Must Watch

A Must Watch: Glenn Beck talking about the alarming amount of money the Fed in pumping into the economy and how this will create chaos in the very very near future, and how You and I the will be paying for it for years to come!!!



TR

Check This Out.

Found this video on CNN.com. Follow two freshmen Congressmen through their first legislative session!



TR

And They're Out...
Lt. Governor David Dewhurst made his committee assignments public at 4:53pm on a Friday. The only open chairmanship was at Administration, where State Sen. Tommy Williams took former state Sen. Brimer's place.
Most of the chairmanships stayed the same, including that of state Sen. John Carona, who was the lone vote against suspending the 2/3 rule for voter ID. Herewith, and more after the jump:

ADMINISTRATION
Williams, Chair
Uresti, Vice-Chair
Ogden
Shapiro
Wentworth
Whitmire
Zaffirini

AGRICULTURE & RURAL AFFAIRS
Estes, Chair
Uresti Vice-Chair
Hegar
Hinojosa
Jackson

BUSINESS & COMMERCE
Fraser, Chair
Harris, Vice-Chair
Averitt
Eltife
Estes
Jackson
Lucio
Van de Putte
Watson
CRIMINAL JUSTICE
Whitmire, Chair
Seliger, Vice-Chair
Carona
Ellis
Hegar
Hinojosa
Patrick

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
Harris, Chair
Eltife, Vice-Chair
Deuell
Watson
Zaffirini
EDUCATION
Shapiro, Chair
Patrick, Vice-Chair
Averitt
Davis
Gallegos
Van de Putte
West
Williams

FINANCE
Ogden, Chair
Hinojosa,Vice Chair
Averitt
Deuell
Duncan
Eltife
Harris
Lucio
Nelson
Seliger
Shapiro
West
Whitmire
Williams
Zaffirini

GOVERNMENT ORGANIZATION
Ellis, Chair
Hegar, Vice-Chair
Huffman
Lucio
Nelson
Ogden
Whitmire

HEALTH & HUMAN SERVICES
Nelson, Chair
Deuell, Vice-Chair
Huffman
Nichols
Patrick
Shapleigh
Uresti
West
Zaffirini

HIGHER EDUCATION
Zaffirini, Chair
Patrick, Vice-Chair
Averitt
Duncan
West

INTERGOVERNMENTAL RELATIONS
West, Chair
Nichols, Vice-Chair
Gallegos
Patrick
Wentworth

SUBCOMMITTEE ON FLOODING & EVACUATIONS
Gallegos, Chair
Nichols
Patrick

INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS & TRADE
Lucio, Chair
Seliger, Vice-Chair
Davis
Estes
Fraser
Gallegos
Williams

JURISPRUDENCE
Wentworth, Chair
Gallegos, Vice-Chair
Carona
Duncan
Harris
Hinojosa
Watson

NATURAL RESOURCES
Averitt, Chair
Estes, Vice-Chair
Deuell
Duncan
Eltife
Fraser
Hegar
Hinojosa
Jackson
Seliger
Uresti
NOMINATIONS
Jackson, Chair
Eltife, Vice-Chair
Hegar
Nelson
Nichols
Shapleigh
Watson
STATE AFFAIRS
Duncan, Chair
Deuell, Vice-Chair
Carona
Ellis
Fraser
Harris
Jackson
Lucio
Van de Putte

TRANSPORTATION & HOMELAND SECURITY
Carona, Chair
Watson, Vice-Chair
Davis
Ellis
Huffman
Nichols
Shapiro
Shapleigh
Wentworth

VETERANS AFFAIRS & MILITARY INSTALLATIONS
Van de Putte, Chair
Shapleigh, Vice-Chair
Davis
Estes
Huffman

Credit to Elise Hu of Political Junkie for work.

GO GREEN... NOT! Captain Planet & Obama's Policies.

My Stimulus Plan

The house has passed a $825,000,000,000 "stimulus" package. The word stimulus has to be in quotation marks, because the predominance of the package is about funding pork, not creating jobs or truly helping the economy. I believe we would have been better off with nothing, than this package of future debt for our children. An example of what constitutes economic "stimulus" to the president and the democrats in the house is 335 million dollars for STD education and prevention programs (http://www.drudgereport.com/flashsb.htm).

