Tag Archives: Office of Management and Budget

If You Tell A Lie Often Enough People Begin To Believe It

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CNS News posted a story yesterday about a comment President Obama made on NBCs “Meet the Press” on Sunday. President Obama stated, “Well, I have to tell you, David, if you look at my track record over the last two years, I cut spending by over a trillion dollars in 2011. I campaigned on the promise of being willing to reduce the deficit in a serious way, in a balanced approach of spending cuts and tax increases on the wealthy while keeping middle class taxes low.”

That statement sounds really good, but what are the facts?

The article states:

According to the White House Office of Management and Budget, federal spending was not cut by $1 trillion in 2011. In fact, in fiscal 2010, federal spending was $3,456,213,000,000. In fiscal 2011, federal spending was $3,603,213,000,000. That was an increase of $147 billion.

While President Obama did not cut federal spending by $1 trillion in 2011, he did increase the debt by more than $1 trillion in that fiscal year. In fiscal 2011, according to the White House Office of Management and Budget, the federal deficit was $1,299,595,000,000. That was up from a deficit of $1,293,489,000,000 in fiscal 2010.

The White House website also repeats the claims of the President, but when you begin to read, you discover that the cuts are over a period of ten years. There are also claims that Obamacare will reduce spending. The only reason Obamacare has not already collapsed under its own weight is that the taxes it increases are collected for years before the benefits take effect.

The thing to keep in mind here is that what is called a spending cut in Washington would be called a spending increase anywhere else. Because of the concept of baseline budgeting, any time a government department does not receive additional money, that department’s budget is considered cut. Until Americans begin to understand that, we are doomed to ever-increasing federal budgets and ever-increasing federal debt.

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Overruling The Law When Convenient

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Sequestration is scheduled to occur on January 2, 2013. As usual, note that this is after the November election. Sequestration is essentially drastic cuts to government spending triggered by the fact that Congress was unable to reach a budget compromise. Sequestration will have an incredibly negative aspect on the American economy overall if is actually happens, and as of now, it will happen.

Scott Johnson at Power Line posted an article today about some of the political maneuvering revolving around sequestration. The article explains that under the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act, defense contractors are required to issue notices of layoffs to employees 60 days before the layoffs occur. Since under sequestration defense contractors can expect major layoffs (January 2, 2013), those notices would go out in early November. Obviously, the Obama Administration does not want that to happen.

The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has issued a memorandum stating that they do not believe these notices should be issued. Please follow this link to read the entire memorandum.

Some highlights from the memorandum:

DOL (Department of Labor) concluded that it is neither necessary nor appropriate for Federal contractors to provide WARN Act notice to employees 60 days in advance of the potential sequestration because of uncertainty about whether sequestration will occur and, if it did, what effect it would have on particular contracts, among other factors:

Specifically, if (1) sequestration occurs and an agency terminates or modifies a contract that necessitates that the contractor order a plant closing or mass layoff ofa type subject to WARN Act requirements, and (2) that contractor has followed a course of action consistent with DOL guidance; then any resulting employee· compensation costs for WARN Act liability as detennined by a court, as well as attoroeys’ fees and other litigation costs (irrespective of li tigation outcome), would qualify as allowable costs and be covered by the contracting agency, if otherwise reasonable and allocable.

Translated into English, this says don’t send out the notices and the government will pay any legal penalties.

The Hill reports:

“The Obama Administration is cynically trying to skirt the WARN Act to keep the American people in the dark about this looming national security and fiscal crisis,” Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) said in a statement. “The president should insist that companies act in accordance with the clearly stated law and move forward with the layoff notices.”

No one actually knows if sequestration will happen, but right now it is scheduled to happen. The law needs to be followed, regardless of the politics involved. The government is not supposed to be used as a campaign committee. This is totally over the top.

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Coming Soon To Your Pocketbook If President Obama Wins In November

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Tax

Tax (Photo credit: 401K)

Heritage.org posted an article yesterday about the hidden tax increases in President Obama’s proposed budget. Hang on to your wallet.

The article reports:

EXCLUSIVE: It could be said that President Obama has never seen a tax hike he doesn’t like — whether it’s letting the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts expire, insisting on higher taxes for job creators, and yesterday calling on Congress to raise taxes on the oil industry. But as much as the President wants to raise taxes, Heritage has discovered that there are even more tax hikes hidden in his budget, adding up to a total of $2 trillion in higher taxes.

