Alas, only figuratively…
(HT: Emailer who wishes to remain anonymous)

Mr. Harry C. Alford, chairman of the National Black Chamber of Commerce, recently went to Washington to discuss material facts in a study commissioned by the NBCC to study the effects of Cap and Trade legislation on jobs.

He came prepared, study in hand, with facts. Materially, that Cap and Trade will result in a net job LOSS of 2.5 Million jobs!!!

Senator Barbara Boxer, a Democrat from California, had her own basis for convincing Mr. Alford that he’s wrong. She came prepared to let him know that he should change his mind and support the Cap and Trade energy bill because…are you ready?

Here it comes… wait for it…

Because other “blacks” disagree with him. Never mind the facts.

She does start out with a supposed relevant fact. Apparently, according to the Senator, Green jobs have grown at a faster rate in recent years… and while I don’t have all the facts, lets look at that statement. Were in a recession or depression. Nearly all job growth is depressed. Now, consider green jobs… there were relatively few and government has thrown money at them so they have grown. So what?

This is a little bit like me saying my company has more growth than my competitor because I grew from 2 employees to 4 (a 100% increase) and my competitor grew from 10,000 employees to 11,000 employees (only a 10% increase). Now, which really had more growth?

Bottom line… Don’t believe the green job myth and don’t believe Democrat politicians aren’t anxious to exploit race whenever they can.

Clearly Mr. Alford wins in a unanimous decision…

Lucid Links:

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Sprott Asset Management (PDF) via Doug Ross: “We are now in the early stages of a depression.”

If we are, we can blame the progenitors of the POR (Pelosi-Obama-Reid) Economy, now known as the POR Recession/”Repression” As Normal People Define It. This graph at Doug’s place tracks the beginning of meaningful declines in world industrial output almost exactly to June 2008, when the Terrible Triumvirate put their efforts to take down the economy into overdrive:

The POR Economy has apparently done to the world what it has done to us.

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WSJ on BHO and the CBO:

(CBO Director) Douglas Elmendorf …. last week told Congress that you can’t “save” money on health care by having government insure everyone.

For that bit of truth-telling, he was first excoriated by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. Then he was summoned, er, invited to the White House for an extraordinary and inappropriate meeting Monday with President Obama and a phalanx of economic and health-care advisers.

As Douglas Holtz-Eakin, the Republican who ran CBO from 2003 to 2005, put it, “The only appearance could be that they’re leaning on him. CBO was created for Congress, for independent analysis. The White House did him [Elmendorf] a terrible disservice.”

“Nice job and career you have there, Doug. It would be such a terrible shame if anything were to happen to it.”

If Bush 43 had attempted this gambit (of course, he never would have), it would have made front-page headlines and would have led the evening news almost everywhere.

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USA Today has a disgraceful whitewash of the RomneyCare situation in Massachusetts that must be read with no sharp objects in the vicinity.

Here’s the jaw-dropping opening:

The state that pioneered health care for all is about to take another leap into the unknown: paying for it.

Three years after mandating that residents get health insurance and requiring employers, insurers and taxpayers to chip in, Massachusetts has yet to control soaring costs that are eating up half its budget. So it’s considering an equally radical idea: changing the way doctors and hospitals are paid to reward results.

If you can imagine it, it actually goes downhill from there.

Here’s the brilliant idea for changing how providers are paid:

…. the payment commission …. last week recommended a system in which health care providers would be paid a set amount for each patient.

This is draconian rationing, pure and simple.

Here’s the full report from the Massachusetts Special Commission on the Health Care Payment System (got bureaucracy, guys? Here’s the federal version).

This is not a new idea. It’s called “capitated reimbursement.” When HMOs have tried this, they have been cast as the epitome of all evil. But when the government comes along and proposes the very same thing, with heavier bureaucracy and more than likely fewer appeal rights included, reporters like USAT’s Richard Wolf magically portray it in a favorable light.

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Lickey-Split Links:

• Now THIS, unlike the bogus global warming/globaloney hockey stick (busted almost six years ago) is a really scary hockey stick (HT the Belmont Club).
• Ford’s recovery continues.
• In sharp contrast to Ford, GM’s announcement the previous day only dealt with unit sales; there is not a single dollar sign in its report. I believe this foreshadows Fannie Mae/Freddie Maclike non-transparency — or worse.
• From Babula: “Honduran authorities have seized computers found in the Presidential Palace belonging to deposed president Mel Zelaya. Taking a page right out of the leftist dictator’s handbook, these computers, according to the news report, contained the official and certified results of the illegal constitutional referendum Zelaya wanted to conduct that never took place.” Zelaya had his plans to rig the election fully in place. The Obama administration is, as far as I can tell, still on Zeleya’s side.
• Allah at Hot Air — “Consider this (Obama’s expressed fear that failure to pass a health care bill would “destroy my presidency”) a complete vindication of DeMint’s point, which Obama pretended to take such offense at, that if the GOP defeats ObamaCare ‘it will be his Waterloo, it will break him…’ Evidently The One couldn’t agree more ….” If it comes to pass, it couldn’t happen to a more deserving guy.

