Senator Rand Paul: Let Democrats Raise Taxes, Dig Own Grave – Voting Present would be better for GOP

Video:  Rand Paul: Voting Present On Tax Hikes Would Be Better For GOP

By Marion Algier – Cross-Posted at the NoisyRoom

Real Clear Politics: Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) says if would be better for Republicans to vote present on President Obama's proposal to raise tax rates and allow it to pass than to go off the "fiscal cliff." Paul says that would force Democrats to take ownership of the economy's reaction to a tax hike.

Sen. Paul: If they surprise me and they call me up tonight and say, "what should we do?" Here's what we should do: We should, tomorrow, in the House, vote for what we believe in. Keeping the Bush tax rates as they are for everybody permanently, and cutting spending. Significant cuts in spending and reform entitlements. I have a bill that saves social security and saves Social Security and saves Medicare by reforming them. Let's pass some of those bills and then when the Democrats won't accept it, then let's vote present and let them raise the taxes in the House, and then when it comes to the Senate, the Republican senators vote no, and it becomes like ObamaCare: A Democrat juggernaut. They get what they want, but it will be bad for the economy. But, their fingerprints will be on it and ours won't.

Cavuto: The polls say it will be the Republicans' fingerprints on it; do you buy that?

Paul: That depends on what happens. If the Republicans all decide, let's vote for raising the taxes half as much as Obama wants, and we still have a tax increase and Republicans are for it, it kinda ruins what we stand for. What we stand for is limited government and less taxation, so I think if we go halfway and split the difference with him, I think, then, both parties have their hands on it.

Transcript of Rand Paul with Greta Van Susteren ‘On the Record’

GRETA VAN SUSTEREN, FOX NEWS HOST: Senator Rand Paul says let Democrats dig their own grave. He says let Democrats raise taxes on everybody. Senator Paul is telling Republican colleagues senator to vote present on a deal, allowing Democrats to push through their tax hikes. Why would Senator Rand Paul want to take that tactic? The senator joins us. Good evening, sir.

SEN. RAND PAUL, R-KY: Good evening, Greta.

VAN SUSTEREN: Explain to me why you think that's a good tactic.

PAUL: I think what we should do first of all is put forward what we are for. So if they are in the House, the House leadership should put something forward that extends the Bush tax cuts forever and has significant spending cuts. And I think they passed that.

The Democrats won't accept that and were unwilling to stay by our position. Then I would say let them pass a tax increase on the upper increase folks, but let it do it with their votes, not our votes. Republicans vote present in the House. Democrats can pass the tack increase with only democrat votes and then the Democrats are the parties of high taxes and the Republicans are the party of lower taxes. And I think that's the way it should be.

VAN SUSTEREN: Well, House is not going to go for that. Do you agree? The House isn't going to vote for the Democrats deal.

PAUL: I'm not saying vote for the bill to raise taxes, I'm saying that we vote first on a Bill that says we will not raise the taxes, and that is our true position. That's what we stand for. We think that you stimulate the economy by leaving more money in the economy, actually lowering taxes. That's our philosophy. That's who we are as Republican.

So I would pass that. The House has passed that previously. I would pass that again now, and that if we cannot get the president to negotiate from that position, and if they are going give in, don't give in by splitting the baby. Give in by voting present, let the Democrats pass an increase in the upper tax brackets, comes over to the Senate, Republicans vote no, and it becomes a Democrat tax increase but not a Republican/Democrat tax increase, which I think is a mistake for the Republicans.

VAN SUSTEREN: Republican Senator Ron Johnson from Wisconsin says it's not the end of the world if we go over the fiscal cliff, although there are some economists who say it could thrust us back into recession. What do you think will happen if we go over the fiscal cliff?

PAUL: I don't think there is a cliff in the sense that all of a sudden tomorrow something dramatic happens. I think stock markets sometimes react quickly, but for the most part, whether it's going to be a recession or not is a much more long, drawn-out process.

But I would say that it's not a good idea to raise anyone taxes, and that the marketplace does not differentiate whether you take the money from rich people, poor people, or middle class. The marketplace says if you are going to take $800 billion, are you taking it out of the private sector, the productive sector, and are you going to give it to the nonproductive sector in Washington, basically the sector of people who are always messing up things in the marketplace? Are you going to do that? If you are going to do that, it's a bad idea no matter whether it's rich people, middle class, or poor. It doesn't matter. If you take money out of the private sector, it's a bad idea.

VAN SUSTEREN: Well, it's not as though the taxes around going to go up on the wealthiest Americans come January 1. Maybe not to the extent the Democrats want in the income tax bracket, but certainly it's going to go up. They will pay more in Medicare under the Obama healthcare. They will pay more on their investment income, 3.8 percent if you are a high earner. So there will be additional taxes. I realize you will pay for other things besides. Taxes are going to go up for the wealthiest Americans on January 1, just not as much as Democrats want. Would you agree?

PAUL: Yes. And here's the question. How much is enough? When will they have enough? The thing is most people in a lot of these high tax states are already pagan excessive amount of their income. Look at companies now trying to get away from the tax collectors. Look at Google taking their money to Bermuda. Look at all the corporations who can't stand to pay 35 percent income tax in America that won't bring their money home. Money goes where it is welcome.

VAN SUSTEREN: Let me ask you about Google. Google managed to do tax avoidance, which is not illegal, by putting money in Bermuda and I think they saved $2 billion in tax avoid dance. What efforts are being done by the Democrats or the Republicans to discourage that type of lawful avoidance, but nonetheless a huge amount of money for a very wealthy company?

PAUL: I'm not against them doing that. In fact, I compliment them because that money stayed in the private marketplace. But I would say to folks who are doing that, don't come to Washington and agitate for higher taxes if you are avoiding taxes. By all means, continue to legally avoid as many taxes as you can because that keeps money in the private marketplace and helps to create jobs. I'm all for that. But don't at the same time come agitate for higher taxes, because we need lower taxes.

Countries around the world are finding out that this is a mistake. England raised their upper rate, and they got lower tax revenue. When the Bush tax cuts came into play we lowered tax rates and we got more revenue. So the main reason I'm opposed to what the president is doing is it's not going to work, and it may give us less revenue and less economic growth. So I'm completely opposed to the president. I was before the election and I still am after the election.

VAN SUSTEREN: If you look at Google, you say you're not opposed to that. But if you take, let's take the category, $250,000 to $3 million a year, that category, they don't hide their money, but they don't avoid taxes by using Bermuda because they don't have the structure to do that, number one. And number two is that they don't have all these lobbyists that create these payroll tax codes so that they can do that. So there's actually sort of a wealthy class that just is the billionaire class --

PAUL: That's true, and it isn't a fair tax code. The way you get a fair tax code is to lower rates and get rid of deductions so people don't have to avoid their taxes. But I will say in Google's defense, the corporate income tax in our country is 35 percent. In Canada it's 15 percent. In Bermuda I think it's nine percent. All across Europe it's in the 20s. Money goes to where it's welcome. Money is not welcome in the United States, or the president is trying to make it worse so money and people will flee. People will flee if you raise their taxes. They also won't work as hard and you'll be getting less revenue, not more, exactly the opposite of what the president wants.

VAN SUSTEREN: For years I've been hearing tax code reform. That's all I've been hearing, and maybe we'll get it sometime, but I'm not holding my breath. Senator, thank you, sir.

PAUL: Thank you.

The Political Class Base Line Budgeting Scam

TPN: “The Federal Government is like a treasure that a man discovered hidden in a field. In his excitement, he hid it again and sold everything he owned and raised as much legal or illegal campaign money to get enough money to buy the field—and to get the treasure, too!

