Minor Thoughts from me to you

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WPRI Report: Rebuilding and Modernizing Wisconsin's Interstates with Toll Financing

WPRI Report: Rebuilding and Modernizing Wisconsin's Interstates with Toll Financing →

This is the real work of "rebuilding America's crumbling roads". And the money involved is going to require everyone to pitch in, especially the people who use Wisconsin's roads the most.

All highways wear out over time, despite ongoing maintenance. Over the next 30 years, most of Wisconsin’s Interstate system will exceed its nominal 50-to 60-year design life and will need complete reconstruction. When that point is reached, it makes sense to update designs to current safety and operational standards, as was done recently in the reconstruction of the Marquette interchange. And in corridors where demand is projected to exceed capacity, resulting in heavy congestion, it makes sense to add lanes.

Wisconsin already has a $1 billion per year highway funding gap. The total $26.2 billion cost of this Interstate program is far beyond the ability of current transportation funding sources to handle. Federal and state fuel tax revenues, the largest source of transportation funding, are in long-term decline in real, or inflation-adjusted, terms, and a portion of Wisconsin’s vehicle registration fee revenue is now committed for several decades to paying debt service on transportation revenue bonds issued since2003 to cover funding shortfalls. General obligation bonds, with general fund debt service, were also issued to make up for recent diversion of transportation fund revenue to the state’s general fund. To rebuild the rural Interstate and southeastern freeway system in a timely manner will require an additional source of transportation revenue.

This study explores the feasibility of using toll revenue financing to pay for this $26.2 billion reconstruction and modernization program. Under the principle of value-added tolling, tolls would not be charged on a corridor until it was reconstructed and modernized. All toll revenues would be dedicated to the rural Interstate and southeastern freeway system corridors, as pure user fees. Based on a 30-year program of reconstruction and assuming moderate toll rates comparable to those on other toll road systems, the study estimates that the entire rural Interstate program could be financed by toll revenue bonds. For the southeastern freeway system, one option is to toll only the new lanes, operating them as express toll lanes. Doing so would produce enough revenue to cover about 17% of the cost of the entire freeway system reconstruction. Tolling would be all electronic, with no toll booths or toll plazas to impede traffic. If political support could be garnered to price all lanes on the southeastern freeway system instead, our analysis estimates that the revenues would cover 71% of the cost of reconstruction.

At what point does the need for security eclipse human dignity and compassion?

At what point does the need for security eclipse human dignity and compassion? →

Yesterday I went through the imaging scanner at JFK Terminal 4 for my Virgin America flight to San Francisco.  Evidently they found something, because after the scan, I was asked to step aside to have my breast area examined.  I explained to the agent that I was a breast cancer patient and had a bilateral mastectomy in April and had tissue expanders put in to make way for reconstruction at a later date.

I told her that I was not comfortable with having my breasts touched and that I had a card in my wallet that explains the type of expanders, serial numbers and my doctor’s information pictured and asked to retrieve it. This request was denied.  Instead, she called over a female supervisor who told me the exam had to take place.  I was again told that I could not retrieve the card and needed to submit to a physical exam in order to be cleared.  She then said, “And if we don’t clear you, you don’t fly” loud enough for other passengers to hear.  And they did.  And they stared at the bald woman being yelled at by a TSA Supervisor.

There are reasons that I don't fly, unless I absolutely have to.

Fed Up: A Texas Bank Is Calling It Quits

Main Street had profits of $1 million in the second quarter and wrote off 1.25% of its loans as uncollectible. That is below the industry's charge-off rate of 1.82% in the FDIC's data for the first quarter, the latest available. The bank has earned nearly $11 million in the past year.

In July 2010, the FDIC slapped Main Street with a 25-page order to boost its capital, strengthen its controls and bring in a new top executive. Regulators also said the bank was putting too many eggs in one basket. Mr. Depping says regulators wanted the bank to shrink its small-business lending to about 25% of the total loan portfolio, down from about 90%.

There’s nothing quite like the arrogance of telling a successful business that it’s doing everything wrong and that it needs to change the cornerstone of it’s business model. The bank’s chairman is now planning on giving up the bank’s charter and selling the branches to other local banks.

