The (sordid) SOTU

I expected this to be depressing, and I wasn't disappointed. Sure, he painted a very bleak picture, but that had nothing to do with my disposition. It was the remedies he was proposing that sunk my disposition lower than the Mariana Trench.

First of all, this speech was designed to make sure that Bush gets the blame, and I understand and accept that. Comes with the territory. And Bush is not totally blameless. If he would have vetoed everything coming out of the 110th congress, plus seen to it that the CRA was repealed, then none of this (including the election of a socialist president) would have happened. So be it. Obama is within his rights to set everything up as a Bush induced problem. I'll leave the sorting out of that to the historians. Bush failed to defend the constitution. Fine. Now what is Obama going to do differently?

Your first clue would be the constant and incessant jumping up and cheering by (spender in chief) Pelosi whenever Obama mentioned another mind bogglingly huge spending proposition.

Another clue was his singling out little Ty'Sheoma for writing a letter to Congress about education. She looked like someone who was being congratulated in front of class for doing a homework assignment. What's the big deal? She just did what she was told to do. Never mind that the education system is not legally connected to nor should it be dependent on the federal government,; and a truly well educated schoolchild would know that. If she would have sent the letter to her school corporation, that would get an "A". This paper gets a "C". So, it appears Obama's education goals are for "C" level work even ahead of "A" and "B".

Obama talks about making sure the top 2% of wage earners send their money to Timothy Geithner instead of using it to create private sector jobs. Without even the slightest hint of irony in his voice. How exactly does he propose to classify "the wealthy"? If it really is families who make over $250,000 / year, we will have fewer families producing that amount. What's good or useful about that? The so called wealthy are smart enough not to make $250,001. They are smart enough to place their money into hard assets. What then? Tax revenue will drop significantly. So, not only will the economy continue to fall, tax revenue will fall, as well. And with all this spending going on, it doesn't take Geithner's accountant to know what happens next.

And then there's 95% of working households that will receive a tax cut. Note that tax cut as used here is actually a transfer payment, so it really means free money, at least to those who have zero net taxes. It seems like that detail is often lost on pundits. Regardless of how our collective wealth is redistributed I always find it helpful to calculate my share of the expenses, and compare it to my budget. 750 Billion dollars is about ten grand per family. So, if you are going to spend 10 grand of my money, it better be on something worthwhile. I don't think charitable redistribution would be on my short list. In fact, it just makes my dollars worth less, and the companies that use my dollars require more of them to provide the same service. Sorry to boil it down and ruin the president's fun.

Tax credits for college? $2500? Artificially subsidizing college will just raise college costs. Probably by $2600. Net result is less, but the teachers will sure like it.

Finally, the nationalization of banks. What to say about that? Well, I'm as good at running banks as I am at running the post office. Now as long as I'm a shareholder in the banks, I just have to vote for bankers to watch out for my interests. Steve Forbes, anyone?

I'm going to let others tally up all the cash register rings in this speech. I'm too depressed.

The (sorta) SOTU

Your Wizer hasn't had a chance to break down the State of the Union speech, but I promise some analysis by the weekend. In the meantime, if you want a quick read of what was covered, Rich Galen mulls on it here.

Slap me aside the head.

How stupid of me. I did it again this month. Month after month. I paid again on my mortgage. How could I have been so dense?

Parsing the Spendulus Speech, Part V

As you know, your Wizer likes to examine the math:

CBO estimates that enacting the conference agreement for H.R. 1
would increase federal budget deficits by $185 billion over the remaining
months of fiscal year 2009, by $399 billion in 2010, by $134 billion in
2011, and by $787 billion over the 2009-2019 period -- Congressional Budget Office, letter from Douglas Elmendorf to Nancy Pelosi, Friday, February 13, 2009

So, now, by popular demand, we hereby complete our series on analyzing the president's spendulus speech from "Fatter Tuesday "

And it’s a plan that rewards responsibility, lifting two million Americans from poverty by ensuring that anyone who works hard does not have to raise a child below the poverty line. As a whole, this plan will help poor and working Americans pull themselves into the middle class in a way we haven’t seen in nearly fifty years. What I am signing, then, is a balanced plan with a mix of tax cuts and investments.


