News Blog for social, fiscal & national security conservatives who believe in God, family & the USA. Upholding the rights granted by God & guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution, traditional family values, "republican" principles / ideals, transparent & limited "smaller" government, free markets, lower taxes, due process of law, liberty & individual freedom. Content approval rests with the ARRA News Service Editor. Opinions are those of the authors. While varied positions are reported, beliefs & principles remain fixed. No revenue is generated for or by this "Blog" - no paid ads - no payments for articles.Fair Use Doctrine is posted & used. Blogger/Editor/Founder: Bill Smith, Ph.D. [aka: OzarkGuru & 2010 AFP National Blogger of the Year] Contact: editor@arranewsservice.com (Pub. Since July, 2006)Home PageFollow @arra
One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics
is that you end up being governed by your inferiors. -- Plato
(429-347 BC)
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Conservatives in the Arkansas Ozarks
Bill Smith, ARRA News: On Tuesday, Scott Gray, owner of conservative talk radio station - Mountain Talk 97.1 FM and a Texarkana, Arkansas resident, traveled to Mountain Home, Arkansas (located in the heart of the North Central Arkansas Ozark Mountains) to speak to a large group of Republicans. Gray identified that he had been in the radio business for 15 years and a conservative for his whole life. Gray owns and operates the following radio stations in Arkansas: Texarkana: KBYB - 101.7, FMKTOY - 104.7, FMKFYX - 107.1, FMKCMC - 740, and AMKTFS - 940 AM / 105.5 FM; Mountain Home: KSMZ - 94.3 and FMKJMT - 97.1 FM;
Searcy KFXV - 105.7 FM.
In addition to addressing information about his local area radio stations, Gray shared the following thoughts on conservatism in Arkansas Ozarks:
When I was a little boy my Grandmother would watch the news every time it came on TV and she would complain about the Democrats. Luckily there was no 24 hour news cycle back then! She explained to me at the age of 3 or 4 that there's no such thing as just a Democrat – she would say 'Son they're all Sorry Democrats'. I'd like to share just a few thoughts about current events and then I'll be more than happy to answer any questions you might have.
We conservatives are down but we're certainly not out. We spent the entire last election pandering to the Democrats, giving in to them and their ideas, instead of promoting our own. This left us with a socialist for a President, and a bunch of libs in the Congress. Luckily, we have people like Rush, Sean, Beck, Laura, and Rusty to rally conservatives and help get our movement back on track. Right now is an excellent opportunity for conservatives to point out the fallacies of the Democrats' plan and to offer workable alternatives. If our nation is to thrive, then we must make 2010 another 1994. This is done at the grassroots level with organizations like your own and radio stations like Mountain Talk 97.
Does anyone know the day the stock market took a definitive turn down and never looked back? It was May 20th of last year. Do you know the significance of that date? That's the day that Obama declared victory after winning the Oregon primary, making it clear that he would become the Democratic nominee. That's the day it started and today we're all worth about half of what we were then. Has anyone noticed that every time Obama talks the market drops? I like how FOX has started throwing up the DOW WATCH column anytime he is speaking. Even the libs on Wall Street who like the guy have no confidence in Obama's policies.
Rush recently took some heat by the media for saying that he wanted Obama's policies to fail. Well, what are we supposed to do? Hope his brand of socialism actually succeeds? Socialism has never thrived, so why would it now? Let's take the Bama's policy of tax the rich. First of all, are there any rich left to tax after the Obama market crash? Depending on who you talk to, the government definition of rich is generally those making $250K or more. I would suspect that there are a lot of us who used to be in that bracket but no longer are. The top 25% of income earners already pay 86% of all taxes. The quote – unquote - rich are generally those who employ others. If you choke the employers what are they going to do? Hire fewer people, or lay off the ones they employ now. So the Bama plan is to increase taxes on those who employ others, thus reducing employment and increasing unemployment. And just to make things fair, he wants to give free money to those who pay no taxes at all. Makes perfect sense doesn't it? Oh yes, he wants to do all of this while killing babies and taking away your guns.
Despite what some of the original locals will tell you, North Central Arkansas remains a chiefly conservative area. In the last election, Baxter County voted 64% Republican, Stone County 66%, Marion County 63%, and Izard County 61%. The statewide average was 59% which is over 4 points better than in 2004. So we are in the majority. Obviously we looked at these numbers from 2004 when we decided to launch a conservative talk radio station here. Since our launch just two years ago, we have developed a tremendous audience all across North Central Arkansas. . . .
Remember, a government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take everything you have. . . . [A full copy of this speech may be obtained by contacting Mountain Talk 97]
Update 3/22 See update: Arkansas Hispanic Newspaper Wants 10,000 People to Sign Petition in Support of In-State Tuition for Illegal Aliens Bill Smith, ARRA Editor: After reading the following two items, Contact your State Senator and those on the Arkansas Senate Education Committee and tell them to VOTE "NO" on giving in-state tuition to illegal aliens. This is a travesty! Why is this Senator allowed to waste time pushing a for a subject already determined to be unconstitutional? Recruiting out of state students and charging them higher tuition and then rewarding the illegal aliens with lower tuition rates is abhorrent. Tags:Arkansas, Arkansas Watch, ICE, illegal aliens, illegal immigrants, Joyce Elliot, Kenny Wallis, SB799, tuition, US ConstitutionTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
Is Arkansas on a self destruct trajectory? We are one of the few states in the Union without a deficit and Senator Elliot and others would have us sacrifice this for the sake of illegal aliens who should return to their own country and apply for legal entry into the United States. It is bad enough that we have these "non-citizens - illegal aliens" living in Arkansas touting our laws, attempting to "take" college seats from Arkansans but they also seek to take the future higher paying jobs from Arkansans. It is down right arrogant to ask the Arkansas taxpayers to say "Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Three bags full" - take our taxes and use our college facilities to subsidize and educate illegal aliens so they can become the competitors for the higher paying jobs sought for by legal Arkansans and legal residents from other states.
Kenneth Wallis, Open Letter to the Editor (3/21): State Senator Joyce Elliott has introduced Senate Bill 799, titled “TO INCREASE ACCESS TO POSTSECONDARY EDUCATION.” This bill will give in-state tuition to illegal aliens and will be voted on the Arkansas Senate Education Committee Monday March 23rd.
We have lost billions of dollars, many of our freedoms, and thousands of lives to illegal immigration. Immigrationcounters.com shows that the US has spent $13.9 billion on illegal aliens in K-12 education since 1996. We have also given billions to 3rd World Regimes in Foreign Aid, including an unconstitutional $20 billion bailout of the Mexican Peso in 1995.
Because little effort has been made to reform corrupt governments, the money spent on the citizens of other countries has been a waste. Mexico, which should be world superpower, is spiraling down into a warlord state, and taking the US down with it. I hope that Arkansas Senators, including my Senator, Mary Ann Salmon, will vote against SB799 and not take part in the bailout of corrupt foreign countries.
