Does your wallet feel a little lighter? It should. Uncle Sam just bumped the debt ceiling to $1.9 trillion. That means you have even more that you have to pay back in the form of taxes in coming years.
Politico reports that Congress approved the record $1.9 trillion debt ceiling increase Thursday together with legislation to reinstate “pay-as-you-go” rules credited with helping to rein in deficits during the 1990s. CNN reports that the total U.S. Federal debt now stands at a staggering $12.3 trillion.
Earlier Alabama’s Senators Sessions and Shelby voted against the debt resolution in the upper chamber. Joe Bonner of Alabama’s 1st voted against it in the House.In fact, every single Republican in the House voted against the debt increase – every one. 37 Democrats voted against it.
This isn’t the end either. Remember the Obama budget? It is full of even more red ink and continues to ignore the economic reality that government cannot spend us out of debt. The roost is ready and the chickens are on their way in.
Oh and by the way, only one Alabama Congressman voted to raise the debt ceiling: Artur Davis (D-Birmingham). Davis is a leftist who has introduced a bill to provide federal loans to small businesses. Davis should remember that such loans are the province of banks. If left alone the banks will lend to any credit worthy organization or business. Fortunately Davis is the only Democrat among Alabama’s entire delegation.
Full vote results from the House are here:
The tift between gaming interests in Alabama and Governor Bob Riley are putting the ugly side of gambling front and center for all to see.
Riley has all but broken with his own Attorney General who warns that Riley actions could put the state in an expensive legal position. The two feud regularly about electronic bingo and every couple of days that feud breaks out in the public.
Riley appointed Mobile DA John Tyson as the commander of his gambling task force. The bombastic Tyson has vowed to eliminate electronic bingo from state regulated areas and has even gone so far as to declare he would remove them from the Indian Reservations that are under Federal control and jurisdiction.
But then we learned that in 2006 Tyson asked Milton MacGregor, the top gamer in the state, for $200,000 dollars for his race to become Alabama Attorney General. He got a paltry $100,000. Don’t forget that Tyson is the Governors handpicked replacement because he didn’t like the current AG, Troy King, who beat Tyson in the 2006 race.
We wonder how a man running for AG could take that massive sum of money? At the very least there is an appearance of undue influence.
Gambling is not good; I have written about it before on another blog. It doesn’t solve all the problems people think and it does create serious social ills. But if the state has a compelling interest in controlling gaming then the principles all need to get on the same page. You guys are an embarrassment!
Alabama Governor Bob Riley is fighting back against electronic bingo in the state. The Republican Governor sent a message via the Alabama Republican Party. After charges were leveled against gaming task force head John Tyson of Mobile that Tyson accepted campaign funds from gambling interests, Riley responded with a broadside against his opponents. You can read the letter here.
It is curious to note that the Governor used the Alabama Republican Party as a mechanism for distribution of the email. You’ll see at the bottom the line “paid for by the Alabama Republican Party. It doesn’t seem wise to further politicize an ugly, ongoing battle over law enforcement. It is especially odd given the attempt in the email to make this a bipartisan issue.
“While 8 of the 9 members on the Supreme Court are Republican, this is not a partisan issue. One Democratic federal judge in Huntsville and three Democratic state court judges in Birmingham have also recently held that so called “electronic bingo” is not bingo at all and is illegal.”
A couple of paragraphs later he continues:
“In 62 of our 67 counties, Democratic and Republican prosecutors have stopped numerous slot machine gambling operations that said they were only playing “electronic bingo,” but these illegal facilities remain in a few counties because some public officials refuse to enforce the law. This inaction has allowed gambling bosses to operate their illegal casinos with impunity.”
The Governor also repeats allegations against one of the casino owners who he is trying to shut down. There are serious allegations that are being investigated but it does appear that Riley is having a bit of partisan temper-tantrum.
What are your thoughts? Please comment.
The 5.7% jump in the 4th quarter 2009 has excited many who claim that this is evidence that government intervention in the markets has worked. Some think we are saved because of the government’s intervention via the stimulus prorgrams of the past year. But let’s look at three important points.
GDP Is Still Low
The actual GDP in the 4th quarter stood at 14,463.4 billion dollars. The high was in the 3rd quarter of 2008 and we aren’t back there yet. The number may be an improvement but we are still below where we were. This is not surprising because we know unemployment is still high.
GDP Report is Incomplete
The 5.7% report is “incomplete” according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Most economist expect that the number will drop when all factors are finally factored in. Don’t count your chickens just yet.
GDP is Built on Government Deficit Spending
The present economy is growing, in part, because of deficit government spending. Every penny of the stimulus comes from taxpayers. But much is deficit. That means we have a massive federal debt hanging over our heads which must be repaid.
The number is good and is a slow improvement but keep it in perspective.
There is a surprising but welcomed story in the papers this morning. Some people in Haiti are beginning to rebuild their homes without waiting on government help. The government is opposing their efforts.
The Associated Press says the Haitian government opposes the self-starting re-builders. The Culture and Communications Minister said the rebuilding “wouldn’t be tolerated.” She said, “the governemnt wants to develop and implement a comprehensive reconstruction plan that might feature building codes…”
The people of Haiti are not waiting. They are collecting pieces of wood and tin and rebuilding their own homes instead of waiting.
That is just like government. Oppose people who are hard working and force them to accept layers of government bureaucracy. These hard working people who desire to be self-sufficient should be encouraged. That is a nugget of freedom that shouldn’t be ignored.
The island nation has been suffering under ineffective and corrupt governments for generations. The recent earthquake with the staggering loss of life has brought the Haitian troubles squarely into the view of the entire world. There has been a massive outpouring of support, led by the United States, which so far has proven woefully inadequate to relieve the suffering there. The aid is necessary and ought to continue but it shows that the government is simply unable to respond fast enough to such disasters. That is a lesson we learned after Katrina.
The leftist green movement continues to suffer from its own dishonesty.
The much hailed Copenhagen Summit, which failed to achieve any of its lofty goals, was acting on bad science. Word comes today that the head of the UK’s climate change watchdog group knew before the summit that data on glacial melting was just wrong. You can read about it at the The Times website.
Science is supposed to be about facts. But what we are seeing is a deliberate attempt to craft science as a propaganda tool. What a mistake. Science, which has generally been widely accepted on both the left and right, is proving itself unreliable. We are left to wonder how much, if any, of the left’s agenda is also based on fantasy.
Meanwhile an investigation into the first Climategate fiasco has determined that the scientist broke the law by refusing to respond to Freedom of Information Act requests. The statute of limitations has passed so no one will face criminal charges. The story is in The Mail.
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