President Obama Proves Glenn Beck’s ‘Fundamental Transformation’ Argument

Somebody nominate Bret Baier for a Pulitzer!  There has never been a more revealing interview with Candidate or President Obama and after yesterday, there likely won’t be one again.

The president found his conversation with Baier “frustrating” because it focused too much on “process” for his taste.  The irony is, if Obama’s Democratic colleagues supported his health care take-over, process wouldn’t be an issue.  They don’t and thus it is.  So it is important because it shows the leadership will change the rules in order to get what they want.

But the president proved Glenn Beck’s argument that the fundamental transformation of America has begun.

“We’re not transforming one-sixth of the economy all in one fell swoop,” Obama told Baier.

This implies that what is being bandied about is only the beginning, not the end.    And that pattern of thought has emerged from Washington with similar statements from Sens. Tom Harkin and Sherrod Brown.

It is likely what persuaded Rep. Dennis Kucinich to flip from a ‘no’ to a ‘yes.’

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Tags: bret baier, congressional process, fundamental transformation, Glenn Beck, government health care
Posted Mar 18th 2010 at 11:20 am in Uncategorized | 91678173 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/kolson/2010/03/18/president-obama-proves-glenn-becks-fundamental-transformation-argument/President+Obama+Proves+Glenn+Beck%E2%80%99s+%27Fundamental+Transformation%27+Argument2010-03-18+18%3A20%3A11Kyle+Olson

Rigging the Healthcare Debate with Dishonest Numbers

President Obama and congressional Democrats are claiming that a giant new entitlement program will reduce red ink.  It’s tempting to laugh and dismiss such a preposterous claim. After all, these are the same people who told us that squandering $787 billion on a so-called stimulus would create jobs. Unfortunately, the joke’s on us. According to the “official” scoring estimates on Capitol Hill, Obamacare supposedly will lower the deficit because taxes are being increased more than spending is being increased (not that this should matter since America’s fiscal crisis is spending and deficits are merely a symptom). But these numbers, produced by the Congressional Budget Office and Joint Committee on Taxation, are highly suspect. I’ve explained elsewhere why the spending projections from the CBO are grossly flawed, and many other experts have made similar observations. The same problem exists on the revenue side of the ledger.  This video explains why we should be very skeptical of any numbers produced by the Joint Committee on Taxation.

Let’s put this in context by reviewing the supposedly nonpartisan numbers that the JCT has produced. The Senate bill has big tax increases on insurance companies, medical device makers, and so-called cadillac health plans. The House plan, meanwhile, largely relies on higher income tax rates on investors and entrpreneurs. And both bills impose huge marginal tax rate increases on middle class taxpayers thanks to the phase out of subsidies, as explained in gruesome detail by my Cato Institue colleage Michael Cannon.

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Tags: CBO, Congressional Budget Office, Dynamic scoring, government-run healthcare, health care
Posted Mar 17th 2010 at 6:15 am in Big Labor, Congress, Economics, Featured Story, Healthcare, News, Obama, Politics, Uncategorized, federal spending | 90806112 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/dmitchell/2010/03/17/rigging-the-healthcare-debate-with-dishonest-numbers/Rigging+the+Healthcare+Debate+with+Dishonest+Numbers2010-03-17+13%3A15%3A56Dan+Mitchell

Republic on the Precipice

I sometimes wonder if Americans really have any idea of the scope of the danger facing this country. I also wonder if they don’t deserve the disaster that is coming.

Americans loudly focus their anger on the President, who is seeking to profoundly alter the structure and nature of the United States. But they cannot let themselves off the hook; they elected this man, after all, and by a wide margin.

Remember, Barack Obama had long kept company with loathsome men overflowing with hatred for the United States. His associates included an anti-American, unrepentant terrorist (Bill Ayers) and a deranged, anti-American preacher (Reverend Wright). And Obama’s own stated economic philosophy is confiscatory redistributionist – “spread the wealth around,” as he so forthrightly put it.

