White House Asks Congress To Rescind Spending

In March, Republicans were outraged that their party, with control of both houses of Congress and the presidency, would pass an omnibus spending bill that increased federal spending by $143 billion. In April, the Wall Street Journal’s Kimberly Strassel proposed using a little-known law to rescind some of the spending. Now it looks as though the Trump Administration is actually going to do it.

Politico reports that the White House plans to ask Congress to rescind $15 billion in spending. The figure is higher than the $11 billion originally proposed by the White House, but lower than the increase in spending over this year’s original discretionary spending caps.

“It's better than nothing,” Rep. Warren Davidson (R-Ohio), a member of Freedom Caucus, told The Hill. Davidson added that the savings might be applied toward Trump’s infrastructure spending requests.

Rescinding congressionally authorized spending is allowed by the 1974 Impoundment Act. As The Resurgent described in April, the president can order the rescission of specific funds under the little-used act. Congress must then approve the rescission within 45 days. Unlike most bills, the Senate can approve the rescission request with a simple majority vote that is not subject to a filibuster. When the request is submitted, the money is frozen for 45 days or until Congress rejects the measure.

Politico notes that the $15 billion in proposed cuts will not come from the 2018 omnibus bill, but will consist of unspent money from previous years. Republican leaders resisted the temptation to target the omnibus, which was negotiated with Democrat leaders. Congressional leaders were concerned that breaking the deal with Democrats would endanger future negotiations. Instead, the funds will be cut from money that was authorized but never spent on programs such as the 2009 stimulus, Obamacare and the Ebola response.

The cuts represent a minute portion of the federal budget, but passage may still present a challenge for Republicans. The House overwhelmingly approves of the cuts, but margins are slimmer in the Senate. The 51-vote Republican majority can be stymied by only two senators crossing the aisle to vote with Democrats against the request.

“This is not a deficit reduction exercise, but more of a public relations exercise to soothe the base and convince them that the White House is fiscally responsible,” said G. William Hoagland, a senior vice president at the Bipartisan Policy Center. “If they are finding unused budget authority and putting that in a special package to Congress as appropriators are trying to put together the [fiscal] 2019 bill, it may have the effect of creating more spending for 2019 rather than less.”

The cuts will barely be a blip on the federal deficit, which is slated to increase to more than $1 trillion annually by the time Trump leaves office in 2020. The massive cuts needed to eliminate the deficit require reform to entitlement programs such Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Healthcare and Social Security alone make up 53 percent of the federal budget.

Nevertheless, any decrease in government spending is a positive step as well as a rare one. Republicans should be applauded if they can pull it off.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Congress is the key to stopping Hillary

A major argument for Donald Trump has been that “He’s not a great candidate or a conservative, but we need him to prevent Hillary from picking Supreme Court justices who will gut the Second Amendment.” Given the numerous questionable characters that Trump has chosen to work on his campaign, the idea that he knows how to “hire the best people” is dubious at best. Now, as the “Trump train” goes off the rails three weeks before the election, it is becoming apparent that conservatives need to find an alternative strategy to save the Court and block Hillary. The key to stopping the liberal agenda for the next four years is Congress, specifically the Senate. 

Let’s face it. Depending on Trump to appoint strict constructionists to the Supreme Court was always a long shot. The possibility that Trump might appoint good judges outweighs the certainty that Hillary won’t, Trump supporters argue. If one ignores all the other arguments against Trump, it might even be convincing. Yet as Trump goes rogue on the campaign trail, even that slim possibility seems to be vanishing as a Clinton victory grows more and more likely.

The only certain way to stop Hillary’s agenda before it starts is to make sure that the Republican majority in the Senate is preserved. Many Trump supporters will say that the Republicans in Congress didn’t do much to stop Obama for the past six years. They are wrong. The truth is that Republicans in Congress were very successful at stopping Obama’s legislative agenda.

After the Tea Party wave election of 2010, the Democrats did not pass any major legislation for the next six years. Obama’s landmark laws, the stimulus, the Affordable Care Act and the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill, were passed with Democrat majorities in both houses. Not a single Republican voted for Obamacare or the stimulus.

The Republicans in Congress were remarkably successful at stopping President Obama’s legislative agenda. Obama tried to push through gun control in the wake of the Newtown massacre. Republicans stopped him. They actually cut spending in terms of real dollars in consecutive years for the first time since the administration of Dwight Eisenhower. After the death of Antonin Scalia, Republicans in the Senate tabled President Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland to fill the vacant seat on the Supreme Court. How much credit did Republicans get for these victories? Approximately zero.

Much of the confusion over the Republican Congress “surrendering” to Obama, as many claim, is the difference between stopping Obama and passing legislation to roll back what Obama has already done. Congress is set up so that it is easier to prevent a bill from becoming a law than to enact a new law. This is particularly true in the Senate.

In the Senate, the first hurdle that a bill must pass to become a law is a cloture vote. Cloture is a gentleman’s filibuster. Rather than speaking for hours on end as they did in the old days, today’s Congressmen can block a bill from coming to a vote by rallying 41 opponents to vote against cloture, or ending the filibuster. Therefore, the 46 Democrats in the Senate could effectively block any Republican bill from ever coming to a vote and that is precisely what they did.

The cloture rule is not part of the Constitution. Senators could decide to eliminate it in favor of a straight majority vote. The problem is that there is an even greater hurdle. If a bill passes both houses of Congress, it still faces a presidential veto. To override a veto requires 67 votes in the Senate. Logically, if a bill can’t pass a cloture vote, the veto can’t be overridden.

When the Republicans blocked Obama legislatively, he began issuing expansive Executive Orders and having regulatory agencies issue rulings with the force of law. Because these tactics bypassed Congress, Republicans could not block them. Stopping these abuses would require passing new laws, but the 54 Republicans could not pass new laws without Democratic support. That reality doesn’t change even with a government shutdown. The situation has effectively been a stalemate with neither side willing to compromise on most issues.

Because of the number of Republican Senate seats up for reelection in swing states this year, it was generally assumed that the Republican majority would be smaller for the next Congress. As recently as a few weeks ago, it looked like Republicans would retain control of the Senate, even if they lost some seats. Then came Trump’s implosion.

Not only have the Trump scandals hurt down ballot Republicans, but Trump and his supporters have attacked his fellow GOP candidates. At this point, it seems increasingly likely that the Democrats will win control of the Senate. Even the large Republican majority in the House may be threatened.

While retaining the House would allow Republicans to block legislation such as gun control measures from becoming law, losing the Senate would mean that Democrats could easily appoint extremist liberal judges to the courts with a simple majority vote. There is no filibuster for most judicial appointees thanks to Sen. Harry Reid’s (D-Nev.) use of the “nuclear option” in 2013. With a Democrat Congress and a Democrat president, the filibuster might be eliminated entirely.

On the other hand, retaining control of the Senate would allow Republicans to stop Hillary’s agenda right out of the gate. Appointments to the Supreme Court could theoretically be blocked until after the 2020 elections, if necessary. The Senate has already shown its willingness to stop bad treaties and liberal legislation in its tracks.

There should be no illusions, however, that Republicans can roll back eight years of Obama under Hillary. Even if they retain a majority, they will almost certainly be weaker, at least until the midterm elections. Historically, the opposition party gains seats in the midterms, but even then there is almost no chance of a 67 vote Republican majority.

