Good Company

Good Company

It has been recommended to me that I buy the stock of a certain company. This is not in and of itself unusual, but this time I think I may invest in it. I never recommend stocks to others, but the very least I can say that I am excited by their product. Inca Designs, IDGI on the Pinksheets.

Rat Board Cometh, Politics Trumps Ethics

Rat Board Cometh, Politics Trumps Ethics

President Obama has revealed himself once again, by forcing inclusion of the "Rat Board," or the "Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board" into his fraudulus bill. The purpose of this new institution is to give Obama control over investigations instituted by Inspectors general. In the words of Byron York the new chief political correspondent of the DC Examiner:

Congress has given the RAT Board the authority to ask “that an inspector general conduct or refrain from conducting an audit or investigation.” If the inspector general doesn’t want to follow the wishes of the RAT Board, he’ll have to write a report explaining his decision to the board, as well as to the head of his agency (from whom he is supposedly independent) and to Congress. In the end, a determined inspector general can probably get his way, but only after jumping through bureaucratic hoops that will inevitably make him hesitate to go forward.

I am especially concerned with that "or refrain from conducting" bit. How in the world would refraining from an investigation enforce transparency? Why would the administration demand the midnight inclusion of such a travesty into his "stimulus?"

Only Nixon would have demanded such power. Obama has no shame. It is up to us to hold his feet to the fire. This board is now the law. We need to make noise until this bald faced power grab is repealed.

Patton Boggs

Patton Boggs

Patton Boggs is an international law firm concentrating in global business and trade since 1962. Their website is here.

Here is the link to their "Patton Boggs Economic Stimulus Analysis". It analyzes the fraudulus bill, in very specific and technical, detailed terms. This is the best explanation of the entire bill I have seen yet (.pdf)

They have committed to keep this analysis and other efforts by the Obama administration to destroy individual liberty current. That's a big job. After all, a trillion dollar bill of a thousand pages represents one billion dollars per page. That takes a lot of analysis!

A great video from Fred Thompson, who might have made a good president. At the very least he would have given The Won more of a run for his money.

Anyway, watch the video. It is funny in a scary sort of way, and will provide food for thought.

True Cost of the Fraudulus

True Cost of the Fraudulus

Heritage has posted a writeup of the House-Senate compromise on the Fraudulus bill and it is a shocker:

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) asked the Congressional Budget Office to estimate the impact of permanently extending the 20 most popular provisions of the stimulus bill. What did the CBO find? As you can see from the table below, the true 10 year cost of the stimulus bill $2.527 trillion in spending with another $744 billion cost in debt servicing. Total bill for the Generational Theft Act: $3.27 trillion

I am speechless, not at the fraud of the congress and Obama, but at the media for keeping this hidden. This has passed insane and gone into criminal. I don’t know how to express in words how enraged I am. I’m having a hard time not personally blaming everyone I know who voted for Obama. This is inexcusable. This is disgusting.

And, for those who like to read the label on the rope before the hangman pulls the lever, the text of the conference report on the Generational Theft Act is finally available.

And, just in case you are not depressed enough, here is more from Tom Coburn's website:

Wasteful and Non-Stimulative Spending in the House-Senate Conference Report (Note: Many of these items are typically debated and funded through the regular budget process. Including these items in an emergency “stimulus” spending bill plays an Enron-style shell game with taxpayer dollars. We’re borrowing from the next generation to avoid tough budget choices today.)
• $8 billion for high-speed railway (including an earmark for an Los Angeles to Las Vegas MagLev)
• $1 billion for the “FutureGen” not-ready-for-primetime near zero emission plant in Illinois
• $53.6 billion for the “state stabilization” slush fund
• $1.3 billion for Amtrak
• $24 million for USDA buildings and rent
• $176 million for renovating Agricultural Research Service buildings
• $290 million for flood prevention activities
• $50 million for watershed rehabilitation
• $1.4 billion for wastewater disposal programs
• $295 million for administrative expenses associated with food stamp program
• $1 billion for the 2010 Census
• $200 million for public computer centers at community colleges and libraries
• $650 million for the DTV converter box coupon program
• $360 million for construction of NIST buildings
• $830 million for NOAA research and facilities
• $2 billion for Byrne JAG program
• $10 million to combat Mexican gunrunners
• $125 million for rural communities to combat drug crimes
• $1 billion for the COPS program
• $1 billion for NASA
• $300 million to purchase scientific instruments for colleges and museums
• $400 million for equipment and facilities at the NSF
• $3.7 billion to conduct "green" renovations on military bases
• $375 million for Mississippi River projects
• $10 million for urban canals
• $5 billion for weatherizing buildings
• $2 billion to develop advanced batteries for hybrid cars
• $3.4 billion for fossil energy research (possibly including an earmark for FutureGen)
• $5.1 billion for environmental cleanup around military bases
• $5.5 billion for "green" federal buildings
• $300 million for "green" cars for federal employees
• $20 million for IT upgrades at the Small Business Administration
• $200 million to design and furnish DHS headquarters
• $210 million for State and local fire stations
• $125 million to restore trails and abandoned mines
• $146 million for trail maintenance at National Park Service sites
• $140 million for volcano monitoring systems
• $600 million for the EPA Superfund environmental cleanup program
• $200 million to clean up leaking underground storage tanks
• $500 million for forest health and wildfire prevention
• $25 million for the Smithsonian Institution
• $50 million for the National Endowment for the Arts
• $1.2 billion for "youth activities" (for "youth" up to 24 years old)
• $500 million earmark for NIH facilities in Bethesda, MD
• $1 billion for Head Start
• $32 million for home-delivered nutrition services
• $160 million for volunteer programs at the Corporation for National and Community Service
• $500 million earmark for the SSA National Computer Center in MD
• $220 million for the International Boundary and Water Commission, U.S. and Mexico

More Reasons to Hate the Fraudulus Bill

More Reasons to Hate the Fraudulus Bill

The more we read, the more reasons we find to hate this monstrous bill. On Bloomberg today, Betsey McCaughey writes about one of the health provisions of the bill. This small piece of the proposed law places much of the pain we all will have to bear on the elderly. Give it a few years, and that will include me. The references to Tom Daschle in the piece refers to his book, that is apparently the genesis of this proposed provision. A sample:

Daschle says health-care reform “will not be pain free.” Seniors should be more accepting of the conditions that come with age instead of treating them. That means the elderly will bear the brunt.

Medicare now pays for treatments deemed safe and effective. The stimulus bill would change that and apply a cost- effectiveness standard set by the Federal Council (464).

The Federal Council is modeled after a U.K. board discussed in Daschle’s book. This board approves or rejects treatments using a formula that divides the cost of the treatment by the number of years the patient is likely to benefit. Treatments for younger patients are more often approved than treatments for diseases that affect the elderly, such as osteoporosis.

In 2006, a U.K. health board decreed that elderly patients with macular degeneration had to wait until they went blind in one eye before they could get a costly new drug to save the other eye. It took almost three years of public protests before the board reversed its decision.

Hidden Provisions

If the Obama administration’s economic stimulus bill passes the Senate in its current form, seniors in the U.S. will face similar rationing. Defenders of the system say that individuals benefit in younger years and sacrifice later.

The stimulus bill will affect every part of health care, from medical and nursing education, to how patients are treated and how much hospitals get paid. The bill allocates more funding for this bureaucracy than for the Army, Navy, Marines, and Air Force combined (90-92, 174-177, 181).

Hiding health legislation in a stimulus bill is intentional. Daschle supported the Clinton administration’s health-care overhaul in 1994, and attributed its failure to debate and delay. A year ago, Daschle wrote that the next president should act quickly before critics mount an opposition. “If that means attaching a health-care plan to the federal budget, so be it,” he said. “The issue is too important to be stalled by Senate protocol.”

Read the whole thing.

