In March, the House of Representatives unanimously rejected the President's Fiscal Year 2013 budget by a vote of 0-414.
Earlier today, in the US Senate, the President's FY 2013 budget was unanimously rejected by a vote of 0-99.
This is a clean sweep rejection of the President's fiscal plan - as it failed to garner a single vote in either the House or Senate.
It is also the second year in a row where the Senate has unanimously rejected the President's budget - as it voted down the President's FY2012 budget by a vote of 0-97.
The Senate, which has not passed a budget in over 1,115 days, will be holding votes on 4 GOP budget proposals - the result of the GOP Senate leadership forcing the Harry Reid Senate to hold votes on a budget. None of these plans are expected to get the 51 votes needed to pass.
The Senate is comprised of 51 Democrats, 2 Independents who caucus with the Democrats, and 47 Republicans.
Majority Leader Reid is on record as saying that he has no intent to offer a Democrat budget from the Senate before this November's election - continuing the unprecedented case of the Senate not passing a budget for over 3 years.
UPDATE -
The House passed budget bill authored by Representative Paul Ryan was defeated in its Senate vote by a margin of 41 - 58. Five Republicans joined the Democrats in voting against this budget - at least one of whom voted against it because it did not go far enough to address the current fiscal challenges.
Republican Senator Pat Toomey's budget proposal was defeated 42-57, as were 2 other Republican proposed budgets - each gaining unanimous Democrat votes to reject.
Showing posts with label 2012. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 2012. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 16, 2012
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
California is America's Greece
California State Controller John Chiang sent a letter to state lawmakers today warning that without action, California would run out of cash in March 2012.
$2.6 billion lower revenues than projected combined with $2.6 billion in more expenditures than planned.
Says a lot about a State Government led by a Governor who thinks that the High Speed Rail Network Board's $100 billion - $120 billion cost estimate was overstated and the revenues of the State's punitive cap and trade fee structure will bring in excess of $1 billion annually.
Only a few Republicans are apparently raising questions about not only the higher than expected revenues, but how and when the delayed payments and 'adjusted' state accounts will be resolved.
Of course none of this is because of or the responsibility of Governor Brown and the progressive Democrats that dominate California. The State's fiscal challenges are the result of the Republicans preventing tax increases and the courts that hamstring the State's budget.
The announcement is surprising since lawmakers previously believed the state had enough cash to last through the fiscal year that ends in June.
But Chiang said additional cash management solutions are needed because state tax revenues are $2.6 billion less than what Gov. Jerry Brown and state lawmakers assumed in their optimistic budget last year. Meanwhile, Chiang said, the state is spending $2.6 billion more than state leaders planned on.
$2.6 billion lower revenues than projected combined with $2.6 billion in more expenditures than planned.
Says a lot about a State Government led by a Governor who thinks that the High Speed Rail Network Board's $100 billion - $120 billion cost estimate was overstated and the revenues of the State's punitive cap and trade fee structure will bring in excess of $1 billion annually.
Only a few Republicans are apparently raising questions about not only the higher than expected revenues, but how and when the delayed payments and 'adjusted' state accounts will be resolved.
Of course none of this is because of or the responsibility of Governor Brown and the progressive Democrats that dominate California. The State's fiscal challenges are the result of the Republicans preventing tax increases and the courts that hamstring the State's budget.
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
State of the Union 2012
“Who is more foolish? The fool or the fool that follows it?”
This was one of the thoughts that crossed my mind as I waited for the President to deliver his third State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress and the American people. We knew that this was going to be more of a campaign speech than a real look at this state of the country as we enter Barack Obama's fourth year as President of the United States.
Previews of the speech throughout the day indicated that the President was going to focus on trebling / quadrupling down on class warfare, social justice, 'fairness', and defining compromise as when the GOP opponents of the President surrender on their principles and embrace wholeheartedly the President's progressive agenda. We would get rhetoric around the these points as well as new and not so new ideas of how bigger government is better government.
But one of the real questions the American people would have would about how the President would attempt to present his record earned over the last three years...
The President has a huge challenge if he attempts to run on his record. He may blame the economic challenges on the actions of his predecessor, but the fact remains that the actions and policies of President Obama have done little or nothing to stimulate a real economic recovery.
