s. And yet, despite accelerating emission rates and concentrations, there’s been no net warming in the 21st century, and more accurately, a decline.

Mark Steyn’s 7/4 article

BTW here is a picture of my newest acquisition.

On another subject, some people can call this spin, but it’s so off the charts it’s hard not to call it simply – lying – at a very high government level.

Read more: “President of the American Hospital Association says the White House misstated deal – Carrie Budoff Brown and Chris Frates – POLITICO.com” – http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0509/22559.html Mean Street: Obama’s Big Fat Fibbing Budget

If our current debt load is unsustainable, why did we do it? Now, if a group of us banded together and we made, say $1,000,000 in total annual salary and half of us got laid off – how would we be able to borrow $4,000,000 to “do things” even if they are reasonable things like road building etc. We can’t realistically pay that debt on in a reasonable time.  If that doesn’t make sense for us, why does it make sense for the US government, an organization that CREATES no revenue to support that “bill”.  It’s insane.

We’ve been losing 600,000 jobs a month for a while now nationally but there’s a silver lining in that the government is hiring about 66,000 a month more people? But, again, the government doesn’t “make money” it takes it in from us and doles it out, keeping more than a small amount in the bargain. This is insane.

The President states what he wants to say (much of which could likely be held unconstitutional if challenged – like firing CEOs or setting CAPS on salaries) regardless of the impact or facts behind them, and people believe it. This is insane. Obama the Destroyer those of you who thing the government running things is so great need to read this.

Would you have a personal computer without free markets? This is insane.

There seems to be a debate on whether there are votes to carry Federal Tax issue in the Iowa House.  We shall see.

The US House has actually denied the President his wish to increase taxes on wealthy people who contribute to charities in a large way == read more here - it was unanimous – cool.

The failure of the newspaper business is no different that other businesses. Bailouts are wrong – bad business models should FAIL and better business models rise from the ashes. The NYT’s failures are not akin to Darfur.

When we visited David Vaudt, our State Auditor in his office yesterday he told us he is facing a 26.6% budget cut. Most of his buget is for payroll and to audit various activities, much of which is prescribed by law. He explained that in addition to the cuts, the format of having to audit larger and more complicated budgets takes more time not less. In comparison the Secretary of State’s budget will only be cut 8.1% and the State Treasurer’s budget is being cut by just 10.8%. In fact, the entire Administration and Regulation Appropriations Subcommittee budget, which includes these three offices, averages an 11% cut for all offices in their proposed budget. Vaudt, the only Republican office holder out of the three offices under the jurisdiction of this Committee, recently sent a letter to the respective chairs in the House and Senate to voice his objection to the plan. AND he was on the radio voicing his concerns yesterday.

The President is labeling himself as a bridge builder at the G20 summit.  Someone needs to tell me why we have to build the whole damn bridge though…  who else changed?  Not China.  Not Russia.  Not Nobody – we just gave a LOT.  someone needs to define Compromise and Capitulation to our new President.  That is not Leadership I want.

Capitulation
1. giving up: surrender or a giving up of resistance
2. terms of surrender: a document that sets out the agreed terms of surrender

Compromise
1. an accommodation in which people involved partially reduce their demands and settle differences;
2. a lowering of principles and weakening of morals for supposed gain.

Hmmmm… even compromise doesn’t sound that good.

Have a good night.

this wasn’t the change I was hopin’ for.

.

Some of Gitmo’s residents could be released in the US

ACORN helping with the census? oh, but not to worry. now that Gregg (R) turn down the commerce job, the new guy (D) says the census will move back from the WH to Commerce. Whew! I feel better now!

The President tried to whack the Insurance industry by having them pay for soldier’s injuries. wow.

and THIS is just plain creepy – dig the logo…  major creepy.

.

how about you?

March 20 update – Powerlineblog wrote a great defense of the bonuses.  No one will hear the logic when all the rhetoric is so loud.

AIG, like GM, should have been allowed to go into bankruptcy. In bankruptcy, it could have wound down its financial products division just as it is doing now. Bankruptcy would not have affected the company’s international insurance businesses, distinct corporate entities which are both solvent and profitable. Those businesses could have been sold, which is what AIG now plans to do.

This is truly government gone mad. When are people going to see the GOVERNMENT IS THE PROBLEM!