All of this was known in 2008. And Americans elected him anyway. And now they whine and complain that this man attempting to socialize the republic? What a thoroughly unserious people – if you stick your head in the gaping maw of a ravenous lion, you would be a fool to complain when it closes its jaws. It is the nature of lions to devour flesh; it is the nature of socialists to devour liberty.

And there is another culprit who must not escape blame.

The Republican Party, which botched a war – a just war – so badly that it made a leftist “community organizer” seem like presidential material. The Party which acquiesced to massive government expansions at the expense of liberty throughout the 20th Century; the New Deal, the Great Society, untold bloated federal programs which shamefully betray Republican fingerprints, programs which have habituated Americans to a certain amount of socialism in their society, including socialism in our health care.

And now the GOP makes a stand? Now it draws a line?

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Tags: Barack Obama, Bill Ayers, Iraq war, Jeremiah Wright, Republican Party
Posted Mar 15th 2010 at 2:57 pm in Uncategorized | 90126494 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/mpatterson/2010/03/15/republic-on-the-precipice/Republic+on+the+Precipice2010-03-15+21%3A57%3A17Matt+Patterson

The Consent of the Governed

Knowing that the 111th Democrat-Progressive ruled Congress is indeed tyrannical in its endeavors to ram through ObamaCare, the Left continuously touts that the American people want this bill. Now, I have seen the polls and so have you, and so have the Democrats, including Obama, and they clearly know that they American people are vehemently against this healthcare takeover.

This leads me to my next point. I search through our Founder’s words in the Declaration of Independence. I’m searching for guidance, for the Founders must have known there would be tyranny lurking at every corner to deconstruct the nation that they had instituted. So many of us read the founding documents today, dusting them off, reading every word, clinging to every word. And there it is:

That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. emphasis mine

What’s missing is the how. We have the Right. But, does it go further?  An obligation, perhaps? Do the Founders leave the door open to any effective means? The people have the Right to abolish an oppressive form of government. Because we do not consent, we have the Right to institute a new government–to abolish all that exists and start new. All the entitlements, bribes, kickbacks, deals, unfair taxation–everything.  They give Americans the Right, directive, and ability to dissolve the current tyrannical government.  They knew this would happen.  That is why they give us the “Right” to guard this great nation against future tyranny.

In addition, our Founders, as only Fathers could to, give us the directive in the Declaration of Independence:

But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. emphasis mine

It is our duty to ”throw off such government.” Not optional.  An obligation.

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Tags: Anita Dunn, Blue dogs, Cass Sunstein, consent of the governed, executive power
Posted Mar 15th 2010 at 1:21 pm in Uncategorized | 89050234 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/sahiller/2010/03/15/the-consent-of-the-governed/The+Consent+of+the+Governed2010-03-15+20%3A21%3A54SusanAnne+++Hiller

Time to Pay the IOUs out of the ‘Lock Box’

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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Tags: Big Government, Nancy Pelosi, national debt, Social Security, social security reform
Posted Mar 15th 2010 at 9:14 am in Political Humor, Tax Reform, Uncategorized, federal spending | 89882123 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/gknapp/2010/03/15/time-to-pay-the-ious-out-of-the-lock-box/Time+to+Pay+the+IOUs+out+of+the+%27Lock+Box%272010-03-15+16%3A14%3A15Greg+Knapp

Keynesian Economics and the Wizard of Oz

When Dorothy and her friends finally reach Oz, they present themselves to the almighty Wizard, only to eventually discover that he is just an illusion maintained by a charlatan hiding behind a curtain. This seems eerily akin to to the state of Keynesian economics. It does not matter that Keynesianism isn’t working for Obama. It does not matter that it didn’t work for Bush, or for Japan in the 1990s, or for Hoover and Roosevelt in the 1930s.

