obama: ‘We Don’t Need a Balanced Budget Amendment’

I don't know why obama would be opposed to a balanced budget amendment. It's not really going to affect him anyway. He has no regard for the Constitution and has violated most of the existing Amendments anyway, so why would another one matter?

This line absolutely pisses me off. The Constitution DOES tell them how to do their job, well, exactly when do these assclowns in our government plan on doing their job?

“The Constitution already tells us to do our jobs -- and to make sure that the government is living within its means and making responsible choices.”

Does obama TRULY think that what he is doing is in the best interests of this Country? There is no possible way he can think that. An ever expanding government and a never ending spending habit are NOT what our Founding Fathers had in mind, not even close. There hasn't been on "responsible" choice made by this administration, and I doubt that they change that any time soon...

By Fred Lucas - CNSNews

President barack obama says America does not need a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution, and he once again blamed much of the fiscal problem on Bush-era tax cuts.

“We don’t need a constitutional amendment to do our jobs,” obama told reporters at his Friday news conference. “The Constitution already tells us to do our jobs -- and to make sure that the government is living within its means and making responsible choices.”

The House will consider a balanced budget amendment next week. It is an idea supported by both conservatives (including Sen. Jim DeMint of S.C.) and liberal Republicans (including Sen olympia snowe of Maine). In fact, every Republican in the U.S. Senate now supports a balanced budget amendment as a way of offseting a $2 trillion increase in the debt ceiling.

The public overwhelmingly supports a balanced budget amendment by 72 percent, while just 20 percent oppose it, according to a Fox News poll.

To legally borrow more money, Congress and the president must authorize an increase in the debt ceiling. The national debt is $14.4 trillion. Under the constitutional amendment, a deficit would have to be erased by spending cuts.

“We don’t need a balanced budget amendment,” obama said on Friday. “We simply need to make these tough choices and be willing to take on our bases. And everybody knows it. I mean, we could have a discussion right here about what the numbers look like, and we know what’s necessary.” obama and his fellow Democrats insist that a tax hike on the wealthy is necessary.

Read the rest at the link above...

democrats won't even vote for obama's budget...

Yesterday I told you that the democrats and some fake republicans voted against the Paul Ryan budget plan. I guess they also voted on obama's budget. It failed with ZERO votes in favor. Which is kind of funny, but it has to make you think about the strategy of the democrats.

They won't vote for any budget. Hmmm, a couple of reasons come to mind for that. First, with no budget, there are virtually no limits to what they can spend, especially if we allow these clowns to keep raising the debt limit.

Second, they would have to make a commitment to stay within certain spending levels, something they could be held accountable for and something that could be pinned directly to them. Now, with no actual budget for 2011, they can spend what they want and blame who they want. Regardless of the fact that democrats have controlled the purse strings for the last 6 years, they still find ways to blame Republicans for their horrible spending habits.

democrats never want to do anything that they can be held accountable for. Their standard operating procedure is to remain noncommital and blame someone else.

Even bill clinton has ackowledged that something is going to have to be done to save medicare. The Paul Ryan plan may not be perfect, but it is a step in the direction of saving medicare for the future. If we stand by and watch, like the democrats seem to want to do, medicare will be insolvent and unavailable for anyone in a matter of years, not decades, years. democrats could keep it on life support by raising our taxes in a major way, but that would require accountability on their part.

democrats continue to lie about the Ryan plan, making up awful things with nothing to back it up. It is a scare tactic with no basis in reality. But it leaves those supporting the plan on the defensive, trying to make their case. But the volume and the shrillness of the democrats drowns out the sanity of the Republicans. It also doesn't help much that the media hangs on every word pelosi, reid and obama utter...

5 "republicans" in the senate help defeat the Paul Ryan budget plan...

And those 5 are the usual cast of characters, with one exception,

scott brown

susan collins

olympia snowe

lisa murkowski

and Rand Paul

The first four are just rinos who seem to vote with democrats more than their own party. scott brown has to be the biggest let down in the politics of the last 20 years.

