comMITTed to Romney!

Reading this morning’s Wall Street Journal online I was struck by not only the enormity of the looming Federal deficit, but the tone of urgency that several articles had. This year’s deficit is projected to be $1.2 trillion. 2010’s figure may hit $2 trillion and 2011’s is guesstimated at $4 trillion.

This year’s federal spending will hit 24-25% of GDP. Just think of it. One quarter of our GDP goes to Washington, not to be spent or invested the way individual Americans or private businesses both large and small decide, but the way a craven, corrupt Congress and out of control bureaucracy decide.

We have lost control of our government. Those who lust for unbridled power have won what I can only hope is a temporary victory. We have written the Treasury Sec’y a $700 billion blank check and this was only the down payment. More spending is coming, a tidal wave of spending. Even if the “stimulus” works short term to prevent a disastrous deflation, this money still has to be paid back. No matter what Obama says about tax cuts now, higher taxes are coming. Inflation is coming, too. Inflation is nothing more but a silent, insidious tax, levied by the Federal Reserve, without a single public hearing or authorizing vote.

At some point, foreign investors ( mainly China and Japan ) will say no, thanks, to our latest debt offerings. At some point, America, if it continues on it’s current path, will lose it’s AAA credit rating. The consequences of that are dire. Is it possible that are current crop of Congressional politicians are so dense, so utterly ignorant of economics, that they can’t see this coming?

I think we have to assume that the answer to that question is, yes. They are that dense. It has become abundantly clear to me that they will not stop unless we force them to stop. I don’t want to debate the issue with them. I want the American voters to rise up and send the politicians who are destroying this country a very clear message. You will vote to eliminate the wasteful spending that is causing these massive deficits, as soon as the economic crisis shows sustained signs of leveling off, you will move to cut the budget, end programs that duplicate other programs, cut the layers of federal bureaucracy that serve no purpose but to shuttle stacks of paper from one floor of a federal building to another or, failing that, we will sweep Congress clean in 2010 and then again in 2012 until we can elect representatives who are smart enough to follow our instructions.

I know that I have called for this several times before, but here goes. If everyone reading this will get involved on a personal basis, things will start to change. Write to your Congressional delegations on a regular basis. Recruit at least three friends or family members who will do the same thing. Use the Internet to spread the message. When a crucial vote comes up in Congress, get on the phone to your representative’s offices and let them know how you want them to vote. If they know we are watching, they will “vote their districts.”

Thanks for letting me vent. I want to see this country and it’s citizens succeed. When we return to sound fiscal and monetary policies, I believe we will succeed.

~~John Cronin~~

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http://www.rncdebate.org/index.php
Here is the question that I submitted for consideration for the RNC’s debate. This question falls mainly within the economic sphere, but, I believe it’s political ramifications are huge and they need to be addressed successfully going forward, or the effects on the middle class will be devastating and the effects on the poor will be catastrophic.

The historic precedent I am using to base my opinion on is the post WW I inflation in Germany.

~~John Cronin~~

Welcome to ATR’s RNCDebate.org website.

What political response has the RNC made to address the potentially inflationary effects of the massive growth in the money supply we have seen as a result of the Treasury Dept. and the Federal Reserve’s efforts to stimulate the economy in the wake of the bursting of the credit bubble?
John Cronin | PERMALINK | January 03, 2009 • 7:32PM | Q#: 436 | Vote TOTAL: 0

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If politicians, especially but not limited to Democratic politicians, had any sense, the above headline would read: “U.S. Governors Seek $1 trillion in state budget cuts.” But like the Walgreen’s commercial says, ‘that’s the way it would be done in the town of Perfect, but since we don’t live anywhere near Perfect’…………This pork barrel proposal must be stopped. We are already $11 trillion in debt. None of this stuff has ever worked before and it won’t work now. Other than lining their own pockets and buying votes, what do these ward heelers hope to accomplish with this $1 trillion bailout? I’ll tell you. They don’t want to trim their payrolls. As you know, private industry has shed almost a million jobs in the last two reporting months. The Governors should face financial reality and realize that some cut backs have to be made. The Governor’s request to waste more federal money should be responded to with a resounding NO!

