Barack Obama has already held more re-election fundraising events than every elected president since Richard Nixon combined, according to figures to be published in a new book.
Obama is also the only president in the past 35 years to visit every electoral battleground state in his first year of office.
The figures, contained a in a new book called The Rise of the President’s Permanent Campaign by Brendan J. Doherty, due to be published by University Press of Kansas in July, give statistical backing to the notion that Obama is more preoccupied with being re-elected than any other commander-in-chief of modern times.
Doherty, who has compiled statistics about presidential travel and fundraising going back to President Jimmy Carter in 1977, found that Obama had held 104 fundraisers by March 6th this year, compared to 94 held by Presidents Carter, Ronald Reagan, George Bush Snr, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush combined.
Since then, Obama has held another 20 fundraisers, bringing his total to 124. Carter held four re-election fundraisers in the 1980 campaign, Reagan zero in 1984, Bush Snr 19 in 1992, Clinton 14 in 1996 and Bush Jnr 57 in 2004.
Doherty, a political science professor at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, has also analysed presidential travel to battleground or swing states, which change and fluctuate in number with each election cycle.
In their first years in office, Carter visited eight out of 18 battleground states and Reagan seven out of 17. Bush Snr, Clinton and Bush Jnr all visited around three-quarters of battleground states while Obama went to all 15 within his first 12 months.
In his State of the Union speech in January, Obama bemoaned the ‘corrosive influence of money in politics’. The following month, he reversed course and announced he was allowing cabinet members and top advisors to speak at big money events for so-called super PACs – unaccountable outside groups raising money for his re-election.
During the 2008 election, Obama abandoned a pledge to opt for public funding of his campaign, instead opting to raise an unlimited amount privately. He then raised and spent approximately $730million, almost double the campaign funds of Senator John McCain, his Republican opponent.
Up to the end of March, Obama had raised $191.6million for his re-election bid, compared to $86.6million raised by his Republican challenger Mitt Romney. His frenetic fundraising activities are in part because he is lagging behind campaign expectations. Early last year, some advisers spoke privately of raising $1billion.
Category Archives: Obama
US News: Obama Outspent Last Five Presidents
President Obama has shelled out more in federal spending than the five presidents that came before him.
A new chart by the Comeback America Initiative (CAI), a non-partisan group dedicated to promoting fiscal responsibility by policymakers, shows federal spending by president as a percentage of GDP, and it doesn’t reflect well on Obama.
“There has been a dramatic increase in spending under the Obama administration,” David Walker, Founder and CEO of CAI, told Whispers. “Most of it is attributable to year one of his presidency and the stimulus… but President Obama has continued to take spending to a new level.”
Federal spending was close to 20 percent under the Carter administration, dropped to 18 percent under Clinton, and is currently at an incredible 24 percent of GDP. According to the Congressional Budget Office, federal spending may hover around 22 percent for the next decade.
Federal spending is also higher this year than any year since 1949. The last time spending was higher—in 1946, it was 24.8—the country was just coming down from the exorbitant rates of spending during World War II.
GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney has said he would cut federal spending down to just 17 percent of GDP.
President Obama is facing some heat over the economy Friday after a depressing job report showed the jobless rate climbed to 8.2 percent in May.
Artur Davis, Former Democratic Congressman Becomes Republican (video)
The Weekly Standard has more details – LINK
DESPICABLE: President Obama Shuns Hero Lech Walesa
Obama orders that the bust of Winston Churchill in the White House be removed and now this.
This is revolting. While young people may not know, Lech Walesa was THE resistance leader behind the Iron Curtain. People think of Ronald Reagan ending the Cold War, but Reagan was safe in DC. Lech Walesa was our ally behind The Wall. Walesa is a hero in every sense of the word. Walesa was instrumental in bringing down the Soviet System.
If a president were to bow to any man, this is the man to bow to. To be given this treatment is simply unforgivable.
Rory Cooper writes in National Review:
Lech Walesa, a hero in every sense of the word.
Lech Walesa was once a trade-union activist. He was often arrested for speaking his mind against Communist oppression behind the Iron Curtain in Poland and for defying the Soviet Union. He was an electrician who, with no higher education, led one of the most profound freedom movements of the 20th century — Solidarity. He became president of Poland and swept in reforms, pushing the Soviet Union out of his homeland and moving the country toward a free-market economy and individual liberty. And President Obama doesn’t want him to set foot in the White House.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Polish officials requested that Walesa accept the Medal of Freedom on behalf of Jan Karski, a member of the Polish Underground during World War II who was being honored posthumously this week. The request makes sense. Walesa and Karski shared a burning desire to rid Poland of tyrannical subjugation. But President Obama said no.
Administration officials told the Journal that Walesa is too “political.” A man who was arrested by Soviet officials for dissenting against the government for being “political” is being shunned by the United States of America for the same reason 30 years later.
Meanwhile, one of the recipients of the Medal was Dolores Huerta, the honorary chair of the Democratic Socialists of America. So socialist politics are acceptable, but not the politics of a man who stood up and fought socialism.
