Do not pass go, to not collect $200.00. We're not dealing with
monopoly money here. The fate of our future generations
is at stake! Socialism is eminent !
Click on these links to
Contact your Congressman
or
Senator directly. Contact the Whitehouse
Call the Congressional Toll-Free Switchboard:
1-866-340-9281 Here are some important Washington State phone
numbers where you can voice your opinion:
Group one:
These are the achievers, those who strive, work hard and are
rewarded with the fruits of their toil.
Group two: The
non-achievers. This group seldom exerts the extra effort required
to rise above their station and attain theirperceived goals. They are dissatisfied with
their lot in life and spend much of their lives in envy of the
achievers.
Group three:
This segment consists of those who contribute absolutely nothing,
yet demand equity based on the labor andachievement of society as a
whole.
Of these three groups, some
ride bicycles, some drive Chevys and Fords and others drive
Cadillac�s. Some just don�t.
That�s just the way it
is.
In our Republic we have a
Constitution and a Bill of Rights. These are the cornerstones
on which our Republic was founded. Within this framework are
three guarantees, the right to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of
Happiness.
Man�s life, liberty and
property are held sacred and protected by this constitutional
framework and the government is simply an extension of mans basic
rights. Any attempt to engage in the confiscation or the
conscription of the fruit of one mans labor, by either man or
government, in order to provide goods or service to another is an
act of illegal plunder and as such should be protested and resisted
by all.
And so on to the issues of �Cap and Trade� and �Government
Health Care�.
Whether or not each of these
issues may or may not have perceived benefits in the eye of the
beholder is not the question or the issue. The question is,
�Are they acts of illegal plunder?� and �Are they in defiance of
the very Constitution and Bill of Rights this country was founded
on?� The simple and unequivocal answer in each of these
instances is a resounding yes.
As such they should be
resisted to the extreme. Call your congressman, your
senators, your representatives, your family, your friends and your
neighbors and stop this madness.
If love of country and our way of life are not enough to instill
a sense of reason
The national debt as of this
years budget is an estimated five times the amount of last
years budget. All within one year. With Health Care and
Cap and Trade this number will rise
exponentially.
Do we want to place our
faith and trust in the same people who ran the railroads into
oblivion, who oversee our failing Postal System, the Barny Franks
and Senator Dodd who ran oversight on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac
which triggered our current state of economy, to those entrusted
with our Social Security program, Medicaid and Medicare who have
voted themselves exempt? Do we want these folks to control our very
livelihood and well being?
Stimulus Report Card Gets a Failing
Grade
September 4, 2009
Yesterday, on the 200th day since its enactment,
Vice President Joe Biden defended the
President's $787 billion
economic "stimulus." First, he
said it was "to bring relief to those hardest hit by the
recession." But an analysis by ProPublica found that there's "no
relationship between where the money is going and unemployment and
poverty." The Associated Press reports that distribution of the
funds was guided more by politics than need. The New York Times adds that
the "transparency" promised by President Obama is practically
nonexistent, with most federal agencies failing to report lobbying
contacts. Biden's next standard was "to jump-start the economy by
giving assistance to states."
On the day the "stimulus" was enacted, the
national unemployment rate was 7.6 percent--today it is 9.7
percent. At least 16 states have unemployment rates of
over 10 percent. Joe Biden's final measure was "to reinvest in
existing infrastructure and lay a platform for the economic growth
in future in energy, education and health care." The spending
"targets" read more like a rap sheet than an investment in the
future. Funds went to "bail out" such things as shows about
perverts and to run porn films, courtesy of Speaker Nancy Pelosi
(D-Calif.). Other funds potentially went to house sex offenders and
predators in Florida and the mob in the New York City area. Vice
President Biden might see the stimulus bill as a success, but by
his own standards it has been a very expensive failed
experiment.
As of Friday, August 14, 2009, the FDIC is now Bankrupt The Sovereign Society Offshore
A-Letter
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
That�s right, friend.
Read that headline again. Commit it to memory.
Unlike the JFK assassination and the 9/11 attacks, most Americans
won�t remember where they were when they first heard the
news.
Most Americans won�t even hear the
news�
Even though it could have a much greater impact
on their lives and livelihood than either of the other two
catastrophes�
�The DIF is
Toast�
But it�s the truth�as Mike Shedlock points out,
�If indeed US$641 million was all that remained of the DIF [Deposit
Insurance Fund] the FDIC is now bankrupt. Of the US$641 million
left, Community bank used up 781.5 million and Colonial Bank US$2.8
Billion.�
And we checked his math.
From a starting point of US$53 Billion in 2008
� through the 77 bank failures this year alone � the DIF has
dwindled to zero.
Just in case you�re having trouble, your first
reaction should be a mixture of shock and disgust. How � after
being paid decades of insurance premiums from all of America�s
deposit-taking institutions � could the FDIC go bankrupt after the
first wave of bank failures?
How is that even possible?
Well, first�they haven�t exactly been
�collecting premiums� per se.
That�s right, in good times the FDIC has one
job. To bother banks for comparatively tiny insurance payments. But
for most of the time between 1995 and 2006, they collected nothing.
Zero.. Apparently they had no authority to force banks to pay their
premiums, so they simply disregarded the job.
Then, as soon as the crisis broke in American
banks, the FDIC more than doubled its liabilities�taking their
maximum coverage from US$100,000 per account to
US$250,000.
Was there a corresponding crackdown on
premiums? Did they start charging banks twice as much for the
insurance, or at least collect the missing premiums from the past
decade?
Of course not.
Instead, they were comfortable with what
dwindled to a .014% coverage on their assets. That is to say that
for every dollar the FDIC covered, they had 1.4 cents in reserve to
insure that dollar..
"It is asinine to assume you can spend your way out
of debt! It is doubly asinine to assume
that you can borrow your way out of debt!"Andy
Stevens, 2009
If you think the Bailout is a good idea take a
look at the following,H.R. 1.
I have not personally verified all of the
included information. I have however, heard verifying reports
and much discussion regarding it on the news.
