Calling another Stimulus a ‘Jobs Bill’ Won’t Make it Work any Better than Last Year’s Fiscal Flop

This new video from the Center for Freedom and Prosperity explains how last year’s so-called stimulus was a flop – and also reveals why politicians are pushing for another big-government spending bill.

Interestingly, since last year’s stimulus was such a disaster, the redistributionists in Washington are calling their new proposal a “jobs bill.” But as I say in the video, this is akin to putting perfume on a hog.

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Tags: Big Government, bureaucracy, bureaucrats, Earmarks, Economic Stimulus
Posted Jan 25th 2010 at 9:37 am in Congress, Earmarks, Economics, News, Obama, Politics, Tea Party, federal spending | 6488265 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/dmitchell/2010/01/25/calling-another-stimulus-a-jobs-bill-wont-make-it-work-any-better-than-last-years-fiscal-flop/Calling+another+Stimulus+a+%27Jobs+Bill%27+Won%27t+Make+it+Work+any+Better+than+Last+Year%27s+Fiscal+Flop2010-01-25+17%3A37%3A21Dan+Mitchell

Halleluiah! Obama Endorses Task Force to Look at Cutting Deficit After Tripling It His First Year

Well, Halleluiah! Barack Obama says he wants to cut the spiraling national deficit.

Barack Obama tripled the national deficit last year.

This year Barack Obama is on track to nearly quadruple Bush’s 2008 budget deficit.

(CBO Estimates)

But don’t worry.

Barack Obama called for a task force today to come up with a plan to curb his spiraling budget deficits.

He’s serious.

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Tags: Barack Obama, budget deficit, deficit spending, federal deficit, federal spending
Posted Jan 23rd 2010 at 4:03 pm in Congress, News, Obama, federal spending | 64506171 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/jhoft/2010/01/23/halleluiah-obama-endorses-task-force-to-look-at-cutting-deficit-after-tripling-it-his-first-year/Halleluiah%21+Obama+Endorses+Task+Force+to+Look+at+Cutting+Deficit+After+Tripling+It+His+First+Year2010-01-24+00%3A03%3A30Jim+Hoft

Pork Report, January 22, 2009: Bureaucrats Gone Wild Edition

Bureaucrats gone wild! Taxpayers charged for international trysts, golf, skiing, and other government junkets

Military officials bought thousands of dollars worth of alcohol, food and other amenities for congressional overseas junkets

Delaware airport that “hardly ever sees a paying passenger” has received $12.3 million from the federal Airport Improvement Program for a runway construction project

Tennessee library pays for Rock Band video game session and Monday Night Football with a $5,000 federal Community Building Through Video Games in Libraries grant

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Tags: congressional junkets, Defense Appropriations, Earmarks, federal spending, Hurricane Katrina
Posted Jan 22nd 2010 at 6:50 pm in Pork Report | 6414257 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/porkreport/2010/01/22/pork-report-january-22-2009-bureaucrats-gone-wild-edition/Pork+Report%2C+January+22%2C+2009%3A+Bureaucrats+Gone+Wild+Edition2010-01-23+02%3A50%3A04The+Pork+Report

The American People Reject Big Government

According to a Washington Post story, Obama wants to be the anti-Reagan, a President who permanently changes the American people’s attitude about big government. Obama’s efforts to make statism popular, however, are not exactly working out as he hoped.

According to a new Washington Post-ABC poll, the American people have become much more libertarian when asked if that want a bigger government with more services or a smaller government with fewer services. But this is just part of the story. As David Boaz points out, more accurate polling data, which mentions that bigger government also means higher taxes, reveals that support for small government becomes even more pronounced. Here’s an excerpt from the Post story:

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Tags: Big Government, federal spending, Obama, Reagan
Posted Jan 19th 2010 at 12:51 pm in Economics, History, Obama, Politics, federal spending | 6164669 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/dmitchell/2010/01/19/the-american-people-reject-big-government/The+American+People+Reject+Big+Government2010-01-19+20%3A51%3A30Dan+Mitchell

America’s New Year’s Unemployment Hangover

One cannot drink oneself into sobriety. Yet that is precisely what Congressional Democrats and the Obama Administration have attempted with our economy for the past year with predictable and painful results.

