Schumer Says Every State Got Special Treatment in Health Bill

If everyone got it, it isn’t special. Doh!

Dec. 23 (Bloomberg) — New York Senator Charles Schumer defended the special Medicaid payments that Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska obtained for his state before agreeing to support health-care legislation, saying all states got something in the measure.

“Every state has its own unique situations,” Schumer said in an interview on Bloomberg Television’s “Political Capital with Al Hunt,” airing this weekend. “That’s why we have a Senate.”

Read the rest at Bloomberg.com

The money for all these “special treatments” has to come from somewhere. For Nebraska to get more than they put in, and more than everyone else, California (or some other State) has to pay for it. If everyone gets more than they put in, we have to borrow the money from China, or everyone gets a tax increase to pay for it.

When will these guys realize the money for all this is not some theoretical deficit reduction ten years from now? Real people have to pay real taxes for this, except maybe those who are getting the freebies that the rest of us are covering.

Obama To Banks: “Lend More”, To Whom?

President Barack Obama will meet with chief executives of major banks on Monday and is expected to urge them face-to-face to lend more money to help promote economic recovery, banking sources tell POLITICO.

Wasn’t the financial/mortgage crisis created largely by the Government insisting institutions lend money to high risk people?

Besides that, who is looking to borrow money to expand right now? Business sucks. Except for a lucky few, there isn’t enough cash flow to pay back a loan if they got one.

Many of the recent bankruptcies were caused by the inability of companies to pay off their loans. Some companies that are eeking by are doing so because they had no debt when the bottom fell out.

“The White House’s political people like [senior adviser David] Axelrod tell us to lend more,” said one banking official. “But the regulators are saying the exact opposite. They’re saying, ramp up your capital ratios, and if you see default risk on the horizon, cut back on lending.”

Huge deficits, promised tax increases, looming mandates in health care and carbon emissions have all but stalled the economy, and Obama is puzzled that his depression persists.

Lower taxes and business friendly policy will send capital off the sidelines and back into the economy. Businesses need customers, not loans. President Obama has obviously never signed the front of a paycheck.

Read the source article at the Politico.

They Love Obama To His Face While They Dump Their Dollars

Do you wonder if Obama is doing right by America in the international arena? He certainly seems to be basking in international popularity. He even won the Nobel Peace prize.

Following the money tells another story.

While world leaders shake Obama’s hand and praise him publicly, their central banks increasingly seek euros and yen for their country’s reserves.

Ben Bernanke’s dollar crisis went into a wider mode yesterday as the greenback was shockingly upstaged by the euro and yen, both of which can lay claim to the world title as the currency favored by central banks as their reserve currency.

Over the last three months, banks put 63 percent of their new cash into euros and yen — not the greenbacks — a nearly complete reversal of the dollar’s onetime dominance for reserves, according to Barclays Capital. The dollar’s share of new cash in the central banks was down to 37 percent — compared with two-thirds a decade ago. source- NY Post

A google search on the decline of the dollar will yield numerous stories of the dollar losing its status. China, Russia and others are reacting to the dollar’s weakened condition by seeking to replace it with a new currency for international oil transactions.

Our currency is on the way to becoming worth less. If the trend continues America will have to buy euros, yens or some new world currency at greatly disadvantaged exchange rates to trade internationally.

Americans are broke, overextended, and unemployed. What better time then now to further weaken the few dollars they have left? Let’s have the President and Democrat Party controlled Congress pass a trillion dollar health care plan, another trillion dollar stimulus bill and another tax increase!

545 People Out of 300 Million

FYI, at the time this was posted the US National debt, was $9,683,319,152,145.35

Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them.

Have you ever wondered why, if both the Democrats and the Republicans are against deficits, WHY do we have deficits?
Have you ever wondered why, if all the politicians are against inflation and high taxes, WHY do we have inflation and high taxes?

• You and I don’t propose a federal budget. The president does.
• You and I don’t have the Constitutional authority to vote on appropriations. The House of Representatives does.
• You and I don’t write the tax code, Congress does.
• You and I don’t set fiscal policy, Congress does.
• You and I don’t control monetary policy, the Federal Reserve Bank does.
• One hundred senators, 435 congressmen, one president, and nine Supreme Court justices -

545 human beings out of the 300 million

- are directly, legally, morally, and individually responsible for the domestic problems that plague this country.

I excluded the members of the Federal Reserve Board because that problem was created by the Congress. In 1913, Congress delegated its Constitutional duty to provide a sound currency to a federally chartered, but private, central bank.

