The 2013 budget being released Monday will propose public works spending while seeking tax increases on the wealthy and corporations to claim progress on the federal deficit in his upcoming budget. The spending plan projects a deficit for this year of $1.3 trillion, the fourth straight year of $1 trillion-plus deficits, and $901 billion next year.

Jacob Lew, the president’s chief of staff, said the new budget would put the country on track to achieve $4 trillion in deficit reductions over the next 10 years, achieved by raising taxes on the wealthy and trimming government spending. Lew said the president’s budget would cut spending by $2.50 for every $1 it raises in new taxes.

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There simply is no other way to explain the statements of White House Chief of Staff Jacob Lew this morning on CNN’s State of the Union. Lew was asked by Candy Crawley about a recent statement by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid indicating he would not be bringing a vote on the budget to the Senate floor.

CROWLEY: “I want to read for our viewers something that Sen. Harry Reid, the Democrat Majority Leader in the U.S. Senate, who said, ‘We do not need to bring a budget to the floor this year. It’s done, we don’t need to do it.’”

LEW: “He’s not saying that they shouldn’t pass a budget. But we also need to be honest. You can’t pass a budget in the Senate of the United States without 60 votes and you can’t get 60 votes without bipartisan support. So unless… unless Republicans are willing to work with Democrats in the Senate, Harry Reid is not going to be able to get a budget passed.”

This is patently false.

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It’s always the little things that make me miss George W. Bush. Yes, his public profligacy gave us Obama, which in turn gave us the Tea Party. New York Times reporter Jodi Kantor’s book, The Obamas, makes me love him all the more. The book gushes a little much about Michelle Obama’s sense of style.

We learn, this, for instance:

[The First Lady] hired a wardrobe assistant; when she traveled abroad, she wanted to bring her own hair and makeup assistants; and to redecorate the private quarters of the White House, she passed over little-known designers in favor of Michael Smith, who had done houses for Steven Spielberg and Rupert Murdoch. (85)

(A few days after the inauguration we learn that Michael Smith had also redone the executive suite of John Thain, the fired CEO of Merrill Lynch, for $1.2 million after having gotten $20 billion bailout money.)

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President Barack Obama will deliver his fourth State of the Union address on Tuesday, January 24th–the very day that marks the 1,000th day since the Democrat-controlled United States Senate last bothered to pass a budget.

On Monday, the Ranking Republican of the Senate Budget Committee Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) and the Chairman of the House Budget Committee Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) released a joint statement blasting Democrats for their budgetary inaction and contrasting it with Republican efforts:

Senate Democrats abandoned their official duty to prioritize Americans’ hard-earned tax dollars and tackle our nation’s most pressing economic challenges—dealing a painful blow to fiscal progress that may be felt for some time.  This contrasts sharply with the record of the House Republicans. Last spring, the new House Majority publicly produced a budget plan before the nation, brought it forward in committee, and passed it on the floor. The budget’s principled solutions honestly confront our nation’s most difficult challenges, putting the budget on a path to balance and the country on a path to prosperity.

To mark the inauspicious 1,000-day anniversary, the Heritage Foundation released a series of budget facts and urged the Senate to meet its Constitution requirements for fiscal stewardship:

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We were so full of “hope” for “change.” No, I am not talking about the election of Barack Obama, one of the most effective Progressive presidents in American history. I am speaking of the excitement felt within the Conservative, Libertarian and Center Right and Left political communities after the 2010 election delivered the House and a non-filibuster proof Senate to the American people. Finally, most of us thought, some balance in the federal government. Maybe, just maybe, the Progressives and Liberal Democrats in federal government would be forced to the table of true and honest compromise; compromise fitting of a truly free people. But, as we look back over the year, what did we really get for all that so-called “compromise?”

With Republicans in control of the US House of Representatives, the body where – by the mandate of the US Constitution – all legislation relating to revenue is to begin, many on the Right and in the Center believed that the reckless and spendthrift fiscal actions of the 111th Congress would be constrained if not reversed. With a sizable number of new members identifying with the oft demonized TEA Party, there was high hope for a glimmer of fiscal sanity to emerge from the halls of Congress. And while the TEA Party members of Congress are to be congratulated for doing exactly what their constituents sent them to Washington to do, in the end, they were thwarted by establishment, inside the beltway Republicans and the despotic obstructionism foisted upon them by Senate Majority leader Harry Reid, D-NV, (to be fair, Reid was aided by a less than reform-minded Republican leadership in the senate, led by Mitch McConnell, R-KY).

