Lawlessness from the White House

By George F. Will
THE WASHINGTON POST

May 14, 2009

Anyone, said T.S. Eliot, could carve a goose, were it not for the bones. And anyone could govern as boldly as their whims decreed, were it not for the skeletal structure that keeps civil society civil – the rule of law. The Obama administration is bold. It also is careless regarding constitutional values and is acquiring a tincture of lawlessness.

In February, California's Democratic-controlled Legislature, faced with a $42 billion budget deficit, trimmed $74 million (1.4 percent) from one of the state's fastest-growing programs, which provides care for low-income and incapacitated elderly and cost the state $5.42 billion last year. The Los Angeles Times reports that “loose oversight and bureaucratic inertia have allowed fraud to fester.”

But the Service Employees International Union collects nearly $5 million a month from 223,000 caregivers who are members. And the Obama administration has told California that unless the $74 million in cuts are rescinded, it will deny the state $6.8 billion in stimulus money.

Such a federal ukase (the word derives from czarist Russia; how appropriate) to a state legislature is a sign of the administration's dependency agenda – maximizing the number of people and institutions dependent on the federal government. For the first time, neither sales nor property nor income taxes are the largest source of money for state and local governments. The federal government is.

The SEIU says the cuts violate contracts negotiated with counties. California officials say the state required the contracts to contain clauses allowing pay to be reduced if state funding is.

Anyway, the Obama administration, judging by its cavalier disregard of contracts between Chrysler and some of the lenders it sought money from, thinks contracts are written on water. The administration proposes that Chrysler's secured creditors get 28 cents per dollar on the $7 billion owed to them, but that the United Auto Workers union get 43 cents per dollar on its $11 billion in claims – and 55 percent of the company. This, even though the secured creditors' contracts supposedly guaranteed them better standing than the union.

Among Chrysler's lenders, some servile banks that are now dependent on the administration for capital infusions tugged their forelocks and agreed. Some hedge funds among Chrysler's lenders who are not dependent were vilified by the president because they dared to resist his demand that they violate their fiduciary duties to their investors, who include individuals and institutional pension funds.

The Economist magazine says the administration has “ridden roughshod over (creditors') legitimate claims over the (automobile companies') assets. . . . Bankruptcies involve dividing a shrunken pie. But not all claims are equal: some lenders provide cheaper funds to firms in return for a more secure claim over the assets should things go wrong. They rank above other stakeholders, including shareholders and employees. This principle is now being trashed.” Tom Lauria, a lawyer representing hedge fund people trashed by the president as the cause of Chrysler's bankruptcy, asked that his clients' names not be published for fear of violence threatened in e-mails to them.

The Troubled Assets Relief Program, which has not yet been used for its supposed purpose (to purchase such assets from banks), has been the instrument of the administration's adventure in the automobile industry. TARP's $700 billion, like much of the supposed “stimulus” money, is a slush fund the executive branch can use as it pleases. This is as lawless as it would be for Congress to say to the IRS: We need $3.5 trillion to run the government next year, so raise it however you wish – from whomever, at whatever rates you think suitable. Don't bother us with details.

This is not gross, unambiguous lawlessness of the Nixonian sort – burglaries, abuse of the IRS and FBI, etc. – but it is uncomfortably close to an abuse of power that perhaps gave Nixon ideas: When in 1962 the steel industry raised prices, President Kennedy had a tantrum, and his administration leaked rumors that the IRS would conduct audits of steel executives, and sent FBI agents on pre-dawn visits to the homes of journalists who covered the steel industry, ostensibly to further a legitimate investigation.

The Obama administration's agenda of maximizing dependency involves political favoritism cloaked in the raiment of “economic planning” and “social justice” that somehow produce results superior to what markets produce when freedom allows merit to manifest itself, and incompetence to fail. The administration's central activity – the political allocation of wealth and opportunity – is not merely susceptible to corruption, it is corruption.

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me@rescam.org

The Obama Deception

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me@rescam.org

Obama's debt could prove dangerous

Robert J. Samuelson
NEWSWEEK

May 18, 2009

Just how much government debt does a president have to endorse before he's labeled “irresponsible”? Well, apparently much more than the massive amounts envisioned by President Obama. The final version of his 2010 budget, released last week, is a case study in political expediency and economic gambling.

Let's see. From 2010 to 2019, Obama projects annual deficits totaling $7.1 trillion; that's atop the $1.8 trillion deficit for 2009. By 2019, the ratio of publicly held federal debt to gross domestic product (GDP, or the economy) would reach 70 percent, up from 41 percent in 2008. That would be the highest since 1950 (80 percent). The Congressional Budget Office, using less optimistic economic forecasts, raises these estimates. The 2010-19 deficits would total $9.3 trillion; the debt-to-GDP ratio in 2019 would be 82 percent.

