Gallup: Americans Put Deficit Blame on Wasteful Government Spending

by the Left Coast Rebel

This just in from Gallup:

PRINCETON, NJ -- The large majority of Americans say spending too much money on unneeded or wasteful federal programs is to blame for the federal budget deficit, while 22% say the deficit is a consequence of not raising enough in taxes to pay for needed programs.

These poll numbers are very hopeful but miss a key part of the deficit picture: our woes are necessarily caused by wasteful spending but that wasteful spending is given free reign because of a government that has no bearing on our founding and sensible, limited government. In order to reign in wasteful spending, we must first realign that which we expect of our government and send those to Washington DC that reflect those values (hint: Rand Paul, not John Boehner).

Until that day, the idiots in DC will argue about nibbling at the fringes of our destructive and illegitimate government-with-no-restraint but lose the big picture and put us all at the same national bankruptcy endgame. We simply ask too much of our government and have been bribed by looters that have no intention of paying the bill.

Are you willing to give up any and all the goodies to save the idea that used to be America?

I sure as hell am.

Via Memeorandum.

Delicious Irony: Redneck Global Warming Skeptics Terrorized and Killed By Tornados

When I drove to work on Wednesday night, I was buffeted by violent winds. I had left home early because the weather forecast called for tornadoes, and the in-motion radar images were ominous. The storm was headed for my path, but I arrived at my destination safely.

In the building where I work, dozens of people who lacked access to safe shelter spent the night huddled in the hallways. Back home, the rest of my little family spent the night in a closet while golf ball-sized hail bombarded the house and the booming sounds of exploding transformers could be heard in every direction.

When I made my way back home at daybreak, what I saw triggered a burst of expletives. The road was clear, but landscape was now barely recognizable. Guard rails were strewn around and crumpled like flimsy ribbons of aluminum foil. Homes and businesses had been reduced to piles of splinters and toothpicks. Cars where scattered along the side of the road like toys dropped from a toddler's clumsy hands. Several 18-wheelers had been pounded, mangled, and dumped in piles of their own contents.

In my home town, 95,000 EPB customers had lost power.

Hundreds of people across the South are now dead. Photographs cannot accurately capture the magnitude of the devastation. Fortunately for me, the lights are back on where I live, my home is in one piece, and all of my family members in Tennessee, Georgia and Alabama are clean, dry and intact.

The roads where I live are now jam-packed with friends and strangers rushing in to help the victims and clean up the mess...

Meanwhile, the loathsome toads at Think Progress think they've drawn a clever connection between the weather's wrath and the political views of the victims:

Storms Kill Over 250 Americans In States Represented By Climate Pollution Deniers

Today, news agencies are still tallying reports of deaths from the most devastating storm system in the United States in decades...

The congressional delegations of these states — Alabama, Tennessee, Mississippi, Georgia, Virginia, and Kentucky — overwhelmingly voted to reject the science that polluting the climate is dangerous. They are deliberately ignoring the warnings from scientists.

True to their grotesque form, left wing zealots are defending the indefensible in response to this unwashed tripe.

It's a new twist on the Pat Robertson model of Divine Justice... "Since the south has rejected the climate change hysteria, clearly they’re just asking for the wrath of Gaia, and should expect to be demolished."

Here's how you can help victims in need:

• Red Cross, or text REDCROSS to 90999 to donate $10 to relief efforts
• Samaritan’s Purse
• Text “Give” to 80888 to give $10 to Salvation Army relief efforts.

FLASHBACK:

“I root for hurricanes. When, courtesy of the Weather Channel, I see one forming in the ocean off the coast of Africa, I find myself longing for it to become big and strong — Mother Nature’s fist of fury, Gaia’s stern rebuke.”

– James Wolcott, “An Ignoble Confession,” Sept. 2004

Hat tip: McCain

X-posted at LCR

Tornadoes whipped up by wind, not climate

More discussion at Memeorandum

Molested by Government: Miss USA Susie Castillo

Hat tip to Libertarian Republican for this story:

...former Miss USA Susie Castillo has a new platform: overly diligent TSA agents, one of whom she said “molested” her during a pat down at the Dallas/Fort Worth airport earlier this week.

