Tom McClintock becomes a leader on budget issues

jpye — Mon, 21 May 2012 13:30:06 -0500

Though this is only his first term in Congress, Rep. Tom McClintock has, according to The Hill, become the leader of the budget hawks in the House Republican caucus, who are fighting to end the endless river of red ink flowing from Washington:

Rep. Tom McClintock (R-Calif.) has emerged as a leader of deficit hardliners in the House and become a thorn in the side of GOP leaders.
While McClintock does not criticize other Republicans by name, he is clearly dissatisfied with the amount of spending cuts House Republicans have achieved since winning the majority in 2010.
“This government doesn’t spend money unless the House authorizes it. We are more than a year into a period where we have controlled the House and we are a trillion dollars deeper in debt,” he told The Hill in an interview. “The buck starts here. We can’t blame the president.”
McClintock, who has been in the House since 2008, led the 93-member defection against reauthorizing the Export-Import Bank this month with an impassioned floor speech.
“Legitimate companies have plenty of access to private capital, they don’t need these subsidies. The illegitimate ones don’t need to be propped up with the hard-earned dollars of working taxpayers,” McClintock said on the floor.
The Ex-Im bill was negotiated by House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.), who supports ending export credits but compromised with Democrats to extend the bank for three more years. In one concession won by Cantor, the bill for the first time orders the administration to begin international talks to end export financing.
That wasn’t enough to sway McClintock, however. He argued that, although the bank turns a profit, it could one day blow up in taxpayers’ faces like Fannie Mae.
McClintock was also one of 10 defectors on the Small Business Tax Cut act, H.R. 9, which passed the House in April by a 235-173 vote.
The bill gives a 20 percent tax break to any business with fewer than 500 employees, but following House GOP rules, the tax cut was not offset, meaning it would add to the deficit.
McClintock argued that tax cuts must be offset with spending cuts.
“Tax cuts without either spending reductions or real economic growth are an illusion,” he said at the time.
McClintock also organized 43 other members into sending a letter to GOP leaders this month demanding that the 12 appropriations bills be moved through the chamber individually.

Republicans in Congress would do well to listen to McClintock, who seems to be one of the few in Washington willing to take on his own party. He’s one of the few members of the 2010 Tea Party class that haven’t fallen in love with the “smell of the marble” in the Halls of Congress, intrested less in power and more about doing right by taxpayers.

Five issues that will not win the 2012 election

jpye — Mon, 21 May 2012 10:20:04 -0500

Over the last couple of weeks, we’ve seen Republicans begin to criticize President Barack Obama on various ancillary issues. Some of them are valid. Others not so much. Poll after poll shows that Americans are more concerned about the economy and jobs than other issues that may pop up in the news or the various memes that may arise from either the right or the left.

Here are some of the oft-repeated issues that have come up in recent days that conservatives and Republicans should stay away from if they hope to beat Obama and Democrats in the fall.

Social Issues: We’ve been over this one before thanks to the contraceptive kerfuffle earlier this year. It ended up being a bad issue for Republicans and they took a hit with women in the polls. They were largely right, in that taxpayers shouldn’t be forced to fund contraceptives and that the mandate was an infringement of the First Amendment on religious organizations that now have to pay for something to which they may have a moral objection.

More recently, however, it looks like they learned their lesson. When President Obama announced his support for gay marriage at the state-level, Republicans in Congress were mostly silent, though they did reinterate their support for the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which is facing a legal challenge. That doesn’t mean that it won’t come up again during the course of the next several months, as we get close to November.

Polls show that social issues, such as gay marriage and abortion, are not on minds of voters, particularly independents. And perhaps even more of important are polls that show a majority of Americans are supportive of gay marriage.

Rev. Jeremiah Wright and Bill Ayers: If you listen to conservative talking heads, they say that President Obama’s connections to Rev. Wright and Bill Ayers weren’t highlighted enough in 2008, and that Mitt Romney’s campaign should do more to bring them to light in 2012. While I don’t disagree that these two men show some of Obama’s radical tendencies, particularly the connection to Ayers, whose activities decades ago were essentially domestic terrorism, it’s not going to be a dinner table issue for voters. Not to mention that I don’t believe voters are going to smile favorably at a campaign against pastor.

