And now, back to our regularly scheduled spending. One week after the shock of the $1.3 trillion stimulus hit home, President Obama and his party are back at it, promoting fiscal responsibility while exercising anything but. Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), fresh from her taxpayer-funded vacation, lifted the veil on a $410 billion omnibus bill that fails to live up to the President's campaign promises of "earmark reform."
"[W]hen I'm president, I will go line by line to make sure that we are not spending money unwisely," he told a crowd in Mississippi last year. Of course, the irony is that Congress introduced a bill with 9,000 earmarks on the same day that the President delivered a speech to economists on spending restraint. "[I]f we want to spend, we'll need to find somewhere to cut," the President suggested Monday, mere days after he signed the biggest spending bill in U.S. history. At the same meeting, Obama vowed to reduce the deficit by half in his first term, which would be a real feat considering that he has already expanded it by roughly a trillion dollars. Got vertigo yet?
Liberals claim the omnibus, now under review in the House, is pork-free. The evidence suggests otherwise. A portion of the $5 billion in earmarks is slated to fund: a "Tattoo Removal Violence Prevention Outreach Program" ($200,000); the creation of a "Ted Kennedy Institute for the Senate" ($5.8 million); the National Council of LaRaza ($473,000); "the promotion of astronomy in Hawaii" ($2 million); and the Las Vegas Natural History Museum ($143,000), where Sen. Harry Reid's son served as a board member.
The flagrant waste, while upsetting, is far less damaging to values voters than the shifts in social policy, which often go undetected in spending bills like this one. Of particular concern to FRC are the diminished pro-life "riders" attached to the legislation. (For a better understanding of the term "rider," check out the FRC Action Blog). Unfortunately, we learned yesterday that the President has reinstated $50 million for the U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA). For the first time in eight years, the U.S. will be knowingly subsidizing forced abortion and sterilization.
The President demanded $545 million ($88 million more than 2008) in contraceptives and other "family planning" activities that do not merit public support. In a major setback for the Community-Based Abstinence Education program, the White House asked for a $13 million reduction in CBAE grants, while increasing its funding for Title X birth control programs to $307 million. Another provision would give college health and abortion clinics the ability to purchase contraception and Plan B at a "nominal" price. (Keep in mind that leaders are proposing this while a network of California Planned Parenthood clinics is under investigation for fraudulently re-selling these same drugs at higher prices for profit.)
On the education front, the bill includes language that would eliminate the D.C. school voucher program and bars new students from participating in the program despite its documented success. In a subtle move, House liberals have also pushed for $1.2 billion in "anti-bullying programs." In the past, these funds have been used to introduce pro-homosexual curricula into the nation's public schools. Last, but by no means least, the report language launches a sneak attack on marriage by encouraging reconsideration of the ban on benefits for same-sex partners of federal employees.
Tonight, despite these assaults on American values, the President will address the nation with the familiar themes of hope, camaraderie, and optimism. But, as we have come to expect in Obama's first month, the rhetoric of this administration falls miserably short of reality.
Additional Resources Kitchen Table Blog: What Exactly are Pro-life Riders?
Tony Perkins
Family Research Council:
801 G Street N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20001
P: 202/393-2100 or 800/225-4008
W: frc.org
Showing posts with label pork. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pork. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Monday, February 16, 2009
Live in Colorado? Sign the check!
When President Obama signs his so-called stimulus bill in Denver on Tuesday, his stroke of the pen is equal to each American family signing over a $30-thousand dollar check to the government.
“At a time when tough budgeting decisions are being made around the kitchen table, each family in America will soon be 30-thousand dollars deeper in hock, thanks to this legislation,” says Jon Caldara, President of the free-market think tank, the Independence Institute. “Most of that spending should never happen at all, and much of that money will be spent on pork that won't even taste good.”
WHAT: INDIVIDUALS will sign their names to 4-foot wide checks, made out to the federal government in the amount of $30-thousand dollars.
WHERE: WEST STEPS of the State Capitol.
WHEN: NOON WHO: A coalition of concerned groups and citizens, including
Jon Caldara of Colorado's Independence Institute
U.S. Representative Mike Coffman
Michelle Malkin, nationally-known writer, blogger, and columnist
Former U.S. Congressman Bob Beauprez
numerous other Colorado legislators and dignitaries
WHY: To voice opposition to a government measure that spends more in one bill than has been spent in the entire conflict in Iraq
**Update 2: West steps of State Capitol:
UPDATE: Event details are set. We will begin our press conference at 12:15pm on the West Steps of the State Capitol. Please begin arriving at noon. We have the West Steps until 2pm.