This is all about the AIG craziness. Recoup the bonuses. Write special legislation to tax them 100% retroactively. RETROACTIVE LEGISLATION. Think about that. Are they Crazy?

People’s anger should have been stronger a long time ago. It’s not a problem unless it affects you. That’s not the way we were supposed to manage our lives in this republic, this is not the government we were supposed to have but this has become the government we deserve.

This is serious. We threw together a huge entitlement plan with the bail-outs, passed it out of fear and now we reap the results. AIG is not the villain. We should not have bailed them out. We had options. The bail-out should have not been passed or certainly passed so quickly.

All politicians are doing are fomenting anger across the country against a few businessmen that were doing what the law allowed. THEY DID NOTHING ILLEGAL, IF THEY HAVE – ARREST THEM.

When politicians are saying in committee hearings that the names of those with bonuses won’t be released if they give back all the money… They should be arrested on the spot for extortion. and all Obama is going to do on the Leno show is continue to build the anger and attempt to build his power base because of the outrage. Are we ready for mob rule?

There is real anger in this country today, but it’s taking us in the wrong direction. The bailout was wrong for a reason. In our legal system a company, any company, should NOT be too large to fail. But a contract is also a contract. If these people were due a bonus, they deserve it and deserve not to be bullied into giving it back.

On the other hand, this failed business should not have been propped up.

Will the President discuss the situation in the US today in those terms in the first late night comedy show ever guested by a sitting President? I bet not; he will tell everyone this is all Bush’s fault and how we need to borrow from our grandchildren’s future because we can’t trust businesses to do the right thing, we can only trust government. yikes!

Government does not solve problems; it subsidizes them. Ronald Reagan

Here is a good (low resolution but still a big file) that compare’s W’s visit with a military base and “Barry” (President Obama’s) recent visit to a military base.

bush-barry-low-res

If you have trouble playing .mp4 files download this plug in LINK

more good videos here.

To great guffaws, Abe told the gang:
“So, I says to Barack, I says, I knew me an Abe Lincoln once,
… and you ain’t him.”

Andy Thomas is the artist of this great piece titled Grand Old Gang.
His site can be found at: www.presidentart.com

+++++

and click on the poster (below) to visit one of my favorite new blogs

Last week the President gave a DVD movie set to his first foreign visitor. Sounds pretty odd and not very Presidential. If the set was one that could not run on European equipment – I know they are different – that would be embarrassing. The “excuse” given for that and various other issues is that the new President is overwhelmed. But apparently not overwhelmed enough to have parties at the WH on Wednesdays.

I got my taxes done this AM and asked my CPA to reconstruct them if Iowa lost the federal deductability on State tax reporting that currently exists.

I owed $90 more in state tax than I had paid in 2008. Under the proposed system I would owe over $800 more than I had paid in 2008. Wow. That’s more than a chunk of change – something I need to budget to pay. My sense is that bill will not pass, hopefully it won’t get through funnel week.

One of my favorite reads in the AM is Powerline Blog and this AM they were talking about the political games the Democrats were playing posting Rush Limbaugh as the “titular head” of the Republican party – knowing he was not well liked outside of conservative circles. The basic tennant was that Rush wants this President to fail, and how unAmerican that is. But… they also said:

Rush wants Obama to fail to socialize the economy and run up trillions of dollars in debt. Democrats in 2006–surely a plurality, if not a majority–wanted the United States to fail in a war in which our armed forces were then engaged. Yet, through the eight years of the Bush administration, neither the President nor his spokesmen ever accused these Democrats of being unpatriotic. I hope that someday their restraint will be appreciated.

So Rush supports America but not the President. How different is that from Liberals saying they support the troops but not the mission? which is worse? Rush want’s this President’s policies to fail. So do I; I hope voters WAKE UP SOON!!!

Then they talked about Charles Freeman who has been nominated by the President to head the National Intelligence Council when it’s obvious he has a bias against Israel. Can’t say I’m shocked.   [update 5pm today - Charles Freeman is another Obama candidate casualty.  He just asked to have his name removed from consideration.  It appears not only does he sit on a Chinese Company Board but he also has taken considerable coin from the Saudis.  Don't they vet these guys at all?  At lease we can assume he's paid his taxes.  -pf]

On a brighter note – there is more public dialog on the idiocy of Algore’s Global Warming mantra. This will be one of the worst scams of all time – costing trillions of dollars but more important, more than a decade of lost time. Where would we be if we were able to rationally discuss climate change and how to prepare for it? Climate Change will happen – Algore’s hyperbole is harmful and has spawned an industry that has not solved the problem.