----------------------
Senator Joyce Elliott has filed another bill to give instate tuition to illegal aliens (SB799). When Joyce Elliott was a representative in 2005, she slipped a bill passed the House that gave scholarships and instate tuition to illegals. Federal law was brought to her attention that giving instate tuition was forbidden in federal law. Upon request by a Senator, Governor Beebe (then attorney general) ruled then and says now that instate tuition for illegal aliens conflicts with federal law. She still tried to get it through the Senate in 05 after all this, but the Senate voted it down by about 2 votes.
Even in California, a three judge panel of the California Court of Appeals unanimously ruled . . . that a California law intended to permit illegal aliens to attend public colleges and universities at in-state tuition rates is unconstitutional because it conflicts with federal law, and violates both the equal protection clause and privileges and immunity clause of the constitution.
Must Watch Glenn Beck Video explaining U.S. Dollars in Circulation (being printed) is Skyrocketing!
Tags:Glenn Beck, inflation, money, US Dollars, videoTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
From a reader: Cartoon bySteve Sack; checkout his other work. Tags:Barack Obama, political humor, Steve Sack, U.S. TreasuryTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
by Ken Blackwell, Senior Fellow with the Family Research Council: President Obama recently made the wrong move by incurring additional federal debt for research on human embryos and-contrary to what many have said in the media-opening the door to human cloning. He has drawn a sharp distinction between the political parties, and announced that he will cross the Rubicon on an issue with frightening implications for America's future.
Stem cells are generated in various ways. For a number of years, many scientists were particularly interested in cells derived from fertilized human embryos that are only a few days old. The cells generated by these embryos-called undifferentiated pluripotent stem cells-are thought by some to be capable of all sorts of medical treatments.
The moral problem with obtaining them is this: It destroys the young human embryo in the process. From the outset, it's important to recognize the facts, because both politicians and many in the media have grossly distorted this issue.
First, this research may be utterly unnecessary. Americans don't need to navigate the ethical dilemmas of embryonic stem cell research if the results gained from this research could be safely derived from other sources. Although many in the media chose to ignore it, scientists have discovered a method whereby adult skin cells can be modified in a way that appears to give them all the properties of embryonic stem cells. Those on the political left ignored this breakthrough, although it received notice in non-conservative journals such as Science, Cell, Wired, and National Geographic. . . .
[Nothing restricts] private research on human embryos. Under current law, stem cell research went on for years at private research institutions, funded by private dollars. Even if embryonic stem cells were necessary for certain research, no supposed medical advances were missed because this private-sector research continued full-throttle.
From a moral perspective, if the law must err, it should err on the side of protecting life. In one of flimsiest dodges of the election season, Barack Obama, during a televised forum, ducked a question from the Rev. Rick Warren on abortion by saying that the question of when human life begins is above his pay grade. When you're president of the United States, nothing is above your pay grade if it's a topic where the president makes policy decisions. If President Obama was convinced that destroying fertilized, growing, days-old embryos was not ending human lives, then that would be something to debate. But when he readily says he doesn't know when life begins-leaving open the possibility these brand-new creatures are human beings-then he should err on the side of caution by not funding their annihilation.
. . .But it gets worse. When human cloning looked like a near-term possibility in the 1990s, it was President Bill Clinton who first put into law a prohibition against it. President George W. Bush then renewed this ban. Both presidents-of different parties-drew a clear line in the sand that cloning human beings was a moral and ethical line we would never cross as a nation. Then President Obama arrived. In the same speech where he authorized the new stem cell funding, he announced he would also not allow human cloning for purposes of reproduction. He clearly left the door open to allow cloning for medical research purposes. . . . And most in the media ignored this disturbing shift in American policy.
No human being should ever be killed to benefit another human being. Such a policy would put America on a path that would lead to terrifying results. The door to human cloning should not only be shut, it should be slammed shut and locked forever. . . . [Full Story] Tags:Barack Obama, embryonic stem cell, Ken Blackwell, morality, stem cell researchTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
Michael Steele, RNC Chairman: So our tax dollars are going to pay AIG executives millions in bonuses! Just another day of good news from Washington. Meanwhile, don't look now, but Nancy Pelosi and the Obama Administration is busily working to build up a debt larger than our country or any country has ever seen.
But back to the bonuses. It was a mystery all week how this happened. No one could seem to figure it out. But then...it leaked out that Democrat Senator Chris Dodd snuck a provision into the massive spending bill that allowed the bonuses to happen.
Dodd denied it at first, then changed his story and now admits that he did it, but says he did it at the request of "Administration staffers". Finally, the Democrats have been forced to admit that they allowed the AIG bonuses to happen. This has got to stop.
Please take a minute and watch this new RNC's video exposing the Democrats' latest shell game.
Then, forward this post to your friends. Ask everyone contact their congressmen. Ask people to volunteer to help their local and state Republican Parties. Make your voice heard!
Tags:AIG, Barack Obama, Chris Dodd, CNN, Contracts, Executive Bonuses, Mystery Solved, Outrage, President, RNC, Robert Gibbs, Timothy GeithnerTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
The Senate is in recess until 2 PM on Monday. A vote on cloture on the motion to proceed to H.R. 1388, a bill which would significantly expand AmeriCorps and boost its funding, is expected.
Yesterday, the Senate passed H.R. 146, a public lands bill which would designate over 2 million new acres of protected wilderness around the country. Prior to passage, the Senate rejected two more amendments to the bill from Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK). Also yesterday the Senate confirmed Elena Kagan to be Solicitor General by a vote of 61-31.
While Democrats continue to point fingers at each other as they try to untangle the AIG bonus fiasco, attention is likely to return to the Obama budget beginning later today when the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) is expected to release new estimates of the debt burden in the $3.55 trillion proposal. Politico reported yesterday that “the White House is being warned to expect a grim set of deficit projections, adding well over $1 trillion on top of the red ink already conceded in President Barack Obama’s 10-year spending plan.”
And Reuters reports, “U.S. Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad said on Thursday he expects federal deficit spending will be about $1.6 trillion greater over the next ten years than President Barack Obama’s budget plan forecasts.” Conrad noted that his projections come from Democrat committee staffers.
The Los Angeles Times writes today, “That bad news, combined with other recent developments, portends a rocky road for the Obama budget, which was initially hailed by congressional Democrats for promoting such liberal priorities as expanded access to health insurance and curbs on global warming.” Yet the LA Times notes it has come under increasing fire from Democrats. “In the three weeks since the budget was unveiled, fiscally conservative Democrats have raised concerns about proposed spending increases. Leaders of the House and Senate tax-writing committees have criticized some of Obama’s proposed tax increases on wealthier Americans. . . . Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.), one of about 15 moderate Democrats concerned about Obama’s spending levels, said the White House might have to reassess its priorities in light of the new estimates.”
The budget projects $7 trillion in deficits over the next ten years, but with the news that this may be $1.6 trillion short (which would be equivalent to all federal spending in 1997), it’s going to become even clearer for Americans that the Obama budget plan taxes too much, spends too much, and borrows too much.
Speaking to Politico, Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH), ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee said, “The CBO re-score is going to be an eye-opening event for a lot of people who want to finesse this. You cannot finesse the coming fiscal calamity we are facing, the size of the debt in the out years and the size of the deficit in the out years.”