The Budget
In absolute defiance of the fact that it is law that Congress must pass an annual budget for the federal government, Senate Democrats – once again, led by the indignant political disgrace that is Harry Reid – refused to abide by said law in passing, reconciling and advancing to the President an annual budget. It has been over 900 days – almost three years – since the last budget has been presented to the President for his signature or veto.

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Mid-size city Austin, Texas is expecting to spend $1,000,000 of taxpayer money on the Occupy Austin movement, effectively eating away at claimed reductions in the city’s police overtime budget only two months into their fiscal year.

According to the Digital Texan…

Occupy Austin has been inhabiting City Hall Plaza for two-months and at today’s Austin Public Safety Commission meeting came stunning news: The Austin Police Department has spent $412,000 policing the Occupy Austin protest since it began on October 6 through November 19. That figure is almost certainly higher today. The Commission admitted that the city could be on the hook for over $1 million before too long.

To put the $1 million figure in perspective, you need look no further than the city of Austin’s own budget for 2011-2012 – that’s what the city was hoping to save on police overtime this year. Austin’s fiscal year starts on October 1^st. The city budget made the following assumption…

The Police Department is generating savings by delaying the start of the next cadet academy by six months and reducing its overtime budget by $1.0 million, from $9.3 million to $8.3 million, to be more in-line with actual overtime costs experienced over the last few years. In the past three fiscal years, actual overtime expenditures have averaged $7.5 million.

What are Austinites getting for their money? In a pattern that’s been followed all over the country, the ‘Occupy Camp’ in Ausitn has become largely a homeless camp. The Digital Taxan…

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Like the proponents of Ohio’s Issue 2 tried to point out before the November vote, keeping the status quo for Ohio public union salaries, benefits, and pensions was unsustainable.

A yes vote would’ve kept Ohio Senate Bill 5 as law, and tried to reign in the runaway spending and debt being heaped on the state. Unions spent over $50M to defeat Issue 2, as evidenced by the utter proliferation of “No on 2″ signs that sprouted all over the state.

As was warned, the budget realities must now be faced. Cities across the state are running out of money and are now being forced to lay off fire and police employees (e.g. Portsmouth, Lancaster, Middletown). Without SB5, the only options left to the cities are higher taxes or less employees.

The main scare tactic by the “No on 2″ crowd was that fire and police employees were going to lose their jobs and communities were going to be less safe. As it turns out, not ALL of the police and fireman are getting fired (as the dire warning went during the run up to the vote), just the ones on the bottom of the seniority totem pole.

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From BusinessInsider:

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said Senate Democrats will put forward a plan to extend the payroll tax cut into 2012 this week paid for by a surtax on those with incomes greater than $1 million.

The tax cut provides the average American family with an extra $1000 in their pocket each year — and President Barack Obama has said failing to extend the tax cut and unemployment benefits would cost the economy 1 million jobs and 0.5% off GDP.

Schumer described the revenue increase on Meet the Press as a “small surtax on incomes over $1 million,” a measure certain to draw opposition from deficit-hawk Republicans opposed to any tax increases.

Schumer added that Democrats would keep introducing the payroll tax cut if it fails this week — but indicated his party is willing to negotiate other “pay-fors” with Republicans if necessary.

Americans for Tax Reform president Grover Norquist said on the same program that he is not opposed to extending the tax cut, but he indicated he would be opposed to a new tax on millionaires to pay for it.

Read more here.

The Congressional “Super Committee” tasked with cutting the debt has failed. Good. Embrace the joy of failure. Sometimes failure works out for the best. Because in this case “failure” leads to the Holy Grail: $1.2 Trillion in forced spending cuts. That’s the best thing that could have ever come out of this unconstitutional “Super Committee.”

Congress is now forced to accept automatic across the board cuts to spending- including defense spending. This is what the GOP should have been aiming for from day one. Play out the clock and force $1.2 Trillion in spending cuts.

But our GOP friends never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. They are scared, spineless weaklings. They are actually panicking because there wasn’t a compromise that raised taxes. Could they possibly be this dumb?

