http://neoavatara.com/blog/

Hello Everyone!

I want to let you know that my blog is getting a new home.  The new address will be at www.neoavatara.com/blog.

Thanks for your continued support!!!

In all likelihood, the Obama Economic Stimulus Plan will be passed, reconciled, and signed by the end of the week.  And although some spending has been removed (estimated at around $100 Billion, though new spending was added as well), largely this bill is the same as the one passed by Congress a week ago.

I really hope this works.  I really do.  I know many of you think I am a complete idealogue, only supporting my party.  That is not the case.  I hope I am wrong, and the stimulus plan works.  Because Obama’s failure, despite everything, would also be our nation’s failure.

That said, I have no idea what plan B would be if this doesn’t work.  This is a Hail Mary; there really isn’t a second try.  This isn’t the Japanese plans of the nineties, where they trickled money in slowly.  This is the nuclear bomb version of stimulus plans.  And if this doesn’t, at the very least, stabilize the economy, then what next?  This plan will add trillions to the deficit over the next two years.  There will be no more money to be spent.  Now, if it works and the job losses and recessionary pressures reverse, then it will  have succeeded.  I don’t even think it has to meet Mr. Obama’s ’4 million jobs created’ goal to be considered a success.  But if it doesn’t slow the recession, there is no where else to go.

So we all have to hope this works.  Because if it doesn’t, catastrophe may be the accurate vote of the day.

We are already seeing the modernization of the Republican Party by Michael Steele, the new Chairperson of the party.  First, above you see the response to Obama’s use of youtube.  This, along with Steele’s frequent visits to talk shows, puts a face on to the Republican Party.  This was sorely needed af the Mike ‘Who am I’ Duncan was running the party; when is the last time anyone saw him on TV?

Steele is starting to clean house.  He fired most of the GOP administrative workers, to fill them with his people.  Regrettable, but needed to be done.  And Steele is going directly after the Democrats publically, and where it hurts.  So far, he has avoided really going hard against the President, instead attacking the weak underbelly of the Democratic Party, Congress.  And rightfully so, as the general public supports Obama, but is gradually getting more disgusted with Congress.

Senators finally were able to hammer out a Friday night deal on the Stimulus.  At $827 billion, this has to be considered frugal, compared to House Democrats that were pushing the deal upwards of $1 trillion.

However, today Harry Reid again claimed that the bill was approaching $1 trillion.  If so, then Republican Senators supporting the bill have much to answer for.

The news came after Ohio Republican Sen. George Voinovich concluded that his “philosophical” differences with the approach of Republican negotiators was too great, and dropped out of the negotiations. The senator said he could no longer support efforts at compromise or the final bill.

It appears that moderates Susan Collins and Arlen Spector on the Republican side would defect, as will possibly one or two more Republicans.  The most likely additional defections include Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Mel Martinez of Florida.  But no true bipartisan bill was going to pass.  “You cannot call a bill bipartisan if it has two or three or four or even five Republicans out of 535 members in Congress,” Senator John McCain told the Senate floor.

Some of the specifics can be seen here.

All things considered, this was probably as good as we could ask for.  I am sure in the days coming we will see there is still tons of pork in this bill, but what else would you expect?  Those of you that expected real change under a President Obama should be disappointed, although you were fooling yourselves.  The President actually had a chance at changing the tenor; instead, he allowed the bill to be written by leftists within his own party, which almost derailed the bill.  He would have been better served by writing the bill in house before public consumption.

That said, if this passes, it should be considered a major victory for the President, as it is the largest spending bill in American history.  Time will tell if it is successful in its goals.  But Mr. Obama has taken the first step in defining his economic agenda.

Well, don’t say I told you so.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office today released their analysis of the Stimulus Bill.  In short?

CBO, the official scorekeepers for legislation, said the House and Senate bills will help in the short term but result in so much government debt that within a few years they would crowd out private investment, actually leading to a lower Gross Domestic Product over the next 10 years than if the government had done nothing.

