Monthly Archives: February 2013

How To Go $16.5 Trillion in Debt

BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com

A recent poll by the Pew organization showed that while those of us in our Nation’s Capital and the 2,375 people who watch cable chat shows are consumed by the looming sequester, the other 75% of Americans are just shrugging, sighing, and smiling knowingly that the world will go on after Friday.

The underlying issue about the size of the deficit (about $1 trillion for FY 2013) and the national debt (a touch under $16.6 trillion) is the way the government spends our money.

Not its money. Our money. Continue reading

Paranoia Will Destroy Us

BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

The Blade Runner was paranoid.

South African Olympic track star Oscar Pistorius shot and killed his beautiful girl-friend and those gun-shots have been heard around the world.

We don’t know if the no-legged phenom was paranoid over a potential intruder (as he maintains) or was paranoid over the beauty’s faithfulness (which the police could charge), but we do know that paranoia played a role.

Paranoia plays a huge role in our national political discussion. Despite the fact that crime is at historic lows, everybody is paranoid that the bad guys are coming to rob them. Continue reading

Moving Pictures

BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com

The other day, the President railed against Congressional (read: Republican) inaction on averting the sequester by giving a speech while surrounded by uniformed policemen. The picture was designed to make the point that if the automatic cuts go into effect, people across the country will lose police protection.

Back when mules were the principal form of transportation, I was a member of the City Council of Marietta, Ohio 45750. One of my committee assignments was as chairman of the Police and Fire Committee. Continue reading

Conflicting Interests

BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

The New York Times ran a story about a staff hire in Senator Reid’s office.  It was your typical cynical report about the “revolving door,” in the world of politics.  Here is an excerpt:

“Take what happened late last month as Washington geared up for more fights about taxing, spending, and the deficit. The Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada, decided to bolster his staff’s expertise on taxes. Continue reading

See…Seekwes…Sequestration.

BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com

The latest projectile-sweat-producing event in our nation’s capital is the looming automatic cuts in the federal budget known as “sequestration.”

Sequestration is not a word we get to use every day in a sentence, most of us, but it is fun to say because we get to use the tip and the back of our tongues to say it.

According to Webster’s, sequestration is a 14th century word from the Latin sequesrare – to hand over to a trustee or some other third party. Today it is an Continue reading

Minimum Sense

BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

There are two ways to look at the proposal to increase the minimum wage put out by the President in his State of the Union Address.

There is the way that economists and small business owners look at it:  Increasing the minimum wage makes it harder for businesses to hire workers.

Then there is the way that some on the left look at it:  Only by increasing the minimum wage will you entice people off of welfare and into the workforce. Continue reading

President’s Day Books

BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

When I was a kid, we got both Washington’s Birthday and Lincoln’s Birthday off of school. That made February a fun month for kids. Not so much for parents.

These days, we celebrate their birthday on the same day. It’s kind of like when my wife decided to combine our son’s birthday party with the birthday party of one of his classmates. Saved time and money, and hey, it was fun for the whole family.

So, now we have President’s Day, which give us a good excuse to read books on all of the Presidents. I am currently reading a biography of George Washington Continue reading

Amateur Hour

BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com

Quick! What’s the name of the White House Chief of Staff?

I didn’t know, either. It’s Denis McDonough.

He was only appointed to the post by President Barack Obama January 25, meaning he has been on the job for less than a month. Yesterday he showed being a foreign policy expert does not a political expert make when he got himself involved in immigration reform. Continue reading

Healthcare Stats You Can Use

BY FRANK HILL
Reprinted from Telemachus.com

  1. 1% of the US population, about 3.1 million people, use 35% of all healthcare expenditures each year. The specific people in this number change each year due to death or recovery.
  2. 5% of the US population, about 15.5 million people, use 60% of all healthcare expenditures each year. The specific people in this number change each year due to death or recovery.
  3. Many, if not a majority of these people are in the Medicare and Medicaid programs.
  4. Healthcare now consumes 18% of GNP. It is expected to consume 20% of GDP by 2021.
  5. Chronic disease such as diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and strokes account for most of our expenditures.
  6. Anywhere from 35%-50% of all healthcare expenditures can be attributable to these four conditions. Continue reading

Molly’s First State of the Union

BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

It was Molly’s first State of the Union Address (she is four months old) and whatever the President said clearly didn’t agree with her. To say she was fussy would be an understatement. She moaned. She complained. She cried. And then she burped.

