If the Democrats have lost Jack Cafferty, they are in big, big trouble.

Cafferty may have lost hope in change, but I doubt he wants a refund.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-backed mortgage lenders that helped fuel the housing crisis, will cost taxpayers at least $400 billion. Yay... happy new year!

Dec. 31 (Bloomberg) -- Taxpayer losses from supporting Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will top $400 billion, according to Peter Wallison, a former general counsel at the Treasury who is now a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

“The situation is they are losing gobs of money, up to $400 billion in mortgages,” Wallison said in a Bloomberg Television interview. The Treasury Department recognized last week that losses will be more than $400 billion when it raised its limit on federal support for the two government-sponsored enterprises, he said.

The U.S. seized the two mortgage financiers in 2008 as the government struggled to prevent a meltdown of the financial system. The debt of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Home Loan Banks grew an average of $184 billion annually from 1998 to 2008, helping fuel a bubble that drove home prices up by 107 percent between 2000 and mid-2006, according to the S&P/Case- Shiller home-price index.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac... end them, don't mend them. Why do we need them anyway? During the last 3-4 years, we've seen firsthand what happens when companies lend money to "homeowners" who can't afford to pay it back -- they default or simply walk away because they have nothing to lose. Interest only, no income verification loans with no money down is a recipe for a housing crisis and a global financial meltdown.

We need responsible legislators who will end programs like these, but instead, we have Democrats who will only seek to make them larger.

Don Suber notices that lobbyists have thrived under the Obama administration despite a bad economy and "reforms."

The Associated Press wants you to know that Republicans are hypocrites because they voted to expand Medicare back in 2003, at a cost of $500 billion over 10 years, but they voted against Obamacare in 2009.

Democrats are troubled by the inconsistency of Republican lawmakers who approved a major Medicare expansion six years ago that has added tens of billions of dollars to federal deficits, but oppose current health overhaul plans.

All current GOP senators, including the 24 who voted for the 2003 Medicare expansion, oppose the health care bill that's backed by President Barack Obama and most congressional Democrats.

As a conservative, I'd like to believe that Republicans learned important lessons from their electoral defeats in 2006 and 2008, but I know this to be untrue. How do I know? Because Sen. Orrin Hatch told me so...

Six years ago, "it was standard practice not to pay for things," said Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah. "We were concerned about it, because it certainly added to the deficit, no question." His 2003 vote has been vindicated, Hatch said, because the prescription drug benefit "has done a lot of good."

So because the Medicare entitlement "has done a lot of good," it's acceptable to expand the federal budget and increase the debt. Isn't that precisely what the Democrats are claiming -- that Obamacare will do a lot of good despite its crushing regulations and budget busting cost?

It's hypocrisy like this that has damaged the Republican brand to the point where the Tea Party is more popular than the Republican Party. It should also serve as a case study for Republicans the next time they decide to out-Democrat the Democrats.

PJTV.com examines how bad social and economic policies destroyed the city of Detroit, Michigan. Is America next?

From a jubilant and merry Associated Press...

Senate OK's health care bill in victory for Obama

WASHINGTON – In an epic struggle settled at dawn, the Democratic-controlled Senate passed health care legislation Thursday, a triumph for President Barack Obama that clears the way for compromise talks with the House on a bill to reduce the ranks of the uninsured and rein in the insurance industry.

The vote was 60-39, strictly along party lines, one day after Democrats succeeded in crushing a filibuster by Republicans eager — yet unable — to inflict a year-end political defeat on the White House.

At the White House, Obama called the vote historic, and said because of it, "we are incredibly close to making health insurance reform a reality in this country. Our challenge now is to finish the job."

Victory. Triumph. Those are words generally reserved for monumental achievements such as winning a war or landing on the moon. In this case, I believe the editors forgot to insert the word "pyrrhic" before "victory"...

1. Barack Obama's poll numbers have declined rapidly since the early summer
2. The "historic" health "insurance" reform has not been signed into law. As of today, Democrats are not sure they can reconcile the House and Senate bills any time soon
3. Moderate Democrats are opting to retire of join the GOP rather than stay and fight along side Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid
4. Respected Democrats like William Daley are warning the president and the Democrat leadership that they're headed for a huge defeat in 2010 and beyond 

Victory and triumph all around. Pass the egg nog.