Unemployment may be 'officially' at 8.5%, higher than it was in January 2009 when he took office, but real unemployment level has skyrocketed during Obama's tenure. One of the main cases for the $800 billion stimulus that the President advocated was to limit the unemployment rate to not exceed 8%.
In terms of the total level of those employed, under President Obama, our workforce has gone from nearly 65% of the population to just over 58% of the population.
If you notice on the above charge of the employment / population ration, the current level is the lowest we've seen since right at the end of the 1981-2 recession that hit during Ronald Reagan's presidency. In fact that recession and the one we experienced in 2008-9 were the two sharpest and most painful recessions we've experienced since the Great Depression. These recessions also reflect the effects of two polar visions towards economics - the conservative vision and approach as done by President Ronald Reagan and the progressive vision and approach as done by President Barack Obama.
When the Washington Post takes a hard look at the claims made by the President in the speech, they are clearly struggling to minimize the damage in pointing out the misrepresentations. They start by employing a false meme that misrepresentations in SOTU speeches do happen, citing the false meme that the Bush Administration made one in the famous 16 words claim that Iraq was attempting to purchase yellowcake from an African nation to develop weapons of mass destruction. We know now that Mr. Valerie Plame lied about this, and that the British intelligence that provided this information to the Bush Administration stands by the information.
The Washington Post fact checks raise questions about President Obama taking credit for the withdrawal of the US troops from Iraq - as it was the agreement reached by President Bush and the Iraqi's that defined that withdrawal date - and all President Obama did was refuse to modify that agreement to keep US forces there to help the Iraqi government. They also raise questions with the President's claims of 'success' in Afghanistan.
They note that the President calls for and touts 'new rules' for Wall Street being needed - while ignoring the challenges and problems being created by the flawed Dodd / Frank bill that the GOP is looking to repeal immediately after they repeal the fiscal disaster that is Obamacare.
The President disingenuously calls for debt reduction - while insisting that we continue to spend at a level that has created four consecutive years of annual deficits in excess of $1.2 trillion, and fought tooth and nail to avoid having debt reduction forced on him by the Republicans in Congress.
He demands that Congress provides him and the American people with a full year extension of the Temporary Social Security Payroll Tax reduction - ignoring that the House of Representatives did pass in December a full year's extension that was killed by the Democrat majority in the Senate because they didn't like how it was 'paid for'.
President Obama touted as a success three free trade agreements that were signed in 2011...forgetting that these agreements were originally done under President Bush's Administration and they sat for three years on his desk because he wanted Congress to ensure that they would provide pork to the unions as 'compensation' for moving the agreements forward.
As Fox's John Stossel notes in his column on the President's speech -
President Obama's State of the Union speech reflected more hope and a view through red-tinted glasses than a realistic of view of where we are and where we are going. He wants another four year term in the White House to promote his Alinsky based vision of 'fundamental change'. He still sees the US as a fundamentally flawed and broken nation that is 'unfair' because there is no equality in results...and that government is the only arbitrator to ensure equality in results for all.
It is a flawed and dangerous vision that misrepresents the State of the Union. It is a clarion call to quadruple down on the same policies and agenda that will take this country from a $10.2 trillion national debt to a $16.4 trillion debt by January 2013 - a debt level that is likely to be 110% of our Gross Domestic Product. The same policies and agenda that has a real unemployment rate in excess of 15% and one that has significantly damaged our relations and interactions with other nations around the world.
That is why it is imperative that we all make this the last State of the Union speech President Obama ever delivers.
This was one of the thoughts that crossed my mind as I waited for the President to deliver his third State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress and the American people. We knew that this was going to be more of a campaign speech than a real look at this state of the country as we enter Barack Obama's fourth year as President of the United States.
Previews of the speech throughout the day indicated that the President was going to focus on trebling / quadrupling down on class warfare, social justice, 'fairness', and defining compromise as when the GOP opponents of the President surrender on their principles and embrace wholeheartedly the President's progressive agenda. We would get rhetoric around the these points as well as new and not so new ideas of how bigger government is better government.
