What Debt? Obama's Insane Spending Binge! ... Alan Caruba

What Debt? Obama's Insane Spending Binge!

By Alan Caruba

There’s a reason that President Obama wants to increase taxes. His administration cannot spend your money fast enough.

A visit on Tuesday morning to the websites of various federal departments reveals that this administration can find an excuse to spend millions on anything. Here’s a quick tour.

In the wake of the Solyndra scandal in which taxpayers were, in the words of Investor Business Daily, “put on the hook for at least the first $75 million if the company should default and with “a minimum of five green firms going bankrupt” the U.S. Department of Energy, on September 13, announced a $1.2 billion loan guarantee to Mojave Solar LLC for the development of the Mojave Solar Project.

On the same day, the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) announced a $32.5 million grant “to finalize expansion plan of Boston’s South Station” for the purpose of expanding and enhancing the historic station on the grounds that it estimates a “50 percent increase in high-speed intercity passenger rail travel in the coming years.” And we all know how accurate estimates are, eh?

Three days later, the DOT provided $22 million to the Maryland Department of Transportation for a study of replacement options for the Susquehanna River Bridge on Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor from Boston to Washington, D.C. Why not spend the money on actually replacing the bridge? On September 19, DOT awarded $25 million to the city of Charlotte, N.C. for a streetcar line “to improve access to jobs, housing, and schools.” Why money from other States should gift Charlotte with a streetcar line when the nation has a $14 trillion debt might have something to do with the fact that the Democratic Party National Convention will be held there in 2012.

In the midst of a recession that officially does not exist, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Affairs (HUD), on September 15, announced $93 million in grants to 39 local projects “to conduct a wide range of activities intended to protect children and families from potentially dangerous lead-based paint and other home health and safety hazards.” HUD estimates there are “nearly 7,000 high-risk homes” because “providing healthy and safe homes for families and children is a priority.” Keep in mind that lead-based paint was banned for residential use in 1978, more than three decades ago.

On September 15, the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services announced awards totaling $10 million “to aid 129 organizations across the country that would like to become community health centers. The funds came from the Affordable Care Act, but at the same time Obamacare cuts billions from Medicare, reducing payments to hospitals and to individual physicians providing care to America’s growing population of the elderly. Go figure.

At the Department of Commerce, on August 30, they were celebrating a $2.9 million

On September 14, the Department of Agriculture announced that taxpayers are now on the hook for loans to 27 rural electric cooperative utilities. DOA made $603 million in loans to help electric utilities "upgrade, expand, maintain and replace rural America’s electric infrastructure."

This is the same administration whose Environmental Protection Agency is waging war on coal-fired utilities and mining (coal provides 50% of all electricity in America). On September 16, USDA announced funding for more than 500 projects to boost renewable energy production (wind and solar) despite the fact that this represents just over 2% of all the electricity produced and companies producing solar panels are declaring bankruptcy on a weekly basis these days.

Secretary Tom Vilsack also noted that USDA Rural Development “is providing $35 million

Not to be outdone, the U.S. Department of the Interior announced in late August that it was making more than $53 million in grants to 17 states “to support conservation planning and acquisition of vital habitat for threatened and endangered fish, wildlife, and plants.” The Endangered Species Act has been one of the greatest failures in U.S. history and responsible for thwarting billions in development. This money is intended to remove yet more landmass from development, all in the name of obscure species and plants.

On September 14 the Department of Justice announced grants totaling $118.4 million to “enhance public safety in Indian Country.” The money went to tribal governments. Apparently the Apaches are on the warpath again. Over the last two years, DOJ spent $121 million on conferences.

This doesn’t even take into consideration the money flowing from the Departments of Defense, Education, Veteran Affairs, and Homeland Security. It is in fact just a quick overview of the funding the Obama administration is spending while 14 million Americans are trying to find a job and others struggle to pay their mortgage or put their children through college.

It is a look at a government grown so large and so profligate that its credit rating was recently reduced and our President is on the campaign trail telling Americans they must pay more taxes despite the fact that 40% pay no taxes and “millionaires and billionaires” pay 70% of taxes collected. It’s the same government that wants to impose a 1% tax on all

Tea Party, anyone?

© Alan Caruba, 2011

Beware of Democrat Spending Cuts Promises

Beware of Democrat Spending Cuts Promises

A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet

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We warned recently that we feared the republicans would cave and allow tax increases and even new taxes in any deal made with the democrats to increase the US debt ceiling.  With every day that passes it looks more and more as if that not so difficult piece of prophecy will come true.

