United Liberty
Bailout
Porkulus III Passes Senate With Republican Help
Wed, 02/24/2010 - 4:05pm | posted by Kevin Boyd
The Senate passed Porkulus III by a vote of 70-28 with 13 Republicans demonstrating their party’s new found fiscal conservatism by crossing over to vote with every Democrat present for the bill. Like the first Porkulus signed by George W. Bush in 2008 and the Porkulus II passed last year, Porkulus III forks over billions of borrowed dollars to fund various special interest projects and tax gimmicks in the name of “creating jobs”.
The gimmicks funded in this lastest round of Porkulus include a tax holiday for the remainder of the year on Social Security payroll taxes, but only if the company hires someone out of work for more than 60 days. In addition, Porkulus commits to billions in in more mass transit spending and more highway projects (ie. more pork barrel spending).
The Senate’s version of Porkulus must be sent over to the House where it must be reconciled with the House’s much more expansive $154 billion Porkulus bill. However, the Senate plans to pass more items in the House’s bill one at a time so that Senate Majority Harry Reid and other Democrat leaders can find out how much the prices of the votes of “fiscally conservative” Republicans are.
Included are proposed Senate bills giving away corporate welfare to ethanol producers, which is expected to be supported by farm state Republicans. In addition, there is another planned Senate bill to keep Americans out of work longer by extending unemployment benefits and COBRA.
The RINOs who supported Porkulus III today are:
A Renewed Energy For Activism
Fri, 09/18/2009 - 4:03pm | posted by Brett Bittner
Racist, Nazi, greedy bastard, angry mob, AstroTurf, brown-shirt, unpatriotic, goon, heathen, liar, rich, skinhead, moron, gun nut, ignorant fool, manipulator. Those are sixteen words and phrases used to describe me, used by the media, in person, on the phone, and on the Internet in response to my opposition to ObamaCare. I think that I should note that these are the ones I can publish due to the tameness of language. Of the sixteen, I find only two to be accurate: angry mob and skinhead (only because I cut my hair REALLY short). Friends and acquaintances who have seen or heard these suggest that I collect them as trophies for my efforts. Needless to say, I have a thick skin when it comes to name-calling, mostly because I know what it really means. It means only one thing: I. Am. Winning.
Republicans vs Conservatives
Sun, 05/17/2009 - 2:45pm | posted by Dr. John Killian
In a recent conversation with a local Pastor, a social/moral issue rose and the man said I know how strong you will be,on that issue, since you are one of the most Republican people I know. Let me stop at his statement and draw two conclusions from his statement:
Government Intervention Run Amuck: Bank Intervention
Mon, 04/20/2009 - 7:00am | posted by Katy Delay
My list of examples of the unintended consequences of government intervention in the marketplace gets longer and longer. This time, I’m going to point out the latest irony: Investment banking’s profitable last quarter.
This would be wonderful news if it were genuine, but looking a little deeper reveals the truth. First, in one of Barron’s feature articles by Andrew Bary, we learn about a little-discussed fact: Goldman Sachs has only been able to issue low-cost debt due to the backing of the FDIC through a program called the TLGP, or Temporary Liquidity Guarantee Program.
I’m Sick of AIG
Mon, 03/23/2009 - 7:12am | posted by Matt Wittlief
This week has featured a lot of discussion on AIG. There is widespread outrage over the payments of bonuses to employees. There is finger-pointing and flip-flopping regarding who knew what and when in regards to the bonuses. We have the House and the Senate proposing and passing legislation to address the bonus issue. AIG CEO Edward Liddy testified before the House Financial Services subcommittee on Capital Markets. Obama and team have been making statements which appear, at times, to be inconsistent… I’m pretty much spent on the issue, but will offer my thoughts.
Fed Credit: The Latest and Perhaps Next-To-Last Bubble
Sun, 03/22/2009 - 7:18am | posted by Katy Delay
I can’t claim to be the origin of the Fed Credit Bubble idea, because it occurred to me as I read a fantastic piece by one of my favorite analysts, Doug Noland of Prudent Bear.
