100 Billion Dollar Backlash

S.C. lawmakers aren't looking to tax increases to fill budget
COLUMBIA -- Legislative leaders in South Carolina said Thursday that Tax Increases are out of the question as they look to fill a Budget gap of more than $800 million. Republican House and Senate leaders said no agency will be spared deep Budget cuts they know will cause hardship to people across the state. However, while they could give few specific examples of what services they're willing to trim, they also wouldn't rule out further Tax Cuts. The state spending plan has been reduced from $7 b...

Republican Sellout Watch
Grousing about the GOP’s timidity in the battle against Big Government will probably become an ongoing theme over the next few months. Two items don’t bode well for fiscal discipline. First, it appears that Republicans didn’t really mean it when they promised to cut $100 billion of so-called Discretionary Spending as part of their pledge. According to the New York Times, As they prepare to take power on Wednesday, Republican leaders are scaling back that number by as ...

Dishonesty the Name of Horners Game
This fall’s campaign taught me, repeatedly, that Tom Horner’s logic for running was built on dishonest premises. Having gotten defeated, things haven’t changed with Mr. Horner. Mr. Horner’s op-ed in Saturday’s St. Cloud Times offers another bit of proof of Horner’s Intellectual Dishonesty: Republicans, who won majorities in both houses, are convinced Minnesotans want all solutions to fixing the state’s Deficit to come from the spending side of the ledger. D...

Tea Party rules Washington as Barack Obama braces for savage cuts
Dick Armey’s black, lizard-skin cowboy boots lay on the floor while he relaxed on the couch in stockinged feet. The former Texas congressman was in a jovial mood in his office just off the Washington Mall - and for good reason. He may no longer be a politician but as chairman of FreedomWorks, one of the main forces behind the conservative Tea Party movement, he is once more a major player in the new Washington DC. “My wife likes the terminology of a ‘Paradigm Shift’...

White House braces for savage cuts
Republican John Boehner receives the gavel from outgoing Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. Photograph: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images Dick Armey's black, lizard-skin cowboy boots lay on the floor while he relaxed on the couch in stockinged feet. The former Texas congressman was in a jovial mood in his office just off the Washington Mall - and for good reason. He may no longer be a politician but as chairman of FreedomWorks, one of the main forces behind the conservative Tea Party movem...

Paul Krugman Blames Giffords Shooting on Palin, Limbaugh and Beck
While Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) fights for her life in a Tucson, Arizona, Hospital, liberal media members continue to point fingers of blame for Saturday's tragic shooting spree at prominent Conservatives such as Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, and Glenn Beck. We don’t have proof yet that this was political, but the odds are that it was. She’s been the target of violence before. And for those wondering why a Blue Dog Democrat, the kind Republicans might be able to wo...

Slandering Sarah
There is a nasty phenomenon in the blogosphere (and I guess we'll add the twittersphere to that as well) that compels people to jump on board to a breaking news item before they've bothered to check their footing (the MSM does it as well, but tends to be a bit slower about it). There's a lot of value -- in traffic and respect -- if you can get in early on an issue, be the person collecting and disseminating information, and best of all, if you can add some data of your own. You will be mention...

Democratic Strategist Eagerly Pushes Obama To Exploit The Arizona Tragedy
Email Sent! You have successfully emailed the post. From what we know about Jared Lee Loughner, there's nothing to suggest his politics could be characterized as "Tea Party" or even conservative. Mainly he fits the category known as "whack job," but that won't stop Democrats from figuring out ways to exploit this. One Veteran Democratic operative, who blames overheated Rhetoric for the shooting, said President Barack Obama should carefully but forcefully do what his predecessor did. “They...

Politifact: Score one promise kept by GOP House
If charity begins at home, then perhaps Austerity begins in the House.  When Republicans campaigned in the midterms, they promised to set an example for the rest of the Federal Government with significant cuts to operating expenses in Congress.  And according to Politifact, they delivered: In their Pledge to America, House Republican leaders promised to “make Congress do more with less by significantly reducing its Budget.” On Jan. 6, 2011, they took action. By an overwhelming&#

Previewing The Sunday Shows
The new Congress and the GOP agenda will dominate the Sunday shows this week. CNN's "State of the Union" and CBS' "Face the Nation" will explore the GOP's plans for this year and how Democrats plan to counter it. CNN will host Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), outspoken Repbublican Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) and freshman Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah). And "Face the Nation" speaks with Durbin counterpart Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.), Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Min. Whi...

Durbin: Targeting members is 'beyond bounds of acceptable rhetoric'
Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said on CNN's State of the Union this morning that ads "targeting" members of elected office were "beyond the bounds of acceptable Rhetoric," and that while there can be no direct connection made between the rhetoric and the action, such Speech does "go too far." Durbin: ...There are two things i'd say as i've listened to your program, with excellent coverage. The first is, we live in a world of violent images and violent words. But those of us in publi...

A Job-Killing Law?
House Republicans misrepresent the facts. Experts predict the Health Care law will have little effect on employment. Brooks Jackson and Lori Robertson FactCheck.org When it comes to truth in labeling, House Republicans are getting off to a poor start with their constantly repeated references to the new Health Care law as "job-killing." We find: * Independent, nonpartisan experts project only a "small" or "minimal" impact on jobs, even before taking likely job gains in the Health Care and insur...

Fools rush in to define Giffords tragedy politically
Even before the blood had dried in the Safeway Parking Lot in Tucson, both sides and the media were attempting to paint the tragedy of the shooting of Rep. Giffords and other innocent bystanders in a way that boosted (or defended) whatever agenda talking point they wished to advance. Politicization of an event - any event - that political advocates, Activists or politicians see as useful is almost instant anymore. And make no mistake about it - what has been done from the begi...

