Texas Governor Jolts Maryland’s Anti-Business Politicians

Texas has been airing radio and TV adds in CA, IL, etc...on Wednesday, on the way back from installing some millwork in Charlottesville, VA, I heard the radio advertisement.  I thought it was great!  Now I get this from a friend:

For immediate release:

David Craig Campaign releases business climate data showing dismal contrast

Contact: Jim Pettit

301.704.1363

@jamesmpettit

Maryland Lt. Governor candidate and state delegate Jeannie Haddaway said Texas Governor Rick Perry’s media onslaught of the state’s business climate and job growth potential is well-deserved as the David Craig campaign for Governor released today a comparison of the two states’ business climates according to third-party sources.

Maryland’s average ranking is 32 compared to Texas’s 4 when compared to other states. Preventing Maryland’s free fall to the bottom quintile overall in the national business climate comparisons are factors including quality of life, education attainment levels and proximity to research and development facilities such as universities and federal government installations.

“Texas Governor Rick Perry understands something that the O'Malley-Brown Administration is in denial about -states compete with one another for jobs and economic development,” said Haddaway. “Raising taxes, fees and tolls 40 times that will remove an additional $9.5 billion out of the private sector economy by 2014 sends a loud message to other governors who are concerned about job growth that Maryland is easy pickings.”

The O’Malley – Brown Administration frequently cite narrow metrics in categories other than tax burdens in order to avoid responsibility for the damage they have caused in driving away small businesses at rates that are among the highest in the region and have left the state with just three Fortune 500 companies. These other metrics are largely based on benefits derived from world-class universities and a high concentration of research and development activity stemming from the post-World War II expansion of the federal government.

“Martin O’Malley and Anthony Brown have absolutely nothing to do with the number of PHD’s living in Maryland nor the federal government and university-sector involvement in medical research, cyber-security and information technology that has been going on for years. Yet they take credit for it every day as if they created Johns Hopkins, the National Institutes of Health and Fort Meade,” said Haddaway. “I am very concerned that as the federal government downsizes due to record debt, that ever-increasing numbers of working Marylanders are going to be left behind.”

Financial service firms, business media outlets, think tanks and site selection consultants routinely rank states’ economic development potential according to a variety of factors. The Craig campaign released the most recent annual business climate studies from Chief Executive Magazine, CNBC, Forbes, Moody’s and the Tax Foundation. Averaged together, Maryland falls 28 notches below Texas.

In some cases a comparison is not even possible, since Maryland is not included in top-performing states in two reports issued this summer. According to corporate relocation industry media outlets Area Development Online and Site Selection magazine, Texas ranks number one in the country.

Harford County Executive David Craig said the Lt. Governor will have a meaningful role in his Administration with economic development being a much-needed focus.

“Governor Perry’s visit to Maryland is a wake-up call to every anti-business politician in the state,” said Craig. “The rain tax alone has become a national embarrassment and one of the most blatant anti-business policies Marylanders have ever seen. My Administration will review, reduce or repeal any tax, fee and toll that impede job growth."

Chief Executive Magazine “Best and Worst States for Business”
1 Texas
41 Maryland
http://chiefexecutive.net/best-worst-states-for-business-2013

CNBC “America’s Top States for Business”
2 Texas
40 Maryland
http://www.cnbc.com/id/100824779

Forbes Best States for Business
7 Texas
16 Maryland
http://www.forbes.com/best-states-for-business/list/

Moody’s Analytics State Economic Outlook
2 Texas
21 Maryland
http://www.economy.com/state/precis-snapshot.aspx?g=TX&src=medc-ppstatehttp://www.economy.com/state/precis-snapshot.aspx?g=MD&src=medc-ppstate

Tax Foundation State Business Tax Climate Index
9 Texas
41 Maryland
http://taxfoundation.org/article/2013-state-business-tax-climate-index

Bureaucracy Wins: San Francisco Edition

San Francisco is not business friendly...and here's a video BY A CITY EMPLOYEE showing just how FUBAR the "system" is there.



This is what happens when people make rules, who have absolutely no concept of what sort of impact those bullshit rules do to people who actually want to create wealth and jobs.

Lazy Americans

In yet another first, Barack Obama roundly criticized Americans as lazy...while that in itself isn't a first, doing so before an international audience outside the borders of the United States is...here's a cartoon by Michael Ramirez,

Citizens United Vs FEC

Via Le-gal In-sur-rec-tion is an excellent video of the CU vs FEC law suit.

Reason TV, The War On Food: Government Intervention

Not having anything better to do...your government has decided to begin dictating what you can and cannot eat...



Via Instapundit

How Government Failure Caused the Great Recession

Here's an excellent explaination on just how government rules and regulations FUBAR'd the economy into near depression. 