Birtherism: The conspiracy theory over President Obama’s place of birth was recently given new life thanks to a report released by Breitbart.com. But this has long been debunked and only appeals to fringe elements. Most Republicans are wise enough to ignore questions about it, but some occasionally step into the conspiracy theory, and Democrats use it as an example that Republicans are crazy. More important is that grassroots conservative activists, those who work for campaigns and appear at rallies, have to stay away from this.

Fast and Furious: This one should actually be an issue on which Republicans could run. It’s a real scandal and one that should bring the resignation of Attorney General Eric Holder and leave the Obama Administration with a black eye. Unfortunately, the media hasn’t given it the coverage it deserves and the issue is perhaps too hard to explain in standard talking points.

Foreign Policy and National Defense: Republicans have, time and time again, slammed President Obama over foreign policy and defense. However, Obama hasn’t been much different from his predecessor on foreign policy, engaging in a bombing campaign in Libya to help depose a dictator and expanding the war on terrorism to Yemen and other Middle Eastern countries. Moreover, we’re spending as much as we ever have on defense.

On civil liberties, Obama has been much worse than Bush. Yes, Bush signed the PATRIOT act into law and an expansive wiretapping law. But Obama signed the Republican-backed NDAA, which contained a provision allowing for the indefinite detention of terror suspects caught inside the United States.

It’s really hard to criticize Obama here when he has towed a neoconservative line. If Republicans wanted to use the issue to appeal to voters, they should criticize Obama for his interventionist foreign policy and abuse of civil liberties. Unfortunately, they’ve been largely complicit.

Reason debunks lies about Scott Walker

jpye — Fri, 18 May 2012 13:01:36 -0500

If you listen to his critics, you’d think that Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker is a far-right conservative that has slashed spending and taxes to near apocalyptic levels. Of course, wth a recall election coming early next month in Wisconsin thanks to Big Labor’s outrage at reforms to the state’s collective bargaining agreement, this sort of rhetoric is expected. But Reason has pieced together a view debunking some of the oft-repeated lies about Gov. Scott Walker’s fiscal conservatism:

The Hypocrisy of Common Cause

jpye — Fri, 18 May 2012 12:10:34 -0500

On Wednesdays, I noted that Common Cause has filed a federal lawsuit claiming that the filibuster, a procedural tactic used in the Senate to stall legislation, is unconstitutional. This lawsuit was filed despite the fact that Article I, Section 5, Clause 2 of the United States Constitution allows each chamber of Congress the right to craft its own rules.

Despite that glaring fact, Politico quoted Stephen Spaulding, staff counsel for Common Cause, saying, “[The Senate] cannot adopt their own rules, and that’s an issue we think the courts should settle.” It’s a political point more than a lawsuit that they hope will result in any actual change in Senate rules.

But here is the kicker, and perhaps the most important point about Common Cause. Doug Mataconis notes that, when the filibuster was threatened by Senate Republicans over judicial nominees seven years, Common Cause defended use of the tactic:

Common Cause strongly opposes any effort by Senate leaders to outlaw filibusters of judicial nominees to silence a vigorous debate about the qualifications of these nominees, short-circuiting the Senate’s historic role in the nomination approval process.

“The filibuster shouldn’t be jettisoned simply because it’s inconvenient to the majority party’s goals,” said Common Cause President Chellie Pingree. “That’s abuse of power.”

So, not only is the filibuster good when used to block judicial nominations, as was the case in 2005 when Senate Democrats prevented 10 of George W. Bush’s nominees from going forward to confirmation, attempting to get rid of it was an “abuse of power.” Oh hypocrisy, thy name is Common Cause.

Senate Republicans, led by then-Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN), were wrong in 2005 to try to limit use of the filibuster just as current Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and Common Cause are now.

