Observers like Charles Krauthammer are correct: Barack Obama’s partisan budget attack this week was a “disgrace.” Almost every sentence was tawdry, caustic or simply dishonest.
One suggestion early in Obama’s speech stood out because it is so easily refuted by simple numbers. Namely, his latest attempt to scapegoat the Bush Administration and portray his own record deficits as somehow attributable to it:
We increased spending dramatically for two wars and an expensive prescription drug program -– but we didn’t pay for any of this new spending. Instead, we made the problem worse with trillions of dollars in unpaid-for tax cuts -– tax cuts that went to every millionaire and billionaire in the country; tax cuts that will force us to borrow an average of $500 billion every year over the next decade. To give you an idea of how much damage this caused to our nation’s checkbook, consider this: In the last decade, if we had simply found a way to pay for the tax cuts and the prescription drug benefit, our deficit would currently be at low historical levels in the coming years.”
But take a look at the actual historical deficit data, with particular attention to 2007, which was the last year under a Republican Congress and White House. That year’s deficit came in at $161 billion, which is one-tenth the size of Obama’s projected record $1.65 trillion 2011 deficit. That 2007 deficit was also down from $378 billion in 2003, when the tax cuts, Iraq invasion and drug benefit occurred. In his usual straw-man manner of argumentation, Obama mocked those who claim we can reduce our debt by eliminating “waste, fraud and abuse,” but what better way to characterize his latest un-presidential harangue?
In an interview with CFIF, Hadley Heath, Policy Analyst for the Independent Women’s Forum, discusses the “Full Story on ObamaCare” and why women will be disappointed when they learn the truth about government involvement in the health care system.
Roll Call reports deposed congressman Alan Grayson (D-FL) sent out a characteristically inflammatory email to supporters yesterday accusing Republican budget cutters of murder:
Grayson complained in his email that Republican budget cuts would “kill” 70,000 children by cutting immunization programs that could put children at risk. Of course, Grayson became infamous for extreme rhetoric in general and specifically for suggesting the GOP health care plan was for citizens to “die quickly.”
“I would very much prefer to see these children alive,” Grayson wrote.
The voters of Florida’s 8th District mercifully substituted state legislator Daniel Webster for the toxic Grayson. If the latter gives Orlando residents another chance, let’s hope they make the same decision in 2012.
If you’ve lost National Review — the most consistently conservative child of William F. Buckley — you’ve lost the conservative moment. Thus, House Speaker John Boehner should be insecure about NR’s new staff editorial reacting to the recently revealed gimmicks in last week’s budget deal, ominously entitled “Strike One.” Reading the content won’t assuage those fears:
There’s realism and then there’s cynicism. This deal — oversold and dependent on classic Washington budget trickery — comes too close to the latter. John Boehner has repeatedly said he’s going to reject “business as usual,” but that’s what he’s offered his caucus. It’s one thing for Tea Party Republicans to vote for a cut that falls short of what they’d get if the controlled all of Washington; it’s another thing for them, after making so much of bringing transparency and honesty to the Beltway, to vote for a deal sold partly on false pretenses.
Last week, some of us held out hope that the budget deal represented real — albeit incremental — change. The disappointment that would have resulted from a less satisfying outcome would have been bad. But the betrayal that results from feeling duped by your own leadership is far worse.
Now that President Barack Obama has formally responded to House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan’s Path to Prosperity, the New York Times offers a helpful (if very brief) side-by-side comparison of the two.
In a nutshell, the differences can be seen in the two sides’ cuts to domestic discretionary spending. Ryan’s plan cuts $1.6 trillion over ten years. Obama would cut $600 billion.
Don’t say next year’s elections won’t offer a choice of visions…
UPDATE: For a more detailed side-by-side comparison, care of the House Budget Committee, click here.
A sobering column by a Greek politician in today’s Wall Street Journal shows that Stalin-style Communism is making a comeback in a nation teetering on the edge of financial meltdown. The breakdown in policing has led to countless acts of violence – including murder – that go unpunished:
Many argue that Greece’s disintegration is the unavoidable consequence of the government’s attempt to enforce fiscal austerity. This seems doubtful. This meltdown can be seen as the product of the totalitarian left’s open attempt to exploit the economic crisis and destroy Greece’s existing democratic and economic institutions. What we are witnessing is not a descent into chaos, but a descent into organized lawlessness. Sowing pandemonium and forcing Greece to default will, according to Greek Stalinists’ analysis, bring the revolution nearer.
What makes the situation worrisome is not so much the political strength of this movement. After all, the Communist Party and the Coalition of the Radical Left together claim no more than 13% popular support.
The problem, rather, lies with the political and ideological passivity of the parties that do represent Greece’s broader middle classes. The tolerance these democrats have shown toward their totalitarian counterparts has allowed the latter to play a leading role in shaping Greek public discourse. Do they imagine the favor would be returned if the Coalition of the Radical Left were in charge?
Unless Greece’s political elite realizes the seriousness of what’s happening and acts now to re- establish the rule of democratic law, their efforts to deal with Greece’s economic problems will have been in vain.
File this one under “Gone, but not willing to shut up long enough to be forgotten.” House Minority Leader and former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (she of “we’ll have to pass the health care bill for you to find out what’s in it”), has stepped in it again. In a speech at Tufts University in Boston earlier this week, the erstwhile Madame Speaker let the public know just how deep her reverence for the electoral process runs:
To my Republican friends: take back your party. So that it doesn’t matter so much who wins the election, because we have shared values about the education of our children, the growth of our economy, how we defend our country, our security and civil liberties, how we respect our seniors. Because there are so many things at risk right now — perhaps in another question I’ll go into them, if you want. But the fact is that elections shouldn’t matter as much as they do…But when it comes to a place where there doesn’t seem to be shared values then that can be problematic for the country, as I think you can see right now.
