Obama gangland tactics at work.

White House pushing to gag stimulus critics
From Michelle Malkin.com
By Michelle Malkin
May 30, 2009

In keeping with his past campaign tactics to shut critics up through brute force, the White House appears to be taking steps to crack down on critics of the trillion-dollar porkulus law.

Is anyone surprised? Mark Tapscott at the Examiner reports:

A new White House policy on permissible lobbying on economic recovery and stimulus project has taken a decidedly anti-First Amendment turn. It’s a classic illustration of Big Government trying to control every aspect of a particular activity and in the process running up against civil liberty.

Check out this passage from a post on the White House blog by Norm Eisen, Special Counsel to the President on Ethics and Government Reform (emphasis added):

“First, we will expand the restriction on oral communications to cover all persons, not just federally registered lobbyists. For the first time, we will reach contacts not only by registered lobbyists but also by unregistered ones, as well as anyone else exerting influence on the process. We concluded this was necessary under the unique circumstances of the stimulus program.

Writes Tapscott:

The key passage is the reference to expanding regulation from registered lobbyists to “anyone else exerting influence on the process. We concluded this was necessary under the unique circumstances of the stimulus program.”

This is the Camel’s nose under the tent…

Click to go to the article and read the comments

YOU now OWE more than HALF A MILLION DOLLARS, not counting your mortgage, credit cards and other debt!

From Investor's Business Daily
May 29, 2009

What We Owe: $64 Trillion, And Counting...

Debt: OK, take a deep breath. You might need it after we tell you this: You now owe more than half a million dollars, not counting your home mortgage, credit cards and other debt. Don't remember running it up?

Well, technically, you didn't. The government did it for you. And USA Today has done us all a favor by taking out a calculator and doing the basic math. It's beyond ugly.

Each household owes an additional $55,000, thanks to the soaring spending by the federal government on retirement programs just in the past year.

All told, each household at the end of 2008 owed $546,668. That's four times what American households owe for mortgages, car loans, credit cards and other debt.

Looking long term is where it really gets scary. Recently, we learned the U.S. had $101 trillion in retirement and health care obligations over the next 75 years. The only problem is, at current tax rates we'll have only $53 trillion to pay for it all.

That leaves a gaping hole of $48 trillion.

It gets worse. The stimulus plans and bailouts pushed into the budget by President Obama and congressional Democrats will add $9 trillion to our national debt over the next 10 years alone.

Add to that an expected $1.1 trillion spent over the same time to fund a government takeover of our health care system — an estimate most health care experts, by the way, believe is laughably low — and you have the makings of an epic financial tragedy.

Total federal debt will soar from 41% of GDP to 82% in just 10 years — more debt than we rang up in 235 years of existence. And over the next half-century, Americans will owe $63 trillion — 4.5 times our current GDP of $14 trillion.

"We have a huge implicit mortgage on every household in America," David Walker, former U.S. comptroller, told USA Today. "Except, unlike a real mortgage, it's not backed up by a house."

Americans can't be blamed for hyperventilating when they see such numbers emerging from the most fiscally irresponsible government in our nation's history.

Even the nation's president, in a moment of unguarded frankness last week, admitted that "we are out of money."

Was that supposed to inspire confidence? Or was it merely a prelude to asking for a spate of new taxes to pay for it all — turning the U.S. economy from a vibrant, job-creation machine into a stagnant, European-style welfare state?

The current administration already has proposed or is mulling as many as 10 new taxes — everything from a European-style VAT (a national sales tax) to intrusive new taxes on beer, fast food, cigarettes and other sinful indulgences, to cap and trade, which is nothing more than a federal tax on energy.

Two weeks ago, Standard & Poor's warned Britain it could lose its AAA rating because its national debt will soon hit 100% of GDP. Well, guess what? We're heading down the same road. A story in the usually staid Financial Times of London last week said it all: "Exploding Debt Threatens America."

More brutal was last week's assessment of Russia's Pravda, the former house organ for the Soviet communist regime: "The American descent into Marxism is happening with breath taking speed." Ouch.

We'd like to disagree, but at least one of those newspapers is right. And unless we Americans stand up and tell our elected officials to stop this insane surge in spending and taxing, we'll pay for it for decades to come.
Click to read the article and the comments

IRS Tax Revenue Falls 34% in April vs a year ago - Oh, Oh! - bigger deficits than projected

IRS tax revenue falls along with taxpayers' income

from USA Today
By John Waggoner
USA TODAY

Federal tax revenue plunged $138 billion, or 34%, in April vs. a year ago — the biggest April drop since 1981, a study released Tuesday by the American Institute for Economic Research says.

