| Put your money where your mouth is |
[Oct. 23rd, 2009|10:33 am] |
Here's a challenge for anyone who believes the President when he says that "I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits either now or in the future. Period."
I'm not usually a betting man. I'm on record pointing out what a ripoff the lottery is, not like that's news to anyone. Casinos have no appeal to me. But I do like a sure win. So I propose a friendly wager over Obama's promise that Obamacare will not add one dime to the deficit. If you have the courage to back up your blind faith, match my $500. We'll find someone mutually acceptable to hold the money, and the winner can designate the $1,000 plus interest to the charity of his choice. When I win, I'll select Samaritan's Purse to receive the money.
I've discussed what it means to not add to the deficit, so if you want to understand the thinking behind the metric, read my last few entries, particularly this one.
Here are the terms:
If Obama vetoes the health care reform bill citing the fact that it is not deficit-neutral as the reason, and does not sign any health care reform bill, I will concede the bet.
If Congress does not pass a health care reform bill in 2009 or 2010, the wager is off and each person gets their money back.
If Congress passes a health care reform bill and Obama signs it, we will compute the per-capita health care contribution to the deficit in 2009 dollars for 2009 and for each of the first 5 years that Obamacare is fully enacted. Most of the proposed bills require about two years to take affect, so the years we would consider would be 2012-2016.
Given these inputs:
MedicalCosts(year) = Total actual Federal expenditures for the specified year, for all health-care programs, including Medicare, CHIPS, VA medical program, Medicaid, HHS, Obamacare, etc.
MedicalTaxes(year) = Total actual Federal tax revenue for the specified year levied specifically for medical programs, including Medicare payroll taxes, and all taxes included in the Obamacare bill
CPI(year) = Consumer Price Index, a measure of inflation, from July 1 of the specified year
Population(year) = Total population of the United States for the given year, according to the Census Bureau
For each year we would compute
RealPerCapitaDeficit(year) = CPI(2009)*(MedicalCosts(year)-MedicalTaxes(year))/
(CPI(year)*Population(year))
If the real per capita deficit is higher in any of those five years than it was in 2009, I win. If not, you win.
The $1,000 with interest will be given in the winner's name to the charity of his choice.
I almost feel bad about taking advantage of fools, but they seem to want it so badly. |
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| BO's job approval plunges |
[Jul. 8th, 2009|10:27 pm] |
 The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Wednesday shows that 32% of the nation's voters now Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Thirty-seven percent Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of –5.
The index has plunged from more than +30 to -5 as Americans realize that this guy is taking the country in exactly the wrong direction.
See the full poll results here.
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| A Muslim Nation |
[Jun. 9th, 2009|09:37 am] |
The President says that America is "one of the largest Muslim nations."
If you disagree, let the jihadists know by proudly wearing an "Infidel" shirt.
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| Finally |
[Apr. 28th, 2009|11:49 am] |
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Senator Arlen Specter, long-time RINO, announced that he is switching to the Democrat Party in order to increase the average IQ of both parties. Don't let the door hit you on the way out. |
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| Statist Indoctrination Centers |
[Apr. 28th, 2009|09:51 am] |
Last night a friend told me that his son came home from school and announced that the swine flu outbreak is caused by our lack of government-run health care. He knows because his 10th grade social studies teacher says so.
So let's get this straight:
Here is what you know if you go to a government-run school:
- Flu outbreaks are caused by not having government health care
And here is what you don't know if you go to a government-run school:
- The Constitution and Bill of Rights
- How to locate the United States on a map
- What we can learn from history
- How to think critically
- Why the Federalist Papers are important
- How to express an idea in a grammatically correct sentence
- The significance of America's Christian heritage
- Math
So what makes anyone believe that government would do better at running health care than they do with education? |
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| Best cities for jobs |
[Apr. 25th, 2009|11:03 am] |
Forbes Magazine recently published their 2009 ratings for job markets in different cities. The results were rather remarkable.
