The Export-Import Bank Needs To Stay Dead.

The Export-Import Bank is dead. Let’s keep it that way.

This hoary relic of the Great Depression has been plagued with corruption and fraud. Its lending practices primarily benefit a handful of wealthy American mega-corporations and, far too often, unsavory interests abroad.

Ex-Im’s charter expired on June 30, but special interests continue to press Congress to revive it. Lawmakers wishing to keep this monument to crony capitalism dead and buried can draw some valuable “how-to” lessons from past successful efforts to resist wasteful special-interest pleadings.

In 1988 Congress established the BRAC (Base Realignment and Closure) Commission to close unnecessary and expensive military bases. For years, successive administrations had treated basing decisions as political bonbons, keeping certain bases open for their friends, while closing others.

Congressmen and senators were unwilling to bear the weight of making rational closure decisions themselves. Voting to close a base in one’s home state carried severe political risk. And if politicians in one state voted to close a base in another state, the congressmen and senators from that state would likely return the favor.

Local economies often grow dependent on military bases. So even if keeping a base open was fiscally irresponsible (from a federal perspective) and wholly unnecessary for the nation’s security, the parochial interests of constituents usually trumped national interests for congressmen and senators.

Enter, the BRAC process. It allowed lawmakers to escape voting on individual base closures. Instead, they would cast a single, up-or-down vote on a package of closures recommended by non-political and military experts. With this arrangement, members could reassure their constituents that they were acting in the best interest of the nation, not targeting a hometown base for closure.

Creating the BRAC Commissions process required strong congressional leadership, the same type of leadership that is desperately needed now to fight the favoritism and cronyism that pervades Washington.

Lawmakers should also look back to how they were finally able to ban “earmarks” four years ago. “Earmarking” was the appropriations practice that allowed members of congress to “bring home the bacon” by directing federal funds to friends and supporters back home. Over 70 percent of Americans believed earmarks were wasteful and should be discontinued. Privately, many members of congress agreed. But when a public vote was taken in the Senate in 2010, the proposed ban on earmarks failed 39 – 56.

Via: Daily Signal

Continue Reading....

Supreme Court Says Government Seizure of Raisins Is Unconstitutional

WASHINGTON –  The Supreme Court ruled on Monday that the government can't force raisin farmers to give up part of their annual crop for less than it's worth, a victory for conservative groups that hailed the decision as a win for private property rights.

The justices ruled 8-1 that a 1940s-era program born out of the Great Depression is unconstitutional because it allows federal officials to seize personal property from farmers without fully compensating them, even though the goal is to benefit farmers by stabilizing market prices.

The court sided with California farmers Marvin and Laura Horne, who claimed they were losing money under a program they called outdated and ineffective. They had been fined $695,000 for trying to get around it.

Writing for the court, Chief Justice John Roberts said the government must pay "just compensation" when it takes personal goods, just as when it takes land away.

Roberts rejected the government's argument that the Hornes voluntarily chose to participate in the raisin market and have the option of growing different crops if they don't like it.

"'Let them sell wine' is probably not much more comforting to the raisin growers than similar retorts have been to others throughout history," Roberts said. "Property rights cannot be so easily manipulated."

The case was considered one of the most important property disputes to reach the high court since 2005, when the justices ruled that the city of New London, Connecticut, could use the power of eminent domain to hand private homes or businesses to developers to help stimulate economic improvement. That case sparked a backlash in many states and led more than 40 state legislatures to pass laws protecting property rights.

Via: Fox News

Continue Reading....

Millionaire Congresswoman: Income Inequality is 'Existential Threat' to U.S.

(CNSNews.com) - Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), who is worth millions of dollars according to her congressional financial disclosure statement, says Congress needs to tackle income inequality because it “poses an existential threat to our nation and our way of life.”

On the House floor last Wednesday DeLauro said, “Every generation of leaders in this institution has faced their own time of testing. Whether it’s an economic panic, Great Depression, slavery, Jim Crow, Civil War, World War, Cold War. There are times when our country is confronted with a crisis that poses an existential threat to our nation and our way of life and Congress needs to stand up and act.”

“The test of our time is inequality,” DeLauro continued.  “It’s not too much to say that inequality threatens the continued existence of the middle class in America and even the American Dream itself.”

“The question before us now is: are we going to continue to be the land of opportunity, social mobility and the nation that forged the largest middle class in human history during the 20th century, or are we going to become a nation of very few haves and millions of have-nots?”