This revelation follows an eruption of outrage in Poland after President Obama referred in his remarks at the Medal of Freedom ceremony to “Polish death camps,” a phrase that Poles have battled since the end of the Cold War. The phrase suggests that Poles were complicit in Nazi concentration camps, which of course is not the case. In fact, Poles were exterminated in the camps.
The White House’s flippant response to the uproar caused the Polish president and prime minister to demand more thoughtful and personal reactions. But White HousePress Secretary Jay Carney said Wednesday that the president has no plans to reach out to his Polish counterparts and has shrugged off the outrage in Poland.
Ironically, Lech Walesa shares a distinction with President Obama: They both won Nobel Peace Prizes. Walesa earned his in 1983 after years of fighting for peace and freedom, and being monitored, harassed, and jailed for it. President Obama received his award in 2009. Some may think that this would be enough of a bond for President Obama to set aside political differences for the greater good. But instead, President Obama treated Walesa the same way he treated the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize winner, His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, who was ushered out the White House kitchen past piles of garbage in 2010.
766,000 More Women Unemployed Today Than When Obama Took Office
Be sure to see our previous post about labor participation rates.
(CNSNews.com) – The number of American women who are unemployed was 766,000 individuals greater in May 2012 than in January 2009, when President Barack Obama took office, according to data released today by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
In January 2009, there were approximately 5,005,000 unemployed women in the United States, according to BLS. In May 2012, there were 5,771,000.
The BLS derives its employment statistics from an overall number it calls the civilian non-institutional population. This includes all Americans 16 or over who are not on active duty in the military and who are not in an institution such as a prison, mental hospital or nursing home. From this civilian non-institutional population, BLS determines a subset it calls the civilian labor force, which includes all members of the civilian non-institutional population who are either employed or have made specific efforts to find work in the past four weeks. People who are not employed and who have not sought work in the past four weeks are considered by the BLS to have dropped out of the labor force.
Unemployed people are those who are in the labor force but do not have a job—despite having looked for one in the past four weeks. The unemployment rate is the percentage of the overall civilian labor force that does not have a job—that is, who have sought a job in the past four weeks and not found one.
In January 2009, according to BLS, the unemployment rate for American women was 7.0 percent. In May 2012, it was 7.9 percent.
When Obama took office in January 2009, the female civilian non-institutional population was 121,166,000. In May 2012, it hit 125,788,000—an increase of 4,622,000 since January 2012.
However, at the same time the female civilian non-institutional population was increasing, the percentage participating in the labor force was declining—following a long-term trend. In January 2009, 59.4 percent of women participated in the labor force, while in May 2012 it was 57.8.
May’s 57.8 percent female participation rate in the labor force was up from April’s rate of 57.6 percent—but that level (57.6 percent) was the lowest it had been since March 1993.Female participation in the labor force peaked at 60.3 percent in April 2000. The last time it was above 60 percent was March 2001, when it hit 60.2 percent.
Despite the increase in the female non-institutional population over the past three years, the actual number of women employed in the United States in May 2012 was about 83,000 lower than it was in January 2009. In January 2009, there were 66,969,000 women employed in the United States and in May 2012 there were 66,886,000.
The number of women employed in the United States peaked at 68,102,000 in April 2008, according to BLS. The number of women employed in the United States today is 1,216,000 less than that.
America Lost 129,000 Millionaires in 2011. How Much of Their Lost Money Did You Get?
Case in point, government is not nearly as good at redistributing wealth as they are at destroying it.
How much of their wealth did you get?
CNBC:
America’s millionaire population declined last year for the first time since the financial crisis, according to a new report.
The population of U.S. millionaire households (households with investible assets of $1 million or more) fell to 5,134,000 from 5,263,000 in 2011, according to The Boston Consulting Group’s Global Wealth study.
Total private wealth in North America fell by 0.9 percent, to $38 trillion.
The ultra-rich were the largest losers in dollar terms. Households in North America with investible assets of more than $100 million saw their wealth decline 2.4 percent. Their population declined slightly to 2,928 from 2,989.
Economy Still Slipping….
And the only reason that unemployment is measured at 8.2% is because the under employed and those who gave up and quit looking for work are not counted. Real unemployment is MUCH higher. Here are the labor participation rates going back to 2001:
Feeble hiring by U.S. employers in May added gloom to an already darkening picture of the economy, which appears to be joining Europe and Asia in a spreading slowdown.
Employers added a seasonally adjusted 69,000 jobs last month, the smallest increase in a year, while numbers for the two prior months were clipped by a combined 49,000. The politically salient jobless rate ticked up—to 8.2% from 8.1% in April—and the report quickly became a flash point for a presidential election focused on the job-creating bona fides of the candidates.
Jobs were only one of the disappointing numbers out Friday that fueled anxiety about the U.S. economy. A separate report showed manufacturing growth cooled in May, with troublingly sharp drops in both production and exports. Another report showed consumer spending rose in April, but by more than incomes, suggesting the risk of consumers struggling to keep spending.
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Western Journalism Center: Obama’s List of Firsts
Granted Western Journalism is a conservative outfit, but nonetheless the firsts that appear in this list are true.
