Time for Thorns

If you want a head start on matters economic in the face of the Democrats’ furious push to have the government control everything,  you can do no better than to read this post by Veronique de Rugy — and be sure to click on the links too.

And since the Obama Administration has been caught lying through its pearly whites about jobs created/saved,  read her additional post on the non-stimulating stimulus and how poorly it was done.

With regard to unemployment,  she links to an interesting New York Times piece which you should check out.   The post also has  another link showing what the actual unemployment rate is  — it’s 17.5%.    There is also a  valid argument that the true rate is over 20%.

If you need something to vent about responsibly,  let the  governor who bailed out the Clinton Library with your stimulus money know.

New York  gives us so many examples of government  stupidity,  political pandering,  and the pathologies of the poor.    Nanny Bloomberg and the Obama-lite  governor,  David Paterson,  appear shocked,  SHOCKED,   to discover the $200 debit cards they handed out to welfare recipients for school supplies were being spent for cigarettes and beer and flat-screen TVs.

The official weasel words about perhaps failing  to communicate sufficiently with recipients ignore what happened with government debit cards for Katrina victims.    The ugly truth is that man is a lazy,  opportunistic beast,  and most members of the tribe will do as little as possible to get by.    Nevertheless,  the poor in the USA live like kings compared to most of the rest of the world,  and in actual fact they possess creature comforts actual princes of yesteryear  could only dream of.

Yes,  there are some poor who have slid into their situation by bad luck and circumstances not directly their fault.  But a majority of them are there because they have what I call 5 minute clocks.   They want a flat-screen TV,   so they get one instead of  paying the power bill or  securing more reliable transportation, or buying food.   They do not contemplate the future in terms of reality.

Government encourages this damaging behavior by shielding its practitioners from the consequences of their actions.    Liberals love to preach about how much they care about the poor,  but their policies are designed to make them comfortable enough in their poverty to remain there   –  and reliably vote the straight Democratic ticket.

CNN has some unusual items funded by the stimulus, and the Wall Street Journal finds big firms grabbing most of the money because there is little actual competition.    You’ll be astonished to discover Corps of Engineer funding is going to the districts of those who oversee Corps funding,  but surely thrilled your tax dollars are keeping local orchestras afloat,  not to mention rental cars and outhouses.

Tom Coburn had it right from the start.  Democrats just don’t worry about the corruption they’re so accustomed to,  so they can cheerfully reward the Indian Health Service for its misdeeds,  and simply ignore the Build America Bonds program

Don’t miss Rich Lowry’s fine column on  Obama,  the Left,  and the public option.   And I don’t have a clip handy,  but I happened to be inside dodging a rain storm during today’s White House briefing,  and heard Robert Gibbs denying that the Administration’s retreat from insistence on single-payer wasn’t a retreat and that nothing had changed.

Why shouldn’t the Press Secretary tell such whoppers?    The Obama Administration has gotten away with it repeatedly and aren’t about to rescind the practice which His Oneness  honed during the campaign as he altered his stances and views to accommodate changing conditions.

Do clink on the link in Andy McCarthy’s post for some first-class satire on health care,  and be sure to see his post on the big death  panel nose the stimulus bill snuck under the tent.

Go here for an extraordinarily succinct explanation of why the stimulus isn’t producing jobs.    The secret is that the stimulus was a crutch to keep state budgets and payrolls from tumbling,   which the  referenced charts makes clear.

So His Oneness was being truthful when he said the stimulus was working as intended,  meaning as HE intended it to,  not as advertised.

I’ve forgotten how much recovery.gov cost to begin with, but remember that they want $18 million to “upgrade” it,  presumably so we can see more of what DRUDGE reported this morning:

$2.5 million for “HAM,  WATER ADDED, COOKED, FROZEN, SLICED, 2-LB”

$1.2 million for  “2 POUND FROZEN HAM SLICED”

$351,000 to  “REPLACE AND UPGRADE THE DUMBWAITER“

$1.1 million for  “MOZZARELLA CHEESE“

$5.7 million for  “PROCESS CHEESE“

$16.7 million for “CANNED PORK“  and

$1.4 million to “REPAIR DOOR BLDG 5112

In looking at these entries one is forced to assume that either there was no quantity contained in the original source material,  or that the government employees who input the data either didn’t question the lack of the quantity or failed to enter it.    Wasn’t Joe Biden supposed to be monitoring all this?

