OPINION: Why Boehner's Plan B Is Conservatives' Best Hope

After President Obama was re-elected on Nov. 6, Americans faced a reality on Nov. 7: Taxes are going up. The only question facing conservatives now is how much of that tax hike they can prevent while also preserving as much of the hard-fought spending cuts they won in 2011.

Here are the facts: If nothing happens by Jan. 1, taxes will automatically rise by about $4.6 trillion over 10 years. Every working American would be hit. However, thanks to the August 2011 debt-limit deal, spending is also set to be cut by $1.2 trillion. Conservatives often forget about this little piece of leverage.

Obama's top priority is to raise taxes as high as he possibly can. A $1.3 trillion tax hike was his latest offer. But undoing the $1.2 trillion spending cut in the debt-limit deal is also important to him. His latest offer not only rescinds the scheduled spending cut, but it also calls for $80 billion in new stimulus spending. Obama did also offer to cut Social Security by $120 billion over 10 years and make $800 billion more in other unspecified spending cuts, but he has flat out refused to entertain any serious entitlement reform proposals.

Boehner's last offer to Obama wasn't much better. It only raised taxes by $1 trillion and undid the $1.2 trillion spending cut from the debt-limit deal. Boehner did call for a new $1 trillion spending cut to replace the sequester, but no meaningful structural entitlement reforms were included.

Via: Washington Examiner

Continue Reading...

Welfare spending jumps 32% during Obama’s presidency

Federal welfare spending has grown by 32 percent over the past four years, fattened by President Obama’s stimulus spending and swelled by a growing number of Americans whose recession-depleted incomes now qualify them for public assistance, according to numbers released Thursday.

Federal spending on more than 80 low-income assistance programs reached $746 billion in 2011, and state spending on those programs brought the total to $1.03 trillion, according to figures from the Congressional Research Service and the Senate Budget Committee.

That makes welfare the single biggest chunk of federal spending — topping Social Security and basic defense spending.

Sen. Jeff Sessions, the ranking Republican on the Budget Committee who requested the Congressional Research Service report, said the numbers underscore a fundamental shift in welfare, which he said has moved from being a Band-Aid and toward a more permanent crutch.

“No longer should we measure compassion by how much money the government spends but by how many people we help to rise out of poverty,” the Alabama conservative said. “Welfare assistance should be seen as temporary whenever possible, and the goal must be to help more of our fellow citizens attain gainful employment and financial independence.”

Via: Washington Times

Continue Reading...

Phantom Savings Obama’s debt-reduction plan is filled with gimmicks

President Barack Obama is repeating a debunked claim regarding his commitment to deficit reduction, one of the highest priority issues for voters this election cycle.

In a campaign video unveiled Wednesday, the president called for a “new economic patriotism” and touted his “balanced plan to reduce our deficit by $4 trillion over the next decade.”

The claim that Obama has a plan—in the form of his most recent budget proposal—to reduce the federal deficit by $4 trillion over 10 years has been a constant refrain from the president on the campaign trail, and has been echoed by his Democratic allies.

Former President Bill Clinton, for example, praised Obama’s “reasonable plan of $4 trillion in debt reduction over a decade” during his primetime speech at the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, N.C.

However, as Glenn Kessler, the Washington Post’s in-house fact-checker,has made clear: “The repeated claim that Obama’s budget reduces the deficit by $4 trillion is simply not accurate.”

“Virtually no serious budget analyst agreed” with the Obama administration’s accounting with respect to the $4 trillion figure, Kessler found.

Independent experts panned the president’s budget for its “troubling” reliance on gimmicks and accounting tricks to inflate the magnitude of the savings being proposed.

Keith Hennessey, a former director of the National Economic Council, estimated the true value of Obama’s deficit reduction—minus these gimmicks—to be about $2.8 trillion, and called even that reduced figure a “generous” assessment.

The president’s budget, for instance, takes credit for about $1 trillion in spending cuts that were already signed into law in 2011, and should already be incorporated given that they fall outside the 10-year budget window.

The budget also includes another $800 billion in phantom savings related to the military drawdowns in Iraq and Afghanistan—money that would never have been spent to begin with—and another $800 billion in projected savings due to reduced interest payments on the debt, something not traditionally cited in federal budget documents as a form of government “spending” that can be “cut.”

Via: WFB

Continue Reading...

Ryan Compares Obama to an NFL Replacement Ref

Republican Vice Presidential candidate Paul Ryan said Tuesday in Ohio that NFL replacement referees reminded him of President Obama on the economy, "if you can't get it right, get out."

NFL replacement referees are under fire for repeatedly blowing calls and mismanaging games this season… a controversial call made at the end of the Packers-Seahawks game last night actually cost Green Bay the game. 

Ryan also joked that the NFL refs worked part-time in the Obama administration's budget office, "they see the national debt clock starring them in the face, they see a debt crisis and they just ignore and pretend it didn’t even happen. They are trying to pick the winners and losers and they don’t even do that very well.”

PAUL RYAN: "I gotta start off on something that was really troubling that occured last night, did you guys watch that Packer game last night? Give me a break! It's time to get the real refs!

You know, it reminds me of President Obama and the economy! If you can't get it right, it's time to get out!

I have think that these refs work part time for President Obama in the budget office!

They see the national debt clock starring them in the face, they see a debt crisis and they just ignore and pretend it didn’t even happen. They are trying to pick the winners and losers and they don’t even do that very well.”

 Via: Fox News

Continue Reading...

'1,200 Days and $5 Trillion in New Debt Since Senate Dems Passed a Budget'

Tomorrow will mark a milestone: It will be 1,200 days since Senate Democrats passed a budget, during which time Congress amassed $4.8 trillion in new debt.

Later today, the Republican side of the Senate Budget Committee will release this chart, detailing these startling numbers:

Congress has spent $11.2 trillion since passing its last budget on April 29, 2009, according to the Republican side of the Senate Budget Committee. The new debt since that date is $4.8 trillion.

"Since the last budget resolution was passed 1,200 days ago, the government has borrowed 42 cents of every dollar spent," the chart notes. The chart is  based on Treasury Department figures.

In a joint statement, Senate Budget Committee ranking member Jeff Sessions and House Budget Committee chair Paul Ryan mark the milestone.

“Tomorrow marks another disappointing record for the United States Senate: Senate Majority Leader Reid and his Democrat conference will have gone an unprecedented 1,200 days without adopting a budget plan as required by law," write Sessions and Ryan. "Not only have they failed to adopt a budget, but with America under threat of financial calamity, they have refused to even present a plan for public scrutiny. Last year, Majority Leader Reid said it would be ‘foolish’ to do a budget and the legally required Budget Committee mark-up was cancelled. No plan from his conference has seen the light of day. He refuses to disclose who he plans to tax and how he plans to spend taxpayers’ money."

Via: The Weekly Standard

Continue Reading