Free Republic

Subsidies: With the economy faltering and Middle East unrest rising, President Obama acts as though the biggest issue facing the country is Mitt Romney's alleged threat to "Sesame Street." We have an idea for him. According to a recent tally, Obama brought up either Big Bird or Elmo 13 times in speeches since last week's debate, in which Romney promised to end federal support for PBS and NPR. That compares with zero mentions of how he plans to revive the economy, and no references to Libya. And he's now running an ad featuring Big Bird. If Obama is going to...

Leadership: With the already weak economy faltering, the president goes on TV to offer nothing but recycled promises, job-killing tax hikes, a sham deficit plan, phony tuition cuts and more of the same failed energy policy. In a two-minute TV ad now airing in swing states around the country, Obama tells viewers about his plan for the next four years. It's a good thing he gave himself only two minutes, since any more would have exposed just how vacuous his ideas are. His "plan," in fact, is just a grab bag of retread promises he's already failed to deliver on,...

President Clinton loves to mention how he raised taxes in 1993 and generated a positive budget balance (in 1998, 1999 and 2000). But let’s take a closer look at the link between Clinton’s tax increase and the later budget surpluses. In 1993, President Clinton signed a massive tax increase that included: – An increase in the individual income tax rate to 36 percent and a 10 percent surcharge for the highest earners, thereby effectively creating a top rate of 39.6 percent. What is not mentioned by President Clinton is the 1997 Tax Cut. The Republican-led Congress passed a tax-relief and...

Representatives Mike Honda (D-Calif), Jerry Nadler (D-NY) and Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill) issued a statement demanding that the issue of the federal deficit be excluded from any upcoming presidential debates, saying it would give the Republicans an unfair advantage. “The President has been forced to take actions that those outside of government, like Mitt Romney, have been able to avoid,” Nadler pointed out. “For him to be called upon to defend those actions at this time would present a fundamentally unbalanced tenor to those debates, especially when Mr. Romney has continued to refuse to disclose all of his personal tax records.”...

We've gone from "hope and change" to hoping blaming Bush will work. As Joe Scarborough said: at least Mika Brzezinski's honest about it. Asked whether she believed that President Obama's attempt to continue to blame George W. Bush for the country's economic woes will work as a campaign strategy, a seemingly dispirited Mika Brzezinski replied: "well, I'm hopin'". Scarborough burst into laughter. The Morning Joe panel was responding to a clip of President Obama from yesterday in which he analogized Republicans to people who had ordered an expensive restaurant meal, left just as Obama was sitting down to dinner, and...

Newly elected Socialist President Francois Hollande fulfilled a campaign promise by lowering the age for retiring with full benefits from 62 to 60. In the United States full Social Security benefits don’t kick in until age 65, later for those born after 1940. Hollande explained that “if people have to wait until they’re 62 the money could all be gone before they draw a cent of their retirement benefits. This way at least some of them will get something before the system crashes.” The French president plans to fund these more generous benefits “by raising taxes on businesses and individuals...

Remember the Credibility Gap? It was a phenomenon that rose to public awareness in the late 1960s (and even inspired a funny comedy group) when reporting showed a great difference between what government claimed and reality. It lives. According to Bloomberg: “As California Governor Jerry Brown seeks a temporary 5 percent pay cut from public employees to fill the largest state deficit in the U.S., many of those same workers are poised for raises next year . . .

Despite running up federal deficits at a faster pace than any previous president, Obama says he is not at fault. “Deficits aren’t the result of spending alone,” the President pointed out. “Deficits occur when there is a gap between spending and revenue. If you look at the trends for both you will see that it is the revenue line that has flattened while the spending line has remained pretty much on track with prior periods.” Of course revenues aren’t keeping up because taxpayer earnings aren’t keeping up. Business profits are down. Employees have been thrown out of work. The base...

“[Republicans] run up these wild debts and then when we take over, we’ve got to clean it up.” -- President Obama speaking to donors in Denver touting the fact that federal spending has increased less than 2 percent since 2009.

In an interview for PBS News Hour, US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner confessed to being “severely confused” by matters of finance. “A few years ago I was being mocked for messing up my taxes,” Geithner complained. “But, really now, who can figure out the tax code? It’s such a mixed up pile of contradictory rules and instructions that I’d be surprised if anybody got it right.” “This deficit stuff, what’s that all about?” Geithner wondered. “How can the government be short of money? I’ve been to the mint and it seems we can print as much as we need. If...

Only in America could politicians talk about the greed of the rich at a $35,000 a plate campaign fund raising event. Only in America could people attempt to claim that the government still discriminates against black Americans when we have a black President, a black Attorney General, and roughly 18% of the federal workforce is black (only 12% of the US population is black). Only in America could we have had the two people most responsible for our tax code -'TurboTax Tim' Geithner, the head of the Treasury Department and Charles Rangel (who once ran the Ways and Means Committee)- BOTH...

Gov. Jerry Brown on Monday unveiled his revised budget for the coming fiscal year with twin pleas. He pleaded poverty and pleaded with voters to approve more taxes on the November ballot. Both pleas are curious. . .

Wisconsin’s Republican Representative Paul Ryan’s efforts to put the federal government budget on a track to balance in the next decade was widely criticized by Democrats. “This budget is not a statement of our national values,” said Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif). “It represents a bleak future for America,” said Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md). “It is antithetical to our entire history,” said President Obama. Statistical analysis reveals that Ryan’s budget spends 46% more in inflation-adjusted dollars than Democratic President Bill Clinton’s last budget. It also would put federal spending at 22.2% of gross domestic output vs. the Clinton budget’s...

In President Obama’s address to the Associated Press Luncheon on Wednesday, he claimed that he is preventing disaster. Republican congressman Paul Ryan’s proposed budget cuts would still allow publicly held debt to increase by $5.5 trillion over the next ten years, but to Obama, they mean Americans will be dying from starvation and defenseless from hurricanes and other natural disasters. “Demagoguery” is not too strong of a word to describe Obama’s speech. Two million mothers and young children will be left without “access to healthy food.” Violent crime will soar and illegal aliens will flood across our borders because of...

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner argued against letting fears of ballooning federal government deficits interfere with increased government spending. “The federal government’s debt and deficit are no big deal,” Geithner insisted. “It’s not like personal or corporate debt or fiscal shortfalls. It can be canceled at any time. Look, the government makes the laws. It can easily make a law absolving itself from the responsibility to repay borrowed money if it has to.” Geithner hastened to clarify that he was “not advocating such a law at this time, but the power is there if we need it. I don’t think we...

In President Obama’s address to the Associated Press Luncheon on Wednesday, he claimed that he is preventing disaster. Republican congressman Paul Ryan’s proposed budget cuts would still allow publicly held debt to increase by $5.5 trillion over the next ten years, but to Obama, they mean Americans will be dying from starvation and defenseless from hurricanes and other natural disasters. “Demagoguery” is not too strong of a word to describe Obama’s speech. Two million mothers and young children will be left without “access to healthy food.” Violent crime will soar and illegal aliens will flood across our borders because of...

Desperate to spend billions rather than allow taxpayers to keep their money, the California High-Speed Rail Authority boasted Monday that it has cut costs, scaled back and speeded up the construction schedule of a train that should never be built. Like all government boasts, it isn't what it appears to be...

There is so much wrong with the California High-Speed Rail project, it’s getting difficult to stay up to date as new absurdities are revealed almost daily. . . . But Katy Grimes raises an aspect pretty much overlooked, although we and others have mentioned aspects of this aspect previously. . .

The conventional wisdom that nearly infinite demand exists for U.S. Treasury debt is flawed and especially dangerous at a time of record U.S. sovereign debt issuance. The recently released Federal Reserve Flow of Funds report for all of 2011 reveals that Federal Reserve purchases of Treasury debt mask reduced demand for U.S. sovereign obligations. Last year the Fed purchased a stunning 61% of the total net Treasury issuance, up from negligible amounts prior to the 2008 financial crisis. This not only creates the false appearance of limitless demand for U.S. debt but also blunts any sense of urgency to reduce...

Voters approved $9.9 billion in bonds in 2008 to partially fund California's proposed $33 billion high-speed rail project. The price since has increased to as much as $118 billion. The completion date has been extended 12 years, to 2032. To use $3.3 billion in federal funds, train backers need legislative approve to sell $2.7 billion of the bonds. The Legislative Analyst says more than $700 million a year from the state's general fund would be needed to pay bond interest. Budget-strapped California should not pay for an initial 130 miles of track in the Central Valley that won't connect metropolitan...