Archive for the ‘Government Incompetence’ Category
DURBIN: Obama’s “Jobs Bill” Can’t Get Through Dem-Controlled Senate
But Obama continues to blame Republicans for not passing his “Jobs Bill” (really another “Porkulus” Bill) “right now”
THE HILL: Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said, at the moment, Democrats in Congress don’t have the votes to pass President Obama’s jobs bill, but Durbin added that that situation would change.
“Not at the moment, I don’t think we do, but, uh, we can work on it,” Durbin said, according to Chicago radio station WLS.
President Obama has been calling for Congress to pass his American Jobs Act since legislators returned from their August recess. The jobs plan is made up of a combination of tax increases on the wealthy, new infrastructure spending, an extension of the employee payroll-tax cut and additional funding for unemployment insurance benefits.
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White House email warned of risky Solyndra venture; worried about potential political damage with 2012 coming up
WASHINGTON POST: A White House official fretted privately that the Obama administration could suffer serious political damage if it gave additional taxpayer support to the beleaguered solar-panel company Solyndra, according to newly released e-mails.
The firm had burned through millions of dollars and in January still tottered near collapse. The official wanted the government’s top budget official to warn Obama’s energy secretary about the risk, according to the e-mails.
Failed Solyndra spent $1.9 million lobbying Obama
NEW YORK TIMES: The 1,100 full- and part-time employees who were abruptly laid off two weeks ago aren’t the only ones whose paychecks have been affected by the sudden and dramatic failure of bankrupt solar energy company, Solyndra Inc.
Because for its brief lifespan, Solyndra proved to be pretty good for the lobbying community.
According to records filed with the Clerk of the House and a search of disclosure forms compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics, Solyndra spent nearly $1.9 million on lobbying activities over a period of 43 months from 2008 to 2011.
About $1 million of that was earned by the company’s two in-house lobbyists, Joseph Pasetti and Victoria Sanville, over an 18-month period from 2010 until this year. But Solyndra has also had several big-name lobbying shops on its payroll, including established powerhouses Dutko Worldwide and Holland and Knight, which began representing the then-fledgling company in 2008.
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James O’Keefe Strikes Again: Undercover videos show government workers helping Russian drug dealers, sex traffickers, terrorists get Medicaid benefits
DAILY CALLER: Conservative filmmaker James O’Keefe released the first installment in a new
video investigation Monday morning, this one focused on Medicaid fraud. The first video in the series shows government employees in Ohio assisting two men who have described themselves as Russian drug smugglers with applications for Medicaid.
In the video, the men explain to Ohio Medicaid workers that they are Russian immigrants who sell illegal drugs, drive a modified McLaren F1 sports car with a gold-coated engine, and use their underage sisters to perform sexual favors in exchange for drugs.
In response, Ohio employees tasked with disbursing federal Medicaid dollars are shown coaching the men through the process of applying for benefits. “If it’s not something registered here, maybe I just wouldn’t mention it,” a Franklin County Medicaid officer named Traci Daniels tells the men, when asked whether they should mention owning a vehicle that retails for nearly $1 million, as they apply for government aid designed to help poor people. “Not that I can say that. You didn’t hear that from me. But, that would right there, that would throw him off. He would be immediately not qualified.”
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Taxpayers paid California’s chief prison psychiatrist $838,706 in 2010
BLOOMBERG: A chief psychiatrist for California’s overcrowded prison system was paid more than any other state employee in 2010, according to payroll figures released today.
The doctor, whose name wasn’t released, had a salary range of $261,408 to $308,640 and collected a total of $838,706, according to data released by Controller John Chiang. The total includes bonuses or payout of unused vacation time or sick days, according to the controller’s office. Chiang’s office later issued a statement saying the figure was wrong and would be corrected, without elaborating.
The 10 highest-paid state employees each earned more than $500,000 in the 2010 calendar year, the figures show. In contrast, Governor Jerry Brown’s salary is $173,987. Seven of the top 10 were prison doctors or dentists.
“Governor Brown is concerned about high salaries and payouts, which are driven by a number of things, including court mandates, accrued vacation time and the last administration’s furlough program,” a spokeswoman, Elizabeth Ashford, said in a statement. “We are looking closely at why some individuals receive such extraordinary sums.”
Obama’s economists admit: ‘Stimulus’ has cost $278,000 per job
Plus . . . these were not jobs we needed. They were make-work jobs. Now the Stimulus is causing jobs to be lost.
WEEKLY STANDARD: When the Obama administration releases a report on the Friday before a long weekend, it’s clearly not trying to draw attention to the report’s contents. Sure enough, the “Seventh Quarterly Report” on the economic impact of the “stimulus,” released on Friday, July 1, provides further evidence that President Obama’s economic “stimulus” did very little, if anything, to stimulate the economy, and a whole lot to stimulate the debt.
The report was written by the White House’s Council of Economic Advisors, a group of three economists who were all handpicked by Obama, and it chronicles the alleged success of the “stimulus” in adding or saving jobs. The council reports that, using “mainstream estimates of economic multipliers for the effects of fiscal stimulus” (which it describes as a “natural way to estimate the effects of” the legislation), the “stimulus” has added or saved just under 2.4 million jobs — whether private or public — at a cost (to date) of $666 billion. That’s a cost to taxpayers of $278,000 per job.
