Nancy Pelosi took over as House Speaker on January 3, 2007. Most people I think took that as no big deal. Just another politician with a big title. However, I think people need to consider who runs our country a little better and the impact they have. For instance, from the period of one year before Nancy took over, the Dow Jones went from 10,847 to 12,463, a 15% increase. Since she’s been in charge of submitting budgets that fund the government’s activities all over the country, the Dow has gone from 12,474 to 12,099, a 3% DECREASE. The unemployment rate has gone from 4.3% to 5.0%. Nothing seems to be getting any better right now.
Now, people are blaming Bush, but that’s BS. Congress submits the budgets, not the President. The President can submit them to Congress for consideration, but it’s up to the Speaker to place it on the floor for consideration, if they choose to.
I’ll make this perfectly clear, the financial situation in this country lies more with the Speaker of the House than the President. And so far, this Speaker has failed in that capacity turning a growing econmy into fears of a recession in twelve months.
26
Nov
Trent Lott is apparently going to retire before year’s end. According to the story, his primary concern is he needs to make more money. Now, being somewhat experienced in that aspect of DC politics, I can say for certain that is an honest concern. If a congressman’s sole income is his position in DC, he ain’t gonna make a whole lotta money. He’ll live ok, but he won’t get rich by any stretch of the imagination. Some peeps like to look at the raw numbers and make it sound like they’re all getting rich. However, the reality is the position comes with a lot of built in expenses that gossip org pages don’t ever take into consideration. Now, SOME congressmen do try to get rich solely from their position. However, that’s illegal and they sometimes get caught trying. Lott’s not willing to go that route apparently. His wife is apparently tired of all the demands and none of the security. The one thing he can count on, if he keeps his nose clean, is a good pension. Combine that with a fat lobbying income and he’ll do just fine. That’s the reality of the situation, contrary to what the common perception is. I have long advocated we pay our members a lot more than we do. Granted some lawmakers are duds, but they can be voted out. My problem is we keep losing good ones who know how to get things done. Having a bunch clueless idiots in DC does the country no good at all. Once again, that’s contrary to a lot of people’s opinions. But, it’s a fact. Some people think a totally grid-locked Congress is a good thing. I don’t. Having a productive Congress that addresses real issues and looks at them intelligently is what we need. However, at the pay scale we offer now, those people make a LOT more money in the private sector. Congress therefore usually only gets lawyers and the like. Those people LOVE the law process. What they usually do not have is experience with much of anything else. But, I am going off on a tangent right now. This post is about Trent Lott.
I didn’t particularly care for Trent’s style. I didn’t particularly care for the direction he pushed the Republican Party when he was in control. He pushed it too far to the right where a lot of his own party members didn’t belong. I think his demise in 2002 as leader was in large part because the people who could protect him didn’t. Lip service was given, but that’s all. Trent went down. Unfortunately, his replacement was worse and the party continued to drift. By the time Trent decided to retire, there was really nothing he was doing to lead as the #2 guy in the party. That is when it’s a good time to retire. If you’re not gonna do what it takes to better your party, at least make your wife happy. That’s a much more satisfying thing to do anyway.
And, unlike the usual masses who don’t take five minutes to figure out that lobbying is perfectly legal and ethical, I hope Trent does well lobbying and makes millions doing it.
I’m gonna bet this is the only place you’ll hear that too.
- Michelle Malkin has a good synopsis of what others are saying.
- I like Captain’s synopsis as well. He goes into more detail of why I didn’t like Lott’s leadership. I will disagree with Captain on one small, easy to make assumption. I don’t think this makes the Republican Caucus’s season any more difficult. If anything, illustrating it is now the party of change and the Democrats have refused to do so will help the party. Mississippi’s a strong Republican state. That seat’s not going anywhere.
Here’s where the congressional budget process has gone wrong the last twenty years or so for those that think Congress spends too much:
Now, the problem I have here is this is a two part issue that sums all the problems in Congress right now:
- Spending for Veterans was lumped in with a huge budget for HHS and other agencies. Nevermind any of the rest, HHS is MASSIVE. How does a person filter through all this stuff in a short period of time and pick out the parts that might be waste? The situation now is they can’t. Now, Bob Filner is pressuring Bush to pass the Veterans spending, claiming Bush promised not to veto it. But, they hid it in the HHS budget, which Bush never promised not to veto. So, this advertisement by Filner is flat out lying. However, it pulls at the political sensibilities the common person has by saying Bush is screwing the Veterans. This deception might work, might not. The way it could work is if Bush feels pressured to make sure he keeps true on his promise to pass the Veterans funding, thereby passing the HHS funding that is crammed beyond the brink with pork and waste.
