The $787 billion stimulus bill was passed in February and was promised as a job saver and economy booster. Here is where some of the money went: (I picked my favorites)
- $300,000 for a GPS-equipped helicopter to hunt for radioactive rabbit droppings at the Hanford nuclear reservation in Washington state.
How about we let hunters pick off the rabbits for free? No rabbits - No radioactive rabbit droppings.
- $11 million for Microsoft to build a bridge connecting its two headquarter campuses in Redmond, Wash., which are separated by a highway.
? - One of the richest guys on earth can’t buy his own bridge? Bill Gates makes $11 Million in about 30 seconds - let him buy his own bridge.
- $219,000 for Syracuse University to study the sex lives of freshmen women.
I am confident that Syracuse University male students would do this for free.
- $2.3 million for the U.S. Forest Service to rear large numbers of arthropods, including the Asian longhorned beetle, the nun moth and the woolly adelgid.
Why are we paying to mate bugs? There are 50 billion bugs on the planet. We don’t need to pay for bugs.
- $3.4 million for a 13-foot tunnel for turtles and other wildlife attempting to cross U.S. 27 in Lake Jackson, Fla.
Build a fence for a $1000 so the stupid turtles won’t cross the road.
- $9.38 million to renovate a century-old train depot in Lancaster County, Pa., that has not been used for three decades.
Arlen Specter has not done anything in three decades either.
- $6 million for a snow-making facility in Duluth, Minn.
Is this to combat global climate change? I guess they will fund more sno-plows to get rid of the snow they make?
- $1 million to study the health effects of environmentally friendly public housing on 300 people in Chicago.
Wow, at $3333 per person that is quite a bargain!!!
- $148,438 for Washington State University to analyze the use of marijuana in conjunction with medications like morphine.
I knew many college students who use to pay to study the same thing.
- $462,000 to purchase 22 concrete toilets for use in the Mark Twain National Forest in Missouri.
Wow, what a refreshing piece of truth telling from the New York Times.
Normally, I never bother to waste the bandwidth to open up a NYT link,
and I usually never do more than scan the main bits.
Jeff Zeleny actually interviewed real people with real concerns!
I don’t know if he is a freelancer or a staff reporter. I can’t believe the NYT editors
let this run a day before the Nov. 3rd elections. You must read it for yourself.
Now if you read Redstate very much then you will know I am not a fan of Kay “BailOut” Hutchison, for many reasons. Number One is that I support Rick Perry because of his fierce devotion to Texas and his fighting spirit against Washington.
The Framers of the Constitution knew that the document founding our democracy must be the anchor of liberty and the blueprint for its preservation. Wisely, they provided a balance of powers to ensure that no individual and no single arm of government could ever wield unchecked authority against the American people.
Nearly 250 years later, these critical lines of separation are being obscured by a new class of federal officials. A few of them have formal titles, but most are simply known as “czars.” They hold unknown levels of power over broad swaths of policy. Under the Obama administration, we have an unprecedented 32 czar posts (a few of which it has yet to fill), including a “car czar,” a “pay czar” and an “information czar.” There are also czars assigned to some of the broadest and most consequential topics in policy, including health care, terrorism, economics and key geographic regions.
The deployment of this many czars sets a dangerous precedent that undermines the Constitution’s guarantee of separated powers. It must be stopped. President Obama should submit each of his many policy czars to the Senate so that we can review their qualifications, roles and the limits on their authority. To deliver anything less is to deny the American public the accountability and transparency the Constitution guarantees.
Good for her. She can do this because in a few weeks she will probably leave Washington and her 16 year career of being a Washington insider. She says she will resign to take on the popular governor of the strongest state in the nation.
The governor’s campaign spokesman is correct. Hutchison is a RINO Washington insider. She has NO idea what the people of Texas are up against. Case in point; Hutchison was on board with the Bush Amnesty Plan and she was pushing the Immigrant Dream Act for all it was worth, all the while opposing border fences.
Fences make good neighbors. Apparently Sen. Hutchison forgot that Texas axiom along the way.
Hutchison voted FOR the 1st bail out debacle, the mother of all this current bail out obamanure. She was right there in lockstep with George W. Bush on the 1st bailout, as was her partner in the Senate, John Cornyn. And we all know that there’s a group here in Texas that touts Cornyn as, “A strong conservative voice in Washington.”
Hutchison is NOT a Conservative, Texas hasn’t had a Conservative in the Senate for a long time now. Hutchison went to the RINO column several years ago and has never extricated herself from the clutches of Washington politics.
Sen. Hutchison is right, we DO need better leadership. Rick Perry may not be perfect, but he’s far and away better for Texas than Kay Bailey Hutchison. Rick Perry is not, to the best of my knowledge, a hypocrite. Rick Perry turned down federal stimulus money offered by Congress and President Barack Obama. Hutchison criticizes him for it too. As I said, Hutchison, RINO and Washington insider, feeding at the PUBLIC trough!
Rick Perry may have made a few mistakes during his time as Texas Governor. Find me ANY elected official that hasn’t made a few mistakes and I’ll show you an elected official that hasn’t done ANY work, of ANY kind, at ANY time.
“To make a political point, we turned down half a billion in federal money, sacrificed it to other states, and now we’re borrowing three times as much and sticking Texas businesses with the tab,” she said.
“That’s not conservative. That’s irresponsible. We can do better.”
