Reason Morning Links: Obama Budget Projects Record Deficit, White House Wants Overhaul of NCLB, Cold Meds May Soon Require a Prescription

• Obama unveils $3.8 trillion budget, with $1.56 trillion deficit.
• White House plans major overhaul of No Child Left Behind.
• Many states now considering requiring a prescription for cold medication with pseudoephedrine.
• GOP sets sights on Obama's old Senate seat.
• Female suicide bomber kills 41 in Baghdad.
• Congress to review "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" this week.

Comments

[Johnny Longtorso]

I've updated and reorganized my Epic CRA Takedown (link attached to my name) with goodies from this (similar to mine) article:

Here's How The Community Reinvestment Act Led To The Housing Bubble's Lax Lending

I also found some more on the CRA impacting entities outside its scope:

Obsessive Housing Disorder
Pressuring nonbank lenders to make more loans to poor minorities didn't stop with Sears. If it didn't happen, Clinton officials warned, they'd seek to extend CRA regulations to all mortgage makers. In Congress, Representative Maxine Waters called financial firms not covered by the CRA "among the most egregious redliners." To rebuff the criticism, the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) shocked the financial world by signing a 1994 agreement with the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), pledging to increase lending to minorities and join in new efforts to rewrite lending standards. The first MBA member to sign up: Countrywide Financial, the mortgage firm that would be at the core of the subprime meltdown.

[Johnny Longtorso]

The link to my article is too long for Reason's comment system.

[Johnny Longtorso]

I also found this (and added it to my article - link attached to my name), defending the bankers:

Bank Pay and the Financial Crisis
Commercial bank capital holdings are governed by the Basel regulations, which are set by the financial regulators of the G-20 nations. In 2001, U.S. regulators enacted the Recourse Rule, amending the Basel I accords of 1988. Under this rule, American banks needed to hold far more of a capital cushion against individual mortgages and commercial loans than against mortgage-backed securities rated AA or AAA. Similar regulations, contained in the Basel II accords, began to be implemented across the other G-20 countries in 2007. The effect of these regulations was to create immense profit opportunities for a bank that shifted its portfolio from mortgages and commercial loans to mortgage-backed securities.

Bankers were of course seeking profits by purchasing mortgage-backed securities, but the evidence is that they thought they were being prudent in doing so. They bought AAA instead of more lucrative AA tranches, and they bought credit-default-swap and other insurance against default....

[Gomer Pyle]

Obama unveils $3.8 trillion budget, with $1.56 trillion deficit

Surprise, surprise, surprise!

[Suki]

White House plans major overhaul of No Child Left Behind.

Ted Kennedy's body is barely cold and they are going to mess with that? First thought: it will cost more.

Female suicide bomber kills 41 in Baghdad.

John had something recently on the new terrorist fad of using women for this after a previous attack.

[Nick]

How many virgins does she get?

[hmm]

Does it matter? She has an eternity of awkward short sex. I think she got screwed.

[I ? trolls]

awkward short sex? Stop projecting.

[hmm]

Who said I wasn't?

[I ? trolls]

Signing up Nick?

[Nick]

Nah, she probably smells like burnt flesh and...oh, shit. Fuck you troll fucker.

[I ? trolls]

Real men like BBQ

[mr simple]

States mull Rx rule for meth ingredients

This is infuriating. I have to be miserable when I'm sick or spend more money just because someone might do something bad with the medicine. If anyone I mention this to says anything about it being for the children, I will probably punch them in the face.

[Nancy Pelosi]

It's for the children.

[B?nzli]

Agreed, it is infuriating.
Also I love the over the top quote from the drug warrior: "I don't think I've ever been involved in my entire career in law enforcement in something that's more important than this," said Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics Director Marshall Fisher [...]

Of course since he's a drug cop, this stupid law probably is the most important thing he ever did.

[Marshall Fisher]

Snark all you want, B?nzli, but I'll continue to save people from having to spend the night in a hotel room that's been used for a meth lab.

[Michael Bloomberg]

I concur that it is for the children.

[TrickyVic]

Government stance is that it's ok to punish the majority due to the actions of a minority. LEOs like it, execpt when that philosophy is applied to their actions.

