Cows, The Constitution, and The Ten Commandments

Cows

Is it just me, or does anyone else find it amazing that our government can track a cow born in Canada almost three years ago, right to the stall where she sleeps in the state of Washington? And, they tracked her calves to their stalls. But they are unable to locate 11 million illegal aliens wandering around our country. Maybe we should give them all a cow.

The Constitution

They keep talking about drafting a Constitution for Iraq. Why don’t we just give them ours? It was written by a lot of really smart guys, it’s worked for over 200 years and we’re not using it anymore.

The Ten Commandments

The real reason we can’t have the Ten Commandments in a Courthouse – You cannot post, “Thou Shalt Not Steal,” “Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery” and “Thou Shall Not Lie,” in a building full of lawyers, judges and politicians – it creates a hostile work environment.

PROBLEM
Finding a calculator with enough digits to perform simple math on the spending and stimulus packages coming from the Obama administration.

Have you found yourself trying to visually quantify the amount of money being proposed and spent in Washington? The Obama administration takes no shame in using the term trillions where most Americans were shocked when the term billions were used in recent years.

Look around your home or office for a calculator with enough digits for a trillion dollars. You'll find standard calculators from school or office supply stores with 8, 10, or 12 digits. A trillion dollars is $1,000,000,000,000 (12 zeros) and requires a 13 digit calculator.

SOLUTION
The Obama Spendulus Calculator has 14 digits; enough digits for $99,999,999,999,999. That's one dollar short of 100 trillion dollars.

The Obama Spendulus Calculator is a full featured calculator with large keys and an easy to read display. With 14 digits, it can handle the spending and stimulus packages coming from Washington.

FINANCIAL CRISIS: THE FALL

OF THE HOUSE OF CARDS

The federal government has bailed out many industries, including banking, mortgage lenders, insurers, money market funds, automakers, credit card issuers, home builders, the states and so on. This invites ongoing gambling at public expense by any business or entity that can reasonably expect a bailout. Moreover, this is a prescription for fiscal insolvency, which could culminate in hyperinflation, says Laurence J. Kotlikoff, an economics professor at Boston University and a senior fellow with the National Center for Policy Analysis.

AIG was effectively nationalized on September 16, 2008, at a cost of $85 billion to taxpayers. Since AIG's nationalization, the government has engaged in a massive and potentially more expensive policy. The policy entails providing systemic risk insurance to the financial sector -- that is, insurance against system-wide collapse. Indeed, the federal government has already handed out, or publicly committed to hand out, more than $12 trillion to the financial sector, says Kotlikoff.

Major components of the $12 trillion bailout include:

The Treasury's $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP).

The Treasury's $400 billion in actual plus potential pledges of monies

to cover Fannie Mae's and Freddie Mac's losses.

The Federal Reserve's $301 billion guarantee of Citigroup's troubled assets.

Nearly $200 billion spent by the Federal Reserve on AIG

(with hundreds of billions more likely to come).

The $118 billion guarantee of Bank of America's poison securities.

The $29 billion spent by the Federal Reserve on Bear Stearns' toxic assets.

The $12 trillion spent by the federal government bailing out the financial sector is close to one year's gross domestic product -- that is, the value of all the final goods and services produced by over 130 million Americans working an entire year, notes Kotlikoff.

Systematic reform of the U.S. financial sector is critical. Along with the financial market meltdown, trust in a system that routinely borrows short and lends long, guaranteeing repayment yet investing at risk, has evaporated and will not be regained. What is needed is a system that doesn't gamble with the taxpayers' chips, but instead lets the public make their own risk-taking decisions based on securities that are transparent and whose properties are fully disclosed, says Kotlikoff.

Source: Laurence J. Kotlikoff, "Financial Crisis: The Fall of the House of Cards," National Center for Policy Analysis, Brief Analysis No. 692, February 18, 2010.

For text:

http://www.ncpa.org/pub/ba692

For more on Federal Spending & Budget Issues:

http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_Category=25y

MSNBC.com

Senate passes $1.1. trillion spending bill

Measure authorizes more money to run much of the government

The Associated Press

updated 3:15 p.m. ET, Sun., Dec . 13, 2009

WASHINGTON - The Democratic-led Senate on Sunday passed and sent to President Barack Obama an end-of-year $1.1 trillion spending bill that includes money to run much of the government and pay for health care benefits for the poor and elderly.

The spending measure, which passed 57-35, gives the Education Department, the State Department, the Department of Health and Human Services and others generous budget increases far exceeding inflation.

On Saturday, the Democratic-controlled Senate voted 60-34 to end the Republican attempt to use a legislative maneuver known as a filibuster to hold up the legislation. The final vote Sunday sends the measure to Obama for his signature.

Democrats held Saturday's filibuster vote open for an hour to accommodate independent Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, an Orthodox Jew, who walked more than three miles to the Capitol to vote on the Sabbath after attending services at his synagogue. Lieberman, wearing a black wool overcoat and bright orange scarf, finally provided the crucial 60th vote.

The 1,000-plus-page bill brings together six of the 12 annual spending bills that Congress had been unable to pass separately even though the new fiscal year began Oct. 1 because of partisan roadblocks.

It includes $447 billion in operating budgets with about $650 billion in mandatory payments for federal benefit programs such as Medicare and Medicaid, which provide health care benefits to the elderly, disabled and poor, as well as an estimated $3.9 billion for more than 5,000 home-state projects sought by individual lawmakers in both parties.

Budget increases
The bill increases spending by an average of about 10 percent to programs under immediate control of Congress, blending increases for veterans' programs, the NASA space agency and the FBI with a pay raise for federal workers and help for car dealers.

Republicans who fought the bill said it provides too much money at a time when the government is running astronomical deficits. "Obviously we need to run the government, but do you suppose the government could be a little bit like families and be just a little bit prudent in how much it spends?" said Sen. Jon Kyl, an Arizona Republican.

But the second-ranking Senate Democrat, Dick Durbin of Illinois, said the measure restores money for programs cut under former President George W. Bush such as popular grant programs for local police departments to purchase equipment and put more officers on the beat.

The legislation also:

Includes an improved binding arbitration process to challenge

the decision by General Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC to close more

than 2,000 dealerships.

Renews a federal loan guarantee program for steel companies.

Permits detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to be transferred to

the U.S. for trial, but not to be released.

Calls for federal worker pay increases averaging 2 percent.

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34392403/ns/politics-capitol_hill/

Ca$h for Clunker$

Who benefited from Cash for Clunkers? Politicians, Toyota, Japan and those who really didn’t need it.

Think about it, if we are having massive job losses, foreclosures du jour with Bank bailouts caused by toxic assets and Credit Card losses, who can buy New Cars? Middle Class or Upper Income earners?

Politicians walk away looking as if they did you a favor when the only ones to receive cash were those who didn’t absolutely have to have it and those who couldn’t afford to buy a new car and needed one will be the ones to pay it back! A lot of the cars that were called Clunkers would have been a blessing to those driving much older cars or don’t even have a car at all.

Some of those Clunkers were stripped of parts by resellers of used parts and will make money

when those parts are sold. How much of that money goes back to the Government to offset

the program? That’s right, ZERO!

And what auto manufacturer sold the most cars with the Cash of Clunkers program? Toyota, owned by the Japanese! Why not support Ford who didn't have to be bailed out by the Government and didn't rip off retirees like those who built GM and Chrysler by filing bankruptcy?

We as Americans need to start making better choices and decisions regarding matters that affect all of us. Starting with elections! It's not what's popular that counts, it's what is best for America. What is best for America is what is best for all of us! Think it through.

House quietly gives 'bonuses' to top aides