Unemployment continues to stand at an official 10% for the third month in a row, the worst joblessness in 27 years.  The real unemployment rate is far worse.  Included in the December economic figures was a shocker – the percentage of adult men who are working has fallen to the lowest level in recorded U.S. history at just 80%.  That means that one in five men in this country between 18 and 54 are neither working nor claiming unemployment.  They have fallen completely out of the workforce.

That helps explain why December’s unemployment rate remained at November’s 10% rate in spite of an additional 85,000 Americans losing their jobs.  At the same time the new jobless claims were added, many of the previously unemployed were simply removed from the workforce numbers altogether.

Economists estimate our true jobless rate as high as 17%, and that could grow in coming months as more Americans exhaust their unemployment benefits and lose homes to foreclosure.

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Tags: bailout, Barack Obama, cap-and-trade, congressional democrats, deficit spending
Posted Jan 13th 2010 at 1:59 pm in Congress, Obama, federal spending | 5936281 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/jcarter/2010/01/13/americas-new-years-unemployment-hangover/America%E2%80%99s+New+Year%27s+Unemployment+Hangover2010-01-13+21%3A59%3A12Rep.+John+Carter+%28R-TX%29

Lessons of ‘66 and ‘94 Loom Over Democrats: Part I

Midterm elections can present a considerable risk for a new President.  Often viewed as a referendum on a President’s policies, the last 45 years featured such huge party losses as 54 House seats under Clinton, 48 seats under Ford, and 47 seats under Johnson.  While Ford’s fate was not entirely his own, the fates of Johnson and Clinton present foreboding scenarios for Democrats in 2010.

Johnson and Clinton: Unpopular Policies Lead to Midterm Losses.

In 1964, the Democrats were sitting atop the political world.  They held 68 Senate seats and gained 36 House seats for an overwhelming margin of 295 to 140 – not to mention winning the White House.  Just two years later, however, they lost 48 seats.  Why? A series of policies that were unpopular including a “credibility gap” on the Vietnam War and what one Democrat Governor said was “Frustration over Vietnam; too much federal spending and… taxation; no great public support for your Great Society programs; and … public disenchantment with the civil rights programs.”  Despite the economy growing 6% because of the Kennedy/Johnson tax cuts, the divide between Johnson’s policies and public opinion produced a 49% approval rating for Johnson and resulted in historic losses for the President and his party in 1966.

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Tags: 66 elections, 94 elections, Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, economic recession
Posted Jan 12th 2010 at 5:42 am in Congress, Economics, Featured Story, Obama, Politics | 58658122 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/tdelbeccaro/2010/01/12/lessons-of-66-and-94-loom-over-democrats-part-i/Lessons+of+%2766+and+%2794+Loom+Over+Democrats%3A+Part+I2010-01-12+13%3A42%3A56Thomas+Del+Beccaro

Barack Obama and the Exhausted Presidency

In a recent puff piece, The New York Times reports that our President is tired. This is not the first such report. Back in May, when he treated England’s Gordon Brown so shabbily, the excuse given — according to The Daily Telegraph – was that wrestling with the economic crisis had left Barack Obama too exhausted to be able to focus on foreign affairs.

We should perhaps discount what was said in May. For, as I have attempted to document in detail here, here, here, here, here, and here, President Obama is a gentleman, and, as such, he is never unintentionally rude. He is, in fact, a master of the insulting gesture, which he seems to reserve for political opponents, such as Hillary Clinton, John McCain, and Sarah Palin, and for political leaders in countries, such as England, France, Germany, Israel, and Poland, which were closely associated with the United States prior to the Age of Obama.

