House passes $80 billion pork-ridden war budget

Posted By Steve Adcock On July 2, 2010 (8:06 am) In Top Page News, Voices and Choices

Even as pessimism surrounding the War on Terror rises, the House passed an $80 billion bill that would continue funding the United States’ war in Afghanistan, including $10 billion in pork that would be redirected towards a teachers unions-imposed plan to supposedly help local school districts avoid layoffs of teaches and other government workers.

The original bill passed by the Senate totaled only $60 billion, but House Democrats padded the bill with an extra $20 billion in an effort to once again kick start several failed job-creation initiatives.  The Senate bill already included pork spending on foreign aid packages, “disaster aid accounts” and additional disability spending for Vietnam War veterans.

“The Democrat majority is treating this troop-funding bill like a cash cow for their election-year wish-list,” said Rep. Jerry Lewis of California.

The added education measure was hotly debated, as it includes a $500 million cut to Obama’s “Race to the Top” initiative, a program aimed at financially rewarding top performing school districts from around the country.  States like Tennessee and Delaware have already received some reward funds.  $3 billion still remains to be spent.

The war spending measure of the bill is aimed at paying for the additional 30,000 troops that Obama will deploy into the Afghan theater.

An associated measure that would have required the president to conduct a fresh intelligence review of the Afghanistan conflict, and to detail a precise exit strategy from the region, was soundly rejected by the House.  A measure that would have placed added restrictions on the funding also failed.  Those restrictions would have required the funds to be spent only on a draw-down of the conflict rather than an increase or sustainment of current war initiatives.

“We need to get out of Afghanistan in a way that’s as timely and efficient as possible”, said Rep. John Larson of Connecticut who supported those measures.

“Every dollar we spend in Afghanistan, every life we waste there, is a waste,” said Rep. Jerrold Nadler of New York, who ended up supporting the bill anyway.  ”An intelligent policy is not to try to remake a country that nobody since Genghis Khan has managed to conquer. What makes us think, what arrogance gives us the right to assume that we can succeed where the Moguls, the British, the Soviets failed?”

The bill will head back to the Senate for further debate.

Article taken from SmallGovTimes.com – http://www.smallgovtimes.com
URL to article: http://www.smallgovtimes.com/2010/07/house-passes-80-billion-war-budget-pork-ridden/

 

Using “reconciliation” to smash through unpopular legislation

Posted By Neal Boortz On March 4, 2010 (6:28 am) In Voices and Choices

While Barack Obama didn’t explicitly say it, he opened the door for Democrats to use reconciliation to pass healthcare reform. And that is exactly what they intend to do. Obama says:

“[N]o matter which approach you favor, I believe the United States Congress owes the American people a final vote on health care reform. We have debated this issue thoroughly, not just for a year, but for decades. Reform has already passed the House with a majority. It has already passed the Senate with a supermajority of sixty votes. And now it deserves the same kind of up-or-down vote that was cast on welfare reform, the Children’s Health Insurance Program, COBRA health coverage for the unemployed, and both Bush tax cuts — all of which had to pass Congress with nothing more than a simple majority … I have therefore asked leaders in both of Houses of Congress to finish their work and schedule a vote in the next few weeks.”

Never mind the .. dare I say it .. hypocrisy surrounding this approach. Here is not one but four different examples of Obama demagoguing the use of reconciliation.

CBS Interview 11/2/04
My understanding of the Senate is that you need 60 votes to get something significant to happen, which means that Democrats and Republicans have to ask the question, do we have the will to move an American agenda forward, not a Democratic or Republican agenda forward?

Change to Win Convention 9/25/07
The bottom line is that our healthcare plans are similar, the question once again is, who can get it done? Who can build a movement for change? This is an area where we’re going to have to have a 60% majority in the Senate and the House in order to actually get a bill to my desk. We’re going to have to have a majority to get a bill to my desk. That is not just a fifty plus one majority.

Obama Interview with the Concord Monitor 10/9/07
You’ve got to break out of what I call the sort of fifty plus one pattern of presidential politics. Maybe you eke out a victory of fifty plus one. Then you can’t govern. You know, you get Air Force One, there are a lot of nice perks, but you can’t deliver on healthcare. We are not going to pass universal health care with a fifty plus one strategy.