Read an article written on a liberal blog HERE refuting Algore’s part in the Global Warming movement.

Maybe there is hope.

When Barack Obama and Gordon Brown see ‘opportunity’, we really do have a crisis

The Left is threatening our freedom by using the downturn to bolster the power of the state, says Janet Daley.

Link

The story so far: some capitalists behaved very badly. While this was going on, the socialists didn’t ask questions because they were too busy spending the receipts that flowed from that behaviour. Now, the socialists – who were happy to look the other way during the good times or even to delude themselves into thinking that they were responsible for them – want to use the ignominy of the capitalists to seize the kind of power they thought they had lost forever.

You may quibble at my use of the word “socialist” to describe people who generally present themselves as friends of the free market, and who have repudiated full-scale nationalisation (even of the banks at a moment when that option might have appeared irresistible). So, as someone who spent her formative years on the Left, let me make clear that I am using the word to designate those who accept the primary tenet of Marxist ideology: that the economy can and should be controlled by the state.

In the hard version of this creed, it is acceptable for government to become totalitarian in order to accomplish such control. The softer version – which prevailed in much of Western Europe and Britain – was committed to achieving this through democratic means. By the end of the 1980s, the hard version had collapsed and the soft version was discredited.

Then, suddenly – a miracle! Free-market economics, which seemed to have won the historical argument hands down, is imploding. Now the very people who had embraced it as, at the very least, a milch cow for public-spending adventurism, can see an “opportunity”. Yes, that is the word that both Gordon Brown and Barack Obama have taken to using to describe the current economic apocalypse.

In Gordon Brown’s fantasy, this is an “opportunity” to exercise control over the whole world. Not just stricter regulation by national governments of their own economic institutions, but a wondrous new level of international regulation by supranational functionaries – to be appointed by whom? A World Government agency accountable to no electorate and with no democratic mandate from the populations over whom it will wield such power? Trotskyists used to say that Stalinist Russia had failed to achieve Utopia because it had embraced “socialism in one country” rather than going for “world revolution”. Now, we are being told that Labour’s market-led social justice programme failed because it opted for “regulation in one country” instead of understanding the need for “world regulation”.

Maybe being an ex-Marxist is a bit like being a lapsed Catholic: you never quite get rid of the old thought patterns.

In the more overheated renditions of the Brown theme, there is talk of a “global vision for fairness”, in which the very poverty that is being visited upon all the developed economies will somehow make it possible to redistribute wealth to the developing world.

Is he quite mad? Does he actually believe that the economic failure of rich countries will do anything but impoverish poor countries even further? Or that the moral righteousness of the intention to cure world poverty will, in itself, constitute some kind of cure for the banking collapse?

Meanwhile, Mr Obama – who gives the impression of being considerably out of his depth in the economic maelstrom – talks of an “opportunity” to “reorganise our priorities”. He gave a major speech last week in which he actually seemed to suggest that the present crisis had been caused by America’s failure to develop a universal health care system and to attend to the impending environmental disaster of global warming (“we made the wrong choices”), and that by focusing on these matters a way can be found out of the country’s economic problems.

Is he quite mad? Does he really believe that the banking crisis and the recession were some kind of divine retribution for the absence of universal health care, and excessive carbon emissions? Or is he suggesting that a practical solution lies in spending money on health care and the development of alternative energy sources?

If it is the latter, then he is making a pitch for old-fashioned Roosevelt-style government-expenditure programmes which take money out of the productive part of the economy and bring state intervention into play in new dimensions of national life. It did not work for Roosevelt and it will not work now.

But maybe sentimental mythology matters more than historical reality: what Obama and Brown are both trying to do is to put themselves on the benevolent, morally attractive side of the argument by saying: we – your government – will act, intervene, take positive steps to help you. We will not stand by and let the hurricane winds of the economy blow you down. (Mr Brown has actually used the word “hurricane” to describe the crisis, as if it were a natural disaster which no one could have prevented.)