Castillo, an actress and former MTV VJ, made a YouTube video of her ordeal, tearily complaining that a female screener repeatedly touched her inappropriately during a full body frisking.

“Never in my wildest dreams did I think that this would make me cry,” she said in the video. “I’m really really upset that, as an American, I have to go through this. I do feel violated. This woman touched my vagina four times.”

I'm sure the highly trained government official had a very good reason for abusing this suspicious-looking terrorist wannabe...

Don't miss the quote at the end of the video. Castillo is definitely not a mindless Hollywood liberal.

Update:

To be quite honest, I almost didn't post this video and blog because I kept asking myself, "Am I just being a baby?" I'm also not one to stir up controversy. In fact, I do my best to live a very positive and healthy life. However, in the situation I'm about to describe, I felt truly violated and believe I should let my voice be heard. Ultimately, I hope others will do the same. Mahatma Gandhi famously said, "Be the change you want to see in the world." So, that's what I'm doing by sharing this experience:

On my flight back to Los Angeles last week after hosting the red carpet premiere for "Fast Five" in Rio De Janeiro, I connected in Dallas Fort Worth (DFW) where I had the misfortune of being selected to go through one of those full body scanners that emits radiation. Now, if you don't fly very often, you might not worry about it. But I'm a frequent flyer and don't wish to be irradiated more than I already am on flights (we get a pretty large dose of radiation while flying due to our proximity to the sun; the longer your flight, the more your radiation exposure) and in life in general (we're exposed to radiation all day every day; it's called "background radiation"). So I will always "opt out" of going through these body scanners, especially since the long-term effects of radiation are quite well documented: it mutates our cells, often in irreversible ways, and causes cancer. I'm all set with that!

Anyway, after "opting out," I proceeded to follow a very nice older female TSA employee to the "pat down" area. It was an inconvenience, but I thought, "No biggie. I just went through this at LAX for the first time and it wasn't too bad, so let's just get it over with."

Well, this pat down was completely different. It was MUCH MORE invasive than my first one at LAX, just a week before. To say that I felt invaded is an understatement. What bothered me most was when she ran the back of her hands down my behind, felt around my breasts, and even came in contact with my vagina! Honestly, I was in shock, especially since the woman at LAX never actually touched me there. The TSA employee at DFW touched private area 4 times, going up both legs from behind and from the front, each time touching me there. Was I at my gynecologist's office? No! This was crazy!

I felt completely helpless and violated during the entire process (in fact, I still do), so I became extremely upset. If I wanted to get back to Los Angeles, I had no choice but to be violated, whether by radiation or a stranger. I just kept thinking, "What have I done to deserve this treatment as an upstanding, law-abiding American citizen?" Am I a threat to US security? I was Miss USA, for Pete's sake!

Besides, is this procedure really protecting us? I remember hearing about an Al Qaeda terrorist successfully evading security detection by placing a bomb in his rectum. All in an attempt to assassinate Saudi Prince Mohammed Bin Nayef. So what if that happened in the US? Would we then be subjected to random rectal exams in addition to x-rays and being groped by strangers? How far is this going to go? More specifically, how far will WE let this go? As they say, if you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything. I think it's time to stand up for our personal liberty.

As a frequent flyer, I knew getting a "pat down" was inevitable, but I never expected it to make me so upset. When it was over, I grabbed my things, walked over to my husband who was waiting for me, and was completely overcome with emotion.

I have never felt more violated in my life than I did that morning at DFW, and I've heard of others feeling the same way after these "pat downs." Just a couple weeks ago, a video of a six-year-old girl being patted down by TSA made headlines. Talk about unjust and unacceptable. So I decided to speak to a TSA supervisor about how I felt, and make a video about what happened to post on my blog.

This "pat down" is a total violation of our rights (we shouldn't be searched this way without probable cause or a search warrant), therefore I will be filing a complaint via phone, online and also in writing with the TSA to complain each and every time for as long as the TSA is violating my rights.

X-posted at LCR

Rep. Allen West Tells the Truth on Medicare, Left Reacts Predictably

by the Left Coast Rebel

Tea Party Representative Allen West (Future POTUS-FL) has been in the news a lot lately, and that's a good thing.

