WSJ OpEd: Obama Jobs Package Really a Blue State Bailout
WSJ OpEd: Obama Jobs Package Really a Blue State Bailout
Friday, 16 Sep 2011 08:20 AM
By Forrest Jones
Portions of President Barack Obama's $447 billion jobs package are really designed to bail out weak finances in Democratic states, a new study finds.
The plan seeks funds for infrastructure, education and other projects that states should fund but cannot.
Many blue states have run up state debts, as nationwide, state debt is running around $3 trillion — tack on another trillion or even more if unfunded pension liabilities are factored in.
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President Barack Obama
(Getty Images photo) |
"These vast contributions to the coffers of state and local governments, though pitched as a jobs bill, are in reality the latest in a series of bailouts for debt-ridden state and local governments," Paul E. Peterson and Daniel Nadler, both Harvard academics, write in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece.
"They are of special benefit to states in the blue regions of the country where the president's most fervent supporters reside."
A Harvard Program on Education Policy and Governance study finds states with legislatures that are heavily Democratic and have a highly unionized public-sector work force must pay interest rates that are often an extra half a percentage point higher than those in red states.
"In short, the bond market has concluded that the more unionized the state and the bluer its political coloring, the riskier it is to hold bonds marketed by that state," Peterson and Nadler write.
Republicans, meanwhile, say they will work with the president on the jobs bill.
"While we have a different vision for what is needed to support job creation in our country, we appreciate the president's pledge to transmit legislation to Congress and will immediately request that it be scored by the Congressional Budget Office," says House Speaker John Boehner, according to Fox News.
*** Need we say more? Socialism is predictable and Obama's platform is pure politics, that is the ONLY THING he has EXPERIENCE with....Chicago style too!!!
Nobel Winner Quits U.S. Science Group Over Climate Stance
I've been saying these for over a decade now!
From Newsmax dated Sept 18, 2011 and FoxNews. Christian bias - YES BUT only the facts, no concoctions like CBS, NBC, MSNBC!
Nobel Winner Quits U.S. Science Group Over Climate Stance Nobel Prize-winning physicist and erstwhile Obama supporter Ivar Giaever has resigned as a Fellow from the prestigious American Physical Society to protest the organization’s promotion of manmade global warming fears.
Norwegian-born Dr. Giaever shared the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1973 for work at General Electric related to superconductors.
In an email to APS Executive Officer Kate Kirby on Sept. 13, which was obtained by the Climate Depot website, Giaever said:
“Thank you for your letter inquiring about my membership. I did not renew it because I cannot live with the [APS] statement below:
“‘Emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities are changing the atmosphere in ways that affect the Earth's climate.
“‘The evidence is incontrovertible: Global warming is occurring. If no mitigating actions are taken, significant disruptions in the Earth’s physical and ecological systems, social systems, security and human health are likely to occur. We must reduce emissions of greenhouse gases beginning now.’”
Giaever goes on to say: "In the APS it is ok to discuss whether the mass of the proton changes over time and how a multi-universe behaves, but the evidence of global warming is incontrovertible? The claim (how can you measure the average temperature of the whole earth for a whole year?) is that the temperature has changed from ~288.0 to ~288.8 degrees Kelvin in about 150 years, which (if true) means to me is that the temperature has been amazingly stable, and both human health and happiness have definitely improved in this 'warming' period."
Giaever was one of Barack Obama's key scientific supporters and joined more than 70 Nobel Science laureates in endorsing him in an October 2008 open letter.
But in March 2009, Giaever was one of more than 100 co-signers of a letter to President Obama criticizing his stance on global warming. The letter stated in part: "We, the undersigned scientists, maintain that the case for alarm regarding climate change is grossly overstated."
Giaever, now a professor emeritus at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, is one of several prominent scientists to resign from the APS over its global warming position. Among them is physicist Hal Lewis, who wrote to the organization before his death this past May: "Global warming is the greatest and most successful pseudoscientific fraud I have seen in my long life."