Rand Paul claims he voted against the Ryan plan because it doesn't go far enough. I agree that it doesn't go far enough, but damn, we have to start somewhere.

Paul needs to understand that if this won't pass, something that goes even further won't have a prayer.

Isn't there a way that the Republican party could ban brown, collins, snowe and murkowski from calling themselves Republicans? Holy crap, you don't really need any enemies with friends like these clowns...

Laffer Curve...

Have you ever heard of the Laffer Curve? I hadn't until several months ago. It's a little like the Bell Curve for grading in school, but this is for determining the optimal tax rate in an economy.

The Laffer Curve basically says that at 0 percent taxation the government gets $0 dollars in revenue, and at 100 percent taxation the government gets $0 dollars in revenue. At 100 percent taxation there is no incentive for people to earn money. Instead bartering and other means of trade take the place of cash transactions.

Based on those assumptions, there has to be a tax rate in between that keeps the people happy while generating the revenue government needs to function.

When Ronald Reagan took over after jimmy carter almost drove our economy into the ground, he used the Laffer Curve, in part, as a basis for dropping the highest marginal tax rate from 70 percent to 31 percent. It resulted in a massive increase in revenue to the federal government. Of course, congress continued to spend every single nickle that came in, and then some, so no surplus was ever attained.

It's hard to believe that taxing people LESS brings in MORE money, but it works. That isn't always the case, but historically in this Country it is very effective.

obama and his gang of thugs think that taxation is the key to solving our financial crisis. It isn't. Cutting spending is the first step. Reducing the size and influence of government is also a good step. Businesses have to have some freedom in order to be innovative. Innovation leads businesses to employ more people, more people paying a lower tax rate increases revenue to the government.

obama also talks constantly about the evil rich people. They don't pay their fair share. There are three points I would like to make about that.
1. The top 1 percent of wage earners in this Country pay 40 percent of the tax burden. Compare that to the bottom 45 percent who pay no taxes at all. Who is actually carrying the burden?

2. Rich people in this Country employ millions of people. The small business is the backbone of this Country. We are losing small businesses every day to uncertainty with the economy, over regulation, over taxation and just a general hostile environment created by this administration.

3. Companies and corporations don't pay tax. Sure, they may send money to the federal government, but they offset that money by increasing prices on goods and services or being unable to afford raises and other benefits for their employees.

One last thing, it is not evil for a company to make a profit. Profits mean more research and development which results in better products. It means raises for employees. It means charitable donations. It means putting more money back in to our economy.

obama is bad for our Nation. He is anti-American in every sense of the word. His plot to turn us into a third world nation is dangerous. His underhanded and dirty tactics should not be tolerated. The press in this Country have given him a free pass from the moment he emerged from the chicago slime. Will the press be as forgiving when he comes for them?

For more information on the Laffer Curve, and other examples, visit this link...

'Negative' Rating for U.S. Debt Sends Jolt Through Capitol Hill Debate on Debt Ceiling

No matter how grim the outlook, democrats and obama want to continue spending. The only way they can figure to have more money to spend is to raise our taxes. It never even occurs to them that we can't afford it. Our montly gasoline bill has increased by over $300 bucks a month. If this keeps up it won't even pay to go to work.

If more people don't keep after their congress critters about the budget and the deficit, we are going to go from real trouble to whatever is worse than that. My representatives are sick of me. They hear from me waaay more often that they are comfortable with.

Write them folks, let them know we have to fix this stuff NOW. Not in 2012, not in 2016, NOW. We can't afford to kick this can down the road any longer. I will stand behind those willing to make the tough decisions, even if it is painful.

Remember though, we don't have a revenue problem, we have a spending problem...

From FoxNews

The United States' latest fiscal standoff -- an intensifying impasse over whether to raise the federal debt ceiling -- got a sudden jolt Monday when a top credit rating service expressed pessimism at D.C.'s political will to solve the debt crisis.