[mark]

+1

[Obamacare]

This is why I must be passed NOW!! WHAT WILL 40 MILLION PEOPLE DO WITH COLDS AND NO HEALTHCARE??!*

* - By healthcare, we mean health insurance, because it's easier to frighten the masses with concepts of being turned away at the emergency room with bleeding wounds "just because I didn't have insurance" than telling the truth, getting treated now and having to pay for it later like any other billing based service.

[Rich]

The red ink would be cut nearly in half by 2014, mostly by allowing tax cuts on families making more than $250,000 to expire in 2011.

Don't make a Korea out of it.

[Suki]

But they have universal healthcare!

[I ? trolls]

I love HCR

[Rich]

A new goal, which would replace the 2014 universal proficiency deadline, would be for all students to leave high school "college or career ready."

"College or career ready."

That reminds of something ...

"Save or create"!

[Sean]

Vote or die!

[mark]

Ignorance is strength.

[I ? trolls]

mark, or as the libertarians say: strength in ignorance

[Plague Dog]

Obama unveils $3.8 trillion budget, with $1.56 trillion deficit.

Read that this morning - did some quick math = 40% borrowed money.
WTF?
It induced some Lyle-style projectile vomiting.

http://www.achewood.com/index.php?date=06082007

[SugarFree]

Female suicide bomber kills 41 in Baghdad.

[PMS/PTSD joke]

[Ali]

You know, Fatima, you're cute when you're angry!

[B?nzli]

Dammit, how did she get past all those dowsing rods? The ignorance, it hurts.

[Suki]

At least you refrained from the driving jokes.

[hmm]

They made her walk. So she would get to the right place on time and in one piece.

[I ? trolls]

She had to walk because Ossama wouldn't ask for directions.

[Joe M]

From the USA Today Article on the $3.8 trillion budget:

"It's not a left-wing budget, it's not a right-wing budget ? it's a common-sense budget," said White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer.

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

In what fucking context, you lunatic asshole?

[Robert Gibbs]

Unfortunately, Mr. Pfeiffer misspoke when he said "common-sense budget."

He meant "conventional-wisdom budget."

[Tim]

Many states now considering requiring a prescription for cold medication with pseudoephedrine.

Thank you very much you stupid f*cks for thinking of making me get a doctors appointment, perhaps wait and suffer a few days, during which time I'm less productive, take off work (use up one of only 5 sick days), then pay a doctors co-pay and a prescription co-pay just to get the one and only thing that helps my chronic nasal congestion from allergies.

Pseudophed PE stands for "Placebo Effect".

This ought to help to keep down medical costs. All because someone somewhere might like to speed up on something other that coffee.

A**holes.

[I ? trolls]

Tim, you could have supported HCR.

[AlmightyJB]

So does anyone know if you can extract pseudoephedrine from Meth. Might be easier and quicker to get it that way if you're sick:)

[Colonel_Angus]

Time for medical meth dispensaries then. I thought cocaine would be next.

[What's This World Coming To?]

On Saturday, I took delivery on a water heater. The guy rolls the thing up my sidwalk on a dolly, gets to my front steps and then starts unstrapping it from the dolly. Guy tells me, "We don't bring them in the house. Curb-side only."

So I talk to the guy a bit more and learn that they only bring refrigerators into your garage. The garage! WTF?

[Nick]

Wow, that company sucks ass. When I bought my house, Lowe's not only delivered my fridge, but since it wouldn't fit through the entry to the kitchen (I know, WTF, right?) the 2 delivery guy got 4 of us who were moving all our other shit into the house to help them pass it through the pass-through window* (finally a term that means what it says) from the living room to the kitchen, and then plugged it in and moved it into place for me. All free.

*My pregnant wife couldn't watch, thinking her refrigerator and kitchen would both be ruined before we even moved in, but it was a piece of cake.

[Zeb]

That's pretty standard for freight carriers. You are lucky he took it off the truck for you. With a lot of things you have to pay extra to get a truck with a lift gate.

[R C Dean]

When I had my gun safe delivered, they left it on the back porch, but they warned me when I bought it they were going to do that.

Looking back, its a frickin' miracle I got it in the house. All the weight is in the door, so safes are tippy mofos.

An appliance dealer should absolutely bring it into your house and get it going. WTF do they do when they sell a dishwasher or oven?

