Dems on Debt Ceiling: No Cuts, More Taxes
Not so fast.The bullies in the Democratic Party have no intention of cutting a single dollar. Instead, they want to tighten their stranglehold on the windpipes of job producers and entrepreneurs. This morning, virtually every Democrat on virtually every Sunday show said the same thing: no cuts, more taxes. So much for the Republican attempt to take the tax discussion off the table.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi led the way, telling CBS’ Face the Nation that the historically enormous tax increases just enshrined in law aren’t enough: “The President had originally said he wanted $1.6 trillion in revenue. He took it down to $1.2 trillion as a compromise in this legislation. We get $620 billion, very significant, high-end tax, changing the high-end tax rate to 39.6 percent, but that is not enough on the revenue side.” Pelosi said that the Obama regime had already made cuts to social programs like Medicare – a position the Obama re-election campaign denied repeatedly. She added that there would be no change to Medicare’s eligibility age, and wouldn’t allow cost of living adjustments to Social Security payments. And she concluded that any link between raising the debt ceiling and cutting spending wouldn’t happen: “I don’t think those two things should be related.” She went so far as to say that she’d unilaterally raise the debt ceiling in violation of the Constitution if she were president.
To bolster her argument on taxes, Pelosi didn’t actually cite statistics on economic development or job creation. Instead, she went directly to the thug tactic of labeling her opposition “an over-the-edge crowd” of “anti-government ideologues” who are “hard to understand.” Because wanting to cut spending when you’re running a national debt the size of the combined national debts of the entire European Union is out of the mainstream, and makes you a nut.
It’s not just Pelosi playing this ridiculous game. Democrat after Democrat claimed that taxes need to be increased, even if that stifles job production, even if no tax increase of any magnitude could come close to repaying our national debt.
Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) appeared on Fox News Sunday to explain, “If [Republicans insist on spending cuts without tax increases], it’s going to be a recipe for more gridlock. We have to take a balanced approach to long-term deficit reduction.” We are already at the vaunted Clinton tax rates Democrats love so much. But the notion that those rates were the Democrats’ goal was a canard. Now the Democrats want to move the goalposts again.
Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) joined CNN’s State of the Union to push the same message. “I can tell you that there are still deductions, credits, special treatments under the tax code which ought to be looked at very carefully,” he said. “I think we need to open our minds on tax revenue.”
And, of course, President Obama in his weekly address said that negotiating over the debt ceiling was a “dangerous game” he would “not compromise over.” One of his officials said that he will “definitely not” come to the negotiating table. Because the essence of the Constitutional system is the president ignoring the Constitutional system.
But some Republicans already show signs of caving on the debt ceiling. They seem unwilling to allow America to go into government shutdown in order to pay its debts – America will not default, it will simply shut down non-essential government services. But Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), head of the Republican Study Committee, wouldn’t answer when asked on Fox News Sunday if Republicans would force Obama to choose between cuts and hitting the debt ceiling. “What I won’t support is not dealing with the problem,” he stated. “This is Lucy [and] Charlie Brown [and] the football.” He seemed cowed with Van Hollen imitated Pelosi’s thug tactics by suggesting that hitting the debt ceiling was “the madman theory to negotiations.”
But Tea Party leaders are ready to rumble. Sen. Ted Cruz took the lead this morning on Fox News Sunday. “I don’t think what Washington needs is more compromise,” said the newly-sworn-in Senator.
What America needs is responsible fiscal policy, not demagoguery. They won’t find that from Democrats or the Republicans who cave to them.
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/01/06/Dems-no-negotiations-tax-increases
McConnell: We Must Break Washington’s “Spending Addiction”
Early Sunday morning on ABC’s “This Week” Senate Minority Leader
Mitch McConnell delivered a simple yet important message to President
Obama and his Democratic colleagues on the Hill: It’s time to tackle
spending:
http://townhall.com/tipsheet/danieldoherty/2013/01/06/mcconnell-we-must-break-washingtons-spending-addiction-n1480
Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell says that "absolutely the tax issue is behind us" as a result of the "fiscal cliff" deal and that it's now time to focus solely on confronting what he calls "our spending addiction."
