Friday, November 30, 2012
Charles is Correct Again....He Boils Down Just What the Republicans Need to Do....Let's Hope John Boehner is Listening....
November 29, 2012 8:00 P.M. By Charles Krauthammer
Cliff Jumping with Barack If Republicans give way on taxes, it should only be for real entitlement reform.
Why are Republicans playing the Democrats’ game that the “fiscal cliff” is all about taxation?
House Speaker John Boehner already made the preemptive concession of agreeing to raise revenues. But the insistence on doing so by eliminating deductions without raising marginal rates is now the subject of fierce Republican infighting.
Where is the other part of President Obama’s vaunted “balanced approach”? Where are the spending cuts, both discretionary and entitlement: Medicare, Medicaid, and now Obamacare (the health-care trio) and Social Security?
Social Security is the easiest to solve. So you get a sense of the Democrats’ inclination to reform entitlements when Dick Durbin, the Senate Democrats’ No. 2, says Social Security is off the table because it “does not add a penny to our deficit.”
This is absurd. In 2012, Social Security adds $165 billion to the deficit. Democrats pretend that Social Security is covered through 2033 by its trust fund. Except that the trust fund is a fiction, a mere “bookkeeping” device, as the OMB itself has written. The trust fund’s IOUs “do not consist of real economic assets that can be drawn down in the future to fund benefits.” Future benefits “will have to be financed by raising taxes, borrowing from the public, or reducing benefits or other expenditures.”
And they are draining the Treasury, as 10,000 baby boomers retire every day. Yet that’s off the table. And on Wednesday, the president threw down the gauntlet by demanding tax hikes now — with spending cuts to come next year. Meaning, until after Republicans have fallen on their swords, given up the tax issue, and forfeited their political leverage.
Ronald Reagan once fell for a “tax now, cut later” deal that he later deeply regretted. Dems got the tax; he never got the cuts. Obama’s audacious new gambit is not a serious proposal to solve our fiscal problems. It’s a raw partisan maneuver meant to neuter the Republicans by getting them to cave on their signature issue as the hold-the-line party on taxes.
The objective is to ignite exactly the kind of internecine warfare on taxes now going on among Republicans. And to bury Grover Norquist.
I am not now, nor have I ever been, a Norquistian. I don’t believe the current level of taxation is divinely ordained. Nor do I believe in pledges of any kind. But Norquist is the only guy in town to consistently resist the tax-and-spend Democrats’ stampede for ever higher taxes to fund ever more reckless spending.
The hunt for Norquist’s scalp is a key part of the larger partisan project to make the Republicans do a George H. W. Bush and renege on their heretofore firm stand on taxes. Bush never recovered.
Why are the Republicans playing along? Because it is assumed that Obama has the upper hand. Unless Republicans acquiesce and get the best deal they can right now, tax rates will rise across the board on January 1, and the GOP will be left without any bargaining chips.
But what about Obama? If we all cliff-dive, he gets to preside over yet another recession. It will wreck his second term. Sure, Republicans will get blamed. But Obama is never running again. He cares about his legacy. You think he wants a second term with a double-dip recession, 9 percent unemployment, and a totally gridlocked Congress? Republicans have to stop playing as if they have no cards.
Obama is claiming an electoral mandate to raise taxes on the top 2 percent. Perhaps, but remember those incessant campaign ads promising a return to the economic nirvana of the Clinton years? Well, George W. Bush cut rates across the board, not just for the top 2 percent. Going back to the Clinton rates means middle-class tax hikes that yield four times the revenue that you get from just the rich. So give Obama the full Clinton. Let him live with that. And with what also lies on the other side of the cliff: 28 million Americans newly subject to the ruinous alternative minimum tax.
Republicans must stop acting like supplicants. If Obama so loves those Clinton rates, Republicans should say: Then go over the cliff and have them all.
And add: But if you want a Grand Bargain, then deal. If we give way on taxes, we want, in return, serious discretionary cuts, clearly spelled-out entitlement cuts, and real tax reform.
Otherwise, strap on your parachute, Mr. President. We’ll ride down together.
— Charles Krauthammer is a nationally syndicated columnist. © 2012 the Washington Post Writers Group.
