California's high-speed rail project, once highly touted by President Obama, has become an albatross.

Give Calif. a high-speed re-vote http://t.co/V1TVmlqyQ3

— Washington Examiner (@dcexaminer) July 6, 2015

Less than five years ago, President Obama and his supporters were positively taunting three Republican governors who chose to forfeit federal stimulus money that had been earmarked for high-speed rail lines in their states. Rick Scott of Florida, John Kasich of Ohio and Scott Walker of Wisconsin were supposedly costing their states needed jobs and, shockingly, giving away free money.

The Los Angeles Times went so far as to mock the voters of Wisconsin and Ohio in 2010 for electing Walker and Kasich, who had both promised to scrap the high-speed lines that their Democratic predecessors had approved. The Times' editorialists smugly celebrated the fact that California would be getting the biggest share of that cash instead for its own high-speed rail project....

Today, those same editors are choking on crow. And those governors look like geniuses, at least for this choice.

...State Sen. Andy Vidak, a Republican, has attracted bipartisan support for his bill to give the state's voters a chance to reconsider the whole thing.

"The brief resurgence of traditional Keynesian ideas is washing away from the world of economic policy."

◼ An Autopsy for the Keynesians - John H. Cochrane/CATO Institute

This year the tide changed in the economy. Growth seems finally to be returning. The tide also changed in economic ideas. The brief resurgence of traditional Keynesian ideas is washing away from the world of economic policy.

No government is remotely likely to spend trillions of dollars or euros in the name of “stimulus,” financed by blowout borrowing. The euro is intact: Even the Greeks and Italians, after six years of advice that their problems can be solved with one more devaluation and inflation, are sticking with the euro and addressing — however slowly — structural “supply” problems instead.

U.K. Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne wrote in these pages Dec. 14 that Keynesians wanting more spending and more borrowing “were wrong in the recovery, and they are wrong now.” The land of John Maynard Keynes and Adam Smith is going with Smith.

Why? In part, because even in economics, you can’t be wrong too many times in a row....

Yes, there is plenty wrong and plenty to worry about. Growth is too slow, and not enough people are working. Even supporters acknowledge that Dodd-Frank and ObamaCare are a mess. Too many people on the bottom are stuck in terrible education, jobless poverty, and a dysfunctional criminal justice system. But the policy world has abandoned the notion that we can solve our problems with blowout borrowing, wasted spending, inflation, default and high taxes. The policy world is facing the tough tradeoffs that centuries of experience have taught us, not wishing them away.

The third reason for Obama’s failure is that most of his ideas were wrong. There were no shovel-ready jobs waiting for the stimulus spending. Fixing health care did not require ripping apart the insurance market. The answer to a weak economy was not expensive green energy.

◼ The Reasons Behind Obama’s Failures - Ted Bromund/Daily Signal

Another reason for Obama’s failure was that he sought, in his words, to begin “the work of remaking America.” The entire American political system was designed by the Founding Fathers to frustrate his plans. The Constitution, with its checks and balances and its separation of powers, was intended to limit the government and prevent transient majorities from having their way.

Within those limits, Obama has actually – and from a conservative perspective, regrettably – done a lot: Obamacare itself is proof of that. But inevitably, having set out to, as he claimed, fundamentally transform the United States, Obama has come up short. He has increasingly resorted to unilateral executive actions precisely because he resents the system’s constraints, but that just feeds the narrative that he’s more emperor than president....

The fiasco of Obamacare was bad enough. But then there was the Veterans Administration scandal, the Secret Service’s prostitute parties, the Internal Revenue Service targeting of conservative groups, Ebola and the Justice Department’s gun-running into Mexico, to name only a few of the screw-ups that have tainted the administration.

ONCE AGAIN… Obama Dusts Off His “Crumbling Roads & Bridges” Speech, Today in New York

◼ A trillion dollars and five years later, Barack Obama is still pushing to fix America’s “crumbling roads and bridges” once again. - Jim Hoft/Gateway Pundit

In November 2008 after the presidential election Barack Obama promised to fix America’s “crumbling roads and bridges” with his trillion dollar Keynesian stimulus plan.