This time, however, Barack Obama may be genuinely tired, and he may be depressed as well. He certainly has warrant. In public, he may claim that he deserves a B+ for his first year in office, but the polling data suggests that he has earned a failing mark, and he has to know better.

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Tags: Al Qaeda, Barack Obama, Beijing, Chinese relations, Christmas Attack
Posted Dec 31st 2009 at 5:41 am in Congress, Defense, Featured Story, Healthcare, Obama, Politics | 53670353 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/prahe/2009/12/31/barack-obama-and-the-exhausted-presidency/Barack+Obama+and+the+Exhausted+Presidency2009-12-31+13%3A41%3A42Paul+A.++Rahe

Obama’s 6 Worst Policy Decisions

From Guantanamo to Health Care, Obama is certainly seeking to Change America – or more accurately -to accelerate the pace of change from a private enterprise-freedom based civilization to a Big Government-run society.  According to Thomas Paine, “It is the duty of a patriot to protect his country from his government.”  I realize that is a slightly different definition than Joe Biden would use, but nevertheless, in that light, here is my listing of the worst of his policy decisions:

6. Bailing Out GM.  “His policy of public investments prevented necessary liquidations.  The businesses he hoped thus to save either went bankrupt in the end, after fearful agonies, or were burdened . . . by a crushing load of debt.  [He] undermined property rights . . .pushed federal credit into the banks and bullied them into inflating . . .” Historian Paul Johnson wrote that of Herbert Hoover.  You can almost substitute Obama’s name for Hoover’s  in every detail.   By the way, Government Motors sales are declining at 3 times the rate of the industry as a whole.  Hoover would be proud.

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Tags: auto bailout, Barack Obama, cap-and-trade, federal spending, Gitmo
Posted Dec 28th 2009 at 12:02 pm in Defense, Economics, Environment, Healthcare, News, Obama, Politics, federal spending | 52906393 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/tdelbeccaro/2009/12/28/obamas-6-worst-policy-decisions/Obama%E2%80%99s+6+Worst+Policy+Decisions2009-12-28+20%3A02%3A52Thomas+Del+Beccaro

The Problem is Spending, not Deficits

Reckless spending increases under both Bush and Obama have resulted in unprecedented deficits, which is the reason for boosting the nation’s debt limit by an astounding $1.8 trillion. Government borrowing has become such a big issue that some politicians are proposing a deficit reduction commission, which may mean they are like alcoholics trying for a self-imposed intervention.

But all this fretting about deficits and debt is somewhat misplaced. Government borrowing is a bad thing, of course, but this video explains that the real problem is excessive government spending.

Fixating on the deficit allows politicians to pull a bait and switch, since they can raise taxes, claim they are solving the problem, when all they are doing is replacing debt-financed spending with tax-financed spending. At best, that’s merely taking a different route to the wrong destination. The more likely result is that the tax increases will weaken the economy, further exacerbating America’s fiscal position.

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Tags: Big Government, budget, budget deficit, Conrad, Deficit Commission
Posted Dec 21st 2009 at 11:37 am in Congress, Earmarks, Economics, Healthcare, Obama, Politics, Pork Report, Tax Reform, Uncategorized | 4678634 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/dmitchell/2009/12/21/the-problem-is-spending-not-deficits-2/The+Problem+is+Spending%2C+not+Deficits2009-12-21+19%3A37%3A40Dan+Mitchell

Let’s Be Frank, Mr. Vice President: The Stimulus Failed

Today, the State of Georgia welcomes Vice President Joe Biden for an update on the administration’s so-called stimulus bill. With national unemployment sitting today at 10%, and worse in Georgia, the White House’s credibility on stimulus success is dubious at best. Yet as proper manners would dictate, we owe the Vice President an opportunity to make his case.

President Obama tapped Mr. Biden to oversee the stimulus program because, as he put it, “nobody messes with Joe.”  While that may be so, as the Vice President has been traveling around the nation touting the various spending priorities of the stimulus bill, their alleged benefits have yet to materialize into jobs.  So if the Vice President is visiting to have us believe expanding broadband is how jobs are created or that we can “weatherize” our way back to prosperity, it may be Joe who is messing with Georgia.

