Monthly Archives: November 2013

Flaws In Assessing Reid’s Nuclear Option

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The media and pundits are aggressively analyzing Harry Reid’s destructive move to eliminate the minority party’s ability to filibuster judicial nominees. They correctly discuss the expectation that it will allow Democrats to stack the country with radical judges. They also correctly expect that he won’t stop with judicial nominees but will expand the power grab, aimed at breaking down another firewall against authoritarianism, to include votes needed to pass legislation, and possibly Supreme Court nominees. What’s missing is the proper assessment of the long-term implications.

Commentators discuss that “when”, not “if”, Republicans regain control of the Senate and White House, the tables will turn, and Harry Reid and his party will rue the day that they nuked the country. They are making a mistake. Democrats don’t play by the same set of rules. This is a classic example of “Chess vs. Othello“. Democrats don’t care about getting called hypocrites. They get cover for whatever moves that they make because the mainstream media has their six. When the time comes for Republicans to take the majority in the Senate, Harry Reid will likely change the senate rules back to require filibusters, and the 60-vote majority to pass legislation before handing over the gavel. He will force Republicans to go nuclear a second time, betting that they won’t. Democrats will also cry foul if they do, as if Reid’s recent move never happened or. Democrats will make a major media show of it, believing that they can reach enough low information voters and convince them that Republicans pulled off a coup de tot.

Republicans need to see the Democrat leadership for who they are, and prepare now. Determine what to do now, should Reid reinstate the filibuster later.

  • Take the initiative away from Reid, and force his hand.
  • At a minimum, make sure that everybody in the country knows who broke 225 years of American history and went nuclear!
  • Take a position that for every radical judicial nominee rammed through without the filibuster, the Republicans will reciprocate with a conservative, constitutionalists appointed at the same, or higher federal level under the same “nuclear option” rules.
  • If Reid passes laws without the filibuster, Republicans will reciprocate by passing or repealing the same number of laws under “nuclear option” rules.
  • This must be a tit for tat response that ends in reinstating the 225-year tradition. Failure to do so will embolden Democrats to continue playing under un-American rules!
  • They also better learn who their allies should be, and that list starts with Tea Party Patriots.

Where’s The Money Going?

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Where is our money going when the federal government spends it?

Chart1 below, taken from OMB data, shows the all outlays, or spending buckets, as defined by the office of manpower and budget. Chart1 is organized from fiscal year 2000 out to fiscal year 2018. FY 2000 through 2012 data is actual budget data while FY13 through FY18 data is forecast. The important thing to note in this table is the red and green arrows. The red portion of the arrows shows the trend of upward spending and growth in spending where as the green portion of the arrows show a decline or leveling in spending.

Unfortunately our federal government’s spending is out of control, as clearly shown by the red arrows and the steepness of those arrows. There are very few green ones. Downward movement, with the exception of the Department of Defense, which took roughly an 18% decrease in two major cuts, is the exception to the high spending rule. The first cut happened under Sec. Gates when he reduced the Department of Defense budget buy $483 billion over 10 years. The second cut, a result of sequestration, equals nearly $500 billion over 10 years. The other buckets that you see with green arrows were also caused by sequestration.

Chart 1

Chart 1

Notice that the red arrows’ upward vectors are significantly greater than the leveling in the few buckets that the government reduced. It’s also important to notice the increasing vector in the far right bucket, which is interest on the federal debt.

The president of the United States and the Democrats in Congress continue to rack up nearly $1 trillion more in debt, in the names of our children every year, and they have no plan to ever balance our nation’s budget. The only slow down to the relentless spending spree was caused by the Republican Party attempting to arrest the disaster that reckless spending most certainly leads to.

Chart 2 is a blowup of the major outlay buckets shown in Chart 1. Chart 2 also adds fiscal year’s 19 and 20 to the total national defense in total net interest buckets. The increase in the total net interest is very likely optimistic, as it is based on a historically low 3% interest rate.

Fiscal Years 19 and 20, in the total national defense bucket, are likely excessive given that OMB calculated them before the impact of sequestration. What this chart shows is that soon after FY20, interest on the national debt will exceed the entire national defense budget. Interest on the debt is like interest being paid on a credit card. It comes back month after month eating up the family budget. There’s no option but to pay it or go bankrupt. Paying that much in interest every year in your personal budget means there is far less money left to pay for groceries, the mortgage, or save for the future.

The same is true for our nation as the magnitude of this interest bill will soon eat over $1 trillion a year!

Chart 2

Chart 2

Chart 3 adds two more columns to Chart 1.

  • Total outlays, which is the sum of all of the other buckets
  • Total receipts (taken from OMB table 1.1), which is essentially all the taxes collected by our government.

These two buckets look like massive skyscrapers, but the total outlays bucket is much taller. The difference between these two “skyscrapers” becomes debt piled upon the backs of the American people. The red arrow exceeds the green and the two never meet. This is an unsustainable, reckless, and eventually disastrous path created by both parties, but vastly accelerated by Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Democrats in the House and Senate, and Pres. Obama.

The only responsible policy is to balance this budget, and it’s clear that the people who accelerated it are completely incapable of helping to fix the problem. They must be thrown out of office, marginalized if they can’t be replaced, and gone around to save our Nation’s future.

Chart 3

Chart 3

Obama Care Implosion

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The implosion of Obama care is an “Othello” opportunity. This is an incredibly unique and teachable point in history, where Conservatives and Republicans can shore up their supporters and get converts by pulling them from rank and file Democrats, and opening the eyes of low information voters. Here’s how this must get played:

  • Aggressively demonstrate (to family, friends and neighbors locally, and across the airwaves and print media nationally) Obama care’s disaster is the result of government overreach. Use Obama care’s implosion to broaden the lesson from just healthcare to one of constitutionally limited government vs. progressive democrat socialism and nanny state authoritarianism.
  • The Federal Government can do a few things well, and they are enumerated in the Constitution. It should stick to those things and leave the rest to the states and the American people. Progressives want more and more power and they root against free markets and overtly distrust trust them. It’s a zero sum game; the more centralized power they get, the less Americans have left to live their own lives. Americans are the free market; to hate one is to hate the other.

