Do not pass go,
to not collect $200.00. We're not dealing with monopoly money here.
The fate of our future generations is at stake!
Socialism is eminent !
Click on these links to Contact your
Congressman or
Senator directly.
Contact the
Whitehouse
Call the Congressional Toll-Free Switchboard: 1-866-340-9281 Here
are some important Washington State phone numbers where you can voice
your opinion:
Group one: These
are the achievers, those who strive, work hard and are rewarded with
the fruits of their toil.
Group two: The non-achievers. This
group seldom exerts the extra effort required to rise above their
station and attain their
perceived goals. They are dissatisfied with their lot in life and
spend much of their lives in envy of the achievers.
Group three: This segment consists of
those who contribute absolutely nothing, yet demand equity based on
the labor and achievement of
society as a whole.
Of
these three groups, some ride bicycles, some drive Chevys
and Fords and others drive Cadillac’s. Some just don’t.
That’s just the way it is.
In our Republic we have a Constitution
and a Bill of Rights. These are the cornerstones on which our
Republic was founded. Within this framework are three guarantees, the
right to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.
Man’s life, liberty and property are
held sacred and protected by this constitutional framework and the
government is simply an extension of mans basic rights. Any attempt
to engage in the confiscation or the conscription of the fruit of one
mans labor, by either man or government, in order to provide goods or
service to another is an act of illegal plunder and as such should be
protested and resisted by all.
And so on to the issues of “Cap and Trade” and “Government Health
Care”.
Whether or not each of these issues may
or may not have perceived benefits in the eye of the beholder is not
the question or the issue. The question is, “Are they acts of illegal
plunder?” and “Are they in defiance of the very Constitution and Bill
of Rights this country was founded on?” The simple and unequivocal
answer in each of these instances is a resounding yes.
As such they should be resisted to the
extreme. Call your congressman, your senators, your representatives,
your family, your friends and your neighbors and stop this madness.
If love of country and our way of life are not enough to instill a
sense of reason
The national debt as of this years
budget is an estimated five times the amount of last
years budget. All within one year. With Health Care and Cap and
Trade this number will rise exponentially.
Do we want to place our faith and trust
in the same people who ran the railroads into oblivion, who oversee
our failing Postal System, the Barny Franks and Senator Dodd who ran
oversight on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac which triggered our current
state of economy, to those entrusted with our Social Security program,
Medicaid and Medicare who have voted themselves exempt? Do we want
these folks to control our very livelihood and well being?
Stimulus Report Card Gets a Failing Grade
September 4, 2009
Yesterday, on the 200th day since its enactment,
Vice President Joe Biden defended the
President's $787 billion
economic "stimulus." First, he said it was "to bring relief
to those hardest hit by the recession." But an analysis by ProPublica
found that there's "no relationship between where the money is going
and unemployment and poverty." The Associated Press reports that
distribution of the funds was guided more by politics than need. The
New York Times adds that the
"transparency" promised by President Obama is practically nonexistent,
with most federal agencies failing to report lobbying contacts.
Biden's next standard was "to jump-start the economy by giving
assistance to states."
On the day the "stimulus" was enacted, the
national unemployment rate was 7.6 percent--today it is 9.7 percent.
At least 16 states have unemployment rates of over 10 percent. Joe
Biden's final measure was "to reinvest in existing infrastructure and
lay a platform for the economic growth in future in energy, education
and health care." The spending "targets" read more like a rap sheet
than an investment in the future. Funds went to "bail out" such things
as shows about perverts and to run porn films, courtesy of Speaker
Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). Other funds potentially went to house sex
offenders and predators in Florida and the mob in the New York City
area. Vice President Biden might see the stimulus bill as a success,
but by his own standards it has been a very expensive failed
experiment.
As of Friday, August 14, 2009, the
FDIC is now Bankrupt The Sovereign Society Offshore
A-Letter
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
That’s right, friend.
Read that headline again. Commit it to
memory. Unlike the JFK assassination and the 9/11 attacks, most
Americans won’t remember where they were when they first heard the
news.
Most Americans won’t even hear the
news…
Even though it could have a much
greater impact on their lives and livelihood than either of the other
two catastrophes…
“The DIF is Toast”
But it’s the truth…as Mike Shedlock
points out, “If indeed US$641 million was all that remained of the DIF
[Deposit Insurance Fund] the FDIC is now bankrupt. Of the US$641
million left, Community bank used up 781.5 million and Colonial Bank
US$2.8 Billion.”
And we checked his math.
From a starting point of US$53 Billion
in 2008 – through the 77 bank failures this year alone – the DIF has
dwindled to zero.
Just in case you’re having trouble,
your first reaction should be a mixture of shock and disgust. How –
after being paid decades of insurance premiums from all of America’s
deposit-taking institutions – could the FDIC go bankrupt after the
first wave of bank failures?
How is that even possible?
Well, first…they haven’t exactly been
“collecting premiums” per se.
That’s right, in good times the FDIC
has one job. To bother banks for comparatively tiny insurance
payments. But for most of the time between 1995 and 2006, they
collected nothing. Zero.. Apparently they had no authority to force
banks to pay their premiums, so they simply disregarded the job.
Then, as soon as the crisis broke in
American banks, the FDIC more than doubled its liabilities…taking
their maximum coverage from US$100,000 per account to US$250,000.
Was there a corresponding crackdown on
premiums? Did they start charging banks twice as much for the
insurance, or at least collect the missing premiums from the past
decade?
Of course not.
Instead, they were comfortable with
what dwindled to a .014% coverage on their assets. That is to say that
for every dollar the FDIC covered, they had 1.4 cents in reserve to
insure that dollar..
"It is asinine to assume you can spend your way out of
debt! It is doubly asinine to assume that you can borrow your
way out of debt!" Andy Stevens, 2009
If you think the Bailout is a good
idea take a look at the following, H.R. 1.
I have not personally verified all of
the included information. I have however, heard verifying reports and
much discussion regarding it on the news.
Clueless Fed Inspector General!
