The Obama Watch
Spending America Into Oblivion
Rep. Jeb Hensarling has President Obama’s number — and then some.
At the invitation of the Republicans, President Obama spoke at the Republican retreat last Friday. During the following Q & A, Rep. Jeb Hensarling of Texas rose to ask the final question: “You are soon to submit a new budget, Mr. President. Will that new budget, like your old budget, triple the national debt and continue to take us down the path of increasing the cost of government to almost 25 percent of our economy.”
Rep. Hensarling’s statements regarding President Obama’s budget last year, supported by almost every Democrat, including those supposedly fiscal conservative “Blue Dog” Democrats, were completely accurate, taken directly from the analysis of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). That 25% of our economy refers only to the cost of the federal government. State and local government adds over 50% more, increasing the total cost of government in America to almost 40% of GDP already.
But President Obama responded as if the question were completely illegitimate, saying, “I’ve just got to take this last question as an example of how it’s very hard to have the kind of bipartisan work that we’re going to do, because the whole question was structured as a talking point for running a campaign.”
On Monday, President Obama publicly submitted his new budget. That budget forthrightly answers Rep. Hensarling’s question, even though President Obama would not in the light of a national TV broadcast. President Obama’s own budget confesses that it would more than triple the national debt from $5.8 trillion at the end of 2008 to $18.6 trillion by 2020.
Indeed, it would almost double the national debt in just four years from 2008, to $11.5 trillion in 2012. The budget also confesses that under President Obama’s first three years, 2009-2011, the federal government will borrow over $4.2 trillion. As the Wall Street Journal reported last week, “That is more than the entire accumulated national debt for the first 225 years of U.S. history.”
During the glorious 2008 campaign for hope and change, then candidate Obama harshly criticized George Bush for running $3.3 trillion in deficits over his eight years in office. But President Obama’s new budget confesses that he will run up that much in deficits in just two years and three months. Moreover, as Brian Riedl of the Heritage Foundation reported on Monday, “President Obama would run up more debt over his eight years than all other Presidents in American history — from George Washington to George Bush — combined.”
But at the Republican retreat, when he was on national television, President Obama refused to take responsibility for any of this. Further responding to Rep. Hensarling, who had said, “what were the old annual deficits under Republicans became the monthly deficits under Democrats,” President Obama said that “had nothing to do with anything we had done.” He went on to repeat basically what he had said during his State of the Union Address earlier in the week, “By the time I took office, we had a one year deficit of over $1 trillion and projected deficits of $8 trillion over the next decade. Most of this was the result of not paying for two wars, two tax cuts, and an expensive prescription drug program.”
Heritage’s Riedl corrected President Obama on Monday, saying, “This is simply not true. The policies mentioned by President Obama were implemented in the early 2000s. Yet even with all those policies in place, the 2007 budget deficit stood at only $162 billion.”
President Obama’s budget admits a federal deficit for 2010 of $1.6 trillion, ten times as much as that 2007 deficit of $162 billion, which was the deficit for the last budget adopted by Republican Congressional majorities. This was where Hensarling got his statement that the annual deficits under the Republicans had become the monthly deficits under the Democrats, to which President Obama wrongly responded, “that’s factually just not true, and you know it’s not true.”
But the truth is that President Obama’s $1.6 trillion deficit for 2010 is the largest in world history, rising still more from last year’s record $1.4 trillion deficit. And this record 2010 deficit assumes continued record low interest rates this year on our gargantuan national debt. If interest rates rise, then federal spending and deficits will explode still further due to interest costs on that debt. The Obama budget already projects that net interest spending will soar to $840 billion by 2020, more than four times current levels.
The “Spendaholic” Budget
The exploding federal deficits and debt are due to President Obama’s spendaholic budgets, which increased federal spending in 2009 by 18% over 2008, and in 2010 by 25% from 2008. That was not George Bush and the Republicans who did that. That was President Obama’s almost $1 trillion stimulus bill, the $400 billion supplemental spending bill a few weeks later, the new supplemental spending bill recently adopted, and the one-third increase in federal welfare spending over the first two years under President Obama.
Hensarling was proved right again by President Obama’s budget, which blows up federal spending to a peacetime record of 25.4% of GDP. President Obama has consequently already increased the federal government by one-fourth in just two years since 2008, when federal spending was 20.7% of GDP. Brian Riedl of Heritage points out that by 2020, President Obama will have increased the federal government by one-half on a per family basis, writing, “Before the recession, federal spending totaled $24,000 per U.S, household. President Obama would hike it to $36,000 per household by 2020.” And that is in real terms, after adjusting for inflation.
Riedl’s exposé of this year’s Obama budget shows most shockingly of all that the new budget increases spending, deficits, and debt even faster than last year’s budget over the next 10 years. Riedl writes, “Over the 10 years in which both budgets overlap (FY2010-2019), this year’s budget would spend an additional $1.7 trillion and run up an additional $2 trillion in budget deficits.”
President Obama’s Spending Freeze Trick
About the Author
Peter Ferrara is Director of Entitlement and Budget Policy at the Heartland Institute, General Counsel of the American Civil Rights Union, Senior Fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis, and Senior Policy Advisor on Entitlements and Budget Policy at the National Tax Limitation Foundation. He served in the White House Office of Policy Development under President Reagan, and as Associate Deputy Attorney General of the United States under President George H.W. Bush.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (136) | Leave a comment
Related Articles
More Articles by Peter Ferrara
More Articles From The Obama Watch
http://spectator.org/archives/2010/02/03/spending-america-into-oblivion
Follow us:
ADVERTISEMENT
SPONSORED LINKS
FLASHBACK TO: 1995
-
Pope Culture
A man of faith in a godless age is hitting Americans where it hurts.
-
Why the GOP Does Not, Like, Totally Suck
Mr. and Mrs. American Spectator Reader, let P.J. O’Rourke talk sense to your kids.
-
Dames at Sea
-
In the Absence of Guns
In Britain, defending your property can get you life.
-
The Metaphysical Martini
-
Counting the Costs of Clintonism
The debacle of this president’s administration is both a cause and a symptom of the decline of American values. Unless Congress impeaches him, that decline will go on unchecked. An eminent jurist surveys the damage and assesses the chances for the recovery of our culture.
-
Chuck McHagel
It won’t take long for conservatives to scratch this presidential wannabe off their 2008 scorecard.
-
The Legacy of Old John and Mother Fresh-Roasted
-
It’s the Best Time of the Year
The American Christmas, like the songs that celebrate it, makes room for everybody under the rainbow. Is that why so many people seem to be hostile to it?
-
The Bush Crack-Up
Was the President done in by the economy, or by the politics of the economy?
Clip of the Day
ADVERTISEMENT
Bill Hussein O'Stalin| 2.3.10 @ 7:05AM
An excellent article. It should be noted that Obama has included 65 billion in cap-and-trade taxes in the budget, but cap-and-trade has little chance of passing. Therefore, the 800 billion (with anticipated increases) expected in cap-and-trade taxes over the next ten years will not materialize, leading to a much larger deficit, or more likely, higher taxes.
