Senator Jim Bunning Folds

Well, I guess he got what he wanted. He managed to get the Senate to sacrifice its "black liquor" subsidy to pay for the unemployment extension. At least he had principles, even if the fireworks didn't fully manifest. It feels somewhat anti-climactic (though perhaps not to holders of Boise warrants - you know who you are).

I'll always remember Bunning as "that guy that held up the Senate at gun point...and retired his seat creating an opportunity for Ron Paul's son Rand Paul to be elected to the U.S. Senate." Ah, you remember him, don't you? You know, That Guy? Oh, yeah, That Guy.

From this WSJ article:

WASHINGTON—The Senate Tuesday reached a deal to lift Sen. Jim Bunning's blockade of a bill to extend unemployment benefits, following new moves by Mr. Bunning's fellow Republicans to distance themselves from his tactics.

The agreement allowed Mr. Bunning (R., Ky.), who had complained that the $10 billion bill was not paid for, to offer an amendment that would fund the legislation by rescinding a tax credit for a paper manufacturing byproduct.

His amendment was expected to fail later Tuesday night. After that vote, Mr. Bunning was set to lift his objection to the underlying bill, which was expected to pass.

Mr. Bunning argued that the unemployment bill violated congressional rules requiring new initiatives to be paid for. Democrats said the extension was emergency legislation, exempting it from those rules. The public relations battle appeared to be playing out in the Democrats' favor as more than 100,000 jobless workers saw their unemployment benefits dry up this week.

Democrats also agreed to allow Mr. Bunning to offer two amendments on Wednesday to a longer-term extension of unemployment benefits and other programs. Both amendments are expected to propose ways of paying for that larger measure.

After the deal was reached, Mr. Bunning reiterated his argument that federal spending was out of control.

"If we cannot pay for a bill that all 100 senators support, how can we tell the American people with a straight face that we will ever pay for anything?" he said. "That is what senators say they want, and that is what the American people want."

Democrats said Mr. Bunning had been offered the same deal last week but refused to take it. "The real question in this debate is who we are as a nation," said Sen. Richard Durbin (D., Ill.). "Do we care about these people, these breadwinners who are down on their luck?"

Mr. Durbin objected to Mr. Bunning's proposal to pay for the bill by rescinding a tax credit for "black liquor," a paper manufacturing byproduct, saying this revenue source was already set aside for another measure.

Mr. Bunning had held up the unemployment-benefits extension by objecting to Democrats' "unanimous consent" request to advance the legislation, a routine procedure that requires all senators to go along.

Jim Bunting Gives The Finger To...Well, To Everyone

...and we here at TILB fucking love it.

Before reading the below article, I didn't know jack about Jim Bunting save for one thing: he is retiring and his resignation has paved the way for the very real possibility that Ron Paul's son Rand Paul is elected to the U.S. Senate as Bunning's replacement.

That fact alone makes Bunning a hero in our eyes: even accidentally paving the way for potentially putting a Paul in the Senate is deserving of hero's praise.

But now we've learned one additional piecce of information about Senator Jim Bunning: he is single handedly holding up the extension (yet again!) of socialized unemployment and healthcare benefits. Workers already have had them extended from 26 weeks of state provided benefits to 26 weeks of state benefits plus 73 weeks from the Federal government! WTF!

Now without this extension, everyone is getting cut off once their current tier of benefits expires. While obviously it sucks tremendously for needy unemployed people, it is principled. All Bunting is saying is, (paraphrasing) "we need to cut an equal amount from somewhere else in the budget. I'm not going to be responsible for increasing the deficit any further given we already can't pay for what we have."

It's literally 99 to 1 in the Senate but it takes unanimity to extend an existing law without going through the traditional legislative process of actually passing a new law. As The Great Jim Bunning said on the Senate floor:

"If we can't find $10 billion to pay for something that we all support, we will never pay for anything on the floor of the U.S. Senate."

Amen Saint Bunning. Amen.