While it would be preferable to have a Republican president to help pass conservative reforms, Donald Trump is no conservative and has shown little inclination to work with his party. If Trump becomes president and Republicans lose Congress, he could not be trusted to nominate constructionist judges or veto gun control bills. He cannot be trusted to support religious liberty. There is a high probability that he would act with liberal Democrats like Bernie Sanders to scuttle free trade agreements and military alliances.

With Trump falling to the 30 percent range in many polls and trailing in most swing states, there is little chance of a recovery. Republican funds would be better spent on tossup congressional races to preserve the Republican majority than in attempting to shore up a candidate who is biting the hand that feeds him.

If the choice is between an unreliable President Trump and a Republican Senate that has shown its mettle, I’ll throw in my lot with the congressional Republicans.

Originally published on The Resurgent

America’s most underrated politician

 

John Boehner “don’t get no respect” from conservatives

John Boehner is not going to win any popularity contests among conservatives. The Republican speaker of the House is much maligned among his own party and has even been the target of several unsuccessful coup attempts by Tea Party factions, including the one last week. In spite of his unpopularity on the right, Boehner has done much to stymie President Obama’s agenda and to make the 2014 Republican sweep possible. In spite of his accomplishments, most members of his own party would not vote for Boehner as speaker according to an EMC Research poll released on January 2. Boehner is truly the most underrated man in American politics today.

The road to speaker

John Boehner has served Ohio in the U.S. House of Representatives since 1991. In February 2006, he replaced Tom DeLay (R-TX) as majority leader. After the Democrats won control of the House in the 2006 elections, Boehner served as minority leader, a position he held until 2010 when victorious Republicans unanimously elected him speaker.

Even though Republicans gave Obama and the Democrats “a shellacking” in 2010, the party was still at a terrible disadvantage. The GOP controlled only half of one of the three branches of government. Democrats still held the presidency and a majority in the U.S. Senate. The Republican majority in the House gave conservatives just enough power to block the liberal agenda, but not enough to enact their own policies.

Boehner’s war on spending

Republican control of the House came too late to stop landmark Democratic bills such as the Affordable Care Act and the Dodd-Frank financial reform, but the GOP did score important victories under Boehner. The website of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) includes a list of bills that were blocked by Republicans. These include the DREAM Act, the DISCLOSE Act , the Paycheck Fairness Act, a millionaire tax, federal firearms background checks, increased taxes for companies relocating outside the U.S. and subsidies to keep federal student loans below market rates. Additionally, Republicans also blocked an internet sales tax and a bill that would have gutted the First Amendment by allowing Congress to regulate spending on federal elections.

Boehner and the House Republicans began to fight Obama’s out-of-control spending as soon as they reached Washington. In 2011, Democratic spending had almost reached the debt ceiling specified by law. The battle that raged over raising the debt ceiling culminated in the Budget Control Act of 2011, a compromise bill that raised the debt limit in exchange for spending cuts and the creation of a “super committee” on deficit reduction. While Republicans did raise the debt limit, that outcome was never in doubt because it was necessary to preserve the “full faith and credit” of the United States. It was a victory for Republicans in the sense that they exacted meaningful cuts without corresponding tax increases from the Democrats.

The spending victory was also due to another Boehner victory, that of the fiscal cliff and the sequester. For those who don’t recall, the fiscal cliff was the large number of tax increases scheduled to automatically go into effect at the end of 2012 as the low Bush-era tax rates expired. The tax increases coincided with automatic spending cuts that hearkened back to the Budget Control Act of 2011. When President Obama ignored the recommendations of the super committee in favor of pursuing tax increases, automatic spending cuts were scheduled to go into effect across the board.

In spite of having lost the presidential election, Republicans in Congress stood firm under Boehner. In a last minute deal, the GOP was able to prevent income tax rates from increasing for the majority of Americans, a compromise endorsed by Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform. The deal also postponed the sequester and permanently fixed the Alternative Minimum Tax, a previously ever present threat to middle class taxpayers, but resulted in a number of other tax increases. Elections have consequences and the Republicans simply did not have the numbers to force a better deal.

Two months later, everyone once again expected Boehner to cave in on the sequester negotiations. Republicans hoped to avoid defense cuts, while Democrats opposed entitlement cuts and pushed for tax increases. In the end, there was no agreement and the budget cuts went into effect across-the-board. Much to everyone’s surprise, the sequester was scarcely noticed by most Americans. What they did notice was the government shutdown a few months later.

The defund disaster

As the implementation of ObamaCare approached in October 2013, a faction of the Republican Party proposed an attempt to defund the Affordable Care Act. As opponents of the plan noted at the time, the defund attempt was unlikely to succeed because ObamaCare was already funded and the Republicans did not have the votes to overcome the Democratic majority in the Senate. Nevertheless, with a large number of Republicans in favor of trying to defund the ACA, Boehner and the rest of the party went along as well.

The attempt was disastrous. The government was shut down at the same time that ObamaCare enrollments started and the exchange websites crashed. Because of the shutdown, the focus was on the Obama’s negotiations with Republicans rather than on the website catastrophe. For 16 days in October 2013, Republican poll ratings were in freefall. Boehner attempted to negotiate with Obama during the shutdown, but with Obama enjoying the Republican self-destruction, no agreement was reached. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Majority Leader Harry Reidn (D-NV) finally reached a deal to end the shutdown. This deal was passed with mostly Democratic support and has rightly been called a Republican surrender. The alternative to surrender, however, was the destruction of the Republican Party. For Republicans, the best thing that can be said about the deal that ended the shutdown is that it kept the sequester, the only real leverage against Obama that the Republicans had, in place.

The sequester also survived a late 2013 budget deal brokered by Paul Ryan (R-WI) and Patty Murray (D-WA). This deal kept the sequestration in place while Republicans held the line against Democratic calls for more taxes.

From hero to zero

Less than a year after the failed attempt to defund Obamacare, Boehner and other conservatives were campaigning hard for the midterm elections. Boehner campaigned hard for Republican candidates around the country and raised $100 million for the party according to USA Today. Boehner’s own PAC doled out $1.3 million to dozens of Republicans according to campaign finance data from Open Secrets. The 2014 Republican landslide was due many people, but John Boehner deserves much credit for his hard work in recruiting candidates and his tireless campaigning. The resulting Republican majority, the largest since 1928, would not have been possible with an ineffective Republican leader in the House.

As 2014 drew to a close, Boehner was again criticized for the passage of the so-called “cromnibus,” a compromise bill to fund the government through the remainder of the fiscal year. While many conservatives were angry about the bill, few proposed viable alternatives. Also, as U.S. News pointed out, the bill was hardly a sellout to the Democrats. Republicans gained many concessions, including cuts to the budgets of the EPA and IRS, no new funding for Obamacare, and a prohibition on the transfer to Guantanamo Bay detainees to U.S. courts. Nevertheless, for many conservatives, any credit that Boehner had earned with the election victory was lost in the cromnibus deal. This led to the recent coup attempt by a small number of Republicans.

The next two years

In the end, cuts to federal spending may be Boehner’s biggest triumph. According to Congressional Budget Office figures, federal spending has fallen each year since 2011 when Republicans assumed control of the House. The budget deficit has fallen by nearly 70 percent in that time. As Michael Medved recently pointed out on his radio show, the last time that federal spending declined in three consecutive years was under President Calvin Coolidge.