HT: Michelle Malkin & Ohio CCW

Once again, GOPers abandon their core (and potential converts) for the left. Both Lugar AND Voinovich have been abysmal lately and are now officially to the left of Snowe & Collins.

From Michelle Malkin who is WAY more gracious than I…

Sen. John Thune sponsored an amendment to the defense authorization bill allowing concealed carry permit holders to carry their weapons across state lines as long as they abided by other states’ CCW rules and regulations.

The Senate just voted down the measure by 58-39, falling two short of the 60-vote threshhold needed to block a filibuster.

Several Democrats voted for the amendment, including Sens. Feingold, Dorgan, Bayh, and Webb.

Sen. Pryor switched his vote from “nay” to “aye” at the last minute.

GOP Sens. Lugar and Voinovich voted “nay.”

By the way, I think it’s time to start asking Rob Portman where he stands with respect to all of Voinovich’s bad votes.

This is EXACTLY the same crap we’ll get with DeWine if we’re dumb enough to elect him…

“We’ve got healthcare, how ’bout you?!” Mitt Romney’s new cheer, ladies & gentlemen.

You know, too many “conservative celebrities” contend that Mitt Romney [still] represents all three legs of some “conservative stool.” I contend that said pundits are either having Ambien parties with Patrick Kennedy, or using the alternative definition of “stool.”

Among Mitt’s many, many, many, political & legislative warts, resides an 800 lb. gorilla shouting that no true conservative conceives and implements — “universal healthcare,” let alone becomes its greatest cheerleader.

Especially since it fails miserably every time it’s it’s tried — every time!

Some excerpts from Newsweek’s The Gaggle:

Q. What do you think needs to happen over the next couple of weeks if President Obama’s deadline for healthcare reform is to be met?

Romney: I think the President ought to hit the reset button. I think it is critical that he have the participation, involvement, and support of people on both sides of the aisle, as well as people in various sectors of the health economy. If we are going to have a dramatic shift in the nature of so large
a part of our economy then it needs to be something that has been thoroughly vetted and has received great support. Out of a desire to move very quickly, while his support is highest, he has skipped the critical steps of educating, involving, and evolving his own plans to meet the perspectives of the great majority of our citizens.

Q. It sounds like you are encouraging the President to slow down. Aren’t there risks in delaying?

Romney: He’s in a very difficult position. We faced a very similar question [in Massachusetts] as we began our process. We spent over two years putting together a health care plan and then building support for it on both sides of the aisle – working with hospitals, providers, doctors, business groups, labor groups, advocates for the poor. We involved all of these parties, and it took a long time, but what we ended up with was a bill that passed the legislature – if you combine the House and the Senate – 198 to 2.

WTH? He’s talking as if his reckless policies had absolutely no lasting consequences.like it was merely a legislative feat.

Given the documented, colossal failure of Romney’s “universal healthcare,” those pathetic answers leave me with no further words other than to reiterate that if you think that Mitt Romney is the answer, then you’re asking REALLY. STUPID. QUESTIONS.

Update: Ha! Alo over @ Brainshavings thinks that Mitt has been hitting some medical marijuana…did he cover that, too?

(HT PrisonPlanet.com)

Cliff Stearns gives Hank Paulson just a smidgeon of what we, the people would like to give him for his economic terrorism …

You can read a thorough synopsis here.

Employing reinforcing arguments a bit more eloquently yet quite similar to those I made in the comments at last week’s post and in various e-mail responses, IBD ….

Won’t, Back, Down:

Of course they should stand by it. They were, and remain, right; their critics have been, and remain, wrong.

Cue the Tom Petty (lyrics):

Read the whole thing.

Great job, IBD.

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UPDATE: Encore, Encore!

I share Petty’s sentiments at the end of the vid.

Put comments on this at the original post, where yours truly also wouldn’t, and still won’t, back down. We’re having too much fun at this one.

I am pleased to publish the following guest post. It is the handiwork of Gregg Jackson, author of “Conservative Comebacks to Liberal Lies,” and John Haskins, longtime family values activist and proprietor of UndergroundJournal.net.