So, does Barry really know what he signed? He was not familiar with the Gitmo order, and it was only a few pages long. This one is over 1000 pages. Anyway, his "people" have no doubt told him that this plan has balance. It really doesn't, and I know that because it doesn't have to have balance. Emanual was not going to waste this opportunity, no sir. And here he and Obama are picking and choosing who they want to put into the middle class. If they would stop trying to classify everybody, maybe they'd find out people are happy wherever they are on the economic scale.



It is a plan that’s been put together without earmarks or the usual pork barrel spending. And it is a plan that will be implemented with an unprecedented level of transparency and accountability. With a recovery package of this scale comes a responsibility to assure every taxpayer that we are being careful with the money they work so hard to earn.

If it's all the same to Barry and Rahm, I'd be happy if they would carefully put our money down and back away. No, I know it's not going to happen, but the image of them being forced to back away is a powerful dream.

That’s why I am assigning a team of managers to ensure that the precious dollars we have invested are being spent wisely and well. We will hold the governors and local officials who receive money to the same high standards. And we expect you, the American people, to hold us accountable for the results. That is why we have created Recovery.gov – so every American can go online and see how their money is being spent.

Hoo boy, that will be an adventure. I'm picturing an advanced dungeons and dragonsy game where bags of gold are dropped all over the place, and then more bags, and then some more. What characters should we play? I'd like to be Spendulus. You can be Porky.

As important as the step we take today is, this legislation represents only the first part of the broad strategy we need to address our economic crisis. In the coming days and weeks, I will be launching other aspects of the plan. We will need to stabilize, repair, and reform our banking system, and get credit flowing again to families and businesses.

Translation: If that doesn't work, we'll try something else. There are still blank checks in the checkbook.

We will need to end a culture where we ignore problems until they become full-blown crises instead of recognizing that the only way to build a thriving economy is to set and enforce firm rules of the road.

The American people will settle instead for a government that does not create more problems than it solves.

We must stem the spread of foreclosures and falling home values for all Americans, and do everything we can to help responsible homeowners stay in their homes, something I will talk more about tomorrow. And while we need to do everything in the short-term to get our economy moving again, we must recognize that having inherited a trillion-dollar deficit, we need to begin restoring fiscal discipline and taming our exploding deficits over the long-term. None of this will be easy.

Oh, responsible homeowners? Okay, so you guys over there that are irresponsible, you go home. We have to leave 3 or 4 of you out to make it look like we care about this trillion dollar deficit.

The road to recovery will not be straight and true. It will demand courage and discipline, and a new sense of responsibility that has been missing – from Wall Street to Washington. There will be hazards and reverses along the way. But I have every confidence that if we are willing to continue doing the difficult work that must be done – by each of us and by all of us – then we will leave this struggling economy behind us, and come out on the other side, more prosperous as a people. For our American story is not – and has never been – about things coming easy. It’s about rising to the moment when the moment is hard, converting crisis into opportunity, and seeing to it that we emerge from whatever trials we face stronger than we were before. It’s about rejecting the notion that our fate is somehow written for us, and instead laying claim to a destiny of our own making. That is what earlier generations of Americans have done, and that is what we are doing today. Thank you.

I think Obama is smart enough to know that the American economy is likely to cycle up in three years even despite the spendulus package. He will get away with this, not because of the spending, but in spite of it. Unfortunately, the permanent damage will be extensive and unrepentantly stubborn. Everything will seem wonderful by 2012, and that will be enough to trick the people who voted for him to do it again. It's too bad he couldn't choose to have a recovery in 2010 instead, and let the economy grow from there.

Parsing the Spendulus Speech, Part IV

A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking about real money. -- Senator Everett Dirksen (R) IL

Looks like Fat Tuesday has come a week early -- The Wizer

Now Continuing our public service of parsing the spendulus speech:

Because we know we can’t power America’s future on energy that’s controlled by foreign dictators, we are taking a big step down the road to energy independence, and laying the groundwork for a new, green energy economy that can create countless well-paying jobs. It’s an investment that will double the amount of renewable energy produced over the next three years, and provide tax credits and loan guarantees to companies like Namaste Solar, a company that will be expanding, instead of laying people off, as a result of the plan I am signing. In the process, we will transform the way we use energy.