The GOP just never learns.  Anyone with the IQ of a gnat already knows the democrats will lie, “cross their hearts and hope to die,” and proclaim loudly and bombastically that YES! …  they WILL CUT SPENDING, if only those mean ole republicans would just allow them those teeny-weenie little tax increases.  Heck, they do it time and time again -- and the GOP comes off as a “collective” (One of Obama’s favorite visions!) of suckers, and ignoramuses! 

And yet we are hearing reports in the media that that is exactly what they are considering as we write.

And why not?  The dems have been doing this successfully for decades and getting away with it because there have been no republicans with the guts, the spine, the intestinal fortitude to plant the flag and say … not just “NO” – but “Hell NO!”

Like Lucy snatching the football away from Charlie Brown every football season, the GOP falls for it every cussed time!

The dems still owe the country the spending cuts they promised President Ronald Reagan. Remember?  The deal was this:  The dems promised three dollars in spending cuts for every dollar of tax increases.  Well, we got the tax increase, but we are still waiting for the spending cuts! 

Anytime the democrats offer spending cuts, drag out the “BS meter” because it is going to get deep, very deep, indeed. 

Unless forced to cut spending the democrats will never do it.  Like a drug addict who promises time after time, after time, that he/she is going to stop shooting up, they continue their destructive behavior until they drag everyone who loves them down into the deepest depths of hell itself.  The dems are continuing their destructive behavior, like the addict. And, again like the addict, eventually they will, in fact they HAVE, all but destroyed our entire country.

Democrats and spending cuts are like oil and water.  They simply do not mix.  See, they BELIEVE, religiously, in BIG GOVERNMENT.  To grow government, it takes MONEY.  Since the government earns no money of its own, it has to take it from the citizens, whether private or corporate.  Money procured by way of taxes makes for another aphrodisiac for democrats… power.   The bottom line, in fact, is the whole democratic party’s insistence on taxes and more taxes and taxes from ever more diverse sources and for an ever increasing host of government entities, agencies, programs, etc, etc, can be defined as their near fanatical lust for control and power.

The democrats, the Obama Administration, and the mainstream media (Well, all three, really, fall under the heading of “The Obama Administration.”) are frightening the American citizen to bring pressure to bear on republicans to sign on to their tax increases in order to avoid the “crisis” of defaulting on the nation’s debt.

Look. Defaulting will be a conscious decision by the current administration -- if it comes to that.  I bet the sun will rise in the east the morning after a default just as it has since creation. 

To avoid a default, even if no deal has been agreed to, simply pay the interest on the debt -- and there will be no “crisis of confidence” coming from those countries that loan the US money.

America is at the most important decision point of its existence.  We must decide who we are, who we intend to be.  We have been dabbling at socialism long enough.  Look around and you can see what just “dabbling” in socialism will do to a country.  Our President seems intent on driving America deeper into the hellhole that is full-fledged socialism. 

Socialism is, as Winston Churchill once said:  “Making everyone suffer equally.”  America is edging closer and closer to that scenario everyday as Obama and his cohort of democrats shoves us deeper and deeper into third-world status.

The republicans should refuse to sign onto any deal that includes tax increases or new taxes … period.  If that means the debt ceiling will not be raised, then so be it.

J. D. Longstreet

Rescuing America Requires A Political Purge Of Our Government(s)

Rescuing America Requires A Political Purge Of Our Government(s)
Clean them out from City Hall to Congress!
A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet
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Recently, I warned my fellow Americans to prepare for an avalanche of taxes. These taxes will be descending upon us from the federal government, the state governments, our county governments, and our city governments.

WHY? The answer is simply because the various governments ruling us have no understanding of capitalist economics. Well, that is not exactly true. Some of the folks in government understand capitalist and socialist economics as well as any accountant, but quite often they, too, are intoxicated with the power-trip levying taxes provides for lawmakers -- not to mention they have opted for the socialist brand of economics.

Why all the increases in taxes and the implementation of new taxes? The root cause is SPENDING – out of control, useless, careless, spending.

Look, I am married to a woman who spent nearly 35 years in the banking industry. I would bet my paycheck, if I had one, that you could put that woman in a room –alone -- with a red pencil, and present her with the books of the US government, and instruct her to find cuts in the budget – and -- when she finished the United States of America would be in damn good financial condition!

Having said that, I expect that most any average American given the same task could find billions of dollars in useless, careless, even nonsensical spending that could be cut, completely, bringing this country back on an even keel financial.

We all know that when the public demands their public officials cut spending, the public “servants” always, ALWAYS, come back with their tried and true scare tactics of being forced to cut, public safety, as in policemen, firemen, rescue personnel, and such. They ALWAYS do that. But, it is complete Bovine Scatology (BS!).