The only good news is that for once, none of the Republicans in the house were party to this orgy of spending.

I believe if you are going to disagree with something, you should always offer an alternative . I do have an alternative proposal for a real stimulus plan. One that would require no new bureaucracy, and should not create any new government jobs. At its simplest, it only requires two words to describe: CUT TAXES. Let the people of this country utilize capitalism, and the free market to create jobs, and get the economy growing again. So what taxes should we cut? I am glad you asked.

The first part of my proposal would be to cut the corporate tax rate across the board by 50% for 2009, immediately. In 2010, the corporate tax rate would be raised to 70% of its 2007 rate, and in 2011 it would be brought to 80% of its 2007 rate. In 2012, it would be back to its initial levels. (Personally I prefer a permanent reduction, but I am trying to show a willingness to compromise and be bipartisan J ). I estimate this would be an approximately a 412 billion dollar reduction in revenue, or cost if you like. That is based on FY 2007 corporate tax revenues of around 400 billion, and an anticipation of flat tax growth if everything were left the way it is today. (It does not account for the potential of rising tax receipts due to it actually working, which would reduce the overall "cost")

The second part of my proposal is an immediate 20% reduction in personal income tax across the board, with an immediate reduction in withholding. In 2010 there would be a 10% reduction when compared to 2007. My expected cost for this is around 400 billion. Again this is based on FY 2007 income tax revenue which was around 1.4 trillion, and an assumption of flat tax revenues.

So why do I think this is a good idea? First, it requires no new government organizations(aka bureaucracy) to implement. Second, it does not look to the government to pick winners and losers. It puts money back in the hands of companies, and consumers. It lets them decide how best to spend and invest the money. It is after all, our money to begin with. A cut in corporate taxes, is like an instant increase in profitability for companies, and might mean the difference between staying afloat, and failing). Phasing the cuts out allows companies to take advantage of the benefits over time, and the end of the cuts are not an abrupt return to higher taxes that might prevent them from using the extra money they have. Companies should have to look less at cost cutting, and strong companies could look to grow. This might also encourage companies to invest some of their foreign earned income back in the United States (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123310439653922291.html ) Consumers having more of their income would help spur demand.

This is in no way a hand out. It is the government letting people keep more or of what they earn The total cost is basically the same as what the house voted to approve 810 billion. The difference is this plan would pump around 475 billion into the economy in the first year. Does not fund any "pet" projects, and follows basic economic sense. However, it would mean that 335 million would not get spent on STDs.

The 81st legislative session is under way.

Hello all! My Name is Trevor Rice and I have been recently appointed to be AYR's Legislative Director. It is an honor and a privilege to lead y'all through the 81st legislative session. My first priority is going to be relaying to y'all what is going on each week in the Texas Legislator. I will be doing this in a couple of ways. First, I will be writing on this blog a couple of times every week. Second, I will be following certain legislation that I believe the Young Republicans would be interested in and reporting via email news letter. Lastly, I have a twitter page that I will try to use as much as possible during session hours. For those of you that are not familiar with twitter just go to twitter.com/Trice19 and you will be directed to my page. During Important legislation I will try to give information as soon as it happens using Twitter. As a point of information I work for the Texas House but do not really want to go into detail due to the fact that I have to work with people of both parties daily, and would not want to step out of bounds in any way with regard to my position in the House and with my position in AYR. I have a general idea of some legislative topics that I want to follow this session but please reply to this post or email me at Trice19@gmail.com to give me any suggestions, advice or just to talk about policy issues. I cannot effectively give y'all reports if you do not tell me what you would like me to report on. Now with that out of the way lets talk a little politics.

Wed. 28
State of the State address by Governor Rick Perry.
One this one instead of me writing about it I would like to direct your attention to Burkablog.com and read his last 2 post about the State of the State address.

Thurs. 29
The House Rules were debated and adopted today ending with adjournment at about 6:30pm. Making the total rules debate time 7 hours and 30 min. Some speculated that the Craddick R's and the Demarcates were going to test Straus's ability to be speaker today during the debate but no such test occurred. In my mind the biggest rule change occurred when the house voted 87-60 requiring only a majority of the House to remove the Speaker. Also today rules were put into place to downsize the number of standing committees in the house.