This explanation below and above just frames perfectly what we're up against far as our debt goes. You have a central government that has welded and cemented procedures and strategies in place to forever grow the size and scope of government. A political class that directs it, and since it is not in the best interest of the political class and their families to cut their own influence and paychecks you find them spending billions every election cycle to 'keep” and “grow” their inheritance. As you read the news headlines these days you will see how people will resort to all kinds of violence if you dare to go near that field that has that self perpetuating treasure in it. And in reality that "treasure" is really a "flimsy white washed wall' and when the next strong wind comes along it's going down. So since those that are awake, know that it is a white washed wall, and we can see that their is a political class that is enriching themselves along with their supporting minions maybe we should seriously start looking back to the governments that do not have a printing press in their basements...our own states! Shouldn't we be encouraging our states to start saying "No" to what was supposedly to be a limited referee to the "Union" of states that has now become brazenly ":Unconstitutional” and has now transformed itself back into the Symbolic Manifestation of King George and Lord North or maybe more fittingly Joseph Stalin?. ...here comes another (3) $ trillion added to the political classes Inheritance....I can hear Yessss! Echoing powerfully through out Washington and reverberating through the Halls of our most "Honorable" Congress now as I hear the "Yea" votes carrying the day as we add that $3 trillion!

"Baseline budgeting" is one of those Washington terms that sounds very dry and boring. In reality, baseline budgeting is one of the most sinister ways that politicians claim to cut spending when they are actually increasing spending. The Congressional Budget Office defines the baseline as a benchmark for measuring the budgetary effects of proposed changes in federal revenue or spending, with the assumption that current budgetary policies or current services are continued without change. The baseline includes automatic adjustments for inflation and anticipated increases in program participation. Baseline, or current services, budgeting, therefore builds automatic, future spending increases into Congress's budgetary forecasts.

Baseline budgeting tilts the budget process in favor of increased spending and taxes. For example, if an agency's budget is projected to grow by $100 million, but only grows by $75 million, according to baseline budgeting, that agency sustained a $25 million cut. That is analogous to a person who expects to gain 100 pounds only gaining 75 pounds, and taking credit for losing 25 pounds. The federal government is the only place this absurd logic is employed.

Politicians often like to have it both ways. Baseline budgeting gives politicians an opportunity to deceive taxpayers by allowing them to claim that they are holding the line on spending while providing more services.

Baseline budgeting seems like a technicality and should not be such a hotbed of contention, but every round of budget negotiations involves baseline budgeting with both sides of the aisle complaining that the other side is using the process to mask spending increases. Baseline budgeting is an issue that truly separates the deficit hawks from the budget chickens.

Eliminating the inflated budget baseline will force Congress to justify and account for increased spending instead of hiding behind automatic increases. Through commonsense accounting, taxpayers would learn that spending in Washington is not under control. (Citizens against Government Waste)

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Technorati Tags: Rand Paul,taxes,fiscal cliff,Congress,GOP,Democrats,voting present,economy,economics

Send This Letter to Your Congressman and Senator: 9,000,000,000,000 Ways to Balance the Budget

This is a letter that Dr. Coburn sent to all of his Senate colleagues on the 27th:

9,000,000,000,000
Ways to Balance the Budget

July 27, 2011

Dear Colleague,

Nearly everyone in Washington agrees we must reduce the deficit, but few offer any specifics as to how to do it. Last week, I released a report, BACK IN BLACK, outlining thousands of detailed budget options within every federal department and nearly every major program that, if taken together, would result in savings of more than $9 trillion over the next decade.

I do not expect anyone to agree with everything recommended in this report, but I expect everyone will find things with which they agree. With negotiations stalemated, I wanted to bring your attention to some very simple commonsense ideas I believe most of us—and most Americans—regardless of party or ideology could support that would save at least $355 billion.

End Unemployment Payments to Millionaires
Savings: $186 million over ten years
Nearly 3,000 households with incomes of $1 million or more were paid a total of $18.6 million in unemployment insurance benefits in 2008. Those earning $1 million a year do not need and should not qualify for unemployment compensation.

Stop Payments to Dead People
Savings: Over $1 billion over ten years.
Washington sent over $1 billion to more than 250,000 deceased individuals over the past decade. The federal government paid for dead people’s prescriptions and wheelchairs, subsidized their farms, helped pay their rent, and even chipped in for their heating and air conditioning bills. Some of these payments were fraud, some were incompetence, and some were intentionally required by law. Congress should end payments to the dead and federal agencies should ensure beneficiaries and participants of government payments are, in fact, alive.

Eliminate Duplication
Savings: At least $50 billion over ten years
In March, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report examining just 34 missions of the federal government and identified hundreds of duplicative and overlapping programs costing more than $215 billion a year. These included 47 separate job training programs, 88 economic development programs, 82 teacher quality programs, and 56 financial literacy programs. “Reducing or eliminating duplication, overlap, or fragmentation could potentially save billions of taxpayer dollars annually and help agencies provide more efficient and effective services,” GAO concluded. Another independent study identified at least 180 economic development programs within more than a dozen different agencies costing taxpayers about $17.9 billion annually. Duplication within the federal bureaucracy should be consolidated.

Eliminate Sweet Heart Deals for Government Contractors
Savings: At least $2 billion over ten years
The federal government pays over $500 billion annually to contractors. In 2009, $170 billion worth of contracts were awarded without competition. Competitive bidding for government contracts helps ensure the highest-quality services for the lowest cost, while no-bid contracts waste billions of dollars with little apparent benefit to anyone other than contractors. No bid contracts should be eliminated.

Collect Unpaid Taxes Owed by Federal Employees
Savings: $1 billion over ten years
Nearly 100,000 civilian federal employees were delinquent on their federal income taxes in 2008. These federal employees owe a total of $962 million in unpaid federal income taxes. The IRS should collect these overdue taxes.

Reduce Congress’ Spending on Itself
Savings: $3.82 billion over ten years
Since 2001, Congress has boosted its own budget by 55 percent. At the same time, the average American wage increased by only 23 percent. In real dollars, the budget of the House and Senate has grown by more than $1 billion over the last decade. Congress must lead by example and do more with less. Congress’ spending on itself should be reduced by at least 15 percent.

Stop Overpaying Drug Companies
Savings: $480 million over ten years
The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) overpays pharmaceutical companies nearly a million dollars a week. According to the Government Accountability Office, drug companies were overpaid $3.9 million in a single month! HRSA should be required to routinely monitor prices to ensure taxpayers are not being overcharged and take immediate corrective action to recoup any excess payments.

Reduce Unnecessary Government Printing
Savings: $4.9 billion over ten years
Federal agencies – excluding the Department of Defense – spend nearly $1.3 billion a year on routine office printing. A third of this printing is unnecessary, according to an independent analysis. Agencies should put an end to this wasteful habit and administrative accounts of each department should be reduced accordingly.

Eliminate Unnecessary Printing of Congressional Documents
Savings: $312.2 million
In the digital age, printed copies of Congressional reports and other documents are as likely to grace a landfill as a bookshelf. In 2010, nearly $100 million was allocated for Congressional Printing and Binding account. A representative of the Government Printing Office (GPO) recently testified, “70 percent of the GPO’s funds are used to digitize legislation, schedules and other federal records, while 30 percent is used to print hard copies.” Reducing the Congressional Printing account by 30 percent would put an end to the wasteful practice of printing and distributing congressional documents that are almost immediately thrown away. The documents would still be available online and users could decide whether or not to print hard copies.

Get Rid of Unneeded Federal Properties
Savings: $15 billion over ten years
The federal government has over 63,000 buildings that are underutilized and not utilized at all. This number has increased by more than 12,000 from only two years ago. It costs over $1.2 billion every year to operate these properties. The federal government should dispose of all excess properties within five years. According to the Obama Administration, at least $15 billion could be saved if the federal government gets rid of its unneeded properties.

