Obamas' Veto Pen

[Exotix]

GOP sets up huge target for budget ax.

Goal of cutting $100 billion carries substantial political and economic risk



Today

NYT: GOP sets up huge target for budget ax - Politics - The New York Times - msnbc.com

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/04/us...scal.html?_r=1




WASHINGTON — The incoming Republican majority in the House is moving to make good on its promise to cut $100 billion from domestic spending this year, a goal eagerly backed by conservatives but one carrying substantial political and economic risks.

House Republican leaders are so far not specifying which programs would bear the brunt of budget cutting, only what would escape it: spending for the military, domestic security and veterans.

The reductions that would be required in the remaining federal programs, including education and transportation, would be so deep — roughly 20 percent on average — that Senate Republicans have not joined the $100 billion pledge that House Republicans, led by the incoming speaker, Representative John A. Boehner, made to voters before November’s midterm elections.



Even if adopted by the House, the Republicans’ budget is unlikely to be enacted in anything like the scale they envision, since Democrats retain a majority in the Senate and President Obama could veto annual appropriations bills making the reductions.



But the effort is more than symbolic: in particular it could give House Republicans increased leverage in budget negotiations with the White House this winter and spring, when the administration must get Congress to raise the federal debt limit or risk a government financing crisis.

The budget-cutting exercise is perhaps the biggest test facing the House Republicans as they seek to remain united and to keep faith with Tea Party members, many of whom remain suspicious of the party’s willingness to vote for deep spending cuts.

But if Republicans vote for the size and range of required cuts in education, law enforcement, medical and scientific research, transportation and much more, it would give Democrats political ammunition to use against them in swing districts.

Such reductions are sure to draw protests from governors and local officials, including Republicans, who are counting on federal money to help balance their budgets.
Many business and farm groups likewise would oppose cuts in their subsidies.
And many economists would argue that immediate federal spending cuts of this size, especially on top of cuts and layoffs in the cities and states, would threaten the economy’s recovery and offset any stimulus from the tax cut deal Republicans and Mr. Obama reached just weeks ago.




'Real cuts in real programs'

Yet conservative analysts say even more spending cuts are desirable.

Brian Riedl of the Heritage Foundation, a conservative research organization, has outlined a plan for $343 billion in reductions, including cuts from corporate tax breaks and entitlement programs that are not in the portion of the federal budget that House Republicans are focusing on, the so-called nonsecurity discretionary spending.

“The difficulty for Republicans is that they’re concentrating their cuts in a small sliver of the budget,” Mr. Riedl said.

“They should also be addressing large entitlement programs, such as Medicare and Social Security, which are the main source of our budget problems.
Cutting $100 billion from these other programs isn’t just a matter of eliminating waste, fraud and abuse.

It will involve real cuts in real programs.”





Other Republicans are skeptical, as well.

“I just don’t know how, when you get down to it, they’re going to get agreement on that,” said G. William Hoagland, who for many years was the Republican staff director of the Senate Budget Committee.

The promise to cut $100 billion this fiscal year — in effect, taking government operations to 2008 levels — would mean cuts of more than 20 percent across the board from the $477 billion that Congress allocated for such programs in the 2010 fiscal year, which ended Sept. 30.

Such across-the-board cuts “would have very damaging implications for the long-term growth of the economy and the long-term future of our work force,” said Jacob J. Lew, Mr. Obama’s budget director.
He is preparing the administration’s budget for the 2012 fiscal year, which would continue a three-year freeze of the same domestic spending at 2010 levels.

“If you look in areas like education, if it was applied across the board it would mean eight million students would have their Pell grants reduced by an average of $700,” Mr. Lew said.
“You obviously could make policy not to do that, but then you’d have to save a lot of money somewhere else.”

A 20-percent cut also would mean 40,000 fewer teachers and school aides, he said, and big reductions in basic research, law enforcement and small business programs, among many others.

If the Republicans apply their promise literally, some programs would have to be scaled back even more because the government is already well into its fiscal year, so the cuts would have to be concentrated in a shorter period.

The reductions would be about 30.6 percent, said James R. Horney, a former Congressional budget analyst who is now at the liberal-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

“That would require very large layoffs or furloughs of federal employees,” Mr. Horney said, “as well as big reductions in grants to state and local governments and government purchases of goods and services — all of which would offset a good portion of the stimulus achieved in the tax compromise and threaten the recovery.”




In new rules that the House is expected to adopt when it convenes on Wednesday ...

Republicans will empower the incoming chairman of the House Budget Committee, Representative Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, to set limits for the various categories of domestic spending that are decided in the Appropriations Committee.
That is more power than ever invested in a Budget Committee chief and a significant diminution in the appropriation panel’s traditional sway.