Similarly, another piece of this puzzle rolls back Clinton's welfare reform, by removing the work requirement from AFDC payments. The New York Times especially likes this. This will return us to the day when government paid any woman who had a child out of wedlock, whether she had a job or not. I can well remember what the ghetto looked like back then. Why in the world would American blacks do not cry out for this provision to be left out is beyond my ken.

All we citizens can do is sign the online petition to stop the bill from passage. It is the least we can do, and we can all do it. If you have not already done so, do it now.

Does No Earmarks Mean No Pork?

Does No Earmarks Mean No Pork?

Words have meaning. They must, or effective debate is impossible. But as all students of Newspeak know too well, words can be twisted to convey meanings that are not in evidence. Thus "The One" and his minions feel free to state that the fraudulus bill contains no "earmarks," and thus insinuate, and even claim, that it contains no pork. So we need to define our terms.

An earmark is an item in an appropriations bill (or law) that states exactly what money is to be spent on and who will get it, and how. In Wikipedia it is defined as "In US politics an earmark is a congressional provision that directs approved funds to be spent on specific projects..."

Pork is money conveyed to favored constituents in an appropriations bill (or law). Again from Wikipedia "Spending that is intended to benefit constituents of a politician in return for their political support..."

See the difference? No? Well, these are terms of art, as strange as that shows the art to be. A discussion on NPR tries to make sense of the distinction, coming up with this:

When congressional leaders began to assemble the mammoth economic stimulus bill, top Democrats and the Obama administration decided that there would be no earmarks: no "special projects," no pork-barrel spending. In so doing, they gave up some control over how the money is spent, leaving the decision to public servants around the country.

"Someone has to decide how money gets spent. It's either going to be Congress or the executive branch or states or municipalities," says Fred Wertheimer of the congressional watchdog group Democracy 21.

Lawmakers had good reasons for stripping earmarks from the bill, Wertheimer says, because "they are simply going to become huge targets for attacking the credibility of the package, and they may very well end up as abusive earmarks."

It was a wise political decision, he says. But pulling earmarks out of the bill changes the balance of power in the government. If members of Congress aren't writing into the bill how the money will be spent, then someone else must make those decisions — or, in this case, a lot of people.

"Because there is so much money here, and in so many different forms, there is no single pathway for the money to go out to states and localities," says Sarah Binder of the Brookings Institution.

'This Is An Emergency'

When this bill passes, a Niagara Falls of money will flow out of Washington and into the accounts of state highway commissioners, governors and legislatures, local school boards, county executives — even mayors, Binder says.

"It raises a whole host of questions about how efficiently money can be spent, how effectively it will be spent, how quickly money can be spent, just because there's no set process here for determining how money will get out the door to create jobs or, as the president said, to save jobs," she says.

U.S. Rep. David Obey (D-WI), the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, helped write the bill and says he doesn't like being asked about earmarks.

"We simply made a decision, which took about three seconds, not to have earmarks in the bill," he says. "And with all due respect, that's the least important question facing us on putting together this package."

Leaving out the earmarks does mean Congress will have less control over how the money is spent. But, Obey says, "So what? This is an emergency. We've got to simply find a way to get this done as fast as possible and as well as possible, and that's what we're doing."

That doesn't mean Congress will be responsible if the money is spent badly, he says.

"The person who spends the money badly will be responsible. We are simply trying to build as many protections in as possible," Obey says.

Now we know. Not using earmarks, a decision which took "about three seconds," merely means that congress has less control over how the funds are being spent. So nameless and faceless bureaucrats are now in control of the uncountable "Niagara Falls" of cash. And this is a good thing?

Federal Self-Stimulation

Federal Self-Stimulation

Today our fearless leader has posted an Op-Ed in the Wapo, claiming that the sky will fall if congress does not give him another trillion dollars immediately. Democrat chicken littles in the Senate have taken up this clarion call to decisive action. Apparently the reason for the brinksmanship is that more and more of We the People are deciding the bill is a bad idea every day. And with good reason.

