SPEAKER PELOSI'S SPENDAPALOOZA

Is this any way to run a household budget? Common sense tells you, when your expenses exceed your income, something has to give. Responsible adults review the cash flow and make adjustments by cutting back their expenses. If not, they are looking bankruptcy square in the face. If this administration keeps going along their chosen path, America will clearly go bankrupt, and one has to wonder if this in their intended outcome.

Recently, we have learned some new alarming lessons such as the Cloward-Piven Strategy and Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals, none of which Americans want to believe, but as each day passes, it is becoming more and more apparent.

If we are to save this country, we must stay engaged, we must continue to educate ourselves, and we must band together to speak out in protest of this 'transformation' of the United States of America. Just add up the new bills recapped in this piece. Unbelievable!

More proof is written in the Heritage Foundation, as Miss Nancy (clearly addicted to power) presses for more money, and raising the debt ceiling to roughly $14 TRILLION dollars. Again, our individual household budget would drive us to bankruptcy if our credit card companies did not cut us off, but rather increase our credit line. Complete and total suicide.


Speaker Pelosi’s Spendapalooza
December 11, 2009

Next week Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) is expected to attach a provision to the Department of Defense appropriations bill that would increase our national debt limit by $1.925 trillion. This debt limit raise would authorize the U.S. Treasury to borrow as much as $14 trillion, which is 30% higher than the $10.8 trillion limit that was in place when President Barack Obama took office.

Defending the unprecedented size of the debt limit, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) told The Examiner: “There is no doubt the debt ceiling will have to be at that level in order to meet our financial obligations at this time next year. This is not creating new debt.” Not creating new debt? Hoyer speaks as though he and his Speaker are completely powerless to control all the federal spending that is driving up “our financial obligations.” In fact, Hoyer’s statement comes on the same day that he and Speaker Pelosi forced through a $447 billion “minibus” spending bill that every single Republican and 28 Democrats voted against.

Filled with 5,224 earmarks, this merged appropriations bill provides an 8% hike in discretionary spending for the third consecutive year since Pelosi took over Congress in 2007. Altogether, discretionary spending has jumped 25% since Speaker Pelosi took the gavel, and Congressional Democrats have spent $561 billion more in discretionary spending than if they had limited federal spending growth to the baseline inflation rate. Despite a $1.4 trillion deficit, appropriations bills passed this year have included:

• A 67% increase for the Environmental Protection Agency’s State and Tribal Assistance Grants;
• A 30% increase for the Corporation for National and Community Service;
• A 9% increase for Amtrak;
• An 8.4% increase for Lawmakers’ Office Allowances; and
• An 8.1% increase for the National Endowment for the Arts.

This is not the budgeting of a Congress even minimally serious about the budget deficit. And each large annual discretionary spending increase becomes part of the permanent discretionary spending baseline. In fact, the steep increases over the past three years have added $1.7 trillion to the 2011-2020 discretionary spending baseline – nearly $1,500 per household annually. In the past year, Pelosi’s House has passed a $700 billion financial bailout and a trillion dollar stimulus, a $1.5 trillion health care expansion, a $200 billion Medicare “doc fix,” and an $800 billion cap-and-trade bill. There is no increase to domestic federal spending that Speaker Pelosi can say “no” to.

It is far past time for responsible leaders in Congress to rein in Pelosi’s profligacy. At a bare minimum, lawmakers should demand that any debt-limit increase also statutorily cap discretionary spending growth at the inflation rate (approximately 2.5 percent annually) for the next decade. Even better, a return to federal spending levels of just a decade ago could go a long way towards solving our debt problem. Heritage’s Brian Riedl explains:

In the 1980s and 1990s, Washington consistently spent $21,000 per household (adjusted for inflation). Simply returning to that level would balance the budget by 2012 without any tax hikes. Alternatively, returning to the $25,000 per household level (adjusted for inflation) that Washington spent before the current recession would likely balance the budget by 2019 without any tax hikes.

QUICK HITS

Speaker Pelosi said yesterday she “would do almost anything” to get Obamacare passed before Christmas.

According to a USA TODAY analysis, while the private sector has shed 7.3 million jobs, the number of federal government workers earning six-figure salaries has exploded during the recession.

According to The New York Times, Americans who buy the same health benefits as members of Congress, or buy coverage through Medicare, will have to fork over a large chunk of cash under the latest Senate Democrat health plan.