When the economy slumps, so does tax revenue, and this recession has been no different, says Kerry Lynch, senior fellow at the AIER and author of the study. "It illustrates how severe the recession has been."

For example, 6 million people lost jobs in the 12 months ended in April — and that means far fewer dollars from income taxes. Income tax revenue dropped 44% from a year ago.

"These are staggering numbers," Lynch says.

Big revenue losses mean that the U.S. budget deficit may be larger than predicted this year and in future years.

"It's one of the drivers of the ongoing expansion of the federal budget deficit," says John Lonski, chief economist for Moody's Investors Service. The Congressional Budget Office projects a $1.7 trillion budget deficit for fiscal year 2009.

The other deficit driver is government spending, which, the AIER's report says, is the main culprit for the federal budget deficit.

The White House thinks that tax revenue will increase in 2011, thanks in part to the stimulus package, says the report from AIER, an independent economic research institute. But it warns, "Even if that does happen, the administration also projects that government spending will be so much higher each year that large deficits will continue, and the national debt held by the public will double over the next 10 years."

The government may have a hard time trimming spending to reduce the deficit when the recession ends. The 77 million Baby Boomers— those born in 1946 through 1964 — will start tapping their federal retirement benefits soon, which means increased government outlays for Social Security and Medicare.

"It will be doubly difficult for federal government to reduce expenditures and narrow the deficit as rapidly as they did following previous recessions," Lonski says. At the end of the last major recession, in 1981, Boomers were in their 30s. Their incomes were expanding, as was their appetite for goods and services.

The Boomers now are in their 50s and 60s and unlikely to keep increasing incomes for long, which means that revenue from income taxes could flatten in the next few years. Also, Lonski says, they are more likely to save for retirement than spend — and consumer spending is a big driver of the economy.

"The American consumer led us out of previous recessions with some semblance of gusto," Lonski says. "They're too old to do it now."
Click to read the article and the comments

Roosting Chickens Plague Obama

image by rees
article from Pajamas Media
by Jennifer Rubin
May 24, 2009

The Obama administration had the sort of week they’d rather see disappear down the memory hole.

But unfortunately for the president, the trouble may just be beginning.

First, on the economic front the notion that we are going to bounce back soon from the recession is proving to be a pipe dream. The CBO predicted double-digit unemployment continuing to rise into 2010. Rasmussen reported:

The Rasmussen Investor Index dropped 15 points on Friday, the largest single day decline ever recorded in its seven-year history. The drop caps a week of extreme volatility for the Index and now shows investor confidence at the lowest level in two months.

The culprit — both for the volatility and the current low level of confidence — is shifting perceptions on where the economy is heading next. Today, just 24% of investors say the economy is getting better while 47% say it is getting worse. A couple of days ago, the outlook was much less pessimistic: 34% better and 40% worse.

And the ever-growing mound of debt is triggering concern among purchasers of U.S. debt. The Wall Street Journal reported:

The yield of the benchmark U.S. 10-year bond, which moves in the opposite direction to the price, rose by 0.15 percentage point from Wednesday to 3.355%, its highest level in six months. … Thursday’s selloff in U.S. and U.K. government bonds highlights the risks the two countries face as they try to jump-start their economies. The two governments hope that all the money they are borrowing will spur so much growth that the debt will shrink as a portion of their economies. The risk is that growth will be weak, leaving the economies still struggling but with heavy debt loads.

Moreover, the result of the president’s spend-a-thon and the Fed’s hyperactive printing press has been a plunge in the U.S. dollar and renewed fears of stagflation.

This, of course, is the economic picture which Republicans painted when they inveighed against Obama’s stimulus and budget plans. They (and all those Tea Party protestors) warned that the sea of red ink spilling from the U.S. Treasury couldn’t be readily absorbed by purchasers of U.S. debt and the result would soon be higher interest rates and slowed growth. It is the argument they continue to employ in objecting to the gigantic spending items still on the Obama budget.

They now have some evidence to support their arguments. This week the reality was driven home: the Obama economic plan is a faulty and unsustainable one. And those Democrats on the ballot in 2010 had better buckle up — it is going to be a bumpy ride.

On the national security front, the week brought a bevy of problems and complications for the president. His own party is in revolt, voting 90-6 in the Senate to defund his scheme to relocate Guantanamo detainees to the U.S. Nancy Pelosi is now reduced to “stonewalling” to fend off reporters’ queries about whether the CIA “misled” her.

