Home Depot Co-Founder Explains The Damage Of Obama's Economic Policies To Job Creation

"Even brain-dead economists understand that when you raise taxes, you cost jobs."---Bernie Marcus, Co-founder of Home Depot

Today we see another name on the list of businessmen who are explaining the damage Barack Obama's policies of regulations, tax increases and out-of-control spending, is doing to America's economy, unemployment and growth.

Bernie Marcus co-founder of Home Depot, which created hundreds of thousands of jobs, tells Investors Business Daily that the single biggest impediment to job growth today is the U.S. Government.

Marcus: The U.S. government. Having built a small business into a big one, I can tell you that today the impediments that the government imposes are impossible to deal with. Home Depot would never have succeeded if we'd tried to start it today. Every day you see rules and regulations from a group of Washington bureaucrats who know nothing about running a business. And I mean every day. It's become stifling.

If you're a small businessman, the only way to deal with it is to work harder, put in more hours, and let people go. When you consider that something like 70% of the American people work for small businesses, you are talking about a big economic impact.

IBD: President Obama has promised to streamline and eliminate regulations. What's your take?

Marcus: His speeches are wonderful. His output is absolutely, incredibly bad. As he speaks about cutting out regulations, they are now producing thousands of pages of new ones. With just ObamaCare by itself, you have a 2,000 page bill that's probably going end up being 150,000 pages of regulations.

IBD: Washington has been consumed with debt talks. Is this the right focus now?

Marcus: They are all tied together. If we don't lower spending and if we don't deal with paying down the debt, we are going to have to raise taxes. Even brain-dead economists understand that when you raise taxes, you cost jobs.

Recently it was reported that Democratic Steve Wynn, CEO of casino company Wynn Resorts, stated that Barack Obama's administration "is the greatest wet blanket to business, and progress and job creation" in his lifetime.

And I'm saying it bluntly, that this administration is the greatest wet blanket to business, and progress and job creation in my lifetime. And I can prove it and I could spend the next 3 hours giving you examples of all of us in this market place that are frightened to death about all the new regulations, our healthcare costs escalate, regulations coming from left and right. A President that seems, that keeps using that word redistribution. Well, my customers and the companies that provide the vitality for the hospitality and restaurant industry, in the United States of America, they are frightened of this administration.And it makes you slow down and not invest your money. Everybody complains about how much money is on the side in America.

You bet and until we change the tempo and the conversation from Washington, it's not going to change. And those of us who have business opportunities and the capital to do it are going to sit in fear of the President. And a lot of people don't want to say that. They'll say, God, don't be attacking Obama. Well, this is Obama's deal and it's Obama that's responsible for this fear in America.

The guy keeps making speeches about redistribution and maybe we ought to do something to businesses that don't invest, their holding too much money. We haven't heard that kind of talk except from pure socialists. Everybody's afraid of the government and there's no need soft peddling it, it's the truth. It is the truth. And that's true of Democratic businessman and Republican businessman, and I am a Democratic businessman and I support Harry Reid. I support Democrats and Republicans. And I'm telling you that the business community in this company is frightened to death of the weird political philosophy of the President of the United States. And until he's gone, everybody's going to be sitting on their thumbs.

Before that I published a long comment from a small business owner, A.J. Motes, who explained how Obama and Democrats had blurred the lines between the "rich" and small business owners and how the Democrat's tax increase proposals would cause the lifeblood of our economy, the small businesses, to suffer.

So when politicians are talking about raising taxes on the filthy rich, they want us to think that those nasty old bankers, corporate swells, and union thugs are finally going to get what's coming to them. Unfortunately, these protected groups will be largely immune to the tax and regulatory burden. The real losers will be the small business owners, ordinary folk like you and me who have no means of protecting ourselves against the power of the government.

Don't be fooled by political rhetoric that claims taxes will be extracted from the super rich. It's the small business owner, already suffering in a poor economy, who will be hurt the most.

I wouldn't mind taxes if everyone followed the same rules and if government weren't spending our money on stuff taxpayers don't want. And I really don't like feeling that I have been turned into a slave who works to support the half of America that lives off government subsidies and handouts. Cut government spending first!

These are job creators, employers, the very backbone of our economy and they are explaining quite clearly what Barack Obama's policies have done and are continuing to do to our country.

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Video- Boehner Response To Obama's Veto Threat On Cut, Cap And Balance Act

Video below (H/T Hot Air)

This week, the House will pass a plan that addresses our debt and spending while taking action on the debt ceiling. And while the House once again acts responsibly, the administration still won’t present a plan or even say what cuts it’s willing to make to end Washington’s spending binge and the economic uncertainty that it’s creating. This unfortunate veto threat should make clear that the issue is not congressional inaction, but rather the President’s unwillingness to cut spending and restrain the future growth of our government.

Yesterday when Obama's veto threat first hit the news, I said "Despite all Obama's rhetoric to the contrary, he has no desire to rein in uncontrolled government spending. He has no desire to lower our deficit."

I stand by that today.

Passing the CCB Act through the House of Representatives is smart and would force the Democratically controlled Senate, where 23 Democratic members are up for reelection in 2012, to either pass it or reject it, all done publicly so voters will see exactly where the holdup is and who is blocking America from starting down the long path to become fiscally responsible.

Should it make it through the Senate, then Obama's veto would confirm to all Americans just where the buck stopped and who is preventing real "change."

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Tom Coburn To Release $9 Trillion Deficit Reduction Proposal

Oklahoma Republican, Senator Tom Coburn will hold a press conference scheduled for 2:30pm, today, in the Senate where he will reveal details of his new proposal which would reduce the deficit by $9 trillion using methods such as adjusting the tax code and lowering it and spending cuts in a variety of places.

No doubt there will be much that both party loyalists will like and dislike and it is doubtful the proposal will garner the votes from either party needed for it to pass through the Senate or the House of Representatives.

The Ryan budget proposal, McConnell's fall back plan, and now Coburn's, does highlight one simple fact though.

Republicans, so far, are the only ones actually putting plans out there. They are offering up hard choices and going out on the limb to do so. Democrats continue to trash every plan Republicans offer up but they have refused to proposal any plans of their own.

Yet as American Thinker points out, the MSM has already started sounding their drums and fixed their coordinated messaging.

In case you haven't noticed, the drumbeat has begun in earnest to blame Republicans for the failure of talks on the debt limit and any bad reaction to it from the markets.

Today's hysteria is being generated because the GOP wants to include the unreasonable, the radical, the extreme notion that the government - eventually - should have to live within its means.

The Democrat-controlled US Senate hasn't even proposed a budget in 810 days.

It should be noted though that Barack Obama did offer one plan, a $3.7 trillion budget plan which the senate rejected to take up with a vote of 97 to 0. Not even one Democrat was willing to vote for Obama's plan.

Some people think Obama offered up another plan which would lower the deficit by $4 trillion but while Obama did mention that number to the media, he never produced any proposal, bill or details, it was only a soundbite in a speech.


Related:

Discussions to raise the debt ceiling continue as the August 2, 2011 deadline to do so looms closer and closer.

Keith Hennessey has a decent breakdown of where things stand up to this point.


Cartoon at the top by Gary Varvel, via Townhall.

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CBO's Long Term Debt Projections Spell Major Economic Disaster

H/T YID With LID for pointing out (and providing the embedded report below his post) the latest Congressional Budget Office's long term debt report which projects unmanageable economic disaster on the horizon for the U.S. unless some painful changes are made now.