Our apologies to Mrs. Pelosi, but conservatives have the intellectual acumen not to confuse unilateral surrender with unanimity. Elections matter because Americans have widely varying understandings of what constitutes the best interest of the nation. If the former speaker can’t understand that, she may be well advised to consider another line of work.
Gasoline prices have increased from the $3 range to the $4 range in just one year, we’re approaching all new record prices set in 2008 even though it’s not even summer driving season yet. But ignore higher gas and food prices, America. They only matter if you actually drive or eat. Federal Reserve Vice Chair Janet Yellen says it’s all “transitory,” and we need to keep the “stimulative” inflationary monetary spigots open because it “continues to be appropriate.”
Even the European Central Bank is raising interest rates in an attempt to avert inflation. Of course, there isn’t an Obama reelection campaign to sustain over there.
Quote of the day from The Wall Street Journal’s L. Gordon Crovitz, writing in his weekly “Information Age” column:
In high-tech, by the time the political and legal systems catch up to an issue, the issue is moot.”
Whether anti-trust, so-called “Net Neutrality,” public broadband endeavors, wireless data roaming mandates or anything else, you can always count on bureaucrats to be a day late and a dollar short. Are you paying attention, FCC?
The Wall Street Journal reports that President Barack Obama’s upcoming speech about how to balance the budget will include tax increases along with cuts to programs like Medicare and Medicaid.
The call for higher taxes on America’s job creators will solidify the decision facing voters next year. The Democrats want more money, while the Republicans want less government.
If there is a positive aspect about the president showing his true tax-and-spend colors, it’s that ideology – how serious people frame reality and their decisions about it – is now front and center in politics.
Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) and the GOP want lower taxes and private sector growth. President Obama and the Democrats want to spend taxpayer money into an ever-growing share of GDP.
So far TwinRock has purchased 22 homes in Moreno Valley, Riverside, Corona, Rialto, San Bernardino, Highland, Murrieta, Wildomar and Temecula, and the company has plans to buy several hundred more, said Meyer.
Earlier this year, TwinRock put together a $6 million fund to enable the company to buy about 40 Inland homes and it is getting ready to raise another $15 million, Philips said. The firm’s investment model primarily calls for buying houses with cash at trustee auctions conducted each weekday at Inland courthouses, he said.
There’s another benefit to keeping people in their homes:
Letting former homeowners remain in the foreclosed homes as tenants also eliminates the potential that the homes will be vandalized by angry former owners facing eviction, Meyer said.
TwinRock’s solution isn’t for everyone. Some homeowners are so indebted in other areas they need to declare bankruptcy and restart their financial history. For many others, however, renting one’s home with the possibility of buying it back later is much more attractive than waiting for a temporary government bailout.
Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) calls the next fiscal fight – raising the statutory debt limit when it’s reached in May – “Armageddon” and the most important policy decision of most members’ careers.
Listening to President Barack Obama’s post-budget deal remarks it was jarring to hear the Commander-in-Chief say that the group most benefited from a budget deal was…a group of Colorado 8th graders visiting the nation’s capitol next week.
Apparently, visiting a national monument trumps military personnel getting their paychecks on time. No doubt a child’s field trip is important, but it pales in comparison to making sure soldiers and their families can make mortgage payments and buy food. If Obama can’t correctly identify which of the two is more important, it shows just how clueless (or careless) he is about governing priorities.
The (British) Guardianpromotes an interesting theory about the 2012 electoral cycle: maybe Republicans should focus more on winning the Senate than the presidency. Here’s the rationale:
And here’s more potential bad news: in 2014, another 20 Senate Democrats are up for re-election, compared to just 14 Republicans. That means over two successive election cycles, 43 Democrats – 80% of those currently in office – must defend their Senate seats, compared to just 24 Republicans. Could the GOP end up with a 60-vote super-majority of its own, just two years before laying siege to the White House in a post Obama contest?
The strategy doesn’t explicitly cede the presidential campaign to President Barack Obama, but it does acknowledge that the current crop of likely GOP presidential contenders don’t include the exciting names conservatives want (e.g. Mike Pence, Chris Christie, John Thune).
Consequently, don’t be surprised if conservative activists and donors spend their time and money electing more senators like Rand Paul and Marco Rubio instead of backing whichever compromise candidate emerges with the presidential nomination.
NRO‘s Robert Costa has a great interview with Rep. Tom Price (R-GA) on the GOP Policy Committee chairman’s advice to colleagues:
“It is hard to remember that we are the minority party here in Washington,” Price says. “We run one-sixth of the federal government, and the person with the ace of spades, who can trump everything, is the president. If he wants it shut down, he’ll shut it down. My gut sense tells me that’s what he wants, and so we’ll have a shutdown, since the president wants to shut it down.”
Price believes that the GOP is ready to win the fight. “I think people understand that House Republicans have been the responsible body in all of this; that we are ones who have passed a bill to fund the government for the remainder of this fiscal year; that we are the ones who came up with a solution to keep this thing rolling, to keep our troops funded; and that our greatest ally in the Middle East has the resources it needs,” he says. “We are doing the right thing by standing our ground; that’s what we got elected to do.”
Let’s hope the GOP budget negotiators heed Price’s words and stand their ground.
Larry Kudlow has the best summary thus far on the importance of Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) pro-growth budget proposal:
The key point is not the actual numbers, but the direction of the numbers. Spending is coming down.
Trend lines are important in politics and in finances. With Ryan’s budget plan, Tea Partiers may have found the details guy they need to make their rhetoric into reality.
CFIF Freedom Line Blog RSS Feed
CFIF on Twitter
CFIF on YouTube