Thursday, August 06, 2009

Congress' idea of stimulus 

Gulfstream is getting a real dose of stimulus, courtesy of Nancy Pelosi.
At the end of July, the House approved nearly $200 million for the Air Force to buy three elite Gulfstream jets for ferrying top government officials and Members of Congress.

The Air Force had asked for one Gulfstream 550 jet (price tag: about $65 million) as part of an ongoing upgrade of its passenger air service.

But the House Appropriations Committee, at its own initiative, added to the 2010 Defense appropriations bill another $132 million for two more airplanes and specified that they be assigned to the D.C.-area units that carry Members of Congress, military brass and top government officials.

Because the Appropriations Committee viewed the additional aircraft as an expansion of an existing Defense Department program, it did not treat the money for two more planes as an earmark, and the legislation does not disclose which Member had requested the additional money.

An Appropriations Committee staffer said the military was already planning to replace its passenger fleet, and the committee �looked at the request and decided they should speed up the replacement.�

The Gulfstream G550 is a luxury business jet, which the company advertises as featuring long-range flight capacity that �easily links Washington, D.C., with Dubai, London with Singapore and Tokyo with Paris.� The company�s promotional materials say, �The cabin aboard the G550 combines productivity with exceptional comfort. It features up to four distinct living areas, three temperature zones, a choice of 12 floor plan configurations with seating for up to 18 passengers.�

h/t: Ed, who calls it a hidden earmark. Now if you think this is wasteful, you would be right if you don't believe government spending is stimulus. But if the reason for government spending is to improve the macroeconomy, then how do you protest spending money on Gulfstream, which produces planes in several places around the US, Mexico and London, in a depressed manufacturing sector. Hey! If you use the calculations this government uses, you've created 1.57*$195 million = $306.15 million in GDP and 2076 jobs! (Y'know, I could really do that Council of Economic Advisers job. I got math!)

And goodness knows, there's been a recent increase in demand for Gulfstream travel in Congress, so why not expand supply? The Speaker is just giving the people the business doing the people's business.

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Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Pelosi's modest proposal 

With apologies to Jonathan Swift.
A Modest Proposal
For Preventing The Children of Poor People in Ireland
From Being A burden to Their Parents or Country, and For Making Them Beneficial to The Public
By Nancy Pelosi

It is a melancholy object to those who walk through this great town or travel in Hopenchangeland, when they see the streets, the roads, and cabin doors, crowded with beggars of the female sex, followed by three, four, or six children, all in rags and importuning every passenger for an alms. These mothers, instead of being able to work for their honest livelihood, are forced to employ all their time in strolling to beg sustenance for their helpless infants: who as they grow up either turn thieves for want of work, or leave their dear native country to fight for oil, or sell their virginity.

I think it is agreed by all parties that this prodigious number of children in the arms, or on the backs, or at the heels of their mothers, and frequently of their fathers, is in the present deplorable state of the kingdom a very great additional grievance; and, therefore, whoever could find out a fair, cheap, and easy method of making these children sound, useful members of the commonwealth, would deserve so well of the public as to have his statue set up for a preserver of the nation.

But my intention is very far from being confined to provide only for the children of professed beggars; it is of a much greater extent, and shall take in the whole number of infants at a certain age who are born of parents in effect as little able to support them as those who demand assistance from the government.

As to my own part, having turned my thoughts for many years upon this important subject, and maturely weighed the several schemes of other projectors, I have always found them grossly mistaken in the computation. It is true, a child just dropped from its dam may be supported by her milk for a solar year or six, with little other nourishment; at most not above the value of a high-speed internet connection, which the mother may certainly get, or the value in food stamps, by her lawful occupation of tax consumption. Thus I made my proposal known to all on ABC:


There is likewise another great advantage in my scheme, that it will prevent those voluntary abortions, and that horrid practice of women murdering their bastard children, alas! too frequent among us! As you know, this is an issue I have studied for a long time.

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Monday, January 05, 2009

Democrats Fair? No Way; and We Pay 

US Speaker of the House, Democrat Nancy Pelosi, has decided to re-write the House rules today to ensure that the Republican minority is unable to have any influence on legislation. Her proposals are so draconian and will so polarize the Capitol, that any thought President-elect Obama has of bipartisan cooperation will be rendered impossible. (Hmmmm - is Obama in on this scam?)

Democrats had controlled the US House of Representative for decades before the Gingrich Revolution of 1994. During that time they implemented abusive practices that: had no term limits for committee chairs; encouraged backroom deals; denied debate on the floor of the House; denied Republicans the ability to expose and offer proposals to eliminate tax increases hidden by the Democratic majority; many other unfair, unjust, and secretive practices.

When Republicans took control of Congress in 1994, they opted for transparency. They opened committee meetings to the public and media, thereby making Congress actually subject to federal law. They set term limits for committee chairs, thereby ending committee fiefdoms. They guaranteed the then Democratic minority party the ability to offer amendments to legislation.

Democrat Pelosi's proposed repeal of procedures to provide accountability by elected members of Congress exposes a tyrannical Democrat leadership and mindset that is detrimental to the legislative process. A return to a Democrat "my way or the highway" of previous decades means we will all pay, and pay, and pay and pay........

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Monday, August 25, 2008

Democrat Pelosi, Catholic Church, Abortion 

Democrat Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, a lifelong Catholic apparently paid little attention to her religious instruction. On Sunday's Meet the Press Ms. Pelosi was asked by Tom Brokaw when life begins. Her waffling answer was a pathetic attempt to pacify the abortion rights arm of the Democrat Party and her religion. She failed, miserably.

Anyone who has any amount of Catholic education knows that the Catholic Church has been an opponent of abortion since the beginning. I was raised Catholic, attended Catholic school for five years and practiced the religion for a number of years. At no time did I ever hear that abortion was sort of, well you know, uh, maybe.... Ms. Pelosi's excuse that church leaders have not been able to determine when life begins is just bogus.

What I was waiting for was someone of authority in the Catholic Church to say something. Well, someone finally did. The Archbishop of Denver, Father Charles J. Chaput and Father James D. Conley, Auxiliary Bishop of Denver, released a clarification document today, the 25th of August.
It clearly states: "...we now know with biological certainty exactly when human life begins. Thus, today's religious alibis for abortion and a so-called "right to choose" are nothing more than that - alibis that break radically with historic Christian and Catholic belief. Abortion kills an unborn, developing human life. It is always gravely evil and so are the evasions employed to justify it. Catholics who make excuses for it - whether they're famous or not - fool not only themselves and abuse the fidelity of those Catholics who do sincerely seek to follow the Gospel and live their Catholic faith." Translated, abortion is wrong, period.

In addition, Cardinal Rigoli and Bishop Lori added their comments to Pelosi's misrepresentations of Catholic teachings.

You, Speaker Pelosi, are being dishonest with yourself, your constituents, and members of your faith when you try to skirt the issue with your incoherent babble.

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