Democratic Party Chair, Debbie Wasserman Schultz famously stated last May that “We own the economy. We own the beginning of the turnaround and we want to make sure that we continue that pace of recovery, not go back to the policies of the past under the Bush administration that put us in the ditch in the first place,” Well, the first part of that was true!  They own the economy!  And they have since America foolishly entrusted Congress to the leadership of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid back in 2006!

We’ll discuss the remainder of Wasserman Schulz’ statement in a moment… but first let’s establish a little historical background.

George Bush took office in January 2001 with a National Debt of 4 Trillion Dollars.  The economy was riding the bubbles of the tech explosion and the easy money in the housing market.  Less than a year later, we experienced the dot-com bust and the attacks of 9-11.  Remember that 9-11 was a DIRECT assault on our economy – the attack was directed at the WORLD TRADE CENTER… both a symbolic and a de-facto heart of our world commerce.  We naturally tend to focus on the loss of life and property, and well we should.  But the economic impact of that attack was enormous as well.

So we went to war.

How many times have you heard how military spending and Bush’s wars have bankrupted us?  Undoubtedly so many you can’t put a number to it!  But let’s examine the facts.

Remember the 87 billion dollars that John Kerry balked about… voting for it before voting against it back in 2004?  That was to fund those 2 wars for a year!  Is 87 billion dollars a lot of money?  Hell yes!  But we spent less on both wars in a decade than Obama’s stimulus cost us in one year!  So a little perspective, please!

But I digress.

The economy took a hit after 9/11, and our deficit climbed.  By 2003 it had soared to 420 billion dollars.  While a deficit that size would be a major blessing today, at the time it was historically large!  So what did George Bush do?

TAX CUTS!

And the left went nuts.  But the tax cuts did what tax cuts always do; revenues increased!  The deficit fell each of the following 3 years until; in 2006 the deficit was reduced from a high of 450 billion in 2003 by more than 2/3 to 120 billion.

In 2004, Congressional Republicans began hearings on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and started waving red flags about the sub-prime mortgage threat.  They were demanding MORE oversight and regulation of these entities and warned of the dangers of forcing lending institutions to make home loans to people who can’t afford them.

Who came to the defense of Fannie and Freddie, claiming there were no problems and there’s “nothing to see here”?  Chris Dodd, Barney Frank, Maxine Waters etc!

The Democrats created the problem with Carter and the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977.  Under guise of “encouraging” lending institutions to “meet the needs” of home borrowers in “moderate income areas”… this act empowered ACORN and other community organizing groups to pressure banks into making ill advised loans to people who simply would never be able to repay them.  You may wish to read about the act here:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_Reinvestment_Act

All sorts of new lending vehicles were created.  Interest only loans?  How is that different from rent?  One never gains any equity!  Balloon notes?  Get people into the house with an affordable payment, only to watch it skyrocket out of sight in a few years?

The Community Reinvestment Act was revisited by Clinton and even more regulations were placed on the banks.  The bubble was expanding faster now, and would soon burst.

Then we handed the reins of Congress, and the purse-strings, to Pelosi and Reid.  Bush had 2 years of his term remaining.  And yes, we were driven into the ditch during those 2 years.  But it wasn’t Bush that was driving… it was Pelosi and Reid!

In their first year, they tripled the deficit to 450 billion… 30 billion more than Bush’s worst deficit with a GOP congress.  And in their 2ndyear they tripled that to 1.3 Trillion dollars!  (More than 10 times the 2006 deficit!)  They added 3 trillion to the debt in just 2 years, so Bush left office with a 9 trillion dollar debt.

Bush had added 2 trillion with a GOP Congress in his first 6 years.  And 3 trillion more (a 50% increase in debt) in his last 2 years under the Pelosi/Reid 110thCongress.  In 2006 all of government spending was right around 2 trillion dollars.  Pelosi/Reid swelled the budget to 3.5 trillion in their 4 years!

Barack Obama took office, and the democrat triumvirate of Obama/Pelosi/Reid went on a spending spree.  The debt increased by another 5 trillion in 2 years.  Under a GOP presidency with a GOP congress, after 5 years of war, our debt was 6 trillion.  After 4 years of Pelosi-Reid, it is over 14 Trillion… and 5 trillion of that added in Obama’s first 2 years.  Remember that it took 230 years and 42 presidents to bring our debt to 5 trillion.  And the democrat triumvirate managed to raise our debt by 5 trillion in 2 years.  Interest payments on the debt have more than doubled in 4 years.