Cliff Jumping with Barack If Republicans give way on taxes, it should only be for real entitlement reform.
Why are Republicans playing the Democrats’ game that the “fiscal cliff” is all about taxation?
House Speaker John Boehner already made the preemptive concession of agreeing to raise revenues. But the insistence on doing so by eliminating deductions without raising marginal rates is now the subject of fierce Republican infighting.
Where is the other part of President Obama’s vaunted “balanced approach”? Where are the spending cuts, both discretionary and entitlement: Medicare, Medicaid, and now Obamacare (the health-care trio) and Social Security?
Social Security is the easiest to solve. So you get a sense of the Democrats’ inclination to reform entitlements when Dick Durbin, the Senate Democrats’ No. 2, says Social Security is off the table because it “does not add a penny to our deficit.”
This is absurd. In 2012, Social Security adds $165 billion to the deficit. Democrats pretend that Social Security is covered through 2033 by its trust fund. Except that the trust fund is a fiction, a mere “bookkeeping” device, as the OMB itself has written. The trust fund’s IOUs “do not consist of real economic assets that can be drawn down in the future to fund benefits.” Future benefits “will have to be financed by raising taxes, borrowing from the public, or reducing benefits or other expenditures.”
And they are draining the Treasury, as 10,000 baby boomers retire every day. Yet that’s off the table. And on Wednesday, the president threw down the gauntlet by demanding tax hikes now — with spending cuts to come next year. Meaning, until after Republicans have fallen on their swords, given up the tax issue, and forfeited their political leverage.
Ronald Reagan once fell for a “tax now, cut later” deal that he later deeply regretted. Dems got the tax; he never got the cuts. Obama’s audacious new gambit is not a serious proposal to solve our fiscal problems. It’s a raw partisan maneuver meant to neuter the Republicans by getting them to cave on their signature issue as the hold-the-line party on taxes.
The objective is to ignite exactly the kind of internecine warfare on taxes now going on among Republicans. And to bury Grover Norquist.
I am not now, nor have I ever been, a Norquistian. I don’t believe the current level of taxation is divinely ordained. Nor do I believe in pledges of any kind. But Norquist is the only guy in town to consistently resist the tax-and-spend Democrats’ stampede for ever higher taxes to fund ever more reckless spending.
The hunt for Norquist’s scalp is a key part of the larger partisan project to make the Republicans do a George H. W. Bush and renege on their heretofore firm stand on taxes. Bush never recovered.
Why are the Republicans playing along? Because it is assumed that Obama has the upper hand. Unless Republicans acquiesce and get the best deal they can right now, tax rates will rise across the board on January 1, and the GOP will be left without any bargaining chips.
But what about Obama? If we all cliff-dive, he gets to preside over yet another recession. It will wreck his second term. Sure, Republicans will get blamed. But Obama is never running again. He cares about his legacy. You think he wants a second term with a double-dip recession, 9 percent unemployment, and a totally gridlocked Congress? Republicans have to stop playing as if they have no cards.
Obama is claiming an electoral mandate to raise taxes on the top 2 percent. Perhaps, but remember those incessant campaign ads promising a return to the economic nirvana of the Clinton years? Well, George W. Bush cut rates across the board, not just for the top 2 percent. Going back to the Clinton rates means middle-class tax hikes that yield four times the revenue that you get from just the rich. So give Obama the full Clinton. Let him live with that. And with what also lies on the other side of the cliff: 28 million Americans newly subject to the ruinous alternative minimum tax.
Republicans must stop acting like supplicants. If Obama so loves those Clinton rates, Republicans should say: Then go over the cliff and have them all.
And add: But if you want a Grand Bargain, then deal. If we give way on taxes, we want, in return, serious discretionary cuts, clearly spelled-out entitlement cuts, and real tax reform.
Otherwise, strap on your parachute, Mr. President. We’ll ride down together.
— Charles Krauthammer is a nationally syndicated columnist. © 2012 the Washington Post Writers Group.
Thursday, November 29, 2012
YOUR TAxes Are Going Up BUT Barack and Michelle Are Still Livin Large on YOUR TAX DOLLARS....