In the ultimate triumph of theory over reality, the Keynesians say all that matters is the macroeconomic model behind the curtain showing that more government spending leads to more jobs and growth. Consider the recent report from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), which claimed that Obama’s stimulus created at least one million jobs. As Brian Riedl of the Heritage Foundation noted:

CBO’s calculations are not based on actually observing the economy’s recent performance. Rather, they used an economic model that was programmed to assume that stimulus spending automatically creates jobs — thus guaranteeing their result. …The problem here is obvious. Once CBO decided to assume that every dollar of government spending increased GDP…, its conclusion that the stimulus saved jobs was pre-ordained.

But surely this can’t be true, you may be thinking. Our public servants in Washington would not make important policy decisions based on a model that automatically produces a certain result, would they? Peter Suderman of Reason pulls aside the curtain:

…those reports rely on assumption-packed models that effectively predetermine their outcomes; what they say, in essence, is that the stimulus worked because we assume it did. …That’s especially true when estimating government spending’s productive effects, which is accomplished by plugging numbers into a formula that assumes that government spending produces a multiplier—an increased return for every government dollar spent. In other words, it extrapolates from how much money is put in rather than from what has actually come out. And it does so using a formula that dictates that if money is put in, even more money will come out. According to the CBO’s estimates, depending on how the money is spent, one dollar of government spending can produce total economic activity of up to $2.50. What a deal! …for all practical purposes, the same multipliers that were used to predict how many jobs would be created are being used to estimate how many jobs have been created.

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Tags: Big Government, CBO, Deficit, Economics, federal spending
Posted Mar 13th 2010 at 5:10 pm in Congress, Economics, News, Obama, Politics, Uncategorized | 88538248 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/dmitchell/2010/03/13/keynesian-economics-and-the-wizard-of-oz/Keynesian+Economics+and+the+Wizard+of+Oz2010-03-14+01%3A10%3A17Dan+Mitchell

Big Labor’s Big Disappointment

Authored with Bruce McElvein

Recently Vice President Joe Biden spoke to the AFL-CIO executive council in Florida. As Ricky Ricardo used to tell Lucy, Labor thinks the Vice President’s “got some ’splainin’ to do.”

The Vice President was defensive saying “I know it doesn’t seem like it, but we’ve come a long way in 12 months … In terms of the NLRB, we’re going to get it done. In the fight for EFCA, we’ve got to sit down and figure out where we go from here…. I think we’re going to get it done.”

The Obama administration and the Democrats in Congress have fallen far short of the promises they made to Big Labor during the 2008 campaign. Unions have not seen any significant legislative victories despite Democrats holding the White House and large majorities in both houses of Congress.

Labor’s top priority, the Employee Free Choice Act, is on life support and both labor leaders and Democrats have acknowledged it will likely not pass it its current form. Other versions have been proposed but none have been introduced.

EFCA, in its current form, would effectively eliminate the secret ballot in union organizing elections. This process is known as card check. The bill would also allow mandatory binding arbitration by government bureaucrats if a contract was not agreed to within 120 days of a union being formed and one side demanded the process.

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Tags: Big Labor; EFCA; Card Check; Richard Trumka; Andy Stern; Union; Craig Becker; Hilda Solis
Posted Mar 12th 2010 at 1:51 pm in Uncategorized | 88126103 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/vmariano/2010/03/12/big-labors-big-disappointment/Big+Labor%E2%80%99s+Big+Disappointment2010-03-12+21%3A51%3A12F.+Vincent+Vernuccio

The Dems Don’t Trust Obama – for Good Reason

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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Tags: Barack Obama, Big Government, government health care, health care reform, ObamaCare
Posted Mar 9th 2010 at 6:57 am in Congress, Healthcare, Obama, Political Humor, Politics, Uncategorized | 8608281 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/gknapp/2010/03/09/the-dems-dont-trust-obama-for-good-reason/The+Dems+Don%27t+Trust+Obama+-+for+Good+Reason2010-03-09+14%3A57%3A09Greg+Knapp

Now, I Definitely Want A Job In Government

Study this USA Today chart and cry:

According to USA Today:

“Overall, federal workers earned an average salary of $67,691 in 2008 for occupations that exist both in government and the private sector, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data. The average pay for the same mix of jobs in the private sector was $60,046 in 2008, the most recent data available.”

