Balancing Budget In 10 Years Would Require 41% Cut To Programs

By William Teach March 15, 2023 – 7:00 am

I’m pretty much good with that. We can start with cutting all the non-essential programs. Getting rid of all the redundant programs and employees. Getting rid of departments like the Education Department, Natural Resource Conservation Service, The Rural Electrification Administration, The Rural Housing Development Service, and more. The immense waste in the DOD, Medicaid, Medicare, and other big programs can be fixed

Balancing federal budget in 10 years could require 41 percent cut to programs, when excluding Social Security: CBO

Hopes by lawmakers to balance the federal budget in a decade through reductions in spending could mean significant cuts to programs to achieve that goal, an analysis released by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) said on Tuesday.

The analysis, requested by Democrats, crunches the numbers behind what achieving a balanced budget in the next 10 years would mean for federal programs. The report comes as Democrats have sought to hammer Republicans over proposals to balance the budget in the timeframe through potentially steep cuts to spending.

In its recent analysis, the nonpartisan budget scorekeeper said its current baseline projections  show the nation’s federal budget deficit would reach $2.9 trillion in 2033. To eliminate that deficit through cuts, the agency calculates the impact of various budget roadmaps.

Under one such path, the agency said lawmakers could reach the goal if “all noninterest outlays were gradually reduced starting in 2024 so that they were 29 percent less than the amount in the agency’s baseline projections in 2033.” (snip)

When not factoring in the extension of the tax cuts, the CBO projected that all noninterest outlays would have to be reduced by 41 percent to achieve a balanced budget in the same window. That’s if lawmakers also decided to factor out changes to Social Security, which comprises a chunk of federal spending.

The federal government needs to reduce what they do, and, if states want to take up the mantle, that’s up to them. Los Federales have well exceeded their powers per the Constitution. There are so many programs that get hundreds of millions, if not more, allocated yearly, yet, serve no purpose

And the No. 1 federal boondoggle lawmakers could eliminate tomorrow without hurting anyone at all: The Economic Development Administration (EDA), which duplicates the activities of at least 62 other community development programs. The EDA will spend $350 million this year to spur local economic growth. Yet a recent GAO study found the EDA had no impact at all. Zippo. Five-year savings: $933 million.

That might seem like chump change in the grand scheme, but, it all adds up.

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UN Head Says Sticking To Facts Could End Hotcoldwetdry

By William Teach March 14, 2023 – 3:28 pm

When will we be provided with some cold hard facts that prove that the Modern Warm Period is mostly/solely caused by Mankind?

Sticking to ‘cold, hard’ climate facts can end global warming: Guterres

Green Climate Thought PoliceWorld leaders need to listen to and act on solid scientific guidance to urgently reduce global warming, the UN Secretary-General António Guterres said in a video message at the opening of the new session of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) on Monday.

Underlining the “urgent need to end global heating with cold, hard facts”, he said the panel’s forthcoming report ahead of the next UN Climate Change Conference (COP28), to be held in Dubai in November, comes at a pivotal time.

“Our world is at a crossroads, and our planet is in the crosshairs,” he said. “We are nearing the point of no return, of overshooting the internationally agreed limit of 1.5 degrees Celsius of global warming. We are at the tip of a tipping point.” (snip)

“You have built the case, setting out the science of climate change and the urgency for climate action,” Mr. Guterres said. “The evidence has been clear, convincing and irrefutable.”

The Panel findings underscore the need to act now, he declared. Citing several recent IPCC reports, he said evidence in 2021 showed for the first time that some of the changes to Earth’s oceans, ice, and land surface were irreversible.

That report also said the changes were “unequivocally” caused by human activity, overwhelmingly from burning fossil fuels and creating unprecedented levels of greenhouse gases.

I must have missed all the cold, hard facts. If burning fossil fuels is so bad, why will tens of thousands take fossil fueled trips to the (checks notes) oil producing nation of Dubai this fall? How many, like Guterres, will take private jets? Why is he calling for cold, hard facts, then acting like Madam Zelda with is scaremongering?

Approaching COP28, he encouraged IPCC to provide leaders with “solid, frank, detailed scientific guidance to make the right decisions for people and planet”.

Leaders “must understand the enormous consequences of delay and the enormous dividends from making the tough but essential choices to accelerate the phasing out of fossil fuels and close the emissions gap, to race to a carbon-free, renewables future, and to secure climate justice, helping communities adapt and build resilience to the worsening impacts,” he said.

It’s strange that he doesn’t care what you peasants think, just what the Elites and elected lawmakers, who are being tasked with forcing this on the peasants. Remember, this is all Science!