Many speakers have been invited, and we will let you know here when they can confirm.
Confirmed attendees are as follows:
Confirmed attendees:
Former Cong. Bob Beauprez
Michelle Malkin FOX News Contributor and founder of MichelleMalkin.com and HotAir.com
Jim Pfaff, State Director of Americans for Prosperity in Colorado;
several state legislators
Dick Wadhams, Colorado Republican Committee Chairman
Invited Attendees:
Congressman Doug Lamborn
Congressman Mike Coffman
(rec'd via my Team Sarah account)
“At a time when tough budgeting decisions are being made around the kitchen table, each family in America will soon be 30-thousand dollars deeper in hock, thanks to this legislation,” says Jon Caldara, President of the free-market think tank, the Independence Institute. “Most of that spending should never happen at all, and much of that money will be spent on pork that won't even taste good.”
WHAT: INDIVIDUALS will sign their names to 4-foot wide checks, made out to the federal government in the amount of $30-thousand dollars.
WHERE: WEST STEPS of the State Capitol.
WHEN: NOON WHO: A coalition of concerned groups and citizens, including
Jon Caldara of Colorado's Independence Institute
U.S. Representative Mike Coffman
Michelle Malkin, nationally-known writer, blogger, and columnist
Former U.S. Congressman Bob Beauprez
numerous other Colorado legislators and dignitaries
WHY: To voice opposition to a government measure that spends more in one bill than has been spent in the entire conflict in Iraq
**Update 2: West steps of State Capitol:
UPDATE: Event details are set. We will begin our press conference at 12:15pm on the West Steps of the State Capitol. Please begin arriving at noon. We have the West Steps until 2pm.
Many speakers have been invited, and we will let you know here when they can confirm.
Confirmed attendees are as follows:
Confirmed attendees:
Former Cong. Bob Beauprez
Michelle Malkin FOX News Contributor and founder of MichelleMalkin.com and HotAir.com
Jim Pfaff, State Director of Americans for Prosperity in Colorado;
several state legislators
Dick Wadhams, Colorado Republican Committee Chairman
Invited Attendees:
Congressman Doug Lamborn
Congressman Mike Coffman
(rec'd via my Team Sarah account)
Thursday, February 12, 2009
A Trillion Dollar Failure
The United States Congress is about to pass the largest single-year increase in domestic federal spending since World War II. Despite the fact that neither the Republicans in Congress, the media, nor the American people have been allowed to read the bill, the House plans to vote on the plan today. The Senate will quickly follow suit so that the bill will hit President Barack Obama's desk by Monday.
Even without the full benefit of digesting what is in this trillion dollar debt bill, over 200 economists have expressed their belief that this plan is destined to fail.
And conservative economists that once supported the idea of a stimulus are now calling the current plan "An $800 Billion Mistake." Even center left economists like President Bill Clinton’s budget director, Alice Rivlin have told Congress that the long-term spending items in the plan "should not be put together hastily and lumped in with the anti-recession package."
This past summer, Obama Administration National Economic Council director Larry Summers said that any stimulus bill must be “timely… targeted … and credibly temporary.”
The plan coming out of Congress is none of those things.
Not Timely
The Heritage Foundation has never believed that temporary tax cuts have a stimulating effect on the economy. That is why last year we predicted that President George Bush's tax rebates would not help the economy. The Obama Administration's temporary tax cuts will be equally ineffective.
However, according to the Congressional Budget Office, the tax cut portion of the stimulus bill was the fastest working part of the package. It was also one of the first things reduced in the conference committee to make room for more spending. This means the stimulus will be even slower acting than the CBO originally predicted.
Much of the infrastructure spending in the bill will also not help the economy recover. The Obama Administration's budget director, Peter Orszag (who was previously head of the CBO) authored a report in 2008 stating: "Large-scale construction projects of any type require years of planning and preparation. Even those that are 'on the shelf' generally cannot be undertaken quickly enough to provide timely stimulus to the economy."
