Has Alan Grayson Lost His Mind?
by ilene - May 24th, 2010 4:43 pm
Karl Denninger on Alan Grayson’s proposal:
Has Alan Grayson Lost His Mind?
I generally like Alan so I was stunned to see this bit of pandering - although perhaps I shouldn’t be, given that it’s election season and every one of the critters in Congress is trying desperately to justify their salaries.
5 minutes of worthwhile video, but….. (you knew there would be a "but", right?)
Yes, we could cut the separate funding for Afghanistan and Iraq. Of course we would then have the troops here, which still results in them being paid salaries, right?
The cost of a war isn’t just fuel for planes, bombs to drop and bullets to shoot. It is also salaries for our soldiers, salaries for the development of weapons, salaries for places like Eglin and other bases. If the total spent goes down that support to the economy goes down too.
You won’t see me argue for greater federal spending in the general sense. But I will argue that until and unless you deal with the energy situation and our 40 years of stupidity in that regard walking away from the sources of our nation’s energy isn’t exactly smart.
Worse, however, Alan Grayson wants to give 90% of the money he would "save" through this move to "the people", thereby not actually withdrawing the deficit spending (which we should do), but instead shifting it.
$16 billion of "deficit reduction", so he claims. But he’s not mentioning the $1.6 trillion in deficit that we have.
Cutting $160 billion wouldn’t be all that bad of an idea – that would be 10% of the deficit, and might actually matter. Indeed, it would be what I’d call "a good start."
But 1%?
That’s pissing into a hurricane.
Nice try at populism draped in a false cloak of "fiscal responsibility" Alan.
It’s unfortunate that "on the numbers" your bill displays an IQ smaller than your shoe size.
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The War Is Making You Poor Act
by ilene - May 22nd, 2010 1:54 am
The War Is Making You Poor Act
By Alan Greyson, Huffington Post
Next week, there is going to be a "debate" in Congress on yet another war funding bill. The bill is supposed to pass without debate, so no one will notice.
What George Orwell wrote about in 1984 has come true. What Eisenhower warned us about concerning the "military-industrial complex" has come true. War is a permanent feature of our societal landscape, so much so that no one notices it anymore.
But we’re going to change this. Today, we’re introducing a bill called ‘The War Is Making You Poor Act’. The purpose of this bill is to connect the dots, and to show people in a real and concrete way the cost of these endless wars.
Next year’s budget allocates $159,000,000,000 to perpetuate the occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq. That’s enough money to eliminate federal income taxes for the first $35,000 of every American’s income. Beyond that, leaves over $15 billion to cut the deficit.
And that’s what this bill does. It eliminates separate funding for the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, and eliminates federal income taxes for everyone’s first $35,000 of income ($70,000 for couples). Plus it pays down the national debt.
The costs of the war have been rendered invisible. There’s no draft. Instead, we take the most vulnerable elements of our population, and give them a choice between unemployment and missile fodder. Government deficits conceal the need to pay in cash for the war.
We put the cost of both guns and butter on our Chinese credit card. In fact, we don’t even put these wars on budget; they are still passed using ‘emergency supplemental’. A nine-year ‘emergency’.
Let’s show Congress the cost of these wars is too much for us.
Tell Congress that you like ‘The War Is Making You Poor Act’. No, tell Congress you love it. Act now.
http://www.TheWarIsMakingYouPoor.com
All we are saying is "give peace a chance." We will end these wars.
Together.
****
See also A Point Not Forgotten, Michael Panzner.
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Rep. Alan Grayson: You Own the Red Roof Inn, Thanks to the Fed; Why the Fed Does Not Want an Audit; America is Wall Street’s Sucker
by ilene - May 7th, 2010 8:30 pm
Rep. Alan Grayson: You Own the Red Roof Inn, Thanks to the Fed; Why the Fed Does Not Want an Audit; America is Wall Street’s Sucker
Courtesy of Mish
Please play this must-see video by Alan Grayson explaining in great detail exactly why the Federal Reserve does not want to be audited, and thus why it absolutely needs to be audited.
"Let’s find out once and for all who owns the hotels, who owns the houses, and let’s try and put this wild beast that creates money out of nothing and jams it in the pockets of special interests like Maiden Lane, like Bear Stearns, like JPMorgan, like all their friends. Let’s put them under some degree of restraint before it all comes crashing down, on us."
Please play the video!
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Fed Privately Lobbies Senate to Kill Audit; What You Can Do!
by ilene - May 4th, 2010 2:46 pm
Fed Privately Lobbies Senate to Kill Audit; What You Can Do!
Courtesy of Mish
A bill sponsored by Ron Paul and Alan Grayson to thoroughly audit the Fed, passed the House. However in a brazen move that ought to offend the sensibilities of every citizen, the Fed is lobbying Senate members to water down the bill so that it is meaningless.
The Huffington Post tells the story in Fed Privately Lobbying Against Audit.
The Federal Reserve is privately lobbying against a bipartisan Senate amendment that would open the central bank to an audit by the Government Accountability Office, according to documents distributed to Senate offices by a Fed official.
In order to obtain the documents, HuffPost agreed not to reveal the name of the Federal Reserve official who did the specific lobbying in question.
"As I mentioned, we believe that the bipartisan Corker-Merkley provision in the Dodd Bill is quite strong and addresses issues of transparency and disclosure without impinging on the independence of monetary policy," the official goes on.
Merkley teamed with Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) on an audit provision, but Merkley himself says he’d prefer to go further. "I appreciate Representative [Alan] Grayson’s concerns over accountability at the Federal Reserve. I have been a strong proponent of Fed reform and voted against the re-confirmation of Ben Bernanke because the Fed has been so lax in using its regulatory powers," Merkley said in a statement to HuffPost, responding to an analysis from Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) showing that the Senate bill did not meaningfully expand transparency.
The Fed argument is a replay of a tactic that the bank tried in the House. Instead of outright opposition, the Fed backed an amendment in the lower chamber from Rep. Mel Watt (D-N.C.), which the bank said would expand transparency but not interfere with monetary policy. It became clear, however, that the amendment would not expand transparency and was an attempt to defeat the audit in general. The Watt amendment was soundly defeated.
The Corker-Merkley amendment is the Senate version of the Watt amendment and the Fed is once again arguing that the broader amendment will impinge on the independence of monetary policy.
"The Sanders amendment, however, would directly interfere with monetary policy," argues the Fed official. "The amendment removes the current statutory protection for core monetary policy activities from GAO audit and would permit the GAO to
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THIS Is How a Congressman Does His Job
by ilene - September 26th, 2009 3:47 pm
THIS Is How a Congressman Does His Job
Courtesy of George at Washington’s Blog
Watch Alan Grayson question the general counsel for the Federal Reserve:
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Philip R. Davis is a founder Phil's Stock World, a stock and options trading site that teaches the art of options trading to newcomers and devises advanced strategies for expert traders...
Ilene is editor and affiliate program
coordinator for PSW.