Of course, the AIG mess also continues to embroil Democrats. Both The Hill and the AP discussed the frenzy of buck-passing between various Democrats in Congress and the Treasury Department yesterday. According to The Hill, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi blamed the Senate, while Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid referred questions to Senate Banking Committee chair Chris Dodd (D-CT). But the AP writes that Dodd in turn blamed Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner but Geithner’s staff pointed back at Dodd, with a spokesman saying, “Treasury staff raised a general concern about broad legal challenges to the retroactivity of the [Dodd] amendment, including constitutional claims, but did not insist on any changes or receive any resistance from the senator’s staff.”
Maybe by the time we know what the full cost of Obama’s budget is Democrats will have figured out who dropped the ball on the AIG issue. Tags:AIG, federal budget, US Congress, US House, US Senate, Washington D.C.To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
Attorney General Eric Holder to Release Gitmo Detainees into the United States
by Jonathan Klingler, Executive Director, Students for Victory: Yesterday, Attorney General Eric Holder told reporters at the Justice Department that the enemy combatants currently at Guantanamo Bay will either be put on trial, or released. According to Mr. Holder, "For those who can be released, there are a variety of options that we have. Among them is the possibility that we could release them into this country." The Administration has said in the past that the detainees who are not released will probably be tried in civilian courts. This is troubling news.
A recent Rasmussen poll reported that 69% of Americans believed that terrorist combatants should not be given the rights of citizens, and 59% support using military tribunals rather than civilian trials to handle detainee cases. Only one in four Americans support trying these detainees in civilian courts. The position held by the majority of the American people is clear.
These recent developments only underscore the need for our government to listen to the American people by ensuring that no dangerous detainee is released, whether in the US or anywhere in the world, and that we establish a set of rules to handle terrorists like the combatants they are rather than common criminals.
Help bring public pressure to bear and stop this bad policy by AG Eric Holder from being implemented. Contact your US Representativeand ask that they endorse theNo Catch and Release petitionand to pass legislation to prevent Guantanamo detainees from being released into the United States or being given civilian trials. When the majority of the American people stand up against bad policy, Congress will listen. This is too important for any of us to sit by on the sidelines. Please take action today: Sign and spread the word about the No Catch and Release petition. Tags:detainees, Eric Holder, GITMO, Islamic terroristTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
Yesterday, the Senate voted 92-5 to confirm Ron Kirk as U.S. Trade Representative. The Senate also voted down three amendments to the lands bill by Sen. Coburn. What did we expect from the Democrats. Around 11 AM, the Senate will vote on three more amendments by Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) and after those votes, senators will vote on final passage of the H.R. 146, a vehicle for a public lands bill (S.22) that originally passed the Senate in January and if passed will be sent to the House for a vote without any opportunity for Republican Representatives to offer amendments.
The Senate at 2 pm is expected to proceed to a six hours of debate on the nomination of Elena Kagan to be Solicitor General, after which there will be a vote on her nomination. Kagan and other law school officials sued to overturn the Solomon amendment, adopted by Congress to ensure that law schools could not use homosexual rights rules to deny U.S. Armed Forces recruiters access to law school campuses. In other words, Kagan wants the military barred from on-campus recruiting because the military supposedly discriminates against homosexuals. The position was so extreme that that the Supreme Court rejected her position by a 9-0 vote. Also, she has advocated continued federal funding for abortion clinics.
Though some mysteries were resolved in the AIG bonus mess after playing “whodunit” all day Wednesday, we have yet to hear from key players in the matter on a number of questions that remain. In particular, there has been little in the way of explanation from the White House, the Treasury Secretary, the House Speaker, or the Senate Majority Leader as to how all of this happened and what they knew about it.
The main thing that was learned yesterday was about a provision inserted into the $787 billion stimulus bill that passed in February. The provision was added to the bill by Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT), but previously “Dodd denied to CNN that he had anything to do with adding the language, which has been used by officials at bailed-out insurance giant AIG to justify paying millions of dollars in bonuses to executives after receiving federal money.” In a new interview with CNN yesterday, “Dodd told CNN . . . that he was responsible for language added to the federal stimulus bill to make sure that already-existing contracts for bonuses at companies receiving federal bailout money were honored.” According toPolitico, “Dodd said that ‘staff-level people’ at the Treasury Department pushed him to add what seemed like ‘innocent modifications’ to an amendment he offered to the stimulus bill — and that language, in turn, made it possible for the bailed-out insurance giant to pay its employees more than $100 million in bonuses last week.”
Though Dodd is blaming people at the Treasury Department, Bloomberg reports today, “An administration official said last night that representatives of President Barack Obama didn’t insist on the change, though they did contend that the language in Dodd’s amendment could be legally challenged because it would apply retroactively to bonus agreements.”
We have yet to learn, however, what happened to an amendment to the bill by Sens. Olympia Snowe (R-ME) and Ron Wyden (D-OR), which was designed to heavily tax bonuses at any company that received a federal bailout. Wyden told Politico, “I think the administration at best is sending mixed messages.” Wyden also “said the president’s economic team ‘has not followed up, and it’s not acceptable to the American people.’”
All of this appears to have been decided during final negotiations over the stimulus bill last month. There were several key players in the room when the language of the Dodd provision was hammered out and when the fate of the Snowe-Wyden amendment was decided: White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, as well as various Treasury representatives. However, none of them have yet provided any answers as to what happened and why.
Meanwhile, there have been conflicting claims about just when Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner found out about AIG’s plans to pay the bonuses. According to Reuters, “Geithner said he knew about the bonuses on March 10 and told the White House two days later. The news broke publicly last weekend.” But Time reported yesterday that “the New York Federal Reserve informed Treasury staff that the payments were imminent on Feb. 28. That is 10 days before Treasury staffers say they first learned ‘full details’ of the bonus plan, and three days before the Administration launched a new $30 billion infusion of cash for AIG.”
So it seems there are important questions that need to be answered: what happened with the language concerning bonuses in final negotiations over the stimulus bill, and why was that language changed or dropped? And when did Secretary Geithner actually find out about the AIG bonuses? Was it before he approved the extra $30 billion for AIG? It’s time Americans heard from Emanuel, Pelosi, Reid, and Geithner on all of these questions. However, we may not learn much from Treasury Secretary Geithner because 1) the Obama administration has failed to fill positions at Treasury that are critically needed to help the Secretary, and 2) President Obama said yesterday that he has full confidence in Geithner which in political speak means Obama may be about to give Geithner the "Rev. Wright Boot" out of his administration. Tags:abortion, AIG, Elena Kagan, lands bill, Tim Geither, US Congress, US House, US Senate, Washington D.C.To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
Gary Bauer at the Campaign for Working Families has lauched a new site and has sent out a special alert about a new tool to help you fight Obama’s radical agenda and to defend free enterprise:
“We Are All Socialists Now.” That was Newsweek magazine’s cover story on February 16, 2009. According to Newsweek, we are headed down the road to European socialism and America is becoming more like France. Since that magazine hit the newsstands, President Obama has signed a trillion-dollar “stimulus” bill and proposed a $3.6 trillion budget with hundreds of billions in personal and business tax hikes. And almost daily, leftwing politicians are attacking Wall Street and free enterprise for causing the economic crisis while proposing massive new spending program or calls for higher taxes. The White House and liberal media are resorting to class warfare, seeking to exploit the economic crisis to ram through the most leftwing agenda in history. Businesses are under assault. Success is being punished, and failure is being rewarded with bailout after bailout.
