Lexington warns Republicans

According to Lexington, Republicans will lose their influence over policy and legislation unless they bow to Obama, Pelosi and Reid. Huh? What influence? The kind of influence they had over the "porkulus?" What can Lexington have in mind?

Lexington's point of view isn't unique. The LAT made the same argument the other day, claiming that if Republicans continue to oppose Obama, Pelosi and Reid they face exile to political wilderness.

So, liberals are concerned about Republicans and are trying to help them out by giving them good advice? Not likely.

Take 10

We see Obama on television daily, preaching catastrophe or threatening banks or announcing new spending plans -- $800 billion here, $410 billion there, $634 billion yonder. Each time he speaks, the stock market dives. Take a break, Mr. President. Go to Tahiti with Michelle for a couple weeks, or years. We'll be OK without you. We may even recover.

Right or wrong, LAT supports Obama

Obama made a forceful case for his agenda last night. Republicans need to get out of the way or face a long trip into political wilderness. That's the LAT's opinion, expressed in an editorial today. It's only an opinion, one the LAT may regret but never admit having.

Obama made clear last night his intention to take over nearly every important aspect of American life, except entertainment. Whether that was intentional or an oversight isn't known.

The government has a poor track record on most things it has taken over, leaving behind corruption, waste, ineptness, bloat, inefficiency and unmet goals. Obama has a poor track record from his first weeks in office, characterized by errors in selecting and investigating cabinet nominees, poor planning and execution of economic and financial undertakings, grossly excessive spending and a 15 percent drop in the stock market.

Obama's delivery last night was fine; what he said was scary.

Obama has another plan

According to today's LAT, Obama has another plan, this one to cut the deficit in half. Can't wait.

Skelton: Do it illegally

LAT columnist George Skelton writes this morning that if imprisoned Senate Republicans in California's legislature don't soon cave and allow $14 billion of tax increases then Democrats will use the nuclear option: Raise taxes illegally, in violation of California's constitution.

That's what it's come down to. If locking them in doesn't do it, ignore the constitution. Hitler, Stalin, Hussein, Castro, Ortega, Mugabe, Chavez and all petty dictators do it. How are California's Democratic legislators different?

LAT editors: Wipe out the Republicans

Democrats are taking over the state. Republicans are finished. People and businesses are leaving California because taxes aren't high enough and there's too little regulation. It's Armageddon all over again and it's Republicans' fault. Besides, Republicans are insincere. They don't care about California. They just want to make Democrats and the LAT squirm.

That's the LAT's point of view and it's stupid. Raising taxes is stupid. Making people miserable until they leave the state is stupid. Locking people in until they vote like you want them to vote is stupid. Threatening to act illegally if you don't get what you want legally -- as Democrats have tried to do and still propose to do by approving tax increases without the required two-thirds vote of the legislature -- is stupid.

Blame a Republican

A LAT editorial this morning singles out a Republican state senator and assigns him the blame for California's budget deadlock. The LAT writes that the senator isn't sincere, that he's only playing politics and preparing for his next election campaign. All this is based on the senator's opposition to $14 billion of increased taxes. If you oppose the LAT then you get what you deserve is the LAT's message.

The LAT's arguments are so one-sided that it's hard to believe they seriously think they're convincing. California already is tops in taxes. Further tax increases will only facilitate future spending. The state's spending is and has been out of control. That's what needs to be fixed.

Approving tax increases in California would be like offering dope to a junkie.

Under lock and key

Republican senators in California's legislature are being threatened with imprisonment in the capitol building again until at least three of them agree to violate the no-new-taxes pledge they took. Two have already agreed to do that so all the pressure, coming from Democrats and the governator, is on finding one more.

A better solution, one Democrats have within their grasp, would be to reduce expenditures to compensate for the absence of tax increases. That would yield a budget everyone could support.

Browbeating

Democrats, including the LAT, are browbeating Republican lawmakers in Sacramento -- actually imprisoning them in the capitol building -- in an effort to convince one to change his or her vote and approve of massive tax increases on California taxpayers. Why not instead browbeat some Democrats until they cut expenditures by an amount equal to the proposed tax increases? Maybe locking them in the capitol building would do it.

Lexington on Lincoln

The Lexington column in the latest issue of The Economist argues that Democrats have as much right to claim Lincoln as Republicans, though Lexington doesn't dispute that Lincoln was a Republican.

