Democratic party=slimeballs

[dario73]

Reid is as brokeback mountain as it gets.

[Soul Crusher]

Dems not taking debt seriously
JACOB SULLUM jsullum@reason.com Mar 9, 2011 02:10AM

http://www.suntimes.com/news/otherviews/4204002-452/dems-not-taking-debt-seriously.html



In the context of federal spending that will total something like $3.8 trillion this year, $61 billion is a rounding error. Yet the Democrats resisting that amount in House-approved cuts say it will wreck the economy while leaving children unschooled, taking food from the mouths of the elderly, and casting disabled people into the streets.

Laughter is the only appropriate response to such predictions. In these absurd times, when both parties quibble over crumbs while the layer cake of debt rises higher and higher, laughter is a mark of fiscal seriousness.

How else should one greet a New York Times editorial that concedes the federal deficit, projected to be $1.6 trillion this year, is “too large for comfort” but calls $61 billion in cuts “ruinous”? Or a press release from the Every Child Matters Education Fund that deems them “harsh” and “extreme”?

The cuts represent less than 2 percent of the total budget, less than 4 percent of the deficit, and less than 5 percent of discretionary spending, which rose in real terms by 75 percent from 2000 to 2010 and by about 9 percent in each of the last two fiscal years. If the House-approved reductions would be “the largest one-year cuts in history,” as the folks at Every Child Matters say, that is a sad commentary not on Republican cold-heartedness but on the fiscal incontinence of both parties.

This week, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) highlighted that tendency. “Do we want jobs?” he asked. “If we do, then we simply cannot pass the plan the Tea Party has already pushed through the House.”

This argument got a boost last month from a projection by Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics. By Zandi’s reckoning, “The House Republicans’ proposal . . . would shave almost half a percentage point from real GDP growth in 2011 and another 0.2 percentage point in 2012,” which “would mean some 400,000 fewer jobs created by the end of 2011 and 700,000 fewer jobs by the end of 2012.”

At $174,000 a year per job, that does not seem like such a good deal. But if we assume, as Reid apparently does, that money is no object, why not raise federal spending by $2.4 trillion a year, thereby creating 13.7 million jobs and eliminating unemployment altogether?

The answer, presumably, is that the resources diverted to the government’s job factory, in terms of new debt and future taxes needed to pay it off, can be better employed elsewhere, creating value instead of make-work. But in that case, we should stop worrying about the jobs “lost” when government spending is cut.

A more sophisticated version of this argument, favored by President Obama, distinguishes between wasteful government spending and “job-creating investments in education, innovation, and infrastructure.” The problem with trusting the government to invest our money is that it faces no penalty for making bad calls.

Consider education spending, which Obama treats as an unalloyed good. Between 1961-62 and 2006-07, according to data from the U.S. Department of Education, per-pupil spending in public schools more than tripled in real terms, while student achievement stagnated. This was a “job-creating investment” only in the sense that it created jobs for public school teachers.

Picking up the president’s investment theme, The New York Times says it’s “obfuscating nonsense” to declare that “we’re broke,” as House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) likes to do. “A country with a deficit is not necessarily any more ‘broke’ than a family with a mortgage or a college loan,” the Times explains.

Suppose the mortgage is twice the home’s current value, the college loan was used for an unfinished degree in anthropology, and the family cannot make payments on either without borrowing or stealing because it has no income of its own. Now this family looks more like the federal government.

Whether we call it “broke” or not, no one should be lending it any more money until it gets its house in order.

[Soul Crusher]

Illinois Governor Pat Quinn to Small Business: Drop Dead
Feed Front ^ | 03/11/2011 | Shawn Collins




With the stroke of his pen, Illinois Governor Pat Quinn sent a strong message to small businesses that they are not welcome in his state.

The hostile signal from Governor Quinn came by signing HB 3659 into law, which forces out-of-state retailers to collect Illinois state sales tax for Internet sales, based on the view that affiliate marketers constitute a tax nexus for the retailers.