CBO’s projections in most of the report understate the severity of the long-term budget problem because they do not incorporate the negative effects that accumulating additional federal debt would have on the economy, nor do they include the impact of higher tax rates on people’s incentives to work and save. In particular, large budget deficits and growing debt would reduce national saving, leading to higher interest rates, more borrowing from abroad, and less domestic investment—which in turn would lower income growth in the United States. (Chapter 2 of the report presents estimates of the economic effects of growing debt and the impact of those economic changes on the trajectory of debt under both scenarios.)

There is much more, go read it there and the report itself is embedded for those that wish to look through the whole thing.


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The Republican Messaging Problem

We find it amazing that the Democrats and the mass media are not making a big deal out of how much trouble the Republicans are in at the moment. Even liberal leaning pundits seem to think that the Bin Laden bounce for Obama has run its course. We do not know where they get this idea because we cannot find one poll that is not positive for Obama and they actually are getting stronger for Obama with every passing day. If the presidential election were to be held now, Obama would be a shoo-in.

Now it is true that the Democrats and the media tried to convince the public that the special election held in New York's district 26 showed that the Ryan budget plan is the kiss of death for the Republicans in 2012 and most pundits did not buy that. The problem is not with the Ryan budget plan but rather with the Republican messaging. They are trying to sell it as as a necessary reform to balance the budget. They keep pushing that line and not only will they not gain control of the Senate in 2012, but they will not defeat Obama and will come close to losing the House of Representatives as well.

At the time of the 2010 elections, the generic congressional ballot was running from 7 to 15 points in favor of the Republicans depending upon which poll you looked at. Right now our average of those polls is actually slightly in favor of the Democrats. Clearly the Republicans have a gigantic messaging problem. How about a message that proclaims they are try to SAVE Medicare before it goes bankrupt? Is that too much to ask of the Republican leadership? The voters voted for Republicans in 2010 in hopes that the Republicans would jam the brakes on all that the Democrats had done in the previous two years.

What have they gotten in exchange for this vain hope? They have gotten Democrat-lite from the Republicans instead. As Obama has said, Democrats bring a gun to a knife fight. The Republicans do not bring a knife or even martial arts to the fight. The Republicans are wimps and they have no clue on how to go for the Democrat jugular. The Democrats run ads proclaiming that the Republicans are trying to destroy Medicare and kill granny. How do the Republicans respond? They point to charts and figures that there is a problem with the financing of Medicare. How about proclaiming that the Democrats are sitting idly by while Medicare goes broke and that this is what will kill granny?

Republicans seem to think that the baby steps they have taken towards controlling government spending are all it takes to win public approval. How about wielding a meat axe instead? Whole departments need to be axed as they are doing more harm than good. Polls showed that a majority of the likely voters did not have a problem with shutting down all but the essential parts of the federal government if that was what it took to get the Democrat's attention to their habit of spending other people's money like a whole carrier group of druken sailors. What did the Republicans give them instead? They gave them cuts that did not even come to the amount the government borrowed while they were arguing about it.

The debt ceiling hike is the last chance the Republicans have to make good on their promises for the 2010 elections. They have just one chance to make believers out of the voting public that they are serious about cutting government spending. They need to refuse to raise the debt limit no matter what cuts the Democrats agree to. The public will support this stand. The folks in Congress need to learn to live within their means just like everyone else has had to do. The Republican leadership (and that means you, Mitch McConnell) need to get in the Democrats' face and stay there no matter how much the media beats up on them for doing that. Frankly, we doubt that the Republicans have the guts to do this and that means that we get four more years of Obama and continued Democrat control of the Senate and perhaps the Democrats regaining control of the House to boot.

Saturday Cartoons- The News, Cartoon Style

Political cartoons representing the latest news are an entertaining way of describing the week or months events and on a slow Saturday news day, I find it amusing to see some of the great cartoons out there.

Recently Obama was taught a little history lesson, very publicly, by Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. It was like Bambi meeting Godzilla. Netanyahu carried his momentum on with an awesome speech at AIPAC and then received a wonderful welcome by the U.S. House of Representatives, where Democrats and Republicans alike gave him over 25 standing ovations.

Glenn McCoy accurately captured the moment brilliantly.



The last time the Senate passed a budget was April 29, 2009, over 750 days ago and Harry Reid, Democratic Senate Majority Leader, was recently quoted as saying it would be "foolish" for Democrats, who control the Senate, to propose a budget for 2012.

Nate Beeler provides the visual for this story.



Jobless claims rose by 10,000 last week and the unemployment rate is at 9 percent. Recent news showed that Texas, over the last ten years, was the only state to hit a private-sector job growth number in the six figures with 732,800 and California had the worst decline by losing 623,700 private-sector jobs. Doing the addition and subtraction, I found that 22 Red States, controlled by Republicans had totaled a 451,600 private-sector job increase from April 2001 to April 2011. 21 Blue States and DC (for 22) totaled a decrease of 2,041,300 private-sector jobs in the same time frame.

Should say something to what policies work better than others and who understands how to increase job creation and who is very good at decreasing it.

Dr. Helen wonders why so many "now hiring" signs are out, yet unemployment keeps rising.

Eric Allie creates the cartoon visual on the new unemployment "normal".



In other news, the Supreme Court, in a 5 to 4 ruling, ruled that 46,000 inmates over the next two years be released due to overcrowding in the California prison system.

What Could go wrong? ummmm.... perhaps mistakenly releasing an estimated 450 inmates with "a high risk for violence? Oh and another 1,000 presenting a high risk of committing drug crimes, property crimes and other offenses were also let out.

Oooops?

Bob Gorrell presents the "get out of jail free" cartoon for this idiocy.



Another week in politics bites the dust.

Cartoons from TownHall Political Cartoons

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Democrats Join Republicans Insisting On Spending Cuts Tie In To Debt Limit Increase

With a national debt of over $14 trillion, government spending out of control and the very public battle between political parties showing Republicans insisting on spending cuts and Democrats fighting against them, the White House now needs Congress to increase our debt ceiling.

Republicans in Congress have insisted that any increase be tied to more spending cuts and a fiscal plan that shows Congress is serious about reducing the debt.

The Senate is still controlled by a Democratic majority and any deal made on raising the debt ceiling which includes spending cuts, will have to include Democratic support and it looks like that support is there.

Wapo reports:

The push-back has come in recent days from Sens. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, and Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), a freshman who is running for reelection next year. Sen. Mark Pryor (D-Ark.) told constituents during the Easter recess that he would not vote to lift the debt limit without a “real and meaningful commitment to debt reduction.”

Even Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), generally a stalwart White House ally, is undecided on the issue and is “hopeful” that a debt-ceiling bill can be attached to a measure to cut the federal deficit, said her spokesman, Linden Zakula. Klobuchar is also up for reelection next year.

Senator Mark Udall (D-Colo.)releases a statement explaining why so many Democrats are joining with Republicans to insist deficit reduction be a part of the package.

“As catastrophic as it would be to fail to raise our debt ceiling, it’s even more irresponsible to not take this opportunity to own up to our unsustainable spending path,” Sen. Mark Udall (Colo.), another Democrat challenging the White House, said in a statement his office released this week. “If we don’t take action to reduce our deficit spending, Congress will be facing this same debt ceiling vote in the near term – still with no end to our deficits in sight.”

Polls conducted by a variety of sources, from January 2011 (Reuters) and as recently as April 2011, (CBS News) show that there is consistent opposition by Americans voters to raising the debt limit.

In 2012, 23 Democratic Senate seats are in play and 10 Republican Senate seats, so decisions made now will be watched and judged and will undoubtedly be a factor in how constituents vote in those elections.

