TARP II: Banks and Business Don't Want It

Larry Kudlow    "An AP story quotes community bankers who do not want the Treasury Department or other federal agencies to own stock in their banks. They know the regulatory takeover risk that will come with this program. Next thing you know, the government will order banks to make unaffordable mortgages available to low-income folks, or perhaps force business loans on the basis of race or gender.
""We have taken a strategic decision not to have our primary regulator, the government, also be a partner in our bank," said William Chase Jr., CEO of Triumph Bank in Memphis, Tenn. The upshot is that Obama's whacky $30 billion mini-TARP is likely to be rejected by the vast majority of small banks. They took a look at the TARPed-up regulation overhanging the big banks, and they don't want any part of it."
Why the Democrat love affair with regulation?

Mike Ramirez, Townhall



On Bob Woodward’s Revelations

Max Boot "But I judge a president more by his actions than by his words. For all of Obama’s talk about an exit strategy, the fact remains that he has consistently stiffed those in his administration who favored a precipitous pullout. Now all the signals emanating from the administration suggest that the vaunted December policy review won’t amount to much and that we are unlikely to see a major drawdown next summer. Obama may talk exit strategies but his actions support General Petraeus’s counterinsurgency strategy."
Emphasis added. We heartily endorse President Obama's actions regarding the Predator strikes.

Education Reform’s Kryptonite

Legal Insurrection photo

 Heritage  "It would’ve been the logical follow-up question for Matt Lauer to ask. But just like the rest of NBC’s Education Nation series, Lauer let Obama off easy. The network appears content to give Duncan and union boss Randi Weingarten a platform to promote the same failed policies that got America into this mess."

Obama: Not Rough Enough?

Brent Bozell  "The liberals at NBC Universal want to hug Obama, too, with all the free airtime he wants. But first, they want him to put his every ounce of civility aside and pick up the mud bucket. Liberals can't maintain control of Washington without casting the conservatives as the incoming embodiment of all evil."
Watch NBC sitcoms and dramas and see how many times the characters take digs at Republicans.

Taxing the Rich

John Stossel   "Progressives want to raise taxes on individuals who make more than $200,000 a year because they say it's wrong for the rich to be "given" more money. Sunday's New York Times carries a cartoon showing Uncle Sam handing money to a fat cat. They just don't get it.
"As I've said before, a tax cut is not a handout. It simply means government steals less. What progressives want to do is take money from some -- by force -- and spend it on others. It sounds less noble when plainly stated."

Part-Time, Partisan President to America: ‘Buck up!’

Mike Ramirez, Investors.com

Pajamas Media " President Obama is quick to tell others how to think. The latest: In the face of polls showing Democrats vulnerable everywhere, the president is telling his liberal base to “buck up,”  adding that their lack of enthusiasm for him and his record is “inexcusable.” "

Policies Based on Illusion

Bruce S. Thornton "Yet for all of the efforts at a new beginning he made during his speech last year in Cairo, for all the “extended hands” and solicitous letters to Iranian leaders touting their religion and civilization, Obama has reaped little but contempt. Iran continues its march toward nuclear weapons. As it has in the past, the failure of diplomatic imagination has blinded us to our enemy’s motives, leading us, as Conquest warned, to “policies based on illusions” — and putting our national security at risk."

THE COST OF REGULATION

Neal Boortz  An astounding 35% of national income is spent on federal tax and compliance costs. And like I said before, small businesses are faring marginally worse. A report from the Office of Advocacy of the US Small Business Administration found that small businesses pay a disproportionately large share of regulatory costs. The initial overall cost in 2008 was $8,086 per employee. But ... "these costs were not borne equally by businesses of all sizes. The regulatory cost per employee for businesses with fewer than 20 employees was $10,585, compared with $7,454 for medium sized firms (employing between 20 and 499 employees), and $7,755 for large firms."

 The Regulation Tax Keeps Growing  The annual cost of federal regulations in the United States increased to more than $1.75 trillion in 2008, a 3% real increase over five years, to about 14% of U.S. national income. This cost is in addition to the federal tax burden of 21%, for a combined cost of 35% of national income. One out of every three dollars earned in the U.S. goes to pay for or comply with federal laws and regulations, and new policies enacted in 2010 for health care and financial services will increase this burden.
Attempts have been made to estimate the costs of these laws and regulations, but the calculations are incomplete. In March, for example, the Congressional Budget Office estimated the cost and subsequent effect of health-care legislation on the federal budget deficit. These estimates did not consider the full compliance cost on businesses. The Regulatory Right to Know Act requires the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to submit a cost-benefit analysis of federal rules and paperwork "to the extent feasible." So-called "non-major" rules are excluded in their 2009 report, however, as are rules adopted more than 10 years ago. This means that thousands of costly federal mandates are not included in OMB's tally. Discouragingly, OMB ignored the distribution of the regulatory burden, which is uneven.