SCAM: Obama pays GM dealerships $7,500 for each Obama Volt they take
GM dealerships are buying Chevy Volts, reselling them as used cars and then taking $7,500 tax credit.
A tax credit is the government writing you a check.
Obama Volt sales have averaged a dismal425 per month for the first four months of 2011 — even though GM has the capacity to build 17,000 Volts per year and even though the government (that is, the taxpayer) is paying you $7,500 to buy the Volt.
That’s how awful this car is. This is crony capitalism at its worst.
Government Motors Stock Down 22% Since Post-Bailout Public Stock Offering
After much fanfare over its public stock offering last fall and a peak in January of $39.48 per share, General Motors stock has been in a tailspin downward for the last five months months. It closed today at $31.84. Ouch!
President Obama calls the GM bailout one of the big successes of his Presidency.
GM hasn’t been helped with reports of shoddy workmanship from it’s labor union workforce.
For example . . .
Steering wheel falls off Chevy Cruze. Worse than the Yugo?
WALL STREET JOURNAL: Imagine turning your car’s steering wheel, or giving it a
gentle tug, and having it break away from the steering column. Now you’re speeding along holding the suddenly useless wheel.
It sounds like a vision from a cartoon, or every driver’s nightmare. And it happened to at least one driver of a 2011 Chevrolet Cruze compact car last month, and General Motors Corp. is recalling 2,100 of the cars as a result.
While the recall affects a relatively small number of vehicles, it is an unpleasant development for Chevrolet, which has been riding high on the success of its new small car. Chevrolet sold 50,205 Cruzes through the end of March. That’s well short of the 76,821 units Toyota sold of the Cruze’s main rival, the Corolla, but it is ahead of the 37,379 Cobalts Chevy sold in the same period. The Cruze replaced the Cobalt and is supposed to be a departure from that uninspired model.
Here’s the Video
Meanwhile, almost no one wants the electric-powered Obama Volt because it’s very expensive and only has a range of 40 miles per charge. Plus an enormous battery takes up much of the back seat.
Here was my assessment of the “Obama Volt” last summer
Looks like my predictions about the Obama Volt last summer have proven correct.
Reminds me of those old Soviet car factories that produced all those cars they couldn’t sell, or the hilarious Communist-built Yugo.
No doubt, ObamaCare will work something like that. You’ll go into the hospital to get your tonsils removed and come out of surgery missing a leg.
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U.S. hits $14.3 TRILLION debt ceiling. Obama raids pensions to keep gov’t going!
Enron execs are in prison for a long time for doing things like this.
WALL STREET JOURNAL: The U.S. government is expected to hit the $14.294 trillion debt ceiling Monday,
setting in motion an uncertain, 11-week political scramble to avoid a default.
The Treasury Department plans to announce Monday it will stop issuing and reinvesting government securities in certain government pension plans, part of a series of steps designed to delay a default until Aug. 2.
The Treasury’s moves buy time for the White House and congressional leaders to reach a deficit-reduction agreement that could clear the way for enough lawmakers to vote to raise the amount of money Congress allows the nation to borrow.
Govt Motors Cars Already Falling Apart!
Steering wheel falls off Chevy Cruze. As bad as the Yugo?
WALL STREET JOURNAL: Imagine turning your car’s steering wheel, or giving it a gentle tug, and having it break away from the steering column. Now you’re speeding along holding the suddenly useless wheel.
It sounds like a vision from a cartoon, or every driver’s nightmare. And it happened to at least one driver of a 2011 Chevrolet Cruze compact car last month, and General Motors Corp. is recalling 2,100 of the cars as a result.
While the recall affects a relatively small number of vehicles, it is an unpleasant development for Chevrolet, which has been riding high on the success of its new small car. Chevrolet sold 50,205 Cruzes through the end of March. That’s well short of the 76,821 units Toyota sold of the Cruze’s main rival, the Corolla, but it is ahead of the 37,379 Cobalts Chevy sold in the same period. The Cruze replaced the Cobalt and is supposed to be a departure from that uninspired model.
Here’s the Video
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Government Accounting Office Report: Federal government awash in waste
Study Shows $200 Billion in Redundant Federal Spending.
FOX NEWS: House Speaker John Boehner has been handed a weapon of happy destruction. The Government Accountability Office has produced a report skewering government waste that gives House Republicans ample ammunition to shoot down critics screaming foul over attempts to cut the budget.
Better yet — it is the stuff of farce. Imagine uncovering 82 different programs to improve teacher quality, or 80 separate initiatives to help the less fortunate secure transportation. You could not possibly make this up.
My favorite? Our helpful Beltway gurus provide 56 overlapping programs to help Americans better understand personal budgeting. What we need is one bureaucrat who understands budgeting – personal and otherwise.
This report, provided at the request of Congress before agreeing to raise the debt ceiling last year, is invaluable. It lays out ample evidence that our government budget is indeed stuffed with fat and propelled by incompetence – just the backdrop for pushing through reforms.