Resurgent Republic:

President Obama’s policy of raising the federal debt limit without any preconditions relating to limiting spending, i.e. a "clean debt limit," is supported by only one-out-of-ten voters, the least popular option of three presented in a Resurgent Republic survey conducted jointly with the American Action Forum.

The second-ranking option overall is "not raising the debt limit under any circumstances." That option places second among Independents and Democrats, and is the top preference for Republicans.

The preferred option, drawing support from a plurality of voters overall, is "raising the debt limit, but only in exchange for substantial spending cuts and a commitment to reduce the deficit." The days of "routine" debt limit increase votes may be history, with voters holding firm views about the debt ceiling vote in a time of concern over the economy and a pervasive view that "we have got to stop spending money we don’t have," as has been seen in previous Resurgent Republic polling.

The Democrats listed above understand the Republicans in Congress enjoy an overwhelming amount of public support to lower the deficit, cut spending and get our fiscal house in order.

They understand this because their chances at being reelected depend on it.


Semi-related :

McConnell turns the tables on Reid in budget fight

“I understand that the Majority Leader would like to have a vote on the House-passed Ryan budget and we will,” Mr. McConnell said in a statement. “But we’ll have a vote on the President’s budget at the same time. Since there is no Democrat budget in the Senate, we’ll give our colleagues an opportunity to stand with the President in failing to address the problems facing our nation while calling for trillions in new spending, massive new debt and higher taxes on American energy, families and small businesses across the country.”

Ouch.

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Only Age Demographic To Favor Obama's Deficit Reduction Plan Are Those 18 to 29 Years Old

Browsing through stories over at Memeorandum I ran across a Hotline On Call headline and discussions associated with it that state "Seniors Most Favorable To Ryan Budget."

So clicking over to the Gallup link provided, I see something else that the headline doesn't cover.

It isn't just "seniors" that favor Republican Paul Ryan's budget reduction plan but it is every age group except those that fall between 18 to 29.



Those 30 to 49 years old favor Ryan's plan over Obama's by a 45 to 39 margin.

Those 50 to 64 years old favor Ryan's plan over Obama's by a 47 to 41 margin.

Those 65 and older favor Ryan's plan over Obama's by a 48 to 42 margin.

The only group that favors Obama's plan at all are those aged 18 to 29 by a 53/30 margin.

The same USA Today/Gallup survey, conducted April 20-23, finds Republicans holding a significant edge over Democrats in public perceptions of which party would do the better job of dealing with the federal budget. Nearly half of Americans, 48% prefer the Republicans in Congress on this question, while 36% favor the Democrats in Congress.

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This is good news for Republicans because the most active voters are in the older age groups.

This also shows the Democrats active campaign since Ryan unveiled his plan, to scare seniors into believing Republicans want to end their benefits, has failed dismally.

Ryan has been doing the rounds with a series of Town Hall style meetings to explain his plan and getting a decent reception with question and answer segments, mostly disturbed by preplanned Teamster and SEIU chapter disturbances.

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Wisconsin: LFB Finds Walker's Plan Puts State's Finances In 'Best Shape' In Over 15 Years

States running a deficit, like Wisconsin, voted in Governors that promised to get their fiscal house in order and according to The Legislative Fiscal Bureau, Wisconsin Legislature's nonpartisan budget office, has run the numbers and finds Governor Scott Walker's budget plan would put the state's finances in the "best shape they've been in for more than 15 years."

The property tax bill on the typical Wisconsin home would rise by less than 1% annually over the next two years under Gov. Scott Walker's proposed budget, the Legislature's nonpartisan budget office reported Friday.

The Legislative Fiscal Bureau also said Walker's plan would put the state's finances in the best shape they've been in for more than 15 years.

It found the so-called structural deficit - the imbalance between spending and tax revenue as laid out in state law - for the 2013-'15 budget would be $31 million. That assumes Walker's budget passes the Legislature without new spending increases or tax cuts that would add to the deficit.

Under its existing form, Walker's budget leaves the state with a fraction of the structural deficits seen in the past eight budget cycles. The next lowest structural deficit in recent years was $1.5 billion, or 48 times as much as what Walker's proposing.

Republicans are hailing it, Democrats are criticizing it, but the non-partisan organization set up to run the figures has no political agenda and shows that the voters who elected Walker got exactly what they asked for.

A budget that helps put their fiscal house in order.

Our politicians in Washington could certainly learn something from Scott Walker.

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Pew's Budget Deal Blame Game: Before And After

Details of the budget deal reached in Congress and White House can be found in the full text of the summary, found here. (Links provided at that link to specific cuts and full text)

Pew Research has a before and after shot of the blame game being leveled at Republicans, Democrats, Barack Obama and Representatives affiliated with the Tea Party movement.

Before the deal was reached and agreed on:



After budget deal was reached and agreed on:




Make of it what you will.

I would be very interested to see the difference in those numbers if instead of asking who should receive "blame for dispute that nearly led to government shutdown" the question was asked who should receive "credit for reaching a deal to prevent government shutdown."

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2011 Budget Deal: Summary – Final Fiscal Year 2011 Continuing Resolution

5 Page PDF of the Summary – Final Fiscal Year 2011 Continuing Resolution can be found here. (Via U.S. House of Representatives House of Appropriations)


The negotiated agreement between the House, Senate, and White House on a final Fiscal Year 2011 Continuing Resolution will prevent a government shutdown, fund the entire federal government until September 30, 2011, and provide essential funding for national defense. In addition, the legislation will cut an unparalleled nearly $40 billion in federal spending.

When this agreement is signed into law, Congress will have taken the unprecedented step of passing the largest non-defense spending cut in the history of our nation – tens of billions larger than any other non-defense reduction, and the biggest overall reduction since World War II. This remarkable accomplishment is the result of hard-fought negotiations that required all sides to come together to find common ground.

It has been the goal of this new Republican majority to keep precious tax dollars where they are needed most – in the hands of businesses and individuals across the nation so that they can create jobs and grow our economy. The final Continuing Resolution will allow Congress to further this goal, continuing the trend of budget reductions to dig our nation out of our dangerous deficits and debt for years to come.


A summary of the final Continuing Resolution (CR) follows*:


Overall Spending Limit: The final CR will include a total of $1.049 trillion in funding, a nearly $40 billion reduction from last year’s (fiscal year 2010) levels. This includes the $12 billion in reductions previously approved by Congress and signed into law under the previous three continuing resolutions, as well as nearly $28 billion in additional new spending cuts.

Agriculture: The CR funds Agriculture programs at $20 billion, which is $3 billion below the fiscal year 2010 enacted level and $3.2 billion below the President’s 2011 budget request.

The bill provides $1 billion for Food Safety and Inspection, which is $10 million below the fiscal year 2010 level, while allowing for uninterrupted meat, poultry, and egg products inspection activities of the agency. The bill also reduces Agricultural Credit Programs by $433 million, Agricultural Research Service by $64 million, and the National Institute for Food and Agriculture by $125.9 million below the fiscal year 2010 levels.


The CR also includes $6.75 billion for the Special Supplemental Feeding Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC), which allows the program to support more than 9 million income-eligible mothers, infants, and children up to 5 years of age.

Commerce, Justice, Science: The Commerce, Justice, Science section of the CR contains a total of $53.4 billion, a $10.9 billion, or 17%, reduction from fiscal year 2010 levels, and a reduction of $7.1 billion, or 12%, from the President’s fiscal year 2011 request.

