Fun With Obama Math

I’ll be the first to admit that this massive deficit isn’t Barack Obama’s alone. It would be ridiculous to suggest otherwise. But he certainly is ratcheting it up a notch, shattering records as he goes. The federal budget deficit set a new record in May of a whopping $189.7 billion, bringing the total to $991.9 billion for fiscal 2008-09 which ends in four months. The billions spent on “stimulus” and massive corporate bailouts means that the Obama budget deficit will finish on October 1, 2009 at an estimated record of $1.84 trillion, or approximately four times last year’s amount.

As of the most recently kept records up until June 2, 2009, the total U.S. federal debt was $11.4 trillion, roughly translating to a public debt of $37,348 for every man, woman and child in America. As Daniel Hannan famously said to Gordon Brown in his address to European Parliament :

“Every British child is born owing around £20,000 [$32,900 USD]. Servicing the interest on that debt will cost more than educating the child.”

And yet the Americans are in even worse shape. In 2007, public debt was 36.8 percent of GDP with total debt of 65.5 percent of GDP. As of June of 2009, the debt is now 82.5 percent of GDP, with President Obama’s budget estimating total debt relative to GDP to rise to 97% by 2010, and “stabilize” at 100% shortly thereafter. Although spending is up by 18% from last year through the first 8 months of the year, revenues are down by 18% over the same time span compared to fiscal 2007-08.

Economists are deeply concerned that the kind of large borrowing needs of the Obama administration will result in more and more of the United States losing control over Treasury securities. Lenders could increase steep interest rates if investors begin to demand a higher return, meaning that the more American public debt is foreign-owned, the less control they will have over their plans for recovery:

Despite all that “stimulus”, there is little evidence that the famous jobs that Barack Obama promised Americans is any closer to being realized. According to a graph created from statistics put out by the Bureau of Labor Statistics in the U.S., both job openings and hires have been plunging since the crisis began in late 2007.

Canadian public debt, meanwhile, stands at around 60-64% of GDP, depending on whether you consult CIA, OECD, or IMF statistics. The Canadian Taxpayer’s Federation has a convenient debt counter at their website, which shows that each of us owe roughly $14,000. Although we’re well below the debt peak of $562.9 billion under the Liberals in 1997, we’re projected to get within $20 billion of that high mark again by 2012-13. According to the 2009-10 fiscal budget on the government of Canada website, Canada will take in $224.9 billion, while spending $229.1 billion. That’s only a $5 billion shortfall, but what’s really adding to our debt is the interest payments, projected for $29.5 billion, or 1.9% of GDP. That is precisely the cost of this “stimulus” plan for fiscal 2009-10: 1.9% of GDP.

Related

Why is the right doing so well in Europe? Two words: fiscal restraint. [Link]

Holding My Breath For The Apology

A Canadian Soldier from the Kandahar Provincial Reconstruction Team, gives a handshake to an Afghan child during a foot patrol in Kandahar city. The goal of the patrol was to speak with Kandahar city residents about their needs and living conditions. Photo: Simon Duchesne

The allegations of Afghan detainee prisoner abuse under Canadian Forces guard began in early 2007, and swept through Parliament like a wildfire late that year as the opposition accused the government of a coverup. Stephane Dion accused the government at the time of hiding the truth, although it would later be revealed that the Liberals were apprised of the stoppage to detainee transfers as well. It was repeatedly suggested that Canadian Forces were either involved in, or complicit in the torture of Taliban detainees, going as far as to argue that Canada had lost the moral authority for the mission. Against the Taliban.

On Tuesday, military officials released the final report for the investigation that began in early 2007 after initial allegations. It cleared our soldiers of any and all wrongdoing:

“The board (of inquiry), composed of three senior Canadian Forces members, concluded that detainees were handled professionally and humanely by CF members with whom they were in contact, and that CF members acted consistently beyond reproach,” the Defense Department said in a statement.

All that was found during the investigation is that one suspect had to be subdued, requiring minor medical treatment. For a military rotation of around 2,700 troops, this is a remarkable and impeccable statement of our record.

The report itself:

3. In accordance with the convening order, the Board investigated the 6/7 April incident. To appreciate the context surrounding this incident, and to track the sequence of orders, directives, procedures and training, the Board considered the time period of Jan 2005 to Nov 2008 relevant to the inquiry.

[...]

6. Over the course of nearly two years of deliberations, the Board sat for 40 days, hearing 121 witnesses from the Departments of National Defence, Foreign Affairs and International Trade, and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. The first witness appeared on 27 March 2007 and the last witness on 10 November 2008. The Board probed the issue of detainee handling with questions that generated approximately 12,000 pages of testimony and 322 exhibits. The Board reviewed thousands of related documents and travelled to Edmonton and Afghanistan to hear testimony.

7. The members of this Board can state without reservation that the conduct of Canadian Forces personnel when dealing with detainees in the Afghanistan theatre of operations has been consistently above reproach. Indeed, Board members were able to conclude that the professionalism of members of the Canadian Forces in dealing with Afghanistan citizens is such that the Canadian public can have complete confidence in the manner their military representatives carry out operations in general, and in particular the manner in which they handle detainees.

I sincerely doubt whether you could find a more sterling example of military professionalism than what has been written in the report, particularly when you keep in mind that it is occurring in an arena of combat with terrorists who hide behind women and children, use them as human shields, and for whom their main style of attack is suicide or road-side bombings.

