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So my vacation plans to Cyprus have been canceled. Something about the government there seizing everybody's wallet because the country is bankrupt. Another nanny state bites the dust. When will they ever learn? Never. Here in the good old USA, there are 76 members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus -- folks such as Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, New York Rep. Charles Rangel, California Rep. Maxine Waters and Florida Rep. Alan Grayson. Sanders is the only honest one in the bunch. He comes right out and admits he's a socialist. He'll take all your stuff while telling you tales of Ethan...

Rep. Kerry Bentivolio (R-Mich.) explains how stupid the sequester is in this neat video. He shows how it's the equivalent of declining to order the optional DVD player for the back of your new truck. Click excerpt link for the video and remember to share it with your friends!

The House Thursday approved by a party-line vote a Republican spending plan for 2014 that would balance the U.S. budget in 10 years with substantial cuts in spending and a new Medicare plan for Americans younger than 55. It passed 221-207 and puts the GOP once again solidly on the side of reduced federal funding and more tax cuts. Democrats said it would devastate programs important to the middle class and poor, while providing huge tax benefits to the wealthy. The GOP budget would cut the top income tax rate from 39.6 percent, through the closing of loopholes and other...

The Washington, D.C., region has long been considered recession-proof, thanks to the remorseless expansion of the federal government in good times and bad. Yet it’s only now—as D.C. positively booms while most of the country remains in economic doldrums—that the scale of Washington’s prosperity is becoming clear. Over the past decade, the D.C. area has made stunning economic and demographic progress. Meanwhile, America’s current and former Second Cities, population-wise—Los Angeles and Chicago—are battered and fading in significance. Though Washington still isn’t their match in terms of population, it’s gaining on them in terms of economic power and national importance. In...

Hey, remember that awesome CPAC speech by Mitch McConnell? The one where Mitch McConnell said — and I quote — “Obamacare should be repealed root and branch. And we’re not backing down from this fight.” And the same speech where Mitch McConnell also said, “This law is a disaster, and anybody who thinks we’ve moved beyond it is dead wrong.” Well, as I told you, Mitch McConnell excels at saying one thing and doing another. Yesterday, Mitch McConnell voted to fund Obamacare. Hey Utah, he joined Orrin Hatch in doing so. Remember, just last year on the campaign trail Orrin...

Finally, an answer to the question “Why does Congress have such low approval ratings?” Harry on Senate floor linking Big Guy’s idea for sequestration to the deaths of 7 brave Marines It’s because they are so despicable. I recommend that they work on that. Meanwhile, back at the Big White where the ill effects of Big Guy’s idea for sequestration are still being felt: (snip) Hard to believe, butt Big Guy headed out on Air Force Won right after the St. Patrick’s day celebration on his Mid-East Charm Offensive. Mazel Tov! So far, so good! “Say, Bibi, about that Iron...

Yesterday, Paul Ryan, Republican Chairman of the House Budget Committee, unveiled his plan that would balance the federal budget within one decade. Considering that the nation’s debt (not including the huge future cost of major entitlement programs) is now approaching $17 trillion, one might think political leaders in Washington, D.C. would consider such a proposal. On the Democratic side of the aisle, however, there is no interest whatsoever in taking such a constructive approach. Democrats in both houses of the Congress and the Obama Administration, along with many media-based pundits, began to loudly criticize the Ryan proposal even before it...

Barack Obama certainly enjoys the trappings and perks of the Office of President. The actual job of being President, however, doesn't seem to interest him. His desire to avoid being tied to any specifics of any proposal have caused him to do what no modern President has done. He is the first President since 1921 to abdicate the task of drafting a federal budget to Congress. Congress established the modern budget process in 1921. Under the terms of the law, the President is required to submit a budget for the federal government no later than the first Monday in February....

Pelosi: ‘Tax Cuts Are Spending’ March 7, 2013 By Terence P. Jeffrey (CNSNews.com) - House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D.-Calif.) said today that the government must cut spending, and then explained that: “Tax cuts are spending.” “Our whole budget is what $3.5 trillion,” Pelosi said at a Capitol Hill press conference. “So, when we talk about reducing spending, we certainly must, and we certainly have--$1.6 trillion in the previous Congress, $1.2 of it in the Budget Control Act. “But spending is also related to tax cuts,” said Pelosi. Tax cuts are spending. Tax expenditures, they are called. Subsidies for big...

The debate over reform of Social Security and Medicare is taking place in a vacuum, without adequate consideration of fundamental facts. These facts include the following: Two-thirds of Americans who are over the age of 65 depend on an average annual Social Security benefit of $15,168.36 for at least half of their income. (snip) So why don’t we talk about raising or eliminating the cap – a measure that has strong popular, though not elite, support? When asked by the National Academy of Social Insurance whether Social Security taxes for better-off Americans should be increased, 71 percent of Republicans and...