But wait: Even these totals may be understated. By various estimates, Obama's health plan might cost $1.2 trillion over a decade; Obama has budgeted only $635 billion. Next, the huge deficits occur despite a pronounced squeeze of defense spending. From 2008 to 2019, total federal spending would rise 75 percent, but defense spending would increase only 17 percent. Unless foreign threats recede, military spending and deficits might both grow.

Except from crabby Republicans, these astonishing numbers have received little attention – a tribute to Obama's Zen-like capacity to discourage serious criticism. Everyone's fixated on the present economic crisis, which explains and justifies big deficits (lost revenues, anti-recession spending) for a few years. Hardly anyone notes that huge deficits continue indefinitely.

One reason Obama is so popular is that he has promised almost everyone lower taxes and higher spending. Beyond the undeserving who make more than $250,000, 95 percent of “working families” receive a tax cut. Obama would double federal spending for basic research in “key agencies.” He wants to build high-speed rail networks that would require continuous subsidy. Obama can do all this and more by borrowing.

Consider the extra debt as a proxy for political evasion. The president doesn't want to confront Americans with choices between lower spending and higher taxes – or, given the existing deficits, perhaps less spending and more taxes. Except for talk, Obama hasn't done anything to reduce the expense of retiring baby boomers. He claims to be containing overall health costs, but he's actually proposing more government spending (see above).

Closing future deficits with either tax increases or spending cuts would require gigantic changes. Discounting the recession's effect on the deficit, Marc Goldwein of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget puts the underlying “structural deficit” – the basic gap between the government's spending commitments and its tax base – at 3 percent to 4 percent of GDP. In today's dollars, that's roughly $400 billion to $600 billion.

It's true that since 1961 the federal budget has run deficits in all but five years. But the resulting government debt has consistently remained below 50 percent of GDP; that's the equivalent of a household with $100,000 of income having a $50,000 debt. (Note: Deficits are the annual gap between government's spending and its tax revenues. The debt is the total borrowing caused by past deficits.) Adverse economic effects, if any, were modest. But Obama's massive, future deficits would break this pattern and become more threatening.

At best, the rising cost of the debt would intensify pressures to increase taxes, cut spending – or create bigger, unsustainable deficits. By CBO's estimates, interest on the debt as a share of federal spending will double between 2008 and 2019, from 8 percent of the total to 16 percent. Huge budget deficits could also weaken economic growth by “crowding out” private investment. At worst, the burgeoning debt could trigger a future financial crisis.

The Obama budgets flirt with deferred distress, though we can't know what form it might take or when it might occur. Present gain comes with the risk of future pain. As the present economic crisis shows, imprudent policies ultimately backfire, even if the reversal's timing and nature are unpredictable.

The wonder is that these issues have been so ignored. Imagine hypothetically that a President McCain had submitted a budget plan identical to Obama's. There would almost certainly have been a loud outcry: “McCain's Mortgaging Our Future.” Obama should be held to no less exacting a standard.

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me@rescam.org

Reality sets in at Obama White House

By Ruben Navarrette
Union Tribune

May 20, 2009

When it comes to the war on terror, or what his administration has re-branded the “Overseas Contingency Operation,” President Obama has matured quickly and has come to grips with some unpleasant realities.

Too bad the same can't be said about some of his disillusioned supporters, especially pundits and others in the media. They expected the president to repudiate George W. Bush's policies, not adopt them as his own. Yet they still don't feel comfortable criticizing Obama. So that requires some rhetorical finessing.

As an example, consider James Carville, a fixture on Washington Sunday talk shows. Asked during an appearance on ABC's “This Week” if he agreed with Obama's decision to reverse his earlier consent to releasing photos showing purported prisoner abuse at U.S. military facilities in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Democratic strategist insisted that he had no complaints.

“As a Democrat I'm very happy that he decided to listen to his commanders,” Carville said, noting that Obama had made his reversal after military leaders said the photos could endanger U.S. soldiers on the battlefields.

I don't recall Carville looking so favorably on this argument when it was coming from conservatives such as former Vice President Dick Cheney.

Obama's not getting as much sympathy from advocacy groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union, Human Rights Watch and others.

Those groups are furious now that the Obama administration is considering adopting a policy for which the Bush team was harshly criticized – suspending habeas corpus and holding terror suspects indefinitely and without trial. It's being marketed as part of a plan to improve upon the military tribunals conducted for prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. Under this scenario, however, some of the prisoners would be held on U.S. soil since Obama has vowed to close the military prison.

Members of Congress cried foul over the prospect that terrorism suspects could be detained in their districts, so the administration tried a different tack. Attorney General Eric Holder recently told a congressional committee that if the administration had proof that a prisoner intended to harm the United States, “we will do all that we can to ensure that that person remains detained and does not become a danger to the American people.” But the minute a government official says something like that, they're negating the possibility of a trial because trials sometimes end in acquittals after which the accused is free to go on his way. If the administration isn't prepared to risk that, there's not likely to be a trial.

