-By Warner Todd Huston
Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency is completely put of control. Now it wants to implement new regulations that would destroy 183,000 private sector jobs every year. Yes, even after Obama has destroyed the economy and jobs we do have he wants to destroy even more.
The EPA’s new rules, according to PennEnergy, would be disastrous to our already flagging economy.
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Obama’s EPA Regs to Kill 183,000 Private Sector Jobs a Year”
I have to apologize to Freedom Works. I stole their video and added the Jake Blues apology scene into it. Freedom Works did not add that scene from the movie, but I just couldn’t resist it.
-By Warner Todd Huston
Back on August first the whole country was waiting for the House of Representatives to raise the debt ceiling and offer a continuing resolution to prevent a feared government shutdown. That was done with the support of 95 Democrats who claimed they were desperate to prevent that shut down. (Relevant amendment)
However, in a follow up vote on Sept. 21 on another bill (H R 2608), 89 of those same Democrats reversed their vote and have essentially voted in favor of a government shut down by voting “no” on the latest continuing resolution to keep the government’s doors open.
Of course, Democrats voted against this bill because increases in budgets (such as that for FEMA) were offset with cuts in other areas. Democrats simply want to increase spending without the fiscally responsible act of cutting spending elsewhere.
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Did 85 Democrats Vote In Favor of Government Shutdown?”
-By Warner Todd Huston
Texas Representative Louie Gohmert is a genius. He’s absconded with the name of Obama’s jobs bill — the American Jobs Act of 2011 –and used it for his own tax-cutting bill.
Is it a Republican dirty trick? How can Gohmert do this? Because Obama is either incompetent or cynical.
Here is the thing, either Obama was never serious about this so-called jobs bill in the first place and never intended to submit it, or he is one of the most inept politicians in presidential history.
If Obama were an effective president Rep. Gohmert would never have been able to appropriate Obama’s bill name for his own. If Obama was effective he’d have crafted his jobs bill, delivered his speech that night, and lined up at least one Democrat, if not the whole Democrat Party, to introduce his bill the very next morning after the speech.
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Incompetence: Obama Even Loses the Name of His Jobs Bill”
-By Warner Todd Huston
There is a new smart phone ap out there that is a pretty good idea. It’s called “CLOO’.” Unfortunately, no matter how good it is there is an absolute certainty that the government — whether local, state, or federal, or even all of them — will destroy this great idea with regulatory red tape.
The CLOO’ smartphone ap will help folks in metro areas make a few extra dollars while helping others find a place to go… literally. The idea is that folks that live in a downtown section of any big city can add their name to a database so that other people visiting that metro area can find a clean and safe place to go to the bathroom. Seriously.
Anyone that has ever been out and about in a busy downtown area will soon come to find that toilets open to the general public are far and few between. To cut down on vandalism and the ever-present threat of an infestation of homeless people scaring away customers, most businesses in the city do not have public washrooms. Even many fast food joints and some restaurants don’t have restrooms that are open to the public.
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Great New Ap That Will be Destroyed By Government”
-By Warner Todd Huston
President Obama gave his much delayed “jobs” speech on Thursday, one he’s been promising since 2008. Unfortunately for this president, few people much cared. In fact, the most damning indictment about how irrelevant this speech and this president is was seen during the speech in the House gallery, a space that was, unlike any other presidential address, nearly empty.
So, what if a president gave a speech and no one came?
Dana Milbank reveals the most damning indictment of how unimportant this president has become by reporting the sparse attendance for Obama’s speech.
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Irrelevant Jobs Speech: The Presidential Speech No One Attended”
-By Warner Todd Huston
As I often do, I live Tweeted Obama’s address to the joint session of congress, but for sure this speech was little else but yet another plea from Obama for giant piles of government money to be thrown around in a bacchanalia of Keynesian spending. He may not have used the newly verboten word “stimulus,” but that is really all he was offering; another giant stimulus program.
His “jobs” program was nothing but a sop to government unions. Worse his claim that it is “aid for” by attacking the eeeevil rich is as absurd as can be. Even worse still, it’s the same failed ideas he’s been offering for seven years since he first began to run for president (you know when he was pretending to be the junior senator from Illinois).