This is too frightening. Who is minding the store? Inspector General
of the Federal Reserve…..testifying…she doesn’t have a clue…..
Fannie plans
bonuses of $1M for 4 execs
AP Real Estate Writer Wednesday
March 18, 2009, 8:33 pm EDT
Fannie Mae plans bonuses of $1M
for top executives; Freddie Mac has similar plans
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Fannie Mae plans to pay
retention bonuses of at least $1 million to four key executives as
part of a plan to keep hundreds of employees from leaving the
government-controlled company.
Rival
mortgage finance company Freddie Mac is planning similar awards,
but has not yet reported on which executives will benefit.
The two companies, which together own or
back more than half of the home mortgages in the country, have
been hobbled by skyrocketing loan defaults. Fannie recently
requested $15 billion in federal aid, while Freddie has sought a
total of almost $45 billion.
Fannie Mae disclosed its "broad-based"
retention program in a recent regulatory filing with the
Securities and Exchange Commission. The company was only required
to disclose the amounts for the top-paid executives, who will
pocket at least $470,000 on top of their base salaries.
The bonuses are more than double last
year's, which ranged from $200,000 to $260,000. Another round of
bonuses ranging from $330,000 to $429,000 are planned for next
February.
A company spokesman declined further
comment.
Fannie Mae said regulators determined that
the bonuses were needed because keeping key employees "was
essential to ensure our viability through 2010, which would allow
Congress, the administration and other parties involved time to
determine what the form and function of the company will be in
future years."
The bonuses were authorized last year by
the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which seized control of Fannie
and Freddie in September and ousted the companies' former CEOs
"It was critical to retain their most
important asset -- their employees -- who are being asked to play
a vital role in the nation's economic recovery," James Lockhart,
the agency's director, said in a statement. "As the previous
senior management teams left, it would have been catastrophic to
lose the next layers down and other highly experienced employees."
But the generous paychecks could prove
politically touchy amid outrage over roughly $165 million in
bonuses paid out over the weekend by bailed-out insurance giant
AIG.
Michael Williams, Washington-based Fannie
Mae's executive vice president and chief operating officer, is due
to receive a $611,000 retention award this year on top of his
$676,000 base salary.
Williams received a $260,000 retention
bonus last year and is in line for another $429,000 next February,
for an expected total of $1.3 million, according to the SEC
filing.
David Hisey, the company's deputy chief
financial offer, is expected to receive a $517,000 retention award
this year in addition to his $385,000 salary and $160,000 cash
bonus. He received a $220,000 retention award last year and is due
to receive $363,000 next February, for a total of $1.1 million.
The other two executives receiving the bonuses are Thomas Lund,
who oversees the company's single-family mortgage business and
Kenneth Bacon, who heads up housing and community development.
Both are receiving about $1 million.
The company's two top executives, Chief
Executive Officer Herbert Allison and Chief Financial Officer
David Johnson, did not receive the awards because they were new to
the company last year. Allison is taking no salary, while Johnson
is receiving a base salary of $625,000 and no bonus.
Welcome to Mississauga
Just when you are convinced there isn't a single competent politician,
up pops one. But of course, not in the USA but in Mississauga , Canada
While the compliant media chase
the manufactured demons at AIG, private citizens receiving
retention bonuses under contract to stay at the financial giant,
Timothy Geithner, on orders from Obama, is laundering money
through AIG to some of Obama’s largest campaign contributors.
Of the $787 billion bailout money that we and
our follow-on generations are going to be paying for, $43.5
billion is being funneled through AIG to pay American
banks, including Goldman Sachs, Merill Lynch, Bank of America,
Citigroup, Wachovia, Morgan Stanley, AIG International, and JP
Morgan.
Why those banks, do you ask? Because those
banks are among the top twenty contributors to Obama’s
presidential campaign according to Open Secrets, and laundering
the money through AIG, will supposedly divert the attention of the
ignorant public. In this way Obama can repay his contributors with
our money and not have to deplete the remaining $15 million in his
campaign account.
These financial institutions contributed
the following amounts to the Obama campaign:
Goldman Sachs: $955,473
Citigroup: $653,468
JP
Morgan Chase & Co.: $646,058
Morgan Stanley: $485,823
Bank of America: $274,493
Wachovia: $214,151
AIG: $112,170
Individuals identifying themselves as
working for the banks above gave Barack Obama’s presidential
campaign an additional $3,617,724. In other words, more than 3.6
million reasons for the president to help focus the media’s glare
on the relatively minuscule $165 million in AIG executive bonuses,
and away from their $43.5 billion in paybacks.
Today, the hypocrites in the US Senate have decided to create an
amendment to the stimulus bill that they did not read. That
amendment would require confiscatory taxation or return of any bonus
money received by any executive who works for a company that
received US bailout funds. The key provision of that amendment is
the effective date which is January 1, 2009. The not-so-clever
deception included in that date is that it exempts Jamie Gorelick,
Franklin Raines, and Jim Johnson from any accountability for the
millions of bonus dollars they received as executives from
Fannie-Mae and Freddie-Mac up to and including last year. It also
exempts those Fannie-Mae and Freddie-Mac employees listed in the
article below.
Fannie Mae plans to pay retention bonuses
of at least $1 million to four key executives as part of a plan to
keep hundreds of employees from leaving the government-controlled
company. Rival mortgage finance company Freddie Mac is planning
similar awards, but has not yet reported on which executives will
benefit. The two companies, which together own or back more than
half of the home mortgages in the country, have been hobbled by
skyrocketing loan defaults. Fannie recently requested $15 billion in
federal aid, while Freddie has sought a total of almost $45 billion.
Fannie Mae disclosed its "broad-based" retention program in a
recent regulatory filing with the Securities and Exchange
Commission. The company was only required to disclose the amounts
for the top-paid executives, who will pocket at least $470,000 on
top of their base salaries.
The bonuses are more than double last year's, which ranged from
$200,000 to $260,000. Another round of bonuses ranging from $330,000
to $429,000 are planned for next February.
