President Obama is urging Republicans to pass a two-month extension compromise of his payroll tax cut. From the White House:

In the afternoon, the President will continue to urge House Republicans to do what’s right for the American people by allowing a vote on the short term bipartisan compromise passed by almost the entire Senate. If Congress fails to extend the payroll tax cut, the typical family making $50,000 a year will have about $40 less to spend or save with each paycheck.

The President is also pulling at heartstrings:

Obama will point people to a new section of the White House website where they can “share what a $40 paycheck means to them.” In addition, he’ll urge them to make use of a new Twitter hashtag, #40dollars.

The White House has also rounded up a group of citizens “who would see their taxes go up” to appear alongside Obama. Unclear if they’ll recite their assuredly heart-rending tales of prospective woe.

Republicans don't want the two-month extension. They are saying they want the payroll tax extension to last another year, which makes a lot more sense than a two-month extension.

This is all the usual partisan dance, of course, but what I find interesting is when Democrats go on record supporting tax cuts. You see, Democrats are generally the party that increases taxes. Republicans are generally the party that cuts taxes (and Democrats howl every time they do). Obama has turned that reality on it's head, which to me is an acknowledgement by the head Democrat that tax increases DO have a negative effect on people's lives. Obama is in effect advocating a REPUBLICAN position on taxes, thus admitting that the Republicans have been right all along. Obama is admitting that tax cuts stimulate the economy, just as Republicans have said all along. Obama is admitting that tax cuts increase demand, just as Republicans have said all along. Obama is obviously correct about these things. It's basic mathematics. If you have more money in your pocket (via less taxes), you will spend more. It's that simple, so I wonder why Democrats have devoted so much time and energy to denying it ??? Obama has ripped away the ongoing Democrat lie about tax cuts. I only wonder if he realizes he's done it, and how is he going to switch gears and start defending the huge tax increases he proposes starting in 2013 ??? That should be some magic trick. Only the Great Prevaricator has a snowball's chance of pulling it off (with the reality-blurring help of his fawning, Democrat-dominated mainstream media). Should be interesting.

Under the Democratic vision for this country, the only way out of our economic mess is enormous tax increases, precisely the opposite of what Obama is trying to feed us with his payroll tax cut. Let's start with Obama's own ten-year budget proposal, which assumed all the Bush tax cuts would expire. That would be a $3.8 trillion tax increase right there (and Obama's ten-year plan STILL added $8-9 trillion to the debt over a decade). Nothing like having huge tax increases AND a $20 trillion debt, eh ? But maybe the Democrats will abandon that plan, and only promote repealing the Bush tax cuts for the rich, thereby bringing in a whopping $75 billion per year to address our trillion dollar deficits. My calculator says that math doesn't add up at all, but Democrats keep pretending it does. It seems to be their main (phony) talking point, so it must be fooling somebody. "Fair shares" and all that rot.

The Democrats have all kinds of tax increases up their sleeve. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has even proposed paying for Obama's payroll tax cut with a, drumroll please,…TAX INCREASE. Weird:

…Harry Reid's plan to finance a one-year payroll tax cut with a 3.25% income tax surcharge on upper-income Americans that would last for at least 10 years. Mr. Reid knows it can't pass the House, and as we went to press it looked likely to fail even in the Senate.

Reid's plan won't pass the House or Senate, but Democrats like it for it's class warfare value. "Fair shares" and all.

Who would Reid's tax increase affect ??? Here's who:

Mr. Reid's surcharge—which would hit incomes of $1 million and above—would slam small business job creators. Congress's Joint Committee on Taxation estimates that taxpayers will declare about $1.2 trillion of business income in 2013. Only a fraction of those small business owners and Subchapter S companies will have a net income above $1 million, but Joint Tax finds that 34% of that $1.2 trillion is on tax returns with "modified AGI [adjusted gross income] in excess of $1 million." This means about $400 billion of business income would be subject to Mr. Reid's profits surtax.

Mr. Obama's own Treasury Department examined 2007 IRS data and found 392,000 returns with incomes above $1 million. Some 311,00, or more than three out of four, were classified by Treasury as "business owners." Perhaps Democrats can explain how taking money from employers is going to lead them to hire more workers.

We're back to the old Democrat snake oil, where Dems pretend they can fix the economy and create jobs by increasing taxes on the job creators. Duh. Liberal Democrats are good at class warfare, but not so good at implementing policies that will create jobs, which is what really helps the economy. Tricking Americans into believing Democrats are for the "little guy" seems to be their priority, even if the Dem policies end up hurting the little guy the most by eliminating jobs. If the choice is between handouts from Democrats or a job, this little guy will take the job every day of the week and twice on sunday.

Imagine a little over a year from now. 2013 arrives, unemployment is still over 8%, and the national debt is over $16 trillion. Obama is re-elected (cringe) to a second term. Is he really prepared to increase taxes by trillions of dollars ? Is he then prepared to increase taxes by $1.5 trillion more to implement ObamaCare ? Is he really prepared to nuke the economy all over again as it struggles to regain it's footing ? Everything I hear from the Democratic leadership says "Yes We Can". Every fiber of my being says "You Better Not".

In reference to cutting government spending, President Obama likes to say we should use a "scalpel" instead of a "machete".

Obama couldn't be more wrong. We should be using a howitzer instead of a machete on government spending. Using a scalpel just ain't gonna git her done, because we're on an unsustainable fiscal path straight to economic hell.

Unfortunately, we have two political parties of big spenders. We just witnessed the complete failure of 12 members of those big spending parties (the Not-So-Super Committee) to agree on $1.2 trillion in future cuts to future spending increases. The game those two parties played was, they both made offers they knew the other side would reject, then after the Super Committee failed, they both hoped to gain politically by blaming the other side. This is how our leading politicians act when the future of America is on the line. They look after themselves and their party instead of the people. If the two parties, can't even agree on something so minor, what hope is there they will ever implement the changes necessary to put this country back on a sustainable fiscal path ?

It seems the worst thing that can happen in Washington D.C. is for one party to gain complete power.

When Obama and the Democrats gained complete control in 2009-2010, they rammed through unprecedented spending increases and created the largest new entitlement program (ObamaCare) since the creation of Medicare in 1965. They did this with the full knowledge that our current entitlement programs were unsustainable. They did this despite warnings from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) that ObamaCare would bend the health care cost curve up instead of down. They did this despite the fact that Medicare was already our largest unsustainable entitlement liability going forward, the single biggest future government expense. ObamaCare will add trillions in new spending, and add tens of millions of people to the Medicaid rolls when the states are already struggling to pay for existing Medicaid spending. The Democrats did this when the country was in a major recession with unemployment at 9%. The Democrats made our unsustainable entitlement picture even more unsustainable, and they did it against the will of the American public. The Democrats also made trillion dollar plus deficits routine, and Obama has run up debt faster than any other American president in history. We just passed the $15 trillion debt mark, with no signs of the red ink slowing. Democrat control was a complete and utter failure.

Prior to Obama, we had President Bush and the Republicans in complete control from 2001-2006. What were the results when the so-called "conservative" party was in power ? Massive spending increases, an unnecessary war, and…a new entitlement program (Medicare Part D, the Prescription Drug program) !!! Defense and social spending both rose rapidly under Bush, and Bush accumulated $5 trillion in debt over eight years. Federal spending skyrocketed during the Bush years. If this is what we're calling "conservative" these days, no thank you. Real inflation-adjusted military spending is twice what it was a decade ago, yet the "conservative" Republicans are resisting major defense cuts, as are the Pentagon and the Obama administration. The leading Republican presidential contenders are all acting like hawks, and so is the Obama administration.

It's time for a major reality check for both political parties. While they play their partisan reindeer games, America is going down the tubes. We literally can't afford all this government spending any longer. We can't tax our way out of the problem, and we sure as hell can't "tax the rich" to pay for it all, which is the canard the Democrats keep pimping. Reversing the Bush tax cuts for the rich would add maybe $75 billion in new revenue over the next year. How does that address our $1.2 trillion deficit ? It doesn't. The Democrats are talking economic gobbledygook, and even though the American people agree with increasing taxes on the wealthy, it doesn't get us anywhere near to solving our economic sustainability problem. Not to mention that increasing taxes during this Great Recession would be galactically stupid and take even more money out of the hands of struggling American taxpayers and job creators. Lots of those "rich" people are business owners. The Democrats need to be reminded that those are the people who employ workers. Putting more expenses on their backs will only make matters worse. We're losing enough jobs as it is already.

It's time to refocus our Defense budget on what it is supposed to be for, DEFENSE…of America, not the defense of every country around the world. We can't afford to be the world's policeman any longer. This should be pretty obvious when the federal government is borrowing 43 cents of every dollar it spends. We can't justify spending $900 billion on the military when our Social Security and Medicare programs aren't funded. What does that say about our priorities ? The Republicans need to get off the neocon bandwagon already and admit this. It's indefensible, no pun intended.

The only way to get spending in line is to address the main drivers of current and future spending, and those are – Defense, Medicare/Medicaid, Social Security, and interest payments. Here is a pie chart of the 2012 federal budget:

From the above chart, we see that defense, entitlements (health care/pensions/welfare), and interest consume a whopping 88% of the federal budget. Even if Rick Perry could remember all three of the federal departments he wants to close, that 88% in spending would still remain, and nothing would change. Interest payments may seem relatively small at 6%, but they are growing so fast due to our massive deficits/debt that if we don't get our budget under control, the CBO estimates interest payments will soar to $800 billion per year by 2020. That is a tremendous amount of taxpayer money to flush down the toilet, money that could be used for other things, such as Social Security, Medicare, etc. Our unrestrained debt is stealing the future away. Obama and Congress are doing a great job, but only if the goal IS to destroy the country. Otherwise, we need some major changes, and we need them very soon. It's a shame that all we seem to get is the same old partisan rhetoric leading to nowhere, the same old false choices, the same old entrenched interests, the same old choices of Democrat poison or Republican poison. I'd say we deserve better than that, but I'm not sure we do.

Some day people may realize that the libertarian impulses were right, but I fear it will be too late by then. Many people seem to believe the ideas of limiting government and maximizing liberty are too radical, which actually makes me laugh (instead of cry) considering how extremely radical our current fiscal picture has become. How can things get more radical than pursuing policies of national economic suicide ??? It boggles my mind, as does the massive entitlement mentality that has taken over much of this country. We've become warring special interests instead of a united people. That is something else that has to change before we can hope to address our problems. I'm not optimistic.

Good luck, America. You're going to need it.

The Lord Of The Flies movement takes baby steps…

All Animals Are Equal, But Some Are More Equal Than Others: “We need to limit the amount of food we’re putting out to curb the influx of derelicts.” – OWS kitchen volunteer Rafael Moreno

All Animals Are Equal, But Some Are More Equal Than Others, Part II: "If you’re going to come here and get our food, bedding and clothing, have books and medical supplies for no charge, they need to give back. There’s a lot of takers here and they feel entitled. – OWS protestor Lauren Digiola (link)

Yes, we certainly can't have any entitlement-seekers infecting the Occupy movement of…um…entitlement-seekers. Gotta keep those losers out. The stuff the Occupiers have is THEIRS, dammit !!! They can't be expected to redistribute THEIR wealth to the less fortunate !!! We Are The 99%…except for those homeless derelicts !!!
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Robbing Peter To Pay Paul: "With nine days to go before the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) faces default, a Senate committee on Wednesday is expected to vote on a new plan to address the crisis. … The legislation would … provide USPS billions in cash from taxpayers. Specifically, it would hand over some $7 billion in supposedly 'surplus' contributions the government has made to the Federal Employees Retirement System. Such temporary surpluses, however, are common and are typically erased by normal financial swings or amortization over time. Transfer of the entire pot to USPS leaves taxpayers vulnerable if USPS later falls behind (which, given its condition, is not unlikely) while allowing needed structural reforms to be delayed. … USPS, and mail delivery itself, faces an uncertain future. Comprehensive change is needed to prevent massive losses and virtual bankruptcy. The reforms being considered by the Senate, however, fall short — while putting taxpayers even more at risk for the consequences of failure." –The Heritage Foundation's James Gattuso

I call this the Social Security financial oversight model. When the government sees a pile of money, it can't keep it's grubby mitts off of it. Btw, there is about $17.5 trillion sitting in the retirement funds of Americans if you add all of them together. How much do you think the government money-grubbers would love to gain control of that pile of cash ??? You'd have to subtract the $2.5 trillion sitting in the Social Security Trust Fund from the $17.5 trillion amount, because those SS funds don't really exist (the government already "borrowed" that money), but still, that leaves $15 trillion in our retirement funds, which is almost the exact amount of the national debt. When the cash-strapped government is already thinking about "borrowing" money from the pensions of federal employees, how long will it be until your IRA's and 401K's are taken over ? Lest you think I'm engaging in some fanciful paranoid delusion…the Obama administration already has plans to takeover your 401K's, which it could then "borrow" from. Beware.
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National Debate Loser: And what can we say about Rick Perry ? Trying to list the federal departments he would eliminate, Perry had an epic debate brain fart instead…

"Commerce, Education and the, uh, what's the third one there? Let's see…The third agency of government I would — I would do away with, Education, uh, the, uh, Commerce and, let's see,…I can't. The third one, I can't. Sorry. Oops."

Doh !!!! I think the third government department Perry was going for there is Lingerie, or maybe Junior Miss. Commodore Perry's presidential battleship may have just sunk.
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When Life Gets Tough, Make Things Up: "From a policy standpoint I think it's really important to know that President Obama was a job creator from day one. Now, was the ditch that we were in so deep that when you're talking to people and they still don't have a job, that's any consolation to them? No. But I'll tell you this: If President Obama and the House congressional Democrats had not acted, we would be at 15 percent unemployment." –House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)

For the record, under Obama, the alleged "job creator from day one", we have lost about 2.4 million jobs, and nobody outside Pelosi's vivid imagination believes unemployment would have been at 15 percent without Obama's failed stimulus package. Pelosi is a perpetual brain fart.
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Top 1% Denier: Here's an exchange between left-wing filmmaker Michael Moore and a CBS reporter…

Reporter: How are you helping these [Occupy protesters]?
Moore: Because I do well, I want taxes raised on people who do well, including mine.
Reporter: How are you helping these people with your $50 million?
Moore: I don't have $50 million.
Reporter: That's what it's rumored you are worth.
Moore: Well, really. Is that what you do is sell rumors?
Reporter: We're asking you for the truth.
Moore: You're just punk media is all you are. You lie. You lie to people. Stop lying to people. Stop lying.
Reporter: Are you not part of the 1 percent?
Moore: Just don't lie, okay?

I'm still waiting for the FIRST left-wing multi-millionaire like Moore to give their own personal riches away for the "cause". When they start doing that, I'll start taking them more seriously, and not a moment before. Before the wealth redistributors start spending other people's money, how about they spend their own ???
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Unitary Executive Back In Style: "If the Republican Congress won't join us, we're going to continue to act on our own to make the changes that we can to bring relief to middle-class families and those aspiring to get in the middle class". – VP Joe Biden

Whatever you say, Joe, but what about those 15 jobs-producing bills the Republican House has already passed that are sitting in the Senate waiting for the Democrats to bring them up ? In addition, why does every Democrat "jobs package" have to end up costing the taxpayers between $450 billion and $1 trillion ? Do Democrats simply not know our national debt is about to pass $15 trillion any day now ? Maybe their entire party has had a brain fart. The Democrats idea of stimulus is to take a bucket of water out of one end of the pool and pour it into the other end. They seem to believe they can fill up the pool this way. It won't ever work, because it CAN'T work. The real answer is to take money out of the government's hands and put it back into the hands of the private sector where it can do some good. The private sector is where growth comes from, not the government.
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And To Think, THIS Is the Guy They Call The Father Of The Democratic Party: "We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt." – Thomas Jefferson

While I'm quoting Jefferson, who in today's society believes these words ?…

"Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition". – Thomas Jefferson

Not the political left, I can tell you that for sure.

When President Obama announced that all US troops will be coming home from Iraq by the end of the year, he said it was a campaign promise fulfilled. He didn't bother to remind us it was George W. Bush's promise that was being fulfilled, not his own. Obama's campaign promise was to have us out of Iraq in sixteen months. That Obama promise was broken. Bush is the one who negotiated with the Iraqis to have US troops out of Iraq by the end of 2011. Obama stuck to the Bush timetable. Obama also forgot to tell us that the USA has been negotiating to extend our troop stay in Iraq:

Obama campaigned on ending the war in Iraq but had instead spent the past few months trying to extend it. A 2008 security deal between Washington and Baghdad called for all American forces to leave Iraq by the end of the year, but the White House — anxious about growing Iranian influence and Iraq’s continuing political and security challenges — publicly and privately tried to sell the Iraqis on a troop extension. As recently as last week, the White House was trying to persuade the Iraqis to allow 2,000-3,000 troops to stay beyond the end of the year.