Yes, they may have to cut a few jobs in those departments, but not so many that anarchy reigns. Besides, if the average citizen was given access to the books and allowed to make cuts, I expect there would be very few folks who would argue with the cuts they would find. Certainly some of those directly affected by the cuts would raise hell, but hey, at some point reality must be allowed to come to the fore and tough decisions made -- and the economy righted. It can be done, but we have to WANT to do it.

In the meantime, our government has spent billions and billions of dollars we don’t have. The country is broke. So the government borrowed the money -- and then blew it.

Somebody has to pay those lenders back. You and I will pay a portion of it. Our children and grandchildren and even our great grandchildren will be paying off those loans far, far, into the future.

How will we pay it? Taxes -- and MORE taxes. Suggestions from some senators include a 15-cents per gallon tax on gasoline. A Value Added Tax has already been suggested. Then they are really going to get creative.

America will be smothered by taxes. Watch for another bout of “malaise” to set in when Americans come to understand there is no point in working so hard when most of what you earn is going to the government, anyway.

In the next few weeks we will be hit with propaganda telling us the recession is over or almost over. They will try to convince Americans that good times are here again.

Don’t believe it. There may be a period of moderation in the recession, but many believe it will be temporary and in a few months we’ll be in as bad a shape economically as we are today, if not worse.

I tend to believe there will be a deliberate move to “cook the books” in the months and weeks, leading to the election in November, to make democrats look much better than they look today and stave off the bloodletting of democrats in the Mid-Term Election. In 2011, if we are correct, the bottom will fall out of the American economy again. Ask yourself this: when you consider those running the US government these days, is this scenario too far fetched? See what I mean?

Americans fought a war over taxation without representation. I must tell you, it is worse WITH representation! Especially when those we sent to Washington to represent us DON’T!

The only chance we have to rescue our country is to throw the bums out! We’ll have a chance at a good start at doing just that this coming November. I intend to vote against every incumbent, beginning with the NC primary election in May. Let’s just say I intend to enforce some term limits of my own on those purportedly representing me all the way from City Hall to Congress.

Rescuing America cannot wait. If we are to be successful, we must begin the purge in the primaries and follow through all the way to the General Election in November of 2012. It is the only way to save the republic.

J. D. Longstreet

America: Prepare For An Avalanche Of Taxes

America: Prepare For An Avalanche Of Taxes
A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet
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Occasionally, someone who really knows what he or she is talking about actually speaks. Such is the case in the article by Timothy P. Cahill formerly the Democratic state treasurer of Massachusetts. (He is now running for governor as an independent.)

In an article titled: “Timothy P. Cahill: Romneycare's failure teaches need to repeal Obamacare” Mr. Cahill says the following: “Despite our warnings about the damage done by RomneyCare, the President and Congressional Democrats ignored the will of the American people and passed the bill anyway. Now we must send a message to Congress loud and clear: "Repeal and replace ObamaCare." Mr. Cahill goes on to say: “The only reason RomneyCare has survived at all is that we have been propped up by the federal government over and over again. But this begs the question of who will bail out the federal government when ObamaCare goes into effect.”
Finally, Mr. Cahill says this: “There is still time to repeal and replace this bill before it is implemented. That's exactly what we have to do-before it is too late. You may read the entire article HERE.

So – how ARE we supposed to pay for ObamaCare? TAXES, TAXES and MORE TAXES!
In an article at The Washington Examiner entitled: “Slow-growth Europe, here we come” author Irwin Stelzer makes the following statement: “His (Obama) fiscal plan is to raise taxes; his political calculation is that Americans will come to love their new entitlements and rank him with Franklin Delano Roosevelt in their pantheon of heroes.”

Mr. Stelzer goes on to say: “Next on the president's list is the financial services sector: More and in some instances better regulation of banks, procedures for winding down busted banks without massive taxpayer bailouts, consumer protection, control of bankers' compensation systems. On to the energy and education sectors, both also on Obama's "transformation" list. Mr. Stelzer’s conclusion is as follows: “When the transformation of America is complete, the country will have been moved in the direction of the European social welfare state. You may read the entire article HERE.

Months ago we warned that Americans should prepare for a new “VAT TAX.” That is a Value Added Tax. I don’t think anyone took us seriously at the time -- no matter that this scribe was dead serious!

In any event, rest assured that the President's Commission on Fiscal Reform would suggest a European style VAT tax.

So – what the heck IS a VAT Tax? Well, you’d better sit down for this one: A VAT tax is a Value Added Tax. Below is a comparison of sales tax and a VAT tax (from Wikipedia) we hope will shed SOME light on a VAT tax. You may read the entire article HERE.)