Yes.  Democrats own the economy.

And the downgrade?

Consider a family with a household income of $21,700 a year.  They have been spending $38,200 a year and added $16,500 to their credit card balances in the last year.  Their cards are at limit.  They are $142,710 in debt on their cards.  They sat down to make a budget, and managed to find $385 in cuts they could live with.

You’re the bank.  Do you give them another loan?

Add 8 zeros to each of the numbers above.  That’s our federal government.

But what about the remainder of Wasserman Schultz’ comments:

“We own the beginning of the turnaround and we want to make sure that we continue that pace of recovery…”

Yeah, what about that?

Copyright © 2011 by Doug Edelman

Doug Edelman is a conservative political analyst and commentator, writes for the St Louis Examiner, and was a contributing editor for The Conservative Voice.  His work has appeared on ChronWatch, Western Front American, Small Government Times, Western Journalism, News By Us, The American Daily, The Post Chronicle, New Media Journal, Capitol Hill Coffee House and more. Mr. Edelman is also an IT Consultant/Contractor and owner of a Computer Services Business.  He has taught PC Maintenance & Repair and Networking at his local Community College, and maintains a blog at http://starboard.blogtownhall.com.

 

WesternFront America

President Obama has submitted his budget proposal, and unsurprisingly it calls for an even bigger deficit and more spending! Fortunately, the GOP-controlled House is sending the Administration a message reminiscent of Tip-O’Neal’s “dead on arrival” response to Reagan’s austere budgets.

Obama is calling for a 3.5 Trillion dollar budget. Of that, more than $1.5 Trillion is deficit spending, meaning that for every dollar we spend, nearly 43 cents is new debt. Borrowed money which future generations must pay back, with interest!

Said another way, wherever we can afford $57, we spend $100!

The President claims his budget will cut $1.1 Trillion over the next decade. Even if that were true (and there’s no evidence to suggest that it is!) that is a cut of $110 Billion a year on a $3.5 Trillion budget with a $1.5 Trillion deficit! Correct me if I’m wrong, but that’s a reduction of the deficit by a factor of around 1/15!

Let’s apply that formula to something a little closer to home. Let’s suppose I’m spending $45,000 a year more than I make, and I’m half a million in debt.

Do you think my cutting $3000 a year from my spending habits would keep me from bankruptcy?? Of course not! But the Keynesians STILL believe that they can spend themselves into prosperity!

Keynesian tax-and-spend economics, the mainstay of Progressive economic policy for nearly 100 years, has been attractive to Socialist Utopian Academics… because it fits their narrative and agenda. When tested in the laboratory of REAL LIFE, however, their hypotheses fall flat time after time. The failed “Stimulus” of 2009 should have erased any vestige of doubt and put the final nail in the coffin of the Keynesian model. Keynes is to economics what the Flat Earthers were to Geo-Science!

The Left decries conservative proposals to cut the budget as “Draconian”… but pay attention to the numbers! Remember that a BILLION is 1000 MILLION, and a TRILLION is a MILLION MILLION!

Our current deficit is 1.5 Trillion. Obama is willing to cut 110 Billion!! But he says he has to raise taxes to do it!!

Congressman Ryan recently complained about not having a “baseline” for budgeting. May I suggest using the FY 2006 Budget as a starting point?

This was the last budget passed by a GOP congress before Pelosi/Reid took the reins of Congress and began spending us into oblivion, tripling the deficit every 2 years and raising our debt from 6 Trillion to 14 Trillion in 4 short years! In 2006 our deficit was only around $120 Billion… it’s currently almost 15 times larger! Why don’t we START with a BASELINE that undoes Pelosi/Reid spending?

In the 4 years that Pelosi/Reid were in power, our debt more than doubled. They increased our debt by 8 TRILLION in 4 years! When President Bush took office, our debt was only 4 (FOUR) Trillion dollars! After 6 years, the debt was increased by 50% to 6 Trillion, and Bush was roundly (and deservedly) criticized. In 2003 the deficit was around 420 Billion. This was after 9/11, the dot-com bubble burst, and the run-up and execution of the combat phase of 2 wars!

In 2003 Bush and the GOP Congress passed tax cuts, and consequently the deficit was reduced each of the following 3 years, so that when Pelosi/Reid took the reins, we were on track for a balanced budget in a year or two! When the GOP lost control of the house, they had reduced the deficit to 1/3 of the 2003 level – around 120 Billion.

