… in a paragraph posted here:

Dave’s opponent is a member of the state legislature, the very place responsible for the out-of-control spending of Columbus. With tax day upon us, let’s rise up and say “no more!”. Let’s get to work fixing the mess in Columbus and holding government officials accountable.

This excerpt is from the Seth Morgan campaign’s response (currently at the top of Morgan’s blog; also noted at Weapons of Mass Discussion and Right Ohio):

Seth Morgan defends his legislative record from his opponent’s nonsensical attack

“This attack on Seth Morgan, all Republican members of the Ohio House, including Treasurer Candidate Josh Mandel, as being responsible for the out-of-control spending in Columbus is nonsensical, reckless and is inaccurate,” said Rob Scott, Communications Director for Friends of Seth Morgan.

Seth Morgan, was handpicked by one of the most respected conservative leaders around Ohio, Minority Leader William Batchelder, to serve as the House Republican Caucus’ Policy Committee. Morgan has been one of the most aggressive and outspoken members of the Ohio Legislature, leading the charge on holding Columbus accountable and implementing conservative ideals.

On Nov. 17, 2009, Ohio House Republican Policy Committee Chairman, Seth Morgan, CPA along with his colleagues, unveiled a package of ten proposals to spur government reform, streamline efficiency, and strengthen accountability and transparency in state government, while working to reduce the economic turmoil suffered by families across Ohio.

“Yost is clearly uneducated about Seth Morgan, House Minority Leader Bill Batchelder, Treasurer-candidate Josh Mandel, Ron Maag, John Adams, and other members who are fighting to cut spending in the state budget,” said Scott.

Contained in the proposals are plans to reestablish the Legislative Budget Office to provide nonpartisan financial oversight; restructure state government by streamlining the executive branch; examine Medicaid fraud, waste and abuse; require conference committee reports to be publicly available for 48 hours prior to being considered by the House or Senate; and identify other areas of wasteful, inefficient spending. The Ohio House Republican Caucus offered these proposals as bills in the Ohio House and as amendments to the Ohio budget. These ideas have been silenced or ignored by Democrats, the House Majority Party.

The April 14th campaign communication is another example of Dave Yost and his campaign misleading Ohioans or simply using a “ready, fire, aim” approach to communicating.

I think Morgan campaign manager Rob Scott is being overly generous with the “ready” part of that last sentence.

The people about whom Yost perhaps intended to complain before inexplicably dragging Morgan’s name into things are those legislators who supported Bob Taft’s tax increases last decade. Seth Morgan is not among them. Josh Mandel is not among them. Current Auditor and Lieutenant Governor candidate Mary Taylor voted against the Taft sales tax increase.

But Secretary of State candidate Jon Husted, the anointed one of ORPINO (the Ohio Republican Party In Name Only) and the guy who as a state senator lives in Columbus while claiming to represent parts of Metro Dayton, voted for that tax increase. Many other legislators supported that increase, and they have mostly if not entirely been routinely endorsed by ORPINO.

Recall that Yost followed ORPINO’s “suggestion” that withdraw from the Attorney General’s race to clear the field for ORPINO’s ultimate RINO Mike DeWine.

Is there anyone left who Dave Yost hasn’t turned on?

Soooo predictable, Item 2 (Item 1 from earlier this morning at NewsBusters; at BizzyBlog).

Reporting from Jefferson City, Missouri, David Lieb of the Associated Press understated the number of people expected to attend rallies through the US (“thousands”), misrepresented a previous March 20 incident involving alleged racial slurs at the U.S. Capitol, and waited until his fourteenth paragraph to mention leftist “party crashers” who may be at least as much of a concern to organizers as far-right opportunists.

Here are the relevant paragraphs from Lieb’s litter (link is dynamic; 9:13 a.m. version of report saved here at web host for fair use and discussion purposes; bolds are mine):

Tea party leaders anxious about extremists

(Paragraphs 1 through 7)

Organizers of tax-day tea parties are preparing for their biggest day of the year Thursday, as thousands of demonstrators participate in local rallies against high taxes and big government spending. But the leaders are striving to keep the rallies from presenting another image: one of fringe groups, extremists or infiltrators obsessed with hateful messages.