Alan Brooks| 2.3.10 @ 5:51PM
"leading to a much larger deficit, or more likely, higher taxes. "
Or both?
allan guida | 2.5.10 @ 10:55AM
I seem to recall that the $162 billion deficit in 2007 did not include the supplementals for Iraq and Afghanistan in 2007. Those expenses were off-budget. Now isn't that a nice way to hide losses. I wish I could put some of my costs off-budget too!
Pingback| 2.3.10 @ 7:24AM
The News Factor, an informative online Conservative News Magazine » The reality of Ob links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
martin j smith| 2.3.10 @ 8:01AM
For those who are paying attention Obama is sounding more dictatorial by the day. Bi-Partisanship in Obama,s terms is my way or the highway. I hope that Republicans response to that type of bipartisanship is to just say: No thanks.
Deborah D | 2.3.10 @ 3:30PM
Dictatorial is correct. He doesn't want to debate, only to dictate. Remember, he calls himself a "progressive." We really need to understand what that means. From National Review Online:
"The Americanized version of the modern state was born in the early 20th century. American 'progressives,' under the spell of German thinkers, decided that advances in science and history had opened the possibility of a new, more efficient form of democratic government, which they called the 'administrative state.' Thus began the most revolutionary change of the last hundred years: the massive shift of power from institutions of constitutional government to a labyrinthine network of unelected, unaccountable experts who would rule in the name of the people."
This is what they think of the Declaration of Independence: “Some citizens of this country have never got beyond the Declaration of Independence,” "President Woodrow Wilson wrote in 1912.
He was a progressive and the idea of the the Consitution as a "living" document came from that era. If you want more info, go to my blog:
http://politicallyempowered.wo.....-founders/
or the original in a most excellent column by Matthew Spalding, here: http://nrd.nationalreview.com/.....lhNGEyNGM=
Joe Stafura| 2.5.10 @ 11:30AM
Your claims are beyond absurd, Obama never claimed to be a messiah, that was a tag placed on him by the US based insurgents that have taken control of the weakened Republican Party.
The willingness of them to compromise when needed to continue to prevent any help being provided to the people that were victimized by the bankers that Bush put in charge of the country.
The Republicans refuse to even pass limits on the overdraft scams that the Republicans and Democrats have profited from for decades, including Clinton who was really a Republican in Dems clothing, he just wanted power and more money like most of the Politicians promoted in propaganda sheet.
Garza| 2.5.10 @ 12:14PM
It is past the time of blaming Bush. It is in Obama's court now and it is time that you and others who think like you realize that a vote for Obama was the wrong vote. People who voted for Obama did not take the time to read between the lines and please it was so obvious. Blame yourself for what is going on and take a look in the mirror. Next time take the time to really see what is going on. It is not hard.
Will Shirley | 2.9.10 @ 9:17AM
Isn't it appropriate to blame all the criminals? Bush carried the ball forward, causing massive debt, killing hundreds of thousands of people and is now living in comfort and wealth. He should be in the Hague being tried for war crimes. So we ought to continue to blame him for his crimes until he is properly punished. Obama is also now a war criminal and shows signs of wanting to start his own war of aggression while wasting away any real wealth the country has left. Obama is a professional politician, like Bush, like Hillary, and so is also a professional actor/liar. No surprise there. Expecting him to do anything but what the Party desires is silly: he's in it for the money and power, just like everybody else in Washington. When America finally defaults, as it must, we should be able to blame Clinton, Bush, Obama, Congress... all of them. We're on the ropes, on our knees, so punch drunk we can't see the mat coming up to hit us in the face.
Deborah D | 2.23.10 @ 6:34PM
Your response is what's absurd. My post said nothing about Obama as "the messiah" ...
FTM| 2.3.10 @ 8:06AM
From my chair, the last guy that I voted for was H. Ross Perot, we ought to be thanking President Obama and the Democrat Party controlled House of Represenatives and Senate for conclusively demonstrating beyond the shadow of any reasonable doubt the utter chaos and destruction created by the ideology proposed by the likes of Marx and Engels.
Sit down and take a read at "Das Kapital" and the "Communist Manifesto." I have. The entire ideology is based on the flawed idea that it is morally and ethically correct to steal from literate, creative, educated and productive people in order to subsidize the illiterate, idle and non-productive.
President Obama and the members of his party that dominate the legislative branch of our federal government personify the statement made by Joseph Stalin in regards to western socialists. Stalin called them, 'Useful Fools."
As for me personally, I refuse to participate in a popularity contest which is a choice between the lesser of two evils, e. g. McCain vs. Obama. Either choice, evil wins. If either party wants to capture and hold my attention and participation ideas need to be proposed that eliminate frivilous public spending. The likes of the UN, Foreign Aid, NATO et cetra. America is for Americans. There are rules in place to allow for lawful immigration: get the illegals out. And so fourth. The opportunities to economize in the area of public spending are plentiful. One party or the other needs to get in the game with a credable set of candidates.
FTM| 2.3.10 @ 8:26AM
In re-reading this post I decided that an expansion on the communist ideology may be necessary.
Educated, literate, creative and productive people generate wealth. The reason that these people participate in any activity is to profit from the activity. Otherwise why participate? One risks a certain amount of capital. If all goes well then you recieve the return of your capital along with a profit. All the profit that the market will bear. On the other hand you may lose all or a part of your investment if all does not go well.
Now, if a third party enters the equation and under threat of violence steals part of the profit from the capitalist in order to subsidize unproductive people then there is a unit measure of capital reduction in incintive for the productive person to participate in the system.
In regards to the "under threat of violence" statement, stop paying your taxes and see if a car load of thugs with guns and badges don't come to your house to take what they have decided is theirs and if you give them any crap at all about it they'll kill you.
In closing I want to remark that the "Liberal" or "Progressive" ideology is founded on a tradition of class hatred, greed and envy. The Liberal, progressive, socialist, communist ideology is responsible for mass murder, genocide of an unimaginable and unspeakable scale. This use of violence as a first resort is the legacy of this administration and this ideology.
I'd say that if we make it to November that there won't be another liberal/progressive politician elected for at least a generation.
JBobs| 2.3.10 @ 8:46AM
Nice post, FTM. Your analysis is right on the spot. However, come November there will still be many liberal / progressive politicians elected... since there will be many many of the "illiterate, idle and non-productive" still electing them. I fear that we are out-numbered, maybe past the point of return.
FTM| 2.3.10 @ 3:28PM
Really.
And who is going to round up all the illiterate, idle and non-productive people, transport them to a polling place and then help them to push the button next to the little donkey?
ACORN could do it if they get the money that they need to procure the resources. Alas, a bus doesn't run on a pie-in-the-sky ideology.
However, last I saw the country is bankrupt. Do you think that even President Obama has the gall to attempt to devote part of his Economic Stimulus (Political Slush Fund) to ACORN for the purpose of rigging elections with the country in the financial shape that it's in?
Best as I can tell people are outraged that the behavior of this administration. Giving ACORN a dime of public money at this time would have some incredibly negative results.