Those efforts had never really gone anywhere; one senior U.S. military official told National Journal last weekend that they were stuck at “first base” because of Iraqi reluctance to hold substantive talks.

That impasse makes Obama’s speech at the White House on Friday less a dramatic surprise than simple confirmation of what had long been expected by observers of the moribund talks between the administration and the government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, which believes its own security forces are more than up to the task of protecting the country from terror attacks originating within its borders or foreign incursions from neighboring countries.

In Washington, many Republican lawmakers had spent recent weeks criticizing Obama for offering to keep a maximum of 3,000 troops in Iraq, far less than the 10,000-15,000 recommended by top American commanders in Iraq. That political point-scoring helped obscure that the choice wasn’t Obama’s to make. It was the Iraqis’, and recent interviews with officials in the country provided vivid evidence of just how unpopular the U.S. military presence there has become — and just how badly the Iraqi political leadership wanted those troops to go home.

Former Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, for instance, is a hugely pro-American politician who believes Iraq's security forces will be incapable of protecting the country without sustained foreign assistance. But in a recent interview, he refused to endorse a U.S. troop extension and instead indicated that they should leave.

"We have serious security problems in this country and serious political problems," he said in an interview late last month at his heavily guarded compound in Baghdad. "Keeping Americans in Iraq longer isn't the answer to the problems of Iraq. It may be an answer to the problems of the U.S., but it's definitely not the solution to the problems of my country."

Shiite leaders — including many from Maliki’s own Dawa Party — were even more strongly opposed, with followers of radical Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr threatening renewed violence if any American troops stayed past the end of the year. The Sadr threat was deeply alarming to Iraqis just beginning to rebuild their lives and their country after the bloody sectarian strife which ravaged Iraq for the past eight and a half years.

Only the Kurds were willing to discuss the possiblity of US troops staying longer. The Sunnis and Shia are against it. Maliki recently said the only way US troops could stay was if they had no immunity from prosecution under Iraqi laws, which he knew the Pentagon would never agree to.

We're leaving because the Iraqis want us to leave, not because of any campaign promise. The Iraqis don't want US troops in their country, period. You can't blame them. It is their country, after all. I think it was a mistake to go there in the first place, even though Saddam was a complete scumbag who deserved his fate. Things in the Middle East are never as easy and straightforward as our leaders would like them to be, and getting involved there is fraught with risk and unintended consequences.

Thus, Obama is doing his usual spin job and trying to take credit, also as usual, but what the heck, the important thing is that we're leaving !!! Our troops can come home at long last !!! Iraq will be left up to the Iraqis, as we knew it ultimately would be. It's not like we were ever going to make Iraq our 51st state.

Now everybody should be happy, right ???

Of course not. This is politics. The last time everybody was happy in politics was probably back during Garden Of Eden times, before Democrats and Republicans started arguing about whose fault it was that Adam and Eve got booted. Let the naysaying begin:

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney said in a statement that the Iraq withdrawal represents an “astonishing failure to secure an orderly transition in Iraq.”

Romney also said it could put U.S. gains in the war at risk. “The unavoidable question is whether this decision is the result of a naked political calculation or simply sheer ineptitude in negotiations with the Iraqi government,” Romney said.

Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry said Obama is “putting political expediency ahead of sound military and security judgment.”

Jon Huntsman Jr. and Michele Bachmann, two other Republican presidential contenders, also released statements criticizing the withdrawal as premature and the result of a failure to work out a deal with Iraqis to protect U.S. troops.

Arizona Senator John McCain, Obama’s Republican opponent in the 2008 election, said the withdrawal “marks a harmful and sad setback for the United States in the world.”

McCain, a prominent voice in his party on defense matters, said military commanders have told him the Iraqi military still needs assistance from U.S. forces.

Sigh. You just can't please some people. Is this all merely partisan political posturing by GOP presidential contenders ? Sounds like it to me. Remember, BUSH was the one who originally setup the Iraq withdrawal timetable, not Obama. Haven't we been in Iraq long enough ? Haven't our troops paid enough of a price ? Here are some Iraq statistics from Bloomberg:

There have been 3,525 U.S. personnel killed in action in Iraq; an additional 957 died of other causes. More than 32,000 have been wounded. The war has cost at least $752 billion, including training for Iraqis and related diplomatic missions, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said in January.

GOP presidential hopefuls are not the only ones saying an Iraq pullout is premature, a big mistake. Some generals are saying the same thing, including an architect of the 2007 troop surge that transformed the Iraq War. That general called the pullout an "absolute disaster":

“Forty-four hundred lives lost,” Gen. Keane said. “Tens of thousands of troops wounded. Over a couple hundred thousand Iraqis killed. We liberated 25 million people. There is only one Arab Muslim country that elects its own government, and that is Iraq.

“We should be staying there to strengthen that democracy, to let them get the kind of political gains they need to get and keep the Iranians away from strangling that country. That should be our objective, and we are walking away from that objective.”

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Sunday warned Iran not to miscalculate the U.S. decision to withdraw its troops.

“No one, most particularly Iran, should miscalculate about our continuing commitment to and with the Iraqis going forward,” she said in an interview with CNN from Uzbekistan.

“In addition to a very significant diplomatic presence in Iraq which will carry much of the responsibility for dealing with an independent, sovereign, democratic Iraq, we have bases in neighboring countries, we have our ally in Turkey. We have a lot of presence in that region,” she added.

Are we making a huge mistake ? I wish I could tell you, but I don't know. I'm in Akron, Ohio, not Baghdad. If this is a mistake, I guess we'll soon find out.

GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain once said foreign policy was not his strong suit.

And he keeps proving himself correct.

Yesterday, Cain said he might release all the prisoners in Guantanamo Bay in exchange for one American hostage.

Apparently, Mr. Cain didn't get the memo – we don't negotiate with terrorists ! Can you imagine an American president releasing Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and friends under ANY circumstances ? I can't.

Cain later said he "misspoke", using the favored obtuse verb of the political class. I would have preferred if Cain said "I was totally out to lunch on that question".

This isn't Cain's first unclear foreign policy position. When asked about the assassination of Anwar al-Awlaki, Cain originally said he was against it, but then changed his mind and said he was for it. He's also been vacillating on his comment about putting an electric fence on the Mexican border. He said he was joking (leave the jokes to Jon Stewart, Mr. Cain. You are supposed to be running for President), and then he said maybe he would put up the electric fence. Pick a position, Cain. These are not small issues.

As stated at one of the above links, you get the impression that Cain is making up his foreign policy answers as he goes along. As Cain says himself, he is not a politician. If that means he doesn't read from a prepared script or a teleprompter like Obama does, that's one thing. That's a plus. But if it means he hasn't really thought through some of these foreign policy issues, that's something else entirely. That means he's unprepared.

Cain also has a problem with his 999 tax plan. Namely…Congress will NEVER pass it. Democrats and Republicans alike have problems with it. One of the architects of Cain's 999 plan, economist Stephon Moore, is already saying the 9% national sales tax should be removed and replaced with a 9% payroll tax. This reflects the conservative concern that Cain is opening up another revenue stream for the federal government, when the feds have plenty of revenue streams already. Conservatives fear the 9-9-9 plan could eventually become the 20-20-20 plan. Democrats are concerned that the tax is regressive and raises taxes on the poorer segments of society (in political parlance, the word "regressive" means everyone is taxed at the same rate, which is…bad?…for some reason. Democrats favor discriminating against people).

In the polls, Cain and Romney are neck and neck…for the moment.

And now for a little comic relief, let's play…

Are You Smarter Than A Wall Street Occupier ? (Isn't everyone ?)

It's a quiz given by New York magazine to the Zacotti park squatters, and yes, they are as clueless as they seem. Nearly 90% of them don't know the top marginal tax rate for the "rich". 84% of them don't know what the Dodd-Frank Act is. 94% of them mistakenly believe the government spends more on the military than on health care and pensions. The Occupiers don't know anything about the very issues they are protesting. Classic.

According to the latest Zogby poll, Herman Cain is leading the field of Republican presidential nominees. Cain also won the recent Florida P5 straw poll by a wide margin.

I have a few observations:

1) Herman Cain is a black man.

2) Herman Cain is a Tea Partier.

3) Liberals keep trying to tell us the Tea Party is racist.

One of the above three statements doesn't fit with the other two. One of them has to be wrong.

I have a way to settle this. Here's a video of Herman Cain speaking at a Tea Party event. Let's see if the Tea Party crowd likes him, or if they don't like him because he's black…

Any questions, liberals ???

If you are interested in matters more important than the divisive litany of liberal lies, check out Herman Cain's website. His 999 Plan alone makes me love him. Here's a sample:

Promote freedom, not tyranny.

I keep hearing the Republicans are "The Party Of No", but it's the Democrats who keep rejecting legislation passed by the Republican-led House. Earlier this year, the Democrat-led Senate rejected the House budget proposal. In August, the Senate rejected the House's Cut, Cap, And Balance plan to raise the debt limit and balance the budget. Now, the real Party Of No is at it again. It has rejected a House Continuing Resolution (CR) to fund the government and provide relief for victims of Hurricane Irene and other disasters. Thus, we face ANOTHER possible government shutdown, because the real Party Of No, the Democrats, can never seem to agree on a budget. They haven't passed one in 2 1/2 years. They didn't even agree to pass Obama's budget. They rejected it unanimously.

The reason the Party Of No gave for its rejection this time is it's usual reason – Democrats don't want to cut spending, even though federal spending is far higher than usual and our deficit is astronomical.

The Senate on Friday rejected the GOP-led House's bill to avert a government shutdown, intensifying a partisan standoff that many in Congress hoped to avoid. The vote was 59-36.

Democrats in the Senate, who are in the majority, oppose Republican efforts to roll back "green" energy programs to pay for aid for victims of Hurricane Irene and other disasters. They say disaster aid, usually a bipartisan issue, should not require cuts elsewhere — especially to programs creating green jobs — as the GOP majority in the House now demands.

The two sides are racing the clock, as the Federal Emergency Management Agency is expected to run out of disaster money Monday.

It's deja vu all over again. This also makes me wonder how in the world Democrats are ever going to agree to the $1.5 trillion in spending cuts the Super Committee is supposed to recommend as part of the debt ceiling deal.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), ever the double-talking politician, had stressed the urgency of passing the CR on wednesday, but after the House passed a bill on friday, which Reid and company rejected, he changed his tune:

Earlier this week Mr. Reid was adamant that FEMA’s account was on the brink.

“The agency that rushes to help when disaster strikes will run out of money on Monday. I repeat, Monday,” he said Wednesday as he was pushing for quick action.

But by Friday he said he had been assured there was more time.

Sen. Mitch McConnell, Republicans’ leader in the chamber, tried to speed the vote up to Friday afternoon, but Mr. Reid objected, saying he wanted the cooling-off period.

“Cool off a little bit. Work this through. There’s a compromise here,” Mr. Reid said Friday, minutes after the Senate blocked back a bill drafted by House Republicans that would have replenished the disaster fund accounts through Nov. 18.

The CR would have kept the government running until 2012 had the Dems not rejected it:

The disaster money fight is tied to a broader bill that would keep the government open into fiscal year 2012, which begins Oct. 1. Congress has not passed any of the dozen spending bills required to fund basic operations, and without a stop-gap bill much of the government would shut down after Sept. 30.

In other words, we could have avoided this entire mess in the first place had Senate Democrats not rejected every budget placed before it while not offering any budget of it's own. The Senate has been in dereliction of it's basic duty for years.

In typical fashion, the fiscally irresponsible Democrats want the FEMA funds to be added to the deficit rather than display any shred of responsibility, which might harm their re-election chances:

Mr. Reid has called for a Monday vote on a new bill he wrote to accept the House-passed FEMA funding level, but to tack the additional spending onto the deficit rather than find cuts elsewhere.

Anybody remember the PAYGO legislation the Democrats passed a couple years ago, where the Dems proudly crowed about how federal spending would all be paid for now ??? The Democrats forgot all about that legislation the moment after it was passed. They scammed the American people. We've added $4 trillion to the debt in the 2 1/2 years Obummer has been President. The Democrats consistently vote for more fiscal irresponsibility, as they are doing here. They aren't just The Party Of No. They are The Party Of No Honor. Their lies flow like a river.

There's another reason Harry Reid wants a "cooling-off period" over the weekend:

Senate Democrats also have a major campaign event to raise money from high-dollar donors at the luxurious Kiawah Island in South Carolina this weekend.

Party on, Democrats. We know whose money you really care about…your own. While the Democrats wine and dine their well-heeled cronies (like the green entrepreneurs who funded Solyndra) on paradise island this weekend, I guess the business of the people can wait. Who cares if FEMA runs out of money on monday ? If that happens, I'm sure the Democrats can spin things to make it seem like the GOP's fault. That should be easy for a political party that has spent the last three years blaming everything on Bush, while it simultaneously destroys the economic future of this country.

Speaking of Solyndra, Barry's pals from Solyndra testified before Congress yesterday, if you can call pleading the 5th testifying. Here's a small example of the transparency and forthright honesty displayed by the Solyndra boys:

"Was the White House duped by Solyndra, or did they ignore the information to put green energy in a better light, or for more onerous reasons," asked Nebraska Rep. Lee Terry, a Republican.

One of Solyndra's main financial backers was also a big fundraiser for Obama in 2008 and lawmakers have questioned whether that played a part in the loan guarantee.

Lawmakers wanted to know the nature of several meetings between the Solyndra executives and White House aids over the last couple of years.

"On advice of my counsel, I invoke the privilege afforded by the fifth amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and I respectfully decline to answer any questions," was the response from each executive to every question.

Peachy. I guess the Solyndra boys had two choices – either plead the Fifth or say "I don't recall" like Hillary Clinton and the other Clintonistas did when asked about their scandals. The faulty memories of all those smart Clinton folk was known as Arkansas Alzheimer's back in the day.

I'll end with one comment about the Republican Fox/Google debate the other night. I'd vote for anybody on that stage over Barack Obama in 2012. Democrats keep talking about how Republicans would rather defeat Obama than help the American people. In my view, defeating Obama and helping the American people are the exact same thing. There is no distinction between the two.

If the debt limit deal struck between President Obama and Congress passes, it will be the first financial step forward our government has taken in over a decade. No, strike that. The deal is actually not a step forward. In reality, it's just the absence of another step backward. We've taken so many backward steps lately that anything else seems like progress. Walking backwards seems almost normal in these upside-down times.

We will be cutting $2.7 trillion in future spending for a $2.7 increase in the debt ceiling. That's basically a fiscal wash, and the "spending cuts" are mostly just reductions in future spending increases. We still have a long way to go in order to reach fiscal responsibility. We still have a massive deficit to deal with. No fiscal responsibility can be achieved unless we first balance the federal budget. Until we get there, we are still walking backwards.

Still, there is a lot to like about this deal. First and foremost, it eliminates the crisis that would be sparked by not raising the debt ceiling. Second, and still foremost, a message has been sent. That message comes from the Tea Party, and it says unfettered government deficits, debt, and spending (and the endless tax increases that must eventually accompany them) will no longer be tolerated. The Tea Party knows what lots of D.C. politicos seem to have forgotten, which is,…you never reach your destination by walking backwards. Walking backwards in not progress. It's regression.

All credit for this debt deal, and I mean 100%, goes to the Tea Party. Without the Tea Party, it would have been business as usual on Capitol Hill, and the debt ceiling would have been raised with no offsetting cuts, as President Obama proposed in April, and as has been done so many times before by both Democrats and Republicans. Raising the debt ceiling had become so routine that it made a mockery of the very reason we have a statutory debt ceiling. The reason we implemented a debt ceiling in the first place was to ensure that Congress would be responsible in issuing debt. Obviously, with a $14.5 trillion federal debt and a $1.6 trillion deficit this year, along with $100 trillion or so in unfunded future entitlement liabilities, no such responsibility has been occurring. Congress rated an epic FAIL for many years. The only brief respite came when the GOP took over Congress from 1994-2000 during the Clinton presidency, and fiscal responsibility was all the rage for a brief shining moment or two. Then, after Clinton, we regressed again into fiscal irresponsibility, where we've remained ever since. Bush-era Republicans in Congress made a mockery of the word "conservative", and the debt started piling up. That led to the Democrats taking over Congress in 2007, and ushered in the era of trillion dollar deficits. A liberal Democrats' idea of fiscal responsibility is to spend, spend, and spend some more, and then raise taxes, raise taxes, and finally…raise taxes. I don't know if it will ever occur to Democrats where such an irresponsible philosophy leads, and if you don't know what I mean by this, then you must be a Democrat. Frankly, I'm tired of explaining it. If any of you reading this don't understand why taking exorbitant amounts of money out of the private sector and handing it over to the government is like biting off your own hand because your finger hurts, I can't help you. You've been infected by the liberal disease. I no longer expect to hear anything rational from you. I'm working on a cure, but thus far, liberalitis has been resistant to all forms of logic and reason. It's an insidious virus.