Under siege, the president was forced into a speech face-off with Dick Cheney, once the source of eye-rolling and derision from Democrats who couldn’t believe one of the least popular politicians in America could cause a stir. But a stir was indeed caused by the former vice president’s insistence on defending the Bush administration’s record in the war on terror. As Politico observed:

For the first time in his presidency, Americans are getting a glimpse of Barack Obama on defense. Over the past few weeks, Obama has been back on his heels over torture and terror, issues on which he surely thought he had the upper hand. And he spent Thursday charges from a man he surely thought he had vanquished in November, former Vice President Dick Cheney.

But Obama’s speech was devoid of specifics on the issue of the day: what to do with the Guantanamo detainees. And that left congressional Democrats twisting in the wind, as Politico reported:

And even the speech, which stopped short of laying out a detailed plan for the Guantanamo detainees, left some frustration among congressional leaders. “In our perfect world, he would have given this speech before the vote [on stripping funding to close Gitmo]. It was a good speech, but there weren’t enough specifics in it that he couldn’t have nipped this in the bud last week or the week before,” said another leadership aide.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid grumbled that it was not a “game-changer” and that Democrats are “all awaiting the details of the plan and the president is going to come up with one.”

The problem for Obama is obvious: he has committed to closing Guantanamo with no viable plan for dispersing its detainees. In the process he has rekindled concerns as to whether he and his party are tough enough to fight the war on terror. Added to that dilemma is the challenge to manage disappointed allies on the Left who have figured out that despite his rhetorical broadsides against the Bush administration he has adopted many of its policies in the war on terror.

The Los Angeles Times summed up his predicament:

But his lengthy address, in which he conceded that his policies were still evolving, laid out a mixed approach that could be portrayed as squishy.

He defended actions that have angered conservatives, such as ordering the closure of Guantanamo Bay. But he also had to explain to frustrated liberals why he had accepted some of the Bush administration’s detention policies, such as the system of military commissions that tries many of the detainees captured in battle.

The bottom line: this week was one in which reality rudely intruded into the Obama feel-good continual campaign. The bond markets can’t be spun. The unemployment figures can’t be ignored. The value of the U.S. dollar can’t be sustained when we are printing gobs of dollars. And neither congressional Democrats nor the American people can be convinced it makes sense to move hardened terrorists from a distant, secure location to their neighborhood prison for the sake of currying favor with the American Left and European opinion makers.

This governing business is hard stuff. And it is made harder by an administration which has used photo-ops and speeches in lieu of thoughtful policy. This week we saw, as the president’s former pastor once said, that the chickens are coming home to roost.

Click to read the rest of the article and the comments

CBO Fires Another Shot At Cap & Trade - A huge Tax On Everyone

from Cheat-Seeking Missiles
May 20th 2009
by Laer

The Dems dream of a vast new IRS is still alive even as Congressional Dems back off from Obama’s concept - cap and trade as a tax - in favor of a seemingly less onorous cap and trade as a grant concept. But that darn Congressional Budget Office just keeps on pointing out the obvious: No matter how its structured, cap and trade will be an economic Katrina on the American economy.

The CBO has issued a second letter opining on the Dem scheme, WashTimes reports:

Congress’ chief scorekeeper says the global warming bill moving through Congress will either be scored as a major tax increase or a massive expansion of the federal government - and either one could give opponents substantial ammunition to complicate Democrats’ efforts to pass a bill.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO), in a letter sent last week to House Energy
and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry A. Waxman, said Democrats’ approach of creating allowances for emitting greenhouse gases requires developing from
scratch a market worth hundreds of billions of dollars. …

The six-page CBO letter also listed repeated examples of situations in which, for purposes of the federal budget, it will assume that the cap-and-trade approaches will dampen businesses’ income, meaning less revenue to the federal government.

The Dem response? Well, they’re trying to work with CBO. They figure that maybe if they threaten the CBO budget or start making personal attacks on its staff, they’ll be able to get the watchdogs to change a couple assumptions and come out with a rosier report. In other words, they’re not looking at the bill, seeing it for what it is and deciding to wait until the economy is back on its feet to cut its legs out from under it. Instead, they remain intent on kicking the economy while its down and want to get fudged numbers to excuse their action.

Meanwhile, the environmental lobbying machine is busy discounting the CBO:

Dan Lashof, director of the Natural Resources Defense Council’s climate center, said the CBO will still have to issue a final score on the bill when it passes the committee, and NRDC hopes the letter is not the last word.

“What they have left out of their analysis is the benefit to consumers of energy efficiency - that actually lowers their bills. I don’t see anywhere in this long set of examples this accounts for that,” Mr. Lashof said.

