1.12 TRILLION budget “deemed to have passed” as Congress to chicken to vote
Your congress has just spent 1.12 TRILLION of your dollars without even voting on it, because they think that will make you less mad about the ravenous spending. I hope they’re wrong.
Last night, as part of a procedural vote on the emergency war supplemental bill, House Democrats attached a document that “deemed as passed” a non-existent $1.12 trillion budget. The execution of the “deeming” document allows Democrats to start spending money for Fiscal Year 2011 without the pesky constraints of a budget.
The procedural vote passed 215-210 with no Republicans voting in favor and 38 Democrats crossing the aisle to vote against deeming the faux budget resolution passed.
Never before—since the creation of the Congressional budget process—has the House failed to pass a budget, failed to propose a budget then deemed the non-existent budget as passed as a means to avoid a direct, recorded vote on a budget, but still allow Congress to spend taxpayer money.
1 - House Democrats ‘Deem’ Faux $1.1 Trillion Budget ‘as Passed’
Gibbs dodges “Redistribution” Question
You don’t dodge what you don’t need to hide, folks.
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs has evaded answering the question of whether President Barack Obama agrees with Dr. Donald Berwick, his newly appointed administrator of Medicare and Medicaid, who has insisted that health-care systems must redistribute wealth.
“Excellent health care is by definition redistributional,” Berwick said in a speech delivered on July 1, 2008.
When asked directly at the July 7 White House press briefing whether Obama agreed with this, Gibbs would not answer the question. Instead, he parried it with jocular statements about the provenance of the quote.
Your new Medicare chief is an “Expert on Rationing”
For all you that are fans of rationed health care, this guy will be right up your ally.
n an interview last year with Biotechnology Healthcare, Berwick said society makes decisions about rationing all the time, and that the “decision is not whether or not we will ration care—the decision is whether we will ration with our eyes open. And right now, we are doing it blindly.“
He has also praised the UK’s National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE), which he said had “developed very good and very disciplined, scientifically grounded, policy-connected models for the evaluation of medical treatments from which we ought to learn.“
Said Berwick, “You can say, ‘Well, we shouldn’t even look.‘ But that would be irrational. The social budget is limited—we have a limited resource pool. It makes terribly good sense to at least know the price of an added benefit, and at some point we might say nationally, regionally, or locally that we wish we could afford it, but we can’t. We have to be realistic about the knowledge base.“
Why does the FIFA World Cup have a court with Judges?
Does this mean you’ll be see Major League Baseball courts soon?
The socialite appeared late Friday in a FIFA World Cup courtroom after being arrested on suspicion of possession of marijuana at a quarterfinal match between Brazil and the Netherlands.
1 - World Cup court in South Africa drops marijuana case against Paris Hilton
NASA’s new mission - Better Muslim Relations??
Wow. Seriously, you can’t make this stuff up.
NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said in a recent interview that his “foremost” mission as the head of America’s space exploration agency is to improve relations with the Muslim world.
Though international diplomacy would seem well outside NASA’s orbit, Bolden said in an interview with Al Jazeera that strengthening those ties was among the top tasks President Obama assigned him. He said better interaction with the Muslim world would ultimately advance space travel.
1 - NASA Chief: Next Frontier Better Relations With Muslim World
TSA bans “Controversial Opinion” Websites
Your government is now censoring the internet. Sweet, eh? I wonder if they’ll block Chris Matthews or Rachel Maddow? Seems a little cartoonish to me.
t states that as of July 1, TSA employees will no longer be allowed to access five categories of websites that have been deemed “inappropriate for government access.“
The categories include:
• Chat/Messaging
• Controversial opinion
• Criminal activity
• Extreme violence (including cartoon violence) and gruesome content
• GamingThe email does not specify how the TSA will determine if a website expresses a “controversial opinion.“
1 - TSA to Block “Controversial Opinion” on the Web
NBC News Anchors working with White House on Oil Spill Talking Points?
What happened to an unbiased media?
Obama’s FCC loses it’s mind, bans Emergency Locator Radios used by over 90% of Aircraft
This makes nothing but sense, let’s just ban the use of the Emergency Locator Transmitters used by tens of thousands aircraft nationwide in a month and a half? Great Idea! These guys have no idea what they’re doing.
The Federal Communications Commission took the general aviation world by surprise when it said in a recent report it will prohibit the sale or use of 121.5 MHz emergency locator transmitters, effective in August. The Aircraft Electronics Association said it just learned of the new rule today, and has begun working with the FAA, FCC and others to allow for timely compliance without grounding thousands of general aviation aircraft. The 121.5 ELTs are allowed under FAA rules. The FCC said its rules have been amended to “prohibit further certification, manufacture, importation, sale or use of 121.5 MHz ELTs.“ The FCC says that if the 121.5 units are no longer available, aircraft owners and operators will “migrate” to the newer 406.0-406.1 MHz ELTs, which are monitored by satellite, while the 121.5 frequency is not. “Were we to permit continued marketing and use of 121.5 MHz ELTs ... it would engender the risk that aircraft owners and operators would mistakenly rely on those ELTs for the relay of distress alerts,“ the FCC says. AOPA said today it is opposed to the rule change.
