The Left has frequently salivated over Obama’s post-partisan mojo. This post-partisan rhetoric has been so much hot-air, all show and no stay. Remember the president’s speech shortly after the unspeakable tragedy in Tucson wherein he said, “But at a time when our discourse has become so sharply polarized – at a time when we are far too eager to lay the blame for all that ails the world at the feet of those who think differently than we do – it’s important for us to pause for a moment and make sure that we are talking with each other in a way that heals, not a way that wounds.” How quickly those words were forgotten by the man who uttered them.

Hope of civility and bipartisan cooperation soon evaporated. President Obama wasted no time blaming Republicans for wanting dirty air and dirty water and not caring about the middle class who have suffered the most under his failed policies. He has prioritized his support for his friends in the labor unions while ignoring the failure of Senate Democrats to pass a budget in nearly 1000 days. He has done nothing since his Tucson speech to indicate he is post-partisan; indeed he has simply heated up his rhetoric against Republicans. His decision to reject the Keystone pipeline is just the latest far-Left pandering by his administration; in fact here is what Senate Democrats had to say about the Keystone Pipeline project,

Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA): “Landrieu says she’d support Keystone in payroll/ui/doc fix bill. Says ‘good deal’of D & R support for it.” (Trish Turner, Twitter, 12/15/11)

Sen. Mark Begich (D-AK): “Another sticking point is that Republicans inserted in their bill language that would fast-track the proposed Keystone X-L oil pipeline extension from Canada down to the Lower 48.  …Senator Begich is supportive of moving the project forward and his office says that’s not a problem.” (Alaska Public Radio, 12/14/11)

Sen. Kent Conrad (D-ND): “I personally think the pipeline is absolutely in the national interest.  It’ll help us reduce our dependence on foreign energy, at least foreign sources that are hostile to our interests… I, for one, on this side would hope that this could be part of a final package…” (Floor remarks, 12/14/11)

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Repeal and Replace. That was the common refrain when House Republicans actually repealed ObamaCare in their chamber a year ago. Of course, the Senate Democrats rejected the repeal. But now there is a chance- some would say even a strong chance- that ObamaCare will be declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court before the election in November. If the high Court decides that the individual mandate, which forces individuals to purchase health insurance, is unconstitutional, and that President Obama’s signature legislation cannot go forward without that mandate, ObamaCare will stop dead in its tracks. Then what?

That’s where the Replace part comes in. Now, I won’t whine and complain about how things seem to take a long time to get done in Washington, but the replacement for ObamaCare should be on the assembly line, waiting to be packaged and sent to stores near all of us. We know the talking points that make good common sense: purchase health insurance across state lines, own our health insurance policies so they are portable, tort reform, free-market principles, etc. Of course, House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wisconsin), the reliable person that he is, has thought through a great deal of this, and has based his conservative answer to health care reform on his Medicare reform proposal.

But, where are the details and how do we plug ObamaCare’s replacement into our lives if the law is declared unconstitutional?

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From Fox News:

A Republican-led House panel voted Thursday to subpoena the White House for records related to Solyndra, the solar company that collapsed after receiving a $528 million loan.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee approved the resolution 14-9 after Democrats tried to delay the vote during a contentious debate.

Democrats argued the resolution was too broad and gave Chairman Fred Upton too much power. But Republicans said a subpoena was necessary because the White House has denied or delayed requests for thousands of documents related to Solyndra.

Upton, a Michigan Republican, said getting White House documents on Solyndra was like “extracting a tooth without anesthesia” — painful and time-consuming.

The White House immediately slammed the vote, saying it has “cooperated extensively with the committee’s investigation by producing over 85,000 pages of documents, including 20,000 pages produced just yesterday afternoon.”

“And all of the materials that have been disclosed affirm what we said on Day One: this was a merit-based decision made by the Department of Energy,” White House spokesman Eric Schultz said.

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Try as he might and promise though he does, Obama’s attempts to lower unemployment in the U.S. have proven politically impotent. On the one hand he spends recklessly, $800 billion-plus in stimulus funds during his first months in office alone, and on the other hand he expands the role of government (which also expands its size) via Obamacare and myriad other things.

Throughout all this, unemployment has only increased.

Thus, to remedy the mess he’s made, Obama recently pulled together an audience of public-sector employees on the White House lawn  and delivered a speech about how spending another $450 billion (via the American Jobs Act) is finally going to swing open the doors to employment for millions.

But it just isn’t working.

