DCExaminer Editorial Highlights

WASHINGTON EXAMINER EDITORIAL HIGHLIGHTS

Time for the full truth about TARP

Examiner Editorial
"TARP was never meant to become a congressional slush fund. Or was it?"

D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty's April Fools budget

Barbara Hollingsworth, Examiner Columnist
"The District was supposed to be in sound financial shape. Where did all the money go?"

Terrorism isn't an existential threat

Gene Healy, Examiner Columnist
"When the enemy's best recent shot involves lighting his pants on fire, we shouldn't torture ourselves with nightmarish visions of weapons of mass destruction."

Obama's elitism will be his Apocalypse

Ralph Benko, Examiner OpEd Contributor
"But elitism can't be rationalized. There is no way to rationalize insulting your voters."

Heritage Morning Bell-Stimulus and Snowjobs

Snow Slows Obama's Second Stimulus
The snowstorms that have already dumped over two feet of snow on the nation's Capitol and that are threatening to dump another 12 to 16 inches, have grounded the legislative process to a halt. But that might not be such a bad thing. Senate Democrats had hoped they could pass President Barack Obama's second stimulus today, but with only three of the Senate’s 100 lawmakers able to make it to the chamber, that vote has been postponed indefinitely. And the more we learn about what might be in President Obama's second stimulus, the better a little delay looks.

The Las Vegas Sun reported this weekend that big labor leaders are pushing to include their long-sought "card check" provisions into Obama's Second Stimulus. This legislation would effectively end a worker's right to fight unionization through secret ballot elections, would give the federal government the power to run small businesses and would cost the American economy thousands of jobs.

The other major provisions of Obama's second stimulus are also job killers. The $5,000 new worker tax credit does not create any incentive for already-struggling companies to begin long-term hiring. What's worse, it could even increase unemployment; companies would delay existing plans to create jobs so they could take advantage of the tax credit. And it would add to our national debt. Then there's the TARP-funded government-subsidized loans for small businesses. It's a big-government program destined to fail since the Small Business Administration has a terrible record of effectively allocating capital to the private sector.

For months, the American people and small businesses have been trying to tell the White House and Democrats in Congress that federal regulations and spending are part of the problem, not part of the solution. According to the latest National Federation of Independent Businesses survey, small business owners identified high taxes and government regulation as two of the top three problems facing their business.

Instead of piling on more debt and more regulations, the federal government should move in the opposite direction. For example, suspending the Davis-Bacon rules for the construction industry could fund 160,000 new jobs. Rescinding the unspent dollars from Obama's first failed stimulus would signal business owners that they will not face crippling new taxes enacted to cover the deficit. Killing the economically-devastating cap-and-trade legislation and prohibiting the EPA from regulating carbon-dioxide under the Clean Air Act would stabilize the regulatory environment so businesses could safely make long term decisions again.

There are things this Congress could do to help spur job creation. Notably, those job-creating ideas do not include more regulations and more deficit spending. Maybe a good thaw is what Washington needs to get back on the same page as the American people.

Morning Bell-Bank Tax and Union Bailout

This is a violation of the Constitution. You can't single out a specific class of people for punitive action. Non-union workers with healthcare coverage will be penalized for not being union.
Sounds like a tactic to eliminate small businesses and force everyone into a government run health system.

Quick Hit:
The White House officially announced they had cut a behind-closed-door deal with unions yesterday, exempting union contracts from a 40% excise tax on health insurance until 2018.

Bank Tax Misses the Real Bailout Deadbeats in Detroit and DC

Facing rising populist anger over his administration's billion-dollar bailouts, President Barack Obama proposed a $117 billion tax over the next 12 years on financial companies with assets of more than $50 billion. "We want our money back, and we’re going to get it," the President said. The President is half right. Taxpayers are going to get their money back from the banks that received bailout money ... but don't expect to see any of the money the Obama administration poured into General Motors and Chrysler at the behest of their union allies. That is where the real losses are coming from.

The TARP program has so far distributed $247 billion to more than 700 banks. Of that, $162 billion in principal and $11 billion in interest and dividends have already been repaid. Except for AIG, almost all banks that received taxpayer money are expected to pay back the American taxpayers in full. As The New York Times reports: "The losses from the bailout fund are expected from money paid to rescue Chrysler and General Motors and the insurance giant American International Group, and from a program to help homeowners avert foreclosures."

So the real deadbeats that are not giving us "our money back" are not the banks, but the union-backed car companies and failed government mortgage modification programs. But guess what? The White House has chosen not to include the car companies among the institutions that will pay this so called "Financial Crisis Responsibility Fee." Also exempted are Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored entities that helped create the crisis.