A company spokesman declined further comment.
Fannie Mae said regulators determined that the bonuses were
needed because keeping key employees "was essential to ensure our
viability through 2010, which would allow Congress, the
administration and other parties involved time to determine what the
form and function of the company will be in future years."
The bonuses were authorized last year by the Federal Housing
Finance Agency, which seized control of Fannie and Freddie in
September and ousted the companies' former CEOs "It was critical to
retain their most important asset -- their employees -- who are
being asked to play a vital role in the nation's economic recovery,"
James Lockhart, the agency's director, said in a statement. "As the
previous senior management teams left, it would have been
catastrophic to lose the next layers down and other highly
experienced employees."
But the generous paychecks could prove politically touchy amid
outrage over roughly $165 million in bonuses paid out over the
weekend by bailed-out insurance giant AIG. Michael Williams,
Washington-based Fannie Mae's executive vice president and chief
operating officer, is due to receive a $611,000 retention award this
year on top of his $676,000 base salary. Williams received a
$260,000 retention bonus last year and is in line for another
$429,000 next February, for an expected total of $1.3 million,
according to the SEC filing.
David Hisey, the company's deputy chief financial offer, is
expected to receive a $517,000 retention award this year in addition
to his $385,000 salary and $160,000 cash bonus. He received a
$220,000 retention award last year and is due to receive $363,000
next February, for a total of $1.1 million.
The other two executives receiving the bonuses are Thomas Lund,
who oversees the company's single-family mortgage business and
Kenneth Bacon, who heads up housing and community development. Both
are receiving about $1 million.
The company's two top executives, Chief Executive Officer Herbert
Allison and Chief Financial Officer David Johnson, did not receive
the awards because they were new to the company last year. Allison
is taking no salary, while Johnson is receiving a base salary of
$625,000 and no bonus.
AIG Bonus' and Bailout... The truth
regading the bonus payments.
If you had to find one single group of
people to blame for our economic crisis, you'd definitely have to
consider the financial products division of AIG.They
made huge, bad bets on the housing market thathave
cost taxpayers $170 billion...so far. That's more than $500
from every American.
But get this:The
Washington Postjust
reported thatthese
people are receiving $450 million in bonuses—and they got
their first installment yesterday.They destroyed our
economy, and now they're being rewarded for it with our bailout
money!
This is absolute BS.
The real situation is that the Obama administration had two drafts
of the bailout for AIG. Senator Christopher Dodd, D-CT, added an
amendment to the first bailout bill that exempted bonus payments
from spending restrictions. The other draft didn't have it. The
administration paid the funds to AIG under Dodd's amendment. They
knew that the bonuses were due because Treasury Secretary Geithner
is the guy who wrote the bill. They also knew that the payout day
was coming close but chose to do only one thing about it....they
faked outrage thinking that the public was too stupid to know the
facts.
The Obama administration owns 80% of AIG and placed it's CEO in
his position and did so without doing due diligence on everything
they were buying, but they express outrage that they didn't know
what was going on???!!!. Additionally, the contracts that the
executives had that set up the bonuses were apparently in place
before the bailouts were paid. Under Article 10 of the Constitution
contracts are protected from interference from the government. If
companies fail, they fail. That's why there are bankruptcy laws.
So to summarize, the government buys up 80% of a company without
doing due diligence, when they find out that there are bonus
structures in place they add an amendment to the bailout to allow
payments of the bonuses and then they express outrage that the
payments are being made so the "stupid public" will think that they
are looking out for us. And Geithner is knee deep in the mess, and
Dodd, who added the amendment, is one of two guys who took the most
lobbying money from Fannie-Mae & Freddie-Mac before they collapsed;
the other was Obama. Also, Dodd, took an off-the-books special loan
rate from Countrywide before they collapsed. By the way, Dodd was
on the committee that was supposed to oversee the mortgage
companies.
Geithner didn't shame AIG into anything. Geithner is a tax
cheat who can't tale two steps without screwing up at least one of
them. He, Obama, Dodd, Frank, Pelosi, Reid, Clinton, Schumer, and
Beiden all need to go to jail for conspiracy to commit fraud. They
are creating laws and using them against the people they are sworn
to protect. They are creating legal plunder. When the law takes
from some persons what belongs to them and gives it to others to
whom it does not belong...that is legal plunder. And everything
above is an example of how they're doing that to us. AIG and the
other recipients are reall the side-show. The bailout NEVER
should have taken place at all, for anyone.
We can't let this stand.Treasury
Secretary Tim Geithner and Congress need to do whatever it takes to
get our money back.
Here are some
important phone numbers where you can voice your opinion:
So our tax dollars are going to pay AIG
executives millions in bonuses! Just another day of good news from
Washington.
Meanwhile, don't look now, but Nancy Pelosi and the Obama
Administration is busily working to build up a debt larger than our
country or any country has ever seen.
But back to the bonuses. It was a mystery all week how this happened.
No one could seem to figure it out.
But
then...it leaked out that Democrat Senator Chris Dodd snuck a
provision into the massive spending bill that allowed the bonuses to
happen.
Dodd denied it at first, then changed his story and now admits that
he did it, but says he did it at the request of "Administration
staffers".
Finally, the Democrats have been forced to admit that they allowed
the AIG bonuses to happen.
This has got to stop.
Please take a minute and click on the link below to watch the RNC's
new video exposing the Democrats' latest shell game.
In the coming months, you’ll be asked to pay more taxes to balance
our $8.3 billion state budget deficit. They’ll tell you the sky is
falling – but don’t believe it.
The truth is:
The state is still collecting more money today than it did
yesterday. Revenues for the next biennium will be higher than for
this one – growth is projected at 2.1 percent.
Another truth: If the
state simply froze spending at its current level, our deficit
would drop instantly to $1.5 billion.
The state has revenue –
just not enough for all the new programs and raises. Don’t fall for
the gloom and doom. I’m asking my fellow legislators to stop
spending money we don’t have.