Gregg and John have done more work than just about anyone exposing the true record of Mitt Romney and the dangers this Objectively Unfit man poses if he, as appears nearly certain, runs for president in 2012.

11:30 p.m. Note: What were supposed to be links translated into underscores; as such they have been removed. Links are in the original at Gregg’s blog.

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Mitt Romney, the GOP’s Bridge to Oblivion
By Gregg Jackson and John Haskins

Almost no one in politics or the media will admit it in public, but the GOP lost the Presidency in 2008 by alienating the moral conservative base that the elites loathe.   Many stayed home or voted third party, rejecting a nominee who was in fundamental aspects a liberal Democrat.

That is why Barry Sotero – a radical socialist with Islamic roots posing as a Christian, groomed for years by Marxist revolutionaries, who hides essential documents of his birth, education and career, who campaigned with illegal funding from overseas interests, who as far as 300 million Americans can honestly tell, was born in a foreign country and (under the plain language of the Supreme Law of the United States, the Constitution) cannot legally be our President, who lacks even the executive experience of a night manager at a self-serve gas station – nevertheless sleeps in the White House.

That’s why. Do the homework.  Look at the demographics.

There are millions of voters who will not allow anyone to force them to choose between:

A. A slick-talking Marxist with no papers, no real qualifications, who voted for killing unwanted newborn babies wiggling and crying on hospital tables (for the unforgiveable crime of surviving an abortion),

And

B. A liberal Republican with no allegiance to the Constitution, no convictions about infanticide, or defending natural marriage, nor the right of every child to a natural human family, but who brazenly lies into the camera and magically morphs into a “conservative” before elections.

“Excuse me, sir; did you want four drops of cyanide with that Kool-Aid or just three?”

Hard as it is to break old habits, it might be prudent for Republican power brokers not to serve up any cyanide next time.

In the last two weeks, one potential GOP presidential nominee, South Carolina’s Governor Sanford, squandered his options when his adulterous affair became public.  Then the 2008 GOP vice-presidential nominee, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, abruptly resigned. Some prognosticators speculate this move anticipates a presidential run.  Others say it kills her chances for 2012.

This is music to the jaded ears of GOP’s limousine-chasing lawyers, pundits and other hot shots who did the hard-selling for former Massachusetts’ Governor Willard Mitt Romney in ’08.   Ann Coulter, Laura Ingraham, Tony Perkins, Jay Sekulow, Hugh Hewitt, James Bopp and Bill Bennett continue to peddle the bizarre claim that Romney is our man for 2012.

Memo to the GOP:

We’re tired of the Kool-Aid. If you try again to force Willard Mitt Romney down our throats, or anyone remotely like him, we will gag and you will lose.  Again. Barry Sotero will continue his scorched earth war against everything that made America good and prosperous.

Conservatives will not turn out in large enough numbers to defeat Obama to vote for a Republican-branded liberal with no allegiance to the Constitution, no convictions about infanticide or defending natural marriage or the right of every child to a natural human family who lies brazenly and morphs into a “conservative” before elections.

Been there. Done that.   More than once.

Lurking behind Romney’s hundred million dollar propaganda machine is the brutal reality that on abortion, marriage, basic parents’ rights, sexual indoctrination of children, homosexual adoption, mandatory socialized health care, taxes and the economy, he did to Massachusetts much of the damage Barry Sotero has in mind for America.

Although Romney is peddled surrealistically as a man “whom pro-family voters could support” (Dr. James Dobson), “a friend to the pro-family movement” (failed former Dobson protégé Tony Perkins), and “manifestly our best candidate” in the GOP (Ann Coulter), his record brutally exposes him as a Barack Obama in a flimsy Reagan costume.

Purportedly “conservative” media like Human Events, National Review, Fox News and the nearly bankrupt Townhall.com/Salem Radio tirelessly concealed that as governor of Massachusetts Romney actually:

• Signed in a socialist healthcare plan endorsed by Hillary Clinton and Ted Kennedy that in the words of the Wall St. Journal is in “intensive care” whose costs are expected to more than double and which the Cato Institute and Boston Globe have said is a total failure.
• Pretending that a court opinion forced him to, established $50 abortions as a “healthcare benefit” in his socialist medical plan endorsed by Planned Parenthood (AFTER his purported “pro-life conversion”).
• Unconstitutionally established a permanent Planned Parenthood representative on the state health care board. (with no pro-life appointee)
• Under cover of the legally impotent Goodridge court opinion, fulfilled a secret 2002 campaign promise to homosexual “Log Cabin” Republicans by unconstitutionally bypassing the Legislature and imposing homosexual “marriage” in direct violation of the marriage laws.  Romney lied about the state Constitution which explicitly says the governor and judges have no such authority.
• Boosted government funding for pro-homosexuality indoctrination of schoolchildren.
• Refused throughout his entire time in office to enforce the statute guaranteeing parents’ right to protect their own children from such indoctrination.
• Cited a non-existent “law” to illegally and unconstitutionally force Catholic Charities to place foster and adoptive children with homosexuals or go out of business (which they ultimately did).  Former Gov. Mike Dukakis exposed this as a brazen lie.
• Over-ruled his own health commissioner to force Catholic Hospitals to administer abortion pills, claiming he was required to by law.  Former Gov. Mike Dukakis exposed this too as a lie.
• Opposes a ban on homosexual scoutmasters.
• Opposed the Bush Tax Cuts.
• Raised taxes and fees by over $900 million as governor which has destroyed the Massachusetts economy.

During the primaries in ’08 one of the authors of this article told conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly that she and other conservative “pro-family” leaders should unify behind an authentic conservative early on to make that candidate competitive with the cash-laden frontrunners, all of whom were liberals (Romney, McCain and Giuliani).  Schlafly answered that though she liked Duncan Hunter she would wait to see “how things shake out.”

Well we know how they “shook out.” And it aint pretty.  Serious scholars of the Constitution question whether the person sleeping in the White House and printing all the fake money is even legally the President and Commander-in Chief or just an ineligible person of alien birth whom the media slipped past the electorate.

GOP power brokers still stubbornly shilling for Romney would be wise to follow the lead of the late Paul Weyrich, a founder of the Reagan Revolution, who in February of ’08 told conservative leaders in a packed room at the Council for National Policy meeting in New Orleans: “endorsing Romney was the biggest mistake of  my life.”

To halt this country’s steep decline into a failed socialist system with an authoritarian reach and Orwellian government never experienced in America, Republicans must boldly and unequivocally break ranks with counterfeit conservatives such as Romney and unify behind authentic social and fiscal conservative candidates.   The clock is ticking.  There’s no time to waste.

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome.

Cyanide is cyanide.  We may be stupid but we’re not crazy.  Nominating Mitt Romney would bring the death of two-party democracy and a tragedy for America.

Romney=GOP RIP in 2012.

The audio is here at Real Clear Politics.

Obama “Not Familiar” With Key Provision In Health Care Bill:

(Bottom-left graphic credit: FreeRepublic)

RCP’s accompanying text:

In the additional audio that follows, Obama repeats the falsehood exposed in the Wall Street Journal today, which expanded further upon what IBD noted last week:

Let me just speak for, uh, the Obama Administration — I have committed myself consistently to a very simple proposition: If you have health insurance, and you like it, if you have a doctor that you like, then you can keep it. Period.  And I won’t, uh, sign a bill that somehow would make it tougher for people, uh, to keep their health insurance.

As WSJ said, and proved, “he’s wrong. Period.”

Then why is he pushing a bill that does exactly what he supposedly doesn’t want it to do, like it’s the last, most important thing he’ll ever do while he’s on this earth?

He’s self-evidently wrong in his characterization of the bill. If he were as “brilliant” as his supporters and the media have insisted all along that he is, he would know by now that he is wrong. But he isn’t “brilliant.”

That’s why he’s President ‘Prompter. TOTUS and its text preparers know more than POTUS.

Lucid Links:

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WSJ backs and reinforces IBD; those who gave TB/BB uninformed grief for this post can GPS (go pound sand) –

One by one, President Obama’s health-care promises are being exposed by the details of the actual legislation: Costs will explode, not fall; taxes will have to soar to pay for it; and now we are learning that you won’t be able to “keep your health-care plan” either.

….. The House bill says that after a five-year grace period all Erisa insurance offerings will have to win government approval—both by the Department of Labor and a new “health choices commissioner” who will set federal standards for what is an acceptable health plan. This commissar—er, commissioner—can fine employers that don’t comply and even has “suspension of enrollment” powers for plans that he or she has vetoed, until “satisfied that the basis for such determination has been corrected and is not likely to recur.”

In other words, the insurance coverage of 132 million people—the product of enormously complex business and health-care decisions—will now be subject to bureaucratic nanomanagement. If employers don’t meet some still-to-be-defined minimum package, they’ll have to renegotiate thousands of contracts nationwide to Washington’s specifications. The political incentives will of course demand an ever-more generous “minimum” benefit and less cost-sharing, much as many states have driven up prices in the individual insurance market with mandates. Erisa’s pluralistic structure will gradually constrict toward a single national standard.