As to the attacks on the rich — and who is going to make all those new jobs if the rich are destroyed — any sensible look at the stats of who is paying taxes will show the rich already do pay their fair share.
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Live Tweeting Obama’s Jobs Speech: More Big Government Boondoggles”
-By Warner Todd Huston
During his Midwest Misery Tour, President Obama was back to blaming technology, the Internet, and ATMs again for America’s job loss.
At a stop in Atkinson, Illinois Obama spoke about the need for education at an agricultural company named Wyffels Hybrids, Inc. He said that America is no longer a place where you can just “work hard” and find a good job doing so. Those days are gone he told his audience.
Obama lamented that bank tellers and travel agents have been replaced by automation. This is, apparently, why we have high unemployment.
Excerpt
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Obama Blames Job Loss on Technology, Internet and Efficiency”
-By Warner Todd Huston
Senator Ron Johnson (R, Wis.) commented in advance of the President’s speech on manufacturing and is here to tell President Obama, “the government doesn’t create jobs, it creates debt and it is the private sector that creates long-term, self-sustaining jobs.”
Today the President is traveling to Pittsburgh to talk about manufacturing. As a person who spent 31 years building a successful manufacturing company, I am curious what President Obama might say about manufacturing. He has little personal experience in manufacturing or business. He has very few members within his administration with success in manufacturing or the private sector.
President Obama needs to change his way of thinking. He needs to realize that government doesn’t create jobs, it creates debt. It is the private sector that creates long term, self-sustaining jobs.
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Sen. Johnson: Obama and his Administration Have ‘Little Experience in Manufacturing or Business’”
-By Warner Todd Huston
While the Obama administration plays its games with “czars,” more “boards,” and “committees” to implement government accountability policies, Representative Darrell Issa (R, Calif.) has introduced some measures that would do a far better job to meet those goals.
President Obama has touted a “Government Accountability and Transparency Board” (GATB) as well as the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board (RATB) meant to bring more accountability to federal actions. But what real power will these “boards” and “committees” have? What real good will they do? Worse, how can we expect boards appointed by the president to shine the light of transparency on the Executive branch?
So, what will these new presidential projects be doing? The GATB “shall work with the RATB to apply the approaches developed by the RATB across Government spending.” Absurdly, these new boards won’t even be making a report for six more months.
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New Open Government and Spending Transparency Reforms Introduced”
Obama and his cohorts want to sell the American people a bill of goods. DNC head Debbie Wasserman Schultz is telling the country that Democrats “own” the “recovery.” Only one problem. There ain’t one.
Don’t buy the lies, folks. Don’t do it.
-By Warner Todd Huston
You know things are bad when governments start selling things they “own.” The latest is the state of Illinois so over spent and in a budgetary hole that authorities are floating the idea of selling advertising space on its auto license plates.
The Democrat led general assembly has given the Secretary of State’s office a directive to begin researching the pros and cons of “corporate plates,” or sponsors for license plates (SB1360). The hope is that more money will be brought into the treasury and, perhaps, the state won’t have to raise taxes… as much.
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Illinois So Broke They Want to Sell Ads on License Plates”
-By Warner Todd Huston
Illinois Governor Pat Quinn and his profligate Democrat Party cohorts have been racking up the loss of one business after another since they decided to wildly raise the state’s taxes. Quinn’s and the Democrat’s next target seems to be the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, an ongoing Chicago tradition since 1898.
Chicago has the third highest corporate tax rate in the country and CME’s Chairman, Terence Duffy, and its Chief Financial Officer, James Parisi, say it is a burden with which they don’t think they need to contend.
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Quinn’s Tax Hikes Chasing Away Chicago Merc?”
From BankruptingAmerica.org…
Graduates Face 21.1 Applicants Per Job
Arlington, VA – Today, BankruptingAmerica.org (an awareness campaign by Public Notice) released a new Web video titled “Is Washington Creating Our Job Crisis?” As the 1.7 million college students of the class of 2011 graduate, they face one of the highest unemployment rates for college graduates in U.S. history.