To people infected with liberalitis, everything turns upside down. The sane becomes insane to them. That's why we have top Democrats sounding as crazy as any psychotic, drug-addicted streetperson. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) calls a balanced budget amendment "extremist" and "bizarre". House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) refers to a balanced budget amendment as going to "the dark side". The two leading Democrats in Congress are on record saying balanced budgets are evil and radical. Obviously, these are sick people. I'd feel sorry for them, as I do for anyone who suffers from a mental illness, were it not for the fact that they are our country's leaders. Reid and Pelosi are in a position to spread the disease of liberalitis to the masses. They're like Typhoid Mary. They must be isolated from the general public to stave off contagion.

Fortunately for us, President Obama seems not to suffer from full-blown liberalitis. He exhibits many of the symptoms, but at the end of the day, he can be reasoned with, as this debt limit deal attests. Thank goodness for that. Obama, like Clinton before him, is willing to be pragmatic and make a deal when he must.

I urge Democrats and Republicans alike to agree to this deal. To my Tea Party brothers and sisters, I say this – I know you're not getting everything you want, but this is the best deal you can get right now under the circumstances. You only have significant influence in one branch of Congress, and you've already changed the debate in Washington D.C. significantly. Accept the deal, declare victory, and renew the fight down the road. Hopefully, this is just the beginning.

I suppose I should include some details of the deal:

A senior Democrat aide said the deal finally came together Sunday when Boehner "blinked" and gave up his final demands to exempt the Pentagon from cuts next year. A GOP aide pointed out however that the final deal mandates that $5 billion of the total $10 billion in cuts in 2012 and 2013 must come from "security" spending, and this can include foreign aid, a fact that will give the House GOP wiggle room in finding savings.

Total discretionary spending in fiscal 2012 and 2013 will be capped at $1.043 trillion and $1.047 trillion, respectively, $7 billion and $3 billion below current levels. The House Appropriations Committee has been operating on the assumption that the number for 2012 is $1.019 trillion, a $31 billion cut from current levels. For all the worries on the left about deep cuts to government spending now, the actual bite up front is much less than the GOP has been pushing.

The Speaker's presentation touts the similarities between the final deal and his own House-passed debt limit proposal. In a statement sure to infuriate Democrats, the presentation says that the joint committee will operate on a budget baseline that "effectively make[s] it impossible … to increase taxes."

Democrats have pressed for raising Bush-era tax rates for the wealthy.

The White House, in its own fact sheet, vowed to use the threat of allowing the Bush-era tax rates on the wealthy to expire to pressure the joint committee to back revenue-raising tax reform.

The hurdle built into the deal meant to block the joint committee from raising revenue may be the hardest aspect for liberals to swallow.

The Congressional Budget Office's "current law baseline" assumes that the Bush-era tax rates expire and that the Alternative Minimum Tax is not patched, resulting in $3.5 trillion in extra revenue. A GOP aide explained that in using this baseline, the commission would have to raise taxes by more than $3.5 trillion in order for the extra amount to even count as "deficit reduction."

The Speaker told members that "it is his goal" to have the vote on Monday and then break for the five-week August recess, but leaders are waiting on the CBO score first. The text of the agreement will be available Monday morning.

I don't have the full details of the bill yet.

On the expiring Bush tax cuts, I can tell you this, and it's important. When the CBO scored Obama's ten-year baseline budget, the CBO assumed that the Bush tax cuts would expire in 2013, because the CBO scores bills based upon current law. Even with all the Bush tax cuts expiring, the CBO estimated that Obama's ten-year budget would add $9.8 trillion to the debt. I'm telling you this because those suffering from liberalitis are pretending that the Bush tax cuts are the main driver of future debt. As you can see, that is a flat-out lie. Obama is on pace to accumulate $10 trillion in new debt over a decade with all the Bush tax cuts rescinded. The fight of the Tea Party is vital for the future viability of this country.

One thing I've learned about President Obama – when he rails against "politics as usual", as he did in his redundant primetime speech to the country last night, you can rest assured that he will engage in politics as usual, relentlessly. The President had nothing new to say on the subject of the debt limit ceiling last night, but he made a campaign speech on television anyway. Obama carried on about how a "balanced approach" must be used in cutting spending and the deficit. He carried on about how revenue increases must be included as part of that balanced approach, as he has for the last couple months (prior to that the President was perfectly content to raise the debt limit with NO deficit reduction measures included). The President did his politics as usual routine, blaming Bush and Republicans for basically everything. Nothing new there either.

Here's the kicker. After going public for the nth time about how Republicans are intransigent for not raising revenues as part of the debt limit deal, it turns out that the White House had already endorsed Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's (D-NV) plan, which included NO REVENUE INCREASES. This means that when the President was standing in front of the American people railing against the Republicans for not raising taxes, he had already backed a Democrat plan that didn't raise taxes. It doesn't get more "politics as usual" than that, or more dishonest.

Of further interest is, where did Harry Reid's plan come from ? He had no plan prior to the weekend. We've been waiting patiently for Democrats to propose a plan. None was forthcoming until now, at the the 11th hour. What happened ? Here's a strong clue from the Washington Post:

A Republican aide e-mails me: “The Speaker, Sen. Reid and Sen. McConnell all agreed on the general framework of a two-part plan. A short-term increase (with cuts greater than the increase), combined with a committee to find long-term savings before the rest of the increase would be considered. Sen. Reid took the bipartisan plan to the White House and the President said no.”

If this is accurate the president is playing with fire. By halting a bipartisan deal he imperils the country’s finances and can rightly be accused of putting partisanship above all else. The ONLY reason to reject a short-term, two-step deal embraced by both the House and Senate is to avoid another approval-killing face-off for President Obama before the election. Next to pulling troops out of Afghanistan to fit the election calendar, this is the most irresponsible and shameful move of his presidency.

After rejecting the bipartisan plan, Obama endorsed a similar Democrat plan a day or two later. Why ? For one, Democrats will get the credit for a Democrat plan, but more importantly, Sen. Reid changed ONE element of the plan – it will get us past the 2012 election, which seems to be of utmost (or sole) importance to this President.

Reid's plan calls for $2.7 trillion in spending reductions over 10 years, and as I said previously, it includes no revenue increases. Prior to endorsing Reid's plan, Obama said repeatedly that he'd veto any such Republican proposal that focused only on spending cuts. That has been where the debt limit negotiations broke down every time, over revenues. But when the Democrats propose a spending-only plan, Obama magically sees the light and agrees. Amazing what a difference a 'D' or an 'R' next to a Congressperson's name can make, isn't it ?

Listen to when Reid's announced his plan:

Reid’s statement [announcing his plan] follows an hour-long meeting he attended at the White House with President Obama and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). Separately, Boehner told House Republicans on a conference call Sunday afternoon that he hoped to present a revised debt-ceiling bill on Monday, with a vote possible Wednesday.

The House GOP bill could be a short-term extension, which Reid said would be “a non-starter” in the Senate.

“Tonight, talks broke down over Republicans’ continued insistence on a short-term raise of the debt ceiling, which is something that President Obama, Leader Pelosi and I have been clear we would not support,” Reid said in his statement.

Except that Reid had supported the bipartisan plan, according to the Republican aide. Obama was the one who shot it down.

Translation – Obama told Reid and Pelosi he wanted a plan Democrats could take credit for, even though the ideas in the plan were all promoted previously by Republicans or were part of bipartisan negotiations. Obama wanted a plan that would get him through the 2012 elections, and it didn't matter if Obama and the Democrats had to reverse their position on everything they had said previously about tax increases. Obama even had the audacity to continue to rail against Republican anti-tax increase sentiments AFTER he had agreed to a spending-only plan that he could pretend came from the Democrats.

This President is all about politics as usual.

I haven't had time to analyze Reid's plan completely yet, but in the smoke and mirrors department, it looks pretty smoky and mirrory so far. $1 trillion of the "spending cuts" come from alleged savings on winding down the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, which were winding down anyway. In other words, Reid's plan projects spending that was never going to happen, and then counts reductions in that imaginary spending as "savings". In fairness, the 2011 House Republican budget plan did the same thing.

Reid's plan also excludes entitlement reform, which means the biggest drivers of future spending are still out there driving. Both Reid's plan and House Majority Leader John Boehner's (R-OH) plan kick spending cut decisions down the road, which isn't making Republicans, who are serious about spending cuts, very happy. Boehner may have a tough time getting his plan through the House. Some Democrats aren't very happy about the lack of tax increases in either plan, but I imagine Senate Democrats will largely follow the President's wishes regarding the Reid plan, albeit after some perfunctory grumbling.

Eight days to go…and the political beat goes on.

The Senate voted down the House's Cut, Cap, And Balance plan by a straight party line vote of 51-46. Naturally, Democrats were against cutting spending, capping spending, and balancing the budget, while Republicans favored those things. This marks the second time the Democrat-led Senate has killed a Republican-led House proposal that would have solved the debt limit crisis and put America on a path toward fiscal stability. The Dems earlier killed the Republican House budget, aka, the Ryan plan.

Now we move on to a vote on the Senate Democrat plan….oh sorry, I forgot, THE DEMOCRATS DON'T HAVE A PLAN. They have never proposed one, just as they have not proposed a budget in over two years. Senate Democrats even voted unanimously against President Obama's budget, which failed in the Senate by a vote of 97-0. Such courageous leaders, these Senate Democrats. NOT ! If a debt limit agreement is not reached, I propose the first people we stop paying are Senate Democrats.

Senate Majority Non-Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) was happy about leaving America with no plan, and even had the nerve to criticize House members for taking the weekend off. Here we have Reid, who has shown no leadership and has devised no plan and no budget, criticizing House Republicans, who have proposed two different plans. This proves that Reid is a spineless rat fink.

On the secret Obama negotiations front, House Majority Leader John Boehener (R-OH) broke off negotiations temporarily with President Obama. Obama said the Republicans have "left him at the altar" again, while Boehner said he had a tentative deal with Obama, until Obama changed the deal by asking for more tax increases. Even if Obama and Boehner do reach a deal, there is no guarantee either the House or the Senate would pass it. Many Congresspersons are irked by the secret negotiations, from which they are excluded. One of those irked is the spineless non-leader rat fink, Harry Reid. He's unhappy that his leaderless spineless rat fink butt isn't included in the negotiations. Sorry Harry, only leaders are included in the meetings. You don't qualify. We already know you aren't interested in doing your job. Your actions have spoken loud and clear.

Ten days until the debt limit expires on August 2nd, and we're back to zero, but the Obama negotiations are resuming today. President Obama is still pushing for a larger debt limit deal, and he has a reason:

"If we can't come up with a serious plan for actual deficit and debt reduction, and all we're doing is extending the debt ceiling for another six, seven, eight months, then the probabilities of downgrading U.S. credit are increased, and that will be an additional cloud over the economy and make it more difficult for us and more difficult for businesses to create jobs that the American people so desperately need," Mr. Obama said.

The President has a point here. Standard And Poor's just said there is a 50-50 chance that the credit rating of the United States will be lowered within three months, and that it will depend on how serious America gets about cutting the deficit:

If an agreement is reached to raise the debt ceiling but nothing meaningful is done in terms of deficit reduction, the U.S. would likely have its rating cut to the AA category, S&P said.

"While banks and broker-dealers wouldn't likely suffer any immediate ratings downgrades, we would downgrade the debt of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, the 'AAA' rated Federal Home Loan Banks, and the 'AAA' rated Federal Farm Credit System Banks to correspond with the U.S. sovereign rating," S&P said in its report.

"We would also lower the ratings on 'AAA' rated U.S. insurance groups, as per our criteria that correlates insurers' and sovereigns' ratings," the firm said.

And if no debt limit agreement is reached ???

However, S&P said it sees a failure to reach an agreement on raising the debt ceiling and reducing deficits as the least likely scenario, adding that in such a case the global financial markets would be in turmoil and "likely shove the U.S. economy back into recession."

In such a hypothetical case, it envisages the U.S. Treasury curtailing spending sharply and the U.S. Federal Reserve launching another round of quantitative easing to help prop up the economy.

"Under this scenario, we expect that interest rates could rise–say, 50 bps on short-term rates and double that on the long end–though this may depend on whether Treasuries would lose their status as the safe haven that investors have historically perceived them to be, or whether physical assets such as gold would benefit from such a flight to quality," S&P said.

It added that either way, corporate borrowers would likely see yield spreads widen while equity markets and the U.S. dollar would likely suffer

Not raising the debt limit is not a good option, folks. A deal must be struck.

I found the following current event quotes on The Patriot Post.

Insane The New Sane: "The same politicians who spent $1.7 trillion more than they collected, in just this year alone, say the problem is that private citizens are not paying enough. … [B]ecause the political class has made the national debt so high, it is able to insist that taking a chance on the power of liberty is an irresponsible gamble. Because the government lives so far beyond its means, it would be irresponsible to provide it with reduced means. This is how we have reached the madness of a moment when the national debt is used as an argument against spending reductions, or growth-oriented tax and regulatory policies. The insane problem becomes a weapon against rational solutions." –columnist John Hayward

There's nothing for me to add to that. Well said.

Moron Of The Week: "Isn't the Tea Party — I'm not trying to call them names or anything. I just want to ask a very serious question: Aren't they exactly what the Founding Fathers feared most? Which is people who are ignorant about the way the world works come to power. That is what the Founding Fathers hated the most. They were not for direct democracy" –HBO's Bill Maher

I'm still trying to figure out why Bill Maher has a political television show on HBO. His neverending ignorance on political matters is astounding. In the above quote, Maher not only demonstrates a cluelessness about the Founding Fathers and the original Boston Tea Party (it was about TAXES, Mr. Maher), he also doesn't seem to understand that today's Tea Party is not a direct democracy, it's a protest movement and only one of many political forces in this country. The Tea Party does not govern. Our elected representatives perform that function. That is and always has been a representative democracy. The "serious question" Bill Maher asks here is a complete joke.

Leadership Failure: "Meanwhile, the World's Greatest Orator bemoans the 'intransigence' of Republicans. OK, what's your plan? Give us one actual program you're willing to cut, right now. Oh, don't worry, says Barack Obluffer. To demonstrate how serious he is, he's offered to put on the table for fiscal year 2012 spending cuts of (stand well back now) $2 billion. That would be a lot in, say, Iceland or even Australia. Once upon a time it would have been a lot even in Washington. But today $2 billion is what the Brokest Nation in History borrows every 10 hours. In other words, in less time than he spends sitting across the table negotiating his $2 billion cut, he's already borrowed it all back. A negotiation with Obama is literally not worth the time." –columnist Mark Steyn

The extent of Obama's leadership on the debt limit has been to say he wants revenues raised along with spending cuts, and he didn't even care about spending cuts until the Republicans forced him to care. That's how this President leads…by following.

Hijacking The Tax And Spend Crowd: "Here's the thing about Obama. He ran as a transformational president. He sees himself as transformational. He always has. What occurred between 2008 and 2010 is the Tea Party. And the Tea Party has stopped that kind of transformation from occurring because it has hijacked the Republican Party and the John Boehners of the world who would have cut a deal with the president of the United States. It has hijacked the Republican Party and it has now become substantially just a no-tax party as opposed to a party that cares about the deficit. I think no tax trumps their caring and concern about the deficit." –CNN's Gloria Borger

Poor Obama. His transformational dreams were crushed by the Tea Party. Sniff, sniff. Cry me a river. In reality, it was, well, reality that crushed Obama's unrealistic dreams. Plus, if any party NEEDED hijacking after the big spending, debt accumulating Bush years, it was the Republican party. Thank goodness the Tea Party arrived on the scene and changed the discussion, because without it we wouldn't even be talking about reining in the sole cause of our fiscal unsustainability – big government.

