Minor Thoughts from me to you

Obama backs new health bill urging Americans to dress gerbils in cute, tiny lederhosen.

Heh. Related story..

This is simply unacceptable. The American President DOES NOT bow down to a king. Ever.

But that's exactly what President Obama did at the G20. President Obama bowed to the Saudi King.

Video (it's around the 53 second mark).

Red State updates an old MoveOn.org ad, questioning who will pay for the President's massive amount of deficit spending. Remember when the Democrats were against deficit spending? Boy do I miss those days.

Now, Social Security is projected to go into deficit as early as fiscal 2010. And the President's budget has increased the national debt by $6.5 trillion. That's pretty impressive for only four months of work. What will the debt look like by 2012?

Scott Rassmussen wrote about Obama's polling numbers in today's Wall Street Journal.

Polling data show that Mr. Obama's approval rating is dropping and is below where George W. Bush was in an analogous period in 2001. Rasmussen Reports data shows that Mr. Obama's net presidential approval rating -- which is calculated by subtracting the number who strongly disapprove from the number who strongly approve -- is just six, his lowest rating to date.

Overall, Rasmussen Reports shows a 56%-43% approval, with a third strongly disapproving of the president's performance. This is a substantial degree of polarization so early in the administration. Mr. Obama has lost virtually all of his Republican support and a good part of his Independent support, and the trend is decidedly negative.

A detailed examination of presidential popularity after 50 days on the job similarly demonstrates a substantial drop in presidential approval relative to other elected presidents in the 20th and 21st centuries. The reason for this decline most likely has to do with doubts about the administration's policies and their impact on peoples' lives.

People are realizing that the Obama they voted for may not have been the real Obama. The Presidential candidate who promised to fight earmarks and out of control spending just as hard as Senator McCain isn't the same person as the President who's proposing massive increases in spending.

But Republicans shouldn't be too encouraged by this news. They're still the most hated political party in America.

Finally, what probably accounts for a good measure of the confidence and support the Obama administration has enjoyed is the fact that they are not Republicans. Virtually all Americans, more than eight in 10, blame Republicans for the current economic woes, and the only two leaders with lower approval ratings than Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi are Republican leaders Mitch McConnell and John Boehner.

I've been thinking more about the recent diplomatic debacle with Great Britain. I can only see two alternatives: malice or incompetence.

Malice looks like a possibility because the Obama administration requested the DVD box set a month before PM Brown's visit. That shows that the gift was planned ahead of time. It's also far enough out that the administration could have picked a better gift -- if they'd wanted to. A DVD box set is a pretty tacky gift after all. It takes very little thought to grab a collection of Hollywood's top movies and wrap them up. It's a cheap gift. I'm sure the President could have paid for the set with pocket cash. I'd hesitate to give that kind of a gift to a family member, let alone a head of government.

So it looks like a calculated insult to one of America's best allies. Why? What possible cause could there be for insulting our allies? Is it our new strategy for making friends with our enemies? First give your ally the back of your hand and then your enemies will be willing to trust you?

Or is it incompetence? After all, Mrs. Obama gave Mr. Brown's children a couple of plastic helicopters from the White House gift shop. That doesn't sound like a planned gift at all. It sounds like somebody asked her where the children's gifts were, the morning of the visit. It sounds like she didn't have a pre-planned gift and sent a staff member on a desparate hunt for something -- anything -- that might be suitable for two young boys. It sounds like Mrs. Obama had no idea what was traditionally expected when hosting foreign dignitaries.

Incompetence is a plausible explanation. After all, Mr. Obama was previously the junior Senator from Illinois. I doubt he attended many -- if any -- of the White House's official events. If he didn't pay close attention to the news, he may not have been aware of the protocol for official visits. (Although, that still doesn't explain why someone on his staff didn't know the proper protocol.)

So, malice or incompetence. I think I'd almost prefer malice. It may be an insult to our allies, but at least it would indicate that the President had a plan. The thought of an incompetent President directing foreign affairs is enough to chill my blood.

I will say this. After this kind of gift giving, I'm ashamed to claim President Obama as my President.

President Barack Obama won election, promising to mend our "broken" diplomatic relationships. He pledged to be more welcoming of our foreign allies. Earlier this week, President Obama met with Prime Minister Brown, of England. The two government heads exchanged gifts -- a time honored diplomatic tradition. PM Brown gave President Obama some very thoughtful gifts.

The Prime Minister gave Mr Obama an ornamental pen holder made from the timbers of the Victorian anti-slave ship HMS Gannet.

The unique present delighted Mr Obama because oak from the Gannet's sister ship, HMS Resolute, was carved to make a desk that has sat in the Oval Office in the White House since 1880.

Mr Brown also handed over a framed commission for HMS Resolute and a first edition of the seven-volume biography of Churchill by Sir Martin Gilbert.

President Obama gave PM Brown some similarly thoughtful gifts.

Barack Obama, the leader of the world's richest country, gave the Prime Minister a box set of 25 classic American films - a gift about as exciting as a pair of socks.