According to her congressional financial disclosure statement for 2012, DeLauro is worth between $5 million and $25 million. (The form’s requirements allow members to state ranges of value for their assets rather than exact values.)

VIA: CNS NEWS

CONTINUE READING.....

Welfare Nation by Bill O'Reilly

My parents were children during the Great Depression, and it scarred them, especially my father, who saw destitution in his Brooklyn, N.Y., neighborhood: adults standing in so-called "bread lines," children begging in the streets. My grandfather was a New York City cop, and so my dad did not suffer as others did. But he never forgot the brutal scenes and worked hard his whole life to build some financial independence.

Fast-forward to the severe recession of 2008, when millions of Americans lost jobs and equity in their homes. No bread lines, but much pain. The Obama administration responded by pouring trillions of dollars into stimulus and rescue programs, some of which succeeded in stabilizing tottering banks and auto companies. But along with that, the president and his acolytes openly encouraged Americans to use the welfare system. And now the entitlement culture has exploded.

According to the Census Bureau, more people in America today are on welfare than have full-time jobs. There is a culture of dependency being created that is truly shocking. A recent study by the Cato Institute concludes that welfare now pays more than minimum-wage work in 35 states. So why enter the workforce at the bottom if the government will give you the same compensation for sitting on your butt?

Some believe that the Democratic Party, which champions the entitlement culture, is doing so to assure future votes from those receiving benefits. And right now, about half of all American households are getting some kind of compensation from the feds. Some of that, such as Social Security and Medicare, has been earned. But nearly 50 million Americans are receiving food stamps, and 83 million are on Medicaid.

Via: TownHall

Continue Reading.....

EPIC FAIL: Now JIMMY CARTER is calling Obama an incompetent loser

It’s been a disastrous couple of weeks for President Barack Obama. His signature legislation, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, is a slow-motion train wreck. His poll numbers have tanked.

Now, things have gotten so bad for Obama that former president Jimmy Carter has called President Obama incompetent in the family-friendly pages of Parade magazine.

“He’s done the best he could under the circumstances,” Carter said of Obama in an interviewed published on Thursday. “His major accomplishment was Obamacare, and the implementation of it now is questionable at best.”

Carter presided over what was, until the current recession, the longest period of economic stagnation since the Great Depression. There was runaway inflation, high unemployment and an ongoing energy crisis. There was a hostage crisis in Iran involving the capture and imprisonment of 52 Americans for 444 days.

In the summer of 1979, Carter gave one of the least effective speeches any president in the history of the American presidency. The deeply unpopular “Crisis of Confidence” speech became widely known as Carter’s “malaise” speech.

Carter lost his 1980 reelection bid to Ronald Reagan by an electoral vote total of 489 to 49. He won only six states, along with the District of Columbia.

The 39th president’s Parade interview touched on several subjects in addition to Obamacare including his grandson’s role in a hidden camera video of Mitt Romney, the Middle East, the Trayvon Martin case and the recent  tribulations of fellow Georgian Paula Deen.

Carter’s wife Rosalynn was also present at the interview and contributed to it.

Via: Daily Caller

Continue Reading.....

10,000-word New Yorker article on rise in homelessness mentions ‘Barack Obama’ zero times

The New Yorker magazine’s latest issue features a nearly 10,000 word article on the rise in homelessness in New York City — but the piece doesn’t mention the name “Barack Obama” a single time.

According to the article, the number of homeless in New York City has exploded in recent years.

“For baseball games, Yankee Stadium seats 50,287. If all the homeless people who now live in New York City used the stadium for a gathering, several thousand of them would have to stand,” the article opens.

“More people in the city lack homes than at any time since . . . It’s hard to say exactly. The Coalition for the Homeless, a leading advocate for homeless people in the city and the state, says that these numbers have not been seen in New York since the Great Depression. The Bloomberg administration replies that bringing the Depression into it is wildly unfair, because those times were much worse, and, besides, for complicated reasons, you’re comparing apples and oranges. …In any case, it’s inescapably true that there are far more homeless people in the city today than there have been since ‘modern homelessness’ (as experts refer to it) began, back in the nineteen-seventies.”

Yet nowhere in the mammoth piece is President Obama’s economic record over the last five years even considered as a possible factor. The terms “Barack Obama” or “President Obama” don’t appear at all, though the term “Obama phones” comes up once:

“Nearby, a young man named Angel was helping a woman from Access Wireless hand out cell phones that were paid for by Medicaid,” the article reads. “He called them ‘Obama phones,’ because they were free.”