West -- in my humble opinion -- may just one day be President of this country. Trust me, the guy has a bright future and the sky's the limit. Also, if patriots like Allen West were in the mix in the GOP 2012 hopeful field, there would be a lot more excitement than there is at this time -- and he's the real deal and not a publicity-whoring charlatan with anything but a conservative or libertarian track record.

Anyway, the congressman doesn't mince words (which is just what we need today), talking candidly about the program that has the highest unfunded liability going forward and is the ultimate third rail in American politics: Medicare.

Florida's WPTV reports:

BOCA RATON, Fla. - If those opposed to U.S. Rep. Allen West have their way, the 2012 election will be fought on his recent vote to privatize Medicare starting in 2023.

They got loud during a town hall meeting the congressman held Wednesday night in Boca Raton.

The man designated to read questions from audience members read one word a lot: "Medicare."

And if you know Congressman Allen West and what he thinks of Medicare, the program that delivers health care to 38 million seniors and that national polls say is largely supported, his response was what you'd expect.

"I gotta tell you something: if you support Medicare the way it is now, you can kiss the United States of America goodbye," said West.

Here's video:

Look for the Demonrats to demagogue the heck out of West's honest statement (check Soros-funded Think Progress for this) but West is correct: Medicare alone spells the end for the United States as we have all known, loved and cherished it (as in a prosperous and free nation, wherein one retains the majority of one's earnings and is left alone and able to pursue happiness).

Michael Tanner at Cato tells us why we are facing impending doom and her name is Medicare:

Social Security faces unfunded liabilities of more than $15.8 trillion. And while that sounds like a lot of money, it is dwarfed by Medicare's looming budget shortfall of between $50 and $100 trillion, depending on which accounting measure is used. Because of its funding mechanisms, Medicaid does face the same type of accounting shortfalls, but it will soon add hundreds of billions of dollars to federal, not to mention state, spending.

As the full force of entitlement programs kicks in, the federal government will consume more than 40 percent of GDP by the middle of the century. Half of that will be taken up by just those three entitlement programs. From there, it only gets worse.

Sobering, especially when you consider that the Tea Party and limited government movement achieved such a huge victory in November yet the fools that got us into this mess are still in GOP leadership positions and ready, able, and willing to sell their souls for a few pieces of silver.

We need more straight talk like that of Allen West, aka Mr. "you're not going to intimidate me...."

Updated: I'm not the only one thinking of Allen West in the White House, stop by this Draft Allen West for President in 2012 Facebook page. There's also a great site set up exclusively for the effort to draft Allen West for President, 2012: draftallenwest2012.com.

Via Memeorandum. Cross posted to LCR contributor sites.

(PHOTO) Obama's Official Long-Form Birth Certificate

by the Left Coast Rebel

As Sam Foster wrote early this morning, the White House just released Obama's official "long-form" birth certificate. Sam had a great take on the issue in that the Obama birth certificate issue has actually been the longest running Clinton scandal.

Nevertheless, the question for me -- given the ease at which the White House got their grubby paws on and released the long-form birth certificate -- is what gives and why didn't they do this before?

I smell a thick trail of rank incompetence and William Jacobson agrees:

The ease with which the White House obtained the documents demonstrates the rank idiocy of the mainstream media, which has been feeding us a steady stream of excuses as to why Obama could not obtain the document.

Professor Jacobson is on to something here: the media-led frantic discussion on Obama's m.i.a. long-form birth certificate proves just how idiotic they are. And, they played right into the publicity whore Donald Trump's hand, giving him tens of millions of dollars of free promotion and airtime (but it was entertaining to watch him use the fools in the press as he did).

We can all breathe a deep sigh of relief and bask in the glory of today's historic moment, gather together and rejoice that everything is back to normal.

America -- he actually is one of us -- even though he hates our freedoms, founding principles, rich people, is bankrupting the nation, is surrounded by communists and czars, had communist parents and a communist childhood mentor, was a racist/socialist agitator crony in Chicago, attended and had his daughters baptized in a church that taught Marxist Black Liberation Theology, taught Alinksy's Rules for Radicals, declared his candidacy in the home of a domestic terrorist...(just to name a few).