Clueless Fed Inspector
General! This is too
frightening. Who is minding the store? Inspector General of the
Federal Reserve�..testifying�she doesn�t have a
clue�..
Fannie plans bonuses of $1M for 4
execs
AP Real Estate Writer Wednesday March 18, 2009, 8:33 pm EDT
Fannie Mae plans bonuses of $1M for
top executives; Freddie Mac has similar plans
WASHINGTON (AP) --
Fannie Mae plans to pay retention bonuses of at least $1 million to
four key executives as part of a plan to keep hundreds of employees
from leaving the government-controlled company.
Rival mortgage finance company Freddie Mac is
planning similar awards, but has not yet reported on which
executives will benefit.
The two companies, which together own or back
more than half of the home mortgages in the country, have been
hobbled by skyrocketing loan defaults. Fannie recently requested
$15 billion in federal aid, while Freddie has sought a total of
almost $45 billion.
Fannie Mae disclosed its "broad-based"
retention program in a recent regulatory filing with the Securities
and Exchange Commission. The company was only required to disclose
the amounts for the top-paid executives, who will pocket at least
$470,000 on top of their base salaries.
The bonuses are more than double last year's,
which ranged from $200,000 to $260,000. Another round of bonuses
ranging from $330,000 to $429,000 are planned for next
February.
A company spokesman declined further
comment.
Fannie Mae said regulators determined
that the bonuses were needed because keeping key employees "was
essential to ensure our viability through 2010, which would allow
Congress, the administration and other parties involved time to
determine what the form and function of the company will be in
future years."
The bonuses were authorized last year
by the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which seized control of
Fannie and Freddie in September and ousted the companies' former
CEOs
"It was critical to retain their most
important asset -- their employees -- who are being asked to play a
vital role in the nation's economic recovery," James Lockhart, the
agency's director, said in a statement. "As the previous senior
management teams left, it would have been catastrophic to lose the
next layers down and other highly experienced
employees."
But the generous paychecks could prove
politically touchy amid outrage over roughly $165 million in
bonuses paid out over the weekend by bailed-out insurance giant
AIG.
Michael Williams, Washington-based Fannie
Mae's executive vice president and chief operating officer, is due
to receive a $611,000 retention award this year on top of his
$676,000 base salary.
Williams received a $260,000 retention
bonus last year and is in line for another $429,000 next February,
for an expected total of $1.3 million, according to the SEC
filing.
David Hisey, the company's deputy chief
financial offer, is expected to receive a $517,000 retention award
this year in addition to his $385,000 salary and $160,000 cash
bonus. He received a $220,000 retention award last year and is due
to receive $363,000 next February, for a total of $1.1
million. The other two executives receiving the bonuses are
Thomas Lund, who oversees the company's single-family mortgage
business and Kenneth Bacon, who heads up housing and community
development. Both are receiving about $1 million.
The company's two top executives, Chief
Executive Officer Herbert Allison and Chief Financial Officer David
Johnson, did not receive the awards because they were new to the
company last year. Allison is taking no salary, while Johnson is
receiving a base salary of $625,000 and no bonus.
Welcome to
Mississauga
Just when you are convinced there isn't a single competent
politician, up pops one. But of course, not in the USA but in
Mississauga , Canada
While the
compliant media chase the manufactured demons at AIG, private
citizens receiving retention bonuses under contract to stay at the
financial giant, Timothy Geithner, on orders from Obama, is
laundering money through AIG to some of Obama�s largest campaign
contributors.
Of the $787 billion
bailout money that we and our follow-on generations are going to be
paying for, $43.5 billion is being funneled through
AIG to pay American banks, including Goldman Sachs, Merill Lynch,
Bank of America, Citigroup, Wachovia, Morgan Stanley, AIG
International, and JP Morgan.
Why those banks, do you
ask? Because those banks are among the top twenty contributors to
Obama�s presidential campaign according to Open Secrets, and
laundering the money through AIG, will supposedly divert the
attention of the ignorant public. In this way Obama can repay his
contributors with our money and not have to deplete the remaining
$15 million in his campaign account.
These financial
institutions contributed the following amounts to the Obama
campaign:
Goldman Sachs: $955,473
Citigroup: $653,468
JP Morgan Chase & Co.:
$646,058
Morgan Stanley: $485,823
Bank of America: $274,493
Wachovia: $214,151
AIG: $112,170
Individuals identifying
themselves as working for the banks above gave Barack Obama�s
presidential campaign an additional $3,617,724. In other words,
more than 3.6 million reasons for the president to help focus the
media�s glare on the relatively minuscule $165 million in AIG
executive bonuses, and away from their $43.5 billion in
paybacks.
Today, the hypocrites in the US Senate have decided to create an
amendment to the stimulus bill that they did not read. That
amendment would require confiscatory taxation or return of any
bonus money received by any executive who works for a company that
received US bailout funds. The key provision of that
amendment is the effective date which is January 1, 2009. The
not-so-clever deception included in that date is that it exempts
Jamie Gorelick, Franklin Raines, and Jim Johnson from any
accountability for the millions of bonus dollars they received as
executives from Fannie-Mae and Freddie-Mac up to and including last
year. It also exempts those Fannie-Mae and Freddie-Mac
employees listed in the article below.
Fannie Mae plans to pay retention bonuses of at
least $1 million to four key executives as part of a plan to keep
hundreds of employees from leaving the government-controlled
company. Rival mortgage finance company Freddie Mac is
planning similar awards, but has not yet reported on which
executives will benefit. The two companies, which together
own or back more than half of the home mortgages in the country,
have been hobbled by skyrocketing loan defaults. Fannie recently
requested $15 billion in federal aid, while Freddie has sought a
total of almost $45 billion.
Fannie Mae disclosed its "broad-based"
retention program in a recent regulatory filing with the Securities
and Exchange Commission. The company was only required to disclose
the amounts for the top-paid executives, who will pocket at least
$470,000 on top of their base salaries.
The bonuses are more than double last
year's, which ranged from $200,000 to $260,000. Another round of
bonuses ranging from $330,000 to $429,000 are planned for next
February.