That’s because the CBO hasn’t yet come up with the metrics to measure pipe dreams and fantasies. There is no energy efficient replacement immediately available that would allow us to avoid the immediate impacts of cap and trade. As one commenter to the WashTimes story sarcastically put the Dem view of things,

The CBO is full of partisan hacks who want to do nothing more than destroy this once great nation. But, the Natural Resources Defense Council’s climate center is a straight down the middle lovable group who would never do anything that might tear apart the very foundations of our economy.

The new bill gives the GOP and blue dog Dems some hope that cap and trade might be the first Obama policy initiative to fall flat on its face. That certainly must be the goal, both to protect the economy from Warmie lunacy and to signal an end to the devastating run Obama’s enjoyed.

Do your part. Write your member of Congress and demand they tell you before they vote how the bill will impact your power bill and the price at the pump. Keep asking; hold them to it.
Click to read the rest of the article and the comments

US speeding towards financial crash - But Obama will say it's Bush's fault...

from Hot Air.com
May 13, 2009
by Ed Morrissey

Two related stories signaled investors today to push the dollar lower in overseas trading last night. First, former GAO chief David Walker notes a bond warning from Moody’s that US Treasury bonds may lose their top rating — and that could cost us dearly:

Long before the current financial crisis, nearly two years ago, a little-noticed cloud darkened the horizon for the US government. It was ignored. But now that shadow, in the form of a warning from a top credit rating agency that the nation risked losing its triple A rating if it did not start putting its finances in order, is coming back to haunt us.

That warning from Moody’s focused on the exploding healthcare and Social Security costs that threaten to engulf the federal government in debt over coming decades. The facts show we’re in even worse shape now, and there are signs that confidence in America’s ability to control its finances is eroding.

Prices have risen on credit default insurance on US government bonds, meaning it costs investors more to protect their investment in Treasury bonds against default than before the crisis hit. It even, briefly, cost more to buy protection on US government debt than on debt issued by McDonald’s. Another warning sign has come from across the Pacific, where the Chinese premier and the head of the People’s Bank of China have expressed concern about America’s longer-term credit worthiness and the value of the dollar.

Why does McDonald’s make a better risk? McDonald’s doesn’t run massive deficits. And the Chinese are right to be worried about their investments, as the AP reports on how much worse those deficits will become, and much sooner than the political class admitted:

Social Security and Medicare are fading even faster under the weight of the recession, heading for insolvency years sooner than previously expected, the government warned Tuesday. Social Security will start paying out more in benefits than it collects in taxes in 2016, a year sooner than projected last year, and the giant trust fund will be depleted by 2037, four years sooner, trustees reported.

Medicare is in even worse shape. The trustees said the program for hospital expenses will pay out more in benefits than it collects this year, just as it did for the first time in 2008. The trustees project that the Medicare fund will be depleted by 2017, two years earlier than the date projected in last year’s report.

The trust funds — which exist in paper form in a filing cabinet in Parkersburg, W.Va. — are bonds that are backed by the government’s “full faith and credit” but not by any actual assets. That money has been spent over the years to fund other parts of government. To redeem the trust fund bonds, the government would have to borrow in public debt markets or raise taxes.

As the boss recalss this morning, George Bush tried in 2005 to warn about the looming crisis in entitlements. What kind of response did that get? Democrats like Harry Reid accused Bush of fearmongering and panic, and assured Americans that “the so-called Social Security crisis exists in only one place — the minds of Republicans. In reality, the program is on solid ground for decades to come.”

Obviously not. Last month, I noted several more of those Democratic demurrals in 2005, along with the news that Social Security surpluses have already disappeared. As I wrote earlier, Treasury’s website shows that we lost money in February for the first time ever — and that will only get worse as the economy slows, unemployment rises, and more people start drawing Social Security.

Why did this hit the dollar today? If the US loses its top rating as a bond issuer — which really only means as a borrower — we will have to pay higher interest rates on our bonds in order to attract investors. This has already started to happen even with the top rating, but a markdown will force the issue. That will make our debt service significantly higher than we anticipated at either the OMB or the CBO, and these deficit projections will start extended a lot farther downward in the next couple of years:



Not only will the deficits increase, the cost of deficits will increase, and eventually the debt service will become the biggest part of the federal budget — unless Washington massively increases taxes to close the gap.

And that is why Tea Parties have erupted across America. The free-spending policies of today will lead to massive taxation or collapse in the near future, and anyone with a calculator and an iota of sense can see it.
Click to read the rest of the article and the comments

Obama Owns This Financial Tsunami

There may be many parties responsible for our Economic Earthquake, but Obama will own the Financial Tsunami.