End Subsidy for Ethanol Blending
Savings: $2 billion one time savings
Ethanol producers reap the benefits of a vast array of government assistance, including tax credits, grants, loans, loan guarantees, federally-directed markets, and a federal minimum usage mandate. The Volumetric Ethanol Excise Tax Credit provides a 45-cent-per-gallon federal tax credit to producers who blend ethanol with gasoline. Ethanol-blended fuel is nearly a third less efficient than gasoline, has contributed to the increased price of corn, and can cause engine damage. Ethanol subsidies are outdated, duplicative, and have failed to meet the intended goals of greater energy independence with a cleaner fuel alternative. The ethanol tax credit should be eliminated immediately.

Reduce the Number of Limousines Owned by the Government
Savings: $115.5 million over ten years
In the past two years, the federal government’s limousine fleet has grown by 73 percent. The federal government had 238 limos in 2008 and that number reached 412 last year. The number of limos owned by the federal government should be reduced to its previous level.

Reduce Federal Vehicle Fleet
Savings: $5.6 billion over ten years
Federal agencies own or lease over 662,000 cars, vans, sport-utility vehicles, trucks, buses and other vehicles. Since 2006, the federal vehicle fleet has grown by five percent and the cost of maintaining and servicing those vehicles has grown over 25 percent, to $4.6 billion. These vehicles consume about a million gallons of fuel per day. The General Services Administration will purchase more than 100 more vehicles this year. Instead, the number of vehicles in the federal fleet should be reduced by at least 20 percent.

Reduce Junkets and Unnecessary Travel
Savings: $43.3 billion over ten years
The federal government spends $15 billion on travel every year. All travel that is not mission-critical should be ended.

Reduce Advertising by the Federal Government
Savings: $5.6 billion over ten years
The federal government spent almost $1 billion on advertising last year. While some advertising may be needed, much of it is wasteful and unnecessary and this amount should be cut in half.

Limit the Amount Spent to Host Government Conferences
Savings: $1 billion over ten years
The federal government spent at least $2 billion on conferences between 2000 and 2006. Some conferences may provide important venues for exchanging ideas or providing training. Others appear to be little more than government funded vacations at beachside resorts and other exotic destinations. Traveling to meetings and hosting conferences are, in large part, no longer necessary with the availability of teleconferencing. Total spending on conferences should not exceed $100 million annually and conferences should only be held when other options are not feasible.

Use Better Measure of Inflation to Determine Increases in Benefit Payments
Savings: Approximately $180 billion over ten years
Many government benefits are automatically increased for inflation every year, based on the consumer price index (CPI). For more than 15 years, many budget experts have agreed the current CPI mechanism outpaces actual inflationary growth, causing the cost of government programs to rise rapidly. The Bureau of Labor Statistics developed a more accurate measure of inflation, known as Chained CPI, which over the last ten years has grown at a slightly slower rate than the current measure for CPI. Congress should adopt the recommendation of the President’s National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform to transition to Chained-CPI government wide to ensure this automatic spending increase is as accurate as possible to avoid uncontrolled automatic spending increases in federal programs.

Eliminate Hollywood Liaisons
Savings: $34.4 million over ten years
Many federal agencies have offices and programs to assist Hollywood movie producers and television execs, often with the goal of ensuring a positive portrayal of the federal government. The agencies have at least 14 employees costing $1.2 million. These should be eliminated.

Stop Purchasing Excess Land
Savings: $4.1 billion over ten years
The federal government has spent more than $430 million to purchase additional land since the start of the recent recession and more than $2.3 billion over the past decade. At the same time, the Department of the Interior maintenance backlog on public lands has surged to as high as $19.9 billion, resulting in serious risk to visitors and deteriorating conditions of important national treasures. The National Mall, for example, has been so neglected it has been called a national disgrace. Until the federal government can afford to take care of the land it already owns, it should be prohibited from purchasing additional land.

End Payments for Coal Cleanup When Projects Have Been Certified as Being Completed
Savings: $1.23 billion over ten years
The federal government continues to send funds intended for the cleanup up abandoned coal mines to several states and tribes that have already been certified as completing their work. The funds are unrestricted and have essentially become slush funds. These dollars should be used only for their intended purpose and directed to states with abandoned sites, with excess amounts should be returned.

Suspend the Automatic Pay Raise for Members of Congress
Savings: $6 million over three years
Members of Congress typically receive an automatic pay raise every year. Congress voted to freeze the salary of its member for the past two years at $174,000. The pay for members of Congress should be frozen for at least three more years.

Get the Department of Defense Out of Education and the Grocery Store Business
Savings: $19 billion over ten years
The Department of Defense currently operates hundreds of grocery stores and dozens of elementary schools in the United States. These grocery stores are in the same communities that have Wal-Mart, Costco, Safeway, and other choices for military personnel. Instead of paying our soldiers more money and allowing them to choose where to shop, we subsidize thousands of federal employees to work in grocery stores around the country. Similarly, the Department of Defense employs thousands of teachers in a unique school district called the Department of Defense Education Activity. Under the Pentagon’s management, taxpayers are spending more than $50,000 per student enrolled in these schools. The Pentagon should shut down its education bureaucracy, send much of this money to bolster local public schools, and return the rest for debt reduction.

Terminate HHS’s Community Economic Development Program
Savings: $38 million over ten years.
The mission of the Community Economic Development program (CED) duplicates 180 other government development programs, has a very low success rate, and does not fit within the mission or expertise of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). According to HHS’s most recent report to the Congress, only one out of five funded projects within the CED program were successful. Due to its lack of success, duplicative nature, and inappropriate placement within HHS, CED should be eliminated.

End Federal Subsidies to Wealthy Doctors and Hospitals for Health Information Technology
Savings: $15.6 billion over ten years.
The federal government mandates and subsidizes the use health information technology (IT) for doctors and hospitals, despite scant evidence doing so will lower costs. Taxpayers should not be forced to subsidize the purchase of health IT by doctors and hospitals.

Stop Medicare Payments for Uncovered Services
Savings: $1.97 billion over ten years.
Medicare currently only pays for medically necessary chiropractic services, but a HHS Inspector General report found the program improperly spent $178 million on chiropractic services in 2006. Implementing and enforcing current policies, along with more careful reviews of documentation, could save taxpayers nearly $2 billion over a decade.

This list is just a handful of the savings options contained within BACK IN BLACK. I would encourage you to review the thousands of other recommendations. I would also be interested in hearing other debt reduction ideas you might have.

Sincerely,
Tom A. Coburn, M.D.
U.S. Senator

Here Come the Judge: Judge Napolitano on the Debt, the President and You

Today after we heard President Obama’s Election 2012 kickoff speech while expecting to hear a speech on the budget… we heard from Judge Andrew Napolitano, sitting in for Glenn Beck as he is on the road for his Elegant Eliminations Tour, and guests.  the President said that the debt really does matter. For most of his tenure, he has been subscribing to a bogus economic philosophy that government spending can spur the economy - and that the government can spend as much as it wants in order to carry out this absurd idea. So, what if anything changed with today's speech?  Can someone say election spin??

Guests include Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (R-MN), Fox News Analyst Kirsten Powers, Nancy Skinner and CATO Institute's Mark Calabria.

Video:  The Debt, the President and You

 

Fox’s Neil Cavuto Conducts The Most Fiery Deficit Reduction Interview Ever? 

Election On:  ‘Spinmaster’ Obama Spins Budget Speech Into First Campaign Speech of the Season

Editorial:  Obama’s Honesty Deficit

Video:  Freshman Representatives First 100 Days On FOX Part I 

Video:  Freshman Representatives First 100 Days On Fox Part II

Video:  Obama vs. JFK on Taxes

Video:  Reagan on Taxes

The Budget Compromise Was a Big Fraud?!?

Heritage Foundation:  Pentagon Warns on Cost of Obama’s Plan to Slash Defense

Paul Ryan Discussing Obama’s Speech:   Ryan: Time to "act like adults".(SLAMS Man-Child Obama's Speech!)