This successful local business was killed by the too strict, cookie cutter, one-size fits all financial regulation coming out of Washington. Heckuva job guys.

This entry was tagged. Government Regulation

Government Is Not Society

If I was going to sum up my political philosophy as succinctly as possible, I think this is how I’d do it.

Perhaps the difference that most fundamentally separates true liberals and libertarians from others is that, to one degree or another, true liberals and libertarians are, unlike non-liberals and non-libertarians, dutiful sons and daughters of the Scottish Enlightenment. And one of the great lessons of that remarkable intellectual movement is the refinement of the understanding that state and society are not the same thing. Society is not created by the state, and the state’s activities not only do not define those of society but often diminish society’s activities.

Professor Don Boudreaux says this in the course of pointing out that FDR did much to destroy the private market for unemployment insurance. Prior to governments providing “free” unemployment insurance, many religious organizations, charities, businesses, and private societies provided it. People helping each other, reaching out, lending a hand to a neighbor in need. All of that was blown away and destroyed once the federal and state governments started providing unemployment insurance.

I found out today that it is possible to buy supplemental unemployment insurance to augment what the government provides. That’s welcome news but it’s a far cry from the vibrant assistance provided by society prior to the government’s take over.

Government has not brought us closer together by providing services that the private sector used to provide. Instead, it has pushed us further apart and made us less reliant on each other. That’s the exact opposite of the brotherly love and caring that President Obama constantly claims to want.

If you want a close knit society of caring people that look out for each other—slash government spending and get government out of the business of replacing society with bureaucracy.

Myths About the Debt Ceiling

Myths About the Debt Ceiling →

Reason columnist and Mercatus Center economist Veronique de Rugy explains the truth behind some of the myths in the current debt ceiling debate.

  1. If a deal is not reached by August 2, the U.S. will default on its debt.
  2. If the debt ceiling isn’t raised the government won't be able to pay Social Security benefits.
  3. The Treasury cannot use the Social Security Trust Fund to delay a default past August 2.

You can either read her explanations or watch her explanation on video.

House to Unveil Bill Ending Marijuana Prohibition

House to Unveil Bill Ending Marijuana Prohibition →

This is good news.

Mr. Frank, Rep. Ron Paul (R., Texas) and others will make the bill's language public Thursday. It would be the first bill of its kind ever introduced in Congress, the release said.

"The legislation would limit the federal government's role in marijuana enforcement to cross-border or inter-state smuggling, allowing people to legally grow, use or sell marijuana in states where it is legal," the release said.

"This is not a legalization bill," a spokesman for Mr. Frank said.

More than a dozen states have laws that allow the sale of marijuana for medical use, but the practice isn't legal under federal law, and federal authorities have raided marijuana dispensaries.

Wisconsin Takes a Step Backwards in Police Accountability

I was disappointed to see that state Representative Robin Vos is undoing one of the good reforms that Governor Doyle put into place.

In the bad old days, Milwaukee police officers had cut a sweet deal that allowed them to keep collecting paychecks and benefits when they were fired by the police chief until a final ruling on the dismissal was made by the Milwaukee Police and Fire Commission.

That meant, of course, that it was in the best interest of a fired officer - even a guilty one - to challenge and delay a dismissal as long as possible. Keep those paychecks rolling in, pardner.

And it was like that for a quarter of a century, under a law that treated Milwaukee cops differently from those in the rest of the state. When they were fired, Milwaukee police officers appealed - 96 percent of the time. And they collected salaries and benefits during that appeal time - appeal time that was dragged out. For the 26 years that the law was in effect, the appeal time for police officers in Milwaukee was double that of fired firefighter dismissals.

Back in October 2004 that cushy deal blew up, after off-duty Milwaukee police officers viciously beat Frank Jude Jr. at a house party, and three fired officers collected more than $500,000 in pay while awaiting trial. The Legislature cut off the continued pay for police accused of felonies and Class A and B misdemeanors, and in 2009 extended the cutoff of salaries and benefits for all fired officers.

That did not mean that officers who were mistakenly fired were without recourse: if they appealed their dismissals and won they were entitled to back pay - in a lump sum. That has been the standard for the past three years. It is a fair standard.

