February 6-7, 2009
Feb 06 07:28 It's B-A-A-A-C-K Feb 06 15:00 Obama's Textbook On Wasting Political Capital Feb 06 15:44 BREAKING NEWS: Out-Of-Touch Al Supports Porkfest Feb 06 21:41 New Testimony Adds Drama to Coleman-Franken Election Contest Feb 07 02:03 Sen. McCain Rips Obama, Democrats Abandon American People Feb 07 10:36 Sen. Specter: "It's the Best We Could Get" Feb 07 14:01 Speaker Kelliher Slipping Questions Feb 07 23:43 Why's This "Absolutely Necessary"?
Prior Months: Jan
It's B-A-A-A-C-K
Democrat Debbie Stabenow told Bill Press that it's time for her committee to look into providing balance to the radio airwaves . That's a euphemism for restricting our First Amendment rights. Here's the exchange between Press and Sen. STabenow:
BILL PRESS: Yeah, I mean, look: They have a right to say that. They've got a right to express that. But, they should not be the only voices heard. So, is it time to bring back the Fairness Doctrine?Sen. Stabenow and other Democrats haven't figured it out that it isn't the Senate's job to "provide balance to the airwaves." The federal government saying that equal time must be given to liberal viewpoints and to conservative viewpoints necessarily means that the federal government is rationing radio peronalities' ability to put out the content of their choice.
SENATOR DEBBIE STABENOW (D-MI): I think it's absolutely time to pass a standard. Now, whether it's called the Fairness Standard, whether it's called something else...I absolutely think it's time to be bringing accountability to the airwaves. I mean, our new president has talked rightly about accountability and transparency. You know, that we all have to step up and be responsible. And, I think in this case, there needs to be some accountability and standards put in place.
BILL PRESS: Can we count on you to push for some hearings in the United States Senate this year, to bring these owners in and hold them accountable?
SENATOR DEBBIE STABENOW (D-MI): I have already had some discussions with colleagues and, you know, I feel like that's gonna happen. Yep.
That's called censorship.
It isn't the federal government's job to censor people, though Democrats appear to think that it is. This is just another example of Democrats overreaching. The most obvious portion of the Democrats' overreaching is the Political Allies Payoff Act, otherwise known as the stimulus bill.
Overreaching is what Democrats do best. Fearmongering is another thing they do well. Talking about violating the First Amendment and censorship fits into this discussion, too.
Today's Democrats: the party of censorship, overreach and high inflation.
Posted Friday, February 6, 2009 7:29 AM
Comment 1 by FedUp at 06-Feb-09 12:41 PM
There is NO Fair in the Fairness Doctrine. Any congress critter who votes for this should worry about their job. They have better things to worry about than conservative talk radio!
Obama's Textbook On Wasting Political Capital
Then-Sen. Obama is credited with running a near-perfect campaign. Then President-Elect Obama was credited with running a near-perfect transition. Sixteen days into President Obama's administration, he's fighting for legislation that stands a good chance of hanging a political anchor around the Democrats' necks in 2010. As I told a good friend this morning, intellectually honest historians will discuss this in the context of how not to make a great first presidential impression.
This Opinion Journal article highlights how badly President Obama and the Democrats have responded to the Republicans' pushback against the Political Allies Payoff Act.
Republican proposals are "rooted in the idea that tax cuts alone can solve all our problems, that government doesn't have a role to play, that half measures and tinkering are somehow enough, that we can afford to ignore our most fundamental economic challenges," the president said in an address at the Department of Energy Thursday. "Those ideas have been tested, and they have failed."President Obama won't "regain the momentum on economic policy" until he renounces this bill. President Obama can't "regain the momentum on economic policy" until he strips out all the excessive spending that pays off the Democrats' political allies and that is fueling an inflation rate spike.
Seeking to regain the momentum on economic policy, Mr. Obama on Friday is expected to announce the members of his newly formed Economic Recovery Advisory Board, led by former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker.
