Andy Roth, Vice President of Club for Growth, highlighted a Boston Herald article about renovations to an IRS facility in a tweet he sent out this week: An IRS facility in Mass. will include a reflecting pool, an art gallery, and indoor gardens. – http://bit.ly/cxTHEPless than a minute ago via TweetDeckAndy Rothandyroth The Herald reports that the Andover, Massachusetts facility will boast a host of new amenities after its makeover, including “a reflecting pool, an art gallery, indoor gardens, a 7,000-square-foot cafeteria, and an amphitheater” but concedes that “it remains unclear …
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has produced a new report estimating that the $862 billion stimulus has thus far saved or created 1.5 million jobs. Yet the CBO’s calculations are not based on actually observing the economy’s recent performance. Rather, they used an economic model that was programmed to assume that stimulus spending automatically creates jobs—thus guaranteeing their result. Logicians call this the begging-the-question fallacy. Mathematicians call it assuming what you are trying to prove.
As we reported in today’s Morning Bell, ABC News reports that despite massive amounts of stimulus funding being spent on wind farms—nearly $2 billion—the vast majority (80%) of it has been spent on overseas companies. ABC contacted Russ Choma at the Investigative Reporting Workshop who suggested that the project has resulted in nearly 6,000 jobs for overseas manufacturers and only a few hundred over here. To add insult to injury, ABC’s Jonathan Karl reports that “a recent report by American Wind Energy Association showed a drop in U.S. wind manufacturing jobs last …
Rep. Ed Whitfield (R-KY) has proposed a novel way to strengthen the House Pay-As-You-Go (PAYGO) rule. PAYGO – which requires that all legislation expanding entitlements or cutting taxes be fully offset – has been exposed an ineffective gimmick. PAYGO exempts discretionary spending increases (which comprise 40 percent of the budget) as well as the automatic 6 to 8 percent annual baseline increases in entitlement spending. PAYGO merely says that if Congress wants to grow total entitlement spending faster than the baseline rate, they must raise taxes accordingly. Or, if they …
From the Associated Press: PORTLAND, Ore. – How much are politicians straining to convince people that the government is stimulating the economy? In Oregon, where lawmakers are spending $176 million to supplement the federal stimulus, Democrats are taking credit for a remarkable feat: creating 3,236 new jobs in the program’s first three months. But those jobs lasted on average only 35 hours, or about one work week. After that, those workers were effectively back unemployed, according to an Associated Press analysis of state spending and hiring data. By the state’s …
Today’s Wall Street Journal reports that investment in renewable energies, and the green jobs that go with it, is being stifled by the stimulus. How? No one knows where, when, or if the stimulus money from Washington will arrive, sowing uncertainty among investors and businesses alike: New incentive programs haven’t yet been defined, and uncertainty about program rules has deterred investors from backing companies that also may get government money. At the same time, companies are holding off from accepting private capital because of the possibility of getting it more …
In January, President Obama pressed for an $800 billion economic “stimulus” package to turn the economy around. Though the bill largely consisted of increased spending on traditional liberal priorities, the President claimed that it would “create or save” 3.5 million jobs. The President’s economic advisors predicted that unemployment would rise to 9 percent by 2010 if Congress did not pass the stimulus bill, but that with the stimulus unemployment would stay below 8 percentage points.
Why Government Still Doesn’t Have the Solutions Political irony has experienced a profound illustration in the early days of the Obama administration. Seldom has a president rendered such thoughtful tribute to a predecessor whose values his every legislative effort was certain to undermine. Case in point: Two events on Capitol Hill during the first week of June 2009 were coordinated to honor the life and legacy of Ronald Reagan. At a signing ceremony in the White House Diplomatic Room, President Obama authorized a centennial commission to plan for the former …
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKzZJoPu1OQ[/youtube] Some worried D.C. schoolchildren recently asked President Obama to continue the highly successful D.C . Opportunity Scholarship Program. The program, which allows parents the choice to to take their children out of failing public schools, is in danger of being scrapped completely after the 2010 school year. Ignoring the pleas of these children and others, a measure hidden in the omnibus spending bill effectively eliminates this program. It would make it so the funds have to be reauthorized by Congress as well as approved by the D.C. Council, providing a …
Washington – Michigan Congressman Dave Camp raised doubts and highlighted confused realities of the Democrat Spending Bill at today’s Conservative Bloggers’ Briefing, held at the Heritage Foundation. Camp compared provisions in the Spending Bill and the recently passed SCHIP Bill, calling their contradictions ‘absurd.’ “You’re too rich to get a tax cut, but your not poor enough to get health care for free,” he said, referring to Democrat’s refusals (in Ways and Means Committee and on the House Floor) to cut taxes on unemployment benefits for those who earn $50,000 …