And let’s just add insult to injury:

“These salary figures do not include the value of health, pension and other benefits, which averaged $40,785 per federal employee in 2008 vs. $9,882 per private worker, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis.”

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Tags: bureau of economic analysis, government employees, public employees, Public Sector, public sector benefits
Posted Mar 8th 2010 at 9:17 am in Economics, News, Uncategorized, federal spending | 85998179 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/vderugy/2010/03/08/now-i-definitely-want-a-job-in-government/Now%2C+I+Definitely+Want++A+Job+In+Government2010-03-08+17%3A17%3A00Veronique++de+Rugy

Internet Lays Foundation for GOP Rebirth

As anyone who has any recollection of the aftermath of the 2008 election cycle knows, the GOP is hopelessly behind on the internet, cannot possibly marshal any web resources on its behalf because it’s stuck in the 19th century politically and will be eclipsed by the forces of Web 2.0 as surely as Democrats were eclipsed by talk radio.

Or at least, that’s what the Mainstream Media force-fed to people after the 2008 election cycle. Naturally, like most Mainstream Media memes, it was an abject lie, but still, somehow the fear worked its way around establishment GOP circles to the point that a veritable avalanche of hysteria crashed down on party activists. “Why, if the internet swings to the Left,” many supposedly “concerned conservative” commentators opined, “then surely our restrictive, overly ideological makeup will make it impossible for us to attract anyone!”

One can’t blame them for buying an argument which was made with such nauseating frequency. Yet, as recent events since the Obama election have shown, the idea that conservatism cannot capture the internet is not at all accurate. What few people may realize, however, is why this argument was so inaccurate, and more importantly, why it took a Messianic bumbler like Obama to expose its falsehood. With respect, therefore, I must disagree with my fellow contributor’s rejection of youth culture as something irrevocably tainted by liberalism, though I understand his frustration entirely.

However, as I mean to prove, the current youth ethos embodied by internet subculture is fundamentally conservative in character, even if its denizens have not yet caught on to that fact. In order to prove this, I will draw on knowledge that I have gained both as an avid internet user and as a member of a generation for whom digital communication is a second language – knowledge which would require investigating not only the harmless environs of Youtube, Facebook and Twitter, but also the darkest, least talked about nether-regions of the internet – websites which produce 90% of the internet’s cultural references, and yet are so riddled with perversity that their own patrons take it as an unspoken rule never to talk about them.

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Tags: 4chan, Andrew Breitbart, andrew grossman, Barack Obama, conservative grass roots
Posted Mar 7th 2010 at 1:21 pm in Culture, News, Politics, Uncategorized | 84110166 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/mholt/2010/03/07/internet-sets-the-stage-for-gop-rebirth/Internet+Lays+Foundation+for+GOP+Rebirth2010-03-07+21%3A21%3A25Mytheos+Holt

Crack-pot Detroit Socialist Explains His, Unions’ Agenda for Soviet States of America

Militant socialists were out in full force Thursday, March 4th, for a “Day of Action to Defend Public Education.”  The nationwide event was organized by fringe, left-wing groups like Michigan’s “By Any Means Necessary,” Ohio-organized “Community Organizing Center for Mother Earth,” Los Angeles-based “County Peace and Freedom Party,” the “League for the Revolutionary Party” of New York, and North Carolina’s “Destroy Industry.”

In Detroit, a chap representing the Che Guevara-loving, Mumia Abu-Jamal-supporting “FIST Youth” educated a crowd of about two dozen about the virtues of socialism.  He also lectured on the Soviet Union, its roots and the glory days when the “people’s council” made all of the important decisions.

Strangely, that’s not the Soviet Union I learned about in public school.  I was taught about a ruthless nation that annihilated the United States.  I learned about a Soviet Union that starved its people and constructed drab buildings while its leaders lived the high life. (Well, that last part I had to find out on my own.)

But that’s enough of my take on the socialist rally in Detroit.  You can enjoy the history lesson for yourself.