Sensitive that poor public perception could sink their movement, some rally planners have uninvited controversial speakers, beefed up security and urged participants to pack cameras to capture evidence of any disrupters. Organizers want to project a peaceful image of people upset by what they consider to be a growing and burdensome federal government.

“We don’t want to be misrepresented, whether it’s by someone who is not part of the group and has their own agenda, or whether it’s by some fringe extremist who may actually be a racist,” said Jim Hoft, a political blogger and tea party activist who is one of the speakers for a rally in suburban St. Louis.

The National Tea Party Federation, a newly formed coalition of regional tea party groups, estimates that between 1,700 and 2,000 tax-day rallies are occurring Thursday in communities across the country.

“What’s at stake is showing various government officials of both parties that people are concerned,” said Tim Hagle, an associate political science professor at the University of Iowa. “That’s why it’s important that you don’t have distractions from people who are interlopers of one sort or another.”

The tea party took a recent publicity hit when three black Democratic congressmen said they heard racial slurs as they walked through thousands of health care protesters – many of them tea party activists – outside the U.S. Capitol on March 20. Some conservatives and tea party leaders insist it never happened. (1)

But it’s not the only racially charged incident. A photo posted on Flickr, which has attracted Internet chatter, shows a white man carrying a sign that says: “Obama’s Plan White Slavery.” The photo claims to have been shot at a tea party rally last year in Madison, Wis. (2)

(Paragraphs 14 and 15)

Tea party leaders also are concerned that opponents may pose as tea party participants and cause a ruckus to damage the reputation of the movement. A Web site has urged people to “crash the tea party” to draw attention to the party’s least appealing qualities. (3)

The National Tea Party Federation is urging rally participants to point cameras at anyone acting obnoxious or hateful. The intent is to reprimand true tea party activists, disavow fringe followers or reveal the people as plants by opponents.

Notes:

• (1) — It isn’t just that “tea party leaders insist” that the slurs “never happened.” It’s that there is absolutely no evidence that they ever happened.
• (2) — To me, the most notable aspects of the photo in question are that the person holding the offensive sign is standing all by himself, and that the rest of the crowd seems to be ignoring or shunning him.
• (3) — You would think that Lieb would have wanted to tell readers what the movement’s — not disruptors’ — least appealing qualities are. I say he took a pass because he can’t name any that can fairly be attributed to the vast majority of Tea Party participants and leaders.

Expanding on Item (1) a bit, the only reason “the tea party took a recent publicity hit” is that establishment media elites pounced on a story they desperately wanted to report before having any corroboration. But as noted earlier, that’s how it rolls with the soooo predictable press.

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

This is sooooo predictable.

An unbylined Associated Press item on today’s Tea Party Express tour wrap-up in Washington uses a word that the wire service almost never (if not absolutely never) applies to truly violent leftist groups.

The Google page carrying the AP report also has an interesting lead “Related article.”

Here’s the brief AP item (produced in full for fair use and discussion purposes), whose headline seems to want to twist the event into an act of hypocrisy simply because of where it’s being held:

For the record, hundreds of Tea Party events are taking place today throughout the USA. Just two states, North Carolina (29) and Virginia (“at least a dozen”), are having over 40 of them.

Also for the record, there are plenty of sensible conservative, constitution-loving politicians who are being “embraced” by the Tea Party. AP’s pretense that it is otherwise is a pathetic attempt to characterize a mainstream grass-roots movement as being on the fringe. It’s not. On April 5, Gallup reported that “Tea Partiers Are Fairly Mainstream in Their Demographics; Skew right politically, but have typical profile by age, education, and employment.” Fringe, schminge.

Oh, and here’s the “Related article” that “somehow” rose to the top at the Google page carrying the AP story (no, I’m not linking):

Zheesh.

