● Shelby Steele: The Exploitation of Trayvon Martin... ● Protecting You From The UN-Frendly Skies... Prohibited Items Found 3/2 to 3/8... ● Congressional earmarks sometimes used to fund projects near lawmakers' properties... ● Public Law List (112st Congress - 2012)... ● Congress's Phony Insider-Trading Reform... ● Obama denounces Senate vote to block Cordray at consumer watchdog agency... ● Walker signs 'castle doctrine' bill, other measures... ● Holder faces House Republicans over health-care law, ‘Fast and Furious’... ● Postal workers behaving badly!... ● The supercommittee failed because Democrats insisted on $1 trillion in new taxes...
PositiveReform header image 4
When the people fear the government, there is tyranny; When the government fears the people, there is liberty.  ~ Thomas Jefferson

 

Entries Tagged as 'Unemployment'

Senate report: Mismanaged U.S. contractor money aids enemy in Afghanistan

October 8th, 2010 · Accountability, Corruption, Deception, Democrats, Economy, Federal Spending, Foreign Policy, Homeland Security, National Security, Obama's Scheme, Selling Out the US, Tax Dollars, Taxes, Terrorism from Within, Terrorist Threat, Treason, Unemployment, War on Terrorism

Reference: SASC Report on Private Security Contractors in Afghanistan 10/07/2010

By Karen DeYoung Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, October 8, 2010; 12:34 AM

The U.S. military has only minimal knowledge of – and exercises virtually no control over – the thousands of Afghans it indirectly pays to guard its installations, including “warlords and strongmen linked to murder, kidnapping, bribery” and to the Taliban, Senate investigators said in a blistering report released Thursday.

The bipartisan report, compiled after a year-long investigation, notes that the military has recently launched its own investigations of the situation and has taken some steps to address it. In one of the most significant steps, Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, has issued new contractor guidelines.

Still, the Senate investigation documents a failure to properly vet, train and supervise Afghan security subcontractors, hired by U.S. and other international firms under multimillion-dollar military contracts.

That failure has cost American lives, undermined the U.S. mission and the Afghan government, and “helped play into the hands of the enemy,” said Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Some of the Afghan security subcontractors, Levin told reporters Thursday, are “creating the very threat they are hired to combat.”

Committee staff reviewed more than 125 Defense Department security contracts dated between 2007 and 2009 and provided a detailed account of two in which subcontractors had direct and well-known ties to the Taliban. The report recounts an instance in which the military raided a Taliban meeting being held at the house of a subcontractor. It also notes instances in which security subcontractors were believed by U.S. military intelligence to be Iranian agents.

According to the U.S. Central Command, the report said, there were more than 112,000 Defense Department contractor personnel in Afghanistan as of April 30. As of May, more than 26,000 armed private security personnel – nearly all of them Afghans – worked for the Pentagon and other U.S. agencies.

[View Complete Article →]

Tags: ·············

No Comments

In foreclosure controversy, problems run deeper than flawed paperwork

October 7th, 2010 · Banking Industry, Deception, Democrats, Economy, Housing Industry, Obama's Scheme, Selling Out the US, Tax Dollars, Unemployment

By Brady Dennis and Ariana Eunjung Cha Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, October 7, 2010; 12:01 AM

Millions of U.S. mortgages have been shuttled around the global financial system – sold and resold by firms – without the documents that traditionally prove who legally owns the loans.

Now, as many of these loans have fallen into default and banks have sought to seize homes, judges around the country have increasingly ruled that lenders had no right to foreclose, because they lacked clear title.

These fundamental concerns over ownership extend beyond those that surfaced over the past two weeks amid reports of fraudulent loan documents and corporate “robo-signers.”

The court decisions, should they continue to spread, could call into doubt the ownership of mortgages throughout the country, raising urgent challenges for both the real estate market and the wider financial system.

For struggling homeowners trying to avoid foreclosure, it could mean an opportunity to challenge the banks they argue have been unhelpful at best and deceptive at worst. But it also threatens to leave them in prolonged limbo, stuck in homes they still can’t afford and waiting for the foreclosure process to begin anew.

