Tag Archives: Harry Reid

Who Is Running The Country?

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This article is based on two articles–one from the U.K. Telegraph today and one from Associated Press today. Both articles are related to the bizarre turn of events yesterday when Secretary of State John Kerry unintentionally suggested a solution to the Syrian crisis. Secretary of State Kerry in an offhand remark suggested that if Assad would hand over all his chemical weapons Syria could escape American attack. The suggestion was picked up quickly by Vladimir Putin, and President Obama (and Harry Reid) had an excuse to delay a vote in Congress (which the President was likely to lose) about military intervention in Syria.

The Associated Press article reports:

Syria said Tuesday it has accepted Russia’s proposal to place its chemical weapons under international control for subsequent dismantling.

Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem said Tuesday after meeting with Russian parliament speaker that his government quickly “agreed to the Russian initiative.”

Al-Moallem added that Syria did so to “uproot U.S. aggression.”

So what is going on here? The current government of Syria is an ally of Russia. Russia just bought them some time. Even a small strike by the United States could turn the tide in favor of the rebels, and John Kerry’s offhand remark gave Russia a chance to avoid that strike.

Syria has agreed to the arrangement. Has anyone asked if the facilities to make chemical weapons will be inspected and dismantled?

I don’t support a military strike on Syria–I am not convinced there is anything to gain be getting involved in a civil war where there don’t seem to be any good guys. I am sorry that the President misspoke about a red line, but that is not worth killing anyone. I am not sure that this new idea is a solution–I think it is more of a delay tactic, but I think it is better than sending American weapons or troops.

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What Good Are Laws If The Government Ignores Them?

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Yesterday George Will posted a column at the Washington Post about a court decision that is an attempt to make the executive branch of government follow the laws Congress passes.

The article reports:

…last week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia instructed the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to stop “flouting the law.” Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh said: “It is no overstatement to say that our constitutional system of separation of powers would be significantly altered if we were to allow executive and independent agencies to disregard federal law in the manner asserted in this case.”

So what is this all about? In 1982, the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 stated that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) “shall consider” the Yucca Mountain application to become a repository, and “shall” approve or disapprove the application within three years of its submission. The application was submitted in 2008.

The NRC has no intention of complying with the law–former (NRC) Chairman Gregory Jaczko had previously served on the staff of Nevada Senator Harry Reid and was placed at the NRC to prevent the storage at Yucca Mountain from taking place. He resigned last year.

The NRC is considered part of the executive branch. It has no legal right to disregard a law enacted by Congress.

The article concludes:

This episode is a snapshot of contemporary Washington — small, devious people putting their lawlessness in the service of their parochialism and recklessly sacrificing public safety and constitutional propriety. One can only marvel at the measured patience with which the court has tried to teach the obvious to the willfully obtuse.

Until we elect different people to office in Washington, we can expect more of this.

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When Unions Panic

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Last night the Senate reached an agreement to avoid the “nuclear option” that prevented the end of the filibuster in blocking Presidential appointments. So what’s the deal, and what’s it all about?

CNS News reminds us:

Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky) has been very good at getting under Democratic Leader Harry Reid‘s (D-Nev) skin by holding up all sorts of bills and nominations.

But, before you cluck-cluck at the Republicans, it is well to remember that way back in 2005, when they were in the minority, Senate Democrats did exactly the same thing, which led then-Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn) to contemplate the exact same “nuclear option” that Senator Reid was threatening earlier this week.

But there’s more. The Wall Street Journal reports:

Big Labor desperately wants a quorum of at least three National Labor Relations Board nominees to keep issuing pro-union orders that have become the NLRB’s standard operating procedure in the Obama years. Today there are only three board members and Chairman Mark Pearce is set to resign on August 27.
Under Tuesday’s Senate deal, the Obama Administration will agree to withdraw the nominations of the two NLRB board members whom Mr. Obama first appointed in January 2012 as recess appointments though the Senate wasn’t in recess. The President will then nominate two new pro-union board members, whom Republicans won’t filibuster, as well as two GOP nominees. Mr. Trumka gets his new legal quorum.

So why are the unions so concerned? This chart from Google might explain something:

Loss of members means loss of prestige, but there’s more. In June 2010, I reported on the status of union pension funds (rightwinggranny.com):

In a column in the Washington Examiner in April, Mark Hemingway pointed out that the average union pension plan had only enough money to cover 62 percent of its financial obligations.  Pension plans that are below 80 percent funding are considered “endangered” by the government; below 65 percent is considered “critical.”  Union membership is declining, which means that less people are paying into these funds.

Unions have a rightful place in America. However, in recent years they have attempted to usurp power beyond what was their original purpose. Meanwhile, union leaders live like kings and workers pay mandatory dues and struggle to make ends meet. Unfortunately, the unions see the Obama Administration as an opportunity to increase their power and influence (and the wealth of their leaders). Hopefully the next election will restore a balance between unions and those who choose not to join them. Meanwhile, the Republicans are making some really bad decisions.