The CR provides funding above fiscal year 2010 levels for National Institute of Standards and Technology research and manufacturing programs, as well as critical FBI national security and prisons/detention requirements. Justice Department appropriations are reduced by $946 million below fiscal year 2010, with significant reductions to grant and construction programs, and Commerce Department appropriations are cut by $6.5 billion below fiscal year 2010. The bill also includes $18.5 billion for NASA and fully funds the newly authorized exploration program.

This section of the CR also prohibits funding for: the establishment of a Climate Service at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration; the approval of new fisheries catch-share programs in certain fisheries; and for NASA and the Office of Science and Technology Policy to engage in bilateral activities with China.

Defense Funding: The Department of Defense is funded at $513 billion in the CR – approximately $5 billion above last year – providing the necessary resources for the safety of our troops and the success of our nation’s military actions. The bill also includes an additional $157.8 billion for overseas contingency operations (emergency funding) to advance our missions abroad.

The Defense section of this legislation includes $126.7 billion for military personnel, providing for 1,432,400 active duty and 846,200 reserve troops. In addition, the bill contains a total of $165.6 billion for operations and maintenance, $102.1 billion for procurement, $75 billion for research and development, and $31.4 billion for Defense health programs. This legislation eliminates all Defense earmark account funding, a cut of $4.2 billion from last year’s level.

The CR also includes language preventing Guantanamo Bay detainees from being transferred into the United States for any purpose, prevents the construction or modification of detention facilities within the U.S. for the housing of detainees, and requires the Secretary of Defense to provide a certification to Congress that a transfer of any detainee to any foreign country or entity will not jeopardize the safety of the U.S. or its citizens. This language is virtually identical to existing law that was included in the National Defense Authorization Act.

Energy and Water: The Energy and Water section is funded at $31.8 billion in the CR. This is a 10% reduction – or $3.6 billion – from the President’s fiscal year 2011 request, and a 5% reduction – or $1.7 billion – from fiscal year 2010 levels. These significant cuts further the House Republican commitment to deficit reduction and reining in the size of government, while at the same time protecting American security, providing support for private sector growth, and promoting a balanced national energy supply.

The bill funds the Army Corps of Engineers at the President’s request level of $4.9 billion, supports existing applications for renewable energy loan guarantees at the Department of Energy, and provides a $697 million (7%) increase for the National Nuclear Security Administration to ensure adequate funding for critical components of our national defense.

Financial Services: The Financial Services and General Government section of the CR contains a total of $22 billion, a $2.4 billion, or 10%, reduction from fiscal year 2010 levels, and a reduction of $3.4 billion, or 14%, from the President’s fiscal year 2011 request.

The CR reduces most Treasury and Executive Office of the President accounts and reduces funding for construction of new federal buildings by more than $800 million. The bill provides a $13 million increase over last year for the Inspector General of Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) to provide strong oversight of the billions of dollars remaining in TARP assets and continues current funding for drug task forces and programs to assist small businesses.

The CR restores a long-standing provision against the use of federal and local funds for abortions in the District of Columbia. The bill also includes the reauthorization of the DC Opportunity Scholarships, along with a $2.3 million funding increase, to stop the termination of the program and allow new students to participate. The legislation also eliminates four Administration “Czars,” including the “Health Care Czar,” the “Climate Change Czar,” the “Car Czar,” and the “Urban Affairs Czar.”

Homeland Security: A total of $41.8 billion in discretionary funding is provided for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for fiscal year 2011. This is $784 million, or 2%, below FY 2010, and $1.9 billion, or 4%, below the President’s fiscal year 2011 request.

All critical frontline operations for DHS – including Customs and Border Protection, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Transportation Security Agency, the Coast Guard, and the Secret Service are sufficiently funded to meet mission requirements and sustain staffing levels. This includes funding for 21,370 Border Patrol agents, 33,400 ICE detention beds, and military pay and allowances for the U.S. Coast Guard. The bill reduces CBP’s Border Security Fencing, Infrastructure, and Technology (BSFIT) account to the President’s request, reduces FEMA first responder grants by $786 million, eliminates $264 million in funding that was previously targeted to earmarks, and rescinds $557 million in unobligated and lapsed balances from prior year funds. The bill also caps the amount of TSA screener personnel at 46,000.

The bill also includes $1.05 billion in additional discretionary funding (for a total of $2.65 billion, including current funds) for the costs of existing and expected disasters for fiscal year 2011.

Interior: The CR includes $29.6 billion in discretionary funding in the Interior and Environment section of the bill, which is 8.1%, or $2.62 billion, below the fiscal year 2010 enacted level and 8.5%, or $2.8 billion, below the President’s request.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is reduced by $1.6 billion, a 16% decrease from last year’s level. The cuts to the EPA alone represent 61% of the bill’s reduction compared to last year’s level. Funding levels for Land and Water Conservation Fund (land acquisition) programs are reduced $149 million (-33%), climate change funding bill-wide is cut by $49 million (-13%), and funding for the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities is reduced by a combined $25 million from last year’s levels.

Funding levels for operational accounts bill-wide are largely sustained to prevent layoffs and the closure of national parks and forests, wildlife refuges, Smithsonian museums and other sites. In addition, the legislation contains language reinstating the Fish and Wildlife Service’s original determination to delist wolves in states with approved management plans in place. It returns management of wolf populations in Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington, and Utah to the states. The bill also includes a limitation on the use of funds to implement the Bureau of Land Management’s “Wild Lands” policy.

Labor, HHS, Education and Related Agencies

The Labor, HHS, Education and Related Agencies section of the CR contains a total of $157.7 billion, roughly a $5.5 billion, or 3.36%, reduction from fiscal year 2010 levels. The bill is also nearly $13 billion, or 7.6 percent, below the President’s fiscal year 2011 request.

The CR preserves funding for large education programs that fund elementary and secondary schools as well as special education and provides a modest increase for Head Start to ensure that all children currently enrolled will continue to receive services, while making prudent reductions in lower priority areas. In addition, the bill continues the Pell Grant Program at the current maximum award level of $4,860.

The CR terminates funding for more than 55 programs, for a total savings of well over $1 billion. In addition, the bill terminates two programs funded in ObamaCare (the Consumer Operated and Oriented Plan (CO-OP) and the Free Choice Voucher programs). The bill makes reforms to the Pell Grant Program that are estimated to save more than $35 billion over the next 10 years by eliminating the ability of students to draw down two Pell Grant awards at the same time. Finally, the CR will return Title X funding to fiscal year 2008 levels.

Legislative Branch: Legislative Branch is reduced by $103 million from last year’s levels. Of this amount, funding for the U.S. House is reduced by $55 million from last year – or 53% of the total cut – and reflects a 5% cut in Member, Committee, and Leadership office expenses except for the Appropriations Committee, which offered a larger cut of 9%.

Military Construction/Veterans Affairs: Military Construction/Veterans Affairs programs will receive $76.6 billion in discretionary funding – an increase of $3.4 billion over the President’s fiscal year 2011 request and an increase of $600 million over last year’s level. Within this funding, the bill provides critical and necessary resources for veterans’ health and benefits, including an increase of $13.8 billion for the Department of Veterans affairs over last year’s level. Military Construction accounts are reduced by approximately $10 billion below last year’s level.

State and Foreign Operations: The funding level for the State Department and Foreign Operations in the CR is a total of $48.3 billion – a $504 million reduction from last year’s level and an $8.4 billion reduction from the President’s fiscal year 2011 request.

This section of the legislation includes a prohibition on pay raises for foreign services officers, a $377 million cut to U.S. contributions to the United Nations and international organizations, and a $130 million cut to international banks and financial institutions. In addition, the bill reduces family planning activities by $73 million – and includes a reduction in the UN Population Fund to fiscal year 2008 levels. The bill also maintains pro-life policy provisions carried in fiscal year 2010.

