Tag Archives: John Boehner

There Are A Few Good Men Still In Washington

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The more I watch what goes on in Washington, the more I am convinced that we have two political parties–the first consists of Democrats and establishment Republicans, the second consists of conservative Republicans attempting to force Congress to represent the people who voted them into office. The recent budget debates have done nothing to change my view.

The Hill posted an article on Saturday about recent budget negotiations.

The article states:

Appropriators are expected to roll out the legislation early next week, giving critics scant time to figure out what’s inside before they cast their votes by the end of the week. The government would shut down on Dec. 12 without a new funding bill.

“Here we are doing the appropriations bill the last couple days” before a government shutdown, conservative Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R-Kansas) said in an interview this week. “That’s not to squeeze Harry Reid. That’s to squeeze us.”

Boehner critics say there’s no reason the Speaker couldn’t have brought the spending package to the floor this past week, giving the House more time to consider it.

But doing so would also give more time for the right to build a case against it.

“They don’t want you to read it, that’s why! You think they want you to analyze all the mischievous items in there?” Rep. Walter Jones (R-N.C.)  told The Hill.

Representative Jones has been always been a budget hawk. He has unsuccessfully fought the establishment Republicans to cut spending. It is time for Americans who are concerned about the growth of government and the growth of government debt to take a close look at their voting habits. It is time to stop sending people to Washington simply because they have an “R” or a “D” after their name and to choose people for office who will actually represent us. We are running out of time to avoid American bankruptcy.

Why We Need Informed, Educated Voters

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David Limbaugh posted an article today at Townhall.com about President Obama’s continuing claim that the Republicans want to impeach him. Speaker of the House John Boehner has clearly stated that he is not interested in impeaching President Obama, so what is this about? A large part of it is about fund raising for the Democrat party.

On July 28, the Washington Post reported the following:

The Democrats’ congressional campaign arm pulled in $2.1 million in online donations over the weekend — the best four-day haul of the current election cycle — largely propelled by fundraising pitches tied to speculation that House Republicans could pursue the impeachment of President Obama.

That’s part of the story. Another part of the story involves the blatant flaunting of unconstitutional actions in an attempt to goad the Republicans into impeachment. Why impeachment? Because it energizes the far left of the Democrat party base.

David Limbaugh concludes:

So he is not only ratcheting up his rhetoric to accuse Republicans of a plot to impeach him, though House Speaker John Boehner has clearly indicated that is not in the cards, but also trying to force their hand into actually impeaching him. To this end, he is planning on upping the ante by issuing a far-reaching unilateral order granting amnesty to millions.

That’s right. The leader of the Free World is trying to provoke Republicans into impeaching him or otherwise stirring a constitutional crisis.

This is stunningly unprecedented. But more and more people are wising up to his serial abuses of power and his partisan agitation.

I don’t have a great track record as a prognosticator of elections, but I am strongly sensing his party, as a direct result of his policies and lawlessness and its shameless refusal to rein him in, is going to get a titanic comeuppance in November.

America is either going to be a representative republic or a banana republic. Voters in November will make that choice.

 

Another Fiction-Based Policy Brought To You By The Obama Administration

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The Daily Caller today is reporting that the policies that are part of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ‘s plan to fight global warming will cost the economy $2.23 trillion. The debate over global warming continues, but so does the runaway cost of fighting it–courtesy of the EPA.

The article reports:

“Higher energy prices as a result of the regulations will squeeze both production and consumption. Since energy is a critical input for most goods and services, Americans will be hit repeatedly with higher prices as businesses pass higher costs onto consumers,” writes Nick Loris, a Heritage Foundation economist and co-author of the report.

“However, if a company had to absorb the costs, high energy costs would shrink profit margins and prevent businesses from investing and expanding,” Loris adds. “The cutbacks result in less output, fewer new jobs, and less income.”

Let’s wait until we are sure the problem actually exists before we throw tons of money at it.

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I Have Decided To Communicate With You To Inform You That I Will Not Communicate With You????

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Hot Air posted a story today about a telephone call President Obama made to Speaker John Boehner.

The article reports:

After a week of reports about 90-year-old vets being barricaded out of war memorials and federal park rangers trying to cone off the roads in front of Mt. Rushmore, The One’s decided it’s time for a messaging reboot. He’s holding a snap presser at 2 p.m. ET to remind America that (a) Republicans are suicidally stubborn and unreasonable in digging in when the debt limit is approaching and (b) that he himself is dug in and categorically refuses to negotiate even though the debt limit is approaching.

Speaking of which, evidently we’ve reached the crucial “communications about not wanting to communicate” stage of the negotiations. Next comes negotiations over whether or not to negotiate, and then finally a triumphant agreement to punt this whole process to next year sometime, when we’ll do it all again.