Report: Obamas to spend holidays in Hawaii at $4 million cost to taxpayers
Caroline May Political Reporter
The first family will be vacationing in Hawaii for the Christmas holidays at a cost of at least $4 million to taxpayers, according to a report from the Hawaii Reporter.
The Hawaiian paper reports that residents living near the beachfront homes at Kailuana Place, where the President Obama and first family have visited annually since 2008, were notified Monday that there will be restrictions on their movements in place for 20 days, from Dec. 17 through Jan. 6.
The Hawaii Reporter calculated the $4 million cost to taxpayers based in part on the price of a round trip flight to the island on Air Force One, the transport of the president’s support equipment, housing of security and staff and the cost of police to local taxpayers.
The first family pays for their own rental on the beach, according to the paper.
The White House Dossier notes that the White House has yet to officially announce the vacation or the president’s travel plans and notes Obama could be in Hawaii on the day the country goes off the “fiscal cliff” if no deal is reached in time.
The Dossier adds that the vacation could help to add “subtle pressure” the president to reach a deal.
Author Robert Keith Gray estimated in his book “Presidential Perks Gone Royal“ that last year taxpayers spent $1.4 billion on the first family, compared to the $57.8 million British taxpayers spent on the royal family, The Daily Caller reported in September.
Last year the Hawaii Reporter estimated the president’s 17-day holiday vacation in Hawaii was more than $4 million as well.
Caroline May Political Reporter
The first family will be vacationing in Hawaii for the Christmas holidays at a cost of at least $4 million to taxpayers, according to a report from the Hawaii Reporter.
The Hawaiian paper reports that residents living near the beachfront homes at Kailuana Place, where the President Obama and first family have visited annually since 2008, were notified Monday that there will be restrictions on their movements in place for 20 days, from Dec. 17 through Jan. 6.
The Hawaii Reporter calculated the $4 million cost to taxpayers based in part on the price of a round trip flight to the island on Air Force One, the transport of the president’s support equipment, housing of security and staff and the cost of police to local taxpayers.
The first family pays for their own rental on the beach, according to the paper.
The White House Dossier notes that the White House has yet to officially announce the vacation or the president’s travel plans and notes Obama could be in Hawaii on the day the country goes off the “fiscal cliff” if no deal is reached in time.
The Dossier adds that the vacation could help to add “subtle pressure” the president to reach a deal.
Author Robert Keith Gray estimated in his book “Presidential Perks Gone Royal“ that last year taxpayers spent $1.4 billion on the first family, compared to the $57.8 million British taxpayers spent on the royal family, The Daily Caller reported in September.
Last year the Hawaii Reporter estimated the president’s 17-day holiday vacation in Hawaii was more than $4 million as well.
I Still Think Newt Would Have Been the BEST Republican Nominee for President.....He would have won the Election!
Gingrich: House Republicans should stop negotiating with President Obama
3:12 AM 11/29/2012 Alexis Levinson
Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich said Wednesday that House Republicans should stop negotiating with President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats on the fiscal cliff, saying that by doing so, they give Obama all of the leverage in the talks.
“One of the things I would say to House Republicans is to get a grip,” Gingrich said in a speech at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, Calif.
"They are the majority. They’re not the minority,” he said, enunciating the words as if explaining the concept to someone who did not understand it. “They don’t need to cave in to Obama; they don’t need to form a ‘Surrender Caucus.’”
“So my number one bit of advice to the congressional Republicans is simple: Back out of of all of this negotiating with Obama. The president is overwhelmingly dominant in the news media. You start setting up the definition of success finding an agreement with Obama, you just gave Obama the ability to say to you, ‘Not good enough,’” Gingrich said.
The onetime presidential hopeful ridiculed the idea of the fiscal cliff, saying it was a manufactured crisis.
“There is no fiscal cliff. It’s absolute, total, nonsense,” Gingrich said.
“It is an excuse to panic. It’s a device to get all of us running down the road so we accept whatever Obama wants because otherwise we have failed the fiscal cliff, and how can you be a patriot if you don’t do what the fiscal cliff requires, and the fiscal cliff will appear to us one afternoon, much like the land of Oz, where there will be this person hiding behind the machine who will say, ‘Raise taxes now,’” Gingrich intoned, “and if you don’t raise taxes you’ll have violated the fiscal cliff.”