What neither the Prime Minister nor the President can admit is what is becoming more obvious every day (and which has been admitted by the Prime Minister of New Zealand, John Key): there is precious little that any politician can do to resolve the present economic problems. The values of assets and property are simply going to have to fall from the grossly inflated points they reached under the debt bubble to what are generally accepted to be realistic levels. Then people will start to do business again – as eventually they must – and confidence will gradually return.

So are these politicians pretending that they have answers out of wilful deceit – out of the need to keep playing the game for partisan advantage? Or are they simply attempting to maintain some degree of public optimism about the future? (After all, an “opportunity” sounds better than a “debacle”.)

Well, I grew up with the Left and what this looks like to me is a power grab: a seizing of the moment by the forces which always believed in state domination. The Left sees an opening here, first for telling a critical lie about the historical origins of this crisis, which was propelled as much by the Left-liberal determination to spread prosperity through easy credit to the poor, as by the greed of bankers. And then, out of the wreckage, to restructure the economy along the lines that it always wanted, complete with central controls over the pay levels in private financial institutions.

We are being led to believe that public debate should be all about economic mechanics when it should really be about political principle: just how many freedoms do we want to lose while governments pretend that they are the solution?

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?

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.

Amazing…. simply amazing.

http://www.courant.com/business/hc-att0123.artjan25,0,5747793,print.story

The State of Connecticut has discovered a method of preventing job layoffs.

Blumenthal Wants Connecticut Regulators To Block AT&T Job Cuts – The Hartford Courant

“AT&T (T) said last month that it would pare its Connecticut workforce, which totals about 6,800, by 400 jobs and transfer another 60 jobs to Michigan. A day after the news broke, Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, flanked by union leaders, implored state regulators to block the cuts with the force of law while the state investigates the impact on customer service.”

“This is not about AT&T. This is not about Blumenthal. This is about the kind of message Connecticut is sending to business — a state that has no positive job growth and [has] people who are falling over themselves to prove that they’re pro-consumer by showing they’re anti-business,” AT&T spokesman Dave Mancuso said.

State regulators have so far denied Blumenthal’s requests, without listing specific reasons.

Blumenthal’s call for a stay on layoffs has only intensified AT&T’s growing frustration with operating in Connecticut. During an economic conference in September, AT&T’s eastern regional manager urged government officials to scale back regulation and let the company do its job. “We don’t need policy-makers stepping in and telling us how to do it or where to do it,” Chad Townes said at the conference.

Though parts of AT&T are regulated, the company is increasingly operating in a competitive marketplace that demands lower costs and lower prices.

“In order for them to be competitive with other carriers, this is what they have to do,” Kagan, the telecom analyst, said. “If they have to start worrying about how many jobs they have to leave in how many states … the company would be doomed.”

Layoff Bans Are Counter Productive

Under the guise of preserving customer service the Attorney General’s attempt to block job cuts will only further destroy Connecticut’s ability to draw new businesses to the State. The Attorney General should know better and his actions seem more directed to pandering for votes rather than improving the business climate in Connecticut.

If prohibiting job layoffs is a great idea, why not extend the theory of a centrally planned economy even further? Prohibit all layoffs by every business operating in Connecticut. Extend this logic further and pass a law forcing AT&T and every other business in the State to hire new employees until the unemployment rate reaches zero? Excuse me for saying so, Mr. Blumenthal, but this tactic has failed in every socialist state on the planet.

Attempting to prohibit layoffs is total lunacy and it will not work. My advice to the Attorney General: Instead of creating a hostile business environment, Connecticut should be focusing on sensible issues that will foster economic and job growth.

If the Attorney General really wants to help Connecticut’s economy, here’s something sensible that he can work on.

Tax Foundation – Connecticut 3rd Highest Tax Burden in Nation

Tax Freedom Day is the day when Americans finally have earned enough money to pay off their total tax bill for the year. In 2008, Connecticut taxpayers had to work until May 8 (the latest in the nation) to pay their total tax bill, 15 days later than the national Tax Freedom Day (April 23).

* Connecticut’s State/Local Tax Burden Third-Highest in Nation

* Connecticut, currently ranked 3rd highest, has risen 21 places over the last three decades and now holds a place among the nation’s highest-tax states.

* Connecticut’s 2008 Business Tax Climate Ranks 38th

* Connecticut ranks 38th in the Tax Foundation’s State Business Tax Climate Index. The Index compares the states in five areas of taxation that impact business: corporate taxes; individual income taxes; sales taxes; unemployment insurance taxes; and taxes on property.

