Mitt Romney continued to drive a debt-oriented message here on Wednesday morning, extending his “prairie fire” of debt metaphor with the assistance of a prop.

In a nod to the independent voters who pushed the Sunshine State into the Democratic column in 2008, Romney noted that both parties were responsible for pushing the debt to the “incomprehensible” levels – which were represented on a giant prop debt clock behind him.

CONTINUED at MSNBC.

The federal government paid at least $439 million in employee bonuses last year, down $43 million since new austerity restrictions were announced.

The largest merit awards went to senior executives in Washington and air traffic controllers, an Asbury Park Press investigation found. The highest award, $62,895, went to 16 employees from agriculture to NASA.

The $439 million in bonuses may be a staggering amount — enough to buy the former New Jersey Nets, valued at about $357 million by Forbes magazine — but it represents just 0.4 percent of the $105 billion in salaries for most of the government’s civilian employees. In 2010, at least $482 million was paid in bonuses, according to federal data.

CONTINUED at the Asbury Park Press.

*Written by Rob Rimes.

Yesterday was a pretty emotional day for Paul supporters everywhere. The Paul campaign announced that they would no longer compete in the states that have not yet voted as it would cost too much money moving forward. In fact, here is what Ron Paul said himself:

Moving forward, however, we will no longer spend resources campaigning in primaries in states that have not yet voted. Doing so with any hope of success would take many tens of millions of dollars we simply do not have.

This is completely understandable and really just goes to show how fiscally responsible Dr. Paul truly is, especially when comparing him to his conservative counterparts who spent themselves into oblivion and racked up some serious campaign debt. With that being said, this is only more reason to vote for the man as he knows where to draw the line and also knows what all of Paul supporters know, which is that we will all continue to vote for the man regardless of the campaign’s inability to compete with the Wall Street funded Mitt Romney. When those Occupy kids are looking for a leader it should probably be the guy whose campaign is funded by the downtrodden 99 percent as opposed to the 1 percent big bank bank funded candidates like Romney and Obama.

This doesn’t mean that Paul is completely out of this race. As was just mentioned, his supporters are loyal and will vote for him despite this seemingly tragic pitfall. The hunt for delegates will continue and ultimately, Ron Paul will continue to surprise the doubters and make a serious impact on this race. This isn’t blind faith or overly-loyal Paulbot idiocy, this is facts. I doubted the campaign’s strategy but have since learned that in the realm of acquiring delegates, they are doing a hell of a job. The media doesn’t accurately report on what’s going on in the delegate hunt and honestly, you can go to various mainstream media sites and look at their delegate counts and the numbers don’t match – corporate media is clueless. Romney may have been announced the winner in Maine but Paul walked away with the most delegates. Santorum and Gingrich have lost theirs and with 11 states left to vote, Paul could continue to be a thorn in the side of the establishment beast. As I’ve said many times, this isn’t about winning, this is about the message and gaining enough support to stamp it on the leviathan’s forehead before it is once again let loose on the masses. In other words, Paul might not win the fight but he is going to break a motherfucker’s nose.

Even though the mainstream media has been quick to gleefully write Paul off as a quitter, his forces are moving forward – just more covertly in a way that is unique and foreign to these political experts spewing regurgitated pre-written bullshit through our television and radio speakers. In order to dispel the mainstream hogwash, Paul’s chief strategist Jesse Benton sent out an official statement. Here is some of what that memo states:

Let me be very clear. Dr. Paul is NOT ending his campaign. As Dr. Paul has previously stated, he is in this race all the way to the Republican National Convention in Tampa this August. Looking ahead, our campaign must honor that trust by maximizing our resources to ensure the greatest possible impact at the National Convention. So while our campaign is no longer investing in the remaining primary states, we will continue to run strong programs at District and State Conventions to win more delegates and alternate delegates to the National Convention.

To this end, our campaign has several positive and realistic goals: 1) Having recently WON Maine, we believe we can win several more states. 2) We will win party leadership positions at both the state and national level. 3) We will continue to grow our already substantial total of delegates.

We will head to Tampa with a solid group of delegates. Several hundred will be bound to Dr. Paul, and several hundred more, although bound to Governor Romney or other candidates, will be Ron Paul supporters.