…. So when Mr. Obama says that “If you like your health-care plan, you’ll be able to keep your health-care plan, period. No one will take it away, no matter what,” he’s wrong. Period. What he’s not telling the American people is that the government will so dramatically change the rules of the insurance market that employers will find it impossible to maintain their current coverage, and many will drop it altogether.

IOW — DOL and the HCC (Health Choices Commissioner) can arbitrarily declare existing employer health plans illegal.

WSJ shows that this POS (President Obama Stealth) is far worse than IBD imagined. As I said above, GPS.

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At yesterday’s Wall Street Journal, a predictably prescient prediction that the productive and producing will, in effect, “go Galt”:

(House Democrats) claim that this surtax would raise $544 billion in new revenue over 10 years. America’s millionaires aren’t that stupid; far fewer of them will pay these rates for very long, if at all. They will find ways to shelter income, either by investing differently or simply working less. Small businesses that pay at the individual rate will shift to pay the 35% corporate rate. When the revenue doesn’t materialize, Democrats will move to soak the middle class with a European-style value-added tax.

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The WSJ is OAR (on a roll) today. This excerpt is from an editorial about the former WTC:

It took eight years from the time John Kennedy declared we would go to the moon to the day an American landed on it, 40 years ago this week. It was also eight years ago this September that terrorists struck the World Trade Center, the site of which continues to be a hole in the ground and a national disgrace.

…. it is hard not to see in the contrast between the moon program and the failure to rebuild Ground Zero a warning about America’s national will.

Mark Steyn has observed that other countries have devolved into situations where its citizens’ highest priority is collection and perpetuation of welfare-state “entitlements.” This is an outlook that inevitably constricts opportunity and as it unfairly subsidizes and rewards mediocrity and sloth. If future generations’ well-being must be mortgaged to maintain sacrosanct, unsustainable benefit levels, so be it.

Of course, the welfare state also saps national will. The 40-year contrast the Journal cited tangibly demonstrates that we are heading dangerously in the wrong direction.

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Lickey-Split Links:

• PJM — “UK Crime Statistics Hit Record High.” Ah, the virtues of gun control.
• Erickson at RedState — “Judge Sotomayor Deliberately Lied.” Under oath.
• CPUSA says BHO is AOK , in a perfectly-titled piece called “Change Is Coming” (HT American Thinker).
• CNN — “White House misses deadline on spending cuts report.”
• IBD — “Czar 54, Where Are You?” Actually, Obama “only” has over 30. Critics who fretted that Bush 43 was consolidating too much power in the Executive Branch are predictably and hypocritically silent.
• IBD, which is also OAR (on a roll), in “Walter Cronkite Without Tears” — “After the eulogies, the fact remains that ‘the most trusted man in America’ betrayed that trust. He helped snatch defeat from the jaws of victory in Vietnam and tried hard to do the same in Iraq.” Of course he did. That’s why the Associated Press’s video report on his death cheerfully told us that “For most Americans he was the man to turn to on everything from the assassination of President Kennedy to what to think about the war in Vietnam.” IBD reminds us that “Cronkite’s analysis was almost pure fiction and dead wrong.”

Noel Sheppard mentioned this Associated Press story by Tom Raum yesterday at NewsBusters (Raum is tagged as the writer at this version of the report).

Noel characterized Raum’s report as suggesting that “the White House’s delay in releasing an update about the budget might be tied to the administration’s desire to get controversial bills on healthcare reform and cap and trade passed before Congress and Americans know just how large the deficit really is.” That’s because the delayed report would more than likely tell the nation that this year’s deficit is expected to be even bigger than expected (using proper cash-flow reporting, which I’ll get to), and future years’ projected deficits are even more likely to be unsustainably high.

Two important things were missing from Raum’s report. First, there was a total dearth of detail about how badly the current fiscal year that began on October 1 of last year has gone — most especially the last quarter. Second, Raum saved until near the end of his report a prediction by one of the wire service’s go-to “experts” — the first such prediction I’ve seen — that Gross Domestic Product will contract yet again in the third quarter.

Concerning the first problem, the AP reporter only had six dollar amounts in his entire report, quoted as follows:

(Fourth paragraph) The administration is pressing for votes before then on its $1 trillion health care initiative, which lawmakers are arguing over how to finance.

That’s old news, and as many, including the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) have noted, an incredibly squishy estimate.

