“A Nation of Moochers: America’s Addiction to Getting Something for Nothing” (St. Martin’s Press) was just released, and the fact that I’m writing this at the very moment President Barack Obama is announcing yet another government plan (his fourth, I think) to “bail out” those “victims” who bought homes they couldn’t afford, makes this informative and engaging page-turner feel about as urgent and timely as any author could hope for.

What you need to know up front is that “Moochers” isn’t an attack on the poor or needy or, for that matter, a specific political party. In fact, from beginning to end, Sykes makes clear that as a country we have an obligation to feed the hungry and offer shelter to the homeless. Moreover, he isn’t even targeting a particular group, which would be impossible without a sawed-off shotgun anyway, because America’s moochers come from every level of our society.

What Sykes is targeting is a mentality, a dangerous and un-American mentality that infects almost every aspect of our culture, and one that is currently being bred into our children by those on both the left and right who are empowered by fomenting and excusing the dependence, greed, and selfishness of others. From corporate welfare to school lunches for the well-to-do to Wall Street bailouts to paying millionaires not to grow crops to tax breaks for Hollywood gajillionires to unending unemployment benefits to disaster relief for those who haven’t suffered disasters to TARP, and finally, to the shameless who walk away from mortgages they can afford to pay — what Sykes is exposing is that we are on the march to becoming Greece. Not just a European welfare state, but the kind of welfare state where the populace has been engineered by a nanny state to riot at the very thought of not being able to mooch the life to which they have become accustomed.

A large part of the problem is that thanks to those who control the levers of our media and culture, the only thing we’re taught to be ashamed of anymore is the act of attempting to shame someone. As a result, those who “want” instead of “need,” are openly and proudly grabbing all the goodies they can get their shameless hands on, and doing so  at the expense of others. Worse still, those others have even been born yet.

Sykes’ examples are not only legion, they’re also dispiriting. There have always been moochers,  grifters, and leeches willing to live off of the productive, but they used to creep in the shadows knowing that if their behavior was exposed they would be shunned and shamed. Today, those who live off the productive have no reason to hide. Self-respect isn’t something you earn anymore. It’s all about self-esteem now. Everyone gets a trophy, so why not brag about how you’re getting something for nothing. It’s not a sin, it’s an accomplishment!

Today, public schools in upper-middle-class neighborhoods openly push to increase their free breakfast and lunch programs; graduate students take food stamps to Whole Foods; 25 year-old boys no longer want to be men and choose instead to live with their parents for as long as they can; and then there’s those truly awful public employees who somehow think it’s a virtue to make public spectacles of themselves when faced with the prospect of having to share a standard of living closer to those of us who pay for their exorbitant pensions and benefits.

Sykes also points out that what’s happening is just the opposite of compassion, that there’s nothing moral or virtuous about creating spoiled, dependant crybabies with no self-respect. It’s bad enough Republicans and Democrats alike are bankrupting the country with addictive drugs labeled tax  loopholes, subsidies, and freebies — but as a nation we’re losing that all-American pride that used to make the very thought of accepting a handout unbearable — even if we truly needed it. There will always be awful politicians trying to buy votes. But what Sykes sees (and meticulously documents) is a growing market of those willing to be purchased, and that’s something a country simply cannot survive.

Included in this must-read are some common sense solutions that include Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan’s “Roadmap.” It’s also going to take politicians from both parties who care more about their country than their personal power and parents willing to lead by example.

But the very best place to start at curing this cancer, is by educating yourself with Skyes’ excellent primer on the subject.

That grim reality is a direct result of decisions by officials in the nearby Chester Upland School District to keep state funds legally owed to the Chester Community Charter School, and to use them instead to bail the district out of its “self-inflicted budgetary crisis.”

That’s according to a legal brief filed by attorneys representing the Chester Community Charter School in response to last month’s judicial ruling that gave the Chester Upland School District a $3.2 million state bailout, and left the charter school holding almost $7 million in I.O.U. notes.

Attorneys for the Chester Community Charter School (CCCS) say the school faces a very real risk of shutting down because it cannot pay its bills.

As a result, it is “extremely likely that Chester Community Charter will have to stop operations, turning in excess of 3,000 students, nearly 700 with disabilities, out on the streets in the middle of the school year.”