Mr Brown is not thought to be a film buff, and his reaction to the box set is unknown.

The DVD collection included Citizen Kane, The Godfather, Star Wars: Episode IV, It's a Wonderful Life, ET, The Wizard of Oz, and Vertigo. Those are great movies, but I'm sure that England has a least one video rental store. The article says that the set "was produced by the American Film Institute as a 'special request' for the White House last month." I'm not sure why that was even necessary. Most discount chains would be happy to sell you a box set of those same movies.

Not only that, but PM Brown probably won't get much usage out of the DVDs:

Going back to the topic of is he just that stupid or is he doing it on purpose, consider the fact that Gordon Brown is blind in one eye and has some visual deterioration in the other (how much is unclear). A calculated insult could not have been more on-target.

And what about the children?

In addition, Mr Brown and his wife showered gifts on the Obama children giving Sasha and Malia an outfit each from Topshop and six children's books by British authors which are shortly to be published in America.

In return, the Obamas gave the Browns two models of the presidential helicopter, Marine One, to take home to sons Fraser and John.

I'm pretty sure you can get those same models at the White House gift shop.

How embarrassing. This is the way that America strengthens our diplomatic alliances? By giving cheap and insulting gifts to the head of government of our oldest and most reliable ally?

Let's move on the new State Department. How are they doing with the outreach to Russia?

With a media gaggle looking on, Clinton handed [Russian Foreign Minister Sergey] Lavrov a green box tied with a green bow. He opened it to reveal a "reset button," a reminder of Vice President Joe Biden's recent remark that the Obama administration hopes to reset U.S. relations with Moscow.

Trouble was, the Russian-language label the Americans put on the button had the wrong word. Before she realized the mistake, Clinton assured Lavrov, "We worked hard to get it right."

"You got it wrong," Lavrov responded with a smile. He said the word the Americans chose -- "peregruzka" -- meant "overloaded" or "overcharged" rather than "reset."

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you our new foreign policy team. Aren't they great?

I don't know about you, but I think there's something creepy about the way Obama carries his teleprompters with him where ever he goes.

President Barack Obama doesn't go anywhere without his TelePrompter.

The textbook-sized panes of glass holding the president's prepared remarks follow him wherever he speaks.

Resting on top of a tall, narrow pole, they flank his podium during speeches in the White House's stately parlors. They stood next to him on the floor of a manufacturing plant in Indiana as he pitched his economic stimulus plan. They traveled to the Department of Transportation this week and were in the Capitol Rotunda last month when he paid tribute to Abraham Lincoln in six-minute prepared remarks.

Obama's reliance on the teleprompter is unusual -- not only because he is famous for his oratory, but because no other president has used one so consistently and at so many events, large and small.

Democrats howled about suspicions that President Bush might be wearing a wire during debates with Senator Kerry. They claimed that he was programmed by his staff and couldn't speak unless he was being fed the words to say. President Obama seems unable to make a speech -- large or small -- unless a machine gives him the words to say. The rumors about President Bush were only rumors. (And thin ones at that.) The facts about President Obama speak for themselves. And they're not saying complimentary things.

I've read some good news on taxes today. At least, I think it's good news.

First, Senator Evan Bayh (D) wrote a Wall Street Journal op-ed critizing the omnibus spending bill that's currently working it's way through the Senate.

The Senate should reject this bill. If we do not, President Barack Obama should veto it.

The omnibus increases discretionary spending by 8% over last fiscal year's levels, dwarfing the rate of inflation across a broad swath of issues including agriculture, financial services, foreign relations, energy and water programs, and legislative branch operations. Such increases might be appropriate for a nation flush with cash or unconcerned with fiscal prudence, but America is neither.

Drafted last year, the bill did not pass due to Congress's long-standing budgetary dysfunction and the frustrating delays it yields in our appropriations work. Since then, economic and fiscal circumstances have changed dramatically, which is why the Senate should go back to the drawing board. The economic downturn requires new policies, not more of the same.

The solution going forward is to stop wasteful spending before it starts. Families and businesses are tightening their belts to make ends meet -- and Washington should too.

The omnibus debate is not merely a battle over last year's unfinished business, but the first indication of how we will shape our fiscal future. Spending should be held in check before taxes are raised, even on the wealthy. Most people are willing to do their duty by paying taxes, but they want to know that their money is going toward important priorities and won't be wasted.

Senator Bayh voted for the "stimulus" package, so I'm not sure how seriously to take these criticisms. Still, it is refreshing to see a Democrat criticizing a spending bill.

Secondly, Senators are starting to rebel over some of Obama's tax hikes.

The resistance from Mr. Obama's own party -- focusing on a single element of the president's tax plans -- could foreshadow broader troubles for the rest of his proposed tax increases.

Sen. Max Baucus (D., Mont.), the Senate's top tax writer as chairman of the Finance Committee, told Mr. Geithner he was especially concerned about paying for expanded health coverage with a deductions curb that "has nothing to do with health care." He added: "I'm wondering about the viability of that provision."