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

In an article by the favorite reporter of Weapons of Mass Discussion’s Matt Hurley, the intrepid Josh Sweigart, carried in the Dayton Daily News, the Oxford Press, and other area Cox publications:

Ohio Republican Party leaders defend the decision to include the logo on mailers for all their endorsed candidates — none of whom were endorsed by the Tea Party.

“These values that the Tea Party group claims is theirs are principles and part of the platform of the Republican party, and have been for decades,” said John McClelland, Ohio GOP spokesman.

Uh, John — the problem is that you work for ORPINO (the Ohio Republican Party in Name Only). Your organization and too many of this state’s alleged Republican politicians have all too often NOT followed the values and principles of the Republican Party for a decade and a half. Your organization’s de facto intellectual property theft is an outrage; your organization’s attachment of that stolen property to candidates who have demonstrated that they don’t share those values and principles is despicable; your doing so without their permission is probably illegal; and finally, your reaction above, while fully expected, is still contemptible beyond clean words.

Several others have suggested an alternative ORPINO logo:

That’s pretty good. It would be even better if the elephant were upside down.

I was forwarded this e-mail earlier this morning:

Dear Conservative Friends,

The following letter and attachment are from Jim and Lisa Woods of MCFAN (Medina County Friends and Neighbors). Please read them carefully and review the list of state central committee candidates for your senate district. With your help, we can elect these folks and return conservative leadership to the Ohio Republican Party. Please forward this email to everyone in your address book and/or contact list.

Sincerely,

Steve Christopher

Here is Jim and Lisa’s letter, dated April 13, 2010:

As you know the Ohio Republican Party is trying to co-opt the reputation of the conservative grassroots “Tea Party” movement, and use it to endorse their own slate of state central committee members who will help them to keep the Ohio Republican Party closed, exclusive, and unresponsive to us.

Dan Lillback and I have compiled a list of all the patriots who have answered the call a couple of months ago to run for State Central Committee themselves. We have also included on the list those few incumbents whose conservative voting record on the State Central Committee indicates that we should keep them. The list of patriots running for State Central Committee is attached.

Please be sure that this list of patriots gets the widest possible distribution, to refute the ORP’s campaign of false advertising that is currently underway. Be sure to announce them and showcase our candidates in whichever Senate district your Tea Party or other meeting is being held. Forward this email to everyone in your address book.

Also attached is the legal action initiated by one of our candidates to stop the ORP from its illegal expenditure of funds in its campaign to defeat conservative Republicans. Anyone interested in joining Thea in her lawsuit, please contact her.

The ORP has declared war on the conservative majority. We must respond, and win.

http://www.mcfan.org

http://www.resistnet.com/group/ohioresistance

What follows is a (somewhat revised–see update) list of their suggestions for committee members in the Senate Districts (with e-mails and phone numbers expunged; Update — The list is being revised based on e-mails received and comments below):

1 — April Fryman, Jeff Fryman
2 — Jim Hoover
3 — Jennifer Elicson, Bil Todd
4 — Bobbi Radeck, Mark Haverkos
5 — Diana Fessler
6 — Lara Norris, Chuck Henshall
7 — Lori Viars, Bob McEwen
8 — Christa Criddle*, David Miller*
9 — Joanne Kremmer, Alex Triantifilou
10 — CJ Bieghler, David Kearney
13 — (Both races are contested; see Comment 2 below)
14 — Thea Shoemake, John Becker*
16 — Christy Overla, George Momirov
17 — Kathleen Ayres*, Matt Lamb
18 — Amy Sabath*, Dale Fellows*
19 — Teri Morgan*, Richard Cochran
20 — Rebecca Khune, Bruce Kelbaugh
21 — Susan Rodman, Charles Drake
22 — Sandy Calvert, James Woods
23 — Colleen Wing*, Mike Griffith
24 — Molly Smith
25 — Beverly Goldstein, Ron Lisy
26 — Marsha Woods-Rexroth, Shayne Dukette
27 — Kathy Sadler
28 — Andrew Manning*
29 — Greg Butler
31 — Mike Fracassa
32 — April Sabo, Jack Sabo
33 — Sarah Brown*, Dennis Strickler

* – indicates incumbent identified as being “good guys”

I count 50 Tea Party-sympathetic members. Anyone receiving an ORPINO (Ohio Republican Party In Name Only) mailer NOT containing any of the above names should be very wary of supporting that person, and, after appropriate research, should strongly consider supporting the person or persons above running for SCC in their district (with one exception noted below).