The GOP had the perfect campaign message tailor-made for a 2012 landslide. “The GOP stands for smaller government, lower taxes, less spending. Obama is for bigger government, higher taxes, more spending.” The same simple clear contrast that led to a historic Tea Party landslide in 2010. All they had to do was play out the clock and let the spending cuts take effect.

Instead the GOP “super committee” members were so scared of actually forcing real, honest-to-goodness, spending cuts that they desperately tried all last week to compromise with Democrats. They practically begged Democrats to increase taxes on the wealthy (by taking away deductions). The GOP was anxious to sell out every small business owner, homeowner, and GOP contributor in America. Listen carefully- it was the GOP who offered a deal based on Obama’s philosophy to punish successful Americans for their hard work, sacrifice, and financial risk-taking.

Republicans offered a deal to Democrats that included only slightly larger spending cuts versus tax increases. And guess where all the tax increases were aimed- at wealthy taxpayers. Even as GOP Presidential contenders lied to our faces during televised debates, all agreeing they would not even accept a deal of 10-to-1 spending cuts versus tax increases, the GOP Super Committee members attempted to sell out the entire conservative base for close to 1-to-1.

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In July, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), chair of the Republican Study Committee, was made to apologize to party leaders for opposing the debt ceiling deal that created the now-failed super committee.

Photo credit: UPI/Kevin Dietsch

Now that events have proved his opposition to have been well-founded, Rep. Jordan is reminding the public that House Republicans have already passed the Cut, Cap, and Balance plan, along with many other bills proposed and/or passed to balance the budget and generate economic growth at the same time:

Jordan Responds to the Super Committee’s Lack of Agreement

Washington, DC – Republican Study Committee Chairman Jim Jordan offered the following statement after the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction failed to come to agreement, triggering $1.2 trillion of automatic spending cuts over a ten year period beginning in 2013:

“Throughout the year, the Republican Study Committee has offered solutions to address the debt crisis, including the Cut, Cap and Balance plan that passed the House with bipartisan support.  But instead of a solution, Washington wanted a deal, and thus the Super Committee was created.”
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Novembers during off-election years in Washington, D. C. are typically pretty serene. The autumn colors stream up and down Georgetown by the Potomac, while lawmakers gingerly ease into the holidays, knowing full well the next year will have them in complete campaign mode — not so for 2011. In their infinite wisdom following a contentious budget showdown just a few months prior, Congress and the White House silently swore they didn’t want to face that political debacle again. So 523 elected “responsible” lawmakers surrendered their roles as committee chairs, appropriations cardinals and oversight hawks to an intrepid 12 colleagues to begin the work they so eagerly avoided. That shifting sound you hear is our Founding Fathers turning over in their graves.

The die is cast, and for reasons I will explain, there is ample evidence that leads to but one conclusion: For the good of the Congress, the President, and the nation writ large, this band of 12 can not fail. To be clear, it’s entirely possible the Joint Committee on Deficit Reduction can fail to meet its mandated purpose of recommending reductions from $1.2 trillion to $1.5 trillion from the federal budget by Thanksgiving. That’s a tall order. But they must not fail if we expect our governing institutions to retain what little credibility that remains among them.

The first casualty of an empty Super Committee is our nation’s economic health. Set aside for the moment the sheer need for austerity. If the panel were to miss its mark, economic chaos could ensue. Moody’s Investor Service has already lowered our nation’s stellar credit rating. And just last week, the credit house said that, while no downgrade is automatic, the Super Committee would serve it and Congress well by tackling big budget busters such as entitlement reform. Put another way, Congress should get out of its own way. Not long ago, Democrats led by the President blamed consumer demand as the key inhibitor to economic growth in 2011. Then Republicans piled on and said it was looming uncertainty that paralyzed investors and businesses alike, freezing precious capital. Even Obama later subscribed to that reasoning. So why is it now, when they are singularly responsible for that very uncertainty, they refuse to execute the steps to end it?

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From #OccupyWallSt:

On November 23rd, the Congressional Deficit Reduction Super-Committee will meet to decide on whether or not to keep Obama’s extension to the Bush tax-cuts – which only benefit the richest 1% of Americans in any kind of significant way. Luckily, a group of OWS’ers are embarking on a two-week march from Liberty Plaza to the Whitehouse to let the committee know what the 99% think about these cuts. Join the march to make sure these tax cuts for the richest 1% of Americans are allowed to die!