First President to apply for college aid as a foreign student, then deny he was a foreigner.
First President to have a social security number from a state he has never lived in.
First President to preside over a cut to the credit-rating of the United States.
First President to violate the War Powers Act.
First President to be held in contempt of court for illegally obstructing oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.
First President to defy a Federal Judge’s court order to cease implementing the Health Care Reform Law.
First President to require all Americans to purchase a product from a third party, a violation of the U.S. Constitution.
First President to spend a trillion dollars on ‘shovel-ready’ jobs when there was no such thing as ‘shovel-ready’ jobs.
First President to recommend changing our National Anthem as it portrays and promotes violence and is warlike in its theme.
First President to cancel the National Day of Prayer Breakfast and activities.
First President to initiate a Cash for Clunkers Program to clean up exhaust that adds to global warming, then extended it because it was so popular — wasting hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars.
First President to abrogate bankruptcy law to turn over control of companies to his union supporters.
First President to bypass Congress and implement the Dream Act through executive fiat.
First President to order a secret amnesty program that stopped the deportation of illegal immigrants across the U.S., including those with criminal convictions.
First President to demand a company hand over $20 billion to one of his political appointees.
First President to terminate America’s ability to put a man in space.First President to have a law signed by an auto-pen without being present.
First President to arbitrarily declare an existing law unconstitutional and refuse to enforce it.
First President to threaten insurance companies if they publicly spoke out on the reasons for their rate increases.
First President to tell a major manufacturing company which state they are allowed to locate a factory in.
First President to file lawsuits against the states he swore an oath to protect (AZ, WI, OH, IN).
First President to withdraw an existing coal permit that had been properly issued years ago.
First President to fire an inspector general of Americorps for catching one of his friends in a corruption case.
First President to appoint 45 czars to replace elected officials in his office.
First President to golf 73 separate times in his first two and a half years in office, 90 to date.
First President to pledge complete transparency while campaigning, then hide his medical, educational,and travel records.
First President to win a Nobel Peace Prize for doing NOTHING to earn it.
First President to go on multiple global ‘apology tours’.
First President to go on 17 lavish vacations, including date nights and Wednesday evening White House parties for his friends; paid for by the taxpayer.
First President to have 22 personal servants (taxpayer funded) for his wife.
First President to keep a dog trainer on retainer for $102,000 a year at taxpayer expense.
First President to repeat the Holy Qur’an and tells us that the early morning Islamic call to worship is the most beautiful sound on earth.
Must See: Steven Tucker Lecture on ObamaCare (video)
Small business health insurance broker C. Steven Tucker on the ins and outs of ObamaCare as well as the facts and lies around it.
We are not kidding, this video is the must see if you care anything about this legislation.
President Obama Keeps Donations From Bain Capital…
Then why keep the money? Why is one of Obama’s campaign chairs an exec at Bain?
Though the Obama campaign has repeatedly attacked Mitt Romney for his career at Bain Capital, President Obama still accepted $7,500 in campaign contributions from two Bain executives. His campaign press secretary, Ben LaBolt told The Politicker the president has no intention of giving the money back.
“No one aside from Mitt Romney is running for President highlighting their tenure as a corporate buyout specialist as one of job creation, when in fact, his goal was profit maximization,” said Mr. LaBolt. ”The President has support from business leaders across industries who have seen him pull the economy back from the brink of another depression, manufacturing and the auto industry revived, and support his agenda to build an economy that lasts where America outinnovates and outeducates the rest of the world and economic security for the middle class is restored.”
On Tuesday, Vice President Joe Biden defended the attacks on Mr. Romney’s tenure at Bain Capital. Though he insisted he wasn’t “criticizing private equity firms,” Mr. Biden said there were many examples of Mr. Romney and his Bain colleagues causing tremendous harm.
“You hear all these stories about his partners buying companies … where they load up with a tremendous amount of debt. The companies go under, everybody loses their job, the community is devastated, but they make money,” said Mr. Biden. “They make money even when a company goes bankrupt, when workers lose their jobs.”
New Obama slogan “Forward” Also Title of Several European Communist Publications
Considering that Dad was an outspoken Communist, mom was a “Critical Theorist” (that’s Marxism on steroids folks), his childhood mentor Frank Marshall Davis wrote for CPUSA publications, as did David Axelrod’s parents, and considering his long time affiliation with communist bomber Bill Ayers and self proclaimed Marxist Jeremiah Wright; I am sure that this just just a coincidence.
The Obama campaign apparently didn’t look backwards into history when selecting its new campaign slogan, “Forward” — a word with a long and rich association with European Marxism.
Many Communist and radical publications and entities throughout the 19th and 20th centuries had the name “Forward!” or its foreign cognates. Wikipedia has an entire section called “Forward (generic name of socialist publications).”
“The name Forward carries a special meaning in socialist political terminology. It has been frequently used as a name for socialist, communist and other left-wing newspapers and publications,” the online encyclopedia explains.
The slogan “Forward!” reflected the conviction of European Marxists and radicals that their movements reflected the march of history, which would move forward past capitalism and into socialism and communism.