Obama care is just a symptom of progressives’ fervent yearning for an all-powerful government. Spread the word, this disaster is just a microcosm of our country’s future!

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The 2016 Election

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We’re still three years out from the 2016 election, but the Republican Party had better start focusing on it today. Americans are watching the implosion of Obama care. There’s no question that the next three years will show more and more problems with this effort to nationalize healthcare and create an ever-increasing fervor for it to be fixed. So in steps Hillary Clinton.

I predict now that her campaign is going to be based upon the following: no one knows the health care system better than Hillary Clinton! She spent years studying the national healthcare system when President Clinton was in office. If she had only been allowed to carry through Hillary care we wouldn’t be in the predicament that we’re in now. She is uniquely qualified to fix the problems that were a result of the passage of Obama care. She wasn’t in the Senate when it was passed. She was diligently working for our country as the Secretary of State. Had she been there, she could’ve prevented this disaster, but that wasn’t her job, and she’s not responsible for the problems of the system as it exists today. If we just put her in the White House, she’ll solve them.

Republicans will obviously challenge this, because it’s absurd. Had Hillary Clinton passed Hillary care it would’ve been every bit as bad as Obama care because they were both based upon the same failed big government control policies. Socialist medicine fails every time it’s tried. That won’t stop Hillary’s campaign, or the media.

In addition, Hillary Clinton will claim that she’s uniquely qualified to balance the budget. After all, it was her husband Bill Clinton who had the last balance budget as a president. Somehow she’ll make the claim that that credential extends to her. The reality of the situation is at the balances budget was forced upon Bill Clinton by a Republican-controlled House and Senate led by Newt Gingrich, but in American politics today the truth is just an inconvenience. Her campaign will claim that not only can she solve the problems with the health care system that was brought about by Democrats and Barack Obama, but that she can do it at the same time she brings fiscal stability and a balanced budget back to America. Wow, what could be better?

The Republican Party better start shoring up the truth now. They better start laying the facts out to stop this premise before it sinks into the mainstream media and into the low information voters. Aggressively challenging this and tying Obama care and its problems to Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden and Democrats as a party will severely hamper them all.

Make no mistake, the left will be painting every potential Republican candidate as an extremist as soon as they can. Republicans, conservatives and the tea party need to do the exact same thing with potential Democrat candidates. Lay out the facts, hammer the truth and prevent the rewriting of history that inevitably will come in a Democrat campaign!

NOTE: First instance of distancing Hillary from Obama care.

Trustworthy???

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Trustworthy is a word that means very simply “worthy of trust”.  When applied to the Democrats and the president you need to question if they are still worthy of trust?  If someone shows a pattern of deceit, they should no longer be trustworthy.

One example brings this question into focus.  For three years the president of the United States promised the American people that if they liked their plan they could keep it.  We now know the Democrats in Congress knew back in 2010 that this was inaccurate at best and a lie at worst.  We also know that the administration knew that this was not true in 2010 as well. Despite that knowledge, the president sold the affordable care act as a law that would only affect Americans who wanted to participate in it.  This was absolutely incorrect, and the Democrats and the president knew it all along!  Not only did they know it, but when Republicans repeatedly made this point they were ridiculed and attacked, as is the common bullying tactic of the left.  Harry Reid actually had the gall to claim that every American horror story about Obama care is a lie!

I have to ask the question, which I’ve yet to hear anyone else ask, what else do Democrats know that we haven’t found out about yet?

  • Did they also know in 2010 that the cost of Obama care was going to far exceed what they were telling the American people?  Democrats originally sold it as costing under $900 billion over 10 years.  Projections are that it will cost the American taxpayers at least double that, and maybe much more than double.
  • Did they know that many Americans were going to lose the doctors that they love and respect and have been going to for years?
  • Did they know that the average costs of these plans were going to be far more than what Americans were paying before the law was passed?
  • Did they know that the deductibles were going to go up?
  • Did they know that Obama care was going to force many doctors to retire rather than put up with it?

Republicans and conservatives made all of these points before the law was passed! Democrats and the president ridiculed them and called them “extremists”.  We now know all of these tragedies are true!  The real question that should be asked in the media and by Americans is when did the Democrats know, and what else do they know that they’re not admitting to? This question should apply much more broadly than just to Obama care.  It should be applied to immigration reform for instance.  Conservatives are pointing out the many flaws and potential disasters, the second and third order effects, of comprehensive immigration reform only to again be demonized by Democrats.  The conservatives were right on Obama care and they are right on issues such as immigration.  We just found out that the Obama administration was cooking the books on reporting deportations.

Every American needs to ask themselves how “worthy of trust” are the Democrats on any issue now that we know that they lied on Obama care?  Sadly, President Obama has our allies asking the same question!

Latest Updates:

– Obama Care Fraud: Jonathan Gruber, an Obama care architect, admits writing the law to fool the “stupid” American voters!

– Kentucky Senate Candidate Alison Grimes (D) is lying about her support for the coal industry

– Administration was warned over the last two years that the explosion in illegal immigration was coming.

– President still says that U.S. Southern Border more secure than ever!

– Majority of Americans now agree

– MIchelle Obama has now joined the party – “Experts: Michelle Obama Cited Bogus Study Showing Drastic Drop in Childhood Obesity”.

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