This is awesome.
Hattip: Jonah. Original source from this nifty new blog here.
Tom posted this at 4:36 PM EDT on Friday, May 15th, 2009 as An Insult to Drunken Sailors, CHANGE!
May 15th, 2009
Isn’t He Dreamy?
February 27th, 2009
Soak it In
Wow.
Not only will the current deficit reach $1.75 trillion, next year’s will also top $1 trillion and the deficits will remain above $500 billion until fiscal 2019, the last year projected in yesterday’s document.
Any other issue aside, I think there starts to be a legitimate question of whether there really is just $10 trillion laying around, waiting for the U.S. government to borrow it. To this point in our history, after all the moaning and groaning of the Bush years, we’ve amassed a public debt that is a little under $11 trillion, 60% of our GDP. Over the next decade, Obama wants to double that.
Wow.
Update: Even better:
However, to meet that goal, the administration’s budget depends on optimistic projections that the economy, currently in the longest recession in a quarter-century, will come roaring back with economic growth of 3.2 percent next year and 4 percent-plus rates in the following three years, significantly higher than private economists are forecasting.
Translation: those deficit numbers come from someone smoking illegal substances. It’ll be vastly worse than predicted. I think it’s a serious question of how much money there actually is out there for our government to borrow. The number is >∞.
Apollo posted this at 10:19 PM EST on Friday, February 27th, 2009 as An Insult to Drunken Sailors, That's Not Change!
February 24th, 2009
Three Cheers for Congress
They’re banning pet chimps. On the one hand, this is stupid legislation that addresses a non-problem, and in a rational world Congress wouldn’t bother itself with this. On the other, any minute this Congress doesn’t use to increase spending is a minute well spent. Remember Franklin’s words: A trillion saved is a trillion earned.
Apollo posted this at 3:56 PM EST on Tuesday, February 24th, 2009 as An Insult to Drunken Sailors, Animal Kingdom Strikes Back
February 21st, 2009
This is What Hope Looks Like
You wanted HOPE and CHANGE, America, well you got it. In order to reduce our national deficit to a mere half trillion dollars in a mere four years, we have to raise taxes and run away from fights.
Reducing the deficit, he said, is critical to the nation’s future: “We can’t generate sustained growth without getting our deficits under control.”
Well, I guess it’s a good thing he’s doing such a great job of controlling deficits!
I thought during the campaign that a President Obama with a Democrat Congress would cause us to look back on the Bush years as a period of relative fiscal discipline. I thought it would take at least a couple of years, though. It’s only taken a month.
Fast fact: If the 2009 deficit were a country, it would be, at least, the 17th largest economy on earth. Indonesia has 237,512,352 people. This year, our government is going to borrow a time and a half as much as those people will produce.
P.S. This looks pretty funny right now.
P.P.S. Allow me to find a silver lining in this. Whatever ambitions Obama and the Democrats may have had for domestic projects (and I’m looking at you, socialized medicine) are simply not going to happen. The pork bill will, by necessity, be the defining domestic achievement of this administration.
Apollo posted this at 8:10 PM EST on Saturday, February 21st, 2009 as An Insult to Drunken Sailors, That's Not Change!
February 10th, 2009
Pop Quiz Hotshot
Which three Republican Senators voted to heap a monstrous amount of debt onto us for no real gain?
I may be sick.
Jamie posted this at 4:20 PM EST on Tuesday, February 10th, 2009 as An Insult to Drunken Sailors
February 9th, 2009
Playing Logic Games with a Law Prof
The more I toss it over in my mind, the less sense I can make of two points Obama kept harping on tonight. He kept saying:
- Congressional Republicans won’t help him because they believe that the solution to this problem lies in tax cuts alone, and not stimulus spending.
- Congressional Republicans have no credibility on controlling spending because they’ve engaged in a tremendous spending binge these last eight years.
But doesn’t this cut against Obama? Even Congressional Republicans think this spending is wasteful! It’s like going bar hopping with Amy Winehouse but complaining that she couldn’t keep up: it says more about you than her.