Democrats got what they wanted in the stimulus bill,  and the public knows it,  per the Wall Street Journal.

UPDATE:  Agriculture Sec. Vilsack fires back,  saying it was for 760,000 pounds of ham at “about $1.50 a pound”.   Of course,  it’s actually about $1.56 per pound,  and I can cruise to a nearby Winn-Dixie and pay less than 90 cents a pound.

UPDATE:    The recovery.gov site has been updated,  but to tell us less,  not more!

A GAO survey of 16 states and the District of Columbia show that 90% of the stimulus funds spent so far have gone toward bailouts for fiscally irresponsible state governments.

So much for new jobs and infrastructure…

Thus far,  the stimulus has just allowed  states to postpone reality and the hard choices which come with it.     It amounts to government-sponsored bribery and vote-buying  –  in other words,  politics as usual,  with an extra dose of Chicago.     Even CNN admits it!

For an example of the supreme  senselessness of the stimulus,  check out New Hampshire,  where $413.6 million has created 50 jobs,  34 of them full time.   Do the math — and curse!

Or see how stimulus dollars will be used to water a golf course,  obviously such an important part of infrastructure,  don’t you think?  If that doesn’t make your head explode,  see what the perennial black hole known as Amtrak is doing with its $1.3 billion in stimulus money,  except that an inspector general has charged Amtrak with obstructing oversight of its stimulus spending.

There are some rather interesting polls just out,  one from the New York Times,  here,  and another one done by pollsters Peter Hart and Bill McInturff,  here.

Too many people still believe the deficit is entirely Pres.  Bush’s fault,  but appear to at least realize that Obama  isn’t solving the problem.  The politics involved with the health care proposals should help point out the real numbers.

Or perhaps someone will trot out this chart showing just how badly the Obama team misjudged the stimulus impact — if indeed any of them actually ever believed their own forecasts.

Obama made a big deal today out of instituting  “pay-go”,  without mentioning that’s what Speaker Pelosi suspended to get stimulus, TARP,  and the inflated budget through.

The Washington Post article mentions only that Bush’s tax cuts can’t be continued.   No hint that pay-go will be the new Democratic excuse for raising taxes through the roof in lieu of spending a few pennies less.    But His Oneness and the Democrats have ballooned an $83.4 billion war-funding bill to $100 billion with spending for swine flu,  the International Monetary Fund,  and possibly auto sales boosters.

Obama also touted the stimulus plan,  promising more,  faster.    But his administration’s need for speed will only tilt the playing field even more towards big firms with the staff to speedily handle paperwork, and local firms are already being shut out of stimulus funding.   As Bloomberg reports,  His Oneness is basically telling businesses to drop dead.

It should surprise no one that a wealth-eater seeks to destroy the very engine producing the riches he wants to redistribute.    It is no accident that many of the most ardent leftists,  like William Ayers,  were trust-fund babies,  insulated from the honing effects of reality during their formative years.   Obama didn’t have a trust fund,  but he has certainly benefited all his life from the generosity of others –  private school tuition,  Ivy League scholarships  (whether foreign or domestic student status still unknown),  law firm internships,  teaching positions arranged not to interfere with his legislative duties or his activities on behalf of ACORN.    The list is quite long,  isn’t it?

The Political Math blog has a new video using pennies to show Obama’s stimulus predictions as compared to the reality of what has happened.  You may have seen other videos on YouTube,  or referenced in The Corner.

You’ll want to bookmark this site for future reference!

And for visualization reduced to a graph,  check this one from the Patriot Post,  courtesy of Innocent Bystanders.