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House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called for a new $150 billion economic-stimulus package today and suggested Congress may need to act this year. "We have some harsh decisions to make. Some of them can't wait until January," she said in Colorado today after a tour of Denver Health Medical Center's pediatric emergency facilities. "What we can't wait for is a stimulus package," she said. "We may have to go back into session before the next Congress." Pelosi praised the Federal Reserve's decision this morning to lower a key interest rate but said more needs to be done quickly to reinvigorate the...

LANSING- Lt. Governor John D. Cherry, Jr. today announced that 41 Michigan elementary and middle schools in 10 counties will receive more than $8.7 million in federal "Safe Routes to School" funding. The schools will implement safety improvements and education programs aimed at encouraging healthy lifestyles and improve opportunities for students to travel safely between home and school. Eight of the cities with schools receiving the grants are Cities of Promise. The Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) and the Michigan Fitness Foundation reviewed the grant applications. The schools receiving funding will implement education and encouragement programs during the 2008-09 school...

DEMAND an end to any and all deficit spending Published by Sheridan Folger on Sep 27, 2008 Category: Politics Region: United States of America Target: Washington D.C. Web site: http://letsgetthisright.com Description/History: As President Ronald Reagan once said "You and I are told we must choose between a left, or right, but I suggest there is no such thing as a left or right. There is only an up or down." We at "Let's Get this Right" agree with that statement and we recognize that the US economy is in enormous trouble. This includes Wall Street, the US Government, and every...

I've been watching the news the last few days. It seems that every time this is discussed somebody mentions that it could impede our governments ability to borrow. Could this be the REAL reason why they're working so hard to pass this bill? Has the United States been essentially blackmailed by foreign investors who have told us that without this the United States itself is not going to be credit worthy? That would explain why Democrats are for it. If borrowing is curtailed, then cuts in government spending, real cuts, must be made and that threatens liberal social programs. How...

Republicans and Big Government Spending http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSITu4pbfeM&feature=PlayList&p=5B0402C8953DDCEA&index=2

When it comes to fiscal conservatism, George W. Bush failed us. He has angered fiscal conservatives in both parties. I don't spend much time defending Bush's fiscal record because there's really very little worth defending.   But Bush's failure wasn't because he cut taxes. Bush failed because he failed to cut spending.   P.J. O'Rourke defined fiscal conservatism as follows: "To a true fiscal conservative, tax cuts don't matter much, and neither does the national debt. That is because the real problem is spending. Even the best and most necessary public spending comes with a harrowing price: the percentage of...

I recently chatted with Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) about the gigantic financial bailout that the government is preparing to undertake. Some excerpts from the interview: What's your take on this huge financial bailout? "It's more of the same. More debt and more inflation and more pressure on the dollar. Ultimately, although the markets are responding very favorably at the moment, I think it is going to be devastating to the dollar and to our financial situation in this country." But don't we need to get these toxic assets off banks' balance sheets? "Sure, they need to be removed. Somebody needs...

Michigan (Detroit Free Press) - The music starts. The hazy images appear. A pond. A sunrise. A porch. A windmill. A sailboat. Then the wistful voice begins: "Twenty-five thousand mornings, give or take, is all we humans get." This TV ad has been playing all summer in select cities across the Midwest, enticing visitors from Chicago, St. Louis, Cleveland and Detroit to vacation in "Pure Michigan." The $17.5-million campaign - all heart and naked emotion - is designed to appeal to our secret longing for simplicity, thus drawing big bucks and new tourists. Starting next month, the state will spend...

An Obama ad plays fast and loose with McCain's voting record on education and proposals as a presidential candidate. Summary A new Obama-Biden ad includes misleading claims about McCain and education spending: It says McCain "voted to cut education funding" and lists five votes. But one was a vote for increased education funding, although for fewer dollars than what Democrats may have wanted. And three others were votes against additional funding, not votes for funding cuts.  The ad says that "McCain's economic plan gives $200 billion more to special interests while taking money away from public schools." Not exactly. McCain...

