Obamacare Not Such A Good Deal For Children

Prior to the passage of the “historic” Obamacare bill, Democrats went hither and yon in their effort to sell the insurance corporation crafted plan like snake oil. They said it was for the little people and if you opposed it you were a racist or some kind of rightwing extremist.

Now with the ink barely dry on the bill, the truth is beginning to come out.

“Insurance companies wasted no time after the bill was passed to unearth a loophole that allowed them to deny coverage to children with pre-existing illnesses for the next four years,” writes Sahil Kapur for Raw Story.

Unearthed? They knew it was in the bill all along because they wrote it.

“If a company sells insurance, it will have to cover pre-existing conditions for children covered by the policy. But it does not have to sell to somebody with a pre-existing condition. And the insurer could increase premiums to cover the additional cost,” said William G. Schiffbauer, an attorney who represents insurance companies.

Rest assured. Obama and crew “are working to bridge the gap.” Maybe they would have bridged it if they had read the bill. Nancy Pelosi said they’d have to wait for it to pass before they could read it, though.

Next up, young adults. “Health insurance premiums for young adults are expected to rise about 17 percent once they’re required to buy insurance four years from now,” according an analysis produced by Rand Health.

Not that they can do anything about it. Obamacare is mandatory. If they don’t like it, men in black ski masks will drop by.

No doubt other news about goodies for insurance corporations will emerge soon enough.

DHS Claims Again Right-Wing Extremism Is On The Rise

Several months ago, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) released a simliar report targeting conservatives and ideals as “Right-wing Extremism”. After intense public scrutiny and a strong back-lash from Congressional conservatives, the report was retracted.

Now, with all the Tea-Party demonization efforts and hub-bub, DHS comes out with a rather timely report to further paint the Tea-Party movement into some “radical and/or racist” organization that is more or less violent. Logic would tell you this isn’t the case, as we’ve seen, the Tea-Party movement is a mix of all races and political backgrounds including Dems, Repubs, Libertarians, Independents etc. etc.. The groups have protested peacefully since its’ creation over a year ago. Other attempts to counter this group have also been tried (as with the Coffee Party).

The new report is 10 pages, and as you may have suspected, it starts with the “White Supremacist” and “anti-government” rhetoric claiming they have plans to carry out “violent acts” because of the current economic conditions causing foreclosures, unemployment etc. Like the old “lost teenager” synopsis for joining gangs, the DHS report mimics this saying the conditions are ripe for “recruitment”.

On page 1, we get a summary of what these groups are about and that “right-wing extremists” are “capitalizing on the first African-American President” as a means for recruitment (though Obama is only 50% Black – go figure)…

— Threats from white supremacist and violent antigovernment groups

during 2009 have been largely rhetorical and have not indicated plans to carry

out violent acts. Nevertheless, the consequences of a prolonged economic

downturn—including real estate foreclosures, unemployment, and an inability

to obtain credit—could create a fertile recruiting environment for rightwing

extremists and even result in confrontations between such groups and

government authorities similar to those in the past.

— Rightwing extremists have capitalized on the election of the first

African American president, and are focusing their efforts to recruit new

members, mobilize existing supporters, and broaden their scope and appeal

through propaganda, but they have not yet turned to attack planning.

It goes on to say what we’re seeing now is similar to the 1990’s etc. (In case you didn’t know, Bill Clinton was really the first Black President). This report, though, has a new twist about Veterans returning home. Instead of saying this time (as the last report) that they were mentally unstable and likely to form “anti-government” groups, this report claims that they are targets for recruitment by “right-wing Extremists” because of their military skills.

Yet, The Serve America Act (still in legislation), which aims to have 250,000 AmeriCorps members by the year 2017, also states that Veterans with these skills are ideal for recruitment into national service under this Act (page 234):
recruiting veterans, particularly returning veterans, into service opportunities, including opportunities that utilize their military experience;

So, the DHS reports echos exactly what is in the Serve America Act, but instead of serving the government, they would be serving “right-wing” extremists. So i guess both the DNC (sponsoring this bill) and “right-wing extremists” want these guys for their skills according to the Serve America Act and the DHS report. Go figure!

The rest of the DHS report goes on to explain these “conditions” causing an increase in hostility towards the govenment etc. There is a small section on “Disgruntled Veterans” too (now looking further down in the report).

The first report of this nature put intense pressure on Janet Napolitano for releasing it. Will she get the same scrutiny for this report?

Israel Might Use Tactical Nukes On Iran

Deeply concerned as it is by the risk of a nuclear-armed Iran, Israel has never even hinted at using atomic weapons to forestall the perceived threat.

But now a respected Washington think tank has said that low-radioactive yield "tactical" nuclear warheads would be one way for the Israelis to destroy Iranian uranium enrichment plants in remote, dug-in fortifications.

Despite the 65-year-old taboo against carrying out -- or, for that matter, mooting -- nuclear strikes, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) says in a new report that "some believe that nuclear weapons are the only weapons that can destroy targets deep underground or in tunnels."

But other independent experts are on record warning that such a scenario is based on the "myth" of a clean atomic attack and would be too politically hazardous to justify.

In their study titled "Options in Dealing with Iran's Nuclear Program," CSIS analysts Abdullah Toukan and Anthony Cordesman envisage the possibility of Israel "using these warheads as a substitute for conventional weapons" given the difficulty its jets would face in reaching Iran for anything more than a one-off sortie.


Ballistic missiles or submarine-launched cruise missiles could serve for Israeli tactical nuclear strikes without interference from Iranian air defenses, the 208-page report says. "Earth-penetrator" warheads would produce most damage.

Israel is widely assumed to have the Middle East's sole atomic arsenal. Israeli leaders do not comment on this capability other than to underscore its deterrent role; President Shimon Peres has said repeatedly that "Israel will not be the first to introduce nuclear weapons to the region."

A veteran Israeli defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said preemptive nuclear strikes were foreign to the national doctrine: "Such weapons exist so as not to be used."

A fixture of NATO and Soviet arsenals, tactical nuclear weapons are designed to deliver focused devastation with less contamination than city-killing bombs like those the United States dropped on Japan to end World War Two.

That damage containment would, in theory, off-set diplomatic fallout for whichever country were to use such arms on a foe.

FALLOUT

There has been speculation that the United States -- which, like Israel, has not ruled out military force to deny Iran atomic arms -- could itself resort to tactical nuclear strikes.

The Pentagon's 2002 Nuclear Posture Review, which was leaked to the media, spoke of the need to develop new "mini-nukes" for defeating bunker systems. The review cited Iran among potential enemies that might eventually warrant a U.S. nuclear deployment.

Yet Toukan and Cordesman think it "very unlikely that any U.S. president would authorize the use of such nuclear weapons, or even allow ... a strong ally such as Israel to use them, unless another country had used nuclear weapons against the U.S. and its allies."

They say the United States would be central to any diplomatic solution to the Iranian standoff and is the only country that could launch a successful military strike on Iran.

International experts who contributed essays to the 2003 book "Tactical Nuclear Weapons" mostly shied from hawkishness.

"Who could predict what might happen next if (the) taboo on the use of nuclear weapons were to be broken?" wrote former CIA director Stansfield Turner. "Getting tactical nuclear weapons under control, rather than attesting to their use by building new ones, should be our goal."

Princeton University physicist Robert Nelson assailed the idea that tactical nuclear weapons, detonated below ground, would pose tolerable risks for civilians and the environment.

"This is a dangerous myth. In fact, shallow buried nuclear explosions produce far more local fallout than air or surface explosions of the same yield," he argued.

Sam Gardiner, a retired U.S. air force colonel who runs wargames for various Washington agencies, said an Israeli decision on using non-conventional weapons against Iran would come down to how far its nuclear program was to be retarded.

Israel supports efforts by world powers to rein in Iran -- which denies seeking the bomb -- through sanctions, and some experts say any pre-emptive Israeli strike would aim to jolt international diplomats into finally knuckling down on Tehran.

"If a 3-to-5 year delay were the Israeli objective, I expect it would drive their target people to say the only way it could be done is with tactical nuclear weapons," Gardiner said.

"I expect the Israeli objective to be more like a year. That is doable without tactical nuclear weapons."

MSNBC's ED Schultz Demands The Fairness Doctrine

Ed Schultz, one of the more bombastic “liberals” at MSNBC, has called for “rightwing” talk radio to be shut down.

Schultz is outraged that Rush Limbaugh has called for opposition to Obama and the Democrat theft of one sixth of the economy. Ed thinks it would be ducks if the IRS and government thugs toting brand spanking new sniper rifles rounded people up for their refusal to follow Obama’s mandate that everybody in the country must give their hard-earned money to insurance companies.

Because Rush and the Republicans have not paid fealty to Lord Obama and the corporate whore Democrats who have trashed the Constitution, Ed wants to bring back the Fairness Doctrine. He would like to see Rush Limbaugh forced off the air. Ed dreams of his paltry radio show replacing Rush’s on the airwaves.

Ed reveals what a reprehensible collectivist he is. He is outraged that the Republicans stand in opposition to the monstrosity that is Obamacare. Like a garden variety Stalinist, Schultz believes it is treason to oppose the dictates of the communist party, actually the bankster party. Everybody must support the Leader or face persecution by the state.

Such attitudes ultimately result in almost unimaginable mass murder. Mao killed 40 million, Hitler 30 million, and Stalin around 20 million. Some historians put these numbers even higher. Mao and Stalin killed most their victims because they dared resist the state. Hitler did too, but a lot of his victims were attributed to racist beliefs inspired by eugenicists like Rockefeller.

Hitler, Mao, and Stalin — these were collectivists who believed in the primacy of the state over the individual. Ed Schultz also believes in the primacy of the state and wants to shut down anybody who opposes its criminal mandates. Such mentality eventually terminates in killing fields.

Ed says there is a culture war going on in America. Mao had his own cultural war. He called it the Cultural Revolution. It began when Mao and his lackey Jiang Qing went after the intellectuals. Mao sent his Red Guards around China to intimidate, imprison, beat, and kill those who did not live up to his communist utopian vision. A campaign of fingering traitors swept the country. Between 30 and 70 million people were killed.

If you think Ed is merely a blowhard, think again. As I write this, the Democrats — in league with America’s political police, the FBI and Homeland Security — are preparing to move against the Tea Party movement and all patriots who cherish the Constitution.
Ed Schultz and his fellow apparatchiks in the corporate media are sharpening their knives.

Dems Say That Tea Party Supporters Are Terrorist

The zombified Tea Party created by establishment Republicans and headed up by media darling Sarah Palin is taking heat for a spate of bad behavior around the country in response to the imposition of Obamacare. It is not clear who is responsible for the foul language and threats directed against Democrats but this has not stopped them from blaming their ideological twin, the Republican Party. Dems are demanding the Republicans denounce their creation — the hijacked and transmogrified Tea Party sworn to uphold the Republican platform of big government and endless war against phantom enemies.

It’s not just Democrats who get to play victim. Earlier today House Minority Whip Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia held a press conference and said somebody fired a bullet at his campaign office on Monday. Cantor admonished Rep. Chris Van Hollen and DNC chairman Tim Kaine for fanning the flames of hysteria and attempting to gain politically from the media circus swirling around the isolated incidents of outrage over the “socialization” (more accurately the corporate monopolization at gunpoint) of health care.

House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn went on MSNBC’s “Hardball” this afternoon and characterized the obscene phones calls and emails as domestic terrorism. Clyburn said people are getting “signals” from Republicans on how to behave and that lawmakers need to “disown” the activity before it gets out of control. He suggested his colleagues were culpable. “If we participate in it, either from the balcony or on the floor of the House, you are aiding and abetting this kind of terrorism, really,” Clyburn said.

“I think it’s part of a pattern,” said Rules Committee Chairwoman Louise Slaughter after an act of vandalism at her office in New York. Slaughter, at the command of Nancy Pelosi, was ready to force through the Obamacare monstrosity without a vote in the House. Such an unconstitutional maneuver turned out not to be necessary because the Democrats twisted arms and promised the moon to get the votes required for passage. Holdout Bart Stupak, a Michigan Democrat, was promised airport grants for his district if he abandoned his opposition. In other words, Stupak sold his opposition to abortion for a barrel of pork at the expense of the American people.

Libs over at the Huffington Post have taken up the domestic terrorism angle. It will not be members of the Borg hive Republican Tea Party that will engage in domestic terrorism, argues Jeff Schneider, but the radical fringe (in other words, the real Tea Party). “While the attack will not come from the Tea Party proper, more radical members and affiliated groups that have allied themselves with the movement are beginning to mobilize,” he writes today. “What began as the corporate funded, Dick Armey led, FreedomWorks organized, anti-health care rallying Tea Party movement has grown into something beyond what its founders intended.”

The Tea Party (if we can call it such) has entered into a series of loose alliances (of convenience or common purpose) with fringe groups like The Oath Keepers, the Committees of Safety, and the Three Percenter Movement (to name a few). While the rhetoric from Tea Party groups is vitriolic, its protests (to date) have been predominantly non-violent — but while many Tea Party protesters may be peaceful, their rhetoric, and the rhetoric of fellow traveler politicians like Rep. Bachmann and former Gov. Sarah Palin, is echoing through the Tea Party to its fringe elements — and the threat of domestic terror from these groups, or individuals who belong to them, has risen exponentially.

Closely following talking points issued by the Southern Poverty Law Center, Schneider connects the Oath Keepers to white supremacists, the Keystone State Skinheads forum and Stormfront. Schneider insists the “fringe” Tea Party movement is dangerous because it is linked to Gun Owners of America.
Gun Owners of America has over 300,000 members. It is the “only no-compromise gun lobby in Washington,” according to Ron Paul.

The Oath Keepers advocate that its members — who are current and former U.S. military and law enforcement — uphold their oaths of service and pledge to protect the U.S. Constitution. Even though the group is pledged to non-violence, Mother Jones has deemed it the “Tea Party’s military wing.”

The demonization of constitutionalists and patriots (minus absolutely any evidence they are involved in threats and obscene phone calls to the Congress critters who violated the Constitution this week) has moved from a concerted government and corporate media propaganda effort to a possibly more concrete and dangerous level.

“Law enforcement authorities are investigating the discovery of a cut propane gas line at the Virginia home of Rep. Thomas Perriello’s (D-Va.) brother, whose address was targeted by tea party activists angry at the congressman’s vote for the health care bill,” Politico reported yesterday. “While officials are not willing to characterize the exact nature of the incident because of the ongoing investigation, it did not involve an immediate threat to occupants of the residence. However officials are taking the incident very seriously and conducting a vigorous investigation,” Lee Catlin, community relations director for the Albemarle County Fire Marshal in Virginia said in a statement.

The FBI — America’s premier political police force with a long track record of cracking down on groups and individuals opposed to the government — is involved in the investigation.

“As of Wednesday afternoon, the FBI was investigating whether a severed gas line at the home of Congressman Perriello’s brother was related to a comment posted on a local ‘tea party’ website for activists to ‘drop by’ and ‘express their thanks’ for his healthcare vote and to ‘remember exactly what it is their constituents are saying and how they are telling them to vote,’” the Christian Science Monitor reports.

“Should something violent happen, Republicans know it could further discredit the Tea Party movement, and the conservative outrage that is fueling it, in the eyes of the wider American public. That explains, in part, the preponderance of condemnations now being issued by GOP congressmen, including Boehner, and by grass-roots activists,” reports Fox 31 in Denver, Colorado.

“These threats are likely coming from rogue, outside sources,” Lesley Hollywood, the director of the Northern Colorado Tea Party, told Fox. The Northern Colorado Tea Party is affiliated with Glenn Beck’s 912 Project.

The Republican Tea Party and Beck’s 912 Project have nothing to fear. If and when the Oath Keepers, Gun Owners of America, Alex Jones, and patriots not affiliated with establishment “conservative” groups are accused of domestic terrorism and the state responds in typically blunt and brutal fashion, they will be safe.

Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann, and Glenn Beck will not be arrested and detained indefinitely as their friend in the Senate, the neocon Lindsey Graham, has recently proposed.

Obamacare Exempts Congress And Staff

This is so outrageous I’m fairly speechless.

Politico reports:

The Congressional Research Service believes a court could rule that the legislation “would exclude professional committee staff, joint committee staff, some shared staff, as well as potentially those staff employed by leadership offices.”

However, when the combined Senate bill came to the floor, the definition of staff had been narrowed. Both senators filed a second amendment in December restating their original intent, but they say Democrats blocked it.

“The American people will be appalled to learn the health care bill exempts leadership and committee staff. This special deal for unelected staff underscores everything the public detests about the arrogance of power in Washington,” Coburn said. “I tried to fix this inequity along with senators Grassley, Burr and Vitter, but Majority Leader [Harry] Reid obstructed our effort.”

The fascist democrats obstructed an amendment that forced themselves and their crony staff from being put into the same lot with the rest of us.

Of course, why wouldn’t they?

They are a bunch of fascist looting criminal thieves intent on destroying this country at all costs. They have no morals. They have no respect for freedom or liberty. They have no respect for the constitution.

As with all tyrannical governments – laws are for the little people.

Of course, this is just one outrage among thousands. The history of government giving itself more rights than its citizens is nearly endless, even in our supposedly “free” country.

IRS Needs 10 Billion To Enforce Obamacare

The Internal Revenue Service will function as the government’s chief enforcer for health care reform, should President Obama sign the bill into law as expected, monitoring both businesses and individuals to certify whether they have the insurance coverage the government requires.

The tax collection agency will be responsible for monitoring and enforcing compliance with the individual and employer insurance mandates which form the backbone of the Democrats’ hard-won reforms.

The bill states that the purpose of the mandates is to regulate “economic and financial decisions about how and when health care is paid for, and when health insurance is purchased.”

The mandates require that all Americans carry a minimum level of health insurance or pay a separate tax for every month they are without such coverage. All employers with 50 employers or more will also be required to provide their employees with that same minimum level of coverage.

While that minimum level of coverage will be defined at a later date by the Department of Health and Human Services, it will be the responsibility of the IRS to monitor individuals and employers and to punish those who do not comply.

Under the bill, which passed despite bipartisan opposition March 21, starting in 2014 the IRS would be responsible for monitoring which employers are complying with the mandate and which ones are not. The IRS would begin such monitoring of individuals’ health insurance status in 2014 as well.

The IRS would monitor individuals and businesses’ health insurance statuses through the mandatory reporting the bill requires. Under the law, every individual and most businesses are required to report to the IRS, on their tax returns, whether they have purchased or provided the required level of coverage and disclose to the IRS which months, if any, in which they failed to do so.

Using this information, the IRS would then determine whether an employer or individual falls under the mandate, which contains exceptions for religious conscience, hardship, incarcerated persons, and members of Indian tribes.

If either an individual or a business has failed to comply with this mandate for any month out of the year, they are required to pay a separate tax to the IRS. For individuals this is a maximum of $750 per person (up to $2,250 per household) and $750 per uncovered employee for businesses.

Because these penalties would each apply on a monthly basis, individuals and employers would have to pay 1/12th of the maximum penalties for each month they failed to comply with the mandates.

In order to carry out its new monitoring and enforcement duties, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that the IRS will need $10 billion in additional funds, funds which were not made available under the health reform bill.

An analysis done by Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee estimated that this $10 billion could go to fund an additional 16,500 new IRS agents and other personnel to monitor and enforce the new mandates.

“[T]he IRS could add more than 16,500 additional agents, auditors, examiners, and administrative support personnel to enforce large portions of the nation’s health insurance system,” the report said.

The IRS will also be in charge of collecting the new taxes on high cost insurance plans and on so-called unearned income from couples making over $250,000 per year and single filers making over $200,000 per year.

Both of these provisions could be modified should the Senate approve a budget reconciliation measure the House also passed March 21. Whichever final form they take, they are both direct taxes and thus will be directly administered by the IRS.

Because these new mandates and taxes are under the purview of the IRS, taxpayers and businesses could incur additional penalties normally reserved for normal income tax cheats, paying fees over and above those for not complying with Congress’ new mandates.

The IRS currently charges potentially hefty penalties for, among other things, filing false or fraudulent returns, filing late returns, and failure to pay a tax on time.

Taxpayers and businesses could be hit with these extra penalties because they are required to use their tax returns to prove to the IRS that they are complying with the mandates and because they will have to pay any tax penalties to that agency as well.

Obama and Dems Amnesty Plan To Steal 2012 Election

As Barack Obama’s approval ratings continue to plummet, the tea party movement explodes and Democrats lose election after election – even in Massachusetts – one giant question looms large for Team Obama: How to stay in power?
“The people currently running the show in Washington,” said Whistleblower Editor David Kupelian, “come from the radical leftist world of Saul Alinsky in which everything they do – no matter how unethical, corrupt and flat-out illegal – is morally justified if it advances their agenda. Winning votes and elections by any means possible is their stock in trade.”

…The various stratagems the far left is currently developing to consolidate power in the U.S. long-term include:

Universal voter registration: Now being secretly prepared by at least two prominent members of Congress, this is essentially a scheme to legalize voter fraud by shifting responsibility for registering to vote from the citizen to the government, meaning people are automatically registered to vote, based on DMV records, income-tax returns, welfare rolls, unemployment lists and other government databases.

Illegal immigrant registration: Since government databases contain names of non-citizens, not to mention mentally incompetent individuals and felons – factors that would ordinarily disqualify a person from voting in most states – universal registration would open the floodgates to fraud. And since many people own property in more than one location and pay taxes to numerous government entities, they would be afforded the opportunity to vote in multiple locations.

Amnesty: Disguised once again by euphemisms like “comprehensive immigration reform,” amnesty will create millions of new Democrat voters. As Obama adviser and SEIU executive vice president Eliseo Medina said recently regarding amnesty: “Can you imagine 8 million new voters who care about our issues and will be voting? We will be creating a governing coalition for the long term, not just for an election cycle.”

Convicted felons voting: The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals late last year cleared the way for inmates to vote from prison. The court overturned a Washington state law prohibiting felons from voting until they are released and off parole, arguing state restrictions unfairly penalized minorities since they have a higher incarceration rate. Polls show felons overwhelmingly prefer Democrats.

Planting operatives in America’s statehouses: A subversive, Soros-backed group called the Secretary of State Project is gearing up to steal the 2012 election for Obama and congressional Democrats by installing left-wing Democrats as secretaries of state across the nation, from which posts they can help tilt the electoral playing field.

Obamacare The End Of The American Republic?

Obama Care is a trojan horse for single payer. It is the first step towards it.

Democrats in Washington are so excited about passing Obamacare right now before their radical unAmerican butts get thrown out of office. They know passing this current Obamacare bill is simply the trojan horse.

That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

Once people are addicted to receiving care, even if rationed, they know that we will never turn away. When the nationalized retirement through social security, they knew it would be impossible to take away. Medicare, medicaid.

That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends.

The Democraatcs have managed to pass the Trojan Horse Health takeover bill, it will be just the beginning of the end for our liberty, prosperity, and freedom. Folks, that means the end of America. They fully intend to further destroy the fabric of our nation. You cant fundamentally transform something you truly love. You don’t use corruption to enact the will of the people. You use it to trick the people.

It is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it.

They will regret it if they pass this. America will not sit back and watch its government assault itself.

But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Recognize the highlighted lines above? Yes, that would be from the document that started it all for us. The Declaration of Independence.

of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States.

Do you see it yet, our Government now closer resembles the one we revolted from then it does the one established when we were first freed.

Wake up America!

Obama And Pelosi Destroyed The Constitution

On Thursday, Robert Gibbs, Obama’s press secretary, responded to a question about the so-called “Slaughter Rule” (named after Rep. Slaughter, who sits on the rules committee) that will be used by Democrats to force through Obama’s totalitarian care bill, probably over the weekend.

Gibbs’ answer was deliberately opaque. By not addressing the question, he essentially said “deem and pass” will be used in the future to enact unpopular legislation, including a bill that will legalize millions of illegal immigrants.

It is now official — the Constitution is dead. It may as well be used to wrap fish.

Article 1, Section 7 of the Constitution requires that both houses of Congress hold recorded yea-or-nay votes on a bill before it can be presented to the president for his signature and before it can become law.

Obama approves of sabotaging the Constitution. He said he does not “spend a lot of time worrying about what the procedural rules are,” in other words violating the spirit and law of the Constitution is not a biggie for him. “What I can tell you is that the vote that’s taken in the House will be a vote for health care reform. And if people vote yes, whatever form that takes, that is going to be a vote for health care reform,” he told Bret Baier of Fox News.

“These constitutional rules set forth in Article I are not mere exercises in formalism,” former federal appeals court judge Michael McConnell told the Wall Street Journal earlier in the week. “They ensure the democratic accountability of our representatives.”

Author and talk show host Mark Levin’s Landmark Legal Foundation plans to file an immediate lawsuit if House Democratic leaders try to use the unconstitutional maneuver to pass the Senate version of Obama’s totalitarian care.

Good for Levin. However, according to constitutional experts, the underhanded procedure is unlikely to be reversed by the courts.

In short, Obama and Congress will not be called to task. The Constitution is now about as relevant as the Sunday funnies

16,000 New IRS Employees To Enforce Mandated Health Care Reform

House Republicans say the IRS will hire more than 16,000 new employees to enforce the so-called healthcare individual mandates requiring people to buy coverage.

Republicans also say the new healthcare bill will require 10-billion dollars to pay for new auditors, agents and employees at the IRS.

Herger says it’s another reason to oppose the legislation.

HERGER: “One-sixth of our entire economy to be taken over by Washington… by the federal government, with the IRS implementing this, enforcing it I should say is just one more outrage among many many outrages.”

Democrats say their overhaul plan will reduce health care costs over time – by making the size of the insurance pool larger. The House is expected to take a final vote on the plan Sunday with no Republican support.

I Sold My Soul To Obama For Healthcare

In Obama’s bizarro world, health care at gunpoint will reduce premiums. Obama went to Cleveland recently and peddled his fantasy world. “You’ll be able to buy in, or a small business will be able to buy into this pool,” Obama said. “And that will lower rates, it’s estimated, by up to 14 to 20 percent over what you’re currently getting. That’s money out of pocket,” reports the Associated Press. “Your employer, it’s estimated, would see premiums fall by as much as 3,000 percent, which means they could give you a raise.”

Obama had summoned Kucinich to Air Force One and Dennis kissed the ring.

Or rather money taken out of your pocket by a predatory state.

In fact, according to reality-based experts, Obamacare enforced by cops and SWAT teams will crank up your premiums.

Premiums are likely to keep going up even if the health care bill passes, experts say. “There’s no question premiums are still going to keep going up,” said Larry Levitt of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a research clearinghouse on the health care system.

If cost controls work as advertised, annual increases would level off with time. But don’t look for a rollback. Instead, the main reason premiums would be more affordable is that new government tax credits would help cover the cost for millions of people, according to the Associated Press.

Of course, any “tax credit” realized under the scheme will be annihilated in the coming months and years as the federal and state governments raise taxes to cover the losses to their shakedown due to the engineered collapse of the economy.

Obama’s voodoo math was a mistake, according to a White House spokesman. If health care costs dropped by 3,000 percent, as Obama said, government health care would be free many times over. In fact, Obama meant to say $3,000 not 3,000 percent.

Where did Obama get the $3,000 figure? From a report produced for the Business Roundtable, an association of big company CEOs. The report was issued in November and did not consider the final legislation Democrats in the Congress plan to ram through without actually voting on it.

Obama’s claim that an individual will save 14 percent to 20 percent comes from a Congressional Budget Office report based on earlier Senate legislation. The premium reduction of 14 percent to 20 percent that Obama cited would apply only to a portion of the people buying coverage on their own.

In December, the Congressional Budget Office and the Joint Committee on Taxation said people who pay for their own insurance would see a higher bill.

Meanwhile, Obama managed to arm-twist one-time totalitarian care opponent Dennis Kucinich into backing the plan Democrats say they will enact without votes in Congress. Obama had summoned Kucinich to Air Force One and Dennis kissed the ring. “Even though I don’t like the bill, I’ve made a decision to support it in the hope that we can move to a more comprehensive approach once this legislation is done,” he told reporters.

Apparently Kucinich no longer consider Obama’s totalitarian care plan a sham. In October, he said the entire legislative package was “a bailout for insurance companies.” The American people are “being mandated to buy private insurance. If you read the bill, the people are going to end up paying — the insurance companies can raise rates 25 percent right off the bat, if you read the bill,” said Kucinich.

Dennis Kucinich, one of a very small number of Democrats who originally opposed Obamacare, now apparently believes it is fine and dandy for the government to force the commoners to buy health care insurance at gunpoint. He also believes large insurance corporations deserve a monopoly in partnership with the government.

Should we ever trust Dennis Kucinich again? I think not.

Obamacare Supporters Hold Americans In Contempt

President Obama and Congress appear to be holding the American people in contempt. The Dictionary defines contempt as "Lack of respect or reverence for something; disdain; The state of mind of one who despises, the act of despising something." That seems to be the state of mind of a majority in Congress and Obama: lack of respect, reverence and actually despising the American people. It is this contempt that should propel Americans to a second -- but peaceful -- American Revolution to replace elected officials at all levels with those who believe in limited government and individual liberty by January 2013.

Despite overwhelming evidence that the vast majority of Americans are rejecting the proposed government and corporate take over of health care, Congress and the President are demonstrating their abject contempt for the American people in their determination to ram this bill through Congress and have the President sign it into law.

They fail to respect several key demonstrated proofs of America's disapproval. Scott Brown's victory in Massachusetts -- taking a seat held by liberal lion Kennedy in large part due to rejection of the health care agenda. They ignore consistent polls showing growing rejection of Congressional plans. Bills passed only by narrow, dark of night votes in Congress requiring back room deals, political threats, and shedding of key policies favored by liberals while completely ignoring reasonable compromises offered by Republicans. The only Republican component included is one that punishes doctors for spending "too much" on their patients -- a hold over from the Bush years: Pay for Performance.

The House passed a bill by three votes in November 2009 that included a public option. The Senate could only pass a Christmas Eve bill without the public option and in its place is a transfer of $350 billion to the insurance companies in Federal subsidy money to buy mandated health insurance. This shows contempt for the liberal base of the Democratic party that wants government control -- not more money and power for the insurance companies. Of course, the creation of a mandate to buy health insurance shows contempt for individual rights and the U.S. Constitution.

The House bill passed ONLY because of a ban on federal money for abortions that was stripped from the Senate bill. Now the House is asked to vote for the Senate bill as is and hope that an abortion funding compromise will occur in the Senate. This is proposed after the President makes the Senate bill the law of the land; no such compromise will occur. Contempt for the principles and the intelligence of those Democratic Congressmen behind Bart Stupak's vote-getting amendment. Disdain for Americans who refuse to allow their tax dollars to pay for abortion.

Speaker Pelosi says that once the bill passes, then Americans will see how good it is for them (and can then see the language). She asks the House to pass a Senate bill on the promise that some sort of revisions will pass later through parliamentary tricks. In fact, Congresswoman Slaughter of New York suggests that the House "deems" the Senate bill to have passed that body without a vote! Contempt for the constitutional requirements of how Congress should pass laws. President Obama states that Americans just don't understand what he wants and they just need another speech so he can enlighten them. Contempt for the basic intelligence of Americans and a demonstration of sheer arrogance.

The proposed "reform" policies themselves show contempt. Buy health insurance or go to jail. Contempt. Medical care practiced by committee and not your doctor. Contempt. Doctors penalized for spending "over budget" on patients. Contempt. Ten years of revenue with six years of spending to "balance the budget". Contempt! The open display of corrupt political deals for votes show contempt: the Louisiana Purchase(Landrieu-La), the Cornhusker Kickback (Nelson-Neb.), Gator-aid (Nelson-Fl). So many political "coincidences" happen simultaneously while yes votes are gained or no votes neutralized: FBI investigations and ethics probes end (Mollohan-W.Va.), brothers gain judgeships (Matheson-UT), a Congressman quits to avoid an ethics scandal (Massa-NY). Strong-arm tactics to coerce votes and contempt for the intelligence of Americans. The most contemptuous policy: A federally appointed, unaccountable arrogant elite panel (the Independent Medicare Advisory Board) to create rationing and committee medical practice directives for doctors. Write into law that no future congress can even consider a motion to abolish the panel (page 1020 of HR 3590 passed by Senate). Contempt for the simple words in the US constitution that Congress writes the laws -- such a power of a future congress can't be abolished by a current Congress. Contempt.

The President holds a Blair House summit with Republicans and Democrats on health care and before the sun sets on that day, the Democrats advise the Republicans in attendance that the Senate bill will be passed using reconciliation and other political maneuvers with no attempt at including Republican compromises. Contempt.

The President claims all meetings on health care will be televised on C-span while the only TV image we get is a closed door in front of a meeting of politicians and special interests. The government shows contempt for Americans when they will have secret meetings with the AMA, AARP, the insurance industry, PhRMA, Families USA, Unions, and other special interests but refuse to listen to or respect Americans in Town halls, in polls or phone calls to congressional offices.

The President convinces his democratic party that without a victory on health care HIS presidency is in jeopardy -as if it is his personal possession. His legacy will be lost. The president thus shows the most contempt for the American people by claiming that his personal position of power and his legacy are more important than the wishes or the best interests of the American people. That is the type of contempt that is demonstrated by kings, dictators and tyrants. It was King George III who said: "I desire what is good. Therefore, everyone who does not agree with me is a traitor."

Now they plan a vote on health care during the week of 3/15/2010. The President delays his taxpayer-funded family trip to Australia and Indonesian childhood stomping grounds to break more arms for votes and Pelosi promises passage. She will likely pass the Senate bill and there will be cheers in Washington elite circles.

But the cheers should be loudest among Americans who love liberty. While Americans may view passage of a government take over of medicine as a defeat, they should instead see it as a motivating and key moment in American history -- when they realized that it is time for a peaceful overthrow of our leadership in government. It is time to reject a hundred years of big government policy and dependency on D.C. that has placed us in the position we are now: flat on our backs with the boot of government on our throats. American liberty has had three major defeats in the last one hundred years: the 1913 creation of the Federal Reserve and Income Tax; the failed New Deal that started and ended the depression with a 20% unemployment rate and instilled big government as a way of life in America; the Lyndon Johnson Great Society that created the now $38 trillion unfunded liability of Medicare, the failed medical ghetto of Medicaid and welfare programs that had to be repealed in the '90's. We lost those first three great battles and now the fourth attempt of collectivism/big government is upon us in the agenda of Obama. This fourth invasion of collectivism will threaten our national sovereignty with generations of debt owned by foreigners and shadowy bankers. This latest battle against collectivism is one we can't lose as it will mean the end of liberty and property rights in America and America itself.

The Tea Party movement over the last year has been like the Boston Tea Party: a powerful demonstration to the King that free Americans are not going to live under contempt and tyranny any longer. The Boston Tea Party was an event as is the Tea Party movement. It is now time for the next phase: a full Campaign for Liberty. The Liberty movement is here and tea party movement got us started. It has recruited soldiers and found leaders, causes and resources. It has fought and lost and fought and won. George Washington was soundly defeated so many times after he chased the British out of Boston in March 1776 and then himself was chased out of Manhattan and into Pennsylvania. But he had inspirational victories when crossing the Delaware on Christmas of 1776 and Americans fought and stayed with him and finally defeated the British at Yorktown and gained freedom for our country in 1781.

This is our moment for a rebirth of Liberty in America. This is the moment when we must recruit soldiers to the Liberty Movement and fight for the next several years for victory. The victory we need is election of a majority of principled, liberty-loving leaders to Congress, state and local government in 2010 and again in 2012 with an inauguration of a new President in 2013 that will put government where it belongs again. Not with its boot on the throats of the American people, but with the government on its knees before the American people -- begging for its favor and respect. That will be a time when Americans can stop holding their government in contempt and begin again their efforts to bring prosperity and peace to our generation and future generations of Americans.

Welcome To The United States Of Iceland

(Fortune)-- It's time to start paying attention to the financial sinkhole that Iceland is trying to climb out of -- the view from inside of it is eerily similar to our own.

An Icelandic savings bank, Icesave, had attracted billions in deposits from hundreds of thousands of British and Dutch citizens, due to the phenomenally high interest rates it offered. Icesave collapsed in 2008, for much the same reason Lehman Brothers, WaMu, and hundreds of local savings banks did: its bankers used their cash to make complicated, bad, leveraged investments, mostly on real estate.

The British and Dutch have made their citizens whole, bailing out Icesave after it became clear the Icelandic government didn't have the resources to do the same.

Now, they expect to be repaid. But in a referendum there this past weekend,only 1.8% of voters favored a plan to pay back the $5.3 billion Iceland owes. Iceland has agreed in principle to repay the bailout to the UK and Netherlands, but the fight is over the terms and interest rate of the payment plan.

To call the rejected terms loan-sharking would be a disservice to usury. They called for every Icelandic family to essentially throw a quarter of its income towards servicing the loan for the next eight years. But this isn't the end: one way or another, the bill will come due, and Iceland's 320,000 citizens will be paying for the hubris of a few hundred of their own, who dubbed themselves "investment bankers."

The amount owed -- $5.3 billion -- sounds like a rounding error to Americans, but, per capita, it would be the equivalent of the United States taking on a $5 trillion debt. Sounds impossible, until you consider that our real bailout tab, as calculated by the New York Times, is already $2 trillion. Moreover, the government has obligated itself to pay out $12.5 trillion if things get worse. In Vanity Fair last April, Michael Lewis wrote, "Iceland instantly became the only nation on earth that Americans could point to and say, 'Well, at least we didn't do that.'"


0:00 /2:32The return of financial reform
Yet in a pretty real way, we did do "that." We have a more sophisticated central banking system, and there are more countries, like China, in whose interest it is to protect the value of the American dollar, thanks to their ownership of our national debt. In that crucial way, we've dodged Iceland's true peril: watching the value of its currency, the króna, crash against the debt it owes in foreign currencies like the sterling and euro. It's looking more and more like our craftiest bankers factored the inimitable strength and guarantee of the U.S. dollar into their reckless gambles.

But the rest of us are really just lucky that the dollar can survive these hurricane-level economic forces without blowing apart. One way or another, the bill is coming due, and America's 300 million citizens will be paying for the hubris of a few thousand of their own, who dubbed themselves "investment bankers."

While Lewis summons a gentle humor to chronicle a tiny nation's transformation from European fishing capital to destroyer of capital markets, it's worth remembering America's Rube Goldberg financial machinery sprung from a society that was once far more concerned with agriculture (and later, manufacturing) than with inventing complicated and opaque ways to manufacture wealth.

It's too easy and wrong to look at Iceland as being somehow dumber than we were. Their problems aren't just an outgrowth of our financial handiwork; their problems are our financial handiwork. And Icelanders have thoroughly rejected being placed in hock to exonerate the tiny segment of the population that threw their country into chaos.

In our democracy, we didn't have that choice. From Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson's ramming of TARP through Congress, to Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner's decision to abandon subtlety and mainline dollars into bank balance sheets, even our presidential election had little impact on our government's deployment of huge amounts of capital to save our obese banking system.

Icelandic journalist Iris Erlingsdottir wrote in the Huffington Post, "While we have been endlessly debating IceSave, our unemployment rate has continued to climb, the number of insolvencies has continued to increase, and the number of public services has continued to decrease. Other scandals of comparable magnitude and abuse of taxpayer money -- but involving only Icelanders -- are being ignored by the Icelandic media." Change a few nouns -- health care, Citigroup (C, Fortune 500) -- and Erlingsdottir is writing about Washington as Reykjavik.

Just because the crisis has been "managed" doesn't mean it's over. As economist Simon Johnson writes, "The true fiscal cost arising from our recent financial excesses is the increase in net government debt held by the private sector. This will likely amount to around 40 percentage points of GDP." Servicing that debt will likely affect our promise as a nation, not for years, but decades.

Whatever settlement Icelanders finally swallow, their financial system, at its peak just a minor moon in the constellation, is already as barren as the island's volcanic bedrock. But precious little has changed about Wall Street's massive gravitational pull in the U.S. and the world.

Our banks are still too big to fail, their boards are still poorly composed, we have no Consumer Financial Protection Agency, no systemic regulator, no resolution authority, and no reform of mortgage securitization or ratings agencies, two of the institutions that most enabled the crisis to occur. We've been distracted from the task of preventing another crisis from happening by the task of minimizing the current one, and as a result, we've done neither, while allowing our other domestic problems to snowball.

In Iceland, it's expected the ruling political party could be forced to step down if it can't come up with a loan plan the public approves of. The closest thing the U.S. gets to a bailout referendum is the 2010 midterm election. It's still unclear what happens to Iceland next, as it grapples with recovering from its terrible financial fever. But it might be time to stop treating Icelanders' predicament as a sad footnote to the global crisis, and start searching for lessons on what, save massive structural reforms, is still in store for us.

--An earlier version of the story incorrectly said the International Monetary Fund would loan Iceland $5.3 billion to be used to pay back British and Dutch depositors in failed bank Icesave. The IMF loan to Iceland simply stipulates that the country pay back its international debts.

Bart Stupak: Obamacare Is A Death Panel For Children

“If you pass the Stupak amendment, more children will be born, and therefore it will cost us millions more. That’s one of the arguments I’ve been hearing,” Stupak says. “Money is their hang-up. Is this how we now value life in America? If money is the issue — come on, we can find room in the budget. This is LIFE we’re talking about.”

If was any doubt that Sarah Palin’s warning about the death cult the democrat party has become since the ultra-radical progressive movement wrested control of the party from it’s more reasonable members, the above quotes should end that debate for all time.

Those words come from democrat Congressman Bart Stupak. Congressman Stupak is one of just a handful of principled democrats left in government, and a real hero.

Stupak, of course, is talking about abortion funding here. You see, like most Americans, Congressman Stupak believes in the sanctity of life. He is leading a small group of like minded democrats who oppose tax payer funded abortion.

When Sarah Palin wrote her famous blog post pointing out the reality that her beautiful son, because of his disability, and her parents, because of their age, would not fare well when they went before ObamaCare’s “death panels” she was dead on.

Of course, the radical progressives lost their minds, and tried to discredit Sarah with all kinds of caterwauling and slight of hand, but at the end of the day, all Americans will face ObamaCare’s “death panels” each and every time they need health care.

Look, I won’t rehash all of this over and over. Long time readers as well as newcomers can search my blog archives for complete analysis. But here are the highlights:

First of all, yes, there will be “death panels” and no, they won’t be called that. As we have talked about, ad nauseam, there will be “comparative medicine boards” where a group of faceless, nameless bureaucrats will decide who gets care and who doesn’t. This won’t be based on what will be best for the patient, these people won’t be weighing on the best medical practices for an individual.

You see, these “comparative medicine boards” will be made up of accountants, bean counters. Their only goal will be saving the government, which will be in complete control of health care, money. The easiest way to cut costs is to deny, or limit, coverage to those deemed “unworthy.”

The ramifications from this twisted thinking are enormous.

Even worse, we all know that it is all but impossible to fire a government worker, once they are entrenched, and there will be almost no way to meaningfully appeal one of the poor decisions made by these government drones.

The bottom line is this: Once ObamaCare becomes law, the only thing that will matter to the government is shaving costs. Let’s face it, the government, because of entitlements already promised, is broke. Adding a couple of trillion dollars more, just to start, isn’t going to help matters a whole lot.

How will the government save money? By only treating the “productive” members of society, of course!

Rahm Emanuel’s brother, Dr Ezekiel Emanuel, Obama’s health care advisor, literally wrote the book that sets up, not only the “death panels” but the guidelines for who should be allowed to live, and who can be left to die.

Emanuel, vying for the title of “America’s Josef Mengele” wrote about the “complete lives system.” This lays out the argument that only the most productive deserve the best health care. Every American should read this. It comes from a truly diseased mind, and represents the progressive movement that controls the democrat party completely. Read it all here.

Here is a chart that explains the thinking of the radical left:

As you see, once you get past 30 years of age, the government won’t think very much of your ability to be productive. How insane is that?

What is so glaring to me though, is just how vile and cold these progressive democrats are. Of course, progressives have pushed the mass murder of babies since the turn of the last century. Ever since Margaret Sanger worked to make abortion acceptable, to “cleanse” the earth of blacks and other “human weeds” (her words) progressives have been on board. Sanger’s Planned Parenthood is the holy church of the progressive movement. The right to murder babies is one thing this bunch will actually go to war over.

Even so, for the death cult to openly admit they want massive tax payer funded abortions, and less babies…LESS AMERICANS… to save money for this unconstitutional ObamaCare boondoggle is simply breathtaking.

Quite simply, fewer babies means fewer people ObamaCare will have to cover.

There is something inherently evil in this sort of thinking.

Congressman Stupack made the above comments as part of a lengthy interview with National Review Online. The interview paints a horrific picture of what is happening with the health care debate is a must read. Here’s some more:

Sitting in an airport, on his way home to Michigan, Rep. Bart Stupak, a pro-life Democrat, is chagrined. “They’re ignoring me,” he says, in a phone interview with National Review Online. “That’s their strategy now. The House Democratic leaders think they have the votes to pass the Senate’s health-care bill without us. At this point, there is no doubt that they’ve been able to peel off one or two of my twelve. And even if they don’t have the votes, it’s been made clear to us that they won’t insert our language on the abortion issue.”

According to Stupak, that group of twelve pro-life House Democrats — the “Stupak dozen” — has privately agreed for months to vote ‘no’ on the Senate’s health-care bill if federal funding for abortion is included in the final legislative language. Now, in the debate’s final hours, Stupak says the other eleven are coming under “enormous” political pressure from both the White House and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.). “I am a definite ‘no’ vote,” he says. “I didn’t cave. The others are having both of their arms twisted, and we’re all getting pounded by our traditional Democratic supporters, like unions.”

Read it all here.

The sanctity of life, the protection of the innocent, is what sets us apart from the lower species. It should alarm all people, worldwide, that this President and his Congress not only want to promote the destruction of human life, in a crass attempt to save money for a health care overhaul that the American people don’t even want, but want the American people to pay for it too!

It’s fantastically evil.

It’s also one more reason that ObamaCare must be defeated and the progressives run completely out of government for all time.

IRS Visits Car Wash For Pursuit Of 4 Cents

It was every businessperson's nightmare.

Arriving at Harv's Metro Car Wash in midtown Wednesday afternoon were two dark-suited IRS agents demanding payment of delinquent taxes. "They were deadly serious, very aggressive, very condescending," says Harv's owner, Aaron Zeff.

The really odd part of this: The letter that was hand-delivered to Zeff's on-site manager showed the amount of money owed to the feds was ... 4 cents.

Inexplicably, penalties and taxes accruing on the debt – stemming from the 2006 tax year – were listed as $202.31, leaving Harv's with an obligation of $202.35.

Zeff, who also owns local parking lots and is the president of the Midtown Business Association, finds the situation a bit comical.

"It's hilarious," he says, "that two people hopped in a car and came down here for just 4 cents. I think (the IRS) may have a problem with priorities."

Now he's trying to figure out how penalties and interest could climb so high on such a small debt. He says he's never been told he owes any taxes or that he's ever incurred any late-payment penalties in the four years he's owned Harv's.

In fact, he provided us with an Oct. 22, 2009, letter from the IRS that states Harv's "has filed all required returns and addressed any balances due."

IRS spokesman Jesse Weller isn't commenting "due to privacy and disclosure laws."

Zeff says he's as offended as much as anything else by what he considers rude behavior by the IRS guys. While at Harv's, he sniffs, "they didn't even get a car wash."
By Bob Shallit of SacBee

Government workers thrive during economic recession

The recession and the ongoing jobless recovery devastated much of the private-sector work force last year, sending unemployment soaring, but government workers emerged essentially unscathed, according to data released Wednesday by the Labor Department.

Meanwhile, the compensation for state and local government employees continued to easily outdistance the wages and benefits for workers in private business, a separate Labor Department report showed.

Private-industry employers spent an average of $27.42 per hour worked for total employee compensation in December, while total compensation costs for state and local government workers averaged $39.60 per hour.

The average government wage and salary per hour of $26.11 was 35 percent higher than the average wage and salary of $19.41 per hour in the private sector. But the percentage difference in benefits was much higher. Benefits for state and local workers averaged $13.49 per hour, nearly 70 percent higher than the $8 per hour in benefits paid by private businesses.

Paul Booth, executive assistant to the president at the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), attributed the pay difference to a changing government work force that has increased its proportion of higher-skilled workers during the past 15 to 20 years.

"In government payrolls, you no longer have low-wage occupations, such as janitors, whose jobs have been contracted out to the private sector," he said. This trend has effectively increased the average wage of those higher-skilled workers who remain, said Mr. Booth, whose union represents 1.6 million workers.

Compensation for government workers "is a gigantic problem" that will only get worse in future years, said Chris Edwards, director of tax policy studies at the Cato Institute, which advocates less government and lower taxes.

"The defined-benefit pension plans for state and local workers and their post-retirement health care costs do not include the extent to which those benefits are underfunded or overpromised," Mr. Edwards said.

Benefit costs eventually will soar, and taxpayers will be required to pay the difference between available resources and the overpromised benefits as government workers of the baby boom generation, who start to turn 65 next year, begin to retire en masse. Government workers also have the rare privilege of being able to retire at age 55.

With state budgets under extreme stress, the pension problem is worsening because workers are accruing future benefits that are not reflected in current data, Mr. Edwards said.

Meanwhile, private-sector workers who are unemployed or working part time are not paying as much in taxes.

Fifteen states and the District of Columbia reported double-digit unemployment during January, the Labor Department said Wednesday, as the private sector continued to shed jobs.

The recession reportedly ended in July, but the private work force suffered its biggest percentage decline in 2009 for any year since the end of World War II.

After shedding 3.8 million net jobs during 2008, private employers slashed an additional 4.7 million last year. During the same two-year period, the public sector, including the federal government, gained more than 100,000 jobs. The combined work forces of state and local governments added 35,000 jobs during the 2008-09 period.

While private-sector jobs declined in every state except North Dakota over the previous 12 months, public-sector employment increased in 23 states, the Labor Department report showed. Even in North Dakota, as the private work force gained 300 jobs over the past year, the government sector surged by 1,000 new workers.

In states where government employment declined during the previous 12 months, the drop has been relatively inconsequential, while the decline in private employment has been far more severe. In California, where the state government is still in the grips of a wrenching budget crisis, private employment has plunged 5.5 percent, nearly four times as fast as the 1.5 percent dip in government employment.

Mr. Booth of AFSCME acknowledges that total government payrolls are higher today than they were at the beginning of the recession. During the two years since the recession began, government workers took their economic medicine by accepting furloughs in lieu of layoffs, he said. Workers kept their jobs but received pay for two fewer days per month, he said.

He noted that government payrolls have been shrinking since April. State and local government work forces historically decline after a lag, he said. School district payrolls, for example, are based on property-tax revenues, which generally follow a two-year lag, he said.

Citing projections by Moody's Economy.com and Goldman Sachs, Mr. Booth said state and local government work forces could decline by as many as 900,000 workers during the next fiscal year, which begins July 1.

"Furloughs are likely to yield to RIFs," or reductions in force, he said.

Taxpayers in the private sector fortunate to have jobs were working more days and for less money to finance the vacation and holiday time of state and local workers, according to the compensation report.

For every hour worked in December, state and local government workers earned $2.99 in paid leave. Private-sector workers earned $1.86 per hour worked for paid leave, or nearly 40 percent less. Holiday pay for state and local workers was 50 percent higher per hour than it was for workers employed by private businesses.

The biggest difference in compensation was in payments for defined-benefit pension plans, in which employers (a private company or, in the case of government workers, the taxpayer) commit to paying their employees a specific benefit for life beginning at retirement.

State and local workers received an average of $2.86 for each hour worked for their defined-benefit pensions. That compares with 38 cents per hour paid for defined-benefit plans for private workers, the vast majority of whom now participate in defined-contribution pension plans.

"Many companies have eliminated their defined-benefit plans, and others have reduced the value of benefits and shifted to providing benefits through 401(k)s and other defined-contribution plans," notes the AFL-CIO Web site. "Defined-contribution plans shift the risk and responsibility to individual workers and typically reduce corporate costs."

In the cases of state and local government workers, the pension costs are principally borne by the taxpayer. The trillions of dollars of underfunded pension liabilities are augmented by increasingly expensive and underfunded health care costs in retirement before and after government workers become eligible for Medicare at age 65, Mr. Edwards of Cato said.

Obama And Graham To Push For Illegal Immigration

Despite steep odds, the White House has discussed prospects for reviving a major overhaul of the nation's immigration laws, a commitment that President Obama has postponed once already.

Obama took up the issue privately with his staff Monday in a bid to advance a ushbill through Congress before lawmakers become too distracted by approaching midterm electReporting from Washington — Despite steep odds, the White House has discussed prospects for reviving a major overhaul of the nation's immigration laws, a commitment that President Obama has postponed once already.

Obama took up the issue privately with his staff Monday in a bid to advance a bill through Congress before lawmakers become too distracted by approaching midterm elections.

In the session, Obama and members of his Domestic Policy Council outlined ways to resuscitate the effort in a White House meeting with two senators -- Democrat Charles E. Schumer of New York and Republican Lindsey Graham of South Carolina -- who have spent months trying to craft a bill.

According to a person familiar with the meeting, the White House may ask Schumer and Graham to at least produce a blueprint that could be turned into legislative language.

The basis of a bill would include a path toward citizenship for the 10.8 million people living in the U.S. illegally. Citizenship would not be granted lightly, the White House said. Undocumented workers would need to register, pay taxes and pay a penalty for violating the law. Failure to comply might result in deportation.

Nick Shapiro, a White House spokesman, said the president's support for an immigration bill, which would also include improved border security, was "unwavering."

Participants in the White House gathering also pointed to an immigration rally set for March 21 in Washington as a way to spotlight the issue and build needed momentum.

Though proponents of an immigration overhaul were pleased that the White House wasn't abandoning the effort, they also wanted Obama to take on a more assertive role, rather than leave it to Congress to work out a compromise.

Immigration is a delicate issue for the White House. After promising to revamp in his first year of office what many see as a fractured system, Obama risks angering a growing, politically potent Latino constituency if he defers the goal until 2011.

But with the healthcare debate still unresolved, Democrats are wary of plunging into another polarizing issue.

"Right now we have a little problem with the 'Chicken Little' mentality: The sky is falling and consequently we can't do anything," Rep. Raul M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.) said in an interview.

Republicans are unlikely to cooperate. On Capitol Hill, Republicans said that partisan tensions had only gotten worse since Obama signaled this week that he would push forward with a healthcare bill, whether he could get GOP votes or not.


In the session, Obama and members of his Domestic Policy Council outlined ways to resuscitate the effort in a White House meeting with two senators -- Democrat Charles E. Schumer of New York and Republican Lindsey Graham of South Carolina -- who have spent months trying to craft a bill.

According to a person familiar with the meeting, the White House may ask Schumer and Graham to at least produce a blueprint that could be turned into legislative language.

The basis of a bill would include a path toward citizenship for the 10.8 million people living in the U.S. illegally. Citizenship would not be granted lightly, the White House said. Undocumented workers would need to register, pay taxes and pay a penalty for violating the law. Failure to comply might result in deportation.

Nick Shapiro, a White House spokesman, said the president's support for an immigration bill, which would also include improved border security, was "unwavering."

Participants in the White House gathering also pointed to an immigration rally set for March 21 in Washington as a way to spotlight the issue and build needed momentum.

Though proponents of an immigration overhaul were pleased that the White House wasn't abandoning the effort, they also wanted Obama to take on a more assertive role, rather than leave it to Congress to work out a compromise.

Immigration is a delicate issue for the White House. After promising to revamp in his first year of office what many see as a fractured system, Obama risks angering a growing, politically potent Latino constituency if he defers the goal until 2011.

But with the healthcare debate still unresolved, Democrats are wary of plunging into another polarizing issue.

"Right now we have a little problem with the 'Chicken Little' mentality: The sky is falling and consequently we can't do anything," Rep. Raul M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.) said in an interview.

Republicans are unlikely to cooperate. On Capitol Hill, Republicans said that partisan tensions had only gotten worse since Obama signaled this week that he would push forward with a healthcare bill, whether he could get GOP votes or not. By L.A Times

Dissenters To Be Detained As "Enemy Of The State"?

Since the establishment media is convinced that tea party members, 9/11 truthers, libertarians, Ron Paul supporters, and basically anyone with a dissenting political opinion is a likely domestic terrorist, they should be celebrating the fact that a new bill would allow the government to detain such people as “enemy belligerents” indefinitely and without trial based on their “suspected activity”.

The “Enemy Belligerent, Interrogation, Detention, and Prosecution Act of 2010,” introduced by Senators John McCain and Joseph Lieberman on Thursday with little fanfare, “sets out a comprehensive policy for the detention, interrogation and trial of suspected enemy belligerents who are believed to have engaged in hostilities against the United States by requiring these individuals to be held in military custody, interrogated for their intelligence value and not provided with a Miranda warning,” writes the Atlantic’s Marc Ambinder.

The bill does not distinguish between U.S. citizens and non-citizens, and states that “suspected belligerents” who are “considered a “high-value detainee” shall not be provided with a Miranda warning.”

A person is considered a “high value detainee” if they fulfil one of the following criteria.

(1) poses a threat of an attack on civilians or civilian facilities within the U.S. or U.S. facilities abroad; (2) poses a threat to U.S. military personnel or U.S. military facilities; (3) potential intelligence value; (4) is a member of al Qaeda or a terrorist group affiliated with al Qaeda or (5) such other matters as the President considers appropriate.

Now that the Southern Poverty Law Center and the federal government, via the MIAC report and innumerable other leaked documents, now consider virtually anyone with a dissenting opinion against the state as “posing a threat,” millions of peaceful American citizens could be swept up by this frightening dragnet of tyranny.

However, according to the bill, an individual doesn’t even have to pose a threat to be snatched, detained and interrogated – they can merely be deemed to be of “potential intelligence value” or come under the vague and sweeping mandate of “such other matters as the President considers appropriate”.

This last designation hands Obama dictator powers to have any American citizen kidnapped, detained, and interrogated on a whim.

The only proviso that even hints at some form of check or balance is the measure that states, “The High-Value Detainee Interrogation Team must make a preliminary determination whether the detainee is an unprivileged enemy belligerent within 48 hours of taking detainee into custody.”

“The High-Value Detainee Interrogation Team must submit its determination to the Secretary of Defense and the Attorney General after consultation with the Director of National Intelligence, the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. The Secretary of Defense and the Attorney General make a final determination and report the determination to the President and the appropriate committees of Congress. In the case of any disagreement between the Secretary of Defense and the Attorney General, the President will make the determination,” states the bill.

The ACLU has expressed its vigorous opposition to the legislation, labeling it nothing less than a “direct attack on the Constitution”.

“Indefinite detention flies in the face of American values and violates this country’s commitment to the rule of law,” states Laura W. Murphy, Director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office.

Of course, such positions from the ACLU as well as Amnesty International will only be used as grist for the neo-con propaganda mill about how the bill ought to be passed in order to avoid being “soft on terrorists,” a piece of spin still being swallowed whole by millions of conservatives who are blissfully unaware of the fact that the apparatus of the war on terror is now being aimed squarely at politically active American citizens.

“Torture, indefinite imprisonment, secret trials and limited staged hearings are the stuff of cheap dictatorships,” writes Ian McColgin. “They are the sort of idiocy we scorned in the Soviets, the Koreans and the Vietnamese. It is astonishing that we have senators and citizens even discussing this bill which is not a capitulation to terrorism – it’s the triumph of terrorism.”

Homeland Security is already implementing technology to be enforced at “security events” which purportedly reads “malintent” on behalf of an individual who passes through a checkpoint. Perhaps the video below explains just how “enemy belligerents” will be identified on American soil.

Moscow's First Tea Party

When the global elite had perfected their world stage by making Barry Soetoro their main star to bring down the United States of America, were they planning ObamaCare in time for Easter 2010?

Dates are significant to the One World Order cabal, and now Easter Sunday will join Christmas Eve as the countdown to the Health Care bill.

Pompous, self-important and power-crazed global PoohBahs don’t stop to consider that bunnies everywhere won’t duck as Puppet Obama takes aim and fires at the population of the United States of America.

Obama lacks the courage to tell it like it is; that he can have the Dems pass his Health bill any old day; that if it couldn’t be done on Christmas Eve, for symbolism Easter’s even better.


Taking calculated potshots from a distance is so much easier than telling the truth up front. This is a “leader” who always leaves it for the rest of us to go figure.

Obama has his needs, and like all sworn to the evil cause of the global elite, symbolism adds to the pain.

But even as he preens, boasts and bullies his way through taking over America’s health care system, Obama has a few little flies in the proverbial ointment.

At Easter, people come both spiritually and physically out of the dark, during a renewal when even the pagans come out to play.

This winter was brutal, and all winter long Mother Nature refused to dance with Obama. There were the snowstorms that shut down Washington, D.C.; tens of thousands in the Northeast were shut-ins with no heat and light.

So easy to tease and torment the masses when the wind is howling around their huts. Not so easy when Spring is in the air.

Freedom lovers expect Obama, who continues on a maniacal path to socialize America, to “overreach”.

Tyrants much tougher than the Pocket Messiah fell when they attempted the same strategy.

We take you back to May 1, 1990; to one of the global elitists now hovering in the dark of Obama’s corner.

It was May Day in Moscow, captured for posterity by Bill Keller in a special to the New York Times: ”President Mikhail S. Gorbachev and the Kremlin leadership were jeered today by throngs of protesters who were allowed to march through Red Square at the end of the annual May Day parade.”

Scribes of the day could easily have termed it “Moscow’s First Tea Party”.

Back to Keller: “The Soviet leaders watched in evident amazement from the top of Lenin’s mausoleum as (a) shouting, fist-shaking column milled underneath waving banners that condemned the Communist Party and the K.G.B., and supported Lithuania’s Declaration of Independence.

“Chants of “Resign!” and “Shame!” were largely drowned out by the blare of parade music, but foreign visitors who watched from the reviewing stand said they could clearly hear the shriek of hoots and whistles that rose up from the cobblestoned square as Mr. Gorbachev led the others off the mausoleum after enduring 25 minutes of protest.

“The banners and speeches warned against unemployment, private property and unregulated prices, and one placard called for the removal of Prime Minister Nikolai I. Ryzhkov for failing to lift the country out of its economic misery.

“Mr. Gorbachev’s economic advisers say the threat of a worker uprising is the main reason they have pulled back from a “shock therapy” transition to a market economy.”

Even the New York Times included (albeit down copy) a small reference to the humble monk whose heroic gesture was to soon change the world by unleashing the passion of little people everywhere that the mantle of Communism could be thrown off: ...”and at the front a monk from the Russian Orthodox monastery at Zagorsk who held up a nearly life-sized rendition of Jesus on the cross and called out to Mr. Gorbachev, “Mikhail Sergeyevich, Christ is risen!”

At that moment, Gorbachev turned heel and walked off of the reviewing stand. At that time in history, the Berlin Wall had fallen the year before and the Iron Curtain was about to fall during the following year.

History was to record that even before the fall of the Iron Curtain, Gorbachev had bailed out to America, where friends had raised $3.3 million for him to run his Foundation from San Francisco’s Presidium.

To this day, Gorbachev is an unsung cheerleader in the Obama corner.

Meanwhile there are those who claim that Barry Soetoro is attempting to emphasize the vision of `Obama, the Messiah’ by forcing ObamaCare on the population “in time for Easter”. But the immortal words, “Christ is risen” belong to the real Messiah. Incredibly, no one seems able to stop Obama’s push for Marxism—the same one that began to fail on May 1, 1990.

New York State Gone Wild

Once a source of national leaders of both political parties, New York state has descended into a bizarre, riveting spectacle of corruption and political debasement, with its governor facing calls to resign as well as new charges of accepting illicit perks and lying under oath, the dean of its congressional delegation giving up his gavel over corruption charges and another House member announcing he won’t run again amid allegations of sexual harassment.

And that was just yesterday.

The latest, dizzying episodes of political disgrace in New York follow a half-decade of disaster during which three top state politicians were forced out amid allegations of everything from large-scale theft to small-scale sexual indiscretions.

And while Republican leaders have drawn their share of blame (and indictments), New York is now effectively a one-party state. Its current scandals attach themselves to the dominant Democrats, and the riveting soap opera is feeding a narrative of corruption that threatens to deepen the party’s national woes and distract from the White House’s attempt to refocus the country on health care. And it also hastens a decades-long diminution of the state’s 20th-century pre-eminence, a rise powered by the reform-driven Roosevelt presidencies.

Still, all of the scandals help to keep the public’s mind off of the flat, moribund economies of both New York City and New York State. The American left’s goal is transform America into a version of post-World War II Europe, and the parentheses states of New York and California (as Tom Wolfe once dubbed them) are perfect examples of how all of that is playing out. Article written By Ed Driscoll.

Coffee Party "Founder Is A Obama Supporter"

Billed as an alternative grassroots movement to the Tea Party, which has been for the most part absorbed by mainline Republicans and Neoconservatives, the “Coffee Party” promised to wake up politically minded Americans and offered a different avenue for the freedom movement.

However, the so called founder of the Coffee Party has been quickly exposed as an Obama campaign operative, whose caffeine concept was purely designed to undermine and co-opt the Tea Party ideology.

Described as “a documentary filmmaker who lives outside Washington”, Annabel Park has amassed some 40,000 members via a Facebook page.

“We’re not the opposite of the Tea Party,” Ms. Park, 41, told the New York Times. “We’re a different model of civic participation, but in the end we may want some of the same things.”

“We need to roll up our sleeves, put our heads together and work it out,” she said. “That’s, to me, an American way of doing this.”

The slogan is “Wake Up and Stand Up.” The mission statement declares that the federal government is “not the enemy of the people, but the expression of our collective will, and that we must participate in the democratic process in order to address the challenges we face as Americans.”

At first glance this sounds like attractive stuff to concerned Americans who are sick and tired of big government ruling over their lives. However, a quick background search on Miss Park reveals her real intentions.

Park campaigned for Obama in 2008 and was one of the organizers and operators of the influential United for Obama video channel at YouTube.

“I found that people have little understanding of the change that Senator Barack Obama is advocating. I thought from my experience in using videos for civil movements that videos would be the best way to promote the need for change and for Obama. That’s why I decided to work for the Obama campaign,” Annabel Park said.

She made over twenty promotional videos for the Obama campaign that drew tens of thousands of views.

Tavis Smiley And Rev. Al Sharpton Rift Over President Obama Black Agenda

I knew the long-simmering debate among blacks over what President Barack Obama should be doing for blacks — his strongest backers and the Democratic Party's most loyal constituency — would heat up. It turned red hot last week when a war of words broke out on Tom Joyner's nationally syndicated radio show between two of this country's leading black activists. In dueling appearances on Joyner's program, Tavis Smiley and the Rev. Al Sharpton went after each other in a way that would make would make Quentin Tarantino blush.

"Some of us who call ourselves black leaders are making the wrong choice. The president doesn't need a black agenda, they sing. He's not the president of black America. He's the president of all America, and he need not focus specifically on the unique challenges black America is facing," Smiley said of Sharpton and several other civil rights leaders who met with Obama to discuss the jobs bill that was being considered by Congress.

Sharpton disputed Smiley's characterization of that meeting. He said he met with Obama to deal with unemployment and its lopsided impact on blacks. "We did not ask for a race bill because we did not think it would pass. We asked for a 'place bill,' where the jobs would go to where the people were most impacted," he said. Then Sharpton lobbed this brickbat: "When they were running around buck dancing for Bill Clinton they didn't ask for a black agenda," he said in a slap at Smiley, whom he accused of being a sycophant of the former president.

This is a senseless fight. Most black leaders, including Smiley, don't expect Obama to behave like Putney Swope (the black character in a film by the same name who takes control of a white-run advertising agency and imposes his black agenda on the firm).

They don't want him to act like some fear a consciously black president might. They don't expect loud pronouncements from Obama about what his administration is doing for blacks. But they also don't want him to be insensitive to problems that have a disparate impact on black people. What they do want is a go-to person on his staff to address their concerns.

Of course, Obama isn't the president of any one group of Americans. But to offer that as a reason for not focusing on the high black unemployment rate when his administration has made a targeted effort to address the concerns gays and lesbians have about the military's "don't ask, don't tell," seems like a policy that penalizes blacks for being black.

Obama has to act before the divisions harden between his black supporters and detractors. The infighting among these activists will only intensify if he doesn't find a way to salve the wounds of those who think he courted black voters during his presidential campaign and then abandoned them once he got into the Oval Office.

This is something he needs to do soon — before his political base implodes.

Commerical Real Estate: The Next Financial Crisis

“Between 2010 and 2014, about $1.4 trillion in commercial real estate loans will reach the end of their terms. Nearly half are at present “underwater” – that is, the borrower owes more than the underlying property is currently worth. Commercial property values have fallen more than 40 percent since the beginning of 2007. Increased vacancy rates, which now range from eight percent for multifamily housing to 18 percent for office buildings, and falling rents, which have declined 40 percent for office space and 33 percent for retail space, have exerted a powerful downward pressure on the value of commercial properties.

“The largest commercial real estate loan losses are projected for 2011 and beyond; losses at banks alone could range as high as $200-$300 billion. The stress tests conducted last year for 19 major financial institutions examined their capital reserves only through the end of 2010. Even more significantly, small and mid-sized banks were never subjected to any exercise comparable to the stress tests, despite the fact that small and mid-sized banks are proportionately even more exposed than their larger counterparts to commercial real estate loan losses.”

We have extracted these two paragraphs from the executive summary of the February 10, 2010, Congressional Oversight Panel’s Special Report entitled “Commercial Real Estate Losses and the Risk to Financial Stability.” This 190-page document is packed with vital and detailed information. Find it at: http://cop.senate.gov/documents/cop-021110-report.pdf .

The issue of CRE is on everyone’s mind. And, unlike residential housing, there is no political will in Washington to subsidize a mall developer or office landlord. That is a good thing. In the longer run the CRE adjustment will be faster and less costly to the American taxpayer than the protracted demise of the Fannie and Freddie.

At Cumberland, we expect the forthcoming losses on CRE debt to be large and continuing. Essentially the United States is re-pricing its commercial real estate sector with debt-driven deflationary forces.

CRE is another of the several reasons the Federal Reserve will remain committed to its very low interest-rate policy for an “extended period.” In the case of CRE, the Fed does not have the policy of subsidy and support in place that it has for the federal housing finance agencies.

Large-scale federal attempts at subsidy for CRE have failed miserably. That is what we would expect when the government tries to create a mechanism to avoid the reality of taking a loss. The most notorious of those attempts is the PPIP. That monstrosity was designed and released with great fanfare by the Treasury Secretary. Notice how little you hear about it now. Had it advanced, there would have been a $1.1 trillion program with a massive transfer of subsidy from taxpayers to special finance interests.

The Senate report doesn’t mince words about PPIP. It also clearly establishes that PPIP is not likely to have much impact. The section on PPIP starts on page 127. In the spirit of American history it could be nicknamed Geithner’s Folly. The only thing wrong with that metaphor is that Secretary Seward’s purchase of Alaska turned out to be a dramatic success for the US while Secretary Geithner’s PPIP stands no chance of a positive outcome.

Let’s sum this up. Big losses are going to be reported on CRE. Banks have another round of pain ahead of them. The stress test on the 19 large institutions only runs through 2010. It is clear that the nation has not reach a stabilized level with its commercial real estate. It is likely that another round of painful adjustments lies ahead.

We conclude that the falling price level in CRE is a deflationary force in America and will continue to be so for several more years. Debt tied to it is in trouble. Banks will take more losses and bank capital will be tested again. This impact on banks can only be determined on a case-by-case issue.

Meanwhile, this is another reason why the Federal Reserve will continue its very low interest-rate policy for an “extended period.” We believe that means all of this year and most if not all of next year. Our forecast is that the short-term interest rate in the US will be between zero and 1 percent during that period. Add to that the conditions in the rest of the world, and one can make that projection of low interest rates for nearly all of the major economies. Exit strategies may eventually come, but not for an “extended period.”

We look forward to seeing some readers at the Philly Fed conference on March 3. See www.interdependence.org for details. Also, we are scheduled to discuss our market outlook on CNBC’s Power Lunch on Monday, March 1 shortly after the noontime opening. Good weekend wishes to all from the Cumberland Advisors’ Sarasota office.

Battle For The Middle Class: 20% Underemployment And 38 Million On Food Stamps

For most Americans a jobless recovery is an oxymoron. After all, the vast majority of Americans who pump money into the economy through consuming what they earn, typically find it harder to spend if they don’t have a job to draw an income from. It is understandable that there is a lag between a recession and when companies start to hire. But over the last four decades each subsequent recession seems to add more and more months of so-called jobless recovery. Part of this has to do with the amount of exports we bring in. When spending goes down in the U.S. the actual contraction goes beyond our country and hits many of our trading partners. Yet the middle class in the U.S. has fallen behind both in nominal and inflation adjusted terms for over 40 years. Part of this has to do with the structure of our banking system and our heavy reliance on debt spending. Today, as talk of a recovery permeates the media outlets we have 38,000,000 Americans on food assistance and nearly 20 percent of Americans are registering as underemployed.

Now the Bureau of Labor and Statistics usually measures the above through their U-6 rate. This rate measures those that are working part-time but would like to have a full-time job. There is something psychological about this that makes it seem a lot better than full unemployment but the repercussions on the working class is deep and profound nearly as deep as full unemployment. First, if you are working part-time you have less money to spend and this showed up in the survey clearly:

This is important in understanding that even with a 6 percent growth rate in GDP last quarter that many people still feel this recession deep in their pocketbooks. In addition, that latest GDP number is based on companies cutting their top line item, employees and also inventory restocking. But these are usually one time measures. What we want to be seeing is GDP growth because of additional consumption and growth through hiring. That is the real nature of a healthy expanding economy. Cutting and firing middle class workers isn’t exactly the recipe for a longer-term recovery.

Americans are having to do more with less and are facing new measures of austerity. Many are adapting and many are simply unable to cope with the radical changes taking place. Even in the past decade, many Americans came to rely on credit cards and home equity as some kind of embedded ATM for most households. For over a decade this seemed to be the case. Even many that relied on this deep down realized that something just wasn’t right when home prices kept going up by double-digits while their salaries remained stagnant. Any lack of wage growth was made up by additional borrowing. Banks were willing to lend out this money. But now that the bubble has burst, Americans are filing for bankruptcies in record numbers, losing jobs, and losing their homes through foreclosure. At the same time, the banking industry has kept their practices going thanks to taxpayer bailouts. The middle class is bailing out the same industry that was largely at the center of this financial crisis and their practices still largely remain the same.

This struggle to maintain the middle class is going to be the story of the next decade. But beyond that headline, we now have over 38,000,000 Americans receiving food assistance in this country.

The most prosperous nation in this world has over 12 percent of its population receiving food assistance. It is tough to see fellow Americans in such difficult times. You can see on the chart above how quickly the rate has risen in this recession. Clearly in every recession the rate will go up but in this recession the number has struck many more Americans. In fact, the length of unemployment is a large reason for this as people eat into emergency funds. Beyond that, we now have the largest percentage and number of Americans working part-time in history:

In fact, the large number of underemployed has been a shadow to how deep this crisis really is. For example, the headline unemployment rate nationwide is 9.7 percent. That seems bad but nothing historical. But just look above and add in that underemployment rate. In reality, we can understand why middle class Americans are struggling so much with daily financial life. Think of someone that lost their job and is now working at Wal-Mart as a greeter. Sure they aren’t part of that 9.7 percent but they probably would think so:

“(The Atlantic) Over lunch I spoke with one attendee, Gus Poulos, a Vietnam-era veteran who had begun his career as a refrigeration mechanic before going to night school and becoming an accountant. He is trim and powerfully built, and looks much younger than his 59 years. For seven years, until he was laid off in December 2008, he was a senior financial analyst for a local hospital.

Poulos said that his frustration had built and built over the past year. “You apply for so many jobs and just never hear anything,” he told me. “You’re one of my few interviews. I’m just glad to have an interview with anybody, even a magazine.” Poulos said he was an optimist by nature, and had always believed that with preparation and hard work, he could overcome whatever life threw at him. But sometime in the past year, he’d lost that sense, and at times he felt aimless and adrift. “That’s never been who I am,” he said. “But now, it’s who I am.”

Recently he’d gotten a part-time job as a cashier at Walmart, for $8.50 an hour. “They say, ‘Do you want it?’ And in my head, I thought, ‘No.’ And I raised my hand and said, ‘Yes.’” Poulos and his wife met when they were both working as supermarket cashiers, four decades earlier—it had been one of his first jobs. “Now, here I am again.”

We are in a deep struggle and fight to preserve the middle class of this country. What has made this country strong has been a compact between the government and the citizenship between work and some semblance of financial protection. Yet right now with the banking system in power, it is all about that bottom line and they have no idea what is happening in Main Street USA. They are happy with GDP going up by 6 percent even though this was based on restocking lost supply and firing workers. But how is this really good for the middle class?