● Obama's economic team considering new stimulus package... ● Kabul Bank called on Thursday for intervention by the United States to head off a financial meltdown.... ● Health insurance tax credit likely to affect small part of small-business workforce... ● Mixed reaction to new FEC rules on candidates, interest groups working together... ● Maryland Democrat Sen. Currie indicted on charges of taking bribes... ● Summer of Economic Discontent ... ● CBO Update... ● Obama administration appeals stem cell funding decision despite US Law... ● Gloom for Democrats as they look to November... ● U.S. troop deaths in Afghan war up sharply...
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 'Greed'

Obama’s economic team considering new stimulus package

September 2nd, 2010 · Deception, Democrats, Money Lost, Obama's Scheme, Selling Out the US, Stimulus, Tax Dollars, Taxes, Terrorism from Within, Treason

White House considering major tax breaks for businesses, sources say

By Lori Montgomery – Thursday, September 2, 2010; 5:33 PM

With the recovery faltering less than two months before the November congressional elections, President Obama’s economic team is considering another big dose of stimulus in the form of tax breaks for businesses – potentially worth hundreds of billions of dollars, according to two people familiar with the talks.

Among the options are a temporary payroll tax holiday and a permanent extension of the research and development tax credit, say people familiar with the talks who spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to describe private deliberations.

Permanently extending the research credit would cost roughly $100 billion over the next decade, tax experts said. And depending on its form and duration, a payroll tax holiday could let businesses keep more than $300 billion they would otherwise owe the Treasury.

[View Complete Article →]

Tags: ···············

No Comments

Maryland Democrat Sen. Currie indicted on charges of taking bribes

September 2nd, 2010 · Accountability, Corruption, Defense, Democrats, Ethics, Greed, States

"I committed no crime"

By Maria Glod and John Wagner Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, September 2, 2010; 12:10 AM

Longtime Maryland Sen. Ulysses Currie, one of the most powerful and popular figures in the General Assembly, was indicted Wednesday on charges that he took more than $245,000 in bribes to use his position and influence to do favors for a grocery chain.

The 48-page indictment, filed in U.S. District Court in Baltimore, comes after a years-long FBI investigation into consulting work Currie (D-Prince George’s) did for Shoppers Food and Pharmacy. Over six years, the indictment alleges, Currie took action to help Shoppers sell liquor at one store, save money in the construction of another store and buy land. Two former Shoppers officials also were indicted by the federal grand jury.

Shoppers hired Currie to work as a consultant focusing on public affairs, minority recruitment, and outreach and community relations. But in reality, prosecutors allege, Shoppers paid him to use his Senate seat to benefit the company’s business and financial interests.

Currie, 73, highlighted his actions in a paper he wrote in September 2007, hoping to justify continued payments from the grocery chain, the indictment says. He called the document “Accomplishments on Behalf of Shoppers.” He wrote that he was “in a unique position to assist Shoppers in expanding its mission and increasing its bottom line” and that he would bring the company “many more opportunities,” court papers say.

Currie declined to comment. His attorney, Dale P. Kelberman, said in a statement that the charges are unfounded.

[View Complete Article →]

Tags: ···

No Comments

Summer of Economic Discontent

September 2nd, 2010 · Change of Power, Deception, Democrats, Dissention, Ethics, Federal Spending, Foreign Policy, Government, Greed, Money Lost, Non-Transparency, Obama's Scheme, Selling Out the US, Social Security, Tax Dollars, Taxes, Unemployment

The administration’s ‘summer of recovery’ has fizzled in almost every way imaginable. The growth rate is less than half what it was at this stage after the 1974-75 and 1981-82 recessions.

By Michael Boskin

The Obama administration’s “summer of recovery” has morphed into a summer of economic discontent amid anxiety over the weakening economy. The greater than 4% growth and less than 8% unemployment envisioned by the president’s economic team are nowhere to be seen. Almost everything that is supposed to be up—the economic growth rate, the stock market, bond yields—is down. And almost everything that is supposed to be down—unemployment-insurance claims, new mortgage delinquencies—is up.

