There’s got to be some way to create a legislative scorecard on committee votes.

Last month, House Republicans almost unanimously passed the “Ryan” budget resolution for FY 2013.  It established the topline discretionary spending level at $1.028 trillion, just $15 billion below last year’s levels and $19 billion below the cap set in the Budget [Out of] Control Act.  To put that in perspective, the discretionary spending level was as low as $933 billion in 2008 – pre-Obama.  We’re not exactly going back to the last century here.

Yet, even these modest cuts were too much for Obama.  Earlier this week, he threatened to veto any appropriations bill that reflects the spending figures in the Ryan budget as opposed to those working with the $1.047 cap of the BCA.  We would all expect Mitch McConnell to side with the House Republicans and the impregnable Ryan budget over Obama and Reid, right?

Wrong!

Yesterday, the Senate Appropriations Committee marked up an overall spending bill that sets the discretionary caps pursuant to the BCA – just like Obama demanded.  The vote? 27-2!  This from, CQ:

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As we’ve noted throughout the past year’s imbroglio over transportation spending, it is clear that complete federal control over transportation spending in a post-interstate highway era (post 1992) is inefficient, costly, anti-federalist, and precludes state and private innovations.  Yet, Congress continues to buckle down on a policy that has failed in recent years, exposing taxpayers to future bailouts and tax increases.  Worst of all, it will preclude states from dealing with their own infrastructure needs in the most efficient way.

On March 13, the Senate passed a massive 18-month $109 billion extension (S. 1813 Boxer-Inhofe stimulus), which creates new deficits, raises taxes, continues to fund 100% of mass transit, continues expensive Davis-Bacon rules, and provides no reforms.  After initially threatening to bring the Senate bill to the House, Boehner agreed to pass a 60-day extension until June 30.  The president signed the extension shortly before the Easter recess.  Now, House leadership wants to pass another “clean” extension until September 30.  But this extension is not so clean; it will be used as a vehicle to go to conference with the Senate over S. 1813, paving the road for a final product that will be heavily weighted towards the Senate bill (because the House has not passed their own detailed long-term bill).

Conservatives must oppose this bill and must demand that we hold off on a House-Senate conference until the full House passes a conservative transportation bill, providing us with the requisite leverage headed into conference.

As it turns out, the Senate bill is even worse than previously thought, yet if we allow the House to go to conference, this is the bill that will be agreed upon.  Here are some more problems with the Senate bill that have been uncovered in recent weeks:

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As we’ve noted throughout the past year’s imbroglio over transportation spending, it is clear that complete federal control over transportation spending in a post-interstate highway era (post 1992) is inefficient, costly, anti-federalist, and precludes state and private innovations.  Yet, Congress continues to buckle down on a policy that has failed in recent years, exposing taxpayers to future bailouts and tax increases.  Worst of all, it will preclude states from dealing with their own infrastructure needs in the most efficient way.

On March 13, the Senate passed a massive 18-month $109 billion extension (S. 1813 Boxer-Inhofe stimulus), which creates new deficits, raises taxes, continues to fund 100% of mass transit, continues expensive Davis-Bacon rules, and provides no reforms.  After initially threatening to bring the Senate bill to the House, Boehner agreed to pass a 60-day extension until June 30.  The president signed the extension shortly before the Easter recess.  Now, House leadership wants to pass another “clean” extension until September 30.  But this extension is not so clean; it will be used as a vehicle to go to conference with the Senate over S. 1813, paving the road for a final product that will be heavily weighted towards the Senate bill (because the House has not passed their own detailed long-term bill).

Conservatives must oppose this bill and must demand that we hold off on a House-Senate conference until the full House passes a conservative transportation bill, providing us with the requisite leverage headed into conference.

As it turns out, the Senate bill is even worse than previously thought, yet if we allow the House to go to conference, this is the bill that will be agreed upon.  Here are some more problems with the Senate bill that have been uncovered in recent weeks:

Read More →

Over the past few weeks, Obama has exhibited the intensity of a Navy SEAL in his execution of class warfare.  He is trying to convince everyone that those who earn 17% of Adjusted Gross Income, yet pay 36.7% of federal income taxes don’t pay anything, while those who pay little or no taxes shoulder the entire tax burden.  Obama will continue to toss out misinformation throughout the campaign about all these billionaires that supposedly pay little in taxes.

While he is prosecuting his class jihad, we should remind him of these facts and figures:

• Obama has accrued more debt in 3 ½ years than Bush did in 8 years – and Bush was a big spender.  When President Bush was sworn in on January 20, 2001, the total federal debt stood at $5.728 trillion.  On January 20, 2009, the day he left office, the debt had increased to $10.629 trillion, a jump of $4.9 trillion.  Just 38 months later, the debt has increased another $4.992 trillion to a grand total of $15.621 trillion (as of April 9)!
• Amazingly, $4.577 trillion, or 91% of Obama’s debt increase comes from the public share of the debt, which now stands at $10.88 trillion.
• We are on pace to breach the $16.394 trillion debt limit before the November elections.  That means that he will have amassed almost (or more than) $6 trillion in debt by the time he, God willing, leaves office next January.  It took from our country’s founding until 2002 to amass $6 trillion in debt.
• The debt has increased $1.327 trillion in the past 9 months since we “solved” the debt crisis with the Budget Control Act.  That’s about as much as the top 1% of income earners make in 12 months.
• When Obama took office, the gross federal debt was 76.5% of GDP, while the public share of the debt stood at 45% of GDP.  Now, those numbers stand at 102% and 71% respectively.
• The debt per taxpayer stands at $137,751, up from $89,330 just 4 years ago.
• The monthly deficit for this past February was a record $232 billion.  We didn’t start accruing annual deficits of $230 billion until this past decade.
• In February, we spent $335 billion in 29 days.  It comes out to $11.5 billion per day; $480 million per hour.

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Over the past few weeks, Obama has exhibited the intensity of a Navy SEAL in his execution of class warfare.  He is trying to convince everyone that those who earn 17% of Adjusted Gross Income, yet pay 36.7% of federal income taxes don’t pay anything, while those who pay little or no taxes shoulder the entire tax burden.  Obama will continue to toss out misinformation throughout the campaign about all these billionaires that supposedly pay little in taxes.

While he is prosecuting his class jihad, we should remind him of these facts and figures:

• Obama has accrued more debt in 3 ½ years than Bush did in 8 years – and Bush was a big spender.  When President Bush was sworn in on January 20, 2001, the total federal debt stood at $5.728 trillion.  On January 20, 2009, the day he left office, the debt had increased to $10.629 trillion, a jump of $4.9 trillion.  Just 38 months later, the debt has increased another $4.992 trillion to a grand total of $15.621 trillion (as of April 9)!
• Amazingly, $4.577 trillion, or 91% of Obama’s debt increase comes from the public share of the debt, which now stands at $10.88 trillion.
• We are on pace to breach the $16.394 trillion debt limit before the November elections.  That means that he will have amassed almost (or more than) $6 trillion in debt by the time he, God willing, leaves office next January.  It took from our country’s founding until 2002 to amass $6 trillion in debt.
• The debt has increased $1.327 trillion in the past 9 months since we “solved” the debt crisis with the Budget Control Act.  That’s about as much as the top 1% of income earners make in 12 months.
• When Obama took office, the gross federal debt was 76.5% of GDP, while the public share of the debt stood at 45% of GDP.  Now, those numbers stand at 102% and 71% respectively.
• The debt per taxpayer stands at $137,751, up from $89,330 just 4 years ago.
• The monthly deficit for this past February was a record $232 billion.  We didn’t start accruing annual deficits of $230 billion until this past decade.
• In February, we spent $335 billion in 29 days.  It comes out to $11.5 billion per day; $480 million per hour.

Read More →

I was speaking with a co-worker the other day as she explained her issues with her new mortgage lender. It seems that her previous lender sold her loan, and now it has taken several months and multiple phone calls to get her payment plan set back up the way she wanted it before. It occurred to me awhile later that her frustration explains an awful lot about why liberals so often choose government over the private sector, and it has a lot to do with why we’re such fast-food junkies in this country.

The conclusion I’ve come to is that government is preferred by liberals because of the franchise phenomenon. A “franchise” is a business that offers a consistently similar service in multiple locations (although often, single-location businesses attempt to use franchise techniques). Examples include H&R Block for tax services, Jiffy Lube for automotive care, Chili’s for family dining and of course every health-nut’s whipping boy McDonald’s for fast food. In particular, government is reminiscent of fast food.

Think about it this way: Most people agree that fast food is unhealthy and the quality is relatively poor, especially when compared to home-cooked meals or fine dining. However, there are three basic components of fast food that keep people coming back:

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I am often surprised that the Democratic Party is so openly hostile toward conservatives about their faith, since their beliefs require so much. This week’s bully pulpit (but not bull market) sermon comes courtesy of TIME magazine, specifically from Deacon Bill Saporito and Sister Rana Foroohar. (The 97-lb. Recovery, April 2, 2012) Foroohar’s normal column is printed under the title of The Curious Capitalist, which is snarky liberalism at its best and worst. To say she is a Keynesian is to say Glenn Beck is passionate and faithful, and Keith Olbermann is overbearing and arrogant.

In the very first paragraph of the article, the party line manages to slip out, and it is as follows: You are too stupid to notice there is a recovery going on around you. The exact quote is, “Given that…unemployment is still above 8%, you’d be forgiven for not noticing that there’s been a rebound-until, maybe, now”. That’s genius with a capital D. And they cite fantastic evidence to support their claims, such as the stock market hitting new highs, out-of-work claims at four year lows, and consumer-confidence figures ticking up. We’re back, baby, and badder than ever! The only thing missing now is a Joe Biden economic gaffe.

Yup.