Center for American Progress Conference 7/12/06
Those big-ticket items: fixing our health care system. You know, one of the arguments that sometimes I get with my fellow progressives, and some of these have flashed up in the blog communities on occasion, is this notion that we should function sort of like Karl Rove where we identify our core base, we throw ‘em red meat, we get a fifty plus one victory. See, Karl Rove doesn’t need a broad consensus because he doesn’t believe in government. If we want to transform the country, though, that requires a sizeable majority.

And then lest we forget this from Robert Byrd in 2005. When Republicans wanted to use reconciliation to stop the Democrat filibuster of Bush judicial nominees, Robert Byrd compared the strategy to Nazi tactics. Seriously!Here’s what he had to say back then:

Many times in our history we have taken up arms to protect a minority against the tyrannical majority in other lands. We, unlike Nazi Germany or Mussolini’s Italy, have never stopped being a nation of laws, not of men.

But witness how men with motives and a majority can manipulate law to cruel and unjust ends. Historian Alan Bullock writes that Hitler’s dictatorship rested on the constitutional foundation of a single law, the Enabling Law. Hitler needed a two-thirds vote to pass that law, and he cajoled his opposition in the Reichstag to support it. Bullock writes that “Hitler was prepared to promise anything to get his bill through, with the appearances of legality preserved intact.” And he succeeded.

Hitler’s originality lay in his realization that effective revolutions, in modern conditions, are carried out with, and not against, the power of the State: the correct order of events was first to secure access to that power and then begin his revolution. Hitler never abandoned the cloak of legality; he recognized the enormous psychological value of having the law on his side. Instead, he turned the law inside out and made illegality legal.

Please, folks; if you won’t fight for your liberty, how about fighting for the future of your children and grandchildren.

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Article taken from SmallGovTimes.com – http://www.smallgovtimes.com
URL to article: http://www.smallgovtimes.com/2010/03/using-reconciliation-to-smash-through-unpopular-legislation/

 

Congress freezes its own pay

Posted By Ron Paul On May 3, 2010 (10:13 am) In Voices and Choices

Last week Congress did something fiscally responsible. It’s not very often I can say that. Granted, it was small in the grand scheme of things, but I was glad to be an original cosponsor, along with Congressman Harry Mitchell of Arizona, of a bill to block the automatic pay raise that Congress otherwise receives every year. Every Member of Congress gets this raise unless it is expressly voted down. For the second year in a row Congress has voted to freeze its own pay, which, in a time of skyrocketing deficits and high unemployment, is the very least Congress can do.

The country is in a serious recession, bordering on depression. Unemployment is grossly underreported, and not likely to get better anytime soon. American citizens and businesses are overtaxed, yet tax revenues still fall far short of our government’s voracious appetite for spending. This is no time to raise taxes. And since congressional salaries come from tax revenue, allowing ourselves a raise would fly in the face of economic reality.

Of course, Congress ignores economic reality all the time. But if Congress can freeze salaries as a first step towards fiscal sanity, it can freeze- if not drastically cut- a vast array of federal expenditures.

At the very least, Congress could freeze current spending levels, instead of constantly increasing them. We could stop increasing the debt ceiling every few months, as has become our habit. We could freeze regulations that add to the burden on our struggling small businesses. We could freeze intrusive bailouts that upset the balance of the market and cost us billions – billions we could instead use to eliminate the oppressive income tax! We could freeze the money supply and stave off the tsunami of inflation the Fed has been generating for years.

Furthermore, we could address the mismanagement and waste in foreign affairs which adds immensely to our budget. Like entitlements, militarism is expensive. We need to reject sanctions as a precursor to military action, and embrace free trade as the most effective method for spreading liberty. After all, as the great economist Frederic Bastiat said – when goods don’t cross borders, armies will. It is time to bring our troops home, instead of instigating expensive new wars when we’re already hopelessly mired in several conflicts already. We need to rethink the whole idea of pre-emptive war- not only because it’s wrong and counterproductive, but because we literally cannot afford it!

