California Asks for a Taxpayer-Funded Bailout

Sunday, 04 November 2012

After being so profligate with its spending that it managed to outspend the revenue taken in during both the “dot com” boom and the recent real estate boom, California now wants a bailout from its taxpayers in the form of a tax hike via Proposition 30. Voting “yes” on Prop 30 is nothing more than giving the irresponsible politicians in Sacramento a free pass from cleaning their fiscal house.

Supporters of Prop 30 will sing the same song they always do when they want to raise taxes: it’s about the schools or the fire fighters or the roads. It is true these all suffer due to the fiscal mess people like Governor Brown (D) put California in, but it is really about the massive transfer of the state’s wealth from California’s taxpayers to the government labor unions in the form of salaries, benefits and pensions.

Think about it, what exactly did the taxpayers of California get during the 20 or so boom years prior to the housing crisis? New, better roads? Upgraded electrical transmission infrastructure? Were 100-year-old pipes under California’s roads that are all on the verge of bursting repaired? Hardly. They expanded welfare programs and government employee salaries, benefits and pensions.

California’s politicians will never say the problem is they don’t have money to pay some 50-year-old a six figure pension – they are going to say they don’t have the money to fix roads. And, effectively, that is true because they pay the pension instead of fixing the road. It’s like your old roommate who claimed to not have enough money to cover their portion of rent, yet had enough money to go boozing at bars, and shopping for new clothes, every weekend of the month.

The public should not have to finance the corruption that is government employee unions.

 

Barack Obama did not Inherit a Recession

Sunday, 30 September 2012

Contrary to what you hear from the Obama campaign and most news reports, President Barack Obama did NOT inherit a recession. When Obama became president, America was in the middle of a recession. But saying he inherited it would mean that he had nothing to do with it. Obama supported the policies that led to the recession and played an active role in those policies.

The recession was a result of the housing market collapse, and it collapsed because our federal government was pushing for more “home ownership” by pressuring banks to lower lending standards. It all started with President Jimmy Carter’s Community Reinvestment Act of 1977, and the push for home ownership was put on steroids by President Bill Clinton. Their philosophy was that banks were intentionally not lending to both minorities and “poor” people and thus had to be forced to do so. At first, President George W Bush followed along pushing for more home ownership. But then in 2003 Bush and his fellow Republicans decided to try to rein in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac with preparations for a bill that would provide more regulations and more oversight of both Fannie and Freddie. In 2004 House Democrats sent a letter to Bush to stop pursuing such legislation. In the Senate in 2005 the bill (S. 190) was stopped dead in its tracks by a threatened filibuster by Senate Democrats. What does Obama have anything to do with all of this? In 1994 Obama used Clinton’s steroids as an attorney in a class action lawsuit suing Citibank over alleged “discrimination” in its lending practices – Citibank settled. Then, in 2005, then-Senator Obama was one of the Democrats in the Senate who threatened filibuster of S. 190 – killing the bill.

This is obviously a short-hand version of a story that covered decades. No, wall street’s hands aren’t clean, same goes for the Federal Reserve, but the main culprit was our federal government meddling in the housing market. By the way, our Federal Housing Administration picked up where Fannie and Freddie left off, and will soon need a bailout itself.

In addition to his role in the policies that brought us the housing collapse, President Obama was in the U.S. Senate for 4 years, every single day of Bush’s second term as president. The Democrats even had majorities in both houses of Congress for Bush’s last two years in office. Yet, team Obama (which includes most media outlets) acts as if he just appeared on the scene in 2009 for his inauguration.

If Obama was a supporter of, and active participant in, the policies that caused the meltdown and was in the Senate for four full years before becoming president, how can anyone claim that Obama “inherited” a recession? Obama is living in the house he helped build.

 

A Question for Warren Buffett: is Murder Wrong Only Because it’s Illegal

Thursday, 21 September 2012

You would think so if you used the logic the rich Left applies to income taxes. Rich left-wingers like Warren Buffett, wealthy beyond the dreams of the 99.999%, have come out strongly against so-called “low taxes” on the rich. They frame it as a matter of common decency, a moral obligation. The Republicans in the House have listened and passed a new law changing tax forms to allow these guilty rich to send more money than they owe to Uncle Sam. How much will they give Uncle Sam? Whatever their sense of social justice dictates.

I think it’s safe to assume that very few, if any of them, will contribute anywhere near the amount of taxes they’re otherwise advocating for – no matter how much people like Matt Damon say they “don’t mind paying more taxes.” If the “low” taxes they are paying really were immoral then they would fork over the money and not wait for changes in the law forcing them to do so. However, we have to keep in mind a truism about the Left: they are very generous with other people’s money. Some people call that “compassion.” I looked it up in the dictionary and found that definition under the word “theft.”

 

Mitt Romney and the 47%

Wednesday, 20 September 2012

A video of comments Mitt Romney made at a fundraiser in May, 2012, have surfaced and caused a media firestorm. I’m not surprised by what Romney said – I wish he would make dependency on government a much larger part of his campaign. I also wish he would spend more time talking about the corporate welfare that steals money from taxpayers and gives it to billionaires – such as Obama-bundler and Solyndra-investor George Kaiser. What does surprise me, though, is how our mainstream media is acting as if they’ve never heard any one right of center rail against America’s ever-expanding welfare state. I’ll give them a hint: turn your radios on and listen to Mark Levin, Sean Hannity or Rush Limbaugh and you’ll hear this kind of stuff 5 days a week. Or, read a column by economists such as Tom Sowell, if they prefer the written word.

These media outlets that are expending an amazing amount of coverage on a non-story would rather us focus on the Romney video so that we ignore what’s going on in the Middle East and an economy that’s still stick in the mud despite over $800 billion borrowed and wasted on a fugazi stimulus bill that did nothing more than stimulate the wallets of government union members.

Obama has learned one thing from history: FDR got more people addicted to government handouts and used that to get re-elected – he was also able to expand the size and scope of government in doing so. But, where are we today? Our federal government has at least 126 different anti-poverty programs, at a total cost of more than $668 billion this year alone. Add in the $284 billion that states will spend and that comes to $952 billion.

