Just Say No: Rep Jeff Landry (LA) turns down invitation to White House

The Hill: A freshman GOP lawmaker rejected an invitation to the White House on Wednesday, saying he didn't want to be “lectured” by President Obama.

“I have respectfully declined the president’s invitation to the White House today,” Rep. Jeff Landry (La.) said in a statement. “I don’t intend to spend my morning being lectured to by a president whose failed policies have put our children and grandchildren in a huge burden of debt.” [...]

Landry said he would not sit down with Obama to negotiate on a deficit reduction compromise until Obama produces his own budget plan.

“Until the president produces a responsible deficit reduction plan, I’m not going to the White House to negotiate with myself. Our conference has put out for months where we would start the process,” Landry continued. [...]

Landry also criticized Obama for neglecting to meet with the Louisiana delegation about a drilling moratorium off the Gulf of Mexico.

“The President has done nothing, just like he has for the people of the Gulf Coast,” Landry said.

“For months, the Louisiana delegation has sent the president numerous requests to meet with him or his chief of staff concerning the de facto moratorium issued in the Gulf of Mexico, a de facto moratorium that has driven gas prices up and now threatens to derail economic recovery; the president hasn’t even had the courtesy to write us a note back.”

Landry said the meeting was just “political grandstanding” on Obama’s part.

“I refuse to partake in his political grandstanding that will ultimately do nothing for debt reduction and job creation,” Landry said.

Kudos! It is about time some Republican stopped playing political games with serious issues. Obama has no serious plan for debt reduction or deficit spending. Yet, the GOP leadership cannot fall over themselves fast enough to compromise their position away. How different things would be if John Boehner has spunk like this? At least there is one fellow man enough to say, I ain't playin'.

Via: Memeorandum
Via: The Hill

Video: Paul Ryan calls out Obama's deficit speech

The Blaze: “Exploiting people’s emotions of fear, envy, and anxiety, is not hope–it’s not change. It’s partisanship. We don’t need partisanship. We don’t need demagoguery. We need solutions”

Ryan also said, “What we heard today was not fiscal leadership from our commander in chief. What we heard today was a political broadside from our campaigner-in-chief.”

“Rather than building bridges, he’s poisoning wells,” the Wisconsin congressman said.

The boyish looking man is sounding ten times more grown up than the president. Anyone want to be that Obama will not go face to face with Ryan on this issue?

Via: The Blaze

Obama's speech on the deficit (Video and Text)

Video Part 2

Video Part 3

Full Text

We are living in some very serious times. Our deficits and debts are dangerously threatening the stability of our nation and promises a diminished way of life for our children and grandchildren. Serious adult leadership is required to make the tough choices now to advert a certain catastrophe tomorrow.

The speech Obama gave on his idea of deficit reduction was neither leadership, serious or adult. Instead Obama gave us typical Obama complete with empty rhetoric, contradictions and partisan campaign attacks. How anyone, left, right or center, can take this man seriously when it comes to this topic is beyond understanding.

From the moment Obama took the stage, his light and jovial manner seems so wildly inappropriate for the subject at hand. (See 0:00 - 0:30)

When Obama explains how we have reached these large deficits, he refuses to take any responsiblity for adding to it. Rather Obama paints his massive additions only in a positive light.

Of course, that’s not what happened. And so, by the time I took office, we once again found ourselves deeply in debt and unprepared for a Baby Boom retirement that is now starting to take place. When I took office, our projected deficit was more than $1 trillion. On top of that, we faced a terrible financial crisis and a recession that, like most recessions, led us to temporarily borrow even more. In this case, we took a series of emergency steps that saved millions of jobs, kept credit flowing, and provided working families extra money in their pockets. It was the right thing to do, but these steps were expensive, and added to our deficits in the short term.

Really? No mention of the $1 trillion health care reform we could not afford. No mention of the $800 billion + failed stimulus. No mention of the $3 trillion + budgets he submitted. No mention of his failure to demand a budget from the last Congress, controlled by his own party no less.

I was really stunned by the blatant contradictions, that Obama delivered with a straight face. Here is an example:

Worst of all, this is a vision that says even though America can’t afford to invest in education or clean energy; even though we can’t afford to care for seniors and poor children, we can somehow afford more than $1 trillion in new tax breaks for the wealthy. Think about it. In the last decade, the average income of the bottom 90% of all working Americans actually declined. The top 1% saw their income rise by an average of more than a quarter of a million dollars each. And that’s who needs to pay less taxes? They want to give people like me a two hundred thousand dollar tax cut that’s paid for by asking thirty three seniors to each pay six thousand dollars more in health costs? That’s not right, and it’s not going to happen as long as I’m President.

Are you kidding me? Didn't this guy extend the Bush tax cuts when his own party still had control of Congress? If Obama even remotely believed any of this he would have led his party to rescind the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, but instead he did what was politically expedient. Do lefties really still trust this guy on this subject?

Obama's deficit plan to cut $4 trillion over 12 years is pure unicorn fantasy.

Today, I’m proposing a more balanced approach to achieve $4 trillion in deficit reduction over twelve years. It’s an approach that borrows from the recommendations of the bipartisan Fiscal Commission I appointed last year, and builds on the roughly $1 trillion in deficit reduction I already proposed in my 2012 budget. It’s an approach that puts every kind of spending on the table, but one that protects the middle-class, our promise to seniors, and our investments in the future.

How can he even project 12 years out when the CBO themselves admit that their best projections are iffy at 10 years? Half of the reductions about is talking about has already been shown that it will not materialize. The CBO has already said there will be no $1 trillion in savings from ObamaCare and Obama's 2012 budget clearly adds to deficits.

This budget plan of Obama seems best suited for campaign talking points rather than a serious attempt at cutting out debt or reducing deficit spending. Republicans's failure to educate the public on how dire our fiscal situation is, has allowed Obama the ability to put forth this silly plan. Despite the Republican's failure, the question remain, does Obama have any credibility on fiscal matters to actually sell this plan? The poll await.

Via: Memeorandum
Via: The Wall Street Journal

Let the squealing begin: The GOP Path to Prosperity

That squealing noise you hear this morning are Democrats beginning their collective whine over Paul Ryan's proposed budget plan. On Fox News Sunday Paul Ryan told Chris Wallace that the plan would have over $4 trillion in cuts, he wasn't kidding. The plan has over $6 trillion in cuts and puts practically everything on the table from defense spending,Medicaid, domestic spending, tax reform and even spending caps. Only Social Security is not fully addressed.

Wall Street Journal: The president's recent budget proposal would accelerate America's descent into a debt crisis. It doubles debt held by the public by the end of his first term and triples it by 2021. It imposes $1.5 trillion in new taxes, with spending that never falls below 23% of the economy. His budget permanently enlarges the size of government. It offers no reforms to save government health and retirement programs, and no leadership.

Our budget, which we call The Path to Prosperity, is very different. For starters, it cuts $6.2 trillion in spending from the president's budget over the next 10 years, reduces the debt as a percentage of the economy, and puts the nation on a path to actually pay off our national debt. Our proposal brings federal spending to below 20% of gross domestic product (GDP), consistent with the postwar average, and reduces deficits by $4.4 trillion.

A study just released by the Heritage Center for Data Analysis projects that The Path to Prosperity will help create nearly one million new private-sector jobs next year, bring the unemployment rate down to 4% by 2015, and result in 2.5 million additional private-sector jobs in the last year of the decade. It spurs economic growth, with $1.5 trillion in additional real GDP over the decade. According to Heritage's analysis, it would result in $1.1 trillion in higher wages and an average of $1,000 in additional family income each year.

Despite these massive cuts, keep in mind that at the end of ten years, the debt still is not paid off. This should prove to be a very valuable fact for Republicans as Democrats will undoubtedly trot out their favorite buzz words like "radical", "draconian" and Chucky's favorite "extreme". This fact should also help the public begin to understand just how much bigger cuts must be if we really want to pay off our debt.

National Review has this video up and Paul Ryan does a very good job explaining our debt problem.

Via: Memeorandum

Via: The Wall Street Journal
Via: National Review

Marco Rubio: Why I won't raise the debt limit

Marco Rubio has an Op-Ed in the Wall Street Journal tomorrow where he details his reasoning for why he will vote against raising the debt ceiling.

Wall Street Journal: I will vote to defeat an increase in the debt limit unless it is the last one we ever authorize and is accompanied by a plan for fundamental tax reform, an overhaul of our regulatory structure, a cut to discretionary spending, a balanced-budget amendment, and reforms to save Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.[...]

Some say we will go into default if we don't increase the debt limit. But if we simply raise it once again, without a real plan to bring spending under control and get our economy growing, America faces the very real danger of a catastrophic economic crisis.