Tax Watch
Some legislators are
already introducing bills to tax you to pay for our state budget
deficit – and more.
Check out these new
taxes:
SJR 8205
– A state income tax
SB 5393
– New tax on homeowner insurance policies
SB 5432
– Raises I-747 limit on total property tax collections for some
taxing districts
SB 5518
– New tax on petroleum products
SB 5626
– New tax on cigarettes
SB 5608
– Hike in state property tax for school funding
SB 5747
– New tax on plastic manufacturing businesses
SB 5735
– Governor’s “cap and tax” plan, potentially the largest middle
class tax increase in history
SB 5679
– New payroll tax to support paid family leave
B 5911
– B&O tax on farms, sales tax on farm auctions
SB 5960
– Authorizes county governments to impose a new utility tax and
increase the local sales tax without a vote of the people
SB 5945 – New payroll tax to provide
government sponsored universal health care insurance
Here are some
important phone numbers where you can voice your opinion:
Obama's Tax Budget: Almost $1 Trillion
in New Taxes Over Next 10 yrs, Starting 2011
President Obama's budget proposes $989
billion in new taxes over the course of the next 10 years, starting
fiscal year 2011, most of which are tax increases on individuals.
1) On people making more than
$250,000.
$338 billion - Bush tax cuts expire
$179 billlion - eliminate itemized deduction
$118 billion - capital gains tax hike
Total: $636 billion/10 years
2) Businesses:
$17 billion - Reinstate Superfund
taxes
$24 billion - tax carried-interest as income
$5 billion - codify "economic substance doctrine"
$61 billion - repeal LIFO
$210 billion - international enforcement, reform deferral, other tax
reform
$4 billion - information reporting for rental payments
$5.3 billion - excise tax on Gulf of Mexico oil and gas
$3.4 billion - repeal expensing of tangible drilling costs
$62 million - repeal deduction for tertiary injectants
$49 million - repeal passive loss exception for working interests in
oil and natural gas properties
$13 billion - repeal manufacturing tax deduction for oil and natural
gas companies
$1 billion - increase to 7 years geological and geophysical
amortization period for independent producers
$882 million - eliminate advanced earned income tax credit
WASHINGTON –
President Barack Obama laid out his first budget plan Thursday
predicting a stunning federal deficit of $1.75 trillion this year —
nearly four times last year's record — and asking Congress to raise
taxes on the wealthy to stem that flood of red ink while still moving
the country toward guaranteed health care for all.
Denouncing what he called the "dishonest accounting"
of recent federal budgets, Obama unveiled his own $3.6 trillion
blueprint for next year, a bold proposal that would transfer wealth
from rich taxpayers to the middle class and the poor.
Congressional approval without major change is
anything but sure. The plan is filled with political land mines
including an initiative to combat
global warming
that would hit consumers with considerably higher utility bills. Other
proposals would take on entrenched interests such as big farming,
insurance companies and drug makers.
Obama blamed the expected federal deficit explosion
on a "deep and destructive" recession and recent efforts to battle it
including the Wall Street bailout and the just-passed $787 billion
stimulus plan. The $1.75 trillion deficit estimate for this year is
$250 billion more than projected just days ago because of proposed new
spending for a fresh bailout for banks and other financial
institutions.
As the nation digs out of the most serious
economic crisis
in decades, Obama said, "We will, each and every one of us, have to
compromise on certain things we care about but which we simply cannot
afford right now."
Signaling budget battles to come, Republicans were
skeptical Obama was doing without much at all.
"We can't tax and spend our way to prosperity," said
House GOP leader John Boehner of
Ohio. "The era of
big government is
back, and Democrats are asking you to pay for it."
Obama plans to move aggressively toward rebalancing
the tax system, extending a $400 tax credit for most workers — $800
for couples — while letting expire President George W. Bush's tax cuts
for couples making more than $250,000 a year.
Thursday's 134-page budget submission, a nonbinding
recommendation to Congress, says the plan would close the deficit to a
more reasonable — but still eye-popping — $533 billion after five
years. That would still be higher than last year's record $455 billion
deficit.
And the
national debt would more than double by the end of the upcoming
decade, raising worries that so much federal borrowing could drive up
interest rates and erode the value of the dollar.
Also, to narrow the budget gap,
Obama relies on rosier predictions of economic growth — including a
3.2 percent boost in the economy next year — than most private sector
economists foresee.
There is already resistance from
Democrats who are upset with the budget's plan to curb the ability of
wealthier people to reduce their tax bills through deductions for
mortgage interest,
charitable contributions and state and local taxes.
That tax hike would raise $318
billion over the upcoming decade toward a down payment on Obama's
high-priority universal
health care plan. Cuts to the Medicare and Medicaid federal
health programs would supply an additional $316 billion, but that
still wouldn't provide enough money to guarantee coverage for all, and
Obama wants Congress to come up with hundreds of billions of dollars
in additional hard-to-raise revenues to pay for the rest.
Then there is the proposed clampdown on the Pentagon
budget, which would get a 4 percent boost, to $534 billion next year,
but would then get increases of 2 percent or less over the next
several years. Domestic programs favored by Democrats would, on
average, receive a 7 percent boost over regularly appropriated levels
— even as many agencies are already swimming in cash from the
just-enacted
economic stimulus plan.
Taken together, Obama's plan contains so many
difficult-to-digest ideas that it's virtually certain to be
significantly redrafted during debates later this year.
"It's going to be a tough row to hoe, but he has
large Democratic majorities and a lot of popular support and we're in
times of crisis," said Robert Reischauer, president of the
Urban Institute.
"So his prospects of him getting much of what he is seeking, while not
good, are higher than ... we've seen in the past."
Senate Budget Committee Chairman
Kent Conrad,
D-N.D., predicted Congress would pass much of Obama's plan, though
with significant revisions. For instance, he's unimpressed with a
proposal to reduce payments to farming operations with sales above
$500,000 per year and says the plan to curb
tax deductions
for the wealthy faces uncertain prospects because of opposition from
lawmakers from high tax states and universities whose endowments have
shrunk.
