Obama Budget Voted Down; 97-0

The Hill:

The Senate voted unanimously on Wednesday to reject a $3.7 trillion budget plan that President Obama sent to Capitol Hill in February.

Ninety-seven senators voted against a motion to take it up.

Democratic aides said ahead of the vote that the Democratic caucus would not support the plan because it has been supplanted by the deficit-reduction plan Obama outlined at a speech at George Washington University in April.

So, the Senate leadership is kicking its constitutional duties over to the executive branch based on another platitudinous Obama speech that negated his own budget presented two months earlier. Let me repeat that Democrat's have not allowed a budget to pass in over two years and counting. That's change you can believe in!

The Democrat party has backed itself into a corner as it has moved so far left that any plan to the right of the extreme People’s Budget presented in April by the radical Congressional Progressive Caucus will get no real support from the base. That’s the only Democrat plan that’s been presented and even though it was dead on arrival, the People’s Budget (Read Here) was received favorably by a significant number of Democrats and members of the Media.

But that budget - dripping with Marxist anger - was too honest about the left’s intentions and is so politically toxic and economically insane that it makes any PR problems with Ryan’s plan look insignificant by comparison. Democrats know they can’t put together any major plan that will get party support and wont send voters running to the GOP alternative.

Republican’s need to realize they’re in a good position here if they take their last chance to grow a set and take an unequivocal stand. If not now, when? Ryan, and now, Pawlenty, are leading and treating Americans like adults who have to make hard choices. It remains to be seen if the rest of the party will follow.

Winners of the rental economy

Via CNN Money:

FORTUNE -- There are still many factors discouraging even the most savvy homebuyers from purchasing a home, but a new class of renters is expected to bring a bright spot to the troubled U.S. real estate market. Prices for rental apartments are expected to rise nationally – by approximately 4.5% in 2011 and up to another 3% in 2012, according to Rent.com...

...Given that many homeowners are still trying to clean up their messy finances, it might be hard to see how higher rents could benefit the overall U.S. housing market. In theory, at least, renting could become so expensive that it costs less to buy a house and make monthly mortgage payments.

In fact, that's happening already, even if it hasn't yet translated to a return to homeownership. In Moody Analytics' latest list of rent ratios for 54 U.S. metropolitan areas, 29 cities fell into the "better to buy" category. With many experts predicting that home prices have further to fall this year and with higher expectations for rentals, more cities could end up on the buy side of the buy-versus-rent calculator.

But much of that will likely depend on huge hurdles weighing on the housing market – namely, record foreclosure rates, high unemployment and tighter lending standards for new mortgages. Areas that continue to experience high foreclosure rates and widespread unemployment, such as Florida and Arizona, might find it more affordable to buy than rent. Yet renting will likely be king in more urban areas with more employment opportunities, such as New York and Seattle. ------

Historically, rising rents are a sure sign of a coming resurgence in housing sales and prices, but this is obviously not a typical downturn. It's hard to predict how long this pent up demand will remain on the sidelines or how long it will take the existing massive over supply to be absorbed down to a healthy level. Moreover, with food and energy inflation worming its way into the broader economy and the inevitability of higher interest rates, would be home buyers may still choose to pay higher rents rather than take on the responsibilities of home ownership. It also remains to be seen just how much more destructive uncertainty our reckless government will inject into the economy and further encourage people and businesses to do nothing.

On the other hand (apologies to Harry Truman), a downturn or crash in the stock and/or bond markets - which is increasingly likely - might make real estate an attractive alternative investment, as it has in the past. There is no significant new supply of single family homes or condos currently on line and existing homes in many markets are selling at or below construction costs. That's not good, but it does mean that the current supply wont have to compete with new construction for some time even after the market turns, simply due to the long lead time required to build new housing.

Model Bill Would Revoke State's License to Steal

Reason:

Today the Institute for Justice and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers unveiled "model state legislation" that abolishes the practice of civil asset forfeiture by requiring the government to convict people before taking property linked to their alleged crimes. The bill (PDF) cuts to the heart of the injustices associated with forfeiture laws that bizarrely accuse the property, rather than its owner, of wrongdoing. Even when states officially allow innocent owners to reclaim their property, the process is often so cumbersome and expensive that they surrender to state-sanctioned theft. Furthermore, states typically allow the law enforcement agencies that initiate a forfeiture to keep much or all of the proceeds for their budgets, giving police and prosecutors an incentive to target people based on the value of their property rather the seriousness of their crimes. The I.J./NACDL would do away with that practice as well.