But one of the real questions the American people would have would about how the President would attempt to present his record earned over the last three years...
The President has a huge challenge if he attempts to run on his record. He may blame the economic challenges on the actions of his predecessor, but the fact remains that the actions and policies of President Obama have done little or nothing to stimulate a real economic recovery.
Unemployment may be 'officially' at 8.5%, higher than it was in January 2009 when he took office, but real unemployment level has skyrocketed during Obama's tenure. One of the main cases for the $800 billion stimulus that the President advocated was to limit the unemployment rate to not exceed 8%.
In terms of the total level of those employed, under President Obama, our workforce has gone from nearly 65% of the population to just over 58% of the population.
If you notice on the above charge of the employment / population ration, the current level is the lowest we've seen since right at the end of the 1981-2 recession that hit during Ronald Reagan's presidency. In fact that recession and the one we experienced in 2008-9 were the two sharpest and most painful recessions we've experienced since the Great Depression. These recessions also reflect the effects of two polar visions towards economics - the conservative vision and approach as done by President Ronald Reagan and the progressive vision and approach as done by President Barack Obama.
This chart graphs the differences between these approaches towards promoting economic growth as measured by the country's Gross Domestic Product on a quarter by quarter basis starting with the first quarter of recovery after a recession.
Ironically, given the President's consistent blame game movement to paint the economic challenges on President Bush, the only real accomplishment of the Obama Administration, was the case of the President quietly continuing a Bush Administration policy - getting Bin Laden. And even this major accomplishment, which opened and closed the President's speech, required President Obama being pushed hard from within his own Administration to pull the trigger on the mission.
With a record that is hardly defensible, just how would the President define the State of the Union - and highlight his vision and policies to move the country forward?
He fulfilled all of the expectations by invoking class warfare, populism, renewed calls for 'fairness' in tax policy (ie tax the rich), and the obligation we all are supposed to have towards 'social justice'. None of the problems we are experiencing are related to the policies and agenda of his Administration - and none of the failures to address the problems and challenges we face are related to his policies and agenda.
Plans and programs that the President advocated last night were many of the same plans and programs that the Administration pushed in the last three years. They failed then - but we are being asked by the President to believe that doing them again will deliver different results.
Blogger Tigerhawk undertook an ambitious paragraph by paragraph review of the President's speech - and highlights comments made by the President that he likes and didn't like. Here's one that caught my eye - and one I entirely agree with...
The Wall Street Journal's editorial on the State of the Union speech also calls out the President for both his record and his so-called desire to reduce the negative impact of regulations...After all, innovation is what America has always been about. Most new jobs are created in start-ups and small businesses. So let’s pass an agenda that helps them succeed. Tear down regulations that prevent aspiring entrepreneurs from getting the financing to grow. Expand tax relief to small businesses that are raising wages and creating good jobs. Both parties agree on these ideas. So put them in a bill, and get it on my desk this year.This is without question the most disingenuous paragraph in a mostly disingenuous speech. First, Obama's torrent of formal and informal regulation has made it far more difficult for small companies than large ones. Regulation always favors the large and entrenched at the expense of the small and the disruptive. Second, Obama has promoted and enacted specific legislation that squelches start-ups. See, e.g., his tax on medical device revenues, which kicks in long before profits and which (obviously) greatly raises the return hurdles required to attract new investment in innovation. That he can read this paragraph with a straight face speaks volumes about his character.
The Pelosi Congress also passed ObamaCare, Dodd-Frank, cash for clunkers, the housing tax credit, and much more. The only Obama priority it didn't pass was cap-and-trade, which was killed by Senate Democrats.In my opinion, there were a number of paragraphs within the President's speech where the misrepresentation of facts clearly highlighted the character, or lack thereof, of Barack Obama. We have in this President a person who is as narcissitic as we've claimed as well as a person who is clearly a progressive ideologue who holds the American electorate in contempt. he lacks a real record, so he has to distort the record believing that the electorate will not know the difference.