Transportation, Housing and Urban Development: The Transportation, Housing, Urban Development and Related Agencies section of the CR contains a total of $55.5 billion, a $12.3 billion, or 18%, reduction from fiscal year 2010 levels, and a reduction of $13.2 billion, or 20%, from the President’s fiscal year 2011 request.

For the Department of Transportation, the bill eliminates new funding for High Speed Rail and rescinds $400 million in previous year funds, for a total reduction of $2.9 billion from fiscal year 2010 levels. The bill reduces funding for transit by a total of $991 million and includes a total of $528 million in new funding for the “TIGER” grant program. While the majority of programs funded by the Highway Trust Fund remain at fiscal year 2010 levels, the bill contains total contract authority rescissions of $3.2 billion, of which $630 million is comprised of old earmarks.

For the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Community Development Fund program was reduced $942 million, for a fiscal year 2011 funding level of $3.5 billion. The Section 8 program is funded at a level of $18.4 billion with $16.7 billion for voucher renewals, $1.45 billion for administrative fees, $35 million for Section 811 mainstream voucher renewals, and $50 million for HUD-Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing (VASH) vouchers.

For a list of highlighted program cuts, please visit**: http://republicans.appropriations.house.gov/_files/41211ProgramCutsListFinalFY2011CR.pdf

For the text of the legislation, please visit: http://rules.house.gov/Media/file/PDF_112_1/Floor_Text/FINAL2011_xml.pdf


*All non-defense funding levels within this summary DO NOT include a 0.2% across the board reduction included in the legislation that applies to all non-defense programs, projects, and accounts.

**This list contains highlighted program cuts. This list is not comprehensive of all program funding levels in the legislation. In addition, the totals DO NOT reflect the overall across the board cut of 0.2% to all non-defense programs.

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Deal Reached, No Government Shutdown: GOP Gets More Than Originally Asked For

There will be $38.5 billion in spending cuts, less than the GOP wanted as of late ($61 billion) but more than their original number back in February which was $32 billion. The battle over defunding Planned Parenthood and NPR will be fought in the next budget battle which is right around the corner since this one should have been passed while the last Congress was in session but Democrats kicked the can down the road.

KEY FACTS: Bipartisan Agreement on Spending Cuts to Support American Job Creation

After a long drawn out battle, two stop-gap measures passed while Congress battled out the details, Speaker of the House John Boehner(R) has been quoted as stating "This is the best deal we could get out of them."

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell(R)was more blunt:

We decided to make history by implementing in the middle of this fiscal year a substantial reduction in spending," McConnell said. "Once we get through this process, by the end of next week we will move on to a much larger discussion about how we save trillions."

On the debt ceiling -- which could prove to be a knock-down, drag-out fight when the federal government hits its borrowing limit next month -- McConnell was blunt:

"The president has asked us to raise the debt ceiling, and Senate Republicans and House Republicans, and I hope many Democrats as well, are going to say, ‘Mr. President, in order to raise the debt ceiling, we need to do something significant about the debt.' My definition of significant, Mr. President, is the markets view it as significant, the American people view it as significant, and foreign countries view it as significant. So for tonight, again I congratulate the Majority Leader and the Speaker; this is an important first step, but just the beginning of what we need to do to get our house, our fiscal house, in order."

Because the government shutdown was due to start at midnight, the Senate by unanimous consent passed another stop-gap measure to keep everything funded until Thursday so that Congress had the time to get the bill written, voted on and signed to fund the government for the remaining six months.

This is a major win for the American people.

Here is why.

71 percent of Americans say they worry about the economy a great deal and 64 percent worry about federal spending and the budget deficit a great deal. (Gallup)

As a country, we spend too much, we spend more than we take in. Government spending is out of control and during Nancy Pelosi's reign as Speaker our spending rose at unprecedented levels, under Obama's rule our debt has rose unimaginatively. So winning the spending cuts fight and getting Harry Reid and Barack Obama to tout these spending cuts as "historic" brings the out-of-control spending issue right to the forefront for the upcoming Debt Ceiling battle and the next next fiscal year's budget battle.

Conservative Republicans, Moderate Republicans, Speaker Boehner, Senate minority Leader Mitch McConnell and the Tea Party all deserve a round of applause. (Not for the amount they agreed on but for the setting up the field for the larger battle to come)

Forcing Reid and Obama to acknowledge, publicly, that spending cuts are a priority, making the out-of-control spending the top issue of messaging, and getting an agreement on $38.5 billion in spending cuts for the rest of this fiscal year, was nothing short of a miracle. Especially with Democrats kicking and screaming against every single dollar being cut. (Reminder: Democrats control the Senate and White House- Change that in 2012 instead of whining.)

I repeat- it set the playing field and the precedent for the future budget battles to come.

Did Republicans get everything they wanted? No. In negotiations of any type, rarely does anyone get everything they have asked for. But the stage is now set.

The Tea Party deserves kudos for willingly allowing themselves to be the cudgel the Republicans used to beat the message into the heads of Democratic politicians.

The unveiling of Paul Ryan's GOP Path To Prosperity in the midst of the showdown was nothing short of genius, allowing hardcore conservatives to see the future battle over trillions is more important than shutting down the government over billions. Ryan's plan even earned grudging praise from liberal leaning outlets.

Reactions are mixed throughout the blogosphere with hardcore conservatives wishing there had been more spending cuts and hardcore liberals wishing there had been less agreed on.


Liberal Reactions

David Weigel over at Slate: Headline "The No-Shutdown Wrap: Boehner Wins, Austerity Wins, and the Social Conservatives Go Home With A "Participant" Trophy."

Let’s go back to the raw politics. Can we say that Republicans got the better of the no-shutdown deal? Yes, because if there had been a shutdown, Republicans would have been blamed for it. The record was all cued up. Democrats spent months predicting that Boehner would have trouble controlling his new Tea Party members. They spent this week saying he had to put the Tea Party “horse back in the barn,” as Dick Durbin said. Well, there’s a deal – the implication is that he put the horse back in the barn. If the Republicans would have been blamed for a shutdown, it follows that they get credit for a shutdown being avoided.

David Dayen over at Firedogake: Headline "The Ugly, the Ugly, and the Ugly: A Look at the 2011 Funding Deal."

In the end, the deal to a avert a government shutdown and keep funding going for the rest of the fiscal year amounted to a $38.5 billion cut in appropriations from the 2010 baseline (although WaPo puts it at $37.8 billion, the joint Boehner/Reid announcement used the $38.5 billion number, so that’s what I’m going with). There was a time last December, with the McCaskill-Sessions compromise, promoted by the very conservative Republican ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee, when Republicans agreed to a 2011 budget appropriation $20 billion ABOVE the 2010 baseline. If mixed in with the tax cut deal, that level could have been put in place. Therefore, this deal inked late last night cut $58.5 billion from the level of McCaskill-Sessions. This equals all of the tax advantages that didn’t extend current law, outside of the business expensing provisions, in the December 2010 tax cut deal. The entire stimulus is gone.

Steve Benen over at Washington Monthly calls it "A RAW DEAL".

What's more, the $32 billion offered by the GOP leadership two months ago was their opening bid. They expected to compromise from there, and their plan included no policy riders at all.

It seems ridiculous now, but if Democrats had, on that very day, accepted the House Republican leadership's spending cuts right there on the spot, it would have been a better deal than the one we ended up with last night.