The Obama campaign released its new campaign slogan Monday in a 7-minute video. The title card has simply the word “Forward” with the “O” having the familiar Obama logo from 2008. It will be played at rallies this weekend that mark the Obama re-election campaign’s official beginning.
There have been at least two radical-left publications named “Vorwaerts” (the German word for “Forward”). One was the daily newspaper of the Social Democratic Party of Germany whose writers included Friedrich Engels and Leon Trotsky. It still publishes as the organ of Germany’s SDP, though that party has changed considerably since World War II. Another was the 1844 biweekly reader of the Communist League. Karl Marx, Engels and Mikhail Bakunin are among the names associated with that publication.
East Germany named its Army soccer club ASK Vorwaerts Berlin (later FC Vorwaerts Frankfort).
Vladimir Lenin founded the publication “Vpered” (the Russian word for “forward”) in 1905. Soviet propaganda film-maker Dziga Vertov made a documentary whose title is sometimes translated as “Forward, Soviet” (though also and more literally as “Stride, Soviet”).
Conservative critics of the Obama administration have noted numerous ties to radicalism and socialists throughout Mr. Obama’s history, from his first political campaign being launched from the living room of two former Weather Underground members, to appointing as green jobs czar Van Jones, a self-described communist.
Florida poll: Quarter of voters less inclined to back Obama over gay marriage issue
The very Obama friendly Politico reports:
President Obama’s same-sex marriage endorsement makes a full quarter of Florida voters less likely to cast their ballots for him, according to a poll released Monday.
Quinnipac’s latest poll of the Sunshine State finds that 25 percent of voters say Obama’s endorsement of gay marriage makes them less likely to vote for him. On the other hand, 11 percent say that it makes them more likely to vote for him.
Among independents, 23 percent say that they’re less likely to vote for Obama over same sex marriage. Older voters (55 and older), born-again evangelical Christians, lower income voters and military veterans are all more likely than other demographic groups to say that Obama’s backing of same-sex marriage will sway them towards Romney.
On the whole, Romney beats President Obama by six points in Florida, leading 47 to 41 percent over the incumbent president.
California tops states in teen unemployment. Students with jobs hits 20 year low.
As summer break approaches and school seasons conclude, teens in California will have a more difficult time finding a job than their demographic counterparts in every other state, according to Census Bureau data released by the Employment Policies Institute.
With 36.2 percent of its teens unable to find employment, California leads all other states in teen unemployment — only the District of Columbia, with its 51.7 percent teen unemployment rate, surpasses the Golden State.
Overall, teen unemployment rose in 17 states and Washington, D.C., between April 2011 and April 2012, and fell in 32 states.
Nationally, the teen unemployment rate stands at 24.9 percent, and has averaged above 20 percent for over 40 months. The number of employed teens fell by 14,000 from March to April 2012.
1) California 36.2%
2) South Carolina 31.2%
3) Rhode Island 29.8%
4) Washington 29.0%
5) Arizona 29.0%
6) Nevada 28.8%
7) Idaho 28.4%
8) North Carolina 28.2%
9) Missouri 27.7%
10) Louisiana 27.6%
** District of Columbia 51.7%
Did somebody say McJobless?
The American job market is no place for students as the number of employed high schoolers has hit its lowest level in more than 20 years, according to new figures from the National Center for Education Statistics.
In 1990, 32 percent of high school students held jobs, versus just 16 percent now. Blame their elders.
Sectors that traditionally have offered teens their first paying gig — fast-food chains, movie theaters, malls and big-box retailers — have now become the last resorts for out-of-work college graduates or older Americans forced back into the labor force out of sheer financial necessity. The resulting squeeze has left students on the outside looking in.
“By definition, teenage workers get the jobs that are left over,” said Charles Hirschman, a sociology professor at the University of Washington who has studied and written about student employment. “When you can’t find someone else to bag your groceries or work construction, often teenagers are the labor force you can count on to pick up that slack for a low wage. But now, with the recession, everybody has moved down. Those jobs aren’t going to teenagers.”
Barack Obama and the Communist Party
This is a partial long list of the long ties with active and dedicated communists Barack Obama has had since he was a boy. The interesting thing is that much of this information is in Obama’s own books, but the elite media doesn’t wish to report it.
Follow the link below:
http://keywiki.org/index.php/Barack_Obama_and_the_Communist_Party
Notre Dame and Dozens of Catholic Orgs Sue Obama – Elite Media Blackout!
Alexandria, VA – Fury over the ABC, CBS and NBC evening newscasts’ continued refusal to report the lawsuits Catholic entities have filed against the Obama administration has spread beyond the Media Research Center watchdog group and Catholic leaders to 10 additional Christian leaders equally concerned about this decision to deliberately not report national news. Below are statements released by FRC’s Tony Perkins, Gary Bauer of American Values and 8 more leaders.
For the third night in a row the broadcast networks have refused to cover this correctly.
This momentum is fueled by CBS Evening News’ outrageous decision not only to spike the Catholic lawsuits but instead to lead the news with yet another story about the Catholic sex abuse scandal. The broadcast devoted two minutes and 31 seconds to the accused abusers and allegations that occurred decades ago. That’s roughly eight times more coverage than CBS Evening News gave the historic lawsuit on Monday.