America has become what Frederic Bastiat wrote over 150 years ago: “that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else.” 47% of American workers don’t pay a penny in federal income taxes. Notice this is people who work, as no one expects my 3 and 5-year-old nieces to pay federal income taxes – not even Mitt Romney. But those 47% pay payroll taxes, right? Wrong. Over 20 million Americans get back so much money in refundable tax credits that every penny of their Social Security and Medicare contributions get returned to them. And about 14 million Americans get so much back that it also wipes out their employer’s contribution. Thus, we have a system where people don’t pay into the pot, but get to vote goodies for themselves.

How long do you think this can last? If you want a hint, take a look at Greece. Romney should use the coverage of this video to show the path we are on – greater dependency on a welfare state that’s a proven failure through its more than $16 trillion dollars of spending on a failed war on poverty. To prove his point he can use the tailor-made cartoon of the ideal Obama mooch – Julia.

 

The 10-Point Solution to Illegal Immigration

Monday, 09 July 2012

The solution to our illegal immigration problem is to have common sense immigration laws and enforce them. America does neither.

To find the solution to the problem, you have to first understand the root of the problem. Why do we have over 10 million illegal immigrants here? There are many reasons, but what sums them all up is this: we incentivize it. These incentives need to be removed, and most of them are removed if we follow these ten points to solve our problem with illegal immigration:

1) Protect our borders. You just have to turn your TV on to see live footage of illegal immigrants crossing our borders to see that we don’t control our borders. And if you don’t control your borders, then no other parts of the policy you try to put in place will make much of a difference. “You can just walk right in” isn’t a way to keep people out. As a side note, it’s not just people seeking a better life that cross the border – terrorists do so as well.

2) No more Amnesty bills. We’ve had multiple, including the Obama Administration’s most recent DREAM Act prosecutorial discretion. Amnesty bills tell those people outside America that want to come here “if you can sneak in and hide long enough, we’ll let you stay for good.” We provided amnesty to less than 3 million illegal immigrants in 1986 and we now have over 12 million. Would repeating the same mistake solve our problem? No – unless your problem is that you’re a politician that needs to buy more votes by promising one group of people goodies.

3) No more free healthcare. You can come to America and get the greatest health care in the world – free. Speak to nurses working in hospitals near the border and you will hear countless stories of this happening. Hospitals all over America have shut their doors because of unpaid bills by illegal immigrants. Yet, we continue to provide free health care services to them. To make things worse, programs like Medicaid expand all the time. Initially, an illegal immigrant giving birth was considered an “emergency situation” and thus would receive free delivery of the baby. That policy has now expanded to call a pregnancy an “emergency situation” which means that pregnant illegal immigrants get free doctor visits, prenatal vitamins and every thing else that goes along with being a pregnant woman in America –all at zero cost to them.

4) Stop pushing the DREAM Act.  Providing illegals with more ways to be able to stay in America only incentivizes more to come here. As for those beating the drums of “they served in our armed forces, we shouldn’t deport them,” a law we have on our books already does this – 8 U.S.C. § 1440. This portion of the DREAM Act is just a political lie to get more people to support it.

5) Stop providing in-state tuition for illegals. Telling people in other countries “if you come to America and can hide in a state long enough, we’ll give you huge discounts on a college education” is hardly a deterrent. Much like credit card companies touting the benefits of being a cardholder, this is a benefit of being in America illegally.

6) Stop providing free education. Ever since the Supreme Court’s Plyler v Doe decision, the federal government has forced local school districts to provide free education to illegal immigrant children. “Come to America, we’ll educate your children at no direct cost to you” is also a great reason for people all over the world to flock here. Do you think families outside of the U.S. would be less likely to come here if their children wouldn’t be allowed into our public school system?

7) End sanctuary cities. “Come to our city, we won’t enforce the law you just broke” isn’t a way to reduce the number of people violating that law.

8) End birthright citizenship. Only a fool would believe in a policy that says “you can’t come here, but if you break our immigration laws and do come here, and while here have a child, we’ll give that child citizenship.” Parents want to provide a better life for their children than they had. Since America is the most prosperous country in the world (we’ll see how long that lasts) it only makes sense for a parent to come here illegally to give their child the amazing gift of American citizenship. Then this becomes a gift to themselves as well and the anchor-baby problem only gets worse.

9) Require proof of citizenship to obtain means-tested welfare programs. Just look at Obama’s aunt – here illegally for years, yet living on the dole. “Don’t come here, but if you do, we’ll give you free food, spending money which can be used at casinos and nudie bars and we’ll even subsidize your housing” isn’t a way to keep people out of the country.

10) Deport all illegals that are caught. This doesn’t mean go on a witch-hunt for all illegal immigrants. But, if you detain one – don’t just let them go as the Obama Administration is doing. “Catch & release” may be appropriate for sport fishing, but isn’t appropriate when it comes to immigration policy. Following the logic of the argument that we “can’t round up every one of them” would mean that we shouldn’t enforce any of our laws. We know for a fact that there are thieves, tax cheats, burglars, spousal abusers, rapists, murderers and child molesters walking our streets because we can’t catch every one of them. But does that mean we shouldn’t prosecute the ones that are caught? Only a fool would make such an argument.

Again, if we continue to provide these incentives while at the same time not protecting our borders, it is impossible to solve our illegal immigration problem. The system isn’t “broken” because it’s never been implemented.

 

 

The Lie About Laying off Teachers, Police and Fire Fighters

Friday, 25 May 2012

Every time there’s a state budget shortfall, we are told that if we don’t raise taxes prisoners will be released into the public, police officers and fire fighters must be laid off, and education funding will be slashed (which would include laying off teachers). President Obama and Vice President Biden sing the same song, too, scaring us with how many people will be murdered if we don’t let them take a larger share of the fruits of our labor.

Take California as an example, since this is exactly what’s happening now – and seems to happen every year which makes me feel like whenever I hear Governor Brown say we need to raise taxes “or else…” I feel like I’m watching Groundhog Day. You would think that every penny of California’s state budget goes for public safety, prisons, and education. Setting aside the massive amount of waste in all three – is that really all our government provides for us? You don’t have to take my word for it, just go to <a href=”http://www.ca.gov/Apps/Agencies.aspx”>http://www.ca.gov/Apps/Agencies.aspx</a> to see a list of agencies in California (which I’ve also pasted below via The Patriot Post).

Keep in mind the bloated salaries, platinum benefits and Greek-like pensions every government worker at these agencies receives (we pay for those, by the way) as you see how amazingly long this list is. I hope you enjoy working until the age of 110 so they can retire in their 50s.