The plan also will do nothing to help reform the banking system. Financial regulatory analyst Karen Shaw Petrou tells The Washington Post: "The new big-bank tax is just like charging a nickel sin tax on a half-gallon of cheap liquor -- it may make moralists feel good, but it doesn't do much to stop bad behavior." Instead of protecting consumers, it will just end up hurting them. Financial services analyst Meredith Whitney tells The New York Times: "The irony is it hurts the weaker banks more than the stronger banks. To think that it won’t come out of consumers and businesses is mistaken." And banking analyst David Hendler tells Bloomberg: "We remain concerned that this is more evidence of the cynical view of the banking industry which prevails in Washington."

In sum, this new $117 billion Obama tax will penalize firms that already repaid TARP, and some who never accepted bailout money to begin with, while also making it harder for Americans to get the loans they need to help our economy recover, all while letting the real deadbeats get off scot-free. If the President were serious about making taxpayers whole and restoring confidence in the banking sector, then he should end TARP now.

Solar Powered Chain Saws

Solar-powered chain saws??? Preventing fire roads from being used??? Have people lost their minds? Oh wait, YES!!!


David Freddoso: Big green machine feeds off you
By: David Freddoso Commentary Staff Writer
October 1, 2009

Lawmakers have made it abundantly clear to bailed-out banks and automakers that federal money comes with strings attached. New rules on executive compensation are only the tip of the iceberg for TARP-funded banks. For bailed out automakers, Congress has inserted itself into decisions about plant closings and dealerships. The President of the United States even fired GM's CEO.

But environmental groups face few such restrictions, which is how they can victimize
the taxpayer two- or even three-fold. They freely sue dozens of federal government agencies even as they take federal money. Sometimes they take the money and spend equivalent amounts lobbying Congress to restrict consumers' freedom. Some of them even pay their executives large six-figure salaries.

The taxpayer finds himself in triple jeopardy. He funds these groups with grants and contracts, he can be on the hook for both sides' legal costs, and he risks the loss of freedoms to new laws and lawsuits -- his property rights, and his ability to buy affordable appliances, or even his livelihood.

Defenders of Wildlife, whose president makes more than $300,000 a year, has taken about $190,000 in federal grants since 2004. They are now suing the government to
protect aggressive wolves that were recently introduced into the Mountain West and have since ravaged game and impoverished shepherds and ranchers. The group also spent nearly $150,000 in the first half of 2009 lobbying Congress -- among other things, to fight against a law allowing for wolf control. They have also received more than $80,000 in web development work since 2006 from the Agriculture and Interior Departments.

Not all of the groups cause so much damage with your money, but they take it anyway. The Nature Conservancy (CEO compensation: $349,000), best known for purchasing land to prevent its development, is a billion-dollar organization. That hasn't stopped it from taking $14.4 million in grants from the Department of the Interior and received $50 million in federal contracts.

The more radical Forest Guardians are true green believers who certainly do not overpay themselves - their top employee makes only $46,000 per year. During the western forest fires of 2002, they steadfastly opposed the reopening of fire roads and the thinning of at-risk forests unless "solar powered chainsaws" were used. Even a small group like this can find itself a piece of the pie. Government grants accounted for 10 percent of their revenues in 2006, according to the IRS.

And just this year, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) has put a leg aboard the federal gravy train. The famous public interest group, whose president made a modest $433,000 in 2007, has received a $750,000 government grant from the State Department to encourage the Chinese to use less energy. In addition to suing at least seven government agencies, including recently the Navy, the group also spent more than $400,000 in the first six months of 2009 lobbying Congress to require higher efficiency standards - and thus higher prices - for all appliances.

There's nothing wrong with a gadfly - someone has to hold government accountable. But should you be forced to pay for it, especially when it comes from an ideology
that could hurt your livelihood or even your life?

Gadflies might be parasites in nature, but the human ones don't usually double as leeches.

David Freddoso is a Commentary staff writer who can be reached at dfreddoso@washingtonexaminer.com

Obama has been a great success!

At one time, the active subversion of our Constitution would have be grounds for tar and feathers. In other cases, we would have seen marches, riots, and rebellion in the the streets. Rope. Tree. Politician....Some assembly required.

