The White House isn't afraid to poke a stick in the eye of it's critics. How else do to explain President Obamas decision Friday to put Elizabeth Warren in charge of the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau while avoiding Senate confirmation and, for that matter any political supervision.
The chutzpah here is something to behold. The pride of Harvard Law School. Ms Warren is a hero to the political left for proposing a new bureaucracy to micromanage the services that banks can offer consumers. A president with more political and constitutional scruple would have nominated someone else. Mr. Obamas choice is to appoint her anyway and dare the Senate to do something about it. Mr. Obama has appointed her an "Assistant" to him and a special advisor to Timothy Geithner. The president emphasized that Ms. Warren will enjoy "direct Access" to him and said she would oversee all aspects of the creation of the new agency, including staffing and policy planning. For all intents and purposes, Ms. Warren will be Treasure Secretary for all consumer lending.
We would have thought a Harvard Law professor would object to the extra-legality of this arrangement but, then, this is also the crew that gave us Obama Care via budget reconciliation and put Donald Berwick in charge of Medicare without a single debate. Remind us again why the Tea Party critique of Obama government is crazy.
The new bureau has independent rule-making authority and can grant itself $646 million. It will draw this money from the operations of the fed, so there won't be any messy intrusions of congressional appropriators
and will therefore receive limited congressional over-site. Ms. Warren's bureau will dictate how credit is allocated throughout the American economy-by banks and financial firms, and also by many small businesses that extend credit to consumers.
In a Blog posting Friday on the White House Web site, Ms. Warren made her intentions clear enough. "President Obama understands the importance of leveling the playing field again for families and creating protections that work not just for the wealthy or connected, but for every American." Given the economic growth and jobless figures, maybe we we should start calling this the "leveling" administration.
Ms. Warren was a vociferous opponent of allowing regulators charged with the maintaining the safety and soundness of banks to control this new bureau. No matter how destructive it's new rules may be they can only be rescinded by a two-thirds vote of the Administration's new Financial Stability Oversight Counsel. And the bureau will now be staffed and shaped by an "assistant" with no obligation to appear before the senate.
The possibility that an appointed official could hold significant authority is why the framers wrote the senate into the process of approving the president's senior hires. Article ll, Section 2 of the Constitution says the president "shall nominate, and by and with the advice and consent of the senate, shall appoint...Officers of the United states." Article ll Section 2 also says "Congress may by law vest the appointment of such inferior Officers as they think proper, in the President alone."
but Congress explicitly did not view the head of the financial consumer bureau as an inferior officer. On July 21, Mr. Obama signed a bill passed by both houses stating that the director shall be appointed by the president , by and with the advice and consent of the Senate.
We have here another end-run around the Constitution niceties so Team Obama can invest huge authority in an unelected official who is unable to withstand a public vetting. So, a bureau inside an agency that it doesn't report to, with a budget not subject to congressional control, now gets a leader not subject to Senate confirmation. If Dick Cheney had tried this, he'd have been accused of staging a coup.
Showing posts with label Excerpts Wall St. Journal. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Excerpts Wall St. Journal. Show all posts
Monday, September 20, 2010
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
It's Obamas Economy Now!
George Bush started the stimulus plan with $168 Billion now 19 months later enter Obama's Stimulus ll for a hefty $814 Billion which was also supposed to make up for lost private demand. It to was a combination of the one-time tax rebates and spending mostly on social programs like Medicade rather than on "Shovel ready projects." Mr. Summer's promised this would have a 1.5 multiplier effect on GDP growth, and White house economistsChristina Romer and Jared Bernstein famously predicted the spending would keep the jobless rate below 8%.
All during this time the federal Reserve was also feeding the economy with unprecedented monetary stimulus,cutting it's benchmark interest rate to near zero and expanding it's balance sheet to more than $2 Trillion by purchasing mortgage backed securities and other assets.
During this time too, Congress passed other industry specific bills-cash for clunkers, the $8000 home buyers tax credit, mortgage payment relief, and jobless benefits up to 99 weeks. Yet all of this has merely stolen auto and home purchases from the future, with sales failing again, despite historically low interests rates.
Now U.S growth has decelerated to a mere 1.6 in the second quarter and a jobless rate of 9.6 after three consecutive months of job losses. In sum, never before has government has spent so much and intervened so directly in credit allocation to spur growth, yet the results have been mediocre at best. In return for adding nearly $3 trillion in federal debt in two years , we still have 14,9 million unemployed.