Read: UN Head Says Sticking To Facts Could End Hotcoldwetdry »

Posted in AGW Scaremongering, Global Warming, UN | 12 Comments | Trackback URL

If All You See…

By William Teach March 14, 2023 – 1:00 pm

…are palm trees which will soon grow in Siberia from climate doom, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is The Daley Gator, with a post on American’s dumbest governor.

Read: If All You See… »

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Time Recommends A Full Wuhan Flu Bipartisan Commission

By William Teach March 14, 2023 – 10:30 am

We do, we really do, in order to expose all the malfeasance, authoritarianism, and hypocritical behavior from those being authoritarian

America Needs a COVID-19 Bipartisan Commission to Prepare for the Next Pandemic

Postmortems, or autopsies, which were common practice until well into the 20th-century but have recently become more rare, are conducted to determine a cause of death….

For the same reasons, America needs a national postmortem on our response to the COVID-19 pandemic—to learn from our mistakes and improve responses to the next pandemic. Policy quality control, as it were. An honest postmortem can only occur, however, if Congress finds the will to create and fund a bipartisan commission that will bring in outside experts to analyze data and use the commission’s subpoena power to question policy makers.

With blame and embarrassment undoubtedly belonging on both sides of the aisle, it is not surprising that there is insufficient appetite for setting one up. A few senators have tried to get a bill to the floor to approve a COVID-19 commission, but so far have not succeeded. In the absence of such a commission, we will simply have more of what we have now: tribes of people yelling at each other furiously, both sides convinced that all could have been different and turned out better if only someone else had been in charge or some other set of experts had been listened to.

It would certainly get ugly, because we’d see all the insanity pushed mostly by Democratic Party governors, with a smattering of Republicans, like Maryland’s Larry Hogan. Things like restricting American Citizens from traveling to their 2nd homes (which is wise policy, those summer towns were not set up for the influx, but, the governors did not explain, and still do not have the legal power). Restricting them from buying seeds for gardening. Filling skateboard parks with sand. Arresting a person paddleboarding in the ocean. The examples go on and on. Then all the hypocrisy from the Elites, where they traveled, got caught without masks. Did the mandates work? Did the vaccines work?

The House, under control of the Republicans, recently conducted a hearing, the Select Subcommittee Roundtable: Examining Covid Policy Decisions, led by Chairman Wenstrup (R-OH), which he said in opening remarks aimed to be bipartisan and which did contain members from both parties. The sole witness called by the Democrats, Dr. Georges Benjamin, the Executive Dir. of the American Public Health Assoc., said explicitly, as did Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, one of the three witnesses called by the Republicans, that U.S. citizens deserve a bipartisan commission. He referenced the 9/11 Commission as a key step in reforming U.S. national security policies.

Unfortunately, while the committee did raise important questions, for example about school closures and children’s mental health, it in no way mirrored the lengthy, deliberate, and thoughtful processes of a bipartisan commission. There was no extended fact finding phase nor did the committee have subpoena power, although experts were called, including three authors of an eighty page report on the U.S. pandemic response that was released in February. As coauthors on this report, our hope was that a pandemic commission could use it as a blueprint to help inform an extensive investigation into what went wrong–and what went right–and craft a set of recommendations to improve the next pandemic response. So far, this has not happened and numerous attempts to launch such a commission have been squelched.

Yes, let’s learn about the school closures, how much it negatively affected the children. About the idiocy of making them mask up. Eat outside in the cold temps while being masked. How the teacher’s unions actually made policy instead of the duly elected general assemblies. How lockdowns did not work. The list goes on and on, you know it, you lived it. Democrats will never go for a full commission, because it would expose the Wrong Doing coming mostly from their people and policies.

Read: Time Recommends A Full Wuhan Flu Bipartisan Commission »

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Moose Fault: Experts Think They’re To Blame For Climate Doom

By William Teach March 14, 2023 – 7:00 am

Damned fossil fueled moose

Researchers identify this mammal as latest potential cause of climate change, suggest balancing species

Researchers claim that moose are potentially a leading cause of climate change and that the species should be balanced, suggesting they are “one of the biggest potential single sources of carbon emissions from wooded parts of Norway.”

The Norwegian University of Science and Technology studied moose in Norwegian forests for several years and concluded that the species have a major effect on vegetation growth and are altering the carbon cycle by dining on tree buds. “Moose are an ecosystem engineer in the forest ecosystem, and strongly impact everything from the species composition and nutrient availability in the forest. A grown animal can eat 50 kilograms of biomass each day during summer,” Gunnar Austrheim, an ecologist at the NTNU University Museum, said in a press release.