Many citizens in America submit that Obama and the Democrats in Congress are failing; that they are NOT helping the economy. The Right thinks that the progressive policies of the current Congress and Administration, and the recent bailouts started under Bush, are damaging to the culture and nature of the USA. Trillions have been spent with little or no accountability, all the while Congressional members posture in front of the cameras. The government is reaching into the the very fabric of our nation and tearing it apart.

Financial institutions have been harangued by irresponsible, corrupt demagogues while those same "leaders" have been selling our nation to the highest bidder for decades. Some of those financial institutions have been forced to accept TARP money:

Here's a true story first reported by my Fox News colleague Andrew Napolitano (with the names and some details obscured to prevent retaliation). Under the Bush team a prominent and profitable bank, under threat of a damaging public audit, was forced to accept less than $1 billion of TARP money. The government insisted on buying a new class of preferred stock which gave it a tiny, minority position. The money flowed to the bank. Arguably, back then, the Bush administration was acting for purely economic reasons. It wanted to recapitalize the banks to halt a financial panic.

Fast forward to today, and that same bank is begging to give the money back. The chairman offers to write a check, now, with interest. He's been sitting on the cash for months and has felt the dead hand of government threatening to run his business and dictate pay scales. He sees the writing on the wall and he wants out. But the Obama team says no, since unlike the smaller banks that gave their TARP money back, this bank is far more prominent. The bank has also been threatened with "adverse" consequences if its chairman persists. That's politics talking, not economics.

Think about it: If Rick Wagoner can be fired and compact cars can be mandated, why can't a bank with a vault full of TARP money be told where to lend? And since politics drives this administration, why can't special loans and terms be offered to favored constituents, favored industries, or even favored regions? Our prosperity has never been based on the political allocation of credit -- until now.

The government cares nothing about the law. Retroactive laws and regulations are unconstitutional. The Democrats care only for increasing their power.

The banks complain about the rules that the U.S. Treasury keeps imposing on them retroactively, sometimes in ways that seem arbitrary or driven by constituents' anger.

Some say they never needed the money but were cajoled into taking it by the Treasury, which wanted a show of industry support for its program.

The Treasury basically ordered nine of the nation's biggest banks, including Bank of America and Wells Fargo & Co., to participate in the program.

“It's not something we signed up for,” Bank of America CEO Ken Lewis said in an interview last week with the Observer, referring to TARP's introduction.

Since then, legislators and regulators – fueled by popular backing – have imposed more regulations on the TARP banks, such as caps on executive pay and increased disclosure for how the loans are being spent. They also hauled the CEOs of the biggest banks to Capitol Hill for questioning.

“Congress has shown its hand – and that hand is both manipulative and actively malevolent,” said Nancy Bush, an analyst at NAB Research.

The so-called Stimulus Bill is evidence that the current regime has a different definition of success than you or I. While Keynesian economic models won't get the US out of a recession, the increased spending will shore up the Democratic power bases.

Charles Krauthammer points out the obvious to everyone, well, everyone except the 52 million that voted for the ONE:

....we are now so deep into government intervention that constitutional objections are summarily swept aside. The last Treasury secretary brought the nine largest banks into his office and informed them that henceforth he was their partner. His successor is seeking the power to seize any financial institution at his own discretion.

Obama has far different ambitions. His goal is to rewrite the American social compact, to recast the relationship between government and citizen. He wants government to narrow the nation's income and anxiety gaps. Soak the rich for reasons of revenue and justice. Nationalize health care and federalize education to grant all citizens of all classes the freedom from anxiety about health care and college that the rich enjoy. And fund this vast new social safety net through the cash cow of a disguised carbon tax.

Obama is a leveler. He has come to narrow the divide between rich and poor. For him the ultimate social value is fairness. Imposing it upon the American social order is his mission.

Fairness through leveling is the essence of Obamaism. (Asked by Charlie Gibson during a campaign debate about his support for raising capital gains taxes -- even if they caused a net revenue loss to the government -- Obama stuck to the tax hike "for purposes of fairness.") The elements are highly progressive taxation, federalized health care and higher education, and revenue-producing energy controls. But first he must deal with the sideshows. They could sink the economy and poison his public support before he gets to enact his real agenda.

The Democrats are proposing additional questionable activities. Besides stealing the census from its proper constitutional place, the Obama administration has placed the Census under Rahm Emanuel, the President's Chief of Staff, a man that is directly answerable only to the President. ACORN, another political ally of Obama, one that supports "estimating" the population, is going to be instrumental in operation of the Census.

An if stealing votes via the Census is not enough, Democrats are trying to subvert the Constitutional Amendment process by awarding Washington, D.C. representation in Congress, by congressional vote alone.