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The Internal Revenue Service Scandal Raises More Questions Than It Answers

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Yesterday’s Daily Caller posted a story that asked the following question:

…could someone at the IRS have leaked Romney’s tax information to Reid? At the time, Reid claimed he learned of Romney’s tax background from someone who had once been an investor in Romney’s firm, though he wouldn’t say who.

The question arises because it has come to light that for the last two years, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has been targeting conservative groups and leaking confidential information to liberal groups.

Harry Reid used his position as Senate Majority Leader to level charges at Mitt Romney that would have been impossible to disprove without totally compromising any bit of privacy Governor Romney might have had. In essence, he demanded that Mitt Romney prove a negative. The narrative went something like this:

In an interview with The Huffington Post, Reid claimed he had been called by someone who had invested in Romney’s former firm, Bain Capital. That person said Romney didn’t pay taxes for 10 years.

“He didn’t pay taxes for 10 years! Now, do I know that that’s true? Well, I’m not certain,” Reid told the liberal news outlet. “But obviously he can’t release those tax returns. How would it look?”

Romney’s campaign denied Reid’s accusations, eventually releasing a summary of the former Massachusetts governor’s taxes that — according to Romney staffers — showed he paid taxes over the last 20 years.

But Reid continued to argue that Romney’s tax returns included something that the Republican didn’t want everyone to see.

“He’s hiding something,” Reid said on a conference call. “He’s hiding something! It is so evident he’s hiding something!”

First of all, I seriously doubt the charges were true. However, since when did investors get to see the tax returns of board members of the companies in which they were investing? If in fact Harry Reid actually knew anything about Mitt Romney’s tax returns, where did he get that information?

Just a note–last year was the first year my husband and I have ever been audited. I am on the membership list of a number of conservative groups that probably have applied for tax exempt status. Hopefully, that is just a coincidence.

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Congress Is Preparing To Make Another Mess

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Today’s Wall Street Journal posted a story on Congress‘ latest attempt to grab more of your hard-earned money. That’s not really anything new, but every now and then their chutzpah amazes me. Last Tuesday a bill was introduced that would impose a sales tax on the Internet. It may be voted on as early as tomorrow. I am sure all of the people voting on it have read and understood it, right?????

The article reports:

For Senators curious about what they’re voting on, it is the same flawed proposal that Mike Enzi (R., Wyo.) introduced in February. It has been repackaged to qualify for a Senate rule that allows Majority Leader Harry Reid to bypass committee debate and bring it straight to the floor.

Mr. Enzi’s Marketplace Fairness Act discriminates against Internet-based businesses by imposing burdens that it does not apply to brick-and-mortar companies. For the first time, online merchants would be forced to collect sales taxes for all of America’s estimated 9,600 state and local taxing authorities.

New Hampshire, for example, has no sales tax, but a Granite State Web merchant would be forced to collect and remit sales taxes to all the governments that do. Small online sellers will therefore have to comply with tax laws created by distant governments in which they have no representation, and in places where they consume no local services.

I thought we settled this ‘taxation without representation’ thing a few hundred years ago.

The article continues:

Meanwhile, New Hampshire’s brick-and-mortar retailers will bear no such burden. They will not be required to collect taxes on the many customers who drive across the Maine and Massachusetts borders to shop in New Hampshire. Bill sponsors say it would be too big a hassle to force traditional retailers to ask every walk-in customer where they live, but these Senators are happy to impose new obligations online.

This has the potential of being a worse mess than ObamaCare. Let’s remember who votes for this and vote them out of office next year.

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Sorting Out The Truth In Congress

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UPI reported today that the statement by Harry Reid that Congress has already cut $2.6 trillion from projected future deficits by reducing non-defense programs alone is simply not true. Fact Check originally posted the story.

Fact Check reports:

Democratic claims of $2.5 trillion in deficit reduction refer not just to spending cuts. For example, President Obama said at a news conference on Jan. 14 that he had signed “a total of about $2.5 trillion in deficit reduction over the past two years.” But Obama included in that figure only $1.4 trillion in actual “spending cuts.”

Obama’s figure also included more than $600 billion in tax increases on upper-income individuals, which he signed Jan. 3. And it included about $500 billion in reduced interest payments, resulting from reduced future borrowing. A spokesman for Reid, whom we contacted by email, also conceded that Reid’s higher figure includes what he called “tax savings,” by which of course he means higher taxes.

The problem with cutting spending is part of the culture of Washington. Money equals power, and the more money Washington controls, the more power it feels it holds. Establishment politicians in both parties have learned that lesson well. Unless groups like the Tea Party bring new faces into Washington who refuse to enter into that culture, the runaway spending will continue, and Americans will be asked to turn over more and more of their hard-earned money.

If the American people want the runaway spending to stop, they need to make their voices heard at the ballot box. Just because someone has been in office for twenty years, they are not necessarily working for you!

