Happy inauguration day! Today we begin with this little known factoid: For the first 143 years of the American Republic, presidents were inaugurated on March 4, the only day of the year that is also a command.

The date was moved up to Jan. 20 in 1932 when the activist president Franklin Delano Roosevelt couldn’t wait to wring his hands around the neck of the U.S. economy. Roosevelt set in motion 78 years of what the economist Friedrich von Hayek called the “fatal conceit” -- the arrogant belief that anyone could know enough at any one time to plan an economy.

Today, we’re paying the price. A little-noticed Treasury report that’s supposed to provide an honest accounting of the government’s finances is now being manipulated just like everything else.

The Financial Report of the United States Government applies generally accepted accounting principles to arrive at a realistic appraisal of the annual deficit. In a typical year, that’s up to twice the official number. But in fiscal 2009, the “real” number is actually lower than the official record-shattering $1.4 trillion.

Statistical watchdog John Williams laments this year’s report reflects “accounting that might be considered questionable if it were used in the private sector. The relatively ‘positive’ 2009 results reflected capitalization of much of the government’s bailout efforts, a late ‘profit’ from TARP, questionable handling of some post-fiscal year liabilities and changes in actuarial assumptions.

So hinky are the numbers, the Government Accountability Office refuses to sign off on the report. In a statement, the acting comptroller general invokes “material” questions of how Treasury is valuing bailout-related liabilities and assets. In other words, Treasury under Tim Geithner is employing mark-to-make-believe just like the banks he used to oversee when he ran the New York Fed.

via Government Accounting Tricks, Buy Miners, "Fixing" Recession Cities and More! | 5 Min. Forecast.

It's a sad thing when private watchdogs have to audit government auditors when the government begins trampling the regulations they've forced on the private sector.

CNN's Jack Cafferty blasted the president and top Democrats on their now-secret backroom dealings, arrangements, and negotiations on healthcare:

CAFFERTY: How dare they- President Obama, Democratic leaders have decided to bypass a formal House and Senate conference committee, in order to reconcile those two health care bills. Instead, White House and Democratic leaders will hold informal- that’s another word for secret - negotiations, meant to shut Republicans and the public out of the process. What a far cry from the election, when then-candidate Obama pledged to- quote, ‘broadcast health care negotiations on C-SPAN, so that the American people can see what the choices are,’ unquote. President Obama hasn’t even made a token effort to keep his campaign promises of more openness and transparency in government. It was all just another lie that was told in order to get elected.

It explains his economic policy. Teleologists inherently don’t believe in unintended side effects when it comes to implementing their idealistic policies. Obviously it should be possible to provide free health care to everyone without wrecking the economy; it’s just how things really should be, so that’s how it will be. Where will the money come from? That’s the kind of question that materialists ask; teleologists don’t concern themselves with such trivial. It’ll happen somehow, because it’s obviously how it should turn out. To say we shouldn’t do it is to be heartless, uncaring — and those things are more important than mundane claims that it won’t work. If you just believe, it will work.

This also explains why his administration is so vigorous in demolishing those with opposing viewpoints - they destroy his worldview!

Who has the correct papers to be in the White House?

Obama: 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan

Obama: "We Did Not Ask for This Fight"
Bush: "We Did Not Seek This Conflict"

Obama: "New Attacks are Being Plotted as I Speak"
Bush: "At This Moment ... Terrorists are Planning New Attacks"

Obama: "Our Cause is Just, Our Resolve Unwavering"
Bush: "Our Cause is Just, Our Coalition [is] Determined"

Obama: "This Is No Idle Danger, No Hypothetical Threat"
Bush: "The Enemies of Freedom Are Not Idle"

Obama: "We Have No Interest in Occupying Your Country"
Bush: "I Wouldn't Be Happy if I Were Occupied Either"

http://www.dailypaul.com/node/117466

I think Obama changed the meaning of "hope."

Virtue is not advanced by written laws but by the habits of everyday life; for the majority of men tend to assimilate the manners and morals amid which they have been reared.  Furthermore, they held that where there is a multitude of specific laws, it is a sign that the state is badly governed; for it is in the attempt to build up dikes against the spread of crime that men in such a state feel constrained to multiply the laws.  Those who are rightly governed, on the other hand, do not need to fill their porticoes with written statues, but only to cherish justice in their souls; for it is not with legislation, but by morals, that states are well directed, since men who are badly reared will venture to transgress even laws which are drawn up with minute exactness, whereas those who are well brought up will be willing to respect even a simple code.

One need look only at the proliferation of laws governing roads and driving that have been enacted since the days of unlicensed horsemen as an example of how corrupt and overreaching our government has become.

How many laws do we really need?  And why do the legislators and voters keep asking for more?