Social Security is more than just supplemental retirement income. It also is about disability payments. Those who continue to say that Social Security is in sound fiscal shape need to look at this.
New congressional estimates say the trust fund that supports Social Security disability will run out of money by 2017, leaving the program unable to pay full benefits, unless Congress acts. About two decades later, Social Security’s much larger retirement fund is projected to run dry as well.
Update 8/19/2011: President Obama hits the campaign trail today in his two new multi-million dollar busses we bought him. The White House “explanation” is that they are on official business, not a political campaign.
Curious thing about President Obama’s campaign kick-off. If his first day on the campaign trail isn’t important enough to cover live, it begs the question “why is that? Ordinarily, the President is on every major TV network and most of cable. Could it be because he is not drawing crowds? Maybe it is because visiting states and localities where unemployment is low, and predominately white, would not set well with the Congressional Black Caucus? Or both.
The big news of Obama’s new re-election campaign that is not being reported is that he is out of ideas. Not only is he out of ideas, but he is not taking any responsibility for the malaise we are seeing today in this, Jimmy Carter’s “second term.” Instead, he is pointing fingers at Republicans, Congress, the tsunami in Japan, and the so-called ‘Arab Spring.’ The latter of which, you may recall, President Obama tried to claim credit for when Egypt overthrew President Mubarak.
Two and a half years into his administration, the “leader” of the free world does not have a plan for economic recovery that works and said that “there are a lot of good ideas out there and we’re going to listen to them” because he wants to “create jobs.” He must think the Cut, Cap, and Balance bill passed by the House was not a good idea.
What a disappointment President Obama must be to the people who believed he could deliver on his community organizer-style campaign rhetoric. He is voting present with each committee he forms. Nothing has changed where Obama is concerned. Well, except for our longest stretch of a stagnate economy, unemployment is up, no net increase in private sector jobs so far. And did you know that youth unemployment in Washington, D.C. is now over 50 percent? That’s up from 25 percent a few years ago. In fact, minority unemployment everywhere is as bad as it has ever been under President Obama. Sure, I’ll vote for more of that! What?
A Reuters/University of Michigan survey on consumer sentiment came in at the lowest since May 1980. That would be since the Carter administration.
Not helpful for President Obama trying to convince people he deserves reelection.
Link: Consumer Sentiment Drops to Lowest Level in 3 Decades | Obama begins political counteroffensive this week
Update 8/13/2011. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit ruled Friday that a provision of the law that requires people to buy health insurance or face an annual penalty is unconstitutional. The ruling affirmed an earlier decision by U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson of Pensacola, Florida.
Curiously though, the court also ruled that absent the mandate, the Act can continue. What this means is that three judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit pulled a severability clause out of their butt.
In Judge Vinson’s ruling, he concluded . . .
“Because the individual mandate is unconstitutional and not severable, the entire Act must be declared void.” {emphasis added}
The survivability of Obamacare without forced participation is zero. Well with one caveat. For Obamacare to survive without forced participation, the administration would have to speed up the elimination of the private health insurance industry process to before the next election instead of after. I don’t see that happening. So for all practical purposes, the fact that the rest of the Act may stay is moot. The court knows this. They also know that the Act contained no severability clause. That the court found the rest of the Act is constitutional and ignored the non-severability of the Act looks like a political decision with no real consequences. Well, except for the fact that the judges made a political decision here, instead of a legal one. Isn’t that like, not their job?
Let’s hope this gets to the Supreme Court this year. Today’s ruling did nothing to reduce the FUD factor. In fact, it only made it worse. That’s not what an economy struggling to survive needs if it is going to recover.
Markets don’t do well in an atmosphere of fear, uncertainty, and doubt. The power grab the Obama administration has perpetrated over various industries and companies is sending only one message to business. Watch out, you could be next.
Link: LegalNewsline | Eleventh Circuit rules against part of ObamaCare.
I guess we now have the proof of what conservatives have been saying since forever: Looting is a result of liberal welfare policies. And Britain is in the end stages of the welfare state. Congratulations, Britain! You’ve barbarized your citizenry, without regard to race, gender or physical handicap! (more of Ann Coulter)
Wisconsin goes to the polls today. Six recall elections will be decided. All against Republican state senators who supported Walker’s bill curbing collective bargaining rights for most public union employees.
The sore-loser drive has brought BIG LABOR dollars and rent-a-mobs to try to ultimately repeal the reforms that Governor Scott Walker enacted by harassing their way to regain a Democrat majority again.