I respect this guy - he represents the strain of socialism that lays it all out for America to ponder.  That’s more than I can say for our current leaders, who couch their true beliefss in poll-tested phrases and flowery language.

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Tags: American Federation of Teachers, By Any Means Necessary, Detroit, FIST Youth, National Day of Action
Posted Mar 7th 2010 at 11:07 am in Big Labor, Education, Uncategorized | 84898174 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/kolson/2010/03/07/crack-pot-detroit-socialist-explains-his-unions-agenda-for-soviet-states-of-america/Crack-pot+Detroit+Socialist+Explains+His%2C+Unions%27+Agenda+for+Soviet+States+of+America2010-03-07+19%3A07%3A39Kyle+Olson

Big Government Is No Victim

No tragedy is beyond exploitation by the left.  When census worker Bill Sparkman was found dead and it was leaked that “Fed” was scrawled across his chest, the entirety of the conservative and Tea Party movements were immediately convicted by the online left.  They were wrong, and we now know that Sparkman committed suicide.  Despite significant evidence to the contrary, the left also tried to hang Joseph Stack around the neck of the Tea Party.  Again they failed.

They are now doing the same song and dance with Pentagon shooter John Patrick Bedell.  Despite the fact that he’s a registered Democrat and 9/11 Truther, the left and their media sycophants are stretching to tie him to the Tea Party movement, though the best that they can honestly come up with is that he distrusted government.

That’s what it really boils down to.  At the end of the day, they know none of these guys will hold up as right-wingers.  Their real objective is simply to shame anyone who thinks government should be smaller, rather than bigger.  Anyone who thinks that the IRS is often used to bully Americans isn’t simply wrong, you see, but is also dangerous.  Anyone who thinks that a limited government would better promote prosperity and ensure individual liberty isn’t merely antiquated, but also a potential shooter of government employees.

They are essentially trying to use the acts of these lone nutjobs – which were despicable in every way – to make big government into the victim. The magnitude of this Orwellian endeavor is so unbelievable that it’s hard to describe in a manner that doesn’t sound over-the-top.  It’s better just to remind you of some of big government’s greatest hits.

The 2005 Kelo decision ruled that government can take property from one private person or group and give it to another in order to raise tax revenues. Such abuse didn’t just start with Kelo, however.  In the 4 year period from 1998 to 2002, over 10,000 properties faced at least the threat of condemnation in order to benefit another private party, according to a report by the Institute for Justice.  These are individuals being threatened and bullied by a massive government to give up their fundamental human right to administer their lawfully owned property as they see fit.

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Tags: Big Government, Bill Sparkman, Drug War, eminent domain abuse, Joesph Stack
Posted Mar 7th 2010 at 8:56 am in Uncategorized | 85106119 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/bgarst/2010/03/07/big-government-is-no-victim/Big+Government+Is+No+Victim2010-03-07+16%3A56%3A20Brian+Garst

Real World Evidence for the Laffer Curve, even from the Government of Washington, DC

President Obama is proposing a series of major tax increases. His budget envisions higher tax rates on personal income, increased double taxation of dividends and capital gains, and a big increase in the death tax. His health care plan includes significant tax hikes, including the imposition of the Medicare payroll tax on capital income – thus exacerbating the tax code’s bias against saving and investment. It is unclear why the White House is pursuing these punitive policies. The President said during the 2008 campaign that he favored soak-the-rich taxes even if they did not raise revenue, but his budget predicts the proposals will raise lots of additional money.

Because of Laffer Curve reasons, it is highly unlikely that all of this additional revenue will materialize if the President’s budget is approved. The core insight of the Laffer Curve is not that all tax increases lose money and that all tax cuts raise revenues. That only happens in rare circumstances. Instead, the Laffer Curve simply reveals that higher tax rates will lead to less taxable income (or that lower tax rates will lead to more taxable income) and that it is an empirical matter to figure out the degree to which the change in tax revenue resulting from the shift in the tax rate is offset by the change in tax revenue caused by the shift in the other direction for taxable income. This should be an uncontroversial proposition, and was explained in the video from this post. But since many comments and emails expressed disbelief, this video looks at the real world evidence.