California Academic Performance Index (API)
California Access for Infants and Mothers
California Acupuncture Board
California Administrative Office of the Courts
California Adoptions Branch
California African American Museum
California Agricultural Export Program
California Agricultural Labor Relations Board
California Agricultural Statistics Service
California Air Resources Board (CARB)
California Allocation Board
California Alternative Energy and Advanced Transportation Financing Authority
California Animal Health and Food Safety Services
California Anti-Terrorism Information Center
California Apprenticeship Council
California Arbitration Certification Program
California Architects Board
California Area VI Developmental Disabilities Board
California Arts Council
California Asian Pacific Islander Legislative Caucus
California Assembly Democratic Caucus
California Assembly Republican Caucus
California Athletic Commission
California Attorney General
California Bay Conservation and Development Commission
California Bay-Delta Authority
California Bay-Delta Office
California Biodiversity Council
California Board for Geologists and Geophysicists
California Board for Professional Engineers and Land Surveyors
California Board of Accountancy
California Board of Barbering and Cosmetology
California Board of Behavioral Sciences
California Board of Chiropractic Examiners
California Board of Equalization (BOE)
California Board of Forestry and Fire Protection
California Board of Guide Dogs for the Blind
California Board of Occupational Therapy
California Board of Optometry
California Board of Pharmacy
California Board of Podiatric Medicine
California Board of Prison Terms
California Board of Psychology
California Board of Registered Nursing
California Board of Trustees
California Board of Vocational Nursing and Psychiatric Technicians
California Braille and Talking Book Library
California Building Standards Commission
California Bureau for Private Postsecondary and Vocational Education
California Bureau of Automotive Repair
California Bureau of Electronic and Appliance Repair
California Bureau of Home Furnishings and Thermal Insulation
California Bureau of Naturopathic Medicine
California Bureau of Security and Investigative Services
California Bureau of State Audits
California Business Agency
California Business Investment Services (CalBIS)
California Business Permit Information (CalGOLD)
California Business Portal
California Business, Transportation and Housing Agency
California Cal Grants
California CalJOBS
California Cal-Learn Program
California CalVet Home Loan Program
California Career Resource Network
California Cemetery and Funeral Bureau
California Center for Analytical Chemistry
California Center for Distributed Learning
California Center for Teaching Careers (Teach California)
California Chancellors Office
California Charter Schools
California Children and Families Commission
California Children and Family Services Division
California Citizens Compensation Commission
California Civil Rights Bureau
California Coastal Commission
California Coastal Conservancy
California Code of Regulations
California Collaborative Projects with UC Davis
California Commission for Jobs and Economic Growth
California Commission on Aging
California Commission on Health and Safety and Workers Compensation
California Commission on Judicial Performance
California Commission on State Mandates
California Commission on Status of Women
California Commission on Teacher Credentialing
California Commission on the Status of Women
California Committee on Dental Auxiliaries
California Community Colleges Chancellors Office, Junior Colleges
California Community Colleges Chancellors Office
California Complaint Mediation Program
California Conservation Corps
California Constitution Revision Commission
California Consumer Hotline
California Consumer Information Center
California Consumer Information
California Consumer Services Division
California Consumers and Families Agency
California Contractors State License Board
California Corrections Standards Authority
California Council for the Humanities
California Council on Criminal Justice
California Council on Developmental Disabilities
California Court Reporters Board
California Courts of Appeal
California Crime and Violence Prevention Center
California Criminal Justice Statistics Center
California Criminalist Institute Forensic Library
California CSGnet Network Management
California Cultural and Historical Endowment
California Cultural Resources Division
California Curriculum and Instructional Leadership Branch
California Data Exchange Center
California Data Management Division
California Debt and Investment Advisory Commission
California Delta Protection Commission
California Democratic Caucus
California Demographic Research Unit
California Dental Auxiliaries
California Department of Aging
California Department of Alcohol and Drug Programs
California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control Appeals Board
California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control
California Department of Boating and Waterways (Cal Boating)
California Department of Child Support Services (CDCSS)
California Department of Community Services and Development
California Department of Conservation
California Department of Consumer Affairs
California Department of Corporations
California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation
California Department of Developmental Services
California Department of Education
California Department of Fair Employment and Housing
California Department of Finance
California Department of Financial Institutions
California Department of Fish and Game
California Department of Food and Agriculture
California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CDF)
California Department of General Services
California Department of General Services, Office of State Publishing
California Department of Health Care Services
California Department of Housing and Community Development
California Department of Industrial Relations (DIR)
California Department of Insurance
California Department of Justice Firearms Division
California Department of Justice Opinion Unit
California Department of Justice, Consumer Information, Public Inquiry Unit
California Department of Justice
California Department of Managed Health Care
California Department of Mental Health
California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV)
California Department of Personnel Administration
California Department of Pesticide Regulation
California Department of Public Health
California Department of Real Estate
California Department of Rehabilitation
California Department of Social Services Adoptions Branch
California Department of Social Services
California Department of Technology Services Training Center (DTSTC)
California Department of Technology Services (DTS)
California Department of Toxic Substances Control
California Department of Transportation (Caltrans)
California Department of Veterans Affairs (CalVets)
California Department of Water Resources
California Departmento de Vehiculos Motorizados
California Digital Library
California Disabled Veteran Business Enterprise Certification Program
California Division of Apprenticeship Standards
California Division of Codes and Standards
California Division of Communicable Disease Control
California Division of Engineering
California Division of Environmental and Occupational Disease Control
California Division of Gambling Control
California Division of Housing Policy Development
California Division of Labor Standards Enforcement
California Division of Labor Statistics and Research
California Division of Land and Right of Way
California Division of Land Resource Protection
California Division of Law Enforcement General Library
California Division of Measurement Standards
California Division of Mines and Geology
California Division of Occupational Safety and Health (Cal/OSHA)
California Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources
California Division of Planning and Local Assistance
California Division of Recycling
California Division of Safety of Dams
California Division of the State Architect
California Division of Tourism
California Division of Workers Compensation Medical Unit
California Division of Workers Compensation
California Economic Assistance, Business and Community Resources
California Economic Strategy Panel
California Education and Training Agency
California Education Audit Appeals Panel
California Educational Facilities Authority
California Elections Division
California Electricity Oversight Board
California Emergency Management Agency
California Emergency Medical Services Authority
California Employment Development Department (EDD)
California Employment Information State Jobs
California Employment Training Panel
California Energy Commission
California Environment and Natural Resources Agency
California Environmental Protection Agency (Cal/EPA)
California Environmental Resources Evaluation System (CERES)
California Executive Office
California Export Laboratory Services
California Exposition and State Fair (Cal Expo)
California Fair Political Practices Commission
California Fairs and Expositions Division
California Film Commission
California Fire and Resource Assessment Program
California Firearms Division
California Fiscal Services
California Fish and Game Commission
California Fisheries Program Branch
California Floodplain Management
California Foster Youth Help
California Franchise Tax Board (FTB)
California Fraud Division
California Gambling Control Commission
California Geographic I nformation Systems Council (GIS)
California Geological Survey
California Government Claims and Victim Compensation Board
California Governors Committee for Employment of Disabled Persons
California Governors Mentoring Partnership
California Governors Office of Emergency Services
California Governors Office of Homeland Security
California Governors Office of Planning and Research
California Governors Office
California Grant and Enterprise Zone Programs HCD Loan
California Health and Human Services Agency
California Health and Safety Agency
California Healthy Families Program
California Hearing Aid Dispensers Bureau
California High-Speed Rail Authority
California Highway Patrol (CHP)
California History and Culture Agency
California Horse Racing Board
California Housing Finance Agency
California Indoor Air Quality Program
California Industrial Development Financing Advisory Commission
California Industrial Welfare Commission
California InFoPeople
California Information Center for the Environment
California Infrastructure and Economic Development Bank (I-Bank)
California Inspection Services
California Institute for County Government
California Institute for Education Reform
California Integrated Waste Management Board
California Interagency Ecological Program
California Job Service
California Junta Estatal de Personal
