Cambridge Cop, Disappointed in Obama's 'Stupidly' Comment, Refuses to Apologize
Sgt. James Crowley who arrested renowned black scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. said Thursday he's disappointed President Obama said officers acted "stupidly" without knowing all the facts.
AP
Thursday, July 23, 2009
WASHINGTON -- A white police sergeant who arrested renowned black scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. said Thursday he's disappointed President Obama said officers acted "stupidly" without knowing all the facts.
Sgt. James Crowley responded to Gates' home near Harvard University last week to investigate a report of a burglary and demanded Gates show him identification. Police say Gates at first refused and accused the officer of racism.
Gates was charged with disorderly conduct. The charge was dropped Tuesday, and Gates has since demanded an apology from Crowley.
Obama was asked about the arrest of Gates, who is his friend, at the end of a nationally televised news conference on health care Wednesday night.
"I think it's fair to say, number one, any of us would be pretty angry," Obama said. "Number two, that the Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home. And number three -- what I think we know separate and apart from this incident -- is that there is a long history in this country of African-Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately, and that's just a fact."
In radio interviews Thursday morning, Crowley maintained he had done nothing wrong in arresting Gates.
"I support the president to a point, yes, I think it's disappointing that he waded into what should be a local issue and something that plays out here," Crowley told WEEI. "As he himself said ... he doesn't know all the facts."
Crowley did not immediately respond to messages left by The Associated Press on Thursday.
Gates has said he was "outraged" by the arrest. He said the white officer walked into his home without his permission and only arrested him as the professor followed him to the porch, repeatedly demanding the sergeant's name and badge number because he was unhappy over his treatment.
"This isn't about me; this is about the vulnerability of black men in America," Gates said.
He said the incident made him realize how vulnerable poor people and minorities are "to capricious forces like a rogue policeman, and this man clearly was a rogue policeman."
Crowley, 42, said he won't apologize. And his union has expressed "full and unqualified" support for him.
Fellow officers, black and white, say he is well-liked and respected on the force. Crowley was a campus police officer at Brandeis University in July 1993 when he administered CPR trying to save the life of former Boston Celtics player Reggie Lewis. Lewis, who was black, collapsed and died during an off-season workout.
Gates' supporters maintain his arrest was a case of racial profiling. Officers were called to the home by a woman who said she saw "two black males with backpacks" trying to break in the front door. Gates has said he arrived home from an overseas trip and the door was jammed.
The president said federal officials need to continue working with local law enforcement "to improve policing techniques so that we're eliminating potential bias."
"What I think we know separate and apart from this incident is that there's a long history in this country of African-Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately," Obama said. "That's just a fact."
Gov. Deval Patrick, who is black, said he was troubled and upset over the incident. Cambridge Mayor Denise Simmons, who also is black, has said she spoke with Gates and apologized on behalf of the city, and a statement from the city called the July 16 incident "regrettable and unfortunate."
The mayor refused Thursday to comment on the president's remarks.
Police supporters charge that Gates, director of Harvard's W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research, was responsible for his own arrest by overreacting.
Black students and professors at Harvard have complained for years about racial profiling by Cambridge and campus police. Harvard commissioned an independent committee last year to examine the university's race relations after campus police confronted a young black man who was using tools to remove a bike lock. The man worked at Harvard and owned the bike.
Richard Weinblatt, director of the Institute for Public Safety at Central Ohio Technical College, said the police sergeant was responsible for defusing the situation once he realized Gates was the lawful occupant. It is not against the law to yell at police, especially in a home, as long as that behavior does not affect an investigation, he said.
"That is part of being a police officer in a democratic society," Weinblatt said. "The point is that the police sergeant needs to be the bigger person, take the higher road, be more professional."
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Friday, July 17, 2009
One of America's greatest voices!
"I would hope the show appeals to the real silent majority. Right now, the two major political parties are essentially playing between the forty yardlines. Democrats are socialists and Republicans are afraid to really defend capitalism on such things as energy, education, and health care. And both parties seem to be charter members of the big government nanny state, whether it's no-smoking bans, a failed war on drugs, or a creeping environmental dogma that routinely tramples property rights.
Let's be blunt here--we are not a family with legal obligations to support one another. We are a nation of free individuals whose only hope in getting along lies in respecting the rights of our neighbors--including those who simply wish to be left alone."
----Jason Lewis, March 2009
If you havn't heard Jason its time. Catch him on KTLK 100.3 or on the internet. See link below. In our favorites.
Let's be blunt here--we are not a family with legal obligations to support one another. We are a nation of free individuals whose only hope in getting along lies in respecting the rights of our neighbors--including those who simply wish to be left alone."
----Jason Lewis, March 2009
If you havn't heard Jason its time. Catch him on KTLK 100.3 or on the internet. See link below. In our favorites.
Because I am fair!!!! Hats off.
Thank you for sharing with me your opposition to the Blair Holt’s Firearm Licensing and Record of Sale Act (H.R. 45). I appreciate hearing from you concerning this issue.