This video (runtime 1:01) launches just days after the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the economy produced just over 50,000 jobs in May, the lowest number of jobs created in 2011 and the fewest jobs in eight months.
With unemployment rising to 9.1 percent, college graduates aren’t the only ones worrying about their economic future. A recent poll conducted by the Daily Beast/Newsweek found that by almost four to one, Americans say our economy is not delivering the jobs we need. Americans are even losing sleep over the economic crisis: 56 percent are so angry about their personal economic situation that they have lost sleep.
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Class Of 2011 Faces Highest Unemployment Rate In History”
-By Warner Todd Huston
Here is the waste and fraud that your tax dollars are put to, America. Senator Tom Coburn has alerted the nation to a 30-year-old man in California named Stanley Thornton, Jr., who is paid by Social Security to lay about his house and pretend he is a baby replete with diapers, baby bottles for nourishment and a 300 pound “nurse” to take care of him.
No kidding. This guy pretends to be a baby and we, the people, send him Supplemental Security Income benefits to do it.
Of course, this California nut claims that he is mentally unable to cope with life and that his SSI benefits are needed because he is “disabled” by his mental state of thinking he is a baby. But Coburn thinks this guy is just scamming the government.
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Tax Dollars Going to a 350-Pound Guy in Calf Who Pretends He’s a Diaper-Wearing Baby”
Who is more fiscally responsible: Charlie Sheen or Washington? Duh! Charlie the Warlock. Washington spends $30 million, the same as Charlie’s salary, in less than five minutes. Now that’s a fastball… At least Charlie knew not to spend more than Two and a Half Men was paying him.
Courtesy of Bankrupting America.
-By Warner Todd Huston
First Congressional Democrats offered a national forced unionzation bill, and now Republicans have countered by putting forth a national worker’s freedom bill. With the luck breaking against unions in Wisconsin and the issue in an uproar in Ohio and Indiana it is now surprise that Congress has come to loggerheads with the same issue.
On Tuesday eight Republicans introduced the National Right to Work Act. Senator Jim DeMint says that he hopes it will, “reduce workplace discrimination by protecting the free choice of individuals to form, join, or assist labor organizations, or to refrain from such activities.”
Unions are less than 8 percent of the work force at this point yet those states that have more union members than others are doing less well. DeMint says that having unions is part of the problem.
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Dueling Union Bills in DC”
-By Warner Todd Huston
It is absolutely impossible any more to come up with parody about how much government unions are ripping off the taxpayer. Witness the fact that a city in Connecticut is being forced to pay for the coffee and related refreshment supplies of its government union members.
Todd Starnes of Fox News reports that the town of Orange, Connecticut has been told by the State Board of Labor Relations that it must provide “free” coffee and milk to the members of the United Public Service Employees Union.
The union ripoff artists got upset when town administration eliminated the free refreshments in order to save money in the budget. Instead of seeing it as a logical belt-tightening measure, the union decided they were being persecuted and took their case to the Democrat heavy State Labor Relations Board which dutifully ruled in their patrons, the union’s, favor.
Of the expense for the “free” coffee, Wayne Gilbert, the regional director and chief spendthrift of the UPSE, scoffed that “It’s like a couple of bucks a week.”
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For Crying Out Loud: Taxpayers Forced To Pay for Union Workers’ Coffee”
-By Warner Todd Huston
Are you a bit hazy on why government employee unions are a problem? If so the Heritage Foundation has made a great video to help you understand the deal. It’s a sort of Government Unions 101.
The Heritage Foundation also has a great fact sheet to help you learn more.
Here are some of the points on that list:
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Government Union Collective Bargaining 101″
-By Warner Todd Huston
Significantly 104 House Democrats voted in favor of the GOP led temporary budget plan that is now on its way to the Senate. This majority of House Dems voted against former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D, Calif.) who voted against the cuts. Even Dem. Number two man Steny Hoyer (D, Maryland.) voted in favor of the GOP’s continuing Resolution budget plan.