Washington Post:

Justice Department lawyers concluded in an unpublished opinion earlier this year that the historic D.C. voting rights bill pending in Congress is unconstitutional, according to sources briefed on the issue. But Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., who supports the measure, ordered up a second opinion from other lawyers in his department and determined that the legislation would pass muster.

A finding that the voting rights bill runs afoul of the Constitution could complicate an upcoming House vote and make the measure more vulnerable to a legal challenge that probably would reach the Supreme Court if it is enacted. The bill, which would give the District a vote in the House for the first time, appeared to be on the verge of passing last month before stalling when pro-gun legislators tried to attach an amendment weakening city gun laws. Supporters say it could reach the House floor in May.

In deciding that the measure is unconstitutional, lawyers in the department's Office of Legal Counsel matched a conclusion reached by their Bush administration counterparts nearly two years ago, when a lawyer there testified that a similar bill would not withstand legal attack.

Holder rejected the advice and sought the opinion of the solicitor general's office, where lawyers told him that they could defend the legislation if it were challenged after its enactment.

Many favor the idea of granting DC statehood, no matter that this would violate not only the letter of the law, but, also the Founders basic idea of a Federal territory being the capital of all the country. Ask yourself this question. Would Obama and company be so enamoured of statehood for DC if the city was full of conservatives?

Obama has been a great success these last few months. His agenda has increased the power of government and the opportunities for political influence immensely. His every speech has contributed to the perceived success of the progressive movement. Government intrusion into the American way of life has become impossible to remove. Our prestige and respect throughout the world is dropping, even from the supposed lows of Bush's term. Not only do our enemies laugh at us, unafraid, Obama is alienating the very allies which did stand by us. His "smart diplomacy" has angered and insulted nations from Turkey to Great Britain. He has kowtowed to Saudi Arabia. Angered the Turks by mentioning Armenia. Insulted the Queen and Prime Minister of Great Britain. He has demonstrated his lack of wit in every country that he has visited. His State Department relies on his hand picked choice, a woman that has played the fool both at home and abroad.

He is not trying to improve America. He is not trumpeting our successes or our exceptionalism. No. Obama is succeeding in leveling the playing field by criticizing America and apologizing for our actions.. He is succeeding in concentrating ever more power in his administration. He is succeeding in placing more economic power in the government's greedy hands. He is succeeding in slandering entire industries to further his aims.

Obama is a success. So far. God Help Us.

Redstate Action Alert

Redstate Alert

1. The Obama Tax Cuts Are Just Bait for the GOP
Obama's whole model is to lead by being unthreatening. He'd rather have someone else make the tough decisions. He figures that tax-cut proposals will work like catnip on Republicans in Congress. Then they'll have the big fights with the Congressional Democrats that Obama would prefer not to have.
2. TARP II Demands Real Debate
The entire rationale on which it was presented to Congress was thrown out within days of its passage. To date, it has become apparent that the plan has not achieved one of its pivotal goals - making credit available to individuals and businesses.
3. Will the Stimulus Stimulate?
Polls show the stimulus bill is popular with the public, but do they realize what's in it and that the original New Deal did not solve the problems it purported solved?
4. Tim Geithner Did What Leona Helmsley Did. She Went to Jail. Will He Go to Treasury?
Geithner is allegedly a brilliant career bureaucrat. He's a political insider with his own ties to Obama, as Obama's mother once reported to Geithner's father. Having never worked in the private sector, he has cooked his personal books like one of the Wall Street swindlers Team Obama routinely excoriates.
1. The Obama Tax Cuts Are Just Bait for the GOP
Obama's whole model is to lead by being unthreatening. He'd rather have someone else make the tough decisions. He figures that tax-cut proposals will work like catnip on Republicans in Congress. Then they'll have the big fights with the Congressional Democrats that Obama would prefer not to have.
It's generally held by people who still think that economic freedom is a good idea, that private people and businesses, rather than government, should decide how we spend our resources. (Yes, there still are a few of us left.) This is why conservative orthodoxy holds that tax cuts are a good idea.
But let's be very clear about why conservatives, in general, like tax cuts: because they're a way of limiting the size of government. The goal isn't lower taxes per se (although there is much experience to suggest that lower marginal tax rates do make economies more efficient). Rather, the goal is to keep the government small.
But we're debating a Keynesian stimulus package here. Smaller government isn't even in the room, much less on the table. Obama still intends to borrow all the money that would be used for the tax cuts. This doesn't make the government smaller at all. It's a bait-and-switch, and all conservatives should be very suspicious of the idea for that reason.
The question Republicans should be asking Obama is: If a $300 billion borrow-and-rebate plan is such a good idea, what's wrong with just reducing the overall size of the stimulus package by $300 billion? Let's go from $850 billion down to $550 billion and forego that much of the borrowing, instead.

