The creators of this video were told to take it down… but once something is out there on the Net, hard to pull it back:
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Archive for the ‘Reid’ Category
The Cap & Trade Video Obama Admin Doesn’t Want You to See
Tuesday, November 17th, 2009Historical Unemployment Rates Related to Who Controls Congress?
Friday, November 6th, 2009Heard a Democratic congressperson attempt to spin the unemployment rate situation today by accusing folks of forgetting that President Bush was in office when the job losses started. That is true, no question.
But two thoughts here.
First, the rate continues to climb despite the actions taken by congress and both Presidents Bush and Obama and despite the promise that the “stimulus” would stop the climb before it passed 7%… it is now more than 10%.
Second, and I believe more significant, while presidents typically get much of the blame and credit for economic conditions, it is the US Congress that passes budgets and drives legislation that has a major impact on the economy (like the tax rates, the “stimulus”, “health care reform”, etc.).
Who controlled both the House and the Senate during this rapid climb in the unemployment rate? Democrats under the leadership of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. So while they are pointing fingers back at Bush, they might want to take a good look in the mirror too, because they are at least as much, if not more, to blame for this current mess.
In fact, since 1972 the lowest unemployment rates were when the Republicans controlled both the House and the Senate:
Coincidence? Maybe… then again, maybe it has something to do with the how the two parties view this country: opportunity vs entitlement. Could it be that encouraging open competition and low government intrusion leads to more jobs while taxing to drive behavior and redistributing wealth leads to less incentive to create jobs?
Just thinkin’…
Small historical footnote: Back when the unemployment rate was around 4.5%, many Democrats were spinning that the rate under Bush was unacceptable, that the pain caused by his policies meant that people who wanted jobs could not get them, etc, etc… anyone else wish we had that problem today?
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Quick Thought: Pre-existing Conditions
Friday, November 6th, 2009Heard Nancy Pelosi say that insurance companies discriminate against people with pre-existing conditions. She described as “scandalous” the Republican proposal because she says it does not end this discrimination.
I agree we need to come up with a solution that ensures folks have access to health care and that we need to help folks with pre-existing conditions, but is it really scandalous if the government does not force insurance companies to cover folks with pre-existing conditions?
To use the auto insurance analogy, how many insurance companies would give you insurance on a car AFTER you crash it into a fire hydrant? Think we should force insurance companies to cover us for pre-existing conditions like dented fenders?
Why should insurance companies be forced to cover someone AFTER a condition manifests? Isn’t insurance, by definition, something we purchase as a defense against risk? If an event has already occurred doesn’t seem like there is much of a chance it won’t occur… what’s to stop folks from waiting until their house burns down, saving years of premium payments, before buying insurance for a few hundred bucks so that the insurance company can rebuild their house?
That’s just foolishness and folks like Pelosi are being ridiculous.
In any case, I was under the impression the Republican bill does address pre-existing conditions if not the x% (the number appears to be a moving target) who have no insurance and either want or need it. I have not read the proposal, but my understanding is they set aside money to fund premiums for folks with pre-existing conditions. Where it appears to fall short is with folks who are not insured.
However, since the Republican bill comes in at around $61 billion and the Democrat bill comes in at over $1 trillion… is the bill proposed by the Democrats really so much better than the Republican bill that it is worth that extra trillion or so dollars? If the main difference is the coverage of x% of people without insurance, does it really take $1 trillion to cover those folks? I’m thinking the answer is probably no.
Oh… and it appears that, unlike the Democrat’s proposal, the Republican proposal will LOWER PREMIUMS according to the Congressional Budget Office.
So what would it cost to make sure those folks have access to health care? Let’s say it’s $300 billion.
Take that figure, add it to the Republican bill, and poof… health care for much less than half of what the Democrats are proposing without blowing up the system and without establishing a “public option”.
Another problem solved.
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640,329 jobs create or saved? Really?
Friday, October 30th, 2009Just love it when folks try to make a number seem precise … 640,329 jobs. Should have said 640, 329.186 jobs, now that would be precise!
Back to reality.
From February 2009 through September 2009 the United States lost 3,386,000 jobs.
This is a fact that is easily confirmed at the US Bureau of Labor Statistics website.
Nearly 3.4 million jobs lost, Feb-Sep 2009. Net jobs lost. Not gained, not saved, not imagined.
Presumably any “created or saved” jobs are already factored into this bottom line number.
Assuming the administration is not lying.. err.. mistaken about their numbers, all the latest report means is we theoretically would have lost 4.4 million jobs if not for the stimulus.
Instead of lying… sorry again… reporting that jobs have been “created or saved”, why not tell the truth. Assuming the assessment is correct, the stimulus has slowed the acceleration of job losses.
Is that good enough? Cause for celebration? And how does that translate to the assertion that we are on track to “create or save” 3.5 million jobs by the end of 2010?
If we have a net loss by the end of 2010 of 5 million jobs will we be told it would have been 8.5 million if not for the stimulus?
And what of this promised 3.5 million jobs. Should that figure not be 3.5 million more jobs than existed when the promise was made? Is the target not a net gain of jobs instead of some imaginary reduction in the loss of jobs?
So we should really expect to see 6.9 million jobs created between Oct 2009 and Dec 2010 so that the net gain will be 3.5 million jobs.
Here again is the chart showing the promise vs the reality:
Long way to go folks… what piece of the stimulus can we expect to move that line up?
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… and again.