______________________________________________________

This brings me to “my” District, which is #7.

Lori Viars has my support. If Mary Ann Christie publicly denounces ORPINO for what they did on SCC incumbents’ behalf (I don’t know for sure that they did it for her), I might reconsider, but I doubt it. Ms. Viars, though she has made mistakes in her candidate preferences in the past, has strong sensible conservative values and a demonstrated track record of fighting for them.

But on the male side of the ballot, I see Bob McEwen.

Lord, have mercy. The last thing I want to do is mess with this again. But of course I must.

Mr. McEwen is running against three other guys. I’m voting for one of the others — which one will be determined after appropriate investigation. I strongly encourage others to vote for one of the others, because Bob McEwen, while he may claim to hold Tea Party values, has not only not practiced them, he has serially violated them for two decades.

In 2002, the Highland County, Ohio Board of Elections concluded that McEwen, his wife, and eventually his kids(!), voted illegally in Ohio for several years while they lived in Virginia, and nullified their voter registrations. Whether the McEwens illegally voted in person or by what was then known as an absentee ballot is not particularly relevant (though I believe it was usually the latter). The fact is that the McEwens brazenly and repeatedly did one of the very things that ACORN types clearly attempted to do (and likely succeeded in doing more than a few times without getting caught) in Ohio during the 2008 general election.

I’m sorry, even with appropriate remorse (which I haven’t seen), that’s simply unforgivable, and cannot be tolerated.

Adding insult to injury, McEwen is still from all appearances a Washington lobbyist and “partner” at Advantage Associates International. One of Advantage’s tag lines is: “Access… an Advantage available to those who have earned the privilege.” This is a firm that flaunts the very Washington insider game-playing that so justifiably outrages Tea Partiers.

McEwen’s apparent continued association with Advantage leads me to question the legitimacy of his claim to reside in the 7th District, or at a minimum how much of his time he spends here.

Oh, and if you’re wondering how I got to “two decades,” I have three words: House Bank Scandal.

More about McEwen’s disqualifications is here, here, and here.

The lesson in Bob McEwen’s alleged “Tea Party” SCC candidacy is that “party crashers” can take on many forms, and can come from either the left or the “right.” All must be intercepted, and stopped.

Here it is (HTs to Weapons of Mass Discussion and Right Ohio):

Thea Shoemake v, Ohio Rep. Party

Mr. Sunny Side Up has a few valid points, some of which are similar to points I made in my comments on the March Employment Situation Report:

Now, I have written extensively about the tax-and-regulatory threats of the Obamanomics big-government assault. But most of that is in the future. The current reality is that a strong rebound in corporate profits (the greatest and truest stimulus of all), ultra-easy money from the Fed, and some small stimuli from government spending are working to generate a stronger-than-expected recovery in a basically free-market economy that is a lot more resilient than capitalist critics think.

Rather than blow their credibility over a cyclical rebound that is backed by the statistics, free-market conservatives should tell it like it is.

Let’s begin with the March employment numbers recently released by the Labor Department. Those numbers were solid. People say small businesses are getting killed by taxes and regulations from Washington, but the reality is that the small-business household employment survey has produced 1.1 million new jobs in the first quarter of 2010, or 371,000 per month. If that continues, the unemployment rate will drop significantly.

Additionally, the corporate payroll number for March increased by 224,000 — not 162,000 as some claim — with the prior two months being revised up by 62,000. And this is being led by private-sector job creation.