It remained unclear whether Standard & Poor's decision to change its outlook on U.S. fiscal health over the next two years from "stable" to "negative" would prompt the White House and Congress to agree on a debt fix. But it certainly prompted both sides to affirm they are serious about the issue.

“Serious reforms are needed to ensure America’s fiscal health," House Majority Leader Eric Cantor said in a written statement, calling S&P's announcement " a wake-up call to those in Washington asking Congress to blindly increase the debt limit."

Republicans have called for attaching spending reductions to any increase in the debt limit, which nearly has been reached at over $14 trillion, but the White House has warned that failing to increase the limit in the coming months could be ruinous for federal finances and the economy as a whole, because the nation's creditors may lose confidence in the United States' ability to pay its debts.

S&P's announcement sent stocks tumbling Monday, but White House Press Secretary Jay Carney downplayed it, saying the political process will outperform the agency's expectations.

The Obama administration also acknowledged that there is increasing agreement on the scope of the problem.

"Both political parties now agree that it is time to begin bringing down deficits as a share of GDP," Mary Miller, assistant secretary for financial markets at the Treasury Department, said in a written statement. "We believe S&P's negative outlook underestimates the ability of America's leaders to come together to address the difficult fiscal challenges facing the nation."

Not everyone is convinced that raising the debt ceiling is necessary, even with strings attached.

Read the rest at the link above...

obama Keeps 'Czars' Despite Budget Deal That Eliminated Them

What an asshole. obama agrees to the budget deal and then refuses to do his portion. These "czars" never should have been allowed in the first place. These positions answer to no one but obama, are in charge of billions of tax dollars and have very little if any oversight. It is simply a way for obama to hire more of his left wing liberal, socialist buddies for huge salaries without having to worry about congressional approval. It's bullshit.

His inabilty to uphold his end of the bargain should make the entire budget deal null and void. Only a true scumbag would refuse to honor their word. All a man really has is his word, and if that is no good, well you figure it out...

From FoxNews

President obama may have never met a "czar" he didn't like and he's not about to bid farewell to any of them now, despite a budget deal he struck with Republican leaders last week that eliminated four of these positions.

The budget compromise that obama, House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader harry reid reached in the final moments before the government shut down last Friday included language effectively eliminating the czar positions overseeing health care, climate change, the auto industry and urban affairs – positions that don't require Senate confirmation.

But after signing the legislation Friday that funds the government through the end of September and cuts $38 billion in spending, obama issued a signing statement saying he would ignore the part about his czars, arguing that defunding those positions violated his constitutional authority.

Republicans cried foul over obama's move.

"It's not surprising that the White House, having bypassed Congress to empower these 'Czars' is objecting to eliminating them," Mike Steel, a spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner, said in a statement.

Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La., who introduced legislation earlier this year eliminating nine czar positions, said obama cannot choose which laws to follow and ignore.

"The president knew that the czar amendment was part of the overall budget deal he agreed to, and if he cannot be trusted to keep his word on this, then how can he be trusted as we negotiate on larger issues like federal spending and the economy," he said in a statement, arguing that appointing these czars without Senate confirmation violated the Constitution.

"The United States is not a kingdom run by a political director, and President obama needs to quickly reverse course and abide by the law eliminating the czars that were part of the budget resolution."

While presidents in both parties have appointed high-level officials to advise them on a wide range of policy areas, obama's czars have been a favorite target for Republicans, who say obama has appointed more than any of his predecessors in a power grab that undermines the Senate's advice and consent role.

Scalise's office estimates that 39 officials are in the obama administration and in his bill he described czars as the "head of any task force, council, policy office within the executive office of the president" or similar office, appointed "without the advice and consent of the Senate."

