Protein wisdom from Jeff Goldstein:
Here’s a question: if our tax money can be used to prosecute Roger Clemens for allegedly lying to Congress, do the rest of us have standing for a great big counter suit, given how many times Congress has lied to us?
Some of our well-meaning friends on the left have been telling us that our deficits are so large because we are under taxed, supposedly the least taxed people in the developed world. When people like your host suggest that our deficits have skyrocketed because we are spending too much money, why we are dismissed as radical right wingnuts, whose opinions aren’t really worth taking into account.
However, the editors of 
decided to look at our spending track, using data from what our good friend Perry keeps calling the “non-partisan” Congressional Budget Office:
$4.4 Trillion
That’s how much the spending baseline has increased in 31 months.
Speaking last Wednesday in Columbus, Ohio, President Obama asked, “How do we, over the long term, get control of our deficit?” Good question.
Here’s the answer suggested by last Thursday’s semi-annual budget summary from the Congressional Budget Office: Stop spending so much.
CBO’s mid-year review largely reinforces the bad news we already knew—to wit, that spending has exploded since Democrats took over Congress in 2007, first with the acquiescence of George W. Bush and then into hyperdrive after Mr. Obama entered the White House.
That’s as much as I can quote and stick with “fair use” guidelines. But what the editors did was to take the CBO’s budget baseline estimate released last Thursday, and compare it to their budget baseline estimate in January of 2008.
Remember this: these are the CBOs estimates of total federal government spending, not the federal budget deficit. The CBO took, in both instances, federal spending as predicted is based on the law at the time the estimates are made. And the CBO says the deficit will still be nearly $1.1 trillion in 2011, even under the assumption — as part of current law — that all of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts will expire.
The editors noted that annual average increase in domestic, non-defense discretionary spending for 1999 through 2008 was 6.4%. Now that’s way too high, especially given that, during his 2000 presidential campaign, George Bush said that increases would be around 4%.
But in 2009, domestic, non-defense discretionary spending increased 11.2%, and is scheduled to increase by 14.7% in 2010.
Yet our friends on the left would claim that our deficits are so large because we are under-taxed, not because we overspend. Sheesh!
Or, to put it in a different perspective, the ten-year baseline increase of $4.4 trillion in new spending is $1.4 trillion higher than the entire federal budget for FY2008,¹ and nearly a trillion higher than the entire federal budget for FY2010. In effect, President Obama and the Democrats who control the Congress have added more than an entire fiscal year’s spending to the next ten years!
Jennifer Rubin of Commentary magazine — to whom I owe the hat tip for the WSJ article — wrote:
Here’s a plan for the deficit commission: just return to the 2005 level of spending. Civilization as we know it would not end. The government would still deliver essential services and very much more.
And she concluded that, the next time President Obama campaigns for someone — or for himself — by saying that voting for Republicans is voting to return us to the Bush ear, we should respond, “We should be so lucky!”
Our (current) blog tagline has been, “President Bush and the Republicans spent way, way, way too much money, but when it comes to spending, they were bush leaguers — pun intended — compared to President Obama and the Democrats.” It looks like the editors of The Wall Street Journal just proved it.
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¹ – Budget of the United States: Historical Tables, .pdf format, Table 1.1, pages 22 and 23.
Sports Disqualified…By HimselfPosted on September 1, 2010 at 8:35am by Jonathon M. Seidl
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/disqualified-by-himself/
Gary D’Amato’s Milwaukee Journal Sentinel column http://www.jsonline.com/sports/golf/101941838.html offers a true glimpse of sportsmanship.
Read both stories (trying to keep the Dana CR Law)
This isn’t so much about golf as it is which each of us should always do. A true Profile in Courage. It is a major lesson that if our present leaders and Congress followed, we’d really be the Reagan’s Shiny City on the Hill. But alas, we do not have leaders with this much courage and fortitude. Matter of fact, the majority have none at all. This is the kid we wish we all had.
I’ve mentioned the travails of The Philadelphia Inquirer, and how the new ownership — the consortium of the major debt holders of the former owners — demanded new contracts from the 14 unions of the newspapers, and how three of those unions have said no, meaning that the new owners can back out of the deal, and leave the bankrupt previous ownership holding the bag. And I noted how the Easton, Pennsylvania public schools are going to take their share of the federal assistance that was supposed to save teachers jobs, but isn’t going to rehire the laid-off teachers.
Well, now it seems that the city of Miami is going broke, and is breaking its union contracts to try to prevent more economic problems:
Broke City Breaking Employee Contracts
The city of Miami is so broke it’s forcing employees to take pay cuts, even though they’re under contract.
Mayor Tomas Regalado said he’s never seen a financial mess like this before, and his options are grim.
“It’s either that or we layoff 1,000 employees or we raise taxes to the max, and we’re not raising taxes to the max,” the mayor said.
Much more at the link. And since NBC Miami provided the embedding code openly, I think I’m within fair use guidelines on using it and the opening paragraphs of the story. At any rate, Charlie Cox, the union head who represents 1,100 service personnel said that employees with valuable knowledge and skills will leave city employment and find work elsewhere.