We could do much to restore fiscal sanity to this country simply by stopping the madness and bringing our troops home – from Iraq, Afghanistan, Korea, Japan, Germany, and so many other places. This costly global empire does not serve the interests of the American people and we should end it peacefully and voluntarily now, lest it end in chaos later.

Though it may be wishful thinking on my part, I’m encouraged by the small step taken by Congress last week. Fiscal sanity can begin with a small step, and I want to encourage Congress to move in this direction.

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Article taken from SmallGovTimes.com – http://www.smallgovtimes.com
URL to article: http://www.smallgovtimes.com/2010/05/congress-freezes-its-own-pay/

 

Ron Paul leads charge to halt Congressional pay raise

Posted By Steve Adcock On May 3, 2010 (6:33 am) In Voices and Choices

For the third consecutive year, Congressional pay raises have been halted due in part to a charge lead by Representative Ron Paul and Arizona Rep. Harry Mitchell, arguing that Congressional pay raises are not appropriate while Americans continue to struggle.

Texas Representative Ron Paul 

“We should not be padding our pocketbooks when our constituents are still tightening their belts and losing their jobs,” stated Ron Paul. “As well, we could continue with this symbolic first step and stop increasing taxes, expanding the federal budget, and spreading our military so thin. These additional measures would do much to begin our economic recovery.”

The move will save American taxpayers $850,000 next year. The base pay for members of Congress stands at $174,000 with Congressional leaders earning more. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi earns $223,500.

Pay raises for Congress in the midst of economic uncertainty are clearly unpopular, and some members of Congress are taking the pay raise halt one step further. Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick of Arizona wants to cut Congressional pay next year by $8,700.  Former Rep. Nathan Deal proposed a plan that will slash pay for members of Congress each year the government runs a deficit.  Rep. Darrell Issa supports getting rid of the automatic pay increase entirely and instead opting for an “independent commission” that manages Congressional salaries, including raises.

In Congress, pay raises are automatically applied unless voted down by members of the Senate and House. This year, the Senate was first to vote down their pay raise, followed by the House.  The measure still needs to be signed by President Obama.

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Article taken from SmallGovTimes.com – http://www.smallgovtimes.com
URL to article: http://www.smallgovtimes.com/2010/05/ron-paul-leads-charge-to-halt-congressional-pay-raise/

 

Cap-and-Trade treason

Posted By Alan Caruba On April 27, 2010 (6:30 am) In Voices and Choices

If you thought that the way the Obama administration and its cohort of Democrats in Congress rammed through the takeover of the nation’s healthcare system was appalling, prepare to watch the same process applied to Cap-and-Trade. Your government no longer represents you, the voter, the citizen.
 
Cap-and-Trade (H.R. 2454) allegedly is about reducing greenhouse gas emissions, but there is no scientific justification for this because there is no “global warming” that requires it, nor is manmade, anthropogenic, generation of carbon dioxide (CO2) a threat to the planet. Just the opposite, everything dies without it; all vegetation and all animal life. Life on Earth would thrive if there was even more CO2.
 
To what end would Congress impose such emission limits when they do not exist throughout China, India, third world “developing” nations, and are being abandoned by European Union nations where the Kyoto Protocol limits have harmed their economies?
 
Global warming has been exposed as a massive hoax and fraud. Why would the United States Senate proceed to enact a bill based on it? In essence, it will make some corporations, utilities, and people very rich and impoverish the rest of us.
 
Having passed the House, the Senate will be handed a huge bill that, like healthcare, few will have read before they vote. It will impose the largest tax the nation has ever seen.
 
The act will bless the various “exchanges” created for the sale and trade of “carbon credits” that have no value whatever. It creates a bubble comparable to the sub-prime mortgage debacle that triggered the 2008 financial crisis and resulting recession.
 
The amount of CO2 will not be reduced because the Earth produces 97% of all the CO2 in the atmosphere. Even then, that amount is the smallest part of the atmosphere that consists of more than 95 percent water vapor!
 