Earlier this year, climate czar Carol Browner left the White House and health care czar Nancy-Ann DeParle was promoted to White House deputy chief of staff. Other past czars in the obama administration has drawn much criticism from Republicans, including former green jobs czar Van Jones and current science czar John Holdren.

The Grand Compromise

Someone in our government should recognize the absolute genius of Charles Krauthammer and put him to work for the good of our Country. I have never read a single word he has written that I didn't agree with. Without a doubt, he is smarter than the entire obama administration combined.

obama is quick to citicize the Ryan plan without offering anything of substance himself. It is standard operating procedure. Just like Libya, he refuses to make any kind of a plan that can be pinned directly to him. Instead he lets others do the heavy lifting and attempts to take the credit. What a small person he is.

He pulled the same stunt in congress, voting "present" on the tough votes to avoid a record that could be quoted later. But the silence in those "present" votes is deafening. He has spent his entire political career being non-commital yet critical of those who dare to make a commitment.

The rudimentary plan he did devise is more of the same liberal crap, tax and overspend. It's the only answer their limited range of vision can come up with.

2012 can't come soon enough for me. We need to clean house on election day...

by Charles Krauthammer - Human Events

The most serious charge against Rep. Paul Ryan's budget is not the risible claim, made most prominently by President Obama in his George Washington University address, that it would "sacrifice the America we believe in." The serious charge is that the Ryan plan fails by its own standards: Because it only cuts spending without raising taxes, it accumulates trillions of debt and doesn't balance the budget until the 2030s. If the debt is such a national emergency, they say, Ryan never really gets you there from here.

But the critics miss the point. You can't get there from here without Ryan's plan. It's the essential element. Of course Ryan is not going to propose tax increases. You don't need Republicans for that. That's what Democrats do. The president's speech was a prose poem to higher taxes -- with every allusion to spending cuts guarded by a phalanx of impenetrable caveats.

Ryan reduces federal spending by $6 trillion over 10 years -- from the current 24 percent of GDP to the historical post-World War II average of about 20 percent.

Now, the historical average for revenues over the last 40 years is between 18 percent and 19 percent of GDP. As we return to that level with the economic recovery (we're now at about 15 percent), Ryan would still leave us with an annual deficit in 2021 of 1.6 percent of GDP.

The critics are right to focus on that gap. But it is bridgeable. And the mechanism for doing so is in plain sight: tax reform.

Real tax reform strips out exclusions, deductions, credits and the innumerable loopholes that have accumulated since the last tax reform of 1986. The Simpson-Bowles commission, for example, identifies $1.1 trillion of such revenue-robbers. In one scenario, it strips them all out and thus is able to lower rates for everyone to three brackets of 8 percent, 14 percent and 23 percent.

The commission does recommend that, on average, about $100 billion annually of that $1.1 trillion be kept by the Treasury (rather than going back to the taxpayer) to reduce the deficit. This is a slight deviation from revenue neutrality, but it still yields a major cut for the top rate from the current 35 percent to 23 percent. The overall result is so reasonable and multiply beneficial that it rightly gained the concurrence of even the impeccably conservative (commission member) Sen. Tom Coburn.

That's the beauty of tax reform: It is both transparent and flexible. That flexibility and transparency can be applied to the Ryan plan. If you need a bit more deficit reduction to bridge the 1.6 percent GDP gap that remains after 10 years, you can get there by slightly raising the final rates.

Ryan's tax reform envisions three brackets with a top rate of 25 percent. There's nothing sacred about that number. In principle, you could raise all the rates slightly with the top rate going to, say, 28 percent -- the top rate that came out of Ronald Reagan's 1986 tax reform. You're still much lower than the current 35 percent. And yet that final boost could bring you closer to a fully balanced federal budget at roughly 20 percent of GDP.

Nor would any great conservative principle be violated. The historical average of revenues -- 18 percent to 19 percent of GDP -- could be raised one point or so on the perfectly reasonable grounds that we are a slightly older society, and that we wish to avail ourselves of the extraordinary but expensive medical technology that can increase both the quality and length of life.

