Greg Knapp had zero experience in radio, and yet became a nationally syndicated talk show host in nine years. He was working as an in-home counselor and behavioral specialist for children and their families when he decided to pursue his American dream in radio. He went from being a radio producer, to buying time on the air for his own show, to becoming an afternoon drive time host in the fifth biggest market in America, to becoming a nationally syndicated talk show host.
After graduating from the University of Florida with a degree in psychology and the University of North Florida with a Masters degree in counseling psychology, Knapp drifted from job to job trying to find his purpose. He dug ditches, worked construction, waited tables, taught climbing and rappelling techniques, and worked as a felony probation and parole officer. But nothing made him feel fully alive and joyful until he started talking on the radio.
His entertaining radio program is created from a combination of unbridled enthusiasm, information and humor.
His award-winning show covers the topics Americans care about and is guided by the principles of more freedom and less government. Those ideals also led Knapp to be the host and narrator of a new documentary on wasteful government spending, “Bringing Home the Bacon.”
He has given his expert opinion as a regular guest on CNBC’s “Power Lunch,” and “CNBC Reports.” Knapp has also appeared on numerous television programs on Fox News Channel including “The O’Reilly Factor” and on CNN.
As a writer, he has penned opinion columns for many newspapers and websites including The Washington Examiner, The Dallas Morning News, and Human Events.
He is married with two beautiful daughters and lives in Florida.
“No matter how difficult our politicians have made it, the American Dream is still alive for those who pursue happiness with every ounce of passion they possess.”
-- Greg Knapp
Greg Knapp
Time to Pay the IOUs out of the ‘Lock Box’
by Greg Knapp
All the lies about the Social Security “lock box” are now on full display. This is the year we will start paying out more from the SS program than we took in. We’ve gotten here even earlier than predicted. This wasn’t supposed to happen until 2017. Whoops…
Sounds like a good time to start tapping the nest egg. Too bad the federal government already spent that money over the years on other programs, preferring to borrow from Social Security rather than foreign creditors. In return, the Treasury Department issued a stack of IOUs — in the form of Treasury bonds— which are kept in a nondescript office building just down the street from Parkersburg’s municipal offices.
Now the government will have to borrow even more money, much of it abroad, to start paying back the IOUs, and the timing couldn’t be worse. The government is projected to post a record $1.5 trillion budget deficit this year, followed by trillion dollar deficits for years to come.
But, wait! We have $2.5 trillion in there and it’s earning interest. It’s real money. We’re fine, right? Right. Pull this leg and it plays “Jingle Bells.” This is the mess conservatives have warned about for so long. The lock box hoax is nothing but a promise from the government (us) to pay us. Yes, the bonds will be paid, but that shouldn’t ease your anxiety. The money has to come from somewhere. Government only has two choices to get it:
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The Dems Don’t Trust Obama – for Good Reason
by Greg Knapp
All this talk about reconciliation is a distraction from the bigger picture: In one year Obama has lost his own party. He can’t get them to pass his signature bill. And now he has lost their trust. (Even though the media rarely mentions it, he had a filibuster proof majority in the senate and a super majority in the house and he STILL couldn’t get it done.)
The WSJ has a great piece on this
The cleanest option for Democrats would be for the House to pass the Senate’s Christmas Eve bill word for word, thereby bypassing a Senate filibuster under the normal rules and forwarding ObamaCare directly to the Rose Garden signing ceremony. But Speaker Nancy Pelosi has repeatedly said the votes simply don’t exist for the Senate bill as is…
Thus the convoluted scheme the White House has mapped out. The House would first pass the Senate bill, and then pass a reconciliation bill that addresses these objections—in effect converting the process into a makeshift and unprecedented vehicle for amendments…
Iron-clad promise—or double-cross? After all, the White House would much prefer the Senate bill, because by its lights the cost-control programs are tougher than what the House prefers…
In other words, perhaps Mr. Obama has embraced this reconciliation two-step only to renege as soon as the House gives him what he wants.