Jeff Dailey, an attorney who represents the families of 10 Chester Community Charter students in the ongoing legal dispute, told EAG that his clients “include children with cerebral palsy, dyslexia, reading issues and others, all of whom are in jeopardy of having their school shut down.”

The charter school is facing insolvency because of the school district’s “theft of money that should have gone to educate kids attending non-profit publicly established charter schools, like CCCS,” Dailey wrote in an email.

Several of his special needs clients chose to attend the charter school because of its successful track record of serving special needs students.

These students have blossomed academically and socially since attending the charter school, Dailey said. If CCCS is forced into bankruptcy, those special needs students would be forced to attend the traditional school district (CUSD), which is unable to sufficiently meet their needs.

The students’ continued success is very much in jeopardy, Dailey said.

Bailouts for school district, I.O.U.s for charter school

In Pennsylvania, school funding occurs on a monthly basis. The state government gives money to each school district, based on the number of students within that district.

From those funds, the school district is legally obligated to pass along the per-pupil amount it owes to the local charter schools, as determined by the number of students attending each charter. The traditional school districts act as the middle man in funding charter schools.

If a school district fails to pay the charter as required by law, the state is to deduct the amount owed to the charter school from “any and all state payments made to the district,” according to the Pennsylvania charter school law.

The Chester Upland School District has not made its full monthly payments to Chester Community Charter Schools since March 2011. Beginning in April 2011, the state took over the payments and has sent $23.5 million to the charter school, but still owes it about $6.8 million.

Last December, the Chester Community Charter School filed a lawsuit against the state of Pennsylvania to recover the almost $7 million it’s owed by the Chester Upland School District and – indirectly – the Pennsylvania Department of Education.

The charter school needs the $6.8 million – and the $3 million it’s legally entitled to receive every month –  to pay employees, vendors, and its building leases. If no action is taken, CCCS faces a total deficit of $21.8 million.

It now appears the charter school may not be receiving any money from the state until CUSD’s lawsuit against the state is resolved in the spring. The school district is suing the state for extra funding to make up for its ballooning budget problems.

As part of last month’s $3.2 million temporary bailout given to the Chester Upland School District, U.S. District Judge Michael M. Baylson prohibited the Pennsylvania Department of Education “from withholding subsidies to the Chester Upland School District until further order of the court.”

Baylson ordered that the $3.2 million be given to CUSD “for the payment of salaries and compensation to school district employees and to the vendors of the school district.”

That’s fine for the school district, but what about the charter school?

“The recent temporary deal between the Department of Education and the Chester Upland School District does not provide any money for the charter schools, and effectively closes off funding for the rest of the year,” Dailey said.

On Monday, the Commonwealth Court denied the charter school’s request for immediate payment from the state, and effectively said the school will have to make do until the scheduled hearing in April.

The court’s decision means the charter school’s deficit will be “$10 million on February 5 and over $13 million on March 5,” an amount that “imperils CCCS and its students,” charter school officials said in a press release.

“The implication of the ruling is that the charter school – and its three thousand Chester students – should suffer the negative effects of program reductions and layoffs in order to establish credibility for our reasonable efforts to obtain funding required to continue to provide high quality education to the children of the City of Chester,” the release reads.

Charter suffers due to district mismanagement

Chester Community Charter School is not only the largest charter school in Pennsylvania, but it educates 60 percent of all K-8 students in the city of Chester.

Charter school officials note that the school has functioned within its financial means, and is only facing a financial crisis because CUSD officials have illegally withheld funding.

While the charter school receives less than the state’s $13,700 per pupil average, its students have achieved Annual Yearly Progress (as defined by the No Child Left Behind law) for three consecutive years, according to the press release.

In contrast, the Chester Upland district “spends more than $17,000 to educate each student enrolled in a district school,” Pennsylvania Education Secretary Ronald Tomalis recently wrote in a letter to state Sen. Andrew Dinniman.

“Moreover, CUSD has been the beneficiary of extraordinary state assistance for years,” Tomalis writes, including “$9.5 million in special appropriations over and above those provided through the traditional means of funding all Pennsylvania’s school districts.”