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This Really Does Not Sound Like Co-operation

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Yesterday’s Washington Examiner posted an article stating that the Democrat Senate intends to pass a budget this year. Sounds like good news, but wait a minute.

The article reports:

But now a prominent Democratic lawmaker says his party will finally pass a budget — for the express purpose of raising taxes.  “We Democrats have always intended to do a budget this year,” Sen. Charles Schumer said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”  “It’s a great opportunity to get us some more revenues.”

“You’re going to need more revenues as well as more cuts to get the deficit down,” Schumer said.  “And I’ve talked to Leader Reid. I’ve talked to Budget Chair Murray. We’re going to do a budget this year. And it’s going to have revenues in it. And our Republican colleagues better get used to that fact.”

Great. More taxes. The article also explains why the Democrats have not passed a budget since 2009:

The Democrats’ strategy has long been clear.  The last time Majority Leader Harry Reid allowed a budget through the Senate was in April 2009, when huge Democratic majorities in Congress passed steep increases in spending.  Since then, Democrats have funded the government through a series of continuing resolutions — essentially locking in the 2009 budget as the new baseline for spending.

The article concludes:

Schumer, with 55 Democrats in the Senate, is now saying: Think again.  We’re going to raise taxes, and you can’t stop us.  The battle between the two sides will likely consume the Senate for the next two years.

The question is simple. Are there enough grown-ups who vote in America who realize that we cannot continue to spend money we don’t have? Raising taxes does not necessarily increase revenue. (Please see the Laffer Curve.) Raising taxes also slows the economy, increases unemployment, and ultimately causes the cost of government to increase while slowing growth in the private sector.

Part of our current economic problems is the relationship between government spending levels and the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Traditionally spending has been about 18 percent of GDP and tax revenue has been about 18 percent of GDP.  Unfortunately since 2009 (when the Democrats took control of the House of Representatives), spending has been approaching 25 percent of GDP. Unless the government takes almost all of the money that Americans earn away from them, there will never be enough tax revenue to fund that spending.

The chart below (from The Big Picture) shows where we are:

The American voters will determine in 2014 whether or not America survives economically.

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Trying To Win The Media War Instead Of Governing

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The basis of the American republic is the U. S. Constitution. It serves as a guide to governing the nation.. We ask the President and Congress to swear an oath to support and defend the Constitution when they take office. It is a little disconcerting when our elected officials seem to forget or ignore this oath.

Yesterday John Hinderaker at Power Line posted an article which illustrates an apparent lack of knowledge of the Constitution by some of the leaders of the Democrat party. Senators Harry Reid, Dick Durbin, Patty Murray and Chuck Schumer have written a letter to President Obama asking him to take all “lawful steps” to increase the debt ceiling–with or without the Republicans. They are fully entitled to write that letter, and they are fully entitled to their opinion, but do they have any idea what the U. S. Constitution says?

This is the letter (from the website Scribd):

This letter is political theater. Either the Senators who wrote it have not read the U. S. Constitution or they don’t understand it.

John Hinderaker at Power Line takes a closer look at the letter. Some of his comments:

Why are they talking about default? Default is constitutionally prohibited by the 14th Amendment. The federal government’s cash flow is more than ample to pay all interest on the national debt and to retire bonds as they mature. Other spending would have to be cut, to be sure; but default will not, and cannot, happen.

The senators telegraph here what they are really afraid of: the House may pass legislation that extends the debt limit along with spending cuts–cuts that will no doubt seem reasonable, not “unreasonable” or “unbalanced,” to voters. I believed that the Republicans wouldn’t be able to get much in exchange for increasing the debt limit because the threat not to do so lacks credibility, but this letter suggests that the Democrats are more worried than I thought.

…What “lawful steps” could Obama take “without Congressional approval” that would permit racking up more debt? Article I of the Constitution gives Congress the exclusive “Power…To borrow Money on the credit of the United States.” Obama has no such authority. Are the senators urging Obama to violate the Constitution? Or perhaps to pursue the trillion-dollar platinum coin gambit? It is impossible to say.

Sure. They want it for nothing, just like Obama wanted tax increases for nothing. The Dems say they are willing to negotiate, they just don’t want the GOP to have any bargaining power.

But wait! Didn’t Obama just get higher income and investment taxes on everyone earning over $250,000, precisely the higher taxes on the “rich” he has always said he wanted? The Democrats’ greed is never satisfied.

It would be a wonderful thing if the entire budget were on the table, but that isn’t what the Democrats have in mind. Still, the Democrats’ evident concern about the debt limit, manifested not just by this letter but by the trillion-dollar coin and other half-baked ideas that are being taken seriously by Democrats, suggests that more of the budget might be on the table than we once thought possible.