Andrew Sullivan: Tea Party opposes Obama because he's black

jpye — Fri, 18 May 2012 10:22:37 -0500

Yesterday, Andrew Sullivan, a conservative turned liberal, wrote a post criticising the Tea Party movement for standing by while George W. Bush broke the bank only to protest Barack Obama for his spending measures. According to Sullivan, this isn’t based on disagreement with Obama for his big spending ways, rather the fact that he is black:

[T[he Tea Party, utterly indifferent to massive spending in good times by a Republican, had a conniption at a black Democrat’s modest measures to limit the worst downturn since the 1930s. Conniption isn’t really he right word: this was a cultural and political panic in the face of a president who was advocating what were only recently Republican policies: tax cuts, Romneycare on a national level, cap-and-trade, a W-style immigration reform, and a relentless war on Jihadism. They reached back to a time, when there were only three kinds of Americans - native, white and slaves. They even wore powdered wigs.

While I don’t necessarily disagree that conservative opposition to immigration reform is based on more than public policy, I completely disagree that the Tea Party movement opposes Obama’s policies just because he is black.

I don’t disagree that Bush was a fiscal nightmare, and it’s my belief that he set the Republican Party back several years. And shortly after the Tea Party movement started in early 2009, I criticized them for not calling out Bush’s spending spree.

But Sullivan’s contention that the policies Obama pursued when he came into office were “modest measures” is hard not to laugh at. The course taken by Obama is perhaps the most radical since the hard-left interventions in the economy taken during the Great Depression by Franklin D. Roosevelt. Of course, now we realize that these interventions prolonged that depression by seven years.

And with Obama’s Keynesian-minded interventions, we’ve seen unemployment remain high because businesses scared to invest due to uncertainty in the economy. Obama has proposed a number of new regulations aimed directly at the financial industry to show that he is “doing something” to prevent another downturn like we saw in 2008. And then, of course, you have ObamaCare, a fiscal monstrosity that may not even survive review by the Supreme Court due to the constitutional challenges over the individual mandate.

But to think that a government can enact rules, regulations or other policies without causing some harm reminds me of a post I wrote last summer, responding to Ben Bernanke being puzzled about the state of the economy despite all of the “modest” measures taken, as Sullivan would have us believe:

[Central planners] believe they can create an economy and make it do what they want it to do or “stimulate” it when it struggles. The shocking revelation, at least to The Ben Bernank, that central planners may have not been able to revive a struggling economy, despite bailouts to rent-seeking businesses deemed “too big to fail,” including financial institutions and automakers, massive spending; I’m reminded of truism from F.A. Hayek, a Nobel Prize winning economist, from his book, The Fatal Conceit:

The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design.

That’s not to say that Bernanke is not a smart guy, but for someone with such knowledge and understanding of the follies of Great Depression-era economic intervention, he is making mistakes based on the same premise; that government, in this case through monetizing debt through Quantitative Easing, jacking up tax rates and spending massive amounts of money can drive demand and somehow guide an economy back into prosperity. They might as well be chasing unicorns.

It’s not really that hard to understand, but unfortunately to Sullivan, it’s about race, not actual or genuine concern about the economy, four straight years of trillion dollar budget deficits, or the $16.7 trillion national debt.

But Sullivan really shouldn’t be pointing fingers, lest his own hypocrisy be thrown in his face. Yesterday, Conor Friedersdorf noted that Sullivan, who criticized Bush for his affronts to civil liberties, has given Obama, who may indeed be worse, a pass on that particular issue:

Earlier this week, I took issue with the way Sullivan covers the president. He was characteristically willing to link, excerpt and engage my argument, which I appreciate. The importance of the subject and my sense that he’s missing my point make it necessary to go one more round. Given his eloquence and capacity for effecting change there’s no one I’d rather persuade to put an even higher priority on protecting civil liberties and restraining executive power.

So here goes.

As I wrote in my original post, “Sullivan is one of the few Obama boosters with the reflexive humility to regularly criticize him on narrow issues and to air dissents from others who criticize him,” but I wish he gushed a bit less about the man, because the significant promises that he’s broken, the issues on which Sullivan and I agree that he’s dead wrong, and the priority that journalists ought to put on holding leaders accountable make Obama unworthy of exalted praise.