H.R. 45, which was introduced by Representative Bobby Rush on January 6, 2009, would prohibit an individual from possessing a firearm unless he or she has been issued a firearm license. This legislation is awaiting consideration in the House Judiciary Committee.
Rest assured that I will continue to oppose efforts to undermine Second Amendment freedoms.
As we deal with this and other gun-related matters in the 111th Congress, it is good to know that I have your support.
With best wishes.
Sincerely,
James L. Oberstar, M.C.
JLO/jjr
H.R. 45, which was introduced by Representative Bobby Rush on January 6, 2009, would prohibit an individual from possessing a firearm unless he or she has been issued a firearm license. This legislation is awaiting consideration in the House Judiciary Committee.
Rest assured that I will continue to oppose efforts to undermine Second Amendment freedoms.
As we deal with this and other gun-related matters in the 111th Congress, it is good to know that I have your support.
With best wishes.
Sincerely,
James L. Oberstar, M.C.
JLO/jjr
More Blah, Blah, Blah? No Way!
I appreciate your sharing with me your thoughts regarding health care reform.
Currently, there are 46 million Americans without health insurance and health care costs are spiraling out of control. In this climate, it is clear that something must be done to reform the health care status quo.
For over two years, Congress has been laying the groundwork for health care reform. Since February 2007, House committees have held 79 bipartisan hearings to thoroughly explore this complex issue. On July 14, 2009, the chairmen of the three committees with jurisdiction over health policy in the House of Representatives introduced America’s Affordable Health Choices Act (H.R. 3200), comprehensive health care reform legislation. As the weeks progress, a number of additional hearings and markups will be held by the committees of jurisdiction. You can view more information at these links:
• House Education and Labor Committee: http://edlabor.house.gov/blog/2009/07/americas-affordable-health-choices-act.shtml
• House Energy and Commerce Committee: http://energycommerce.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1706:house-democrats-introduce-bill-to-provide-quality-affordable-health-care-for-all-americans&catid=122:media-advisories&Itemid=55
• House Ways and Means Committee: http://waysandmeans.house.gov/MoreInfo.asp?section=52
It is important to note that H.R. 3200 will increase choice among an array of private and public insurance options. Most importantly, if you like the insurance that you have, you can keep it. Opponents of health care reform are spreading a number of myths, among them that health reform means fewer choices and that individuals will be forced out of their current plans. Consistent with President Obama’s goals, the legislation builds on what works in the current health care system by strengthening employer-provided care, while fixing what is broken with it. The legislation ensures that individuals will not have to worry about being denied insurance based on a pre-existing condition, or being without coverage if their employers drops coverage, if they lose their job, or if they change employers.
H.R. 3200 is paid for by achieving significant efficiencies and savings in Medicare and Medicaid and through a surcharge on the wealthiest 1.2 percent of Americans. The legislation ensures that middle-class Americans will see no tax increases. All families with adjusted gross incomes below $350,000 and all individuals with adjusted gross incomes below $280,000 will not see their taxes go up.
There will continue to be much discussion and debate as the 111th Congress works to build consensus on this critical issue. I am hopeful that opponents of health care reform will offer input on this issue as opposed to circulating myths.
With best wishes.
Sincerely,
James L. Oberstar, M.C.
JLO/wed
Currently, there are 46 million Americans without health insurance and health care costs are spiraling out of control. In this climate, it is clear that something must be done to reform the health care status quo.
For over two years, Congress has been laying the groundwork for health care reform. Since February 2007, House committees have held 79 bipartisan hearings to thoroughly explore this complex issue. On July 14, 2009, the chairmen of the three committees with jurisdiction over health policy in the House of Representatives introduced America’s Affordable Health Choices Act (H.R. 3200), comprehensive health care reform legislation. As the weeks progress, a number of additional hearings and markups will be held by the committees of jurisdiction. You can view more information at these links:
• House Education and Labor Committee: http://edlabor.house.gov/blog/2009/07/americas-affordable-health-choices-act.shtml
• House Energy and Commerce Committee: http://energycommerce.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1706:house-democrats-introduce-bill-to-provide-quality-affordable-health-care-for-all-americans&catid=122:media-advisories&Itemid=55
• House Ways and Means Committee: http://waysandmeans.house.gov/MoreInfo.asp?section=52
It is important to note that H.R. 3200 will increase choice among an array of private and public insurance options. Most importantly, if you like the insurance that you have, you can keep it. Opponents of health care reform are spreading a number of myths, among them that health reform means fewer choices and that individuals will be forced out of their current plans. Consistent with President Obama’s goals, the legislation builds on what works in the current health care system by strengthening employer-provided care, while fixing what is broken with it. The legislation ensures that individuals will not have to worry about being denied insurance based on a pre-existing condition, or being without coverage if their employers drops coverage, if they lose their job, or if they change employers.