Obama Goes in for the Kill

Election On: ‘Spinmaster’ Obama Spins Budget Speech into First Campaign Speech of the 2012 Season

The American people thought they were tuning into President Obama’s speech about the budget, the upcoming budge crisis, the debt ceiling battle and his solutions and a detailed plan, or at least an outline with some details.  Instead we heard a campaign speech filled with broad stroke rhetoric and short on detail.  At first I thought maybe I was being unfair, but when the Democratic strategist and commenter on the review panel with Shannon Breen, right after the speech started with, “Campaign On!!”, I realized that I was “on” as well.

The president took the time to try and regain control of his leadership deficit instead of focusing on on America’s budgetary deficit.  He tried to connect with  the “Middle Class” where he has lost support and with seniors, using scare tactics and double speak to address their fears.  Obama also attacked Paul Ryan’s plan without using Ryan’s name.

We are beginning to hear all the right words, that will be forgotten or changed, once the election is over, as we heard from Obama in 2007 – 2008 on the campaign trail.  The question is, “Will the American people fall of it again?”  Pollster Frank Luntz says based on his polls the answer is: “NO” but the country is definitely divided.

He Still Wants to Spread the Wealth Around ... Rich 'Can Afford to Give Back a Little Bit More'

President Obama's Remarks on His Debt Plan:

"For much of the last century, our nation found a way to afford these investments and priorities with the taxes paid by its citizens. As a country that values fairness, wealthier individuals have traditionally born a greater share of this burden than the middle class or those less fortunate. This is not because we begrudge those who've done well - we rightly celebrate their success. Rather, it is a basic reflection of our belief that those who have benefitted most from our way of life can afford to give a bit more back. Moreover, this belief has not hindered the success of those at the top of the income scale, who continue to do better and better with each passing year."

"Of course, there will be those who disagree with my approach. Some will argue we shouldn't even consider raising taxes, even if only on the wealthiest Americans. It's just an article of faith for them. I say that at a time when the tax burden on the wealthy is at its lowest level in half a century, the most fortunate among us can afford to pay a little more. I don't need another tax cut. Warren Buffett doesn't need another tax cut. Not if we have to pay for it by making seniors pay more for Medicare. Or by cutting kids from Head Start. Or by taking away college scholarships that I wouldn't be here without. That some of you wouldn't be here without. And I believe that most wealthy Americans would agree with me. They want to give back to the country that's done so much for them. Washington just hasn't asked them to. "

Obama Outlines New Deficit-Reduction Plan, Slams GOP Proposal

Published April 13, 2011 | FoxNews.com

Drawing a clear line between his budget priorities and a proposal pitched by Republicans, President Obama outlined a new spending plan Wednesday which he claimed would cut the deficit by $4 trillion within 12 years with a combination of spending cuts and tax increases on the wealthy.

Obama, in a speech at George Washington University which amounted to an opening argument in the emerging 2012 presidential campaign, positioned his latest spending plan as a more "compassionate" alternative to one introduced last week by GOP Rep. Paul Ryan. He applauded Republicans for putting a plan on the table to address entitlements, but the praise stopped there.

"The way this plan achieves those goals would lead to a fundamentally different America than the one we've known certainly in my lifetime," Obama said, calling their plan "deeply pessimistic." He suggested Republicans were giving up on basic functions of government.

"It's a vision that says if our roads crumble and our bridges collapse, we can't afford to fix them. If there are bright young Americans who have the drive and the will but not the money to go to college, we can't afford to send them," Obama said of the Republican plan. "It's a vision that says America can't afford to keep the promise we've made to care for our seniors."

The president's proposal would deal with entitlements like Medicare and Medicaid, but avoid the major changes being pushed by Ryan. The president opposes turning Medicaid into a block-grant program for states and making Medicare seniors purchase government-subsidized insurance, as Ryan proposed. Rather, he vowed to make other changes he claims will extract more than $300 billion in savings from those Medicare and Medicaid over the next decade. Plus he pushed cuts in discretionary spending, including to defense.

The president drew several lines in the sand, as the latest round of the budget debate gets underway. Accusing Republicans of cutting services to seniors and poor children while cutting taxes for the rich, Obama said: "That's not right, and that's not going to happen as long as I'm president."

The White House, instead, has called for a "balance" between cuts and changes to the tax code. Though the administration refers to this as "tax reform," the plan includes a call for rolling back the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy -- meaning a tax hike for households making more than $250,000.

Republicans and Democrats had agreed to extend all the Bush tax cuts for two years, but Obama said Wednesday, "I refuse to renew them again" for the wealthy.

"The most fortunate among us can afford to pay a little more. I don't need another tax cut," he said.

Republicans, though, have roundly opposed a tax hike for anyone.

"I hope we don't have a re-do and a do-over of the tax agreement," House Republican Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., said. "This was an issue that was litigated in the election last fall."

Having met with the president Wednesday morning before the speech, House Speaker John Boehner said that he made clear to the president that if the government is going to do something credible and meaningful, "raising taxes will not be part of that."

"The one area that we know we're not going to get very far on is that we're going to raise taxes on the very people we're counting on to ... create jobs," he said.

Obama's plan also called for a "failsafe" trigger, which would apply across-the-board spending cuts if the national debt, as a percentage of GDP, is not on the decline by 2014.

The speech effectively served as a counterproposal to the 2012 budget plan offered by Ryan. The chairman of the House Budget Committee has proposed a plan he claims will cut deficits by $4.4 trillion over the next decade, in large part by overhauling Medicare and Medicaid. He offsets the savings from some of the proposed spending cuts with tax cuts, leaving critics claiming his plan is out of balance, rewarding the wealthy while cutting programs for the poor.

While a rebuttal to Ryan's plan, Obama's speech is also a follow-up to the 2012 budget plan he put on the table earlier in the year.

Republicans have simultaneously welcomed Obama's entry into the latest debt debate while ridiculing him for waiting so long to do so.

"This is vintage Obama. He's been standing on the sidelines expecting the rest of us to make the tough decisions," Cantor said.

The new clash, just a week after the president announced he would seek re-election, ensures that the nation's fiscal health will be at the center of the 2012 presidential campaign. For the past two months, Obama has been arguing to protect his core spending priorities, including education and innovation. His turn to deficit reduction reflects the pressures he faces in a divided Congress and with a public increasingly anxious about the nation's debt, now exceeding $14 trillion.

The president is wading into a potential political thicket. Liberals fear he will propose cuts in prized Democratic programs like Medicare and Medicaid, the health care programs for older adults, the disabled and the poor, and in Social Security. Moderates worry that his plan could unravel bipartisan deficit-cutting negotiations. And Republicans already are poised to reject any proposal that includes tax increases.

A group of liberal Democrats on Wednesday described their latest budget plan, one they said was not necessarily meant as a substitute for the president's. The plan would make no cuts to entitlement programs, but would call for ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and rolling back the Bush tax cuts.

For the White House, the speech at George Washington University comes as Obama pushes Congress to raise the limit on the national debt, which will permit the government to borrow more and thus meet its financial obligations. The country will reach its debt limit of $14.3 trillion by May 16. The Treasury Department has warned that failure to raise it by midsummer would drive up the cost of borrowing and destroy the economic recovery.

Obama's speech comes just before Congress votes on a $38 billion package of spending cuts that averted a government shutdown last week. Despite widespread antipathy toward the deal in both parties, House Republicans and the White House predicted the plan, which covers spending for the next six months, would pass.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Raise ‘Em! Obama’s Grand Plan Includes Increasing Taxes

Video: Eat the Rich

Good Plan!! Republican Paul Ryan’s Budget Proposal Is Brave, Radical, and Smart 

Text of Obama’s “Budget/Economy” Speech

Ryan Will Respond to Obama Entitlement Reform Speech

Good Plan!! Republican Paul Ryan's budget proposal is brave, radical, and smart.

