Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Friday, April 3, 2009
Number of Democrats in Nation Declines During March
In March, the number of Democrats in the nation fell two percentage points while the number of Republicans fell by half-a-point. Democrats continue to have a sizable advantage in terms of partisan identification, but the advantage is smaller than it’s been since December 2007...
Click here to read Rasmussen article
Interesting that more Democrats are unwilling to 'fess up to Party affiliation. I'm thinking the Republican half-point decline may be because more and more people are considering themselves Libertarian or trying to leave all government behind. Saw a headline yesterday where Newt Gingrich was talking about current events making third party alternative more attractive (only saw it in passing, didn't read the article).
I took a survey yesterday from the Republican National Committee. I took the opportunity to share my feelings about those in Washington. For the first time in my adult life since deciding I was a Republican, I'm willing to entertain the idea of moving outside the fold. Our Republicans in D.C. had better continue to move in the right direction or there's going to be a mass exodus to a third party.
-amc
Click here to read Rasmussen article
Interesting that more Democrats are unwilling to 'fess up to Party affiliation. I'm thinking the Republican half-point decline may be because more and more people are considering themselves Libertarian or trying to leave all government behind. Saw a headline yesterday where Newt Gingrich was talking about current events making third party alternative more attractive (only saw it in passing, didn't read the article).
I took a survey yesterday from the Republican National Committee. I took the opportunity to share my feelings about those in Washington. For the first time in my adult life since deciding I was a Republican, I'm willing to entertain the idea of moving outside the fold. Our Republicans in D.C. had better continue to move in the right direction or there's going to be a mass exodus to a third party.
-amc
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Heritage Foundation: Another $275 Billion Down the Drain
The House of Representatives is set to vote on a bill today that would round out the legislative authority necessary for President Barack Obama to institute his $275 billion mortgage bailout plan. Taken together the plans three main components (enabling some select borrowers to refinance their loans through Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, enabling other select borrowers to modify their loans at the cost of taxpayers and lenders, and changing bankruptcy law to allow mortgage cram downs) will bailout the most irresponsible borrowers, raise the cost of borrowing for honest and prudent home buyers, and do nothing to stop the inevitable and necessary correction in housing prices.
Bailing Out the Most Irresponsible: Obama's mortgage bailout bestows new and costly benefits on those who took on more debt (including credit cards, auto loans, and mortgages) than they could handle. Worse, the value of the benefits vary in direct proportion to the degree borrowers were financially irresponsible. Borrowers with as high a debt service payment to income ration of 55% will be eligible for the taxpayer bailout.
Increasing Costs for Honest Borrowers: There are two ways Obama's mortgage bailout hurts honest home buyers. First, the portion of the plan that makes lenders responsible for half of all mortgage rate reductions will deter private sector investment in all but the best mortgages. Second, the mortgage cram down provisions would create additional risks for lenders who will be forced to compensate for that risk by making new mortgage rates more expensive for future home buyers. First time home buyers and those with moderate incomes would be hardest hit.
Failing to Stop the Housing Price Correction: Our current economic crisis was created by the inevitable popping of a housing bubble. Our financial system and economy will not recover until housing prices correct themselves. The sharp decline in housing prices is largely confined to just five states (Arizona, California, Florida, Michigan, and Nevada). And the drop in housing prices in these localities is so steep that few borrowers will qualify for Obama's bailout. Hence home prices will only keep self-correcting. Also mortgage lenders are already at full capacity refinancing borrowers who do not need government aid. There is simply no way the existing industry has the capacity to refinance another 8 million homeowners in time to stop the market correction. Finally, the re-default rates on mortgages that have already undergone mortgage modifications suggest Obama's mortgage bailout will be, at best, just a temporary band-aid.
For over a year, first the Bush Administration and now the Obama Administration, have been throwing billions of taxpayer dollars at a problem that does not have a big, invasive, government solution. The road back to economic prosperity lies in an honest assessment of our future spending liabilities, cutting spending, and not raising the tax burden on the American entrepreneurs who have always been the true source of our economic growth.
Bailing Out the Most Irresponsible: Obama's mortgage bailout bestows new and costly benefits on those who took on more debt (including credit cards, auto loans, and mortgages) than they could handle. Worse, the value of the benefits vary in direct proportion to the degree borrowers were financially irresponsible. Borrowers with as high a debt service payment to income ration of 55% will be eligible for the taxpayer bailout.