- Without the abilithy of a line-item veto, Bush is stuck either vetoing the Veterans spending, which makes him look bad as Filner is already attempting. Or, he passes a budget crammed full of pork which makes him look bad. No win for the person signing this garbage.
Obviously, the answer to situations like Filner is presenting is a line-item veto ability by the person who signs the spending legislation. Then, that person would no longer be blackmailed by politics from people like Filner. They could pass all the funding and strike out the waste that could be presented at a later date. That would shut up the Filners real quick.
Secondly, remember Pelosi’s promise for a more transparent Congress? Wrapping the Veterans spending in with the Health and Human Resources spending and then whining about the Veterans spending ( which is a tiny fraction of HHS’s spending ), is pure deception folks. Be sure to remember that next fall. I’ll be taking a pop quiz next September.
Lastly, I don’t want to hear another single word about deficit spending that puts the blame solely on Republicans. This budget is purely the Democrat’s baby. And, it’s HUGE. The only thing that will keep the deficit from soaring wildly out of control ( like it wasn’t already ), is if Charlie Rangel gets his wish for much higher taxes on just about anything that could possibly be taxed.
Think about that next fall as well.
November 16, 2007 update: Congress passed the bill, Bush vetoed it as predicted, Congress failed to override it.
7
Nov
We had an election last night here in Kentucky. This is how MSNBC interpreted it:
I tired long ago of pointing out the bias and errors in MSNBC’s reporting. However, this one is so gross I can’t just dismiss it. Especially in context of what they compared our local race to.
In this race, the Democrat candidate ousted a Republican incumbant. That’s the change MSNBC is referring to. However, what happened was the exact opposite of what MSNBC states. Kentucky’s registration at this time is 1.6 million Democrats to 1 million Republicans. Prior to 2003, that Democrat majority had elected a Democrat governor eight straight times. If one does just a modicon of checking, the fact of what happened last night becomes extremely clear, Kentucky rejected the changes they made four years ago. We returned to the status quo. Democrats once again just voted for whoever the Democrat was. Just how bad was it? 90 of Kentucky’s counties are Democrat majorities. Last night, 95 counties went Democrat. 61% of Kentucky’s voters are Democrat ( between the two major parties ), 59% voted Democrat. I think you can see a pattern here. 2% apparently voted to keep the changes we made four years ago. That’s not much of a crowd.
When we did vote for a change four years ago, we replaced a lawyer who was in the middle of an ethics probe with a doctor/lay minister. Guess what got elected last night? One clue only, it wasn’t the minister.
Kentucky didn’t vote for change. We voted the farthest thing from it. The status quo won.
Dennis Kucinich’s bill to impeach Dick Cheney has made its way to the Floor. A lot is being made of it in the media. Naturally. However, the realities of the situation are not nearly as exciting.
It will die.
Guaranteed.
An impeachment process completely stifles Congress. Nancy Pelosi et al have things they want to do. If they allow this impeachment process to progress any further, they won’t be able to go around saying “…..that Bush has neglected“. So far, Nancy’s Congress has accomplished basically nothing tangible. She’s not given her presidential candidates anything to run with other than “what Bush has neglected”. If her Congress continues to the path it’s on now, that argument the Dems are using will be moot as anyone can easily substitute “….. that the Democrat Congress neglected”. An impeachment process will guarantee that. I really don’t think Nancy’s quite that stupid. John Conyers has already come out against it, I expect to see a whole slate of Democrats who voted for going into Iraq to do the same.
I won’t even get to the point that Kucinich can’t get meaningful legislation passed, much less something as meaningless as this.
18
Oct
First, Nancy Pelosi promised to take her bi-partisan support and push the Armenian Genocide resolution to a vote. In the process, ignoring the advice of just about every concceivable branch of government that was having to deal with the consequences. It served no purpose, got no public support, and was panned mightily from ambassadors to military. When crunch time arrived, no vote. Her party got some sense and figured an 87 year old event wasn’t worth compromising the future.
Then, she led the charge to over-ride Bush’s veto of expanding the SCHIP program. This one had some legs. Providing health insurance to kids always sounds good. It’s a darling for liberals by socializing medicine and appeals to conservatives by taking care of children. Congress passed it, Bush vetoed it. With a very narrow Democrat margin, she only had to come up with a hand full of Republicans to over-ride the veto. As of today, that looks very unlikely.
