In the middle of his tirade against House Republicans’ “mean-spirited” budget bill on the Senate floor Tuesday, the Senate Majority Leader lamented that the GOP’s proposed budget cuts would eliminate the annual “cowboy poetry festival” in his home state of Nevada. (See also: Reid’s prostitution lecture bombs.)

Reid clearly has a soft spot for the Baxter Blacks of the poetry world and thinks Republicans don’t.

“The mean-spirited bill, H.R. 1 … eliminates the National Endowment of the Humanities, National Endowment of the Arts,” said Reid. “These programs create jobs. The National Endowment of the Humanities is the reason we have in northern Nevada every January a cowboy poetry festival. Had that program not been around, the tens of thousands of people who come there every year would not exist.”

Reid was attempting, of course, to criticize the spending proposal crafted by House Republicans that would cut $61 billion from the budget before he began praising the annual festival in his home state. The Senate majority leader also insisted Tuesday that he would do everything he could to schedule an up-or-down vote on H.R. 1 in order to force his GOP colleagues to take a position on the budget bill that Democrats argue includes “draconian” cuts.

For the record, the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering is in Elko, Nev., next January. The 28th annual festival, a “week-long celebration of life in the rural West, featuring the contemporary and traditional arts of western ranching culture,” is expected to draw thousands of people, according to the festival’s website.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/glennthrush/0311/Reid_Save_federal_funding_for_the_cowboy_poets.html

Face Forward Comments:

I have nothing against Cowboy Poetry in fact I enjoy the images of the west and the simple life that their words evoke.  However, I don’t know if I would ever pay to go see a cowboy poetry competition (or any other poetry competition).  But guess what readers?  I have been paying for it all along.

That is the problem with Federal funding for the Arts.  We, the individual tax payer, end up paying for “Art” that we don’t like and in some instances, find offensive.  If an “Artist” wants to put picture of Mohammed, Jesus and The Buddha in a toilet bowl and call it art, that is his/her business.  When he/she wants me to pay for it, I have a problem.

FUNDAMENTALS U.S. crude inventories fell last week as imports dropped, but stocks at the key delivery hub at Cushing, Oklahoma hit a record high, the EIA said in a report on Wednesday. Domestic crude stocks fell 364,000 barrels to 346.38 million barrels in the week to February 25, government data showed, compared with expectations for a 700,000-barrel build in a Reuters poll of analysts. Inventories at the key Cushing terminal rose by 1.13 million barrels to a record 38.57 million barrels.  

Cushing is the delivery point for the New York Mercantile Exchange’s benchmark West Texas Intermediate crude futures. “Fundamentally we have surplus oil in the United States and most of the OECD countries,” said Jim Ritterbusch, president at Ritterbusch & Associates in Galena, Illinois. “It’s very obvious that the market is being driven by a very different dynamic…geo-politics of the Middle East, and that is going to be in play for a long time.”

Excerpt From

http://www.futurespros.com/news/futures-news/update-1-oil-on-the-rise-as-middle-east,-north-africa-tensions-hot-up-1000008451

Face Forward Comments

I think everybody has known or a long time that Rahm Emanuel policy of “Never wasting a disaster” is something that business has practiced for a long time. I am normally a business supporter but this one has politics and big business collusion all over it and smells bad.

If I look hard enough II can almost see enough to start asking questions. Is there a connection between Obama wanting $5 dollar a gallon fuel? Is there a connection between Obama and GE pushing Electric recharging stations. How about GM’s electric car? Do higher fuel prices help it? And finally who really benefits and who really looses?

Finally, just imagine a voting demographic of Mass Transit users vs Car Owners. I bet you would find the Obama supporter group is far more likely to use mass transit than the conservative Republican /Tea Party group. It is just one of the many reasons he may not be so concerned about the amount of money being puled out of the pocket of the working middle class.

 At this point I am just asking questions. I’m not saying conspiracy yet……….

WASHINGTON – Social Security checks would still go out. Troops would remain at their posts. Furloughed federal workers probably would get paid, though not until later. And virtually every essential government agency, like the FBI, the Border Patrol and the Coast Guard, would remain open.

That’s the little-known truth about a government shutdown. The government doesn’t shut down. And it won’t on March 5, even if the combatants on Capitol Hill can’t resolve enough differences to pass a stopgap spending bill to fund the government while they hash out legislation to cover the last seven months of the budget year.

Fewer than half of the 2.1 million federal workers subject to a shutdown would be forced off the job if the Obama administration followed the path taken by presidents Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton. And that’s not counting 600,000 Postal Service employees or 1.6 million uniformed military personnel exempt from a shutdown.