“The District knows that it budgeted improperly, and it knows that it overspent available revenues,” Tomalis writes.

While the Chester Upland district has mismanaged its resources and illegally spent the charter schools’ resources, it is Chester Community Charter students who stand to suffer the consequences.

The charter school has taken out loans to meet its payroll, rent payments and daily expenses. The interest charged on these loans means the charter school will have less money to spend on students in the future.

“If CCCS is unable to make these payments, it will have catastrophic effects on CCCS’s ability to continue operations,” CCCS Chief Financial Officer Robert Olivo wrote in an affidavit.

Pennsylvania taxpayers are left to wonder why state officials are letting one of the state’s most effective and fiscally responsible charter schools twist in the wind, even while more money is being poured into an ineffective and irresponsible government-run school district.

If Pennsylvania citizens want to understand what’s wrong with their state’s public education system, the case of Chester Community Charter School versus the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania’s Department of Education is a good place to start.

He’s held big gigs at BMW and Ford.  He also worked way up the food chain at (now $85 billion bailed-out) Chrysler and General Motors (GM) – retiring as GM’s Vice Chairman in 2010.

And he has recently written a piece:

Chevy Volt And The Wrong-Headed Right

…in vociferous defense of the Chevy Volt.

You know, the more-than-$200,000 in government-subsidies-per-unit-sold Volt.

The overproduced, unprofitable, unpopular, combustible Volt.  (And January 2011’s sales were no less disappointing.)

That Chevy Volt.

Are we on the Right wrong-headed?  Let’s take Mr. Lutz’s piece piecemeal and see.

The recent media coverage of so-called “Chevrolet Volt fires,” especially by the conservative talk shows and Fox News, has attracted my attention and ire.

Let’s set out the facts (and feel free to check them yourself):

Don’t mind if we do.

1) Not one Chevrolet Volt has ever caught fire in normal use or in accidents. Not a single one.

Fundamentally untrue, as we laid out in great detail after last week’s House Oversight Volt hearing.

From our piece:

There were in fact three other, private-owner Volt fires.  None of which involved Volts that were in crashes.

These three fires involved Volts that were simply garaged or recharging – i.e. “in normal use.”

More from Mr. Lutz:

2) The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), even after the highly artificial crash test (placing the car on its back, even though it did not roll over in the test) nevertheless awarded the Volt NHTSA’s highest crash-safety rating: 5 stars. Volt is supremely safe.

But there wasn’t just one NHTSA fire – there were three.

More from us:

The one NHTSA Volt fire discussed at the hearing was not the only NHTSA Volt fire that occurred.  In November, there were two others.

After conducting three different tests two weeks ago, the NHTSA found that the Volt’s battery either caught fire or began to smoke in two out of the three.

So that’s three Volt fires – all in the hands of the Obama Administration, all after crashes.

For a grand total of six Volt fires (about which we know).

And excuse us for being slightly suspect of the Government’s Five Star rating of Government Motors.

Especially when NHTSA, the Barack Obama White House and GM all covered-up the Volt fire(s) for nearly six months.

Especially when President Barack Obama is campaigning for reelection on the $85 billion auto industry bailout “success,” and showing up at car shows to do it.  So bad news for the Volt and Government Motors is bad news for him and his reelect.

So, again, excuse our suspicion.

More from Mr. Lutz:

3) The crashed Volt, its battery shorted by coolant from the period unjustifiably spent “feet up,” caught fire three weeks after said test. (I submit that this would provide adequate time for surviving passengers to exit the vehicle.)

Again, what about the other five fires?  Three of which were just plugged in or garaged – “in normal use?”

Mr. Lutz:

4) On average, 278,000 cars with gasoline engines caught fire in the U.S. each year between 2003 and 2007, according to the National Fire Protection Association.

True – but gasoline engines are a long-known commodity.  Lithium-ion battery cars are not.

And when the Obama Administration and GM have spent half the Volt’s shelf life covering up Volt flameouts, it certainly warrants additional attention.

Mr. Lutz:

5) No factory-produced electric vehicle has ever caught fire, to the best of my knowledge.

As we’ve just demonstrated, Mr. Lutz needs to better his knowledge.