Does anyone remember what President Obama said about the national debt? RedState reminds us:

On July 3, 2008, Presidential candidate Obama said that adding $4 trillion in debt was “irresponsible” and “unpatriotic.” Obama was referring to the $3.764 trillion that had been added to the national debt during the seven and one-half years Bush had been president. Obama of course got his facts wrong when he falsely claimed President Bush increased the national debt by $4 trillion “by his lonesome.” When Speaker Pelosi took over Congress on January 3, 2007, the national debt was $8.7 trillion. So the Democrats must get some of the credit for one of the four trillion dollars candidate Obama tried to blame on Bush.

I guess debt is only good when the Democrats are in the White House.

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An Interesting Twist In The Budget Saga

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Today’s Washington Examiner is reporting that Harry Reid has blocked a vote in the Senate on President Obama’s budget proposal.

The article quotes Senator Reid:

“There is no Geithner proposal,” Reid said. “This is all made up.” Reid’s comment might come as a surprise to Geithner and the reporters who interviewed him over the weekend.

“We laid out a very detailed, carefully designed set of spending, savings and tax changes that help put us on a path offiscal responsibility,” Geithner told Fox News’ Chris Wallace on Sunday.

The article concludes:

Tweaking the Democrats from the Senate floor, the Republican leader (Mitch McConnell) said wasn’t surprised they refused to vote on the president’s proposal.

“As I just indicated, it includes a $2 trillion tax increase over 10 years — the biggest real dollar tax increase in U.S. history,” he said. It increases taxes on nearly one million small businesses — in the middle of a jobs crisis.  According to Ernst and Young, this type of rate hike would cause more than 700,000 Americans to lose their jobs. It raises taxes on investment income, harming economic growth even more. It includes tens of billions of dollars in more Washington spending — in a deal to cut the deficit.”

If it was a serious offer, why won’t the Democrats vote on it?

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Fiddling While Rome Burns

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It’s nice that Congress is back to work after the election. Between expiring tax cuts and the new taxes of ObamaCare, we are facing a fiscal cliff on January 1, so it is good to see Congress back to work addressing the task at hand. Just yesterday, according to CBS News, the Senate voted 92-5 to debate a bill to ease restrictions on hunters and fishermen and allow 41 U.S. hunters to bring home polar bear carcasses trapped in Canada due to a ban on trophy imports.

The article reports:

The polar bear provision would allow the 41 hunters — two are from Tester’s home state— who killed polar bears in Canada just before a 2008 ban on polar bear trophy imports took effect to bring the bears’ bodies across the border. The hunters involved were not able to bring the trophies home before the Fish and Wildlife Services listed them as a threatened species.

The bill has bipartisan support and is backed by the National Rifle Association and the National Wildlife Federation. The White House said Tuesday that the Obama administration also supports the bill.

Anyway, I guess I am glad that Congress is back to work on something.

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I Obviously Have Pursued The Wrong Career

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National Review Online posted a story today about Harry Reid‘s wealth and some of his investment history. Harry Reid was a law student who worked part time to put himself through law school. He has been a public servant for all be two years of his work history. His current salary is $193,400, basically higher than it has been during his working life. Harry Reid’s current net worth is between 3 and 10 million dollars. Obviously, this man is an investment genius–he should be on Wall Street.

When Harry Reid began his career in the Nevada legislature in 1982, he was worth between 1 and 1 1/2 million dollars.

The article at National Review details some of Senator Reid’s strategies for acquiring wealth. They involve such things as questionable land deals and insider stock trading. The land deals are clearly at the edge of legality; the insider trading, although legal at the time for Congress, is now illegal.

The Democrats have attacked Mitt Romney for being rich. He has been accused of everything from soup to nuts. However, no one is disputing the fact that he made his money honestly through hard work and intelligence. It is also to his credit that he started from scratch–he did not inherit his father’s wealth. It is amazing to me that an honest, successful businessman would be so strongly attacked while the source of the Senate Majority Leader’s wealth is overlooked.

One of the things I would like to see happen in November is to have the voters elect a Congress that is interested in the prosperity of American citizens–not using the office to line Congressional pockets.

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Why Does Anyone Still Listen To This Man ?

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Yesterday’s Washington Examiner posted an article about a recent statement by Senator Harry Reid.

Senator Reid stated:

“His poor father must be so embarrassed about his son,” Reid said, in reference to George Romney’s standard-setting decision to turn over 12 years of tax returns when he ran for president in the late 1960s. Saying he had “no problem with somebody being really, really wealthy,” Reid sat up in his chair a bit before stirring the pot further. A month or so ago, he said, a person who had invested with Bain Capital called his office.

“Harry, he didn’t pay any taxes for 10 years,” Reid recounted the person as saying.

“He didn’t pay taxes for 10 years! Now, do I know that that’s true? Well, I’m not certain,” said Reid. “But obviously he can’t release those tax returns. How would it look?

“You guys have said his wealth is $250 million,” Reid went on. “Not a chance in the world. It’s a lot more than that. I mean, you do pretty well if you don’t pay taxes for 10 years when you’re making millions and millions of dollars.”