“Now, do any of you want to be the person who stands up and destroys America by violating the fiscal cliff? Do you want to go on one of the national networks and explain that you are so reactionary, so out of touch with life, that you don’t care that America is going to die late on Thursday?” Gingrich scoffed
He also addressed the recent focus on Grover Norquist and his no-raising taxes pledge, which some Republicans have abandoned in recent weeks, calling it a “distraction.”
“I give Obama great credit for this. I have never seen anybody better at finding trivial distractions in order to avoid responsibility,” Gingrich said.
“I’ve known Grover Norquist for a long time, and I think he’s a fine person. He holds no elected office, and in fact, he wasn’t elected president. So here you have the President of the United States who is responsible for solving our problems, who has not offered a single serious, cost cutting measure, … Instead of dealing with the fact that the president has once again failed to provide leadership, the president has now gotten us worried about whether Grover Norquist now defines the Republican Party
3:12 AM 11/29/2012 Alexis Levinson
Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich said Wednesday that House Republicans should stop negotiating with President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats on the fiscal cliff, saying that by doing so, they give Obama all of the leverage in the talks.
“One of the things I would say to House Republicans is to get a grip,” Gingrich said in a speech at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, Calif.
"They are the majority. They’re not the minority,” he said, enunciating the words as if explaining the concept to someone who did not understand it. “They don’t need to cave in to Obama; they don’t need to form a ‘Surrender Caucus.’”
“So my number one bit of advice to the congressional Republicans is simple: Back out of of all of this negotiating with Obama. The president is overwhelmingly dominant in the news media. You start setting up the definition of success finding an agreement with Obama, you just gave Obama the ability to say to you, ‘Not good enough,’” Gingrich said.
The onetime presidential hopeful ridiculed the idea of the fiscal cliff, saying it was a manufactured crisis.
“There is no fiscal cliff. It’s absolute, total, nonsense,” Gingrich said.
“It is an excuse to panic. It’s a device to get all of us running down the road so we accept whatever Obama wants because otherwise we have failed the fiscal cliff, and how can you be a patriot if you don’t do what the fiscal cliff requires, and the fiscal cliff will appear to us one afternoon, much like the land of Oz, where there will be this person hiding behind the machine who will say, ‘Raise taxes now,’” Gingrich intoned, “and if you don’t raise taxes you’ll have violated the fiscal cliff.”
“Now, do any of you want to be the person who stands up and destroys America by violating the fiscal cliff? Do you want to go on one of the national networks and explain that you are so reactionary, so out of touch with life, that you don’t care that America is going to die late on Thursday?” Gingrich scoffed
He also addressed the recent focus on Grover Norquist and his no-raising taxes pledge, which some Republicans have abandoned in recent weeks, calling it a “distraction.”
“I give Obama great credit for this. I have never seen anybody better at finding trivial distractions in order to avoid responsibility,” Gingrich said.
“I’ve known Grover Norquist for a long time, and I think he’s a fine person. He holds no elected office, and in fact, he wasn’t elected president. So here you have the President of the United States who is responsible for solving our problems, who has not offered a single serious, cost cutting measure, … Instead of dealing with the fact that the president has once again failed to provide leadership, the president has now gotten us worried about whether Grover Norquist now defines the Republican Party
Bill Clinton....Still a total Sleezeball
Inside the Beltway: Bill and the hoodie
By Jennifer Harper The Washington Times Wednesday, November 28, 2012
Two decades have passed since nightclub entertainer and blond bombshell Gennifer Flowers stepped before cameras and announced she had a 12-year affair with then-Gov. Bill Clinton, joining a roster of attractive women who reported similar dalliances, wanted and unwanted. Miss Flowers has stepped forward once again to reveal that in 2005, Mr. Clinton offered to come visit her once again.
“I picked up the telephone, and it was him. I said, ‘No, you can’t come over here. No way.’ I said ‘No, you can’t come to my house.’ He said, ‘I’ll put on a hoodie and jog up there.’ He used to do that. I said ‘No. No. And I want you to leave me alone.’ And that was the end of it,” said Miss Flowers, now 62, as she sipped wine and laughed languidly through an interview with WGNO, an ABC affiliate in New Orleans.