The national average income as of 2007 was, according to a census.gov PDF, $50,233 (see page 14). A dinkytown.net tool puts this at approximately $5762 in federal income tax for a single, male, head of the household. Note that this is just your income tax. No sales taxes or any other type of tax is included here. Additionally, this does not include state, county, or municipal tax, so you most likely pay much more (Alaska, Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington state, and Wyoming are the only states that don’t have a state income tax, so chances...

Here's a prediction: The media will report today that the federal budget deficit is big and getting bigger. What most of them won't report, alas, is that the cause of these deficits is an explosion in federal spending. The era of big government is back, bigger than ever. [The Spending Explosion] The real news in yesterday's Congressional Budget Office semiannual report is that federal expenditures on everything from roads to homeland security to health care will on present trends reach 21.5% of GDP next year. That's a larger share of national output than at anytime since 1992. If the cost...

"NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The budget deficit will jump by $246 billion to $407 billion this year, the Congressional Budget Office estimates in a report released Tuesday." "Over the long run, growing budget deficits and the resulting increases in federal debt would lead to slower economic growth," the agency said. Last year, the budget deficit was $161 billion. The government's fiscal year ends Sept. 30. The agency attributes the jump to "a substantial increase in spending and a halt in the growth of tax revenues.""

Do you get the impression Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has reached a level of flippant frustration in his efforts to “fix Kaleefornya?” The latest budget impasse may be the final, insulting reality that blew away any illusion he had that the nation's most populous state - and one of the world's largest economies - can be rationally governed. His recent executive order to reduce state employees' pay to the federal minimum wage level, and to lay off thousands of part-time state employees, might be an expression of peevish exasperation, but it does strike at the heart of California's chronic budget problem,...

[C]onsumer credit became so pervasive that paying cash became passé. Want a new $32,530 Dodge Ram Crew pickup? Take a lease. Sick of your old house? Get a 100 percent mortgage and trade up. Face lift? Round-the-world cruise? New PC? Three-hundred dollar sushi dinner at Nobu? Whip out that plastic. It was this behavior—the endless willingness of lenders to lend and borrowers to borrow—that kept the consumer economy humming uninterrupted from the early 1990s, straight through the brief recession of 2001, until the credit meltdown of 2007. But many of the lenders who extended credit recklessly are now acting like...

Barack Obama's tax advisers recently posted a piece in the Wall Street Journal about their candidate's tax plans. Their article was designed to triangulate, painting their candidate as a tax cutter and the Republican opposition as a secret tax raiser. It was well written and well argued — not that you can really trust anything you read about what candidates will or will not do once in office. In any case, I was discussing the piece with a person whose politics are certainly left of center. She said to me something along the following lines: I'm really not sure I...

It better be good. The GOP has a lot of making up to do and it NEEDS to present a strong conservative message especially in the areas of limited government and drilling. And McCain had better pick a good VP. I don't know what emotion I'd call it, but I'm definitely ready to watch this convention.

Democrats convened in Denver on Monday with the economy's woes muscling to the top of political concerns, as reflected in further drops in stocks and housing prices. The Dow Jones Industrial Average tumbled 241.81 points, or 2.1%, to 11386.25, amid continuing worry over the economic and credit problems. Inventories of unsold homes rose to a record, while prices continued to slip, threatening to delay the housing market's recovery. Sen. Barack Obama, whom the party will nominate for president this week, addressed one of the key issues, the parlous state of the government-sponsored buyers of mortgages. "I don't think we can...

Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) has been given an evening speaking slot at the Republican National Convention and will focus his remarks on wasteful government spending and earmarks, his office said Thursday. Coburn, who, like GOP presidential candidate Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), is a vocal opponent of pork barrel spending, will address the convention on Tuesday night. Giving the Oklahoma senator a coveted evening slot will highlight McCain’s commitment to curbing wasteful spending and is seen as a nod to fiscal conservative voters fed up with the deficit spending that occurred during Republican control of Congress and continues under the Democratic...

