Category Archives: President Obama

President Obama’s job speech reacted to by Heritage Foundation scholars (Part 5)

September 16, 2011 – 9:52 am

President Obama’s job speech reacted to by Heritage Foundation scholars (Part 5)

I love going to the Heritage Foundation website because of articles like this:

Heritage’s experts watched President Barack Obama’s jobs speech delivered to a joint session of Congress. Here are some of their immediate reactions:

Obama Calls for Tax Hikes on Job Creators – In Jobs Speech

It was expected that President Obama would rehash and recycle a litany of policies that have no hope of stimulating job creation in his big speech tonight. What comes as a surprise is that he called for offsetting the costs of his sure-to-be-ineffective policies with tax hikes. On job creators.

The President has said himself that tax hikes slow economic growth and deter job creation. That was the justification he gave in December for extending the Bush tax cuts through 2012. It seems he has forgotten what he himself said less than a year ago.

The President called for raising taxes on investors, businesses, and entrepreneurs in his speech. These are the job creators he so desperately needs to help revive the economy. Raising their taxes will reduce the already limited incentives they have to invest and add new workers right now.

This is akin to bailing water into an already-sinking ship.

If Congress foolishly passed the President’s ill-advised plan the tax hikes would be permanent and the jobs policies permanent. The American people would get a permanently enlarged federal government for temporary jobs policies that won’t create any jobs.

Uncertainty is the major factor causing businesses to hold back on new investment and refrain from adding workers. One of the biggest sources of that uncertainty is the President’s never-ending crusade to raise taxes. As long as their taxes might go up, job creators will be hesitant to add new workers.

If the President stopped incessantly demanding higher levies it would relieve some of the uncertainty. That alone won’t cure all that ails the economy, but it would be a big help.

C’mon Mr. President, surprise us in your next major speech by not calling for tax hikes.

– Curtis Dubay

Unsurprisingly, Obama Ignores Energy Exploration as a Solution

Increasing energy supply should have been a no-brainer for President Obama.  It’s a policy that can lower energy prices, create jobs and generate hundreds of billions in revenue from more royalties, leases, and rent.   And it’s a massive revenue raiser that occurs without raising taxes. Instead, the president used the opportunity to take a jab at oil companies and the “tax loopholes” they receive.

To be clear, what the President and anti-oil crusaders label a tax loophole is not tax treatment specific to the oil and gas industry. These are broad tax policies that apply to many industries.

The reality is the economy is weak and steep energy prices will hurt the economic recovery.  Despite the fact that oil settled at $89 per barrel, gas prices remain high and the economic pain as a result of higher gas prices spreads far beyond the pump. Higher energy prices also drive up production costs, which must be reflected in product prices, especially for goods reliant on transportation. Since higher prices reduce quantities sold, producers produce less. In turn, this drives wages down and incomes decline.

At least the people of Louisiana have the Saints to watch, because they don’t have jobs. Despite the fact that the administration lifted the official moratorium on deepwater drilling, the molasses-like permitting process is impeding the Gulf’s economic recovery; 20 rigs are in jeopardy of leaving the Gulf.

But it’s not just the Gulf that would benefit from allowing access for energy exploration and creating an efficient regulatory process that allows energy projects to move forward in a timely manner.  Colorado, Montana, New Mexico, North Dakota, Utah, and Wyoming have all suffered from a slower permitting process would see tremendous economic benefits if companies could explore and drill in a more timely manner.  Alaska has 19 billion barrels of oil of its coasts and another 10.4 billion in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR).  Increased proven natural gas reserves increased states like Pennsylvania, New York, Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Louisiana has increased regional interest.

Increasing access to oil and natural gas reserves in the United States both onshore and offshore, would help offset rising demand, increase jobs and revenue, and provide the real economic boost our country needs rather than more the same tried-and-failed government spending programs.

– Nicolas Loris

By Everette Hatcher III | Also posted in spending out of control | Tagged , , , , | Comments (0)

Obama wants to raise taxes on job creators

September 16, 2011 – 7:42 am

Uploaded by on Aug 6, 2010

Cenk Uygur (host of The Young Turks) filling in for Chris Jansing on MSNBC talks to Dan Mitchell of the Cato institute to compare Reaganomics to Obamanomics.

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What should we do when we are caught in a slow economy? What did Reagan do in 1981? He lowered taxes to stimulate the economy. However, President Obama wants to raise taxes.

