Quantitative Easing Explained (Video)

Hat tip to Mustang of Social Sense:


A not-so-funny Sunday funny.

So, how can we prepare for the coming economic storm?

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FEATURED QUESTION: Our Economy

(This FEATURED QUESTION stuck here for few days. Please scroll down for other postings)


HERE in the Washington Post you can read the highlights of the deficit-reduction proposals. They include the following:

-Overhaul individual income taxes and corporate taxes. For individuals and families, eliminate a host of popular tax credits and deductions, including the child tax credit and the mortgage interest deduction.Significantly reduce income tax rates, with the top rate dropping to 23 percent from 35 percent.

-Reduce the corporate income tax rate to 26 percent from 35 percent, and stop taxing the overseas profits of U.S.-based multinational corporations.

-Increase the gas tax by 15 cents a gallon to fund transportation programs.

Read this link to see the entire list.

On the list is a hot-button issue for every American I know. Maybe more than one hot button.

No matter how we look at this problem, the solution is going to be painful:

Voters who last week sent Washington a message to wrestle the spiraling debt under control have gotten a message back from the leaders of a White House budget commission: It'll hurt.

A proposal released Wednesday by the bipartisan leaders of President Barack Obama's deficit commission suggested cuts to Social Security benefits, deep reductions in federal spending and higher taxes for millions of Americans to stem a flood of red ink that they said threatens the nation's very future.

Interest groups on the right and the left squealed, predictably, about the plan, which would cut total deficits by as much as $4 trillion over the next decade - much of it from programs long considered all but sacred.

Besides Social Security, Medicare spending would be curtailed. Tax breaks for many health care plans, too. And the Pentagon's budget as well in a plan that attaches $3 in spending cuts to every $1 in tax increases.

For all the pain, the deficit still would approach $400 billion in 2015 under the proposal...

Surely, we all realize that something must be done about our deficit! If nothing is done, our entire economy could well collapse.

FEATURED QUESTION (in two parts): (1) How can the deficit be substantially and effectively reduced? (2) What will be the consequences for us as individuals and families if various methods of deficit reduction are put into place?

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A Politician Will Say Anything

Especially in an election year.

Spew alert! Set down your beverage before watching the video below the fold (hat tip to Midnight Rider of Infidel Bloggers Alliance):


As Midnight Rider quipped in his post:

Obama is gonna be pissed! HE'S supposed to be the Messiah. . .

And after Obama has shown such willingness to help Harry Reid in his campaign, too. Heh.

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Obama's Repeated Vacations

Hat tip to Will, at whose site I found the following graphic:



And 2010 hasn't yet ended.

How many vacations do the Obamas need? Sheesh.

Well, at least while Obama is on vacation, perhaps we won't have to hear from him as Scolder-In-Chief. I, for one, am getting mighty weary of the tone he often uses when he speaks. He is supposed to be our elected public servant.

Now, about our national debt (also from Will's site):

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Quote Of The Day

From this thread, at Infidel Bloggers Alliance, a comment by SamenoKami, upon the news that the United States Senate voted to extend unemployment benefits:

"Insurance is paid by the employer/employee to cover 26wks of unemployment, after that it's welfare. The gov't is going deeper into debt to pay people's bennies so that money will be put into the economy and people will think that they can get by and get thru this and there will be a better day. Ha! The borrowed money digs the hole deeper and screws us, our children/grand and great grandchildren and guarantees that things will be worse than if the gov't left it alone. We are approaching a point where the interest on the debt will take up all the collected taxes. If/when that happens there will be NO- SS, Medicare, Medicaid, public housing, food stamps, unemployment, etc. etc. They have to keep the game going as long as possible, otherwise it all goes belly up (which it will eventually anyway) and those who were screwed get the tar, feathers and rope and head to DC."

Detailed information about how unemployment benefits work HERE at About.com:US Government Info.

Quite the reality check, huh?

In my view, most Americans right now don't see the train wreck coming. But it IS coming, and The Nanny State cannot save us.