There are a number of obvious problems with this statement. First of all, the article asks, “How would an investor in Bain Capital have access to Governor Romney’s tax returns?” Secondly, do you honestly believe that a public figure (as Governor Romney was after the Olympics) who earned the kind of money that Governor Romney earned would not have had his tax returns examined very carefully by the IRS.

The article also reminds us:

And in what Romney has released of his tax returns, he paid $6.2 million in taxes over two years.

This is the lowest form of sleaze so far in the campaign.

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Adding Some Facts To The Discussion On Unemployment

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Marc Thiessen at the Washington Post posted an article yesterday with some of the Labor Department statistics on the workforce in America. It turns out that the President’s statement that “It’s very clear that private sector jobs are doing just fine.” is simply not true. The original statement about the public sector was made by Harry Reid about six months ago when the Democrats were asking for another $35 billion to help states hire more public sector employees.

The article points out:

Obama and Reid have it precisely backward: It’s the public sector that’s doing fine. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the unemployment rate for government workers last month was just 4.2 percent (up slightly from 3.9 percent a year ago). Compare that to private-sector industries such as construction (14.2 percent unemployment), leisure and hospitality services (9.7 percent), agriculture (9.5 percent), professional and business services (8.5 percent) and wholesale and retail trade (8.1 percent). As Andrew Biggs of the American Enterprise Institute points out, the public-sector unemployment rate “is the lowest of any industry or class of worker, even including the growing energy industry.” If the rest of Americans enjoyed the same unemployment rate as government workers, Obama would be cruising to reelection.

Figures don’t lie, but evidently politicians do. The article further reminds us that Obamacare will add $46 billion in annual costs of new regulations to an already struggling economy.

The problem with President Obama’s statement (other than the fact that it is not true) is that it reinforces the idea that the President is anti-business. There is a perception of the President that he does not believe wealth can be created without someone other than the person creating the wealth being exploited or shortchanged in some way. He simply does not seem to respect free enterprise or understand how it works.

The article concludes:

How bad is all this for the president? Here’s how bad: Last week Mitt Romney accused President Obama of being “out of touch with the American people.” When a guy building a California vacation mansion with a car elevator for his wife’s two Cadillacs calls you “out of touch” — and no one laughs — you know you are in trouble.

I think it’s time for the Obama Campaign to find another line of attack.

 

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Budget ? What Budget ?

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It’s been more than 1,000 days since the Senate fulfilled its legal obligation to pass a budget. The Democrat talking points say that a budget is unnecessary because of the spending agreement reached last year. Well, anyone who runs a house knows that one reason to have a budget is that it helps keep spending under control. This concept also applies to the government.

John Hinderaker at Power Line posted an article yesterday on the current budget games being played by Congress.

The article reports:

Now, with no fanfare and no press coverage, the Democrats are attempting to negate–effectively, to repeal–the Budget Control Act by adopting spending bills that exceed its limits. Harry Reid and his Senate confederates have offered a bill to increase spending on the Post Office, S. 1789. The bill has been scored by the Congressional Budget Office as increasing the federal deficit by $34 billion, and no provision has been made to recoup that money somewhere else in the budget. (Of course, we don’t have a budget because the Democrats in the Senate won’t pass one. But spending could still be cut somewhere else.)

The article includes a rather lengthy statement by Senator Jeff Sessions that is worth reading. This is a portion of that statement:

Under Senate rules, no committee can bring a bill to the floor that spends even one penny more than is already going to be spent under current law, or increases the deficit more than it will increase under current law.

 In other words, the spending and debt under the postal bill violates the debt limit agreement reached just last summer. In August, we agreed to modest, though insufficient, savings—in fact, discretionary spending will still increase $7 billion this year—and now the Senate is already planning to spend more than we agreed.

This is particularly odd since the President and the Senate Majority Leader have accused the House of breaking the budget agreement by trying to save extra money for taxpayers. This argument, of course, is not sound: The debt deal established basic spending caps—the maximum you can spend on discretionary accounts. Not one word in that law prevents you from doing your duty to try and save more money. Not one word in that law requires you to max out the cap. This is not a matter of interpretation: caps are the maximum, not the minimum, you can spend.

Almost everybody recognizes that deal was insufficient and the lawmakers trying to find more savings are doing their jobs and meeting their obligations.

Only in Washington does spending underneath a cap get you accused of breaking a deal while spending more than an agreement means people just look the other way. The Majority Leader and the Budget Committee Chairman are proud of the Budget Control Act, but where are they when it comes to making sure even these modest savings are enforced?
…
If this new spending is necessary, then isn’t it worth cutting spending somewhere else to pay for it? Do we really have to break our spending agreement before the ink is dry on it? At a time when we’re facing next year our fourth straight deficit in excess of a trillion dollars?

Washington is in a state of financial chaos. We are in denial. The Government Services Administration is throwing lavish parties in Las Vegas. The Government Accountability Office has identified $400 billion—$400 billion—being spent every year on waste, inefficiency, and duplication. Far worse, the Senate’s Democrat majority has failed to produce a budget plan in calendar years 2010, 2011, and now 2012. In fact, this Sunday, April 29th, marks exactly three years since the last time the Senate passed a budget.

