The Final Five: July 11, 2012

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Tonight's Crazy Story:
$3.2 Million Yacht Sinks in Marina
A $3.2 Million yacht which rented for $2,000 per night sank in a Lake Tahoe marina Sunday night. Witnesses say they heard the sound of screeching metal and passengers yelling prior to the yacht's sinking. There is no word on exactly what caused the boat to sink.

Topic One: Voter ID
How do you get over 100% turnout in Philadelphia? "But his recitation of statistics about those who don’t already have proof of identity leaves out a far more significant number that influenced the Pennsylvania legislature to pass the bill: 100 percent. That’s the percentage of registered voters who voted at a number of Philadelphia voter precincts in the last several elections. Indeed, as Republicans in the state capital pointed out during the debate about the voter ID law, in many parts of Philadelphia, a Democratic stronghold, voter turnout in contested elections routinely exceeds 100 percent of registered voters. But because the Democrats control the local elections board that supervises voting in the city, there is no accountability for this obvious fraud. If it is enforced, the voter ID law may make this rather flagrant method of cheating a bit more difficult this year."

Eric Holder compares Voter ID laws to poll taxes: "In a speech at the annual NAACP conference, in Houston, Holder said many voters would have to travel “great distances” to get a government-issued photo ID and that some would “struggle” to pay for the requisite paperwork. “We call these poll taxes,” Holder said."

However, the NAACP did not have a problem keeping that same group of people from hearing Holder speak. In order to gain access to the convention, you have to show your ID. John Hinderaker at PowerLine explains exactly what this means: "The bottom line is that liberals require identification to get access to anything they think is important. Where they part company with us is that they don’t think preventing voter fraud is important. On the contrary, they are in favor of it. In that sense, their conduct is perfectly consistent."

Time for a Laugh:
"Over the weekend, a man in Massachusetts was chased by a great white shark while he was kayaking for the first time. Or as he’s now calling it, "kayaking for the LAST time."
-Jimmy Fallon

Topic Two: Too Many Teachers
Does America need more teachers? Or do we have enough already? Andrew Coulson takes a look at the impact of the increasing number of teachers: "The implication of these facts is clear: America's public schools have warehoused three million people in jobs that do little to improve student achievement—people who would be working productively in the private sector if that extra $210 billion were not taxed out of the economy each year. We have already tried President Obama's education solution over a time period and on a scale that he could not hope to replicate today. And it has proven an expensive and tragic failure. To avoid Greece's fate we must create new, productive private-sector jobs to replace our unproductive government ones."

Do we really need the all the teachers (and other public employees) we have? "When it comes to teachers, in 2008 (the last year for which the federal government lists actual data), there were 15.3 pupils per teacher in public K-12 schools. That's the lowest recorded number. In 1998, the number was 16.4 and in 1978, it was 19.3. Over this same time period, the amount of money per student has increased tremendously and scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) have stayed flat at best. Since 1970, the number of public-school students has increased by about 9 percent while the number of public-school employees (teachers plus everyone else) has increased by 96 percent. Something ain't right there. It seems quite plausible that states and local school districts can lose a good chunk of teachers without significantly impairing the quality (that may not be the right word) of K-12 public education."

Debt Watch:
$15,885,854,755,351.47
( As of Tuesday, July 10, 2012 )

Change: +$6,588,442,278.27
Your share as a citizen: $50,743.80
Share per household: $139,061.73
Debt since Obama inauguration: $5,258,977,706,438.37

