As you may have heard, the latest numbers on unemployment were released today and merely provide a metric for what Americans across the country have known for a while now; the economy still has not recovered. These numbers, which have broken the double digit mark for the first time in 26 ? years, clearly indicate that the President’s Stimulus package has done nothing that it was intended to do, which was to make the recession shorter and shallower.

You will remember that President Obama’s economic advisors indicated that with the passage of the so-called ‘stimulus package,’ unemployment levels would not exceed 7.8%. Now, as we stare down the face of unemployment levels of 10.2%, it begs the question, Mr. President, where are the jobs?

Those of you who read this blog, know that I enjoy posting the occasional political cartoon, and I stumbled across this one this week by Walt Handelsman that is particularly appropriate. The scariest goblins this Halloween are government run health care, the national energy tax, and taxes to pay for more bureaucracies that spend more of your money.

Happy Halloween!

Over the weekend, USA Today ran this Op-Ed on earmarks.  This article really hits the nail on the head.  Click Here to read the full article.

Yesterday marked the last day of Fiscal Year 2009.  I think it is prudent to take a look back at this year in federal spending…

According to CBO, the federal government ran a $1.4 trillion deficit through the first 11 months of FY 2009.  Revenues are down, expenditures are up, and the federal government will borrow 43 cents for every dollar it spends in FY 2009.

The national debt now stands at $11.77 trillion, a 35.8% increase since Democrats took control of Congress in 2007.  To provide a frame of reference, this 33 month period has racked up more debt than the total debt accumulated by the federal government from 1789 to1989….In FY 2009 alone, the federal government ran up $1.75 trillion of debt.

Since the non-stimulating stimulus package became law, Speaker Pelosi, Harry Reid, and President Obama have not curbed their spending habits.  There is no question that Republicans foolishly abandoned their fiscal conservative roots during the past 8 years, but since taking over Congress, Democrats have turned a projected ten-year $800 billion surplus into a projected deficit of $7.8 trillion over the same period of time.  For you bean counters out there, that is an $8.6 trillion deterioration of the nation’s budget outlook in the 33 months since Democrats took control of Congress.

These numbers are staggering…they speak for themselves.

Over the last 9 months, we have seen a drastic increase in government spending, deficits, and debt. You will often see or hear pundits and TV personalities opining about these metrics in relation to the size of government. However, you don’t often hear about another important metric relative to the expansion of government, and that is the growth of the federal bureaucracy.

Since the President passed his massive non-stimulating stimulus bill, it has proven to have been largely ineffective and inefficient. But several government agencies have made hires just to oversee the stimulus spending, and the federal workforce has ballooned by 15.6% since 2006.

In his request for the stimulus bill, the President said:

As soon as I took office, I asked this Congress to send me a recovery plan by Presidents’ Day that would put people back to work and put money in their pockets. Not because I believe in bigger government – I don’t.”

However, actions speak louder than words and President Obama has been the vanguard of bigger government, making now routine incursions into virtually every level of private life from student loans to health care. The point here is simple, as the government grows, liberty declines, and inevitably the taxpayer and the rest of the economy suffer.

As Ronald Reagan once said:

No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. Government programs – once launched – never disappear, Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we’ll ever see on this Earth.”

In the past, I have highlighted various egregious boondoggles or flat out silly expenditures by the federal government, it’s been a while since I last blogged, but here is one boondoggle that I stumbled upon recently.

The stimulus bill, widely touted by the current Administration and Democratic leadership of the House and Senate, was supposed to ostensibly make the recession shorter and shallower.  Unfortunately it has done neither.  Despite unemployment levels near 10% you will be able to take comfort knowing that Washington D.C. was recent the recipient of $2.8 million in stimulus funds from the United States Forest Service for ‘wildland fire mitigation.’  Yet, D.C. doesn’t have any national forests and furthermore hasn’t seen a wildland-scale fire since 1814 when the British burned the Capitol during the War of 1812.  So the obvious question is, ‘where is this money going?’