Why Obama will ALWAYS fail on Economics
1. Bad Ideology based on bad Theology
Obama is both a liberal and a socialist. Educated Americans should know that if you are a capitalist, when you say you want to create more jobs, you encourage the private sector to do that by giving more certainty to the environment in terms of taxation and government regulations, grant tax breaks to businesses, especially small businesses, to be able to have money left to create even just minimum wage jobs, lessen government regulations that distract small businesses from doing real business by forcing them to spend more time with compliance than actually generating revenues. Bottom line: the private sector creates the jobs.
Unfortunately for America, Obama is just a hopeless Socialist. That means that when he promises more jobs, his methodology is to make an already very inefficient government (what government is efficient after all?) bigger by beefing it up with money (creating huge deficit spending) and then making that monster create basically bureaucratic and non-productive (or non-GNP-related) jobs. Bottomline for a socialist is that it is Big Government that creates the jobs.
Such bad ideology is based on really wrong theology. Socialism/Communism was originally conceptualized on the belief that man is basically good and given the opportunity, WILL do good. Unfortunately, the Bible says man is basically sinful and given the opportunity, will even exploit good opportunities for "naturally" narcissistic ends. Even many philanthropists have a self-centered "feel good" goal or even a "get the credit" goal.
And what has history proven? The Bible is correct! That is why governments have laws, precisely to curb sinfulness in the form of lawlessness and abuse of liberties. If man were basically good, there would be no need for laws or regulations.
Capitalism, on the other hand, is based precisely on the fact that man is sinful. Hence, the good in man can only be courted by incentives and curbed by audits and sufficient policing and regulation. More on this in a separate article.
The downside of capitalism is, unfortunately, "survival of the fittest". Historically, however, it is the fittest who influence or change history for better (Einsteins, Edisons, Rockefellers, etc) or for worse (Hitlers, Roman Caesars, Maddocks, etc). Hence, capitalism coaxes the fittest to do good things because they naturally won't. That is the way to govern! Not entitlements to mostly undeserving and mostly losers (I said "mostly", not "all". Do the math if you will!).
2. Poor Judgment
At this point in history, what socialist or communist governnment ever made it to being a top economic country and stayed there for at least 50 years? Not even Russia could do that. So Obama has very poor judgment (primarily because he is just a brainwashed socialist) for MODELING AFTER STARK and PROVEN FAILURES!
3. Throwing spaghetti at a wall hoping that something sticks is the government way of doing things and is also the Obama way of saving companies via his stimulus bills
Isn't that what his stimulus bills have done? GM perhaps succeeded, but not for long, if GM continues with its unionized model for doing business.
Look at what happened to that half-billion "green" project, SOLYNDRA, a solar company in California. Closed down and bankrupt. Why? No markets? The FBI and even Congress is investigating. This is how government inefficiency stands out in real life. If there is corruption, it is because the men behind this are basically sinful, not good.
That is what inexperience does best, throw anything at the wall hoping something sticks!
im
4. Good speeches and rhetoric, no substance and I keep on wondering why many people still get fooled.
After all the good speeches, only Obama-fanatics exercise blind faith. The rest of us? Phooooey!
Baloney! History will write itself. Welcome 2012!
HR Personnel/Administrators who voted for Obama
Now, it can be said, if you were an HR Manager who voted for Obama, you ought to be fired for hiring non-experience to be CEO.
Shame on you!
Nuff said.
The Global Warming Scam!
Finally, a few famous people with their heads and brains located better than where their behinds are (Sorry, can't say the same for anal-brained Al Gore plus those who were pressured to give him the Nobel prize. Yup, no apologies, anal-brained!):
This is from Newsmax e-Newsletter dated June 30, 2008, under the main title, "Tim Russert's Job: Horse Race Is On"
4. Experts Are Jumping off Global Warming ‘Train’
An award-winning meteorologist has written an article debunking fears of man-made global warming — and predicting that global cooling could be a more likely problem.
James Spann, chief meteorologist at station ABC 33/40 in Birmingham, Ala., first attracted worldwide publicity back in January 2007 when he disputed the assertion that global warming was caused by human activity, instead insisting it is part of the earth’s regular climate cycle.