Moose tend to eat birch and young samplings in clearcut forests, an act researchers claim is where the ungulates “gobble up” possible carbon storage in trees.

“It was really a surprise to see how much moose can influence vegetation growth, the carbon cycle and the climate system,” said Xiangping Hu, a researcher at NTNU’s Industrial Ecology (IndEcol), said in the release.

Hold on, hold on. You mean nature has an impact on climatic changes? How in the hell did that happen? I was assured by Experts that it was mostly/solely your fault.

The solution suggested to the latest climate change theory was to balance moose numbers and forest management in an effort to limit CO2 emissions. “We don’t only regulate the amount of animals, we very carefully regulate the proportion of females, males and calves. So there’s a stronger management for moose than for most livestock in Norway,” Francesco Cherubini, director of IndEcol Programme said. “I think as we get more of an understanding of how all these different things are interrelated, land managers could come up with an optimal plan. That could be a much-needed win-win solution for climate, for biodiversity and for timber value.”

Hmm, so, killing them is the solution? Also, what could possibly go wrong when Experts start messing around with their numbers?

Read: Moose Fault: Experts Think They’re To Blame For Climate Doom »

Posted in Collapsing Science, Global Warming | 14 Comments | Trackback URL

Supposedly, The Taxpayers Will Not Bear The Cost On Saving Failed Banks

By William Teach March 14, 2023 – 6:45 am

Yeah, yeah, we’ll see

Here’s who is paying to restore Silicon Valley, Signature Bank deposits

The federal government mobilized immediately in response to the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) and Signature Bank, working over the weekend to insure depositors who had more than $200 billion of venture capital and high-tech start-up money stored in the two banks.

But unlike the 2008 financial crisis, during which Congress passed new legislation in order to salvage the country’s largest banks, the current rescue plan is smaller in scale, pertains to only two banks, and isn’t additional taxpayer money — for now.

In order to make sure depositors can still withdraw funds from their accounts — the vast majority of which exceeded the $250,000 limit for standard insurance from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) — regulators say they’re pulling from a special fund maintained by the FDIC called the deposit insurance fund (DIF).

“For the two banks that were put into receivership, the FDIC will use funds from the deposit insurance fund to ensure that all of its depositors are made whole,” a Treasury official told reporters on Sunday night. “In that case the deposit insurance funded is bearing the risk. This is not funds from the taxpayer.”

“For now.” The rest of the piece highlights that the money is coming from insurance premiums banks pay into the fund along with interest from various investments. So, we’ll see. For now. Which could create issues when other banks crash, and hooks up the rich who did not properly diversify their assets.

And now some ass-kissing from Politico

How Biden saved Silicon Valley startups: Inside the 72 hours that transformed U.S. banking

On Sunday afternoon, an exhausted group of Biden administration officials gathered to put the finishing touches on a hastily composed plan to stave off a nationwide banking crisis.

Just a little more than 72 hours had passed since Silicon Valley Bank suddenly collapsed, rocking the tech industry and igniting fears that the U.S. was on the verge of a financial meltdown. (snip)

The swift and forceful action to rescue depositors at the two failed midsize lenders rewrote crucial banking guardrails in ways that could reverberate for years. It put the Biden administration’s stamp — for good or ill — on the sector’s future financial stability, while sending a message about the government’s willingness to rescue private businesses in new ways. It also was done without passing a single new act of Congress or holding hearings among elected officials in recent days.

Yeah, well, we’ll see how the week goes, because the stock market was an utter mess Monday, and trading on many bank stocks had to be halted. In Europe, as well.

Remember, everyone was saying that SVB was an awesome bank just two weeks ago. What were the regulators doing? All the Biden sycophants are Blaming Trump, but

Silicon Valley Bank had more red flags than a CCP meeting but regulators cared about climate not bank risks

Despite skeins of bank regulations supposed to prevent another financial meltdown, Silicon Valley Bank, the country’s 17th-biggest bank, went down in flames last week. It was the second-biggest bank failure in U.S. history and has prompted a lot of finger-pointing.

Management messed up by not addressing a serious cash shortage until it was too late.  Some blame Peter Thiel, saying the venture capital investor’s call for small tech firms to withdraw deposits from SVB   accelerated its demise. Others are critical of Goldman Sachs, SVB’s adviser who signed off on their ill-advised decision to try to sell equity, thus alerting investors to their capital shortfall.

