Rush mentioned this on the air as his show opened.

It comes from the Associated Press, in a later paragraph of an Obama cheerleading item (“Obama pitches health plan in spirited appearance”; AP picture at right is from that story) by Julie Pace and David Espo.

The paragraph in question opens by giving readers the impression that either Pace, Espo, or another AP person has actually seen language in whatever iteration of ObamaCare happens to be floating around House chambers these days. But then it backs down and says it’s only “described by a Democratic aide,” meaning that the wire service is willingly serving as a trial-balloon enabler:

In a new change sought by House Democrats, the fix-it bill would require businesses to count part-time workers when calculating penalties for failing to provide health coverage for employees. Smaller businesses would be exempt. The Senate bill would count only full-time workers in applying the penalties, but under the change, described by a Democratic aide, two part-time workers would count as one full-time worker. Businesses say that’s unduly burdensome, but Democrats contend it would prevent businesses from avoiding penalties by hiring more workers part-time.

A graphic of the paragraph in question, in case it’s revised, is here.

This would serve to penalize businesses that rely almost entirely on part-time or seasonal help. Just a few examples: amusement parks, fast-food operations, much of retail, and call centers. These businesses would have to pay a tax for not offering health care coverage to employees who are not and never have been eligible for full-blown company-provided benefits.

This is beyond bizarre. It’s as if there’s something wrong with having employees who have of their own free will committed to not working 40 hours a week.

As to the expected business reaction of going to more part-timers in the absence of such a provision — My gut reaction is that this idea would destroy hundreds of thousands of jobs and and thousands of businesses and more than a few industries in one fell swoop, meaning that there would be few businesses of any kind to worry about, period. It’s almost as if they want to accomplish just that.

I’m sure commenters will have other insights based on their understanding of the circumstances of other businesses.

Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.

Read more: http://newsbusters.org/node/37025/edit#ixzz0hkJ5tbSc

Eric Massa (HT QandO) let it rip on a radio show yesterday –

“Never before in the history of the House of Representatives has a sitting leader of the Democratic Party discussed allegations of House investigations publicly, before findings of fact. Ever.”

“I was set up for this from the very, very beginning,” he added. “The leadership of the Democratic Party have become exactly what they said they were running against.”

That last assertion is a bit of an understatement. As bad as it was (see somewhat-related next item), what they were running against was never as bad as what the Democratic Party has become.

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Rasmussen’s report on the Ohio U.S. Senate race shows no change, with Rob Portman leading Fisher and Brunner by 5 and 6 pointzzzz … zzzz … zzzz …

… Oh, I’m sorry. You can tell I’m really not excited about the race.

I’m not excited for the same reason the Tea Partiers aren’t excited (HT Right Ohio):

For years, Rep. Roy Blunt and former Rep. Rob Portman touted their positions of influence in Republican leadership circles in Washington, D.C.

But now both are running for Senate seats and discovering their Washington résumés to be something of a liability at a time when the Tea Party and disaffected fiscal conservatives have new political power.

… While Blunt has reached out to Tea Party activists, Portman has kept them at arm’s length so far.

… Portman has been more aloof, according to Tea Party organizers in Ohio.

“He has not reached out to our group,” said Rob Scott, founder and president of the Dayton Tea Party.

There are few things that hack me off more than a politician, especially one with no track record for over two years (who’s been paying you, pal?), two mediocre one-year stints in government positions, and a mediocre record of fiscal responsibility as a congressperson, assuming that he or she has a presumptive lock on my vote, and that he doesn’t have to earn it.

Portman doesn’t understand that much of his record shows that he’s part of the problem, not part of solving it. To be sure (paraphrasing Glenn Beck), he’s not about riding the rocket ship to ruin, as the current administration is, but, again based on his track record and his associations, he doesn’t seem to mind if we get eventually get there on a slow train — especially if he ends up financially comfy as a side-effect.

Earth to Rob Portman: You haven’t made the sale. You don’t even seem like you’re trying to make the sale. You almost seem to think that you’ve already made the sale. I repeat: You haven’t. You’re saying, “Vote for me, vote for me, I’m an ‘R’ and not a ‘D.’” That doesn’t cut it, pal. You will not get my vote, or the votes of many of the folks in the Tea Party movement, until you get off your high horse, engage the electorate, and tell us what you’ll do to help return us to Constitution-based governance.

I should add that Portman’s implicit assumption that the sensible conservatives and center-righters who make up a large majority of Ohio’s potential electorate have nowhere else to go may be incorrect.

