A New Rant for Y’all

Okay folks, here is a new rant for you this week. I know you’ll love it!!

1.       Campaign finance numbers are in for June and here are the results:

a.       President Obama raised $46 million and spent $58 million.

b.      Mitt Romney raised $33 million and spent $27.5 million.

Results: Even in Campaign mode President Obama works at a deficit!!

2.       Congrats to ABC News for jumping the gun and removing all doubt that they are the left-leaning news source we all knew them to be. During the Friday morning news programs ABC reporter Brian Ross tried to tie the Aurora, Colorado shooter to the Tea Party. Outstanding job in quality reporting once again from a news source that claims to be a leading player in quality news – WHATEVER!!

3.       Another congrats goes out the New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg and PBS newsman Bill Moyer who is also a New York City resident. Both have already jumped the gun calling for stricter gun-control laws; however, what neither wants to talk about is the fact that they reside in a city with arguably the strictest gun-control laws in the country and still had to confiscate over 4,000 guns last year. Most of which were taken AFTER being used in a crime which means that there are probably many more illegal firearms throughout New York City. Nice job of using a tragic event to push a liberal idea that clearly has not worked in THEIR OWN HOMETOWN!!

4.       In the world of the never-ending nightmare, United States Secretary of State Hilary Clinton was heckled and had tomatoes thrown at her motorcade on her way out of Cairo, Egypt. And all of this occurred while the Arab mob heckled her to chants of “MONICA, MONICA!!” See, even in an Arab speaking country they can still pronounce Monica correctly – imagine that!!

 Well that’s it!! Yeah I know it’s a short rant this week but I got a lot going on what with early voting for the run-off and all.

But in a moment of seriousness, I would like to say God Bless the folks in Aurora. I think I speak for most folks when I say our prayers are with you all. And God Speed Sally Ride, you were a role model for little girls and a hero to us all.

 Until next time,

Bill

Weekly Rant (kind of weekly) – February 23, 2011

Yeah I know it’s not really a weekly rant so I’m sorry but I have been busy. Here you go:

1. OK, so some Democrat congressman said something stupid in Massachusetts yesterday like getting out there and getting bloody. Then someone else says something stupid and then someone else. Yes I know President Obama said we need to ratchet down the rhetoric and we should, but you know what, sometimes people say something stupid and then ten minutes later they think to themselves, “What was I thinking?” Maybe we all just need to take a deep breath and not be so split-second in our judgment of someone making an unscripted mistake. I think we have all done this before. I know I have, I was there, I heard me do it…“What was I thinking?”

2. Stupid spending of the week; I know it’s small but the Department of Defense spending $7,000,000.00 on sponsoring a NASCAR driver is STUPID. Like I said I know $7,000,000.00 is small when you’re talking about a $1,600,000,000,000.00 deficit this year but every little bit counts. That could help and reduce the deficit to $1,599,993,000,000.00. I’ll work on this some more for next week.

3. Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA), spends valuable floor time complaining about congressmen saving money by sleeping in their office. REALLY, with everything else going on with our federal government Senator Boxer felt she needed to take time out of the Senate’s day to call attention to this. Maybe this is why she doesn’t get it. People like this frugalness and this is the sort of money saving measure that won’t save much but goes a long way with the voters. Oh yeah make sure you call her Senator, she’s earned it!!

4. Once again Columbia University shows why $50,000.00 plus a year (or whatever it costs) and an Ivy League pedigree is no protection from classlessness. After inviting Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to speak on campus among others in the past, last week the fine professors and students at this university booed off stage one of their fellow students while he spoke in favor of welcoming the ROTC back to campus. OH YEAH, he is also a former staff sergeant in the Army who was shot 11 times, lost his leg, and spent two years in Walter Reed Medical Center recovering from his injuries. Nice job you bunch of Columbia Patriots.

5. Reducing government spending in Texas; With Commissioners Michael Williams and Elizabeth Ames Jones both leaving the Railroad Commission soon to run for the US Senate, we can now retract the number of commissioners to one and be like the rest of the State Agencies. If we only have one Commissioner we could reduce the size of the staff by 2/3’s and reduces spending there. I’ll try to come up with some more next week. Believe me; it would be better to do this than take money from our schools.

Well there’s a rant for this week. Let me know what you think, not that it’ll mean much because this is only my rant but I would like to hear from you. No really, I do!!

Good Night Milano,
Bill

CBO Scoring

Just a quick note on the Federal Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and their scoring process – OK, quick for me.

As designed, the CBO was set up to be a non-partisan federal agency inside the federal legislature that among other things would score, or project, the future efficiency of a bill before debating and voting on a bill. This organization has worked well in the past, but has been little noticed up until the beginning of the Obama Administration. Suddenly, the CBO has become big news over and over as we try and determine just how much damage the actions taken by the country’s Democrat leadership will actually do to our country.

Now, before making the next two points, it is important to remember that this organization was established with the best of intentions. It would be good to believe that it was awesome forethought and a desire for true public introspection by the federal legislature to create an organization such as the CBO; however, without truthfulness in reporting by the legislature, the CBO can only do so much. So with that said, let’s look at the two things that need to be pointed out.

First thing is that the CBO looks at budget, tax, and revenue figures for proposed legislature and makes projections only as far out as the next ten years. This is significant when looking at the proposed federal healthcare bill and the seemingly positive scoring that the CBO has given it. While the projections for the next ten years are positive, many on the CBO have publically estimated that the projections become gravely worse in the second decade of this healthcare bill. We won’t even discuss beyond that.

Second thing to remember is that the CBO scores bills via the vacuum of variables contained within the bill for scoring. A simple (and yes cheesy) example of this would be id a bill were presented with an explanation of funding that would show how the bill should be funded by a leprechaun with a pot of gold behind the rainbow. Yes that is simplistic, and fantasy-laden, but it explains how the CBO Scores within a vacuum. This is how the CBO can score the healthcare bill positively when the same healthcare bill states that much of the funding comes from money saved from Medicare cuts and that those cuts will be spent twice later in the healthcare plan.

Opposing the CBO’s official report in the case of the current healthcare bill, some members of the CBO privately leaked to the press that they believe the healthcare bill will not reduce the deficit as reported, but instead will drive even deeper the hole created for our grandchildren. This private acknowledgement is based on the fact that the healthcare bill provides flawed figures (the variables) used to show how the bill will be funded and not factual evidence.

Basically, when created in 1974, the CBO was a needed agency for use by the federal legislature; however, in today’s world of information manipulation and tragically partisan politics, the CBO’s use is not directed as it was intended and is not utilized to the benefit of America as it should be.

Did anyone see my calculator?
Bill