“Value added tax (VAT), or goods and services tax (GST) is a consumption tax (CT) levied at each stage that value is added to a product or service. VAT is an indirect tax, in that the tax is collected, and paid to the state, by someone who does not bear the cost of the tax. In contrast to sales tax, the number of steps there are between the first producer and the final consumer is neutral in terms of tax charged, whereas sales tax is levied on total value at each stage, resulting in a cascade effect (at each stage tax is levied on the tax levied at the previous stage.

Ok, here is an example comparing a VAT TAX to a sales tax.

Consider the manufacture and sale of any item, which in this case we will call a widget. In what follows , the term "gross margin" is used rather than "profit". Profit is only what is left after paying other costs, such as rent and personnel.

Without any tax:

A widget manufacturer spends $1.00 on raw materials and uses them to make a widget.
The widget is sold wholesale to a widget retailer for $1.20, making a gross margin of $0.20.
The widget retailer then sells the widget to a widget consumer for $1.50, making a gross margin of $0.30.

With a North American (Canadian provincial and U.S. state) sales tax:
With a 10% sales tax:
The manufacturer pays $1.00 for the raw materials, certifying it is not a final consumer.
The manufacturer charges the retailer $1.20, checking that the retailer is not a consumer, leaving the same gross margin of $0.20.
The retailer charges the consumer $1.65 ($1.50 + $1.50x10%) and pays the government $0.15, leaving the gross margin of $0.30.

With a value added tax:
With a 10% VAT:
The manufacturer pays $1.10 ($1 + $1x10%) for the raw materials, and the seller of the raw materials pays the government $0.10.
The manufacturer charges the retailer $1.32 ($1.20 + $1.20x10%) and pays the government $0.02 ($0.12 minus $0.10), leaving the same gross margin of $0.20.
The retailer charges the consumer $1.65 ($1.50 + $1.50x10%) and pays the government $0.03 ($0.15 minus $0.12), leaving the gross margin of $0.30 (1.65-1.32-.03).

OK – Complicated enough for you? The bottom line is this: There will be a humongous increase in the price of everything you purchase, which is covered by a VAT tax. It ain’t gonna be pretty.

Charles Krauthammer has authored a piece entitled: “The 'value added tax' is coming to America” In his article Krauthammer says: “People are used to sales taxes, and this one produces a river of revenue. Every 1 percent of VAT would yield up to $1 trillion a decade (depending on what you exclude — if you exempt food the yield would be more like $900 billion).

It's the ultimate cash cow. Obama will need it. By introducing universal health care, he has pulled off the largest expansion of the welfare state in four decades. And the most expensive. Which is why all of the European Union has the VAT. Huge VATs. Germany: 19 percent. France and Italy: 20 percent. Most of Scandinavia: 25 percent. (Read more from this Tulsa World article at HERE. )

You know I could not help but consider that God, Himself, only asks 10%! But then, Obama isn’t God, just an uberhuman, right???

There is no doubt that a large percentage of Americans have NO IDEA what they got themslevs into with ObamaCare. Many will only get it as they stand in line for several hours just to buy toilet paper.

Yes, America is now a socialist state very much like the old Soviet Russia was and the modern European states are today.

Pity.

J. D. Longstreet

A College Degree Is Not A Human Right!

A College Degree Is Not A Human Right!
A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet

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Whether you want to admit it or not, there are some people who have absolutely no business going to college.

Back in the day, there were “trade schools.” There were schools where certain trades were taught. If a young person wanted to be, oh, say, an auto mechanic, the school would teach them the fundamentals and depending upon the school, much, much, more. It set the student on a path, in his or her young life that would ensure them a trade from which they could make a living, support a family, and contribute to their community. Trade schools were GOOD things.

We have all heard the stories of the high school teacher who assures certain students that they have no business attending college. We tend to recoil in horror at such presumptuousness by anyone, let alone a teacher. But wait! Have you considered the possibility that the teacher might be right? Has it occurred to you that the teacher is in a far better position than you or I to form that conclusion?

Come on, folks. We all know there are, in fact, some folks who only take up space in the classroom whether in high school or college. There are some youngsters for whom life is one continuous party. You cannot honestly believe that THEY deserve to be there, taking the place of a hard working scholar determined to learn as much as he or she can in the four, or more, years they will industriously study to better themselves and the world they occupy and contribute to society.

But in the politically correct world we live in this bit of common sense is frowned upon. In fact, to voice such a stance might get you driven from the room. You have just bumped into the great wall of “inclusivity.” We must be “fair.” We must be “inclusive.” EVERYONE MUST have a chance at a college education and, if at all possible, the government should pay for it.

Of course, when we say the government should pay for it we are really saying the taxpayers should pay for because the government has no money of its own. It takes money from us, the taxpayers and, much to our chagrin, blows it!