Mr. Obama's regulators also currently have some 149 major rules underway, which are those that cost more than $100 million. The 112th Congress hasn't been able to kill a single major rule. The most it has been able to do is extend the Bush tax rates—which helped the economy by avoiding a tax shock—and slow the rate of increase in federal spending. This President has been "obstructed" less than anyone since LBJ.
Mr. Obama clearly has a spring in his step these days, figuring that the public hates Congress and thinks Republicans run it, that the GOP will field a weak presidential candidate, and that he can fool the public into believing only Mitt Romney's taxes will rise if Mr. Obama wins a second term. He has only one big obstacle: his record.
When the Washington Post takes a hard look at the claims made by the President in the speech, they are clearly struggling to minimize the damage in pointing out the misrepresentations. They start by employing a false meme that misrepresentations in SOTU speeches do happen, citing the false meme that the Bush Administration made one in the famous 16 words claim that Iraq was attempting to purchase yellowcake from an African nation to develop weapons of mass destruction. We know now that Mr. Valerie Plame lied about this, and that the British intelligence that provided this information to the Bush Administration stands by the information.
The Washington Post fact checks raise questions about President Obama taking credit for the withdrawal of the US troops from Iraq - as it was the agreement reached by President Bush and the Iraqi's that defined that withdrawal date - and all President Obama did was refuse to modify that agreement to keep US forces there to help the Iraqi government. They also raise questions with the President's claims of 'success' in Afghanistan.
They note that the President calls for and touts 'new rules' for Wall Street being needed - while ignoring the challenges and problems being created by the flawed Dodd / Frank bill that the GOP is looking to repeal immediately after they repeal the fiscal disaster that is Obamacare.
The President disingenuously calls for debt reduction - while insisting that we continue to spend at a level that has created four consecutive years of annual deficits in excess of $1.2 trillion, and fought tooth and nail to avoid having debt reduction forced on him by the Republicans in Congress.
He demands that Congress provides him and the American people with a full year extension of the Temporary Social Security Payroll Tax reduction - ignoring that the House of Representatives did pass in December a full year's extension that was killed by the Democrat majority in the Senate because they didn't like how it was 'paid for'.
President Obama touted as a success three free trade agreements that were signed in 2011...forgetting that these agreements were originally done under President Bush's Administration and they sat for three years on his desk because he wanted Congress to ensure that they would provide pork to the unions as 'compensation' for moving the agreements forward.
As Fox's John Stossel notes in his column on the President's speech -
Has Barack Obama learned nothing in three years? Last night, during his State of the Union address, he promised "a blueprint for an economy." But economies are crushed by blueprints. An economy is really nothing more than people participating in an unfathomably complex spontaneous network of exchanges aimed at improving their material circumstances. It can't even be diagrammed, much less planned. And any attempt at it will come to grief.
Politicians like Obama believe they are the best judges of how we should conduct our lives. Of course a word like "blueprint" would occur to the president. He, like most who want his job, aspires to be the architect of a new society.
But we who love our lives and our freedom say: No, thanks. We need no social architect. We need liberty under law. That's it.
Obama -- and most Republicans are no different -- doesn't understand the real liberal revolution that transformed civilization. The crux of that revolution is that law should define general visible rules of just conduct, applicable to all, with no eye to particular outcomes. In other words, as Nobel laureate F.A. Hayek taught, the only "purpose" of law is to enable us all to pursue our individual purposes in peace.
President Obama's State of the Union speech reflected more hope and a view through red-tinted glasses than a realistic of view of where we are and where we are going. He wants another four year term in the White House to promote his Alinsky based vision of 'fundamental change'. He still sees the US as a fundamentally flawed and broken nation that is 'unfair' because there is no equality in results...and that government is the only arbitrator to ensure equality in results for all.
It is a flawed and dangerous vision that misrepresents the State of the Union. It is a clarion call to quadruple down on the same policies and agenda that will take this country from a $10.2 trillion national debt to a $16.4 trillion debt by January 2013 - a debt level that is likely to be 110% of our Gross Domestic Product. The same policies and agenda that has a real unemployment rate in excess of 15% and one that has significantly damaged our relations and interactions with other nations around the world.
That is why it is imperative that we all make this the last State of the Union speech President Obama ever delivers.