Initially, that would allow House Republicans to suggest what general areas the $100 billion would come from without identifying specific cuts.

“The reality of governing is different than the reality of campaigning, and it’s easier to throw out a number than it is to support it,” said David Axelrod, Mr. Obama’s senior strategist.




Looming over the budget fight is the battle over the debt limit.

An increase in the debt limit is essential for the government to borrow to meet its obligations, but it is adamantly opposed by the Tea Party movement and other small-government conservatives.

While they complain that lifting the limit enables new spending, mostly it allows the government to cover existing commitments, including trillions of dollars run up when Republicans controlled Congress and the White House from 2001 to 2007.





Video inside ~ Obama returns to new year, new challenges

also: Obama returns to White House to faces new challenges ~


http://www.hulu.com/watch/203989/nbc-nightly-news-with-brian-williams-new-challenges-await-obama

[Peter Pan]

Nanny Nancy Knows Best: If Every American Loved Their Healthcare Dems Would Still Take it Over, Repeal Is ‘Violence’ | The Blaze


Nanny Nancy Knows Best: If Every American Loved Their Healthcare Dems Would Still Take it Over, Repeal is“ Violence”

[ChasC5]

Originally Posted by Peter Pan

Nanny Nancy Knows Best: If Every American Loved Their Healthcare Dems Would Still Take it Over, Repeal Is ‘Violence’ | The Blaze


Nanny Nancy Knows Best: If Every American Loved Their Healthcare Dems Would Still Take it Over, Repeal is“ Violence”

It's Killing you isn't it?

[Peter Pan]

UFC Champ Calls Out Obama: ‘Someone’s Got to Knock Some Sense Into That Idiot’ | The Blaze

Sports
UFC Champ Calls Out Obama: ‘Someone’s Got to Knock Some Sense Into That Idiot’
Posted on January 4, 2011 at 11:44am by Jonathon M. Seidl Print » Email » UFC (which is a mixed martial arts fighting organization) champion Jacob Volkmann recently gave a candid interview after a big win over Antonio McKee. His most candid revelation? He admitted he wants his next opponent to be the “not too bright” president of the United States. Yes, he wants to fight Barack Obama:



Gateway Pundit reports Volkmann is a chiropractor and small business owner. And as Vokmann says in the video, the current health care laws are not conducive to being either.

[ChasC5]

Originally Posted by Peter Pan

UFC Champ Calls Out Obama: ‘Someone’s Got to Knock Some Sense Into That Idiot’ | The Blaze

Sports
UFC Champ Calls Out Obama: ‘Someone’s Got to Knock Some Sense Into That Idiot’
Posted on January 4, 2011 at 11:44am by Jonathon M. Seidl Print » Email » UFC (which is a mixed martial arts fighting organization) champion Jacob Volkmann recently gave a candid interview after a big win over Antonio McKee. His most candid revelation? He admitted he wants his next opponent to be the “not too bright” president of the United States. Yes, he wants to fight Barack Obama:



Gateway Pundit reports Volkmann is a chiropractor and small business owner. And as Vokmann says in the video, the current health care laws are not conducive to being either.

Da Blaze ...

[Peter Pan]

Originally Posted by ChasC5

Da Blaze ...

Anything better than the Commie News Network

[Z06PDQ]

so the Pubs want to cut Medicare & SSI? can you say "kiss of death?"

[Peter Pan]

Originally Posted by Z06PDQ

so the Pubs want to cut Medicare & SSI? can you say "kiss of death?"

Police Sgt. Suspended Over Bible Verse and ‘Obama Prayer’ | The Blaze


US
Police Sgt. Suspended Over Bible Verse and ‘Obama Prayer’
Posted on January 4, 2011 at 10:00am by Jonathon M. Seidl Print » Email » It‘s a small Bible verse that’s causing a big controversy.

Psalm 109:8 simply says, “May his days be few; may another take his place.” It’s that verse that has become known as “The Obama Prayer.” But after Sergeant Matthew Neu of the Manatee County, Florida corrections facility highlighted that verse in a jail Bible and a fellow sergeant stumbled upon it, Neu was suspended.

Sgt. Martha Nash, a colleague of Neu’s, ran across the highlighted verse and told WTSP she was shocked:



Nash told the news station “she felt whoever left the note wanted the president dead and that the supporting verses after that verse support that.” The following verse says, “May his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow.”

Neu says that’s not the case: he doesn’t want the president dead, just out of office. In an interval investigation report, however, he does admit “Maybe it was not in good taste.”

WTSP offers more details:

He adds that the desk where he left the bible is shared by several co-workers and that there was a stack of bibles on the desk. A stack of bibles that the chaplain hands out to inmates and other employees.