[I ? trolls]

"WTF do they do when they sell a dishwasher or oven?" WTF, are husbands for?

[R C Dean]

I guess they're for writing checks to contractors to install new appliances.

[I ? trolls]

Wow, your wife allows you to handle money? 😉

[What's This World Coming To?]

For the record, it was Home Depot.

[T]

Zanotti solved the gun safe problem, RC, but I'm still dubious

[Tim]

I had a dresser delivered and they left it on the driveway.

[TrickyVic]

""An appliance dealer should absolutely bring it into your house and get it going. ""

Any more so than a dealer that sells gun safes?

It goes to reading paperwork and asking questions. Some places install, some just deliver. Some deliver by a trucking company that might or might not take it off the truck, as Zeb mentioned.

[Colonel_Angus]

Who needs a gun safe?

[Pip]

UN climate panel based claims on student essay!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/ear.....ticle.html

[Current Climber]

There is no way current climbers and mountain guides can give anecdotal evidence back to the 1900s, so what they claim is complete nonsense.

Oh, yeah?!

I remember my great-grandfather telling me me it was really snowy when he was out hiking.

[joetonychadmng]

THE SCIENCE IS SETTLED! SETTLED, DAMN YOU!

[Mike M.]

Diplomacy with Iran has officially collapsed, as escalation in the Persian Gulf gets underway with the United States deploying Patriot missile battery systems to Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Kuwait.

[Jersey Patriot]

There are those who say we cannot lose three land wars in Asia at the same time. But I say, it is past time to leave old fears behind, and I know that together we can lose three land wars in Asia at the same time.

Yes we can!

[Mike M.]

I think there's pretty much zero chance of us getting into a "land war" with Iran.

For that matter, I kind of doubt that any strike against Iran is going to come from us under Obama. I think it's far more likely to come from a much smaller country than us that begins with an "I".

[Ahmadinejihad]

Hurrrr da Holocaust didn't happen.

[Barack Obama]

I'M A CHICKENHAWK!!!

[hmm]

# Obama unveils $3.8 trillion budget, with $1.56 trillion deficit.

The phrase can we stop this train so I can get off has new meaning after the SotU.

[Poop Slinger]

When I read the article about the size of the budget, I had an allusion to trains too. Particularly, the Dead's Casey Jones --> funny version here.

[J sub D]

Yet the administration is not planning to abandon the law's commitments to closing the achievement gap between minority and white students and to encouraging teacher quality.

That's because educational achievement in grade K-12 has skyrocketed since the feds got involved.

[R C Dean]

There's two ways to close that gap, J sub. Obviously, they aren't going for the option of raising the scores at the bottom. I'm confident they can close it the other way, though.

Mission accomplished!

[J sub D]

No shit. I've long contended that more resources should be spent on the intellectual achievers and less on the D+ students. No matter what you do, how much you spend, the poor student is not going to invent FTL drive.

[T]

Yeah. It's like the "college for everyone" mania that's currently gripping the country. Some people aren't cut out for complex intellectual activity, and the world still needs janitors.

[Zefram Cochrane]

Oh? All I did in high school was get drunk and bang cheerleaders.

[Jack Bauer]

Dad?

[statistical reality]

T, this cheerleader? http://politicalhumor.about.co.....leader.htm

[toddb]

"In my early days it was an article of faith among a self-styled 'intellectual elite' that they could teach calculus to a horse?if they started early enough, spent enough money, supplied special tutoring, and were endlessly patient and always careful not to bruise his equine ego. They were so sincere that it seems downright ungrateful that the horse always persisted in being a horse. Especially as they were right..if 'starting early enough' is defined as a million years or more." - Lazarus Long

[Michael Ejercito]

How much is the deficit/GDP ratio?

[The Gobbler]

WH budget projects National Debt will exceed GDP in FY 2012 when Debt tops $16.3-trillion.

[JW]

Everyone: PEDAL FASTER.

[Michael Ejercito]

WH budget projects National Debt will exceed GDP in FY 2012 when Debt tops $16.3-trillion.

It never got that bad under President Bush.

Under the Bush administration, the GDP far exceeded the debt, even in 2008.

[Michael]

Haven't seen this posted yet...

http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WO.....index.html

[AH]

Another reason why soccer sucks.