He says it shouldn't require a crisis for President Barack Obama and the Democratic majority in the Senate to address federal
The Kentucky Republican tells ABC's "This Week" that waiting until the last minute of a deadline — as was the case with the fiscal cliff — is no way to run the government.In fact, it seems McConnell is so committed to cutting federal spending and preserving the American way of life that he won’t even consider legislation that doesn’t address this crucially important issue:
Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell federal spending and the country's debt will dominate the congressional agenda for the next three months, and that debate about potential gun legislation in the wake of the Connecticut school shooting will take a back seat.
The Kentucky lawmaker tells ABC's "This Week" that lawmakers will wait to see what an Obama administration review led by Vice President Joe Biden might propose. McConnell says Congress will need to study any recommendations and then see what's appropriate to do.Will Washington lawmakers (i.e., liberal Democrats) finally get serious about cutting wasteful government spending and reforming entitlements -- especially now that they’ve (ahem) “won” the battle over tax increases? We shall see.
But he says that over the coming months, nothing much beyond the country's finances will occupy the attention of Congress.
http://townhall.com/tipsheet/danieldoherty/2013/01/06/mcconnell-we-must-break-washingtons-spending-addiction-n1480
The Week In Stupid
Sometimes there is so much stupid going on in the world that you have to just stop and take stock of it all.Al Gore sells Current TV to Al Jazeera.
The Americans who owned the anti-American network Current TV soon will be replaced as owners by foreigners who operate the anti-American network Al Jazeera. I doubt any of the 40,000 regular Current TV viewers would have noticed had the news not gone public. Of course, most of them spend their time writing diaries at the DailyKos, when not being yelled at by their moms to clean their rooms. But the big winner in all this is former Vice-President Al Gore. The private-jet-flying, limo-riding, mansion-heating/air-conditioning bearded Pope of the Holy Church of Global Warming stands to pocket $100 million in dirty oil money from the deal. Unfortunately for him, in spite of his scrambling to do so, he wasn’t able to seal the deal before the end of 2012 and will have to pay the higher tax rates he tried desperately to avoid. Seems like Al Gore is looking to win the Nobel Prize in hypocrisy.
Sadly, the current line-up of Current TV, Jennifer Granholm, Eliot Spitzer, The Young Turks, Joy Behar, etc., are not expected to be retained when the new owners take over. Even terrorists have some standards.
The Dud Heard ‘Round the World
Have you heard about the resignation and/or ouster of Speaker of the House John Boehner? No? That’s so weird. It was the biggest story that wasn’t. Journalists, bloggers and activists took wishful thinking to exciting new levels when they assured their readers and followers they had the details, the inside dope on how the Republican caucus had had enough and planned a coup. Only it didn’t.
The “leader” of this fool’s caucus was a guy named Ron Meyer Jr., who works for something called American Majority Action. I’ve never heard of Ron and I’ve heard only a tiny amount about American Majority Action – but then, I’ve been active in the Washington, D.C., conservative movement for only about 12 years now, so what do I know? Ron assured the world he knew the truth…then came the vote. Oops. Forget an egg, forget an omelet, Meyer Jr. had a chicken farm on his face. How did he handle it? The way everyone in the Washington Ron decries handled it – he blamed everyone else.
Ron is only 23, and he suffers from a tragic case of what afflicts nearly everyone at that age – an inability or unwillingness to simply admit you screwed up, that you aren’t as smart or important as you think you are. Come to think of it, in a lot of ways he’s guilty of exactly what he’d been accusing Speaker Boehner of.
Dude, Where’s My Money?