(Seventh paragraph) Congress did pass a $787 billion two-year stimulus measure, yet unemployment soared to 9.5% in June and appears headed for double digits.

Again, old news.

(16th paragraph) The nation’s debt — the total of accumulated annual budget deficits — now stands at $11.6 trillion.

Zzzzz. Do you get the sense that someone is stalling?

(17th paragraph) The administration has projected that the annual deficit for the current budget year will hit $1.84 trillion, four times the size of last year’s deficit of $455 billion. Private forecasters suggest that shortfall may top $2 trillion.

That’s it. Every number Raum “revealed” is old. It’s as if there’s no data available on what has happened since the last White House estimate or the Congressional Budget Office’s last version that estimate far higher out-year shortfalls.

There’s plenty of information that would have helped Raum give readers more insight if he had cared to do a little looking.

Let’s start with receipts. The CBO and the White House, in the only number that both parties agree on (as seen at this PDF White House vs. CBO comparison), estimate that the fiscal year total will be $2.186 trillion.

Not a chance. Year-to-date receipts are only $1.589 trillion. Uncle Sam will have to take in $597 billion during the fourth fiscal quarter, which would be about 1.5% ahead of last year’s total (or about 1.5% behind it if you ignore last year’s $15 billion or so of stimulus payments).

That’s going to be a pretty mean trick, given how the second quarter of 2009 compared to the same quarter in 2008:

Even if you deducted 2008′s stimulus payments of about $78 billion from the second quarter 2008′s receipts total, 2009 still trailed 2008 by about 24%.

It’s not unreasonable to believe that the government’s take will be $50 – $100 billion lower in the fourth fiscal quarter; I’m leaning towards the higher end of that estimate, especially given the the first half of July looks just as bad as previous months.

As to outlays, the administration made that area nearly indecipherable back in April when it decided to retroactively adopt so-called “Net Present Value” accounting for the government’s “investments” in financial institutions, auto companies, parts suppliers, and others. Despite that adjustment, which arbitrarily reduced reported outlays by $175 billion, and continues to affect month-to-month reporting, outlays through nine months have been $2.675 trillion. The real number should be closer to $2.9 trillion. Combine the fact that the government seems destined to spend $300 billion or more a month on recurring programs with the administration’s perceived need to start disbursing a large chunk of that $787 billion in stimulus money as promised on top of that, and the government appears destined to drive total spending closer to the $4.018 billion CBO predicted than the $3.853 trillion the White House is clinging to (the March CBO comparison was done before the “Net Present Value” accounting change took place).

So pre-”Net Present Value” hocus pocus, the deficit looks to be about $1.9 trillion (about $2.1 tril in receipts minus $4.0 tril in outlays). Even with hocus pocus, which might be expected to take it down to $1.7 trillion or so, Treasury should be forced to write down its combined $70 billion-plus investments in Chrysler and GM to their realizable present values, which would cause “outlays” to increase by tens of millions.

Then there’s the “little” gem Raum saved the worst until not far from the very end specifically at Paragraph 23 of 27:

(Standard & Poor’s chief economist David) Wyss, like many other economists, says he expects the recession to last at least until September or October. “We’re looking for basically a zero second half (of 2009). And then sluggish recovery,” he said.

Well, isn’t that something — especially the “many other economists” part? That isn’t burying the lede; it’s dropping it into a 50-foot pit and filling it with reinforced concrete.

If Wyss and others are right, a negative third quarter of GDP will put an enormous amount of pressure on the fourth quarter to come in at a highly positive level if the Fed’s most recent predictions for full year growth, as reported here, are to occur.

The following charts show what would have to happen with and without Wyss’s recession continuation prediction for the third quarter:

The first quarter is actual; the second quarter’s annualized -1.8% is a consensus estimate as reported here. The first chart shows what second half growth would have to be to achieve the Fed’s most recent and previous best- and worst-case scenarios. The second chart shows what fourth quarter growth will have to be if the third quarter’s recession is the tiniest number possible.

If the second quarter consensus predictions hold when the actuals come out next week, and if Wyss and others are right about a recession continuation into the third quarter, the fourth quarter is going to have to go gangbusters to reach the Fed’s full-year estimates. It looks more likely that the economy is going to run out of calendar days of growth first.

It would be one thing if the government’s spending orgy was demonstrably turning the economy around, but it’s not. Thus, the prediction by Wyss and others that contradicts that claim is arguably more damaging to the administration that the fact that the deficit is going to be even larger than it was thought to be a few months ago. Perhaps that’s why Tom Raum and AP buried it so deeply.