H.R. 3200 is paid for by achieving significant efficiencies and savings in Medicare and Medicaid and through a surcharge on the wealthiest 1.2 percent of Americans. The legislation ensures that middle-class Americans will see no tax increases. All families with adjusted gross incomes below $350,000 and all individuals with adjusted gross incomes below $280,000 will not see their taxes go up.
There will continue to be much discussion and debate as the 111th Congress works to build consensus on this critical issue. I am hopeful that opponents of health care reform will offer input on this issue as opposed to circulating myths.
With best wishes.
Sincerely,
James L. Oberstar, M.C.
JLO/wed
Thursday, July 16, 2009
From FOXNews.com - July 16,2009
Congressional Budget Director Warns Health Care Bills Will Raise Costs
On the heels of the Senate health committee's approval Wednesday of a plan to revamp U.S. health care, three House committees with jurisdiction over the issue shifted into action. But the director of Congress' budget office warns the proposals will raise costs.
The director of the Congressional Budget Office issued a warning to Democrats Thursday that their health care proposals would raise costs, not lower them.
One day after a Senate panel approved its version of the health care reform plan, the first committee to do so, CBO Director Doug Elmendorf gave a dose of bad medicine to a separate committee.
Asked by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, D-N.D., whether costs would be lowered -- also known as "bending the curve" -- Elmendorf responded: "The curve is being raised."
Subsidies to help uninsured people would raise federal health care spending, which is already growing at an unsustainable rate, Elmendorf explained at the hearing. The Medicare and Medicaid cuts that lawmakers have offered to pay for the coverage expansion aren't big enough to offset the cost trend, particularly in the long term, he said.
House Republican Leader John Boehner seized on the comments, calling on Democrats to scrap their plans in light of the assessment.
Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell called it a "wake up call" for Democrats.
"The director of the Congressional Budget Office confirmed today what we have been saying for weeks -- the health care spending plan that some are trying to rush through Congress would actually make things worse," McConnell said.
CBO's numbers come at an inopportune time for Democratic leaders who are trying push through and merge several different health care reform plans in the coming weeks, on orders from President Obama.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid voiced frustration with Elmendorf, who in recent months has set back health care efforts with his office's cost analyses of the plans being floated.
"What he should do is run for Congress," Reid said, suggesting he found the CBO estimate to be partisan in its results.
Elmendorf endorsed taxing health benefits as a way of paying for reform, though Obama has spoken out against that idea.
How to pay for the plan is generating a big problem for Congress. The Senate Finance Committee, which is hammering out what could be the only bipartisan bill remaining, is struggling to come up with about $320 billion in revenue to pay for the reforms. Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., was clearly frustrated Thursday and criticized Obama for opposing a tax on employer-provided benefits.
"The president is not helping us," he said.
Meanwhile, House Democrats on Thursday pushed ahead with legislation that would deliver on Obama's promise to remake the health care system and cover some 50 million uninsured, despite concerns from their own party's moderate and conservative lawmakers that the $1.5 trillion plan costs too much.
On the heels of the Senate health committee's approval Wednesday of a plan to revamp U.S. health care, three House committees with jurisdiction over the issue shifted into action.
The Education and Labor Committee passed an amendment to speed up the bill's guarantee of access to health insurance for people with pre-existing medical conditions. The bill as written would have stopped insurance companies from denying coverage because of pre-existing conditions, beginning in 2012. The panel agreed Thursday to move up the implementation date for group plans to six months after the bill takes effect.
It was one of about 50 amendments before the committee, which planned to meet throughout the day to complete work on its portion of the bill by day's end.
The tax-writing Ways and Means Committee also was working on its portion of the overall legislation, which seeks to provide coverage to nearly all Americans by subsidizing the poor and penalizing individuals and employers who don't purchase health insurance.
A third House committee, Energy and Commerce, also was considering the measure Thursday, but the road was expected to be rougher there. A group of fiscally conservative House Democrats called the Blue Dogs holds more than a half dozen seats on the committee -- enough to block approval -- and is opposing the bill over costs and other issues.
Rep. Mike Ross, D-Ark., who chairs the Blue Dogs' health care task force, said the group would need to see significant changes to protect small businesses and rural providers and contain costs before it could sign on. "We cannot support the current bill," he said.
The Energy and Commerce Committee's Blue Dogs met Wednesday to consider what amendments they would offer, and the panel scheduled vote sessions daily through next Wednesday in what promised to be an arduous process to reach consensus.
Obama was doing all he could to encourage Congress to act. He scheduled White House meetings Thursday morning with two potential Senate swing votes, Sens. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., and Olympia Snowe, R-Maine. On Wednesday, he met with a group of Senate Republicans in the White House in search of a bipartisan compromise and appeared in the Rose Garden for the latest in a daily series of public appeals to Congress to move legislation this summer.
Obama also pushed his message in network television interviews, and his political organization launched a series of 30-second television ads on health care.
The Senate health panel's $615 billion measure would require individuals to get health insurance and employers to contribute to the cost. The bill calls for the government to provide financial assistance with premiums for individuals and families making up to four times the federal poverty level, or about $88,000 for a family of four, a broad cross-section of the middle class.