Well, $2.7 million will be going to Washington Parks and People a non-profit that enhances and restores public parks. 

According to the organization it has:

Sponsored the Marvin Gaye Festival, which includes live musical performances.

Sponsored the Season in Seven Celebration and Tree Lighting

Chaired the International Urban Parks Alliance Forum, the premier forum for parks advocates.

When asked about the grant, they were surprised as anyone to be getting the grant saying, “[W]e do not know anything beyond the information we saw on the web site.”

This is disappointing, but further proof that the President’s stimulus package was both ill-conceived and not truly designed to be stimulative.

As readers of this missive know, I frequently voice my opinionwhen I believe the President is doing the wrong thing. That has been the case with virtually everything he has done thus far. However, when he takes action that I believe to be correct or helpful, I will point that out as well. Such is the case this week when the President announced that he will reappoint Ben Bernanke as Chairman of the Federal Reserve for another 4 year term. This is a hugely important and very positive decision for the following reasons:

Independence: The Federal Reserve should make decisions for economic reasons and remain independent of the White House so as not to politicize those decisions. I would say this regardless of who the President is. Bernanke is independent and will have been appointed by both Bush and Obama. Replacing him could have sent a sign that the Administration was trying to control the Fed which would have been a terrible message and precedent.

Past performance: With the benefit of hindsight, one can criticize some of Bernanke’s moves and statements during his first term. Certainly, he can be criticized for not identifying the depth of last year’s crisis sooner, among other things. But virtually none of us foresaw the severity of the crisis or offered a solution that would have prevented it. Bernanke’s swift and decisive action contributed to saving the economy from what would have been acomplete collapse last October. He has done a good job so far and we should let him seethe jobthrough back to a normal economy.

Continuity: Markets hate uncertainty, this is particularly true now. Continuing Bernanke’s Chairmanship until January 2014 gives the markets some confidence that monetary policy will be consistent and measured towards the Fed’s mission of growth with low inflation.

No Debt Monetization: This is probably the single most positive sign from the Bernanke reappointment. The federal debt and deficits are huge, unsustainable, and a major risk to future economic growth. Not to mention, it continues togrow. One way to deal with these problems is to “monetize” the debt. That means that the Fed would print money and buy all the new debt issues from the Treasury rather than sell them in the marketplace. Whenever any government has done this on any meaningful scale, it has resulted in uncontrolled inflation and a precipitous decline in the value of the currency. Bernanke has been clear that he thinks this is disastrous economic policy, and he is entirelycorrect. But it can be a politically easy way out of the mess without raising taxes or cutting spending. But it can’t be accomplished without the Fed Chairman’s 'OK.' Make no mistake; the debt/deficit is still a huge problem. But by reappointing Chairman Bernanke, one of the worst ways to deal with it appears to be off the table. I would also argue that without debt monetization, future inflation prospects are muted somewhat.

Amidst the lulls of the August recess, The Hill, a Capitol Hill newspaper, featured a story on spending increases on the costs of earmarks, and I would be remiss if I didn’t at least bring it to your attention.

Democrats on Capitol Hill and in the White House are quick to point out that much work has been done on reducing pork barrel spending in the Capitol.

But according to a report published jointly by Taxpayers for Common Sense and the Center for Responsive politics, after tallying the earmarks in this year’s appropriations bill, it turns out that the cost of earmarks has actually increased! According to the report, $19.9 billion was doled out for earmarks in 2009 compared to $18.3 billion in 2008.

This report simply annunciates that our earmark affliction still dogs us, and its symptoms are immune to any one particular party.

To view it in full click here.

Regular readers know that I am a numbers, financial, and economic guy, as betrayed by my CPA certification. As important as these issues are, we are now presented with an issue even more vital. The socialized healthcare bill being considered by the House will likely result in tens of millions of Americans dying sooner than they otherwise would have to.  