By contrast, a far more mild homelessness problem under President Ronald Reagan was universally deplored by the establishment media. As recently as September of this year, homelessness was cited by Salon as the centerpiece of the 40th president’s toxic legacy.

In his book “Bias: A CBS Insider Exposes How the Media Distort the News,” former CBS reporter Bernie Goldberg used the media’s reporting on homelessness as an example of its bias against conservatives.

Via: Daily Caller

Continue Reading.....

Treasury Warns of Disaster if Congress Allows Default

THESE ARE SCARE TACTICS THAT JUST WON'T WORK!!

The Treasury Department warned of catastrophe that could plunge the nation into the worst recession since the Great Depression if Congress fails to raise the debt ceiling.

“A default would be unprecedented and has the potential to be catastrophic: credit markets could freeze, the value of the dollar could plummet, and U.S. interest rates could skyrocket, potentially resulting in a financial crisis and recession that could echo the events of 2008 or worse,” the Treasury said in a press release.

“In the event of a default, the U.S. economy could be plunged into a recession worse than any seen since the Great Depression,” the department said.

Even brinkmanship without a default could cause interest rates to rise and the loss of trillions of dollars in household wealth.

“Postponing a debt ceiling increase to the very last minute is exactly what our economy does not need — a self-inflicted wound harming families and businesses,” Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew warned in a statement.

The Treasury also warned that the government shutdown would exacerbate the economic hit from a default.

President Barack Obama, however, has repeatedly said that he will not negotiate a deal to raise the debt ceiling, insisting that Republicans not hold the debt hostage to other demands.

Via: Roll Call

Continue Reading....

Here Is The White House Spin On Today's Disappointing Economic Data…

Here Is The White House Spin On Today's Disappointing Economic Data

Full statement from the White House's Alan Krueger:

Today's Economic Data

More than the usual amount of economic statistics were released this morning. As a whole, today’s economic news shows that while we are still fighting back from the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, we are making progress. We lost more than 8 million jobs and GDP contracted by almost 5 percent as a result of the Great Recession. We have more work to do, but incorporating today’s preliminary benchmark revision to the employment figures released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics with their earlier data indicates that the economy has added nearly 5.1 million private sector jobs, on net, over the past 30 months. BLS announced that total employment likely grew by 386,000 more jobs than previously announced during the 12 months from March 2011 to March 2012, and by 453,000 more private sector jobs in that same time period. In the past decade, the absolute difference between the preliminary and final benchmark revision has averaged 37,000 jobs.

We also saw revised data released today showing that real GDP grew in the second quarter of 2012 by 1.3 percent at an annual rate. Real GDP growth in the second quarter was revised down due, in part, to a downward revision to agriculture inventories as a result of the devastating drought our nation faced this summer. The Obama Administration continues to take all available steps to mitigate the impacts of the drought, and has called on Congress to pass a farm bill that would spur growth and provide rural Americans with the certainty they deserve. We also learned today that the advance report of durable goods orders declined in August, largely as a result of a decline in orders for transportation equipment. Excluding the volatile transportation category, durable goods orders fell by 1.6 percent.

Today’s news shows that we must do more to strengthen our economy and promote job creation. Over a year ago, President Obama proposed the American Jobs Act – a plan that independent economists have said would create up to 2 million jobs. The President will continue to push policies that will continue this progress we have made, including incentives to strengthen the American manufacturing industry, investments in our nation’s infrastructure, and the extension of the tax cuts for 98 percent of Americans and 97 percent of small businesses.

Via: Fox News

Continue Reading

Barack Obama to hail himself as the new Franklin D. Roosevelt: President promises 'bold, persistent' leadership like FDR during the Great Depression

President Barack Obama will tonight lay out his case for being re-elected to a second term by comparing himself to Franklin D. Roosevelt, who won an unprecedented three presidential elections and led America to recovery after the Great Depression.

He will say: 'And the truth is, it will take more than a few years for us to solve challenges that have built up over decades. It will require common effort, shared responsibility, and the kind of bold, persistent experimentation that Franklin Roosevelt pursued during the only crisis worse than this one.'

Obama will formally accept the Democratic presidential nomination, capping a week in which speeches from his wife Michelle Obama and Bill Clinton, the husband of his erstwhile rival, received widespread praise.