Unfortunately, barring something very unforeseen, our delegate total will not be strong enough to win the nomination. Governor Romney is now within 200 delegates of securing the party’s nod. However, our delegates can still make a major impact at the National Convention and beyond. All delegates will be able to vote on party rules and allow us to shape the process for future liberty candidates.

We are in an excellent position to make sure the Republican Party adds solid liberty issues to the GOP Platform, which our delegates will be directly positioned to approve. Our campaign is presently working to get several items up for consideration, including monetary policy reform, prohibitions on indefinite detention, and Internet freedom.

Finally, by sending a large, respectful, and professional delegation to Tampa, we will show the Party and the country that not only is our movement growing and here to stay, but that the future belongs to us…

Considering that two of the biggest states, California and Paul’s home state Texas, haven’t yet voted, there are a shitload of delegates that could easily go Paul’s way, especially since he has performed well in both of those states. The race is still as interesting as it has been all along, even though the media is ignoring Paul and pretending he isn’t even a part of this race anymore. Their “out of sight, out of mind” strategy hasn’t worked in the past and it won’t work this time. Paul supporters aren’t going anywhere and their numbers will continue to expand.

In retrospect, was this even about winning the presidency or was this about turning the Republican Party on its head and making a real difference? Is this really about shattering one half of the two-party mold in an effort to fix the system from within? If so, will it work? Either way, this game has been well-played by the Paul camp and ultimately it’s up to us everyday people to see that the message is sent and clearly understood. From here on out, this game is going to get pretty fucking filthy. Put on your gloves because we aren’t done swingin’!

Newt Gingrich ends his White House dream today with his political committee facing a mountain of debts — owing about $4 million to scores of businesses and campaign workers around the country who fear they will never get paid.

Campaign watchdogs said the size of Gingrich’s debt is extraordinary — and could have been avoided if the candidate and his team had been more disciplined.

“He was reckless in running up these bills, especially in the last month or so of the campaign when it was quite clear that Mitt Romney would be the nominee,” said Craig Holman, a government affairs lobbyist for the watchdog group Citizen Union.

The campaign has been dogged by financial problems since last summer, but its cash crunch accelerated in recent weeks. It finished March with $4.3 million in debts, an alarming increase from $1.5 million at the end of February, according to reports filed with the Federal Election Commission.

The campaign raised $1.6 million in March, spent $2 million and reported having $1.2 million cash on hand.

CONTINUED at Yahoo News.

Here’s what we do know about student loan debt: it’s roughly $1 trillion in size, greater than either auto or credit-card debt and second only to mortgage debt in the U.S.

Borrowers in their 30s today owe $28,500, on average. The debt burden has soared just as — and partly because — the recession hit, so younger graduates carrying the highest balances are hit with the double whammy of aweak job market (that still isn’t showing any sign of rapid improvement).

And this all comes as globalization and technological change have upended once-reliable career paths, wiped out many mid-level professional jobs and leave low-paying fields in health, food and beverage services, and retail as among the fastest growing job markets over the next decade.

Oh, and consider that student loan debt remains one of the most difficult types to forgive or discharge in bankruptcy, in part because the federal government (i.e. taxpayers) made or guaranteed 80 percent of all outstanding student loan debt as of last year. And finally, that once loans in deferral or forbearance are excluded, the delinquency rate on student loan debt was an estimated 27 percent as of the third quarter of 2011, according to a study by the New York Fed.

Worried? Americans should be.

Still, acknowledging the problem is perhaps the easiest step. Much more difficult is the question of what to do about it. Not surprisingly, young, heavily indebted grads are calling for forgiveness in full or in part of their student loan burdens. Petitions on advocacy website Change.org include calls for federal student loan interest rates to be capped at 3 percent or eliminated altogether. (Indeed, President Obama is currently among those urging Congress not to allow the interest rate on federally subsidized Stafford loans, which are aimed at low — and middle-class borrowers, to double to 6.8 percent on July 1, matching the rate for unsubsidized loans.)

And yet the trouble with those initiatives, or with forgiving student loan debt in whole or part, is threefold. For starters, the straight mathematics: the losses from any such debt reduction scheme will have to be borne by someone, most likely taxpayers, at a time when government finances are already stretched.

Second is the issue of “moral hazard,” that is, rewarding and implicitly encouraging imprudent behavior rather than punishing it. (Of course, it is easier for the public at large to demand that over-leveraged banks be punished for imprudence than 24-year-olds trying to further their education.)