P.S. Have you noticed that Democrats (and by extension the AP) have begun to refer to this bill as "health insurance reform?" Hmm... when did that happen? Oh, I know... when they couldn't muster the votes for a single payer system or a so-called "public option" or expansion of Medicare, etc.

William Daley, former Secretary of Commerce in the Clinton administration and brother of Chicago mayor Richard Daley, wrote an op-ed in today's Washington Post warning Democrats to "keep the big tent" or face the wrath of the voters in 2010 and beyond.

The announcement by Alabama Rep. Parker Griffith that he is switching to the Republican Party is just the latest warning sign that the Democratic Party -- my lifelong political home -- has a critical decision to make: Either we plot a more moderate, centrist course or risk electoral disaster not just in the upcoming midterms but in many elections to come.

Clearly, Mr. Daley does not understand that transformative change is not without risks.

Rep. Griffith's decision makes him the fifth centrist Democrat to either switch parties or announce plans to retire rather than stand for reelection in 2010. These announcements are a sharp reversal from the progress the Democratic Party made starting in 2006 and continuing in 2008, when it reestablished itself as the nation's majority party for the first time in more than a decade.

Mr. Daley didn't mention it but Republican incompetence and corruption had a lot to do with the success of Democrats in '06 and '08.

But now they face a grim political fate. On the one hand, centrist Democrats are being vilified by left-wing bloggers, pundits and partisan news outlets for not being sufficiently liberal, "true" Democrats. On the other, Republicans are pounding them for their association with a party that seems to be advancing an agenda far to the left of most voters.

The political dangers of this situation could not be clearer.

Witness the losses in New Jersey and Virginia in this year's off-year elections. In those gubernatorial contests, the margin of victory was provided to Republicans by independents -- many of whom had voted for Obama. Just one year later, they had crossed back to the Republicans by 2-to-1 margins.

Witness the drumbeat of ominous poll results. Obama's approval rating has fallen below 49 percent overall and is even lower -- 41 percent -- among independents. On the question of which party is best suited to manage the economy, there has been a 30-point swing toward Republicanssince November 2008, according to Ipsos. Gallup's generic congressional ballot shows Republicans leading Democrats. There is not a hint of silver lining in these numbers. They are the quantitative expression of the swing bloc of American politics slipping away.

And, of course, witness the loss of Rep. Griffith and his fellow moderate Democrats who will retire. They are perhaps the truest canaries in the coal mine.

Barack Obama is all about transformative change, wealth redistribution and social justice and I believe that he is willing to lose seats in the short term -- even lose control of Congress -- in order to "level the playing field" and to make Americans even more dependent on the government than they already are. In Obama's mind, this will lead to permanent Democrat majorities in the future as the Democrats are the party of government.

Yes, "the future's so bright, I gotta' wear shades!"

The Politico is reporting that Barack Obama has decided to focus on jobs and deficit reduction (ha!) rather than the health care reform bill being rammed through the senate.

The White House privately anticipates health care talks to slip into February — past President Barack Obama’s first State of the Union address — and then plans to make a “very hard pivot” to a new jobs bill, according to senior administration officials.

Obama has been told that disputes over abortion and the tight schedule are highly likely to delay a final deal, a blow to the president, who had hoped to trumpet a health care victory in his big speech to the nation. But he has also been told that House Democratic leaders seem inclined, at least for now, to largely accept the compromise worked out in the Senate, virtually ensuring he will eventually get a deal.

Internally, White House aides are plunging into a 2010 plan calling for an early focus on creating jobs, especially in the energy sector, along with starting a conversation about deficit reduction measures, the administration officials said.

This could mean one of two things. Either reconciliation between the house and senate bills will be significantly more difficult than we've been told or the Democrats have finally realized that health care "reform" (at least their version of it) is wildly unpopular among the American public and they've decided to shelve it.

Yeah, that last one was a joke... Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi don't care what you think.