Freedom Line Blog

Byron York eviscerates the common liberal meme that former President George W. Bush was worse on spending and taxes than President Barack Obama.  After showing that Bush’s tax cuts increased federal revenues and shrank deficits while Obama has increased the national debt at twice Bush’s pace, York ends with a resounding rebuke of the common “eight years of Republican rule” canard.

None of this is to say that George W. Bush had a good record on spending. He didn’t, and he’s fair game for criticism. But is it honest to condemn reckless spending in “eight years of Republican rule” when Democrats controlled the Senate for four of those years and the House for two? Is it honest to talk about the “cost” of the Bush tax cuts when federal revenues increased significantly while they were in effect? And is it honest to refer to Bush’s ballooning deficits when deficits actually trended down for much of his presidency — at least before Democrats won control of Congress?

Of course Obama partisans would like to pin the president’s troubles on Bush. But they should get their facts straight first.

In this week’s “Freedom Minute,” CFIF’s Renee Giachino explains why President Obama’s “balanced approach” of tax increases and spending cuts for fixing the nation’s fiscal woes is far from balanced in terms of its effects on the American people and U.S. economy.

Below is one of the latest cartoons from two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner Michael Ramirez.

View more of Michael Ramirez’s cartoons on CFIF’s website here.

With the debt ceiling debate now officially behind us, most Americans will be tempted to simply exhale and move on from the psychological exhaustion of the past few weeks. Like many other conservative pundits (including our own Quin Hillyer), I have misgivings about the final agreement but generally agree that it was the best deal possible given the constraints (including Republican control of only one house of Congress).

Still, that doesn’t mean we should avoid learning the lessons of the recent dust-up, one of which is artfully put by the Atlantic’s Gregg Easterbrook (not exactly a doctrinaire conservative) writing today for Reuters:

The deal raises the federal borrowing ceiling by $2.4 trillion. This means Congress will immediately spend another $2.4 trillion. That basic point is being overlooked.

You’ve got a debt ceiling on your credit card. The ceiling is there for emergencies, and all responsible borrowers work to stay below their credit ceilings. Experience with the national debt ceiling, by contrast, shows that every dollar of available debt is always spent. Announced in doublespeak as a “savings” plan, this deal guarantees the national debt will rise another $2.4 trillion. The moment the deal becomes law, members of Congress from both parties will see an added $2.4 trillion in the cookie jar and begin raiding.

Easterbrook is right. One of the main points of contention in the recent debate was whether the President would have to come back to Congress for another debt ceiling increase within the next year or whether it would be extended into 2013 (the latter won out). But that fight misses the point. We won’t be seeing real reform until new increases in the debt ceiling become unnecessary. Until then, we’re stuck arguing over what speed to drive on the road to perdition.

Below is one of the latest cartoons from two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner Michael Ramirez.

View more of Michael Ramirez’s cartoons on CFIF’s website here.

Michael Barone is one of those rare Washington pundits who thinks facts are more important than feelings. That means that when he makes sweeping claims, he’ll always have the data to back them up. And he’ll do so in the dispassionate fashion of a doctor reading an X-ray. That’s part of what makes his new column on the debt ceiling so chilling. In it, he writes:

The bedrock issue is whether we should have a larger and more expensive federal government. Over many years, federal spending has averaged about 20 percent of gross domestic product.

The Obama Democrats have raised that to 24 or 25 percent. And the president’s budget projects that that percentage will stay the same or increase far into the future.

In the process, the national debt as a percentage of gross domestic product has increased from a manageable 40 percent in 2008 to 62 percent this year and an estimated 72 percent in 2012. And it’s headed to the 90 percent level that economists Kenneth Rogoff and Carmen Reinhart have identified as the danger point, when governments face fiscal collapse.

Barone’s words are a bracing reminder of the stakes in this fight. Virtually all Democrats — and even many Republicans — would have us believe that this is a moment defined by pure political philosophy; that it’s simply a question of whether you balance the books through tax increases, spending cuts, or some combination thereof. But it’s more than just principles that hang in the balance. It’s the fate of a nation.

C.J. Ciaramella of The Daily Caller reports: 

The Securities and Exchange Commission gave up its leasing authority yesterday and could face a Justice Department probe in light of a $550 million leasing scandal.

At a House Transportation and Infrastructure subcommittee meeting yesterday, SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro ceded the agency’s leasing authority and admitted it had made a “terrible mistake” when it put taxpayers on the hook for a half-billion dollar lease for office space it didn’t need.

And this is the same government that now wants to increase taxes as part of a “deal” to raise the debt ceiling?

Below is one of the latest cartoons from two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner Michael Ramirez.

View more of Michael Ramirez’s cartoons on CFIF’s website here.

Below is one of the latest cartoons from two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner Michael Ramirez.

View more of Michael Ramirez’s cartoons on CFIF’s website here.

The budget compromise reached between Congressional leaders and the White House a few weeks ago has been analyzed, dissected and commented upon exhaustively.  While the “deal” may have averted a government shutdown, it ended up being a disappointment to taxpayers, who were overwhelmingly demanding meaningful spending cuts this year. 

In an attempt to help the American people better understand what transpired, Mike Bates of 1330 AM WEBY, Northwest Florida’s Talk Radio, prepared and recently read the following analysis of the “deal” on the air. 

The Budget Agreement is Nothing to Celebrate
 
The “government shutdown” was avoided when Republicans and Democrats in Washington agreed to a budget compromise to cut $38.5 billion from the proposed $3.8 trillion budget.
 
Though it’s been touted by both parties and the press, this is no cause for celebration.  Why not?
 