Obama’s Jobs Plan: Permanent Tax Hikes on Job Creators

By Curtis Dubay
September 15, 2011

When President Obama unveiled his much-hyped American Jobs Act to a joint session of Congress last week, he promised that the increased spending and temporary tax cuts the plan entails would be fully “paid for.” He did not specify in that speech the details of how he would offset the costs of his plan other than he would charge the “super committee” with this responsibility.

This week, he released his own proposals to pay for the plan. To no one’s surprise, the plan would offset the costs of its jobs policies solely with tax hikes and not one penny of spending reductions.

The tax increases the President proposes are the same old hodgepodge of tax hikes he has proposed often since taking office, and they have been rejected by Democratic and Republican Congresses alike each time he’s pushed for them. In the end, the tax hikes would be permanent while the jobs policies temporary; thus, the proposal is really a tax hike plan rather than a jobs plan.

Tax Hike on Job Creators

Almost all of the $447 billion in increased revenue called for by President Obama would come from raising taxes on job creators,[1] the same job creators whom President Obama wants to hire more workers to reduce the unemployment rate.

The plan would raise taxes on job creators by capping the deductions that families and businesses earning more than $250,000 a year could claim. It would reduce the deductions of these families and businesses to the amount they could claim had they only earned enough to qualify for the 28 percent tax bracket instead of the higher tax brackets (33 percent and 35 percent) they face now.

For example, under the current tax code, $100,000 of deductions for a family that pays the 35 percent rate reduces its tax bill by $35,000. Under the plan’s tax hike, this family’s deductions could only reduce its tax bill by $28,000, or what it would have been under the 28 percent rate. The tax hike would be bigger as the family’s deductions increase.

This tax hike would be on top of the 3.8 percent surtax on investment income (passed as part of Obamacare) that these same families and businesses will pay beginning in 2013 and the higher marginal income tax rates they will pay if President Obama gets his way and the Bush tax cuts expire at the end of 2012. If marginal income tax rates rise, the tax increase from limiting deductions would increase as well.

The families that would pay these higher taxes are the investors that the economy needs to provide capital to businesses and entrepreneurs so they can expand and start new operations that would employ new workers. A recent study from President Obama’s own Treasury Department shows that 90 percent of businesses that pay their taxes through the individual income tax code and employ workers would pay the higher taxes under the President’s plan.[2]

This tax hike would negate any benefits of the President’s jobs policies. Capping deductions as President Obama’s plan does would raise the marginal effective tax rate of these important job creators and therefore reduce their incentives to invest and take on new risk—permanently. Less investment and less risk-taking means fewer new jobs created.

Since it is likely President Obama’s job proposals would create few, if any permanent, positions, taken together with the tax hike on job creators, his plan would likely reduce employment in the long term.[3]

Industry Specific Tax Hikes

The rest of the tax hikes in President Obama’s plan specifically target the oil industry and jet manufacturers. He would mostly raise their taxes by limiting their ability to “expense” (or deduct at the time of acquisition) their purchases of capital equipment.

The President’s desire to strip these targeted industries of the ability to deduct their capital purchases faster than current depreciation schedules allow is at odds with his own position on expensing. The President insisted that the 2010 tax deal to extend the Bush tax cuts include 100 percent expensing for all capital purchases for all businesses for one year. This latest jobs bill—which oil and jet tax hikes are supposed to help pay for—includes an extension of that expensing policy.

More troubling is the President’s apparent lack of understanding of the actual impact that his policies would have. He frames the jet tax hike as a hike on the owners of corporate jets, but the burden of his policy would fall on the workers that manufacture the jets. The tax hike would raise the cost of jets, which would reduce the demand for them. Reduced demand would ultimately result in fewer jobs for the blue-collar workers who manufacture the planes.

This is not just theory. In 1990, a 10 percent tax on luxury yachts went into effect. Congress passed the measure assuming that the rich buyers of yachts would pay the burden. But when the price of yachts rose, orders dried up and the yacht-building industry dried up as well. As The New York Times chronicled then, it was the blue-collar workers who lost their jobs and ended up bearing the pain of the tax.[4] The situation was dire enough that Congress repealed the devastating tax in 1993.