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Watch this video snip of Dan Rather with Chris Matthews captured on EyeBlast TV.

If you’re pressed for time or have trouble with the vid, here is what Rather said about our (in reality, not-white, not-black) president:

Listen he’s a nice person, he’s very articulate …. but he couldn’t sell watermelons if it, you gave him the state troopers to flag down the traffic.

If you see the vid, note how Matthews tries to talk over Rather to save him from himself.

No Republican or conservative on earth could get away with saying this. It’s a safe prediction that the establishment media will ignore it.

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In a Wall Street Journal editorial (“Iraq’s Remarkable Election”) this morning:

It takes a cynical mind not to share in the achievement of Iraq’s national elections. Bombs and missiles, al Qaeda threats and war fatigue failed to deter millions of Iraqis of all sects and regions from exercising a right that is rare in the Arab world. Even the U.N.’s man in Baghdad called the vote “a triumph.”

… President Obama deserves credit for resisting his own calls in 2008 for a quick American withdrawal. U.S. forces are considered by all sides to be honest brokers and guarantors of stability. So it was unfortunate to hear Mr. Obama, with the polls barely closed and no votes counted, promptly declare the election makes it possible that “by the end of next year, all U.S. troops will be out of Iraq.”

… We heard for years that toppling Saddam Hussein was a mistake because it empowered Iran. Now that Iraq is emerging as a unified democracy, the government in Baghdad can be a counterweight to Iran without the brutality and threat to the region that Saddam represented. Even as the number of U.S. troops declines, a sustained U.S. commitment will serve Iraq, the larger Middle East and American strategic interests.

Obama would get more credit from me if he called Iraq what it is: a victory. After all, it’s been one for at least 15 months.

From Ann Arbor, Michigan:

Mar 9, 2010 / 06:51 am

In February, the Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist made an appearance on the Oprah Winfrey Show. Since then, almost all the feedback the sisters have received has been overwhelmingly positive the sister’s mission director told CNA/EWTN.

During their appearance, the sisters fielded questions regarding their vocation and discernment, their vows of poverty and chastity, and their life in community. “I think the main excitement for the sisters comes from the fact that we are glad to have had the chance to tell our story in such a positive, balanced manner to such a large audience,” Sister Maria Guadalupe, Director of Mission Advancement for the sisters, told CNA/EWTN.

“One of the sisters here put it really well when she said that the focus of the show really seemed to about ‘who we are’ rather than ‘what we do,’” she added. “We are really pleased with this, because although it seems like a very small distinction, it’s really quite important.”

On the show, “many of the sisters spoke about experiencing a desire for something more, and I would say that it is our identity as religious (brides of Christ, which Oprah found so fascinating) that fulfills us more than our activity – again, the primacy of ‘being’ over ‘doing,’” Sister Maria Guadalupe explained.

Since the show aired, the sisters have received positive feedback from all sides. Sister Maria Guadalupe reported that while traveling by plane, a flight attendant asked her if she had seen the “nuns” on Oprah. The question presented an opportunity for a lengthy conversation which proved edifying for those around them as well. She said that other sisters have also been approached about the show in gas stations, grocery stores, or on campus. …

Go here for the rest of the story.

This past weekend, former Ohio State and retired professional football star Chris Spielman spoke at an Ohio Right to Life event that featured Sarah Palin.

Just watch (HT Right Ohio):

If leftists are so smart, why are we so broke?

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Note: What follows originally appeared at Pajamas Media under the title “Should the ‘Smarties’ Really Be Put in Charge of Health Care?” and was teased here at BizzyBlog on Saturday.

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In a delicious coincidence, another supposedly scientific study telling us that liberals and atheists are more intelligent than everyone else appeared during a weekend when two dreadful reports on the tangible results of their supposedly superior circuitry arrived.

I’ll leave detailed critiques of the study to others, but you’ll have to excuse me for suspecting that its conclusions were reached using the same degree of experimental rigor and attention to detail last seen in attempts to “prove” that human activity causes global warming.

The Treasury Department delivered most of the evidence of the wonders done for us, or I should say to us, during the past 75 years by those higher beings on the left known as liberals, leftists, and “progressives” on Friday. It came in the form of the “2009 Financial Report of the United States Government,” a 254-page, 2.4 megabyte behemoth which tells us where the nation stood financially on September 30 of last year in painstaking detail — with a heavy emphasis on the pain.

