Breaking The Bank

The US government wastes more money than you and I can possibly know — but wait, let’s waste some more, only this time on a spectacularly stupid scale.

If the new bill passes, it will be OUR TAX DOLLARS that will “cut global poverty in half.”

  • No, it won’t do anything to minimize your mortgage.
  • No, it won’t reduce the money you spend to put food on the table.
  • Or cut the money you spend to clothe your family.
  • Or fix your car.
  • Or repair the sink, or buy your kids school supplies or shoes.

But YOUR tax dollars will “cut global poverty in half.” And by that I mean billions of your tax dollars will be purposely shipped overseas.

Applauded by none other than Barack Obama.

Sen. Barack Obama, perhaps giving America a preview of priorities he would pursue if elected president, is rejoicing over the Senate committee passage of a plan that could end up costing taxpayers billions of dollars in an attempt to reduce poverty in other nations.

The bill, called the Global Poverty Act, is the type of legislation, “We can – and must – make … a priority,” said Obama, a co-sponsor.

It would demand that the president develop “and implement” a policy to “cut extreme global poverty in half by 2015 through aid, trade, debt relief” and other programs.

When word about what appears to be a massive new spending program started getting out, the reaction was immediate.

“It’s not our job to cut global poverty,” said one commenter on a Yahoo news forum. “These people need to learn how to fish themselves. If we keep throwing them fish, the fish will rot.”

I cannot immediately think of another thing, this Global Poverty Act, that could do more to bankrupt the country any faster.

You and I shall have NO SAY in this. It will simply occur. Because this government couldn’t care less about you, not any more. You are simply The Work Horse, to be flogged longer and harder so that other non-producers may benefit from the sweat of your brow. As my last photo indicated: “REPUBLICAN: because not everyone can be on welfare.”

Tired of paying the domestic welfare bill? Well boys and girls, that’s simply not enough; it’s time we placed third world tyrants and governments on the larger dole as well because, after all, that’s where these monies will go.

Many Americans were alerted to the legislation by a report from Cliff Kincaid at Accuracy in Media. He published a critique asserting that while the Global Poverty Act sounds nice, the adoption could “result in the imposition of a global tax on the United States” and would make levels “of U.S. foreign aid spending subservient to the dictates of the United Nations.”

He said the legislation, if approved, dedicates 0.7 percent of the U.S. gross national product to foreign aid, which over 13 years he said would amount to $845 billion “over and above what the U.S. already spends.”

The plan passed the House in 2007 “because most members didn’t realize what was in it,” Kincaid reported. “Congressional sponsors have been careful not to calculate the amount of foreign aid spending that it would require.”

A statement from Obama’s office this week noted the support offered by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

“With billions of people living on just dollars a day around the world, global poverty remains one of the greatest challenges and tragedies the international community faces,” Obama said. “It must be a priority of American foreign policy to commit to eliminating extreme poverty and ensuring every child has food, shelter, and clean drinking water. As we strive to rebuild America’s standing in the world, this important bill will demonstrate our promise and commitment to those in the developing world.

“Our commitment to the global economy must extend beyond trade agreements that are more about increasing profits than about helping workers and small farmers everywhere,” he continued.

The bill institutes the United Nations Millennium Summit goals as the benchmarks for U.S. spending.

“It is time the United States makes it a priority of our foreign policy to meet this goal and help those who are struggling day to day,” a statement issued by supporters, including Obama, said.

Specifically, it would “declare” that the official U.S. policy is to eliminate global poverty, that the president is “required” to “develop and implement” a strategy to reach that goal and requires that the U.S. efforts be “specific and measurable.”

But wait; there’s more:

Kincaid said that after cutting through all of the honorable-sounding goals in the plan, the bottom line is that the legislation would mandate the 0.7 percent of the U.S. GNP as “official development assistance.”

“In addition to seeking to eradicate poverty, that (U.N.) declaration commits nations to banning ‘small arms and light weapons’ and ratifying a series of treaties, including the International Criminal Court Treaty, the Kyoto Protocol (global warming treaty), the Convention of Biological Diversity, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women and the Convention of the Rights of the Child,” he said.

Those U.N. protocols would make U.S. law on issues ranging from the 2nd Amendment to energy usage and parental rights all subservient to United Nations whims.

Kincaid also reported Jeffrey Sachs, who runs the “Millennium Project,” confirms a U.N. plan to force the U.S. to pay 0.7 percent of GNP would add about $65 billion a year to what the U.S. already donates overseas.

And the only way to raise that funding, Sachs confirms, “is through a global tax, preferably on carbon-emitting fossil fuels,” Kincaid writes.

If you wish to eliminate the power of the United States, if you wish to drive businesses from these shores, if you wish to turn your taxpaying middle class into the lower class — thusly killing the Cash Cow — then go ahead and pass this bill.

Trust me, my readers, this is just the beginning: just the beginning of what you’ll see under Demorat Rule.

Get used to it. It isn’t make believe; it’s here and it’s now. And only to get worse.

BZ

Again, Bruised and Bleeding

Hillary has tried most everything to this point: crying, firing her campaign manager, crying again. That just doesn’t seem to work:

NYT THURSDAY: Clinton’s advisers acknowledged it would be difficult to catch up in race for pledged delegates even if she succeeded in winning 3 states on which she is most pinning her hopes: Ohio and Texas in March and Pennsylvania in April. Dem party’s rules would be decided obstacle in efforts to catch up to Obama before voting phase of nominating process ends later in spring… Developing…

Plouffe: She can’t catch us
As we wrote last night, Obama has begun to make his own inevitablity case, and David Plouffe made it explicit on a conference call this morning, telling reporters that it’s now “next to impossible” for Clinton to surpass what he says is a 136-person lead among pledged delegates.”The only way she could do it is by winning most of the rest of the contests by 25 to 30 points,” he said. “Even the most creative math really does not get her, ever, back to even in terms of pledged delegates.”

“This is not about votes — it’s about delegates,” Plouffe said.

The other half of this case, of course, is that superdelegates will and/or should follow the pledged delegates.

The Clintons simply cannot believe this. They cannot believe that some upstart young black man has the temerity, the unmitigated gall to not genuflect towards the Clinton Legacy and recognize that this is owed to them — owed to them, dammit. People have been fired. Inside bickering is rampant.

There is something else coming on the Clinton plate and it won’t be pretty. The Clintons will not go gently into that good night, oh no, they will not. Something is brewing in the wings. Because this is now for all the marbles and it is not, repeat, not going as they had even remotely planned.

BZ

Arizona Leads The Way

Obviously, to the chagrin of John “Amnesty Ramdown” McCain.

PHOENIX — The signs of flight among Latino immigrants here are multiple: Families moving out of apartment complexes, schools reporting enrollment drops, business owners complaining about fewer clients.

While it is too early to know for certain, a consensus is developing among economists, business people and immigration groups that the weakening economy coupled with recent curbs on illegal immigration are steering Hispanic immigrants out of the state.

The Arizona economy, heavily dependent on growth and a Latino work force, has been slowing for months. Meanwhile, the state has enacted one of the country’s toughest laws to punish employers who hire illegal immigrants, and the county sheriff here in Phoenix has been enforcing federal immigration laws by rounding up people living here illegally.

I must be missing something — what part of this is necessarily bad news?
BZ