Yup, that’s right.  The CBO is the most respected analytical agency in the country, because its entire goal is to be nonpartisan.  And for the conspiracy theorists out there, remember that their parent is the Democratically controlled Congress.

N0w, admittedly they propose that in the short term (2009–2010), the stimulus would create single year increases over baseline growth of anywhere from 1%-4%.  But until now, I have heard of no one, including the President, discuss the long term repercussions of the bill.  Maybe they should actually start a true debate on this.

The public is also starting to become wary.  Poll numbers show decreasing support.  And Senate support is waning, as the clock is ticking.  Not good for an Administration that came in with so much energy and enthusiasm.  I again suggest that if the bill was cleaned of all non-essential spending, and focused on the welfare net, job production, and short term infrastructure, with additional tax cuts, it would pass easily. Why the Democrats are fighting for the pork is beyond me; and why President Obama has not demanded a ‘clean’ bill boggles the mind.

This is almost like a running joke.

Labor Secretary nominee Hilda Solis is now in hot water because of taxes that her husband failed to pay for the past 16 years.  The amount is small, around $6,000.  But after the line of nominees with tax problems, you can’t help but laugh.  Did the people running Mr. Obama’s vetting process get anything right?

This is the first time that India has directly accused the Pakistani government of involvement in the deadly November attacks.  India handed a dossier to the Pakistanis last month showing ‘links’ to government agents.  Pakistan has been slow to respond; it took them several months to admit that the lone surviving terrorist was in fact a Pakistani citizen.

Meanwhile, Pakistan continues to divert any blame.  Pakistan’s oldest English-language newspaper, Dawn, reported that investigators probing the Mumbai attacks for the government in Islamabad had uncovered evidence implicating a banned Bangladesh-based militant organisation, Harkat-ul-Jihad-al Islmani (HuJI).  The report, based on unidentified sources, also mentioned the possibility that one of the gunmen was of Bangladeshi origin.  The probe “is likely to indicate that the Mumbai attack was the handiwork of an ‘international network of Muslim fundamentalists’ present in South Asia and spread all the way to Middle East,” Dawn said.

Barack Obama, in a speech at the House Democrat Retreat (which is spending half a million of your tax dollars so they can dine and recline, days after complaining that business bigwigs are wasting money on such things), said that Republicans cannot use the old tired rhetoric of tax cuts to solve everything.

He is absolutely right on that specifically; but he misses the larger point.

Sure, Republicans want more tax cuts; they always will.  It should be in the nature of conservatives to want smaller government and lower taxes, despite the mistakes of the past few years.  However,  they are still willing to compromise on the amount of tax cuts.  In fact, most Republicans are relatively pleased with the cuts that are already within the stimulus bill.

The major hold up is not tax cuts, but ridiculous out of control spending.  And yes, the Republicans were largely responsible for the stupid spending over the past 8 years.  But they should not compound their problems by continuing irresponsible spending.  Obama used this analogy:  “I don’t care whether you’re driving a hybrid or an SUV — if you’re headed for a cliff, you’ve got to change direction.”  Precisely.  Unfortunately, it is his own stimulus plan that is accelerating the car toward the cliff.  He accused the Bush administration of doubling the nation debt in 8 years, and he is right.  But his own budget projections will double the national debt in 5 years, or little more than half the time of the previous administration! How exactly  is that change?

Mr. Obama has drawn a line in the sand.  You are with him, or against him.  And this was by far the most sarcastic and spiteful speech I have ever heard from the man.  The last time I heard a speech like this, he was defending his minister for stupid remarks.

Well, he wanted bipartisanship, and that means that he has to give up something as well.  Is he ready to give up the useless spending in the stimulus bill, in order to get the infrastructure spending, green technology, etc. that he really wants? He can yell and scream about the unfairness of Republicans, but right now polls are trending against the President.  He has a limited amount of time to convince the public that the almost $1 trillion he is proposing is being well spent.  Ultimately the success of the stimulus is wholly up to the President, and not up to the Republicans.