~~John Cronin~~

http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE5014F120090102

By Jon Hurdle

PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - Governors of five U.S. states urged the federal government to provide $1 trillion in aid to the country’s 50 states to help pay for education, welfare and infrastructure as states struggle with steep budget deficits amid a deepening recession.
The governors of New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Ohio and Wisconsin — all Democrats — said the initiative for the two-year aid package was backed by other governors and follows a meeting in December where governors called on President-elect Barack Obama to help them maintain services in the face of slumping revenues.

Gov. David Paterson of New York said 43 states now have budget deficits totaling some $100 billion as tax revenues plunge.

“It’s clear that the federal government needs to step in and jump-start the economy,” said Gov. Deval Patrick of Massachusetts.

The latest package calls for $350 billion to create jobs by building or repairing roads, bridges and other public works; $250 billion to maintain education; and another $250 billion in “counter-cyclical” spending such as extending unemployment benefits and food stamps, which are typically a responsibility of the states.

The remainder would be used to fund middle-class tax cuts, stimulate the embattled housing market, and stem the tide of home foreclosures through a loan-modification program.

Gov. Jon Corzine of New Jersey said he hoped some of the $700 billion authorized by Congress in the Troubled Asset Relief Program would be available to help the housing market.

The governors said during a conference call with reporters that the plan had been discussed with Congressional leaders and the incoming administration, which had indicated its willingness to help.
“The Obama team has been very receptive in listening to us,” said Gov. Jim Doyle of Wisconsin. He said “quite a number” of other governors back the initiative.

The Republican Governors Association, however, said the level of federal aid being sought would create a burden for the future.

“The proposal by the Democratic governors goes beyond things like ’shovel-ready’ infrastructure projects and is essentially a bailout of these states’ general funds,” Nick Ayers, executive director of the Republican Governors Association, said in a statement. “Now is the time to focus on finding cost-effective ways to provide essential services without burdening future generations with ever greater debt.”

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Nero fiddles while Rome burns. Our esteemed politicians continue to kick the can down the road so that they can all get political cover in case the stimulus plan fails.

Gov. Romney offers some of the advice that caused him to be labeled by Jim Kramer of CNBC’s Mad Money, “the best businessman in North America.”

~~John Cronin~~

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NTdlNDlmMGYzYWJlMzFkMDhiOTE4YWMyYmUyNDA4ZTQ=

What is Washington waiting for? The inauguration is less than five weeks away: At the rate we’ve been going, another 500,000 jobs will be lost by then. The downward spiral is deepening and accelerating: Congress and the president must act now.

American families have lost about $11 trillion in net worth as securities and home values have plummeted. This translates into about $400 billion less annual consumer spending, net of government safety-net funding. Exports won’t grow to make this up, as the dollar has strengthened with investors worldwide clamoring for its relative security. Investments won’t make up the gap either, as bank loans and secondary-market financing have shrunk and as fresh equity is virtually non-existent.

So this is surely the time for economic stimulus. But — and this is the crucial point — the government can’t just make itself bigger and more oppressive in the guise of stimulating the economy. That would make matters worse. Nor should we forget that fiscal stimulus is but one part of the solution. As Christina Romer, Barack Obama’s designee as chairperson of the Council of Economic Advisors concluded from her study of the Great Depression, bad monetary policy was its greatest cause and good monetary policy was its most effective cure. The Fed should continue to expand the money supply. And, it should confirm that it will not tolerate deflation — the pain of inflation pales in comparison.

That being said, a stimulus plan is needed without further delay, and there are some things that Republicans should insist on.

The first is that tax cuts are part of the solution. Harvard professor and economist Greg Mankiw points out that recent research confirms that tax cuts have a greater multiplier effect than new spending — more economic bang for the federal buck. We should lower tax rates for middle-income families and eliminate their tax on savings altogether — no tax on interest, dividends or capital gains. Let’s also align our corporate tax rate with those of competing nations. These actions will rapidly expand consumption and investment, and right now, time is of the essence.