Oh, and because he's retiring and is basically untouchable as a result, he's literally flouting his opposition, including flicking off the media. Further, he actually told the Honorable Gentleman from Oregon, "Tough shit" when Senator Jeff Merkley criticized Bunning's stance.

I don't want to know anything else about the guy. Don't ruin this image of perfection.

I'm sure learning additional information would sully him in my eyes. But for now, he's perfect. On the one hand, he's going Mantan Moreland on them and putting his dick in the Senate's proverbial mashed potatoes while providing space for Rand Paul on the other.

Genius.

I'm gonna stick my dick in the mashed potatoes sound bite  Beastie Boys sound bites

Stay strong, Jim. Stay strong.

Here's the Yahoo! article.

[HT: TD]

Thank Goodness For Food Stamps - These Job Seekers Would Do Anything For A Job If One Simply Existed

This past Sunday, The New York Times ran a front page article on the massive increase in people living off food stamps alone (no other income whatsoever).

Peppered with sad tales like that of Isabel Bermudex who went from a poor upbringing to earning $180,000 in one year as a real estate agent during the boom before falling back to nothing, the article is intended to tug at the heart strings. It emphasizes the desperate straights of these unemployed and incomeless folks and how badly they want an honest day's work.

Throughout the article, people talk about wanting - but not being able to find - jobs and the terrible situation they'd be in without government handouts.

We certainly don't doubt it.

What we do doubt is that the solution is more handouts; more government. Government interference is the problem - it is what prevents most people from finding gainful employment. We have a huge excess supply of labor that allegedly wants nothing more than employment (10% unemployed). Any income is better than no income, all else being equal. However, our strict minimum wage legislation prevents the natural market clearing mechanism from taking place. As any freshman econ major can tell you, virtually any amount of supply of goods or services that has positive value can be cleared at the right price. Further, because we pay people not to work when they lose their jobs, the hurdle for accepting new work is artificially raised by the government subsidy the individuals receive.

The minimum wage and welfare-type programs are painful legacies of the New Deal era that oontinue to wreak havoc today. The people in the article below continue to suffer from F.D. Roosevelt's mad science. TILB used to think the minimum wage level didn't particularly matter because during the long period of full employment it really didn't. However, during periods of economic downturn, minimum wage basically puts a chokehold on remployment - not allowing labor prices to reset and preventing companies from hiring.

In reality, the minimum wage and other cost raising government interferences like it are nothing but Chinese economic stimulus legislation.

As our policies make it impossibly uneconomic for Americans to be employed in America by American companies, the government is basically encouraging those same companies to send wages and much needed investment capital overseas to countries that have more friendly policies toward their populous - policies that don't legally prevent citizens from working for a wage they'd happily accept and worse, that pay people not to work!

Only a government official or tunnel visioned theoretical academician could come up with this foolishness. Sadly, we seem to have returned to this sort of thinking at our highest levels. It virtually guarantees that our country will struggle to reach a full recovery.

Sometimes we wonder if that underperformance and increase of government supplicants isn't actually the goal of the left; to enslave the underemployed and undereducated to resources provided by their friendly congressman.

Intentional or not, that is the outcome of these thoughtless laws.

Article excerpts below.

January 3, 2010
The Safety Net
Living on Nothing but Food Stamps
By JASON DEPARLE and ROBERT M. GEBELOFF

CAPE CORAL, Fla. — After an improbable rise from the Bronx projects to a job selling Gulf Coast homes, Isabel Bermudez lost it all to an epic housing bust — the six-figure income, the house with the pool and the investment property.

Now, as she papers the county with résumés and girds herself for rejection, she is supporting two daughters on an income that inspires a double take: zero dollars in monthly cash and a few hundred dollars in food stamps.

With food-stamp use at a record high and surging by the day, Ms. Bermudez belongs to an overlooked subgroup that is growing especially fast: recipients with no cash income.

About six million Americans receiving food stamps report they have no other income, according to an analysis of state data collected by The New York Times. In declarations that states verify and the federal government audits, they described themselves as unemployed and receiving no cash aid — no welfare, no unemployment insurance, and no pensions, child support or disability pay.