If you listen to Obama, the economic earthquake is over. All of this after Obama continually terrorized the American public with threats that if he wasn't allowed to immediately take extreme measures that the entire economy would collapse. Now, Obama is on his 'feel good' campaign to convince the American public that "He" has now put us onto the path of economic recovery.

But let's not start the economic recovery party just yet, there's someone at America's front door. It's the "Financial Tsunami." You know, the guy that sometimes shows up after being triggered by an economic earthquake. A financial tsunami that was triggered by staggeringly destructive economic decision making.

Hey, wait a minute! Obama only sounded the alarm bells about an economic earthquake. There was no mention about a Financial Tsunami. What gives?

Well, some might describe that as an "inconvenient truth." If Obama had mentioned that his actions taken after the economic earthquake might precipitate a financial Tsunami, he may not have been able to convince the American people to go along with the drastic measures that he and congress insisted had to be implemented in order for our economy to recover from the '100 year' economic earthquake.

But what about all the Economic Earthquake Experts that Obama has on his team? Shouldn't the experts have known this Tsunami would happen, and shouldn't they have warned us about its imminent arrival? Yes and yes.

The fact that these so-called economic earthquake experts failed to educate the American public about the possibility of a pending financial Tsunami can only be explained in two ways:

One - They're either stupid and aren't the experts they proclaim to be, or
Two - they intentionally misled the public in order to further their agenda

It may come as a surprise, but the following New York Times article actually indicates that the worst part of our economic situation may not be over with. It's also an indication that the "inconvenient truths" may be starting to surface in the Maimed Stream Media and that the consequences for the measures taken by Obama and Congress might have made things worse, especially for the long term.

Obama continues to spoon feed the American public his verbal opium. Obama and his staff are on a mission to ensure that the euphoria he created while campaigning for President continues. He knows it's the only way he can keep the American public at bay. He offered them his Messianic vision of hope and change, that had no substance, and brainwashed them into believing that they needed it.

The majority of Americans who voted for Obama still hang on his every word. However, regardless of his status of self-proclaimed Messiah, there will actually be a day of reckoning for even him.

Right now, Obama continues to stand on his Messianic stage. His supporters face him, jaws dropped, drooling uncontrollably. All the while, a financial Tsunami is racing up from behind them. Obama has chosen not to warn the unsuspecting masses.
Rees

Worries Rise on the Size of U.S. Debt
The nation’s debt clock is ticking faster than ever — and Wall Street is getting worried.
from The New York Time
By Graham Bowley and Jack Healy

As the Obama administration racks up an unprecedented spending bill for bank bailouts, Detroit rescues, health care overhauls and stimulus plans, the bond market is starting to push up the cost of trillions of dollars in borrowing for the government.

Already, in the first six months of this fiscal year, the federal deficit is running at $956.8 billion, or nearly one seventh of gross domestic product — levels not seen since World War II, according to Wrightson ICAP, a research firm.

The rising tab has prompted warnings from the Treasury that the Congressionally mandated debt ceiling of $12.1 trillion will most likely be breached in the second half of this year.

Last week, the Treasury Borrowing Advisory Committee, a group of industry officials that advises the Treasury on its financing needs, warned about the consequences of higher deficits at a time when tax revenues were “collapsing” by 14 percent in the first half of the fiscal year.

“Given the outlook for the economy, the cost of restoring a smoothly functioning financial system and the pending entitlement obligations to retiring baby boomers,” a report from the committee said, “the fiscal outlook is one of rapidly increasing debt in the years ahead.”

While the real long-term interest rate will not rise immediately, the committee concluded, “such a fiscal path could force real rates notably higher at some point in the future.”

The trouble is that government borrowing risks crowding out private investment, driving up interest rates and potentially slowing a recovery still trying to take hold. That is why the Federal Reserve announced an extraordinary policy this year to buy back existing long-term debt — $300 billion over six months — to drive down yields. The strategy worked for a while, but now the impact of that decision appears to be wearing off as long-term interest rates tick up again.

Then there is the concern that the interest the government must pay on its debt obligations may become unsustainable or weigh on future generations. The Congressional Budget Office expects interest payments to more than quadruple in the next decade as Washington borrows and spends, to $806 billion by 2019 from $172 billion next year.

“You’re just paying more and more interest and having to borrow more and more money to pay the interest,” said Charles S. Konigsberg, chief budget counsel for the Concord Coalition, which advocates lower deficits. “It diverts a tremendous amount of resources, of taxpayer dollars.”