Speaking of which…

The Left Calls It 'The Plan': "Forget all the numbers being tossed around in Washington — the millions and billions and trillions of dollars being taxed, borrowed, printed and spent as the country approaches the Aug. 2 debt-ceiling deadline. … Forget the fact that such 'entitlements' as Social Security and Medicare — social-insurance programs that the public long thought to be actuarially sound — have been exposed as little more than legal Ponzi schemes, paying today's benefits out of tomorrow's borrowed receipts. Instead, just ask yourself this simple question: When did it become the primary function of the federal government to send millions of Americans checks? For this, in essence, is what the debt-ceiling fight is all about — the inexorable and ultimately fatal growth of the welfare state." –columnist Michael Walsh

This reminds me of a USA Today article from a few months ago, titled "Americans Depend More On Federal Aid Than Ever". Here's a piece of it:

Americans depended more on government assistance in 2010 than at any other time in the nation's history, a USA TODAY analysis of federal data finds. The trend shows few signs of easing, even though the economic recovery is nearly 2 years old.

A record 18.3% of the nation's total personal income was a payment from the government for Social Security, Medicare, food stamps, unemployment benefits and other programs in 2010. Wages accounted for the lowest share of income — 51.0% — since the government began keeping track in 1929.

Americans got an average of $7,427 in benefits each in 2010, up from an inflation-adjusted $4,763 in 2000 and $3,686 in 1990. The federal government pays about 90% of the benefits.

"What's frightening is the Baby Boomers haven't really started to retire," says University of Michigan economist Donald Grimes of the 77 million people born from 1946 through 1964 whose oldest wave turns 65 this year. "That's when the cost of Medicare will start to explode."

If you think things are bad now, America, prepare yourselves. You ain't seen nuthin' yet. Unless we change course dramatically, in a decade we'll be looking back at these times as the good old days.

The political left in this country wants the citizenry to be dependent, and, btw, disarmed. A passive and helpless population is more easily controlled.

My closing quote comes from our "transformational" President himself, though it sounds more like politics as usual to me.

Blaming Bush: "We don't need a constitutional amendment to do our jobs. The Constitution already tells us to do our jobs — and to make sure that the government is living within its means and making responsible choices. … We don't need a balanced budget amendment. We simply need to make these tough choices and be willing to take on our bases. And everybody knows it. … It turns out that our problem is we cut taxes without paying for them over the last decade; we ended up instituting new programs like a prescription drug program for seniors that was not paid for; we fought two wars, we didn't pay for them; we had a bad recession that required a Recovery Act and stimulus spending and helping states — and all that accumulated and there's interest on top of that." –Barack Obama

Maybe we wouldn't need a balanced budget constitutional amendment if the government showed any indication it could live within it's means or discipline itself, but it has not done that. When I hear Obama whining about a balanced budget amendment, all I hear is him thinking, 'but how will I spend and borrow more money ? How will I play politics and buy votes ?'

That radical right-wing lunatic fringe known as the Tea Party has led the way to the introduction of House legislation known as H.R. 2560, aka Cut, Cap, And Balance. Wait until you get a load of what these Republican wingnuts are proposing:

H.R. 2560, The Cut, Cap, and Balance Act, is based on the framework first proposed by the Republican Study Committee in June 2011. The bill makes cuts $111 billion in FY 2012, places firm caps on future spending, and – contingent upon House and Senate passage of a Balanced Budget Amendment – grants President Obama’s request for a debt limit increase. The House of Representatives is expected to vote on H.R. 2560 on July 19, 2011.

1. Cut – We must make discretionary and mandatory spending reductions that would cut the deficit in half next year.

2. Cap – We need statutory, enforceable caps to align federal spending with average revenues at 18% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), with automatic spending reductions if the caps are breached.

3. Balance – We must send to the states a Balanced Budget Amendment (BBA) with strong protections against federal tax increases and a Spending Limitation Amendment (SLA) that aligns spending with average revenues as described above.

With each passing day our nation’s fiscal health gets worse, leaving our children and grandchildren falling further into debt. Democrats seem to have given up, proposing even more borrowing in response to our massive debt addiction. With the problem growing larger every day, we must move quickly and unite behind a plan to cut spending and get our budget into balance.

Can you believe it ? These insane-in-the-membrane Republicans actually believe Congress should balance it's budget. They believe we SHOULDN'T bankrupt the country via deficits and debt. They believe there should be a LIMIT to federal spending. Clearly, we have to nip this foolishness in the bud. If we don't, this radical idea of fiscal responsibility may start to catch on, like a virus. The House wingnuts are voting on the Cut, Cap, And Balance plan today, where they will most likely pass it.

Luckily, we also have sane Democrats in Congress and the White House, who know fiscal responsibility is for losers. These sane Democrats know that borrowing trillions upon trillions of dollars forever couldn't possibly have any negative ramifications (unless a Republican is in the White House). These sane Democrats know that spending should never be limited, and endless tax increases are the only answer. What could go wrong ? The sane Democrats know the answer to our economic maladies is found in what I call the Democrat three step approach – 1) Tax, 2) Spend, 3) Repeat. Sane Democrats know their approach can lead only to economic welfare, with an emphasis on the "welfare" part. You citizens won't have to worry about anything if you follow the sane Democrats. You most especially won't have to worry about what to do with all the extra money in your pocket. The sane Democrats will decide what to do with that after they relieve you of your money responsibility to make your own fiscal decisions. I mean, after all, they are smarter than you, and that's why our government is on such solid financial footing today. They went to Harvard.

The sanest Democrat, President Obama, freaked the hell out at the thought of the government having to live within a budget. If anybody knows fiscal responsibility is for the birds, it's Obama. He knows balanced budgets are a threat to the very fabric of the nation, or something. Obama sanely threatened to veto fiscal responsibility. Here's a statement from the White House:

The Administration strongly opposes H.R. 2560, the “Cut, Cap and Balance Act of 2011.” Neither setting arbitrary spending levels nor amending the Constitution is necessary to restore fiscal responsibility. Increasing the Federal debt limit, which is needed to avoid a Federal government default on its obligations and a severe blow to the economy, should not be conditioned on taking these actions. Instead of pursuing an empty political statement and unrealistic policy goals, it is necessary to move beyond politics as usual and find bipartisan common ground.

Take that, you Republican Tea Party wingnuts. Obama don't want to hear about no "unrealistic policy goals" like a balanced budget. What a loony idea. "Politics as usual" demands that these deficits and debt accumulation continue on and on. Obama knows the two parties must "find bipartisan common ground" by continuing with the sane Democrat plan of increasing spending and raising taxes.

Here's the sanest of the sanest Democrat's pronouncements:

The President has proposed a comprehensive and balanced framework that ensures we live within our means and reduces the deficit by $4 trillion

Right on, Mr. President. Reducing the deficit by $4 trillion "ensures we live within our means", except for the other $5-6 trillion of deficits you are projected to run up, of course. But what's $5-6 trillion more in deficits among friends, eh ? We'll keep that on the down low.

Heck, the next thing you know, the wingnut Republicans will be asking the Democrats in Congress to produce an actual budget, which the Dems haven't done in over 800 days and counting. Those radical right-wingers just never stop making irrational demands, do they ?

Remember this in 2012, folks. I suggest you all get bumper stickers to spread the news – Vote For Fiscal Irresponsibility. Vote Democrat In 2012. It's the "sane" thing to do.

You can always tell the statesman from the politician. The politician is the one who manipulates, deceives, and spins. The politician is the person with his finger in the wind, constantly trying to gauge public opinion so he knows what to say or do, in order to win the next election. The politician is the person who depends on you not remembering what he said or did yesterday, when he contradicts his own words and actions today. We have lots of politicians in Washington D.C.

Barack Obama is a very good politician.

These days, Obama has been attempting to portray himself as the grownup in the room, the guy who wants a comprehensive deficit reduction plan, if only those darned Republican obstructionists weren't standing in his way. This comes on the heels of Obama running up deficits and debt faster than any President in American history. Columnist Charles Krauthammers points out the fallacy of Obama's words today in a column titled "Call His Bluff" (Obama warned Rep. Eric Cantor (R-NY) not to call his bluff). Krauthammer does remember yesterday:

President Obama is demanding a big long-term budget deal. He won’t sign anything less, he warns, asking, “If not now, when?”

How about last December, when he ignored his own debt commission’s recommendations? How about February, when he presented a budget that increases debt by $10 trillion over the next decade? How about April, when he sought a debt-ceiling increase with zero debt reduction attached?

All of a sudden he’s a born-again budget balancer prepared to bravely take on his own party by making deep cuts in entitlements. Really? Name one. He’s been saying forever that he’s prepared to discuss, engage, converse about entitlement cuts. But never once has he publicly proposed a single structural change to any entitlement.

Hasn’t the White House leaked that he’s prepared to raise the Medicare age or change the cost-of-living calculation?

Anonymous talk is cheap. Leaks are designed to manipulate. Offers are floated and disappear. Say it, Mr. President. Give us one single structural change in entitlements. In public.

I'm reminded of what I heard House Majority leader John Boehner (R-OH) say yesterday, that negotiating with Obama is like dealing with Jello. The President doesn't propose anything solid, except for tax increases. When it comes to spending cuts, the President will discuss, engage, and converse, but he never makes an actual proposal. Have any of you ever heard him make one ?

Another question we need to ask is why Obama opposes a shorter-term deal. That would be better than no deal. It would be far better to extend the negotiating period than to exceed the debt limit, would it not ? Krauthammer supplies the answer again:

As part of the pose as the forward-looking grown-up rising above all the others who play politics, Obama insists upon a long-term deal. And what is Obama’s definition of long-term? Surprise: An agreement that gets him past Nov. 6, 2012.

Nothing could be more political. It’s like his Afghan surge wind-down date. September 2012 has no relation to any military reality on the ground. It is designed solely to position Obama favorably going into the last weeks of his reelection campaign.

Barack Obama is a very good politician. That's why he manipulates the public by preying on fears of Social Security checks not going out in August, when our President knows darn well that they will go out.

That's also why the President talks about superfluous things, such as tax loopholes for corporate jets. Obama the politician is counting on your knee jerk reaction against tax breaks for the wealthy. What he doesn't tell you is where those corporate jet tax loopholes came from. But Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) told us this last night on the Greta Van Susteren show:

'[The corporate jet tax loophole] was in the stimulus package. None of us voted for the stimulus package. This was called accelerated depreciation. It's a tax policy that the president put into his stimulus package and passed. Now he's saying that it's a corporate jet loophole. It applies to lots of things, airplanes included. What I find interesting about this one particular issue was it never came up in our debt negotiations, it never came up in discussions. The first time I heard about a corporate jet loophole, which was in the stimulus package, was when he mentioned it six times in a press conference. "

The Democrats put in the corporate jet tax loophole, Obama signed it into law, no Republicans voted for the stimulus package…but now Obama uses his own tax loophole against the Republicans in deficit reduction negotiations. He says Republicans are protecting the corporate jet tax loophole that Obama signed into law. How does he get away with this stuff ?

And btw, the Republican budget, the Ryan budget, did away with those types of loopholes. The Democrats would not hear of it. They already rejected the House Budget in the Democrat-controlled Senate. Here's Ryan again:

Look, I understand it plays for good politics and class warfare and makes it look like all we care about is that corporate – who cares about that corporate jet loophole? It's – we want to get rid of all those loopholes in tax reform. And what people don't tell you is our Republican budget? That's exactly what we proposed doing! We're saying clear out the brush of loopholes and lower everyone's tax rates so we can create jobs in the economy. That way the government doesn't lose any money but we clean up the tax code and we're not picking winners and losers in the tax code. General Electric paid no taxes but made a lot of money. UPS, another big company, paid about a 34% tax rate and their competitor, DHL, paid 24%. So there's something wrong with the fact that we're taxing a lot of our employers more".

Yes, the class warfare card does play well to an uninformed public. That's why Obama and the Democrats do it. It works for them, even when it's a bunch of hooey.

Barack Obama is a very good politician. He's just not much of a man.

The Democrats keep angling for tax increases as part of the debt limit deal. They don't bother to tell you that taxes are already going to increase by $1.5 trillion in 2013 when the ObamaCare taxes kick in. They also don't tell you the Bush tax cuts expire again at the end of 2012, right after the next elections. No, they don't tell you these things as they propose $2 trillion more in tax increases as part of the debt limit deal. The reason they don't tell you is, the Democrats are jockeying to pass the most massive tax hikes in American history in exchange for vague promises of future spending cuts that the Democrats hope to avoid ever making. That's their game. The Dems have pulled this bait and switch routine before (Bush I, Reagan). That's why the Democrats all jumped to approve Sen. Mitch McConnell's (R-KY) Plan B proposal, the one that allowed OBAMA to make future spending cuts in exchange for a debt limit increase. The Democrats hope to wriggle out of those cuts, or turn them into bogus cuts. The Dems could propose increasing spending by another $3 trillion, then do a "bogus cut" for $2 trillion, and say 'look, we cut the $2 trillion like we promised. Aren't we wonderful ?' Then the media would pretend not to notice that the only thing that happened was another trillion dollars in spending was approved. This phony tactic has been used a lot. It seems the only thing our government ever really "cuts" is the rate of it's own growth, which isn't a cut at all. It's a spending increase. Obama the politician talks about cutting the deficit in half, leaving out the part about how that still leaves us with an $800 billion deficit, larger than any in American history prior to Obama arriving in the White House. The Dems are angling for a tax increase bomb the likes of which this country has never seen, because the last thing the Dems want is to have to stop spending your money. That would loosen their grip on you, and they like having their hands around your throat. They like it a lot.

Yes, Obama's a very good politician. And that's no compliment.

When dealing with a political Jello-fish like the President, the only thing to do IS call his bluff. Here's what Krauthammer recommends:

The Republican House should immediately pass a short-term debt-ceiling hike of $500  billion containing $500  billion in budget cuts. That would give us about five months to work on something larger.

I agree with this strategy. The debt limit talks are going nowhere. They fell apart again yesterday. If the Republicans wait until D-Day on August 2nd, they will lose this political battle, and we won't get any spending cuts. The Democrats don't look at this as a debt limit deal or a budget negotiation. They look at it as a political contest to gain the upper hand. So should the Republicans. If they force congressional Democrats to vote on a smaller proposal that passed the House, it would put the Democrats on record and shift the onus to them. And if it passed the House and Senate, Obama's hand would be forced. Imagine the political fallout against Obama if he vetoed that bill. Yes, let's call his bluff. It's better than nothing America, and nothing is what we have now.

It would also be nice if we sent The Politician packing in 2012 and replaced him with a statesman (or stateswoman)…but I don't want to get ahead of myself.

In 2010, Republicans won the midterm elections by promising to cut federal spending without raising taxes. So far, the Republicans have attempted to do exactly what they promised to do. Some Republicans have even offered further tax cuts in the hope it would stimulate job creation. They've done these things at the risk of their own political careers, because talking about cutting spending in general is something the voters like, but when actual spending cuts are specifically proposed, the voters tend to like it a lot less, especially if the cuts affect them personally. Most people like their own gravy train. It's the gravy train of the other fellow they have a problem with. Whether you agree with the Republicans or not, at least they have been attempting to deal with our two biggest problems, deficits and jobs, while holding to their campaign promises.

Until very recently, Democrats have been willing to do little about the deficits, other than complain about what the Republicans were doing. The Dems have been playing politics instead, angling for an advantage in 2012. But with the sword of Damocles hanging over their heads in the form of the debt ceiling, the Republicans forced the hand of the Democrats. So the Democrats held out a carrot and came up with a $4 trillion deficit reduction plan. President Obama held out the same carrot, even going so far as proposing raising the retirement age (not new for Democrats), along with other unspecified cuts to Social Security and Medicare (that would probably never happen). But the carrot had some strings attached. If the Republicans grabbed the carrot and went along with the Democrats, they would have to break their campaign promises and agree to $2 trillion in tax increases. Then the Democrats would use that broken promise against the Republicans in the 2012 elections, much as they did when they used "read my lips, no new taxes" against President Bush Sr. in 1992, after Bush went along with a tax increase in return for Democrat promises of spending cuts that never materialized. Gotcha.

This time, the Republicans stuck to their no tax increases pledge, and the deal was scuttled. Now Obama and friends say 'see, the Republicans don't really want to reduce the deficits'. It was the classic 'heads I win, tails you lose' scenario. Obama is pretty clever when it comes to playing politics. I will give him that much.

The problem is, the sword of Damocles is still there, and the thread is about to break. The debt ceiling must still be addressed.

Enter Obama, the political game player:

The checks — about 70 million of them — might not be in the mail.

That’s the warning President Barack Obama gave Tuesday for Americans receiving Social Security benefits if Congress fails to agree on raising the nation’s $14.3 trillion debt limit by Aug. 2.

“I cannot guarantee that those checks go out on Aug. 3 if we haven’t resolved this issue,” Obama told CBS News.

“There may simply not be the money in the coffers to do it,” he said, adding that veterans’ checks and disability benefits also could be affected.

Uh oh !!! Run for the hills !!! The sky is falling !!! If there was ever a politician who was trying to scare the bejesus out of the public, Obama has to be the all-time champ in that department. No Social Security checks ? No disability checks ? Holy Krike !!!