The report’s Table 1 (seen at right) lays out Uncle Sam’s balance sheet, but also has two big line items near its bottom, under the category called “Social Insurance Net Expenditures.” These really represent taxpayers’ obligations to future government entitlement program beneficiaries. The first listing, amounting to $7.677 trillion, is Social Security.

Following much of the model pioneering smarties like Bismarck had initiated in Europe, that quintessential smarty Franklin Delano Roosevelt got his rubber-stamp congress to pass the Social Security Act in 1935, primarily as an old-age retirement plan. Its early cost  of 1% of the first $3,000 of individual earnings, plus a matching amount paid by employers, was modest enough, while early Social Security Administration publications promised workers and employers that their taxes would never increase.

Oops. The program’s subsequent history is one of continually increasing tax rates and taxable amounts, while the roster of those forced to make “contributions” has grown to include the self-employed and many others. In 2010, employers and employees must each pay 6.2% of the employee’s first $106,800 of earnings into the system. The maximum amount a person and his employer might pay of $13,243 (12.4% x $106,800) is over 220 times the program’s initial price tag of $60 (2% x $3,000).

Yet the reported $7.677 trillion liability shows that it’s still nowhere near enough to meet future promises, primarily because:

• FDR and his smarties didn’t build the improved life expectancy of future generations into the program. If they had, today’s normal retirement age would be somewhere between 70 and 75, instead of its current 66-67, depending on one’s year of birth.
• The method of indexing chosen in the mid-1970s has caused benefits to go up faster than the real living standards of everyone else, and has subtly changed the program’s perceived purpose from preventing destitution to providing the means to ensure a lower middle-class lifestyle.
• The smarties also didn’t anticipate lower birth rates that were already occurring, and which were then dampened even further almost 40 years later by legalized abortion. As a result, at the end of 2008 there were less than 2.6 employed workers for each Social Security beneficiary (143.3 million divided by 55.8 million). (Update: The job losses of the past two years and the accompanying wave of retirements to collect Social Security benefits have taken that ratio to below 2.4.)
• Additionally, as shown in several previous columns (one is here), the so-called Social Security “Trust Fund” has been wantonly raided for the past 40 years and used to pay for the government’s everyday operations. The “Trust Fund” contains virtually nothing except $2-plus trillion in IOUs from the rest of the government, which is itself trillions of dollars in debt.

Because of all of this, even the astronomical taxes noted earlier have been less than benefits paid for most of the past year — and it’s going to get worse. The crisis that supposedly didn’t exist in 2005 is here. Thanks, smarties.

As bad as Social Security is, the $38.1 trillion future obligation for Medicare, a mid-1960s creation of the oh-so-brilliant, is almost five times worse. Besides having most of the design flaws just noted, the program has consistently driven up medical costs faster than inflation and is riddled with roughly $60 billion a year in fraud, a double-digit percentage of the program’s 2008 cost of $468 billion.

As a reward for its 45 years of miserable Medicare management, the government’s smarties now want to control the entire health care system. Besides the myriad moral reasons why this cannot be allowed, there’s a more practical one, which arrived with full force in the other bit of weekend news, when we learned that our supposed betters have already committed to spending what they think they have available for statist health care on covering their screw-ups in housing and mortgage lending.

After the markets closed on Friday, February 26, former “government-sponsored enterprise” Fannie Mae, which is now a ward of the state, announced that it lost over $74 billion in 2009. Combined with the $26 billion loss at Fannie’s kissing cousin Freddie Mac, that’s $100 billion down the drain in just a year. There’s no real end in sight to the government’s open-ended financial commitment to these two zombies. The ultimate price tag could top $1 trillion; one congressman thinks it’s more like $5 trillion. What’s more, the commitments to Fan and Fred aren’t included in the Financial Report above.

No one who can add two plus two can possibly think there is any real money available to pay for state-run health care, and nobody familiar with the smarties’ track record can possibly believe their breezy claims of cost savings. Instead, regardless of intentions, we will inevitably see draconian cuts in the quality of care, serious rationing, and Zeke Emanuel-like death panels.

At some point, you have to ask yourself, “If they’re so smart, why are we so broke?” It’s hard not to believe that the real answer to the question is, ”Because they want us to be.”

From the “Be Careful What You Wish For” Dept. — The apparently well-orchestrated hatchet job done on Toyota in advance of and during congressional hearings did not hurt the company’s February sales as badly as analysts predicted.

But just to make sure, Toyota is making a move just about every other maker has employed frequently but which I don’t think the Japanese company has ever done before — 0% financing for 60 months. In other words, the company is upping the competitive ante.