When the free-market, doctors, and patients are taken out of health care decisions, and the care is paid for by somebody else, the establishment of an organization to ration care is inevitable.  In fact, the legislation creates the National Institute of Comparative Effectiveness. As benign as it may sound, this is the bureaucracy that will be used to ration care. A similar institution exists in Britain, and has the rather ominous acronym of NICE (National Institute for Health and Clinical Experience).  Rulings on whether people live or die are made frequently in Britain and Canada, and if you have a pre-existing condition, are elderly, or for some reason deemed ‘unfit’ for a life saving procedure, then your chances of being granted that life saving procedure become even murkier. Your life will hang in the balance, subject to the whims of government and its bureaucrats. This is why the survival rates from cancer, heart disease, and many other life-threatening diseases are 30-50% lower in countries with socialized medicine than they are in countries with private medicine.

And why are we doing this? It is generally accepted that about 85% of Americans have some form of health insurance. But, 15% do not. Of the 15% that do not, about one third have plenty of income and wealth, but choose not to buy insurance because they think they are healthy and want to save the money, and if they have a problem they will just go to the emergency room. Another third are eligible for Medicaid or Medicare or other subsidized care, but have not signed up. Only that last third, or 5% of the population, are truly uninsured, want insurance, and have no realistic option to get it.

Without question, there is a problem with which we must deal. But we should not sacrifice the quality of care and the life expectancy of 95% of the population for 5% as the Obama/Pelosi plan does. Furthermore, their plan fails to cover that 5%.

The Democrats in the House are practically at war amongst themselves over this because their more moderate members see the folly in socialized medicine. As I left the Capitol earlier today, the final committee with jurisdiction on this bill, Energy and Commerce, still had not met to vote on the bill. Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) suggested that maybe his committee should just be bypassed if the votes to pass the bill weren’t there. That, is truly desperation.

They know how powerful a message it is. Democrats, led by Nancy Pelosi are so nervous that the public might find out what is really in this health care proposal that they have taken the unprecedented step of trying to use the rules of the House to censor the minority, and restrict what we are allowed to say or send out to you. In other words, they want to limit the only real power the loyal minority has, which is the power to communicate criticisms of the majority's proposals and present alternatives. Among the items to which they have objected to is the chart shown below. They have not been able to say that this chart, which reflects the organization of the Obama/Pelosi Health Care bill, is inaccurate. They say that some of the descriptions of the agencies are "misleading." Right. If you want to see misleading, read my blog on the 10 "inaccuracies" in President Obama’s news conference last week.

The Greeneyeshade Blog - Obama Misleads us on Healthcare

Your government run health care system will look like this if this bill passes. The Speaker and her minions just don't want you to know it.

Click Here to Enlarge

John Locke must be rolling in his grave. This socialized medicine package is a leap in a direction to which the government will now view its citizens as liabilities. This is in a republic that was founded on the premise that the government derives its power from the ‘consent of the governed.’ If this bill passes, perhaps we should change that to ‘consent of the governed, unless they represent too high of a liability.’

I admit, I am little worked up about this. But darn it, it's really important.

Last night in President Obama’s news conference he made an attempt to sell his socialized healthcare package to the American people. The truth is that what he is proposing is so unpopular that he must say things that are just plain misleading and in some cases not true.

Here are a few notes that I took last night based on what President Obama said:

The Government won’t be involved in medical decisions – This is wrong. The bill actually contains an organization to do exactly this, called the "Health Choices Administration not to mention Medicare and Medicaid already do this on their own. The reason for this is that everyone cannot have everything in this type of program and therefore the government must ration care. Section 141 & 142 of H.R. 3200

The financial system was on verge of collapse when he took office – This is patently and verifiably wrong. The financial system was in fact on the verge of collapse in October 2008; however by the time he took office on January 20, 2009 the system had already stabilized. This is not to say the economy was fine, it wasn’t, there is and continues to be much work to be done, but President Obama knows better than to take credit for something he didn’t do.