In a report released last week for the Office of Advocacy of the U.S. Small Business Administration, we find that small businesses bear a disproportionately large share of regulatory costs. The portion of these costs that falls initially on businesses overall was $8,086 per employee in 2008. But these costs are not borne equally by businesses of all sizes. Larger firms benefit from economies of scale in compliance; small businesses do not have that advantage.

As a consequence, small businesses—those with fewer than 20 employees—incur regulatory costs 42% greater than firms with between 20 and 499 employees, and 36% greater than firms with more than 500 employees. The regulatory cost per employee for small businesses was $10,585, compared to $7,454 for medium firms and $7,755 for large firms.
The degree to which federal regulations disadvantage small businesses varies across the economy. In some sectors, such as manufacturing, the regulatory cost difference between small businesses and their larger counterparts is particularly acute.

Small manufacturers bear compliance costs that are 110% higher than those of medium-sized firms and 125% higher than large firms' costs. As much as it is fashionable to blame China for the demise of small manufacturing in America, the evidence suggests that looking for some reasons closer to home is warranted.

In no category do small businesses pay less in regulatory costs than both medium and large businesses. In retail and wholesale trade, small businesses pay 13% less than medium firms but 15% more than large firms. In services, small businesses pay 13% more than medium firms but 9% less than large firms. In health care and "other" (the biggest components of which are utilities and construction), small businesses pay 45% and 70% more than medium firms and 28% and 83% more than large firms.

This distribution of regulatory costs places small firms at a substantial competitive disadvantage. The cost disadvantage confronting small business is driven by environmental regulations, tax compliance, and occupational safety and homeland security rules.
In sum, individuals and businesses bear the burden of the $1.75 trillion cost of regulations, and small businesses bear a disproportionately large share of the compliance costs. Businesses must close, reallocate activity, absorb, or pass on the expense of complying with regulatory requirements.

In per-household terms, the combined federal burden of regulation and taxes is a remarkable $37,962. Increased transparency in both the cost and benefit side of the regulatory equation is necessary to determine whether what we spend is worth the 35% of national income that it costs, and whether the distribution of the burden is relatively efficient. This is particularly true now that the federal government is undertaking Herculean efforts to stimulate the economy while increasing regulations costly to businesses. Wall Street Journal article.
Ms. Crain and Mr. Crain are economics professors at Lafayette College, and the authors most recently of "The Impact of Regulatory Costs on Small Firms," published this month by the Office of Advocacy, U.S. Small Business Administration.
We have posted the entire article because all links take you to a mere excerpt.

Coates Exposes Intellectual Bankruptcy of MSM, Obama Admin. Defenders

J. Christian Adams  "The testimony was covered by CNN and the Los Angeles Times, and was on the front page, above the fold, in the Washington Post. Yet ABC, NBC, and CBS devoted no coverage to his testimony."....
"Are we to put a thumb on the scale for a black defendant like New Black Panther Jerry Jackson when he breaks the law? Should we allow evidence of the heroism of Rosa Parks and Medgar Evers to excuse the armed thug King Samir Shabazz?"

Investigate Racism in the Obama Justice Department  "That’s not just politicization of the Justice Department. It is criminalization of the Justice Department. Under the Constitution, it is Congress’s obligation to stop it. The current Congress obviously won’t do its duty. Americans will strongly support congressional candidates who pledge to right that wrong."

FBI Raids Home of Obama Associate & AAAN Leader in Terrorism Sweep

Gateway Pundit " Last Friday FBI agents raided the homes of far left activists in Chicago and Minneapolis who are linked to the FARC and Islamic radicals as part of a terrorism investigation. The home of radical Hatem Abudayyeh in Chicago was raided."....
"In 2003 Barack Obama was an honored guest at a dinner sponsored by the AAAN for former PLO-operative Rashid Khalidi. During the dinner a video was taken that shows Barack Obama celebrating with members of this Palestinian group who are openly hostile towards Israel. Barack Obama even gave a toast to a Rashid Khalidi at this going away party. The LA Times will not release the video from this Jew-bashing dinner."

A strikeout on settlements: Why Obama's diplomacy is flailing

NY Daily News  "The settlements issue is complicated but not unsolvable. Settlements are how Zionists settled Israel - and the Israel that mattered most to some nationalists and Orthodox Jews is not that Miami manque on the coast, Tel Aviv, but the West Bank areas of Judea and Samaria, the heart of biblical Israel."...."Obama, too, has to husband his credibility. He foolishly demanded something Israel could not yet give. It was bad diplomacy, recalling neither Metternich nor Kissinger but the Ol' Perfessor and his question about the inept Mets*. The answer, so far, is no."
* Casey Stengel, who once asked, "Can't anybody here play this game?"

Democrats to stuff 20 bills into post-election lame-duck session

The Hill  "The array of bills competing for floor time shows the sense of urgency among Democratic lawmakers to act before the start of the 112th Congress, when Republicans are expected to control more seats in the Senate and House."