Increasing Costs for Honest Borrowers: There are two ways Obama's mortgage bailout hurts honest home buyers. First, the portion of the plan that makes lenders responsible for half of all mortgage rate reductions will deter private sector investment in all but the best mortgages. Second, the mortgage cram down provisions would create additional risks for lenders who will be forced to compensate for that risk by making new mortgage rates more expensive for future home buyers. First time home buyers and those with moderate incomes would be hardest hit.
Failing to Stop the Housing Price Correction: Our current economic crisis was created by the inevitable popping of a housing bubble. Our financial system and economy will not recover until housing prices correct themselves. The sharp decline in housing prices is largely confined to just five states (Arizona, California, Florida, Michigan, and Nevada). And the drop in housing prices in these localities is so steep that few borrowers will qualify for Obama's bailout. Hence home prices will only keep self-correcting. Also mortgage lenders are already at full capacity refinancing borrowers who do not need government aid. There is simply no way the existing industry has the capacity to refinance another 8 million homeowners in time to stop the market correction. Finally, the re-default rates on mortgages that have already undergone mortgage modifications suggest Obama's mortgage bailout will be, at best, just a temporary band-aid.
For over a year, first the Bush Administration and now the Obama Administration, have been throwing billions of taxpayer dollars at a problem that does not have a big, invasive, government solution. The road back to economic prosperity lies in an honest assessment of our future spending liabilities, cutting spending, and not raising the tax burden on the American entrepreneurs who have always been the true source of our economic growth.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
W.A.M. Keeps Pressue On Washington and Media
With your help, W.A.M. intends to keep the pressure on cleaning up Washington & Media corruption!
WATCH WASHINGTON SPECIAL TeleEvent
THURSDAY FEBRUARY 26 at 8:30 PM/ET
Join this Thursday night TeleEvent to Get Informed on updates of what's really happening Capitol Hill and What's Worse to Come!
Your referrals are also welcome to participate in this eye-opening Watch Washington TeleEvent, so let them know!
THIS TELEVENT WILL INCREASE EXPOSURE WHAT OBAMA IS REALLY UP TO AND WHY - AND WHAT MORE is TO COME!
W.A.M. STRATEGIST WILL GIVE INFORMATION ON KEY ACTIONS WE CAN TAKE TO TURN THE TIDE OF THIS TAKEOVER OF OUR GOVERNMENT AND OUR CULTURE - and WHY It is Critical that We the People ACT NOW!
TO GET INVOLVED with W.A.M. & REFORM CORRUPTION on CAPITOL HILL & in the MAINSTREAM MEDIA, Sign in NOW:
I WANT TO HELP WAKE UP AMERICA!
TO RECEIVE CONFIDENTIAL CALL-IN INFORMATION FOR this THURSDAY WATCH WASHINGTON TeleEvent, send reply email. Be sure to include your full name and your state on the face of this email to receive reply with confidential Call In # for tomorrow's event.
Your participation in W.A.M. ACTIONS WILL CAN MAKE A REAL DIFFERENCE for the FUTURE of ALL of US!
BE SURE to REPLY for # to JOIN US for WAM WATCH WASHINGTON TELEVENT: this THURSDAY 8:30 PM/ET 2/26/09
Get on the inside track of what our "leadership" is up to - and get in on the ground floor of URGENT new ACTIONS to stem the tide of even more dangerous legislation! Remember, the Future is up to US!
WATCH WASHINGTON SPECIAL TeleEvent
THURSDAY FEBRUARY 26 at 8:30 PM/ET
Join this Thursday night TeleEvent to Get Informed on updates of what's really happening Capitol Hill and What's Worse to Come!
Your referrals are also welcome to participate in this eye-opening Watch Washington TeleEvent, so let them know!
THIS TELEVENT WILL INCREASE EXPOSURE WHAT OBAMA IS REALLY UP TO AND WHY - AND WHAT MORE is TO COME!
W.A.M. STRATEGIST WILL GIVE INFORMATION ON KEY ACTIONS WE CAN TAKE TO TURN THE TIDE OF THIS TAKEOVER OF OUR GOVERNMENT AND OUR CULTURE - and WHY It is Critical that We the People ACT NOW!
