Baucus Bill Saves Money by Spending It--Right!

Only in the nation's capital could this equation work: You save money by spending more of it.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has come out with an estimate that the Max Baucus Senate Finance Committee health reform measure will cost taxpayers $829 billion over ten years. Okay, the CBO is probably off by a full measure, and the subsidies and other costs in the measure will probably come in closer to $2 trillion in a decade.

But that's not the real problem with this equation. This is: In 2019, the CBO says the Baucus bill will start saving $81 billion a year. From what and how? Even if that's true, it would still take more than a decade to pay back the original 10-year outlay with no interest or accommodation for inflation.

Only in D.C. could such voodoo arithmetic be acceptable. After all, they're not spending their own money. They're just printing it and asking others to foot the bill through Treasury bonds. Or inflation. Or economic devastation.

Can I print my own money and issue bonds? I could live like a king (or Congressman) too if all of us were allowed to play by the same rules as those in power.

Sheriff Joe Arpaio Obamacized

Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County, Arizona (think Phoenix), has denounced the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for rescinding his 287(g) privileges, which allowed him to round up illegal immigrants for deportation proceedings. He now says he'll continue his raids under state law and drive the illegals to the border himself if he has to.

After Arpaio called officials at DHS "liars," Homeland Security spokesmen declined to comment, saying they are still reviewing their agreement with the sheriff’s department and the other 65 agencies that participated in the 287(g) program that allows local and state officers to make immigration arrests.

I'd call it being Obamacized as the new administration hopes to round up illegal immigrants into voting-rights citizens to produce what they hope will be an insurmountable Democratic super-majority for all time. The sheriff is just one more hostage along the way.

Immigration Reform: A Nation Without Borders?

The thinking goes something like this: In states where we can register Latin voters, we can increase the ranks of Democrats and elect more Democrats (hopefully, permanently), so why now legalize all the illegals? Hell, tear down that wall and let them all in!

Even the New York Times is writing about Obama's plan to legalize all those would-be Democrats, and the head of the United States Citizenship and Naturalization Service (USCIS), Alejandro Mayorkas, is already preparing for an onslaught of 12.5 million applicants for visas.

Planning has become so intense that the USCIS is setting up a system of what it calls lockboxes (sort of like stand-alone mail receptacles), so the illegals can mail in their applications. No word on what happens after that. Maybe ACORN will use their names and addresses and go register them to vote.

Meanwhile, USCIS head Mayorkas is the same Clinton appointee who, when Clinton issued his notorious midnight pardons upon leaving office, got a convicted Argentine cocaine smuggler named Carlos Vignali released from a 15-year prison term. Mayorkis was later forced to resign in shame from his position as a U.S. Attorney in California for his role in the pardon. Now he's the head of the USCIS, so expect more of the same. In short, money--and in this case, votes--talks.