Debt Ceiling Time Already?

If the intent is to limit the amount that Congress has the authority to borrow, then the debt "ceiling" is nothing but a joke.

Each and every time Congress overspends and approaches the limits of their borrowing, they simply grant themselves an increased line of credit, and keep right on rolling.

Enough lies, enough spending.  Congress once again makes empty motions about fiscal responsibility and our children's future, but with the phony sincerity of a fat person promising to go on that diet after Thanksgiving.  And the lies handed to us by government stooges are just as insincere.

The first lie is obvious: "Congress must raise the debt limit to cover what they have already approved."  Not true; the reason they want the debt limit raised is because Congress cannot approve any further spending without exceeding this current ceiling - their "credit card" has been maxed out.

The second lie is even worse.  There is no possibility of the US ever defaulting on our debt - provisions in the 14th Amendment of our Constitution prevent that from ever taking place, even though the party in power erroneously attempts to invoke the 14th Amendment as justification to raise the debt ceiling.
 
Sooner or later, someone has to say "enough!"  I seriously doubt the Orange Man has the stones to stand up, but if not him, then who?  Our debt is already so unbelievably enormous that most are not certain it can ever be dealt with.  And, as Cankles so cold-heartedly offered, "what difference, at this point, does it make?"

When Is Enough Enough?

Al Gore is back - this time with a new take on his same old bag of horseshit.  It's not "Global Warming" anymore.  That old chestnut dates back to the 1890's when scientists first begin to formulate their doomsday scenarios.  What these guys tell us today is that the "experts" have all agreed that the presence of man is responsible for the warming of our atmosphere.

But what they try to hide is that the data collected doesn't seem to support their theory.  Therefore, this esteemed panel of learned men decided it best to simply fudge the data to support their hypothesis, rather than starting over.  They have been caught several times, yet their blatant attempts at lying are always laughed at by liberals, because in their minds the end always justifies the means.  Remember, only conservatives lie; liberals use deceit to help us because we're too stupid to know what's good for us.

Oddly enough, in the 1960's a group of experts broke away from the mainstream to pursue their own theory.  They predicted that, because of the presence of man, all life on Earth was going to be destroyed by a "Global Cooling" catastrophe.  Enter little Albert Gore and his tree hugging wife, Tipper.

John Holdren, one of the leading proponents of this radical "Global Cooling" theory, suggested that coal dust should be spread along the Arctic ice cap to absorb the sun's heat, melt the ice, and prevent the impending ice age.  If the name John Holdren sounds familiar, it should - he is the Obama administration's "Science Czar."  He has rejoined the "Warming" crowd, and his latest suggestion is to broadcast reflective particles in the upper atmosphere to reflect the sun's rays and cool our doomed planet.

They don't call it "Climate Change" anymore, either, because the evidence collected shows a series of natural cycles of warm and cool.  Nowadays, the well-informed tree-hugger uses the term "Extreme Weather" to describe the consequences of man's existence on this planet.  Al Gore is back, and laughingly uses Hurricane Sandy to claim the presence of mankind on the planet is responsible for "ever worsening weather events."  Don't these guys ever give up?

Sandy was not the "super-storm" the media and the enviro-whackos love to claim.  It's all about sensationalism.  "It was the worst storm ever, with damage in the billions, and some folks even died."  Sandy was a puny class 1 storm;  They estimate the Great Hurricane of 1900, the one that destroyed Galveston and killed thousands, was a class 5.  Katrina and Rita were both class 3 storms, and the devastation was much worse than Sandy.

After 50 years of living on the Gulf Coast, I've witnessed dozens of hurricanes much more powerful than Sandy.  Making Al Gore and his buddies wealthy beyond belief will not affect the strength or weakness of any hurricane, tornado, blizzard, or thunderstorm in the slightest.

Obama Part II - The Fiscal Cliff

You Got It, I Want It

The arrogance and ignorance of Obama seems boundless, as he continues to press his populist horse excreta on taxing the wealthy to "address" our deficit. But the numbers he throws our are ridiculously insignificant.

In a single term, Obama has put another $6 trillion on the national credit card, and we have $1 trillion-plus deficits forecast over the next decade. Raising tax rates on the wealthy has been estimated as an $800 billion increase in revenue - over 10 years.