I have a different idea. I believe Ronald Reagan was right when he said, “Government is not the solution; Government is the problem.” Big Government bears much of the blame for this crisis, and I intend to Defend Free Enterprise from this leftwing assault. If you agree that we must defend free enterprise, sign up for my new “Defend Free Enterprise” report. If you are a small business owner or entrepreneur, then this report is for you. Our new “Defend Free Enterprise” report is a weekly message focusing exclusively on economic issues, making the case for lower taxes, less bureaucratic regulation, smaller government, more individual responsibility and freedom.
But I don’t want to just preach to the choir. We must engage our friends and family members – especially our teenage and college-age children who often are not taught the fundamentals of our history and economics. We must reach out to and convince many good folks who, for whatever reason, didn’t vote or voted for Barack Obama. I believe American free enterprise has created more prosperity for more people than any other system at any time in human history. I don’t believe trillions in higher taxes and trillions more in Big Government spending is the solution to our problems. Like Ronald Reagan, I believe government is the problem! And I know that America’s entrepreneurial spirit is the solution!
Go right now to Defend Free Enterprise to sign up. I hope you will share this report with professional associates, employees and co-workers, even if they don’t always agree with us on every issue. Encourage them to sign up!
Tags:Defend Free Enterprise, Gary Bauer, small businessTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
1. The US has made a new weapon that destroys people but keeps the building standing. Its called the stock market.
2. Do you have any idea how cheap stocks are? Wall Street is now being called Wal-Mart Street.
3. The difference between a pigeon and an investment banker. The pigeon can still make a deposit on a BMW
4. What's the difference between a guy who lost everything in Las Vegas and an investment banker? A tie!
5. The problem with investment bank balance sheet is that on the left side nothing's right, and on the right side nothing's left.
6. Warning to the People of Nigeria. if you get any emails from Washington asking for money, it's a scam. Don't fall for it
7. What worries people most about the credit crunch: if one of their checks is returned stamped "insufficient funds," they won't know whether that refers to them or to the bank.
New Stock Market Terms
CEO -- Chief Embezzlement Officer.
CFO -- Corporate Fraud Officer.
BULL MARKET -- A random market movement causing an investment banker to mistake himself for a financial genius.
BEAR MARKET -- A 6 to 18 month period when the kids get no allowance & the wife gets no jewelry.
VALUE INVESTING -- The art of buying low and selling lower.
P/E RATIO -- The percentage of investors wetting their pants as the market keeps crashing.
BROKER -- What my broker has made me.
STANDARD & POOR -- Your life in a nutshell.
STOCK ANALYST -- Idiot who just downgraded your stock.
STOCK SPLIT -- When your ex-wife and her lawyer split your assets equally between themselves.
FINANCIAL PLANNER -- A guy whose phone has been disconnected.
MARKET CORRECTION -- The day after you buy stocks.
CASH FLOW -- The movement your money makes as it disappears down the toilet.
INSTITUTIONAL INVESTOR -- Past year investor who should be now locked up in a nuthouse.
PROFIT -- An archaic word no longer in use.
RECESSION -- when your neighbor loses his job.
DEPRESSION -- when you lose your job.
RECOVERY -- when Barack Obama, Chris Dodd, Barney Frank, Franklin Raines, Charlie Rangle, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi lose their jobs.
Tags:business terms, humor, political humorTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
John Boozman Expresses Concerns of Washington Spending
Rep John Boozman (R-AR): It is clear that we are facing unprecedented challenges as a nation and there is uncertainty that we are working to resolve. I have read emails and letters that you send and understand you are worried. Among the themes of those letters is Washington spending. As Ed in Fort Smith wrote, “It appears that many in Congress are content to shell out billions of taxpayer's dollars, thinking that is the solution to our economic woes. Sadly, much of this is happening with no logical game plan and few details. If I did that in the business world, I'd probably get fired.” I agree with Ed. The spending legislation proposed, passed and signed into law in the 111th Congress are not good policies and that is why I voted against them.
I too had similar reservations about the $780 billion stimulus package that minimally addressed job creation, job protection and pension security but was full of pet projects and I still believe it was the wrong approach to help our economy recover. “[A] report by a group of economists including Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody's Economy.com, says the recently enacted $787 billion stimulus package will fall far short of the Obama administration's goal of saving or creating 3.5 million jobs.” (ABC News, 3/10/09)
We are experiencing an economic downturn that some say comes once in a lifetime, but we cannot spend our way out of this problem and create prosperity. Congress has approved $1.2 trillion between the Stimulus and the Omnibus. Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-K) described the out of control spending at ‘$1 billion an hour’ (Congress at Work: ‘$1 billion an hour’, Politico, 3/11/09).
Washington needs to do what our families are forced to do, tighten the budget and make sacrifices. In an address to Congress in February, President Obama said “I want to pass a budget next year that ensures each dollar we spend reflects only our most important national priorities.” Two days later he introduced his budget proposal but unfortunately, it spends too much, borrows too much and taxes too much.
Out of control spending and higher taxes during a recession will only make matters worse. When President Herbert Hoover raised taxes during a recession it led to record unemployment and the Great Depression.
The good news is this is a proposal and just the first phase in the process. Ultimately it’s up to Congress to craft the budget. Please be assured that I will consider the amount of spending and the programs that are funded in the 2010 Fiscal Year.
Getting our economy on the road to recovery requires tax relief for working families and small businesses as well as fiscal responsibility in Washington. These are the basic principles that allowed our nation to prosper and they are the principles I will continue to fight for in Washington. We live in a great nation, and I am confident things will turn around. Irresponsible spending of taxpayer dollars is just not the way to get us there. Tags:Arkansas, federal spending, John Boozman, Washington D.C.To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) named House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D-MA) its March 2009 Porker of the Month. The chairman, having somehow eluded this dubious award in the past, finally delivered enough of Barney’s blarney to be recognized, appropriately on St. Patrick’s Day. On Monday, March 16, 2009, Chairman Frank expressed public umbrage over reports that insurance giant AIG, a recipient of $173 billion from the U.S. Treasury, had distributed $165 million in retention bonuses to some of the employees who helped bring the company to the verge of collapse. Chairman Frank fulminated that AIG had “rewarded failure” in awarding the bonuses. That’s rich.
Chairman Frank has never been shy about rewarding failure in the past and he generally favors using taxpayer dollars to do it. He was front and center in support of enactment of TARP, which noticeably had no enforceable strings attached related to executive compensation. Indeed, he helped promote perks for bank executives. According to a January 24, 2009 Boston Herald editorial, Chairman Frank made sure “one of the recipients of a $12 million infusion of federal cash was the troubled OneUnited Bank in Boston - a bank that had already been accused of ‘unsafe and unsound banking practices.’ Its CEO, Kevin Cohee had also been criticized by regulators for ‘excessive’ pay that included a Porsche.” Chairman Frank included specific provisions in TARP aimed at bailing out OneUnited and spoke directly to Treasury officials about it.