There’s plenty of blame to go around, but when a financial institution goes under, you have to wonder: where were the regulators? After all, there were more red flags than you see at a CCP convention. (snip)

Thanks to trillions of dollars in government spending during and after the pandemic and to massive money printing by the Federal Reserve, banks nationwide enjoyed a massive influx of deposits beginning in 2020. Most, including Silicon Valley Bank, put much of that money into investments like Treasury bonds and other fixed-income securities that nosedived when rates went up. Federal Depository Insurance Company (FDIC) filings show that US banks took over $600 billion worth of unrealized losses last year…a major red flag.

And the regulators?

They were not. Consider the Financial Stability Oversight Council, the body created in 2010 after the financial crisis, which was meant to avert just this sort of collapse.  The council is chaired today by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and includes 9 other voting members including Fed Chair Jay Powell, the heads of the FDIC and the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection (CFPB), Gary Gensler, head of the SEC.

The council last met on February 10 via videoconference. The readout of that meeting shows the group previewed its 2023 priorities, which included “climate-related financial risks, nonbank financial intermediation, Treasury market resilience, and risks related to digital assets.”

Perhaps they should have been looking at the financial stability of banks in a market where rising interest rates were causing issues, along with lots of red flags in crypto. Regardless, let’s hope things do not go downhill, and this is a momentary blip.

Read: Supposedly, The Taxpayers Will Not Bear The Cost On Saving Failed Banks »

Posted in Economy | 7 Comments | Trackback URL

Biden Upsets Warmists By Approving Alaskan Oil Project

By William Teach March 13, 2023 – 3:00 pm

These would be the same climate cultists who refuse to give up their own use of fossil fuels. But, Biden did throw them a bone

Biden Administration Approves Huge Alaska Oil Project

electric vehicleThe Biden administration on Monday will formally approve a huge oil drilling project in Alaska known as Willow, according to two people familiar with the decision, despite widespread opposition because of its likely environmental and climate impacts.

The president will also impose sweeping restrictions on offshore oil leasing in the Arctic Ocean and across Alaska’s North Slope in an apparent effort to temper criticism over the Willow decision and, as one administration official put it, to form a “firewall” to limit future oil leases in the region. The Interior Department also is expected to issue new rules to protect more than 13 million acres in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska from oil and gas leasing.

The restrictions, however, are unlikely to offset concerns that the $8 billion Willow project, led by oil giant ConocoPhillips, will have the potential to produce more than 600 million barrels of crude over 30 years.

Burning all that oil could release nearly 280 million metric tons of carbon emissions into the atmosphere. On an annual basis, that would translate into 9.2 million metric tons of carbon pollution, equal to adding nearly two million cars to the roads each year. The United States, the second biggest polluter on the planet after China, emits about 5.6 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide annually.

Well, if all the fossil fuels haters would stop traveling with fossil fuels, then it wouldn’t be a problem, right?

“It’s insulting that Biden thinks this will change our minds about the Willow project,” said Kristen Monsell, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, an environmental group. “Protecting one area of the Arctic so you can destroy another doesn’t make sense, and it won’t help the people and wildlife who will be upended by the Willow project.”

I’m guessing the nuts are not appeased. As far as the people, well, this will directly generate cash for Alaska citizens, as the other projects do. And jobs.

The decision is sure to invite legal challenges from environmental groups.

How so? It’s perfectly legal. If the lawyers were smart they’d ask those suing if they live in Alaska, and, if they’d given up fossil fueled travel.

Read: Biden Upsets Warmists By Approving Alaskan Oil Project »

Posted in Energy, Global Warming, Joe Biden | 2 Comments | Trackback URL

If All You See…

By William Teach March 13, 2023 – 1:00 pm

…is horrible fossil fuels caused heat snow, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is Twitchy, with a post on Brandon blaming Trump for SVD and then running away from questions.

Read: If All You See… »

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Surprise: No Big COVID Surge This Winter

By William Teach March 13, 2023 – 10:30 am

Why do I read this article and think that ABC and Good Morning America are totally bummed out that huge numbers of people were not getting COVID, not getting it bad, and not dying?

The winter COVID wave that wasn’t: Why the US didn’t see a surge

When the United States saw COVID-19 cases and deaths rise around this past Christmas and New Year’s, many Americans feared the country was in for a third winter wave.

But as quickly as both metrics went up, they also came down. Weekly cases and deaths in late winter 2022-23 are on par with what was seen in spring 2022, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Last year, the Biden administration issued a bleak warning that as many as 100 million Americans could be infected during a COVID-19 wave in the fall and winter.

However, as the third anniversary of the World Health Organization declaring the virus to be a global pandemic approaches, it appears that the U.S. has survived its first winter without a massive COVID-19 surge.

Experts told ABC News that a combination of more immunity, better treatments, less severe infections and more people following mitigation measures likely played a role.