In the new session, the House has already approved construction of the Keystone pipeline and passed a bill restoring the 40-hour work week. These bills will now go to the Senate where, with Mitch McConnell in charge, they will probably pass and go to the president’s desk.

As Boehner shifts from defense to offense, it is likely that many of his critics will be surprised. With a record of strong accomplishments from a weak position, the man that Ralph Benko of Forbes called “the worst thing to happen to progressives since” the fall of the Soviet Union, will be a much more capable foe of Obama and the Democrats when allied with Mitch McConnell’s Senate. The alliance is likely to produce results that cannot be ignored.

Read the rest on Examiner.com

Cromnibus compromise shows GOP is ready for primetime

Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Cromnibus

While some conservatives have denounced the passage of the “cromnibus,” a combination of the abbreviation for “continuing resolution” and omnibus, the passage of the annual appropriations bill is a good thing for the Republican Party and the country. It shows that most Republicans are serious about governing, and that they can work with Democrats to find common ground for the good of the country. Since the new Republican congressional class has not yet taken office, the cromnibus compromise should be viewed as the last hurrah of Harry Reid’s (D-NV) Democratic Senate rather than a bill that sets the tone on policy for the incoming Republican majority.

Déjà vu all over again

Many conservatives opposed the cromnibus because they saw it as an opportunity to defund President Obama’s executive amnesty. Others wanted to begin the process of cutting government spending after the huge success in this year’s elections. The problem with these strategies is the same problem that led to the defeat of the Obamacare defunding attempt; Harry Reid’s Senate will not pass such a bill.

A showdown over the cromnibus would have had the same result as the disastrous attempt to defund Obamacare last year. The government shutdown that resulted from the defunding attempt was overwhelmingly blamed on Republicans and it cost the party dearly in terms of approval ratings. The Republican success in November was not due to their role in the shutdown; it was in spite of it. The Democratic collapse on issues ranging from Obamacare to the economy to foreign policy was the driver for the midterm elections.

The fact that another government shutdown would have been a bad idea for Republicans is underscored by two facts. First, the combative Republican candidates who challenged GOP incumbents in primaries lost. In several cases, they lost by slim margins, but Republican voters clearly rejected the shut-it-down, take-no-prisoners mentality of the Senate Conservatives Fund. Second, a Gallup poll from just before the election confirms that American voters want their congressional representatives to get things done, not stand in the way. A McClatchy-Marist poll released December 16 found that 70 percent of voters want the parties to compromise. Only 26 percent favor a stand that might lead to a government shutdown.

Bitter pills for Democrats

The cromnibus may not have been popular with conservatives, but that doesn’t mean that the Republicans didn’t gain from it. The American Spectator noted that “Republicans came out on top” in the negotiations. Provisions in the bill that conservatives should applaud include:

· Higher limits on political donations, a roll back of campaign finance reform laws

· Repeal of some Dodd-Frank restrictions on banks

· Exemption of farm ponds and irrigation ditches from EPA regulation under the Clean Water Act

· Repeal of EPA regulations that count cattle farts as greenhouse gases

· Extension of the federal moratorium on internet taxes

· Delay of enforcement of federal light bulb restrictions

· Ban on use of tax money to bail out insurance companies for Obamacare losses

· A $346 million dollar cut to the IRS budget

· Relaxation of the school lunch standards favored by Michelle Obama

Laying groundwork for the amnesty battle

Some conservatives have complained about the fact that the cromnibus extends most of the government funding through the end of the fiscal year in September, but this criticism is misplaced as well. Federal budgets, normally an annual matter, have rarely been passed in the Obama era. Funding the government through the end of the year will give lawmakers time to properly address and negotiate the 2016 budget, rather than spending their first few months dealing with matters that should have been handled last year.
The budget for the Department of Homeland Security is the exception. The budget for the DHS, the agency tasked with implementing President Obama’s executive amnesty, is only funded through February according to Forbes’ analysis of the bill. The DHS budget will be where the battle over Obama’s actions takes place early next year. Republicans will have the advantage of a majority in both houses of Congress at that point.

No Cruz control

The cromnibus vote gives an indication of the ability of John Boehner and Mitch McConnell to assemble a working bipartisan majority on at least some issues. This will allow some of the more independent Republicans to defect on certain issues - perhaps immigration, for instance – without killing the entire bill.

Cobbling together a majority will be even easier in the next term because the incoming GOP freshmen are unlikely to join the rogue faction led by Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Mike Lee (R-UT). The Washington Examiner reported in November that the new senators had broad support from the various factions of the Republican Party and called them “political hybrids,” while Mitch McConnell (R-KY), the incoming majority leader, said, “The vast majority of them don’t feel they were sent to Washington to just fight all the time.” The Tea Party conservatives, most of who lost in the primaries, would have been much more likely to follow Cruz’s lead.

The cromnibus has also shown that when Cruz and company split from the rest of the Republicans, Democrats may be willing to cross the aisle. As Obama’s agenda becomes less popular, more and more Democrats may be willing to go their separate ways from the president. This was evident in the cromnibus votes as Elizabeth Warren, the progressive left’s new standard bearer, led a faction to oppose the compromise supported by President Obama.

Meeting in the middle

Even if Cruz and his allies stand with the rest of the GOP, it will be necessary to court disaffected and vulnerable Democrats. As the Republicans advance their agenda, it is likely that President Obama will veto much of their legislation. The new Republican caucus can pass bills, but falls short of the 67 votes needed to override a presidential veto. Compromise with Democrats will be necessary to enact many major reforms, including but not limited to repealing and replacing Obamacare.

The biggest boon to the Republican Party may be that the cromnibus shows that the party is mature enough to build a bipartisan majority that can get things done. In the House, a majority of Democrats opposed the bill although a many voted in favor. In the Senate, the bill passed with a majority of both parties. This was in spite of strong opposition from both the Cruz and Warren wings of their respective parties. In essence, the two parties met in the middle to form a workable consensus.

As long as the Republicans are able to work with moderate Democrats to find a consensus, they will be able to advance at least part of their agenda. While repealing Obamacare is probably not in the cards, repealing particularly odious part of it, such as the medical device tax and the individual mandate, might be. There are many examples of such low-hanging fruit where Republicans and Democrats can find common ground for the good of the country. Showing that Congress can function again will, in turn, help Republicans in 2016.

 

Read it on Examiner.com

Save America: Take your family to church

Recent polls now show that almost three quarters of Americans believe the nation is on the wrong track. The reality is that regardless of whether Republicans win control of the Senate this year and the presidency in 2016, it will be very difficult to solve the problems facing America today. Many of the most serious issues facing the country stem from cultural changes that cannot be solved solely by changes to government policies. Americans who are serious about changing the direction of the country should begin by taking their families to church. To save America, it will take a moral revolution that can only come from God, not government.

Even though some polls show that church attendance is still strong in the US, ChurchLeaders.com reports that counts by denominations and local churches show that church attendance is down and still declining. Although about 40 percent of the population reports that they attend church, the real number is probably less than 20 percent and not keeping pace with population growth.

It is likely that the decline in church attendance can be connected with many of America’s social and economic ills. Movement away from traditional Judeo-Christian morality may be responsible for a change in social mores that has led to an expansion of government and a growth in entitlement spending.