No Senator, that IS Conservative, and you apparently don’t have a clue as to the definition of the word conservative. Texas IS borrowing, and paying back, that is called Doing Business. That half a billion dollars was tax money taken from the American people, and yes, it was being given back to the American people, in a robbing Peter to pay Paul ponzi scheme. I personally applaud Rick Perry for turning down payoffs offered by the spawn of Satan that currently inhabits the Oval Office.
Sen. Hutchison is not evil, but in MY opinion, she is WRONG for Texas. She is long past her time of serious effectiveness in the Senate, and she knows it. Otherwise, WHY is she coming home to run for Governor? And as much as I honestly believe that Hutchison needs to retire from the Senate, I also honestly believe that she will be a disaster if the people of Texas fall for her RINO speeches and hypocritical words and elect her Governor.
Apparently, Washington Kay has figured out a few tricks in her 16 years as a DC insider.
Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) is running for governor, but her website has suffered Google and Yahoo’s death penalty and has been removed from the search index. The reason: Hutchison’s webmaster embedded thousands of invisible search-terms in the site in a bid to game search-engines; among them was the phrase “rick perry gay” (Rick Perry is Hutchison’s Republican opponent). The campaign claims the terms were generated automatically by “search engine optimization” software (SEO is a form of Google-Kremlinology in which firms attempt to figure out how to game search engines’ ranking algorithms, rather than trying to create the best, most interesting website they can and assuming that the engines will figure out how to highly rank their material).
So, old Kay Bailout is trying to garner some support from the conservatives by writing an op-ed piece that is pandering to the conservative crowd. Kay Bailout’s lefty supporters won’t be happy. I am sure they will voice their strong opinion on her Facebook page of why Kay Bailout was wrong to question their dear leader.
Perry accuses federal government of failing to ‘adequately secure’ zone
Special teams of Texas Rangers will be deployed to the Texas-Mexico border to deal with increasing violence because the federal government has failed to address growing problems there, Gov. Rick Perry said Thursday.
“It is an expansive effort with the Rangers playing a more high-profile role than they’ve ever played before,” Perry said of the Department of Public Safety’s elite investigative unit.
The forces, dubbed “Ranger recon” teams, are the latest effort “to fill the gap that’s been left by the federal government’s ongoing failure to adequately secure our international border with Mexico,” he said.
The governor early this year asked Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano for 1,000 National Guard troops and renewed his call last month in a letter to President Barack Obama. The request is bogged down over who will pay for the troops and how they will be deployed.
“They’ll be deployed to high-traffic, high-crime areas along the border,” he said. “They’ll give us boots on the ground, put people in these hot spots no matter what or where they may exist.”
Perry said the effort also would focus on remote areas where farmers and ranchers have complained of being overrun by smugglers and gangs from Mexico in numbers that also overwhelm local law enforcement and border patrol officers.
“Washington is shortchanging them, not giving them the support they need,” Perry said. “As a result, we’re having to dedicate our resources to deal with the challenges we have along the Texas-Mexico border and ensuing issues that porous border has created all across state of Texas.”
He said the state would pick up the tab of $110 million, allocated by the Legislature in the past two sessions.
Perry’s announcement drew immediate criticism from U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, who is running against the two-term incumbent in the March GOP primary.
“Today’s announcement is yet another empty election-year promise from Rick Perry on border security,” Hutchison spokesman Joe Pounder said.
“So please do that job up there first before you come down here and start criticizing about the state of Texas,” he said.
Hutchison also took Perry to task for the absence of any Texas agency from a federal program that allows Homeland Security personnel to work with local law enforcement on immigration issues.
“Texans need a governor they can trust to actually improve our security,” her campaign said in a statement.
“I happen to think we’ve taken advantage of every program that’s been effective,” responded Perry, who has been branding his opponent as someone from Washington out of touch with her home state. “Pointing out one program that has been funded and leaving the 800-pound gorilla — which is 1,000 National Guard troops that we need — I am stunned someone from Washington, D.C., would say they’ve done enough to secure our border.”
During her 16 years in the Senate, Washington Kay has waffled on most
issues, including her support for party leaders, and has aligned with
whoever might best help her self-interests. Her extended stay in Washington
has left Texans wondering which party she really belongs in. You’ll
recognize her current Washington friends and acquaintances as some of the
tax-and-spend liberals who have helped Sen. Hutchison create the massive
deficit that future generations now face.
This past Saturday, Washington Kay stood before Texans and insisted that she was a more “enlightened” leader for Texas. That’s right. If you don’t support Washington Kay, you’re not “enlightened.” Only when you’re responsible for record debt, costly pork, and big-government bailouts will you be “enlightened” enough to stand on the same stage as Sen. Hutchison.
Finally, it all makes sense! The embarrassingly small crowds, the abandonment of conservative principles, the self-serving ambition, and the Washington politics are all part of Kay’s broader campaign strategy—she’s reached a full state of Zen and enlightenment.
Senator, we don’t think you know what that word means—and we KNOW you don’t know what “conservative” means. Earlier this year, Rush had this to say about an “enlightened” GOP full of “country club blue-blood Rockefeller types.” Are you “enlightened” enough to join Kay’s exclusive handful of supporters?
As Congress reconvenes to complete a disastrous year of outrageous spending and intrusive government expansion, D.C. welcomes back a veteran fixture of the Senate: Washington Kay.
