Budget Follies and Whining Unions and Dems

Last week we witnessed another boondoggle effort by our leaders as to addressing the out of control budget deficit. We had a ballyhooed attempt at a compromise that in the end hardly cuts crap which in turn the very person who wants to spend the most started taking credit for cutting. Cutting what?! If one looks a t the following, we aren’t even talking 1% of spending outlays! Good God, we are talking incredible Bull S… here! Nothing else!

(Via the AP) A new budget estimate released Wednesday shows that the spending bill negotiated between President Barack Obama and House Speaker John Boehner would produce less than 1 percent of the $38 billion in promised savings by the end of this budget year.

The Congressional Budget Office estimate shows that compared with current spending rates the spending bill due for a House vote Thursday would cut federal outlays from non-war accounts by just $352 million through Sept. 30. About $8 billion in immediate cuts to domestic programs and foreign aid are offset by nearly equal increases in defense spending.

When war funding is factored in the legislation would actually increase total federal outlays by $3.3 billion relative to current levels.
So after this fiasco of a vote and as I noted in my earlier post, POTUS declared certain things he signed into law do not pertain to him. So as it should be with a wanna be dictator. After that, we get the Paul Ryan budget. At last, an attempt in writing to address our country’s deficit and out of control spending. Is it perfect? Probably not. But it is a start. Nor according to POTUS, tha MSM and the Commie left however! No siree! The nasty conservatives want to kill seniors, children and completely lead us into Third World status, which by the way, the left has been doing quite nicely on their own.

Instead of leadership from POTUS however, we instead got one of the most hateful, ideological, partisan leftist leading speeches in the history of this great nation. Below are some great excerpts which say what I want to much more eloquently than I ever could!

From Krauthammer:

“I thought it was a disgrace,” he said. “I rarely heard a speech by a president so shallow, so hyper-partisan and so intellectually dishonest, outside the last couple of weeks of a presidential election where you are allowed to call your opponent anything short of a traitor. But, we’re a year-and-a-half away from Election Day and it was supposed to be a speech about policy. He didn’t even get to his own alternative until more than halfway through the speech. And when he did, he threw out numbers suspended in mid-air with nothing under them with all kinds of goals and guidelines and triggers that mean nothing. The speech was really about and entirely an attack on the [Rep. Paul] Ryan plan.”

Krauthammer offered up an example and showed in one scenario, the tax rates in Ryan’s plan were higher than what Obama’s own deficit commission had recommended.

“I’m going to give you one example of how dishonest it was – he went on and on how the Republicans want to steal from your grandma to lower taxes on the rich,” Krauthammer continued. “And he talked about the Bush tax cuts and how much he is going to stand on the bridge and oppose any extension which is what he knows how to do. He has done it over and over for the last six years. The Ryan plan is not about the Bush tax cuts. It transcends them. It’s what the deficit — what Obama’s own commission recommended, strip out loopholes and lower rates for everyone. It’s not about whether it’s the Bush rates or Clinton rates. It’s a whole new approach by which the Simpson-Bowles Commission recommended itself. In fact, Bowles had recommended in one of its scenarios of a high rate of 23 percent. Ryan is at 25 percent. Obama did this knowing that this is a way to play to his base. It was a speech that was quite remarkable in how demagogic it was and I say that with all due respect.”

Charles Krauthammer in many ways is a quiet man who speaks openly and plainly. My read on the above was it was as close as he would ever get to accusing POTUS as being a hypocritical run of the mill political bastard without saying it. The man is professional to a fault. I’m not! Next we hear from Herman Cain. A man along with Alan West I am admiring more and more every day!

From Herman Cain:

“President Obama’s address proved yet again that he values ideology over basic economics and leadership.

His budget employs his typical class warfare tactics, insisting on taxing America’s job creators into oblivion for what he deems “fairness.” In doing so, he makes clear his willingness to further cripple our economy in exchange for pushing his wealth redistribution agenda and abandonment of the free enterprise system.
President Obama also took the opportunity to blame everyone but his own administration for this economic disaster, shifting blame to the Bush administration, Congressional Republicans and America’s highest earners, neglecting his own administration’s reckless spending.

Instead of using this speech as an opportunity to preview a budget that could significantly pay down our mounting debt through meaningful spending cuts and entitlement reforms, he again insisted on saddling America’s job creators with an even heavier tax burden to pay down the debt. Meanwhile, Congressman Ryan proposed his own budget that reduces the national debt by $6 trillion without raising taxes on a single American family or business.

Most importantly, actions speak louder than words. President Obama claims that his budget proposal would cut $4 trillion in just 12 years. Can we really trust a man who vowed time and time again that his administration would cut the budget deficit in half, but instead, brought our budget deficits to record levels in just half a term in the White House?

Indeed, since President Obama just filed his re-election candidacy papers, Americans today got their first televised campaign speech for 2012: all talk, no leadership.”
Last but not least in this vain, I reprint an article from the Wall Street Journal. This is easily one of the best columns they have put out in years and says everything I want to say!