I excluded all the special interests and lobbyists for a sound reason. They have no legal authority. They have no ability to coerce a senator, a congressman, or a president to do one cotton-picking thing. I don’t care if they offer a politician $1 million dollars in cash. The politician has the power to accept or reject it. No matter what the lobbyist promises, it is the legislator’s responsibility to determine how he votes.

Those 545 human beings spend much of their energy convincing you that what they did is not their fault. They cooperate in this common con regardless of party.

What separates a politician from a normal human being is an excessive amount of gall. No normal human being would have the gall of a Speaker, who stood up and criticized the President for creating deficits. The president can only propose a budget. He cannot force the Congress to accept it.

The Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land, gives sole responsibility to the House of Representatives for originating and approving appropriations and taxes. Who is the speaker of the House? She is the leader of the majority party. She and fellow House members, not the president, can approve any budget they want. If the president vetoes it, they can pass it over his veto if they agree to.

It seems inconceivable to me that a nation of 300 million can not replace 545 people who stand convicted — by present facts — of incompetence and irresponsibility. I can’t think of a single domestic problem that is not traceable directly to those 545 people. When you fully grasp the plain truth that 545 people exercise the power of the federal government, then it must follow that what exists is what they want to exist.

• If the tax code is unfair, it’s because they want it unfair.
• If the budget is in the red, it’s because they want it in the red.
• If the Army & Marines are in IRAQ , it’s because they want them in IRAQ .
• If they do not receive social security but are on an elite retirement plan not available to the people, it’s because they want it that way.

There are no insoluble government problems.

Do not let these 545 people shift the blame to bureaucrats, whom they hire and whose jobs they can abolish; to lobbyists, whose gifts and advice they can reject; to regulators, to whom they give the power to regulate and from whom they can take this power. Above all, do not let them con you into the belief that there exists disembodied mystical forces like “the economy,” “inflation,” or “politics” that prevent them from doing what they take an oath to do.

• Those 545 people, and they alone, are responsible.
• They, and they alone, have the power.
• They, and they alone, should be held accountable by the people who are their bosses – provided the voters have the gumption to manage their own employees.

We should vote all of them out of office and clean up their mess!
What you do with this article now that you have read it is up to you, though you appear to have several choices.

You can agree to “vote against” everyone that is currently in office, knowing that the process will take several years.

You can decide to “run for office” yourself and agree to do the job properly.

Lastly, you can sit back and do nothing, or re-elect the current bunch.

(Charlie Reese, a former columnist of the Orlando Sentinel Newspaper.)

Obama Palinated-But What About The Issues?

It looks like the Palinator has gotten to Obama, at least this week. Republicans are no doubt thinking “our glitzy new person” can beat up your “glitzy new person”. Real Clear Politics has the numbers and the McCain Palin ticket got a big post convention bounce. Gallup has the Republican slate up by 10 points, and that is coming from minus numbers.

The Democrat Convention bounce was more like a thud. When John McCain announced Sarah Palin, the media and the Democrats couldn’t wait to pounce on her and Obama’s acceptance speech was lost in the fray. They jumped too soon, giving Palin the free shot she took in her convention speech, which has ignited the Republican base and put the Democrats on the defensive.

Around the media and the blogs the war of words goes on. Who’s more experienced, who lied rabble rabble rabble, blah blah blah.

When will someone start talking about the issues?

The US is facing a 9 trillion dollar national debt. How can we finish the Iraq war, bail out Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac, and continue to deficit spend the way the US Congress likes to? Not to mention the “lock box” that the citizens of America keep their Social Security trust fund in contains IOU’s not cash. The US Government’s accounting gimmicks make the Enron scandal look like shoplifting. This is further compounded by trade deficits for goods and the high cost of foreign oil, which is sucking the life out of the US economy as record amounts of America’s money is ending up in foreign coffers.

And there are those who want to raise taxes, and pay health care costs for under and uninsured Americans. A noble goal but at what cost and to whom?

If one looks at the national debt and the continued overspending by the US government as a whole, lumping in all branches and both parties averaged out, it is not a pretty picture. It should come as no surprise that Congress’s approval rating is 17.3% and though the President’s is higher it is nothing to brag about.

It seems like more than ever the American people are not happy with their government’s poor job performance and are looking for major reforms. Americans want accountability, and a sense that their tax dollars are not going to waste. Will the members of both parties wake up and start putting the American people’s best interest over their party affiliation?

The answer I fear is “rabble rabble rabble, blah blah blah”.