“The last thing I want is to be considered
part of the system in Washington, D.C.
because that’s being part of the problem.”
– Kay Bailey Hutchison, 1993
As Congress returns today from summer recess, Kay Bailey Hutchison opens a final chapter in the Senate, assuming she sticks with her vow to quit soon to focus on her bid for Texas governor.
Congress will be focused almost single-mindedly on health care. But Hutchison will be coping with the reality that she is a self-proclaimed lame duck as she tries to complete unfinished business and score a few political points before stepping down.
“It’s not as if she’s a swing vote,” said Rutgers University political scientist Ross Baker, a leading congressional scholar. He said that once a politician declares an intention to leave, that person doesn’t have a lot of clout. “The assumption is that you’re a short-timer, so there’s not a particular value attached to working with you.”
Mark Lloyd is a radical in communications like Van Jones was a radical in “the green revolution”
Obama has strategically placed these moles into top positions in his organization. Mark Lloyd comes right out of the Marxist playbook. He doesn’t care a whit about freedom of speech. What Mr Lloyd cares about is the government controlling the dissemination of political thought over the airwaves.
Mr. Lloyd was most recently the Vice President for Strategic Initiatives at the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights/ Education Fund, where he oversaw media and telecom initiatives. Mr. Lloyd was also an adjunct professor of public policy at the Georgetown University Public Policy Institute, and from 2002-2004 a visiting scholar at MIT where he conducted research and taught communications policy. Previously Mr. Lloyd has been a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, the General Counsel of the Benton Foundation, and an attorney at Dow, Lohnes & Albertson. Before becoming a communications lawyer, Mr. Lloyd had a distinguished career as a broadcast journalist, including work at NBC and CNN.
Mark Lloyd, chief diversity officer of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), called for a “confrontational movement” to combat what he claimed was control of the media by international corporations and to re-establish the regulatory power of government through robust public broadcasting and a more powerful FCC.
Lloyd expressed his regulatory call to arms in his 2006 book, “Prologue to a Farce: Communications and Democracy in America” (University of Illinois Press).
In the book, Lloyd also said that public broadcasting should be funded through new license fees charged to the nation’s private radio and television broadcasters, and that new regulatory fees should be used to fund eight new regional FCC offices.
These offices would be responsible for monitoring political advertising and commentary, children’s educational programs, number of commercials, and content ratings of the programs.
Frequently referencing one of his heroes, left-wing activist Saul Alinsky, Lloyd claims in his book that the history of American communications policy has been one of continued corporate control of every form of communication from the telegraph to the Internet.
Lloyd proposes six initial goals for wresting control of communications from the corporate interests he claims control it. As his book details:
1. “End the federal subsidy of commercial media, particularly cable and broadcast television. Broadcasters should pay for the great privileges of a federally protected license to operate a business by using the publicly owned [radio or television] spectrum.”
2. “The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) must be reformed along democratic lines and funded at a substantial level. The CPB board should be elected, [with] eight members representing eight regions of the country (New England, Mid-Atlantic, Southeast, Midwest, Plains States, Southwest, Mountain States, and the Pacific Coast) and a chairman appointed by the president, with the advice and consent of the Senate.”
“Federal and regional broadcast operations and local stations should be funded at levels commensurate with or above those spending levels at which commercial operations are funded,” said Lloyd.
“This funding should come from license fees charged to commercial broadcasters. … Local public broadcasters and regional and national communications operations should be required to encourage and broadcast diverse views and programs. … Spectrum allocations should be established that create clear preferences for public broadcasters ensuring that regional, local, and neighborhood communities are well served,” he added.
3. “The FCC should be fully funded with regulatory fees from broadcast, cable, satellite, and telecommunications companies. The FCC should be staffed at regional offices, matching those CPB regions, at levels sufficient to monitor and enforce communication regulation.
“Clear federal regulations over commercial broadcast and cable programs regarding political advertising and commentary, educational programming for children, the number of commercials, ratings information about programs before they are broadcast, and the accessibility of services to the disabled should be established and widely promoted.”
4. “Universal service support provided by all commercial telecommunications providers (whether they are classified as information services or not) to fund access to advanced telecommunications services should be expanded to all nonprofit organizations, including higher-level academic and vocational schools, community centers, and 501(c) (3) organizations unaffiliated with either business or government.”
5. “Postal subsidies should be fully restored to small independent nonprofits presses. Postal subsidies should be reduced for commercial and business operations. The postal service should be returned to congressional control with the central mission of ensuring that all Americans have access to the post.”
6. “Public secondary schools should be required to include civics and media literacy as part of their core curriculum. Testing on civic, media, and computer literacy should be required and national standards set.”
For those who think any or all of these recommendations might infringe on the free speech rights of broadcasters, Lloyd says his concern is not the “exaggerated” concerns over the First Amendment.
“It should be clear by now that my focus here is not freedom of speech or the press,” he said. “This freedom is all too often an exaggeration. At the very least, blind references to freedom of speech or the press serve as a distraction from the critical examination of other communications policies.”
“[T]he purpose of free speech is warped to protect global corporations and block rules that would promote democratic governance,” said Lloyd. “[T]he problem is not only the warp to our public philosophy of free speech, but that the government has abandoned its role of advancing the communications capabilities of real people.”
LCCR believes that access to communications is a fundamental right
of every American. Given the impact the transition will have on all our most vulnerable communities, LCCR applauds Congress for recognizing the need for a government compensation program to be administered by NTIA to assist with the transition. But the process that has been
created raises a number of troubling concerns.