There is a way out of this, but I can guarantee that we won’t find it if people continue saying things like, “I will not negotiate.” As you hear the spin, remember that the House of Representatives has passed numerous bills to fund various parts of the government and that Harry Reid has refused to bring those bills to the floor in the Senate. This is political theater. I only hope that the Americans who have been evicted from their homes and those who have had their businesses closed will be able to recover from this impasse quickly.

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Looking For A Way To Earn Some Easy Money?

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Yesterday PJMedia posted a story about the protesters who showed up at the World War II Memorial.

The article reports:

After about an hour, about 20 protesters arrived on the scene chanting “Boehner, get us back to work” and claiming they were federal employees furloughed because of the shutdown.

As usual in Washington, things were not what they appeared to be.

The article further reports:

Then, remarkably, a guy carrying a sign passed by wearing a McDonald’s employee shirt, which I noted. I then began asking them how much they had been paid to protest, at which point the guy wearing the McDonald’s shirt came back and admitted he had been paid $15.

…Huffington Post reporter Arthur Delaney states that the protest was organized by a group called “Good Jobs Nation,” not SEIU as I previously reported, and that, remarkably, the protesters weren’t even federal employees at all but individuals who WORK in federal buildings affected by the shutdown.

This is the video:

Whatever happened to real protest?

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Rearranging The Deck Chairs On The Titanic

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The Obama Administration has promised to get to the bottom of the Internal Revenue Service‘s (IRS) scandal involving the targeting of conservative groups. They have promised that the person responsible will be held accountable. Because of the time frame, they can’t blame it on George Bush, but that doesn’t mean that the concept of accountability isn’t flexible.

ABC News reported today that the person who was in charge of the tax-exempt organizations at the time the Tea Party was targeted is now head of the IRS’ Affordable Care Act office. Oddly enough, she was not the one asked to resign.

The article reports:

Her successor, Joseph Grant, is taking the fall for misdeeds at the scandal-plagued unit between 2010 and 2012. During at least part of that time, Grant served as deputy commissioner of the tax-exempt unit.

Grant announced today that he would retire June 3, despite being appointed as commissioner of the tax-exempt office May 8, a week ago.

As the House voted to fully repeal the Affordable Care Act Thursday evening, House Speaker John Boehner expressed “serious concerns” that the IRS is empowered as the law’s chief enforcer.

The IRS scandal has some rather subtle consequences. It vindicates those conservative organizations that were complaining about being targeting in 2010. It shows that Congress and the Inspector General were slow to respond to those complaints. But there is another aspect of this story that is interesting. The House of Representatives voted today to repeal ObamaCare. That is nothing new–they have been doing that pretty much on a regular basis. It won’t be repealed under this Congress–it would never pass the Senate, and even it it did, the Senate would not be able to override a Presidential veto. But there is a twist to this story. The IRS scandal is one that every American can relate to. As the scandal unfolds, the Republicans (assuming they have given up being the stupid party) will remind people that the IRS will be administering ObamaCare. After this scandal, that will be a scary prospect to many people. ObamaCare is not popular to begin with, it was passed with only Democrat votes–no Republicans voted for it, and the mid-term elections are a year and a half away. There will be more votes on the repeal of ObamaCare, and it will be interesting to see if any Democrats running for re-election change their votes.

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The Next Step

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Yesterday’s Wall Street Journal posted an editorial reporting that Congressman Frank Wolf of Virginia has written a letter to House Speaker John Boehner requesting the creation of a bipartisan committee to investigate what actually happened in Benghazi on September 11, 2012. CNS News reported yesterday that 143 House Republicans are now co-sponsoring a bill that would authorize a special committee to investigate Benghazi. So why don’t we have the committee?

The article at CNS News quotes the letter from Congressman Wolf to Speaker Boehner:

“Chairman Issa’s hearing yesterday was a positive step forward in the effort to investigate the administration for its apparent cover up of key information about the nature of the attack and its response,” Wolf told Boehner.  “I appreciate your leadership and that of the committees to advance the investigation to this point.

“However, the hearing also made clear that a thorough inquiry will require witnesses from across government–including the Defense Department, State Department, Intelligence Community, Justice Department and even the White House,” said Wolf. “Only a Select Committee would be able to bring the cross-jurisdictional expertise and subpoena authority to compel answers from these agencies.”

The hearings on Wednesday featured three whistleblowers who were willing to testify before the House committee. Ambassador Thomas Pickering and retired Admiral Mike Mullen, who chaired the State Department Accountability Review Board that conducted the administration’s internal investigation of the Benghazi attack, have refused to testify before the committee or even talk with the committee staff informally.  Unless a Select Committee is formed, the American public will never hear their side of the story.