Obama pitched his roads and bridges plan in Miami, Florida in 2013.

Clunker progressivism

◼ Barack Obama’s presidency has become a feast of failures whose proliferation protects their author from close scrutiny of any one of them. - George F. Will/Washington Post

“Cash for Clunkers” was born with Obama’s administration as a component of his stimulus. Its fate is a window into both why the recovery has been extraordinarily weak and what happens when progressives’ clever plans collide with recalcitrant reality....

Cash for Clunkers lasted 55 days and ended with confusion that was a preview of things to come. The New York Times explained in August 2009 the final surge of demand for clunker funds:

“Around the country, dealers had put off the laborious task of applying for the rebates . . . which requires entering the 17-character identification numbers of each vehicle to be scrapped, scanning images of proof of insurance and filling out other paperwork. The computer system was overloaded, according to the dealers. They said they would finish one page in the application, hit enter and nothing would happen. Eventually a message would appear notifying the dealer that the page had ‘timed out.’ Tom Frew, the business manager at Galpin Motors in Los Angeles, said that he needed 35 tries to register just one of the company’s 11 dealerships on the day that the program opened because of problems with the government Web site. On Friday, he spent an hour processing just one rebate application, he said.”

The recovery from the recession began in June 2009; 53 months later, vehicle sales still have not yet reached the pre-recession peak. Cash for Clunkers was prologue for the government’s vastly more ambitious plan to manage health care’s 18 percent of the economy....

The present, too, is prologue. There is heated debate about Common Core, whose advocates say it merely involves national academic targets and metrics for primary and secondary education. Critics say it will inevitably lead to a centrally designed and nationally imposed curriculum — practice dictated by targets and metrics. Common Core advocates say, in effect: “If you like your local curriculum, you can keep it. Period.”

The One Statistic The Media Won't Report About That 'Draconian' Cut To The Food Stamps Program

◼ Over and over, the media will treat your eyes and ears to the cut in food stamps that will apparently throw America in a zombie apocalypse and destroy the entire galaxy. They love to repeat over and over the size of the cut to the program – $5 billion sure sounds like a lot. - Soopermexican/IJ review

As the graph below shows, with a $5 billion cut, the budget for the SNAP program simply reverts back to 2011 levels.

...Keep in mind, even with the $5 billion cut to the program, its budget still will have grown by 116%!

...This cut reflects the failure of Obama’s stimulus, which he said was a one-time effort. Now we find that the “one-time” stimulus was supposed to be permanent and grown! No one saw that coming! Except nearly every conservative critic of the stimulus....

Even with the budget cut, participation in the program will have grown 71% from 2008 until 2013. (MORE, at the link.)

◼ Just as the brilliant Madame Pelosi explained that unemployment benefits help create jobs, genius Jay Carney explains how food stamps create food. Ya gotta love liberal logic. - Allen West
◼ Jay Carney Explains How Food is Produced - The Black Sphere

Far too many people in America believe that government provides everything. They don’t even consider the origin of the funds that government disperses, or as Obama would say, “redistributes.”

It’s hardworking patriots — the very people whom the Left demonizes — who put food on the tables of the poor.

'Shovel-ready' bullet train construction delayed again

◼ Serious construction could start in 2014 — when 2012 had been promised. Experts say officials underestimated the challenges of the $68-billion project. - LA TIMES

"It is not as shovel-ready as they thought it was," said Bill Ibbs, a civil engineering professor at UC Berkeley who consults on major construction projects, including high-speed rail, around the world. "The construction industry is starting to heat up, and, as it does, it is harder to get qualified people, and material costs increase."