One worry, however, is that there are fewer eager lenders to buy all that American debt. Most of the world is in recession, and other nations have rising borrowing needs as well. As other nations’ surpluses turn to deficits, America will face competition in global financial markets for its borrowing needs. For the moment, the United States is actually benefiting from a flight to quality into Treasuries brought on by the global financial crisis, which helped reduce rates to record lows this winter. But the influx will not continue forever.

China has lent immense sums to the United States — about two-thirds of its central bank’s $1.95 trillion in foreign reserves is believed to be in United States securities — but it has begun to voice concerns about America’s financial health.

To calm nerves and fill the deficit hole, the government is getting creative. The Treasury is ramping up its auction calendar, holding more frequent sales of government debt and selling the debt in expanded amounts. It is now holding sales of its 30-year bond each month, up from four times annually.

It is also resuscitating previously discontinued bonds, such as the seven-year note and the three-year note, to try to mop up any available money all along the yield curve. There is even talk of issuing billions of dollars of a new 50-year bond, though the idea has not won official approval.

On a second front, the Treasury and the Federal Reserve are trying to bolster the mechanics of the market — to make sure every auction goes smoothly. With such enormous sums involved, every extra basis point on the interest rate the government pays could mean extra billions of dollars for the taxpayer. Earlier this year, when demand was hesitant at a Treasury auction and when a British bond auction went poorly, investors grew nervous that the government might struggle to sell its mountain of debt.
Click to read the rest of the article and the comments

The Party of No is What America Needs

Obama: Give me ideas on tightening federal belt

Hey Obama - how about getting rid of Acorn which is nothing more than another wing of the Democratic party. That's at least a beginning.
Rees

from Yahoo News
By PHILIP ELLIOTT
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON – Think you can do better than your federal boss? President Barack Obama wants to know how.

Obama on Saturday announced a plan for federal workers to propose ways to improve their agencies' and departments' budgets. The president said employees' ideas would be key as his Cabinet officials try to cut millions from the budget and trim the deficit.

"After all, Americans across the country know that the best ideas often come from workers, not just management," Obama said in his weekly radio and Internet address. "That's why we'll establish a process through which every government worker can submit their ideas for how their agency can save money and perform better. We'll put the suggestions that work into practice."

Obama's pitch comes at the end of a week focused on federal spending. On Friday, Democrats in Congress neared a deal on Obama's budget proposal and inched closer to passing a bill that would result in some $500 billion in deficits.

To confront that perception, Obama earlier in the week ordered officials to identify $100 million in savings to achieve over time — a relative pittance against the broader plan, his aides later acknowledged.

"Earlier this week, I held my first Cabinet meeting and sent a clear message: cut what doesn't work. Already, we've identified substantial savings," Obama said. "And in the days and weeks ahead, we will continue going through the budget line by line, and we'll identify more than 100 programs that will be cut or eliminated."

Obama said his administration would make $2 trillion in deficit reductions in the next decade, a pledge he has made repeatedly during his first three months in office. He also said he wants to re-evaluate priorities in the capital and urged Congress to pass legislation that would force lawmakers to pay for new policies and avoid large deficits. He also told agencies they could keep a part of the money they save. [Why would he say something stupid like that? - my comment]

"So much of our government was built to deal with different challenges from a different era," said Obama, noting that he took office facing a $1.3 billion budget deficit.

"Too often, the result is wasteful spending, bloated programs and inefficient results."
Click to read the article

Obama The Comedian - Fiscal Nanosurgery

Obama to Cabinet: I want you to cut "$1 MILLION DOLLARS OUT OF THE BUDGET."

Psst, hey Obama, don't you think you should maybe ask for more than a million dollars? A million dollars is not exactly a lot of money these days.

Obama to Cabinet: I want you to cut "$100 MILLION DOLLARS OUT OF THE BUDGET."

Psst, hey Obama: You were supposed to at least say, "$100 Billion Dollars."

Obama: Zip it!




By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY
April 22, 2009

Federal Spending: When President Obama directed his Cabinet to cut $100 million out of the budget, it looked at first like a misprint. That's barely enough to count as a rounding error.

Indeed, the only hard part about meeting the president's goal will be finding programs small enough to fit under that bar. In making the announcement, Obama talked about earning the public's trust on spending. Apparently, he thinks people put a low value on trust.

Measured against the $3.6 trillion budget Obama issued weeks ago, the cuts amount to 0.0028%. And assuming each of his Cabinet officials shares the burden equally — and how could they not? — they each only have to come up with about $7 million in savings.

Perhaps the president is counting on taxpayers not being able to tell the difference between millions, billions and trillions. They all seem like such big numbers.