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

Lucid Links:

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Forty years ago today, Apollo 11 landed on the moon, and Wapakoneta, Ohio native Neil Armstrong became the first man to walk on its surface:

This separate ABC video indicates that Armstrong hadn’t thought about what to say when setting foot on the moon until the moment was upon him.

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Commenter Jason S has a great sound bite and legislative suggestion at my Saturday Pajamas Media column now posted at BizzyBlog — “We have truth in lending, why not have truth in taxation?”

Indeed. There’s an APR (Annual Percentage Rate) required by Truth in Lending law. An Annualized Tax Increase (ATI) requirement might help make clear many of the points made at the column. Example: Increasing the top federal income tax rate from 35% to 46% would carry an ATI of 31% (11% rate increase divided by old rate of 35%). That reflects the true monetary hit on those affected.

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From Georgia’s Secretary of State (HT Gregg Jackson in an e-mail) — It’s clear that the Obama administration wants to bring Chicago-style election non-integrity to the rest of the nation:

Obama Justice Department Decision Will Allow Non-Citizens to Register to Vote in Georgia
Decision Bars Georgia From Continuing Voter Verification Process

Atlanta – “The decision by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) to deny preclearance of Georgia’s already implemented citizenship verification process shows a shocking disregard for the integrity of our elections. With this decision, DOJ has now barred Georgia from continuing the citizenship verification program that DOJ lawyers helped to craft. DOJ’s decision also nullifies the orders of two federal courts directing Georgia to implement the procedure for the 2008 general election. The decision comes seven months after Georgia requested an expedited review of the preclearance submission.”

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At the right is the Associated Press’s “Today in History Highlight” for July 18.

Readers can peruse this linked detail (which, other than having an unacceptable title, does a very good job of cataloging what happened) of the events of that night and what followed to decide if the above rendering adequately describes what occurred. Helpful alternative entries for the AP to consider in future years are welcome.

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Chappaquiddick-related — This sentence from a Boston Globe retrospective on Kennedy’s career, apparently delivered by Ted mere hours after Mary Jo Kopechne died, says it all about what this man is and always has been all about — “Kennedy’s future loomed, suddenly uncertain. ‘What am I going to do, what can I do?’ Kennedy asked.”

Also, On TIB Radio this past Saturday (open up the Live Blog at the link), Matt Hurley assembled an impressive set of links, and yours truly opined that the enduring significance of Chappaquiddick is that it taught ambitious politicians, especially liberals and leftists, that the press and the public would let them survive the unforgivable. Surely, a certain Arkansas college student was paying attention. Check out the post-7/18/69 portion of the timeline surrounding Bill Clinton’s draft-dodging.

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Lickey-Split Links:

• WorldNetDaily — “Lib talker, Lou Dobbs now asking eligibility questions.”
• Right Side of Life — “Talk Shows, Press Begin Covering (Obama) Eligibility.”
• NYC talker Steve Malzberg of WABC spoke out on the eligibility matter on July 15. Personally, I think that either the concerns being raised are valid — or that this is the Mother Of All Sucker-Punches, in which case the full release of proof, if ever deemed necessary, will be delivered when the crescendo hits its db peak to maximize embarrassment. I wish I knew which one it is.
• Guess who paid for the Michael Jackson memorial concert — and cheerfully?
• At the Wall Street Journal (“What’s Up, Docs?”) — “The AMA signs its members up to be civil servants.”

Because of Congress’s proposed health care “surtax,” now is the perfect time.

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Note: This was posted at Pajamas Media and teased here at BizzyBlog on Saturday.

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Imagine, if you can — and given the likely results if cap and trade legislation recently passed by the House ever makes it into law, you don’t have to imagine very hard — that after paying $500 a month for utilities, your household is slapped with an increase that will cause your monthly bills to go up to $750.

How much have your costs increased? That’s obviously not a trick question; the answer is 50%.

But that’s not the language of taxation. That needs to change.

The current government spin applied to the above situation would go something like this: “Well, since your income is $5,000 per month, and your utility bills are increasing from 10% of your income ($500 divided by $5,000) to 15% of your income ($750 divided by $5,000), your utility rate is only going up 5% (15% minus 10%).”

If your neighbor tried to console you with such language and said, “What’s the big problem here?”, you’d be tempted to deck him, or even her (but being a sensible person, you’d resist) — especially because (and I’ll get to this later) such an increase would force you to cut your discretionary spending by way more than 5%. Yet we let politicians get away with taxation verbiage like this all the time. This serves to make their seemingly endless designs on the contents of our wallets appear more palatable than they should.