THE PRESIDENTIAL DIVIDER - reposted from The Wall Street Journal

Did someone move the 2012 election to June 1? We ask because President Obama's extraordinary response to Paul Ryan's budget yesterday—with its blistering partisanship and multiple distortions—was the kind Presidents usually outsource to some junior lieutenant. Mr. Obama's fundamentally political document would have been unusual even for a Vice President in the fervor of a campaign.

The immediate political goal was to inoculate the White House from criticism that it is not serious about the fiscal crisis, after ignoring its own deficit commission last year and tossing off a $3.73 trillion budget in February that increased spending amid a record deficit of $1.65 trillion. Mr. Obama was chased to George Washington University yesterday because Mr. Ryan and the Republicans outflanked him on fiscal discipline and are now setting the national political agenda.

Mr. Obama did not deign to propose an alternative to rival Mr. Ryan's plan, even as he categorically rejected all its reform ideas, repeatedly vilifying them as essentially un-American. "Their vision is less about reducing the deficit than it is about changing the basic social compact in America," he said, supposedly pitting "children with autism or Down's syndrome" against "every millionaire and billionaire in our society." The President was not attempting to join the debate Mr. Ryan has started, but to close it off just as it begins and banish House GOP ideas to political Siberia.

Mr. Obama then packaged his poison in the rhetoric of bipartisanship—which "starts," he said, "by being honest about what's causing our deficit." The speech he chose to deliver was dishonest even by modern political standards.

The great political challenge of the moment is how to update the 20th-century entitlement state so that it is affordable. With incremental change, Mr. Ryan is trying maintain a social safety net and the economic growth necessary to finance it. Mr. Obama presented what some might call the false choice of merely preserving the government we have with no realistic plan for doing so, aside from proposing $4 trillion in phantom deficit reduction over a gimmicky 12-year budget window that makes that reduction seem larger than it would be over the normal 10-year window.
.Mr. Obama said that the typical political proposal to rationalize Medicare's gargantuan liabilities is that it is "just a matter of eliminating waste and abuse." His own plan is to double down on the program's price controls and central planning. All Medicare decisions will be turned over to and routed through an unelected commission created by ObamaCare—which will supposedly ferret out "unnecessary spending." Is that the same as "waste and abuse"?

Fifteen members will serve on the Independent Payment Advisory Board, all appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate. If per capita costs grow by more than GDP plus 0.5%, this board would get more power, including an automatic budget sequester to enforce its rulings. So 15 sages sitting in a room with the power of the purse will evidently find ways to control Medicare spending that no one has ever thought of before and that supposedly won't harm seniors' care, even as the largest cohort of the baby boom generation retires and starts to collect benefits.

Mr. Obama really went off on Mr. Ryan's plan to increase health-care competition and give consumers more control, barely stopping short of calling it murderous. It's hardly beyond criticism or debate, but the Ryan plan is neither Big Rock Candy Mountain nor some radical departure from American norms.

Mr. Obama came out for further cuts in the defense budget, but where? His plan is to ask Defense Secretary Bob Gates and Joint Chiefs Chairman Mike Mullen "to find additional savings," whatever those might be, after a "fundamental review." These mystery cuts would follow two separate, recent rounds of deep cuts that were supposed to stave off further Pentagon triage amid several wars and escalating national security threats.

Mr. Obama rallied the left with a summons for major tax increases on "the rich." Every U.S. fiscal trouble, he claimed, flows from the Bush tax cuts "for the wealthiest 2%," conveniently passing over what he euphemistically called his own "series of emergency steps that saved millions of jobs." Apparently he means the $814 billion stimulus that failed and a new multitrillion-dollar entitlement in ObamaCare that harmed job creation.

Under the Obama tax plan, the Bush rates would be repealed for the top brackets. Yet the "cost" of extending all the Bush rates in 2011 over 10 years was about $3.7 trillion. Some $3 trillion of that was for everything but the top brackets—and Mr. Obama says he wants to extend those rates forever. According to Internal Revenue Service data, the entire taxable income of everyone earning over $100,000 in 2008 was about $1.582 trillion. Even if all these Americans—most of whom are far from wealthy—were taxed at 100%, it wouldn't cover Mr. Obama's deficit for this year.

Mr. Obama sought more tax-hike cover under his deficit commission, seeming to embrace its proposal to limit tax deductions and other loopholes. But the commission wanted to do so in order to lower rates for a more efficient and competitive code with a broader base. Mr. Obama wants to pocket the tax increase and devote the revenues to deficit reduction and therefore more spending. So that's three significant tax increases—via higher top brackets, the tax hikes in ObamaCare and fewer tax deductions.

Lastly, Mr. Obama came out for a debt "failsafe," which will require the White House and Congress to hash out a deal if by 2014 projected debt is not declining as a share of the economy. But under his plan any deal must exclude Social Security, Medicare or low-income programs. So that means more tax increases or else "making government smarter, leaner and more effective." Which, now that he mentioned it, sounds a lot like cutting "waste and abuse."