So to get a real sense of just how little is being asked of his Cabinet, consider:

• If Obama were your dietician, you'd only have to give up an apple a year to abide by his diet plan.

• If he wanted you to cut your gasoline consumption, you'd have to drive just one-third of a mile less in a year.

• And if he wanted you to waste less water, you'd only have to reduce the time you spend in the shower on one day of the year by 30 seconds.

Indeed, the only challenging part of Obama's challenge may be finding ways to cut only $100 million. In an operation as gargantuan as the federal government, even little programs cost a lot. And trimming a little waste and fraud here and there will net you more than $100 million in savings.

The Congressional Budget Office, for example, puts out a comprehensive list of potential spending cuts — identifying programs that have outlived their usefulness, are wasteful, inefficient, prone to fraud, etc. The savings add up to hundreds of billions with a "b" instead of millions with an "m."

Just canceling the federal Beach Replenishment Program (who knew there was such a thing?) would save a bit more than $100 million a year. Ending the "Essential Air Service" program, a "transitional" program put in place 30 years ago when the airline industry was being deregulated, would save $113 million a year.

Even doing something as simple as verifying the income levels for Pell Grant recipients would save more than $150 million a year.

Getting Amtrak to eliminate its five biggest money-losing routes would spare taxpayers about $250 million a year. Just eliminating the Presidential Election Campaign Fund, which Obama didn't use in 2008, would save an average of more than $100 million.

Of course, if it's too hard to find small enough cuts in the CBO guidebook, the administration could always look to the pork-laden omnibus spending bill Congress just passed and target some of those earmarks. Kill off the $44 million tucked in there for military chapels and the $41 million in earmarks for presidential libraries, and his Cabinet's work is almost done.

Perhaps this is President Obama's idea of change you can believe in. Cutting government spending in Washington has always proved difficult. By setting his sights so incredibly low, Obama might actually make it look easy.
Click to read the article and comments

White House is "not at all" afraid of the NRA - according to David Axelrod

Hey Axelrod, stop with the "95% received tax cuts" BS, because that's exactly what it is. Obama's policies are going to triple the debt, your numbers, not the CBO's. Maybe you sure review the graph they issued. You do know how to interpret a graph don't you?

Axelrod says the Tea Party movement could be 'unhealthy' - Oh, it all makes sense now. You're the one that actually wrote the DHS report basically labeling everyone who disagrees with Obama as Rightwing Extremists!
Rees

Axelrod: TEA movement could be 'unhealthy'

WASHINGTON, April 19 (UPI) -- The so-called "TEA Party" movement against taxes could become an "unhealthy" reaction to gloomy U.S. economic conditions, a White House adviser said.

In an appearance Sunday on CBS's "Face the Nation" program, Senior White House Adviser David Axelrod said the Taxed Enough Already rallies across the nation last week should not have been directed at President Barack Obama's administration.

"The thing that bewilders me is that this president just cut taxes for 95 percent of the American people," Axelrod argued. "I think the tea bags should be directed elsewhere because he certainly understands the burden that people face."

He said the TEA Party events, which were organized by the conservative group FreedomWorks, comes from a dissatisfaction with the economy that "can mutate into something that's unhealthy."

In the interview, Axelrod also addressed a proposed ban on assault-style weapons. He said now is not the time for Congress to tackle the controversial issue. [In other words, they are going to outlaw them, just not right now - my comment]

"The question is: Is there the consensus and the ability, given the rules of Congress and the realities of Congress, to move that in the midst of everything else that we have to do. Is that something that you want to embark on now?" he said.

He also said the White House is "not at all" afraid of the National Rifle Association.

"The White House is interested in pursuing policies that we can enact quickly to deal with the issue of violence in this country, to deal with the issue of violence on the border. That means tightening enforcement," Axelrod said.
Click to read the article

Yes, Mr. Self-Righteous. You inherited a deficit. But, hey, it doesn't mean you have to go and quadruple it!

Obama can pontificate all he wants, but the graph doesn't lie. It reflects not only his own numbers, but those of the CBO.
Rees

Bush Deficit vs. Obama Deficit in Pictures
from The Heritage Foundation
March 25, 2009

President Barack Obama has repeatedly claimed that his budget would cut the deficit by half by the end of his term. But as Heritage analyst Brian Riedl has pointed out, given that Obama has already helped quadruple the deficit with his stimulus package, pledging to halve it by 2013 is hardly ambitious. The Washington Post has a great graphic which helps put President Obama’s budget deficits in context of President Bush’s.

