Tag Archives: Budget

News

Congressman Allen West gives the Republican weekly radio address

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It’s about time that Allen West be allowed to give the official GOP weekly radio address. His topic is the automatic spending cuts to the defense budget that are scheduled to occur soon.

Description:

In this week’s address, Congressman Allen West, a Retired U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel, discusses the deadline for the sequester, and the White House’s devastating inaction on what was originally their idea. The Republican-led House has proposed responsible replacements to the sequester’s historically crippling across-the-board cuts to our nation’s military. The recent vicious attacks on embassies in the Middle East underscore the need to preserve our military strength. The president and Senate Democrats must put aside partisan politics to work with us to preserve our military and replace the sequester.

For those who can’t see the video, here is a report from the radically leftist CNN:

Rep. Allen West of Florida cited his military experience on Saturday in the Republican weekly address, where he called for action from the Senate and White House on the sequester set to begin in January.

“I spent 22 years in active duty in the United States Army and served in several combat zones,” the retired lieutenant colonel said. “I can not understate the amount of damage these cuts would do to our military. They would essentially hollow out our armed forces.”

“Mr. President, for you, the Commander in Chief of our armed forces, to sit idle and do nothing while this dark cloud hangs over our military – it is shameful, it is irresponsible, and it is wrong,” he said.

Included in the cuts – which would reduce the federal deficit by approximately $1 trillion over the next decade – are reductions in defense spending, as well as nearly every other area. On Friday, a White House report found the cuts “would have a devastating impact on important defense and nondefense programs.”

While House Republicans have acted to find alternatives to these cuts, the Democrat-controlled Senate and White House have not, he said.

“The president himself has opposed or disregarded every attempt we’ve made to work with him on a solution,” West said. “Dodging his responsibility is how the ‘sequester’ came about, so it is no surprise the president is doing the exact same thing now.”

West called to mind violence in the Arab world this week – including that which led to the death of four Americans at a U.S. consulate in Libya – as a sign of “how critical it is that the United States projects strength,” including military strength.

“It is because of these threats that America must continue to fund its military and support its armed forces to the fullest extent,” West said. “The lives of all Americans depend on it, as do the memories of Ambassador Chris Stevens and the public servants who perished with him.”

West says this in his address: “Mr. President: for you — the Commander-in-Chief of our Armed Forces — to sit idle and do nothing while this dark cloud hangs over our military, it is shameful, it is irresponsible, and it is wrong. It is dead wrong.”

News

CBO: Obama administration’s budget deficit is $1.17 trillion so far this fiscal year

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Democrats control the House and Senate in 2007
Democrats control the House and Senate in 2007

From CNS News:

The federal deficit topped $1 trillion in the first 11 months of fiscal year 2012, according to the Congressional Budget Office, reaching $1.17 trillion, exceeding CBO’s August projections.

“CBO estimates that the Treasury Department will report a deficit of $1.17 trillion for the first 11 months of fiscal year 2012,” CBO said Monday.

CBO estimated that the government ran a $192 billion deficit during the month of August, up from the $70 billion deficit it ran in July.

In its updated projections, CBO estimated that the government will run a $1.13 trillion deficit in fiscal year 2012, which ends on Sept. 30 of this year. In order to hit that target, the government will actually have to run a surplus during September of $40 billion.

The government ran a $1.3 trillion deficit in fiscal year 2011, a figure the government could once again reach if its September deficit is as large as its August deficit.

I think it’s a safe bet that we’ll hit $1.3 trillion again for fiscal year 2012.

Recall that the last Republic budget, when Republicans still held the House and Senate, was $160 billion. Then Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid came to power, and we are now in debt nearly $8 trillion more since the Democrats took over the budget in January of 2007. They have not submitted a new budget in almost 3 years – we are locked in to the high spending from their last massive budget.

 

News

CBO: Unemployment rises to 9.1% in 2013, health care spending doubles by 2022

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Here are the raw numbers from the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, as reported by CNS News:

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) is projecting that if changes in federal taxing-and-spending policies already enacted and set to take effect at the beginning of next year do in fact take place, the unemployment rate will climb to 9.1 percent.

In a report released on Aug. 22, An Update to the Budget and Economic Outlook: Fiscal Years 2012 to 2022, CBO’s baseline projections show that by the fourth quarter of 2013 the national unemployment rate will be 9.1 percent.

[…]Widely referred to as the “fiscal cliff,” the expiration of the Bush tax cuts and over $1 trillion in automatic defense and discretionary cuts as a result of last year’s failed budget deal are set to take effect in January 2013.

[…]If no action is taken by Congress, current CBO projections show that unemployment will not return to pre-recession levels until 2017.

And more CBO: federal health care spending will exceed all discretionary spending by 2016:

Under current law, federal health care spending is on pace to exceed all discretionary spending by 2016, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).

The change is due to large increases in Medicare and Medicaid spending and added spending under the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) over the next decade, a feat the Tax Foundation calls a “truly unprecedented and scary” scenario.

The nonpartisan tax research group analyzed recent CBO projections of the budget for 2012 to 2022, finding that over the next decade Medicare spending will increase from $550 billion to $1.064 trillion, while Medicaid would more than double from $253 billion to $592 billion.

In addition, new exchanges and subsidies under Obamacare will force mandatory healthcare expenditures to grow from $25 billion to $181 billion in 2022.

“In total, healthcare entitlement spending is due to more than double, from $828 billion this year to $1.837 trillion in 2022,” according to the Tax Foundation.

“This means healthcare spending will overtake all discretionary spending in 2016 – Obama’s last year in office if reelected,” the group said.

And more CBO: taxes will shoot up by more than 30% between 2012 and 2014:

The amount of money the federal government takes out of the U.S. economy in taxes will increase by more than 30 percent between 2012 and 2014, according to the Budget and Economic Outlook published today by the CBO.

At the same time, according to CBO, the economy will remain sluggish, partly because of higher taxes.

“In particular, between 2012 and 2014, revenues in CBO’s baseline shoot up by more than 30 percent,” said CBO, “mostly because of the recent or scheduled expirations of tax provisions, such as those that lower income tax rates and limit the reach of the alternative minimum tax (AMT), and the imposition of new taxes, fees, and penalties that are scheduled to go into effect.”

The U.S. economy, CBO projects, will perform “below its potential” for another six years and unemployment will remain above 7 percent for another three.

And the GAO reports that the Obama administration has waived work requirements for welfare programs, which reduces revenues from employee income taxes and increases spending on welfare programs.

Now you might expect that the Democrats would have some bold plan to tackle unemployment, spending and high taxes. And they do!

Bold policy ideas at the Democrat National Convention

Take a look at this video on bold, innovative tax policy from the DNC convention:

That will fix unemployment for sure.

And they want to augment that tax policy with some reasonable pro-growth regulations:

If you don’t think that this is a good plan to solve our economic problems, then Democrats will say that you’re a racist homophobic Islamophobic sexist bigot.