Companies like Namaste? Doesn't this signal a clear intention of the Obama regime to pick and choose the winners in the market? Why not let "countless well paying jobs" occur organically, by creating the environment where all companies, not just a select few can prosper.

Today, the electricity we use is carried along a grid of lines and wires that dates back to Thomas Edison – a grid that can’t support the demands of clean energy. This means we’re using 19th and 20th century technologies to battle 21st century problems like climate change and energy security. It also means that places like North Dakota can produce a lot of wind energy, but can’t deliver it to communities that want it, leading to a gap between how much clean energy we are using and how much we could be using.

Battling climate change? I thought Obama was all about change. In any case, if building windmills in North Dakota is a good idea, we should get out of the way and let the private sector do it.

The investment we are making today will create a newer, smarter electric grid that will allow for the broader use of alternative energy. We will build on the work that’s being done in places like Boulder, Colorado – a community that is on pace to be the world’s first Smart Grid city. This investment will place Smart Meters in homes to make our energy bills lower, make outages less likely, and make it easier to use clean energy.

"Smart meters"? If it makes energy bills lower, wouldn't the users themselves be motivated to install these "smart meters". It becomes less smart these installations are subsidized by all, yet benefit very few.

It’s an investment that will save taxpayers over one billion dollars by slashing energy costs in our federal buildings by 25% and save working families hundreds of dollars a year on their energy bills by weatherizing over one million homes.

There are 119,117,000 homes in the USA. Which "million" does Obama propose to start with? And, how do you determine whether they are working families or not? Obama talks a lot about helping the working families. Somehow, I don't think he means to exclude non-working families.

And it’s an investment that takes the important first step towards a nationwide transmission superhighway that will connect our cities to the windy plains of the Dakotas and the sunny deserts of the Southwest. Even beyond energy, from the National Institutes of Health to the National Science Foundation, this recovery act represents the biggest increase in basic research funding in the long history of America’s noble endeavor to better understand our world. Just as President Kennedy sparked an explosion of innovation when he set America’s sights on the moon, I hope this investment will ignite our imagination once more, spurring new discoveries and breakthroughs that will make our economy stronger, our nation more secure, and our planet safer for our children.

Feeding the bureacracy isn't going to get us back to the moon. What exactly are these institutions challenged to do? I don't see the big visionary scenario; the one big idea. Kennedy's goal was not controversial, so there were few people who thought it necessary to speak out. In retrospect, the goal was certainly expensive, and we got a few moon-rocks to show for it. Let's hope there is more to show after this money goes up like a Saturn V.

While this package is mostly composed of critical investments, it also includes aid to state and local governments to prevent layoffs of firefighters or police recruits – recruits like the ones in Columbus, Ohio who were told that instead of being sworn-in as officers, they would be let go.

Picking the winners and losers among the police departments in Columbus Ohio hardly seems like it should be among the priorities of a federal government. Ohio should be bristling at this presumptuous interference from the government. Further, if the recruits were worthy enough, they would eventually be hired by the same entity, and taxpayer subsidization would be unnecessary.

It includes help for those hardest hit by our economic crisis like the nearly 18 million Americans who will get larger unemployment checks in the mail. And about a third of this package comes in the form of tax cuts – the most progressive in our history – not only spurring job-creation, but putting money in the pockets of 95% of all hardworking families. Unlike tax cuts we’ve seen in recent years, the vast majority of these tax benefits will go not to the wealthiest Americans but to the middle class – with those workers who make the least benefiting the most.

Oh, so that explains it. All of our problems have been caused by the wealthy. There are 18 million unemployed. We want to help 95% of hardworking families, and then there's the middle class. Why not have everyone wear a label? Mr. Obama needs to understand that we are all Americans. We do not consider ourselves members of any group (wealthy, middle, hardworking, non-working, Italian, Greek, Green, or any other group). We want solutions that benefit everybody, and don't single out a so-called group for which it will or won't help.