“The FCC is making a regulatory change that would impose an extra cost on GA operators, without properly communicating with the industry or understanding the implications of its action,“ said AOPA Vice President of Regulatory Affairs Rob Hackman. “There is no FAA requirement to replace 121.5 MHz units with 406 MHz technology. When two government agencies don’t coordinate, GA can suffer.“ The AEA said dealers should refrain from selling any new 121.5 MHz ELTs “until further understanding of this new prohibition can be understood and a realistic timeline for transition can be established.“
Why is the Government trying to save newspapers, exactly?
Why would the FTC be trying to save a failed business model? In this case it’s the Newspaper business, which has so utterly failed to meet the needs of it’s customers as to be essentially dead. If the cable companies were going out of business, would the FTC step in? I doubt it. What about cellular phones? Nope, it’s just their favorites, the largely left-wing mouthpieces must be saved, presumably because they act in the public interest rather than economic? Funny, I thought the FTC was about fair trade. The newspapers have been fairly beaten in the marketplace of ideas, and should be left in the rubbish can of history.
The Federal Trade Commission has set out on the somewhat quixotic journey of trying to identify ways to save journalism as we know it from possible extinction.
Through a series of public forums, the last of which will take place in Washington on Tuesday, the commission has been gathering and analyzing an array of suggestions to help make the business of gathering and reporting news profitable again. A broad range of ideas — loosening antitrust statutes to allow news organizations to start charging for online content all at once; imposing a tax on iPads and other electronic devices to subsidize the cost of reporting; creating a public fund akin to AmeriCorps to pay young journalists — have been suggested.
But the commission could easily sidestep making any recommendations to Congress or invoking its regulatory powers, and instead issue something along the lines of an analysis of its findings.
1 - Government Takes On Journalism’s Next Chapter
Obama kills NASA manned space program while asking for 50B more stimulus?
Why would we stop the manned space exploration at NASA, yet borrow 50 Billion more dollars from China for “stimulus”? Why would we overall the financial industry but ignore the continued (up to 1 Trillion dollar) failing of government-owned banks Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac? None of it makes any sense, and should be stopped, I say.
Nasa has begun to wind down construction of the rockets and spacecraft that were to have taken astronauts back to the Moon — effectively dismantling the US human spaceflight programme despite a congressional ban on its doing so.
Legislators have accused President Obama’s Administration of contriving to slip the termination of the Constellation programme through the back door to avoid a battle on Capitol Hill.
...
Constellation was born in 2004 from President George W. Bush’s vision for returning Americans to the Moon by 2020 and using it as a base to build the knowledge and technologies for a manned mission to Mars by 2030. Since then, more than $9 billion has been spent on designing and building the necessary space vehicles.An independent review panel appointed by Mr Obama last year concluded, however, that without an extra $3 billion a year Constellation was on an “unsustainable trajectory”. In his proposed budget for the 2011 fiscal year, unveiled in February, Mr Obama made it clear that there would be no extra money for its continuation. The proposal has yet to clear Congress.
That’s much less, over the course of years, than the President wants to waste this year alone for more failed “stimulus” slush funding to union supporters an government workers.
President Obama urged reluctant lawmakers Saturday to quickly approve nearly $50 billion in emergency aid to state and local governments, saying the money is needed to avoid “massive layoffs of teachers, police and firefighters” and to support the still-fragile economic recovery.
But why should the public economy be propped up, when the private sector feels the pain of Obama’s failed polices? And after all of the feigned indignation over so-called Wall Street excesses, why no hate for Fannie and Freddie?
The cost of fixing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the mortgage companies that last year bought or guaranteed three-quarters of all U.S. home loans, will be at least $160 billion and could grow to as much as $1 trillion after the biggest bailout in American history.
Fannie and Freddie, now 80 percent owned by U.S. taxpayers, already have drawn $145 billion from an unlimited line of government credit granted to ensure that home buyers can get loans while the private housing-finance industry is moribund. That surpasses the amount spent on rescues of American International Group Inc., General Motors Co. or Citigroup Inc., which have begun repaying their debts.
1 - Boldly going nowhere: Nasa ends plan to put man back on Moon
2 - Obama pleads for $50 billion in state, local aid
3 - Fannie-Freddie Fix at $160 Billion With $1 Trillion Worst Case
Federal Debt to exceed total US Economic Output (GDP) by 2012!
Way to go, Mr. President, you’ve put us on a path that Bloomberg calls a “debt super cycle”, a point where our debt exceeds to total value of the US economy. Was that the change you were looking for, folks?
President Barack Obama is poised to increase the U.S. debt to a level that exceeds the value of the nation’s annual economic output, a step toward what Bill Gross called a “debt super cycle.”
The CHART OF THE DAY tracks U.S. gross domestic product and the government’s total debt, which rose past $13 trillion for the first time this month. The amount owed will surpass GDP in 2012, based on forecasts by the International Monetary Fund. The lower panel shows U.S. annual GDP growth as tracked by the IMF, which projects the world’s largest economy to expand at a slower pace than the 3.2 percent average during the past five decades.