Perhaps most damning is Chairman Frank’s irresponsible defense of the activities of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac over the years, even when it became clear that executives at the two giant government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) had manipulated earnings statements and gifted themselves with huge bonuses based on the bogus numbers, misled regulators, and steered the companies into such shoddy condition that they posed a systemic risk to the entire financial system. Chairman Frank must regret his September 11, 2003 statement to The New York Times that Fannie and Freddie “are not facing any kind of financial crisis…[t]he more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.” During a 2003 committee hearing related to establishing oversight over the GSEs, he casually announced that he didn’t want “the same kind of focus on safety and soundness that we have in Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Office of Thrift Supervision. I want to roll the dice a little bit more in this situation towards subsidized housing.” We know how that worked out: the GSEs are now almost entirely owned by the taxpayers; Freddie Mac tapped the Treasury for $13.8 billion in 2008; and Fannie Mae is on deck to get $15.2 billion this year.
“Even in this global capital of hot air, bait-and-switch politics, and double-talk, Chairman Frank deserves singular recognition,” said CAGW President Tom Schatz. “It strains credulity to hear him rebuking anyone for rewarding failure after he helped create the disaster in the first place.” For his ample and under-appreciated contributions to the nation’s current economic meltdown and his near-genius ability to engage in the two-faced blame game, CAGW names House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank March Porker of the Month.
----------------------------- Citizens Against Government Waste is the nation's largest nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in government. Porker of the Month is a dubious honor given to lawmakers, government officials, and political candidates who have shown a blatant disregard for the interests of taxpayers. Tags:Barney Frank, CAGW, Citizens Against Government Waste, porker of the monthTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
by Cristina Corbin, Fox News: The U.S. Census is supposed to be free of politics, but one group with a history of voter fraud, ACORN, is participating in next year's count, raising concerns about the politicization of the decennial survey. The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) signed on as a national partner with the U.S. Census Bureau in February 2009 to assist with the recruitment of the 1.4 million temporary workers needed to go door-to-door to count every person in the United States -- currently believed to be more than 306 million people.
A U.S. Census "sell sheet," an advertisement used to recruit national partners, says partnerships with groups like ACORN "play an important role in making the 2010 Census successful," including by "help[ing] recruit census workers." The bureau is currently employing help from more than 250 national partners, including TARGET and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), to assist in the hiring effort.
But ACORN's partnership with the 2010 Census is worrisome to lawmakers who say past allegations of fraud should raise concerns about the organization. "It's a concern, especially when you look at all the different charges of voter fraud. And it's not just the lawmakers' concern. It should be the concern of every citizen in the country," Rep. Lynn A. Westmoreland, R-Ga., vice ranking member of the subcommittee for the U.S. Census, told FOXNews.com. "We want an enumeration. We don't want to have any false numbers."
ACORN, which claims to be a non-partisan grassroots community organization of low- and moderate-income people, came under fire in 2007 when Washington State filed felony charges against several paid ACORN employees and supervisors for more than 1,700 fraudulent voter registrations. In March 2008, an ACORN worker in Pennsylvania was sentenced for making 29 phony voter registration forms. The group's activities were frequently questioned in the 2008 presidential election.
ACORN spokesman Scott Levenson told FOXNews.com that "ACORN as an organization has not been charged with any crime." He added that fears that the organization will unfairly influence the census are unfounded. "It will be the Census Bureau that determines the role and scope of its 300 national partners. ACORN is committed to a fair and accurate count," Levenson said.
The census is an official count of the country's population mandated by the U.S. Constitution. It is used to determine distribution of taxpayer money through grants and appropriations and the apportionment of the 435 seats in the House of Representatives. Every U.S. household unit, including those occupied by non-citizens and illegal immigrants, must be counted.
Westmoreland and Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, a member of the House census subcommittee, said the panel has held hearings to make sure the penalties for census takers committing fraud are clearly defined. "I feel fairly confident that the penalties for an individual manipulating the count are pretty severe," Chaffetz said. The penalty for any fraudulent activity can be up to five years in jail.
Westmoreland said he hopes the Census Bureau will maintain its measures to ensure an accurate report. "I feel comfortable right now with the people at the census department that they're going to put forth their best effort to have a fair count," he said. The U.S. Census Bureau has refuted any suggestions that ACORN or any other groups will fraudulently and unduly influence the results of the census. "The Census (Bureau) is a nonpartisan, non-political agency and we're very dedicated to an accurate account," bureau spokesman Stephen Buckner told FOXNews.com. "We have a lot of quality controls in place to keep any kind of systemic error or fraudulent behavior to affect the counts."
Buckner said the bureau received an overwhelming number of qualified applicants -- more than 1 million -- for the 140,000 census taker jobs filled to complete the first phase of the effort. Each applicant, he said, must take a basic skills exam, which includes reading a map and entering data into a handheld computer. Applicants are also subject to an FBI background check, he said.
But Buckner acknowledged that it is difficult to track an applicant's political background. "I have no way of tracking any of that information," he said. "If somebody comes in to a position with a political agenda and their work exhibits that, there are rules against that," he said.
Buckner stressed the need for organizations like ACORN to assist in the effort, saying that "any group that has a grassroots organization that can help get the word out that we have jobs" is helpful. In 2000, the U.S. Census Bureau had 140,000 partnerships from "national organizations to local and community organizations to elected officials," he said. "The list is as broad as the phone book." See Also:RICO Lawsuit Filed Against ACORN ACORN Registers a 7 Year Old Mickey Mouse Registers to Vote Obama Invites ACORN To Shape Presidency Stop ACORN NowTags:ACORN, corruption, FBI, NAACP, Obama, Obama administration, Scott Levenson, U.S. Census, U.S. Census BureauTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
Taxpayers Gather To Protest Spending, Taxes, Growing Debt
The real grassroots Tea Party movement stands in marked contrast to Democrat attempts to manufacture a movement for Obama's $3.55 trillion budget.
Tags:bailout, Budget, Chicago, Cincinnati, congress, Green Bay, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, protest, Senate, spending, St Louis, taxes, taxpayers, tea partyTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
Army Investigating How and Why Troops Were Sent Into Alabama Town
by Pete Winn, CNS News: The U.S. Army has launched an inquiry into how and why active duty troops from Fort Rucker, Ala., came to be placed on the streets of Samson, Ala., during last week's murder spree in that tiny South Alabama community. The use of the troops was a possible violation of federal law. “On March 10, after a report of an apparent mass murder in Samson, Ala., 22 military police soldiers from Fort Rucker, Ala., along with the provost marshal, were sent to the city of Samson,” Harvey Perritt, spokesman for the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) at Fort Monroe, Va., told CNSNews.com on Monday.
“The purpose for sending the military police, the authority for doing so, and what duties they performed is the subject of an ongoing commander’s inquiry--directed by the commanding general of U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command, Gen. Martin Dempsey.” . . . The troops were apparently not deployed by the request of Alabama Gov. Bob Riley or by the request of President Obama, as required by law. No request from President Obama, meanwhile, was issued by the White House--or the Defense Department. Wrongful use of federal troops inside U.S. borders is a violation of several federal laws, including one known as the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, Title 18, Section 1385 of the U.S. Code. . . . [Full Story: Army Investigating How and Why Troops Were Sent . . .] Tags:Alabama, military troops, Posse Comitatus, US Army To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
The Senate began executive session to consider the nomination of Ron Kirk to be U.S. Trade Representative for up to 90 minutes. At 2 PM, the Senate will vote on the Kirk nomination and three amendments to the lands bill from Coburn.