Good Plan! 

Republican Paul Ryan's budget proposal is brave, radical, and smart

By Jacob Weisberg  -  Posted Tuesday, April 5, 2011, at 6:09 PM ET

For the past 30 years, Republicans have been hypocrites about spending. They've raged against big government without ever proposing the kinds of cuts necessary to bring federal expenditures in line with tax revenues. Democrats have been more fiscally responsible, producing an actual budget surplus during Bill Clinton's second term. But they've been little better than Republicans when it comes to confronting the nation's long-term fiscal imbalance, which is driven by the projected growth in entitlement spending.

Rep. Paul Ryan holds a copy of the 2012 Republican budget proposal This dynamic of political evasion and reality-denial may have undergone a fundamental shift today with the release of Rep. Paul Ryan's 2012 budget resolution. The Wisconsin Republican's genuinely radical plan goes where Ronald Reagan and Newt Gingrich never did by terminating the entitlement status of Medicare and Medicaid. (It doesn't touch the third major entitlement, Social Security, though Ryan has elsewhere argued for extending its life by gradually raising the retirement age to 70.) Ryan changes Medicare into a voucher, which would be used to purchase private health insurance. He turns Medicaid into a block grant for states to spend as they choose. Though his budget committee isn't responsible for taxes, Ryan includes the boldest tax reform proposal since the 1980s, proposing to lower top individual and corporate rates to 25 percent and end deductions. While he's at it, Ryan caps domestic spending, repeals Obamacare, slashes farm subsidies, and more.

If the GOP gets behind his proposals in a serious way, it will become for the first time in modern memory an intellectually serious party—one with a coherent vision to match its rhetoric of limited government. Democrats are within their rights to point out the negative effects of Ryan's proposed cuts on future retirees, working families, and the poor. He was not specific about many of his cuts, and Democrats have a political opportunity in filling in the blanks. But the ball is now in their court, and it will be hard to take them seriously if they don't respond with their own alternative path to debt reduction and long-term solvency.

And before they reject everything in Ryan's plan, liberals might want to consider whether some of what he proposes doesn't in fact serve their own ultimate goals. Ryan's proposal to turn Medicare into a voucher provides an easy political target. But it's hard to make a principled liberal case for the program in its current form. To do so, you have to argue that government-paid health care should be a right only for people over the age of 65, and for no one else. Medicare covers doctor and hospital bills at 100 percent, regardless of income. This gives doctors and patients an incentive to maximize their use of the system and waste public resources. Choosing to pay 100 percent of Warren Buffett's medical bills while cutting Head Start reflects a strange set of social priorities, to say the least.

Ryan's alternative to Medicare hardly seems as terrible as Paul Krugman makes out. Seniors would enter the health care world the rest of us live in, with co-payments, deductibles and managed care. Eventually, cost control would require some tough decisions about end-of-life care and the rationing of high-tech treatments that have limited efficacy. But starting with a value of $15,000 per year, per senior—the amount government now spends on Medicare—Ryan's vouchers should provide excellent coverage. His change would amount to a minor amendment to the social contract, not a fundamental revision of it.

Effectively constraining the growth of Medicare could make it possible for Democrats to do a lot else that's important to them in the future. In 2010, Medicare spending was $519 billion, as compared with $666 billion for all nondefense domestic discretionary spending. Growing at more than 7 percent a year, Medicare is projected to eventually consume nearly all federal tax revenues. It is crowding out everything else that Washington does or might want to do. Conversely, cutting Medicare's growth rate to near the overall rate of the economy would do more than anything else to enable the kind of activist government liberals support—investment in kids, education, jobs, and infrastructure. Ryan's goal isn't to empower the federal government. But if your goal is a more interventionist public sector, you might find yourself on Ryan's side of the Medicare debate.

Of the alternatives we face in controlling long-term spending growth, moving Medicare to a voucher system seems only mildly unfortunate—and nothing as compared with a debt-driven economic crisis that could stem from inaction. As Ryan rightly points out, this kind of crisis could come at any time and could cast a pall over the country's entire future. Keeping Medicare as a fee-for-service program simply isn't worth that risk. If anything, liberals should go further than Ryan did in this plan, adding a means-test that would diminish Medicare subsidies for upper-income beneficiaries.

There are, of course, some sleight-of-hand tricks in Ryan's plan. What he claims would restore fiscal balance would do nothing of the kind over the next decade, leaving $400 billion in annual deficits as far as the eye can see. That's because he slips a large tax cut into his "reform," leaving government revenues perpetually two percentage points lower than spending expenditures as a share of GDP. What's needed is not more tax cuts but a modest tax increase, of the kind the Simpson-Bowles fiscal commission proposed. That failure is easily remedied, however, by adopting a top rate higher than the 25 percent he proposes, though still lower than the current 35 percent level.

Ryan also evades a lot of difficult particulars. He seldom spells out domestic spending cuts, preferring to kick the can down the road by applying "caps." He skirts the question of which deductions and tax subsidies he'd eliminate to pay for these lower rates. Unfortunately, you don't get big savings unless you eliminate mortgage interest and charitable deductions, which would be politically unpopular. Ryan includes the Heritage Foundation's projections about job growth triggered by his plan—4 percent unemployment in 2015 vs. 5.9 percent without the plan—that are a supply-side fantasy. His anti-bailout rhetoric is silly pandering. I could go on.

But more than anyone else in politics, Rep. Ryan has made a serious attempt to grapple with the long-term fiscal issue the country faces. He has a largely coherent, workable set of answers. If you don't like them, now you need to come up with something better.

Slate

Video:  Explaining Paul Ryan’s Budget Plan

But before we can even get to this budget proposal and the debt ceiling the present House and Senate have to come to an agreement on the budget that Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and President Obama pushed off into this year. They didn’t do their jobs to help themselves in the 2010 elections and now they are fighting the will of the people to cut spending which was the 2010 mandate and are trying to delay to make the GOP look like they are the bad guys and shut down the government… when they are only doing what they were elected to do… by the people.  Don’t buy into the smoke and mirrors of Reid, Pelosi and Obama.  That is how we got here.

And as usual, all of a sudden in the last hours Obama is looking concerned…

GOP CHICKEN RUN FATAL

If House Republicans accept a "compromise" of less than $61 billion in budget cuts, it will demonstrate that they will never really make good on their sole bargaining chip -- a government shutdown. If they don't do it over the continuing resolution (CR), they won't do it over the debt limit or the 2012 budget.

If the Republicans in the House accede to Democratic and administration demands that they accept a lesser figure in budget cuts, they will throw away all their power and be revealed as toothless and impotent, though still noisy. In this one act, they will throw away the victory of 2010.

And there is no need to cave in! The prospect of a government shutdown is not the only alternative. A targeted shutdown, which zero-funds programs we want to go away anyway and which the public will never miss, is the real option.

Don't shut down the government. Shut down the State Department and the Agency for International Development. Alone, that would generate the $61 billion in cuts. Zero-fund PBS and the Endowment for the Arts and Humanities. Zero-fund the Bonds for America Program ($12 billion). Zero-fund the stimulus programs for infrastructure construction and repair.

Senate Democrats and the Obama administration will not dare shut down the rest of the government in retaliation. If they do, the entire fight will be posed as: Do we want to eliminate foreign aid, or shut down the entire federal government to save it?

Once the Republicans win the fight in principle, they can back off the zero-funding and negotiate a CR that makes more sense and spreads the cuts more widely but still totals $61 billion. But during the shutdown phase, the shutdown must be targeted at agencies that have no popularity or domestic constituency.

Once Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and President Obama realize that House Republicans won't pull the trigger on a government shutdown (entire or targeted), there is no reason for them to negotiate seriously with the House. The GOP's leverage will evaporate, and its capacity to fulfill any of its campaign promises will have been vitiated.