It is now time to wake up and smell the coffee. We are 14 TRILLION in debt, so the INTEREST on that debt has more than doubled in 4 years. We are in a hole we may NEVER be able to climb out of… but certainly the first step MUST be to STOP DIGGING!

You will hear a lot of talk about “discretionary” spending. This encompasses our Military spending (both wartime operational expenses and the baseline expenses to maintain a standing military), as well as all other regulatory and operational costs of government. The sum total of our “discretionary” spending is around 1.2 or 1.3 Trillion dollars.

The remainder of our budget is the so-called “mandatory” spending. This is a misnomer. These expenses, with the exception of interest on the National Debt, are “ENTITLEMENTS”. Since the constitution neither mandates nor authorizes these “take from Peter to pay Paul” transfers of wealth, how can they be termed “Mandatory”? But I digress!

It is essential that we address the problem of entitlement spending. Congress must acknowledge that if we were to eliminate ALL discretionary spending and ONLY fund entitlements and interest on the debt, we’d still be left with a budget shortfall of around 250 BILLION DOLLARS!! Without operating a government AT ALL except to transfer money, we’d STILL be a quarter of a Trillion dollars deeper in the hole every year!

Before we can climb out, we must STOP DIGGING!! We must cut entitlements, significantly. Yes, there’s discretionary spending that can be trimmed. But again – cutting ALL discretionary spending won’t be enough to balance the budget. Entitlements MUST be addressed. It’s fiscal Armageddon if we don’t.

Copyright © 2011 by Doug Edelman

Doug Edelman is a conservative political analyst and commentator, and has been a contributing editor for The Conservative Voice. His work is also seen on Western Front American, Small Government Times, Western Journalism, News By Us, The American Daily, The Post Chronicle, New Media Journal, Capitol Hill Coffee House and more. Mr. Edelman is also an IT Consultant/Contractor and owner of a Computer Services Business.  He has taught PC Maintenance & Repair and Networking at his local Community College, and maintains a blog at http://starboard.blogtownhall.com/.

 

WesternFront America

There has been much buzz lately over comments made by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid referencing President Obama as a “Light skinned African American, with no Negro dialect – unless he wants one”.

The comment is indeed offensive. But, sadly, the focus of these comments has been misdirected to the word “Negro” as somehow offensive; whether by its historic associations, or by its anachronistic character. And the “offended party” has been mis-identified as President Obama.

This, of course, gives Senator Reid political cover, as Republican cries of “foul” are deflected by Reid’s apologies, accepted by Obama, Sharpton and the Congressional Black Caucus.

But pay attention to the context of the statement! Reid is commenting that Obama would be acceptable to VOTERS because he’s light skinned and can speak plain English. By this, he is implying that American Voters WOULD NOT ACCEPT a Dark Skinned African American Candidate who speaks with a distinctly African-American “dialect”.

Well let me AX Mr. Reed this question: Why are you insulting the American Voter with your presumption that they are unable or unwilling to judge a candidate on his/her merits, policies, position, platform and plan? What gives you elitist idea that the “great unwashed” population of the United States is so Neanderthal in their thinking that they vote on skin color and not on ideology?

Mr. Reid has apologized to the wrong people! It matters not whether Obama, Sharpton or the Congressional Black Caucus or the NAACP accept his apology! And the offense is not the use of the archaic term “Negro”. The offended parties are the AMERICAN VOTERS and Reid has not apologized to them.

Reid has betrayed his low opinion of the American Voter.

Now, of course, in the world of Leftist Politics… there is intense racial sensitivity to statements made by conservatives and/or Republicans (no, the terms are NOT synonymous!!). Recall the flap over Trent Lott’s comments at the 100^th birthday party for Strom Thurmond! Lott didn’t make a single racist statement, but he expressed praise for Thurmond, who had run for President nearly 60 years earlier as a segregationist. For this he was forced from his position.

So, then, should everyone who’s said a kind word about (former Klansman) Senator Robert Byrd also resign? Did you realize he’s NEXT IN LINE FOR THE PRESIDENCY behind Nancy Pelosi in the line of succession? Aren’t you proud that a former KLANSMAN is President Pro Tempore of the Senate?

No, if a person holds the progressive mindset and is instrumental in advancing that agenda, their character and behavior is irrelevant! ALL is forgivable. You can be a former Klansman. You can turn the Oval Office into a bordello and commit perjury. Character doesn’t matter – as long as you are on the right (correction: left) side of the issues.