A company spokesman declined further
comment.
Fannie Mae said regulators determined that
the bonuses were needed because keeping key employees "was
essential to ensure our viability through 2010, which would allow
Congress, the administration and other parties involved time to
determine what the form and function of the company will be in
future years."
The bonuses were authorized last year by the
Federal Housing Finance Agency, which seized control of Fannie and
Freddie in September and ousted the companies' former CEOs "It was
critical to retain their most important asset -- their employees --
who are being asked to play a vital role in the nation's economic
recovery," James Lockhart, the agency's director, said in a
statement. "As the previous senior management teams left, it would
have been catastrophic to lose the next layers down and other
highly experienced employees."
But the generous paychecks could prove
politically touchy amid outrage over roughly $165 million in
bonuses paid out over the weekend by bailed-out insurance giant
AIG. Michael Williams, Washington-based Fannie Mae's
executive vice president and chief operating officer, is due to
receive a $611,000 retention award this year on top of his $676,000
base salary. Williams received a $260,000 retention bonus
last year and is in line for another $429,000 next February, for an
expected total of $1.3 million, according to the SEC
filing.
David Hisey, the company's deputy chief
financial offer, is expected to receive a $517,000 retention award
this year in addition to his $385,000 salary and $160,000 cash
bonus. He received a $220,000 retention award last year and is due
to receive $363,000 next February, for a total of $1.1
million.
The other two executives receiving the
bonuses are Thomas Lund, who oversees the company's single-family
mortgage business and Kenneth Bacon, who heads up housing and
community development. Both are receiving about $1
million.
The company's two top executives, Chief
Executive Officer Herbert Allison and Chief Financial Officer David
Johnson, did not receive the awards because they were new to the
company last year. Allison is taking no salary, while Johnson is
receiving a base salary of $625,000 and no bonus.
AIG Bonus' and Bailout... The
truth regading the bonus payments.
If you had to find one single group of people to blame for our
economic crisis, you'd definitely have to consider the financial
products division of AIG.They made huge, bad bets on
the housing market thathave cost taxpayers $170 billion...so
far. That's more than $500 from every American.
But get
this:The
Washington Postjust reported thatthese people are receiving $450 million in
bonuses�and they got their first installment yesterday.
They destroyed our
economy, and now they're being rewarded for it with our bailout
money!
This is absolute BS.
The real situation is that the Obama administration had two drafts
of the bailout for AIG. Senator Christopher Dodd, D-CT, added
an amendment to the first bailout bill that exempted bonus payments
from spending restrictions. The other draft didn't have
it. The administration paid the funds to AIG under Dodd's
amendment. They knew that the bonuses were due because
Treasury Secretary Geithner is the guy who wrote the bill.
They also knew that the payout day was coming close but chose to do
only one thing about it....they faked outrage thinking that the
public was too stupid to know the facts.
The Obama administration owns 80% of AIG and placed it's CEO
in his position and did so without doing due diligence on
everything they were buying, but they express outrage that they
didn't know what was going on???!!!. Additionally, the
contracts that the executives had that set up the bonuses were
apparently in place before the bailouts were paid. Under
Article 10 of the Constitution contracts are protected from
interference from the government. If companies fail, they
fail. That's why there are bankruptcy laws.
So to summarize, the government buys up 80% of a company without
doing due diligence, when they find out that there are bonus
structures in place they add an amendment to the bailout to allow
payments of the bonuses and then they express outrage that the
payments are being made so the "stupid public" will think that they
are looking out for us. And Geithner is knee deep in the
mess, and Dodd, who added the amendment, is one of two guys who
took the most lobbying money from Fannie-Mae & Freddie-Mac
before they collapsed; the other was Obama. Also, Dodd, took
an off-the-books special loan rate from Countrywide before they
collapsed. By the way, Dodd was on the committee that was
supposed to oversee the mortgage companies.
Geithner didn't shame AIG into anything. Geithner is a
tax cheat who can't tale two steps without screwing up at least one
of them. He, Obama, Dodd, Frank, Pelosi, Reid, Clinton,
Schumer, and Beiden all need to go to jail for conspiracy to commit
fraud. They are creating laws and using them against the
people they are sworn to protect. They are creating legal
plunder. When the law takes from some persons what
belongs to them and gives it to others to whom it does not
belong...that is legal plunder. And everything above is an
example of how they're doing that to us. AIG and the other
recipients are reall the side-show. The bailout
NEVER should have taken place at all, for anyone.
We can't let this stand.Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and Congress
need to do whatever it takes to get our money
back.
Here are some
important phone numbers where you can voice your
opinion:
So our tax
dollars are going to pay AIG executives millions in bonuses! Just
another day of good news from Washington.
Meanwhile, don't look now, but Nancy Pelosi and the Obama
Administration is busily working to build up a debt larger than our
country or any country has ever seen.
But back to the bonuses. It was a mystery all week how this
happened. No one could seem to figure it out.
But then...it leaked out that Democrat
Senator Chris Dodd snuck a provision into the massive spending bill
that allowed the bonuses to happen.
Dodd denied it at first, then changed his
story and now admits that he did it, but says he did it at the
request of "Administration staffers".
Finally, the Democrats have been forced to
admit that they allowed the AIG bonuses to happen.
This has got to stop.
Please take a minute and click on the link
below to watch the RNC's new video exposing the Democrats' latest
shell game.
In the coming months, you�ll be asked to pay more taxes to balance
our $8.3 billion state budget deficit. They�ll tell you the sky is
falling � but don�t believe it.
The truth
is:The state is still collecting more money
today than it did yesterday. Revenues for the next biennium will be
higher than for this one � growth is projected at 2.1
percent.
Another truth: If the
state simply froze spending at its current level, our
deficit would drop instantly to $1.5 billion.
The state has revenue �
just not enough for all the new programs and raises. Don�t fall for
the gloom and doom. I�m asking my fellow legislators to stop
spending money we don�t have.