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White House: "Recovery Summer"

(With a hat tip to LA Sunsett for the link below)

From the White House web site, dated June 17, 2010, clearly pandering for votes:

WASHINGTON, DC – The Administration today kicks off “Recovery Summer,” a six-week-long focus on the surge in Recovery Act infrastructure projects that will be underway across the country in the coming months – and the jobs they’ll create well into the fall and through the end of the year. The Recovery Act has already funded tens of thousands of projects and put about 2.5 million Americans to work, but summer 2010 is actually poised to be the most active Recovery Act season yet, with tens of thousands of projects underway across the country that will help to create jobs for American workers and economic growth for businesses, large and small.

Now, there's nothing unusual about such projects shortly before an election. However, the BHO administration is going to try to make all of us so grateful for his profligate spending of our tax dollars that we'll want to fall to our knees and worship him. Just as any other demagogue on a power grab has done.

Meanwhile, the federal government's plan to solve foreclosure problems, a huge part of the present ailing economy, is a dismal failure.

Are Americans smart enough to see through the ruse and sham of "Recovery Summer"?

You can bet your last dollar that BHO will pay more attention to "Recovery Summer" than to the oil-spill crisis and consequent suffering in the Gulf.

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Retirement Communities Go Belly Up

I am wary of such retirement plans, especially after what happened to my aunt and uncle.

Back in the 1980s, Aunt E and Uncle J liquidated all of their assets and put the money into a retirement community. That community surely served my uncle well when he suffered from Alzheimer's Disease, and he moved into assisted living and, later, the nursing home. In the case of my aunt, however, she continued to live independently and outlived the time allowed to continue to live in the community (some fifteen years allowed, if I recall correctly).

In any case, this article about the insecurity of retirement communities, some very expensive ones, appeared in the November 1, 2009 edition of the Washington Post. Excerpt:

Is your retirement secure? For some people who thought they had taken care of everything, the answer may be riding on another question: Is your retirement community secure?

Anne Bradt, 83, said she and fellow residents thought they had bought themselves worry-free retirements when they put down hundreds of thousands of dollars -- upwards of $900,000 each -- to move into Sherburne Commons in Nantucket, Mass. Then, a year ago, the nonprofit company that runs the place sought bankruptcy protection. Food service was cut to one meal a day. Activities such as dance and music disappeared, along with the activities director and other members of the staff. Residents could still pull a cord if they needed emergency help in the shower, but they would have to pay extra for the lifeline, and the person answering the call would no longer be on the premises.

Bradt's life became caught up in a complex legal proceeding, with her entire deposit at risk.

"It's been one year of absolute hell," Bradt said. "It's taken its toll physically and mentally."

The recession and the real estate crisis have raised new concerns for people who paid hundreds of thousands of dollars, as much money as it might take to buy a home, just to enter retirement communities. The deposits typically earn seniors the privilege of moving in; they do not confer any ownership in the real estate, and they are in addition to monthly fees that can total thousands of dollars.

In theory, residents can reclaim the money when they move out, or their heirs can recoup it when they die. But the model can break down when the communities' economic assumptions prove too optimistic.

[...]

In Northwest Washington, some residents of Ingleside at Rock Creek thought the deposits they paid years ago under "life care contracts" limited the fees they would have to pay for the rest of their lives, according to family members. They were upset when, under financial stress, Ingleside introduced new "ancillary" fees in January for items such as incontinence care, protein supplements and injections.

Ingleside's trouble was that the cost of caring for its residents was outstripping the fees they were paying. "There was a business model here that wasn't sustainable," said Richard Woodard, chief operating officer...

Read the rest HERE.

Last month, when I was inquiring at the nursing home where Mr. AOW is staying right now as to how to get some home-needs modifications done before his release to come home, the girl in the office handed me a magazine listing all of the retirement communities in the D.C. area. I have to wonder just how many of those communities are financially secure.

What happens to the residents of financially troubled retirement communities if services continue to be cut and the facilities actually close or become too expensive to afford?

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Don't Drill For Domestic Oil! Instead, Protect Frogs!