Sometimes a weak early recovery gathers strength after a year or so, as in 2003 when the second round of the Bush tax cuts helped double growth to 3.8% from 1.9%. But there are serious headwinds to stronger growth: household deleveraging, unresolved toxic assets, and most government economic policies headed in the wrong direction. While the base case outlook is still slow recovery, a double-dip recession or a Japanese-style lost decade is more plausible than a few months ago. This explains why Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke felt compelled last week to reiterate that the Fed will use more of its (in my view, weak) ammunition should the economy falter further.

How bad is it? In the data for the last few weeks and months, real personal disposable income was flat; core capital goods orders, a precursor of business capital spending, declined 8%; new home sales fell 12.4%, existing sales 27%, despite record low mortgage rates; single-family housing starts declined 4.2%; building permits, foreshadowing future construction, fell 1.2%; initial jobless claims spiked to over 500,000, leading forecasters to expect at best meager short-term private-sector job growth; the Kansas City, Philadelphia and New York Fed manufacturing indexes fell; and the trade deficit increased, as exports fell and imports rose.

These weak backward-looking data were accompanied by big downdrafts in forward-looking financial markets. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost over 4% and the tech-heavy Nasdaq over 6% in August—partly retraced yesterday—and the 10-year U.S. bond yield, at 2.47%, was back to its lows of March 2009. Real GDP growth slowed from 3.7% in the first quarter to just 1.6% last quarter.

[View Complete Article →]

Tags: ·················

No Comments

Obama and the Democrat’s Social Security Bait and Switch

August 31st, 2010 · Deception, Democrats, Ethics, Federal Spending, Non-Transparency, Obama's Scheme, Selling Out the US, Social Security, Tax Dollars, Taxes, Unemployment

Associated Press

‘Harry, am I making this up?’ Yes, Mr. President, you are.

Democrats are trying to keep control of Congress by scaring the wig off grandma with a phantom GOP plot against Social Security. That is not news. Social Security scare tactics have been regular campaign themes since FDR. President Obama’s unique contribution is to do this even as he’s begging Republicans to help him reduce the deficit and reform entitlement spending.

On the one hand, Mr. Obama has charged his deficit commission with crafting a bipartisan plan to restrain entitlements. “Everything’s on the table. That’s how this thing’s going to work,” he said when he created the commission in February. “We now have to, in a gradual way, reduce spending, particularly on those big ticket items” like Social Security, he later added in Racine, Wisconsin. “That’s going to be our project for the next couple years.”

Yet even as Mr. Obama beseeches Republicans, he and his political allies are playing the Social Security card for all it’s worth in this campaign season. This has all the earmarks of a political bait and switch designed to ambush Republicans if they’re gullible enough to believe his bipartisan pleas.

Mr. Obama personally teed up the campaign theme earlier this month when he celebrated Social Security’s 75th anniversary by claiming that “privatizing Social Security” is “a key part” of the Republican “legislative agenda if they win a majority in Congress this fall.” He went on to say that this plan, which does not in fact exist, is “wrong for America” and “I’ll fight with everything I’ve got to stop those who would gamble your Social Security on Wall Street. Because you shouldn’t be worried that a sudden downturn in the stock market will put all you’ve worked so hard for—all you’ve earned—at risk.”

[View Complete Article →]

Tags: ··················

No Comments

Eddie Bernice Johnson, Texas Dem Rep., Steered Scholarships To Family And Friends

August 31st, 2010 · Corruption, Democrats, Ethics, Greed

WASHINGTON — A Texas congresswoman admitted that she wrongly steered thousands of dollars in college scholarships from the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation to her own relatives and the children of a staff member but said she did so unintentionally.

Democratic Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson said in a statement Monday that she will reimburse the foundation by the end of the week. She did not state how much money was involved. The Dallas Morning News reported Monday that 23 scholarships she has handed out since 2005 violated the foundation’s eligibility rules.

The Morning News reported on its website that Johnson had arranged scholarships between 2005 and 2008 for two grandsons and two grandnephews and the son and daughter of a Dallas-based aide, Rod Givens. The newspaper placed the amount of those scholarships at up to $20,000.