Democrats have embarked on the most sweeping expansion of government since the 1960's, imposing national health care, rewriting financial laws from top to bottom, attempting to re-regulate the telecom industry, and imposing vast new costs on energy, among many other proposals, not to stop there, in January it plans to impose a huge new tax increase on the "Wealthy."which in practice means on the most profitable small businesses.
Central to Mr. Obama's political strategy for passing these priorities has been trashing business and bankers as greedy profiteers. His administration has denounced or held up as political or legal targets the Chrysler bond holders, Wall Street bonuses, Goldman Sachs, health insurer profits, carbon energy investors and anyone else who has dared to oppose any of it's plans to "transform" U.S. society. At the Labor Day event in Milwaukee, Mr Obama was at it again, declaring that "anyone who thinks we can move this economy forward with a few doing well at the top, hoping that it will trickle down to working folks running faster and faster just to keep up-They just haven't studied our history. We didn't become the most prosperous country in the world by rewarding greed and recklessness."
Such rhetoric is not the way to restore business, it only spreads fear and even greater uncertainty.
As for blaming Republicans with only 41 senators they couldn't even block the $10 billion teachers union bailout. The only major Obama priorities that haven't passed are the cap and trade and the union card check. These were blocked by handful of Democrats who finally said "no mas." No administration since L.B J's in 1965 have passed so much of it's agenda in one congress- which is precisely the problem.
The Democrat's purposely used the recession as a political opening to re-distribute income, reverse the free market reforms of the Reagan era, and put government at the commanding heights of economic decision making.
Mr Obama and the Democratic Congress have succeeded in doing all of this despite the growing opposition of the American people who are now enduring the results. The only path back to robust growth and prosperity is to stop this agenda dead in it's tracks, and then by stages to reverse it. These are the economic stakes in November.
All during this time the federal Reserve was also feeding the economy with unprecedented monetary stimulus,cutting it's benchmark interest rate to near zero and expanding it's balance sheet to more than $2 Trillion by purchasing mortgage backed securities and other assets.
During this time too, Congress passed other industry specific bills-cash for clunkers, the $8000 home buyers tax credit, mortgage payment relief, and jobless benefits up to 99 weeks. Yet all of this has merely stolen auto and home purchases from the future, with sales failing again, despite historically low interests rates.
Now U.S growth has decelerated to a mere 1.6 in the second quarter and a jobless rate of 9.6 after three consecutive months of job losses. In sum, never before has government has spent so much and intervened so directly in credit allocation to spur growth, yet the results have been mediocre at best. In return for adding nearly $3 trillion in federal debt in two years , we still have 14,9 million unemployed.
Democrats have embarked on the most sweeping expansion of government since the 1960's, imposing national health care, rewriting financial laws from top to bottom, attempting to re-regulate the telecom industry, and imposing vast new costs on energy, among many other proposals, not to stop there, in January it plans to impose a huge new tax increase on the "Wealthy."which in practice means on the most profitable small businesses.
Central to Mr. Obama's political strategy for passing these priorities has been trashing business and bankers as greedy profiteers. His administration has denounced or held up as political or legal targets the Chrysler bond holders, Wall Street bonuses, Goldman Sachs, health insurer profits, carbon energy investors and anyone else who has dared to oppose any of it's plans to "transform" U.S. society. At the Labor Day event in Milwaukee, Mr Obama was at it again, declaring that "anyone who thinks we can move this economy forward with a few doing well at the top, hoping that it will trickle down to working folks running faster and faster just to keep up-They just haven't studied our history. We didn't become the most prosperous country in the world by rewarding greed and recklessness."
Such rhetoric is not the way to restore business, it only spreads fear and even greater uncertainty.
As for blaming Republicans with only 41 senators they couldn't even block the $10 billion teachers union bailout. The only major Obama priorities that haven't passed are the cap and trade and the union card check. These were blocked by handful of Democrats who finally said "no mas." No administration since L.B J's in 1965 have passed so much of it's agenda in one congress- which is precisely the problem.
The Democrat's purposely used the recession as a political opening to re-distribute income, reverse the free market reforms of the Reagan era, and put government at the commanding heights of economic decision making.
Mr Obama and the Democratic Congress have succeeded in doing all of this despite the growing opposition of the American people who are now enduring the results. The only path back to robust growth and prosperity is to stop this agenda dead in it's tracks, and then by stages to reverse it. These are the economic stakes in November.