Very soon now, I expect to see some sort of bill introduced in our national legislature, which will insure that every American who wants to go to college will be able to do so at taxpayer expense. That is a wrong-headed idea and must be stopped before it ever becomes law. Such a law will only make academia far richer than it is now and will do little, if anything, to better educate the American populace. In fact, one can already see that postsecondary college degrees have been, shall we say, dumbed down?

Let’s face it. There are students who would do far better for themselves, and society, if they studied at a vocational school or a technical school of some variety. We always NEED trained technicians and tradesmen. Every society does.

There is, currently, no RIGHT to a college degree in America. Not yet, at least. But, left to their own devices, the dunces who currently lead our country will certainly make it so. And THAT is wrong! To insist that the taxpayers of America foot the bill for this politically correct act of “inclusivity” is also wrong.

J. D. Longstreet

Massive Tax Hikes & New Taxes On The Way, America!

Massive Tax Hikes & New Taxes On The Way, America!

A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet
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Oh, please tell me you did not buy the lies out of Washington that the government is going to tax the rich to pay for Socialized Medicine otherwise known as ObamaCare? Surely you didn't fall for that!

Heck, I seriously doubt there are enough rich people in the US to make a dent in what that Communist program called ObamaCare is going to cost the citizens of the US.

If I were among the rich of this country, I'd be staying up nights transferring my assets off shore and getting myself, my family, my business, and, anything the government could tax, out of their reach. What the current government of the US is doing to the wealthy Americans is flat out wrong. It is thievery by another name... taxes.

Americans are so ignorant of their history that it is inexcusable -- no worse! It is embarrassing! . Americans have forgotten this country fought a war for independence over, what else, TAXES! This country was founded as a result of a TAX REVOLT! What the current federal government is doing to the citizens of the US makes King George look like a shirker!

I hope those of you who voted for Obama are happy. You wanted change. Well, you got it. From a democracy to a socialist nation in less than a year. Hope? What hope? We are screwed for at least three more years. The bunch of clowns and fruitcakes running the Congress are pathetic socialists/communists/democrats lusting after power and nothing else.

Guess what they are about to do? No I don't mean Amnesty for the Illegal Aliens living among us... although that is certainly coming. I mean the load of taxes they are about to slap on the middle class of this country.

Do you know what a VAT tax is? Huh? It is a Value added Tax. Sometimes referred to as a "sales tax".

In an Article entitled: "Damn the Deficit: Full Speed Ahead on Health Care", Michael Barone said the following:

"The instrument they may have in mind is the value added tax, which operates as an invisible sales tax on goods and services. Back in May, Budget Director Peter Orszag's spokesman mentioned the VAT as a "credible idea" that he did not want to rule out. In June, House Ways and Means Chairman Charles Rangel suggested a VAT as "a point of discussion."

In September, John Podesta, head of the Obama transition team, spoke of how a VAT would "create a balance" with other economies, and White House adviser Paul Volcker cited a carbon tax and a VAT as ways to raise lots of revenue. In October, Speaker Nancy Pelosi said, "Somewhere along the way, a value-added tax plays into this." " You may read the entire article at:
SOURCE

A Value Added Tax is a tax on the estimated market value added to a product or material at each stage of its manufacture or distribution, ultimately passed on to the consumer. Please read that last phrase again. "Passed on to the consumer." Socialists/communists/progressives/democrats do no understand that businesses do not pay taxes. The government actually THINKS THEY DO! Those of us who have actually run businesses understand that a business passes the cost of taxes along to his customers in higher prices for the goods and/or services his business produces or offers.

The attraction of a VAT tax to our government is twofold. One: It will raise a lot of money for them to squander. Two: it is a hidden tax -- hidden from you, the consumer, the sucker. Prices on goods and services will sky rocket while, at the same time, sales of those products will fall through the floor. Soon afterwards business will begin shuttering plants and offices and the unemployment figures will spike upwards even more than then the real figures, I am convinced the government is not releasing. (10.2%? Come on, now. Figure closer to 13% maybe even higher.)

Taxes, taxes, and even more taxes are coming to the American middle class. If the ObamaCare bill passes, you are not going to believe how much that "free" healthcare is going to cost you! Some of us, like myself, with chronic diseases will pay for it with our lives.

We can stop some of the coming taxes by stopping ObamaCare in the Senate in the next few days.

Contact your Senators and your Representative, ASAP, and tell them, in no uncertain terms, that you want them to vote against ObamaCare and any, and all, new taxes. We have to cut off the money and starve this government into submission.

And be prepared, America. Our economic situation is going to get a lot worse before it gets any better. When inflation sets in, sometime around mid-year 2010, your money and mine with be worth a whole lot less than it is today.

But, hey! America wanted "CHANGE!" Well, what do you think of the change now???