Charitable organizations are also worried. Indiana University's Center on Philanthropy said Wednesday that Mr. Obama's proposals to limit deductions and raise rates, if applied in 2006, would have reduced giving by nearly $4 billion, or 2.1%.

"I'd like to think that people give out of the goodness of their heart, but that tax deduction helps to loosen up the heartstrings," Nevada Democratic Rep. Shelley Berkley said Tuesday during a House Ways and Means Committee hearing.

And, let's give credit to Washington Senator Maria Cantwell (D). She makes a great point:

Another Democrat, Sen. Maria Cantwell of Washington, questioned why the administration wouldn't look for savings in the tax code through a comprehensive overhaul. "Why not look at a broader approach to tax policy, [rather] than coming in with this proposed change to marginal rates?" Ms. Cantwell said.

This is certainly an unusual post. When was the last time I praised two Democrat senators in one post? Maybe there is something to Obama's hope & change rhetoric after all.

Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin had this to say about President Obama's budget.

I'm pleased that President Obama rejected the "creative accounting" of the Bush Administration, whose budgets never included the actual costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and never fully funded the domestic programs that we desperately need - in education, health care, infrastructure, and energy. President Obama has presented us with an honest assessment of the challenges facing our nation. He also makes the tough choices necessary to restore fiscal responsibility and begin reducing the deficit, while making critical investments to help our economy not only recover, but grow.

.

Did she mean this kind of honesty?

The president used the word "honest." That's astonishing. Look, all budgets are fiction. This one is fantasia.

Look, let's start with the projections in revenue. Obama has promised to cut the deficit by the end of the first term in half. He does it by pretending that in 2011 there will be a growth in the economy of about 5.5 percent, and in the next year it will be over six.

Now, these are Chinese-level numbers, and even the Chinese aren't achieving them anymore. It is completely fictional, those numbers.

Next year he says we will grow at about 3.5 percent. Next year we could still be in negative territory.

And then on the cuts, he speaks about the $2 trillion in savings. And, actually, in the speech he gave to congress, he spoke of $2 trillion in savings, and now he has amended it, and he says, well, budget reduction.

And that's because half of it isn't savings at all. It's tax increases. And the other half is a fictional saving of a projected spending on Iraq, which would go out to ten years at the current levels, and have us spending in 2018 at a level that we are today that nobody expects and nobody even imagines.

So it's a saving of about a trillion and a half of Iraqi spending that would never have happened in the first place. And that's how he gets his spending cuts….

And on the agricultural cuts, he announced it proudly. It is $20 million, which means that if you have a thousand of those, a thousand of those, it would be 1/10 of one percent of $2 trillion in cuts he has promised.

It is a matter of scale. The cuts he's talking about are miniscule and almost risible when you look at his promises. The big cuts are actually tax increases fictional Iraq savings.

Or possibly she meant this kind of honesty.

Well, I think this budget is politically and economically risky, and precisely because it doesn't have enough spending reduction. If you look at what you've got, you've got about $2 trillion in deficit reduction.

That comes from $1.5 trillion in Iraq and Afghanistan reductions that are largely illusory. They pretend we would have spent $170 billion a year for a long time, and we're not.

And then a $700 billion increase in revenues from a cap-and-trade program that has never even come close getting through the U.S. Congress. So that's the deficit reduction, not obvious it'll come to fruition.

And then the rest is about $1 trillion of tax increases on high-income individuals and businesses to fund $1 trillion in tax cuts that are already on the books from the stimulus bill, with "Making Work Pay," Earned Income Tax Credit, things like that.

So you've got a dynamic where they're counting on things that are either illusory and hard to make happen politically -- cap-and-trade and tax increases -- to fund things that are already there. They didn't cut spending. And that makes all the deficits that are presented best-guess estimates. The risks are all the upside.

You know, I'm not sure that's really honest after all. That looks kinda like "creative accounting" if you ask me. I wonder what kind of honesty Congresswoman Baldwin meant? For Congresswoman Baldwin is an honorable woman.

David Bernstein talks about the rich:

My friends in this income bracket [$250-380K] tend to have have high mortgages, work 60-80 hours a week, pay 40-50K or more a year for child care (a nanny is necessary when you often work into the late evening--and even day care for two kids in the DC area costs close to 40K a year), and have six figures worth of student loans, primarily from professional school, that they are still paying off. In other words, approximately 100K of their pretax income is taken up by their student loans and child care costs, which are the equivalent of "startup costs". Their mortgage costs may seem excessive, but you don't easily make six figures in low-housing cost cities like Des Moines, and living in outer suburbs is very difficult when you work 12 hour days.

If a hypothetical couple's initial income is a total of $300K, and they work an average of 70 hours each, and assuming two weeks vacation, they are in effect getting a grand total of $28.57 an hour for their labors, and a fair percent of that is going to pay interest on the mortgage. I'm sure they are glad to know that they are rich enough to be taxed at over 50% of their marginal dollar.