The advocacy groups caught it. The ACLU said in a statement: “These military commissions are inherently illegitimate, unconstitutional and incapable of delivering outcomes we can trust.”

Human Rights Watch said: “By resurrecting this failed Bush administration idea, President Obama is backtracking dangerously on his reform agenda.”

Human Rights First added: “Reinventing commissions so deeply associated with GuantÁnamo Bay will merely add to the erosion of international confidence in American justice, provide more fodder for America's enemies.”

This isn't the first time that the Obama administration has disappointed civil libertarians. Last month, after releasing Bush-era Justice Department memos spelling out the legal justification for enhanced interrogation techniques that some label torture, the president initially signaled that he wasn't interested in prosecuting the lawyers who wrote the legal opinions. Saying he wanted to look forward and not backward, Obama seemed ready to put the matter to rest. But, under pressure from the left, the president flipped and said the question of whether to prosecute was for the attorney general to decide.

Before that, Obama signed an executive order preserving the CIA's authority to carry out “rendition” – the secret abductions and transfers of prisoners to other countries where some of them claim to have been tortured. The Obama Justice Department also took the position – identical to that of the Bush administration – that the 600 prisoners at Bagram air base in Afghanistan cannot use U.S. courts to challenge their detention and tried to quash – in another example of cutting and pasting Bush policy – a lawsuit challenging the government's rendition and warrantless wiretap programs.

These are the same policies that Bush's critics used to howl about because it made them feel morally superior. Now, as they continue to lend their support to a new president traveling down a familiar road, they should just feel foolish.

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me@rescam.org

Obama Lifts Ban on Lobbyists! Back to Business as Usual

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me@rescam.org

Ones again, promise is just PROMISE... Wait and see. I am not against Obama, I am just realist....

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Ones again, promise is just PROMISE... Wait and see. I am not against Obama, I am just realist....

Very true, and we all know how much poloticians love to make promises they can't keep to get elected.

I'm not anti-Obama either, but I'm willing to have an open mind to see what he does during his tenure, and not just the first couple of months. It seems the ones that hate the fact that he was overhyped (and he was), had set their expectations too high just to see him fail, because we all love to see somebody that's no better than the rest of us yet are praised as the Second Coming (or for us Athiests, the First Coming) fail so we can say "I told you so!".

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bear in mind that obama has to fix economy which was ruined by bush.

bear in mind that obama has to fix economy which was ruined by bush.

I can't blame Bush directly for the Economy Failures nor can ANY President be blamed. He can't pass laws - just ASK for them. He can ENFORCE EXISTING LAWS but has to depend on the flunkies under him to actually do the enforcing. Maybe in this vein he FAILED in demanding excellece (the modern eupheism for "DO YER JOBS DUMMIES).
I CAN however blame the Finance Officers, Corporate Officers and Boards, Wall Street Speculators, and Political Lobbyist for the decline itself. It also didn't help a bit that the people hired to represent me in DC were more aligned to Party than People. SEATS take precedence over JOBS!
As long as Obama has the same thing to contend with - HE WILL FAIL despite his VISIONARY REPUTATION (which is yet to be proven).
So far - compared to the White House the only place I have seen more waffles come out of is IHOP.
AND the gap is NARROWING!

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Classic WU= 7,237 Classic Hours= 42,079

bear in mind that obama has to fix economy which was ruined by bush.

Wrong name for the person who ruined the economy. That person was Greenspan. All he could see was an inflation monster. He played with the rate so much when he finally realized he had it too high he dropped it so low it created the mortgage monster. When he put it back up he crashed the economy.

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bear in mind that obama has to fix economy which was ruined by bush.

Wrong name for the person who ruined the economy. That person was Greenspan. All he could see was an inflation monster. He played with the rate so much when he finally realized he had it too high he dropped it so low it created the mortgage monster. When he put it back up he crashed the economy.

Certainly, there were a number of other factors involved in the economic crash, but Greenspan's role has been largely glossed over by the media. You are absolutely right that his "irrational fear" of inflation (perhaps the opposite of "irrational exuberance") messed up the lending market, especially mortgages, by jockeying around interest rates thus throwing borderline loans into foreclosure, when raising the prime rate (causing other related rates to rise) was not necessary. If he wasn't considered such an economic god, people would be pointing at him like they point at Madoff. Fed decisions are supposed to be made by a board, not an individual whom everyone else bows to. One person should not have such power over the economy.

bear in mind that obama has to ruin economy which was ruined by bush.