Drumroll, please...

Photo of Obama's long-form birth certificate (hat tip to Legal Insurrection, click to embiggen):

And there you have it! America is now the place that I knew in my youth...

Cross posted to LCR, Rational Nation and Proof Positive. Discussion via Memeorandum.

Obama's War on the First Amendment

Would you like to share your political views with other Americans by making a private contribution to an organization that shares your perspective?

You have every right to do so! Right?

Congress shall make no law ... prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Watch out buddy. Congress may not be able to silence you, but Obama believes that he can:

The White House last week began circulating a draft executive order that would require companies seeking government contracts to disclose contributions -- including those that otherwise would have been secret -- to groups that air political ads attacking or supporting candidates...

Administration critics, including the powerful U.S. Chamber of Commerce, are seizing on the White House's draft executive order, in particular, as evidence of an attempt to use executive power to punish or silence political adversaries, while rewarding supporters.

Calling the draft executive order "an affront to the separation of powers ... (and) to free speech," chamber spokeswoman Blair Latoff said it "lays the groundwork for a political litmus test for companies that wish to do business with the federal government" and is "less about disclosure than intimidation."

I think the Chamber of Commerce is right. Remember this headline?

A War Of Lies Against The Chamber

And this one from the New York Times?

Is Obama’s War With U.S. Chamber of Commerce Over?

Of course the war isn't over. Bellicose Obama never ends his wars.

To the point, if King Obama doesn't monitor the political activities of his subjects, how will he know "whose ass to kick"? How will he be able to punish his enemies and reward his friends? How will his administration decide who will receive his coveted Weiner Waivers?

X-posted at LCR

Hey! Didn't you Know that Obama is a "moderate" Republican?

Teenage-faced useful idiot for the far-left cause
WaPo's Ezra Klein: in it so deep that rubber
galoshes are required

by the Left Coast Rebel

Via. Newsbusters:

Liberals are always trying to place themselves in the center. Washington Post business columnist Ezra Klein tried out the old saw on Tuesday that just as Bill Clinton described himself pejoratively as an “Eisenhower Republican,” Barack Obama isn’t a socialist, he’s a moderate Republican of the George H.W. Bush era:

Perhaps this is just the logical endpoint of two years spent arguing over what Barack Obama is — or isn’t. Muslim. Socialist. Marxist. Anti-colonialist. Racial healer. We’ve obsessed over every answer except the right one: President Obama, if you look closely at his positions, is a moderate Republican of the early 1990s. And the Republican Party he’s facing has abandoned many of its best ideas in its effort to oppose him.

If you put aside the emergency measures required by the financial crisis, three major policy ideas have dominated American politics in recent years: a plan that uses an individual mandate and tax subsidies to achieve near-universal health care; a cap-and-trade plan that attempts to raise the prices of environmental pollutants to better account for their costs; and bringing tax rates up from their Bush-era lows as part of a bid to reduce the deficit. In each case, the position that Obama and the Democrats have staked out is the very position that moderate Republicans have staked out before.

Klein has a huge “but” in this theory – if you leave out the massive stimulus program and TARP and taking over the auto industry, he’s not a socialist.

Ezra Klein (pictured in true form at the top of this post) has thrown down the gauntlet and gotten his useful-idiot marching orders to spread this "moderate" meme but like anything out of the press these days concerning Obama, the fiction is stranger than the truth.

In all fairness, Obama's undying affection for bankrupting debt, unpaid wars, bailouts et al. just throws steroids and jet fuel on top of the legacy of another: the disaster that we are in the midst of began in earnest under the profligate-presidency of George W. Bush (who was anything but a conservative or a moderate, but in actuality a big-government progressive himself).

But Obama The Moderate?

That's just the darndest-stupid thing I have read in a while, defies any semblance of logic, and is something only capable of a liberal academic head-in-the-sand type!

Ezra Klein was the teen-aged smiling face of Journolister (the 400+ press-only club that secretly got together to figure out how to trash the right and help elect Obama, among other things), so it figures that he is pushing this right now.

It's a not-so-subtle way of him saying, "hey, look, independents and swing voters, Obama's really not a far-left, South American-esque, saber-rattling class warrior!"

