Congressional Democrats are undoubtedly walking around with a newfound swagger today. The political strategists in the White House have finally settled on the message to save their House and Senate majorities: “It could be worse”. First they invented the nigh impossible to verify or refute metric of jobs “created or saved” and now this. They deserve every taxpayer penny they get paid. Republicans simply can’t match the Wile E Coyote caliber intellects of Axelrod, Gibbs and the rest of the White House message machine. Just look at how easily any Republican argument can be dismissed:

1)Unemployment is 9.5%, under-employment tops 20%- “It could be worse”

2)The budget deficit is $1.47 trillion- “It could be worse”

3)4 out of 5 jobs “created or saved” by the $862 billion stimulus were government jobs, leaving a private sector jobs deficit of 7 million- “It could be worse”

4)The $862 billion borrowed to pay for the stimulus that didn’t stimulate won’t be paid back until the year 2130- “It could be worse”

5)Our national debt will top $18.5 trillion by 2020- “It could be worse”

6)Taxpayer funded bailouts reach $3.7 trillion- “It could be worse”

7)Small businesses are about to get hammered by massive tax increases- “It could be worse”

8)Over half of Americans will lose their current health insurance due to “health care reform”- “It could be worse”

Etc.etc..

Forget the concept of the “teflon presidency”, we are witnessing the dawn of the “I’m rubber and you’re glue presidency”. Republicans need to run focus groups of pre-K tots immediately to find a way to counter this brilliance, or risk seeing their dreams of electoral success turn into the nightmare of epic defeat this November.

From the Herald:

Sen. John Kerry, who has repeatedly voted to raise taxes while in Congress, dodged a whopping six-figure state tax bill on his new multimillion-dollar yacht by mooring her in Newport, R.I

Could the reason be that the Ocean State repealed its Boat Sales and Use Tax back in 1993, making the tiny state to the south a haven – like the Cayman Islands, Bermuda and Nassau – for tax-skirting luxury yacht owners?

Cash-strapped Massachusetts still collects a 6.25 percent sales tax and an annual excise tax on yachts. Sources say Isabel sold for something in the neighborhood of $7million, meaning Kerry saved approximately $437,500 in sales tax and an annual excise tax of about $70,000.

Plus

Isabel – Kerry’s luxe, 76-foot New Zealand-built Friendship sloop with an Edwardian-style, glossy varnished teak interior, two VIP main cabins and a pilothouse fitted with a wet bar and cold wine storage – was designed by Rhode Island boat designer Ted Fontaine.

Senator Kerry I get that you and the Mrs. wanted to avoid a hefty tax bill. Who wouldn’t? But you ran for president demonizing companies that were “shipping jobs overseas” and you have your yacht built in New Zealand. You couldn’t find a single shipyard in the U.S. that could build your pleasure boat and put some Americans to work? There is a reason that sailing trophy is called the America’s Cup, we have a rich heritage of building the best boats in the world.

Now maybe the Herald is missing a major scoop here and you are planning to relocate to Newport permanently. After all, now that you lost the fight to keep Cape Wind from being built and the views in Nantucket sound will soon be despoiled, it’s time to find a more pristine sailing locale. Or maybe you’re growing bored coasting to re-election every six years and you believe a primary fight with “Big Sheldon” Whitehouse is just the ticket to get your mojo back?

However,if you plan on staying in MA pay your “fair share”.

It seems fitting that President Obama signed “financial reform” into law and the US Senate belatedly passed another extension of unemployment benefits on the same day. Because what the Democrats are doing in Washington D.C. is hurting economic recovery rather than helping foster growth. It’s tempting to compare their actions to those of BP in the Gulf; just as folks in the Gulf states’ are forced to subsist on checks from BP because of its negligence, the unemployed rely on checks from a federal government whose policies have kept them jobless. Business leaders are trying to communicate to the Obama White House that it’s the Obama/Pelosi/Reid agenda that’s the problem, not evil corporations who put greed and profits before people. They began their efforts last week.

Wall St. Journal

Business groups including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Business Roundtable and the National Federation of Independent Businesses will air a list of concerns about government policy at a “Jobs for America Summit” at the Chamber’s offices Wednesday.