It’s actually quite telling that the Vice President is visiting us to discuss the stimulus package on the same day that President Obama is setting off for Copenhagen to promote a job-killing National Energy Tax as a means to combat global warming. Because what was evident in the stimulus package, and has been reinforced through subsequent actions, is that this administration places a higher premium on its social goals than on putting people back to work.

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Tags: Al Gore, bailouts, economic growth, federal budget deficit, federal debt ceiling
Posted Dec 17th 2009 at 5:29 am in Congress, Economics, Featured Story, Obama | 4789852 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/tprice/2009/12/17/lets-be-frank-mr-vice-president-the-stimulus-hasnt-worked/Let%27s+Be+Frank%2C+Mr.+Vice+President%3A+The+Stimulus+Failed2009-12-17+13%3A29%3A11Rep.+Tom+Price+%28R-GA%29

Pork Report, December 8, 2009: Downhill Edition

Alaska’s $680 million bridge to nowhere still a state priority

17,000 Medicaid patients put on waiting lists for medical services in Maryland as the state misspends $98 million including paying for services for dead people

Medicare loses $60 billion to fraud every year

Democrat political consultants receive millions of dollars in federal stimulus funds; Millions more spent to heat a near-empty shopping mall, to search for fossils in Argentina, for socially conscious puppet shows, and to study the genetic makeup of ants

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Tags: federal spending, Medicaid waste, Medicare, Medicare fraud, National Science Foundation
Posted Dec 9th 2009 at 6:06 pm in Pork Report | 4385810 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/porkreport/2009/12/09/pork-report-december-8-2009-downhill-edition/Pork+Report%2C+December+8%2C+2009%3A+Downhill+Edition2009-12-10+01%3A06%3A36The+Pork+Report

Obama and Democrat Leadership: Out of Touch and Desperate

President Obama’s meetings at the Senate on Sunday, much like his visit to Copenhagen this week, are not indicators of inevitability; they are portents of panic.  The reports coming out of the closed door, Democrats-only, meeting of internal divisions that are still irreconcilable, despite the high rhetoric of historic moment, only make the point more vividly: can you say “desperation”?

The sensible Democrats know they are in trouble.  They know the American people have lost confidence that the Administration and Congress share their priorities.

While polls consistently show that Americans are increasingly concerned about jobs, reviving the economy, and managing our deficits, the Democrats fixate on health care, a relatively low priority for most Americans and anathema for many in this form.  The reforms the Democrats push are themselves unpopular, and for good reason.  Americans know that a government takeover of health care will diminish the quality of care, reduce our ability to control our treatment options, and drive up the premium costs for many Americans.  It’s not just the health care system that will suffer, but proposed reforms will also cripple one of the few sectors that have been creating jobs during the recession, create multiple new taxes and penalties, and further hamper the economy by creating massive new debt and entitlements.

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Tags: cap-and-trade, carbon emissions, Copenhagen conference, deficits, economic recession
Posted Dec 8th 2009 at 7:23 am in Congress, Healthcare, News, Obama, Politics, Tea Party | 42678130 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/hhiggins/2009/12/08/obama-and-democrat-leadership-out-of-touch-and-desperate/Obama+and+Democrat+Leadership%3A+Out+of+Touch+and+Desperate2009-12-08+14%3A23%3A43Heather++Higgins

Pork Report December 1, 2009: Dollars For Donuts Edition

The Senate earmarks $500,000 for itself; Money will be spent to promote Senators’ appearances

House of Representative’s expense reports now online

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi spent $2,993 in taxpayer money on flowers in just a few months and House Majority Whip James Clyburn spent hundreds of dollars on donuts

Congress steers millions of taxpayer dollars to campaign donors’ pet projects including an earmark for “mammal awareness”

The Justice Department has instructed federal agencies to honor contracts with ACORN despite ban on funding passed by Congress and signed by the President