But the 13-10 party-line vote on the bill signaled a rift in Congress -- including between Democrats. Some liberal-leaning Senate Democrats are eager to move forward with or without Republican support, while some moderates want to hold out for a bipartisan deal.
The bill would be paired with one from the Senate Finance Committee.
But a core group on Finance -- which, unlike the health committee, must come up with a payment mechanism for the bill -- continued to labor toward bipartisan agreement. Because it might be difficult to secure support from all Democrats, Baucus insisted after daylong meetings Wednesday that a bipartisan bill was needed.
On the heels of the Senate health committee's approval Wednesday of a plan to revamp U.S. health care, three House committees with jurisdiction over the issue shifted into action. But the director of Congress' budget office warns the proposals will raise costs.
The director of the Congressional Budget Office issued a warning to Democrats Thursday that their health care proposals would raise costs, not lower them.
One day after a Senate panel approved its version of the health care reform plan, the first committee to do so, CBO Director Doug Elmendorf gave a dose of bad medicine to a separate committee.
Asked by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, D-N.D., whether costs would be lowered -- also known as "bending the curve" -- Elmendorf responded: "The curve is being raised."
Subsidies to help uninsured people would raise federal health care spending, which is already growing at an unsustainable rate, Elmendorf explained at the hearing. The Medicare and Medicaid cuts that lawmakers have offered to pay for the coverage expansion aren't big enough to offset the cost trend, particularly in the long term, he said.
House Republican Leader John Boehner seized on the comments, calling on Democrats to scrap their plans in light of the assessment.
Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell called it a "wake up call" for Democrats.
"The director of the Congressional Budget Office confirmed today what we have been saying for weeks -- the health care spending plan that some are trying to rush through Congress would actually make things worse," McConnell said.
CBO's numbers come at an inopportune time for Democratic leaders who are trying push through and merge several different health care reform plans in the coming weeks, on orders from President Obama.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid voiced frustration with Elmendorf, who in recent months has set back health care efforts with his office's cost analyses of the plans being floated.
"What he should do is run for Congress," Reid said, suggesting he found the CBO estimate to be partisan in its results.
Elmendorf endorsed taxing health benefits as a way of paying for reform, though Obama has spoken out against that idea.
How to pay for the plan is generating a big problem for Congress. The Senate Finance Committee, which is hammering out what could be the only bipartisan bill remaining, is struggling to come up with about $320 billion in revenue to pay for the reforms. Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., was clearly frustrated Thursday and criticized Obama for opposing a tax on employer-provided benefits.
"The president is not helping us," he said.
Meanwhile, House Democrats on Thursday pushed ahead with legislation that would deliver on Obama's promise to remake the health care system and cover some 50 million uninsured, despite concerns from their own party's moderate and conservative lawmakers that the $1.5 trillion plan costs too much.
On the heels of the Senate health committee's approval Wednesday of a plan to revamp U.S. health care, three House committees with jurisdiction over the issue shifted into action.
The Education and Labor Committee passed an amendment to speed up the bill's guarantee of access to health insurance for people with pre-existing medical conditions. The bill as written would have stopped insurance companies from denying coverage because of pre-existing conditions, beginning in 2012. The panel agreed Thursday to move up the implementation date for group plans to six months after the bill takes effect.
It was one of about 50 amendments before the committee, which planned to meet throughout the day to complete work on its portion of the bill by day's end.
The tax-writing Ways and Means Committee also was working on its portion of the overall legislation, which seeks to provide coverage to nearly all Americans by subsidizing the poor and penalizing individuals and employers who don't purchase health insurance.
A third House committee, Energy and Commerce, also was considering the measure Thursday, but the road was expected to be rougher there. A group of fiscally conservative House Democrats called the Blue Dogs holds more than a half dozen seats on the committee -- enough to block approval -- and is opposing the bill over costs and other issues.
Rep. Mike Ross, D-Ark., who chairs the Blue Dogs' health care task force, said the group would need to see significant changes to protect small businesses and rural providers and contain costs before it could sign on. "We cannot support the current bill," he said.
The Energy and Commerce Committee's Blue Dogs met Wednesday to consider what amendments they would offer, and the panel scheduled vote sessions daily through next Wednesday in what promised to be an arduous process to reach consensus.
Obama was doing all he could to encourage Congress to act. He scheduled White House meetings Thursday morning with two potential Senate swing votes, Sens. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., and Olympia Snowe, R-Maine. On Wednesday, he met with a group of Senate Republicans in the White House in search of a bipartisan compromise and appeared in the Rose Garden for the latest in a daily series of public appeals to Congress to move legislation this summer.
Obama also pushed his message in network television interviews, and his political organization launched a series of 30-second television ads on health care.
The Senate health panel's $615 billion measure would require individuals to get health insurance and employers to contribute to the cost. The bill calls for the government to provide financial assistance with premiums for individuals and families making up to four times the federal poverty level, or about $88,000 for a family of four, a broad cross-section of the middle class.