Professor Hubbard explains that Obama's claim that he will increase the payroll tax by only 4% cannot be correct. This amount will not generate the revenue necessary to maintain even current levels of entitlement spending: "The new payroll tax hike is more modest than the one Mr. Obama hinted at last fall, which might have uncapped the payroll tax entirely. But it would also do very little to shore up Social Security, since it means that no more than 15% of Social Security's long-term funding gap would be closed. Thus, if Mr. Obama is indeed opposed to reductions in Social...

'If I were designing a system from scratch, I would probably go ahead with a single-payer system," Barack Obama told an audience in Albuquerque on Monday. He was lauding the idea of a health-care market -- or nonmarket -- entirely run by the government. Most liberals support single payer, aka "Medicare for All," because it would eliminate the profit motive, which by their lights is the reason Americans are uninsured. The Democratic Presidential candidate takes a more moderate campaign line, though we suppose just about everything is "moderate" compared to a total government takeover. While preferring that option in theory,...

If "An Inconvenient Truth" sounded the alarm on global warming, "I.O.U.S.A.," a new documentary opening in theaters Friday, hopes to do the same for the rising federal deficit. Backed by Blackstone Group Chairman Peter Peterson, "I.O.U.S.A." follows former U.S. Comptroller General David Walker and the Concord Coalition's Robert Bixby on a "fiscal wake-up tour" across America. In the movie, which is co-written by "Empire of Debt" co-author Addison Wiggin and directed by "Wordplay" filmmaker Patrick Creadon, Messrs. Walker and Bixby argue that unless the government alters its policies and spending habits, the U.S. will be in for a serious financial...

Money is a crucial command post of any economy, and therefore of any society. Society rests upon a network of voluntary exchanges, also known as the "free-market economy"; these exchanges imply a division of labor in society, in which producers of eggs, nails, horses, lumber, and immaterial services such as teaching, medical care, and concerts, exchange their goods for the goods of others. At each step of the way, every participant in exchange benefits immeasurably, for if everyone were forced to be self-sufficient, those few who managed to survive would be reduced to a pitiful standard of living. Direct exchange...

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. government's budget deficit nearly tripled in July from a year earlier, pushed in part by aftershocks from failed financial institutions. The Treasury Department on Tuesday said the government ran a monthly deficit of $102.77 billion in July, up 182% from $36.45 billion in July 2007. Outlays were $263.26 billion last month, up 27% from July 2007's $206.89 billion. Spending rose on a $15 billion disbursement by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. to cover deposits at failed financial institutions. Calendar shifts also contributed to the figures, causing the July 2007 figure to be lower by $19 billion....

It's the spending, stupid! When was the last time you heard Senator Obama or Senator McCain give a speech on the bloated public sector? Did Senator Clinton, in her recently concluded presidential bid, ever scold voters who constantly want the government to "give" them more and more services? These are rhetorical questions. Today our ruling parties tacitly agree that no government department can be eliminated, that major spending reductions are forbidden and that the spending spree must continue. Indeed, Democrats say little or nothing in the federal budget can be cut. The government must expand its responsibilities. It must provide...

In response to the housing crisis, the American Housing Rescue and Foreclosure Prevention Act of 2008 (H.R. 3221) passed in the House (272-152) on July 23 and in the Senate (72-13) on July 26. This legislation added another new agency to the goliath federal bureaucracy, the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), to oversee and regulate three Government Sponsored Enterprises (GSEs): Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the Federal Home Loan Bank System. The new FHFA is required to consult the Federal Reserve before issuing any regulations, orders, or guidelines concerning GSEs through 2009. Thus the Federal Reserve’s power has been enhanced...

Congress enacted the tax rebate program earlier this year because it perceived a growing risk of recession. In addition, it feared monetary policy alone would not be effective because of the dysfunctional credit markets. As American taxpayers know, most of the rebate checks have now been mailed and cashed. Those of us who supported this fiscal package reasoned that the program would boost consumer confidence as well as available cash. We hoped the combination would cause households to spend a substantial fraction of the rebate dollars, leading to more production and employment. An optimistic and influential study by economists at...