And Mr. Lutz is making a blanket assertion – applicable beyond just the Volt to all electric cars.  Is he really comfortable going that far?

Mr. Lutz:

6) The Volt, the most technologically advanced car on the planet, was conceived by me and my team well before any federal bailout of GM.

Is the pride of creative authorship clouding Mr. Lutz’s judgement?

I’m not sure the Volt is the “most technologically advanced car on the planet” – given that the 1891 electric Morrison had a better battery range than the Volt.

The Volt was in fact conceived by Mr. Lutz and his team, in 2007.  But I notice, Mr. Lutz, that you didn’t rush to mass-produce it, did you?  It existed only as a visual aide for auto shows – not for actual for-sale production.

Only with the arrival of President Obama – and We the People’s $50 billion – did Volts find their way to the mass-assembly line.

Mr. Lutz:

These are the bedrock facts.

Yours aren’t.  Ours are.

Mr. Lutz:

Now, how did the U.S. right-wing media choose to report this admittedly headline-tempting news?

A nationally syndicated editorial three-panel cartoon stated (I believe I remember the sequence): “Thomas Edison discovered electricity;” then, “Alexander Graham Bell discovered the telephone;” and, in the third panel, “But it took the US Government to discover fire!” (accompanied by a drawing of a burning Chevy Volt).

Come on, that cartoon is just FUNNY.

Mr. Lutz then goes into some detail about Rush Limbaugh and Lou Dobbs (appearing on Bill O’Reilly’s Fox News Channel show) publicly decrying the Volt.

Then Mr. Lutz writes:

Much air time was spent on the $50 billion-plus (GM) bailout, which, the audience was left to assume, “funded” the Volt, doubtlessly at the whim of Obama’s known army of evil enviro-Nazis, intent on forcing vehicle electrification on a good-ole’-boy, V8-lovin’ populace.

Again, the Lutz-era GM created the Volt – but never mass-produced it.  Obama and the bailout arrived – and suddenly Government Motors is (sort-of) selling Volts.

Clearly there is some electric vehicle forcing going on.  GM in 2011 produced about 10,000 Volts – and sold only 7,671.  And until very recently – when finally hounded into  submission-to-sales-reality – Akerson and GM were planning on upping 2012 Volt production to 60,000.

Sounds forced to me.

Mr. Lutz:

To top it off, these two media pros lamented the fact that the same government that had forced GM to produce the Volt was now extending $7,500 tax credits towards its purchase, thus squandering even more of “our taxpayer” dollars on this failed Socialist-collectivist flop. Truth? The $7,500 tax credit was enacted under the Bush administration!

True.  But again, you, Mr. Lutz, never produced the Volt for sale under the Bush Administration.  Only after you left, under Obama – when General Motors became with our coin Government Motors – did the foolish tax credit apply to the foolish Volt.

And we Right-wingers have long acknowledged – and publicly decried and lamented – many terrible Bush Administration policies.  The $7,500-per-foolish-car is but another.

Mr. Lutz:

But who the hell cares about facts when you’re in O’Reilly’s self-described “No Spin Zone?” (The fine print might as well read, “We said ‘no spin,’ not ‘no deliberate misstatement of facts.’ ”)

Again, as we have thoroughly demonstrated, it is the esteemed Mr. Lutz that is misstating and omitting facts.

Mr. Lutz:

What on Earth is wrong with the conservative media movement that it feels it’s OK to spread false information, OK to damage the reputation of perhaps the finest piece of mechanical technology our country has produced since the space shuttle, OK to hurt an iconic American company that is roaring back to global pre-eminence, OK to hurt American employment in Hamtramck, Mich., as long as it damages the Obama administration’s reputation?

It is Obama that is staking his reputation – and his reelection effort – on the $50 billion GM bailout and the Volt.

If our pointing out egregious, inconvenient facts is harmful thereto, it is simply happy collateral damage.

Mr. Lutz concludes:

While as a conservative Republican I may well share the goal, I deplore the means employed to attain it. The conservative cause damages itself, destroys its credibility through the expedient spreading of untruths. The public will figure it out.

The right-wing “talking heads”, O’Reilly and Limbaugh at the forefront, have managed to make me embarrassed to describe myself as a conservative.

