Barack Hussein Obama (D-IL)

 Former Community Organizer and Now

Leftist Moonbat-In-Chief

Mr. Obama has gone well above and beyond to earn this week’s Moonbat Award and a special picture, which we may adopt as our new award logo.

As reported by the Associated Press:

Since the presidency changed hands less than six weeks ago, a burst of entertaining has taken hold of the iconic, white-columned home of America’s head of state. Much of it comes on Wednesdays.

The stately East Room, where portraits of George and Martha Washington adorn the walls, was transformed into a concert hall as President Barack Obama presented Stevie Wonder with the nation’s highest award for pop music on Wednesday.

A week before that, the foot-stomping sounds of Sweet Honey in the Rock, a female a cappella group, filled the East Room for a Black History Month program first lady Michelle Obama held for nearly 200 sixth- and seventh-graders from around the city.

Cocktails were sipped during at least three such receptions to date, all held on Wednesdays.

The governors’ dinner, also on a Wednesday, was “a great kickoff of what we hope will be an atmosphere here in the White House that is welcoming and that reminds everybody that this is the people’s house,” Obama told the state chief executives after they had dined on Maryland crab, Wagyu beef, Nantucket scallops and citrus salad. (Emphasis LCs)

As a side note, Wagyu beef sells for $100.00 per pound on average!

Last month Obama lectured private-sector executives:

“You can’t get corporate jets, you can’t go take a trip to Las Vegas or go down to the Super Bowl on the taxpayer’s dime,” is living large in the Executive Mansion that we taxpayers have generously provided him.

While economy rapidly shrinks and the stock market plummets with the Dow Jones Industrial Average down more than 50% since its October 2007 peak, and some 30% just since Election Day. Obama’s response? He dismisses the relentless decline as “fits and starts.”

Obama is comparing the stock market to the daily tracking polls used during campaigns, saying that paying too close attention to Wall Street’s “fits and starts” could lead to bad long-term policy.

If a candidate’s performance in tracking polls had been declining steadily for three months, surely it would be time to change strategy or drop out of the race. A 30% decline is a heck of a fit, and Wall Street hasn’t had anything that can be called a start since before Obama’s election.

Obama also has begun dispensing investment advice, as ABC’s Jake Tapper reports:

President Obama told Americans to take a look at investing in the stock market [yesterday] afternoon, a remarkable utterance for an American president, especially as the Dow Jones Industrial Average proceeds on its course Southward.

“What you’re now seeing is . . . profit and earning ratios are starting to get to the point where buying stocks is a potentially good deal if you’ve got a long-term perspective on it,” the president said on a day that trading continued to hover under 7,000.

The president predicted that Americans’ consumer confidence would improve as they see the stimulus bill “taking root.”

Also serving as Investment Advisor-In- Chief, Obama is spending taxpayer money traveling across the US to sign spending bills, has not commented on the Omnibus earmark bill (9,000 porker’s attached, maybe he will veto it), a tanking economy, a record deficit Obama now owns, much more spending to come under the guise of healthcare, nationalizing the auto, banking and mortgage industry and we’re only 6-7 weeks into this destructive administration, yet he lectures everyone from CEOs to average citizens on the merits of doing with less.

Moonbat-in-Chief, Indeed!

Moonbat is a special feature of Liberally Conservative and posted each Saturday. For previous awards visit Moonbat Awards.

Sens. Baucus and Smith

Washington D.C - Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) today named Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and member Gordon Smith (R-Ore.) Porkers of the Month for July, 2007.

They have led the effort to expand, instead of reform, the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). SCHIP was created in 1997, and approximately $40 billion has been spent over 10 years to help states provide health insurance coverage to children in low-income families who earned too much to qualify for Medicaid. The original eligible population was families with incomes at or below 200 percent of the federal poverty level, which is about $40,000 for a family of four in 2007. Several states, using Medicaid waivers, have expanded the eligibility level to 300 percent of poverty and added new populations, such as pregnant women and other adults, costing taxpayers additional monies. The Bush administration’s budget included a five-year $4.8 billion increase in SCHIP over current levels, which was estimated to provide coverage for the families within the program’s original level of 200 percent of poverty.