And the problem is, while Obama’s been pushing for more spending and government growth, he has also been pushing for new regulations that are GUARANTEED to cause Americans to lose, rather than gain, more jobs in the months and years to come.

House Republicans have seized on this push for regulations, and are highlighting Obama’s jobs-killing approach via the moniker “Regulation Nation.”

See the GOP’s graphic below and just think of how detrimental the implementation of these regulations would be to our economy and our future:

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In the wake of the debt ceiling negotiations that paralyzed Washington for weeks and the ensuing last-minute deal that has been criticized by many on the right for failing to change the way Washington spends money, it looks like Republicans supportive of pending natural gas subsidy legislation are eager to avoid shining too much light on the bill – which makes sense considering it distorts the energy market by using taxpayer money to pick winners and losers in the natural gas industry.

Last Wednesday, the House Ways and Means committee abruptly cancelled a scheduled hearing on the NAT GAS Act. From Politico’s Morning Energy:

NOT ON TODAY’S AGENDA
House Ways and Means has postponed its hearing on energy tax policy, putting off a potentially testy intra-Republican squabble over the NAT GAS Act to subsidize natural gas vehicles.

What is the NAT GAS Act? Well, it’s right in line with the Obama Administration’s overreaching regulatory agenda, but because some Republicans favor it the blame can’t be laid at the foot of Obama and the Democrats. From an earlier post on Washington’s war on businesses:

-An item that’s technically legislation, not regulatory rulemaking, but stands to pack the same economically ruinous punch is the NAT GAS Act (H.R. 1380) which heavily subsidizes businesses and consumers who switch to natural gas-fueled vehicles directly benefiting billionaires T. Boone Pickens and George Soros at the taxpayers’ expense. The subsidies – ahem, ‘tax credits’ – come in at a whopping $7,500 per passenger car, $64,000 for heavy-duty trucks and 18-wheelers, and up to $100,000 for gas stations installing natural gas pumps.

Referring to government subsidies as ‘tax credits’ is the oldest trick in the book to rally Republican support for a liberal proposal, and in this case it worked. Although some Republicans have pulled their support for the bill, over 70 GOP Members of Congress are on record as still supporting the bill.

So, qui bono?

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Below are excerpts from President Obama’s latest address to the nation concerning the debt and deficit talks, followed by “subtitles,” which perhaps provide a more accurate perspective of the points he made:

“For the last decade, we have spent more money than we take in.”

- I won’t mention, of course, that I have added more to the national debt in just my first 19 months in office than all presidents from Washington through Reagan combined.

“In the year 2000, the government had a budget surplus. But instead of using it to pay off our debt, the money was spent on trillions of dollars in new tax cuts, while two wars and an expensive prescription drug program were simply added to our nation’s credit card.”

-Well, no, the nearly trillion dollars in the Stimulus, bailing out the banks, and the auto companies- this was important money spent that could have otherwise been used to pay down the debt if I really wanted to. So, that money doesn’t count…And those Bush tax cuts have been a thorn in my side…I really began to lose my base on that agreement to extend them…And about those wars, I’m referring to the ones in Iraq and Afghanistan that Bush started…not the ones in Libya and Yemen I’ve gotten us involved in… Oops, I probably shouldn’t have dissed that senior prescription drug program because later on in my speech I try to use the seniors as pawns again to get them frightened about how Republicans want to cut their Medicare.

“To make matters worse, the recession meant that there was less money coming in, and it required us to spend even more.”

- That’s this neat Keynesian economics I learned in college. I thought I’d try it out on the country when I became president. We have less money, so we spend more. It really works!

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As anticipated, the House vote on Tuesday to repeal the ban on the Thomas Edison standard incandescent light bulb failed, 233-193, primarily because the legislation was considered under a special rule which required a two-thirds majority of the House. However, Rep. Michael Burgess (R-TX) will offer a similar amendment attached to another bill which will likely be voted upon on Friday. This vote will only require a simple majority.

Freedom Action produced a short spoof which is, sadly, too close to the truth about the government’s level of overreach into the private lives of Americans.

According to Common American Journal, ten Republicans voted against the repeal of the light bulb ban. These ten are:

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The House of Representatives is expected to vote, on Tuesday, on a bill that has become a symbol of Americans’ freedom of choice versus government control in their everyday lives. The Bulb Act will repeal a section of the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 which would ban the traditional incandescent light bulb, beginning in January of 2012, with the 100 watt bulb. Currently, we are in what is known as the “phase-out” period of Thomas Edison’s bulb, to be completed in 2014, as the government forces us to purchase newer model incandescent bulbs that reportedly save energy but will cost about $1 more than the traditional models. The compact fluorescent light bulbs that the government has promoted contain toxic mercury and must be discarded as a special “hazardous” waste product.