The Chamber will issue an open letter to President Barack Obama asking that the administration cut taxes, act on pledges to expand export markets, and streamline government rules, according to a copy of the letter obtained by The Wall Street Journal.

On the regulatory front, “What we’re looking at here is a tsunami of regulations coming online slowly because of legislation that has either been enacted or legislation that people expect in some form will be enacted,” said Bruce Josten, the chamber’s chief lobbyist.

The letter points out that the Environmental Protection Agency is moving forward with 29 major economic rules (a major rule would have an impact on the economy of at least $100 million) and 173 major policy rules.

Legislation overhauling financial-markets regulation now nearing passage in Congress would create more than 350 rule makings, 47 studies and 74 reports.

“You can find in these numbers a principal reason why businesses are so reluctant to make investments,” the letter reads.

“Investments” is another way of saying “we won’t be hiring anytime soon”.These entreaties fell on deaf ears. So today business leaders took their concerns to Politico, which unlike that mouthpiece for capitalist dogs Journal, the White House views favorably.

Politico:

Corporate executives counter that the market recovery began as a result of a bank bailout that predates Obama and that the bulk of corporate profits in recent quarters have come not from business expansion but from massive layoffs and cost cutting.

And they do not see a friendly environment for job creation ahead, citing a possible credit crunch and an exploding budget deficit saddled by more health care spending.

“What I think bothers businesspeople is, they feel like they have a multitude of new regulations to comply with, and now they have to hire compliance experts and lawyers and other cost-generating personnel rather than revenue-generating workers,” said Scott Shay, chairman of Signature Bank, which has $10 billion in assets and serves companies in the New York metro area.

“When the devil is in the details, when you are dealing with a lot of new regulation at a time when we desperately need to be [generating] revenue-creating jobs rather than cost-center jobs, it causes concern. I hear it time and time again: ‘Give us broad rules, but don’t micromanage us like this.’”

and

“There is still a great deal of anxiety over the demonization of business, and it is a serious problem” for Obama, said Mort Zuckerman, the billionaire chairman of Boston Properties and owner of the New York Daily News, who has long supported Democrats.

Executives “really feel there is a deliberate attempt, as a populist political measure, to blame the business world for all the problems we have been having, when, in reality, the housing bubble was provoked by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. And it wasn’t business or the public that lowered interest rates and created the credit bubble. It was the Federal Reserve.”

American companies are collectively sitting on $1.8 trillion and with unemployment at 9.5%, the White House needs a target for voters to blame, instead of Congressional Democrats. The problem is, it’s not only big business that is refusing to put out the Help Wanted signs.

From Reuters:

Small businesses grew more pessimistic about their economic outlook in June in the face of weak sales and political uncertainty, the National Federal of Independent Businesses said on Tuesday.

The NFIB’s monthly survey of members showed the small business optimism index fell by 3.2 points in June, dipping to 89, after posting several months of gains.

“Seventy percent of the decline this month resulted from a deterioration in the outlook for business conditions and real sales gains,” the NFIB survey concluded. The report is based on 805 responses to a random survey of NFIB members.

“The performance of the economy is mediocre at best, given the extent of the decline over the past two years,” the NFIB survey concluded. “Pent-up demand should be immense, but it is not triggering a rapid pickup in economic activity.”

Very few small businesses plan to create new jobs, according to respondents. The survey showed that only 10 percent of firms plan new hiring, that is down 4 points from May, the NFIB said. About 8 percent of firms plan to reduce their workforce, up one point from the previous month, the group said.

If you prefer visuals, this graph shows how the Obama/Pelosi/Reid agenda is redefining the term “jobless recovery”. Actually, they are doing their best to bring the terms “double-dip recession” and “stagflation” back into vogue.

