Given the name of this blog, you can guess this is no surprise to me.  But a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 57% of Americans would vote to replace the entire Congress and start all over again.  Just 25% of voters nationwide would keep the current elected officials.

These numbers haven’t changed since last October when Congress was passing the unpopular $700-billion bailout plan, but as you can imagine there has been a partisan shift since the election.  The number of Democrats who like the current Congress has grown from 25% last fall to 43% today, whereas last fall most Democrats were ready to replace the entire Congress.

The health care debate may be a key reason for this continued negative attitude toward Congress.  Only 22% of those surveyed think Congress has a good understanding of the issue, and 74% trust their own economic judgment more than Congress.  Which isn’t surprising given that Congress continues to drive the country deeper in debt with no sign of turning it around anytime soon.

Even more troubling, just 14% rate Congress as good or excellent in their overall performance, and only 16% believe it’s very likely that Congress will address the most important problems facing our nation.

Story at Rasmussen Reports

We have some bad financial news, and some really bad news to report.

Total Deficit or Surplus (Percentage of GDP):

The bad news is that a mid-year review from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) estimates that the 2009 U.S. federal deficit will be $1.58 trillion, which is $262 billion less than predicted earlier in the year.  The Obama administration says this is because it is providing less financial aid than expected to Wall Street.

Unfortunately, the really bad news is the 10-year deficit projection rose to $9 trillion, while the Congressional Budget Office estimated the 10-year deficit at $7.1 trillion.  The $9 trillion figure represents three-quarters the size of the entire national economy.  Either way, our country is plunging deep into debt.

The discrepancy between the two estimates demonstrates how difficult it is to predict something the size and complexity of the U.S. economy.  What’s really scary is that the margin-of-error of these estimates is at least $2 trillion.

"Whatever their cause, the administration is very concerned about these out-year deficits, and getting those deficits under control is a top priority of the administration," said budget director Peter Orszag.

The OMB report warned that rising health care costs and entitlement programs will continue to strain the federal budget and add to our $11.7 trillion national debt.  This could hamper overall economic growth in a self-reinforcing downward spiral.  The CBO said the long-term picture poses a “threat to the economy.”

Meanwhile, Congress is on summer vacation, dreaming up new ways to bankrupt our country.

Story at FoxNews

Former U.S. Representative William Jefferson of Louisiana was convicted Wednesday on 11 of the 16 corruption charges against him.  This was the case that broke when the FBI discovered $90,000 of marked bribery money in his freezer.  A federal court jury convicted Jefferson on four counts of bribery, three counts of money laundering, three counts of wire fraud, and one count of racketeering.

Jefferson, a 62-year-old Democrat, faces a maximum sentence of 150 years in prison.  He is scheduled to be sentenced October 30th.

After the verdict, the judge denied a prosecution request for Jefferson to be taken into custody immediately, ruling that Jefferson did not pose a flight risk.

The verdict showed that “no person, not even a congressman, is above the law,” said U.S. Attorney Dana Boente.  When asked what won the case for the prosecution, Boente said: “We always thought that a powerful piece of evidence in this case was $90,000 in a freezer.”

When will our politicians learn that when you break the law, you will eventually get caught?  In today’s environment of hyper-partisanship, microscopic scrutiny of politician’s lives, and a 24-hour news cycle, politicians can run but they cannot hide.

Story at CNN

You can’t win in politics.  With less than 10% of the stimulus money spent, some politicians are claiming that the $800 billion stimulus package is a failure, and some politicians are even asking for more stimulus money.  Yet, when one aspect of the stimulus package actually seems to work — the “Cash for Clunkers” (CFC) program — some politicians are labeling it as a failure because the program ran out of money too quickly.  Like Apple Inc. would claim the iPhone is a complete failure because they are selling so many they can’t keep up with demand.

I would argue that the CFC program is the ONLY part of the stimulus program that has actually worked well.  Whereas most of the TARP simply poured money into the pockets of millionaire bankers, “Cash for Clunkers” pumped a billion dollars straight into the pockets of the middle class and helped our seriously declining auto industry post its first positive month in almost two years.  This is the same industry into which our government has poured over $30 billion, so the CFC also helps protect our investment.  And the program is good for the environment by helping to get some gas guzzlers off the road.

I wish the rest of the stimulus package would work as quickly and effectively as “Cash for Clunkers.”  Check out this funny video with Jon Stewart on the Daily Show discussing the “Master Rebators” and their crazy critics:

From Now I Don’t Want to Get Off on a Rant Here

A new Facebook poll asks its users if they want a Government run healthcare system. Overwhelmingly, the results say No.

And I agree, who wants our government to completely run health care?  About the only thing our federal government does well is spend our money and wage war. 

What I don’t understand is that none of the viable health care reform proposals (on either side of the political aisle) have the government actually running health care, i.e., the so-called “single payer system” similar to the U.K.  Even the most liberal of the reform plans now under serious consideration involve only a government run insurance pool that supplements private insurance. 

The term “government run healthcare” is a scare tactic by opponents who want to ensure that we continue to do nothing.  Which our Congress is really good at, as they’ve ignored this problem for decades.

But we must do something.  I have too many friends with families and no health insurance because they have pre-existing health conditions, work for small companies, or are unemployed.  We all end paying for them anyway — through indigent care and skyrocketing health care costs — so why not figure out how to cover them legitimately?

The duty of the government is to provide essential services to its citizens that the citizens or private enterprise cannot adequately provide themselves.  Services such as military, police, fire, social security, indigent welfare, etc.  Given there are still millions of Americans without health insurance, and those lucky enough to have good health insurance face continually skyrocketing costs, it’s obvious that private enterprise cannot do this job alone.

From Now I Don’t Want to Get Off On a Rant Here