Mr. Obama ludicrously claimed that Mr. Ryan favors "a fundamentally different America than the one we've known throughout most of our history." Nothing is likelier to bring that future about than the President's political indifference in the midst of a fiscal crisis.’

As long as we’re on the subject as to the President and his complete disdain for the common American citizen, I would like to point out the little letter that came from the Office of the White House Press Secretary. Can someone please tell me why the White House is shilling for the unions? Moron Alert! They are supposed to represent all of us! Not the leftist trash that is destroying the very fabric of this country. And for god’s sakes, I’m not talking about the everyday union member. I’m ranting at the leaders who openly steal your dues to promote their hard left Commie agenda! And that is exactly what is going on! The fact that the White House puts out this letter just proves how out of touch they are with the bed rock principles this country was founded on and in turn highlights their open disdain for the American people in general! When is this crap going to stop?

The White House
Office of the Press Secretary
For Immediate Release
April 13, 2011
Trumka Statement on the President's Fiscal Policy Speech
By: Richard Trumka, AFL-CIO President

Today, President Obama gave a promise to America’s working people that he wouldn’t follow the path of the radical Republican fiscal agenda that leads to lost jobs and a national decline of standards. That commitment is essential at this crucial moment for children, students, seniors and everyone who hopes for a secure economic future.

The President also made clear that he understands why Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are so important to working people. The labor movement is equally clear that we oppose cuts to any of these critical programs – no matter who proposes them.

Above all, let us refocus our national energy and attention on job creation – because successful job creation is the key to making long-term deficit reduction both easier and more politically achievable.

The Republican budget proposal, by contrast, is simply a shameful wealth transfer from working people to corporate CEOs. It does not make a significant dent in the deficit. It is a fraud on the American people. Republican leaders in Congress have shown they want a massive cut in tax rates for the wealthy and for Wall Street, and they want the middle class and the poor to pay for it in various ways, including higher health care costs, hidden tax increases and cuts in essential programs. At a time of record unemployment, each cut to our nation’s budget threatens American jobs and the Republicans’ irresponsible cuts would eliminate hundreds of thousands of them.

Here’s the truth: We cannot have an honest conversation about the deficit until we return fairness to our tax system, and that includes addressing our medium and long term fiscal problems created by the $100 billion-a-year Bush tax cuts, as President Obama made clear today. But we also must close corporate tax loopholes in a way that raises additional net revenues. We must insist that corporations and the rich pay their fair share instead of shortchanging education, health care, technology and other investments in our future. President Obama does not yet have the balance right between spending cuts and new revenue. Without significant new revenues, we will just end up balancing the budget on the backs of the poor and the middle class.

The regressive and economically destructive plan of the Fiscal Commission Chairs is not a starting point. A number of groups on the Democratic side have come forward with plans and ideas that seek to restore fiscal health, tax fairness and investments in our future. Those ideas have to be the way forward to create an economy in which our children can thrive, with a renewed focus on creating good jobs.

Last but not least, I have my laugh for the day. Poor Nancy Pelosi is crying because she was left out of the budget negotiations in the exact same way the President and his party refused to include the Republicans in any way as they pushed their socialist healthcare plan and agenda down the throats of the American public! And The MSM actually is trumpeting her cause! These assholes refused to point out how the administration actually told the opposition to take a hike and now ant us to feel bad about how the Dems are being treated? This is indeed what I would call an Alfred E. Newman moment, except I’m afraid that even Mad Magazine couldn’t make this up! I found this on various sites and news agencies.

Pelosi:
“To my Republican friends: take back your party. So that it doesn’t matter so much who wins the election, because we have shared values about the education of our children, the growth of our economy, how we defend our country, our security and civil liberties, how we respect our seniors. Because there are so many things at risk right now -- perhaps in another question I'll go into them, if you want. But the fact is that elections shouldn't matter as much as they do...But when it comes to a place where there doesn't seem to be shared values then that can be problematic for the country, as I think you can see right now.”

From the Washington Post:
“House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi complained Thursday her caucus was shut out of the negotiating process last week when congressional leaders and the White House hammered out a 2011 spending deal that avoided a government shutdown.
The California Democrat added she feels “no ownership” to the compromise.
“It’s pretty evident House Democrats were not a part of that agreement,” said Mrs. Pelosi during her weekly briefing with reporters at the Capitol. “The Republicans in the House, the Democrats in the Senate — the two majorities — they were the ones who had the votes so they have the strength to negotiate.”
“I feel no ownership of that or any responsibility to it, except that we don’t want the government to shut down.”

What a surprise. She’s so out of touch, she believes she should still be relevant! The amazing thing here is that the President and his propaganda arm are actually paying her lip service! How much more disgusting can they get in their stances and whining? One really wonders if there is a leader of any kind on the left and for that matter if the right has anyone who in the long haul has the balls to stand up and fight for what is left of our country!