The article in the Wall Street Journal concludes:

Mr. Boehner said on Thursday that the Administration should release its email communications on Benghazi, but it won’t do so unless they are subpoenaed. Frank Wolf, one of the House’s most senior Members, has it right. Benghazi’s explanation deserves the best effort elected officials can give it, and the right vehicle is a Select Committee with subpoena power and deposition authority.

It would be nice to live in a world where witnesses would come forward voluntarily, but right now we don’t live there. We need to take action to encourage witnesses to give their testimony publicly.

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Is The Goal To Solve Problems Or To Punish The Rich?

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The Hill posted an article today about the budget proposal expected to come from President Obama in the near future. One aspect of the budget will be to limit how much ‘the rich’ will be able to keep in their individual retirement accounts.

The Obama Administration says that this proposal will add ‘fairness’ to the tax code. The provision is expected to raise $9 billion in ten years. At this point, I would like to point out that the current budget deficit is approximately $16 trillion dollars, and the projected annual deficit for 2013 will probably be in the neighborhood of $1 trillion dollars.

Let’s look at this concept of ‘fairness’ for a moment. How is it fair to continue to take money away from people who earn it and give it to people who don’t? How is it fair to punish someone who has worked hard and been successful for their efforts and success? Who has decided that we need ‘fairness?’ In 2009, the top 1% of earners paid 36.73 percent of the taxes (according to the National Taxpayers Union). How is that fair?

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An Interesting Potential Swap

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Ed Morrissey at Hot Air posted an article today posted an article about the current budget negotiations in Congress.

The article reports:

One of Obama’s advisers at that time, former OMB director Peter Orszag, warns that the nation’s infrastructure is ready to crumble unless we start spending big money to rescue it — and now, apparently, is the “perfect time” to start borrowing heavily to do it:

Mr. Orszag suggests that we issue $250 billion in bonds to pay for the repairs. The article goes on to say that the American Society of Civil Engineers (ACSE) has given the condition of America‘s infrastructure a grade of D. These are the same people who will repair these roads if the additional spending passes. Do you think there might be some self-interest here?

The article concludes:

John Boehner has a proposal for Democrats who want to talk infrastructure spending.  He’s willing to increase the allocations for that purpose, but only if the money comes from a specific new source of revenue:

As Congress continues to hunt for ever-elusive money to rebuild roads, bridges and transit systems, House Republicans are likely once again to turn to black gold.

In the tax-averse and conservative-heavy conference, transportation interest groups’ ideas about raising the gasoline tax or looking at distance-based fees are a tough sell. But expanding oil and gas drilling and using those revenues for infrastructure improvements represent what Speaker John Boehner has called a “natural link.”

That’s one way to test whether Democrats are serious about infrastructure repair, or are looking only to create more pork-barrel projects for people back home — as the ARRA “Porkulus” did in 2009 and 2010.

It should be an interesting debate.

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It Isn’t Legally Binding–But It Was A Good Vote

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Yesterday Politico reported on a vote taken in the U. S. Senate to endorse the Keystone XL pipeline. The vote, 62-37, is symbolic, but it does put pressure on President Obama to approve the pipeline.

The article states:

Senators also resoundingly defeated, 33-66, an amendment from Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) that called for “expeditiously analyzing and making decisions” on the pipeline project. Boxer’s proposal included a long list of criteria for the review, including whether the pipeline would increase oil prices, use materials not manufactured in the U.S., affect individual property rights and otherwise “adversely [affect] job creation” and national security.

“Both of these votes make it very clear that the Senate will approve this project if the president doesn’t,” Hoeven (R-N.D.) boasted to reporters afterward.

The vote is non-binding, but the article notes that the 62-37 vote is filibuster-proof.

The article also reminds us:

Republicans marked the anniversary (the one-year anniversary of Obama’s speech at a TransCanada pipe storage yard near Cushing, Okla., where he called for making it a “priority” to expedite approval of Keystone XL’s southern leg) by poking Obama for failing to approve Keystone’s northern portion, which would bring crude oil from Alberta’s oil sands into the U.S.

“If you recall, the president held a photo op last year to tout his support for the southern part of that pipeline,” House Speaker John Boehner said in a video his office released Friday morning. “The only problem was that section didn’t need his approval. He had nothing to do with it.”

At least some Democrats are willing to put jobs and the American economy above party politics.

About Those Budget Cuts…

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Yesterday I posted an article (rightwinggranny.com) about the three White House calligraphers with a total salary of $277,050. Their jobs are not impacted in any way by the sequester budget cuts. Today White House Dossier is reporting that stopping tours of the White House saves about $18,000 per week.