Parsing the Spendulus Speech, Part III

Never let a serious crisis go to waste. What I mean by that is it's an opportunity to do things you couldn't do before -- White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanual


Continuing our parsing of Tuesday's Spendulus Speech by Barry Obama:


It’s an investment that will create a new $2,500 annual tax credit to put the dream of a college degree within reach for middle class families and make college affordable for seven million students, helping more of our sons and daughters aim higher, reach farther, and fulfill their God-given potential.


A tax incentive will get more kids in school, but when you artificially increase demand for something, the prices go up. In all likelihood, the prices will go up a full 2500 dollars per family. Who wins this game? Only the schools. And since it does not discriminate between good schools and bad schools, the results are unintended consequences of rewarding poor teaching performance.


Because we know that spiraling health care costs are crushing families and businesses alike, we are taking the most meaningful steps in years towards modernizing our health care system. It’s an investment that will take the long overdue step of computerizing America’s medical records – to reduce the duplication and waste that costs billions of health care dollars and the medical errors that every year cost thousands of lives.

I fail to see the connection between economic stimulus and letting big brother consolidate my medical records.


Further, thanks to the action we have taken, seven million Americans who lost their health care along with their jobs will continue to get the coverage they need, and roughly 20 million more can breathe a little easier, knowing that their health care won’t be cut due to a state budget shortfall.


People who have lost jobs already have an option for health care. It's called COBRA, and the system seems to work pretty well.

And an historic commitment to wellness initiatives will keep millions of Americans from setting foot in the doctor’s office for purely preventable diseases.

They do that in Canada. Millions of Canadians are kept from setting foot in the doctor's office. They don't seem to like that system.

Taken together with the enactment earlier this month of a long-delayed law to extend health care to millions more children of working families, we have done more in 30 days to advance the cause of health reform than this country has done in a decade.

Health reform does not advance when you shuffle insurace from the private sector to the public. In fact, it is retarded. Government intermediation in the process is inefficient, and the costs and bureacracy accelerates. Meanwhile, the healthcare does not improve. The correct measure would be to make the process more transparent. Why not consider a rule requiring people to pay at least 20% out of pocket. That way, you would see a much more responsive health care sector emerge. With $10 deductible, the patient has no motivation to seek out the most efficient solution. With a straight percentage, everybody gets smarter.

Parsing the Spendulus Speech, Part II

Continuing our series of parsing out Barack Obama's "Spendulus Speech" Tuesday in Denver.

Because of this investment, nearly 400,000 men and women will go to work rebuilding our crumbling roads and bridges, repairing our faulty dams and levees, bringing critical broadband connections to businesses and homes in nearly every community in America, upgrading mass transit, and building high-speed rail lines that will improve travel and commerce throughout the nation.

Some bridges are meant to crumble. The federal government is in a poor position to know which bridges are useful, and which are not. In the best case, there's a bit of unfairness about the priorities being decided in Washington DC; but in the more typical case, it is indiscriminate spending. Who is to say where high speed rail lines help the public, or simply draw business away from already subsidized existing lines?

Because we know America can’t outcompete the world tomorrow if our children are being outeducated today, we are making the largest investment in education in our nation’s history. It’s an investment that will create jobs building 21st century classrooms, libraries, and labs for millions of children across America. It will provide funds to train a new generation of math and science teachers, while giving aid to states and school districts to stop teachers from being laid off and education programs from being cut. In New York City alone, 14,000 teachers who were set to be let go may now be able to continue pursuing their critical mission.

The largest investment in education in our nation's history? Excuse me, didn't we just do that with "No Child Left Behind"? Putting another big bag of money on the NEA administrator's desks is not going to help anything. What is needed is a total rethink of education where schools have to compete for students, not have them shuffled in and out like processed feed corn. Don't you think that the 14,000 teachers amassed at the exits in New York are possibly the least capable of teachers? If they aren't then why would New York keep lesser talent and push out the bright ones. If they are, then why should the taxpayer subsidize their retention?

To be continued.

Parsing the Spendulus Speech, Part I

Tuesday in Denver, Barry Obama outdid Herbert Hoover and FDR combined, by signing a 1000 page spending bill made up entirely from Nancy Pelosi's backlog of pet pork projects. He delivered it with a speech.

Let's get right to it, shall we?

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act that I will sign today – a plan that meets the principles I laid out in January – is the most sweeping economic recovery package in our history.