TO GET INVOLVED with W.A.M. & REFORM CORRUPTION on CAPITOL HILL & in the MAINSTREAM MEDIA, Sign in NOW:
I WANT TO HELP WAKE UP AMERICA!
TO RECEIVE CONFIDENTIAL CALL-IN INFORMATION FOR this THURSDAY WATCH WASHINGTON TeleEvent, send reply email. Be sure to include your full name and your state on the face of this email to receive reply with confidential Call In # for tomorrow's event.
Your participation in W.A.M. ACTIONS WILL CAN MAKE A REAL DIFFERENCE for the FUTURE of ALL of US!
BE SURE to REPLY for # to JOIN US for WAM WATCH WASHINGTON TELEVENT: this THURSDAY 8:30 PM/ET 2/26/09
Get on the inside track of what our "leadership" is up to - and get in on the ground floor of URGENT new ACTIONS to stem the tide of even more dangerous legislation! Remember, the Future is up to US!
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Rep. Tom Price Outside of Pelosi's Office
Rep. Tom Price Outside of Pelosi's Office: This is a great video from Rep. Tom Price shot outside of Nancy Pelosi's office earlier today. He shows you how the GOP was locked out of the Stimulus deal.
"We will make mistakes.": Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has most certainly made his share of mistakes. And his latest one’s a doozy.
(I've been trying to figure out who Geithner reminds me of... is it Wally from Leave it to Beaver maybe? His face isn't as round, but he has that same dopey earnest look... )
Both of the above are from NetRight Daily. Be sure to sign up for updates if you like what you see when you click the links above.
"We will make mistakes.": Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has most certainly made his share of mistakes. And his latest one’s a doozy.
(I've been trying to figure out who Geithner reminds me of... is it Wally from Leave it to Beaver maybe? His face isn't as round, but he has that same dopey earnest look... )
Both of the above are from NetRight Daily. Be sure to sign up for updates if you like what you see when you click the links above.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
What Is the Spending Multiplier on a Pack of Condoms?
Morning Bell, Heritage Foundation:
This Sunday, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) created quite a stir when she attempted to defend Section 5004, of the House's economic stimulus plan which allows the Medicaid bailout portion of the spending plan to be spent on family planning clinics. The leftist organization Media Matters came to Pelosi's defense claiming "The National Family Planning & Reproductive Health Association says such policies are extremely popular."
But Media Matters and their leftist allies completely miss the policy point underscored by highlighting the stimulus plan's family planning loophole. The Associated Press explains why this issue goes way beyond family planning:
While the debate surrounding the overall impact of the measure pits economists and their statistics against one another, Republicans quickly seized on the family planning money as evidence that the Democrats were advancing an agenda that went beyond the economy.
The entire intellectual underpinning of President Barack Obama's spending plan rests on the belief that certain types of government spending creates a "multiplier effect" which raises national income beyond the size of government's initial spending increase. So, for example, Mark Zandi has concocted a table which purports to show that for every one dollar the government spends building "Infrastructure" GDP will grow by $1.59. There is also an entry on Zandi's table for "General Aid to State Government" which Zandi knows for an absolute fact has a 1.36 spending multiplier.
So if Obama's stimulus plan bails out California's spendthrift government, and Sacramento then spends that money buying condoms for Nancy Pelosi's constituents, Mark Zandi wants us to believe that this entire transaction will increase GDP by $1.36 for every $1 in condoms Sacramento buys. Does anybody really believe this?
Again, the family planning issue is just one example of how the left is using the cover of the stimulus to advance their long-term goals of increasing the size of the federal government. The stimulus plan increases Washington's control over spending on education, spending on health care, spending on the environment, and even spending on local law enforcement.
As the Washington Post editorialized this weekend: "All of those ideas may have merit, but why do they belong in an emergency measure aimed to kick-start the economy?"
They don't. Before he had to toe the official administration line, National Economic Council director Larry Summers said that in order to be effective, any stimulus bill must be “timely... targeted ... and credibly temporary.”
As we have already proven, there is nothing temporary about this stimulus spending.