From this posting by Reliapundit of THE ASTUTE BLOGGERS, citing this source:

1.6 million acres of California land designated as habitat for endangered frog

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on Tuesday designated 1.6 million acres in California as critical habitat for the endangered red-legged frog, made famous by Mark Twain in his story "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County."

...The Fish and Wildlife Service estimated the 20-year economic impact of the habitat designation to be $159 million to $500 million, with about 90 percent of the impacts on new development. Another $48.4 million of the cost is projected crop loss.

Read Reliapundit's commentary on the above HERE.

As if California can take one more hit on its ailing economy.

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Video: Timeline Of The Financial Meltdown

With a hat tip to Z:



And BHO continues to blame Bush over a year into this administration. That meme simply isn't valid.

Meanwhile, we have this:

The White House on Friday announced a "summit on entrepreneurship" to build economic ties with the Islamic world, part of President Barack Obama's outreach to Muslims.

Jihad Watch writer Hugh Fitzgerald made this comment about BHO's entrepreneural outreach to the Moslem world:

Nearly a dozen Muslim states have received, just since 1973 alone, more than a baker's dozen -- that is thirteen -- trillion dollars, all without lifting a finger, or exhibiting any "entrepreneurship" whatsoever.

Read the rest of Mr. Fitzgerald's comment HERE.

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The Looming Tax Increases (Bumped)

Spotted at Feed Your ADHD....

Get ready for the tax increases in 2010 (from The Heritage Foundation):

While millions of Americans are more than ready to put 2009 behind them, they should know that Congress failed to reauthorize dozens of tax breaks for individuals and businesses before the Members scurried home for the Holidays. These “expiring provisions” affect every American in one way or another as individuals or businesses. By allowing them to lapse, Congress has enacted tax increases at time when these taxpayers can least afford it.

Among the items allowed to expire at midnight on December 31, 2009:

* Deduction of state and local general sales taxes (section 164) (Personal Tax Incentives)

* Additional standard deduction, up to $500 for individuals and $1,000 for couples, for state and local property taxes (section 63) (Personal Tax Incentives)

* Research tax credit and alternative simplified credit (section 41) (General Business Tax Incentives)

* New markets tax credit (section 45D) (Community Assistance Provisions)

* Empowerment zone incentives (sections 1391 and 1202) (Community Assistance Provisions)

* Renewal community tax incentives (sections 1400E, 1400F, 1400I, and 1400J) (Community Assistance Provisions)

* District of Columbia Investment Incentives (sections 1400, 1400A, 1400B, and 1400C) (Community Assistance Provisions)

* Net disaster loss designation and $500 limit per casualty for personal casualty losses attributed to federally declared natural disasters (section 165) (General Disaster Relief Provisions)

* Expensing for qualified disaster expenses (section 198A) (General Disaster Relief Provisions)

* Biodiesel and renewable diesel incentives (section 40A) (Energy Incentives)

* Alternative motor vehicle credit for heavy hybrids (section 30B) (Energy Incentives)

Although the House has acted and passed its version of the Tax Extenders Act of 2009, the Senate failed to act on similar legislation, as a result the following additional key tax provisions will expire:

* Increased exemption levels for the individual alternative minimum tax (section 55) and personal tax credits allowed against the AMT (section 26)

* Exclusion of unemployment compensation benefits from gross income (section 85)

* Alternative fuel mixture tax credit (section 6426(e))

* Reduced estimated tax payments for small businesses (section 6654(d)(1)(D))

BHO's campaign promises about no tax increases for most Americans were lies, and those lies are going to hit each and every one of us in the pocketbook.

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TARP Repayment: More Bad News For The American Taxpayer

Note to family and friends: Updates on Mr. AOW are being added to this post.

According to this article in the Washington Times, the taxpayers are going to get the shaft when it comes to getting their money back — never mind all the politicians' promises at the time the TARP funds were allocated.

But there's something else too:

AIG has missed three TARP dividend payments to Treasury as of Sept. 30. If the company misses a fourth payment Nov. 1, Treasury will have the right to elect directors to the AIG board.

More at this link. Read it and weep.

