More Obama Money Tied to Union Approval

It is truly the era of union labor. Forty-one states competed for a piece of $4 billion available to reform-minded schools. Of those 41 states, only two were awarded money. And those two states were the only ones claiming unanimous union support. As reported on ABC News:

Experts believed Florida, Georgia, and Louisiana all had strong -- if not stronger -- applications, but what they lacked was the nearly unanimous support from local unions and school districts obtained by Delaware and Tennessee.

"I think this is a win for the unions. What it shows is they have veto power over state application. If they don't sign on, their states are unlikely to get funding," said Michael Petrilli, vice president for National Programs and Policy at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute.

What was that quote by Adam Smith?

"People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public."

This is a great time to be in a union or on the government dole--especially while the rest of the economy collapses.

Romney the Early Frontrunner for 2012

It's very, very early, yet--but it's still noteworthy to point out that after Sarah Palin's spectacular crash and burn, Mitt Romney has emerged as frontrunner in the 2012 election. How the likes of Sarah Palin and John McCain rose to the top last year in the first place is beyond me--but let's leave that for another discussion.

From the Fox News article:

Of all the Republicans and Republican-leaning respondents polled, 26 percent favored Romney as the nominee while 21 percent preferred Palin. Nineteen percent favored former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and 14 percent chose former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.

A lot can change in three years. However, I'm convinced that a devastated economy will remain the top issue as the Obama administration continues to gut the potential for free-market prosperity. This plays to Romney's strength, and will land him in a strong position to contend for the office.

Obama Asks for Budget Cuts - by 0.002%

President Obama is really showing some spending restraint here. He's calling on his cabinet members to cut $100,000,000 from a budget he has inflated to $3,550,000,000,000. That's less than two thousandths of a percentage point.

Farewell, kids' future.

The Miserly Obama Administration

I wonder what the average annual charitable donation is for our illustrious congresspeople. If Obama and Biden are remotely representative, the amount is truly pitiful.

2008 charitable contributions (as percent of income):

Obama: 5.7%
Biden: 0.3%

It's no wonder these people have no faith in goodwill of humanity. They can't fathom how someone would be willing to give more than a few percentage points of their income to charity. Maybe that's why they only see a bigger government as the solution.

On the flip side, the previous administration:

Bush: 23%
Cheney: 70%

So the people who are going to raise our taxes through the roof are the same people who have more trouble parting with their own cash to help others. The contradiction is nauseating.

Dear Obama: Spend Yor Billions on Fusion Technology

One of the greatest debacles in energy and budgetary policy is the dumping of billions of dollars into unsustainable "green" alternative energy programs like wind and solar power. These technologies have far-reaching negative side effects that short-sighted politicians refuse to acknowledge.

I'm all for clean, abundant renewable energy. But instead of committing our children's future to programs that will create more problems than they will solve, let's invest in fusion energy.

It's the long-sought panacea of our energy woes--and it appears to be another step closer to reality. Behold the laser-induced fusion reaction.

The National Ignition Facility has already test-fired all 192 giant lasers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California as part of this effort. The lasers will eventually focus their power on compressing and heating a single, pea-sized fuel capsule to more than 180 million degrees Fahrenheit in order to trigger thermonuclear fusion.

"One of the major activities of the NIF is to explore the basics of fusion energy, building a miniature sun on Earth that could supply limitless, safe and carbon-free energy," said Ed Moses, National Ignition Facility (NIF) program director.

Serious ignition testing scheduled for 2010 would focus 500 trillion watts of power on the pea-sized capsule containing deuterium and tritium fuel. NIF has already produced 25 times more energy than any other existing laser system, and also became the first fusion laser facility to break the megajoule barrier and create enough energy to power 10,000 100-watt light bulbs for a second.

Why isn't this technology receiving more attention? Is the green movement so afraid of real science that it's not including it in its memos to the mainstream media? If the Obama administration can consider hamstringing the economy through cap-and-trade schemes, surely they can discuss an alternative that makes the ubiquitous (albeit vacuous) carbon emission issue moot.

Okay, Obama is Scaring Me

So all the banks have received all sorts of government cash in the form of TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program) funds. Even for those banks who didn't really want the money, the administration basically threatened them into taking it. To what end?

Control. If a bank is sitting on millions or billions in government money, the government then has the power to dictate how that money is used.

But what if a bank wishes to give back its TARP allotment? With interest? Good idea, right?

Not to the Obama administration.

From an article in the Wall Street Journal:

Under the Bush team a prominent and profitable bank, under threat of a damaging public audit, was forced to accept less than $1 billion of TARP money. The government insisted on buying a new class of preferred stock which gave it a tiny, minority position. The money flowed to the bank. Arguably, back then, the Bush administration was acting for purely economic reasons. It wanted to recapitalize the banks to halt a financial panic.

Fast forward to today, and that same bank is begging to give the money back. The chairman offers to write a check, now, with interest. He's been sitting on the cash for months and has felt the dead hand of government threatening to run his business and dictate pay scales. He sees the writing on the wall and he wants out. But the Obama team says no. The bank has also been threatened with "adverse" consequences if its chairman persists. That's politics talking, not economics.

So now the government can assume nearly unlimited control over banks forced to hold onto government loans that those banks don't want. It's heavy-handed politics at its scariest...so far.

Giving to Charity? That's a Taxing.

When times are hard, people are out of work, and charitable giving takes on an especially significant role in caring for the needy--what is one of the worst things a government can do?

Tax charitable donations.

Yet this is precisely what President Obama has proposed. Taxing charitable donations from those who can actually afford to give more. His proposal would affect individuals earning $200K and married couples earning $250K. This amounts to a greater tax penalty for married couples than for single individuals.

I think Obama has covered his bases when it comes to doing harm: the very poor, the charitable organizations and the institute of marriage.

I can't conceive the levels of hubris required to even suggest such an idea. I can only wonder if this scheme is simply a red herring to take the focus away from the rest of Obama's disastrous budget plans.

I recommend that anyone reading this contact their representatives in Washington and tell them to abandon this absurdity when it comes to a vote.

Economists Against Stimulus Package? Impossible!

How in the world can economists discard the foregone conclusion that huge government intervention is needed RIGHT NOW to avoid financial catastrophe? Oh--because they understand economics, and don't turn a blind eye to history.

Here's an ad from libertarian the CATO institute castigating the Obama administration and its support of the proposed government "stimulus" package, signed by various faculty from hudreds of universities. Click on the image to read the entire piece.

So if reducing the government burden on the economy is Economics 101, why are all the leftie politicians so gung ho about the stimulus package? As White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel put it, "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste." Yeah, way to put country first there, Rahm.