Filibuster Forthcoming?

One State.  Two Opinions. Nevada, a return to the Wild Wild West?

Senator Harry Reid (D-NV) has decided to delay a “Big Three” bailout plan vote until the weekend.  At the same time, John Ensign (R-NV)  and Senator Shelby (R-AL) are beginning to garner a lot of support for a filibuster to block the vote.

MM reports:

Democratic leaders toned down their prediction that Congress would approve a $15 billion automaker bailout within 48 hours, as Republican objections proved difficult to resolve.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said the Senate is unlikely to vote on the measure tonight and warned that lawmakers may have to stay in session over the weekend if objections are raised to voting earlier. “Everyone should understand we’re going to work until we complete this,” Reid said.

Congressional action is likely the only chance for the aid General Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC say they need to survive. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke ruled out central bank lending to automakers and suggested options including bankruptcy reorganization.

GM and Chrysler say they need at least $14 billion in combined aid to keep from running out of cash by early next year. Ford Motor Co., which would be eligible to apply for the loans, said again yesterday it doesn’t expect to. GM and Ford shares fell.

Some Democrats said support for the bailout in is in question. “It’s not a sure thing by any means,” said Michigan Representative Sander Levin, a Democrat.

John Ensign correctly contends that further bailout will only hurt the American taxpayer.  A bailout will also lessen the probability for any long term growth or prosperity in the American Auto Industry.  The Las Vegas Review Journal reports:

Sen. John Ensign said this morning he may try to block the Senate from passing an auto industry bailout, criticizing the plan as a further move toward “socializing” the economy.

“We’re looking at that very hard, because I have some serious, serious problems with this package as it currently stands,” Ensign said. “Unless we see some serious give by the other side, I think that not only myself but several of us will be looking at possibly blocking this package.”

Ensign commented during an interview broadcast on CNBC, as Congress returned this week to consider an $15 billion bailout bill negotiated between Democrats and the White House. He complained the Republicans in Congress were left out of the talks.

The Nevada Republican said the assistance to the automakers amounts to “the government picking the winners and losers instead of the market.”

“We’re just going down further and further and further towards socializing our economy,” he said.

Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) has issued the following statement regarding Ensign and Shelby’s filibuster:

“Ensign is exactly right. This bailout will hurt taxpayers, it won’t help the economy, and it will prevent these car companies from becoming competitive. The only way for the automakers to survive is a complete restructuring that allows them to break free from the stranglehold of union bosses. If Senator Ensign insists on debate on this legislation, I’ll fully support him.”

Let Shelby know you support his idea for the filibuster, and maybe more will follow.

Richard Shelby’s office: 202-224-5744

Mitch McConnell’s office: 202-224-2541

-reagan21

R.I.P. Compassionate Conservatism and Good Riddance

Dick Armey (one of the finest names in politics ever) writes in the WSJ:

The liberal pundits who embraced the candidacy of Barack Obama are also eager to issue a death certificate for free market capitalism. They’re wrong, and they remind me of what the great Willie Nelson once said: “I’m ragged but I’m right.”

To be sure, the American people have handed power over to the Democrats. But today there is a categorical difference between what Republicans stand for and the principles of individual freedom. Parties are all about getting people elected to political office; and the practice of politics too often takes the form of professional juvenile delinquency: short-sighted and self-centered.

This was certainly true of the Bush presidency. Too often the policy agenda was determined by short-sighted political considerations and an abiding fear that the public simply would not understand limited government and expanded individual freedoms. How else do we explain “compassionate conservatism,” No Child Left Behind, the Medicare drug benefit and the most dramatic growth in federal spending since LBJ’s Great Society?

Fundamentally, while we do have core principles that differentiate us from the opposition, the base question should be our belief in federalism and the intentions of the Founders to vest powers in the states that were not enumerated in the Consitution. A government that can help the most people is a government that serves the fewest people. All across America, we have mayors, city councils, school boards, and governors that have the ear of the people in their district. They are in the best position to serve their constituencies.  A bigger national government is one that becomes blind to the individual. But hey, PE-BHO said that we are not a nation of individuals. We are the party of limited government, but President Bush, God bless him, dealt away his cards for Iraq. Barring a Obamabump in the road, Iraq will be a thriving country in ten years with Basra possibly ascending to become the new Dubai or Abu Dhabi.

What will be the fate of free market capitalism in America? Will the 2008 election look more like 1932 — or 1992?

