Congress has voted in favor of the “stimulus” bill and Obama will certainly sign it into law within the next couple of days.  The federal deficit for 2009 was already going to be $1.2 trillion.  Throw in the “stimulus” spending and the deficit will be nearing $2 trillion and 13.5% of the US economy.  Many people are excited to see how Obama’s magic free Washington money will help them out, but where is that magic free  money going to come from?

Without the “stimulus” spending, we were already going to have to sell $1.2 trillion worth of bonds to pay for the debt already budgeted.  Every dollar spent on those bonds is not available to purchase equity in startup companies or to purchase corporate bonds from companies looking to expand.  The pork spending in the “stimulus” bill will not address the unemployment problem. Throwing money at Democrat pet projects doesn’t create jobs.

So who pays for Obama’s “stimulus?”  The initial money will come from continued government borrowing.  Those dollars come increasingly from China, Japan, England, Saudi Arabia and other foreign creditors.  We get the dollars immediately to throw at the “stimulus” programs and the creditors get bonds.

The bonds issued to pay for the “stimulus” will need to be repaid eventually.  The “stimulus” spending will add to the national debt, which already stands at $10.7 trillion.  Interest payments alone on the national debt are already near $500 billion this year. It is the fourth-largest federal expenditure, after Medicare-Medicaid, Social Security, and defense.  Obama promised to cut taxes for 95% of Americans.  Considering that 40% of Americans already pay no income taxes, there will be fewer and fewer people paying taxes while the federal government spends more and more dollars.  It’s bad enough that our politicians refuse to address the acturarial time bomb of Social Security.  Now they are piling debt upon debt so as not to waste a crisis and pushing the problem onto future taxpayers.  That’s who will pay for the “stimulus.”

During the election campaign, Obama kept harmmering away about how the Bush administration had neglected the middle class.  It was a major theme of the campaign.  Everywhere Obama campaigned, he brought up that tax cuts for the wealthy was a failed philosophy and that he truly did care about working people.  Campaigning in Las Vegas, Obama said he wanted to help, “not just the folks who own casinos but the folks who are serving in casinos.”  He got a lot of votes that way.

A short time into Obama’s term he has shown what he really thinks about working people.  Several companies had business meetings scheduled in Las Vegas and Obama spoke out against them.  Speaking of the companies who received federal bailout funds, Obama said, “You can’t get corporate jets. You can’t go take a trip to Las Vegas or go down to the Super Bowl on the taxpayer’s dime.”

Businesses have legitimage reasons for holding conventions and business meetings.  Las Vegas provides great value for such meetings.  Casinos give discounted rates for rooms, meals, and entertainment to companies and most of the attendees of the meetings enjoy going to Las Vegas.  After Obama made his comments, several companies canceled plans to have meetings in Las Vegas and moved their meetings to other cities.  In some such cases, the companies end up paying twice as they had cancellation fees for booked events in Las Vegas.  The casinos get the cancellation fees, but the casino workers are still affected as their services are no longer necessary for cancelled events.  These are the ones that Obama pretended to care about when he asked for their votes before the election.

Obama also negatively affected the business at companies that make private jets.  Many companies are cancelling orders for jets and others are holding off on purchases as they don’t want the bad publicity of having the president of the United States pointing the finger at them.  When orders for planes are down, jobs for the workers at the manufactures are affected.  Cessna is laying off more than 4,600 people as a result of the sudden drop in demand for private airplanes of all sizes.

Obama is jetting around the country in Air Force One at taxpayer expense with the main purpose of building support for his “stimulus” plan.  Apparently it’s perfectly acceptable for him to travel in a private jet, but private businesses aren’t worthy to do so.  It would be interesting to know whether it even occurs to Obama that it took a lot of workers to build the aircraft he now travels in.  Obama has the option to be an example of saving money by not traveling around in his “private jet” and showing his leadership instead of just pointing the finger at business leaders.

While campaiging for his “stimulus” plan, Obama said that “only government can shake the country out of recession.”  There is no historical basis for the statement.  History shows that government has a dismal record of ending economic downturns. Economists at UCLA recently concluded that the New Deal policies of FDR extended the depression by at least seven years.

Obama is pushing for his “stimulus” plan, which is similar to the New Deal policies of FDR.  Anyone who has spent any time looking at the Obama “stimulus” bill has seen hundreds of examples of wasteful spending in the nearly trillion dollar package.  One issue that has had little attention is that the wasteful items are directed spending items.  There are plenty of billions in discretionary spending that are not so obvious.  The biggest spending bill in the history of the United States of America has not had nearly enough scrutiny.  The wasteful spending will surely be exposed more as time goes on.

Throughout previous economic recoveries, job growth came from small business.  Businesses with fewer than 20 employees account for 90 percent of all U.S. firms and are responsible for more than 97 percent of all new jobs, according to a new report by the Small Business Administration.  Obama is making no mention of that and instead wants to focus on his big government solutions.  Tax cuts for people who don’t pay taxes, targeted tax breaks for special interests, and wasteful spending will do nothing to help small businesses that we are counting on for an economic recovery.