Megan McArdle thinks this is an act of desperation. I think it’s more like playing possum.

Unless the government and the press figure out a way to up the anti-Toyota ante even further, I think that its March sales will bounce back to about where they were before its recall issues hit, and that a certain pair of formerly proud automakers that are now wards of the state will be the ones most severely hurt by the resurgence. If I’m right, it couldn’t happen to a more deserving bunch.

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Do you realize how desperate Eleanor Clift of Newsweek had to be to find something, anything from 1994 to point to as a “success” of the Clinton administration’s first two years? After what had to be hours of futility, she “found” it (HT to WoMD’s Mark during a break in Saturday’s stellar broadcast) in the 1994 crime bill, known for its attempt to up 100,000 additional cops on the streets (which didn’t happen; the money was used largely to ease tight municipal budgets) and its “midnight basketball.”

Clift claims that the crime bill was a short-term liability that contributed to the Democrats loss of their Congressional majorities in the 1994 elections, but that it was a long-term success.

Actually, it was at least 10th on the Democrat-sourced list of reasons to boot out the party in power, after the following: income tax increases, Medicare tax increases, increased taxation of Social Security benefits, the thankfully stopped HillaryCare, the administration’s clear and visible hostility to the military, the Whitewater corruption, Troopergate, the House Bank hangover, and Dan Rostenkowski’s unique brand of corruption. But the best reason for the House and Senate takeovers was the clearly defined agenda contained in the Newt Gingrich’s Contract With America.

Clift’s claim that the crime bill was a long-term success is attested to by the fact that in Ohio by the late 1990s, I could walk down any street in Akron, Canton, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, Dayton, Toledo, or Youngstown and have absolutely no legitimate worries about my personal safety. Uh-huh.

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ISM catch-up — Last week’s news from the Institute for Supply Management was pretty good. ISM’s Manufacturing Index for February fell a bit from January’s 58.4 to 56.5, but it was still significantly expansionary (anything over 50% indicates that). The index’s employment component indicated that employment was increasing, and at a faster rate.

More important, since it’s about 85% of the economy, the group’s Non-Manufacturing Index moved more solidly into expansion, rising to 53.0 from January’s 50.5 — and though its employment index was still in contraction, it moved much closer to break-even.

Reports such as these out of ISM would ordinarily be advance indicators of increased full-time employment. Whether they will be depends on whether the recent spikes in temporary employment are intended to go lead to additional hiring at client companies, or are instead indications that companies are doing everything they possibly can to avoid adding to their own full-time payrolls in what the Wall Street Journal has called the Uncertainty Economy, and what yours truly has been calling the POR (Pelosi-Obama-Reid) Economy since June of 2008.

I believe it’s much more the latter than the former. At least around here, people tell me that the temp agencies have almost exclusively temporary positions, and precious few temp-to-perms.

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Darn, I was soooooo looking forward to ripping into the ethically challenged outrageous quote machine known as Pete Stark as he took over the reins of the House Ways and Means Committee from the ethically challenged outrageous quote machine known as Charlie Rangel.

Alas, Stark was a bridge too far for Democrats, who uncharacteristically recognized bigtime trouble ahead of time.

Stark got some attention here at BizzyBlog in October 2007 (third item at link) when he claimed on the House floor that the country was sending troops to Iraq so they could “get their heads blown off for the president’s amusement.” That was so over the top that Stark was forced into a tearful apology several days later.

It looks like there may be fun to be had with Sander Levin, the person who will assume the Ways and Means chair, based on this Roll Call item:

Newly anointed House Ways and Means Chairman Sander Levin (D-Mich.) repaid a Maryland property-tax credit Friday that he should not have received, his office confirmed.

Levin, who owns a home in Chevy Chase, Md., received a $690 credit on his most recent property tax bill, the result of Montgomery County program that provided one-time credits to residential property owners in the 2009-10 tax year.

Consider the possibility that Levin might the least corrupt guy the Dems could find.

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Following up on its related report several months ago, USA Today put out an apples-to-apples comparison (HT Hot Air) of federal pay vs. private sector pay for specific job categories.

The difference in pay, averaging a non-weighted 13% and having a median of 20%, is bad enough. The difference in benefits — $40,975 federal (that’s not a misprint) vs. $9,082 in the private sector — is outrageous. I suspect that most of the difference is in employer-provided health care (usually free or almost free to Uncle Sam’s workers) and retirement benefits.