RWinks| 2.5.10 @ 1:36PM
Nice if people are outraged but ACORN IS getting taxpayer money right now. As for BHO having the gall, he certainly does. Portions of the "stimulus" are expressly dedicated to "community organizations". All we need for the totalitarians to prevail is for enough FTMs to sit at home because the Reps aren't pure enough for them. The 11-2-10 election is probably our last chance to save the Republic. The Progressives must be beaten so thoroughly even the massive fraud will not save their majority.
Becky| 2.3.10 @ 10:23AM
"Educated, literate, creative and productive people generate wealth." This sentence struck me. I was reading Eric Hoffer's True Believer, and he stated that the active phase of mass movements prohibited creativity. Obama mania seems so much like a mass movement, and his continual campaign seems an effort to keep this in an active phase. If that is true, those participating are using their creative energies to advance a movement and not to be actually creative. A lot of his followers are educated and literate; their energies are just focused on keeping a movement going.
I heard Obama complain that Bush blew the surplus Clinton had built up. At the rate he spends, and adjusting for inflation, how long would it have taken Obama to blow through Clinton's reserves? After all, and unprecedented, historical crisis occurred shortly after Bush took office. Or perhaps he would have save us from the brink of that crisis had he been in charge.
FTM| 2.3.10 @ 1:55PM
Wasn't the klinton surplus (sorry, I only capitalize proper nouns) due in large part to counting socialist security reciepts as part of the general revenue?
FTM| 2.3.10 @ 3:06PM
Not to be a jerk or to be disrespectful of anyone but in my most humble opinion it seems to me that President Obama is a textbook example of an individual that is educated well in excess of his intellect.
Anybody can sit through a class in sociology. The trick is to sit through a class in sociology and stay awake. I'm speculating but I'd think that the same would be true of any other class that has as it's sole focus issues of a social nature where "right" and "wrong" are a matter of opinion. Political Science for example, a prerequisite for a pre-law undergraduate degree.
As an aside, how did "political" and "Science" ever end up being a part of the same phrase?
Speculating again but I'd like to see President Obama's scores in calculus. How about physics and chemistry. I had undergraduate classes in chrystal chemistry and strength of materials as part of a minor in metalurgy.
Oh, that's right, President Obama's scholastic records aren't a matter of the public record. How convenient.
Freeranger| 2.5.10 @ 11:19AM
There are plenty of things to complain about with Obama, but, to be fair, intellectual capability isn't one of them. At Harvard Law School, Obama graduated Magna Cum Laude, which is awarded to the top 10% of Law School students.
Also at Harvard Law, Obama was accepted as one of 85-90 Editors of the Harvard Law Review, out of an estimated 1,000 students.
jaydee| 2.6.10 @ 11:23PM
Ted Kyzinski (the unabomber) was also a Harvard man.
Grzmlyk| 2.3.10 @ 10:52AM
I could not agree more with your assessment.
As for the death of liberalism, as you fear, I think it's already a moot point. I think we are descending inexorably into banana republic territory, and fast.
The good news is that, contrary to his delusions, Obama and his goons will be swept over the cliff along the rest of us. But I fear chaos, not a return to sane governing principles, will fill the vacuum because there will be no soft landings - this is going to be a vertical plummet from great altitude.
And unfortunately, not only has the GOP failed to learn its lesson, I'm not even sure the concept of an ever-bigger government is even contested in conservative power circles anymore. They were willing co-conspirators in developing a system where so many Americans don't pay taxes at all. If you don't have skin in the game, and your only relationship to government is cashing its checks, you don't care if taxes go up. It's the old equation of how many people are ridingin the cart versus how many are pulling it.
And forget efforts to shrink the bureaucracy - any half-hearted conservative efforts to SLOW the GROWTH have been like thowing match sticks at a charging rhino, so the right plays go-along-to-get-along, drawing lines in the sand that edge ever leftward. The fact is, Washington - the government unions, the lobbiests, the pols and their staffs - is now hard-wired to strangle conservative impulses in the cradle like antibodies attacking a feeble virus.
I read a great piece on American Thinker last night that took conservatives to task - all of those in government - for not getting to the TRUE bottom of why our health care "system" is in crisis - the fact that markets are not, and have not been, allowed to work unfettered by government regulations and mandates for, essentially, three generations.
In other words, too many in the GOP who call themselves conservative - including folks like John Boehner and even Scott Brown, - fail to prescribe the ONLY medicine that will lead to true health care reform: Government OUT. All the way.
But that's politically untenable, just as conservatives doing what needs to be done with Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security is untenable. No one wants to be left standing when the music stops, so we just keep the fiddler fiddling.
For years we've heard these systems are going broke and we yawn and change the channel because we haven't yet seen the dire consequences in our own lives of the U.S. going belly up big time, which is INEVITABLE under our current mandates - let alone even a modest new entitlement. Life is about to change, and not in the way most Obama lovers thought.
The problem is that conservatives long ago ceded the intellectual ground vis a vis markets to the political expedience of abject surrender to liberal ideology. Hence the GOP's de facto mantra since Reagan has been: "Sure, we believe in ever-expanding 'rights' and distribution of wealth and growing government - we'll just be more judicious about it than our pals across the aisle, cross our hearts and hope to die."
The only way out of this mess is through it. And that is not going to be pretty for any of us. The first step in filling up a hole, of course, is to stop digging.
But Cloward-Piven lives: Obama sees this as "creative destruction" by which he can create a socialist utopia over the rubble of American Exceptionalism.
I do think that when this wildfire subsides, and the scorched earth cools, the new growth of real, market-based "green shoots" will be healthy. But, in time, as we grow more prosperous, so will grow our capacity for the same old delusions about social engineering.
Ken (Old Texican)| 2.3.10 @ 12:56PM
GRZ,
(smile), you seem to be a little "down" today. Though I agree with most of your thoughts, I am not going to join the ranks of "doomers". I refuse.
I truly wish you would get a copy of Senator DeMint's book, "Saving Freedom". In the book, he sets out a long term "unwinding" of big government. Solid do-able step by step roll-backs, all across the spectrum....over time.
I think you will seriously encouraged.
Best regards
Grzmlyk| 2.3.10 @ 1:44PM
Hi Ken:
I'm not down at all, actually - but I am a realist. I guess I'd say I'm not like the guy who jumps off a 100-story building and, as he passes the 80th floor, smiles and says, "so far, so good!"
I think our politicians jumped off a cliff years ago, and for too long they've been saying, "so far, so good!" Now the ground is looming ever closer.
I'll look at DeMint's book, and would be very heartened if it seems realistic. The problem is one of human nature, and that's a tough nut to crack. As societies succeed and move away from subsistence issues - that is, as we prosper - these kinds of issues invariably arise. We invariably think we can tinker with reality.
And as Alexander Tytler said over 200 years ago, once an electorate figures out that they can vote themselves goodies from the public treasury, it is only a matter of time before fiscal collapse ensues - the result being an affirmation of the second law of thermodynamics.
It's like that movie "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington." Smith (Jimmy Stewart) shows up in Washington a naif, and the earnestness of his honesty and good character win the day. And he gets the girl - Jean Arthur, quite the catch.
But the senator he used to idolize for his own integrity, played by Claude Rains, has become a thoroughly corrrupt Beltway insider. The truth is, the chance is that, in 5 years, Stewart would be a lot closer to Rains than to his original self.
Power corrupts.