Tax
Watch
Some legislators are
already introducing bills to tax you to pay for our state budget
deficit � and more.
Check out these
new taxes:
SJR 8205� A state income tax
SB 5393� New tax on homeowner insurance
policies
SB 5432� Raises I-747 limit on total property tax
collections for some taxing districts
SB 5518� New tax on petroleum products
SB 5626� New tax on cigarettes
SB 5608� Hike in state property tax for school
funding
SB 5747� New tax on plastic manufacturing
businesses
SB 5735� Governor�s �cap and tax� plan,
potentially the largest middle class tax increase in
history
SB 5679� New payroll tax to support paid family
leave
B 5911� B&O tax on farms, sales tax on farm
auctions
SB 5960� Authorizes county governments to impose a
new utility tax and increase the local sales tax without a vote of
the people
SB 5945� New payroll tax to provide government
sponsored universal health care insurance
Here are some
important phone numbers where you can voice your
opinion:
Obama's Tax Budget: Almost $1 Trillion in
New Taxes Over Next 10 yrs, Starting 2011
President Obama's budget proposes
$989 billion in new taxes over the course of the next 10 years,
starting fiscal year 2011, most of which are tax increases on
individuals.
1) On people making more than
$250,000.
$338 billion - Bush tax cuts
expire
$179 billlion - eliminate itemized deduction
$118 billion - capital gains tax hike
Total: $636 billion/10
years
2) Businesses:
$17 billion - Reinstate
Superfund taxes
$24 billion - tax carried-interest as income
$5 billion - codify "economic substance doctrine"
$61 billion - repeal LIFO
$210 billion - international enforcement, reform deferral, other
tax reform
$4 billion - information reporting for rental payments
$5.3 billion - excise tax on Gulf of Mexico oil and gas
$3.4 billion - repeal expensing of tangible drilling costs
$62 million - repeal deduction for tertiary injectants
$49 million - repeal passive loss exception for working interests
in oil and natural gas properties
$13 billion - repeal manufacturing tax deduction for oil and
natural gas companies
$1 billion - increase to 7 years geological and geophysical
amortization period for independent producers
$882 million - eliminate advanced earned income tax
credit
WASHINGTON �
President Barack Obama laid out his first budget plan
Thursday predicting a stunning federal deficit of $1.75 trillion
this year � nearly four times last year's record � and asking
Congress to raise taxes on the wealthy to stem that flood of red
ink while still moving the country toward guaranteed health care
for all.
Denouncing what he called the
"dishonest accounting" of recent federal budgets, Obama unveiled
his own $3.6 trillion blueprint for next year, a bold proposal that
would transfer wealth from rich taxpayers to the middle class and
the poor.
Congressional approval without major
change is anything but sure. The plan is filled with political land
mines including an initiative to combat global warming that would hit consumers
with considerably higher utility bills. Other proposals would take
on entrenched interests such as big farming, insurance companies
and drug makers.
Obama blamed the expected federal
deficit explosion on a "deep and destructive" recession and
recent efforts to battle it including the Wall Street bailout and
the just-passed $787 billion stimulus plan. The $1.75 trillion
deficit estimate for this year is $250 billion more than projected
just days ago because of proposed new spending for a fresh bailout
for banks and other financial institutions.
As the nation digs out of the most
serious economic
crisis in decades, Obama said, "We will, each and every one
of us, have to compromise on certain things we care about but which
we simply cannot afford right now."
Signaling budget battles to come,
Republicans were skeptical Obama was doing without much at
all.
"We can't tax and spend our way to
prosperity," said House GOP leader John Boehner of Ohio. "The era of
big government
is back, and Democrats are asking you to pay for it."
Obama plans to move aggressively
toward rebalancing the tax system, extending a $400 tax credit for
most workers � $800 for couples � while letting expire President
George W. Bush's tax cuts for couples making more than $250,000 a
year.
Thursday's 134-page budget
submission, a nonbinding recommendation to Congress, says the plan
would close the deficit to a more reasonable � but still
eye-popping � $533 billion after five years. That would still be
higher than last year's record $455 billion deficit.
And the
national debt
would more than double by the end of the upcoming decade, raising
worries that so much federal borrowing could drive up interest
rates and erode the value of the dollar.
Also, to narrow
the budget gap, Obama relies on rosier predictions of economic
growth � including a 3.2 percent boost in the economy next year �
than most private sector economists foresee.
There is already
resistance from Democrats who are upset with the budget's plan to
curb the ability of wealthier people to reduce their tax bills
through deductions for mortgage interest, charitable contributions and state and
local taxes.
That tax hike
would raise $318 billion over the upcoming decade toward a down
payment on Obama's high-priority universal health care plan. Cuts to the
Medicare and Medicaid federal health programs would supply an
additional $316 billion, but that still wouldn't provide enough
money to guarantee coverage for all, and Obama wants Congress to
come up with hundreds of billions of dollars in additional
hard-to-raise revenues to pay for the rest.
Then there is the proposed clampdown
on the Pentagon budget, which would get a 4 percent boost, to $534
billion next year, but would then get increases of 2 percent or
less over the next several years. Domestic programs favored by
Democrats would, on average, receive a 7 percent boost over
regularly appropriated levels � even as many agencies are already
swimming in cash from the just-enacted economic stimulus
plan.
Taken together, Obama's plan
contains so many difficult-to-digest ideas that it's virtually
certain to be significantly redrafted during debates later this
year.
"It's going to be a tough row to
hoe, but he has large Democratic majorities and a lot of popular
support and we're in times of crisis," said Robert Reischauer,
president of the Urban Institute. "So his prospects of him
getting much of what he is seeking, while not good, are higher than
... we've seen in the past."
Senate Budget Committee Chairman
Kent Conrad,
D-N.D., predicted Congress would pass much of Obama's plan, though
with significant revisions. For instance, he's unimpressed with a
proposal to reduce payments to farming operations with sales above
$500,000 per year and says the plan to curb tax deductions for the
wealthy faces uncertain prospects because of opposition from
lawmakers from high tax states and universities whose endowments
have shrunk.
