Government Accounting, or why the Stimulus failed

President Obama's highly touted, and vastly oversold stimulus bill, has been an utter failure. It was sold on the basis that it's need was so crucial and immediate that it was imperative that it be signed that week. The president then waited four days to sign it while vacationing at Camp David, and Golfing at Andrews AFB, so much for it's dire need. It's need was so immediate that 60% of it's money would not be spent until the next election year, two years after it's signing.

It was sold on the promise by our prevaricator in chief that there were immediate shovel ready projects waiting on that money. These projects would create immediate jobs, 400,000 immediately, and a further 3,500,000 jobs in the next two years. This was almost immediately backpedaled to 3.5 million jobs "created or saved", a dishonest attempt to gloss over the fact that the stimulus simply transferred taxpayer money to the very same unions that got president Obama elected. Recently the CBO has adjusted their numbers dramatically downward, as ends up happening with ALL of President Obama's claims. Now they are claiming 638,000 private sector jobs created. So lets do the math...

The stimulus bill ended up costing $858,000,000,000.00. Divided by 638,000 means the government spent $1,344,828.00 PER JOB! This is government efficiency at it's best. Only the government can spend $1.3 million to "create" 638,000 jobs that on average pay only $55,000/yr. Had the government simply handed that stimulus money out to the 37,000,000 people below the poverty line in America every one of them would have gotten a check for $23,189.00 which arguably would have achieved more than this boondoggle.

The problem is that the government exists not to represent you or I, but to feed itself. It exists to thrive off of OUR MONEY! Our politicians hand out other people's money to buy votes to keep their precious jobs. They have no need to exhibit any fiscal restraint because we have given them a blank check with no responsibility or accountability. This has to change.

Economics does not occur in a vacuum. It is all about incentives. If you structure a program like welfare, which discourages work, you get more people not working but collecting your money. When you call this an "entitlement" instead of "charity", it becomes the moocher's RIGHT to collect that money and your OBLIGATION to pay it. When you structure the tax code so that fewer and fewer people are paying more and more of their hard earned money for people who do not rouse themselves to one hour of effort to provide for themselves, you continue heedless towards the tipping point where those shouldering the burdens of the masses, simply refuse to do so any longer. This is the point our politicians are rushing towards.

When States are functionally bankrupt, they turn to the federal government for a bailout. When Greece, Spain, Ireland, Brazil, Mexico, Zimbabwe, Sudan, France, and the EU find themselves functionally bankrupt, they turn to the USA to bail them out, so who does the USA turn to to bail us out when our politicians have bankrupted us?

When is a Whack job Not simply a Whack Job?

With the shooting in Tucson this past weekend, the Liberal media went into immediate overdrive, committing their own character assassination on Sarah Palin, yes I know this is a recurring theme for them, and Conservatives in general.

Talking heads from across the leftist spectrum denounced the right wing violent rhetoric, that led to this tragedy. Even the county sheriff who SHOULD be investigating this crime, and restricting his comments to the facts at hand took the opportunity to indict Conservatives and talk radio. And, of course, by "Talk radio" they mean "conservative talk radio", most notably Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck. They are not indicting Ed " I will fight the bastards every day" Shultz, They are not castigating President Barack "they bring a knife, we will bring a gun" " latinos need to fight our enemies, and reward our friends" Obama.

Never mind the fact that the shooter was mentally ill. Never mind the fact that his classmates and professor knew six months ago that he would "come through the door with an automatic weapon". never mind that exhaustive searches of the shooter's, home, life, and online presence, have yielded no connections to anything remotely right wing. For fun he liked to settle down with a copy of Mein Kampf, or the Communist Manifesto, hardly standard TEA party fare. But as former Chief of Staff, Rahmbo Emmanuel said, "never let a crisis go to waste". The political left, and their willing accomplices in the world of Joun...ehem.... sorry, something stuck in my throat there, Journalism, were quick to decide the appropriate story line, and have yet to allow facts to slow the propaganda juggernaut.

There are proposals for new gun bans, there is a hew and cry on the left to force Sarah Palin to apologize for inciting this tragedy. There are cries on the left wing blogs for Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachman, and Glenn Beck to be indicted as accessories before the fact.

Imagine the depravity, and shallow lack of character required to coldly use a heinous murder as a political bludgeon against your idealogical opposites. Imagine the complete lack of empathy, compassion, and reason it requires to ignore the suffering of the friends and families, and immediately turn a muder into an indictment of political thought and speech. And this from the very same politicians and pundits who rushed to absolve Major Hassan, of any idealogical motivations, those same talking heads who champion Domestic terrorist Bill Ayers, and Quasi- reverend Jeremiah Wright.

The answer to the question posed is: When the victim is on the political left.

Sheriff Dupnik, Keith Olberman, Rachel Maddow, Dick Durbin, Ed Schultz, Richard Cohen, Paul Krugman, Jacob Weisberg, Chris Matthews, Bob Herbert, ALL of you should be ashamed of your partisanship, lack of honesty, and lack of integrity. There was a time when Journalism meant reporting the facts, the left has destroyed yet another venerable occupation.