Are the Democrats seriously to believe that House Republicans will kill the debt-limit increase if their demands are not met or will close the government on Oct. 1 if their budget is not adopted? Once the House Republicans back off on the CR, there is no way they can be taken seriously.

For Speaker John Boehner (Ohio), Majority Leader Eric Cantor (Va.), Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (Wis.) and Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers (Ky.), the stakes are their credibility within their own conference. The Tea Party Republicans and most of the freshmen are not going to support retreat from the $61 billion in cuts. They will be sustained by a massive outpouring of opposition to any compromise by their ground troops. By trying to do Harry Reid's work and jamming a compromise down the throats of the freshmen and Tea Party Republicans, Boehner, Cantor, Ryan and Rogers all risk a profound division in the party. In effect, they will be announcing a kind of coalition majority in the House, discarding the leftist Democrats and the Tea Party Republicans with equal disdain. The Republican House campaigns of 2012 will be riddled with primary contests and much of the establishment of the party will be swept from office in a sea of anger and outrage at their failure to keep their promises.

Any Republican who votes to compromise on the $61 billion is inviting a primary fight -- one in which I will happily participate. We elected the House Republicans to stand firm. We put them in office not to cave in. And now, we will find out what they are made of.

Dick Morris  - Former Advisor to Bill Clinton and author of: Revolt!  -  Published on TheHill.com on April 5, 2011

ALERT: Getting Our Fiscal House in Order and Changing Our ‘Normalcy Biased’ in Order to Save Ourselves, America and the World a Must!

As people left their offices in the burning Twin Towers on 9/11 after have planes strike them, they stopped to turn off their computers… as if they were actually ever coming back?  Why???  For the same reason that there are still people all across America who are not radicals and do not want their country transformed, nor believe in a One World Government, but are plodding along and even making plans as if life in America and the rest of the world had not changed… forever.  Are you one of those?  If so, time to change your ‘Normalcy Biased’ because we need you to help save this Country!!

In the video below: Beck covers the Normalcy Biased plus the federal government’s 'spending orgy' over the past two years. But now, as the election campaign season begins, we are hearing them talk tough about getting our fiscal house in order...but are they really serious about it? I think you already know the answer to that. But if not, you will after watching the program. Also, more on our favorite radicals... where was Van Jones and what exactly was he saying on September 12, 2001? Plus, Frances Fox Piven gives her own version of Glenn's "Tree of Revolution" at today's "teach-in".

Video:  Changing our Normal Biased to Save Ourselves, American and the World

Glenn Beck’s Overton Window is Today’s Chilling Story

April 5th, 2011

The following was written by Gina Miller. Her opinions don’t necessarily reflect those of ScottFactor.com, but because they’re here, they probably do.

The “elites” of the world view me as a “useless eater.”  I understand this and the evil thinking behind it.  I’m just a no-name blogger who is not only of no use to the elites, but in my writings, I am a small voice of opposition to their goals of a one world order, because I write about the virtues of true liberty with personal responsibility, the fragile preciousness of American sovereignty and the overarching truth of God’s Word.  That makes me an enemy of the state of the elites.

These thoughts are always in my mind, but recently they have been larger in my thinking after my trip back home to Texas.  My dear 82-year-old grandmother died on Tuesday, March 22, after suffering for a while with severe breathing problems.  Despite my previous vow to never fly again, especially in light of the overbearing and invasive Transportation and Safety Administration’s (TSA) excessive policies, I found it necessary to fly home for her funeral.

I was pleasantly surprised at the smooth trip.  The TSA workers were polite, and even though my city’s airport has one of those nude body scanners, it was not in use, so I did not have to choose between having my body groped and having a pornographic image made of myself.  The only thing I dealt with besides walking through the metal detector was the stupid requirement to remove my shoes, for which I had the Muslim moron Richard Reid, aka “the Shoe Bomber,” to thank.

On the return trip, I had a three-hour layover at Dallas-Fort Worth.  I had finished reading the novel I had brought along for time-killing, so I browsed a book store in the airport.  And, there they were: paperback copies of Glenn Beck’s The Overton Window.So, I thought, “I’ll bite,” and I bought a copy.

The first thing I noticed about the book was the strange depiction of the Statue of Liberty on the cover.  I immediately saw that although it looks like the Statue of Liberty, it is not an exact likeness.  This is explained in the book.  It turns out the figure is an imaginary cross between the Statue of Liberty and the Colossus of Rhodes.

Although the story is fiction, there are many true events woven in throughout the book.  After a disturbing prologue, the story opens in New York with the protagonist, a young man named Noah Gardner, who is the son of a powerful public relations magnate, Arthur Gardner.  The character of Noah’s father is loosely modeled after Edward Bernays, who was a nephew of Dr. Sigmund Freud and an American pioneer in public relations and propaganda.

Noah meets and is smitten with Molly Ross, whom we recognize as a type of Tea Partier, although she is not called a Tea Partier.  She belongs to a group called Founders’ Keepers, and she recognizes that “the America as we know it is about to be lost forever.”

The story goes from there as Noah is forced to face the hard truth of a globalist takeover of our country in the aftermath of an unheard-of attack on the United States.

I was impressed with Glenn Beck’s skill as a storyteller.  His writing style is fresh and distilled, not given to excessive descriptions or flowery words to say what he wants to say.  The story is fast-paced and intense, and it is apparent that Glenn and his team did a boatload of research in crafting the story.

The Overton Window concept is explained in the book and on the book’s back cover,

“There is a powerful technique called the Overton Window that can shape our lives, our laws, and our future.  It manipulates public perception so that ideas once seen as radical become acceptable over time.  Move the Window and you change the debate.  Change the debate and you change the country.”

I have Glenn to thank for a song being stuck in my head right now.  One of the book’s characters, a member of the Founders’ Keepers group, is a man named Danny Bailey.  As soon as I read his name in the book, Elton John’s song, “The Ballad of Danny Bailey (1909—1934)” from his Goodbye Yellow Brick Road album popped into my head and has been playing off and on ever since.  I don’t know if Glenn considered the ill-fated character in the song when naming his book’s character, but it could be that he did.

Glenn’s book highlights the long-standing plan by the globalists to assimilate America into one world governance.  It’s plain that we’re just a moment away from it, even at the door.  Many of us are waiting and watching for “the event” that plunges us into a total police state where citizen patriots are rounded up in special detainment centers—for our own good and the good of the country, of course.

The events in The Overton Window are entirely plausible.  You cannot read this book and think it can’t happen here.  Our  nation is teetering on the brink of financial collapse.  We cannot imagine a situation that makes the Great Depression look like a walk in the park, but we are being set up for just such a time.

What about a catastrophic terrorist attack?  Whether an attack is done by Islamists or shadowy globalists, the result would be the same, and our already vanishing liberties could be suddenly and completely swept away in a tide of martial law.  Our government and military have done extensive planning for just such a scenario, and Glenn includes citations in the back of his book of a few example stories.  In fact, he includes forty pages of footnote-type citations in the afterward of the book.

The elites have been hard at work for at least a hundred years in our country, determined to undermine our free republic and subvert the Constitution.  They want the United States to be like the rest of the world, where freedom exists only in theory, if at all.  While the elites have worked toward their goals, most Americans have slept and allowed the government to mutate from servant of the people to master of the people.  Glenn points this out in his book.  Glenn also illustrates in the book the fact that I mentioned in the first sentence of this column about being viewed by the elites as a “useless eater.”

As our nation has collectively turned its back on God, killed millions of our babies in the womb, and embraced all manner of sinful behavior, it should come as no surprise that we are getting the government we deserve.  In reading The Overton Window, you get a powerful sense of powerlessness in the face of global evilists—yes, there’s a nice new term for us—but it’s not written as an entirely hopeless situation.