Neither Democrats nor Republicans, Lexington argues, believe in meritocracy. Republicans cut tax rates and widen the gap between rich and poor, Lexington argues. Lexington seems to argues for egalitarianism -- equality of outcome, without regard to merit.

Democrats, Lexington argues, are wedded to affirmative action that judges people on their race rather than individual merit. Democrats are in the pocket of teachers' unions which have fought against introducing competition and standardized testing, Lexington writes. Further, Lexington writes, Democrats oppose vouchers that would allow poor students to attend good schools.

On the latter points, Lexington is correct. But Lexington's tendency is to agree more often with Democrats than Republicans. Lexington's discovery of meritocracy should lead him or her in the opposite direction.

Free lunch

The LAT had a piece on Saturday's front page about how the "stimulus" will reach nearly all. The piece contained not a word about who will pay for it.

Obama's victory

It's hard to see how borrowing $800 billion can possibly be seen as a victory but that's what Obama is claiming.

The best we can expect

The LAT argues this morning in editorials that the rumored California budget "fix" is the best we can expect and, though it isn't what they would prefer, the federal "stimulus" bill ought to be approved and signed into law. On the front page, the LAT says that California will realize $26 billion from the federal "stimulus" but, in the piece that follows, says that $26 billion will not help solve California's budget crisis.

The California budget "fix" increases the tax burden of a state that was among the highest-taxed states before the "fix." Raising taxes doesn't solve anything because expenditures will continue to grow, exceeding whatever new tax revenue is raised. California's government continues to grow because it continues to hire. There seldom are terminations because the government workers' unions won't permit them. Unions provide the money to elect legislators who do their bidding. The unions effectively control California's government.

The $26 billion from the federal "stimulus" won't help to solve California's budget crisis because it will be spent as fast as the new tax revenue is spent. One of the justifications for the federal "stimulus" was to help the states crawl out of their budget crises but now it appears that at least $26 billion of that "stimulus" will have no effect.

It seems like a shell game that taxpayers can never win.

Depressing

The "stimulus" bill is on fast track. It likely will pass today or tomorrow at the latest. Probably not one in ten Congressmen or Senators has read it. It was written in secrecy in the first instance by Nancy Pelosi and her staff. Negotiations in the Senate between Democrats and the rebel Republican three were conducted in secrecy. The conference was conducted in secrecy. So, we have a nearly $800 billion bill that only a few know anything about. Nevertheless, it's so urgent that it must be signed by President's Day. Why?

There are so many things wrong with the "stimulus" bill that it's hard to list them. It's too big. It's loaded with pork. It will inflate the currency and increase our national debt. It will set baselines for future expenditures that will increase future deficits or require massive tax increases. It's conceived based on a false, unproven and misunderstood theory of a long-dead, homosexual, British economist named John Maynard Keynes.

The rumored budget settlement of the California legislature further depresses because it calls for massive tax increases that will add new tax burdens to an already overtaxed populace. Republicans are rumored to have agreed to the tax increases. Not all of them but enough for the legislation to pass with two-thirds majorities.

The federal "stimulus" had to have three turncoat Republicans to clear the Senate. California's tax increases require three turncoat Republicans in each house of the California legislature. Can't all Republicans stick to their guns? Evidently not.

Immaturity, incompetence

Yesterday's fiasco, in which Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner presented a new and "improved" solution to the nation's credit problems is a demonstration of what not to do. Here's what was wrong: First, an announcement like that needs to be done after the market has closed or on a weekend. Second, those responsible for making the announcement must understand how such an announcement might be perceived by Wall Street and the public generally. Third, a program like Geithner announced ought to be something that has been thoroughly worked out and tried before, successfully.

Geithner's announcement fails on all three. It is either incompetence or immaturity that explains the timing of the announcement, at mid-day when the market is still open. It is either incompetence or immaturity that explains why Geithner or Obama didn't anticipate that the market would drop precipitously after the announcement. It is either incompetence or immaturity, and perhaps arrogance, that explains the introduction of a plan that has never before been tried and found to work successfully.