By Mark J. Perry and Robert Dell

Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Filed under: Government & Politics, Economic Policy

The banking crisis that began in August 2007 shocked markets and precipitated the Great Recession. To fully explain the banking crisis, one must account for its timing, severity, and global impact. One must also confront a startling historical contrast. If we define “banking crisis” to mean bank failures and system losses exceeding 1 percent of a country’s gross domestic product (GDP), we find that in the period 1875-1913, a period of marked expansion in international trade and capital flows comparable to the last three decades, there were only four banking crises worldwide.(1) By contrast, in the period 1978-2009, a period of much more extensive bank regulation, central bank intervention, government protection of depositors and other bank creditors, and government control of mortgage markets, about 140 banking crises occurred worldwide. Of these, 20 were more severe than any crisis from the earlier period of 1875-1913, in terms of total bank losses as a percent of GDP.

Leading financial economists such as Charles Calomiris have argued that a necessary condition for a banking crisis is government policy that distorts the micro-incentives of banks. Likewise, University of Chicago scholar Richard Posner has argued the banks that got into trouble during the recent crisis were simply taking “risks that seemed appropriate in the environment in which they found themselves.”(2)

But then why didn’t a banking crisis erupt sooner—say, in the recession years of 1990-1991 or 2001-2002? What changed in recent years that led to business risk-taking capable of wrecking the U.S. housing market and the U.S. banking system and other banking systems throughout the world? Further, why were prudent credit practices reasonably maintained in credit card and commercial mortgage securitization in recent years, but wholly abandoned in residential mortgage securitization?

Some economists have criticized securitization as an inherently flawed business model, particularly since the process of securitization involves a “long chain” of players with “information asymmetries.” The buyer of the mortgage or security typically knows less than the seller. But many of the financial institutions involved in subprime securitization (e.g., Citigroup) held portions of their own securitizations, and they have for decades been securitizing credit card loans without major debacles. Calomiris has observed that even during the subprime boom, banks aggregating credit card loans for securitization and investors in securitizations closely examined the identity of originators, their historical performance, the composition of portfolios, and changes in composition over time.(3)

Read the whole thing here...


H/T InstaPundit

Bankrupting America

In just about the simplest form, here's an excellent explaination of just why American businesses are sitting on more than $5 trillion dollars right now.  It also shows just why businesses are hiring now, or any time in the foreseeable future.



via Instapundit

WOW!

WOW...this video as very telling when set against the last post from Mark Steyn



More from Steyn: 

In 2009, the US spent about $665 billion on its military, the Chinese about $99 billion. If Beijing continues to buy American debt at the rate it has in recent times, then within a few years US interest payments on that debt will be covering the entire cost of the Chinese military. This summer, the Pentagon issued an alarming report to Congress on Beijing’s massive military build-up, including new missiles, upgraded bombers, and an aircraft-carrier R&D program intended to challenge US dominance in the Pacific. What the report didn’t mention is who’s paying for it.
Answer: Mr and Mrs America.

By 2015, the People’s Liberation Army, which is the largest employer on the planet, bigger even than the US Department of Community-Organizer Grant Applications, will be entirely funded by US taxpayers. When the Commies take Taiwan, suburban families in Connecticut and small businesses in Idaho will have paid for it.

 I knew things were bad, that we as a nation can't afford to continue, for even one more year of Obama/Pelosi/Reid level of spending...but this is apocolyptic.  More importantly, here is Mr. Steyn's conclusion...and I fully agree with him, the emphasis is mine. 

In a two-party system, you have to work with what’s available. In America, one party is openly committed to driving the nation off the cliff, and the other party is full of guys content to go along for the ride as long as we shift down to third gear. That’s no longer enough of a choice. If your candidate isn’t committed to fewer government agencies with fewer employees on lower rates of pay, he’s part of the problem. This is the last chance for the GOP to restore its credentials. If it blows it, all bets are off for 2012.

Sadly, I don't think the GOP's leadership gets it.

Are You Better Off Now Than You Were 4 Years Ago?

I'm not.  My wife can't find a full time job since she was laid off two and a half years ago.  I only just started back working in a cabinet shop three weeks ago.  We're perpetually behind on all of our bills and the worry of being evicted is always there.

In 2006, the Democratic Party took control of Congress and did nothing to the economy except to make it worse.  Of course big government Republicans who controlled the GOP at the time were, and are still, merely "Democrat Lite."   But, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid systematically set out to create the economic chaos that we have  now by refusing to do anything about Freddie Mac and Fannie May. 

Democrats fought every Republican effort to clean up the impending Fannie-Freddie catastrophe with their standard class-warfare rhetoric and racist sliming. The Democrats had a field day fighting off Republican attempts to reform Fannie-Freddie before it brought the mortgage business to full-blown crisis. Then, when the whole thing exploded in all our faces — bringing the cascading collapse to banks and every other industry in America — the Democrats turned right around in the blink of an eye and wagged their dirty little fingers at Republicans as though none of the citizenry would be the wiser. The Democrats weren’t worried. They presumed that once they got control of the Congress, they could bury their own malfeasance and incompetence under the rug of majority rule. And that is precisely what they have done. No investigations. No hearings. Democrat rulers think the public is still in the dark ages — before the internet.