But, as I've said, that doesn't mean we don't have a responsibility to fight this with every last sinew of our beings. I do think it'll get better, but it's going to get worse first.
Ken (Old Texican)| 2.3.10 @ 2:09PM
Yeah GRZ.
Please note my conclusion below.
""Gentlemen, unless I am badly mistaken, we are going to see some over the top dictatorial attempts over the next few months as the communists see their "rented" powers slipping away.
Please, be alert, be prepared, be smart, and gather your courage. ""
It seems to me we are sorta' in a "slow-motion crisis"...of existential proportions....right the hell now!
We are not "outgunned" however. A constitutional convention is in the making here. (heh. It may get very "exciting" though, in the Chinese curse sense.)
FTM| 2.3.10 @ 2:22PM
Chaos isn't all bad.
I sit in Sunday School class with a lady that is a daughter of Harlan Sanders. That's Colonel Sanders, the guy on the chicken box. That Harlan Sanders.
This lady has endured endless grief at the hands of peta over the years with the near constant desecration of her father's gravesite. The lady is perpetually at wits end.
The upside of chaos is simply this, no cops equals open season on do-gooders. Desecrate someone's grave don't act too surprised when somebody parts your hair with a 30.06 slug.
Desecrating graves among other things.
geekspeak| 2.4.10 @ 6:10PM
Thank you for you insight. I think you are spot on. I've held similar thoughts for years with my family thinking it might be time to have me put out to pasture.
Joe Stafure | 2.5.10 @ 11:43AM
The financial markets have been stolen and revamped to allow a few people to rob the rest of us with rule changes made in the Clinton and Bush administrations that move all the profit to Wall Street and all the risk to Main Street.
This whole Communist thing is a cover for the organized crime in both political parties, it was tried in 50's, 60's, 80's and 00's and it is always started by criminals as a diversion from the real activity that is killing America, Financial innovation permitted by the politicians who are kept in DC like showdogs.
Watching C-Span reminds one of the Westchester Kennel Show, where they are dressed up and get paraded out to say what they are told, even when it is the opposite as they feel.
McCain's flip flop the other day when he went back on his many statements that when the General said to repeal Dons ask Don't Tell his would go along, but now he isn't because he has no real voice, only the statements that the Cabal allows.
There is no communist movement here, just a modern society that isn't run by white men, but all of us in the world that have a stake just by being born, although the advantages will remain with the anglos for a while their reign of terror is about over and judging by the posts on here it isn't being taken well.
RWinks| 2.5.10 @ 2:05PM
Joe Stafure, You seriously think Obama-Pelosi-Reid gangster government is being run for the benefit of "all of us in the world"? You seem to have something against "white men". You probably were educated in the socialist schools to hate "white men" but you might want to consider it was Christian "white men" who abolished slavery through that part of the world they controlled, brought aid to Indonesia and Haiti, among many other good works. What good works have ever been done by any other peoples, seriously?
The Progressives represent an ideology that has murdered over 100 million people over the last 100 years. They no more represent the interests of "all of us in the world" than Al Capone represented the Chicago Better Business Bureau. The Progressives are the farmers and all of us in the world are the livestock . You're right about one thing. The Anglos are a warrior race and it sure as h$ll isn't going to be taken well.
Will Shirley | 2.9.10 @ 9:29AM
Obsession with the communists is useless under the current conditions. Obama is no more communist or socialist than you are. he is, however, a fascist, as is our entire society now. Please refer to the writings of one Benito Mussolini on the subject of fascism and how it works. His article sounds precisely like the Republican platform. Perpetual war, suspension of civil rights, the merging of the corporate world and government and the rise in cooperation between the government and religious leaders. This is how he described his ideal fascist nation and it accurately describes our current society. IF you want to worry about winning the cold war I suggest you get over it. The Chinese won that war and that should be obvious. We owe them trillions of dollars and the only assets we have left is real estate and people. I doubt our "President" will sell them people so it's likely parts of the country will have to be deeded over to our communist bankers. Now, although i call them communist so the irony is right out there, in fact they are more like fascists too now. Capitalism is a powerful drug and the lust for wealth is the single unifying quality between the people who control our world at the moment. There is no way to stop the collapse of this empire, but we can prepare for what happens next. We can learn from our mistakes, but you have to have an intellect, an open mind and you have to be sane. That leaves out 99.99% of Washington. I suggest you read the writings of David Korten on new ideas for how to run a society.
Ken (Old Texican)| 2.3.10 @ 8:57AM
Martin, FTM,
Thank you for the refresher. FTM, I too voted for Perot. I knew him personally, and did a lot of business with his companies. His people jumped off cliffs for him...and he for them.
I will never go third party again. That got us Bill Clinton. Frankly I never doubted that Bush Sr. would be re-elected, but I wanted him to feel the light slap on the wrist....to clean up his act.
OOPS!
I personally don't have a problem with "Liberals". I will give them the benefit of the doubt that things should be more "equitable" is their inclination.
I do have a serious problem with communists, (pardon the shorthand), leading the "Liberals" into dark dark places.
Gentlemen, unless I am badly mistaken, we are going to see some over the top dictatorial attempts over the next few months as the communists see their "rented" powers slipping away.
Please, be alert, be prepared, be smart, and gather your courage.
Charles Martel| 2.3.10 @ 11:31AM
The "light slap on the wrist" in 1992 was administered by the voters of the then-president's home state in the March primary election. After ascertaining that the rest of my family, three of voting age, were casting their ballots for the incumbent, I cast mine for Pat Buchanan. Apparently, this same calculation was repeated all over the state as Buchanan took 25% of the vote here. That should have been remonstrance enough, but no.
Perot is a French name. So is guillotine. They were, in effect, synonymous, removing the offending incumbent and debasing our national leadership with the execrable Clintons, whose dank pall is still cast across our otherwise fair republic. For this foolish misdeed, all Perot voters everywhere should be levied, to the bone, for the purpose of establishing a monastery filled to the rafters with penitents whose sole and perpetual duty would be to petition the Lord Almighty for forgiveness.
+++
FTM| 2.3.10 @ 2:04PM
Charles Martel. Charles the Hammer. One of my all time favorite guys. Right up there with Flavius Aetius.
HAMMER!!!
The guy stopped the moslem invasion of Europe through Spain and started the reconquest. Handed the moslems their collective a$$ at Tours. My kind of guy.
I beg your pardon sir for having taken part in putting the klintons in the oral orfice, a symptom of a mis-spent and ill advised youth that will never be repeated.
On the other hand though sir, hell will freeze before I vote for a RINO.
Indiana Alex| 2.3.10 @ 9:47AM
Where's "Bob" and R.E. Toddard (sorry Sarah) to tell us that there are really no differences between Democrats and Republicans?
Grzmlyk| 2.3.10 @ 11:12AM
Well, Bob is preparing a treatise to present to the IMF on the "fact" that raising minimum wage incurs no consequences because businesses can always just pass along the added expense to consumers. Who knew it was so easy?
Wouldn't you love to have been an investor in whatever business it was Bob claims to have run? Run, no doubt, directly into the ground. If the man opened a lemonade stand on Monday, he'd be in receivership on Tuesday. Just sayin'.