And according to just-released data, retail chain-store sales for the year ending in March were up a blowout 10 percent. Ten percent. That’s a V-shaped recovery. And the real-time ISM purchasing-managers reports for manufacturing and services indicate that the economy in the next few quarters could be much, much stronger than the consensus expects — maybe 5 to 6 percent. Another V-shaped recovery.

But he partially explains why it’s suspect, and possibly not sustainable:

At this point it’s impossible to project a long-lived economic boom, such as we had following the deep recession of the early 1980s. For one thing, tax rates will rise in 2011 for successful earners and investors, quite unlike the Reagan cuts of the 1980s. So it’s possible that entrepreneurs and investors are bringing income, activity, and investment forward into 2010 in order to beat the tax man in 2011. This would artificially boost this year’s economy, stealing from next year’s economy.

… Clearly, we are not operating a supply-side, free-market model today. What I wish for is sound money and lower tax rates, which would promote sustainable economic growth. Instead, we’re getting easier money and higher tax rates, which could mean a temporary boom today and disappointingly slow growth after that.

But then again, who knows? Maybe the tea-party revolution overturns the obstacles to future growth and the boom is sustained.

That final sentence is THE argument to make for sensible conservative candidates if the numbers start to look better.

The runner-up argument is that current administration policy has had NOTHING to do with the current recovery, assuming it is one.

The second runner-up argument is that Pelosi’s, Obama’s and Reid’s POR Economy/POR recession needlessly shrunk the economy by almost 4%. It will take years to get back to where we could have and should have been (if we ever do) if those three hadn’t taken down the economy during the summer of 2008.

The overall message is that what’s left of the free market may be temporarily overwhelming statists’ long-term attempts to suppress it.

Finally, this all depends on those to whom we are indebted continuing to be nice, patient, and tolerant while we run up relentless trillion-dollar deficits. So part of it will be luck.

Last May, I wrote a column called “The Federal Deficit Becomes Nearly Indecipherable,” pointing to a mid-fiscal year policy shift in how the government handles the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) and other bailout efforts:

What Treasury did in April (2009) was to convert the TARP “investments” it began making in October in the country’s financial institutions, General Motors, Chrysler, and who knows what else to NPV (Net Present Value) accounting.

Mixing hundreds of billions of dollars of NPV into what has essentially been a cash flow report turns the Monthly Treasury Statement, and deficit reporting in general, into an exercise that will become not only become ever more difficult to comprehend, but one that will also be routinely subject to political manipulation.

One such political manipulation occurred in the March 2010 Monthly Treasury Statement that was released on Monday, and it involved NPV accounting (to be explained in a bit). While the Associated Press’s Martin Crutsinger dutifully noted its existence, he deceptively described its meaning in his report’s opening sentence, and in doing so played along with that manipulation (bold is mine):

The federal budget deficit for March showed a dramatic decline Monday because of a much lower estimate by the Obama administration of how much the financial bailout program will ultimately cost.

The Treasury Department said the March deficit totaled $65.4 billion. That compares with a $191.6 billion deficit a year ago. But $115 billion of the improvement was due to the administration’s lower estimate of the cost of the Troubled Asset Relief Program.

“Dramatic”? That’s a nice opening-paragraph newscast soundbite, Martin. But the result was achieved with a “melodramatic” bookkeeping entry.

Most of the general public believes that the government is reporting its results on a cash basis, i.e., that “receipts” means “money that came in” and that “outlays” means “disbursements.” Until early last year, with one very small exception, that was the case.

But that’s so pre-Obama. Since Treasury converted TARP and other bailout programs (with the exceptions of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac) to Net Present Value accounting last year, this is how things roll:

• When the government “lends or invests” in banks and auto companies, the monies disbursed are treated as “investments,” and are not included in “outlays.”
• Assuming no impairment in value or collectability, there are no receipts when the original amounts “invested” are repaid. Interest or dividends received are treated as “receipts” (euphemistically called “transfers from the Federal Reserve” by our oh-so-transparent Treasury).
• But if it looks like some of the “invested” funds won’t be repaid, the government will write down the value of those investments to what it thinks will be repaid.
• If it overestimates the impairment, it revalues its investments upward, and reduces reported “outlays.” This is what happened in March, to the tune of $115 billion.