Ezra Klein over at Washington Post: Headline "2011 is not 1995"

The substance of this deal is bad. But the way Democrats are selling it makes it much, much worse.

The final compromise was $38.5 billion below 2010’s funding levels. That’s $78.5 billion below President Obama’s original budget proposal, which would’ve added $40 billion to 2010’s funding levels, and $6.5 billion below John Boehner’s original counteroffer, which would’ve subtracted $32 billion from 2010’s budget totals. In the end, the real negotiation was not between the Republicans and the Democrats, or even the Republicans and the White House. It was between John Boehner and the conservative wing of his party. And once that became clear, it turned out that Boehner’s original offer wasn’t even in the middle. It was slightly center-left.

But you would’ve never known it from President Obama’s encomium to the agreement. Obama bragged about “making the largest annual spending cut in our history.” Harry Reid joined him, repeatedly calling the cuts “historic.” It fell to Boehner to give a clipped, businesslike statement on the deal. If you were just tuning in, you might’ve thought Boehner had been arguing for moderation, while both Obama and Reid sought to cut deeper. You would never have known that Democrats had spent months resisting these “historic” cuts, warning that they’d cost jobs and slow the recovery.

Boehner, of course, could afford to speak plainly. He’d not just won the negotiation but had proven himself in his first major test as speaker of the House. He managed to get more from the Democrats than anyone had expected, sell his members on voting for a deal that wasn’t what many of them wanted and avert a shutdown. There is good reason to think that Boehner will be a much more formidable opponent for Obama than Gingrich was for Clinton.

So why were Reid and Obama so eager to celebrate Boehner’s compromise with his conservative members? The Democrats believe it’s good to look like a winner, even if you’ve lost. But they’re sacrificing more than they let on. By celebrating spending cuts, they’ve opened the door to further austerity measures at a moment when the recovery remains fragile. Claiming political victory now opens the door to further policy defeats later.

Melissa McEwan over at Shakesville: Headline "So the deal was struck" sub-header "and it's garbage"

To understand how thoroughly the Dems caved to the GOP on this deal, it was struck with "historic" cuts about which that nincompoop Reid is actually bragging, as if misogyny, Social Darwinism, and allowing infrastructure to fester until people die on collapsing bridges are radically brave progressive ideas.

Obama's a fucking disaster. We needed FDR; instead we got FML.

Last but not least, Steve Kornacki over at Salon asking if Boehner "was bluffing the whole time?"

This was enough to convince several prominent conservatives to speak up on Friday, with the deadline just hours away, and to urge that a deal be cut. In a RedState post, Rep. Michele Bachmann argued that the stakes of this week's fight just weren't "big enough," suggesting that it would be better to wait for the debate over Ryan's budget to make a grand stand. Rep. Chris Smith, a New Jersey Republican whose pet issue is abortion, indicated that he didn't believe the government should shut down over the Planned Parenthood rider. Mike Huckabee, who holds no office but remains influential on the right, made a similar argument.

Suddenly, Boehner didn't need to beg his colleagues to go along with a compromise. They were deciding for themselves that it was the best thing to do right now. Only then was Boehner able to extract a few billion more in concessions from the White House, take the poisonous riders off the table, and return to his fellow Republicans to declare -- 90 minutes before the shutdown was to begin -- that he'd struck a deal. There was no mutiny.

[Updated reaction]- TeacherKen over at Daily Kos: Headline "Ignore this Mr. President. You already ignore me." (Temper tantrum or a supporter that will truly abandon Obama in 2012? You decide)

This is a screed, I admit. I am sitting here just letting it hang out.

I claim no wisdom. I claim no original insight. None of my arguments are original.

That is something that should concern you. I am borrowing from what I hear and 4ead from others. That includes members of your own party who hold federal elective office. It includes party officials in states and local organizations. It includes key voices in the progressive wing of the Democratic party. You know, those nasty types who remember that it was unions and progressives who have helped create the social safety net that built the American middle class, the social safety net the that Republicans are now dismantling a piece at a time, as they simultaneously impose a vision of this nation that should horrify you.

So go ahead Mr. President. Ignore me. Ignore all the voices that have been trying to explain to you, trying to help you help this country.

You might as well.

It seems as if you have been ignoring us all along.

But just one question, Mr. President. One that perhaps you need to consider.

What happens if we decide we have had enough? What if we return the favor?

What if we decide we will ignore you?

Conservative Reactions

Andrew Stiles over at NRO's The Corner: Headline "Boehner Wins Big"

Boehner might need a few Democratic votes to pass the deal — that was always a likely outcome. But the narrative constantly pushed by Democrats and the media — that “extreme” Tea Party members would force him to shut down the government — never materialized. As a result, not only does it look like Boehner got the best deal in terms of spending cuts, but he also comes off as the most reasonable actor in the debate, the one who worked the hardest to reach a compromise.

Republicans should feel plenty confident heading into the upcoming debates over the debt ceiling and the 2012 budget, Paul Ryan’s daring proposal to cut the deficit by $6 trillion. This deal, thanks to Boehner’s robust leadership, was a good start — much less for the size of the spending cuts it yielded than for the political dynamic it revealed. They will need all the political capitol they can muster going forward, because it’s only the beginning.

Scared Monkeys: Headline "An 11th Hour Budget Deal Struck … There Will be no Government Shutdown>"

GOP House Speaker John Boehner has done what previous Democrat controlled House Speaker Pelosi, Democrat Senate Majority Leader and Democrat President Barack Obama could not do last year. Boehner managed to get a budget passed in spite of Democrats. Sadly, Democrats last year thought it not in their interest to pass a budget when they controlled both the House Senate and Presidency

Ed Morrissey over at Hot Air: Headline "Who won the budget fight?"

We’ll see who won in September, but Republicans have achieved one major accomplishment. Not only did they force the first actual reductions in government spending in ages, but they have changed the political paradigm from whether to cut to how much and where to cut. That’s a pretty impressive victory for a party that only controls one chamber of Congress.

Update: One last point along these lines. Democrats have spent the last four months arguing that Republicans were too radical to govern and wanted to destroy government. Instead, Republicans fashioned a deal on their own terms and passed a budget deal — something Democrats couldn’t or wouldn’t do when they had all the power in DC. This gives the GOP a lot of credibility on leadership and governance, and all of it at the expense of Harry Reid and Barack Obama.

William Teach over at Right Wing News: Headline "Apparently, After Budget Battle Washington Is Still Broken" (This guy always manages to crack me up!! I like his style.)

That’s the conclusion of the Washington Post’s Dan Baltz

As the midnight Friday deadline loomed for a possible government shutdown, and politicians continued their rhetorical war of words, a larger message went out to the rest of the country: Washington is still broken.

Unfortunately, Dan never quite says “why” Washington is still “broken.” But, is it really broken, or is it just a matter of business as usual? I’d posit that it is just business as usual. Washington is still mostly about helping each elected officials special interests, which is why the election of so many TEA Party candidates was so important, because many of them are fighting to do the hard business, namely, reducing the absurd spending levels that we have seen from Democrats since 2007, and Republicans during the Bush years (and, yes, Liberals, those of us on the right did complain incessantly about the ridiculous and ever-increasing spending levels.)

Obama and the Democrats have themselves to blame for being in this predicament. Had they done their jobs last year, when Democrats had ample majorities in the House and Senate, the government would have been funded for the current fiscal year before Republicans assumed control of the House.

Whoa! How’d that slip in to the story?