Now he has posted an article on his station’s Weather Blog, headlined “Global Warming Movement Turns Cool,” which reads in part: “Two years ago, it seemed like nothing could stop the global warming train. Most of the media, those in Hollywood, politicians (many on both sides of the cultural divide), and ‘enlightened environmentalists’ were all telling us that man was causing runaway warming of the earth’s atmosphere, meaning global catastrophe only decades ahead for all of us. Scary stuff.
“The problem is that a majority of those in this almost religious movement have little training in atmospheric science, and little understanding of the issue. They jumped on the bandwagon because it matches their worldview, or pads their pocket.”
The simple truth is that the man-made global warming train has “slowed to a crawl” and the riders are “jumping off as the facts are discovered,” writes Spann, who has been named his state’s best weather anchor nine times and won an Emmy Award for his tornado coverage in December 2000.
Spann notes that the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine this month announced that 31,072 American scientists signed a petition stating that “there is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane or other greenhouse gases is causing, or will cause in the future, catastrophic heating of the earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the earth’s climate.”
Spann acknowledges that the climate is changing, but maintains that it always has changed and always will. He points to these “simple facts”:
- The earth is no warmer now than it was in 1998.
- Carbon dioxide, which is being blamed for global warming, is not a pollutant but a gas indispensable to plant life. Plants, in turn, release oxygen, which sustains animal and human life.
- The primary greenhouse gas is not carbon dioxide, but water vapor.
- The lack of solar activity in recent months suggests global cooling might be our biggest potential climate change problem in coming years.
“I have been doing the weather on local television for 30 years, and every year I have had people come up to me and tell me that they can ‘never remember the weather being this strange,’” Spann writes.
John Coleman, meteorologist and founder of The Weather Channel, has called the global warming movement the greatest scam in history, Spann points out, adding, “I encourage all of you to read material on both sides of the issue and make up your own mind.”
Editor's Note:
The Social Security Debate
Everybody knows by now that this debate is going nowhere. I read pundits from both sides that do nothing other than stymie the move to reform this ailing dinosaur.
Since I would like to go to my proposal quickly, let's summarize what both sides are doing in this debate.
The Democrats, whose power base are left wing liberals, refuse to concede that there is a problem [whether or not it manifests itself today or in the future is completely irrelevant]. Their motives are sinister and self-serving, the biggest of which is it's over-their-dead-body [hmmm, not a bad idea] that George W. Bush and the GOP get the credit not only for the ultimate destruction of their much beloved Social [IN]Security System but credit for giving the people a much better alternative. Note that even Alan Greenspan himself believes privatization is a good idea.
The Republicans on the other hand, are not using their resources to sell the idea "the American way" [which has always worked]. The White House is in the news as of this writing for publishing "propaganda" disguised as news. Since this practice is condoned by the Department of Justice and tradition [all other presidents have done the same thing], why not use this resource to generate testimonials of average Joe's and Jane's comparing the Return-On-Investment of their SSS contributions vs. say, their 401K contributions or IRA's [which are great examples of an existing private accounts]. Publish this in all the 50 states and let the liberal Dems challenge this numbers to numbers!!!
The only argument the Dems can offer is the supposed "trillions" that it will cost, as if its not the cost of the existing system already [but then that is the Dems propaganda].
Enough said. Here is my proposal.
The reform has to occur in stages. The timing is up to congress.
STAGE 1: Do NOT touch the SSS contribution yet. Everyone who wishes to do so may create a private account contribution THAT IS FULLY TAX DEDUCTIBLE, the amount of which maximizes at about double the amount of the SSS contribution. The rationale is this: Private accounts are such a great idea that we have to put our money where our teeth is and even double it for those who can afford. Three to five, or ten years from now, lets compare the ROI [Return on Investment] of SSS contributions vs. the Private Accounts. I am wagering that politics cannot stop the avalanch of income worker in all spectrum to move toward private accounts.
Why double the tax deduction? Well, warts and all, it sends the subliminal message that the Federal government rewards achievers, albeit purely financial, without necessarily penalizing the under achievers, albeit financially [but it is a might good subliminal message]. Negative repercussion? Tough, it's not a perfect world, unless you are dreaming and don't want to wake up!!!