President Obama says that a crisis will turn into a catastrophe that we might never recover from if Republicans don't support this stimulus package. Why should Republicans support this bill considering partisan Democrats crafted it to pay off the partisan Democrats' political allies? Why should Republicans support a bill that does more harm than good ?
Let's dispose of this silly notion immediately: the American economy's succeeding or failing doesn't hinge on the passage of a single bill. That's fearmongering of the worst sort.
Another bit of silliness being propagated by the Democrats is that the bill doesn't contain any earmarks . Whether it does or doesn't is irrelevant. That's irrelevant because, whether it's earmark-free or not, (a) it pays off almost every special interest group that Democrats are beholden to and (b) it still wastes hundreds of billions of dollars.
Mr. Obama's allies on and off Capitol Hill are also turning up the political heat, with e-mail and phone blitzes, television and radio advertisements, all designed to break the GOP's united front.
"I was hopeful he would have done this even sooner," said Sen. Barbara Boxer (D., Calif.), who pressed the president to take his case to the American people in a closed-door meeting with him Wednesday.
Let the Democrats do this media blitz. That isn't what's important. What's important is the fact that calls from mainstreet Americans is running 100:1 against this bill. The Democrats' threatening targeting 28 House members for voting against this bill just proves that the most extremist Democrats have taken over the Democrats' campaign committees.
The DCCC should get attacked for threatening 28 Republicans for voting against this massive waste of money but are remaining silent about the 11 Democrats who joined all 177 Republicans in voting against this monstrosity.
President Obama is acting desperate and it doesn't have anything to do with his wanting to get something accomplished for the American people. It has to do with the fact that he wanted to spend unprecedented amounts of money on the Democrats' pet projects but the Republicans started pointing out all the wasteful ways that this bill spends money.
I think it's also the first time he's been substantively challenged on anything. He wasn't challenged in the Illinois state senate. He spent all of 140-something days in the U.S. Senate before launching hsi presidential campaign so it's unlikely he was seriously and substantively challenged there.
When he criticized Republicans that they "can't listen to Rush Limbaugh and expect to get things done", he brought someone into the equation who has as big a microphone as he has. Worse, Rush knows how to use his Golden EIB microphone with devastating effectiveness.
When President Obama criticized Republicans about Rush, Rush started airing all the pork in this bill. Day after day, Rush exposed the pork in the bill. It didn't take long for the Right Blogosphere jumped in. The damage was already done before
this NRO article appeared
but it's worth looking into. Here's a few of my favorites:
- $448 million for constructing a new Homeland Security Department headquarters
- $600 million to convert the federal auto fleet to hybrids
- $450 million for NASA (carve-out for "climate-research missions" )
- $600 million for NOAA (carve-out for "climate modeling" )
- $4.5 billion for U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
Not only does this effectively double the Corps' budget overnight, but it adds to the Corps' $3.2 billion unobligated balance, money that has been appropriated, but that the Corps has not yet figured out how to spend.If President Obama and Capitol Hill Democrats want to waste political capital fighting to waste this much money, that's their right. They won the election. It's just that, like many other things they do, it's squandering capital on questionable priorities.
Originally posted Friday, February 6, 2009, revised 12-Aug 11:33 AM
No comments.