Hey, wait a minute. What about that $2.5 trillion we have in the Social Security Trust Fund, as the Democrats have been telling us ??? What about Social Security being financially sound until 2037, as the Democrats have been telling us ???…

SUCKERS !!! You've been had. As anyone who follows this blog already knows, there's nothing but IOU's in the Social Security Trust Fund. Congress spends your "Trust Fund" money as fast as it receives it. The only way we can access any of those SS "assets" is by BORROWING MORE MONEY, which I believe the debt ceiling would prohibit (though I'm not sure. If anyone knows, please inform).

More importantly, is Obama telling the truth ? Would there be enough money to cover SS and disability checks in August ? Yes, there would be enough money to send out the checks. Obama is full of it. He's just engaging in scare tactics for political gain. Here's a chart Goldman Sachs prepared from U.S. Treasury statistics, showing federal revenues and expenses in August:

The only way there wouldn't be enough money is if the federal government CHOSE not to send out the SS and disability checks, and spent the money elsewhere instead. While we would face a shutdown of a sizeable portion of the government if the debt ceiling isn't raised, essentials like SS and Medicare could be maintained. If the debt ceiling impasse went on long enough, maybe the checks would have to be reduced in size, but that definitely won't happen in August, unless Obama WANTS it to happen.

But when the President Of The United States is despicable enough to say the checks might not go out, people are rightly scared to death, which is the whole point of Obama's tactics. This is all about politics to our President, and nothing else. Remember, this is the very same man who voted AGAINST raising the debt limit in 2006, when he thought the politics would benefit him by doing so. He wasn't worried about checks going out then.

In reaction to Obama's faux armaggeddon rhetoric, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) introduced his "backup plan" legislation, a contingency for what would happen if the debt limit ceiling isn't raised:

A visibly frustrated McConnell said he hoped a significant agreement was still possible, but noted that the decision to introduce this measure was the result of growing concern about the president’s seriousness regarding the negotiations. “I had hoped all year long that the opportunity presented by [Obama's] request of us to raise the debt ceiling would generate a bipartisan agreement that would begin to get our house in order by reducing spending,” he said with an exasperated laugh. “That may still happen . . . But we’re certainly not going to send a signal to the markets and the American people that default is an option.”

The plan essentially places the entire impetus for raising the debt ceiling on President Obama and congressional Democrats.…McConnell’s plan, in part, would require President Obama to recommend detailed spending cuts of equal of greater value to the amount of debt increase being requested. This comes in response to GOP critics who accuse the White House of not having a plan of its own to reduce the deficit (beyond raising taxes).

In short, if the checks don't go out, McConnell wants to make sure that decision falls squarely on Obama and the Democrats' shoulders. McConnell's bill essentially asks this question – 'Mr. President, you ARE willing to cut $2 trillion in future spending in order for Grandma and Grandpa to receive their checks, AREN'T YOU ???"

Game on, and back to you, Barack.

Since Republican John Kasich became the Governor of Ohio in January, he has made a lot of enemies. The unions hate him. The press hates him. The education establishment hates him. It goes without saying that Democrats hate him. According to the letters to the editor I read in the Akron Beacon Journal, lots of people hate him. Kasich has slashed government spending, which invariably generates animosity from the slashees. People don't like it when their government subsidization (aka, taxpayer funding) is diminished, or disappears completely. So lots of people are mad at John Kasich. I have heard many people say Kasich is the worst, just terrible.

But Kasich was elected to govern our state, not to win popularity contests. That means he is supposed to solve problems. The two biggest problems Ohio faced when Kasich took office were – 1) a high unemployment rate, and, 2) an $8 billion budget deficit. Before we tar and feather the guy, perhaps we should take a look at how he's done tackling our biggest problems.

In December 2010, the month before Kasich became Governor, Ohio's unemployment rate was 9.6%. In May of this year, after Kasich had been in office just over four months, Ohio's unemployment rate dropped to 8.6%. That's not only lower than the national average of 9.1%, but our unemployment has dropped a full percentage point since Kasich was elected. Last week, Ohio had the largest drop in unemployment applications in the nation.

And that $8 billion budget deficit ? It's gone. Ohio's budget is balanced. Kasich has accomplished in less than six months what other Ohio governors and legislatures spent years trying in vain to accomplish. And he did it without raising taxes.

I'm thinking that if President Obama had accomplished anything remotely close to what Kasich has accomplished, the media would be touting him as the greatest President in the history of our Republic. He'd be Time magazine's man of the year, and on the front cover, he'd be photographed with a halo around his head. I'd probably agree with that assessment…but they are telling us Kasich is a horror. Why ?

It's because of the spending "cuts":

Critics, however, argue his plan makes such drastic reductions in funding to school districts and local governments that teachers and police will be laid off and residents will end up taking a financial hit as local tax increases get passed.

Cities, townships and other local governments will see a drop of more than $1 billion during the next two years through a combination of cuts to state funding and changes to the tax money they get.

While state aid to schools increased by roughly $400 million, it will not be enough to compensate for losses under new tax policies and with the end of a nearly $900 million federal economic stimulus program for Ohio.

Among other changes, the measure prohibits hospitals and other facilities receiving state funds from performing elective abortions. It also provides tax credits for investors in Ohio businesses and expands eligibility for Choose Ohio First college scholarships for residents who attend Ohio colleges and universities

These critics must like the state spending money it doesn't have. These critics sound a lot like Obama in that regard. He also likes spending money he doesn't have. So did President Bush before Obama. Lot of politicians like spending money they don't have, and that's precisely why this nation faces such a disastrous fiscal situation today and in the future.

These critics must prefer living in a debt-driven fiscal fantasyland. These critics only solution is to raise taxes, even though Ohio already ranked as one of the worst business tax climates in the nation before Kasich showed up. That put us at a competitive disadvantage, causing job and populations losses. I don't get it. Living in fantasyland might be fun for awhile, but it isn't reality. We need to compete to keep our jobs and standard of living high. Kasich seems to realize that, even if his critics believe we're living in some kind of utopian commune that doesn't exist (and never did exist, for that matter).

Meanwhile, Kasich is balancing budgets and creating jobs in Ohio. It that's what we're calling horrible these days, perhaps the critics are the ones with the problem.

Voter ID laws require a voter to show identification in order to cast a ballot. They are either under consideration or being passed in at least 23 states. Wisconsin and Texas are two states that recently passed such laws. Voter ID laws are designed to reduce election fraud. Sounds like a good, common sense idea to me. We all have the right to vote, but we don't have the right to vote fraudulently. Who hasn't heard the stories about Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck casting votes in our elections ? We dont want people voting multiple times, and we don't want people voting who are in this country illegally. It seems every election these days is accompanied by accusations of fraud from one side or the other. Voter ID seems like a good way to reduce that. Every adult in this country has identification, I would think. If they don't, they should. I'm asked for ID at the bank, the grocery store, the Bureau Of Motor Vehicles, and other places, so I don't have any problem showing my driver's license at the polls to insure I am who I say I am when voting. We want our elections to be honest.

Here's the curious thing about Voter ID laws – ALL of the states considering or implementing Voter ID are run by Republicans. Every single one. No Democrat-led state wants these laws, which begs the question…why don't Democrats want honest elections ?

Here's liberal columnist E.J. Dionne attempting to answer this question in a column titled How States Are Rigging The 2012 Election:

An attack on the right to vote is underway across the country through laws designed to make it more difficult to cast a ballot. If this were happening in an emerging democracy, we’d condemn it as election-rigging. But it’s happening here, so there’s barely a whimper.

The laws are being passed in the name of preventing “voter fraud.” But study after study has shown that fraud by voters is not a major problem — and is less of a problem than how hard many states make it for people to vote in the first place.

Say what ? It sounds like Mr. Dionne is saying Voter ID laws are themselves voter fraud. What the heck ? And what's that stuff he said about voter fraud not being a "major problem" ? ANY voter fraud is a problem, major or not, and I'm wondering how any liberal can say voter fraud is not a major problem after liberals accused President Bush of stealing the 2000 election…AND the 2004 election (on the other hand, liberals think the 2008 election, won by the Democrat Obama, was run perfectly. I've heard no fraud accusations from them over that one).

Here's why the liberal Dionne holds the Orwellian view that Voter ID equates to voter fraud:

These statutes are not neutral. Their greatest impact will be to reduce turnout among African Americans, Latinos and the young. It is no accident that these groups were key to Barack Obama’s victory in 2008 — or that the laws in question are being enacted in states where Republicans control state governments.

This is the perfect liberal argument. It makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. First of all, OF COURSE the statutes are neutral, despite what Dionne says. The same rules apply to everyone. It doesn't get more neutral than that. I'd also like to know WHY Voter ID will allegedly reduce turnout among African Americans, Latinos, and the young. Dionne doesn't say why. He just accepts it as an article of liberal faith. What could the reasons be ? Does Dionne believe blacks, Latinos, and young people don't have identification, or what ? I'm thinking they do have ID, just like everyone else.

Despite his lack of evidence, Dionne takes his dubious premise and runs with it:

…think of what this would look like to a dispassionate observer. A party wins an election, as the GOP did in 2010. Then it changes the election laws in ways that benefit itself. In a democracy, the electorate is supposed to pick the politicians. With these laws, politicians are shaping their electorates.

Paradoxically, the rank partisanship of these measures is discouraging the media from reporting plainly on what’s going on. Voter suppression so clearly benefits the Republicans that the media typically report this through a partisan lens, knowing that accounts making clear whom these laws disenfranchise would be labeled as biased by the right. But the media should not fear telling the truth or standing up for the rights of the poor or the young.

Now Voter ID is "rank partisanship" and "voter suppression" being implemented by the GOP ? Again…WHY is this so ??? And again, Dionne does not say why. It's mystifying. I seem to be missing some underlying liberal assumption about how blacks, Latinos, the poor, and the young are not quite up to snuff with the rest of us. I can think of no other reason why showing one's ID at the polls would be considered such an unreasonable burden by liberals. It's like Dionne thinks these groups of people are disabled or something. I'm starting to feel insulted, and I don't even belong to any of Dionne's alleged "victim" groups.

Then Dionne gives away his real motivation in opposing Voter ID:

Sometimes the partisan motivation is so clear that if Stephen Colbert reported on what’s transpiring, his audience would assume he was making it up. In Texas, for example, the law allows concealed handgun licenses as identification but not student IDs. And guess what? Nationwide exit polls show that John McCain carried households in which someone owned a gun by 25 percentage points but lost voters in households without a gun by 32 points.

Uh oh !!! The GOP might have an advantage in Texas !!! Well, guess what, Mr. Dionne ? The GOP already has an advantage in Texas, not to mention the fact that anyone who has a concealed handgun license has undergone a background check, making that license a valid form of ID, unlike a student ID, which could be easily faked ('so, Mr. Mouse, I see you are attending Disney University in the Magic Kingdom. Here's your ballot !'). This reveals that it's all about politics to Dionne, and he doesn't care about voter fraud at all.

And then E.J. Dionne completely loses his mind:

“This requirement is just a poll tax by another name,” state Sen. Wendy Davis declared when Texas was debating its ID law early this year. In the bad old days, poll taxes, now outlawed by the 24th Amendment, were used to keep African Americans from voting. Even if the Supreme Court didn’t see things her way, Davis is right. This is the civil rights issue of our moment.

In part because of a surge of voters who had not cast ballots before, the United States elected its first African American president in 2008. Are we now going to witness a subtle return of Jim Crow voting laws?

Whether or not these laws can be rolled back, their existence should unleash a great civic campaign akin to the voter-registration drives of the civil rights years. The poor, the young and people of color should get their IDs, flock to the polls and insist on their right to vote in 2012.

Poll taxes ? Jim Crow laws ? The civil rights issue of our time ?….

Is this guy nuts ? Listening to Dionne, I feel like I'm watching one of those "this is your mind on drugs" commercials. I still haven't heard a single reason why anyone will be disenfranchised by Voter ID, but Dionne's ready to organize a modern-day March On Washington, like he's Martin Luther King. What a buffoon. He should check into a detox center instead.

If I didn't believe Democrats were in favor of voting fraud before, I'm a lot more inclined to believe it now, after listening to this irrational, over-the-top liberal tirade. Say 'Yes We Can' to Vote Fraud !!! It's the Chicago way. Just grab some more of those ballots out of the trunk of the car. That should put the Dems over the top.

Last night, CNN hosted a GOP primary debate in New Hampshire (rush CNN transcript here). The Republican presidential contenders were Mitt Romney, Tim Pawlenty, Michelle Bachmann, Newt Gingrich, Ron Paul, Rick Santorum, and Herman Cain. After watching this debate, I'll say this right up front – I'd vote for any of them over Barack Obama in 2012 (though I'm not much of a Santorum fan). While I don't agree with these Republicans on everything, their views on the economy, jobs, and debt put them far ahead of Obama in my eyes, and those are the issues that matter most in this election cycle, along with America's foreign policy (three wars, along with bombings in Pakistan and Yemen. We've been at war in the Middle East for nearly a decade. Enough is enough already. Time for a big policy change there).

The candidates covered a number of topics, and I'm going to highlight some of Q&A I thought was notable. One of the disadvantages of these types of debates is, the candidates only have one minute to answer a question, and followup comments by other candidates to the same question are limited to thirty seconds. It's almost impossible for the candidates to provide detailed policy answers in such a short time frame. The CNN narrator, John King, was constantly interrupting the candidates and trying to cut them short due to time considerations, which was irritating.

Here we go:

Q: Governor Pawlenty, answer the critics — and as you do so — who say 5 percent [economic growth] every year is just unrealistic. And as you do so, where's the proof — where's the proof that just cutting taxes will create jobs? If that were true, why during the Bush years, after the big tax cut, where were the jobs?

PAWLENTY: Well, John, my plan involves a whole plan, not just cutting taxes. We're proposing to cut taxes, reduce regulation, speed up this pace of government, and to make sure that we have a pro-growth agenda.

This president is a declinist. He views America as one of equals around the world. We're not the same as Portugal; we're not the same as Argentina. And this idea that we can't have 5 percent growth in America is hogwash. It's a defeatist attitude. If China can have 5 percent growth and Brazil can have 5 percent growth, then the United States of America can have 5 percent growth.

And I don't accept this notion that we're going to be average or anemic. So my proposal has a 5 percent growth target. It cuts taxes, but it also dramatically cuts spending. We need to fix regulation. We need to have a pro-American energy policy. We need to fix health care policy. And if you do those things, as I've proposed, including cut spending, you'll get this economy moving and growing the private economy by shrinking government.

I love how Pawlenty shattered the illusion that America is destined to mediocrity. It's not our destiny that our best days are behind us, it's our POLICY that dooms us. If I was Pawlenty, I would have pointed out that unemployment during the Bush years was mostly in the 5% range, and we did have several years of significant uninterrupted job growth after the Bush tax cuts, until the housing crisis led to an economic meltdown and wiped them out. Obviously, marginal tax rates had nothing to do with that meltdown. It's also pretty obvious to me that raising taxes in a weak economy would only further suppress demand by removing money from people's pockets, thereby making the recession worse.

Q: As a journalist who's written frequently about health care and medicine for both newspapers and for corporate publications, I'm very concerned about the overreach of the massive health care legislation that was passed last year. My question is, what would each candidate do? What three steps would they take to de-fund Obamacare and repeal it as soon as possible?

BACHMANN: I was the very first member of Congress to introduce the full-scale repeal of Obamacare. And I want to make a promise to everyone watching tonight: As president of the United States, I will not rest until I repeal Obamacare. It's a promise. Take it to the bank, cash the check. I'll make sure that that happens.

This is the symbol and the signature issue of President Obama during his entire tenure. And this is a job-killer, Sylvia. The CBO, the Congressional Budget Office has said that Obamacare will kill 800,000 jobs. What could the president be thinking by passing a bill like this, knowing full well it will kill 800,000 jobs?

Senior citizens get this more than any other segment of our population, because they know in Obamacare, the president of the United States took away $500 billion, a half-trillion dollars out of Medicare, shifted it to Obamacare to pay for younger people, and it's senior citizens who have the most to lose in Obamacare.

Okay, but the Republican plan that passed the House, Paul Ryan's plan, which Michelle Bachmann voted for, will cause seniors to pay more for their health care starting in 2022. There is also a cost to seniors under the GOP plan. We have to acknowledge this instead of playing partisan ping-pong with the issue.

Unless maybe…

PAUL: Well, under these conditions, [Medicare is] not solvent and won't be solvent. You know, if you're — if you're an average couple and you paid your entire amount into — into Medicare, you would have put $140,000 into it. And in your lifetime, you will take out more than three times that much.

