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

UPDATED: Obama to speak on long term deficit reduction this week

Get ready for the next big farce from the Obama administration.  After submitting another $3 trillion + budget for 2012 and then haggling over a minuscule $38 billion in cuts, Obama is now ready to get "serious" debt reduction.

The Hill:  President Obama will give a speech this week that lays out his plan for handling the nation's fiscal management, White House senior advisor David Plouffe said Sunday.

"Later this week the president is going to speak about his approach to long-term deficit reduction," Plouffe said on CNN's "State of the Union."

"He's going to be clear about the type of deficit reduction we need in terms of dollar amounts, over what period of years," Plouffe said.

The White House advisor did not offer specifics of the president's plan, but he said that all options were on the table. [MORE]

Truth be told, all options will not be on the table. Obama's plan is going to be what it was always was meant to be ... raise taxes to pay for all the wild spending. Sure there will be some cuts here and there, but they won't even come close to anything Paul Ryan is talking about. Instead, Obama will do the socialist thing and try to soak the rich to pay for the gains in spending the Democrats have made.

Expect Obama's plan to look something like the "The People's Budget" I told you about last week. David Plouffe pretty much confirms this with this line:

Plouffe said that Ryan's budget proposal had some good ideas in it, but that it put too much of the economic burden of debt reduction on economically vulnerable portions of the population.

"Seniors, the poor, the middle class in the congressional Republican plan are asked to bear most of the burden," Plouffe said. "If you weren't giving enormous tax cuts to millionaires, you wouldn't have to do that."

This plan will fail miserably, because the rich do not just sit around and wait to gorged like cash cows (case in point, G.E.'s amazing tax returns). So if the rich can dodge the bullet of higher taxes, who do you think will be the suckers ending up with the tab? Why the middle class of course. 


UPDATE: Told ya so!

Wall Street Journal: President Barack Obama will lay out his plan for reducing the nation's deficit Wednesday, belatedly entering a fight over the nation's long-term financial future. But in addition to suggesting cuts—the current focus of debate—the White House looks set to aim its firepower on a more divisive topic: taxes.

In a speech Wednesday, Mr. Obama will propose cuts to entitlement programs, including Medicare and Medicaid, and changes to Social Security, a discussion he has largely left to Democrats and Republicans in Congress. He also will call for tax increases for people making over $250,000 a year, a proposal contained in his 2012 budget, and changing parts of the tax code he thinks benefit the wealthy. [MORE]

There are no new tricks in Obama's hat. All the man has are the same old tired lefty schemes from the 1970's. 


Obama will no doubt use class warfare to try to sell Americans on the idea that they can still have their cake and eat it too. This is where Republicans will rue the day they did not immediately start educating the America people on just how bad our financial picture is.  Instead, Republicans squandered the time haggling with Democrats over puny cuts that are now being touted as "historic". 

Via: Memeorandum
Via: The Hill
Via: The Wall Street Journal

$20 million of our borrowed money to remake Sesame Street for Pakistan

BBC: In a new effort to win hearts and minds in Pakistan, USAID - the development arm of the US government - is donating $20m (£12m) to the country to create a local Urdu version of the show.

The project aims to boost education in Pakistan, where many children have no access to regular schooling.

The show is to be filmed in Lahore and aired later in the year.[...]

The show will be set in a village in Pakistan - rather than the streets of New York - with roadside tea shop and residents sitting on their verandas.

The remake will star a puppet called Rani, the six-year-old daughter of a peasant farmer, with pigtails and a school uniform, according to Britain's Guardian newspaper.

Targeting five to nine year olds, the series will run on Pakistan national TV and regional language channels. [MORE]

Holy crap! What a waste of money we don't have! When Boehner, Obama and Reid were squabbling over the puny "historic" cut they made and talking about hard decisions, I wonder how such an incredible waste of money go unnoticed?

When I think about all the money that must have been made on Tickle Me Elmo dolls, I have to ask why in the world can't this project be privately funded? Do we really need to waste the money we are borrowing to fund stuff like this?

It seems like the prevailing attitude in Washington is so long as money is flowing in, they will continue to spend regardless of where the money comes from. This is exactly why Washington has a spending problem and not a revenue problem.

The best thing that could happen for America in 2012 would be to elect the cheapest tightwad we can find for President. Someone who would be outraged over $50 for bathroom tissue and veto every wasteful project in sight. Oh Lord, where is that man or woman?

Via: Memeorandum
Via: BBC

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

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

America's debt problem at a glance

Click to enlarge

Business Insider: This is the "income statement" of the United States in 2010.  "Revenue" is on the left.  "Expenses" are on the right.

Note a few things...

First, "Revenue" is tiny relative to "Expenses."

Second, most of the expense is entitlement programs, not defense, education, or any of the other line items that most budget crusaders normally howl about.

Third, as horrifying as these charts are, they don't even show the trends of these two pies: The "expense" pie is growing like gangbusters, driven by the explosive growth of the entitlement programs that no one in government even has the balls to talk about. "Revenue" is barely growing at all.

This is the sad state of America;s economic affairs.  I am sure our friends on the left will look at this chart and say we can easily balance the equation by raising taxes, especially corporate taxes which only account for 9% of the government's revenue.  But here is the rub, when it come to raising taxes the law of physics apply; for every action there is an equal yet opposite reaction. Raise the corporate tax rate and corporations will do one of two things a) pass on the tax to consumers with higher prices or b) flee to countries with lower tax rates (and take their jobs with them). Try raising personal income tax and you end up with less revenue in other areas (e.g. cigarette and gas taxes) because individuals have less money to spend.  Therefore, cutting spending becomes the logical thing to do.

From the chart on the right it is clear that entitlements is where the real money is.  Defense spending at 20% is nothing when compared to the combined 58% of entitlements.  Add to the fact that entitlement are growing at a much more rapid rate than defense, entitlements becomes the focal point for spending cuts.  The problem is that politicians have made entitlements into a sacred cow.  The other problem is that too many politicians (both right and left) have used growing entitlements as an election tool. By promising all sorts of "free" goodies, like "free" healthcare for kids or "free" prescription drugs for seniors, politicians have been exasperating the problem.

What is needed starting 2012 and forward, are politicians who have the guts to tell Americans that the "free" ride is over.  We need politicians who are adult enough to lay before us the stark choices to bring our financial house in order and that means a) start taxing more people (bye-bye progressive tax, hello flat tax), b) cut entitlements (good bye free rides) or c). a combination of both.

I invite you to see where Business Insider got the chart from it is Mary Meeker's presentation of America's financial statements called USA, Inc.

Via: Memeorandum

Via: Business Insider

Via: BusinessWeek

VIDEO:What could you buy with $3.73 trillion?

I like this video because it really helps to give you the size and scope of the money we are spending.  When I hear the left whine and whine over the $60 billion in cuts Republicans have passed, I have to ask myself if these lefties realize just how minuscule $60 billion is when compared to $3.73 trillion.


Via: The Blaze

Irresponsibility run amok: Obama's budget $1.6 Trillion in new deficts

Obama released his new budget today and it is clearly irresponsible foolishness. Despite his own big talk about "tough choices and sacrifices" government grows everywhere as far as the eye can see.

Associated Press: WASHINGTON – Putting on the brakes after two years of big spending increases, President Barack Obama unveiled a $3.7 trillion budget plan Monday that would freeze or reduce some safety-net programs for the nation's poor but turn aside Republican demands for more drastic cuts to shrink the government to where it was before he took office.

The 10-year blueprint makes "tough choices and sacrifices," Obama said in his official budget message. Yet the plan, which sets the stage for this week's nasty congressional fight over cuts in the budget year that's already more than one-third over, steers clear of deeply controversial long-term problem areas such as Social Security andMedicare.

The budget relies heavily on the recovering economy, tax increases and rosy economic assumptions to estimate that the federal deficit would drop from this year's record $1.6 trillion — an astronomical figure that requires the government to borrow 43 cents out of every dollar it spends — to about $600 billion after five years.[...]

Despite his spending cuts and tax increases, the government's total debt would still mushroom from $14.2 trillion now to almost $21 trillion by 2016. Republicans assailed his blueprint for failing to take the lead on the nation's daunting fiscal problems.

There are no serious cuts here, there is no serious attempt to cut spending and there is no serious attempt to shrink government.  What Obama has put forth is a very transparent attempt to play politics.

Power Line: Obama's game is transparent, isn't it? He is playing a game of chicken. He puts forward a series of proposals that he knows are more or less insane; but he also believes that Republicans will come to his rescue. They, not being wholly irresponsible, will come up with plans to reform entitlements--like, for example, the Ryan Roadmap. Ultimately, some combination of those plans will be implemented because the alternative is the collapse, not just of the government of the United States, but of the country itself. But Obama thinks the GOP's reforms will be unpopular, and he will be able to demagogue them, thus having his cake and eating it too. Is that leadership? Of course not. But it is the very essence of Barack Obama.

If Republicans are smart, they will make sure to demagogue Obama good and plenty for his irresponsibility  before coming to the rescue with a much saner plan. Many Americans are finally coming around to the idea that America is on the edge of collapse. Now is the time to make sure they know exactly who is driving us there.

Via: Memeorandum

Via: Associated Press

Via: Power Line

Video h/t: The Washington Post

CBO rains on Obama’s parade: $1.5 Trillion deficit for 2011

Last night Obama gave his second State of the Union address chock full of new “investment” [spending] ideas.  Today the CBO is raining all over that parade with some very sobering news.

For 2011, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projects that if current laws remain unchanged, the federal budget will show a deficit of close to $1.5 trillion, or 9.8 percent of GDP. The deficits in CBO's baseline projections drop markedly over the next few years as a share of output and average 3.1 percent of GDP from 2014 to 2021. Those projections, however, are based on the assumption that tax and spending policies unfold as specified in current law. Consequently, they understate the budget deficits that would occur if many policies currently in place were continued, rather than allowed to expire as scheduled under current law.

We hear it every day from both sides of the political spectrum that the current deficits we are running are unsustainable. This is why the spending freeze Obama announced last night seems so reckless and irresponsible.   

I have little doubt that this sobering bit of news from the CBO will not be heeded by the Obama administration.  As Nile Gardnier from The Telegraph puts it, [t]he Obama Presidency remains in a dangerous state of denial. God help us.

 

Via: Memeorandum

Via: Congressional Budget Office

Via: The Telegraph

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

Sign of the times: Fed require NYC to change all street signs

As some on the left scoff at the right’s complaints about unfunded federal mandates and the need for greater 10^th Amendment protection, I offer up Exhibit A.  This is how the Feds cause states to bust their budgets.

New York Daily News: The city will change the lettering on every single street sign - at an estimated cost of about $27.5 million - because the feds don't like the font.

Street names will change from all capital letters to a combination of upper and lower case on roads across the country thanks to the pricey federal regulation, officials said Wednesday.

By 2018, MADISON AVE. will become Madison Ave. and will be printed in a font called Clearview, the city Department of Transportation says.

The Federal Highway Administration says the switch will improve safety because drivers identify the words more quickly when they're displayed that way - and can sooner return their eyes to the road.

Still, several city residents were OUTRAGED.

The city has about 250,000 signs, and it costs about $110 to replace one, the DOT says. Officials said the new signs will have improved reflectivity and clarity for nighttime drivers. […]

The changes are among many in the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices that regularly changes to improve road safety, highway administration spokesman Doug Hecox said. The mixed upper- and lowercase rule was adopted in 2003, but municipalities were given until 2018 to comply completely, Hecox said. [MORE] 

New York City is currently running a $4 billion deficit for fiscal year 2009-2010 and the state needs to close a $47 billion budget gap.  In a sane and orderly world, New York should be able to decide if and when something like street sign changes are necessary and affordable. 

Sooner or later, states must exert their rights to determine when and where money is to be spent. Otherwise the wasteful spending disease from Washington will continue to spread.

Via: Memeorandum

Via: The New York Daily News

Via: Reuters

CBO: Debt to rise to 90% of GDP

As everyone on the left rejoices over socialize medicine, I wonder if any of them are taking the time to think about the price tag? 

From The Washington Times: President Obama's fiscal 2011 budget will generate nearly $10 trillion in cumulative budget deficits over the next 10 years, $1.2 trillion more than the administration projected, and raise the federal debt to 90 percent of the nation's economic output by 2020, the Congressional Budget Office reported Thursday.

[SNIP]

The federal public debt, which was $6.3 trillion ($56,000 per household) when Mr. Obama entered office amid an economic crisis, totals $8.2 trillion ($72,000 per household) today, and it's headed toward $20.3 trillion (more than $170,000 per household) in 2020, according to CBO's deficit estimates. 

We all know that the Democrats gave the CBO ridiculous assumptions to bring the price tag of ObamaCare in under $1 trillion. So, you just know that this figure is going to have to be revised upwards. Charles Krauthammer believes that Obama’s Deficit Commission is just a rouse to introduce the Value Added Tax (VAT) in order to pay for all of this. If that hideous tax is enacted, even Peggy The Moocher will feel the pinch.

The Jawa Report offers us a little reminder of the early days of Hope and Change:

Enjoy this trip down memory lane, and try not to laugh (emphasis on "smarter government"): 

I cannot wait to vote out these irresponsible spendaholics.

Via: Memeorandum

Via: The Washington Times