I wonder how many people think about that when they think about soaking the rich?

Obama Delivers $3.6 Trillion Budget Blueprint - WSJ.com

The president blamed the nation's economic travails on the administration that preceded him and on a nation that lost its bearings. His budget plan projects a federal deficit of $1.75 trillion for 2009, or 12.3% of the gross domestic product, a level not seen since 1942 as the U.S. plunged into World War II.

"This crisis is neither the result of a normal turn of the business cycle nor an accident of history," the president states in an opening message of the 134-page document. "We arrived at this point as a result of an era of profound irresponsibility that engulfed both private and public institutions from some of our largest companies' executive suites to the seats of power in Washington, D.C."

By 2013, the deficit would drop to $533 billion but begin to climb from there again as the heart of the Baby Boom begins drawing Social Security and Medicare benefits.

Mr. Obama proposes large increases in education funding, including indexing Pell Grants for higher education to inflation and converting the popular scholarship to an automatic "entitlement" program. High-speed rail would gain a $1 billion-a-year grant program, part of a larger effort to boost infrastructure spending even beyond the funds in his $787 billion stimulus plan.

In one of the budget's most ambitious proposals, the president plans to cap the emissions of greenhouse gases, forcing polluters to purchase permits for emissions that would be slowly brought down to 14% below 2005 levels by 2020 and 83% below 2005 levels by 2050. The sale of those permits, beginning in 2012, would reap $646 billion through 2019. Of those revenues, $525.7 billion would be devoted to extending Mr. Obama's signature "Making Work Pay" $800 tax credit for working couples. Another $120 billion would go to clean energy technology.

Obama's 2% Illusion - WSJ.com

Even the most basic inspection of the IRS income tax statistics shows that raising taxes on the salaries, dividends and capital gains of those making more than $250,000 can't possibly raise enough revenue to fund Mr. Obama's new spending ambitions.

Consider the IRS data for 2006, the most recent year that such tax data are available and a good year for the economy and "the wealthiest 2%." Roughly 3.8 million filers had adjusted gross incomes above $200,000 in 2006. (That's about 7% of all returns; the data aren't broken down at the $250,000 point.) These people paid about $522 billion in income taxes, or roughly 62% of all federal individual income receipts. The richest 1% -- about 1.65 million filers making above $388,806 -- paid some $408 billion, or 39.9% of all income tax revenues, while earning about 22% of all reported U.S. income.

But let's not stop at a 42% top rate; as a thought experiment, let's go all the way. A tax policy that confiscated 100% of the taxable income of everyone in America earning over $500,000 in 2006 would only have given Congress an extra $1.3 trillion in revenue. That's less than half the 2006 federal budget of $2.7 trillion and looks tiny compared to the more than $4 trillion Congress will spend in fiscal 2010. Even taking every taxable "dime" of everyone earning more than $75,000 in 2006 would have barely yielded enough to cover that $4 trillion.

As the journal points out, incomes are falling fast right now. Taking a bigger share of a smaller income isn't really going to give you any extra money.

The Obama Baseline - James C. Capretta - The Corner on National Review Online

Politicians like to say they are "cutting the budget." But budget cutting can only be understood in context. Compared to what?

In budget-speak, there is a "baseline" against which budget decisions are measured. Normally, the "baseline" assumes current law and policy. But if you want to look like you are cutting the budget without really doing so, the answer is to inflate the "baseline" so that the cut is measured against an artificially high target.

President Bill Clinton did exactly that in 1993. In 1990, President Bush 41 had negotiated hard caps on appropriations spending that lasted through 1995. The "baseline" Congress used in 1992 assumed these caps held because a breach would trigger across-the-board cuts. In the first year of his presidency, Clinton wanted to look like he was cutting one dollar in spending for every dollar of taxes he was increasing, even though he wasn't willing to take the heat for real cuts. The solution? He redefined the baseline to assume the caps were no longer operative, announced his support for keeping what was already the law of the land, and claimed a sizeable spending "cut" as his own.

Pres. Barack Obama may be about to do the same thing.

Hope, change, and transparency gives way to huge, bloated budgets and more of the same old Washington tricks.

Happy Thursday!

The Medicare Advantage program gives seniors a choice. Instead of participating in the traditional Medicare program, they can "spend" their Medicare dollars on a health plan from a private insurer. President-elect Obama thinks we should eliminate that choice.

We've got to eliminate programs that don't work, and I'll give you an example in the health care area. We are spending a lot of money subsidizing the insurance companies around something called Medicare Advantage, a program that gives them subsidies to accept Medicare recipients but doesn't necessarily make people on Medicare healthier.

And if we eliminate that and other programs, we can potentially save $200 billion out of the health care system that we're currently spending, and take that money and use it in ways that are actually going to make people healthier and improve quality. So what our challenge is going to be is identifying what works and putting more money into that, eliminating things that don't work, and making things that we have more efficient.

