It never goes away

Ever have a relative at the Thanksgiving dinner that doesn't know when it's time to leave?  That sticks around forever.  Well, a legislative version of The Man Who Came to Dinner is rearing its head now.

With time running out to reauthorize a 5-year Farm Bill, sources on Capitol Hill tell Breitbart News that Congressional leaders are preparing a short-term, one-month extension to allow more time for negotiations. Congress is desperate not to let the Farm Bill expire on December 31st. If it does, a decades old law would be triggered, causing the price of a gallon of milk to spike to $8 or more a gallon.

If the Farm Bill expires, farm programs revert to permanent law, passed in 1949. That law would require the federal government to buy milk and dairy products from producers at around twice the market rate. The government would also be required to maintain that price level through additional buying. It is estimated it would cost the government $12 billion a year to support the higher milk price level.

Did that say 1949?  Yep.

Rather than have to deal with a "farm bill", why doesn't someone in Congress with some common sense just put a stake through the heart of that old legislation and get it off the books, once and for all?  But no - it's all a political game, tying the price of milk to other desired outcomes in one large complex bill.

Personally, I'd be happy if milk prices went to $8 a gallon.  If nothing else, it could show the folly of having our federal government in the business of business.

H/T to Big Government at Breitbart.

Still doing fine

Following up on their earlier ad focusing on individuals and Obama's "fine" comment, the Romney campaign released another video, this time using members of the media to tell highlight the bad jobs situation.



Keep hammering.  This is the campaign McCain should have run.  Henry Clay said he'd rather be right than president.  McCain must have wanted to be polite and liked rather than president.  I just hope Romney would rather be president than just about anything else.

Hat tip to Ace of Spades and The Right Scoop.

More on "fine"

BigFurHat at I Own the World has created his own video.  For your consideration:

Doing just fine

Following up on Obama's "The private sector is doing fine" statement, the Romney campaign fires back with a great web ad.



I am so impressed with the Romney team's willingness to fire back at Obama, both fast and hard.  Had McCain done so, the 2008 would have been different.  Glad that Romney learned from watching that debacle.

With friends like this

You know the old rejoinder....who needs enemies.  Seems as though the Obama administration is in circular firing squad mode.

After his recent statement that the private sector is doing fine, Obama has been furiously trying to implement damage control.   But hoof-in-mouth disease seems to be contagious from The One.  From Fox News:

President Obama's top campaign strategist said Sunday that the country needs to "accelerate" job creation in the private sector -- by hiring more teachers, police and firefighters.

Let's get this straight...we stimulate the private sector by hiring people into the public sector.  Who cares that it's the private sector that pays for them.

"The private sector, we need to accelerate job creation in the private sector," Axelrod told CNN's "State of the Union," before adding: "One of the ways that we can do that is putting teachers and firefighters and police back to work because those are good middle-class jobs." 

Told that teachers and firefighters are part of the public sector, Axelrod continued to defend his statement. "But that will help accelerate the recovery," Axelrod said.

And these are the people in charge?  You see....it's not about the economy, it's about putting more people into the public sector where they become part of the Democratic - Labor money machine.

Language lesson

Richard Fernandez has a great little foreign language lesson:

Time for a language lesson. “Con mucho gusto te pagaré el Martes la hamburguesa de hoy.”  The English equivalent is “I’ll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger to-day”.  J. Wellington Wimpy would feel at home in Madrid.

Now, the question is....how do you say that in Greek?  Or Ebonics. Or Chicagoese?  Fernandez probes how all of these places are on the financial ropes for their own variants of playing Wimpy with the public funds.

Read it.

Really?

What planet is he on?  In response to a question, The One lets us know just how the economy is doing and where the problems are.

"The private sector is doing fine. Where we're seeing weaknesses in our economy have to do with state and local government, oftentimes cuts initiated by, you know, governors or mayors who are not getting the kind of help that they have in the past from the federal government."

Let's run that one more time.  Obama says that the private sector is doing fine.  Is he reading those falsified labor reports (that keep getting "revised") and believing his own propaganda?  But the telling statement is his view of where the problems lie.  It's that the GOVERNMENTS aren't doing well.  That they have had to cut back.

You see, it's all a matter of priorities.  Government must be served first, government jobs must be preserved and expanded.  Never mind the fact that the private sector, which pays for that government, is going to hell.  Nope, just keep those SEIU drones employed.

Stopwatch

Another new ad from Crossroads GPS, part of a multi-state television buy.



From the Crossroads press release:

Since President Obama took office in January 2009, the national debt has increased by more than $5 trillion.  At the same time, 45% more people are on food stamps, millions more have slipped into poverty, real earnings have dropped and job growth has stalled, causing record numbers of Americans to give up looking for work and exit the workforce. President Obama promised that his economic “stimulus” legislation would prevent the unemployment rate from rising above 8%, but it has been above 8% for every month of Obama’s presidency since February 2009.  The real unemployment rate is considered much higher by economists, due to the large number of discouraged workers who have left the workforce since Obama took office.