That level of fringe benefits is not sustainable. If federal worker fringes were cut in half, they would still be twice as generous as he private sector and taxpayers would save $55.3 billion (2.7 million federal employees times $20,487).

Does anyone think SEIU head Andy Stern and President Obama’s deficit reduction commission will take a serious look at this?

From Jackson, Mississippi (HT Catholic News Agency):

02/26/10

Father Benjamín Piovan, pastor of St. Michael Parish in Saltillo, Mexico, came to Mississippi recently to talk with Bishop Joseph Latino about a movement among the people of Saltillo to have Father Patrick Quinn declared a saint.

Father Quinn, 66, died of a heart attack in Saltillo on Jan. 9, 1997. He had been pastor of Our Lady of Perpetual Help Parish since January 1969.

Bishop Latino said Father Piovan asked his approval to print a prayer card asking God to eventually declare Father Quinn a saint.

The bishop told Father Piovan he doesn’t have any problem encouraging the people of the Diocese of Jackson to pray to Father Quinn. But, Bishop Latino said, according to Canon Law seeking sainthood for an individual is requested by the local ordinary, the bishop of the Diocese of Saltillo, José Raul Vera López.

Father Piovan also informed Bishop Latino of documentation he has obtained about a miracle attributed to Father Quinn.

On Nov. 21, 2009, the Diocese of Saltillo celebrated a Mass to observe the 40th anniversary of the coming of Father Quinn to Saltillo. During Mass, Bishop Francisco Villalobos, who was the Bishop of Saltillo during Father Quinn’s years in Saltillo, spoke about the sanctity of Father Quinn.

And this year, on Jan. 7, Father Piovan celebrated a Mass at St. Michael Church in Saltillo to mark the 13th anniversary of Father Quinn’s death. During Mass, several people gave testimonies about cures they credited to his intersession.

The grounds where the Diocese of Saltillo plans to build a new St. Michael Church in memory of Father Quinn were blessed the same day. An altar in the church, that will have a capacity to seat 400 people, will be dedicated in Father Quinn’s honor. This altar will contain the names of all those who contribute to the construction of the new church. …

Go here for the rest of the story.

It’s bad enough that the Obama administration (“Obama administration encouraged by steady unemployment rate”) and Harry Reid (see video snippet at link) both tried to pretend that February’s Employment Situation Report issued by Uncle Sam’s Bureau of Labor Statistics, which showed that the official unemployment rate was the same as January’s 9.7% and that 36,000 seasonally adjusted jobs had been lost, was somehow a reason to be upbeat.

As many have pointed out for months, the expanded version of the unemployment rate has been well above 15% for quite a long time, and it at least occasionally gets referenced in media reports and political pronouncements.

But on the jobs added/lost front, what the press, pundits, and even opposition politicians are continuing to ignore is the key information that leads to the “seasonally adjusted” figure on which everyone seems to fixate — to the point where it’s not unreasonable to believe that almost everyone in America believes that 36,000 jobs lost is what really occurred during the month.

It isn’t. Acknowledging that, and seeing what really did happen, is key to understanding that February’s result really reflected a significant deterioration in the employment situation, not an improvement.

Here are the charts for 2004 through February 2010, first for not seasonally adjusted (NSA) jobs, followed by seasonally adjusted jobs:

The NSA table tells us that the government’s best estimate of what really happened in February is that the economy added 473,000 jobs. Absent any other data, that would seem to be acceptable. But when you look at data for previous years, you can quickly tell that it’s not.

Excluding February 2009, when the economy was in free-fall, February 2010′s +473,000 is the worst performance listed above. The average for 2004-2008 is +714,000, or 241,000 jobs better. In February 2008, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research, the country was supposedly in the third month of a recession (even though economic growth overall was positive). Why should we be impressed that February 2010′s economy couldn’t even match that?

Beyond that, February’s performance represented a decay from January’s. January is a month when many Christmas seasonal employees get let go. The average job loss for January 2004-2008 of 2,770,000 was only 72,000 better than January revised 2010 number of -2,842,000. Thus, February 2010 was 169,000 jobs worse than January (241,000 vs. 72,000).

This is something to get excited about?

That leaves one mystery, which is this: Why was February 2010′s SA loss of 36,000 an improvement over 2008′s SA loss of 50,000? One would think that February 2010 should have come in worse. The answer is that 2009 was so bad, that it’s distorting the SA calculation — to the point where it’s really not as reliable an indicator of what is going on as it normally would be in a more predictable situation. Additionally, BLS tells me that while it takes the previous five years into account, the more recent years carry more weight in the calculation of the final SA number than the least recent years.

