Wednesday, February 4, 2009

It's just the beginning . . .

Karl Marx

Today Barack Obama announced a salary limit of 500K/year on executives for banks and companies receiving bailout money . The government is indeed taking over. What if the "market value" of some of these positions is only 250K? Will the companies decide to take less money from the government? Doubt it. What's going to happen is MORE executives will be making 500K even if the value of their position is less. Now imagine you're a talented business executive with one of these companies with job offers in other industries. What would you do? People are going to be "bailing out" like rats on a sinking ship. These companies will fail by attrition. Obama also signed a bill today for health insurance for children up to the age of 34. Supposedly it will be funded by smokers paying $1 in federal taxes on every pack of cigarettes they buy. The average income of smoking Americans is $70,000/year. It's also been determined that the more educated a person is, the less likely he/she is to smoke. In addition, the more expensive the product is, the more likely smokers will quit. So who is paying for this program? Poor, uneducated Americans and the middle class. In order for SCHIP to be fully funded, we need an increase of 25 million smokers in this country. So, help the kids and light up. Do it for your country! Obama also stated now is not the time to get picky on the stimulus bill. He said perfection is the enemy of achieving something essential. So let's half-ass the whole thing and save the economy! As BO said today while signing the SCHIP bill, "This is just the beginning".

7 comments:

vwatt said...

Another week of progress like this and we'll have about 90% of the Bush reign of incompetency erased! :

Obama Signs Children’s Health Insurance Bill


By ROBERT PEAR
Published: February 4, 2009

WASHINGTON — The House gave final approval on Wednesday to a bill extending health insurance to millions of low-income children, and President Obama signed it this afternoon, in the first of what he hopes will be many steps to guarantee coverage for all Americans.

The roll call ended a two-year odyssey for the child health legislation, which President George W. Bush adamantly opposed on the ground it would lead to “government-run health care for every American.”

The Obama White House, battered by a debacle over Tom Daschle’s nomination to be secretary of health and human services, exulted in the passage of the bill, saying it showed how much difference an election could make. Mr. Bush vetoed two similar bills, and the House failed to overturn those vetoes.

Democrats were so sure of victory on Wednesday that the White House scheduled a signing ceremony before the House even passed the bill.

Representative Henry A. Waxman, the California Democrat who is chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, said, “While this bill is short of our ultimate goal of health reform, it is a down payment, and is an essential start.”

Ms. Pelosi said that passage of the legislation showed that elections had results."

Boy do they-lovin it!! And this one:

Salazar Voids Drilling Leases On Public Lands in Utah

By Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, February 5, 2009; 12:03 AM

In a clear signal that the Obama administration is shifting the government's approach to energy exploration on public lands, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar yesterday canceled oil and gas leases on 77 parcels of federal land after opponents said the drilling would blight Utah's scenic southeastern corner.

Salazar's decision -- which reverses the Bush administration's move to allow drilling on about 130,000 acres near pristine areas such as Nine Mile Canyon, Arches National Park and Dinosaur National Monument -- is one of a series of steps that the new administration and congressional Democrats are planning to reshape federal regulation of drilling, mining, lumbering and other resource-tapping activities, both on U.S. soil and offshore.

Next week the House Natural Resources Committee will hold the first in a series of scheduled hearings on offshore oil drilling, the policies on which Salazar has said he intends to revamp in consultation with Congress. Salazar is also reviewing a rule easing commercial oil shale development; he must decide what federal parcels to offer in pending lease sales in the West; and he will have to decide in the coming months on land-management plans for areas in Colorado and Wyoming that contain valuable resources as well as imperiled species and wilderness habitat.

On Tuesday, Salazar pulled eight parcels from an imminent lease sale in Wyoming after Gov. Dave Freudenthal (D) asked for a more detailed review.

"The policy positions of the department over the last eight years have really been driven out of the White House, and we're looking at many of those decisions," Salazar said in a telephone call with reporters yesterday.

vwatt said...

"Talented business executives... with job offers in other industries?"
Surely you are jesting(no I'm not and don't call me Shirley)!! What jobs?? What talent?-they put us in this mess-can't be too talented!! You could take just about any 30 yr. old with an MBA and they could do a reasonable job in 99% of the executive positions in this country....and believe me there are plenty of them willing to work right now for less than 500k!! Plus the bill does not prevent them from receiving additional stock(please check your facts and turn off Limbaugh) which can only be cashed in after the gov't is repaid in full plus interest!! We have a whole lot more to worry about in this country than protecting multi- million $$ salaries for a select few!! Wow! Not trying to be too harsh but a reality check is seriously in order!! Or maybe you just decided the blog needed to be livened up!!