I know that by writing this, I am inviting political attack. When I proposed reforms to Social Security during my campaign, my opponent spent millions on attack ads designed to frighten seniors. But demagoguery is the last refuge of the spineless politician willing to do anything to win the next election.
Whether they admit it or not, everyone in Washington knows how to solve these problems. What is missing is the political will to do it. I ran for the U.S. Senate because I want my children to inherit what I inherited: the greatest nation in human history. It's not too late. The 21st century can also be the American Century. Our people are ready. Now it's time for their leaders to join them. [MORE]

The arguments Rubio makes in his Op-Ed are the kinds of things the Republican leadership should have been saying loudly on November 4, 2010. Democrats have taken the lead in messaging with claiming that failure to raise the debt ceiling will lead to economic Armageddon.

Republicans were handed a mandate back in November, there is little reason to be coy about using it. Republicans should have set a firm goal of something like $500 billion in cuts for the 2012 budget then come up with only $250 billion worth of cut and then demand the Democrats come up with the rest. This would have been a far better strategy than letting Democrats sit back and demand Republicans detail where all the cuts are coming from.

Via: Memeorandum
Via: The Wall Street Journal

Truth Alert! Obama's OMB nominee admits that Obama's 2012 budget doesn't pay down the debt

In the teeniest and tiniest way I kind of feel sorry for Obama's Office of Management and Budget (OMB) nominee. Clearly she isn't a bold face liar, yet she was sent out there to defend the indefensible. Even the most expert BS artist would find it impossible to prove Obama's budget doesn't add to the debt when anyone with two eyes can see deficits all over the place.

The Daily Caller: President Obama’s nominee for deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) tried, but failed to defend the proposed budget for fiscal year 2012 in a Senate Budget Committee hearing Thursday afternoon.
Obama’s nominee, Heather Higginbottom, crumbled under questioning from Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, ranking member of the committee, about the accuracy of statements the president and OMB Director Jacob Lew have made that the proposed budget will not add to the national debt.

Sessions: Did Mr. Lew or the President of the United States, when they made that statement “we will not be adding to the debt,” did they say, “by the way American people, what we really mean is some arcane idea about not counting interest payments the United States must make as part of our debt?” Did they say that?

Higginbottom: I’m not sure exactly what they did say.

Sessions: Well if they didn’t say that, would that be an accurate statement?

Higginbottom: The interest costs on what we’re borrowing add to the debt…

Obama's 2012 budget is a complete farce. If the media in this country wasn't a pack of left wing activists, Obama would have been laughed off the stage for even attempting to say his budget does anything but add to the debt. Hopefully more people will wake up to this farce before 2012.

Via: Memeorandum
Via: The Daily Caller

Katherine Hamm destroys Michael Moore's "national resource" theory

I love how this video puts our outrageous spending problem into perspective and kicks Michael Moore's foolishness to the curb.

You can read Katherine Hamm's article that accompanies this video here.

Via: Memeorandum
Via: The Daily Caller

Oopsie! Kathleen Sebelius admits to double counting in ObamaCare

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius was corned today by Republican Rep. John Shimkus of Illinois at the House Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee.  Shimkus pressed Sebelius hard on the double counting of the $500 billion in cuts from Medicare and Sebelius spilled the beans.

The Daily Caller: In her first appearance before the House Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee since the health-care law passed, Kathleen Sebelius responded to a line of questioning by Republican Rep. John Shimkus of Illinois about whether $500 billion in Medicare cuts were used to sustain the program or pay for the law.

“There is an issue here on the budget because your own actuary has said you can’t double-count,” said Shimkus. “You can’t count — they’re attacking Medicare on the CR when their bill, your law, cut $500 billion from Medicare.”

He continued: “Then you’re also using the same $500 billion to what? Say your funding health care. Your own actuary says you can’t do both. […] What’s the $500 billion in cuts for? Preserving Medicare or funding the health-care law?
Sebelius’ reply? “Both.”

What pisses me off about this is that we knew the Democrats were cooking the book before ObamaCare passed. We knew about the bogus assumption the Democrats fed the CBO. We knew about how Democrats passed the Doc Fix separately and we certainly knew about the double counting.  Had the media pressed Obama and the Democrats as hard as Rep. Shimkus pressed Sebelius, America would not be $500 billion more in the whole.  Instead our media went right along with the gag that ObamaCare would lower the deficit.


I wish Shimkus had a few more minutes to ask Sebelius exactly where in the hell America is suppose to get the extra $500 billion the Democrats tried to hide?