So why, early in the morning last week, did Vos and the Joint Finance Committee move to reinstate the 2008 law that would keep officers fired for things other than felonies or Class A and B misdemeanors on the payroll during the appeals process? In 2006, we noted that over the years the City of Milwaukee had paid out more than $2.5 million to officers who were ultimately fired.

Bad move, Representative Vos. It's wasteful and it assumes the wrong that: that police are blameless, that complaints are generally baseless, and that police need to be protected against the general public. Those assumptions aren't always right and acting as those they were is a good route to making sure that the police and the public view each other with hostility and distrust.

Protecting the Public from Itself?

Protecting the Public from Itself? →

Senator Rand Paul's (I love saying that) earlier remarks were a welcome contrast to remarks offered last summer by members of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations.

  • Henry Waxman: "Do these companies have researchers that are adding to the information that will help us have these breakthroughs? ... Are they adding to the scientific knowledge? ... If they're all closed down then so be it. ... They don't really serve a useful purpose."

  • [Parker Griffith]: "I don't think that the companies that are in question here would, if they disappeared tomorrow, would impact the scientific community and our desire to do research into genetics. ... This is nothing more than the snake-oil salesman revisited again. ... It's very difficult to protect the public from itself in its desire to be healthy ..."

That's in relation to companies that help you to sequence your own genome and see what genetic risks you might or might not have. How perfectly, condescendingly, lovely.

This entry was tagged. Government Regulation

Last Night's Vote Was Legal

Last Night's Vote Was Legal →

There was some discussion today about the notice provided for the legislature’s conference committee. In special session, under Senate Rule 93, no advance notice is required other than posting on the legislative bulletin board. Despite this rule, it was decided to provide a 2 hour notice by posting on the bulletin board. My staff, as a courtesy, emailed a copy of the notice to all legislative offices at 4:10, which gave the impression that the notice may have been slightly less than 2 hours. Either way, the notice appears to have satisfied the requirements of the rules and statutes.

Link bonus: The text of Senate Rule 93 and the text of Wisconsin's Open Meetings Law which says that the Senate rule takes precedence over the Open Meetings Law.

This entry was tagged. Government Wisconsin

The Democrats Are Coming Home

The Democrats Are Coming Home →

Sen. Jim Holperin said Thursday that he was on his way home to Conover and other Democrats were either on their way back or would be leaving soon.

He says there was no reason for them to stay away any longer since Senate Republicans passed the bill without them on Wednesday night.

This entry was tagged. Government Wisconsin

False Government Sponsored Negative Reviews

Oh, government. There you go again, making life miserable for everyone.

The CPSC's Defective New Complaints Database:

We are told constantly that government can play a beneficial role in the marketplace by taking steps to make sure consumers are more fully informed about the risks of the goods and services they use. But what happens when the government itself helps spread health and safety information that is false or misleading? That question came up recently in the controversy over New York City's misleading nutrition-scare ad campaign, and it now comes up again in a controversy over a new database of complaints about consumer products sponsored by the federal Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC).

As part of the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008 (CPSIA), Congress mandated that the CPSC create a "publicly available consumer product safety information database" compiling consumer complaints about the safety of products. Last week, by a 3-2 majority, the commission voted to adopt regulations that have dismayed many in the business community by ensuring that the database will needlessly include a wide range of secondhand, false, unfounded or tactical reports. The Washington Times editorializes:

... [Under the regulations as adopted last week] anybody who wants to trash a product, for whatever reason, can do so. The commission can leave a complaint on the database indefinitely without investigating its merits "even if a manufacturer has already provided evidence the claim is inaccurate," as noted by Carter Wood of the National Association of Manufacturers' "Shopfloor" blog ...

Trial lawyers pushing class-action suits could gin up hundreds of anonymous complaints, then point the jurors to those complaints at the "official" CPSC website as [support for] their theories that a product in question caused vast harm. "The agency does not appear to be concerned about fairness and does not care that unfounded complaints could damage the reputation of a company," said [Commissioner Nancy] Nord.