Stop Digging

In the Administration’s poorly crafted and contradictory jobs package, the American people get permanent tax hikes that would enlarge the federal government to offset the cost of temporary jobs policies that would not create any jobs. In the long run, the tax hikes in this plan are more likely to destroy more jobs than the jobs policies create.

Unfortunately, President Obama will not consider policies that would actually create jobs by reducing the high level of uncertainty that persists in the economy today. This would include doing things such as:

  • Fundamental revenue-neutral tax reform that repairs the tax base and lowers marginal tax rates to improve the incentives for income production;
  • Reducing the crushing amount of regulations coming from various federal government agencies;
  • Repealing Obamacare and its onerous regulations and taxes;
  • Repealing the Dodd–Frank financial reform legislation; and
  • Stopping incessant calls for higher taxes.

American workers do not need policies that will further inhibit job creation and dig deeper the already-deep jobs hole that the President’s policies have created.

Curtis S. Dubay is a Senior Analyst in Tax Policy in the Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation.

By Everette Hatcher III | Also posted in Cato Institute, Ronald Reagan, Taxes | Tagged , , , , | Comments (0)

Taking care of the taxpayer’s money?

September 15, 2011 – 10:15 pm

When I look at how the Obama administration has used the taxpayer’s money it makes me want to cry.

Solyndra: Another Energy Boondoggle

Posted by Tad DeHaven

The details surrounding the $535 million government loan to Solyndra – the now-bankrupt solar energy company that had been the green apple of the president’s eye – are still emerging. It remains to be seen whether or not the Obama administration broke any laws when it pushed the loan out the door despite obvious problems with the company’s finances.

At the very least, the administration is guilty of wasting taxpayer money. In that regard, it’s no different than all the other administrations that have tried to tinker with energy markets. When the dust settles, Solyndra will take its place alongside other infamous federal energy boondoggles, including the Synthetic Fuels Corporation, the Clinch River Breeder Reactor, and the Superconducting Super Collider. (All of these and more are discussed in a Cato essay on federal energy subsidies.)

Congressional Republicans are salivating over the prospects of a scandal involving a key initiative of the administration. But Republicans should be careful when casting stones given their past and present support for energy subsidies. (Note to investigative reporters: Republican [and Democratic] governors like to hand out subsidies to businesses, which often backfire on taxpayers. I’d know.)

As the political circus over the Solyndra loan unfolds, let’s not lose sight of the fact that the more important question is whether taxpayers should be forced to subsidize energy companies to begin with. The Cato essay argues that they shouldn’t:

The private sector is entirely capable of performing research into coal, nuclear, solar, and alternative energy sources for itself. Businesses will fund new technologies when there is a reasonable chance of commercial success, as they do in every other private industry. Federal subsidies may even be actively damaging to our energy future by steering markets in the wrong direction, away from the best long-term energy solutions…

Policymakers often make grandiose promises, such as proposing to make America ‘energy independent’ or to convert the nation to a ‘green economy.’ Those visions don’t make any sense, but even if they did history shows that the Department of Energy would be incapable of putting them into place with any degree of competence. Federal energy schemes are often poorly managed and generate huge cost overruns, or they aim at objectives that make little economic sense[.]

By Everette Hatcher III | Also posted in Cato Institute | Tagged , , , , | Comments (0)

President Obama’s job speech reacted to by Heritage Foundation scholars (Part 4)

September 15, 2011 – 7:09 am

President Obama’s job speech reacted to by Heritage Foundation scholars (Part 4)

Ernest Istook at the Saint Paul Tea Party Rally 4/16/2011 Part 1

Ernest Istook, US Congressman, Heritage Foundation, http://www.heritage.org, spoke at the Saint Paul Tea Party Rally 4/16/2011. Hosted by North Star Tea Party Patriots, and Sue Jeffers.

I love going to the Heritage Foundation website because of articles like this:

Heritage’s experts watched President Barack Obama’s jobs speech delivered to a joint session of Congress. Here are some of their immediate reactions:

President Calls for Ill-advised Federal School Construction

As expected, tonight President Obama called on taxpayers to send their hard-earned money to the federal government so that Washington can pour that money into public school construction. In an attempt to boost job growth, the president suggested spending billions on school infrastructure projects to “modernize 35,000 public schools.”