BREAKING NEWS: Out-Of-Touch Al Supports Porkfest
Out-Of-Touch Al Franken has resurfaced just in time to proclaim his support of the pork-laden, political payoff-laden Democratic porkfest. In honor of his resurfacing, Minnesota Republican Party Chairman Ron Carey issued this press release:
"On the first day his handlers let him speak to the press in weeks, and after coming off his lengthy Florida vacation, Al Franken announces his support for the almost $1 trillion stimulus bill, but says that he wants to make sure the money is spent wisely. While it's nice that Al has for once told Minnesotans how he would vote on a bill before the vote has already passed, as he refused to do on the bailout last fall, is this really what the tax dollars of hardworking Minnesotans should be spent on in this bill? Does Al support the $20 million provision for the removal of 'fish barriers' in the bill? Does Al support the $25 million for ATV trails? Does Al support the $34 million for the remodeling of a government building in this bill? Does Al support the $70 for a climate research supercomputer in this bill? Al Franken says he would vote for the stimulus package that includes each of these provisions. I guess we shouldn't be surprised that Al Franken will spend tax dollars of hardworking Americans so carelessly since he still refuses to come clean about his own taxes and pay his fair share."I've put together a different set of questions that I'd like Mr. Franken to answer. Here are the questions that I want answered:
A Tasting Of Pork In The Stimulus Bill:
$20 million "for the removal of small- to medium-sized fish passage barriers." (Pg. 45 of Senate Appropriations Committee report: "20,000,000 for the removal of small- to medium-sized fish passage barriers)
$25 million to rehabilitate off-roading (ATV) trails (Pg. 45 of Senate Appropriations Committee report: "$25,000,000 is for recreation maintenance, especially for rehabilitation of off-road vehicle routes, and $20,000,000 is for trail maintenance and restoration")
$34 million to remodel the Department of Commerce HQ (Pg. 15 of Senate Appropriations Committee report: $34,000,000 for the Department of Commerce renovation and modernization")
$70 million to "Support Supercomputing Activities" for climate research (Pgs. 14-15 of Senate Appropriations Committee Report: $70,000,000 is directed to specifically support supercomputing activities, especially as they relate to climate research)
Al Franken Supports Pork-Laden Stimulus Bill. "Franken said he gets regular briefings from Democratic members of Congress and staff. He said he's particularly worried about the rapid acceleration of job losses, and said he would be a vote for President Obama's stimulus package. But he said he'd push for measures to make sure the money is spent wisely." (Patrick Condon, "Franken In Waiting: Says He's Ready To Join Senate," Associated Press, February 6, 2009)
- Why is it important to support a bill that doesn't create jobs?
- Why is it important to support a bill that's filled with pork and political payoffs to the Democrats allies?
- Why is it important to support a bill that the CBO says does more harm than good ?
- Why is it important to support a bill that doesn't set America's economy on a solid growth footing?
If his staff does let him make detailed policy statements, we certainly won't hear Mr. Franken defend them without his handlers nearby to clean up any messes that he's sure to make.
Welcome back to Minnesota, Al. We just had the coldest January in Minnesota history but I'll turn the heat up just for you. The funny thing is, I won't need a thermostat to turn the heat up.
Posted Friday, February 6, 2009 3:44 PM
No comments.
New Testimony Adds Drama to Coleman-Franken Election Contest
The PiPress's Jason Hoppin is reporting that new testimony in the Coleman-Franken election contest has added new drama and evidence to the contest:
Perry Mason, meet Rachel Smith.A simple question must be asked to add perspective to Franken's latest lawsuit: Has any election official anywhere in the U.S. ever issued an election certificate certifying a winner if all the votes hadn't been counted?
Smith, the top elections official in Anoka County, dropped a minor bombshell Thursday in the courtroom where a lawsuit over Minnesota's U.S. Senate race was being heard. She testified that the county has found, within the prior 24 hours, a dozen or more ballots that were never counted in the statewide recount that ended last month.
While the number is not enough to overcome Democrat Al Franken's 225-vote lead over former Republican Sen. Norm Coleman, it suggests there might be other uncounted ballots in other counties. Only a handful of elections officials have testified in the recount trial so far.
The news came just hours after Franken argued before the state Supreme Court that an election certificate should be issued allowing him to take his seat in Washington, D.C. Coleman, who attended the hearing, said the development was a sign his court challenge to overcome Franken's lead has a chance.
