United Liberty

You may have seen the video from Carly Fiorina’s campaign attacking the fiscal record of Tom Campbell, both are seeking the Republican nomination for United States Senate in California. Chuck DeVore is also running as well, and is viewed as the most fiscally conservative candidate in the race.

In the video, Fiorina accuses Campbell of being a wolf in sheep’s clothing, hitting him on support of tax increases, billion dollar budget deficits and failing to sign the Taxpayer Protection Pledge. At the end of the video, you seen the “demonsheep” wondering in the field. It has since become a hit on Twitter, with some of the Red State guys creating an account for the demonsheep.

Here is the “Fiscal Conservative in Name Only” (or FCINO) ad. Have a laugh:

Out of nowhere, my attention was called to the campaign launch video of a candidate in Pennsylvania’s 1st Congressional district.  Admittedly, outside of our interview of Jake Towne, the sitting Senators, and Pat Toomey’s campaign to unseat Arlen Specter, I am not very involved in Pennsylvania’s political activities.

This video was a refreshing surprise when I cam across it last night.  I immediately shared it among some friends, requested an interview for our Liberty Candidate Series of podcasts, and started delving into her campaign page.  I like what I see here, and I do not just mean her appearance…  Her unique approach to writing issue statements and the truth-telling rarity of her videos (there is another one on her YouTube channel, if you are interested) is really a breath of fresh air.

So, now that you have seen her in action, what are your thoughts?  Will this self-named “firebrand” light up Philadelphia’s desire for liberty?

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is still in trouble in his home state, though he has made some gains against his potential Republican opponents, according to a new Rasmussen poll:

The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of likely voters in the state finds Reid earning 39% to 41% of the vote against any of four GOP challengers. Still, that’s an improvement from last month when he picked up just 36% against his top two opponents. But Reid had 43% support against those two Republicans in December.

His Republican opponents, meanwhile, are not doing as well this month, down slightly from the 50% high they’ve hit in the previous surveys. This continues to suggest that the race is still about Reid and not about them.
[…]
Businessman Danny Tarkanian now leads Reid 47% to 39%. Sue Lowden, ex-chairman of the Nevada Republican Party, holds a 45% to 39% lead on the Senate majority leader, while former Assemblywoman Sharron Angle earns 44% of the vote to Reid’s 40%.

Last week, Carpe Diem wrote last week about consumers paying $2.5 billion in tariffs on imported sugar, which is part of the cost of protectionist policies.

CNBC recently had a free trader and someone from a special interest group to discuss the issue. Take notice how the guy representing farm interest immediately ties getting rid of these tariffs to importing oil and getting rid of the US sugar industry. He just doesn’t believe in competition:

H/T: Club for Growth

From the Heritage Foundation, here is a look at projected budget deficits over the next ten years. Interestingly, the Obama Administration over shoots projects from the baseline set by the Congressional Budget Office, which almost always a generous estimate.

According to Gallup survey, 36 percent of Americans have a favorable view of socialism. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that 53 percent of Democrats and 61 percent of so-called “liberals” have a positive view of this economic system that emphasizes collectivism over the individual.

The survey also shows:

• 95% of Americans have a positive view of small business
• 86% have a positive view of free enterprise
• 84% hold a positive view of entrepreneurs
• 61% have a positive view of capitalism, 33% hold an unfavorable view
• 49% hold a negative view of big business
• 51% have a unfavorable view of the federal government, 46% have a favorable view

If voters would actually identify what Democrats were doing as socialism, they wouldn’t have control of Congress at the end of the year. I wonder if we’ll start hearing “socialism” and “socialist” more often during campaign season.

President Barack Obama says that economists from the left and the right agree that the “stimulus” bill has saved jobs. Jake Tapper from ABC News isn’t sure about that:

[C]learly other economists are much more skeptical, including Dan Mitchell at the libertarian Cato Institute, and J.D. Foster at The Heritage Foundation.

Some economists say the whole notion of counting “saved or created” jobs is impossible. Harvard University labor economist Lawrence Katz told ProPublica that trying to count how many jobs have been saved or created is “a silly exercise.”

And in fact, in December the Office of Management and Budget director Peter Orszag issued a directive scrapping the whole “saved or created” construct.

“Instead, recipients will more easily and objectively report on jobs funded with Recovery Act dollars,” Orszag wrote.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but weren’t we told that unemployment would not rise above 8% with the stimulus. Two hundred economists warned the president that he was making a mistake with the stimulus bill and that it would not create new jobs, pointing to lessons from the past. Now we’re over 10% unemployment and things don’t seem to be getting any better.

Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) has placed holds on some Obama Administration appointments because he wants his pork:

Alabama Republican Sen. Richard Shelby has placed a unilateral hold on all of President Barack Obama’s executive branch nominees in an apparent protest over home state concerns.

 

Shelby is frustrated over the Pentagon’s bidding process for air-to-air refueling tankers, which could lead to the creation of jobs in Mobile, Ala. And spokesman Jonathan Graffeo said in a statement the senator is also “deeply concerned” that the administration “will not release” funds already appropriated for a Terrorist Explosive Device Analytical Center to be built in Alabama.

 

“If this administration were as worried about hunting down terrorists as it is about the confirmation of low-level political nominations, America would be a safer place,” Graffeo said.

Isn’t that called extortion here in the real world? No matter, I guess, they don’t play by our rules anyway.

This morning’s unemployment report gave us the seemingly good news that the unemployment rate dropped three-tenths of one percent, but when you look behind that number the news still isn’t good:

WASHINGTON — The unemployment rate dropped unexpectedly in January to 9.7 percent from 10 percent while employers shed 20,000 jobs, the government said Friday.

The rate dropped because a survey of households found the number of employed Americans rose by 541,000, the Labor Department said. The job losses are calculated from a separate survey of employers.

The report also included an annual revision to the estimates of total payrolls, which showed there were 930,000 fewer jobs last March than previously estimated. The department also revised down its estimates for April through October of last year, adding another 433,000 job losses.

The November figure was revised higher, however, to show a gain of 64,000 jobs.

All told, the Great Recession has eliminated 8.4 million jobs, the department said. That’s the most of any recession since World War II as a proportion of total payrolls.

So, let’s add it up.

We lost 20,000 jobs in January. That’s the number that matters. The down-tick in the unemployment rate is related to the fact that the BLS included data from a different survey in calculating the rate. How legitimate that number is, and whether it involves something less than honest on their part, I’ll leave for others to determine. What’s important is that we lost 20,000 jobs in January even though the rate went down.

In addition to that, there were revisions to previous jobs reports:

Once again, there is more common sense on Main Street than Pennsylvania Avenue:

While influential 20th Century economist John Maynard Keynes would say it’s best to increase deficit spending in tough economic times, only 11% of American adults agree and think the nation needs to increase its deficit spending at this time. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 70% disagree and say it would be better to cut the deficit.

In fact, 59% think Keynes had it backwards and that increasing the deficit at this time would hurt the economy rather than help.

To help the economy, most Americans (56%) believe that cutting the deficit is the way to go.

Eighty-three percent (83%) of Americans, in fact, say the size of the federal budget deficit is due more to the unwillingness of politicians to cut government spending than to the reluctance of taxpayers to pay more in taxes.

Now if we could only get some of that wisdom to Washington.