The last time I recall a real pushback against this mathematical chicanery was in Ohio during the early 1980s. Helped along by political clumsiness, the blowback was effective enough that it should have been considered  a model for future anti-tax efforts. Instead, it has mostly fallen into the dustbin of history.

But to measure the tactic’s effectiveness, all you have to do is ask almost any news-following longtime Buckeye State resident older than 50, “Who raised Ohio’s income tax by 90%?” The overwhelming odds are that they will answer, “Oh, that was Dick Celeste.”

Now of course Celeste didn’t take 90% of Ohioans’ income (though, given his far-left political positions, he may at some point have been tempted). Also, nobody ever said he was the brightest tactician. In 1983, shortly after winning office, Celeste, with the help of a slim majority of Democrats in the Ohio Senate, imposed a “temporary tax rate surcharge (that was) increased to 83.3% in 1983 and to 90% in 1984 and made permanent.”

Celeste and the Democrats protested that 50% of that 90% was “only” a continuation of a “temporary” tax passed by the previous administration, and that the other 40% was “only” a rate hike of a couple of percentage points.

The complaints fell flat. Everyone in the state knew that what the Democrats had imposed was a permanent tax increase of 90%. Because it was applied across the board to all rate brackets (that was the clumsiness, partially inherited from clumsy Republicans), even those who supported it had a hard time not speaking of the truly correct 90% increase.

William Hershey of the Dayton Daily News, who seems more than a little bitter, recalled last month that:

Democrats controlled the Senate by just one vote, 17-16. All 17 voted for Democratic Gov. Dick Celeste’s so-called “90 percent tax hike” – a renewal of a temporary income tax increase plus an increase. None of the Republicans voted for it.

Senate Republicans used the tax issue to grab control of the Senate in the 1984 elections and have maintained that majority for 25 years. The way the Republicans told the story, every Democratic senator who voted for the tax increase and was up for re-election cast the 17th and decisive vote.

“It destroyed us,” (former Senate Democratic leader Harry) Meshel recalled.

The tax changes proposed by Congress to fund its statist designs on health care represent a clarion call to resurrect the just-described language.

Though the draft bill has been released, it’s clear that the legislation will go through the usual sausage grinding. So for simplicity’s sake, I’m going to use these core elements of what House leaders want as the Wall Street Journal understood them on Monday:

• An 8% payroll tax surcharge (you read that right), “that would apply to all firms with 25 or more workers that don’t offer health insurance to their employees.”
• (if nothing is done about them, and the President sticks to his oft-repeated campaign promise) Increasing federal income tax rates to their level before the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 for those earning above about $250,000.
• Beyond said restoration, an income tax surcharge of up to 5.4%.

Since the tax-and-spenders are more clever, it’s not easy to frame these rate increases as tax increases. But it can be done, and I will do it.

Let’s take someone who would be subject to all of the taxes noted above; there are plenty of small businesses whose owners pay themselves well but who, for various reasons (which, frankly, should be none of our business), don’t offer their employees health insurance. Using rates currently in effect and the proposed rates as calculated by the Journal, this would be the before and after picture for such business owners in Ohio who are considering withdrawing additional salary:

Now you see how really devastating the House’s proposal is:

• The tax increase isn’t the rate change of 11%, it’s the increase in the rate, which is 31%. The House surtax proposal and the return to the rates in effect before Bush’s tax cuts will cause affected persons to pay $46 out of every $100 they try to pay themselves. That’s 31% more, and it’s not arguable.
• Properly stated, the marginal payroll rate the affected persons will pay, which would increase from 2.9% to 10.9%, represents a whopping, inarguable 276% tax increase.
• The affected persons’ marginal federal tax rate will increase by 50%. Beyond that, out of every additional $100 paid, they will only get to keep $43.10 instead of $62.10. Thus, they will have 31% less with which to pay state and city income taxes (coming up), other taxes not listed such as property taxes, and their personal and family bills.
• When combined with Ohio’s already-existing state and municipal income taxes (the big city rate is the average found in Ohio’s largest cities), the affected person’s marginal rate goes from its current 46% to a truly confiscatory 65%. That’s a 41% tax increase. At that level, it leaves affected persons with a stunning 35% less money to pay other taxes not listed, and their personal and family bills.

In sum, Congress wants to make a very small percentage of people pay roughly 50% more to the federal government than they do currently, and, depending on their state of residence, to take about one-third of what they currently live on — all to fund other peoples’ health care.

Now that is an opposition message that would, I believe, go a long way towards stopping this utter nonsense dead in its tracks.