In essence what happened is that the administration pushed as much “bad news” (asset writedowns) as it could into last year’s financial reporting, since last year was going to be a disaster no matter what. But since they overdid it with the writedowns last year (“Gosh, how did that happen?”), they can make this year look better than it really has been. Good old Martin played along by calling it “dramatic.”

The reality is that the government spent almost $334 billion last month (the reported $219 billion plus the $115 billion non-cash NPV adjustment), and that spending in the following significant areas are up by 10% or more (from Page 3 of the Monthly Treasury Statement): Agriculture (up 12% and $7.7 billion), Education (up 58%, an increase of $19.7 billion), HHS (up 10%, or $37.9 billion), Labor (up 63%, or $35 billion), Transportation (up 13%, or $4 billion), interest (up 20%, or $33 billion), and Veterans (up 17%, or $8 billion).

Meanwhile, here are a couple of spending reductions that may not be getting enough attention: Homeland Security (down 19%, a decrease of $5.3 billion) and “Other Defense Civil Programs” (down 15%, or $4.8 billion). Cutting back spending is one thing; cutting preparedness is quite another. Which one is happening?

Maybe Martin Crutsinger or someone else at AP might consider taking a look for something “dramatic” in those oh-so-predictable cuts.

Another piece of homework for AP: Is the reason why Fan and Fred aren’t being handled on an NPV basis despite the fact that they’re both worthless?

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

Consider it a Post Office-like performance.

Investors Business Daily (“What the Government Can’t Do”), whose editorials are must-reads for hard news the establishment media will either ignore or downplay, has tipped readers off to the poor reviews General/Government Motors and Chrysler cars are receiving. These would include the latest automaker report cards compiled by Consumer Reports magazine.

Nearly one year into their new lives as wards of the state, it looks like one of those government “can’t do’s” involves improving car quality, while the car company not owned by Uncle Sam has gotten a bit better. Specifically, CR’s April 2010 overview post tells us the following:

Among American manufacturers, only Ford improved over last year. It scored one point better to pass Mitsubishi for 11th place in our rankings. By contrast, Chrysler is again in last place and dropped two points since last year. And General Motors placed right where it did last year—second from the bottom—even though it eliminated half its brands and about one-third of its models.

Imagine that.

A look at the magazine’s “most and least reliable” narrative shows just how bad things are at GM and Chrysler, and how things are looking up at Ford (bolds are mine; personal commentary is in italics):

Ford still leads the domestics

Ford consolidated its position as the only Detroit automaker with world-class reliability. (Ooh, that’s going to leave a mark — Ed.) The Fusion and Milan led the charge; four-cylinder, front-wheel-drive V6, and hybrid versions got top marks.

Of the 51 Ford, Mercury, and Lincoln products that we surveyed, 46, or about 90 percent, were average or better, including the new Ford Flex SUV. But the Lincoln division had mixed results; some models scored below their Ford equivalents. All-wheel-drive versions of the Lincoln MKS, MKX, and MKZ, essentially high-end versions of the Ford Taurus, Edge, and Fusion, were all below average.

Following its bankruptcy filing and shedding the Hummer, Pontiac, and Saturn brands, GM now consists of Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, and GMC. Of the 48 models we surveyed from those brands, 20 had average scores, and only one, the Malibu V6 sedan, was better than average. (That means 27 were below average — Ed.)

… We recommend the Pontiac Vibe and the V8 version of the Pontiac G8, as well as the Saturn Aura, which have average or better reliability. (Translation: GM discontinued the good models — Ed.) Some of those cars can still be found on dealer lots.

In last year’s survey we couldn’t recommend any Chrysler products, either because of mediocre performance, poor reliability, or both. Now there is one: the four-wheel-drive version of the Dodge Ram 1500 pickup, which was redesigned for 2009. It did well in our road tests and rated average in reliability. Still, more than one-third of Chrysler products were much worse than average, including its new car-based SUV, the Dodge Journey.