2. TARP II Demands Real Debate
The entire rationale on which it was presented to Congress was thrown out within days of its passage. To date, it has become apparent that the plan has not achieved one of its pivotal goals - making credit available to individuals and businesses.
The Senate voted this afternoon to approve more TARP money for the President. As it stands, the Department of the Treasury cannot clearly detail how they have spent the first half of the money, and the recent auto bailouts indicate that the program has devolved into little more than a slush fund. Yet we are now expected to release another $350 billion without knowing how it will be spent, let alone how the first half was spent.
Senator David Vitter believes it is apparent that any move to release further funds should include a real and serious discussion of how the money will be spent. We cannot afford, and our kids and grandkids cannot afford, for us to continue digging our nation deeper and deeper into debt.

3. Will the Stimulus Stimulate?
Polls show the stimulus bill is popular with the public, but do they realize what's in it and that the original New Deal did not solve the problems it purported solved?
NBC news and the Wall Street Journal have completed a detailed poll of the American public, examining popular views on the risky spending scheme being considered in Congress. The headlines about the poll say things like 'Public Backs Obama Stimulus Plan,' and 'Americans Strongly Back Obama and His Stimulus Plan,' and they're largely right.
But read a little deeper, and there are clear signs that the American people are worried about this plan. A plurality of the American public is already worried about things like a Big 3 bailout, government-run health care, and coming tax increases. In the back-and-forth over Obama's economic agenda, he needs to be careful not to take actions that will give credence to such concerns.
An initial review of the "stimulus" by Congressman John Boehner's office found these spending proposals:
$600 million for new cars for the federal government
$1 billion "to minimize undercounting of minority groups" in the 2010 census
$400 million for NASA for global warming
$400 million for "National Treasures"
$6 billion for colleges/universities, many of which have massive billion dollar endowments
$166 billion in direct aid to states, many of which have failed to budget wisely
$650 million more for digital television conversation coupons
Despite a promise from President-elect Barack Obama to listen to Republican ideas, the plan distributed by House Democrats today includes not a single GOP proposal.
President-elect Barack Obama believes government spending is the best way to bailout America from its economic woes, and liberals in Congress are having no trouble finding ways to spend your hard-earned money. The price tag of the so-called stimulus plan has steadily increased from $775 billion last week to $850 billion today.
Liberals like to say the New Deal programs of their hero Franklin Delano Roosevelt saved America from the Great Depression. All of that government spending, they argue, gave Americans jobs and boosted the economy.
The numbers don't tell the same story. Unemployment data from the 1930s - during FDR's first two terms - remained above 20% despite New Deal spending. Liberals criticized the data arguing it didn't account for the entire workforce. Even when prisoners, government relief workers and the institutionalized are accounted for, unemployment follows the same pattern - and remains much higher than the normal unemployment rate of 5.5%. Conservatives shouldn't shy away from this fight. Government spending alone will not revive the economy.

4. Tim Geithner Did What Leona Helmsley Did. She Went to Jail. Will He Go to Treasury?
Geithner is allegedly a brilliant career bureaucrat. He's a political insider with his own ties to Obama, as Obama's mother once reported to Geithner's father. Having never worked in the private sector, he has cooked his personal books like one of the Wall Street swindlers Team Obama routinely excoriates.
Let us assume the oh-so brilliant Geithner - who does his own taxes because he is so smart - did innocently forget to pay the employer's share of taxes related to an employee. That could happen; the Democrats sank Linda Chavez' nomination as Labor Secretary over less.
Even so, there is the matter of Geithner's own taxes. The International Monetary Fund sent notices to Geithner making clear he was responsible for his payroll taxes. He had direct knowledge that he was responsible, but he still refused to pay. He even accepted reimbursement from the IMF for those taxes and signed certifications that he'd paid them.
When he finally decided to pay, Geithner paid only enough to avoid potential criminal liability for failure to pay taxes. He willifully shortchanged the tax system even though he'd already been reimbursed for the taxes. There is no issue of mistake here. Geithner knew he had a tax obligation, took steps to pay his taxes, and deliberately paid only so much as to avoid criminal liability, but not so much as to pay his entire obligation.
Compare Geithner's treatment by the media to Sarah Palin's treatment.