Mitt Romney on Patriotic Debt

#hhrs #tcot   
From Jim Geraghty:

During the campaign of 2008, Obama said that running up $4 trillion in debt was “unpatriotic.” On whether he would use the same term to describe Obama’s running up $5 trillion:
 
“I’ll call it inexcusable and disappointing that a president who was so critical of his predecessor for roughly $400 billion to $500 billion annual deficits is now running trillion-dollar deficits and has not apologized for them. When a president says that he pledges to cut this deficit in half by the end of his first term, and he’s doubled it instead — that shows he is on the wrong track. I try to avoid highly incendiary language, but this is something that puts our country very much at risk.”

Mitt Romney on the National Debt

From Jim Geraghty:

Mitt Romney on getting Americans to focus on the difficult, sometimes abstract issues of the deficit and accumulating national debt:
 
“I think it helps to translate the federal-debt and unfunded-liability numbers into personal numbers. The total amount of accumulated debt and unfunded liabilities is approximately $520,000 per American household. What that means is that each household will be paying the interest on the debt and paying the principal on the unfunded liabilities over the coming decade or two. It means that our kids will get saddled with that $520,000 — which of course will become a good deal larger over the next four or five years if the president is reelected.

“That number says that as interest rates go up, as they undoubtedly will down the road, people will get burdened with a tax figure that makes it harder for them to start their lives out, get homes, and build a future for themselves. It really kills the American Dream to be burdened with that kind of a figure from the beginning of your life. And so I think that’s the most effective way I can talk about the personal impact, long term, of this debt and unfunded-liability burden.

“There is also a recognition in this country that what Greece and Italy and Spain are facing could conceivably be brought home to us. The recognition that you reach a point where the world decides that your obligations are perhaps not going to be met, or that they will be inflated away — in which case people will ask for higher interest rates, and you’ll find yourself in a doom loop.”

If You Think Healthcare is Expensive Now, Just Wait Until it's Free - Part IX

TAXED ENOUGH ALREADY? JUST WAIT UNTIL OBAMACARE SETS IN!

From the Heritage Foundation's Obamacare in Pictures:

h/t: Adam Freedman

If You Think Healthcare is Expensive Now, Just Wait Until it's Free - Part VIII

DID OBAMACARE SLOW PRIVATE SECTOR RECOVERY?

From the Heritage Foundation's Obamacare in Pictures:

h/t: Adam Freedman

If You Think Healthcare is Expensive Now, Just Wait Until it's Free - Part VII

MEDICAID EXPANSION BURDENS STATE BUDGETS

From the Heritage Foundation's Obamacare in Pictures:

h/t: Adam Freedman

If You Think Healthcare is Expensive Now, Just Wait Until it's Free - Part VI

From the Heritage Foundation's Obamacare in Pictures:

A MEDICAID MONSTER

h/t: Adam Freedman

If You Think Healthcare is Expensive Now, Just Wait Until it's Free - Part V

From the Heritage Foundation's Obamacare in Pictures:

STATES: OBAMACARE IS UNCONSTITUTIONAL

h/t: Adam Freedman

If You Think Healthcare is Expensive Now, Just Wait Until it's Free - Part IV

From the Heritage Foundation's Obamacare in Pictures:

PREMIUMS CONTINUE TO RISE UNDER OBAMACARE

h/t: Adam Freedman

If You Think Healthcare is Expensive Now, Just Wait Until it's Free - Part III

From the Heritage Foundation's Obamacare in Pictures:

IF YOU LIKE YOUR HEALTH CARE, CAN YOU REALLY KEEP IT?

h/t: Adam Freedman

If You Think Healthcare is Expensive Now, Just Wait Until it's Free - Part II

From the Heritage Foundation's Obamacare in Pictures:

MILLIONS REMAIN UNINSURED UNDER OBAMACARE

h/t: Adam Freedman

If You Think Healthcare is Expensive Now, Just Wait Until it's Free - Part I

From the Heritage Foundation's Obamacare in Pictures:

OBAMACARE EXPANDS DEPENDENCE ON GOVERNMENT HEALTH CARE

h/t: Adam Freedman

The Mob Has Spoken?

So who really wants over-priced and under-performing "high-speed rail"? Apparently we all do, since the Federal Government is going to give it to us...

I can only imagine that this is the reaction that Democrats think that these boondoggle projects will create in the public...



Count me as on board! I am nearing my military retirement, and need one of those cushy jobs!

2011 SOTU Word Cloud

A quick look before tonight's speech, here is a word cloud of its most common words....



I suppose it is not a surprise that 3 of the most used words are "new", "American", and "jobs".

I am sure there has to be a message hidden in there somewhere.....

