Sequestration: Stop the Madness!

Here's a few ideas I had on how to fix the budget issues that are now facing America..  They're fairly basic, but they would eliminate the deficit AND allow us to start paying back our grandchilren's legacy that we've stolen from them.

1. Eliminate the Fed Dept of Education (it has failed to meet any of the goals set for when founded). Education is a state matter, not a Federal one.
2. Eliminate the TSA. Turn over airport security to the airlines. Make them liable (in civil court) for ANY terrorist acts that occur on their airlines.
3. Eliminate Dept of Homeland Security.
4. Eliminate the Dept off HHS
5. Eliminate Dept of HUD
6. Cut back ALL Federal spending by 25% (40% would be better...that's how much the Dem's racheted it up after they took control of Congress in 2006).
7. Pass a Balanced Budget Amendment to the US Constitution.
8. Repeal ObamaCare...government doesn NOTHING efficiently...and this act has already increased the costs of health care by 25%.
9. Have 37 states pass an amendment to the US Constition requiring ALL laws passed by Congress to APPLY to Congress (no more exemptions)
10. Eliminate ALL exemptions from the tax code. Pass a flat tax for ALL individuals AND businesses. No more subsidies for "green jobs" or oil companies or...the auto industry.
11. Eliminate ALL government subsidies to business and agriculture.

If we could do this, we would be able to begin paying off the debt within 4 years...but our political class consists of cowards, rogues and thieves. They don't have the will to make the tough decisions that are required to save our Republic. We have just about run out of other people's money. It's time to face facts, we've been borrowing from our great grand children for more than 70 years. They're going to demand payback very soon. What can't go on, won't...

 

Public Doesn't Trust Politicians to Make Budget Cuts

Rasmussen Reports polling shows that a large majority of Americans don't believe that politicians of either party has the stones to make the necessary cuts in spending to place the nation on a path to sound financial footing.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 70% of Likely U.S. Voters think voters are more willing to make the hard choices needed to reduce federal spending than elected politicians are. Just 17% say the politicians are more willing to make the tough spending cut decisions, while 13% more are undecided. (To see survey question wording, click here).


The Political Class disagrees, however. Sixty percent (60%) of Political Class voters say elected politicians are more willing to make hard budget cutting choices, but 79% of those in the Mainstream feel otherwise and see voters as more willing to do it.

 Oddly enough...our political "elite" also think the country is heading in the right direction...while a vast majority thinks just the opposite.

Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that 67% of Political Class voters believe the United States is generally heading in the right direction. However, things look a lot different to Mainstream Americans. Among these voters, 84% say the country has gotten off on the wrong track.

 Of course...most of them have highly lucrative elective or lobbying positions, so they're perfectly happy...as long as the money lasts, which won't be a whole lot longer.

Obama's Idea of Deficit Reduction

If you take Mr. Obama's words from his SOTU address last week, his idea of reducing the deficit is...miniscule.  He proposes a SPENDING FREEZE, instead of substantive cuts.  This way, he'd save (and this sounds like a lot on it's face) $400,000,000,000.00 over ten years.  That amounts to a whole $40 billion a year in savings.

That's just a drop in the bucket.  This years deficit alone is $1,500,000,000,000.00, which is 4 times the entire amount, and more than 30 times as much.  The entire federal budget was more than 85 times that amount.  Mr. Obama in his first 2 years of governing has run up a debt of more than $3,000,000,000,000.00 alone.  $40 billion dollars doesn't even amount to a "drop in the bucket."  Charles Krauthammer calls it a "spillage error."

Last November's election saw record losses by the party that has added $5 trillion dollars to the debt in 4 years.  Voter's gave the Democratic party's majority a well deserved  spanking after they ran in 2006 and 2008 as a party of fiscal responsibility. 

The November election sent a clear message to Washington: less government, less debt, less spending. President Obama certainly heard it, but judging from his State of the Union address, he doesn't believe a word of it. The people say they want cuts? Sure they do - in the abstract. But any party that actually dares carry them out will be punished severely. On that, Obama stakes his reelection.

