I give you a link… and a link is all you get.

Comment if you wish. I’ll be happy to respond.

The greatest lie about President Clinton.

If you’ve ever talked politics with me, I’ve probably admitted to you that I think former President Clinton was a good president. While an intelligent man himself, he surrounded himself with contextually intelligent persons to fill gaps in and enhance his knowledge resulting in a very complete and competent administration. For years, we’ve heard about Clinton’s surpluses and how Bush Jr. simply decimated the national budget and I think most people took that at face value. Realistically, Bush took us into two wars completely unfunded as a populist response to homeland attacks. Spending billions on wars over and above your regular budget really does a number on your ability to be fiscally responsible. Today… I learned those accusations aren’t necessarily founded in fact.

According to the government’s own data, Clinton increased the national debt consistently each year he was in office for a total of about $1.5T for his presidency (’93-’01).

• 03/01/2001 5,726,774,439,028.95
• 09/30/2000 5,674,178,209,886.86
• 09/30/1999 5,656,270,901,615.43
• 09/30/1998 5,526,193,008,897.62
• 09/30/1997 5,413,146,011,397.34
• 09/30/1996 5,224,810,939,135.73
• 09/29/1995 4,973,982,900,709.39
• 09/30/1994 4,692,749,910,013.32
• 03/01/1993 4,205,086,748,556.94

I do have to be fair to the numbers. Bush Jr. did much worse. While he never had a year over year growth in the trillions, he did increase the debt $5.1T (’01-’09).

• 03/01/2009 10,877,144,501,237.52
• 09/30/2008 10,024,724,896,912.49
• 09/30/2007 9,007,653,372,262.48
• 09/30/2006 8,506,973,899,215.23
• 09/30/2005 7,932,709,661,723.50
• 09/30/2004 7,379,052,696,330.32
• 09/30/2003 6,783,231,062,743.62
• 09/30/2002 6,228,235,965,597.16
• 03/01/2001 5,726,774,439,028.95

Why should anyone care? Depends… did you believe that Clinton was actually reducing our national debt? Meanwhile, Obama is really going nuts. $2.1T in less than 2 years. A third of Obama’s first term is well over a third of Bush’s entire presidency…

• 03/01/2009 10,877,144,501,237.52
• 09/30/2009 11,909,829,003,511.75
• 05/25/2010 12,987,796,841,336.51

Do you like taxes?

Nothing to see here, move along.

So, the historic health care legislation has passed and it was so important to get it done because it is just so damned historic. We’ve removed this health care blight from our society with this historic legislation and we’ve done it in such a historic way…. historic.

So… what do we have? No one is really sure yet of all of the consequences, but here is what I’ve read over the last few weeks (sorry for not having sources for a lot of this).

• We were promised that college students could be covered by their parents plan until age 26, immediately. This is not actually enforced for a minimum of 6 mo. from signing.
• We were promised that underprivileged children whose parents could not afford insurance would have immediate access to coverage. This is also not enforced for a minimum of 6 mo. from signing.
• We were promised that health insurance premiums would drop by double digits. In fact, the CBO predicts that non-group premiums will rise and average group premiums will stay the same
• We were promised huge changes in the operations of Medicare and Medicaid to reduce costs and those that are uninsured would be made eligible for these systems. Nearly $500B in taxes and fees do begin in this fiscal year and a $500B cut in Medicare financing will take place (probably) in the next Omnimbus/Federal budget. However, reforms to cut waste and the new eligibility standards don’t take effect until 2013-2014.

Now that the bill is passed and private industry can see its language, we’re also seeing unintended side effects of this bill. AT&T reports nearly $1B in annual costs will be added to their budget and has said they are in the process of reviewing their domestic health care plans for current and retired employees. Caterpillar reports $100M and John Deer $150M in new costs. Given the way businesses should RIGHTFULLY work, what can we expect? 1.) Reduced benefits to employees, 2.) given the enormous new burden on companies, probably lower wages or at a minimum stagnant raises (i.e. significantly less than inflation), 3.) increased costs to consumers to help absorb costs. Congratulation Barac Obama, Nancy Pilosi and Harry Reid! You’ve just screwed the middle class!

Sanity…

Depending on who you listen to, Tuesday’s election results in Massachusetts is either the second coming of Jesus or a catastrophe on the level of Haiti’s recent earthquake (I shit you not, it was on CNBC but I can’t find a link). I know nothing about Scott Brown, so I don’t know if his political beliefs will prove to benefit anyone (as someone I’m friends with posted on their FaceBook status: “Way to F it up MA: Coakley is far from perfect, but you just helped elect someone who hates gays, women, the environment, the poor and the elderly. Awesome.”), but I can say that the lack of a super majority in the Senate will bring some sanity back to our legislature.
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Politics makes me sad.

I think Obama missed the point of stimulus and economic recovery. We were supposed to create American jobs if any at all. Now we have the administration pointing to a glimer of light at the end of a very long tunnel and saying the recession is over, never mind that unemployment is at 9.8% or that Obama raped us with a stimulus bill (less than 20% of which has been used in the 9 months since passing) saying it would keep us at or under 8%. With two democratic governors in extremely hard races in the coming election cycle, I hope Obama and the rest of the nuts who think hiding $250 billion from the American people is a good way to run our government take this as a referendum on their policies… More I hope America doesn’t stop at two gubernatorial races and gets rid of anyone who has or does support any of the ridiculous policies floating around in Washington.