You can see the complete speech here:

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/02/05/stimulus/index.html

President Barack Obama warned on Thursday that failure to act on an economic recovery package could plunge the nation into a long-lasting recession that might prove irreversible…basically, ‘do this, or we all plummet to our horrible deaths.’

In an Opinion piece in the Washington Post, President Obama throws some very scary propositions:

Because each day we wait to begin the work of turning our economy around, more people lose their jobs, their savings and their homes. And if nothing is done, this recession might linger for years. Our economy will lose 5 million more jobs. Unemployment will approach double digits. Our nation will sink deeper into a crisis that, at some point, we may not be able to reverse.

Um, where is the proof for that?  Frankly, there is no such proof.  Actually, there is plenty of historical evidence that this kind of government incursion into the market actually may cause the lengthening of the recession.  My posts on this can be seen here, and here.

Additionally, Mr. Obama argues that the only proposal Republicans are giving is to reduce taxes.  That is a falsehood; and that is putting it mildly.  Both my proposal, and Sen. Mel Martinez’s proposal, do no such thing.  So that is a canard.  Then the President goes a little farther, and states that the voters rejected such ideas.  That is not the case; Obama won based on the politics of change.  Well, the stimulus bill is exactly the kind of bill that would have been passed on Bill Clinton or Jimmy Carter.  There is little ‘change’ to be seen; and so far, the public’s anger is showing their reaction to the lack of change.

If Mr. Obama is really concerned about catastrophic results if the stimulus plan is not passed, get rid of the pork.  Get rid of all spending that doesn’t create immediate jobs.  Things like the contraception spending, ACORN funding, etc. can wait until the budget is passed.  Pass less tax cuts, if that is what it takes; Republicans will compromise if the overall size of the bill is smaller as well.  Get lower income tax cuts, business tax cuts, welfare and unemployment benefit extensions, and job creation, and get rid of all the wasteful spending.  Just to show the problem Mr. Obama has:  Democrats have added more than $100 Billion to the stimulus since it passed the House!!! Republicans can get behind a smaller bill; the question is not whether Republicans will follow, but whether liberals in his own party will defect or not.

Harry Reid, praying for a brain.

Former veteran politician and prominent businessman Tan Sri S.O.K Ubaidulla Kadir Basha, 93, who died in Kuala Lumpur on January 22, 2009, was known for his humility and philanthropist work and a long history in politics.

Why am I posting about a Malaysian politician?  Because this man was one of my grandfather’s, S. Ekambara Mudaliar, best friends.  And although my grandfather was a Hindu, and Mr. Ubaidullah was a Muslim, they could not have had a closer relationship if they were brothers.  In fact, it was my grandfather that helped Mr. Ubaidullah first travel to Malaysia in the 1930s to make his fortune.  My best memory of Mr. Ubaidullah was in 1995, when I went to Malaysia.  This great man, who had achieved so much in his life, was virtually in tears explaining his love for my grandfather, who he still called ‘MSE’.  He was one of the last links in this world I had to my grandfather, and for some reason that has some emotional impact on me.

My deepest condolences to Mr. Ubaidullah’s wife and sons.

Glory to Thee, O Allah, and Thine is the praise, and blessed is Thy name, and exalted is Thy majesty, and there is none to be served besides Thee.

http://www.themalaysianinsider.com.my/index.php/malaysia/16580-ubaidulla-a-highly-respected-leader-dies

http://in.news.yahoo.com/139/20090123/874/twl-malaysian-indian-congress-veteran-ub.html

http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/world-news/malaysian-indian-congress-veteran-ubaidulla-dies_100146237.html

http://www.nst.com.my/Thursday/Frontpage/20090122192006/Article/index_html