But the 13-10 party-line vote on the bill signaled a rift in Congress -- including between Democrats. Some liberal-leaning Senate Democrats are eager to move forward with or without Republican support, while some moderates want to hold out for a bipartisan deal.
The bill would be paired with one from the Senate Finance Committee.
But a core group on Finance -- which, unlike the health committee, must come up with a payment mechanism for the bill -- continued to labor toward bipartisan agreement. Because it might be difficult to secure support from all Democrats, Baucus insisted after daylong meetings Wednesday that a bipartisan bill was needed.
Monday, July 13, 2009
Our "leaders" are nuts!
From The Heritage Foundation Website
July 9, 2009
A Third Stimulus? Don't Repeat the Same Failures
by J.D. Foster, Ph.D. and Rea S. Hederman, Jr.
WebMemo #2533
Calls for a new stimulus bill are growing almost as fast as the ranks of the unemployed. Many politicians and economists who had advocated for the huge $787 billion second stimulus bill are surprised that it has failed to help the economy. Already, unemployment projections by the Obama Administration have proven wildly optimistic, leading Vice President Biden to say that the Administration "misread the economy."
However, misreading the economy or the snail pace in spending the stimulus money does not explain why the second stimulus has not delivered economic recovery. The reason that the second stimulus is not working stems from the misguided belief that a government can spend the economy out of a recession. If Congress enacts a third stimulus bill with a focus on more government spending and infrastructure projects, it will fail for the same reasons that the second one is failing, only this time with much higher government debt.
One definition of insanity is repeating an action over and over and expecting a different result. Policymakers should not replicate repeatedly failed policies of government spending that can only produce huge increases in government debt and a diminished economic future. Instead, they should focus on truly pro-growth policies that will enable the private sector to produce jobs and wealth. These policies, such as cutting spending and reducing tax rates, would be a radical course correction for the President but one he may be forced to consider before long.
The Second Stimulus Bill
The February stimulus bill championed by President Obama was the second of its kind in less than 12 months. President Bush and Congress enacted a smaller stimulus bill worth $152 billion that focused on rebates and some small tax breaks for businesses. By historical standards this was a robust fiscal response, but it proved ineffectual because it was largely based on the naive principle of "putting cash in people's pockets" as opposed to the operative principle that guided the very effective 2003 tax bill of improving economic incentives through rate reductions. Taken together, these two stimulus bills equal almost a trillion dollars.
The Obama Administration touted the second stimulus bill, saying that it would lower unemployment by quickly spending money on "shovel-ready" projects. Two senior economists with the Administration predicted that the unemployment rate would level off and never exceed 8 percent with stimulus plan.[1]
These promises proved false as the unemployment rate climbed from 7.6 in January to 9.5 percent in June, which far surpassed the Administration's projections. Even jobs in the highway construction field have fallen faster in 2009 than they fell in 2008, despite promises that the stimulus bill would quickly boost infrastructure projects.
Some stimulus defenders say that the real power of the deficit spending will drive the economy in the coming months as more money is spent faster. However, as White House Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag notes, the General Accounting Office found that stimulus spending is ahead of schedule.[2] Ahead or behind schedule, the problem is not the pace of the spending; the problem is the spending.
Time to Change Course
The economic theory behind the Obama bill--and the 2008 Bush bill--is that deficit spending can increase demand in the economy and that growth and employment will follow. With all the focus on the Obama bill, it is easy to forget that absent any new policy the budget deficit increased dramatically from 2008 to 2009 due to the recession, from 3.2 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) to a whopping 11.9 percent of GDP, according to the Congressional Budget Office. If deficit spending were truly stimulative, an 8.7 percentage point jump would be more than enough to cause the economy to begin to overheat.
This is no longer an academic, theoretical discussion. We have had a very clear experiment in deficit spending as fiscal stimulus, and the experiment failed with or without the additional Obama deficit spending. It is time for the proponents of this theory to either explain what special circumstances can possibly exculpate their pet theory or admit their failure.
Why did the economy not respond? How does the theory fail? The simple explanation is that deficit spending must be financed. The additional deficit spending before and after the Obama bill is financed by borrowing. That borrowing reduces the amount of domestic savings available for investment and so reduces investment, or it increases the amount of foreign savings that must be imported and so results in an increase in the trade deficit. The composition of total demand changes, but the level does not, and so the level of economic activity is unaffected.
Dangers of a Third Stimulus
If Congress and the President pursue yet another spending-based, debt-financed bill, it will be as fruitless as its predecessors. It will also demonstrate that this Administration and this Congress are incapable of learning from past mistakes or deviating from the dictates of their ideology. Worse, they will be sowing more seeds for a harvest of higher interest rates and economic weakness.
These higher interest rates will cause the entire interest rate structure to rise from low risk to high risk for short-term and longer maturities, car loans, mortgages, business loans, and all other types of credit. These higher interest rates will sap business investment in all manner of projects, producing slower growth in the short term and slower productivity and wage growth in the longer run.