Anyone understanding human nature can understand why Ford’s improvement, and the absence of significant changes at GM and Chrysler, are not surprising.

Private enterprises have to improve both in quality and efficiency to survive. If Ford doesn’t continue to get better, it could eventually go out of business. Ford acted as if this wasn’t the case for several years in until early 2008, when the ongoing damage from the American Family Association’s two-year boycott forced it to recognize that its obsession with politically correct causes had led it to take its focus away from its core mission. Since then, it’s been onward an upward in Dearborn.

It would not be unreasonable to argue that if the AFA hadn’t done what it did, Ford might have continued down the road to bankruptcy, and we might have a domestic auto industry totally controlled by the government. Yikes.

On the other hand, if GM and Chrysler remain worse than mediocre, it certainly affects the continued employment of key executives (each company has had management shake-ups during the past year), but otherwise — at least for now — it’s not such a big deal. The incentive to improve simply isn’t as great.

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

George Mason University’s Mercatus Center reinforces what yours truly said a year ago (“Social Security’s Crisis Will Arrive Six Years Early”) –

In 2008, the CBO projected that outlays would exceed revenues for the first time 2019 and in 2009 CBO projected that this threshold would be crossed in 2016. In fact, this year Social Security will pay out more in benefits than it collects.

Even if a genuine economic recovery is underway, which is in serious doubt — remember that the National Bureau of Economic Research informed us a few days ago informed us that it can’t every say that the recession by their definition has ended yet — Social Security will only briefly return to historically tiny annual cash surpluses for a few years, before heading into large cash deficits as far as the eye can see.

_____________________________________________________

It’s been a while since Michael’s fantasy vs. reality graph on unemployment at his Innocent Bystanders blog has made an appearance here, so let’s remedy that:

The projection dots, which are based on Team Obama’s mid-March predictions (HT Calculated Risk), may be optimistic.

Update: A survey of economists by the Associated Press comes in somewhat more optimimstic than the Team Obama, with a consensus that unemployment will be at 8.4% at the end of 2011 vs. 8.9% above. Recall that in January through April of 2008, shortly before the POR Economy began, the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate averaged just below 5%.

_____________________________________________________

From the “Just Desserts” Dept. (HT Hot Air) –

In a new report, the Congressional Research Service says the law may have significant unintended consequences for the “personal health insurance coverage” of senators, representatives and their staff members.

For example, it says, the law may “remove members of Congress and Congressional staff” from their current coverage, in the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program, before any alternatives are available.

Lesson: If you decide not to read, it’s you who may bleed.

I hope someone pushes this matter and forces a “corrections” bill. The floor speeches by those who would exempt themselves from ObamaCare’s madness would be truly entertaining.

From Gerona, Spain:

Apr 12, 2010 / 12:11 pm

A criminal court in the Spanish city of Gerona has sentenced a restaurant owner to 19 months in prison and ordered him to pay over $6,000 for pressuring a waitress to undergo an abortion in order to keep her job. The woman refused and decided to keep her baby.

According to the court, the restaurant owner insisted the waitress have an abortion after learning she was pregnant.

Europa Press reported that the ruling said the woman was “about to interrupt” her pregnancy but that after “many doubts,” she decided to carry her child to term. When her employment contract was not renewed, she was presented with a pink slip without severance pay.

After assistance from a local union, she was given severance pay in the amount of approximately $2,500. The union also provided the woman’s legal defense and called the ruling a “model sentence” in the fight against workplace harassment. …

Go here for the rest of the story.

The “normal person” definition of a recession is two or more quarters of economic contraction as measured by Gross Domestic Product (GDP). This definition was perfectly acceptable to everyone until the 1970s, when the “non-partisan” National Bureau of Economic Research  (NBER) was tasked with deciding when recessions begin and end.