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Tags: ACORN, campaign donors, Department of Justice, doj, federal spending
Posted Dec 1st 2009 at 3:07 pm in Pork Report | 3928615 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/porkreport/2009/12/01/pork-report-december-1-2009-dollars-for-donuts-edition/Pork+Report+December+1%2C+2009%3A+Dollars+For+Donuts+Edition2009-12-01+22%3A07%3A32The+Pork+Report

Pork Report November 30, 2009: Stimulus Snafus Edition

Tens of thousands of TSA screeners to receive government bonuses, including millions of dollars paid to more than 10,000 who have been rated poorly

Government bailout watch: Despite receiving $5.5 billion in stimulus funds, Government Services Administration’s backlog of deferred maintenance projects now totals $8.8 billion and the agency is proposing billions of dollars in new projects

As stimulus money doubles Wisconsin’s weatherization budget, a review finds weatherization work done on hundreds of low-income homes failed to meet federal standards; Inspectors found projects done in a way that could threaten the safety of residents or did not save enough energy

Stimulus funds pay to replace “unattractive” streetlights; The new lights “aren’t especially energy-efficient, and the old ones work”

Federal Reserve tries theater ads to improve its image

Las Vegas’ $4.1 million housing plan built on federal stimulus money stalled over squabbles about how to hand out the money and to whom

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Tags: bike paths, eminent domain, Federal Reserve, federal spending, Government Services Administration
Posted Nov 30th 2009 at 4:56 pm in Pork Report | 3877028 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/porkreport/2009/11/30/pork-report-november-30-2009-stimulus-snafus-edition/Pork+Report+November+30%2C+2009%3A+Stimulus+Snafus+Edition2009-11-30+23%3A56%3A22The+Pork+Report

Pork Report November 20, 2009: B-I-N-G-O Edition

U.S. Department of Justice funds spent on “Bingo Nights” in Ohio

Who wants $1.5 million in stimulus funds? Apparently, no one.

$25,000 stimulus grant will provide a week of “free” concerts in Sacramento

Less than one percent of Columbus commuters ride bikes, but more than a half-a-million dollars of federal stimulus funds to add downtown bike facilities

Hollywood’s Elegance International makeup school getting a $80,000 stimulus grant and Wild Boar Media, which “writes and dreams up new animation, stories, comics and toys” receives $50,000 in stimulus assistance

Congress long ago earmarked $87 million for a commuter rail line in Georgia, but the state has spent little of the money

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Tags: bingo nights, earmark, federal spending, fraud and waste, spending fraud
Posted Nov 20th 2009 at 3:49 pm in Pork Report | 3451017 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/porkreport/2009/11/20/pork-report-november-20-2009-b-i-n-g-o-edition/Pork+Report+November+20%2C+2009%3A+B-I-N-G-O+Edition2009-11-20+22%3A49%3A53The+Pork+Report

Mr. President, Where Are the Jobs?

Americans are hurting – there is no doubt.   Unemployment is at a record high and since Speaker Pelosi has been in the Speaker’s chair, 8.7 million more people are unemployed.  What’s even more frightening is that 3 million of those jobs have been lost just since the misnamed stimulus was shoved through Congress less than a year ago.  So where are the jobs?

Earlier this week, we learned that Recovery.gov, the official Administration website charged with reporting abuse was its own worst offender.  It is full of fake stimulus jobs in fake Congressional districts.   It also shows that $3 million couldn’t even produce a single job in South Carolina’s fake 43rd district.  Somehow, $1.8 million was spent for 1.4 jobs in the fake 00 district.  This would be funny, but the money belongs to taxpayers, not the government.