Since President Obama came into office, spending on public education has skyrocketed:

  • Education budget in 2008: $59.2 billion
  • Education budget in 2011: $69.9 billion
  • Department of Education “stimulus” award (Spring 2009): $98 billion
  • “Edujobs” public education bailout (Summer 2010): $10 billion

And state and local school construction spending has also seen significant increases.

By some estimates, inflation-adjusted school construction spending has increased 150 percent in the last two decades. And unfortunately, profligacy and waste are the norm. Remember the $500 million RFK high school in Los Angeles, built last year after a California bond referendum was enacted? There are certainly schools in ill-repair, but this maintenance should be a local concern. Washington should not be in the business of school window repair, updating facilities, or repainting buildings. Schools don’t need increased federal funding for school repairs; they need more flexibility with funding to be able to use dollars for needs they consider pressing.

The president’s proposal to funnel more taxpayer dollars into school construction has both constitutional and pragmatic problems. School construction has historically been – and should remain – the job of states and localities. Federal forays into school construction have been rare and indirect. Federally-funded school construction is also a terribly expensive way to build schools: Washington-funded jobs must pay prevailing wages, increasing costs on average by 22 percent.

In calling for federally-funded school construction, President Obama is once again supporting Washington overreach in education. But he’s also behind the game in terms of the direction school policy is trending. As states and localities begin embracing online learning  – and as education shifts to a world outside of the walls of physical school buildings – President Obama is pushing to subsidize the old model. The administration might think “school construction” polls better than other government “jobs” projects, but it’s just as destined to be a waste of taxpayer money, and a public policy failure.

– Lindsey Burke

Not A ‘Jobs Plan’ — Just Stimulus Redux

What President Obama calls a “jobs” plan is really just stimulus redux: a typical Keynesian-style set of infrastructure, school construction, teacher pay, unemployment benefits, and temporary tax breaks that have demonstrably failed in the two-and-a-half years since the $825-billion Recovery Act.

Obamanomics has left the economy with a growth rate just a fraction above 1 percent, nearly 2 million fewer Americans working, and an unemployment rate higher now than when he took office. Government cannot “grow the economy” (as if it were a field of strawberries), and it cannot create private sector jobs. It can only maintain conditions conducive to growth — limiting government spending and regulation, keeping tax rates low, and removing the uncertainties caused by feckless public policies.

– Patrick Knudsen

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President Obama’s job speech reacted to by Heritage Foundation scholars (Part 3)

September 15, 2011 – 6:53 am

I love going to the Heritage Foundation website because of articles like this:

Heritage’s experts watched President Barack Obama’s jobs speech delivered to a joint session of Congress. Here are some of their immediate reactions:

The Absurdity of Obama’s Spending Offsets

It is absurd that this President — who ignored the recommendations of his own fiscal commission, and then sought to raise the debt ceiling without a nickel of spending reductions — now demands the super-committee created in the debt-ceiling negotiations to come up with additional savings to pay for his jobs proposal.?? ?

– Patrick Knudsen

And When, the Rest of the Story, Mr. President?

In giving his big jobs speech this evening before a rare Joint Session of Congress, also gave us a classic “Paul Harvey” moment.

Paul Harvey was a famous radio commentator and personality with one of the longest running national radio programs in history.  His trademark was to tell the audience the big lead into a big story and then break for a commercial.  When he came back he would then announce, “And now, (pause) the rest of the story”.  We’re still waiting for Barack Obama to give us the rest of the story.

In his jobs speech, the President laid out a bunch of retread policy ideas that two years after they were first tried managed to create an arithmetic novelty – exactly zero job growth in August.  In total, the President is calling for more new spending on proven policies that are proven failures, and he says these will all be paid for with budget reductions elsewhere.

But he refused to give his proposals for offsetting the cost of his proposals.  Desserts only, no spinach?.  We’re still waiting for “the rest of the story”.  Was he unable to decide in time on what to propose?   Did he think perhaps no one would notice?  Why put out what is literally a half-baked plan?

– J.D. Foster

Rising Deficits Drive U.S. Debt Limit Higher, Faster

Everyone wants to know more about the budget and here is some key information with a chart from the Heritage Foundation and a video from the Cato Institute.

Congress first placed a statutory limit on total federal debt in 1917, in the Second Liberty Bond Act. Since 1962, Congress has altered the debt limit through 74 separate measures, raising it 10 times since 2001. Since 1990, the debt limit has been raised a total of $10.1 trillion, but nearly half of that increase has occurred since September 2007.