No other conclusion can be drawn from a speech that didn't even address the debt issue until 35 minutes in. And then what did he offer? A freeze on domestic discretionary spending that he himself admitted would affect a mere one-eighth of the budget...And of course, once again, there is the magic lure of a green economy created by the brilliance of Washington experts and politicians. This is to be our "Sputnik moment," when the fear of the foreigner spurs us to innovation and greatness of the kind that yielded NASA and the moon landing.

Apart from the irony of this appeal being made by the very president who has just killed NASA's manned space program, there is the fact that for three decades, since Jimmy Carter's synfuel fantasy, Washington has poured billions of taxpayer dollars down a rat hole in vain pursuit of economically competitive renewable energy.

While the dream of alternative fuel sources is fresh, think about the Spanish disaster.  They blew $800 million dollars (a huge amount to their stuggling economy that's about  1/20th the US') on a disasterous attempt to shore up it's "green economy."  Then, there's the $6 billion ethonol stupidity that was supposed to reduce the cost of fuel and has only increased world wide food costs.  Even Al Gore now admits that that was a mistake.

He served up an insignificant spending cut, yet another (if more modest) stimulus, and a promise to fight any Republican attempt to significantly shrink the size of government.

Indeed, he went beyond this. He tried to cast this more-of-the-same into a call to national greatness, citing two Michigan brothers who produce solar shingles as a stirring example of rising to the Sputnik moment.

"We do big things," Obama declared at the end of an address that was, on the contrary, the finest example of small-ball Clintonian minimalism since the days of school uniforms and midnight basketball.

From the moon landing to solar shingles. Is there a better example of American decline?

This president will fight any attempt by the GOP to actually cut spending in any significant amount. This will hurt the country profoundly.  I can only hope that in 2012, he is defeated, but I'll not under estimate the ability of the GOP to FUBAR things up between now and then.

‘Veterans paid the price, cut debt elsewhere,’ says The American Legion

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE  

INDIANAPOLIS (November 18, 2010) – “There they go again,” said The American Legion’s National Commander Jimmie Foster about the recommendations of two debt reduction commissions which would decrease military retirement benefits. “Every time Washington wakes up with a deficit hangover after decades of spending binges, those who study the serious problems of our national debt can’t resist the easy but unfair route of trying to balance the budget on the backs of veterans. It is unfair and if these ridiculous proposals are passed into law, it will hurt America’s ability to defend itself from our enemies.”

One panel, chaired by former Sen. Pete Domenici and Clinton administration Budget Director Alice Rivlin, calls for changing the formula to calculate military retirement pay and delaying payments until the eligible veterans reach age 57. Another panel, chaired by former Sen. Alan Simpson and retired Clinton White House Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles, recommends that military retirement checks be delayed until age 60.

“Tell it to the Marines!” was Foster response to the proposals. “I want these commissions to look a 22-year-old Marine in the eye and say that if you retire at age 40, after 20 years of service and three, four or even more tours of being shot at in Afghanistan, that you still have not done enough to receive your retirement. I want these commissions to tell the soldiers in Iraq that the benefits they are receiving are too much. America has a huge debt all right. And it is owed to these men and women who protect our freedoms every day. It is a debt that must be repaid.”

The panels have also recommended cuts to military weapons systems that could hurt American efforts to fight the Global War on Terrorism.

The Simpson/Bowles Commission suggested slashing $100 billion from the defense budget in 2015, closing one-third of the U.S. bases overseas and freezing noncombat military pay. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates warned that cutting even 10 percent or $55 billion from his budget would be “catastrophic” for the military.

“Cutting the military’s budget while it is engaged in two wars is unconscionable,” said Foster. “When you send American troops to war, you must pay the cost of those wars. Freezing pay and cutting benefits, whether in combat or in garrison, will also make young people think twice before volunteering to serve their country. The United States would not exist if not for the sacrifices of the men and women who have served in our military throughout our history. It is only because of their sacrifice, that beancounters have the freedom to argue about how to balance the budget to begin with.”

With a current membership of 2.4-million wartime veterans, The American Legion was founded in 1919 on the four pillars of a strong national security, veterans affairs, Americanism, and youth programs. Legionnaires work for the betterment of their communities through more than 14,000 posts across the nation.

Media contacts: Indianapolis: Joe March, (317) 748-1926; John Raughter (317) 441-8847; Washington: Marty Callaghan, 202-215-8644. A high resolution photo of National Commander Foster is available at www.legion.org.