I'm a big fan of using The One's words against him.  This ad is a winner....simple, direct, and focused.

Hat tip to The Lonely Conservative.

The war on coal

In the run-up to the 2008 election, Obama declared that electricity from coal would become prohibitively expensive.  Even in the midst of economic troubles, the Obama team still believes in punishing coal.


Here's a video of EPA Region 1 Administrator Curt Spalding telling that “if you want to build a coal plant you got a big problem.”  The war on business and the American heartland continues.



Hat tip to Powerline.

A billion here

Paul Krugman goes on ABC's This Week and demonstrates how out of touch the elites are with Americans.  He says: "We’re talking as if a billion dollars was a lot of money".



Well, when that billion comes from you and me, it is a lot.  But when it's viewed from the world of OPM, it's chump change.

From Breitbart.

It's not just W anymore

President Obama found a way today to blame others than George Bush for his problems.  From the Washington Examiner:

President Obama attributed the rise in unemployment to European struggles and high gas prices in the United States, when he spoke to Minnesotans today.

"As we learned in today's jobs report, we're still not creating them as fast as we want," Obama said. "We had high gas prices, a month two months ago," he said, "and then, most prominently, most recently, we've had a crisis in Europe's economy that is having an impact worldwide; and it's starting to cast a shadow on our own [economy] as well."

"We can't fully control what happens in other parts of the world," Obama said, again citing "what's going on in Europe."

He then blamed Congress for failing to pass his jobs bill. "Congress should've passed a bill a long time ago to put thousands of construction workers back on the job," he said.

Maybe it's a warm and fuzzy from the portrait ceremony at the White House.  But note the consistency...it's always something outside and nothing that he's responsible for.  Except maybe those energy prices that could be solved by a little free-market leadership.  And.....

Public Equity -- the video

From American Crossroads comes this new ad.



Let's see....we have a choice between a candidate that has made money and a president who has lost money.

Duh!!

Public Equity

The Obama campaign has declared that Romney's time at Bain Capital will be their focus.  I hope they keep up that idea, because it's a net winner for Romney.  Especially if he works to contrast how his private equity work compares with Obama's "public equity" investments.

Marc Thiessen writes in the Washington Post:

Despite a growing backlash from his fellow Democrats, President Obama has doubled down on his attacks on Mitt Romney’s tenure at Bain Capital. But the strategy could backfire in ways Obama did not anticipate. After all, if Romney’s record in private equity is fair game, then so is Obama’s record in public equity — and that record is not pretty.

Since taking office, Obama has invested billions of taxpayer dollars in private businesses, including as part of his stimulus spending bill. Many of those investments have turned out to be unmitigated disasters — leaving in their wake bankruptcies, layoffs, criminal investigations and taxpayers on the hook for billions. Consider just a few examples of Obama’s public equity failures:

● Raser Technologies. In 2010, the Obama administration gave Raser a $33 million taxpayer-funded grant to build a power plant in Beaver Creek, Utah. According to the Wall Street Journal, after burning through our tax dollars, the company filed for bankruptcy protection in 2012. The plant now has fewer than 10 employees, and Raser owes $1.5 million in back taxes.

● ECOtality. The Obama administration gave ECOtality $126.2 million in taxpayer money in 2009 for, among other things, the installation of 14,000 electric car chargers in five states. Obama even hosted the company’s president, Don Karner, in the first lady’s box during the 2010 State of the Union address as an example of a stimulus success story. According to ECOtality’s own SEC filings, the company has since incurred more than $45 million in losses and has told the federal government, “We may not achieve or sustain profitability on a quarterly or annual basis in the future.” 

Much more in the complete article which can be found HERE.

Hat tip to Greg Mankiw for the pointer.

Political Homonym

From the brilliant Michael Ramirez:

Government made cell phones?

From the American Enterprise Institute comes this snippet from Mitt Romney's economic speech in Iowa discussing the difference between government and the private sector:

During my time in business and in state government, I came to see the economy as having three big players – the private sector, the states and localities and the federal government.

Of these three, the private sector is by far the most efficient and cost effective. That’s because scores of businesses and thousands of entrepreneurs are competing every day to find a way to deliver a product or a service that is better than anyone else’s. Think about smart phones. Blackberry got things going. Then Apple introduced the iPhone. Now the Android platform leads the market. In the world of free enterprise, competition brings us better and better products at lower and lower cost. Innovate and change or you go out of business. And the customer — us — benefits. …

Imagine if the federal government was the sole legal supplier of cell phones. First, they’d still be under review, with hearings in Congress. When finally approved, the contract to make them would go to an Obama donor. They’d be the size of a shoe, with a collapsible solar panel. And campaign donors would be competing to become the all-powerful app czar.

My point is this: As President Obama and old-school liberals absorb more and more of our economy into government, they make what we do more expensive, less efficient and less useful. They make America less competitive. They make government more expensive.

What President Obama is doing is not bold; it’s old.

Just what does government do better?