I am going to try to end every blog with a question to try and spark debate and conversation. Since this is my first post I am just going to ask what issues would you most like me to follow during the 81st legislative session?
TR

How bad is it? - Part 2

The other day in an effort to understand just how bad the economy is currently, I looked at historical unemployment rates, and compared them to the current unemployment rate. Based on that analysis, I concluded that things were not great, but they are not as bad as it has been in the past, or even in Europe.

Today I want to spend a little more time on the topic of the economy, and how bad it is relative to past economic troubles.

In the 70's, a new economic indicator was introduced to track just how bad the economy was at the time. This indicator was called the "Misery Index". The name alone should clue you into how bad things were. The Misery Index was created by economist Arthur Okun, and is derived by adding the unemployment rate to the inflation rate. The thought was that the more people who are out of work, and the more the prices of things are rising, then the more miserable everybody will feel.

So how does the misery index of today, compare with misery indexes from the past? If you take December 2008's unemployment rate of 7.2 and add it to the December 2008 inflation rate of .09 you get a misery index of 7.29, or 7.3 if you round to nearest tenth. The 5 worst Misery Index numbers since 1970 are listed in the table below:

 

Year	Misery Index
1980	20.76
1981	17.97
1975	17.68
1979	17.07
1974	16.67

So why does any of this matter? Because right now the media and politicians are convincing everyone that the United States is on the verge of an economic collapse. They are telling us that the government has to intervene in order to save the economy. Not just intervene, but spend trillions of dollars, and maybe even start to take over businesses and implement more government controls.

Things have been worse, and were worse in 1981 when Ronald Reagan became President. The economy goes through cycles. The economy is also strongly affected by public sentiment. The more people panic, and believe that the end is near, the worse the economy will get. The conspiracy theory side of me wonders if there isn't more to all the negative news and political talk. Hopefully not.

My message is to not give up on capitalism, and let the government take over the economy. It may not be perfect, but it is better than the alternatives. If you want to see how government run economies worked, look at Cuba or the Soviet Union.

Data from http://www.miseryindex.us/ and http://www.inflationdata.com

How bad is it?

It seems like every day we hear about how bad things are now.

"The worst economy since the Great Depression"

is something I heard just the other day. I wondered about this though. It seems like things are not great, but are they really "that" bad. I remember the 70's (I was pretty young, honest, but I do remember some of it), and I recall there being some pretty bad years. So I decided to do some research. I wanted to find out if this is really the worst economy since the Great Depression, or if just maybe, the media and politicians are hyping it a little.

The first measure of the economy I decided to look at was unemployment. The unemployment number for December 1008 (last reported) was 7.2%. That seems pretty bad, considering I remember us having numbers in the 4 and 5 % range. I looked at Data between 1970 and 2008. The 5 best years (lowest unemployment) are shown in the table below:

Year	Average Annual Unemployment Rate
2000	4.0
1999	4.2
1998	4.5
2006	4.6
2007	4.6

The worst 5 years (highest unemployment rates) are shown in the table below:

Year	Average annual unemployment rate
1982	9.7
1983	9.6
1975	8.5
1976	7.7
1981	7.7

As I mentioned before, the unemployment rate in December of 2008 was 7.2%. Not quite in the top 5 for worst of the last 39 years, but in all fairness, significantly worse than the best 5 years. So it is definitely not the worst economy since the Great Depression, at least not from an unemployment standpoint. The average over the last 39 years was 6.14% and the median was 5.8%. (Source of numbers: US Bureau of Labor Statistics http://www.bls.gov/cps/)

The United States has traditionally had pretty low unemployment numbers when compared to many other countries. In Europe. For example, in the year 2000 when the US was at a 4.0% unemployment rate, the European Union was at 8.5%. In that year France was at 9.0% and Spain was at 11.1%. That makes 7.2% look pretty darn good. In fact the lowest unemployment rates in Spain or France since 1997 was 8.3% which both countries recorded in 2007. For the EU as a whole, 2007 was also the best year since 1997 with a rate of 7.1% (Source of European Numbers: European Commission Eurostat pages http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu)

During the Great Depression unemployment hit 25% in the United States. What we are going through now is obviously not in the same ball park. Hey, we can still afford to spend 170 million on a presidential inauguration.

