The Washington Post's Bob Woodward ripped into President Barack Obama on "Morning Joe" today, saying he's exhibiting a "kind of madness I haven't seen in a long time" for a decision not to deploy an aircraft carrier to the Persian Gulf because of budget concerns.
"Can you imagine Ronald Reagan sitting there and saying, 'Oh, by the way, I can't do this because of some budget document?'" Woodward said.
"Or George W. Bush saying, 'You know, I'm not going to invade Iraq because I can't get the aircraft carriers I need?'" Or even Bill Clinton saying, 'You know, I'm not going to attack Saddam Hussein's intelligence headquarters,' ... because of some budget document?"
American military resolve goes back even further. Reagan renewed America's military confidence after it had been eroded by the Vietnam War and a feckless President Jimmy Carter. President Carter's only use of the American military was to crash a bunch of helicopters in the Iranian desert in a failed attempt to free the hostages. But the article above also calls to mind Teddy Roosevelt's Great White Fleet. Roosevelt sent the fleet, which was based in the Atlantic Ocean, around the world, but not everyone approved of it:
Senator Eugene Hale, the chairman of the Senate Naval Appropriation Committee, threatened to cut the fleet's funding.
Responding in typical fashion, Roosevelt replied that he already had the money and dared Congressional leaders to "try and get it back."
In light of the President's recent funding priorities, is the Benghazi debacle really surprising?
The sequester “cuts” are subtracted after increasing appropriations subject to the sequester at the rate of inflation and adding back in more than a trillion dollars (over ten years) of spending exempted from the sequester.
Each year federal spending is increased based on population growth and inflation. That increase becomes the new baseline budget. That annual bump is about 6% this year, so a 2.4% sequester half-way through the fiscal year means that this year's budget will be more than 4.5% larger than last year's.
But, according to the President, this trivial cut is the end of the world. The White House has launched the classic FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt) campaign against the coming sequester. Politico reports that the administration is: "releasing state by state details of the pain and suffering the sequester will cause..." TrimTabs president and CEO Charles Biderman doesn't think that they can be serious:
Biderman goes on to make the point that the government does not want to cut anything.
It's a classic game of brinksmanship. The Democrat view of the economy is that economic success is driven by government spending so cutting government spending will harm the economy. Republicans see a world where smaller government gets out of the way of business unleashing economic growth.
This is only the opening act. The real fight will occur after the sequester goes into effect on March 1st and both sides try to get the press to report their economic outlook.
Obama formally proposed his 2013 budget (link) which sees a $1.33 trn budget deficit in the 2013 fiscal year - more than the $1.296 trillion 2011 budget deficit, which unfortunately indicates that even with rather rosy assumptions, the deficit hole continues to grow, which also means that the debt plug will be higher in the next year compared to the prior, which in turn lends even more credibility to the US debt clock analysis which assumes a nearly 140% debt/GDP ratio by the end of a potential second Obama term.
Look at that chart again. The White House is projecting income tax receipts of $1.36 trillion and Medicare and Medicaid outlays that exceed that figure by more than $110 billion, coming in around $1.47 trillion. That is unsustainable.
As zerohedge points out, Republicans wasted no time in criticizing the plan. From the WSJ: Obama Seeks New Taxes on Rich:
The budget underscores the White House's bet that it can convince voters in November that increased spending in the short term is needed to jolt the economy before steps are taken to shrink the federal deficit in the long term. "At a time when our economy is growing and creating jobs at a faster clip, we've got to do everything in our power to keep this recovery on track," Mr. Obama said at a community college in northern Virginia.
That's the pure Keynsian claptrap that is all about boosting aggregate demand with debt financed crony capitalism that will ultimately have to be paid off by generations of Americans who have yet to be born.
Obama's speech was a compilation of highlights from his past ones. One part optimism, two parts repetition equals one total uninspiring. Maybe it’s so boring, because it matters so little at this point. Taking away popularity polls, our national threshold for belief in hope or change has been trampled, not just because of Obama or Romney, but of the whole political apparatus that thrives on deflection of reality and posturing. We don’t have the same energy to expend listening to politicians, the endless spin that renders fact obsolete, responsibility absent, and true accomplishment, unnecessary.
NHL teams have visited the White House for years after winning the Stanley Cup, but it's a safe bet that never before has a Senator shown up more beaten and broken than the hockey players.
Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) was part of the ceremony honoring the Boston Bruins 2011 Stanley Cup win, appearing like he had just come from a knock-down, drag-out ruckus.
"I believe the Federal government has grown out of control, threatening the Rights, Liberties, and Property of the People.
This is being done at the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial level. This is in direct opposition to the Constitution and the Founding Fathers vision for the Federal government.
Because I believe this, today I exercised my right as a Free Citizen, and did not visit the White House. This was not about politics or party, as in my opinion both parties are responsible for the situation we are in as a country. This was about a choice I had to make as an INDIVIDUAL.
Thomas is a Tea Partier so it's nice to see him use the President's photo op as a platform to condemn big government.
Obamanomics is simply ignorance as the basis of policy. The more you know, the less you like it, and his only hope of re-election is to promulgate counterfactual ideas and persuade voters that they must choose between two lies: His dishonest characterizations of his own policies and his dishonest characterizations of Republican policies.
Documents obtained by CBS News show that the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) discussed using their covert operation "Fast and Furious" to argue for controversial new rules about gun sales.
WASHINGTON - President Obama on Monday will call for a new minimum tax rate for individuals making more than $1 million a year to ensure that they pay at least the same percentage of their earnings as middle-income taxpayers, according to administration officials.
You just can't make this stuff up. On Monday, President Obama is going to introduce a new tax on millionaires. Monday happens to be Talk Like a Pirate Day, so Obama will mark this informal holiday by introducing some more federal piracy in the form of higher taxes on high income earners. In short, he'll talk like a pirate. Sure, it's a targeted bit of piracy--targeted at those most able to pay--but the date chosen for the roll-out adds a bit of irony that could easily have been avoided for his latest populist proscription. It's yet another facepalm moment for the most inept administration in living memory.
An appeals court ruled Friday that President Barack Obama's healthcare law requiring Americans to buy healthcare insurance or face a penalty was unconstitutional, a blow to the White House.
The Appeals Court for the 11th Circuit, based in Atlanta, found that Congress exceeded its authority by requiring Americans to buy coverage, but also ruled that the rest of the wide-ranging law could remain in effect.
Associated Press: House Speaker Says Obama Won't Get 'blank Check':
House Speaker John Boehner says Pres. Barack Obama wants a blank check from Congress to raise the debt ceiling, but that he's not going to get one. In his response to Obama's televised address, Boehner gave no indication of compromise.
The aide said that party members are "struggling to see how they reach an agreement with significant debt reduction without buying time to work out the details." Boehner aide Steel had earlier told reporters that "it would be terribly unfortunate if the president was willing to veto a debt-limit increase simply because its timing would not be ideal for his re-election campaign. We want the most significant deficit reduction possible, but linking the full faith and credit of the United States to presidential campaign politics is not a defensible position."
I expect that there will be a plan sometime Sunday for a "clean"--no changes to taxes or spending--bump in the debt ceiling in the short term and an agreement in principal for changes later this year. If that's not enough to goose the markets, expect QE3 before the year's out.
James Pethokoukis of Reuters.com noted the following quote in a Goldman Sachs press release that went out Friday night:
...we now expect the unemployment rate to come down only modestly to 8¾% at the end of 2012.
...But the slowdown of recent months goes well beyond what can be explained with these temporary effects. … final demand growth has slowed to a pace that is typically only seen in recessions.
The “bugbear” is that we are still unsure about the precise reasons for the slowdown in 2011 to date, which is sharply at odds with our expectation at the end of last year that growth would accelerate in 2011.
So the smart people haven't got a clue! It should be clear that we need is less centralization (Keynes) and more emergent order (Hayek), but this too will be spun into arguments for more centralization.
...no matter what happens this week, or at 11:59:59pm on August 2, the long-term fate of the world's premier entitlement state is one which ends in disaster, and if history is any indication: war... Only this time everyone has the same just as destructive toys.
Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.) says he believes Attorney General Eric Holder knew about operation ‘Fast and Furious’ and should resign.
“I think he needs to step down. The president needs to recognize that he (Holder) is failing as the head of the Department of Justice and if the president does not do that, then maybe he’s complicit into what is happening in the Department of Justice,” West said Wednesday.