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Tags: Art Laffer, Evidence, Income tax, IRS, Laffer
Posted Mar 5th 2010 at 4:21 pm in Congress, Economics, Obama, Tax Reform, Uncategorized | 85146115 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/dmitchell/2010/03/05/real-world-evidence-for-the-laffer-curve-even-from-the-government-of-washington-dc/Real+World+Evidence+for+the+Laffer+Curve%2C+even+from+the+Government+of+Washington%2C+DC2010-03-06+00%3A21%3A35Dan+Mitchell

Peter Orszag: These Aren’t the Budget Gimmicks You’re Looking For

Here’s budget director Peter Orszag writing on his White House blog yesterday:

Recently, a lot of attention has been paid to a claim that this deficit reduction is achieved only through a business-as-usual Washington budget gimmick: paying for just a few years of costs with many more years of savings.

This charge is simply false—and let’s get the facts straight.

• First, it’s true that loading savings up front and costs in later years is a time-honored budget gimmick. It has a single purpose—to hide the ball and make programs look paid for in the near term that will in fact substantially add to the deficit over the long-term.

• Second, it’s also true that some of savings under the health plan start sooner than the major costs in the legislation. We can move quickly to begin identifying waste and improving quality in the current health care system, as well as make certain reforms to rebalance the tax code. But, the major coverage expansion does not occur until 2014, in part because we need to take time to establish a system of state-based exchanges through which private insurance companies will provide quality insurance to those not getting it through their employer. Still, it is important to note that the vast majority of the savings in the next ten years occur in 2014 and thereafter.

• Third, this is not a budget gimmick. The purpose the tried-and-true gimmick described above is to make a proposal that adds to long-term deficits appear fiscally responsible. But if that were the course we were taking, we would expect to see a large fiscal hole at the end of the first decade and larger and larger deficits in the second decade. Instead, over the long-term, the savings under the President’s plan are expected to grow faster than the costs. So, when the Congressional Budget Office is done with its scoring, we expect it will find that the President’s plan reduces deficits by roughly $100 billion in the first 10 years and roughly $1 trillion in the decade after that. In other words, health reform should reduce the deficit by growing amounts over the long-term.

Put simply: Health reform will reduce the deficit in this decade, and it will reduce the deficit by even more thereafter. There’s no gimmick in that.

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Tags: CBO, gimmick, health care, Healthcare, healthcare reform
Posted Mar 5th 2010 at 10:37 am in Healthcare, Uncategorized | 8474681 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/mrichmond/2010/03/05/peter-orszag-these-arent-the-budget-gimmicks-youre-looking-for/Peter+Orszag%3A+These+Aren%27t+the+Budget+Gimmicks+You%27re+Looking+For2010-03-05+18%3A37%3A50Morgen++Richmond

Stopping the Runaway Congress

The recall of New Jersey Senator Robert Menendez took a step forward yesterday with a promising oral argument in New Jersey state court.  The New Jersey Constitution expressly provides for the recall of members of Congress representing the state in a provision adopted by a 75% favorable vote of the people in 1995.  The New Jersey state legislature then expressly provided by statute for the procedures for such a recall.

The Committee to Recall Robert Menendez filed papers for the circulation of their petitions to begin last September.  But the Secretary of State, who has no authority to issue rulings on constitutional questions, nevertheless refused to approve them on the grounds that her own New Jersey state constitution must be unconstitutional under the federal constitution, which she said did not allow such recalls.

The three judge appellate panel considering yesterday whether the recall should proceed expressed reluctance to declare a provision of their own state’s constitution duly adopted by the people null and void.  They also seemed receptive to the argument by the recall committee that they were only asking the court for an order for the circulation of petitions to proceed, and there is nothing in the U.S. Constitution that prohibits that.  To the contrary, the U.S. Constitution protects the political expression involved in signing a petition calling for the recall of an elected official, and the petitioning of government for the redress of grievances.