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This Administration Giveth, And This Administration Taketh Away

(hat tip to Yid With Lid)

According to the LA Times, Cash for Clunkers, apparently a stimulus that really worked, may be suspended.

Well, the Cash for Clunkers stimulus worked for me, and that fact may help to explain my recent cutting back on blogging.

White House reviewing 'cash for clunkers' program

WASHINGTON — The White House said Thursday it was reviewing the government's popular "cash for clunkers" program amid concerns the $1 billion budget for rebates for new auto purchases may have been exhausted in only a week.

Transportation Department officials called lawmakers' offices earlier Thursday to alert them of plans to suspend the program as early as Friday....

The White House said auto dealers and consumers should have confidence that transactions under the program that already have taken place would be honored.

The program, called the Car Allowance Rebate System, known as CARS, offers owners of old cars and trucks $3,500 or $4,500 toward a new, more fuel-efficient vehicle.

Congress last month approved the program to boost auto sales and remove some inefficient cars and trucks from the roads. The program kicked off last Friday and was heavily publicized by car companies and auto dealers.

Through late Wednesday, 22,782 vehicles had been purchased through the program and nearly $96 million had been spent. But dealers raised concerns about large backlogs in the processing of the deals in the government system, prompting the suspension....

But, hey, I got my new car last week, when Cash for Clunkers first began, traded in an old truck for $4500, and got this 2009 Hyundai Elantra:


Sticker price = $17,725

I paid $10,412.80, which includes upcoming protective treatment for the seats and the exterior -- some kind of armor, I think.

My first brand new car! Probably my last, but whatever.

As part of the Cash for Clunkers deal, I traded in my nearly-25-year-old Dodge Ram pickup truck, given to me outright well over a decade ago by my dad. The truck had low mileage on the odometer, but was suffering from wiring problems and not enough power to get out of its own way (slant 6 engine). No AC. Real gas mileage about 10 to the gallon. Some lights didn't work, and the carburetor was screwed up beyond repair. In fact, that truck was a lemon from the git go, but Dad put up with all the towing bills as it was his one and only red truck.

You should have seen the looks on the faces of the dealership's personnel when I drove that truck up to the door: bird droppings all over the vehicle, dessicated and staining wild black cherries from bumper to bumper, body parts rattling, valves rattling, exhaust smoking, rust — the whole nine yards.

The truck had been parked in the back yard for so long that an ant colony was living in the truck bed.

I'm not exaggerating!

We did manage to save the hood ornament as a memento.

No, I'm not giving thanks to the BHO administration for my new car. Call me "Ingrate!" and I don't care.

This article in the Washington Post covers the down side of Cash for Clunkers — for the car dealers:

Tammy Darvish, another major auto dealer in the Washington area, said her more than two dozen dealerships have had lots of interest in the program but its success has left dealers strapped for money as they wait for payments from the government.

Under the program, dealers credit the amount of the voucher to customers who buy new cars. They then get reimbursed by the government.

"There's a whole lot of money out there that dealers haven't collected on," said Darvish, who noted that she's taken in about 200 clunkers. "We've sold the cars and we've processed the paperwork, but we haven't been reimbursed. I'm out about $1 million. The government is supposed to reimburse me for that."

Of course, car dealers will not be reimbursed for all the costly advertisements which have been running ever since Cash for Clunkers officially launched last week. The ads are still running today. Kaching, Kaching.

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The Morning News

Eyes bleary and first cup of coffee in hand, I often hear inane statements on the local morning news. Today, while I was waiting for the computer to boot up, was no exception.

The anchor and some "expert" were discussing the recession. The brief exchange mentioned the 100 Thing Challenge, found quickly via a Google search:

The 100 Thing Challenge is my little way to personalize my efforts to fight consumerism.

That said, a lot of other people are participating, too. I'll be working on ways for people to connect. For example, the 100 Thing Challenge Facebook Page. Please join and participate!

Goal: By November 12, 2008 I will only have 100 personal things. I will live with only 100 personal things for one full year, until November 12, 2009....

"Fight consumerism"? Way to help the economy, Dave.

Back on my television screen, the news anchor, a woman, got a concerned look on her face and wanted to know if her shoe collection counted as one thing. Of course, the "expert" gave her permission to do so.