U.S. DEBT LIMIT

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Rising Deficits Drive U.S. Debt Limit Higher, Faster

Source: Congressional Research Service and White House Office of Management and Budget (Table 7.3, Historical Tables).

Chart 26 of 42

In Depth

  • Policy Papers for Researchers

  • Technical Notes

    The charts in this book are based primarily on data available as of March 2011 from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). The charts using OMB data display the historical growth of the federal government to 2010 while the charts using CBO data display both historical and projected growth from as early as 1940 to 2084. Projections based on OMB data are taken from the White House Fiscal Year 2012 budget. The charts provide data on an annual basis except… Read More

  • Authors

    Emily GoffResearch Assistant
    Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy StudiesKathryn NixPolicy Analyst
    Center for Health Policy StudiesJohn FlemingSenior Data Graphics Editor

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Brantley assumes Democrats will get New York Congressional seat back in 2012!!! jh3d

September 14, 2011 – 9:17 am

Republican Bob Turner shocked the Democrats in New York and won the 9th district of the House of Representatives seat and it will be the first time since 1922 that a Republican has held that seat.

Max Brantley of the Arkansas Times Blog commented, “It is also a district that will disappear in a year.” (Arkansas Times Blog, Sept 14, 2011). Here Max misses the point. Remember Scott Brown’s shocking upset and the result in the 2010 elections that followed. The same probably is true here.

Another point that I differ with Brantley on is the fact that this seat will go back to the Democrats so soon. Do you think the Democrats will defeat Turner and Brown in 2012 when the unpopular Democratic president is on the ticket too?

WASHINGTON, Sept. 14, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — Independent Women’s Voice (IWV) – which sent more than 87,000 phone calls into targeted households throughout New York’s 9th Congressional District over the last four days, urging a vote for Republican Bob Turner in today’s special election – congratulates Turner for his victory over Democrat David Weprin.

“The victory in New York demonstrates that Americans of all political affiliations increasingly recognize that the big government policies advanced by this Administration and Democrats in Congress are damaging the economy and weakening our country,” said IWV CEO Heather R. Higgins. “Rep. Turner will join the ranks of those committed to ending government’s assault on private business, repealing ObamaCare, and cutting the wasteful spending that is burying our country in debt. He’ll represent New York well, and we’re pleased to have been able to play a part in his victory.”

In this overwhelmingly Democratic district – registered Democrats outnumber registered Republicans by almost 3-to-1 – Independent Women’s Voice ran a sophisticated phone operation to identify Democrats and Independents who were open to persuasion, then followed up with targeted messages to them, including calls touting former Democratic Mayor Ed Koch’s endorsement of Turner, and a call from Democratic Assemblyman Dov Hikind, who crossed party lines to endorse Turner last week.

“When we looked at the registration figures,” said Higgins, “it became clear that turning out all the Republicans in the district wouldn’t be enough. So we worked to identify Democrats and Independents who were open to persuasion, then communicated to them about the importance of using their vote to send a message.

“Former Mayor Koch’s endorsement played a big role, and so did Assemblyman Hikind’s,” Higgins continued. “All we did was take their messages – and, in the case of Assemblyman Hikind, the messenger himself – and send them directly into the households of targeted voters, via phone calls.

“IWV is proud to have played a role in educating New York voters about the stakes in this race,” Higgins concluded. “We firmly believe that Independents and moderate and conservative Democrats are open to messages about the destructive impact of government over-reach, and Bob Turner’s success in this overwhelming Democratic district confirms that.”

SOURCE Independent Women’s Voice

By Everette Hatcher III | Also posted in Current Events | Comments (0)

Only difference between Ponzi scheme and Social Security is you can say no to Ponzi Scheme jh2d

September 14, 2011 – 8:43 am

Is Social Security  a Ponzi Scheme?

I just started a series on this subject. In this article below you will see where the name “Ponzi scheme” came from and if it should be applied to the Social Security System.

Ponzi! Ponzi! Ponzi!

Ponzi! Ponzi! Ponzi! There, I said it. To the extent people believe there are trust funds with their names on them, Social Security is absolutely a Ponzi scheme. So is Medicare. People need to hear it. 