So a little bit of arithmetic tells you it's not solvent, so we're up against the wall on that, so it can't be made solvent. It has to change. We have to have more competition in medicine.

And I would think that if we don't want to cut any of the medical benefits for children or the elderly, because we have drawn so many in and got them so dependent on the government, if you want to work a transition, you have to cut a lot of money.

And that's why I argue the case that this money ought to be cut out of foreign welfare, and foreign militarism, and corporate welfare, and the military industrial complex. Then we might have enough money to tide people over.

But some revamping has to occur. What we need is competition. We need to get a chance for the people to opt out of the system. Just — you talk about opting out of Obamacare? Why can't we opt out of the whole system and take care of ourselves?

People provide for their own health care ? Why, Dr. Paul, that's just so, so,…radical. Where'd you ever get the crazy idea that people could take care of themselves ? What do you think we are, adults or something ? Sheesh.

While we're on this subject, what about Obamneycare, as Governor Pawlenty called it the other day ? What say you, Mitt ?

ROMNEY: You know, let me say a couple things. First, if I'm elected president, I will repeal Obamacare, just as Michelle indicated. And also, on my first day in office, if I'm lucky enough to have that office, I will grant a waiver to all 50 states from Obamacare.

Now, there's some similarities and there are some big differences. Obamacare spends a trillion dollars. If it were perfect — and it's not perfect, it's terrible — we can't afford more federal spending.

Secondly, it raises $500 billion in taxes. We didn't raise taxes in Massachusetts.

Third, Obamacare takes $500 billion out of Medicare and funds Obamacare. We, of course, didn't do that.

And, finally, ours was a state plan, a state solution, and if people don't like it in our state, they can change it. That's the nature of why states are the right place for this type of responsibility. And that's why I introduced a plan to repeal Obamacare and replace it with a state-centric program.

PAWLENTY: Well, the issue that was raised in a question from a reporter was, what are the similarities between the two? And I just cited President Obama's own words that he looked to Massachusetts as a blueprint or a guide when he designed Obamacare.

ROMNEY: …my guess is the president is going to eat those words and wish he hasn't — hadn't put them out there. And I can't wait to debate him and say, Mr. President, if, in fact, you did look at what we did in Massachusetts, why didn't you give me a call and ask what worked and what didn't? And I would have told you, Mr. President, that what you're doing will not work.

It's a huge power grab by the federal government. It's going to be massively expensive, raising taxes, cutting Medicare. It's wrong for America. And that's why there's an outpouring across the nation to say no to Obamacare. And I'm delighted to be able to debate him on that.

That's a lot better answer than I expected from Romney. I'd like to hear that debate between Romney and Obama myself. Hopefully, the courts will strike down ObamaCare and save Republicans the trouble.

Back to jobs:

Q: Well, for the candidates I'd like to know how they plan on returning manufacturing jobs to the United States.

BACHMANN: Well, the United States federal government and the states have done numerous job training programs over the year with mixed results. This is what we need to do to turn job creation around and bring manufacturing back to the United States.

What we need to do is today the United States has the second highest corporate tax rate in the world. I'm a former federal tax lawyer. I've seen the devastation. We've got to bring that tax rate down substantially so that we're among the lowest in the industrialized world.

Here's the other thing. Every time the liberals get into office, they pass an omnibus bill of big spending projects. What we need to do is pass the mother of all repeal bills, but it's the repeal bill that will get a job killing regulations. And I would begin with the EPA, because there is no other agency like the EPA. It should really be renamed the job-killing organization of America.

Michelle, you had me at "second highest corporate tax rate in the world". Not only is this anathema to job creation, it also gives the government too much power to pick winners and losers in business by granting favored businesses tax credits. The market should decide the winners and losers in business, not the government. Get rid of the corporate income tax for businesses that provide American jobs. The employees of those corporations will send plenty of revenue to the government. And if you want to know how Bachmann is correct about the EPA killing jobs, see my last post.

Q: Where do you fall on right to work and would you support a federal right-to-work law?

PAWLENTY: We live in the United States of America and people shouldn't be forced to belong or be a member in any organization. And the government has no business telling you what group to be a member of or not. I support strongly right-to-work legislation.

GINGRICH: …one of the things the Congress should do immediately is defund the National Labor Relations Board which has gone into South Carolina to punish Boeing, which wants to put 8,000 American jobs in South Carolina by fundamentally eliminating right-to-work at the National Labor Relations Board.

That's a real, immediate threat from the Obama administration to eliminate right to work. And I think that it is fundamentally the wrong direction. I hope that New Hampshire does adopt right-to-work. I frankly keep it at the state level because as each new state becomes right to work, they send a signal to the remaining states, don't be stupid.

Why you want to be at California's unemployment level when you can be Texas's employment level? Or North Dakota's?

CAIN: …I agree with the speaker and the others who believe that if the federal government continues to do the kinds of things that this administration is trying to do through the back door, through the National Labor Relations Board, that's killing our free market system, and the free market system is what made this economy great. And we have to keep the free market system strong.

When I hear the phrase "right to work" brought up as if the idea is even debatable, it makes my head spin. This is the United States Of America. Unless you're an illegal immigrant, EVERYBODY should have the right to work without having to pay dues to someone else. This ain't mob rule. It's supposed to be a free country. I'm sure I read that somewhere.

There's a lot more I could cover, but this post is getting rather long, so I'll stop here. Maybe I'll write a followup tomorrow.

I was wondering…in the last election cycle, Obama ran on 'Hope And Change'. Since that's obviously not going to fly this time around, what will his new slogan be ? I'd suggest….'Hey, At Least It's Not The Great Depression !!!". Very inspiring, and it's pretty much what I hear Obama say every time he talks about jobs and the economy. 'Why heck, America, I know 9.1% unemployment is bad, but unemployment could be 40% !! Ya ever think of that ? And we could be $50 trillion in debt !!! But I saved you !!!". Gee, thanks for next to nothing, Mr. President. Or should I say, Mr. One-Term President ? I sure hope so.

Here's why, by the numbers.

Total federal revenue for FY2011 will be about $2.2 trillion.

Here are the three biggest federal expenditures YTD:
Medicare/Medicaid – $815.1 billion
Defense including wars – $698.5 billion
Social Security – $711.8 billion

Medicare, Defense, and Social Security expenditures YTD comes to $ 2.225 trillion. These three areas are consuming ALL the revenue the federal government takes in. There is no money left for anything else. The other $1.6 trillion the federal government will spend this year is all borrowed. This is known as the deficit. The federal government is borrowing 40 cents out of every dollar it spends.

The federal government has spent beyond it's means for a long, long time, which is why we have a $14.4 trillion federal debt, but the government isn't even coming close to paying for itself these days, and President Obama isn't making any realistic efforts to address the problem. His 10-year budget proposal added another $9-13 trillion to the debt, and his budget assumed economic recovery, the implementation of ObamaCare, an end to the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and a reversal of the Bush tax cuts for the top 2%. Obama's budget still leaves us on the road to nowhere. Incredibly, Obama tried to peddle his 10-year budget plan as one that reduces the deficit, as if it was fiscally responsible. It is anything but that. Obama is the Nowhere Man.

As bad as things are now, they are about to get much worse. We have future unfunded entitlement liabilities in excess of $114 trillion. $79.1 trillion of that is Medicare. This means we have made enormous future entitlement commitments that we have not funded. And as everyone knows, health care costs are going up much faster than the economy is growing. Those unfunded entitlement liabilities are going to get a lot larger.

The Government Accounting Office (GAO) put out this chart in 2008 comparing entitlement growth to GDP growth. This shows how entitlement spending will rise:

Entitlement spending is growing three times faster than GDP, and the GAO's projection was made BEFORE ObamaCare was implemented. ObamaCare created massive new entitlements. It adds 20 million new people to Medicaid. Obama, like Bush before him, added to the entitlement problem (Bush's Prescription Drug plan has an unfunded future entitlement liability of $19 trillion. That's in addition to the $79 trillion Medicare/Medicaid liability).

Politicians like to create programs and promise people all kinds of things, but politicians don't like to pay for those programs and promises. Politicians want all the pleasure without any of the pain. It helps them get elected, but what they are ultimately doing is selling this country down the river with their unsustainable schemes.

A Heritage Foundation chart shows, using a 30-year tax to GDP average of 18%, Medicare/Medicaid, ObamaCare, and Social Security will consume ALL federal revenue by 2049. There won't even be room in the federal budget for Defense spending.

In summary, entitlements are doubling and tripling in size beyond economic growth. Historic levels of taxation can no longer support them and the rest of the government. We have massive entitlement commitments we have not funded….and we are ALREADY $14.4 trillion in debt, with a $1.6 trillion deficit this year, and no end to the deficits in sight.

Anyone who doesn't recognize this problem is engaging in willful blindness…which leads me to the Democrats. They are busy ripping apart Republicans who have proposed measures to deal with this coming fiscal crisis, like Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), but the Democrats are proposing no solutions of their own that will address the problem. Shame on them. If they don't like Ryan's plan, or any other Republican plan (there are several), then how about the Democrats do the jobs they were elected to do and come up with their own plan(s) ! The Dems think ripping the GOP's ideas will give them an advantage in the 2012 elections, and that's all they care about. They hope nobody will notice they have no solutions of their own. As an example, listen to how Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz answered a question put to her about how the Democrats will address the problem:

There is the message of Democrats. They got nuthin', other than demonizing Republicans. The citizens of this nation deserve a lot better than that.

Democrats are mighty happy about the results of a New York special congressional election held on tuesday. In that race, the Democrat candidate, Kathy Hochul, defeated the Republican candidate, Jane Corwin, by a margin of 47-43%. A third candidate, Jack Davis, who ran under the Tea Party banner, got 9% of the vote.

There are two reasons Democrats are smiling today. The first is that the Democrat Hochul won in a district that is considered a Republican majority district. The second is that Hochul made Rep. Paul Ryan's (R-WI) Medicare plan one of her major issues. Corwin supported Ryan's plan. Hochul was against it, and a left-wing group was running ads in New York of a Ryan look-alike pushing grandma over a cliff. (I seem to recall left-wingers being shocked and outraged over violent political imagery a few short months ago. Must have been my imagination). Democrats say Hochul's victory proves Americans reject Ryan's plan. Republicans downplay the Democrat victory, saying the Tea Party candidate siphoned votes away from the Republican candidate, splitting the vote and handing the Democrat a victory. Let's examine these two claims.

First the Republican claim. Davis, the third candidate, ran under the Tea Party banner, which would seem to indicate he did indeed take votes away from the Republican candidate. Davis also lost the special election Republican primary to Corwin before switching to the Tea Party banner, another indicator he took votes away from the Republican. However, Davis was a lifelong Republican who switched parties and ran unsuccessfully as a Democrat in elections in 2004, 2006, and 2008. In addition, many Tea Party groups disavowed the candidacy of Davis. Democrats are trying to say Davis also took votes from Hochul. Maybe so, but I have little doubt he took many more votes from the Republican. Just appearing on the ballot with 'Tea Party' next to his name would accomplish that.

The far more important claim is the one being made by Democrats about Americans rejecting Ryan's Medicare/budget plan, because the Republican-led House Of Representatives passed that plan last month, with the vote being along party lines. The Democrat-led Senate rejected Ryan's plan yesterday, with Democrats voting against it. Some Republican Senators also voted against it – Scott Brown (Massachusetts), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), Susan Collins (Maine), Olympia Snowe (Maine), and Rand Paul (Kentucky). Many Democrats see the Ryan Medicare/budget plan as a big opportunity for them to win in 2012.

Democrat leaders are attempting to capitalize on the "push grandma over the cliff" message. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) keeps talking about the GOP's desire to "kill Medicare". House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said Hochul's “victory in a staunchly Republican district has shocked the political world and sent an unmistakable sign that the American people will not stand for the Republicans’ reckless and extreme agenda to end Medicare". You get the idea.

Rep. Ryan says the Democrats are engaging in "Mediscare" and accuses them of demagoguery. Ryan says Americans will approve of his plan once they understand it, and once they accept the reality of what will happen if we don't reform Medicare.

Do Americans reject Ryan's plan ? Polls suggest it depends how the question is asked. Here are examples from two polls, one from the New York Times where a plurality of responders supported the plan, and one from the Washington post where responders rejected the plan:

The Times asked:

In order to reduce the budget deficit, it has been proposed that Medicare should be changed from a program in which the government pays doctors and hospitals for treating seniors to a program in which the government helps seniors purchase private health insurance. Would you approve or disapprove of changing Medicare in this way?

Yet the Post (PDF) asked:

I'm going to read you two statements about the future of the Medicare program. After I read both statements, please tell me which one comes closer to your own view: Medicare should remain as it is today, with a defined set of benefits for people over 65, OR Medicare should be changed so that people over 65 would receive a check or voucher from the government each year for a fixed amount they can use to shop for their own private health insurance policy.

Regardless of how poll questions are asked, Ryan and Republicans have a problem. A recent poll of Ohioans showed a whopping 75% were against cutting Medicare to reduce the debt. An Assocated Press poll found 54% believe we can balance the federal budget without reducing Medicare costs. If Ryan thinks people will support his Medicare plan once they understand it, well, he better start explaining it to them. My feeling is that change is usually met with resistance, even if that change is needed. People don't like to have anything taken from them, ever, and according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), Ryan has an even bigger problem. The CBO says Ryan's Medicare plan will require seniors to pay more for their Medicare in the future, and it won't reduce health care costs either:

Under the [Ryan] proposal, most beneficiaries who receive premium support payments would pay more for their health care than if they participated in traditional Medicare under either of CBO’s long-term scenarios. CBO estimated that, in 2030, a typical 65-year-old would pay 68 percent of the benchmark under the proposal, compared with 25 percent under the extended-baseline scenario and 30 percent under the alternative fiscal scenario.

A private health insurance plan covering the standardized benefit would, CBO estimates, be more expensive currently than traditional Medicare. Both administrative costs (including profits) and payment rates to providers are higher for private plans than for Medicare. Those higher costs would be offset partly but not fully by savings from lower utilization stemming from two sources. First, private health insurers would probably impose greater utilization management than occurs in Medicare. Second, private plans might restrict enrollees’ ability to purchase supplemental insurance plans; enrollees would thus face higher out-of-pocket costs than they do in Medicare, and that increased cost sharing would encourage lower utilization. On net, for a typical 65-year-old in 2011, CBO estimates that average spending in traditional Medicare will be 89 percent of (that is, 11 percent less than) the spending that would occur if that same package of benefits was purchased from a private insurer.

That's a pretty tough sell for Rep. Ryan. The idea with health care is to reduce overall costs, not increase them. That is the biggest flaw in Ryan's plan. As for the CBO's estmate that seniors will have to pay more under Ryan's plan, that is actually less troubling, because there is a hard truth we must face – Medicare/Medicaid costs are skyrocketing, and we have to address them. If we can't reduce those costs, somebody has to pay for them. The health care fairy can't wave her magic wand and make this all go away. We have to face reality.

Former President Bill Clinton had something important to say on the subject yesterday:

Even though Clinton disagrees with the plan put forth by Ryan, the two men both know something must be done. As Clinton said, health care costs will devour our economy. That is the truth. Entitlements are the single biggest driver of future government spending, and therefore the biggest drivers of deficits, debt, and/or tax increases.

I share the same fear as Clinton, that Democrats will beat the kill grandma, kill Medicare drum, using it as a political scare tactic to win elections. The problem with that is, as the Democrats do nothing (the Dems haven't even produced a 2011 budget, for chirissakes, and we're over halfway through 2011), nothing is accomplished. Our challenges remain unmet. The longer we avoid dealing with reality, the more difficult and painful the solutions become. I'm going to leave you with two charts to ponder from the Heritage Foundation.

First is this link to a chart showing that, based upon historical tax revenue to GDP percentages (18%), entitlements will devour ALL tax revenue by 2049. There won't be money left for ANYTHING else.

Second is this link to a chart showing that, based upon current policies, our national debt will skyrocket to 344% of GDP by 2050.

Our country is on an unsustainable path, and anyone who tells you differently is, to put it simply, LYING. I know liberals think I'm some mouthpiece for conservatives (because I'm definitely anti-liberal on fiscal matters. See: unsustainable), but what I really am is someone who sees not just grandma, but his entire country going over a cliff. More than anything else, what I want to do is prevent that from happening.

Recently, the Boeing Corporation announced plans to build a $1 billion commercial jet production plant in South Carolina.

With the national unemployment rate at 9%, and manufacturing jobs leaving America in droves, it's certainly good news that Boeing is building it's new plant right here in the good old USA, eh ?