Sen. Dick Durbin: Past Rhetoric Of Sarah Palin And Tea Party Beyond The Bounds
Senator Dick Durbin appeared on CNN ’s State of the Union and told Candy Crowley that Sarah Palin’s gun imagery of targeting certain Congressional Districts was “beyond the bounds” and “not acceptable Rhetoric.” Although when pressed by Crowley, Durbin did not want to suggest there was a direct connection between the rhetoric and yesterday’s shooting of Congresswoman Giffords, nor whether there was similarly unacceptable rhetoric amongst Democrats. Durb...

Political Violence: A Human Problem that Transcends Left and Right
Like most Americans, I found myself frequently watching the news for more information about the shooting involving Congresswoman Giffords. As I searched various media outlets, I wasn’t surprised to see that the Huffington Post was the first I came across which had made the willful choice to sink so low as to exploit this tragic event for political gain. With this post, HuffPo contributor and USC Professor Marty Kaplan, somehow managed to attribute the blame for the Congresswoman’s shooting...

It Doesnt Matter Why He Did It
Judging from his Internet postings, Jared Lee Loughner is a delusional young man whose inner political landscape is a swamp of dystopian novels, left- and right-wing tracts, Conspiracy theories, and contempt for his fellow human beings. He refers to the gold and silver standard; that doesn't make Ron Paul responsible for the shootings. He is fond of “Animal Farm”; George Orwell didn't guide the hand that pulled the automatic pistol's trigger. Marx and Hitler produced a lot of corpses...

Andrew Levine: Delusions: What Obama Apologists and Tea Party Supporters Have In Common
What a spectacle Washington has become! Democrats fall over themselves capitulating to Republicans, expressly as with Obama's "Compromise" on taxes or, more often, preemptively; while establishment Republicans, fearing the wrath of their useful idiots, capitulate to Tea Partiers, who therefore call the shots. Such Democracy as we have had has always been a tenuous achievement thanks to institutions that make it difficult for the will of the people to prevail, and thanks to the inequalities gen...

Washington Extra Its my party
“Now, we know these numbers can bounce around from month to month. But the trend is clear,” President Barack Obama said. “We saw 12 straight months of Private Sector job growth.  That’s the first time that’s been true since 2006.” Gene Sperling has something to party about, he’s just got his old job back. Obama announced additions to his White House economic team and named Sperling as director of the National Economic Council (a post he held in Pres...

Flowers at Giffords D.C. office as staff gathers
Nearly all of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords' Washington staff huddled Saturday in the Longworth House Office Building, coping with the tragic news unfolding in their boss’s Arizona district. Just outside the Democrat’s office, a dozen roses and a bouquet of yellow daises have been placed at the lawmaker’s office doorway. A couple of Capitol Police officers also are on guard while a handful of reporters and camera crews stake out the scene during an otherwise quiet weekend on Capit...

Dems accuse GOP of breaking vows at 'dizzying' pace out of gate
Democrats are reveling this week as GOP leaders have walked back some of their top campaign promises just days after taking control of the lower chamber. Republicans stormed to power in November's Elections on vows of balanced Budgets, increased transparency, and reduced Deficit spending. Yet in the first days of the 112th Congress, GOP leaders have adopted rules allowing deficits to explode; dismissed Congress's nonpartisan budget score-keeper as irrelevant; slashed a spending-cut promise in ...

Tea Party challenges Republicans to cut budget more or else
   House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., spoke with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos on “Good Morning America” on January 6th, 2011,about the GOP’s agenda on Capitol Hill. On the Republicans’ planned vote to Repeal the Health Care reform law, Cantor said it was a way to “send a signal that we’re dead serious about getting rid of this spending of money we don’t have.” https://abcn.ws/dQVMCR On spending, Cantor predicted:...

Governments examine overhauls of costly pension systems
Washington-area governments buckling under the burden of growing Pension benefits for employees are looking to remodel money-draining Retirement Systems, a goal that analysts say would be achieved through reform used by companies. Just half of Montgomery County general government employees receive traditional pensions in which Retirees receive a set monthly payment from Retirement until death. Yet they account for 88 percent of Taxpayer money -- $103 million -- to be pumped into the Retirement ...

Fed Watch: More of the Same
Tim Duy: More of the Same, by Tim Duy: The jobs report was a clear disappointment relative to both expectations at the beginning of the week and certainly after the blowout ADP report.  After adjusting expectations to the upside, ADP once again scores a major miss (how we came to care about this data series still remains a mystery to me).  That said, the overall tenor of Fourth Quarter employment reports suggest an economy growing around trend growth.  Better, but not good en...

Republican Sellout Watch
Grousing about the GOP’s timidity in the battle against Big Government will probably become an ongoing theme over the next few months, and  let’s start with two items that don’t bode well for fiscal discipline. First, it appears that Republicans didn’t really mean it when they promised to cut $100 billion of so-called Discretionary Spending as part of their pledge. According to the New York Times, As they prepare to take power on Wednesday, Republican leaders are scali...

2010 Census Says California State Budget is $254 Billion, Not $90 Billion
Californians have not been told the truth about how much the State Government is spending.  A blockbuster bit of information has been buried in a new U.S. Census report and has not been covered by the Mainstream Media.   This  raises questions about the integrity of  California’s legislature,  former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, indeed about ANYONE who has been involved with the stewardship of public funds and the California state Budget.  Who is ...