And third is the question of how to keep future graduates from accumulating a mountain of student loan debt just as large, if not larger, than the one just leveled.

It is this third issue which perhaps is most pressing — and most vexing —and which also offers the most opportunity for innovation. Levying an “education tax,” making college free and assigning students to institutions based on a lottery system? Abolishing “college” altogether for more specialized trade institutions instead, while at the same time requiring a “gap year” of liberal arts prior to entry? Offering high-school grads the choice between student loans or business loans to fund new ventures? These all seem ridiculous, but then so too is our current state of affairs.

This, in fact, is why it may be far less costly for taxpayers in the long run to forgive as much of the current student-loan burden as possible. Before doing anything like that, however, there must be systematic reform to ensure debt loads simply won’t start to pile up again. (Not to mention the need for repercussions for those borrowers who most benefit from any such initiative, for the sake of fairness.) That is why the need for innovation or overhaul is so pressing.Our current system, in fact, has so failed that it may now be exacerbating income inequality (by saddling low-income students with high loan balances and shaky job prospects), economic malaise (by keeping would-be homebuyers stuck in costly rentals because of already high debt loans and/or poor credit histories, thereby damaging both the housing market and potential consumer spending), and long-term economic vitality (by hampering household and family unit formations with a higher share of 20- and 30-somethings currently stuck at home with mom and dad).

One thing is certain: if we do nothing to alter the status quo, we will have no one to blame but ourselves for the bleak outcome.

Source: CNBC.

The environmental agenda has been infected by extremism—it’s become an economic suicide pact. And we’re here to challenge it. On Earth Day, visit http://freemarketamerica.org/

If I Wanted America to Fail.

*Written by L.B. Frank.

Wow, was I in for a surprise last night. I had the pleasure of attending a US Congressional Candidate Forum for District 19 last night. I’m not going to say what state I live in, nor the names of the people running for office. I will make up names for them that better exude their personality or my impression of them. The following are my thoughts on the questions and their answers.

There were 8 candidates on stage last night. We had a Mitt Romney Wannabe, a Lawyer Kid, a Guy They Say doesn’t have a Chance, a Bean Counter from Washington, a Mitt Romney Wannabe #2, a Duck Phillips, a Formerly Libertarian Leaning Radio Show Host, and a Democrat. 7 of the 8 people on stage are running in the Republican Primary for US Congressional Seat 19 in our district, the last guy is the only Democrat running for the seat.

They were asked a series of questions off of the GOOOH questionnaire, and a series of questions from the audience. I submitted three questions, and none were asked. Boo. They were asked the questions, and then they had to hold up a red or green sign whether they were for or against the topic.

The first question was “Would you support any legislation that would alter the promise made to those 55 and up when it comes to their Social Security benefits?”.  All but one said “No”. That is “No” to privatizing, “No” to voluntary disassociation, “No” to raising the cap, “No” to lowering benefits. The Formerly  Libertarian Leaning Radio Show Host was the only one that said we have a $16 trillion dollar debt, and was the only one that would say that we had to look at everything on the table. I can respect that. I submitted a question to be asked, that wasn’t, “Is Social Security a Ponzi scheme?” The way that Social Security is run right now, it’s relying on the forced confiscation of wealth earned by tax payers in the form of FICA withholdings on their paychecks. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that Social Security will run out of money and be in perpetual RED in as little as 2016. The last time I looked at the calendar, it’s 2012. So, in an effort to garner the votes and campaign donations from the nearly 300 people in attendance, they said “No, I would rather let the Social Security bankrupt our country instead of tell you the truth”.

