Marking the similarities between President Barack Obama’s time in office and former president Jimmy Carter’s is nothing new. But as of Monday, Obama has hit one more Carter benchmark – both saw gas prices double in their first term of office. [See Where Gas Prices are Spiking the Most]
In fact, while just barely, Obama has seen an even higher gas price increase than Carter dealt with under his administration.
Under the Carter administration, gas prices increased by 103.77 percent. Gas prices since Obama took office have risen by 103.79 percent. No other presidents in recent years have struggled as much with soaring oil prices. Under the Reagan administration, gas prices actually dropped 66 percent. When Bill Clinton was president, gas prices grew by roughly 30 percent, and under both Bush presidencies, gas prices rose by 20 percent.
Daily Archives: April 14, 2012
America’s Debt Is Greater than Entire Eurozone & U.K.’s Combined Debt
The Weekly Standard:
As the chart shows, America’s debt is currently $15.1 trillion, while the Eurozone (which includes France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Spain, the U.K., and others) has a combined debt of $12.7 trillion. (All dollar amounts are in U.S. dollars, and the data refers to closing 2011 numbers.)
The Eurozone is larger than the United States, so America’s debt per capita also exceeds the Eurozone’s. According to the Census Bureau, the U.S. has a population of 313 million, whereas the Eurozone has a population in excess of 331 million.
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney frequently warns that the United States should not become like Greece. “We need to rein in government and unleash the extraordinary vitality and creativity of the American people,” Romney wrote in a December op-ed. “We must not wait to suffer a crisis like Greece’s or Portugal’s to right the ship of state.”
But with charts like this, that formulation might already be out of date, considering the enormity of America’s debt burden.
Chuck DeVore: Texas vs. California, Revisited
An absolute MUST read from Chuck DeVore.
Across America, spending on local and state governments made up 19.8 percent of the average state’s economy in 2008. California spent 22.5 percent, compared with Texas’s 15.4 percent. Simply put, Californians spend 46 percent more of their income on their government than do Texans.
Comparing major categories of spending really brings home the difference.
The average state spends 5.7 percent of its economy on education. Neither California (at 5.6 percent) nor Texas (5.4 percent) deviates far from the average. But Texas stretches its spending much further, employing 17 percent more educators per capita than does California, with its strong teachers’ unions and highly paid teachers.
Welfare spending shows a shocking contrast, with California spending 5 percent of its economy on wealth-transfer programs, compared with the national average of 4.6 percent and Texas’s 3.1 percent.
California also spends more than Texas on law enforcement and prisons, 1.5 percent to 0.9 percent, as well as parks, recreation, and natural resources, 0.7 percent to 0.3 percent.
Mass transit and other state and locally run utilities constitute 1.4 percent of the average state’s economy. California spends 1.9 percent here, Texas, 1.2 percent. California’s proposed high-speed-rail system will significantly grow this outlay. By comparison, heavily urbanized New York, with its mass-transit systems and extensive network of government-run toll roads, outlays 2.2 percent of its economy towards government-run utilities.
Texas manages to spend more in one category than does California: roads. Though Texas has diverted as much as $1.2 billion from its highway fund lately, it still manages to spend 1.2 percent of its economy on highways, compared with California’s outlay of 0.9 percent. The national average is 1.1 percent. California used to spend far more on its roads, but cut back in the 1970s, the last time Jerry Brown was governor — he suggested then that if you build road and water infrastructure, they will come. California stopped building but they came anyway.
The spending category showing the largest divergence between California and Texas should come as no surprise to anyone following the impending bankruptcy of Stockton, California’s 13th-largest city: spending for government-employee benefits. Nationwide, states spend an average of 1.6 percent of their economy in this area. California spends 2.2 percent of its economy — $1,105 for every person in the state — to keep government employees comfortable in their golden years. Texas spends 0.9 percent of its economy for this purpose — $467 for each man, woman, and child in the state. While most Texas civil servants don’t have collective-bargaining rights, they experience about one-third the job-turnover rate of private employees, showing that the State of Texas is seen as a good employer.
Last month, Texas added 27,900 jobs. The official unemployment rate is 7.1 percent in Texas, compared with 8.3 percent nationally. California added 4,000 jobs and has an official unemployment rate of 10.9 percent.
God’s mercy trumps God’s laws
A little blurb I found on a bible study site that is important to share.
I drew that conclusion from Matthew 12:1-8:
“At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry and began to pick some heads of grain and eat them. [2] When the Pharisees saw this, they said to him, “Look! Your disciples are doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath.” [3] He answered, “Haven’t you read what David did when he and his companions were hungry? [4] He entered the house of God, and he and his companions ate the consecrated bread–which was not lawful for them to do, but only for the priests. [5] Or haven’t you read in the Law that on the Sabbath the priests in the temple desecrate the day and yet are innocent? [6] I tell you that one greater than the temple is here. [7] If you had known what these words mean, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the innocent. [8] For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.”
In other words, God’s mercy trumps God’s laws. You can’t read the gospels and all the accounts of Jesus healing on the Sabbath or fraternizing with the “unclean” and miss that! God’s first priority is to always love people.
Political Arena 