I don't have much time to go into detail, but these are worth reading:
AP's Calvin Woodward Does Astonishing Fact Check on Obama
and here's the original article referenced above:
FACT CHECK: Obama disowns deficit he helped shape
Don't answer that, it's quite obvious the answer is a resounding YES they do.
So Obama is asking his Cabinet to cut $100 million from his $3.6 trillion budget proposal. Wow, what a sacrifice. Can I just point out that $100 million is less than a dollar for every American?
In fact, it comes out to 33 cents for every American. On a budget that is equal to $12,000 for every American (and that's just the budget proposal, not including any of the other recent spending for TARP, stimulus pkg, auto bailouts, etc.)
So if you're asking to spend $12,000 and someone tells you no, that's too much, you need to trim it down... is cutting 33 cents going to make a bit of difference? Hardly. It's no more than a rounding error.
So congratulations folks, your share of the Obama budget proposal is now the ever-more-fiscally-responsible $11,999.67. What a joke.
Even if they cut $100 billion that still would only be cutting $333 per American, bringing the total to $11,667 per American. And to my knowledge, the administration is not considering cuts anywhere near as "large" as that.
This is just part of what the tea parties were all about. Our children deserve better.
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The press actually pressed Robert Gibbs on this one, reminding him that previously he blew off $8 billion in earmarks as inconsequential, but now we are supposed to believe that $100 million is huge.
I just have to say Wednesday was awesome! It was a long day, I volunteered to help out so I arrived about 3 hours early (and it took me almost two hours to get there, I took MARTA part of the way) and it was almost midnight before I got home. It was well worth it, I got to meet some great people, and it was really encouraging to see such a huge turnout of people from all walks of life coming together as Americans to make our voices heard. I have a ton of other updates but now that I finally had some time to get the video put together, this had to come first :).
Atlanta Tea Party - April 15, 2009 from eternalvigilance on Vimeo.
Most of my pictures were taken well before the event started, when it was still possible to walk around although by 5pm it was already getting pretty crowded and it didn't officially start until 7pm. One of the highlights of the night was, I got Sean Hannity's autograph :). Very cool! I listen to at least part of his radio show pretty much every day and we watch his show in the evenings also, so it was exciting to meet him (albeit briefly).
Click here for more info and to find a tea party in your local area. Click here to socialize with other Tea Party Patriots.
If you're wondering what the tea parties are all about, it's primarily the out of control spending that has been going on for years and now is being taken to new levels of insanity. It's about being Taxed Enough Already. It's about restoring some sanity and responsibility to our government and reminding them that they work for us, not the other way around. It's about preserving freedom and liberty for our children (and grandchildren, and great-grandchildren), and not having them burdened by unprecedented levels of debt.
Here's a great summary of the economic crisis and a visual of the amount of spending we're seeing:
And insightful analysis of the current sad state of the tax code (it's over 60,000 pages!). The privacy issues raised here are concerning, I hadn't really thought of that aspect before.
This is a little long, but well worth taking the time to watch.
Highlights:
"We're proof that good things happen when government lowers taxes, lowers regulations, reduces spending, and encourages private sector growth."
"I happen to believe, that the Constitution does not empower the federal government to overrule state laws without restraint."
And my personal favorite, quoting Texas' 7th Governor, Sam Houston:
"Texas has yet to learn submission to any oppression, come from what source it may."
"We didn't like oppression then, we don't like oppression now!"
Amen to that!
Click here to see other states affirming 10th amendment rights.
It's starting to look like Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi are having some kind of contest to see who can be the MOST out of touch with everyday Americans.
Pelosi counters with this:
But let's not forget this gem from Schumer:
Meanwhile, according to Pelosi it's un-American to enforce our laws, but patriotic to break them. Hmm...
So who's more out of touch? They're both so far off the scale it's crazy, but between the two it really seems to close to call. What do you think?
In a time when the "war on terror" is replaced by an "overseas contingency operation" and terrorism itself is rebranded as "man-made disasters," I can't help but miss the straightforward, no-nonsense approach of a leader who is not afraid to say of a terrorist leader,
"He counted on America to be passive. He counted wrong." ~Ronald Reagan, 1986
H/T: ComMITTed to Romney
Reportedly, many banks who were not in trouble were forced to take TARP bailout money back in the fall. The reasoning given was that this was to hide from the public which banks were actually in trouble. While I can see the logic in that, you can't have it both ways. You can't force a bank to take money it doesn't need and then turn around and say that because they "chose" to take TARP funds they are now subject to government control over executive decision-making for their firms.
Congress is framing all of these sweeping increases in power over banks (and other companies) as being directed at only those who were in trouble and ended up in a situation of needing government assistance (in which case, the argument goes, they "deserve" to have the government take over for the greater good). But this argument obscures the truth, which is that the government is seeking to control firms that are running just fine and only accepted TARP funds upon being forced to by the government.