This one concession would yield a fully balanced budget more quickly than Ryan's plan and would reduce the debt/GDP ratio even more steeply (because GDP would be growing, while debt would not). The effect on America's financial standing in the world would be dramatic: Restored confidence in U.S. fiscal health would reduce interest rates, which would lower the overall debt burden, which could allow lower taxes, which could stimulate yet more economic growth. A virtuous circle.

That's the finish line. But it starts with spending cuts. Serious cuts, as Ryan suggests -- not the smoke and mirrors the Obama speech shamelessly presented as a plan.

Given the Democrats' instinctive resort to granny-in-the-snow demagoguery, the Republicans are right not to budge on taxes until serious spending cuts are in place. At which point, the grand compromise awaits. And grand it would be. Saving the welfare state from insolvency is no small achievement.

Boehner Blew The Budget Deal (and probably the future of the nation)

Go read the rest of this at TL in Exile. It's funny really, Boehner had all the tools in the world at his disposal and still got bested in this deal. Bear in mind what I said before though, Boehner was up against people who are very good at making shady deals seem legit. These are the very best (worst) of the crooked chicago political machine. What Boehner needs to understand is that you can't trust a fucking democrat, ever. They will smile at you while they stab you in the back.

I'm not giving Boehner a pass on this. He screwed the pooch, big time. He gave away everything and got nothing in return. He should have been able to see what the democrats were doing or have someone in his corner that could. He has lost my faith and I'm sure the faith of millions of other too.

He should have shouted from the highest mountain that obama was using our Troops as a bargaining tool. He should have held his ground, government shutdown or not. He should have forced the democrats to make real, substantial cuts. Even if the deal he was able to cut didn't pass the senate, the ball would have been in their court. The spotlight, and the blame, would have been on those that deserve it...

By T.L. Davis - TL in Exile

The other day I expressed my dissatisfaction with the budget deal. I quoted the oft-quoted numbers of $50 billion in new spending while negotiating for a $38.5 billion dollar spending reduction and intimated that this was clearly stupid. But, there were levels of being sold out that I had not addressed and since taking the victory lap along with Barack Obama was not enough for Boehner and people are considering him a winner in the negotiations with Obama, I think I ought to be a bit more clear as to my objections to the budget deal recently released.

First of all, you know when you have been bested when the opposition holds you up as a worthy adversary. I don't know for a fact that the collective ass-covering was a part of the negotiated deal to let Obama keep some of his most prized pieces of the budget, or not. It stinks, that's all I know. There was no defunding of Planned Parenthood, there was no defunding of Obamacare, there was no real 38.5 billion dollars in spending cuts, it was done with some accounting gimmicks. By the way, who has already forgotten that accounting gimmicks like keeping Social Security off budget and Medicare's "Doctor Fix" are how we got here in the first place? It is this kind of smarmy, weasel-y budget negotiations that have led to $14 trillion in debt with no end in sight. Even Paul Ryan's budget doesn't even balance the budget until 2021, so when the hell are we going to deal with the DEBT?

For those who don't know, deficits are what accrue every year, debt is the pile that all of these yearly deficits are piled onto. Deficits are the amount of money you are spending over what you are taking in, Debts are the things that catch all of those yearly excesses and pile them up. So, if we don't even get to a balanced budget until 2021, these trillion dollar deficits will continue during all that time and dump onto the massively growing DEBT. It is only in theory that we eventually, sometime in the mid century, actually begin to work on the DEBT, which by then will be somewhere near $30 trillion dollars or 200% of our GDP, assuming we ever get out of the ditch Barack Obama has driven us back into over his two years.

Okay, those are the raw numbers that must be placed alongside the puny $38.5 billion dollars supposedly saved in the budget deal, with the help of some left-over stimulus money and returned TARP funds, NOT mostly by cutting spending as they would have you believe.