Their numbers were rising before the recession as tougher welfare laws made it harder for poor people to get cash aid, but they have soared by about 50 percent over the past two years. About one in 50 Americans now lives in a household with a reported income that consists of nothing but a food-stamp card.

“It’s the one thing I can count on every month — I know the children are going to have food,” Ms. Bermudez, 42, said with the forced good cheer she mastered selling rows of new stucco homes.

Members of this straitened group range from displaced strivers like Ms. Bermudez to weathered men who sleep in shelters and barter cigarettes. Some draw on savings or sporadic under-the-table jobs. Some move in with relatives. Some get noncash help, like subsidized apartments. While some go without cash incomes only briefly before securing jobs or aid, others rely on food stamps alone for many months.

...

A skinny fellow in saggy clothes who spent his childhood in foster care, Rex Britton, 22, hopped a bus from Syracuse two years ago for a job painting parking lots. Now, with unemployment at nearly 14 percent and paving work scarce, he receives $200 a month in food stamps and stays with a girlfriend who survives on a rent subsidy and a government check to help her care for her disabled toddler.

“Without food stamps we’d probably be starving,” Mr. Britton said.

A strapping man who once made a living throwing fastballs, William Trapani, 53, left his dreams on the minor league mound and his front teeth in prison, where he spent nine years for selling cocaine. Now he sleeps at a rescue mission, repairs bicycles for small change, and counts $200 in food stamps as his only secure support.

“I’ve been out looking for work every day — there’s absolutely nothing,” he said.

A grandmother whose voice mail message urges callers to “have a blessed good day,” Wanda Debnam, 53, once drove 18-wheelers and dreamed of selling real estate. But she lost her job at Starbucks this year and moved in with her son in nearby Lehigh Acres. Now she sleeps with her 8-year-old granddaughter under a poster of the Jonas Brothers and uses her food stamps to avoid her daughter-in-law’s cooking.

“I’m climbing the walls,” Ms. Debnam said.

...

But others say the lack of cash support shows the safety net is torn. The main cash welfare program, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, has scarcely expanded during the recession; the rolls are still down about 75 percent from their 1990s peak. A different program, unemployment insurance, has rapidly grown, but still omits nearly half the unemployed. Food stamps, easier to get, have become the safety net of last resort.

“The food-stamp program is being asked to do too much,” said James Weill, president of the Food Research and Action Center, a Washington advocacy group. “People need income support.”

...

The expansion of the food-stamp program, which will spend more than $60 billion this year, has so far enjoyed bipartisan support. But it does have conservative critics who worry about the costs and the rise in dependency.

“This is craziness,” said Representative John Linder, a Georgia Republican who is the ranking minority member of a House panel on welfare policy. “We’re at risk of creating an entire class of people, a subset of people, just comfortable getting by living off the government.”

Mr. Linder added: “You don’t improve the economy by paying people to sit around and not work. You improve the economy by lowering taxes” so small businesses will create more jobs.

...

Kevin Zirulo and Diane Marshall, brother and sister, have more unlikely stories than a reality television show. With a third sibling paying their rent, they are living on a food-stamp benefit of $300 a month. A gun collector covered in patriotic tattoos, Mr. Zirulo, 31, has sold off two semiautomatic rifles and a revolver. Ms. Marshall, who has a 7-year-old daughter, scavenges discarded furniture to sell on the Internet.

They said they dropped out of community college and diverted student aid to household expenses. They received $150 from the Nielsen Company, which monitors their television. They grew so desperate this month, they put the breeding services of the family Chihuahua up for bid on Craigslist.

“We look at each other all the time and say we don’t know how we get through,” Ms. Marshall said.

...

Ms. Bermudez recently answered the door in her best business clothes and handed a reporter her résumé, which she distributes by the ream. It notes she was once a “million-dollar producer” and “deals well with the unexpected.”

“I went from making $180,000 to relying on food stamps,” she said. “Without that government program, I wouldn’t be able to feed my children.”

The Investment Linebacker Just Saved Or Created 491 Jobs

We stand by that 491 number until we are otherwise proven wrong.