Sen. Leahy proposes truth panel on Bush era abuses

WASHINGTON (AP) - The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee is proposing a “truth commission” to investigate abuses of detainees, politically inspired moves at the Justice Department, and whole range of decisions made during the Bush administration.

Of course, nothing resembling “the truth” will end up being discussed in this Commission. “Witch-Hunt” is more like it.

So much for “Change.” I would have thought “change” would have meant focusing on this horrible economy they keep throwing in our faces. But as anyone would have figured, no change at all. It’s the same baloney they’ve flung around for the last 2 years.

Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said the primary goal of the commission would be to learn the truth rather than prosecute former officials, but said the inquiry should reach far beyond misdeeds at the Justice Department under Bush to include matters of Iraq prewar intelligence and the Defense Department.

That is not a reasonable goal for a Commission, Senator. Commissions should be formed to investigate (and in the end bring charges against) crimes. No, this is not really to put Bush in jail, their goal is to continue to bash the Republican Party and make Iraq out to be a disaster.

Leahy outlined his suggestion for a “truth and reconciliation” commission during a speech at Georgetown University Monday.

If you’re not going to reconcile with some form of formal charges, then why even waste our time and money? Politics, politics, more politics. The “change” nobody with a brain believed in.

Michelle Malkin has posted some video of NY Senator Chuck Schumer lecturing the American People about the right way to feel about this gigantic waste of money we don’t have.

He must be taking lessons from Obama.

Since the bailout bill made its way through congress last year, there have been several high profile news stories of excessive spending by the bailed out companies.  Obama has proposed capping executive pay at $500,000 a year for banks that receive bailout funds.

Obama said, “This is America.  We don’t disparage wealth. We don’t begrudge anybody for achieving success. And we believe success should be rewarded. But what gets people upset — and rightfully so — are executives being rewarded for failure, especially when those rewards are subsidized by U.S. taxpayers.”

It is hardly unreasonable for anyone including Obama to get upset about rewarding bank executives that were largely responsible for the banking mess.  But what Obama fails to realize is that limiting executive pay will not help the problem going forward.

Top executives can command top salaries that exceed Obama’s arbritary $500,000 a year limit.  Some say that is a sign of greed, but that is not necessarily the case.  A person may be the greediest person in the world yet make nowhere near $500,000 a year.  The salaries of top executives depend on what others are willing to pay them, not on their own greed.  Many celebrities make salaries greater than top executives but somehow they aren’t accused of being greedy.

Executive pay is set by supply and demand.  Some may make the case that companies grossly overpay executives.  Some executives are certainly overpaid, but that is not always the case.  Warren Buffet was on the board of the company that pubishes the Washington Post.  Buffet made cost saving suggestions that were worth billions of dollars, which was a ridiculous multiple of his compensation.

If a bailed out bank wants to hire a new executive with a track record of cost savings, they will have to bid for that person’s services in the open market.  If a bank is constrained by Obama’s artificial $500,000 a year salary limit, they will likely miss out on the opportunity to hire that person.  The taxpayers that are hoping for a return on the bailout investment will miss out as well.

Employees at any company at any level are hired only for the benefit of the employer.  If an employer chooses to pay an executive $50 million a year, the employer expects to get at least $50 million of economic benefit for having hired that person.   Limiting executive pay will deprive companies of the talent they need to be as successful as they can be.

If there’s nothing more annoying than a President that is never forced to answer a single tough question in 6 years of public service, it’s a President who then goes out and badmouths those few conservatives in Congress who have the guts to say, “Which part of your Stimulus is actually going to stimulate the economy?” Michelle Malkin has some commentary here, comparing Obama to Howard Dean. I almost wonder if he ends up sounding more like Hugo Chavez than Howard Dean. I didn’t hear Obama come unglued, he simply has no tolerance for any viewpoint that differs from his. This is exactly what he has been taught in his years of discipleship to the likes of William Ayers and Rev. Jeremiah Wright, filled with sheer hatred and intolerance that would label many a conservative a fascist.

The other annoying part is the Invertebrate Branch of the Republican Party, that immediately slogs over to Harry Reid and Obama and looks for ways to pad their own pockets at the expense of the American people. We had one chance of keeping this horrible piece of legislation from becoming a stain on future generations, but unfortunately a few selfish weasels named Specter, Snowe, and Collins have to spoil the applecart.  This is going to be a quick 3 days in politics, followed by a long 40 years of rebuilding this economy from the serious trough this bill will create.

And finally, Obama, in his infinite wisdom (which we all know is infinite because Katie Couric and Chris Matthews have done the math), never has to speak in front of a serious Press room. He gets away with talking about how these tax-cut policies have created this economy. NO, I don’t think so buddy, and if they actually would let me in the room with you, I’d call you on it.

I can tell you in one sentence the reasons for this economy to have hit the skids: We expect to get everything for nothing. From a family that makes $30,000 buying a $200,000 home to a person who joins a union to make $60 an hour for a $20 an hour job, we’ve outpriced ourselves. This has little to do with Republican or Democrat, rich or poor. Each of us has a chance to purchase American made goods, but none of us want to take the chance that our purchase would have the same “American craftsmanship” we put into our own vocation. Until this country has a change in ideal, a return to morals, a shift in work ethic, ingenuity, and pride in one’s own output, we’re going to continue to spiral out of control.