On the spending front, infrastructure projects should be a high priority. But because infrastructure projects involve engineering, environmental studies, permitting and contracting, they can take a long time to actually boost the economy. Spending to refurbish and modernize our military equipment is urgently needed, and it has a more immediate impact on the economy. A great deal of our armament was damaged or lost in the Middle East, and the rest is long overdue for maintenance.

We should also invest to free us from our dependence on foreign oil, not by playing venture capitalist, but by funding basic research in renewables, material science, combustion, nuclear reprocessing, and the like. During the 2008 campaign, virtually every candidate agreed on the need for an “Apollo-like mission” to achieve energy independence. Now is the time to start.

Cities and states will clamor for government dollars. Like the Big Three automakers, states should first take advantage of the downturn to do some needed cost cutting and restructuring. State employee numbers, pensions, and health-insurance premium sharing — as well as duplicate and ineffective agencies and programs — should be high on the hit list. State budgets should be brought in line with those of the most efficient of their comparables. And the federal government should look to ease the burden of mandates on states, like Medicaid.

Republicans should also lay down a gauntlet: All new spending projects should be selected by the responsible federal agency according to published criteria, not by congresspersons and senators based upon favors and politics. Republicans should commit to vote no on any stimulus bill with earmarks that have not been voted upon by their entire body.

There is a danger that new spending and deficits will lead to runaway inflation, flight from the dollar, and another economic crisis. It is essential, therefore, that Congress and the president commit to reform entitlement spending as soon as the economy recovers. With the footing of our long term economy at risk, with entitlements already reaching 60 percent of federal spending and with baby boomers nearing retirement, this can be delayed no longer.

We must also be careful to avoid burdening the economy with excessive regulation in response to the need to reform regulatory oversight of the financial sector. Going too far could cripple the entire industry, further tightening the credit markets. And we should make it clear that Washington will not act to virtually impose unions on small business by eliminating the right of workers to vote by secret ballot in the workplace. This “card check” payback for the AFL-CIO’s support of the Democrats would devastate business formation and employment.

The Democrats may want to wait for Obama, but the country needs action now. Republicans can — and must — play an important role in shaping a stimulus bill that makes sense for America and lays a foundation for future prosperity and growth.

— Mitt Romney is the former governor of Massachusetts.

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DJIA up 304 points. Whoo Hoo! Good to have something to cheer about. Don’t throw caution to the winds, this could just be a bear market rally. That being said, the Dow Industrials’ P/E has declined form 45.77 ( year ago), to 16.85 as of 11/21/08 and the 12 mo. forward estimate is 8.95 with a dividend yield of 4.03%.**

These have historically been levels at which bear markets tend to stabilize and where the conditions that set up the next bull market materialize.

~~John Cronin~~

**Sources: Birinyi Associates, WSJ Market Data Group

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I Googled Gov. Romney’s NYT article on his advise to let Detroit’s auto industry go bankrupt and I found that there were 39,500 entries for “Romney Detroit Bankruptcy.” Since a conservative Republican like Mitt Romney could never in his wildest dreams count on the political support of the UAW, I guess he is completely free to speak his mind.

Although no American of goodwill takes any satisfaction in the plight of the auto industry and it’s workers, the sooner the bloated cost structure is jettisoned, the sooner a leaner, meaner American auto industry can re-emerge. I sincerely hope the industry is allowed to restructure itself and can come back with great cars and trucks that can compete with anything on the market and that the “Made in America” stamp on our products can once again become the envy of the world.

~~John Cronin~~

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/19/opinion/19romney.html

By: Mitt Romney

If General Motors, Ford and Chrysler get the bailout that their chief executives asked for yesterday, you can kiss the American automotive industry goodbye. It won’t go overnight, but its demise will be virtually guaranteed.

Without that bailout, Detroit will need to drastically restructure itself. With it, the automakers will stay the course — the suicidal course of declining market shares, insurmountable labor and retiree burdens, technology atrophy, product inferiority and never-ending job losses. Detroit needs a turnaround, not a check.