Noted “Mom & Pop” advocate Walmart applauded Pat Quinn’s move to send scores of IL entrepreneurs to the unemployment line.

How, you ask, would this legislation, which carried the misnomer of the “Mainstreet Fairness Bill”, put people out of business? Well, the target of this law is Amazon and other online retailers who do not have a physical presence in Illinois.

Here is how similar legislation has played out in other states… Amazon removes the affiliates of that state from their affiliate program, so they still do not assume a tax nexus, which means no additional tax revenue collected.

But wait, there’s more! Now there are scores of affiliate marketers who have been fired from Amazon and countless other online retailers. That’s a big chunk of income and income tax that has vaporized.

And that income that no longer exists can no longer be spent in Mainstreet Illinois.

Let me break this down for the IL lawmakers and Governor Quinn: you’ve created a net loss for your state.

Brian Littleton, founder and CEO of Chicago-based ShareASale, an affiliate marketing network that will see a huge negative impact from this legislation, had this to say…

“Let us remember that the reason the bill was written was to collect revenue for the State of Illinois. This bill does the opposite.

Because out-of-state retailers – and we are not talking about just Amazon – but any and all retailers can simply terminate their affiliate programs in Illinois, thus removing themselves from this bill’s grasp, no revenue will be collected. That means no revenue, lost contracts for Illinois businesses, lost jobs in Illinois.

It is entirely unfortunate that the Federal government has not acted on this issue as everyone on all sides of this issue knows that it is truly a problem that only the Federal government can solve. Unfortunately, Governor Quinn jumped the gun on this. Despite the fact that we’ve been in communication with Senator Durbin’s office, who indicated that this exact issue would be considered during this session – the Governor’s early action will make that all moot as the damage will already have been done in Illinois.

As we speak, Illinois affiliate marketers are being forced to pack up their businesses and move to another state. Through a bill, which started with a lack of understanding, and finished with poor judgment – Governor Quinn has spoken unequivocally that the growing, innovative, job-creating industry known as affiliate marketing is entirely unwelcome in Illinois. Where we were once poised to become the “Silicon Valley” of the Midwest, we are now forced to look to other states. We have confirmed that neighboring state Governors and Lt. Governors have been in direct contact in an attempt to woo affiliate marketers to their borders.

Governor Quinn has instead decided to side with big-box retailers – those who destroyed main street in the first place – in an issue of “fairness”. This bill helps Walmart, Target, K-Mart etc… this bill does not help Ma and Pa booksellers who were simply being used by the big-box retailers to put a better face on the issue. When this bill becomes a law in July of 2011… there will be no increased revenue for Ma and Pa on Main St.; there will be no more people shopping on Main St. as opposed to online; and there will be no more a fair level playing field for Ma and Pa than there was prior to this bill. Unfortunately, the big-box retailers have fooled Ma and Pa into thinking that they are on the same side – when, in fact, they never will be.

The irony is that during his last budget address, the ink still not dry, Governor Quinn setup a Technology Council designed to foster growth in the growing Tech community of Illinois. Unfortunately, the very first thing he did was pass a bill that a) isn’t fair, b) doesn’t create any revenue for Illinois, and c) kills job growth in an industry that he wished to grow.

Here are two critical things that have to happen now.

The State of Illinois Dept. of Revenue MUST setup a mechanism to track new revenue coming in from this bill on July 1st. If the Dept. of Revenue fails to do this, it will be an irresponsible lack of action – piling on to the already devastating loss of jobs in Illinois. The Federal government, specifically in Illinois the office of Senator Dick Durbin must take great care in looking at this issue – as there is still time before July 1st where he can save the State of Illinois from the unfortunate actions of the Governor. Fairness? What is fair about eliminating a whole bunch of jobs in Illinois.

Here’s how this goes:

The bill passes. Amazon terminates affiliates. Other merchants do the same. Affiliate-powered businesses large and small are decimated. No revenue is collected, Ma and Pa are still being hammered by big-box retailers, and nobody benefits.