“Over the long term, interest rates on government debt will likely have to rise to attract investors,” said Hiroki Shimazu, a market economist in Tokyo at Nikko Cordial Securities Inc., a unit of Japan’s third-largest publicly traded bank. “That will be a big burden on the government and the people.”
...
“The incremental borrower of funds in the U.S. capital markets is rapidly becoming the U.S. Treasury,” Boston-based Fuss said. “Do you really want to buy the debt of the biggest issuer?”
1 - U.S.‘s $13 Trillion Debt Poised to Overtake GDP: Chart of Day
Nanny state of New York broke {again}
For all of you that want to be nannied by Big Government, note that it doesn’t work. California and now New York are on the verge of bancruptcy (even though they have the highest taxes in the country).
New York state delayed paying $2.5 billion of bills as a short-term way of staying solvent but its cash crunch could get even worse in August and September, Budget Director Robert Megna said on Tuesday.
“Had we not done that, I think we would have been close to broke,“ Megna told reporters in Albany. This is the third time since December the cash-poor state has withheld funds.
This time, the state’s general fund, which counts everything but federal aid and some specific revenues, ran in the red by about $500 million to $600 million, Megna told reporters.
1 - NY Nearly Goes Broke Again, Delays Paying Bills
Canadian health care crumbling over rising costs
So, why doesn’t everyone see that this kind of system is untenable? As Maggie Thatcher used to say, the problem with Socialism is you eventually run out of other people’s money to spend.
Pressured by an aging population and the need to rein in budget deficits, Canada’s provinces are taking tough measures to curb healthcare costs, a trend that could erode the principles of the popular state-funded system.
Ontario, Canada’s most populous province, kicked off a fierce battle with drug companies and pharmacies when it said earlier this year it would halve generic drug prices and eliminate “incentive fees” to generic drug manufacturers.
British Columbia is replacing block grants to hospitals with fee-for-procedure payments and Quebec has a new flat health tax and a proposal for payments on each medical visit—an idea that critics say is an illegal user fee.
And a few provinces are also experimenting with private funding for procedures such as hip, knee and cataract surgery.
It’s likely just a start as the provinces, responsible for delivering healthcare, cope with the demands of a retiring baby-boom generation. Official figures show that senior citizens will make up 25 percent of the population by 2036.
“There’s got to be some change to the status quo whether it happens in three years or 10 years,“ said Derek Burleton, senior economist at Toronto-Dominion Bank.
“We can’t continually see health spending growing above and beyond the growth rate in the economy because, at some point, it means crowding out of all the other government services.
“At some stage we’re going to hit a breaking point.“
1 - Soaring costs force Canada to reassess health model
Leftist Intolerance: Teen suspended for having rosary beads
The supposedly tolerant left has again lashed out religion by banning a student for having rosary beads on. Mind you there is no policy covering the beads, and there was no disruption to the learning process or even evangelizing claimed, any symbol of Catholicism must be tamped out of the schools or it might spread!
The parents of a high school student from Rockland County are demanding answers after their ninth grader was suspended for wearing rosary beads to school.
He was suspended even though the school doesn’t even have a policy banning them. So did the principal go too far? Jason Laguna is a former altar boy and proud Catholic. He got his rosary beads as a gift, thinks they look cool and sometimes wears them under his shirt at school. But last Friday, right before dismissal, he pulled them out on his way out.
1 - Teen faces suspension over rosary beads
San Antonio mayer bans soda in vending machines
Just in case you didn’t think that Nanny-State oppression was coming to your neck of the woods, here comes the countries mayors to save you from your own weakness and inability to make (what they believe to be) healthy choices. Here’s a newsflash, in America adults are supposed to be to make their own choices, and the vending machine owners should be free to offer the selection that their customers want. It’s call LIBERTY. Try it folks, I think you’ll like it.
“My hat is off to a government employee saying that a government facility shouldn’t make it easy for people to be unhealthy,” Miller said. “We know that whatever people have access to, that’s what they’re going to get when they’re in a hurry.”
Making healthy items easily available is “just good policy,” she said.
The beverage machines now contain water, juices and diet drinks.
Sculley said the policy aligns with the city’s wellness program, instituted three years ago.
“We know that statistically that people who are overweight or obese have greater health problems than those who do not,” she said. “We’re about educating community and we think we can lead by example.”
Purchasing Director Janie Cantu said her department is renegotiating the contract with the city’s food vendor to ensure that products meet public school nutrition guidelines set by the Texas Department of Agriculture.
Those guidelines ban foods of minimal nutritional value, including sodas, popsicles and other “flavored ice,” chewing gum and certain candies.
They also limit portion sizes. Bags of chips, for example, can contain no more than 1.5 ounces.
“Ultimately, that is the goal — we’d like to see people choosing healthier options,” said Bryan Alsip, an assistant director of the Metro Health Department.
To help instill better habits, setting a policy can help, said Lisako McKyer, a professor in Texas A&M University’s College of Education and Human Development.
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