J. D. Longstreet

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All Pain, No Gain ... by Paul Driessen

All Pain, No Gain

Restricting and taxing energy use to prevent speculative climate disasters will be disastrous
By Paul Driessen
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“Electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket” under cap-and-trade,” President Obama has admitted. “Industry will have to retrofit its operations. That will cost money, and they will pass that cost on to consumers.” Cap-and-trade, Senator Ben Cardin (D-MD) eagerly observed, is “the most significant revenue-generating proposal of our time.”

Not one congressman even read the numbingly complex 1427-page Waxman-Markey global warming bill, before the House of Representatives voted on it. A new version of the Kerry-Boxer Senate bill provides no details about how carbon allowances would be allocated under a mandatory emissions reduction program.

The process recalls Churchill’s description of Russia: “a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.” Here we are dealing with estimates wrapped in assumptions inside speculation – based on assertions that Earth faces a manmade climate disaster.

The only thing known with certainty is that cap-tax-and-trade will inflict intense pain for no environmental gain – on regions, states, communities, industries, companies and families. It is a complicated regulatory scheme that penalizes businesses and people who use electricity and other forms of energy derived from oil, gasoline, natural gas and coal.

Cap-tax-and-trade would place limits on how much carbon dioxide America would be allowed to generate, and the limits would decrease drastically over time. Companies and utilities would be issued permits, saying how much CO2 they can put into the air each year. If they cannot stay within that limit, they will have to switch to wind, solar, nuclear or geothermal energy (assuming those sources can be built, in the face of regulation and litigation); capture the CO2 and store it somewhere (via technologies that do not yet exist); or buy more permits from US or foreign companies that don’t need as much energy (through a new international financial, trading and carbon derivatives market).

Cap-and-trade restricts and taxes hydrocarbon energy use. Because 85% of America’s energy is hydrocarbons, prices will soar for everything we heat, cool, drive, make, grow, eat and do. The impacts will be especially painful in states that depend on coal for 50-98% of their electricity, refine petroleum for the nation’s vehicles, and manufacture products that improve, enhance and safeguard our lives.

The complex system will be administered by profit-seeking carbon management and trading firms, regulated and policed by thousands of government bureaucrats, and paid by every family, driver, business, school district, hospital, airline, traveler and farmer.

The ostensible goal is to stabilize planetary temperatures, climates and weather patterns that have never been stable, by slashing carbon dioxide emissions 83% below 2005 levels by 2050.

The last time America emitted that amount of CO2 was 1908! Once we account for the far lower population, manufacturing, transportation and electrification levels of a century ago, 2050 carbon dioxide emissions would have to equal what the United States emitted after the Civil War!

That would require monumental changes in lifestyles and living standards. It would mean politicians and unelected pressure groups, bureaucrats and judges will limit or dictate home building, heating, cooling and lighting decisions; transportation and vacation choices; how food can be grown and shipped; what kinds of products can be purchased and how they must be manufactured; and how much energy must come from subsidized, unreliable renewable sources.

Restrictions and taxes on fossil fuels will hit our manufacturing heartland especially hard, as it is heavily dependent on coal and natural gas. The American Council for Capital Formation calculated that Waxman-Markey would spike Indiana’s electricity prices nearly 60% by 2030 – increasing school and hospital energy costs 28-42% and causing numerous jobs to be exported to Asia, where there will be few restrictions on CO2 emissions. Numerous other states would be similarly hard hit, says ACCF.

Other experts have calculated that cap-and-trade would destroy millions of American jobs … raise energy costs for the average US family by $1,400 to $3,100 per year … and send overall food and living costs upward by $4,600 annually. Will you be able to afford that?

Poor families may get energy welfare. Wealthier families can absorb these costs. But cap-and-trade will severely affect middle class families. They would be forced to pay skyrocketing energy and food costs, by cutting their college, retirement and vacation budgets. Hospitals and school districts would have to raise fees and taxes, or cut services. Cities and states would have to cover rising welfare and unemployment costs, as tax revenues dwindle. Tourism-based businesses and economies would get hammered.

Switching to renewable energy does not merely increase costs and reduce reliability. It also affects the environment. Ethanol mandates would mean growing corn or switchgrass on farmland the size of Montana, and using vast amounts of water, fertilizer, diesel fuel, natural gas and insecticides.

Wind and solar power would mean covering millions of acres of scenic, habitat and farm land with huge turbines and solar panels. Hundreds of millions of tons of concrete, steel, copper, fiberglass and “rare earth” minerals would be needed to build them and thousands of miles of new transmission lines to get the expensive renewable electricity to distant cities. Because the turbines and panels only work 30% of the time, back up natural gas generators would also be needed, meaning still more raw materials.