Use of the term "sweeping" may be quite apt. Pelosi swept up all the refuse from the last two years into one pile, and stapled it together for the president to sign.


It is the product of broad consultations – and the recipient of broad support – from business leaders, unions, and public interest groups, the Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers, Democrats and Republicans, mayors as well as governors.

Wait, the US Chamber of Commerce said it "does not want president-elect Barack Obama creating another New Deal as part of his economic stimulus plans. " So, where does Obama get the right to claim an endorsement from the CofC? Should we start counting the misrepresentations now?

It is a rare thing in Washington for people with such different viewpoints to come together and support the same bill, and on behalf of our nation, I thank them for it, including your two outstanding new Senators, Michael Bennet and Mark Udall.

Two Thoughts: One, there are no differing viewpoints among the purveyors of this piece of work. They are all of a single mind on it. They are zombies for this stuff. Two, what makes Bennet and Udall outstanding, other than the fact that they will soon have more experience as senators than Obama had?

I also want to thank my Vice President Joe Biden for working behind the scenes from the very start to make this recovery act possible. I want to thank Speaker Pelosi and Harry Reid for acting so quickly and proving that Congress could step up to this challenge. I want to thank Max Baucus, Chairman of the Finance Committee, without whom none of this would have happened. And I want to thank all the Committee Chairs and members of Congress for coming up with a plan that is both bold and balanced enough to meet the demands of this moment.

At least we have all the suspects in the lineup now. And "stepping up" isn't quite the appropriate word: It was more like a hog stampede.

The American people were looking to them for leadership, and that is what they provided.

I suppose every hog stampede has to have its lead hogs.


What makes this recovery plan so important is not just that it will create or save three and a half million jobs over the next two years, including nearly 60,000 in Colorado. It’s that we are putting Americans to work doing the work that America needs done in critical areas that have been neglected for too long – work that will bring real and lasting change for generations to come.


Create or save? That's pretty wiggly. How is it that jobs are "saved" by this? Can it be that my company won't lay me off because we are building a highway in Utah? Or is it more jobs in Utah? That can't be it, because any government conscription of the construction talent removes that person from the private workforce.

3-1/2 million jobs. Even if you hire all of them to build bridges to nowheres, how does this help the economy? What wealth has been created? More importantly, what does this have to do with the essential functions of the federal government (yes, I digress, but the topic keeps coming up).

Because we know we can’t build our economic future on the transportation and information networks of the past, we are remaking the American landscape with the largest new investment in our nation’s infrastructure since Eisenhower built an interstate highway system in the 1950s.

We can't build an economic future at all if we spend our dwindling resources on make work projects. If instead you create an environment where people can voluntarily improve the infrastructure, then you have something. For the government to remake the landscape is a frightening vision. Eisenhower built the highways for defense purposes. If we instead invest in our defense capabilities, good civilian use will come from that too.

To be continued.

Do I have this right?

I always like to check the math.

Let's see, there's 780 Billion of borrowed money about to be spent. That works out to about $10,000 per US family (Approximately 75 million families, assuming not everybody has octuplets), right? $10,000, and keep in mind that this is only one bill. The total bill for the year is going to run upwards of $40,000, since we already spend 30,000 of your money every year. But let's say we're talking about just this $10,000. It's all borrowed money.

Okay, and the "stimulus" part is an 800 dollar tax credit. 800 dollars. One time. Tax credit. Now, if we put that 800 dollars in the bank at, say, 10% interest, we can pay back the 10,000 tab in, let's see, it works out to about 26-1/2 years.

So, we need to spend 10,000 to get back 800. Then we have to hear that we are "doing it for the children". My children are smart enough to ask that we don't do them any favors. In fact, I found myself apologizing to the kids over dinner last night for what we were about to do. Hated to make it their problem, but I explained to them that it's what democracies do just before they collapse.

In case you want to say something...

The era of big government is over -- William Jefferson Clinton, January 27, 1996


In case you want to say something like:

Dear Senator Porkfest,

Please vote against the (800 -- no 900 -- no 800 billion dollar) spending bill. To increase spending by 30% when the rest of us are taking a 30% haircut shows very poor judgment.

http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm