GSA Chief Resigns in Disgrace

Wow. One has to wonder what planet these people live on where they could possibly think that this was an acceptable use of tax dollars. Then again, as fast as their boss wastes money, maybe it seemed like a deal.

GSA Administrator Martha Johnson submitted her resignation to the White House on Monday. Public Buildings Service chief Robert A. Peck and Johnson’s top adviser, Stephen Leeds, were forced out Monday, White House officials said. Four GSA employees who organized the four-day conference have been placed on adminstrative leave pending further action.

The resignations come as the agency’s inspector general prepares to release a scathing report on the training conference, held at a luxury hotel outside Las Vegas in October 2010.

Organizers spent $835,000 on the event, which was attended by 300 employees. The expenses included $147,000 in airfare and lodging at the hotel for six planning trips by a team of organizers. Among the other expenses were $3,200 for a mind reader; $6,300 on commemorative coin set displayed in velvet boxes and $75,000 on a training exercise to build a bicycle.

Obama Gripes About SCOTUS

The president seems to be confused about how this whole judicial review thing works.

“I’m confident this will be upheld because it should be upheld,” the president said Monday afternoon at a White House press conference that included ‪Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Mexican President Felipe Calderon, who are attending the North American Leaders’ Summit. The president said overturning the law would be “an unprecedented and extraordinary step” and compared the court’s rejection of the law to “judicial activism.”

“For years what we’ve heard is the biggest problem on the bench was judicial activism,” the president said, baiting conservatives who have long complained about justices’ political agendas. The president stressed that the judges are “unelected” and noted that the law was passed by a democratically elected Congress.

Obama to Pour More Money Into Ethanol

Yippee. I can’t wait for a 50% increase in cornohol in my gas tank.

WASHINGTON - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) approved the first applications for registration of ethanol for use in making gasoline that contains up to 15 percent ethanol – known as E15. Ethanol is a renewable fuel that can be mixed with gasoline. For over 30 years ethanol has been blended into gasoline, but the law limited it to 10 percent by volume for use in gasoline-fueled vehicles. Registration of ethanol to make E15 is a significant step toward its production, sale, and use in model year 2001 and newer gasoline-fueled cars and light trucks.

To enable widespread use of E15, the Obama Administration has set a goal to help fueling station owners install 10,000 blender pumps over the next 5 years. In addition, both through the Recovery Act and the 2008 Farm Bill, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and U.S. Department of Agriculture have provided grants, loans and loan guarantees to spur American ingenuity on the next generation of biofuels.

Odds on Obama

This gave me a chuckle. I got this via email from Obama:

Owen—

There’s another drawing happening at midnight: We’re picking the last guest for Dinner with Barack.

You have a much better shot at winning this.

Donate $3 or whatever you can before midnight and be automatically entered:

I believe him. The odds of winning a random award based on donations to Obama’s campaign is much better than buying Mega-Millions lottery tickets. What does that say about Obama’s campaign? Or America, for that matter.

Presidential Primary

In Wisconsin, we vote for a primary presidential candidate on Tuesday. I’ll be voting for Mitt Romney.

Like many others, Romney is not my first choice, but he’s a good choice. My preferred choices either never entered the race or flamed out early. As it is, I believe Romney to be a good conservative with a strong background in many issues about which I care.

Let’s get on with the business of defeating President Obama.

The President Is Full of Crap

Sorry to be crude, but he is.

President Obama is urging Congress to pass the “Buffett Rule,” saying lawmakers who oppose it will have to “go on record” and explain to the American people where they are getting the money to keep funding tax breaks for the wealthy.

“We have to make choices. When it comes to paying down the deficit and investing in our future, should we ask middle-class Americans to pay even more at a time when their budgets are already stretched to the breaking point? Or should we ask some of the wealthiest Americans to pay their fair share?” Obama said in his weekly address.

The president’s proposal would require those making more than $1 million a year to pay at least the same tax rate as middle-class families. The rule is named after billionaire investor Warren Buffett, who has said publicly that he should not pay a lower tax rate than his secretary.

“Some people call this class warfare. But I think asking a billionaire to pay at least the same tax rate as his secretary is just common sense. We don’t envy success in this country. We aspire to it. But we also believe that anyone who does well for themselves should do their fair share in return, so that more people have the opportunity to get ahead – not just a few,” the president said.

Here’s the thing… the Buffett rule would only raise $47 billion in ten years (assuming rich folks don’t change their behavior to avoid taxes in the implementation of the rule). The federal deficit run up by Obama is last year alone is $1.33 trillion. In other words, the Buffett rule, if implemented for the next 10 years, would not cover 0.1% of the deficit that Obama ran up just last year.

It’s a farce. The Buffett Rule has nothing to do with fiscal responsibility. It has everything to do with class warfare. And those of us in the middle class are fools to think that Obama’s spending can be covered by only taxing the super-rich. There’s only one class in America that even comes close to paying for Obama’s spending and that’s the middle class. If you think that major taxes for the middle class aren’t coming in an Obama second term, then you have a fantastical grasp of the economic realities of Obama’s governance.

West Bend a Happenin’ Place

The Duggar Family will be in West Bend today and Rick Santorum will be here on Monday. 

UPDATE: I should clarify. These two events are not related. The Duggar Family will be at the First Baptist Church today at 6:30 PM for some music, testimony, and Q&A.

Santorum will be at the Riverside Brewery at 1 PM on Monday to campaign. It’s notable that Santorum is coming to the heart of red Wisconsin on the day before the election.

UPDATE2: I stand corrected. It does look like the Duggars are here to campaign for Santorum.

Another $17 Trillion in Unfunded Promises in Obamacare

Wow.

The $17 trillion in extra promises was revealed by an analysis of the law’s long-term requirements. The additional obligations, when combined with existing Medicare and Medicaid funding shortfalls, leaves taxpayers on the hook for an extra $82 trillion over the next 75 years.

The federal government already owes $15 trillion in debt, including $5 trillion in funds borrowed during Obama’s term.

SCOTUS To Vote Today

Today the die will be cast.

WASHINGTON (AP) — While the rest of us have to wait until June, the justices of the Supreme Court will know the likely outcome of the historic health care case by the time they go home this weekend.

After months of anticipation, thousands of pages of briefs and more than six hours of arguments, the justices will vote on the fate of President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul in under an hour Friday morning. They will meet in a wood-paneled conference room on the court’s main floor. No one else will be present.

In the weeks after this meeting, individual votes can change. Even who wins can change, as the justices read each other’s draft opinions and dissents.

But Friday’s vote, which each justice probably will record and many will keep for posterity, will be followed soon after by the assignment of a single justice to write a majority opinion, or in a case this complex, perhaps two or more justices to tackle different issues. That’s where the hard work begins, with the clock ticking toward the end of the court’s work in early summer.

Ryan for VP?

Of course, this has been speculation for some time.

Washington (CNN) – Republican Rep. Paul Ryan said he would “consider” serving in the No. 2 spot on the GOP presidential ticket in 2012.

But his response was surrounded by the obligatory “it’s not even something in my mind” and “I’m so focused on my job” lines.
 
“I would consider it but it’s not even something in my mind because it’s a decision someone else makes at a later time,” Ryan said Sunday on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” “It’s a bridge I haven’t gotten close to having to cross so in the meantime I think it’s important to do my job.”

Certainly a Ryan VP shores up the fiscal conservative base of any Republican candidate and he’d destroy Biden in VP debates, but should he do it?

Yes, if offered the VP slot, Ryan should take it. Unless the GOP controls the Congress, his platform in the House has been exhausted. The political calendar says that if the Republican wins this cycle, Ryan probably can’t run for POTUS until 2020. If Obama wins and Ryan is in the VP slot, he’s the natural candidate in 2016 in an open race. If the Republican wins with Ryan as the VP, Ryan is still the heir apparent and has the second biggest bully pulpit in the nation.

To be frank, we’re on the path to fiscal ruin and Ryan is one of the few people who I think can get us out of it. The sooner he sits in the big chair, the better, and Vice President candidate Ryan has the quickest path to the Oval Office regardless of the outcome of 2012.

It’s About Our Relationship With Government

This is perhaps the best article written about this issue. It frames the issues at hand perfectly. From the Wall Street Journal:

Few legal cases in the modern era are as consequential, or as defining, as the challenges to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act that the Supreme Court hears beginning Monday. The powers that the Obama Administration is claiming change the structure of the American government as it has existed for 225 years. Thus has the health-care law provoked an unprecedented and unnecessary constitutional showdown that endangers individual liberty.

It is a remarkable moment. The High Court has scheduled the longest oral arguments in nearly a half-century: five and a half hours, spread over three days. Yet Democrats, the liberal legal establishment and the press corps spent most of 2010 and 2011 deriding the government of limited and enumerated powers of Article I as a quaint artifact of the 18th century. Now even President Obama and his staff seem to grasp their constitutional gamble.

Consider a White House strategy memo that leaked this month, revealing that senior Administration officials are coordinating with liberal advocacy groups to pressure the Court. “Frame the Supreme Court oral arguments in terms of real people and real benefits that would be lost if the law were overturned,” the memo notes, rather than “the individual responsibility piece of the law and the legal precedence [sic].” Those nonpolitical details are merely what “lawyers will be talking about.”