This law was, let us remember, passed before President Bush left office. It was atrocious then, it remains atrocious now. I hold to my main political theme: whenever government gets involved, things get worse.

This entry was tagged. Government Regulation

Life Insurance Likes the Estate Tax

It turns out that the life insurance industry loves the estate tax.

The life insurance industry's lobbying presence in D.C. is huge - larger than almost any other industry sector. According to the report, life insurers spent $10 million per month on lobbying in the first half of 2010. Only the pharmaceutical, electric utilities and oil and gas sectors, the heaviest of heavy hitters, spent more.

Life insurers spent more on lobbying than even bankers and health insurers.

One of the most outspoken voices urging a higher estate tax, Warren Buffet, owns six life insurance companies, the report says.

The report was produced by the American Family Business Foundation, an ardent opponent of the estate tax, and written in part by Tim Carney, a senior political columnist at the Washington Examiner.

It's really not hard to understand why the life insurance companies would love the estate tax. Most wealthy people don't have banks and mattresses stuffed full of money. They own expensive assets: businesses, houses, artwork, the Yankees, the Cowboys, etc. When they die, and their estate is suddenly taxed at 55%, the heirs are left with unpalatable choices. Do you sell the Yankees, to pay the tax man?

In steps the helpful life insurance company. For a hefty annual premium, they can help provide the money to pay the tax man, without needing to sell cherished family assets. If the estate tax goes, how many of these wealthy individuals will need life insurance? None, probably. Poof. There goes 10% of the industry's revenues.

Fight "the man". Fight oligarchic "capitalism". Fight crony capitalism. Fight the estate tax.

This entry was tagged. Government Taxes

A Food Bill Too Far

Last Tuesday, the Senate passed a food safety bill. The House is expected to pass it easily and the President plans to sign it.

They shouldn't. It's a bad bill.

One of the biggest problems with food safety is that different agencies are responsible for different parts of the food supply.

In the case of the Wright County Egg salmonella outbreak which resulted in the recall of half a billion eggs earlier this year, the USDA was aware of problems such as dirt and mold in the Iowa facility. But the USDA did not notify the FDA, which has overall authority.

Moreover, the regulatory responsibilities often overlap, leaving agencies unsure who is in charge of what. As an example, Coburn pointed to frozen pizza:

Do my colleagues realize right now when we buy a pizza at the grocery store, if you buy a cheese pizza it comes through the FDA, but if you buy a pepperoni pizza, it gets approved by the U.S. Department of Agriculture? How many people in America think that makes sense?

This bill does nothing to change that. It should be rejected on that basis alone.

Second, food safety just isn't that big of a problem.

Indeed, according to the Centers for Disease Control, no more than three-thousandths of one percent of food-borne illnesses are fatal in the United States.

Senator Tom Coburn remarked on that as well.

We could spend $100 billion additionally every year and not make food absolutely safe. There are diminishing returns to the dollars we spend. But if you look at what the case is: In 1996, for every 100,000 people in this country, we had 51.2 cases of food-borne illness -- the best in the world, by far. Nobody comes close to us in terms of the safety of our food . But, in 2009, we only had 34.8 cases -- three times better than anybody else in the world. So the question has to be asked: Why are we doing this now when, in fact, we are on a trendline to markedly decrease it?

Third, this bill will be expensive.

The legislation will cost $1.4 billion over 5 years. This cost does not include an additional $230 million in expenditures that are directly offset by fees collected for those activities (re-inspections, mandatory recalls, etc.). The total cost of the bill is over $1.6 billion over 5 years. Of these costs, $335 million are for non-FDA programs - the food allergy grant program, implementation grants to assist producers, assistance grants to states and Indian Tribes.

Fourth, this bill gives the FDA new powers that it doesn't need and that it will probably abuse.

Most worrisome is the fact the bill as it currently is written would give the FDA the authority to require mandatory recalls of tainted food.

At first blush this seems reasonable, but the current system of voluntary recalls already resulted in a $100 million loss to tomato growers in the U.S. when a salmonella outbreak caused the FDA to recommend a recall. It turned out the problem was not tomatoes but jalapeno peppers, but by the time the real culprit was discovered the damage was already done.