First and foremost, we are deeply concerned that the $5 million that Congress has allocated to NTIA to educate consumers about the coupon program will be woefully inadequate to support the kind of public education effort that the transition requires. In a 2007 letter to members of the FCC, House Energy and Commerce Chairman John Dingell and Rep. Edward Markey noted that the German city of Berlin spent nearly $1 million to educate its 3.4 million citizens about the transition to digital. The United Kingdom, a country of a little over 60 million, plans to spend $400 million on its public education campaign. While we do not advocate spending an equivalent $100 million to $2 billion dollars to prepare the 300 million American consumers about the digital television transition, we do not think that the $5 million allocated by Congress in 2005 was ever adequate to the task.
Obama’s FCC Diversity Czar Loves Hugo Chavez’s Revolution - Czar Mark Lloyd - Glenn Beck
Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez railed against the West on Saturday, pledging to deepen their ties and stand together against the United States and world powers the two perceive as imperialistic.
How sad for President Obama,
remember when BHO & Hugo were BFF?
And remember Obama’s invitation to Iran to roast weenies on July 4th?
The United States said Monday its invitations were still standing for Iranian diplomats to attend July 4 celebrations at US embassies despite the crackdown on opposition supporters.
President Barack Obama’s administration said earlier this month it would invite Iran to US embassy barbecues for the national holiday for the first time since the two nations severed relations following the 1979 Islamic revolution.
“There’s no thought to rescinding the invitations to Iranian diplomats,” State Department spokesman Ian Kelly told reporters.
“We have made a strategic decision to engage on a number of fronts with Iran,” Kelly said. “We tried many years of isolation, and we’re pursuing a different path now.”
I mean darn it!! Poor President Obama cannot even try to talk to children in America without an uproar!
The Dallas Morning News reports on reactions in the Metroplex:
Dallas school officials won’t require students to watch the speech, and instead will allow teachers and principals to decide. The Highland Park school district did the same, saying, “We trust our faculty members to decide on appropriate instructional content.”
Richardson ISD said it would show the speech a day later to those students whose parents give permission, and that no class time would be spent discussing it.
Some area districts backtracked on earlier plans to show Tuesday’s speech in classrooms.
Allen school officials scratched plans to have some students view the speech live, saying they will record and review it, and then possibly replay it the following week in history and government classes. The Carrollton-Farmers Branch school district made a similar decision.
Mesquite ISD officials said they debated Wednesday whether to allow students to watch it live in some classes. But the district said Thursday that the speech will not be shown because it conflicts with some lunch periods.
Lovejoy ISD also decided Thursday not to show the speech, in part, because the district doesn’t have the bandwidth to support live Web video on WhiteHouse.gov
Well, at least the people that President Obama has surrounded himself with can help him out.
When Van Jones was tapped to serve as special adviser on green jobs at the White House Council on Environmental Quality earlier this year, the appointment was heralded as a significant development for the green movement. And for good reason. A pioneer in fusing economic opportunity and social justice with environmentalism, Jones, 40, represents an important progression in our country’s perception and thus our approach to combatting global warming.
So, as we look towards another exciting Obama speech about the need for National Health Care - RIGHT NOW - we can look back at how great president Obama has been up to this point!!!!
At one of Washington Kay’s grassroots events this week in Temple, Texas, the spendoholic Senator drew just over half a dozen supporters (Note to Washington Kay: it might be wise not to waste any more campaign dollars on chairs). The local fire marshal enjoyed the day off. A few days later, it was standing-room only at a similar event for Governor Rick Perry in Lubbock:
The talk in Washington is that Senate Democrats are preparing to push through health care reforms using parliamentary procedures that will allow a simple majority to prevail in their chamber, as it does in the House, instead of the 60 votes needed to overcome the filibuster that Senate Republicans are sure to mount.
With the death of Senator Edward Kennedy, the Democrats do not have the votes just among their 57 members (and the two independents) to break a filibuster, and not all of these can be counted on to vote in lock step. If the Democrats want to enact health care reform this year, they appear to have little choice but to adopt a high-risk, go-it-alone, majority-rules strategy.
We say this with considerable regret because a bipartisan compromise would be the surest way to achieve comprehensive reforms with broad public support. But the ideological split between the parties is too wide — and the animosities too deep — for that to be possible.
In recent weeks, it has become inescapably clear that Republicans are unlikely to vote for substantial reform this year. Many seem bent on scuttling President Obama’s signature domestic issue no matter the cost. As Senator Jim DeMint, Republican of South Carolina, so infamously put it: “If we’re able to stop Obama on this, it will be his Waterloo. It will break him.”
You really have to go read the rest of this article. The words “Majority Rule on Health Care Reform” struck me. Majority of what? If the writer meant that the democrats have the balance of power then in their mind I guess that can construed as a “majority”.
No where in the op-ed did the writer mention our representative democracy. Representative democracy is a form of government founded on the principle of elected individuals representing the people, as opposed to either autocracy or direct democracy.
A “majority” of the people are opposed to Obamacare, specifically HR 3200 as written. I have read the bill. It is an afront to American’s liberty. By it’s very nature it is an over reaching, poorly written piece of legislation. Many congress people have said in no uncertain terms. “I am voting YES on healthcare reform weather my constituents want it or not.”