Should America end up flat on her back busted broke, we should not vent all of our wrath at the Democrats' reckless spending.  We should make sure to give some of that wrath to the Democrats' media lapdogs too.


Via: Memorandum
Via: The Daily Caller

More smoke and mirrors: Obama announces government employee pay freeze

New York Times: WASHINGTON — President Obama on Monday announced a two-year pay freeze for civilian federal workers as he sought to address concerns over high annual deficits and appealed to Republicans to find a common approach to restoring the nation’s economic and fiscal health.

“The hard truth is that getting this deficit under control is going to require some broad sacrifice, and that sacrifice must be shared by employees of the federal government,” Mr. Obama told reporters. He called federal workers “patriots who love their country” but added, “I’m asking civil servants to do what they’ve always done” for the nation.

The pay freeze amounted to an opening bid as the president and Republican Congressional leaders begin jousting in earnest over tax and spending policy. It also illustrated how Mr. Obama can use his office on occasion to get ahead of newly elected Republicans; they had been talking about making such a move when they assume control of the House and additional Senate seats in January.

But while the move represents a gesture toward public anger over the anemic economic recovery and rising national debt, the $5 billion to be saved over two years will barely dent a deficit that has exceeded $1 trillion for the past two years.[…] [MORE]

This all sounds so lovely on paper, but there are a few problems that are going unnoticed.  First of all, we are at a record number of federal employees. As of February 2010 the Federal employee workforce was an astounding 2.15 million people, the highest ever. Second, we also have a record number of Federal employees making over $150,000.00.

What we have here is your typical game of political smoke and mirrors. For the casual follower of politics and government, a pay freeze sounds like a responsible move.  However, when you realize the facts above, you understand that all Obama is doing is locking in big and expensive government for the next two years.

What is truly needed is for the Federal workforce to take some serious PAY CUTS and undergo some serious DOWNSIZING.  Pay for Federal employees must be taken out the private sector and the high number of employees making record salaries is a drag on the economy we can no longer afford.

Sorry Obama, but you will have to do better than that.

Via: Memeorandum

Via: The New York Times

Via: The Washington Times

Via: USA Today

Speaking of needed cuts…More federal workers pay tops $150k

Oh the irony! On the same day Obama’s debt commission shows the nation some of the drastic cuts that will be needed to bring our out of control debt under control, this gem of a story comes out.

USA Today: The number of federal workers earning $150,000 or more a year has soared tenfold in the past five years and doubled since President Obama took office, a USA TODAY analysis finds.

The fast-growing pay of federal employees has captured the attention of fiscally conservative Republicans who won control of the U.S. House of Representatives in last week's elections. Already, some lawmakers are planning to use the lame-duck session that starts Monday to challenge the president's plan to give a 1.4% across-the-board pay raise to 2.1 million federal workers.[…]

Federal salaries have grown robustly in recent years, according to a USA TODAY analysis of Office of Personnel Management data. Key findings:

•Government-wide raises. Top-paid staff have increased in every department and agency. The Defense Department had nine civilians earning $170,000 or more in 2005, 214 when Obama took office and 994 in June.

•Long-time workers thrive. The biggest pay hikes have gone to employees who have been with the government for 15 to 24 years. Since 2005, average salaries for this group climbed 25% compared with a 9% inflation rate.

•Physicians rewarded. Medical doctors at veterans hospitals, prisons and elsewhere earn an average of $179,500, up from $111,000 in 2005.

Federal workers earning $150,000 or more make up 3.9% of the workforce, up from 0.4% in 2005.

If Washington wants all Americans to accept drastic cuts across the board, they are going to have to lead by example and start making some drastic cuts of their own.  To fail to do otherwise is an invitation to revolt!

Via: Memeorandum

Via: USA Today

A Glimpse of Our Future: The Debt Commission’s preliminary report

Everyone in Washington is buzzing about the Obama’s Debt Commission proposal for cutting the debt by 2015. 

The New York Times: WASHINGTON — The chairmen of President Obama’s bipartisan commission on reducing the national debt outlined a politically provocative and economically ambitious package of spending cuts and tax increases on Wednesday, igniting a debate that is likely to grip the country for years.

The plan calls for deep cuts in domestic and military spending, a gradual 15-cents-a-gallon increase in the federal gasoline tax, limiting or eliminating popular tax breaks in return for lower rates, and benefit cuts and an increased retirement age forSocial Security.