Cap-and-Trade is an act of betrayal because it will destroy the U.S. economy, destroy jobs, and further impoverish Americans in a variety of ways. 
 
The Cap-and-Trade Act that has already passed the House will be put in play by Senators John Kerry, Lindsey Graham, and Joseph Lieberman. It was created in the House by Rep. Henry Waxman and Rep. Edward Markey. They know the bill will set in motion the destruction of the nation whose life’s blood is affordable and abundant energy use.
 
Just as the Obama administration moved swiftly to acquire ownership of General Motors and Chrysler, to take over insurance giant AIG, control one sixth of the nation’s economy through the healthcare act, and is now seeking to expand the regulation of Wall Street, Cap-and-Trade will ensure the destruction of the nation as manufacturing flees to other parts of the world.
 
Beginning one year after enactment, homeowners will not be able to sell their homes without complying with onerous and unnecessary energy and water “efficiency” standards. These standards, moreover, will increase annually. Within five years, 90 percent of the residential market will be controlled by the government.
 
On April 19, the Environmental Protection Agency announced new guidelines for “Energy Star” homes requiring them to increase “efficiency” by 20 percent more than those built to the 2009 International Energy Conservation Code. Home ownership, already the largest expense for Americans, will be further increased by required upgrades.
 
According to the Congressional Budget Office, in a few years the average cost of energy use to every family of four will be $6,800 per year. No one will be exempt from energy taxes and you can expect the cost of a gallon of gasoline to rise beyond $4 to European levels.
 
In Europe, industrial carbon quotas have enriched the continent’s biggest energy users such as steel and cement makers. Their surplus carbon permits, often provided for free, are estimated to be worth more than $4 billion at current market rates by 2012. There is no scientific justification for them.
 
It will be the U.S. government that will determine who receives the initial free “carbon credits”, thus giving corporations that have supported Cap-and-Trade a huge advantage over those who do not. Not only will the government rake in billions from the taxes to be imposed, but utilities will raise their prices and pass it along to consumers. 
 
There is no need whatever to reduce use of so-called “fossil fuels.” There is no need for the “efficiency” and “conservation” measures that will be imposed. If the government would permit access to the nation’s vast reserves of coal, oil and natural gas, none of this would be needed, but it will not.
 
The nation is under attack from within by a consortium of fanatical environmentalists and rent-seeking corporations and utilities seeking to profit from these government mandates and limits.
 
It is the perfect storm. It is treason.
 
Editor’s Note:  Politico.com: (4/24/10) The planned Monday unveiling of a bipartisan climate bill was postponed after one of its three authors, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), said that he couldn’t support the legislation if Democrats moved it to the backburner to focus first on immigration reform. Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) announced the postponement Saturday evening, saying that “external issues have arisen that force us to postpone only temporarily.”

 

Paul’s Federal Reserve audit under consideration in Senate

Posted By Steve Adcock On March 15, 2010 (6:43 am) In Voices and Choices

In legislation that Texas Representative Ron Paul has attempted to get through Congress for a number of years, his proposal that would require an GAO audit of the nation’s Federal Reserve is pending inclusion into a financial reform bill in the Senate.

Paul’s D.C. office said they are hopeful that the bill will be officially included by the end of next week.

Paul’s “Audit the Fed” legislation has already been approved by the House of Representatives last year and is awaiting passage in the Senate.  The bill would require the audit’s findings to be presented to Congress and be made publicly available.

“With unprecedented turmoil in the financial markets, the people are demanding to know and understand the extent of the Federal Reserve’s involvement in the creation of out-of-control business cycles, who they are helping, and how,” Paul argued shortly before his bill’s passage in the House.

Federal Reserve officials and some legislators, who are used to operating under a cloak of secrecy, are naturally opposed to the move to open up the Fed’s system of accountability.  “Legislators supporting secrecy and more power for the Fed are wildly out of touch with the nation and their constituents, not to mention the Constitution,” wrote Alex Newman for the New American magazine.

“Congress should swiftly audit the Fed. And after the American people find out what has been going on, it should be promptly abolished.”

 

Woolsey calls Senate health care bill too flawed

Read the Marin IJ article here.