Apollo posted this at 10:22 PM EST on Monday, February 9th, 2009 as An Insult to Drunken Sailors, That's Not Change!
October 4th, 2008
Speaking of Not Judging Until All the Facts Are In
This headline on Fox comes close to matching Tom’s post from the other day: “Lawmaker Accused of Fannie Mae Conflict of Interest”
The story is thus: Barney Frank’s live-in boyfriend for 7 years was an executive at a company Frank’s committee regulated. I can’t think of a way to frame it so that that would not, objectively, be a conflict of interest.
Apollo posted this at 1:14 PM EDT on Saturday, October 4th, 2008 as An Insult to Drunken Sailors, Journalism
September 26th, 2008
Bailout Thought
Is Barney Frank the most disheveled man in public life? The weight, wearing shirts that fit him 40 pounds ago, the hair, that speech problem that makes him sound like he’s perpetually inebriated. Aside from the fact that he was one of the people leading the charge for Fannie and Freddie to loosen their lending standards, he’s a horrible spokesman for the Democrats to have on any issue. He looks like he had three hours of sleep after a two day bender and rolled out of bed ten minutes ago.
I saw Brad Sherman on Fox earlier. He looked smart, and he dressed like a Congressman (i.e. in a nondescript suit with a nondescript tie). He inspired confidence that there are serious people working on a serious issue. The only confidence Barney Frank inspires is that the cheap aftershave market won’t crash.
Apollo posted this at 3:54 PM EDT on Friday, September 26th, 2008 as An Insult to Drunken Sailors
June 25th, 2008
Congress to Apollo: You Are an Idiot
Well this is fantastic. $300 billion – i.e. $1000 from every man, woman, and child in America – going to bail out people who can’t pay their mortgages.
If you were responsible, if you thought twice before buying a home you couldn’t afford, if you bought a smaller home or a home in a not as nice neighborhood so that you could make the payments, if you stayed in your apartment for another year while you saved up for a down payment: Congress will take your money and subsidize the home purchases of people who chose to be irresponsible. Hope you enjoy your smaller home, or living in apartment that additional year, because the irresponsible are sure going to enjoy living it up in their nicer houses thanks to the money taken from your paycheck. P.S. And if you want to move up to a nicer house, fat chance, because part of the purpose of government spending this $300 billion is to jack up home prices.
This is about as unjust as government spending gets.
Apollo posted this at 6:33 AM EDT on Wednesday, June 25th, 2008 as Amer-I-Can!, An Insult to Drunken Sailors
May 20th, 2008
Of Course
Its no wonder that everyone is so unpopular these days, our current choices being Big Spending Republicans and Big Taxing Democrats.
Well it turns out that 62% of Americans want smaller government and lower taxes.
Too bad we won’t get a president this round that will offer that choice.
I miss Fred.
Jamie posted this at 3:54 PM EDT on Tuesday, May 20th, 2008 as Amer-I-Can!, An Insult to Drunken Sailors
May 6th, 2008
What They Really Want
An interesting short story on conflicting federal, state, and local regulations of how many toilets sporting facilities need.
Line of the day: “Sometimes ‘potty parity’ isn’t what they mean or necessarily want. . . . They’re actually wanting potty asymmetry.”
Apollo posted this at 1:19 AM EDT on Tuesday, May 6th, 2008 as An Insult to Drunken Sailors
May 1st, 2008
Mistaken Impressions
I hope no one supports John McCain because they think he’ll stop the growth of government. He won’t, and strangely the press is on to him. Though I think this might be one of those issues like Obama and Wright: it could potentially get huge negative coverage because McCain has spent much time emphasizing that he’ll be tough on spending. Now that he’s got the nomination and is opening the Santa sack, he’s looking like a regular politician when it comes to spending.
I miss Fred.