Hart points out that bureaucrats with the power to order recalls would be very likely to jump the gun and order a huge recall before all the facts are in. Worse, it would precipitate a fight between the industry and regulators, who currently have a fairly good working relationship.

Coburn noted in his address that inspectors do not need the authority to order recalls

Why don't they need that authority? Because if you have a problem with your product in the food system in this country, you are going to get sued. You are going to get fined if you do not recall that product.

"You're going to see (inspectors) pull the trigger prematurely," Hart said, noting bureaucrats tend to be more worried about doing what's safe in terms of their jobs rather than what's right.

This is a bad bill. Rather than modernizing the food safety responsibilities of the federal government, it leaves authority split between more than 30 different agencies. It directly raises costs to small farms and producers. It gives the FDA a large incentive to order damaging recalls with no incentive to protect farmers from hysteria. Finally, it just isn't needed. America's food supply is already the safest in the world. Spending more money won't create any noticeable increase in food safety, only an increase in the price of our food.

For the good of the nation, the House should reject this flawed bill and President Obama should refuse to sign it.

(Note: The House was originally expected to pass the bill easily but now may not be able to, as the bill infringes on the House's constitutional rights. The Constitution states that all bills for raising revenue must originate in the House. This bill raises revenue and originated in the Senate. Oops.)

This entry was tagged. Food Government Reform

How Many "Flood" Synonyms Do You Know?

How Many 'Flood' Synonyms Do You Know?

Well, given the fit of pique being thrown by most political reporters, the thesaurus isn't adequate to describe the sums of money being spent this election cycle. Four billion dollars? Yes, it is a lot, but consider the stakes. Here's another interesting number: $414 billion -- the interest the Treasury paid on our national debt this year. Worried about foreign money? Try that on for size.

Allison Hayward is the vice president of policy at the Center for Competitive Politics, a nonpartisan, nonprofit group dedicated to protecting First Amendment political rights.

Greek Rioters Kill 3

I just heard about this today, courtesy of PJTV (the May 26, 2010 episode, "Euro-Style Liberalism Leads to Euro-Style Violence").

Three die in bank during Greek riots - USATODAY.com

Riots over harsh new austerity measures left three bank workers dead and engulfed the streets of Athens on Wednesday [May 5, 2010], as angry protesters tried to storm parliament, hurled Molotov cocktails at police and torched buildings. Police responded with barrages of tear gas.

The three bank workers a man and two women died after demonstrators set their bank on fire along the main demonstration route in central Athens. As their colleagues sobbed in the street, five other bank workers were rescued from the balcony of the burning building.

A senior fire department official said demonstrators prevented firefighters from reaching the burning building, costing them vital time.

"Several crucial minutes were lost," the official said, visibly upset. "If we had intervened earlier, the loss of life could have been prevented."

Demonstrators set a bank on fire, trapping 3 people inside, and then prevented fire fighters from getting to the people to either release them or put out the fire before they burned to death.

This is absolutely unaccceptable. It's mob rule. Mobs cannot be allowed to firebomb buildings and then prevent the fire department from reaching the building. The solution: the next time it happens, give the police the authority to fire into the crowd to disperse it. With real bullets, not rubber bullets.

This entry was tagged. Government Police

The Power to Tax is the Power to Govern

For decades now state and local governments have been content to turn taxation over to the Federal governmnet. It's a pretty sweet gig. The Feds raise taxes -- capital gains, income, tarrifs, gasoline, whatever -- and get all of the voter anger and contempt. Then the Feds turn around and give the money back to the state in the form of grants, road spending bills, earmarks, or other forms of largesse.

It's an arrangement that gives State and local lawmakers the thrill of spending without the pain of actually, themselves, being responsible for taxing that much out of their residents.

It's an arrangement that does have some downsides. The biggest is the complete lack of local control. Remember the golden rule: he who has the gold makes the rules. A local Madison neighborhood is finding that out the hard way.

The pedestrian walkway under University Avenue at Spring Harbor Drive may be old and spooky. But school and neighborhood officials say it's necessary to keep kids and residents safe when they cross that roadway, where drivers routinely exceed the posted 35 mph speed limit.