The Senate Finance Committee, led by Chairman Baucus, approved a $35 billion expansion over current funding levels for SCHIP on July 19, putting the new price tag at $60 billion over five years. It will expand eligibility to families at 300 percent above the federal poverty line, or $61,950 for family of four. The legislation phases out some adult coverage, but the bill could be amended on the Senate floor by lawmakers wanting to restore such eligibility and expand coverage to those families at 400 percent of poverty, or $82,600.

Expanding access to federal government healthcare will dramatically increase the power of the government in all healthcare decision-making, including treatments, drug and physician availability, and medical research, paving the way toward universal healthcare. Families who currently have private coverage will have a strong incentive to switch to the SCHIP program, crowding out private insurance and raising the price for everyone else.

To pay for SCHIP’s higher costs, Sen. Smith proposed raising tobacco taxes up to $1.00 per pack, an increase of 61 cents or 156 percent.  The Finance Committee bill includes such an increase, as well as a 20,000 percent rise in cigar taxes, from five cents to $9.95 per cigar. Ironically, cigarette taxes target those SCHIP is supposed to help: the working poor, who are statistically more likely to smoke. Excessively high excise taxes lead many consumers to circumvent the tax by purchasing products out-of-state, online, or through illegal sales. It also reduces the number of smokers. Paradoxically, the Heritage Foundation found that the government needs 9 million more smokers in the next five years to pay for the program, and 22.4 million by 2017. Since that is unlikely, projected excise tax revenues will not materialize and all taxpayers will foot the bill for SCHIP in other ways.

For pushing a program that is the first step in creating government-controlled universal healthcare, instead of enacting reforms such as adopting tax credits or converting SCHIP into a defined contribution to allow low-income families to purchase private health insurance, and increasing taxes in a manner that will not provide sufficient funding, CAGW names Sens. Max Baucus and Gordon Smith its July 2007 Porkers of the Month.

Citizens Against Government Waste is the nation’s largest nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in government. Porker of the Month is a dubious honor given to lawmakers, government officials, and political candidates who have shown a blatant disregard for the interests of taxpayers.

House Agriculture Subcommittee on General Farm Commodities and Risk Management

Washington D.C. - Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW)  named all 18 members of the House Agriculture Subcommittee on General Farm Commodities and Risk Management Porkers of the Month for rejecting every credible proposal for reform of farm subsidy programs, and instead unanimously voting to extend the current archaic, costly, and wasteful system.

In a statement regarding the decision, Subcommittee Ranking Member Jerry Moran (R-Kansas) said, “I believe the work of the Subcommittee today was a step in the right direction. The work we accomplished today reinstituted the safety net of the previous Farm Bill that many producers are comfortable with.” Subcommittee member Frank Lucas (R-Okla.) suggested that his Agriculture Committee colleagues “circle the wagons” against reforms to the current system.

Of course the farm lobby and subcommittee members are content with a continuation of the most expensive farm subsidy payments in history, which has cost taxpayers an average of $20 billion annually for the last five years. Farm income is soaring along with land values, so only in Washington does it make sense to give farmers more handouts at the taxpayers’ expense. Payments in the districts of the 18 subcommittee members totaled $10 billion from 2003-2005, according to the Environmental Working Group.

Although a primary justification for continuing the failed agriculture policies of the past 70 years has always been that they are essential to protecting “small family farmers,” subsidies overwhelmingly go to the largest farmers and agribusinesses. In 2003, the top 10 percent of farm subsidy recipients collected 72 percent of total subsidies and the top 5 percent collected 55 percent of payments. Many of these farmers have net worths exceeding $2 million.

Farm subsidy programs actually hurt small family farms by driving up land prices and encouraging farm consolidation, which drives small farmers out of business. A June 20 Washington Post article documented this phenomenon in the Mississippi Delta, where 95 percent of the more than $1 billion for the region went to large, commercial farms between 2001-2005.