A plan to devote up to $250 billion
to support as much as $750 billion in increased spending under the
government's rescue program for banks and other financial
institutions landed with a thud.
Republicans scoffed at the idea that
Obama's plan calls for much sacrifice on the spending front, citing
the big increases for many agencies. they also pointed to tax
increases and hundreds of billions in revenues from a contentious
proposal to auction off permits for carbon emissions in a bid to address global
warming.
Obama and top aides emphasized that
they didn't make the financial mess.
Said the president: "We cannot lose
sight of the long-run challenges that our country faces and that
threaten our economic health � specifically, the trillions of
dollars of debt that we inherited, the rising costs of health care
and the growing obligations of Social Security."
"For too long, our budget has not
told the whole truth about how precious tax dollars are spent," he
said. "Large sums have been left off the books, including the true
cost of fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. And that kind of
dishonest accounting is not how you run your family budgets at
home. It's not how your government should run its budgets
either."
Among the many programs that would
receive generous boosts are education and cancer research. The size
of education Pell
Grants would automatically increase every year by inflation
plus 1 percent, while Obama promises
to double cancer research over several years. He also wants to put
the United States on a path to double foreign aid.
Obama's budget contains almost $1
trillion in tax hikes over 10 years on individuals making more than
$200,000 and couples earning over $250,000. About $350 billion more
would be raised through a variety of other hikes, including raising
taxes on hedge-fund managers by taxing their compensation as income
rather than at the 15 percent capital gains rate. Obama would also
increase taxes on corporate income earned abroad.
Some $526 billion in revenue from
carbon pollution permits would be used to extend the "Making Work
Pay" tax credit of $400 for individuals and $800 for couples beyond
2010 as provided in the just-passed economic stimulus
bill.
The budget would make permanent the
expanded $2,500 tax credit for college expenses that was provided
for two years in the just-passed economic stimulus bill. It also
would renew most of the Bush tax cuts
enacted in 2001 and 2003, and would permanently update the
alternative minimum tax so that it would hit fewer middle- to
upper-income taxpayers.
Obama's $634 billion head start on
expanding health care could easily double as lawmakers flesh out
details in coming months on how to provide medical coverage to all
of the 48 million Americans now uninsured while also trying to slow
increases in costs. Health care costs now total $2.4 trillion
a year and keep rising even as the economy is shrinking.
Thursday's submission was an
overview of a more comprehensive plan that will be submitted in
April.
___
Associated Press writers
Martin
Crutsinger, Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar and Anne Gearan
contributed to this report.
H.R.
1, �The American Recovery & Reinvestment Act of
2009�
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) recently
found that the cost of the Pelosi-Reid stimulus package now exceeds
$1.1 trillion. CBO also estimated that only 7 percent of
infrastructure money would make its way into the economy by the end
of the year and only 38 percent would be spent by the end of the
2010 fiscal year.
Senator Jeff Session�s (R-Ala.) office
estimates the actual number going to tangible road and bridge
construction is just a little more than 3
percent.
Where is this money going to? A not exhaustive
look at the 1,588 page legislation, H.R. 1, �The
American
Recovery & Reinvestment Act of 2009� shows
the bill is more payoffs and pork then stimulus. Many thanks to the
website: http://www.readthestimulus.org and its
participating organizations.
PAYOFFS
To the �Green� Lobby
$600 Million To Buy New Cars For Government
Workers (Page 89)
These cars would be �green� friendly cars �
however very few gas pumps have the right gas to run these cars.
The Federal government already spends $3.5 billion a
year.
$10M for bike and walking trails (Page
65)
$200M for plug-in car stations (Page
31)
$400 million for NASA scientists to conduct
climate change research (Page 22)
$800 million to clean up Superfund sites (Page
122)
$600 million for grants for diesel emission
reduction (Page 119)
$650 million for �alternative energy
technologies, energy efficiency enhancements and
deferred
maintenance at Federal facilities� (Page
119)
$1.5 billion for construction of �Green
Schools� (Page 176)
To the Unions
$1 billion to the controversial COMMUNITY
ORIENTED POLICING SERVICES COPS Hiring
Program
$150 billion in new federal spending, a vast
two-year investment that would more than double
the
Department of Education�s current
budget.The proposed
emergency expenditures on nearly every realm of education,
including school renovation, special education, Head Start and
grants to needy college students�Sam Dillon, �Stimulus Plan Would
Provide Flood of Aid to Education,� New York Times. January
27, 2009.
Representative Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) inserted
in the original bill billions of dollars for family planning
groups, including the abortion giant, Planned Parenthood. Pressure
and public exposure from Congressional Republicans forced the
Democrats to remove such funding from this bill. However the bill
still provides billions in reforming the health care system and
working towards nationalized health care � with little to no
debate.
$2.7B in NIH grants which would be targeted to
among other things embryonic stem cell experimentation. (Page
56)
Other Special Interests
$3 Billion for Prevention & Wellness
Programs, Including $335 million for STD Education and Prevention
--Recent government
expenditures in this area include a transgender beauty pageant in
San Francisco that advertised available HIV testing and an event
called �Got Love? � Flirt/Date/Score� that taught participants how
�to flirt with greater finesse.�
$50 million for the National Endowment for the
Arts (Page 122)
$75 million for smoking cessation (Page
148). This contradicts
the latest version of SCHIP that is funded largely by new taxes on
cigarettes.
$4.19 billion open to ACORN.The Pelosi-Reid bill makes groups
like ACORN eligible for a $4.19 billion pot of money for
�neighborhood stabilization activities.�
MISCELLANEOUS PORK
Some of the biggest winners in the package are
federal agencies:
$54 billion will go to federal programs that
the Office of Management and Budget or the Government
Accountability Office have already criticized as "ineffective" or
unable to pass basic financial audits.