Two different headlines over the past week have confirmed what's been increasingly obvious for a long time: George W. Bush is no conservative. Glaring Contradictions In case you missed them, here's a review: 1. Bush signs the housing bailout. Here's my best summary of the housing debacle: Homeowners borrowed much more than they could afford; banks gleefully loaned them the money; and then Wall Street, the self-described smartest people on the planet, bought large quantities of those securitized loans. Which part of that couldn't have been prevented with a little more foresight (and a lot less greed)? Conservatives are supposed...

Massachusetts is about the last place one would expect a tax revolt, but that's what's brewing in Beantown. The state board of elections recently certified that citizen activists have gathered the 125,000 signatures required to qualify an initiative for the November ballot to eliminate the state income tax. The Small Government Act would repeal the 5.3% income and wage tax, as well as the state capital gains tax, which reaches as high as 12%. The ballot initiative would replace the $12.5 billion in taxes with . . . nothing. "One of the points here," explains Carla Howell of the Committee...

Let's hope Capitol Hill never catches fire. Congress would switch off the alarm and pretend there were no flames. That, at least, was the policy message sent by Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her health-care enforcers when the House voted last week to deactivate a warning that entitlement spending is running amok. Everybody has known forever that Medicare's spending trend is untenable. The program soaked up 3.2% of GDP and 16% of all federal spending in 2007, and it is expected to grow by 7.4% or more a year over the next decade. The Tom DeLay Republicans made the problem worse...

The move reduces state workers' pay to federal minimum wage until the governor and legislators OK a state budget. Controller John Chiang, though, says he won't implement Schwarzenegger's executive order. SACRAMENTO -- Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger today ordered his administration to lay off thousands of part-time state workers and to work with the state controller to temporarily slash the pay of most full-time employees to the federal minimum wage of $6.55 an hour. Schwarzenegger administration officials said the move will help give the state enough cash to get by until a state budget is signed. The budget was due July 1...

WASHINGTON -- President George W. Bush early Wednesday signed into law the government's most aggressive effort to combat the country's housing crisis, ending months of sometimes bitter fighting over the best way to curb foreclosures and calm financial markets. The White House announced in a statement that Mr. Bush has signed the sweeping housing package, making it law with none of the pomp customary for significant legislation. Spokesman Tony Fratto said the bill was signed in the Oval Office at 7 a.m. EDT as Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and five of the administration's top economic officials looked on.

Projections suggest the federal budget deficit could exceed $500 billion next year, complicating the debate between Barack Obama and John McCain over how to strengthen the economy while not worsening the nation's finances. Deficit projections are ballooning because of lower tax receipts and government spending on economic-stimulus programs. The gap increasingly is threatening to play havoc with the two presidential candidates' domestic-policy plans, particularly Sen. McCain's big tax cuts and Sen. Obama's promised health-care expansion, and could force major changes in the winner's agenda.

What if I told you that a prominent global political figure in recent months has proposed: abrogating key features of his government's contracts with energy companies; unilaterally renegotiating his country's international economic treaties; dramatically raising marginal tax rates on the "rich" to levels not seen in his country in three decades (which would make them among the highest in the world); and changing his country's social insurance system into explicit welfare by severing the link between taxes and benefits? The first name that came to mind would probably not be Barack Obama, possibly our nation's next president. Yet despite his...

The dangers inherent in the foreign policy advocated by the neo-conservatives are well known. While many Americans have become increasingly aware of those dangers, far less attention has been focused on the dangers of neo-conservative economic policies. This issue is of critical importance right now, because many are mistakenly pointing their fingers at the free market as the culprit behind our current economic plight. There are only a few in elected office who have any real loyalty to free markets and limited government. The agenda of neo-conservatives in the economy calls for a very active central government. Indeed, while there...