The second question was “Would you support any legislation that would alter, remove, abolish the Tax Code as it stand now and replace it with a flat tax or the FairTax?” All Greens on stage. The Lawyer Kid said basically that he supports a flat tax and the FairTax is dangerous. The FairTax is a 194 page legislation, but takes an over 400 page book to explain. That is not even remotely true. The FairTax legislation is 133 pages as written today, the book written by Neal Boortz and Congressman John Linder is  188 pages, that includes the Table of Contents and the Index in the back. He said it was dangerous because we don’t know what it will do, but it is wholly acceptable to support a flat tax, even thought that only adds to the complexity of the 3 million word, 76,000 page Tax Code we currently have today. He was saying that it is wholly acceptable to only tax producers in our economy. He was saying that is wholly acceptable to continue to have the world’s highest corporate tax rate. He was saying that it is wholly acceptable to keep the IRS to track you down and put you in a cage if you make a mistake on your tax forms and point a gun at you and force you to pay your taxes in weekly withholdings, whether you can afford it or not. He completely misunderstood and misrepresented the FairTax, where there are no corporate taxes, where you don’t have to file taxes, where you keep 100 percent of your income and investments. Only The Guy They Say Doesn’t Have a Chance said that the FairTax returns the tax system to the original constitutional restrictions and treats everyone equally, removes loop holes and lobbyists. The rest of them basically said, “Yeah, pander, pander, pander.” No solutions, nothing. If we want to get serious in this country about the economy, about jobs, about the future, we have to look at a solution that is simple and makes sense that also takes power out of the hands of government and returns it to the people. The FairTax is that solution. If only these people on stage would stand behind it, they promise “To fight for you!” Bull, show me by supporting legislation that will get the government out of my finances, out of my pay check and won’t throw me in jail if I don’t understand something with 76,000 pages and 3,000,000 words.

Later the question was asked, “Would you support any efforts to use legislation to decriminalize marijuana?” Now, I’m going to be as honest as I can, even though I’m writing on the Internet where nothing is true yet everything is believable. I have never smoked marijuana. I have never put any drugs into my body other than alcohol, caffeine, and medications. It’s not something that appeals to me. But, I am a warrior for freedom. I am a defender of liberty. And when I heard this question last night, I thought “Finally! A question that actually has value!” Nope. These so-called liberty-loving Republican candidates said “NOPE”. The Repubs all raised the red flag of the War on Drugs. The Lawyer Kid said “It’s a gateway drug, it’s dangerous, I don’t want kids smoking it and also there is this thing in the Constitution called the Commerce Clause, so yeah, I don’t think it’s a good idea.” The rest of them parroted his sentiments. Even though I know at least one of them on that stage has smoked before. “Commerce Clause??” Really? If the user grows the plant themselves, in their own garden, on their own property, and uses it in their own home, while consenting to administering the smoke of some sort of vegetation into his or her own body and THAT is enough justifiable reason for the imperial federal government to reach into your home and yank you out and put you into a cage?

“Article I, Section 8, Clause 3: [The Congress shall have Power] To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian tribes”

Where does it say that they have the authority to do so? These people, these men, these human beings, are appealing to us, the audience, the voters, more human beings, for  the authority and permission to hire men with guns to tell us how we are allowed to live. Don’t ever forget that. These holier than thou, righteous men want the power to tell you what you must do, what you are not allowed to do in your own home.

“IV Amendment of the Constitution: The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated.”

I’m sorry, but that is just wrong. And the worst part, the audience applauded them. Freedom dies every time the audience applauds unjust laws. They got us into $16 Trillion in debt, the “War on Drugs” has cost us a trillion dollars. After 40 years of this, even U.S. drug czar Gil Kerlikowske concedes the strategy hasn’t worked. “In the grand scheme, it has not been successful, forty years later, the concern about drugs and drug problems is, if anything, magnified, intensified.” We have already tried the whole prohibition thing, it doesn’t work. Violent cartels are making hundreds of millions, we are paying hundreds of millions to imprison hundreds of thousands for victimless crimes, we paying billions in a “war effort” that doesn’t make sense. If someone has a drug problem, they can be treated just like someone with an alcohol problem. If they are caught driving while intoxicated, treat them the same as with alcohol. The whole supply/demand paradigm works with drugs too, the demand is still there today, after forty years, but supplies are scarcer due to the black market effect and it raises the cost. If you increase the risk, you increase the cost. As the costs go up, but demand stays the same, the risk taking to get the money to purchase the product goes up, thus crime, violent crime. That is what should be punished and that is what would go down. Market forces would reduce the prices of the goods; reduce the crimes inherent in procuring the goods, tax dollars won’t go to waste in incarcerations. debt goes down.

If the thought that if it is dangerous and therefore should be outlawed is true, the candidates should have proposed to outlaw cotton candy, hamburgers and alcohol, among everything else in life. Too much of anything is bad for the body, the best way to reduce its use is through education and not more guns and more political power.

