We used to fight this battle constantly at the post office. Our craft truck drivers made $20 an hour and constantly lost work to contractors who cost just as much, had idiotically restrictive contracts, and whose drivers made $10 an hour. The difference was the contractor who schmoozed postal officials and congressmen, did no work and got rich.

If you didn’t like the way I ran our union local, you could argue the point with me, come to meetings and voice your opinion, vote for someone else in the next election, or run against me yourself. If you didn’t like the way your boss ran your work unit, you could complain to him and get dumped on until he got promoted.

You’re right that there has to be balance. But there hasn’t been balance between employers and unions for thirty years. The employers have all the guns.

The 2009 spending from the stimulus was (at maximum) $83B in infrastructure pending plus whatever was claimed by businesses taking the tax deductions (do they add to the deficit?) plus the direct payments to taxpayers (which don’t count as spending since they’re just returning peoples money, right?) The balance of the money spent by the fedgov in 2009 was from GWBs last budget. And yes, that is the baseline – Congress’ last budget.

“All bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives”. Congress defines how and how much spending occurs. The current spending is defined by Congress. Obama signs legislation passed by Congress. Congress is responsible for the spending. Obama may WANT to spend more (or differently), but we’ll never know because Congress dictates the spending, just as they did when conservative Reagan added $3.5T to the national debt (up from $400B) and just as they did when conservative GWB added $6T to the national debt. And as with Obama today, the never vetoed a spending bill and spent what Congress dictated.

Have a great weekend.

The “primary activity of the left” is to try to ensure that no-one in the society is discriminated against (even if some are temporarily put upon); no-one is left behind. They presume to use governmental action to try to accomplish this. The far right also espouses the same goals but assumes that people left to their own devices will ultimately arrive at the same place. Those who cannot are lebelled “leftist slackers” and left to die on a deserted roadside?

Not to be too subtle about it, but “All bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives” (you may recognize the phrase from Section 7.) Until the house produces a sanely structured budget than both parties can agree to, as opposed to budget language scabbed onto an anti-abortion bill or other such nonsense, there is no budget. “Obama’s wild spending” is driven by the CRs, which in turn derive from the last budget approved by Congress. He cannot spend willy-nilly (only Congress can do that), but only on what hits his desk, meaning that the $1.5T debt increase per year is driven by Congressional (in)action and low tax revenues. McCain or Romney would be doing the same thing Obama is doing, though possibly excoriating Congress along the way.

Have a great weekend.

EdC is a really nice guy. His intentions are good, but his thinking is extremely clouded. Like a lot of leftists, they dont understand how or why people behave like they do. They only see a vision of what they believe must be true if only everyone complied with their desires and rules. In general, many really are very nice people. They’re just wrong.

Remember this: Liberalism is the disease that presents itself as its own cure.

Have a nice day and a great Memorial Day weekend!

I have noticed a definite trend here… every one of the leftists that comment on this site are sold hook, line, and sinker on Keynesian economics. 10 to 1, most of you are just parroting what you’ve heard others say. But you all seem to like it because it gives you theoretical cover for the favorite activity of the left…. spending other people’s money. The problem is, and even Keynes knew himself, that when your spending not only other people’s money, but FAR out into the future the money of people who have yet to be born 2 or 3 generations ahead (read excessively high debt), the so-called “multiplier effect” is diminished significantly to actually not even exist and is most likely negative. For every dollar borrowed, there is interest cost that continues to build. The more debt we have, the more likely costs of borrowing are to increase. As costs of borrowing escalate, the same downward spiral that has gripped Greece and much of Europe will grip America. It’s not a political problem, john, it’s a math problem. And the laws of math apply evenly everywhere, unfortunately.

So while you like to argue this “party vs. party” crap, and buy off on the lies that Obozo is NOT a big spender, the very facts published by his own Treasury Dept. contradict such a wacky notion.

The fact that Obozo is out there stumping and saying he’s not a big spender is actually embarrassing. He looks like a complete fool, and he’s making American’s look like complete fools.

Obozo cannot hide from his record, no matter how much he lies about it.

Have nice day and a great Memorial Day weekend, john!

Every single year, Obozo spends in deficit about $1.5TRILLION. You have to be high on crack to dispute this. No sane person does. Only the most hardcore leftist nutjobs believe anything other. Obozo has been the biggest spender in our nation’s history and it’s not even close, except maybe that disaster and spawn of the devil himself FDR.

FACT from the US Treasury — Obozo’s government is spending $9.8BILLION per day. Bush was horrible and his government spent $6.5B per day. Clinton was at $4.1B and Reagan was at $2.5B. I forget what GHWB was, but it was more than Reagan and less than Clinton.

Have a nice day, and a pleasant Memorial Day weekend, jonh!

Have a nice day, and a pleasant Memorial Day weekend!