LIVING IN THE HUNGER GAMES: Getting Fat Off The Taxpayer: Since 2000, D.C. Area Wealth Grew at Twice National Average.
Archive for 2012
December 1, 2012
WHERE THE DEBT COMES FROM, in one chart. Note the narrowing gap during Bush’s second term, where we were actually heading toward surplus before the financial crisis, despite Obama’s claim that the debt is all Bush’s fault because of “two wars on the credit card.”
UPDATE: Reader Steve Nelson writes to point out that the deficit only started growing after the new Democratic Congress came in in 2007. “You know, the section of the US government that actually spends the money. . . . This cannot be stressed enough.” Good point.
SO DOESN’T THIS MEAN WE SHOULD BE INCREASING TAXES ON “MOST AMERICANS,” AND NOT JUST THE TOP 2%? New York Times: Tax Burden Is Lower for Most Americans Than in the 1980s.
SO MAYBE THERE’S NOTHING NEW HERE: “Our babysitter got laid by one of the Secret Service.”
JOHN GALT WAS UNAVAILABLE FOR COMMENT: Collecting Disability Becomes A Career Choice For Men.
GUY BENSON: Republicans’ Ace in the Hole: Simpson-Bowles?
THE TELEGRAPH: The White House’s Benghazi bungling is proving a disaster.
They told me if I voted for Mitt Romney, Brit pundits would mock the White House for foreign policy ineptitude — and they were right!
COPYRIGHT: Recording Industry Could Catch More Flies With Honey, But Keeps Betting On Vinegar.
You’d think the GOP would be smart enough to take advantage of that. Well, some may be learning. . . .
Related item here:
The Founding Fathers wanted that term to be 14 years, with an additional 14 years if the author were still alive. After 28 years, they figured you’d had your chance to exploit your creation, and now it belonged to the nation at large. That way we would never end up with a system of hereditary privilege, similar to the printers guilds of Renaissance England, who tied up rights to dead authors and tightly controlled what could or could not be printed and who could or could not use literary material. . . . The Constitution is quite clear on the matter. It says copyrights are to be granted for “limited times.” I don’t know any definition of “limited” that would mean 75 years plus a 20-year extension plus the chance of getting another extension later. The whole issue was argued three centuries ago, and it was established as a principle of democracy that, when the author is dead, his work becomes the property of all. This was modified slightly to allow the first generation after his death to continue to collect royalties, presumably to protect widows and children. But that’s all that was intended. There was no argument ever made for a third- or fourth-generation royalty, much less a perpetual assignment of royalties to a corporation that never dies.
As a great man once said, at some point you’ve made enough money.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: A Student Loan Bailout Would Consume 62% of New Obama Taxes.
Americans concerned about what President Obama plans to do with the $1.6 trillion in new taxes he is proposing in the a “fiscal cliff” deal have a new worry: Will it go to bailout some $1 trillion in student loan debt, leaving enough to pay for less than two years interest on the national debt?
Critics are raising that possibility on the heels of a new Federal Reserve report that student loan debt has reached $956 billion, and it’s growing.
“Outstanding student loan debt now stands at $956 billion, an increase of $42 billion since last quarter. However, of the $42 billion, $23 billion is new debt while the remaining $19 billion is attributed to previously defaulted student loans that have been updated on credit reports this quarter. As a result, the percent of student loan balances 90+ days delinquent increased to 11 percent this quarter,” said the New York Fed.
Anxious Republicans skeptical of the president’s fiscal cliff plan and proposed $1.6 trillion in new taxes, mostly on the wealthy, are worried that the administration is planning new spending programs, not debt payments with the money.
They are turning their attention to a Democratic proposal to pay off student loan debt and the president’s focus on student loans during his many campaign stops at college campuses earlier this year.
Create a problem, then pay it off with other people’s money. Buy votes. Lovely.
HOW’S THAT HOPEY-CHANGEY STUFF WORKIN’ OUT FOR YA? (CONT’D): Study: American Households Hit 43-Year Low In Net Worth. Forward!
NEWS YOU CAN USE: The Case For Drinking As Much Coffee As You’d Like.
“What I tell patients is, if you like coffee, go ahead and drink as much as you want and can,” says Dr. Peter Martin, director of the Institute for Coffee Studies at Vanderbilt University. He’s even developed a metric for monitoring your dosage: If you are having trouble sleeping, cut back on your last cup of the day. From there, he says, “If you drink that much, it’s not going to do you any harm, and it might actually help you. A lot.”
Read the whole thing. Over a cup of coffee!
THE PRESS MAY HAVE MANAGED TO DISILLUSION A LOT OF REPUBLICAN PUNDITS AND LEADERS, but these blog commenters don’t seem to have lost their mojo.
THAT WOULD BE NICE: Grover Norquist: New, Larger ‘Tea Party Second Wave’ Coming. “We are about to have a Tea Party second wave that will dwarf the first wave and that is because while ‘spend too much’ brought the Tea Party into existence, we’re about to walk into ‘spend too much, regulate too much, and tax too much,’ all together. It’s going to be a perfect storm of annoying government behavior, which is devastating to the economy, and I think the small business community which is particularly hit by Obama’s tax increases are going to lead the fight bigger, stronger, tougher than the last Tea Party.”
LOOKING INSIDE Mitt Romney’s Polling Numbers. “The Romney pollsters apparently were also misled by their finding that those most interested in the race strongly supported Romney. It turned out, of course, that Obama supporters who perhaps weren’t hugely interested in the election nonetheless voted, at least in the important states.”
November 30, 2012
THEY TOLD ME IF I VOTED REPUBLICAN, SECRETIVE INTELLIGENCE AGENCIES WOULD BE CALLING ALL THE SHOTS. AND THEY WERE RIGHT! The NSA Tells Congress What to Think And Say About the NSA: Checks and Balances in Action.
PROTEST SONG of the year.
AT AMAZON, it’s the Kindle Fire HD, as low as $199.99.
Also, 100 Kindle books for $3.99 or less.
Just a reminder: InstaPundit is an Amazon affiliate. When you do your Christmas/Hanukkah shopping — or any other shopping — through the Amazon links on this page, including the “Shop Amazon” tab at the top or the searchbox in the right sidebar, you support the blog at no cost to yourself. Just click on the Amazon link, then shop as usual. It’s much appreciated! (Bumped).
MOVE TO CONTAIN HIGHER EDUCATION COSTS now a multi-state phenomenon.
NOW ON YOUTUBE: InstaVision: Read My Lips: Why The ‘No-Tax-Hike’ Pledge Is an IQ Test for Republicans. With a special guest appearance by George H.W. Bush. (Bumped).