$462 Million for Equipment, Construction, and
Renovation of Facilities at the Centers for
Disease
Control (CDC) (Page 137)
$150 Million for Repairs to Smithsonian
Institution Facilities (Page 128)
$44 million to the Agricultural Research
Service (Page 135)
$227 million for oversight of the pork barrel
spending in the stimulus (Page 11)
$1 Billion for The Follow-Up To The 2010 Census
(Page 49)
Discretion is given to governors and Mayors for
how to spend a large chunk of the money. The U.S. Conference of
Mayors recently sent Congress a $96.6 billion wish list of
"shovel-ready" projects which now could be funded by the stimulus.
These projects include: �$1 million for annual sewer rehabilitation
in Casper, WY; $6.1 million for corporate hangars, parking lots,
and a business apron at the Fayetteville, AR airport; 28 projects
with the term "stadium" in them; and 117 projects mentioning
landscaping and/or beautification efforts. The taxpayers should be
most teed off at the 20 golf courses included in the
list.�
$75,000: the amount of money that the head
of the powerful tax-writing committee, Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY),
was forced to report on his taxes after the discovery that
he
had not reported income from a Costa Rican
rental property.
His excuses for the failure started with blaming his wife, then his
accountant and finally the fact that he didn't speak Spanish.
$133,900: the
amount
Fannie Mae "invested" in Chris
Dodd (D-CT), head of the powerful Senate Banking
Committee, presumably to repel oversight of the GSE prior to its
meltdown. Said meltdown helped touch off the current economic
crisis. In only a few years time, Fannie also "invested" over
$105,000 in then-Senator Barack Obama.
$800,000: the amount of
"sweetheart" mortgages Senate Banking Chairman Chris Dodd (D-CT)
received from
Countrywide
Financial,
the details for which he has refused to release details despite
months of promises to do so. Countrywide was once the nation's
largest mortgage lender and linked to Government-Sponsored Entities
like
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Their meltdown precipitated the current financial crisis. Just days
ago in Pennsylvania, Countrywide was forced to pay $150,000,000 in
mortgage assistance following "a state investigation that concluded
that Countrywide relaxed its underwriting standards to sell risky
loans to consumers who did not understand them and could not afford
them."
$12,000,000: the amount of TARP money provided
to community bank OneUnited despite the fact that it did not qualify for
funds, and was "under attack from its regulators for allegations of
poor lending practices and
executive-pay abuses." It turns out that Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA),
a
key contributor to the Fannie Mae
meltdown,
just happens to be married to one of the bank's ex-directors.
$23,500,000: The upper range of net worth Rep. Allan Mollohan
(D-WV) accumulated in four years time
according to
The Washington
Post through earmarks of "tens of millions of dollars
to groups associated with his own business partners."
$2,000,000,000: ($2 billion) the approximate amount of money
that House Appropriations Chairman David Obey (D-WI)
is
earmarking related to his son's lobbying
efforts.
Craig Obey is "a top lobbyist for the nonprofit group" that would
receive a roughly $2 billion component of the "Stimulus"
package.
$4,190,000,000: ($4.19 billion) the amount of money in the
so-called "Stimulus" package devoted to
fraudulent voter registration ACORN
group under the auspices of "Community Stabilization
Activities". ACORN is currently the subject of a
RICO suit in
Ohio.
$1,646,000,000,000 ($1.646 trillion): the
approximate amount of annual United States
exports endangered by the "Stimulus" package, which
provides a "Buy American" stricture. According to international
trade experts, a "US-EU
trade war looms",
which could result in a worldwide economic depression reminiscent
of that touched off by the protectionist
Smoot-Hawley
Act.n
and explanatory brochures that described his tax
liabilities.
As the owner of a small business, should I fail to meet my debts
and obligations, who shall I turn to in a time of need? My
wife has owned her own business for over twenty years. Should
she fall on hard times and fail who will ride in on a white horse
to save the day? I can damn sure guaranty you; it will not be
the US Government. However when tax time rolls around we can
rest assure the bills will come due and payable in full, along with
any and all new raises and charges incurred by the electorate and
it's representatives as our reward for success.
Survival.
The success or failure of any company,
corporation or business, large or small, must be based on honest
and transparent entrepreneurial integrity in combination with
financially sound and accepted business practices. The degree
of success or failure is directly proportionate to an ability to
furnish a product, goods or service to a marketplace at a
competitive monetary value inclusive of a profit margin that
will sustain it's capital expenditures and insure it's longevity in
the marketplace. Failure to meet any of these criteria is key to
survival.
Why then, should we as individuals be asked
to endorse government subsidies, loans and bail-outs to any and all
that have either ignored, disregarded, or often held in utter
contempt these basic rules of business ethics and economics
101?
"Who's on first?"
Why should we expect, or even remotely
believe, that the ailments of free enterprise can be solved by a
government and legislative entity holding a multi-generational
track record of inability to balance their own books and budget
and continuously, year after year, drive us deeper into debt
using the insane accounting and ethical practices paralleled by
those they propose to rescue. Are we to assume that these same
budgetary minded and politically motivated politicians will now
take the reins of these newly "acquired assets", then run and
redeem them via legislation, board and bureaucracy?
Where does it start and where does it
stop?
Ask then, which of these colossal failures
will be selected by our benevolent benefactors? Anyone with
half a brain knows that we cannot possibly print enough money to
rescue all. We simply do not have enough resources to
sustain, or enough presses available to accommodate such a cash
flow. How then, will these momentous decisions be
motivated? Evidently, in the beginning as in the instance of
Freddie Mac, Fanny May and institutional lending, the assumption
must have been, "If government broke it by decree, the government
can repair it." Following this intervention we find that the
original funding, as originally earmarked, agreed upon and
allocated, must, at this early stage, be re-directed and
re-allocated. Again, "Who's on First?".
Who may be selection to benefit during
this vetting?
Rest assured, that as this vetting process
takes place, those at the head of the line will be the ones with
the most favors to be called in funded, and publically endorsed as
"For the good of the people" (read Socialism here), by our
benevolent benefactors. Only the stunningly stupid among us
would believe that there is not a cut-off point and the proverbial
"Buck stops here."
