Author Archives: Warren Beatty
That President Barack Hussein Obama has made “green energy” a priority of his administration is no secret. Under the Obama watch, the Department of Energy (DOE), headed by Dr. Steven Chu, has spent, loaned, or guaranteed loans, and the total amount is $80 billion. And we all know that Solyndra failed, costing taxpayers over $500 million. So what? you say. That’s old news. Well, as the late (great IMHO) Paul Harvey used to say, here is “the rest of the story.” Continue reading
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Iran has been much in the news lately, with its atomic bomb, er, energy program, its nuclear scientist short lifespan, its “Close the Strait of Hormuz” exercise, its telling the US that an aircraft carrier had better not come back into the Persian Gulf, and its test firing of a home built missile. So I thought a look at its internal politics may prove interesting. Continue reading
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President Barack Hussein Obama, on January 10, 2012, made a speech to Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) personnel praising their efforts. Obama said that EPA regulations are good for the economy and create jobs and that the agency “touches” the lives of every American every day. He actually said that! Obama told EPA employees, “We can make sure that we are doing right by our environment and, in fact, putting people back to work all across America.” Continue reading
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When Barack Hussein Obama took office in January, 2009, he identified 10 corridors appropriate for high-speed rail in the US. His stimulus bill earmarked $8 billion to jump-start the project. High speed rail is Obama’s “Holy Grail” of public infrastructure projects. Proponents originally said the LA-to-SF bullet train project would create more than 1 million jobs, but recently revised that downward to several thousand jobs. (That’s quite a revision!) Almost every state originally identified dropped out of the running because they couldn’t afford their share of the cost. Continue reading
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President Barack H. Obama enters his fourth year in office having calculated that he no longer needs Congress. Obama and his advisers are beginning 2012 with a renewed sense of confidence, buoyed by a series of polls that show the … Continue reading
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Ed Luce wrote in the Financial Times, “According to government statistics, if the same number of people were seeking work today as in 2007, the jobless rate would be 11 percent.” Remember that the unemployment rate is not how many people don’t have jobs (the U6 rate of 15.6%), but how many people don’t have jobs and are actively looking for a job (the U3 rate of 8.6%). Luce continued, “Last month, unemployment fell from 9 percent to 8.6 percent… more than half of the fall was accounted for by a decrease in the numbers ‘actively seeking’ work. The 315,000 who dropped out of the labour market far exceeded the 120,000 new jobs.” Continue reading
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The US House of Representatives passed on Tuesday (December 13, 2011) a bill that had in it a key Social Security tax component that Obama favors: it would keep 160 million workers from seeing their payroll tax go up on January 1, 2012, from this year’s 4.2% back to 6.2%. The bill ignores Democrat proposals to place a surtax on people earning more than $1 million annually to offset the payroll tax non-increase. BTW, because the bill also has a clause in it about the Keystone XL pipeline, Senate majority leader Harry Reid (D-NV) said, “It was dead before it got to the Senate. The Senate will not pass it.” Continue reading
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We have all heard lately about the “supercommittee,” its charge, and, if it isn’t successful, pulling the spending “trigger.” Defense has the most to lose from triggered cuts, as this source illustrates. Leon Panetta, head of the Department of Defense (DOD) and no bastion of conservatism, called the trigger “draconian” and “devastating” and said that it will “hollow out” the military. The worst thing, Panetta said, is that the cuts “invite aggression.” Continue reading
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I just finished reading An American Life, the autobiography of Ronald Reagan. The book was given to me by my oldest daughter, and I enjoyed it very much.
What do Ronald Reagan’s autobiography and FDR have in common? After reading this, see if you agree with me.
At the end of page 66 and on page 67 of the (hardcover) book, Ronald Reagan is remembering FDR’s 1932 presidential campaign. Reagan says, “With his alphabet soup of federal agencies, FDR in many ways set in motion the forces that later sought to create big government and bring a form of veiled socialism to America. Continue reading
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While it is true, as the OWS gang claims, that the “rich” are making more of the income (20%), they are also paying most of the income taxes (38%). Since 1980 the rich’s share of income has doubled, but so have income taxes. Those making at least $114,000 in 2008 (the last complete year from the IRS), earned 45% of the nation’s income, and paid 70% of all taxes. The top 25% of earners, those earning at least $67,200, took in 67% of the income, and paid 86% of the income tax total. The average income tax rate paid by those in the bottom half of the income scale is only 2.6%. Couple those facts with the fact that, in 2010, 47% of households paid no income tax. In fact, some in that group will be getting money from the federal government. Continue reading
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