While there is no hard data or studies establishing a causal relationship between church attendance and fundamental shifts in American society, it is easy to see a correlation between the two. The movement away from traditional religion has occurred at the same time as a sharp decline in marriage. According to Census data, the share of unmarried couples cohabiting has risen from one percent in 1960 to more than 11 percent today. At the same time, the marriage rate has declined from 90 percent in 1950 to 36 percent. Both men and women are delaying marriage until later in life.

Unsurprisingly, the decline of marriage has led to an increase in the share of children living in single-parent homes. Two-parent families have declined from almost 90 percent in 1960 to less than 70 percent today. Put another way, according to The Atlantic, at 31 percent of U.S. households, “single parents have more than tripled as a share of American households since 1960.”

The change is even pronounced in black families where more than two-thirds of children belong to single-parent families. Many children who do live in two-parent families are not with both biological parents. The trend is not limited to black families. Nationwide, one out of every three children live in homes where the biological father is absent.

Given the enormous costs of raising children, it should come as no surprise that with the growth of single parent families has come a similar growth in federal entitlement spending. As more children grow up within broken families, the federal government has borne an ever larger financial share of the burden of parenthood. Federal entitlement spending has grown from less than one percent to approximately 13 percent of GDP with no sign of slowing.

The effects of single-parent families on children are well documented. According to the National Father Initiative, growing up in single-parent families, particularly families where the father is absent, puts children at risk for a variety of negative outcomes. Such families are more likely to live in poverty due to the fact that a single mother often cannot work a full-time job and care for her children. Children of absent fathers are more at risk for emotional and behavioral problems, juvenile delinquency, drug and alcohol abuse, sexual activity and teen pregnancy, and even bad grades.

The problem of single-parent families is a vicious cycle. Statistics show that children who grow up in single-parent families are more likely to experience divorce themselves as well as being less likely to marry in the first place. In many cases, children of single parents grow up to head their own single-parent families, which in turn require more government help.

Due to the unintended consequences of entitlements, such programs would be problematic even if the federal government could afford them. In reality, entitlements are unaffordable. The Heritage Foundation points out that 61 percent of federal spending is on mandatory items such as entitlements. Further, 31 cents of every federal dollar spent is borrowed. This has led to a federal debt of more than $17 trillion. When unfunded liabilities such as Social Security and Medicare are included, the total debt comes to $127 trillion, according to Forbes.

The problem of the growth of government deficit spending on entitlements is not merely an economic issue. It is also a moral issue. Growth in government is largely a response to the decline of the family and entitlements fill the vacuum of money and stability in single-parent families. Because a government check cannot fully replace a missing mother or father, these entitlement payments make the problem worse in the end by making marriage and traditional families seem optional.

The destruction of the family causes other problems as well. The problem of out-of-wedlock pregnancy is undoubtedly related to the abortion issue as well. According to the Centers for Disease Control, more than 85 percent of women who abort their babies are unmarried. The Guttmacher Institute notes that 75 percent say that they cannot afford a child, a problem that is often associated with single-parent, single-income families. Half specifically cite their desire to not be a single parent or problems with their husband or partner. While the rate of abortions in the U.S. is declining somewhat, more than 1 million abortions still occur in the U.S. each year.

Another possible, but less conclusive, result of the destruction of the family is increased homosexuality. Accurate statistics on the rate of homosexuality are hard to find (due to small sample size and self selection), but the theory that homosexuality in some people is related to domineering mothers has been around for decades, such as a paper by Dr. Marvin Siegelman from 1974 and several books by Dr. Joseph Nicolosi, author of “A Parent’s Guide to Preventing Homosexuality.” While the left disputes this view, little is definitely known about the root causes of homosexuality.

Some psychologists and psychiatrists have advanced therapies based on these theories of environmental causes for homosexuality. In spite of being attacked by gay activists and leftists, there is evidence that these therapies can help some homosexuals. In some cases, liberals have sought bans against gay reparative therapy, even though such bans violate the freedom of speech of doctors and the freedom of choice of families. If homosexuality is a result of strong mother figures for some gays, then the rate of homosexuality should increase as the rate of single-parent families increases.

The negative effects of homosexuality are less disputed. Dr. Timothy Dailey of the Center for Marriage and Family Studies summarized the risks of homosexuality. These include an increased risk of suicide, domestic violence, and substance abuse in addition to greater risk for a variety of sexually transmitted diseases. Lesbians also have a higher risk for a variety of cancers.

Today, the United States resembles the Israel of the Bible in many ways. As Isaiah described, in spite of the blessings that God has bestowed upon America, the nation increasingly produces “bad fruit.”Americans increasingly revel in pleasure and immorality and our moral compasses are so distorted that we frequently “call evil good and good evil.” In America today, religion is being from the public square and people who follow the teachings of the Bible are increasingly in conflict with laws enforcing the new morality. Ancient Israel was destroyed by God’s judgment and some, such as Rabbi Jonathan Cahn, believe that America is already undergoing the early stages of judgment as well.

When viewed in context, it is apparent that a change in governmental policy is not sufficient to reverse the decline of the American family and the budget-busting entitlements that go along with it. What is needed is a national revival and a return to traditional family models.

The only way to reverse the trend of ever-increasing government entitlements is to reduce the need for those entitlements in the first place. By returning to a traditional family model where two parents share the responsibility for raising children, there will be less need for government intervention and support. Changes in policy without attacking the underlying problems will be doomed to failure.

The government cannot force Americans to return to traditional and time-proven methods of bearing and raising children, but a true revival and voluntary return to the Biblical teachings has the capability to change the course of American society and culture. Such a cultural shift will be necessary for the long term prosperity – and even survival – of the United States.

A revival has to start somewhere. If you want to save America, take your family to church. Teach your kids the value of the traditional family. Show them that when spouses fight, it doesn’t mean that the marriage has to end. If you love your children, try to make your marriage work. You can start this process by taking your family to church to learn about God’s forgiveness. You might save your country as well as your soul.

Read the full article on Examiner.com

Jefferson Davis capture site park threatened by funding catch-22

In early May 1865, the Confederacy was in its last throes. Robert E. Lee had surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Courthouse, Virginia a month earlier. According to the History of Irwin County, Confederate president Jefferson Davis, along with his family and a party of escorts, held the Confederacy’s last cabinet meeting at the home of Robert Toombs in Washington, Ga. It was decided that Davis and his family should make for a port where they could sail for safety in England. From Washington, the group moved southwest, eventually making camp just north of Irwinville, Ga.

Unbeknownst to the Davis and his party, the group was being trailed by members of the First Wisconsin and Fourth Michigan cavalry regiments of the Union army. The Yankees split into two groups, one reaching Irwinville ahead of Davis and doubling back while the other followed the Confederates.

According to the New Georgia Encylopedia, the Union soldiers found Davis’ camp in the early morning hours of May 10, 1865. In the darkness, the two groups of Yankees fought a brief battle with themselves in which two soldiers were killed. In the end, Jefferson Davis was captured after throwing on the cape to man’s overcoat, which later led to rumors that he was disguised in women’s clothing.

The site of the skirmish and Davis’ capture was purchased by Reuben Clements in 1865 and his son, Honorable J.B. Clements deeded the land to the State of Georgia in 1920 for the creation of a park. In 1939, a monument was erected to mark the spot where Davis was captured and a museum was built by FDR’s Works Progress Administration. According to GPB, the site was officially established as a state park in 1997, which eventually included a walking trail, picnic tables and shelters, a playground and a gift shop.