No doubt this will continue to satisfy none of the critics of our participation in the multilateral UN-approved mission in Afghanistan.

h/t SDA

The Orwellian Words Of A Stalinist Kommissar

The Canadian Human Rights Commission, an extra-judicial extra-legal authority that is able to prosecute people based upon nothing more than the assertion that somebody is offended, has tabled a report to Parliament on the issue of hate speech on the Internet. The Human Rights Commission, which brings forth frivolous complaints against people based solely on the evidence of the complainant, and which uses taxpayer money to execute these proceedings, leaving the defendant to his own legal devices, has already stated that “truth is no defence“. The defining purpose of the HRC is to investigate whether somebody might possibly have been exposed to “hate messages”, which could be for something as simple as being offended that there are people who believe that homosexual marriage is immoral. What is not important is whether or not the statement is an opinion or expression of thought, but that the HRC rules it has the duty to censure those who express any opinions that might cause offence to recognized minority group.

The commissioner of the HRC itself, one Jennifer Lynch, is a person proclaiming to represent the interests of a society that seeks to uphold Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights code which “prohibits the repeated electronic transmission of messages that are likely to expose an individual or a group of individuals to hatred or contempt.” In an op-ed written by Ms.Lynch in the Globe and Mail, she says that the commission “welcomes” a debate over freedom of expression versus hate messages. But much like the Kafkaesque commission itself, the commissioner says one thing while practicing something entirely different. In one of the most hypocritical and cowardly decisions yet taken by the HRC, Jennifer Lynch refused to debate Ezra Levant, a free speech advocate, live on CTV Powerplay. Instead she dispatched one of her little toadies, Philippe Dufresne, who not only refuses to answer questions pertaining to Mr.Levant, but refuses to speak to him directly. It truly must be seen to be believed.

After first airing the conversation between host Tom Clark and Philippe Dufresne, they move to Ezra Levant who had been standing by on a censored microphone, who goes on to address the assertions made by Mr.Dufresne. Ezra Levant goes on to clarify that the CHRC does, in fact, pay complainants, and continues to pay lawyer Richard Warman’s expenses for all his section 13 complaints. A full explanation of his battle between the commission and CTV news can be read at his site. It’s incredible to think that a person who pretends to be able to distinguish the rights of free speech and hate speech, refuses to appear on a show for a public debate. Mr.Levant has some background:

Lynch has been a problem for the Conservative government for years. She has racked up close to $100,000 in five-star junkets to exotic conferences, while her commission was racked with scandal. Any cabinet minister who had her penchant for luxuries on the public dime would be called into the Whip’s office. Any MP who ambushed the PMO with her self-serving media stunts, like the Moon report (which poetically backfired on her) or this latest PR campaign, would be kicked out of caucus. Really, who is Lynch besides a slightly less tech-savvy Garth Turner, without the redeeming democratic streak?

Worse, Lynch continues to harass Christian and conservative politicians with her censorship powers (I listed a few on the show).

Do you think for a moment that if Lynch manages to survive in her position without being sacked, and if the CHRC is allowed to maintain its section 13 censorship powers, that she wouldn’t use them in a second in a war of political vengeance against the Conservatives themselves, the moment the Liberals ever might take office?

Ms.Lynch’s words should frighten every free-thinking citizen in this country. This is a governmental organization [that stands under a Conservative government I might add], that seeks to curtail speech that it believes, and it alone, “contributes to disharmonious relations” among various racial, cultural and religious groups, and they assert erodes tolerance and open-mindedness. What is the worst aspect of this is that it is a governmental body that will be deciding what constitutes speech that would lead to “disharmonious relations”, and that it even concludes that such a goal is a worthy pursuit. Did we even have a referendum on whether we want a governmental extra-judicial extra-legal authority to decide to arbitrate forced “harmony”?

Is it harmonious that my hometown of Brampton, Ontario, has been so radically changed by immigration from southeast Asia that Canadian-born citizens are a tiny minority in many parts of that city now? Can I complain that reckless immigration has created disharmonious relationships among neighbours and neighbourhoods because of the creeping sprawl of the ethnocentric congregation of migrant cultures? Can we complain that the same ethnocentric neighbourhoods throughout the western world have led to the spawning grounds for radical Islam and terrorists and criminals? Does the fact that some Muslims may become offended by that statement mean that the government of Canada has the right to muzzle me?

If Ms.Lynch believes that critics of her Stalinist commission are “manipulating” information to further an agenda to distort our human-rights system, then what do you call the selective and manipulative interpretation of our constitutional rights to free speech? She writes that there is no hierarchy of rights, but that they work together toward a common purpose. This essentially puts the determination of which rights should supersede one another in the ballpark of the HRC, which has sole discretionary powers over that determination. Orwellian, Kafkaesque, or Stalinist; all such adjectives apply.

h/t Pelalusa

Around the ’sphere

Secrets of Vancouver: “So if you are a critic of a corrupt commission that abuses its power and takes away freedom, you are guilty of a broad assault on freedom? Orwellian at best.“

Russ Campbell: “This episode provides further reinforcement for the view that there is a real threat to freedom of expression in Canada and it is coming from within our government through its agencies.“

Werner Patels: “The principles and concepts so exalted by Lynch, tolerance and equality, can be achieved only when people find their own ways of living together and respecting each other – but never through force-feeding views or language policing.”