I love cars, American cars. I was born in Detroit, the son of an auto chief executive. In 1954, my dad, George Romney, was tapped to run American Motors when its president suddenly died. The company itself was on life support — banks were threatening to deal it a death blow. The stock collapsed. I watched Dad work to turn the company around — and years later at business school, they were still talking about it. From the lessons of that turnaround, and from my own experiences,

I have several prescriptions for Detroit’s automakers.

First, their huge disadvantage in costs relative to foreign brands must be eliminated. That means new labor agreements to align pay and benefits to match those of workers at competitors like BMW, Honda, Nissan and Toyota. Furthermore, retiree benefits must be reduced so that the total burden per auto for domestic makers is not higher than that of foreign producers.

That extra burden is estimated to be more than $2,000 per car. Think what that means: Ford, for example, needs to cut $2,000 worth of features and quality out of its Taurus to compete with Toyota’s Avalon. Of course the Avalon feels like a better product — it has $2,000 more put into it. Considering this disadvantage, Detroit has done a remarkable job of designing and engineering its cars. But if this cost penalty persists, any bailout will only delay the inevitable.

Second, management as is must go. New faces should be recruited from unrelated industries — from companies widely respected for excellence in marketing, innovation, creativity and labor relations.

The new management must work with labor leaders to see that the enmity between labor and management comes to an end. This division is a holdover from the early years of the last century, when unions brought workers job security and better wages and benefits. But as Walter Reuther, the former head of the United Automobile Workers, said to my father, “Getting more and more pay for less and less work is a dead-end street.”

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I don’t agree with many of the conclusions reached by the author of this article and I most assuredly hope he is wrong about another Depression looming on the horizon. I posted this as a FYI about what some market opinion makers are thinking.

~~John Cronin~~

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/Well-Great-Depression-2-2011/story.aspx?guid={B28B49B5-EFD1-4941-B57E-A2BA1545BA09}

New-New Deal, bailouts, trillions in debt, antitax mindset spell disaster

ARROYO GRANDE, Calif. (MarketWatch) – By 2011? No recovery? No new bull? “Hey Paul, why do you keep talking about a bigger crash coming by 2011?” Readers ask that often. So here’s a sequel to my predictions of 2000 and 2004, with a look three years ahead:

First. Dot-com crash

We pinpointed the dot-com crash at its peak, in a March 20, 2000 column: “Next crash? Sorry, you won’t see it coming.” Bulls-eye: The dot-com bubble popped. The economy went into a 30-month recession. The stock market lost $8 trillion. And today, over eight years later, the market is still roughly 40% below its 2000 peak. See previous Paul B. Farrell.

Factor in inflation and the average stock has lost well over 50% of its value. Stocks have proven to be a very big loser, a bad investment for Americans, thanks to Wall Street’s selfish greed, plus the complicity and naiveté of politicians, press and public.

Second. Subprime meltdown

We reported on warnings of another crash coming as early as 2004, wrote a sequel, also titled “Next crash? Sorry, you won’t see it coming.” Yes, we were early, but in good company. We wrote many more warning columns. Few listened.

Subsequent events, notably former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan’s admission of his failures in congressional testimony, prove that if he and other Reaganomic ideologues weren’t so myopic and intransigent about proving their free-market deregulation theories, they could have acted earlier and prevented today’s colossal mess. Instead, their ideology kept the bubble blowing, delayed the pop, making matters worse.

So once again, as history proves over and over, ideology trumps common sense, reality and the facts. Greed drives ideologues to blow bubbles. They pop. Crashes happen. The public is collateral damage.

Third. Megabubble cycles

We also detailed the broader, accelerating macroeconomic sweep of cycles last summer in columns like “20 reasons new megabubble pops in 2011.” We summarized a long list of major warnings from financial periodicals — Forbes, Fortune, the Wall Street Journal, Economist — and from the voices of Warren Buffett, Bill Gross, a sitting Fed governor and a former Commerce secretary. Multiple warnings “hiding in plain sight,” beginning with a Fed governor warning Greenspan in 2000 about subprime risk.