The article reports:

ABC calculates that the White House is open for visits for about 20 hours per week and the tours require around 30 Secret Service agents at $30 per hour.

ABC White House correspondent Jonathan Karl, who filed the report, ran into House Speaker John Boehner on Capitol Hill. Boehner commented, “We’re open.”

Does anyone doubt that the choice of where to make these budget cuts is political?

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I Don’t Believe This, But It Will Make The Discussion More Interesting

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CNS News is reporting that the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has predicted that federal revenues for 2013 will exceed $2.7 trillion in 2013, slightly higher than the $2.6 trillion the government collected in 2007, when the last recession officially began.

The article reports:

Government revenues had fallen by nearly $500 billion during the recession to $2.1 trillion in 2009, contributing to the $1.5 trillion deficit that year. However, federal revenues have been recovering since the recession ended in June 2009, and the CBO now projects that they will slightly eclipse their pre-recession peak.

In fact, the $2.7 trillion in revenue will be the most money the federal government has collected in history.

Obviously, if government revenue is the highest it has ever been in history, why do we have to increase taxes?

The article reports:

“Democrats say we should replace the president’s ‘sequester’ with revenue increases, or delay it.  Republicans say we should replace [it] with responsible reforms that will help put us on a path to balance the budget in 10 years,” House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said at a news conference on Wednesday.

Frankly, I would love to see federal revenues increase, but I am not convinced they will. Unemployment is still high, and the number of people working part-time who want to work full-time is at an all time high. Much of the revenue the government gets comes from personal income taxes, and if the unemployment situation does not change, I don’t think the revenues will change significantly. The CBO does its calculations based on the numbers it is given. It would be interesting to know where they got the numbers that convinced them 2013 was going to be a banner year for tax revenue.

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The Economy Is Shrinking–Not Growing

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The Washington Free Beacon reported today that in the fourth quarter of 2012, the U. S. Gross Domestic Product fell .1 percent. This is the first decline in three years.

The article reports:

“The number isn’t as bad as it looks,” said Paul Edelstein, director of financial economics at IHS Global Insight in Lexington, Massachusetts, whose team projected a 0.3 percent gain, the lowest in the Bloomberg survey. “This really was a story about a payback in national defense spending. Consumer spending growth picked up, fixed investment was fairly strong.” […]

Government outlays dropped at a 6.6 percent annual pace from October through December, subtracting 1.3 percentage points from GDP. The decrease was led by a 22.2 percent fall in defense that was the biggest since 1972, following the Vietnam War.

Meanwhile, everyone in Washington is blaming everyone else.

The Hill reported today:

Carney said economic observers were “rightly appalled” by the threat of sequestration or default to drive a debt deal, and charged that Republicans were harming the economy to the benefit of the wealthiest Americans.

“It can’t be we’ll let sequester kick in because we insist tax loopholes remain in place for corporate jet-owners,” Carney said.

Brendan Buck, a spokesman for Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), pointed the finger of blame for the still-looming sequester back at the White House. 

“These arbitrary, automatic cuts were a creation and demand of the White House in 2011,” said Buck. “Twice the House has passed legislation to replace them with common sense cuts and reforms. If there was any uncertainty late last year about the sequester, it was because the Democratic-controlled Senate, per usual, never lifted a finger to pass a plan to replace it.”

Let’s back up a minute. The Senate has been operating on continuing resolutions since 2009 because they have failed to pass a budget. These resolutions allow them to keep the spending at the 2009 levels. We are going into debt at the rate of more than $1 trillion dollars a year because of those continuing resolutions. Has anyone considered the impact of runaway spending on the financial health of the nation? Has anyone considered the fact that businesses are holding their breath waiting to see what the impact of Obamacare will be? Has anyone considered that Americans knew at the end of last year that their paychecks would be smaller after January 1st?

We are now more than four years into bad fiscal policy. At some point that fact will be recognized (even in Washington). The answer, unfortunately, will not come until the 2014 elections. At that point Americans will have to decide whether to continue on our present path or try something different. I strongly suggest we try something different–controlling spending and passing a budget would be a great start.

 

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About Those Fiscal Cliff Negotiations…

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Friday’s Wall Street Journal posted some of the details of the negotiations between President Obama and House Speaker Boehner.

The article reports:

Mr. Obama repeatedly lost patience with the speaker as negotiations faltered. In an Oval Office meeting last week, he told Mr. Boehner that if the sides didn’t reach agreement, he would use his inaugural address and his State of the Union speech to tell the country the Republicans were at fault.

Blaming may work politically up to a point, but I honestly don’t see it as a way to move the discussion forward.