Now they're worried that plans for a $7 million reconstruction of 1.9 miles of the avenue -- from North Segoe Road in Madison to Allen Boulevard in Middleton -- next year don't include re-building the tunnel.

... Madison officials say it would cost $1 million just to build a new tunnel because federal laws would require it to be accessible for people with physical handicaps -- unlike the current walkway -- and so far the money isn't available.

City officials say they'd love to make the passage's users happy, and staff engineer Christy Bachmann said the city has applied several times for federal money to redo the tunnel, but the project always ranks low and loses out on the grants. Ald. Mark Clear, whose 19th District includes the underpass, said the city has to do something with the passage come next spring.

"Because the reconstruction project is federally funded, they require that the pedestrian underpass at University Avenue and Spring Harbor Drive be brought into ADA compliance or removed," Clear said, referring to the federal Americans with Disabilities Act.

Glen Yoerger, an engineer for the city of Madison, said the reconstruction of the street, 80 percent of which will be paid for with federal funds with the remainder coming from local funds, will install curb and gutters and medians where needed along University Avenue, among other improvements.

Well, better luck next time kids. Your Aldermen, County Board members, state Assemblymen, state Senators, and Governor long ago gave up the right to actually govern this state. As a result, they're powerless to help you now.

Speaking personally, I'd love to see a State legislature and a State governor stand up to the Feds and fight to keep tax dollars. Then, take responsibility for collecting the money for local needs and spending the money in a way that will best serve local needs. The Feds are never going to be as good at knowing what your State needs as you. Quit dodging responsibility and start doing your jobs.

Your dividend taxes are going up

The Dividend Tax Bill Arrives - WSJ.com

As the big tax increase day of January 1, 2011 approaches, the Democrats running Congress are beginning to lay out their priorities. Get ready for bigger rate increases than previously advertised.

Last week the Senate Budget Committee passed a fiscal 2011 budget resolution that includes an increase in the top tax rate on dividends to 39.6% from the current 15%—a 164% increase. This blows past the 20% rate that President Obama proposed in his 2011 budget and which his economic advisers promised on these pages in 2008.

(See "The Obama Tax Plan," August 14, 2008, by Jason Furman and Austan Goolsbee: "The tax rate on dividends would also be 20% for families making more than $250,000, rather than returning to the ordinary income rate.")

And that's only for starters. The recent health-care bill includes a 3.8% surcharge on all investment income, including dividends, beginning in 2013. This would nearly triple the top dividend rate to 43.4% in Mr. Obama's four years as President.

Do you think this will

a) encourage me to put more money into the stock market
b) encourage me to put my money somewhere else
c) encourage companies to pay out more money as dividends to stockholders
d) encourage companies to put their money somewhere else
e) both "b" and "d"

If you said "e", you're right. And, when the economy keeps failing to recover from the recession, you may try asking Nancy Pelois, Harry Reid, and President Obama if they have any idea what could have caused people to just sit on their money for a while. If you have a 401(k) account, you might also try asking them why they're trying to torch your retirement savings.

Finally, if you live in Wisconsin, you may want to give Senator Russ Feingold a call. He's up for re-election this year and he sits on the Senate Budget Committee. You might want to put those questions to him too. You can reach his local, Madison, office at (608) 828-1200. If you'd prefer email, his address is russell_feingold@feingold.senate.gov. If you'd prefer snail mail, you can send it to:

1600 Aspen Commons
Middleton, WI 53562-4716

Two Reasons to Dislike the Government

Liberals might want to consider that one of the reasons most people don't like government is the behavior of, well, government. Two stories caught my eye this morning.

First: One-Fourth of Nonprofits Are to Lose Tax Breaks - NYTimes.com.

As many as 400,000 nonprofit organizations are weeks away from a doomsday.

At midnight on May 15, an estimated one-fifth to one-quarter of some 1.6 million charities, trade associations and membership groups will lose their tax exemptions, thanks to a provision buried in a 2006 federal bill aimed at pension reform.

"It's going to be an unholy mess once these organizations realize what's happened to them," said Diana Aviv, president of the Independent Sector, a nonprofit trade group.