On both occasions, Republican presidents had abandoned their party’s principles for bigger government policies that exacerbated difficult economic times. On both occasions, Democrats took control, largely hijacking the small-government, fiscally responsible rhetoric of their opponents. Of course, FDR’s election ushered in the New Deal, the most dramatic expansion of government power in American history, together with policy changes and economic uncertainty that inhibited investment and growth and locked in massive unemployment for nearly a generation.

The official agenda of the incoming administration is not so different from FDR’s. Whatever doubts remain about Mr. Obama’s governing principles can be cleared up by looking at the governing philosophy of the Democrats in Congress he will be crafting legislation with or the liberal constituencies he is indebted to support. Democrats will not be ambiguous. They have every right to be energized, and will attempt sweeping changes to our economy and the very nature of the relationship between individual American citizens and the federal government.

Their wish list is long. Charlie Rangel, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, has said he would like to redistribute a trillion dollars through the tax code, including massive tax hikes on capital accumulation and individual entrepreneurship. Labor unions want to take away the right of a worker to a secret ballot in organizing elections. Radical environmentalists demand strict curbs on energy production and use. Hillary Clinton may have lost the primary, but expect Democrats to push her favorite idea: government-run heath care.

“Selfishness”

The Messiah spoke in Florida today and the world listened.

“The point is, though, that — and it’s not just charity, it’s not just that I want to help the middle class and working people who are trying to get in the middle class — it’s that when we actually make sure that everybody’s got a shot – when young people can all go to college, when everybody’s got decent health care, when everybody’s got a little more money at the end of the month – then guess what? Everybody starts spending that money, they decide maybe I can afford a new car, maybe I can afford a computer for my child. They can buy the products and services that businesses are selling and everybody is better off. All boats rise. That’s what happened in the 1990s, that’s what we need to restore. And that’s what I’m gonna do as president of the United States of America.

“John McCain and Sarah Palin they call this socialistic,” Obama continued. “You know I don’t know when, when they decided they wanted to make a virtue out of selfishness.”

Just because I want to have control over my money makes me selfish. He loves marginalizing people that don’t agree with him. Does that make Obama’s proposal of tax hikes an act of “selflessness.”

New McCain Ad: Slippery Slope

H/T hotair:

Where will the tax hike plateau begin? 250,000? 200,000? 150,000? As has been noted the 150,000 number is where Biden sees “rich” as starting but he did not indicate that 150,000-200,000 would see a hike but we all know it would happen.

CBS Factcheck: Obama Infomerical and the Cost of Obanomics

Wyatt Andrews of CBS writes about the cost of Obamnomics

Without question, the Barack Obama infomercial served as a very slick and powerful recitation of the biggest promises he’s made as a presidential candidate. But the very bigness of his ideas is the problem: he seems blind to the concept his numbers don’t add up.

Let’s start with his highly suspect, and widely discredited, claim that he can find federal “spending cuts beyond the costs” of his promises. Very few independent economists believe he has identified the savings needed to offset his remarkable list of tax credits, tax cuts and spending pledges.

Fact: Even if you believe Obama intends to fix health care, most independent analysts say the cost is massive – $1.2 trillion over ten years, according to the highly respected Lewin Group. When the new Congress wakes up next year to a $1 trillion deficit, and answers the overwhelming new demands for another stimulus package, will the leadership really bite on a health care reform package that digs the deficit hole so much deeper?

And that’s just the beginning of what Obama would spend.

Fact: The tax cuts he promises, which are mostly refundable tax credits (code for cash back), will cost $60 billion just in year one, according the National Taxpayers Union, though the Obama campaign’s own estimates in July put that figure at $130 billion.

Fact: His new promise to give businesses a $3,000 tax credit for each new job created will cost $40 billion. But economists say this credit is far more likely to benefit companies already planning to expand and will likely not be enough to help companies create new jobs or forestall layoffs.

Fact: Obama’s claim he will lower health care premiums by $2,500 is: 1.) guesswork, which is 2.) based on health care savings that might, in a perfect world, happen over 10 years – a fact Obama neatly glosses over.

Fact: Obama, when referring to savings he can make by leaving Iraq ($90 billion, according to Congressional Budget Office estimates), has spent these savings several times over, across several different promises depending on the crowd he’s addressing.

Most of the time he spends the Iraq savings in the context of the roads he wants to build; sometimes it’s for the teachers he wants to hire. Tonight, he riffed rhetorically on the savings, asking how many scholarships could be funded, or how many schools could be built. In the end though, presuming he really saves $90 billion, he can only spend it once.
Remember he also mentioned rebuilding the military ($7 billion/yr); his education initiative ($18 billion/yr); and his energy initiative ($15 billion/yr). He did not mention the $188 billion that he would spend on the brand new stimulus package he has proposed.