So we’re talking fewer than one in four federal workers staying at home. Many federal workers get paid on March 4, so it would take a two-week shutdown for them to see a delay in their paychecks. The rules for who works and who doesn’t date back to the early 1980s and haven’t been significantly modified since. The Obama administration hasn’t issued new guidance.

Read the rest of the Article here:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110224/ap_on_re_us/us_what_shutdown

 Face Forward Comments:

Since the Federal Government is the largest employer in the US, even 25% of the workforce being of is a huge number. It could have a real nice impact on the debt if the furloughed workers were not paid. In fact I think it would be a good idea to have a budget crisis every month. We could then determine how much money we could put towards salaries and furlough the appropriate number of employees. 

Here are just a few “Federal Services I could live with out:

Public Radio and TV could reduce broadcast time by 25% (or just completely close the National Endowment for the arts)

Pick any two and close them FBI, CIA, Homeland Security, NSA, ATF, DEA

US Department of Education close and return control to the States

Fannie Mae, Sallie Mae, Freddie Mac and all the other lending institutions ran by the Federal Government

Farm Subsidies (do we really need to pay people to NOT farm)

 And finally to show just how totally our of control the Federal government is here is a list of organizations that are doing duplicate work to stop government waste on duplicate programs

  **  U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO)

  **  Congressional Budget Office’s

  **  Inspector General Office

  **  Government Performance and Results Act

  **  White House’s Program Assessment Rating Tool (PART) program reviews

** The Senate Governmental Affairs Committee’s

You tell me. Do you really think a day, a week, a month or even a year with out the above will impact your life in a negative manner? I didn’t think so.

The word “crisis” in this country tends to be overworked these days, yet it’s hard to avoid using it when looking at the fiscal condition of state and local government. Unfunded pension and other liabilities for states and localities now exceed $3 trillion. More than 40 states are facing a combined budget shortfall of $125 billion for fiscal year 2012. Texas faces a projected $27 billion deficit over its coming two-year budget cycle. Labor costs are heavily driving this situation. According to preliminary Bureau of Labor Statistics data, state and local government employees in 2010 on average received a total compensation of $39.60 an hour, compared to the private-sector full-time employee equivalent average of $27.42 an hour. Wages in the public sector were 35 percent higher and benefits were 69 percent higher. Public employees, moreover, enjoy greater security. From late 2007, when the latest recession began, through mid-2010, the private sector shed a net roughly 7 million jobs, while state and local governments added 110,000 jobs. Wisconsin mirrors the larger picture. The state faces a projected $3.6 billion budget gap over the next biennial cycle. And at present, it faces a $58 million shortfall in its Medicaid program even taking into account a $194 million federal contribution.

 Union leaders might not have a persuasive case, but they do have a persuasive ally in President Barack Obama. In a Wednesday sit-down White House interview with Milwaukee NBC affiliate WTMJ-TV, the president, parsing his words somewhat, stated: “Some of what I’ve heard coming out of Wisconsin, where they’re making it harder for public employees to collectively bargain generally, seems like more of an assault on unions. I think everybody’s got to make some adjustments, but I think it’s also important to recognize that public employees make important contributions to our states and our citizens.” The White House is providing more than talk. The president’s political operation, Organizing for America, starting Monday made phone calls, distributed Twitter and Facebook messages, and sent e-mails via group lists, in an effort to build mass support for the unions. This campaign came on the heels of a speech by Democratic National Committee Chairman Timothy Kaine exhorting Wisconsin union leaders.

If you wait long enough, the truth about unions always shows up

bargaining. The year 2009 represented a milestone. For the first time, union members in the public sector outnumbered those in the private sector, 7.9 million to 7.4 million. These figures represented 37.4 percent and 7.2 percent of their respective labor forces, falling somewhat in 2010 to 36.2 percent and 6.9 percent. Government employees, regardless of union density, have a natural incentive to behave politically, for it is through politics that they have obtained and expanded their sinecures. Enlarged government and enlarged union bargaining power go hand in hand. And governors and legislators typically have gone along with union demands, lest they be blamed for service shutdowns.

For this entire article please go here:

http://www.nlpc.org/stories/2011/02/20/union-bullies-shut-down-wisconsin-legislature-effort-block-fiscal-reform

Face Forward Comments:

Unions were created to protect people against big business. Does America really think that the State employees in WI need protection from the state? And to compare the teacher strike to the Egyptian pro democracy protest is just stupid. “Give me a $3 dollar perscription card or give me death” is not even close to reality.  Make sure to read the entire artice so you can see Michael Moore’s comments…… What a dufus!