What Should Be Done
It is by no means too late to enact good economic policy. Congress and the President still have time to adopt policies to short-circuit the downturn, accelerate the recovery, and strengthen the economy for the long term. To do so, they need to focus on economic incentives and business confidence, on a rapid return to a responsible fiscal policy, and on a well-grounded confidence in a sound currency. In brief, they should:
Scotch all talk of another spending-based economic stimulus and, instead, immediately repeal the authorization to spending any remaining sums under the first Obama stimulus bill;
Set a target for additional, permanent spending reductions for 2010 of at least 1 percent of GDP below the existing spending baseline;
Explicitly affirm their intention to extend the 2001 and 2003 tax relief, including the AMT patch, for at least five years;
Reduce marginal individual and corporate income tax rates for at least five years;
Suspend any effort to pass climate change legislation involving additional levies of any kind on businesses now or in the future;
Delay the implementation of the scheduled hike in the minimum wage until employment has reached its previous peak.
These will be bitter pills to swallow for the President and the majority in Congress, but it is what must be done to turn the economy around.
A Failed Experiment
The United States has pursued a clear experiment in deficit-based economic stimulus, and the experiment has failed. Continuing the experiment can only increase the national debt and delay consideration of effective alternatives. Repeating the experiment with yet another round of legislated deficit spending would be simply irrational and irresponsible.
Congress and the Administration are not powerless in the face of the economic downturn. But they should jettison their ideology to pursue policies that will help the economy in the short and long term. They must embrace a new era of responsibility.
J. D. Foster, Ph.D., is Norman B. Ture Senior Fellow in the Economics of Fiscal Policy in the Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies and
Rea S. Hederman, Jr., is Assistant Director of and a Senior Policy Analyst in the Center for Data Analysis at The Heritage Foundation.
July 9, 2009
A Third Stimulus? Don't Repeat the Same Failures
by J.D. Foster, Ph.D. and Rea S. Hederman, Jr.
WebMemo #2533
Calls for a new stimulus bill are growing almost as fast as the ranks of the unemployed. Many politicians and economists who had advocated for the huge $787 billion second stimulus bill are surprised that it has failed to help the economy. Already, unemployment projections by the Obama Administration have proven wildly optimistic, leading Vice President Biden to say that the Administration "misread the economy."
However, misreading the economy or the snail pace in spending the stimulus money does not explain why the second stimulus has not delivered economic recovery. The reason that the second stimulus is not working stems from the misguided belief that a government can spend the economy out of a recession. If Congress enacts a third stimulus bill with a focus on more government spending and infrastructure projects, it will fail for the same reasons that the second one is failing, only this time with much higher government debt.
One definition of insanity is repeating an action over and over and expecting a different result. Policymakers should not replicate repeatedly failed policies of government spending that can only produce huge increases in government debt and a diminished economic future. Instead, they should focus on truly pro-growth policies that will enable the private sector to produce jobs and wealth. These policies, such as cutting spending and reducing tax rates, would be a radical course correction for the President but one he may be forced to consider before long.
The Second Stimulus Bill
The February stimulus bill championed by President Obama was the second of its kind in less than 12 months. President Bush and Congress enacted a smaller stimulus bill worth $152 billion that focused on rebates and some small tax breaks for businesses. By historical standards this was a robust fiscal response, but it proved ineffectual because it was largely based on the naive principle of "putting cash in people's pockets" as opposed to the operative principle that guided the very effective 2003 tax bill of improving economic incentives through rate reductions. Taken together, these two stimulus bills equal almost a trillion dollars.
The Obama Administration touted the second stimulus bill, saying that it would lower unemployment by quickly spending money on "shovel-ready" projects. Two senior economists with the Administration predicted that the unemployment rate would level off and never exceed 8 percent with stimulus plan.[1]
These promises proved false as the unemployment rate climbed from 7.6 in January to 9.5 percent in June, which far surpassed the Administration's projections. Even jobs in the highway construction field have fallen faster in 2009 than they fell in 2008, despite promises that the stimulus bill would quickly boost infrastructure projects.
Some stimulus defenders say that the real power of the deficit spending will drive the economy in the coming months as more money is spent faster. However, as White House Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag notes, the General Accounting Office found that stimulus spending is ahead of schedule.[2] Ahead or behind schedule, the problem is not the pace of the spending; the problem is the spending.
Time to Change Course
The economic theory behind the Obama bill--and the 2008 Bush bill--is that deficit spending can increase demand in the economy and that growth and employment will follow. With all the focus on the Obama bill, it is easy to forget that absent any new policy the budget deficit increased dramatically from 2008 to 2009 due to the recession, from 3.2 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) to a whopping 11.9 percent of GDP, according to the Congressional Budget Office. If deficit spending were truly stimulative, an 8.7 percentage point jump would be more than enough to cause the economy to begin to overheat.