The Washington Examiner reports that only one fourth of AARP revenues come from membership dues, while the rest come from selling AARP’s name to businesses, including businesses that would benefit from Obamacare, which the AARP has endorsed.

According to a new report, climate change criminals have pocketed almost 5 billion Euros by manipulating Europe’s carbon trading “market.”

Hoyer Says Constitution’s ‘General Welfare’ Clause Empowers Congress to Order Americans to Buy Health Insurance

This administration's constant attempt to overreach their boundaries is being put to the supreme test with their demand for government run healthcare. Congressman Hoyer seems to think it's like car insurance -- if you drive a car, you must have insurance.

Well, it's definitely not like car insurance. It's health insurance, and I cannot elect not to live, at least that was the case last time I checked, but I can elect to not drive a car. You are stepping on my constitutional rights, Mr. Hoyer - Back off!

Phone or fax Congress here with your opinions -- THEY MATTER

A super piece on this in CNS News:


Hoyer Says Constitution’s ‘General Welfare’ Clause Empowers Congress to Order Americans to Buy Health Insurance
by Matt Cover, October 21, 2009

(CNSNews.com) – House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said that the individual health insurance mandates included in every health reform bill, which require Americans to have insurance, were “like paying taxes.” He added that Congress has “broad authority” to force Americans to purchase other things as well, so long as it was trying to promote “the general welfare.”

The Congressional Budget Office, however, has stated in the past that a mandate forcing Americans to buy health insurance would be an “unprecedented form of federal action,” and that the “government has never required people to buy any good or service as a condition of lawful residence in the United States.”

Hoyer, speaking to reporters at his weekly press briefing on Tuesday, was asked by CNSNews.com where in the Constitution was Congress granted the power to mandate that a person must by a health insurance policy. Hoyer said that, in providing for the general welfare, Congress had “broad authority.”

“Well, in promoting the general welfare the Constitution obviously gives broad authority to Congress to effect that end,” Hoyer said. “The end that we’re trying to effect is to make health care affordable, so I think clearly this is within our constitutional responsibility.”

Hoyer compared a health insurance mandate to the government’s power to levy taxes, saying “we mandate other things as well, like paying taxes.”

The section of the Constitution Hoyer was referring to, Article I, Section 8, outlines the powers of Congress, including raising taxes, but not the purchasing any type of product or service. The opening paragraph of Section 8 grants Congress the power to raise taxes to, among other things, “provide for the … general welfare of the United States.”

Section 8 partly reads: “The Congress shall have Power to lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States.”

The Constitution then details the specific powers of Congress, including raising an Army and Navy, regulating commerce between states, and to “make all laws necessary and proper” for the carrying out of these enumerated powers.

“To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof,” concludes Section 8.

CNSNews.com also asked Hoyer if there is a limit to what Congress can mandate that Americans purchase and whether there is anything that specifically could not be mandated to purchase. Hoyer said that eventually the Supreme Court would find a limit to Congress’ power, adding that mandates that unfairly favored one person or company over another would obviously be unconstitutional.

“I’m sure the [Supreme] Court will find a limit,” Hoyer said. “For instance, if we mandated that you buy General Motors’ automobiles, I believe that would be far beyond our constitutional responsibility and indeed would violate the Due Process Clause as well – in terms of equal treatment to automobile manufacturers.”

Hoyer said that the insurance mandate was constitutional because Congress is not forcing Americans to buy one particular policy, just any health insurance policy.

“We don’t mandate that they buy a particular insurance [policy] but what we do mandate is that like driving a car -- if you’re going to drive a car, to protect people on the roadway, and yourself, and the public for having to pay your expenses if you get hurt badly – that you need to have insurance,” said Hoyer.

In 1994, the Congressional Budget Office reported the following about health insurance mandates: “A mandate requiring all individuals to purchase health insurance would be an unprecedented form of federal action. The government has never required people to buy any good or service as a condition of lawful residence in the United States. An individual mandate would have two features that, in combination, would make it unique. First, it would impose a duty on individuals as members of society. Second, it would require people to purchase a specific service that would be heavily regulated by the federal government.”