His statement is a blatant misrepresentation of Medicare Advantage. The money isn't a subsidy, it's a payment. The government gives the health plan a fixed amount of money and in return the health plan cares for the senior. If the senior's health care costs less than the payment, the health plan makes money. If not, the health plan loses money. It's a great incentive for the health plans to find cost-effective ways to treat people.

Eliminating that incentive won't "make people healthier and improve quality". It will probably bloat costs -- traditional Medicare pays doctors for each service performed, regardless of need or outcome.

No, this isn't about saving money or increasing quality. This is about kicking my grandmother off of her much-loved Kaiser Permanente plan and forcing her back into the arms of government bureaucrats. It's about increasing the government's control over us and eliminating our health care choices.

We finally get a good, old-fashioned, political scandal -- the kind involving money and power rather than money and sex. Illinois Governor Arrested on Corruption Charges - WSJ.com

Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich was arrested Tuesday on charges of conspiring to get financial benefits through his authority to appoint a U.S. senator to fill the vacancy left by Barack Obama's election as president.

A 76-page FBI affidavit said the 51-year-old Democratic governor was intercepted on court-authorized wiretaps over the last month conspiring to sell or trade the vacant Senate seat for personal benefits for himself and his wife, Patti.

"I want to make money," the affidavit quotes him as saying in one conversation.

I knew Governor Blagojevich was corrupt but Illinois politics are just a cut above (below?) everyone else.

"In other conversations, FBI agents say the governor, his aide and others tried to use the governor's position to withhold state assistance to the Tribune Co. to induce the firing of a Chicago Tribune editorial board member critical of the governor."

I wonder what the editorial board member could have possibly been critical of? After all, the Governor is a reformer!

"Mr. Blagojevich took the chief executive's office in 2003 as a reformer promising to clean up former Gov. George Ryan's mess.

Mr. Ryan, a Republican, is serving a 6-year prison sentence after being convicted on racketeering and fraud charges. A decade-long investigation began with the sale of driver's licenses for bribes and led to the conviction of dozens of people who worked for Mr. Ryan when he was secretary of state and governor."

Then you read things like this: Senate Sale - Jonah Goldberg - The Corner on National Review Online.

"Following a 90-minute audition meeting today with Gov. Rod Blagojevich, Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr. said he was confident in the process the governor is using to make his choice for a Senate successor to President-elect Barack Obama.

"Jackson has mounted the most highly visible campaign among several people who are being considered for the Senate post. He said the meeting with Blagojevich amounted to a "very productive conversation, very thoughtful" that covered a broad range of issues."

Does that mean what I think it does? Exactly how thoughtful was that conversation and what range of issues did it cover? Byron York provides some juicy excerpts from the Federal indictment.

"if . . . they're not going to offer anything of any value, then I might just take it." ... "unless I get something real good for [Senate Candidate 1], shit, I'll just send myself, you know what I'm saying." ... "I'm going to keep this Senate option for me a real possibility, you know, and therefore I can drive a hard bargain. You hear what I'm saying. And if I don't get what I want and I'm not satisfied with it, then I'll just take the Senate seat myself." Later, ROD BLAGOJEVICH stated that the Senate seat "is a f---ing valuable thing, you just don't give it away for nothing."

On November 7, 2008, ROD BLAGOJEVICH talked with Advisor A about the Senate seat. ROD BLAGOJEVICH stated that he is willing to "trade" the Senate seat to Senate Candidate 1 in exchange for the position of Secretary of Health and Human Services in the President-elect's cabinet. 99. Later on November 7, 2008, ROD BLAGOJEVICH discussed the open Senate seat in a three-way call with JOHN HARRIS and Advisor B, a Washington D.C.-based consultant. ROD BLAGOJEVICH indicated in the call that if he was appointed as Secretary of Health and Human Services by the President-elect, then ROD BLAGOJEVICH would appoint Senate Candidate 1 to the open Senate seat. HARRIS stated "we wanted our ask to be reasonable and rather than. . .make it look like some sort of selfish grab for a quid pro quo." ROD BLAGOJEVICH stated that he needs to consider his family and that he is "financially" hurting. HARRIS said that they are considering what will help the "financial security" of the Blagojevich family and what will keep ROD BLAGOJEVICH "politically viable." ROD BLAGOJEVICH stated, "I want to make money." During the call, ROD BLAGOJEVICH, HARRIS, and Advisor B discussed the prospect of working a three-way deal for the open Senate seat. HARRIS noted that ROD BLAGOJEVICH is interested in taking a high-paying position with an organization called "Change to Win," which is connected to Service Employees International Union ("SEIU"). HARRIS suggested that SEIU Official make ROD BLAGOJEVICH the head of Change to Win and, in exchange, the President-elect could help Change to Win with its legislative agenda on a national level.

Oooh. That's good: three-way quid pro quo between a corrupt governor, a potentially corrupt union, and a newly elected President from a corrupt state machine. This could be the Teapot Dome or Grant years all over again!