Will it work?

Cross posted to Proof Positive, Libertarian Patriot and Right Klik.

The European Tea Party

Around the world, conservatives are rising up. Their leftist counterparts are sore afraid. Der Spiegel reports:

The successes of right-wing populists could indeed exacerbate the smoldering euro crisis. Tensions between the wealthy countries in the north, who are contributing most to the bailouts, and the ailing debtor nations in the periphery already threaten to destroy the monetary union. If a European version of the American Tea Party movement develops, it could very well become the kiss of death for the euro.

The German publication describes European conservatives as divisive, dangerous, selfish, racist, suspicious, xenophobic simpletons who hate women.

Why does that description sound so familiar?

X-posted

Trig Palin Depicted With Gyrating Naked Stripper: The Lingering Legacy of Journolist

Vulgar, hate-filled leftists rarely need to demonstrate sincere contrition. Their statist comrades generally don't hold them accountable for their mischief, and conservatives often respond with a collective shrug.

The cost of barbaric left-wing behavior: almost zero.

A fresh bolus of sewage comes to us via Wonkette, a veritable cesspool of progressive diarrhea. Featuring an animated photoshop depiction of Trig Palin wearing a tiara in the presence of a butt-naked, pelvis-thrusting "sexy diva", the wankers at Wonkette wax obscene in a screed replete with references to bodily fluids and incest. Happy Birthday Trig:

What’s he dreaming about? Nothing. He’s retarded.

[...]

His mom went to a lot of trouble to leak amniotic fluid over 8 states to make sure that he arrived in this world somewhat alive,”

[...]

Enjoy yourself today, Trig. Have fun! Get drunk (on purpose this time)! We can hardly wait for 15 years from now, when you will finally be able to vote and will be sent off by your mother’s junta to fight the Union in the Great Alaska War. It’ll be quite a loss. You’re the smartest one in that family.

Whether you're a blogger or an opinion journalist or a drive-by concern troll, it's not okay to attack children, it's not okay to lie and make stuff up, and it's not okay to relish sick fantasies with your cohorts.

Unfortunately, in response to leftist transgressions big and small, conservatives often offer a limp-wristed response. Flashback to July, in the wake of the "Journolist" scandal. When democrat-friendly journalists from [supposedly] reputable news organizations were caught fabricating convenient narratives and confessing their violent urges, some conservatives were hardly roused from their somnolence:

There is something to keep in mind in this particular story, which is that the people involved in the specific conversations regarding the smear are all opinion journalists, and not people filling roles in objective reporting...

...to respond to some in the comments protesting that I’m downplaying this, it’s because there’s nothing wrong or unethical for journalists to converse with each other about current events and politics. There’s certainly nothing wrong with opinion journalists having opinions, either.

Opinion journalists are supposed inform readers with original, fact-based opinions, but they disgrace themselves when they propagandize with partisan, carefully orchestrated, fiction-based talking points. Moreover, it is wildly antithetical to the proported purpose of their profession to try to intimidate, demoralize and silence their opposition.

Thanks to lazy conservative watchdogs, the standard for professional journalism is now astonishingly low, and consequently, the ethical bar for informal blogging is subterranean.

As predicted by Edmund Burke's timeless observation, leftwingers relentlessly torture children who have made the unfortunate mistake of being born into conservative families. Radicals on the left have been emboldened by you and me and everyone else who fails to go into full-on ape$*!% mode every time the left shamelessly assaults the right.

This is the legacy of Journolist. The left-wing media "report" ― we run and hide.

Isn't it time to turn things around by raising the cost on the left of going after the right?

Update: Papa John's Pizza cuts ties with Wonkette (originally noted here).

Update II: Wonkette stabs Papa John in the back. Over. And over. And over again.

Update III: Good question.

Update IV: Sorry, Allah. Ignoring the tsunami of left-wing hate won't make it go away. Besides, why should the Palin kids be forced to try to ignore this crap?

Update V: Non appology from hate-filled troll blogger: I'm sorry you overreacted...

For those who came and are offended by this post: I’m sorry, of course. But I stand by my criticism of Sarah Palin using her child as a political prop.