Under all five of the health care bills currently being considered in Congress, every American adult would have to have a policy that conformed to government standards for coverage and premiums. Each bill creates Bronze, Silver, and Gold health insurance plans and mandates that Americans buy one of them, either through their employer or through government-run exchanges.

David B. Rivkin, a constitutional lawyer with Baker & Hostetler, told CNSNews.com that Hoyer’s argument was “silly,” adding that if the general welfare clause was that elastic, then nothing would be outside of Congress’ powers.

“Congressman Hoyer is wrong,” Rivkin said. “The notion that the general welfare language is a basis for a specific legislative exercise is all silly because if that’s true, because general welfare language is inherently limitless, then the federal government can do anything.

“The arguments are, I believe, feeble,” he said.

OBAMA'S DOUBLESPEAK ON SINGLE-PAYER

Lies you can believe in. It's no wonder citizens are angry. THEY DON'T LIKE BEING LIED TO. The more this man speaks, the more the truth will come out. There's no "out of context" here. Words matter -- sound familiar? Keep it coming Barack.

REDSTATE
Obama’s Doublespeak on Single-Payer Health Care Systems
James Richardson, August 11, 2009

At a health care town hall today, President Barack Obama told a New Hampshire audience that he has never claimed to be an advocate of a single-payer health care system, alleging that his Republican opponents were employing “scare tactics” to derail substantive health care reform.

“I have not said that I am a supporter of a single-payer system,” he said, channeling former presidential contender John ‘I voted for it before I voted against it’ Kerry.

But in August of last year, Obama touted single-payer systems as a promising solution to the ailing health care system at a New Mexico town hall. Eliminating private insurance companies and instead opting for a pseudo-Medicare system with the government footing the bill for all health care-related expenses, he said, would be a more effective means to provide greater coverage than our system’s current iteration.

“If I were designing a system from scratch, I would probably go ahead with a single-payer system,” said then-Senator Obama. “I see no reason why the United States of America, the wealthiest country in the history of the world, spending 14 percent of its gross national product on health care, cannot provide basic health insurance to everybody.”

Evidence of Obama’s open embrace of single payer health care systems dates farther back than 2008, much to the chagrin of the White House’s professional wordsmiths, who no doubt spent hours retooling the president’s message for today’s town hall.

Unequivocally expressing his support for a government-run health care system, Obama said to a crowd of AFL-CIO members in 2003, “I happen to be a proponent of single-payer, universal health care coverage.”




Obama’s evolution on the extent to which the federal government should meddle in the private marketplace of health care coverage is one that speaks to the White House’s justifiable concern they may be losing the debate. Obama and Congressional Democrats are anxious to stem the tide of fleeting public opinion, and both have gone to great lengths to cast their opponents as fear mongers.


House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer characterized the town hall protests as "un-American", while the DNC suggested critics of Obama’s ever-changing health care proposal are fringe lunatics bent on disproving Obama’s citizenship status.

The insinuation that opposition to Obama’s health care system—which, I’ll add, has become increasingly difficult for the simple fact that I’m not entirely sure which iteration we’re to oppose—is grounded in a citizenship conspiracy theory is no more credible than the notion that Obama would, as Saturday Night Live comically suggested, cut taxes for sexual predators and social deviants. Predators, SNL jested, must be found among low and middle-income families, for whom then-Senator Obama promised to cut taxes. Likewise, the DNC posited that “Birthers,” as they’ve been dubbed, must be found among opponents of Obama’s health care plan because, after all, all Republicans are mentally unstable.

“Where we disagree, let’s disagree over things that are real,” President Obama said today. But the distinction between facts and non-facts has become blurred, not for the critics of the legislation, but for the legislation’s highest profile supporters in the previous weeks.

In the interest of wresting control of the debate on health care from those who disagree over trivial matters, like the president instructed, I will give an example of a fact and a non-fact. A fact: As early as 2003 and as late as 2008 President Obama supported a single-payer health care system. A non-fact: Republicans are reflexively partisan and chiefly stand in opposition to the President’s initiatives for an unsubstantiated belief in his Kenyan birth.

President Obama, if you’re interested in meaningful disagreements in the debate over health care, rein in your allies first. Call off the SEIU thugs and put an end to the hateful “un-American” rhetoric. Then, and only then, come talk about a meaningful dialogue. It also might serve you well to decide if you are in favor of “single-payer, universal health care coverage,” too.