Apollo posted this at 10:53 AM EDT on Thursday, May 1st, 2008 as An Insult to Drunken Sailors
April 8th, 2008
Clinton Is Worse Than Obama
Hillary Clinton’s latest, syrupy socialist idea. From the Globe:
“I believe we should appoint a cabinet-level position that will be solely and fully devoted to ending poverty as we know it in America, a position that will focus the attention of our nation on this issue,” she said. The president would ask the poverty czar, “What have you done today to end poverty in America?”
Of all the pandering, gag-inducing leftist crap I have ever heard, this is the worst. “Actually Madam President, I’ve done quite a bit to end poverty this morning!”
And now that your gag reflex is well exercised, imagine those words spoken with a South Carolina accent from a man with an expensive haircut. From the NYT:
The move comes in advance of the North Carolina primary, where Mrs. Clinton is hoping to appeal to both black voters and supporters of John Edwards, the former candidate. Mr. Edwards, a former Senator from North Carolina, had focused his campaign on reducing poverty, which he often called “the cause of my life.”
Both Mrs. Clinton and her rival, Senator Barack Obama, have made pilgrimages to Mr. Edwards’s home in North Carolina and sought his endorsement, but so far, Mr. Edwards has remained mum. He had been critical of both of them while he was still in the race. Since then, he and his wife, Elizabeth, have suggested that they are more comfortable with Mrs. Clinton’s health-care plan, which, like the one he proposed first, provides for universal coverage.
The announcement of a poverty czar position could be seen as an open invitation by Mrs. Clinton for Mr. Edwards’s backing. “There is a lot John and I have in common,” she said in February. “I will be a fighter, and I intend to ask John Edwards to be a part of anything I do in the White House.”
Later in the day, in response to a request for comment from The New York Times, Mr. Edwards said he was pleased with Mrs. Clinton’s announcement.
“America’s need to address the great moral issue of poverty demands strong action, and a cabinet-level poverty position is exactly that kind of action,” Mr. Edwards said through a spokesman.
Perhaps Edwards was on a conference call with with his buddies at Fortress Investment Group.
Tom posted this at 12:33 PM EDT on Tuesday, April 8th, 2008 as An Insult to Drunken Sailors, Audacity of Hype
February 15th, 2008
See How They Spend
According to this report Senator Clinton has secured — almost always with a fellow NY legislator’s co-sponsorship — $340 million in earmarks since the beginning of FY 2008, making her one of the 10 worst earmark abusers in the Senate, and the worst who doesn’t serve on the appropriations committee. That’s $1.12 for every man, woman, and child in the country.
Some other interesting findings:
- Sen. Obama has only $91 million to his name, better than more than 75% of his colleagues.
- Sen. McCain is one of only five senators to not have a single earmark to his name.
- Mississippi Republicans are the worst offenders in both the Senate and the House. Thad Cochoran designated an astounding $837 million in earmarks ($2.78 per American), $289 million of which was for projects for which he was the sole sponsor. And despite the fact that he hasn’t been in the House for two months since being tapped to fill Trent Lott’s seat, Roger Wicker was still able to earmark $178 million ($0.59 per American) in spending.*
- Though a Rep. Jack Murtha was responsible for slightly less total earmarking than Wicker with $176 million, he holds the record for the most as a single-sponsor, with almost $160 of that being for his own pet projects.
It’s also worth mentioning that this list would have been impossible without the reforms passed after the 2006 elections that (albeit imperfectly) forced legislators to disclose their names on earmarks. The Democrats deserve some credit for that, just as Republicans deserve infinite shame for whoring out their supposed fiscal values.
* Next time Mississippi decides to secede, I say we let them go.
H/T: Megan McArdle
Tom posted this at 1:21 PM EST on Friday, February 15th, 2008 as An Insult to Drunken Sailors, Lord, What Fools These Mortals Be!, The Democratic Congress
January 27th, 2008
Ted Kennedy to Endorse Osama?
I wonder if he’ll perform a little better at this press conference than he did at this one.
Apollo posted this at 1:26 PM EST on Sunday, January 27th, 2008 as An Insult to Drunken Sailors, Audacity of Hype