There is no "mandate" to raise taxes; just remember that nearly 50% of America no longer wants to hear Obama's empty promises, or his excuses for our country's eminent economic collapse. For every person who thinks soaking the wealthy is "fair", there is someone who does not.

If Obama were truly a leader, he would drop his populist rhetoric and examine all the ways to use tax reform and spending controls to reduce the $3.8 trillion a year - $10 billion a day - that it currently takes to feed our overblown federal bureaucracy.

Smilin' Joe - Master Debater

So, who won?  For all the spin from last night's Vice Presidential debate, the biggest question I have is what sort of people consider Joe Biden's debate style as "down to earth?"  Holy crap - this pinhead is a heartbeat away from being our president?  Scary thought....

From where I sat, I didn't really see a clear winner, but I can definitely say that Ryan did not lose to an idiot like Smilin' Joe.  There is much talk today, and criticism by Democrats, that Ryan had nothing to say.  That he did not offer any "specifics."  I find it incredibly amazing that someone could endure the sad antics of Joe Biden for a solid hour and not have heard the things Ryan had to offer. 

What Ryan did say, when Sheriff Joe wasn't rudely interrupting, or the liberal moderator wasn't cutting his response short, was that one cannot make specific promises when putting forth a plan to solve our problems.  What he can do is establish a set of priorities, and then work with Congress (something painfully absent with Mr Obama) to find a way to best achieve these goals.

This is nothing like Obama's "Yes, We Can" liberal fantasy world, where there always seems to be more of other people's money for the government to spread around.  Romney's plan is a business-like, reality-based approach, a real dollars and cents world of crippling debt caused by out of control spending.   Don't get me wrong - Obama's addition of $5 trillion in new debt over three and a half years is no worse than Bush's $5 trillion, eight year contribution.

I believe we watched the same debate, yet I somehow came away with a different take.  Forget our resident village idiot and his dim-witted smiling sidekick for a moment, for all they promise is four more years of the same: taking on more debt to fund more public spending, investing tax dollars in green energy companies that might actually create jobs this go-round, and higher taxes on the job creators with the hope they will not be indirectly paid by those "hard-working middle class families that have been buried the last four years."

Obama says he wants to make "investments in our future".  Not very specific, but the Dems cheer wildly.  Doesn't say where he will find the money, other than the century-old "tax the wealthy" chestnut.  Ryan gave actual figures on that, by the way - did you pay attention?  Ryan stated that if all those who make over $250,000 a year are taxed at 100% it would only pay for 100 days of spending, or less than one third of what our federal government already spends each year.  We still need to find another two-thirds of the fiscal year funding, which leaves rather slim picking to take on new "investments" in our future.

Repeal the Bush tax rates for the high rollers?  Make those who already burden 36% of the tax liability in this country pay a "fair" share?  OK, fine - that amounts to $800 billion in additional revenue over the next ten years, right?  The federal government spent $3.5 trillion in fiscal year 2012.  Divide by 365, and you find they spent  $9,600,000,000 per day.  That $80 billion windfall from the repeal of the Bush tax cuts will cover 200 hours of government spending.  Not even 9 full days, but the Dems cheer wildly every time Obama says it.  Well, to be fair, he never actually says that; his speeches use the rounded-up figure of "$1 trillion" in revenue, but you have to divide by 10 to see how that will affect our deficit.

Why are Obama's supporters so engrossed with details?  I can't help but wonder why Romney is expected to outline his entire first term to the nth degree when all we got from Team Obama in 2008 was "He's not Bush" and a vague promise of "hope and change."  We do know from Obama's actual record, something he didn't have in 2008, that he has broken almost every promise he made in 2008, so maybe I can understand why Democrats want specifics.  But, of course, Obama has an excuse for every single failure.  And, if he can't come up with someone or something to blame for his own shortcomings, his adoring liberal media make up the excuses for him.

If you failed to notice, Ryan was cut off each time he attempted to rebuff Smilin' Joe's hollow talking points.  At one point, Ryan did appear to get a bit miffed, at which point he asked Biden whether he thought the viewers would get more from the debate if they stopped talking over one another.  Of course, we got nothing but that same shit-eating grin from Biden, which probably explains why so many on the left say Biden "won".