Saturday, August 28, 2010
Senator Jim DeMint S.C. Republican
South Carolinas Senator Jim DeMints Senate Conservatives Fund has taken Washington by storm. The fund raising group has already helped eight underdog Reagonite candidates win Republican Senate primaries this year. In two years, the fund has raised and spent nearly $2million from nearly 50,000 individual contributors.
Mr. DeMint's mission is to bring more Jim DeMint's to the Senate--that is, people with an unfailing antagonism to big government. Over the past 5 years, Mr. DeMint has established himself as the pre-eminent conservative in congress--he has a near perfect National Taxpayer Union rating--with Tom Cobburn as a close second. Other victors helped by Mr. DeMint include Rand Paul of Kentucky, Mr. Toomey of Pennsylvania and Mike Lee of Utah. He says his goal is to raise $5million this cycle. That's a pittance in big-money politics, but, Mr. DeMint's strategic, targeted spending has flipped more races than even he thought possible. "I'm not a Kingmaker," he insists, even though that's exactly what many political pros call him. We've got too many Kings in Washington already.
"When I got to Congress in 1999 instead of working on the reforms that I ran on-wealth-creating personal
accounts and individually owned health Insurance and some simple tax, the things that I thought all of us believed in-instead we worked on redistricting and getting the vunerables on the right committees and getting earmarks to the people that needed them. Everything was about numbers and electing more Republicans. We'd always promise to get to the principals later." I was over there at the Senate committee making fund raising calls and so many people were saying, "I'm not giving you guys another dime until you start acting like Republicans." That's when I got the idea of starting a committee to just help conservative candidates.
His frustration boiled over in 2009 when the Republican Senatorial Committee endorsed Senator Arlan Spector and Charlie Crist, neither of whom is a Republican one year later.
Mr. DeMint was the first major political figure to indorse Marco Rubio aagainst Govenor Crist in Florida. Although Mr.Rubio is embraced now as a rising star of the Republican Party, at the time people laughed.
Last week Lisa Murkowski apparently lost to Joe Miller in Alaska's Republican primary. She and her father have held that Senate seat for 30 years. Mr. DeMint said, "This should be a wake up call to Republicans politicans who go to Washington to bring home bacon aren't wanted."
When Mr. DeMint was asked what Republicans should do if they take back the House and Senate this year. He said, "First put a cap on spending." "Next, We may not be able to repeal Obama Care but we can cut off funding it." "Sell Chrysler and GM. get out of it. Privatise Freddie and Fannie so we can get out of the business of running the housing industry." He also is in favor of a low rate flat tax or consumption tax.
He has a personal crusade to end earmarks. He thinks Republicans can re-connect with voters by doing away with pork-barrel spending.
But, in a $3.7 trillion aren't earmarks trivial? He scoffs, "They always say, it's just a small amount of money, but earmarks always enlarge our budget and buy votes so that massive bills can go through." Members haven't been able to fight against these obese budgets, he says, because, "When we direct money back home through earmarks , it makes us complicit in the spending process, It's a killer."
"In the House John Boehner and the Republicans get it, I'm not so sure about the senate."
"I think we are in danger of doing the same thing we did before, where a lot of young conservatives come in who have been out there campaigning on the right issues, but then all the senior guys take control of the committees and it's business as usual." He warns, "This may be our last chance with voters because if we're given the majority---and don't reform Washington, everybody is going to say, what's wrong with these guys? We need a third party."
He says he has more faith in voters than the people they elect. "I'm getting optimistic, I think as I talk to people around the country---they seem to get it. They want to return to those things that made America different and great. They understand that what the government has done is so harmful, in terms of spending, and takeover's, the debt, it has made the people who are not normally political and not generally interested in it alarmed."
Mr. DeMint's mission is to bring more Jim DeMint's to the Senate--that is, people with an unfailing antagonism to big government. Over the past 5 years, Mr. DeMint has established himself as the pre-eminent conservative in congress--he has a near perfect National Taxpayer Union rating--with Tom Cobburn as a close second. Other victors helped by Mr. DeMint include Rand Paul of Kentucky, Mr. Toomey of Pennsylvania and Mike Lee of Utah. He says his goal is to raise $5million this cycle. That's a pittance in big-money politics, but, Mr. DeMint's strategic, targeted spending has flipped more races than even he thought possible. "I'm not a Kingmaker," he insists, even though that's exactly what many political pros call him. We've got too many Kings in Washington already.
