Free Republic

Executive Order on Increasing Government Accountability for Administrative Actions by Reinvigorating Administrative PAYGO Issued on: October 10, 2019 By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered as follows: Section 1. Purpose. In May 2005, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) implemented a budget-neutrality requirement on executive branch administrative actions affecting mandatory spending. This mechanism, commonly referred to as “Administrative pay-as-you-go” (Administrative PAYGO), requires each executive department and agency (agency) to include one or more proposals for reducing mandatory spending whenever an agency proposes...

Freshman Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said Wednesday via Twitter she will vote no on House rules that contain a provision requiring all spending programs to be offset with revenue earnings. “The ‘pay as you go’ rule, commonly known as PAYGO, requires that any increase in entitlement spending be offset by cuts in other entitlement programs, or by new revenue raisers, in order to prevent the deficit from increasing,” CBS News reported. The package of rules containing PAYGO are supported by likely incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., pitting the young Democratic Socialist from New York against her very early in the...

Republican Sen. Rand Paul split with senators Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio to vote for a healthcare bill Tuesday night that will add about half a trillion dollars to the national debt over the next several decades.Paul sided with the overwhelming majority of senators and representatives who voted for the bill, in a decision almost certain to come up in the primary race, where he is currently joined by Cruz and Rubio.The “doc-fix” bill solves a recurring problem in the way Medicare payments are made to doctors, extends a children’s health insurance program, and requires higher-income seniors to pay higher...

WASHINGTON -- The federal interstate highway system is showing its age, and, faced with the cost of repairing all those bumps and cracks, some states want to ask motorists to pay tolls on roads that used to be free. When the interstate system was created in 1956, a federal per-gallon gasoline tax was enacted to provide a stream of revenue for the Highway Trust Fund. The federal government paid 90 percent of the construction costs, with the states making up the rest. That model worked for decades, but no longer. Americans are driving less because of the economy and higher...

President Barack Obama is hailing pay-as-you-go budget legislation he signed Friday night as one in a series of crucial steps needed to snap Washington out of a destructive pattern of overspending. “Now, Congress will have to pay for what it spends, just like everybody else,” Obama said in his radio and Internet address released Saturday morning. “After a decade of profligacy, the American people are tired of politicians who talk the talk but don’t walk the walk when it comes to fiscal responsibility. It’s easy to get up in front of the cameras and rant against exploding deficits. What’s hard...

Pelosi’s PAYGO Ployby Robert Bluey Published on October 14, 2010 Four years after Democrats campaigned on the promise of using pay-as-you-go budgeting, their record is dismal. Since gaining control of Congress in 2007, they’ve gamed, ignored or employed PAYGO on 32 occasions to justify new spending or tax increases. Once hailed as a budgetary tool to stop deficit spending, PAYGO has become a gimmick House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D.-Calif.) has used repeatedly to provide cover to her liberal allies. “Democrats are committed to fiscal responsibility through pay-as-you-go budgets, so that our children and grandchildren are not saddled with mountains of...

Among the most deceptive measures passed in the 111th Congress was the Statuary Pay-As-You-Go Act of 2010, or, in Washington vernacular, Pay/Go. Democrats passed Pay/Go in February 2010 to convince Americans of their fiscal moderation while plotting to raise taxes and engage in more shameless spending. Though they proposed to bypass Pay/Go within a week of its enactment, congressional Democrats and the White House told us that the bill established pay-as-you-go rules that would require legislation affecting mandatory spending to be "budget-neutral" -- in other words, that it would not increase the deficit. The bill also directed the Office...

Reporters walking into House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer's office Tuesday morning noticed an open supply cabinet with a tape measure on the shelf. It was a strange bit of office equipment. Are Democrats so resigned to defeat that they're expecting Republicans to stop by and take measurements of the majority offices? Democrats still have their largest majority in decades, but they have succumbed to paralysis in the closing days of the legislative session. Congress has yet to pass a budget or a single one of the annual spending bills. Plans to spur the economy with tax cuts await action. Senate...

President Obama hailed the 60 U.S. senators who voted to extend federal unemployment benefits Tuesday - without paying for the $34 billion tab - for standing on the side of "working families." The measure, which had been blocked by Republicans, would distribute unemployment benefits to some 2.5 million recipients who have been out of work for 26 to 99 weeks. GOP Sens. Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe of Maine voted in favor of the measure. Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., joined the GOP filibuster. The House is expected to pass the measure so that Obama can sign it. No doubt Americans...

Recently, President Obama has been urging Congress to pass legislation that will provide $50 billion in aid to the states to fill budget gaps related to education/teachers, health care, and emergency personnel such as police and firefighters. Specifically, the legislation includes “$23 billion to help prevent teacher layoffs, $25 billion for state health care aid and $2 billion for cops and firefighters.”

