Fausta's Blog

American and Latin American Politics, Society, and Culture

July 9, 2010 By Fausta

The upcoming lame duck free-for-all

John Fund sees it coming,
The Obama-Pelosi Lame Duck Strategy
Union ‘card-check,’ cap and trade, and so much more.

Democratic House members are so worried about the fall elections they’re leaving Washington on July 30, a full week earlier than normal—and they won’t return until mid-September. Members gulped when National Journal’s Charlie Cook, the Beltway’s leading political handicapper, predicted last month “the House is gone,” meaning a GOP takeover. He thinks Democrats will hold the Senate, but with a significantly reduced majority.

The rush to recess gives Democrats little time to pass any major laws. That’s why there have been signs in recent weeks that party leaders are planning an ambitious, lame-duck session to muscle through bills in December they don’t want to defend before November. Retiring or defeated members of Congress would then be able to vote for sweeping legislation without any fear of voter retaliation.

How bad?
Bad:

  • New taxes,
  • Card Check (the measure to curb secret-ballot union elections)
  • Senate ratification of the New Start nuclear treaty,
  • a federally mandated universal voter registration system to override state laws,
  • a budget resolution to lock in increased agency spending

And, as if that weren’t enough,

Then there is pork. A Senate aide told me that “some of the biggest porkers on both sides of the aisle are leaving office this year, and a lame-duck session would be their last hurrah for spending.”

But wait! There’s also energy (in addition to cap-and-trade)

Mike Allen of Politico.com reports one reason President Obama failed to mention climate change legislation during his recent, Oval Office speech on the Gulf oil spill was that he wants to pass a modest energy bill this summer, then add carbon taxes or regulations in a conference committee with the House, most likely during a lame-duck session. The result would be a climate bill vastly more ambitious, and costly for American consumers and taxpayers

Doug Mataconis thinks it’s unlikely the Dems would go for really broke (they’ve already gone for broke, as we can see).

However, if the Democrats really believe that they will lose control of either houses of Congress, I’m with Fund – they’ll certainly go for scorched earth. The only question is what items from the menu above they will push, once the November elections are over.

After all, once they do and the chickens come home to roost, Obama will blame the Republicans.

We’ll find out soon enough.

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Filed Under: Barack Obama, Congress, Democrats, politics Tagged With: cap and trade, Fausta's blog

June 30, 2010 By Fausta

Too much debt, too much regulation, too much uncertainty, and…

Why Obamanomics Has Failed
Uncertainty about future taxes and regulations is enemy No. 1 of economic growth.

wo overarching reasons explain the failure of Obamanomics. First, administration economists and their outside supporters neglected the longer-term costs and consequences of their actions. Second, the administration and Congress have through their deeds and words heightened uncertainty about the economic future. High uncertainty is the enemy of investment and growth.

How about the “stimulus”?

Most of the earlier spending was a very short-term response to long-term problems. One piece financed temporary tax cuts. This was a mistake, and ignores the role of expectations in the economy. Economic theory predicts that temporary tax cuts have little effect on spending. Unless tax cuts are expected to last, consumers save the proceeds and pay down debt. Experience with past temporary tax reductions, as in the Carter and first Bush presidencies, confirms this outcome.

Another large part of the stimulus went to relieve state and local governments of their budget deficits. Transferring a deficit from the state to the federal government changes very little. Some teachers and police got an additional year of employment, but their gain is temporary. Any benefits to them must be balanced against the negative effect of the increased public debt and the temporary nature of the transfer.

The Obama economic team ignored past history. The two most successful fiscal stimulus programs since World War II—under Kennedy-Johnson and Reagan—took the form of permanent reductions in corporate and marginal tax rates. Economist Arthur Okun, who had a major role in developing the Kennedy-Johnson program, later analyzed the effect of individual items. He concluded that corporate tax reduction was most effective.

Don’t expect much of that any time soon. Instead, businesses face,

  • the burden of government-mandated healthcare, and whatever it may mean if they hire new employees
  • cap and trade, “Who will be forced to pay?”

Additionally, the expansion of Medicaid increasing the burden on the states, the bailouts, which

ran roughshod over the rule of law. Chrysler bondholders were given short shrift in order to benefit the auto workers union. By weakening the rule of law, the president opened the way to great mischief and increased investors’ and producers’ uncertainty.

And, to top it off, something the article doesn’t mention directly:
As the Gulf oil spill is demonstrating, an absence of leadership and an overload of bureaucratic shortsightedness.

None of the above make for sound economic policy. Combined, they are recipe for disaster.

As James Pethokoukis notes, private-sector led growth is the only way to avoid U.S. economic collapse

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Filed Under: Barack Obama, business, economics, economy Tagged With: bailout, cap and trade, Fausta's blog

June 28, 2010 By Fausta

The year without Mel Zelaya Carnival of Latin America, and VIDEO

LatinAmer Welcome to this week’s Carnival of Latin America and the Caribbean. As the title indicates, it’s been a year since Mel Zelaya was thrown out of office. He and his teddy bear are also gone from his tin foil-lined room at the Brazilian embassy in Tegucigalpa.

Today’s podcast at 11AM Eastern:
The UN Office for Drugs and Crime’s report

ARGENTINA
Collateral damage

Cristina se reunió con empresarios antes del comienzo de la cumbre del G20

Seventy-five years ago today

BARBADOS
Barbados and Panama sign double taxation agreement

BOLIVIA
Bolivian Bottles Build Houses

BRAZIL
Brazil’s foreign policy
An Iranian banana skin
Lula has little to show for his Tehran adventure

Lula’s adventure in Tehran smacks of the overconfidence of a politician who basks in an approval rating of over 70% and who sees the Iraq war and the financial crisis as having irreparably damaged American power and credibility. But the United States is still Brazil’s second-largest trading partner. Although some American and Brazilian officials are keen to prevent ill-will over Iran from spoiling co-operation in other areas, it nevertheless may do so. The United States Congress may be even less willing to support the elimination of a tariff on Brazil’s sugar-based ethanol, for example.

Lula wants the UN reformed to reflect today’s world, with Brazil gaining a permanent seat on the Security Council. But by choosing to apply his views on how the world should be run to an issue of pressing concern to America and Europe, and in which Brazil has no obvious national interest, Lula may only have lessened the chances that he will get his way.

Lula skips G20 summit due to deadly Brazil floods

CHILE
Piñera’s (dis)approval

Entrevista a Josep Montaner, “El rol de la sociedad civil ha de ser activo en cualquier situación” Video in Spanish,

Josep Montaner _ Rol de la sociedad civil from Plataforma Urbana on Vimeo.

COLOMBIA
THOMSON: Santos sweeps to the presidency
Platform for security, stability and development win b

Good news from Colombia, but does Obama appreciate it?

Ros-Lehtinen: Recognizing Colombia’s presidential election and the U.S.-Colombia alliance Ros-Lehtinen Resolution on Colombia Elections Passes House

Will Washington treat Colombia’s Santos as an ally?

COSTA RICA
Father’s Day in Costa Rica

CUBA
When Learning Turns to Dust

“Cuba experts”

Ramiro on a hunger strike?

Syrian president due in Havana on Sunday

Interviews With Dr. Darsi Ferrer and Juan Juan Almeida

ECUADOR
UPDATE: Filmmakers Argue Against Ruling In Chevron Case

HONDURAS
A year without Mel Zelaya

More intromission by US Ambassador Llorens and G-16

JAMAICA
Mr Coke turns himself in

Jamaican drug lord captured

MEXICO
Mexican Violence Crosses Borders; Attracts Media Attention

Mexico Represents Single Biggest Drug Trafficking Threat to U.S.

NICARAGUA
Nicaragua’s Sandinistas accused of paying for power
Daniel Ortega’s ruling Sandinistas Front is using strong-arm tactics to limit opposition, observers say.

PANAMA
Washington Post on retiring to Panama

PARAGUAY
Journalists in the crosshairs of Paraguayan People’s Army

PERU
Peruvian Franken-Corn Defamation Case Update

Keiko Fujimori Leads Peru Presidential Poll, El Comercio Says

Keiko Fujimori says “I will be in the second round” for president of Peru in 2011

Peru judge rules Van der Sloot confession valid

PUERTO RICO

Students approve strike pact. Back in the olden days when I was a student at the UPR they were striking, too, but no one slept in cute little tents on campus. Either way, the strikes are a total waste of time.

VENEZUELA
Today’s podcast at 11AM Eastern: UN: Most of the cocaine going to Europe passes through Venezuela

The report launched by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) expresses concern about Venezuela due to the existence of cells of armed insurgent groups, such as the Bolivarian Liberation Front and civilian militias supported by the government.

WDR 2010 website. PDF file: full report.