And I’m willing to bet that this President’s words will not facilitate this renaissance. That’s what’s needed, not a bunch of government-funded jobs.

Yesterday when Obama spoke about the failed nomination of Tom Daschler, he took personal responsibility saying that he had “screwed up.”  He further stated, “I don’t want to send a message to the American people that there are two sets of standards, one for powerful people and one for ordinary folks who are working every day and paying their taxes.”

But the ironic thing is that he came out and defended his Treasury Chief, Timothy Geithner.  Both Daschle and Geithner failed to pay their taxes as required by law.  Both paid their taxes after being nominated for a cabinet position and both apologized.

How is Geithner a “solid pick” and Daschle a “screwed up” pick?  How can we take Obama’s claim that he does not want two sets of standards when he can’t hold a single standard for his own cabinet picks?

I was checking out Instapundit, and was pointed to this article that claims that the current stimulus package probably does not have enough support to pass in the Senate.

Media reports suggest Senate Republicans have become a key focus of stimulus talks, an acknowledgement that they appear to hold the balance of power in that chamber despite having only 41 seats to the Democrats’ 58. The Washington Post reports on the front page that Senate Democratic leaders “conceded yesterday that they do not have the votes to pass the stimulus bill as currently written and said that to gain bipartisan support, they will seek to cut provisions that would not provide an immediate boost to the economy.” Moderate Republicans are “trying to trim the bill by as much as $200 billion.”

What this is coming down to is that President Obama and his colleagues in Congress seemed to believe that when they said “bipartisan,” what they could mean was, “We’ll tell the Republicans what we want, and if they offer dissention, we’ll just push it through anyway.”

The trouble for Obama is that, inasmuch as he really wants to “change Washington” (which is debatable), the powerbrokers in both Houses of Congress are just as corrupt as ever. The NY Daily News details just how much of this stimulus bill has been soaked in pork fat.

There are about $340 billion in tax cuts and more than $540 billion in spending in the massive package. Democrats need just two GOP votes to pass the bill, and predicted they’d get them because of the consequences of not passing it.

According to accounts, much of this $540 Billion will do little to stimulate the economy, but in fact is “Thank You Very Much” money heading straight to those organizations that supported the Democrats in November.

Anyway, back to bipartisanship. Obama has shown the appearance of being willing to reach out to Republicans, but in my mind this is just a photo-op. And the change in tone over the last week has been striking. As reports of unwillingness to include Republicans in the bill-drafting process came to surface, and as the American people learned that this legislation was exceedingly wasteful while doing little to stimulate our economy, support numbers have dwindled in the polls. As this has happened, we see that Senate Republicans are making a strong push towards stripping a lot of the pork.

Obama’s Presidency is realistically coming down to these first two weeks in February. With the ethical nightmare his selection of three tax-cheating pols for Cabinet posts, there is damage on the hull of the Obama brig. He still has widespread support, but his two strongest running points were removing corruption and changing the partisan politics of Washington. In this author’s opinion, he’s finding out just how difficult it is to deliver on such promise.

A power play needs to be made. Obama’s mistake was thinking that the power play was to undress the Republicans and shove through his Socialist agenda. Instead, the shakedown of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid is the proper tactic. Republicans are willing to cross the aisle, but someone needs to listen. I believe that result will dictate whether Barack Obama will be given a 2nd term in office.

In  his inaugural address, Obama spoke of a “new era of responsibility.”  By the time the inauguration had arrived, Bill Richardson, one of Obama’s highest profile cabinet nominees had already withdrawn his name due to an ethics scandal.  In the first two weeks of the Obama “new era of responsibility” administration, two more high profile cabinet nominees had to withdraw prior to getting a confirmation vote by the Senate.  Then there is Timothy Geithner who was confirmed to be the nation’s tax collector after it was learned that he’s a tax cheat.  Eric Holder was confirmed as Attorney General even though he lied through his teeth about his role in and knowledge of the Marc Rich pardon in the last days of the Clinton presidency.

Tom Daschle and Nancy Killefer both withdrew their names from consideration for posts in the Obama cabinet due to unpaid taxes.  In both cases, the unpaid taxes were plenty of reason for them not to have been confirmed for cabinet posts.  In Daschle’s case, there was plenty of other ethical questions.  He had been paid over $2 million from lobbying firm and somehow isn’t considered a lobbyist.  In addition he made over $200,000 for making speeches to groups that he would have been overseeing had he been confirmed as secretary of HHS.

It will be interesting to see whether the new nominees that Obama comes up with to fill those positions have similar tax problems.  The vetting process that Obama’s people have used in this “new era of responsibility” will need to have a new test to see whether the prospective nominees have paid their taxes, a straightforward test of no representation without taxation.

In the coming elections, conservatives can point out to voters that Democrats don’t mind high taxes, since they don’t pay them.