Where are we on the food chain, you and I,
"Joe the Taxpayer" and "Joe the Businessman"" Rest assured, as always, we
will be mandated into reaching deeper into our pockets and
resources in order to reward to those who so miserably have
failed?
As for me, simply and emphatically, "Stop
the Bail-outs! Now!"
Cicero , 55 BC
-- Through a looking
glass, we as a nation would do well to heed this sage advice
provided some 2064 years ago...
The budget should be
balanced
The Treasury should be
refilled
Public debt should be reduced
The arrogance of officialdom should be
tempered and controlled
The assistance to
foreign lands should be curtailed lestRome become
bankrupt
People must again learn to work, instead
of living on public assistance
"We cannot expect the Americans to jump
from capitalism to Communism, but we can assist their
elected leaders in giving Americans small doses of socialism until
they suddenly awake to find they have Communism."
Obama's Chief Economic
Advisors Can the men who were
instrumental in bringing down Wall Street be trusted to build a new
Wall Street?
FRANKLIN
RAINES: Raines works for the Obama Campaign as Chief
Economic Advisor
TIM HOWARD: Howard is also a Chief
Economic Advisor to Obama
JIM JOHNSON:
Johnson was hired as a Senior Obama Finance Advisor and was
selected to run Obama's Vice Presidential Search
Committee
Franklin
Raines left with a "golden parachute valued at $240
Million
Franklin Raines was a Chairman and Chief Executive Officer at
Fannie Mae. Raines was forced to retire from his position with
Fannie Mae when auditing discovered severe irregulaties in Fannie
Mae's accounting activities. At the time of his departure
(Wednesday, Dec.22, 2004) The Wall Street Journal noted, " Raines,
who long defended the company's accounting despite mounting
evidence that it wasn't proper, issued a statement late Tuesday
(Dec. 21, 2004) conceding that "mistakes were made" and saying he
would assume responsibility as he had earlier promised. News
reports indicate the company was under growing pressure from
regulators to shake up its management in the wake of findings that
the company's books ran afoul of generally accepted accounting
principles for four years." Fannie Mae had to reduce its surplus by
$9 billion.
Raines left with a "golden parachute valued at $240 Million. The
government filed suit against Raines when the depth of the
accounting scandal became clear. See:
http://housingdoom.com/2006/12/18/fannie-charges/
The government noted, "The 101 charges reveal how the individuals
improperly manipulated earnings to maximize their bonuses, while
knowingly neglecting accounting systems and internal controls,
misapplying over twenty accounting principles and misleading the
regulator and the public. The notice explains how they submitted
six years of misleading and inaccurate accounting statements and
inaccurate capital reports that enabled them to grow Fannie Mae in
an unsafe and unsound manner." These charges were made in 2006. The
Court ordered Raines to return $50 million dollars he received in
bonuses based on the miss-stated Fannie Mae profits.
Tim Howard.
Howard's Golden Parachute was estimated at $20 Million!
Tim Howard was the Chief Financial Officer of
Fannie Mae. Howard "was a strong internal proponent of using
accounting strategies that would ensure a "stable pattern of
earnings" at Fannie. In everyday English - he was cooking the
books. The government investigation determined that, "Chief
Financial Officer, Tim Howard, failed to provide adequate oversight
to key control and reporting functions within Fannie Mae,"
On June 16, 2006, Rep. Richard Baker, R-La., asked the Justice
Department to investigate his allegations that two former Fannie
Mae executives lied to Congress in October 2004 when they denied
manipulating the mortgage-finance giant's income statement to
achieve management pay bonuses. Investigations by federal
regulators and the company's board of directors since concluded
that management did manipulate 1998 earnings to trigger bonuses.
Raines and Howard left Fannie Mae under pressure in December 2004.
Raines's departure was structured as an early retirement. Howard
resigned.
Jim
Johnson. Johnson's Golden Parachute was estimated at $28
Million.
Jim Johnson is a former executive at Lehman Brothers who was later
forced from his position as Fannie Mae CEO. A look at the Office of
Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight's May 2006 report on
mismanagement and corruption inside Fannie Mae, and you'll see some
interesting things about Johnson.
Investigators found that Fannie Mae had hidden a substantial amount
of Johnson's 1998 compensation from the public, reporting that it
was between $6 million and $7 million when it fact it was $21
million. Johnson is currently under investigation for taking
illegal loans from Countrywide while serving as CEO of Fannie
Mae.
The current crisis was recognized and documented in the New York
Times in 1999
Business Fannie Mae Eases Credit To Aid Mortgage
Lending
By STEVEN A. HOLMES
Published:
September 30, 1999
In a move that could help
increase home ownership rates among minorities and low-income
consumers, the Fannie Mae Corporation is easing the credit
requirements on loans that it will purchase from banks and other
lenders.
The action, which will begin as a pilot
program involving 24 banks in 15 markets -- including the New York
metropolitan region -- will encourage those banks to extend home
mortgages to individuals whose credit is generally not good enough
to qualify for conventional loans. Fannie Mae officials say they
hope to make it a nationwide program by next spring.
Fannie Mae, the nation's biggest underwriter
of home mortgages, has been under increasing pressure from the
Clinton Administration to expand mortgage loans among low and
moderate income people and felt pressure from stock holders to
maintain its phenomenal growth in profits.
In addition, banks, thrift institutions and
mortgage companies have been pressing Fannie Mae to help them make
more loans to so-called subprime borrowers. These borrowers whose
incomes, credit ratings and savings are not good enough to qualify
for conventional loans, can only get loans from finance companies
that charge much higher interest rates -- anywhere from three to
four percentage points higher than conventional loans.
''Fannie Mae has expanded home ownership for
millions of families in the 1990's by reducing down payment
requirements,'' said Franklin D. Raines, Fannie Mae's chairman and
chief executive officer. ''Yet there remain too many borrowers
whose credit is just a notch below what our underwriting has
required who have been relegated to paying significantly higher
mortgage rates in the so-called subprime market.''
Demographic information on these borrowers is
sketchy. But at least one study indicates that 18 percent of the
loans in the subprime market went to black borrowers, compared to 5
per cent of loans in the conventional loan market.
