White House Budget Delusions

We are constantly amazed at how stupid the White House feels we are.  They tell us it is a "gimmick" and blame the Republicans for the rejection of Obama's budget.  They omit the fact that it was unanimously (meaning ALL Republicans AND Democrats) voted against the bill in both the House (414-0) and (Senate 99-0)  The President did not get one vote for his budget and he has the guts to go out and blame the opposition party. He is a fraud and deceiver.


One has to step back and wonder what else is he lying about? What is going on that we have no knowledge of?  How can we believe anything that he, the VP or their spokesmen say?  If they will lie about the most simple, easily confirmed issues, what about the more complex ones?  This gets real scary, very quickly.


He must be defeated for if given another term, where he has "more flexibility," one can only wonder what he might do.


Conservative Tom

Overwhelming Rejection of Obama Budget a ‘Gimmick,’ White House Says

By Fred Lucas

May 16, 2012

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President Barack Obama with Vice President Joe Biden, left, honors the 2012 National Association of Police Organizations TOP COPS award winners in the Rose Garden at the White House, Saturday, May 12, 2012. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

(Update: The Senate defeated Obama's budget proposal 99-0 after this story was posted.)

(CNSNews.com) – As President Barack Obama’s budget was poised to fail overwhelmingly in the Senate for the second year, the White House dismissed the vote entirely as a gimmick.

Already, Obama’s $3.6 trillion tax and spending plan for fiscal year 2013was defeated in the House by a vote of 414-0 on March 28. Last year, the Senate defeated Obama’s fiscal year 2012 plan by a vote of 97-0.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has refused to allow a budget vote in the Senate, while the House approved a GOP budget, spearheaded by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) that passed the House mostly along party lines.

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney seemed prepared for another bipartisan vote against the president’s vote, even as he repeatedly praised Obama’s plan as a “balanced approach.”

“We would prefer that the Senate and Congress overall function efficiently,” Carney said. “As you know, the vote that you referred to was yet another gimmick, and that’s why the tally will come out the way it does.

“It represents a decision by Republicans to instead of acknowledging that the only solution here is a bipartisan solution, you know, just sort of waste time with gimmicks,” Carney continued. “There is an avenue here as I’ve been discussing, and I’ll stop waxing on about it, but the approach we need to take is clear to everyone except apparently for a significant portion of Republican members of Congress.”

Senate Republicans are bringing four budget proposals to the floor for a vote that includes Obama’s budget plan.

“We’ve got a nearly $16 trillion debt. We’re borrowing more than 40 cents of every dollar we spend. Entitlements are going broke. Millions are out of work, and Democrats can’t even put a plan on paper for a vote?” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said during a floor speech Wednesday. “What are they doing over there? Isn’t anybody over there embarrassed by the fact that they haven’t offered a budget in three years?”

“As far as I can tell, their only plan is to take shots at our plans and hope nobody notices they not only don’t have one of their own,” McConnell continued. “They’re so unserious they won’t even vote for a budget that was written by a president of their own party. It doesn’t get more irresponsible than that.”

The Obama administration projects their budget plan would save $4 trillion by 2022. However, the budget proposal for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1, projects a $1.33 trillion deficit, marking a fourth consecutive year of trillion-dollar deficits.

The president’s plan projects that the deficit would drop to $901 billion in 2013 and to $575 billion by 2018. It would raise taxes on households earning more than $250,000 and individuals earning $200,000 by letting some of the Bush tax cuts expire. It also proposes to raise $41 billion over 10 years by hiking taxes on oil, gas and coal companies.

    

Buying The Election Obama Style

When the history of this time in American History is written, it will be shown to be one where government officials were able to convince the public that there was an emergency and that we did not have time to even think of the ramifications of the actions they were taking.  Whether it was the mortgage crisis, the debt crisis, the debt limit crisis or the failure of GM and Chrysler, no one took a calm, reasoned approach to any of these problems.

Yes, they were problems, however, we do not think they were ones that would have crashed the economy or ended the automobile business in this country.  In retrospect, some banks might have failed but that is what should happen when irresponsible business people make bad decisions. Other banks would have stepped into the fold and picked up the pieces. 

On the other hand, had "the bright people" not warned that without government intervention, the whole system would collapse, other solutions could have been created to solve the issue. For example, when the Savings and Loans got in trouble in the 80's, the government took over the bad loans and did a work out, off the books of the S&Ls.  Why would that not have worked?  Or the government could have taken the bad loans, put them in a fund to work them out, given the banks 20% on the dollar for those instruments. The banks would have been free from the junk and could proceed on with their daily business.

The same goes for the car companies.  If one or both had to declare bankruptcy, there would have been a restructuring of the company (option 1) or it would have gone out of business (option 2.)  Had the courts or the company  selected option 2, there would have been other companies both foreign and domestic who would have picked up the plants and some of the employees. It would not have ended the car business here.  That was a scare tactic.

Instead, the government in its wisdom(???), chose to violate centuries of bankruptcy law and gave precedence to the unsecured unions over other secured creditors. Why? One can only assume it was a payback to union bosses.

Additionally, independent dealers had their agreements with the manufacturers cancelled, or should we say, confiscated. To this day, no one had been able to convince us that this was a necessary step to save the companies. Dealers are independent business people deriving their income from the sale of cars.  The companies sell the cars to the dealers who retail them to the public. The only other financial tie is warranty repairs for which the dealer is reimbursed by the company. 

Additionally, eliminating dealers drives up the cost to the public as there is less competition. In fact, in many rural areas, the dealers were eliminated causing the public to drive to the larger cities to make their purchases.

We see no reason, financially, for the car dealers being eliminated. Yet, politically there was a reward. Most dealers are independent and therefore many are Republican and they gave contributions to the party.  So when the opportunity arose to eliminate a strong group of contributors, the Obama Administration jumped at the chance.  When an analysis of those dealers who were forced to close, it was found that the vast majority had given contributions to the Republican party.  It did not matter how many cars they sold, their performance scores or their customer satisfaction (all of which were reasons the Administration professed to be using), if they gave to Republican campaigns they were forced out of business.

Now we read the White House is proposing new ways to get people out of their mortgages. In the following article we see the next bribe of the day done by this Chavez- like Administration. Will the we see another decade as a free people?

This is not the way we do business in this country. The abuse of power shown by this Administration regarding the banks and the cars companies and the recent appointments which made even though the Senate is still in session is nearing dictatorial levels. It must not be allowed to continue past January 2013!

Tell us what you think.

Conservative Tom

Salvato: Raiding of the Treasury to Bribe the Irresponsible

By Frank Salvato January 13, 2012 6:58 am

          

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A little publicized political story, if played out to the satisfaction of California Democrats (read: Progressives), would not only set the stage for a politically motivated raid on the US Treasury, it would afford President Obama, his administration and political operatives plausible deniability in any “coincidental” benefit to Mr. Obama’s re-election campaign. And if you don’t think that has David Axelrod, Valerie Jarrett and David Plouffe salivating, you haven’t been paying attention for the past three years.

According to a report by TheHill.com:

“A long list of California Democrats is urging President Obama to name a new housing regulator using a controversial recess appointment. 

“In a letter to the president, more than two dozen House members said the temporary head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), Edward DeMarco, simply hasn't done enough to help struggling homeowners avoid foreclosure. The lawmakers are pushing the president to name a permanent director ‘immediately.’ 

“‘FHFA has consistently and erroneously interpreted its mandate far too narrowly and as such has failed to take adequate action to help homeowners,’ the lawmakers wrote. ‘Installing a permanent director of the FHFA will allow the FHFA to move forward to make key decisions that will help keep families in their homes and improve our economy.’”

Okay, let’s first examine the FHFA. According to their website:

“The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) was created on July 30, 2008, when the President signed into law the Housing & Economic Recovery Act of 2008. The Act gave FHFA the authorities necessary to oversee vital components of our country’s secondary mortgage markets – Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Home Loan Banks...FHFA’s mission is to provide effective supervision, regulation and housing mission oversight of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Home Loan Banks to promote their safety and soundness, support housing finance and affordable housing, and support a stable and liquid mortgage market...”

The reason the California congressional delegation is pushing for a permanent replacement for Mr. DeMarco has little to do with the well-being of California’s citizens whose mortgages are both underwater or in foreclosure. It has everything to do with 2012 being an election year. The California delegation’s letter to President Obama urging the so-called “recess appointment” of a new FHFA director presents as a gift to the Obama re-election effort. I say “so-called recess appointment” because the US Senate is in pro-forma session and it is unconstitutional for the president to make recess appointments when either house of Congress is in session. I and the rest of the Conservative and Republican rank-and-file arestill waiting for congressional Republicans to do something about the initial round of “recess appointments.” Of course, one needs a spine to stand-up to a bully, so we probably shouldn’t hold our collective breath.

I say that the letter presented to the President and his team is a gift because it is a win-win situation that indirectly provides enormous benefit to his re-election campaign.

Should Mr. Obama make an unconstitutional recess appointment to fill the FHFA directorship, the director would be able to take action, almost immediately, to mandate the re-negotiation of any and/or all of the mortgages held by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Home Loan Banks. That mandate could literally include the forgiveness of sizable portions of monies due to those organizations by mortgage holders who are either underwater, on the bubble of foreclosure or both. This is, effectively, an exercise in debt forgiveness...without the tax liability for the borrower.

Debt forgiveness, by definition, is:

“...a reduction in loan value where a loan is discounted from its original principal or charged off as a bad debt...Under IRS rules [the amount of the reduction] is reportable as income to the borrower for loans discounted or charged off.”

Because this move by the FHFA would be recognized as a mandated re-negotiation of the loan, the borrower wouldn’t be subjected to the IRS rules pertaining to debt forgiveness. That leaves this question: How would Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Home Loan Banks recoup the monies lost in mortgage re-negotiations? If you answered, “from the federal government” or “from the US taxpayers,” give yourself a gold star. The mandated re-negotiated mortgages would literally facilitate a raid on the US Treasury by the Obama Administration under the guise of affordable housing and the “correcting” of the mortgage industry.

Now, here’s the part that makes David Axelrod, Valerie Jarrett and David Plouffe drool.

Being the narcissistic political opportunist that Barack Obama has demonstrated himself to be, any of the so-called “political strategist” talking heads seen blathering on nightly on your cable news channel of choice could tell you that as soon as the first reduced mortgage bills are sent to the “rescued” (read: bailed-out, or, better yet, bribed) voters...er, excuse me, borrowers, Mr. Obama will be on television, radio, in print and on the Internet trumpeting how his administration “saved” or “thwarted the foreclosure of” hundreds of thousands – if not millions – of family homes.

I can hear it now:

“This morning, the Director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, initiated a plan to save the homes of millions of Americans who were tricked, deceived or otherwise forced into signing on to home mortgages unfairly by the greed merchants of the Wall Street One-Percent. Exacting social justice on these filthy Capitalists, the FHFA director has ordered the heads of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Home Loan Banks to renegotiate any and all home mortgages that are either underwater or on the brink of foreclosure. While I had nothing to do directly with this decision, I did, in my infinite wisdom, appoint the director and, therefore, am due your support in my bid for re-election to the presidency of the United States. Thank you very much and goodnight. Be sure to tip your bartenders and waitresses on your way out. They work hard. You’ve been great.”

Sir Alex Fraser Tytler, a Scottish lawyer, writer and Professor of Universal History, and Greek & Roman Antiquities at the University of Edinburgh, is quoted as saying:

“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largess of the public treasury. From that time on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury, with the results that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship...”

To clarify, the United States of America is not a Democracy, we are a Constitutional Republic with a democratic electoral system, that understood, Tytler’s axiom still holds true. Once the voting public realizes that they can elect pillagers to office who have no problem achieving full political cowardice in their sycophancy to special interest voting blocs, the gates to the Treasury are no longer secure and the Republic is doomed.

It is for this reason that two events simply must take place.

First, congressional Republican leadership must – immediately – cease being the gaggle of spineless political geldings that they have been since Mr. Obama took office. They must challenge, in every way, shape and form the unconstitutional (read: illegal) recess appointment of Richard Cordray atop the newly established Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and Mr. Obama’s recent appointments to the National Labor Relations Board. This opposition should include consideration of a radical move: organizing a congressional walk-out, ala the tactics of the Democrat lawmakers in Wisconsin and Indiana, who brought those state legislatures to a halt over the legitimate limitations imposed on public-sector labor unions in those states by the duly elected.

And second, Republicans simply must become more aggressive with branding issues, with messaging. This would be a perfect opportunity to get ahead of the message; to frame the issue before the Progressive “history re-writing machine” gets a chance to sell the American public a bill of goods that is fundamentally Socialist in nature (redistribution of wealth is a Socialist tool to placate the masses). Sadly, if the same message wizards in the GOP hierarchy execute their status quo they will once again find themselves on the defensive and operating from a disadvantaged position, just as with the tax-cut extension issue, the deficit issue, the entitlement reform issues, the budget issue, etc.

Should the Republican leadership – both in Congress and at the RNC – refuse to take this battle on with the intention of winning without compromise, we can all be sure that Mr. Obama and his team of Progressive anti-Capitalists will “fundamentally transform” the raiding of the US Treasury – disguised as an affordable housing initiative – into a dedicated voting bloc come November 2012. If the Republican leadership – both elected and at the Party level – allow this to happen then the subsequent demise of the Republic becomes the GOP’s legacy to the human race.

---

Frank Salvato is the Executive Director for BasicsProject.org.

Prediction: Obama Gets Second Term

We are sure that some of you reading this headline are wondering form where we are coming.  We are very concerned with the mealy mouthed, lily-livered leadership that we have in the House and Senate. They cave at the earliest convenience and hand the opposition the fire power to take the issue and make it theirs.  Where are our leaders?

How can we expect to implement corrective actions that will save this country, if our leaders cannot even make their points in cogent, concise statements?  Or are they really just statists of another political stripe? They have no guts and are not willing to make the hard decisions that is needed in the rumble-tumble of politics. It is not a gentleman's sport and we seem to have people who think it is! 

In politics, those leaders who got things done (ala LBJ or Pilosi) were hard charging, get the H out of the way, we are doing it my way. They took no prisoners and when they talked, everyone listened.  The opposition might not agree but they knew that somehow these men and woman would get it accomplished. Why do we not have a Republican of this ilk?

With our current leadership in the House and Senate along with the weak crop of candidates that we have fielded, we can expect that Obama will be re-elected with the distinct possibility that the Democrats will regain the House and maintain the Senate. If this disaster were to occur, it would mean the end of the United States as the country in which we have grown up. Spending controls would go out the window and every socialist program that could be created, would be. 

Obama would have the opportunity to appoint several new Supreme Court Justices which would mean the end of the Second Amendment and other rights. Lower Federal Courts would be packed with liberal leaning jurists. Programs like "Fast and Furious" would be the rule of the day. Illegal immigration would be legalized.

In other words, the once great United States would be reduced to a third world country.

Will we stand for it? Probably, we would be so busy trying to feed our families that striking or protesting would hurt them.

However, we cannot allow this to happen. Obama and his legions must be defeated.  Are you going to do your part? We cannot depend on the leadership of the Republican party to do its share of the heavy lifting. It must be individuals, ground level activists that make the difference. Are you one of them?  I am and so was Derek Mothershead in the following story as was Joe the Plumber. We need you, are you with us?

Unless we all come together, Obama will get a second term. Do you want that?

Conservative Tom

America's Big Loser in 2011: Americans

By Ben Shapiro

December 29, 2011

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In North Carolina this week, a young man named Mostafa Kamel Hendi hit upon a plan to make ends meet in this rotten economy: He decided to knock over a local gold store. Tape shows this determined and enterprising flower of American youth strolling into the store, hoodie over his head, and then gesturing to the clerk, Derek Mothershead, to shove some money in a plastic bag.

Mothershead, however, not being a member of the liberal effete class who believe that all robbery is a noble redistributionist impulse, had an unexpected reaction. He handed Hendi some money — and then, as Hendi bent to put the money in the bag, Mothershead clocked him with a tremendous left. Hendi went down, bleeding profusely. "There was just an opportunity there where I thought that I could actually do something and justice could be served," said Mothershead, "and I thought that's what needed to be done." This tough Mother then forced Hendi to clean up his own blood with paper towels and cleaning solution. "If he wants money," Mothershead added, "get a job. Work like everybody else in this world."

Poor Hendi. If only he had worked for the government, none of this would have ever happened. Unfortunately, it seems there's simply no way to fight back against a government full of Hendis hell bent on taking our money at the point of a gun — for our own good, of course.

When 2011 dawned, it seemed a year of hope and change. After all, at the end of 2010, we elected Republicans in a Congressional landslide. President Obama was on the rocks thanks to charting a committed course of spending, spending and more spending. Most of all, the voting populace seemed to understand for the first time in 60 years that not only is there no such thing as a free lunch, but the man who offers the free lunch expects your firstborn child in return. Government, we realized, was Rumpelstiltskin rather than Santa Claus.

As the year progressed, however, it became clear that no matter who we elected, they were unwilling to say Rumpelstiltskin and make the greedy monster disappear. Republicans collapsed not once but twice on the spending issue. First, led by hack Speaker John Boehner, they imploded in April when, to avoid the dreaded "government shutdown" — a shutdown which, by the way, would essentially impact nobody except those on government benefits — Republicans agreed to cut a mere $38 billion from the 2010 baseline budget and keep funding to Planned Parenthood flowing. As it turned out, that $38 billion wasn't $38 billion at all but actually $352 million.

Obama's plans to move forward. And, to top that off, Obama got to push the debt crisis down the road past the election so that he wouldn't have to discuss his shopaholic problem until after his re-election. Oh, yes, we were also downgraded, to boot, on our national credit by Standard & Poors. So that worked out well.

The Republican Party has responded to all of this chicken-heartedness by feting Boehner as a great leader and proposing that conservatives nominate one Mitt Romney, former governor of Massachusetts. Romney is clearly to the GOPs liking — he fits the profile of the tough-talking scalpel-wielder and the in-office wimp. And we've been told that he's inevitable, like death and taxes. Meanwhile, Iowa Republicans, in the apparent grip of rabies, are now considering nominating Congressman Ron Paul, who is a real scalpel-wielder on domestic policy but has his cannon fixed on self-slaughter on the foreign front.

To no one's surprise, with the GOP offering a contrast like this, many Americans are content to settle for the real thing: a second Obama term. Despite a list of scandals that would have sunk any Republican president, despite leading America to the worst economic performance since Franklin Delano Roosevelt, despite crippling American influence in the Middle East for the next two generations, Obama rides high with a 44 percent approval rating. All he needs is to split the independent vote evenly to win re-election.

So what will 2012 be like? It depends on whether Americans are willing to punch back — not just at Democrats but at Republicans as well. It depends on whether they are willing to tell their fellow citizens to stop leeching off of the 1 percent and start working for themselves rather than the great collective.

When Mothershead investigated Hendi's gun after K.O.-ing him, he found that it wasn't genuine — it was a pellet gun. The truth is that if we stand up to it, our government is armed with pellet guns, too. Let them shut down the government, other than essential services. Good riddance. Let them warn of dire economic consequences if they're unable to send billion-dollar checks to abortion clinics. Somehow, we'll deal with it.

If we want 2012 to be a year of freedom, we'll have to stand up for it rather than settling for an agenda of half-freedom. Half-freedom is no freedom at all, no matter who is in office.