Unemployment at 10% and where is congress? Why spending of course.

From the AP:

The Labor Department said Friday that jobless rate rose to 10.2 percent, the highest since April 1983, from 9.8 percent in September. The economy shed a net total of 190,000 jobs in October, less than the downwardly revised 219,000 lost in September, but more than economists expected.

The jump in the jobless rate reflects a sharp increase in the tally of unemployed Americans, which rose to 15.7 million from 15.1 million. The net loss of jobs occurred across most industries, from manufacturing and construction to retail and financial. That tally is based on a separate survey of businesses.

Economists say the unemployment rate could climb as high as 10.5 percent next year because employers remain reluctant to hire.

And what is the President and Congress doing about it? They are trying to ram down our throats a 1.8 trillion dollar healthcare bill that won't reduce costs, won't improve your care and still won't insure everyone. And it won't get you a job. But one thing it will do...raise your taxes.

And if you want to understand who is driving this bus, all you need to do it look at the White House Visitor's log to see who spends the most time there - Andy Stern of the SIEU(from workerfreedom.org via Americans for Tax Reform).

The White House released an incomplete list of visitors who met with President Obama and top White House officials. Predictably, Andy Stern, President of the Service Employees International Union, stopped by the White House more than any other visitor. The Wall Street Journal Reports:

“Andrew Stern visited the White House 22 times between Inauguration Day and July 31, meeting with President Barack Obama seven times and leading all visitors recorded during that period.”

You don't know who the SIEU is? They are the union that show up in purple shirts (IE the Liberal Astroturf) at every protest to outshout the regular people.

Are you getting it yet?

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Point Pleasant Tax Revolt

I recently received a heads up from the folks at George Mason regarding this blog post by Eileen Norcross. The problem and the story are pretty clear:

Residents in Point Pleasant Beach, New Jersey have resorted to a seldom-used method to protest their mayor’s proposal to raise taxes: they want him recalled from office. The recall petition containing 1,250 signatures was approved this week, giving Mayor Vincent Barella until July 22 to mount a challenge to the motion being placed on the ballot in November.

The movement to recall Mayor Barella began in the fall, after he asked the state government permission to levy local special options taxes on beach badges, paid parking lots, and alcohol — and more controversially, proposed parking fees on all neighborhood streets — to meet the $11.5 $1.5 million gap in the borough’s budget.

I caught wind of this story when I was travelling the other day. The article is a pretty good description of what can happen when a state and municipality maintain a dysfunctional financial relationship. It is well worth the read.

More interesting inherent in the discussion is the problem between cutting spending and raising taxes. No one wants to pay more taxes. That is why Barack Obama has been so effective at neutralizing this issue by saying that the "RICH GUY" will pay the bill. But folks are finding out that even when the rich guy pays the bill, he often just passes it along to you. For example, if the pizza parlor owner on the boardwalk is asked to pay more on his taxes, he and every other pizza parlor owner is going to raise the price of pizza a dollar or two. You can feel good that you "Socked it to the rich guy" but all he did was stick it right back at you. So whether the government collects it, or business passes it on, or the rich guy moves away, someone has to pay the bill.

In addition, Point Pleasant's situation is also comical on the spending side. When the proposal to cut back on the number of the city's police, residents balk. Well, again, you can't have it both ways. Cuts mean cuts. So you either cut the force or find another way to pay for it. Norcross made an excellent point here:

An excellent solution comes from Stanley Fischer, one of the petition’s authors. The beaches and boardwalks belong to the bars, amusement parks and pavilions. To deal with the summer partygoer crowd, let the boardwalk businesses hire additional police. Good idea, and it can be taken further. Point Pleasant need only look to neighboring Seaside Heights’ Business Improvement District. There are already about 80 Special Improvement Districts in the state.

Maybe Point Pleasant is a good example of individual citizens coming together and trying to come up with some good ideas to solve real (not imagined) problems. It's a shame the congress cannot seem to do the same.

We will follow this story as it develops. Hat tip to the Public Affairs team at George Mason!

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House Democrats want higher taxes for healthcare. Big shocker.

The word is that House Democrats will be proposing higher taxes on "high" wage earners to pay for their healthcare proposals. From Bloomberg:

Two people familiar with closed-door talks by committee Democrats said a House bill probably will include a surtax on incomes exceeding $250,000, as Congress seeks ways to pay for changes to a health-care system that accounts for almost 18 percent of the U.S. economy. By targeting wealthier Americans, a surtax may hold more appeal for House Democrats than a Senate proposal to tax some employer-provided health benefits.

“The surtax is obviously more attractive to Democrats in the House because it’s more progressive, which they find attractive in and of itself,” said Paul Van de Water, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a research group focused on policies affecting low- and moderate-income families.

The real joke here is that Democrats and President Obama keep proposing taxes on the "rich guy". And for every one of these proposals, the "righ guy" keeps changing. I am willing to guarantee that this will eventually translate into a tax across the board for all productive members of society.

But the bigger problem is that Democrats said they were going to pay for the stimulus by taxing "rich people". Then they were going to pay for their irresponsible budget by taxing "rich people". Then they were targeting "rich people" for the carbon tax. It seems to me that they have used this tactic to "pay for" every spending increase they have proposed.

Time to wake up America. We cannot afford another House spending proposal.

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Let's SLOW down major legislation...

The Founding Fathers designed our government to balance the passions of the masses with the discipline of good governance through the makeup of the Legislative(House and Senate), Executive and Judicial branches. But unfortunately, our legislative branch of government is broken. Why do I say that?

The Federal government has recently pushed through spending "express" style on stimulus to pass a laundry list of liberal spending priorities that have waited for decades. As of May 16, despite the legislative "emergency", only 6 percent of stimulus money had been spend. So what was the hurry?

Next up is cap and trade. And healthcare. And Democrats are planning to ram them through as well. At some point, some statesmanlike Senators or House members may appear in that caucus. But I am not holding my breath.

It is time to slow down. And make any future legislation right, not expedient. Haste makes waste. And this Congress is proof of it.

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