Earlier this week, Hennepin County Judge Denise Reilly made this statement following the court's ruling that 4,800 previously rejected absentee ballots would be counted:
"The panel is going to make sure that every legally cast and wrongfully rejected ballot is opened and counted," Reilly said in court today.It's now a finding of fact that some votes haven't been counted. Until the last one is counted, the Supreme Court should rule that this election isn't over, that it's too close to call and that the process will prevail.
The discovery includes:Until the courts rule that every ballot properly cast has been counted, and that they've been counted properly, a winner can't be certified. To do anything but certifying that every properly cast ballot has been counted properly would be a great injustice to the candidates and, more importantly, to Minnesota voters. That's unacceptable.
"The finding of the ballots is just another demonstration of how illusory that count is," said Ben Ginsberg, an attorney for Coleman.
- Three military ballots for Coleman from a Spring Lake Park precinct that were originally duplicated and misplaced before the recount. They were found in a large envelope containing discarded absentee-ballot return envelopes.
- Six absentee ballots that were found inside their original return envelopes and have never been counted.
- Several other ballots that were rejected for one reason or another, but that the county now says should be reconsidered.
That Al Franken is doing everything possible to short-circuit that process is an indication of Mr. Franken's win-at-all-cost-even-if-it-means-disenfranchising-voters attitude. It tells us that he's dishonest and a dirtbag. His behavior has been, and always will be, disgraceful.
Posted Friday, February 6, 2009 9:41 PM
Comment 1 by JayMagoo at 07-Feb-09 09:15 AM
Calling a candidate "a dirtbag" is hardly an indication of fairness and objectivity. This entry had credibility until I saw that. Now I see it as just another cheap Republican smear and I begin to question the veracity of the so-called "facts" presented by the writer. Grow up, children, we don't need this kind of nonsense.
JM
Sen. McCain Rips Obama, Democrats Abandon American People
Sen. McCain took his best shot at President Obama for not providing leadership on the Political Allies Payoff Act, officially known as the Economic Recovery Act.
In a fiery speech Thursday night before House Democrats, Obama rejected the GOP's characterization that the stimulus package was merely another spending bill.Notice the difference between President Obama's statements and Sen. McCain's speech. President Obama thinks that spending unprecedented amounts of money is what this game is about. There isn't a hint that he's thinking about ending the recession and restoring prosperity. There's no sense that he understands that this isn't a crisis or that a focused plan would revive America's economy without risking dramatic inflation spikes.
"What do you think a stimulus is? That's the whole point. No, seriously, that's the point," Obama said at the retreat in Williamsburg, Va.
On Friday morning, McCain fought back.
"The whole point, Mr. President, is to enact tax cuts and spending measures that truly stimulate the economy," McCain said. "There are billions and tens of billions of dollars in this bill which will have no effect within three, four, five or more years, or ever. Or ever."
It's apparent that Sen. McCain understands what's most important: stimulating the economy and putting people back on the path to prosperity without risk of dramatic inflation spikes. The only way to prevent those inflation spikes is by preventing irresponsible spending unprecedented amounts of money on wasteful things.
The legislation hammered out tonight still spends between $780,000,000,000-827,000,000,000. That won't get the most bang for the buck. It just wastes lots of money.
I just emailed Sen. Arlen Spector expressing my anger with his signing onto this abomination. Here's the message I sent him:
Sen. Spector, Tonight you didn't just abandon time-tested conservative principles. Had you stood strong, there was a chance that we could've insisted on exercising fiscal restraint during the 111th Congress. You've signed onto legislation that WILL CAUSE inflation to spike within the next 2 years. You've signed onto legislation that, pardon the French, pisses away alot of money.John Hinderaker notes here that there was a better GOP alternative available when Sen. Spector joined Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins in suspending their common sense and, more importantly, hurting American taxpayers nationwide:
This legislation has more to do with paying off the Democrats' political allies than it has to do with providing a jolt to the economy.