Sunday, January 15, 2012
How Excessive Regulations Cost Us
One of the main policy directions of the Obama Administration is to use their claimed (and in some cases real) executive authority to enact policy directions via regulations and executive fiat. This happens particularly when the Administration has been unable to enact their preferred policy directions via their partnership with the Legislative branch of Government - the Congress.
Much of this comes from the Administration's approach towards 'compromise' and 'negotiation'. We all remember the WH meeting between leaders of Congress and the President during the debate on Obamacare where the President callously reminded the minority Republican leaders of both the House and Senate, 'I Won'. This was the first major example of the President's definition of 'compromise' - where the opposition much give up their position entirely and sign onto the President's position entirely before 'compromise' has been achieved.
From this, and the parliamentary shenanigans needed by the Senate Majority Leader, unable to leverage his initially 20 vote and ultimately 19 vote majority in the Senate, to ram Obamacare through the Senate and then onto to the President for signature sent a clear message to the Republicans and Americans that to this President and his supporters, the end's justifies the means.
After the actions of the Administration and Congressional Democrats, the people in November 2010 historically rebuked the agenda of the President. However rather than lead as President Clinton did after a similar rebuke by triangulating and moving to the center, President Obama and the Senate Democrats continued on their full scale war on the American people and Republicans in Congress.
The Senate, under Harry Reid, along with the usual sycophants in the media, helped create the false meme of a 'do-nothing' 'Republican Congress' as the Senate Democrat leadership has buried nearly three dozen House bills by the Republicans to address the very real problems we have. They've also failed, for nearly 1,000 days, to pass a federal budget - fighting tooth and nail to continue to spend more than $1.3 trillion dollars than the government brings in - primarily on expanding government via regulation.
George Will writing in today's Washington Post highlights one specific case, although there are likely thousands, where the agenda of this Administration and their drive to use regulations and executive fiat to enact that misguided agenda, result in massive damage to the US in terms of lost jobs, higher costs, and lost business opportunities.
Why has it taken over a decade to rebuild Ground Zero after the terror attacks on 9/11? Dozens of agencies were involved, each fighting for their own bureaucratic turf and agenda as opposed to focusing on the rebuilding of that ground. In California, if one wants to open a new restaurant, one has to deal with nearly 30 different agencies and departments in a process that easily take over 18 months - yet in Texas, the same can be accomplished in only 6 weeks with far fewer bureaucratic hurdles to clear.
We're told that we don't have 'death panels' of government bureaucrats deciding life and death issues around healthcare, but then these same government bureaucrats decertify the FDA approval of a drug that prolongs life in many cancer cases because it is very expensive. Or they decide that 50 is the better age to start regular breast detection mammograms over 40, and that those under 25 shouldn't be tested for cervical cancer - all not based on science but on costs.
We can't drill for oil within the US because of environmental regulations - and the strong left bias against drilling for oil inside the US, but we can spend $2 billion to get Brazil to do it - ignoring that Brazil will have far less reasonable oversight of the process. The left has the meme that we use too much energy - and to support this meme, they do all they can to reduce the production of domestic energy and support policies to increase the cost of energy - achieving their goal via their policies to reform behavior even as this damages the US economy, costs us jobs, and makes the economic recovery far longer and shallower than it should be.
Sound familiar? The leftist meme to increase the level of gun controls is being demanded by the supplies of US weaponry to the Mexican Drug Cartels who have murdered nearly 50,000 people in the last 5 years. The problem with this? Government bureaucrats, to support the case being presented, developed a program to supply guns to the cartels - creating the very case they are trying to address. Hundreds of deaths resulted from this program, including 2 Americans, but the government bureaucrats are content to lie to Congress and cover-up their actions.
The ends justifies the means to the Machiavellian mindset of today's liberal fascists.
This is why the election of 2012, and the defeat of this mindset, is imperative.
Much of this comes from the Administration's approach towards 'compromise' and 'negotiation'. We all remember the WH meeting between leaders of Congress and the President during the debate on Obamacare where the President callously reminded the minority Republican leaders of both the House and Senate, 'I Won'. This was the first major example of the President's definition of 'compromise' - where the opposition much give up their position entirely and sign onto the President's position entirely before 'compromise' has been achieved.