If the recall committee gets the required signatures from over a million citizens calling for the recall of Senator Menendez, and the majority of citizens vote to recall him in a recall election, and the Senator decides to thumb his nose at the will of the people anyway, then the issue of whether state recalls of members of Congress are constitutional under the U.S. Constitution would be presented to the courts.  But until then all that the New Jersey recall committee is asking for is the freedom of political expression involved in gathering recall petition signatures, and the U.S. Constitution protects rather than prohibits that.

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Tags: Menendez, New Jersey Recall, recall, Recall Congress
Posted Mar 3rd 2010 at 7:02 am in Congress, News, Politics, Uncategorized | 8339887 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/pferrara/2010/03/03/stopping-the-runaway-congress/Stopping+the+Runaway+Congress2010-03-03+15%3A02%3A24Peter+Ferrara

Jerry Brown Proves He Has Nothing Relevant To Say

In the category of least surprising, and therefore most anti-climatic, decisions of all time, Jerry Brown announced that he is running for Governor of California. He did so through an Internet video. Certainly I realize how fashionable the Internet is for candidates – but Brown’s choice of venue to announce his campaign was probably less hip than hiding – much like his virtual absence from the campaign trail the last few months.

Quite frankly, the former media-hound Brown has been hiding because he has nothing relevant to say. Indeed, the most important issues of the day all run counter to Jerry Brown’s current policies. Let me count the ways . . .

1. The Budget/Taxes.  In this perennial saga, California has yet another $20 billion+ budget deficit. The Democrats and their Union patrons want more spending and higher tax rates. The Republicans, including their statewide candidates and Brown’s Republican opponents, want less spending and lower tax rates. The California voters, according to the Field Poll (never known to lean to the Right), want lower spending not higher taxes. What’s the current version of Jerry Brown to say under those circumstances? Other than saying he will leave it up to the voters to raise taxes (the so-called leader is asking to be led), he has remarkably little to say – and that is one reason he avoids the press and limelight so assiduously – including campaign announcements devoid of those annoying press questions like – would you veto a Democrat sponsored tax increase bill?

2. Jobs. Nevada is the Nation’s #1 business development State. California is either last or second to last when it comes to being employer friendly because of high tax rates and the nation’s most onerous regulatory burden. See the correlation anyone? California, like the nation, faces a simple choice: government jobs or private sector jobs. Government jobs cost money California does not have. Private sector jobs require tax relief and lower regulations. Brown can’t advocate more spending very well and he can’t seriously claim he will go against the unions and the Democrats in the legislature when it comes to taxes and regulations. So what’s the current version of Jerry Brown to say under those circumstances? Remarkably little.

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Tags: Central Valley, global warming, Government spending, high taxes, Jerry Brown
Posted Mar 3rd 2010 at 5:36 am in Environment, Featured Story, News, Politics, State Politics, Uncategorized | 8330660 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/tdelbeccaro/2010/03/03/jerry-brown-proves-he-has-nothing-relevant-to-say/Jerry+Brown+Proves+He+Has+Nothing+Relevant+To+Say2010-03-03+13%3A36%3A59Thomas+Del+Beccaro

New Government Programs Always Cost More Than Predicted

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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Tags: Barack Obama, Big Government, federal spending, government health care, health care reform
Posted Mar 2nd 2010 at 12:21 pm in Congress, Healthcare, Political Humor, Uncategorized, federal spending | 82574109 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/gknapp/2010/03/02/new-government-programs-always-cost-more-than-predicted/New+Government+Programs+Always+Cost+More+Than+Predicted2010-03-02+20%3A21%3A15Greg+Knapp

Obama’s Continued War on the Market

In a further attack on the housing market, the New York Times recently reported that President Obama may be amending his loan modification program to make it even more difficult for defaulting homeowners to be foreclosed upon.  The Times states:

The Obama administration, under intense pressure to help millions of people in danger of losing their homes, is considering a ban on foreclosures unless they have first been examined for potential modification, according to a set of draft proposals.