The article cites some of the actual negotiations:

At one point, according to notes taken by a participant, Mr. Boehner told the president, “I put $800 billion [in tax revenue] on the table. What do I get for that?”

“You get nothing,” the president said. “I get that for free.”

Good grief!

John Hinderaker at Power Line posted an article on Friday about the negotiations on the fiscal cliff. In the article he quoted Senator Jeff Sessions:

President Obama today gave yet another speech about the fiscal cliff. No plan, nothing that can be scored or analyzed, just another speech. If President Obama wishes to avoid the fiscal cliff then he, with all the power and influence he holds as the leader of this nation, must submit to Congress – in legislative form – a plan that he believes can pass both chambers of Congress with bipartisan support. No more secret meetings and pointless press conferences. Certainly this is not too much to ask. So we await his action: will he move from an unscorable speech to scorable legislation? If he is unwilling to submit such a plan then we may be left with only one persuasive conclusion: that he has used two years of secret meetings with Republican leaders not as an opportunity to achieve fiscal reform, but as a political exercise to defeat his opposition and preserve the expansion of federal spending.

There are a number of ideas as to what President Obama is doing. Two of them are very interesting. Rush Limbaugh believes that this exercise is an attempt to divide and destroy the Republican Party by getting them to admit that tax hikes on the rich are necessary. Dick Morris believes that the current negotiations are an effort to change to discussion from excessive spending to the idea that we need more revenue. Each is plausible. Meanwhile, the American economy sits in limbo waiting to see what happens next. We need some grown-ups in Washington. Let’s elect some in 2014.

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Does The President Really Want To Negotiate ?

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Today’s Daily Caller is reporting that President Obama has turned down Speaker of the House John Boehner‘s offer to raise tax rates for Americans earning more than $1 million per year. The offer also included raising the government’s debt limit by roughly $1 trillion over its current level of $16.3 trillion.

The article reports:

Obama’s rapid spending — he has raised the national debt by $5.7 trillion since 2008 — means that he must persuade Congress to raise the debt ceiling again in the next few months.

Boehner’s Friday proposal would have transferred another $460 billion from roughly 400,000 investors and entrepreneurs to the federal government by raising their top marginal income tax rate from 35 percent to 39.6 percent.

Other federal, state and local taxes lift the effective tax rate on top earners to well over 50 percent.

The article concludes:

Meanwhile, the White House has demanded that the GOP “acknowledge” that higher tax rates are needed.

This demand for the GOP to abandon its ideological principle against higher tax rates is itself a ideological demand from Obama, and spotlights his gamble that November’s election results can help him win a long-lasting ideological victory over his Republican adversaries.

I am not a big fan of John Boehner, but it does seem that he has done everything he can to try to reach an agreement with President Obama. It appears that it is the President who is not willing to negotiate.

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One Of The Problems In Reforming The Tax Code

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Yesterday the Wall Street Journal posted a story which might explain some of the difficulties Congress and the President are having in reaching a budget agreement before going over the fiscal cliff. The current American tax code is currently approximately 6,000 pages and 500 words. To say that it is difficult to navigate is a serious understatement.

One of Speaker of the House John Boehner‘s suggestions has been a limit on annual deductions. During the election campaign, Mitt Romney suggested a deduction cap somewhere between $17,000 and $50,000 a year.  Many liberal pundits supported the idea as representing equity. However, now that the election is over and the idea is examined more closely, there are serious consequences to this change–many of those consequences are political.

The article reports:

…For example, 44% of Connecticut filers itemize their deductions, but only some 21% of North and South Dakota residents do.

One tax writeoff in particular illustrates the point: the deduction for state and local income taxes. This allows a high-income tax filer who pays, say, $20,000 in state and local income taxes to deduct those payments from his federal taxable income.

Because the highest federal tax rate is 35%, the value of the state and local deduction is enormous for high-tax states. If President Obama succeeds in raising the federal tax rate to 39.6%, the value of those deductions rises to nearly 40 cents on the dollar. This deduction certainly eases the pain of New Jersey‘s 8.97% top tax rate, or Hawaii’s 11%.

The article explains that five states accounted for nearly half the tax revenue lost because of the state and local tax deduction–California, New York, New Jersey, Maryland and Massachusetts. California accounted for $51 billion of the writeoff due to state and local tax deductions. All of those five states can be found in the Democrat column during national elections.

The article explains:

To put it another way, when Californians voted to raise their top rate to 13.3% last month, they were voting to reduce revenue for the federal Treasury and thus increase the political pressure to raise tax rates on all Americans. The state and local tax loophole helps disperse and disguise the real cost of big government. As Mr. Obama likes to say, this is reverse Robin Hood.

