The Communist States of America: The New Stimulus ‘Math’

Wednesday, the Washington Post reported: “For months, economists and government watchdogs have warned that the job-creation reports should be taken with a heavy grain of salt. . . . Trying to count the number of jobs created or saved may have been a fool’s errand that needlessly undermined the credibility of the overall reporting effort.”

No kidding. Now, the AP reports that the White House

has abandoned its controversial method of counting jobs under President Barack Obama’s economic stimulus, making it impossible to track the number of jobs saved or created with the $787 billion in recovery money. Despite mounting a vigorous defense of its earlier count of more than 640,000 jobs credited to the stimulus, even after numerous errors were identified, the Obama administration now is making it easier to give the stimulus credit for hiring. It’s no longer about counting a job as saved or created; now it’s a matter of counting jobs funded by the stimulus.

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Tags: Barack Obama, communist russia, job creation, jobs created or saved, office of management and budget
Posted Jan 14th 2010 at 9:51 am in Economics, Obama, Politics | 5938668 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/vderugy/2010/01/14/the-communist-states-of-america/The+Communist+States+of+America%3A+The+New+Stimulus+%27Math%272010-01-14+17%3A51%3A39Veronique++de+Rugy

Obama’s Four Flimsy Budget Cutting Ideas

President Obama, in his speech on the economy, given at the Bookings Institute, once again, tried to be all things to all people.  Most of the speech was aimed at the dwindling number of devotees who were anxious to hear that additional taxpayer revenues would continue to flow to favored, pet projects.

Nor were these fans disappointed, for, despite running $1.2 trillion in annual deficits, President Obama has once again promised to borrow from the future to fund yet another round of pork and dodgy projects disguised as infrastructure and green investments.

At the same time the President was busy adding more spending programs to our bloated budget, he insisted, once again, that he was committed to fiscal discipline.  Obama said “We’ve combed the budget, cutting waste and excess wherever we could.”  Really?

What programs have been cut and what sorts of excess were eliminated?  For the curious….here goes.  After several months, Obama’s OMB has released a list of the top four programs that have been identified after an exhaustive search and combing of the federal budget.

The Administration reviewed over 38,000 different ideas, to aggressively root out wasteful practices, many of them submitted by government employees.   After much work, synthesis,and review, OMB announced the four cost-cutting idea finalists:

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Tags: Barack Obama, brookings institute, budget cuts, Deficit, federal budget
Posted Dec 9th 2009 at 3:03 pm in Congress, News, Obama, Politics | 4329829 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/ldoan/2009/12/09/obamas-four-flimsy-budget-cutting-ideas/Obama%E2%80%99s+Four+Flimsy+Budget+Cutting+Ideas2009-12-09+22%3A03%3A08Lurita+Doan

ObamaCare Box Score — Conservatives 1 – Liberals 0

The first game in a long series of Obamacare battles is complete and the liberals lost Game 1 by 13 votes.  The Senate voted against a procedural motion to debate the so-called “Doc Fix” bill Wednesday.  Just as Manny Ramirez of the Los Angeles Dodgers has taken a beating in the media for leaving Game 5 of the National League Championship Series early to take a shower and hitting a mere .250 for the series, Senator Harry Reid has taken a beating in the press for marching the Democrat Caucus into a losing vote in the first battle over Obamacare.

A bipartisan coalition of senators concerned about spending stopped Senators Reid from bringing “Doc Fix” to a vote with 13 Democrats siding with the entire Republican Caucus.  Democrat Senators Evan Bayh of Indiana, Robert Byrd of West Virginia, Kent Conrad and Byron Dorgan of North Dakota, Russ Feingold and Herb Kohl of Wisconsin, Claire McCaskill of Missouri, Bill Nelson of Florida, Jon Tester of Montana, Mark Warner and Jim Webb of Virgina, Ron Wyden of Oregon and Independent Democrat Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut all opposed the motion to start debate on the bill.

The strategy to pass the “Doc Fix” outside of Obamacare in an attempt to buy off doctors groups’ support for Obamacare was documented in the media.  The Hill reported earlier this week that “the White House and Democratic leaders are offering doctors a deal:  They’ll freeze cuts in Medicare payments to doctors in exchange for doctors’ support of healthcare reform.”  Clearly the majority of senators would not go along with this strategy because the $247 billion price tag for the bill was too high to buy Obamacare. 

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Tags: American Medical Association, Barack Obama, Chris Dodd, Doc Fix, Harry Reid
Posted Oct 23rd 2009 at 7:15 am in Congress, Healthcare, Politics | 1971019 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/bdarling/2009/10/23/obamacare-box-score-conservatives-1-liberals-0/ObamaCare+Box+Score+--+Conservatives+1+%E2%80%93+Liberals+02009-10-23+14%3A15%3A04Brian+Darling