California Labor and Employment Agency
California Labor and Workforce Development Agency
California Labor Market Information Division
California Land Use Planning Information Network (LUPIN)
California Lands Commission
California Landscape Architects Technical Committee
California Latino Legislative Caucus
California Law Enforcement Branch
California Law Enforcement General Library
California Law Revision Commission
California Legislative Analyst’s Office
California Legislative Black Caucus
California Legislative Counsel
California Legislative Division
California Legislative Information
California Legislative Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) Caucus
California Legislature Internet Caucus
California Library De velopment Services
California License and Revenue Branch
California Major Risk Medical Insurance Program
California Managed Risk Medical Insurance Board
California Maritime Academy
California Marketing Services
California Measurement Standards
California Medical Assistance Commission
California Medical Care Services
California Military Department
California Mining and Geology Board
California Museum for History, Women, and the Arts
California Museum Resource Center
California National Guard
California Native American Heritage Commission
California Natural Community Conservation Planning Program
California New Motor Vehicle Board
California Nursing Home Administrator Program
California Occupational Safety and Health Appeals Board
California Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board
California Ocean Resources Management Program
California Office of Administrative Hearings
California Office of Administrative Law
California Office of AIDS
California Office of Binational Border Health
California Office of Child Abuse Prevention
California Office of Deaf Access
California Office of Emergency Services (OES)
California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment
California Office of Fiscal Services
California Office of Fleet Administration
California Office of Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) Implementation (CalOHI)
California Office of Historic Preservation
California Office of Homeland Security
California Office of Human Resources
California Office of Legal Services
California Office of Legislation
California Office of Lieutenant Governor
California Office of Military and Aerospace Support
California Office of Mine Reclamation
California Office of Natural Resource Education
California Office of Privacy Protection
California Office of Public School Construction
California Office of Real Estate Appraisers
California Office of Risk and Insurance Management
California Office of Services to the Blind
California Office of Spill Prevention and Response
California Office of State Publishing (OSP)
California Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development
California Office of Systems Integration
California Office of the Inspector General
California Office of the Ombudsman
California Office of the Patient Advocate
California Office of the President
California Office of the Secretary for Education
California Office of the State Fire Marshal
California Office of the State Public Defender
California Office of Traffic Safety
California Office of Vital Records
California Online Directory
California Operations Control Office
California Opinion Unit
California Outreach and Technical Assistance Network (OTAN)
California Park and Recreation Commission
California Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST)
California Performance Review (CPR)
California Permit Information for Business (CalGOLD)
California Physical Therapy Board
California Physician Assistant Committee
California Plant Health and Pest Prevention Services
California Policy and Evaluation Division
California Political Reform Division
California Pollution Control Financing Authority
California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo
California Postsecondary Education Commission
California Prevention Services
California Primary Care and Family Health
California Prison Industry Authority
California Procurement Division
California Public Employees Retirement System (CalPERS)
California Public Employment Relations Board (PERB)
California Public Utilities Commission (PUC)
California Real Estate Services Division
California Refugee Programs Branch
California Regional Water Quality Control Boards
California Registered Veterinary Technician Committee
California Registrar of Charitable Trusts
California Republican Caucus
California Research and Development Di vision
California Research Bureau
California Resources Agency
California Respiratory Care Board
California Rivers Assessment
California Rural Health Policy Council
California Safe Schools
California San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission
California San Gabriel and Lower Los Angeles Rivers and Mountains Conservancy
California San Joaquin River Conservancy
California School to Career
California Science Center
California Scripps Institution of Oceanography
California Secretary of State Business Portal
California Secretary of State
California Seismic Safety Commission
California Self Insurance Plans (SIP)
California Senate Office of Research
California Small Business and Disabled Veteran Business Enterprise Certification Program
California Small Business Development Center Program
California Smart Growth Caucus
California Smog Check Information Center
California Spatial Information Library
California Special Education Division
California Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology Board
California Standardized Testing and Reporting (STAR)
California Standards and Assessment Division
California State Administrative Manual (SAM)
California State Allocation Board
California State and Consumer Services Agency
California State Architect
California State Archives
California State Assembly
California State Association of Counties (CSAC)
California State Board of Education
California State Board of Food and Agriculture
California Office of the Chief Information Officer (OCIO)
California State Children’s Trust Fun d
California State Compensation Insurance Fund
California State Contracts Register Program
California State Contracts Register
California State Controller
California State Council on Developmental Disabilities (SCDD)
California State Disability Insurance (SDI)
California State Fair (Cal Expo)
California State Jobs Employment Information
California State Lands Commission
California State Legislative Portal
California State Legislature
California State Library Catalog
California State Library Services Bureau
California State Library
California State Lottery
California State Mediation and Conciliation Service
California State Mining and Geology Board
California State Park and Recreation Commission
California State Parks
California State Personnel Board
California State Polytechnic University, Pomona
California State Railroad Museum
California State Science Fair
California State Senate
California State Summer School for Mathematics and Science (COSMOS)
California State Summer School for the Arts
California State Superintendent of Public Instruction
California State Teachers Retirement System (CalSTRS)
California State Treasurer
California State University Center for Distributed Learning
California State University, Bakersfield
California State University, Channel Islands
California State University, Chico
California State University, Dominguez Hills
California State University, East Bay
California State University, Fresno
California State University, Fullerton
California State University, Long Beach
California State University, Los Angeles
California State University, Monterey Bay
California State University, Northridge
California State University, Sacramento
California State University, San Bernardino
California State University, San Marcos
California State University, Stanislaus
California State University (CSU)
California State Water Project Analysis Office
California State Water Project
California State Water Resources Control Board
California Structural Pest Control Board
California Student Aid Commission
California Superintendent of Public Instruction
California Superior Courts
California Tahoe Conservancy
California Task Force on Culturally and Linguistically Competent Physicians and Dentists
California Tax Information Center
California Technology and Administration Branch Finance
California Telecommunications Division
California Telephone Medical Advice Services (TAMS)
California Transportation Commission
California Travel and Transportation Agency
California Unclaimed Property Program
California Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board
California Unemployment Insurance Program
California Uniform Construction Cost Accounting Commission
California Veterans Board
California Veterans Memorial
California Veterinary Medical Board and Registered Veterinary Technician Examining Committee
California Veterinary Medical Board
California Victim Compensation and Government Claims Board
California Volunteers
California Voter Registration
California Water Commission
California Water Environment Association (COWPEA)
California Water Resources Control Board
California Welfare to Work Division
California Wetlands Information System
California Wildlife and Habitat Data Analysis Branch
California Wildlife Conservation Board
California Wildlife Programs Branch
California Work Opportunity and Responsibility to Kids (CalWORKs)
California Workers Compensation Appeals Board
California Workforce and Labor Development Agency
California Workforce Investment Board
California Youth Authority (CYA)
Central Valley Flood Protection Board
Center for California Studies
Colorado River Board of California
Counting California
Dental Board of California
Health Insurance Plan of California (PacAdvantage)
Humboldt State University
Jobs with the State of California
Judicial Council of California
Learn California
Library of California
Lieutenant Governors Commission for One California
Little Hoover Commission (on California State Government Organization and Economy)
Medical Board of California
Medi-Cal
Osteopathic Medical Board of California
Physical Therapy Board of California
Regents of the University of California
San Diego State University
San Francisco State University
San Jose State University
Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy
State Bar of California
Supreme Court of California
Teach California
University of California
University of California, Berkeley
University of California, Davis
University of California, Hastings College of the Law
University of California, Irv ine
University of California, Los Angeles
University of California, Merced
University of California, Riverside
University of California, San Diego
University of California, San Francisco
University of California, Santa Barbara
University of California, Santa Cruz
Veterans Home of California