As for Toddard, haven't seen him for a while. Here's hoping he was mugged by reality.
Margie| 2.3.10 @ 1:35PM
The hot Toddy was frolicking over in the "Sarah Palin endorses Rand Paul" blog, with Alan Brooks yesterday. He feels in his element, I guess.
And dear old Bob was having caniption fits in the DADT article yesterday, finding no peace whatsoever.
Poor dears.
Grzmlyk| 2.3.10 @ 1:51PM
Well, Margie, I don't think Bob and Toddy should be allowed to roam free-range style anymore.
I think they should be, uh, neutralized and placed in a museum of sociopathology so that future generations can look on in horror - but within a safe environment - at the deformity that occurs to the human mind when reason turns in on itself and the psyche is deprived of the oxygen of reality.
As Limbaugh always says, liberalism is a mental illness. How true. :-)
Joe Stafura| 2.5.10 @ 11:47AM
As Limbaugh always says, liberalism is a mental illness. How true. :-)
What Limbaugh really says is 'I hope these idiots keep listening to my advertisers so I can make my $30 Million a year and keep myself in Oxycontin,
It always amazes me how a fat old drug addict can become such a pawn to the Bankers, but he is getting paid a King's ransom to keep the Ditto Heads in Line.
RWinks| 2.5.10 @ 2:08PM
The bankers again. Don't you really mean the EEvil Jooooss.
Margie| 2.5.10 @ 9:34PM
He's plainly just jealous. :^)
Pecos Pete| 2.3.10 @ 10:22AM
And, where is Liberal Reader?
Pete| 2.3.10 @ 11:23AM
Patience. It takes time for an official response to be crafted by their masters. They'll show as soon as today's talking points get issued.
Will Shirley| 2.9.10 @ 9:45AM
Back in high school there was always a group of snark, snide and nasty boys hanging together making rude remarks at the girls passing by. They were the top dogs in their own minds and all else was unimportant. I always wondered what happened to them, and here you all are! Great! Still snipping away at people for thinking ideas you don't like. They are the dummies while you are the quiet geniuses who sit by and watch the fools cavort.
I'm not a "liberal" though I am often mistaken for one. I am, however, concerned for human life, thus I am against wars of aggression or occupation. I dislike religion but I respect the rights of others to practice their faith. I believe money is not true wealth and I believe wealth is created when something is produced, thus lawyers are never wealthy, just rich. The Dems are idiots, as are the Repugs. Both sides of that coin are based on the idea that people need to be controlled in order to be productive and the results of their productivity should go to the already wealthy, who know how to use it to bankroll more wealth (for themselves). Third parties are usually weak copies of the Party in control. Personally I like a true democracy if you have to have a government, but people like you would never permit such a thing. The idea of an economy based on the concept of taking more out of a system than you put into it (profit) defies the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, or is simply piss poor logic. That's a description of a Ponzi scheme, not an economy.
Well boys and girls, I am sure you will get along just fine under our new masters. Myself, I am looking for land off the grid where I might retire and learn to grow food for the family. It's been swell chatting with you. Now say nasty things about my intellect, you know you want to.
martin j smith| 2.3.10 @ 10:29AM
During the GWB years especially his second term not enough folks were examining the Democrat Left views on Terorism and the economy. Now it is true that to some extent you had to listen to people like RL who were warning listeners about who these "Liberals" really were. Then during the 2008 campaign a little more was revealed but you had to pay close attention: for example Obama's speech in Berlin and Obama's confrontation with Joe the Plumber. Not to mention the issues of Obama's history of Left associations. All of these and more SHOULD have been big time warning signs, but many ignored them. Thanks MSM for being the PRAVDA of our nation. Now we know. So, speak out, organize for 2010 and 2012 and DO NOT SIT OUT ANY ELECTION EVEN IF YOU DO NOT LIKE THE REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE. ELECTIONS MATTER AND HAVE CONSEQUENCES1111111111111111111
Hydraulic Tools | 2.3.10 @ 10:40AM
Manufacture Hydraulic Tools, offer from hydraulic crimping tool, cable cutter, pipe bender, gear puller, hole digger and hand pumps.
Pingback| 2.3.10 @ 10:52AM
The American Spectator : Spending America Into Oblivion links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Pingback| 2.3.10 @ 10:52AM
The American Spectator : Spending America Into Oblivion links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Pingback| 2.3.10 @ 10:55AM
Amazing Recipes links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Pingback| 2.3.10 @ 11:22AM
The American Spectator : Spending America Into Oblivion links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Pingback| 2.3.10 @ 11:22AM
The American Spectator : Spending America Into Oblivion links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Charles Martel| 2.3.10 @ 11:39AM
When I read the third paragraph of the article, recounting Obama's deflection of Congressman Hensarling's pointed question about the Democrats' profligacy, my mind darted to the response given in the movie "Braveheart" by the roguish volunteer, Stephen the Irishman: "The Almighty says, 'Don't change the subject, just answer the f***in' question.'"
+++
Indy Voter| 2.3.10 @ 2:24PM
Depressing but here's an interactive graphic of the proposed budget...huge increase to Education to nationalize student loans and look where the cuts are to special education / education for the disadvantaged...Veteran's comp and pensions cut that's just wrong.
http://www.nytimes.com/interac.....udget.html
Margie| 2.3.10 @ 3:00PM
Obama, the Spending Freeze Trickster-in-Chief.
May he continue to fail miserably, and may we continue to elect more and more conservatives to the Republican party.
NJ~VA~MA Keep going!
Everly Waverly| 2.3.10 @ 3:07PM
Undoubtedly someone has already mentioned this reply by Barack to a Charlie Gibson question during the 2008 campaign, about his wanting to increase cap-gains tax from the current 15%. Obama replied it was necessary to increase it because it was only "FAIR," even after Obama was reminded how lowering the tax was increasing revenue to the treasury.
No bull-headed Marxist ideologue is Obama and he claims to be a pragmatist...
Bob| 2.3.10 @ 5:51PM
Hey, Ken, it sound like you missed me!!! I'm sorry to disappoint you but I've consistently said that the national debt is immoral. Prior to Obama, the biggest contributors to that debt were Reagan and Bush.
But then again, Ferrara completely misses the point. It is not discretionary non-defense spending that is the problem, it is entitlements. You can cut discretionary non-defense spending by 60% and still not balance the budget.
That's why Ferrara doesn't really tell the truth here. You need to cut Medicare and Social Security in order to bring down the debt. In that respect, Republicans and Democrats ARE the same -- neither is willing to touch that third rail. The best approach I've heard comes from Paul Ryan -- he's the only one that has the guts to come out with a real plan. I find it interesting we don't see more support for Ryan here at AmSpec. It just goes to show that AmSpec readers really aren't fiscal conservatives -- they're not smart enough, I guess, to have actually read the budget.
FTM| 2.3.10 @ 7:39PM
Sorry Bob, I saw you palm that card.
Socialist security is not an "entitlement." Socialist security is a "trust fund" established by the federal government in order to assist the average American save money for their retirement years. The idea is that you pay in all of your working days and then you draw out after you retire.
