Spending vast sums of money to end the recession didn’t work the first time with TARP, or the second time with the Stimulus.  But perhaps the third time’s the charm.  Today President Obama announced his plan to use up to $200 billion in repaid TARP funds to create jobs instead of pay down the enormous deficit.

The AP reports: 

He [the President] called for more government spending on infrastructure projects such as roads, bridges and water projects and for new tax breaks for consumers who invest in energy-efficient retrofits in their homes. This could be what some administration officials have called a “Cash for Caulkers” program modeled on the now-expired Cash for Clunkers program of tax rebates for people who turned in old cars for more fuel-efficient models. 

While he didn’t put a price tag on his brilliant scheme to use taxpayer dollars to fund home weatherization and other crony-related projects, he did admit to looking for ways to also tap into a portion of the unused stimulus money (a.k.a. Obama’s Personal Bribery Slush Fund).

The administration also is eyeing ways to get money still not spent in the $787 billion stimulus bill passed last winter into projects more quickly.

Obama claims his new plan “will generate the greatest number of jobs while generating the greatest value for our economy.”  Right.  Where have we heard that before?  And where’s Dave Ramsey when you need him?

Thus far all efforts made by the White House this year to “create or save” jobs has left Obama scratching his head. The Stimulus didn’t work; the Bailouts didn’t work; lying to the American people about saving or creating 1 million jobs didn’t work.

Now, apparently, the job Obama is most concerned about saving is his own.

This bogus “Jobs Summit” is reminiscent of the good-old-days back in February (when unemployment was a paltry 8 percent), when Obama held his “Fiscal Discipline Summit” five days after the largest pork-laden, crony-paying, dysfunctional bill in American history was signed into law. Obama at a fiscal discipline summit is the equivalent of an alcoholic promising to never drink again.

During the “Fiscal Discipline Summit” (I seriously chuckle every time I type that) the POTUS made a couple wild assertions — wild assertions for a free-spending liberal, that is.

The first assertion was that he was going to cut the deficit in half (!) by the end of his first term. Fabulous goal. The second wild assertion was that he would release a budget that’s “sober in its assessments, honest in its accounting…and [restores] fiscal discipline.”

A mere three days later the President killed two promises with one stone when he unveiled the largest budget in U.S. history (intriguingly entitled “A New Era of Responsibility”). According to ABC News most of the spending in Obama’s bloated budget would be done with “money the government does not have, creating a $1.75 trillion deficit next year alone.”

Fiscal discipline? I don’t think so.

It will be interesting, if not scary, to see if the policy changes that spring forth from last week’s “Jobs Summit” work as well as those policies which followed the “Fiscal Discipline Summit.”

Let’s hope not.

Cross posted at The Daily Dose.

At least that’s what Swedish golfer Jesper Parnevik said.  Woods’ wife Elin used to be Parnevik’s Au Pair, and now Parnevik is feeling an uncomfortable prick of conscience for introducing the two of them in 2001: 

“I really feel sorry for Elin – since me and my wife were at fault for hooking her up with him,” Parnevik said. “We probably thought he was a better guy than he is. I probably would have to apologise to her and hope she uses a driver next time rather than a three-iron, I would say.”  

Last Friday Woods crashed his car into a fire hydrant and tree in the middle of the night.  The incident has prompted widespread speculation about the formerly squeaky-clean golf superstar.

After the release of a particularly damning message left on his girlfriend’s cell phone, Woods admitted to “transgressions.”  Now there are women coming out of the woodwork (pun intended) to fess up.

which is why they have had to manipulate, throw out, make up, or invert data to keep their theory alive.

Yesterday a leading science academic, Professor Ian Plimer, of Adelaide and Melbourne Universities, called the manmade climate change consensus a “load of hot air underpinned by fraud”.  According to the UK Express:

Professor Plimer said climate change was caused by natural events such as volcanic eruptions, the shifting of the Earth’s orbit and cosmic radiation. He said: “Carbon dioxide levels have been up to 1,000 times higher in the past. CO2 cannot be driving global warming now.”