She also had advice for Paula Broadwell, still generating scandalous news coverage of her affair with former CIA Director David H. Petraeus.
“Call me, Paula,” Miss Flowers said, miming a phone to her ear. “I’ll give you some really good advice.”
The self-described “cougar,” author and motivational speaker, incidentally, is currently shopping around a new reality show titled “The Real Housewives of New Orleans,” in which she plays herself.
“I’m always looking for romance,” she explains
By Jennifer Harper The Washington Times Wednesday, November 28, 2012
Two decades have passed since nightclub entertainer and blond bombshell Gennifer Flowers stepped before cameras and announced she had a 12-year affair with then-Gov. Bill Clinton, joining a roster of attractive women who reported similar dalliances, wanted and unwanted. Miss Flowers has stepped forward once again to reveal that in 2005, Mr. Clinton offered to come visit her once again.
“I picked up the telephone, and it was him. I said, ‘No, you can’t come over here. No way.’ I said ‘No, you can’t come to my house.’ He said, ‘I’ll put on a hoodie and jog up there.’ He used to do that. I said ‘No. No. And I want you to leave me alone.’ And that was the end of it,” said Miss Flowers, now 62, as she sipped wine and laughed languidly through an interview with WGNO, an ABC affiliate in New Orleans.
She also had advice for Paula Broadwell, still generating scandalous news coverage of her affair with former CIA Director David H. Petraeus.
“Call me, Paula,” Miss Flowers said, miming a phone to her ear. “I’ll give you some really good advice.”
The self-described “cougar,” author and motivational speaker, incidentally, is currently shopping around a new reality show titled “The Real Housewives of New Orleans,” in which she plays herself.
“I’m always looking for romance,” she explains
Jeff Sessions is absolutely correct....This is worth reading....
Jeff Sessions is absolutely correct...these negotiations should be done in public AND it is obvious that Obama is not serious about compromising...not serious about reducing spending and frankly not serious about fixing America's fiscal problems.....the American people will pay dearly for his reelection.....Obama is the leader and ONCE AGAIN he is NOT leading....
Senator Blasts 'Secret' Fiscal Cliff Negotiations
1:08 PM, Nov 29, 2012 • By DANIEL HALPER
In remarks on the Senate floor today, Alabama senator Jeff Sessions blasted President Barack Obama and congressional leadership for holding "secret" fiscal cliff negotiations.
"I rise today to express my reservations about the fiscal cliff negotiations that are currently underway," said Sessions. "Over the last two years, Congress and the President have held an endless series of secret negotiations. There have been gangs of six and eight, a supercommittee of 12, talks at the Blair House and the White House. But the only thing these secret talks have produced is a government that skips from one crisis to the next. Everything has been tried but the open production of a 10-year budget plan as required by law and open discussions of the difficult choices." Sessions, the highest Republican on the Senate Budget Committee, saved most of his criticism for the president. "President Obama campaigned on a tax increase of ‘only’ $800 billion," said Sessions. "But now the White House is demanding $1.6 trillion in new taxes. Don’t the American people have a right to see these taxes and where they will fall? Shouldn’t the President of the United States, the only person who represents everybody in the country, lay out his plan, or must that remain a secret too? Will it just be revealed to us on the eve of Christmas or eve of the new calendar year? We will be asked to vote for it, to ratify it like lemmings, I suppose."
The Alabama senator insisted Obama is not serious about cutting spending--or cutting government waste.
In fact, the President is giving speeches calling for even more spending. On Tuesday, he gave a speech in which he said he wants to use the tax hikes to ‘invest in training, education, science, and research.’ Investment, of course, is just code for spending. Not once in the speech did he discuss entitlements, our $16 trillion debt, or the economic catastrophe that could occur if we don’t get off this unsustainable path.
The President will go out to the press and use all the buzz words—he says he’s for a ‘balanced plan,’ and talks about a ‘responsible path to deficit reduction.’ But where are the cuts? What is the plan? It seems to me the President’s plan is to talk in general, to meet in secret, and then, under threat of panic, to force through some deal that maintains the status quo: more taxes, more spending, more debt.