Although the evilists in Glenn’s book do not fully succeed in implementing their age-old plans, you can see they’re on the brink of doing so.  Can we stop them?  That is the question, and I know the ultimate answer in this world is no, because the Bible tells me so.  But, that still does not mean we are without hope.  Those of us who cling to God through Jesus Christ have all the hope in the world, and we know how this story ends.  It ends very badly for the enemies of God and the kings of the world.

Glenn’s book ends on a clear “sequel forthcoming” note.  The future Overton Window book or books have many storyline possibilities, and it will be scary to read them.  Some of us occasionally read novels as a distraction from our real-world lives and problems.  The Overton Window is not a distraction from the real world, but a focus on the world as it is.  So, if you’re looking for an escape from the world, this book is not for you, but if you don’t mind looking reality in the face and staring into the eyes of the truth behind the lies of the world, I recommend a dose of The Overton Window.

Originally from Texas, Gina is a graduate of William Carey College in Gulfport, MS, with a Bachelor of Fine Arts. Gina currently presents an audio blog on News Radio 104.9 FM in Biloxi, MS. Her blogs can be heard twice weekly on the Kipp Gregory morning show.

If you have not read The Overton Window… it is a must read, for both the fiction and non-fiction fan!!

Check Out This Great New Song From The Country Group Cimmaron called "Takin' The Country Back".

Related:

Republican Paul Ryan’s Budget Proposal is Brave, Radical and Smart…  And is what needs to be done!

As Government Shutdown Looms… Obama Attends Gala in New York

Boehner:  Democrats Win in a Shutdown… Unless Americans Are Smart Enough to Figure Out That the GOP Did the Right Thing… Let’s Hope!

Reuters:  Markets Weigh Two U.S. Shutdowns:  1 Bad, 1 Awful

Video: Explaining Paul Ryan’s Budget Plan

Good Plan!!  Republican Paul Ryan’s Budget Proposal Is Brave, Radical and Smart

Rep. Paul Ryan: Democrats WILL Demagogue Republicans Budget Plan

Video:  Rep. Paul Ryan: Democrats WILL Demagogue Republicans Budget Plan

Republican Budget Plan to Eliminate National Debt: Ryan (CNBC)

CNBC ^ | April 5,2011 | Jeff Cox  -  Tuesday, April 05, 2011 8:51:12 AM · by Hojczyk · 28 replies

The Republican budget proposal will eliminate the national debt while still preserving costly entitlement programs like Medicare and Social Security, Rep. Paul Ryan told CNBC. Speaking just hours before the spending plan gets its formal introduction before Congress, Ryan, head of the House Budget Committee, said the debt will peak at 74.5 percent of gross domestic product in 2014 and then drop from there. "We've got to show the country that we can get this situation under control and grow the economy, and that's what we're doing," he said. "So whether (Democratic Senate Majority Leader) Harry Reid is willing to...

WATCH Paul Ryan Explains $6.2 Trillion Budget Cuts to Glenn as Gov’t Shutdown Looms GOVERNMENT

"We owe this to our country."

It’s a bold plan to slash government spending. But so far, it’s falling on deaf ears.

Republicans in the House today unveiled a new plan to cut $6.2 trillion from the federal budget over the next 10 years. Spearheaded by House Budge Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI), the proposal is meant to provide a framework for government spending and fiscal responsibility.

On radio today, Ryan talked with Glenn Beck about what’s exactly in the proposal, and explained why it’s important to pass it.

“We’re talking about shrinking the Federal workforce by 10% over the next three years through attrition, pay freezes in the Federal workforce,” he explained to Beck. “We’re talking about cutting discretionary spending on government agencies below 2008 levels. We’re talking about entitlement reform, block granting Medicaid to the states, and doing welfare reform 2.0 which is food stamps, housing programs.”  Read More »

GOP introduces one-week stopgap with $12B in spending cuts

The Hill ^ | 4/5/11 | Molly K. Hooper and Russell Berman  -  Tuesday, April 05, 2011 8:37:09 AM · by The Big Boo · 16 replies

Republicans on Monday night introduced a measure to fund the military through September and government operations for one more week. House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) told his conference about the legislation — which contains $12 billion in spending cuts — during a Monday night meeting, his office said. The move is intended to prevent a government shutdown that would start after Friday unless Congress approves another measure to fund the government.

White House Orders Agencies To Prep For Government Shutdown

TPM ^ | April 5, 2011, 8:43AM | Brian Beutler |  -  Tuesday, April 05, 2011 9:34:49 AM · by 11th_VA · 25 replies

It's not just the House of Representatives. In another sign that neither side in the spending cut fight is confident that a government shutdown can be avoided, the White House has ordered federal agencies to prep for a government shutdown. Ed O'Keefe at the Washington Post obtained the memo from a federal official, and confirmed its authenticity with the Office of Management and Budget. "[G]iven the realities of the calendar, good management requires that we continue contingency planning for an orderly shutdown should the negotiations not be completed by" April 8, the memo reads. More guidance should be forthcoming today....

Meet The 171 Banks For Which The Margin Of Failure Is One Thousand Dollars: At this point the majority of the population is transfixed by the biggest borrowers from the discount window. Yes, we know by now that the bulk of these were foreign banks, primarily Dexia and Depfa, but that is simply because only Bank Holding Companies, or depository institutions (and yes, last we checked Goldman deposit branches are still sorely missing), are allowed discount window access. more

Two separate threads…

IMF Chief: 'Black Swans' Still Haunt Global Finance(many are swimming around)

IMF economists see dire future for US taxpayers -  AFP ^ | 04/04/2011

Americans will need to pay much heavier taxes and accept less from public healthcare to put state finances on a sustainable track, according to an IMF study published Monday.

"The United States is facing an untenable fiscal situation due to the combination of high fiscal deficits, an aging population and rapid growth in government-provided healthcare benefits," three International Monetary Fund economists said in a report.

(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...

h/t to Jean Stoner

Budget Cuts and Holding the Spending Line…

SEE THE CHILLING PRESENTATION PAUL RYAN’S USING TO PUSH BUDGET CUTS:

Our friends over at Business Insider have uncovered the chilling presentation GOP Rep. Paul Ryan (chairman of the House Budget Committee) is using to push for budget cuts in Washington. The information, as presented in graphs, will probably upset you.

Here are a few slides from the presentation, “The Choice of Two Futures:”

See the rest at Business Insider.

Taxpayers on Hook as Obama Joins a New International Renewable Energy Agency   

(CNSNews.com) – At a time when congressional Republicans are looking for ways to reduce U.S. funding to the United Nations, the Obama administration has formalized its membership in a new international body – and American taxpayers will provide more than one-fifth of its budget. The administration on Friday deposited its instrument of acceptance to join the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), State Department spokesman Philip Crowley announced. After joining in June 2009, the U.S. now becomes the 63rd fully ratified member of IRENA, a European-inspired initiative set up in 2009 to promote renewable forms of energy such as wind and solar... Read More HERE

h/t to Jean Stoner

Putting House GOP's $61 Billion Spending Cuts in Perspective Using 61 Billion Peanuts

This short video, produced by the Cato Institute, puts $61 Billion in spending cuts into alarming perspective, yet the Dems and Harry Reid think their cuts are outrageous and Reid is worried about saving Northern Nevada Poetry readings???

HOLDING THE SPENDING LINE

too many politicians on both sides have simply lost touch with reality when it comes to government spending. But there is always hope when you have a few braves souls in Congress willing to shut down the government if it will not act responsibly. Plus, you think gas is expensive now? What would prices look like if Mideast protests spread to Saudi Arabia? Tonight Judge Napolitano welcomes Sen. Jerry Moran (R-KS), Dr. Walid Phares, LTG (Ret) Jerry Boykin, PFG Best Analyst Phil Flynn, WI Lt. Governor Rebecca Kleefisch, Senator Pat Toomey, Zuhdi Jassar and Jacob Hornberger.