Tell me. How is that fair?

But hey, at least Walmart is happy.

[Soul Crusher]

March 11, 2011
Planet Washington
By Jonah Goldberg
www.realclearpolitics.co m



By earth-logic, if you got a raise of 10 percent last year, but this year you're only getting a raise of 8 percent, you're still getting a raise. On Planet Washington, that qualifies as an indefensible slashing.

So when the GOP cut $4 billion from the budget last week, the Democrats acted as if it was an involuntary amputation.


Now the GOP wants to cut $61 billion of discretionary nondefense spending from the total budget of $3.7 trillion, and Democrats are responding as if this will spell the end of Western civilization.

But given their terror of forcing a government shutdown, Democrats were forced to counteroffer with a cut of $10.5 billion, or 0.28 percent of the federal budget.

Imagine you have a budget of $10,000 (about 40 percent of it borrowed on a credit card), then "slash" 28 bucks. That's what it's like to be a frugal Democrat.

"Fox News Sunday" host Chris Wallace repeatedly pressed Sen. Dick Durbin: Is $10.5 billion in cuts "really the best the Democrats can do?" The No. 2 Senate Democrat responded, eventually: "We've pushed this to the limit." Any cuts beyond that would simply crater our economy and gut "investments" to make us competitive with China. Apparently, Durbin thinks trimming the staff at the Oregon National Laboratory will result in us all becoming busboys at a Beijing restaurant.

Meanwhile, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi's solution to the deficit is -- wait for it -- spend a whole bunch more. In October, Pelosi said that every dollar spent on unemployment benefits and food stamps puts another $1.79 into economy. "It is the biggest bang for the buck when you do food stamps and unemployment insurance."

Her latest version of teenage-mutant ninja Keynesianism is to "invest" even more on education. "Nothing brings more to the treasury than investing in education," Pelosi said.

Never mind that Washington has "invested" roughly $2 trillion in education since 1965. Forget the fact that spending at all levels of government has gone from $55,000 per a single student's complete K-12 education in 1970 to $155,000 in 2009, according to Cato Institute scholar Andrew Coulson, while "overall achievement has stagnated or declined, depending on the subject."

Would another trillion spent on education really have a greater return than, say, allowing US companies to drill for the billions of gallons of oil and the trillions of cubic feet of natural gas under our soil?

Why am I talking about Durbin and Pelosi? Well, Obama is in a fetal crouch under the Oval Office desk, muttering something about the need for courage and bipartisanship while quietly proposing $6.5 billion in cuts, which the Congressional Budget Office said is really only $4.7 billion. (That's about $700 million more than the US spends in borrowed money every day.)

Oh, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid seems determined to keep talking until the men in the white coats escort him off the Senate floor. He was last heard saying the GOP has gone crazy because it had cut funding for a Nevada cowboy-poetry festival. No, really.

In 2007, the budget was 19.6 percent of the GDP. In 2009, it went up to 25 percent of GDP. That's where the Democrats would like to see it stay.

What happened? The financial crisis, of course. But as many of us suggested at the time, one of the Democrats' real motives behind the stimulus was to inflate the "baseline" budget so that huge increases would never be reversed, thanks to the DC logic that a cut in growth is a cut.

Now, Democrats greet any attempt to restore government to its pre-crisis size -- when we were still living way above our means -- as if America would be plunged into the Stone Age.

Look at it this way. Those heartless Republican bastards would cut 2011 nondefense discretionary spending from 3.6 percent to 3.2 percent of GDP. Under Bill Clinton, such spending averaged 3.1 percent of GDP.

We owe $14 trillion we don't have. Our total liabilities -- i.e., Social Security and other entitlements -- dwarf that. So we can't just cut discretionary spending alone. But if it's this hard to ask cowboy poets to pony up, how are we going to deal with what everyone agrees is the much harder stuff?

Copyright 2011 Tribune Media Services, Inc.

[dario73]

No one is more clueless than Democrats when it comes to business and money.