What’s driving Obama’s unprecedented massive deficits? Spending. Riedl details:

• President Bush expanded the federal budget by a historic $700 billion through 2008. President Obama would add another $1 trillion.
• President Bush began a string of expensive finan­cial bailouts. President Obama is accelerating that course.
• President Bush created a Medicare drug entitle­ment that will cost an estimated $800 billion in its first decade. President Obama has proposed a $634 billion down payment on a new govern­ment health care fund.
• President Bush increased federal education spending 58 percent faster than inflation. Presi­dent Obama would double it.
• President Bush became the first President to spend 3 percent of GDP on federal antipoverty programs. President Obama has already in­creased this spending by 20 percent.
• President Bush tilted the income tax burden more toward upper-income taxpayers. President Obama would continue that trend.

President Bush presided over a $2.5 trillion increase in the public debt through 2008. Setting aside 2009 (for which Presidents Bush and Obama share responsibility for an additional $2.6 trillion in public debt), President Obama’s budget would add $4.9 trillion in public debt from the beginning of 2010 through 2016.

Click to go to read the article and comments

Republicans Pounce on Congressional Budget Office Estimates

Friday, March 20, 2009
by Mark Murray
from MSNBC

From NBC's Mark MurrayRepublicans have seized on today's news that the budget deficit, per the Congressional Budget Office, will top $1.8 trillion this year and will reach nearly $1.4 trillion in 2010 -- more than the Obama administration's estimate.

Said Sen. John McCain in a statement: “The Congressional Budget Office report proves that the Administration has indeed engaged in a policy of generational theft. The CBO numbers show the reality of the fundamentally flawed assumptions of the president’s budget and make clear what it really is: a risky, debt-ridden threat to the nation."

Here's Sen. John Thune: “These numbers are staggering and prove that spending in Washington is out of control. It is unconscionable to borrow this much money from China and force American families and small businesses to cover the cost through higher taxes."

And House Minority Leader John Boehner: "We simply cannot continue to mortgage our children and grandchildren's future to pay for bigger and more costly government. Families and small businesses across America are making difficult budget decisions each and every day during this recession, and it's time for Washington to do the same. Unfortunately, the President's budget doesn't do that."
Click to go to the article and comments

Congressional Budget Office: Annual deficits will be much worse than Obama thinks

"The nation’s debt would grow to 82 percent of the overall economy by 2019 under Obama’s policies, compared to the previous average of 40 percent…"

This country can't survive with a debt ratio like that.
Rees

posted at 3:15 pm
March 20, 2009
from Hot Air.com
by Allahpundit

Good news and bad news. The good news is, the GOP’s chances of a comeback are looking brighter than ever. The bad news is, I’m not sure what’ll be left for them to come back to.

To put these numbers in context, bear in mind that last year’s deficit of $459 billion was the largest on record.

In a new report that provides the first independent analysis of President Obama’s budget request, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office predicted that the administration’s agenda would generate deficits averaging nearly $1 trillion a year over the next decade — $2.3 trillion more than the president predicted when he unveiled his spending plan just one month ago.

And while Obama would come close to meeting his goal of cutting the deficit in half by the end of his first term, the CBO predicts that the nation’s annual operating deficit would never drop below 4 percent of the overall economy over the next decade, a level administration officials have said is unsustainable because the national debt would grow too rapidly.

By the CBO’s estimate, for example, the nation’s debt would grow to 82 percent of the overall economy by 2019 under Obama’s policies, compared with a pre-recession average of 40 percent…

Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (N-N.D.) has said the gloomier CBO forecast would require “adjustments” to Obama’s budget, though he declined to specify what changes would be necessary.

Adjustments in numbers or adjustments to the whole grand Great Society II scheme? Only the former, promises Obama budget guru Peter Orszag, vowing not to sacrifice The One’s health care/energy/climate change/education agenda. To which I say, we’ll see about that.

Robert Reich lays it out plainly: “The Wall Street bailout is starting to look like the most expensive tax-supported fiasco in history… The president cannot afford to lose the public’s confidence that his administration is a careful steward of the public’s money. The public was willing to go along with a large stimulus package. But it won’t go along with a second stimulus, and certainly not another TARP. And until the public feels confident that its money isn’t being thrown down a rat hole, it may balk at other ambitious undertakings such as healthcare or education or the environment.” Indeed, which means all that stands between Obama and a congressional revolt is the bank-healin’ mojo of … Tim Geithner. Good luck, Barry.

Exit question: Why do I have a sudden irresistible urge to start watching Glenn Beck?

Update: The GOP goes appropriately nuclear.
Click to read the article and comments