[Updated reaction]- AJ Strata over at The Strata-Sphere: Headline "Boehner’s Amazing Negotiation Wins"

If you are only fixated on the budget reduction number ($38.5B) that the GOP won over the next 6 months as part of the deal to avert a shutdown, then you probably don’t know the federal government as well as you think. My hat is off to Speaker Boehner – that was one hell of a negotiating feat he pulled off! He wrung more out of Reid and Obama than I ever thought possible. And he exposed how weak a negotiator our young and inexperienced President truly is.

Donald Douglas over at American Power: Headline "'The Biggest Annual Spending Cut in History'? — President Obama on Budget Compromise." (Video at that link- Go watch)

"I'll try to do a fact-check later, but the biggest annual spending cut in real terms, as a percent of the deficit, as a percent of GDP, or what? I don't trust Obama. He lies. So I'll update with more on this later."

Ross Douthat over at NYT: Headline "The Shutdown That Wasn’t"

I would like to thank John Boehner, Harry Reid and President Obama for vindicating my decision not to write about the budget negotiations this week, on the assumption that the talk of a shutdown was mostly sound and fury, and then when the deadline hit a deal of some sort would be struck. I based that assumption primarily on my reading of the Speaker of the House, who made it abundantly clear — in word, deed, and especially body language — that he wanted the government shut down about as much as Indiana Jones wants to be locked in a room full of cobras. Given that the two sides weren’t that far apart in the closing days, in Boehner I trusted, and he didn’t let me down.

Also, he came away with a pretty impressive deal, for a party that only controls half the legislative branch...

Jill over at Pundit & Pundette: Headline "In budget deal, Obama and Reid lose"

They came to an agreement with Boehner that can't make them happy. The deal itself is better than I expected: $38.5 billion in cuts, no federally funded abortions for DC, and separate votes on Planned Parenthood funding and Obamacare repeal.* Andrew Stiles calls it a big win for Boehner, and makes a pretty convincing case that it's so

After spending all morning going through reactions (H/T Memeorandum), I have found not all conservatives are thrilled with this deal but the majority of them consider it a good start and setting for bigger battles to come.

On the flip side of the political spectrum I have found that not all liberals see it as a horrible deal although the majority seem to be pretty pissed off about it, then again, anger over there is perpetual so it is harder to tell if they are "angrier" than usual or not.

(This post has been updated and might be again as more reactions come out. Those reactions will be slid into the appropriate Liberal/Conservative reactions spots)

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Fact Checker: Pelosi's Bloviated Bluster Is 'Absurd'

Washington Post's The Fact Checker has determined that Nancy Pelosi is a liar and rated her comments a 4 on the Pinocchios scale.

According to their rating scale that is the considered "whoppers".

Big surprise there.. NOT.

Pelosi's claim:

“In one of the bills before us, 6 million seniors are deprived of meals — homebound seniors are deprived of meals. People ask us to find our common ground, the middle ground. Is middle ground 3 million seniors not receiving meals? I don't think so. We've got to take this conversation from a debate about numbers and dollar figures and finding middle ground there to the higher ground of national values. I don't think the American people want any one of those 6 million people to lose their meals or the children who are being thrown off of Head Start and the rest of it.”

It seems she "misspoke", not once but three times in a row according to her spokesperson.

Anyone who believes it was a mistake instead of a deliberate attempt to terrify seniors, please email me, I have a prime piece of swampland in Florida to sell.

The first problem with Pelosi’s statistic is that, according to the agency’s budget documents, only about 2.6 million seniors receive such meals. That’s even less than what she decried as the mushy middle ground of compromise.

After we pointed out that fact, Pelosi spokesman Drew Hammill said “she means meals for seniors — 6 million meals.” In 2011, the agency is expected to deliver a little over 200 million meals, so that’s a cut of about three percent.

That’s a pretty big “oops.” She referred to “6 million seniors,” “3 million seniors” and “6 million people.” We understand slips of a tongue, but three times in a row, so emphatically, is hard to fathom.

The Fact Checker's conclusion is that "Pelosi’s statement ranks high on this year’s list of bloviated bluster."

Furthermore:

It’s bad enough that she repeatedly mixed up 6 million meals and 6 million people — and made no effort to correct the record after her statement was reported in the media. But the figure she used appears to have been invented itself, with little basis in fact.

Nancy Pelosi is not serious about getting Washington's out of control spending under control, in fact, during her reign as Speaker of the House, according to the according to the U.S. Treasury Department, national debt rose by $5 trillion. (That was total back in October 2010)

At the close of business on Jan. 4, 2007, Pelosi’s first day as speaker, the national debt was $8,670,596,242,973.04 (8.67 trillion), according to the Bureau of the Public Debt, a division of the U.S. Treasury Department. At the close of business on Oct. 22, it stood at $13,667,983,325,978.31 (13.67 trillion), an increase of 4,997,387,083,005.27 (or approximately $5 trillion).

Pelosi's pathetic attempt to scare seniors, her hyperbole, her "bloviated bluster" and her refusal to understand a country cannot continue to function by spending more than it takes in, is one of the major reasons American voters removed her from the Speaker of the House position and stripped that gavel from her grubby little paws.

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Support For Ryan's Path To Prosperity Comes From Unlikely Place: Slate- 'Good Plan'

Reminder from yesterday's post for those that wish to read the GOP's Path To Prosperity for themselves instead of letting the firestorm of opinion pieces in the old and new media tell you what to think.

Read the Full 73 page Report- Key Facts and Summary- A Contrast In Budgets (PDF's from budget.house.gov)

In going through the the discussions and massive amounts of ink dedicated to either hailing the budget plan or criticizing it, I found support for Paul Ryan's plan from a very unlikely place.

Slate, not known for a bastion of conservative thinking, headlines with "Good Plan".

For the past 30 years, Republicans have been hypocrites about spending. They've raged against big government without ever proposing the kinds of cuts necessary to bring federal expenditures in line with tax revenues. Democrats have been more fiscally responsible, producing an actual budget surplus during Bill Clinton's second term. But they've been little better than Republicans when it comes to confronting the nation's long-term fiscal imbalance, which is driven by the projected growth in entitlement spending.

This dynamic of political evasion and reality-denial may have undergone a fundamental shift today with the release of Rep. Paul Ryan's 2012 budget resolution. The Wisconsin Republican's genuinely radical plan goes where Ronald Reagan and Newt Gingrich never did by terminating the entitlement status of Medicare and Medicaid. (It doesn't touch the third major entitlement, Social Security, though Ryan has elsewhere argued for extending its life by gradually raising the retirement age to 70.) Ryan changes Medicare into a voucher, which would be used to purchase private health insurance. He turns Medicaid into a block grant for states to spend as they choose. Though his budget committee isn't responsible for taxes, Ryan includes the boldest tax reform proposal since the 1980s, proposing to lower top individual and corporate rates to 25 percent and end deductions. While he's at it, Ryan caps domestic spending, repeals Obamacare, slashes farm subsidies, and more.

If the GOP gets behind his proposals in a serious way, it will become for the first time in modern memory an intellectually serious party—one with a coherent vision to match its rhetoric of limited government. Democrats are within their rights to point out the negative effects of Ryan's proposed cuts on future retirees, working families, and the poor. He was not specific about many of his cuts, and Democrats have a political opportunity in filling in the blanks. But the ball is now in their court, and it will be hard to take them seriously if they don't respond with their own alternative path to debt reduction and long-term solvency.

The Slate piece delves into some of the meat and potatoes of the plan and concludes at the end of the article:

But more than anyone else in politics, Rep. Ryan has made a serious attempt to grapple with the long-term fiscal issue the country faces. He has a largely coherent, workable set of answers. If you don't like them, now you need to come up with something better.