Your signing onto this bill has also guaranteed a primary challenger. When a viable candidate announces his candidacy, I'll contribute to his campaign. I'll also do everything possible to help this person defeat you & win in November, 2010.
You could've done the right thing for us & for future generations. Instead, you chose to dump hundreds of billions of debt onto future generations & dramatically increase inflation in the short term.
Know that I prayed for you when you battled cancer. Know, too, that that doesn't mean I'll give you a pass on signing onto awful legislation.
Republicans, meanwhile, continue to come up with better alternatives, most recently John Thune's proposal to scrub the entire pork bill and:John's nailed it by saying that this bill isn't about stimulating the economy, that it's about exponentially growing government. What's worse is that this additional funding then becomes part of the baseline for subsequent years' funding.
...replace it with a $936 billion across-the-board-middle-class tax rebate for 182 million Americans. The amendment would result in a tax rebate of $5,143 for single filers and $10,286 for married couples who file jointly.
That's obviously a better idea, but it wouldn't increase the power of government, so the Democrats aren't interested.
The negative impact the stimulus bill's spending has on future economic growth was predicted by CBO. The impact in the out years is to make a tax increase inevitable. The excessive spending will cause inflation to spike, which is like a hidden tax increase.
The best way to think of the inflation spike is that it's a tax increase for fulfilling everything on the Democrats' wish list for the last quarter century. When the inflation spike happens, rest assured that I'll remind people that they're paying a hidden tax for the Democrats passing their wishlist of irresponsible spending and questionable priorities.
If this legislation extends and/or deepens the recession, I'll remind people of that, too.
Doing things hastily is a surefire way of wasting money and getting things badly wrong. That's the path that President Obama and the Democrats charted. Unfortunately, the people that don't support the bill, all 65 percent of us, are stuck travelling that path with the Democrats.
What I want to know is this: What did we do to deserve this?
Posted Saturday, February 7, 2009 2:04 AM
Comment 1 by Ted at 07-Feb-09 09:44 AM
No to "stimulus" bill. Here's why:
Since Obama's earnest drive to convince the nation to weaken its economic strength through redistribution as well as weaken its national defense, has confirmed the very threats to our Republic's survival that the Constitution was designed to avert, it no longer is sustainable for the United States Supreme Court and Military Joint Chiefs to refrain from exercising WHAT IS THEIR ABSOLUTE CONSTITUTIONAL DUTY TO DEFEND THE NATION FROM UNLAWFUL USURPATION. The questions of Obama's Kenyan birth and his father's Kenyan/British citizenship (admitted on his own website) have been conflated by his sustained unwillingnes to supply his long form birth certificate now under seal, and compounded by his internet posting of a discredited 'after-the-fact' short form 'certificate'. In the absence of these issues being acknowledged and addessed, IT IS MANIFEST THAT OBAMA REMAINS INELIGIBLE TO BE PRESIDENT UNDER ARTICLE 2 OF THE UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION. Being a 14th Amendment 'citizen' is not sufficient. A 'President' MUST BE an Article 2 'natural born citizen' AS DEFINED BY THE FRAMERS' INTENT.
Sen. Specter: "It's the Best We Could Get"
Arlen Specter should be ashamed of himself. Not only did he stab Republicans in the back. Not only did he help exponentially increase the size and scope of the federal government. Now he's saying that this compromise was the best they could do :
"Personally, I would prefer not to be on the edge of the pin, as so frequently is the case in this body," Specter said in a floor speech last night. "But I do believe we have to act, and under the circumstances, this is the best we can do."Note to Sen. Specter: Not letting the Senate act would have forced Democrats to scale back the size of this monstrosity of a bill. Had you and the Dames from Maine held together with the rest of your Senate GOP colleagues, you could've forced President Obama and the Democrats to trim hundreds of billions of dollars of wasteful spending from the bill.
This is what happens when voters let politicians stay in Washington too long. Their priorities turn into the lobbyists' priorities rather than their constituents' priorities.
The price we'll pay for this abdication of fiscal restraint is immense. Not only are we spending alot more money now. The dirty little secret is that the spending in this bill gets added to the budget baseline for the next budget cycle. Once budgets are set, that amount is forever calculated into future appropriations.
I know this isn't a glitzy subject but I'll put it forward anyway. Now's the time to start a campaign for replacing baseline budgeting with zero-based budgeting. Democrats, with the aid of a couple wayward Republicans, telegraphed their intent to dramatically increase the size of government.
Instead of sitting still, we need to tell Democrats and other lobbyist puppets that we won't tolerate their misbehavior. We need to tell the lobbyists' puppets that we demand smart policies that shrink the amount of inflation. It's time government started doing the will of the people.
Specter said that against the backdrop of mounting job losses announced yesterday, "the psychological impact if we were to reject an activist approach would be devastating." He said the "eyes and ears of the world" were on the U.S. government, watching its response to the economic crisis.Instead of holding out for a bill that won't piss our money away in unprecedented amounts, Sen. Specter agreed to vote for this abomination. Instead of telling President Obama that the priorities expressed in this legislation were wrong priorities, Sen. Specter caved. Instead of demanding a bill that doesn't impose a hidden tax increase in the form of higher inflation, Sen. Specter agreed to waste an unprecedented amount of money.
Specter said he had already noted "certain grave concerns" with the stimulus legislation and had asked President Obama why he was "wedded" to completing action on it by Feb. 13. Specter said he told Obama this was too fast "for a bill of this magnitude."
What's worse is that Sen. Specter has bought into the myth that we're experiencing a genuine crisis. We aren't. We're in a recession that needs to be put into the rearview mirror. We don't need, however, to panic, which is what President Obama and the Democrats are selling.
I wish Sen. Specter had read what I wrote here :
This is not a jobs bill. It's a political payoff.Another sad part to this story is that Sen. Specter's vote hands the seat to the Democrats in 2010. Pennsylvania political insiders I've talked with expect Josh Shapiro, a Philly state representative, to win.
This is not a jobs bill. It's a political payoff.
This is not a jobs bill. It's a political payoff.
This is not a jobs bill. It's a political payoff.
Posted Saturday, February 7, 2009 10:37 AM
Comment 1 by Jim at 07-Feb-09 11:16 AM
Amazing, you right wingers go on the biggest spending splurge in history, taking a surplus and doubling the national debt in eight years, then when you are thrown out, you say it is time to cut spending and install your failing ideology even more. You wreck the economy, then you want to shut it down entirely and send us into a depression. But you don't care, you are crazy.
Comment 2 by Gary Gross at 07-Feb-09 11:31 AM
Excuse me, Jim, but Republicans & Democrats alike went on that spending spree together.
Furthermore, that WAS the biggest spending spree in history prior to this disaster.
I'd further argue that exercising fiscal restraint isn't what caused the recession, that it was spending irresponsibly & a lack of oversight into Freddie & Fannie that caused us the most problems.
Comment 3 by FedUp at 07-Feb-09 01:40 PM
So, Jim... this bill is bigger tha both the Iraqi and Afghan wars, plus all the other spending during Bush's tenure. BO and his cronies are going to have nothing to show us after this abortion is passed!
Now that the dems have the government in their collective pockets - we can only order a 4-year supply of vaseline and assume the position!
Speaker Kelliher Slipping Questions
Speaker Kellliher is the latest Democrat to brush aside an important question. The question that's getting asked frequently is when Democrats will publish their own budget priorities in the form of budget targets. Speaker Kelliher suggsts that it's all just a GOP distraction tactic :
It happened again Thursday. The Minnesota House was meeting in full session, running through some routine business, when Rep. Tom Emmer, R-Delano, rose, cleared his throat and said to DFLers, "We've been here a month; why are we still waiting for your budget proposal?"Actually, Speaker Kelliher, it's designed to highlight the fact that Democrats collected well north of $100,000 in out-of-session, tax free per diem without producing anything of value during those meetings/hearings. I'd hope that Rep. Emmer's statements would embarrass Democrats into do something more than just criticize.
There were some head shakes, but no response. The House got back to the business at hand.
Emmer's question has become the mantra of state Republicans. In every public forum, at least one or two Republican legislators raise the question: If DFL legislators don't like Gov. Tim Pawlenty's proposed budget, why don't they come up with one of their own?
"It's strategic," said House Speaker Margaret Anderson Kelliher, DFL-Minneapolis, of the Republican cry. "It's designed to freak people out on our side, and it takes attention off the governor's budget."
Speaker Kelliher, when will we hear that Democrats plan another round of massive tax increases? When will we find out that the Democrats have caved into their special interest allies' demands to increase spending on their causes? It isn't like those things aren't heading towards us. That's what irresponsible Democrats do each budget cycle.
Coming into the session, all knew the state's financial situation was a red-ink mess, which is expected to get worse when a new round of financial predictions come out next month. Why weren't DFLers prepared to move immediately with their own budget proposals?Sen. Pogemiller isn't telling the whole truth when he says that the legislature "always works from the governor's budget proposal." Technically, that's true but it isn't the whole story. Traditionally, the Legislature has passed a set of budget targets, including a bill saying what they expect in terms of revenue for that biennium.
Pogemiller said the Legislature ALWAYS works from the governor's budget proposal.
"We don't even have complete drafts of his bill yet," he said. "When we get the full proposal, we will work off what he has. You see what's doable and where there might be disagreement."
That tradition was broken in 2007. Not so coincidentally, that's the year Ms. Kelliher became the Speaker and Sen. Pogemiller became the Senate Majority Leader. Even in a surplus year, Democrats didn't want to get pinned down.
This statement is utterly disengenuous:
Kelliher notes that the governor had all of the state's commissioners and finance experts working on the budget for months. The Legislature does not have those resources.Speaker Kelliher, why didn't the House use all those out-of-session hearings for which Democrats collected outrageous amounts of per diem to craft a counterproposal? Will you now admit that these meetings were a waste of time? Will you now declare that you're returning your per diem because you twiddled your thumbs all summer?
"He's had 7+ months. It's unrealistic to expect us to respond in just a few days," she said.
Considering the fact that Democrats held all these hearings, Speaker Kelliher, isn't it disengenuous to suggest that you've only had "just a few days" to put a counterproposal together? After all, Al Juhnke collected $7,007 in out-of-session tax free per diem . At $77/day, that's 91 days worth of meetings/hearings. If Speaker Kelliher wants to argue that Rep. Juhnke isn't in a leadership position, then I'll just add that Speaker Kelliher received $6,776 for out-of-session per diem. Does Speaker Kelliher think that 88 days worth of meetings/hearings isn't enough to put a budget together?
Here's something else that troubles me:
Both DFL leaders did express surprise over the budget plan Pawlenty has proposed, particularly that it seems to do little to address financial problems beyond the coming biennium.Speaker Kelliher, didn't the DFL say that they're " pinning much of their hope for short-term relief on a national stimulus package coming out of Washington"? Isn't the stimulus alot of one time money? Or are Democrats counting on that type of largesse year after year?
"Seventy-one percent of his solution is one-time money," said Kelliher. "That is simply not sustainable. It only means we'll be back here next year and the year after that facing the same problem."
It's time for Speaker Kelliher, Majority Leader Pogemiller to stop hiding being these deceptions. It's time that they admitted that Democrats have held lots of out-of-session hearings for which they got paid alot of per diem for those out-of-session hearings without accomplishing anything important. Specifically, they didn't put a budget together, which is the most important thing this year.
If the Democratic Legislature isn't being productive during the out-of-session hearings, shouldn't Minnesota's taxpayers be asking why they're being conducted? It's not like Minnesota's taxpayers should be paying politicians to conduct marginally important hearings.
Instead, Minnesota's taxpayers should be demanding that the extra meetings end or that they actually accomplish something.
Originally posted Saturday, February 7, 2009, revised 11-Feb 2:21 AM
Comment 1 by J. Ewing at 07-Feb-09 03:22 PM
The other lie is that they don't have Pawlenty's budget. I saw several of them carrying it around today, still making noises like "we have to raise taxes because otherwise we'll have to cut spending, and that would be just terrible."
Why's This "Absolutely Necessary"?
Saturday, President Obama used his weekly radio address to pitch his stimulus plan by mischaracterizing it. Here's what he said:
"We can't afford to make perfect the enemy of the absolutely necessary," Obama said in his weekly radio and Internet address, sounding a note of pragmatism that liberal followers rarely heard on the campaign trail.It's galing that President Obama would characterize a pork-laden spending bill as "absolutely necessary." I have several questions that I'd like President Obama to answer.
- Why is a bill that doesn't create jobs "absolutely necessary"?
- Why is a bill that's filled with pork and political payoffs to the Democrats' allies "absolutely necessary"?
- Why is a bill that the CBO says does more harm than good "absolutely necessary"?
- Why is a bill that doesn't set America's economy on a sustainable growth footing "absolutely necessary"?
Still, the popular president, six in 10 voters approve of his performance so far, scolded Republicans with a pointed reminder that Democrats, not Republicans, were victorious in November.Meaning Republicans should role over when harmful legislation is proposed? There's this thing about checks and balances. The winners don't get to do whatever they want just because they won. If legislation doesn't put the people's needs first, it should be opposed. PERIOD. Preventing what's irresponsible trumps blindly following the majority every time.
Before wrapping this up, I should ask President Obama another question, especially since it's been bothering me this week:
Why should I think that this is a crisis, especially considering the fact that the situation we're in isn't as bad as 1980?
Does President Obama think I should trust him just because he says so? I think not. I don't trust people if they've tried scare tactics to get their way. That's what President Obama did. That's reason enough for me not to trust.
Had he tried making the case for this expansion of government, I would've disagreed with him but I wouldn't have stopped trusting him. Now I'm left with only one intellectually honest position. It's a sad thing to know that the president of the United States isn't intellectually honest.
Originally posted Saturday, February 7, 2009, revised 09-Feb 2:36 AM
Comment 1 by Jamie Holts at 08-Feb-09 12:29 AM
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Comment 2 by Jamie Holts at 08-Feb-09 12:33 AM
I finally decided to write a comment on your blog. I just wanted to say good job. I really enjoy reading your posts.
Comment 3 by Suggestions4Obama.com at 08-Feb-09 07:55 AM
The number of unemployed persons (11.6 million) and the unemployment rate (7.6 percent) rose in January. Over the past 12 months, the number of unemployed persons has increased by 4.1 million. The Department of Labor reported today that nonfarm payroll employment fell sharply in January (-598,000) and the unemployment rate rose from 7.2 to 7.6 percent. Payroll employment has declined by 3.6 million since the start of the recession in December 2007, .... most of this mess happening only in past three months! And some wonder Obama is pushing so hard for a stimulus package. The Herbert Hoover approach, do nothing, is all we need, leading us to a twelve year depression ??
Comment 4 by Gary Gross at 08-Feb-09 08:45 AM
The Herbert Hoover approach, do nothing, is all we need, leading us to a twelve year depression??
It wasn't that Hoover did nothing. It's that he panicked, raised taxes & passed Smoot-Hawley, which caused a major trade war.
In his first 2 terms, FDR's New Deal spending dropped unemployment from 25% to 15%. It wasn't until WWII caused the factories to fire up that we got around to old-fashioned capitalism. Once that happened, the United States' economy started growing again.
A robust capitalist system will help more than pissing money away through a stimulus bill.