There’s a distinction between saying a politician is the best option among the available choices and that he is a satisfactory leader. To me, anyone who properly values civil liberties can’t say the latter about Obama.
[…]
Sullivan titles his response “Pressuring the President,” and begins with the phrase, “Conor Friedersdorf claims that I’m not doing it very much.” But that isn’t actually the claim in my complaint, nor is my argument answered by the balance of Sullivan’s post — a long, link-rich account of all the times Sullivan has harshly criticized Obama on all of the issues that I mentioned. To state it explicitly one more time, Sullivan does write individual posts that criticize the president in terms every bit as strong as I or any other civil liberties loving opponent could ask.

After going through some of Sullivan’s criticisms of Obama, which included saying he should be tried for war crimes and calling him out for his treatment of medicinal marijuana patients, Friedersdorf writes:

[H]ow can you think Obama is an accessory to war crimes who should be prosecuted for his illegal behavior… and that he hasn’t yet had a scandal to his name? How can you think that he willfully lied in his campaign pledges on civil liberties… and that he is a man of praiseworthy integrity, which was “reaffirmed” by his changing stand on gay marriage? How can you think his drug policy is so bad that it causes sickness and death - so bad that his supporters ought to stop cooperating with his fundraising appeals - and that he deserves to be running for a “triumphant” reelection?

How can you explicitly articulate all the ways Obama has been as bad or even worse than the Bush Administration, which you regard as criminal and catastrophic, and regularly end Obama posts with “know hope”? Some of these apparent contradictions would make sense coming from a commentator who thought that civil liberties aren’t particularly important; that drug policy is an afterthought; that executive power excesses don’t really pose a huge threat to our system of government; that torture is best forgotten; but Sullivan most emphatically doesn’t subscribe to any of those characterizations. He knows full well that those failures imperil the American project.

And then every time he writes an essay on Obama’s triumphs he glosses over them as if they’re small failings. In the next Obama essay, why not lead with the failures on civil liberties, drugs, executive power, war, whistleblowers, spying, and more? Why not give them prominence that accords with the importance The Dish ascribes to them? And relegate achievements like being more sane than many in the GOP and killing bin Laden and the auto industry bailout to the “to be sure” paragraph?

It is uncomfortable to fully confront the reality that the candidate whose reelection you support favors a lot of immoral policies; that he has broken a lot of laws; that he has helped to cover up torture; that he has helped to make potentially catastrophic policies like indefinite detention part of the bipartisan consensus; that he lied to his supporters on various issues; that he is the lesser of two evils. But that is the inescapable conclusion of posts that Sullivan himself has written. Given that fact, the appropriate tone to take while writing in favor of Obama’s reelection is uncomfortable, grudging support, not soaring praise and admonitions to more fully appreciate his transcendent character. You can think that civil liberties are extremely important, or that Obama is a praiseworthy man of honor who deserves our respect, esteem and gratitude, but not both.

Admittedly, I used to be a fan of Sullivan’s, but his drift left-ward has left me at odds with much of what he writes these days. There are still occasional moments of clarity, but there are few and far between.

I don’t disagree with him that the Tea Party, or more directly speaking, the conservative movement, were absent during the Bush years. That’s evident, and I’ve said that myself, as noted above. But people in glasshouses, like Andrew Sullivan, shouldn’t throw stones. His own hypocrisy has been noted, but he’ll still go on pretending that President Obama is the best thing that has ever happened to the United States.

Senate Democrats persecute Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin

jpye — Fri, 18 May 2012 09:05:35 -0500

Earlier this week it was reported that Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin had renounced his United States citizenship rather than pay taxes on his share of the revenues of Facebook going public, saving him upwards of $100 million in capital gains taxes. The move raises eyebrows, it is becoming increasingly more popular rather than to face the higher tax burden in the United States, though Saverin, who was born Brazil, will owe some money, what is being referred to as an “exit tax.”