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Tags: federal spending, federal stimulus, federal waste, GAO report, phantom districts
Posted Nov 20th 2009 at 6:57 am in Congress, Economics, News, Obama, Politics | 3407091 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/jwilson/2009/11/20/mr-president-where-are-the-jobs/Mr.+President%2C+Where+Are+the+Jobs%3F2009-11-20+13%3A57%3A48Rep.+Joe+Wilson+%28R-SC%29

Obama Stimulus Numbers: The Return of Enron-Style Accounting

The Sarbanes-Oxley Law was rushed through Congress in the wake of an enormous corporate accounting scandal that shook Wall Street and investors across the country. CEO’s and officers at several large companies were found to have “cooked the books”; i.e. knowingly falsified earnings statements to maintain stock prices or propel them higher. The practice came to be known as, Enron-Style Accounting.

The new law had many provisions, but one of its more sweeping was the requirement that corporate officers and executives assume personal responsibility for the accuracy and completeness of financial reports. In some cases, corporate officers could face civil or even criminal penalties if the numbers they reported to the public turned out to be inaccurate.

If only the law applied to politicians.

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Tags: accounting scandals, Enron, federal spending, Franklin Center, GAO
Posted Nov 19th 2009 at 6:47 am in Economics, Featured Story, News, Obama, Politics | 3349082 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/mikeflynn/2009/11/19/obama-stimulus-numbers-the-return-of-enron-style-accounting/Obama+Stimulus+Numbers%3A+The+Return+of+Enron-Style+Accounting2009-11-19+13%3A47%3A45Mike+Flynn

Health Care ‘Reform:’ $500 Hammers and the Reverse Economies of Bureaucratic Scales

At the center of the health care debate is the simple – but profound – question of whether government can deliver services, in this case health care services, better than private enterprise sensibly regulated.   President Obama clearly believes that the ‘public option will not only be more equitable but more efficient as well – a claim he made when he spoke to the Joint Session of Congress earlier this year.  Of course, nothing could be further from the truth.

The reason Obama is wrong, and the Left in general on issues of public options versus private enterprise, is simple human nature.  When it comes to such matters, it was never so well explained as by the legendary Milton Friedman:

“There are four ways in which you can spend money.  You can spend your own money on yourself. When you do that, why then you really watch out what you’re doing, and you try to get the most for your money. Then you can spend your own money on somebody else.  For example, I buy a birthday present for someone.  Well, then I’m not so careful about the content of the present, but I’m very careful about the cost.  Then, I can spend somebody else’s money on myself.  And if I spend somebody else’s money on myself, then I’m sure going to have a good lunch!  Finally, I can spend somebody else’s money on somebody else.  And if I spend somebody else’s money on somebody else, I’m not concerned about how much it is, and I’m not concerned about what I get.  And that’s government.”

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Tags: Barack Obama, bureaucracy, federal spending, government health care, Government spending
Posted Nov 17th 2009 at 10:21 am in Healthcare, News, Obama, Politics | 3211034 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/tdelbeccaro/2009/11/17/health-care-reform-500-hammers-and-the-reverse-economies-of-bureaucratic-scales/Health+Care+%27Reform%3A%27+%24500+Hammers+and+the+Reverse+Economies+of+Bureaucratic+Scales2009-11-17+17%3A21%3A26Thomas+Del+Beccaro

Real Obama Miracle: Creates Jobs AND Congressional Districts With Wave of Hand

From ABC News:

Here’s a stimulus success story: In Arizona’s 15th congressional district, 30 jobs have beensaved or created with just $761,420 in federal stimulus spending. At least that’s what the Web site set up by the Obama administration to track the $787 billion stimulus says.

There’s one problem, though: There is no 15th congressional district in Arizona; the state has only eight districts.

And ABC News has found many more entries for projects like this in places that are incorrectly identified.

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Tags: Barack Obama, congressional districts, federal spending, job creation, recovery.org
Posted Nov 17th 2009 at 9:03 am in Congress, Economics, News, Obama, Politics | 3236296 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/publius/2009/11/17/real-obama-miracle-creates-jobs-and-congressional-districts-with-wave-of-hand/Real+Obama+Miracle%3A+Creates+Jobs+AND+Congressional+Districts+With+Wave+of+Hand2009-11-17+16%3A03%3A37Publius