In 2009, according to the foundation, Johnson gave two grandsons and the aide’s two children two scholarships apiece from foundation funds, the newspaper reported.

Relatives of members of Congress are ineligible to receive scholarship funds from the foundation because of anti-nepotism rules. The scholarships also violate a foundation rule that recipients need to live or study in the district represented by the Black Caucus member who awards the scholarship.

“As previously stated, I was unaware of being in any type of violation and never intentionally violated the CBCF’s rules,” Johnson said in a statement sent by e-mail by her office. She said she would appoint a third party to examine her office’s practices in distributing scholarship money.

[View Complete Article →]

Tags: ·········

No Comments

Recovery in danger as firms, homebuyers cut back

August 25th, 2010 · Dissention, Housing Industry, Money Lost, Non-Transparency, Obama's Scheme, Real Estate, Selling Out the US, Unemployment

By DANIEL WAGNER and ALAN ZIBEL – The Associated Press
Wednesday, August 25, 2010; 12:09 PM

WASHINGTON — The economic recovery appears to be stalling as companies cut back last month on their investments in equipment and machines and Americans bought new homes at the weakest pace in decades.

Overall orders for big-ticket manufactured goods increased 0.3 percent in July, the Commerce Department said Wednesday. But that was only because of a 76 percent jump in demand for commercial aircraft.

Taking out the volatile transportation category, orders for durable goods fell at the steepest rate since January. And business orders for capital goods took their sharpest drop since January 2009, when the economy was stuck in the deepest recession in decades.

Separately, Commerce said new home sales fell 12.4 percent in July from a month earlier to a seasonally adjusted annual sales pace of 276,600. That was the slowest pace on records dating back to 1963. Collectively, the past three months have been the worst on record for new home sales.

The weak sales mean fewer jobs in the construction industry, which normally powers economic recoveries. Each new home built creates, on average, the equivalent of three jobs for a year and generates about $90,000 in taxes, according to the National Association of Home Builders.

[View Complete Article →]

Tags: ·········

No Comments

With their Jobs on the line, Dems want to fix the economy. Too little too late.

August 25th, 2010 · Accountability, Auto Industry, Banking Industry, Change of Power, Deception, Democrats, Ethics, Federal Spending, Government Control, Greed, Money Lost, Non-Transparency, Obama's Scheme, Reform, Selling Out the US, Tax Dollars, Taxes, Terrorism from Within, Treason, Treasury, Unemployment

As midterms loom, Democrats work to shore up faltering recovery

By Lori Montgomery – Wednesday, August 25, 2010

A rapidly weakening economy threatens to undermine President Obama’s assertion that he has set the nation on a path to prosperity and, with barely two months until congressional midterm elections, Democrats find themselves with few options for reviving the faltering recovery.

The latest sign that the economy is losing steam: Home sales fell 27 percent in July, the steepest one-month drop since figures were first compiled in 1968, according to a report released Tuesday. Analysts had expected sales to decline following the expiration of a federal tax credit for homebuyers this spring, but the drop was nearly twice as large as forecast.

The housing report punctuated a wave of bad news that has been building all summer. The number of jobless claims has risen in each of the past four weeks and last week hit its highest point in nine months. Private-sector job creation is trending well below the level needed to keep up with population growth. Retail sales have also been disappointing.

Economists generally do not expect a dip back into recession, although many say the risk has grown with each new piece of disheartening data.

[View Complete Article →]

Tags: ················

No Comments

With consumers slow to spend, businesses are slow to hire

August 23rd, 2010 · Deception, Government, Government Control, Greed, Money Lost, Obama's Scheme, Selling Out the US, Tax Dollars, Taxes, Treasury

By Neil Irwin Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, August 21, 2010

CHICAGO — Corporate profits are soaring. Companies are sitting on billions of dollars of cash. And still, they’ve yet to amp up hiring or make major investments — the missing ingredients for a strong economic recovery.

Many Democrats say the economy needs more stimulus. Business lobbyists and their Republican allies say it needs less regulation and lower taxes.