The Money You Earn is Not Yours

Thursday, 23 February 2012

President Barack Obama thinks any money you earn that isn’t taxed away by the government is a cost to the government. Meaning, whatever you earn is actually the government’s – not yours.

This belief of his was clearly articulated at a recent speech/campaign stop in Virginia at Northern Virginia Community College. Obama told the audience:

“Right now, we’re scheduled to spend more than $1 trillion more on what was intended to be a temporary tax cut for the wealthiest two percent of Americans. We’ve already spent about that much. Now we’re expected to spend another $1 trillion.”  {emphases added}

President Obama doesn’t even answer the phone with a “hello” without reading that salutation off a teleprompter, so his use of “spend” and “spent” was no accident.

Think about that logic for a second. If you went to a store and spent $50 on an item, and were asked how much you spent, you’d say $50, right? Now, if the person in front of you in line had $500 in their wallet, would you change your answer and say you spent $550 because you paid $50 for your item and didn’t take the $500 that belonged to the other person? Of course not. But this is the way the Left in America sees things.

There are those of us who believe in private property rights, who believe that what you lawfully earned is rightfully yours. But those on the Left, such as Obama, don’t see it that way. The economic system where you don’t own the fruits of your own labor is a system we abolished in the mid-1800s – slavery. But this self-anointed intellectual elite thinks they know better than we do when it comes to how our hard-earned money should be spent.

This leaves us two choices. One is to vote in people like Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Elizabeth Warren, etc., which is why we now have taxes at every turn we take and a massive federal government with thousands of programs, thousands of agencies, thousands of subsidy programs and such a success in doing its job that it’s amassed over $15,000,000,000,000 of debt – debt that we have to pay back with future taxes. The other is to vote for someone to restore the system that was originally created when America was founded. A system where we’re left to govern ourselves. A system based on the belief in the individual, freedom and private property rights. If this latter choice is not one you prefer, you better start learning to speak Greek.

ObamaCare is a New Welfare Entitlement Program

Tuesday, 01 December 2009

Health Care reform as it stands today is a welfare program with virtually no reform. President Barack Obama’s promise of providing America with a health care system that would 1) expand coverage, 2) improve the quality of health care and 3) decrease costs has morphed into nothing more than wealth redistribution on its way to a complete government takeover – which would make proponents of a single-payer system such as Barack Obama, Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) and Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT), to name just a few, very happy. When it comes to quality enhancement and cost control, Obamacare is a miserable failure. There is no evidence that quality will improve, not counting the new health care welfare recipients that would have health insurance either paid for 100% by the US taxpayer or subsidized by the same taxpayers. With no fundamental changes as to how we receive health care, there won’t be any bending of the cost curve down. In fact, by adding millions of people into the system who do not have to pay for the services they are receiving, the cost curve will most certainly be bent upwards.

If the single goal of ObamaCare is to enhance access to insurance, then our government has succeeded. But, then it is not reform, it is merely a welfare entitlement program, and calling it anything more than a welfare program is an outright lie. Even the way in which the bills in the House and Senate achieve increased coverage is through an existing welfare program and violates exactly what President Obama told Senate Democrats in a meeting on June 2, 2009:

I want to just make mention of something that I’ve talked to many of you privately about.  I want to say this publicly.  As we move forward on health care reform, it is not sufficient for us simply to add more people to Medicare or Medicaid to increase the rolls, to increase coverage in the absence of cost controls and reform.  And let me repeat this principle:  If we don’t get control over costs, then it is going to be very difficult for us to expand coverage.  These two things have to go hand in hand.  Another way of putting it is we can’t simply put more people into a broken system that doesn’t work.