“Those fleeting 19 seconds remain the only evening news coverage of the damning anti-Obama lawsuit in 72 hours since the unprecedented suing by one of the largest institutions in the country,” stated Media Research Center President Brent Bozell. “Make no mistake – CBS intentionally resurrected the decade-old scandal last night while ignoring the lawsuit to throw salt on the wound of America’s 60 million Catholics. The media are holding this historic news hostage from the American people. At least CBS has heard of the word ‘Catholic.’ ABC and NBC are behaving like the Catholic Church — and one out of every four Americans — don’t exist.”
Statements:
“This week Catholic leaders filed lawsuits responding to an unprecedented federal government intrusion into the church. Several major networks have chosen to ignore the stand that these Catholic organizations have taken in defense of our most fundament freedom. However, thousands of priests, pastors, and rabbis will continue to speak out and refuse to surrender their most fundamental right to live and exercise faith without compromise. The church will not allow itself to be conscripted to advance anyone’s liberal political agenda.”
Tony Perkins
President, Family Research Council
Female Democrat Senators Pay Female Staffers Less than Men…. Much Less!
A group of Democratic female senators on Wednesday declared war on the so-called “gender pay gap,” urging their colleagues to pass the aptly named Paycheck Fairness Act when Congress returns from recess next month. However, a substantial gender pay gap exists in their own offices, a Washington Free Beacon analysis of Senate salary data reveals.
Of the five senators who participated in Wednesday’s press conference—Barbara Mikulski (D., Md.), Patty Murray (D., Wash.), Debbie Stabenow (D., Mich.), Dianne Feinstein (D., Calif.) and Barbara Boxer (D., Calif.)—three pay their female staff members significantly less than male staffers.
Murray, who has repeatedly accused Republicans of waging a “war a women,” is one of the worst offenders. Female members of Murray’s staff made about $21,000 less per year than male staffers in 2011, a difference of 35.2 percent.
That is well above the 23 percent gap that Democrats claim exists between male and female workers nationwide. The figure is based on a 2010 U.S. Census Bureau report, and is technically accurate. However, as CNN’s Lisa Sylvester has reported, when factors such as area of employment, hours of work, and time in the workplace are taken into account, the gap shrinks to about 5 percent.
A significant “gender gap” exists in Feinstein’s office, where women also made about $21,000 less than men in 2011, but the percentage difference—41 percent—was even higher than Murray’s.
Boxer’s female staffers made about $5,000 less, a difference of 7.3 percent.
The Free Beacon used publicly available salary data from the transparency website Legistorm to calculate the figures, and considered only current full-time staff members who were employed for the entirety of fiscal year 2011.
The employee gender pay gap among Senate Democrats was not limited to Murray, Boxer, and Feinstein. Of the 50 members of the Senate Democratic caucus examined in the analysis, 37 senators paid their female staffers less than male staffers.
Senators elected in 2010—Joe Manchin, Chris Coons, and Richard Blumenthal—were not considered due to incomplete salary data.
Women working for Senate Democrats in 2011 pulled in an average salary of $60,877. Men made about $6,500 more.
While the gap is significant, it is slightly smaller than that of the White House, which pays men about $10,000, or 13 percent, more on average, according to a previous Free Beacon analysis.
The pay differential is quite striking in some cases, especially among leading Democrats. Sen. Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.), who runs the Senate Democratic messaging operation, paid men $19,454 more on average, a 36 percent difference.
Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D., Ill.) paid men $13,063 more, a difference of 23 percent.
Other notable Senators whose “gender pay gap” was larger than 23 percent:
- Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.)—47.6 percent
- Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D., N.M.)—40 percent
- Sen. Jon Tester (D., Mont.)—34.2 percent
- Sen. Ben Cardin (D., Md.)—31.5 percent
- Sen. Tom Carper (D., Del.)—30.4 percent
- Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D., Minn.)–29.7 percent
- Sen. Kent Conrad (D., N.D.)–29.2 percent
- Sen. Bill Nelson (D., Fla.)—26.5 percent
- Sen. Ron Wyden (D., Ore)—26.4 percent
- Sen. Tom Harkin (D., Iowa)—23.2 percent
Sen. Sanders, who is an avowed socialist who caucuses with the Democrats, has the worst gender gap by far. He employed more men (14) than women (10), and his chief of staff is male. Like many of his fellow partisans, he has previously accused Republicans of “trying to roll back the clock on women’s rights.”
USA Today: Real 2011 Deficit $5 Trillion
And that is not the debt folks, that is one years deficit spending.
The typical American household would have paid nearly all of its income in taxes last year to balance the budget if the government used standard accounting rules to compute the deficit, a USA TODAY analysis finds.
Under those accounting practices, the government ran red ink last year equal to $42,054 per household — nearly four times the official number reported under unique rules set by Congress.
A U.S. household’s median income is $49,445, the Census reports.
