Today’s Poser

Why do Democrat-run cities and states generally have a lower quality of life — more crime, higher taxes, more corruption, rampant homelessness, voter fraud, poorer sanitation, wildfires, poor elementary education, crumbling infrastructure, higher unemployment and rioting? Is it because of their politics or are they just piss-poor managers?

Afterthought: Or both?!


STAND UP FOR AMERICA!

Adult Pacifiers

We should measure welfare’s success by how many people leave welfare, not by how many are added. — Ronald Reagan

Back in my salad days, fresh out of college, a wealthy liberal workmate said he was happy to pay for welfare to keep the restless natives pacified. In other words, if it cost him (and me) an extra few percentage points in taxes, he would trade this for social tranquility. I was taken aback ... for I thought that this attitude was paternalistic and undemocratic. In the modern vernacular, he was suggesting keeping our lower class  “on the plantation,” black or white.

So, his being satisfied to “pay off” the poor to keep them from rioting ... was rewarding bad behavior, lassitude and irresponsibility. It typified the start of the downward spiral of family formations and the upward spiral of our drug culture ... exemplified by Woodstock and the anti-Vietnam-war demonstrations. As such, rioting didn’t go away ... it intensified. Lyndon Johnson’s Great Soviety and War on Poverty had the unintended consequences of introducing more slothful rot nto our society. The homelessness and social unrest that we see intensifying today is nothing but a continuation of the paternalism that I first experienced way back then

The West Coast billionaire oligarchy is content to pay more to keep the underclass there from up and derailing their gravy train. To them, it is a very small price to pay. This increasingly bifurcated society is the modern-day consequence of that liberal foolishness I saw all those many years ago. Human nature is such that free stuff only increases the appetite for more free stuff. Am I being cold-hearted to say that welfare should be a temporary hand up for the down-and-out? Making it wide-spread and permanent is economic insanity.

Pacifiers are for babies ... bit, they don’t work so well for adults.

Generic 2020 Dem Platform

Hate Trump, open borders, higher taxes and give away lots of free stuff.

Glee

There is quite of bit of giddy glee surrounding the fact that the federal deficit seems to be shrinking.  The original projection for the 2013 deficit was approximately $900 billion.  Now analysts are forecasting $775 billion (or even lower) … a drop of $125 billion … see: NY Times Story.  How can this be?  We already knew that our government had overspent its continuing resolution “budget” by $30.5 billion for the first five months of this year … see: CNS News Story.  So for the next seven months from March 1^st until October 1^st, the deficit projection will have shrunk by $156 billion ($125 billion + $31 billion).  Yes, we have had tax increases (payroll tax stets, higher tax rates on high-income earners, and numerous other money grabs hidden under Obamacare) and $43 billion of spending cuts under the sequestration agreement, but a 17% deficit reduction (or almost 30% on an annualized basis) is quite a bit beyond most economists’ forecasts and my own expectations (see: The Uninformed Voter).

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Is this deficit reduction real?  Nancy Pelosi credits Obamacare for this reduction … see: Breitbart Story.  And the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) points to Obama’s tax increases on the wealthy … see: The Hill Story.  But, longer-term, everyone seems to agree that a short-term reduction in federal deficits will disappear by 2015 because of U.S. entitlement programs … see: Money Magazine Story.  That is, this will occur unless and until we come to a “grand bargain” on entitlement reform.  I don’t know about you, but I am not holding my breath.  One last thought, if the Democrats can convince American voters that increasing taxes results in lower deficits (a distinct possibility), then we are likely in for another economic slowdown and some rough fiscal sledding ahead.

One thing also not to be overlooked is that this year’s new budget deficit projection is still $317 billion above what President George W. Bush posted in his last full year in office (2008) … which was $458 billion.

Afterward: Actually, new government forecasts place this year's deficit at $643 billion ... see: AP Story.  Yet the Treasury Dept. is having to stand on its head to avoid cracking the debt limit.  Something is fishy here ... the projected deficit is another $132 billion down from what Goldman Sachs recently forecast above (and Treasury Secretary Lew is an old Goldman alum) ... and a $288 billion decrease in the deficit in the last 7 months of this fiscal year.  How can this be?  Is the government cooking its finances just like it cooked the unemployment data last September?