But some Senate Democrats aren’t willing to let Saverin off that easy. Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has introduced legislation that would target Saverin and other people who renounce their citizenship to leave the United States for more tax friendly confines:

Presuming that Saverin moved to avoid paying taxes, Schumer and Democratic Sen. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania on Thursday unveiled legislation to stop what they called a “despicable trend.”

Under their legislation, any American who renounces his or her citizenship for the purpose of avoiding taxes will be punished in two ways: They will be barred from re-entering the U.S., and their future investments in the U.S. will be taxed at a 30 percent rate.

Taking advantage of every Facebook one-liner available, Schumer said of Saverin, “Sen. Casey and I have a status update for him: Pay your taxes in full, or don’t ever try to visit the U.S. again.”

Saverin, who was born in Brazil, told the New York Times that his move had nothing to do with paying taxes.

Schumer said Saverin’s claim “rings hollow.” The senator said it was “outrageous” that Saverin would renounce the country that “kept him safe, educated him, and helped him become a billionaire.” He called Saverin’s story “an American success story gone horribly wrong.”

Current law says that a person who renounces his U.S. citizenship for the purpose of avoiding taxes can be barred from re-entering the country, as Talking Points Memo pointed out this week, but Schumer said there have been problems enforcing the law.

Under Schumer and Casey’s bill, if an American with a net worth of $2 million or a tax liability of $148,000 renounces his or her citizenship, the IRS will presume that person is moving in order to avoid paying taxes. The person in question will be responsible for proving otherwise.

If a former citizen wants to return to the U.S., Schumer said, he could pay all the taxes he owes in order to return.

A couple of things about this. First, Saverin is protected, whether he renounced his citizenship or not, by constitutional protections found in Article I, Section 9, Clause 3 against bill of attainder and ex post facto laws. Congress cannot, after some manufactured outrage, creat a law against it and then charge the person who committed the act with a crime.

Secondly, rather than admit that there is a problem with our tax code and burden, Schumer and Casey target Saverin as the wrongdoer. That’s typical, but sad nonetheless. Saverin will be used as a target for Democrats to justify their tax hikes and other regulations, rather than tackle the real problem, and the number of people exiting the United States will continue to rise.

Over at Libertarianism.org, Aaron Ross Powell notes that, while some — like Schumer and Casey — may talk about the debt he owes to the United States, we owe quite a lot to Saverin ourselves:

Saverin got rich by creating immeasurable value for Americans (and billions others around the globe). He co-founded an enormously successful company, one that in turn lead to the creation of many other enormously successful companies. All of those business employ thousands of Americans, who not only are more prosperous than they probably would’ve been without Facebook, but also pay taxes on all their earnings. So even without its cut of Saverin’s IPO windfall, Uncle Sam comes out ahead, as do all those American workers.

The rest of us gain, too, because we get to have Facebook. Which is cool enough that most of us spend far more time on it than we’d like to admit. Facebook made America (and the world) better.

Which means that instead of raging at Saverin for not wanting to give the bloated federal government in Washington more-more-more of his wealth, maybe we should just call it even.

That’s perspective. Of course, some just aren’t willing to listen.

Is another Keith Judd moment brewing for Obama?

jpye — Thu, 17 May 2012 15:02:30 -0500

Last week, President Barack Obama was the subject of unwelcome news stories after a convicted felon received over 40% of the vote against him in the West Virginia Democratic Primary.

And while Gallup reported this week that Democrats are happier with their nominee than Republicans, tell that to John Wolfe, who may give Obama a run for his money next week in Arkansas:

You haven’t heard of John Wolfe because the obscure Democratic candidate for president has raised less than $500, can’t afford radio or TV ads and hasn’t gotten much press.

Yet miraculously, a poll released this week shows Wolfe trailing President Barack Obama in the Arkansas Democratic primary — occurring next week — by just seven points.

In an interview with The Daily Caller on Wednesday, Wolfe described his barebones campaign, saying he thinks the shocking poll numbers in Arkansas are the result of an anybody-but-Obama attitude. He’s optimistic he could pull off an upset.