Add in Rep. Massa’s (D-NY) accusations that Obama’s boys booted him out because he voted against the “health care” bill and the allegations that Obama gave away a judicial appointment to Congressman Matheson (D-Utah) to get his vote for health care and the unbelievable has occurred. The bill looks sleazier than it did after the Cornhusker Kickback, The Louisiana Purchase and the Gator Aid.
Moderate Democrats can’t trust their own president. Getting ANY health care bill passed is now Obama’s top priority. He has convinced himself that it will be his legacy. He knows it’s very unpopular with the American people. (Even SNL knows that). But he believes the people just don’t know what’s good for them and they will eventually thank him for it. The lefties think you are too stupid to handle your own affairs – watch Robert Reich.
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New Government Programs Always Cost More Than Predicted
by Greg Knapp
It’s time to stop playing along with this ridiculous game called, “The government says the health care bill will cost…” It’s always wrong. And it’s always wrong by underestimating the cost. Why don’t the Republicans point this out? (Probably because they’ve been big government spenders, too.)
Look back at when Medicare was first created:
At its start, in 1966, Medicare cost $3 billion. The House Ways and Means Committee estimated that Medicare would cost only about $ 12 billion by 1990 (a figure that included an allowance for inflation). This was a supposedly “conservative” estimate. But in 1990 Medicare actually cost $107 billion.
In 2007, total Medicare spending was $431 billion! That isn’t even close to the costs predicted in 1965. Why do we act like the numbers coming out of Congress and the CBO have any basis in reality?
The predictions for Medicaid were just as wrong:
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Obamacare Taxing Your Savings and Investments in the Name of Fairness
by Greg KnappCongress can raise taxes because it can persuade a sizable fraction of the populace that somebody else will pay.
– Milton Friedman
How dare you save and invest your hard earned money while other people waste it can’t afford to. It’s just not fair that you’re making “unearned” income and we need to take more of that from you to pay for our big government programs.
Terrence Jeffrey has the details from Obamascare 2.0:
“Under current law, workers who earn a salary pay a flat tax of 1.45 percent of their wages to support the Medicare Hospital Insurance (HI) trust fund, but those who have substantial unearned income do not, raising issues of fairness,” says the summary.
Fairness?! The Redistributor in Chief wants to go there? Seriously?
Right now, the people who earn very little, or nothing, get way more back in Medicare than they’ve ever paid in and there is no income cap on the Medicare tax. The rich are already paying more than their “fair share.” In addition the money being used to make unearned income has already been taxed at least once.
The Wall Street Journal points out the unprecedented nature of the taxes and how anti-growth it is:
This new ObamaCare bargain would for the first time apply the 2.9% Medicare payroll tax to “interest, dividends, annuities, royalties and rents,” so-called passive income that we are told includes capital gains, though the latter wasn’t explicitly mentioned in the proposal. This antigrowth investment tax would apply to singles earning more than $200,000 and joint filers over $250,000 and comes on top of the Senate’s 0.9-percentage-point increase in the payroll tax, which would bring the combined employee-employer share to 3.8%
Hey, wait a second, didn’t Obama say he wouldn’t raise any tax on families making less than $250k/year?
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Happy Stimulus Day! One Year’s Worth of Waste
by Greg Knapp
No man’s life, liberty, or property are safe while the legislature is in session.
– Mark Twain
The Obama peeps are actually trying to celebrate the one year anniversary of the $862 billion “drive us into perpetual debt” bill. Biden repeatedly told an audience in Saginaw, MI -unemployment 14% – that the “stimulus” is working.
Thanks, Joe! Hey, maybe that’s the next great achievement of The One. Back in the real world people are finally starting to notice that all this debt we’re racking up could lead to inflation, kill your savings and wages, and make it harder for you and businesses to borrow money.
Over the past year alone, the amount the U.S. government owes its lenders has grown to more than half the country’s entire economic output, or gross domestic product.
Even more alarming, experts say, is that those figures will climb to an unprecedented 200 percent of GDP by 2038 without a dramatic shift in course.
“Within 12 years&the largest item in the federal budget will be interest payments on the national debt,” said former U.S. Comptroller General David Walker. “[They are] payments for which we get nothing.”