When the congress stops listening to the people that have elected them then we no longer have a representative democracy, we have an illiberal democracy.
In an illiberal democracy freedom of speech and freedom of assembly are attacked and make opposition extremely difficult. We have seen this at the healthcare townhalls. The media carries the water for the socialists in this healthcare debate. Any dissent has been squashed.
Everyone talks about 2010. How will the elections be free & open if groups like ACORN (which receive federal funding) are buying votes?
I was listening to Michele Bachmann on the Mark Levin show the other day. She was saying if this was a bet and she was in Vegas - she is pretty sure the house will ram something through, against the wishes of the American people.
And now the ghost of Ted Kennedy will be urging all those blue dogs to win one in his memory.
I don’t have to post the stats on why Socialized healthcare won’t work. I don’t have to post why tort reform is not in this bill. I don’t have to post the hours & hours of townhall videos showing American’s expressing their displeasure with this bill, their congress and their president.
I leave you with this:
1. The U.S. Postal Service was established in 1775 - you have had 234 years to get it right; it is broke.
2. Social Security was established in 1935 - you have had 74 years to get it right; it is broke.
3. Fannie Mae was established in 1938 - you have had 71 years to get it right; it is broke.
4. The “War on Poverty” started in 1964 - you have had 45 years to get it right; $1 trillion of our money is confiscated each year and transferred to “the poor”; it hasn’t worked and our entire country is broke.
5. Medicare and Medicaid were established in 1965 - you’ve had 44 years to get it right; they are broke.
6. Freddie Mac was established in 1970 - you have had 39 years to get it right; it is broke.
7. Trillions of dollars were spent in the massive political payoffs called TARP, the “Stimulus”, the Omnibus Appropriations Act of 2009… None show any signs of working, although ACORN appears to have found a new sucker - the American taxpayer.
8. And finally, to set a new record: ”Cash for Clunkers” was established in 2009 and went broke in 2009! It took cars (that were the best some people could afford) and replaced them with high-priced and less-affordable cars, mostly Japanese. A good percentage of the profits went out of the country. And the American taxpayers take the hit for Congress’ generosity in burning three billion more of our dollars on failed experiments.
So with a perfect 100% failure rate and a record that proves that “services” you shove down our throats are failing faster and faster, you want Americans to believe you can be trusted with a government-run health care system?
20% of our entire economy?
With all due respect,
Are you crazy, are you just stupid, or do you just think that we are crazy or stupid?
New Ad for Kay Bailout Hutchison
While Rick Perry won’t say if he supports the Trans-Texas Corridor, his administration and his websites are still touting it as an “achievement.” Either Rick Perry won’t say where he stands because he doesn’t care what the people of Texas think, or because it’s just too politically hard to say and he doesn’t have the courage to stand up for what he believes in.
Perry owes Texans an answer on the Trans-Texas Corridor. While he may still think it’s a good idea, for Texas ranchers and farmers, the Trans-Texas Corridor represents a threat not only to their family’s legacies but their way of life. Join with Kay in demanding the protection of property rights, and that Rick Perry give the people of Texas a straight answer on if he supports the TTC, and if so why!
We need results, not politics.
Oh, really? Where does Kay “Bailout” get her info?
After six years of bold plans, big talk and fierce pushback, the Texas Department of Transportation announced Tuesday that the Trans-Texas Corridor is dead, burying with it Gov. Rick Perry’s visionary but controversial idea to string the state together with some 4,000 miles of highways, toll roads and rail lines.
“Make no mistake: The Trans-Texas Corridor as we have known it no longer exists,” TxDOT executive director Amadeo Saenz said in a speech at an annual transportation conference. In its place will be a smaller, more deliberate plan that assesses individually each of the scores of projects once lumped together as part of the TTC.
And when TxDOT announced the TTC could take 1,200 feet of right-of-way through the length of Texas, rural landowners rebelled too, making the project one of the most controversial in modern Texas history. The issue dogged Perry throughout his 2006 re-election campaign and helped unite increasingly furious lawmakers, who in 2007 attempted to slow, but not kill, the project.
TxDOT, by its own admission, at first turned a deaf ear to the criticism. But in the past 18 months, it has spent hundreds of hours at dozens of public hearings trying to appease its critics. The crowds remained almost universally hostile.
The same lawmakers who were so angry in 2007 return to Austin next week for the 2009 session, and Tuesday’s announcement by TxDOT chief Saenz showed that neither his agency nor the governor – whose staff was involved in the decision to kill the TTC – want to wage the same fight all over again.
“The Legislature has been clear; they want transformation,” Saenz said. “That handwriting is on the wall, in big bold letters.”
Trans-Texas Corridor
The transformation of the Trans-Texas Corridor has changed from its original concept.
While ongoing I-69/TTC and TTC-35 environmental studies will continue, the efforts will only be to establish study areas for future multi-modal projects that may be needed in those areas. Future mobility improvements will be based on transportation needs and the focus will be on individual projects tailored to those needs.
Other changes include phasing out the Trans-Texas Corridor name and identifying projects by their original names.Another significant change is for project widths to be closer to 600 feet.
Fri, 08/28/2009 -Thursday afternoon, Toyota announced that it was moving its Tacoma truck production facility to San Antonio, Texas, resulting in more than 1,100 new jobs for Texas. This move by Toyota follows major job announcements this year by Caterpillar, Medtronic, and Farouk Systems, which are all moving operations to Texas.