Come on, you guys. Shape up! There’s plenty of legitimate fodder out there. Let’s leave the “invention of facts” to the left-wing climate-change alarmists.

Unfortunately for Mr. Lutz – and the Obama Administration – there are plenty of inconvenient truths about Government Motors, the Obama Administration bailout and the absurd Chevy Volt.

And we “wrong-headed” Right-wingers are the only ones delivering them.

Mr. Lutz is in need of but a minor recalibration.  The Chevy Volt he’s defending may be unrecoverable.

I attended Wednesday’s 8:00am (8am?!?) House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing entitled:

Volt Vehicle Fire: What Did NHTSA Know And When Did They Know It?

The witnesses were killer:

National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA), Barack Obama-appointee Administrator David Strickland.

And General Motors (GM), Barack Obama-appointee CEO Dan Akerson.

The scope of the hearing was a bit too narrow – leaving out some fairly important attending facts.  Like, say, the (at least) five other Chevy Volt fires that have occurred besides the one being discussed.

This hearing was all about a single June Volt blaze.  The battery burst into flames about three weeks after a test crash at and by the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA).

A fire about which Obama’s NHTSA did tell the Obama White House.

But a fire about which neither Obama’s NHTSA, the Obama Administration nor Obama’s GM told the American people for nearly six months – and then did so only when forced by a looming Bloomberg news story.

But:

The White House had no role in the decision to delay disclosure of a fire that broke out in a crash-tested Chevrolet Volt, the Obama administration told Congress on Friday.

Of COURSE not.

But:

Joan Claybrook, a former administrator at NHTSA believes part of the reason for the delay was the “fragility of Volt sales.” Yet she also believes that “NHTSA could have put out a consumer alert, not to tell them [customers] for six months makes no sense to me.”

Obama is running for reelection in great part on the non-success “success” of the $85 billion auto industry bailout.

On which he once promised we’d make money.  Then had to begrudgingly up the (admitted to) loss from $14.3 billion to $23.6 billion.

And We the Taxpayers still own 500 million shares of GM stock – which is tanking.  So that loss number still has growth prospects.

That auto industry bailout “success.”

Obama mentioned GM prominently in Tuesday night’s campaign – I mean State of the Union – speech:

America: Built to (Be) Last

And had as one of his bio-props – I mean guests – a GM plant manager.

The takeaway from all of this?

For Obama, notifying Americans of their potential immolation-by-Volt is of less import than his keeping his gig past November.

—–

And there’s tremendous immolation potential.

The one NHTSA Volt fire discussed at the hearing was not the only NHTSA Volt fire that occurred.  In November, there were two others.

After conducting three different tests two weeks ago, the NHTSA found that the Volt’s battery either caught fire or began to smoke in two out of the three.

So that’s three Volt fires – all in the hands of the Obama Administration, all after crashes.

But Obama’s GM now says they’ve fixed the problem – and the Obama Administration has (shocker) given GM the good-to-go.

So all is well, right?

Ummm, no.  There were in fact three other, private-owner Volt fires.  None of which involved Volts that were in crashes.

—–

There was the Volt that in April burst into flames – twice.  These were the fires that led to Obama’s NHTSA beginning its investigation.

And then in November another Volt leapt into flames.  While Obama’s NHTSA was still investigating – but after the NHTSA-Obama Administration-GM cover-up had come to light (get it?).

The home that garaged this particular immolated Volt gets its power from Duke Energy – which after the fire felt compelled to issue a warning:

Duke Energy officials want anyone who has a (Volt) charging station to stop using it until they know the devices are safe.

So the charging station is at least suspect.  (So too the charging station cable?)

We still have no idea what caused these fires.  The only thing we do know is that they were not caused by crashes – because these cars were never in crashes.

So why did Obama’s NHTSA, the Obama Administration and Obama’s GM singularly focus on (but one of three) post-crash Volt fires?

When none of these three privately-owned combustible Volts had been in accidents?

We – still – don’t know.  Anything.

But don’t worry: The Obama Administration has declared that the Obama-owned GM Chevy Volt is perfectly safe – just in time for Obama’s reelection campaign.