Two very embarassing losses in one week.
Add on top of that I think most Americans think the tax incentives need to be kept and the fact that the tax-free internet protections are lapsing and I think the picture is becoming clear that this is a Congress that’s not going to get much of anything done.
Who will get the blame for that? Bush?
It should fall squarely in Nancy Pelosi’s lap.
But in most media, it won’t.
I’m not much into mass email campaigns, but this one made sense to me and bears repeating. So, rather than sending a bunch of people not terribly interested in it, I’ll just stick it up here.
Here they go again — tax-happy Democrats are running out of ways to tax you — so they are turning to the Internet.
Last week, Senate Democrats effectively killed a bill that would permanently hold off taxes on your Internet access — a ban that expires on November 1.
Democrats said “further negotiations are warranted.” Further negotiations on what? Apparently your taxes just aren’t high enough.Make no mistake — Democrats want to construct brand new taxes on Internet access for Americans — a place that currently has no taxes.
Take action today to stop the Democrats’ plans:
1. Sign up at http://www.CostOfDemocrats.com to receive updates on the outrageous actions by Senate Democrats and what those actions will cost you.
2. Forward this email to five friends to help expose the Senate Democrats for what they really are — a liberal, tax-and-spend majority that will do everything in its power to force their extreme views on the American people.
3. Join Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell in the fight to keep the internet tax free by signing his petition here.
Imagine, every time you need to find directions on the Internet, order a DVD, shop for your groceries, or pay a bill online, you could be charged if the Democrats have their way.
This is Democrats latest attempt to massively increase taxes. The World Wide Web has greatly enhanced our country’s ability to connect and get the word out, and Democrats want you to pay for that freedom.
Regardless of the rhetoric, the facts are true. Want some historical president? Look at your, or someone else’s phone bill sometime. The internet is the last bastion of free speech, it needs to be left alone.
Is this what the people who voted the Republicans out wanted? Do they even have a clue why this is suddenly happening? I doubt it. Go ahead someone, prove me wrong. If you can’t, take it to Daily Kos.
This is getting complicated. Harry Reid has made Iraq his only mission. He has pushed the mantra that walking off and leaving Iraq is the only acceptable way to win in Iraq. I really don’t think that argument has sold too well with most of America. So, what happens if Bush does decide to start withdrawing troops? Harry Reid opposes it:
Someone help me here, but how is bringing 30,000 troops home NOT drawing down or changing the mission?
Now, this is the bugaboo that really irks me. Where is the evidence that what we are doing in Iraq has NOT been a fight against Al Qaeda? Let’s pretend, just for one second, that Al Qaeda is a bunch of flies. There is a huge light shining over the US. The US then installs a bug zapper right in their home. Which way are the flies gonna go? Al Qaeda, in many public statements, have stated their main intent is to “liberate” Iraq. That’s your bug zapper folks. It doesn’t get any simpler than that.
Reid then goes on to admit what his only intent on this topic truly is:
In the simplest terms, Reid’s not going to admit anything Bush does regarding Iraq is acceptable. It’s an election year and this is the only topic he’s got. However, I truly think he is gauging the US public totally wrong on this issue and is undermining the Democrat Presidential candidate on people’s perception of national security, which was already not the best there is.
What is obvious to me is Reid is more than willing to fight the drawdown just for the sake of partisan politics. I’ll bet he has the anti-war people scratching their heads right now. What he is doing is actually setting the stage for Bush to keep the troop levels at their current level and drop that in Reid’s laps. And, Reid, being so completely blinded by partisan politics, can’t see that coming.
However, Bush isn’t the brightest political animal in the world. My bet is, since he’s committed to a drawdown, there will be a drawdown.
The last few Jerry Lewis telethons have been somewhat forgetable. Well, for me, they pretty much all have been. Having a telethon on Labor Day is a big deal here. Labor Day is the last big bash on the lake for us. Toss in the fact my birthday quite frequently falls on the same weekend and you can see why I can’t tell you one single minute of what’s happened the last twenty years. I did notice a couple of things this year tho, after the fact.
- Jerry dropped the f-bomb during the show. Now the sex one, the gay one. Realizing he probably shouldn’t have, he stopped the monologue pretty much in mid-sentence.
- He broke a record for most money received, over $63 million.
Coincedence?
20
Jul
I’m sure those words ring terror in the hearts of every liberal on the planet. Not just here, but world-wide. I enjoy that for the novelty it will be for probably a couple of hours tomorrow morning.