Over a dozen of Biden's so-called "facts," already shown as phony in this morning's press, went unchallenged by Ryan - not for lack of effort, however, but by the empty headed Martha Raddatz.  The left claims she did a fantastic job, while those on the right claim she stifled the debate; I go with the latter job description.  If you want to simply hear somebody reading off talking points, then go watch a speech or a pep rally.

Remember that the reason Obama had his butt handed to him in the last debate was because there is a huge difference between reading from your teleprompter to an adoring crowd, versus actually debating someone with the knowledge and ability to counter empty promises and lies with fact and truth.  We all know that Obama cannot run on his own record, therefore his job is to make Romney look worse than him.  Thus, many desperate Democrats now rejoice that our Vice President is a rude and ignorant buffoon, smiling and laughing while Ryan spokes in all seriousness of the inevitability of Iran's nuclear arsenal.

Personally, I feel that Joe Biden is Obama's insurance policy against a dose of high-speed lead poisoning - no maniac in his right mind would dare put him in charge of America?  As far as last night's debate, Joe Biden did exactly what he was sent to do: to try his hardest to push and bully the younger and less experienced Ryan into a Biden-esque gaffe as ammo for more of those vicious and misleading attack ads which Team Obama has now adopted as their sole campaign strategy.  But, when allowed by the moderator, Ryan pushed back, and his closing remarks certainly gave us what we were looking for - a clear choice between four more years of zero leadership and stagnant economic growth and perhaps what a new path might take us.  Obama has a proven record of failure, so where is all that "hope" for America's future the Dems were so full of four years ago?

Yes, the Democrats recovered quickly from Wednesday's butt-kicking at the hands of Romney.  The myriad of excuses for Obama's poor performance cooked up today by campaign staff and the media are nothing short of astounding in their ridiculousness.

They range from the thin air in Denver, to the failure of Jim Lehrer to stifle Romney's challenge of Obama's phony facts, to the fact that Romney simply lied.

Romney lied?  Lied about what?  Excuse me, but exactly what promises has he made to the American people that he has broken?  This is nothing but a cheap and childish and desperate attack, especially considering its source.

After all, Obama has done nothing but present half-truths and outright lies for four years, repeating them over and over until the typical brain-dead liberal can recite them as scripture.  There's an old saying invoking the actual color of kettles versus pots, but I will refrain from giving the race-baiters any ammunition.

But I digress.  The unemployment numbers came out today, and Democrats across the country danced in the streets with what they claim to be new and certain proof that Obama's policies are indeed working, and that the Republicans can go suck eggs.

Let's examine these unemployment numbers.  From the government's own website, the Bureau of Labor Statistics:

"The unemployment rate decreased to 7.8 percent in September, and total nonfarm payroll employment rose by 114,000, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today."

We are supposed to believe that adding 114,000 jobs lowered the (U3) unemployment number by three tenths of a percent, down to 7.8% ?  Using some simple math, this means there are roughly 38,000,000 employed in this country (basic math).

That number isn't even close, so there must be some other way to calculate this magical indicator of our economic health.  Let's go back to the BLS website:

"The unemployment rate declined by 0.3 percentage point to 7.8 percent in September...The number of unemployed persons, at 12.1 million, decreased by 456,000 in September."

Interesting enough, with only 114,000 jobs added in September, the number of people unemployed fell by 456,000.  I wonder what happened to the other 342,000 people in September.

So according to our government, the true number of people unemployed today is 12.1 million,  This represents 7.8% of the labor force, then that puts our labor force a bit over 155,100,000:

"The civilian labor force rose by 418,000 to 155.1 million in September while the labor force participation rate was little changed at 63.6%."

155,100,000 people, at a 63.6% utilization rate, yields 98,600,000 people with jobs and there are 56,500,000 members of this "labor force" who apparently don't want to look for work.

I find the 42.1 million person difference between those "in the labor force" who don't want to work and those who are "officially counted" as unemployed a bit mind boggling.

Government math is indeed confusing.  I wonder how they ever balance their checkbook?