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?

The Sprats?

The United States government is wacky.  Because of the recent spending sequestration, it chooses to close down visits to the White House by schoolchildren on spring break to save a few hundred thousand dollars … yet it is spending $1.5 million to find out why lesbians have a propensity to be overweight while gay men are generally lean (see: CNS News).

I scratch my head.

Afterward:  Obama now claims that he had nothing to do with closing down the White House to visitors ... see: Weekly Standard Story.  My question now is ... from whom did Barack inherit his lily-liver ... his Mom or Dad?

The Uninformed Voter

Even with the stock market hitting a new high, I think that there is a reasonable chance that the U.S. economy will experience a slow-down, if not a double-dip recession, this year.  The fourth quarter of last year's GNP growth has been revised up to a still-anemic +0.1% and four significant economic events have occurred since then: 1) as a result of the fiscal cliff, an increase of the tax rate on high-earners to almost 40% and on dividends to 20%, 2) an increase in the payroll tax rate on everyone by 2 percentage points, 3) the real start of the myriad taxes and regulations associated with Obamacare, and 4) the $43 billion reduction in federal spending that came with the recent sequestration.  With the continuing government spending resolution due to occur in Congress at the end of this month, there is still another element of uncertainty facing American companies ... causing them to approach any business expansion with caution

OK, given that an economic slow-down might occur, how will it be viewed by the uninformed voters in the U.S.?  Obviously, the Obama Administration will be beating the demagogic drums and blaming such a slowdown on the sequestration events.  But, as can be seen from above, three tax increases will be taking considerable money out of the economy and giving it to the government (see: Breitbart Story) whereas the sequestration might slightly ease the pressure on the Federal Reserve Bank to fund America's crippling deficits ... which, I think, might even be a plus for our economy.  And, given that this country will still be running close to a trillion dollar fiscal deficit this year and the Federal Reserve Bank will still be printing about $85 billion of monetary stimulus each month (with "quantitative easing"), by all logic an economic slowdown should not occur.  So, if and when it does as I predict, it should be fully the responsibility of the Obama Administration and its hostile business and taxing environment.

But do you think that uninformed voters will understand this logic?  Or will they give the Democrats even more (destructive) economic leverage in the Congressional elections of 2014?

Pardon Me

On March 1^st (coincidence?), President Obama pardoned 17 criminals, including one with a serious firearm conviction (see below ... the penultimate pardon).  Like the release of thousands of illegal immigrants before the sequestration, can we assume that this was an act to save our government money?  Or just to annoy us?  Is cronyism involved?  Or perhaps political contributions? Wouldn’t it be nice if the President were required to give his justification for each pardon?  (President Lincoln issued quite a few pardons, but I think he gave his reasons in most all the cases.)  Anyway here is the list from the White House via Politico:

·    Robert Leroy Bebee – Rockville, Maryland. Offense: Misprision of a felony, 18 U.S.C. § 4. Sentence:  Two years probation.
·    James Anthony Bordinaro – Gloucester, Massachusetts. Offenses: Conspiracy to restrain, suppress, and eliminate competition in violation of the Sherman Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1; conspiracy to submit false statements, 18 U.S.C. § 371. Sentence:  12 months imprisonment, three years supervised release and a $55,000 fine.
·    Kelli Elisabeth Collins – Harrison, Arkansas. Offense: Aiding and abetting a wire fraud, 18 U.S.C. §§ 1343, 2. Sentence:  Five years probation.
·    Edwin Hardy Futch, Jr. – Pembroke, Georgia. Offense: Theft from an interstate shipment, 18 U.S.C. §§ 659, 2. Sentence:  Five years probation, $2,399.72 restitution.
·    Cindy Marie Griffith – Moyock, North Carolina. Offense: Distribution of satellite cable television decryption devices, 47 U.S.C. § 605(e)(4), 18 U.S.C. § 2. Sentence:  Two years probation with 100 hours of community service.
·     Roy Eugene Grimes, Sr. – Athens, Tennessee. Offenses: Falsely altering a United States postal money order, 18 U.S.C. § 500; passing, uttering, and publishing a forged and altered money order with intent to defraud, 18 U.S.C. § 500. Sentence:  18 months probation.
·    Jon Christopher Kozeliski – Decatur, Illinois. Offense: Conspiracy to traffic counterfeit goods, 18 U.S.C. §§ 371, 2320. Sentence:  One year of probation with six months of home confinement, $10,000 fine.
·    Jimmy Ray Mattison – Anderson, South Carolina. Offenses: Conspiracy to transport and cause the transportation of altered securities in interstate commerce, 18 U.S.C. §§ 371, 2314; transporting and causing the transportation of altered securities in interstate commerce, 18 U.S.C. §§ 2314, 2. Sentence:  Three years probation.
·    An Na Peng – Honolulu, Hawaii. Offense: Conspiracy to defraud the Immigration and Naturalization Service, 18 U.S.C. § 371. Sentence:  Two years probation, $2,000 fine.
·    Michael John Petri – Montrose, South Dakota. Offense: Conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute and distribution of a controlled substance (cocaine), 21 U.S.C. §§ 841(a), 846. Sentence:  Five years imprisonment, three years supervised release.
·      Karen Alicia Ragee – Decatur, Illinois. Offense: Conspiracy to traffic counterfeit goods, 18 U.S.C. §§ 371, 2320. Sentence:  One year of probation with six months of home confinement, $2,500 fine.
·     Jamari Salleh – Alexandria, Virginia. Offense: False claims upon and against the United States, 18 U.S.C. §§ 287, 2. Sentence:  Four years probation, $5,000 fine, $5,900 restitution.
·     Alfor Sharkey – Omaha, Nebraska. Offense: Unauthorized acquisition of food stamps, 7 U.S.C. § 2024(b)(1). Sentence:  Three years probation with 100 hours of community service, $2,750 restitution.
·     Donald Barrie Simon, Jr. – Chattanooga, Tennessee. Offense: Aiding and abetting in the theft of an interstate shipment, 18 U.S.C. §§ 659, 2.  Sentence:  Two years imprisonment, three years probation.
·     Lynn Marie Stanek – Tualatin, Oregon. Offense: Unlawful use of a communication facility to distribute cocaine, 21 U.S.C. § 843(b).          Sentence:  Six months in jail, five years probation conditioned on residence in a community treatment center for a period not to exceed one year.
·     Larry Wayne Thornton – Forsyth, Georgia. Offense: Possession of an unregistered firearm, 26 U.S.C. §§ 5861(d), 5871; possession of a firearm without a serial number, 26 U.S.C. §§ 5861(i), 5871. Sentence:  Four years probation.
·     Donna Kaye Wright – Friendship, Tennessee. Offense: Embezzlement and misapplication of bank funds, 18 U.S.C. § 656. Sentence:  54 days imprisonment, three years probation conditioned on performance of six hours of community service per week.

Screw Job #2

To repeat yesterday's theme, I have predicted that the Obama Administration was going to screw the American people in order to trash the Republican party by proxy for Friday's government spending sequestration  (see: Screwing the Public).  I have vowed to document each of these ginned-up cuts ... the second one being President Obama's decision not to deploy an aircraft carrier group to the Persian Gulf ... see Bob Woodward's harsh critique of our President for this potentially damaging decision here: Business Insider Story.  If Bob Woodward has his hackles up, is it possible that Our Dear Leader has overplayed his hand?

Watch for still more of this hype ... let's see how much more diabolic and demagogic this Administration can get in constructing these sham cuts.

Screw Job #1

I recently prophesied that our current Administration was going to tuck it to the American people in order to punish the Republican party through them for the government spending sequestration due to kick in this Friday (see: Screwing the Public).  I will now document each of these devious and phony cuts that are expected to be imposed on us ... the first being the release of hundreds of illegal immigrants ... see: Washington Times Story.

Watch for many more ... let's see how diabolic and demagogic this Administration can get in constructing these sham cuts.

Afterward: It's not hundreds, it's thousands ... see: Miami Herald Story.

Screwing the Public

The federal government's spending sequestration is scheduled to take effect this coming Friday, March 1st.  This sequestration is nothing more than a decrease in the growth of government spending that Obama first backed … and then fled from … and is now desperately trying to pin on the Republicans.  These spending growth reductions total $43 billion (not the $85 billion as advertised) for fiscal 2013 (ends Sept. 30^th) out of a total federal budget of $3.8 trillion.  This is barely more than a 1% haircut on the baseline government spending that was already scheduled to increase by 0.2% (see: U.S. Federal Budget Detail ) … or as many pundits like to say, "it’s a rounding error."  But they are not even “cuts” … for federal government spending would still increase by 0.7%  even with this sequestration (after adding back the recent emergency appropriation of $64 billion for the victims of hurricane Sandy).  But, given the hair-on-fire rhetoric of the Obama administration … and the complicity of the main-stream media outlets in the United States, the American public generally hasn’t a clue to these meaningful facts.