Thursday, October 29th, 2009Data keeps coming in about how the “stimulus”, touted by team Obama as a huge success beyond Biden’s wildest dreams, has predictably failed to stimulate anything except liberal appetites for wealth redistribution.
Yet another example from the latest enemy of the administration, the Associated Press:
From Fox News – The Obama administration on Thursday slammed a report from The Associated Press alleging the government had overstated by thousands the number of jobs it has created or saved with federal contracts under President Obama’s $787 billion recovery program.
The White House seized on an initial report from a government oversight board weeks ago that claimed federal contracts awarded to businesses under the recovery plan already had helped pay for more than 30,000 jobs. The administration said the number was evidence that the stimulus program had exceeded early expectations toward reaching the president’s promise of creating or saving 3.5 million jobs by the end of next year.
30,000 is a great start on reaching 3.5 million? They must be expecting some pretty major acceleration in job growth. As we demonstrated in earlier posts, even if the 30,000 number was true, the number of jobs is dropping fast:
So how is gaining 30,000 jobs while losing over 3 million jobs exceeding expectations? Must be some pretty damn low expectations.
Unfortunately the 30,000 figure is a lie. I would have said the administration was mistaken, but I noticed that the politically correct thing to say these days is “lie”. For example, saw this on the DNC website today:
After fighting health reform with lies, deceit, and multi-million dollar ad campaigns, the health insurance lobby — America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) — recently released a report on the “effects of health reform.”
Just going with the flow here….
As I was saying, the Democrats have been lying about the jobs numbers, which were already weak, and their latest “Mission Accomplished” moment is sadly nothing more than smoke and mirrors.
Maybe this was just another in a long line of honest mistakes… or maybe not so much:
- A Colorado company said it created 4,231 jobs with the help of Obama’s economic recovery plan. The real number: fewer than 1,000.
- A child care center in Florida said it saved 129 jobs with the help of stimulus money. Instead, it gave pay raises to its existing employees.
- Officials at East Central Technical College in Douglas, Ga., said they now know they shouldn’t have claimed 280 stimulus jobs linked to more than $200,000 to buy three semi-trucks and trailers for commercial driving instruction, and a modular classroom and bathroom for a health education program.
- Elsewhere in the U.S., some jobs credited to the stimulus program were counted two, three, four or even more times.
- The San Joaquin, Calif., Regional Rail Commission reported creating or saving 125 jobs as part of a stimulus project to lay railroad track. Because the project drew from two pools of money, the commission reported that figure twice, bringing the total to 250.
- Barbara Moore, executive director of the Child Care Association of Brevard County in Cocoa, Fla., reported that the $98,669 she received in stimulus money saved 129 jobs at her center, though the cash was used to give her 129 employees a 3.9 percent cost-of-living raise. She said she needed to boost their salaries because some workers had left for better paying jobs.
- Colorado-based Teletech Government Solutions had worked with the Federal Communications Commission to come up with a job count for its $28.3 million contract for call centers fielding consumer questions about conversion of televisions to receive digital signals. The company reported creating 4,231 jobs — the highest number listed in the first stimulus accounting — even though 3,000 of those workers received a paycheck for five weeks or less.
OK.. perhaps “lies” is too strong a word… let’s go with “incompetence”
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Quick Thought: “Mission Accomplished” … again
Thursday, October 29th, 2009A top White House economist says spending from the $787 billion economic stimulus has already had its biggest impact on US economic growth and will likely not contribute to significant expansion next year.
Christina Romer, the head of President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, said Thursday that the $194 billion already spent gave a jolt to the economy that contributed to growth in the second and third quarters of the year.
And now, remember that shining example of why the stimulus was so successful… the Cash for Clunkers program? I was one of those who felt this was not going to do anything more than get folks who were planning to buy a car in the next few months to act quicker. Seemed like others would not likely in a position to act even with the incentive. In my view the result would not be more sales, it would mean about the same number of sales a bit sooner and then a drop off of sales, at the same time pulling used cars off the market which would hurt those of us who can not afford new cars.
Well… it’s worse than I thought. Not only did this not really increase overall sales and pull affordable used cars off the market (driving up used car prices), it cost a bundle of tax cash for no real benefit:
Edmunds - Edmunds.com, the premier resource for online automotive information, has determined that Cash for Clunkers cost taxpayers $24,000 per vehicle sold.
That’s right folks… that’s not a typo… $24,000 per car for a program that provided buyers an average rebate of $1,667.
Ah yes, government efficiency on display.
Mission accomplished!
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“Stimulus” to create 3.5m jobs? How’s that workin’ for ya?
Saturday, October 17th, 2009We heard that the “stimulus” would create 3,500,000 by 2011. To give the Obama administration the benefit of the doubt, let’s assume that means the end of 2011. That just happens to be 35 months, so we should average 100,000 new jobs a month starting in February 2009.
Unfortunately we continue to lose jobs every month which means that the number of jobs per month that need to be gained to have a net gain of 3,500,000 by the end of 2011 goes up every month.
For example, since we have lost 3,386,000 since the “stimulus” promise, we now need to average approximately 255,000 new jobs per month until the end of 2011.
Confused? Maybe a chart will help:
Not looking very stimulative ….
We are headed in the opposite direction in a hurry. So when someone (Biden, Obama, Reid, Pelosi) tells us that the stimulus is working, what exactly do they mean.
Where’s the jobs?
It will take some major job gains just to get back to where we were when the “stimulus” was passed, let alone back to where we were before Pelosi & Reid too charge of Congress:
Things certainly have changed…
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