After the onset of the Great Recession in 2008, state budget cuts threatened the closure of a number of parks around the state. Several of these parks were transferred from the state to local governments according to a report from Yahoo at the time. In June 2009, the Jefferson Davis Memorial Historic Site was transferred to Irwin County.

John Hughes, the site manager for Irwin County, says that a catch-22 in the transfer was that the state owed money on several bonds that used the Davis park as collateral. Hughes told Examiner that the deed could not be transferred to Irwin County until the liens were removed from the property. Due to the fact that Irwin County does not own the park, county bylaws prohibit the local government from spending money on the park’s structures.

Hughes said that the park and its facilities were in good condition when the park’s operations were transferred from the state, but, almost immediately, problems started to mount. One of the first problems was a lightning strike to the park’s well. After five years, normal wear and tear has led to the need for costly repairs to the park’s septic system and the museum’s roof needs to be replaced.

Cuts have already deeply impacted the park. When the state operated the park, there were four employees and an annual budget of $139,000 according to Hughes, who has worked at the park for ten years. After Irwin County assumed control, three employees were laid off, leaving only Hughes. The park’s budget is now $36,000. Hughes was told that the state had signed a five year contract with the county that will be up in June 2014. Hughes said that he was told that the bonds originally had a balance of $200,000 in 2009, but that the balance to be paid was now at $400,000, making it seem that Irwin County was further than ever from taking full possession of the land that makes up the park.

Kim Hatcher, Public Affairs Coordinator of the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, confirmed that the park property is still owned by the DNR and that there is agreement with Irwin County to operate the park. Hatcher stated that there are three bonds that are tied to the Jefferson Davis Memorial Site with a total of $400,000 owed, but says that the amount due has not increased. The bonds will mature in 2020 at which point the title to the park can be transferred from the state to Irwin County.

In December 2013, the funding problems almost led to the closure of the park. Albany’s WALB reported that the park cost about $50,000 annually to operate, but was only generating about $10,000 in revenues.

Supporters rallied to save the park a few days later. Private contributors donated money and the Sons of Confederate Veterans pledged $25,000 per year according to WALB. Supporters also restarted the Friends of the Park group and planned to seek state grants for further repairs.

For the time being the crisis at the Jefferson Davis Memorial Historic site has been averted, by volunteer groups and charitable donations, but the underlying problem of ownership has not been resolved. It will be years before Irwin County is able to take full ownership of the park. Until the Georgia state bonds are paid, a permanent solution and funding will not be available.

 

Originally published on Atlanta Conservative Examiner

Unemployment extension may hurt long-term unemployed

Democrats and Republicans are currently locked in a battle over how to pay for a reauthorization of the extension for long term unemployment benefits. For the most part, the debate is only over how the extension of unemployment benefits should be paid. As PBS reported, most Republicans don’t oppose the unemployment extension, but favor offsetting the increased spending with cuts in other budget areas. Little, if any, attention has been given to whether the unemployment benefits should be extended at all however. The Senate passed its version of the plan on January 7, but the bill faces an uncertain future in the House. Politically the extension is popular, but many economists are not sold on the benefits of the extension.

According to the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, unemployment insurance typically lasts for 26 weeks. The Emergency Unemployment Compensation program extended benefits for an additional 14 to 47 weeks. The number of additional weeks varied by state and was based on state unemployment rates.

In December 2013, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman attacked the idea that extending unemployment payments may be harmful to the unemployed. Krugman claims that much of the research on the effects of unemployment insurance is decades old and that ending unemployment insurance would not create more jobs. In Krugman’s view, the economy is limited by demand, not supply, “and slashing unemployment benefits — which would have the side effect of reducing incomes and hence consumer spending — would just make the situation worse.”

There are some problems with Krugman’s analysis. As Krugman himself notes, unemployment insurance typically pays between 40 and 50 percent of the worker’s previous pay. This hardly seems enough to stimulate significant demand. In fact, such benefits are more accurately described as subsistence payments that merely help the unemployed to survive. About.com compiled a list of maximum unemployment benefits by state. The highest was Massachusetts at $653 per week. The lowest was Mississippi at $235. Georgia’s maximum weekly benefit is $330.

Krugman may also be off base about the number of available jobs. In October 2013, the National Federation of Independent Businesses reported that 20 percent of business owners had job openings that they could not fill. This begs the question of why business owners cannot fill jobs in an economy with unemployment rate that has been chronically above seven percent for the past five years. In reality, the employment situation is even worse than reflected in the unemployment rate. As previously reported by Examiner, the civilian labor force participation rate has continued to fall even as the unemployment rate declined. This indicates that much of the decline in the unemployment rate is due to people leaving the work force.

In contrast to Krugman’s claim that more demand is needed to stimulate the economy, the NFIB survey found that poor sales ranked third when business owners were asked what the most important problem facing small business. Government requirements and red tape was the selected as the worst problem. Taxes was rated a close second.

Part of the answer to the business staffing problem probably lies in the number of long-term unemployed. According to the November 2013 employment report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the most recent available, more than 53 percent of the unemployed have been out of work for more than 15 weeks (almost four months). Thirty-seven percent have been out of work for more than 27 weeks (almost eight months).

A January 8, 2014 report in CNN Money cited a report by the Council of Economic Advisors that found that workers who had been unemployed for less than five weeks had a 31 percent chance of finding a new job or returning to their old one. At 27 weeks, the odds of becoming employed again drop to 12 percent. For those who have been unemployed for more than a year, the chances of finding a job are only nine percent. In the current economy, it takes about four weeks for most workers to either find a new job or give up their search.

When workers are unemployed for more than a year, it becomes very difficult to find a job. A worker’s skills deteriorate, professional licenses and certifications may lapse, and prospective employers begin to question their work ethic, health, or otherwise try to determine why they haven’t worked in so long. After more than a year of unemployment, many workers move from being unemployed to being unemployable.

It might seem counterintuitive that the unemployed would reject a job to maintain a meager unemployment payment, but Pete, a union electrician, explained the thinking in a piece he wrote for an About.com series of stories of the unemployed. Pete writes, “I'm used to bringing home $1,500 gross a week and now with unemployment I bring home $425 a week…. I keep looking for work outside of my trade, but all there is are 10 dollar an hour job[s] or less or part time. Now why would I get a $10 an hour job working 40 hours a week without insurance and benefits when I make that being unemployed?”

In 2010, the Wall Street Journal quoted an economics textbook written by Lawrence Summers, at the time President Obama’s chief economic advisor. In 1999, Summers had written, “The second way government assistance programs contribute to long-term unemployment is by providing an incentive, and the means, not to work. Each unemployed person has a 'reservation wage'—the minimum wage he or she insists on getting before accepting a job. Unemployment insurance and other social assistance programs increase [the] reservation wage, causing an unemployed person to remain unemployed longer.” Pete’s $425 weekly unemployment payment has obviously increased his reservation wage above $10 per hour.

Other government benefits that workers might receive in addition to unemployment payments also drive up the reservation wage. Last September, Examiner reported on a Cato Institute study that found that welfare payments in 12 states were worth more than a minimum wage job. The Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion extends government health insurance to the poor in states that chose to enact the expansion. Other types of government assistance include food stamps and disability payments, both of which reached record highs in 2013.