Video:  Judge Andrew Napolitano – Holding the Spending Line

Video:  At Your Beck and Call – The Dollar in Terms of Cupcakes

RED ALERT: Republican Betrayal Nears on Debt Vote. Stop Them NOW!

Dear Fellow Taxpayer: It didn't take long. The new Republican leadership appears ready to approve FULL FUNDING for the Obama Administration's insidious – yet resoundingly rejected – agenda for America. Your action is needed at once. You and I can – in fact, MUST – send the GOP leadership an unmistakable message right now, BEFORE the disease of Republican compromise infects Washington once again. If Republicans cave in and join with the Democrats to raise America's debt ceiling above the already staggering current limit of $14.3 trillion, Obamacare will be funded, the bailouts will continue, and out-of-control federal bureaucrats will stay fat and happy – feasting on another wave of taxpayer money while our nation's economy continues to sink. That's why I need your help today – RIGHT NOW! – in telling the Republican leadership: NO NEW DEBT FOR THE OBAMA AGENDA!! It's vital you fill out your petition below to Speaker John Boehner and other Republican leaders and submit it without delay. Please do so at once... because Boehner and others are already talking compromise on this bellwether fiscal issue, only months after the momentous election. Let me explain. As we point out in the current issue of my financial and self-reliance advisory Independent Living, the Federal Reserve is already publicly committed to print some $75 billion a month to service massive federal budget deficits and allow the federal establishment's unchecked expansion to continue. This massive subsidy to rampant federal spending was never voted upon by Congress or the American people – at least $600 billion in new money is being printed and given to the insolvent federal government – completely beyond the control of democratic processes that define a free America and further destroying the value of every dollar you earn, spend, save, or invest. The only way to put a stop to this insanity is for Congress to REFUSE to raise the debt limit. A congressional vote is scheduled in just a few days, which is why you must... Send Your Petition To Oppose More Government Borrowing NOW! Responsible Members of Congress who say they plan to vote "NO" on increasing the government's reckless plan of borrowing more money are already being derided by big-spenders and other statists as "The Shutdown Caucus" (a reference to the possibility that parts of the federal government could be shut down if the Treasury isn't given even more credit). Let's flood the Republican House and Senate leadership with a sea of grassroots petitions bearing the unmistakable message: STOP digging the debt hole deeper! Our national debt is already 90% of gross domestic product (GDP). By increasing the debt to 100% or more, America could join the ranks of banana republics which have destroyed their currencies and plunged their economies into chaos. Make your voice heard now – tell the new GOP leadership to do the right thing and vote to cut the national credit card in half – "Step One" to restraining our out-of-control federal government. No more federal debt on the backs of our children and grandchildren! It's urgent you sign your petition right now – and help send a message loud and clear. Yours in Freedom and Prosperity, Lee Bellinger, Publisher Independent Living P.S. Help me send the message to the incoming Republican leadership, before the Republican disease of compromise infects Washington once again: NO NEW DEBT FOR THE OBAMA AGENDA! Sign and submit your petition NOW!

Obama Aims to Axe Moon Mission

President Obama and Vice President Biden are heading south after the State of the Union to a Town Hall Meeting. And it has been hinted that President Obama may be making an announcement prior to the release of his budget proposals on Monday… What is the big announcement?? Will it be that he will cripple the Space Program or will he create a new paradigm for private participation? Cripple or Create… is the question.

NASA's plans to return astronauts to the moon are dead. So are the rockets being designed to take them there — that is, if President Barack Obama gets his way.

When the White House releases his budget proposal Monday, there will be no money for the Constellation program that was supposed to return humans to the moon by 2020. The troubled and expensive Ares I rocket that was to replace the space shuttle to ferry humans to space will be gone, along with money for its bigger brother, the Ares V cargo rocket that was to launch the fuel and supplies needed to take humans back to the moon.
There will be no lunar landers, no moon bases, no Constellation program at all.

In their place, according to White House insiders, agency officials, industry executives and congressional sources familiar with Obama's long-awaited plans for the space agency, NASA will look at developing a new "heavy-lift" rocket that one day will take humans and robots to explore beyond low Earth orbit. But that day will be years — possibly even a decade or more — away.

In the meantime, the White House will direct NASA to concentrate on Earth-science projects — principally, researching and monitoring climate change — and on a new technology research and development program that will one day make human exploration of asteroids and the inner solar system possible.

There will also be funding for private companies to develop capsules and rockets that can be used as space taxis to take astronauts on fixed-price contracts to and from the International Space Station — a major change in the way the agency has done business for the past 50 years.

The White House budget request, which is certain to meet fierce resistance in Congress, scraps the Bush administration's Vision for Space Exploration and signals a major reorientation of NASA, especially in the area of human spaceflight.

"We certainly don't need to go back to the moon," said one administration official.

Everyone interviewed for this article spoke on condition of anonymity, either because they are not authorized to talk for the White House or because they fear for their jobs. All are familiar with the broad sweep of Obama's budget proposal, but none would talk about specific numbers because these are being tightly held by the White House until the release of the budget.

But senior administration officials say the spending freeze for some federal agencies is not going to apply to the space agency in this budget proposal. Officials said NASA was expected to see some "modest" increase in its current $18.7 billion annual budget — possibly $200 million to $300 million more but far less than the $1 billion boost agency officials had hoped for.
They also said that the White House plans to extend the life of the International Space Station to at least 2020. One insider said there would be an "attractive sum" of money — to be spent over several years — for private companies to make rockets to carry astronauts there.

But Obama's budget freeze is likely to hamstring NASA in coming years as the spending clampdown will eventually shackle the agency and its ambitions. And this year's funding request to develop both commercial rockets and a new NASA spaceship will be less than what was recommended by a White House panel of experts last year.

That panel, led by former Lockheed Martin CEO Norm Augustine, concluded that to have a "viable" human space-exploration program, NASA needed a $3 billion annual budget hike, and that it would take as much as $5 billion distributed over five years to develop commercial rockets that could carry astronauts safely to and from the space station.

Last year, lawmakers prohibited NASA from canceling any Constellation programs and starting new ones in their place unless the cuts were approved by Congress. The provision sends a "direct message that the Congress believes Constellation is, and should remain, the future of America's human space flight program," wrote U.S. Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., last month.
Nevertheless, NASA contractors have been quietly planning on the end of Ares I, which is years behind schedule and millions of dollars over budget. NASA has already spent more than $3 billion on Ares I and more than $5 billion on the rest of Constellation.
In recent days, NASA has been soliciting concepts for a new heavy-lift rocket from major contractors, including Boeing Co., Lockheed Martin Corp. and Pratt & Whitney. Last week, a group of moonlighting NASA engineers and rocket hobbyists proposed variations on old agency designs that use the shuttle's main engines and fuel tank to launch a capsule into space. According to officials and industry executives familiar with the presentations, some of the contractor designs are very similar to the one pressed by the hobbyists.

Officially, companies such as Boeing still support Constellation and its millions of dollars of contracts. Some believe that in a battle with Congress, Ares may survive.

"I would not say Ares is dead yet," said an executive with one major NASA contractor. "It's probably more accurate to say it's on life support. We have to wait to see how the coming battle ends."

Few doubt that a fight is looming. In order to finance new science and technology programs and find money for commercial rockets, Obama will be killing off programs that have created jobs in some powerful constituencies, including the Marshall Space Flight Center in Shelby's Alabama. But the White House is said to be ready for a fight.

The end of the shuttle program this year is already going to slash 7,000 jobs at Kennedy Space Center.

One administration official said the budget will send a message that it's time members of Congress recognize that NASA can't design space programs to create jobs in their districts. "That's the view of the president," the official said.

Robert Block, who reported from Cape Canaveral, can be reached at rblock@orlandosentinel.com or 321-639-0522.

Mark K. Matthews, who reported from Washington, can be reached at mmatthews@orlandosentinel.com or 202-824-8222.

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