More information:

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On Friday Former President Bill Clinton spoke at the dedication of a bridge at his Presidential library.  During his address he complained that Republicans try to take too much credit for his welfare reform legislation and for balancing the budget. The two parties can argue about who was behind welfare reform, but no one deserves credit for balancing the budget.  The truth is  the United States federal budget was not balanced in any of Bill Clinton’s eight years as President. Not once!

The federal government has two types of debt public debt and intra-governmental debt.  Public debt is comprises securities held by investors outside the federal government, including that held by investors, the Federal Reserve System and foreign, state and local governments  Intra-governmental debt comprises Treasury securities held in accounts administered by the federal government, such as the Social Security Trust Fund.

Traditionally the annual federal government budget deficit or surplus is the cash difference between government receipts and spending, ignoring intra-governmental transfers. This is a trick as intra-governmental debt needs to be repaid just like the publicly held debt. This is also how Clinton claimed a surplus in three out of his last four years. (Source for all of the numbers below, US Treasury Direct).

These figures include the public debt but not the intra-governmental debt.  Its like paying off your American Express card while ignoring the fact that your Mastercard over the limit and months past due. Your Amex looks great but your budget is not balanced.

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From The Washington Post:

The latest Obama plan “doesn’t produce any more in realistic savings than the plan they offered in April,” said Maya MacGuineas, president of the bipartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. “They’ve filled in details, repackaged it and replaced one gimmick with another. They don’t even stabilize the debt. This is just not enough.”

The most disheartening development, MacGuineas and others said, is Obama’s decision to count $1.1 trillion in savings from the drawdown of troops in Iraq and Afghanistan toward his debt-reduction total. Because Obama has no intention of continuing war spending at last year’s elevated levels, that $1.1 trillion would never have been spent.

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In one of the most galling attempts in history to politically reposition a failing presidency, President Barack Obama and his Hyde Park, Chicago Progressive machine handlers have launched a new propaganda campaign meant to absolve him of any blame where the failure of his administration is concerned. Instead the “Obamanation” is attempting to brand “Congress” and the “political system” as the culprits. Forget about hope and change. Forget about any dreams his Father may or may not have had. This is audacity at its most egregious.

Throughout his political career Mr. Obama has been no stranger to the practice of throwing once crucial-now dispensable allies “under the bus.” We first saw it with Bill Ayers and Rev. Jeremiah Wright. He then graduated to tossing whole demographics in his continued failure to address specific campaign promises to activist groups, i.e. anti-war groups, gay and lesbian groups, Black advocacy groups, community organizing groups, etc. Now, those who have put their careers on the line for his agenda – whether it was for Obamacare or for the failed stimulus – find themselves in the President’s opportunistic crosshairs. Mr. Obama is throwing his Progressive and Democrat allies to the wolves in a transparent and insincere attempt to tack to the center.

As reported in The Hill:

“In what at first appeared to be another of the president’s almost routine trips to an advanced battery manufacturer, Obama came out firing, saying that ‘what we’ve seen in Washington the last few months has been the worst kind of partisanship, the worst kind of gridlock.’

“And that gridlock has undermined public confidence and impeded our efforts to take the steps we need for our economy,’ Obama said. ‘It’s made things worse instead of better.’

“The president added what was unmistakably a new economic theme and reelection message: ‘There is nothing wrong with our country. There is something wrong with our politics.’”

In a failed attempt to invoke the spirit of the TEA Party movement, Mr. Obama added,

“…the public suddenly realized…we are going to have to get engaged. And if you agree with me – it doesn’t matter if you’re a Democrat or a Republican or an independent – you’ve got to let Congress know. You’ve got to tell them you’ve had enough of the theatrics. You’ve had enough of the politics. Stop sending out press releases. Start passing some bills that we all know will help our economy right now. That’s what they need to do; they’ve got to hear from you.”

It is stunning that Mr. Obama and his propaganda team believe that the American people are so completely devoid of any capacity to “remember”; that they believe they can rewrite or completely abolish recent history right before our eyes.

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From The Associated Press:

First word of an effort to reach a compromise came at mid-afternoon from Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker John Boehner—Obama’s principal Republican antagonist in a contentious new era of divided government. Both GOP leaders said they were in touch with the White House and hopeful of a deal.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid heatedly denied their claims of progress on the Senate floor a short while later, but several hours later said events had changed.