Even worse, all this pain would bring no benefits. Using global warming alarmists’ own computer models, climatologist Chip Knappenberger calculated that even an 83% reduction in US carbon dioxide emissions would result in global temperatures rising just 0.1 degrees F less by 2050 than not cutting US carbon dioxide emissions at all.

That’s because CO2 emissions from China, India and other countries would quickly dwarf America’s job-killing reductions. These nations are building a new coal-fired power plant every week and putting millions of new cars on growing networks of highways – to modernize, reduce poverty, improve human health, and ensure that families, offices, schools and hospitals have electricity. Germany plans to build 27 new coal-fired power plants by 2020, and Italy expects to double its reliance on coal by 2015.

Moreover, the 0.1 degree temperature reduction assumes rising CO2 causes global warming – a belief that thousands of scientists vigorously challenge, because there is little actual evidence to support the thesis.

Of course, some will gain from penalizing, taxing and hyper-regulating our economy. Al Gore and others involved in emission trading stand to make billions, from trillions of dollars in cap-and-trade transactions. Coastal states and companies that don’t rely on coal will benefit, as will companies that get excess or low-cost emission permits and can sell these allowances for handsome profits. Well-paid bureaucrats will have “green jobs” – as will scientists, eco-activists and renewable energy companies, who will share $6-10 billion annually in taxpayer cash, as long as they continue to conduct climate research, issue dire warnings about global warming cataclysms, and build wind and solar projects.

Besides massive pain for no gain, cap-tax-and-trade will create an intrusive Green Nanny State that destroys jobs, reduces personal freedoms, and hobbles economic opportunities and civil rights.

Our Earth is cooling. Our economy is in the tank. Congress and the White House need to stop hyperventilating about global warming, and let the free market get our economy back on track.
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Paul Driessen is senior policy adviser for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT), which is sponsoring the All Pain No Gain petition against global-warming hype. He also is a senior policy adviser to the Congress of Racial Equality and author of Eco-Imperialism: Green Power - Black Death. This article first appeared on World Net Daily: http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=115253

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Conservative+Cap-and-Trade+Taxes

A Man-Made Disaster ... by Alan Caruba

A Man-Made Financial Disaster
By Alan Caruba

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You will recall that, shortly before the end of the 2008 political campaign, the White House announced a threat to the entire financial system and called on Congress to enact emergency spending powers. The Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 was enacted on October 3, 2008.

Just eighteen days earlier an event occurred that slid under the radar screen of virtually the entire mainstream media. On Thursday, September 15, 2008, at approximately 11 A.M., the Federal Reserve noticed a tremendous draw down of money market accounts in the nation, amounting to $550 billion dollars. It occurred within an hour or two. The money was removed electronically.

It has never been made public which accounts were affected, nor where the withdrawn funds were sent. If we knew those facts, we would know who launched an attack on the United States that has been more devastating than any in our history.

Had the Federal Reserve not closed down the accounts involved it is estimated that by 2 P.M. $5.5 trillion would have been withdrawn and the entire economy of the nation would have collapsed. It would have been followed within a day with the collapse of the world’s economy.

What followed was the sub-prime mortgage loan debacle that can be traced to the government’s intervention into the housing loan marketplace via Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. They ended up owning fifty percent of all the loans.

Americans were using home ownership as a credit card and government policies were mandating the issuance of bad loans in the name of “social justice.” Home ownership became “a right”, not an aspiration.

Throughout the 1990s, as communities revalued homes, increasing their alleged worth in order to impose higher property taxes, it was only a matter of time before a financial collapse became a reality. Virtually every State was spending beyond its means and increasing property taxes was the preferred choice to make up the difference.

That collapse, however, was initiated by unknown persons at precisely the time Americans were preparing to select a new president. That was not a coincidence.

In the October edition of “Budget & Tax News”, a publication of The Heartland Institute, a non-profit, free market think tank, there was an article by Sandra Fabry, the government affairs manager for Americans for Tax Reform and executive director of the Center for Fiscal accountability, a project of the organization.

The article was titled “61% of National Income Goes to Government.”

“Americans this year had to toil until August 12 to pay for federal, state, and local governments, according to the annual Cost of Government Day report by the Americans for Tax Reform Foundation and Center for Fiscal Accountability.”

“In 2009, the government will consume a whopping 61.34 percent of national income.”

The redistribution of income has reached a point in which 30.36 percent of the money Americans earn is consumed by federal spending. State governments take their percentage as well in income, sales, and other forms of taxation.

It means that Americans worked for 111 days of the year just to pay for the costs of the federal government and federal spending has reached a record 28.5 percent of GDP.

