The Keynesian Fabulist - Blogging By Numbers

Let me start by giving a hat tip to Aaron Wong, the President of USC College Republicans, who gave TSH a very kind shout out on Twitter. I'm just some smart-ass Canadian with a laptop that overheats to the point of being a fire hazard and a dream that, someday, they will reboot the American Ninja franchise. Aaron is the sort of fellow who works in the trenches, rallying young college Republicans and enduring the olfactory offenses of whatever branch of the "Occupy" movement that is presumably still invading his campus. I have it lucky in my little neck of the woods. Moncton's Occupy movement consists of two tents and a cardboard sign. It's really just a hobo hotel that's been there for as long as I can remember, but they think writing OCCUPY on a ripped up Saltines box gives them street cred. Anyway, good on ya' Aaron! The conservative movement is a global one, and I think it's pretty cool beans that Canadians, Americans, East Indians, Italians, Australians and countless others who feel passionately about limited government, free enterprise, and the essential dignity of all human life stop by my little lemonade stand to hang out and spread the word.

Shall we blog by numbers?

1 -In early 2009, the President declared that he would have the deficit cut in half by the end of his third year in office or he would be a one term President. Here we are, three years later, and he's presided over the four largest deficits in American History. Maybe he has a wicked Groupon he hasn't told us about that's going to slash the deficit overnight and make it rain gumdrops and snow cotton candy.

In early February, the President finally released his Keynesian Greco-Roman orgy budget that makes Jimmy Carter look like Calvin Coolidge. It's a spending bonanza that boggles the mind. It's like when Mayor West found out that 'the bird is equal to or greater than the word', and screamed "CHECK IT AGAIN!" The only phrase that can accurately describe this tax and spend bonanza is fiscal insanity.

Veronique De Rugy broke down some of the numbers, and they confirm the economic immaturity of this administration.

By the end of fiscal year 2013, the federal government will have spent just under $4 trillion. Projected over the next 10 years, cumulative spending will have reached an astounding $47 trillion dollars. Gross debt, both public and private, will increase to $26 trillion.

The annual interest alone on this beast of a budget will be $1 trillion annually. Spending will increase in virtually every government department. How does the President plan to pay for all this? TAXES! How else? There will be a death-tax hike of $143 billion, and a host of other tax increases equaling $340 billion, compliments of the American taxpayers - but even the massive tax grabs the President is proposing don't come close to covering the massive debt he plans to incur.

When all the numbers are crunched, by 2022, Americans are looking at a $7,900,000,000,000 increase in debt. This is not sustainable; this is not realistic; this is not sane. Time for a change in management.

2 - An irritating comment I hear a lot when liberals in the media (are there any other kind?) engage in discussions about the stimulus is that "...there is only one side to this discussion." That side, of course, being that the stimulus was a necessary inevitability. Doug Holtz has countered the comment with a question I rather like. He posits, "You simply can’t throw $800 billion at the economy and have nothing to show for it. The real question is of course, was its impact worth it?" So, aside from Superbowl half-time commercials, did the American public get any bang for their buck? The answer is no.

When looking at how the CBO examines where stimulus dollars went, it boils down to this. The CBO openly acknowledges that each dollar of stimulus expenditure is generating less than a dollar of output. The President is not even breaking even.

"Economists are comparing it to eating ice cream today, while committing to broccoli later. But that’s not what we’re seeing." Instead, President Obama, who has presided over four years of $1-trillion-plus deficits, he has proposed an average ten-year deficit of $668 billion. Holtz muses that the president wouldn’t .."even pass Keynesian economics. Instead of holding out for broccoli, we get a ten-year ice cream party."

Debt is at a historical high, surpassing the GDP. Holtz's forecast is gloomy - "The implications of this scenario are plainly evident from the recent experience in Europe — but the economic fallout from a debt crisis in the world’s largest economy is difficult to fathom."

3 - It's curious that when conservatives point out their concerns about the impact of executive over-reach and the devastating effects of Joseph Ellis-style anti-orginalist SCOTUS-think, we're accused of being zealous, ridiculous wing-nuts by liberals who, prior to 2008, constantly screamed about living under a war-mongering police state run by a fascist dictator who should be tried for war crimes. Yeah...We're the one's who overstate things.

4 - Haven't seen The Hunger Games yet, but I shudder at the thought of how many grown women twenty years from now are going to be addressed as "Katniss" (hat tip to J-Bow).

5 - I know it's become "de rigeur" to peer through the other side of the looking glass and complain about those who complain about Facebook. Fair enough. Sure, it's not the end of the world, but I still don't want that damnable "timeline." I use a product. I like the way that product is set up. Now I am waiting for that cursed day when I have to start swilling Facebook's version of "New Coke."

I hate the thought of that inevitable morning when I wake up to some random elongated picture of myself that says "Hey look! I'm the Blueray letterbox version of The Godfather." My friend Amanda jumped ahead of the curve and posted a picture of herself lounging on a hammock. Clever girl. I need a hammock.

6 - The Stoics are rolling in their graves. Those sneaky Greeks just received a $170 billion (OPA!) bail-out. Greece has a sad record of running its country into the ground, and a fickle record of adhering to policies to which it has agreed. Their public debt makes for 120% of their GDP. Greece arrived at their Waterloo as a result of out of control spending gone wild. In fact, a recent audit showed that they "...consistently and deliberately misreported the country's official economic statistics." Greece had to be dragged, kicking and screaming, to even consider cutting so much as a toenail. The jury is still out as to whether or not this recent bailout in conjunction with the proposed austerity measures will do any good. Greece is illustrative of the ship of fools President Obama is steering over a waterfall, and his recent public tantrums and finger pointing are reminiscent of a man who refuses to leave his beachfront home despite the warning of a category 5 hurricane evacuation - only he's insisting the rest of neighborhood stay with him.

7 - It looks like the Supreme Court will uphold the 11th circuit's ruling that the individual mandate of Obamacare is unconstitutional. Media reports seem to indicate that the Solicitor General was poorly prepared for oral arguments. Not surprising. The 11th circuit's decision fast tracked this case to the nation's highest court, to the chagrin of the justice department. If the decision comes down as expected, it means the end of Obamacare, a major victory for all citizens who have seen their costs doubled and services reduced under the current law.

This is a major blow to the Obama administration. The court is reiterating the 11th circuit's decision, which stated that the law had no limiting principle and that "...the government’s position amounts to an argument that the mere fact of an individual’s existence substantially affects interstate commerce, and therefore Congress may regulate them at every point of their life. This theory affords no limiting principles in which to confine Congress’s enumerated power."

...but hold the celebration until the decision comes down. If anyone remembers Judge Bolton's ruling on SB1070, she began her decision by asserting the burden on the DOJ in a facial case was insurmountable, but ruled in favor of the administration anyway.

Hope this bad law is struck down. Cross your fingers.

8 - Have a great week. Let's roll the credits to a little Turner Cody.

Cordially

Joe