A Bridge to Nowhere

The U.S. population is currently 308 million, give or take a few. Pretty much the whole population is mired in this recession. The article below reports that the recent $20 billion economic stimulus focused on road and bridge construction had no effect on unemployment numbers. I'm shocked! Let's see - we put say 10,000 people to work all over the U.S. out of a population of 308,000,000 and we pump in $20 billion into an economy of $15 trillion and we're surprised there's no effect. C'mon! A better way to think of this is as a rather large political payback for campaign support - that's the Chicago way!

I will believe that the Feds are serious about resurrecting the economy rather than getting themselves reelected when they reduce taxes across the board and leave more money in the hands of the rest of America. Only then, with millions of Americans making their own millions of economic choices with their money across the length and breadth of the United States, will the water level start to rise across the board and refloat this economy.

www.oregonlive.com/business/index.ssf/2010/01/stimulus_dollars_for_road_jobs.html

A Failed State

George Will often writes interesting columns and this one is a good illustration. It is about the death throes of the state of California and how it got there.townhall.com/columnists/GeorgeWill/2010/01/10/golden_no_longer

California is facing a $41 billion budget shortfall over the next 18 months. www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1870299,00.html We have never had a state fail, even in the Great Depression, but California may become a first:

"Kevin Starr, author of an eight-volume -- so far -- history of the (formerly) Golden State, says California is "on the verge" of becoming something without an American precedent -- "a failed state." William Voegeli, writing in the Claremont Review of Books, tartly says that "Rome wasn't sacked in a day, and California didn't become Argentina overnight."

He goes on to say that:

"It took years for liberalism's redistributive itch to create an income tax so steeply progressive that it prompts the flight from the state of wealth-creators: "Between 1990 and 2007," Voegeli writes, "some 3.4 million more Americans moved from California to one of the other 49 states than moved to California from another state."

"Voegeli says that if California's spending had grown no faster than population growth and inflation from 1992 to 2006, it would have been $65 billion less in 2006, and per capita government outlays then would have equaled not those of Somalia or Mississippi but of Oregon, which is hardly "a hellish paradigm of Social Darwinism."

Why this last quote is interesting is because Oregon is going the California route, although not as far down the road. I wrote in my 1/3/10 post that since 2001, Oregon government spending is up 64.2% while population growth was only up 10.8% in the same period. This is exactly what started California's problems. As Margaret Thatcher acidly observed, "The problem with socialism is that at some point you run out of other people's money." California has reached that point and Oregon is walking the same path. It's time to change it.

Statesman Journal Says "No" on 66 & 67

I believe in miracles!

www.statesmanjournal.com/article/20100110/OPINION/1100328/1048

Neither Do I Condemn You

I did a post on 1/7/10 about Brit Hume and the heat he is taking for suggesting on air that Tiger Woods should try Christianity if he wants to put his life back together. Most often media types are talking heads and we really don't know what makes them tick. Here is an interesting interview with Mr. Hume that reveals some of who he is and why he said what he did to Tiger. I appreciate him stepping up to the plate and reaching out to someone who has to be pretty battered and bruised by now.


www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2010/januaryweb-only/11-42.0.html

On the Road Again

Hope is a Journey

Suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. Romans 5:3-4 NIV

(Credit: Dayspring, blog.dayspring.com/2009/12/a-different-kind-of-hope-part-three.html)

Bend Bulletin Says "No" on 66 & 67

Will the shocks not stop coming? Now the Bend Bulletin weighs in against Measures 66 & 67. Be still my heart!

www.bendbulletin.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100106/NEWS0107/301069999/-1/RSSNEWSMAP

Jobs Are Up! Not

When I woke up this morning and checked my Yahoo homepage, AP headlined that the jobs report due out today would probably show that jobs were growing once again - the corner was turned. Not so much. The AP headline at noon was an "unexpected" loss of another 85,000 jobs in December. Unexpected only to AP apparently.

News flash: IT'S THE ECONOMY STUPID! It's not healthcare. 85% of the American public is happy with their healthcare. It's not even the war against the jihadists because our military has cooled the bad guys off considerably and will continue to do so given a decent measure of support from Washington. No, it's Congress and the Administration spending money like drunken sailors after a year at sea, threatening to raise taxes across the board, and showing no sign of letting up that has employers spooked. Employers aren't going to spend doo-dah until government sobers up and quits its monumental drunk. The longer it goes on, the longer and slower will be the recovery. AP, you are well advised to do some actual economic reporting rather than flakking for the Administration. Otherwise, there will be a lot of "unexpected" headlines in your future about the economy that are entirely predictable.