"When I got to Congress in 1999 instead of working on the reforms that I ran on-wealth-creating personal
accounts and individually owned health Insurance and some simple tax, the things that I thought all of us believed in-instead we worked on redistricting and getting the vunerables on the right committees and getting earmarks to the people that needed them. Everything was about numbers and electing more Republicans. We'd always promise to get to the principals later." I was over there at the Senate committee making fund raising calls and so many people were saying, "I'm not giving you guys another dime until you start acting like Republicans." That's when I got the idea of starting a committee to just help conservative candidates.
His frustration boiled over in 2009 when the Republican Senatorial Committee endorsed Senator Arlan Spector and Charlie Crist, neither of whom is a Republican one year later.
Mr. DeMint was the first major political figure to indorse Marco Rubio aagainst Govenor Crist in Florida. Although Mr.Rubio is embraced now as a rising star of the Republican Party, at the time people laughed.
Last week Lisa Murkowski apparently lost to Joe Miller in Alaska's Republican primary. She and her father have held that Senate seat for 30 years. Mr. DeMint said, "This should be a wake up call to Republicans politicans who go to Washington to bring home bacon aren't wanted."
When Mr. DeMint was asked what Republicans should do if they take back the House and Senate this year. He said, "First put a cap on spending." "Next, We may not be able to repeal Obama Care but we can cut off funding it." "Sell Chrysler and GM. get out of it. Privatise Freddie and Fannie so we can get out of the business of running the housing industry." He also is in favor of a low rate flat tax or consumption tax.
He has a personal crusade to end earmarks. He thinks Republicans can re-connect with voters by doing away with pork-barrel spending.
But, in a $3.7 trillion aren't earmarks trivial? He scoffs, "They always say, it's just a small amount of money, but earmarks always enlarge our budget and buy votes so that massive bills can go through." Members haven't been able to fight against these obese budgets, he says, because, "When we direct money back home through earmarks , it makes us complicit in the spending process, It's a killer."
"In the House John Boehner and the Republicans get it, I'm not so sure about the senate."
"I think we are in danger of doing the same thing we did before, where a lot of young conservatives come in who have been out there campaigning on the right issues, but then all the senior guys take control of the committees and it's business as usual." He warns, "This may be our last chance with voters because if we're given the majority---and don't reform Washington, everybody is going to say, what's wrong with these guys? We need a third party."
He says he has more faith in voters than the people they elect. "I'm getting optimistic, I think as I talk to people around the country---they seem to get it. They want to return to those things that made America different and great. They understand that what the government has done is so harmful, in terms of spending, and takeover's, the debt, it has made the people who are not normally political and not generally interested in it alarmed."
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
My Liberal Friend
This morning while having coffee with my liberal friend (over 20 years) I asked him the following question: "What program has the current administration Initiated that has the approval of the majority of Americans?"
He could not answer the question. Why? Because there is not one program the Obama administration has shoved through that has the approval of the majority of Americans.
With the combination of George Soros money, the labor unions, the trial lawyers, the Hollyood left and the anti-war left enabled the Democrats a sense of momentum. They were elated to have a new president that would finally agree to nearly all their wishes whether they were popular or not. So what we have now is 10% unemployment. Small businesses aren't hiring because they are afraid of what kind of regulations and taxes that will come. And then of course there is the 13 Trillion dollar debt!
Meanwhile absolutely nothing has been done to stimulate new jobs. Government jobs are being added but that doesn't help the economy. Unions have been paid off (General Motors Board) The government has sued the state of Az. for trying to do a job that the government has failed to do. The states are refusing to believe the government can force people to purchase health insurance. The supreme court will probably decide if this is unconstitional. Let's pray they do!
He could not answer the question. Why? Because there is not one program the Obama administration has shoved through that has the approval of the majority of Americans.
With the combination of George Soros money, the labor unions, the trial lawyers, the Hollyood left and the anti-war left enabled the Democrats a sense of momentum. They were elated to have a new president that would finally agree to nearly all their wishes whether they were popular or not. So what we have now is 10% unemployment. Small businesses aren't hiring because they are afraid of what kind of regulations and taxes that will come. And then of course there is the 13 Trillion dollar debt!