…[N]ow, because the Senate can’t say no, and because the President refuses to exercise managerial discipline, we are set to spend another $34 billion in borrowed money.

The White House warns that Republicans want to cut too much spending. But the American people know the truth. And the truth is that we have never spent more money, more recklessly and with less accountability, than we are spending today.

This is a decisive moment. The point of order I will raise is not a mere formality. It is a crucial vote to see if the Senate will keep the agreement it made with the American people just last summer to reduce spending.

I am not optimistic about being able to change the uncontrolled spending of the current Congress. There are restraining forces (people who were elected in 2010), but there are not enough of them to be effective. Unless we elect people in November who respect the taxpayers’ money, we can expect our country to go bankrupt. We need to vote carefully this year.

 

 

 

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I Can’t Believe He Said That

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 My source for this article is The Blaze yesterday. I have seen it other places. On Wednesday Senator Harry Reid, in making a plea to pass a Post Office reform bill, stated that,  “And when talking about seniors, seniors love to get junk mail. It’s sometimes their only way of communicating or feeling like they’re part of the real world.” I am a senior citizen. I shred all of my junk mail that has my name on it. It is a pain in the neck. I would gladly give all of my junk mail to any senior who likes reading it on the condition that they would shred it afterward. What is this man talking about?

 

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An Election Year Is No Excuse To Avoid Doing Your Job

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John Hinderaker at Power Line posted an article yesterday on the progress of the Senate in producing a budget. The Senate is legally required to pass a budget by April 15th, but is not at all interested in doing so. Why? Because it is an election year, and Democrat Senators (who hold the majority) do not want to go on the record as supporting anything.

Outgoing Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad announced that his committee would be marking up a budget, but his efforts were shut down by Harry Reid.

Power Line reports:

Then, earlier this afternoon, Conrad gave a press conference in which he made the stunning announcement that there will be no budget markup after all. Instead, he will present a budget to the Budget Committee tomorrow. There will be no amendments and there will be no votes; not, at least, until after the election. Apparently Conrad had been proceeding on his own initiative, and at the 11th hour Harry Reid–supported by members of his caucus who do not want to have to go on record in favor of any budget–shut down the process.

Whoops!

The article further reports:

The content of Conrad’s budget is almost an afterthought, but it may be even worse than President Obama’s. It includes zero spending cuts from the existing baseline and increases taxes by $2.6 trillion, $700 billion more than Obama’s budget. Under Conrad’s budget, the federal debt (granting all assumptions underlying the calculations) would increase by $7 trillion.

A Daily Caller article posted today tells what happens next: 

Without a formal budget process, the 2013 budget will be prepared in a closed-door, end-of-year conference meeting of Senate and House leaders.

It’s time to elect people to Congress who care more about the country than their own political futures.

 
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Beware The Spin As The President’s Budget Is Released

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ABC News posted a story yesterday about a statement made by White House chief of staff Jack Lew on CNN regarding President Obama’s 2012 budget proposal. Mr. Lew stated, “You can’t pass a budget in the Senate of the United States without 60 votes and you can’t get 60 votes without bipartisan supports. So unless… unless Republicans are willing to work with Democrats in the Senate, [Majority Leader] Harry Reid is not going to be able to get a budget passed.”

That statement is simply not true. Budgets require 51 votes for passage in the Senate. The other thing that needs to be mentioned here is that President Obama’s 2011 Budget was voted on in May and defeated 97-0. I don’t think the problem was the Republicans–the problem was the budget proposal!

The article reports the spin (and then continues the spin):

White House officials did not dispute that Lew misspoke. When asked about the discrepancy, a White House official said “the chief of staff was clearly referencing the general gridlock in Congress that makes accomplishing even the most basic tasks nearly impossible given the Senate Republicans’ insistence on blocking an up or down vote on nearly every issue.”

The issue highlights the difficulty the White House is having running against an obstructionist Congress when half of that Congress is controlled by Democrats, who obstruct things for their own reasons. In this case, political observers believe Reid is reluctant to have Democrats vote on a large budget full of deficits and tax increases that Republicans can use to run against them.

Although I commend Mr. Tapper on pointing out that what Mr. Lew said was not true, I disagree with him on the characterization of Congress as obstructionist. Not every bill that goes to Congress should be passed. How come Congress is only obstructionist when it stands in the way of what Democrats want to do?

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A Great Idea That Will Probably Die In The Senate

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On Friday, the Daily Caller reported that Harry Reid told reporters that the Senate would not pass a budget this year. Senator Reid did not feel a budget was necessary because he felt that the debt-ceiling agreement already covered that. Never mind that the Senate is constitutionally required to pass a budget.

