Senator Debbie Stabenow is Citizens Against Government Wastes’s 2012 Porker of the Year

Comment by Jim Campbell, Citizen Journalist, Oath Keeper and Patriot.

Perhaps we should not be too harsh on them, after all they come from the planet Uranus and live in a parallel universe where spending other peoples money is pure sport, fun and games. 

Uninformed voters continue to reelect these fools so that they may plunder the taxpayers wealth to put more people on Uncle Sam’s Plantation in exchange for their votes. 

The results are in! Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) is the “winner” of CAGW’s online poll for 2012 Porker of the Year.

In a very tight race, Sen. Stabenow finished first in a field of six nominees, garnering 22.2 percent of the vote, just enough to edge out runner-up, Illinois Governor Pat Quinn (D), who received 21.6 percent.

This genius, suggesed the possibility of a federal bailout for his state’s public-sector pension programs, which are among the most underfunded in America

Sen. Stabenow earned this dubious award for submitting an amendment that would have extended federal green energy subsidies, many of which were expanded or begun as “temporary” programs under the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, or economic “stimulus” bill.

Her ultimately unsuccessful amendment flew in the face of ample evidence that the federal government’s green energy investments have wasted hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars as heavily subsidized firms, including Solyndra, Ener1, Beacon, Tesla, Amonix, Evergreen Solar, SpectraWatt, and SunPower, among others, have laid off workers, filed for bankruptcy, and defaulted on their taxpayer-backed loans.

Governor Pat Quinn out of gas and hopefully out of voters

Illinois Governor Pat Quinn avoided victory by less than a full percentage point, and it’s easy to see why. Gov. Quinn received his nomination for suggesting the possibility of a federal bailout for his state’s public-sector pension programs, which are among the most underfunded in America. Intentionally or not, Governor Quinn sent an encouraging message to officials from other states burdened with pension liabilities to start sprinting for the federal trough.

Also narrowly escaping the dishonor of Porker of the Year was New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg (I), who attracted 20.6 percent of the vote for proposing a ban on sugary drinks larger than 16 ounces at restaurants, food carts, and movie theaters. Validating his nomination and delivering a blow to Mayor Bloomberg’s nanny-state fervor, the New York State Supreme Court struck down the ban just yesterday, calling it “arbitrary and capricious.”

The Sequester Should Be Embraced, not Feared

Comment by Jim Campbell, Citizen Journalist, Oath Keeper and Patriot.

We have heard the term sequestration discussed on the news, but how many have a firm grasp of what it entails?

I don’t think so!

Dan Mitchell of the Cato Institute does a masterful job of explaining it and when the reader finishes the article and views the video they will understand why the Tax and Spend Liberals are not for it. 

by Dan Mitchell

International Liberty

The looters and moochers in Washington are increasingly agitated by the prospect of sequestration.

Automatic budget cuts, we are told, will indiscriminately slash vital programs and undermine economic growth by reducing government spending.

This is utter bunk. I would like to “slash vital programs,” but the chart I prepared earlier this week shows that the federal budget will expand by $2.4 trillion if a sequester occurs.

So the net effect of sequestration, as I explain in this Larry Kudlow segment on CNBC, is that the federal budget won’t expand by $2.5 trillion.

I did this interview from London, by the way, where is was past midnight, so I hope you’ll forgive me for looking a bit groggy at the very beginning.

But I think I did a decent job once the juices started flowing, though it’s hard to have an argument with someone who still believes in the snake-oil of Keynesian economics.

It’s sort of like having a debate about sailing with someone who thinks the earth if flat. Just like Krugman, Bernstein seems to reflexively think that it’s always a good idea to have a higher burden of government spending. So a sequester is a bad idea if you have this mindset, just like it would be a bad idea to sail off the edge of the earth. (Entire article below)