Governor Perry commented on Toyota’s decision:
“Today’s announcement reflects the depth of the ties between Toyota and Texas while underscoring the strength of our state’s workforce and job climate. Even in the midst of a national economic downturn, major employers continue to bring jobs and investment in Texas.
“While we are sympathetic to the hardship of the NUMMI workers in California, we know that Texans will continue to benefit from policies we’ve pursued that have made our state so attractive to employers.
“Following on the heels of major jobs announcements from Caterpillar, Farouk Systems, Medtronic and other employers, the good news from Toyota affirms my unshakeable belief that Texas is the best place to do business.”
Major companies are moving to Texas, even in this tough economic environment, because Texas has kept spending in check, taxes low, regulations fair and predictable, and has prevented oversuing through lawsuit reform.
Help keep Texas on the right track. Re-elect Governor Perry.
Thu, 08/27/2009
Economists all over the nation and world have recently tipped their hats to Texas and Governor Rick Perry. In the midst of a tough national economy, Texas has shined through as a beacon of prosperity and opportunity.
Thomas O. Hicks, CEO of Hicks Holdings LLC in Dallas, wrote an op-ed for the Dallas Morning News echoing such praises which have also been featured in publications like the Wall Street Journal.
Hicks writes: “The State has implemented public policies that make Texas economically competitive. Unlike other states, Texas has kept spending in check and maintained a low tax burden. In addition, Texas has enacted tort reforms and minimized regulations that strangle innovation.”
Because of a commitment to low taxes, predictable regulations and job creation incentives, in 2008 more than half the jobs created nationally were created in Texas. The Texas Enterprise Fund (TEF), created under Gov. Perry in 2003 and the largest job creation fund of its kind in the nation, is an essential component to Texas’ economic strength and one of its most competitive tools to recruit and bolster business. To date, the TEF has attracted more than $14 billion in capital investment and generated more than 55,500 jobs.
The Texas success story is setting an example for the rest of the nation to follow. With your continued support, we can continue to spread Governor Perry’s conservative vision and keep Texas on the right track.
Al Gore and his elitist allies in Congress want to send our electricity and gasoline prices through the roof. The Waxman-Markey energy-rationing bill passed the House in June, but the American people are waking up. We have a great chance to stop it in the Senate. Click here to tell your Senators to vote NO on taxing and rationing our energy use.
In 2003, the Texas state Legislature passed H.B. 4 to further reform the state’s civil justice system. The bill addressed issues such as: limits on noneconomic damages; product liability reform; punitive damages; medical liability reform joint and several liability; and class action reform. Voters also approved a constitutional amendment, Proposition 12, in 2003, which eliminates potential court challenges to the law that limited noneconomic damages to $750,000. Since the enactment of H.B. 4 and the subsequent passage of Proposition 12, Texas has made great strides in growing its economy and providing jobs and accessible healthcare to its citizens.
Texas: Tort Reform Spurs Economic Growth
In 1995 the Texas Legislature passed a series of bills to reform the state’s civil justice system. These bills addressed: limits on punitive damages, joint and several liability, sanctions for filing frivolous suits, limits on venue shopping and out-of-state filings, modifications to deceptive trade practices and medical malpractice reform.
According to the study, The Impact of Judicial Reforms on Economic Activity in Texas, the total cost of the Texas tort system in 2000 was $15.482 billion. Without reforms, it is estimated that the total cost would have been $25.889 billion. Of the $10.407 billion in total direct savings, approximately $2.777 billion may be attributed to improvements at the national level while $7.630 billion in savings were from reforms in Texas. Of the total savings, $2.542 billion went directly to benefit consumers.
The Perryman Group. The Impact of Judicial Reforms on Economic Activity in Texas Overall Economic Impact on State’s Economy. (August 2000)
Facts to Consider: Benefits to Consumers
It is estimated that reforms enacted in 1995 resulted in savings of $2.542 billion that directly benefits consumers.
$1.796 billion in annual cost savings from reduced inflation ($216 per household)
$7.056 billion in annual total personal growth income ($862 per household)
The net result was a savings of $1,078 per year to the typical Texas household.
The Perryman Group. The Impact of Judicial Reforms on Economic Activity in Texas Overall Economic Impact on State’s Economy. (August 2000)
The number of doctors applying to practice medicine in Texas has skyrocketed by 57 percent. In 2008, the Texas Medical Board received 4,023 licensure applications and issued a record 3,621 new licenses.
In all, in just the first five years after reforms passed, 14,498 doctors either returned to practice in Texas or began practicing here for the first time.
And our reforms finally brought critical specialties to underserved areas. The number of obstetricians practicing in rural Texas is up by 27 percent, and 12 counties that previously had no obstetricians now have at least one. The statistics show major gains in fields like orthopedic surgery, pediatrics, neurosurgery and emergency medicine.
The Rio Grande Valley has seen an 18 percent growth in applications to practice medicine, adding about 200 doctors to this critically underserved area.
And what about the money that used to go to defending all those frivolous lawsuits? You can find it in budgets for upgraded equipment, expanded emergency rooms, patient safety programs and improved primary and charity care.