The big difference between the official deficit and standard accounting: Congress exempts itself from including the cost of promised retirement benefits. Yet companies, states and local governments must include retirement commitments in financial statements, as required by federal law and private boards that set accounting rules.
The deficit was $5 trillion last year under those rules. The official number was $1.3 trillion. Liabilities for Social Security, Medicare and other retirement programs rose by $3.7 trillion in 2011, according to government actuaries, but the amount was not registered on the government’s books.
Deficits are a major issue in this year’s presidential campaign, but USA TODAY has calculated federal finances under accounting rules since 2004 and found no correlation between fluctuations in the deficit and which party ran Congress or the White House.
Key findings:
• Social Security had the biggest financial slide. The government would need $22.2 trillion today, set aside and earning interest, to cover benefits promised to current workers and retirees beyond what taxes will cover. That’s $9.5 trillion more than was needed in 2004.
• Deficits from 2004 to 2011 would be six times the official total of $5.6 trillion reported.
• Federal debt and retiree commitments equal $561,254 per household. By contrast, an average household owes a combined $116,057 for mortgages, car loans and other debts.
“By law, the federal government can’t tell the truth,” says accountant Sheila Weinberg of the Chicago-based Institute for Truth in Accounting.
Jim Horney, a former Senate budget staff expert now at the liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, says retirement programs should not count as part of the deficit because, unlike a business, Congress can change what it owes by cutting benefits or lifting taxes.
“It’s not easy, but it can be done. Retirement programs are not legal obligations,” he says.
White House Connected GE Pays No Tax on $14 Billion ….Again!
GE who owned MSNBC, has lucrative government contracts and whose CEO was appointed to a position in the White House utilized our 60,000 page tax code again, which is filled with cronyism and special favors.
The taxes Democrats propose to “soak the rich” always seem to miss those who they demagogue for not paying their fair share. They have been “soaking the rich” for decades and keep missing the target. Why? – LINK
General Electric, one of the largest corporations in America, filed a whopping 57,000-page federal tax return earlier this year but didn’t pay taxes on $14 billion in profits. The return, which was filed electronically, would have been 19 feet high if printed out and stacked.
The fact that GE paid no taxes in 2010 was widely reported earlier this year, but the size of its tax return first came to light when House budget committee chairman Paul Ryan (R, Wisc.) made the case for corporate tax reform at a recent townhall meeting. “GE was able to utilize all of these various loopholes, all of these various deductions–it’s legal,” Ryan said. Nine billion dollars of GE’s profits came overseas, outside the jurisdiction of U.S. tax law. GE wasn’t taxed on $5 billion in U.S. profits because it utilized numerous deductions and tax credits, including tax breaks for investments in low-income housing, green energy, research and development, as well as depreciation of property.
“I asked the GE tax officer, ‘How long was your tax form?'” Ryan said. “He said, ‘Well, we file electronically, we don’t measure in pages.'” Ryan asked for an estimate, which came back at a stunning 57,000 pages. When Ryan relayed the story at the townhall meeting in Janesville, there were audible gasps from the crowd.
Ken Kies, a tax lawyer who represents GE, confirmed to THE WEEKLY STANDARD the tax return would have been 57,000 pages had it been filed on paper. The size of GE’s tax return has more than doubled in the last five years.
Related:
CNN: Obama Attacking Private Equity At 6am, Fundraising With Private Equity At 6pm (video) – LINK
Under Obama: Family Income Down. Jobless Claims High. Government Spending Up. Super Rich Getting Richer. – LINK
Wall St. Made More Money In 2.5 Years Of Obama Than 8 Years Of Bush – LINK
Top Private Banks Thriving in the Tumult – LINK
George Soros and Warren Buffet benefited from Obama Keystone Pipeline Veto – LINK
Obama Administration In Bed With Lobbyists Like Never Before – LINK
Top 20 Industry Money Recipients This Election Cycle – Who is in the back pocket of Wall Street? – LINK
Top All-Time Donors, 1989-2012 – Hint: Most goes to Democrats – LINK
Obama: Largest Wall Street Money Recipient, Hands Out Jobs to Contributors – LINK
Obama’s Swiss Banker …. Oh the Hypocrisy! – LINK
Corruption You Can Believe In: Failed Sub Primes and Mortgage Fraud Lenders Funneled Money to Dodd & Obama the Most. Fannie & Freddie Gave $200 Million to Partisans-Most Went to Democrats! Dodd, Obama Among Top Recipients. Republicans Attempted to Pass Reforms-Blocked by Democrat Leadership! – LINK
Obama’s Swiss Banker …. Oh the Hypocrisy!
Unreal….
One of President Obama’s largest financial backers is a key executive at the largest Swiss bank in the world, complicating his criticism of presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney.
Robert Wolf is president of Swiss financial giant UBS Investment Bank and chairman of UBS Americas. He has been one of Obama’s most prolific fundraisers dating back to 2006, when the former Senator from Illinois initiated his run for the White House.
Wolf has bundled more than $500,000 for the president’s reelection, campaign records show. He is but one of many wealthy bankers Obama has turned to in an effort to win a second term.
