Didn't we give up living off Ramen noodles in college?

Over at Hot Air, Ed Morrissey has a post highlighting rising food prices.  This isn't news to anyone who has been in a grocery store lately, but it does seem relevant to point it out  on today, the fifth anniversary of the Porkulus bill.

If you’ve noticed a higher grocery bill in this era of supposedly low inflation, you’re not imagining things. Despite Washington estimates of low consumer inflation over the last few years, the prices of goods at the market are rising rapidly — especially for meat items, which have risen by double digits since 2011. 

I've all but quit buying red meat, and not for health reasons or that I've become a vegetarian: I'm a red meat carnivore, but who in the world can afford a $24 rump roast for Sunday dinner?  Mr. SIGIS bought groceries at the commissary on base last week and paid $4.00 per lb. for ground beef.  A whole chicken runs about $6 now as opposed to about $4 a year ago at my grocery store.  Milk?  About $4.50 a gallon.  Our weekly splurge of ribeyes for the grill is a thing of the past.  Even my own favorite food group, beer, now costs about $2 more a six-pack.

Coincidentally, food stamp use is higher than its ever been, especially among our military.  Via CNN:

Food stamp redemption at military grocers has been rising steadily since the beginning of the recession in 2008. Nearly $104 million worth of food stamps was redeemed at military commissaries in the fiscal year ended Sept. 30.

This graphic tells the story:

Meanwhile, Congress tried to cut military pensions and the Pentagon wants to close base commissaries.

Of course, Obama's gutting of welfare reform including making food stamps easier to obtain, so that could explain part of it; more Americans than ever are on food stamps,  but there's no question that food prices are rising.

What's the answer?  Buy stock in Ramen?  Ed Morrissey again:

That won’t change until two pressures on the economy are reversed: rising costs on business and improvement of chronic joblessness. The latter keeps wages depressed by providing a large labor pool for a relatively small number of net jobs created over the last five years since the beginning of the recovery in June 2009. On average since then, we have created significantly fewer jobs each month than necessary to keep pace with population growth. In large part, the job-creation market has been stifled by extra costs and disincentives to investors and businesses in job-creating expansion and risk-taking. Those same costs, along with relatively high energy costs, get passed along to consumers in higher prices, putting them in the economic vise described in this CBS report.Seems to me that the stimulus has failed and that Obama's policies have done more harm than good.

Marco Rubio, today:

“If you recall five years ago, the notion was that if the government spent all this money — that, by the way, was borrowed— that somehow the economy would begin to grow and create jobs. Well, of course, it clearly failed,” Rubio says in the video, according to POLITICO’s Mike Allen in Playbook. “Five years later, underemployment is still too high, the number of people that have dropped out of the workforce is astounding, unemployment remains stubbornly high and our economy isn’t growing fast enough — proof that massive government spending, particularly debt spending, is not the solution to our economic growth problems.”

Maybe it's time to start living off the land again.

Here in Louisiana it's crawfish season!  (Oh, but they're $8 a pound right now.)

Silencing Dissent from The White House

Via Hot Air, this is an interesting post from the White House blog (emphasis mine) regarding dissent of the Porkulus bill:

First, we will expand the restriction on oral communications to cover all persons, not just federally registered lobbyists. For the first time, we will reach contacts not only by registered lobbyists but also by unregistered ones, as well as anyone else exerting influence on the process. We concluded this was necessary under the unique circumstances of the stimulus program.

Second, we will focus the restriction on oral communications to target the scenario where concerns about merit-based decision-making are greatest –after competitive grant applications are submitted and before awards are made. Once such applications are on file, the competition should be strictly on the merits. To that end, comments (unless initiated by an agency official) must be in writing and will be posted on the Internet for every American to see.

Third, we will continue to require immediate internet disclosure of all other communications with registered lobbyists. If registered lobbyists have conversations or meetings before an application is filed, a form must be completed and posted to each agency’s website documenting the contact.

Silencing dissent? Seriously? What country did I wake up in? What happened to the First Amendment? Go read Doug Ross - we're "As close to a dictatorship as this country has ever seen."

How Low Can You Go?

Via Instapundit: This is the stock market since the passage of the stimulus bill. Not so good, hunh? A vote of "no confidence" from investors, perhaps?