And GM’s new Volt ad campaign, which is pretty much entitled:

If You Don’t Like the Volt, You Don’t Like America

Don’t you feel safer?

I’m biased, of course, so I’ll understand if you discount what I say. But I hope you’ll agree that my colleagues have put together an excellent video response to the President’s state-of-the-union speech.

As part of my contribution to the video, beginning around 6:35, I debunk the President’s class-warfare tax agenda by citing IRS data from the 1980s to explain that higher tax rates don’t necessarily mean higher tax revenue.

After a night’s sleep, here are a few additional observations on the President’s remarks.

• I was disappointed, but not surprised, that he repeated the economically foolish assertion that Warren Buffett pays a lower tax rate than his secretary.
• I also was not surprised that he didn’t say much about jobs and the economy. These four charts show he doesn’t have much to brag about.
• It was also noteworthy that he didn’t spend much time talking about Obamacare, which suggests that White House pollsters understand that government-run healthcare isn’t very popular.
• It was equally revealing that he didn’t spend much time on the so-called income inequality issue. Redistribution was implicit in what he said, to be sure, but the Occupy-Wall-Street crowd is probably disappointed that he didn’t explicitly embrace their agenda. More evidence that the pollsters played a big role in this speech.
• I’m definitely not surprised that he talked about eliminating Osama bin Laden. Kudos to the Commander-in-Chief.
• I was amazed that he had the gall to say “no bailouts,” particularly given his support for TARP, the Dodd-Frank bailout bill, and the giveaway to GM and the auto unions. And if the GM bailout is supposed to be a success, I’d hate to see his definition of failure.
• And I was stunned that he could talk about the housing meltdown and mortgage crisis without mentioning the Federal Reserve, Fannie Mae, or Freddie Mac. Sort of like analyzing World War II and pretending Germany and Japan didn’t exist.

Since most of the previous observation are critical, I want to stress that I’m not being partisan. I also was disappointed in the Republican response. Was the GOP smart to showcase a governor who was part of the big-spending Bush Administration? Especially one who has said nice things about the value-added tax?

I even was a bit disappointed in Governor Daniels’ remarks. He focused a lot on means-testing for entitlements, but that’s the wrong way of reforming the programs. Such policies impose higher implicit marginal tax rates on people who save and invest during their working years.

If we’re going to reform entitlements, do it the right way.

The Chester Upland School District began this week with only $100,000 in its savings account, and had no way of meeting its $1 million payroll – that is, until a judge ordered the state to give the district a  $3.2 million advance in its allowance, reports the Philadelphia Inquirer.

The money will allow the teachers to be paid and the lights to remain on, at least for a few more weeks. The district is on track to be $20 million in debt by the end of the school year.

“Anxious parents are looking at other options for their children, such as sending them to private schools or having them live with relatives and go to other public schools,” the Daily Journal reported two days before the bailout was announced.

What’s causing Chester Upland’s financial meltdown?

According to school officials, the state has been illegally giving some of the district’s money to charter schools. State officials say the law requires it to fund the schools where students actually attend, and many choose to attend charter schools. A judge is expected to settle the dispute next month.

While the district might win its case in court, it seems destined to lose in the court of public opinion.

Since 2006, Chester Upland’s enrollment has dropped by almost 1,000 students. During that same time, the district has increased its workforce by 145 employees, and its budget by $28 million, reports the PhillyBurbs.com.

Members of the local teachers union have pledged to keep working “as long as they are individually able … even if they are not paid.”

While that makes for a nice press release, it appears that none the district’s three school employee unions have agreed to open their contracts and offer any concessions to help the district survive.

Just another financial crisis, courtesy of Big Labor.

Romney fits right into the Left’s absurd anti-capitalism, “robber baron,” Occupy Wall Street anti-1%-er, scorched earth storyline.

Romney is very wealthy, which for Obama and his Democrats is the height of eee-vill (except – these Donkeys are mostly rich…).  Never mind that Romney’s wealth is right in line with many past Presidents and candidates – including 2004 Democrat nominee John Kerry.  (The difference?  Romney earned it, Kerry married it.)