A plan to devote up to $250 billion to support as
much as $750 billion in increased spending under the government's
rescue program for banks and other financial institutions landed with
a thud.
Republicans scoffed at the idea that Obama's plan
calls for much sacrifice on the spending front, citing the big
increases for many agencies. they also pointed to tax increases and
hundreds of billions in revenues from a contentious proposal to
auction off permits for
carbon emissions in a bid to
address global warming.
Obama and top aides emphasized that they didn't make
the financial mess.
Said the president: "We cannot lose sight of the
long-run challenges that our country faces and that threaten our
economic health — specifically, the trillions of dollars of debt that
we inherited, the rising costs of health care and the growing
obligations of Social
Security."
"For too long, our budget has not told the whole
truth about how precious tax dollars are spent," he said. "Large sums
have been left off the books, including the true cost of fighting in
Iraq and
Afghanistan. And that kind of dishonest accounting is not how you run
your family budgets at home. It's not how your government should run
its budgets either."
Among the many programs that would receive generous
boosts are education and cancer research. The size of education
Pell Grants
would automatically increase every year by inflation plus 1 percent,
while
Obama promises to double cancer research over several years. He
also wants to put the United States on a path to double foreign aid.
Obama's budget contains almost $1 trillion in tax
hikes over 10 years on individuals making more than $200,000 and
couples earning over $250,000. About $350 billion more would be raised
through a variety of other hikes, including raising taxes on
hedge-fund managers by taxing their compensation as income rather than
at the 15 percent capital gains rate. Obama would also increase taxes
on corporate income earned abroad.
Some $526 billion in revenue from carbon pollution
permits would be used to extend the "Making Work Pay" tax credit of
$400 for individuals and $800 for couples beyond 2010 as provided in
the just-passed
economic stimulus bill.
The budget would make permanent the expanded $2,500
tax credit for college expenses that was provided for two years in the
just-passed economic stimulus bill. It also would renew most of the
Bush tax cuts enacted in 2001 and 2003, and would permanently
update the alternative minimum tax so that it would hit fewer middle-
to upper-income taxpayers.
Obama's $634 billion head start on expanding health
care could easily double as lawmakers flesh out details in coming
months on how to provide medical coverage to all of the 48 million
Americans now uninsured while also trying to slow increases in costs.
Health care costs
now total $2.4 trillion a year and keep rising even as the economy is
shrinking.
Thursday's submission was an overview of a more
comprehensive plan that will be submitted in April.
___
Associated Press writers
Martin Crutsinger,
Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar and Anne Gearan contributed to this report.
H.R. 1, “The American Recovery & Reinvestment Act
of 2009”
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO)
recently found that the cost of the Pelosi-Reid stimulus package now
exceeds $1.1 trillion. CBO also estimated that only 7 percent of
infrastructure money would make its way into the economy by the end of
the year and only 38 percent would be spent by the end of the 2010
fiscal year.
Senator Jeff Session’s (R-Ala.) office
estimates the actual number going to tangible road and bridge
construction is just a little more than 3 percent.
Where is this money going to? A not
exhaustive look at the 1,588 page legislation, H.R. 1, “The American
Recovery & Reinvestment Act of 2009”
shows the bill is more payoffs and pork then stimulus. Many thanks to
the website:
http://www.readthestimulus.org and its participating organizations.
PAYOFFS
To the “Green” Lobby
$600 Million To Buy New Cars For
Government Workers (Page 89)
These cars would be “green” friendly
cars – however very few gas pumps have the right gas to run these
cars. The Federal government already spends
$3.5 billion a year.
$10M for bike and walking trails (Page
65)
$200M for plug-in car stations (Page
31)
$400 million for NASA scientists to
conduct climate change research (Page 22)
$800 million to clean up Superfund
sites (Page 122)
$600 million for grants for diesel
emission reduction (Page 119)
$650 million for “alternative energy
technologies, energy efficiency enhancements and deferred
maintenance at Federal facilities”
(Page 119)
$1.5 billion for construction of
“Green Schools” (Page 176)
To the Unions
$1 billion to the controversial
COMMUNITY ORIENTED POLICING SERVICES COPS Hiring Program
$150 billion in new federal spending,
a vast two-year investment that would more than double the
Department of Education’s current
budget. The proposed
emergency expenditures on nearly every realm of education, including
school renovation, special education, Head Start and grants to needy
college students”Sam Dillon, “Stimulus Plan Would Provide Flood of Aid
to Education,” New York Times. January 27, 2009.
Representative Henry Waxman (D-Calif.)
inserted in the original bill billions of dollars for family planning
groups, including the abortion giant, Planned Parenthood. Pressure and
public exposure from Congressional Republicans forced the Democrats to
remove such funding from this bill. However the bill still provides
billions in reforming the health care system and working towards
nationalized health care – with little to no debate.
$2.7B in NIH grants which would be
targeted to among other things embryonic stem cell experimentation.
(Page 56)
Other Special Interests
$3 Billion for Prevention & Wellness
Programs, Including $335 million for STD Education and Prevention --
Recent government
expenditures in this area include a transgender beauty pageant in San
Francisco that advertised available HIV testing and an event called
“Got Love? – Flirt/Date/Score” that taught participants how “to flirt
with greater finesse.”
$50 million for the National Endowment
for the Arts (Page 122)
$75 million for smoking cessation
(Page 148). This
contradicts the latest version of SCHIP that is funded largely by new
taxes on cigarettes.
$4.19 billion open to ACORN. The Pelosi-Reid bill makes groups
like ACORN eligible for a $4.19 billion pot of money for “neighborhood
stabilization activities.”
MISCELLANEOUS PORK
Some of the biggest winners in the
package are federal agencies:
$54 billion will go to federal
programs that the Office of Management and Budget or the Government
Accountability Office have already criticized as "ineffective" or
unable to pass basic financial audits.