A day after beating incumbent Arlen Specter in a Pennsylvania Democratic Senate primary contest, Rep. Joe Sestak announced that he would make "enforcement of the pay-as-you-go budget rules" a priority if he wins in November. Good luck to him. Pay-as-you-go, or paygo, rules require that new entitlement spending and new tax cuts must be paid for dollar-for-dollar with entitlement spending cuts or tax increases. As Paul Ryan, the ranking Republican member of the House Budget Committee has noted, the Democrats under Speaker Nancy Pelosi "have violated pay-as-you-go rules by nearly $1 trillion" over the past three years.

SNIPPET: "The leadership of the Tea Party Express PAC came to the National Press Club on Thursday to herald its early successes and to unveil its expanded list of 2010 electoral targets." SNIPPET: "In an effort to show that the Tea Party Express PAC is not a “tool” of the Republican Party, but instead is an independent political force, Russo announced that the PAC is getting behind one conservative Democrat who has opposed President Obama’s agenda: Rep. Walt Minnick (ID-01). The decision to get behind Minnick is attention-grabbing because Republicans have fielded a strong candidate in that race: Iraq war...

At least that's what Erick Erickson of Redstate is alleging: I almost missed this. It happens around 11am. The Senate is going to vote on an amendment from Senator Tom Coburn. From an email friend: The amendment would require the Senate to be honest about its ridiculous spending and post the full cost of all PAYGO violations online for taxpayers to see. The Democrats have drafted a side-by-side amendment, to be voted on tomorrow as well. This vote is meant to give cover for members to vote against the Coburn amendment, and still be for “transparency.” Their amendment would simply...

If Obamacare passes, Obamacare is forever. Just ask Jim Bunning. The Kentucky Republican finally caved in Tuesday after relentless pressure from other senators — including Republicans — to drop what the Politico called his “one man” filibuster of a bill to extend expiring unemployment benefits. Technically, it was not a filibuster. It was an objection to a procedure, called “unanimous consent,” used to speed along uncontroversial legislation. In this case, there ought to have been raging controversy: Bunning was objecting to yet another monthly extension of unemployment payments absent an explanation of how it would be paid for. He was...

Quite an ingenious and hypocritical scheme that Democrats are using against Sen. Bunning. A.) First the Democrat-controlled Congress urges that we must have Paygo. Obama even chimes in that Paygo is necessary because Congress and the federal government must live by the same rules that Americans have to live by: pay-as-you-go. B.) Pass Paygo and then sign it into law. C.) Then the Democrats can urge that a bill (like in this case) must be passed and say that it is absolutely necessary to pass this bill - while they don't placing any funding within the bill to actually fund...

In January, the Senate joined the House in passing "pay-as-you-go" rules to require Congress to pay for new discretionary spending. On Feb. 12, President Obama signed the bill. "Now Congress will have to pay for what it spends, just like everybody else," Obama crowed. Less than a month later, Obama and fellow Democrats are busily demonizing a lone senator for pushing Washington to spend responsibly. It seems this administration is all for fiscal restraint - as long as you don't mean it. The story began last week when Sen. Jim Bunning, R-Ky., blocked Senate passage of a bill to extend...

In January, the Senate joined the House in passing "pay-as-you-go" rules to require Congress to pay for new discretionary spending. On Feb. 12, President Obama signed the bill. "Now Congress will have to pay for what it spends, just like everybody else," Obama crowed. Less than a month later, Obama and fellow Democrats are busily demonizing a lone senator for pushing Washington to spend responsibly. It seems this administration is all for fiscal restraint — as long as you don't mean it. The story began last week when Sen. Jim Bunning, R-Ky., blocked Senate passage of a bill to extend...

The Senate adjourned Friday without approving extensions of cash and health insurance benefits for the unemployed after a lone senator blocked swift passage due to his insistence that Congress first pay for the $10 billion package. Retiring Sen. Jim Bunning, R-Kentucky, led a spirited Senate debate with Democrats over the issue -- at one time cursing at another senator on the floor. Bunning said he doesn't oppose extending the programs -- he just doesn't want to add to the deficit. According to two Democratic aides on the Senate floor Thursday night, Bunning muttered "tough s---" as Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Oregon,...

The ink is barely dry on the pay-as-you-go law, and Democrats are seeking to bypass it to enact parts of their job-creation agenda. Democratic leaders said extensions of unemployment insurance and COBRA healthcare benefits should be emergency spending that isn’t subject to the pay-as-you-go statute, which requires new non-discretionary spending to be offset with spending cuts or tax increases. With current extensions of unemployment and COBRA benefits set to expire at the end of the month and the jobless rate still near 10 percent, Democratic lawmakers want to pass the extensions quickly, without having to find offsets for the costs....

President Barack Obama is hailing pay-as-you-go budget legislation he signed Friday night as one in a series of crucial steps needed to snap Washington out of a destructive pattern of overspending. “Now, Congress will have to pay for what it spends, just like everybody else,” Obama said in his radio and Internet address released Saturday morning. “After a decade of profligacy, the American people are tired of politicians who talk the talk but don’t walk the walk when it comes to fiscal responsibility. It’s easy to get up in front of the cameras and rant against exploding deficits. What’s hard...