The article concludes:

Mr. Obama wants to raise tax rates, rather than eliminate deductions, so his fellow Democrats can keep raising state and local taxes without bearing the full economic and political cost. Tax equity and economic growth are the big losers.

Because the current tax code is so politically loaded, I really don’t see Congress and the President agreeing to change it significantly. Unfortunately, it needs to be changed significantly.

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Twisting The Numbers To Change The Story

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Yesterday the Daily Caller posted a story about Bloomberg News and its reporting of a poll it conducted last week. The poll was taken by an Iowa-based firm and asked Americans how they felt about the coming ‘fiscal cliff.’

The article states:

A poll conducted last week by an Iowa-based firm showed Americans are conflicted about whether or not to support raising tax rates on wealthy Americans to avert the so-called “fiscal cliff.” But that’s not how Bloomberg News, which commissioned the poll, reported the results Thursday.

Somehow, when the story was reported, the headline read, “Americans Back Obama Tax-Rate Boost Tied to Entitlements.” So what did the poll actually show? The article reported that fifty-eight percent of the people polled thought President Obama was right to insist on raising taxes on the wealthy as a precondition for talks about the fiscal cliff. However, when you take a closer look at the numbers, you find that fifty-two percent responded that they preferred limited tax breaks to a tax-rate hike. Thirty nine percent said that they wanted to see tax rates on the wealthy increase, and nine percent said they were not sure.

Please follow the link above to read the entire story. There is also an attempt in the story to convince the reader that raising taxes to increase government spending is a solution to our current economic problems.

Bloomberg news is a respected financial news source. They do a disservice to themselves and the American people when they do not accurately report the news..

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An Interesting Take On The Fiscal Cliff

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Erick Erickson posted an interesting article at Red State yesterday about the current wrangling regarding the fiscal cliff. Mr. Erickson pointed out that in his opinion, John Boehner should not raise tax rates–it would be better to go off the fiscal cliff.

The article explains what is really going on here:

Why would every other issue move quickly if the Republicans would just agree to raise rates? Because of two issues.

The White House knows that if they cannot get the GOP to vote to increase rates, they will get crushed on the tax issue in the midterms. Their red state Democrats need political cover before they can vote to increase taxes. That cover is a Republican cave.

The White House also knows that if they can get the GOP to vote to increase taxes once, it will be far easier to get them to do it again.

Barack Obama needs the Republicans to raise rates. If they do not get it before January 1, all of the Bush tax cuts will expire and the GOP will not permit any reduction without it being an across the board reduction. Moderate Democrats in the Senate and the few remaining blue dogs in the House will be in a very difficult position.

Raising tax rates, rather than simply eliminating some loopholes, would cause a serious split in the Republican party. It would result in a serious power struggle within the party during the elections of 2014, probably giving the Democrats additional seats in both the House and the Senate. What would happen after that would be a nightmare for America–there would be no control at all on Barack Obama’s spending plans. If John Boehner has any loyalty to the country and to the Republican party, he needs to resist the pressure to increase tax rates.

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Some Wisdom From Fred Barnes

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In 1995, Fred Barnes, William Kristol and John Podhoretz formed the Weekly Standard. Fred Barnes is also a regular commentator on Fox News, and has also written for numerous publications, including Reader’s Digest, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Spectator, Washingtonian, The Public Interest, Policy Review and both The Sunday Telegraph and Sunday Times of London.

In the December 10 issue of The Weekly Standard, Fred Barnes posts an article entitled, “Don’t Go Wobbly.” The article reminds us that although President Obama won the election, he did not win a mandate. He won by waging one of the most negative campaigns in American history.

The article reminds us:

House speaker John Boehner has rejected the president’s proposal as unserious. Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell broke into laughter when Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner outlined it for him. It’s a wonder even Geithner kept a straight face. Because what the president wants is the same-old same-old: tax hikes immediately, spending cuts down the road. We know how this plays out. Taxes go up, spending cuts never materialize. Obama is also seeking a new $50 billion stimulus. And there’s more. Obama wants to raise the debt limit without the approval of Congress and force banks to refinance troubled home mortgages.

Giving President Obama the ability to raise the debt limit without the consent of Congress is like giving your fifteen year old a credit card with no credit limit. Most grownups don’t have the restraint to handle a credit card without a credit limit–that is why banks set credit limits. Shouldn’t our government be as smart as banks?

The article cites some of the areas of reform that President Obama has asked the Republicans to agree to. These areas include tax rate increases on the wealthy, then limiting tax deductions on the wealthy in the coming year. This represents a serious increase in the expenses of small businesses and will prevent new hiring by small businesses. The President is proposing Medicare cuts–the Republicans need to ask for Medicare reform–not cuts. If we continue to cut the rate at which hospitals are reimbursed for Medicare patients, hospitals will stop admitting Medicare patients.