Scott O’Grady has been asked by an influential group of North Texans and National leaders to run for the U.S. Senate seat that will be vacated by Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas) this fall. A pledge campaign has begun to immediately raise money to launch a statewide campaign…
Scott O’Grady is a former United States Air Force combat veteran serving 12 years in the United States military. Scott gained prominence after the Mrkonjic Grad Incident, in which he ejected over Bosnia when a Bosnian Serb SA-6 shot down his F-16 while he was patrolling the no-fly zone. Scott flew 20 missions over Iraq enforcing the “no-fly” zone in 1993 and 1994. He flew 47 missions over Bosnia in 1994 and 1995. He is a recipient of the Bronze Star for valor and the Purple Heart for combat injuries.
Scott is also the recipient of the Ronald Reagan Distinguished Service Award
The Mrkonjic Grad Incident occurred near Mrkonjic Grad in Serb territory. He survived for six days by eating leaves, grass and ants, and avoiding Serb patrols while trying to contact Magic, NATO’s airborne command center. He evaded capture and was rescued on June 8, by U.S. Marines of the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit based on the USS Kearsarge.
Scott is a former cadet in the Civil Air Patrol and a 1989 graduate from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. In May 2007, he completed a Master’s degree in Biblical Studies at Dallas Theological Seminary.
And that got me to thinking. I had some good information my 72 year old father sent me.
So I thought it was good timing to relate this information. I also dug around and found a few relevant links to our dear leader.
President Obama is eager to seek a bipartisan solution to ensure the long-term solvency of Social Security, people who have spoken with him say, but he is running into opposition from his party’s left and from Democratic Congressional leaders who contend that his political capital would be better spent on health care and other priorities.
(snip)
Despite the long-running partisan divide over benefits and taxes, the advocates for a compromise see an opportunity now given the fact that the stock markets’ slide has discredited the idea of carving private accounts from Social Security. Former President George W. Bush demanded such accounts as the centerpiece of any compromise, while Democrats and some Republicans were just as adamantly opposed, dooming his effort in 2005.
“The carve-out account is off the table,” said Senator Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican who has long sought a deal.
This month, Mr. Obama unexpectedly approached Mr. Graham when he was at the White House to meet with Rahm Emanuel, Mr. Obama’s chief of staff. Mr. Graham, who was a vocal foe of Mr. Obama’s $787 billion stimulus plan, said in an interview: “I know he’s sincere about wanting to do something about entitlements generally, health care and Social Security. And I want to help him.”
(snip)
Those who oppose action said Mr. Obama must focus on his bigger priority — health care legislation to expand access to insurance and reduce the costs of care. They argue that success there would help control the unsustainable growth of Medicare and Medicaid, the government’s other major benefit programs, which together pose a far greater fiscal problem.
Social Security still runs a surplus, and its reserves will not be exhausted until 2041, after which enough payroll taxes will come in to cover 78 percent of benefits, according to the 2008 annual report of the program trustees. Medicare, by contrast, requires big infusions from general revenues each year; its hospital trust fund is already running annual deficits and will be exhausted by 2019.
Franklin Roosevelt, a Democrat, introduced the Social Security (FICA) Program.
He promised:
1.) That participation in the Program would be completely voluntary,
2.) That the participants would only have to pay 1% of the first $1,400 of their annual incomes into the Program,
3.) That the money the participants elected to put into the Program would be deductible from their income for tax purposes each year.
4.) That the money the participants put into the independent “Trust Fund” rather than into the General operating fund, and therefore, would only be used to fund the Social Security Retirement Program, and no other Government program, and,
5.) That the annuity payments to the retirees would never be taxed as income.
Since many of us have paid into FICA for years and are now receiving a Social Security check every month — and then finding that we are getting taxed on 85% of the money we paid to the Federal Government to “put away,” you may be interested in the following:
Q: Which Political Party took Social Security from the independent “Trust” fund and put it into the General fund so that Congress could spend it?
A: It was Lyndon Johnson and the Democratically-controlled House and Senate.
Q: Which Political Party eliminated the income tax deduction for Social Security (FICA) withholding?
A: The Democratic Party.
Q: Which Political Party started taxing Social Security annuities?
A: The Democratic Party, with Al Gore casting the “tie-breaking” deciding vote as President of the Senate, while he was Vice President of the U.S.
Q: Which Political Party decided to start giving annuity payments to immigrants?
A: That’s right! Jimmy Carter and the Democratic Party.
Immigrants moved into this country, and at age 65, began to receive SSI Social Security payments! The Democratic Party gave these payments to them, even though they never paid a dime into it!
Then, after doing all this lying and thieving and violation of the original contract (FICA), the Democrats turn around and tell you that the Republicans want to take your Social Security away!
And the worst part about it is, uninformed citizens believe it!
Perhaps we are asking the wrong questions during this Obamasham administration?
Posted: 10:42 PM CST on Thursday, December 27, 2007
DALLAS - A News 8 investigation has found that a little known government agency may have unwittingly wasted taxpayers money on top of using the funds to support criminal activity.
The probe originally revealed that small business loans sponsored by the Export-Import Bank of the United States were made to non-existing companies for equipment that wasn’t even real.
Now, New 8 has discovered that some of the people who got the Ex-Im Bank loans may have drug connections. The $243 million worth of bad loans were originally made to help trade with Mexico.
The loans have been linked to the Juarez drug cartel, which is known for its brutal murders. The cartel killed one dozen people and buried them in a suburban backyard across the border fro El Paso.
