President Obama’s Deficit Problem
[Townhall.com]
Kevin Glass
Managing Editor, Townhall.com
Jan 20, 2013 03:38 PM EST
Republicans are reportedly ready to vote to hike the debt ceiling without any of the major deficit-related concessions they’ve been pushing for from Democrats, and budget-watchers will soon turn their attention to the looming sequestration spending cuts (from the Budget Control Act, or BCA) scheculed to take place on March 1 and the expiration of the continuing resolution budget that the federal government has been operating on, scheduled to take place March 28.Progressives, however, have been declaring the deficit problem “mostly solved.” A report from the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities found that, including all BCA cuts and the additional tax revenues from the January 1 fiscal cliff legislation, the U.S. is close to being on a stable ten-year budget path.
Without teleprompter, Condoleezza Rice brings GOP faithful to their feet
[DailyCaller.com]
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TAMPA, Fla. — Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice rallied the GOP faithful at the Republican National Convention with a barn-burner speech Wednesday night.
The only speaker of the convention thus far to take the podium without the assistance of a teleprompter, Rice spoke of the challenges facing the country, both foreign and domestic, and the need for a leader.
Commencing with an anecdote about the events of Sept. 11, 2001, Rice transitioned to the economic crisis and turmoil abroad. She pointed out that around the world people ask “Where does America stand?” only to find that the answer is ambiguous. To Rice, the country is in need of leadership.
“I know too that there is a weariness I know there is a sense that we have carried these burdens long enough,” she said, noting that the country has no other choice by to be a leader, because “either nobody will lead and there will be chaos or someone else will who does not share our values. We do not have a choice. We cannot be reluctant to lead — and you cannot lead from behind.” Rice asserted that Romney and Ryan are the ones who can lead.
Getting Rid of the ‘Likable’ President
American [Spectator.org]
By Andrew B. Wilson – August 29, 2012 @ 6:08AM
Or is he just an “untouchable” member of the Ruling Class?
Barack Obama floats like a butterfly, even if he lacks the verbal facility to sting like a bee. He was lucky to draw the befuddled John McCain as his opponent in the 2008 presidential race. Rather than exposing Obama’s bloated ego to the ridicule that it so richly deserved, McCain decided to make nice — adding his voice to the hosanna chorus greeting the young Messiah. “And, finally, a word to Senator Obama and his supporters,” McCain said in his acceptance speech at the Republican National convention. “We’ll go at it over the next two months — you know the nature of this business — and there are big differences between us. But you have my respect and my admiration.”
Obama’s Middle Class Tax Hikes
[RedState.com]
Posted by: Daniel Horowitz (Diary)
Tuesday, July 10th at 12:00PM EDT
While Obama is prosecuting a flaccid war overseas and apologizing for our troops when they defend against Taliban attacks, he is fighting a no-holds-barred class war at home. Once again, Obama has announced that he will orchestrate the largest tax hike in American history on those earning more than $200,000. After all, taxing the rich is a great way to raise revenue; it worked so well in Maryland. Oh, wait.
But fear not, he will renew the Bush tax cuts on those earning under $200,000, while repackaging them as his own tax cuts.
There’s one problem with Obama’s assertion that he hasn’t raised taxes on the middle class. YOU LIE! Government regulations and interventions that Obama supports will raise the cost of living on the middle class for the most vital goods and services. Those higher costs will trump any savings they actualize as a result of the tax cut extension. Oh, and there’s one other problem. He’s forgetting about the massive tax increase on all those who don’t purchase government-approved health insurance.
In that vein, let’s review some of the hidden [or not so hidden] tax increases on the “middle class” that Obama has orchestrated:
Recovery? Half of American Households Living on Government Benefits
[Townhall.com]
Kate Hicks – Web Editor, Townhall.com
May 26, 2012 12:43 PM EST
Some astoundingly grim news on the “economic recovery” front: half of American households are receiving government funds to support themselves. No matter which way you slice it, this number isn’t good news for the Obama administration — they can spin the jobs numbers by ignoring the number of people who dropped out of the workforce, but this statistic is pretty straightforward.
The 49.1% of the population in a household that gets benefits is up from 30% in the early 1980s and 44.4% as recently as the third quarter of 2008.
The increase in recent years is likely due in large part to the lingering effects of the recession. As of early 2011, 15% of people lived in a household that received food stamps, 26% had someone enrolled in Medicaid and 2% had a member receiving unemployment benefits. Families doubling up to save money or pool expenses also is likely leading to more multigenerational households. But even without the effects of the recession, there would be a larger reliance on government.