But new Congressional Budget Office numbers show there is nothing timely about it either. According to the CBO cost estimate of the stimulus plan, only 52% of the spending in the bill will occur by the end of FY 2010. This is well short of President Obama's own standard of 75% of the spending taking effect over the next year and a half. The CBO details the reason for the untimeliness of the spending:
Frequently in the past, in all types of federal programs, a noticeable lag has occurred between sharp increases in funding and resulting increases in outlays. Based on such experiences, CBO expects that federal agencies, states, and other recipients of funding would find it difficult to properly manage and oversee a rapid expansion of existing programs so as to spend added funds quickly as they expend their normal resources.
Defending all the left wing spending in the stimulus bill, Speaker Pelosi told Politico last week: “Yes, we wrote the bill. Yes, we won the election.” T
his statement perfectly reflects the attitude of those in power on Capitol Hill. They are driven to use the current economic emergency to advance their long held partisan interests. There is nothing "timely, targeted, and temporary" about the left's agenda.
By Larry Summers own criteria, this stimulus bill is guaranteed to fail.
Note: I would much prefer to just link to the article so you'll all end up on the Heritage website, but I can never find the article on the site (granted, I just go to the front page and scan, don't have time to dig around). I highly recommend the free Morning Bell from Heritage (www.heritage.org). - AMc
This Sunday, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) created quite a stir when she attempted to defend Section 5004, of the House's economic stimulus plan which allows the Medicaid bailout portion of the spending plan to be spent on family planning clinics. The leftist organization Media Matters came to Pelosi's defense claiming "The National Family Planning & Reproductive Health Association says such policies are extremely popular."
But Media Matters and their leftist allies completely miss the policy point underscored by highlighting the stimulus plan's family planning loophole. The Associated Press explains why this issue goes way beyond family planning:
While the debate surrounding the overall impact of the measure pits economists and their statistics against one another, Republicans quickly seized on the family planning money as evidence that the Democrats were advancing an agenda that went beyond the economy.
The entire intellectual underpinning of President Barack Obama's spending plan rests on the belief that certain types of government spending creates a "multiplier effect" which raises national income beyond the size of government's initial spending increase. So, for example, Mark Zandi has concocted a table which purports to show that for every one dollar the government spends building "Infrastructure" GDP will grow by $1.59. There is also an entry on Zandi's table for "General Aid to State Government" which Zandi knows for an absolute fact has a 1.36 spending multiplier.
So if Obama's stimulus plan bails out California's spendthrift government, and Sacramento then spends that money buying condoms for Nancy Pelosi's constituents, Mark Zandi wants us to believe that this entire transaction will increase GDP by $1.36 for every $1 in condoms Sacramento buys. Does anybody really believe this?
Again, the family planning issue is just one example of how the left is using the cover of the stimulus to advance their long-term goals of increasing the size of the federal government. The stimulus plan increases Washington's control over spending on education, spending on health care, spending on the environment, and even spending on local law enforcement.
As the Washington Post editorialized this weekend: "All of those ideas may have merit, but why do they belong in an emergency measure aimed to kick-start the economy?"
They don't. Before he had to toe the official administration line, National Economic Council director Larry Summers said that in order to be effective, any stimulus bill must be “timely... targeted ... and credibly temporary.”
As we have already proven, there is nothing temporary about this stimulus spending.
But new Congressional Budget Office numbers show there is nothing timely about it either. According to the CBO cost estimate of the stimulus plan, only 52% of the spending in the bill will occur by the end of FY 2010. This is well short of President Obama's own standard of 75% of the spending taking effect over the next year and a half. The CBO details the reason for the untimeliness of the spending:
Frequently in the past, in all types of federal programs, a noticeable lag has occurred between sharp increases in funding and resulting increases in outlays. Based on such experiences, CBO expects that federal agencies, states, and other recipients of funding would find it difficult to properly manage and oversee a rapid expansion of existing programs so as to spend added funds quickly as they expend their normal resources.
Defending all the left wing spending in the stimulus bill, Speaker Pelosi told Politico last week: “Yes, we wrote the bill. Yes, we won the election.” T
his statement perfectly reflects the attitude of those in power on Capitol Hill. They are driven to use the current economic emergency to advance their long held partisan interests. There is nothing "timely, targeted, and temporary" about the left's agenda.
By Larry Summers own criteria, this stimulus bill is guaranteed to fail.
Note: I would much prefer to just link to the article so you'll all end up on the Heritage website, but I can never find the article on the site (granted, I just go to the front page and scan, don't have time to dig around). I highly recommend the free Morning Bell from Heritage (www.heritage.org). - AMc
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