Topic Three: ObamaCare
ObamaCare's rising costs: "The latest estimate, as the chart details, is that Obamacare will cost $2.6 trillion dollars in its first real decade. The bill does not fully go into effect until 2014, therefore the estimate begins with that year. "President Obama promised a joint session of Congress in 2009 to spend $900 billion over ten years on his health care law: 'Now, add it all up, and the plan that I’m proposing will cost around $900 billion over 10 years.' Adding up all the different spending provisions in the health care law, however, (including closing the Medicare 'donut hole,' implementation costs, and other spending) total gross spending over the FY 2010–19 period is about $1.4 trillion, based on CBO estimates," the Senate Budget Committee Republican staff explains. "And most of the major spending provisions in the law do not even take effect until 2014. Congressional Democrats delayed these provisions in order to show only six years of spending under the plan in the original 10-year budget window (from FY2010-19) used by CBO at the time the law was enacted. Therefore, the original estimate concealed the fact that most of the law’s spending only doesn’t even begin until four years into the 10-year window. A Senate Budget Committee analysis (based on CBO estimates and growth rates) finds that that total spending under the law will amount to at least $2.6 trillion over a true 10-year period (from FY2014–23)—not $900 billion, as President Obama originally promised."

Hard days ahead for ObamaCare: "Some people do better from ObamaCare, and some do worse, writes Cost. But the bigger problem is the middle class already has health insurance. Most people will do worse under ObamaCare. That's the trouble with universal government programs. You start out with a simple concept, like universal health insurance, and you end up screwing the majority to serve the favored few. Some people get a special deal because they are helpless victims, others because they are powerful special interests. Pretty soon everyone is gaming the system. You end up with injustice. It's nobody's fault; not really."

Tweet of the Day:
Ken Gardner (@kesgardner): Obama didn't inherit the worst recession since the Great Depression. But he has certainly presided over the worst recovery since then.

Topic Four: Unemployment
Obama broke a 21-year employment streak: "For 280 consecutive months before President Obama took office — a span of more than 23 years — the portion of Americans who were employed always exceeded 60.0 percent (according to official tallies from the Bureau of Labor Statistics). In marked contrast, last Friday’s jobs numbers show that, under Obama, the portion of Americans who are employed has remained below 60.0 percent for 40 consecutive months. In other words, when Obama took office, America had a streak going of 280 straight months in which at least 60.0 percent of Americans were employed. Under Obama, that streak was broken and a new one has begun: 40 straight months in which fewer than 60.0 percent of Americans are employed."

The youth have been hit hard by unemployment: "The annual unemployment rate for city teens has topped 30% for three years, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. One in five New Yorkers between 18 and 24 is neither in school nor working, the city's Workforce Investment Board found. Making matters worse this year, however, is an uptick in the city's overall jobless rate, which hit 9.6% in May (up one percentage point from a year ago). Teenagers face a "more challenging and unforgiving labor market than at any time since records have been kept," the Workforce report concluded."

Food for Thought - A Quote from our Founders
"We fight not to enslave, but to set a country free, and to make room upon the earth for honest men to live in."
-Thomas Paine

Topic Five: Budget Insanity
John Stossel explains why the problem in America's budget is spending, not taxes: "For most of American history, government was tiny. But since Lyndon Johnson's Great Society and the promise that government would cure poverty, spending has gone up nonstop. This is not sustainable.

"Progressives say: If you're so worried about the deficit, raise taxes! But it's a fantasy to imagine that taxing the rich will solve our deficit problem. If the IRS grabbed 100 percent of income over $1 million, the take would be just $616 billion. That's only a third of this year's deficit.

"It's the spending, stupid.

"Even if you could balance the budget by taxing the rich, it wouldn't be right. Progressives say it's wrong for the rich to be "given" more money. But money earned belongs to those who earn it, not to government. Lower taxes are not a handout."

Tomorrow in History
July 12, 1804 - One day after being shot in a duel by Vice President Aaron Burr, former Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton passes away.

Grab Bag - Interesting and Important Stories to Conclude Your Evening:
Wasserman-Schultz has not released her tax returns

USDA gives millions to farmers who aren't actually farming

Most Americans not upwardly mobile

11 crazy things you can do with watermelons

10,000 people duped by Obama utility bill scam

Chicago's murder problem

Man defends buying cigarettes with government money

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