Both the House Bill and the Senate Bill (in its current form) would add between 15 to 20 million people to Medicaid’s rolls. Maybe Barack Obama didn’t really say this to Senate Democrats, sort of like how he didn’t bow to the Saudi King.

These new reforms will do nothing but add more and more straws on top of the donkey’s back we call our health care system until it’s back breaks – leading to a government takeover. You don’t have to believe me, just ask the architect of this sort of system, Jacob Hacker, who said “One of the virtues of it {the public option}, though, is that you can at least make the claim that there is a competitive system between the public and private sectors” and went on to state the ultimate goal of a government-run public option: “Someone once said to me this is a Trojan Horse for single-payer, and I said, well its not a Trojan Horse, right? It’s just right there.”

If Social Security and Medicare are bankrupting the United States, does it make any sense to add another entitlement on top of that? Of course it doesn’t, but it buys votes and allows those who are in power now to remain in power as those dependent on the entitlement will be afraid to bite the hand that feeds them.

You can put lipstick on a welfare program; it’s still a welfare program.

*the title of this blog was changed from “‘Ever Try Government Lipstick”

 

Peter Orszag’s Blunders

Wednesday, 05 August 2009

Peter Orszag, President Obama’s director of the Office of Management and Budget:

2002: he predicted that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pose zero effective risk to our government.

July 2009: he explained his reasoning for why the stimulus bill failed to keep unemployment under 8.1% by stating that most other people were wrong about the economy as well.

Now: he’s part of Team Obama trying to tell us their healthcare “reform” package will be deficit-neutral. Sure it will, Pete.

Does it make you confident in our economy’s recovery knowing that Peter Orszag has Obama’s ear? Orszag has proven, time and again, his incompetence when it comes to the U.S. economy. On July 19, 2009 on “FOX News Sunday with Chris Wallace” the host, Chris Wallace, asked Orszag why the White House was wrong when it sold the $787B stimulus bill to Americans by claiming it would keep unemployment a little over, at the top, 8 percent (at the time of the interview the national unemployment rate was about 9.5%). Orszag responded“if you look back last December or so, everyone – almost everyone – thought that the economy was not as weak as it actually was… The situation in December and in January was worse than most people thought.”  Orszag went on to state “if you look back at the majority of the Blue Chip forecasts and the other forecasts, including from the Federal Reserve, late last year, which is what we were basing our projections on at the time, they were all somewhat too optimistic because the economy was weaker at that time than anyone anticipated.”  The stimulus bill, called the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, was signed by President Obama on February 17th – months after these Blue Chip forecasts were made. This means our government based its economic projections using forecasts it knew were wrong, and used those projections to sell us on a stimulus bill which will cost U.S. taxpayers about $1.1T by the time it is paid off (since every single penny of the stimulus bill was borrowed money). Thus, the Obama administration knowingly lied to the U.S. as it garnered our support for the largest spending bill in history.

This is the same Peter Orszag who co-authored a paper in 2002 whose purpose was to “to provide further insight into the magnitude of the expected direct costs from the implicit government guarantee on GSE {Government Government-Sponsored Enterprises – Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac} securities.” The paper “concludes that the probability of default by the GSEs is extremely small.” The paper went on to state “the expected cost to the government of providing an explicit government guarantee on $1 trillion in GSE debt is less than $2 million”, and “the risk to the government from a potential default on GSE debt is effectively zero.” Compare his risk assessment to what actually did occur: about $700B of bailouts by the US Treasury and the Federal Reserve, all by mid-2009 – a total which can easily increase as home foreclosures continue to occur.

Keep in mind that the Office of Management and Budget is the arm of the executive branch that crafts the federal budget and oversees the effectiveness of federal programs. Even if the economy does start to recover, government meddling can easily slide us into a deeper recession, as it has done in the past. It could be a long four, possibly eight, years ahead for all Americans.

 

Rushing Healthcare Reform

Monday, 27 July 2009

So much is being made of the current push by President Obama to ram healthcare reform legislation through both houses of Congress. With healthcare being 16-17% of our economy, it only makes sense to take a close look at what our government plans to do. First off, the rush to get healthcare reform legislation makes no sense. There can only be two reasons why Obama wants the bill completed and passed as soon as possible: 1) no one will be able to read it, and thus no one will be able to find problems with it and bring attention to what may be critical flaws; 2) Obama fears that as time goes by, lobbyists against his idea of healthcare reform will have more time to write articles, send out emails and make commercials to try to rally Americans to oppose the bill (but, by that same token, it also gives lobbyists that support Obama’s reform to do the same). Obama is calling healthcare as it is right now a “crisis.” Fear-mongering is a favorite of this administration. This is how the “stimulus bill” was passed before anyone could read it, as was the global warming legislation (so-called “cap and trade”) that passed the House – don’t forget how we are constantly told “we must act now” regarding “global warming” (for a planet that has been cooling since the late 90s). Ask yourself: do you want healthcare reform? Yes (at least, that’s my answer). Now, ask yourself if we are in the middle of a healthcare crisis. That we are not. Is Obama telling me that if we fail to act right now, we’re all doomed and it’ll be too late? Is passing better legislation in September too late? What about October, or mid-2010? Whatever happened to the theory of doing things right.

Beyond this rush to pass legislation as quickly as possible, you also have to remember that you can not have proper debate on any issue until all of the facts are known. But, what are the facts? I keep hearing about the “number of Americans who lack healthcare.” First off, no one lacks healthcare – they lack health insurance. By law, emergency rooms have to treat whoever comes in for treatment, regardless of age, race, sex, citizenship, etc. Second, how many people don’t have health insurance? The 2007 Census indicated the number to be about 46 million – but even the Census Bureau indicated that they undercounted Medicaid recipients, thus dropping the number to below 40 million. This is the number of people who do not have health insurance, at this moment. This is not the number of people who can’t afford health insurance for extended periods of time. In our current healthcare system, there will always be people temporarily without health insurance as they move from job to job (this is one of its current problems, lack of portability). But, remember, this is only a temporary situation. Then you have those who can afford health insurance, but don’t want to pay for it since they are “young and healthy.” There are also about 10 million non-citizens in that 46 million number you keep hearing. Once you account for those that were covered by Medicaid, those who have enough money to pay for health insurance but choose not to, the number of people only temporarily without health insurance and the number of non-citizens, that number drops to about 10-15 million. With a population of about 310 million, we’re talking about completely overhauling our healthcare system with drastic changes to address the need of health insurance for what may amount to only 3.2% of the population.