In the four years since the Democratic Party has been in control of Congress, they have systematically waged economic warfare against business by implementing ruinous regulations.  Furthermore,

They have used their majority status to ram through mountains of anti-business, regulatory legalese that literally shackles the recovery they disingenuously proclaim. Even as Democrats have run around the country all summer like a bunch of chickens with their heads cut off, yelling “Recovery!” at the top of their little lungs, the recovery isn’t happening on Main Street and they are the very reason why it isn’t. They won election with their crass gospel of envy, bashing the job creators at every turn and then shake their heads with wonder at why these same small businesses have the life too scared out of them to hire people.

These Democrats openly admit they haven’t even read the bills they’ve passed and then ponder why the citizenry is upset with them. They act as though the U.S. Constitution is nothing more than a doormat that they can step upon as they enter the halls of taxpayer-funded, personal enrichment. They’ve turned the words “public servant” into a synonym for lying thief.[ed see Charlie Rangel & Maxine Waters]
Ever since wresting control of Congress, the Democrat rulers have done all in their power to finagle their way to bureaucratic tyranny, all the while blaming the out-of-power Republicans for having the temerity to say “No,” as strongly as their puny numbers will allow them.

It's time for a change and change we need.  Vote every single incumbent out of office.  Vote in fiscally conservative candidates who won't spend money the government doesn't have and will begin to roll back both the size of the federal and state bureaucracies as well as the scope of government intervention in business.  Candidates who will end ALL government bailouts of the private sector.  Any business "too big to fail" is too big to suceed, and must be permitted to collapse else we will enter a perpetuall cycle of shoring them up...with our great grand childrens money.

EPA Declares CO2 Harmful To Humans

The EPA and the Obama Administration in an effort to circumvent Congress has unilaterally declared that CO2 is harmful to humans. CO2 if you will recall is a NATURALLY OCCURRING gas. By declaring it harmful, the EPA may now begin to regulate (i.e. tax/fine/fee) emissions. This means that in order for you to drive you car, you can, and probably will be fined for doing so.

The EPA said that the scientific evidence surrounding climate change clearly shows that greenhouse gases "threaten the public health and welfare of the American people" and that the pollutants — mainly carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels — should be regulated under the Clean Air Act.

Bullshit! The "scientific evidence" is far from certain, especially since the Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia's emails and data have clearly shown an attempt to block any publication of articles and papers that take a contrary view of the "settled science". Since "Cap & Trade" bills passage has stalled and are likely to go nowhere, the Obama Administration is attempting to do an "end run" around Congress and desires to seize control of energy production in this country. During the campaign, Mr. Obama repeated stated his desire to drive the production of coal, as well using coal as a means of energy production out of business by making it prohibitively expensive to use this for energy. This is a blatant power grab by this administration.

"These long-overdue findings cement 2009's place in history as the year when the United States government began addressing the challenge of greenhouse-gas pollution," said EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson at news conference.

The action by the EPA, which has been anticipated for months, clearly was timed to add to the momentum toward some sort of agreement on climate change at the Copenhagen conference and try to push Congress to approve climate legislation.

"This is a clear message to Copenhagen of the Obama administration's commitments to address global climate change," said Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., lead author of a climate bill before the Senate. "The message to Congress is crystal clear: get moving."

Unfortunately, it seems that the Obama administration won't be happy until it not only controls the production of energy, but that of health care as well. This is nothing more than a bald attempt to completely restructuring the United States into a socialist/statist economic model. If the government controls the production of energy, it will be able to dictate to companies who is permitted to do business and more importantly who is not. Additionally, it will have the ability to dictate who gets health care...and who does not.

The time has already arrived that bureaucrats are deciding upon a political basis who is permitted to work in government by not hiring anyone with a conservative background...in the very near future you can bet they health care (with the passage of the government's plan to seize control of health care) your political party will be a deciding factor if you receive good care...or not. Now the government will dispense energy upon those corporations (by giving thee "exemptions") who are politically approved of, and those who are not. Now, Mr. Obama's enemy list begins to take on whole new meanings.

Larry Kudlow On More Government Regulation of the Economy

Mr. Kudlow makes a great point. Heavy government regulation was tried in several parts of the world. The Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact are excellent examples of where Mr. Obama and Barney Frank are heading. I only ask, where are the governments of those countries now? More recently, take a long hard look at Venazuala...how strong is the economy there? What is unemployment like? How strong is the agrarian sector? NOT!

Take a look at the video and it will go a long way to explain in only a minute and a half, why this country had a 26 year long boom. That period was marked by only 2 mild and short recessions (economic corrections actually). Then call your Congressmen and Senators...do it now.