Finally, it looks like that Senate seat will stay open and U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald will get to keep his job. Merry Fitzmas in Illinois! - David Freddoso - The Corner on National Review Online

But for now, two important observations. First, no one wants a Senate appointment from a man accused of selling the seat. We may need a change of governor soon. There is no law in Illinois providing for situations in which the governor temporarily gives up his powers. The general assembly would have to pass such a law. An impeachment is probably more likely. Blagojevich could appoint someone from jail, but I don't think the Senate would seat such an appointment under these circumstances. Second, by arresting Blagojevich before Inauguration Day, U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald has done the one thing that absolutely prevents Barack Obama from removing him from his position. As he has worked doggedly to send corrupt politicians (many of them Obama's friends and political allies) to prison Fitzgerald has arguably become the most important man in Illinois politics.

And there's not a thing President Obama can do to stop any of this. His political support will start evaporating the moment he looks anything like a corrupt Chicago politician. Voters were hoping to elect a clean politician who would give them Hope and bring about Change to Washington. He can't afford to look like just another corrupt pol.

I'm going to pop some popcorn and settle back to find out exactly how many Illinois governors in a row can be arrested on corruption charges. We've got 2 so far. Can we make it 3?

Apparently, the Iranians don't like President-elect Obama as much as America does.

While the US election results and President Mahmud Ahmadinejad's congratulatory letter to President-elect Obama have sparked debate among Iranian officials and media about the prospects for improved relations with Washington, media connected to key power centers in Iran, including President Ahmadinejad, have harshly criticized Obama, calling him a "house slave" days before Ayman al-Zawahiri, Al-Qa'ida's second in command, used the same term.

• In an 11 November commentary, Borna News Agency, which is close to Ahmadinezhad, called Obama a "house slave," adding that those who "trust such a politician lack maturity, if they are not committing treason" -- a likely reference to Iranian moderates. A day earlier, in an interview with Borna, Ahmadinezhad's press adviser Ali Akbar Javanfekr characterized Ahmadinezhad's letter to Obama as a "new political move" and advised Obama "not to make the mistake of not responding."

• In an editorial entitled "A Dark Person Rises to Remove Darkness From America," Sobh-e Sadegh, which is published by Supreme Leader Ali Khamene'i's representative to the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), wrote that "Obama's acceptance of unconditional negotiations with Iran" would signal a "new beginning" only if "coexistence with a nuclear Iran and acceptance of its regional role are part of the US negotiating position." It added that the "appointment of the extremist Jew Rahm Emanuel as the [White House] chief of staff is not a good sign" (10 November).

• In an editorial entitled "The Great Satan Masked as Obama," the official Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) said that the "United States is the embodiment of Satan. Hence, in this circus, for anyone but the slaves of Satan to take charge of the government is impossible." It added that Iranians "who are ecstatic about Obama are either ignorant or have a plot [against Iran]" (5 November).

There's more.

Barack Obama and the Democrats have been hammering the Bush tax cuts ever since they were signed into law. Over the last 6 years we've heard an endless litany of complaints about the tax cuts. Most complaints center around the claim that Bush cut taxes for the wealthy, gave away huge amounts of money to the rich, and left the rest of the country to rot.

How well is that claim holding up? Not so well [Warning: PDF.].

Congressional Budget Office (CBO) data show that the total effective federal tax rate of the middle fifth of households declined after 2001 to its lowest levels since at least 1979, Congressman Jim Saxton, ranking member of the Joint Economic Committee, said today. Under the 2001 and 2003 tax relief legislation, the income tax as a share of income for the middle fifth also has fallen to its lowest levels in decades.

Huh. Boy, I'm sure glad that we'll finally be rid of President Bush's failed economic policies.

Quote of the day.

Obama laughs off the charge of socialist behavior -- and to be fair, socialism isn't the precise term to affix to his ideas. It's more like Robin Hood economics. On a recent campaign stop, Obama joked that, by the end of the week, McCain would be accusing him "of being a secret communist because I shared my toys in kindergarten."

A funny line. But, of course, Obama's lofty intellect must comprehend the fundamental difference between sharing your G.I. Joe with a friend and having a bully snatch your G.I. Joe for the collective, prepubescent good. It's the difference between coercion and free association and trade. In practical terms, it's the difference between government cheese and a meal at Ruth's Chris.

Now, I'm not suggesting Obama intends to transform this nation into 1950s-era Soviet tyranny or that he will possess the power to do so. I'm suggesting Obama is praising and mainstreaming an economic philosophy that has failed to produce a scintilla of fairness or prosperity anywhere on Earth. Ever.

• If it redistributes like a duck... - The Denver Post

It's popular among the Christian left to talk up the "Old Testament" values of social justice: caring for the poor, paying fair wages, not perverting justice, etc. They're fond of the Old Testament prophets and the prophets jeremiads against wealth and privilege.

Increasingly, the Christian left is also fond of promoting Democrat candidates and talking about how Republican candidates only look out for the rich and powerful. The exact people that the Old Testament prophets inveighed against. Ergo, the Old Testament prophets hated Republican ideals and all good Christians will vote against Republican ideals.