Don't cry for me

The EU decides to flex its muscle.

European Union trade chief Karel De Gucht said Monday the bloc will shortly take action against Argentina's government, after its decision to seize control of oil giant Repsol's YPF subsidiary.

"We will soon be moving forward with a response to Argentina's action in the Repsol case, in particular," De Gucht said in a speech during which he complained of a "growing tendency towards protectionism across Latin America."

Argentine President Cristina Kirchner on Friday signed a bill expropriating 51 percent of YPF's stock from Repsol, its majority shareholder, sealing a measure that has roiled the country's trade ties with Europe.

"Argentina has also continued other trade restrictive policies, like its import-licensing regime," De Gucht added.

"And just last week we saw Bolivia take another step towards nationalising utility companies at the expense of a Spanish firm.

"These types of moves are of course a problem for Argentina and Bolivia -- which will find it harder to secure the international investment they need," he underlined.

EU officials have already complained about the "overly broad use" of red tape, notably in the "pre-registration and pre-approval of all imports into Argentina."

Individual states may also suspend WTO-compliant preferential trade status accorded to Buenos Aires.
Spain's Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy said Monday that the seizure will trigger a "tremendous" loss in investor confidence in the country, while other international organisations have also criticised the measure.

Argentina is a delightful country; the OC has visited there several times and loves to feast on Argentine steaks and Malbec wine.  But the people and politicians are some of the most self-destructive in the world.  The nationalist populism of Juan Peron has never left the Argentine psyche, much to its detriment.

It starts with class envy populism, moves on to increasing governmental control and international antagonism.  It then spirals into a cycle of government actions, market responses and further governmental interventions. When it fails, and given its nature it always will, the fault will be blamed on others.  Yankees.  The Spanish.  Whomever.

Eva got out while the going was still good.

Investors on the Sidelines

The brilliant Victor Davis Hanson, writing at National Review Online, looks at why the economy isn't moving.

We recently saw lots of sit-down strikes and demonstrations — the various efforts in Wisconsin, the Occupy movements, and student efforts to oppose tuition hikes. None of them mattered much or changed anything. There is a sit-down strike, however, that has paralyzed the country and has been largely ignored by the media.

Most economists since 2009 have been completely wrong in their forecasts, reminding us that their supposedly data-driven discipline is more an art than a science. After all, a great deal of money is invested and spent — or not — based largely on perceptions, hunches, and emotions rather than a 100 percent certainty of profit or loss.  And the message Americans are getting is that the Obama administration is hostile to investment and business, and thus should be waited out.

Barack Obama’s original economic team — Austan Goolsbee, Christina Romer, Larry Summers, Peter Orszag — have long fled the administration, and have proved mostly wrong in all their therapies and prognostications of 2009. Despite the stimulus of borrowing over $5 trillion in less than four years, near-zero interest rates, and chronic deficits, the U.S. economy is in the weakest recovery since the Great Depression and mired in the longest streak of continuous unemployment of 8 percent or higher — 38 months — since the 1930s. The Mexican economy is growing more rapidly than is ours. Why did not massive annual $1 trillion–plus deficits spark a recovery, as government claimed an ever larger percentage of GDP, and new public-works projects were heralded by the administration?

Read the whole story for the details.  And the undeniable conclusion.

If I Wanted America to Fail

This has been making the rounds, but for those who have missed it up til now - from Free Market America.



This is a message that needs to be repeated again and again. Because we have a president that wants a lesser America.

Solyndra and the iceberg

Solyndra may only be the tip of the iceberg.  From Powerline:

Well, today we learn, courtesy of a Freedom of Information Act request by the Wall Street Journal, that fully one-third of the Dept. of Energy’s clean energy loan portfolio is on an internal “watch list” for being at high risk.  No wonder Obama is now saying, Solyndra—never heard of them, wasn’t us . . . per se.  Solyndra wasn’t an outlier: it is the model.

Maybe they are trying to delay the bankruptcies until after November.  Wouldn't put it past any of that bunch.

Regulatory Insanity

Patterico posts this story from Southern California:

We submitted our building construction plans for the restaurant last year to the county. We had over fifty revisions including a request that the trash dumpster have an enclosure. We stated that the dumpster had a walled enclosure of six feet in height and that the dumpster was rain proof. The County stated that we must have a roof over the trash dumpster. We had the architect draw it up. The plans returned rejected.

The County now rejected the dumpster enclosure because it violated the Americans with Disabilities Act. They required that we build a ramp with a locking gate at the top of the ramp for any wheelchair-bound employee. We argued that the public did not have access to the enclosure and we would not ask any employees in a wheelchair to throw out the trash. The County stated that the lack of a ramp would create a barrier to hiring a handicapped person.

The additional ramp with locking gate increased construction costs by $17,000 and it will take my employees longer to throw out the trash on a daily basis.

And you want to know why the economy isn't rebounding.....just look at the obstacles your friendly bureaucrats love to construct.  Where is the ramp to overcome THAT barrier??

Full story is HERE.