The following alert has been issued by ALG News to any posters or lurkers whose Senators are listed below may wish to contact those politicians immediately. Special Alert: ALG News has received word from sources on Capitol Hill that the following Senators are in a position to cast pivotal votes on the measure to invoke cloture on the Reid Omnibus Spending Bill to be taken up by the Senate at 4:00 today: Bayh(D-IN) – 202-224-5623 Coleman(R-MN) – 202-224-5641 Hagel(R-NE) – 202-224-4224 Hatch(R-UT)—202-224-5251 Lugar(R-IN)—202-224-4814 McCaskill(D-MO)—202-224-6154 Murkowski(R-AK)—202-224-6665 Smith(R-OR)—202-224-3753 Stevens(R-AK) – 202-224-3004 Sununu(R-NH) – 202-224-2841 Voinovich(R-OH) – 202-224-3353 If these Senators will rally...

Instead of a keepsake photo of a political hero or his family, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) has a large framed picture next to his desk that serves as a constant reminder of his political ideology. Inside the black frame and matting is a single word, in large white letters: "No." Coburn has become best known as the lawmaker who says no -- no to increased funding for unsolved civil rights crimes, no to creation of a national registry for victims of the disease ALS, no to more money for child pornography prosecutions. Using every parliamentary tactic at his disposal, Coburn...

The U.S. Congress is discussing a second economic stimulus bill that could include nearly $15 billion in infrastructure spending, a senior member of the House of Representatives told Reuters on Tuesday.Rep. James Oberstar, a Minnesota Democrat who chairs the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, said a stimulus package could include "accelerating" pay-outs of $9.5 billion from the federal trust fund dedicated to road construction and maintenance. "You can have 700,000 people working in three months. We should have done it this spring," Oberstar said in an interview. The money would go to funding more than 2,600 projects, he said. States would...

Let’s get real with each other for a few minutes. Only one thing really divides America down the center line of politics known as “left” vs. “right,” the almighty dollar, now worth approximately .35 cents, thanks to more than seventy years of deficit spending. Every national election is about the same thing really. Half of Americans use every national election cycle as nothing more than an opportunity to pick the pockets of the other half. The other half is running for cover. I have often written about the lefts endless effort to shove their way to the public feeding trough...

Cha-Ching! After Friday's 65-3 vote to proceed, the Senate is finally coming to terms on one of the most expensive aid programs of the session, the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). Although the House passed PEPFAR overwhelmingly in the spring, the Senate bill has been delayed while conservatives strategized on how to remove some contentious language with global pro-abortion implications. As it now stands, the $50 billion reauthorization of the President's 2003 plan keeps in place the heavy emphasis on abstinence and fidelity in HIV/AIDS prevention, which have not only been the most ethical approach but, as many...

Sen. John McCain on Tuesday brushed off skepticism from economists and insisted he could balance the budget by 2013 by keeping taxes low and curbing spending. "We're going to restrain spending, we're going to have the economy grow again and increase revenues. The problem is that spending got completely out of control," McCain said on CNN's "American Morning." McCain is in favor of extending the Bush tax cuts, which are set to expire in 2010. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has projected that by extending the cuts, which McCain originally opposed, and including the additional cuts McCain has...

Political Players: Former GOP Presidential Candidate, McCain Economic Adviser On Taxes, Energy And The Budget, Steve Forbes. Steve Forbes: I think his (McCain's) plan is the most realistic plan to achieve a balance - or a far better balance - that is out there, by recognizing the importance of reducing the burden of taxation, among other things. That is the key to getting the economy back on track again. ... So the way you get a balanced budget is one, greater revenue growth. And he's got the best plan for it. And two, restraint of spending. ... Steve Forbes: The...

One reason people are unhappy with the way politics and governments operate is that people who run for office are known to “say one thing and do another.” Thus, we have the call for “change.” Candidates for high office make frequent use of that word. Even our House Republican Conference’s recently released slogan highlights that word. Yet, bringing about change is easier said than done. The American people are aware that government is broken and must be fixed. They will demand more than lip service as our problems become more severe. Change, then, cannot simply be a word. It must...