STAGE 2: Similar to the FDIC insurance, a Federal Insurance agency can be created to insure private accounts up to say, $500,000.00. The amount is again up to Congress to determine what is fair, an amount that still sends the message of rewarding the achiever without penalizing the under-achiever [albeit, financially speaking only]. At this point the SSS contributions still continue, i.e., still mandatory up to the $80,000 cap or whatever Congress decides. At the same time a relatively small government agency can be established to audit investment companies involved in privatization.
STAGE 3. Start reducing SSS contributions. The SSS system is really an uncouth multi-level marketing scheme anyway, let's start getting rid of it. At this point, income earners may chose to voluntarily contribute to SSS an amount over and above the required and have it tax deductible as a "charitable contribution" which it is at this point. Note that we are still using moral suasion in all these procedures [no totalitarian measure which the SSS, and the existing liberal left, in terms of our taxes, desire]. Note that at this point, it is possible that the mandatory contributions will never yield the contributors anything but it should be more than offset by the private accounts. But a "reliable" congress may come up with a better deal.
STAGE 4. Retire the SSS system. Here is what we have accomplished: We have eliminated the most inefficient agency in the scenario, the SSS system. Note that anything managed by the government is almost 100% of the time financially inefficient. We have not only privatized the retirement account, we have also privatized the managers. Security? Hopefully, the "big-brother" government insurance agency can fill up the slack, that is their only reasonable role in this issue, and they may also spread the risk further to private re-insurers.
Prayer by Rev. Joe Wright - A commentary on the redefinition of VALUES
This is not exactly new, but I a friend just reminded me of it.
This Pastor has guts!!
Thought you might enjoy this interesting prayer given in Kansas at the opening session of their Senate. It seems prayer still upsets some people.
When Minister Joe Wright was asked to open the new session of the Kansas Senate, everyone was expecting the usual generalities, but this is what they heard:
"Heavenly Father, we come before you today to ask your forgiveness and to seek your direction and guidance. We know Your Word says, 'Woe to those who call evil good,' but that is exactly what we have done.
We have lost our spiritual equilibrium and reversed our values.
We confess that we have ridiculed the absolute truth of Your Word and call it Pluralism.
We have exploited the poor and called it the lottery.
We have rewarded laziness and called it welfare.
We have killed our unborn and called it choice.
We have shot abortionists and called it justifiable.
We have neglected to discipline our children and called it building self esteem.
We have abused power and called it politics.We have coveted our neighbor's possessions and called it ambition.
We have polluted the air with profanity and pornography and called it freedom of expression.
We have ridiculed the time-honored values of our forefathers and called it enlightenment.
Search us, Oh, God, and know our hearts today; cleanse us from every sin and set us free.
Amen!"
The response was immediate. A number of legislators walked out during the prayer in protest. In 6 short weeks, Central ChristianChurch, where Rev. Wright is pastor, logged more than 5,000 phone calls with only 47 of those calls responding negatively.The church is now receiving international requests for copies of this prayer from India, Africa and Korea.
Commentator Paul Harvey aired this prayer on his radio program, "The Rest of the Story," and received a larger response to this program than any other he has ever aired.With the Lord's help, may this prayer sweep over our nation and wholeheartedly become our desire so that we again can be called "one nation under God."
The Constitution: Living Document? or Will of the People?
Treatise in progress (not yet complete)......
The above title is understandably confusing unless explained fully. Much of the conflict emanating from decisions made by the courts in the last 30 years, First Instance, Appellate, or even the Supreme Court have emanated mainly from the philosophical approach of judges to the concept of Constitution and Law.
Conservative judges believe that the constitution and the law should be interpreted based on the letter and spirit of that law at the time it was written. They presume that the formulators of either constitution and law made the law as timeless and universal in its application and put extra effort on the clarity of the language
so as not to be misinterpreted by future generations. There is an inherent presumption that room for misinterpretation is much smaller if future generations made such an attempt as to determine what the framers meant and intended the details to mean in the space and time context whereby it was written. Hence, these judges believe that the Constitution of the United States, its amendments and the Bill of Rights are "timeless" in terms of applicability until superseded by additional amendments or the framing of an entirely new Constitution. Nevertheless, the most current version is the
clear and unquestionable will of the people.