President Obama signing the health care bill at the White House on March 23, 2010.
.The White House is even organizing demonstrations during the proceedings, including a “‘prayerful witness’ encircling the Supreme Court.” The executive branch is supposed to speak to the Court through the Solicitor General, not agitprop and crowds in the streets.

The Supreme Court will not be ruling about matters of partisan conviction, or the President’s re-election campaign, or even about health care at all. The lawsuit filed by 26 states and the National Federation of Independent Business is about the outer boundaries of federal power and the architecture of the U.S. political system.

Blago’s Escape

Wow. This is an ad from my email. That’s an interesting marketing bent.

New York “Overhauls” Public Pension Plan

This story made me chuckle.

The changes—which are designed to save more than $80 billion for New York state over the next 30 years—have drawn a sharp rebuke from labor leaders. Here is the New York Times report on the changes.

Most significant, however, is the fact New York felt a need now to make major revisions to a system regarded as the most solvent in the nation.

[...]

“Instead of cutting pensions for workers, we should focus on ensuring that corporations and the wealthiest New Yorkers are paying their fair share of taxes,” the union said.

Oh, the rhetoric. “Major revisions.” “Cutting pensions.” Oh, my!

What were the changes?

...including raising the retirement age from 62 to 63 for new hires and requiring employees to increase by up to 3 percent more the portion of their salaries that goes toward their pension. It also allows some higher-paid new hires to opt out of the system in favor of personal accounts, like a 401(k).

How draconian 

Oil Up to the Eyeballs

If only we were willing to go after it...

But the figure Obama uses — proved oil reserves — vastly undercounts how much oil the U.S. actually contains. In fact, far from being oil-poor, the country is awash in vast quantities — enough to meet all the country’s oil needs for hundreds of years.

The U.S. has 22.3 billion barrels of proved reserves, a little less than 2% of the entire world’s proved reserves, according to the Energy Information Administration. But as the EIA explains, proved reserves “are a small subset of recoverable resources,” because they only count oil that companies are currently drilling for in existing fields.

When you look at the whole picture, it turns out that there are vast supplies of oil in the U.S., according to various government reports. Among them:

At least 86 billion barrels of oil in the Outer Continental Shelf yet to be discovered, according to the government’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.

About 24 billion barrels in shale deposits in the lower 48 states, according to EIA.

Up to 2 billion barrels of oil in shale deposits in Alaska’s North Slope, says the U.S. Geological Survey.

Up to 12 billion barrels in ANWR, according to the USGS.

As much as 19 billion barrels in the Utah tar sands, according to the Bureau of Land Management.

Then, there’s the massive Green River Formation in Wyoming, which according to the USGS contains a stunning 1.4 trillion barrels of oil shale — a type of oil released from sedimentary rock after it’s heated.

Challenging the License for Tax Preparers

Interesting.

The IRS says the new regulations, more than two years in the making, are needed to ensure that taxpayers who hire tax preparers get high-quality service. The regulations require most paid tax preparers to pass a federal competency exam and take ongoing continuing education courses to keep up with changes in tax laws.

But the Arlington, Va.-based Institute for Justice, which expects to file the lawsuit Tuesday in Washington on behalf of Kilian and two others, say the IRS lacks the statutory authority to require these kinds of licenses without congressional authorization. The new rules are bad policy, the institute contends, that put mom-and-pop tax preparers out of business and give unfair advantages to lawyers and certified public accountants, who are exempt from many of the licensing requirements.

“The likely result of these regulations is less options for consumers and higher prices,” said Bob Ewing, a spokesman for the institute. The nonprofit law firm has filed numerous legal challenges against government regulations, including local licensing requirements for professions from hair braiders to yoga teachers and federal rules against paying bone-marrow donors.

The licensing requirements for tax preparers are part of an explosion in ill-conceived licensing regimes across a variety of professions, the institute says. They cite research that shows the percentage of the U.S. workforce subject to licensure has increased from 5 percent in the 1950s to 30 percent in 2006. The institute has filed numerous legal challenges questioning government authority to license various professions, from hair braiders to tour guides to yoga teachers.

On the one hand, licensing certain professions is a necessary and right role for the government. But what about this particular license? The interest of the government seems to be to protect citizens from being disserviced by a crappy tax perparer. Is that an interest that rises high enough to justify a new licensing requirement? After all, there’s nothing to protect me from preparing my own taxes and doing a crappy job on it. Isn’t there some responsibility on the part of the citizen to evaluate their tax preparer? I think so.

I have no opinion on whether the legal case behind this lawsuit has any merit, but the issue certainly does.