CNN Poll: 59% Believe Obama’s Policies Will Fail
[HotAir.com]
posted at 10:05 am on October 18, 2011 by Ed Morrissey
It’s hard to know what to make of this release from the latest CNN poll. Barack Obama continues to run underwater on overall job approval in the CNN poll, improving slightly since early September’s 43/55 to 46/50 today. However, American confidence in his policies hit a new low — well below his approval rating:
A CNN/ORC International Poll released Monday indicates that 46% of the public approves of the job the president is doing in the White House, basically unchanged from September, with 50% saying they disapprove of how he is handling his duties. …
According to the survey, 36% say they think the president’s policies will succeed, with 59% saying Obama’s policies will fail, up 12 points from last year and nearly double the 32% who said in 2009 that the president’s policies will fail. Most Democrats and independent voters say they hope Obama’s policies will succeed. But a majority of Republicans say they hope Obama’s policies will fail.
Candidate Obama’s Class Warfare
[HumanEvents.com]
Forget trying to govern. President Obama has gone all in on class warfare.
Don’t expect any of his stimulus or deficit-cutting ideas to pass Congress. They’re not designed to pass in a House controlled by Republicans. They’re designed to pit middle-class and poor voters against job creators and the Tea Party’s low-tax philosophy.
The President’s legislative plan to stimulate the economy is a miniature version of his failed stimulus plan. Congress won’t pass another expensive bailout of the states and giveaway to Big Labor wholly funded with higher taxes.
Obama’s submission to the Super Committee contains $3 trillion in gimmicks and tax increases over the next 10 years, which will purportedly slice $3 trillion off the national debt. He claims a “cut” of more than $1 trillion in connection to the planned wind-down of the conflict in Afghanistan and Iraq. Obama raises $1.5 trillion with most of that new revenue on the backs of individuals making more than $200,000 and families making in excess of $250,000.
Zuckerman: America has a competency crisis in the White House
HotAir.com
Earlier today, we had the unusual instance of a politician endorsing a former opponent for the Presidency. In today’s Wall Street Journal, we have the somewhat less rare instance of a former supporter arguing against his earlier endorsement. Mort Zuckerman has already made it clear that he regrets his decision to back Barack Obama on a number of occasions over the last thirteen months, and now he wonders whether Obama has the competency to address the national malaise at all. In fact, Zuckerman accuses Obama of having only one plan:
It is no surprise that many have begun to doubt the president’s leadership qualities. J.P. Morgan calls it the “competency crisis.” The president is not seen fighting for his own concrete goals, nor finding the right allies, especially leaders of business big or small. Instead, his latent hostility to the business community has provoked a mutual response of disrespect. This is lamentable given the unique role that small business especially plays in creating jobs.
Markets Suffer Global Turmoil
Financial Times
August 18, 2011 7:07 pm
By Richard Milne in London
Benchmark US borrowing costs fell below 2 per cent for the first time in at least 60 years as markets took fright at increasing signs of global economic weakness.
US 10-year Treasury bonds, the linchpin of the global financial system used to price many assets around the world, yielded as little as 1.97 per cent on Thursday, their lowest since April 1950, according to Global Financial Data.
There were also savage falls for German and British borrowing costs, which hit record lows.
“It is a moment. Why can’t Treasury yields have a 1 per cent handle given where growth is?” said Steven Major, global head of fixed income research at HSBC.
The catalyst for the latest bout of risk aversion – which saw stock markets plunge globally and gold hit another record high – was weaker-than-expected US manufacturing and unemployment data. That came on top of a slew of bad growth numbers from Europe as well as rising fears about the funding of European banks.
What Obama will do on his summer “vacation” — write a jobs plan
HotAir.com
The Washington Post reports that Barack Obama will go back to the drawing board during his vacation* this month and draw up a plan to stimulate job creation. At least that’s what Obama has promised, along with a deficit reduction plan that he has promised since April:
President Obama has decided to press Congress for a new round of stimulus spending and tax cuts as he seeks to address the great domestic policy quandary of his tenure: how to spur job growth in an age of austerity.
Obama will lay out a series of ideas in a major address right after Labor Day, when he and a largely antagonistic Congress will return from vacation, the White House said Wednesday.
The president is thinking about proposing tax cuts for companies that hire workers, new spending for roads and construction, and other measures that would target the long-term unemployed, according to administration officials and other people familiar with the matter. Some ideas, such as providing mortgage relief for struggling homeowners, could come through executive action.
Obama also plans to announce a major push for new deficit reduction, urging the special congressional committee formed in the debt-ceiling deal this month to identify even more savings than the $1.5 trillion it has been tasked with finding.