“There are many elements to be finalized…there is still a distance to go,” he said in dramatic late-night remarks. “I’m glad to see this move toward cooperation and compromise,” he added.

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As we tick-tock toward August 2nd, the day President Obama and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner have set as the day the Executive Branch will have to start prioritizing expenditures – establishing what programs are covered exclusively by actual tax revenue and not borrowed money, we approach an artificial deadline for a secondary issue created by a much more systemic national malady. Where the news media and elected officials argue, whine and mislead on the issue of raising the federal debt limit ceiling, the debt ceiling isn’t even close to the issue that all inside the beltway, but for the TEA Party, are refusing to address seriously: overspending.

Many on the Left side of the aisle have been caught rationalizing the need to raise the debt ceiling by noting it has been raised 78 times since 1960 – 49 times under Republican presidents, and 29 times under Democrat presidents, an irrelevant attribution due to the fact that Congress holds the power of the purse, not the Executive Branch. In fact, if one wants to split hairs about which party has presided over the majority of debt ceiling raises, and, consequently, which party has presided over the most deficit spending, it would be more accurate to point out that Democrats, from 1960 to 2010, have held the majorities in the Senate for 36 years and the House for 41 years. Ergo, Democrats and Progressives are far more to blame than Republicans for bringing the nation to the precipice of financial ruin.

Truth be told, both sides of the aisle are to blame for spending beyond their means, the honest man – or woman – recognizes and acknowledges that Congress has been spending more than it takes in for generations, whether under Republican leadership or Democrat leadership. That said, our nation would be infinitely better served if the news media and the elected class abandoned the blame game and political gimmicks – something that Progressives and especially Pres. Obama are not wont to do, to focus on the urgent need for them to commit to balancing the budget.
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“Men of experience succeed even better than those who have theory without experience…If, then, a man has the theory without the experience, and recognizes the universal but does not know the individual included in this, he will often fail to cure; for it is the individual that is to be cured.” –Aristotle

Aristotle’s wise words from 2,500 years ago gives us the precise reason why the president’s statist economic policies are failing miserably. Keynesian economists like New York Times columnist and Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman believe that during times of economic slowdown, it is the government’s responsibility to jump start the economy and spur economic growth by the government itself spending large sums of borrowed money – usually on make work public works projects. The theory goes that when the government spends large sums of money during a slowdown, this will somehow motivate businesses and consumers to spend money as well.

Two years after the president’s ’stimulus’ plan, with consumer confidence at all time lows and with unemployment at 9.2% and rising, the plan has obviously been a failure. That is why it is difficult to understand why someone of Krugman’s stature, as late as July of  this year, would argue for more stimulus spending and downplay the need to address our massive national debt when it’s obvious that the stimulus package has failed:

“What I keep hearing from Washington is one of two arguments: either (1) the stimulus has failed, unemployment is still rising, so we shouldn’t do any more, or (2) the stimulus has succeeded, G.D.P. is growing, so we don’t need to do any more. The truth, which is that the stimulus was too little of a good thing — that it helped, but it wasn’t big enough — seems to be too complicated for an era of sound-bite politics.’

“So no, I mean, the deficit doesn’t matter. The economy matters. And that’s why somehow or other, Obama has got to get jobs being created.”

Again:

“Men of experience succeed even better than those who have theory without experience”

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Circular firing squads are very helpful…when they’re done on the other side of the aisle. That is why Democrats are so happy lately, sitting back and watching all the Republican in-fighting over deft ceiling deals. Sadly, Republicans have been all too happy to oblige. It’s time for them to stop and shift the onus to Democrats in the Senate and the White House, where it belongs.

The normal way passing legislation works is the House passes a bill, the Senate passes a bill on the same subject, they come together in a conference committee to hammer out the differences to form one bill, then both chambers vote again on the finished product. The way this debt negotiations have been going is the House passes a bill, the Senate and the President say they don’t like it. The House passes another bill, the Senate and the President say they don’t like it. Lather, rinse, repeat.

While this kabuki dance goes on, Republicans keep offering more and more plans, fighting amongst themselves and the media reports it as if they are the ones being unreasonable. This needs to stop.

It’s too late to stop a vote on the latest plan introduced by Speaker Boehner, it’s out there and everyone is expecting a vote on it. But that should be the last vote the House takes on the issue until the Senate acts on something.

What good will that do?

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