Many people think that when the government takes payroll tax from their paychecks, it goes to something like a savings account. Seniors who collect Social Security think they’re just getting back money that they put into their “account.” Or they think it’s like an insurance policy — you win if you live long enough to get more than you paid in. Neither is true. Nothing is invested. The money taken from you was spent by government that year. Right away. There’s no trust fund. The plan is unsustainable. Medicare is worse.

Mitt Romney and other Republicans who scoff at Rick Perry shamelessly pander to older voters. They should tell people the truth.

Still, I’m not convinced Perry has more than a sound bite. In his USA Today op-ed this week, the most he says is, “We must consider reforms to make Social Security financially viable.” He doesn’t say what kind of reforms.

Charles Ponzi promised to make money for investors by taking advantage of price differences in coupons for postage stamps. Trouble is, he paid some early “investors” with money wheedled from later “investors.”

What sustains a Ponzi scheme is deception. If people really knew how it worked, they wouldn’t sign on.

Social Security and Medicare are different. You could say no to Ponzi. I wouldn’t advise saying no to the government. Not if you want to stay out of prison.

Social Security is nothing more than a promise from politicians. The next gang can break the promise.

Twice the government has argued before the Supreme Court that Social Security is not insurance. In 1960, Health, Education and Welfare Secretary Arthur Sherwood Flemming submitted a brief to the courts stating: “The contribution exacted under the Social Security plan is a true tax. It is not comparable to a premium promising the payment of an annuity commencing at a designated age.”

In a ruling that denied a man’s property claim to Social Security benefits, the Supreme Court said, “It is apparent that the noncontractual interest of an employee covered by the Act cannot be soundly analogized to that of the holder of an annuity, whose right to benefits is bottomed on his contractual premium payments.”

So anyone who believes Social Security is an investment plan really has only himself to blame.

If you want evidence, listen to how politicians talk about your Social Security “contributions.” They are taxes and nothing more. No one pretends they are premiums. In fact, President Obama and the Republicans want to stimulate the economy by extending a cut in the payroll tax for workers and cutting the employer’s share of the tax — but without reducing Social Security benefits.

Now, I like tax cuts more than the next person, but as Freeman editor Sheldon Richman points out, this one has a complication the politicians don’t seem to care about:

“President Obama’s jobs program calls for cuts in both sides of the payroll tax. That tax finances Social Security and Medicare. Social Security and Medicare are already taking in less money than they need to pay retirees. So they will have to cash in more of the Treasury IOUs left behind when previous surpluses were used to finance general expenditures. But the Treasury is also already running a deficit, a trillion dollars-plus. So it will have to borrow more in the capital markets in order to pay back the Social Security and Medicare funds. Unless Obama makes up the lost revenue by changing the tax code. But then money will be withdrawn from the economy in the form of higher taxes so it can be put back into the economy through the payroll-tax cut. Somehow that’s supposed to stimulate the economy.”

Like all jobs programs, Obama’s latest plan is a scam. The economy would create ample opportunities to earn income — and make it easier for people to look after themselves in retirement — if the government would just slash spending, taxes, regulation and privilege.

Ponzi scheme or not, we wouldn’t need Social Security.

John Stossel

John Stossel

John Stossel is host of “Stossel” on the Fox Business Network. He’s the author of “Give Me a Break” and of “Myth, Lies, and Downright Stupidity.” To find out more about John Stossel, visit his site at johnstossel.com.

©Creators Syndicate

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President Obama’s job speech reacted to by Heritage Foundation scholars (Part 2)

September 12, 2011 – 7:07 am

I love going to the Heritage Foundation website because of articles like this:

Heritage’s experts watched President Barack Obama’s jobs speech delivered to a joint session of Congress. Here are some of their immediate reactions:

Obama’s False Choice – and Missed Opportunity – on Regulations

The President tonight missed an opportunity to constructively address one of the major problems facing the economy: regulation.

After acknowledging that “there are some rules and regulations that put an unnecessary burden on businesses, and claiming credit for the small steps taken so far toward reform, he then slipped into a rhetorical — and rather cartoonish — description of the issue.

“What we can’t do,” he said, “is let this economic crisis be used as an excuse to wipe out the basic protections that Americans have counted on for decades.  I reject the idea that we need to ask people to choose between their jobs and their safety.”

But no one is suggesting that any basic protections be erased — instead the pressing need now is to stop the tidal wave of regulation — costing almost $40 billion dollars — that has swamped Americans and the economy since the president was elected.