When you defiantly refuse to accept the consequences of your barbaric behavior, we know you're REEEALY sorry:

(Click to enlarge)

Update VI: Papa Johns, Huggies, Vanguard Drop Ads on Blog Attacking Trig Palin

Update VII: A reader bought the domain name JackStuef.com, which now redirects to the National Down Syndrome Society donation page. Lemons into lemonade.

Update VIII: Boycott Wonkette

Update IX: Time Warner is still a major advertiser there. As is Jack in the Box.

Update X: Nordstrom's has pulled their ads as well. So has Holland America Cruise Lines.

Update XI: Tangentially related: "It turns out that amateurs, many of whom have far more expertise with respect to business, politics, the arts--you name it--than Tom Friedman and other pundits with newspaper columns can, almost for free, turn out exactly the same product that Friedman does. Only better."

Update XII: Hmmm...

More: Mediaite, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion, LifeNews, Weigel, Outside the Beltway, Big Journalism, Maggie's Notebook, Protein Wisdom & Memeorandum

Flashback: JournoList, Shame of a Nation

X-posted

GOP Leader Losing Crucial Conservative Support

If Republicans want to offer a clear alternative to the reckless shenanigans of the socialist democrat party, and more importantly, if Republicans want to play a role in pulling this country from the brink of financial ruin, they're on the wrong track.

The reliably conservative GOP loyalists at RedState are nearly fed up:

Just the other day I said the answer is “no” to the question “should the House GOP replace John Boehner.” The more we’ve found out about that budget deal, the more I think I might be wrong. Maybe we need Speaker Bachmann instead...

At a time when Republican leaders are trying to look “grown up” and “reasonable” in the eyes of the Washington Press Corps, Michele Bachmann is fighting the left.

Michele Bachmann is willing to pick a fight to replace Obamacare when John Boehner and Eric Cantor are willing to roll over. Bachmann is willing to pick a fight on the debt ceiling when the leadership is, even now, negotiating an increase in the debt ceiling while yet again selling out conservatives...

Yes, the Republican Party is screwing conservatives to the wall and giving the Tea Party the shaft. But much more tragically, they're selling out Americans who are too young to vote yet.

If today's Republican officeholders don't get their act together pronto, their future will not be bright. The Tea Party giveth, and the Tea Party taketh away. Remember Charlie Crist? Bob Bennett? Trey Grayson? Stinky Scozzafava?

X-posted

Senator Rand Paul is Right: Conservatives and Liberals Need to Both Compromise on Spending Cuts

by the Left Coast Rebel

Rand Paul appeared on CNN's "State of the Union" and implored both the left and right to make concessions and compromise on their pet spending issues to confront the nation's crushing debt. First, Republicans must take on the excess, waste and bloat of the Defense Department budget:

(CNN) “The compromise is for conservatives to admit that the military budget’s going to have to be cut,” Paul said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

And Rand calls for Democrats to (cringe) consider cutting the excess, wasted and bloat from domestic welfare spending:

“Liberals will have to compromise and will have to cut domestic welfare.”

Senator Paul also stood his ground on the upcoming debt ceiling battle:

When asked about the debt limit, the next major battle in Congress, Paul reiterated his stance that he would only vote for an increase in the $14.3 trillion limit if the legislation is passed with a balanced budget amendment and “say from here on out this is the last time we’re doing it.”

Here's Senator Rand Paul on the United States Senate floor on Friday, April 14, defending the Tea Party:


Rand is precisely the kind of leader that we need at this point.

More discussion at Memeorandum.
Rand Paul photo credit: Gage Skidmore at Flickr,

Cross posted to the Libertarian Patriot, Right Klik and Rational Nation.

Don't Feed The RINOs

via

Theoretically, there are numerous sensible reasons to support moderate, fence-sitting, two-faced, statist RINOs...

• Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
• Principles are overrated.
• National insolvency wouldn't be as bad as you think.
• The Constitution is over 100 years old.
• David Brooks and David Frum would think I'm cool.
• Rome wasn't built in a day.
• Etc.
• Or something...