The recent discovery of scandalous climate change research has rocked the real world. Sadly, many in the “scientific” community refuse to admit there are any problems beyond “poorly chosen words” and emails that were sent in the “heat of the moment”. But if, as Professor Plimer asserts, there is no solid proof that carbon emissions are causing manmade global warming, then the implications for the “climate comrades” are huge.

Climate science has become nothing more than a massive lobby for government research grants. And government officials — worldwide — are using the fabricated data as scare tactics to increase taxes and control over individuals. Both groups have a lot of money and power to lose if global warming is exposed as a made-up hoax.

Professor Plimer stated: “If you have to argue your science by using fraud, your science is not valid.”

No kidding.

The timing for these new developments couldn’t be better as the UN gears up for its climate change summit next week. Of course the dirty data will have no effect whatsoever on the leaders at the summit, but it may have an effect on public opinion, which in turn (hopefully) will have an effect on government.

Last June the U.S. House of Representatives passed a jobs-killing, economy-busting, punitive cap-and-trade bill which now has to make it through the Senate. But on a lighter note: today Australia’s Parliament defeated a cap-and-trade proposal.  Here’s hoping the U.S. Senate follows suit.

Oh, yeah – on a completely unrelated topic — northern Texas woke up to snow this morning.

Cross posted at The Daily Dose.

According to the AP rich countries (a.k.a. the United States) must pay poor countries reparations for climate change.

“Rich countries must put at least $10 billion a year on the table to kick-start immediate action up to 2012,” the U.N. climate chief, Yvo de Boer, told reporters last week in a preview of the two-week conference opening next Monday in Copenhagen.”

Don’t be misled by de Boer’s use of the term “kick-start.” What he really means is bribe. According to Athena Ballesteros, a climate-finance expert at the World Resources Institute, “short-term finance would be used as an opportunity to get a political buy-in for the other elements of an agreement.” In other words, developing nations would never agree to a global climate change pact without being paid off. (Sounds eerily like the healthcare debate in the Senate, doesn’t it?)

Because eeevil industrialized nations (a.k.a. the United States) cause global warming — and won’t do anything to stop it — we must fork over dough to a global body for redistribution as it sees fit. Apparently this would help the world feel good about us.

“Upfront money would also help rebuild trust between the rich north and poor south, eroded by years of relative inaction on climate, particularly by the United States.”

Forget the fact that recently hacked documents from the Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia in England show collusion on the part of leading “global warming scientists” to cook the books, spin their research, and hide contrary data. Yesterday The Hill confirmed that President Obama will continue with his plans to attend the climate summit in Copenhagen next week.

“Despite the incident, which rocked international headlines last week, climate science is sound, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs stressed this afternoon, and the White House nonetheless believes ‘climate change is happening.’”

(According to reliable sources Gibbs had his eyes closed and fingers stuffed in his ears during the entire press conference.)

And Obama will no doubt throw a billion dollars or so into the U.N.’s climate kitty. After all, what’s another billion dollars when we’re already $12 trillion in debt? Chump change.

While we’re at it, let’s chuck another billion at Al Gore — quite possibly the world’s first “carbon billionaire.”

Cross posted at The Daily Dose.

It has now been ninety days since Gen. Stanley McChrystal submitted his review of the military strategy in Afghanistan in which he recommended a surge of U.S. troops. Since then President Obama, like a teenager avoiding dish duty, has busied himself with all sorts of other less important projects, from failed Olympic bids to China trips to Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speeches, in an apparent attempt to postpone an unpleasant confrontation with a dirty job that only he can do.

After all, the decision to send tens of thousands of additional soldiers to Afghanistan is not one to be taken lightly. It must be contemplated thoroughly — perhaps over a dozen or so rounds of golf.

 In the meantime more than 100 troops in Afghanistan have lost their lives.

Today Congressman Jason Chaffetz (R-UT), in anticipation of President Obama’s long awaited decision on Afghanistan, pronounced an interesting solution to the complexities of the quagmire there.