Prior to his taking office the economy wasn’t producing any good paying jobs - According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the United States was experiencing positive monthly job gains for a total of 50 out of 52 months between September 2003 and December 2007. Bureau of Labor Statistics

If you have insurance you will be able to keep it – The House version of the legislation has an explicit clause that says that if you lose your insurance in some way shape or form, those who currently have private coverage will not be able to change it, those who lose their job, leave a company, or work for themselves will not be able to buy individual healthcare plans from private providers. IBD Editorial July 15, 2009

The current system subsidizes insurance companies – It’s actually the other way around. Private insurance subsidizes those on Medicaid and Medicare, any Doctor, hospital, or medical group could not survive if they took only Medicare and Medicaid payments from the federal government. The Congressional Budget Office has testified that Medicare already pays doctors 20 percent less than private health plans; hospital reimbursement rates are “as much as 30 percent lower.”

It will not be paid for by middle class taxpayers – If you don’t buy ‘acceptable’ health insurance individuals will receive a tax increase of 2.5%(Page 167), in addition to taxes on small business that will hit everyone, this doesn’t even account for the fact that there aren’t enough rich to pay for it. According to the Tax Foundation, the top tax rate will raise to more than 50% in 39 states.

Slows the growth of medical costs – The Director of the Congressional Budget Office, Doug Elmendorf recently said that there is no evidence that it will reduce costs and may increase them. MSNBC – CQ – July 16, 2009

In terms of the deficit, we reduced spending by 2.2 trillion - We’ve actually increased spending by trillions of dollars since President Obama took office. The United States has set course under the leadership of President Obama to double the national debt in 5 years and triple it in 10. CBS News – February 26, 2009

Public option will provide some competition – Currently there are over 1,300 medical insurance plans available in the United States, the problem is that you can’t buy them across state lines. In California for instance, it would be wonderful if we could buy medical plans in any of the 50 states. All Republican plans include it, and the plan I am supporting the Patient’s Choice Act.

Healthcare is the biggest contributor to the deficit – Lately the biggest contributor to the deficit is actually President Obama, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid. It is true that government healthcare plans are a major cost to the government. Yet, if the President believes that current healthcare programs are the biggest factor in the deficit, then how can he think that expanding and creating more of these plans and program will help the deficit?

I ran across this editorial from Investor's Business Daily this morning, and I wanted to share it with you.  Comments welcome.

Congress: It didn't take long to run into an "uh-oh" moment when reading the House's "health care for all Americans" bill. Right there on Page 16 is a provision making individual private medical insurance illegal.

When we first saw the paragraph Tuesday, just after the 1,018-page document was released, we thought we surely must be misreading it. So we sought help from the House Ways and Means Committee.

It turns out we were right: The provision would indeed outlaw individual private coverage. Under the Orwellian header of "Protecting The Choice To Keep Current Coverage," the "Limitation On New Enrollment" section of the bill clearly states:

"Except as provided in this paragraph, the individual health insurance issuer offering such coverage does not enroll any individual in such coverage if the first effective date of coverage is on or after the first day" of the year the legislation becomes law.

So we can all keep our coverage, just as promised — with, of course, exceptions: Those who currently have private individual coverage won't be able to change it. Nor will those who leave a company to work for themselves be free to buy individual plans from private carriers.

From the beginning, opponents of the public option plan have warned that if the government gets into the business of offering subsidized health insurance coverage, the private insurance market will wither. Drawn by a public option that will be 30% to 40% cheaper than their current premiums because taxpayers will be funding it, employers will gladly scrap their private plans and go with Washington's coverage.

The nonpartisan Lewin Group estimated in April that 120 million or more Americans could lose their group coverage at work and end up in such a program. That would leave private carriers with 50 million or fewer customers. This could cause the market to, as Lewin Vice President John Sheils put it, "fizzle out altogether."