For big banks, “there’s a possible nightmare scenario here that no foreclosure is valid,” said Nancy Bush, a banking analyst from NAB Research. If millions of foreclosures past and present were invalidated because of the way the hurried securitization process muddied the chain of ownership, banks could face lawsuits from homeowners and from investors who bought stakes in the mortgage securities – an expensive and potentially crippling proposition.

[View Complete Article →]

Tags: ····

No Comments

Democrats and ‘Poisoned’ Politics: Incumbents launch personal attacks to divert attention from the economy’s poor performance.

October 7th, 2010 · Democrats, Economy, Government, Non-Transparency, Unemployment

By Karl Rove

In March 2004, when Barack Obama was a candidate for the U.S. Senate in the Illinois Democratic primary, he excoriated President George W. Bush for creating a “jobless recovery.” The month he said that, 334,000 new jobs were created—none of them temporary Census ones—and unemployment was 5.8%.

That was then. Now the unemployment rate is 9.6%, and tomorrow’s jobs report is unlikely to be much better.

Many other Democrats piled on Mr. Bush at the time. “Mr. President, where are the jobs?” Rep. Nancy Pelosi asked on CNN in October 2003. “The American people will not settle for—nor should the Republicans celebrate—a jobless recovery.” That month saw 203,000 new jobs and 6% unemployment. Her party would kill for such a rate today.

Instead, they will be killed at the polls. This election’s top issue is the economy, and the Democrats are being held accountable for its poor performance. After all, the party controls the White House and Congress and passed all the spending and stimulus measures it could dream up.

Last month, the Pew poll found that Americans thought Republicans would be better at improving “the job situation” than the Democrats by a 40% to 35% margin—a 16-point shift since 2006. Historically, Republicans have done well in congressional races when the GOP has closed to within five points on the economy and jobs. Republicans were also more trusted to “reduce [the] budget deficit” than the Democrats, by 44% to 29%.

How did the Democrats get here? By passing bad legislation. How bad? Not a single vulnerable House Democrat is featuring the stimulus bill in campaign ads—except for those Democrats who opposed it. Nor do any extol cap and trade in television spots.

Only one targeted Democratic Senator (Wisconsin’s Russ Feingold) and three Democratic Congressmen (North Dakota’s Earl Pomeroy, Nevada’s Dina Titus and New York’s Steve Israel) feature ObamaCare in their advertising. But they talk only about the best poll-tested elements, such as no denial of coverage for pre-existing conditions. Despite the encouragement of some ivory-tower liberal commentators, these politicians understand the toxicity of the bill’s totality and its price tag.

Democratic voters are noticeably less enthusiastic than Republican ones. Pew found last week that 83% of Republicans said they would “definitely” vote, compared to 69% of Democrats. The GOP’s 14-point advantage is twice as big as in 1994.

[View Complete Article →]

Tags: ···········

No Comments

Amid backlash and budget deficits, government workers’ pensions are targets like the rest of America

October 6th, 2010 · Deception, Democrats, Economy, Federal Spending, Greed, Money Lost, Obama's Scheme, Selling Out the US, States, Tax Dollars, Treasury, Unemployment

By Michael A. Fletcher Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, October 6, 2010; 2:45 AM

PHILADELPHIA – Faced with deep budget deficits and overextended pension plans, state and local leaders are increasingly looking to trim the lucrative retirement benefits that have long been associated with government employment.

Public employees are facing a backlash that has intensified with the nation’s economic woes, union leaders say, because of their good job security, generous health-care and pension benefits, and right to retire long before most private-sector workers.

In California, where an estimated 80 cents out of every government dollar goes to employee pay and benefits, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) has proposed a two-tier system of pensions that offers new state workers reduced benefits with tighter retirement formulas. He also wants state workers to kick in higher pension contributions to help deal with California’s staggering deficit.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) calls reform of public employee pensions essential to fixing the state’s enormous fiscal problems. Michigan Gov. Jennifer M. Gran-holm (D) recently signed a change to her state’s teacher pensions that increases employee contributions. Illinois has pushed back the retirement age for new employees. Detailing his agenda for New York, Democratic gubernatorial nominee Andrew M. Cuomo has said, “We simply can’t afford to pay benefits and pensions that are out of line with economic reality.”