Obama and Geithner are experimenting with the nation's economy and banking system. The "stimulus" isn't likely to do much other than increase the national debt. The banking system fixes aren't likely to fix the banking system. The constant flood of new, untried ideas, together with screw-ups like fumbled vettings of cabinet nominees and poorly timed announcements, have shaken the confidence of investors and nearly everyone else. Repeatedly overstating how bad the economy is and how dangerously under capitalized banks are aggravates the lack of confidence. Is it any wonder that banks won't lend and people won't spend?

Barack Obama is arguing that his administration can't just stand there, it needs to do something. It would be better for the country if the administration did the opposite.

Scolding the opposition

That's the headline on the Orange County Register's front page today. It's appropriate. Obama is a scold. Last night on television, he scolded people for not agreeing with him and for saying what they think. The debate is over, he keeps saying. He won the election and everybody ought to shut up and do what he wants because of it. It doesn't work that way.

Obama was elected president, not king. We have a bill of rights in this country that insures everyone has the right to think what they want and say what they think. The president doesn't have the right to tell people to shut up and he doesn't have the power to make them.

So far as the "stimulus" is concerned, it's still an abomination, designed by Nancy Pelosi and now amended several times. Without three soft-headed Republicans in the Senate, the bill would wind up in the trash can of history where it belongs.

The Geithner plan got a big raspberry today. As this is written, the market is down nearly 400 points. Geithner ought to be sent home to do his taxes using Turbo Tax.

Fear mongering

Obama: "It is inexcusable and irresponsible to get bogged down in distraction and delay while millions of Americans are being put out of work."

It is inexcusable and irresponsible to keep scaring people, something that seems to be Obama's specialty.

"And if we drag our feet and fail to act, this crisis will turn into a catastrophe," Obama said today. But he doesn't know that. No one can know it, no one who isn't clairvoyant. There is no evidence that Obama is clairvoyant.

The president needs to change his tone. He needs to stop scaring the American people. Instead he ought to put the fear of God into Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid to produce a "stimulus" bill that is acceptable to the American people, one which is not loaded with left-wing pork like the present bill.

Inexcusable and irresponsible

Those are words Obama used to describe Senators who oppose his "stimulus" bill. "Distraction, delay or politics as usual" are unacceptable at a time when millions of Americans are out of work, Obama said.

But what if you truly believe, if your intellect tells you based on facts available, that this "stimulus" is an abomination? Aren't you then obligated to oppose it because it is harmful to the nation?

In truth and in fact, the "stimulus" is an abomination. Obama and Congressional Democrats are playing politics with it. Democrats have the largest majorities they've had in many years and they're using those majorities to put into effect all the items that have been on their wish list for many years. They're doing it at a time when the nation is vulnerable. People are scared and Obama is scaring them further. Nothing could be more cynical.

Lexington laments Barack's troubles

The Economist's Lexington columnist writes in the current issue that Obama promised too much during his campaign and that makes it hard to govern. But the main problem is that Obama talks too much and thinks he knows more that he does.

Obama is on television daily. No one has that much to say. He overstates when he keeps preaching that economic catastrophe will occur if he doesn't get the "stimulus" he wants. No one can know that.

There is no evidence that TARP has accomplished anything but Obama claims that the next $500 million will do the trick. The last "stimulus" accomplished nothing but Obama claims the next trillion will do it. His claims aren't credible.

The "stimulus"

It defies logic to think that the government can stimulate the economy by spending nearly a trillion dollars it doesn't have. If our federal government had an extra trillion dollars it didn't need then it could and should return it to the taxpayers from whom the government got the dollars. That would stimulate the economy.

But the federal government, any federal government, doesn't have an extra trillion dollars. It must borrow the money or create new money. By borrowing the money it's removing money from the economy, which is the opposite of stimulative. Accordingly, borrowing the money and then spending it on a "stimulus" package is a wash. The borrowing and the spending might not occur at the same time so there might be a time when more had been borrowed than spent or vice versa but otherwise the two things are a wash. Keynes had a theory about a multiplier effect but it was theory, not fact.

Suppose the government doesn't borrow the money but creates new money to spend instead. Obviously, that puts more money in circulation but it doesn't change the total value of all the money in circulation. It just makes each dollar worth less, which is known as inflation.

By insisting that our economy is headed for catastrophe if Congress doesn't give him a "stimulus" bill, Obama risks discrediting everything he says. If we can't believe Obama about the "stimulus," will we believe him when he says in the future something like "terrorists threaten the U.S. with catastrophic loss of life and property if we don't protect ourselves against them" or "Iran could cause catastrophic losses if it obtained nuclear weapons capabilities."