But the big shocker came from the new Treasury secretary two years before the meltdown: Bloomberg News reports that shortly after leaving Wall Street as Goldman Sachs’ CEO, Henry Paulson was at Camp David warning the president and his staff of “over-the-counter derivatives as an example of financial innovation that could, under certain circumstances, blow up in Wall Street’s face and affect the whole economy.”

Yes, they knew. And still both Paulson, a Wall Street insider, and Greenspan’s successor, Ben Bernanke, a Princeton scholar of the Great Depression, stayed trapped in denial and kept happy-talking the public for months after the meltdown began in mid-2007. Get it? While they could have put the brakes on this meltdown years ago, our leaders were prisoners of their distorted, inflexible views of conservative Reaganomics ideology.

As a result, once again the “best and the brightest” failed America and now they and their buddies in Washington and Corporate America are setting up the Crash of 2011.

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So far global markets have been immune to President-Elect Obama’s charm. To make matters worse, the bailout chow line keeps getting longer as the struggling U.S. auto companies that just got a $25 billion tax payer bailout now are coming back for seconds. Now they want an additional $25 billion. Brace yourselves for the coming inflation. This is not real money they are handing out, this is fast depreciating paper, backed by nothing.

~~John Cronin~~

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122597213940304699.html

Stocks suffered a second straight round of steep losses amid new signs that bellwether companies and their customers are struggling. Jittery investors also placed early bets that jobs data due out Friday morning will be bleak.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average finished down 443.48 points on Thursday, off 4.9%, at 8695.79, hurt by declines in all 30 of its components. The Dow has fallen 929.49 points, or 9.66%, over the past two days, the biggest percentage drop since the crash of October 1987.

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I wanted to provide some perspective on what Gov. Romney was talking about with Glenn Beck on the post that Ann Marie put up. Specifically, his comments regarding the competitive disadvantage that the United States has relative to our competitors with regard to corporate tax rates.

~~John Cronin~~

http://www.macpa.org/Content/24384.aspx

WASHINGTON, Aug. 14, 2008 – Tax Foundation President Scott Hodge has released the latest Tax Foundation “Fiscal Fact” in response to a new study from the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD). The OECD study shows that for the 17th consecutive year, the average rate of corporate taxes in non-U.S. countries fell while the U.S. corporate tax rate stayed the same.

As a result of the U.S. failure to lower its corporate tax rate for more than two decades while other major trading nations lowered theirs, the U.S. corporate tax rate is now 50 percent higher than the OECD average. Nine key trading partners cut their rates during 2007.

“Continued failure by U.S. tax policymakers to keep up with our top global economic competitors means that we’re solidifying a trend that will result in our children and grandchildren not seeing the economic growth we’ve seen in our lifetimes,” said Hodge. “There’s a real-wallet impact for Americans as we continue to sit idly by while other countries improve the way they do business, and we should be very concerned about jobs, capital, and investments moving from high-tax countries to low-tax countries.”

This comes on the heels of another recent OECD study showing that corporate taxes are the single most harmful tax to GDP growth, more so than personal income taxes or consumption taxes.
The combined federal and state corporate tax rate in the U.S. currently stands at 39.3 percent (the second-highest among industrialized countries), while the OECD average rate has fallen to 26.6 percent. Even China has recognized the significance of cutting the corporate tax to become more competitive. According to the report, China has reducing its top standard corporate tax rate from 33 percent to 25 percent just this year.

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As I was composing this post, I had Britt Hume on and I just heard Charles Krauthammer ( whose opinion I respect very much ) say that the new version of the financial system rescue plan is loaded with pork. Earmarks, to be really specific. Citizen’s savings are being wiped out, the unemployment lines are lengthening, we have seen several banks runs ( IndyMac, WaMu, etc. ) and these despicable pork barrellers are STILL AT IT!

If our readers see the names of any of their Congressional delegation involved in this, please do yourselves and your country a huge favor and throw these bums out of office.