Surprise: Senate Immigration Bill Packed With Kickbacks, Waivers, "Stimulus" Spending

◼ As expected, the Senate has invoked cloture on the Hoeven/Corker substitute amendment, paving the way for final passage later this week. - Guy Benson/Townhall

I must say that some of the analogies drawn between this bill and Obamacare are overstated. For one thing, the 'Gang of Eight' plan isn't nearly as unpopular as the "Affordable" Care Act was (and still is), nor does it approach the same level of expense. But there are some eerie similarities: Hurried votes, unread legislation, cynical buy-offs, new discretionary powers for cabinet secretaries, unseemly waivers, and wasteful spending. In 2009, the Democrat-held House narrowly passed the Senate's atrocious healthcare bill. Today, Republicans control that chamber. Will they kill this bill, or at least offer a better alternative?

◼ ObamaCare, ObamaPhones, Now Maybe ObamaCars!? - FOX News Insider

Laura Ingraham, this week's guest host of The O'Reilly Factor, stopped by Fox and Friends this morning, discussing a range of topics with Steve Doocy, Peter Johnson Jr. and Dana Perino, including how "Obamacars" have made their way into the Senate's immigration bill.

She said we're now finding out that the 1,190-page bill is laden with "poison pills" like "giveaways for Hollywood," a $1.5 billion youth unemployment stimulus to satisfy Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and "the salmon sweetener" for senators from Alaska. Part of the Sanders provision could even provide for free cars, motorcycles, or scooters for young people to use as transportation to jobs.

"This immigration bill does not do what it says it does," said Ingraham, saying the process in Washington is "astoundingly bad." Then, she gave some advice to House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) on how he can score big points with conservatives in the coming weeks.

"If I'm John Boehner I look at this [bill] and say, you know, we do have border priorities, we're gonna act on those. We are completely done with what just happened in the Senate. It's an insult to the middle class of this country, African-Americans, Latino Americans, hard working Americans across this country are going to be hurt. It should be DOA, and he should give a phenomenal speech about why this process was polluted from the beginning and how the middle class could be served by the conservative agenda. He would be a winner across the board if he did that," she said.

$423,500 Stimulus Program on 'Correct Condom Use' Yields Zero Jobs

◼ The details of a stimulus grant awarded to Indiana University to study condom use have now been released on a government website. The study, titled "Barriers to Correct Condom Use," is now completed, according to the website, and the university received $423,500 of stimulus funds to perform the study. - Daniel Halper/Weekly Standard

The stimulus project yielded a total of 0.00 jobs created, according to the federal government. "No jobs created/retained," the form says under "Description of Jobs Created."

Colorado Energy Office Misspends Millions in Stimulus Funds

◼ link - Michael Sandoval/Heritage Foundry

The Colorado Energy Office (CEO) misspent millions in stimulus funds and could not account for a variety of other financial statements, according to a new audit from the Colorado state auditor.

The CEO, charged with administering energy funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and a host of other energy initiatives, “was unable to demonstrate that $252 million spent over the past six years was spent cost-effectively,” the report concluded. More than half of that amount, roughly $144 million, came from Recovery stimulus monies distributed between the 2009–2012 fiscal years (FY).

The audit found that the CEO did not calculate or maintain annual budgets for any of the 34 programs it administered since FY 2007. “As a result, CEO could not determine the total cost or the total amount spent for any of its programs,” the audit stated.

OBAMA STOPS ISSUING REQUIRED “STIMULUS” REPORTS

◼ Ahead of Election, Obama Stops Releasing ‘Stimulus’ Reports - Jeffrey Anderson/Weekly Standard

The $831,000,000,000 economic “stimulus” that President Obama spearheaded and signed into law requires his administration to release quarterly reports on its effects. But “the most transparent administration in the history of our country” is now four reports behind schedule and has so far not released any reports whatsoever in 2012. Its most recent quarterly report is for the quarter than ended on June 30, 2011.