But experience has been a brutal teacher:

Former Republican-turned-independent Gov. Charlie Crist gave $1,000 to the congressional campaign of Patrick Murphy, one of the Democrats who has opened a campaign for the seat of U.S. Rep. Allen West...

The contribution, dated March 30, is included in a Federal Election Commission report posted this afternoon by Murphy’s campaign.

Murphy’s political consultant, Eric Johnson, was an adviser to Crist’s failed independent campaign for Senate last year.

Please don't feed the RINOs!

More from Cubachi, Weasel Zippers, Scared Monkeys and Memeorandum.

Even More: 1000 Words

X-posted

Obama/Boehner Deal "Saves" Only $1 Per American

UPDATE: NEW HEADLINE... Republicans Looking to Increase Federal Budget Deficit by $3.3 Billion

The U.S. national debt is well over $14,000,000,000,000. The madcap officeholders in Washington have responded the problem with a new budget deal that cuts this fiscal year’s deficit by just $352 MILLION. That's MILLION with an "M", not BILLION with a "B".

Unfortunately, this is not a joke. Even the leftists at the Washington Post are aghast:

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

The Congressional Budget Office estimate shows that compared with current spending rates the spending bill due for a House vote Thursday would cut federal outlays from non-war accounts by just $352 million through Sept. 30...

$352 million dollars is about $1.14 per American.

Let me remind the folks at the Washington Post that Boehner originally promised $100 BILLION in cuts to out-of-control federal spending. Even that would have been a very modest down payment on our superastronomical debt. But now were down to 0.35% of the original promise (with cuts that amount to 0.0025% of the national debt).

Update: “total federal outlays will still rise by approximately $177 billion.” Yes, that says “rise” not “decrease.”

Update II: NRO: Strike One For John Boehner

Update III: My apologies. I was terribly wrong. Obama-Boehner Budget Adds $3.3 Billion to Deficit Rather than Saving $38 Billion

Update IV: Boehner losing Erickson

Memeorandum thread

X-posted

Boehner Can Tell The Chinese We're Never Going To Pay Them Back

Who will tell the Chinese that we're never going to pay them back? I Nominate John Boehner.

The U.S. national debt is well over $14,000,000,000,000. U.S. debt held by foreign countries is approaching $5,000,000,000,000. China holds about $1,200,000,000,000 of that debt.

U.S. national debt per taxpayer is over $128,000, and that's on top of about $52,000 of personal debt per citizen.

Do the math. There's no good reason to believe that America's debt problem will ever be solved. But of course that's old news...

The new news is that Republicans still don't care. That's not particularly surprising, but in the wake of the elections in November, it's very disappointing.

The miniscule spending cuts that have been proposed by Mr. Obama and his bosom buddies in the extremely moderate wing of the statist Republican Party don't take us anywhere near the level of spending prior to the ObamaBinge. And as Stacy McCain points out, John Boehner's recent budgetary "victory" was little more than smoke and mirrors.

To mix metaphors, the Democrats are taking us to Hell and the Republicans have furnished the handbasket. Thanks, Agent Orange!

PS: If you agree with me, you're an extremist. Reckless is the new "responsible."

X-posted

How about this guy for Senate Majority Leader?

Related thread at Memeorandum

UPDATE: RINOs lied, their credibility died.

UPDATE II: NRO: Strike One For John Boehner

UPDATE III: Budget Deal cuts deficit by $1.14 per American

It's Time John Boehner Goes Crying off into the Sunset and Retires to the Tanning Salon and Golf Course

by the Left Coast Rebel

Regardless of my busy schedule, I've been following the budget situation via a.m. talk radio in Los Angeles. As the week lumbered on and secret budget meetings commenced in D.C., I started to get the sinking feeling that we were (once again) getting royally screwed by Republican leadership; Weepy-Willow John Boehner taking center stage.

Consider this post Part I of many posts (and perhaps Daily Caller and Pajamas Media pieces) calling out the GOP's inept, mandate-betraying leadership, I will do so as emphatically and energetically as I chastised King Obama for his (at least honest) socialist ways.

