The Great Federal Budget Debacle

Roberta X, on how it will all come out.  Well, you know what they say about low expectations...

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Rounding Second, headed for Third (World, that is!)

New York Post:

[New York City] is so hard up for cash that it’s rationing toilet paper in women’s public restrooms -- to the point where bathroom attendants are doling out a few measly squares per patron -- along the world-famous Coney Island boardwalk.

The Post witnessed stone-faced Parks Department employees leave toilet-paper dispensers empty last week and instead force astonished female beachgoers to form "ration lines” in the bathrooms.

Chris Wysocki recalls P.J. O’Rourke’s famous line:

These were people who believed everything about the Soviet Union was perfect, but they were bringing their own toilet paper.

They’re called Progressives, and this is the world they want for all of us.

Related (links HT: Chris):

Posted by: Old Grouch in In Passing at 21:06:21 GMT | No Comments | Add Comment
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Just pull the damn plug

You start with this:

If Treasury were to decide to delay payments, it would need to re-program government computers that generate automatic payments as they fall due -- a massive and difficult undertaking.

...sensationalize it (a bit):

...It’s far from clear that it’s even possible to stop making the 3 million payments that Treasury makes automatically every day.  Doing so involves a massive computer-reprogramming effort which I’m sure could not be implemented overnight...

...and you get:

if Felix Salmon is to be believed, Treasury will send out checks anyway because it can’t stop.

The sad thing is, while I’m sure Glenn has his tongue firmly in cheek, because it’s "computers,”^[1] somebody is sure to believe it.

Watch for its appearance on the weekend gabfests!


Elsewhere: Smitty reacts:

Nonsense: ... This is more of a junkie/needle problem than a technical one.

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Posted by: Old Grouch in In Passing at 18:55:08 GMT | No Comments | Add Comment
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Here comes the cave

The Hill:

House Republicans on Wednesday showed a new willingness to talk about closing tax loopholes

caving in to the Democrats ( FIFY)

in the context of negotiations to raise the nation’s $14.3 billion debt ceiling.

The signal was made by Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.), the man who left debt talks led by Vice President Biden two weeks ago...

...and is a proud member of The 92 (which is all you need to know, really).

The GOP’s move was seen as a positive sign...

by Democrats and the media (but I repeat myself)

that a deal will be reached

taxes will be increased, while the deficit remains untouched ( FTFY,T)

...
"If the president wants to talk loopholes, we’ll talk loopholes,” Cantor said, with one caveat: Any revenue gained from ending a tax break should be used to lower other taxes, the second-ranking House Republican said...

Yah, yah, yah... more RINO promises.  BTW, how’s that light bulb ban repeal goin’, Mister Majority Leader, hmmm?

That drew a sharp response from Democrats, who said the demand would prevent them from winning any deficit cuts through the elimination of tax loopholes.

To which, Bill Quick:

...Never, not once, not one single time have... tax increases ever resulted in those taxes being used to decrease the national debt.

But unlike elephants, RINOs never remember.

UPDATE: Bend over:
Related:

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The only way it could have been better is if this had been my Fourth of July post

LabRat:

Town meeting #1.  State of emergency, among those present are the state governor, fire chief and assorted senior regional wildfire officers.  Tensions and stakes are high.  First question from the floor, from a worried community:

"How can I donate to the Red Cross?”

Only in America, and goddam am I proud of it!

Posted by: Old Grouch in In Passing at 21:39:59 GMT | No Comments | Add Comment
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Government on both sides of “Fast and Furious”

Gunwalking into Knebel & Bailey territory?

...Congressional sources have learned that not only was U.S. taxpayer money being used to buy guns that were later sent to Mexico, but the main target of the investigation was actually a FBI informant and former drug dealer who had been deported years ago. - Fox News

UPDATE (110708 16:30):

Fast and Furious, aka Gunwalker, Funded By Stimulus Bill
Hidden in plain sight, in a bill that no one read, was $10,000,000 for an ATF project called "Gunrunner.”...

Attorney General Eric Holder said he wouldn’t authorize it, but someone in Congress knew enough about it to earmark ten million bones for it.  And Obama signed the bill and gave it to them.

Elsewhere:
Related:

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“The one bias they will not admit to having, ever...”

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Clipfile - July 6, 2011

*  ...or ‘tax expenditures’ for ‘letting taxpayers keep their own money.’

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Clipfile - July 4, 2011

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Ripping off the teachers, too?

Washington Examiner:

In the past, Kaukauna’s [Kaukauna School District, Wisconsin] agreement with the teachers union required the school district to purchase health insurance coverage from something called WEA Trust -- a company created by the Wisconsin teachers union.  "It was in the collective bargaining agreement that we could only negotiate with them,” says [school board President Todd] Arnoldussen.  "Well, you know what happens when you can only negotiate with one vendor.”  This year, WEA Trust told Kaukauna that it would face a significant increase in premiums.

Now, the collective bargaining agreement is gone, and the school district is free to shop around for coverage.  And all of a sudden, WEA Trust has changed its position.  "With these changes, the schools could go out for bids, and lo and behold, WEA Trust said, ‘We can match the lowest bid,’” says Republican state Rep. Jim Steineke, who represents the area and supports the Walker changes.  At least for the moment, Kaukauna is staying with WEA Trust, but saving substantial amounts of money.

Most commenters, both on the Examiner story and over at Althouse, are concentrating on the ripping-off-the-taxpayers aspect of this story.  But the taxpayers weren’t the only ones getting a haircut: I’m confident that the WEA Trust’s higher-than-market prices didn’t trickle down as improved health benefits for the union’s teacher-members, and I’d lay better than even money that a lot of the Trust’s excess costs wound up as "compensation” paid to union officers and their cronies.  While Ace wonders about a hidden agenda:

Why, this is such a bizarre state of affairs, you’d almost think... the teachers’ unions’ mission was not to improve education, but rather to keep it in crisis forever so they could make ever-escalating demands upon the taxpayers.

...I believe I’ll opt for old-fashioned graft-n-corruption as a  first explanation.

Union-operated benefit funds have a long history of thievery, the poster children being the gangster-plundered funds run by (mostly) east and west coast trades’ locals and, closer to home, the Teamsters Union’s Central States Pension Fund.^[1]  Even absent outside criminal influence, union operations historically have not been paragons of efficiency.  At Kaukauna, the "excess” money the district was forced to spend on "health benefits” wasn’t there to spend on other things... like teacher pay.  And in view of these revelations, were I a member of the union, I’d be very interested in discovering who wrote the single-vendor provision into the contract, and finding out where the excess money went.

Ace, again:

There is corruption going on here that we didn't even imagine.   Corrupt people can think up too many corrupt schemes for the honest man to keep up with.

Yep.

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