The federal legislation passed in 2006 required all nonprofits to file tax forms the following year. Previously, only organizations with revenues of $25,000 or more -- or the vast majority of nonprofit groups -- had to file.

The new law, embedded in the 393 pages of the Pension Protection Act of 2006, also directed the Internal Revenue Service to revoke the tax exemptions of groups that failed to file for three consecutive years. Three years have passed, and thus the deadline looms.

Next: I Got a Little More Libertarian Today | The Agitator.

So I got an email from TurboTax this afternoon telling me that my federal tax return has been rejected. Reason? Invalid Social Security number. So I double checked the return. Same Social Security number I've been using since I started paying taxes. Same number that's on my Social Security card. So TurboTax gave me the 800 number of the Social Security Administration so I could call to verify my number. Except that when I called, they told me that they can only verify numbers over the phone for employers, not individuals.

... The kicker: According to the TurboTax help forum I consulted, other people this has happened to say they were fined for filing late, even though they had actually filed on time, and it was the government's fault that their Social Security number was rejected.

Barney Frank Wants to Kill Fannie and Freddie?!?

Be still my beating heart. No, wait. Start beating, my stilled heart. Barney Frank just recommended killing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

"As I believe this committee will be recommending, abolishing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in their present form and coming up with a new whole system of housing finance [is in order]," House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank (D, Mass.) said at a hearing.

This is the same Congressman Frank that previously refused to believe that anything could possibly be wrong with Fannie and Freddie.

"These two entities--Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac--are not facing any kind of financial crisis," said Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee. "The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing."

And this is the same Fannie and Freddie that the government is bailing out, with no limits whatsoever on the losses to the American taxpayer.

The Obama administration's decision to cover an unlimited amount of losses at the mortgage-finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac over the next three years stirred controversy over the holiday.

The Treasury announced Thursday it was removing the caps that limited the amount of available capital to the companies to $200 billion each.

Unlimited access to bailout funds through 2012 was "necessary for preserving the continued strength and stability of the mortgage market," the Treasury said. Fannie and Freddie purchase or guarantee most U.S. home mortgages and have run up huge losses stemming from the worst wave of defaults since the 1930s.

Of course, this is Barney Frank we're talking about here. I shudder to think about what he has in mind to replace Fannie and Freddie. Whatever it is, be sure that you'll be paying for it, not him. You'll probably be paying a lot.

Why are voters angry about President Obama's spending?

President George W. Bush was the biggest spending U.S. President since President Lyndon Baines Johnson. He "he presided over an 83-percent increase in overall federal spending, which includes defense, domestic, entitlements, and interest. Even without TARP and Fannie/Freddie, spending was up a huge 70 percent under Bush over eight years. By contrast, total spending under eight years of President Clinton increased just 32 percent."

Voters were justifiably angry about this massive increase in government largesse. In reaction, they threw out the sitting political party and vote en-masse for the candidate who promised a return to responsibility, a turn away from reckless credit card fiscal policies and a return to fiscal discipline. Voters wanted government spending reined in and they were determined to get it. Both the 2006 Congressional elections and the 2008 Presidential election were about spending, to some degree.

So why are voters now so angry at President Barack Obama? Surely they don't blame him for the high levels of government spending? Well, why shouldn't they? Since taking office in January, 2009, he's proposed massive amounts of new spending: a stimulus bill, a cap and trade energy bill, a massive expansion of healthcare, a "cash for clunkers" stimulus, a housing stimulus, and more. For voters weary of out of control spending, the Obama administration's first year has looked remarkably like a left turn into an all-you-can-eat spending buffet.

But don't believe me. Believe the Congressional Budget Office and the Washington Post, who put together this informative little graphic.

The Bush Deficits vs the Obama Deficits

Note the $400 billion line, that President Bush's deficits barely managed to creep over. Note that President Obama's deficits aren't projected to get anywhere near this low a level over the next 10 years.

With all of the voter anger about President Bush's deficit spending, why shouldn't the voters be angry about President Obama's much higher levels of spending? Voters don't need to have a short-term memory to be first angry about President Bush's spending and then angry about President Obama's spending. They just need wide open eyes. Apparently, it's President Obama and Congressional Democrats that have the short memory.