We’ve just come out of a huge bubble that consisted of inflated real estate investment and speculative finance credit. The bubble burst and the market began to correct itself, menacing to take a lot of nations’ economies with it.
Why Do You Pay Taxes?
Thu, 01/22/2009 - 1:45pm | posted by William 'BJ' Lawson
As various tax-related mail begins to appear in the mailboxes of hardworking Americans across the country, it’s instructive for all of us to reflect on why we carry the burden of our government every April.
Take this morning, for instance. We can credit the “ingenuity of the markets”, and specifically the ingenuity of John Thain, for moving annual executive bonus payments by Merrill Lynch up by a month last November, thus disbursing $15 billion in executive bonuses just before closing Merrill’s acquisition by Bank of America. Fast forward a few months, and the United States taxpayer just gave Bank of America another $20 billion in newly-borrowed funds to put a band-aid on mortar wounds in Merrill Lynch’s balance sheet.
The U.S. and Russia Compete Again
Mon, 01/19/2009 - 8:18am | posted by Alina Stefanescu Coryell
Apparently, there’s not much difference between the way in which a democratic republic (the United States) and an oligarchy (Russia) handle “economic crisis”. According to an article in The Moscow Times:
Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev accused the government on Friday of bailing out billionaires at taxpayers’ expense in a letter co-signed by four businessmen and economists.
Gorbachev has until now been supportive of the Kremlin, and by speaking out he has joined a small but growing chorus of influential Russians who say the government’s tight control of the economy and politics is making the slowdown worse.
“The Russian authorities have turned their back on structural reform and instead satisfied themselves with inventing a mythical model of an ‘energy superpower,’” said an open letter whose signatories included Gorbachev.
Elections, And Why The American Economy Will Collapse
Wed, 02/03/2010 - 12:33pm | posted by Peter Quinones
I know what you’re thinking: man that Pete is a positive guy. I like to describe myself as realistic, with a bit of fatalism throw in. Either way, I find it hard to look at the economic landscape and have any hope. It is especially dreadful when politicians have to get re-
elected, AND said politicians consult certain “economists”.
Economists have for years looked at what is happening in a society and sought to come up with solutions as to how an economic crisis can be “fixed”. The problem is, like in all fields, you have good economists, and you have the not so good (The latter seem to be the ones that always find their way onto the public payroll).
In extremely broad terms economists can be split into two categories:
1. The “good” economist traces what a policy can do not only in the present, but
in the future; AND what it does for not only one segment of society,
but the whole.
in the future; AND what it does for not only one segment of society,
but the whole.
2. The “bad” economist does the exact opposite; they examine only what
will fix the present issue and usually concentrate on only one segment of
the population.
If you are a student of American history your eyes should be opening as to which economist is most often chosen by our elected officials. The real question is “why”?
Well, why wouldn’t a politician pick economist #2?
Obama’s latest brilliant plan: Taxing banks to pay back the involuntary bailout
Fri, 01/15/2010 - 12:22pm | posted by Jason Pye
President Barack Obama is rolling out a tax on banks to pay for the Wall Street bailout that was the centerpiece of the government’s intervention during the economic crisis:
President Obama laid down his proposal for a new tax on the nation’s largest financial institutions on Thursday, saying he wanted “to recover every single dime the American people are owed” for bailing out the economy.
With both anti-Wall Street sentiment and the budget deficit running high, Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill welcomed the proposal, which could ultimately raise up to $117 billion to cover projected bailout losses. Republicans were uncharacteristically silent, their instinctive opposition to tax increases apparently checked by their fear of defending big bankers. And the financial industry lobby seemed splintered, with small community banks happily exempted.
[…]
The proposed tax would apply to bank, thrift and insurance companies with more than $50 billion in assets and would start after June 30. It would not apply to certain holdings, like customers’ insured savings, but to assets in risk-taking operations. The levy would raise an estimated $90 billion over 10 years, according to the White House.But it would remain in force longer if all losses to the bailout fund, the Troubled Asset Relief Program, were not recovered after a decade. The Treasury now projects that the losses from the $700 billion loan program, which was created in October 2008, could reach $117 billion, about a third of the loss that it projected last summer — an improved forecast that reflected the renewed strength on Wall Street.