$462 Million for Equipment,
Construction, and Renovation of Facilities at the Centers for Disease
Control (CDC) (Page 137)
$150 Million for Repairs to
Smithsonian Institution Facilities (Page 128)
$44 million to the Agricultural
Research Service (Page 135)
$227 million for oversight of the pork
barrel spending in the stimulus (Page 11)
$1 Billion for The Follow-Up To The
2010 Census (Page 49)
Discretion is given to governors and
Mayors for how to spend a large chunk of the money. The U.S.
Conference of Mayors recently sent Congress a $96.6 billion wish list
of "shovel-ready" projects which now could be funded by the stimulus.
These projects include: “$1 million for annual sewer rehabilitation in
Casper, WY; $6.1 million for corporate hangars, parking lots, and a
business apron at the Fayetteville, AR airport; 28 projects with the
term "stadium" in them; and 117 projects mentioning landscaping and/or
beautification efforts. The taxpayers should be most teed off at the
20 golf courses included in the list.”
$75,000: the amount of money that the head of the powerful
tax-writing committee, Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY), was forced to
report on his taxes after the discovery that he
had not reported income from a Costa Rican
rental property.
His excuses for the failure started with blaming his wife, then his
accountant and finally the fact that he didn't speak Spanish.
$133,900:
the amount
Fannie Mae "invested" in Chris Dodd
(D-CT), head of the powerful Senate Banking Committee, presumably to
repel oversight of the GSE prior to its meltdown. Said meltdown helped
touch off the current economic crisis. In only a few years time,
Fannie also "invested" over $105,000 in then-Senator Barack Obama.
$800,000:
the amount of "sweetheart" mortgages Senate Banking Chairman Chris
Dodd (D-CT) received from
Countrywide Financial,
the details for which he has refused to release details despite months
of promises to do so. Countrywide was once the nation's largest
mortgage lender and linked to Government-Sponsored Entities like
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Their meltdown precipitated the current financial crisis. Just days
ago in Pennsylvania, Countrywide was forced to pay $150,000,000 in
mortgage assistance following "a state investigation that concluded
that Countrywide relaxed its underwriting standards to sell risky
loans to consumers who did not understand them and could not afford
them."
$12,000,000:
the amount of TARP money provided
to community bank
OneUnited
despite the fact that it did not qualify for funds, and was "under
attack from its regulators for allegations of poor
lending practices and executive-pay
abuses." It turns out that Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA), a
key contributor to the Fannie Mae meltdown,
just happens to be married to one of the bank's ex-directors.
$23,500,000:
The upper range of net worth Rep. Allan Mollohan (D-WV) accumulated in
four years time
according to
The Washington Post
through earmarks of "tens of millions of dollars to groups associated
with his own business partners."
$2,000,000,000:
($2 billion) the approximate amount of money that House Appropriations
Chairman David Obey (D-WI) is
earmarking related to his
son's lobbying efforts.
Craig Obey is "a top lobbyist for the nonprofit group" that would
receive a roughly $2 billion component of the "Stimulus" package.
$4,190,000,000:
($4.19 billion) the amount of money in the so-called "Stimulus"
package devoted to
fraudulent voter registration ACORN group
under the auspices of "Community Stabilization Activities". ACORN is
currently the subject of a
RICO suit in Ohio.
$1,646,000,000,000
($1.646 trillion): the
approximate amount of annual United States
exports
endangered by the "Stimulus" package, which provides a "Buy American"
stricture. According to international trade experts, a "US-EU trade war looms",
which could result in a worldwide economic depression reminiscent of
that touched off by the protectionist
Smoot-Hawley Act.n
and explanatory brochures that described his tax liabilities.
As the owner of a small business, should I fail to meet my debts and
obligations, who shall I turn to in a time of need? My wife has
owned her own business for over twenty years. Should she fall on
hard times and fail who will ride in on a white horse to save
the day? I can damn sure guaranty you; it will not be the US
Government. However when tax time rolls around we can rest
assure the bills will come due and payable in full, along with any and
all new raises and charges incurred by the electorate and it's
representatives as our reward for success.
Survival.
The success or failure of any company, corporation or business,
large or small, must be based on honest and transparent
entrepreneurial integrity in combination with financially sound and
accepted business practices. The degree of success or failure is
directly proportionate to an ability to furnish a product, goods or
service to a marketplace at a competitive monetary value inclusive
of a profit margin that will sustain it's capital expenditures and
insure it's longevity in the marketplace. Failure to meet any of these
criteria is key to survival.
Why then, should we as
individuals be asked to endorse government subsidies, loans and
bail-outs to any and all that have either ignored, disregarded, or
often held in utter contempt these basic rules of business ethics and
economics 101?
"Who's on first?"
Why should we expect, or even remotely believe, that the ailments of
free enterprise can be solved by a government and legislative entity
holding a multi-generational track record of inability to balance
their own books and budget and continuously, year after year,
drive us deeper into debt using the insane accounting and ethical
practices paralleled by those they propose to rescue. Are we to assume
that these same budgetary minded and politically motivated politicians
will now take the reins of these newly "acquired assets", then run and
redeem them via legislation, board and bureaucracy?
Where does it start and where does it stop?
Ask then, which of these colossal failures will be selected by our
benevolent benefactors? Anyone with half a brain knows that we
cannot possibly print enough money to rescue all. We simply do
not have enough resources to sustain, or enough presses available to
accommodate such a cash flow. How then, will these momentous
decisions be motivated? Evidently, in the beginning as in the
instance of Freddie Mac, Fanny May and institutional lending, the
assumption must have been, "If government broke it by decree, the
government can repair it." Following this intervention we find
that the original funding, as originally earmarked, agreed upon and
allocated, must, at this early stage, be re-directed and re-allocated.
Again, "Who's on First?".
Who may be selection to benefit during this vetting?
Rest assured, that as this vetting process takes place, those at
the head of the line will be the ones with the most favors to be
called in funded, and publically
endorsed as "For the good of the people" (read Socialism here), by our
benevolent benefactors. Only the stunningly stupid among us
would believe that there is not a cut-off point and the proverbial
"Buck stops here."