The Bulb Act was introduced by Representatives Joe Barton (R-TX), Michael Burgess (R-TX), and Marsha Blackburn (R-TN). It is significant legislation not only because of its emphasis on the degree to which the federal government has overreached into the everyday lives of Americans, but also because it marks a concrete conservative shift in House Republicans. The Energy Independence and Security Act was signed into law by President George W. Bush and supported widely by both Republicans and Democrats in the House.

But don’t get too excited about getting back your light bulb freedom yet. The House will need a special two-thirds majority to pass the repeal and, of course, most Democrats will vote against it. If it fails, House Republicans may take up the bill again under the regular rule which would require a simple majority. However, even with passage in the House, the repeal will likely not pass the Senate at this juncture.

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On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Brad Jackson is joined by Pejman Yousefzadeh and Elizabeth Blackney duke it out about whether or not Congress should raise the debt ceiling and what may happen come August 2nd if they don’t.

We’re brought to you as always by BigGovernment and Stephen Clouse and Associates. If you’d like to email us, you can do so at coffee[at]newledger.com. We hope you enjoy the show.

Related Links:

House votes against raising debt ceiling, 318-97
THE HILL POLL: Voters oppose raising the $14.3T debt ceiling
White House Turns to Reagan to Make Point on Debt Ceiling Vote
Explaining the House Debt Ceiling Vote Charade
The Day the United States Defaulted on Treasury Bills

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House Republicans who once considered Rep. Paul Ryan (Wisconsin) to be a brilliant and courageous rising star of the party, one who could put the nation on a more sound fiscal path by tackling entitlement programs, are now abandoning his Medicare proposal simply because it will not pass the Senate. Both Speaker John Boehner (Ohio) and Rep. David Camp (Michigan), Chair of the House Ways and Means Committee, have said that, while they support Ryan’s Medicare plan, they would prefer to focus on ways to achieve savings that could “realistically” be signed into law. Hmmm….so, why did the House repeal Obamacare in January? Most knew the Senate would not repeal it. What happened to being on the record for real change in Washington?

Republican leaders say they want to tie changes to the debt ceiling to savings from entitlements, and that changes to entitlements are best done in a bipartisan way. Unfortunately, “bipartisan” is starting to be synonymous with “ineffectual.”

There’s a reason why politicians want to treat the entitlements gingerly. It’s called fear. Listen to the woman challenging Paul Ryan in this liberal media video of one of the town halls he conducted in Wisconsin during Congress’ Easter break. She is under 55 and already on Medicare. She has heard Mr. Ryan explain that, under his plan, those over 55 would keep the current Medicare program, and begins her statement to him with, “I’m screwed,” even though the congressman explains that those already on Medicare will be grandfathered in, regardless of age. “Like I said,” she says, “I know I’m screwed.” Refusing to even listen to what Mr. Ryan is saying, she has decided his plan will cut her off from government healthcare.

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From The Associated Press:

The six have met in private for several months, even as House Republicans and Obama developed more partisan plans that have little chance of being enacted into law because of Washington’s divided government.

House Republicans passed a nonbinding plan in April that calls for reducing annual deficits by a total of $6.2 trillion over the next decade. It includes no tax increases but calls for transforming Medicare from a program in which the government directly pays medical bills into a voucher-like system that subsidizes the purchase of private insurance plans.

Obama has outlined a plan to reduce borrowing by $4 trillion over the next 12 years. His plan includes $1 trillion in tax increases and is less specific about how he would cut benefit programs.

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It’s budget time again. And Democrats are once again taking down and dusting off all their human shields and straw people, in order to convince those Americans, who are still unable to think for themselves, that they will die if the government doesn’t provide them with every form of aid from the day of their birth.

So far we have the Obama administration declaring that at least 70,000 children will die if the Republicans pass their spending cuts. No hyperlink to the authoritative study on how they came up with this number because, well, there is none. But, if children could be endangered in any way due to a cut in a program, could we skip the farm subsidies so that we can still make sure kids don’t die if we can help it? Make a note of that.