“I think there’s a chance,” said Wolfe, who is the only person appearing on the Democratic ballot for president with Obama in Arkansas.
[…]
Wolfe said he’s campaigned mostly by handing out fliers, which he emails to supporters who copy and distribute them. The fliers have his office and cell phone number on them.

That’s hilarious. I mean, it doesn’t really mean anything in the long-run. Obama will be the Democratic Party’s nominee and their base voters are going to cast ballots for him over Romney anyway. However, it does give talk show hosts fodder to note how unpopular Obama is while they highlight polls showing a sour national mood. It’s certainly bad PR for the campaign and not exactly something you want hanging around in the news cycle for too long.

Scott Walker's lead in recall election holds steady

jpye — Thu, 17 May 2012 13:00:29 -0500

With the Democratic National Committee and the Democratic Governors Association staying away from the recall election in Wisconsin, the latest polls in the race show Gov. Scott Walker’s lead over Tom Barrett holding steady:

Wisconsin GOP Gov. Scott Walker has opened up a lead in his upcoming recall election, according to a poll released Wednesday by Marquette University Law School.

The results indicate that Wisconsin will be a hotly-contested political battleground into the November general election. The poll shows President Obama leading former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney 46 percent to 44 percent among all registered voters. Obama and Romney are tied at 46 percent among likely recall voters.

The survey shows Walker leading Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett 50 percent to 44 percent among likely recall voters. In the school’s previous poll in late April, Barrett led Walker 47 percent to 46 percent among all registered voters.

Walker also has a significant advantage over the Milwaukee mayor in the poll’s favorability ratings. Among all registered voters, 50 percent said they have a favorable opinion of Walker, while 45 percent said they have an unfavorable opinion. Thirty-seven percent of registered voters said they have a favorable opinion of Barrett, while 45 percent said they have an unfavorable opinion of the Democrat.

Conn Carroll notes that Public Policy Polling, who conducted a survey for the Daily Kos, found similar numbers — buth in the recall election, where Walker lead Barrett, 50% to 45%, and in the presidential race. Carroll also notes that Walker, should he hold on until the recall election early next month, could provide a blueprint for Republicans across the country and a valuble contrast:

If Walker holds on, he will be a model for Republican governance throughout the country. He only became a national Democratic target after he took on government unions by denying them the ability to take money directly out of government workers’ paychecks and forcing them to contribute more money to their health and retirement benefits. Thanks to these reforms, Wisconsin will have a $154-million surplus next year.

Contrast the Wisconsin experience with California, where government unions control the Democratic Party and Gov. Jerry Brown. Brown was forced to announce this Sunday that his state would face a $16 billion deficit next year and tax hikes were needed to close the gap.

The examples of Wisconsin and California offer a sharp contrast to American voters this November: Do they want the high tax, high spending, government union-controlled future of California, or the low tax, low spending, government surplus future of Wisconsin?

Unless the DNC and DGA decide to pour a ton of money in Wisconsin at the last minutes, which is entirely possible, it’s hard to see Walker losing this race.

Americans want Obama to end crackdown on medicinal marijuana

jpye — Thu, 17 May 2012 11:40:30 -0500

Back in 2009, the Obama Administration announced that it planned to end the war on medicinal marijuana in states has had approved its usage. But three nearly three years later, the federalist approach promised on the issue has been nearly forgotten as raids continue on dispensiaries.

And as this war on sick people is being carried out in their names, Americans overwhelming disapprove of it, according to new polling by Mason-Dixon — and that disapproval reaches across party lines:

A poll conducted earlier this month by Mason-Dixon Polling & Research on behalf of the Marijuana Policy Project finds that 76 percent of Americans want President Barack Obama to end his crackdown on medical marijuana in states where medicinal use of the plant is legal.

According to MPP’s release, “Support for keeping the federal government out of state medical marijuana issues was universal across all demographics. With respect to political affiliation, 75% of Democrats, 67% of Republicans, and, notably 79% of Independents said that President Obama should respect state medical marijuana laws. Even among the least supportive group (those identified as over 65 years of age), 64% were in favor of respecting state law.”