In other words, we’re going to get more of the same policies we got in Porkulus in 2009. Obama will offer short-term gimmicks to get short-term boosts in spending, go back to the “shovel-ready” projects that even Obama finally admitted were a mirage, and offer more public safety-net spending while calling it a “stimulus.” The fact that we’re headed into another recession clearly showed these Keynesian gimmicks as failures seems to have escaped Obama’s attention.
Investors Business Daily’s John Merline gives a better diagnosis of the real problem holding back investment and growth:
If the federal government’s regulatory operation were a business, it would be one of the 50 biggest in the country in terms of revenues, and the third largest in terms of employees, with more people working for it than McDonald’s, Ford, Disney and Boeing combined.
Under President Obama, while the economy is struggling to grow and create jobs, the federal regulatory business is booming.
Regulatory agencies have seen their combined budgets grow a healthy 16% since 2008, topping $54 billion, according to the annual “Regulator’s Budget,” compiled by George Washington University and Washington University in St. Louis.
That’s at a time when the overall economy grew a paltry 5%.
Meanwhile, employment at these agencies has climbed 13% since Obama took office to more than 281,000, while private-sector jobs shrank by 5.6%.
John also gives us the Chart of the Day, showing the growth in regulatory agencies over the last 18 months:
Gore, Reid and More of Stimulus’ Biggest Bust: Obama’s Perfect September Storm
BigGovernment.com
Posted Aug 12th 2011 at 1:45 pm
This WaPo article — “Obama tries to change subject back to green jobs” — is an instant classic of a new, Obama-era genre: cheerleading for expensive schemes which exist solely due to political whimsy and consideration, and are therefore little more than make-work.
The item begins, “After spending weeks talking about topics he probably would have preferred to avoid — debt limits, deficits, a plunging stock market — President Obama will hit the road Thursday to talk about jobs. Specifically, about how his administration is trying to create more of them.”
The green ones. Which schemes failed where the president used to tell us to look but no longer does because the failures were exposed. As his spokesman admits “the White House doesn’t create jobs”.
And his critics say he’s out of ideas! But, hmm. Yes. I suppose that ‘green jobs’ thing went over well last time he led with it. Still, if ending up as a punch-line is victory, what does defeat look like?
More to the point, how much would whatever constitutes defeat cost us? Because WaPo says about this, the Obama administration’s chosen, sterling example of the economy they seek to design (what happened to telling us to look to Spain?), in return for $305 million in cited wealth transfers, “All told, the company has said its advanced battery operations could create 500 new positions.”
That is, this rosy, nice round-numbered scenario of ‘could’ (read: unlikely), produce temporary jobs — that is, they all disappear when the wealth transfer and/or mandates or preferences are burned through — at $610,000 per.
Christopher Prandoni: Obama Uses Debt Crisis to Raise Taxes
BigGovernment.com
Posted July 14, 2011 at 4:03 pm [REPOST: July 22, 2011]
After months of sitting on the sidelines, President Obama has injected himself into debt limit talks. Unfortunately, the president’s proposals are anything but novel—tax increases on oil and natural gas companies—and are unlikely to break the current impasse. Tax hikes are a non-starter for Republicans—the GOP has no interest in helping Obama fund his over-sized government that now consumes 25 percent of GDP.
Just a thought experiment, is raising oil and natural gas companies taxes a good way to address the deficit? Obama seems to think so. After all, the president decries oil and natural gas companies every chance he gets. Like yesterday, when he said:
“What we have talked about is that starting in 2013, that we have gotten rid of some of these egregious loopholes that are benefiting corporate jet owners or oil companies at a time where they’re making billions of dollars of profits. What we have said is as part of a broader package we should have revenues, and the best place to get those revenues are from folks like me who have been extraordinarily fortunate, and that millionaires and billionaires can afford to pay a little bit more.”
Boehner Walks Out of Budget Talks with Obama
BigGovernment.com
Posted Jul 22nd 2011 at 4:44 pm
by Publius
From the Associated Press:
House Speaker John Boehner abruptly broke off talks with President Barack Obama Friday night on a deal to cut federal spending and avert a threatened government default, sending compromise efforts into an instant crisis.
Within minutes, an obviously peeved Obama virtually ordered congressional leaders to the White House for a Saturday meeting on raising the nation’s debt limit. “We’ve got to get it done. It is not an option not to do it,” he declared.
For the first time since negotiations began, he declined to offer assurances, when asked, that default would be avoided. Moments later, however, he said he was confident of that outcome.
At a news conference of his own a short while later, Boehner said, “I want to be entirely clear. No one wants default.”