In contrast to Krugman’s claim that studies critical of the Obama Administration’s claims about the stimulative characteristics of unemployment payments are “decades old,” the New York Fed published a detailed paper on the subject in October 2013. This study looked at bordering counties in different states and used data from the Great Recession’s high levels of unemployment and the Obama extension of emergency unemployment payments. Since the adjoining cross-border counties were part of the same labor market, a major difference in unemployment rates was traced to state unemployment insurance laws.

The study’s authors found that “having access to longer spells of benefits improves the outside option of workers and leads to an increase in the equilibrium wage. This lowers the accounting profits of firms and reduces vacancy posting to restore the equilibrium relationship between the cost of firm entry and the expected profits.” In layman’s terms, extending unemployment benefits for longer periods causes wages to rise, which in turn causes fewer new jobs to be created.

The study shows that “unemployment benefit extensions can account for most of the persistently high unemployment after the Great Recession.” The data showed that “border counties with longer benefit durations have much higher unemployment, despite the potential benefits of spending” money received from unemployment payments. The negative effects of higher unemployment outweighed any increase in demand.

In the end, extending unemployment payments allows workers like Pete to maintain a high reservation wage which keeps them unemployed longer, possibly to the point that they are no longer employable. If Pete took a lower paying job than his old one, he might lose money initially, but he would begin rebuilding his resume with recent job experience. He could use a low-paying entry level job to restart his career and work his back up the career ladder. By staying on unemployment, Pete goes nowhere. He is trapped at $425 per week.

Several years ago I was laid off when my company lost its main customer. I was unemployed for five weeks before I started work with another company. My pay at the new company was significantly less than I had been receiving in unemployment compensation, especially after insurance costs were deducted. For a time, I worked a second job to supplement my primary paycheck. Even then, we had to use credit cards to make ends meet. Before too long, however, I received a pay raise. Things got even better when my experience led to another job offer with even better pay.

While not everyone who is unemployed chooses to keep receiving benefits over taking a lower paying job, the expiration of unemployment benefits may well have the effect of lowering the reservation wage for many of the long-term unemployed. This would be an incentive for people like Pete to restart their lives and careers.

Originally published on Atlanta Conservative Examiner

Voters oppose further cuts to military spending

A new Rasmussen poll indicates that a majority of Americans feel that United States military spending is either just right or not enough. The poll, released on Dec. 1, found that 64 percent of likely voters approve of the current level of military spending or would like to see it increased.

The poll comes as the Obama Administration touts a new deal that would delay the Iranian nuclear program for six months in exchange for relief from international sanctions. Another Rasmussen poll from last week found that voters were split on the Iran deal. Forty-one percent favor the deal while 43 percent are opposed.

American foreign policy is also being challenged in the Far East. After China declared an air defense identification zone (ADIZ) over the disputed Japanese Senkaku Islands. President Obama sent a flight of U.S. Air Force B-52 Stratofortresses to challenge what Stephanie Kleine-Ahlbrandt, director of Asia-Pacific programs at the U.S. Institute of Peace, called “a bolder foreign policy in light of an anticipated U.S. decline” in CNN.

In light of the recent foreign policy news, the Rasmussen poll found that only 29 percent say the U.S. spends too much money on defense. Twenty-seven percent say that the U.S. currently spends the right amount on defense. A plurality, 37 percent, say that the U.S. does not spend enough on defense and national security in spite of the fact that the federal defense budget spends more than the next 10 countries combined.

The percentage of Americans supporting the current level of military spending has increased sharply since a February 2013 Gallup poll. The poll of adults found that 36 percent felt that military spending was too high and 35 percent found it about right. Only 26 percent thought that military spending was too low. The trend toward more support for military spending was already underway, however.

Similarly, an ABC News/Washington Post poll from March 2013 found that American adults supported federal budget cuts by a two-to-one margin, but that a nearly identical margin opposed cuts to the military budget. The poll specifically addressed the sequester’s five percent cut to overall spending and the eight percent cut to military spending.

The deal between Republicans and Democrats that ended October’s partial government shutdown authorized current spending levels through January 15, 2014. As budget negotiations heat up in the new year, it is likely that defense spending will again be an issue. MSNBC’s Timothy Noah points out that the next round of sequester budget cuts will come entirely from the military budget. If the president tries to force the military budget cuts to take effect or exchange military funding for tax increases, it may put him further against popular opinion.

 

Originally published on Elections Examiner

Defunding Obamacare is GOP’s ‘mission impossible’

In recent weeks there has been a push among members of the Republican Party and Tea Party activists to “defund” the Affordable Care Act, “Obamacare.” The Republicans have devoted considerable time and energy to the repeal of Obamacare, which is driving up health insurance costs around the country according to UPI. According to NBC News, by the beginning of August the Republicans in the House had voted to repeal Obamacare no less than 40 times.

The problem for the GOP is that Democrats control the Senate and the White House. Repeal bills from the House die in the Senate, usually with a party line vote. If a repeal bill did somehow pass the Senate, it would face a certain veto from President Obama.

If Republican bills to repeal Obamacare have failed 40 times, what makes them think that a bill to defund the president’s health care reform can make it through the Senate? The plan, formulated by Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah), centers around a pledge to “not support any continuing resolution or appropriations legislation that funds further implementation or enforcement of Obamacare.”

The defund Obamacare movement has several hurdles. The first is getting enough Republican support. Lee’s plan is supported by Senators Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), and Rand Paul (R-Ky.). In all, about a dozen Republicans have signed onto the plan so far. Cruz told CNN on August 27 that 41 senators or 218 representatives would be needed to make the plan work. There are currently 233 Republican representatives and 45 senators. This means that the plan would require near unanimity among Republicans.

The second hurdle is negotiations with congressional Democrats. While the Democrats have never voted to repeal Obamacare, some new Democrats accept that Obamacare is deeply flawed and unworkable. Others might be persuaded to work with Republicans to fend off election year challenges. A compromise with congressional Democrats would be difficult but not impossible.

The final hurdle is President Obama. In 2011 and 2012, the two parties entered negotiations to raise the federal debt ceiling. At the end of 2012, the parties negotiated to avoid the tax cliff, a number of new taxes and tax increases scheduled to automatically go into effect. In each case, Obama adamantly opposed even token spending cuts. According to Bob Woodward’s book, “the Price of Politics” (excerpted in the Washington Post), Obama was willing to take the country to the brink of default and total financial collapse to avoid cutting federal spending in 2011. The story was the same in the tax cliff negotiations when, as reported by Examiner in December, the president refused to consider any plan that did not raise taxes.

The first test of the plan to defund Obamacare would likely come by mid-October when the federal government reaches its spending limit. Congress must act to raise the debt limit again before the limit reached and President Obama is refusing to even enter into negotiations over the increase. Where once Obama was considered by some to be “the adult in the room” during negotiations, he now seems more akin to a toddler who holds his breath until he gets what he wants. This is the man with whom the Republicans plan to issue an ultimatum to defund his signature piece of legislation. Last week, Cruz told Fox News that he believes that the president might agree to defund the Affordable Care Act. He did not say how he thought Obama might be persuaded to do so. A more likely scenario is that Obama would act unilaterally to raise the debt ceiling without Congress as the Democrats threatened last January.