Okay, well maybe she had a bad case of gas. But after the listening to the President spend some more of her money, I wouldn’t blame her if she were more than a bit upset. Continue reading

Not a Long, Nor a Long-Lasting Speech

BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com

“The state of the Union,” the President reported last night, “is stronger.”

He said, to prove his point, we have created more new jobs, sold more American cars, bought less foreign oil, and are sending fewer soldiers into battle.

That is like saying (on the day pitchers and catchers officially reported to Spring Training sites) that a batter going 4-for-4 has raised his batting average by .100 percentage points, without pointing out he was batting .053 and is now batting .153. Continue reading

Obama Revealed

BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

Free from the burdens of a reelection campaign, presidents who win second terms reveal themselves when they come to Congress to give their fifth State of the Union address.

They can’t say the same thing that they just said in their inaugural address, because that would be really boring (not that most States of the Unions aren’t boring. They are.)

George W. Bush revealed himself to be a confident gambler who decided to bet all of his chips on Social Security reform. Bill Clinton revealed himself to Continue reading

State of the State of the Union

BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com

From Paris, France

I am in Paris for one afternoon and overnight because the non-stop service from Oujda, Morocco to Dulles International Airport just outside Washington, DC hasn’t yet begun. We flew into Orly Airport which is the Newark Airport of Europe. If you can arrange a trip that doesn’t include Orly, I recommend you do that. But, any story that ends with, “and then we had dinner in Paris” is a pretty good story.

Washington, DC is awash in activity surrounding the President’s State of the Union address tomorrow night at nine Eastern time. Continue reading

Traffic Laws Merely Suggestions

BY MICHAEL S. JOHNSON

“Traffic signals in New York are just rough guidelines.” –David Letterman

The same could be said for Washington, DC. Do you ever get the feeling that some people are deluded into believing traffic laws weren’t meant for them?

Take bicyclists, for example. Rarely do their bikes have lights, reflectors, fenders or license plates. They don’t have to signal turns or wear helmets. They zip through stop signs and red lights, ride the wrong way down one-way streets and swear at you if you get in their way. They hold up traffic, dart Continue reading

Future of US Finances

BY FRANK HILL
Reprinted from Telemachus.com

Sometimes, it is just smarter (and easier) to let people who are smarter than you explain complicated things.

Such is the case with Chuck Blahous, a long-time friend from Washington DC who is now a trustee on the Social Security and Medicare Trust Fund. We were about to plow through the CBO update on long-term economic and budget projections that came out yesterday when we saw Chuck’s summary come in our email inbox.

CBO reported that ‘deficits would fall below $1 trillion!’ for the first time in 4 years. People from the White House on down, including the President, Continue reading

Cafeteria Conservative

BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

Karl Rove is probably a cafeteria conservative. So am I.

Cafeteria Catholics are Catholics who go to Mass on a regular, or semi-regular basis, but don’t exactly follow all the rules of the Catholic Church.

The Catholic Church has a lot of rules. No pre-marital sex. No masturbation. No birth control. No gay stuff. No abortion. No meat on Fridays. No food an hour before you take communion.

Lots of Catholics tend to pick and choose among these rules. The no pre- Continue reading

PMs & J-School Students

BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com

From Rabat, Morocco

Yesterday I had the great opportunity to meet with, and do some teaching to, women members of the Moroccan Parliament and, a little later in the day, the journalism school students who want to, one day, cover them.

This trip is sponsored by Legacy International through a grant from the U.S. Department of State.

It was not all that long ago that women members of Congress in the U.S were still an oddity, and women members of the Senate were a rarity. In the 113th Continue reading

The Right War

BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

I have a bright idea. Let’s end the war on drugs and then let’s launch a new war against illegal guns.

The war on drugs, much like Prohibition in the 1920’s, makes our country more violent and gives criminals the ability to corner the market on the recreational drug industry.

Most people in our prisons (which are over-capacity, by the way) are there because of a connection to the illegal drug trade. Continue reading

Diplomats & Secretaries

BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com

From Rabat, Morocco

I am in Morocco with Mullpal Peter Fenn as a bipartisan team to meet with and help train young people in and out of the Moroccan government on communication strategies.

The trip is sponsored by Legacy International through a grant from the U.S. Department of State. Continue reading

The Real Budget Battle

BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

The real budget battle in Washington is not between Republicans and Democrats or conservatives and liberals. The real budget battle in Washington is between discretionary spending vs. entitlement spending.

What the hell does that mean?

Discretionary spending is basically money authorized and then approved each year by Congress. Entitlement spending is money that automatically Continue reading