There’s no getting around the fact that eventually we have to pay this back and the interest payments are killing us.
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‘Tough’ Decisions on Spending Include $2.5M on Super Bowl Ad
by Greg Knapp
Where to cut the spending? Obama has told us we have to make some tough choices. Yup, it wasn’t easy, but they decided to keep in the $2.5 million for a Census ad during the Super Bowl. That’s just a part of the $132 million we will spend to tell people to fill out and mail in their census forms.
We’d get a better bang for our buck by gambling it in Vegas. No matter what Obama says about the town, at least there we would have a chance to win big.
I understand that our constitution requires a census every ten years, but it does not require we waste our money advertising for it. You don’t turn it in – you’re not counted. Next!
Here are some of the proposed cuts listed on the White House blog as ”tough choices” for 2011:
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We Need a Real Spending Freeze and Tax Cuts
by Greg Knapp
Don’t you hate it when you go to a 50% off sale and then realize the store marked up all the prices in order to offer the big savings? Welcome to President Barack Obama’s spending freeze.
It’s hard to keep up with the shocking numbers under Obama. Federal spending was up 18% in his first year and the deficit was $1.4 trillion, almost three times greater than it was the previous year. That’s 9.9% of 2009’s GDP, more than three times the post World War II average. (Sorry, Barry, but you can’t blame it all on Bush. That budget was done under a Democrat House and Senate and signed by you. ) Depending on whose numbers you believe federal nondefense discretionary spending will increase another 7-10% for 2010.
The Congressional Budget Office says we’ll run at least another $1.35 trillion deficit. The average deficit for 2011-2020 will be around $600 billion per year. Even in Washington that’s a lot of money.
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Stimulus Wasted and Most Americans Know It
by Greg Knapp
A new poll by CNN, shows that almost 75% of Americans believe the “stimulus” wasted most of our money. There’s more:
- 63% of public thinks projects in plan were included for purely political reasons.
- 21% of people in poll say nearly all the money in the stimulus has been wasted.
- Only 4% think that no stimulus dollars have been wasted.
- 56% of the public opposes the stimulus
Joe Klein says if you think like this you’re just Too Dumb to Thrive. Klein believes we should be thanking The One for our big tax cut. Hey, I’m always in favor of letting people keep more of their own money, but if you’re looking to stimulate the economy we are doing the wrong kinds of tax cuts. Klein also ignores all the tax increases The Big O has planned.
Maybe people are a little ticked over how some of the “stimulus” money has been spent.
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Now Barney Frank and the Dems are for the Nuclear Option
by Greg Knapp
Take a listen to Barney Frank saying “God didn’t invent the filibuster.”
Remember way back in 2003 when the Republicans were looking to rewrite the senate rules so the Dems couldn’t filibuster judicial nominees?
Partisan disagreement over judicial nominations is so intense that senators couldn’t even agree on the title of Mr. Cornyn’s hearing: “Judicial Nominations, Filibusters and the Constitution: When a majority is denied its right to consent.”"The title suggests that [the hearing] may be intended to turn up the heat rather than cool things down,” said Sen. Russell D. Feingold, Wisconsin Democrat, who warned that any effort to change Senate rules “will be met with stiff resistance.”As with the country’s actual nuclear arsenal, there is a form of mutually assured destruction here, too.The only thing holding Republicans back from breaking the filibuster this way is knowing that the same weapon will be used against them someday in the future when the roles are reversed. “The old bears in the Senate want to preserve their ability to filibuster the Democrats in the future,” said one key Senate aide, who also stressed that such a maneuver would only be used to break filibusters involving executive nominees.”If the Democrats take back the Senate — God forbid — the first 10 things they bring up will be anathema to us but they’ll say [forget] you, we have our 51 votes.”
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Obama’s Found a Villain to Distract the Angry Voter
by Greg KnappThe voters are getting angry at The One. A majority disapprove of how he’s handling health care “reform” AND the economy. The AP reports that the billions spent on road construction has done nothing to lower unemployment. The “most popular government program” in years, Cash-4 -Clunkers was actually, predictably, a flop. Unemployment is way higher than they said it would be if we didn’t rush through the borrow and spend porkulus bill.