What wasn't known until now is that the bill itself will kill the market for private individual coverage by not letting any new policies be written after the public option becomes law.

The legislation is also likely to finish off health savings accounts, a goal that Democrats have had for years. They want to crush that alternative because nothing gives individuals more control over their medical care, and the government less, than HSAs.

With HSAs out of the way, a key obstacle to the left's expansion of the welfare state will be removed.

The public option won't be an option for many, but rather a mandate for buying government care. A free people should be outraged at this advance of soft tyranny.

Washington does not have the constitutional or moral authority to outlaw private markets in which parties voluntarily participate. It shouldn't be killing business opportunities, or limiting choices, or legislating major changes in Americans' lives.

It took just 16 pages of reading to find this naked attempt by the political powers to increase their reach. It's scary to think how many more breaches of liberty we'll come across in the final 1,002.

Yesterday, The Hill ran a story titled ‘Dem says tax cuts blunted the stimulus.’ In it, Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman James Oberstar said that the tax cuts in the stimulus package took money away from legitimate infrastructure spending.

Frankly, I think the Chairman may have his facts confused. It was his Speaker, Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Harry Reid who took money away from infrastructure and gave it to other pork barrel-esqe spending proposals. Congressional Democrats larded up the bill with ridiculous spending measures all the while reducing the percentage of infrastructure spending. In terms of comparison, the President’s stimulus proposal and the final stimulus bill that was signed into law contained roughly the same proportion of tax cuts.

Many Republicans, this one included, would have been more inclined to support the stimulus package had it included more stimulative and shovel ready infrastructure projects that carried with them substantial multiplier effects. I, for one, was discussing the idea of national wireless internet infrastructure, but this idea along with many others was tossed aside for pork barrel spending projects like Speaker Pelosi’s salt marsh harvest mouse.

In the end it is the American people who foot the bill, and will be the ones feeling the pain.

Recent reports have indicated that the Obama Administration is in “advanced talks” about providing a bailout to financial firm CIT Group, Inc., a leading lender to small and midsize companies. CIT is looking for access to FDIC’s government guaranteed debt program, which would allow them to borrow at lower than market rates with taxpayers taking on the risk of default. They are arguing that if they go down, they could take other firms with them.

However unfortunate this may be to several individual firms, it will not bring down the system. In September and October 2008 we were staring down a global financial meltdown, but now that people have had time to reassess their strategies and re-adjust their business models to the new reality, we’ll see which firms are strong enough to stand on their own and those which cannot. But, this doesn’t mean they must cease to exist. Bankruptcy is a long-standing, legitimate process that gives companies the time and ability to restructure their finances to hopefully reemerge as viable entities.

Government should not intervene in this situation. CIT has many options and putting taxpayers at risk should not be one of them

It has been reported today that for the first time in history, the U.S. budget deficit has moved above the $1 trillion mark.

3 months still remain in the fiscal year, and by the current administration’s own admission, the deficit is expected to reach as high as 1.84 trillion in October.

The reckless spending that this administration has embodied is almost incomprehensible. Yet, they clearly have not gotten the message, and have failed to see the results of their actions. Especially among talks of a ‘Second Stimulus’ after their first package has failed miserably and left America’s unemployment rate at nearly 10%.

Beltway Democrats’ lack of spending restraint will contribute to higher interest rates, soaring inflation and a weakened dollar. The first step to getting our house in order is the reduction of spending, eliminate wasteful and duplicative programs, and instill a sense of fiscal sanity across the entire federal government.

I have stated many times in the past, that Republicans in the White House and Congress have spent too much.  I have said it since I came to Congress in 2005, and I am saying it again today.  However, the budget, spending, and deficits we are now seeing are almost incomprehensible.  The numbers are so large in fact that we fail to conceptualize them.  In order to help with that, here is a chart from the Heritage Foundation detailing the average federal deficit as a percentage of GDP, for Presidents Carter through Obama.  This graph speaks for itself.