Liberal-activist judges, on the other hand, presume that even if the constitution or law was wisely written "during its time and for its time", it did not take into consideration the nuances of the progress of society and changing values on specific issues and hence, may need to be re-interpreted to be applicable to the current environment to which it is applied. These judges believe that such documents are "living documents" as the prefer to call it. The presumption is that the letter of the law is not exactly meaningful until interpreted according to the values of the current day in which it is applied. Since they are charged with interpreting the law, their research delves more on the spirit of the times instead of the spirit of the law at the time it was written. At best, they believe that they carry the same spirit of the law but applied with the knowledge of the current socio-political atmosphere. At its worst, as we shall see, this is an elitist angle with the arrogant presumption that they possess an exclusive in knowledge of how to apply the law. Embedded therein is the false presumption that they know better than the people who wrote the law.
I would propose that the ultimate logical resolution to this matter relies heavily on the principles of one's hermeneutics. This concept is more familiar with people who have Jewish or Christian Education backgrounds. Nevertheless, we will open it up for discussion since it is the heart of the matter in this debate and one's set of hermeneutic principles (or the lack thereof) is really the foundation for determining not only whether or not one supreme court judge is a conservative or a liberal-activist judge, but more importantly, who has the right angle on this.
to be continued....
NY Times March 14,2005: Judge strikes down California gay marriage ban
[Judge Richard A. Kramer of San Francisco Superior Court held, in an opinion that will surely be appealed, that "no
rational (emphasis mine) purpose exists for limiting marriage in this state to opposite-sex partners."]
Where is the wisdom of Solomon when we need it? Had these liberal activist judges been faced by those two women in the Bible who contested baby #1, how would they have ruled? I am going to wager they would first request a huge budget from the people's money and Solomon would have to raise more taxes from the people to fund their research and these judges would still have the baby end up with the wrong mother.
There are several common sense arguments which I believe are both above the law as well as foundational to law as to why gay marriage should be banned. It is quite unfortunate that these current breed of liberal activist judges would rather baseline on written "black-and-white" law from the books and find a technicality that would prevent the ban and NOT USE COMMON SENSE AT ALL. King Solomon, in that famous case, simply appealed to common sense.
First is the argument of rights, in this case, civil rights. Look, any gay or lesbian has the same right as anyone to marry into the opposite sex. That is guaranteed in any state either by law or by tradition. Hence, their request to marry INTO THE SAME SEX, is a "special" right, and NOT a civil right by any objective comparison. This argument is just plain common sense: gays and lesbians have EXACTLY the same rights on marriage as heterosexuals; both are permitted AND encourage to marry into the opposite sex. So the gay marriage lobby is not a question of civil rights but an issue of public sanction of a selfish passions or convenience.
Look at polygamy as an analogous example. Polygamists involve consentual relationships. Why then can't we legalize this as a "civil" right?
Even adultery is involve mutual consent, why then can't it be legalized and given "civil right" status? It is obvious at this point then that homsexual rights are special rights and NOT or NEVER civil rights for as long as the gay movement cannot offer a significant difference from the other aberrant behaviors.
The second argument is that of biology. Can homosexuals NATURALLY procreate? Societies have always encouraged the expansion of families, tribes and races. Anthropologically, marriage is a particular society's sanction on a specific pair of man and woman (in polygamous countries, it is still man and women). It has been the proclamation of a claim of a man on a woman or vice versa, in order to publicly acknowledge that cohabitation between the two are acceptable. In most civilized societies, this also means that no external party has the right to get inside that specific marriage to cohabit with any of the two. Furthermore, despite the technological breakthroughs on trans-gender operations, male transexuals still cannot carry a viable fetus to term like a natural mother. Hence, approving such a right is not consistent even with scientific and technological breakthroughs.
The third argument is tradition and traditional law. Tradition has not only looked down on gay cohabitation, but also on polygamy, incest, adultery, pedophiles, bestiality, etc. The point here is that most civilized societies have "naturally" classified homosexuality, or the practice thereof with the rest of these obscene activities. At the very least, therefore, the sanctioning of gay marriage should be a result of public sanction from elected officials or a referendum from the electorate and not from the courts.