This is the final straw. It is abundantly clear that these people will not stop. Not now, not ever. We need to purge Capital Hill. Maybe we need to reject this bill again. Then we will try one last time and this time we will tell these people to craft a basic rescue package, not a Christmas tree with stacks of presents for the special interest groups. If they come back with another sausage like the first two, maybe we will allow the markets to work their way out of this on their own. Maybe we are tired of being looted by this shameful collection of misfits and liars.

~~John Cronin~~

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/obama-opens-lead-three-key/story.aspx?guid={6FFE81CF-41D7-45E1-B9A2-1F32355D4B0B}

By Russ Britt, MarketWatch

LOS ANGELES (MarketWatch) — The economic crisis and a well-received debate performance have given presidential candidate Barack Obama a sizable lead in the three critical swing states of Pennsylvania, Ohio and Florida, according to a new poll Wednesday.

Obama now has the backing of at least 50% of the voters in all three states, Quinnipiac University said, with the senator from Illinois surging 15 points in Florida — ground zero in the tight 2000 election — in the relatively short span of 20 days. In the Sunshine State, Obama was down 7 points to Republican John McCain and now is up by 8.

The Democratic candidate also has widened his lead in Pennsylvania to 15 points and 8 in Ohio. Obama has gained ground somewhat due to his performance in Friday’s debate with McCain, but current economic woes have contributed most to his gains.

“Sen. Obama has had a very good couple of weeks,” said Peter Brown, assistant director of Quinnipiac’s Polling Institute. “Frankly, what is bad for the American economy is good for Sen. Obama.”

The Quinnipiac findings are critical in that the three states are considered essential for either candidate if they are to pull out a victory on Nov. 4. They are the biggest of the swing states, each with more than 20 electoral votes — Florida has 27, Pennsylvania holds 21 and Ohio 20.

In national polls, Obama is getting a 6- to 8-point advantage, and Brown said the Democrat is beginning to pull away to the point where McCain may find it too challenging to catch up. The only candidate to win after being behind by several points leading up to the election was Ronald Reagan against Jimmy Carter in 1980, but there weren’t as many polls conducted back then. Further, McCain’s deficit is a little larger than Reagan’s was.

McCain officials maintain the election is still too close to call.

“Virtually every poll reflects this election as very competitive and too close to call,” McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds said in a statement. “As Americans get closer to voting, they’ll see the obvious problem with voting for a candidate who wants to spend more money, take more taxes and turn the White House into an on-the-job training program.”

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In an affirmation of the pervasive power and far reaching influence of the Editorial Board of CommittedToRomney, President Bush, John McCain and Florida Governor Charlie Crist have now come around to our way of thinking about the energy crisis and have agreed with us that the policy of the United States of America needs to support offshore drilling to help alleviate tight oil supplies.:) (just kidding, but it was fun to write that sentence)

~~John Cronin~~

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20080618/D91CDVG01.html

WASHINGTON (AP) - For a quarter-century, drilling for oil and gas off nearly all the American coastline has been banned in part to protect tourism and to lessen the chances of beach-blackening spills.

Then gasoline prices topped $4 a gallon this summer. Drivers and others began clamoring for federal lawmakers to do something about the record price of oil, much of it produced in foreign countries.

In response, President Bush is renewing his call to open U.S. coastal waters to oil and gas development, arguing that it’s high time to battle high prices with increased domestic production. He is planning to ask Congress on Wednesday to lift the drilling moratoria that have been in effect since 1981 in more than 80 percent of the country’s Outer Continental Shelf and to let states help to decide where to allow drilling.

“The president believes Congress shouldn’t waste any more time,” White House press secretary Dana Perino told The Associated Press on Tuesday. “He will explicitly call on Congress to … pass legislation lifting the congressional ban on safe, environmentally friendly offshore oil drilling.”

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We could sue the oil producing states when the price of gasoline gets “too high” for us, thereby encouraging the states to withhold supplies to the American market and also encourage another escalation in “protective” tariffs and other job destroying moves……or if push comes to shove we might consider drilling for oil right here in the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave.