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2010/07/the-scariest-unemployment-graph-ive-seen-yet/60086/

President Obama went to Holland, Michigan yesterday to promote another “green economy” project funded by stimulus cash. A South Korean company is receiving $151 million taxpayer dollars to build a factory that will one day hopefully employ 300 in the manufacture of batteries for electric cars. That’s $500,000 per job, which for this administration is small potatoes. The Obama administration’s bequeath of $1.45 billion to Abengoa Solar is expected to create only 85 permanent jobs. Michael Graham did the math and came up with $17 million per job for that foray into creating a new economy.

Using taxpayer funds to remake an economy has been tried in Spain with disastrous results:

As for Spain’s vaunted “Green Jobs program” a study by Dr. Gabriel Cardoza has found that for every green job created 2.2 jobs have been lost. Of those green jobs 2/3 were only temporary, mainly in installation and construction.

True to form in the greening of our economy, Heritage takes a look at the effects of Sec. Salazar’s ban on drilling:

Heritage analyst David Kreutzer has crunched the numbers and found that a full Obama administration ban on all offshore drilling would be absolutely devastating to the U.S. economy. Between now and 2035, an offshore drilling ban would: 1) reduce GDP by $5.5 trillion; 2) reduce job growth by more than 1 million jobs by 2015 and more than 1.5 million jobs by 2030; and 3) increase the total expenditures for imported oil by nearly $737 billion.

Congress isn’t about to leave all the fun in regulating our way to a new and improved economy to the Obama administration. While Cap and Trade may be dead, Harry Reid is introducing its ugly stepsister on July 26th. John Kerry’s bill is being replaced by Sen. Jeff Bingaman’s (D-NM) renewable electricity standard legislation (RES), which is simply CAP without the Trade. Heritage explores what it will mean if passed:

RES would: 1) raise electricity prices by 36 percent for households and 60 percent for industry; 2) cut national income (GDP) by $5.2 trillion between 2012 and 2035; 3) cut national income by $2,400 per year for a family of four; 4) reduce employment by more than 1,000,000 jobs; and 5) add more than $10,000 to a family of four’s share of the national debt by 2035.

The Green/Progressive dream of using economic policy to punish the use of fossil fuels and promote more expensive, less efficient, but “greener” technologies will cripple our economy. In essence, they are adopting the policy of that officer that insisted during the Vietnam War “we had to destroy the village in order to save it”. I hope the Obama administration and Congress come to their senses and follow the sage advice of former President George HW Bush as channeled by Dana Carvey “The first lesson of Vietnam. No more Vietnams’” before too much damage is done.

If Vietnam references are too dated and President Obama has his mind set on following a Spanish model; I suggest that instead of emulating the policies of Mr. Zapatero’s socialist government that have his country mired at 20% unemployment and facing bankruptcy, that he just follow Penelope Cruz on Twitter.

Calling for a “rollback” of the tax cuts for “the wealthy” has been a populist mantra for President Obama and his allies in Congress. As with much of our president’s rhetoric, the gulf between his promises and reality is rather wide. The truth is that come January most Americans, not just the rich, will see their taxes increase. The folks at smartmoney.com have looked at what will happen when the tax cuts expire:

You may have been led to believe that only individuals in the top two brackets will face higher federal income taxes when the Bush cuts go bye-bye. Not true!Just a few months ago, it seemed like a safe bet that Congress would make a fix to keep the existing 10%, 15%, 25% and 28% rate brackets to help out lower and middle-income folks. That bet is now looking iffy.

Are you married? Your taxes are going up. A senior citizen with investment income? Your taxes are going up.

Their bottom line:

The Bush tax cuts don’t just offer tax relief to the wealthiest Americans. They offer it to just about anyone who pays federal income taxes.

The Democrat majorities in Congress aren’t simply contenting themselves by letting tax cuts expire, they are seeking new ways to tax the American public. The borrow and spend spree they have been on since January 09 is just the beginning of their plans for an ever bigger government. When President Obama came to office our national debt equaled 40% of our Gross Domestic Product(GDP), at the end of this year it will be 62%. The president’s budget blueprint calls for increasing the debt by a further $10-12 trillion over the next ten years. To pay for all this spending the Democrats have floated two ideas to find the revenue to pay for a government as big as their dreams.