If that's true, what should we make of the Democrats record on free trade? After all, the poor in America are far richer than the poor in the third world. By any just standard, the America's poor are rich. They're poor only if they're exclusively compared to other Americans. Free trade is the biggest and best "social justice" platform in existence. Free trade spreads the wealth around the entire world and gives opportunities to billions of people in the third world.

If we do as the Democrats demand -- if we restrict free trade -- we remove opportunities from billions of impoverished people. "Fair trade" would take jobs away from those that need them the most. "Fair trade" would raise prices for those that can least afford to pay them. "Fair trade" would benefit rich Americans (that is, all Americans) at the expense of the global poor.

Is that Christian? I don't think so. But don't take my word for it. India has good reason to fear a Democrat government.

So, pressures will mount for protectionist measures and beggar-thy-neighbour policies in the US, hurting countries like India. Apart from erecting import barriers and subsidising dumped exports, US politicians will seek to curb the outsourcing of services to India. Visa curbs will slow the movement of skilled workers and their dollar remittances back to India.

[Obama] has voted against trade barriers only 36% of the time. He supported export subsidies on the two occasions on which he voted, a 100% protectionist record in this regard.

In 2007, he voted to reduce visas issued to foreign workers (such as Indian software engineers), and to ban Mexican trucks on US roads. He sometimes voted for free trade - he supported the Oman Free Trade Act and a bill on miscellaneous tariff reductions and trade preference extensions. More often he voted for protectionist measures including 100% scanning of imported containers (which would make imports slower and costlier), and emergency farm spending.

In 2005 he voted to impose sanctions on China for currency manipulation, and against the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA). He voted for the Byrd amendment, a disgraceful bill (later struck down by the WTO) that gifted anti-dumping duties to US producers who complained, thus making complaining more profitable than competitive production.

Obama says the North American Free Trade agreement is a bad one, and must be renegotiated. He has opposed the US-Colombia Free Trade Agreement on the bogus ground that Colombia is not protecting its trade union leaders from the drug mafia. In fact, such assassinations have fallen steadily from 205 in 2001 to just 25 last year. Obama is cynically twisting facts to woo the most protectionist US trade unions. This cannot but worry India, which may also be subjected to bogus slander and trade disadvantages.

Unlike Obama, McCain voted against imposing trade sanctions on China for supposedly undervaluing its currency to keep exports booming and accumulate large forex reserves. India has followed a similar policy, though with less export success than China. But if indeed India achieves big success in the future, it could be similarly targeted by US legislators and, will need people like McCain to resist.

Obama favours extensive subsidies for US farmers, hitting Third World exporters like India. This has been one of the issues on which the Doha Round of WTO is gridlocked. McCain could open the gridlock, Obama will strengthen it.

Obama also favours subsidies for converting maize to ethanol. The massive diversion of maize from food to ethanol has sent global food and fertiliser prices skyrocketing, hitting countries like India. But McCain has always opposed subsidies for both US agriculture and ethanol. While campaigning, he had the courage to oppose such subsidies even in Iowa, an agricultural state he badly needs to win if he is to become president.

I want to help the poor. I want the poor to succeed and become rich. I don't want to protect the rich at the expense of the poor. That's why I support open borders, free trade, and no import / export tariffs. That's why I'm surprised that so many people who talk so much about helping the poor consistently support policies that will make the rich richer and the poor poorer.

Life is full of risk. No matter how hard we try, we can't eliminate that risk. Nor should we. Risk leads directly to rewards. Not all of the time. Sometimes risk leads to failure. But those failures teach us what we need to know in order to reach the rewards. More than that, it's impossible to reach a reward without taking a risk along the way.

Each crisis that comes along gives us a chance to learn a lesson and reach for a bigger reward. But we have another option. Instead of striving forward, we can cower in fear of what's around the bend. Instead of striving forward, we can attempt to stay exactly where we are, praying that things don't get worse.

That's where we are with this election. Michael Barone wrote today about Obama's vision for the country. It's a vision of fear. It's a vision that says we need to freeze things where they are, before they get any worse. It's a vision that seeks to remove all risk by franctically holding tight to what we have. It's a vision that just may prevent us from getting poorer. But it's also a vision that we'll ensure that we don't get richer.

Is this the vision you want?

The purpose of New Deal legislation was not, as commonly thought, to restore economic growth but rather to freeze the economy in place at a time when it seemed locked in a downward spiral. Its central program, the National Recovery Administration (NRA), created 700 industry councils for firms and unions to set minimum prices and wages. The Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA), the ancestor of our farm bills, limited production to hold up prices. Unionization, encouraged by NRA and the 1935 Wagner Act, was meant to keep workers in jobs that the unemployed would have taken at lower pay.