By presenting this data I am not trying to say things are great. They are not. I am just trying to point out the facts that it is not quite as bad as everyone makes it out to be. So we should not panic. This too shall pass. As long as we don’t rack up trillions in government debt and socialize everything. Oh wait. Maybe we should panic. :)

Congrats to the New 2009 AYR Board!

I'd like to take the time to congratulate the new AYR Board for 2009 and tell ya'll that it's been a pleasure to serve you as your fearless tyrant/president for two long years. :)

Congrats go out to the new board:

President - Scott Specht
Vice President - Allison Miller
Treasurer - Will Franklin
Secretary - Cindy Mallette

Please take the time send them a polite hello or heckle them at meetings. 

With Liberty,
Eliza Vielma
Chairman Emeritus (2006-2008)

change you can count on

Cost of inauguration for Bush's 2nd term in good financial times (albeit wartimes): $70 million.

Cost of Obama inauguration during bad financial times (and wartime): $159 million.

This is beyond ridiculous....

First, let me tell everyone a belated Merry Christmas/Happy New Year, and then onto the ridiculousness that is the EPA, who apparently believe that stopping Green House gases is more important than people being able to eat meat.

http://www.businessandmedia.org/articles/2008/20081230165231.aspx

EPA 'Cow Tax' Could Charge $175 per Dairy Cow to Curb Greenhouse Gases Farm Bureau warns just this one rule may increase milk production costs up to 8 cents a gallon.
By Jeff Poor Business & Media Institute

Call this one of the newest and innovative the ways your government has come up with to battle greenhouse gas emissions.

Indirectly it could be considered a cheeseburger tax, but one of the suggestions offered by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in its Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPR) for regulating greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act is to levy a tax on livestock.

The ANPR, released early this year, would give the EPA the authority to regulate greenhouse gas for not only greenhouse gas from manmade sources like transportation and industry, but also “stationary” sources which would include livestock.

The New York Farm Bureau assigned a price tag to the cost of greenhouse gas regulation by the EPA in a release last month.

“The tax for dairy cows could be $175 per cow, and $87.50 per head of beef cattle. The tax on hogs would upwards of $20 per hog,” the release said. “Any operation with more than 25 dairy cows, 50 beef cattle or 200 hogs would have to obtain permits.”

Kate Galbraith, correspondent for The New York Times, noted on the Times’ “Green Inc.” blog that such a “proposal is far from being enacted” and that the “hysteria may be premature.”

But Rick Krause, senior director of congressional relations for the American Farm Bureau, warned it’s certainly feasible – especially based on the rhetoric of President-elect Barack Obama and the use of the EPA to combat global warming. Such action by an Obama administration would take an act of Congress for livestock to be exempt.

“The new president has been on record as saying that he really supports regulating greenhouse gases out of the Clean Air Act,” Krause said to the Business & Media Institute. “So, we really have to keep an eye on it. Legislation would really be the only way to exempt it at this point – the cow tax.”

Krause said it is difficult to quantify the cost that might be passed directly to the consumer by farmers from the legislation, but predicted it would mean higher costs for dairy production.

“It’s hard to figure what it would do to consumer prices since farmers, unlike other industries, really can’t pass their cost along directly like utilities and things do,” “About the only thing we could realistically come up, in terms of any of this stuff – it would add between 7 and 8 cents per gallon of milk costs to farmers. So it would cost them 7 or 8 cents more to produce a gallon of milk.”

Even the Department of Agriculture warned the EPA that smaller farms and ranches would have difficulty with limits as much as 100 tons annually on emissions:

“If GHG emissions from agricultural sources are regulated under the CAA, numerous farming operations that currently are not subject to the costly and time-consuming Title V permitting process would, for the first time, become covered entities. Even very small agricultural operations would meet a 100-tons-per-year emissions threshold. For example, dairy facilities with over 25 cows, beef cattle operations of over 50 cattle, swine operations with over 200 hogs, and farms with over 500 acres of corn may need to get a Title V permit. It is neither efficient nor practical to require permitting and reporting of GHG emissions from farms of this size. Excluding only the 200,000 largest commercial farms, our agricultural landscape is comprised of 1.9 million farms with an average value of production of $25,589 on 271 acres. These operations simply could not bear the regulatory compliance costs that would be involved.”