While President Obama and his supporters were busy crowing about finally sticking to those greedy rich people (you know, the people who sign the front of paychecks), a funny thing happened on the way to direct deposit. A lesser known feature of the “fiscal cliff” deal, one for which the president did not fight, was the end of the payroll tax “holiday.” For the past two years, this holiday has provided every working American a 2 percent bump in take-home pay. It wasn’t a raise, and it wasn’t a tax cut; it was a temporary perk to fool people into thinking having Obama in office was good for their bottom line. Well, since Barack Obama doesn’t need your vote anymore, he now cares for you about as much as OJ Simpson thinks of what his ex-mother-in-law thinks of him.
The payroll tax is back to where it was before President Obama needed your vote, and a lot of his supporters are confused. One took to the “progressive” website Democratic Underground to ask what happened to his paycheck. He’s not a millionaire or billionaire, so why is his check smaller? He’s since deleted his original post, presumably because he felt so stupid, but the rest of the comments are still there and they are golden. It’s like watching someone watch that scene in The Usual Suspects when Kevin Spacey’s “Verbal” Kint starts walking normally and they realize he was Keyser Soze and they’ve been just as fooled as Chazz Palminteri was. Good stuff.
Been Jealous Much?
Few groups have done as much to advance the cause of the American Dream as the NAACP. Its legacy is legendary, except for the part that’s been tarnished since the group was co-opted by progressives who put their agenda over anything resembling their original mission of equality. Today, NAACP President Ben Jealous spends his time not fighting for his people, not rooting out the true unfairness still baked into the American system, but attacking the Tea Party, Republicans, black conservatives and especially black Tea Party Republicans. Enter U.S. Sen. Tim Scott.
Scott, a Republican from South Carolina and the only member of the Senate who is black, found himself on the end of an attack from the NAACP for not caring about civil rights. Yes, you read that right. How did the NAACP come to this conclusion? Because Scott, as a member of the House of Representatives, didn’t support unions or progressives for judgeships and other government positions. Because that’s what constitutes “civil rights” these days.
Jealous burns his calories attacking anyone who supports individual responsibility and a sense of self-reliance. So he doesn’t have the energy to address the destruction of the black family, the 50 percent abortion rate of black pregnancies, the 70 percent of black births to unmarried women, the education system that fails its children or the black unemployment rate of 14 percent. As long as blacks vote for Democrats, the progressive agenda will be advanced, and these numbers will get worse. It’s a sad truth the NAACP is more interested in advancing the progressive agenda and maintaining power than in doing anything that remotely resembles its mission. It’s ironic the NAACP would become a de facto arm of the Democratic Party, the party of slavery, the party of Jim Crow, and the party that replaced those chains of slavery and inhumanity of Jim Crow with the chains of government dependence and the inhumanity that accompanies it.
Then again, when you realize progressives founded the idea of self-appointed intellectual superiors overseeing those who didn’t measure up to their standards, including the extermination of people they deemed unworthy or unproductive, it only makes sense they’d be silent on a system and culture that does nothing but produce dupable dependent voters to maintain their hold on power. Were Ben Jealous capable of shame, he would be drowning in it. Since he’s clearly not, he’ll just keep cashing those fat checks and attacking role models such as Tim Scott. Sickening.
Of course there was a lot more stupid this week, but there’s only so much that can be crammed into one column. I’ll revisit this topic throughout the year because stupid is the only thing being created faster than the Federal Reserve is printing money.
Go about your week.
http://townhall.com/columnists/derekhunter/2013/01/06/the-week-in-stupid-n1479593/page/full/
Stark Evidence of US, British Naval Decline
Is it actually possible that, as you read this, the United States Navy has only one supercarrier battle group at sea? Read on - and be amazed.
- For the first time in two centuries, British businessmen and others have formed a private navy to protect shipping off the pirate-ridden coast of Somali on the Horn of Africa. A millionaire businessman has formed a company called Typhoon to furnish escort and protection, including troops, along the shipping lanes which world navies have proved inadequate to police. The first convoy of ships is projected for March or April.