If he closes every loophole as promised, saves every dime from Iraq, raises taxes on the rich and trims the federal budget as he’s promised to do “line by line,” he still doesn’t pay for his list. If he’s elected, the first fact hitting his desk will be the figure projecting how much less of a budget he has to work with – thanks to the recession. He gave us a very compelling vision with his ad buy tonight. What he did not give us was any hint of the cold reality he’s facing or a sense of how he might prioritize his promises if voters trust him with the White House.

More on the New Definition of “Rich” – 150,000 and Working its Way Down

Carl Campanile and Brendan Scott in the NYP deliver more to us on the Biden and his bout of latent patriotism revealing the truth (finally!) about their tax plan and who is considered rich in America. By next Tuesday, the tax hikes could be as inclusive as Bush’s tax cuts

Gaffe-prone Joe Biden put his foot in his mouth again yesterday, mistakenly excluding millions of Americans from his running mate’s tax-cut proposal.

The Delaware senator’s latest blunder came while discussing Republican tax policies during a television interview in his hometown of Scranton, Pa. 

“What we’re saying is, that $87 billion tax break doesn’t need to go to people making an average of $1.4 million,” Biden said.

“It should go to middle-class people, people who make $150,000 a year.”

Actually, Barack Obama has promised to cut taxes on households earning less than $200,000 a year while raising taxes on those who make more than $250,000 annually.

John McCain quickly cashed in on the slip.

During a rally in Hershey, Pa., McCain told supporters the gaffe revealed the Democrats’ true tax-and-spend intentions.

“It’s interesting how their definition of ‘rich’ has a way of creeping down,” McCain said.

“Senator Obama has made a lot of promises. First, he said people making less than $250,000 would benefit from his plan.

“Then, this weekend, he announced in an ad that if you’re a family making less than $200,000 you’ll benefit – but yesterday right here in Pennsylvania, Senator Biden said tax relief should only go to ‘middle-class people’ – people making under $150,000 a year.

“At this rate, it won’t be long before Senator Obama is right back to his vote that Americans making just $42,000 a year should get a tax increase.

“We can’t let that happen,” McCain added.

The Republican nominee has pounded Obama on taxes recently as economic woes have come to dominate the political debate.

Biden’s tax faux pas provided a new distraction for Obama as he tried to focus on broad, uplifting themes, like “change” and “hope,” in the final week of swing-state stumping.

Obama campaign spokesman Tommy Vietor issued a statement that corrected the vice-presidential candidate without explicitly saying so.

“No family making less than $250,000 will see their tax increases one cent,” Vietor said. “And if your family makes less than $200,000 – as 95 percent of workers and their families do – you’ll get a tax cut.”

Vietor went on to call McCain’s attack on Biden “desperate.”

“Maybe the McCain campaign keeps lying about Obama’s tax plan because with seven days left in this election, voters are rejecting McCain’s plan to give billions more in tax giveaways to big corporations and the wealthiest Americans,” he said.

Also during the stop in Hershey, McCain took a moment to shrug off reports of discord between his campaign staff and his running mate, Sarah Palin.

“By the way, when two mavericks join up, we don’t agree on everything,” McCain said. “But that’s a lot of fun! It’s wonderful to fool the pundits.”

Who is Going to Pay for New Deal Deuce

The WSJ editorial staff knows.

Well, will families making less than $250,000 get a tax cut under President Obama, or not? Senator Obama has been saying this for months, but on Monday Joe Biden put the tax-cut income threshold at $150,000 in an interview with a TV station in his beloved Scranton, Pennsylvania. The Biden campaign later clarified — or at least tried to clarify — the matter by saying that anyone making between $150,000 and $250,000 wouldn’t get a tax cut but also wouldn’t pay higher taxes.

We suspect what’s going on here is more than Mr. Biden’s normal gift of gaffe. As with his admission that a President Obama would quickly be tested by our enemies, the Delaware rambler was stumbling into the truth. An Obama Administration couldn’t possibly pay for a tax cut for 95% of Americans by raising taxes on a mere 5%. Those 5% don’t make enough money, or at least they won’t after they find ways to shelter more of their income when their tax rates rise.

Just as Bill Clinton promised a “middle-class tax cut” in 1992 only to raise taxes on the middle class in 1993, Mr. Obama will quickly find that his tax-revenue math doesn’t add up. Add in the demands on Capitol Hill to spend more and to offset the Alternative Minimum Tax, and our bet is that even $150,000 would soon prove to be a moving tax target. Remember when the AMT was only supposed to hit 21 millionaires? Next year, without relief, it could hit 26 million taxpayers. Tax increases always hit the middle class because that’s where the money is.