The first is to enact a value added tax(VAT). This tax is very popular in Europe because being based on consumption, it’s paid by rich and poor alike. Dictionary.com has the following definition for VAT:

a tax levied at each addition of value in the processing of a raw material, the performance of a service, or the production and distribution of a commodity with each payer except the consumer reimbursed from payment at the next stage.

Their latest brainstorm has been dubbed the ATM tax. This is from The Hill newspaper: 

One idea for raising taxes to pay down the debt is the bill introduced this February by Rep. Chaka Fattah (D-Pa.). His “Debt Free America Act” (H.R. 4646) would impose a 1 percent “transaction tax” on every financial transaction — whether paid by cash, credit card or any form of financial transfer, the only exception being transactions involving the purchase or sale of stock. Theoretically, everyone would pay one cent on the dollar for every such transaction in America every day — whether $3 million on a $300 million business acquisition, $300 on the purchase of a $30,000 car, or $5 on a $500 ATM withdrawal.

The Democrats are pushing this idea because it would represent a revenue bonanza for big government.

Using 2008 numbers as an example: There was $755 trillion in total transactions that year. If you deduct the exempted $312 million in stock transactions, that leaves $443trillion in new revenues

What it means for Americans is a quadruple tax whammy. Not only will your income taxes increase, you’ll be taxed an extra 1% on what’s left when you deposit your paycheck. Also, thanks to the VAT, everything you buy: food, shelter, transportation etc. will cost more, plus the 1% transaction tax.

President Obama promised to “spread the wealth around”, but what he’s doing with the aid of Congress is to spread the debt around. Very soon, it will be the incomes of the working and middle classes as well as the poor that gets “redistributed” to Washington D.C. along with those of the rich.

Speaker Pelosi is planning a very busy lame duck session after November’s election. Every member of Congress, whether they are on the ballot this Fall or not, should answer if they support passage of the VAT and ATM taxes.

Crossposted to http://fiscalwatchdog.blogspot.com

Ronald Reagan attempted to “starve the beast” by cutting taxes and hoping a Democratic majority in the U.S. House would go along with his efforts to cut federal spending. The result, large budget deficits and a growing national debt.

Now that Democrats have large majorities in both the House and Senate and control of the White House the plan is to “gorge the beast”. In effect, increase spending to the point that taxes have to be raised. So far their plan is going swimmingly.

CNN writes up the CBO Director’s testimony:

Douglas Elmendorf, chief budget cruncher for Congress, got to play the role of bad-news bear before the president’s bipartisan fiscal commission on Wednesday.

His job: Present the Congressional Budget Office’s latest assessment of the long-term federal budget.

The gist of his testimony went something like this: The outlook is bad under current law and daunting if many current policies are extended as expected. And even that may understate the fiscal problem the country faces, because it doesn’t factor in potential effects of debt on economic growth.

Under the rosiest scenario painted by Elmendorf, the debt held by the public is on track to rise to 80% in 2035 from 62% at the end of this year. At that point, interest payments on that debt would jump to 4% of GDP, up from roughly 1% today. That’s the equivalent of a third of all federal revenue.

Based on current policies, debt held by the public would hit 185% of GDP in 2035. And interest payments on that debt would jump to nearly 9% of GDP.

Why should the average American care about the national debt anyway?

The larger the debt burden grows, the less money there will be for domestic investment. That, in turn, can suppress income growth and economic growth, which then reduces tax revenue.

Which as Vice President Biden would say it’s all about that important three letter word “Jobs”, “Jobs”, “Jobs”.

Mr. Elmenorf’s suggestion?

The only way to bring the federal budget into better balance would be to sharply reduce U.S. spending, drastically increase taxes to rates never before seen in the United States or some less dramatic combination of the two, Elmendorf said.

So, where do the Democrats plan to cut spending? Our national defense. This take on Barney Frank’s wishlist comes from the Daily Caller:

The Obama administration intends to slash the defense budget in order to pay for its riotous spending on bailouts, “stimulus bills,” their signature healthcare program, and massive pork bribes for votes from congressmen who hopefully will not survive this November’s balloting. To continue the spending spree, the White House plans to eliminate over a trillion defense dollars in the next ten years. Details of those proposed cuts were laid out by Rep. Barney Frank’s (D-MA) Sustainable Defense Task Force in a 56 page report titled: Debt, Deficits, & Defense – A Way Forward. None of the service arms are spared.