[View Complete Article →]

Tags: ·············

No Comments

Downsizing US Defense: Pentagon cuts are just a preview of what’s to come

October 5th, 2010 · Deception, Defense, Homeland Security, National Security, Terrorist Threat, Unemployment

Monday, October 4, 2010; 10:58 PM

The bipartisan uproar in Congress caused by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates‘s attempt to reduce excess Pentagon spending by eliminating the no-longer-needed Joint Forces Command in Virginia is just a preview of the battle that will occur next year when the country awakens to the drastic measures needed to bring overall federal taxes and outlays in line.

That argument was made last week at a House Budget Committee hearing called primarily to give the Virginia congressional delegation another chance to complain about Gates’s plan to end the command set up nine years ago to promote jointness among the services. At that time, it had a staff of 2,000 military and civilian personnel and cost $200 million. Today, with jointness an established service reality, JFCOM has a $1 billion price tag because it has ballooned to 3,000 military and civilian personnel and 3,000 contractors.

“The defense budget is in many respects a microcosm of the rest of the federal budget, and the issues in the defense budget – such as the rising cost of pay, pensions, health care, contracting, infrastructure and education – are issues in other parts of the federal budget as well,” Todd Harrison, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, told the House panel.

[View Complete Article →]

Tags: ······

No Comments

The Trade and Tax Doomsday Clocks: The worst is yet to come. The clock is ticking.

October 4th, 2010 · Deception, Democrats, Economy, Federal Spending, Money Lost, Money Matters, Non-Transparency, Obama's Scheme, Selling Out the US, Tax Dollars, Taxes, Unemployment

Click to enlarge

By Donald L. Luskin

The nearby chart is an update of one I showed on this page in early July. It depicts how the stock market over the last year and a half has followed a path eerily similar to that of 1937. This week corresponds on the chart to mid-August 1937, when the cumulative effects of massive hikes in personal and corporate tax rates, severe monetary tightening, and aggressive business-bashing by the Roosevelt administration tipped the economy into the “depression inside the Depression.” From there, stocks were in for the longest and second-deepest bear market in history.

Thankfully, we’re not repeating all the mistakes of 1937. But Congress and the Obama administration are flirting dangerously with one of them by failing to extend the expiring low tax rates for all Americans. What’s worse, we’re close to repeating the mother of all policy errors, the one made not in 1937 but in 1930—the one that started the Great Depression. We’re on track to resurrect the 1930 Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act.

Let’s start with taxes. If today’s low rates expire at year-end per current law, that would at a stroke reduce after-tax income for every working American, the average reduction being 3.3% according to the Tax Policy Center. Do the math: 94% of income goes to consumption, and consumption is 70% of gross domestic product. All else being equal, if the Bush tax cuts don’t get extended, that’s a 2.3% hit to 2011 GDP. That means instant double-dip recession, starting at midnight, Dec. 31.

Editorial Page Editor Paul Gigot analyzes a disturbing trend. Also, columnist Kimberley A. Strassel reviews the political prospects for the “moderate” Democrats that voted with Pelosi.

[View Complete Article →]

Tags: ·········

No Comments

ObamaCare’s Hotel California: The state moves to impose price controls you can never leave.

September 28th, 2010 · Deception, Democrats, Economy, Federal Spending, Government Control, Healthcare, Immigration, Non-Transparency, Selling Out the US, States, Tax Dollars, Unemployment

California, the novelist Wallace Stegner famously wrote, is like the rest of America, only more so—meaning that wherever the country is headed, the Golden State is probably there already. So the state’s ObamaCare advance planning deserves closer scrutiny, given that it mirrors the regulatory and ideological model that the White House favors for everyone else.

In a matter of days, California will set a precedent for the future of the U.S. individual and small-business insurance markets via ObamaCare’s “exchanges,” where people will purchase coverage at heavily subsidized rates. The exchanges don’t start up until 2014, but the states were given wide bureaucratic latitude in how they’re run, and Sacramento is using this flexibility to convert them into a pretext for imposing de facto price controls on the insurance industry.

Jerry Seib and Gerard Baker discuss the renewed furor over health care, including the war of worlds between House Minority Leader John Boehner and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

That may be what Democrats had in mind when they passed the bill, but it’s particularly unfortunate because in principle exchanges could be a useful reform. States could sponsor transparent, neutral clearinghouses that compare costs and benefits among plans, encouraging insurers to compete to offer the products that consumers find most valuable. An exchange could operate much like travel websites such as Expedia.com, and a good one along those lines started in Utah last year.