Personally, much as I’d love to see Senator Reid go… I will not join the chorus calling for his resignation over his statements. Yes, there’s a double standard, and Lott should not have been forced from his position either! But we on the right should not lower ourselves to the crybaby tactics to force people from power because they’ve OFFENDED someone – just because the Left does it. Instead, we should point out the hypocrisy of the Left, but still take the high road and force Reid from office at the Ballot Box.

Copyright © 2010 by Doug Edelman

Doug Edelman is a conservative political commentator and has been a contributing editor for The Conservative Voice. His work is also seen on News By Us, The American Daily, The Post Chronicle, New Media Journal, Capitol Hill Coffee House etc. For the support of his family, however, he is also an IT Consultant/Contractor and owner of a Computer Services Business.  He has taught PC Maintenance & Repair and Networking at his local Community College, and maintains a blog at http://edeldoug.blogs.com/.

 

WesternFront America

Where are the “Grown-ups” IN the Obama Regime? I look around and I see emotionally immature people traipsing about in the West Wing of the White House with the blessing of the uno numero socialist in America, President Obama. Then I look up the Hill to the Congress and I see Harry Reid over in the Senate, and I see Nancy Pelosi over in the House of Representatives — and I shudder. I fear I am looking at “Dumb” and “Dumber.” It is frightening to realize that our country is in the hands of those three people: Obama, Reid, and Pelosi. You know what is even scarier? Pelosi is third in line for the Presidency should something, God forbid, happen to the President and the Vice-President.

There is a great deal of angst in the US these days. One can almost feel the tension in the air. Each day we awaken to another day of wondering what exactly the Obama regime is going to do today to strip more of our precious freedom away.

Already we have a Cap and Trade bill hanging over our heads. That bill alone is going to cost every American family mucho deniro in the years ahead as the government attempts to fight an enemy that doesn’t even exist. I am referring to global warming, or as the “environuts” are wont to say — “Climate Change.” The “Bailouts” have strapped a generation, or so, of Americans, even those yet unborn, with thousands of dollars of debt they must pay off in their lifetimes on this earth. I have read that the Obama Regime has saddled America with more debt in his ten months, or so, in office than all the previous US Presidents combined! Unemployment in America is now over nine percent and climbing. With fewer jobs there is less disposable income, less money in the marketplace, and that has affected Wall Street and stocks are all over the map. Investors are as nervous as a lady of ill repute in church!

Now, comes socialized medicine. The added cost to Americans is expected to be well over a trillion dollars in the first decade, and, frankly, we have serous doubts it will turn out to be that cheap. And regardless of what our esteemed senators and congresspersons are telling us it WILL affect the nations deficit and wreak even more havoc with what is left of our economy.

If there is any silver-lining, at all, to the dark clouds gathered over America these days, it is the very real possibility that in one year, if we can hang on, there is likely to be a political massacre of democrat politicians at the ballot box.

Even the liberal voters who flocked to the polls in 2008 to elect Obama are now having serious doubts about him and his policies.

I have noticed some of the more liberal journalists are bemoaning Obama’s failure to stand by his campaign promises, those promises especially favored by ultra-liberals, and, in fact, has continued a number of Bush’s policies and programs with what appears to be total disregard for the leftist dreams he has shattered along the way over the past ten months, or so.

Now, we are told, some in the White House are experiencing some trembling in the knees as Tuesday’s elections approach and their candidates are not making the “showing” they were expected to make against the more conservative candidates. In fact, The Obama Regime is admitting that at least a couple of races, they deem especially important to them, are likely to go to the opposition as their candidates go down in flames. One must ask: is this a precursor to coming attractions in 2012? Could be. But, 2012 is still a long way off and things change at a remarkable velocity in politics, especially national politics.

Dumb, dumber, and dumbest. Taking on Fox News was, probably the dumbest move yet. But, hey, that is what happens when people with power get cocky. They open themselves up to return fire.
I was in the US Army Artillery during my service in the military. One of the important lessons we learned — and it is a lesson readily applied to one’s life — is to always remember when the enemy is in range of your guns – YOU are in range of THEIRS! Somebody apparently forgot to tell the folks in the Obama Regime.

Americans have, at a minimum, three more years of wondering what we are going to be hit with next. Are we worried? You are “durn tootin” we’re worried — and with good reason. We still do not see a viable presidential candidate being groomed by the Republicans to run against Obama in 2012. Oh, yes! It is truly worrisome.

J. D. Longstreet blogs daily at INSIGHT on Freedom … … http://csadispatch.blogspot.com/

 

WesternFront America