This is no longer an academic, theoretical discussion. We have had a very clear experiment in deficit spending as fiscal stimulus, and the experiment failed with or without the additional Obama deficit spending. It is time for the proponents of this theory to either explain what special circumstances can possibly exculpate their pet theory or admit their failure.
Why did the economy not respond? How does the theory fail? The simple explanation is that deficit spending must be financed. The additional deficit spending before and after the Obama bill is financed by borrowing. That borrowing reduces the amount of domestic savings available for investment and so reduces investment, or it increases the amount of foreign savings that must be imported and so results in an increase in the trade deficit. The composition of total demand changes, but the level does not, and so the level of economic activity is unaffected.
Dangers of a Third Stimulus
If Congress and the President pursue yet another spending-based, debt-financed bill, it will be as fruitless as its predecessors. It will also demonstrate that this Administration and this Congress are incapable of learning from past mistakes or deviating from the dictates of their ideology. Worse, they will be sowing more seeds for a harvest of higher interest rates and economic weakness.
These higher interest rates will cause the entire interest rate structure to rise from low risk to high risk for short-term and longer maturities, car loans, mortgages, business loans, and all other types of credit. These higher interest rates will sap business investment in all manner of projects, producing slower growth in the short term and slower productivity and wage growth in the longer run.
What Should Be Done
It is by no means too late to enact good economic policy. Congress and the President still have time to adopt policies to short-circuit the downturn, accelerate the recovery, and strengthen the economy for the long term. To do so, they need to focus on economic incentives and business confidence, on a rapid return to a responsible fiscal policy, and on a well-grounded confidence in a sound currency. In brief, they should:
Scotch all talk of another spending-based economic stimulus and, instead, immediately repeal the authorization to spending any remaining sums under the first Obama stimulus bill;
Set a target for additional, permanent spending reductions for 2010 of at least 1 percent of GDP below the existing spending baseline;
Explicitly affirm their intention to extend the 2001 and 2003 tax relief, including the AMT patch, for at least five years;
Reduce marginal individual and corporate income tax rates for at least five years;
Suspend any effort to pass climate change legislation involving additional levies of any kind on businesses now or in the future;
Delay the implementation of the scheduled hike in the minimum wage until employment has reached its previous peak.
These will be bitter pills to swallow for the President and the majority in Congress, but it is what must be done to turn the economy around.
A Failed Experiment
The United States has pursued a clear experiment in deficit-based economic stimulus, and the experiment has failed. Continuing the experiment can only increase the national debt and delay consideration of effective alternatives. Repeating the experiment with yet another round of legislated deficit spending would be simply irrational and irresponsible.
Congress and the Administration are not powerless in the face of the economic downturn. But they should jettison their ideology to pursue policies that will help the economy in the short and long term. They must embrace a new era of responsibility.
J. D. Foster, Ph.D., is Norman B. Ture Senior Fellow in the Economics of Fiscal Policy in the Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies and
Rea S. Hederman, Jr., is Assistant Director of and a Senior Policy Analyst in the Center for Data Analysis at The Heritage Foundation.
Friday, July 10, 2009
Yeah, Yeah, Yeah .... more of the same blah.
Recently, I asked my Star Rep to vote against CAP and TRADE.
Here is the lame duck explaination.......
Thank you for sharing with me your opposition to legislation that would reduce greenhouse gas emissions. I appreciate your advocacy.
On June 26, the House of Representatives passed the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 (H.R. 2454) by a vote of 219 to 212. I supported the bill after ensuring that several concerns I had about potential economic hardship to the 8th District were addressed. The resulting language makes important progress toward promoting clean energy and reducing carbon emissions in the United States.
The legislation would create millions of new, clean energy jobs; enhance America’s energy security by reducing our dependence on imported oil from countries ruled by dictators; and protect the environment for many generations to come.
Additionally, this legislation would help America become the world leader in manufacturing clean energy technologies. For example, a single wind turbine contains up to 400 tons of steel and 8,000 parts. The clean energy economy will create jobs here in America to produce these technologies, and there is no reason American steel produced from Minnesota taconite cannot play a role in this new economy.
The Congressional Budget Office calculated that the legislation would cost the average U.S. household about $175 a year — a postage stamp a day.
I am pleased that agreement was reached to clarify the definition of renewable biomass to protect the 8th District’s vital wood product sector, as well as to make the iron ore industry eligible for emission allowances to prevent the loss of jobs on the Iron Range.
While we may respectfully disagree on this legislation, I hope to earn your support on the principle of an energy policy that moves our country toward energy independence and clean electricity generation. The legislation is now under consideration by the U.S. Senate.
With best wishes.
Sincerely,
James L. Oberstar, M.C.
Than explain this!!
Here is the lame duck explaination.......
Thank you for sharing with me your opposition to legislation that would reduce greenhouse gas emissions. I appreciate your advocacy.