The article has two good suggestions for Republicans involved in this debate:

To strengthen their hand, Republicans would be smart to stress two things. One is the Simpson-Bowles commission’s strategy for handling the debt and deficit crisis. The Obama-created commission said uncontrolled spending is the cause of the problem, that the best way to gain more revenue is through tax reform, and that any deal must be bipartisan. Republicans agree and should say so loudly. Obama doesn’t agree.

The other is the prospect of a recession. The fiscal cliff is really a tax cliff. Taxes would instantly soar by $400 billion on January 1 and, according to the CBO, would drive the economy back into recession. So might the tax increase of $1.6 trillion advocated by Obama, in addition to higher taxes to finance his health care law that begin next year. Surely the president understands this.

Just as an afterthought–I am willing to go back to the tax rates of the Clinton era as long as we also go back to the spending levels of the Clinton era.

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Attacking The Donors

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Under the guise of transparency, some Democrats have asked that Political Action Committees list major donors. Although that sounds like a reasonable request, some recent activities by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) make me wonder about their motives.

Normally, a political campaign attacks the opposing candidate. Unfortunately, the people currently running the Democrat campaigns have not felt the necessity of being limited by such restrictive rules. I have recently posted articles about the attacks on Frank Vandersloot, a major donor to Restore Our Future, (rightwinggranny.com), attacks on New Hampshire businessman Jack Gilchrist (rightwinggranny.com), who had the nerve to appear in a Romney ad. The Democrats have also gone after billionaire casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, charging that he was tied to the Chinese mob and a prostitution ring.

Ed Morrissey at Hot Air reports:

The attack on Adelson falls into the same category as the demonization of the Koch brothers for their funding of conservative activism.  It’s designed to intimidate them — and others who might want to get involved in politics — out of the public sphere.  (That’s not an impulse limited to the Left, either; the Right has George Soros as its bête noir, for example.)

Why did the DCCC, of all Democratic organizations, start throwing mud at Adelson?  They wanted to attack John Boehner and House Republicans for supposedly taking prostitution money, but that’s a very big reach even if they had some evidence on Adelson — which they don’t, and never did. 

The good news here is that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee issued a public apology Thursday afternoon to Mr. Adelson.

The article at Hot Air quotes the statement:

“In press statements issued on June 29 and July 2, 2012, the DCCC made unsubstantiated allegations that attacked Sheldon Adelson, a supporter of the opposing party. This was wrong. The statements were untrue and unfair and we retract them,” the DCCC wrote. “The DCCC extends its sincere apology to Mr. Adelson and his family for any injury we have caused.”

Any person who runs for office in the current political climate can expect to be smeared, lied about, and threatened by the Chicago thugs that have taken over the Democrat party (I say that sadly–I used to be a Democrat). However, it is truly a shame that those who make political donations are now also vulnerable to this sort of thuggish behavior.

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Something Good Was Done In Washington Today

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When I look at that headline, I am reminded of all the admonitions to reporters, “If a dog bites a man, it’s not a story, if a man bites a dog, it’s a story.” However, something good was done in Washington recently.

The Hill is reporting today that John Boehner and Senator Joe Lieberman have announced that a deal has been reached to implement a renewal and expansion of the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship program.

The article reports:

The private school voucher initiative in the nation’s capital is a top priority of Boehner’s, and the agreement comes after the Speaker and Lieberman complained that President Obama’s decision to zero out funding for the program in his latest budget contradicted a law he signed in 2011. Boehner had successfully attached legislation extending and expanding the scholarships to a government funding accord last year.

The D.C. Opportunity Scholarship program has been a fantastic program for the city. It has allowed children from low-income families who would be at risk in the public schools in Washington, D. C., to get the education they need to be successful.

The article reports:

Under the agreement Boehner announced, there will be no cap on enrollment, and the program will remain open to both new and current applicants.

Bi-partisanship works when the issue is valid!

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The Pipeline That Won’t Die

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The Keystone Pipeline is reviving itself again. Yesterday’s Washington Times reported that TransCanada, the company seeking to build the massive Canada-to-Texas Keystone XL pipeline reapplied for a permit on Friday. Here we go again.

The good news here is that TransCanada would rather sell its oil to America and send it through the Keystone Pipeline than sell its oil to China and build a pipeline to Canada’s west coast. The bad news is that if the Obama Administration delays the approval until after the 2012 election. the Keystone Pipeline may be moot–the pipeline across Canada may have already been started.

The article reports:

“Today there is just one person standing in the way of tens of thousands of new American jobs: President Obama,” said House Speaker John A. Boehner, Ohio Republican. “After nearly four years of review, delay and politics, he is out of excuses for blocking this job-creating energy project any longer. Every state along the proposed route supports the pipeline, and its builder has jumped through every bureaucratic hoop.”