And as Romney recently told us, he these days pays the 15% capital gains tax rate – rather than the (absurdly) higher income tax rates those of us receiving salaries do.  Never mind that this is perfectly legal (and good fiscal policy, and “fair”) – it is culled right from the Leftist, Warren Buffett “I pay less in taxes than my secretary” fraudulent script.

—–

How did Romney make his coin?  Via the epitome of eeeee-villll free market entities – the venture capital firm.  His was, of course, Bain Capital.

Yes, Bain sometimes invests in failing companies.  Some of which they determine to be not worth saving, so down they go.  Welcome to Reality, Boys and Girls.

See, President Obama – it’s kind of like your “investing” in Solyndra, and Fisker, and Beacon Power, and….  Only President Obama – yours never work out.  And Bain would never dump money into such absurd companies or concepts.  And Bain uses their own coin, not ours.

Bain has created far more jobs than they’ve closed down – which again makes them the polar opposite of Obama, Inc.  There is no Staples, Sports Authority or myriad other Bain-like successes to which Obama can point and say “See, my government ‘investment’ did that.”

“‘Shovel-ready’ wasn’t as shovel-ready as we expected.”  And “created or saved” doesn’t cut it – and fooled only the foolish.

—–

And, of course, the Obama Administration is chock full of Wall Street 1%-ers.  Whom they vilify and legislatively assault by day – and shake down for campaign cash by night.  Heck, Democrats receive more contributions from Bain Capital than do Republicans.  Obama has his own self received $80,000 from Romney’s old digs.

And the new Obama Administration acting Director of the Office of Management and Budget, Jeffrey Zients, worked for Bain Capital.

And behold Obama, Inc. campaign adviser Stephanie Cutter.  Who just wrote a scathing memo about Romney’s Bain days – subtitled “Profit at Any Cost.”

Cutter sounded like a sworn enemy of private equity.  Except a few years ago, she was a spokeswoman for J.C. Flowers, a private-equity firm….

Presumably Cutter wanted to be as well compensated as possible, by J.C. Flowers and the “several Fortune 500 companies” her communications firm served, according to her bio.

Just another poster-child for Obama, Inc.’s “Poverty for Thee – Not for Me,” DC-Wall Street Nexis.

For Obama, Inc., Bain’s good for campaign fodder – and campaign cash.  And, as it turns out, even more than that.

—–

We’ve just discussed Bain Capital investing – vis a vis Obama, Inc. “investing.”

One of the biggest Taxpayer Money “investments” is the $50+ billion in General Motors (GM).  Which has been an unmitigated disaster.

President Obama once promised us we’d make money on the auto bailout – then had to begrudgingly up the (admitted to) loss from $14.3 billion to $23.6 billion.  And We the Taxpayers still own 500 million shares of GM stock – which is tanking.  So that loss number still has growth potential.

GM is foundering because they insist on doing fabulous things like overproduce the unprofitable, unpopular, combustible Chevy Volt.  And in 2010 file for more green non-energy “energy patents – a la Solyndra, Fisker, etc. – than any other company in America.

As GM continued to sink like a stone, guess who Obama’s Auto Task Force asked for assistance in trying to turn around their colossal automotive failure?

Why, Romney’s ex- Bain Capital – and their fellow Wall Streeters.

Oops.

Obama Administration officials working on a turnaround of General Motors and Chrysler asked for advice from the consulting firm Bain & Company, among other consulting firms, speaking to partners there at least twice, according to multiple sources familiar with the conversations.

In addition, a partner at Bain & Company later detailed his advice on the auto companies when he was contacted for a follow-up review by the office of the inspector general for TARP, according to that office.

—–

Obama will this year be trying to convince We the People to give him four more years in the White House.

Not because of anything he’s done – because what he’s done has been atrocious – but to prevent an evil 1%-er from succeeding him.

And if that proposed successor is Romney, Obama, Inc. has the anti-Bain Capital dossier already prepared and at the ready.

But when it came down to it, Obama, Inc. had to admit that they had with GM (and just about everything else) absolutely no idea what they were doing.

And they had to go to…Bain Capital, and their fellow eeee-villl Wall Streeters, to ask for help in trying to salvage their incredible failure.

Whose expert advice he desperately sought as he amateurishly blew up General Motors – and our $50+ billion.