Following debate on the nomination, the Senate will return to legislative session and resume consideration H.R. 146, a vehicle for a public lands bill (S.22) that originally passed the Senate in January. A deal was reached yesterday between Democrat leaders and Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK), allowing him to offer six amendments to the bill.
Yesterday, the Senate passed by voice vote a bill to do away with automatic congressional pay increases (S. 620). Are they willing to give back their pay raises for this year?
In the House, a House Financial Services subcommittee will begin a hearing on AIG at 10 AM and will hear testimony from AIG chairman and CEO Edward Liddy. With anger building over bonuses paid out by AIG after receiving billions in tax, the Obama administration and Democrats in Congress scrambled to shift blame for who allowed it to happen, and wil use the hearings to try to cover their trail. Much of the focus has been on Senate Banking Committee chairman Chris Dodd (D-CT). Fox Business initially reported yesterday, “While the Senate was constructing the $787 billion stimulus last month, Dodd added an executive-compensation restriction to the bill. The provision, now called ‘the Dodd Amendment’ by the Obama Administration provides an ‘exception for contractually obligated bonuses agreed on before Feb. 11, 2009’ -- which exempts the very AIG bonuses Dodd and others are now seeking to tax.”
But a Dodd spokesperson denied that his amendment allowed this, telling The Washington Times’ Amanda Carpenter that Dodd’s amendment was changed by the Treasury Department and stimulus bill conferees. And The New York Times adds today, “Mr. Dodd, in turn, responded Tuesday with a statement saying that the exemption actually had been inserted at the insistence of Treasury during Congress’s final legislative negotiations.” Yet at the daily press briefing yesterday, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs repeatedly referred to “the Dodd compensation requirements as contained in the Recovery and Reinvestment Act.”
CNN attempted to unravel the mess ina article by Dana Bash: “In an interview with CNN, Dodd denied inserting that exemption at the 11th hour, and insisted he doesn't know how it got there. ‘When I wrote the language there was no such language like that,’ Dodd told CNN Tuesday.” The CNN report continues, “Multiple Senate Democratic leadership sources also deny knowing how the exemption got into the bill. The mystery isn't just how what was effectively a protection for AIG was put into the stimulus bill -- it's also how a provision intended to prevent AIG from giving executive bonuses, was taken out.”
According to CNN, “The Senate passed a bipartisan amendment [to the stimulus bill] proposed by Sen. Olympia Snowe, R- Maine, and Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Oregon, that would have taxed bonuses on any company getting federal bailout dollars, if the company didn't pay back the bonus money to the government. But the idea was stripped from the stimulus bill during hurried, closed-door negotiations with the White House and House of Representatives.”
CNN asked Senate Finance Committee chairman Max Baucus (D-MT), one of the conferees on the stimulus bill about the Snowe-Wyden amendment and he “made a stunning admission.” Baucus said, “Frankly it was such a rush -- we're talking about the stimulus bill now -- to get it passed, I didn't have time and other conferees didn't have time to address many of the provisions that were modified significantly. We shouldn't be here. That should have passed, but it didn't.”
Meanwhile, at a press conference yesterday, Politico reports that “Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) just tried to change the subject. Asked about Geithner’s role in failing to stop the bonuses, Reid said: ‘Let’s talk about what we have accomplished this Congress.’” So who exactly is responsible here? President Obama? Secretary Geithner? Chris Dodd? Harry Reid? Max Baucus? The American people would probably be better served by less finger-pointing and more answers. Obama is heading out to California, wasting tax maney and aircraft fuel, in an effort to do in get out of town and to try to sell his budget proposal -- doing the only successful thing he has done in his past - campaigning. Tags:AIG, Barack Obama, Chris Dodd, US Congress, US House, US Senate, Washington D.C.To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
A new poll by the independent Pew Research Center for the People & the Press has found that President Barack Obama's popular support is eroding, with his approval rating dropping below 60%. Its new survey finds Obama's approval rating falling to 59% from 64% in February. It also finds the ranks of Americans who disapprove of the president's job performance rising, to 26%from 17%. The Pew poll is the latest finding that the president has lost some support as he's started to flesh out his governing agenda. A McClatchy-Ipsos poll last week found his approval rating dropping from 69% to 65%. An average of six public polls in the past few weeks - Pew, Gallup, Rasmussen, McClatchy-Ipsos, Newsweek and Fox - put Obama's approval rating at 60.3%.
Tags:Barack Obama, Gallup Poll, McClatchy-Ipos Poll, Pew Research, polls, Rasmussen PollTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
The Department of Defense briefed the President this morning. They told him that 2 Brazilian soldiers were killed in Iraq.
All the color drained from the President's face. He collapsed onto his desk, head in his hands, visibly shaken, almost in tears.
Finally he composed himself and asked, Just how many is a brazilian?
This is not surprising, since he obviously has no understanding of billion or trillion either. Tags:political humor, a brazilianTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
Update 3/19:Washington Times - Obama drops vet medical plan: The Obama administration dropped a proposal to require some disabled veterans to pay for medical treatments through their private insurance companies, heeding a chorus of outrage from veterans groups and Capitol Hill lawmakers who said the idea was immoral, unconscionable and un-American. . . . The administration's about-face also received bipartisan applause on Capitol Hill.
NewsMax: The leader of the nation's largest veterans organization says he is "deeply disappointed and concerned" after a meeting with President Obama today to discuss a proposal to force private insurance companies to pay for the treatment of military veterans who have suffered service-connected disabilities and injuries. The Obama administration recently revealed a plan to require private insurance carriers to reimburse the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) in such cases.
"It became apparent during our discussion today that the President intends to move forward with this unreasonable plan," said Commander David K. Rehbein of The American Legion. "He says he is looking to generate $540-million by this method, but refused to hear arguments about the moral and government-avowed obligations that would be compromised by it."
The Commander, clearly angered as he emerged from the session said, "This reimbursement plan would be inconsistent with the mandate ' to care for him who shall have borne the battle' given that the United States government sent members of the armed forces into harm's way, and not private insurance companies. I say again that The American Legion does not and will not support any plan that seeks to bill a veteran for treatment of a service connected disability at the very agency that was created to treat the unique need of America's veterans!"
Commander Rehbein was among a group of senior officials from veterans service organizations joining the President, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel, Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric Shinseki and Steven Kosiak, the overseer of defense spending at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). The group's early afternoon conversation at The White House was precipitated by a letter of protest presented to the President earlier this month. The letter, co-signed by Commander Rehbein and the heads of ten colleague organizations, read, in part, " There is simply no logical explanation for billing a veteran's personal insurance for care that the VA has a responsibility to provide. While we understand the fiscal difficulties this country faces right now, placing the burden of those fiscal problems on the men and women who have already sacrificed a great deal for this country is unconscionable."