◼ ...the President is legally obligated to issue quarterly reports on the “success” of his “stimulus” program through September 2013… but since both success and stimulus belong in ironic quotes when describing this trillion-dollar boondoggle, Obama quietly stopped issuing the required reports after the second quarter of 2011. - John Hayward/Human Events

“Why would the administration not want to release these reports?... Presumably because they have shown what a colossal waste of taxpayer money Obama’s ‘stimulus’ has been.” Even using Obama’s ludicrous “jobs created or saved” parameters, his own economists figured the stimulus blew $317,000 per job – and that’s borrowed money we’re still paying interest on. (If Obama gets a second term, we might be paying interest on it for eternity, because he has no intention of actually reducing the national debt, ever. Instead, he’ll take it up to $20 trillion at least.)

The Case of the Missing Job Generator: Entrepreneurs, not government bureaucrats, have been the authors of past economic recoveries

◼ Lawmakers typically have reduced tax and regulatory burdens to facilitate the entrepreneurial process. The sharp recovery from the awful recession of the early 1980s is a key example of these doctors at work. - William Beach/Heritage Foundation

While millions of Americans intuitively understand the importance of innovation and entrepreneurship to our economic well-being, this understanding does not run very deep in Washington. Nowhere else in this country will you find as many people who believe that government creates jobs and that innovation automatically occurs once government cuts a subsidy check.

When the latest recession struck, Washington decided not to enlist the army of innovators and entrepreneurs to lead us back to prosperity by making their economic lives easier. Instead, policymakers embraced a more than $1 trillion government-directed economic stimulus program.

◼ What Oklahoma knows, but Obama doesn’t: Protect public-sector jobs, imperil the employment rate - Tina Korbe/HotAir

...If Oklahoma wants to continue to enjoy a low unemployment rate — and if the national administration seriously wants to energize the economy, lawmakers at every level of government would be wise to continue to develop policies with primarily private-sector job creation — i.e. entrepreneurship — in mind. ...Lots more, at the link.

“Hiring a PR firm does not create jobs, and this was obviously meant for selling a particular political agenda”

◼ $500,000 in stimulus cash spent to air Obama ads on Olberman, Maddow shows - Jim McElhatton/Washington Times

The Labor Department paid out hundreds of thousands of dollars in federal stimulus funds to a public relations firm to run more than 100 commercials touting the Obama administration’s “green training” job efforts on two MSNBC cable shows, records show.

The commercials ran on MSNBC on shows hosted by Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann in 2009, but the contract didn’t report any jobs created, according to records reviewed recently by The Washington Times....

David Williams, president of the nonprofit watchdog Taxpayers Protection Alliance, called the contract “questionable” because it created no jobs and because of the placement of the ads on shows viewed as friendly to the administration’s policies.

“Hiring a PR firm does not create jobs, and this was obviously meant for selling a particular political agenda,” Mr. Williams said. “The placement really reeks of a political ad rather than a job ad, and taxpayers see through this.

“Taxpayers would be a lot happier at the end of the day to see a completed road rather than a bunch of ads on cable television,” he said.

Obama's Infrastructure Charade

◼ Demanding Republican funding for projects that will never be "shovel ready." - James Piereson/Spectator

Jeffrey R. Liebman, a former Obama administration official, authored a prominent article in the June 22 issue of the Wall Street Journal lambasting Republicans in Congress for blocking President Obama's plans to spend billions of dollars on infrastructure projects to create jobs for the unemployed. As he writes, "Congress has failed to act on the president's plan to put construction workers back on the job rebuilding our roads, bridges, and airports."

This is a charade. The day is long past when spending on public works and infrastructure can pull the economy out of recession in a timely way. By the time such spending is ready to come on line, the recession is likely to be long past....

California high speed rail is dead

◼ The Los Angeles Times reports today: After encountering criticism from environmental groups, Gov. Jerry Brown signaled Wednesday that he plans to withdraw his controversial proposal to protect the California bullet train project from injunctions sought by environmental lawsuits. - Conn Carroll/Washington Examiner

The Los Angeles Times does not fully report this out, but Brown’s decision not to bypass CEQA essentially kills California’s high speed rail project.