Just a thought.

~~John Cronin~~

http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSWAT00953020080520?
feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews&rpc=22&sp=true

By Tom Doggett

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved legislation on Tuesday allowing the Justice Department to sue OPEC members for limiting oil supplies and working together to set crude prices, but the White House threatened to veto the measure.

The bill would subject OPEC oil producers, including Saudi Arabia, Iran and Venezuela, to the same antitrust laws that U.S. companies must follow.

The measure passed in a 324-84 vote, a big enough margin to override a presidential veto.

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I don’t claim to be knowledgeable about farm economics. I came across this article by the Editorial Board at IBD and I thought it was worth discussing. If the figures quoted in the article are accurate, then this truly is a Harvest of Shame.

~~John Cronin~~

http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=295659764109246

By INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Wednesday, May 14, 2008 4:20 PM PT

Agriculture: The subsidy-stuffed farm bill just passed by Congress is a monster that will leave us with less food at higher prices. The president should veto it right away and force this foolish Congress to override him.

Today’s farmer has an average income of just under $90,000, compared with income of about $50,000 for other Americans. Here we’re in an unprecedented farm boom, yet we’ve been led to think we’re bailing out farm families suffering from Depression-era economic conditions.
In fact, the average farm subsidy recipient has $200,000 in income and a net worth of about $2 million. The top 10% of farm earners take in 75% of the subsidies. Put bluntly, Congress’ farm bill subsidizes millionaires and lets you pick up the tab.

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Brief article over at HOT AIR touts Mitt Romney for the vice presidential slot.
The article talks about the strength that Romney would bring to the ticket because of his mastery of business and economics. If Mitt is not picked for VP, I think this is what needs to happen.

The McCain campaign needs to send a message to conservatives, IMHO, in two areas of vital importance, or they will not be pleased with the results they get at at the ballot box in November.

1. We need an iron-clad promise to secure our borders and to enforce the existing laws on immigration.

2. We need a comprehensive economic policy that includes making the Bush tax cuts permanent, killing the death tax, balancing the budget and moving to reform the bloated entitlement spending that threatens to bankrupt this country.

Failing to accomplish this, the feckless leadership we have been getting from the Republican Party at the national level, will usher in eight bleak years of Democratic rule.

I know I am repeating myself, but I will say it again. Unless grassroots Republicans rise up and retake this party in order to guide it back toward the conservative principles that made the Party and the country great, we are going to lose this election. If there isn’t two cents worth of difference between the Democrat’s platform and the Republican’s platform, who cares which party wins? Obviously the career politicians do, but I am talking about the voters who have to pay for all of this.

We are not getting our money’s worth!

~~John Cronin~~

http://hotair.com/archives/2008/05/01/pew-mccain-gaining-at-the-center/

The economy will present a critical test for McCain. He has worked on building economic chops, and his campaign has notable assistance in this area from Steve Forbes and even Mitt Romney. Obama’s stumble on capital-gains tax increases could help narrow this gap, but thus far the McCain campaign hasn’t offered any focus on that gaffe from the April 16th debate.
McCain could use a well-recognized hand on economics as a running mate. I’ve suggested that Romney could fill that role, although Allahpundit has been less enthusiastic. Romney did a great job with fundraising in 2007 and could help fill a critical gap there as well. Now that Jeremiah Wright has managed to splatter himself all over Obama, not too many people would worry about Mormons in the general election. Mormons aren’t known for asking that God damn America or promulgating weird conspiracy theories about HIV and government-sponsored genocides. Wright’s demagoguery has taken the Mormon issue off the table, if Obama wins the nomination.

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Brief article with very good statistics that help to put the Democrat’s petroleum pandering in perspective.

~~John Cronin~~

http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=293842906547200

By INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Wednesday, April 23, 2008 4:20 PM PT

Oil Shock: When it comes to energy policy, Democrats always talk a good game. But look at their actual record while in control of Congress in the last year and a half. It’s been nothing short of disastrous.

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