Washington is once again in a deal making mode, and you are about to lose again. When Congress passed the massive debt increase bill earlier this year, it abdicated legislative responsibility to craft a solution to the spiraling debt. They gave the legislative responsibility to what Congress calls the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction.
The committee was then loaded with legislative “veterans” to limit the influence of the recently elected Tea Party Republicans. Since its inception, the committee has been pushing a mountain of tax increases using the popularity of the concept of balancing the federal budget. The only question at this point is how much the two sets of Washington elites will raise taxes.
Obama and the Democrats have laid down the gauntlet. They will accept not one penny less than one trillion dollars in new taxes. Republicans have already agreed to raise taxes by at least $250 to 300 billion.
We favor another path: no agreement.
Now if you talk to the governing elite in Washington, D.C., they would tell you the resulting chaos of no agreement is the end of the world. According to the earlier passed law, if the taxes are not increased, then we may actually see a decrease in the rate of spending growth.
According to this agreement, spending will be cut across the board in non-entitlement programs by a mere $75 billion a year in military expenditures and $75 billion a year in non-defense discretionary programs. Remember in Washington-speak the budget that is cut can still increase in real terms.
According to the Wall Street Journal, “Total domestic discretionary spending doubled to $614 billion in 2010 from $298 billion in 2000. Even if there were a 10-year $1.2 trillion ‘cut’ total discretionary spending would still rise by $83 billion by 2021 because those cuts are calculated from inflated ‘current services’ projections.”
This sleight of hand is accomplished by the way Washington budgets. The cut is actually an increase.
So, expect to hear lots of scary talk over the course of the next few days about the end of the world as you know it. Children will starve, schools will close, police and fire protection will end, planes will fall from the sky, and scariest of all our enemies in Iran and North Korea will rejoice.
The truth of the situation is schools should be funded by states and local communities. We wouldn’t miss one dollar, because much of the money spent by D.C. actually raises the cost of schooling children through unnecessary regulation. The same should be true of foodstuffs. Washington actually raises the cost of food through agricultural price supports and regulations. Turn the regulation of food back to the states, and let communities where regulators actually eat the food be the judge.
As for the military budget, America can absorb these cuts in defense spending if we bring our troops home from around the globe just a little faster. Maybe Obama could do something revolutionary, such as defend our borders as opposed to the borders of Iraq and South Korea. And let’s strip out all the dollars stuffed in the defense budget, which is really foreign aid masquerading as defense spending.
Congress and Obama can always go back and make adjustments to the actual cuts, because none of this is set to affect the budget until 2013 anyway.
We say, let’s cut the budget across the board. If not now, when?
Please share this post with your friends and comment below. If you haven’t already, take a moment to sign up for our free newsletter above and friend us on Twitter and Facebook to get real time updates.
Follow @WestJournalism
About Floyd Brown
Loading ...
What did the Super Com. Expect? Perhaps we should totally clean house? Where is our leader that has the respect of the people. May be just maybe President should quit his run for the While House, and start to listen to the people and lead the Government to step out of the way. Respectifuly submitted: Richard Etner
We are witnessing the actions of the most corrupt government probably in the history of this country. The mere fact that it was the politicians who have basically created the economic mess we are now in and facing a huge debt that even our children and grandchildren are unable to pay it is no suprise to citizens that this committee was doomed from the start.
To begin with, look who is one the committee as Chair and co-chair. John Kerry, liberal and in typtical liberal fashion blames others; and Patty Murray – the Queen of Pork. This was a set up from the beginning.
IT LOOKS LIKE THE SUPER COMMITTEE IS FAILING TO COME UP WITH ANY SOLUTIONS OR ANY
MEANINGFUL IDEAS TO HELP OUR COUNTRY…..DEMOCRATS WANT ONLY TO MAINTAIN THEIR
"BENEFITS TO THE POOR" ESPECIALLY THE "95% VOTING GROUP" SO THEY CAN RELIE ON
THEIR VOTES – AS USUAL !" NO CONCERN FOR THE FUTURE OF OUR COUNTRY – OR HOW IT
WILL BE PAID FOR…… REPUBLICANS WANT SPENDING CUTS ONLY "NOT ENOUGH"…AND
-AS USUAL- APPEAR NOT TO HAVE THE FIGHT IN THEM TO OVERCOME THE DEMOCRATS. WE
AMERICANS OUT HERE,,,WANT "REAL" SPENDING CUTS…ESPECIALLY FROM ENTITLEMENTS !