Syrian president meets with Chavez in Caracas

Revolutionary Rot, But News It’s Not: AP Ignores Venezuela’s ‘Battle for Food‘, also at BizzyBlog

Como el paternalismo crea dictadores


A radical shift to the radical left in Venezuela

Ollie Loves Hugo & Hugo Loves Ollie

Le Monde criticizes the selling out of Venezuela to Cuba, Chavez gets revenge by taking away a minor farm of Diego Arria and Letter from Diego Arria to Hugo Chavez

VenEconomy: Venezuela Dominated By & Split Up Into Ghettos

Commie Despot Renegs On Debts, Seizes Oil Rigs

Today’s Video: Oligarchs vs. Bolivarians

Maria Conchita Alonso on Oliver Stone’s South of the Border (VIDEO)

HUMOR
My cousin sent this, Por que Cuba No fue a el Mundial Los Pichy Boys

The week’s posts and podcasts:
How about, Sayonara, Citgo?
Venezuela to nationalize U.S. firm’s oil rigs
Venezuela’s fast-track doctors
Jamaica: Dudus Coke in the can
Mexican gangs’ lookouts in Arizona
Rum war?
Obama Secretary of Labor: Illegals Have a Right to Fair Wages VIDEO
In Silvio Canto’s podcast.
In Rick Moran’s podcast.

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Filed Under: Argentina, Barbados, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Carnival of Latin America, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, drugs, Ecuador, Honduras, Jamaica, Maria Conchita Alonso, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Puerto Rico, Syria, UN, Venezuela Tagged With: cap and trade, Christopher "Dudus" Coke, Dr. Darsi Ferrer, Fausta's blog, G20, inauguration, Joran van der Sloot, Juan Juan Almeida, Keiko Fujimori, Manuel Zelaya, Mel Zelaya, UN Office on Drugs and Crime

May 15, 2010 By Fausta

The Looming Obama Debt Disaster

John Hinderaker takes a grim look at what’s to come when the national debt in the US (on a gross basis) will climb to above 100pc of GDP by 2015:

This graphic tells the story. Note what happened after the Democrats took control of Congress in 2007

By the way, this doesn’t include the effects of Cap and Trade if that passes.

More than 100% of Gross National Product. A banana republic scenario at best; Possibly, a collapse of democracy, too.

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Filed Under: Barack Obama, Congress, Democrats, economics, economy Tagged With: Cap and tax, cap and trade, Fausta's blog

May 15, 2010 By Fausta

The Looming Obama Debt Disaster

John Hinderaker takes a grim look at what’s to come when the national debt in the US (on a gross basis) will climb to above 100pc of GDP by 2015:

This graphic tells the story. Note what happened after the Democrats took control of Congress in 2007

By the way, this doesn’t include the effects of Cap and Trade if that passes.

More than 100% of Gross National Product. A banana republic scenario at best; Possibly, a collapse of democracy, too.

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Filed Under: Barack Obama, Congress, Democrats, economics, economy Tagged With: Cap and tax, cap and trade, Fausta's blog

May 13, 2010 By Fausta

Elena Kagan, Cap and Trade, and John Hawkins

In today’s podcast at 11AM Eastern,
John Hawkins talks about the SCOTUS nominee, and the latest in American politics

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Filed Under: Blog Talk Radio, politics Tagged With: cap and trade, Elena Kagan, Fausta's blog, John Hawkins, SCOTUS

May 13, 2010 By Fausta

Elena Kagan, Cap and Trade, and John Hawkins

In today’s podcast at 11AM Eastern,
John Hawkins talks about the SCOTUS nominee, and the latest in American politics

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Filed Under: Blog Talk Radio, politics Tagged With: cap and trade, Elena Kagan, Fausta's blog, John Hawkins, SCOTUS

May 11, 2010 By Fausta

CBO says ObamaCare will cost $115 billion more than thought

I was just saying in the prior post that taxes are going to rise so much, we’ll be thinking back to now as “the good old days.” Here’s one reason why:
CBO says ObamaCare will cost $115 billion more than thought

Of all the slime dripping from ObamaCare, from the de facto bribes to the procedural shenanigans to the Democrats’ insane demagoguery of townhall protesters, the gaming of the CBO numbers is what bothers me most. Which, in a way, is silly. When you’re talking about sums as fantastically astronomical as $940 billion, who cares what the actual pricetag is? But that’s just it: Obama pretended to care, touting the bending o’ the cost curve and demanding that the Democrats bring in a bill below the arbitrary yet politically toxic threshold of $1 trillion. And in order to make that happen, they were willing to tell any lie and pull any accounting trick that they had to, from rigging the cost window to obscure the actual $2.5 trillion pricetag to pouring the enormous costs of “doctor fix” into a separate bill so that it wouldn’t show up in the CBO data on O-Care to pushing the bill through the House before CBO was finished running the numbers. At a moment when Americans desperately need leaders to be frank with them about the cost of entitlements and what it’ll take to restore fiscal stability, Obama gave them a new entitlement built on lie after lie after lie. That’s the legacy of his signature domestic “achievement.”

If that doesn’t fill your heart with joy, Cap-and-Trade is back.

You really have to laugh to keep from crying.

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Filed Under: Barack Obama, health care, healthcare, taxes Tagged With: Cap and tax, cap and trade, CBO, Congressional Budget Office, Fausta's blog, ObamaCare

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