President Obama’s stimulus allocated $8 billion for high-speed rail projects, including, eventually, up to $3.5 billion for California’s project. However, according to the stimulus law, California must begin construction on the project before December 31, 2012 or they will not be eligible for any more high speed rail stimulus dollars. Obama’s Transportation Department reaffirmed this time limit last year when they admitted they had “no administrative authority to change this deadline.”

Fast forward to this June when the city of Chowchilla filed suit to stop construction of the project alleging that the High Speed Rail Authority failed to conduct a proper Environmental Impact Statement pursuant to the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA).

Studies show that the average time to complete the NEPA process is 6.1 years.

◼ Gov. Jerry Brown to scrap environmental exception for bullet train - Ralph Vartabedian and Chris Megerian/LA Times

Two years ago, President Obama went to Solyndra and touted it as an example of his initiative to create jobs. Today, the company is bankrupt and the building stands empty as a symbol of the failure of President Obama's policies.

__________________
Mitt Romney

Waste: D.C. has no count of jobs from stimulus... MORE

◼ Received $885M from feds since 2009 - Washington Times

Despite receiving more than $885 million in federal economic stimulus funds since 2009, the D.C. government — whose residents face one of the highest unemployment rates in the nation — cannot say how many jobs it actually created for those who live in the District.

◼ House reviews DOE money upgrading yacht - Joel Gehrke/Washington Examiner

House investigators wrote the Port of Los Angeles yesterday to review the decision to spend almost half a million dollars in stimulus money on retrofitting a luxury yacht with environmentally-friendly engines.

"The Port of Los Angeles owes the public greater transparency about this project and a full accounting of the cost-benefit analysis used to justify spending on this type of project," House Oversight and Government Reform chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., wrote in a letter to the executive director of the port, Dr. Geraldine Knatz.

◼ Drip, Drip, Drip: Yet Another Green Energy Stimulus Recipient Hits the Skids (the third this week!) - globalwarming.org

...the Las Vegas Sun reports that Amonix, Inc., a manufacturer of solar panels that received $5.9 million from the Porkulus, will cut two-thirds of its workforce, about 200 employees, only seven months after opening a factory in Nevada....

◼ Electric-Car Firm That Received Biden Visit and $118M in Stimulus Funds Files for Bankruptcy - CNS
◼ Online soap opera cleans up with stimulus broadband cash - Washington Times

Through the federal economic stimulus program, a company owned by actor-director Robert Townsend was paid more than $230,000 to produce and direct the Web-based show, records show. Other production costs on the show paid to different vendors total more than $700,000.

The money came through an award by the Department of Commerce to One Economy Corp. for more than $28 million last year to help boost broadband Internet service in underserved areas across the country.

One Economy is using more than $1.5 million of that money to create programming such as “Diary of a Single Mom,” which the group says will help provide an incentive for people to connect to the Internet.

There are a couple of interesting observations to be made from the graphic from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. One, the steep decline in American jobs correlates to when the Democrats took over control of Congress.

◼ The truth is clear - the Obama presidency has been a near-complete disaster for working Americans. This might explain a term growing in popularity of late – “ABO” - Anybody But Obama in 2012… - The Ulsterman Report

The promise that became a punchline

Rick Santelli: “You Can’t Buy Your Way Into Prosperity”

◼ Three years ago today, President Obama signed the stimulus bill, a gigantic waste of our tax money that did nothing for the people of this country, but instead went into the pockets of Obama’s cronies and campaign bundlers. - Hillbuzz

Two days after the stimulus was signed, a brave man by the name of Rick Santelli gave a rant from the Chicago Exchange that was heard across the nation. Rick railed against the stimulus, screaming that it would “subsidize bad behavior”.

In the middle of his rant, Santelli uttered the most famous words of all: “We’re thinking about having a Chicago Tea party in July”. The floor erupted with whistles and cheers, and within hours, an American movement was born.

The Tea Party.