S.S. AND MEDICARE…ARE NOT ENTILEMENTS….. TIME FOR "TOUGH LOVE" FOR THE NON-
ACHEIVERS…AND THE LESS AMBITIOUS AMONG US….. DO NOT PENALIZE THOSE OF US WHO
HAVE WORKED HARD AND ACHEIVED….. LET THE "SUPER COMMITTEE FAIL" WE WILL LIVE
WITH THE RESULTS …..AND CORRECT THEM WITH A STRONG CONSERVATIVE NEW PRESIDENT
2012……ALSO, LOOKS LIKE WE'LL HAVE OBUMMER THRU 2012……
I do agree, but PLEASE ! STOP using all CAPS !!
WHY???? DOES IT HURT YOUR EARS???? SOME OF US CAN'T SEE WELL ENOUGH TO READ SMALL TYPE, SO DEAL WITH IT, WE DO.
Entitlement implies 'earned'…'Welfare' is a different entity..ie something for nothing.. Subsidies to not grow crops, Earned income tax credits, Unemployment, & Food stamps are examples of welfare..SS & Medicare are entitlements since persons receiving benefits paid (not fully) into programs..Maybe legislaturees will write a law that if u collect welfare, u forfeit privelege of voting…Will a candidate please challenge BO's elgibility to run in 2012..
"Maybe legislaturees will write a law that if u collect welfare, u forfeit privelege of voting"
Aside from the unconstitutionality of it, that would sure change the Iowa Caucuses if you stopped letting all those subsidy-earning farmers vote. And of course Michele Bachmann wouldn't be able to cast a ballot, either.
If this cretin is re-elected, you can kiss your A$$$ goodbye, you will have this ba&^%%^d around for along time to come…………..he will find a way to get it done by an exe order.
Load a group with a majority of members made up of people who created the problem to begin with, then call it the " SUPER COMMITTEE", now the clueless in Wash D.C. expect miracles from this same group. It's the same old political bullcrap from the criminally insane. obama never expected a solution but is just looking for a group to validate his "tax them to death" mentality.
Is it possible that, even if there is no agreement, the Congress will still look for ways to prevent those aforementioned "mandatory cuts-that-aren't-really-cuts?"
In my more pessimistic moments, I don't know what to tell my children. We're in this mess partly because the securitization of mortgage loans on an enormous scale permitted the precious linkage between borrower and lender to become frayed, tattered, and then destroyed altogether. This was accomplished by crushing that precious linkage under layer upon layer of financial obfuscation and complexity, much of it permitted by or birthed in Washington; cf. President James Earl Carter, the Community Reinvestment Act, the S&L bailouts of the 80's and the bailout of LCM… We're being slowly destroyed by legislative inertia, or infatuation with over-complexity. Where does it end?
It will end when the prophecies have been fulfilled , it is written this day would arrive , yet still ,who has an ear to hear ? Seek the Lord while He may be found . Seek Him in your heart , Seek Him in Spirit and Truth .
It is said by many that God is using these evil people to implement His own plan. It all makes me wonder: doesn't God even SEE that these DEMONS are having TOO MUCH FUN sabotaging ALL of us, INCLUDING those of us who KNEW BETTER and VOTED AGAINST these miscreants?
Right on! Much ado about nothing. For the sake of the country, let this joke of a super committee f-a-i-l !!!!!
The "Super Committee" is a joke…..on us….It is composed of the seasoned elite from Socialist Party A and Socialist Party B.
Can anyone really believe that anything of substance would come from this latest Congressional fiasco? Those
people have no intention whatsoever in changing the conditions that keep them in their cushy, high-paying jobs
loaded with lavish medical and pension benefits.
Anything less than an armed revolt will fail. Enough of the hot wind. It's time to march on DC and drive the rabble out. Talk, talk, talk and they laugh in your face because they know you lack the backbone to really do anything positive. ENOUGH OF THE BS!
You go first, Billy–load up the rig with yer guns and head out. I'm sure your fellow revolutionaries will catch up.
Has anyone considered the fact that the 12 member Super Committee is UNCONSTITUTIONAL?
#1. By limiting the committee to only 6 Democrats and 6 Republicans, it disenfranchises the rest of the parties in Congress (Libertarian, Independent, Green, Communist, etc.) and their voters.