Uhhh, Mr Cox, don’t you think that the mayor and the city commissioners know that there aren’t any jobs out there for these disgruntled city employees to take? And given that the city said that, without these wage and benefit cuts, they’d have to lay off a thousand employees, it sounds to me like the city would welcome such voluntary departures.
So, what will happen? Perhaps for specialized employees, like policemen and firemen, providing critical services that cannot be replaced with untrained people off the street, the unions will be able to force the keeping of their existing contracts. But as the employees get less specialized, and are more easily and quickly replaced, and the city finds that it can do without some of them, then it’s pretty obvious: they’re just out of luck.
Perhaps the city has taken some poor decisions in the past, such as the $125 million it’s sinking into the new stadium for the Florida Marlins that was mentioned in the story¹. But those decisions have already been taken, and are (probably) not subject to do-overs.
What else can be done? If those union contracts are not voided, as the city says they must be, then a thousand employees become unemployees.
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¹ – I have never understood why cities build huge stadia for billionaire sports team owners. That doesn’t seem like an appropriate use of government funds.
I had to wash my work clothes, and when I cleaned the lint screen before putting them in the dryer, I found a $20 bill in the lint screen! 
Well, maybe I have to be careful on copying too much from articles in The Philadelphia Inquirer, but I can get away with more when it comes to Sharon’s site!
White House: Obamacare Doesn’t Reduce Costs or Deficit
We’re not surprised Democrats are backpedaling on the strongest claims made about Obamacare: That it would cut the cost of medicine and improve the deficit.
Our lovable lefty Perry claimed repeatedly that the CBO said it would reduce the deficit in the first decade. This was always a sham claim, since Obamacare takes in 10 years worth of payments from taxpayers but only pays out 6 years of benefits. Even Democrats can improve costs when they aren’t paying for things.
This is just the latest example of how the Democrat agenda is coming back to bite ‘em in the ass, and I can’t say “I told you so” enough. I’m hopeful November is just the start.
The Weekly Standard article that Sharon linked — yes, it’s copyrighted — has more details, but, in the end, it tells us that the Democrats are admitting (privately, of course) that you can’t increase the number or people covered, maintain high quality for those covered, and still cut costs, which is what common sense conservatives had been saying all along.
Of course, just because the Democrats are admitting it to themselves doesn’t mean that Perry will quit using his standard claims!
From this morning’s 
:
Newspaper drivers reject tentative contract¹
By Christopher K. Hepp, Philadelphia Inquirer Staff WriterThe drivers who deliver The Inquirer and the Philadelphia Daily News voted overwhelmingly Sunday to reject a tentative contract agreement reached between their union, Teamsters Local 628, and Philadelphia Media Network, the newspapers’ new owner.
OK, just the lead paragraph; I think I’m OK on fair use there!
Philadelphia Newspapers LLC owned the Inquirer, the Philadelphia Daily News, (a tabloid-style newspaper) and the website philly.com, but, as is so often the case with newspapers these days, Philadelphia Newspapers LLC went bankrupt. Philadelphia Media Network, a group composed of sixteen financial institutions, which were the main creditors for the bankrupt Philadelphia Newspapers LLC, bought the company in a bankruptcy auction last April.
However, the new owners required new contracts from the various unions involved. Most of them agreed, but the workers represented by Teamsters Local 628 voted against their new contract overwhelmingly, 182-3. There are 14 separate unions involved — which sounds to me like a big part of the problem right there — and the press operators, paper handlers and operating engineers are schedled to vote today; the machinists voted against their proposed contract on Saturday.
The article mentions the big issue: the new owners have the right to walk away from the sale if new contracts with the unions are not reached by the deadline, which is tomorrow.
So, what happens now? The old owners went broke trying to make a go of the newspapers, and there’s no particular reason to think that would change. The new owners were demanding concessions, because the papers could not make money under the old rules.
Will the new owners renegotiate, or have the Teamsters just voted themselves — and all of the other employees — out of a job?
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Update: 1310 Tuesday, 31 August 2010: The pressmen’s union rejected the offered contract, 74-9. Nine unions have approved their offers, and three have rejected them, so far; there are 14 unions involved.
. . . there’s a law firm out there, called Righthaven LLC, of Las Vegas, which has found a new way to make money. The story is here, but what Righthaven does is to search the internet for stories or portions of stories from the newspapers that they represent. If they find content that has been re-published, Righthaven then purchases the copyright to the article for itself, and sues the blog owner.
Some very limited quotations can be used, under Fair Use guidelines, but, as the guidelines note, “The distinction between fair use and infringement may be unclear and not easily defined. There is no specific number of words, lines, or notes that may safely be taken without permission.” According to the original, the normal procedure is for newspapers to notify websites of copyright infringement, and request that the material be taken down and replaced with a link.
Righthaven’s tactic is to sue the bloggers, usually smaller bloggers, and settle for a few thousand dollars. Since everything is pro forma, Righthaven keeps its expenses low, and can make a quick profit.
I’m sending this article to some of my blogging friends, because many of us — including me — have stretched the Fair Use guidelines too far, and could be liable.
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