"Where is the president's plan? When's he going to lay his cards on the table? This debt limit increase is his problem, and I think it's time for him to lead by putting his plan on the table -- something that the Congress can pass," Boehner said
Yesterday, Acting ATF Director Kenneth Melson answered questions from Rep. Darrell Issa and Senator Charles Grassley surrounding Operation Fast and Furious. Melson voluntarily participated in the interview and appeared with personal counsel, meaning although the Justice Department has prohibited Melson to testify before Congress on behalf of the DOJ about the scandal, he can in fact come forward with information as an individual informant outside of the DOJ and separate from DOJ interests.
...
Melson revealed the scope of Operation Fast and Furious reaches far beyond ATF and the Justice Department. He said the FBI, DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration) and other agencies were heavily involved.
This is only going to get more interesting as the scope of the investigation widens now that Melson has implicated other agencies.
In his first full-scale news conference since March, the president insisted that Democrats had compromised in private talks by agreeing to billions of dollars in budget cuts that would hurt their voters. But, he said, Republicans were refusing to bend by not agreeing to eliminate tax breaks to owners of corporate jets and profit-rich oil companies. If Republicans get their way, Obama said, the end result would be unbalanced deal that lifts the debt limit but forces the government to make deeper-than-necessary cuts.
"If we do not have revenues, that means there are a bunch of kids out there who do not have college scholarships," Obama said. "[It] might compromise the National Weather Services. It means we might not be funding critical medical research. It means food inspection might be compromised. I've said to Republican leaders, 'You go talk to your constituents and ask them, "Are you willing to compromise your kids' safety so some corporate-jet owner can get a tax break?"'
This administration's failure to lead by example on issue after issue is an endless source of their own embarrassment. Just last week, Michelle Obama enjoyed half-a-million dollar trip to South Africa and Botswana on the tax payer's dime. Today, her husband, President Obama, mau mau's corporate jets. Clearly, Republican's must offer a compromise appropriate to the moral ground that the president has staked out. Here's one such compromise: when the White House agrees to forego further travel on their corporate jet, Air Force One, and their corporate helicopters, Marine One, and commits instead to travel by Amtrak One--perhaps alongside Joe Biden in Amtrak Two--then, and only then, should Republicans even consider the administrations proposals on corporate jets.
What was once a serious part of President Obama's roughly 800-billion dollar American Recovery Act - 'shovel-ready projects' - now seems to have become a laughing matter.
The key quote comes at the end where President Obama admits: "Shovel-ready was not.. ah... as shovel-ready as we expected." We'll be hearing that sound bite a lot leading up to the 2012 election.
Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann, an outspoken Republican with close ties to the tea party, announced Monday that she is running for president, a candidacy that could further shake up a volatile fight for the GOP nomination.
In an exclusive interview with TODAY’s Ann Curry that will air on Tuesday’s show, President Barack Obama said that if he were Democratic Congressman Anthony Weiner right now, he would resign in the wake of the scandal in which Weiner admitted to sending explicit photos of himself to women online.
“I can tell you that if it was me, I would resign,’’ Obama told Curry.
Since the president’s Arab Spring speech, friends of Israel have been nervous about at least two issues: the promise Israel would not have to sit down with those who seek its destruction and the negotiations based on the “1967 borders with land swaps.” This weekend it became apparent that there is much to worry about and that the Obama administration has been playing a game usually practiced by the Palestinians, namely telling its domestic audience one thing and the negotiating parties something different.
Shortly after the photo-op meeting and “working lunch” with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the one that saw President Obama openly chastised by the Prime Minister for Obama’s earlier public comments regarding wanting to see Israel return to its 1967 borders, the president verbally “went off” on Richard Daley in the private study area that adjoins the Oval Office. President Obama’s verbal attack was clearly heard by numerous staff up and down the West Wing hallways.
The essence of the president’s rage and embarrassment can best be summed up with him yelling out very loudly, “What the f-ck was that!?” That phrase was apparently repeated a number of times in the span of about five minutes, a time period in which Obama’s voice became “louder and louder” and culminating in Obama exclaiming, “Never again! Do you understand me? Never again!” Any response by Bill Daley back to the president, if given, was not overheard.
Tea Party Conservative who began blogging at http://RebootCongress.NET when TARP passed. Email me: contact@RebootCongress.net. Help support my work: Donate Bitcoins
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