At war with Wall Street

The LAT argues, unsurprisingly, that Obama is right to crack down on Wall Street big wigs but it's hard to see how that will help. Left-wingers naturally dislike and disapprove of free enterprise and the people who engage in it, preferring instead socialism and big government. Both socialism and free enterprise capitalism are messy but free enterprise capitalism at least has a track record of producing prosperity and high living standards. Big government has a track record of producing stagnation and inflation. Socialism has produced economies like the one in East Germany which collapsed along with the rest of the Soviet bloc and was absorbed by democratic and capitalistic West Germany. Or the one in the United Kingdom, which was nearly bankrupt until it was rescued by Margaret Thatcher.

LAT columnists

Where would we be without LAT columnists? Answer: Better off.

Yesterday, columnist David Lazarus wrote negatively about health savings accounts, arguing that premiums might go up and people might use poor judgement when investing the funds in their health savings accounts. Lazarus prefers single-payer health care like Medicare or Medicaid -- for everyone.

Would we expect anything different from a LAT columnist?

LAT headlines are humorous, unintentionally

Yesterday's LAT headline said that Obama is frustrated, poor thing. But how would they know? Did he say he was? If so then shouldn't "frustrated" be in quotes? If not, wouldn't editorial writers need to occupy Obama's skin or mind to know he was frustrated? Maybe he just looks frustrated. Or maybe the LAT thinks he should be frustrated.

Today's headline reads: "Obama puts the heat on Republicans." The LAT apparently refers to remarks Obama made yesterday arguing that some changes to the "stimulus" that Republicans favor are like the policies that caused the current economic meltdown. It's all talk and incredibly biased news reporting.

The "stimulus" is in trouble and Obama knows it. It deserves to be. The House bill is an abomination that only a Nancy Pelosi could birth. Obama can't be seen as caving to Republicans but the "stimulus" must be made less disgusting if it is to clear the Senate.

What the world needs now: More government

Obama and Treasury secretary Geithner announced this morning new restrictions on executive compensation at banks receiving government aid under TARP. It was inevitable. With government aid comes government interference, administered by people who couldn't run a bank if their lives depended on it. Or any other kind of business for that matter.

There's no evidence that TARP has made any difference to the economy. Adding new restrictions makes the bailout more complicated without changing its true nature: A wasteful government program intended to fiddle with the economy hopelessly.

The so called "stimulus" package will be similar. The government will spend nearly a trillion dollars it doesn't have, more than a trillion if interest is taken into account. If you get your hands on some of that money then good for you. But there is no free lunch. The dollar will be devalued because more will be in circulation than before. If the borrowed money is ever repaid, it will be repaid by people who are not now living. Chances are, inflation will make the amount of the debt seem small in a few years. If the debt is repaid, it will be repaid with inflated dollars, which is about the only good thing you can say about the "stimulus."

Despite Obama's predictions of catastrophe if the "stimulus" is not approved, there is little chance it will make any difference. The same is true of TARP. You can be sure that government will be bigger after all this spending than it is now.

Trudy Rubin solves the Palestinian problem

In a column published in the Orange County Register over the weekend, syndicated columnist Trudy Rubin exploded five myths that she believes will prevent success in settling the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. Her central thrust: the main impediment to peace is that Israel continues to build settlements in the West Bank.

The settlements apparently caused Hamas to attack Israel with rockets. Rubin must at least believe that because she didn't mention rockets in her column. It's apparently not a problem for Rubin that Hamas refuses to acknowledge Israel's right to exist, though she doesn't mention that in her column. And Palestinians' insistence on a right of return apparently doesn't concern Rubin since she failed to mention that in her column.

If Obama will insist that Israel stop building settlements then peace can be had, Rubin seems to believe.

LAT reports on the "stimulus" package

This morning's LAT headline reads: "GOP set to carve into stimulus." Within the article, Janet Hook and Maura Reynolds write that "the Senate is likely to produce a bill significantly more expensive than the House's $819-billion version." Which is it?

Daschle withdraws

Tom Daschle has withdrawn from consideration as Secretary of Health and Human Services. So, he paid more than $100,000 in back taxes for nothing. Poor Tom.