The White House is cancelling all tours for visitors starting Sunday in an effort to save money during sequestration, a senior administration official confirmed to POLITICO. In an email sent to Republicans on Capitol Hill, the White House said: :Due to staffing reductions resulting from sequestration, we regret to inform you that White House Tours will be canceled

To listen to the human side of sequestration, wait in line here for the 595 bus to Reston, Va., a journey across a suburbia grown fat and happy on a federal spending boom in the past decade, primarily military. While the rest of the country experienced a corrosive recession, unemployment in Arlington County, home of the Pentagon, never rose above 5 percent. Nearby Fairfax County, with a cyberintelligence industry that took off after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, gorged on government contracts to private companies. “It was easy, and people got comfortable,” said Stephen S. Fuller of George Mason University,...

“Sequester.” It’s a word that used to come up rarely. And it nearly always referred to a jury being locked away to deliberate a verdict. Now it’s all over the news, a stand-in for the automatic spending cuts that hit the federal budget on March 1. And the only jury is an American public that has grown all too accustomed to seeing politicians dodge the tough choices necessary to finally bring spending under control. “There will be no easy off ramps on this one,” said one senior statesman as he defended sequestration in November 2011. “We need to keep the...

Never let it be said that President Obama has failed to spend time with Republican leaders in seeking an alternative to automatic budget cuts that are due to hit most federal departments Friday. On Wednesday, for example, the president gave GOP lawmakers as much as seven minutes, a rare face-to-face encounter that the White House described as a “meeting.” The White House’s characterization of this momentary huddle at the Capitol as a meeting illuminates Mr. Obama’s strategy in dealing with Republicans on the budget cuts and other fiscal deadlines. With speeches and other staged events, the president has tried to...

[SNIP] So here's the truth about the "generational theft" theme: It's wrong on the numbers and wrong on the implications. Let's start with that 7-to-1 spending ratio on seniors versus children. Among the flaws in the calculation is that the vast majority of government dollars spent on children comes from state and local governments, which pay most of the cost of education. On a per capita basis, state and local spending on kids swamps the federal government's spending 8 to 1. Moreover, there are twice as many children 18 and under as seniors 65 and over (this 2008 figure also...

Something odd happened a few months ago as I weighed the various aspects of the dreaded Sequester Monster, a creature vilified across party lines. It is often true that if enough people in government say something is bad, there is a strong chance of redeeming qualities. So my journey began. The only element of the sequester that bothered me in the least was military cuts. But my friends at the Institute for Policy Innovation properly observe that defense spending will not fall below 2007 levels, which were 75% above pre-9/11Pentagon budgets. High enough for me? Of course not. I actually...

Senate Democratic leaders unveiled a $110 billion sequester-replacement bill at a closed-door caucus meeting Thursday that would replace $85 billion in automatic spending cuts set to hit March 1. The Senate Democratic package is split evenly between spending cuts and provisions raising new tax revenues, according to a Democratic source. It would raise nearly $54 billion in taxes by implementing the Buffett Rule, setting a minimum effective tax rate for wealthy individuals and families. It would raise additional revenues by changing the tax treatment of oil extraction from oil sands. ....snip.... On Thursday, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano testified that...

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) urged her colleagues to reach a compromise to prevent spending cuts through sequestration, arguing that government programs are already as lean as they can be. "We're at the bone almost, and sequester, that is across-the-board cuts, will literally destroy us and put us in a recession," she said on the House floor Wednesday. She called on Republicans to meet Democrats at the negotiating table and rejected the idea that President Obama delivered a partisan State of the Union address Tuesday night. "May I ask them to take some cotton out of their ears, because in...

Not long after President Obama proclaimed in his second inaugural that "an economic recovery has begun," we learned that the U.S. economy actually shrank in the last quarter. Many economists believe this is a temporary setback. This recovery may be the weakest in American history, but the economy isn't cratering either. Still, you can bet that if the economy continues to contract, Obama will propose the same remedy he always has: more "investments" in education, infrastructure and various industries of the future. It seems that whatever the ailment, Dr. Obama always writes the same prescription. This is hardly shocking: Building...

A United States minesweeper ship that crashed into a coral reef due to inaccurate Navy maps will have to be cut into small pieces and removed in order to prevent harming the ocean’s ecosystem, according to the Navy and other reports. The $277 million USS Guardian, a Naval warship that clears waterways of mines, crashed into a coral reef near the Philippines earlier this month. The Navy will disassemble it piece by piece in order to avoid damaging the reef rather than tow the multi-million dollar ship off of the reef and perform necessary repairs. “Our only supportable option is...