* Connecticut Levies Sales Tax above National Median; Gasoline and Cigarette Taxes among Nation’s Highest

Connecticut Residents Are Voting With Their Feet

The Connecticut State Data Center says figures from last year show the population growth in the state is very small.

The University of Connecticut-based center says Connecticut’s population grew by less than two-tenths of 1 percent last year.

There is a connection between high taxes, job losses and zero population growth. Connecticut has become a very high cost state for both residents and employers. If Connecticut really wants to increase jobs in the state, attention should be focused on lowering taxes. Foolish, politically motivated schemes such as prohibiting layoffs will only lead to further job losses.

Let’s be honest.  Most of the additional growth we have seen now and for an extended period of time come from Boss’s like the one noted in this fictional letter attributed to Neal Boortz.  So what is the government doing?  Helping huge companies stay a float with bad business practices and screwing those who are really the engine of this economy…  read “his story” below. -pf

=============

To All My Valued Employees,

There have been some rumblings around the office about the future of this company, and more specifically, your job. As you know, the economy has changed for the worse and presents many challenges. However, the good news is this: The economy doesn’t pose a threat to your job. What does threaten your job however, is the changing political landscape in this country.

However, let me tell you some little tidbits of fact which might help you decide what is in your best interests.

First, while it is easy to spew rhetoric that casts employers against employees, you have to understand that for every business owner there is a back story. This back story is often neglected and overshadowed by what you see and hear. Sure, you see me park my Mercedes outside. You’ve seen my big home at last years Christmas party. I’m sure; all these flashy icons of luxury conjure up some idealized thoughts about my life.

However, what you don’t see is the back story.

I started this company 28 years ago. At that time, I lived in a 300 square foot studio apartment for 3 years. My entire living apartment was converted into an office so I could put forth 100% effort into building a company, which by the way, would eventually employ you.

My diet consisted of Ramen Pride noodles because every dollar I spent went back into this company. I drove a rusty Toyota Corolla with a defective transmission. I didn’t have time to date. Often times, I stayed home on weekends, while my friends went out drinking and partying. In fact, I was married to my business — hard work, discipline, and sacrifice.

Meanwhile, my friends got jobs. They worked 40 hours a week and made a modest $50K a year and spent every dime they earned. They drove flashy cars and lived in expensive homes and wore fancy designer clothes. Instead of hitting the Nordstrom’s for the latest hot fashion item, I was trolling through the Goodwill store extracting any clothing item that didn’t look like it was birthed in the 70′s. My friends refinanced their mortgages and lived a life of luxury. I, however, did not. I put my time, my money, and my life into a business with a vision that eventually, some day, I too, will be able to afford these luxuries my friends supposedly had.

So, while you physically arrive at the office at 9am, mentally check in at about noon, and then leave at 5pm, I don’t. There is no “off” button for me. When you leave the office, you are done and you have a weekend all to yourself. I unfortunately do not have the freedom. I eat, and breathe this company every minute of the day. There is no rest. There is no weekend. There is no happy hour. Every day this business is attached to my hip like a 1 year old special-needs child. You, of course, only see the fruits of that garden — the nice house, the Mercedes, the vacations… You never realize the back story and the sacrifices I’ve made.

Now, the economy is falling apart and I, the guy that made all the right decisions and saved his money, have to bail-out all the people who didn’t. The people that overspent their paychecks suddenly feel entitled to the same luxuries that I earned and sacrificed a decade of my life for.

Yes, business ownership has is benefits but the price I’ve paid is steep and not without wounds.

Unfortunately, the cost of running this business, and employing you, is starting to eclipse the threshold of marginal benefit and let me tell you why:

I am being taxed to death and the government thinks I don’t pay enough. I have state taxes. Federal taxes. Property taxes. Sales and use taxes. Payroll taxes. Workers compensation taxes. Unemployment taxes. Taxes on taxes. I have to hire a tax man to manage all these taxes and then guess what? I have to pay taxes for employing him. Government mandates and regulations and all the accounting that goes with it, now occupy most of my time. On Oct 15th, I wrote a check to the US Treasury for $288,000 for quarterly taxes. You know what my “stimulus” check was? Zero. Nada. Zilch.