Then we have all the women who will be dying of breast cancer because they won’t be able to avail themselves of a mammogram at Planned Parenthood if this organization is defunded. Trouble is, Planned Parenthood doesn’t seem to offer mammograms. Oops.

Nancy Pelosi says the nation will lose 1,000,000 jobs if the Republicans pass their cuts. In Democratic lingo, that’s lost and destroyed, instead of saved and created. But, they use the same math to get their numbers.

Such concern for children and families. Yet, on Wednesday of this week, no concern was shown by the House Democrats when Republicans passed the SOAR Act (H.R. 471), which reauthorizes and expands the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program, the hallmark school choice program for low income children in the nation’s capital.

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From Politico:

Meredith Shiner reports from the Hill that the House Rules committee will hold an emergency meeting Wednesday at 3 p.m. on H.R. 1076, the measure “to prohibit funding of National Public Radio and the use of Federal funds to acquire radio content.”

The bill, introduced by Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-CO), who has been spearheading efforts to remove federal subsidies from public broadcasting, is here.

House Republicans eliminated federal funds to public broadcasting in a larger bill they passed to continue government funding, but that measure died in the Senate. An attempt by Democrat Earl Blumenauer during the days-long debate on H.R. 1 to add an amendment restoring was foiled by a procedural point of order.

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Rep. Marsha Blackburn introduced legislation Wednesday to deny the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulatory oversight over the Internet, which the Tennessee Republican insisted was the “sole prerogative of Congress” to administer.

“I agree that the Internet faces a number of challenge, ” Blackburn said in a release. “Only Congress can address those challenges without compounding them. Until we do, the FCC and other federal bureaucracies should keep their hands off the ‘net.”

According to Rep. Blackburn’s office, the “Internet Freedom Act” has the support of more than 60 House members, including a majority of GOP’ers on the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

The legislation already has bipartisan support, counting among its endorsers Blue Dog Democrat Dan Boren of Oklahoma.

“The only sector of our economy showing growth is online,” Blackburn said. “In these times, for an unelected bureaucracy with dubious jurisdiction and misplaced motives to unilaterally regulate that growth is intolerable.”

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The reaction to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) rationing scheme for late-stage cancer drugs has been met with a swift reaction from both sides of the political aisle. Even liberal Democrats who voted to implement ObamaCare have voiced critical objections to the FDA’s denial of Avastin for breast cancer patients. Even the Susan Komen Foundation for a Cure raised concerns.

But one of the more interesting aspects of the FDA’s scheme is the specious claim that Avastin does not work. But on the same day of the ill-advised decision, the FDA’s European counterpart — representing the government-run health care systems in the European Union – issued a statement approving Avastin for metastatic breast cancer concluding that the “benefits continue to outweigh the risks, because the available data have convincingly shown to prolong progression-free survival of breast cancer patients without a negative effect on the overall survival.”

This evidence certainly undercuts the FDA’s claims. Europe’s government-run health care systems openly ration drugs based on cost concerns. The British, for example, have rationed Avastin and admitted the decision was based solely on cost considerations. With a “push-button” rationing system, the fact that the Europeans recognize the benefit of the drug raises further questions about the true reasons for the FDA’s decision to deny patients and doctors access to the drug.

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Last week on the PBS NewsHour, Judy Woodruff asked Nancy Pelosi if the GOP would take back the house.  Pelosi replied “We take it one district at a time.”

“Will the Republicans take back the House?” is perhaps the most frequently asked question in Washington, and is usually followed up with “By how much?”  Regardless of what you think about Speaker Pelosi, the lady didn’t get to be Speaker of the House by not being able to count votes. So lets have a look “…one district at a time.”

Republican challengers and open seat candidates lead in at least 51 House districts currently held by Democrats, according to public polling.

Following Nancy’s methodology, if the election were held on October 9 instead of November 2, the GOP would gain back the majority with 230 seats, assuming all tied races and races where Dems cling to a narrow lead break against the Republicans. Note that 17 more seats are within the margin of error of a standard poll.

Thanks, Nancy, for the vote of confidence.

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When John Boehner was first elected Republican leader, he said he felt like the dog that caught the car. This is a metaphor for someone who works hard to achieve a major goal, only to be confronted with the age old question “What do we do now?” If Republicans take back the House and Senate, the party will actually be the dog that caught the car.

Victory at the polls means Republicans will inherit an angry electorate that has been voting for change since 2006.  The country is at a crossroads. In one direction there is big, centralized government that usurps the rights of states, local communities, and individual Americans. It’s the job of the Republican leaders to outline another direction, but that direction is not yet clear to them.  This must change before the next election.

