Category: Budget

All You Need To Know About Why McConnell’s Plan Is A Soup Sandwich

Posted on Comments

by Smitty (h/t Memeorandum)

Harry Reid thinks it’s swell.

“He spent a great deal of time working on this. I commend him for his thoughtful and unique proposal, something that we have to look at very closely,” Reid, a Nevada Democrat, said on the Senate floor. “I’m heartened by what I read. This is a serious proposal, and I commend the Republican leader for coming forward with it.”

That’s like having Jack Kevorkian endorse your funeral arrangements.
In defense of McConnell, he can no longer be said to have failed to provide a suggestion.
I can get a little stronger: maybe he’s just trolling. Throwing out a little bait to see what the blowback is like in the dextrosphere. In that case, one hopes that the napalm shower is sufficient for all the GOP to realize that this is the time, this is the place to stick a fork in this Progressive beast.

Obama Declares Moral Bankruptcy: ‘No Social Security Checks Next Month!’

Posted on Comments

A political limbo dance: How low can he go?

President Obama on Tuesday said he cannot guarantee that retirees will receive their Social Security checks August 3 if Democrats and Republicans in Washington do not reach an agreement on reducing the deficit in the coming weeks.


(Via Memeorandum.)

Doug Powers: “Hopefully Social Security recipients are familiar with chess, because they’re now officially pawns in the president’s debt ceiling game.”

UPDATE: Who can we count on to spin it exactly the way Democrats want to spin it? Alan Colmes:

Social Security, Veteran, Disabililty Checks
In Peril If Republicans Won’t Agree To Deal

Read that headline carefully and ask yourself, what’s missing? Democrats.

Democrats are insisting that there can be no budget deal unless the deal includes tax increases. Yet Obama and the Democrats want to spin this (as Colmes obligingly does) as a story about Republican intransigence.

It is Republicans, they want you to believe, who are imperiling Granny’s pension check, because Republicans “won’t agree to a deal.” And in their coverage of this negotiation, it is vitally important to the liberal media that Granny never be encouraged to ask herself one question: “Why are Democrats insisting on a tax increase?”

UPDATE II: Don Surber has the budget facts. The facts are not friendly to Obama and Democrats, which is why they’re lying.

That Mr. G Guy: “Well, at least he isn’t trying to use our troops as hostages again.” Not today. Maybe tomorrow. Be patient and enjoy the show. I’m sure Democrats and the media (but I repeat myself) have got this kabuki dance choreographed all the way to the end.

UPDATE III: Michelle Malkin has a “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot” reaction to Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell’s offer of pre-emptive Republican surrender.

UPDATE IV: The all-purpose punchline of an era: “They told me if I voted for John McCain . . . the President would stop paying social security to our most vulnerable elderly and disabled Americans — and they were right!”

UPDATE V: Linked by Bob Belvedere a t Camp of the Saints and by Andrea Shea King at the Radio Patriot — thanks!

UPDATE VI: Linked by The Lonely Conservative — thanks!

PREVIOUSLY:

Will Althouse Praise ‘His Steely Nerve, His Intelligence, and His Groundedness’?

Posted on Comments

“In a 75-minute meeting Sunday night, President Obama once again demanded that more than $1 trillion in tax increases be part of any deficit reduction package attached to a vote on the debt ceiling. In the session, Obama rejected a Republican proposal to seek $2.5 trillion in spending cuts and reforms, and insisted on higher taxes on businesses and wealthy individuals. . . .”
— Stephen F. Hayes, The Weekly Standard

Cthulhu 2012

Posted on Comments

“Why settle for the lesser evil?”

Sarah Palin on the current evil in Washington:

It’s a matter of public record that I did not go to Harvard Law School, but I can add.
The same “experts” who got us into this mess are now telling us that the only way out of our debt crisis is to “increase revenue,” but not by creating more jobs and therefore a larger tax base; no, they want to “increase revenue” by raising taxes on job creators who are taxed enough already! As Margaret Thatcher said, “The trouble with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.” That’s where we are now. Hard working taxpayers have been big government’s Sugar Daddy for far too long, and now we’re out of sugar. We don’t want big government, we can’t afford it, and we are unwilling to pay for it.
This debt ceiling debate is the perfect time to do what must be done. We must cut. Yes, I’m for a balanced budget amendment and for enforceable spending caps. But first and foremost we must cut spending, not “strike a deal” that allows politicians to raise more debt!

Don Surber has video of Saturday’s meeting of top White House advisers:

“Gentlemen, we must do something Immediately! Immediately! Immediately!”

Perhaps Ann Althouse has something relevant to say about President LePetomane’s “steely nerve, his intelligence, and his groundedness.”

Speaker Boehner has said the two magic words: “No deal.”

So now we’re back to zero. The Lonely Conservative fears they’re putting budget BandAids on a fiscal gunshot wound.

We should listen to the voice of reason: “We’ve got to get our fiscal house in order here in Washington. I’m not sure it’s going to happen under the current leadership.”

Questions for a rube: “Remember? That conversation with Joe The Plumber? Were ya sleeping?”

Yet the larger question remains: “Where Did the Pleasant Cthulhu Go?”