From this, and the parliamentary shenanigans needed by the Senate Majority Leader, unable to leverage his initially 20 vote and ultimately 19 vote majority in the Senate, to ram Obamacare through the Senate and then onto to the President for signature sent a clear message to the Republicans and Americans that to this President and his supporters, the end's justifies the means.
After the actions of the Administration and Congressional Democrats, the people in November 2010 historically rebuked the agenda of the President. However rather than lead as President Clinton did after a similar rebuke by triangulating and moving to the center, President Obama and the Senate Democrats continued on their full scale war on the American people and Republicans in Congress.
The Senate, under Harry Reid, along with the usual sycophants in the media, helped create the false meme of a 'do-nothing' 'Republican Congress' as the Senate Democrat leadership has buried nearly three dozen House bills by the Republicans to address the very real problems we have. They've also failed, for nearly 1,000 days, to pass a federal budget - fighting tooth and nail to continue to spend more than $1.3 trillion dollars than the government brings in - primarily on expanding government via regulation.
George Will writing in today's Washington Post highlights one specific case, although there are likely thousands, where the agenda of this Administration and their drive to use regulations and executive fiat to enact that misguided agenda, result in massive damage to the US in terms of lost jobs, higher costs, and lost business opportunities.
Newsome says the study for deepening Savannah’s harbor was made in 1999. It is 2012, and studies for the environmental impact statement are not finished. When they are, the project will take five years to construct. “But before that,” he says laconically, “they’re going to be sued by groups concerned about the environmental impact.” A Newsome axiom — that institutions become risk-averse as they get challenged — is increasingly pertinent as America changes from a nation that celebrated getting things done to a nation that celebrates people and groups who prevent things from being done. . .These are valid questions that American voters have to ask.
The Empire State Building was built in 14 months during the Depression, the Pentagon in 16 in wartime. The aircraft carrier USS Yorktown, which earned 11 battle stars in the Pacific and now is anchored here, was built in less than 17 months, back when America was serious about moving forward. Is it necessary to take eight years — just two years less than it took to build the Panama Canal with yellow fever and without computers — to deepen this harbor five feet?
Why has it taken over a decade to rebuild Ground Zero after the terror attacks on 9/11? Dozens of agencies were involved, each fighting for their own bureaucratic turf and agenda as opposed to focusing on the rebuilding of that ground. In California, if one wants to open a new restaurant, one has to deal with nearly 30 different agencies and departments in a process that easily take over 18 months - yet in Texas, the same can be accomplished in only 6 weeks with far fewer bureaucratic hurdles to clear.
We're told that we don't have 'death panels' of government bureaucrats deciding life and death issues around healthcare, but then these same government bureaucrats decertify the FDA approval of a drug that prolongs life in many cancer cases because it is very expensive. Or they decide that 50 is the better age to start regular breast detection mammograms over 40, and that those under 25 shouldn't be tested for cervical cancer - all not based on science but on costs.
We can't drill for oil within the US because of environmental regulations - and the strong left bias against drilling for oil inside the US, but we can spend $2 billion to get Brazil to do it - ignoring that Brazil will have far less reasonable oversight of the process. The left has the meme that we use too much energy - and to support this meme, they do all they can to reduce the production of domestic energy and support policies to increase the cost of energy - achieving their goal via their policies to reform behavior even as this damages the US economy, costs us jobs, and makes the economic recovery far longer and shallower than it should be.
Sound familiar? The leftist meme to increase the level of gun controls is being demanded by the supplies of US weaponry to the Mexican Drug Cartels who have murdered nearly 50,000 people in the last 5 years. The problem with this? Government bureaucrats, to support the case being presented, developed a program to supply guns to the cartels - creating the very case they are trying to address. Hundreds of deaths resulted from this program, including 2 Americans, but the government bureaucrats are content to lie to Congress and cover-up their actions.
The ends justifies the means to the Machiavellian mindset of today's liberal fascists.
This is why the election of 2012, and the defeat of this mindset, is imperative.