Badly Targeted
The White House has pretty much conceded that most of the stimulus bill is not fast acting and are instead telling the Washington Post that "the president secured many of his biggest priorities in the legislation, including the longer-term health-care and energy investments that the administration views as a down payment on broader reforms."Many of these "broader reforms" will undermine immediate economic recovery, including:
An $87 billion dollar bailout for state Medicaid funding which only rewards inefficiency and encourages overspending.
Wage controls for construction work on federal projects which will raise costs and decrease employment.
Billions for increased government health care bureaucracy which serves as a major down payment on the path to socialized medicine.
The bill also settles old ideological scores including the abolishment of the bipartisan 1996 welfare reform policies and a ban on funds for faith based educational institutions.
And then there is the pork. Despite assurances that the bill would be pork free, the Obama Administration has been crisscrossing the country highlighting which local pork projects are in the plan. Plus the $6.5 billion line item for medical research was key in winning Sen. Arlen Specter's (R-PA) vote.
Not Temporary
There is nothing credibly temporary about the spending in this bill. The new welfare spending in this bill has already become the new budget baseline and anyone who dares to try pare it down is being attacked for "slashing" government funds. According to Heritage fellow Robert Rector, once this permanent new spending is factored in, the real cost of the plan balloons to $1.34 trillion.
Trillion Dollar Deficits for Years to ComeThe “stimulus” bill alone will create more debt (approximately $1 trillion including interest costs), than Bush’s first three years of budget deficits combined ($948 billion). Under the Reagan Administration, the deficit peaked at 6% of GDP in 1983. According to the CBO the 2009 deficit will reach 8.3% of the economy, not including the stimulus or bank bailout cash. If you include the permanent nature of the stimulus spendathon, the deficit could hit nearly $2 trillion, or 13.5% of the U.S. economy.
That is why the CBO has predicted that this so-called stimulus bill will actually harm economic growth. Democrat appointed CBO director Doug Elmendorf explains why:
The principal channel for this effect is that the legislation would result in an increase in government debt. To the extent that people hold their wealth in the form of government bonds rather than in a form that can be used to finance private investment, the increased government debt would tend to 'crowd out' private investment—thus reducing the stock of private capital and the long-term potential output of the economy.
Why are we passing a stimulus bill that our own government is telling us will cause our economy to shrink?
Here's another great article to read: President Obama Set to Exceed President Bush’s Deficits
www.heritage.org - be sure to sign up for the Morning Bell... best read you'll have.
Even without the full benefit of digesting what is in this trillion dollar debt bill, over 200 economists have expressed their belief that this plan is destined to fail.
And conservative economists that once supported the idea of a stimulus are now calling the current plan "An $800 Billion Mistake." Even center left economists like President Bill Clinton’s budget director, Alice Rivlin have told Congress that the long-term spending items in the plan "should not be put together hastily and lumped in with the anti-recession package."
This past summer, Obama Administration National Economic Council director Larry Summers said that any stimulus bill must be “timely… targeted … and credibly temporary.”
The plan coming out of Congress is none of those things.
Not Timely
The Heritage Foundation has never believed that temporary tax cuts have a stimulating effect on the economy. That is why last year we predicted that President George Bush's tax rebates would not help the economy. The Obama Administration's temporary tax cuts will be equally ineffective.
However, according to the Congressional Budget Office, the tax cut portion of the stimulus bill was the fastest working part of the package. It was also one of the first things reduced in the conference committee to make room for more spending. This means the stimulus will be even slower acting than the CBO originally predicted.
Much of the infrastructure spending in the bill will also not help the economy recover. The Obama Administration's budget director, Peter Orszag (who was previously head of the CBO) authored a report in 2008 stating: "Large-scale construction projects of any type require years of planning and preparation. Even those that are 'on the shelf' generally cannot be undertaken quickly enough to provide timely stimulus to the economy."
Badly Targeted
The White House has pretty much conceded that most of the stimulus bill is not fast acting and are instead telling the Washington Post that "the president secured many of his biggest priorities in the legislation, including the longer-term health-care and energy investments that the administration views as a down payment on broader reforms."Many of these "broader reforms" will undermine immediate economic recovery, including:
An $87 billion dollar bailout for state Medicaid funding which only rewards inefficiency and encourages overspending.
Wage controls for construction work on federal projects which will raise costs and decrease employment.
Billions for increased government health care bureaucracy which serves as a major down payment on the path to socialized medicine.
The bill also settles old ideological scores including the abolishment of the bipartisan 1996 welfare reform policies and a ban on funds for faith based educational institutions.