Bullet points from the top of my head:

• The Republicans -- thanks to incompetent, weak leadership -- lost the messaging battle. This battle was budget, budget, budget, dollars, dollars, dollars, but the geniuses inserted "riders" into the budget, including one directed toward de-funding Planned Parenthood. I don't think that $1 of taxpayer money should go to Planned Parenthood (or funding abortion) but I also believe that inserting this and handing the narrative to the insane, infanticide-left was a stupid move and gave the left the perfect s the media-parroted "cuts against women" opportunity, especially since these guys had no ability (or cajones) to battle against the pr tsunami.
  
• Boehner must go. How in the world will this man (and Cantor, too) have the guts to go to bat for Paul Ryan's budget? I'm not buying the "be patient and wait until we have both houses of congress and the White House" line, either. Remember what that got the nation during the Bush/Republican congress of the early and mid-2000s. Consider this budget battle "compromise" the vetting process for future GOP leadership.
  
• More on Boehner. As CL below notes, Boehner championed TARP, No Child Left Behind, Prescription Drug Welfare and other massively unconservative initiatives which begs the question: How in the world did Weepy-Willow Boehner survive the November election?
  

Also read: At Redstate, "Eric Cantor and John Boehner Don't Really Want to Repeal Obamacare"

And at the Classic Liberal, "Speaker John Boehner"?

And at Another Black Conservative, "Historic Spending Cuts?"

Additional must-read posts at The Other McCain and Reaganite Republican. Via Memeorandum.

Obamacare: 6 Pages of Law Become 1,000 Pages of Regulation

A big eye-opener from our friends at Nealz Nuze:

In the 2700 pages of ObamaCare there are six pages that are devoted to something called "accountable care organizations." Somewhere in the bowels of the offices that house our wonderful Department of Health and Human Services we find a team of rule writers who were assigned the responsibility of writing the rules and regulations governing these six pages of ObamaCare. Tomorrow the work of these bureaucrats will see the light of day when HHS releases these rules. Would anybody care to guess just how many pages these rules will fill in the Federal Register? Try 1000. Yup, you got it! Six pages of ObamaCare are being transformed into 1000 new rules and regulations that will have to be followed by hospitals and doctors who formed networks for the delivery of patient care.

At that rate, we can expect ObamaCare to generate 450,000 pages of regulations. Sweet.

Even if every six pages of the health care law generates only one quarter of the regulations predicted by the example above, we can expect well over 100,000 pages of regulatory diarrhea from ObamaCare.

More

ACOs: A gold rush for high-priced lawyers and consultants.

Are ACOs A Financial Suicide Pact? "...with a plan like this, what could go wrong? Well, one thing that could go wrong is fiscal reality."

Update:

Hey, not so bad after all! ONLY 492 pages.

x-posted

Senator Rand Paul Rocks!

by the Left Coast Rebel

Senator-elect Rand Paul of Kentucky is impressing me more by the day. A recent incident (Thursday of this week) in the bowels of the United States upper chamber of Congress highlight Senator Paul's willingness to call out leadership on both sides of the aisle for lack of adherence to principles (or not having any principles, whatsoever).

Having said that, Harry Reid is an easy target on the Libya war issue and the National Review has the story:

Washington — Sen. Rand Paul (R., Ky.), a Tea Party favorite, has boxed Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) into a corner. After a quiet day of quorum calls and speeches, Reid abruptly adjourned the upper chamber Thursday and postponed votes until Monday. According to numerous Hill staffers, Paul deserves some credit for the impasse.

Here’s the back story: On Wednesday, Paul, with little notice, attached an amendment to the small-business re-authorization bill. The amendment, which chastises President Obama for his actions in Libya, urges members to adopt the president’s own words as “the sense of the Senate.”

To make his point, Paul quoted, in the legislative language, from Obama’s 2007 remarks on the subject: “The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.” According to Paul’s office, “the measure aims to put the Senate on record affirming Congress as the body with constitutional authority on matters of war.”

GOP sources tell National Review Online that Paul’s proposal flummoxed Reid, who does not want his members to have to weigh in on Obama’s dusty quote about congressional authority, even if the vote is only to table the measure. (Continue Reading)

I wish we had video of the incident above but Rand Paul's comments on the Senate floor the day before will do just fine:

Photo credit: Gage Skidmore, Flickr. Cross-posted to LCR, Rational Nation.