The question I have is this: Who is stimulating the economy? Me, the guy who has provided 14 people good paying jobs and serves over 2,200,000 people per year with a flourishing business? Or, the single mother sitting at home pregnant with her fourth child waiting for her next welfare check? Obviously, government feels the latter is the economic stimulus of this country.

The fact is, if I deducted (Read: Stole) 50% of your paycheck you’d quit and you wouldn’t work here. I mean, why should you? That’s nuts. Who wants to get rewarded only 50% of their hard work? Well, I agree which is why your job is in jeopardy.

Here is what many of you don’t understand … to stimulate the economy you need to stimulate what runs the economy. Had suddenly government mandated to me that I didn’t need to pay taxes, guess what? Instead of depositing that $288,000 into the Washington black-hole, I would have spent it, hired more employees, and generated substantial economic growth. My employees would have enjoyed the wealth of that tax cut in the form of promotions and better salaries. But you can forget it now.

When you have a comatose man on the verge of death, you don’t defibrillate and shock his thumb thinking that will bring him back to life, do you? Or, do you defibrillate his heart? Business is at the heart of America and always has been. To restart it, you must stimulate it, not kill it. Suddenly, the power brokers in Washington believe the poor of America are the essential drivers of the American economic engine. Nothing could be further from the truth and this is the type of change you can keep.

So where am I going with all this? It’s quite simple.

If any new taxes are levied on me, or my company, my reaction will be swift and simple. I fire you. I fire your co-workers. You can then plead with the government to pay for your mortgage, your SUV, and your child’s future. Frankly, it isn’t my problem any more.

Then, I will close this company down, move to another country, and retire. You see, I’m done. I’m done with a country that penalizes the productive and gives to the unproductive. My motivation to work and to provide jobs will be destroyed, and with it, will be my citizenship.

If you lose your job, it won’t be at the hands of the economy; it will be at the hands of a political hurricane that swept through this country, steamrolled the constitution, and will have changed its landscape forever. If that happens, you can find me sitting on a beach, retired, and with no employees to worry about….

Signed,

Your boss

Well, certainly one can not miss all the coverage and hoopla about the upcoming Presidential Inauguration on Tuesday, Jan. 20th, 2009.

I’ve barely responded to PF’s topics nor have I written a new one myself since the election because I been so upset about how wrong I figured people’s thinking and how wrong I was about people’s perceptions and thought processes.

I haven’t been a slave to the news coverage in the past few weeks but I can not get away from it either although I have tried to fast forward or change the channel during more egregious Bush bashing and Obama worship.

I attended Church this morning; I grew up in the Methodist faith and believe in worshiping the one true God – although in 3 forms – The Father, Son and Holy Ghost.  I state here that I adamantly do not believe that Barack Obama is the Son.  While I adore my minister and usually agree with her sermons I was saddened to know that on this Human Relations Sunday I did not 100% agree with her assessment that she believed that BO’s election was the dream coming true of Martin Luther King, Jr.  MLK, Jr. (who was a registered Republican) believed that people should be judged by the content of their character and not by their skin.  While I agree with that hope … I disagree that BO was not judged by his skin…he was voted by many because he calls himself an African American == the first Black President.

Personally I would have been ready for our first Black president to have been Colin Powell way back when.

I have always been suspect of BO’s experience not his skin color. 

AND I have said from the get – go about BO — that I was torn — that I was indeed happy that people were excited about the election and could rally around an exciting candidate.  BUT — I was horribly disappointed by the lack of credible and unbiased journalism that ushered Obama into the Presidency at such a critical time.  It could be Obama is the right man to be President — only time will tell.  And though it may be tough …I will certainly admit “I was wrong” if/when the time comes.

So on Tuesday — when normally I am the Yankee Doodle Dork and love all American Pageantry … I am feeling a little lost, a little detached and little like I am holding myself back from letting myself from getting all misty eyed and euphoric.  Again, I repeat that this feelign does not stem from perhaps my guy not winning…but because I feel like this election was pre-determined.

Chuck Todd of NBC News just released a book about how BO won.  How possibly could he have written this book in less than 2 months unless he had written it all along?  So obviously he wanted BO to win so his book would be publishable!

So yes, I want our Country to do better and I want Americans to be proud of our country and not be ashamed and our want our Media to do its part to be fair and unbiased…I want our country to do better economically, socially and personally…

If BO can inspire people then so be it…I want to be inspired and normally I am easily so…yet I still have a heavy heart…

 Libra Girl