The next portion of the interview was equally inane. During this portion, the anchor cheerily stated: "Now you can tell your kids why they can't have everything they ask for."

I sighed. It takes a recession to tell one's children to stop being greedy and selfish? I tell you this: my parents had no problem whatsoever telling me that I couldn't have everything I wanted.

The show's segment concluded with a vapid statement, uttered in soothing and silky tones, as to how this recession is teaching people to cherish non-material things.

The computer hadn't quite finished booting up, so I turned to the local section of today's Washington Post and found this, which began in the now-typical-of-news-stories fluff style that so irritates me. At least the poetic description lasted for only one paragraph:

'Hard to Put a Price Tag' On Quality of Life
More Budget Cuts in the Cards, Fairfax Grapples With Trimming Its Cherished Cultural Diversion

The 200 music fans who came to Royal Lake Park in Fairfax County on a recent Friday to hear folk singer Mike Seeger brought lawn chairs, buckets of fried chicken and the expectation of an enjoyable evening amid difficult times. They appeared to get it: A father and son tossed a football, the setting sun cast golden light and a great blue heron skimmed the lake as Seeger strummed Carter Family classics.

The taxpayer-funded event is one of many continuing in Fairfax despite the worst economic downturn in a generation -- punctuated by the news that next year will bring another round of deep cuts to schools, police, the fire department and other essential services.

As they make difficult budget choices, local leaders have struggled to strike the right balance with the smaller programs that help define their communities but become increasingly difficult to justify as the recession wears on. In many cases, they have spared the events.

Hello, local governments? It's time to tell the taxpayers, your "children," that they cannot continue buying everything they want during a recession. Maybe you local leaders need a particular kind of 100 Thing Challenge when you're working on the budget.

And, now, on to that second cup of coffee and checking the web.

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Household Cap-and-Trade Burden Calculator

CLICK HERE (Hat tip to Bloviating Zeppelin)

You absolutely must check out the consequences for your household!

Whatever happened to BHO's promise to tax "only the rich"?
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Also check out this post at Blasting Caps and Dynamite. Worth your time.

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Outrage and Financial Ruin

(Hat tip to Infidel Bloggers Alliance)


Pay attention and find out what Cap and Trade could do to the prospects of selling your home!

It's the Nanny State on eco-steroids!

Excerpt below the fold:

The 1,400-page cap-and-trade legislation pushed through by House Democrats contains a new federal policy that residential, commercial, and government buildings be retrofitted to increase energy efficiency, leaving it up to the states to figure out exactly how to do that.

This means that homeowners, for example, could be required to retrofit their homes to meet federal “green” guidelines in order to sell their homes, if the cap-and-trade bill becomes law.

Read the entire posting HERE.

If you've been planning to use the equity in your home to finance your Golden Years or some other worthwhile endeavor, you might need to rethink that strategy if the Senate passes Cap and Trade.

In the above excerpt, note that individual states will be roped into this mess. Can Cap and Trade, if passed by this Congress, be challenged on the state level on the basis of the Tenth Amendment? Maybe. The Tenth Amendment, known as The States' Rights Amendment, reads as follows:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Now is the time to start looking at your state government and candidates there who support limited government.

The state level may well be the last stand to combat Cap and Trade. Who is serving as your state attorney general is critical in this matter.

To that end, over the next few months, I'll be spending some time working for limited-government candidates running in the November 2009 elections here in Virginia. Some of my blogging time will likely go by the wayside as I focus on local politics as the last political bastion to curb the growth of The Nanny State. I urge you to do the same, that is, look to your local and state levels for your freedoms!

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Evan Thomas: "Obama Is...Sort of God"

Surreal!

Opposing BHO's policies must be blasphemy, then. [sarcasm]




Gateway Pundit has more.

The following is the "wonder" that BHO has wrought (Hat tip to THE ASTUTE BLOGGERS):



Please see The Declaration of Independence from the "Sort of God" — quite the catalogue of the BHO administration! I had my name added to the post. You can do the same by stating your request in the comments section.