You can read the full breakdown of the poll here. Below is a shot of the breakdown by political affiliation, age, and ethnicity:

Unfortunately, Congress has no interest in going against President Obama on medicinal marijuana. Just last week, the House killed an amendment to the Justice Department appropriations bill pushed by Reps. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), Sam Farr (D-CA), Maurice Hinchey (D-NY), and Tom McClintock (R-CA) to defund raids on dispensaries in any of the states that legalized marijuana for medicinal purposes.

Last week, President Obama made waves by supporting marriage equality, however, with the caveat that it should be done at the state level as opposed to the federal level. This is, for lack of a better term, a traditional Tenth Amendment view (though on this particular issues, I do believe a federal approach it required). Why take this view on gay marriage and not on medicinal marijuana? Yes, I’m aware of the Supreme Court’s opinion Raich, which was wrongly decided and example of Justice Antonin Scalia’s bastardization of originalism. But it doesn’t mean that President Obama can’t use the weight of his office, much like he has done on other issues, to push for a change in the law.

Obama ran on catchy slogans in 2008 — “Change You Can Believe In” and “Yes, We Can.” But who would have thought that he would have been almost exactly like his predecessor when it comes to moralistic crusades like the war on drugs?

Senate unanimously rejects Obama's budget

jpye — Thu, 17 May 2012 09:06:41 -0500

It wasn’t exactly a surprise, given that the House did exactly the same thing last month, but the Senate yesterday unanimously rejected President Barack Obama’s budget for FY 2013. Unfortunately, the Senate also rejected other budget proposals that would, unlike Obama’s budget, put the country back on a stable fiscal path:

The US Senate unanimously rejected President Barack Obama’s proposed 2013 budget Wednesday and shot down a series of Republican alternatives, assuring a prolonged election-year fiscal battle.
The Democratic-controlled chamber has not adopted in three years a budget resolution, which lays out spending and revenue targets for the year ahead, and Republicans repeatedly highlight the fact as they hammer Obama’s administration for failing to take a proactive approach to fiscal responsibility.
The Senate voted 99-0 against Obama’s $3.8 trillion budget request, with Democrats stressing that the vote was unnecessary because lawmakers wrote spending caps into a deal agreed last summer to raise the nation’s debt ceiling.
In March, the House of Representatives rejected Obama’s budget proposal in a 414-0 vote.

I’ll admit that it’s a gimmicky for Republicans to bring Obama’s budget to the floor for a voter, but it’s telling that Democrats aren’t willing to get behind Obama’s proposal because it’s politically toxic. But not only does this provide Republicans with a talking point for the Senate’s failing to pass a budget in three years, it also allows them to note that Obama’s budget did not receive a single vote in both chambers of Congress.

Of course, you have President Obama saying that budget woes could be solved with additional revenues on wealthy Americans. But the idea that we’re going to close a budget gap as substantial as we have right now by taxing the rich alone is a farce, one that Bill Clinton pointed out earlier this week by noting that the middle class will wind up paying more taxes as well. But with tax hikes comes slower economic growth, which is the opposite of what our economy needs right now.

You may say that President Obama has proposed spending cuts in addition to tax hikes, and that’s true. However, history shows us that proposed spending cuts never really come to fruition. Not to mention that the spending cuts offered are relatively meek when compared to $1 trillion budget deficits and the $16.6 trillion national debt.

Unfortunately, Senate Democrats rejected a sane approach to the budget yesterday, rejecting a modest approach in Rep. Paul Ryan’s Path to Prosperity and a more radical, yet appropriate plan pushed by Sen. Rand Paul. They want to do nothing, essentially letting the dam holding back a river of red ink burst and soaking Americans will more taxes and debt.

Don’t get me wrong, Republicans aren’t willing to do much in the way of spending cuts either, as I wrote yesterday, but Democrats are content doing absolutely nothing…for three years now not even bothering to pass an actual budget.

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