Cash for Clunkers

Great name… Let’s look at some of the government “Clunkers” hatched in the first 6 months of the Obama administration.

The ill-advised Air Force One fly-over of New York City. Great planning there. Price tag on that was a paltry $387,000.

TARP (Troubled Asset Relief). This was the plan to save our financial system originally created during the final days of the Bush administration in conjunction with the Democratic controlled congress. The price tag is not in on this one yet. Neil M. Barofsky, the special IG for TARP set up by the Treasury Department, came up with the largest number yet in testimony prepared for delivery Tuesday to a House committee. He stated “The total potential federal government support could reach up to $23,700,000,000,000. (that’s 23.7 trillion),”. The dust hasn’t settled on all the inflated real estate investments, but let’s look closer at the reason TARP was needed in the first place: CRA, the Community Reinvestment Act. This was originally created in the early 90’s to help transition low-moderate income families into government-backed mortgages. The program was expanded by the newly elected Democrat congress in 2006. Banks were forced to make loans on homes people could not afford. And many of these loans included adjustable rates. This was a time bomb created by the Democrat congress. Who couldn’t see this coming? D’oh.

Stimulus Package $870,000,000,000. We were assured by Obama and his cadre that IF we passed the stimulus, we could hold unemployment to 8% or less. It’s now over 9.5% and climbing. And look at some of the things we’re “stimulating” with these dollars. And I loved this part… right after Obama signed the Stimulus Bill into law, he convened his cabinet and demanded that they find $1 MILLION DOLLARS in their departments to cut. Let’s do the math. In a matter of hours, Obama spent $870 BILLION and DEMANDED cabinet secretaries find 1 MILLION in savings. This was dutifully reported by the dinosaur media as bolstering Obama’s fiscal conservatism. I swear, I nearly threw something through the TV.

Cash for clunkers: This program was designed to provide rebates for older less fuel efficient cars through November. The planners that are scheming to take over your healthcare figured that $1Billion should take care of it. This money lasted just one week.

Still to come:

Cap’n Trade. May not be a middle class tax increase, but what happens when your utility bill increases 400% or more? There are a lot of low income folks right here in Memphis that can’t pay their electric bills now.

Healthcare reform. Proposals on the table right now will result in rationed government health services and mandatory counseling for end of life care, including hospice, DNR, and possibly even assisted suicide. Price tag: >$1 Trillion. (And this is the price tag estimate by the same group that gave us the $1Billion Cash for clunkers estimate.)

The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office produced this graphic to illustrate the magnitude of the Federal Spending proposals juxtaposed to expected tax receipts:

The bad news is this chart was created BEFORE the recent unexpectedly large drop in tax receipts. It's likely worse that this!

Scary stuff.

Porkulus Revealed

I notice that Matt Drudge has posted links to some of the more outrageous instances of "stimulus" expenditures, such as:

RECOVERY.GOV // AWARDED: $2,531,600 FOR 'HAM, WATER ADDED, COOKED, FROZEN, SLICED, 2-LB'...

RECOVERY.GOV // AWARDED: $1,191,200 FOR '2 POUND FROZEN HAM SLICED'...

RECOVERY.GOV // AWARDED: $351,807 FOR 'REPLACE AND UPGRADE THE DUMBWAITER'...

RECOVERY.GOV // AWARDED: $1,562,568 FOR 'MOZZARELLA CHEESE'...

RECOVERY.GOV // AWARDED: $5,708,260 FOR 'PROCESS CHEESE'...

RECOVERY.GOV // AWARDED: $16,784,272 FOR 'CANNED PORK'...

RECOVERY.GOV // AWARDED: $1,444,100 FOR 'REPAIR DOOR BLDG 5112'...

RECOVERY.GOV // AWARDED: $541,119 FOR 'INSTALL TRAFFIC SIGNAL'...

I hope someone will take the time to cross-reference the contract awardees among these and determine how much and to which congressmen the owners of these businesses favored with contributions...

there you have it

So wonderful, "republicans" (rinos) get elected. woo hoo. We MUST do better than we've done since 1992, cause if >=GHWB is our "role model: we're sol...

Maybe we need a "dead person czar"

Check the link... Dead People Get Stimulus Checks

All the competence and efficiency of the US Government.

I can't wait for the National Health plan!

Who will be executing the health care fly-over?

Barack Obama has a vision. That vision is of an all powerful central government imposing it's will and whims on every aspect of American life. Things like a nationalized health care system and jobs for life at companies primarily owned by our federal government.

Some people think this would be a good thing.

These people would rationalize that since Obama's motives are pure and his intentions only for the sake of Americans who just need a little help, it's all good. On the surface it would seem so. That is, until people get involved.

As these programs are beginning to make their way through our legislative branch unchallenged by any meaningful opposition, let's take a look at some manifestations of this approach.

General Motors has already received several BILLION dollars just to pay it's bills. They need at least $8,000,000,000.00 more. How will this money be used? To create jobs. But not American jobs... Their plan to achieve solvency includes increasing offshore manufacturing from 16% to 23% of it global production. Hey... I'm a small government, fiscal conservative with libertarian tendencies so none of this appeals to me, but even the most dyed-in-the-wool fan of this strategy can't believe that US citizens want their tax money used to build factories and create jobs in third-world countries emerging markets.

But I think the best example of good intentions run amuck is the ill-conceived NYC flyover of Air Force 1.

Think about it. The idea is to have some promotional graphics created using AF1 with a Statue of Liberty backdrop. I have no idea of what such images would be used for, but that doesn't really matter. Whatever the reason, someone makes the suggestion. It's discussed all the way up to at least a couple of organizational levels down from the president, if not higher. These are people with no more than one degree of separation from "The One". They are in direct contact with people that are meeting regularly with the president to get their strategic direction. The president's intentions are good and pure, therefore, these director-level appointments must guide their team to create tactical plans to carry out The Vision.

The plan: First the mission must be covert. (I swear I'm not making this up... a covert mission involving a Boeing 747 buzzing around ~3000' AGL over the largest city in America) Then, we'll just tell the NYPD and someone in the Mayors office.

The point is, this is how someone directly connected to Obama's vision can screw up a simple task. Budget impact, $357,000.00.

What happens when the larger "good intentions" are expanded into multi-TRILLION dollar programs like nationalized health care? Where's the vision? Who will be executing the health care fly-over?

WH Press Corp today... what next?

It has been widely reported that Thomas Lauria, representing Auto Industry Task Force has charged Obama administration officials with threatening to unleash the "dogs of the White House Press Corp" on anyone opposing the Chrysler Bankruptcy plan (which includes, among other distasteful things, making one group of investors holding the same grade of stock more equal than another).

How long might it be before these guys realize that they could inflict true terror by threatening to unleash the "dogs of the IRS" to perform a deep audit on anyone failing to tow the party line.

Heaven help us.

BAM (Ben, Aden and Mitchell)