Mike West said...

The picture is of the new candidate for Health & Human Services Secretary after Daschle withdrew.
If the bailout is going to happen, I actually agree in attaching strings. It provides a bit of accountability at least until they figure how to beat the system. I guess we could debate the amount of the cap but $500,000 is a good place to start. If they can't find someone smart enough and willing to work for 1/2 mil then this world has gotten crazier than I thought. They should attach a freeze to all pay increases. That would prevent someone having their salary increased to match the cap. If people want to walk, let them walk, they weren't getting the job done anyway and the system could benefit from a nice purging. I agree - we're getting into socialist territory which will be disastrous long term but the train has left the station and nobody seems to care about the long-term. A week of progress? Not by my definition.

Brodad Unkabuddy said...

How can you look at clowns like Pelosi, Reid, Waxman, Waters, Frank, Franken, and Biden and even think these are the people I want to follow!?They are idiots! Pelosi quoted not once but twice about the 500 million jobs lost each month. Hello, you idiot, there are only 300 million people total in the USA. Do you REALLY think that's competent leadership? Canceling oil leases and curtailing oil exploration, THAT'S competence? It's idiocy. Whatever happened to the push for energy independence? Oh that's right. Thousands of thirty foot windmills will fit right into the scenic beauty of our landscapes.
Eurocare - that's competence? Ask the European and Canadians where they go once they're tired of standing in line and need REAL healthcare. There's not one person in this country who if they need healthcare doesn't get it. (But I do think the doctors get paid too much and hopefully the government will put a cap on their salaries too) Personally, I think the entertainment industry pays their people too much. There should be a salary cap there also. The bottom line is ANY company who comes to the government for help becomes controlled by the government. And thanks to the collapse of the mortgage industry due to Barney Frank and Chris Dodd and their boyfriends at Fannie and Freddie , which led to the collapse of the banking industry, which has led to collapse of credit, which is hurting every industry, the Democrats are in a position to take over all of it - just like Maxine Waters said they should. I knew when Obama was elected, there would be a move towards socialism. I just never thought it would happen so fast. How many of Obama's selectees have had tax problems? I think it's up to 4 now. Geez . . . Talk about incompetence. The guy is using fear as his motivator. The last President to do that was Jimmy Carter. Now there was some competent leadership.

Brodad Unkabuddy said...

"Wow! Not trying to be too harsh but a reality check is seriously in order!! " My thoughts exactly. Where do you draw the line? Is the government going to tell these companies how much to spend on supplies, raw materials, and equipment to produce their products? Is the government going to negotiate their UNION contracts for them? (Which, by the way, do these salary caps free up more money for the unions?) Is the government going to tell these companies how much to spend on healthcare and RETIREMENT? How much is the government going to allow these companies to spend on R&D? Does BO have the answers to these questions? Maybe you should start asking some tough questions too, and quit listening to the Mouth of Fargo. By the way, try listening to Limbaugh and see if you can catch him in a lie. (Most people who bash Limbaugh never listen to him.) You can't, because he doesn't lie. He doesn't have to. He's too busy busting Pelosi and company on their lies.

vwatt said...

We need MORE Rush(at least thru 2012)- if his weight and oxycodone habit don't get him first:

Poll: Limbaugh Could Galvanize Dems, Alienate Independents
By Eric Kleefeld - February 6, 2009, 12:16PM

A new Gallup poll explains why Democrats are now so eager to connect the anti-stimulus bill Republicans to Rush Limbaugh, and to set up Rush as the new Leader of the Opposition: Independents hate him, he can galvanize Democrats...and Republican voters actually do like him.

Limbaugh's favorable-unfavorable numbers among Republicans stand at 60%-23%. Among independents, though, he's at just 25%-45%. And Democrats definitely have it in for him at 6%-63%. Multiplying out the partisan subsets in this poll, we get an overall top-line result of 28% favorability for Limbaugh across the country, compared to 45% unfavorable.

So if Limbaugh does become a national issue, the data shows he could be a net plus for the Dems -- though the obvious caveat exists that swing voters could have more important things to worry about than some radio loudmouth.

Brodad Unkabuddy said...

Rush has 2 million listeners a day. Poll-wise, who gives a crap? I guarantee he's not galvanizing the left because the left doesn't have the balls to listen to him. If they did, they'd no longer be the left. The vast majority rely on drive-by bloggers who take his comments out of context and try to make a big deal of it. I'm still waiting to hear some of his "lies". As far as his drug habit is concerned, I guess he and Obama have something in common. They're both drug abusers. The difference is Rush had treatment.