Commander Rehbein reiterated points made last week in testimony to both House and Senate Veterans' Affairs Committees. It was stated then that The American Legion believes that the reimbursement plan would be inconsistent with the mandate that VA treat service-connected injuries and disabilities given that the United States government sends members of the armed forces into harm's way, and not private insurance companies. The proposed requirement for these companies to reimburse the VA would not only be unfair, says the Legion, but would have an adverse impact on service-connected disabled veterans and their families. The Legion argues that, depending on the severity of the medical conditions involved, maximum insurance coverage limits could be reached through treatment of the veteran's condition alone. That would leave the rest of the family without health care benefits.
The Legion also points out that many health insurance companies require deductibles to be paid before any benefits are covered. Additionally, the Legion is concerned that private insurance premiums would be elevated to cover service-connected disabled veterans and their families, especially if the veterans are self-employed or employed in small businesses unable to negotiate more favorable across-the-board insurance policy pricing. The American Legion also believes that some employers, especially small businesses, would be reluctant to hire veterans with service-connected disabilities due to the negative impact their employment might have on obtaining and financing company health care benefits.
"I got the distinct impression that the only hope of this plan not being enacted," said Commander Rehbein, "is for an alternative plan to be developed that would generate the desired $540-million in revenue. The American Legion has long advocated for Medicare reimbursement to VA for the treatment of veterans. This, we believe, would more easily meet the President's financial goal. We will present that idea in an anticipated conference call with White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel in the near future. "I only hope the administration will really listen to us then. This matter has far more serious ramifications than the President is imagining," concluded the Commander. Tags:American Legion, Barack Obama, David K. Rehbein, disabled, health care, veterans, Veterans AdministrationTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
Tags:National Debt, no hope, political humorTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
Arkansas Rice Farmers Impacted by Obama Bowing to Union Pressure
K. Ryan James: While saying “Yes, we can” to the Teamsters, President Barack Obama ended up screwing American farmers: "The Obama administration, under pressure from the protectionist wing of the Democratic Party, reneged on a key NAFTA component regarding international trucking. In response, Mexico has slapped tariffs on American exports, and ag producers are steamed."
Bloomberg reports that 40 states will be affected: "The tariffs, on about 90 items from 40 states, were imposed by Economy Minister Gerardo Ruiz Mateos yesterday after the U.S. suspended a program to allow Mexican 18-wheelers to deliver goods across the border. U.S. Republican lawmakers said Mexico, which didn’t provide details, would impose tariffs on farm goods such as rice, beef, wheat and beans."
I highlight rice because, accoriding to the USDA, we’ve sent them around 439,000 metric tons of the stuff for the growing season through March 5, and Arkansas is the nation’s leader in rice production.
ARRA Editor: Also, what about Rep. Marion Berry (D-AR Dist 1)? Berry supported Obama while Arkansas voters did not. Appears that Berry is now a muted voice who is NOT able to help protect Arkansas Delta Rice Farmers? Tags:Arkansas, Barack Obama, Blanche Lincoln, Marion Berry, Mexico, NAFTA, Rice FarmersTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
by Jim Brown - OneNewsNow: A conservative activist says the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Washington, DC, should prompt the government to take action against the homosexual behavior that is spreading the deadly disease. The District of Columbia's HIV/AIDS office reports that at least 3% of DC residents have HIV or AIDS, a rate that is higher than West Africa. According to the report, heterosexual sex was the chief mode of transmission for blacks, while homosexual sex was the chief mode of transmission for whites at 78%. Peter LaBarbera, president of Americans for Truth About Homosexuality, believes the HIV/AIDS cases linked to homosexuality are actually larger than the report claims. . . . The DC report finds that 76 percent of the HIV-infected are black, 70% are men, and 70% are age 40 and older. LaBarbera says the government, unfortunately, is unwilling to stigmatize homosexuality and bisexuality. . . . LaBarbera believes "it's time the government gets honest" about HIV/AIDS and takes action to shut down the homosexual bathhouses and sex clubs that are operating freely. Tags:aids, District of Columbia, Washington D.C.To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
Yesterday, the Senate voted 73-21 to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed to the lands bill. The Senate will resume post-cloture consideration of the motion to proceed to H.R. 146, a vehicle for a public lands bill (S.22) that passed the Senate in January. Roll call votes are possible today if an agreement is reached on amendments to the bill.
The Washington Post writes today, “President Obama’s apparent inability to block executive bonuses at insurance giant AIG has dealt a sharp blow to his young administration and is threatening to derail both public and congressional support for his ambitious political agenda.” Indeed, with outrage simmering over the bonuses at AIG and the hundreds of billions of dollars of spending approved by the administration and Congress over the last two months, it appears that Obama and Democrats will have a tougher time pushing a $3.6 trillion budget.
The Post points out, “The Obama administration was already facing a skeptical public and members of Congress critical of the huge sums of money the government has allocated to shoring up the devastated financial system.” But it’s not just the money used to bail out financial institutions that is troubling Americans. The Los Angeles Times notes, “News of the bonuses has threatened to stir a populist backlash against the rescue of AIG and other financial services, which in turn could raise voter concerns that the administration is squandering taxpayer money.”
The Budget’s $3.6 trillion price tag comes on top of $410 billion government spending bill, a housing plan that went into effect last week that could cost a quarter of a trillion dollars, a financial bailout that could cost another $1 to $2 trillion, and a Stimulus bill that will cost, with interest, more than a trillion dollars. Some are now talking about another stimulus. The national debt is more than $10 trillion. Given this massive, unprecedented amount of spending, Obama is seeing “growing skepticism over aspects of his economic agenda,” as the LA Times puts it. It’s clearly another reason that Obama has “launched an aggressive campaign-style offensive to bolster congressional supporters and marginalize Republican opponents.”
With Democrats nervous about the excessive spending, taxing, and borrowing called for and a public indignant about how taxpayer money is being spent, Obama’s budget increasingly looks like it will be a tough sell. in fact a new ditty is being passed around the nation:
"Recession is when your neighbor loses his job.
Depression is when you lose yours.
And, Recovery is when Obama loses his!"
Tags:public lands bill, AIG bailout, US Congress, US House, US Senate, Washington D.C.To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
Kids Appeal to President Obama - DC Opportunity Scholarship Program
Advocates for School Choice: Video of District of Columbia children appealing to President Obama to continue giving children a choice for better education through the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program.
Tags:Barack Obama, children, District of Columbia, kids, school choice, school vouchers, videoTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
“[China is] worried about forever-rising deficits, which may devalue Treasuries by pushing interest rates higher… Inside China there has been a lot of debate about whether they should continue to buy Treasuries.” — JP Morgan economist Frank Gong, “China 'worried' about US Treasury holdings.”
Robert Romano reports: China is worried about the value of nearly half of its $2 trillion in currency reserves that include U.S. Treasury bonds and other notes issued by the U.S. As well they should be. They are only as good as America's promise to pay them back.
It's a simple principle: The more money one borrows to fuel an out-of-control, unbridled spending spree, the more resources must be dedicated to paying back that debt with interest. If too much debt is incurred, it eventually becomes impossible for the debtor to ever emerge solvent.
