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