(h/t Little Miss Attila)

Buyer's Remorse

John McCain's rant on the Senate floor against the earmarks we have been forced to swallow lately was right on target. His frustration was exactly what many Americans have been feeling as we railed against the Porkulus bill, the Omnibus bill and the budget. The Tea Party protests around the country have not been without notice. Some folks, but not quite enough yet, are even expressing "buyer's remorse" with regard to Mr. Obama.

McCain called out Obama over the earmarks. He quoted Mr. Obama's line from the debate in Oxford:

“'We need earmark reform and when I’m president, I will go line by line to make sure we’re not spending money unwisely.' That’s the quote, the promise of the president of the United States made to the American people in a debate with me in Oxford, Miss. So what is brought to the floor today — 9,000 earmarks.…So much for change.”

You can hardly blame him for being angry; the earmarks are ridiculous. This was the bill that had funding for tattoo removal for gang members, promotion of astronomy in Hawaii, lobster research, Mormon cricket research, seals in Maine, and termite research in New Orleans, just to name a few.

McCain dismissed budget director Peter Orszag's remark that "this is last year's business" and that the president is ready to "move on." McCain rightly points out that THIS president will sign it, so it is THIS president's responsibility. At a time when the economy is tanking and people are losing jobs, this spending is nothing short of an insult to the American people, so no wonder McCain is a tad riled up.

He is not the only one riled up. Fox News reports Cuban born Senator Mel Martinez (R.-FL.) isn't happy either. The Omnibus bill eases restrictions on travel to Cuba and extends credit for increased trade to the island nation, all moves that Martinez says will not benefit the Cuban people as the measure exacts no positive actions in return.

"'As we consider changing U.S. policy toward Cuba, why are we doing this without asking anything?" Martinez implored his colleagues, suggesting that the U.S. should, for example, demand the release of political prisoners."

Former Obama supporter David Brooks is now saying of the budget,

"So programs are piled on top of each other and we wind up with a gargantuan $3.6 trillion budget. We end up with deficits that, when considered realistically, are $1 trillion a year and stretch as far as the eye can see. We end up with an agenda that is unexceptional in its parts but that, when taken as a whole, represents a social-engineering experiment that is entirely new. "

And Christopher "Sorry Dad, I'm Voting For Obama" Buckley is expressing doubts:

"The strange thing is that one feels almost unpatriotic, entertaining negative thoughts about Mr. Obama’s grand plan, as if one were indulging in—call it—the audacity of nope. It is on the one hand clear that something must be done about our economic woes. But that is very different from saying that spending these vast, oceanic sums of money is the right corrective to a decade of fiscal incontinence."

It all begs the question, how much will the American people take before the revolution begins? You're going to suggest it's "too early" to pass judgment, aren't you? How long should I wait, then? Until the stock market hits 3,000? Until our health care system has been dismantled, destroyed and dominated by harsh socialistic regulations? Until the tax rate hits 55 or 60% on all of us? Until my energy costs triple because of the cap and trade restrictions? Until terrorists, encouraged by our ever weakening stance on terrorism, come calling?

Can I pass judgment then? Or am I supposed to keep "hoping" for the best?

A Revolution is Coming

Did you hear that giant sucking sound? That was another $410 billion dollars going down the drain today compliments of 229 Democrats and 16 Republicans who voted for the 2009 Omnibus Appropriations Act.

I'm sort of with Ed at Hot Air on this one. I doubt that one person in a hundred on the street could identify an earmark in either Porkulus or Omnibus.

Is it true, as Ed says, and even as one of my commentors said, that Americans just don't care about the earmarks? Are they just such a part of politics that we assume it is business as usual and don't pay attention?

The hypocrisy of it all just slays me. Obama has the gall to tolerate this from Congress, not veto earmarks, and at the same time hold a "Fiscal Responsibility Summit"? Seriously? From Obama's On The Issues site:

Shine Light on Earmarks and Pork Barrel Spending: Obama's Transparency and Integrity in Earmarks Act will shed light on all earmarks by disclosing the name of the legislator who asked for each earmark, along with a written justification, 72 hours before they can be approved by the full Senate.