That’s why the process needs to be taken out of the shadows. With public debate, people would learn facts that are now obscured. ...
Meanwhile, as the President demands more taxes, he refuses to do anything about government waste. Lavish conferences, duplicative programs, billions in refundable tax credits being mailed every year to illegal immigrants. No one is managing this government effectively. Why should the American people send one more dime in taxes to Washington when we won’t reform and manage the money we are already getting from them?
And Sessions criticized the fiscal cliff negotiations for not including the Senate: So I am concerned about the nature of these secret talks and the fact that the Senate is really not participating. News reports say that it is only the Speaker and the President of the United States who are negotiating. Apparently the Majority Leader of the Senate is not intimately involved, the Chairman of the Budget Committee is not involved, the Chairman of the Finance Committee is not involved. These are Democratic leaders in the Senate. Certainly Republican leaders are not involved.
The Senate is a great institution, and we ought to be engaged. The engagement of the Senate would allow the American people to know what’s happening. They are entitled to that. I believe we can do better. We must do better.”
Senator Blasts 'Secret' Fiscal Cliff Negotiations
1:08 PM, Nov 29, 2012 • By DANIEL HALPER
In remarks on the Senate floor today, Alabama senator Jeff Sessions blasted President Barack Obama and congressional leadership for holding "secret" fiscal cliff negotiations.
"I rise today to express my reservations about the fiscal cliff negotiations that are currently underway," said Sessions. "Over the last two years, Congress and the President have held an endless series of secret negotiations. There have been gangs of six and eight, a supercommittee of 12, talks at the Blair House and the White House. But the only thing these secret talks have produced is a government that skips from one crisis to the next. Everything has been tried but the open production of a 10-year budget plan as required by law and open discussions of the difficult choices." Sessions, the highest Republican on the Senate Budget Committee, saved most of his criticism for the president. "President Obama campaigned on a tax increase of ‘only’ $800 billion," said Sessions. "But now the White House is demanding $1.6 trillion in new taxes. Don’t the American people have a right to see these taxes and where they will fall? Shouldn’t the President of the United States, the only person who represents everybody in the country, lay out his plan, or must that remain a secret too? Will it just be revealed to us on the eve of Christmas or eve of the new calendar year? We will be asked to vote for it, to ratify it like lemmings, I suppose."
The Alabama senator insisted Obama is not serious about cutting spending--or cutting government waste.
In fact, the President is giving speeches calling for even more spending. On Tuesday, he gave a speech in which he said he wants to use the tax hikes to ‘invest in training, education, science, and research.’ Investment, of course, is just code for spending. Not once in the speech did he discuss entitlements, our $16 trillion debt, or the economic catastrophe that could occur if we don’t get off this unsustainable path.
The President will go out to the press and use all the buzz words—he says he’s for a ‘balanced plan,’ and talks about a ‘responsible path to deficit reduction.’ But where are the cuts? What is the plan? It seems to me the President’s plan is to talk in general, to meet in secret, and then, under threat of panic, to force through some deal that maintains the status quo: more taxes, more spending, more debt.
That’s why the process needs to be taken out of the shadows. With public debate, people would learn facts that are now obscured. ...
Meanwhile, as the President demands more taxes, he refuses to do anything about government waste. Lavish conferences, duplicative programs, billions in refundable tax credits being mailed every year to illegal immigrants. No one is managing this government effectively. Why should the American people send one more dime in taxes to Washington when we won’t reform and manage the money we are already getting from them?
And Sessions criticized the fiscal cliff negotiations for not including the Senate: So I am concerned about the nature of these secret talks and the fact that the Senate is really not participating. News reports say that it is only the Speaker and the President of the United States who are negotiating. Apparently the Majority Leader of the Senate is not intimately involved, the Chairman of the Budget Committee is not involved, the Chairman of the Finance Committee is not involved. These are Democratic leaders in the Senate. Certainly Republican leaders are not involved.
The Senate is a great institution, and we ought to be engaged. The engagement of the Senate would allow the American people to know what’s happening. They are entitled to that. I believe we can do better. We must do better.”
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