To add to the confusion, CNS News reported on Friday that the House of Representatives has now passed a bill to eliminate baseline budgeting. Baseline budgeting is the practice that allows Congress to claim it is cutting the budget while it continues to increase spending. This is done by assuming every government agency will have a certain percentage increase every year. If the amount of that increase is cut, it is a considered a spending cut, even though the agency got an actual increase in the amount it could spend. For example, let’s say the Department of Education spent $100 this year. Next year they would automatically get $110. If Congress cut the budget and they were only given $105, that would be considered a budget cut, even though their budget grew.

That is baseline budgeting. That is what the House of Representatives voted to end on Friday. Is anyone willing to make a bet on how far this bill will get in the Senate?

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Are The Democrats Really The Champion Of The Middle Class ?

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The Canada Free Press posted an article today detailing the impact on Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and President Obama have had on the Middle Class since 2006, when the Democrats took over Congress.

The article cites a number of areas where life in the Middle Class has become much more expensive and less secure. Unemployment in 2006 was under 6 percent; now it is almost 9 percent (and higher if you count those who have stopped looking). Grocery prices are up due to the declining value of the dollar. In late 2008 gasoline in Florida was $1.50 a gallon; for the past year gasoline has been over $3 a gallon. Heath insurance rates have gone up since the passage of Obamacare. College tuition rates are also climbing rapidly. Real estate values are about the only thing that has gone down!

The article concludes:

In January, 2007, the federal debt stood at approximately nine trillion dollars. When President Obama was inaugurated in 2009, it was just under twelve trillion. In mid-November, it surpassed fifteen trillion and is already nearly twenty percent of the way to SIXTEEN. Per citizen, this amounts to nearly $50,000 ($48,542, to be exact). This is the amount owed by EVERY man, woman, and child in America today. Look at it another way: Every child born in the United States enters this world with a $50,000 liability. And this is before he or she has soiled his or her first diaper. When the Democrats came to power in 2007, this figure stood at around $30,000 which was, by anyone’s measure, an obscene number. But your “warriors for the middle class” have increased this by two-thirds all the while portraying themselves as your friends.

With friends like this, you do NOT need enemies!

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In Washington Things Are Never As They Appear To Be

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English: Aerial photo of Tea Party rally to ou...

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Tampa Bay Online is reporting today that the House of Representatives has voted 229-193 to reject the Senate’s proposal for a two-month extension of the payroll tax cut. 

The article reports:

The House vote, 229-193, kicks the measure back to the Senate, where the bipartisan two-month measure passed on Saturday by a sweeping 89-10 vote. The Senate then promptly left Washington for the holidays. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., says he won’t allow bargaining until the House approves the Senate’s short-term measure.

OK. Let’s take a look at this. The Republicans in the Senate need to be taken to the woodshed on this one. First of all, a two-month extension of a tax policy is totally ridiculous. Companies need time to program their payroll software, they need some certainty in the future to allow them to plan expenses. The Republicans in the Senate fell right into the hands of the Democrat politicians on this one. Harry Reid left town in order to avoid negotiations. He knew that the House would reject this bill–this is the Democrat way of avoiding the Keystone Pipeline and blaming the Republicans for the middle class tax increase that is coming.

There will be no payroll tax cut extension. In itself, that is not horrible. (Don’t panic. I am not for higher taxes, I just don’t like the way this was done). The payroll tax cut comes out of the “Social Security Fund” (which is nonexistent)–not the general fund. The payroll tax cut ensures the demise of Social Security sooner rather than later. Raising taxes on millionaires, increasing the cost of mortgages, etc., has no impact on the money not collected because of the payroll tax cut–those things impace the general fund–not the social security fund.

Unfortunately, this battle is totally about politics and the American people are the losers. The correct answer to the entire situation would have been for Congress to pass a real budget–which it has not done for almost three years and proceed from there.

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About That Common Sense In The Senate I Just Mentioned–Here Is The Other Side Of The Coin

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Yesterday the Daily Caller reported on Senator Barbara Boxer’s reaction to the bill that the House of Representatives passed that cuts payroll taxes.

The article reports:

Speaking on the floor of the Senate, Boxer, the chairwoman of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, assailed a provision House Republicans attached to their payroll tax-cut bill that would delay boiler regulations the Environmental Protection Agency recently enacted.

“They have attached a poison pill — literally, colleagues — because it will kill 8,100 more people more than would have otherwise been killed from pollution,” Boxer said. “They attach that to the payroll tax cut. So have that for a Christmas gift.”

“We have asked for a lot from Santa in our day but we have never asked for lead, arsenic and mercury,” Boxer concluded.

This is the kind of rhetoric Senator McCaskill was speaking out against in the previous article. These words are not true, not constructive, and not consensus building.

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Common Sense Is Not Always Welcome In The Senate

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 Hot Air posted an article today about a comment by Senator Clair McCaskill that is causing a bit of a stir. Senator McCaskill asked, “Why don’t we give Republicans the pipeline?” I’m sure Harry Reid had a heart attack when he heard those words, but they do actually make sense.