In a new report, Heritage’s Curtis Dubay uncovers Obama’s hidden tax hikes and finds that the President’s proposed $1.561 trillion tax increase over 10 years is much bigger than advertised. In fact, the President wants to raise taxes by $1.689 trillion – that’s $128 billion more than was reported by the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) in the President’s FY 2013 budget proposal.

What’s to account for the discrepancy? Dubay explains that OMB reports the tax hikes in areas other than the tax section, misleading readers into believing that the President’s tax hikes are smaller than they are in reality. Among them are the “Financial Crisis Responsibility Fee,” better known as the bank tax, which adds another $61 billion to the President’s tax hike total; a $44 billion tax hike from allowing the IRS to adjust a program integrity cap; a $48 billion increase of the unemployment tax; and a $1 billion hike of user fees for commercial navigation of inland waterways.

As long as you don’t work, drive, go boating, have a bank account, or use energy to heat or cool your house, these new taxes won’t effect you.

Please follow the link to Heritage.org to read the entire article.

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If You Are Going To Lie, At Least Do It Well

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Today Bob Beauprez posted an article at Townhall.com about the LightSquared scandal. Before I go into the details, I would like to comment that cronyism was easier in Chicago–it wasn’t looked at as closely as it can be in Washington, and if it was discovered, everyone knew how to sweep it under the table without too much effort. Washington sometimes looks at such things a little more carefully.

The question about LightSquared is whether or not the Obama administration interfered with the testimony of witnesses appearing before Congressional committees. There were a number of witnesses from different agencies, but there were some striking coincidences. The article reports:

Further, entire portions of the supposedly independent opinion submitted to a Congressional Oversight Committee regarding LightSquared from four separate government agencies contained “identical language in their written testimony” – a truly remarkable coincidence. 

That’s just laziness on the part of the people involved in skewing the testimony. Couldn’t they at least have been original?

The article further reports:

On September 20, 2011 separate letters were sent to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) requesting documents related to the Administration’s involvement with LightSquared.  The letters were signed by Science and Technology Committee Chairman Ralph Hall (TX), James Sensenbrenner (WI), Rep. Broun and four other committee members.  The letters document the apparent attempts to “Tamper with Testimony” and “Muzzling Officials” for possible political objectives.  “Sugarcoating testimony over critical matters that include the lives of Americans is irresponsible, and inevitably raises questions about the Administration’s priorities,” wrote the lawmakers. 

The letters express frustration that earlier requests by the Committee for LightSquared related documents from DHS, NOAA, NIST, and the Commerce Department have been ignored.  The lawmakers also cited the stonewalling by the FCC of Senator Charles Grassley’s request for LightSquared documents made last April, and the refusal of FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski to testify at a Senate hearing. 

The Chicago-way has come to Washington. Let’s evict it in 2012.

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When Political Contributions Endanger Our Soldiers

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Navstar-2F satellite of the Global Positioning...

Image via Wikipedia

On Thursday The Daily Beast posted a story about a Congressional investigation into a satellite broadband company named LightSquared. On Friday, Big Government carried the story. The question involved in the investigation is whether or not the White House pressured a Air Force General to change his testimony before Congress to help a corporation that happened to be a large democrat party donor.

The Daily Beast reports:

According to officials familiar with the situation, Shelton’s prepared testimony was leaked in advance to the company. And the White House asked the general to alter the testimony to add two points: that the general supported the White House policy to add more broadband for commercial use; and that the Pentagon would try to resolve the questions around LightSquared with testing in just 90 days. Shelton chafed at the intervention, which seemed to soften the Pentagon’s position and might be viewed as helping the company as it tries to get the project launched, officials said.

Big Government supplies some of the specifics:

Gen Shelton told members of Congress that the GPS satellite constellation operates in a “quiet neighborhood” in terms of bandwidth, and it’s this lack of interference that helps shield the GPS system from harmful interference in its critical operations. The LightSquared project would be the equivalent of a rock band moving into the neighborhood and blasting its music. All the testing the military did on LightSquared’s systems indicated major disruptions in the GPS system.

The Daily Beast further reports:

The White House confirmed Wednesday that its Office of Management and Budget suggested changes to the general’s testimony but insisted such reviews are routine and not influenced by politics. And it said Shelton was permitted to give the testimony he wants, without any pressure.

The fact that the General was asked to alter his testimony at all in a way that could put the American military at risk is a disgrace. Crony capitalism is becoming a serious problem in this White House. The voters are beginning to make it clear that Chicago politics is not appreciated in Washington.

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