This Lawyer Kid and the rest of them are just pandering to the masses, while trying to sound strong, and in effect, trample on the Constitution, our Rights, they are treating us adults as children. We have brains, we can think, we don’t need a government to make decisions for us, and these people are trying to get the power to do so.

They asked a bunch more questions, like about ending the Federal Reserve, they all send “No”. “We need market stability” and crap like that. As if the market was worse prior to the Fed, fiat currency and so forth.

I walked away with more disgust in my stomach than anything else. They were cheered; it was like those in the audience didn’t even listen to them. “Yay! Take more of my rights away!” Remember the old saying “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure”? It’s the same thing with rights, just because you don’t use all of your rights, there might be someone else that does. Just because you don’t value some of your rights, doesn’t mean that there is another person’s freedoms being trampled on, and if their freedoms are being trampled on, so are yours.

This primary season and this November, please remember to vote on principles. Vote on what your heart tells you. Read the Constitution and vote down the line on what the Constitution authorizes and nothing else. These people last night, if elected, will get to vote on hundreds of issues over their time in office. They are promising you that they will vote on principles when they get there. You do the same. The way I see it, if they get to vote 100 times in Congress, and you only get to vote for them once, you have to make a decision that is 100 times more principled than theirs’. If everyone does the same, we might actually be able to vote a better class of people into Washington and have a better, freer future of us and our children. As for the Republican Party, I wished they learned from their mistakes from the past instead of repeating it like they did last night.

California is broke. The national debt continues to spiral out of control. So, it’s perhaps a little bit of a surprise that the California Department of Transportation, along with some help from the federal government, spent $205,000 in 2010 to move a shrub that’s available at nurseries for about $15. Even the Knights who say Ni would find that too expensive.

There’s a good chance that the sole remaining in-the-wild Arctostaphylos franciscana would have escaped notice altogether, but for the keen eye of a botanist driving by a soon-to-be-removed median strip near the Golden Gate Bridge.

A low, leafy shrub which occasionally sprouts unexciting little flowers, the Franciscan manzanita is that kind of squat ground-cover found all over California. Like other types of chaparral, it’s not the sort of thing that draws close attention, but is part of the quilt of dark green sharing the light browns of the state’s many hillsides.

The Franciscan manzanita didn’t excite anyone until the last wild one was found. As it turned out, state and federal funds — some of it stimulus money — paid for the pricey shrub “translocation” project. Moving the plant and the weighty chunk of soil supporting its life cost $100,000, with $79,470 going to “fund the establishment, nurturing and monitoring of the Mother Plant” for a decade, as well as $25,605 to cover what federalese linguists call “reporting requirements.” All that added to a road widening project budgeted at more than $1 billion.

CONTINUED at Jalopnik.

Is there one thing that Tony Robbins, Ron Paul and Ben Bernanke can all agree on?  Yes, there actually is.  Recently they have all come forward with warnings that the national debt crisis could destroy America if something is not done.  Unfortunately, our politicians continue to spend us into oblivion as if there will never be any consequences.  When Barack Obama took office, the U.S. national debt was 10.6 trillion dollars.  Today, it is 15.6 trillion dollars and it is rising at the rate of about 150 million dollars an hour.  During the Obama administration so far, the U.S. government has accumulated more debt than it did from 1776 to 1995.  The United States now has a debt to GDP ratio of over 100 percent, and another credit rating agencydowngraded U.S. debt earlier this month.  Any talk of a positive economic future is utter nonsense as long as we are bleeding red ink as a nation far faster than we ever have before.  It is absolutely immoral to wreck the financial future of our children and our grandchildren and to leave them with a bill for the greatest mountain of debt in the history of the world, but that is exactly what we are doing.  Unless our current debt-based financial system is thrown out, there are only two ways that this game is going to play out.  One would involve absolutely bitter austerity and deflation unlike anything ever seen before, and the other would involve nightmarish hyperinflation.  Either path would be hellish beyond what most Americans could possibly imagine.

Unfortunately, we are running out of time as a nation.  You know that things are late in the game when the head of the Federal Reserve starts using apocalyptic language to talk about the national debt.  The following is what Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke told Congress recently….

CONTINUED at the Economic Collapse.