Free Republic

Excellent speech from Sen Coburn telling it how it is. Then old Sen Kerry interrupts. http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/SenRe/start/14756/stop/16376

Last week, I wrote that the current deficit and debt ceiling negotiations happening in Washington represent politics at their worst – politics on steroids. Amidst the posturing and prevaricating, however, one conservative has emerged with a legitimate plan to liberate America from its bondage of debt. This week, Senator Tom Coburn released a 600-page plan that would reduce the deficit by $9 trillion over the next ten years by slashing wasteful spending and eliminating an estimated $1 trillion in tax deductions. The plan is not a gimmick, it's not smoke and mirrors, and it's not a media stunt. Senator Coburn...

National Debt: No wonder President Obama has so heartily endorsed the "Gang of Six" deficit plan. Just like everything Obama has offered so far, it's short on details and long on tax hikes. Soon after the "Gang of Six" — a bipartisan group of senators that has been trying for months to put together a deficit reduction plan — issued its new proposal, President Obama praised it as "a very significant step" that represents "the potential for bipartisan consensus." What it really represents is Washington at its worst. The "plan" Obama was praising isn't a plan at all, but a...

There are a lot of known unknowns about the new "Gang of Six" budget proposal. But conservatives should hold back from trashing it. Why? There's a large, pro-growth tax-reform piece in the plan that would lower tax rates across-the-board. This is a stunning reversal of the Obama Democrats' soak-the-rich, class-warfare campaign. The best part of the Gang of Six plan is a reduction in the top personal tax rate from 35% to a range of 23% to 29%. For businesses, the rate would drop in the same manner. And the corporate tax would be territorial rather than global, thereby avoiding...

A BIPARTISAN PLAN TO REDUCE OUR NATION'S DEFICITS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY This bipartisan, comprehensive, and balanced plan consistent with the recommendations of the Bowles-Simpson fiscal commission that will: • Slash our nation's deficits by $3.7 trillion/$3.6 trillion over ten years under CBO's March 2011 baseline, or $4.65 trillion/$4.5 trillion under the original fiscal commission baseline (which used the President's 2011 budget request as the starting point for discretionary spending). • Stabilize our publicly-held debt by 2014. • Reduce our publicly-held debt to roughly 70% of our economy by 2021. • Impose unprecedented budget enforcement. A COMPREHENSIVE AND BALANCED PROPOSAL The plan...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Republicans are showing far more flexibility than their tea party-backed House colleagues as Washington policymakers seek to steer the government away from a first-ever default on its financial obligations. As the House doubled down on a symbolic vote to condition any increase in the government's borrowing authority on congressional passage of a balanced budget constitutional amendment and a fresh wave of spending cuts, the warm reception by many Senate Republicans to a new bipartisan budget plan revealed a thawing in GOP attitudes on new tax revenues.