Intermarkets' Privacy Policy
Support


Donate to Ace of Spades HQ!


Contact
Ace:
aceofspadeshq at gee mail.com
Buck:
buck.throckmorton at protonmail.com
CBD:
cbd at cutjibnewsletter.com
joe mannix:
mannix2024 at proton.me
MisHum:
petmorons at gee mail.com
J.J. Sefton:
sefton at cutjibnewsletter.com


Recent Entries
Absent Friends
Bandersnatch 2024
GnuBreed 2024
Captain Hate 2023
moon_over_vermont 2023
westminsterdogshow 2023
Ann Wilson(Empire1) 2022
Dave In Texas 2022
Jesse in D.C. 2022
OregonMuse 2022
redc1c4 2021
Tami 2021
Chavez the Hugo 2020
Ibguy 2020
Rickl 2019
Joffen 2014
AoSHQ Writers Group
A site for members of the Horde to post their stories seeking beta readers, editing help, brainstorming, and story ideas. Also to share links to potential publishing outlets, writing help sites, and videos posting tips to get published. Contact OrangeEnt for info:
maildrop62 at proton dot me
Cutting The Cord And Email Security
Moron Meet-Ups






















« Tipping Point: Dennis Miller Decides "I Don't Like Obama, Because He Doesn't Like Me and 50% of the Country" | Main | Doctor Michele Bachmann: I Oppose "PerryCare" »
September 16, 2011

WSJ Op-Ed Writer: Obama's "Jobs" Plan "a Blue-State Bailout In Disguise"

Obama referred to ponying up even more dollars to prevent teachers from being laid off.

Where would they be laid off? Only in states whose governments, in league with the teachers' unions, continue escalating teachers' salaries beyond the point the public is willing to pay.

That creates a shortfall. A perpetual one. An always-growing one.

Well, Obama's from the government, and he's here to help.

Last Thursday, the president urged Congress to pony up roughly $200 billion in taxpayer money to "provide more jobs for teachers [and] more jobs for construction workers" and more money to carry out other state and local activities. He urges Congress to spend this money even after handing out hundreds of billions of dollars for similar purposes as part of the 2009 stimulus package, as well as a score and more billion dollars again in 2010.

These vast contributions to the coffers of state and local governments, though pitched as a jobs bill, are in reality the latest in a series of bailouts for debt-ridden state and local governments. They are of special benefit to states in the blue regions of the country where the president's most fervent supporters reside.

In many blue states, legislators have copied the politicians in Washington by running up state debts to extraordinary levels. Nationwide, state debt is running around $3 trillion. If unfunded pension liabilities are factored in, estimated liabilities leap forward by another $1 trillion to $3 trillion, depending on the optimism of the assumptions made.

The bond market has taken notice....

In a new study at Harvard's Program on Education Policy and Governance, we discovered why the Obama administration is so interested in helping out the states. States with a bluish hue—that is, states with legislatures that are heavily Democratic and have a highly unionized public-sector work force—must pay interest rates that are often an extra half a percentage point higher than states with a reddish coloring.

Specifically, a 20 percentage-point increment in either the Democratic share of the state legislature or a comparable increase in the share of the public work force that is unionized drives up interest rates by nearly a half a percentage point on a five-year security note. That amount is nontrivial. In Obama's home state of Illinois, it is costing governments over $700 million annually.

And because this costs these states' more than they can afford (at acceptable rates of taxation), they need a new revenue source, one that doesn't vote in the state... and that source is you, of course.

Only one thing can correct these states' bad prioritization of values: Having to face their own voters, confronting voters with the choice of ever-more-generous pay and benefits for public employee unions or massive tax hikes.

Someone, in these states, is going to get a salary increase, and someone is going to get an effective salary cut (as more dollars are siphoned away to pay for others' salaries).

There's no way to square this circle... except the one way, which is dragoon the citizens of other states into paying for the excesses of the blue states' governments.

Which is precisely what Obama demands.

Because: "jobs."


digg this
posted by Ace at 02:41 PM

| Access Comments




Recent Comments
Thomas Paine: "Jennifer Granholm made over a million dollars on t ..."

Defenestratus: "about 15 minutes Posted by: Ciampino - Singing qu ..."

SMOD: "An Auburn University study says every single regul ..."

pudinhead: "Canada first ... as an invasion dress rehersal. ..."

Braenyard - some Absent Friends are more equal than others _ : "The back of the bus is a good place to be...at cer ..."

Sharon(willow's apprentice): "Didn't a bunch of school buses catch fire ? I thin ..."

Ciampino - Singing quietly has never been my forte: "[b]ISRO - PSLV-CA - SpaDeX [/b] [b]Launch Time: ..."

Defenestratus: "49 Electric vehicles will make invading Russia har ..."

Lizzy[/i]: ">> Has a school district ANYWHERE been used as a t ..."

pudinhead: "48 Has a school district ANYWHERE been used as a t ..."

XTC: "40 Just because the manifest unfair siphoning of m ..."

Commissar of Plenty and Lysenkoism in Solidarity with the Struggle : "School bus driver charged with driving 32 kids whi ..."

Recent Entries
Search


Polls! Polls! Polls!
Frequently Asked Questions
The (Almost) Complete Paul Anka Integrity Kick
Top Top Tens
Greatest Hitjobs

The Ace of Spades HQ Sex-for-Money Skankathon
A D&D Guide to the Democratic Candidates
Margaret Cho: Just Not Funny
More Margaret Cho Abuse
Margaret Cho: Still Not Funny
Iraqi Prisoner Claims He Was Raped... By Woman
Wonkette Announces "Morning Zoo" Format
John Kerry's "Plan" Causes Surrender of Moqtada al-Sadr's Militia
World Muslim Leaders Apologize for Nick Berg's Beheading
Michael Moore Goes on Lunchtime Manhattan Death-Spree
Milestone: Oliver Willis Posts 400th "Fake News Article" Referencing Britney Spears
Liberal Economists Rue a "New Decade of Greed"
Artificial Insouciance: Maureen Dowd's Word Processor Revolts Against Her Numbing Imbecility
Intelligence Officials Eye Blogs for Tips
They Done Found Us Out, Cletus: Intrepid Internet Detective Figures Out Our Master Plan
Shock: Josh Marshall Almost Mentions Sarin Discovery in Iraq
Leather-Clad Biker Freaks Terrorize Australian Town
When Clinton Was President, Torture Was Cool
What Wonkette Means When She Explains What Tina Brown Means
Wonkette's Stand-Up Act
Wankette HQ Gay-Rumors Du Jour
Here's What's Bugging Me: Goose and Slider
My Own Micah Wright Style Confession of Dishonesty
Outraged "Conservatives" React to the FMA
An On-Line Impression of Dennis Miller Having Sex with a Kodiak Bear
The Story the Rightwing Media Refuses to Report!
Our Lunch with David "Glengarry Glen Ross" Mamet
The House of Love: Paul Krugman
A Michael Moore Mystery (TM)
The Dowd-O-Matic!
Liberal Consistency and Other Myths
Kepler's Laws of Liberal Media Bias
John Kerry-- The Splunge! Candidate
"Divisive" Politics & "Attacks on Patriotism" (very long)
The Donkey ("The Raven" parody)
Powered by
Movable Type 2.64