#2. If, by some miracle, the SC manages to agree to "cut" a meager $1.2 Trillion out of the federal budget, it will then go before the full congress for an "up or down" vote; no debating or amending is allowed which, again, disenfranchises the voters and their elected representatives.
#3. If they agree to disagree (which is more likely) then automatic cuts will occur without any debate or amendments which, again, disenfranchises the voters and their elected representatives.
Any way you cut it, it is UNCONSTITUTIONAL!!! WHY hasn't any congressman filed a lawsuit over this?
If anyone knows a good constitutional attorney, let me know. patriotrodney@yahoo.com.
You have clearly stated my problems with the SC and you are absolutely dead on.
Our politicians, both congress and the White House, have been working very hard lately. They all deserve a nice government paid little vacation. They should all be given a nice little sea cruise on an ocean liner (may as well take the Supreme Court too) a few hundred miles out and then sink the damn boat!
That's a brilliantly cost-effective solution for the current problem! The cost of a cruise ship (which might even be salvageable, and if so would provide some great JOBS for a while!) is PEANUTS next to what our SO-CALLED "government" wastes in a MERE MONTH! Was that an understatement? Should I have said "one week"? "One DAY?"
The whole concept of a super committee is extra constitutional and should never have even been considered. WHERE in the Constitution of the United States, is there a provision for transferring the power of the CONGRESS to a super committee selected by the congress? I thought the job of budgeting was up to the CONGRESS?! This is all the proof I need to make the decision that we should replace EVERY person in congress with people that are willing to read and follow the CONSTITUTION. Until we go back to basics, i.e., following the rules and purging the halls of congress of IDIOTS, we can expect more idiotic solutions from the idiots in congress.
The most important function the so called "Super Committee" could perform, aside from eliminating itself, would be to construct fiscal solutions to the debt crisis by "DECONSTRUCTING" government and devolving the responsibility for the eliminated departments to the states — sans the departmental regulations. That would eliminate about 5 million federal jobs, and creating the fastest private sector turn-around in history..
I believe I have discovered the problem with congress. John Kerry brought cupcakes to the Super Committee meeting last week. He paid $9 per cupcake. Yes, your eyes are not deceiving you: NINE DOLLARS! Congress is so out of touch with reality they couldn't possibly know how to balance the budget!!
At $9 per cupcake, each one could have contained enough "consciousness-altering" "medications" to influence a few key votes! Could that explain how far some of them have drifted away from reality?
How goverment cooks the books beforeitsnews & goldmansachs good fellows, another good site is political vel craft
We are all on the Titanic. Captain Obama and his crew will have us in life boats eventually. If Obama wins in 2012 we'll be in the waters much sooner rather than later. The Republicans won't save us because there are not enough of them who reject socialist agendas and crony capitalism. Like the Oligarchs in the European Union our politicians take care of themselves first and foremost. That's the way it's always been and will be. We can complain and blog all we want but only a revolution will ever return power to the people. As before, it will have to lead by the likes of Washington, Hamilton and Jefferson and that is a very tall order!
American Taxpayers (US) cannot win, when there are progressive/liberal SPENDTHRIFTS seated on this "superflub committee" – -the likes of patty murray and john kerry, in particular. This "committee" is NOT allowed by our Constitution – -so GET THEM OUT OF THERE and TELL THEM TO GO HOME!
"Now if you talk to the governing elite in Washington DC the resulting chaos of no agreement is the end of the world." To the foregoing proposition, I reply: "To be more precise, it's the end of THEIR world: a world that DESPERATELY DESERVES TO BE ENDED."
.
According to the earlier passed law if the taxes are not increased, then we may actually see a decrease in the rate of spending growth." To the foregoing proposition, I reply: "Well DUH, OF COURSE! Why then have we not already done the obvious right thing and REFUSED TO ALLOW ANY TAX INCREASES? WHY?
In obama's ABSOLUTELY-NOT-"humble" opinion, obama doesn't need any stinking laws; however, he HAS them; therefore, he simply DISOBEYS them. This is the ESSENTIAL PARAMETER that DEFINES him as DICTATOR. Dictators were MADE to be DISOBEYED, and OVERTHROWN.
All this talk about forcing a balanced budget is just applying a bandaid onto an arterial wound.
We had a 124-year tradition of having a Federal government running on only 5% of GDP with few deficits prior to the enactment of the 17th Amendment of 1913?
Ask yourself, "How they did this for over a century without a balanced budget amendment ?"
The answer is that the Checks and Balances of the States running the U.S. Senate kept the feds lean and hungry.