The Navy will be reduced to eight aircraft carriers (from twelve planned) and seven air wings. Eight ballistic missile submarines will be cut from the planned force of 14, leaving just six. Building of nuclear attack submarines will be cut in half, leaving a force of 40 by 2020. The four active guided missile submarines would be cut, too. Destroyer building would be frozen and the new DDG-1000 destroyer program cancelled. Among other huge cuts, the fleet is to be reduced to 230 combat ships, eliminating 57 vessels from a current force level of 287.

The Air Force must retire six fighter air wings equivalents, and at the same time build 301 fewer F-35 fighters. The nuclear bomber force will be completely eliminated in the name of unilateral disarmament—the B-1 and B-2 and B-52 and other bombers will still be able to drop bombs, but their nuclear weapon wiring and controls will simply be removed. Procurement of the new refueling tanker and the C-17 cargo aircraft will be cancelled. Directed energy beam research and other advanced missile and space warfare defense projects will also be eliminated or curtailed.

Active duty Army personnel will be slashed from 562,400 to 360,000. That includes elimination of about five active-component brigade combat teams (the report is not exactly). The Army will also suffer a myriad of other cuts, including closure of overseas bases.

The Marine Corps would be cut by 30%, from 202,000 to 145,000, and the other funding cuts planned for the Corps mean the United States will not be able to mount a major amphibious landing on any hostile shore. Marine Corps programs to be killed include the V-22 Osprey tilt rotor aircraft and the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle.

Downsizing and effictively disarming our military only gets them so far, so they cut benefits for the folks that will be left standing.

The hot button item of reducing pay, pension, healthcare and other benefits for our soldiers, their wives, their families and their widows is stated as: “Resetting the calculation of military compensation and reforming the provision of military health care…” Whatever those mysterious words will ultimately come to mean, the task force report shows a planned reduction of pay and benefits for the troops and their families to the tune of $120 billion.

All this to save $1 trillion. I have a better idea, scrap Obamacare, not our military. That will save a projected $1.2 trillion. An extra $200 billion of savings should please that noted deficit hawk Frank and we will still be able to defend ourselves.

He used this strategy to argue for the passage of: the stimulus, health care deform, the pending financial over-regulation and now for his pledge to address our record budget deficits. President Obama has declared war on the strawman. You see, in our president’s mind, if you don’t support his vision for what’s good for our nation, you don’t support doing anything at all and you best just “get out of the way”.

Over the weekend in Toronto:

President Obama on controlling the debt: “Somehow people say, why are you doing that, I’m not sure that’s good politics. I’m doing it because I said I was going to do it and I think it’s the right thing to do. People should learn that lesson about me because next year when I start presenting some very difficult choices to the country, I hope some of these folks who are hollering about deficits and debt step-up because I’m calling their bluff. We’ll see how much of that, how much of the political arguments that they’re making right now are real and how much of it was just politics.”

Forget for a moment that President Obama was actually pushing the other G20 members to increase deficit spending, not pledge to actually cut budgets. The Wall Street Journal recaps the action:

The meeting’s concluding statement, a compromise between two competing visions of the international economy, masked divisions between the U.S. and Europe evident in the run-up to the summit. The U.S. has warned that moving too fast to cut deficits and reduce stimulus spending could risk another global recession. European nations, especially Germany, have cautioned that moving too slowly could produce unsustainable debt loads, higher interest rates and even defaults.

and

Germany, which has held itself out as the champion of austerity, took some potshots. German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble used an interview in the French newspaper Le Monde to throw a jab at the U.S., saying Mr. Obama’s giant stimulus spending has had little impact on the country’s jobless rate, which remains well above 9%.

