Free Republic

Spain’s prime minister says his government will unveil a stimulus package worth €6.3 billion ($8.6 billion) to boost competitiveness. […] (Mariano Rajoy) said Saturday corporate tax would be cut from 30 percent to 25 percent. …

Even the weather refuses to cooperate with Obama. So who can blame the GOP for spurning him? That’s how much he’s been abandoned by the fates. And we pay the price for his gamble on his destiny, his legacy, his lie. It’s ironic that at a time when Wall Street has been adjusting expectations for the economy because of moderately cold weather—like THAT’s never happened before-- Obama is banging the drum for more draconian cuts to our great American-supplied fossil fuels. He cites global warming as the culprit. “President Obama is putting global warming in the spotlight this week, using...

Four years have passed since President Obama visited Kansas City's main airport, rolled up his shirt sleeves and admonished the skeptics who said Smith Electric Vehicles was unlikely to make good on its promises to build 510 experimental electric-powered trucks and buses suitable for commercial use. “Come see what’s going on at Smith Electric," the president said, inspecting a table full of bright green truck batteries in what was once a maintenance hangar for TWA. "I think they’re going to be hard-pressed to tell you that you’re not better off than you would be if we hadn’t made the investments...

The Bureau of Land Management is attempting to shut down the Bundy Ranch to clear the path for massive solar energy developments in southern Nevada that will enrich an A-list of well-connected Democrats close to President Obama, Al Gore, Bill Clinton and others. Completely unreported however, a scandal of epic proportions has been brewing with yet another Democrat-connected recipient of “green energy” stimulus funds. The Spain-based conglomerate Abengoa operates close to 600 subsidiaries throughout Europe, the Middle East, Latin America, and Asia, and has received $3.6 billion in loans and grants in direct violation of President Obama’s "Recovery Act" promise...

Whenever the beltway bandits run low on excuses to run-up the national debt they trot out florid tales of crumbling infrastructure—that is, dilapidated roads, collapsing bridges, failing water and sewer systems, inadequate rail and public transit and the rest. But most especially it presents a swell opportunity for Washington to create millions of “jobs”. And, according to the Obama Administration’s latest incarnation of this age old canard, it can be done in a fiscally responsible manner through the issuance of “green ink” bonds by a national infrastructure bank, not “red ink” bonds by the US Treasury. The implication, of course,...

As President Obama so peevishly informed us all earlier this month, that the debate on repealing/replacing ObamaCare is now absolutely beyond contestation, so it would be really great if we could all just shut up and move on to more important things — like, say, the economy, because “the fifty or so votes Republicans have taken to repeal this law could have been fifty votes to create jobs by investing in things like infrastructure, more innovation.” That’s why the White House is leading by example and contrasting itself with Congress’s deliberately light legislative schedule — by proposing the same old...

Game Changer? The federal government paid nearly $40 million dollars to Claire McCaskill’s husband’s businesses her first five years in office as Missouri Senator. During that time McCaskill has had influence over federal policy that has directly affected her family’s income. Missouri royalty - The rest of the country has suffered but Claire McCaskill and her husband Joseph Shepard have done very well these past five years. There are renewed calls for Democrat McCaskill to release her tax returns. ABC3040 reported: Businesses affiliated with the husband of Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill have received almost $40 million in federal subsidies for...

February was not kind to supporters of the liberal agenda. In the span of four weeks, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released four separate reports, each concluding that misguided big government policies are hurting American businesses and families. CBO first reported in early February that President Obama’s healthcare law will drive millions out of full time work and push our ballooning national debt to $27 trillion dollars. A second report released by the CBO concluded that a mandated hike in the minimum wage to $10.10 would kill 500,000 jobs, mostly for low-wage workers. And a third report suggested that...

While discussing federal spending and transportation funding, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) said “there is absolutely no way we’re going to cut spending.” Boxer was discussing the Highway Trust Fund with members of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) in Washington on Feb. 26th, when she addressed various tax increases that may be used to raise money for the program. “I don’t see support for raising the gas tax and there is absolutely no way we’re going to cut spending, so it’s going to have to be a creative way to fund this in reality,” Boxer said....

As Obama moves from one disaster to the next disaster, it’s clear that he’s lacking the support from citizens here at home, is viewed skeptically by people abroad, and lacks the respect from foreign leaders that the Great Seal of the United States should confer on any president. “A CBS News/ New York Times poll out tonight find only 40% of Americans are satisfied with the presidency of Barack Obama,” reported CBS News last week. “59% say they're disappointed.” Only 59 percent? What’s wrong with these people? Obama’s been beaten on Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and now in Ukraine. He’s...