So, the Obamanistas are out to make this sequestration look exactly like the government shutdown in 1995 when Bill Clinton humiliated Newt Gingrich into submission. It is nothing even closely resembling that.  The Obama administration is likely to go public with “furloughs” for as many government workers as they can in visible sectors of the U.S. economy -- air-traffic controllers, National Park rangers, TSA screeners, meat inspectors, etc. to try to inflict as much pain as possible on the American public (ergo, screw them) in order to pressure the Republicans into relenting on sequestration.  What is even more hypocritical is that these “furloughed” workers will then be paid any back wages due them once this sequestration is resolved.

This administration, using its hand-puppet, Jay Carney, is even saying that teachers, police and firemen will be laid off … employees that are not even paid for out of our Federal coffers.  Dear readers, if you ever want to know exactly what the word “demagoguery” means; this would be a perfect example … screw the naive American public and try to blame it on the other party.  I would love to see this type of despicable political misdirection be labeled the eighth deadly sin ... and come back to haunt Obama and his minions in Congress.

The Very Gray Lady

The New York Times is again trying to sell the Boston Globe newspaper after disposing of many of its other communications properties.  This is a sign of the dowager phase of what was once a great paper.  Now it has sunk to being mostly a stenographer for the Democrat party.  A perfectly repugnant example of same is its Republican slam-piece in last Sunday’s magazine section, see: Can the Republicans be Saved from Obsolescence  A liberal friend (like many of them these days) sent me the following editorial from the New York Times which typifies this paper’s declining standards (see: Why Taxes Have to Go Up) ... in order to set me straight.  Surprise, surprise … it once again proselytizes for higher taxes on the wealthy … I suspect to help dig Obama out of the predicament he has gotten himself into by having previously signed the government spending sequestration bill due to kick in on March 1^st.. This (not-too-well-written) editorial’s  tag line is:

Raising taxes at the top is neither punitive nor gratuitous. It is a needed step, both to achieve near-term budget goals and to lay the foundation for a healthy budget in the future. As the economy strengthens and the population ages, more taxes will be needed from further down the income scale, both to meet foreseeable commitments, especially health care, as well as unforeseeable developments, from wars to technological challenges. But there will never be a consensus for more taxes from the middle class without imposing higher taxes on wealthy Americans, who have enjoyed low taxes for a long time.

Now the fiscal cliff deal which was just passed in January and signed into law by Obama, raises the tax rate on “millionaires and billionaires” (those single earners making over $400K per year) to almost 40%.  Tasting blood, Our Dear Leader wants to extract another hundredweight of flesh from these same taxpayers … and then (read the editorial again more carefully) move the taxing scythe into the middle class … all without cutting discretionary or entitlement spending.  According to Obama and the Times, all we have is a taxing problem, not a spending problem.  This is ideological Alzheimer's disease.

The rest of this editorial is mostly half-truths or outright mendacity … e.g.s, “On the spending side, Republicans are resisting cuts to defense.” (Are not the Republicans willing to permit the looming budget sequestration which includes draconian defense spending cuts … on top of the already-existing D.O.D. one-half a trillion dollar cuts over the next decade … see: Huffington Post Story?) And another, “[Republican spending reductions] implies brutalizing cuts in nondefense discretionary areas, like education and environment, which are already set to fall to their lowest level as a share of the economy since the 1950s.”  As anyone with a frontal lobe can see, this is pure fiction.  The environment and education were hardly on the federal government’s radar screen in the 1950s.  And you can find other truth bendings in this editorial without any eyestrain if you care to look.

So, what was once the news standard of this nation’s intellectual elitists is now a crone feeding sardines to all the neighborhood cats  and serving tea and scones to anyone who’ll grace her door and listen to her relate her past glories.

Getting Penned In

President Obama has swung from the golf course into full campaign mode by trying to offload blame for the coming sequestration scheduled to occur on March 1st (a week from Friday ... when the increase in government spending this year would be cut by $85 billion ... 1/2 of which would happen in the Defense Dept ... about a 2% haircut).  See: Washington Post Blog

I have commented in the past that I thought that sequestration was probably the only way that Republicans could get any spending cuts out of this administration ... see: The Debt Ceiling.  As Republicans have already folded on tax increases for the rich, it now looks like they have gotten just a little clever and are, in fact, going to let sequestration happen.

And, as this deadline looms, Obama seems to be getting more and more agitated.  Also, independent of whose idea this sequestration was (it was our Dear Leader's), there is one act and fact that Obama cannot deny ... he did take up his pen and sign the sequestration bill into law.