Oops, it turns out someone is actually going around trying to verify these bogus jobs "saved or created" numbers and discovering that the numbers are exactly what we all inherently already knew: they are a fantasy.

"I am shocked, shocked that gambling is going on here."

Specifically, The Sacramento Bee has been busy researching the 26,156 that the Cal State University system claims to have created or saved with their share of Federal stimulus money. Only one problem: it seems only a fraction of those were actually ever at risk - so how can they be saved or created if they never would have been lost?

So what?

TILB guaran-damn-tees you that nobody cares that The Administration has no ability to prove the accuracy of its claims. Yet that does not seem to matter.

So what if the whole number is a fraud? So what if those jobs that actually are "saved or created" are really stolen or destroyed in other areas of the global economy*? Who even cares? Our president gives great speeches, after all. What else could you realistically hope for in a leader? Hint: see video below for an answer - then visit www.schiffforsenate.com.

Anyway, here's a link to the Sac Bee's article on the Cal State reporting debacle.

* Just think about it, the capital used for the stimulus program comes from three primary sources: 1) explicit tax dollars; 2) borrowed money via Treasuries (e.g., China lending us money); or 3) freshly printed money (which is simply the theft of some value from all pre-existing money). The implication of this three source limit means that in order to "stimulate" the economy, we are actually taking money or wealth from other parts of the economy.

Who is more likely to productively deploy wealth into job creation: private citizens or 500 odd horse trading politicians inside the beltway? The answer is obvious on its face. Thus we know that stimulus is actually the opposite: it is the suction of capital/wealth out of generally productive hands and redeployed by generally non-productive hands.

It is nearly universal that stimulus programs cost jobs always and everywhere.


We can do better than the status quo.

Obama Offers Senior Citizens Some Backdoor Stimulus

...no, not that kind of backdoor stimulus, you sick bastards.

I guess $13 billion doesn't mean anything these days. Unfortunately, the more that money doesn't mean anything means the more that money won't mean anything. Beware.

Anyway, despite the White House saying they aren't even contemplating contemplating a new stimulus package, this clearly is a backdoor stimulus.

Nobody cares though, so, whatever. What's $13 billion of wealth transfer among friends anyway? What's mine is your's and what's your's is...well, no, somehow we at TILB always seem to be on the "giving" rather than the "receiving" end. Now, if somehow we can loop that last sentence back into the double entendre from this post's title...

Here's the link to some more excellent reporting by the Wall Street Journal. Highlights from the article follow, but I highly recommend reading the whole thing and supporting the online -WSJ. [emphasis added]

WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama said he will press Congress to provide $250 payments to 57 million seniors, veterans and people with disabilities next year, a $13 billion effort to offset an expected announcement this week that there will be no cost-of-living increase in Social Security payments.

The proposed $250 payment is equivalent to a 2% increase for the average retiree receiving Social Security benefits, the White House said. Notably, it would act as additional economic stimulus at a time when the government is concerned about rising joblessness.

A decline in the rate of inflation precluded any cost-of-living increase next year.

"These payments will provide aid to more than 50 million people in the coming year, relief that will not only make a difference for them, but for our economy as a whole," Mr. Obama said.

Administration officials said in a briefing that they had no plan to offset the $13 billion cost [TILB - of course not, why would they, just ask The Helicopter to turn those machines back on]

...

The new proposal comes as the Senate prepares to introduce legislation that would extend existing unemployment insurance benefits by 14 weeks for unemployed people in all 50 states, and by an additional six weeks in the 27 states with three-month unemployment rates running higher than 8.5%. [TILB - hell, that sounds awesome. If I you can clear $21k per year after taxes without working vs. maybe $30k before taxes with working, why work?]

People who receive the $250 payments proposed by Mr. Obama would be prohibited from receiving money from other stimulus-related programs next year. [HA! Fucking laugh line, that one. Drew Carey, is that you?]The White House said the cost of the proposal wouldn't damage the solvency of Social Security or other social insurance programs.[TILB - you can't damage what doesn't exist...]

...

[Hat Tip: LB]