[h/t to the ever-handy Wordle]

GM's Plan: Using Govt $ to pay back Govt $ to get more Govt $

#hhrs #tcot #rs #sgp
GM knows its has a problem. It knows that many Americans may not consider buying a GM vehicle while the company is still in effect, a branch of the United States Government.

That would explain why they feel the need to go on TV with ads hype the meme that its has paid back its debt to the government.



Unfortunately, this is all bunk.

GM CEO Ed Whitacre announced in a Wall Street Journal column Wednesday that his company has paid back its government bailout loan "in full, with interest, years ahead of schedule." He is even running TV ads on all major networks to that effect--a needless expense given that a credulous media is only too happy to parrot his claims for free. Detroit Free Press' Mike Thompson, for example, advises bailout proponents to start "warming up their vocal chords" to jeer their opponents with chants of "I told you so."

But before belting out their victory aria, GM-boosters ought to hear the whole story--not just the fairytale version about Government Motors' grand comeback that Mr. Whitacre is feeding them.

Uncle Sam gave GM $49.5 billion last summer in aid to finance its bankruptcy. (If it hadn't, the company, which couldn't raise this kind of money from private lenders, would have been forced into liquidation, its assets sold for scrap.) So when Mr. Whitacre publishes a column with the headline, "The GM Bailout: Paid Back in Full," most ordinary mortals unfamiliar with bailout minutia would assume that he is alluding to the entire $49.5 billion. That, however, is far from the case.

Because a loan of such a huge amount would have been politically controversial, the Obama administration handed GM only $6.7 billion as a pure loan. (It asked for only a 7% interest rate--a very sweet deal considering that GM bonds at that time were trading below junk level.) The vast bulk of the bailout money was transferred to GM through the purchase of 60.8% equity stake in the company--arguably an even worse deal for taxpayers than the loan, given that the equity position requires them to bear the risk of the investment without any guaranteed return. (The Canadian government likewise gave GM $1.4 billion as a pure loan, and another $8.1 billion for an 11.7% equity stake. The U.S. and Canadian government together own 72.5% of the company.)

But when Mr. Whitacre says GM has paid back the bailout money in full, he means not the entire $49.5 billion--the loan and the equity. In fact, he avoids all mention of that figure in his column. He means only the $6.7 billion loan amount.

As Forbes puts it further down in this article, this is "using government money to pay back government money to get more government money".

America, you are being hoodwinked. GM thinks you are a crash test dummy. Don't believe the hype....

Stimulus Subterfuge

Its all a Stimulus Subterfuge, a Recovery Ruse, a GDP Gimmick.

In other words, the 'Great Obama Recovery'® that was announced earlier in October by the White House is all hogwash, a hoax, a fraud...a lie.

Sure, the economy was announced to have grown by 3.5%. However, that has now been revised down (GDP numbers are often adjusted) to 2.8%. 'What's so bad about that?' you might ask. 'Isn't any positive growth a good thing?' Normally, but as the blogprof points out, the only thing making this a positive number, is Stimulus cash....

That "robust" 3.5% GDP growth rate in Q3 that the AP heralded as the end of the recession sans actual jobs? That just got reduced. A lot. As in down to 2.8% now. Even that is deceiving as consumer spending, which comprises 70% of the economy, declined 0.5% during the same period (Positive GDP Fraud! Consumer Spending DOWN 0.5%. GDP Up Because Of MASSIVE DEBT!). So how is it that the GDP increased in the 3rd quarter after consumer spending decreased? Well, that's got everything to do with the 'G' in the GDP - gross. That includes consumer spending, government spending, in fact all spending. So if the consumer spending is down, one way to artificially inflate the GDP number is to increase government spending with money that the government doesn't, by the way, have. In essence, the GDP number is positive due to increased debt! It's purchased on a government card that has no credit limit.

So Stimulus cash, which is created out of thin air and injected into the economy to unknown effect, makes up 118% of the GDP growth....

So what this really means is that we will be seeing increasing GDP growth for many quarters to come, and thus a White House trumpeting a full-throated recovery, just in time for the 2010 elections.

Since only 22% of the Stimulus had been spent by the end of October, that means we have over $600 Billion left to be entered into that 'Government Spending' column that blogprof tells us about. Thus, unless consumer spending craters, this glut of Govt Spending spread over many quarters will prop up the GDP numbers for those quarters. And as it will most surely do, the White House will point to the string of positive quarters, and how their actions have saved the economy, despite the fact that it is really a Potemkin Village of economic figures...

The only problem will be the ever expanding unemployment roles....and the largest spike in employment will be found in GOP political campaigns.

[Hat Tip: Instapundit]

'Tough Choices' Part II

#tcot #hhrs
Does throwing gas on a fire qualify as a 'Tough Choice'?