It was Angela Merkel’s vision that carried the day, not President Obama’s. After being bested by Iron Angie our president picked a fight with a much easier opponent: the strawman. If you watched professional wrestling in the early 80′s you will no doubt remember the personification of our president’s dream villian. My brother and I never knew his name, to us he was simply the “albino in the powder blue trunks”. Unlike your typical wresting match which was designed to be a back and forth affair with the hero usually emerging triumphant; the albino never seemed to land a punch, he was expected to take his “beating” and be pinned. The same thing goes for Obama’s strawman. In the world of political theatre, he’s created by the president’s political shop and receives his beatdown via the bully pulpit. Because he’s a fictional creation, the strawman can never win.

The only problem is that even a president isn’t entitled to his own facts.

Heritage fellow Brian Riedl details:

Washington will spend $30,543 per household in 2010—$5,000 per household more than just two years ago. While some of this spending is a temporary result of the recession, President Obama’s latest budget would replace this temporary spending with permanent new programs. Consequently, by 2020—a time of assumed peace and prosperity—Washington would still spend nearly $36,000 per household, compared to $25,000 per household before this recession (adjusted for inflation).

There is a way out of this deficit nightmare: stop spending. If the federal government managed to return to the per-household spending level of the Reagan administration, the budget would be balanced by 2012 without any tax hikes. Too ambitious? Just returning to the per-household spending levels that existed before the current recession would balance the budget by 2019. There is a way to stop this spending nightmare. We just need the will.

The U.S. budget for the year 2000 was $2 trillion, for 2010 it’s $4 trillion. Now, they haven’t finished the census yet, but I’d be willing to wager that the population of our country didn’t double. In short, the federal government doesn’t have a revenue problem, it has a spending problem. The good news is that there’s an intervention scheduled for Nov. 2.

America simply can’t afford a government as big as President Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid envision. Don’t believe the president when he tells you that he’s cut government to the bone and he simply has no choice but to raise taxes. Ignore the strawman that the president creates to confuse and confound you and look at the numbers, unlike our president they don’t lie.

President Obama is in Toronto for the G8 summit. With unemployment in America just shy of 10%, an environmental disaster in the Gulf, record budget deficits that the Fed Chairman has repeatedly called “unsustainable”, one would hope our president’s mind would be focused like a laser beam on issues that affect Americans. Nope.

When U.S. President Barack Obama stepped off his helicopter in Huntsville on Friday, the first thing he said was, “You’ve got a lot of golf courses here, don’t you?” Industry Minister Tony Clement told the National Post in an exclusive interview.

It would appear that President Obama’s priorities are as follows:

1) Expand the power of the federal government into all sectors of the economy, but let Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid do the heavy lifting.

2) Beat Eisenhower’s record for most rounds of golf played in one term of office.

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From the Wall St. Journal:

The Senate is moving closer to passing legislation that would require states to grant public-safety employees, including police, firefighters and emergency medical workers, the right to collectively bargain over hours and wages.

The bill, known as the Public Safety Employer-Employee Cooperation Act, would mainly affect about 20 states that don’t grant collective-bargaining rights statewide for public-safety workers or that prohibit such bargaining. State and municipal associations, as well as business groups, oppose it, saying it will lead to higher labor costs and taxes, at a time of budget deficits.
 
The bill, backed by at least six Republicans in the Senate, prohibits strikes and leaves to states’ discretion whether to engage in collective bargaining in several areas, including health benefits and pensions.

If the legislation passes and states choose not to grant the minimum collective-bargaining rights outlined in the bill, the Federal Labor Relations Authority, which oversees labor-management relations for federal employees, would step in and implement collective-bargaining rights for these workers.

You can bet that once the federal government becomes involved that the states will be over-ruled by a board packed with labor allies. The police and firefighters will soon be receiving the gold-plated benefits of federal employees. It doesn’t matter if the municipalities and states can afford them or not. They will be compelled to raise taxes. We shouldn’t be spreading the budget busting policies of CA, NY, NJ and MA to states’ that haven’t become hostage to the demands of public union yet.

Police and firefighter unions are the biggest advocates of the legislation. “A year after this law passes most of these executives who are fighting it won’t be able to remember what they were scared of,” said Jim Pasco, executive director of the 325,000-member National Fraternal Order of Police. He said unions wouldn’t be able to negotiate wages and benefits that governments couldn’t afford.