From lightbulbs to the Internet, from guitars to health care, Washington has imposed new rules. It is time to stem this flow. This need not be a partisan issue – both sides agree the current rulebooks are too fat. But demagoguery and rhetoric will get us no closer to a solution.

– James Gattuso

The Futility of Infrastructure Banks

Building and repairing roads and bridges neither creates net job growth nor boosts the economy in the near term.

First, increasing government spending on these projects simply moves resources from one place to another — it may employ construction workers, but only by reducing jobs in other sectors. Further, the money never gets out the door soon enough to promote near-term job growth: “shovel-ready” projects are not nearly so shovel ready as they may seem, as the President himself recently acknowledged.

Further, the infrastructure bank the President proposes would require a whole new bureaucracy that would only increase the central government control over transportation — which would be consistent with the President’s government takeover of health care, student loans, financial markets, and other sectors.?

– Patrick Knudsen

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President Obama’s job speech reacted to by Heritage Foundation scholars (Part 1)

September 11, 2011 – 7:33 am

Everyone wants to know more about the budget and here is some key information with a chart from the Heritage Foundation and a video from the Cato Institute.

I love going to the Heritage Foundation website because of articles like this:

Heritage’s experts watched President Barack Obama’s jobs speech delivered to a joint session of Congress. Here are some of their immediate reactions:

Jobs for Teachers?

In his remarks tonight, President Obama argued that his jobs proposal would create more jobs for teachers. He went as far as to say laying off teachers…”has to stop”.

But since 1970, student enrollment in public elementary and secondary schools has increased just 7 percent, while public elementary and secondary staff hires have increased 83 percent. Moreover, in the 1950′s, there were approximately 2.36 teachers for every non-teacher in a school district. Today, in our nation’s school systems, that ratio is closer to 1 to 1. So every teacher in the classroom has an administrative counterpart in your local public school district. That is a tremendous strain on state budgets. But it is also a huge boon the education unions.

President Obama’s call to spend more precious taxpayer dollars to “prevent teacher layoffs” may do more to inflate schools’ non-teaching rosters than to retain teachers.

On a per-pupil basis, federal spending on education has nearly tripled since the 1970′s. And those who have benefited the most from this profligacy aren’t the children sitting in the nation’s classrooms. No, the increase in federal education spending (and commensurate increase in Washington’s involvement in local schools) hasn’t led to improvements in academic achievement, to increased graduation rates, or even to a narrowing of the achievement gap. It hasn’t served to improve outcomes for children, but it has propped-up the public education jobs program that too often aims to meet the needs of the adults in the system, not the children it was designed to educate.

– Lindsey Burke

A Puzzling Plan to Allow Refinancing of Mortgages

One of the more puzzling parts of the President’s plan promises to allow more Americans to refinance their mortgages, but provides no details about how.  The President promises that with refinancing, families could save about $2,000 a year, but like similar past promises few homeowners are likely to see those savings.

Briefing papers released by the White House say that the economic team will “work with” Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, the regulator that runs them since both effectively failed three years ago, and “industry leaders” to make the 2009 Housing Affordable Refinance Program (HARP) more effective.

This means that the White House still has no idea how to do this. HARP, which was supposed to help between 4 and 5 million homeowners who owe more than their property is worth, and several other attempts to help under water homeowners have all been resounding failures.

In theory, refinancing at today’s record low mortgage rates is a good idea that would reduce monthly mortgage payments for those whose mortgages are refinanced. This would especially benefit homeowners who have paid their mortgage on time, but still owe more than the house is worth. These homeowners would be more likely to stay in the house.

However, even a well planned refinancing program would still be slow and complex. And sadly, there is no sign that the Administration has figured out how to successfully structure such a program.

Mortgages are both made and refinanced one at a time. The several past efforts to do mass refinancings have foundered in a mass of overwhelmed phone lines, complex paperwork requirements, and confusion. Some housing advocates talk about redoing hundreds of mortgages at a time, but have no idea how to legally implement such a goal.

Another question that must be answered if the mortgage refinancing proposal would cost money. Briefing papers are silent on this, but a refinanced mortgage will produce lower earnings for the lender. If the mortgage value is written down to the actual value of the house (which is unknown at the moment), there would be additional costs. And most importantly, how would this proposal create jobs?