MoveOn.org Threatens Obama: ‘I Won’t Ever Give His Campaign Another Dime’

Posted on Comments

As we reported yesterday, Obama reportedly offered to trade cuts to Social Security in return for Republicans agreeing to close a few tax loopholes. Democrats are desperately trying to spin this, as Talking Points Memo reports today, but some of Obama’s key “progressive” supporters are threatening to boycott his 2012 re-election:

Dear MoveOn member,
News just broke that President Obama is offering to cut Social Security as part of the debt deal they’re working out in Washington right now. And reports say he’s stopped pushing to eliminate the Bush tax cuts for millionaires in these negotiations.
If both these things are true, it’s an absolute outrage. When asked, 75% of MoveOn members said that if a deal like this were to go through, they’d be less likely to donate to or volunteer for President Obama’s re-election campaign. . . .
Here’s the text to copy into your Facebook status when you share this graphic: “If Barack Obama cuts Social Security to pay for the Bush tax cuts for millionaires, I won’t ever give his campaign another dime. Repost and reshare this image if you agree.” . . .

Read the rest at Letters From a Young American, who supports this boycott. Of course, he wasn’t going to give Obama a dime to begin with — but it’s the thought that counts, right?


Obama: ‘Hey, Grandma, There’s Still Room for You Under This Bus!’

Posted on Comments

Or, “They Told Glenn Reynolds if He Voted for John McCain, We’d Have a President Cutting Benefits for Senior Citizens — and They Were Right!”

President Obama is pressing congressional leaders to consider a far-reaching debt-reduction plan that would force Democrats to accept major changes to Social Security and Medicare in exchange for Republican support for fresh tax revenue.

This is simply stunning: Obama has apparently decided that his main goal in this negotiation is to increase taxes by any means necessary, so that “fresh tax revenue” is the one point he will not cede, even if it means abandoning the Democrats’ claim as the party of Social Security.

Oliver Willis is shocked and demands a filibuster to stop any deal on Social Security, inspiring mockery from Donald Douglas. But let me just point out: If Obama’s lost Oliver Willis . . .

John Cornyn Endorses Obama on Taxes

Posted on Comments

No sooner had I urged Republicans to call out President Obama for his “tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires” rhetoric than Texas Sen. John Cornyn goes squish:

Texas Sen. John Cornyn this morning laid out a political blueprint for comprehensive tax reform, declaring that he favors raising taxes on some American businesses by closing corporate “tax expenditures” as part of a “revenue neutral” deal that lowered overall tax rates. . . .
The San Antonio Republican said there is bipartisan support for “revenue neutral” tax reform that eliminated “tax expenditures” while lowering the rates paid by the vast majority of businesses.
“Our tax code is riddled with a lot of tax expenditures that don’t make sense,” said Cornyn, citing federal subsidies to the ethanol industry as one example of an unjustified corporate tax break.
He rejected the contention from some Republican conservatives that closing tax loopholes amounts to a politically unacceptable tax increase.
“That’s revenue neutral,” Cornyn said on Fox. “That’s not raising taxes.”

Well, senator, when you begin by ceding Obama’s rhetorical premise, how to you expect to win the argument? Don’t you understand that Obama is not negotiating in good faith, and that a pro-growth tax deal of the sort you describe is not possible under the current administration? Does it not then follow that no such “revenue neutral” reform is possible until Obama is defeated?

We remember that it was Cornyn and the National Republican Senatorial Committee who endorsed RINO Charlie Crist against Marco Rubio in the Florida primary.

UPDATE: Permit me to acknowledge that so-called “tax expenditures,” commonly called “loopholes,” are a bad idea in general. In his 1991 book, Parliament of Whores, P.J. O’Rourke produced his own balanced budget plan that included a complete zeroing-out of loopholes. But O’Rourke’s budget was a draconian slash-and-burn — Grover Norquist’s wildest libertarian wet dream — that saved billions through cruel simplicity, e.g.: “I got rid of all transportation spending. Let ’em walk.”

Are Obama and the Democrats ever going to agree to O’Rourkean spending cuts? Oh, hell, no. And the fact is that we wouldn’t have reached the debt-ceiling limit until 2013 if Obama, Pelosi and Reid hadn’t gone on a massive two-year deficit-spending spree. Having thus forced this crisis upon us prematurely, then, why do Democrats now get to insist that “millionaires and billionaires” pay the freight for their failed Keynesian policies?

Screw that. Let ’em walk.

Why Doesn’t Obama Come Right Out and Say, ‘Democrats Want to Raise Taxes’?

Posted on Comments

There is a cynical saying among political strategists on Capitol Hill: “Do we want the bill or do we want the issue”? That is to say, is it to our advantage to pass legislation to address a specific issue, or is it to our advantage to keep the issue alive as a controversy going into the next election campaign? If all you care about is gaining political advantage, that’s how you think about such matters, and this seems to me what President Obama is doing with the current budget debate:

President Obama used his weekly address to reiterate his demand for ending tax breaks for “millionaires and billionaires” in any budget deal to raise the nation’s debt limit.
“It would be nice if we could keep every tax break, but we can’t afford them,” Obama said. “Because if we choose to keep those tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires, or for hedge fund managers and corporate jet owners, or for oil and gas companies pulling in huge profits without our help — then we’ll have to make even deeper cuts somewhere else.”

Watch the video of his weekly address:

Obama knows — or at least, he ought to know — that ending the “tax breaks” he talks about so vaguely would contribute a neglible amount of revenue in terms of shrinking a $1.4-trillion annual deficit. Furthermore, because the policy he advocates would be a disincentive to investment, it might extend the recession and actually decrease federal tax revenue.

Now let’s drop the president’s political euphemisms about ending “tax breaks” and instead speak the plain truth: President Obama wants to raise taxes.

Or does he? Continue reading Why Doesn’t Obama Come Right Out and Say, ‘Democrats Want to Raise Taxes’? →