But here in the heartland of America, senior executives say neither side’s assessment fits.

They blame their profound caution on their view that U.S. consumers are destined to disappoint for many years. As a result, they say, the economy is unlikely to see the kind of almost unbroken prosperity of the quarter-century that preceded the financial crisis.

Across the industrial parks and office towers of the Chicago region, in a more than a dozen interviews, senior executives said they see Americans for years ahead paying down debts incurred during the now-ended credit boom and adjusting spending to match their often-reduced incomes.

“It’s a different era,” said Daryl Dulaney, chief executive of Siemens Industry, which has 30,000 U.S. employees who make lighting systems for buildings and a wide range of other products. “Our hiring and investment decisions have to be prudent and reflect that.”

[View Complete Article →]

Tags: ············

No Comments

Keeping tax cuts beneficial in short term, harmful over long term, CBO says

August 23rd, 2010 · Deception, Democrats, Federal Spending, Government, Money Lost, Non-Transparency, Obama's Scheme, Selling Out the US, Social Security, Tax Dollars, Taxes

By Brady Dennis Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, August 20, 2010

The director of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said on Thursday that permanently extending tax cuts put in place under President George W. Bush would provide a “considerable” economic boost over the next several years but would result in substantial increases in the federal deficit, placing the country in a precarious fiscal situation by 2020.

In offering this assessment, Douglas Elmendorf underscored the difficult choice facing lawmakers as they debate whether to extend any or all of the tax breaks, which are scheduled to expire at the end of the year.

The CBO’s analysis was part of a broader report released Thursday in which the agency projected that the federal government’s budget deficit for this year would be $1.34 trillion. The figure is slightly below last year’s total, but the CBO warned that policymakers face “daunting” challenges in the years ahead in trying to return the country to fiscal sustainability.

Concerns about the federal deficit have been figuring prominently in congressional debates over whether to spend more money on programs to stimulate the economy and to help the unemployed, as well as over the Bush-era tax cuts.

The CBO examined the impact if most of those cuts are extended. This scenario assumed that the breaks for higher-income taxpayers would expire.

[View Complete Article →]

Tags: ··············

No Comments

Budget analysts see 2010 deficit at $1.3 trillion

August 19th, 2010 · Auto Industry, Banking Industry, Deception, Democrats, Federal Spending, Government, Greed, Money Lost, Non-Transparency, Obama's Scheme, Reform, Selling Out the US, Tax Dollars, Taxes, Terrorism from Within, Treason, Unemployment

The Associated Press
Thursday, August 19, 2010; 12:22 PM

WASHINGTON — This year’s federal deficit will exceed $1.3 trillion, Congress’ official budget analysts projected Thursday in a report underscoring election year perils both parties face as they struggle to balance conflicting demands to trim budget shortfalls, spark the economy and cut taxes.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said this year’s budget gap would be $71 billion less than last year’s red ink, thanks to a reversal of recent trends that have seen years of steadily rising government spending and falling federal revenues.

Even so, that would leave this year’s deficit as the second largest ever in dollars, trailing only last year’s $1.4 trillion. To put those numbers in perspective, the shortfalls for 2009 and 2010 are each three times as big as the government’s annual deficit had ever been previously.

The report immediately became fodder for partisan finger-pointing over the deficit, a concern of voters in the shadow of this fall’s elections, which will determine control of Congress.

Sen. Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, top Republican on the Senate Budget Committee, said the report highlighted that a “spending spree” by Congress, including enactment of President Barack Obama‘s health care overhaul, was driving annual deficits and the cumulative federal debt skyward.

“Today’s CBO outlook only underscores what we already know – the current pace of U.S. spending is unaffordable and unsustainable, and without a change in direction, this country is headed for fiscal calamity,” Gregg said.

Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, D-N.D., said helping the economy recover must be the top priority. But he said to address long-term budget pressures like the retirement of baby boomers, “we must start now to enact deficit reduction policies that will kick in after the economy has more fully recovered.”

[View Complete Article →]

Tags: ··············

No Comments