Where are we on the food chain, you and I, "Joe the Taxpayer" and
"Joe the Businessman"" Rest assured, as always, we will be mandated
into reaching deeper into our
pockets and resources in order to reward to those who so miserably have failed?
As for me, simply and emphatically, "Stop the Bail-outs! Now!"
Cicero
, 55 BC --
Through a looking glass, we as a
nation would do well to heed this sage advice provided some 2064
years ago...
The budget should be balanced
The
Treasury should be refilled
Public debt should be reduced
The
arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled
The
assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed lest
Rome become bankrupt
People must again learn to
work, instead of living on public assistance
"We cannot expect the Americans to jump from capitalism to Communism,
but we can assist their elected leaders in giving Americans small
doses of socialism until they suddenly awake to find they have
Communism."
Obama's Chief Economic Advisors Can the men who were instrumental
in bringing down Wall Street be trusted to build a new Wall Street?
FRANKLIN
RAINES: Raines works for the Obama Campaign as
Chief Economic Advisor
TIM
HOWARD: Howard is also a Chief Economic Advisor to
Obama
JIM
JOHNSON: Johnson was hired as a Senior Obama
Finance Advisor and was selected to run Obama's Vice Presidential
Search Committee
Franklin Raines left with a
"golden parachute valued at $240 Million
Franklin Raines was a Chairman and Chief Executive Officer at Fannie
Mae. Raines was forced to retire from his position with Fannie Mae
when auditing discovered severe irregulaties in Fannie Mae's
accounting activities. At the time of his departure (Wednesday,
Dec.22, 2004) The Wall Street Journal noted, " Raines, who long
defended the company's accounting despite mounting evidence that it
wasn't proper, issued a statement late Tuesday (Dec. 21, 2004)
conceding that "mistakes were made" and saying he would assume
responsibility as he had earlier promised. News reports indicate the
company was under growing pressure from regulators to shake up its
management in the wake of findings that the company's books ran
afoul of generally accepted accounting principles for four years."
Fannie Mae had to reduce its surplus by $9 billion.
Raines left with a "golden parachute valued at $240 Million. The
government filed suit against Raines when the depth of the
accounting scandal became clear. See: http://housingdoom.com/2006/12/18/fannie-charges/
The government noted, "The 101 charges reveal how the individuals
improperly manipulated earnings to maximize their bonuses, while
knowingly neglecting accounting systems and internal controls,
misapplying over twenty accounting principles and misleading the
regulator and the public. The notice explains how they submitted six
years of misleading and inaccurate accounting statements and
inaccurate capital reports that enabled them to grow Fannie Mae in
an unsafe and unsound manner." These charges were made in 2006. The
Court ordered Raines to return $50 million dollars he received in
bonuses based on the miss-stated Fannie Mae profits.
Tim Howard. Howard's Golden
Parachute was estimated at $20 Million!
Tim Howard was the Chief Financial Officer of Fannie Mae. Howard
"was a strong internal proponent of using accounting strategies that
would ensure a "stable pattern of earnings" at Fannie. In everyday
English - he was cooking the books. The government investigation
determined that, "Chief Financial Officer, Tim Howard, failed to
provide adequate oversight to key control and reporting functions
within Fannie Mae,"
On June 16, 2006, Rep. Richard Baker, R-La., asked the Justice
Department to investigate his allegations that two former Fannie Mae
executives lied to Congress in October 2004 when they denied
manipulating the mortgage-finance giant's income statement to
achieve management pay bonuses. Investigations by federal regulators
and the company's board of directors since concluded that management
did manipulate 1998 earnings to trigger bonuses. Raines and Howard
left Fannie Mae under pressure in December 2004. Raines's departure
was structured as an early retirement. Howard resigned.
Jim Johnson. Johnson's Golden
Parachute was estimated at $28 Million.
Jim Johnson is a former executive at Lehman Brothers who was later
forced from his position as Fannie Mae CEO. A look at the Office of
Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight's May 2006 report on
mismanagement and corruption inside Fannie Mae, and you'll see some
interesting things about Johnson.
Investigators found that Fannie Mae had hidden a substantial amount
of Johnson's 1998 compensation from the public, reporting that it
was between $6 million and $7 million when it fact it was $21
million. Johnson is currently under investigation for taking illegal
loans from Countrywide while serving as CEO of Fannie Mae.
The
current crisis was recognized and documented in the New York Times
in 1999
Business Fannie Mae Eases Credit To Aid Mortgage Lending
By STEVEN A. HOLMES
Published: September 30, 1999
In a move that could help increase home ownership rates
among minorities and low-income consumers, the Fannie
Mae Corporation is easing the credit requirements on
loans that it will purchase from banks and other
lenders.
The action, which will begin as a pilot program
involving 24 banks in 15 markets -- including the New
York metropolitan region -- will encourage those banks
to extend home mortgages to individuals whose credit is
generally not good enough to qualify for conventional
loans. Fannie Mae officials say they hope to make it a
nationwide program by next spring.
Fannie Mae, the nation's biggest underwriter of home
mortgages, has been under increasing pressure from the
Clinton Administration to expand mortgage loans among
low and moderate income people and felt pressure from
stock holders to maintain its phenomenal growth in
profits.
In addition, banks, thrift institutions and mortgage
companies have been pressing Fannie Mae to help them
make more loans to so-called subprime borrowers. These
borrowers whose incomes, credit ratings and savings are
not good enough to qualify for conventional loans, can
only get loans from finance companies that charge much
higher interest rates -- anywhere from three to four
percentage points higher than conventional loans.
''Fannie Mae has expanded home ownership for millions
of families in the 1990's by reducing down payment
requirements,'' said Franklin D. Raines, Fannie Mae's
chairman and chief executive officer. ''Yet there remain
too many borrowers whose credit is just a notch below
what our underwriting has required who have been
relegated to paying significantly higher mortgage rates
in the so-called subprime market.''
Demographic information on these borrowers is
sketchy. But at least one study indicates that 18
percent of the loans in the subprime market went to
black borrowers, compared to 5 per cent of loans in the
conventional loan market.
