January 05, 2011
— Ace No direct quotes for now, but I am sitting here feeling like Alice in Wonderland as every Democrat stands up to claim that they actually kept within budgets thanks to pay-go and Republicans are abandoning their sound fiscal discipline policy.
Here are the arguments, as I understand them. Democrats' rule was "pay-go," requiring tax increases to pay for new spending. However, on just about every major initiative, they suspended pay-go rules. They now seem to be claiming that pay-go was always followed.
Republicans are proposing cut-go -- or "cut-grow," as Cantor called it-- which is similar, but just requires corresponding cuts to balance any new spending. For reasons I can't fathom, the Democrats claim that their method -- which they constantly suspended and existed as a figment of the mind rather than budgetary reality -- is superior, and Republicans are already "hypocrites" on spending due to this change.
The other big complaint is that Republicans' cut-go rules specifically exempt ObamaCare from automatic budget-cutting rules. Remember, supposedly, they have this silly CBO score they claim means ObamaCare will save $500 billion (now, they claim, a full trillion) over ten years. So in theory, to cut ObamaCare and remain budget-neutral, you'd also have to cut anotehr $500 billion (or trillion) over ten years just to offset that new "spending."
Okay, look, that CBO score is silly -- it postulates we'll be saving a trillion dollars by spending another trillion dollars. Whatever.
I can hear the Tea Partiers' response to this -- Fine, then we will cut another trillion. If you insist.
Look, this is silly. No one but Ezra Klein believes that ObamaCare saves money.
One other argument, which I don't get, is that the cut-go rules are also suspended for "new tax breaks for Republicans' rich buddies." I think maybe this refers to not counting the already-agreed-to extension of the Bush Tax Cuts for budget-neutrality calculations, but I'm not sure.
Honestly, this is sort of unreal.
The other thing that's unreal is that David Drier just keeps making hopey, optimistic speeches, without actually rebutting this absolute nonsense pouring out of the mouths of Democrats.
Bonus: Nancy Pelosi, All Class. Lady Viper spews partisan venom as she hands over the gavel, in contrast to Denny Hastert's Boehner's classy example when he was forced to turn it over in 2007.
Whoops -- It was Boehner who turned the gavel over in 2007, without partisan recriminations. Lady Viper can't manage the same trick.
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12:31 PM
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Wait Did I Say "George Soros?" I Meant You're Paying For This
— Ace Darrell Issa? Can we get with you on this?
In case you don't know, Google's revenue comes from selling advertising in the form of search-term priority. If you pay 'em, you get your link put at the tippy-top of a search-term list. Much of the order of a Google list of cites is figured by fair considerations like recency, relevancy, and number of links in turn linking to that link; but usually the top slots are bought and paid for. What's at the top of the list is there because someone's advertising budget paid to have it come up at the top of the list.
Obama is using your tax money to propagandize for his crap.
Politico's Ben Smith, in a post entitled "HHS Buys 'ObamaCare,'" quotes an official from Secretary Kathleen Sebelius's Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), who confirms that this clear attempt to influence what Americans read about Obamacare does, indeed, represent your tax dollars at work: "'We are using a bunch of search term[s] to help point people to HealthCare.gov. [It's] [p]art of our online efforts to help get accurate information to people about the new law (i.e. [we] also use Facebook, Twitter, blogs and webcasts),' an HHS official confirmed by e-mail."
The "accurate information" that Americans will glean about the massive health care overhaul from this HHS website is of the same sort that President Obama has supplied all along -- such as that Obamacare would lower health costs (only 17 percent of Americans believe this), increase the quality of care (only 22 percent believe this), and reduce deficits (only 17 percent believe this).
Thanks to Cortillaen.
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11:43 AM
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— DrewM Austan Goolsbee, Obama's Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, said it would be "insanity" to vote against raising the debt ceiling.
Well, I guess that makes Barack Obama insane because he voted against raising the debt limit in 2006.
“The fact that we are here today to debate raising America's debt limit is a sign of leadership failure,” he said on March 16, 2006. “Leadership means that ‘the buck stops here.’ Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership . Americans deserve better. I therefore intend to oppose the effort to increase America's debt limit.”The debt limit was raised by a vote of 52-48.
Asked about that quote – and vote -- today, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said that it was important that “based on the outcome of that vote…the full faith and credit was not in doubt.”
Then-Sen. Obama used the vote “to make a point about needing to get serious about fiscal discipline….His vote was not necessarily needed on that.”
So votes only count if your vote is "needed on that"?
As for Obama's talk of leadership and the 'buck stopping' in D.C., consider that as of October (I can't find more recent numbers), Obama and the Democrats ran up 3 TRILLION Dollars in new debt.