Now, with all that said and the difference between an entitlement and a trust established, an entitlement being a form of welfare and drawing against a trust made in your behalf.
According to what I have read, socialist security was supposed to be entirely self contained by 1979 according to the projections made back in the 1930's. It is against the law for the federal government to borrow against the socialist security trust. That worked real well. The federal government has pillaged away the socialist security trust, mostly to pay for the entitlements that you talk about.
The bottom line is that we've been stuffing money down rat holes like the UN and paying little girls to hatch out babies and underwriting thug governments the world over for too long. The money is all gone.
Politics since Eisenhower has been a contest to see who can stave off the final financial disaster for another four years. The game is over, the jig is up. Democrat or republican the money is all gone and printing more won't make the mess any better.
The President of the United States seems to be completely oblivious to the fact that spending more money isn't helping and ignoring the American population is generating a lot of rage.
Ken (Old Texican)| 2.3.10 @ 8:06PM
FTM, welcome!
Once again we are delighted with your thought.
Really cool summary.
next year I have no choice but to go on Medicare. Fortunately, our company pays 100% of any co-pay, and first dollar coverage.
Heh...I figure I am good for another five or ten years...working.
I love my job.
When I can't do it any more, I would just as soon die and go be with the Lord.
(corny huh?)
Really though, I don't have a "bucket list" of things I should do.
I've already done them. (smile)
One thing I like to do day to day is encourage my little brothers and sisters.
Thank you so much for dropping in and visiting wih your best stuff.
Ken
FTM| 2.4.10 @ 5:42AM
Actually, I think that there are aspects of the "third rail" that you talk about that would be safe to jack with. Take for instance all these illegal immigrants, how is it that they can enroll their kids in a public school system? How is that? How is it that these illegal immigrants can apply for ANY socialist service successfully? How can that be?
How is it that when someone is caught red handed defrauding Medicare or Medicaid they aren't stood up against a wall and shot? (Figuratively speaking of course) How can these people ever again draw a free breath or actually own real property?
Then there's the laundry list of all the failed, failed, failed socialist pipe dream, limp wristed, bed wetting engineering projects that can be conveniently dispensed with, the United Nations, NATO (Why do we pay so dearly to defend a continent full of people that hate us?) How many billions of dollars have we paid to criminal governments, Haiti anyone, down through the years and what has it gotten us? How has all this foreign aid benifited the people that it was supposed to benifit?
Look eight or ten years ago, Sudan, Sudan where human slavery is practiced, human people are bought and sold on a daily basis had the chairmanship of the UN Human Rights Committee. How can that be?
How many carrier battle groups do the ChiComs have? Why do we play footsie with these people? Touch Taiwan and there won't be anything human to live on China's east coast for a long, long time. Same with the savages that call themselves moslems.
We have oil reserves in this country that are at least the equal of what is in Saudi Arabia. (I will allow that we haven't developed our petroleum reserves as part of a strategic plan to deplete middle eastern oil reserves.)
We have power generation technologies on the shelf that we don't use because of the bed wetters at the sierra club. Google up "pebble bed" fission reactor technology. Google up "ITER." We damn well know how and here we are screwing around with a bunch of pinwheel windmills in order to pacify a collection of half-wit tree huggers. Can't let the tree huggers whine you know.
Why hasn't the Climategate scandal made the press here in the US? Inhoff is the only politician with the reproductive fortitude to call a fraud a fraud.
This is easy.
Why are politicians the likes of sheila jackson-lee tolerated? I watched that lady on C-SPAN when the little mars rover landed and she stood up on the floor of the house of representatives and asked for a congressional resolution to ask NASA to drive the MARS rover to where the astronauts landed in the '60s and take pictures and nobody told the idiot to sit down and shut-up.
I guarantee you that I could hack a trillion dollars out of the federal budget in well under twenty-four hours.
RWinks| 2.5.10 @ 2:16PM
Just not spending the remaining "stimulus" and returning TARP payments to the Treasury would cut over 700 billion.
Pingback| 2.3.10 @ 6:14PM
History of Women's Shoes For the Golf Course | Golf Apparel Sale | Shoes Beauty Wisdo links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Ken (Old Texican)| 2.3.10 @ 7:50PM
Well hello, Bob.
Quit abusing your plumbing and welcome back.
You are still a congenital liar....and coward. heh.
You are such an easy target. Every time you write, we get a deeper and deeper chuckle.
Not only that, you are a terrible shot. Your johnson has more self inflicted holes than the ground's keeper in "Caddyshack".
You know, when handed the presidency of a Japanese trading company here in the US at age 27,
there were some 11,000 folks employed there. I only had to fire one.
Are you he?
Heh, I was so green and wet behind the ears, I got everybody together and asked them to help me do my job.....
One single engineer, (age 50), just could not stand the idea of a whippersnapper being his boss.
I would not accept his resignation. I fired him because I wanted him to collect unemployment benefits. (Quite generous here in Texas).
I was deeply concerned that he would have a another job...ever.
His mind was about as lop-sided as yours. He thought he should have been handed the presidency .
Sadly, he could not sell a sip of water to a dying person. He could not lead a college freshman to a beer-keg party.
You often sound just like him.
I am very very sorry for you. God bless
Mike| 2.3.10 @ 8:13PM
Lets begin with the$2 trillion swing into the red between the Clinton surplus and 2012.
According to the CBO:
(a) some 33 percent could be attributed to Bush legislation
(b) another 20 percent to Bush-initiated spending (Iraq, TARP) continued by Obama
(c) only 7 percent of the deficit could be credited to the Obama stimulus bill
(d) 3 percent to his other initiatives
(e) the remainder to the business cycle.
Add to these numbers, the worst economic mess we've been in since the Great Depression. Chalk this up to both parties and to many of our fellow citizens.
With NO DUE RESPECT to Representative Hensarling, you're a little late in your criticism.
Nick| 2.3.10 @ 11:44PM
Mike,
There was no Bubba the pervert "surplus." He had to be dragged kicking and screaming, over who knows how many women he raped, to sign the budget caps. Your memory is flawed.
President Dither voted for TARP as a senator. And has spent even more as president.
If it was so wrong for President Bush to have a $500 billion deficit, how much more wrong is it to have a $1.5 trillion deficit?
Ken (Old Texican)| 2.3.10 @ 8:32PM
Mike,
you are a liar and a scumbag troll for Alinsky and Soros.
We know better, fool.
Bob| 2.3.10 @ 8:41PM
Don't worry, Mike. Ken admitted he didn't know how to read the bottom line and has proven he can't even add.... Keep it simple for him.
Margie| 2.3.10 @ 9:26PM
Hateful man.
John II| 2.3.10 @ 11:37PM
Roberto, I've been giving this matter deep and sustained thought, stretching to perhaps 26 seconds, and once again ("again" pronounced to rhyme with "a-dane": it's important that you hear the correct intonation in my snotty reposte) I say, once again, I have concluded that your alleged occupation as a corporate bureaucrat did not properly educate you in the ways of enterprise but rather in the ways of the managerial class spoken of so sonorously by such frauds as the late J.K. Galbraith. Where was I?