With the passage by the House of the government’s attempted takeover of the nation’s healthcare system and the up-coming cap-and-trade bill, a massive tax on energy use, there is no telling how many more government spending programs, huge redistribution schemes, Americans will be obliged to pay for.

The Obama administration swiftly embarked on an unprecedented spending spree, “bailing out” General Motors and Chrysler, in effect owning AIG, the insurance giant, and giving funds to various banks to “stimulate” loans, i.e. credit, that Americans and their business enterprises depend upon to function.

Peter Schiff, CEO of Euro-Pacific Capital, has long argued that the problems of the American economy were created by excess credit and debt, and that a massive infusion of credit and debt into the economy only exacerbates the problem. He is right.

The “stimulus” has not worked and the billions still unspent by the program should be returned to the American treasury. Taxes should be cut in order to allow Americans to save or spend their own money. Contracts with civil service and teacher’s union should be renegotiated. A vast regulatory revision to remove obstacles to economic growth should be implemented.

Meanwhile the government’s “official” figures say 10.2 million Americans are out of work, but the actual figure is estimated to be closer to 17 million or more. Nothing is being done to facilitate hiring with tax credits and reduced taxation of small businesses, nor are the highest corporate taxes in the world being reduced to encourage domestic investment and growth.

And our present difficulties began on September 15, 2008 in a calculated attack that got Barack Obama elected and was immediately followed by all the subsequent efforts to grow the federal government ever larger to make more Americans dependent upon it. The Obama administration has increased the national debt more than all previous presidencies combined.

There is a determined effort under way to undermine the free market capitalist system that made America the greatest economic and military power in the world. Both the White House and the Democrat-controlled Congress are parties to it, but the identities of those who launched that September attack remain hidden.

Alan Caruba writes a daily post at http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com. An author, business and science writer, he is the founder of The National Anxiety Center.
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Conservative+Liberal+America, Capitalist, Conservative. Socialist, Obama, Taxes" rel="tag">Conservative+Liberal+America, Capitalist, Conservative. Socialist, Obama, Taxes

US CONGRESS PLAYS ROBIN HOOD!

US CONGRESS PLAYS ROBIN HOOD!
A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet

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Obama Hood and his Merry Band, up on the Hill in DC, are doing their best to emulate the tale of Robin Hood by robbing the rich and giving it to the, well, who the heck ARE they giving it too? Beats me!

Look, I make no secret of the fact that I rather like rich folks. As a matter of fact, I’d really like to join their ranks, but, alas, time is running out for wealth acquisition for this old scribe and even if I made it suddenly, I‘d be hard pressed to spend it all before I go. You see, I DO understand that I cannot take it with me and since I have no say in whether I go, or not, I have concluded that I must be content with my station in life for the last few years.

Rich folks pay too darn much in taxes! There, I’ve said it. It needs saying because it is the truth. The following is from an article by Ed Feulner entitled: “Tax the Wealthy Even More? That’s Rich”. Mr. Feulner said the following: “Economist Curtis Dubay of The Heritage Foundation ran the numbers earlier this year. He found that in 2006, the top 20 percent of earners made 55.7 percent of all pre-tax income, up slightly from 54.8 percent in the year 2000. Yet at the same time, their share of federal income taxes increased from 81.2 percent to 86.3 percent. And the further up the income ladder one goes, the greater percentage of the total tax burden one shoulders. According to the IRS, in 2007 the top 1 percent of taxpayers paid more than 40 percent of all federal income taxes. That’s more than the bottom 95 percent combined paid.” We recommend you read the entire article. You’ll find it HERE.

The US cannot continue to wring every cent it can get from the rich. Why? Because the rich are going to leave, that’s why. We are all familiar with stories of wealthy families moving about within the United States from high tax states to lower taxing states. The same applies to the globe. If we are not extremely careful there is going to be a flood of rich folks leaving these shores and taking their wealth with them to other countries that, frankly, treat them, and their money, much better that the US government does.

The US is already broke. If the private wealth pulls out, we will be in a much worse economic state than we are today. Never forget that.

The wealthy provide the jobs, REMEMBER? Did you ever hear of a poor family opening a factory and hiring hundreds to work for that factory at decent wages? I dare say you have not. The government may boast of creating jobs, but it is all hot air. The private sector creates jobs and that portion of the private sector creating those jobs is the wealthy among us

Of course, we now have a socialist government in the US and the redistribution of the wealth is the hallmark of such a government. That simply means they take the wealth from those who have it and spread it around to those who don’t until everybody suffers equally.

With unemployment approaching ten percent in the US and marching toward 12 or 13 percent we are looking at years of hard times ahead. And we have precisely the wrong people in charge of our government at precisely the wrong time in our history.

J. D. Longstreet

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Conservative+US+Taxes+Obama+Socialists+Wealthy