Rasmussen reported on August 26 that a majority of Americans are still opposed to Obama’s health care law by a margin of 54-41 percent. Nevertheless, a poll commissioned by Republican members of Congress in early August found that 71 percent oppose shutting down the government to fight Obamacare according to the Washington Examiner. Among Republicans, 53 percent oppose a shutdown compared to 37 percent in favor. A more recent Rasmussen poll on August 27 found that 42 percent of Republicans thought a government shutdown would be good for the party while 28 percent thought it would hurt and 14 percent believed it would have no impact.

In practical terms this means that a government shutdown could jeopardize Republican chances of victory in the 2014 elections. As detailed in Examiner last week, Democrats are defending 20 seats to the Republicans’ 15. Of seven open seats, five are currently held by Democrats and three of these are in red states. The current Rasmussen generic congressional ballot favors the GOP by one point. The GOP had a similar edge in the 2012 elections and actually lost two seats in the Senate.

With less than two months left before Congress must act on the debt ceiling, it is unlikely that enough Republicans will sign onto the plan to block funding for the law. If Republicans did unite around the effort, the result would most likely result in a stalemate that would bring the country to the brink of a government shutdown. Given President Obama’s past history in such showdowns, he would be willing to allow the country to default and use the ensuing crisis as a weapon against the GOP. For example, Obama could delay military pay and entitlement checks or even making payments on the national debt while blaming Republicans. Republicans would be forced to choose between defunding Obamacare or a national default. Few would choose to default.

Even if Republicans were successful in their defunding effort, it might still not stop Obamacare. A Congressional Research Service report requested by Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) in July indicates that implementation of Obamacare would likely continue in a government shutdown for two reasons. First, some funding from discretionary and mandatory funds would still be available. Second, exceptions to the Anti-Deficiency Act would allow some pre-authorized spending to take place.

The long odds against defunding Obamacare bring to mind Pickett’s Charge or the Charge of the Light Brigade, a valiant effort that is doomed to almost certain failure. Nevertheless, some Republicans might personally benefit from a situation even as their party loses. The Washington Post points out that Cruz, Rubio, and Paul may well use the effort to make themselves more attractive as presidential candidates for 2016.

Coming soon! A better plan for Obamacare.

Originally published on Elections Examiner

FAA announces list of sequester control tower closings

Today the Federal Aviation Administration announced the list of air traffic control towers to be closed as the agency implements its sequestration budget cuts. The March 22 press release notes that the FAA originally planned to close 189 towers, but reduced the number to 149 in the final plan.

The reduction in the number of towers to close was due in part to the decision that keeping some towers open was in the national interest. Twenty-four federal contract towers that are staffed by private contractors that were slated to close will remain open. Additionally, 16 contract towers that are part of a cost sharing program will remain open because Congress appropriates their operating funds directly. These towers will have their funds reduced by five percent, but this will not force their closure.

The list of tower closures (which can be viewed here) is made up primarily of general aviation reliever airports so airline travel will be minimally affected by the closures. There are several towers in secondary airline markets that slated to be closed, however. Among these are Columbia, S.C, Concord, N.H., Santa Fe, N.M., and Pocatello, Idaho.

Several towers at Georgia airports are among those on the closure list as well. Two Atlanta-area airports, Cobb County-McCollum Field and Gwinnett County – Briscoe Field, will lose their control towers. Additionally, three other towers around the state, Southwest Georgia Regional in Albany, Middle Georgia Regional in Macon, and Athens – Ben Epps will close. The tower at Fulton County – Brown Field in Atlanta was slated to close, but will remain open.

The fact that control towers are being closed does not mean that airline flights will cease or that the airport itself will close. Instead, it means that the airport will become a “nontowered” airport where pilots revert to “see-and-avoid” procedures and enter the flow of traffic themselves rather than having an air traffic controller regulate the flow of takeoffs and landings.

While pilots fly from nontowered airports, there might be slight delays to obtain a clearance to take off and enter the enroute system. Tower closures might result in radar gaps around these airports that require controllers to leave more space between aircraft. The absence of tower controllers might also mean that weather minimums for instrument approaches at some airports increase due to the lack of weather observers. This could mean delays or diversion of flights during periods of bad weather.

Many of the towers that will be closed were already operating on a part time basis. Control towers at smaller airports are often open only during the day or at peak hours.

In addition to the list of towers that will be closed, the FAA also published a list of contract towers that will remain open as well as list of contract cost share towers that will remain open.

Originally published on Examiner.com:
http://www.examiner.com/article/faa-announces-list-of-control-towers-to-be-closed?cid=db_articles&no_cache=1364055688

The story of the sequester

On Friday, the deadline for the federal spending sequester passed without an agreement between Democrats and Republicans on what portions of the federal budget to cut. Many may wonder exactly what the sequester is and how the nation reached the point where $85 billion will be cut from federal spending with no one in Washington taking responsibility.

The sequester has its origins in the debt limit debate of the summer of 2011. As the nation’s credit rating was downgraded and the federal government neared the end of its ability to borrow, President Obama pressed Congress to raise the debt limit. In exchange for doing so, House Republicans insisted on spending cuts. By 2011, President Obama was spending nearly a trillion dollars per year more than 2008, President Bush’s most expensive year, according to the White House Office of Management and Budget. Nevertheless, President Obama and the Democrats fiercely resisted any attempts to rein in spending. For their part, Republicans were equally tenacious in their opposition to tax increases.

The stalemate was broken by the sequester. According to investigative journalist Bob Woodward, whose book, “the Price of Politics,” details the negotiations from the summer of 2011, the stalemate was broken by an agreement to delay the decision on taxes and spending cuts. Part of the agreement was a “doomsday” plan in which taxes and cuts would automatically take place if Congress failed to take action by January 1, 2013. The combination of automatic tax increases and spending cuts came to be known as the “fiscal cliff.” The compromise was signed into law as the Budget Control Act of 2011.

The 2012 election threw a wrench into the plans of both Congress and President Obama for dealing with the cliff. Both parties expected to win a convincing victory. Neither party expected that the election would end in a stalemate, a continuation of the status quo in which the Democrats controlled the presidency and the Senate and Republicans kept control of the House of Representatives, but that is exactly what happened. The election results meant that the stalemate of 2011 was doomed to be repeated.

The tax section of the fiscal cliff was settled on New Year’s Day with a compromise that raised taxes on upper income Americans and let the payroll tax holiday expire for everyone else in what the Wall St. Journal called the “largest tax increase in two decades.” Part of the tax cliff compromise included extending the deadline to deal with the spending cuts, the sequester, until March 1.

As the deadline for the sequester approached, President Obama and the Democrats reneged on the agreement that tax increases would be balanced with spending cuts. In December 2012, the Republicans offered a tax reform package that would have raised $800 billion in revenues without raising tax rates. The plan would have closed loopholes and eliminated some deductions for the wealthy. Now President Obama, according to Factcheck, wants the revenue package previously offered by Speaker Boehner along with the tax increases that he has already received.

After the fiscal cliff deal, Republicans warned President Obama that they would accept no more tax increases. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) wrote in an op-ed on Yahoo, “That debate is over. Now the conversation turns to cutting spending on the government programs that are the real source of the nation’s fiscal imbalance.”

Because the tax increases in January were automatic, the Republicans had no leverage. If they had not compromised with the Democrats, tax rates would have gone up even more and impacted virtually every American. In the sequester, the opposite is true: Spending will be cut automatically if Congress does not act.