He will tell Americans: 'Our problems can be solved. Our challenges can be met. The path we offer may be harder, but it leads to a better place.'

Roosevelt dominated American politics for the 12 years of his presidency and beyond. He is commonly recognised as the greatest Democratic president and, along with George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, one of the three greatest American presidents.

Not only did he bring America out of the depression, he oversaw the introduction of the New Deal social programmes, laid the foundations for the United Nations and led the country in the Second World War after the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor, dying just when victory was in sight.

Excerpts from tonight's speech released in advance showed that Obama would attempt to frame the election not as a referendum on his four-year term, during which unemployment has risen to 8.3 per cent, leaving more than 23 million Americans out of work, but as a choice between him and Mitt Romney, the Republican nominee.

'On every issue, the choice you face won’t be just between two candidates or two parties,' he was due to say. 'It will be a choice between two different paths for America. A choice between two fundamentally different visions for the future.'

This November's election, he argued, will represent 'the clearest choice of any time in a generation' between two different visions.

Via: Mail OnLine

Continue Reading...

CLINTON: NOTHING COULD BE MORE FRIGHTENING THAN FOUR MORE YEARS

Okay, who’s the quisling at the DNC who said of the president:

A record of failure. The highest unemployment in eight years. The worst economic record since the Great Depression.  Aren’t you ready to say enough is enough?

This fifth-column spy also said of the president:

The worst economic record of any president in 50 years. Nothing could be more frightening than four more years.

Why, it’s Bill Clinton –from attack ads he ran in 1992 against George H. Bush.

You mean the honorary president of the Treat Women with Dignity Foundation is being hypocritical?

That’s correct. The same guy who has a record of abusing women, yet will act as if he’s fighting against the “War on Women,” is somehow going to twist himself in knots trying to explain that a president who has an exponentially worse record on the economy than George H. Bush should be reelected.

It’s ironic to see a man who once asked women to bend every-which-way for him contort himself into a pretzel – all because he’s shilling for someone whose kind of economic record he once gleefully attacked.

Go ahead, Mr. Clinton.  It’s your reputation, stupid.

Via: Breitbart

Continue Reading...

EDITORIAL: Labor Day Is No Holiday Without a Job

AP Graphics

EDITORIAL: Another bummer Obama day
Labor Day is no holiday without a job

By The Washington Times

For 23 million Americans without jobs, the Labor Day holiday is not a day off but just another day without work. It’s a fitting hash mark for the presidential campaign kickoff, reminding Americans of President Obama’s tragic failure to deliver.

In 2009, Mr. Obama promised to lower unemployment to 5.5 percent by 2012. It’s stuck at 8.3 percent. In his first budget, hopefully titled “A New Era of Responsibility,” he projected current growth in the gross domestic product would be a red-hot 6.3 percent. Instead, the country creeps along at a miserable 1.5 percent. One measure of the Obama administration’s desperation is Labor Secretary Hilda L. Solis applauding the latest youth unemployment figures, which dipped all the way to 17.1 percent. When numbers that high make officials “excited,” you know things are terrible.

From the White House perspective, this isn’t all bad news. The Obama administration thinks unemployment actually can be healthy for the economy. Obama press secretary Jay Carney said last year that jobless benefits somehow boost consumption and “every place that, that money is spent has added business and that creates growth and income for businesses that leads them to decisions about jobs, more hiring.” By that confused illogic, Mr. Obama should be cheering the worst sustained unemployment rate since the Great Depression. Congratulations, that’s a heckuva job, Barack. Apparently, the president’s re-election slogan, “Forward,” actually means “Reverse.”

Labor Day also draws attention to the role of organized labor in American public life. A new Gallup survey shows 52 percent of the public approves of unions while 42 percent disapproves. A lot has changed since the 1950s, when old Big Labor — the United Auto Workers, the United Mine Workers, the Teamsters — had a 75 percent approval rating. Back then, workers built things. The new Big Labor — the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees and the Service Employees International Union — represents the service sector and public employees. Their influence grows through securing sweetheart deals from governments populated with the politicians they helped elect. Eventually, the cost of these deals becomes too great for states and municipalities to sustain. Even with these jurisdictions on the brink of bankruptcy, the unions refuse to give on any aspect of their plush compensation packages. Their answer is always the same: Raise taxes and fees; do anything it takes to extract more money from the public to keep alive the government golden goose.

Via: The Washington Times

Continue Reading...