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The Automotive Industry Slows Down Even More

On top of the millions of jobs already lost in America since the beginning of this recession, another 190,000 jobs are now in jeopardy.

Yesterday, Chrysler announced the termination of nearly twenty-five percent of the company's dealer-franchises. Today comes the news that GM will drop many dealers as well:

...The ailing GM and Chrysler say they have far too many dealers. Chrysler announced on Thursday that it is cutting 789 of its 3,181 dealers, but Friday may be far worse: GM is scheduled to begin notifying more than 1,000 dealers that they are being dropped.

As sensible as the cuts might seem, most of the dealers are small businesses, and many...have deep roots in the community. They typically employ about 50 people, and some are substantial donors to local causes. Their potential loss is sending ripples of concern through many towns....

[...]

The National Automobile Dealers Association has argued that the automakers should not simply cut stores. Instead, they argue that the companies should allow market forces to cull their ranks.

Instead, the automakers are reviewing each of the dealerships, examining their market, sales and financial wherewithal, and deciding which should stay or go.

This article in the Washington Post relates some of the impact on family-owned car dealerships in the Washington, D.C., area:

In 1915, at the dawn of the automobile era, Lewis Reed opened a Dodge dealership on Rockville Pike.

Yesterday his grandsons gathered startled employees together to tell them that the firm's 94-year run as a Chrysler-Dodge franchise was coming to an end. Chrysler was dumping them.

"It's not a good feeling," said Richard L. Gartner, one of Reed's grandsons, and the president of Reed Brothers Dodge.

Just after meeting to inform employees about 3 p.m. yesterday, he looked fazed, his face flushed.

"We have been with Chrysler for a very long time," he said, pausing. "We were kind of looking forward to a 100-year anniversary."

Similar stories played out all over America yesterday and will be repeated today. On a personal level, the Chrysler dealership where my parents bought each car they owned from 1966 through 1998 announced that the hammer had fallen there as well. One more landmark in Northern Virginia soon to be gone.

Not unexpectedly, the Obama administration is denying any role in the termination of the franchises:

In anticipation of the hard feelings that are erupting with the dealership closures, the Obama administration issued a statement yesterday emphasizing that the list of targeted dealers was drawn up by Chrysler, not the U.S. government.

"The Task Force played no role in deciding which dealers, or how many dealers, were part of Chrysler's announcement today," the administration said in a statement. "The sacrifices by the dealer community . . . are necessary for this company and the industry to succeed."

Actually, not only "the dealer community" is making sacrifices. The effects of closing dealerships ripple a lot further as many dealership-sponsored activities and charities will grind to a halt. That ripple effect will not become apparent immediately, but it will happen. No longer will former employees of any particular dealership have as many options for employment in the field for which they were trained, often at significant expense and ongoing expense, the latter particularly for automotive mechanics who must usually buy their own tools throughout their careers. In addition, terminated employees and their families will lose their benefits packages, including health insurance.

Many dealerships are blaming the Obama administration for accelerating yet another hit to the automotive industry:

The dealers generally agree that there are too many outlets. But they say that instead of being summarily cast off, the automakers should allow market forces and attrition to shrink their numbers. That, they acknowledge, is a slower process.

[...]

Because the Obama administration is involved in the restructuring of GM and Chrysler, many among the dealers blamed the government for the dealer eliminations...

At a meeting at Darcars Chrysler of Fairfax, owner [Iranian immigrant] John Darvish, 72, gathered about 40 employees in the company's service area. He assured them that they would all still have jobs -- the company owns dealerships that offer other brands. But that did little to mitigate the sense of frustration.

"I don't think the government is qualified to run the car business -- what do they know about the car business?" said Ron Frye, 57, a parts manager at Darcars for 29 years....

I'm sure that Mr. Darvish of Darcars Chrysler of Fairfax means well when he offers the hope that all his employees will still have jobs. However, is it likely that all his employess will still have jobs? The entire automotive industry at all its various levels is on the skids and has been for some time now. Furthermore, even if Mr. Darvish is able to salvage the jobs of his employees, how many of those employees will have a much further commute and have to lay out added capital so as to buy different tools for working on different makes and models of vehicles?

Did those who voted for BHO expect this much sacrifice with this much impact on local communities, or were the utopia seekers foolish enough to believe that all the sacrifices would occur at the rich-guy level?

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Baseball As An Entitlement?

Look, I love baseball. I was learning to swing a bat even before I started going to kindergarten.

But to expect the taxpayers' to pay for keeping Metro, the D.C. transporation system including both bus and rail service, open beyond the usual hour so that attendeees of night games can ride home. Other groups don't receive that same special privilege for free. Furthermore, such special consideration for the Washington Nationals flies in the face of financial realities, especially at a time when Metro is facing a budget gap of $29 million, laying off some 300 workers, and cutting back on bus services.

The rule for keeping Metro open beyond the usual closing hour is as follows:

Under a 2003 Metro policy, organizations that want Metrorail to open early or close late are required to pay the agency a fee. Such organizations and events include the Washington Redskins, the Susan G. Komen for the Cure, the Marine Corps Marathon and groups that perform at Verizon Center. The fees must be paid two weeks in advance, and organizers receive refunds if fares exceed that amount, which typically happens with large events.

That policy seems fair enough. But after some apparent confusion and a lack of communication among the D.C. Transportation Department, Metro, and the Washington Nationals, the late-service fee of $27,000 per hour has been waived:

District officials have decided that the city will cover all the costs for Metro to stay open to accommodate late Washington Nationals games after having suggested that others in the region share the tab.

Suddenly, as if by magic, the District now claims capable of finding the necessary budget resources for transportation after those late-release baseball games. If those funds can be found now, why couldn't they have been found before? Or is Metro going to make cutbacks in other ways so that the transportation system can run the few times that a Washington Nationals game runs beyond the usual time?

What brought the above to a head and resulted in the city's decision is the following:

The confusion over who would pay for such service began when Gabe Klein, director of the D.C. Transportation Department, told Metro officials in a letter last week that the city would no longer pay the late-service fee of $27,000 an hour because of the budget crunch. Team officials said they did not know that there had been a policy change until Monday night, when a rain delay pushed the game past Metro's midnight closing.

Metro and team officials spent more than two hours squabbling about when Metro would close and who would pay if it stayed open. Some fans said they were confused by last-minute announcements at Nationals Park about when the last train would leave Navy Yard. Ultimately, Metro agreed to stay open past the regular midnight shutdown.

The mix-up stemmed from a communication breakdown, Albert said. Klein said he sent the letter to Metro based on staff information that his department did not have money this year to pay the late-game fees, which occur when games go late because of rain delays or extra innings. He did not check with the mayor's office, he said.

[...]

Albert said the city will pay for the extra hour and a half of service after Monday's game, roughly $40,000. That works out to about $2,531 for each of the 16 passengers who entered Metrorail after midnight.

In my view, baseball fans who wish to attend a game should be ingenious enough to arrange their own transportation. Or perhaps the taxpayer subsidy of Nationals Stadium was a bad idea in the first place:

Economists seldom agree, but the many studies done over the past decade all arrived at the same conclusion: Publicly funded stadiums do not deliver the benefits they promise. A recent paper by the Cato Institute concluded, "The academic research overwhelmingly concludes that the presence of professional sports teams has no measurable positive impact on economic growth."

[...]

Funding a new stadium in the District may be good politics, but it is bad public policy. Major League Baseball will be laughing all the way to the bank while D.C. residents will find that they get much less than they were promised -- and paid for.

Despite stadium was funded. Now the issue is transportation. Once rearing its head, the nanny continues to need more and more from the taxpayer — all in the name of the common good, even if that good does nothing more than serve special interests.

(Crossposted to THE ASTUTE BLOGGERS)

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BHO's Budget Cuts: What a joke! Not Particularly Funny, However

(With a hat tip to Raven)

Sometimes, a picture says it all:



According to Harvard University economics professor Greg Mankiw:

"To put those numbers in perspective, imagine that the head of a household with annual spending of $100,000 called everyone in the family together to deal with a $34,000 budget shortfall. How much would he or she announce that spending had to be cut? By $3 over the course of the year–approximately the cost of one latte at Starbucks. The other $33,997? We can put that on the family credit card and worry about it next year."