(snip)
“They have drug connections, which is very disheartening to think that the U.S. government is lending money to documented traffickers in the drug trade that are tied into the cartels in Mexico,” said Phil Jordan, the former head of the El Paso Intelligence Center for the DEA and Border Patrol in El Paso.
Jordan ran background checks of the borrowers with two federal sources and found borrowers from Juarez and Sinaloa with criminal ties to money laundering, organized crime or drugs in Mexico. Jordan said he was surprised to find that the Ex-Im Bank didn’t do similar checks before guaranteeing the loans.
“To lend them millions of dollars and then to not be a fail safe system of checks and balances is just throwing money away,” he said.
Dallas Congressman Jeb Hensarling, who is a long-time opponent of the Ex-Im Bank, said he is ready for a probe.
“Certainly there’s enough evidence to warrant an investigation to see if American taxpayers’ dollars are funneled into phony Mexican companies that end up in the hands of phony drug cartels,” he said. “It’s almost the stuff of a spy novel.”
Out of $243 million in the medium-sized loans the Ex-Im Bank backed in Mexico from 2003 through 2005, less than $25 million was ever repaid. The bank, a federal agency, declined to be interviewed on camera by News 8.
That story about the Ex-Im Bank is disturbing enough that I posted the link on FaceBook and within one minute the post was gone. People on Sarah’s facebook page have been saying other posts are getting deleted as well. I re-posted another two times and each time the post was deleted. I even posted the links in some comments and the comment was deleted. FaceBook is a private company and can do what they want. They cannot hide the truth by deleting this lowly bloggers postings.
The story is out there - it does not matter if they delete all posts that shed light on political corruption from either side. The irony is: all of the Ex-Im bank activity mentioned in the above article took place during the Bush administration.
Why would FaceBook care enough about certain postings to delete them?
A group of Patriots gathered in McKinney, Texas on August 13, 2009 to protest the government takeover of Health Care. A “new” Declaration of Independence was read, the HealthCare Reform bill was shredded and will be sent to Congress.
The state-run company that manufactures the island’s supply has warned that the economic crisis and a series of devastating hurricanes has left it unable to guarantee it will be able to produce or import sufficient supplies again until the end of the year.
President Raul Castro told the national assembly in Havana last week that the government had cut its budget for the second time this year. Few had expected that a decision to cut imports by 20 per cent to save government funds would have a knock on effect in the smallest room of every Cuban home, with lavatory paper among the products that have been disappearing from the shelves of state-run stores.
Not to worry!! President Obama is stepping in with his “Cash For Bums” program.
Nevada is spending $250,000 for an ad campaign that compares California legislators to talking chimps and tells business owners they can “kiss their assets goodbye” if they stay put.
Drawing upon the state of California’s escalating budget deficit, high taxes and strict business regulations, the Nevada Development Authority (NDA) launched an advertising campaign on Friday, August 07, 2009 that seeks to attract business owners to relocate to Southern Nevada. More so than in past years’ campaigns, NDA foresees many California businesses considering relocation due to the state’s current troubles.
The campaign highlights Nevada’s business-friendly attitude and the fact that business owners pay no corporate or personal income tax and have much lower workers’ compensation rates. “Just looking at the numbers, I don’t know why a California business owner would NOT relocate to Southern Nevada,” said Somer Hollingsworth, NDA president and CEO. “Business owners would be able to make more money, hire more employees, and buy more equipment. They could do more with their business in Nevada than they ever could in California.”
The campaign comes on the heels of the California economic crisis in which the state faces a $26.3 billion budget deficit for which lawmakers have not provided a responsible solution and is projected to reach $42 billion over the next year. California has started issuing IOUs for a variety of payments it owes, but banks stopped accepting IOUs after July 17, 2009.
The advertising campaign consists of television commercials and print advertisements that illustrate the contrast between California and Nevada’s business environments. It is supported by publicity, grassroots and viral marketing efforts.
Both states are among the recession’s hardest-hit areas and desperately fighting to stay afloat — California recently had to issue more than $1 billion in IOUs to survive a prolonged budget crisis while trying to slash a $26.3 billion debt. And if the IOU’s were not enough now California wants small business to pay tax on the worthless IOU’s.
Small businesses that received $682 million in IOUs from the state say California expects them to pay taxes on the worthless scraps of paper, but refuses to accept its own IOUs to pay debts or taxes. The vendors’ federal class action claims the state is trying to balance its budget on their backs.
“Instead of seeking funds through proper channels, the State has created a nightmare,” the class says. “Many of these businesses will not survive if they are required to wait until October 2009 to have these forced IOUs redeemed by the State.”? The class claims the state is violating the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. It demands that California be ordered to honor its own IOUs, plus interest. They are represented by William Audet.
Roll The Clips:
Nevada Development Authority Ad Campaign - Rotten Apples
Nevada Development Authority Ad Campaign - Apples 2 Apples
Nevada Development Authority Ad Campaign - Monkey Business
Nevada Development Authority Ad Campaign - Monkey Bananas
Vegas’ Message for CA Businesses
But there is clearly a certain amount of grim glee at getting under the skin of their Golden State counterparts. Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman said he can’t wait for the new ads and a chance to needle California leaders about picking off companies and jobs.?“It’s going to drive them bonkers,” Goodman said. “We’re going to crush them.”
I just wonder what Nancy Pelosi think’s of all of this?
Should be some interesting fireworks between Boxer, Feinstein & Reid when the Senate reconvenes. Cannibalism among the barbarians is something not to be missed.