On June 26, the House of Representatives passed the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 (H.R. 2454) by a vote of 219 to 212. I supported the bill after ensuring that several concerns I had about potential economic hardship to the 8th District were addressed. The resulting language makes important progress toward promoting clean energy and reducing carbon emissions in the United States.
The legislation would create millions of new, clean energy jobs; enhance America’s energy security by reducing our dependence on imported oil from countries ruled by dictators; and protect the environment for many generations to come.
Additionally, this legislation would help America become the world leader in manufacturing clean energy technologies. For example, a single wind turbine contains up to 400 tons of steel and 8,000 parts. The clean energy economy will create jobs here in America to produce these technologies, and there is no reason American steel produced from Minnesota taconite cannot play a role in this new economy.
The Congressional Budget Office calculated that the legislation would cost the average U.S. household about $175 a year — a postage stamp a day.
I am pleased that agreement was reached to clarify the definition of renewable biomass to protect the 8th District’s vital wood product sector, as well as to make the iron ore industry eligible for emission allowances to prevent the loss of jobs on the Iron Range.
While we may respectfully disagree on this legislation, I hope to earn your support on the principle of an energy policy that moves our country toward energy independence and clean electricity generation. The legislation is now under consideration by the U.S. Senate.
With best wishes.
Sincerely,
James L. Oberstar, M.C.
Than explain this!!
Monday, July 6, 2009
Why do the Brits get it?!
Is it just me?
by Gerald Warner
If al-Qaeda, the Taliban and the rest of the Looney Tunes brigade want to kick America to death, they had better move in quickly and grab a piece of the action before Barack Obama finishes the job himself. Never in the history of the United States has a president worked so actively against the interests of his own people - not even Jimmy Carter.
Obama's problem is that he does not know who the enemy is. To him, the enemy does not squat in caves in Waziristan, clutching automatic weapons and reciting the more militant verses from the Koran: instead, it sits around at tea parties in Kentucky quoting from the US Constitution. Obama is not at war with terrorists, but with his Republican fellow citizens. He has never abandoned the campaign trail.
That is why he opened Pandora's Box by publishing the Justice Department's legal opinions on waterboarding and other hardline interrogation techniques. He cynically subordinated the national interest to his partisan desire to embarrass the Republicans. Then he had to rush to Langley , Virginia to try to reassure a demoralised CIA that had just discovered the President of the United States was an even more formidable foe than al-Qaeda.
"Don't be discouraged by what's happened the last few weeks," he told intelligence officers. Is he kidding? Thanks to him, al-Qaeda knows the private interrogation techniques available to the US intelligence agencies and can train its operatives to withstand them - or would do so, if they had not already been outlawed.
So, next time a senior al-Qaeda hood is captured, all the CIA can do is ask him nicely if he would care to reveal when a major population centre is due to be hit by a terror spectacular, or which American city is about to be irradicated by a dirty bomb. Your view of this situation will be dictated by one simple criterion: whether or not you watched the people jumping from the twin towers...
President Pantywaist's recent world tour, cosying up to all the bad guys, excited the ambitions of America 's enemies. Here, they realised, is a sucker they can really take to the cleaners. His only enemies are fellow Americans.
Which prompts the question: why does President Pantywaist hate America so badly?
by Gerald Warner
If al-Qaeda, the Taliban and the rest of the Looney Tunes brigade want to kick America to death, they had better move in quickly and grab a piece of the action before Barack Obama finishes the job himself. Never in the history of the United States has a president worked so actively against the interests of his own people - not even Jimmy Carter.
Obama's problem is that he does not know who the enemy is. To him, the enemy does not squat in caves in Waziristan, clutching automatic weapons and reciting the more militant verses from the Koran: instead, it sits around at tea parties in Kentucky quoting from the US Constitution. Obama is not at war with terrorists, but with his Republican fellow citizens. He has never abandoned the campaign trail.
That is why he opened Pandora's Box by publishing the Justice Department's legal opinions on waterboarding and other hardline interrogation techniques. He cynically subordinated the national interest to his partisan desire to embarrass the Republicans. Then he had to rush to Langley , Virginia to try to reassure a demoralised CIA that had just discovered the President of the United States was an even more formidable foe than al-Qaeda.
"Don't be discouraged by what's happened the last few weeks," he told intelligence officers. Is he kidding? Thanks to him, al-Qaeda knows the private interrogation techniques available to the US intelligence agencies and can train its operatives to withstand them - or would do so, if they had not already been outlawed.
So, next time a senior al-Qaeda hood is captured, all the CIA can do is ask him nicely if he would care to reveal when a major population centre is due to be hit by a terror spectacular, or which American city is about to be irradicated by a dirty bomb. Your view of this situation will be dictated by one simple criterion: whether or not you watched the people jumping from the twin towers...
President Pantywaist's recent world tour, cosying up to all the bad guys, excited the ambitions of America 's enemies. Here, they realised, is a sucker they can really take to the cleaners. His only enemies are fellow Americans.
Which prompts the question: why does President Pantywaist hate America so badly?
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