Texas cities held all 5 top spots on the ranking of large cities. Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston, San Antonio, and Austin were the five best cities in the nation to find a good job.
On the list of mid-sized cities, Texas held two of the top ten spots.
Texas towns held half of the top ten slots for small cities.
The overall list which included cities of all sizes was not much different. Texas held seven of the top ten slots. With 8% of the nation's population, Texas grabs 70% of the space in the ranking of best job markets. It just isn't fair.
To find any sign of the big liberal Meccas of New York or California, you have to search down to location fifty, where Bakersfield California makes the states only showing in the top 100. New York doesn't make the list until position 90, where tiny Ithaca pops its head up. New York City is at at location 95 and Los Angeles is ranked an abysmal 279th.
Texas must be doing something right.
If high taxes and intrusive government was a winning proposition, California and New York ought to be dominating Texas. |
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| 51% view Tea Party rallys favorably |
[Apr. 22nd, 2009|02:59 pm] |
According to a Rasmussen poll, 51% of the population have a positive view of last week's Tea Party protests, including 32% who view them very favorably. 33% held an unfavorable opinion, including 18% who viewed them very unfavorably. 15% thought that Susan Boyle was great.
The poll found that professional politicians were much more likely to hold a dim view of the protests than ordinary citizens:
While half the nation has a favorable opinion of last Wednesday’s events, the nation’s Political Class has a much dimmer view—just 13% of the political elite offered even a somewhat favorable assessment while 81% said the opposite. Among the Political Class, not a single survey respondent said they had a Very Favorable opinion of the events while 60% shared a Very Unfavorable assessment.
While one in four of the respondents indicated that they knew someone who attended a Tea Party, only 1% of the Political Class knew someone who attended.
Obama drone bloggers were the most enthusiastic supporters of the Tea Parties until they discovered that the rallies had nothing to do with orally stimulating the President's testicles.
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| Knight, wider |
[Mar. 10th, 2009|09:59 am] |
When I think of a knight, I think of a medieval warrior on horseback with a sword or lance bravely fighting against tyranny in the name of his majestic king, or an honorable, trustworthy, and valiant young man jousting for the honor of a lady. Or sometimes a souped-up Mustang or Trans-Am. I never picture an overweight drunk old man with a checkered history, questionable morals, and faulty politics. But that all changed this week when it was announced that Ted Kennedy would receive an honorary knighthood. What foe is he going to battle against? The all-you-can-eat buffet? We'll need extra links in the chain mail suit for this one! He will slay the dragon but then he'll barbecue it and leave the princess in the moat to drown as he sobers up.
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| Captions? |
[Mar. 4th, 2009|10:34 am] |
Who can come up with the best caption?
To get the ball rolling:
The ashtray missed his head by THIS MUCH!
Then I told him that HE could be co-president this time, and it GREW to THIS LONG!
After that, only THIS MUCH of the cigar was smokeable. |
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| Good news |
[Mar. 3rd, 2009|09:17 am] |
Today we take a break from the flood of bad news about the Obama recession to focus in on the rare glimmer of sunlight breaking through the dark clouds of gloom.
Reports are coming in that the AIG bailout is working! Last year taxpayers poured $150 billion into the insurance giant because it was deemed "Too big to fail." Encouraged by the company's loss of $62 last quarter, the Obama administration poured another $30 into AIG this week. The stock price has plunged from more than $20 per share last September to 47 cents.
The good news is that soon AIG will not be too big to fail, and we can stop pouring money down that hole.
Timothy Geithner announced that the Obama administration plans to take the same approach to bail out the mortgage market. |
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| News Flash |
[Mar. 2nd, 2009|09:53 pm] |
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(3/2/2009) It has been discovered that President Barack Obama's nominee for Dog Catcher made a number of errors in figuring his taxes over the past ten years and actually overpaid by nearly a thousand dollars. Careful examination of Bursby Bingly's Federal Income Tax returns by the President's meticulous vetting team determined that in 2002, 2003, and 2004, Bingly neglected to deduct maintenance and fuel costs of operating the county animal control truck which he paid out of pocket. As a result, Bingly was able to file an amended return and receive a refund of $942. Senate Democrats said that the anomaly should not cause a problem in Bingly's confirmation. |
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| Fiscal Responsibility? |
[Mar. 2nd, 2009|12:38 pm] |
BO's staged "Summit on Fiscal Responsibility" and his whining about the deficit he "inherited" from President Bush are losing more credibility every day. The irony of claiming to follow a "pay as you go" policy days after signing a $787 billion pork spending bill that will still be accruing interest when our grandkids are footing the bill was overshadowed when BO proposed a budget with a $1.75 trillion deficit.
For Democrats and other mathematically challenged in-duh-viduals, that is a quadrupling of the previous record deficit. In a single year the government will go $5,800 further into debt for every man, woman, and child in America, making BO the most reckless money waster in history. If he wants to waste his own money, I'm fine with that, but he is wasting our future and the futures of generations not even born yet.
BO proposes a myriad of tax increases to go along with his spending binge. He admits that these taxes will not pay for everything he wants to spend, which is not surprising. According to CBO figures, even if he taxed 100% of all income over $75,000 it would not pay for all of his spending proposals.
I'm sure you were relived to hear that only people earning more than $250,000 would be affected by BO's tax hike. If I doubled my income tomorrow I wouldn't be close to that, and unlike the President I cannot confiscate other people's earnings by fiat. But these 2% of the highest earners in America who BO loves to demonize are the people who make our economy work. They already pay more taxes than the remaining 98% of us put together. They own businesses and invest in wealth-creating enterprises which create jobs and generate prosperity that benefits everyone.
If you think that BO's massive tax grab will not affect you, think again. His budget includes a mammoth energy tax, which he estimates will generate $650 billion. Do you drive a car? Ride in a bus, train or airplane? Do you use electricity? Do you rely on natural gas to heat your home? Do you buy groceries? This tax will hit you hard. BO's $13 per week tax cut won't go far to offset the $1.30/gallon jump in gas prices or the doubling of your electric bill.
Another horrendous proposal is eliminating itemized deductions for those evil people who earn more than $250k. Those same people who create most of the jobs and prosperity in this country and pay most of the taxes also give more to charity than anyone else. Private charity groups who work in our communities and around the world to help people in need will be pounded mercilessly by this tax hike, and it won't be the rich who are punished, as BO suggests. The United Way, March of Dimes, Feed the Children, Salvation Army, American Cancer Society, World Vision, and hundreds of others will see contributions plummet. I believe that this is entirely intentional, as BO wants to be the sole benevolent benefactor with as many people as possible dependent on him for their subsistence.
The most insidious tax of all is being levied on us all right now, without any legislation passed by Congress or signed by the President. It is a tax on the value of our currency. In the past few months, the US Treasury has fired up the printing presses to a record rate and flooded the economy with money created out of thin air. The money supply, which had been growing at a fairly steady rate of six or seven percent a year for decades, was nearly tripled in just a few months, and even more is on the way to pay for more bailouts and the porkulus bill. With three times as much money chasing the same amount of available goods and services, rampant inflation is sure to set in as soon as people start spending money again. Right now, people are fearfully hoarding money, due in large part to BO's gloom and doom rhetoric and dire predictions of the catastrophe awaiting is we don't immediately rush his harebrained agenda through which is destroying what shreds of consumer confidence were left. This demagoguery ensures that the economy will not recover in the short term, which is fine with BO, who wants to take full advantage of the situation to seize as much power as possible and entrench countless new entitlements and government bureaucracies while people are gripped with the urgency of a crisis mentality. But when all of the newly created money starts to move again, inflation will hammer the purchasing power of your savings and income. This hidden tax will hit everyone, not just the evil rich people. In fact, those people who are having trouble affording the basic necessities right now will feel the effects the most, when the price for food, electricity, gas, and rent all skyrocket.