These are things that establishment media business reporters should know. If they don’t, they should either get a quick catch-up course or find another line of work. Media outlets, especially the wire services, should be adjusting their routine jobs reports to tell us the kinds of things this post has revealed.

It’s not that tough. Why won’t they?

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

The first week of March has seen several variations on the theme, and can be seen at the NewsBusters posts, from which I have also excerpted key sentences to indicate that what is involved in each case is far from trifling:

• March 1 — “AP Fails to ID White Plains Mayor Accused in DV Case as a Dem, Gives Impression He May Be GOP”
  

  White Plains, New York Mayor Adam Bradley “turned himself in to police headquarters … (Sunday) morning after his wife filed a complaint with police that he jammed her finger in a door around 9:30 a.m. Bradley was then arraigned on a third-degree misdemeanor assault charge at White Plains City Court.”

• March 4 — “Over 100 Media Outlets Fail to Tag Racine, Wis. Mayor As a Democrat Upon Sentencing”
  

  Former Racine, Wisconsin mayor Gary Becker, a Democrat, was sentenced Wednesday to three years in prison for child enticement and attempted sexual assault of a child.

  Money quote from the AP article — “Judge Stephen Simanek said he was prepared to sentence Becker to probation but was alarmed to discover Becker purchased girls’ underwear two weeks ago.”

• March 7 — “In Birmingham, Ala. Democratic Mayor’s Sentencing for 60 Felonies, Reuters Gets It Right, AP Avoids”
  

  Former Birmingham, Alabama mayor Larry Langford, who is a Democrat, was sentenced to 15 years in prison on Friday for bribery.

  The county in which Birmingham is located may have to declare bankruptcy largely as a result of Langford’s actions.

And the crime and corruption beat goes on ….. ’round and ’round and ’round we go:

From Madrid, Spain:

Mar 3, 2010 / 03:07 pm

What is the potential of an unborn child who is given a chance at life? One Spanish pro-life organization has answered this question in a television commercial featuring both Mother Teresa and Jamaican Olympian Usain Bolt.

The commercial also promotes the upcoming pro-life rallies in Spain which will be held March 7 to give citizens the opportunity to voice their opposition to the government’s new abortion law.

“At 3,312 weeks she will help those most in need,” the spot says, showing an image of Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta. “At 1,056 he will be the fastest,” it continues, with a photo of Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt.

Titled, “Give Life Potential,” the video was produced by Francisco Javier Jimenez Rivero, media director for the pro-life website HazteOir.org. …

Go here for the rest of the story. Here’s the video, with English subtitles (direct YouTube link):

We will be interviewing Sandy O’Brien, candidate for Ohio Secretary of State, during the 8 o’clock hour.

The link is here.

It’s here.

It will appear on Monday morning here at BizzyBlog (link won’t work until then) after the blackout expires under the column title I submitted — “Ruining a Country for Smarties.”

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Left on the cutting room floor:

The column noted the status of Social Security’s demographic time bomb a little over a year ago:

… at the end of 2008 there were less than 2.6 employed workers for each Social Security beneficiary (143.3 million divided by 55.8 million).

Extended another decimal point, the worker-to-beneficiary ratio was 2.56.

That was only halfway into the recession As Normal People Define It, which began in the third quarter of 2008 and endured until the second quarter of 2009.

As of January of this year, the ratio is now below 2.4:

• The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimated that we were down to 138.3 million workers in January.
• Meanwhile, ” the POR (Pelosi-Obama-Reid) Economy has caused a spike in the number of Americans putting in applications for benefits. A Forbes columnist reported that in fiscal 2009, ended Sept. 30, new applications for benefits increased by 22% to nearly 2.6 million (vs. an anticipated 15% increase).” Social Security’s web site tells us that there were 57.78 million beneficiaries at the end of January.
• 138.3 divided by 57.78 is 2.39.

That’s a really serious decay of 6.6% (.17 reduction in the ratio divided by 2.56) in the demographic imbalance in barely more than a year.

That ratio will continue to decline for at least another year. The administration’s prediction (overoptimistic, based on what’s really happening) of about 1.14 million new jobs (i.e., 95,000 a month) may not even offset the increase in the number of new Social Security beneficiaries.

This is unsustainable. (Thanks, smarties.)

As is Medicare. (Thanks again, guys and gals.)

As are Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. (Y’know, the mortgage business wasn’t that tough until y’all trashed it.)

As ObamaCare will be — which is why it must be stopped.