It seems to me that the government ought to be jumping at the chance to recoup even a portion of what it has paid out. Instead, the Obama administration has actually threatened at least one bank CEO with "adverse" consequences if he continues to press to be allowed to repay the money (which he didn't want to accept in the first place).
So, they are forcing the profitable banks to keep their TARP funds. At the same time, they are screaming for AIG executives to return the portion of their TARP funds spent on bonuses. In the case of AIG, Chuck Schumer adamantly insisted that the money must be returned to "its rightful owners, the taxpayers." Nevermind that by "taxpayers" what he really meant was "the government." It's not like the government is actually going to give that money back to we the taxpayers, not the $165 million and not the trillions of our money (and that of our children and grandchildren) that they are now committing to spend.
But when other bank executives not only offer but plead to be allowed to pay their money back, their requests are rejected out of hand. Where is Chuck Schumer to insist that TARP money not needed by the firms who received it, be returned to "its rightful owners, the taxpayers?"
Meanwhile, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac plan to pay about $210 million in bonuses, but I don't see the same public outrage and grandstanding from Congress and the adminstration over those.
The goal appears to be assertion of more and more government control over the banks, and the economy in general.
At a recent meeting with bank CEO's, Obama threatened, "My administration is the only thing between you and the pitchforks."
In fact, Obama's administration is the reason for the "pitchforks" (at least with regard to AIG) in the first place. They have made every effort to stoke rage among the people and aim it directly at bank CEO's and other executives. They've had the help of Congress and allies such as ACORN, who organized the mob-tactic intimidation-force bus tours to AIG executive homes. In other words, the government is trying to use we the people as a weapon to be wielded any time they need to bully someone into doing what they want. We should not allow ourselves to be used like that.
From the Galen Institute:
The Hippocratic Oath Taken by All Doctors: "First, do no harm"
Politicians, policymakers and public officials should take the same oath:
DO NO HARM TO AMERICA'S HEALTH CARE SYSTEM
Answer - there is none. The CT Atty General, who is personally going after AIG executives, can't name any legal right that the government has to go after them. He finally sputters, "Because they are undeserving of it."
Wow. If hearing a government official make a statement like that doesn't make you feel sick to your stomach, I don't know what will. Who the #$%& is he to say who deserves and does not deserve money that is contractually owed to them??
Not only that, the attorney general is more than happy to go after private citizens, but refuses to even consider going after any government officials who may be culpable. Our government is out of control.
Way to go, Cavuto!
It was bad enough when the government started throwing money at failing banks and companies with endless bailouts. It got worse when Congress and the President put on their show of feigned outrage over AIG bonuses when they themselves specifically made those bonuses possible, and then decided they had the power to nullify legally binding contracts and use the tax law as a weapon to target a specific group, retroactively. They showed no concern for the safety of AIG employees (the vast majority of whom had nothing to do with why AIG is now in trouble) and in fact did everything they could to stoke anger against "those greedy executives."
Now? Apparently the administration has decided they ought to just do away with the formalities of appearing to be separate and just start running the companies directly.
Tim Geithner asked Congress for unprecedented, sweeping powers to seize private firms, whether they received federal bailout money or not, if he deems them a risk to the economy.
Barney Frank wants the government to set the salaries of all employees, not just top execs, at companies that have received government money. (Right now, I think that means TARP, but who's to say next week it won't be any company who has contracts with the government or has contracts with people who have contracts with the government?)
And the Obama administration fired GM CEO Rick Wagoner (made his resignation a condition of receiving any further bailout funds). Call me crazy, but last time I checked, the hiring and firing decisions with regard to the CEO are the responsibility of the board of directors, not the president or any government official.
Apparently Obama & team sent both GM and Chrysler back to the drawing board to come back with better business plans. Really? Who in this administration has ANY business experience? They wouldn't know a good business plan if it bit them. I'm not saying that the GM or Chrysler plans were good or bad, I haven't reviewed them so I couldn't even offer comment on that. My point is - do we really think that a bunch of politicians / lawyers led by a former community organizer can possibly know better than executives who have been in the auto industry for years?
They're getting into the day-to-day operations as well - Obama (and your tax dollars) will guarantee the GM warrantees.
This is insane, and I can pretty much guarantee you it's not going to stop here. This is exactly the kind of thing conservatives warned of back when Bush & Pelosi said we just had to bail everyone out. Why? The bankruptcy code exists for a reason, and letting these failing institutions file for bankruptcy would have enabled them to restructure much of their debt and have a chance to emerge as a viable company again. All without spending billions of taxpayer dollars propping them up.
Mussolini once said, "Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power." Considering recent events, I think that's a pretty accurate description of where we are. The lines between the private and public sector are not only blurred, but fading fast.
Found on Tax Day Tea Party, originally from Suitably Flip:
If only this were true...