Agriculture subsidies also raise prices for consumers, encourage farming on environmentally-sensitive land, undercut subsistence farmers in developing countries, and invite retaliatory tariffs that hurt producers of non-subsidized commodities. The farm program is simply a massive transfer of wealth from taxpayers and consumers to the wealthy, politically-connected producers of a handful of crops.

For failing to move farm programs into the twenty-first century, ignoring free-market reforms, subverting trade agreements, and hurting those they claim to want to protect, CAGW names all 18 members of the Subcommittee on General Farm Commodities and Risk Management its June 2007 Porkers of the Month.

Citizens Against Government Waste is the nation’s largest nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in government. Porker of the Month is a dubious honor given to lawmakers, government officials, and political candidates who have shown a blatant disregard for the interests of taxpayers.

Rep. John Murtha (D-PA)

Washington D.C Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) today named Representative John Murtha (D-Pa.) the May Porker of the Month for throwing a temper tantrum and threatening his colleagues over a challenge to a $23 million pet project in the Intelligence Authorization Act for fiscal year 2008.

Rep. Murtha became infuriated by Rep. Mike Rogers’ (R-Mich.) motion to challenge his earmark for the National Drug Intelligence Center (NDIC) in Johnstown Pa.

According to The Politico, Rep. Murtha, who is not on the Intelligence Committee but does chair the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, confronted Rep. Rogers on the floor of the House and threatened to remove both any of his earmark requests in the defense appropriations bill and any other earmark “now and forever.” Rep. Rogers responded, “This is not the way we do things here and is that supposed to make me afraid of you?” To which Rep. Murtha arrogantly replied, “That’s the way I do it!”

Rep. Murtha also assailed Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-Kan.) for voting with Rep. Rogers against the NDIC during the Intelligence Committee markup of the bill. Rep. Murtha threatened a Boeing project in Rep. Tiahrt’s district.

Rep. Rogers submitted a resolution charging that Rep. Murtha violated a House rule which forbids members from blocking earmarks based on how a colleague votes. The resolution seeks a formal reprimand from the House. Rep. Rogers said, “This is exactly why Americans are disgusted with out of control federal spending. In order to restore the faith of the American people in Congress, we must do better. We can’t allow members to be threatened and intimidated when they stand up for hard-working taxpayers’ money.”

The Hill reported that Rep. Murtha also skirted the rules by submitting his required earmark certification late.The deadline was March 23, but Rep. Murtha’s letter was only sent on May 1, the day before the bill mark up.

The Murtha outburst exemplifies how earmarks corrupt the legislative process.The NDIC, which is funded through the Drug Enforcement Administration, was cited last year by the House Government Reform Committee as “an expensive and duplicative use of scarce federal drug enforcement resources.” CAGW’s 2007 Prime Cuts and the President’s budget both recommended that the NDIC should be eliminated. But it will probably be funded, not based on merit, but out of fear of Rep. Murtha’s power as an appropriations cardinal.

Rep. Murtha sees Congress as a place where threats and power plays control spending decisions. While pushing the pork-filled 2006 defense appropriations bill through the House last year, Rep. Murtha unleashed his money-hungry wrath upon his colleagues, “If you vote against this bill, you won’t have any input at all the next time.” The congressman barrels through legislation while inserting whatever he can to serve himself and his district. Since 2005, Rep. Murtha has obtained a total of $26,877,250 in pork. Rep. Murtha claims that when submitting an earmark he asks, “Is this worthwhile not only to your district but to the country?” However, it is difficult to ascertain what the country gets out of pork projects such as the $194,000 he secured for the construction of a new community center in Green County Pa. in 2005.

For filling important intelligence and defense bills with pork and threatening anyone that challenges his authority and arrogance, CAGW names Rep. John Murtha its May 2007 Porker of the Month.

Citizens Against Government Waste is the nation’s largest nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in government. Porker of the Month is a dubious honor given to lawmakers, government officials, and political candidates who have shown a blatant disregard for the interests of taxpayers.