While it may sound like good news to most of us, the Obama administration objects. Obama's National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has sued Boeing to prevent the plant from being built in South Carolina. The NLRB is accusing Boeing of unfair labor practices. The NLRB is accusing Boeing of union-busting. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the NLRB, it is a branch of the federal government whose board members are all appointed by the President. Three of the four current NLRB board members are Democrats. The stated purpose of the NLRB is to protect employee rights, which includes the right of workers to collectively bargain, as outlined in the 1935 National Labor Relations Act (Note to Democrats in Wisconsin, Ohio, Michigan, and Indiana – the National Labor Relations Act specifically excluded federal, state, and local government employees from collective bargaining rights. It only applies to private sector workers).

The NLRB demands that Boeing build it's new plant in Washington state instead of South Carolina. The reason is, South Carolina is one of 22 right-to-work states, while Washington is not. In right-to-work states, workers cannot be forced to join a union and pay union dues as a condition of their employment. Needless to say, forced unionism is exactly what the unions want, ergo the complaint against Boeing.

I have a few observations. First of all, aside from the union vs. right-to-work issue, I have a problem when our own government opposes an American company that wants to produce jobs and manufacture products in this country. Isn't job creation supposed to be what we are encouraging ? Second, why should the government have the potential to compel a private corporation to do business in one state over another ? I thought this was supposed to be the land of the free, the UNITED States, not the land of political friends and enemies. Third, there is no statute prohibiting collective bargaining or the creation of unions in right-to-work states. Workers are free to unionize if they wish, or not unionize. It's the worker's choice. I don't see a big problem there, but in the interest of fairness, here is the argument for and against right-to-work laws, via Wikipedia:

For Right-To-Work:

Proponents of right-to-work laws point to the Constitutional right to freedom of association, as well as the common-law principle of private ownership of property. They argue that workers should be free both to join unions and to refrain from joining unions, and for this reason sometimes refer to non-right-to-work states as "forced unionism" states.[2] They contend that it is wrong for unions to be able to agree with employers to include clauses in their union contracts (also known as a union security agreement) which require all employees to either join the union, or pay union dues as a condition of employment.[3] Furthermore, they contend that in certain cases forced union dues are used to support political causes, causes which some union members may oppose.[4]

Against Right-To-Work:

Opponents argue right-to-work laws create a free-rider problem,[8][9] in which non-union employees (who are bound by the terms of the union contract even though they are not members of the union) benefit from collective bargaining without paying union dues.[8][10]

Opponents further argue that because unions are weakened by these laws, wages are lowered[10] and worker safety and health is endangered. For these reasons, they often refer to right-to-work states as "right to work for less" states[11] or "right-to-fire" states, and "non-right-to-work" states as "free collective bargaining" states. They also cite statistics from the United States Department of Labor showing, for example, that, in 2003, states with right-to-work laws in general had a higher rate of workplace fatalities per 100,000 workers.[12]

The Libertarian in me is persuaded by the freedom of assocation argument of the right-to-work supporters, but I also acknowledge the important role private sector unions have played in the past in securing rights and decent wages for American workers. That is no small thing, and it's also Libertarian to allow private sector workers to unionize (or not) as they see fit. In the end, it's that choice that is essential, and in the end, if workers in right-to-work states are being abused, they CAN still unionize. It's up to them. As long as that choice remains in place, I side with the right-to-work people.

Many Republicans, especially those from South Carolina, are taking issue with the NLRB's action against Boeing. South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley called it "nothing less than a direct assault on the 22 right-to-work states across America." South Carolina Senator Lindsay Graham said, "If successful, the NLRB complaint would allow unions to hold a virtual ‘veto' over business decisions. Left to their own devices, the NLRB would routinely punish Right to Work states that value and promote their pro-business climates." South Carolina Senator Jim Demint said, "This is nothing more than a political favor for the unions who are supporting President Obama's re-election campaign. Unfortunately, it comes at the expense of hundreds of jobs in South Carolina and thousands of jobs nationwide."

The International Association of Machinists And Aerospace Workers (IAM) union claims Boeing is building it's new plant in South Carolina in retaliation for past union strikes against Boeing. The NLRB, which is supposed to be an independent agency, is clearly acting as a mouthpiece for union grievances. The NLRB's Acting General Counsel, Lafe Solomon, said Boeing was building it's plant in South Carolina "to retaliate for past strikes and chill future strike activity."

Boeing denies the accusation:

“We hold no animus toward union members, and we have never sought to threaten or punish them for exercising their rights, as the NLRB claims,” Boeing CEO Jim McNerney wrote. “To the contrary, union members are part of our company's fabric and key to our success. About 40% of our 155,000 U.S. employees are represented by unions — a ratio unchanged since 2003. Nor are we making a mass exodus to right-to-work states that forbid compulsory union membership. We have a sizable presence in 34 states; half are unionized and half are right-to-work.”

Boeing received about $900 million in tax breaks and other incentives from South Carolina.

For the sake of argument, let's say the IAM is right, and Boeing is moving to South Carolina to get away from the repeated union strikes. You must remember, Boeing is not a public service organization or a charity. It is a company that has to make a profit to stay in business. Therefore, Boeing acts in the business interests of Boeing, and it's not in Boeing's interests to have it's production halted by union strike after union strike, is it ? Thus, the repeated strikes are actually an INCENTIVE for Boeing to relocate elsewhere. I saw this exact same scenario play out in Akron, Ohio in the 1970's with the rubber shops. They moved production to the south to escape the unions, and Akron ended up high and dry, with nothing. Thanks for nothing, unions. You drove our jobs away, and they were good blue collar jobs. Our city was left a lot worse off because of it. That same scenario is turning parts of Detroit, Michigan into a ghost town today. Sometimes the unions end up being their own worst enemy. Personally, I'd rather have an actual job that pays $20 per hour than a non-existent union job that pays $30 per hour, but that's just me. I like to feed my family, and I can't do that in Akron if my job is in Alabama, or China.

To my knowledge, President Obama hasn't said a word about the Boeing situation, which led Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) to wonder aloud whether Obama has an "enemies list". I'd phrase it a bit differently. What I think is, Obama has a friend's list, and Republican-voting right-to-work-states like South Carolina aren't on it. After all, our President is already in 2012 fundraising campaign re-election mode. He's looking to raise a billion dollars and reward his friends. Cronies unite !

When it comes to economic issues, Republicans and Democrats see things very differently.

Liberal Democrats bill themselves are being pro-little guy. Liberals want to, as President Obama said to Joe The Plumber, spread the wealth around. Specifically, they want to take from the rich and give to the poor, like Robin Hood. Liberals concern themselves with the redistribution of wealth. That's why liberals engage in class warfare tactics, and believe massive government programs and government spending are needed to carry out their wealth redistribution dreams.

Conservative Republicans bill themselves as being pro-business. Conservatives believe that if the business sector prospers, that is what creates jobs for the little guy, thus enabling him to prosper too. Conservatives believe economic growth is the key to prosperity. That's why conservatives favor tax cuts, and believe government often gets in the way of economic growth with burdensome regulations, interference with business, high taxes, etc.

This is the crux of the ideological battle on the economy. Neither of these opposing belefs is bad or evil or necessarily wrong, though you'd certainly think they were if you listen to all the political rhetoric that is shoveled on a daily basis. Liberals call conservatives heartless, racist, only caring about the rich, etc. Conservatives call liberals marxists, anti-liberty, etc.

Anyone who has read this blog knows which side of the argument I favor, for a variety of reasons. I'm with the conservative pro-business, pro-growth, pro-liberty side, and I'll tell you why.

I'm not against "helping the little guy", as liberals favor, but I think liberals have a blind spot when it comes to the creation of wealth and the creation of jobs. Those things come from the private sector, not the government. Wealth creation, jobs, the resultant rise of the middle class, and even government revenue ultimately comes from private sector BUSINESS. Therefore, being antagonistic to the business sector, as liberals so often are, is counterproductive. Putting it in the simplest terms, if our businesses aren't profitable and growing, as conservatives desire, then there won't be any wealth for liberals to spread around later. That's why making our businesses successful is Job One. You don't accomplish that by taxing them heavily, holding them down with burdensome regulations, placing one financial burden after another on them, and in general making it more difficult to do business in this country. You especially don't want to do that when our businesses are competing in a world economy, because we will be the losers with such an attitude. Our jobs will continue to disappear. In my view, helping business IS helping the little guy. I want our businesses to make money, lots of money. The more the merrier. Though liberals demonize profits for some reason, they are only exhibiting their blind spot again when they do so. Those business profits are what provide more jobs, more investment, and more economic growth. Those jobs are also what provides revenue to the government for the government services liberals love. When I see liberals demonizing business and profits, I only see them shooting themselves in the foot.

It's not business profits that are the problem in this country. As I said before, those profits are what creates jobs. No, the problem isn't profits. The problem comes when business profits end.

If you want to see what happens when businesses fail in this country, you don't have to look very far, because we just went through one such period, known as the Great Recession. Business profits plummeted, Wall Street crashed, unemployment rose dramatically, government revenue diminished, and we went much deeper in debt. That's what happens when American businesses don't succeed. Our economic Jenga tower collapses.

Therefore, it should be obvious we'll be better off if we implement policies that help our businesses thrive, because every other economic plus flows directly from them. The CEO of the 3M Corporation, George Buckley, who called Obama "anti-business" a couple months ago, put it in stark terms:

"Politicians forget that business has choice. We're not indentured servants and we will do business where it's good and friendly. If it's hostile, incrementally, things will slip away. We've got a real choice between manufacturing in Canada and Mexico — which tend to be pro-business — or America," [Buckley] told the Financial Times.

Lots of business people view Obama as being anti-business. When business people hear "redistribution of wealth", which raises specters of marxism, they get very nervous. Marxism is, by definition, anti-business. Even former Obama supporters in the business world have begun backing away from him. Harry Alford, head of the National Black Chamber Of Commerce, said voting for Obama was "the worst mistake I ever made in my life". Because Alford is black, I'd like to take a little subject detour into matters of race for a minute. I'm hearing a constant drumbeat from liberals these days about how conservatives are racists for being anti-Obama. No, liberals, that's not it. I'm sure there are right-wing racists, just as there are left-wing racists, independent racists, and racists of all colors and nationalities from all walks of life, but liberals are missing the boat. The right-wing opposition to Obama isn't due to his race, it's due to right-wingers perception of Obama's leftist beliefs. There's no way conservatives WON'T be opposed to that. They aren't going to suspend their own beliefs and withhold their criticism just because Obama is black. In my own view, Obama seems like a pretty nice guy personally. I'd hang out with him, but I've been highly critical of him because I disagree with his politics. I basically think he's in over his head, and though he's plenty intelligent enough, he didn't have the necessary experience to be the President. As a result, he has floundered about. I'd be pretty offended if anyone thought I believed these things because I'm a racist. In my eyes, race has nothing to do with anything. The racism charge is just an easy and convenient accusation for liberals to make, so they make it…constantly.

Sorry for the diversion, but I had to get that off my chest.

Getting back to business, as the 3M CEO said, business has choices. As we all know by now, companies don't have to manufacture in America. A lot of them have moved overseas. A lot of our jobs have moved overseas with them. I'm all for keeping as many of those jobs here as possible, but there's a problem. Many companies move away to take advantage of cheaper overseas labor, and the last thing we want here is to pay slave wages to our own workers. Obama might call that scenario a "race to the bottom", which I don't want either. We want to keep wages up.

How do we keep wages up and jobs in America at the same time ?

What I would do is make it more attractive for companies to do business in America in different ways. First of all, I'd END corporate income taxation. As I say this, I picture liberal heads spinning in circles like Linda Blair in The Exorcist, because liberals complain that corporations don't pay enough in taxes, especially the evil ones like Exxon (the oil industry employs millions of people and generates tons of tax revenue for the government). Sorry liberals, but I'd rather have the jobs. The taxes will come from the incomes and economic activity of all the employed workers. The second thing I'd do is to remove the skyrocketing health care cost monkey from companies backs. Liberals complain about wages not rising fast enough in this country. Well, those health care costs are a major reason why. If you add in a companies health care contributions, which are part of an employee's compensation package, I bet you'd see that compensation HAS risen.

Those are two big ways to attract businesses to this country. I have many more, but this post is getting rather lengthy, so I'll stop here.

Even though I write about politics, I hate politics. More precisely, I hate most politicians. I have never seen a bigger bunch of lying thieves in my life than the people we elect to run our country. It would take a hearty dose of sodium pentathol to get most of them to tell the truth. I think the first definition of the word 'politician' in the dictionary should be 'professional liar'. Mirriam-Webster should be notified immediately.

Not that I'm cynical or anything.

And when I think about our current President, the word 'politician' springs immediately to mind. With all the problems this country faces, we badly need a leader in the Oval Office right now, but instead we have a politician. We have a politician who cares more about his political party than he does about solving the problems of our country.

Obama rips Republican proposals to eliminate the deficit/debt to shreds, but if you notice, he proposes nothing of his own to eliminate the deficit/debt. He only proposes measures to massively increase the deficit/debt, as he did with his 10-year budget proposal. That's not a leader. That's a politician.

Obama formed a Deficit Commission in 2010 to make it appear he was committed to addressing the deficit/debt, and then he completely ignored the recommendations of his own Deficit Commission. That's not a leader. That's a politician, putting forth a smoke screen.

Obama is STILL talking about eliminating the Bush "tax cuts for the rich". What he doesn't tell you is, he could have eliminated those tax cuts any time he desired in 2009 or 2010. The Democrats had complete control of the Executive and Legislative branches of the federal government for those two years. As much as Democrats whine about the rich ONLY paying a 35% federal income tax rate, the highest rate, you'd think they would have reversed those tax cuts on day two of Obama's presidency, but they didn't. Why not ? There are two main reasons. First is the fact that reversing the Bush "tax cuts for the rich" won't come anywhere near to solving our deficit/debt problem, and the Democrats all know it. Secondly, the Democrats WANT to keep that issue alive so they can use it as a weapon in the 2012 elections. If they had reversed those tax cuts, it would not be an issue (and the deficits/debt would still be going up by trillions year after year). Democrats want to keep using that issue as a smoke screen. These are not the actions of leaders. They are the actions of politicians.

Obama's own life doesn't even match his class warfare rhetoric. Here's what the President said about taxing the wealthy:

"I believe that most wealthy Americans would agree with me. They want to give back to the country that's done so much for them. Washington just hasn't asked them to."

But on Obama's own tax return, our wealthy Prez made every effort to pay LESS in taxes to the government:

"[I]n 2009, Obama took itemized deductions of $514,819, a foreign tax credit of $59,372, and a deduction for interest on his home of $52,195. He was also able to take a deduction for $49,000 he contributed to his self-employed retirement fund. If he had not taken these deductions, he would have paid taxes on an additional $675,386, which in his income bracket would have meant he owed somewhere in the neighborhood of $200,000 more in taxes at the top marginal tax rate of 35 percent. Furthermore, he instructed the Nobel committee to donate his entire $1.4 million Nobel Prize directly to 10 charities, thereby avoiding the necessity of declaring the money as income on which he would have owed an additional $490,000 in taxes. If the president is so appalled at the rich and their ability to hire accountants to take advantage of each and every deduction, why doesn't he simply take the standard deduction on his tax return, like most Americans?" –columnist Linda Chavez

Clearly, the President doesn't have the strength of his own stated convictions. That's because he's not a leader. He's merely a politician.

So here we are, $14.3 TRILLION in debt, with the highest single year deficit in American history at $1.65 TRILLION, and all our President can do is conjure up doomsday scenarios of what wil happen if the Republican spending cuts go through. Here are a couple excerpts of Obama ripping proposed Republican spending cuts:

"Worst of all, this is a [Republican] vision that says even though America can't afford to invest in education or clean energy; even though we can't afford to care for seniors and poor children…Under [Republicans'] vision, we can't invest in roads and bridges and broadband and high-speed rail. I mean, we would be a nation of potholes, and our airports would be worse than places that we thought — that we used to call the Third World."

According to Obama, we will become a Third World country if the Republican cuts are enacted. Well, I have a question for our President. What kind of country will we become if we keep borrowing 40 cents out of every federal dollar spent, as we are doing now under Obama's "leadership" ? What kind of country will we be when the debt is $20 TRILLION or $25 TRILLION, and the people we are borrowing from realize we are a terrible credit risk ? It's coming, sooner rather than later. This President's "leadership" is like the captain of the Titanic saying the real danger to the ship would be in changing course and NOT hitting the iceberg. With all due respect, I don't think so Skippy.

The President is basically endorsing the unsustainable status quo. That may be smart politics. It may even win elections for Democrats in 2012, as a popular backlash against Republican spending cuts manifests itself….but it sure as hell ain't leadership.