A few quick facts:
 
Our national debt is $14.2 trillion.
This year’s budget calls for $3.8 trillion in spending.
Our government will borrow $1.6 trillion to do this.
That means we are borrowing 42 cents of every dollar we spend.
We are spending $1.6 trillion dollars more than we are taking in.
The Republicans wanted to cut $45 billion from the budget.
The Democrats wanted to cut $33 billion from the budget.
The Republicans and Democrats were arguing over $12 billion.
They agreed to cut $38.5 billion.
 
Few people comprehend how bad our nation’s finances are.  Just how much is a trillion dollars?
 
If you laid one trillion one-dollar bills end to end, it would extend from the Earth to just past the Sun.  It would stretch to the moon 394 times.  And that trillion dollars would wrap around the Earth 3787 times.  But money is not understood as a measurement of distance.
 
If you spend one dollar every second, it would take you 32,000 years to spend one trillion dollars.  But money is not a measurement of time.

Money is a measurement of value.  So I broke down the budget into terms we can all understand.
 
A husband and wife have accumulated debt of $373,684.
They have a household income of $58,000.
They plan to spend $100,000 this year.
So they’ll have to borrow $42,000 to do this.
That means they are borrowing 42 cents of every dollar they spend.
One spouse proposed that they cut $1184 from the budget.
The other spouse proposed that they cut $868 from the budget.
The husband and wife were arguing over $316.
They agreed to cut $1013.
 
How long can that couple keep borrowing and spending like that?  How long can our government keep borrowing and spending like that?
 
The budget agreement is nothing to celebrate.
 
But wait!  It gets worse.  Within a week of the budget deal, the Congressional Budget Office announced that the actual savings of the claimed “$38.5 billion” in cuts could be as little as $352 million.  If that turns out to be true, the couple above just saved a pathetic nine dollars and twenty six cents.

Two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Michael Ramirez sums up Obama’s deficit reduction plan.

Below is one of the latest cartoons from two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner Michael Ramirez.

View more of Michael Ramirez’s cartoons on CFIF’s website here.

Today,  Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan and the House Republican majority are introducing their much-anticipated 2012 budget plan.  The bold proposal — “The Path to Prosperity” — is refreshingly comprehensive in addressing the nation’s debt crisis and promoting economic prosperity.  According to Congressman Ryan:

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.

Furthermore, Ryan’s budget cuts taxes and strengthens to the social safety net with commonsense reforms to Medicare and Medicaid and by advancing the discussion to sure up Social Security for future generations.

Simply put, the proposal is a real and comprehensive solution to a grave spending and debt crisis that threatens America’s future.  Failure to act to right the nation’s fiscal ship, and now, is no longer an option.  The Path to Prosperity budget deserves serious consideration, not the partisan politics as usual that has already begun.

Read more details on Ryan’s budget plan here.  For the complete plan, click here (.pdf).

This week’s edition of the Liberty Update, CFIF’s weekly e-newsletter, is out. Below is a summary of its contents:

Senik:  Libya: Confusion, by Committee
Ellis:  Air Claire Laid Bare: The Corruption of Claire McCaskill
CFIF Testimony Before NC House Finance Committee:  The Case Against Government Ownership of Broadband Networks
Release:  Leading National Organizations Urge Speaker Boehner to Preserve Amendment Defunding DOE’s “Gainful Employment” Regulation

Freedom Minute Video:  The Alternate Reality of Liberal Budgets
Podcast:  National Security Expert Discusses Libya
Jester’s Courtroom:  Underage Drinker Sues Bar for Her Injury

Editorial Cartoons:  Latest Cartoons of Michael Ramirez
Quiz:  Question of the Week
Notable Quotes:  Quotes of the Week

If you are not already signed up to receive CFIF’s Liberty Update by e-mail, sign up here.

In this week’s Freedom Minute, CFIF’s Renee Giachino discusses the national debt crisis, Congress’ addiction to excessive spending and the Democrat’s budget plan.  Giachino warns that without serious and immediate action to right the nation’s fiscal ship, America is destined to a future of higher taxes, greater inflation and a lower standard of living.

In response to questioning from Senator Jeff Sessions during a Budget Committee hearing yesterday, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner admitted President Obama’s proposed budget creates an “excessively high interest burden” that is “unsustainable.”

The president’s proposal would add $13 trillion in new gross debt and would increase interest payments on the national debt to $844 billion annually by 2021.

Below is one of the latest cartoons from two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner Michael Ramirez.

View more of Michael Ramirez’s cartoons on CFIF’s website here.

According to a Reuters/Ipsos survey released today:

The U.S. public overwhelmingly opposes raising the country’s debt limit even though failure to do so could hurt America’s international standing and push up borrowing costs…

Some 71 percent of those surveyed oppose increasing the borrowing authority, the focus of a brewing political battle over federal spending. Only 18 percent support an increase.

But other than curtailing foreign aid and tax collection, which is supported by 73 percent and 65 percent of respondents respectively, the public is split on exactly what federal spending to cut.  And on the issue of entitlements (Social Security and Medicare specifically), which are by far the greatest contributors to the nation’s mounting debt, a large majority of Americans are seemingly saying “hands off,” according to the survey.

The U.S. National Debt is fast approaching the nation’s $14.3 trillion statutory borrowing  limit set by Congress back in February.

Below is one of the latest cartoons from two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner Michael Ramirez.

View more of Michael Ramirez’s cartoons on CFIF’s website here.

Below is one of the latest cartoons from two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner Michael Ramirez.

View more of Michael Ramirez’s cartoons on CFIF’s website here.