The re-emergence of what used to called "privateers" (Sir Francis Drake is the most famous example from history) is the latest sign of outsourcing or abandonment of traditional military functions by Western nations whose militaries have contracted to pinpoint-size in the wake of the growth of the modern welfare state.
Private security and private armies -- again, once known to history as "mercenaries," are another aspect of this trend.
- Meanwhile, news came that the Russian Navy has deployed ships, marines, combat vehicles and equipment just off the coast of Syria. Five landing ships are accompanied by military vessels.
The Russian Defense Ministry says it's just a routine exercise off Latakia, where the Russians have maintained a military port (recently visited by the Iranian Navy) since Soviet times. Israelis sources, however, tell the Jerusalem Post the Russian military is there to deter a Western humanitarian intervention against the embattled regime of Bashar al-Assad.
The Assads, and Syria, have been clients of Russia and the old Soviet Union since the 1970's.
Now, where are the U.S. Navy's supercarrier battle groups?
As of January 2, 2013, gonavy.jp - a source, with StratFor, which we rely on here, was showing no U.S. supercarrier battle groups in or near the Mediterranean. Last year, with the retirement of "the Big E", the USS Enterprise, the U.S. supercarrier force shrank to ten battle groups. According to the same source, four of America's ten remaining supercarriers are actually in various types of extended rehabitation, upgrading and maintenance, so they're not available for sea duty.
One carrier battle groups is currently on station in the Arabian Sea. According to gonavy.jp, that supercarrier, the USS John C. Stennis, appears to be the only one presently at sea. The USS George Washington is home-ported in Yokohama, Japan.
One supercarrier battle group on station in the Arabian Sea, another docked in Yokohama. The other eight U.S. supercarrier battle groups are either off-line (four) or dockside in the U.S. (four).
Any chance the re-appearance of private navies on the world's high seas will affect the current risk posed by "sequester" to the U.S. military budget and persuade the Obama Administration to re-consider its announced plans to further shrink an American Navy already now half the size it was at the end of the First Gulf War in 1991?
Nope.
Exxon Mobil upbraids Vermont's socialist senator for his tall tales
Exxon Mobil's public affairs department no doubt knows all about the dangers of the Big Lie -- a communications strategy perfected by Herr Goebbels, practiced by community organizer Alinsky & Friends, and now embraced by the powers that be in Washington.Repeat an outrageous lie often enough, and the public will take it as the truth.
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, a self-described socialist and advocate of wind power, has recently been playing the Big Lie game with Exxon Mobil -- claiming it paid no federal income taxes in 2009. On Saturday, the energy giant fought back with a letter-to-the-editor in the Wall Street Journal -- "Inaccurate Statements about Exxon Mobil" -- signed by Kenneth P. Cohen, Vice President of Public and Government Affairs for the Irving, Texas-based company. He wrote:
In his Jan. 2 letter defending taxpayer subsidization of wind power, Sen. Bernie Sanders repeats his inaccurate claim that Exxon Mobil, one of the largest taxpayers in the United States, paid no federal income taxes in 2009.
That is not true, as we and others, including the PolitiFact truth-checking website, have told Sen. Sanders repeatedly.
He also incorrectly repeats the claim that billions in subsidies are going to the fossil fuel industry, when he's really talking about tax provisions available to all industries to support job creation and economic activity.
The fact is that Exxon Mobil is one of the largest taxpayers in the country. Over the past five years, our total U.S. tax expense was $57 billion, about $18 billion more than the company earned in the country during the same period.
You can read PolitiFact's analysis of Exxon Mobil's tax payments here. But don't expect this to make an impression on Sen. Sanders -- nor on Occupy Wall Street protesters and their friends in Washington.
As they see things, Exxon Mobile got rich by making the rest of us poor.
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