And then there is the pork. Despite assurances that the bill would be pork free, the Obama Administration has been crisscrossing the country highlighting which local pork projects are in the plan. Plus the $6.5 billion line item for medical research was key in winning Sen. Arlen Specter's (R-PA) vote.
Not Temporary
There is nothing credibly temporary about the spending in this bill. The new welfare spending in this bill has already become the new budget baseline and anyone who dares to try pare it down is being attacked for "slashing" government funds. According to Heritage fellow Robert Rector, once this permanent new spending is factored in, the real cost of the plan balloons to $1.34 trillion.
Trillion Dollar Deficits for Years to ComeThe “stimulus” bill alone will create more debt (approximately $1 trillion including interest costs), than Bush’s first three years of budget deficits combined ($948 billion). Under the Reagan Administration, the deficit peaked at 6% of GDP in 1983. According to the CBO the 2009 deficit will reach 8.3% of the economy, not including the stimulus or bank bailout cash. If you include the permanent nature of the stimulus spendathon, the deficit could hit nearly $2 trillion, or 13.5% of the U.S. economy.
That is why the CBO has predicted that this so-called stimulus bill will actually harm economic growth. Democrat appointed CBO director Doug Elmendorf explains why:
The principal channel for this effect is that the legislation would result in an increase in government debt. To the extent that people hold their wealth in the form of government bonds rather than in a form that can be used to finance private investment, the increased government debt would tend to 'crowd out' private investment—thus reducing the stock of private capital and the long-term potential output of the economy.
Why are we passing a stimulus bill that our own government is telling us will cause our economy to shrink?
Here's another great article to read: President Obama Set to Exceed President Bush’s Deficits
www.heritage.org - be sure to sign up for the Morning Bell... best read you'll have.
$600 stimulus? Michelle Obama doesn't think it's worth it
So Michelle's husband's stimulus bill is going to "give" us a tax cut in the neighborhood of $13 a week. That works out to be roughly $676 a year give or take a few dollars.
Here's what she had to say on the campaign trail about President Bush's stimulus check that gave most of us $600:
If you were married you received more than $600 and I believe families inched up a bit higher dollar-wise.
Personally, I could by quite a few pairs of earrings for $600. I'm more of a $13 a pair type, but what the hey, I travel in different circles.
Which would you rather have? A check for $600 or $13 a week?
I just heard that as they're busy tonight stuffing more pork into the over stuffed porkulus bill that they've dropped the stimulus checks they were sending to us down to around $400.
oink, oink, oink... let them eat pork...
(Michelle Obama's $600 Earrings)
Here's what she had to say on the campaign trail about President Bush's stimulus check that gave most of us $600:
Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama’s wife, Michelle, complained
the government’s $600 economic stimulus check was only enough to buy “a pair of
earrings” while stumping for her husband.
“You're getting $600 - what can you do with that?” Mrs. Obama said in
Pontiac, Michigan last week. “Not to be ungrateful or anything, but maybe it
pays down a bill, but it doesn't pay down every bill every month. The short-term
quick fix kinda stuff sounds good, and it may even feel good that first month
when you get that check, and then you go out and you buy a pair of earrings."
If you were married you received more than $600 and I believe families inched up a bit higher dollar-wise.
Personally, I could by quite a few pairs of earrings for $600. I'm more of a $13 a pair type, but what the hey, I travel in different circles.
Which would you rather have? A check for $600 or $13 a week?
I just heard that as they're busy tonight stuffing more pork into the over stuffed porkulus bill that they've dropped the stimulus checks they were sending to us down to around $400.
oink, oink, oink... let them eat pork...
(Michelle Obama's $600 Earrings)
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Tell Chuck Schumer you care
By Michelle Malkin • February 11, 2009 10:05 AM
Yesterday, I posted video of snarky Sen. Chuck Schumer telling his colleagues on the floor before the Generational Theft Act vote that Americans don’t care about the teeny, tiny pork amendments bloating up the bill.
http://michellemalkin.com/2009/02/11/tell-chuck-schumer-you-care/
Yesterday, I posted video of snarky Sen. Chuck Schumer telling his colleagues on the floor before the Generational Theft Act vote that Americans don’t care about the teeny, tiny pork amendments bloating up the bill.
http://michellemalkin.com/2009/02/11/tell-chuck-schumer-you-care/
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