Until there are details, the President’s proposed mortgage refinancing program, like its predecessors will be little more than another unkept promise.

– David John

In 2010, the U.S. spent more on interest on the national debt than it spent on many federal departments, including Education and Veterans Affairs.

BILLIONS OF DOLLARS (2010)

Download

In One Year, Spending on Interest on the National Debt Is Greater Than Funding for Most Programs

Source: White House Office of Management and Budget.

Chart 29 of 42

In Depth

  • Policy Papers for Researchers

  • Technical Notes

    The charts in this book are based primarily on data available as of March 2011 from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). The charts using OMB data display the historical growth of the federal government to 2010 while the charts using CBO data display both historical and projected growth from as early as 1940 to 2084. Projections based on OMB data are taken from the White House Fiscal Year 2012 budget. The charts provide data on an annual basis except… Read More

  • Authors

    Emily GoffResearch Assistant
    Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy StudiesKathryn NixPolicy Analyst
    Center for Health Policy StudiesJohn FlemingSenior Data Graphics Editor

     

By Everette Hatcher III | Also posted in Cato Institute, spending out of control | Tagged , , , , | Comments (0)

President Obama and Jimmy Hoffa together again

September 10, 2011 – 12:49 am

This is an interesting story:

Union Label: “Let’s Take These Son Of Bitches Out”

September 6, 2011

By 

The Red Arkansas Blog enjoyed our brief respite culminating with the Labor Day holiday where we fondly remembered the days when our elementary school teachers devoted class time to a picture-drawing and letter-writing campaign to members of the local school board and administration as our teachers prepared to go on strike.

After all, using kids to further a political agenda instead of, you know, actually teaching them is a hallmark of teacher’s unions everywhere, and it is among the pantheon of things we celebrate every three-day weekend we get in September.

So it was no surprise to read about elected officials and would-be politicians of the Democratic Party of Arkansasmade sure to pander to the union label at events across Arkansas so that they may one day receive the largesse of organizations like the AFL-CIO, which spent millions of dollars of workers’ dues in Arkansas in 2010 supporting liberal politicians like Bill Halter and Joyce Elliott who, by the way, were unsuccessful.

In fact, in an article appearing in this morning’s Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Ms. Elliott did not equivocate as she declared before a pro-union picnic at the Governor’s Mansion that she was “labor to the core.”

One further wonders is the lefty blogosphere will call out these Democrats in much the same way they called out Secretary of State Mark Martin for letting his staff attend Tea Party functions.

Probably not.

One wonders how Gov. Mike Beebe got on with the labor bosses (if he was even there) since he has expressed concern that the current National Labor Relations Board lawsuit against Boeing Corp. for building a plant (that Arkansas tried to land) in the right-to-work state of South Carolinacould be “detrimental to Arkansas’ economic development efforts.”

Of course, this is the same NLRB action that Attorney General Dustin McDaniel refused to stand against, choosing not to join 16 other states in a legal challenge to the lawsuit and earning admirationfrom the Arkansas head of the AFL-CIO. (Mr. McDaniel was not in Little Rock. He was, instead, at a steel worker event in Texarkana in Rep. Mike Ross’ Fourth Congressional District. Coincidence?)

This is the same AFL-CIO that envisions a day when the NLRB suit against Boeing Corp. “ought to apply across the board to businesses.”

One must wonder which side Mr. McDaniel would take if the NLRB were to sue in a case involving Arkansas? The Republican Party of Arkansas wonders the same thing:

“If our own Attorney General does not fight this blatant assault on private industry, then what will he do if the NLRB comes down on an industry looking to locate in Arkansas because of our right-to-work law?”

Which leads us to the Mother of all Union Rallies attended by President Barack Obama and his opening act, Teamsters President Jimmy Hoffa:

That deafening silence is the looney left and their press corps enablers NOT criticizing these remarks.

So much for that “new tone.”

PARTING SHOT:

We noted in the ADG article that:

“Phynaus Wilson of North Little Rock, a Democrat who worked as an aide to former U.S. Rep. Vic Snyder, used the event as a forum to announce his candidacy for Senate District 34.”

I guess the DPA doesn’t think highly of state Rep. Barry Hyde’s chances against state Rep. Jane English.

By Everette Hatcher III | Also posted in Current Events | Tagged , , , , | Comments (0)