Consider the conversation on how to bring America's fiscal house in order, started.

[Update] Video below shows Ryan stating "It all comes down to this: Either you fix this problem now where we, you can guarantee people who’ve already organized their lives around these programs get what they have coming to them, or you pick the president’s path, which is do nothing, punt, duck, kick the can down the road, and then we have a debt crisis and then its pain for everybody."



H/T CNS News

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Paul Ryan Unveils The GOP Path To Prosperity: Budget To Cut $6.2 Trillion Over 10 Years

Read the Full 73 page Report- Key Facts and Summary- A Contrast In Budgets (PDF's from budget.house.gov)



Paul Ryan, a Republican, represents Wisconsin's first congressional district and serves as chairman of the House Budget Committee, writes an op-ed in the Wall street Journal explaining the GOP Path to Prosperity.

"Our budget cuts $6.2 trillion in spending from the president's budget over the next 10 years and puts the nation on track to pay off our national debt."--- Paul Ryan, Wall Street Journal April 5, 2011

Congress is currently embroiled in a funding fight over how much to spend on less than one-fifth of the federal budget for the next six months. Whether we cut $33 billion or $61 billion—that is, whether we shave 2% or 4% off of this year's deficit—is important. It's a sign that the election did in fact change the debate in Washington from how much we should spend to how much spending we should cut.

But this morning the new House Republican majority will introduce a budget that moves the debate from billions in spending cuts to trillions. America is facing a defining moment. The threat posed by our monumental debt will damage our country in profound ways, unless we act.

During the last few months, the GOP controlled House of Representatives has been in a public battle with the Democratically controlled Senate and Democratically controlled White House over spending cuts, with the GOP pushing for more and more spending cuts and the Democrats holding on to every bit of government spending they can.

Below I am going to show two visuals. One from Business Insider from February 2011 showing an income statement for the United States and the other provided by Ryan in his WSJ op-ed.

Click to enlarge

According to the pie chart above the U.S. brought in $2.2 trillion and spent $3.5 trillion.

58 percent of those expenses are from entitlement programs. 20 percent from Social Security, 22 percent from Medicare and Federal Medicaid and 16 percent from Unemployment Insurance and other entitlements.

Those numbers were taken directly from The White House Office of Budget Management.

Anyone who lives on a budget or deals with money in any way should understand that level of spending vs revenue is not sustainable.

The graph Paul released in his WSJ piece shows what will happen if something drastic isn't done.



The GOP Path to Prosperity leaves nothing off the table, addresses entitlements in a way that no one has dared to address them in decades for fear of public backlash because while voters continue to harp on Washington for their continual overspending and enlargement of government, voters also cringe at the thought of specific targeted entitlements and the change needed to stop this free-fall into debt America is on.

The major components in Paul's proposal are Reduce spending, Welfare reform, Health and retirement security, Budget enforcement and Tax reform.

Reduce Spending:

This budget proposes to bring spending on domestic government agencies to below 2008 levels, and it freezes this category of spending for five years. The savings proposals are numerous, and include reforming agricultural subsidies, shrinking the federal work force through a sensible attrition policy, and accepting Defense Secretary Robert Gates's plan to target inefficiencies at the Pentagon.

Welfare Reform:

This budget will build upon the historic welfare reforms of the late 1990s by converting the federal share of Medicaid spending into a block grant that lets states create a range of options and gives Medicaid patients access to better care. It proposes similar reforms to the food-stamp program, ending the flawed incentive structure that rewards states for adding to the rolls. Finally, this budget recognizes that the best welfare program is one that ends with a job—it consolidates dozens of duplicative job-training programs into more accessible, accountable career scholarships that will better serve people looking for work.

As we strengthen and improve welfare programs for those who need them, we eliminate welfare for those who don't. Our budget targets corporate welfare, starting by ending the conservatorship of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that is costing taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars. It gets rid of the permanent Wall Street bailout authority that Congress created last year. And it rolls back expensive handouts for uncompetitive sources of energy, calling instead for a free and open marketplace for energy development, innovation and exploration.

Health and Retirement Security:

This budget's reforms will protect health and retirement security. This starts with saving Medicare. The open-ended, blank-check nature of the Medicare subsidy threatens the solvency of this critical program and creates inexcusable levels of waste. This budget takes action where others have ducked. But because government should not force people to reorganize their lives, its reforms will not affect those in or near retirement in any way.

Starting in 2022, new Medicare beneficiaries will be enrolled in the same kind of health-care program that members of Congress enjoy. Future Medicare recipients will be able to choose a plan that works best for them from a list of guaranteed coverage options. This is not a voucher program but rather a premium-support model. A Medicare premium-support payment would be paid, by Medicare, to the plan chosen by the beneficiary, subsidizing its cost.

In addition, Medicare will provide increased assistance for lower- income beneficiaries and those with greater health risks. Reform that empowers individuals—with more help for the poor and the sick—will guarantee that Medicare can fulfill the promise of health security for America's seniors.

We must also reform Social Security to prevent severe cuts to future benefits. This budget forces policy makers to work together to enact common-sense reforms. The goal of this proposal is to save Social Security for current retirees and strengthen it for future generations by building upon ideas offered by the president's bipartisan fiscal commission.

Budget Enforcement:

This budget recognizes that it is not enough to change how much government spends. We must also change how government spends. It proposes budget-process reforms—including real, enforceable caps on spending—to make sure government spends and taxes only as much as it needs to fulfill its constitutionally prescribed roles.

Tax Reform:

This budget would focus on growth by reforming the nation's outdated tax code, consolidating brackets, lowering tax rates, and assuming top individual and corporate rates of 25%. It maintains a revenue-neutral approach by clearing out a burdensome tangle of deductions and loopholes that distort economic activity and leave some corporations paying no income taxes at all.

More:

A study just released by the Heritage Center for Data Analysis projects that The Path to Prosperity will help create nearly one million new private-sector jobs next year, bring the unemployment rate down to 4% by 2015, and result in 2.5 million additional private-sector jobs in the last year of the decade. It spurs economic growth, with $1.5 trillion in additional real GDP over the decade. According to Heritage's analysis, it would result in $1.1 trillion in higher wages and an average of $1,000 in additional family income each year.

From the Heritage Foundation's The Foundry:

House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan’s (R–WI) budget proposal, for the first time in recent memory, sets our nation on a different and better path. It tackles the massive spending excesses of the recent past and the entitlement crisis that is beginning to command our fiscal future. It rejects the politics of government dependence, massively higher taxes and the inevitability of national decline. No budget in decades has had the potential for so fundamentally improving the nation’s prosperity and restoring its vast promise. This is a monumental budget proposal for monumental times, and it opens a serious and necessary conversation about the future of our nation and its great legacy of freedom, opportunity, and self-government.

They conclude:

But in the end, let’s remember where we are and what Chairman Ryan has accomplished. Last year, neither the House nor the Senate passed a required budget resolution. This year, President Obama proposed a budget that more than doubles the national debt. In the first budget of the new Congress, Chairman Ryan has forged a serious path to fix our nation’s fiscal and economic crisis. The House, the Senate, and the President must now do their part so that we may reclaim our nation’s future.

You will hear a lot of talk, Conservatives hailing this plan, Democrats criticizing it, politicians pushing their own political agenda and pundits pushing their own ideology.

Click the links at the top of this post, read it, do the math and decide for yourself if we can sustain the path we are on and if the answer is no, then determine for yourself if you believe this proposal addresses the concerns you have as individuals.

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