These policies did break the downward spiral. But, as Amity Shlaes points out in The Forgotten Man, they failed to restore growth. Double-digit unemployment continued throughout the 1930s; despite population growth, the economy failed to rebound to 1920s production levels. High taxes on high earners (a Herbert Hoover as well as Franklin Roosevelt policy) financed welfare payments ("spread the wealth around") but reduced investment and growth.

Obama seems determined to follow policies better suited to freezing the economy in place than to promoting economic growth. Higher taxes on high earners, for one. He told Charlie Gibson he would raise capital-gains taxes even if that reduced revenue: less wealth to spread around, but at least the rich wouldn't have it -- reminiscent of the Puritan sumptuary laws that prohibited the wearing of silk. Moves toward protectionism like Hoover's (Roosevelt had the good sense to promote free trade). National health insurance that threatens to lead to rationing and to stifle innovation. Promoting unionization by abolishing secret ballot union elections.

Roosevelt in the 1930s had some extremely competent social engineers, like Harry Hopkins, Harold Ickes and Fiorello LaGuardia, who could enroll 750,000 people on welfare in three weeks and build an airport in less than a year. But even they could not spur the economic growth produced by utterly unknown and unconnected people, as Warren Buffett and Bill Gates were in 1970.

Reject social engineering. Reject the temptation to believe that somewhere out there is some One that can lead us into a brighter tomorrow. No One person can understand the American economy well enough to plan a brighter tomorrow. We only have one hope. And I won't lie: it entails risk.

We must place our hope in the thousands of inventors and entrepreneurs that will create the world of tomorrow. We don't know who they are. We don't know what they'll create. We don't know where they'll come from or where they'll take us. But if American history teaches us one thing, it teaches us this. The American entreprenurial spirit will take us somewhere we never expected, somewhere we never could have imagined, but somewhere far better than we dared dream. Just contrast the world of 1908 with the world of 2008. Wasn't it worth a little risk? Even with a Great Depression in the middle, didn't it turn out far better than our great-grandparents would have ever dreamed?

Reject fear and embrace hope. Reject those who would tie our economy down with new rules, with new regulations, with new concepts of "fairness". Embrace change, embrace risk, and look forward to the future with confidence. Looking back, I see no reason to fear looking forward.

Do you want to join a union? In Barack Obama's America, you may be forced to. Obama has promised to sign the Employee Free Choice Act, if elected President. What would the Employee Free Choice Act do? Well, take this example.

The Union targets Joe's employer for unionization. There are 100 employees in the proposed bargaining unit, so under EFCA the union only needs to convince 51 of them to sign authorization cards for the union to be certified as the collective bargaining representative for all 100.

The Union leaders are pretty sophisticated at organizing. After all, it's what they do. Pretty quickly they identify both the employees most receptive to unionization as well as those most opposed. Joe falls into the latter group so the Union never even attempts to get him to sign a card. In fact, since most of the pro-union employees work a different shift, Joe's not even aware a union drive is going on.

The Union gets 51 employees to sign cards and gets certified by the NLRB as the collective bargaining representative for all employees -- including Joe, who had absolutely no say in whether he wanted a union.

The Union and Joe's employer begin negotiations but can't get an agreement within 120 days. Under EFCA, a government-appointed arbitrator then writes the "contract". The arbitrator puts a union security and dues check-off clause in the "contract", thereby requiring Joe's employer to deduct $45 a month from Joe's paycheck and remit the amount to the union. The arbitrator also orders Joe's employer to pay a 5% wage increase -- an amount that squeezes the employer's margin. The employer considers lay offs to avoid losses. Joe is near the bottom of the seniority list.

Under EFCA, the arbitrator's order is binding for two years. Joe and his co-workers can't reject it. Joe's company can't reject it.

Let's review: Joe had no choice in being represented by the union. He had no choice in paying union dues. He had no choice in accepting the arbitrator's order that might lead to his lay-off.

Joe concludes that the correct title is the Employee No Choice Act.

How do you like that? I sure don't.

Obama, 7 years ago, lamented the fact that the Civil Rights movement wasn't able bring about more wealth redistribution.

If you look at the victories and failures of the civil rights movement and its litigation strategy in the court. I think where it succeeded was to invest formal rights in previously dispossessed people, so that now I would have the right to vote. I would now be able to sit at the lunch counter and order as long as I could pay for it I'd be o.k. But, the Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth, and of more basic issues such as political and economic justice in society.

To that extent, as radical as I think people try to characterize the Warren Court, it wasn't that radical. It didn't break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the founding fathers in the Constitution, at least as its been interpreted and Warren Court interpreted in the same way, that generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties. Says what the states can't do to you. Says what the Federal government can't do to you, but doesn't say what the Federal government or State government must do on your behalf, and that hasn't shifted and one of the, I think, tragedies of the civil rights movement was, um, because the civil rights movement became so court focused I think there was a tendency to lose track of the political and community organizing and activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalition of powers through which you bring about redistributive change. In some ways we still suffer from that. ...

I'm not optimistic about bringing about major redistributive change through the courts. You know, the institution just isn't structured that way.