Those changes and others, none of which would take effect before 2012 to avoid undermining the tepid economic recovery, would erase nearly $4 trillion from projected deficits through 2020, the proposal says, and stabilize the accumulated debt.

“It’s time to lay it out on the table and let the American people start to chew on it,” said Alan K. Simpson, the former Republican Senate leader who is one of the co-chairmen, along with Erskine B. Bowles, who was White House chief of staff under President Bill Clinton.

Their outline will be the basis for negotiation within the commission, which has a Dec. 1 deadline for submitting a final plan. It represents a challenge to both parties: to Mr. Obama and the Democrats, to show in the wake of the midterm election that they are serious about their pledges to address long-term deficits, and to Republicans, who for the most part have ruled out consideration of tax increases even as they have promised new adherence to fiscal responsibility. [MORE]

For the full list of proposed cuts and changes see the PDF file here.  It must also be noted that they are quite serious about this being a starting point. This is because as deep as some of these cuts and changes seem, they don’t completely eliminate our debt.

Bloomberg: The savings would come between 2012 and 2020. The result would be a deficit totaling about $400 billion or about 2.2 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product in 2015. That would exceed Obama’s goal for the panel of a reduction to 3 percent, from the current 9 percent of GDP.

I am still reading the proposal, but from what I see some of it makes little sense to me.  For example why add a gasoline tax without first creating a solid energy policy that takes us off foreign sources.  It seems like asking for trouble. There are also no incentives for growing the economy which would drastically help to reduce our debt. I also don’t see that boondoggle ObamaCare on the chopping block.

Where this proposal does succeed is in starting the much needed conversation about our nation’s finances.  What is desperately needed now that the conversation has begun is for adults to take over, adults who can impress upon the nation that the day of reckoning is here. We need adults who can tell the nation that we can no longer afford to have sacred cows like Social Security and other entitlements; everything must be put on the table. Silly political hacks like Nancy Pelosi who don’t even want to consider drastic changes after irresponsibly running up the debt must be told to sit quiet in the corner.

As the conversation goes forward, we should all start learning an important lesson from all of this.  The lesson is, never again should allow ourselves to be forced into a desperate situation by politician who are more interested in their own futures rather than the nation’s at a whole.

Via: Memeorandum

Via: New York Times                                                            

Via: Bloomberg

Via: Twitter

Why are we bailing out Greece?

This has to be the most twisted thing I ever heard. The International Monetary Fund is going to give Greece a $140 billion dollar bailout. Since the United States is a member of the fund, part of that $140 billion will come from us. Our cut comes out to about $7 billion.

NY Post: US taxpayers will be helping to foot the bill for the Greek bailout, via the Interna tional Monetary Fund. And if the Obama administration doesn’t draw a clear line, Uncle Sam may soon be on the line for even more and larger European “rescues.”

The Greek government, with its high taxes and profligate spending to support large bureaucracies and social programs, is bankrupt. Its bonds have been downgraded to junk status. …

Concerned that the fiscal damage could spread throughout the EU and the world, other European Union members and the IMF have pledged $145 billion to bail out Greece. And since the United States is the largest contributor to the IMF budget, our government will be funneling billions of American tax dollars to Greece.

No one wants to see Greece fail — the economic stability of Europe is important. But US taxpayers have funded bailout after bailout, and our country faces a debt crisis of its own.

Our unemployment rate stands at nearly 10 percent. The public debt now stands at $9.2 trillion. The Congressional Budget Office predicts that America’s debt held by the public will reach 90 percent of gross domestic product within 10 years under President Obama’s budget. Without dramatic spending restraints, America is on a path like the one that led to Greece’s financial catastrophe. 

In these days of massive bailouts, giant stimulus packages and a new trillion dollar health care program, $7 billion sure does not sound like much. However, just like the bailouts, the stimulus and health care reform, the $7 billion dollars for Greece is money we don’t really have. Basically we are over spending to save a nation that over spent.  Has anyone in Washington noticed the irony in that?

What I would like to know is after we have spent ourselves into a whole, just like Greece did, who is going to bail us out? 

Via: Memeorandum

Via: The New York Post

Obama bows to Chinese President Hu Jintao at Nuclear Security Summit

Associated Press: President Barack Obama greets Chinese President Hu Jintao during the official arrivals for the Nuclear Security Summit in Washington, Monday April 12, 2010.

Considering how much money we owe China, this might actually become a necessary custom for all US presidents. Sigh.

Via: Drudge

Via: Associated Press