I Am in Overbite Heaven

Courteney Cox and Felicity Huffman, this middle-aged man's penultimate dream threesome. Politics WHO?

What This Particular Blue-Dog Independent Would Do (King For a Day)

The western mind, both individually and collectively, is a damned curious thing. Whenever something isn't working, we either double down and try the same thing harder, or we do a complete 180. We never seem to want to make minor adjustments. Yes, peeps, I'm thinking specifically about this budget situation. You see, to me, we have an extremely delicate situation here. On the one hand, we have a humongous deficit and debt (worse as a percentage of the GDP than even the Depression era). And on the other, we have an extremely fragile recovery from what was probably the worst economic downturn since the Depression. The real challenge here, I think, is to reduce the deficit but to do it in a way that doesn't put a blanket on the recovery. Here are some of the things that I would do that a) would in fact reduce the deficit but b) wouldn't do it in a way that would stymie the recovery..........................................................................................................1) Allow the Bush tax-cuts to expire on everybody making $400,000 or more (I raised it form $250,000 to take away the Republican talking point pertaining to small businesses getting hit). This I believe would add a good 40-50 billion a year to the treasury and have minimal effects on investing............. 2) I would reduce the cap on mortgage interest deduction from its current level of one million a year to somewhere between $500-900,000 a year (depending upon what the CBO told me). This would undoubtedly add at least another 10 billion a year to the treasury............. 3) I would have the Federal government bargain directly with the pharmaceutical companies - this, for Medicaid and Medicare (as it already does for the V.A.). This would net the treasury somewhere between 15-25 billion a year............. 4) I would have wealthy retirees pay an extra 10% for their Medicare (Medicare is already somewhat means-tested but I would graduate it even more). I don't have a figure but I'd be astonished if it netted less than 5 billion a year............. 5) I would means-test Social Security to the tune of wealthy retirees getting 10% less (so, instead of an $1,800 check - or whatever the max is - they get a $1,620 check). Again, I'm thinking of at least 3-5 billion a year coming form this............. 6) I would close at least a dozen foreign military bases (starting with the one in Aruba) and hopefully net the treasury another 5-10 billion............. 7) I would modestly expedite our withdrawal from Afghanistan and gradually transform our mission there to an anti-terror one. This will ultimately net the treasury tens of billions over time (we're presently spending approximately 100 billion a year there now)............. 8) I would raise the retirement age 6 months. People are living much longer and the demographic nightmare that is bearing down on us is immense. The savings here I approximate to be 3 billion a year............ 9) I would raise the cap on Social Security Taxes by $5,000. I have no idea how much revenue that this would raise but it would definitely extend SS............. 10) I would institute Bob Gates' proposed defense cuts. 20 billion a year over the next 5 years............. 11) I would institute a one year federal wage freeze. The rest of the country has taken hit and it's only fair that the federal work force does as well. That would save the treasury 3 billion a year over the next 10 years (don't ask me why/how)............. 12) I would eliminate ALL federal funding of NPR and public television. Yeah, it's only a half billion a year BUT, in the words of Mr. Schwarzenegger, "it is time."............ 13) Reduce foreign aid by 10%. That would save the treasury 5 billion a year............. 14) Reduce farm subsidies by 20%. This would net the treasury 6 billion dollars. The final tally - somewhere between 150-200 billion (1.5-2 trillion over 10 years).....................................................................................................P.S. I know that I've done a post similar to this in the past. I felt that it was worth repeating, though. You know, what with these idiots in Washington flailing and all.

The Ever-So Predictable Decent of Yet Another Douche-Bag Congressman

It has come to my attention that this recently emerging tea partier/firebrand Congressman, Joe Walsh, is presently $117,000/then-some in arrears on his child-support (he, of course, disputes these figures). Hm, I guess that Congressman Walsh actually thinks that sometimes debts are acceptable (some of them more-so than others, obviously).

Maxine Waters 2004

"We were trying to fix something that wasn't broke. Mr. Chairman, we DO NOT have a crisis at Freddie Mac and, in particular, at Fannie Mae, under the outstanding leadership of Mr. Frank Raines."............I'm sorry, folks, but this woman doesn't deserve to be anywhere near the U.S. capitol. She took what was obviously an important hearing and turned it into a God damned mockery (replete with playing the race-card). The way that I see it, this lady couldn't get elected dog-catcher in any other district in the country.

John McCain 2005

"Mr. President, this week Fannie Mae’s regulator reported that the company’s quarterly reports of profit growth over the past few years were “illusions deliberately and systematically created” by the company’s senior management, which resulted in a $10.6 billion accounting scandal.

The Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight’s report goes on to say that Fannie Mae employees deliberately and intentionally manipulated financial reports to hit earnings targets in order to trigger bonuses for senior executives. In the case of Franklin Raines, Fannie Mae’s former chief executive officer, OFHEO’s report shows that over half of Mr. Raines’ compensation for the 6 years through 2003 was directly tied to meeting earnings targets. The report of financial misconduct at Fannie Mae echoes the deeply troubling $5 billion profit restatement at Freddie

Mac.

The OFHEO report also states that Fannie Mae used its political power to lobby Congress in an effort to interfere with the regulator’s examination of the company’s accounting problems. This report comes some weeks after Freddie Mac paid a record $3.8 million fine in a settlement with the Federal Election Commission and restated lobbying disclosure reports from 2004 to 2005. These are entities that have demonstrated over and over again that they are deeply in need of reform.

For years I have been concerned about the regulatory structure that governs Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac–known as Government-sponsored entities or GSEs–and the sheer magnitude of these companies and the role they play in the housing market. OFHEO’s report this week does nothing to ease these concerns. In fact, the report does quite the contrary. OFHEO’s report solidifies my view that the GSEs need to be reformed without delay.

I urge my colleagues to support swift action on this GSE reform legislation.".............Wow, yet another doltish Republican talking sense. Incredible!!

Alec Baldwin (!!!!!) on "Real Time with Bill Maher"

"The thing we have to remember, a friend of mine who is very close to the financial community in New York pointed out that Democrats have a lot of the responsibility for this as well. I mean, it was Clinton who killed the Glass-Steagall, and it happened under a Democratic president. Barney Frank and his committee, they, they kept propping up Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac saying everything’s fine, everything’s fine, everything’s good. And it was his job to know everything wasn't fine. And Barney Frank let you down and let us down as well. And so, but I want to say there’s blame to go both ways. But I will say, I want to, I maybe keep beating this to death, but I still think anyone in this Congress who voted to add $140 billion to that bill, they should be ashamed of themselves. That is a disgrace. It’s a disgrace. This Congress is a disgrace, Democrat and Republican."............WOW, huh?

Alan Greenspan 2005

"If Fannie and Freddie continue to grow, continue to have the low capital that they have, continue to engage in the dynamic hedging of their portfolios, which they need to do for interest rate risk aversion, they potentially create ever-growing potential systemic risk down the road. We are placing the total financial system of the future at a substantial risk.''............While Mr. Greenspan may indeed have been major clueless in certain respects, he kind of sounds omniscient here, doesn't he?