The article reports:

Democratic Sen. McCaskill accused Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) of using divisive rhetoric during the payroll tax cut extension debate raging in Congress this week.

“I think if I were going to critique Harry Reid this morning, I really wish we would stop with this ‘dead on arrival, not going to go there’ and begin to have language like, ‘we’re going to take a look at it and see if there’s anything that we can agree on here and over the next couple of days try to come to an agreement,” said McCaskill on MSNBC’s “Daily Rundown” Wednesday.

“That’s what’s really going to happen, and I don’t know why this place is so set on, you know, looking like we’re combative all the time,” she added.

I understand that one of Senator McCaskill’s reasons for making that comment may be that she is up for re-election next year; however, it is still a valid comment. It would be nice to see the Senate and the House of Representatives work together for the good of the country.

The pipeline in questions would accomplish a number of good things–it would immediately provide jobs and it would begin to decrease our dependence on foreign oil. Any money that we can put into the western hemisphere instead of the Arab countries that are not our friends is money well spent.

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Rubbing Salt In An Open Wound

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I am sure it’s not what he meant to do, but did it occur to Harry Reid what the following statement sounded like to most Americans? The Huffington Post reported yesterday:

The Senate and President Obama will not go on their Christmas vacations until Congress extends the expiring payroll tax cut, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid vowed Wednesday, outlining an attempt to shame the GOP into backing a middle-class tax break.

Generally Congress would begin its Christmas break next week. How many other adults get three weeks off at Christmas? In today’s economy, how many of us can afford to spend three weeks in Hawaii?

The Hill posted a story yesterday stating:

“We’re going to keep pushing Congress to make this happen,” Obama said Friday. “Now is not the time to slam the brakes on the recovery. Right now, it’s time to step on the gas. We need to get this done. And I expect that it’s going to get done before Congress leaves. Otherwise, Congress may not be leaving, and we can all spend Christmas here together.”

I’m sorry–I’m just not impressed.

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A World Of Misleading Headlines

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Tampa Bay Online posted this headline last night:

GOP senators vote to defeat Obama’s jobs bill 

The New York Daily News reports:

Senate Republicans vote to kill Obama’s $447 million jobs bill

Those are two examples. If you choose to look, I’m sure you can find dozens. Let’s look at the facts. This the current breakdown of the Senate: Democrats: 57, Republicans: 41, Independents: 2. Because of the filibuster, it takes 60 votes to get anything voted on in the Senate.

The New York Daily News reports:

The $447 billion plan died on a 50-49 tally that garnered a majority of the 100-member Senate but fell well short of the 60 votes needed to keep the bill alive. The tally had been 51-48, but Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., switched his vote to “nay” so that he could force a future revote.

Power Line reports:

the bill stalled with Democratic Sens. Ben Nelson (Neb.) and Jon Tester (Mont.) joining all 46 voting Republicans to oppose the motion. …

At least three Members of the Democratic Conference who voted to move the legislation forward, Sens. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Jim Webb (D-Va.), said they would have opposed its final passage absent significant adjustments.

I realize that I am being picky, but considering this will be a campaign issue in 2012, I think it’s a good idea to get the facts straight at the outset. The only bipartisanship was against the bill. All the Republicans voted against cloture, but two Democrats joined them. All but two of the Democrats voted for cloture, but some Democrats said they would not vote for the bill unless it was changed significantly. The Republicans did not block this bill–the Democrats were simply not able to get the support of all their members and make a case good enough to get a few Republican votes. It’s not gridlock–it’s simply a bad bill that did not pass!

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Defunding The Cats So The Mice Can Play

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At the end of September, the Washington Examiner posted an article about attempts by the Democrats in the Senate to defund the Government Accountability Office (GAO). The GAO is a non-partisan group that looks for government waste.

The article reports:

Seven months ago, the non-partisan Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a landmark report identifying at least $200 billion in wasteful, duplicative, and fraudulent government programs.

This is simply downright inconvenient. The article reports the Democrat response to this information:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-NV, said the report, “shows all kinds of redundancies and overlapping.  Those are places we can cut money.  Let’s do it.”

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-CA, agreed.: “Again, we all agree we have to get rid of waste, fraud, abuse, duplication, obsolescence, and the rest. The GAO has given us a blueprint for that, and we subscribe to that.  We all agree that we must reduce the deficit, and the fiscal commission has given us a road map for that.  We can agree or disagree with some of it; but the fact is it gives us a blueprint for how to go forward, and we should take heed of that.”

Yet, in the last seven months, Congress has failed to send a single cut identified by GAO to the president’s desk.  Even worse, instead of cutting the spending identified by GAO, the Senate Appropriations Committee is now proposing to slash funding for GAO itself.

Somehow that is not surprising. Congress has not passed a budget in more than two years, despite being required by law to do so. Please follow the link to the Washington Examiner to see the games the Democrats in the Senate are playing with the GAO in an attempt to avoid being held accountable for their runaway spending.

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