In December 2008, the NBER declared that a recession had begun in December 2007. As I’ve noted several times in several places, they did this despite several contrary indicators such as positive economic growth in the second quarter of 2008, and at best inconclusive results relating to income, industrial production, and employment.

Nonetheless, the establishment media has consistently run with the NBER’s definition of when the recession began. After all, they’re the experts. Who are we peons to dare to point out that using the normal person definition, the recession began in the third quarter of 2008, continued for four quarters, and ended when GDP went positive in the third quarter of 2009?

In a move that one would expect is causing an excess of expletives inside the White House, NBER officials have indicated that they can’t yet conclude that the recession as they define it has ended. A New York Times story carried at CNBC tells us the following (internal link added by me):

Recession Arbiters, Wary of Certifying an Upturn

A committee of economists, charged with determining the official turning points in the nation’s business cycles, certifies the beginnings and ends of recessions. But this time, the committee members say, the evidence is not so easy to decipher.

The committee announced Monday that it cannot yet declare an end to the recession that began in December 2007. Several members of the body had reported this to The New York Times on Sunday. Such an acknowledgment is rare in the history of setting dates to business cycles and could affect the behavior of investors and consumers.

Despite a recent uptick in employment and income, the decision of the committee at a meeting on Friday reflects a lingering worry that the economy could turn downward again in a so-called double-dip recession.

Several economists on the committee, which has seven active members, said they considered such a turn to be unlikely. But, they said, the duration and severity of the contraction have made it hard to determine with authority that a recovery has begun.

The gross domestic product, the broadest measure of economic activity, officially began rising in the second half of 2009, suggesting that a recovery might have quietly started. But the committee takes other factors into consideration, like employment trends and consumer confidence.

Ben S. Bernanke, the Federal Reserve chairman, and Christina D. Romer, the chairwoman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, are former members of the committee, and its position could potentially affect their outlook on monetary and fiscal policy.

Here’s the full text of the NBER announcement, which is actually dated Thursday, April 8 (paragraph breaks added by me):

NBER COMMITTEE CONFERS: NO TROUGH ANNOUNCED

CAMBRIDGE, April 8 — The Business Cycle Dating Committee of the National Bureau of Economic Research met at the organization’s headquarters in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on April 8, 2010.

The committee reviewed the most recent data for all indicators relevant to the determination of a possible date of the trough in economic activity marking the end of the recession that began in December 2007. The trough date would identify the end of contraction and the beginning of expansion. Although most indicators have turned up, the committee decided that the determination of the trough date on the basis of current data would be premature.

Many indicators are quite preliminary at this time and will be revised in coming months. The committee acts only on the basis of actual indicators and does not rely on forecasts in making its determination of the dates of peaks and troughs in economic activity.

The committee did review data relating to the date of the peak, previously determined to have occurred in December 2007, marking the onset of the recent recession. The committee reaffirmed that peak date.

As to the reaffirmation of the December 2007 start date noted at the end of the announcement, employment, one of NBER’s “actual indicators” has changed substantially since its announcement in December 2008. Seasonally adjusted job losses during the first quarter of 2008, thought at the time to be 247,000, then adjusted to 338,000, have since had a final downward revision to only 93,000. Also, don’t forget that the unemployment rate didn’t go above 5.1%, a level that many economists and other consider to be full employment, until May of 2008.

But you really didn’t expect a committee of self-anointed academic geniuses to change its mind, did you?

Meanwhile, if the press is going to be consistent, it’s going to have to assume that the recession hasn’t ended yet until their designated experts tell them it isn’t so. Does anyone expect them (or the administration) to tone down their supposedly indisputable claims that we’re in the midst of “recovery and “rebound“? Me neither.

It would be a lot easier if we simply used simple, easily understood objective measurements, wouldn’t it? As it is, the same crew that has in my opinion unfairly benefited from a seven-month Bush-bashing free ride (December 2007 to June 2008) on the recession’s beginning will get no sympathy from yours truly while it twists in the wind waiting for the NBER to make up its mind over nine months after the recession as normal people define it ended.

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.