Despite reforms prompted by numerous reports of outrageous forfeiture abuses, a 2010 I.J. study, Policing for Profit, gave only three states—Maine, North Dakota, and Vermont—a grade of B or better. For a sense of how tenacious the resistance to reform has been, have a look at these three snapshots from Reason:

May 1990 (PDF): "United States v. One Assortment of 89 Firearms: Drug Warriors Are Using an Obscure Medieval Legal Doctrine to Sweep Aside Property Rights and Due Process," by Stefan B. Herpel

August/September 1993: "Ill-Gotten Gains: Police and Prosecutors Have Their Own Reasons to Oppose Forfeiture Law Reform," by Richard Miniter

February 2010: "The Forfeiture Racket: Police and Prosecutors Won't Give Up Their License to Steal," by Radley Balko

More on asset forfeiture here.

Obama adviser tells Congress she has more important things to do

Via Hot Air:

White House adviser Elizabeth Warren, in a heated House hearing Tuesday, touted the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau as a vital new financial-markets cop while Republican lawmakers slammed the agency as a powerful financial regulator with too few checks and balances.

The Harvard professor also rejected one House Republican’s accusation that she gave

misleading testimony to Congress in March and was lying about her schedule...

Mr. McHenry and Ms. Warren also got into a spat over how long the hearing should run. Ms. Warren said the committee had agreed to end the 1:15 p.m. hearing at 2:15 p.m. so she could make it to a meeting.

The lawmaker accused her of making up the agreement.

“You might want to have a conversation with your staff,” Ms. Warren replied.

Ed Morrissey reacts to this imperious jerk:

I’m sorry Ms. Warren feels inconvenienced, but perhaps she might want to take a civics course to understand the separation of powers and checks and balances in the federal system. Congress gets to hold hearings on operations in the executive branch, and they’re not required to put a time limit on their inquiries, especially a one-hour limit that barely gets by the opening remarks in most committee hearings. If Warren doesn’t like being held accountable to the legislature and to the people, well … she’s in the right administration, apparently.

Indeed. I’d like Ms. Warren to explain how she, a Harvard lawyer with no private sector experience, who has never created a dime of wealth and doesn’t know a balance sheet from a bed sheet is somehow qualified to direct the consumer finances of 310 million people.

Actually, no one is qualified to do that without disastrous consequences, as anyone with a basic understanding of market economics and history will tell you. Central planning only works for the planners until it doesn't. Then they tell you that you must give up more of your liberty to fix the problems the planners created

Warren does travel in the right political circles and clearly that’s all that matters to the Obamunists:

In July 2010, Warren spoke at an East Hampton, New York event on the topic of “Restoring the Integrity of the U.S. Financial Markets.” Fellow panelists included George Soros and Van Jones. That same month, Warren spoke at a Netroots Nation conference on the topic of “Building a Progressive Economic Vision.”

The Path to Prosperity (Episode 2): Saving Medicare, Visualized

Rarely do you see a politician who is willing to treat the electorate like adults and give them the hard truth despite the political consequences. At least Paul Ryan will be able to say he tried his best if Americans don't listen to him. You can see Episode 1 here.



This stands in stark contrast to Senate majority "leader" Harry Reid, who just said: “There’s no need to have a Democratic budget, in my opinion... It would be foolish for us to do a budget at this stage.” Democrats haven't passed a budget in well over two years, preferring instead to hide from responsibility or demonize opponents purely for political purposes. Meanwhile, we get closer to driving off the financial cliff with every passing day.

Speaking of cliffs, this is how Democrats insult our intelligence and demonstrate just how serious they are about an impending economic disaster:

Some college petitions

Exposing Leftists:

What happens when well indoctrinated students are asked to be intellectually honest and consistent? Well, it's pretty disturbing. Here they are supporting free speech while signing a petition to take it away from those they disagree with. I wonder what makes them think the same won't happen to them? Maybe they think their opinions will never diverge from whatever the left tells them to think and say.



And here they're asked to agree to have high GPA's redistributed to those less fortunate than they are. After all, they don't need all those high grades and clearly those who are failing are entitled to them in the interest of fairness.



And finally, these glittering jewels of stupidity are asked to pledge to pay off the national debt. That makes sense since they're usually the most vocal about opposing any spending cuts, right? They don't think so.

WaPo Hawking $300 Online 'Master Class' Course on Economic Literacy

Newsbusters:

The Washington Post hopes you may want to "Widen Your World," with online "Master Class" courses that cost $200-$300 a pop.

For example, there's Steven Pearlstein's "Introduction to Economic Literacy."

[Lesson number one: don't spend $300 to have a liberal journalist lecture you.]

I wrote about Mr. Pearlstein three times in 2008, (here, here and here) but stopped because I realized that chronicling the astonishing economic illiteracy of WaPo's (anti) business reporter was like shooting ducks in a barrel and had become boring. Now WaPo is laughably offering up Pearlstein as some sort of economic literacy expert, which is akin to touting Michael Moore as a diet and fitness guru.