Tag Archives: Budget

The Buck Doesn’t Stop Here

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From the Wall Street Journal:

The Buck Doesn’t Stop Here
President Obama is applying ‘a scalpel to the discretionary budget, rather than a machete.’

By STEPHEN MOORE

We hear that the White House was caught off guard by the near-universal panning of President Obama’s budget proposal. So yesterday morning Mr. Obama was rushed in front of the TV cameras for a press conference to rebut the wave of negative reaction to his status quo spending plan released on Monday.

The press was unusually harsh in its questioning, and Mr. Obama was clearly on the defensive. At one point he even said that the media is too “impatient” for budget cuts. Asked why he isn’t willing to cut more spending to bring the deficit down faster, he said he’s applying “a scalpel to the discretionary budget, rather than a machete.”

What has the White House worried is not the negative reaction from Republicans but criticism from fellow Democrats and friends in the media. MSNBC, for example, called the budget “the big punt.” The Los Angeles Times said that it “landed with a thud.” Even the New York Times groused that “the budget is most definitely not a blueprint for dealing with the real long-term problems that feed the budget deficit.” During a Senate Budget Committee hearing yesterday, North Dakota Democrat Kent Conrad said that the president’s budget “cannot be the answer for this country’s fiscal future.”

The overarching problem for Team Obama is that the budget contains trivial cost savings. In the first two years the deficit is actually worsened. Democratic deficit hawks are upset about the total absence of savings in Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. Mr. Obama explained his whiff on entitlement reform by saying it should “be a negotiation process” and that Republicans and Democrats need to get “in that boat at the same time so we don’t tip over.” It was hardly Harry Truman saying “the buck stops here.”

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It helps to be holding cards when you bluff

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From the National Post:

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has to make a choice: cash for Quebec or an election, says Bloc Quebecois leader Gilles Duceppe.

“I am now challenging Stephen Harper to respond to Quebec’s expectations,” a pumped Mr. Duceppe said Sunday in a speech closing a party general council meeting. “We are asking for simple fairness, elementary justice.

“Mr. Harper has a choice. He can respond to Quebec’s expectations or he can spark elections. For our part, we will not fold. We are going to stand up for Quebec. We are not going to give up, we are not going to be quiet.”

Apart from being pathetic losers, the Quebec nationalist movement — led by Gilles Duceppe’s Bloc Quebecois — is forgetting one important fact: You need to have something the Conservative Party needs before you can start giving ultimatums. The Bloc is in a similar boat to the New Democratic Party: They will always be ready for an election because the outcome of said election doesn’t matter to them. As perpetual opposition parties, they don’t need to play the numbers to figure out when the time is right for an election, they’re ready to go whenever. As such, those two parties have very little bearing on votes in the House of Commons given that they’re diametrically opposed to any Conservative bill.

That being said, it’s not unlikely that they will attempt (yet again) to form a coalition government with the Liberal Party of Canada after the next election comes. For them, that’s their only hope of being anywhere close to governance, so sooner is rather than later. Duceppe can threaten the government all he wants, but the decision lies with Ignatieff. Scary, huh?

Speaker Boehner Promises to Fight for Fiscal Sanity

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It’s taken 15 years, but the GOP is set to finally muster up the courage to wage another real war to restore fiscal sanity. From the Washington Times:

For the first time in years, House lawmakers will soon have the chance to vote on a standalone measure to increase the federal debt limit next year under the new Republican majority — a vote that’s shaping up as the first early test of the GOP’s commitment to spending restraint.

The House Republican leader, Rep. John A. Boehner of Ohio, will give lawmakers a chance for a direct vote on raising the debt limit, spokesman Michael Steel told the Washington Times.

That would be a break with the recent tactic of burying the debt limit increase in parliamentary maneuvers — a way to shield vulnerable lawmakers from having to take the unpopular vote — and would instantly give leverage to those in Congress hoping to impose immediate spending cuts.

Speaker-elect Boehner is promising that there will be a standalone vote on raising the debt ceiling, which is currently $14.3 Trillion. If the measure fails, the Treasury Department will not be permitted to issue any more debt (borrow any more money). Not raising the debt limit would force Congress to live within its means. Without additional debt, Congress would be forced to adopt serious spending cuts. Essentially, Washington would be forced to acknowledge that they are out of money.

The last time a war over the debt limit was waged was in the wake of the 1994 Republican Revolution. 15 years ago, Republicans tried to force President Clinton to make serious cuts in entitlement spending, by far the most costly, and politically radioactive, segment of the federal budget.

If President Obama, like President Clinton, refuses to pass a GOP budget, we could be looking at another government shutdown. Only, this time the GOP will be in a much better position to defend their position. The 2010 election was abut stopping Obama, and stopping out of control spending. A fight over raising the debt ceiling is a perfect opportunity for the GOP to contrast themselves with reckless Democrats.

A vote to raise the debt limit with no strings attached, as has been the practice in Washington, is a vote to continue spending the nation off a cliff. By making this vote a standalone vote, as opposed to slipping it in with another bill, Speaker Boehner will force members of Congress to go on the record with this issue. The transparency and apparent willingness to fight are both extremely promising sign from the new Congressional majority.

Close, but no cigar

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My message to the ‘conservative’ Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his government: close, but no cigar. Your ‘conservative’ budget doesn’t cut the mustard.

It’s easy to criticize Obama — a known socialist over his ridiculous, irresponsible policies. When you’re criticizing a man like Prime Minister Harper who was elected to govern as a conservative it’s tough. Has the Right completely lost hope in responsible budgets? This budget was presented as a manifesto of fiscal conservatism, but leaves me as confused as an Amish electrician.

Now, I know what you’re thinking — if this was a fiscally conservative budget there would be cuts to spending. You’re absolutely correct, the government has cut a whopping $17.6 billion from the budget! Oh yeah, that’s over five years though. The government has succeeded in cutting $3.5 billion per year in spending, from a $280.5 billion budget. Despite this, they are still running a $56 billion deficit in the first year, and $165 billion over the next five years.

Just for fun, let’s apply the government’s fiscal formula to your household:

Assume you are $90,000 in debt with annual expenses of $50,000, if the government were managing your finances, they would have trimmed a whopping $620 per year from your expenditures. However, despite that $62o reduction, they would be adding approximately $10,000 to your debt. Furthermore, they would plan for you to run a deficit for the next 5 years, adding to your debt load, and thus increasing the amount you’re paying in interest, each year.

This shouldn’t come as a surprise in a country where healthcare is paid for by the government and where the military is still using World War II sleeping bags in combat, but people labeling this sorry excuse for a budget as  being “conservative” would be similar to labeling Che Guevera as a peace-maker…not even close! Every time a child is born in Canada, they have a $15,000 debt that they’ve inherited from the government, with no politicians stepping up to the plate to pay any of it off. I say it again — time for a Canadian tea party!