In moving, even tentatively, into this new
area of lending, Fannie Mae is taking on significantly more risk,
which may not pose any difficulties during flush economic times.
But the government-subsidized corporation may run into trouble in
an economic downturn, prompting a government rescue similar to that
of the savings and loan industry in the 1980's.
''From the perspective of many people,
including me, this is another thrift industry growing up around
us,'' said Peter Wallison a resident fellow at the American
Enterprise Institute. ''If they fail, the government will have to
step up and bail them out the way it stepped up and bailed out the
thrift industry.''
Under Fannie Mae's pilot program, consumers
who qualify can secure a mortgage with an interest rate one
percentage point above that of a conventional, 30-year fixed rate
mortgage of less than $240,000 -- a rate that currently averages
about 7.76 per cent. If the borrower makes his or her monthly
payments on time for two years, the one percentage point premium is
dropped.
Fannie Mae, the nation's biggest underwriter
of home mortgages, does not lend money directly to consumers.
Instead, it purchases loans that banks make on what is called the
secondary market. By expanding the type of loans that it will buy,
Fannie Mae is hoping to spur banks to make more loans to people
with less-than-stellar credit ratings.
Fannie Mae officials stress that the new
mortgages will be extended to all potential borrowers who can
qualify for a mortgage. But they add that the move is intended in
part to increase the number of minority and low income home owners
who tend to have worse credit ratings than non-Hispanic
whites.
Home ownership has, in fact, exploded among
minorities during the economic boom of the 1990's. The number of
mortgages extended to Hispanic applicants jumped by 87.2 per cent
from 1993 to 1998, according to Harvard University's Joint Center
for Housing Studies. During that same period the number of African
Americans who got mortgages to buy a home increased by 71.9 per
cent and the number of Asian Americans by 46.3 per cent.
In contrast, the number
of non-Hispanic whites who received loans for homes increased by
31.2 per cent.
Despite these gains, home ownership rates for
minorities continue to lag behind non-Hispanic whites, in part
because blacks and Hispanics in particular tend to have on average
worse credit ratings.
In July, the Department of Housing and Urban
Development proposed that by the year 2001, 50 percent of Fannie
Mae's and Freddie Mac's portfolio be made up of loans to low and
moderate-income borrowers. Last year, 44 percent of the loans
Fannie Mae purchased were from these groups.
The change in policy also comes at the same
time that HUD is investigating allegations of racial discrimination
in the automated underwriting systems used by Fannie Mae and
Freddie Mac to determine the credit-worthiness of credit
applicants.
High Crimes as Democrats seek to cover covert theft with overt
theft. John
Sabatello Anacortes, WA
September 29, 2008
In a crowning achievement to reaffirming conservative policies, the
Republicans in the House of Representatives today sent the
Democrats and the American public a clear and unequivocal
message��.�The free money from Fannie-Mae, Freddie-Mac and other
mortgage based lenders has been cut off!�
House Republicans defeated legislation
designed to give Treasury Secretary Paulson $700 billion and the
unfettered authority to an unelected official (Paulson) to
guarantee the solvency of private banks and lending institutions
halting the worst kind of socialist intrusion into the free market
and capital based core of the American economy. Nowhere in
the Constitution is this activity permitted or even suggested and
even worse, there was no call from anyone in the legislature for a
judicial review of this action which would have clearly been found
to be illegal and unconstitutional.
The only thing even more galling than the
outright theft and cover up of these funds over the last ten years
is the rush by Congress to bail out their friends and benefactors
in the mortgage and banking industries before we might catch them
at it. Further infuriation was fueled by the naked disdain
many members of Congress have for the American public by allowing
Senator Christopher Dodd (D-CT), to chair the committee responsible
for this reform legislation when he was the number one beneficiary
of campaign contributions from Fannie-Mae. This shameless
slap across the face of the American Public is representative of
the most immoral leadership in the history of the Democrat
Party.
The most
immoral leaders in the history of the Democrat Party
Rep. Barney Frank, (D-MA),
Sen. Harry Reid, (D-NV),
Rep. Nancy Pelosi, (D-CA), Sen. Christopher Dodd, (D-CT)
Today�s announcement was cheered by the majority
of Americans, while Democrats cried and lamented the onset of a
major recession. But just a minute! Wasn�t it the
democrats who for the past three months told us that the failed
policies of Bush & McCain already had us in a recession?
Why, yes it was. And, despite the fact that the last
quarter�s growth was 3.3% and no two quarters in the last year had
successive GDP declines (the definition of recession) the Democrats
insisted that we were in the throes of an economic meltdown.
This hysteria was clearly designed to accomplish two things:
First, to tie John McCain to George Bush and thereby tar the
Republican presidential candidate with Bush�s unpopular image, and
second, to hide the fact that the Democrats have been manipulating
the housing market, rejecting and stonewalling the efforts of
regulators to enforce oversight regulations that would have
prevented these meltdowns all while their inner circle took turns
at the Fannie-Mae and Freddie-Mac feeding
troughs.
The Democrats, led by House Speaker Nancy
Pelosi (D-CA) could have passed this rushed and devastating
legislation on their own, but were afraid of doing so for fear that
once it was learned that they had done so they, and their
presidential candidate Obama, would be left shouldering the blame,
they rightly deserve. So behind a cynical description of
bipartisan unity Pelosi attempted to seek cover behind votes
recruited from Republican House members while fueling the fires of
panic and economic meltdowns. Fortunately, the Republicans
stood against her.
If not for it being such a clear
indication of her dishonest nature, the following statement by
Pelosi would be laughable. "They claim to be free market
advocates when it's really an anything-goes mentality: No
regulation, no supervision, no discipline. And if you fail, you
will have a golden parachute and the taxpayer will bail you out.
Those days are over. The party is over," Pelosi
said.
"Democrats believe in a free market,"
Pelosi continued. "But in this case, in its unbridled form, as
encouraged, supported, by the Republicans � some in the Republican
Party, not all � it has created not jobs, not capital. It has
created chaos."
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