More immunity. From people having it prior, hence, natural immunity, especially since the vaccines really do not work that well? Almost no one is masking, almost no one is isolating or keeping their distance. People are back to shaking hands (which is a bummer, because the hands of many people are dirty).

Dr. John Brownstein, an epidemiologist and chief innovation officer at Boston Children’s Hospital and an ABC News contributor, said there is some inconsistency when comparing past winter surges to this winter because there was a lack of overall testing and a declined use of home tests this winter.

However, the lower number of hospitalizations and deaths is likely a good indication of a less severe season this year compared to previous years, he said.

This is a good thing, right? Why do I get the feeling that they wanted it to be a bad winter? Is it just from all that time of the media being happy that so many were getting sick and dying while Trump was president, so that they could Blame Trump and such? Or while Biden was president, so that the media could pimp the Leftist notion of telling people to Obey government?

During this most recent winter, an updated bivalent booster is also available, which — although only 16.2% of the population has received it — has likely offered at least some protection.

Last year, the CDC estimated that, as of May 2022, more than 94% of the U.S. population has COVID-19-induced antibodies either from past infection or vaccination.

In other words, boosters really didn’t make a difference. Interestingly, more people were dying when a majority were getting the vaccine and getting boosted, versus now when most didn’t bother. Really, at this point, almost no one is jabbed and no one is wearing masks (and half the people who voluntarily wear a masks wear it wrong): it’s either natural immunity or COVID wearing out. Or both.

Read: Surprise: No Big COVID Surge This Winter »

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Who’s Up For Lab-grown Milk To Stop Climate Doom?

By William Teach March 13, 2023 – 7:00 am

Thanks, no thanks. I prefer the real thing. That said, how soon till the Cult of Climastrology advocates that real milk be fazed out because moocows are Bad, and get politicians to push this? If you think that’s too far fetched, a conspiracy theory, you haven’t been paying attention (I’m reading the paywalled article via the webcache)

Moooove over: How single-celled yeasts are doing the work of 1,500-pound cows

climate cowThe first course was a celery root soup lush with whole milk. The last was a spice cake topped with maple cream cheese frosting served with a side of ice cream. And then a latte with its fat cap of glossy foam. In all, a delicious lunch. Maybe a little heavy on the dairy.

Only this dairy was different. It was not the product of a cow or soybean or nut. The main ingredient of this milk was made by microbes in a lab, turned into tasty and recognizable food, and then served to a hungry reporter.

Lab-grown meat is coming. But lab-grown dairy has already arrived.

Dozens of companies have sprouted up in recent months to develop milk proteins made by yeasts or fungi, including Perfect Day, the California-based dairy company that laid out this unusual spread. The companies’ products are already on store shelves in the form of yogurt, cheese and ice cream, often labeled “animal-free.” The burgeoning industry, which calls itself “precision fermentation,” has its own trade organization, and big-name food manufacturers such as Nestlé, Starbucks and General Mills have already signed on as customers.

Why not just use, you know, the real thing? The cows are right there.

The rapid advancement in this area has sparked hope for a revolution in the dairy industry, and not just because it’s kinder to the cows. Precision dairy doesn’t have cholesterol, lactose, growth hormones or antibiotics (though those with dairy allergies should beware). And cattle, for beef or dairy, is said to be the No. 1 agricultural source of greenhouse gases worldwide. Consumers concerned about climate change or animal welfare have been anticipating the U.S. launch of cultivated meat, which is grown in labs from animal cells, but cultivated dairy could have just as much of an impact on the environment — with fewer regulatory hurdles to clear.

So, you must suffer to have the fake stuff. Hilariously, the same people who will buy into this are so often unhinged over genetically modified foods

Despite widespread acceptance of soy, oat and almond milk, U.S. consumers, even vegan ones, continue to be underwhelmed by plant-based cheese options: Mostly made of starch and oil, they often lack the flavor or texture (no gooey strings, not enough bounce) of real cheese. And cheese is especially bothersome for the environment, more so than its liquid counterpart: Making one pound of cheese requires 10 pounds (or about five quarts) of cow’s milk. The World Economic Forum and many scientific reports suggest cheese generates the third-highest emissions in agriculture after beef and lamb.

Well, for one thing, it’s not real cheese. It’s not cheese, as not made with dairy. Also, those fake “milks” use vast amounts of water and land. What are the issues with making this new type of fake milk? Reading the rest of the article, it doesn’t sound pleasant.

Read: Who’s Up For Lab-grown Milk To Stop Climate Doom? »

Posted in AGW Idiocy, Global Warming | 7 Comments | Trackback URL
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