The remaining moderate Democrats that were not swept from Congress in the 2010 midterms are worried that Pelosi is marginalizing herself by catering to the far left and not trying to appeal to the centrist voters that fled for the GOP.
On Tuesday I spoke to House Majority Chief Deputy Whip Congressman Peter Roskam (R, Illinois) and he said that this vote was an important first step toward a more fiscally responsible budget. It was also important for the legitimacy of the GOP led House, too. “Imagine how the media would be spinning this if we didn’t take this step toward cuts,” he said.
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Roskam Urges Democrats to Join in Spending Cuts While Majority of Dems Vote Against Pelosi on Cuts”
-By Warner Todd Huston
The left-wing Internet-based group calling itself “Anonymous” briefly took down the website of the conservative activist group Americans For Prosperity on Sunday, Feb. 27. Yet all the sturm und drang signifying… what? Me thinks that “Anonymous” is reading too many comic books.
Amusingly, with the Denial of Service (DNS) attack “Anonymous” imagines themselves striking a blow for the oppressed, or something. “Anonymous hears the voice of the downtrodden American people,” they sonorously tell us on their website. The amusing thing to me is that they imagine the oppressed are government employee union members. Only, here is the thing… people that work for the government are on average the best paid people in America. They have the best benefits, the earliest retirement ages, and the cheapest healthcare in the entire country — cheapest to them anyway, not to us the taxpayers. It is a fact that government employees are the new elites in America today. It is also a fact that they live high on the hog off the backs of the working poor.
So who the heck do these fools in “Anonymous” think they are come to the aid of?
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Left-Wing Group Takes Down Conservative Website — Petty Little Children Affecting Nothing”
-By Warner Todd Huston
A lot has been said about the thuggish behavior of these teachers in Wisconsin and other union toughs across the country who have been caught on tape calling people Hitler and dictators, and attacking peaceful Tea Partiers. The behavior of union supporters has been ignorant to say the least. But as we’ve focused on the behavior of these ignoramuses, we’ve also neglected to explain just why their unions are illicit in the first place.
To start with we should remind everyone that government employees have not always been allowed to unionize. Collective bargaining for pubic employees only started in 1958 after New York Mayor Robert Wagner signed what came to be called “the Little Wagner Act” allowing city workers to unionize. In fact, collective bargaining itself was only legalized even in the private sector in 1935 when Wagner’s own father, New York Senator Robert Wagner, sponsored the National Labor Relations Act, or the Wagner Act. Nationally, collective bargaining for government employees began in 1962 when President John Kennedy signed Executive Order 10988 allowing federal employees to unionize and gain collective bargaining.
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Government Employee Unions Undemocratic, Unfair, Unsustainable”
-By Warner Todd Huston
Ten friends decided that they would pay for their bar tab the way they pay their taxes. The first $100 beer tab was paid like this:
The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing
The fifth would pay $1
The sixth would pay $3
The seventh would pay $7
The eighth would pay $12
The ninth would pay $18
The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59
It seemed fair and equitable and they paid the bar tab like this for weeks.
Then one day, since they were such good customers, the bar owner happily announced that he’d reduce their bar tab by $20 to only $80
So the bar tab was paid like this:
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Beer Tab Economics: How We All Lose With The Tax Code”
-By Warner Todd Huston
In 2008 Obama ran for president claiming that he wanted to make Washington more transparent than ever. Obama ran as the law-and-order man, he ran as the anti-lobbyist man, and he ran as the man for all the people, the great centrist that would finally work for the people. He ran saying that Bush was a lawless president and that he, Obama, would shut down the illicit Guantanamo facility and immediately end all the “illegal wars” that Bush was prosecuting.
As president we’ve seen that he’s lied with all those claims.
One of Obama’s main bogeymen has been lobbyists. He claimed that he’d purge them from Washington. But the truth was a far different thing once he fairly became president. In fact, as soon as he became president Obama began to waive the rules that were supposed to keep lobbyists out of his administration.