California looked further east for inspiration—to Massachusetts, which has the only other exchange in the country. Known as the connector, it’s the centerpiece of the ObamaCare beta test that Mitt Romney passed in 2006 and is now the power center of the state’s public utility-style insurance regulation. In the daisy chain of “expertise” that is the health policy world, California’s regulations were shaped by Jon Kingsdale, a devout White House ally who used to run the Massachusetts connector and is now a consultant.

[View Complete Article →]

Tags: ···············

No Comments

Unions work to defend federal pay from politicians’ proposals

September 26th, 2010 · Accountability, Change of Power, Deception, Democrats, Economy, Federal Spending, Non-Transparency, Tax Dollars, Taxes, Unemployment

By Joe Davidson Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, September 22, 2010; 10:44 PM

If federal employees, in particular their pay and number, become a political football this election season, their unions plan to play strong defense.

Already, there’s been a vigorous preseason, with politicians, mostly Republicans, getting in shape for the campaign by making numerous attempts to freeze or cut federal compensation or the workforce.

“I think this is going to be a major issue,” said John Gage, president of the American Federation of Government Employees.

The issue got a good workout several weeks ago when repeated attempts to block a 1.4 percent pay increase, hardly extravagant, were stopped.

But the efforts continue.

[View Complete Article →]

Tags: ········

No Comments

Postal Service reform bill set for release: What would Congress do without Post Offices to Rename?

September 25th, 2010 · Deception, Democrats, Economy, Unemployment

If Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.) gets his way, the U.S. Postal Service could soon end Saturday mail deliveries, close thousands of post offices and open new ones in grocery stores. The agency would also recover overpayments to a federal employee retirement fund and use the money to provide health benefits for retired postal workers.

Oh, and you might be able to ship beer and wine.

Carper, a longtime ally of postal leadership, on Thursday will unveil a bill designed to give the Postal Service more flexibility on major operational and financial decisions without congressional approval. It essentially copies and pastes proposals introduced in March by Postmaster General John E. Potter and then adds a few more.

Potter wants greater independence from lawmakers despite the Postal Service’s quasi-government role and on Wednesday voiced approval for Carper’s bill, saying it allows USPS “to step into the 21st century.”

The bill would lift restrictions on the types of products and services the Postal Service sells and when and where it operates. Potter wants to end Saturday mail deliveries, close post offices and open for business in nearby retail outlets. He also wants to explore selling banking or insurance services.

Carper’s bill goes a step further by permitting USPS to work with state governments to provide voter registration forms and driver’s license applications at postal locations.

[View Complete Article →]

Tags: ·······

No Comments

GAO report: OSHA failing to protect whistleblowers

September 22nd, 2010 · Deception, Ethics, Unemployment

By Lisa Rein Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, September 21, 2010; 10:47 PM

The federal agency responsible for worker safety and other protections for tens of millions of Americans has failed for decades to establish a system to shield whistleblowers from retaliation from their employers, according to government auditors.

The Government Accountability Office’s report criticizes the Labor Department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration for “ineffective” whistleblower protections that have persisted 20 years after auditors first reported weaknesses.

The stakes have only grown for workers and the public over the last decade, as OSHA – created to ensure safe and healthy working conditions for employees – has expanded its mission. The agency is now charged with enforcing 18 whistleblower laws, covering private employers in the areas of nuclear power, transportation, securities, consumer product safety and the environment.

“For over 20 years, we have repeatedly found that [the agency] lacks sufficient internal controls to ensure that standards for investigating whistleblower complaints are consistently followed,” the 46-page GAO report, released last week, concludes.

Auditors described “significant internal control problems” in the whistleblower protection program, adding, “The problems appear systemic, and sustained management attention is needed to address them.”

Workers who report on waste, fraud or other prohibited or unlawful practices in the workplace can play a crucial role in making sure federal laws are enforced. But whistleblowers risk reprisals from their employers, including demotion, reassignment and firing, auditors said. Federal laws establish a process for workers who believe they have faced retaliation to report their concerns to investigators.

[View Complete Article →]

Tags: ·

No Comments