Mr. President, Here’s that Balanced Approach You Keep Demanding
BigGovernment.com
by Dan Mitchell
Posted Jul 16th 2011 at 7:50 am
At his press conference Friday, President Obama repeatedly said that a “balanced approach” is needed to deal with the fiscal situation.
Here’s a chart based on those OMB and CBO numbers.
The White House has obviously poll-tested and focus-grouped that phrase. But just because it’s gimmicky, that doesn’t mean balance is a bad idea. So I’ve decided to take the President’s challenge.
I want to know why America’s fiscal situation is so out of whack. I’m willing to take a dispassionate look at the numbers. And if those figures show that the President is right, and that “unaffordable tax cuts” have caused higher deficits, then I’m willing to support higher revenues (after all, I am a pragmatic, middle-of-the-road guy).
My first step was to go the White House website and track down the historical data from the President’s Office of Management and Budget.
Those numbers show that federal spending, on average, consumed 19.8 percent of GDP from 1950-2000.
Paul Ryan: Oh, you’d better believe I’m thinking about running for Herb Kohl’s Senate seat
HotAir.com
“In over two decades of service in the Senate, Herb Kohl has done much to help the great state of Wisconsin and the lives of its residents. While Senator Kohl and I have had our policy disagreements in the past, he has always had my respect. It has been a privilege to work with him over the years, and I wish him the best in his future endeavors. I was surprised by Senator Kohl’s announcement and want to take some time over the next few days to discuss this news with my family and supporters before making any decision about how I’m best able to serve my employers in the First Congressional District, our state and nation.”
Treasury Report Outlines Path for Winding Down Fannie, Freddie
FoxNews.com
Associated Press
Published February 11, 2011
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration laid out three broad options Friday for reducing the government’s role in the mortgage market. All three would almost certainly lead to higher interest rates and costs for borrowers.
The administration said in a report that the government should withdraw its support for the mortgage market slowly, over five years or more. The report describes a path for winding down the troubled mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Will the 112th Congress Finally Get It Right?
Newsbusters.org
By Chuck Norris | January 04, 2011 | 00:01
Incoming House Speaker John Boehner and his Republican colleagues are intensely aware of public fury over how Congress operates. But following a lame-duck Congress that continued with business as usual, will this new Congress finally get it right?As the 112th Congress officially convenes this week, the questions most of us have on our minds are: Will it finally…
—Reduce government spending?
—Reduce the national deficit?
—Reduce the national debt?
—Reduce earmarks and pork?
—Reduce briberies by lobbyists and special interests?
—Reduce Americans’ taxes?
—Reduce illegal immigration?
—Reduce our foreign entanglements?
—Reduce government overreach into our lives?
—Reduce government lying, cheating and corruption?
—Reduce constitutional disobedience?
…And so stabilize the nation and economy?
Debt reduction versus government reduction
HotAir.com
posted at 5:41 pm on December 1, 2010 by J.E. Dyer
printer-friendly
It isn’t surprising, when you think about it, that the president’s debt-reduction commission has come out with a plan that proposes to inflict the greatest pain on contributor benefits (Social Security and Medicare), household budgets, and national defense. The commission was asked to propose ways to reduce debt. It wasn’t asked to rethink the size, scope, or charter of government.
If the latter had been its assigned objective, the panel might have come up with proposals that don’t concentrate most of the pain of sustaining our current level of government on middle-class household budgets and small businesses. There is no question we need to deal with our spiraling debt, but what the debt-reduction panel has published today is a good example of an outcome based on biased assumptions.
U.S. Deficit Commission Recommends Changes to Social Security
FoxNews.com
Published November 10, 2010
AP – A draft proposal by the deficit commission suggests curbing Social Security benefits and raising the retirement age.
A draft proposal by the deficit commission suggests curbing Social Security benefits and raising the retirement age.
The co-chairmen of the panel appointed by President Obama to cut the U.S. deficit recommend raising the retirement age to 68. It is currently 67 years for retirees to receive full benefits. The panel leaders also propose reducing the annual cost-of-living increases in Social Security.
The increase to age 68 would be implemented by 2050 and then would increase again to 69 by 2075. A “hardship exception” would be provided for certain occupations where older retirement would be unrealistic.
According to a source who spoke to Fox News, the 18-member panel led by former Wyoming Republican Sen. Alan Simpson and former Clinton Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles, also may propose reducing the base rate on corporate taxes, phasing in spending cuts over time, reducing foreign aid by $4.6 billion, freezing federal salaries for three years and banning congressional earmarks. It is unclear how the commissioners would define a congressional earmark.
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