In an address at the Hinckley Institute of Politics at the University of Utah, Congressman Chaffetz laid out his position on ending the eight year war. It is essentially “go big or go home.” What a concept. Mr. President, you can’t have it both ways. You can’t send only some of the required troops to the region, in hopes of not angering the anti-war left too badly, tie the military’s hands with political correctness, waver in commitment, and then expect to secure a victory in Afghanistan.

Rep. Chaffetz believes that the troops have already fought and won in Afghanistan by rooting out Al-Qaeda (according to Obama’s National Security Advisor fewer than 100 Al-Qaeda remain in the country) and toppling the Taliban, but the United States will need to continue to hunt and kill terrorists around the world. Chaffetz said if the President believes we need to continue fighting in Afghanistan, we need to do so with full commitment to win — otherwise we should begin the process of bringing our troops home.

Chaffetz also addressed what he considers to be the “real threats” to our nation: Iran, which he says represents the most immediate threat to world peace; terrorism, whether it originates in Afghanistan or elsewhere; and debt, which is the greatest menace to the long-term stability of the United States.

Chaffetz has stepped out of his party’s box on this one. But that’s not unusual for the freshman congressman who defeated a 12-year incumbent RINO last year in an unprecedented victory with no name recognition, no money, and no paid staff.

Cross posted at www.deidrehenderson.blogspot.com

Today the New York Times proclaimed what we in the real world have known for a long time. The headline on the front page of the paper reads, “PAYBACK TIME Wave of Debt Payments Facing U.S. Government.”

The United States has been borrowing cheap money in short-term loans to fund its spending binges for decades. Now those loans are coming due, and the Department of the Treasury is scrambling as it faces the sticker shock it has been avoiding all these years. (Poor Tim!)

Skyrocketing national debt, creditors knocking on the government’s door, and soon-to-rise interest rates have mixed together just right into a sort of economic Molotov Cocktail. Now all we need is a match and the result will be an explosion that will affect the whole world’s economy — coming from the general direction of the northwestern hemisphere.

This is a problem decades in the making, and one that most of the current crop of politicians in Washington will only make worse in their desperate attempt to fix it. Case in point: the Administration is now toying with the idea of a new federal stimulus (while simultaneously proclaiming that something must be done about our deficit), and Congress is flirting with trillions of dollars in new medical spending and threatening to impose crazy new taxes on the already-taxed-to-death American people in the form of cap and trade.

The New York Times had a great little visual aid to go along with their (shockingly reality-based) assessment. In it they list four possible solutions to our terrible debt woes: raise taxes/cut services, allow inflation to rise, default on our loans, or grow the economy.

I’d like to vote for the fourth option, please. However, the current party-in-power has a hard time with this one. Their idea of growing the economy consists of sucking everything out of it and then divvying up the spoils to their political cronies. Not exactly a winning strategy for improving the economy.

One thing’s for sure, we’ve got to stop spending money. The government has been borrowing money at close to 0% interest rates (teaser rates), and the payments are about to balloon. “Free” money in the hands of Congress has never been a good thing. Spending the money our children and grandchildren have yet to earn should be criminal.

When Americans were purchasing homes they couldn’t afford using teaser-rate loans, they got a wake-up call when the real interest rates kicked in. Many of them could no longer afford to make their mortgage payments and were foreclosed upon. This is the same situation our country faces right now, and we are stuck with the bill.

The good news: 2010 is almost here!! We can foreclose on the lousy Members of Congress who overspend, overtax, and overpromise — from BOTH parties. It’s payback time.

“If every instinct you have is wrong, then the opposite would have to be right.”

                                                                                                            – Jerry Seinfeld

This week House Democrats vowed to shift their efforts from the economy-busting business in which they have engaged all year, and focus on “jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs.”

I would like to respectfully say, please don’t.  You’ll only continue to make things worse.

It’s not the first time this year we’ve heard Democrats chirping about creating jobs.  The stimulus comes to mind.  It was advertised as a jobs bill.  Upon the bill’s passage Nancy Pelosi gleefully patted herself on the back over the “swift, bold action” House Democrats took on behalf of the American people.  That was in February — when unemployment was merely 8%.  Now, nine months later, under the “swift, bold” action of the Federal Stimulus, unemployment is up to 10.2%.  