Ed Schultz is there, the rent-a-mob is there. Well, about 300 people who sound like a studio audience is there. He claims they are there to fight for the middle class, but they are there to support BIG LABOR. Actually, it is a fight to keep the state from going broke and avoid big layoffs.
You will remember the tough time Walker had in getting the state house to get his reform bill voted on because the Democrat senators fled the state. I don’t see the vote going against what the people in Wisconsin already voted for. I could be wrong, but I doubt it.
Link: Walker Union Fight Intensifies as Wisconsin’s Recalls Threaten Republicans – Bloomberg.
Yes historic. And I’m not talking about his race. Everyone got over that the day after the election. (well, except for liberals/progressives) What else is historic for President Obama is that he now has the bragging rights for overseeing the country’s fall into decline while in office.
That would be the AAA credit rating that President Obama inherited from President Bush. A dubious honor for sure. What makes it worse is that not only was this train wreck of an economy predicted, it was preventable too!
The Obama administration says they’ve done all that can be done to fix the economy. They want to borrow and spend even more money, ostensibly believing that what didn’t work the last time, and the time before that, will work this time. Obama says we just have to sit tight and wait for the economy to improve. Recovering from the worst economy since the Great Depression is a “slow process,” the president said. What he really means is he has done all that he and his advisers know to do. It is not all that can be done.
There was a solution passed by the Republican-led House and tabled by the Democrat-led Senate called Cut, Cap, and Balance. By the way, Standard & Poor’s said that ‘Cut, Cap, and Balance’ was the only plan proposed by either party that would have preserved the AAA credit rating. So no one has the right to act outraged at S&P’s downgrade action. But for political reasons, not economic ones, the President has to pretend like there is nothing else that can be done. Just take it. Eat your peas. Get used to high unemployment, rising interest rates, rising costs everywhere, and a stagnant economy. That’s the change Obama has in mind. Don’t you wish you knew that a couple of years ago, before the election?
Link: Facing Economic Headwinds, Obama Struggles Again to Find an August Storyline
Less than 10 minutes after President Obama blamed everyone he could for our economic problems, the DJIA fell below the 11,000 mark.
I’m guessing by the middle of this month the DJIA will be south of 10,000.
On Friday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced a drop in the unemployment rate from 9.2 percent to 9.1 percent. And that 117,000 jobs were added.
The BLS also noted that there were 38,000 fewer people working in July than in the previous month. So how can it be that the unemployment rate ‘dropped?’
It dropped because the bean counters in Washington have reduced the pool of workers enough to cause the percentage change go in one direction when what is measured is actually going in the opposite direction. The BLS calls this “seasonally adjusted” as modified by the “civilian labor force participation rate.”
[scribd id=61861912 key=key-2inwl0ufhv0awdanz1ti mode=list]
Look what the rate is if Washington used the same method of tracking unemployment that you and I use. Beginning with the active labor force as big as it was when Obama was inaugurated, the unemployment rate would be 11.7%.
If the unemployment rate goes up but is not reported, did it really happen?
Link: Jobs report shows some ugly truths | Bureau of Labor Statistics
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said Standard & Poor showed “terrible judgment” in lowering the U.S. government’s credit rating.
“They’ve handled themselves very poorly. And they’ve shown a stunning lack of knowledge about the basic U.S. fiscal budget math,” Geithner said in his first public comments about the credit rating decision.
“Terrible judgement?” This from a guy who earned the nickname ‘tax cheat Geithner’ for not paying his income taxes. Just like he blamed ‘TurboTax’ for his tax cheating problems, Geithner is blaming Standard & Poor’s poor judgement for lowering the United States’ credit rating for the first time ever to AA+, down from AAA where it has been for nearly a hundred years.
According to Geithner, it’s just because the credit rating company does not understand “U.S. fiscal budget math.” No doubt they don’t understand the concept of spending your way to prosperity and borrowing your way out of debt. They don’t understand that increasing the national debt by 7 trillion dollars in ten years is a decrease. What they do see is U.S. doing nothing to attack the public debt or the willingness to stop the deficit spending in the budgets that they have failed to produce. That is what Geithner means by U.S. fiscal budget math.
Some people are calling for Geithner to step down for his mangling of the economy. Even if he did, it would not solve the problem. His boss believes in the same fuzzy math and points fingers at everyone but himself too!