Oh yes. Let me cite an example. My deep and sustained study of your numerous postings and accompanying drifts into the stellar domains of econometrics has left me persuaded that you don't know and apparently don't care (aye--there's the rub) about the approximately 68 percent of Americano wealth produced by Professor Obama's next target: small business. I shan't bore you with the stories of my sons' struggles with the taxing incursions of unproductive bureaucrats like yourself. But I do wish to point out a distinction for which you show no regard in your postings.
Republicans and Democrats ARE different. There are, of course, exceptions to the rule, but generally speaking the Republicans tend to be good-hearted, productive, and stupid; the Democrats on the other hand tend to be smug, freeloading, litigious, duplicitous, mendacious, and cunning.
I am old enough to recollect when the real political divide in our nation was mostly on concrete shades of policy and somewhat on vague matters of style. Today the real political divide in our nation is moral.
And so, even if, as an independent, I now vote almost exclusively Republican as you have claimed to do, we two are on opposite sides of the real political divide.
I hope my brief discourse clarifies the issue to your satisfaction. And now back to Wyatt Earp.
Franklin| 2.4.10 @ 1:51AM
John II, do you write as a profession? If not, you should consider it. Exceptional!
John II| 2.4.10 @ 1:36PM
Not as a profession, but as an avocation, so to speak. There's not much money in it--just enough to help pay tuition and dental bills.
I sometimes think I should have been a dentist instead of a teacher. It appears to be the only profession whose credentials include a license to steal.
Bob| 2.4.10 @ 9:48AM
John, that was a hoot.... I loved it....
Without investing your very long and arduous 26 seconds of contemplation, I happen to agree with almost all of your dissertation. But you said this:
"Republicans and Democrats ARE different. There are, of course, exceptions to the rule, but generally speaking the Republicans tend to be good-hearted, productive, and stupid; the Democrats on the other hand tend to be smug, freeloading, litigious, duplicitous, mendacious, and cunning."
I've searched all of my econometric data and charts, and can find no evidence that Democrats are "cunning".
Morality is a relational concept to all intelligent, sentient beings and an absolute to religious fundamentalists. Absolutism and liberty are opposing concepts.
Nick| 2.4.10 @ 12:11PM
3/5 Bob,
Wrong, yet again.
Absolutism and Libertinism/Licentiousness are opposing concepts.
Bob| 2.4.10 @ 1:26PM
1/5 Nick,
So you admit you are an absolutist! I'm sure you would have been for slavery and against women suffrage if you lived in that era. Did you? Do you walk upright?
Nick| 2.4.10 @ 3:59PM
3/5 Bob,
Yes, I'm an absolutist.
The world should obey the teachings of Our Lord, Jesus Christ, through His Vicar on Earth, the Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI and the Magesterium of the Catholic Church.
John II| 2.4.10 @ 1:24PM
"Morality is a relational concept to all intelligent, sentient beings and an absolute to religious fundamentalists. Absolutism and liberty are opposing concepts."
Are you absolutely sure about all that?
Confucius say, "Man who deny first principles have no ground on which to make denial."
Thank you so much for charming, if mistaken, rejoinder.
And now back to "Charlie Chan in Rio."
Bob| 2.4.10 @ 1:30PM
"Are you absolutely sure about all that?"
Relatively sure......
John II| 2.4.10 @ 1:45PM
So! You're sure that you're relatively sure!
Gotcha! Reread Book V of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, if you insist on a pagan optic. You old absolutist, you.
And now back to Chapter 19 of Exodus in the Pentateuch: a brief snack before returning to "Charlie Chan in Rio."
Bob| 2.4.10 @ 2:02PM
I detect a slight genuflection in your prose. Now back to the yard where I still have some live animals to sacrifice.
John II| 2.4.10 @ 3:18PM
"I detect a slight genuflection in your prose."
That's true! Hell, I'm even a Roman Catholic Christian stuck deeply in a tradition that goes back to Abraham and my Jewish elder brothers. And of course I'm totally into genuflecting and wafer-chomping, know-what-I-mean?
But Roberto--don't you see? Your charts could never give you such powers of detection. You know so much about the human heart without so much as a nod to the pretenses of the neurophysiologists who claim that we shall one day be able to read the heart like a gas meter. Or something.
Consider merely your (appropriate) confidence in your detection. I warrant that you know as well as I do that it is at least plausible to suppose (against the secular utilitarian certitudes you seem to have imbibed as a child of your times) I say, to suppose, for example, that your (and my) rejection of human slavery is at least as likely to be the consequence of a development in the understanding of moral absolutes as it is to be the consequence of allegedly changing morals.
Where do you suppose . . . no, wait. I must strive now for a tone of portentousness. And so: Whence cometh your own certainties in utter despite of your affirmation of the relativist wham-wham? Indeed, whence cometh any affirmation whatsoever?
Let not your culturally conditioned rejection of the Judaeo-Christian thing blind you to the reckoning of the sages. (I almost said "sages of the ages," but I caught myself: whence cometh such restraint, by the way?)
I mean, forget about the ancient Hebrews, who called it "emeth"; forget about St. Paul, who called it the "law written on the heart"; forget about the Christian thinkers at the Council of Arles, who called it "the first grace"; snicker at Aquinas and the scholastic philosophers, who called it the "first principles of practical reason." Fine.
But what about the Hindu sages, who called it "dharma"; or the Chinese philosophers, who called it the "Tao"; or the Greeks, who at first identified it with the goddess Themis but eventually became just as chic as you, Roberto, yet persisted in calling it by the techie term "synderesis"; or the pagan Roman Stoics, who called it by a term that caught on in the West: "lex naturalis"?
Right down to the present, among today's natural law philosophers, whose formulaic designation of "it" is characteristically logical: "that which we cannot not know."
Yea, Roberto, I do indeed genuflect. On occasion I even grovel before the wisdom of the ages. It is the considered opinion of all the greatest philosophers, of all the greatest poets, of all the great religions, of what Chesterton calls the "democracy of the dead"--the overwhelmly considered conclusion drawn from the experience of the species homo sapiens that there is indeed an absolute moral law with which we all mysteriously come into this world hardwired.
I am a small man standing on the shoulders of giants. Indeed, I do genuflect--which is rather a tricky feat up here on these shoulders, but I manage.
And now back to "Charlie Chan in Rio."
Bob| 2.4.10 @ 3:34PM
John, it's nice to see some intellect and good humor represented at AmSpec. I've thoroughly enjoyed your posts. Keep it up.... Now if Palin had one-tenth of your intellect, I would have voted for her.
Nick| 2.4.10 @ 4:05PM
3/5 Bob,
You would not have vote for her, she is a Christian.
Too religious for you.
Pingback| 2.3.10 @ 8:56PM
AMERICAN HISTORY X TRAILER ITALIANO DI SCARFACE1974FB.mp4 | Lancia Automotive Marque links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Richard V | 2.4.10 @ 12:45AM
FTM,
A minor in metallurgy! Wonderful! My calling in life is metallurgy and a specialty in high temperature superalloys used in jet engines.
FTM| 2.4.10 @ 4:59AM
Good for you Richard!
I was negotiating with Lockheed Martin for a job at the satellite control center at Sunnyvale when Challenger got all sideways. Story of my life. That's how I ended up in the automotive sector.