It is very important that in the reversal of tradition for the sake of the minority, the rights and beliefs of the majority are not trampled upon. Take the example of slavery. Tradition previously sanctioned slavery, but the reversal of such tradition was consistent with the feelings of the majority (the Union, many Confederate non-plantation owners, the slaves themselves). In the homosexual case, homosexuals don't even hit 10% of the population, and even if you classify the "homophobes (loosely, let's call this one who won't concurrently share the same toilet with a homosexual)" as one sector, they would still comprise over 50% of the population. If ever the majority sentiment changes, I am willing to concede, but that won't happen in my generation.
The fourth argument is that of the implications of rebelling against a divine order which would cause chaos in society's order. The higher law argument was used successfully in the Nuremberg trials. Although there have been modern civilized societies that have accepted polygamy based on religion, there is no civilized religion that has sanctioned the other offensive activities listed in the tradition argument. There seems to be a common "higher law" that defines via human conscience and therefore, societies majority, what is acceptable and what is not. Even during the Roman Empire days when homosexuality was prevalent and even the ceasars were guilty of it, it was never looked upon as a model (let's not even mention "model for family" here).
The fifth argument has to do with genetics. Is homosexuality something one is born with? Are there any parallels in life that justifies this? Homosexuality, until the latter part of the 20th century has always been classified as "aberrant" behavior, i.e., behavior that is not expected of a normal, socially, emotionally, intellectually and psychologically healthy individual.
Following this traditional line of thought, I propose that homosexuality because of its intrinsically sexual nature is psychologically, emotionally, socially and psychologically similar to adultery or pedophilia. It is in fact a significantly worse category compared to polygamy (although genetics may not be involved here but you get the point), and yet there are many societies (including Mormons) that accept polygamy.
I would venture to guess that adulterers and pedophiles will eventually be found to have some genetic influences if studied as deeply as homosexuality with the same technologies and yardsticks. These are people who would claim that they cannot help thinking the way they do (which REALLY is the strongest argument so far in favor of homosexuality).
Genetics, however, should not be an excuse in the same way that insanity is not really a good plea for a mother killing all her five young children (but then our courts and judges have lost their screws a long time ago. There was a time that the only basis for "putting away" people was whether or not they were a menace to society, so that normal people can live and go about their day to day affairs without fear of danger or harrasment from the aberrants!).
Repercussions: Let's paint a picture or some scenarios of the future SHOULD gay marriage become a legitimized lifestyle.
1. Should we now have restrooms that say "Gays" or "Lesbians" (God knows what the universal symbol for either would be), or just combine them into one restroom and say Homosexual. Let's stretch this farther, since gender is becoming vague, can we just have a Homosexual Toilet and a Homophobe toilet (that would seem to be more well-defined in such a scenario, since Male and Female are no longer clear terms).
2. What would be the toilet symbols? One would have 2 icons in sodomy, the other would also have the same but superimposed by a red circle with a slash. (A day will come when terms and symbols will have to be WELL-DEFINED). Of course, it could also be mis-interpreted as "Sodomy Allowed Room" and "No Sodomy Allowed Room", but at that point, who cares?
3. Adopted children will have a warped concept of Father and/or Mother in a family. One's mother will have a penis, and the other's father will have a vagina.
4. Concepts or right and wrong (even from the viewpoint of the majority of society) will further erode. We shall now have the polygamy lobby, adulterers lobby, legal prostitution lobby, yes, even bestiallity lobby (on the grounds that it is consentual), all asking for "civil rights".
5. If a man gets caught peeing in the LADIES room, he may just act gay and claim his (or her? or his? now, i am confused) civil rights, how about that?
See the following link for an interesting discussion thread on this originally posted March 15
http://over-a-cup-of-coffee.blogspot.com/2005/03/over-cup-of-coffee.html
Over a Cup of Coffee
Welcome to my blog.
Over a Cup of Coffee was a regular column in a retired newspaper back home, The Manila Times. The editor, Teodoro F. Valencia, always entertained me with his wit and humor on current events and politics. I adopted his Column Title in his honor and hope to pursue at least half of his wit but double his candor.
This blog spot is an extension of my first one at
http://spaces.msn.com/members/coffee-cup/