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Most Lawless President Ever: Hiding Lobbyist Meetings, Refusing to Prosecute Laws, Ignoring Duties”
-By Warner Todd Huston
Last week, the House of Representatives passed HR 1. This bill was the 2011 continuing appropriations act, the bill that makes provisions to fund the federal government. It also contained $61 billion in cuts.
There were 21 different cost cutting measures in the bill. So, how did our Illinois Representatives vote on HR 1? How many of the amendments did our reps vote “yes” for?
Republicans
Walsh (R, 8th): 100%
Manzullo (R, 16th): 95%
Roskam (R, 6th): 81%
Johnson (R, 15th): 76%
Shimkus (R, 19th): 67%
Hultgren (R, 14th): 62%
Schilling (R, 17th): 57%
Schock (R, 18th): 57%
Dold (R, 10th): 38%
Kinzinger (R, 11th): 38%
Biggert (R, 13th): 25%
Congratulations to Joe Walsh for being a 100% man! Manzullo and Roskam are not too shabby, either. Sadly a few of our newest Reps are in Democrat territory with their weak support of the most number of cost cutting measures. I mean, 38 percent for Kinzinger?? That is horrible. Is Adam Kinzinger a big government guy after all his claims on the campaign trail? Left-winger Biggert’s Democrat-styled votes are no surprise. One is continually surprised she is still pretending to be a Republican.
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How Did Ill. Representatives Vote on Cost Cutting (HR1)?”
-By Warner Todd Huston
This situation in Wisconsin has brought out the truth about unions: they peddle hate. Unions are exactly what Democrats try to claim the Tea Party is, a hate-filled, uncivil, mob of name callers. Unionistas use hateful and violent rhetoric, they call everyone that opposes them Hitler and they lie about their ultimate goals.
Many of you out there may be saying that we shouldn’t hold the obscene actions of a few bad Wisconsin teachers against the whole of uniondom. But we don’t have to restrict ourselves to Wisconsin to see this sort of hateful, violence themed rhetoric.
Yesterday, for instance, Massachusetts Democrat Representative Michael Capuana told a union crowd that sometimes the protesters have to “get a little bloody” on the streets to prove their fealty to the unions.
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Hate is What Unions Sell”
-By Warner Todd Huston
It must be nice to work for the government. Sadly it’s the most lucrative way to make a living in American history. To “win life’s lottery” all you have to do is get a job with the government — whether the federal or state government — at practically any level and voila, welcome to easy street. Here we have yet another case of the milking of the taxpayer by our “public servants,” this time it’s school superintendents that jump from state to state in order to double or triple their pension takings.
The Chicago Trib revealed the newest way for “public servants” to rip off the public by reporting that it has become common practice for school superintendents to “retire” from a school district in one state only to migrate to another state and take the same job in order to earn another lucrative pension. Some of these guys are making upwards to $500,000 a year off the backs of the taxpayers.
When questions over their greed are put to them these “public servants” demur from being characterized as fatcat, double dippers. They say that they are acting entirely within the law. They claim that there isn’t a single thing wrong with what they are doing. Well, maybe legally. Morally is another question.
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Getting Rich Off the Taxpayers: School Administrators Double Dipping Pensions”
-By Warner Todd Huston
Last week President Obama appointed the CEO of General Electric, Jeffery Immelt, to head up his Economic Advisory Board. This is, as Freedomworks’ Tabitha Hale wrote, “an obvious rent seeking arrangement between Big Government and Big Business.”
This could not have been a more clear product of a crony corporatist relationship, and it is one that has no place in government that professes to value the free market. So now, we fight it.
Matt Kibbe of FreedomWorks sums it up well:
“It’s time to break up the unethical romance between government and big business. For too long, corporate elites have lobbied to profit from the size and growth of government at the expense of hard-working Americans. We’re here to let President Obama and Jeffrey Immelt know that the days of easy money through backroom deals are over.”
Let’s have a small reminder of who and/what Jeffery Immelt is, shall we?
Now, some of you out there may be confused about my post, here. “Aren’t you a conservative,” you might ask? “Aren’t you usually FOR the business community?”
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One of Obama’s Biggest Donors Now His ‘Economics Adviser’”