President Obama and the Democrats desperately want to avoid any sort of cuts to federal spending. Nevertheless, by tying sensible cuts to tax hikes that the Republicans find unpalatable they have guaranteed that the sequester will happen. There are three possible reasons for this strategy.

First, having agreed to the spending cuts only to get an increase in the debt ceiling in 2011, the Democrats now want to make the cuts as haphazard and painful to American voters as possible. If they can cause pain to the voters and make them believe that the Republicans are responsible, it may give them a victory at the polls in 2014 that will guarantee future tax hikes and avoid any possibility of reining in spending.

Second, Obama undoubtedly expects that if he can force the Republicans to cave into his demands once again that it will further splinter the party. With the Republicans fragmented, demoralized and pointing fingers at each other, it will be easy for Obama to gain new concessions in the future. He will need them. The federal government will reach its debt limit again in a few months.

Third, political observer Dick Morris theorizes that Obama wants the sequester to take effect so that he can blame Republicans for the economic downturn that his policies are causing. Writing in The Hill, Morris notes that Obama and the Democrats have imposed a multitude of new taxes totaling $300 billion. According to an analysis by the Washington Post, the cuts for 2013 only come to $85 billion, 28 percent of the amount that Obama’s tax increases have removed from the economy.

President Obama has attempted to cast the blame for the sequester on Congress, but Bob Woodward who was present during the 2011 negotiations disputes that. Writing in the Washington Post, Woodward described how the idea for the sequester originated with Jack Lew, at the time the White House chief of staff, and Rob Nabors, the White House chief of congressional relations. According to Woodward, President Obama personally approved the plan before it was presented to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.).

Woodward reported that representatives of the Obama Administration told him that he would “regret doing this” after he pointed out the inconsistencies in the Obama Administration’s statements. The exchange is detailed in the Wall St. Journal, which also points out that administration officials have attempted to intimidate at least two other journalists who have published stories critical of Obama.

There were several congressional attempts to limit the impact of the sequester. Factcheck agrees that Republicans in the House passed two bills in 2012 that would have replaced the sequester’s defense cuts with entitlement cuts. These bills died in the Senate. In the current term, two bills were proposed in the Senate, but neither passed. A Democratic bill would have replaced the sequester cuts with alternative cuts and more tax increases. The Republican version would have required President Obama to propose alternative cuts without tax increases.

In last days of February, Republicans offered to give President Obama the power to choose which programs to cut in order to mitigate the pain of the sequester. President Obama threatened to veto the bill if it passed Congress, instead opting for the across-the-board, untargeted cuts. The White House told the Defense News, “There is no way to cut spending this dramatically over a seven-month period without drastically affecting national security and economic priorities. Moreover, [it] would explicitly protect pork barrel spending and, in so doing, would reduce the President’s ability to protect national security.”

In reality, even though the sequester cuts almost a trillion dollars from federal spending over ten years, total federal spending will increase even if there is no compromise to avert the cuts. According to an analysis of Congressional Budget Office spending figures in Forbes, the sequester cuts are subtracted after adding in inflation adjustments and spending exempted from the cuts. The result is that spending will increase by $110 billion after the sequester cuts are accounted for.

On Friday, the sequester officially took effect as Obama ordered federal agencies to begin the initial $85 billion in cuts. As the Wall St. Journal pointed out, President Obama may be the biggest loser if Americans find that spending cuts really aren’t so bad after all.

Originally published on Examiner:

http://www.examiner.com/article/week-review-the-sequester-takes-effect?cid=db_articles

GOP revolt blocked Boehner’s spending amendment

According to a report by Dick Morris, Republican rebels scuttled a last minute attempt by Speaker John Boehner attach an amendment to the fiscal cliff deal that would have tied spending cuts to the tax increases. If the amendment had passed, it would have sent the bill back to the senate which would have had to vote to accept or reject it.

Bloomberg and CBS News also reported on Boehner’s attempt to tie the tax increases to spending cuts. According to CBS, the amendment would have required 217 Republican votes to pass. The final bill garnered 85 Republican votes and was passed primarily with Democratic support.

Among the Georgia delegation, the vote largely followed party lines. Rep. John Barrow (D-12) crossed party lines to vote against the bill and Rep. John Lewis (D-5), whose wife recently passed away, did not vote.

If the amendment had passed, it is unlikely that it would have passed the senate and the fiscal stalemate would have continued. A Democratic leadership aide told CBS, “We will absolutely not take up the House bill if they change the bipartisan agreement reached in the Senate" and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid told Bloomberg, “My senators have gone home.”

The Republican opposition may have been due to unwillingness to accept any tax increases as part of a compromise to avert the fiscal cliff. However, on the Dec. 21 edition of the Michael Medved Show, even Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform agreed that compromising with President Obama on tax rates for the wealthy would not be considered a vote for a tax increase because taxes were already scheduled to go up.

“They made it clear because they had a previous vote to extend it [the Bush tax rates] for everybody in the country,” Norquist told Medved, “so the two votes taken together make it very clear, we wanted to extend it for everybody, but in order to get something to the senate and get it passed, let’s extend it for as many as they [the Democrats] will allow. I mean if somebody’s thrown anybody out of the lifeboat, it’s the Democratic senate and the Democratic president….”

The Republican revolt ended quickly as the same representatives who refused to follow Speaker Boehner in fighting for spending cuts on Tuesday reelected him to a second term as speaker on Thursday. Only 12 House Republicans failed to vote for Boehner.

Originally published on Examiner.com:
http://www.examiner.com/article/gop-revolt-blocked-boehner-spending-amendment?cid=db_articles

Fiscal cliff poll has good news for both sides

A new poll released on December 10 by Battleground is being touted to show President Obama’s edge in the fiscal cliff negotiations. While it is true that the poll shows that 60 percent of voters favor the president’s plan to raise taxes on Americans who earn more than $250,000, other items in the poll are not as favorable for Obama. Sixty-five percent of respondents also favor increasing taxes on large corporations even though the U.S. corporate tax rate is already the highest in the world.

In the same poll, 69 percent opposed raising taxes on small businesses that earn more than $250,000. The problem is that many small businesses are privately held by individuals who earn more than $250,000.

Seventy-six percent favor cutting government spending across the board, a position that President Obama is at odds with as he tries to negotiate for the ability to unilaterally increase the debt limit to avoid spending cuts. Sixty-nine percent of respondents opposed making significant cuts to the debt limit.

Respondents were evenly split on several issues. There was slight approval (51 percent) for reducing Medicare benefits for wealthy seniors. Fifty percent approve of reducing Social Security benefits for the wealthy. Forty-eight percent want to end foreign aid while 46 percent disapprove.

Obama gets bad marks for his job performance on several issues as well. Fifty-nine percent disapprove of his handling of the deficit and 53 percent disapprove of his handling of the economy. He gets marginal approval (50 percent) for working with Congress, taxes (49 percent) and Medicare (48 percent).

For Republicans, the current battle is largely lost on tax increases even though the wealthy already pay the vast majority of taxes. The challenge is to use their mandate to cut spending and reduce the deficit to force President Obama and the Democrats to compromise on real spending cuts.

 

Originally published on Examiner.com:

http://www.examiner.com/article/fiscal-cliff-poll-has-good-news-for-both-sides?cid=db_articles