What the government needs to do is to figure out what the problems are with our current healthcare system. Then they need to find out why those problems exist – the source(s) of the problems. Then, address the source of the problem, but only with reform that is carefully examined so that it does not cause worse problems down the road – which is often what our government does. But, rather than do something this logical, Obama is trying to push legislation that would completely wipe out the healthcare system we have now – no matter how great its positive attributes.

 

Is Edward Schumacher-Matos Smarter than a Fifth Grader?

Wednesday, 01 July 2009
Misleading statements are equivalent to lying. This was no more apparent than in an Opinion column from Investor’s Business Daily I read the other day where columnist Edward Schumacher-Matos, a former editor and reporter with The New York Times and Wall Street Journal, was attempting to use the Jedi mind trick on his readers. The piece is titled “Care of Illegals Needn’t Color Health Debate” and can be found at http://ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=330913092696349&type=left. Schumacher-Matos wrote this column to argue that “the facts are that immigrants, including Latinos, put proportionately less strain on our health systems than do Americans who are native-born.” How did he make his argument? By citing various statistics, including a study from the New America Foundation (http://www.newamerica.net/publications/policy/who_receives_uncompensated_care). Based on his analysis of the report, Schumacher-Matos states:

Latinos overall, legal or illegal, U.S.-born or not, do appear to receive more of such uncompensated care {UC} than
do other racial or ethnic groups. Hispanics make up 15% of the population, but a study published earlier this year by
the New America Foundation found that they were responsible for a little more than 24% of the uncompensated
care in emergency rooms in 2004. This compares with more than 56% for whites.

This observation is based on the following table found in the report:

Other than the table completely disproving his point, the statistics themselves as he states them say absolutely nothing. Schumacher-Matos points out that Hispanics are 15% of the population and were responsible for 24.45% of the uncompensated care in emergency rooms. He compares this to the fact that 55.65% of uncompensated care was by whites and thus concludes that Latinos “put proportionately less strain on our health systems than do Americans who are native-born.” His conclusion is flawed in that he compares what 15% of the population does to an ethnic group whose percentage of the population he does not state – thus rendering his comparison incomparable. If using the statistics in the table, one would need to state the population of each group he is comparing. Based on 2006 data, whites represented 66% of the U.S. population. If there are more than four times as many whites than there are Latinos in the U.S., is it any wonder that whites were responsible for more uncompensated care in emergency rooms? Further more, Latinos don’t “appear to receive more of such uncompensated care than do other racial or ethnic groups,” they do indeed receive more – it’s a fact. The proper way to compare would be using the following #s:

These data indicate that Latinos receive uncompensated care 1.64 times their proportion of the population and cost the health care system, in terms of uncompensated care, 1.5 times their proportion of the population (the only group that costs more than they represent within the population). Thus, Latinos use far more and cost far more in uncompensated care per person (or, proportional to their population) than any of the other major racial groups. These are the facts, unlike his claims that “the facts are that immigrants, including Latinos, put proportionately less strain on our health systems than do Americans who are native-born” and that Latinos “appear to receive more of such uncompensated care than do other racial or ethnic groups.”

Whether or not I agree with Schumacher-Matos’ stance on providing health care to illegal immigrants and recent legal immigrants to the U.S. is a completely different question. But it is rather easy to see that the logic behind proving is point his completely flawed, as is his conclusion.

 

Solve Medicare’s Problems First

Wednesday, 29 July 2009

Barack Obama’s website (www.barackobama.com/issues/healthcare/) states: “We will take steps to reform our system by expanding coverage, improving quality, lowering costs, honoring patient choice and holding insurance companies accountable.” Thus, the Obama administration is promising healthcare for all, which will cost us less than we pay now, and yet provide us with better quality healthcare. We already have a federally-run healthcare system, Medicare. If the government wants to run my healthcare, why don’t they first show me that they can run Medicare without it’s current problems of: cost overruns, unfunded liabilities and fraud.

Cost Overruns: Medicare was created by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1965 to provide free healthcare for Americans 65 and older. The government estimated Medicare would cost $12 billion by 1990. The actual cost by 1990 was $107 billion – off by nearly %900. The funding problems could get worse as a new part of Medicare added in 2003 (a prescription drug benefit plan by George W. Bush) whose estimated cost was $534 billion over 10 years, which two years later was revised to $1.2 trillion. With this information, how confident are you when the government tells you how much their “public option” will cost, let alone the whole healthcare reform bill?

Unfunded Liabilities: Over the next 50 years Medicare will spend more than $38 trillion than it takes in, according to the Social Security Trustees.

Fraud: Medicare keeps administration costs very low (one of its “benefits” when compared to private insurance companies), but this is precisely why fraud is so rampant as Medicare essentially pays whatever bills it receives as long as the bills have valid claim numbers, leaving U.S. taxpayers on the hook for over $60 billion in healthcare fraud every year.

With the way our government runs Medicare, they need to steer clear of touching private healthcare. The government first needs to prove they can fix Medicare, then they can move forward with trying to fix the problems with private healthcare.

 

Asking for Another Mortgage Crisis

Monday, 29 June 2009

Congressmen Barney Frank (D-MA; chairman of the House Financial Services Committee) and Anthony Weiner (D-NY) sent a letter to the heads of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, pushing them to lower lending standards for buyers of new condos. When did Frank (or Weiner for that matter) ever run a mortgage business, or even underwrite mortgages? Furthermore, did they not learn from what the current mortgage crisis?

I cannot believe someone as thoroughly incompetent as Barney Frank even has a job, let alone is in Congress, let alone is chairman of the House Finance Committee.

Why did the mortgage crisis occur? You’ve probably been told it was due to greed and not enough government regulation. If it’s greed, please tell me how you can satisfy greed by lending money to people who can’t pay you back. As for not enough government regulation, I’ll have to explain why this is patently false. Let’s start from today, and go back in time to see why this all happened:

If people paid their mortgages, then there would be no foreclosures and all these complicated mortgage-backed securities would all be fine and we would not have a problem. But, the reality is that people stopped paying their mortgages.