According to campaign reporter John Heilemann, Obama and Wolf first met in December 2006 in a conference room owned by liberal billionaire George Soros, who is currently embroiled in a domestic dispute with his 31-year-old ex-girlfriend.
It was a match made for the ages, Heilemann argued—the “hope and change” candidate and the sympathetic Wall Street millionaire.
Obama eagerly courted the “A-List New York donor,” who would become the future president’s “most copious cash collector in the city by far,” raising more than $500,000 for his 2008 campaign.
Wolf’s company, UBS, gave an additional $532,000, making it the 15th largest contributor to Obama’s first presidential run.
“The way Barack has taken this nation with his rock-star status,” Wolf told Heilemann in 2007, “it’s very exciting!”
Upon taking office in early 2009, Obama appointed Wolf to the Economic Recovery Advisory Board that would help craft the controversial $787 billion stimulus package.
Shortly after Wolf was appointed, UBS admitted to conspiring to defraud the Internal Revenue Service and agreed to pay $780 million to ward off a federal investigation into its activities.
Wolf was also one of several major Democratic donors named to the President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness. He remains a close adviser and golfing partnerto the president. A recent Wall Street Journal article dubbed Wolf “a ‘fat cat’ with the president’s ear.”
In addition to his prolific efforts as a campaign bundler, Wolf has personally contributed almost $200,000 to Democratic candidates and committees since 2007, including at least $9,100 to Obama and more than $115,000 to the Democratic National Committee.
Last month, Wolf hosted a $35,800-per-plate fundraiser for the president in New York City.
Another Obama bundler, Charles Adams, also has a Swiss address, as Buzzfeed noted earlier this year; he “heads the office of the law firm Akin Gump in the Swiss capital. Adams raised more than $100,000 for Obama, according to the report.”
Despite relying so heavily on a Swiss financial institution, the Obama campaign and its Democratic allies have sought to make political hay of Romney’s Swiss bank account, which he closed in 2010.
Hawkins: 15 Facts That Even Obama’s Biggest Supporters Should Be Able To Admit Are True
“Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but they are not entitled to their own facts.” — Daniel Patrick Moynihan
Conservatives and liberals may disagree on reasons, motivations, and excuses for Barack Obama’s performance, but the facts are still facts. There may be many reasons that a pro football coach goes 1-15, but everyone can agree that his record is still 1-15, right? Well, here are some basic facts about how the country is faring with Barack Obama in the White House. Take a look at the numbers, sans commentary, and make your own judgment about whether Barack Obama deserves another term in office.
1) Real median household income is down $4300 since Obama took office.
2) The percentage of unemployed workers who’ve been out of a job for more than a year is over 30%.
3) The country has had the longest streak of +8% unemployment since the Depression under Obama: 39 months and counting.
4) In 2011 under Barack Obama, nearly one out of every seven Americans was on food stamps. That’s a 70 percent increase from 2007.
5) Fifty percent of new college graduates are underemployed or unemployed.
6) U.S. home ownership is at a decade long low. So is the number of Americans who say their home is worth more than they paid for it. Home prices are the lowest they’ve been since 2002.
7) Barack Obama ended NASA’s manned space program.
8) Going into this election cycle, Barack Obama had raised more money from Wall Street than any President in history. He has also raised more money from Wall Street than all of the GOP presidential contenders combined in this election cycle.
9) Under Barack Obama’s leadership, the last time Harry Reid and the Senate Democrats passed a budget was April 9, 2009.
10) Barack Obama’s budget was defeated 414-0 in the House and 99-0 in the Senate.
11) When he was running for President in 2008, Barack Obama pledged not to raise taxes on families making less than 250,000 dollars per year. He broke that promise with the tanning salon tax and with Obamacare, which raises almost 500 billion dollars in new taxes, a significant portion of which would be paid by people making less than 250,000 dollars per year.
12) When Barack Obama took office, gas was $1.95 per gallon. Today gas is $3.72 per gallon.
13) In February of this year, the federal government had a 229 billion dollar deficit. That was the largest deficit in the history of the United States.
14) America lost its AAA credit rating (which it had held since 1917) on Obama’s watch despite the fact that Timothy Geithner publicly said there was “no risk” of that happening.
15) Barack Obama added more to the debt in just 38 months than George Bush did in two full terms as President.
How Much Do Americans Really Know About Obama? (video)
Michelle Fields takes to the streets with quotes from Obama’s book ….. and the results?
And by the way, this also shows that most people have no idea that most college professors are neo-marxists or full blown leftists.
Jon Lovitz with Sean Hannity on Class Warfare (video)
Lovitz: A victim mentality is what Obama is selling….
Video: NC Non-Citizens Voting, Dead Offered Ballots, UNC Officials Embrace Voter Fraud
James O’Keefe strikes again!
Senate Unanimously Rejects Obama’s Budget Again
A budget resolution based on President Obama’s 2013 budget failed to get any votes in the Senate on Wednesday.
In a 99-0 vote, all of the senators present rejected the president’s blueprint.
It’s the second year in a row the Senate has voted down Obama’s budget.