If you want to know how much of a tax increase it would take to close our federal budget gap (that would take a $1.65 TRILLION tax increase this year), here's Mark Alexander of the Patriot Post to put it in perspective:

Stop reading this and add up all the paychecks you received from January 1 through April 12 of this year. Now, write a check for that amount to the government. In essence, you have done just that, for as the Tax Foundation recently announced, April 12 was this year's Tax Freedom day, meaning "Americans will work well over three months of the year, from January 1 to April 12, before earning enough money to pay this year's tax obligations at the federal, state and local levels." According to the Cato Institute's Dan Mitchell, this is the good news. "The bad news is that Tax Freedom Day only measures the direct and immediate impact of taxation. It doesn't measure the overall burden of government." If the federal government were to collect enough taxes this year to fund all its spending, Tax Freedom Day wouldn't come until May 23.

In order to fully fund our federal government, we'd have to work another month and half each year just to pay our federal taxes. And this doesn't even count the taxes necessary to cover the state and local government budget shortages. It's not a stretch to say we'll soon be working half the year just to pay the government unless spending is seriously curtailed. Government has grown and grown and grown over the years, and our current fiscal nightmare is the result. It would take oppressive, economy-killing tax increases to merely tax our way out of it. That is the truth. Working half the year for the government is basically what the Democrats are offering as a "solution", and things will only get much worse as the baby boomers retire and Medicare/Social Security expenses start to skyrocket. The Democrat model is European socialism, which is a very odd thing to model when you consider the European socialist countries are all going broke too. Modeling failure isn't very intelligent. When our President starts to get serious about our fiscal challenges, that's when you will know you have a leader instead of a politician. Until then, good luck America. You'll need it. Wear a lifejacket, because we ARE going to hit the iceberg. Hope the water isn't too cold. And until we find a leader and unite behind him/her, you can also expect to hear a blizzard of obfuscation, finger pointing, blame shifting, lies, spin, equivocation, and outright BS from all the usual politicians.

We're over six months into FY2011 (the government's fiscal year runs from October 1-September 30), and Congress has still not passed a budget for FY2011. There will be a government shutdown at midnight unless Congress can pass a budget or another temporary continuing resolution (CR) today.

First, I must say…Heckuva job, Congress. Thanks for NOT doing the job we elected you to do. Thanks for proving to me once again how well-founded is my skepticism of the government, as if the $14 trillion federal debt and the $1.6 trillion deficit wasn't proof enough already. If I find any solace from a government shutdown, it will come from the fact that members of Congress won't get their paychecks (at least I hope they won't).

The last action I heard about was the CR that passed the GOP-led House yesterday. It contained $12 billion in spending cuts, would fund the Department Of Defense for the rest of the year, and fund the rest of the government for another week. President Obama said he would veto it if it reached his desk. Democrats voted against it, saying they wanted the one-week CR to maintain spending at current levels. So much for all the Democrat calls for compromise I heard on the airwaves yesterday, but even if the CR did pass, the budget issue would not be resolved. The standoff continues.

If you want to know how things deteriorated to this level, I can answer that in one word – politics (which is another reason I distrust the government). Our politicians care more about their parties than they do our country. This goes for both parties, but I have particular animus toward the Democrats in this regard. Remember, the Dems had total control of Congress and the Presidency until January. They could have done their job and passed the FY2011 budget any time they wanted to, but they didn't. Why not ? Because they knew if they passed the big spending budget they wanted to pass, it would lessen their chances in last fall's elections. As Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY) said on Fox News last night, the Dems didn't pass a budget because it was "a political hot potato". In other words, the Democrats put the well-being of their party above the well-being of the country. But their self-serving political stunt didn't work. Republicans made big gains in Congress and took control of the House. Now, Congress is locked in an ideological battle of wills. The Dems could have easily avoided the current shutdown scenario, which makes me wonder if what's going on now wasn't the Democrats backup plan all along. Democrats knew spending had to be cut, but they want the Republicans to take the heat for it, because particular spending cuts, especially to domestic programs, aren't popular, even when they are necessary.

On the core issue of spending cuts, I agree with the Republicans a lot more than I do the Democrats. Obama's ten-year budget proposal that increased federal spending by $9 trillion, increased taxes by $2 trillion (it reversed the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, among other tax increases), and increased the federal debt by $13 trillion over the next decade was an epic failure of leadership, a complete joke. Obama looked at the biggest long-term problem we face as a country, and then he punted the ball. He abdicated all responsibility. I can't begin to take him seriously since then. I no longer care what he has to say on economic matters. I just want him out. I will vote for a ham sandwich over Obama for President in 2012. He's not a leader. He's a coward, or worse (you can fill in your own Obama motivation here).

Spending must be cut. That is undeniable. Anyone with a shred of honesty has to admit that much. We are living in a fictitious economy fueled by debt. The federal government is borrowing 40 cents out of every dollar it spends. It is beyond obvious that it isn't sustainable. We're on a high-speed rail to financial destruction, yet we can't get Congress to agree on $61 billion in spending cuts, which represents less than a 2% cut from a $3.8 trillion federal budget. Hard to believe.

That being said, I do have some problems with the GOP's cuts. They all focus on domestic spending, which certainly must be cut, but of the GOP proposals I've seen, NONE of them cut the Defense budget. This is outrageous. While I certainly support funding the troops in the field, as we must do, there is much to be cut in the area of Defense. We have nearly 500 military bases in about 100 countries around the world. There's no reason for this. WWII is long over. The Cold War is over. It's time for us to stop being the policeman of the world. We can't afford it any longer. When Republicans cite the Constitution as it's justification for the federal government to "provide for the common defense", they are correct. However, the framers meant that the federal government should defend THIS country, not South Korea, Japan, Europe, etc., etc. Our first President, George Washington, warned against "foreign entanglements". Later, President Eisenhower warned against the "military industrial complex". Today's Republicans and Democrats should take note of our fiscal situation and make some major Defense adjustments. I'm all for defending this country, and when we were attacked on 9/11 it was appropriate for us to go after the terrorists and their state-sponsored supporters in Afghanistan, but enough is enough. The Deparment Of Defense needs to be cut like everything else. It will take an all hands approach to correct the course of our ship of state.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) said the GOP's budget policy riders are interfering with a budgetary agreement between the two parties. Reid said Republicans were “focusing on ideological matters that have nothing to do with funding the government". Said policy riders include defunding ObamaCare, defunding Planned Parenthood, and weakening the EPA's ability to regulate carbon emissions. I don't know what world Reid lives in, but in my world, DEFUNDING ObamaCare and Planned Parenthood have everything to do with funding the government. Ideology is certainly involved, just as ideology was involved with funding these programs in the first place, but, I repeat, WE ARE $14 TRILLION IN DEBT AND HAVE A $1.6 TRILLION DEFICIT. Everything should be on the table. We have to reinvent our idea of what government can and should do for us. If we don't, we face a certain finanial meltdown. Thems the facts.

In closing, I hear Democrats and liberals across the land moaning and crying over the Republican spending cuts, such as Rep. Paul Ryan's plan to cut $6 trillion in spending over a decade (which actually doesn't go far enough fast enough), but I ask you this…has anyone heard a plan from the Democrats in Congress or the Executive branch to fix our debt/deficit problem ??? Anyone ??? I haven't, and the last I heard, Democrats were also supposed to be our governmental leaders. Rather than leading, it seems they've chosen to bury their heads in the sand and throw dirt at Republicans to gain a partisan advantage. I'm not sure how I'm supposed to admire such behavior, which is why I don't. Put up or shut up, Democrats. I've heard enough of what the Democrats are against. They should man up and present their own plan to right our fiscal ship, before we collectively sink into the sea. Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country.

As for anyone's particular political beliefs, they should be secondary right now. Everyone is going to have to accept some spending cut they don't like. Yes, it would be fan-frigging-tastic if we could give every citizen in the country everything their little heart desires for free, but that ain't realistic. In fact, that gimme attitude is a large part of the problem.

For the second year in a row, Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) won the presidential straw poll at the Conservative Politicial Action Conference (CPAC). Paul is noted for his Libertarian political views. Here are the full results of the poll:

Congressman Ron Paul (Texas): 30%
Mitt Romney (Mass.): 23%
Former NM Gov. Gary Johnson: 6%
NJ Gov. Chris Christie: 6%
Newt Gingrich: 5%
Former Minn. Gov. Tim Pawlenty: 4%
Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann: 4%
Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels: 4%
Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin: 3%
Businessman Herman Cain: 2%
Former Ark. Gov. Mike Huckabee: 2%
Former Penn. Senator Rick Santorum: 2%
So. Dakota Senator John Thune: 2%
Fomer Utah Gov. John Hunstman: 1%
Miss. Governor Haley Barbour: 1%
Other: 5%
Undecided: 1%

Of note here is that Gov. Gary Johnson, also a Libertarian, came in third place, signaling the rising popularity of Libertarian Republicans at CPAC. This also reveals the ideological split within the GOP between the Libertarians and more traditional conservatives. From Fox News:

Many convention-goers booed when the results were announced but the Paul supporters drowned them out with chants of "Ron Paul! Ron Paul! Ron Paul!"

Paul's consecutive victories in the straw poll have frustrated many GOP faithful who would rather see a more credible contender win. A CPAC official told Fox News that the big story is not Paul winning again but rather the strength of Romney's second-place finish.

A quick look at Ron Paul on the issues illustrates why some Republicans love him and other Republicans, not so much. Here are some selected one-line descriptions of Paul's positions:

- Abortion is murder. (Apr 2008)
- Wasteful government spending backed by both parties. (Apr 2008)
- Repeal 16th Amendment and get rid of the income tax. (Feb 2008)
- We’re worse off than in 2000, due to Bush & Congress. (Jan 2008)
- Economic stimulus ok, but not via spending & printing money. (Jan 2008)
- Currency inflation counterfeits prosperity & destroys poor. (Oct 2007)
- We can’t afford a trillion-dollar war in Iraq. (Jan 2006)
- Supports Balanced Budget Amendment & on-budget accounting. (Dec 2000)
- Liberty Candidate: End the Federal Reserve. (Sep 2010)
- National ID card is part of fear-based government. (Feb 2008)
- No legislation to counteract the homosexual agenda. (Sep 2007)
- No affirmative action for any group. (Sep 2007)
- Opposes death penalty at state and federal level. (Jan 2008)
- Repeal most federal drug laws; blacks are treated unfairly. (Sep 2007)
- School prayer is not a federal issue. (Apr 2008)
- Close Dept. of Education, but don’t dismantle public schools. (Dec 2007)
- Big Oil profits ok; Big Oil subsidies are not. (Jun 2007)
- Voted NO on enforcing limits on CO2 global warming pollution. (Jun 2009)
- Liberty Candidate: tax incentives for US-based [energy] alternatives. (Sep 2010)
- Property rights are the foundation of all rights. (Sep 2007)
- Cut off all foreign aid to Israel & to Arabs. (Dec 2007)
- No foreign aid; no treaties that commit US to future wars. (Jun 2007)
- No nation-building; no world policeman; no pre-emptive war. (Jan 2006)
- Free trade agreements threaten national sovereignty. (Apr 2008)
- No restrictions on import/export; but maintain sovereignty . (Dec 2000)
- The “living Constitution” is the death of democracy. (Apr 2008)
- Constitution defines much smaller government. (Feb 2008)
- Dismantle agencies that have no Constitutional role. (Dec 2007)
- Signing statements erode constitutional balance. (Jul 2007)
- Opposes the DC Gun Ban; it’s not just a “collective right”. (Mar 2007)
- Insurance companies & gov’t make healthcare unaffordable. (Oct 2007)
- Transfer funds from debt & empire-building to healthcare. (Oct 2007)
- Socialized medicine won’t work; nor managed care. (Oct 2007)
- Stop policing the world and we can get rid of income tax. (Dec 2007)
- Amend Constitution to remove aliens’ birthright citizenship. (Dec 2007)
- Immigration problem is consequence of welfare state. (Sep 2007)
- Right to organize; but no special benefits for unions. (Oct 2007)
- Minimum wage takes away opportunities, especially for blacks. (Sep 2007)
- Liberty promotes peace, and peace promotes prosperity. (Feb 2008)
- Tyranny and inflation are ancient, Bill of Rights isn’t. (Feb 2008)
- Abolish Social Security, but not overnight. (Jan 2008)
- Let people get out of Social Security; it’s a failure. (Jan 2008)
- Federal government won’t keep its entitlement promises. (Mar 2007)

That should be enough to give you an idea what Ron Paul is all about.

President Obama gave his State Of The Union speech last night. In this speech, we met a new Obama, a more centrist sounding Obama. I found myself agreeing with most of what he said, with a few glaring exceptions. I also was thinking about what a different tone this new Obama has taken when compared to the 2008 candidate Obama. I was wondering, has he grown into the job he was so clearly unqualified for two years ago ? After all, nothing beats experience, and this new Obama has been President for two years now. Perhaps Obama has learned on the job. He's a smart guy. Or perhaps Obama is just another politician, who is adjusting to political reality and trying to position himself to be re-elected in 2012. Decades of listening to politicians change like the wind leads me to believe that might be it. Maybe it's a combination of these things. Only time will tell.

Because I assume you all listened to Obama's speech last night, I'm going to highlight the other State Of The Union speech given by Republican Paul Ryan. First, Ryan describes our problems:

A few years ago, reducing spending was important. Today, it’s imperative. Here’s why. We face a crushing burden of debt. The debt will soon eclipse our entire economy, and grow to catastrophic levels in the years ahead. On this current path, when my three children – who are now 6, 7, and 8 years old – are raising their own children, the Federal government will double in size, and so will the taxes they pay. No economy can sustain such high levels of debt and taxation. The next generation will inherit a stagnant economy and a diminished country.

Next, Ryan describe how Obama has made things worse:

Our debt is the product of acts by many presidents and many Congresses over many years. No one person or party is responsible for it.

There is no doubt the President came into office facing a severe fiscal and economic situation. Unfortunately, instead of restoring the fundamentals of economic growth, he engaged in a stimulus spending spree that not only failed to deliver on its promise to create jobs, but also plunged us even deeper into debt. The facts are clear: Since taking office, President Obama has signed into law spending increases of nearly 25% for domestic government agencies – an 84% increase when you include the failed stimulus. All of this new government spending was sold as “investment.” Yet after two years, the unemployment rate remains above 9% and government has added over $3 trillion to our debt.

Then the President and his party made matters even worse, by creating a new open-ended health care entitlement. What we already know about the President’s health care law is this: Costs are going up, premiums are rising, and millions of people will lose the coverage they currently have. Job creation is being stifled by all of its taxes, penalties, mandates and fees.

Businesses and unions from around the country are asking the Obama Administration for waivers from the mandates. Washington should not be in the business of picking winners and losers. The President mentioned the need for regulatory reform to ease the burden on American businesses. We agree – and we think his health care law would be a great place to start.

Last week, House Republicans voted for a full repeal of this law, as we pledged to do, and we will work to replace it with fiscally responsible, patient-centered reforms that actually reduce costs and expand coverage.

Health care spending is driving the explosive growth of our debt. And the President’s law is accelerating our country toward bankruptcy.

So far, I'm in complete agreement with Rep. Ryan…but this is where his speech fell apart. I realize his time was limited, but he didn't put forth even one concrete proposal to eliminate the debt and reduce spending. Instead, he listed off Republican principles – individual liberty, limited government, free enterprise, national security, etc. That's nice, but I already know what the Republican principles are. What we need are concrete plans, and I didn't hear any. Obama did list off some ideas to reduce the debt and reduce spending, though all of his ideas taken together probably wouldn't really reduce spending, and they wouldn't come near to balancing the budget. But at least he had some ideas. I know Rep. Ryan has lots of ideas too, more than most politicians. It would have been nice to hear some of them last night. Opportunity lost.

Rep. Michelle Bachmann also gave a rebuttal speech to President Obama's State Of The Union message. Bachmann was representing the Tea Party movement. Bachmann hit many of the same notes that Rep. Ryan hit about the Obama administration's faults (too much spending, too much debt, failed stimulus, ObamaCare, overregulation, rising future taxation), but I'm looking for answers, and Bachmann didn't provide any either in her short speech. Thanks for nothing, GOPers. What a big help you weren't.

Because I didn't hear anything from the GOP last night, I'll provide a link to some real spending cuts. These come from Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), who wants to cut $500 billion in federal spending in ONE YEAR. Paul's cuts are very detailed, and would make a big difference. I wonder if America is ready to handle it. Some of it will sound radical, but we need something radical to happen or we're in big trouble. I urge everyone to at least read Sen. Paul's bill overview.