Nebraska officials were split on the earlier pipeline route, but have reportedly come to an understanding over a new route to the east of the sensitive Ogalallah Aquifer.

The State Department, which has a role in the approval process because the pipeline would cross the U.S.-Canada border, said in a statement that it had received the application and would put it through “a rigorous, transparent and thorough review.”

The delay in the pipeline represents a division within the Democrat party–the environmentalists oppose the pipeline and the unions support it. If the President wants to collect money from both groups, he has to put off a decision until after the election. However, there is another theory. After the President has collected all the money he can from Hollywood (representing the environmentalists), he can go ahead and approve the pipeline in order to gain campaign donations from the unions. I am not sure I believe that because there is no danger of the unions supporting Republicans and the unions do tend to be financially involved in elections.

Approving the Keystone Pipeline would create jobs. If the people of Nebraska support the pipeline, it should be built.

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Roadblocks On The Way To Energy Independence

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The Washington Free Beacon is reporting today that 70 House democrats voted for the Keystone Pipeline yesterday. The Keystone Pipeline was included in the Transportation Bill that passed the House yesterday by a vote of 293-127.

The Hill reported yesterday:

The bill creates another clash with the White House over the Keystone pipeline — a project at the heart of the Republicans’ energy agenda and their election-year attacks against the president.

Obama, facing divisions in his political base, has delayed a permitting decision on the project until after the election and threatened to veto the House bill over the pipeline language.

The House vote continues what has been a difficult path forward for transportation program funding, which often has bipartisan support.

Congress last month enacted a 90-day extension of highway programs before it left for a two-week recess, and the Speaker had hoped to use the break as one more chance to win support for the five-year transportation bill he has been pushing for months over objections from his conference.

Unless it is approved, the Keystone Pipeline will be a campaign issue this November. The majority of Americans are in favor of building it. Its construction will create jobs and lower gas prices at the pump (although I am not sure how quickly gas prices will go down). It will be interesting to see how the President and the Senate handle this.

 

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Actions Speak Louder Than Words

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The American (the online magazine of the American Enterprise Institute) posted an article yesterday by Marc Theissen about some recent actions by President Obama regarding the Supreme Court.

The article reported some events this week in a Boston, Massachusetts, court:

On Wednesday, oral arguments took place over another law passed by a “strong majority of a democratically elected Congress” — the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). Indeed, both cases feature the same lawyer — former solicitor general Paul Clement — who delivered the argument against Obamacare before the Supreme Court last week and in defense of DOMA before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit this week.

Why is Clement, and not the Justice Department, defending this law in federal court? Because the Obama administration announced last year that it had decided that it would no longer defend DOMA in court. Quite the opposite, the Justice Department is actively urging district courts around the country to … you guessed it … overturn this law.

The irony here is that DOMA was passed by a “strong majority of a democratically elected Congress.” In the House the vote was 342-67, and in the Senate the vote was 85-14. That actually is a strong majority.

Last year in a letter to Speaker of the House John Boehner, Attorney General Eric Holder stated:

After careful consideration, including a review of my recommendation, the President has concluded that given a number of factors, including a documented history of discrimination, classifications based on sexual orientation should be subject to a more heightened standard of scrutiny. The President has also concluded that Section 3 of DOMA, as applied to legally married same-sex couples, fails to meet that standard and is therefore unconstitutional. Given that conclusion, the President has instructed the Department not to defend the statute in such cases. I fully concur with the President’s determination.

So the President and the Attorney General have decided only to uphold those laws that they happen to agree with.

Has anyone in this administration read the U. S. Constitution?

 

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Part Of Being An Adult Is Taking Responsibility For Your Actions

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All of us remember the days of our youth when we could blame our siblings for things we did. There was also ‘the dog ate my homework.’ But as we grew, we learned to tell the truth and face the consequences of our actions. Well, not all of us learned that lesson.

The National Journal reported today that President Obama has rejected the construction of the Keystone Pipeline. He has also blamed the Republicans for that rejection–it was their fault because ‘ the 60-day deadline imposed by Republicans did not allow adequate time to review an alternate route through an ecologically sensitive area in Nebraska.’ Does anyone actually believe that he would have approved the pipeline if he had been given more time?

A spokesman for Speaker of the House John Boehner made the following statement:

“President Obama is about to destroy tens of thousands of American jobs and sell American energy security to the Chinese,” said Brendan Buck. “The president won’t stand up to his political base even to create American jobs. This is not the end of this fight.”

I hope that is true. Congress needs to override this decision. The future security of America and American energy depends on it.

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