Yeah right, all these union folks will be looking at what Ed Kelly squeezed out of Boston. A 2.5% raise just for taking a drug test will go national.

The other Republican co-sponsors in the Senate are Scott Brown of Massachusetts, Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe of Maine, and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska.

Here’s a look at what Sen. Brown is supporting. This is the exact opposite of what we need to be doing. As Gov. Christie is talking about a “day of reckoning”, Sen. Brown is trying to make it worse. The wages and benefits of public employees are already greater than those in the private sector to the point that they are threatening to overwhelm budgets across our country. They should be treated like an epidemic, quarantine them and fix them where they are, don’t let them spread. Has Sen. Brown missed what is happening in Greece, Spain, Britain, Italy? The $50 Billion for public union workers that Bailout Barry begged Congress to pass on Saturday? 

Are State Public Pensions Sustainable? Why the Federal Government Should Worry About State Pension Liabilities

Assuming future state contributions fund the full present value of new benefits, many state systems will run out of money in 10-20 years if some attempt is not made to improve the funding of liabilities that have already been accrued. The expected shortfalls raise the possibility that the federal government will be faced with a decision as to whether to bail out states driven to insolvency by their pension programs.

Enough is enough Sen. Brown

The House voted to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” against the wishes of the Secretary of Defense and the Joint Chiefs. Notice the common theme of their objections?

“Secretary Gates continues to believe that ideally the DOD review should be completed before there is any legislation to repeal the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell law,” Defense spokesman Geoff Morell said in a statement. “With Congress having indicated that is not possible, the secretary can accept the language in the proposed amendment.”

and

But chiefs of the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines have objected. In letters solicited by Senator John McCain of Arizona, the senior Republican on the Armed Services Committee, they urged Congress to delay voting on the issue until after the Defense Department completed its report.

They simply want Congress to wait until the Pentagon has reviewed how it will impact our military readiness.

Why is Congress in such an all-fired rush to pass repeal before we even know how it will affect national security? Simple. The gay rights lobby has made no secret that they are very unhappy with the lack of progress on Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell and they have threatened to close their checkbooks. The DNC has pledged to raise and spend $50million for Democrats who ignored the people’s will and voted for Obamacare. Without the financial backing from the LGBT community, the Democrats will be hard-pressed to raise those funds. In essence, the Democrats are putting their re-elections before the safety and security of Americans. The time-table “With Congress having indicated that is not possible” tells all, the review will be completed on Dec 1, but the elections happen on Nov.2.

Congressional Dems are quick to point out and Peter Orzag confirms that the repeal won’t happen immediately. How exactly is the White House budget director an expert on military matters anyway? Just asking.

Budget Director Peter Orszag said Monday the Pentagon would still be able to complete a review to “ensure that the implementation of the repeal is consistent with standards of military readiness, effectiveness, unit cohesion, recruiting and retention.” The study is to be submitted to Congress by Dec. 1.

Notice, “the implementation of the repeal”, the White House envisions that the Pentagon’s review will come to the “correct” conclusion that gay men and lesbians should be allowed to serve openly. It’s not clear how the transgendered will be treated in this bill.

As we approach Memorial Day it would be naive and just plain wrong to believe that gays haven’t served honorably in our military throughout our history. I’m sure there were gays in Washington’s army and Grant’s and there are some risking their lives to protect us in Iraq and Afghanistan today. I understand that those in the gay community believe they are fighting for a civil right. But, our national security must come first. The Pentagon should decide, without political pressure from the White House or Congress if it’s better to preserve Don’t ask, Don’t Tell or allow gays to serve openly. By voting to pass repeal now Congress is prejudging and prejudicing the review process. Congress is essentially telling any officer that to oppose repeal is career suicide.

Haven’t we learned from the Nidal Hassan affair that political correctness and the military don’t mix very well? A look the other way and pray for the best policy implemented while we are fighting two wars could be disastrous. Give the Pentagon time to decide which policy keeps us safest.