I had a plane ticket in my hand for the trip to Sunnyvale for a face to face talk. I had a professor in the graduate program that made all the arrangements. He worked on the seismographs that went to the moon with Apollo. That was on a Friday. Saturday morning I saw on the tube what happened. I couldn't breathe right again for hours.
The closest I ever came to a real job was at the Aircraft Engine Plant that GE has (had) at Evandale, Ohio.
Now I'm just a one eyebrow, no forehead, knuckle dragging, stoop shouldered, slack jawed, baggy eyed, wrench turning production support engineer working in a tier one plastic injection molding factory that supplies Toyota. I get more done in the first hour of my shift than my peers get done in a day.
It's funny in a not ha-ha way how life turns out sometimes.
FTM| 2.4.10 @ 5:03AM
I remember being in the Evandale plant and the guy led me up to a cart full of forged shafts maybe thirty feet long and maybe eight inches in diameter. He told me to pick one up. I told him that I couldn't pick up one of those things. He said to try. So I did. I was able to pick up one end of the forged shaft by myself. The guy said that the alloy was classified. I thought, "no $hit." The shakt was the center spindle for the F1101 engine that the Air Farce uses for the F-16 and the B-2. Stuff like that.
Yosemeti Sam| 2.4.10 @ 1:29AM
This Resident in the White House has the ears
but he don't hear a thing cause he's got that
ideological - swing.
jo| 2.4.10 @ 5:52AM
"He sang as if he knew me
In all my dark despair
And then he looked right through me
As if I wasn't there
And he just kept on singing
Singing clear and strong
Killing me softly with his song
Killing me softly with his song"
doug walk| 2.4.10 @ 3:22PM
everybody talks like obama is just a dumb spendthrift, but he's not, those are his marching orders from his puppetmaster, george soros.
"obama, destroy america as quietly as you can so the dumb americans won't suspect until it's too late"
Richard V | 2.4.10 @ 10:53PM
FTM,
I became a metallurgist because of my fascination with the jet engine and chose to specialize in developing new alloys for the hottest section of the engine (turbine). Actually, I had worked at Pratt & Whitney, GE Aircraft Engines (Evendale), etc. and am still enjoying my craft. Sorry folks to have strayed from the threat, but I have enjoyed your contributions to this blog, and as always hats off to Ken (Texican).
Richard V | 2.4.10 @ 11:00PM
FTM,
The shaft you lifted at the Evendale plant was probably forged from A286, a high strength alloy steel. It's the workhorse alloy used as forged shafts for military and commercial jet engines.
FTM| 2.5.10 @ 5:39AM
The stuff blew me away, very light in relation to it's apparent mass.
Ralph Novy| 2.5.10 @ 11:57AM
Rubbish.
Read Krugman for a sensible, nonhysterical take on the matter: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02.....mesKrugman
RWinks| 2.5.10 @ 2:27PM
Krugman and sensible don't belong in the same sentence.
MattZ| 2.5.10 @ 2:06PM
Oh, the fiscal outrage!
Mr. Ferrera, if conservatives want to have even one *iota* of crediblity on economic and budgetary matters, you'd have to act like the Bush years didn't even exist. Oh, wait . . . most right-wingers don't.
Compare:
It was during the *Bush years* when the president's budgets were supported by almost every member of the majority, including even those supposedly fiscally conservative *Republicans*
RWinks| 2.5.10 @ 2:36PM
Between 2002 and 2006, the four years when Reps. ran Congress, The minority Dems. main complaint about Rep. budgets is they were too niggardly and spent too little. At the end of 2006 when GDP, Manufacturing output, Federal revenues and the number of employed Americans were all at the highest levels in history, Pelosi-Reid took over Congress. After 3 years of Dem. control, MattZ, hows it working for you?
Phil| 2.5.10 @ 3:11PM
This article is just B.S. The national debt was over 5.7
trillion when Bush was elected. The national debt was
10.024 trillion in 2008 when Bush left office.
This information is from the U.S Department of The
Treasury web site. Peter Ferrara makes up B.S. just
like Sean Hannity. Bush increased the national debt
more than all presidents since world war 2 and
there nothing is to show for it except failing banks, failing car companies, massive numbers of foreclosures,
and high unemployment. What's Obama supposed
to do about the mess Bush left him?
Bush graduated from Yale with a B.S in history and a "C"
average and was not smart enough to be president.
Nick| 2.6.10 @ 1:09AM
"What's Obama supposed
to do about the mess Bush left him?"
President Dither (and you, brainiac) probably shouldn't criticize GWB for having $500 billion deficits, while he creates a $1.5 trillion deficit.
David Smith | 2.5.10 @ 7:08PM
Republicans are like arsonists who set a building ablaze and then criticize the fire department for wasting water.
Nick| 2.6.10 @ 1:04AM
That would make the democrats like Nero, wouldn't it?
Latisha| 2.8.10 @ 2:44AM
You don't have to drop a bomb on a country to destroy it. Obama is going to destroy America, or to coin a phase from his friend and false prophet Wright, 'damn America' by permanently crippling the US economy. Even most idiots are starting to figure that out.
Hydraulic Cylinder | 2.8.10 @ 4:09AM
Fivestar Tools,a professional china Hydraulic Cylinder manufacturer,we can offer hydraulic cylinders,hydraulic jack and double acting hydraulic cylinders.
Phil Opolemical| 3.7.10 @ 6:00AM
I would appreciate any recommendations for books, treatises, or articles that provide citations that would: (1) provide the financial numbers and their comparisons for federal spending and revenue over the prior ten or more years [not just BOB books]; (2) unemployment statistics for ten or more years with analysis why people lost their jobs, and when and how they found employment; (3) a categorization of job sources and which of these categories produce general revenue for federal, state and local government services - and perhaps some projections as to how many new jobs may be generated in each category over the next ten years; and finally (4) an economics book that offers supportable consclusions as to what should be acceptable levels of debt and taxation; and at what point government debt is intolerable; and when business taxation suppresses job growth.
A minor in Econ 45 years ago, working my own businesses and counciling clients provides some insights, but I need to do some current reading if I am to make any worthwhile comments to this year's election campaign - particularly in ILLinois. Thanks for any suggestions you pass on.
Pingback| 3.17.10 @ 11:12AM
The American Spectator : Spending America Into Oblivion links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Milli | 6.29.10 @ 5:26AM
At the rate he spends, and adjusting for inflation, how long would it have taken Obama to blow through Clinton's reserves? After all, and unprecedented, historical crisis occurred shortly after Bush took office. Or perhaps he would have save us from the brink of that crisis had he been in charge.
Obama mania seems so much like a mass movement, and his continual campaign seems an effort to keep this in an active phase. If that is true, those participating are using their creative energies to advance a movement and not to be actually creative. A lot of his followers are educated and literate; their energies are just focused on keeping a movement going.
explosion proof light | 11.15.10 @ 9:03AM
Actually, Abraham Lincoln was just as radical but in a different way. Ditto FDR.
german sex movie | 12.15.10 @ 1:49PM
Thank you very much for this information.
Good post thanks for sharing.
Converse | 8.12.11 @ 4:02AM
is good