Sunday, January 1, 2012
2012 Predictions
Many bloggers and prognosticators celebrate the start of the New Year with a look, sometimes serious, sometimes frivolous, at what they think will happen in the New Year.
For me, it's hard not to look at 2012 with a great deal of pessimism - which for me is a change from the optimism I usually have starting a new year.
In terms of the economy, I do not see the US achieving more than 2% GDP growth during 2012. The consumer will continue to feel that the economy is stagnating. Unemployment will not drop below 8.3% prior to the November election - and there will be numerous accusations that the Administration is fudging the numbers by continuing to remove large numbers from the pool as having given up their job search. The 'real' unemployment number will be around 16% - 17%.
Spending will continue nearly unabated throughout 2012 - and we'll be posting another annual federal budget deficit of over $1.2 trillion. There will be no FY2013 budget in place for the start of the fiscal year on October 1st - and there will be a brief government shutdown that will add turmoil to the Presidential campaign as both sides argue over a continuing funding resolution to fund the government (and increase the national debt limit) from October 1 to January 31, 2013.
The US will receive another downgrade of its debt in September - a move that the Administration will cry is politically motivated.
On the US political front - the scandals around the crony capitalism of the Obama Administration (Solyndra, Solar Millennium, MF Global), Fannie Mae / Freddie Mac, Fast and Furious, and the Administration's continued efforts to impose it's agenda via regulatory fiat will damage the Administration and the President.
Several key members of the Obama Cabinet will resign / be forced to resign. Leading candidates include the Secretary of Energy Chu, Secretary of Homeland Security Napolitano, Attorney General Holder, HHS Secretary Sebelius, Secretary of Education Duncan.
Jon Corzine will be indicted for his role in the misappropriation of $1.2 billion in client funds during the failure of MF Global - he will be found guilty and sentenced to 10 years in prison.
The President will reject the building of the Keystone XL pipeline seriously damaging our relations with Canada. This becomes a big campaign issue.
The media will conduct an unprecedented and unrelenting 'war' against the Republican nominee for President and the Republican party - going further into the bag for Obama and the progressive Democrats than they did in 2008. Polls will fluctuate greatly - with the President generally leading the Republican candidate even through the brief October government shutdown.
For me, it's hard not to look at 2012 with a great deal of pessimism - which for me is a change from the optimism I usually have starting a new year.
In terms of the economy, I do not see the US achieving more than 2% GDP growth during 2012. The consumer will continue to feel that the economy is stagnating. Unemployment will not drop below 8.3% prior to the November election - and there will be numerous accusations that the Administration is fudging the numbers by continuing to remove large numbers from the pool as having given up their job search. The 'real' unemployment number will be around 16% - 17%.
Spending will continue nearly unabated throughout 2012 - and we'll be posting another annual federal budget deficit of over $1.2 trillion. There will be no FY2013 budget in place for the start of the fiscal year on October 1st - and there will be a brief government shutdown that will add turmoil to the Presidential campaign as both sides argue over a continuing funding resolution to fund the government (and increase the national debt limit) from October 1 to January 31, 2013.
The US will receive another downgrade of its debt in September - a move that the Administration will cry is politically motivated.
On the US political front - the scandals around the crony capitalism of the Obama Administration (Solyndra, Solar Millennium, MF Global), Fannie Mae / Freddie Mac, Fast and Furious, and the Administration's continued efforts to impose it's agenda via regulatory fiat will damage the Administration and the President.
Several key members of the Obama Cabinet will resign / be forced to resign. Leading candidates include the Secretary of Energy Chu, Secretary of Homeland Security Napolitano, Attorney General Holder, HHS Secretary Sebelius, Secretary of Education Duncan.
Jon Corzine will be indicted for his role in the misappropriation of $1.2 billion in client funds during the failure of MF Global - he will be found guilty and sentenced to 10 years in prison.
The President will reject the building of the Keystone XL pipeline seriously damaging our relations with Canada. This becomes a big campaign issue.
The media will conduct an unprecedented and unrelenting 'war' against the Republican nominee for President and the Republican party - going further into the bag for Obama and the progressive Democrats than they did in 2008. Polls will fluctuate greatly - with the President generally leading the Republican candidate even through the brief October government shutdown.
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