But there are just a few problems with the logic. Now I understand there are more than a few problems with Keynesian logic, but I’m just talking about those statements and assertions she cites as evidence of a recovery. The first is the assessment of consumer confidence. As of this writing, which is the exact same date on the cover of the magazine, the Consumer Confidence Index is down by 1.4 points from February to March of this year. This reminds of two things: The first is the idea of liberal elitism and observation bias, and the second is the gravity the political left places on what “plays well” from President Obama’s speeches on the economy. Chuck Todd recently stated that media liberals suffer from a geographical, not ideological, bias. (You can read that here) Combined with the observations by your Keynesian Clergy, the implication is they think we’re stupid for not seeing the recovery. And they were smart enough to live in areas such as D.C. or New York that never saw the recession in the first place. Also, the notion of what “plays well” is absolutely critical to leftist ideology. This is an election year, and we have a professional campaigner as an incumbent, so everything is viewed through the prism of whether it helps or hinders that effort, and one of the “unbiased” media observations regarding the dip in President Obama’s polling numbers was the idea that telling Americans the economy had recovered was a no-no. (Article here) See, they still have buy gas and groceries, so it rings a little hollow to cheer your efforts in light of that inconvenient truth. So now, the administration has to convince Americans that we are in a soft recovery, or a jobless recovery, or that the recession has bottomed out, without sounding too optimistic. We’re a little back, Mr. President, but don’t tell us we’re back. Remember the caricature of Bush as the eternal optimist in spite of the truth? I’m no Hindu, but the concept of karma is really starting to make inroads into my beliefs.

As for the other numbers, jobless claims and the stock market, they are deceptive, at best. The administration’s tinkering with the unemployment figures is well-documented, but often left out of the conversation is this: Employment grows and declines in spurts, not in a straight line. It makes sense from a macro perspective. Good news for the national economic outlook is not compartmentalized into sectors of the economy, as the TIME piece suggests, and so growth occurs in short bursts. Without getting too wonkish, here’s what that means: One month’s data, or even a cluster of data, does not always a trend indicate. (You can read the source for that here) But there is TIME magazine, carrying the economic water for the administration in its half-full bucket of pure optimism. And as far as the stock market goes, wasn’t there a President who said we can’t look to the stock market’s gyrations as an indicator of economic health? And wasn’t he, like, really smart?

The piece is designed to ease America’s fears that the economy might actually have established a “new normal” of 8% unemployment and GDP propped up by government spending, rather than investment, trade, and consumption. But the idea and message, like the people who wrote it, have no basis in reality. The average American has seen a 9% drop in their spending power during the Obama administration, and that is real to them. The stock market is not. They have seen real inflation (factoring in food and gas prices) at 8%, even though Paul Krugman swears this is not happening. The political left is going to have to face reality, which is something they hate. They are going to have to admit to themselves that they are the only ones trying to force good news down the throat of a terminally ill patient. This is a sad analogy, I understand, but I did not put them in this situation. They built this house of cards themselves. Since Obamacare is on the political horizon these days, let’s look at it like this: We have not yet fully recovered from this malignant recession, and it is too soon to declare victory over it. At best, we are showing signs of remission, but here’s the problem: We have not stopped the behavior that gave us the tumor in the first place, and we are actually increasing its frequency and scale. The most bitter irony in all of this is that we are being forced to continue this fatal behavior by elected politicians (Obama, Reid) and unelected bureaucrats alike (Bernanke, Geithner). I guess those “death panels” aren’t just for healthcare anymore. -JK

Joseph Kurt is the Unceremonious Master of Ceremonies. He would first like to apologize for the inabililty to indent paragraphs in WordPress. He is the host of The Joseph Kurt Show on NewsRadio 94.3WSC on Saturdays at 6pm in the Holy City of Charleston, S.C. He is also the host of the Charleston Tea Party Podcast. He actually managed to scare himself while writing this.

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Here’s a headline you won’t see in the media this week: we incurred the largest monthly deficit on record in February.

Seven months into a government “reined in” by the Budget Control Act, we are supposed to be reaping the benefits of budget reduction.  Yet, according to CBO, we incurred a gargantuan $229 billion $232 billion deficit in the month of February.  The conservative Washington Times was the only publication to note that this was the largest monthly deficit on record.  Keep in mind that we didn’t start accruing annual deficits of $230 billion until this past decade.  The preliminary estimates from CBO projected outlays at $335 billion and revenues at $103 billion.  Our total deficit for the first 5 months of fiscal year 2012 is $631 billion ($869 billion in revenue; $1.5 trillion in outlays).

Think for a moment about what it means to spend $335 billion in 29 days.  It comes out to $11.5 billion per day; $480 million per hour.  So the next time Congress deliberates over a few billion in spending cuts over the course of a month, remember that we will add several hundred billion more in debt during the course of the debate.

What is so astounding about the record monthly deficit is that it comes amidst a recovery in the job market and an overall increase in revenues.  Due to quirks in the scheduling of government payments, February is always a bad month; nevertheless, even during the worst months of the recession, we never suffered such a large budget deficit.  In February 2009, the monthly deficit checked in at $193.8 trillion.  At a time when tax receipts are increasing again (corporate tax receipts are up 56%), we should not be racking up such high deficits.  Hence, it is incontrovertibly clear that we don’t have a revenue problem; we have a spending problem, most prominently, an entitlement and welfare problem.

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