He promised earmark reform. He promised to go through and veto "line by line" any earmarks in legislation that crossed his desk. Did he do that in the Stimulus bill? Of course not. When asked, he said that if those expenditures were in the bill all along then they were not earmarks. Shell game.

Please tell me how the garbage in the Omnibus bill is not defined as earmarks? Tattoo removal? Honeybee Insurance? Star-gazing in Hawaii? There are close to 9000 earmarks in the Omnibus bill.

Yet we're going to cut back on military spending and scale back in Afghanistan and Iraq.

If the economy is SO bad, and if we are going to spend all this money to rescue irresponsible home owners who made poor decisions about home loans, and if we are going to nationalize banks, and if we are going to bailout the auto manufacturers, and if we are going to keep pouring more money down this black hole of irresponsibility and poor decision making, why not fund earmarks for Brown Tree Snake Management or North Pole Wastewater Management?

If you're keeping count that's almost a TRILLION in Porkulus, now $410 billion in Omnibus. We haven't even gotten to the next TARP which is coming, or the $634 billion health care package which is coming.

Exit question? Where in the hell does it stop? Does it ever?

Exit question 2: You think he's going to do all this and NOT raise YOUR taxes?

Oh wait, I know. I'm supposed to suck it up because it's for the greater good? Sounds like socialism to me.

Bobby Refuses Porkulus

While much of the nation seems to love and adore Bobby Jindal, feelings about him are mixed in Louisiana. Many of us are still waiting for him to prove himself.

Many of us are still unhappy about his having to be dragged to the veto pen over the recent attempt by the state legislature to give themselves a gazillion percent pay increase right after they got elected, despite Jindal's ethics promise that they could not do that. A massive grassroots state outcry forced him to veto the legislation. He sat back for the longest time and said basically that the legislature should govern itself and if the voters didn't like what they did then they could vote the guys out.

Bobby is in the news again today as he has officially refused part of the Porkulus spending package that relates to expansion of state unemployment heath coverage. He said "Increasing taxes on our Louisiana businesses is certainly not a way to stimulate our economy. It would be the exact wrong thing we could do to encourage further growth and job creation."

He went on to say that "accepting the money would have required a change in state law and, after federal money runs out in three years, would have led to a $12 million increase in taxes on his state's businesses to keep funding the benefit. He also warned other states against the program. 'I strongly suggest that other states also look closely at this provision in the bill so they can also avoid ultimately passing on a significant tax to businesses that will be left paying for this expansion of benefits when the federal money dries up,' he said."

C. B. Forgotston points out, rightly so, that the legislature could overrule Bobby. He points out that the following provision in the bailout legislation gives the final say to the leges:

SEC. 1607. (a) CERTIFICATION BY GOVERNOR Not later than 45 days after the date of enactment of this Act, for funds provided to any State or agency thereof, the Governor of the State shall certify that: 1) the State request and use funds provided by this Act , and; 2) funds be used to create jobs and promote economic growth.

(b) ACCEPTANCE BY STATE LEGISLATURE If funds provided to any State in any division of this Act are not accepted for use by the Governor, then acceptance by the State legislature, by means of the adoption of a concurrent resolution, shall be sufficient to provide funding to such State.

C. B. is usually pretty hard on Bobby. But it's something to think about. Is Jindal refusing the money knowing that the legislature will overrule him and he'll still look good for trying? Is it a ploy? His reasons for refusing the money are certainly spot on. There is much in this bill that is bad and that will become a burden down the road.

Some Louisiana Democrats are, not surprisingly, unhappy with Jindal's statement.

"He seems to be trying to play both sides of the fence. He might refuse some of the money, he might take some of the money," said Louisiana Democratic Party spokesman Scott Jordan.

"We've got almost $2 billion, education, health care, coastal restoration," he said. "The notion that Governor Jindal would turn down money that would help in those areas ... is just crazy."

I'm not sure how Jordan thinks that health insurance money could be spend on coastal restoration but that's probably why I'm not a politician. For my part, I'm with Bobby. Send the whole mess back! Either way, it will be interesting to see how this unfolds. Notably, there was no Porkulus spending directed at Katrina rebuilding, and I was shocked at the lack of outcry from down south on that one.