Okay, I’ll give the Speaker SOME credit.  The stimulus was bold…

The auto industry suffered bankruptcies and closed dealerships despite the huge government bailouts it received. 

In June, Speaker Pelosi cooed about the jobs that will be created under the life-sucking, freedom-gobbling, economy-crushing “Cap-and-Tax” bill.

Enough already.  Enough of these “solutions.”  They don’t work.  They never have, and they never will.

The more these Totally Out of Touch politicians try to fix something, the more they break it.  And the more it breaks, the harder they try to fix it.  It’s a vicious cycle.

Maybe the Democrats should learn from George Costanza.  I’m serious.  Remember the episode of Seinfeld were George realizes that his life is the complete opposite of everything he wants it to be, and every decision he’s made in his life has been wrong?  Jerry says to him, “If every instinct you have is wrong, then the opposite would have to be right.”  So George gets the idea to do exactly the opposite of everything he would normally do.  And he encounters huge success.

If only Democrats would do the same.  How quickly would the economy turn around if payroll taxes were cut by 25% so small business owners could afford to hire new employees and expand their businesses?  How many families would have stronger purchasing power if the corporate and personal income tax rates were reduced?  How much more innovation and manufacturing capacity would our country have if burdensome regulations and restrictions were eased?

These solutions seem so simple.  Yet they are the antithesis of everything liberals in Washington stand for.  They talk about government creating jobs, and fail to recognize that governments do not create — they consume.

Back to Seinfeld: 

George Costanza, testing his new “opposite” hypothesis, walks up to a stunning blond and says, “My name is George.  I’m unemployed and I live with my parents.” 

She turns to him with a smile and seductively replies, “I’m Victoria.  Hi.”

Democrats, learn from George Costanza.  For him, doing the opposite of what his instincts were telling him was a winning formula.  And it will be a winning formula for our country if you do the opposite, too. 

We’ve had to undergo embarrassing examinations, and be taught how to self-examine. An awareness campaign was launched, complete with Mary-Kay-Pink ribbons on everything from M&M’s to t-shirts (I reluctantly admit to buying a Breast-Cancer-Awareness-Pink flat iron last month).

Hot off the heels of über-PC Breast Cancer Awareness Month (October) we get this news: “Breast exam guidelines now call for less testing”

Really? According to the Washington Post, a highly intelligent group of doctors (appointed by the government), with lots and lots of letters after their names, have done some research and determined that the risks of regular screening outweigh the benefits.

Now let’s just forget for a moment that these Really Smart People (appointed by the government) are going to set the precedent for what medical procedures will or will not be paid for by any insurance plan (government or private). Forget that there are nearly three decades of research that prove early breast cancer detection saves lives. Let’s forget that the American Cancer Society and other organizations are having major heartburn over the potential harm this new study will cause, and let’s just look at the facts.

Risks of regular screening, according to the Brainy Government-Appointed people (I’m not making these up):

1. False positive results may cause anxiety
2. A small number of false positive tests can lead to unnecessary biopsies
3. Too much follow up testing
4. Some cancers can go away on their own, without treatment (that one is my personal favorite)
5. It’s really expensive

Benefits of regular screening, according to the Brainy Hospital People Who Actually Treat Cancer Patients:

1. Thousands of lives have been saved by early cancer detection

To sum it up, according to this government panel, thousands of women’s lives are not worth a few bucks and a bit of anxiety.

It’s just a little too coincidental for comfort that these new guidelines are coming from the government in the midst of a hot healthcare debate. Government is looking to take over the healthcare system, and suddenly we’re to throw out three decades of research, facts, and pestering? Sounds like one of these illusive “cost cutting” measures we keep hearing about. Cost cutting to the tune of $5 billion a year — and untold thousands of lives.

The Super Smart People are engaging in a re-education campaign, even recommending against self breast-examination. This is just the beginning of healthcare rationing, folks. One thing is for certain, those boobs in Washington cannot be trusted.

I’ll wrap up by paraphrasing the illustrious Paul Harvey: And now you know…the breast of the story.