Yet, many Americans believe that BHO can lead this economy out of a recession? Spending like a drunken sailor got us into this mess.

Consider "hair of the dog" as an effective remedy (from Wikipedia) and as a metaphor for today's American economy, especially the federal budget:

A hangover is due partly to poisoning by the toxic chemicals into which alcohol is converted by the body and the other components of the alcoholic drink, and partly to the body's reaction to withdrawal from alcohol. The symptoms of a hangover are similar to those of withdrawal, namely a throbbing headache, nausea, and maybe even vomiting. Thus consuming more alcohol ("hair of the dog") may help by blunting some of these symptoms, but will only aggravate the symptoms once the liver breaks the alcohol down, because the body will have additional toxins to deal with.

Addendum from First Conservative - Conservative News and Opinion:

Obama Hears the Tea Party Message

Robert “Tap Dance” Gibbs, the President’s Press Secretary said this morning that $100 million is a lot of money. Robert Gibbs really isn’t anyone that one would pay money to see tap dance. Responding that cutting $100 million from the incredibly bloated federal budget really is significant, Gibbs dressed up the pig as best he could by assailing the Washington culture where $100 million doesn’t seem like a lot of money.

The window dressing Gibbs was trying to apply to the Obama budget was a direct result of the Tea Party rallies held last week. Understanding that a good portion of the public wants to see the federal government reduce expenditures, Team Obama undertook to eliminate $100 million from the annual budget. This amounts to an infinitesimally small percent of the total Stimulus package. Still, Gibbs insisted this was a meaningful effort. Gibbs and the administration attempted to throw this bone to the Tea Party participants with the hope that their accomplices at MSNBC would make a big deal out of the budget cutting.

Instead, like several other PR problems this week, the budget cutting is proving more trouble than it was worth. Reporters tired of being dismissed by Gibbs actually followed up their questions and even called into question Gibb’s flippant attitude. All this may herald the close of Obama’s first one hundred days. It may also herald the point where the Leader begins taking a popularity dive.

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A Bailout For Newspapers Too? Part Two

Last month, I posted about the Newspaper Revitalization Act. At the time of that posting, few took seriously the possibility that such a bailout, i.e., government control, of the print media could gain traction. The bill, proposed by U.S. Senator Benjamin Cardin, had no sponsors at the point of that previous posting and was limited to preserving local newspapers, not for the purpose of bailing out the media conglomerates.

Now comes this story from Fox News (hat tip to Weasel Zippers):

Obama Appointee Suggests Radical Plan for Newspaper Bailout

Rosa Brooks, who has moved from the L.A. Times to the Pentagon, called for more "direct government support for public media" and government licensing of the news, which critics say would destroy the independent media.

Influential Los Angeles Times columnist Rosa Brooks has hung up her journalistic hat and joined the Obama administration, but not before penning a public proposal calling for some radical ideas to help bail out the failing news industry.

Brooks, who has taken up a post as an adviser at the Pentagon, advocated upping "direct government support for public media" and creating licenses to govern news operations.

"Years of foolish policies have left us with a choice: We can bail out journalism, using tax dollars and granting licenses in ways that encourage robust and independent reporting and commentary, or we can watch, wringing our hands, as more and more top journalists are laid off," she wrote in her parting column on April 9.

Brooks said this would help rescue the industry from a "death spiral"...

But critics say her proposal would spell an end to the independent media and make journalists reliant lapdogs...

Read the rest.

A stepping stone to control of the media as portrayed by George Orwell's dystopia in 1984 via the control of what information and terminology the public can find available in the mainstream media? Welcome to Pravda USA!

Bill O'Reilly on the topic of Rosa Brooks:



WE THE PEOPLE can have all the Tax Day Tea Parties we want, but if the government gains extensive control of the media, those Parties will be in vain, particularly if there is no overall plan to continue the momentum of such a grassroots movement.

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