Neu says he planned to show the bible verse to others since he’d received an email about the bible verse because “he thought it was funny.”

The sheriff of Manatee County, Brad Steube, was out of the office on Monday and 10 News was told no one else within the department would talk about the incident. We were told that the internal affairs report speaks for itself.

Meanwhile, Sgt. Neu has been suspended without pay for about 26 hours. That’s about three 8-hour shifts.

[ChasC5]

Originally Posted by Z06PDQ

so the Pubs want to cut Medicare & SSI? can you say "kiss of death?"

Wasn’t this “W” great idea for privatization back in the mid 2k?

I wonder if any of his faithful followed his expert advice before 2008?

[Exotix]

Originally Posted by ChasC5

Wasn’t this “W” great idea for privatization back in the mid 2k?

I wonder if any of his faithful followed his expert advice before 2008?

When you're an old (neo-white) man who's spent a lifetime failing at *The (neo) One World (R) Order* ... you have nothing left to lose ...

Hilers' (Bush's entire family going back to Hitler were nazi's) last words were ... *The German people brought this on themselves* ...


Sad.

[Exotix]

Originally Posted by ChasC5

Da Blaze ...

Let's not make any never mind ... he's been having spats of right-wing McKookdom for some time now ... I'll go ahead and file it all under (R) as I suspect it's only gonna get worse ... (yes it is possible to get worse ... )

[Bill]

Wow. Replying to this thread would take the skills of a trained pilot the way it has moved about the country.

Back to the original post, I hope Obama DOES pull out his veto pen. The best way to deal with our budget problems would be to have a knife fight.

"Oh, you want to cut my program, fine, I'll cut one of yours." That would be a fight I would like to see.

Cuts in spending need to be made everywhere in government, even to promised entitlements like SS and Medicare. More recent pork programs need to just plain be gone, like Medicare, Part D.

If it happens, I'll be cheering from the sidelines. "Budget cutting fight, budget cutting fight!"

[Tinkerbell in Texas]

Originally Posted by bill_daniels

Wow. Replying to this thread would take the skills of a trained pilot the way it has moved about the country.

Back to the original post, I hope Obama DOES pull out his veto pen. The best way to deal with our budget problems would be to have a knife fight.

"Oh, you want to cut my program, fine, I'll cut one of yours." That would be a fight I would like to see.

Cuts in spending need to be made everywhere in government, even to promised entitlements like SS and Medicare. More recent pork programs need to just plain be gone, like Medicare, Part D.

If it happens, I'll be cheering from the sidelines. "Budget cutting fight, budget cutting fight!"

I know where you can find 2+ Billion easy!!!

[loiq]

Originally Posted by Exotix

Hilers' (Bush's entire family going back to Hitler were nazi's) last words were ... *The German people brought this on themselves* ...


Sad.

So Bush is related to Hitler (I assume you meant to type Hitler)? And the Bush family were nazis? This is interesting. You have a link?

[Exotix]

Originally Posted by loiq

So Bush is related to Hitler (I assume you meant to type Hitler)? And the Bush family were nazis? This is interesting. You have a link?

After all these years you never studied the Bush family tree ? ... damn.

[mrvette]

Originally Posted by Tinkerbell in Texas

I know where you can find 2+ Billion easy!!!

I can make it 2 TRILLION....easy....over maybe 5 years....

lemme see now....AFDC, EPA, must be 100 programs I could cut, so many I can't even quote all the titles...

NPR is obviously on the list....

[Joecooool]

If they would just means test social security and medicare, I think they could save about 100 billion right off the bat.

[mrvette]

Originally Posted by Joecooool

If they would just means test social security and medicare, I think they could save about 100 billion right off the bat.

110 BILLION ain't jack compared to what obidiot has spent of bullshit from the banks, and other financial dealings....

the entire damn .gov is out of control, and full of lies and CRAP....

[VITE1]

Originally Posted by Joecooool

If they would just means test social security and medicare, I think they could save about 100 billion right off the bat.

How about we start by reducing SS beneficiaries to the basic qualifications prior to the 1980's? SS got dozens of new categories due to the politicians pandering for votes. Kick them off first.

As to Medicare it has a 77 Trillion unfunded liability simply because it has driven million of people out of defined retirement packages and into the government arms. It is a disaster slowly coming upon all of us and the only way to reduce the fall out is to allow the people not retired to save as much as they can to be able to support themselves in retirement and encourage them to find private insurance to offset some of the risk. It will take two generations for us to dig out of the mess created by LBJ and his Great society.

[loiq]

Originally Posted by Exotix

After all these years you never studied the Bush family tree ? ... damn.

No, help me out.