If the new new deal and the second bill of rights comes to pass, we can all expect our taxes raised. There is no way to ensure that everyone has an income, everyone has health care, everyone has a house and that all businesses are regulated without a lot of money being poured into the system.  Imagine something like 10 Iraq wars with no end in sight.

Trickle Up Economics

Reverend Wright must have learned a great deal from his friend Barack Obama regarding wealth distribution.  However, Rev. Wright decided to turn this concept on its head and take from the poor to give to the rich.  MM has posted a tour of Revernend Wright’s new mansion.  It makes me sick that a religious leader would take from innner city worshipers to build such a home.  If it were possible for me to respect that ass any less I would.  I bet he hopes God doesn’t Damn America for its capitalism or its IRC 501(c)(3) anymore.

Below is another video which Brit Hume presented regarding Reverend Wright…

-reagan21

Second Bill of Rights

Further to what Reagan21 wrote below; Soon, “rich” will be $90,000 and we can all be equal.  There is no way we can afford this Second Bill of Rights. Marcy Kaptur (D-OH), the woman who Joe the Plumber may run against, said this in Toledo, OH:

U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D. Toledo) whipped the crowd up before Mr. Obama took the stage yesterday telling them that America needed a Second Bill of Rights guaranteeing all Americans a job, health care, homes, an education, and a fair playing field for business and farmers.

1. GUARANTEED a job – this means either that the Government hires everyone into crap jobs or employers will be penalized for not hiring folk.

2. GUARANTEED health care – socialized medicine

3. GUARANTEED home – will break the bank

4. GUARANTEED education – this means college folks

5. GUARANTEED fair playing field – overegulation

Joe the Plumber better do his job in 2010 and get her out of office.

Obama is afterall the Second Coming…of Roosevelt and his New Deal that is.

During the Great Depression, the Government was traveling through economic territory we had never seen before.  Roosevelt felt the way out of the Depression was through enlarging government agencies to supply jobs for the unemployed.  For the time being, that was not the worst idea.  I do not fault FDR for what he did in the New Deal because, as I said before, we were on unknown territory; others aren’t so kind.  However, FDR did have some very radical ideas concerning the Constitution, the role of the Supreme Court, and affirmative rights. 

The Constitution was created as a document of negative rights.  Many are confused with the difference.  For example, I bet the majority think the First Amendment gives you the Freedom of Speech.  It does not.  The First Amendment says the Legislature shall make NO LAW to infringe upon your speech.  This is a negative right…it tells us what the government cannot do, not what citizens can do or what the government should/must do.  Woodrow Wilson, the self titled “First Progressive President”, had the same thoughts regarding the Constitution and was FDR’s predecessor in such ideology.

Roosevelt felt that there were affirmative rights which every American deserved.  He felt the American people deserved a second bill of rights, filled with these affirmative rights.  One of those is “the right to own a home”.  Roosevelt believed the US Government should help everyone own a home through government handouts and subsidies.  This ideology has not died.  Obama, in the second debate, announced that Health Care is a right that all Americans deserve.  This could not be further from the intent of the Framers of the Constitution.  There is now an audio clip where Obama claims there is an affirmative right to “not be poor”; i.e., a redistribution of wealth.  This ideology is dangerous.  Any Supreme Court, be it too liberal or too conservative, could invent or interpret a right from the Constitution.  The Framers made it clear in the 10th Amendment that the Bill of Rights was not an exhaustive list of guaranteed rights.  The Framers also made it clear that a new right can be included as an “endowed” right by either a state adopting a right into its Constitution (as long as it does not infringe upon a Federal Right) or Congress can amend the Constitution.  The Supreme Court should never make law…just interpret what is WRITTEN.

John Kerry, Obama’s probable pick as Secretary of State, wants a New Deal II, and Obama has declared his new Bill of Rights.  The New Deal II will expand government into the depths of healthcare, education, business, and farming to ensure all Americans receive these fake affirmative rights.  Some even say Obama’s New Deal II is more dangerous to our economic freedom than FDR.  We cannot allow this to happen.  The Government will slowly begin to eat away at our capitalist system; sticking its fingers into places it should not enter…mainly my pocket.  This New Deal II will cost the American Taxpayers billions if not trillions to create. 

We have already seen the foundation begin.  The Bailout ensures our Government has its hand in the baking system.  Not just as a regulator, but as part owner.  This, and other evidence of Government meddling, scares me.  This is not the country I grew up loving, and it is not the government I want to see as I get older.  Stop the Insanity!!!  Where is Jindal when we need him?

-reagan21