Well this is fantastic. $300 billion - i.e. $1000 from every man, woman, and child in America - going to bail out people who can’t pay their mortgages.
If you were responsible, if you thought twice before buying a home you couldn’t afford, if you bought a smaller home or a home in a not as nice neighborhood so that you could make the payments, if you stayed in your apartment for another year while you saved up for a down payment: Congress will take your money and subsidize the home purchases of people who chose to be irresponsible. Hope you enjoy your smaller home, or living in apartment that additional year, because the irresponsible are sure going to enjoy living it up in their nicer houses thanks to the money taken from your paycheck. P.S. And if you want to move up to a nicer house, fat chance, because part of the purpose of government spending this $300 billion is to jack up home prices.
This is about as unjust as government spending gets.
Apollo posted this at 6:33 AM EDT on Wednesday, June 25th, 2008 as An Insult to Drunken Sailors, Amer-I-Can!
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Its no wonder that everyone is so unpopular these days, our current choices being Big Spending Republicans and Big Taxing Democrats.
Well it turns out that 62% of Americans want smaller government and lower taxes.
Too bad we won’t get a president this round that will offer that choice.
I miss Fred.
Jamie posted this at 3:54 PM EDT on Tuesday, May 20th, 2008 as An Insult to Drunken Sailors, Amer-I-Can!
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An interesting short story on conflicting federal, state, and local regulations of how many toilets sporting facilities need.
Line of the day: “Sometimes ‘potty parity’ isn’t what they mean or necessarily want. . . . They’re actually wanting potty asymmetry.”
Apollo posted this at 1:19 AM EDT on Tuesday, May 6th, 2008 as An Insult to Drunken Sailors
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I hope no one supports John McCain because they think he’ll stop the growth of government. He won’t, and strangely the press is on to him. Though I think this might be one of those issues like Obama and Wright: it could potentially get huge negative coverage because McCain has spent much time emphasizing that he’ll be tough on spending. Now that he’s got the nomination and is opening the Santa sack, he’s looking like a regular politician when it comes to spending.
I miss Fred.
Apollo posted this at 10:53 AM EDT on Thursday, May 1st, 2008 as An Insult to Drunken Sailors
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Hillary Clinton’s latest, syrupy socialist idea. From the Globe:
“I believe we should appoint a cabinet-level position that will be solely and fully devoted to ending poverty as we know it in America, a position that will focus the attention of our nation on this issue,” she said. The president would ask the poverty czar, “What have you done today to end poverty in America?”
Of all the pandering, gag-inducing leftist crap I have ever heard, this is the worst. “Actually Madam President, I’ve done quite a bit to end poverty this morning!”
And now that your gag reflex is well exercised, imagine those words spoken with a South Carolina accent from a man with an expensive haircut. From the NYT:
The move comes in advance of the North Carolina primary, where Mrs. Clinton is hoping to appeal to both black voters and supporters of John Edwards, the former candidate. Mr. Edwards, a former Senator from North Carolina, had focused his campaign on reducing poverty, which he often called “the cause of my life.”
Both Mrs. Clinton and her rival, Senator Barack Obama, have made pilgrimages to Mr. Edwards’s home in North Carolina and sought his endorsement, but so far, Mr. Edwards has remained mum. He had been critical of both of them while he was still in the race. Since then, he and his wife, Elizabeth, have suggested that they are more comfortable with Mrs. Clinton’s health-care plan, which, like the one he proposed first, provides for universal coverage.
The announcement of a poverty czar position could be seen as an open invitation by Mrs. Clinton for Mr. Edwards’s backing. “There is a lot John and I have in common,” she said in February. “I will be a fighter, and I intend to ask John Edwards to be a part of anything I do in the White House.”
Later in the day, in response to a request for comment from The New York Times, Mr. Edwards said he was pleased with Mrs. Clinton’s announcement.
“America’s need to address the great moral issue of poverty demands strong action, and a cabinet-level poverty position is exactly that kind of action,” Mr. Edwards said through a spokesman.
Perhaps Edwards was on a conference call with with his buddies at Fortress Investment Group.
Tom posted this at 12:33 PM EDT on Tuesday, April 8th, 2008 as An Insult to Drunken Sailors, Audacity of Hype
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According to this report Senator Clinton has secured — almost always with a fellow NY legislator’s co-sponsorship — $340 million in earmarks since the beginning of FY 2008, making her one of the 10 worst earmark abusers in the Senate, and the worst who doesn’t serve on the appropriations committee. That’s $1.12 for every man, woman, and child in the country.
Some other interesting findings:
- Sen. Obama has only $91 million to his name, better than more than 75% of his colleagues.
- Sen. McCain is one of only five senators to not have a single earmark to his name.
- Mississippi Republicans are the worst offenders in both the Senate and the House. Thad Cochoran designated an astounding $837 million in earmarks ($2.78 per American), $289 million of which was for projects for which he was the sole sponsor. And despite the fact that he hasn’t been in the House for two months since being tapped to fill Trent Lott’s seat, Roger Wicker was still able to earmark $178 million ($0.59 per American) in spending.*
- Though a Rep. Jack Murtha was responsible for slightly less total earmarking than Wicker with $176 million, he holds the record for the most as a single-sponsor, with almost $160 of that being for his own pet projects.
It’s also worth mentioning that this list would have been impossible without the reforms passed after the 2006 elections that (albeit imperfectly) forced legislators to disclose their names on earmarks. The Democrats deserve some credit for that, just as Republicans deserve infinite shame for whoring out their supposed fiscal values.
* Next time Mississippi decides to secede, I say we let them go.
H/T: Megan McArdle
Tom posted this at 1:21 PM EST on Friday, February 15th, 2008 as An Insult to Drunken Sailors, Lord, What Fools These Mortals Be!, The Democratic Congress
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