In today's Wall Street Journal Daniel Henninger offers his take on the bill and its concentration on giving most of the money to themselves. A sample:

Check your PC's virus program, then pull down the nearly 700 pages of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Dive into its dank waters and what is most striking is how much "stimulus" money is being spent on the government's own infrastructure. This bill isn't economic stimulus. It's self-stimulus.

(All sums here include the disorienting zeros, as in the bill.)

Title VI, Financial Services and General Government, says that "not less than $6,000,000,000 shall be used for construction, repair, and alteration of Federal buildings." There's enough money there to name a building after every Member of Congress.

The Bureau of Land Management gets $325,000,000 to spend fixing federal land, including "trail repair" and "remediation of abandoned mines or well sites," no doubt left over from the 19th-century land rush.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are getting $462,000,000 for "equipment, construction, and renovation of facilities, including necessary repairs and improvements to leased laboratories."
The Opinion Journal Widget

The National Institute of Standards gets $357,000,000 for the "construction of research facilities." The Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration gets $427,000,000 for that. The country is in an economic meltdown and the federal government is redecorating.

The FBI gets $75,000,000 for "salaries and expenses." Inside the $6,200,000,000 Weatherization Assistance Program one finds "expenses" of $500,000,000. How many bureaucrats does it take to "expense" a half-billion dollars?

The current, Senate-amended version now lists "an additional amount to be deposited in the Federal Buildings Fund, $9,048,000,000." Of this, "not less than $6,000,000,000 shall be available for measures necessary to convert GSA facilities to High-Performance Green Buildings." High performance?

Sen. Tom Coburn is threatening to read the bill on the floor of the Senate. I have a better idea: Read it on "Saturday Night Live."

This is no laughing matter though. It is nothing less than a bald-faced plan to take an immense amount of power from us and empower the Faceless Federals, far beyond what the constitution allows and in a way that the founders most feared. These self serving myrmidons of power fully intend to get themselves past the tipping point, and make more than half the electorate directly beholden to them, with jobs or checks "refunding" taxes they never paid. Prior to the founding of this great nation philosophers debated the very idea of a large nation operating under a system of republican democracy, and some believed that no democracy could survive beyond the point that a majority found that it could vote itself largess from the treasury. We are at that point today. If this monstrous idea is enacted, if this bill passes in its present form, we will have passed that point.

Stimulate This

Stimulate This

Now that the stimulus bill is moving into final form, details are leaking out. Since most of the money will not be spent until the second and third year, it is not really a stimulus bill. It is rather more a Trojan horse bill, since it will contain quite a few special passengers. In the words of the president's chief of staff, “Rule one: Never allow a crisis to go to waste. They are opportunities to do big things.”

Now reports are beginning to emerge, and one of the most insidious little bombs is the "decoupling" provision for utility rates. What this means is there will be no further link between electric rates, say, and the amount of electricity you use. That means that, as we are forced (or choose) to use more efficient appliances and our electrical use goes down, the rates will go up to compensate. Then, when or if we buy electric vehicles, the rates will remain high. Or presumably we can ask our legislators (nicely) to pass a new law setting special rates for electrical vehicle use. But even that is dependent on the utilities installing new electric meters, so that the "special" use can be rated on the lower, politically correct rate for electric vehicles. But then the gasoline tax and road use taxes will be piled on the electric rates.

While we are on this subject of Obama "calling for forty million meters to be installed" it might be interesting to look into the Federal Energy Policy Act of 2005, which directed state utility commissions to install the new meters. But since Bush signed that legislation, Obama has "called" for exactly the same thing, so as to get the credit. "Utilities are planning to deploy more than 40 million smart meters throughout the country from 2007 through 2010, according to a report published by Federal Energy Regulatory Commission." But now that Obama wants it, and money has no real value any more, it is now for the government to pay for them, with their usual crack efficiency and timeliness.

This is pretty clear, we are getting screwed by this stimulus plan. It is the un-stimulus screw - no stimulation, no kisses, no lube.

If you have a head for details, or you think I'm kidding, you can read the report (.pdf) summarizing the bill. Not to worry, it is a mere 76 pages.