Obama’s 2012 budget failed 97 to 0 last May after Obama himself last April said he wanted deeper deficit cuts.
The House earlier this year unanimously rejected Obama’s budget.
Read the rest HERE.
More on Obama’s secret deal with big pharma…
Three years ago, President Obama cut a secret deal with pharmaceutical company lobbyists to secure the industry’s support for his national health care law. Despite Obama’s promises during his campaign to run a transparent administration, the deal has been shrouded in mystery ever since. But internal emails obtained by House Republicans now provide evidence that a deal was struck and GOP investigators are promising to release more details in the coming weeks.
“What the hell?” White House Deputy Chief of Staff Jim Messina, who is now Obama’s campaign manager, complained to a lobbyist for the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) in January 15, 2010 email. “This wasn’t part of our deal.”
This reference to “our deal” came two months before the final passage of Obamacare in an email with the subject line, “FW: TAUZIN EMAIL.” At the time, Billy Tauzin was president and CEO of PhRMA.
The email was uncovered as part of investigation into Obama’s closed-door health care negotiations launched by the House Energy and Commerce committee’s oversight panel.
“In the coming weeks the Committee intends to show what the White House agreed to do as part of its deal with the pharmaceutical industry and how the full details of this agreement were kept from both the public and the House of Representatives,” the committee’s Republican members wrote in a memo today.
On June 20, 2009, Obama released a terse 296-word statement announcing a deal between pharmaceutical companies and the Senate that didn’t mention any involvement by the White House.
“The investigation has determined that the White House, primarily through Office of Health Reform Director Nancy Ann DeParle and Messina, with involvement from Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel, was actively engaged in these negotiations while the role of Congress was limited,” the committee members wrote. “For example, three days before the June 20 statement, the head of PhRMA promised Messina, ‘we will deliver a final yes to you by morning.’ Meanwhile, Ms. DeParle all but confirmed that half of the Legislative Branch was shut out in an email to a PhRMA representative: ‘I think we should have included the House in the discussions, but maybe we never would have gotten anywhere if we had.’”
Read the full memo here.
Federal workers raking in millions in bonuses…
Related: 77,000 federal workers paid more than governors – LINK
A new in-depth database of federal worker salaries shows the government paid out a whopping $105 billion in salaries last year for most of its civilian workforce — to boot, the workers got $439 million in bonuses.
The information, which was obtained and number-crunched by The Asbury Park Press through a Freedom of Information Act request, challenges the old notion that government workers trade high salaries for job security and benefits.
In fact, many workers get all those things.
“They get better pay and they especially get better benefits,” said James Sherk, senior policy analyst with the conservative Heritage Foundation.
The database, which is now online, allows users to enter a federal worker’s name and their department, and then look up their salary information. The trove covers about 70 percent of federal workers, with some eye-opening results.
The average salary, for instance, for New Jersey’s federal employees was $83,749. Many senior executives throughout the federal government make a six-figure salary.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/05/16/federal-workers-raking-in-millions-in-bonuses-new-database-shows
Chomsky: Sarah Palin Right About Obama…..
“I don’t usually admire Sarah Palin,” Chomsky said, “but when she was making fun of this ‘hopey changey stuff,’ she was right, there was nothing there.”
Video Link
Governor Chris Christie Dismantles President Obama’s “Leadership” at the RJC (video)
The record is what the record is……
NBC: Stimulus Dollars Fund Crazed Sex Studies
You paid for it…..
NBC:
The NBC Investigative Unit has raised questions about two grants totaling nearly $1.5 million dollars distributed to the University of California San Francisco. The money was part of the federal stimulus program and went to studies into the erectile dysfunction of overweight middle aged men and the accurate reporting of someone’s sexual history.
This is part of our ongoing series of investigations by the NBC Bay Area Investigative Unit into who received federal stimulus dollars, and why some projects did not break ground more than two years after receiving the grant.
The Investigative Unit looked closely at the federal government’s decision to spend nearly $1.5 million dollars of taxpayer money, money that came to California. Grant number 1R01HD056950-01A2 was among the thousands of grants funded, receiving $1.2 million dollars. This grant studied how to improve the accuracy of how people responded to questions about their sexual history.
“If you honestly report on your sexual activity and number of partners?” Scott Amey with asked with a sigh. “That’s a good one.”
Catholic university drops student health insurance, cites ObamaCare
And this is far from the only incident. So much for “you can keep your plan and your doctor”…
A Catholic university in Ohio said Tuesday it is being forced to end a student health insurance program over the Obama administration’s contraception mandate and costs associated with other provisions of the health care overhaul.
Franciscan University in Steubenville, Ohio, said it has so far excluded contraceptive services and products from its health insurance policy for students and will not participate in a plan that “requires us to violate the consistent teachings of the Catholic Church on the sacredness of human life.”
In its decision to drop coverage, the school cited the contraception mandate, but also a requirement that the maximum coverage amount be increased to $100,000 for policyholders — claiming that would have made premiums skyrocket. A university official told Fox News Radio the students’ basic $600 policy was going to double in cost in the fall and triple next year and that the school’s insurance provider said the increases were the result of the federal Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
Political Arena 