Yep. It really is worse than you thought. Hat tip to Gateway Pundit.  ..bruce w..

Remember Chris Christie, the Republican who defeated Gov. Jon Corzine in New Jersey last year? Well, here’s his address to a joint session of the New Jersey legislature about the budget crisis there. I can’t embed the video, so you’ll have to go over and watch it. I have to agree with Hunter Baker’s assessment (hat tip to him for the link to the speech) that this speech is “one of the most astounding speeches and demonstrations of leadership I have ever seen.” It really is worth the time to watch because it represents everything that we’re not seeing out of the Obama Administration and the Democratic Congress with regards to fiscal honesty and responsibility.

To give you an idea of the magnitude of the problem in New Jersey, the annual state budget is currently around $17 billion. However, New Jersey has $90 billion in unfunded pension and medical benefit costs. Gov. Christie points out that New Jersey would have to spend $7 billion every year going forward — nearly half of its annual budget — to make those unfunded pension and medical costs good.  ..bruce..

A wonderful video with a big hat tip to Gerard Van der Leun over at American Digest.  ..bruce w..

Not so well, as it turns out (details over at Big Government). In the meantime, the Obama Administration continues to play games on “jobs created or saved”. ..bruce w..

(Hat tip to Blue Crab Boulevard.) I certainly remember Democrats and the mainstream media (the same thing, really) ranting about the millions of jobs lost under Bush, not to mention the climbing deficits. Funny how quiet they are now. I’m not sure we will see unemployment under Obama get back down to the highest point it reached under Bush (a little over 6%), nor will we ever see the deficit get back down to the highest point it reached under Bush, to wit (via the Heritage Foundation):

Things have gone so well since the Democrats took over Congress (starting in 2006, remember) and the White House. ..bruce w..

…can’t trust that day. Or the weekend, apparently. Video above courtesy of Gateway Pundit. Not what George Lucas had in mind, I dare say.

Backlash? What backlash? Once again, the “Serenity” trailer as a metaphor for the growing conservative rebellion. “No. They’re not going to see this coming.”

The poster below has been showing up all over the ’sphere for some weeks now, most lately over at Instapundit:

The British press — which seems to be doing a much better job of covering the Obama Administration than the US press — notes the growing hints of wistfulness for Bush, even among Democrats. Heck, at this point, I miss Bill Clinton — words I never thought I’d say.  ..bruce w..

You know, the massive stimulus that was absolutely necessary to keep unemployment from rising above 8.0%? Kind of missed the target, didn’t it?

Anyone want to guess what unemployment will be in November 2010? November 2012? I’m willing to bet $1000 that it won’t be down to 7.0% and 5.5%, respectively, as the Obama economic team said it would be with the stimulus package. In fact, I strongly suspect it won’t even be down to the projected “without the recovery plan” levels of 9.0% and 6.0%.

The chart comes from Innocent Bystanders, via Ace of Spades.

UPDATE: Campaign Spot on NRO reminds us of what Pres. Obama said about the stimulus last February:

And the most — the biggest measure of success is whether we stop contracting and shedding jobs, and we start growing again. Now, you know, I don’t have a crystal ball, and as I said, this is an unprecedented crisis. But my hope is that after a difficult year — and this year is going to be a difficult year — that businesses start investing again, they start making decisions that, you know, in fact, there’s money to be made out there; customers — or consumers start feeling that their jobs are stable and safe, and they start making purchases again.

So, what are the things that the Obama Administration and the Democratic Congress are doing to encourage “businesses [to] start investing again” and to help “consumers start feeling that their jobs are stable and safe”? Massive deficits? Massive tax increases? Massive government bureaucracies? Increased regulation? Government expansion into the private sector? Yeah, that will encourage both businesses and consumers.  ..bruce w..

From USA Today:

The Obama administration’s $3 billion “cash for clunkers” program should be renamed “cash for gas-guzzling pickup trucks,” according to an Associated Press analysis of the data.

AP reports that for 8,200 deals — the most common — buyers traded in their old Ford 150 pickups for new Ford 150 pickups. Fuel economy for the new trucks is just 1 to 3 mpg better than the clunkers — less than 20 mpg.

Right on Ford’s bumper were big old Chevy and Dodge pickups that were traded in for big new Silverados and Rams.

Overall, more than 95,000 new vehicles — about one in seven — got less than 20 mpg. On top of that, taxpayers subsidized scores of deals — totaling $562,500 — for new cars and trucks that got worse mileage than the trade-ins.

Buyers received rebates of either $3,500 or $4,500. Their trade- ins were then junked.

Here’s the real problem with the “Cash for Clunkers” program: the Obama Administration and the Democratic Congress have so totally blown out the budget between bailouts and the “Stimulus” package that $3 billion sounds like chump change. But it’s good to see the mainstream media actually doing a bit of investigative reporting on this.  ..bruce w..

When Robert Samuelson starts asking that question, it’s time to worry:

The idea that the government of a major advanced country would default on its debt — that is, tell lenders that it won’t repay them all they’re owed — was, until recently, a preposterous proposition. Argentina and Russia have stiffed their creditors, but surely the likes of the United States, Japan or Britain wouldn’t. Well, it’s still a very, very long shot, but it’s no longer entirely unimaginable. Governments of rich countries are borrowing so much that it’s conceivable that one day the twin assumptions underlying their burgeoning debt (that lenders will continue to lend and that governments will continue to pay) might collapse. What happens then?

Read the whole thing.

Meanwhile, Ambrose Prichard-Jones says that it’s Japan we should be worried about, not America:

Simon Johnson, former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), told the US Congress last week that the debt path was out of control and raised “a real risk that Japan could end up in a major default”.

The IMF expects Japan’s gross public debt to reach 218pc of gross domestic product (GDP) this year, 227pc next year, and 246pc by 2014. This has been manageable so far only because Japanese savers have been willing – or coerced – into lending for almost nothing. The yield on 10-year government bonds has been around 1.30pc this year, though they jumped to 1.42pc last week.

Again, read the whole thing.  ..bruce w..

Cartoon by Nate Beeler at the Washington Examiner. And now from S. Weasel over at, well, S. Weasel:

On the road for the next few days; postings may be light.  ..bruce w..