Meanwhile absolutely nothing has been done to stimulate new jobs. Government jobs are being added but that doesn't help the economy. Unions have been paid off (General Motors Board) The government has sued the state of Az. for trying to do a job that the government has failed to do. The states are refusing to believe the government can force people to purchase health insurance. The supreme court will probably decide if this is unconstitional. Let's pray they do!
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
Is LDL (bad chlosestrol) a factor for the young?
If you think you are too young to worry about your cholestrol, new research suggests you might think again.
In a 20 year study involving 3258 people between 18 and 30 years old, researchers found that the accumulative effect of even modestly abnormal cholesterol heightens your risk of developing telltale signs of heart desease by age 45.
Current national guidlines call for getting a fasting cholesterol test every five yearsbeginning at the age of 20.
Regular exercise and healthy diet should be the main stragety for achieving Cholestrol targets. It took 75 years for my cholestrol to build up to a heart attack. Had I kept my LDL below 100 I may have avoided it!
In a 20 year study involving 3258 people between 18 and 30 years old, researchers found that the accumulative effect of even modestly abnormal cholesterol heightens your risk of developing telltale signs of heart desease by age 45.
Current national guidlines call for getting a fasting cholesterol test every five yearsbeginning at the age of 20.
Regular exercise and healthy diet should be the main stragety for achieving Cholestrol targets. It took 75 years for my cholestrol to build up to a heart attack. Had I kept my LDL below 100 I may have avoided it!
Will Virginia's Law Suit Help?
Virginia's lawsuit challenging the Obama Administration's Health-Care law cleared it's first legal hurdle Monday as a federal judge ruled the law raises a host of complex congressional issues.
Virginia's Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli claimed in the lawsuit that congress doesn't have the authority to require citizens to buy health insurance or pay a penality.
Hopefully, our somewhat conservative supreme court will decide against this unfair law. If they don't just imagine what other things the government insist we buy or pay a penality. Electric cars? Solar systems?
Virginia's Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli claimed in the lawsuit that congress doesn't have the authority to require citizens to buy health insurance or pay a penality.
Hopefully, our somewhat conservative supreme court will decide against this unfair law. If they don't just imagine what other things the government insist we buy or pay a penality. Electric cars? Solar systems?
Monday, August 2, 2010
Why Should We Extend Bush Tax Cuts?
"In todays economy, fiscal prudence and responsibility call for tax reductions even if it temporarily enlarges the federal deficit. Reducing taxes is the best way open to us to increase revenues."
President John F. Kennedy.1965
Senator Kerry bought a seven million dollar yacht in Rhode Island instead of Mass. where he is the senior senator and champion of higher taxes on the rich. He avoided $437,000 in state taxes and annual excise tax of $70,000.
The U.S. went into double-dip recession in 1938, unemployment rose to 20%. The Democratic Government raised personal top marginal income taxes from 24% to 83%. It's no wonder why the great depression lasted so long. Higher taxes on the rich create the very poverty and unemployment that is used to justify their presence.
The Obama administration will probably extent the Bush tax cuts, however they won't extend them for the rich. Therefore a tax on those who create the jobs!
President John F. Kennedy.1965
Senator Kerry bought a seven million dollar yacht in Rhode Island instead of Mass. where he is the senior senator and champion of higher taxes on the rich. He avoided $437,000 in state taxes and annual excise tax of $70,000.
The U.S. went into double-dip recession in 1938, unemployment rose to 20%. The Democratic Government raised personal top marginal income taxes from 24% to 83%. It's no wonder why the great depression lasted so long. Higher taxes on the rich create the very poverty and unemployment that is used to justify their presence.
The Obama administration will probably extent the Bush tax cuts, however they won't extend them for the rich. Therefore a tax on those who create the jobs!
Petreus Changes the Rules!
McCrystals rules of ingagement preventing soldiers from shelling a structure when the enemy is suspected of occupying caused problems soldiers had trouble understanding. Petreus changed that and said hit them! We will see progress that we saw in Iraq now that he is in charge.
Rangel Will Quit!
Charles Rangel will retire. He is 80 years old and 9 of his democratic friends have asked him to. As we get closer to a public trial which would embarass the Democrats he will have others joining the 9.
By quitting, Rangel will save some dignity (very important to him) and help his party avoid a public trial which they can't afford this near the election.
By quitting, Rangel will save some dignity (very important to him) and help his party avoid a public trial which they can't afford this near the election.
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