So, what to do to keep the rabble from voicing their displeasure? Blame someone else! Obama wants to tax the big bad banks. He says it’s to get our TARP money back and to reduce undue risks by the greedy bankers. The One wants you to believe that the big banks are the kind of guys who would take the last piece of pizza from the birthday boy at Chuck-E-Cheese (see above photo).
Obama has been strident in his criticism of bankers, calling them “fat cats” last month in an interview that aired on the eve of their visit to the White House. With public anger over the bailout still strong, Obama has embraced populist rhetoric in an effort to shame bank executives into paying back the government more quickly and their executives less lavishly.
At the White House on Monday, Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs jabbed at the perceived disconnect between Wall Street executives and their customers. The spokesman said the disparity angered his boss.
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Don’t Worry, It’s Only $400-600 Million to Try Terrorists in NYC
by Greg Knapp
If you needed another reason to be against trying KSM and his band of merry maniacal Islamists in NYC, here it is.
New York City projects it will cost more than $400 million to provide security if the pre-trial preparation and trial of the suspects in the Sept. 11 terror attackstakes two years, which insiders say is virtually certain, according to New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
It will cost another $206 million annually if the trial runs beyond two years, which some fear is possible, the mayor’s office estimates.
There may be some who think this is a great way to make the liberal elites on the upper west side put their money where their mouth is when it comes to giving terrorists the same rights guaranteed to American citizens under the U.S. constitution, but, of course, we will ALL have to pay for this.
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Climategate Spreading to NASA?
by Greg Knapp
It’s not just the scientists at the Climate Research Unit of East Anglia University who may have criminally violated the Freedom of Information Act (some profesors in the UK and some in the USA), NASA has been stonewalling a FOIA request as well… for years.
Chris Horner, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, said NASA has refused for two years to provide information under the Freedom of Information Act that would show how the agency has shaped its climate data and would explain why the agency has repeatedly had to correct its data going as far back as the 1930s.
“I assume that what is there is highly damaging,” Mr. Horner said. “These guys are quite clearly bound and determined not to reveal their internal discussions about this.”
NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies is saying they’re “working on” the FOIA request.
Right. For two years?!
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Dodd Wants A Consumer Financial Protection Agency. Will It Regulate Congress?
by Greg Knapp
With everyone focused on the “health care” bill and Afghanistan is anyone paying attention to the push for another government agency? The Consumer Financial Protection Agency is on the way.
“* Dodd Backs Obama proposal to create agency to regulate credit cards, mortgages, other financial products
* Strips consumer protection duties from existing agencies, including Federal Reserve, Comptroller of the Currency, Office of Thrift Supervision, Federal Deposit Insurance Corp, National Credit Union Administration, Federal Trade Commission.
* Lets states pass tougher consumer protections, preventing federal regulations from preempting stronger state laws.”
Dodd and Obama want a Consumer Financial Protection Agency to protect you from fraudulent and deceptive lending practices that they claim created our financial crisis. Fraud and deception are already illegal. This is really to protect you from being stupid. See, if you were smart enough to understand the terms, you would never have bought that huge house with 0% down and a five year adjustable, interest only loan. Yeah, right.
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Forcing Us to Buy Health Insurance Is Not the Same as Mandatory Car Insurance
by Greg Knapp
I thought this analogy had been thoroughly destroyed, but it’s baa-aack. The One is claiming it’s no biggie that the new “health care” bills require every American to buy insurance because most states require everyone to buy car insurance. He goes back to that analogy as he downplays the fact that if you don’t buy health insurance you will eventually be sent to prison.
The President said that he didn’t think the question over the appropriateness of possible jail time is the “biggest question” the House and Senate are facing right now.
I’m thinking it’s a pretty big question for people who don’t want to buy health insurance and don’t want to pay a fine. The only way a “mandate” works is that, eventually, jail time is the punishment. Otherwise, people can ignore the mandate.
Back to the car insurance analogy:
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