Senator John McCain plans to promise on Monday that he will balance the federal budget by the end of his first term by curbing wasteful spending and overhauling entitlement programs, including Social Security, his advisers told Politico. The vow to take on Social Security puts McCain in a political danger zone that thwarted President Bush after he named it the top domestic priority of his second term. McCain is making the pledge at the beginning of a week when both presidential candidates plan to devote their events to the economy, the top issue in poll after poll as voters struggle...

Breaking News from Louisiana: BATON ROUGE -- Gov. Bobby Jindal announced today that he has vetoed the legislative pay raise. After days of saying he would not reject the unpopular measure, Jindal said this morning that he had rejected the measure. Lawmakers in the most recent session voted to raise their annual base salary from $16,800 to $37,500. Jindal has been criticized for his inability to stop the raise before it was passed and his refusal since then to veto the pay raise bill. He pledged during his gubernatorial campaign last year to prohibit an immediate legislative pay raise. The...

Propositions that are on the November 4, 2008 General Election Ballot* Bond MeasureProposition 1 SB 1856 (Chapter 697, 2002). Costa. Safe, Reliable High-Speed Passenger Train Bond Act for the 21st Century.** **Note: The Safe, Reliable High-Speed Passenger Train Bond Act for the 21st Century was originally scheduled to appear on the November 2, 2004, General Election ballot. Subsequently, Senate Bill 1169, Chapter 71, Statutes of 2004, provided that it appear on the November 7, 2006, General Election ballot. However, most recently, Assembly Bill 713, Chapter 44, Statutes of 2006, provides for the submission of this Act on the November...

In the past decade, global defense spending has grown 45 percent, to over $1.3 trillion. That's about 2.5 percent of global GDP. After the Cold War ended in 1991, defense spending declined for a few years, to under a trillion dollars a year. But by the end of the 1990s, it was on the rise again. The region with the greatest growth has been the Middle East, where spending has increased 62 percent in the last decade. The region with the lowest growth (six percent) was Western Europe. About a third of global defense spending is in weapons and major...

The Next Big Spending Spree By John Browne As the economic indicators turn down and election year politics heats up, the calls from politicians for more government intervention and enhanced economic stimulus are becoming more strident. Last week, with the onset of the general presidential campaign, and with increased attention on the economy shown by the Bush administration, I could not help but think that something big was in the air. And by big, I mean the kind of massive new Federal spending initiatives that we haven't seen since the Great Society of the 1960's.In particular, Fed Chairman Ben...

Vallejo, Calif., took the extreme step of filing for bankruptcy to get out of generous obligations to public employees. Other cities and states are watchingThe jig is up. For years, politicians have been playing what amounts to a multi-trillion-dollar shell game with state and local pensions. They've doled out lush retiree benefits to their heavily unionized workforces, knowing that they could shove the cost for those benefits onto future generations of taxpayers. But a recent financial bombshell dropped by a San Francisco suburb shows why that shell game is now starting to unravel in a nasty way. And it's a...

As Election 2008 draws ever closer, it is hard to overstate the disconnect between the American people and their government. Just 17% of voters say that the federal government represents the will of the American people. A Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 68% disagree and 15% are not sure (see video). These views are consistent across partisan and demographic lines. Men, women, young, old, Republican, Democrat, conservative, liberal, all offer a bleak assessment of what is supposed to be a “government of the people, by the people, and for the people.” Sixty-seven percent (67%) of voters say that...

Changes since the last update: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1310. (07-0081) Nonviolent Offenders. Sentencing, Parole and Rehabilitation. Statute. Qualified for the November 4, 2008 General Election 1326. (07-0094, Amdt. #1S) Criminal Penalties and Laws. Public Safety Funding. Statute. Qualified for the November 4, 2008 General Election 1304. (07-0066, Amdt. #1S) Renewable Energy. Statute. Qualified for the November 4, 2008 General Election 1298. (07-0068) Limit on Marriage. Constitutional Amendment. Qualified for the November 4, 2008 General Election Propositions that are on the November 4, 2008 General Election Ballot Bond MeasureSB 1856 (Chapter 697, 2002). Costa. Safe, Reliable High-Speed Passenger Train Bond Act for the...