Is this the change people voted for? If BO had campaigned on a platform of quadrupling the deficit, taxing the life out of private charity, sending energy costs sky high, and decimating the value of the dollar, would he have been elected? BO is betting his Presidency, his re-election, and his legacy on big government socialism. History says that is a losing bet. |
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| Here it comes again |
[Feb. 26th, 2009|10:49 am] |
BO announced plans to reinstate the "assault weapons ban", a law forbidding ugly black guns.
But here's the great part. The reason that we need to further shred the Bill of Rights is that Mexican drug traffickers are getting guns from America and shooting each other. First of all, is that really a problem? It saves us the bother of tracking them down.
But more importantly, the real problem is that they have failed to secure the border allowing the smuggling of drugs and weapons across the border. The solution is not to curtail the Second Amendment for American citizens who might need to defend themselves from the crime that accompanies the drug industry. The solution is to secure the border, cut off the smuggling routes, and arrest the traffickers.
If the government just did their job of enforcing those laws, the urgent need to ban ugly black guns would go away. Or at least the excuse would change.
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| My rotary dial phone won't get that site |
[Feb. 25th, 2009|03:06 pm] |
I'm gonna dial up the VP's new site as soon as I figure out how to hook my modem up to my TV.
Maybe I should get Al Gore, the inventor of the internet, to help me.
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| Eric Holder |
[Feb. 24th, 2009|02:44 pm] |
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Today Attorney General Eric Holder issued a fierce denial to rumors circulating on Fox News that he has a bright blue scrotum. When asked for proof, Holder pointed to his record of fighting crime, which clearly proves that he has no balls of any color. |
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| A plan for our future |
[Feb. 24th, 2009|10:50 am] |
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I was talking to my friend Jim Pannell yesterday, and he had a brilliant idea.
We should split the country in half and give half to the whiny bleeding heart commie pinkos who voted for BO, and give the other half to the real Americans who didn't. We've tried dividing the country north and south, and that didn't work too well, so I think that east and west would work better. We'll give the left half of the country to the lefties. That works out well, because most of them have already gone to California anyway, and they are welcome to it. There are quite a few in New England who will have to move west, but they can deal with it. New Jersey will be deserted, because conservatives sure don't want it.
The left coast can be ruled by BO and all of his czars. He's got a czar for everything, so there should be plenty of czars to go around. We will elect a President and restore the long-lost relic of Constitutional government. Both countries can govern themselves as they see fit. The left coast, which will most likely decide to call themselves "The People's Republic of BO" will soon be owned entirely by the government, and their citizens won't know how badly the government is botching everything because the kids graduating from government schools won't know how to add. They will have no military and no prisons because the government budget will go entirely to socialized medicine, funding abortion, government housing projects, poetry readings, condom distribution in preschool, replacing cars with mule carts, gay pride parades, carbon credits, and racial sensitivity training. Because all of the productive and educated citizens are on the east coast, within a year they will have reverted to a medieval existence.
Meanwhile, the east coast will be called "America" and will revive a lost form of government called a "Democratic Republic" based on a forgotten document, "The Constitution." We will have a low tax rate and a non-intrusive government whose primary purpose is to protect the fundamental rights of its citizens. When criminals notice that America has prisons and an effective legal system, they will all move west. America's citizens, unbridled and free from excessive taxation, over-regulation, and absurd union demands, will flourish with innovation and productivity, as the engine of capitalism creates an abundance of wealth that anyone with ambition and determination can share in. America will have a strong military and will trade freely with any nation that respects human freedom.
After three or four years, America will invade PRBO and take it back. They won’t have a military, electricity, or internal combustion engines, so it will require about a dozen troops with BB guns. We will be greeted as liberators. |
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