Barack Obama: Voting "Present" since 2006!
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11:35 AM
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— Ace They got him quick this time:
Two adults were wounded when a gunman opened fire Wednesday at a high school in Omaha, police said.Omaha police officer Jake Bettin said no students were wounded during the shooting at Millard South High School, and the suspect was in custody. It was not immediately known who the adults were and what their conditions are at hospitals. One was taken by helicopter from the scene.
More details about the suspect were also not immediately known. But Bettin said: "The suspect is no longer at large."
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11:32 AM
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— CAC Hey, why not? We are nearly 2 years away from election day 2012, but I know most of you morons have this on your minds constantly.
Based on the demographic shifts AND the very hard electorate shifts in the Midwest and West, there is good news and bad news for both President Obama and the unknown Republican opponent:
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11:13 AM
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— Ace A twenty day period of votes against the Obama Agenda, which of course are not effectual on their own (as Democrats still control the Senate). But they hope to both demonstrate that they're carrying through on promises to voters and force Obama and the Democrats in the Senate closer to a Tea Party view of the world.
Almost as soon as they take control of the House at noon Wednesday, Republicans will embark on a 20-day plan aimed at undoing major aspects of President Obama's agenda as they seek to take advantage of the weeks before the Senate's return and the president's State of the Union address.The first move will come Friday, when the House begins the process of repealing the new health-care law. House leaders will then quickly begin to identify tens of billions of dollars in proposed spending cuts and to ease regulations that businesses find burdensome.
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Senate Republicans are looking ahead to a pair of opportunities in the next several weeks in which McConnell could re-create his role in negotiating the broad bipartisan deal last month to extend the Bush-era tax cuts. Party leaders said they hope to use the March 4 expiration of the temporary measure that funds the government, as well as the need to lift the federal debt ceiling above $14 trillion, to extract concessions from Obama.
The starting point for spending cuts will be in the House, where Boehner has established a goal of rolling back spending to 2008 levels. That would mean a reduction of more than $60 billion for the remainder of the fiscal year - a number that many Democrats consider politically difficult to achieve if Republicans exclude cuts to the Pentagon and homeland defense programs, as they have said they would.
$60 billion? They can do that. It'll take a lot of politics to force the hands of Democrats on this, though.
What About $100 Billion? Some are asking if $60 billion is reneging on the promise to cut $100 billion. I don't think so, but it depends on how you look at it.
I think what's going on is that the fiscal year is already like one third over and will be even more over when the Continuing Resolution runs out. I think it begins in October.
So they think $100 billion per year means $60 billion, pro rata, for what's left of this year.
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10:33 AM
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— DrewM Both houses just gaveled into session.
In the House, it's kind of an odd deal. The Clerk of the House actually runs the session, swearing in all members and then taking nominations for House Speaker. Then there's a voice roll call vote (the only one they ever conduct in the House), which will take about an hour.
Then Pelosi will give Boehner the gavel (sweet) and Boehner will give a speech. And cry.
A Repulbican House isn't going to be a cure-all. It's just one house and they are after all Republicans and politicians. The really bad ideas will stop but how much good can be done? That's to be seen.
Thanks to Nathan Wurtzel and David Hauptmann for the photos.
New member/swearing in poll: more...
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08:04 AM
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— Ace In an interview with Human Event's Jason Mattera, DeMint says Republicans should vote against raising the debt ceiling, and force Democrats to take sole ownership of the problem they created: more...
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07:18 AM
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— Geoff ADP released its employment report for December, showing an increase of 297,000 jobs from November. From their press release:
...employment seems to have accelerated as indicated by SeptemberÂ’s employment gain of 29,000, OctoberÂ’s gain of 79,000, NovemberÂ’s gain of 92,000 and DecemberÂ’s gain of 297,000. Strength was also evident within all major industries and every size business tracked in the ADP Report.While most of the gains came from the service sector (rather than manufacturing, dang it), it's worth noting that construction employment did not drop for the first time since June 2007.
I'm sure you're all desperate to see the employment data in graphical form, so here you go:
That little uptick on the right is dwarfed by the jobs lost, but it shows that the business sector has been showing some real signs of life for the last half-year. We're still looking at a very weak financial sector, and we're facing another 10 - 20% drop in real estate prices this year, but the business sector is acting like it finally sees a path forward. And as I've been pointing out for the last couple of months, those signs of life started appearing once the election polls showed that the GOP would take control of the House.
Tomorrow we'll see this week's initial unemployment claims data, which has been falling reasonably steadily for 6 months, and on Friday the unemployment rate for December comes out.
Posted by: Geoff at
06:44 AM
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— Gabriel Malor There you go making my heart beat again.
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02:56 AM
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