That would raise the stakes from the current practice, which strongly encourages lenders to evaluate defaulting borrowers for a modification but does not make it mandatory.

Meg Reilly, a Treasury Department spokeswoman, said Thursday that the proposed foreclosure ban was “one of the many ideas under consideration in the administration’s ongoing housing stabilization efforts.” The proposal was first reported by Bloomberg News.

To be fair, the effects of this program may be minimal, with some interpreting the ban to be more about PR than anything substantive:

Laurie Goodman, a senior managing director at the Amherst Securities Group who has been highly critical of the government’s modification program, said even if the proposal came to pass, it would not be “a major change. We think there is a large public relations element to this.”

…The Mortgage Bankers Association said its members were already doing what the administration was considering.

“Lenders generally go to foreclosure as a measure of last resort, after all other options, including loan modification, are exhausted,” said John Mechem, the trade group’s vice president for public affairs.

Any enhancements the government made to the modification program would be unlikely to stem many foreclosures, said Howard Glaser, a prominent housing consultant.

Regardless of the impact however, this potential loan modification addendum adds insult to the injury of an already wrongheaded and destructive policy, and will only prolong the pain in the housing market.

The reasons for the woes in housing are quite simple.  Banks extended mortgages to borrowers that were poor credit risks, and many borrowers took out mortgages that they shouldn’t have either out of speculation or profligacy.  That the depression is throwing people out of work and keeping many jobless exacerbates the problem, in that unfortunately many who could have reasonably expected to afford their homes now cannot given their lack of sufficient cash flow.  Of course, truly prudent buyers might have saved to purchase their homes outright with cash.

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Tags: Barack Obama, CRA, Federal Reserve, Harry Reid, Jeremiah Wright
Posted Mar 2nd 2010 at 8:37 am in Congress, Economics, News, Obama, Uncategorized | 8173476 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/amellon/2010/03/02/obamas-continued-war-on-the-market/Obama%27s+Continued+War+on+the+Market2010-03-02+16%3A37%3A22Andrew+Mellon

Carpe Diem, Larry Kudlow

Carpe Diem, Larry Kudlow. This is your moment to take on Charles Schumer in the November 2010 race for the New York Senate seat. It’s also our moment to take back America. We understand that the thought of joining one of America’s most hated institutions—Rasmussen now reports a 10% approval rating for Congress—can be deeply disturbing. Still, we urge you to do it. Today there are two diametrically opposed views of government.  You have long articulated a belief in individual liberty, limited government, and free markets. You understand that the purpose of government is to secure and protect our individual rights. For Charles Schumer, government exists to right all perceived societal wrongs, individuals be damned.  In the eyes of Charles Schumer, the world is comprised of victims, capitalists who prey on them, and benevolent elites in Washington who come to the rescue.

This is your moment, Larry Kudlow, and you have a grass roots movement behind you, the likes of which the state of New York has never seen. You see, even though the Harvard trained, professional politician won his last election with 71% of the vote, and believes it to be his birthright to get reelected, there is good reason to believe that Chuck may be just a tad worried. There’s something rotten in the state of Eliteville these days.

Chuck is not a big tea party fan and was a bit shaken up by the Massachusetts results.  In fact, in his fundraising efforts to keep the “Kennedy seat” in the right hands, Chuck derided Scott Brown as a “far right tea bagger”. I guess Chuck doesn’t think many New Yorkers are sympathetic to the tea party movement. Let’s show him how wrong he is, Larry.

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Tags: Chuck Schumer, Larry Kudlow, New York Senate Race, political correctness
Posted Mar 2nd 2010 at 7:03 am in Congress, Politics, State Politics, Tea Party, Uncategorized | 81818139 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/dfreeman/2010/03/02/carpe-diem-larry-kudlow/Carpe+Diem%2C+Larry+Kudlow2010-03-02+15%3A03%3A15Dan+Freeman