In moving, even tentatively, into this new area of
lending, Fannie Mae is taking on significantly more
risk, which may not pose any difficulties during flush
economic times. But the government-subsidized
corporation may run into trouble in an economic
downturn, prompting a government rescue similar to that
of the savings and loan industry in the 1980's.
''From the perspective of many people, including me,
this is another thrift industry growing up around us,''
said Peter Wallison a resident fellow at the American
Enterprise Institute. ''If they fail, the government
will have to step up and bail them out the way it
stepped up and bailed out the thrift industry.''
Under Fannie Mae's pilot program, consumers who
qualify can secure a mortgage with an interest rate one
percentage point above that of a conventional, 30-year
fixed rate mortgage of less than $240,000 -- a rate that
currently averages about 7.76 per cent. If the borrower
makes his or her monthly payments on time for two years,
the one percentage point premium is dropped.
Fannie Mae, the nation's biggest underwriter of home
mortgages, does not lend money directly to consumers.
Instead, it purchases loans that banks make on what is
called the secondary market. By expanding the type of
loans that it will buy, Fannie Mae is hoping to spur
banks to make more loans to people with
less-than-stellar credit ratings.
Fannie Mae officials stress that the new mortgages
will be extended to all potential borrowers who can
qualify for a mortgage. But they add that the move is
intended in part to increase the number of minority and
low income home owners who tend to have worse credit
ratings than non-Hispanic whites.
Home ownership has, in fact, exploded among
minorities during the economic boom of the 1990's. The
number of mortgages extended to Hispanic applicants
jumped by 87.2 per cent from 1993 to 1998, according to
Harvard University's Joint Center for Housing Studies.
During that same period the number of African Americans
who got mortgages to buy a home increased by 71.9 per
cent and the number of Asian Americans by 46.3 per cent.
In contrast, the number of non-Hispanic whites who
received loans for homes increased by 31.2 per cent.
Despite these gains, home ownership rates for
minorities continue to lag behind non-Hispanic whites,
in part because blacks and Hispanics in particular tend
to have on average worse credit ratings.
In July, the Department of Housing and Urban
Development proposed that by the year 2001, 50 percent
of Fannie Mae's and Freddie Mac's portfolio be made up
of loans to low and moderate-income borrowers. Last
year, 44 percent of the loans Fannie Mae purchased were
from these groups.
The change in policy also comes at the same time that
HUD is investigating allegations of racial
discrimination in the automated underwriting systems
used by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to determine the
credit-worthiness of credit applicants.
High Crimes as Democrats seek to cover covert theft with overt
theft. John Sabatello Anacortes, WA September 29, 2008
In a crowning achievement to reaffirming conservative policies, the
Republicans in the House of Representatives today sent the Democrats
and the American public a clear and unequivocal message…….“The free
money from Fannie-Mae, Freddie-Mac and other mortgage based lenders
has been cut off!”
House
Republicans defeated legislation designed to give Treasury Secretary
Paulson $700 billion and the
unfettered authority to an unelected official (Paulson) to guarantee
the solvency of private banks and lending institutions halting the
worst kind of socialist intrusion
into the free market and capital based core of the American
economy. Nowhere in the Constitution is this activity permitted or
even suggested and even worse, there was no call from anyone in the
legislature for a judicial review of this action which would have
clearly been found to be illegal and unconstitutional.
The only thing even more galling than the outright theft and cover
up of these funds over the last ten years is the rush by Congress to
bail out their friends and benefactors in the mortgage and banking
industries before we might catch them at it. Further infuriation
was fueled by the naked disdain many members of Congress have for
the American public by allowing Senator Christopher Dodd (D-CT), to
chair the committee responsible for this reform legislation when he
was the number one beneficiary of campaign contributions from
Fannie-Mae. This shameless slap across the face of the American
Public is representative of the most immoral leadership in the
history of the Democrat Party.
The most immoral leaders in the
history of the Democrat Party
Rep. Barney Frank, (D-MA), Sen. Harry Reid,
(D-NV),
Rep. Nancy Pelosi, (D-CA), Sen. Christopher Dodd, (D-CT)
Today’s
announcement was cheered by the majority of Americans, while
Democrats cried and lamented the onset of a major recession. But
just a minute! Wasn’t it the democrats who for the past three
months told us that the failed policies of Bush & McCain already had
us in a recession? Why, yes it was. And, despite the fact that the
last quarter’s growth was 3.3% and no two quarters in the last year
had successive GDP declines (the definition of recession) the
Democrats insisted that we were in the throes of an economic
meltdown. This hysteria was clearly designed to accomplish two
things: First, to tie John McCain to George Bush and thereby tar
the Republican presidential candidate with Bush’s unpopular image,
and second, to hide the fact that the Democrats have been
manipulating the housing market, rejecting and stonewalling the
efforts of regulators to enforce oversight regulations that would
have prevented these meltdowns all while their inner circle took
turns at the Fannie-Mae and Freddie-Mac feeding troughs.
The Democrats,
led by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) could have passed this
rushed and devastating legislation on their own, but were afraid of
doing so for fear that once it was learned that they had done so
they, and their presidential candidate Obama, would be left
shouldering the blame, they rightly deserve. So behind a cynical
description of bipartisan unity Pelosi attempted to seek cover
behind votes recruited from Republican House members while fueling
the fires of panic and economic meltdowns. Fortunately, the
Republicans stood against her.
If not for it
being such a clear indication of her dishonest nature, the following
statement by Pelosi would be laughable. "They claim to be free
market advocates when it's really an anything-goes mentality: No
regulation, no supervision, no discipline. And if you fail, you will
have a golden parachute and the taxpayer will bail you out. Those
days are over. The party is over," Pelosi said.
"Democrats
believe in a free market," Pelosi continued. "But in this case, in
its unbridled form, as encouraged, supported, by the Republicans —
some in the Republican Party, not all — it has created not jobs, not
capital. It has created chaos."
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