Fiscal Cliff Farce

Debt, Economy

“So what exactly is this looming menace, and why is it so dangerous?,” asks Peter Schiff. It is nothing of the sort, replies the financier. The fiscal cliff song-and-dance is aimed at undoing a previous, meager legislative commitment (Budget Control Act of 2011) to reduce some spending increases. “[G]oing over the fiscal cliff is not the problem, it is part of the solution. Our leaders should construct a cliff that is actually large enough to restore fiscal balance before a real disaster occurs. That disaster will take the form of a dollar and/or sovereign debt crisis that will make this fiscal cliff look like an ant hill”:

“Stripped of its rhetorically charged language the fiscal cliff is simply a legal trigger that will trim the deficit in 2013 by automatically implementing spending cuts and tax increases. In other words, the government will spend less, and more of what it does spend will be paid for with taxes rather than debt. Isn’t this exactly what both parties, and the public, more or less want?

The fiscal cliff means that the federal budget deficit will be immediately cut in half, shrinking to approximately $641 billion in 2013 from the approximately $1.1 trillion in 2012. What is so terrible about that? I would argue that there is a greater danger in avoiding the cliff than driving over it.

If you recall, the cliff was created by a deal last year when Congress couldn’t find ways to trim the deficit in exchange for raising the debt ceiling. When they failed to reach an agreement, Congress knew they had to raise the debt ceiling anyway. The resulting Budget Control Act of 2011, signed in August of that year, offered the pretense that they were dealing with our long-term fiscal crisis and not simply raising the debt ceiling with no strings attached. This was done not only to appease some House Republicans, who had threatened to vote against a debt ceiling increase, but to satisfy the bond rating agencies that had threatened (I would choose a different word or provide a source to back this up)a down-grade if Congress failed to act.

Now the focus turns to how Congress will dismantle the structure it created just 16 months ago. There can be little doubt that they will as economists are assuring politicians that driving over the fiscal cliff will immediately bring on a recession. The expiration of the Bush era tax cuts for all taxpayers will cost Americans an estimated $423 billion in 2013 alone. Hundreds of billions of across the board spending cuts, including the military, have been delineated. No politician would allow that to happen.”

MORE.

On the Atrocity Scale, Bush’s Badness Dwarfed Benghazi-gate

Barack Obama, Foreign Policy, Just War, Pseudo-history, Republicans, War

As bad as it is, Benghazi-gate is nothing as compared to the cost in blood and treasure, courtesy of George W. Bush, of the immoral, fraudulent invasion of Iraq.

Nothing.

Follow the hyperlinks above if you have doubts. (You shouldn’t, if you have a moral compass and a cerebral cortex.)

It would be an entirely different matter if Republicans had the intellectual moxie to examine the human toll, for decades to come, of Obama’s “murder by multilateralism” in Libya. For that was what the invasion of Libya amounted to.

But they don’t. To the Republicans, Benghazi-gate amounts to no more that a “procedural mishap.” Namely, finding out “what happened? How did it happen? Who covered it up? And, above all, how do we return to doing what we did before IT happened. ‘IT’ being the Sept. 11 attack on the embassy in Libya that left Ambassador Chris Stevens and ‘three other,’ mostly faceless Americans dead.”

And if, in the process of discovery, Republicans can implicate the president—all the better.

By the way, here’s a big surprise. As was to be expected, the horrible David Petraeus “lied to Congress” last week. Oops. Reports RT:

Retired US Army General David Petraeus testified before Congress this week about the storming of a US consulate building in Benghazi, contradicting previous statements made by the since-resigned CIA chief.
Friday morning’s closed-door session was void of the normal media presence as lawmakers on Capitol Hill grilled Gen. Petraeus for further information about the assault in Libya two months ago that left four Americans dead, including the country’s ambassador.
Since the attack on Sept. 12, little has been explained to either the public or politicians in Washington about what really happened before, during and after the consulate was raided in Benghazi. In the immediate aftermath, the White House, State Department and reportedly even Petraeus himself suggested that the assault was likely a spontaneous response to an anti-Islamic film produced in America that had been circulating on the Web. Hours earlier a similar demonstration erupted outside a US embassy in Cairo, Egypt, and the events shortly after in Benghazi were considered to be a copycat protest. In the weeks and months since the attack, however, government agencies have slowly but surely retired that explanation to instead blame the assault on anti-American insurgents, perhaps with al-Qaeda affiliation, waging what is now considered a terrorist attack.
Gen. Petraeus testified to that claim on Friday, sources in attendance say, despite previously suggesting the Benghazi incident was spurred by the “Innocence of Muslims” movie.

Republican Attack Dogs Go For Mitt Romney, Again

Elections, Ethics, Etiquette, Gender, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Political Economy, Politics, Race, Republicans

A good gauge of Republican treachery is the manner in which these drag queens of politics (no offense to drag queens) have beaten up on Mitt Romney whenever he spoke the truth.

They still do.

Romeny’s latest manifestly true words were these, via the New York Times:

In explaining his overwhelming electoral college defeat last week, Romney said Obama followed what he called the “old playbook” of seeking votes from specific interest groups, “especially the African-American community, the Hispanic community and young people,” the New York Times said. “In each case they were very generous in what they gave to those groups,” he added, according to the paper.
The question of how to appeal to the nation’s changing demographics is sensitive for Republicans, especially because Romney lost the non-white vote so badly to Obama, the nation’s first African American president.

Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, Fat Man Newt Gingrich, New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez (deemed another GOP rising star), MSNBC token conservative, and “Morning Joe” co-host, Joe Scarborough: All these deeply stupid Republicans can’t quite say why Mitt Romney’s analysis of the role of the give-me constituency in his electoral loss is incorrect. All they can do is malign the man because their jobs as electable parasites hinge on maligning Mitt Romney.

Establishment Republicans make me sick: lead me to the vomitorium, please.

Joining the cobra head that rose to spit at Romney was Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker. But leading the pack in puke factor was Obama’s New BFF (Best Friend Forever), New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R). No one beats that bit of human waste when it comes to political back stabbing.

As the Republican doctrine has it, it is impermissible to observe that America is riven by race and gender.

Sick-Making Hussein And His Health Care

Barack Obama, Business, Economy, Government, Healthcare, Regulation, Socialism, The State

Not that I doubted it, but Mitt Romney was not “lying” when he told stupid voters that their health care would go up, under ObamaCare, by about $2000-$3000 annually. Before Creep Care this household enjoyed 100 percent coverage. Shortly after Creep Care became law, we were notified, like millions around the country, in an upbeat letter, that healthcare experts were hard at work hammering out the details of how they would continue to care for us under current conditions (and still stay in business).

Our plan has now altered what was once 100% coverage to a high-deductible plan with a health savings account. This could cost us up to 2000, even 3000, additional dollars a year.

The great John Stossel entertained a healthcare expert who reminded viewers for the umpteenth time that the employer mandate decrees that every employer employing more than 50 people must provide a one-size fits all government designed plan to his workers. This indeed will cost twice as much as the plans that employers currently offer.

The costs of this employer mandate are such that it’s cheaper for the owner to pay a penalty for denying coverage—all the more so when compliance may see a business go under.

Employer-mandated healthcare will add $1.75 per-hour (“every hour”) to the cost of a worker. Who does this onerous mandate hurt? Entry level hires, as $1.75 per hour doesn’t much matter when you are hiring a neurosurgeon. However, 2000 additional dollars a year for a relatively unskilled worker whose productivity—output per unit of labor—is not that high: That’s not worth it.

That ass with ears (Barack) doesn’t understand that a businessman cannot pay a worker (or fork out for him) in excess of his productivity and hope to stay in business.

Thanks to our Creep-in-chief, people who had full-time employment and insurance may now find themselves downgraded to part-time employees with no insurance, or to the ranks of the unemployed with no job and no insurance.