Just two days after the Pentagon outlined major cuts to the U.S. Army and other military programs, President Obama is calling for a whopping $300 billion commitment for America's roads, bridges and mass transit systems -- though as much as half comes from a tax plan that has bleak prospects on the Hill. The president talked about the stimulus-style plan during a stop Wednesday afternoon in St. Paul, Minn. Officials say the money, as proposed, largely would come from "pro-growth business tax reform." But aside from the challenges in pushing tax reform, Obama could have a hard time making the...

FACT: The toothless 1977 regulations fully expired in July 1997, when President Clinton rewrote them to toughen CRA enforcement as part of a crusade to close the "mortgage gap" between blacks and whites. For the first time, banks were required to show results. One of the five performance criteria in the "lending test" — the most heavily weighted component of the CRA exam — was adopting "flexible lending practices" to address the credit needs of poor borrowers in "predominantly minority neighborhoods." Banks that didn't bend their underwriting rules risked flunking the exam. Ex-Federal Reserve Board Gov. Lawrence Lindsey, a staunch...

Here's an editorial in the New York Times about the beneficial effects of the $832 billion stimulus bill passed in 2009 that could have been written in the White House: Of all the myths and falsehoods that Republicans have spread about President Obama, the most pernicious and long-lasting is that the $832 billion stimulus package did not work. Since 2009, Republican lawmakers have inextricably linked the words "failed" and "stimulus," and last week, five years after passage of the Recovery Act, they dusted off their old playbook again."The 'stimulus' has turned out to be a classic case of big promises...

Very interesting presentation by Thomas Woods, discussing the GD of 1920-1921, the depression nobody ever talks about. Well worth watching, :41, only a couple of slow spots, otherwise entertaining. It is never talked about because the US economy rapidly came out of it with NO federal stimulus; indeed, the Fed lowered taxes and decreased spending during this period. Instead, Warren G. Harding was universally ridiculed for his clumsy speeches; examples of which are given and which sound entirely sensible. Virtually all historians castigate Harding because he was allegedly slow and stodgy, and during the latter half of his term, the...

Here it is, for posterity. Trying to find out why Sen. John Cornyn did not vote: Triumph of the Turncoat Caucus. *** I’ve just e-mailed Sen. Cornyn’s office and asked why he missed the vote. Heard from a NYC conservative that Cornyn is there now speaking to the Republican “Monday Meeting” group — made up of wealthy GOP donors. Bizarre display of priorities. Several Washington Hill folks note, of course, that the number of no votes isn’t important on cloture votes. But it matters to many of Sen. Cornyn’s tax-paying constituents, who have e-mailed wondering where he was.

RUSH: This is CBS this morning and the co-respondent is Bill Plante. We had the fifth anniversary of the stimulus yesterday. We're in the midst of an absolutely devastated United States economy. There is no end in sight. We are also in the midst of the total wrecking of the American healthcare system. We are in the process of tearing it apart and rebuilding it all under government control eventually. No matter where you look, the jobs market, the economy, any Obama policy, no matter where you look, there is utter disaster. In fact, polling data out there, Washington Examiner,...

As told by Democrats, the stimulus law is a tale of officials using government effectively to shield families from a severe economic crisis triggered by inadequately regulated speculation. In that accounting, the law is a prime example of how a strong central government can help the average person. To Republicans, by contrast, the law provides proof that government spending does little other than to burden future generations with debt. Given the continued weakness in the economy, Republicans have the simpler case to make: Good times have not yet returned, therefore, Obama’s policies have failed. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio demonstrated the...

In the heat of a re-election campaign, U.S. Sen. John Cornyn’s press office issued a strong statement today condemning the 5-year anniversary of President Obama signing the Democrat-led stimulus package into law. Yet Cornyn was one of two senators — both Republicans — who were absent when the measure first went before the Senate in 2009. “Five years later, our economy is still sluggish, Americans are dropping out of the workforce by the thousands, and the President’s latest big government experiment, Obamacare, is now on track to slash 2 million more jobs from the workforce,” wrote Cornyn about the American...

When the $787 billion federal stimulus was signed into law exactly five years ago this Monday, the U.S. economy was losing almost 800,000 jobs per month. Now? More than 4.2 million jobs have been added since March 2009. Also at this time five years ago, the unemployment rate was 8.3% and would climb to a high of 10.0% just months later. Now it stands at 6.6%. But on this fifth anniversary of the stimulus – passed mostly along party lines in response to financial crisis and Great Recession – Democrats and the White House have responded so far with …...

Five years ago Monday, President Barack Obama visited the Denver Museum of Nature and Science to sign the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, his $800 billion stimulus bill. At the time, the U.S. economy was losing 800,000 jobs a month. In the fourth quarter of 2008, it had contracted at an 8% annual rate, a Depression-level free fall. “Today does not mark the end of our economic problems,” Obama said on Feb. 17, 2009. “But it does mark the beginning of the end.” And so it did. The stimulus quickly became a national joke, mocked by the right as a...