And if there was any doubt that the Chinese are indeed worried, one need look no further than recent comments by the Chinese premier, Wen Jiabao, who said, “We have a huge amount of loans to the United States. Of course we are concerned about the safety of our assets. To be honest, I'm a little bit worried… I would like to call on the United States to honor its words, stay a credible nation and ensure the safety of Chinese assets.”
Eventually, Congress, the Treasury, and the Fed's seemingly endless supply of money from overseas will come to a halt. The nation's creditors can no more afford to continue lending the money on this scale as we can continue to borrowing it. Eventually there comes a tipping point where the debtor is so far underwater, that he or she drowns—and all who would have once thrown a life-preserver are treading water themselves. At that point, a global run on the dollar would ensue as the debts are called in one after another, leaving the American taxpayer with an insurmountable bill. . . . [Read: Getting Out While the Getting's Good? for the solution.] Tags:ALG, bailout, Borrowing, China, credit, deficit, Economics, Robert Romano, Stop the Bailout, U.S. Treasury, United StatesTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
by Jonah Goldberg, The Patriot Post: I'm trying to come to terms with Rule No. 1 of the Obama administration.'Rule 1: Never allow a crisis to go to waste,' White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel told the New York Times right after the election. 'They are opportunities to do big things.' Over the weekend, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton told an audience at the European Parliament, 'Never waste a good crisis.' Then President Obama explained in his Saturday radio and Internet address that there is 'great opportunity in the midst of' the 'great crisis' befalling America.
Numerous commentators, including me, have pointed to this never-waste-a-crisis mantra as ideological evidence that Obama's budget priorities are a great bait-and-switch. He says he wants to fix the financial crisis, but he's focusing on selling his long-standing liberal agenda on health care, energy and education as the way to do it, even though his proposals have absolutely nothing to do with addressing the housing and toxic-debt problems that are the direct causes of our predicament. Indeed, some -- particularly on Wall Street -- would argue that his policies are making the crisis worse. But those policies aren't the real scandal, even though they're bad enough. The real scandal is that this administration thinks crises are opportunities for governmental power-grabs. . . . [Read Obama's Fear-mongering by National Review editor Jonah Goldberg] Tags:Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Obama administration, Rahm Emanuel, Rule No. 1, Never allow a crisis to go to wasteTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
The Senate will reconvene at 2 pm today. The Senate will resume consideration of the motion to proceed to H.R. 146, a vehicle for replacing the public lands bill (S.22) that passed the Senate in January and was defeated in the House. At 5:30 pm, the Senate will vote on cloture on the motion to proceed to the new version of the bill. Last week, the lands bill failed to pass the House using special rules that would prevent Republicans from offering amendments. So, the Democrats decided to use in the Senate a lands bill the House previously passed as a vehicle to move it through the Senate again so that when it returns to the House, Republicans will be unable to offer amendments under the rules.
With a considerable number of Democrats (and most Republicans) expressing serious concerns over President Obama’s $3.55 trillion budget plan, the White House is apparently turning to Obama’s campaign apparatus to sell his massive spending plans, according to several news reports. Moderate Democrats have been some of the most vocal critics of the Obama budget, so it appears that his team will be unleashing the DNC and his campaign on his fellow party members. Both McClatchy andReuters picked up on last week’s trend of centrist Democrats fretting that the budget spends too much, taxes too much, and borrows too much. And it’s continuing already this week. Democrat Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad said on MSNBC this morning, “We’re seeing the prospect of another doubling of debt, and that’s unsustainable. We’ve got to do a much better job of getting that long-term debt under control.”
In the face of congressional skepticism, The Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza reports, “President Obama will kick off an all-out grass-roots effort today urging Congress to pass his $3.55 trillion budget, activating the extensive campaign apparatus he built during his successful 2008 candidacy for the first time since taking office. The campaign, which will be run under the aegis of the Democratic National Committee, will rely heavily on the 13 million-strong e-mail list put together during the campaign and now under the control of Organizing for America (OFA), a group overseen by the DNC. Aides familiar with the plan said it is an unprecedented attempt to transfer the grass-roots energy built during the presidential campaign into an effort to sway Congress.”
But when discussing the budget, it’s important to keep a basic fact in mind: the budget cannot be filibustered, and so requires only a majority vote to pass the Senate. With 58 Democrats in the Senate and 257 in the House, one would think there would be no problems passing a Democrat president’s budget. Yet the budget Obama is proposing features so much spending, taxing, and borrowing, it appears that he apparently needs to turn his campaign apparatus on members of his own party, simply to get 50 votes in the Senate.
Appearing on ABC’s ‘This Week with George Stephanopoulos’ yesterday, Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell pointed out that the budget “will double the national debt in five years and triple the national debt in 10 years; it taxes too much, it spends too much, it borrows too much, as you indicated. . . . We have already authorized this year in the first 50 days of this administration, spending at the rate of $24 billion a day, or $1 billion an hour. Another way of looking at it, just putting it in context, this $1.2 trillion that we’ve spent in the first 50 days is more than the previous administration spent after 9/11 on Iraq, Afghanistan and the response to Katrina.”
This is all before considering a budget that would feature a $1.75 trillion deficit. Sen. Chuck Grassley, ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee,said, Somebody has to pay — if not the middle class now, then later. Eventually the middle class gets hit.” Tags:DNC, Organizing for America, OFA, public lands bill, federal budget, US Congress, US House, US Senate, Washington D.C.To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
Personal Tweets by the editor: Dr. Bill - OzarkGuru - @arra
#Christian Conservative; Retired USAF & Grad Professor. Constitution NRA ProLife schoolchoice fairtax - Editor ARRA NEWS SERVICE. THANKS FOR FOLLOWING!
To Exchange Links - Email: editor@arranewsservice.com!
Comments by contributing authors or other sources do not necessarily reflect the position the editor, other contributing authors, sources, readers, or commenters. No contributors, or editors are paid for articles, images, cartoons, etc. While having reported on and promoting principles & beleifs beliefs of other organizations, this blog/site is soley controlled and supported by the editor. This site/blog does not advertise for money or services nor does it solicit funding for its support.
Fair Use: This site/blog may contain copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. Such material is made available to advance understanding of political, human rights, economic, democracy, and social justice issues, etc. This constitutes a 'fair use' of such copyrighted material as provided for in section Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107 of the US Copyright Law. Per said section, the material on this site/blog is distributed without profit to readers to view for the expressed purpose of viewing the included information for research, educational, or satirical purposes. Any person/entity seeking to use copyrighted material shared on this site/blog for purposes that go beyond "fair use," must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
Bill Smith, ARRA News: On Tuesday, Scott Gray, owner of conservative talk radio station - Mountain Talk 97.1 FM and a Texarkana, Arkansas resident, traveled to Mountain Home, Arkansas (located in the heart of the North Central Arkansas Ozark Mountains) to speak to a large group of Republicans. Gray identified that he had been in the radio business for 15 years and a conservative for his whole life. Gray owns and operates the following radio stations in Arkansas: Texarkana: KBYB - 101.7, FMKTOY - 104.7, FMKFYX - 107.1, FMKCMC - 740, and AMKTFS - 940 AM / 105.5 FM; Mountain Home: KSMZ - 94.3 and FMKJMT - 97.1 FM;