"It's about time we constitutionally mandate the Federal Government to do what every American family must do, and that is balance its budget. That doesn't mean taking more out of your pocket by raising taxes. ... We the people, deserve to know that our jobs, paychecks, homes, and pensions are safe from the taxers and regulators of big government." --Ronald Reagan

bear in mind that obama has to ruin economy which was ruined by bush.

"It's about time we constitutionally mandate the Federal Government to do what every American family must do, and that is balance its budget. That doesn't mean taking more out of your pocket by raising taxes. ... We the people, deserve to know that our jobs, paychecks, homes, and pensions are safe from the taxers and regulators of big government." --Ronald Reagan

That's funny because Reagan's "Voodoo Economics" didn't work, and he eventually raised taxes.

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The problem(s) were as follows.

Pressure to make sub-prime loans to people who could not afford mortgages to begin with, Also, the signal that there would be no supervision of financial markets--be they banks, stock and commodity markets, insurance companies etc. So make loans that were likely to default--sell them to the government or package them into mortgage insurance with no money to back up the actuarial likelyhood of default. Throw in a blind eye toward market manipulation anfd phoney financial reporting and there you go--a Bush created morass that the current government is going to exacerbate.

In other words--anything goes-benign neglect Asleep at the switch.

That's funny because Reagan's "Voodoo Economics" didn't work, and he eventually raised taxes.

A balanced federal budget does not work? These deficits are gonig to drive interest rates up and devalue our currency. It is only a matter of time.

That's funny because Reagan's "Voodoo Economics" didn't work, and he eventually raised taxes.

A balanced federal budget does not work? These deficits are gonig to drive interest rates up and devalue our currency. It is only a matter of time.

How did Reagan balance the federal budget? By raising taxes. What did your quote say?

"It's about time we constitutionally mandate the Federal Government to do what every American family must do, and that is balance its budget. That doesn't mean taking more out of your pocket by raising taxes. ... We the people, deserve to know that our jobs, paychecks, homes, and pensions are safe from the taxers and regulators of big government." --Ronald Reagan

Everything he said in the quote he ended up doing the opposite.

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That's funny because Reagan's "Voodoo Economics" didn't work, and he eventually raised taxes.

A balanced federal budget does not work? These deficits are gonig to drive interest rates up and devalue our currency. It is only a matter of time.

How did Reagan balance the federal budget? By raising taxes. What did your quote say?

"It's about time we constitutionally mandate the Federal Government to do what every American family must do, and that is balance its budget. That doesn't mean taking more out of your pocket by raising taxes. ... We the people, deserve to know that our jobs, paychecks, homes, and pensions are safe from the taxers and regulators of big government." --Ronald Reagan

Everything he said in the quote he ended up doing the opposite.

So that makes it right? We shouldn't have a balanced budget because Raegan never did ? How does that make sense ?

That's funny because Reagan's "Voodoo Economics" didn't work, and he eventually raised taxes.

A balanced federal budget does not work? These deficits are gonig to drive interest rates up and devalue our currency. It is only a matter of time.

How did Reagan balance the federal budget? By raising taxes. What did your quote say?

"It's about time we constitutionally mandate the Federal Government to do what every American family must do, and that is balance its budget. That doesn't mean taking more out of your pocket by raising taxes. ... We the people, deserve to know that our jobs, paychecks, homes, and pensions are safe from the taxers and regulators of big government." --Ronald Reagan

Everything he said in the quote he ended up doing the opposite.

So that makes it right? We shouldn't have a balanced budget because Raegan never did ? How does that make sense ?

I don't think you're actually getting what I'm saying. I'm not arguing in favor or against what anyone is doing, I'm simply arguing with the quote you posted and from whom you posted it. I'm pointing out that using someone's words who turned out to be a liar doesn't do well for the point you are trying to get across.

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That's funny because Reagan's "Voodoo Economics" didn't work, and he eventually raised taxes.

A balanced federal budget does not work? These deficits are gonig to drive interest rates up and devalue our currency. It is only a matter of time.

How did Reagan balance the federal budget? By raising taxes. What did your quote say?

"It's about time we constitutionally mandate the Federal Government to do what every American family must do, and that is balance its budget. That doesn't mean taking more out of your pocket by raising taxes. ... We the people, deserve to know that our jobs, paychecks, homes, and pensions are safe from the taxers and regulators of big government." --Ronald Reagan

Everything he said in the quote he ended up doing the opposite.

So that makes it right? We shouldn't have a balanced budget because Raegan never did ? How does that make sense ?

I don't think you're actually getting what I'm saying. I'm not arguing in favor or against what anyone is doing, I'm simply arguing with the quote you posted and from whom you posted it. I'm pointing out that using someone's words who turned out to be a liar doesn't do well for the point you are trying to get across.

In effect changing the subject? Bush should have thoulght of that when he was president...