Americans punished Republicans in the 2006 and 2008 elections. Conventional wisdom said the country wanted change. The truth is that Americans saw no real difference between Democrats and Republicans. The Republican brand has gone stale and paved the way for a new era of big government and socialism. As Newsweek boldly proclaimed in early 2009, “We are all socialists now.”

Thankfully, the prospect of this socialist era enduring is slim. The American public has learned what socialistic polices really mean. A budget deficit that was $161 billion when the Democrats took control of Congress in 2007 and four years later projected to be $1.47 trillion; and a national debt held by the public that was $5 trillion and four years later projected to be $9.2 trillion. This and a lot more, including a projected $2.6 trillion cost to implement the Democrats’ healthcare bill, have soured the experience of most Americans with a Socialist Golden Age.  As Margaret Thatcher said, “…Socialist governments traditionally do make a financial mess. They always run out of other people’s money.” We just didn’t know that the White House and the Democratic Congress would run out of other people’s money so soon, or that they could accelerate our financial mess so rapidly.

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For far too long, Americans have watched as the Democrat Majority in Washington has made promise after promise that they would responsibly manage the taxpayer’s dollars – but one promise we haven’t seen many members keep is to take action to reduce our ever exploding deficit by actually cutting wasteful spending.

Many Americans have lost their jobs or have seen their pay and benefits reduced. Our nation’s families and small business job providers are all tightening their belts – all while they look at what’s happening in Washington in disbelief.

Spending is out-of-control. We have a national debt over $13 trillion; an annual budget deficit of nearly $1.6 trillion; and within the first eight months of our current fiscal year, the federal government has accumulated $935 billion in deficit spending. Currently, we are right on track to meet last year’s annual deficit record of $1.4 trillion. American taxpayers want spending reduced.

That is why Republican Whip Eric Cantor and the House Republicans have launched the YouCut project – where we go over the heads of Nancy Pelosi and her allies in Congress to engage the American people in the effort to reduce the deficit and cut wasteful spending now.

YouCut gives Americans the opportunity to vote each week for one of five wasteful spending programs and Republicans will force a vote on the one receiving the most votes. As of this week, Americans have casted over 850,000 votes on YouCut programs.

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The Obama Administration announced that it will urge government agencies to trim five percent from their budgets by reining in wasteful and duplicative programs – and redirect how that money is spent.  Less than 20 minutes later, the Administration’s Budget Chief Peter Orszag admitted that the initiative was as much about spending as it is deficit reduction.  To be clear, the Administration did not commit to use those cuts to pay down the deficits.

Look, trimming these budgets is a good thing – as Republicans have said repeatedly.  But is giving the heads of these agencies the ability to redirect money really an indication that Washington is prepared to bring our deficits under control before the European debt crisis migrates across the Atlantic?  Or is it simply posturing?

The good news is that the administration, at least on the surface, is finally getting the message that the American people are fed up with the reckless culture of spending prevailing over Washington.  America has soured on an agenda that sets out to double the debt in five years and triple it in 10.  That is why we launched YouCut, an effort to begin to transform the culture in Washington from one focused entirely on spending to one that forces measures to cut waste and save money.

Now, after more than 700,000 YouCut votes have been cast to remove specific wasteful spending items in the budget, and three House votes later (that would have saved $85 billion had enough Democrats supported them), the President is beginning to talk about finding ways to save taxpayer money.

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The Democrat majority isn’t listening, but House Republicans will. That’s why we’re launching America Speaking Out; an unprecedented initiative of engagement with the American people that will lead to a governing policy agenda for America. Through the use of cutting-edge technology, town hall meetings, and old-fashioned conversation, America Speaking Out will surely become one of the largest online conversations ever about how to get back to a smaller, smarter, more accountable government. This initiative will lead to vital communication with the American people about the serious challenges that they’re waiting for Congress to address.

Washington Democrats have been ramming their own one-sided agenda through Congress. And, throughout the past year, they have repeatedly gone behind closed doors and choked off opportunities for honest and transparent debate. But, my Republican colleagues and I are ready for an exchange of ideas that will restore the bonds of trust between Americans and their elected leaders.

We have to show the American people that we know what’s at stake this year. In the face of failed leadership by Congressional Democrats, House Republicans must produce a vision for a better America that will return our national government to the common sense and common values of everyday Americans. And we’re looking to the American people to help us.

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