spending cuts (2)

 

Politicians Need to Listen

to the Voters NOW!

 

      Despite adding hundreds of billions of dollars in spending laws and Obamacare (a massive new entitlement program) in 2010, Nancy Pelosi’s Democrat-controlled House of Representatives didn’t bother to pass a budget last year.  Now Pelosi and Senate Majority leader Harry Reid, another Democrat, have decided that despite the results of November’s election, the only budget concerns that matter today (spend, spend, spend!) are theirs.   Taxpaying voters, meanwhile according to a recent Rasmussen Reports survey say, “A pox on both of your houses, shut down the government, until agreement on substantial CUTS*** is reached.” 

      While the two parties haggle, 58% of voters would rather see a partial shutdown of the federal government rather than maintaining spending at current levels ($3.7 TRillion in the Obama budget) according to the ever accurate Rasmussen Reports. Only 33% of likely voters told Rasmussen they’d prefer to see government spending continue at present levels rather than shutting down the government.   Opinions fell upon partisan lines with 58% of Democrats opting for maintaining spending levels; contradicted by 80% of Republicans and 59% of Independents who thought partial shutdown until agreement on cuts was the better idea. Overall just 6% of voters support more spending while 61% say cuts are in order. 

      The public seems more clear-thinking on fiscal matters than our elected representatives according to numerous Rasmussen polls. The majority of voters for years have said that cutting taxes and reducing government spending are best for the economy.   Of all Mr. Obama’s promises casually-made and super-casually-unfulfilled, voters have consistently rated “cutting the federal deficit by half  by the end of his first term” as the most important promise that nominee Obama made. Today survey after survey confirms that few voters expect he’ll keep it.  

      Mr. Obama’s present $3.7 TRillion budget will see government spending increased taking it over $4 TRillion very soon unless some drastic cuts and changes to the Washington modus operandi are quickly made. Who’s going to make the hard decisions?   70% of voters believe that the voting public is more willing to make the hard choices necessary to reduce federal spending than our politicians are.   66% of polled voters say that the Democratic Party is NOT interested in cutting spending; and 49% say Republicans don’t go far enough with the spending cuts they’re seeking. These voter opinions on government spending have held very consistent since late 2005. The survey-meister himself, Scott Rasmussen observed in his 2010 book In Search of Self-Governance that . . . .

 

                     "The gap between Americans who want to govern themselves and politicians(and power brokers) who want to rule over them may be as big today as the gap between the colonies and England during the 18th century." Rasmussen added that “The American people don’t want to be governed from the left, the right, or the center. They want to govern themselves.”

 

 

Ya’all live long, strong and ornery

Rajjpuut
 
 
*** NOTE:  just before this blog was completed, two huge stories popped up 1)  the House had just overwhelmingly agreed upon $4 Billion in spending cuts with 104 Democratic Reps siding with Speaker John Boehner as part of a CR (continuing resolution) to fund the federal government for two more weeks.  $2 Billion in cuts per week is a good but not great precedent.  Every time a new CR is created a $2 or $3 Billion cut per week of extension would be a phenomenal idea.  2) The General Accounting Office, one of the few government oversight agencies worth its salt, announced that in reviewing  some (but not all) the discretionary budget they found between $200-$250 Billion in overlap, duplication of services and conflict between U.S. government agencies.  For example fifteen different agencies look at food safety; ninety-two different agencies are assigned to educational improvement; etc.    One shudders in ecstasy to think how much more the GAO might find a) in the discretionary budgets and then b) in the entitlements and defense spending
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Big Changes Coming to the Congress?

Time to put up or shut up! After their expected November gains, the TEA Party caucus within the Republican Party (headed by Minnesota’s Michele Bachmann with 52 other Republicans and so far no Democrats aligned with the fiscally- and Constitutionally-conservative TEA movement) expects to put into action an impressive war plan, how much the Republican Party goes for the TEA agenda remains to be seen. The TEA Party plan for the House has five steps. In keeping with the TEA = “Taxed Enough Already” or “Taken Enough Abuse” idea, expect:

1. Extending the Bush era Tax Cuts

2. Slashing government spending except Defense and Social Security by 40%

3. Repealing, or at least defunding, Obamacare

4. Creating a budget early on

5. Passing some package of legislation ultra-friendly to small- and medium-sized business to stimulate maximum jobs growth

Overall the effect of all this would cause a massive shrinking of the federal government from “the get-go.” YES SIR, YES SIR! As Ronald Reagan put it, “The federal government is not the answer to the problem; the Federal Government IS the problem . . . .”

Meanwhile, the fate of the Senate hangs in the balance with Republicans needing to win nine senate seats to take the majority there. South Carolina Republican senator Jim DeMint has received a lot of heat from non-TEA Republicans over his outspoken call to fully return the GOP to its conservative fiscal and Constitutional values. The numbers of TEA Partiers in the Senate is very small but they’re expected to wield a big influence upon the G.O.P. nevertheless.

But even before that happens, America might be in for a highly contentious lame duck session starting next week. If the Republicans make immense gains in the House and Senate and Governors’ mansions as predicted by the pollsters (+70 seats in the House; +8 senate seats; and +9 governorships), Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid will come under great pressure from the Obama White House to “accomplish” some more of Obama’s pet projects such as Card Check for Unions; an illegal-immigration “reform” bill akin to the “Dream Bill; Gays in the military reform of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell; etc., etc. Everything but a budget (which they’ve failed to even attempt to pass) could be the Dems last minute rejection of the American voters’ rejection of them and their policies. That’s a lot of “gotcha” and wrong-headed animosity being expressed in Washington over the next two and a half months in Rajjpuut’s opinion and the Republicans in Congress will need to stand firm.

This standing firm will be very important since the voters are expected in six days to use the ballot box as a negative referendum on all things Obama from 2009 to present. As for the new Congress beginning in mid-January, the word is that while the newly formed TEA Party caucus within (but outside of) the elected Republicans in both chambers of congress wants a 40% slashing of government spending on everything but Defense and Social Security; and all Republican electees, TEA Party or not, are committed to some level of spending cuts and full extension of the Bush tax cuts to all taxpayers . . . the real question is how long can they extend the Bush Cuts and how much can they slash without encountering Obama’s veto? So the best guess is that we’ll see something like a 30% slash in government spending on “discretionary matters” and a three-year extension of the Bush Tax Cuts.

However, politics being what politics is . . . expect the Republicans to push through an eight- or ten-year extension of those cuts for the president to veto and then after the veto, it’s anybody’s guess whether a four-year extension can get presidential approval. The other two likely early efforts by a new Republican majority in the House of Representatives would be first of all to DEFUND and REPEAL Obamacare; and then to pass some package of support for small and medium-sized business to get the economy sailing with a following wind. Overall, expect political fireworks of a positive kind for a change come January.

Ya’all live long, strong and ornery,

Rajjpuut

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