Why did they stop paying? They were given loans they couldn’t afford to pay back.

Why were they given these loans if they didn’t have the money pay them back? Our government forced banks to loosen their lending standards, in the name of “affordable housing.” And what happens when you lend money to people who can’t pay you back? We’re living it today.

This is how it worked: the US government decided there was a “housing affordability crisis” in the US – a nationwide crisis even though housing was affordable all over the U.S., with the exception of a couple places (such as New York City and coastal California). So in 1977 Congress passed (and Carter signed) the Communities Reinvestment Act (CRA). This forced banks to lend a specified amount of loans to low- and moderate-income borrowers. The only way to meet the number of required loans made to low- and moderate-income borrowers was to loosen lending standards. Other laws followed the CRA to increase pressure on banks to loosen lending standards. The intentions of the CRA were good, but the result was disastrous.

Over the next 30 or so years, our government continued to pressure banks to lower their lending standards. How did they do this? For one, Janet Reno (in the 90’s) threatened legal action against banks that did not fulfill government-specified lending quotas. Another reason is, contrary to what most media outlets claim, banks are heavily regulated by the government. If a bank wasn’t fulfilling the government mandated quota of loans to low- and moderate-income borrowers, the bank was denied even simple business practices such as opening a new branch. Joining Janet Reno in this campaign of threatening and pressuring banks were community organization groups.

In order to further facilitate this goal of “affordable housing” the government forced Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to buy loans from banks (government-mandated quotas of specific types of loans). This allowed banks to make an instant profit on a loan, instead of waiting for the loan to be paid of (which typically took 30 years). With this new infusion of cash, the bank would then turn around and do it again, and again, and again. All this did was serve to increase Fannie and Freddie’s risk. By 2006, Fannie and Freddie controlled half of the U.S. mortgage market.

Barney Frank not only protected Fannie and Freddie (at taxpayer risk), but he also urged them to do more in the name of “affordable housing.” It proved disastrous over the last several years. But, are we supposed to believe that things will be different today because now these looser lending guidelines will be for condos, not the whole housing market? Mr. Frank thinks it’ll be different because, as he said “The private sector got us into this mess. The government has to get us out of it.” This statement makes Holocaust deniers look believable.

When the government bailed out Freddie and Fannie they did so with taxpayer money. It will be a great day when Mr. Frank is no longer a Congressman, and thus unable to force me to pay for his mistakes. I only wish the people in his district in Massachusetts would “smarten-up” and realize he may well be the worst Congressman of our time.

You can’t blame the whole catastrophe on one person, but it’s obvious that one person is most responsible for what happened. Thanks for the first mortgage crisis, Mr. Barney Frank. And please don’t give us another one.

 

Soaring Healthcare Costs

Tuesday, 16 June 2009

President Obama recently had representatives from the biggest health organizations agree to work together to cut healthcare costs to consumers – to the tune of about $1.7 trillion over the next 10 years.

Do you think they will do this? Even if they do, is it enough? Haven’t you heard the saying that if you want something done right, do it yourself? There are some simple solutions to our healthcare problems we can all do right now – all at little to no cost. We don’t need other people to do this for us. We should take responsibility for ourselves. Think about it, how do you avoid spilling food in your bedroom? Easy, don’t eat in your bedroom. But, as an analogy to how we live and how we rely on our healthcare system, instead of not eating in our room, we spend money on TV trays and complain how much it costs us to rent a steam cleaner to clean the spills – when the alternative is 100% free. Here’s what we can all do right now:

1) Eat properly. Just look around you, “svelte” may not be a word you would use to describe any one you work with, or even any one in your family. Donuts and coffee for breakfast and something from your local fast food joint’s value menu for lunch (even if your soda is a diet soda) won’t do you any good. Suffering from diabetes is not a way to cut medical costs and, more importantly, not a healthy way to live.

2) Exercise. This goes along hand in hand with eating properly. The heart is a muscle and should be treated like one – cared for and trained. Even light to moderate exercise is far better than the typical Americans’ choice of just sitting on the couch and watching TV.

3) Control alcohol consumption. Other than being the culprit in almost every single crime in the United States, excessive alcohol consumption promotes obesity and is very dangerous for your health.

4) Get the proper amount of sleep. Any person with any knowledge of health will tell you that getting the proper amount of sleep is of the utmost importance. The number of hours each individual needs does vary, but we all need sleep.

5) If you get sick, start treating it right away (preferably the cause, not just the symptoms). Otherwise, it can turn into a costly trip to the emergency room.

6) Practice safe sex. Treating diseases, performing abortions and caring for newborns are all very costly.

7) Quit smoking. This isn’t rocket surgery – it’s obvious how bad smoking is for your health.

8) Stop violence. Granted, this one is much more difficult than the others in this list as it has to do with parenting and raising our children – the future of America. Drive-by shootings, gang fights, physical assaults – any act of violence. All completely unnecessary and very costly to our healthcare system.

Point a finger at yourself, and at the people you know, not our healthcare providers. Whether it’s a private company or the US government providing us with healthcare, a person making poor decisions will end up costing all of us in the long run – as is the case right now.

 

DJ Turrtle Loses Bet, Dances to Kokolo

Saturday, 25 April

 

German Political Correctness

Wednesday, 18 June 2008

I am in Munich now after watching Croatia beat Germany 2-1 and Poland 1-0 in the Euros. I came here to meet a cousin I have never met before and we were talking about life in Germany and life in the US and he told me about how overly political correct Germany has become.

My favorite example he gave me was when a professor from the US came to Germany to give a presentation (he was a professor of international politics or something similar to that). When the presentation was over and a question-answer and general discussion started, a guy from Romania stood up to give his question. His question started with a fact: “28% of the inhabitants of Romania are Gypsies.” The whole German crowd gasped along with the professor (my cousin didn’t cuz Croatians aren’t politcally correct) and the professor stopped the Romanian guy and said “Don’t you mean Romas?” The Romanian man responded “No, Gyspies.” It sounds like a scene from Borat, but it really did happen.

The Germans are so sensitive over here that when someone in the crowd later asked if Democratic Presidential Nominee Obama’s skin color could come into play in the elections the whole crowd grapsed again. The guy didn’t use any word that would even be considered politically incorrect (such as “colored”) but the crowd still thought his question was completely inappropriate. I don’t get it. And I hope the US never gets that bad, although it is on its way.